Gulf States Reveal How Post-Scarcity Luxury Melts Your Brain
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
184.11526
Summary
In this episode, we re talking about universal basic income (UBI) again, but from the perspective of the wealthy Middle Eastern countries of Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait, and how they provide basic services to their citizens.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello, Malcolm. I'm so excited to be speaking with you today because we are going to talk
00:00:04.600
about universal basic income again, but from a very different perspective. This is one of
00:00:08.400
the really important things because AI is coming for our jobs. We're going to get to this point
00:00:12.920
where I don't know where people are going to make their money. And we've already talked about how
00:00:17.480
the initial UBI experiments that have been run in the United States where cash transfers have
00:00:22.600
been made in varying amounts to Americans have yielded very disappointing results in terms of
00:00:29.000
basically while people report that they make their lives better, they don't have any measurable
00:00:34.080
improvements in health, time spent with kids, or even savings over time. Yeah, they have lower
00:00:39.180
savings after UBI. And then anecdotally, I mean, well, not anecdotally, but also when you look at a
00:00:44.840
lot of the cash programs related to various indigenous American tribes, they also have
00:00:50.860
terrible outcomes. So basically just giving cash to people doesn't look great. But suppose you have
00:00:57.420
an infinite money well, and you wanted to try to uplift your people. Is that what you're going
00:01:02.640
to be going down here? Yeah. Yes. Imagine. Yeah. But I mean, like people are arguing, well, but this
00:01:06.300
isn't, this isn't how it will work with AI. I mean, AI can give you so much more money. So what would
00:01:11.640
happen in a world in which people just have so much money, they can give a ton of money and in-kind
00:01:18.340
services to their citizens. Surely these people will be the ultimate thriving society, the Star Trek
00:01:24.960
of our future. Okay, well, great, because we have a natural experiment where this has taken place. And
00:01:31.160
it's a lot of those really wealthy Middle Eastern countries. So yes, thanks to someone pointing this
00:01:37.000
out in the comments on our other UBI episode, we're going to take a look specifically at the most
00:01:43.080
generous countries in the Gulf States. So we're going to look at especially Qatar, but also the UAE
00:01:49.620
and Kuwait, because they're also pretty spendy when it comes to support for their citizens. And
00:01:55.960
let's be clear, it's for their citizens. And for people context here, this isn't something I'm
00:02:01.860
talking about without a degree of personal experience and having, you know, been to these,
00:02:06.380
some of these countries. Yeah, and I haven't. So I'm going to depend on exploration of them,
00:02:10.420
knowing people from these countries. And I pointed out to Simone, and she didn't
00:02:13.060
even know this, that in Qatar, there is a common word in the business world called
00:02:18.920
Qatarted. And it is the name for, they call it, you talk about Qatari, token Qataris being
00:02:27.860
really, really stupid. It's basically like a country where everyone is a trust fund kid.
00:02:33.540
Right. Well, it's more than that. If you want to operate business in a lot of these countries,
00:02:38.020
50% of it has to be owned by a Qatari or Emirati or, you know, depending on, there's different
00:02:45.040
ways of structuring it. But basically all of the major companies that operate in these countries
00:02:49.680
are forced to hire, give equity to, and give often sort of token managerial positions to some
00:02:58.240
of the native population that really hasn't earned it. And so it leads to, note here, I'm not saying
00:03:05.040
people in Qatar are stupid or like Emiratis are stupid. This is not the case.
00:03:12.400
Yeah. One of the smartest people I know is an Emirati. Actually, like genuinely really smart
00:03:17.940
person. Scary smart. Yeah. But also like based in cool and fun.
00:03:21.500
Yeah. Based in cool and fun. She's like, yeah, I'm gonna have to marry one of my cousins or,
00:03:24.980
you know, sometimes you just need to put down a rebellion or whatever.
00:03:28.540
I would note here that I don't actually see the cousin marriage thing disparagingly.
00:03:32.560
I actually see it's pretty based to admit that your culture has preferences that are
00:03:38.120
non-normative with the urban monoculture and would be shamed by it and just be like,
00:03:42.640
yeah, that's part of my life. That's my tradition. That's the way I'm different.
00:03:46.060
And as far as the genetic effects, you can watch our videos on this. They're not as big
00:03:51.160
But anyway, so very, very cool. Also really cool looking. She's, she's got this, she wears
00:03:56.440
the full head thing and perfectly circular glasses that look like super nerdy and like work
00:04:01.320
really well on her. So like your only friend though, they're other and like great.
00:04:05.400
Oh yeah. I have, I have, I mean, one of them is a famous YouTuber who I've talked about a
00:04:09.300
number of times, Colin, who's one of the top YouTubers.
00:04:12.240
Is that the Colin who was always like Malcolm, what's my name?
00:04:17.080
So, yeah. So, so his channel, by the way, gets like 5 million views per video. I mean,
00:04:23.680
And so there's a lot of really smart people in these countries. The reason why you get
00:04:30.420
this stereotype is it's a stereotype that's downstream of being forced to hire people when
00:04:37.200
you do not have people qualified for these sorts of positions.
00:04:40.280
Well, or, I mean, this, you could say this is just another example of affirmative action.
00:04:44.280
It just happens to be that this is affirmative action in favor of the, the dominant group in
00:04:50.800
your country. Like the people I know, they don't need to take the token position at whatever firm
00:04:56.460
in, in their country. Yeah. Because they, they have merit and, and on their own, you know,
00:05:00.740
they're on their own. They can succeed anywhere. Right. You know, and keep in mind, like Colin,
00:05:05.260
for example, that YouTube doesn't have an affirmative action program.
00:05:09.140
Yeah. You can't, you can't get anything for that. Right. You know? So, so the point being is,
00:05:13.440
is that when you get people who are hyper-competent from these environments, they do end up
00:05:19.840
in positions of, of power and influence. The problem is, is that the hyper-competent people
00:05:25.880
from these environments, as would be true of any base population, make up like 0.5% of the
00:05:32.420
population. Yeah. And the question that we need to ask is the question, what happens with the
00:05:36.160
mids? What happens with the lower ranks? Not just with the mids, because you get a separate
00:05:39.620
phenomenon, but you need 5% to fill the, like the, the, the top positions at these companies.
00:05:46.340
And so you often get incompetent people put in these positions and it's, it leads to a
00:05:51.480
perception and then a stereotype around people who have to work in these environments. It's like,
00:05:56.200
oh, it's the, the lazy Emirati coming in again. Right. Like who didn't actually earn his position,
00:06:01.620
like everyone else here, who didn't actually, even people who have merit may not be taken as
00:06:05.240
seriously. And I remember how comical it was. Cause I went to a startup pitch competition in the,
00:06:11.040
in the Emirates to see like what it was like. And there were like people who had like gone
00:06:16.400
through, like gotten money, built like a product and gone up and pitched and they didn't even have
00:06:24.760
URLs, like working URLs. Like this would be like at the end of like, you know, Y Combinator not having
00:06:32.560
even a website, like the level to which like for a certain class of people in these countries,
00:06:40.340
life is just a LARP is really sad. Yeah. And it was so interesting as well, because the whole
00:06:48.220
place was styled like Silicon Valley, right? Like it, it felt like a Silicon Valley pitch place.
00:06:53.520
Like, no, I think in, in that case, like in that startup pitch competition, and this,
00:06:57.400
this is the case with many of the industries that they are trying to jumpstart. They're kind of
00:07:01.640
building a set and attempting to jumpstart it, but that doesn't mean that it's, it's homegrown,
00:07:08.080
you know, they haven't like, this is not a geographical area built around a unique elite
00:07:13.580
world-class university that has for over 100 years through various, like literally geological events
00:07:23.340
and also various economic events attracted various risk friendly autistic people who are
00:07:31.520
going to do brilliant, strange things. Like San Francisco. Yeah. San Francisco. I mean, first
00:07:35.980
there was the gold rush and then there was the 1906 earthquake. Both of those attracted very
00:07:41.440
risk friendly entrepreneurial people who are like, here's an opportunity. I can strike it rich panning
00:07:46.680
for gold or selling to the people panning for gold, or I can strike it rich rebuilding the city.
00:07:51.680
And then it was, I can strike it rich working in the tech scene. Yeah. These are people who,
00:07:55.940
and by the way, I would say for people who haven't, you're talking about how like San Francisco ended
00:08:01.360
up, it drew from all over the world because of the gold rush. Yes. People who were into high risk,
00:08:06.500
high reward opportunities. Um, and not like, it wasn't like drawing like one ethnic group or
00:08:10.760
something. Yeah. And, and now you see a cycle of that was in that region. Um, and one thing I note,
00:08:15.620
if you don't know people from these regions, like what are they, like, you're like, what's their general,
00:08:19.300
my read from having met a lot of them is the general sort of personal personality vibe. I gave
00:08:24.880
a personality vibe of French people recently, which was not very positive, but Asian people
00:08:29.740
specifically. Cause you haven't really. Yeah. Yeah. Is, is that they are generally very cunning,
00:08:36.240
pragmatic, and very hospitable, like, like very like focused on being a generous and good host.
00:08:43.420
And other than that, they're kind of bro-y is I guess the word I'd put it. And, and that's sort of
00:08:50.000
the, the bundle of personality, which is actually very similar. And actually I, I had one of my
00:08:55.340
friends from the region come see where I lived in Texas and they were like, they were surprised at
00:09:00.680
how much the people in rural Texas really reminded them of the people in the Emirates. And I, and I
00:09:08.620
agree. Like, I, I think that the two cultures actually do have a lot in common. So I, I would
00:09:13.320
note here, I think that like, naturally this is a people that could do really well. I think one of
00:09:20.220
the things that holds them back the most is the infinite money generators and the ways that those
00:09:25.040
have been handled by the state. Yeah. But I still think they make a really good object lesson,
00:09:29.420
allowing us to investigate and explore this concept of generous in-kind services and things
00:09:36.260
approaching universal basic income in a context that's more similar to what we could get in
00:09:41.820
certain AI timelines and not all keep in mind that this is, this is what we would get in the
00:09:46.560
very, very optimistic AI timeline, where for whatever reason, those who end up getting the
00:09:51.720
concentrated small amounts of like immense power, like that, like 0.001% of people and or AIs and or
00:09:58.620
businesses decides, okay, we are going to give a post-scarcity paradise to people. This is what
00:10:08.780
we're looking at. This is not the timeline that we personally expect. We personally expect societies
00:10:15.420
and groups to largely be left behind and for the very wealthy and very connected to coalesce into
00:10:22.440
walled gardens that are highly secure and very isolated, meaning that most people should prepare for
00:10:27.940
permaculture and basically living off the land and depending on the graces and support of a
00:10:33.300
community that is very tight knit that they themselves also support a lot. However, this could
00:10:38.180
happen. This may happen in some areas and it is already happening in a lot of gold states because
00:10:43.160
they have had basically the, the, the false jumpstart via oil money of a post-scarcity society. They have
00:10:51.100
so much money they can just support life. So let's kind of go over what exactly people are getting in
00:10:57.380
terms of lifestyle support in countries like Qatar, because I didn't know exactly how it worked. I
00:11:03.140
was like, is it UBI? Is it something else? And to be clear, Qatari citizens don't receive a universal
00:11:09.620
basic income in the sense of an automatic regular cash allowance for every citizen, but instead they,
00:11:15.700
they get a lot of social benefits and subsidies that significantly improve their standards of life.
00:11:21.260
So let's go over what they do get. They get free healthcare. They get free education, including,
00:11:27.480
especially for Qatar. And we've talked about this in other episodes, education abroad. They're,
00:11:31.820
they're one of the biggest, what, like donors to us universities, right? They get heavily subsidized
00:11:37.920
or free in, in many cases, electricity, water, and other utilities. Imagine just having all your
00:11:43.720
utilities paid for. They have generous pensions. So they still receive retirement benefits.
00:11:49.560
They get retirement, or sorry, newlyweds get additional financial support. This includes
00:11:55.860
some very interesting in-kind benefits, like free villas upon marriage for some.
00:12:02.760
And I had to, yeah, I had to double click on this because I was like, what, what do you,
00:12:09.660
What did they look like? Did you, did you find pictures?
00:12:11.340
I did. Yeah. So just, just to, for those listening, the, the villas for newly married Qatari couples,
00:12:16.920
they're modern, they're spacious, they're family oriented. They reflect both contemporary
00:12:21.520
architectural design and higher standards of comfort. To your point about hosting, like they
00:12:25.900
have really nice hosting spaces. They're located within planned communities, featuring amenities
00:12:30.880
for families, often with green spaces and play areas and convenient access to schools and shops.
00:12:36.760
So they have three to five bedrooms, plenty of room for a family. Like talk about pronatalist,
00:12:42.480
separate living and dining rooms. They have a kitchen, several bathrooms to accommodate the
00:12:47.080
growing families. Like definitely this is a focus on families. They have a big focus. They feel kind
00:12:52.700
of compoundy. So there's a big focus on privacy and convenience and they're very modern and they
00:12:57.840
look, you know, anyone who lives in Los Angeles, like they'll see these new houses that crop up
00:13:04.720
whenever someone buys a teardown, like in San Diego that are very like sort of blocky and compoundy.
00:13:10.640
So the architecture is very sleek and contemporary like that, but it also references Qatari cultural
00:13:16.140
aesthetics through some of like the arches and local materials. And they're, they're like,
00:13:22.340
like I said, in these, in these very new planned communities in many cases. So some of the
00:13:26.720
government developed communities, such as bliss villas in Hazum and Abu Sidra are described as being
00:13:32.720
designed for comfort and joy and modern living for Qatari families. I'm going to send you a link
00:13:37.420
to the development website for Abu Sidra because it looks like maybe it's not done yet.
00:13:43.260
And I have to be, I will note that the thing that she's not mentioning that is actually by far the
00:13:48.300
biggest benefit that you get within these countries is the legal regulations I mentioned around when you
00:13:54.640
need to hire Qataris or you need to have stock ownership by Qataris. Same with the Emirates. That
00:14:01.540
Yeah. Well, that's the really big thing is instead of UBI, you basically have government guaranteed
00:14:06.000
high paying jobs, especially in the public sector. And to your point about there being like an issue
00:14:10.820
of merit, that is something that people have alleged and has is and has been an issue, but
00:14:17.000
apparently there is more focus on reform now. Like people are being held to higher standards of
00:14:21.120
accountability. Yeah. And my, my experience with this is like a decade ago. So yeah. And these rules
00:14:26.740
do involve real work and ongoing modernization policies are making the jobs more merit driven and
00:14:32.360
results oriented. So something I'd note about the sort of elite Arab communities that I have engaged
00:14:38.960
with because the elite Arab communities are very different from the non elite Arab communities.
00:14:44.200
There's quite a, it's a very high power distance sort of area in terms of cultures, which means you get
00:14:49.400
more cultural distance. And so when I talk about Arab culture right now, I'm talking specifically about
00:14:54.440
the, the culture of the elites. And we have another episode where we talk about how rare democracies have
00:14:59.100
been in Arab majority countries. And I think part of the reason is, is because the elite culture is
00:15:03.020
so differentiated from the mainstream culture and more competent. Yeah. But back to the villas though.
00:15:08.460
I just want to show you one more. I'm sending you photos from one of the Hazoum villas, like,
00:15:13.380
cause I actually found a property listing. This one is for about 1.4 million us dollars. So I think
00:15:18.340
you can also buy properties. Oh my God. They're all like marble and stuff. These are, I know it's,
00:15:22.180
yeah, it's, it's actually like it to me, the interior feels very cold and soulless, but it is. Oh no.
00:15:27.700
All the nice stuff there feels that way. So like when you go to like a, like a princess palace
00:15:32.620
there or something like that, cause I know a few actually, they're, they're like giant rooms that
00:15:37.980
feel very empty and covered in gold often and like really high beams and everything.
00:15:43.140
Yeah. It seems like a very, like a very high scale hotel room, just marble. Very, very high scale.
00:15:51.980
Grage. It's grage. It's very grage. Lots of marble.
00:15:54.900
But the point I was, I was making there is one of the, the things about these cultures
00:15:59.380
is, remember the first thing I said is that they're very cunning is what, and cunning, pragmatic
00:16:05.720
and hospitable. When you get this sort of cunning pragmatism of which you do get was in these
00:16:10.380
cultures in a disproportionate amount. They are like, if, if you go to one of them, right? Like
00:16:15.820
back, back when I, you know, back then, right. If I, back when this was more of a problem,
00:16:21.160
presumably, and you were like, Hey, there's this problem where people who aren't competent
00:16:25.400
are getting into these positions and it's leading to like lower outcomes. Yeah. They're not going to
00:16:29.800
be like an American, like DEI person. They're like, yeah, I mean, that happens. And what's a better way
00:16:37.620
that we could structure things so that our people continue to have disproportionate power. And, and in
00:16:42.760
the West, people would be like, what do you, what do you mean? It's like, well, I mean, it's our money
00:16:47.160
and our country. Why wouldn't we attempt to lift up our people? You knob like right now,
00:16:54.640
that's not working well. What's a better way to do it without handing power to outsiders,
00:16:59.580
right? Like that's not a, that's not a, like, I think there's people who might hear this and think
00:17:05.360
that they, they were in this situation because of some degree of incompetence in the way things
00:17:10.500
are structured. And what you seem to be indicating is even past then they have been trying to make
00:17:15.620
things better. And you do, you do absolutely see this in these, in these cultures around their
00:17:19.940
elite population is they are aware of these problems. And unlike the American, like DEI scene
00:17:25.340
or something, there is long-term strategy behind it. You know, this is, yeah, this, this doesn't come
00:17:31.360
from some kind of like, how do I, so it's not like Venezuelan, like Venezuela just ruined, like they
00:17:39.200
were like, oh, we have stupid money. Like, and then they ruined it all. Whereas in these Gulf States,
00:17:43.760
it's like, oh, we have stupid money. Like, let's try to turn this into a long-term, long-term
00:17:49.220
strategic advantage for our people. And I really, I admire that. And I appreciate that. And again,
00:17:54.260
this is why I want to look to these countries as a case study and, and look at their success,
00:17:58.060
like learn from their successes, but also learn from their failures. And they're going to get to
00:18:01.100
the failures. Yeah, but it's not a case study. And I want to point out here where anyone was acting,
00:18:04.540
and this is what makes it such a good case study without pragmatism, without practicality,
00:18:09.560
without a long-term plan and without a degree of, I would say, intelligent ruthlessness.
00:18:15.360
Absolutely. Yeah. And keep, like, you know, these villas aren't dink villas. These are three
00:18:20.220
and five bedroom. They're like, you're going to have kids, right? Have kids, make sure that you
00:18:23.380
have kids. And keep in mind, while Qatar gives most of its benefits, it's like in kind, like,
00:18:28.100
oh, you will get a job and you're going to work for it. And that was another thing that we talked
00:18:31.500
about in our UBI episodes was that people who received cash transfers, even ones that weren't like
00:18:36.340
that big, worked less. And it wasn't good for them. And same with Native American groups. Like,
00:18:43.060
some people chimed in the comments with anecdotes in response to that episode and pointed out how
00:18:47.640
one person was talking about a Native American community that he was aware of that was just,
00:18:52.900
like, floundering in addiction and just tons of social problems. And then the tribe changed their
00:18:59.660
policy and required more merit to justify any cash payments. And it really started to turn things
00:19:04.820
around. It's clear, and you can also see this with the New Deal, and especially the Civilian
00:19:10.580
Conservation Corps in the United States history, like during the Great Depression. People who
00:19:15.300
participated in that experienced very long-term benefits. And it's clear to me from the data
00:19:20.380
that working for your money and your benefits gives you a sense of empowerment, gives you a sense
00:19:27.680
of purpose. Like, you do really need to work for this. So what I really appreciate about Qatar here,
00:19:31.920
too, is that while they'll give you free education and healthcare and electricity and water and homes
00:19:38.380
and all these things, they're also like, no, man, you have to work. Like, get a job. I'll give you a
00:19:42.300
job, but you have to work. However, you know, on the cash transfers front, they do nevertheless give
00:19:47.920
pretty generous allowances for people who can't work. So widows, orphans, the elderly, like people over
00:19:54.700
60, they get, let's see. So for the elderly, they get 6,000 Qatari reals, which is around
00:20:01.580
1,600 US dollars. For children with disabilities, families get per child just over 1,000 US dollars
00:20:10.800
per month. And for a dependent wife, about 550 per month. And just for normal child who's not disabled,
00:20:17.820
about 274 dollars a month, that'd be huge for us. Like, that'd be great. You know, I wouldn't mind
00:20:23.960
it. So in terms of other countries in the area that, I mean, and the most generous Gulf countries
00:20:29.080
and a lot of like most of them that are wealthy have benefits like these. Kuwait's the most close
00:20:35.980
to giving on universal basic income. They give more direct cash allowances. Some proposals have
00:20:42.800
included sums as high as $50,000 per working age adult per year. But in practice, the direct stipend
00:20:48.740
coupled with employment guarantees and generous government jobs is really how most citizens get
00:20:53.720
their income. And again, I think that's really important. It's jobs. But they do, again, provide
00:20:57.420
health care, housing allowances, educational supplements, subsidies for energy and food, and
00:21:01.900
again, guaranteed public sector employment. And I do think that if UBI or some like post AI thing is
00:21:08.820
going to work, it's going to have to be through jobs. An Emirati system, citizens in the UAE also
00:21:13.700
have free health care, free education, including university, subsidized or free utilities,
00:21:18.020
residential land, housing, interest-free loans to build homes. Can you imagine marriage and birth
00:21:23.420
grants? Because remember when we talked in our, in our Muslim fertility rates, one, they were the ones
00:21:27.440
who were like, yeah, we'll give you $16,000 for a wedding. Please get married. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
00:21:32.100
I think it's so funny to talk about these countries because there's been a lot of countries that have
00:21:36.560
like stumbled into wealth in various ways. Yeah. And these countries, I mean, obviously one of the
00:21:42.340
best in terms of how they handled it was, I can't remember if it's Norway or Sweden was their local
00:21:46.320
fund, but the Saudis have done a pretty good job and the UAE has done a pretty good job and Qatar has
00:21:50.420
done a pretty good job and, and, and like exceptionally good when you contrast it with, with other countries
00:21:55.500
where it's like, just like the warlord and his family, uh, suck everything up. Whereas in these
00:22:00.580
countries, like they did like the least, they sat down and they're like, okay, so I want to use this
00:22:07.140
to like increase the quality of life of my people. And then DEI guy comes in and he goes, you mean
00:22:12.300
everyone who lives in your country? No, no, no, no, no. We'll treat them like slaves. Yeah. My people, my
00:22:17.620
people, but what he, you know, they, they can live like they live wherever they're coming from. Okay.
00:22:24.840
It is really, really tough for non-beneficiaries in these countries, you know, prices are, are really
00:22:31.540
high for them for food and groceries. It really sucks. I did check to see, cause a lot of people
00:22:36.880
have said, not necessarily. I mean, as a, as a non-native, if you're like hyper-competent, like
00:22:41.240
if I wanted to, like if I wanted a good, like really reliable income, I could probably get it in,
00:22:48.060
in the UAE because no, no, no, no. It's not like a maybe thing. This is like for like Stanford
00:22:54.580
MBA type people. It's like a known thing, right? Like if you did very well in the Americas and you
00:23:01.040
are like elite class in the Americas, there are certain places that you can go where they always
00:23:06.540
need like a really good, like someone to actually work. Except again, I think that they're, they're
00:23:12.440
getting better at, at really focusing on merit. Right. They are, but they always still need to bring
00:23:17.100
in and, and they're smart about it as well. Like a lot of these countries, they don't have so much
00:23:21.540
pride that they're not like that. It blinds them again to pragmatism and cunning. They're like,
00:23:26.680
okay, but obviously we're not going to have the final decisions being made by, you know,
00:23:31.700
the, the people who are here on like the DEI hire. I like our freezing stone, Pennsylvania
00:23:37.540
farmhouse. I mean, I'm looking at that house. Oh no. Yeah. The villa, like it feels like a sterile
00:23:44.780
Barbie dream house. Like I would just feel existentially depressed in it. And I like the struggle.
00:23:50.460
I like the fact that like, we can't really afford to pair like, no, no, I agree with all that. I
00:23:55.240
mean, it's not the only place in the world that's like that. Like Singapore is another really good
00:23:59.120
place if I wanted to get a decent, reliable job. We're not going somewhere so hot. Oh my God.
00:24:03.600
No. Well, the UAE is pretty hot as well. So is Qatar. Yeah, but they have free energy. So you can
00:24:08.300
just do air conditioning forever. But you know, you know why I can't live in any of these countries?
00:24:13.000
I don't know. You just called them Qatar-ded maybe? No, no.
00:24:16.260
Because you've, you've, you've thrown China under the bus a million times.
00:24:19.720
These, as I've said, these people are, are very pragmatic. I know, I know. They just
00:24:23.880
want competent people. Why can't you work there? They don't really have any tolerance for a lot
00:24:28.040
of the DEI stuff of the West, but. Oh, I thought you were going to say alcohol. Sorry.
00:24:32.260
It's alcohol. Yeah. Alcohol is incredibly expensive in every single one of these countries,
00:24:36.320
including Singapore. You'll be a copper. Yeah. Yeah. It won't work. Yeah. I mean,
00:24:40.740
God, I mean, we, we can barely, I mean, with the alcohol taxes here, I, I, the Pennsylvania
00:24:44.760
alcohol industry is such a weird racket. Anyway, by the state, what we need to do. Yeah. What we
00:24:51.740
need to do though, is discuss now, does this paradise of post scarcity for citizens in these
00:25:00.080
countries produce better outcomes? Cause that's again, what we need to be asking. And that is
00:25:05.200
what, you know, we, we talked about in our universal basic income episode, because while
00:25:09.120
people were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm definitely better off by measurable policy outcomes. And in the
00:25:14.280
words of Kelsey Piper, who wrote the blog post that we read, not really. No. So let's start with
00:25:20.520
happiness. Cause everyone just cares so much about happiness. We don't, but people do. Um, so if we
00:25:26.100
look at the world happiness report, cause of course there was one in recent rankings, the USA score in
00:25:32.300
2025 was 6.72. It was ranked around 23rd globally, which is pretty good. Qatar. It has the latest reported
00:25:40.400
score of 6.37. It's ranked about 36th globally. So while both countries are well above the median,
00:25:49.420
which is around 5.4 USA consistently outranks Qatar in the happiness surveys, which is very
00:25:55.720
interesting because you can imagine, you know, describing the benefits I described the villas,
00:26:01.280
the free education to most Americans. And they'd be like, that's all I need to be happy. That's all I
00:26:05.380
need. So it's interesting that while Qataris benefit from national wealth and safety and
00:26:10.140
generous government support, Americans still tend to report higher subjective happiness. And maybe this
00:26:15.700
is due to some broader personal freedoms. Maybe it's, it's just higher satisfaction. Americans are
00:26:22.220
happier than they are. Yeah. America. Yeah. Like I said, Americans rank around 23rd globally and Qataris as
00:26:28.820
2025 are around 36th globally. So maybe. I, I, I can, I can see why. I mean, I haven't like in, in my time
00:26:40.680
there, the people I met are not as happy as the people in the United States. Yeah. I mean, it's,
00:26:46.980
it's interesting though. Cause when you ask. Well, also keep in mind the responsibilities they feel.
00:26:52.000
So I think that this is also like, when I talk with UAE friends and stuff like that, their, their life is
00:27:00.040
often much more sort of planned out from day one than people in the United States.
00:27:05.440
Well, and where's the struggle? Like where's the tension?
00:27:08.240
No, no. That's where the struggle is. It's an actually stressful stuff. You got to marry one of your cousins.
00:27:13.400
You got to build up that relationship from like day, which is super important because you got to marry the
00:27:17.960
right person to build family alliances. And you've got to, you know, you hold all of these
00:27:24.220
traditions and you've got to host guests in just this way with just these plates being brought out
00:27:30.600
in just this procession. And then you've got a fast for like fricking half the year. And then you've
00:27:37.140
got to do, do this and this, and you can't even drink and you can't, I don't think they're allowed to
00:27:42.980
gamble either. You can't say, so you're, you're, you, what do you, how are you recreating was at
00:27:48.100
hookah bars, which just gives you the jitters? You, sorry. Welcome to Muslim sensitivity training.
00:27:55.960
It is important for us to understand why the Muslims feel the way they do. First of all,
00:28:01.720
there's no sex until marriage in the Muslim world. Now this would be fine, except that in the Muslim
00:28:06.780
religion, you also can't jack off. And what do we know about the places Muslims live? They live in
00:28:14.660
sand. Now put yourself in the shoes of a Muslim. It's Friday night, but you can't have sex and you
00:28:22.520
can't jack off. There's sand in your eyes and probably in the crack here. And then some cartoon
00:28:26.880
comes along from a country where people are getting laid and mocks your profit. Well, you know what?
00:28:31.860
I'd be pretty pissed off too. I don't know. What I, what I always think of is, and I'm sending this
00:28:36.300
picture to you on WhatsApp, is that famous photo of the Falcons that the Saudi prince bought seats for
00:28:42.080
on, on a plane. And I'm just like, I don't know, like are, are buying seats for your Falcons on an
00:28:48.600
airplane? Is that a sign of human flourishing? Like, are you thriving if you're, if you're flying around
00:28:55.040
your birds? Oh my God. I had no idea it was like this. It's so literally the entire middle row is
00:29:02.380
just Falcon seats. Yeah. Falcons on what the heck? And these are the Falcons that are flying in coach.
00:29:10.020
It's just like a big thing there. I've heard, I don't know the full story here because it's been
00:29:13.460
a while, but my sister almost married a prince from the region who was really into falconing.
00:29:18.440
Now part of me wonders if it was this guy. No, not almost. There's a lot of people into falconing.
00:29:23.320
They weren't like, it was like a proposal or something. I don't understand the specifics of
00:29:28.040
it. I just remember hearing this story at one point. I'm just saying like, I don't,
00:29:32.920
I don't think I would be happier if I had that level. Yeah. I would not be happier with 20 Falcons.
00:29:40.160
That does not make me happier having, it doesn't even seem like a particularly fun hobby. I mean,
00:29:45.720
different people are into different things, but. Yeah. I'm just, you know, money, money only goes so far.
00:29:50.160
So anyway, happiness, they're not, that's not necessarily the thing. So let's go to health,
00:29:55.300
right? Okay. So a lot of people in it, we've covered a lot of different surveys on what people
00:29:59.840
value the most and health is, is up there really ranked high, especially among Gen Z, Gen Y,
00:30:05.760
millennials show. Let's look at that. Let's compare the Gulf States that have all this money with the
00:30:10.800
EU, with UK, Canada, and, and also in the U S. So broadly let's keep in mind first for context,
00:30:16.980
healthcare is universal and high quality in the Gulf States and the EU, in the UK and Canada,
00:30:22.200
they have nationalized healthcare. You can get healthcare. It's, it's just part of the package
00:30:25.960
in the U S health insurance is patchy. It's really expensive. Not everyone has it. It's sometimes if
00:30:32.380
you're at the poverty level and you get free healthcare, it's, it's confusing. You know,
00:30:36.640
if, if you're asthma gold and people think you're homeless, they're just not going to bill you.
00:30:39.920
I love that that happens to asthma gold on multiple occasions. Hospitals, not charging him.
00:30:46.560
Everyone just thinks he's a homeless man. I love him so much.
00:30:49.920
Homeless privilege. So anyway, it's so weird. Like all of these weird, like libelous attacks and
00:30:54.800
slanderous attacks I've seen against him recently that I didn't see before. I think that's because
00:30:58.100
he's, his profile is rising and people now see him as a threat. They're like, because how do you,
00:31:03.780
how do you compete with him? You can't, you can't know, especially if you're a leftist,
00:31:08.300
cause you can't paint him as like a rich elite, right? Like you may have money because of his
00:31:12.760
streaming now, but he still lives in a place that looks like a crack house. You know, he's,
00:31:16.840
he doesn't even like put all of his teeth in because he's like, ah, they don't see that on
00:31:21.160
camera. He just doesn't get the side that shows up on camera anyway. So I'm just, anyway, so I just
00:31:27.120
want to say like, because obvious spoil alert, the U S doesn't rank the best for health,
00:31:32.180
but also we don't have universal healthcare and all the competition does. And I actually
00:31:36.060
think we're doing pretty well. So the, the life expectancy in years for the U S is 78 to 29.
00:31:44.260
And then the best ranking one is the EU where it's 84 to 80, but honestly, like 78 versus 84,
00:31:52.240
like, honestly, like you're old, your quality of life isn't that great anyway. Like I'm not mad
00:31:58.260
about that, especially considering that, that healthcare is more spotty in the United
00:32:02.100
States. So in Canada, it's 83 UK, 81 EU, like I said, 80 to 84 in the UAE where we have all this
00:32:10.760
money. It's 79. The USA is 78 to 79. All right. So in, in post-scarcity, futuristic AI utopia world,
00:32:21.320
they're not necessarily living longer. Qatar 80, that's one year more than 79 in the U S Kuwait,
00:32:27.740
78. All right. At the, the lower end of the U S. And then this is the thing is that these are the
00:32:33.060
countries where it's managed the way we would manage it. If you had the top minds working on
00:32:38.320
it. Right. Because if you were to ask like a person in the U S like, well, what would it take
00:32:42.320
for us to get to 84? Like in the EU, they'd be like, well, of course, universal healthcare,
00:32:47.240
it just needs to be paid for. Well, guess where it's paid for the most generously. How are they doing?
00:32:52.780
The same as us. Okay. And when, I think the big factor here though, do you want to guess what it
00:32:58.740
is, Malcolm? What? Tell me. It's obesity. They're fat. They're fat like us. Well, especially if your
00:33:05.540
whole body can be covered easily. That's true. The billowing clothes, you know, you got to introduce
00:33:11.020
the star Trek uniforms. They already have the post-scarcity society introduced the spandex.
00:33:15.560
You're going to shame them into being thin right away, right away. I mean, one of the things I love
00:33:21.260
about these, these environments, if you're not familiar with them is in the United States,
00:33:26.320
pretty much, and this is true across Western cultures, when you are in upper class environments,
00:33:32.060
like at an office or something like that, especially like an elite office, you're often
00:33:36.440
expected to come in a uniform, like suit and tie, right. In very few cultures in Texas, where I'm from,
00:33:43.220
you can, if you are Texan, get away with modifying that, you know, with jeans and belt and a bolo and
00:33:50.540
stuff like that. Minor modifications, but, but, you know, they're, they're one usually reserved
00:33:55.600
for Texans. You'd be seen as pretty weird if you were non-Texan and you did that. And you, you,
00:34:01.460
but in Texas, I think it's one of the few cultures where they, on the broader side, think it was kind
00:34:06.900
of cool that you were that into Texas culture. They're not going to be like, you're appropriating
00:34:10.920
my culture. They're like, ah, that's cool. But in the UAE, when you are in, and this is also too,
00:34:16.440
in Qatar, but it's like different outfits when you are in like high society, very like wealthy,
00:34:21.820
like business office or whatever, they wear their traditional outfits, which they look pretty
00:34:26.900
awesome. I think it's really cool. Uh, I think, but you're right. They're a little forgiving when
00:34:32.000
it comes to those. Quite obese in these traditional outfits. Killer. Yeah. It's still, yeah. It reminds me
00:34:41.380
St. Andrews where at the end of winter. So I went to school at St. Andrews, which is in Scotland.
00:34:46.480
And at the end of winter, they do this thing called May Dip, but obviously over winter, everyone's
00:34:51.340
dressed in very like layered puffy clothing. And at May Dip, I remember being shocked about how many
00:34:59.600
of the girls had become quite fat without me realizing it because of all the puffy clothing
00:35:05.620
that they were wearing. And this is why when you normalize outfits that hide how obese people are,
00:35:12.660
people just naturally become more obese. Moto Moto would have had a field day. It may dip.
00:35:18.760
I like them big. I like them joking. I like them big. I like them big.
00:35:26.780
If you, if you look at the male ones, they're sort of like robe thing drab, drabbed over you.
00:35:31.960
Think Jedi. They all, they all walk around dressed like Jedi. Um, yeah. And so it is really a sci-fi
00:35:40.260
post-scarcity world. Yeah. How fat does the Jedi need to be before you notice? And you're like,
00:35:46.540
well, you notice in the neck and it's like, no, they've got things that cover the neck. So you
00:35:49.420
wouldn't even see that. Tell you what, but yeah, so that's, it's, it's the obesity, it's the nutrition,
00:35:55.740
both the Gulf states and the U S diets. They're, they're much more calorie dense, whereas EU diets
00:36:00.980
are healthier overall. Also the men, the mental health situation in the West is actually much
00:36:06.500
better, or at least like they, it's hard to kind of read this. Maybe you could argue, maybe that the
00:36:12.540
Gulf states are better because they have a stigma against mental health problems and just don't treat
00:36:16.800
them. But as far as some people are concerned, the Gulf is improving. There's less stigma, but it's
00:36:22.820
still far behind the Western countries. And I'm not sure if that's good or bad. We're talking
00:36:26.360
about the happiness rates though, that like, they're not as happy. So let's talk about the
00:36:30.160
We often say that the U S mental health industry is a bit of a scam, which mostly perpetuates
00:36:34.380
mental health problems rather than makes it worse. I mean, I would imagine that they probably
00:36:38.580
deal with this stuff much more directly in not up, not up. Stop acting sad. You win for matter.
00:36:47.640
Stop hyperventilating. So mental health, we're just going to whatever, but birth rates. Okay.
00:36:52.780
This is, this is kind of the key, key indicator of health, right? Like, are you perpetuating
00:36:56.800
your genes? Like you're fit or you're not, you know, that's ultimately what it comes down to
00:37:00.620
kind of, I mean, it's not as bad as I thought. So Kuwait, which has like, you know, the closest
00:37:08.220
to the UBI situation, it's 1.5 to 2.2. That's kind of a huge range. So I don't know what to do
00:37:14.740
with that below the U S though. Yeah. So the USA is 1.6 ish. So like 1.5, we don't get paid to
00:37:22.000
marry in the United States. I know, I know. And you, well, you don't get like everything taken
00:37:25.740
care of, you know, get subsidies for kids. So like, I'm not impressed given everything that
00:37:31.040
they offer in Qatar. It's 1.4 to 1.9. So something you're forgetting in these countries
00:37:37.600
is if you are from like an elite family or something like that, or you are like an extremely
00:37:43.960
high performer, who you marry is much more difficult to organize in the U S because you're
00:37:50.560
typically marrying into a family network. Oh, so you're saying it's kind of the Catholic
00:37:54.680
situation here where like, because so much thought and effort gets put into getting married that
00:37:59.980
they're overthinking it, getting married too late and then not able to have as much kids
00:38:03.180
as they otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I suspect is really going on. So if you look
00:38:06.900
at the United States, I mean, you just need to find somebody who like, you're like is hot
00:38:10.900
and you want to spend time with, you don't need to like go into who they're, you're not first
00:38:16.300
limited to only people within. And we've noted this isn't like bad genetically speaking,
00:38:20.600
especially if you're talking about second cousins, which is actually the highest third
00:38:24.260
cousin, third cousin, but, but in these countries, these are things that you actually pay attention
00:38:30.280
to. You know, you are marrying within it's sort of your population group. Second is a much smaller
00:38:34.960
population. Like for me, when I'm dating, it's just broadly white people, right? Like there's a lot
00:38:41.440
of white people. Well, have you not dated a lot of non-white people? I did date non-white
00:38:47.060
people, but not that frequently. It wasn't actually, I didn't even have a preference really
00:38:51.020
for white people. It's just, I happened to date them more. I don't know why. I felt like
00:38:55.500
white people responded more to my outreach on dating platforms. Yeah. I like, I definitely
00:39:01.680
dated Indian, Asian, black, that's it. And white. Yeah. But in these countries, I'm saying like,
00:39:14.220
even, even if you have a preference, right. You're still like broadly, I can go to the UK
00:39:19.600
and find somebody and I'm not, no one's going to think that like, none of my family is going
00:39:22.880
to have a problem with me marrying somebody from the UK, right. Or Germany or France or really
00:39:28.280
any part of the United States. If you are in, you know, one of these countries, your like global
00:39:34.500
population of people you can marry without your family throwing up a, a, a banana is going to be
00:39:41.520
Muslim, still Muslim by the way. So not deconverted Arabs likely within your family network.
00:39:49.040
Yeah. That makes it more complicated. That's a logistical nightmare. Yeah. Anyway, continue
00:39:54.840
birth rates, Qatar 1.4 to 1.9. So like I would put that at roughly 1.6. Like they're, they're not
00:40:02.200
beating us despite having all these things. The UAE is even worse. It's, it's, it's at approximately
00:40:07.840
1.4. Again, compare that to 1.6 in the USA where we basically offer no help at all to parents.
00:40:15.280
And keep in mind when we talk about differential fertility rates in religion, and I'm like Muslim
00:40:20.740
countries and Muslim cultures have a very low fertility rate when you adjust for religion.
00:40:24.500
When you address for income, that's what we're seeing here. It's, it's, it's the cultural
00:40:30.180
system and note this cultural system isn't necessarily just their beliefs. When I talk
00:40:35.000
about why their fertility rates are likely lower, I talk about the logistical difficulty
00:40:39.520
in getting married in this sort of clan-based system. And that's, that's not like an inherently
00:40:49.020
I wonder if it's also a little bit downstream of all these benefits. Keep in mind that, that education,
00:40:53.720
high quality education, often international, sometimes university could also be suppressing
00:40:59.640
this by again, shifting marriage from being a cornerstone to a capstone element of life where
00:41:05.480
like you get married after you get your education and that's moving things back instead of having
00:41:10.080
them get married before they go off to university. So that could also be a factor here. Also because
00:41:15.580
it's government subsidized. You're like, well, I'd be stupid to not make sure I get this in before I
00:41:19.320
start my family. You know, there's something like that, especially if you're going to leave the
00:41:22.820
country, it gets complicated. I don't know. But anyway, so the USA is at 1.6 and again, so Canada,
00:41:30.060
the UK, the EU, while they're not the Gulf States giving you like a free house and free electricity,
00:41:36.280
they still have free healthcare and they're at 1.5 in Canada, 1.5 in the UK and the EU averages 1.4.
00:41:44.160
So they're doing worse than the United States at 1.6. So again, not really seeing the results we're
00:41:50.180
looking for in terms of birth rate. So let's look at innovation. Okay. You know, a big sign that you
00:41:56.160
and I would count with human flourishing beyond birth rates is like, are they contributing to
00:42:01.920
the advancement of humanity? Are they moving us forward technologically, entrepreneurially,
00:42:07.300
economically? Are they uplifting the human race? The 2025 Global Innovation Index, this is something
00:42:13.080
created by the World Intellectual Property Organization, which I figure probably does a
00:42:18.100
pretty good job at like tracking people, introducing new tech. The USA ranked third globally. That's
00:42:24.960
after Switzerland and Sweden. The UK ranked sixth. Canada ranked 15. Top EU nations were just in the top
00:42:33.240
10 to 20 worldwide. The UAE is 31st globally. It's best in like the Gulf States. It's rising rapidly,
00:42:40.540
but that's 31st. Qatar is 51st globally. And Kuwait isn't even in the top 60. And I can send you the
00:42:48.980
beautiful ranking graph that shows sort of 2021 to now to 2025. And you can kind of see how they
00:42:55.340
fluctuated over time, but you're not, you're not seeing Gulf States in there that just throw money
00:42:58.700
at people. Maybe they're too busy flying their Falcons around. I don't know, but they're not,
00:43:03.420
they're not using their money to innovate. And that's also something that I think about,
00:43:07.560
you know, is, is when you make people comfortable, you know, are they going to invent new things? Are
00:43:14.240
they going to move us forward? Or are they just going to kind of, like you said, it can be like
00:43:17.960
bro-y, you know, cunning and like, like pretend entrepreneurship. And that's the problem with
00:43:23.940
projects like Neom, right? Is it's all pretend entrepreneurship. It's a good idea on paper.
00:43:29.300
If anybody actually, it's a cool idea on paper. I don't know if it's a good idea.
00:43:32.900
I, I, I don't hate the idea of trying to create a special economic zone with unique laws that is
00:43:40.320
closer to Israel, which is really what they're trying to do is to create a, create like a
00:43:44.080
tourist sort of a hotspot and tech bro hotspot. I mean, Dubai's done a really good job at becoming
00:43:49.880
like tech hotspot. Like it can be done. Like Dubai exists, you know, so don't, you know,
00:43:57.320
I wouldn't, I wouldn't poo poo. I'm just saying like, it's not showing up as an export of these
00:44:06.560
regions, despite the fact that I would have hoped that in this post post scarcity, Star Trek style
00:44:12.480
world where everyone walks around like Jedi and has money for things and gets free education
00:44:16.640
that they, they would then. And I think people have this, this delusion that that's what happens
00:44:21.400
is you just, when you have, you know, when the government is your patron, you have free time
00:44:26.480
to just sit and invent new things and make the world better and produce gorgeous art. And we're
00:44:31.940
just not seeing that. I mean, even just look at the designs of these houses. It is like literally
00:44:36.160
millennial grayish everywhere. It's so soulless. And I just, it looks great. It looks great in a very AI
00:44:43.560
kind of way. Not that like cool, funky, weird AI where like, you know, build a mansion, but make it on a
00:44:49.180
cliff and all pink and rainbow unicorn themed, but just like generic, optimal. So also we need to look
00:44:56.840
at entertainment. You know, maybe I thought maybe, okay, it's not innovation. It's entertainment, but
00:45:01.500
no, I mean, like India has Bollywood. Of course we have Hollywood. South Korea is able at being a, you
00:45:07.860
know, top tier in terms of cultural exports and very little cultural exports come from this part of
00:45:14.520
the world. It's like actually kind of shocking. It is a regional player is sort of how
00:45:19.040
it's, it's, it's categorized in, in indexes, you know, USA is a world leader. UK is top tier,
00:45:25.120
Canada, Switzerland, and Germany are seen as strong. I don't really, but I mean like the best
00:45:31.900
that they, that the, the, the Gulf States can be diplomatically categorized as, as a regional player.
00:45:38.820
So in the end, that really shouldn't be the case. I mean, I'm pretty sure like, for example, Israel
00:45:45.880
outputs, like pretty successful movies. Like it's, it's not that you can't, if you're a smaller
00:45:50.820
country like that output, high quality. Again, South Korea outputs. South Korea, like they're super
00:45:56.900
small. Yeah. Japan has produced amazing stuff. So yeah, I, I really don't, I don't think it's that.
00:46:05.040
I just, yeah. So in the end, what I'm taking away from this is it is possible to keep your people
00:46:13.740
afloat with jobs based and in-kind support, not cash transfers. And that's kind of, if you're going
00:46:23.340
to do UBI, if you're going to create a utopia for some select group of people using your AI superpowers
00:46:29.900
and resources, give them guaranteed jobs and support and education and healthcare.
00:46:36.620
But let them suffer and fail if they're going to suffer and fail.
00:46:39.400
Yeah. Yeah. Or, well, I don't know. Like I actually think you need to give people more
00:46:43.340
hardship and struggle if you want them to actually keep, to, to produce cool things. I, I, I don't
00:46:49.780
Failure needs to be a possibility in a system for thriving to happen.
00:46:53.100
Failure. Yeah. Failure needs to be a possibility.
00:46:54.600
If the whole thing can just be done again, if there's no real cost to anything.
00:47:00.060
Or if you introduced, I mean, maybe it's more of an attitudes thing. Like, I feel like maybe if
00:47:04.500
this existed in America, we'd have a shot because Americans would still be so competitive with each
00:47:08.800
other that like we would see a down and out in the magic kingdom by Cory Doctorow situation where
00:47:13.880
while everyone has their luxury villa and their free education and their perfect healthcare,
00:47:18.920
they're, they're still ruthlessly fighting for attention on social media. They're still ruthlessly
00:47:24.520
fighting for whatever the lullaboo of the time is, you know, for this, the few scarce resources that
00:47:31.560
exist for the Basquiat that, that, you know, everyone wants to collect. Like they're still going to fight
00:47:36.920
for things that are artificially or just circumstantially rare. And, and, and hopefully that,
00:47:43.320
that Thorstein Veblen style of, of status and security never leaves us because I think it is
00:47:50.280
a huge contributor to both American happiness and innovation. So I'm hoping for that. I'm hoping that,
00:47:57.640
that maybe, maybe that is the ideal scenario is that maybe when certain populations like an American
00:48:04.680
population is, is given these kinds of post-scarcity resources, they actually do keep fighting. But my
00:48:11.400
intuition is that they won't, and it will get situations where no one is necessarily happier,
00:48:18.360
I think we need to build a family culture, you know, you need to build an environment where like,
00:48:21.960
as I said, when I was growing up, it was always just me versus other people in my family, right?
00:48:25.880
Like that, that was my benchmark of success. And I was told to not benchmark myself against the wider
00:48:31.640
Yeah. You, you, you genuinely didn't care. You could not care less about what other people were doing.
00:48:37.800
You were like, or really like you benchmarked, like many of history's greats benchmark against
00:48:44.440
Alexander, the great, you know, they weep at the thought that like, Oh no, like I'm,
00:48:48.520
I often felt very bad that Alexander had accomplished more than me.
00:48:51.720
Yeah. Like benchmarking, not to a local peer group, but rather to either your own high achieving
00:49:00.760
I lecture to more people than Alexander did every day. Okay. You know, more people get to listen to
00:49:07.400
me and my ideas and that's what I care about most. So in a way I'm doing better than Alexander the great.
00:49:13.720
I would say in many ways, you know, I, I think it sucks to be a leader that's surrounded by yes men
00:49:19.880
and simultaneously a bunch of people who would benefit from you being dead. It would be a very
00:49:24.360
stressful lifestyle. I mean, he came from a family where like people just kept dying. Like, I, I don't
00:49:33.240
know. I'm glad you're not Alexander the great, just as someone who cares about your well-being and happiness.
00:49:40.680
Plus he was such a drama king. I cannot believe it was because he learned from like the, the,
00:49:46.120
I know he was trying to model Achilles. I just think it's, but what a bad role model. They talk about
00:49:52.120
like bad celebrity role models today. Achilles worst celebrity role model. Yeah. Yeah. Seriously.
00:50:00.440
Like just trying to like, to ape his, his toxic tantrums, but whatever. That's how you be manly.
00:50:09.320
Throw a toxic tantrum. Yeah. It's very strange. So whatever, but yeah, I'm glad that our audience,
00:50:18.600
which is so smart. You guys always humble me with like your insights encouraged us to look at this.
00:50:24.360
I think it is a good case study. And I think the biggest thing that I'm taking away from this is the
00:50:29.320
smartest thing they did was you have to get a job. I'll guarantee you a job, but you have to give a
00:50:34.200
job. And this is where we see a repeat of what we saw with the civilian conservation corps of the,
00:50:40.680
the new deal in the United States and the great depression, which really did produce lasting
00:50:46.920
good outcomes for those who participated in it. They had better health, longer lifespans,
00:50:51.160
more wealth over time, I think if memory serves. And I really do think that empowering people through
00:50:55.800
work is, is the way that it goes. Work will set you free. Yeah. Work work. Oh God, Simone.
00:51:05.640
Is that what we're going to end this on? Going to get us in big trouble?
00:51:14.440
I love you, Malcolm. What am I making you for dinner tonight?
00:51:17.240
Well, we've got the curry that is out. Oh crap. Yeah. But do you want me to like dress
00:51:21.240
it up in something? You want me to make like- Actually, I was going to say,
00:51:24.520
do we have naan that we can like heat up? We do. Do you want me to, ooh,
00:51:28.920
do you want me to like make a pizza of it? Or do you just, just with naan?
00:51:34.440
Actually, that's a good idea. And then you put some like mozzarella on top.
00:51:37.080
That's what I was thinking, but I could also just do it the way we've been doing Bulldog,
00:51:40.600
where I just heat it, like a basically kind of dry it out into a curry meat pancake in the air fryer
00:51:46.360
on a silpat. And then we, with cheese on top, then it will probably put the cheese on top after I dry
00:51:52.440
it out. And then I serve it to you like a curry meat pancake pizza with mozzarella cheese on top.
00:51:57.560
Okay. I, the one thing I change about it is I put honey on top of it.
00:52:01.880
It's clearly- Don't you have that sweet honey that, that got trendy and that no one actually
00:52:06.440
uses. It's supposed to go on pizzas. Like spicy honey. Oh yeah. Hot honey.
00:52:11.240
But we can also just drizzle. We have real honey too. So like-
00:52:18.040
And because the, the like sweetness of the mangoes isn't really tasteable in it anymore.
00:52:21.960
Interesting. And so I thought that honey might help. And
00:52:27.400
yeah, cook it however you want. I love the idea of having some mozzarella in it. That,
00:52:31.720
Okay. So we're going to do a- I'm hearing slamming. We're going to do a curry pizza.
00:52:39.240
I don't know if I would cook it on top of the naan. I will put it on the naan.
00:52:42.120
Oh no. Oh, I was just thinking like, if you want to do it bulldog style.
00:52:45.880
Yeah. Like bulldog style and then, and then scoop it with the naan.
00:52:48.760
Okay. So you still want naan. Okay. Yeah. I guess that's fair. Cause bulldog has the rice
00:52:56.600
Yeah. So you don't need the pizza with the bulldog, but you do need it with this,
00:53:01.480
the pizza crust, which is what we're doing with the naan.
00:53:03.800
Yeah. That makes sense. Good. I love you. I'm going to go get the kids. I'm going to
00:53:10.200
play with them and bathe them. And then when everything's ready for dinner.
00:53:13.720
Hi Octavian. You want to say hi to the- Hold on.
00:53:21.240
I want to say, I want like and subscribe for everybody. Like and subscribe. If you like
00:53:29.080
and subscribe, give us a comment down below. Did you just fart?
00:53:39.960
He just came over here and farted. All right. Game over, man. Simone over and out. I got to get out of
00:53:46.600
here. Oh boy. And I am loving you to death, my beautiful, beautiful princess.
00:53:53.000
You are so wonderful. I love my new mic set up so I can go.
00:53:59.640
No hands guys. Fancy. So very fancy. And you've got a baby, a new one. But you've
00:54:05.720
got a baby on you for five years at this point. I love that. And I never wanted to change. It is
00:54:12.280
the best. And it's nice. He's more awake now. He's more alert. Such a luxury that so many women
00:54:19.320
would do anything for. I know. That's the thing is, as we know, having struggled with infertility.
00:54:25.400
Done with the last of these. So we will have three bonkers for the kids. I noticed that this bottle
00:54:30.680
makes a very good bonker. So we've been washing them and we're going to store them and then set them
00:54:35.000
all up so the kids can wail on each other with them.
00:54:37.000
Yeah. They've already had a lot of fun with them. I mean, what, what Indy insisted on doing that,
00:54:43.560
why one of them got so messed up last night and so dirty was that she kept walking like she walks
00:54:49.320
like a, you know, a cowboy. She kept sidling around the kitchen and then like trying to drink out of
00:54:55.160
it and just looking super proud of herself. So. Cause she's still how we drink and she doesn't drink
00:55:01.640
from cups yet. Yeah. She wants to clearly. So yeah. All right. I will kick us off.
00:55:10.280
Okay. Okay. Now you've got your shields. Let's see.
00:55:20.280
No, no shields. Shields will make it hurt less.