In this episode, John and Richard discuss the lack of snow in the past week, and how that might have something to do with global warming. Also, Richard talks about his father's views on global warming and climate change denial.
00:04:12.500And there's also like a great deal of, uh, group think that goes on with these things and you get funding for, you get grants basically based on this.
00:04:27.100And it, it's self-serving on the part of climate change deniers to deny it because they are, you know, being funded by big oil or, or whatever.
00:04:38.880And, or they just want free capitalism everywhere.
00:04:44.160Uh, so I think they're self-serving, but then the people promoting it are also self-serving and they've also made these, um, claims that just, I don't know.
00:04:56.440I mean, uh, 20 years ago, it was, you know, we've got 20 years and it just starts to ring very hollow after they keep doing that.
00:05:08.360Um, the, I mean, I remember talking, I've talked with some true believers.
00:05:13.000I mean, again, this is just totally outside of my field, but I mean, I've talked with new believers who just genuinely believe that there's going to be catastrophe coming very soon.
00:05:24.020And it probably did come from a certain religious desire for that catastrophe.
00:06:03.080So it's incentivized, uh, from the left, from that perspective, from the right, it's more, yeah, it's, it's pandering to, uh, big oil and so forth.
00:06:11.920Yeah, I mean, I just think it's, uh, really ill-conceived in the sense that it would be so much better to talk about, to, to change the words that are used, such as to discuss nature as opposed to discussing the environment.
00:06:28.760So to, to talk about how we must protect nature and we need to have a connection with nature and we want nature to be beautiful and livable.
00:06:42.620We don't want these just, you know, endless stores of plastic bottles going in the ocean and, and polluting the ocean, drowning animal life, ruining the environment, even ruining the environment in the way that we participate it to participate in it.
00:07:00.660I, I just think there's a lot of better ways it could have been done and it, it's, it's conceived in this kind of like, um, what's the right way of saying it?
00:07:12.680It's conceived in this like quantitative way where it lends itself to doing things like, you know, carbon credit markets, et cetera, that are just clearly benefiting these, you know, big companies where, you know,
00:07:30.080Goldman Sachs can create a market for carbon credits and companies can trade them and, you know, your pollution is worth this.
00:07:38.700And so that's now a market value and you can, it's just, it's just awful when I think we should just have a vision for what we want to see in the world and implement it and talk about people's participation in nature,
00:07:54.880as opposed to talking about like, you know, climate change is getting so bad.
00:07:59.640It's going to destroy us all imminently, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
00:34:52.680We've had some of these in an informal way with Kurt and other people.
00:34:56.400We're going to have them in a more scheduled way.
00:34:58.900Because if you don't have a schedule, you're never going to do it, as we all know.
00:35:02.640So the other thing is that in the past, it's been like six years at this point.
00:35:14.160But I mean, I've hosted these big events, and there have been formal conferences.
00:35:17.980People host conferences, and it is what it is.
00:35:21.920Because I think one of my favorite conferences that I've hosted was just here in Whitefish over August, where so many of us got together and we had fun.
00:35:34.700We've also had fun in Vegas a few times.
00:35:37.260And there are just a lot of good things that are happening.
00:35:39.500So what I think the way forward is to do things that are more laid back and casual on the one hand, but also more pragmatic on the other.
00:35:57.440And also don't have registration fees, which is always good.
00:36:04.240So basically, we're going to start doing these events coming up.
00:39:10.460But I do think that ultimately moving to something that is in person and brick and mortar just has to be the direction that we go into.
00:39:21.060It would offer a certain kind of prestige, for lack of a better word, substantial quality to what we're doing.
00:39:33.880And other people are doing things like this.
00:39:36.900There's the Austin University, which is kind of like neocon you with Niall Ferguson and his wife and, you know, Barry Weiss telling teaching you about liberal tolerance, etc.
00:39:53.080That's I probably wouldn't attend to those things.
00:41:05.540You're not getting actual any kind of dialectic and the Greek sense of that word, which means discussion.
00:41:12.100So I do think that that is a big dream.
00:41:18.060I cannot come anywhere close to affording it right now.
00:41:22.700I cannot, I don't think I could reasonably get enough people to, you know, pick up and go for a summer or something to do something right now.
00:41:34.180We could probably get a few, to be honest.
00:41:36.080But you understand, it's not pragmatic, practical right now.
00:41:40.760But it is something that is practical in the future.
00:42:34.160I mean, it does to some degree, of course.
00:42:35.540But it's something that is part of a Western American tradition of founding schools and instilling values and ways of thinking into people, young people in particular.
00:42:53.100And I think it's also something that as we get more, as we get substantial funds, we can start thinking about and taking input on.
00:43:11.160I think at this point, I think we just simply need to name the goal, because we don't have money to put it into practice, so it's all theoretical.
00:43:20.660But as we start having money, we can start thinking about how that can be used and how we can achieve this.
00:43:46.280Yeah, no, so, I mean, REM theory is definitely going to be a thing.
00:43:54.160So it's, in a lot of ways, it's very, you know, the more that Richard and I study it, and I think Richard would agree with this,
00:44:03.040the more it becomes evident that the theory is evidently true, or is evidently the case, right?
00:44:09.460So we've cracked something that, for whatever reason, hasn't been solved in the past, which is remarkable, of course, when you think about it.
00:44:18.780And to the extent that we're overturning schools of thought, so a guy like Jung, whatever value he does, value he has in his work has, and he does have value, and his work does have value, he does say some things that are essentially true.
00:44:35.940But I think that our thesis fundamentally kind of overturns a lot of his thinking.
00:44:45.660So if you're part of this, you're part of history.
00:44:48.760I mean, that's, you know, maybe that's important to you.
00:44:52.540You know, it's, you know, and the truth is, it's going to succeed.
00:44:56.020I mean, if I'm being honest with you, it's going to succeed if I die penniless and Richard dies penniless.
00:45:02.740It's going to succeed regardless, right?
00:45:05.080Like, we'd rather not die penniless, and we would, and we're not going to die penniless because our school is already a success and will become more of a success in the future.
00:45:17.260But the point I'm making is that what we're saying is true.
00:45:22.860So you can be there sort of at the beginning helping us with this.
00:45:26.800And, you know, of course, you know, it's so as much as it's a labor of love for us, you could also consider it also a bit of a labor of love for yourselves.
00:45:38.680And that you are like putting something good into the world, something that is true, you're clarifying this mystery that we call art, this mystery that we call religion, you're clarity to it.
00:45:52.900Not only that, you're allowing it to sort of come back into our hands and allow us to use it as the kind of formidable cultural weapon that it is essentially that religion and art represents.
00:46:06.820And it's ultimately the sort of a nuclear bomb of weapons that you can have in your arsenal in the sense that, you know, nothing forms opinions and ideas and attitudes more than parable does.
00:46:23.380And this is really, you know, what we're focused on, essentially, is figuring out this sort of the what parables and religion and art represent, what their significance is culturally, and also, you know, how how an artist can use these sort of symbols that have been used so effectively against us in a lot of cases through parable and so forth, that they can use it in the other direction.
00:46:53.380Now, I mean, that's just, that's just one very kind of important application that I can mention.
00:46:58.560I mean, at some point, I and Richard would probably agree with this.
00:47:01.560I mean, I think one useful development of the school eventually, and I don't think this happens now, I think right now, mostly we're involved in analysis, but that it would be some part of it would be an art school, be kind of an art conservatory.
00:47:17.300Because when you go to art school, what you learn is you learn the kind of technical aspects of your craft, in sort of the best case scenario, you learn the technical aspects of your craft, craft and you network, right.
00:47:30.500But what you don't learn is the intelligent use of symbol, and the intelligent development of parable.
00:47:38.680And also, you don't, you know, what we can do is we can also give artists the message to impart.
00:47:46.760So we can give them the message to impart, and we can also give them the sort of means or the ways of imparting it symbolically.
00:47:53.360And that's, you could never learn that at a film school, you could never learn that at a creative writing school.
00:48:00.160And to the extent that, I mean, maybe you could, in some cases, if, if, you know, you had a, for example, a Jewish master that was a Jewish esotericist in a film school, and he was willing to kind of divulge some of these things.
00:48:16.340But they are, of course, unwilling to divulge it, because that's sort of the nature of Jem, it's esoteric, right.
00:48:23.360And so, but we divulge it, and we'll divulge it to, you know, people on our side, so to speak.
00:48:31.560And I don't think that that can be underestimated in terms of the potential cultural impact that it could have.
00:48:40.080I mean, there are, there have been art movements in history that have had an important effect on the culture.
00:48:47.500But this could have a kind of seismic effect, I would argue, because it would imagine, it would allow people to kind of look at art and religion for what it really is, to understand its kind of true and fundamental nature.
00:49:00.880And its esoteric nature, and to understand the symbols, have a kind of, you know, to become conversant with the symbols, and to use those symbols in parable, in an effective way, in a kind of cultural religious warfare, effectively.
00:49:16.320And I don't think that, so it's, I think it, I think it's going to be a game changer.
00:49:22.900Now, again, and I'm not in this for personal, you know, financial or economic reasons, obviously not.
00:49:29.240I've just, I've been working on this theory for free for several years.
00:49:33.740Just because I'm, because it's fascinating, and I, and just the fact that it's true, that, you know, is by itself something remarkable.
00:49:44.000And, you know, and I've been thinking about these things my whole adult life, the use of symbol and so forth.
00:49:51.020So I've been invested in this project as a kind of intellectual exercise and a labor of love, and ultimately something that I see as good for humanity, you know, and good for, again, our side, so to speak, that it's kind of necessary work.
00:50:10.300And, you know, and I, the whole time I haven't really asked for anything, to be honest with you.
00:50:15.340I've just been like, and I've been very, you know, because I've been, I wanted to really make sure that I wasn't seeing things.
00:50:24.080I wanted to, like, verify it through many cases in many instances, and to have a very strong and solid case to bring forward.
00:50:37.820I think that there's, I think that, you know, a kind of unbiased person who reads this book will say, hey, holy shit, these guys are really onto something.
00:50:47.940And I think it will be to art and religion what Darwin is to, you know, essentially biology.
00:50:54.480I mean, I guess it's a kind of, like, very bold thing to say, but I think it is actually the case.
00:51:02.020You know, I mean, Richard has talked about this before.
00:51:04.640You know, a lot of times with GEM or the study of REM, we're tracing a kind of genealogy of myth, you know, in the way an etymologist might trace a genealogy of linguistics and so forth.
00:51:18.840We're doing something similar in that regard.
00:51:20.700But we're also seeing that this myth is developed intelligently.
00:52:06.140It just means they have to become more clever and more sophisticated.
00:52:09.980Sort of like the thief hiding in the shadows now, right?
00:52:12.580He has to be more dexterous to kind of to escape detection.
00:52:18.820But that is, you know, I mean, this is this is something that we solve this problem.
00:52:26.400We can solve the religion and culture problem.
00:52:29.020I argue that we can solve this problem.
00:52:31.560If we solve that problem, we've solved a lot of our problems, effectively, you know.
00:52:37.340And of course, we can't I don't think that we're going to be able to do it in our day and age with our sort of fucked up stupid politics and the magatars and so forth.
00:52:45.540But we can we can bring that work into the future.
00:52:49.800So, you know, when the right people assume power, for example, and I think this will help them assume power,
00:52:56.300because myth can be created on route to political power and assist and aid the development of political power.
00:56:11.840Sorry, just to check how horrible my hair was.
00:56:14.480No, well, I was going to just be, you know, as an addendum, say, foreshadow that myself and a few of the other people on these calls have been working towards something which has taken up all of my professional life,
00:56:31.400actually, for the past 12 months and a couple of other people's on here also.
00:56:37.640So to be guilty of the words of affirmation, which I think is a good way.
00:56:42.920Maybe I don't want to go on a Tony Robbins rant, but I often think in these types of things, like when you're trying to do something huge,
00:56:50.160you've almost got to think how you would like to fail in a way and why, as much as that might be batting up against some people's sort of positive thinking,
00:57:03.180which I think we're going to have some measure of success.
00:57:05.460But in a way, I see sort of like a, quote unquote, Aryan victory being something of having some type of financial power,
00:57:18.120similar to the sort of cliches that basic bitch white nationalists point at and just sort of, they don't realise that when they're actually doing that,
00:57:26.640they just, they hate power the same way idiotic Christian does.
00:57:30.340And they don't quite realise that you need that in life, you know, even if you want to open a Lego factory,
00:57:35.820you need that type of financial power to get you done, let alone if you're trying to do something political.
00:57:41.080So I was going to say, anyway, I'm looking forward to the sort of more commercial orientated and goal orientated stuff that we'll do in the year.
00:57:51.220But also that I think as a horrible runner up prize for the future, if it means that we all just are incredibly powerful and live in a little diaspora somewhere,
00:58:04.940I'm willing to take that, although I think that's a very, very unlikely scenario.
00:58:09.440But I think doing something like this is the only way forward.
00:58:15.300And I just want to say thank you so much to you, Mike, and Richard also, because, you know, I can see that this has taken a horrible,
00:58:22.980well, not a horrible, but a huge personal toll to be able to do the stuff you want and you believe in it.
00:58:27.480And it's definitely inspired me because, as I mentioned, it's been quite difficult to do what I'm trying to do to get done.
00:58:32.660And I realised that I've done it for one year, you guys have done it for probably 10 years plus.
00:58:36.720So thank you so much to both of you, even if you don't quite want to be thought of as an inspiration.
00:58:44.320And thank you, everyone, for coming here.
00:59:05.180And he knows how crazy you become once you find that little red thread and you're like, oh, wait, this is what this is.
00:59:15.120And it becomes, it can become a rabbit hole.
00:59:18.320And so, you know, publishing the book is kind of a, it's part of the process of publishing the book is letting go of how kind of fun it is, actually, on some level, solving these problems.
00:59:30.740Because they're riddles, basically, in these parables.
00:59:35.060And when you're solving them, you're like, wow, you feel, you're kind of proud of yourself.
00:59:39.460But really, what we have to do is just kind of solve kind of some main ones that represent sort of examples and show the way to solving these parables more generally.
00:59:50.840And, you know, show the way of looking at these parables more generally, might be a clearer way of saying it.
01:00:01.700I mean, I think the book will be very definitive in terms of establishing the credibility of the theory.
01:00:10.240You know, of course, we'll have our critics.
01:00:11.760And, of course, some people will claim that we're as crazy as Alex Jones, right?
01:00:15.720You just have to assume that because, you know, that's what they would claim of a guy like Kevin MacDonald, for example, whose thesis is, in a lot of ways, a lot less ambitious, I could say, even though.
01:00:30.280And that's not to, you know, diminish his work at all.
01:00:33.380I think he's had an incredible impact in terms of his work.
01:00:41.060But I think that what we've done, though, is see something that hasn't been seen before, right?
01:00:50.040Or at least it hasn't been seen since Rome, might be a better way of saying it.
01:00:54.660Right. And maybe a lot of that has to do with Christianity, I think, which, to some extent, I think, has had a kind of lobotomizing effect as far as, you know, being able to read a symbol and so forth.
01:01:08.300This sort of the literalist mentality of Christianity, that Christianity induces, where everything is just kind of face value, essentially.
01:01:14.880Right. That's sort of the attitude you're supposed to adopt vis-a-vis Christianity.
01:01:20.640And if you're able to look at Christianity in that sort of gullible way, where you're looking at everything as kind of face value and looking at it through a literalist's lens,
01:01:32.280then where does that put you vis-a-vis ostensibly more credible things, you know, more credible myths appearing in the society and so forth?
01:01:41.300And you can you can you can apply you can even apply this to, like, the news media, for example.
01:01:45.980Right. Where does that put you vis-a-vis these other things?
01:01:50.500So I think that. I think that this is going to be very, you know, and we stand on the shoulders, obviously, of people that are doing important work as well and kind of related fields.
01:02:02.180And I think probably most saliently and most importantly, on some level, I mean, obviously, we owe a huge debt to Nietzsche, but we also owe a huge debt, I think, to mythicists.
01:02:13.820Right. The Christ mythicists, which is, you know, who there are many people that are in that field in, you know, guys like Richard Carrier, I think, are kind of some of the more important ones.
01:02:26.460You know, Price, as well. So and Scribina, certainly as well.
01:02:35.260But those are some examples. And so we owe a debt to them.
01:02:40.500But I think that we're going the next step. Right. Because what they're saying is, yeah, look, this is obviously a myth.
01:02:46.740It's obviously bullshit. But we know that.
01:02:50.480But they're also saying, in some cases, this is a derivative. It's a derivative myth.
01:02:58.420Right. Which which makes sense. Right. Because all the other myths that we see in the ancient world are derivative myths.
01:03:04.920So it would seem to follow. This is also a derivative myth.
01:03:08.040But I think it's a REM theory, really, especially on the mythicism question, I think that we we add a special kind of insight to the mythicism question, because we see essentially Jews and Richard will back me up on this.
01:03:26.420We we see essentially Jews kind of endorsing Christianity through the esotericism of contemporary films.
01:03:32.880Right. Why would they be doing that? So it's it becomes the proof.
01:03:38.140I mean, it proofs it sort of verifies Nietzsche's suspicion that it is Christianity is an op, right, to use the parlance of the day.
01:03:53.060And so it's a pretty so it would it would verify a guy like Scribina, for example.
01:03:59.500But, you know, of course, there are other reasons why we would think it's an op that are more kind of literalist and explicit, such as the creed, the sort of egalitarian creed that Christianity represents and so forth.
01:04:54.720But if you wanted to, like, start with your predictions, I mean, so I guess let's start with the most obvious one.
01:05:00.380So you think Trump is going to be our next president.
01:05:03.480So why don't you why don't you describe it to us your reasons for believing that?
01:05:10.140Well, I did a little jokey tweet when I got home today, but on how Alvin Bragg is the man of the year, not Taylor Swift, because Alvin Bragg.
01:05:20.260He definitively did the act that rallied everyone around Trump and made Trump inevitable in effect.
01:05:32.120So Alvin Bragg, of course, the district attorney in Manhattan, he is in the process of prosecuting Donald Trump for paying.
01:05:43.300I forgot how much it was, you know, 200 grand or something to Stormy Daniels after he had sex with her and then decided that he wanted her to shut up or so on and so forth.
01:06:00.540I mean, look, if you went into the books of any New York firm and you dug just a few inches down, I mean, how many prostitute payoffs and dead bodies would you find?
01:07:44.620I mean, it was kind of remarkable that Biden became president, right, if we're being honest.
01:07:48.920I mean, it does seem like, I mean, sure, he was the establishment Democrat candidate, and it was during COVID, and there was dissatisfaction with Trump.
01:08:01.240And the COVID thing was just to kind of, I don't even think that Trump, and maybe you disagree with this, I don't even think that Trump necessarily mishandled it.
01:08:11.140And, I mean, I think he did in hindsight, right?
01:08:14.240So, but in hindsight is 2020, as they say.
01:08:17.520Yeah, I don't think he was radically bad on COVID.
01:08:39.080But what I would say is that, I mean, if you could look at Trump, and again, because this didn't occur to me at the time, it only occurred to me later, to give Trump his fair due, is that he should have immediately said, okay, let's lock down.
01:08:57.560And maybe it did occur to me at the time, actually.
01:09:00.300But let's just lock down all the borders, right?
01:09:03.880We've got a, and he should have just called their bluff.
01:09:06.380He should have called the left's bluff.
01:09:07.860To the extent that we understand the kind of pro-vaccine crowd and the restrictionist crowd to be leftist, he should have called their bluff and just said, hey, listen, all right, we're going to lock down.
01:09:18.760We can have no immigration into the country.
01:09:40.400I mean, because I think the left, anytime a leftist is agreeing with Trump, they get a little like leery and say, maybe I should be not agreeing.
01:09:55.120And I think, like everyone else, I was kind of, I think everyone else, like everyone else, we were kind of deers in the headlight, as it were.
01:10:04.620I think I was pro-vaccine for about three months.
01:10:11.820Yeah, that's kind of how I got at the end of the day.
01:10:16.360I mean, I do think the vaccines were ultimately a good thing, but, and we haven't had full herd immunity in the sense that we keep getting COVID.
01:10:25.200I mean, I got it again this past fall.
01:10:29.840But yeah, I, that's pretty much where I was at some point.
01:10:35.720Let's not go into the COVID discussion, because I don't want to revisit those years, but let's, yeah, Aristocrat is pointing out something from Visigrad 24.
01:10:51.080U.S. and U.K. are preparing to declare total war on the Houthis and Yemen.
01:10:55.620So this is another, in terms of predictions, and you guys feel free to chime in.
01:11:01.660We, people have been very silent this, this episode, but in terms of war, is the Gaza thing going to wrap up fairly soon and there's just going to be an Israeli occupation?
01:11:19.080Is it going to lead to a broader regional war in 2024 or shortly after?
01:11:38.540But I think that what's happening with the Shia groups is, so America gets a lot of its legitimacy in the role that it plays in ensuring the maritime security of the world.
01:11:54.420And I think that what they're doing here is they're undermining that.
01:11:58.480And this is interesting because I think that the Anglo-Saxon world is a very specialist world.
01:12:09.480It's a world with a very high carrying capacity with a lot of emphasis on both specialization and economies of scale.
01:12:19.360And what happens is that in the face of instability, things like that collapse.
01:12:26.760And I think if you look at like the past hundred years or more even, so much effort has been spent on ensuring global security, global stability and peace on earth and all this stuff.
01:12:40.580And all of that is being undermined and it's being undermined by undermining the effectiveness of America and delivering on its promise, basically.
01:12:56.680Yeah, I also agree that, you know, global systems can collapse pretty quickly.
01:13:36.500Do the war and get Trump in office and he'll let you do even more.
01:13:40.940I think that public relations considerations, public image considerations are really going to be a big factor in how America moves forward.
01:13:51.800Because there's been so much that America has been benefiting from, from its role in the world and when that's undermined, you know, it's more than just petty saving face.
01:14:05.320It's, it's, it's, it's about being able to lead by example, which is something that America has done for a while.
01:14:10.840The example I like to give is like, imagine, you know, two people are hanging from a thread.
01:14:19.600And even if the two guys hate each other, you're not going to cut that wire.
01:14:25.320You know, you both have an interest in making sure that the wire is, is, um, kept safe.
01:14:30.820But, um, what happens when one of you suicidal, you know?
01:14:35.880And I think, uh, to continue this analogy, the, the sheer groups are the suicidal people.
01:14:56.820Look, there's been a lot of talk about micro targeting and the ways that candidates are going to try to reach the voters.
01:15:02.020I predict, however, one of the tried and true, uh, pieces of presidential campaigns will endure and that there will be at least one televised debate between the Democrat and Republican presidential nominees.
01:15:36.480Well, if former President Trump ends up being the Republican nominee, I predict that he will pick a female running mate.
01:15:43.100And there are a number of females that are being talked about, female lawmakers, whether that's Elise Stefanik, whether that's Nancy Mace, for instance, you have Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
01:16:35.920I would if I were Trump, I would be worried about putting someone like that in there.
01:16:41.260I don't know if she's terribly popular.
01:16:46.980And most people thought her, you know, opposition to McCarthy was pointless.
01:16:52.440Stefanik is interesting in the sense that she's very pro-Israel, as was revealed recently, and has also done just all Tucker Carlson, you know, great replacement stuff is real and all that kind of thing.
01:18:14.660I mean, we talked about this a little bit last time.
01:18:16.480I think the Pence experience might, you know, and actually, Richard, you talked about this a little as well on a former, or an earlier podcast where you were talking about, you know, I mean, MAGA can provide its own talent to some extent right now.
01:18:31.560So it doesn't have to, like, rely on these Washington insiders and these sort of career policies and so forth, you know.
01:18:39.400Or these networked lawyers and, you know, whatever it is, you know.
01:18:46.180So I think that he, you know, once bitten, twice shy, we'll see, right?
01:18:54.920Because the problem is he didn't learn quick enough on the job last time, in my opinion.
01:19:00.640So is he going to go in with the same sort of naive perspective?
01:19:07.860And is he going to, you know, you know, fumble around with the art of the deal?
01:19:14.980Let's make a deal and we can get everyone on the same team?
01:19:17.760Or is he going to go in as he should have early on in 2016 and just, you know, cleared the deck and just said, hey, listen, it's my way or the highway.
01:19:28.580And I'm going to get one thing that I should say, you know, this is like a cliche of mine of it's a feature, it's not a bug.
01:19:36.980But, you know, all of these people were desperate for Trump to simply admit defeat.
01:19:46.000You know, it's no it's no sin in a way.
01:19:58.980I mean, he still hasn't admitted defeat.
01:20:01.720But this is the question that I would ask is if he had admitted defeat and then shook Joe Biden's hand and gone to the inauguration and so on, would he be in the position that he is in now?