#128 – Michael Malice: Anarchy, Democracy, Libertarianism, Love, and Trolling

Michael Malice is a political thinker, podcaster, and author. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – SEMrush: https://www.semrush.com/partner/lex/ to get a free month of Guru – DoorDash: https://doordash.com/ and use code LEX to get $5 off – MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/lex to get 15% off annual sub EPISODE LINKS: Michael’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/michaelmalice Michael’s Community: https://malice.locals.com/ Michael’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5tj5QCpJKIl-KIa4Gib5Xw Michael’s Website: http://michaelmalice.com/about/ Your Welcome podcast: https://bit.ly/30q8oz1 The New Right (book): https://amzn.to/34gxLo3 Dear Reader (book): https://amzn.to/2HPPlHS PODCAST 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://lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LexFridmanPage – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. 00:00 – Introduction 04:15 – Sponsors 07:58 – Putin and the Russian soul 15:01 – Love and trolling 25:31 – Problem with government 31:03 – Anarchism 53:07 – Politics 54:59 – Are most people capable of thinking deeply? 1:02:08 – Willy Wonka and Albert Camus view of life 1:08:08 – Trolling 1:12:26 – Conspiracy theories 1:29:43 – Donald Trump and the Election 1:36:58 – Trump Biden presidential debates 1:41:15 – Journalism is broken 1:47:56 – Communism 1:54:02 – Presidential candidates 2:04:34 – Libertarian party 2:14:56 – Objectivism 2:24:17 – Trolling 2:35:21 – The New Right 2:43:29 – Cancel culture 3:13:17 – Book recommendations 3:18:08 – Fear of mortality 3:21:08 – Meaning of life

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

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  The following is a conversation with Michael Malice, an anarchist, political thinker, author, and a proud, part-time Andy Kaufman-like troll, in the best sense of that word, on both Twitter and in real life. He's a host of a great podcast called You're Welcome, spelled Y-O-U-R. I think that gives a sense of his sense of humor. He is the author of Dear Reader, The Unauthorized Autobiography of King Jong Il, and The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics. This latter book, when I read it, or rather, listened to it last year, helped me start learning about the various disparate movements that I was undereducated

• 0:42Lex Fridman?

  about, from the internet trolls, to Alex Jones, to white nationalists, and to techno anarchists. The book is funny and brilliant, and so is Michael. Unfortunately, because of a self-imposed deadline, I actually pulled an all-nighter before this conversation. So I was not exactly all there mentally, even more so than usual, which is tough because Michael is really quick-witted and brilliant. But he was kind, patient, and understanding in this conversation, and I hope you will be as well. Today, I'm trying something a little new, looking to establish a regular structure for these intros. First, doing the guest intro, like I just did.

• 1:25Lex Fridman?

  Second, quick one- or two-sentence mention of each sponsor. Third, my side comments related to the episode. And finally, fourth, full ad reads on the audio side of things and on YouTube, going straight to the conversation, so not doing the full ad reads. And as always, no ads in the middle, because to me, they get in the way of the conversation. So, quick mention of the sponsors. First, SEMrush, the most advanced SEO optimization tool I've ever come across. I don't like looking at numbers, but someone probably should. It helps you make good decisions. Second sponsor is DoorDash, food delivery service that I've used for many years to fuel long uninterrupted sessions of deep work at Google MIT,

• 2:09Lex Fridman?

  and I still use it a lot today. Third sponsor is MasterClass, online courses from the best people in the world on each of the topics covered, from rockets to game design to poker to writing and to guitar with Carlos Santana. Please check out these sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that I hope to have some conversations with political thinkers, including liberals and conservatives, anarchists, libertarians, objectivists, and everything in between. I'm as allergic to Trump bashing and Trump worship as you probably are. I have none of that in me. I really work hard to be open-minded and let my curiosity drive the conversation.

• 2:54Lex Fridman?

  I do plead with you to be patient on two counts. First, I have an intense, busy life outside of these podcasts, like it's 4:00 a.m. right now as I'm recording this. So sometimes, life affects these conversations. Like in this case, I pull in all night or beforehand, so please be patient with me if I say something eloquent, confusing, dumb, or just plain wrong. I'll try to correct myself on social media or in future conversations as much as I can. I really am always learning and working hard to improve. Second, if I or the guest says something about, for example, our current president, Donald Trump, that's over-the-top negative or over-the-top positive, please don't let your brain go into partisan mode.

• 3:39Lex Fridman?

  Try to hear our words in an open-minded, nuanced way. And if we say stuff from a place of emotion, please give us a pass. Nuanced conversation can only happen if we're patient with each other. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Fridman. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but I give you timestamps. So if you skip, please still check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. This show is sponsored by SEMrush, which if you look around, seems to be one of, if not the most respected digital marketing tool out there.

• 4:25Lex Fridman?

  It does a lot of stuff, including SEO optimization of keywords, backlinks, content creation, social media posts, and so on. They have over 45 tools and are trusted by over 6 million marketers worldwide. As you may know, I don't like numbers, but that's because I'm an idiot with that stuff. I speak from the heart and data be damned. But somebody needs to pay attention to numbers because otherwise you can't make optimal decisions. I believe heart comes first, data second, but both are necessary. I started using them just for fun to explore non-numeric things like what kind of titles or words connect well with people.

• 5:05Lex Fridman?

  As a writer and at times, oftentimes, an eloquent speaker, that information helps me when done in moderation. The amount of data that they put at your fingertips is amazing. So if you want to optimize your online presence, check them out at semrush.com/partner/lex to get a free month of guru-level membership. This show is also sponsored by DoorDash, an app that brings you food you're craving right now to your door. I think what I just said is not grammatically correct, but who cares? I use it all the time when the long, deep work sessions are going super smoothly and I don't feel like taking a break to cook. I love cooking too, but if the brain is firing, that's even more fun.

• 5:50Lex Fridman?

  Also, one of my favorite things on occasion is to sit back with a beer and a friend, a few friends, throw a movie on or some fights and just order some delicious, healthy stuff through DoorDash. Life is too damn short, so those moments mean a lot. By the way, I'm thinking of integrating occasional conversations into this feed under the heading of Lex and Friends with my friends and interesting strangers, AKA new friends I meet once I get on the road for the road trip across the United States. So please download the DoorDash app and enter code LEX to get $5 off and zero delivery fees on your first order of $15 or more.

• 6:31Lex Fridman?

  That's code LEX and the app name is DoorDash. This show is sponsored by MasterClass. $180 a year for an all-access pass to watch courses from literally the best people in the world on a bunch of different topics like Chris Hadfield on space exploration, Neil deGrasse Tyson on scientific thinking and communication, Will Wright, creator of SimCity and Sims on game design, Carlos Santana, one of my favorite guitarists on guitar, Garry Kasparov on chess, obviously the greatest chess player of all time, I'm Russian, I'm biased, I don't care, Daniel Negrono on poker, and many more. Maybe one day I'll do a masterclass on how to drink vodka and ask overly philosophical

• 7:15Lex Fridman?

  questions of world-class engineers who are too busy to bother with my nonsense. By the way, you can watch these courses on basically any device. Sign up at masterclass.com/Lex to get 15% off the first year of an annual subscription. That's masterclass.com/Lex. And now here's my conversation with Michael Malice.

• 7:58Michael Malice?

  There was a Simpsons episode where he starts mixing like sleeping pills with like pep pills and he's driving his truck and I'm like, I want to see what happens if he mixes Red Bull and nitro called for.

• 8:10Lex Fridman?

  There's a lineup of drugs.

• 8:12Michael Malice?

  This is gonna be so fun.

• 8:14Lex Fridman?

  This is, yeah. Let's start with love.

• 8:17Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 8:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so one, one thing we'll eventually somehow talk about, it'll be a theme throughout, is that you're also Russian.

• 8:25Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 8:26Lex Fridman?

  A little bit less than me, but.

• 8:28Michael Malice?

  How, why? Because I'm from Ukraine?

• 8:30Lex Fridman?

  Oh, you're from Ukraine? Okay, wow. No, because you came here a little bit when you were younger.

• 8:36Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 8:36Lex Fridman?

  I, I, I came here when I was 13, so I saturated a little bit of the Russian soul. I marinated in the Russian soul a little deeper.

• 8:43Michael Malice?

  I haven't told anyone this, but I'll be glad to tell you, divide-ish. I haven't been back since I was two. And next summer, it looks like me and my buddy Chris Williamson, who's also a podcaster, he's British, Modern Wisdom, he looks like Apollo. We, we, it looks like we got a videographer.

• 8:58Lex Fridman?

  Which Apollo? Apollo Creed?

• 9:00Michael Malice?

  The God. He looks like the God, Apollo. Yeah, he's like a model.

• 9:02Lex Fridman?

  I thought you were talking about Rocky.

• 9:05Michael Malice?

  So, we're gonna go for the first time to see where I came from.

• 9:09Lex Fridman?

  Which is in Ukraine.

• 9:11Michael Malice?

  We're gonna go to Lviv and either St. Petersburg or Moscow, probably St. Petersburg or both. It's gonna be intense. It's gonna be a lot of panic attacks, I feel.

• 9:19Lex Fridman?

  And your Russian is okay?

• 9:21Michael Malice?

  Yeah, kak to duvish? Horosho? Panimash? No, you can't talk Russian in Ukraine, or it's like, they get offended.

• 9:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but then you also want to go to Russia.

• 9:31Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Lex Fridman?

  I don't know. For me, there's several people in Russia I want to interview on a podcast.

• 9:37Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 9:38Lex Fridman?

  So one, one of them is Gagarin Perlman, who's a mathematician, and the other person is Putin.

• 9:45Michael Malice?

  You know what my favorite Putin story is? Do you know this?

• 9:47Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 9:47Michael Malice?

  When he had Merkel with him, do you know this story?

• 9:49Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 9:50Michael Malice?

  Merkel's scared of dogs, like petrified of dogs. So he brings in his like, like, like, uh, um, black lab. It's a Labrador, it's like the sweetest animal, and it's all over her, and there's pictures, and she's sitting like this, and she's terrified, and he's like, what's wrong, Angela? He's just completely trolling her.

• 10:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, he's aware of the sort of the narrative around him.

• 10:12Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 10:12Lex Fridman?

  And then he plays with it.

• 10:13Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 10:14Lex Fridman?

  He enjoys it.

• 10:14Michael Malice?

  It's a very Russian thing. My friend wanted to do a film about me. He goes, I realized you guys aren't like us at all. You just like, like, look at us. And then I started telling him stories about the upbringing. And he's like, oh, my God. And as I'm telling them, like, wow, this stuff is really crazy, like, how we are wired.

• 10:29Lex Fridman?

  Who's the we? Your friend is?

• 10:31Michael Malice?

  The Russian, the friend's American. I'm saying the way Russians are brought up and the way, maybe, I don't think it was just my family. I bet you had similar things. Like, here's an example. I was, I had a buddy staying with me. He had a problem with his roommate. So he crashed at my place. Fine. I went to the gym. And I come back and he goes, oh, there was, and my apartment building is four, four apartments. So it's not like a huge thing. He goes, oh, there was someone knocking at your door. So, you know, I, I told him, blah, blah. And, and for me, and I wonder if you're the same way. If I'm at someone's house that's not my own and someone knocks on the door, I wouldn't even think to answer it. Like, if I had an apple here, maybe I'd eat it, I'd cut it, whatever. I'm not gonna, it just doesn't enter my head to smash into my face.

• 11:14Michael Malice?

  The, the thought of answering the door, if it's not my house, it would never enter my head. Would enter your head?

• 11:19Lex Fridman?

  No, but why?

• 11:21Michael Malice?

  But he's an American, so someone's at the door. He goes and opens it, even though it's not his house. I would never do that. I would never think to do that.

• 11:28Lex Fridman?

  That is so strange that you pick some very obscure thing to delineate Americans and Russians.

• 11:33Michael Malice?

  I don't think that's obscure because I think it speaks to how we perceive strangers. With Americans, everyone's friendly. And with us, it's like, no, no, like, you have that moat. And I think that's a, that percolates into many different aspects of how we relate to people. And I had to undo a lot of that.

• 11:49Lex Fridman?

  That's true. You're right. There's the relationship I formed there where in Russia, we're very deep.

• 11:54Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 11:54Lex Fridman?

  Close. And then there's the strangers, the other that you don't. Trust by default, it takes a long time to go over the moat of trust.

• 12:02Michael Malice?

  For a long time, until recently, whenever I said anything to anyone, my brain ran a scan that said, if this person turns on you, would this, can they use this against you? And I would do this with everything I said with strangers. And after a while, it's like, you know what? Maybe they will, but I'm strong enough to take it. But this is not how Americans think. Well, here's another one. Let me ask you this. Sorry, I'm taking over the interview. People ask about like advice for work, right? Like I had this, there was this party I went to and basically everyone had their own problems and everyone else gave their advice, right? And someone's having a problem with the coworker and the advice these Tupoyamirikans gave them is, oh, sit down and have a talk with them. And to me, this is like the last case, last resort.

• 12:44Michael Malice?

  Like first you have to see what you can without showing your hand, showing your vulnerability. Only when everything hasn't worked out, or you're like, all right, let me sit down with you and try to have it out with you, probably. But for them, the first thing is like, sit down and be like, oh, you're causing me problems and blah, blah. So I perceive that right away is a threat, that this person sees an antagonism between us and also as a weakness that I'm getting to them. So my reaction isn't, how do I make it better? My reaction is to reinforce my position and see what I can to marginalize them, usually. I haven't worked in a corporate setting in a long time, but it's not, I don't approach it the way an American would, like, I'm glad you came and talked to me. Now I probably would because it's going to be a friend.

• 13:22Lex Fridman?

  So you attribute that to the Russian upbringing as opposed to you have deep psychological issues?

• 13:29Michael Malice?

  I think those are synonymous, don't you? Wait, am I, would you think differently maybe a few years ago?

• 13:35Lex Fridman?

  Hmm, I don't know. I think you lost me at the, because you kind of said that, you're kind of implying you have a deep distrust of the world. Like the world is...

• 13:48Michael Malice?

  I think the default setting would be distrust, yeah.

• 13:50Lex Fridman?

  But...

• 13:55Lex Fridman?

  I would put it differently is I almost ignore the rest of the world. I don't even acknowledge it. I just savor, I save my love and trust for the small circle of people.

• 14:09Michael Malice?

  I agree, but when that person is being confrontational or as they perceive it as being open, now there's a situation. How do you, how would you handle that?

• 14:19Lex Fridman?

  Like, like a cold wind blows, you just kind of like.

• 14:22Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but it's not like this is an opportunity for us to work out our differences. It's a cold wind. It's not a hug. That's my point. Americans think it's a hug.

• 14:33Michael Malice?

  You're so suspicious. What it really is, is a cold wind.

• 14:38Michael Malice?

  I'm so inhumane. It's not something to be scared of. It's a cold wind, it's not in person.

• 14:43Lex Fridman?

  But it's not, this is great. But it's not a source of, like, I'm not suspicious of, like, I'm not anxious, I would say, or like, living in fear of the rest of the world.

• 14:55Michael Malice?

  Oh, I agree, but you're not receptive to that person. Right. That's all I'm saying. And they are.

• 15:00Lex Fridman?

  Got it. So, speaking of which, let's talk about love.

• 15:04Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 15:05Lex Fridman?

  Which requires to be receptive of the world.

• 15:08Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 15:09Lex Fridman?

  Of strangers.

• 15:09Michael Malice?

  Agreed.

• 15:11Lex Fridman?

  How do we put more love out there in the world, especially on the internet?

• 15:16Michael Malice?

  One mechanism I have found to increase love, and that's a word that has many meanings and is, you know, used in a very intense sense and is used in a very loose sense.

• 15:26Lex Fridman?

  Can you try to define love?

• 15:28Michael Malice?

  Sure. Love is a strong sense of attraction toward a, another person, entity, or place that causes one to tend to react in a disproportionately positive manner. That's off the top of my head.

• 15:45Lex Fridman?

  Disproportionately?

• 15:46Michael Malice?

  Yes. So for example, if you-

• 15:48Lex Fridman?

  Why not proportionally?

• 15:50Michael Malice?

  Because like if you're someone's about to, who you love is about to get harmed, you're moving heaven and earth to make sure, or like a book you love, you know, like I love this book, like you're going through the fire to try to save it. Whereas if it's a book you really like, it's like, oh, I'll get another one. It, I don't, you know, and a book's a kind of a loose example, but-

• 16:09Lex Fridman?

  So you're going with the love that's like you're saving for just a few people, almost like romantic, like love for a close family.

• 16:16Michael Malice?

  But it's also like-

• 16:17Lex Fridman?

  But what about just love to even the broader, like the kind of love you can put out to people on the internet, which is like just kindness?

• 16:25Michael Malice?

  Sure, I would say in that case, it's important to make them feel seen and validated. And I try to do this when people who I have come to know on the internet, and there's a lot, I try to do that as much as possible because I don't think it's valid how on social media, and I do this a lot myself, but not towards everyone, it's just there to be aggressive and antagonistic. You should be antagonistic towards bad people, and that's fine. But at the same time, there's lots of great people. And especially with my audience, and I would bet disproportionately with yours, there's lots of people who are, because of their psychology and intelligence, are going to be much more isolated socially than they should.

• 17:08Michael Malice?

  And if I, and I've heard from many of them, and if I'm the person who makes them feel, oh, I'm not crazy, it's everyone else around me who is just basic. The fact that I can be that person, which I didn't have at their age, to me is incredibly reaffirming.

• 17:23Lex Fridman?

  You mean that source of love?

• 17:25Michael Malice?

  But I mean, love in the sense of like, you know, you care about this person and you want good things for them, not in a kind of romantic way, but I mean, you're using in a broad sense now.

• 17:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but you're also a person who kind of, I mean, attacks the power structures in the world by mocking them-

• 17:44Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 17:44Lex Fridman?

  Effectively.

• 17:45Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 17:46Lex Fridman?

  And-

• 17:48Lex Fridman?

  Love, I would say, requires you to be non witty and simple and fragile, which I see it as like the opposite of what trolls do.

• 17:59Michael Malice?

  Trolls are, if I, if there is someone coming after what I love, there's two mechanisms, right, at least two. I go up and I'm fighting them. And in which case you, you bring in, if you are getting hurt in a knife fight, even if you win the knife fight. Or if you disarm them and you preclude the possibility of fight and you drive them off or render them powerless, you can, you keep your person intact as yourself and you also protect your values.

• 18:30Lex Fridman?

  So how do you render them powerless?

• 18:32Michael Malice?

  As you just said, by mocking them. One of the most effective mechanisms for those in power, we're much closer to Brave New World in 1984. The people who are dominant and in power aren't there because of the threat of, you know, the Gulag or prison. They're there because of social pressures. Look at the masks. I was on the subway not that long ago in New York City. No one cared who I was until I put on the mask. I was in the subway that long in New York City. There was, and I put this on my Instagram, I've told this story before. There was an Asian dude in his early 30s. He was like in Western clothes. It's not like he had a rickshaw or something. An older man in his 50s stood up over him on the subway, screamed at him, said, go back where you came from. You're disgusting, I'm gonna get sick. If you think this guy is a vector of disease, which is your prerogative, why are you coming close to him?

• 19:17Michael Malice?

  Why are you getting in his face? And what-

• 19:19Lex Fridman?

  That was the rate, sorry, so it was because he was Asian?

• 19:23Michael Malice?

  It was both. It was, the not having a mask gave him the permission to act like a despicable, aggressive person toward him, right? And the point being, a lot of these mechanisms for social control are outsourced to low quality people because this is their one chance to assert dominance and status over somebody else. So the best way to diffuse that isn't with weaponry or fighting. It's through mockery because all of a sudden their claims to authority are effectively destroyed.

• 19:53Lex Fridman?

  So let me push back on that. What about fighting that with, with love? With, um- Patience and like kindness towards them.

• 20:02Michael Malice?

  I I don't think kindness is, I think that would be a mismatch and inappropriate. There's Superman is Batman, okay? And Superman's job is to help the good people and Batman's job is to hurt the bad people. And I will always be on the Batman side than the Superman side.

• 20:18Lex Fridman?

  Both work silly tight costumes. One has pointy ears. Both are ridiculous, so it's.

• 20:24Michael Malice?

  One's a billionaire who gets, you know, he's swimming in trim.

• 20:27Lex Fridman?

  Which one is?

• 20:28Michael Malice?

  Batman.

• 20:29Lex Fridman?

  Okay. I'm I'm I'm undereducated on.

• 20:32Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 20:33Lex Fridman?

  On the superhero movies, I apologize. Okay, but but you're just saying you, your predisposition is to be on the Batman side is to fighting the bad guys.

• 20:45Michael Malice?

  Yeah. And it's what I'm good at.

• 20:48Lex Fridman?

  That's what you're good at. But just to play devil's advocate, or actually, in this case, I am the devil because that's what I usually do.

• 20:57Michael Malice?

  I'm the devil here. They're the angels advocate.

• 20:59Lex Fridman?

  Exactly. To be the to be the angel advocate, yeah. It's like, I feel like mockery is is a is a path towards escalation of conflict.

• 21:11Michael Malice?

  Yes, in many ways, yes.

• 21:13Lex Fridman?

  So you're not, I mean, it's kind of like guerrilla warfare. I mean, you're not going to win.

• 21:22Michael Malice?

  I am winning. We're all winning. We're winning on a daily. This is my next book. We're winning. We've won before. I'm not joking.

• 21:28Lex Fridman?

  The the topic of the next book.

• 21:30Michael Malice?

  Yes, is the white pill.

• 21:31Lex Fridman?

  The white pill.

• 21:32Michael Malice?

  Is that we're gonna, we are winning. The most horrible people are being rendered into laughing stocks on a daily basis on social media. This is glorious thing.

• 21:41Lex Fridman?

  I so disagree with you. I disagree with you because there's side effects that are very destructive. It feels like you're winning, but we're completely destroying the possibility of.

• 21:53Lex Fridman?

  Having like a cohesive society.

• 21:55Michael Malice?

  That's called oncology.

• 21:58Lex Fridman?

  What's that mean?

• 21:59Michael Malice?

  Curing cancer.

• 22:00Lex Fridman?

  No, I.

• 22:00Michael Malice?

  Your concept of a cohesive society is in fact a society based on oppression and not allowing individuals to live their personal freedom.

• 22:11Lex Fridman?

  Oh, so you're you're a utopian view of the.

• 22:13Michael Malice?

  You're the utopian. You're saying cohesive society. I'm saying I don't need that. I'm saying there's gonna be conflict. Right, there's gonna be conflict. You and I are disagreeing right now. That's not cohesive. Doesn't mean we like each other less. Doesn't mean we respect each other less. Cohesive doesn't is it's it's just a euphemism for like everyone submitting to what I want.

• 22:31Lex Fridman?

  No, I mean cohesive could could could be that. It could be.

• 22:37Lex Fridman?

  It could be like enforced with violence, all that kind of stuff, sort of the libertarian view of the world, but it could just be being respectful and kind of each other and kind towards each other and loving towards each other. I mean, that's what I mean by cohesive. So when people say free, it's funny, like freedom is a funny thing because freedom can be painful to a lot of people.

• 23:07Lex Fridman?

  It's it's all matters how you define it, how you implement it, how it actually looks like.

• 23:11Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 23:11Lex Fridman?

  And I'm just saying, it feels like the mockery of the powerful leads to further and further the divisions. It's like the it's turning life into a game to where it's always you're playing, you're you're creating these different little tribes and groups and you're constantly.

• 23:38Lex Fridman?

  Fighting the groups that become a little bit more powerful by undercutting them through guerrilla warfare kind of thing. And that's what the internet becomes is everyone is just mocking each other and then certain groups become more and more powerful and then they start fighting each other in into basically they they form groups of ideologies and they start fighting each other in the internet where the result is it doesn't feel like. The common humanities highlighted, it doesn't feel like that's a path of progress. Now, like when I say cohesive, I don't mean like everybody has to be, you know, enforcing equality, all those kinds of ideas. I just mean like not being so divisive.

• 24:22Lex Fridman?

  That's like, so it's going back to the original question of like, how do we put more love out in the world on the internet?

• 24:28Michael Malice?

  I want divisiveness.

• 24:30Lex Fridman?

  Oh, you see, you think divisiveness is very interesting.

• 24:33Michael Malice?

  It's the goal. So you started this conversation by you talking about you have love for that small group. I think we both would agree to have a bigger group would be better, especially if that love comes from sincere place. I think our country specific, I wrote an article about this four years ago, that it's time to disunite the states and to secede. This country has been held together with at least two separate cultures with dumb texts and string for over 20 years. There's an enormous amount of contempt from one group toward another. This contempt comes from sincere place. They do not share each other's values. There's absolutely no reason, just like any unhealthy relationship where you can't say, you know what, it's not working out. I want to go my own way and live my happiness and I genuinely want you to go your way, live your happiness.

• 25:18Michael Malice?

  If I'm wrong, prove me wrong. I'll learn from you and take lessons and vice versa. But the fact that we all have to be in the same house together is not coherent and that's not love. That is the path towards friction and tension and conflict.

• 25:31Lex Fridman?

  Do you think there is concrete groups? Like, is it as simple as the two groups of blue and red?

• 25:38Michael Malice?

  No, it's also very fluid because you and I are allied as Jewish people, as Russians, as males, as podcasters. You're an academic, I'm not. So there's, we're different, but we each are a Venn diagram, even within ourselves. And I can talk to you about politics and then we can talk about Russia stuff and then you could talk about your work, which I don't know anything about. So that would be where you're way up here and I'm way down here. So there's lots, every relationship with just between individuals, there's, it's very dynamic.

• 26:10Lex Fridman?

  So how do we secede? Like, how do we form individual states where there's a little bit more? Cohesion?

• 26:17Michael Malice?

  Sure, and voluntary cohesion. So the first step is to eliminate the concept of political authority as legitimate and to denigrate and humiliate those who would put themselves in a position in which they are there to tell you how to live your life from any semblance of validity. And that's starting to happen. If you look at what they had with the lockdowns, Cuomo and de Blasio in New York, I was tired a couple of weeks ago. And I said to my friend, oh, just click, maybe I have COVID. And he goes, it's not possible. Like, what do you mean? And he goes, we haven't had any deaths in like two months. And there's only like 100 cases a day for like two months. And I go, you're exaggerating because everything was still closed.

• 27:02Michael Malice?

  And I looked at the numbers and he wasn't exaggerating. And there's no greater American dream to me than an immigrant family comes to the States, forms their own little business, maybe mom's a good cook, it's a restaurant, dry cleaner, fruit stand. And those people aren't going to have a lot of money. Those are the first ones who lost their companies because of these lockdowns. Cuomo, who's the governor of New York, opened up the gyms. He said, you're clear to open up. De Blasio said, and we don't have enough inspectors, you're going to have to wait another couple of weeks. To regard that as anything other than literally criminal is something that I am having a harder and harder time wrapping my head around.

• 27:42Lex Fridman?

  You said, I mean, that's something I'm deeply worried about as well, which is like thousands, it's actually millions of dreams being crushed, that American dream of starting a business, of running a business.

• 27:55Michael Malice?

  What about all the young people who you and I have in our audiences, who are socially isolated at best, and now they can't leave their homes? Isolation and ostracism are things that are very well studied in psychology. These have extreme consequences. I read a book called ostracism, and this wasn't scientific, but basically the author was a psychiatrist, psychologist, whatever. And he had one of his colleagues, they did an experiment, let's for a week, you ostracize me completely. We know it's an, and he goes, even knowing it's the experiment, the fact that he wouldn't make eye contact with me and the fact that he ignored me, had an extreme. Emotional impact on me, knowing full well this is purely for experimental purposes. Now you multiply that by all these, the suicide, the number of kids who are thinking about suicide

• 28:39Michael Malice?

  was through the roof during all this. And my point is, until these people, it's gonna, I would predict like 2024, that's where we're gonna have to start having conversations about what personal consequences have to be done for these people, because until then, they're gonna do the same thing.

• 28:54Lex Fridman?

  So you think there's going to be society-wide consequences of this that we're gonna see, like ripple effects because of the social isolation?

• 29:01Michael Malice?

  I know, I mean, we also need to talk about consequences for Cuomo and de Blasio. Because if politicians respond to incentives, and the incentives are there for them to be extremely conservative, because if you have to choose, as Cuomo said in a press conference, between a thousand people dying and a thousand people losing their business, it's not a hard choice, and he's right. But at a certain point, it's like, all right, you're losing both, you're losing, not losing, you're making these decisions and not having consequences for it, and you're gonna do it again the next time, so we need to make sure you're a little scared.

• 29:32Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 29:32Michael Malice?

  And I don't know what that would mean.

• 29:34Lex Fridman?

  But you're laying this problem, this incompetence.

• 29:40Michael Malice?

  I don't think it's incompetence, I think it's very competent. I think their job is.

• 29:44Lex Fridman?

  Malevolence.

• 29:44Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 29:45Lex Fridman?

  But you're laying it not at the hands of the individuals, but the structure of government.

• 29:52Michael Malice?

  It's both, yes.

• 29:54Lex Fridman?

  How would we deal with it better, without centralized control?

• 29:59Michael Malice?

  Well, we didn't really have centralized control, because every country and every state, you know, handled it in a different mechanism.

• 30:04Lex Fridman?

  But a city has centralized control.

• 30:06Michael Malice?

  Just, yeah.

• 30:06Lex Fridman?

  Right, I mean.

• 30:07Michael Malice?

  No, that's not true. So Cuomo and de Blasio, they had a lot of disagreements over this, over the months, and this was actually a source of great interest and tension. De Blasio wanted, at one point was talking about quarantining people in their homes, Cuomo was like, you're crazy, same thing with the schools, same thing with the gyms, and there were other such examples. But the point being, this was an emergency. This is World War I. I talked about some Tim Poole show was very dangerous because it gave a lot of evil people some very useful information about what the country put up with and what they can get away with under wartime. And this set the model for things like the New Deal and the other things of that nature. It is undeniable, you're a scientist, so you understand this perfectly well, that this

• 30:52Michael Malice?

  lockdown gave some very nefarious people some very valid data about how much people will put up with under pressures from the state.

• 31:04Lex Fridman?

  So fundamentally, what is the problem with the state?

• 31:07Michael Malice?

  Its existence.

• 31:10Lex Fridman?

  Okay, well, but to play angel's advocate again, you know, government is the people.

• 31:19Michael Malice?

  Come on, you don't, you're saying, do you really think this?

• 31:23Lex Fridman?

  As best I think is possible to have representation.

• 31:26Michael Malice?

  Can you imagine if like you have an attorney? You're like, oh, you can't have the attorney you want. You're gonna have this guy who you absolutely hate, who you share no values with. Why?

• 31:33Lex Fridman?

  Because he drives, I mean, leaders, political leaders and political representation drive the discourse like we, you know, the majority of people voted for him or whatever, however, however you define that. And now we get to have a discussion, well, was this the right choice? And then we get to make that choice again in four years and so on.

• 31:55Michael Malice?

  First of all, the fact that I have to be under the thumb of somebody for four years makes no sense. There's no other relationship that's like this, including a marriage. You can leave any other relationship at any time, number one. Number two is-

• 32:07Lex Fridman?

  You could always impeach.

• 32:08Michael Malice?

  But they did that.

• 32:09Lex Fridman?

  Part of it, I'm just saying that the mechanisms are flawed in many ways.

• 32:15Michael Malice?

  Yeah, right. And so that's number one. Number two is- It doesn't make sense that if I don't want someone to represent me, that because that person is popular, that they are now in a position to. So having a representation and having citizenship based on geography is a pre-landline technology in a post-cellphone world. There's no reason why I have to, just because we're physically in between two oceans, we all have to be represented by the same people. Whereas I can very easily have my security be under someone and switch it as easily as cellphone providers.

• 32:50Lex Fridman?

  So, okay, but it doesn't have to be geographical. It can be ideas.

• 32:53Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 32:54Lex Fridman?

  I mean, this country represents a certain set of ideas.

• 32:56Michael Malice?

  Yes, it does.

• 32:57Lex Fridman?

  It started out geographically. It's still geographic.

• 33:00Michael Malice?

  It started off as ideas as well.

• 33:01Lex Fridman?

  But like, there's a, it's, it was intricately. I mean, that's the way humans are is there's, I mean, there was no internet. So it was, you were geographically in the same location and you signed a bunch of documents and then you kind of debated and you wrote a bunch of stuff and then you agreed on it.

• 33:17Michael Malice?

  But you understand that no one signed these documents and no one agreed to it. As Lysander Spooner pointed out over 150 years ago, the constitution or the social contract, if anything, is only binding to the signatories. And even then, they're all long dead. So it's this fallacy that somehow because I'm in a physical place, I have agreed, even though I'm screaming to you a face that I don't agree, to be subordinate to some imaginary invisible monster that was created 250 years ago. And this idea of like, if you don't like it, you have to move. That's not what freedom means. Freedom means I do what I want, not what you want. So if you don't like it, you move.

• 33:55Lex Fridman?

  Okay, just to put some, I don't like words and terms.

• 33:59Michael Malice?

  11101110.

• 34:00Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 34:01Michael Malice?

  Is that what your language likes?

• 34:02Lex Fridman?

  It is. I'm translating it all in real time. But would you call the kind of ideas that you're advocating for and we're talking about anarchy?

• 34:12Michael Malice?

  Yes, anarchism, yes.

• 34:14Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so let's get into it. Can you, can you try to paint the utopia that an anarchist worldview dreams about?

• 34:24Michael Malice?

  The only people who describe anarchism as utopia are its critics. If I told you right now, and I wish I could say this factually, that I have a cure for cancer, that would not make us a utopia. That would still probably be expensive. We would still have many other diseases. However, we would be fundamentally healthier, happier, and better off, all of us.

• 34:46Lex Fridman?

  Than democracy. So, sorry, I jumped back from the cancer.

• 34:49Michael Malice?

  No, than democracy or government. So it's only curing one major, major life-threatening problem, but in no sense is it a utopia.

• 34:59Lex Fridman?

  So what, can we try to answer this question many, same question many times, which is, what exactly is the problem with democracy?

• 35:08Michael Malice?

  The problem with democracy is that those who need leaders are not qualified to choose them.

• 35:13Lex Fridman?

  Those who need leaders are not qualified to choose them, so.

• 35:20Michael Malice?

  That's the central problem with democracy.

• 35:21Lex Fridman?

  Not all of us need leaders.

• 35:23Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 35:28Lex Fridman?

  What does it mean to need a leader? Are you saying like people who are actually like free thinkers don't need leaders kind of thing?

• 35:35Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 35:36Lex Fridman?

  But like, but like, you don't, okay, so do you acknowledge that there's some value in authority in different subjects? So what, what that means is, I don't mean authority, somebody who's in control of you, but.

• 35:52Michael Malice?

  But you're doing the definition switch.

• 35:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I am, I am. You're right, you're right. It's unfair. Okay, that was, that was bad.

• 35:59Michael Malice?

  But that's what they do. That's their trick.

• 36:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 36:01Michael Malice?

  And it's, this is, one of the useful things, by the way, let's just total sidebar. If people ask me for advice, I always tell them, if you're going to raise your kids, raise them bilingual. Because I was trilingual by the time I was six, and that teaches you to think in concepts. Whereas if you only know one language, you fall for things like this, because using authority in the sense of a policeman, and someone has authority in physics, it's the same word. Conceptually, they're extremely different, but if you're only thinking in one language, your brain is going to equate the two. And that's a trap that people who only speak one language have.

• 36:31Lex Fridman?

  For sure. But even if you know multiple languages, you can still use the trick of using

• 36:35Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 36:35Lex Fridman?

  the worst of your convenience.

• 36:37Michael Malice?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 36:37Lex Fridman?

  To manipulate the conversation.

• 36:39Michael Malice?

  But you weren't trying to do that, but you fell.

• 36:41Lex Fridman?

  I accidentally did it. Yeah, you're right.

• 36:43Michael Malice?

  We all tend to do that if you only speak one language and think of one language.

• 36:46Lex Fridman?

  But if, I guess, let me rephrase it. Are you against, do you acknowledge the value of like offloading your own effort about a particular thing to somebody else?

• 37:00Michael Malice?

  Absolutely. Like I have accountant, a lawyer, a doctor, a chef, infinite.

• 37:06Lex Fridman?

  Isn't that ultimately what a democracy is?

• 37:09Michael Malice?

  No.

• 37:10Lex Fridman?

  Broadly defined, like you're basically electing a bunch of authorities.

• 37:14Michael Malice?

  Using the word you in two senses. Using the word you, meaning me as an individual, now using you as a mass.

• 37:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, as a mass, not you as an individual.

• 37:22Michael Malice?

  Right. So I have, I would absolutely want someone to provide for my security. I would absolutely want someone to negotiate with me for foreign powers, something like that. That does not mean it has to be predicated and what lots of other people who I do not know, and if I do know them, probably would not respect, think about. It's of no moral relevance to me, nor I to them.

• 37:44Lex Fridman?

  So do you think this kind of, there could be a bunch of humans that behave kind of like ants in a distributed way? There could be an emergent behavior in them that results in a stable society? Like, isn't that the hope with anarchy is like without an overarching?

• 38:04Michael Malice?

  But ants, I mean, ants are the worst example here because ants have a very firm authority.

• 38:09Lex Fridman?

  The queen?

• 38:09Michael Malice?

  Yeah. And they're all, they're all drones. They're all clones of each other.

• 38:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but so if you forget the queen, their behavior, they're all, well, from your perspective, from your human intelligent perspective. But from their perspective, they probably see each other as a bunch of individuals.

• 38:25Michael Malice?

  No, they don't. Ants are very big on altruism in the sense of self-sacrifice.

• 38:32Michael Malice?

  They do not think the individual matters. They routinely kill themselves for the sake of the hive and the community.

• 38:38Lex Fridman?

  But they, see, that's from the outside perspective. From the individual, perspective of the individual, they probably, they, they don't see it as altruism.

• 38:48Michael Malice?

  Right, but they, they, they view, and they're right, because the ant's life is very ephemeral and cheap, that it's more important to continue this mass population that, that one individual ant live. Like bees are another, even better example. The honeybee, when they sting, they only sting once and they die. And they do it gladly, because it's like, okay, this community is much more important than me. And they're right.

• 39:11Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, okay, so, fine, let's.

• 39:13Michael Malice?

  I'm being pedantic, but it's important, I think. I'm not just being pedantic for the sake of being pedantic.

• 39:17Lex Fridman?

  But there's something beautiful that I won't argue about, because I do, there's an interesting point there about individualism of ants. I do think they're more individual. But let's, let's give your view of ants, that they're, they're communists. Okay, let's go with the communist view of ants.

• 39:33Michael Malice?

  Okay, yeah.

• 39:35Lex Fridman?

  But there's still a beautiful emergent thing, which is like, they can function as a, as a society. And without, I would say, centralized control.

• 39:49Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 39:49Lex Fridman?

  It's another argument. So is that the hope for anarchy? It's like, you just throw a bunch of people that voluntarily want to be in the same place, under the same set of ideas, and they kind of, like, the doctors emerge, the police officers emerge, the, the different, let's just say, structures of a functional society emerge.

• 40:08Michael Malice?

  Do you know what the most beautiful example of anarchism is? That is just beyond beautiful when you stop to think about it.

• 40:14Lex Fridman?

  I'll say Twitter.

• 40:15Michael Malice?

  I'm not being tongue in cheek.

• 40:16Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 40:17Michael Malice?

  Language.

• 40:19Michael Malice?

  There's infinite languages. Language, the things that language can be used for are, bring tears to people's eyes, quite literally. It, it's also used for basic things. No one is forcing us, we speak two languages each, at least. No one's forcing us to use English. No one's forcing us to use this dialect of English. It's a way, and, and. Despite there being so many different languages, Lingua Franca emerged. You know, people, the language that everyone is Latin. Even in North Korea, they refer to the fish and the different animals by the Latin scientific. No one decided this. Sure, there's an organization that sets a binomial nomenclature, but there's no gun to anyone's head referring to sea moth as a Pegasus species.

• 41:04Michael Malice?

  And when you think about how amazing language is, and some in other contexts would say like, well, you you need to have a world government and they're deciding which is the verbs. And you have to have an official definition and an official dictionary. And none of that's happened. And I think anyone, even if they don't agree with my politics or my worldview, cannot deny that the creation of language is one of humanity's most miraculous, beautiful achievements.

• 41:32Lex Fridman?

  Absolutely. So there, there you go. There's one system where a kind of anarchy can result in, in beauty, stability, like sufficient stability and yet dynamic flexibility to adjust it and so on. And the internet helps it. You get something, something like Urban Dictionary, which starts creating absurd, both humor and wit.

• 41:56Michael Malice?

  But also language and syntax and jargon immediately you size people up. If you use, if you say vertebral, I know you're a doctor because that's how they pronounce it, the spinal column. I'm sure in your field, there's certain jargon and right away you can know if this person's one of us or not. I mean, it's infinite. I mean, I don't need to tell you.

• 42:13Lex Fridman?

  There's emojis.

• 42:14Michael Malice?

  Yes, there's so much there to study with language. It's fascinating.

• 42:17Lex Fridman?

  But do you think this applies to human life? The meat space, the physical space.

• 42:23Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 42:24Lex Fridman?

  So these, that kind of beauty can emerge without, without writing stuff on paper, without laws.

• 42:31Michael Malice?

  You could have rules. You don't need, it don't have to be laws. So.

• 42:35Lex Fridman?

  Enforced by violence. Like that's what, what's a law?

• 42:39Michael Malice?

  A law is something that is unchosen. A rule is something, if I go to my pool, you know, I sign up to be a member of a pool, on the wall lists certain things. It's like, you know, certain number of people in the pool. No peeing in here. Good luck enforcing that one. And so on and so forth.

• 42:54Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's the problem. Aren't you afraid that people are gonna pee in the pool?

• 42:58Michael Malice?

  That's not as my big a concern as mass incarceration, as the fact that the police can steal more money than burglars can, the fact that innocent people can be killed with no consequences, the fact that war can be waged and with no consequences for those who waged it, the fact that so many men and women are being murdered overseas and here, and the people who are guiding these are regarded as heroic.

• 43:22Lex Fridman?

  So you think that in an anarchist system, there's a possibility of having less wars and less, what would you say, corruption? And less abuse of power?

• 43:35Michael Malice?

  Let's talk, yes, and let's talk about corruption because, and I made this point in Rogan, you and I, again, this, the Russian background, we realize that when it comes to corruption, America is very naive. Corruption, they think, is, oh, I got my brother a job and he's getting money on the table. That's not, when we're talking about like state corruption, things that are done in totalitarian states, and even to some extent in America, like Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, things that Stalin did, things that Hitler did. You know, when the CIA was torturing people at Gitmo, they had to borrow KGB manuals because they didn't know how to torture correctly, because they never thought of these things. We, it's very hard for us to get into the mindset of someone who's like a child predator, someone who, let me give you an example from my forthcoming book.

• 44:20Michael Malice?

  There was a guy, he was the head of Ukraine in the 30s, I forget his name. Now, these old Soviets, they were tough. I mean, they pride, Stalin means steel, you know, they pride themselves in their cruelty and how strong they were. And this was the purge, you know, Stalin is trying to, you know, killing lots of people left and right, and his henchman Beria had the, quote, "Find me the man and I'll find you the crime." You know, they would accuse someone and they would torture him until he talked and confessed, and then he had to turn people in. And they took this guy in, like, beginning of the year, I think it was 36, 38, he was head of Ukraine, by May, he's arrested. And they take him to the Loublanc, the basement in the Red Square, where they're torturing people, and they put, they did the works on him. And he was a good Soviet, and he stood up, and they, who knows what they did to him? He didn't talk.

• 45:04Michael Malice?

  So they said, okay, one moment. They brought his teenage daughter in, raped her in front of him, he talked. So when we talk about corruption...

• 45:15Michael Malice?

  We would never in a million years think of this. That's not how our minds work. So when you're talking about states and people where you don't have ease of exit, where you are forced to be under the auspices of an organization creating a monopoly that leads to, in extreme cases, but in not as extreme cases, really nefarious outcomes. Whereas if you have the option to leave as a client or customer, that would have a strongly limiting effect on how a business and what it can get away with.

• 45:52Lex Fridman?

  So but don't you think maybe, I don't know who the right example is, whether it's Stalin, I think Hitler might be the better example of, don't you think, or Jeffrey Epstein perhaps, don't you think people who are evil will will find ways to manipulate human nature to attain power, no matter the system?

• 46:14Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 46:15Lex Fridman?

  And like the corollary question is, do you think those people can get more power in a democracy? In a, you know, in when there's a government already in place?

• 46:28Michael Malice?

  They can, it's easily, they get more power, more dangerous to have a government in place. First of all, sociopaths are known for their charm and for their warmth. Here's the two situations. In a free society, I'm a sociopath, I'm an evil person, I'm the head of Macy's. In a state society, I'm an evil person, I'm a sociopath, I'm the head of the US government. Which of these are you more concerned with? It's like night and day. So you would have far more decentralized military. You would have far more decentralized security forces, and they would be much more subject to feedback from the market. If you have an issue with Macy's or any store with a sweater. Look at that transaction.

• 47:09Michael Malice?

  If you have an issue with the state, hiring a lawyer costs more than a surgeon. To even access the mechanism for dispute is going to be exorbitant and price poor people out of the market for conflict resolution immediately. So, right away, you have something that's extremely regressive. And even though this is touted as some great equalizer, it's quite the opposite.

• 47:30Lex Fridman?

  So, in current society, there's a deep suspicion of governments and states.

• 47:34Michael Malice?

  Not really.

• 47:35Lex Fridman?

  Well, like, just your example of Macy's. I mean, don't you think a Hitler could rise to be at the top of a social network like Twitter and Facebook?

• 47:44Michael Malice?

  Okay, let's suppose Hitler ran Twitter, okay? Let's take this thought experiment seriously. Literally, what could he do? So, the only tweets are going to be about how much the Jews suck, right? Okay, fine. Okay, all the cool people are leaving.

• 47:58Lex Fridman?

  There could be some compelling, like you said, evil people are charming. There could be some compelling narratives that could be with conspiracy theories, untruths that could be spread, like propaganda.

• 48:13Michael Malice?

  Every criticism of anarchism is in fact a description. Well, the strongest criticisms of anarchism are in fact descriptions of the status quo. Your concern is, under anarchism, propaganda would spread and people would be taught the wrong ideas, unlike the status quo?

• 48:28Lex Fridman?

  That's not even a criticism of anarchism. I'm not actually criticizing. It's an open question of, it's an open question of in which system will human nature thrive, be able to thrive more? And in which system would the evils that arise in human nature would be more easily suppressible? That's the open question. It's a scientific experiment, and I'm asking only from my perspective of the fact that we've tried democracy quite a bit recently. And we, I don't, maybe you can correct me, we haven't yet seriously tried anarchy in a large scale.

• 49:09Michael Malice?

  Well, we don't need to try to, so anarchy isn't like a country, right? It's like, you can't, I'm not, it's like saying, well, if anarchy works, how come we've never had an anarchist government, right? So anarchism is a relationship, and language is an example of this. It's a worldwide anarchic system. You and I have an anarchist relationship. There's almost no circumstances we'd be calling the police on each other.

• 49:28Lex Fridman?

  I mean, it's, I'm asking the same question in a bunch of different directions out of, born out of my curiosity, is why is anarchy going to be better at preventing the darker sides of human nature, which presumably a criticism of government?

• 49:45Michael Malice?

  Oh, because it's, because of decentralization. So the darker side of human nature is an extreme concern. Anyone who says it's gonna go away is absurd and fallacious. I think that's a nonstarter when people say that everyone's gonna be good. Human beings are basically animals. We're capable of great beauty and kindness. We're capable of just complete cruel and what we would call inhumanity, but we see it on a daily basis even today. And what's interesting is the corporate press won't even tell you the darkest aspects because that's too upsetting to people. So they'll tell you about atrocities and horrors, but only to a point. And then when you actually do the homework, you're like, oh, it's so much worse than, like that thing about Stalin, right? So we know in a broad sense that Stalin was a dictator.

• 50:29Michael Malice?

  We know that he killed a lot of people, but it takes work to learn about the Holodomor. It takes work to learn about what those literal tortures were, and that this is the person who later FDR and Harry Truman were shaking hands with and taking photos with and was being sold to us as Uncle Joe. You know, he's just like you and me. So when you have a decentralized information network, as opposed to having three media networks, it is a lot easier for information that doesn't fit what would be the corporate American narrative to reach the populations. And it would be more effective for democracy because they're in a much better position to be informed. Now, you're right, it also means, well, if everyone has a mic, that means every crazy

• 51:14Michael Malice?

  person and with their wacky views. And at a certain point, yeah, it has to become, then there's another level, which is then the people have to be self-enforcing, and you see that on social media all the time where someone says this, the other person jumps in.

• 51:28Lex Fridman?

  You think, but isn't social media a good example of this? Like, so you think ultimately, without centralized control, you can have stability? Like, what about the mob outrage and the mob rule? The power of the mobs that emerge?

• 51:46Michael Malice?

  The power of the mob is a very serious concern. Gustav Le Bon wrote a book in the 1890s called The Crowd. And this was one of the most important books I've written because it influenced both Mussolini and Hitler and Stalin, and they all talked about it. And he made the point that under crowd psychology, human, and lynching is another example of this. None of those individuals, or very few, would ever dream of doing these acts. But when they're all together and you lose that sense of self, you become the ant, and you lose that sense of individually, you're capable of doing things that, like, in another context, you'd be like, I should kill myself, I'm a monster.

• 52:23Lex Fridman?

  So you're worried about that? But like, isn't the mob, doesn't the mob have more power under anarchy?

• 52:28Michael Malice?

  No, the mob has much less power in anarchy because under anarchism, every individual is fully empowered. You wouldn't have gun restrictions. You would have people creating communities based on shared values. They'd be much more collegial, they'd be much more kind. As opposed to when you're forcing people to be together in a polity when they don't have things in common, that is like having a bad roommate. If you're forced to live in jails, if you're forced to be locked in a room with someone, even if you at first like them, after a while, you're going to start to hate them. And that leads to very nefarious consequences.

• 53:08Lex Fridman?

  So as an anarchist, what do you do in a society like this?

• 53:12Michael Malice?

  Thrive.

• 53:14Michael Malice?

  I think I'm doing okay.

• 53:17Lex Fridman?

  I mean, I mean, there's an election coming up. There's, as you talk, You're Welcome is one of the 15 shows that you host.

• 53:34Michael Malice?

  It's down to one.

• 53:35Lex Fridman?

  Okay, it's down to one. But I'm a big fan.

• 53:40Lex Fridman?

  You talk about libertarianism a little bit.

• 53:43Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 53:43Lex Fridman?

  I mean, is there some practical?

• 53:47Lex Fridman?

  Political direction, like in terms of we as a society should go, I don't mean we as a nation, I mean, we as a collective of people should go to make a better world from an anarchist point of view.

• 54:00Michael Malice?

  Sure, I think politics is the enemy.

• 54:04Lex Fridman?

  How do you define politics?

• 54:05Michael Malice?

  The state, the government. So, anything that lessens its sway on people, anything that delegitimizes it is good. I wrote an article a few years ago about how wonderful it is that Trump is regarded as such a buffoon, because it's very, very useful to have a commander in chief who's regarded as a clown, because it's going to take a lot to get him to convince your kids to go overseas and start killing people and making widows and orphans, as well as those kids coming home in caskets. Whereas if someone is regarded with prestige, and they're like, oh, we need to send your kid overseas, oh, absolutely, I mean, this guy's great. So that is a very healthy thing where people are skeptical of the state.

• 54:48Lex Fridman?

  But there's a lot of people that regard him as one of the greatest leaders we've ever had.

• 54:55Michael Malice?

  Yeah, Dinesh D'Souza, he's another Lincoln.

• 54:59Lex Fridman?

  I, when you talk shit about Trump, or talk shit about Biden, I think, I'm trying to find a line to walk where they don't immediately put you into the, this person has Trump derangement syndrome, or they have the other, the alternative to that.

• 55:16Michael Malice?

  I'm more than happy when people are preemptively dismissing me, because then I don't have to waste time engaging with them, because those people will be of no use to me. When I was on Tim Poole recently, Tim Poole's show, Tim Poole's known for his little, like, hat, I got a propeller beanie, motorized, and it was just spinning the whole two hours, you know, like a 1950s thing. The point being, I wore it because there's lots of people who would say, I can't take seriously someone who wears a hat like that. And my point being, if you are the kind of person who takes your cues based on someone's wardrobe, as opposed to the content of your ideas, you're of no use to me as an ally. So I'd be more than happy you preemptively abort, rather than waste our breath trying to change.

• 55:57Lex Fridman?

  This is the deep, this is a very, very deep thing that you and I disagree on, which is, this is goes to the trolling versus the love. Is I believe that person instinctually dismisses you on the very basic surface level.

• 56:12Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 56:12Lex Fridman?

  But deep down, there actually, there is a wealth of a human being that seeks the connection, to seeks to understand deeply, to connect with other humans that we should speak to.

• 56:26Michael Malice?

  I, I, yeah, you and I completely disagree.

• 56:29Lex Fridman?

  So you're saying.

• 56:31Michael Malice?

  I'm saying there's no mind there, literally.

• 56:33Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so let's, I, I naturally think the majority, so I naturally think the majority of people are, have the capacity to be thoughtful, intelligent, and, you know, learn about ideas, ideas that they instinctually, based on their own likes, current inner circle, disagree with and learn to understand, to empathize with the other, like, I, and in the current climate, there's a divisiveness that discourages that. And that's where I see the value of love, of, of encouraging people to, to, to strip away that surface instinctual response

• 57:18Lex Fridman?

  based on the thing they've been taught, based on the things they listen to, to actually think deeply.

• 57:23Michael Malice?

  Have you ever had, gone to CVS or Duane Reade, and your bill, how much you owe them is $6, and you give them a $10 bill and a single, and watch the look on their face? You watch them void their bowels and panic because you've given them $11 on a $6 bill? This is not a mind capable or interested in thoughts and ideas and learning.

• 57:45Lex Fridman?

  No, you're talking about the first moment of, a first moment where there's an opportunity to think.

• 57:53Michael Malice?

  They are desperate to avoid it.

• 57:56Lex Fridman?

  No, they're just, it's-

• 57:58Michael Malice?

  And incapable of it.

• 57:59Lex Fridman?

  I just, it's, they have the same exact experiences I have every single day. When I know it's time for me to go on a, on a run of five miles, or six miles, or 10 miles. I'm desperate to avoid it. And at the same time, I know I have the capacity to do it. And I'm deeply fulfilled when I do do it, when I do overcome that challenge.

• 58:21Michael Malice?

  You are one of the great minds of our generation. You are telling me that any of these people can do anything close to the work you do?

• 58:29Lex Fridman?

  Not in artificial intelligence, but in, in, inability to be compassionate towards other people's ideas, like understand them enough to be able-

• 58:41Michael Malice?

  Passion requires a certain baseline of intelligence. Cause you have to perceive other people as being different, but of value.

• 58:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 58:47Michael Malice?

  That's a sophisticated mindset.

• 58:50Lex Fridman?

  I think, I think most people are capable of it. You don't think so?

• 58:55Michael Malice?

  No, and nor are they interested in it.

• 58:58Lex Fridman?

  But in that kinda, if you don't believe they're capable of it, how can anarchy be stable?

• 59:06Michael Malice?

  If you have a farm, there's one farmer and 50 cows, it's very stable. You're just not, you're not asking the cows where to, where to farm things.

• 59:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but the cows aren't intelligent enough to do damage.

• 59:20Michael Malice?

  Cows, cows certainly, bulls, cause they could do a lot of damage. They could trample things, they could attack you. Cows are like, how much do they weigh, like 4,000 pounds?

• 59:28Lex Fridman?

  Can you connect the analogy then? Because like-

• 59:30Michael Malice?

  Sure, you can't expect that-

• 59:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 59:32Michael Malice?

  Saying a cow's a cow, isn't a slur. It's not saying you hate cows, cows, or even, let's take, the example I always use, with good reason, is dogs. Okay? I always say to study how human beings operate, watch Cesar Millan. Cause human beings and dogs have co-evolved. Our minds have both evolved in parallel tracks to communicate with each other. Dogs are, can be vicious. Dogs, for the most part, are great, wonderful. But you can't expect the dog to understand certain concepts. It's not an instinct, and now most people are offended, are you saying I'm like a dog? If you're a dog- Like I am, this is actually a huge compliment. Most dogs are better than most people.

• 1:00:11Michael Malice?

  But to get the idea that this is something that is basically your peer is nonsensical. Now, of course, this sounds arrogant and elitist and so on and so forth, and I'm perfectly happy with that. But it is very hard to persuade me or anyone that if you walk, George Carlin has that joke. Think how smart the average person is, then realize 50% of people are dumber than that. If you walk around and see who's out there, these people are very kind. They are of value. They they reserved to be treated with respect. They deserve to be secure in their person. They deserve to feel safe and to have love. But the expectation that they should have any sort of semblance of power over me or my life is as nonsensical as asking Lassie to be my accountant.

• 1:00:55Lex Fridman?

  So but that goes to power, that not to the ability, the capacity to be empathetic, compassionate, intelligent. What if I were to try to prove you wrong?

• 1:01:07Michael Malice?

  That's a good question. Okay.

• 1:01:09Lex Fridman?

  What would what would what would you be impressed by about society?

• 1:01:15Lex Fridman?

  Well, how would I show it to you?

• 1:01:17Michael Malice?

  That's a good question. How would you show it to me? Because I think something has to be falsifiable if you're going to make a claim, right? So what would it? What would it?

• 1:01:25Lex Fridman?

  Because we both made claims that are a kind of our own like interpretation based on our interaction. Like when I opened Twitter, everyone seems to say.

• 1:01:34Michael Malice?

  Why do you only follow one person? Who do you follow? Who's the one person you follow?

• 1:01:38Lex Fridman?

  Stoic Emperor. I follow a lot of people. I have a script. I have a script that.

• 1:01:45Lex Fridman?

  I have an entire interface. So I I think Twitter is really.

• 1:01:50Michael Malice?

  This is real love. It's not ironic love. I love watching, and I'm sure you do too. I love watching a quality mind at work because when someone has a quality mind, they're often not self aware. I catch this on myself of how it operates. And then when other people see it, they're like, oh, my God, this is so beautiful. Because there's such an innocence to it.

• 1:02:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but like when I opened Twitter, I'm energized. There's a lot of love on Twitter. People say like.

• 1:02:15Michael Malice?

  I love to. I agree. I have. You don't think I have a lot of love on Twitter? My fans pay my rent.

• 1:02:20Lex Fridman?

  I mean, I don't know your experience of Twitter, but when I look at your, which is fundamentally different thing. I'm saying my experience from the, so maybe you can tell me what your experience is like as a human. So when I observe your Twitter, I think.

• 1:02:36Lex Fridman?

  I I don't I wouldn't call it love. I would call it fun.

• 1:02:41Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:02:42Lex Fridman?

  A- a- and because of that. That's a different kind of that like love emerges from that. Because people kind of learn. That we're having, this is like game night, like.

• 1:02:53Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:02:54Lex Fridman?

  Uh, you know, we're, we can talk shit a little bit. We can, uh, and you can, you can even like pull in. You can make fun of people, you can have the crazy uncle come over that, um. Is a huge Trump supporter or somebody who hates Trump and you can have a little fun.

• 1:03:10Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:03:10Lex Fridman?

  Again, it's a different kind of thing. I, I wouldn't be able to, um. Uh, be the, you're the host of game night.

• 1:03:18Michael Malice?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:03:18Lex Fridman?

  So I wouldn't be able to host that kind of game night.

• 1:03:21Michael Malice?

  I'm imagining you programming your robots and you're asking, what is fun? And it just starts sparking.

• 1:03:27Lex Fridman?

  Exactly.

• 1:03:28Michael Malice?

  What is fun?

• 1:03:31Lex Fridman?

  So the robots in my life that survive are the ones that. That don't. That like survive that whole programming, uh, process. So they're kind of like, they're kind of like the idiot from Dostoevsky. They're very like simple minded robots.

• 1:03:48Michael Malice?

  Fun is moving a can from one table to another.

• 1:03:51Lex Fridman?

  That's game night for, for, for our kin.

• 1:03:54Michael Malice?

  You know what one of my quotes is, and I, I, I think about this every day and I mean it with every fiber of my being. Uh, we're born knowing that life is a magical adventure and it takes them years to train us to think otherwise. And I think that Willy Wonka approach, it's a very Camus approach. It's something I believe with every fiber of my being. I try to spread that as much as possible. I think it is very sad. I'm not being sarcastic. I, this, it comes off as condescending. I mean it at face value. It's very sad how many people are not receptive to that. And I think a lot of those function how they were raised. And I, I could have very easily with my upbringing have not. Maintain that perspective. And there's a lot of, I have a lot of friends in recovery, like AA.

• 1:04:36Michael Malice?

  And they have an expression, not my circus, not my monkeys, right? That you can't really take on other people's problems on your own. At a certain point, they have to do the work themselves because you can only do so much externally. And there are a lot of very damaged people out there. And there are damaged people who revel in being damaged. And they are damaged people who desperately, desperately, desperately want to be well, who desperately want to be happy, who desperately want to find joy. So if I can be the one, and as arrogant as this sounds, I'll own it, who does give them that fun. And to tell them, it doesn't have to be like you thought. Like, it could be, it's gonna hurt, it's gonna suck, but it's still a magical adventure and you're gonna be okay because you've been through worse.

• 1:05:19Michael Malice?

  Like, that, if that could be my message, I would own it all day long.

• 1:05:24Lex Fridman?

  And so what does adventure look like for you? Because, I mean, it actually boils down to, I still disagree with you. I think trolling can, can be, and very often is destructive for society.

• 1:05:35Michael Malice?

  You, yes, I want to destroy society. That is the goal.

• 1:05:40Michael Malice?

  I want, I want to help many people.

• 1:05:41Lex Fridman?

  Unironically, okay.

• 1:05:43Michael Malice?

  Unironically, yes.

• 1:05:46Lex Fridman?

  What do I do with that? Okay, so.

• 1:05:48Michael Malice?

  Whatever you want. Do what thou wilt is the hall of the law.

• 1:05:51Lex Fridman?

  Like, I just want to, so you're hosting game night and I just want to play Monopoly. I want to play, what's it, Risk? Okay, I want to play these games and you're saying.

• 1:06:00Michael Malice?

  Those are aggressive games.

• 1:06:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I was trying to think like of a friendlier game, but they're all kind of aggressive.

• 1:06:06Michael Malice?

  Battleship. Axis and Allies, you know, fun stuff.

• 1:06:12Lex Fridman?

  But like, so that's an adventure, but you're saying that we want to destroy everything, even like, the rules of those games are not like.

• 1:06:22Michael Malice?

  You voluntarily agree to those rules. The point is, if someone comes in who's not, who no one invited to game night and are telling you, no, when you play Monopoly, you have to get money when you land in free parking, or you don't. It's like, who are you? We're having our own fun and you smell.

• 1:06:40Lex Fridman?

  I don't know, but there's an aggressive.

• 1:06:44Michael Malice?

  There's an aggression. Let me, let me speak to that, which I think you're picking up on. I had a friend named Martha, Marsha, excuse me. She ran something called cuddle parties, which people laughed at about a lot back in the day. And the premise of the cuddle parties, everyone got together and cuddled, right? And it's like, ah, ha, ha. Then you stop to think about it and you realize, uh, physical contact's extremely important and a lot of people don't have it. And if this is a mechanism, people getting that, it actually is going to have profound, positive psychological consequences. So after she explained it, I'm like, okay, we laughed at this because it's weird. And now that I think about it, this is wonderful. And, and I asked her about like, like the tough question. I go, what if guys get turned on? And on their website, it's even has a rule like, do not fear the erection, right? Because it's going to be a natural consequence of physical proximity. And the point she goes, she, she said this, I think about this all the time. People will take as much space as you let them.

• 1:07:29Michael Malice?

  It is incumbent on each of us to set our own boundaries. We all have to learn when to say, no, you're making me uncomfortable. If someone doesn't respect your right to have your boundary to be uncomfortable, this person is not your friend. Now, they can say, I don't understand. Like, why is this okay? Why is that not? Let me know you better. So I'm respectful of you. But if they roll their eyes and they're like, get over, I'm going to do what I want. This person is not interested in knowing you're a human being.

• 1:07:58Michael Malice?

  And that is the aggression. It is, you have to draw those lines.

• 1:08:02Lex Fridman?

  I mean, but that's a very positive way of phrasing that aggression.

• 1:08:06Michael Malice?

  I'm a very positive person.

• 1:08:08Lex Fridman?

  But the trolling, there's a destructive thing to it.

• 1:08:11Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:08:11Lex Fridman?

  That hurts others.

• 1:08:13Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:08:13Lex Fridman?

  But it's not bad people.

• 1:08:16Michael Malice?

  I, I only troll as a reaction or towards those in power.

• 1:08:19Lex Fridman?

  Okay. So maybe let's talk about trolling a little bit because trolling, when it can, maybe you can correct me, but I've seen it become a game for people that's enjoyable in itself.

• 1:08:32Michael Malice?

  I, I'm not, I'm not, I, I disagree with that. That's not a good thing. If you are there just to hurt innocent people, you are a horrible human being.

• 1:08:42Lex Fridman?

  But doesn't trolling too easily become that?

• 1:08:45Michael Malice?

  Uh, I don't know about easily. Let me give you an example of the, of where trolling came from. The original troll was Andy Kaufman. He was on the show Taxi. He was a stand, he was a performance artist, not a stand up comedian. And this is a quintessential example of trolling. He had a character, um, where he was basically like a lounge singer. He had these glasses on, uh, and just a terrible, a terrible singer and so on and so forth. And he denied it was him. And he came out and I'm blanking on the guy's name. I can't believe it. Tony Clifton.

• 1:09:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Michael Malice?

  He came out in the audience and he goes, you know, my wife died a few years ago. Every time I look at my daughter Sarah's eyes, I can see my wife. Sarah, come out here. Let's do a duet. And Sarah was like 11, sits on his lap. They start singing duet. Her voice cracks. He smacks her across the face. What the hell are you doing? You're making ass out of me in front of these people. They're, they're, she starts crying. The audience is booing and goes, don't boo her. You're just gonna make her cry more. Now, it ends. This wasn't his daughter. It wasn't even a child. It was an actress. This was all set up. He's exploiting their love of children in order to force them to be performers. That is trolling. No one is actually getting hurt. It's a humorous, though twisted exchange.

• 1:09:57Michael Malice?

  If you go online looking for weak people and you are there to denigrate them just for them being weak or in some way inferior to you, that is the wrong approach. I am best on the counterpunch. A lot of times people come to me and they'll be like, I hope you die. You're ugly. You're disgusting. And there's this great quote from Billy Idol, which I'm gonna mangle where he has something to say. I love it when people are rude to me, then I can stop pretending to be nice. Then you start fights. Now it's a chance for me to finish it and make an example of this person. But that's very, very different from, I'm gonna go around and humiliate people for the sake of doing it, in my view. And I can see how one would lead to the other.

• 1:10:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but that's my fundamental concern with it. So I, my dream is to put, use technology, create platforms that increase the amount of love in the world. And to me, trolling is doing the opposite. So, like Andy Kaufman is brilliant. So I love, obviously, it sounds like I'm a robot thing. I love humor, okay? Humor is good.

• 1:11:09Michael Malice?

  11101111.

• 1:11:12Lex Fridman?

  But like, it's, I just see like 4chan, I see that, you can often see that humor quickly turn.

• 1:11:20Michael Malice?

  Yeah, because what happens is a lot of low status people, this is their one mechanism through sadism, to feel empowered and then they can hide behind, well, I'm just joking.

• 1:11:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, like there's this dark thing.

• 1:11:32Michael Malice?

  Yeah, that's not acceptable.

• 1:11:33Lex Fridman?

  There's a dark LOL that people do, which is like they'll say like the shittiest thing.

• 1:11:40Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 1:11:40Lex Fridman?

  And then do LOL after, like as if, I don't, I don't even know like what is happening in the dark mind of yours.

• 1:11:48Michael Malice?

  Because they are feeling powerless in their lives.

• 1:11:51Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 1:11:51Michael Malice?

  And they see someone who they perceive as higher status or more powerful than them, or even not appear. And they, through their words, cause a reaction in this person so they feel like they are in a very little sense, making a difference on earth. And they matter in a very dark way. Uh, it's, it's disturbing. This is not, I mean, it's unfortunate that that term trolling is used for that. As opposed to what Andy Kaufman does, as opposed to what I do. Um, it's, it really is a sinister thing. And it's something I'm not at all a fan of.

• 1:12:22Lex Fridman?

  How do we, how do we fight that? So like a, a neighboring concept of that is conspiracy theories, which is.

• 1:12:31Michael Malice?

  I don't think they're neighboring at all.

• 1:12:32Lex Fridman?

  I, well, let me, let me give my sort of naive perspective, maybe you can educate me on this. From my perspective, conspiracy theories are these constructs of ideas that go deeper and deeper and deeper into, uh, creating worlds where there's, uh, powerful pedophiles controlling things. Like these, uh, very sophisticated models of the world.

• 1:13:02Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:03Lex Fridman?

  That, you know, in part might be true, but in large part, I would say are, are figments of imagination that become really useful constructs.

• 1:13:13Michael Malice?

  And self reinforcing.

• 1:13:14Lex Fridman?

  Self reinforcing for then feeding, like empowering the trolls to attack the, uh, powerful, the conventionally powerful.

• 1:13:26Michael Malice?

  I, I don't think that that's a function of conspiracy theories. Now let's talk about conspiracy theories because one of my quotes is you take one red pill, not the whole bottle. This concept that everything in life is at the function of a small cadre of individuals.

• 1:13:41Michael Malice?

  Would be for many people reassuring because as bad as it looks, you know, they, whoever they are, it's usually the Jews, aren't going to let it get that bad, that they will pull back. Or the the black pill is that they aren't intentionally trying to destroy everything and there's nothing we can do and we're doomed. And there's an amazing book by Arthur Herman called The Idea of the Clean Western History. It's one of my top 10 books where he goes through every 20 years, how there's a different population that say, it's the end of the world, here's the proof. And very often, the proof is something that is kind of self fulfilling, where there's no, it's not falsifiable. And we both have to think of ways to falsify our claims from earlier. Yeah.

• 1:14:20Michael Malice?

  So it is a big danger. It's a big danger online because very quickly, if someone who you thought was good, but now is bad on one aspect, well, they're controlled opposition, or they've been taken over, or they've been kind of appropriated by the bad people, whoever those bad people would be. I don't know that I have a good answer for this. I don't think it's as pervasive as people think. The number of people who believe conspiracy theory? Right. The, I mean, and also conspiracy theory is a term used to dismiss ideas that have some currency. The Constitutional Convention was a conspiracy. The founding fathers got together secretly, under a word of secrecy in Philadelphia, said, we're throwing out the Arctic Confederation, we're making a new government, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

• 1:15:04Michael Malice?

  Luther Martin left and he told everyone, this is a conspiracy. And they're like, yeah, whatever Luther Martin. So, and Jeffrey Epstein was a conspiracy, Harvey Weinstein was a conspiracy, Bill Cosby was a conspiracy. They all knew. They didn't care. Communist infiltration in America, there's a great book by Eugene Lyons called The Red Decade. They all knew, they, every atrocity that was done under Stalinism was excused in the West. And if you didn't believe it, oh, you've got this crazy anti Russia conspiracy. So it's a term that is weaponized in a negative sense, but that does not all imply that it does not have very negative real life consequences because it's kind of a cult of one, right? Like, I'm at home at my computer, I bend to this ideology. Anyone who doesn't agree

• 1:15:48Michael Malice?

  with me, they are blind, they're oblivious, mom and dad, my friends, you don't get it. We were warned about people like you and I think there's a very heavy correlation, and I'm not a psychiatrist, of course, between that and certain types of mild-melt illness, like, you know, some kind of paranoid schizophrenia or things like that, because after a certain point, if everything is a function of this conspiracy, it's, there's no randomness or beauty in life.

• 1:16:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I mean, I don't know if you can say anything interesting about it in the way of advice of how to take a step into conspiracy theory world without completely going, like diving deep, because it seems like that's what happens. People can't look at Jeffrey Epstein.

• 1:16:33Michael Malice?

  I can tell you the advice I'd have.

• 1:16:35Lex Fridman?

  Seriously and rigorously, without going, because you can look at Jeffrey Epstein and say there's a deeper thing. You can always go deeper.

• 1:16:44Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 1:16:45Lex Fridman?

  It's like Jeffrey Epstein was just a tool of the lizard people, and the lizard people are the.

• 1:16:51Michael Malice?

  Well, they say Satanists in this case.

• 1:16:55Lex Fridman?

  And somehow recently very popular, it's pedophiles somehow always involved. I'm not understanding any of that. I legitimately, I say this both humorously and seriously, I need to look into it. And I guess the bigger question I'm asking, how does a serious human being, somebody with a position at a respectable university, like, look at a conspiracy theory and look into it? When I look at somebody like Jeffrey Epstein, who had a role at MIT.

• 1:17:24Michael Malice?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 1:17:25Lex Fridman?

  And I, and I think, I'm not happy personally, I didn't, I wasn't there when Jeffrey Epstein was there. I'm not happy with the behavior of people now about Jeffrey Epstein, about the bureaucracy and the, everybody's trying to keep quiet, hoping it blows over, without really looking into any, like, looking in a. Deep philosophical way of like, how do we let this human being be among us?

• 1:17:55Michael Malice?

  Can I give you a better example?

• 1:17:56Lex Fridman?

  Sure.

• 1:17:56Michael Malice?

  That is kind of conspiratorial. The Speaker of the House, the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, was a pedophile. He went to jail. The Democrats don't throw this in the Republicans' faces every five minutes. Not even Democratic activists. I find that very, very odd and not what I would predict. Now, I'm not saying there's some kind of conspiracy, but when it comes to things like sexual predation, which is something that I'm very, very concerned about. I'm an uncle now. My sister just had her second kid recently. He's adorable. It's something that I don't understand. It feels as if there's a lot of people who want this to all go away. Now, I think it's also because we don't have the vocabulary and framework to discuss it.

• 1:18:41Michael Malice?

  Because when you start talking about things like children and these kind of issues, we want to believe it's all crap. Because it's for those of us who aren't in this kind of mindset, the idea that this happens to kids and happens frequently is something so horrible.

• 1:18:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:53Michael Malice?

  That we, it's just like, I don't even want to hear it. And that does these children and adult survivors an enormous disservice. So I don't know that I have any particular insight on this.

• 1:19:02Lex Fridman?

  But see, like, how do you, I mean, the Catholic Church, again, there's all these topics that...

• 1:19:08Michael Malice?

  Public school teachers are far more proportionally predators of children than the Catholic Church.

• 1:19:13Lex Fridman?

  Man, I don't know what, you're right, you're right. Perhaps I'm, I've been, you know, reading a lot about Stalin and Hitler.

• 1:19:21Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:22Lex Fridman?

  Somehow it's more comforting.

• 1:19:24Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:24Lex Fridman?

  Like to be able to...

• 1:19:25Michael Malice?

  And then.

• 1:19:25Lex Fridman?

  And then, and then the atrocities that are happening now, it's a little bit more difficult.

• 1:19:31Michael Malice?

  There was a New York Times article, sorry to interrupt you, where they had people tracking down child pornography. And I think the article said they didn't have enough people just to cover the videotapes of infants being raped. And we can even wrap our heads around like reading Lolita, like, okay, she's 14, 12. Okay, it's still a female, an infant. It's something that, again, like with the Stalin example, we sat down here for 100 years. We would never think of something like this, think of it as sexual context. It makes no sense.

• 1:19:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:57Michael Malice?

  So, and the fact that this is international, okay, we eliminated completely in America. Well, then they're gonna go find, there's infants all over the world. There's video cameras all over the world. So then it has to become a conspiracy because I, someone has to film it. I'm filming it, you're buying it, your kid. It is literally a conspiratorial, not in the sense of like a mafia conspiracy or some government illuminati. But there is our networks designed to produce this product.

• 1:20:25Lex Fridman?

  See, but like what I'm, I'm trying to do now, I mean, part of the, one of the nice things with like a podcast and other things I'm involved with is removing myself from having any kind of boss so I can do whatever.

• 1:20:38Michael Malice?

  Yes, it's, oh, it's so, it's so wonderful. That just happened to me. It's, it's, it's the most wonderful thing ever.

• 1:20:43Lex Fridman?

  So I could do, I can actually in moderation, consider like look into stuff.

• 1:20:49Michael Malice?

  Careful though, I was gonna write a book about this and people pointed out, you sure wanna do this research? Cause if you start Googling around for this kind of stuff, it's on your computer.

• 1:20:57Lex Fridman?

  Oh, in that sense?

• 1:20:58Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:59Lex Fridman?

  I'm more concerned about, you know, it's the Nietzsche thing, looking into the abyss. Like, you wanna be very, I believe I can do this kind of thing in moderation without slipping into

• 1:21:09Michael Malice?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:21:09Lex Fridman?

  Into the depths.

• 1:21:10Michael Malice?

  Of course.

• 1:21:10Lex Fridman?

  I think that's, that's intelligence, that's, like, I recently quote unquote, looked into like the UFO community, the extraterrestrial, whatever, whatever community. I think it always frustrated me that the scientific community like rolled their eyes at all the UFO sightings, all that kind of stuff, even though there could be fascinating, beautiful, physical, like, first of all, there could

• 1:21:36Michael Malice?

  Like ball lightning.

• 1:21:37Lex Fridman?

  The ball lightning, right. That's at the very basic level is a fascinating thing. And also. It could be something like, I mean, I don't know, but it could be something interesting, like worth looking into.

• 1:21:53Michael Malice?

  My grandfather was an air traffic controller back in the Soviet Union. And he said, we saw this stuff all the time. These are planes that were not moving or whatever things that were not moving according to anything we knew about. So it's absolutely real. He's not some jerk with an iPhone in his backyard. This is a military professional who understood technology, who knew where the secret bases were. So if he's telling me it's some, doesn't mean it's Martians, but he's telling me there's something there. And there are many examples of these like military people. These aren't some layman who sees a store.

• 1:22:24Lex Fridman?

  These are legit people.

• 1:22:25Michael Malice?

  Yeah. And, and so it's you, you can dismiss, when you're talking about professionals who are around aircraft all the time, who are familiar with aircraft at the highest levels, and they're seeing things that they can't explain, it's, they're clearly not stupid and they're clearly not under formed.

• 1:22:38Lex Fridman?

  So Mike, there's different ways to dismiss that. For example, I, I'm, you were saying that trolling is a good mechanism. I'm against that, but I'm not dismissing it by like rolling my eyes. I'm considering legitimately that you're way smarter than me and you understand the world better than me. Like I'm allowing myself to consider that possibility and thinking about it like, maybe, maybe that's true, like seriously considering it. That's what, that's, I feel the way people should approach intelligent people, serious quote unquote, people, scientists should approach conspiracy theories like, look at it carefully, you know, is, first of all, is it possible that the earth is flat? It's not trivial to show that the earth is not flat.

• 1:23:23Lex Fridman?

  It's a very good exercise. You should go through it.

• 1:23:25Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:23:26Lex Fridman?

  But once you go through it, you realize that the, based on a lot of data and a lot of evidence, and there's a lot of different experiments you could do yourself, actually, to show that the earth is not flat. Okay. The same kind of process can be taken for a lot of different conspiracy theories and it's helpful. And without slipping into the depths of, of lizard people running everything. That's where I, I've now listened to two episodes of, of Alex Jones's show because he goes crazy deep into.

• 1:24:06Lex Fridman?

  Into different kind of worldviews that I was not familiar with.

• 1:24:09Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 1:24:10Lex Fridman?

  And I don't know what to make of it. I mean, the reason I've been listening to it is because there's been a lot of discussions about platforming of different people.

• 1:24:18Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:19Lex Fridman?

  And I've been thinking about what does censorship mean? I've been thinking about whether, because Joe Rogan said he's gonna have Alex on again. And then I enjoyed it as a fan, just the entertainment of it. But then I actually listened to Alex. And I was thinking, is this human being dangerous for the world? Like, is the ideas he's saying dangerous for the world?

• 1:24:46Michael Malice?

  I'm more concerned with the Russian conspiracy that we had for three years. And the claim that our election was not legitimate and that everyone in the Trump White House is a stooge of Putin. And the people who said this had no consequences for this. Alex Jones doesn't have the respect that they do. These are both areas of concern for me.

• 1:25:03Lex Fridman?

  But he might, if there's, if he's given more platform. So like, the people who've, and I'd be curious, I'm also a little bit, I don't know what to think about the idea that Russians hacked the election. It seems too easily accepted in the mainstream media.

• 1:25:21Michael Malice?

  Hillary Clinton said that how they did it was they had ads on the dark web. Now, you and I both know what the dark web is. So the possibility of ads on the dark web having an influence, a proportional influence on the election is literally zero.

• 1:25:39Lex Fridman?

  Perhaps I should look into it more carefully, but I've found very little good data on exactly what did the Russians do to hack elections? Like, technically speaking, what are we talking about here? Like, as opposed to these kind of weird, like, the best thing, there's a couple of books and like, reporting on like, farms.

• 1:26:00Michael Malice?

  Troll farms, yeah.

• 1:26:01Lex Fridman?

  Troll farms. But let's see the data, like, how many exactly? What are we talking about? Like, what were they doing? Relat- not just like some anecdotal discussions of, but like, relative to the bigger, the size of Facebook. Like, if there's a few people, several hundred, say, the posting different political things on Facebook, relative to the full size of Facebook, let's look at the full size.

• 1:26:32Michael Malice?

  Right, you're thinking like a scientist.

• 1:26:34Lex Fridman?

  The actual impact, like, because it's fascinating, the social dynamics of viral information, of videos, when Donald Trump retweets something, I think that's understudied, the effect of that.

• 1:26:49Lex Fridman?

  Like, he retweeted a clip with Joe Rogan and Mike Tyson, where Mike Tyson says that he finds fighting orgasmic. I don't understand that, but it'd be fascinating to think, like, what is the ripple effect on the social dynamic of our society from retweeting a clip about Mike Ty-

• 1:27:10Michael Malice?

  What's your favorite Joe Rog- um, Trump tweet?

• 1:27:14Lex Fridman?

  I, I tuned him out a long time ago, unfortunately. I, I have, um, it's, this goes to the, you and I have a different relationship with Donald Trump. You appreciate the art form of trolling.

• 1:27:28Michael Malice?

  Versus non-sexual.

• 1:27:29Lex Fridman?

  Non-sexual, yeah. So, I tend to prefer Bill Clinton, he's more my type. No, I'm just kidding, I don't know.

• 1:27:38Michael Malice?

  You don't like that consent stuff?

• 1:27:39Lex Fridman?

  No, because, no. No, you appreciate the art form of trolling, and Donald Trump is, is a master. He's the Da Vinci of trolling. So, I tend to think that trolling is ultimately destructive for society, and then Donald Trump takes nothing seriously. He's playing a game, he's making a game out of everything.

• 1:28:01Michael Malice?

  Takes a lot of things seriously. I think he's very committed to international peace.

• 1:28:05Lex Fridman?

  Sorry, I shouldn't speak so strongly. I think, I think he takes, actually, yes, a lot of things seriously. I meant, on Twitter and the game of politics.

• 1:28:16Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:17Lex Fridman?

  He is, um- He only takes.

• 1:28:20Michael Malice?

  Irreverently.

• 1:28:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:22Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:22Lex Fridman?

  And I appreciate it. I just would like to focus on like genuine, real expressions of humanity, especially positive.

• 1:28:35Michael Malice?

  Well, this is one, this is my favorite tweet. My fans got it laser etched and put in a block of loose sight for me. And he said, every time I speak of the losers and haters, I do so with great affection. They cannot help the fact that they were born fucked up. That's an actual Trump tweet. It's my favorite one.

• 1:28:54Lex Fridman?

  And that's kind of nice.

• 1:28:55Michael Malice?

  And that's love.

• 1:28:56Lex Fridman?

  That's love. That's kind of nice.

• 1:28:58Michael Malice?

  Great affection.

• 1:28:59Lex Fridman?

  That, I mean.

• 1:29:02Michael Malice?

  Exclamation point.

• 1:29:04Lex Fridman?

  Even.

• 1:29:07Michael Malice?

  Um. I broke Lex. What is love?

• 1:29:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, the sparks are flying, but I have to kind of analyze that from like a literary perspective. But it seems like there's love in there like a little bit. It's a little bit lighthearted.

• 1:29:24Michael Malice?

  Cause he's saying, even when I'm going after them, don't take it so seriously.

• 1:29:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's, that's nice.

• 1:29:29Michael Malice?

  It is nice.

• 1:29:29Lex Fridman?

  That's acknowledging the game of it.

• 1:29:31Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:29:31Lex Fridman?

  That's nice. Uh, he's not always.

• 1:29:34Michael Malice?

  Some things he's very, very vicious.

• 1:29:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:36Michael Malice?

  Very vicious. He's done things that I, I can tell you about that I'm like, this is a bad person.

• 1:29:42Lex Fridman?

  What do you think about one of the, okay, listen, I'm not, I, for people listening, I do not have Trump derangement syndrome. I'm, I don't, I see, I try to look for the good and the bad in everybody. One thing, perhaps it's irrational, but perhaps because I've been reading history. I, the one triggering thing for me is the delaying of elections. I believe in elections and this is, this is the part that you probably disagree with. But I, you know, I believe in the value of people voting. And I just seen too many dictators, the, the place where they finally, the big switch happens.

• 1:30:27Lex Fridman?

  When you question the legitimacy of elections.

• 1:30:31Michael Malice?

  Who's been questioning the legitimacy of elections for the last three years?

• 1:30:34Lex Fridman?

  I've only heard Donald Trump do it last like year, but the last three years you're saying somebody else?

• 1:30:39Michael Malice?

  You don't think, not my president, illegitimate, we're not gonna normalize him as president, Russia hacked this election, impeached, you're not a real president, you don't think that's questioning legitimacy of 2016?

• 1:30:50Lex Fridman?

  Nah, it's a good, I haven't been paying attention enough, but I would, I would imagine that argument has been, that, I haven't actually heard too many people, but I imagine that's been a popular thing to say. Okay, I, but nevertheless, that's a part, that didn't, that's not a statement that gained power enough to say that Barack Obama will keep being president, or Hillary Clinton should be president.

• 1:31:21Michael Malice?

  Newsweek had that article, how Hillary Clinton could still be president, Newsweek.

• 1:31:25Lex Fridman?

  No, but she's not, that's what I'm saying, my worry isn't, my worry isn't saying that the election was illegitimate, and people whining, and mass scale, and then Fox News or CNN reporting for years, or books being written for years, my worry is legitimately martial law, a person stays president.

• 1:31:49Michael Malice?

  So here's the issue.

• 1:31:50Lex Fridman?

  Like, there's a, there's a fate shift that happens in a dictatorship.

• 1:31:53Michael Malice?

  I did a book on North Korea, I'm not someone who thinks dictatorship should be taken lightly, I'm not someone who thinks it can't happen here, I think a lot of times people are desperate for dictatorship, so I am with you, and I think this is something, if you're gonna hand wave it away, everyone else hand waved it away, Hitler's never gonna be chancellor, he's a lunatic, oh please.

• 1:32:12Lex Fridman?

  He's a joke.

• 1:32:12Michael Malice?

  He's a joke, they couldn't find a publisher for Mein Kampf in English, because this is some guy from some random minor party in Germany spouting nonsense, who's gonna read this crap, you know, so I completely agree with you in that regard.

• 1:32:24Lex Fridman?

  You don't think we're there?

• 1:32:25Michael Malice?

  My point is, Donald Trump this year had every pathway open to him to declare martial law, the cities were being burnt down, he could have very easily sent in the tanks, and people would have been applauding him from his side.

• 1:32:40Lex Fridman?

  You're making me feel so good right now.

• 1:32:41Michael Malice?

  But am I wrong, though?

• 1:32:42Lex Fridman?

  No, I, I-

• 1:32:43Michael Malice?

  And what he did, he tweeted out to Mayor Wheeler of Portland, he said, "Call me?" We will, we will solve this in minutes, but you have to call. And he sat on his hands and they said, oh, it's his fault. The city is burning down. He's not doing anything. And he goes, I'm not doing anything until you ask me to do it. So I think that is, even if you think he's an aspiring dictator, that is at least a sign that there is some restraint on his aspirations.

• 1:33:14Lex Fridman?

  Can I just take that in as a beautiful, um, like moment of hope? So I'm, I'm, I'm gonna remember this moment.

• 1:33:22Michael Malice?

  Beautiful Ted Cruz, beautiful Ted.

• 1:33:24Lex Fridman?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna remember that. I mean, um, I, I should say that perhaps I'm irrationally. This is the one moment where I feel myself being a little unhealthy.

• 1:33:35Michael Malice?

  I don't think you're irrational. I think there's an asymmetry because it's kind of like, okay, either I, if I leave the house, it's like Russian roulette. Yeah, maybe it's like a one in six shot. I'm pulling the trigger, I'm killing myself, but that's one in six. That's not, and, and the consequences are so dire that a little paranoia would go a long way.

• 1:33:53Lex Fridman?

  There's something that.

• 1:33:53Michael Malice?

  But you can't go back.

• 1:33:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:55Michael Malice?

  It's an asymmetry, yeah.

• 1:33:57Lex Fridman?

  And the, the thing is, the thing that makes Donald Trump new to me. And again, I'm a little naive in these things, but he surprised me in how many ways he just didn't play by the rules.

• 1:34:15Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:16Lex Fridman?

  And he's made me a little ant in this ant colony. Think like, well, do you have to play by the rules at all?

• 1:34:25Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 1:34:26Lex Fridman?

  Like, why are we having elections? Why just say, like, it's coronavirus time? Like, it's, it's, uh, not healthy to have elections. Like, we shouldn't be, like, I could, if I put my dictator hat on.

• 1:34:40Michael Malice?

  Nancy Pelosi said that Joe Biden shouldn't debate.

• 1:34:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, did she?

• 1:34:45Michael Malice?

  Yes, she says she shouldn't dignify Trump with a debate. He's the president. He could be the worst president on earth, evil, despicable monster. I'll, I'll take that as an argument.

• 1:34:53Lex Fridman?

  So she's playing politics, but she's.

• 1:34:54Michael Malice?

  I don't think that's playing politics. I think when, there's a certain point where things, when things get, when you start attacking institutions for the emergencies at the moment and acting arbitrarily, that is when things are the slippery slope.

• 1:35:07Lex Fridman?

  Yep, so you're saying debates is one of the institutions, like that's one of the traditions to have the debates.

• 1:35:12Michael Malice?

  I think the debates are extremely important. Uh, now, I don't think that someone's a good debater is gonna make a good president. I mean, that's, that's a big problem.

• 1:35:19Lex Fridman?

  But you're just saying this is attacking just yet another tradition, yet another.

• 1:35:23Michael Malice?

  You know, like how if you're dating, if you're married to someone and someone throws out the word divorce, you can't unring that bell, you threw it out there.

• 1:35:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:29Michael Malice?

  I'm saying you don't throw things out like that unless you really are ready to go down this road. And I think that is, there's nothing in the constitution about debates. We've only had them since 1980, but still, I think they are extremely important. It's also a great chance for Joe Biden to tell him to his face, you're full of crap. Here's what you did, here's what you did, here's what you did.

• 1:35:48Lex Fridman?

  So fascinating that you're both, you acknowledge that and yet you also see the value of tearing down the entire thing. So you're both worried about no debates, or at least in your voice, in your tone.

• 1:36:02Michael Malice?

  There's a great quote by Chesterton. I'm not a fan of him at all, but he says, before you tear down a fence, make sure you know why they put it up first. So I am for tearing it all down, but there's something called like controlled demolition, like building seven. Um, or there's.

• 1:36:17Lex Fridman?

  Allegedly.

• 1:36:20Michael Malice?

  We knew we were in Tel Aviv, um, and.

• 1:36:23Lex Fridman?

  Hashtag building seven. We knew we were in Tel Aviv. Wow, you're faster than me. You're, you're operating in a different level. I need to upgrade my operating system. I told you Windows 95. Yeah.

• 1:36:39Michael Malice?

  But the thing is, if you're gonna, it's like Indiana Jones, right? If you're gonna tear, pull something away, make sure you have something in place first, as opposed to just breaking it and then just, especially in politics, it, because it escalates. And when things escalate without any kind of response, it, it can go in a very bad, that's when Napoleon comes in.

• 1:36:58Lex Fridman?

  So what's your prediction about the Biden-Trump debates? Again, I just have this weird, maybe we'll return to, maybe not, in this, how do we put more love into the world? And like, one of the things that worries me about the debates is it'll be, it'll be the world's greatest troll against the grandpa on the porch.

• 1:37:27Michael Malice?

  Who crapped his pants.

• 1:37:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. And it'll, it will not put more love into the world. It will, it will create more mockery, like.

• 1:37:37Michael Malice?

  Joe Biden did a great job against Paul Ryan in 2012. Paul Ryan was no lightweight, no one thought he was a lightweight. Joe Biden handed Sarah Palin her ass in 2008, which isn't as easy to do as you think because she's a female, so you're gonna come off as bullying, that's something you have to worry about. So the guy isn't, I think he is in the stages of like cognitive decline. So I think it's going to be interesting. I want it to be like Mike Tyson beating up a child, because it'll be a source of amusement to me, but I don't know how it's gonna go.

• 1:38:13Lex Fridman?

  Is it possible that Joe Biden will be the Mike Tyson?

• 1:38:16Michael Malice?

  Yes, because in his last debate with Bernie, he was perfectly fine. And again, the guy was a senator for decades, and I don't think anyone, if you looked at Joe Biden in 2010, would have thought this guy is gonna be, have his ass handed him a debate, you wouldn't think that at all. So I don't know who we're going to see. Plus, he's got a lot of room to attack Trump. So I'm sure he's gonna come strapped and ready and he's gonna have his talking points and watch Trump dance, try to tap dance around him. And if he's in a position, I don't know what the rules of the debate are, to actually nail him to the wall, it might actually, I'm sure he's gonna have a lot of lines, too. The problem is Trump is the master counterpuncher. So like when Hillary's, you know, had her line, she's like, well, it's a good thing that Donald Trump isn't in charge of our legal system. And he's like, yeah, you'd be in jail.

• 1:39:01Michael Malice?

  It's like, it's like, oh, like, lady, you set him up.

• 1:39:05Lex Fridman?

  It's painful to watch those debates. I mean, there's something, I think it's actually analogous. Come to think of it, your conversation with me right now, some sleepy Joe, I'm playing the role of sleepy Joe. I actually connect to Joe because

• 1:39:24Michael Malice?

  I'm also incontinent.

• 1:39:26Lex Fridman?

  There's like these weird pauses that he does.

• 1:39:28Michael Malice?

  Yes, he does.

• 1:39:29Lex Fridman?

  I do the same, I do the same thing and annoys the shit out of me that like, in mid-sentence, I'll start saying a different thing and take a tangent. I'm not as slow and drunk as I sound always. I swear I'm more intelligent underneath that.

• 1:39:47Michael Malice?

  Slower, but less drunk.

• 1:39:50Lex Fridman?

  Exactly. But the result, one of those is true, but not both. Yeah.

• 1:39:57Lex Fridman?

  And, and, and Trump, just like you, are a master counterpuncher. So it's getting me messy.

• 1:40:03Michael Malice?

  Here's the other thing, in all seriousness, Chris Wallace is the moderator. Chris Wallace has interviewed Trump several times and he was a tough, tough questioner. So I don't think he's gonna come in there with softball questions. I think he's really going to try to nail Trump down, which is tough to do.

• 1:40:20Lex Fridman?

  I like him a lot.

• 1:40:21Michael Malice?

  Yeah, he's, and he's like, Mr. President, sir, that's not accurate, blah, blah, blah. He's done it. And Trump gets very frustrated because he doesn't just let him say whatever he wants and he hits him with the follow up.

• 1:40:32Lex Fridman?

  He's, he's, I guess he's on Fox News and he, I listen to his Sunday program every once in a while. He gives me hope that, I don't know, there's something in the voice like that he's not bought.

• 1:40:45Michael Malice?

  He's, I, I, there's no question he's gonna take this seriously, which I think is the best you could hope for in a moderator.

• 1:40:51Lex Fridman?

  Like, it feels like there's people that might actually take the mainstream media into a place that's going to be better in the future. And like, we need people like him.

• 1:41:01Michael Malice?

  You mean like Rob Sphere?

• 1:41:02Lex Fridman?

  What do you mean?

• 1:41:03Michael Malice?

  Like taking the mainstream media to a better future. Like, bring out the guillotines.

• 1:41:08Lex Fridman?

  Okay. See, you go, you, you put your anarchist hat back on.

• 1:41:12Michael Malice?

  I don't think Rob Sphere is much of an anarchist, but yeah, I get what you're saying.

• 1:41:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. You don't think there should be a centralized place for news?

• 1:41:18Michael Malice?

  There isn't now.

• 1:41:20Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's what mainstream media is supposed to represent, and it's broken. Well, it's not whatever, uh, what do you call that? That, a place where people traditionally said was the, like, the legitimate source of truth. That's what the media was supposed to represent, no?

• 1:41:37Michael Malice?

  So I, that's their, that's their big branding accomplishment. It's a completely, completely lie.

• 1:41:42Lex Fridman?

  That was never true?

• 1:41:43Michael Malice?

  Yeah, because if you, here's what happens. We remember the Spanish-American War, remember the Maine, we have to take Cuba, yellow journalism, Willy Randolph Hearst, right? Then, record scratch, and then we're all objective. Like, when did this transition happen, according to you people? When you were saying that the Kaiser is the worst human being on earth? When you were downplaying Stalin? And downplaying Hitler's atrocities? When, when you were saying we had to be in Vietnam? At what point, WMDs? When did it change? It never changed. You just are better con artists at a certain point, and now the mask is dropping.

• 1:42:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but don't you think there's, um, at its best, like investigative journalism can uncover truth in a way that, um, that like Reddit, uh, subreddits can't?

• 1:42:30Michael Malice?

  You know, Reddit, sure, I agree. At its best, absolutely. That's not even a dispute.

• 1:42:35Lex Fridman?

  But like, uh, don't you think, uh, like fake it until you make it is the right way to do it? Meaning like?

• 1:42:42Michael Malice?

  Make the news?

• 1:42:43Lex Fridman?

  No, no. I meant the news saying like, we dream of doing, of arriving at the truth and reporting the truth.

• 1:42:52Michael Malice?

  They don't say that. CNN had an advertisement that said, "This is an apple. We only report facts." That's a lie.

• 1:42:58Lex Fridman?

  No, that's now. And now it's clear things have changed.

• 1:43:02Michael Malice?

  They haven't changed. You're just more, you're more aware of their chicanery.

• 1:43:07Lex Fridman?

  But, okay, so the

• 1:43:09Michael Malice?

  How many people died in Iraq because Saddam Hussein was about to launch WMDs? Who had consequences for this? No one. This isn't a minor thing. This is lots of dead people.

• 1:43:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. And also, I mean, dead people, it's horrible, but also the money, which has, like we said, economic effects.

• 1:43:28Michael Malice?

  Marion Williamson, I think it was, it was, had the, or Trump, both of them had the great point that goes, it's like a trillion dollars. How many schools would that build? How many roads would that build? Even here, why are we building hospitals in Iraq that we destroyed when we could be building hospitals here? It makes no sense. It's horrifying.

• 1:43:43Lex Fridman?

  So who's responsible for that? Like, who?

• 1:43:46Michael Malice?

  Alex Jones.

• 1:43:48Lex Fridman?

  No, I meant for, well, so who's responsible for arriving at the truth of that? Of speaking to the money spent on wars in Iraq?

• 1:44:00Michael Malice?

  This is one of the great things about social media.

• 1:44:03Lex Fridman?

  Twitter, you have faith in Twitter?

• 1:44:04Michael Malice?

  Not specifically Twitter, but yeah, social media is the whole, what anyone could, here's a great, another great example. Before, if you were talking about police brutality or these riots, you would have to perceive it in the way it was framed and presented to you. Nicholas Sandman is another example, Breonna Taylor, all these things. Well, they don't have footage of her. You would have to perceive in the way that it's edited and presented to you by the corporate press. Now, everyone is a video, has a video camera, everyone has their perspective, and it's very useful when these incidents happen, where you could see the same incident from several angles, and you don't need Don Lemon or Chris Wallace to tell me what this means. I can see with my own eyes.

• 1:44:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I've been very pleasantly surprised about the power. See, like, people, the mob, again, gets in the way. They get emotional, and they destroy, like, the, the ability for people to reason. But you're right, that truth is unobstructed on social media. Like, if you're, if you're careful and patient, you can see the truth.

• 1:45:05Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:05Lex Fridman?

  Like, for example, data on COVID, and some of the best sources are doctors. Like, if you want to know the truth about the coronavirus and what's happening. Is there's follow people on Twitter?

• 1:45:18Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:18Lex Fridman?

  There's certain people that are just like source of information versus the CDC and the WHO. It's that's that's fast. I mean, it's well, it's kind of anarchy, right?

• 1:45:27Michael Malice?

  Yes, it is. It's not kind of. It is anarchy. Yes.

• 1:45:30Lex Fridman?

  I mean, well, there's some censorship and all that kind of stuff.

• 1:45:33Michael Malice?

  You have censorship under anarchy in the sense that you're talking about, like people be kicked off of Twitter. That's drawing boundaries.

• 1:45:39Lex Fridman?

  Kick somebody. Okay. So, I mean, it's a

• 1:45:42Michael Malice?

  Private company.

• 1:45:43Lex Fridman?

  Private company. Most people wouldn't say Twitter is working, but they that's probably because they take for granted how well it's working and they're just complaining about the small part of it that's broken.

• 1:45:54Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 1:45:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:59Lex Fridman?

  Okay, another question about

• 1:46:00Michael Malice?

  You feel better?

• 1:46:02Lex Fridman?

  No, by the way, I mean, I had a personal gripe with the situation about the not a personal gripe, but I felt overly emotional about the possibility that there will be some of Donald Trump messing with the election process. But you made me feel better, like saying like he if he had a bunch of opportunities to to do what like to do what I would have done if I was a dictator, I would the first time those rides over George Floyd, I would instituted martial law.

• 1:46:41Michael Malice?

  Do you know what I remember very vividly is after nine 11 and everyone was waiting for George Bush to give his speech and he had 98% approval rating. And I remember very vividly because if he had said, we're suspending the constitution, everyone would have cheered for him like he couldn't get enough support at that time and he didn't do it. And I can't say anything really good about George W. Bush. I'm not a fan of his, to say the least. So I think you and I and, you know, other people who are familiar with, you know, totalitarian regimes to some extent from our ancestry or whatever, from research, should always be the ones freaking out and warning. But we should also be aware of we got a ways to go before it's Hitler. And thankfully, there are a lot

• 1:47:24Michael Malice?

  A lot of dominos that have to fall into place before Hitler. It's like the game Secret Hitler. It's a board game before Hitler becomes Hitler. Like it's not, especially in America, there's lots of things that have to happen before you really get to that point. I mean, FDR was for all intents and purposes a dictator, but even then, the worst you could say, and this is not something that you should take lightly, was internment of Japanese citizens, but they weren't murdered. They weren't, you know, you know, under lock and key in the sense of like in cells. So things could have gotten a lot worse for him.

• 1:47:55Lex Fridman?

  We have to, I mean, Hitler is such a horrible person to bring up because.

• 1:47:58Michael Malice?

  Mussolini, you know.

• 1:47:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, Mussolini is better because Hitler is so closely connected to the atrocities of the Holocaust.

• 1:48:06Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 1:48:06Lex Fridman?

  There's all this stuff that led up to the war and the war itself. Say that there was no Holocaust. Hitler would probably be viewed differently.

• 1:48:14Michael Malice?

  I should, yes, I should think so.

• 1:48:15Lex Fridman?

  Well, I mean, but.

• 1:48:18Michael Malice?

  You think, that's a very controversial stance. You think Hitler would be viewed differently if it wasn't for the Holocaust?

• 1:48:22Lex Fridman?

  Well, I mean, but it's a funny thing that the, the, I would say the death of how many? Forty, fifty million. I mean, I don't know how you calculate it. Is not seen as, as bad as the six million.

• 1:48:42Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah. Cause of Mao and Stalin.

• 1:48:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:44Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:44Lex Fridman?

  And it's, but it's interesting.

• 1:48:47Michael Malice?

  I'm working on it.

• 1:48:48Lex Fridman?

  You're working.

• 1:48:49Michael Malice?

  Yeah, the next book I'm talking.

• 1:48:50Lex Fridman?

  Reminding, well, it's good. I'm, I'm glad a good writer is, because the world is not reminded.

• 1:48:55Michael Malice?

  My last book, The New Right, you know, I had to deal with some like the Nazis. And one of the points they make is how come everyone knows about the Holocaust, but no one knows about the Holocaust? And they're right. We should know about this because it is a great example of both how the Western media were depraved, but also what human beings are capable of. And those scars are still, you know, many Americans think Russia and Ukraine are the same thing. You know, that like, oh, Trump's in bed with the Ukrainians, Trump's about the Russians. They think it's the same thing. There, it's, for us, it's complete lunacy. But this is the kind of thing where Pol Pot is another example, where people have no clue of what has been done to their fellow man on the face of this earth, and they should know.

• 1:49:32Lex Fridman?

  How much of that do you lay at the hands of communism? How much are you with like a, a Jordan Pearson who has, is intricately connecting the atrocities? Like, like you're saying, 1930s Ukraine where people were starved.

• 1:49:47Lex Fridman?

  I recently, my grandmother recently passed away and she, she survived that as a kid, which is, it's fat. Those people, I mean, just, they're tough. They're tough. Like, that whole region is tough because they survived that and then right after occupation of Nazis. Yeah. Of Germans. How much do you lay that at communism as an ideology versus Stalin, the man?

• 1:50:19Michael Malice?

  I think Lenin was building concentration camps while he was around and slave labor. I don't, I think it's clearly both. There are certain variants of communism that were far, like Khrushchev and Gorbachev, the reason the Soviet Union fell apart, and this is kind of, I'm going to spoil the end of the book. There's an amazing book called Revolution 1989. It's like the most beautiful book I've ever read by Viktor Sebastian. He's a Hungarian author. And basically what happens in 1989, Poland has their elections and then in 1990, they kind of let in the labor people to the government. And people start crossing borders in the Eastern Bloc. And you had Hahniker from Eastern Germany and Koczewsko from Romania calling Gorbachev, because those are the two toughest ones by communist standards. They

• 1:51:03Michael Malice?

  go, they're just escaping. We're going to, we're going to lose everything. You got to send in the tanks like you did in Hungary, like you did in Czech Republic, Czechoslovakia in 68. And Gorbachev goes, I'm not sending the tanks. And they go, dude, if you don't send in the tanks, it's all done. And he goes, nope, I'm not that kind of guy. And they were right. I mean, Koczewsko was personally shot with his wife up against the wall. Hahniker, I forgot what happened to him. But they all self liberated. My friend who was born in Czechoslovakia, his mom was pregnant, you know, under communism and she never even imagined he'd be free and he was born under free. And they were all looking around all these countries that self liberated because they're like, this is a trick, right? They're just, they're trying to figure out who's like not good so that they can arrest us

• 1:51:44Michael Malice?

  en masse and they didn't. So there, even within communism, there are bad guys and better guys. But.

• 1:51:55Lex Fridman?

  We talked about anarchy, we talked about democracy. Do you see, like, there's democratic socialism conversations going on? In the popular culture socialism is seen as like evil? Or for some people, great?

• 1:52:09Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 1:52:11Lex Fridman?

  What, like, what are your thoughts about as in a political ideology?

• 1:52:15Michael Malice?

  Evil.

• 1:52:16Lex Fridman?

  So you're on the evil side?

• 1:52:17Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:52:18Lex Fridman?

  Fundamentally?

• 1:52:18Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:52:19Lex Fridman?

  What, what, what is it? You know, what, yeah, what, what makes it evil? What's like structurally, if you were to try to analyze like?

• 1:52:29Michael Malice?

  Sure, this, I say three ways. Morally, no person has the right to tell another person how to live their life. Economically, it's not possible to make calculations under socialism. It's only the price, the prices that are information that tells me, oh, this is, we need to produce more of this. We need to produce less of this. Without prices being able to adjust and give information to producers and, and, and consumers, you have no way of being able to produce effectively or efficiently. And also, it is, it turns people against each other. When you force people to interact, when you force them into relationships, when you force them into jobs, and you don't give them any choice, when there's a monopoly, the consequence of monopoly, everyone's familiar with in ostensibly under capitalism,

• 1:53:11Michael Malice?

  but somehow, when it's a government monopoly, all those economic principles don't work, doesn't make any sense.

• 1:53:15Lex Fridman?

  But there's force in democracy too. It's just you're, you're saying there's a, there's a bit more force in socialism.

• 1:53:22Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:23Lex Fridman?

  But that's interesting that you say that there's not enough information. I mean, that's ultimately, you need to have really good data.

• 1:53:31Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:53:31Lex Fridman?

  To achieve the goals of the system. Even, even if there's no corruption.

• 1:53:36Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 1:53:36Lex Fridman?

  You just need to have the information.

• 1:53:38Michael Malice?

  Right, which you can't.

• 1:53:39Lex Fridman?

  And capitalism provides you, um, like, really strong.

• 1:53:45Michael Malice?

  Real time.

• 1:53:45Lex Fridman?

  Real time information. That, um, and if, like, capitalism at its best and cleanest, which is like perfect information is available. There's no manipulation of information. That's what, you know, that's one of the problems. Okay. Can we talk about some candidates, the ones we got and possible alternatives? So one question I have is, why do we have, within this system, why do we have the candidates we have? It seems, maybe you can correct me, highly unsatisfactory. Like, is anyone actually excited about our current candidates?

• 1:54:30Michael Malice?

  I'm kind of excited because no matter who wins the election, it's gonna be hilarious. So that is something that I'm excited about.

• 1:54:37Lex Fridman?

  From a humor perspective?

• 1:54:39Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:39Lex Fridman?

  Is that what the whole system is? So that's one theory of the case, is the entire thing is optimized for viewership?

• 1:54:47Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:47Lex Fridman?

  And excitement by definitions of like, the reality show kind of excitement?

• 1:54:52Michael Malice?

  I think it is, if you look at what happened with Brett Kavanaugh, this is not a career that would draw people who are, you might say, quality. Because no matter who they are, there would be a huge incentive from the other team to denigrate them and humiliate them in the worst possible ways. Because as the two teams lose their legitimacy among Gen Pop, it's gonna get harder and harder for them to maintain any kind of claims to authority, which is something I like, but which does kind of play out in, you know, certain nefarious ways.

• 1:55:27Lex Fridman?

  So people, the best of the best are not gonna wanna be politicians?

• 1:55:31Michael Malice?

  Yeah, because I could have a job, where I have a job interview and I'm running Yahoo or whatever, or I could, for 18 months, have to eat, you know, corn dogs, looking like I'm going down on someone and shake hands and have all this, my family, you know, on social media daily called the worst things, for what? And then I'm still not guaranteed the position?

• 1:55:53Lex Fridman?

  But the flip side of that, like, from my perspective, is the competition is weak. Meaning, like, you need a certain, a minimum amount of eloquence, clearly, that I don't, the bar which I did not pass.

• 1:56:09Michael Malice?

  I don't think either of them would be considered particularly eloquent, Biden or Trump.

• 1:56:12Lex Fridman?

  No, I know, but that's what I'm saying, the competition, like, if you were, wanted to be, become a politician, if you wanted to run for president, the opportunity is there, like, if you were at all competent. Like, if you had, so like, Andrew Yang is an example, of somebody who has a bunch of ideas, is somewhat eloquent.

• 1:56:32Lex Fridman?

  Like, young, energetic. It feels like there should be thousands of Andrew Yangs. Like, that would enter the domain.

• 1:56:40Michael Malice?

  And he went nowhere.

• 1:56:42Lex Fridman?

  Well, he ju- well, I wouldn't say he went nowhere. He generated quite a bit of excitement. He just didn't go very far. That's, okay.

• 1:56:51Michael Malice?

  You don't have to run for president to generate excitement with your ideas. You could be a podcast host. I'm not even joking.

• 1:56:55Lex Fridman?

  That's right. That's right. That's right. And he's both, Andrew Yang.

• 1:57:01Michael Malice?

  Oh, he's a podcast?

• 1:57:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, he has a podcast called Yang Speaks.

• 1:57:04Michael Malice?

  Oh, okay, cool.

• 1:57:11Lex Fridman?

  Oh, wow, the music of the way he said, uh, yeah, cool, is the way my mom talks to me when I tell her something exciting going on in my life.

• 1:57:22Lex Fridman?

  Oh, that's nice, honey.

• 1:57:24Michael Malice?

  Oh, you made a robot, huh? That's cool.

• 1:57:27Michael Malice?

  I'll mix coffee.

• 1:57:27Lex Fridman?

  Oh, you're still single, though, aren't you?

• 1:57:32Lex Fridman?

  I wonder why. I wonder why.

• 1:57:34Michael Malice?

  Make yourself a robot wife. Give me some robot grandchildren.

• 1:57:40Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 1:57:42Lex Fridman?

  But, uh, first of all, okay, let me ask you about Andrew Yang, because he represents

• 1:57:49Lex Fridman?

  fresh energy. You don't find him fresh or energetic, you know? Like, is there any candidate you wish was, um, in the mix? That was in the mix, you wish was one of the last two remaining?

• 1:58:02Michael Malice?

  Yeah, people like Marion Williamson, I thought was great. Tulsi, I thought was great. Amy Klobuchar got a bad rap. I think she held her own. Um, smart. She wasn't particularly funny. That's okay. I think she was non-threatening to a lot of people.

• 1:58:17Lex Fridman?

  What did you like about them?

• 1:58:19Michael Malice?

  I guess it's named all women. That's interesting. It wasn't even intentional. Um, Tulsi, I like, that she was aggressive, has a good resume, and is not, um, staying the course for the establishment. Marion Williamson, I like, because she comes from a place, from what it seems, of genuine compassion. Maybe she's a sociopath, I don't know. I read her book, and it actually affected me profoundly, because it's very rare when you read a book, and there's even that one idea that blows your mind, and that you kind of think about all the time. And there was one of that such idea in her book about, um, she was teaching something called The Course in Miracles in Hollywood. I think she still teaches it. And this was during the eighties, the height of the AIDS crisis. And all these young men in the prime of their life were dropping like flies.

• 1:59:03Michael Malice?

  And she's trying to give them hope. Well, good luck. They're dying. No one cares. And they're like, you can't tell us that they're gonna cure this. Like, you're, that's a lie. And she goes, what if I told you? They're not gonna cure it. What if I told you it's gonna be to like diabetes? They cut off your foot and you're gonna go blind. Would that be something that you can hope for? And when you put it like that, it's like, yeah, like if you're talking to someone like a homeless junkie. And you're like, you could be a doctor, you're a lawyer, or a lawyer, like, cool story, like, you could have a studio apartment with a terrible roommate and a shitty job. But when you're on the street, you know, cooking breakfast in a teaspoon? And you hear that, you're like, wait, would that really be so bad? Is that really so much worse than this?

• 1:59:46Michael Malice?

  No, and it becomes something. So when she put it in those terms, I'm like, wow, this woman that really did a number on me in terms of teaching people how to be hopeful.

• 1:59:56Lex Fridman?

  Small steps.

• 1:59:56Michael Malice?

  But it's, but it's also then it becomes less of, I need a miracle to be like, oh, this is really manageable.

• 2:00:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:03Michael Malice?

  It's, and it's absurd to think it's impossible.

• 2:00:06Lex Fridman?

  What about, what's your take on unity 2020 that Bret Weinstein?

• 2:00:12Lex Fridman?

  Pushed forward?

• 2:00:13Michael Malice?

  It, it, I, it was DOA. Uh, he couldn't even stand up to Twitter.

• 2:00:17Lex Fridman?

  Dead on arrival?

• 2:00:18Michael Malice?

  Dead on arrival. He couldn't even stand up to Twitter, let alone or to Facebook, they got blocked, let alone to the.

• 2:00:22Lex Fridman?

  It's not hugely problematic, by the way, that Twitter would block that?

• 2:00:26Michael Malice?

  Not at all. Um, I don't know why they blocked it, but I believe, I don't know what problematic means. That's a word that does a lot of work, uh, that people wanted to do, uh, conceptually. Um, the idea that like unity is like taking the rejects from each party. And we're gonna like have something that no one likes, and therefore it's gonna be a compromise is absurd. The last time we had this kind of unity ticket was the Civil War. When you had Andrew Johnson from the Democrats and Lincoln from the Republicans, this was not something that ended well. Particularly nicely for both halves of the country.

• 2:00:57Lex Fridman?

  So that, that's the way you see it is, like, the way I saw it, I, I guess I haven't looked carefully at it.

• 2:01:02Michael Malice?

  I haven't either, to be fair.

• 2:01:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. The way I saw it is emphasizing centrists, which is, uh.

• 2:01:08Michael Malice?

  How is Tulsi a centrist?

• 2:01:10Lex Fridman?

  Tulsi was involved?

• 2:01:11Michael Malice?

  Yes, he's trying to push Tulsi and Jesse Ventura or something.

• 2:01:14Lex Fridman?

  Oh, so, okay, I don't know. I don't know the specifics.

• 2:01:18Michael Malice?

  As a scientist, you also know centrism is not a coherent term in politics.

• 2:01:21Lex Fridman?

  But, see, now you're like, what is it, pleading to authority?

• 2:01:27Michael Malice?

  No, I'm pleading to-

• 2:01:28Lex Fridman?

  And my ego.

• 2:01:28Michael Malice?

  No, no, I'm pleading to how you approach data. If someone is saying the mean is accurate, that only mean, I mean, the mean could be anywhere. It's a function of what's around it. That mean is true.

• 2:01:38Lex Fridman?

  I don't even know what centrist is supposed to mean.

• 2:01:40Michael Malice?

  Exactly.

• 2:01:41Lex Fridman?

  But what it means to me, there's no idea, a centrist. There's more of a center-right or center-left. To me, what that means is somebody who is a liberal or conservative, but is open-minded and empathetic to the other side.

• 2:02:04Michael Malice?

  Joe Biden had the crime bill. Joe Biden voted for Republican Supreme Court justices. Joe Biden voted for a balanced budget. Joe Biden voted for Bush's war. And I'm sure probably I haven't looked this up, the Patriot Act. Joe, if you want a centrist, you have Joe Biden.

• 2:02:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, okay.

• 2:02:18Michael Malice?

  He's worked very well with the Republicans.

• 2:02:19Lex Fridman?

  That argument could be made. Of course, everybody will always resist that argument.

• 2:02:24Michael Malice?

  It's undeniable. In fact, during the campaign, some activists started yelling at him at a town hall. Not yelling, just saying, hey, we need open borders. Joe Biden says, I'm not for open borders. Go vote for Trump, and literally turned his back on the man. And this is during the primaries, where it would behoove you to try to appeal to the base.

• 2:02:45Lex Fridman?

  And of course, you can probably also make the argument that Donald Trump is center-right, if not center-left.

• 2:02:50Michael Malice?

  Well, I mean, he's very unique as a personality. But if you look at his record, and first of all, his rhetoric, you can say, is not centrist at all. But in terms of how he governs, the budgeting, I mean, has been very moderate. It certainly hasn't been like draconian budget cuts. The Supreme Court, you could say, okay, he's hard-right. Immigration, you could say, in certain capacities, he's hard-right. But in terms of pro-life, what has he done there? In terms of, you know, so it's, in many other aspects, he's been very much this kind of me-too Republican. But certainly, the rhetoric, it's very hard to make in the case that he's a centrist.

• 2:03:24Lex Fridman?

  So you don't like, is there any other idea you find compelling? Like, what I like about you and D2020, is this an idea?

• 2:03:34Lex Fridman?

  For a different way, for like a different party, a different path forward.

• 2:03:38Michael Malice?

  So.

• 2:03:39Lex Fridman?

  Ideas, just like anarchy is an interesting idea that that leads to discourse that leads to.

• 2:03:44Michael Malice?

  I don't think it's interesting at all. And here's why I don't think it's interesting. Sweden has eight parties in its parliament. Iceland, population is like 150,000. They've got nine. I think it was. Czech Republic has nine. Britain has five. So the claim that two parties is censorious of speech, but three, oh, now all of a sudden, it makes no sense. It doesn't import to the data, number one. Number two is Donald Trump demonstrated that you can be basically a third party candidate. It sees the machinery of an existing party and appropriate to your own ends as Bernie Sanders.

• 2:04:17Lex Fridman?

  Bernie Sanders.

• 2:04:18Michael Malice?

  Bernie Sanders has never been a Democrat. Major credit to him for that's not easy to be elected as senator as an independent. He's done it repeatedly. So these are two examples of ossified elites right for the picking. So to have a third party makes no real sense.

• 2:04:34Lex Fridman?

  Speaking of which, a party you talk about quite a bit.

• 2:04:40Lex Fridman?

  And let's like, this is a personal challenge to you. Let me bring up the Libertarian Party.

• 2:04:46Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:46Lex Fridman?

  And the personal challenge is to go five minutes without mocking them.

• 2:04:51Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:04:52Lex Fridman?

  In discussing, in discussing this idea. So first of all, what?

• 2:04:57Michael Malice?

  I'm being trolled.

• 2:04:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:59Michael Malice?

  Okay, I'm being trolled. Okay, I'm being trolled.

• 2:05:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:03Michael Malice?

  I'm being trolled. Okay, good. Do you remember on Friends, there was an episode where Chandler had to not make fun of people like, can you go one day Chandler? And Phoebe starts telling him about like this UFO she saw. And he's like, that's very interesting. Nice for you.

• 2:05:19Lex Fridman?

  This is exactly that.

• 2:05:20Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:05:20Lex Fridman?

  So a true master would be able to play within the game within the constraints. So no, I'm pretty sure you'll still mock them, but.

• 2:05:27Michael Malice?

  No, no, I'll stick to the rules. Five minutes, easy.

• 2:05:30Lex Fridman?

  So first of all, speaking broadly about libertarianism, can you speak to that, how you feel about it? And then also to the Libertarian Party, which is the implementation of it in our current system.

• 2:05:40Michael Malice?

  So I think libertarianism is a great idea. And I think there's many libertarian ideas that have become much more mainstream, which I'm very, very happy about. I remember there was an article in either New York or New Yorker magazine in the early 90s, where they talked about the Cato Institute, which is a libertarian think tank. And they referred to the fact that Cato was against war and against like regulation with a wacky consistency. Cause they didn't know how to reconcile these two things. I don't remember what the two things were, but I remember that expression, wacky consistency. And it wasn't even, we were all taught, and this is very much before the internet, that there's two tribes. And if you're pro-life, you have to hate gays.

• 2:06:23Michael Malice?

  And if you're for socialized medicine, that also means you have to be for, you know, free speech. It was just this very, and like, there's a whole menu and you gotta sign into all of them. And that menu's terrible. They hate America. They want to destroy it. Oh my God, those are horrible evil. This is the menu you want. And the Libertarian Party, to some extent, and just libertarians as a whole, said, you know, you can do the Chinese buffet and take a little from column A, a little from column B, and have an ideology that is coherent and consistent in the ideology of peace and non-aggression and things like that. The Libertarian Party takes its model from like the early progressive and populist parties from the early 20th century,

• 2:07:07Michael Malice?

  which were not very effective in terms of getting people elected, but were extremely effective in terms of getting the two major parties to appropriate and adopt their ideas and implement them. And in Britain as well, the Liberal Party got destroyed and became taken over by Labour as the alternative party to the Tories. And have those ideas basically become mainstreamed. So I think that, and the libertarian, my friend who passed away, Eric, I miss him dearly, was the webmaster and his whole point is, if you don't think about it in terms of a party, in terms of getting people elected, but if you think of it as a party in terms of getting people educated about alternatives, then there's enormous use for that. That was his perspective. And I don't think that's an absurd perspective.

• 2:07:49Michael Malice?

  But here's some libertarian ideas that have become extremely mainstream. War should be a last resort. This is something we're taught as kids and we all say, but for many years, it's been like, they don't think of it as a last resort. It's like something's bad. Well, it's like the first instinct. Now it's like, let's really give it a week, just a week, like what's going on in Syria? Is there really gonna be a genocide, the Kurds, you know, things like that. So that's one. Another thing is drug legalization. This was, you know, when you and I were kids, oh, it's crazy. It's only hippies wanna smoke pot. Now it's like, I was on a grand jury and the point out people make is, are you sure that this 16-year-old who's selling weed, let's say selling, should his life be ruined? Should he be imprisoned with rapists and murderers?

• 2:08:33Michael Malice?

  Like, if you say yes, say yes, but you, but are you sure? You have to acknowledge that that's what you're meaning. And then a lot of people are like, wait a minute, there's gotta be a third option. Then he has no consequences or he's imprisoned with a rapist. Like, I'm not comfortable with either of these. And I think the other one is an increasing skepticism. The libertarians were on top of this first, and the hard left of the police. As of now, asset forfeiture steals more from people than burglaries. What people don't know about what asset forfeiture is, if the cops come to your house and they suspect you, you haven't been convicted of using your car or your house or whatever in terms of selling drugs, they can take whatever they want and then you have to sue to prove your innocence and get your property back.

• 2:09:17Michael Malice?

  It's a complete violation of due process. People don't realize this going on. It's a great way for the cops to increase their budgets and it's legal. And libertarians were like the first big ones saying, guys, this is not American and this is crazy. And now increasingly, people, conservatives and leftists, like, wait a minute, this, this is, even if you are selling drugs, like they take your house? What are you talking about? So I think those are some mechanisms that libertarianism, though not by name, has become far more popular.

• 2:09:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's interesting. So the idea, yeah, a coherent set of ideas that... That eventually get integrated into a two-party system.

• 2:09:52Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:52Lex Fridman?

  The war, that's an interesting one. You're right. I would wonder, I wonder what the thread there is. I wonder how it connects to nine 11 and so on, but.

• 2:10:02Michael Malice?

  I, I think that, I, I, I think the Patriot Act.

• 2:10:05Lex Fridman?

  Patriot Act.

• 2:10:05Michael Malice?

  For people who are politically savvy, we're like, oh, okay, this is not a joke. This is really a crazy infringement of our freedoms and both parties are falling over each other to sign into law and the Orwellian name. You don't want to, how can you be against patriotism? What kind of person, you know what I mean? So that, I think for a lot of people, especially both civil libertarians on the left and a lot of conservatives who are constitutionalists are like, wait a minute, this isn't, I'm not comfortable with this. And I'm also not comfortable with how comfortable everyone in Washington is with it.

• 2:10:37Lex Fridman?

  You're right. Probably libertarian, libertarians and libertarianism is a place of ideas, which is why I have a connection to it. Like, I, I like, I like the, every time I listen to those folks, I like them. I feel connected to them. I would even sometimes, depending on the day, call myself a libertarian.

• 2:10:56Michael Malice?

  We're all in the spectrum, so that's why.

• 2:10:57Lex Fridman?

  We're all in the spectrum, yeah. But like, when I look at the people that actually rise to the top in terms of like, the people who represent the party, this is where like five minutes ran out, right?

• 2:11:09Michael Malice?

  I could go. I'm allowed?

• 2:11:11Lex Fridman?

  You can go. Why are they so weird? Why aren't strong candidates emerging that represent as political, like representatives or as like, uh, famous speakers?

• 2:11:27Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:27Lex Fridman?

  Like that represent the ideology?

• 2:11:29Michael Malice?

  I think libertarians tend to, I think Jonathan Haidt in his book and his research, he's a political scientist and he does a lot of things about how people come to their political conclusions and what factors, um, force people to reach conclusions. And he found that libertarians are the least empathetic and most rationalistic of all the groups. And by that he means like, they think in terms of logic as opposed to like people's feelings and, and that has positives and has negatives. It would, and we have the A B testing with Ron Paul. Ron Paul ran for president as a libertarian nominee. He was the nominee. He got pretty much nowhere in 1988. Then he ran as a return to Republican Party as a congressman for many years from Texas. He ran for the presidency in 2008 and 2012.

• 2:12:13Michael Malice?

  And in 2008, he stood on stage with Rudy Giuliani and told him that they were here in 9/11 because we're over there, which would have been a shocking, horrifying taboo a few years earlier. Many people were like, holy crap, this is amazing. Giuliani was all offended and Ron Paul's like-

• 2:12:30Lex Fridman?

  I took some guts, by the way.

• 2:12:31Michael Malice?

  Yeah, it did.

• 2:12:33Lex Fridman?

  When I heard that, it was so refreshing, not what he said, but the fact that he said something that took guts. It made me realize how rare it is-

• 2:12:42Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 2:12:42Lex Fridman?

  -for politicians, but even people, to say something that takes guts.

• 2:12:47Michael Malice?

  Well, it's also the idea that like you can't, even if you think America has a right to invade any country on earth as much as it wants and kill people as a consequence of war and blow up their buildings and destroy their country, you can't with a straight face not expect us to have consequences, even if they're consequence from evil people. Even if we're 100% the good guys and they're 100% the bad guys, those bad guys, some of them are still going to try to do something. What happens next? You know what I mean? So that kind of concept that there's any American culpability was, we're America, we're the good guys. By definition, we're not culpable. To have people start thinking about, what if there's another way? What if we're not there and then they're not here and we're kind of doing a backdoor?

• 2:13:30Michael Malice?

  We're talking, so different scenarios. So the fact that he got so much more traction as a Republican, the fact that Donald Trump, who came out of nowhere, became not only the candidate, but the president, tells people, it's like getting a book deal, right? You can either go, there's three choices. You can either self-publish, mainstream publisher, or independent publisher. The independent publisher is the worst of all choices because you're not getting a big advance. They're not going to be able to promote you a lot and they don't get the distribution. Mainstream, I've done mainstream myself, right? With self, I don't have the cred, the respectability of a mainstream, the cachet.

• 2:14:11Lex Fridman?

  Can't be a New York Times bestseller.

• 2:14:13Michael Malice?

  Right, it takes a lot of work, but I get a lot more of the profit. If it looks good on the shelf on Amazon, looks identical, so on and so forth. With the mainstream, the benefits and costs are pretty much obvious to most people. So the same thing, it's like you can either be an independent like Ross Perot, or you could be just seize one of the party apparatus, which the benefits are enormous there. But in terms of going third party, I don't know the Libertarian Party apparatus, other than maybe some ballot access, is really that efficacious. And then you're going to have a lot of baggage. Because if you hear independent, Jesse Ventura, Ross Perot, you think of the person. Now you have to define yourself and you have to defend a party. That's two bridges for most people.

• 2:14:55Lex Fridman?

  Brilliantly put. Okay.

• 2:14:57Michael Malice?

  Thank you.

• 2:14:59Lex Fridman?

  Let me speak to, because I'm speaking to Yaron Brooks soon.

• 2:15:02Michael Malice?

  Oh gosh.

• 2:15:03Lex Fridman?

  Yep.

• 2:15:05Michael Malice?

  I like him.

• 2:15:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so, but that, another example, I was...

• 2:15:10Michael Malice?

  Ask him to tell you a joke about Ayn Rand, if he can do it.

• 2:15:15Lex Fridman?

  So there, that's one criticism I've heard you say, which is they're unable to speak to any weaknesses in either Ayn Rand's or Objectivist worldview.

• 2:15:25Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 2:15:26Lex Fridman?

  That's really, you put it, I know you're half joking, but that's actually a legitimate discussion to have.

• 2:15:34Michael Malice?

  I'm not joking at all.

• 2:15:35Lex Fridman?

  Because that's, to me, one of the criticisms and one of the explanations why the world seems to disrespect Ayn Rand, the people that do, is she kind of implies that her ideas are like flawless.

• 2:15:50Michael Malice?

  No, she says they correspond to reality.

• 2:15:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, right.

• 2:15:53Michael Malice?

  That's the term she uses.

• 2:15:54Lex Fridman?

  That...

• 2:15:57Lex Fridman?

  I mean, objectivism is in the name. It's, you know, it's just facts. Like, it's impossible to basically argue against because it's pretty simple. It's just all facts.

• 2:16:08Michael Malice?

  Well, that's it's possible to argue against, but she would say she's never met a good critic who can argue the facts of misrepresentation. And she's not entirely wrong. She's often caricatured because she has a very extreme personality and extreme worldview.

• 2:16:19Lex Fridman?

  But that to me, I mean, some people, there's a guy named in the physics mathematics community called Stephen Wolfram. I don't know if you're from that.

• 2:16:26Michael Malice?

  Wolfram Alpha?

• 2:16:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:27Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:16:28Lex Fridman?

  He has a similar style of speaking sometimes, which is like, I've created a science, but that turns a lot of people off, like this kind of weird confidence. But he's one of my favorite people. I think one of the most brilliant people. If you just ignore that little bit of ego, or whatever you call that.

• 2:16:48Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:16:49Lex Fridman?

  That there's some beautiful ideas in there.

• 2:16:50Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah. She's an amazing person.

• 2:16:52Lex Fridman?

  And that, for me, objectivism, I'm undereducated about it, about it. I hope to be more educated, but there's some interesting ideas that, again, just like with UFOs,

• 2:17:05Lex Fridman?

  not that there's a connection between two.

• 2:17:06Michael Malice?

  Don't bring that up for your own. He won't like it.

• 2:17:08Lex Fridman?

  He won't.

• 2:17:09Michael Malice?

  Ayn Rand's like UFOs. Oh, no, no, no. This interview is over.

• 2:17:14Lex Fridman?

  That's a good yarn. Okay. But, you know, you have to be a little bit open minded. But what's your sense of of objectivism? What's, are there interesting ideas that are useful to you to think about?

• 2:17:26Michael Malice?

  I own her copy of the first printing of The Fountainhead. So that should tell you a little bit about how my affection for Miss Rand, how heavy that goes. I, Ayn Rand does not have all the answers, but she has all the questions. So if you study Rand, you are going to be forced to think through some very basic things, and you're going to have your eyes open very, very heavily. She was not perfect. She never claimed to be perfect. She was asked on Donahue, is it true that according to your philosophy, you are a perfect being? She said, I never think of myself that way. And she said, but if you ask me, do I practice what I preach? The answer is yes, resoundingly. She's a fascinating woman. What is really interesting about?

• 2:18:06Michael Malice?

  About her, and this is something you'd appreciate personally, is when you read her essays, she'll have these weird asides. And it looked like she was talking about art and she'd be like, and this is why the US should be the only country with nuclear weapons. And when you follow a brilliant mind making these seemingly disparate connections, it's something I find to be just absolutely inspiring and awesome and entertaining. I think there's lots of things about her that people like Yaron would make uncomfortable.

• 2:18:33Michael Malice?

  What? Well, like she, they, so objectivism, like any other philosophy, has all these techniques to kind of hand wave away things you don't want to talk about and like pretend that. So they talk about things like having no metaphysical significance, right? So what that means is like, well, what about this? Ah, I don't want to talk about it. Like, it doesn't matter. Like, it literally means in fancy philosophical terms, it doesn't matter. Or they will say correctly that it's very twisted in our culture that when we have heroes, we look for their flaws instead of looking for their virtues. That's 100% valid perspective. However, if I'm sitting here telling you that I think this woman is a badass and she's amazing and she should be studied, but there's also these idiosyncrasies, they don't want to hear it.

• 2:19:19Michael Malice?

  Because they, and I think it's very convenient for them because there's a lot of things she did that were, here's an example. Rand was very, very pro happiness and pro pleasure. She was very pro sex, which is kind of surprising, looking at her and how she talked and how strident she was. As a result of this, she never got her cats fixed to deny them the pleasure of orgasm. So her male cats are spraying up her entire house. Like, that is, I mean, that's her putting her philosophy into practice, but it's still gross. Yeah. So that's the kind of thing where I don't think he'd be. Another thing is Rand had an article on a woman president and she said a woman should never be president, right? Now, when Rand says things that are too goofy for them, they say, oh, that's not objectivism. That's her personal preference.

• 2:20:02Michael Malice?

  It's like she did not have these lines. Objectivism was always defined as Ayn Rand's writings plus the additional essays in her books. So if this was in part of those books, this counts as official objectivism, but they pretend otherwise. So that's another example. Plus, they, she was, and I bet you she was on the spectrum to some extent. I'm not joking. I'm not using that derisively. She was of the belief. And not inaccurately because that humor is used to denigrate and humiliate. And she was thinking about the Jon Stewart type before there was a Jon Stewart. And a lot of times, like, well, how I use mocking. But she was resentful, correctly, that a lot of times, people who are great and accomplished, little nobodies will make a punchline just to bring them down and disavow her.

• 2:20:47Michael Malice?

  Here's an example I just thought of. I remember in, I don't remember when it was, it must have been the 90s. They had a segment at MTV of all these musicians who were making their own perfumes, right? And this girl grabbed Prince's perfume. And before she even smelled it, she had the joke ready. She just, oh, this smells almost as bad as his music lately. It's like, first of all, I'm sure the perfume's fine.

• 2:21:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:07Michael Malice?

  And second of all, this is Prince. He's one of the all-time greats, and you can't wait to, you know, denigrate him. Like, and part, I want to be like, Rand, like, how dare you? Like, as if, as if this perfume in any way, in any way mitigates his amazing accomplishments and achievements. You horrible person. But I do have some great Ayn Rand jokes, and he would not be happy about them.

• 2:21:29Lex Fridman?

  The perfume thing, the problem with it is it's not funny, not that.

• 2:21:32Michael Malice?

  Oh, he sucks. Okay, great.

• 2:21:34Lex Fridman?

  Not that they dared to try to be humorous. Because I don't know why you mentioned Jon Stewart, because Jon Stewart is pretty, can be funny.

• 2:21:41Michael Malice?

  Right, but he taught a generation, you still see this on Twitter, where things have to be inherently sarcastic and snide.

• 2:21:50Lex Fridman?

  But isn't that, I mean, aren't you practicing that?

• 2:21:52Michael Malice?

  No, I use irony, not sarcasm. Here's an example. When people, like, you say something, and someone replies to you, be like, um, last I checked, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'll say to them, I go, what do you think saying, last I checked, added to your point? You're giving me valuable information and data, but you are trained to believe that it has to be couched in this sneering. It doesn't. Just give me the information. This is useful information.

• 2:22:13Lex Fridman?

  The, that's, that's true.

• 2:22:15Michael Malice?

  It's a knee-jerk.

• 2:22:16Lex Fridman?

  But see, Jon Stewart did it masterfully.

• 2:22:18Michael Malice?

  Correct, and they don't.

• 2:22:19Lex Fridman?

  And they, they don't. It's, it's like, people who copy comedians, certain comedians.

• 2:22:25Lex Fridman?

  You try to copy them and you lose everything in the process of copying. Yeah.

• 2:22:30Lex Fridman?

  Yep, okay.

• 2:22:33Lex Fridman?

  But in terms of the the philosophy of selfishness, this kind of individual focused idea, I imagine that connects with you.

• 2:22:42Michael Malice?

  Yes, and I think it would connect with more people if they understood what she meant by it. Nathaniel Brendan, who was her heir until she kind of broke with him and he was the co-dedicate of Atlas Shrugged, said, "No one will say Ayn Rand's views with a straight face. They won't say, 'I believe that my happiness matters and is important and is worth fighting for, and that Ayn Rand says this and she's dangerous.'" Now, it's very easy to say this could have dangerous consequences if you're a sociopath, but to put it in those terms, I think is extremely healthy. I think more people should want to be happy. And I think a lot of us are raised to be apologetic, especially in this cynical media culture, that if you say, "I want to be happy, I want to love my life", that it's just like, "Okay, sweetheart."

• 2:23:25Michael Malice?

  And the eye-rolling, and I think that's so pernicious and so horrifying. And this is why I'm a Camus person, because Camus thought the arch-enemy was cynicism, and I could not agree more. Like, if you're the kind of person, if someone likes a band and you're like, "Oh, she likes them, blah, blah, blah," it's like, this gives them happiness.

• 2:23:40Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:40Michael Malice?

  Now, there's certain exceptions, but if it gives you happiness, it's not for you, that's cool.

• 2:23:45Lex Fridman?

  Okay, this is beautiful. I so agree with you on the eye-rolling, but you see the best of trolling as not the eye-roll.

• 2:23:55Michael Malice?

  Correct, of course not. The best of trolling is taking down the eye-rollers.

• 2:24:00Lex Fridman?

  I'm gonna have to think about that.

• 2:24:01Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:24:01Lex Fridman?

  Because I-

• 2:24:02Michael Malice?

  Have another Red Bull.

• 2:24:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, because I put them all-

• 2:24:07Michael Malice?

  My blood type is Red Bull.

• 2:24:12Lex Fridman?

  I kind of put them all in the same bin.

• 2:24:14Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:24:14Lex Fridman?

  And they're not.

• 2:24:15Michael Malice?

  They're not.

• 2:24:15Lex Fridman?

  They're not. Okay, all right.

• 2:24:18Michael Malice?

  Here's another example of trolling. I was making jokes about Ron Paul. He just had a stroke, right? And someone came at me, and they're like, "Oh, blah, blah, blah, you know, you're ugly. I hope you have a stroke. I hope you're in the hospital." And I just go, "I just did have a stroke on your mom's face." So they came at me.

• 2:24:35Lex Fridman?

  Yep.

• 2:24:35Michael Malice?

  And now they got put in their place.

• 2:24:38Lex Fridman?

  With a subpar, um, I mean.

• 2:24:41Michael Malice?

  That wasn't clever.

• 2:24:42Lex Fridman?

  You weren't, you weren't clever.

• 2:24:43Michael Malice?

  Not particularly, no.

• 2:24:44Lex Fridman?

  Well, one of your things you do, which is interesting, I mean, I give you props in a sense, is you're willing to go farther than people expect you to.

• 2:24:55Michael Malice?

  Yes, that's fun.

• 2:24:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. In fact, I'll probably edit out like half of this podcast because the, the thing you did was she kept in. She should mention, Michaela Peterson now has a podcast, which is nice. I guess, was it on her podcast?

• 2:25:09Michael Malice?

  She was on mine.

• 2:25:10Lex Fridman?

  She was on yours.

• 2:25:11Michael Malice?

  We did both, but this is when you're referring to when she was on mine.

• 2:25:13Lex Fridman?

  She, she was on, yeah, right. And you went right for the.

• 2:25:19Michael Malice?

  So I'll tell you what it was. You don't have to paraphrase. So I opened up, I say, you know, she's Jordan Peterson's dad. And as many people know, George, it's sorry, he's her dad. Yeah. She's had a long i- issue with substance addiction. And I said to her, you're, you know, you're most famous for being, you know, Jordan Peterson's daughter. You know, many people, he's changed so many lives around the world. He's, and he's been such an enormous influence to me personally, that I've started taking benzodiazepines recreationally. And she's like, oh my God, Michael is so horrible.

• 2:25:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you, cause you pulled me in with this, cause you're talking, I mean, you know, cause he's going through a rough time now. She's going through, just everything was just, you pulled me in emotionally. I was like, this is gonna be the sweet. Mike is gonna be just this wonderful. And then just bam. So that's, that's, that's, that was, um, props to you on that. It wasn't, whatever that is, that is an art form. When done well, it can be taken too far. My criticism is that that feels too good. For some people.

• 2:26:24Michael Malice?

  What do you, what do you mean?

• 2:26:25Lex Fridman?

  For.

• 2:26:25Michael Malice?

  Oh, they're too happy being a referent because to show that they don't care about anything. That's another form of cynicism though.

• 2:26:30Lex Fridman?

  Right. So I, if you, cause you think it's possible to be a troll and still be the, live life to its highest ideal in the Camus sense.

• 2:26:39Michael Malice?

  I try. That's kind of my ideal.

• 2:26:42Lex Fridman?

  I believe it's not. It becomes a drug. I feel like that takes you like, I think love ultimately is the way to experience like every moment of every day.

• 2:26:55Michael Malice?

  You don't think that was an expression of, I honestly think, let's, let's, let's split hairs here because I think this is something of use here. I do think that me, I'm, me being able to make her laugh about this year of hell she was in.

• 2:27:12Lex Fridman?

  Yep.

• 2:27:12Michael Malice?

  Does create an element of love and connection between me and her.

• 2:27:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but.

• 2:27:18Michael Malice?

  I know she would say that.

• 2:27:19Lex Fridman?

  Yes, it wasn't that. It was what you said in combination with the sweetness everywhere else, the kindness. It's a very subtle thing, but like, it's like some of the deepest connections we have with others is when we like mock them lovingly or.

• 2:27:37Michael Malice?

  Yes, correct.

• 2:27:38Lex Fridman?

  But like, there is stuff. There's kindness around that.

• 2:27:43Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 2:27:43Lex Fridman?

  It's not in words, but in like.

• 2:27:44Michael Malice?

  Of course.

• 2:27:45Lex Fridman?

  Subtle things.

• 2:27:46Michael Malice?

  Because it's, it's creates an air of familial, of being familial. Like we're through this together, like it's, yeah.

• 2:27:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's missing, that's very difficult to do on the internet.

• 2:27:55Michael Malice?

  I agree with you. I agree with you.

• 2:27:57Lex Fridman?

  That's why my, like my general approach on the internet is to be some more like simple, less witty and more like dumbly loving.

• 2:28:10Michael Malice?

  But that's not your core competency, being witty.

• 2:28:15Lex Fridman?

  Uh, me?

• 2:28:16Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:17Lex Fridman?

  But I, I can be witty.

• 2:28:19Michael Malice?

  You can be, but I'm saying that's not your core competency. So I'm not saying you're bad at it, but I'm saying that's not where you go like organically, especially with strangers.

• 2:28:28Lex Fridman?

  I just feel like nobody's core competence on the internet is, I guess, if you want to bring love to the world, nobody's core competence is. Given the current platforms, nobody's core competence is wit. It's very difficult to be witty on the internet without, while still communicating kindness like.

• 2:28:48Michael Malice?

  I'll give you another example.

• 2:28:49Lex Fridman?

  In the same way that you can in physical space.

• 2:28:50Michael Malice?

  I'll give you another example. Someone came at me and they were like, they gave me a donation. People do this all the time. And they go, oh, um, like I started reading your books because of my wife. And you know, now we watch your shows together. Uh, keep up the good work. And I go, what does her boyfriend think? So that is an example of wit and love because that person feels seen. I'm acknowledging them.

• 2:29:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:15Michael Malice?

  I'm also making a joke at their expense. We know it's a joke. So I think.

• 2:29:19Lex Fridman?

  Good point, good point, good point.

• 2:29:20Michael Malice?

  Language is often used in non literal ways to cue emotional and connectivity.

• 2:29:25Lex Fridman?

  It's difficult, but you.

• 2:29:26Michael Malice?

  It's very difficult.

• 2:29:27Lex Fridman?

  What you've done is, is difficult to accomplish, but you've done it well. I mean, you do, like you did, you do, been doing these live streams, which are nice. And people give you a bunch of money and donations and stuff. And then you, you'll often like make fun of certain aspects of their questions and so on. But it's always a lot.

• 2:29:43Michael Malice?

  That's not from love. That is genuine annoyance because they asked me some really dumb questions.

• 2:29:45Lex Fridman?

  But they're still underlying, it's not even, like, there's a kind person under that. That's being communicated. That's interesting, but I don't know if I get that from your Twitter. I know I get that from the video, the, something about the face, something about like.

• 2:30:00Michael Malice?

  Yeah, of course. It's much harder, the more, the more data.

• 2:30:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:03Michael Malice?

  The more easy it is to convey emotion and subtlety. Absolutely. If you only have literally black and white letters, it's going to be, or whatever, white and black. If you have night mode, it's going to be a very different, it's much more limited information.

• 2:30:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but this is the fundamental thing is like.

• 2:30:18Michael Malice?

  Here's another example, like if they had access to my face, like a lot of times some people don't know who I am. And they come at me, call me a Nazi anti Semite, right? And I start talking about the Jews and just how terrible the Jews are. Now, all my audience knows I'm Jewish, that I went to Yeshiva. So they're sitting there laughing because this person's making ass of themselves. That person has no idea, but if there was video, then they would be like, okay, wait a minute, something's up.

• 2:30:40Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, something's up. I don't know. I think it's entertaining. I think it's fun, but I just, I don't think it's scalable. And ultimately, I'm trying to figure out this whole trolling thing because I think it's really destructive. I've been the outrage mob, the outrage mobs, the just the, the dynamics of Twitter has been really bothering me.

• 2:31:03Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:31:04Lex Fridman?

  And I've been trying to figure out if we can try to build an, an alternative to Twitter perhaps, or try to encourage Twitter to be better, how to have nuanced, healthy conversations. Like, the reason I talk about love isn't just for love's sake, it's just a good base from which to have difficult conversations. Like, that's a good starting point. Because if you start, like, I would argue that the kind of conversation you have on Twitter is fun, but it might not be a good starting point for a difficult nuanced conversation.

• 2:31:37Michael Malice?

  Well, I'm not interested in having those conversations with most people.

• 2:31:41Lex Fridman?

  No, I know, but.

• 2:31:42Michael Malice?

  So I agree with you. I'm not, your point is valid.

• 2:31:44Lex Fridman?

  Yes, but like I'm saying, so if we were trying to have a difficult nuanced conversation about, say, race in America or policing, is there racism, institutional racism of policing? Okay, there's, uh, the only conversations that have been nuanced about it that I've heard is in the podcasting medium.

• 2:32:04Michael Malice?

  I agree with you.

• 2:32:05Lex Fridman?

  Which is the magic of podcasting, which is great, but that, that's the downside of podcasting is it's a very small number of people. Even if it's in the thousands, it's still small. And then there's millions of people on social media and they're not having nuanced conversation at all.

• 2:32:24Michael Malice?

  They're not capable of it. That's the difference in you.

• 2:32:26Lex Fridman?

  That's, I believe they are. So that's.

• 2:32:28Michael Malice?

  There's no data that's.

• 2:32:29Lex Fridman?

  And then both of us aren't being not scientific. You don't have data to support your world either.

• 2:32:34Michael Malice?

  You're making the claim.

• 2:32:36Lex Fridman?

  Well, you are too.

• 2:32:37Michael Malice?

  No, I'm not. If I'm looking at an object, the, the claim that it has a mind.

• 2:32:42Lex Fridman?

  Well.

• 2:32:44Lex Fridman?

  No, what, no, your, your claim is that people are fundamentally stupid.

• 2:32:48Michael Malice?

  We can do this. Aren't you a martial artist?

• 2:32:50Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:32:52Michael Malice?

  How's it feel? I did judo on you.

• 2:32:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. But you really don't think people are, deep down, like, capable of being intelligent?

• 2:33:04Michael Malice?

  No, not at all. Not, not deep down, not surface. I'm not joking, I'm not being tongue in cheek, I'm not being cynical. I do not at all, at all, think they have this capacity.

• 2:33:13Lex Fridman?

  I'm gonna think, because you're being so clear about it. You're not even, I'm gonna have to think about that.

• 2:33:18Michael Malice?

  You know why? Here's, here's a, here's evidence for my position, not proof. And this is, of course, data that is of little use, but it's of interest. A lot of times, when you have an audience as big as mine and people come at you, not only will people say the same thing, the same concept, they'll say the same concept in the same way. That is not a mind.

• 2:33:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's surface evidence. You're saying this iceberg looks like this from the surface. I'm saying there's an iceberg there that, if challenged, can, can rise to the occasion of deep thinking. And you're saying, nope.

• 2:33:56Michael Malice?

  Nope. It's just frozen water. Atmo rozhene. Isn't that the Russian expression?

• 2:34:02Lex Fridman?

  Uh, that's ice cream.

• 2:34:04Michael Malice?

  No, not atmo rozhene, atmo rozhene. Doesn't it mean like, like, like no one's there?

• 2:34:08Lex Fridman?

  Actually, I don't know.

• 2:34:09Michael Malice?

  Yeah, it means like, yeah. Yeah, it's like thawed. It means, nikva doma.

• 2:34:14Lex Fridman?

  Nikva doma. Okay, well, so you're challenging me to be a little bit more rigorous. I think I'll try.

• 2:34:22Michael Malice?

  I'm not challenging you anything. I'm just saying.

• 2:34:23Lex Fridman?

  No, not challenging me, but like, I'm challenging myself based on what you're saying, because I'd like to prove you wrong and find actual

• 2:34:30Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:31Lex Fridman?

  data to, to show you're wrong. And I think I can, but I would need to get that data.

• 2:34:37Michael Malice?

  That's funny you said, "I think I can," when, when they were working on my biography, Ego and Hubris, the title I had suggested was "The Little Engine That Could But Shouldn't." They didn't like it. I think that's a great title.

• 2:34:49Lex Fridman?

  That's pretty good, yeah. Speaking of biographies, I mean, one, I read your book, or listened to your book, listened to. There's an audiobook from you, right?

• 2:34:57Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I did the audio, yeah.

• 2:34:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. You, you read it?

• 2:35:00Michael Malice?

  My goal is, yes.

• 2:35:01Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so this was, this was a...

• 2:35:03Michael Malice?

  I didn't do Yaron Brook's voice in the book. I did all the different voices, because he has lisp, and I didn't want to sound like I was making fun of him.

• 2:35:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I don't remember you reading it, but it was, I was really enjoyed it.

• 2:35:14Michael Malice?

  I promise you.

• 2:35:14Lex Fridman?

  No, okay, it was good. It was like a year, a year and a half ago.

• 2:35:17Michael Malice?

  This I can prove.

• 2:35:22Lex Fridman?

  Well, let me at a high level, see if you can pull this off. If I ask you, what's the book you write about?

• 2:35:30Michael Malice?

  It's about a group of people who are united solely by their opposition to progressivism, who have little else in common, but who are all frequently caricatured and dismissed by the larger establishment media.

• 2:35:48Lex Fridman?

  But you give this kind of story of how it came to be.

• 2:35:51Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 2:35:52Lex Fridman?

  And to me, like, we're talking about trolls, but the internet side of things is quite interesting. So first of all, how does alt-right connect?

• 2:36:01Michael Malice?

  So the alt-right is the subset of the new right, which feels that race, not racism, is the most or one of the most important socio-political issues.

• 2:36:13Lex Fridman?

  Are any of those folks, like, part of the mainstream or worth paying attention to?

• 2:36:20Michael Malice?

  None are part of the mainstream, the alt-right.

• 2:36:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:22Michael Malice?

  By definition, they would be part of the mainstream.

• 2:36:25Lex Fridman?

  They would not be part of them.

• 2:36:26Michael Malice?

  No, they would not. I don't know that any of them, well, worth is not a position, I'm not a position to say worth. I would say that it is of use to be familiar with their arguments, because to dismiss any school of thought, especially one that has historically gained leverage, especially one that has historically gained leverage in very dark ways, especially in America, in Europe and other places, just to say, oh, they're racist, I don't need to think about them, it doesn't behoove you.

• 2:36:58Lex Fridman?

  So what, what lessons do we draw from the 4chan side of things, like the internet side of the movement?

• 2:37:07Michael Malice?

  Tits or get the fuck out.

• 2:37:10Lex Fridman?

  Can you define every single word in this?

• 2:37:12Michael Malice?

  Tits are breasts.

• 2:37:13Lex Fridman?

  Uh huh.

• 2:37:13Michael Malice?

  Or get the fuck out. That's from 4chan.

• 2:37:16Lex Fridman?

  Okay, that's, what's, what's it mean?

• 2:37:19Michael Malice?

  Oh, sometimes like a woman will appear on 4chan and they'll just reply tits or get the fuck out.

• 2:37:25Lex Fridman?

  I'm trying to understand what the... Oh, oh, that's a way.

• 2:37:32Lex Fridman?

  I just, um, very slow. So that's, okay, so that's very disrespectful towards female

• 2:37:42Lex Fridman?

  members of the community. I don't understand. There's rules to this community and one of them is, we're not very good with women. Is that, that's one of the rules?

• 2:37:51Michael Malice?

  It's more of a principle than a rule.

• 2:37:53Lex Fridman?

  It's a principle? We're not going to ever get laid. That's fundamental principle. Is there other-

• 2:37:59Michael Malice?

  But we are gonna get pics.

• 2:38:01Lex Fridman?

  Picks.

• 2:38:01Michael Malice?

  Sometimes.

• 2:38:02Lex Fridman?

  Sometimes, on the internet.

• 2:38:04Michael Malice?

  Sometimes they GTFO.

• 2:38:05Lex Fridman?

  GT, okay, so is there other actual principles of, so like, it's, it's, from my maybe naive perspective, is they have like the darkest aspects of trolling, which is like, take nothing serious, make a game out of everything.

• 2:38:21Michael Malice?

  That's not 4chan per se. One of the things that you will learn in 4chan, which I think is very healthy, is if you have an idiosyncratic or unique worldview or focus on an aspect of history or culture, you'll be able to find like-minded people who you will engage with you and discuss it without being preemptively dismissive.

• 2:38:40Lex Fridman?

  That's an ideal that they-

• 2:38:42Michael Malice?

  Well, it's not ideal. It's something that happens a lot. Now, 4chan's not really like Paul is their board with politics, but they will, you know, get into some, like, the people there are much more erudite than you'd think.

• 2:38:53Lex Fridman?

  So they do take, my, my perception was they take nothing seriously. So there's things that they take seriously, like discussing ideas.

• 2:38:59Michael Malice?

  I'll give you one example. There was a video someone posted of a girl who put kittens in a bag and threw it in a river, and they found out where she was within a day and got her like arrested. So yeah, they do take some things very seriously.

• 2:39:12Lex Fridman?

  Okay, but that's like an extreme, that, I mean, that's good. First of all, that's heartwarming that they wouldn't somehow turn that into a thing. That feels like more of, what is it? What's the other one? 8chan?

• 2:39:24Michael Malice?

  8chan's twice as good as 4chan, yeah. That's their slogan.

• 2:39:29Lex Fridman?

  But it feels like they're the kind of community that would take that kitten situation and make a mockery.

• 2:39:36Michael Malice?

  Yeah, they're darker than 4chan. Yeah. And I'm not allowed to talk about 16chan.

• 2:39:42Lex Fridman?

  I'm already overwhelmed, clearly, by 4chan lingo. I literally wrote down in my notes, like, in doing research for this conversation, I learned the word pleb. And I wanted to ask you what this pleb means.

• 2:40:00Michael Malice?

  You know what pleb means?

• 2:40:01Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 2:40:03Michael Malice?

  I don't...

• 2:40:04Lex Fridman?

  I saw, I mean, actually, no, I don't.

• 2:40:07Michael Malice?

  You know what a pleb is?

• 2:40:08Lex Fridman?

  I just, I don't know what a pleb is.

• 2:40:11Michael Malice?

  Like a plebicide or a plebian.

• 2:40:13Lex Fridman?

  Okay. But does it mean something more sophisticated?

• 2:40:18Michael Malice?

  No, it's a very unsophisticated mechanism of being dismissive.

• 2:40:21Lex Fridman?

  Of, like, the regular people?

• 2:40:23Michael Malice?

  Yeah, or someone who comes at me on Twitter.

• 2:40:26Lex Fridman?

  Okay. All right, so back to the 4chan alt-right. Wasn't the...

• 2:40:31Michael Malice?

  Those are very different concepts. Don't conflate them.

• 2:40:34Lex Fridman?

  But which internet culture was the alt-right born out of?

• 2:40:40Michael Malice?

  Well, alt-right was more born of blogs. And people had different blogs that were posting what they called racial realism, which is scientific racism, so-called, and, you know, breaking down issues from a racialist perspective. So that wasn't... 4chan is much more dynamic. It's a message board. It's very fluid. So it doesn't lend itself to these kind of in-depth analysis of ideas or history.

• 2:41:02Lex Fridman?

  But it spreads them? Like, it...

• 2:41:04Michael Malice?

  It spreads them as memes, yeah. And, you know, but...

• 2:41:07Lex Fridman?

  But it's not an essential mechanism of the alt-right historically?

• 2:41:12Michael Malice?

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 2:41:13Lex Fridman?

  So it's mostly about blogs? Okay, so what do you make of the psychology of this kind of worldview?

• 2:41:20Michael Malice?

  When you have, and this goes to your conspiracy theory subject earlier. When you have a little bit of knowledge about something, about history, that no one's talking about... And there's only one group that is talking about it and they and you have no alternative answers, you're going to be drawn to that group. So because issues about race, antisemitism, homophobia are so taboo in our culture, understandably, there's good reasons. If you start putting things like, how old should you be to have sex with kids and just have regular conversations, eventually, some people are going to start taking some positions you don't like. So some things have to be sanctified to some extent. There they are once talking about it, you're going to be drawn to that subculture.

• 2:42:01Lex Fridman?

  And where does the alt-right stand now? I mean, I hear that term used.

• 2:42:06Michael Malice?

  So the term has been weaponized by the corporate press for people that they want to read out of society. So it's used both on individual levels, like people like Gavin McInge- McIngeas, Milo Yiannopoulos, some others. They, I mean, I think they've referred to Trump as alt-right. And, and, you know, it's become a slur, just like incel or bot, that it's become largely removed from its original meaning.

• 2:42:31Lex Fridman?

  Do you have a sense that there's still a movement that's alt-right or like?

• 2:42:34Michael Malice?

  Yeah, they call themselves now. So, okay, so there's something called the dissonant right. And they say, we're completely not like the alt-right because the alt-right's A, B, and C, and we're B, C, D. There's a huge overlap. It's very much the same people.

• 2:42:48Lex Fridman?

  Is there intellectuals that still represent some, some aspect of the movement?

• 2:42:52Michael Malice?

  I mean, sure.

• 2:42:53Lex Fridman?

  Are you tracking this?

• 2:42:54Michael Malice?

  Not, not that much anymore. I think they've, they're, I don't find it particularly as, now that the book's done, you know, my, I'm looking more into history for my next book.

• 2:43:07Lex Fridman?

  You mentioned communism?

• 2:43:08Michael Malice?

  I'm going to talk a lot about the Cold War. So this kind of stuff has largely fallen away from my radar to some extent. And they've also been, the, it's been a very effective movement to get them marginalized and silenced.

• 2:43:20Lex Fridman?

  So they're not as as deep as a concern in terms of concern or not, just their impact on society.

• 2:43:27Michael Malice?

  Yes, it's much lessened, yeah.

• 2:43:29Lex Fridman?

  So as a troll on Twitter.

• 2:43:31Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:31Lex Fridman?

  In the best sense of the word, what do you make of cancel culture?

• 2:43:37Michael Malice?

  I think it's Maoism. It's, I mean, the corporate America has done a far better job of implementing Maoism than the Communist Party ever could. You had this meeting not that long ago from, I think it was Northwestern University Law School, where everyone on the call got up and said that they were racist. I mean, this is something that legally you should be very averse to saying, even if it were true. And it's this kind of concept of getting up and confessing your sins before the collective is something completely.

• 2:44:03Lex Fridman?

  Oh, they, sorry, they admitted this of themselves?

• 2:44:05Michael Malice?

  Yeah, they were like, because they're saying because they're white, they're inherently racist. So my name's John, I'm a racist. My name's this, I'm a racist. It was, you hear it and you're like, okay, this is Looney Tunes.

• 2:44:13Lex Fridman?

  So you're saying that, wow, that's that's so much, you took a step further. So you're saying there's like a, a deep underlying force, because that's cancel culture, it's not just some kind of mob.

• 2:44:24Michael Malice?

  It's not a mob at all.

• 2:44:26Lex Fridman?

  It's a.

• 2:44:28Michael Malice?

  It's a systemic, organized movement being used for very nefarious purposes and to dominate, you know, an entire nation.

• 2:44:36Lex Fridman?

  How do we fight it? Because I sense it inside. You know, I used to defend academia more because I still do to some extent. It's a nuanced discussion because, you know, like folks like Jordan Peterson and a lot of people that kind of attack academia, they refer, they really are talking about gender studies at certain departments. And me from MIT, you know, it's the University of Science and Engineering and the faculty there really don't think about these issues or haven't traditionally thought about.

• 2:45:15Lex Fridman?

  It's beginning to even infiltrate there. It's the, you know, it's starting to infiltrate engineering and sciences outside of biology.

• 2:45:23Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:23Lex Fridman?

  Like, let's put biology with the gender studies. Like, I'm talking about sciences that really don't have anything to do with gender. It's starting to infiltrate. It worries me, I don't know exactly why, like, I don't know exactly what the negative effect there would be, except it feels like it's anti-intellectual.

• 2:45:47Michael Malice?

  Oh, yes, of course.

• 2:45:48Lex Fridman?

  And I'm not sure what to, uh, because on the surface, it feels like a path towards progress at first, when you, when I'm like zoomed out, you know, just like, like squinting my eyes, that, you know, not even in detail looking at things, but when I actually join the conversation to like, listen in, the conversation on quote unquote diversity, it quickly makes me realize that there's no interest in, um, in making a better world.

• 2:46:21Michael Malice?

  No, no, it's about domination.

• 2:46:22Lex Fridman?

  It's, it's about getting, yeah.

• 2:46:24Michael Malice?

  It's a way for, if you are a lowest status white person, using anti-racism is the only mechanism you will have to feel superior to another human being. So it's very useful for them. In terms of fighting it, one of my suggestions has been to seize all university endowments, which are the crystallization of privilege and distribute that money as reparations. So be very effective by turning two populations against each other and strongly diminishing the university's intellectual hegemony. The universities are absolutely the real villains in the picture. Thankfully, they're also the least prepared to be aggressed upon. And after the government and the corporate press, they are the last

• 2:47:07Michael Malice?

  leg of the stool and they don't know what's coming and it's gonna get ugly and I cannot wait.

• 2:47:12Lex Fridman?

  So this is where you and I disagree, but one would, yeah, we disagree in a sense that you want to dismantle broken institutions.

• 2:47:22Michael Malice?

  I don't think they're broken, they're working like by design. I think for over a hundred years, they have been talking about bringing the next generation of American leaders, which is code for promulgating an ideology based on egalitarian principles and world domination.

• 2:47:38Lex Fridman?

  Let me try to express my lived experience.

• 2:47:41Michael Malice?

  Okay, sure.

• 2:47:41Lex Fridman?

  Okay. My experience at MIT is that there's a bunch of administrators that are the bureaucracy.

• 2:47:51Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 2:47:53Lex Fridman?

  I can, I can say, this is the nice thing about having a podcast, I don't give a damn, is they're pretty useless. In fact, they get in the way. But there's faculty, there's professors that are incredible. They're incredible human beings that all they do all day, they're too busy, but for the most part, what they do all day is just like continually pursue different little trajectories of curiosities in the, in the various avenues of science that they work on. And as a side effect of that, they mentor a group of students, sometimes a large group of students, and also teach courses, and they're constantly sharing their passion with others.

• 2:48:37Lex Fridman?

  And my experience is it's just a bunch of people who are curious about engineering and math and science, chemistry, artificial intelligence, computer science, what I'm most familiar with. And there's never this feeling of MIT being broken somehow, like this kind of feeling, like if I talk to you just now, or like Eric Weinstein, there's a feeling like stuff is on fire. Right? There's something deeply broken. But when I'm in, in the system, especially before the COVID, before this kind of tension, everything was great. There was no discussion of even diversity, all that kind of stuff. The, the toxic stuff that we might be talking about right now, none of that was happening.

• 2:49:22Lex Fridman?

  It was a bunch of people just in love with cool ideas, exploring ideas, being curious and learning and all that kind of stuff. So I don't, my, my sense of academia was this is the place where kids in their twenties, thirties and forties can continue the playground of science, having fun. It's, if you destroy academia, if you destroy universities, like you're suggesting kind of lessening their power, you take away the playground from these kids to, to, to play.

• 2:49:53Michael Malice?

  It's going to be hard for you to tell me that I'm anti playground.

• 2:49:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, well, I guess I'm saying you're anti certain kinds of playgrounds, which is.

• 2:50:00Michael Malice?

  Yeah, the ones that have the broken glass on the floor. Yeah, I am against those kinds of playgrounds.

• 2:50:05Lex Fridman?

  No, you're, you're, you're.

• 2:50:09Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 2:50:09Lex Fridman?

  Nope.

• 2:50:09Michael Malice?

  Yes. Now you see, now you listen.

• 2:50:12Lex Fridman?

  Now you, now you wait, yeah. I, I, I would say you're being the watchful mother who, the one kid who hurt themselves in the glass.

• 2:50:21Michael Malice?

  One kid, it's an entire gen, it's generation after generation. I'm not a watchful mother, I'm the guy with the flamethrower.

• 2:50:25Lex Fridman?

  No, I, I, I understand that.

• 2:50:29Lex Fridman?

  But you're using the one kid who was always kind of like weird, um, AKA gender studies department. That, that hurt themselves on the glass as opposed to the people who are like, obviously having fun in the playground and not, uh, playing by the glass, the broken glass. And they're just, I mean, to me, some of the best innovations in science happen in universities.

• 2:50:53Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:50:53Lex Fridman?

  You can't forget that universities don't have this liberal, like, politics, like, literally in every conversation until this year, until this, this year, there's something happening. But, uh, every conversation I've ever had, nothing to do with politics, would never, Trump never came up. None of that ever come up, nothing. Like, all this kind of idea that there's liberal, all that, but that, that's in the humanities.

• 2:51:21Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but do you think MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, might be a little bit of an outlier?

• 2:51:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there probably is, yeah. But I, I don't, I honestly don't think when people criticize academia, they're looking at, uh, they're in fact also picking the outliers, which is they're picking some of the quote unquote strongest gender studies department.

• 2:51:42Michael Malice?

  This is nonsensical. When I was at Bucknell, I was a college student, we had to take, uh, you know, we had a bunch of electives and I want to take a class on individual, American individualism. One of the texts of the five that we had to read was Birth of a Nation, the movie about the Klan. So there's no department where these people are not thoroughgoing hardcore ideologues. This is not a gender.

• 2:52:09Lex Fridman?

  That's the humanities.

• 2:52:10Michael Malice?

  Fine, all the humanities, not just gender studies.

• 2:52:13Lex Fridman?

  Okay, fine, I can give you.

• 2:52:14Michael Malice?

  History, English.

• 2:52:16Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:52:16Michael Malice?

  All of them, every university, as you know.

• 2:52:19Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:52:19Michael Malice?

  Has it mandatory in the curriculum, they have to take a bunch of these propaganda classes.

• 2:52:26Lex Fridman?

  I look forward to YouTube comments because you're being more eloquent and you're speaking to the thing that a lot of people agree with and I'm being my usual slow self and people are going to say not very nice things about me.

• 2:52:38Michael Malice?

  Don't say anything not nice about Lex.

• 2:52:40Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 2:52:40Michael Malice?

  Please.

• 2:52:41Lex Fridman?

  Let me try to just.

• 2:52:42Michael Malice?

  Just shoot up a school. That would be preferable.

• 2:52:45Lex Fridman?

  There he goes again.

• 2:52:47Michael Malice?

  Only the teachers.

• 2:52:47Lex Fridman?

  Go to the darkest possible place.

• 2:52:49Michael Malice?

  That's sunshine, baby, schools. That's where everyone goes to be happy, playgrounds.

• 2:52:52Lex Fridman?

  There he goes, dark ear. Just dives right in, like it just go dark and then just comes back off to the surface.

• 2:53:00Michael Malice?

  You don't have to feel this way anymore. Just one day and all will be over.

• 2:53:09Lex Fridman?

  You're probably a figment of my imagination. I'm not even having this podcast.

• 2:53:12Michael Malice?

  Well, after 18 Red Bulls, I'm surprised you could see anything.

• 2:53:15Lex Fridman?

  This is like Fight Club.

• 2:53:16Michael Malice?

  Red Bull gives you delirium.

• 2:53:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:19Michael Malice?

  Fight Club. I got into it with Ed Norton yesterday on Twitter.

• 2:53:23Lex Fridman?

  Oh, really?

• 2:53:24Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:24Lex Fridman?

  Is he like the rest of the celebrities?

• 2:53:27Michael Malice?

  Yeah, he's like, oh, this is an existential threat to America. Trump's a fascist. He's delegitimizing the Oval Office. I said, what an odd endorsement of Trump.

• 2:53:35Lex Fridman?

  Well, you should have went to Bad Pitt. He might have a different opinion.

• 2:53:38Michael Malice?

  That's true.

• 2:53:38Lex Fridman?

  Fight Club reference.

• 2:53:39Michael Malice?

  Yeah. This conversation is over.

• 2:53:43Lex Fridman?

  It's interesting. I'd like to draw a line between science and engineering and science not including like the biological aspect, the parts of biology that touch and humanities and biology. Like I feel because humanities, if you just look at the percentage of universities, it's still a minority percentage. And I would actually draw a different, I think they serve very different purposes.

• 2:54:09Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 2:54:10Lex Fridman?

  And that's actually a broken part about universities about like, why, why is some of the best research in the world done at universities? That doesn't like, there might be a different, like MIT, it feels weird that a faculty.

• 2:54:25Michael Malice?

  Yeah, these are conceptually different things. Like we do research and we teach, why is this the same diagram?

• 2:54:29Lex Fridman?

  It feels weird, but that's just, but I'm also, I'm coming to like the defense of the engineers that never talk about, I'm not like, like.

• 2:54:39Lex Fridman?

  My mind isn't, I'm not like diluted or something where I'm not seeing the the house on fire. I'm just saying, I am seeing the house because I also lived in Harvard Square. I'm seeing Harvard, but.

• 2:54:50Michael Malice?

  Can you see the tanks coming? They're coming, Lex. It's gonna be so beautiful. I'm gonna, it'll be like the American Beauty, the plastic bag. I just won't be able to stop crying because it'll be so beautiful.

• 2:54:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:59Michael Malice?

  The tanks.

• 2:55:00Lex Fridman?

  I could, I can already, I can already see it. But the, but the engineering departments were like, I believe that the Elon Musks of the world, that the, like, the innovation that will make a better world is happening. And like, let's not burn that down. Because that has nothing to do with any, like, they're all like, sitting quietly in, while like, while the humanities or all these kind of diversity programs, they're, they're not having any of these discussions.

• 2:55:27Michael Malice?

  Listen, my Soviet brother, you both know, we both know that ice water runs in our veins. So if you're calling for mercy, that is not how I'm wired, but I'm not closing the door.

• 2:55:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I'm actually realizing now, so for, for people listening to this, I'll probably prepend this in saying that I'm even slower than usual. I didn't sleep last night, but I feel, I'm actually realizing just how slow I am and how much preparation I need to do. And if I would like to defend aspects of academia, I better come prepared.

• 2:55:59Michael Malice?

  I don't think you need to defend them. I think I'm granting you your premise freely.

• 2:56:03Lex Fridman?

  No, you might be.

• 2:56:04Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:56:05Lex Fridman?

  I don't think the, the world is.

• 2:56:07Michael Malice?

  But actually, you just defeat your own argument because you, because it is not at all have to be the way that a phenomenal research institution like MIT, which no one disputes, has to also be an educational establishment. These two things are not at all necessarily interconnected.

• 2:56:23Lex Fridman?

  But then you have to offer a way to separate them.

• 2:56:25Michael Malice?

  Correct.

• 2:56:26Lex Fridman?

  But like, I'm, I'm not a big fan, everybody's different, but I'm not a fan of criticizing institutions without offering.

• 2:56:33Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 2:56:33Lex Fridman?

  A way to change. And especially when I'm like, have ability to change, I'd like to.

• 2:56:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I'd like to offer a path like.

• 2:56:41Michael Malice?

  What if they were in students, they were all mentor like, uh, like, like, um. What's the opposite of mentor?

• 2:56:47Lex Fridman?

  Mentee.

• 2:56:47Michael Malice?

  Protege, what's the term when you're like, when you work at a place like interns, not an intern, it's not the one I'm thinking of. But anyway, like basically they're working there instead of going to college there.

• 2:56:57Lex Fridman?

  It's possible, but it's going against tradition. And so you have to build new institutions and the.

• 2:57:02Michael Malice?

  You can't have these engineers building new things. That's crazy.

• 2:57:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:06Michael Malice?

  These research engineers, where they're going to be building things.

• 2:57:10Lex Fridman?

  Well, one of the things, cause you're kind of, you know.

• 2:57:12Michael Malice?

  Apprentice, that's the word I was looking at.

• 2:57:13Lex Fridman?

  Apprentice.

• 2:57:14Michael Malice?

  Which is ironic, we're talking about Trump and we couldn't think of the word apprentice.

• 2:57:17Lex Fridman?

  Very, yeah, well done. We should both be fired. Yeah, there you go. These Russian Jews so quick with their wit. Okay. Uh, but the, the, the thing is you're a fan of freedom.

• 2:57:28Michael Malice?

  I am.

• 2:57:30Lex Fridman?

  And there's, there is intellectual freedom. People, this is what I was trying to articulate. I'm failing to articulate. But there truly is complete intellectual freedom within universities on topics of science and engineering.

• 2:57:47Michael Malice?

  I believe you. I agree with you. I don't think it's going to take much persuasion, but I'll give you an example. When that, I, I'm sure you know more details about this than I do. When that scientist engineered that probe to land on that comet. And the article's written because this Hawaiian shirt he was wearing had like pinup girls on it, which I think is female student Sodek frame or something, or his ex-girlfriend. And he had to apologize. This is what Rand was talking about.

• 2:58:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:14Michael Malice?

  That the great accomplishments of men have to say I'm sorry to the lowest, most despicable, disgusting people.

• 2:58:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I don't know. You know, let me bring this case up because I think about this. Uh, this might not mean much to you, but it means a lot to a certain aspect of the computer science community. There's a guy named Richard Stallman. I don't know if you, you know who that is.

• 2:58:37Michael Malice?

  No.

• 2:58:38Lex Fridman?

  He's the founder of the Free Software Foundation. He's like a big Linux. He's one of the key people in the history of computer science, one of those open source people, right? But he is like, I believe he's the one of the hardcore ones, which is like, all software should be free.

• 2:58:53Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:58:54Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so it's a very interesting personality, very key person in the Gnu, just like Linus Torvalds, key person. So, but he also kind of speaks his mind.

• 2:59:04Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:59:05Lex Fridman?

  And on a certain chain of conversations at MIT that was leaked to the New York Times, then was published, led him to be fired or pushed out of MIT recently, maybe a year ago. And it always sat weird with me. So what happened is um there's a few undergraduate students that called Marvin Minsky, not sure if you're familiar with who that is.

• 2:59:33Michael Malice?

  I've heard the name.

• 2:59:34Lex Fridman?

  He's one of the seminal people in artificial intelligence. They, they said that, they called him a rapist because he met with Jeffrey Epstein. And Jeffrey Epstein solicited, uh, these are the best facts known to me that I'm aware of. That's what was stated on the chain, is he solicited a 17, but it might have been an 18 year old girl to come up to Marvin Minsky and ask him if he wanted to have sex with her. So Jeffrey Epstein told the girl.

• 3:00:07Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:08Lex Fridman?

  She came up to Marvin Minsky, who was at that time is, I think, seven years old. And his wife was there too, Marvin Minsky's wife. And he said, no, or like, you know, awkwardly.

• 3:00:18Michael Malice?

  Yeah, no, thank you.

• 3:00:18Lex Fridman?

  No, thanks. And that was stated in the email thread as Marvin participating in.

• 3:00:30Lex Fridman?

  Sexual assault and rape of this unwilling sexual assault and it was called rape of this person, right, of this woman that propositioned him. And then Richard Stallman, who's he's kind of known for this. He's very he's you make fun of me being a robot, but he's kind of like a debugger. He's like, well, that sentence is not what you said is not correct. So he like corrected the person. Basically made it seem like the the use of the word rape is not correct because that's not the definition of rape.

• 3:01:07Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:08Lex Fridman?

  And then he was attacked for saying, oh, now you're playing with definitions of rape. Rape is rape is the answer, right? And then that was leaked in him defending. So the way it was leaked, it was reported as him defending rape. That's the way it was reported. And he was pushed out and he didn't really give a damn. It's he doesn't seem to make a big deal out of it. He just left.

• 3:01:36Michael Malice?

  He made an example of him.

• 3:01:37Lex Fridman?

  They made an example and that and then everyone was afraid to defend him. So like, there's a bunch of faculty, one.

• 3:01:44Michael Malice?

  Dude, you're from the Soviet Union. Doesn't this hit close to home for you?

• 3:01:48Lex Fridman?

  I don't know what to think of it. It hits close to home, but it was basically, at least at MIT. Now MIT is such a light place with this. It's not common at MIT, but it was like 18, 19 year old kids, undergraduate kids with this kind of fire in them. There's just very few of them, but they're the ones that raise all this kind of fuss. And the entirety of the administration, all the faculty are afraid to stand up to them. It's so interesting to me. Like, I don't know if I should be afraid of that.

• 3:02:22Michael Malice?

  You don't think you should be afraid that when someone who's trying to be specific when it comes to charges of violent assault is looking for that clarity, get their life other search.

• 3:02:31Lex Fridman?

  Let me give you more context. There's a little bit more context to Richard Stallman, which is.

• 3:02:37Michael Malice?

  He was also a rapist.

• 3:02:38Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 3:02:39Michael Malice?

  I left out that part. You like raping people.

• 3:02:42Lex Fridman?

  But he's had a history through his life of, you know, every once in a while, wearing the Hawaiian shirt with like, he would make, he's a fat.

• 3:02:54Lex Fridman?

  Uh, sorry, but he's a fat, unattractive, he like what Trump referred to the, the

• 3:02:59Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah, the guy, 700 pound guy in the basement.

• 3:03:01Lex Fridman?

  In the basement, that's Richard. Okay, I love, you know, is, you know, he is what he is. People, you know, people, he like, he would eat his own, uh, he would pick skin from his feet in lectures and just eat it.

• 3:03:12Michael Malice?

  No.

• 3:03:13Lex Fridman?

  Okay, yeah. Those videos of him doing that.

• 3:03:15Michael Malice?

  He must, I'm not joking, he must really be behind the spectrum then.

• 3:03:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:03:18Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 3:03:19Lex Fridman?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, uh, he, I think this, uh, and his office, he, uh, door, he wrote something like, uh, uh, like hacker, uh, plus, plus lover of ladies or something like that, like something kinda, yeah.

• 3:03:39Michael Malice?

  Unprofessional.

• 3:03:41Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, unprofessional and a little creepy.

• 3:03:43Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah, no, that's fair, that is, yeah.

• 3:03:44Lex Fridman?

  So he was also

• 3:03:45Michael Malice?

  So they're looking for an excuse to get rid of him, it sounds like.

• 3:03:49Lex Fridman?

  Uh, no, he was just, who's they?

• 3:03:51Michael Malice?

  The administration.

• 3:03:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, probably, probably.

• 3:03:55Michael Malice?

  A lot of times what people don't realize, and this will be my defense of cancel culture, a lot of times when someone gets fired over something like this.

• 3:04:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:04:02Michael Malice?

  This isn't why, this is just giving them cover to get rid of them without getting a lawsuit.

• 3:04:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but it's still, I, so I think, I guess what I'm trying to communicate is he was a little weird and creepy and he may, may not be the, the best for the community, but that's not necessarily the message it's sent to the rest of the community. The message is sent to the rest of the community that being clear about words or the usage of the word rape is, uh, like you should call everything rape. That's, that's, that's basically the message it was sent.

• 3:04:35Michael Malice?

  Or you should call what we say rape, rape. It's about submission. I think I'm, you'd be very happy to know that there's a lot of people, and she's very crucified of this, like Betsy DeVos, the Department of Education, who are aware of this, they are aware that this completely contradicts due process. Uh, they're aware of how a rape accusation is something not to be taken seriously, but because it's not to be taken seriously, it has to be also taken seriously in other contexts, that, you know, once that word is around a male, this can ruin his entire life. Um, and

• 3:05:06Lex Fridman?

  That's, that, that's the sticky thing of the word, like I, like I think about this a lot that, um,

• 3:05:16Lex Fridman?

  Like, how would I defend it if somebody like I've never, I can honestly say I've never done anything close to creepy in my life, like with, like with women.

• 3:05:26Michael Malice?

  But you wouldn't know it if you had, right? That's the thing, a lot of these creepy guys don't think they're creepy. They think they're being cute.

• 3:05:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but I'm just telling you even like, fine, let's say, right, let's say I'm not aware of it, but the point that I am aware of is that somebody could just completely make something up.

• 3:05:43Michael Malice?

  Correct, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

• 3:05:45Lex Fridman?

  And like, what would I?

• 3:05:47Michael Malice?

  No, he denied the charges. There's an article around everything he did supposedly, and it goes, Mr. Friedman denied the charges, yeah.

• 3:05:53Lex Fridman?

  But what creeps me out?

• 3:05:55Michael Malice?

  That happened, can I interrupt? There was, Zora Neale Hurston is one of my favorite writers, she's from the Harlem Renaissance.

• 3:06:01Michael Malice?

  She wrote Their Eyes Are Watching God, a couple of other books. She was just an amazing, amazing figure. Her biography is called Wrapped in Rainbows, it's just a masterpiece, I like, I think I read it one day, can't recommend her enough, fascinating, fascinating woman. During the 30s, I think it was, or 1940, she was out of the country, she was accused of molesting a teenage boy. She wasn't in America, this could be proven, so there was, it's absolutely false, not even a question, she was indicted, and she wanted to kill herself, because she's like, people are gonna see these things, and they're gonna think maybe there's some truth to it, maybe it was voluntary, what they're just gonna, and, and you could understand why she'd be suicidal over this. So yeah, this is, this is something that's been going on for a long time, and, and the

• 3:06:45Michael Malice?

  fact that it's becoming, I do agree, it's important, I know a lot of women who have been sexually assaulted, more than I am happy that I know, and if I know that many, that means there's more. So I, I don't, I, I think it's, it's a good idea that they feel seen, that they don't feel wounded, they don't feel damaged, or they could talk to their friends, and I'm like, man, this sucks, this happened to you, and, and I don't think you're a slut, I don't think you're asking for it, I think you feel violated, I think it's gross, talk to me, like, I, I do think that that's important. And I also think it's important, though, like, when things get kind of in a frenzy, that a lot of people are like, yeah, I also had something happen, and very quickly, the line between he grabbed my boob, and he violently raped me, I don't think these two things

• 3:07:27Michael Malice?

  are the same at all, I think they're both sexual assault, but in terms of what someone can deal with the next day, the next month, 10 years later, I, I don't think they're similar scenarios.

• 3:07:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:07:38Michael Malice?

  I had Juanita Broderick on my show and hearing her talk about, you know, her alleged rape by Bill Clinton was very disturbing for me, very disturbing to hear because it was like half an hour. So, you know, we think of these things and think, okay, hold her down, blah, blah. And it's done half an hour when just even someone physically holding you down for half an hour. Yeah. Like not even a sexual assault.

• 3:07:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:07:59Michael Malice?

  Like that's traumatic.

• 3:08:00Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:01Michael Malice?

  You think, am I gonna, your brain's gonna think, am I gonna die?

• 3:08:03Lex Fridman?

  When I zoom out, I think the ultimately this is gonna lead to a better world. Like empowering women to speak to those kinds of experiences. The benefit of it outweighs the.

• 3:08:18Michael Malice?

  The issue is whenever people are given a weapon, some are going to use it.

• 3:08:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:23Michael Malice?

  In nefarious ways. And that's the lesson of history. Males, when males, females, whites, blacks, children, adults. When people are given a mechanism to execute power over others, some are gonna use it.

• 3:08:34Lex Fridman?

  Can I ask you for a therapy thing?

• 3:08:37Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 3:08:39Lex Fridman?

  On trolling, in a sense. Cause I mentioned somebody making up something about me. I feel because I wear my heart on my sleeve. I'm not good with these attacks. Like I've been attacked recently, just being called a fraud and all that kind of stuff. Just light stuff like I haven't, you know? It was like, it hurt.

• 3:09:03Michael Malice?

  Okay, well, let me help you. Maybe it's because I'm a New Yorker. No, I'm serious. Here's why. In New York, a lot of times you'll be walking with your friend and a homeless person will come up to you and start yelling things at you. Your reaction isn't in those circumstances. Let me hear this out. Your reaction is physical safety and getting away. Now, it's not impossible that that homeless person is actually saying the truth. This happened to my, a friend of mine. She, this guy wasn't homeless. And he's walking down the street on Smith Street and he's just talking out loud. And he goes, why they call them hipsters? What are they hip to? And she chuckles and he goes, what are you laughing at, fatso? You start something, I'll finish it.

• 3:09:48Michael Malice?

  And she just couldn't move.

• 3:09:50Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:51Michael Malice?

  And it's like, is my weight a problem? Because that's the first thing he went to.

• 3:09:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:55Michael Malice?

  And there's, I don't know that I have any advice, but when you hear something like this, this is, I think you need to be better in terms of boundaries. I think you should not perceive this as a fellow human, but as a crazy homeless person, because if this fellow human, if I thought that you were a fraud in some context, that's a very weird word to use because fraudulent podcaster, these are real mics. But if I-

• 3:10:20Lex Fridman?

  Well, scientist or human.

• 3:10:23Michael Malice?

  Sure, but I would ask myself, is this person in a position to make this judgment? Or are they backing it up? Are they saying, here, your conclusions were wrong. Here's some mistakes in your data and you can engage with them in ideas. But whenever someone uses a word to entirely dismiss your life without having the knowledge of your life, you do not have to take that seriously.

• 3:10:44Lex Fridman?

  I appreciate that kind of idea, but some things aren't about data. Like, you know, I see myself as a fraud often. And it's more psychology of it.

• 3:10:58Lex Fridman?

  If I can reduce something to reason, I can probably be fine. My worry is the same as the worry of like teenage girls that get bullied online. It's like when I'm being open and fragile on the internet, it affects me in a way where I can't, the reason doesn't help. It helps me, but-

• 3:11:16Michael Malice?

  You don't block people enough. I'm very heavy with the blocking.

• 3:11:18Lex Fridman?

  No, I, so yeah, I-

• 3:11:20Michael Malice?

  Very heavy.

• 3:11:21Lex Fridman?

  I block, it's helped a lot.

• 3:11:23Michael Malice?

  Aggressive banality, I block immediately. I also think time is going to help. I don't think you're like, you didn't grow up wanting to be a podcaster, right? That wasn't your aspiration. So in some sense, you are going to feel like a fraud because you're like, what? I don't have any training for this. I have a training for a scientist. I can talk to you about artificial intelligence for literally hours. But in terms of this, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm kind of, so when they call you a fake, it's like, yeah, you're kind of right. Because like I did kind of stumble into this. And this is not my pedigree. So I think that kind of probably speaks to you on some level.

• 3:11:53Lex Fridman?

  Well, but they're attacking not the podcasting thing, but more like the same, people call Elon Musk a fraud too. Which that's the way I rationalize it. Like, well, if they're calling him a fraud and they're calling me a fraud.

• 3:12:08Lex Fridman?

  Like, even if you have rockets that go into, like, if you successfully have rockets landing back on Earth, reusable rockets, you're still being called a fraud, then it's okay.

• 3:12:22Michael Malice?

  Not necessarily. It could be that he's not a fraud, you really are.

• 3:12:26Lex Fridman?

  That's, but I-

• 3:12:27Michael Malice?

  It's not resonating with you because your brain knows the logic, so you can't trick yourself.

• 3:12:30Lex Fridman?

  Right, but, uh, yeah. Yeah, but I don't know, this whole trolling thing, you seem to be much better at seeing it as a game.

• 3:12:41Michael Malice?

  You know why? Because you are under the delusion that every human being is capable of intelligent, reasoned decision.

• 3:12:49Lex Fridman?

  Still think I'm right.

• 3:12:49Michael Malice?

  And I perceive them as literally animals, so when a dog starts barking, all it's saying is that the dog is agitated, and this is not going to change my life one iota other than crossing the street, perhaps.

• 3:13:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I'm gonna prove you wrong one day.

• 3:13:03Michael Malice?

  If you're gonna kill yourself because they're gonna drive you to it, the first shoot up a school.

• 3:13:08Lex Fridman?

  But if I don't, I'll prove you wrong. I'll bring the data, and they'll be like, you're right, Lex.

• 3:13:13Michael Malice?

  I have the receipts.

• 3:13:14Lex Fridman?

  I have the receipts. Okay, so we mentioned Kamu.

• 3:13:18Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah, I love him.

• 3:13:20Lex Fridman?

  Is there, um, this is, this is, this is a question that people, like, love when I ask. Of really smart people.

• 3:13:30Lex Fridman?

  No, uh, what, uh, what books, let's say, three books, if you can think of them, technical, fiction, philosophical, would you, uh, had a big impact on you, or would you recommend to others?

• 3:13:45Michael Malice?

  Sure. Uh, The Machiavellians by James Burnham. Uh, this is a book about how politics works in reality as opposed to how people imagine it working. Menchus Moldbug, who's a figure in these circles, who's respected by a lot of people. I was giving a talk, and there was a bunch of panelists, and we were asked, what book would you recommend? I said The Machiavellians, independently of me. That was the book he had recommended. It's out of print, it's hard to find, but that would be one.

• 3:14:11Lex Fridman?

  Is that his book or no?

• 3:14:12Michael Malice?

  James Burnham, it came out in 1941, I think.

• 3:14:14Lex Fridman?

  So, uh, can you, can you pause on the mulches?

• 3:14:17Michael Malice?

  Menchus Moldbug.

• 3:14:19Lex Fridman?

  That's a code name, right? That guy, that guy's-

• 3:14:22Michael Malice?

  Curtis Yarvin, this is his real name. He's in, he swims in your circles.

• 3:14:26Lex Fridman?

  Which circles?

• 3:14:27Michael Malice?

  He does some kind of programming.

• 3:14:28Lex Fridman?

  Oh, he's originally a programmer. Yeah, there's, he comes up as a person- That I should talk with or I should know about. But then I read a few of his things and they seem quite dangerous.

• 3:14:40Michael Malice?

  They're very long and verbose, but I think he's an amazing thinker.

• 3:14:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but.

• 3:14:44Michael Malice?

  But he's the one who had the idea of sending the tanks to Harvard Yard.

• 3:14:47Lex Fridman?

  But doesn't he have like, uh, he has some radical views. I forget what they are.

• 3:14:53Michael Malice?

  Very radical views. Yeah, he wants a military coup.

• 3:14:57Lex Fridman?

  But you're saying he's a serious thinker that is worthy of not worthy.

• 3:15:03Michael Malice?

  I don't know that you would enjoy having a conversation with him. I think a lot of people enjoy seeing it happen, but I think it would be a lot of talking past each other and it would be interesting.

• 3:15:11Lex Fridman?

  Would you?

• 3:15:12Michael Malice?

  I did a stream with him, you can watch.

• 3:15:14Lex Fridman?

  Okay. What do you agree? What do you disagree?

• 3:15:16Michael Malice?

  I agree with him that politics has to be looked at objectively and without kind of an emotional connection to different schools. I talk about him a lot in my book on the new right.

• 3:15:29Michael Malice?

  Disagree, I don't think a military coup is a good idea. He's, he doesn't think anarchism is stable. I disagree.

• 3:15:38Michael Malice?

  I mean, me and him, I did a live stream with him, we just dorked out a lot about history and like, you know, people who've fallen in the memory hole. So I mean, he's got a lot of writing, so.

• 3:15:47Lex Fridman?

  So you know, the sense I got from him was that if I talk with him, a lot of people would be upset with me for giving him a platform.

• 3:15:56Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I think he's on that edge where they want to read him out of what is acceptable discourse.

• 3:16:02Lex Fridman?

  What's his most controversial? I mean, you keep mentioning the tanks. Is that the most controversial viewpoint? Does he have a race thing?

• 3:16:09Michael Malice?

  No, he's the, the alt-right doesn't particularly like him in many ways because he's not a big on the race thing. I don't know what would be his most controversial view, uh, to be honest. I think because he is radical in terms of his analysis of culture, anytime someone's radical, that is dangerous.

• 3:16:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's dangerous. Okay, book. So that's one.

• 3:16:30Michael Malice?

  The Fountainhead. The Fountainhead, which is a, um. I would say.

• 3:16:34Lex Fridman?

  Not Atlas Shrugged?

• 3:16:35Michael Malice?

  No, and if you read Atlas Shrugged before reading The Fountainhead, you're doing yourself enormous disservice. Don't you dare do it.

• 3:16:41Lex Fridman?

  On the philosophical, because.

• 3:16:42Michael Malice?

  Every level, on every, every level. Fountainhead's a better novel. Fountainhead's superfluous if you read Atlas Shrugged first. Fountainhead's about psychology and ethics. It does not have to do with her politics, other than its implications. So it's by far the superior book. The third one. Oh, this is a good one, question. Let me see. Well, there's so many good books out there that I love. I am going to, this is not really my third choice, but I'll throw it out there because I, this is such an important worldview, especially for people on the right.

• 3:17:14Lex Fridman?

  Are you virtue signaling?

• 3:17:15Michael Malice?

  No, this is counter signaling.

• 3:17:18Michael Malice?

  Thaddeus Russell's book, A Renegade History of the United States. His thesis is that it's the degenerates that give us all freedom. And things like prostitutes, things like madams, things like slaves, things like immigrants. Because they were so low status, they could get away with things that then people who are higher status demanded and so on and so forth. So I think that thesis, and it really has extreme consequences in thinking.

• 3:17:48Michael Malice?

  And no, Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind. That's, those are the four.

• 3:17:54Lex Fridman?

  Is that his best? I haven't read any of his stuff.

• 3:17:55Michael Malice?

  Righteous Mind's the only one you want.

• 3:17:57Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 3:17:59Lex Fridman?

  That was four, but of course.

• 3:18:01Michael Malice?

  Forget that, it's Russell, put, we'll put Haidt in there.

• 3:18:03Lex Fridman?

  Of course you would.

• 3:18:05Michael Malice?

  No, forget Thaddeus, so those are the three.

• 3:18:08Lex Fridman?

  So we talked about love. Let me ask you the other question I'm obsessed with.

• 3:18:14Lex Fridman?

  Are you, do you ponder your own mortality?

• 3:18:17Michael Malice?

  I do, a lot, especially now that I'm an uncle, especially now that I have like these younger people that I mentor. I was just yesterday, my friend John Gerges, who did my theme song for my podcast, who did the book cover for Dear Reader, who's like the most talented person I know. His song came on the iPod at the gym. And I almost messaged him, I go, you know, one day, one of us is going to bury the other and it's going to be really sad. And I thought about that and it was kind of just like, oh, man, that's really. Really gonna suck. Um, and you know, I don't know which scenario would be better. Like I don't, I will be very just sad if he's gone. I'm sure he'll be very sad if I'm gone.

• 3:18:52Lex Fridman?

  I mean, what do you, are you afraid of it?

• 3:18:54Michael Malice?

  No, uh, you know, uh, um, Rand had this quote about how, uh, I won't die, the world will end. So I've had enough experiences that I am, I, I've really, at this point, and everything's icing on the cake.

• 3:19:10Lex Fridman?

  So if you, if I were to kill you at the end of this podcast, it feels painless. That'll be okay?

• 3:19:16Michael Malice?

  Yeah. You know why?

• 3:19:17Lex Fridman?

  Does anyone know you're here, by the way?

• 3:19:21Michael Malice?

  You know why?

• 3:19:21Lex Fridman?

  Asking for a friend.

• 3:19:23Michael Malice?

  Here's why.

• 3:19:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:19:24Michael Malice?

  There's that wit. Save that for Twitter legs. Do they call you Sasha?

• 3:19:30Lex Fridman?

  No, I'm, uh, Lysa.

• 3:19:31Michael Malice?

  Lysa. Oh, oh, that's my sister's husband. Okay. So here's why. I strongly believe, and this is a very kind of Jewish perspective, that you just have to world, leave the world a little bit better than you found it. That all you could do is move the needle a little. And one of the things I set out to do with Dear Reader, my book on North Korea. I said, I was at a point in my career where I could do something to make a difference instead of just writing like co-authoring books with celebrities, which I'm very proud of, but you know, neither here nor there. And I thought, all right, I know how to tell stories. I know how to inform people. I know how to entertain people. If I move the needle in America, who cares? We got it really good here. If I move the needle in North Korea a little bit, the cost benefits through the roof.

• 3:20:11Lex Fridman?

  I never thought of that, actually. I never thought of Dear Reader from that perspective.

• 3:20:16Michael Malice?

  So when I set out to write it, I'm like, okay, what can I do? I'm not gonna be able to liberate the North Korean regime. What I can do is the camera right now is focused on at the time, Kim Jong Il, now Kim Jong Un. And I can do just this, just this a little bit. And I go, behind that guy who you think is funny clown, there's millions of dead people. There's children being starved. There's people who are performing because they have a gun to their kid's head. And if someone put a gun to your kid's head, you'd put on those dancing shoes real quick. And I and others have managed to change the conversation about North Korea in terms of, look at those silly buffoons to those poor people. So the fact that that little thing I can say with a straight face, I did, doesn't make me a great person.

• 3:21:00Michael Malice?

  But it does make me someone who, if I have to go tomorrow, I can say I did a little bit to make the world a better place.

• 3:21:09Lex Fridman?

  What do you think is the meaning of life?

• 3:21:12Michael Malice?

  I think the meaning of life is.

• 3:21:17Lex Fridman?

  Why are we here?

• 3:21:18Michael Malice?

  Oh, well, that I'm a Camus person, so I'll give the Camus answer. So there's two types of people, those who know how to use binary, no.

• 3:21:29Lex Fridman?

  Thanks. Thanks for relating to the audience.

• 3:21:32Michael Malice?

  1100122.

• 3:21:36Michael Malice?

  Downvote. What kind of radical freak is this Lex? So, and I use this example in my forthcoming book. You go into a countryside, a mountainside, and you see a blank canvas on an easel. And one kind of mentality goes, this is, it's just a blank canvas. This is stupid. This is what am I looking at? And the other type goes, what a great opportunity. I'm in this beautiful space. I have this entire canvas to paint. I could do anything I want with it. So I am very much of that type two person. And I hope others start to think of life in that way. You and I have both been more successful than we expected to, especially growing up. And in ways we did not expect.

• 3:22:19Michael Malice?

  And when you're young, you are so intent on driving the car. And after a certain point, you realize it's not about driving the car. It's you're being a surfer, that you can only control this little board. And you have no idea where the waves will take you. And sometimes you're going to fall down and something's really going to suck. And you're going to swallow some saltwater. But at a certain point, you stop trying to drive. And you're like, this is freaking awesome. And I have no idea where it's going to go.

• 3:22:43Lex Fridman?

  Beautifully put. I know I speak for a lot of people. First of all, everyone loves the game you play on the internet. It's fun. You make the world not everyone.

• 3:22:53Michael Malice?

  Today, oof, they came for me hard.

• 3:22:56Lex Fridman?

  But it makes the world seem fun. And especially in this dark time, it's, it's much appreciated. And we can't wait till the next book and the many to come. And to hopefully many more Joe Rogan appearances. You guys do some great magic together. Yes. You, uh, yeah, you're, you're, you're one of my favorite guests on this show. So I can't wait, especially if you can make it before the election. Thanks so much for making today happen. I'm glad you came down. You're awesome.

• 3:23:25Michael Malice?

  Thank you so much. I had a great conversation.

• 3:23:28Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for listening to this conversation with Michael Malice, and thank you to our sponsors, SEMrush, which is a SEO optimization tool, DoorDash, which is my go-to food delivery service, and MasterClass, which is online courses from world experts. Please check out these sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Fridman. And now, let me leave you with some words from Michael Malice. Conservatism is progressivism driving the speed limit. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.