In this episode, I sit down with a good friend of mine to talk about a variety of topics. We talk about his trip to LA, why he's not a racist, and why he doesn't identify as a conservative. We also talk about why he thinks the internet is a bigoted place and why it's good to be pro-choice and pro-pro-gay marriage. I hope you enjoy this episode and tweet me if you have any thoughts or opinions on any of the topics we discuss. Timestamps: 3:00 - Why I don t identify as racist 4:30 - What does it mean to be a conservative? 5:20 - What is it like being a conservative in the 21st century 6:15 - Is it possible to be an alt-right in a world where everyone is talking about you as if you're pro-law and order 7:00 - What's it like living in Los Angeles, California 8:10 - My first week in LA 9:20 - How I got here 11:40 - What it's like in Egypt 12:30 13:30 | What it s like in Cairo 15:00 | How I m doing now 16:40 17:40 | Where I m going to go next 18:15 | What s it s going to be next? 19:30 // 22:00 // 21:00 / 22:40 // 23:00 @ what s it like in LA ? 26:00/27:00 & 27: What s my favorite part of the game 27: Is it a good place to live in LA?? 28:00 + 29:00+ 29:05 32:30/30? 35:40 / 32:40/33 33:30 / 35:00 ? 36:00? +36:00 Intro Music: "I m not a conservative?" 31:35/36:40 & 35:10 & 37:30 +37:00) +38:40 +39 39:10/36? & 39:15 40:10 / 39:40? 41:10 +40 +5 +4 +5 +5? 45 +4 44:10?
00:00:55.000I feel like I was driving around in an Uber and it feels like GTA. I think more like GTA feels like LA because that's what it's based on, but it was just kind of trippy.
00:04:04.000It really does highlight how preposterous these new world rules that we have regarding gender are.
00:04:12.000But to their credit, the US Powerlifting Federation, I believe that's the name of the organization, they just banned transgender women from competing.
00:04:25.000I think if you want to compete, I don't think there's anything wrong with transgender women competing, but I think they should compete against transgender women.
00:04:32.000Just like how we have men compete against men and we have women compete against women, let's have transgender women compete against transgender women.
00:04:39.000Let's not deny science and biology just to make people feel better and just to support some strange progressive ideology.
00:04:46.000Yeah, I think if the goal is—that's why I think the goal is more about—it's more ideologically driven than I think it is actual inclusion driven.
00:04:55.000Because if it's just about inclusion, then yeah, you can either just have an open category, like most men's categories already are.
00:05:02.000They're not actually restricted to men.
00:05:03.000It's just, you know, the best of the best, so anyone can do this.
00:05:06.000So either that or— If there are enough athletes in whatever the given sport or competition is, then yeah, you can just have a different category, and that way everyone can be included without stepping on the feet of half the population.
00:05:59.000There's a soccer player that wants to be in the NFL as a kicker because there's a video of her doing a place kick of a 55-yard field goal recently.
00:06:18.000During the actual play of the kick, they're not supposed to be touched, but for sure they're in the play of the field, so they can get fucked up.
00:06:55.000Yeah, just giving people what they need to know about nutrition, training, mindset, motivation.
00:07:01.000I just wanted to keep it brief and concise, all the stuff that I think is most important that people need to know, whether they're beginners or intermediates.
00:07:07.000Oh, this is a good-sized book to read.
00:07:09.000Yeah, I put it out first as an e-book, but then a lot of people asked me to do physical copies.
00:08:06.000And there's no baseball there, so I, yeah, rugby became my main sport.
00:08:11.000I started playing rugby when I was 11 years old, and I played that all the way through to university, and I got into just lifting weights and stuff when I was in my mid-teens.
00:08:21.000I have a friend who's British, and he says that that is way more common in Europe and the UK, sending kids off to boarding school.
00:08:32.000I mean, with me, it was largely because I was in the American school system in Saudi Arabia.
00:08:37.000So after fifth grade, because there's a little bit of a transition between the two systems, they're quite different.
00:08:44.000So it was thought that if I'd stayed all the way up until ninth grade, then it would be a little bit difficult for me to transition into the British school system and university system.
00:08:52.000So my parents decided when I was 11, same with my older siblings, like we all went to boarding school when we were pretty young.
00:08:59.000So yeah, came back over to the UK and was kind of back and forth between the two countries for several years.
00:10:37.000Nigeria is a strange spot because I've never been, but when you look at the numbers of successful immigrants like businessmen and people that have come over from Nigeria and how industrious they are, and then you look at how many successful Nigerian scammers there are,
00:13:40.000Successfully convinced an unassuming bank manager by the name of Nelson Sakaguchi that he was selling a yet-to-be-built airport for a price of $330 million as the former director of the Union Bank of Nigeria himself,
00:13:56.000Mude, was privy to confidential information that was crucial to him pulling off his long con.
00:14:40.000To juice it up a bit for poor Sakaguchi, Mude promised the head of the Brazilian bank a commission fee to the tune of 10 million US dollars if the deal was approved.
00:14:52.000To get it over the line, Sakaguchi paid 191 million in cash!
00:14:57.000As you do, and the remainder in the form of outstanding interest awaited patiently for the construction of said airport.
00:15:18.000It was really sad, because he was a dude who was an older gentleman, looked like he was in his 60s, and he was convinced that there was this woman who was his love, and she lived in Europe, and he traveled there, and he was sending her money and the whole deal, and he traveled there twice to meet her,
00:16:20.000How do you bounce back from thinking that there's a girl in Europe that's going to be your love and sending her $100,000 and traveling over there twice and getting duped both times?
00:16:58.000I vaguely remember this, and I think it was about 10 years ago.
00:17:01.000I think the show was all about people that were getting scammed.
00:17:04.000It was about why people get scammed and what is it that makes people believe ridiculous things.
00:17:11.000But when it comes to romance and money, those are the two where people get greedy.
00:17:15.000Yeah, I was literally going to say it's greed.
00:17:17.000It's greed, because only greedy people can fall for some of those things.
00:17:20.000I mean, you see some of those scams, and it'll come through saying, okay, I've just inherited $30 million, and I need somebody in the U.S. with a U.S. bank account to help me out with this, and I'll give you a 10% cut.
00:17:31.000And, you know, that should raise a lot of red flags for anybody who's kind of thinking with their head on straight.
00:17:38.000That's true, but if you pay attention to televangelists, do you have those in the U.K.? Not like the ones in the US. In the US, it's another level.
00:19:55.000Well, so since it's 2,000, that seems low because, like, I went to Catholic Church and there's more than 2,000 people at some of those churches.
00:20:01.000Right, but they're saying megachurches, right?
00:20:03.000Yeah, but that's just more than 2,000 members are in the church.
00:20:06.000Well, maybe they just think 2,000 scammers.
00:20:10.000It says there's 1,300 such Protestant churches, but then it goes into, like, there's 3,000 individual Catholic parishes that have more than 2,000 people, so...
00:21:47.000I think a church, like you said, with a congregation of over 2,000 people, if they're sticking to the script and doing what they're meant to be doing and not trying to fleece their congregation, then absolutely nothing wrong with that.
00:22:00.000The ones who use their position of power and their cult of personality to then just enrich themselves at the expense of their congregation.
00:22:09.000Those are the people I think God's gonna be having a serious word with.
00:22:36.000Because I think it's, you know, it's one thing ripping people off or doing some kind of scam or deception or something.
00:22:44.000It's another one using the power of religion to do so, where you know that this is what these people believe and you're in this position of power and you're now just using that authority to buy yourself new Bentleys.
00:23:02.000Wasn't there one where, what's that guy's name?
00:23:07.000Well, I think he had a G4. Yeah, and he did basically like a crowdfunding appeal to his congregation saying that his current private jet is the old model and he needs the new model.
00:23:23.000And he crowdfunded, I think, to get the G4. I saw this thing.
00:29:19.000So, like, the cities are anti-Trump, and the farm areas are like, oh, we don't...
00:29:39.000And being more pro-EU and pro-Remain, whereas if you go outside of that, if you go up north or to the Midlands or anything like that, then people are, I guess, both more conservative, I guess, in a way, and also a lot more anti-EU in general sentiment.
00:29:56.000So, a lot of the people in London and around London were totally blindsided by the Brexit vote in the same way that a lot of people, I imagine, live in Los Angeles and New York were blindsided by the Trump presidency.
00:30:32.000Well, that's part of how he got elected.
00:30:34.000I mean, I remember in 2015, before he even won the Republican nomination, and I was talking to people, both friends and family, and saying, I think he has a good chance of winning.
00:30:43.000And people were looking at me like I was smoking something.
00:30:47.000I'm annoyed I didn't put any money on it because at the time...
00:30:51.000Yeah, I think the first time, at the time I first said it, I think it was, I want to say like 40 to 1 or 50 to 1 or something ridiculous like that.
00:32:27.000It would have certainly been more interesting because I know a lot of the Bernie people went over to Trump, right?
00:32:32.000Yeah, and you know, as time goes on, one of the things that I've been noticing, and I watched a David Pakman video the other day, where David Pakman was pointing out Trump slurring a speech, and I had no idea it was that bad.
00:32:47.000There was one time where he literally, I mean, literally like he's fighting through, like say if someone puts you on paid medication, they said, hey Zuby, you gotta make a phone call.
00:34:32.000Our hearts and minds to possible and possibilities.
00:34:38.000And finally, I ask the leaders of the region, political and religious, Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Christian and Muslim, to join us in the noble quest for lasting peace.
00:35:31.000The way he was campaigning with the amount of energy that that dude had, I mean, you gotta assume for a seven-year-old man, they got him medicated on some shit.
00:36:04.000They injected him with steroids and cocaine, and then he liked it so much he asked for a second dose, and they thought it was gonna kill him, and he said, give it to me!
00:36:12.000And then he went to visit Mussolini, apparently chewed Mussolini's ear off for five hours.
00:36:18.000Mussolini was apparently thinking about getting out of the war, and Hitler talked him out of it.
00:36:22.000Just fuckin' spittin' coke talk at him.
00:37:32.000Those were the original diet pills, right?
00:37:34.000They used to give women tapeworm eggs so that you ingest it and then obviously the tapeworm grows inside of you and eats all the food and you lose weight.
00:38:03.000The most famous doctor patients were President and Mrs. Kennedy.
00:38:06.000Dr. Jacobson frequently visited the White House and often traveled with the Kennedys.
00:38:10.000In 1961, for example, he went with the President to Vienna for a summit meeting with Khrushchev, and Dr. Jacobson said in an interview gave the President injections there.
00:38:21.000In addition to the Kennedys, other persons who are patients of the doctor included Truman Capote, Cecil B. DeMille, Eddie Fisher, Alan J. Lerner, I don't know who that is, Representative Claude Pepper of Florida, blah, blah, blah, a bunch of other politicians, and Tennessee Williams.
00:38:38.000Included among a number of other prominent patients of Dr. Jacobson have been a bunch of other famous people, blah, [...
00:38:47.000An extensive inquiry also turned up the names of well over 100 others in ranking positions in government, journalism, finance, industry, society, and several entertainment fields who are said to be patients of Dr. Jacobson, but who could not be confirmed as such.
00:41:52.000But because Tulsi Gabbard shut down Kamala Harris in a debate, they pushed her out of the debates.
00:41:58.000Even though on multiple polls she has enough support to be in the debates, they're excluding her from the debates because she attacked Kamala Harris, and rightly so, and accurately.
00:45:42.000Dave Chappelle's recent Sticks and Stones Netflix documentary, for whatever reason, Rotten Tomatoes thought it would be a good idea to only have it reviewed by five super progressive critics.
00:46:27.000How would they not understand that someone is going to know that you're not opening it up to the public, and that once it does get opened to the public, you're going to get a massive whiplash, a backlash, where people are going to come, and even if they didn't want to vote on it, now they do.
00:46:41.000And now they're going to give it 100%, or 99%.
00:46:44.000I knew I had to watch it when I saw how...
00:46:49.000Many of the media channels that I really dislike and do not respect were coming so hard at it and saying, oh no, you don't need to watch it and all this.
00:46:57.000I was like, oh, this means I absolutely have to watch it.
00:47:00.000The Guardian game in the UK gave it one star.
00:47:02.000And then I saw Vice saying, don't watch it.
00:47:11.000The influence of a small group of – a relatively small group of human beings that are in charge of these media conglomerates is – it's really astounding.
00:47:21.000And that they – it's not just opinion, right?
00:47:26.000It's like they're trying to get people to behave and think the way they do.
00:47:32.000It's not just – Yes, it is activism.
00:47:34.000And it's also – It's undisguised activism.
00:47:44.000I really wish there was a place where we could go We can get 100% unbiased information in news, and we can get an honest perspective of both sides.
00:47:56.000This side believes this, and this is why they believe that, but this side believes that, and this is why they believe that.
00:48:03.000And if you have a podcast, one of the things that's really interesting is if you even talk to someone, Who has an opposing point of view of yours or who is right-wing or who maybe has some questionable ideas, you are somehow platforming them and supporting their idea and then supporting some alt-right,
00:49:11.000But what I am is someone who's interested in talking to people.
00:49:15.000What they should have is someone who has my...
00:49:20.000I don't want to say my sensibilities, but my willingness to communicate with almost anybody.
00:49:26.000And then also someone who does a real exhaustive research, does real exhaustive research on the actual facts behind all these critical issues that are going to affect everybody.
00:51:11.000Think back a couple years ago where, I don't know, you'd go on Facebook and you'd get all these kind of like buzzfeed things and you had all these new media companies that sprung up and sort of took advantage of the...
00:51:33.000I don't think most people thought that the media in general was particularly biased.
00:51:43.000I think if you were to survey people, a lot of people understand that even the ones that are supposed to be impartial, things like CNN, things like the New York Times, especially when it comes to the opinion pieces, people know that those things are not just giving it to you straight.
00:52:00.000In some cases, you're getting it from a totally partisan.
00:52:04.000I think if people are upfront with that, if they're like, look, we're a conservative news outlet, look, we're a liberal left-wing news outlet, and that's the filter everything is coming through, if they're upfront about that, then I'm kind of like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's fine.
00:52:18.000But if people claim to be unbiased or claim to be totally impartial and just bring you the facts without...
00:52:38.000The vibe I'm certainly getting, I know with myself and with other people and listening to what people are saying is people are starting to notice it a lot more.
00:52:45.000I know you've talked a lot about the online tech censorship and bias and stuff like that, which is another thing that, again, I think if you went back 10 years ago, I don't think people thought that Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or any of these things were biased.
00:52:57.000Whereas now in 2019, it's like, okay, you've got enough examples to see, okay, they're deplatforming A lot of people of certain political persuasions.
00:53:07.000And then you've got other people who are outright calling for violence or just saying crazy stuff or threatening people and they're fine.
00:53:49.000When the head of Twitter gets hacked, you're like, damn!
00:53:53.000Apparently they used a very simple way to do it, SMS text, because they used to have a system where you could send texts through, you know, to Twitter through text messages, and they hacked it that way.
00:54:39.000And then underneath it, it was just like...
00:54:42.000I think he really does want to open up conversations and he really does believe that blockchain is eventually going to have virtually every conversation that everyone has ever had ever available for everyone online.
00:54:55.000And that the idea of censorship is going to be preposterous in the future.
00:57:52.000I mean, you'll have literally convicted hardcore criminals on there who can have Twitter accounts and stuff, but it's like, okay, you said something that someone didn't like.
00:58:22.000Text is a terrible way to communicate.
00:58:24.000I mean, we were just talking, Jamie and I were talking yesterday about disagreements that people have had that we know through emails.
00:58:32.000That emails, like someone reads it wrong, and then someone sends you a message, hey, you know, this guy is disrespecting me, and then you go and read it, and you go, what is going on here, man?
00:59:41.000But, you know, I think when it comes to communication, the further you move away from face-to-face, real-world communication, the further you abstract away from it, the worse the communication method is and the easier it is to...
01:00:12.000And the further you abstract away from it, you just lose more and more of the actual communication because you can't read any body language now.
01:00:54.000Twitter's just like, this is what I think about anything.
01:00:57.000And you just throw it out there and then you wait for people to...
01:01:01.000You know, what's interesting is when someone tries to establish a narrative about themselves on Twitter, like, hey, listen, as a happily married man who's a Christian, this and that, like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, who are you talking to?
01:01:42.000I mean, some people will put in, you know, this is my species, my location, my pronouns, my religious or non-religious views, you know, who I vote for, like all of that.
01:02:01.000I've got something I'm trying to coin as Zuby's Razor, which is that if someone on Twitter has their pronouns in their bio, then there's like a 95% chance that you can just...
01:03:55.000Like when you had to go log in on a PC to use MySpace or Friendster or High5 or whatever, and then you go out the house and you're no longer on it.
01:04:04.000It's just the fact people are constantly carrying it around and trying to get this validation.
01:04:09.000You've got Instagram now talking about potentially removing likes or changing YouTube, removing views because they're seeing how it's affecting people and all this kind of stuff.
01:04:50.000And it goes into that in depth and it really made me fucking super nervous for my kids.
01:04:54.000Growing up and developing during this time...
01:04:58.000Where we have this, you know, sort of uncharted territory of social media.
01:05:02.000There's not like a lot of documented history of use so we can go back to 100 years of people using social media and this is the way to do it healthily and this is the way to, you know, there's people that are just fucking tweeting all day long.
01:05:35.000Yeah, there's some, it's generally women, but there's some people's profiles you can go, and it's just, you go on their Instagram page, and it's just all, just their face, same face, same pose, and multiple times a day.
01:05:46.000Just their butt, over and over and over again.
01:05:48.000Did you see that video clip where the girl had the selfie stick?
01:05:51.000And she's trying to get a photo of her own butt with a selfie stick.
01:09:23.000There was an article written about it recently.
01:09:26.000Doctors are starting to find the same types of cancer that some women get.
01:09:32.000Everyone's body reacts differently to everything.
01:09:34.000And there are certain risks that you take if you get some sort of an implant in your body that your body rejects it or that it causes cancer.
01:09:41.000So women are getting cancer of their ass.
01:09:56.000It's like if a guy has a little dick, and there was a machine that let you build your dick up, there would be a line around the block for that machine.
01:10:04.000I mean, everybody would be on that goddamn dick machine.
01:10:09.000But women have a way to build their ass up.
01:16:16.000The body dysmorphia where people just don't see what other people see, like the same as anorexics and the same as, you know, I guess bodybuilders have that same issue.
01:16:26.000Like a lot of really enormous bodybuilders still feel like they look small.
01:16:34.000I just think if you want to change your body, you want to change your physique, you want to feel better, you want to feel more confident, there is a way to do that.
01:17:14.000Then for those people, I do truly hope that science comes up with a solution and through some sort of CRISPR type engineering, they're able to...
01:17:35.000As science advances and things get a little more crazy and they're looking into things like making people immortal or all that kind of...
01:17:42.000In your own mind, do you think there's a level where it's like, maybe we should leave this alone and not go that far?
01:17:50.000I don't know what I think even if you do think that, and I'm sure that you could find examples where I would say that's a bad idea, it's not going to matter.
01:17:57.000Because I think that people are going to do it.
01:18:00.000And if the United States isn't going to do it, China's going to do it.
01:18:03.000I mean, I think China's already experimenting on people in pretty radical ways.
01:18:47.000I mean, if you think about the greatest athletes the world has ever known, you look at the very best physical specimens that humanity has to offer, and they just figured out, okay, well, what are the traits, and how do we impart those on people,
01:20:01.000Yeah, because they only had to breed with other royalty.
01:20:05.000Whatever reason, when you breed whippets and something goes wrong, because they're just breeding with other whippets, they develop this fucking preposterous ability to grow muscle, and they look like Hulk dogs.
01:20:37.000Well, there was one kid, they called him the Young Hulk, but it turned out that his father was actually injecting with steroids when he was a little kid, which is awful.
01:20:45.000But this is a boy from Germany who had this myostatin inhibitor problem, and he was fucking jacked.
01:21:28.000Well, there's a beauty in our diversity, like our physical diversity.
01:21:33.000There's a beauty in the fact there's really tall people and really short people and really smart people, really stupid people, and sometimes stupid people are really good at certain things.
01:21:41.000Sometimes smart people are really bad at other things.
01:21:46.000There's a beauty in the chaos of human life is that we are all weird and different and if you can find your way, everyone can make some sort of a contribution.
01:21:58.000It's not that everyone's going to make some sort of a contribution, but...
01:22:02.000It's possible that most of us can find something where other people find value in what you do and you can do something in an extraordinary way.
01:22:11.000I think a great way to stay humble is to always remember that everybody is superior to you in some way, shape, or form, right?
01:22:20.000It seems like you've got people who are...
01:22:21.000Kind of awesome at everything or whatever, but it's like, you know what?
01:22:24.000Like every person out there has got something that, especially if they tapped into it and they actually reached some fraction of their potential, then people are capable of all kinds of crazy things when they actually do it and they train and they work on it.
01:22:39.000Another perspective enhancer is that the grave beckons.
01:24:36.000Look, it's entirely possible that this fucking planet is going to get hit within our lifetime by a giant asteroid and we're going to wipe us all out.
01:25:23.000And you had people hiding underground and doomsday prepping and all that.
01:25:26.000Imagine if you spent all your money building a bunker in your backyard and then the day after, 2000, you poke your head out and birds are chirping.
01:25:46.000Yeah, I mean, look, people are fucking silly, but we all have this understanding, this appreciation of the fact that we, you know, civilization, like our grid, our power grid, is fragile.
01:26:18.000I was born in 86 and I remember in the late 80s when you couldn't even render a circle on a screen.
01:26:28.000They didn't have the technology to make an actual circle.
01:26:31.000So in all the video games and graphics and stuff, it would either be a square or at best a hexagon or an octagon because you couldn't actually do round curves.
01:26:42.000I remember the early days of the internet when I was, especially when I was in boarding school and stuff and using GeoCities and Netscape and all that kind of stuff.
01:26:51.000And it's just kind of crazy how it's gone from that and all these Atari 2600 and these very basic video games and stuff like that and the Apple IIe's with the big floppy disks and all that stuff.
01:27:03.000And I'm just like, man, I'm only, I mean, I just turned 33 and I'm like, man, that's just in my own lifetime.
01:27:09.000So in another time, 10, 20, 30 years, it's amazing to just think of what stuff's going to be like.
01:27:17.000Because they'll look back on what we have now, and everything we have now is going to look like the Atari 2600 does to me right now.
01:27:27.000They'll be looking at these phones and being like, oh my gosh, people used to use this?
01:29:45.000So maybe not in terms of tech or manufacturing, but in entertainment, I think.
01:29:50.000Entertainment and culture, I think some key stuff happened in that decade.
01:29:54.000Well, there's these bursts of novelty and of creativity, and we're certainly in the middle of one right now.
01:30:02.000Right now is probably one of the more interesting times to be alive in terms of constant innovation and new things being created.
01:30:09.000Apple has apparently some new AR glasses they're about to release, augmented reality glasses.
01:30:14.000I also just think now the time we live is people just have the opportunity and potential and power people have as individuals now is insane.
01:32:27.000I don't think people realize what you can really do with those tools.
01:32:31.000It's like, yeah, you can sit there on Twitter and Be mean to people and troll and troll and go on YouTube and write mean comments or whatever.
01:33:26.000So you're making 4K video, not just blurred, but they also have this filter that you can make the background kind of fucked up and scratchy like an old VHS tape.
01:34:35.000But the difference between, like, if you look at, like, the screen real estate of, like, a Galaxy Note 10 versus an iPhone 10, which is what I have, the XS Max, that was the shit just a few months ago.
01:34:50.000But when you look at that next to, like, Steve Aoki was here yesterday, and he had a Galaxy S10 Plus.
01:38:58.000And then, of course, there were the people who were trying to say that it was some attack on trans people as a whole or the entire trans community or something like this.
01:39:07.000And it was just like, no, it's just making a very biological, factual point.
01:39:14.000This is not an attack on any individual nor group.
01:39:17.000And like you said, I mean, online, what's weird is people try to read...
01:39:21.000Malice and stuff into things that's not there.
01:39:24.000Someone will see one tweet and they'll start coming up with all these weird assumptions about what you believe or what they think you are or whatever and you're just like, no, that's not what I said.
01:39:57.000If people don't understand something or something goes against their beliefs or their ideology, it's a lot easier to just try to demonize the person who's saying it or slap some kind of label on them, which means that you can just ignore that person.
01:40:13.000It's not something that works with me because I'm very aware and cognizant of these type of tactics and stuff people try to use to mob people or shut them down or whatever.
01:41:42.000So that's a big reason why he won, as far as I'm concerned, because people were getting tired of some of the nonsense.
01:41:50.000You know, people are getting tired of...
01:41:51.000I often joke, I mean, it seems like in 2015 and 2016, the strategy of, you know, some of the Democratic Party was to call half the population racist, and that didn't work.
01:42:03.000So now their strategy is to call 70% of the population racist and hope it works.
01:43:45.000So things that should have a sting lose their sting.
01:43:49.000If you're going to just call everybody a racist, you're going to call everybody a white supremacist, you're going to call everybody these things, then these words lose their power.
01:43:57.000And then third, it actually provides cover For genuine people who hold these views, right?
01:44:03.000Like white supremacy is not some big popular common thing, but you know, those people do still exist.
01:44:10.000And you're providing massive cover for them all.
01:44:13.000If you're going to just start going around and bandying out these terms, what like willy nilly, because now when people hear those terms, if you hear, Oh, so-and-so is called a Nazi.
01:44:23.000Now my default that, you know, 10 years ago, I would have been like, Oh really?
01:45:57.000It's exhausting when you're around someone who's really political.
01:46:00.000I get it if that's your job and that's what you do and whatnot, but ultimately, look, all these people have to live in the same town, city, country, planet.
01:46:10.000So we need a way for all of these people and all of this diversity on all levels to work and function and people don't step on each other's toes too much and everyone can do their things, have their beliefs, have their views, and not massively encroach on other people.
01:46:25.000And I think we'd actually work that out pretty well.
01:46:28.000I want to say in like the late 90s to...
01:46:33.000Early 2010s, stuff seemed, certainly in the West, like, okay, we've kind of got it here.
01:46:39.000And that's why I feel a little bit dismayed when I see some of these ideas popping up or some of this identity politics nonsense and stuff popping up over the last five to six years.
01:46:48.000And people are kind of falling back into this very tribal mentality, whether it's men versus women or black versus white or red versus blue or remain versus leave.
01:46:58.000Whatever it is, I'm just kind of like, look, I look at people as individuals.
01:47:36.000I mean, where I grew up in Saudi Arabia, I mean, off the bat, I was just surrounded by people of all different skin colors, different nationalities, different religions, and it was just always cool.
01:47:47.000Some of these ideas, like I'd never heard people talking about race any time more in my life than now, which is really weird to me.
01:47:58.000You know, in the 90s, in the 1000s, I wasn't hearing people talking about, you know, white privilege this, white privilege, white man that.
01:48:05.000And suddenly it's like, you know, oh, let me tell you about my blackness.
01:48:09.000Or, you know, you're hearing terms like blackness and whiteness.
01:48:11.000And I'm just like, what are you even talking about?
01:48:36.000Because they get something, you know, they get something by appealing to fellow Europeans or by appealing to, you know, like the straight pride parade.
01:48:45.000You know, they got a bunch of people to fucking parade.
01:52:20.000I think discussion, to answer your question, I think discussion is what is needed to keep the lid on the pot.
01:52:29.000I think that's why when we're talking about deplatforming and all that kind of stuff, all that stuff plays into the polarization as far as I'm concerned.
01:54:13.000And if you live in these high population areas where everyone has the same sort of ideology or shares that ideology, it becomes a real problem.
01:54:32.000Everybody is religious and everybody is of the same faith, then it's easy to sort of assume and behave in a way that everybody else In the world or outside, thinks and believes the exact same things everybody you know does.
01:54:47.000The same thing can happen politically.
01:54:49.000If someone lives in a super liberal area or a super conservative area, you can just think, okay, well, everyone I know thinks this.
01:54:58.000And a lot of people, I mean, I'm a musician, you're a comedian, we both go around I think?
01:55:18.000Understand and empathize with all of the positions.
01:55:21.000You've got your own views, but it can be like, okay, I get where that person is coming from, or I get how that person believes that, or I get that.
01:55:28.000And just that level of empathy is really what is needed.
01:55:32.000I think it's really just about empathy.
01:55:33.000It's about being able to understand that most people want the world to be a better place.
01:55:38.000There aren't that many people who wake up every day thinking, alright, I want to make the world worse.
01:55:44.000Most people want to make stuff better.
01:55:45.000People have different ideas on what will make things better.
01:55:50.000But I think as long as people sort of extend that charity to other people and don't try to...
01:55:57.000Consider things in the worst possible way.
01:55:59.000If somebody says something, whether online or offline, don't try to interpret it in the worst possible way that you could or read some kind of malice into it that's not there.
01:56:08.000Just understand that coming from a good place, you may disagree and then you can have that discussion and even if people don't change their minds, you at least understand other people better.
01:56:56.000But it's, there's, we all, you can find things.
01:57:02.000That you agree with with people you can find common ground yeah morals and ethics and kindness and Communication compassion and camaraderie and friendship and we work out from there and try to figure out why does someone have these politically polarizing views?
01:57:17.000Why does someone have this idea about that or this and let's figure out what the fuck the middle ground is and you know and Freedom was a big part of it, man.
01:57:27.000And the more people are restricting people and the more people are trying to enforce their ideology on other people, the other side's going to dig their heels in.
01:57:36.000And then you get this stance that we're at today.
01:57:44.000And one thing I often say is, I think, if you're taking something like religion, I always say, look, if someone says, I can't do such and such because it's against my religion, that's totally cool.
01:57:56.000If you start saying, you can't do such and such because it's against my religion, that's when...
01:58:59.000And that's not primarily coming in the West anyway.
01:59:02.000That's not generally coming from religious people now.
01:59:06.000I'm not saying it's more of a political thing.
01:59:08.000You know, like we were talking about some of these, some of this weird intersectional far left kind of stuff.
01:59:15.000That's very much what they're doing now.
01:59:16.000Even when you're talking about them ostracizing people or trying to cancel people or whatever, it's very much like, look, this is what we think, this is what we believe.
01:59:24.000Anyone who doesn't, if you're not with us, you're against us and we're going to attack you, we're going to verbally demonize you, we're going to de-platform you, we're going to do all this.
01:59:47.000It's very important what you just said.
01:59:51.000There's also a tremendous amount of unhealthy people.
01:59:55.000Unhealthy emotionally, unhealthy physically, unhealthy in terms of their perspective and their ability to be objective about the world they live in and to be introspective about their own failings and shortcomings.
02:01:38.000And I've worked very hard to develop that myself.
02:01:42.000that whether people saying things about me or whether it's something that goes wrong or someone fucked me over I try to take a deep breath, and I try to forgive them.
02:02:25.000But those tenets, Ways to Live By, I mean, that is a great way for people, especially people that are secular, that don't believe in religion.
02:02:37.000And I think that one of the things that religious people have an advantage in is that they do have a moral and ethical structure to live their life by.
02:03:37.000It's probably a t-shirt being destructive.
02:03:39.000You know, as someone who's been listening to your podcast for a long time, actually, that's something that's, what you just said is something that I've noticed a change in, actually, over the years.
02:03:50.000You know, going back and listening to some of the older ones where I think you were a lot more, How would I put it?
02:03:56.000Not aggressive, but a lot less tolerant of, say, religion and religious viewpoints.
02:04:20.000I know other people benefit from it, but I've experienced a great benefit in that I've been exposed to a lot of different points of view, different personalities, different intellects, and different brilliant human beings that have very different ideologies.
02:04:35.000I've met brilliant people that I love and respect that have polar opposite ideas on how the world works, on both sides.
02:04:50.000The various mechanisms that are at play with why people believe what they believe and how they benefit from believing that and what's the pros and cons.
02:05:00.000And then I've just sort of opened my mind up much more to various viewpoints, financial viewpoints, political viewpoints.
02:05:10.000And I've developed a much greater appreciation for the variety of opinions and ideas.
02:05:25.000I realize how dumb I am about a lot of things.
02:05:29.000I mean, if I had lived my life, like, I'm being honest, if I had lived my life without doing this podcast, I would probably be a far more ignorant person right now in the same place.
02:05:38.000I feel like I've gotten not just great conversations and met great people like yourself and had a great time, but also I've been very privileged to have a tremendous education through all these people and for many of their books.
02:05:54.000And right after you right now, Neil deGrasse Tyson's coming on.
02:06:03.000Having these incredible people to share their knowledge and a lifetime of learning, you know, they can fill in blanks and educate you and point you in the right direction.
02:06:14.000And also you can see the way their mind works.
02:06:17.000And then there's guys like, you know, like David Goggins.
02:07:08.000Like I said, I mean, it's all about potential, man.
02:07:10.000And I love and I'm drawn to anybody who promotes potential and being and becoming I think that's part of why what you do here has been so successful and so inspirational to people all over the world.
02:08:01.000Sad to see and it's just like, you know, we can all do so much more It is sad to see but there's also a light at the end of the tunnel because there's people like you out there There's there's people that are searching to improve themselves and they're honest about where they are right now and they're honest about their failings and shortcomings and they're also Telling other people about it,
02:08:20.000which I think is so important because if someone sees you and you're a guy who's on the radio or television or maybe you're a rap star and you're killing it.
02:08:37.000You could tell people about your trials and tribulations, about your failings and shortcomings, about your thoughts and insecurities, about all the things that tripped you up and all the things that you learned that allowed you to advance and to be a better person.
02:08:52.000That's what it's all about, like, all the time, every day.
02:08:55.000It's about Learning how to be a better person, and there's no finish line, doesn't, I mean, even the fucking Dalai Lama, I don't know if you've been paying attention, but he got cancelled recently, did you know the Dalai Lama got cancelled?
02:09:05.000Oh yeah, he said some slightly sexy stuff.
02:09:07.000He's a fucking 80 year old man who was picked to be the Dalai Lama.
02:09:11.000Said if it was going to be a female, they need to be attractive.
02:09:13.000Because no one wants to look at an ugly face.
02:09:29.000There's a lot of people out there that can do better and they know they can do better and they just lack the tools and they lack the understanding.
02:09:39.000And I think a person like yourself or hopefully me and certainly a lot of the people that I've had on the podcast, they can give people an example.
02:10:11.000Whatever your thing is, whether it's just being a better father or a husband or a friend or better at your job or better at your craft, whatever it is, man, we can all be better.