In this episode, we talk to Richard Hananya about the rise of populism, war, politics, and the new splinters and fractures that are appearing in our cultural space. We also have a look at who's in court today: Donald Trump, the legacy media and the state machinery, and why they don't want him in power. And we have a live shot of the future, where we're going to see the future. In this video, we've got some fantastic facts, a free speech piece on Biden v Musk, and we have an interview with Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian minister whose name may or may not be related to a woman who says she may have had an affair with Adolf Hitler. You won't want to miss it! If you are in a position to support us, press the Red Awaken button right now and become an awakened wonder. But if you can't, if it's beyond your means, your attention, your time, your beliefs, your faith, your belief, your fortitude is so much more valuable than your money. You're part of the movement, you're necessary, you need to be part of it, aren't you? and if you don't, join us on Rumble and become a part of this movement. We're not just about telling you facts now, we're about building a movement, we need you. And if you're not, we have to invite you to come even deeper into this movement, then you can join us. Let me know what you think of this conversation, and let me know in the comments. Tweet me Timestamps: - - What do you think about it? - what do you agree with it? - What are your thoughts on what you would you like to see in the next episode of the podcast? - or do you have a question you d like to hear me answer in the chat? or would you be willing to share your thoughts and share it with me? ? - or just tell me what you'd like to have me to be included in the conversation? Tweet Me! or send me your answer in a future episode? and I'll be sure to send you a message in the chats! - Timestamp: ! <3 - Tims: 5:00 - What's your favorite thing that you've heard so far?
00:01:26.000Thank you for having values and principles that are transcendent of the oscillating vicissitudes of a world of deception that wants to enshrine your entire reality in their simulation.
00:01:39.000We've got some fantastic facts for you today.
00:01:41.000We've got an item on Biden versus Musk.
00:01:44.000It's a free speech piece that you're gonna just love.
00:01:47.000Biden's trying to shut down Musk on a couple of fronts now.
00:01:50.000One, misinformation on the platform X. Two, he don't let him use Starlink to bomb opponents of the American hegemony product.
00:02:00.000Project, it's up to you how you see it now.
00:02:07.000If you are in a position to support us, press the red awaken button right now and become an awakened wonder.
00:02:13.000But if you can't, if it's beyond your means, your attention, your time, your faith, your belief, your fortitude is so much more valuable than your money.
00:02:22.000I tell you that right now for nothing.
00:02:24.000Although there would be a small charge, ironically, if you joined.
00:02:26.000But you recognise now when the government tries to demonetise independent media, you recognise the reality you're in right now, huh?
00:02:34.000We're not just about telling you facts now.
00:02:41.000We've got a fantastic guest for you today.
00:02:42.000We're going to be talking to Richard Hananya about populism, war, politics, and the new splinters and fractures that are appearing in our cultural space.
00:02:56.000For the first part, we'll be on a variety of platforms, but then we have to invite you to join us on Rumble.
00:03:02.000And if you can come Even deeper into this movement press the red awaken button as I just mentioned.
00:03:08.000Let's have a look at who's in court today.
00:03:10.000Let's see who the legacy media and the state machinery have turned their weapons on today.
00:03:15.000Why it's Donald Trump just like on any other day.
00:03:19.000He's in court because of his fraud trial and this gives him essentially a chance to communicate.
00:03:26.000In a minute we're going to be talking about RFK and his announcement.
00:03:29.000That's pretty fascinating and exciting isn't it?
00:03:32.000And then we're going to be talking about Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian minister whose name denies how many attachments to Nazis she may or may not have.
00:03:45.000Let's have a look at Trump orating, doing what he does best, saying sort of non-sequitous, astonishing, baroque and garish stuff in court.
00:04:01.000I can tell you the voters are getting it because every time they give me a fake indictment I go up in the polls and that's never happened before.
00:04:11.000It's astonishing to note that our loathing of the establishment is at such a mutual fever pitch now that the enemies of the establishment are de facto the friends of the people.
00:04:32.000So, whatever you think about Donald Trump, the thing that I've come around to believing is, if they don't want him in, he must be doing something right, because they're working pretty hard to keep this guy out of power.
00:05:00.000Let's see, though, how Donald Trump moves from making a significant point about the rise of populism and anti-establishmentism to sort of sharks.
00:05:09.000Let's say your boat goes down, and I'm sitting on top of this big, powerful battery, and the boat's going down.
00:07:24.000So, again, if you've got Cornel West running on a party line, if you've got Robert Kennedy running on a party line, that's problematic for Joe Biden.
00:07:30.000What about the idea maybe that some of his views, he had unfavorable ratings with Democrats, some of his views more aligned with Republicans, so maybe it could actually hurt Donald Trump, you know, pull in that direction?
00:07:41.000I find it very hard to believe Trump voters right now voting for the son of Bobby Kennedy in American politics.
00:07:48.000And plus those voters already have a home in the Libertarian Party.
00:10:39.000Let's think for a minute, because we don't want to be guilty of condemning people as Nazis just because they temporarily oppose our hegemonic perspective.
00:12:12.000That's something like... We've never done it.
00:12:14.000Perhaps the reason that Chrystia Freeland is so hesitant, or the reasons, include the grandfather of Chrystia Freeland, Canada's Deputy Prime Minister, worked for a Nazi newspaper that recruited for the Galicia division of the Waffen-SS, the same division as Jaroslav Juncker, the Nazi who was recently honoured by Canada's Parliament.
00:12:32.000She could have probably just looked at a photo album in her own house to see whether he's a... Wait a minute!
00:12:38.000Michael Chomiak, Freeland's maternal grandfather, whom she repeatedly cited as a political inspiration... No kidding!
00:12:45.000...edited a Nazi newspaper for Ukrainian exiles in occupied Krakow called Kraviskivisti, which was printed on a press seized from a Jewish owner.
00:12:54.000Oh my god, their whole business model is based on Nazism.
00:13:02.000Before I called someone a nuts, you are a... Wait a minute, did any of my family ever steal a printing press from Jewish folks during the... Oh yeah, no, we did do that.
00:13:12.000You are not a good person in a variety of ways, but I'm not gonna use shorthand to describe how or why I think you're bad.
00:13:21.000At some point, Freeland decided it was politically useful to present the elder Chomiak as an avowed liberal democrat and the most passionate of Kadian patriots.
00:15:32.000This is about Handsome Lee Fang at Critical Thought goes, Thank you, Lee, for doing your best to keep us informed regarding the suffocating corruption that surrounds us.
00:15:42.000And Love in Action says, When Lee Fang said no one is advocating for peace, all that about says it all.
00:16:11.000They're coming for X. There's an amazing interview where Joe Biden talks about his concerns about misinformation, and extraordinarily and amusingly, a book that he nearly wrote once.
00:16:23.000But they also talk about their anger at Elon Musk because he won't bomb people or facilitate the bombing of people, even if it might possibly lead to actual Armageddon.
00:16:50.000Joe Biden's saying there's a lot of misinformation on X. Also the government are attacking him for not allowing them to use Starlink to bomb Russia.
00:17:16.000Let's have a look at this story where Joe Biden is talking about misinformation on X and the appropriation of Starlink technology for perpetuation of a war.
00:17:25.000In short, Elon Musk did not permit Ukraine to carry out bombing using Starlink technology, literally because it's against their terms and conditions.
00:17:34.000You know some of the things you have to sign when you manage cookies?
00:18:28.000He's not gonna make a Yeah, Elon Musk, this almost incomparable genius coming up with tunnels and spaceships and electronic cars and revivifying Twitter, based on a principle that used to be quite important called free speech.
00:18:42.000What's Joe Biden going to say, a man who doesn't know how to make it out of a room that he's just entered?
00:18:49.000Look, one of the things, as I said to you, when I thought I wasn't going to run, I was going to write a book about the changes taking place.
00:18:56.000What kind of book is Joe Biden going to write on misinformation?
00:18:59.000He's told lies about that fire around his house.
00:19:02.000he's always banging on about Corn Pop.
00:19:03.000Misinformation's always been a hatred of mine.
00:19:06.000When I was in the fire with Corn Pop, as the flames licked up and down Corn Pop's body,
00:19:11.000I'd say, you better not misinform me, you son of a gun.
00:19:14.000You're a bad dude running with those chains.
00:19:15.000Then Hunter came in on his laptop, at least I think it was his laptop.
00:19:19.000He'd been working for Burisma, all on his own credit, of course.
00:20:00.000So are you going to try and control that news and information to stop a dissident population rejecting a government that plainly legislates on behalf of elites?
00:20:14.000What, as opposed to the mainstream media and the legacy media where there's never any lies, never any agenda, never any biases?
00:20:21.000I know that you're a sophisticated audience that are not entirely governed by fear.
00:20:25.000What they want is a population that are completely controlled, that only have access to pre-masticated information that's been ground up in Biden's proverbial gob and spat out in front of you as dumb gruel that keeps you Banalized, impotent, castrated and still, never moving, never noticing your change.
00:20:44.000Of course you should have access to a variety of information and then decide for yourself what's true.
00:21:10.000In an interview with ProPublica released on Sunday, President Joe Biden touched upon the technological advancements and their pivotal role in shaping societal discourse and information sharing.
00:21:34.000Oh, they have the internet on computers now.
00:21:37.000While discussing Elon Musk's influence over X and its policies, President Biden seems to delve into concerns about misinformation and its prevalence on online platforms.
00:21:45.000Why are they not concerned about Mark Zuckerberg's influence over meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram?
00:22:30.000If they cared about freedom of information, Julian Assange would be swanning about, releasing information about American war crimes now, instead of banged up in Belmont.
00:22:38.000You don't need to spend any more time working out what the motives of the legacy media and the government are.
00:22:45.000Let me know in the chat, let me know in the comments if you agree.
00:22:47.000While the president, this time at least, stopped short of explicitly calling for censorship, his comments could be interpreted as subtly highlighting concerns around the unregulated nature of online information, potentially opening a gateway to discussions on tighter controls and regulation of internet content.
00:23:02.000What about regulation of information in the legacy media?
00:23:54.000This year a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction stopping key Biden administration officials from urging tech firms to suppress protected Despite this ruling, Joe Biden's 2024 presidential campaign plans to continue flagging so-called misinformation to social media platforms, reaching out to social media companies, and working with media outlets to fact-check untruths.
00:24:15.000According to Politico, Biden's campaign will hire hundreds of staffers and volunteers to monitor online platforms as part of this effort.
00:24:22.000The Biden campaign plans to focus its misinformation targeting efforts on leading Republican candidates, Well that's interesting.
00:24:47.000The Biden campaign's admission that it will be flagging so-called misinformation in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election follows a major censorship controversy that erupted in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election.
00:24:58.000Just three weeks before the 2020 election, a bombshell story alleging that Joe Biden was involved in a corruption scandal was censored by big tech platforms.
00:25:07.00051 former intelligence officials subsequently signed a letter suggesting the story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign and the Biden campaign used this talking point to downplay the story despite the laptop being real.
00:26:04.000Because there's a complexity about perspective and opinion and what's true and what's not true.
00:26:08.000Because obviously we could sit here now and in the comments talk about all the ways that Alexei Media have lied throughout the pandemic, throughout the war, throughout history, that that's the function of them, that they censor information that's true, that they amplify and plant information that's not true.
00:26:29.000It's the war, of course, the humanitarian yet somehow curiously profitable war between Ukraine and Russia.
00:26:35.000Of course, Elon Musk's Starlink technology, which, you know, I feel like it's his, and isn't he giving Ukraine like a super good deal or something?
00:26:42.000Well, anyway, he's apparently not doing enough, even though he's doing more than everyone else, and apparently he's prohibiting as many bombings as they'd like to have.
00:26:48.000So let's have a look at that, because that's another reason they're attacking him.
00:26:50.000So I just mentioned Elon Musk, one of the tech executives in this space.
00:26:54.000He's also involved in quite a lot of other things, and there have been some reports recently about his involvement in the war in Ukraine and the way that his control of this Starlink, basically internet technology there, plays a huge role in that war.
00:27:13.000Does Elon Musk have veto power, basically, in the Ukraine conflict right now?
00:27:19.000Well, look, no one is supposed to make foreign policy for the United States other than the United States government.
00:27:26.000And Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon, to a certain extent, and possibly NATO, and the people involved in the 2014 coup, and a set of interests that ultimately control us through the deep state.
00:27:39.000But I don't think Elon Musk's one... Let me just...
00:27:43.000It is not up to one billionaire to go off in secret.
00:27:46.000We need several billionaires that have been supporting us for generations now.
00:27:52.000All come together with a common goal of a unipolar world and depleting our enemies' resources while using Ukraine's legitimate grievances against a historic foe to deplete their own population and set up a BlackRock-sponsored dystopian tech superstate afterwards.
00:28:07.000And unless Elon Musk's on board with that, he can just F off.
00:28:10.000and change our foreign policy. I think we need an investigation, both from the Department
00:28:17.000of Defense and from Congress, to look into the arrangement with Elon Musk and his company.
00:28:25.000You need an investigation alright, but you're going to have to prohibit where it goes, because
00:28:30.000if you actually spend some time investigating the activity of power, the machinations of
00:28:35.000power, the deals between corporate interests, I think the revelations might necessitate
00:28:39.000the dismantling of the entire military industrial complex and the whole of the deep state.
00:28:44.000That would give him the ability to, in effect, turn off or restrict in any way access For Ukraine or anyone else.
00:28:57.000This is brilliant because Elizabeth Warren is one of those sort of moral politicians, isn't she?
00:29:01.000She's one of those ones of like, you know, I'm here helping people but let's deal with these hardships and we need a fairer society.
00:29:09.000But literally what she's saying now is we only want deals with tech billionaires.
00:29:13.000millionaires that will follow the whims of the military-industrial complex. Unless you
00:29:18.000still believe that the role of the United States military-industrial complex is a humanitarian
00:29:24.000project. If you think that at Lockheed Martin's quarterly business dealings when they're saying
00:29:28.000it's looking like a good few years coming up, what they mean is because we're going
00:29:32.000to help so many children in Kiev. If you think that's what's running Lockheed Martin and
00:29:37.000Raytheon, then I don't know that this is the channel for you. I'm surprised you've stayed
00:29:40.000with us this long. If you have grave doubts about even apparently principled and moral
00:29:45.000politicians like Elizabeth Warren essentially wanting to censor and control Elon Musk,
00:29:50.000Because he's not quick enough to bomb Russia, potentially leading to a third world war, leading to absolute Armageddon.
00:29:57.000I mean, when Musk commented on this, he was like, oh, I was a bit dubious about it, because didn't Putin publicly state that if that happens, they're going to retaliate with nuclear arms?
00:30:08.000Why are CNN going, are you not a bit concerned that actually what you're asking Elon Musk to do is use his technology to facilitate an amplification of a conflict that will lead to a war?
00:30:17.000I mean, did the American population want this?
00:30:19.000Do the American population want their tax dollars spent on the Hawaii disaster, their own infrastructure, schools, legal system, education and health?
00:30:25.000Or do they want to continue to fund this war?
00:30:28.000And do you think that there's a crisis of trust in institutions like the media and like the government?
00:30:33.000Now they can't have that conversation because that conversation leads to these conclusions.
00:32:29.000Like when you, the American taxpayer, you were doing your job, weren't you?
00:32:32.000Whatever it is, you were doing your job, and then you went, what I want for half of this money is to make sure it goes to causing World War 3.
00:32:39.000Remember when you voted for that and when you decided it?
00:33:21.000The investigation stems from an incident where SpaceX declined a request from the Ukrainian government to extend the range of Starlink for an attack on Russia.
00:33:28.000That incident has been widely misreported as Musk ordering SpaceX to deactivate Starlink to thwart the Ukrainian attack.
00:33:34.000When the news don't suit them, they change the news to make it more convenient.
00:34:36.000Oh no, we said don't do that, look, now we use all the buttons.
00:34:38.000It's not the last word, it's a word, it's a conversation.
00:34:41.000So do you see how the censorship issue that Joe Biden's talking about, misinformation and X, and the controlling of the facilities that evidently belong to Elon Musk, and he has the right to say you can use it in this way or you can use it in that way, and I'll, you know, let me go on a limb here.
00:34:55.000I personally think it's a good idea not to provoke Russia into a nuclear war because, you know, we'll all die.
00:35:00.000So, In a sense, why is that being presented as the issue and the problem?
00:35:05.000And look at this, like, perfectly reasonable people on CNN.
00:35:08.000Kind, good-natured, care about people, like one of them soup kitchen politicians, like Elizabeth Warren.
00:35:14.000It's Christmas Day and Elizabeth Warren is in the soup kitchen.
00:35:17.000We better be able to bomb Russia when the hell we like!
00:36:24.000Do you know that the IRS October 15th tax deadline, well it's right around the corner, you know how numbers work, well maybe you don't, that's why you need help.
00:36:31.000So if you're scrambling, thinking about those estimated payments, oh no what are they?
00:36:35.000Expense write-offs and messy deductions, I've got a recommendation for you.
00:36:39.000The attorneys at Tax Network USA, they've been absolute lifesavers for many and their team has successfully saved clients over 1 billion in tax debts.
00:36:48.000So whether you're in the hole for $10,000 or staring at a $10,000,000 debt, I hope you're not, they're ready to help you now.
00:36:55.000And hey, no judgement, even if you haven't filed in one year, five years, or a whole decade, they're equipped to secure the best settlement for you.
00:37:14.000Now let's get back to seeing whether we trust the state and the legacy media more than good old Elon Musk.
00:37:21.000A letter issued by Senators Jean Shaheen, Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Duckworth suggests Musk deactivated Starlink at the behest of the Kremlin.
00:37:28.000There's no evidence from his account that SpaceX's decision was due to the Kremlin's urging.
00:37:33.000It's not like the Democrats have ever accused their opponents of being involved with the Kremlin.
00:37:37.000Oh no, they do that whenever they disagree with anybody.
00:37:42.000So remember at the beginning of this video we had Joe Biden saying about X and how X and the internet, you know, it's bad, a lot of disinformation.
00:37:49.000Then there's people just saying, you know why Elon Musk did that?
00:37:51.000Not because, you know, he never offered that service in the first place and maybe didn't want to facilitate Armageddon.
00:37:56.000He did it because of Putin, because of the Kremlin.
00:37:58.000How long before they produced pee tapes?
00:38:56.000Well, look at the state, and then Elon Musk.
00:38:58.000It seems like what Elon Musk is saying is, it's against the law, it's not in our terms of services, we never said we were going to do it in the first place, and I'm concerned that it will lead to Armageddon.
00:39:06.000And what's the counter-argument against, I'm concerned it will lead to Armageddon?
00:39:27.000Rewrite Read said the committee would look at the broader satellite market government contracting and the outsized role Mr. Musk and his company have taken.
00:39:36.000They want to financially penalize him of course because he won't immediately bomb who they want him to when they say he should.
00:39:45.000Do you see how completely untrue realities can be presented to you as entirely truthful just by creating, curating, generating information And then shutting down alternatives.
00:39:56.000Whoa whoa whoa, that's not true, excuse me, that's not true.
00:39:59.000Senators Warren, Duckworth and Shaheen suggest SpaceX holding defence contracts pose a threat to national security.
00:40:05.000It poses grave national security risk if DoD contractors are able to independently act to abrogate their provision of services, the letter says.
00:40:13.000That would be a reasonable argument, if the roles were flipped.
00:40:15.000Imagine if Elon Musk was facilitating a bombing that the United States government was saying should not happen because it might escalate a conflict and Elon Musk went I'm doing it anyway.
00:40:24.000You'd go oh my god this is out of control.
00:40:26.000Now on this channel we've numerous times let you know about our concerns about the relationship between the state and big tech and these new online security bills are obviously a great apex of this moment where the state are now finally able to use big tech in a way that means that they are going to be able to increase their ability to observe and control You.
00:40:45.000But this situation here, oddly, is an example of where a big tech billionaire and magnate is making a more sensible, moral, strategic decision for the safety of the world, I would say.
00:40:59.000No, no, no, you're out of line there, Russell.
00:41:01.000Because, of course, if you were able to freely bomb Crimea at will, then that would what?
00:41:06.000I don't want to be facetious here, but I don't see a reality where Russia are not a nuclear superpower that have a long history of fighting to the bitter end of conflicts.
00:41:15.000I just don't see that version, but maybe Elizabeth Warren and CNN can explain that, or at least distract me from it for long enough for us all to just be picking our children's bones out of nuclear ash.
00:41:25.000We are deeply concerned with the ability and willingness of SpaceX to interrupt their service at Mr. Musk's whim.
00:41:30.000It's not whimsy to prevent Armageddon.
00:41:32.000And for the purpose of handcuffing a sovereign country's self-defense, effectively defending Russian interest.
00:41:39.000I'm astonished by their use of language.
00:41:43.000Everything that you can learn from this story unravels the truth of all that has preceded it.
00:41:48.000Remember, we've been told that all that America is doing is providing aid to an ally, that America don't benefit from this situation, that America aren't trying to deplete Russian resources or create a unipolar world or facilitate profit of the military-industrial complex, or indeed don't have We have relationships with tech or military industrial complex companies that could influence their decisions and abilities.
00:42:09.000We're only noticing this extraordinarily because they've been countenanced with a view that prevents them from pursuing the trajectory they would like to, i.e.
00:42:17.000an escalation of conflict, as people have said elsewhere, like Tucker, to a hot war with Russia.
00:42:22.000It shows you that plainly relationships exist where there is collaboration between deep state, visible government and corporations.
00:42:31.000We're only talking about this because someone prevented them from doing what they wanted to do.
00:42:35.000That's why we're having a big disinformation, misinformation debate.
00:42:39.000That's why independent media channels are being attacked and shut down.
00:42:43.000Because what they want is complete control over the public sphere so they can just lie and say stuff like, oh, the Kremlin told Elon Musk to do that.
00:42:49.000And if no one else is able to go, well, is there any evidence of that?
00:42:52.000And look at what Elon Musk is saying on X or look at what people are saying on Rumble.
00:42:56.000If you don't have those options, And pretty soon, unless you're careful, unless we're careful, unless we stay awake, that is what they're trying to generate.
00:43:02.000They're trying to generate a state where dissent is impossible.
00:43:05.000You saw what's been going on for the last couple of years.
00:43:07.000Dissent, conversation even, is becoming delegitimized.
00:43:38.000You're gonna have to decide for yourself, but due to my recent experiences, I've got to tell you, I do not trust the legacy media, I do not trust the state, I know you don't either, and you're right not to trust them because they're liars.
00:44:14.000And if it's within your means, press the red button, become a part of this movement.
00:44:18.000This is the time where we have to gather together in strength, power and unity against the serious threats that are being opposed to our freedom.
00:44:44.000I'm going to be asking a lot of questions about the culture war, the actual war, censorship, surveillance, and the funding of the policies that shape the world, geopolitically, ideologically, all of it.
00:45:02.000It's called The Origins of Woke, Civil Rights, Law, Corporate America and the Triumph of Identity Politics.
00:45:11.000I'm actually interested in this subject because of the, I have to say at this point, superficial connection between woke politics And compassion and kindness and values that I'm actually, broadly speaking, sympathetic towards.
00:45:27.000One might think at a glance that the woke movement is about permitting people to be who they are, being respectful of people's individual freedom and ability to identify how they want to, and therefore decentralizing power, allowing people more freedom of expression, which would include, of course, Free speech, the ability to openly communicate and openly disagree.
00:45:53.000So tell me, mate, what is it that, you know, in particular about the origins of woke, and what is your take on how I superficially described what wokeness probably believes itself to be?
00:46:07.000Yeah, you get at something important, Russell.
00:46:10.000And one of the things I stress in the book is, first of all, a lot of what we call wokeness today did come from the law.
00:46:17.000A lot of this stuff was requirements from government that said classify people by race, count the number of men and women you have, even down to what jokes you can tell in the workplace.
00:46:27.000They could be potentially subject to to lawsuits, how men and women can flirt, you know, what words you can use, how you'd have to walk on eggshells on racial issues.
00:46:36.000The HR industry in the 1960s and 70s really takes off in response to civil rights law because you needed a full-time cadre of managers just to comply with the law, just to know what you were allowed and not allowed to do.
00:46:50.000And so, yeah, I mean, you know, if Wokeness sees itself as sort of letting individuality and different communities sort of flourish, it's quite the opposite.
00:46:59.000I mean, there are there are decrees coming from Washington, D.C.
00:47:02.000and from, you know, lawyers and courts that are telling people how to behave.
00:47:06.000This is sort of just a new role for the American government, something that really didn't exist before the 1960s.
00:47:12.000And the book argues that it's that a lot of the problems we see today culturally are sort of downstream of these laws that are decades old.
00:47:20.000So in a sense, broadly and certainly personally, I feel that the civil rights movement was
00:48:57.000So in many ways, it did expand freedom.
00:49:01.000Unfortunately, it didn't just stop there.
00:49:04.000I mean, there was always within the civil rights movement, there was a sort of pro-liberty forces, but there were also communists involved in the civil rights movement.
00:49:30.000But then, you know, the activists kept going.
00:49:32.000And there were people basically overnight, just within the next few years, who wanted racial quotas,
00:49:37.000who wanted to go to private industry and say, you have to hire this many people.
00:49:41.000We need evidence of statistical discrimination.
00:49:44.000So yeah, I mean, I don't say the Civil Rights Act was the root of all problems,
00:49:48.000or civil rights themselves were the root of our problems.
00:49:50.000I specifically say civil rights law, because there are a series of legal interpretations,
00:49:56.000executive orders, judicial decisions, that set us on this path to now where basically
00:50:00.000government is running people's day-to-day lives.
00:50:03.000In a sense, it's excessive bureaucratic overreach that denies the possibility of individual
00:50:11.000and communal freedom that's curiously antithetical to the stated and explicit aims
00:50:16.000of that civil rights movement, certainly before it was formulated and legislated
00:50:22.000for where one might assume just by glancing at the, Ephemera and culture created at that time that it was about a kind of flowing acceptance of humankind's broad optimism.
00:50:36.000And in a sense, I suppose, old hippie that I am, that what I still find alluring is that it was a movement predicated on love.
00:50:45.000Why are we, why ought we regard one another openly?
00:50:50.000Because that the ultimate power in the universe ought be a unity What I suppose is curious is that these ideas of bureaucracy that ostensibly benefits definitely historically and potentially continually persecuted groups or individuals is being used to the advantage of curiously powerful institutions
00:51:21.000And I sense, and this would be my point, that they don't actually care about the issues that they claim to, that it's in fact a type of smokescreen that allows new legislation, that allows new division, that allows people to be extracted from cultural discourse, that there's no actual legitimacy.
00:51:40.000In short, I don't think they care about the environment, I don't think they care about gender politics.
00:51:46.000I don't think they care about identity.
00:51:49.000And I think that this is simply a vehicle for views, not views, for legislation and regulation that would otherwise be rejected as overtly authoritarian.
00:52:01.000Yeah, I mean, there's, you know, a couple of ways to look at it.
00:52:03.000I do believe that businesses and, you know, venture capital and all these so powerful forces in society do act in their own interests.
00:52:12.000I guess, you know, you could either classify that as they're doing something to gain power or they're sort of just doing something to avoid, you know, problems with the government.
00:52:21.000A lot of this stuff was sort of adopted reluctantly.
00:52:24.000the government came to institutions, for example, the Ivy League universities, and said,
00:52:29.000we want racial quotas, basically, we want to know if you're hiring enough women and minorities.
00:52:33.000And a lot of these institutions like Columbia University, the story I tell in my book,
00:52:37.000says that we don't even collect that data. We're a university. We're not going to go out and start
00:52:42.000counting people by race and sex. And eventually, they're threatened, they're browbeaten by the
00:52:46.000government, and then they give in, and then they give into it. So you can't generalize about
00:52:53.000motives behind everyone who is involved with sort of pushing wilderness.
00:52:56.000There's some people who certainly are true believers.
00:52:59.000There's some people who are just doing what they think is in the best interest of their business.
00:53:04.000I think that, like, one thing I emphasize in the book is the extent to which sort of, you know, our minds have been twisted by this stuff.
00:53:10.000So, for example, just even the ways we classify race in the United States.
00:53:15.000There's, you know, like corporations really, really care about how many Hispanics they have, right?
00:53:21.000But this category of Hispanics really didn't exist before the 1960s, before the mid to late 1960s or 1970s really.
00:53:28.000You can see that in sort of like use in the English language.
00:53:30.000The word Hispanic, Latino almost didn't exist, right?
00:53:33.000They don't care about, you know, number of Catholics versus number of Protestants versus number of Jews versus number of atheists because they don't collect the religious data.
00:53:41.000You could have imagined, you know, an alternative universe civil rights regime, which was obsessed with religion rather than race.
00:53:46.000Some countries are, you know, a lot more obsessed with religion and public policy than we are.
00:53:51.000But just we became obsessed with race and the way, even the ways we classify race and even the ways we think about race, it becomes real.
00:53:57.000I mean, some people like develop identities based on what government, how government classified them.
00:54:03.000But the thing to stress here is people have all kinds of mixed motivations at the same time.
00:54:09.000They're not even realizing the degree to which even their idealism is shaped by decisions made long ago by far-off government officials.
00:54:18.000Because I feel that, even in the example you gave, that there is an advantage to looking at demographics, and are there economic, historical and social reasons why people from certain communities aren't getting opportunities?
00:54:36.000It's pretty difficult to argue against that fact.
00:54:40.000You look at prison populations, you look at economic considerations.
00:54:44.000But I suppose one of the things that I query is the goal, the objective and vision that's being served.
00:54:51.000Is there a vision that is about uniting people?
00:54:54.000Is there a vision that's about looking for ways that we might form better nations, better communities, overcome differences, live In happy acceptance of one another's distinctions and freedom or does the goal appear to be to exacerbate existing tensions and in a way create opportunity for increased division and therefore the ability, I would say, of certain sectors and institutions to continue to accrue power and influence?
00:55:27.000Yeah, I think it's I think it's more the latter.
00:55:29.000I mean, there's no there is no sense in sort of people who are into wokeness, who are into pushing the frontiers of civil rights law, that there is like some steady state we're evolving to.
00:55:42.000Okay, like men, you know, can say this to women, or like, you need this percentage of blacks, and then like, we're done.
00:55:49.000Right, there's there's just sort of no end point.
00:55:51.000So it's always that's why there's always innovation based on top of innovation.
00:55:55.000So first, it's you can't discriminate and so you can't hire blacks, you can't refuse to hire blacks, then it becomes statistical discrimination.
00:56:02.000Okay, you know, if you, you know, if you give a test, and one group does better than the other, that's also a problem.
00:56:10.000Even if you do achieve parity, like for example, women are more likely to graduate from college
00:56:17.000in the United States, and I think in the UK too, than men are.
00:56:19.000Women are still oppressed on college campuses.
00:56:22.000We still need all these laws against, these regulations against flirting,
00:56:29.000the broad definition of sexual assault.
00:56:31.000These, you know, campus tribunals, women are treated as oppressed because they, you know, they don't play as many sports because they're not interested in sports.
00:56:38.000So, like, civil rights law, like, really tries to get women, you know, more women playing sports or, you know, leading to the cancellation of certain men's sports.
00:56:46.000The fact that women do better and more likely to graduate than men or, you know, they're actually overrepresented in things like student government and, like, music and other areas of life.
00:57:22.000It divides the country, and that's why I wrote the book.
00:57:26.000I want people to sort of see the roots of this stuff in law, and that's the way potentially to push back on it too.
00:57:33.000I wonder if it's possible to derive from a materialistic and rationalist perspective that is guided by principles of bureaucracy and top-down control.
00:57:46.000I wonder if this is a paradigm that can deliver a better society because it seems to be devoided of actual moral principle.
00:57:58.000Whilst there is this sort of rhetorical inference of fairness and equality and redressing historic wrongs, all things that appear and seem to me, these are the aspects of wokeness that I feel like, oh yeah, that's beneficial, there should be, yeah, God, absolutely, of course the world should be as fair and as just and as open as possible.
00:58:20.000What I sense is that there aren't Spiritual principles at the core of perhaps either wokeness or anti-wokeness.
00:58:27.000What concerns me is that there isn't a... What's the prognosis?
00:58:34.000And I recognize that this is what your book is in part about, Richard.
00:58:39.000In a way, what is it in human evolution that tells us that we should be living in centrally organized communities of 300 million people trying to Bustle along according to a set of ideals that are plainly now no longer applicable.
00:58:58.000Let me take it to a sort of very obvious and macro argument that, you know, in 2024, will it be Trump versus Biden?
00:59:07.000Will it be Gavin Newsom versus Vivek Ramaswamy?
00:59:10.000But it's very difficult to envisage an election where, on the day after, there is a happy and mutual celebration Of a democracy's job well done, it's likely to be, you stole the election, it was Russian interference.
00:59:26.000No, you stole the election, it was because of 40-vote emissions.
00:59:31.000So, in a way, do you not feel that, in a sense, what we are observing are the symptoms of a model that no longer can function?
00:59:40.000What is the advantage for the ordinary American The ordinary French person, Senegalese person, English person, Finnish person of living in a centralised state where you are heavily taxed, heavily controlled by sets of institutions that plainly now no longer represent your interests.
01:00:04.000I think, you know, you'd like the last chapter of my book where I talk really about, you know, sort of the decentralization of social policy.
01:00:12.000Look, you know, I wouldn't go so as far to say sort of the nation-state, you know, is too big and it's failed.
01:00:17.000I think it has many advantages that you really, you know, don't notice until it's gone.
01:00:22.000Like, you know, the fact that, you know, we can You know, we can trade with, you know, all these people, you know, there's wealth advantages, there's economies of scale.
01:00:30.000But there is a sense where we don't need and, you know, it's sort of becoming dysfunctional to have a centralized government to this extent.
01:00:38.000And that is, you know, like in social engineering.
01:00:41.000I mean, I think it's clear that you ask any conservative or any liberal, anybody on either side of the culture war, Like, do you believe there is coming one day where you can just defeat your enemies?
01:00:51.000Like, one day, you know, liberals will have, you know, trans, you know, you know, complete trans acceptance, or the conservatives believe they're going to set up, like, a Christian theocracy or anything like that.
01:00:59.000I think both sides know that, like, things are getting just more bitter and more divided.
01:01:03.000And, like, even if one side wins the next election, gets 51% of the vote, The other side's going to be in control of other states and other locales, and they're going to push back, and we're going to fight these things out in the courts, and we're going to fight these things out in the media.
01:01:16.000It's just sort of a pessimistic vision if you assume that we have to have a national culture where basically social policy and all these other things come from Washington.
01:01:27.000It's sort of a winner-take-all system.
01:01:29.000And what pushing back against civil rights law is about is, you know, I'm not giving people like, you know, a theology or telling them, you know, this is the way you live.
01:01:37.000You know, I say very explicitly, like, I don't like what civil rights law does.
01:01:41.000It says, you know, this is how you date.
01:01:58.000And, you know, I think we, I think, you know, we get there.
01:02:00.000I think that will take just a lot of the sort of the anger and the hatred out of public life.
01:02:05.000It's curious because metropolitanism and cosmopolitanism include the idea, I think even in their most general understanding, of actually different cultures living harmoniously in acceptance of those differences.
01:02:20.000And when you think of the broad archetypes that might be presented through fantasy fiction, like Tolkien or sci-fi, The idea that there are different, distinct communities with entirely different foods and values and these people believe this very strongly and these people believe this.
01:03:44.000I mean, these sort of fantasy worlds, they get at something deep in human nature.
01:03:47.000And the way multiculturalism is sold is also sort of, you know, harkens to that, right?
01:03:52.000It's like, you know, we have these people wear these costumes and they have these different foods.
01:03:56.000But then civil rights law comes along and says sort of, OK, on relations between like fundamental stuff, relations between the sexes, like whether you can prefer your own ethnic group or whatever, we're going to say all these things.
01:04:06.000These are rules that everyone has to apply the same way.
01:04:11.000You know, it's an interesting question, because, you know, the decentralization, and you bring up the example of Qatar, you know, I would differentiate, because what Qatar, I think, or what some of these countries do in the developing world, or in Qatar's case in the rich world, is that they sort of, you know, they're doing sort of their version of civil rights law, but they're imposing it on their own society, right?
01:04:30.000So, you know, I'm not the kind of person, I'm not a complete cultural relativist, right?
01:04:34.000I don't think, like, if you stone women to death or something, you know, that's just your culture.
01:04:38.000Doesn't mean we should go to war with these people.
01:04:40.000But, you know, I am comfortable saying that, you know, there is, we can criticize that.
01:04:45.000But when it comes to, like, yeah, I think the right to exit is very important to me.
01:04:50.000Right, living in our own society, right?
01:04:52.000If you have this Amish community, and they want to have, you know, very, very traditional gender roles, and you know, people can theoretically, and it's not like society has to go out of its way, okay, we're going to give you if you leave, you know, you have to sort of, it has to be sort of on your own, we can't just have like, you know, we leave, we, you know, we pay for everything, we take care of you.
01:05:07.000But as long as you know, as long as you have sort of some degree of choice, and you're not bothering anyone else, and you're not forcing people into it, Yeah, I mean, this is what we should be aiming for because, you know what, we are different.
01:05:19.000I mean, I think that's what we've learned.
01:05:20.000I think that's what the culture war teaches us.
01:05:22.000We have deeply, deeply different instincts and just beating someone over the head and saying, you know, you're a bigot and we're going to censor your views and, you know, you're not allowed to speak these things or, you know, talk like that.
01:05:34.000That's the lesson of the last, you know, 20 years, 20 years or more of the culture war.
01:05:39.000And yeah, we just need creative thinking into how to move to something better.
01:05:43.000In a way, it suggests to me, and this sort of helps us conveniently, almost like I know what I'm doing for a living, segue into another aspect of your writing and your purview, seems to me that what is required is something that I was discussing when I was recently in the United States and I went on shows like Ben Shapiro's, who's obviously orthodox in his religious perspective and conservative in
01:06:11.000his social views and Tucker Carlson who again seems to me just to be sort of an ultra
01:06:16.000kind of liberal man with a spiritual perspective of anything on social issues. What I said to
01:06:25.000them both was are you would you be and do you advocate for social systems with the condition
01:06:32.000that you just outlined Richard of like no one should be held in a community they don't want to be
01:06:38.000in obviously where if you take the views that you most organize around and say an obvious one
01:06:46.000being their position on pro-life and pro-choice in the you know in particular with Ben Shapiro.
01:06:52.000I said, like, would you be willing to advocate for decentralized power, community democracy, and almost be on a platform with people that were pro-choice, even though he's sort of avowedly pro-life?
01:07:08.000If you recognize that what you ultimately would have is when it comes to sort of cultural social issues is democracy the ability to determine locally as locally as possible what the policies would be.
01:07:20.000I recognize there are sort of points where that might get become an issue because gosh,
01:07:26.000I guess any of us would want some sort of intervention in the advent of a child being
01:07:30.000at risk or in danger or anyone being at risk or in danger.
01:07:33.000But I suppose we have laws for child abuse and violence.
01:08:03.000So that's something I'm going to leave on the table.
01:08:05.000But are you willing, for example, with your most cherished beliefs, to say, I fully accept that elsewhere people may oppose them and choose to vote against them?
01:08:19.000Yeah, I mean, I, you know, understand that my preferences are not everyone's preferences.
01:08:23.000And I understand that there's going to be different communities that adopt different things.
01:08:27.000You know, I also believe, you know, one of the one of the things about this is that I believe my ideas are right.
01:08:32.000So I believe that like, when you have freedom, like you can sort of learn from history, right?
01:08:36.000Like, you know, I'm not a communist, I think markets are good.
01:08:39.000So if you want to have a local, you know, area that, you know, has some kind of, you know, socialist system, I think that people are going to see that that doesn't work and that people are going to want to either move to something else or move to other areas, or they're going to want to change their system.
01:09:24.000You know, I have confidence that, you know, the market system is better at delivering groceries.
01:09:28.000But no, it's not a, you know, it's not a, you know, it's not a great crime against humanity or a great problem if they try it because, like always, we just learn from these things.
01:09:37.000I suppose in the Walmart and State Run store example is kind of one of the points I imagine in Wokeness that say woke folk would say that The culture is built on all sorts of unquestioned assumptions around whiteness and maleness that have not been investigated or interrogated and have inbuilt in them prejudices and biases that are never properly evaluated and therefore having those those values interrogated
01:10:11.000is important and valuable and if you take the example there of sort of walmart and the sort of inbuilt advantages that walmart have because of their sort of purchasing power their ability to pay relatively low wages and sort of i'm assuming opposed to sort of meaningful union movements and sort of sort of the built-in obsolescence models and the kind of my these are not investigated ideas but my assumption is that walmart in order to keep prices low engage in some practices that are probably ultimately not that beneficial if you look at your role, if
01:10:42.000your relationship with Walmart as one beyond a consumer of their products. And in a way,
01:10:47.000why would you want anything else from Walmart except Walmart do not exist in a vacuum and their
01:10:52.000practices have an impact. And I suppose that I will not a sort of super pro regulation person, but
01:10:59.000what I feel like is there already is regulation and that regulation where it's tax breaks,
01:11:03.000the abilities of corporations to transcend national borders to evade sort of paying for the
01:11:09.000way that the true cost of their businesses means that there is already regulation, even if it's
01:11:15.000regulation, that's the lack of regulation to give you slightly paradoxical
01:11:23.000Yeah, I think we've come sort of full circle.
01:11:25.000I think this goes back to what I was saying at the beginning, in that, like, there are advantages of the nation state.
01:11:30.000We might disagree on the specifics of, like, what regulation, Walmart, you know, what are the good tax rates, you know, what are the good regulations to deal with externalities, which any big, you know, business will inflict on society.
01:11:42.000Yeah, you know, we can discuss these things.
01:11:45.000This is why I think we can't just be completely, you know, anarcho-capitalist, utopian, you know, abolish the state.
01:11:51.000We're going to need the state for some things.
01:11:53.000We're going to need something even as big as the United States of America.
01:11:57.000We'll need international treaties and organizations.
01:12:00.000But the stuff, you know, by God, the stuff that really doesn't affect other people, you know, the flirting, the friendships, the, you know, like who you associate with, what kind of environment you have at work.
01:12:22.000There's a kind of weariness, I sense, like having zeal and evangelism in secular spaces when there are no deep principles that undergird the zeal that you might expect to find in a religious environment is odd.
01:12:39.000It's like it's unbalanced and certainly it's something that, you know, I'm sort of aware of.
01:12:46.000Mate, what's your point with the populism there?
01:12:48.000Do you feel like sort of, because I was reading one of your Substack articles
01:12:52.000and enjoying it, and it seemed that sort of what you're saying is that many people have kind of
01:12:56.000almost frivolously downloaded perspectives that they've acquired from the sort of
01:13:01.000the dispenser of political perspectives, like whether that's a legacy media outlet
01:13:07.000or some online outlet, and they've just sort of acquired, oh, this is what I believe in,
01:13:11.000and it's not being investigated correctly, and what is your point about populism?
01:13:15.000because I've sort of seen advantages myself in populism.
01:13:19.000And I was thinking about when I saw Steve Bannon some years ago say, you know, the future is going to be populist.
01:13:25.000All we're discussing now is whether it's left or right wing populism that succeeds.
01:13:29.000Is it going to be a kind of Sanders or, you know, whatever the next iteration of that type of leftism, if it can be even called that?
01:13:36.000Or is it going to be sort of like a Brexit Trump type, you know, right wing progressivism?
01:13:44.000Yeah, unquestionably what you're getting at.
01:13:46.000There are healthy aspects of populism.
01:13:48.000I think populism is unavoidable in a sort of mass democracy with communications technology and, you know, we're not, you know, we're not going to a dictatorship or, you know, a monarchy or anything anytime soon.
01:14:01.000It should be channeled in the right direction.
01:14:04.000I think during COVID, I mean, I think we, you know, I'm sure you agree, a lot of the experts just went crazy.
01:14:09.000And a lot of the populist backlash was just like, you know, people didn't have the most sophisticated ideas about epidemiology or the disease.
01:14:15.000But, you know, they saw that, like, people were, you know, the government was really, really interfering with their lives.
01:14:20.000And they pushed back and they said, no, less of this.
01:14:24.000I think you have something like China, where they did zero COVID for years and years.
01:14:27.000And they finally, you know, when protests came years later, they stopped locking people in their houses whenever there was, you know, even a small outbreak.
01:14:33.000So, you know, I'm glad we have a democracy.
01:14:35.000I'm glad we have some degree of populism that people push back on that and, you know, at least limited how long it was.
01:14:42.000But my point about populism making people's worse is I think that what a lot of populists do, and this is for the right and the left, there's a sort of elite thing where you can have this elitist perspective where people shouldn't have any opinions or any information and they're better to just sort of run their lives.
01:14:59.000There is sort of like another end of the spectrum where you go to the masses and you say, you should become super politicized and like your politics should be part of your identity.
01:15:08.000And both sides will, you know, and it's actually divisive, but both sides will pretend like, you know, they speak for the people.
01:15:12.000So like you have, you know, the right-wing populists who think everyone agrees with them on, you know, transgender issues and critical race theory, which is not true.
01:15:34.000I think that when you sort of, when you take these sort of narrow positions and then you
01:15:40.000claim that, like, you know, you are speaking for the people and like, you know, and it
01:15:45.000doesn't, and often doesn't leave room for like, okay, let's compartmentalize our politics.
01:15:49.000You think this or you think I think that on the economics.
01:15:52.000But, you know, my politics is not the main thing of who I am.
01:15:55.000It sort of is for me because, you know, I do this for a living.
01:15:58.000But for ninety nine point something percent of people, their politics is a very small part of their life.
01:16:03.000And, you know, and they can they can deal with other people who have different values as long as they're not talking about, you know, whether the 2020 election was stolen or the vaccine or something like that.
01:16:13.000They can just get along and they can have happy, healthy relationships.
01:16:16.000I don't think it's a coincidence that, you know, you've probably seen the charts where like the, you know, number of people getting married, the number of people like young people, you know, hanging out with friends, seeing people in person, you know, even drinking, getting into fights, like anything that involves a human to human contact has been going down in the last 30 years, um, at least for young people.
01:16:35.000And then the, uh, you know, like interest in politics has sort of become more intense over the, over that time period.
01:16:41.000And I don't think that's a coincidence.
01:16:43.000I think it's become sort of a substitute for life, for relationships, for work, for accomplishing things in your life, for starting families, for having kids, to having meaningful friendships.
01:16:56.000And maybe I'm generalizing too much to put that under the umbrella of populism, but I do see it as related.
01:17:01.000I do see it as making politics central to who people are, and that's what I'm arguing against.
01:17:06.000I feel like a lot of the populism you were describing, a lot of the anti-lockdown populism and everyone suddenly needing to become an expert in epidemiology or whatever, it was a kind of a response, as you've indicated, to government overreach.
01:17:21.000And I was thinking the problem is, in his mind, perspective on this Richard is not necessarily an over-politicization
01:17:29.000of a population but this curious polarity that exists between very atomized and
01:17:33.000individualized lives where actually your role really is to fulfill some economic obligations
01:17:40.000generally speaking in a job that you wouldn't do if you didn't have to and then sort of being an online
01:17:46.000commentator or a conversational pundit participant in cultural issues rather than what
01:17:53.000might be a meaningful type of political engagement for an average person and I'll include myself in
01:17:59.000this is how am I involved in the organization of my community and my family
01:18:08.000And I sometimes take recourse to, for hundreds of thousands of years, from For the pre-agricultural incarnation of our kind, we lived necessarily harmoniously in groups of 30 to 100 people, where it was explicit to the point where it needn't be stated that our survival was tethered to cooperation with one another, that our relationship to our environment was evident and necessary for our survival, whether that's through hunting or gathering or small-scale agriculture.
01:18:41.000And I feel that, of course, what I am... I'm not proposing some arcane Rousseauian bounce back to some Neolithic version of life.
01:18:52.000I am so grateful for technology and for medicine and for all of the advances we have.
01:18:57.000But when it's like looking at this kind of hardware of a human being and the kind of cultural groups that we might form, I feel like, are we not neglecting millennia of evidence of like people ought be involved in the
01:19:11.000organization of their lives and when people are totally disenfranchised just sloshing about in some nihilistic
01:19:17.000oh this week we really care about Ukraine that's over now we care about this this week
01:19:21.000right now you've got to have an opinion on this now this is what we're doing like what the fuck's
01:19:25.000it got to do with me I don't even live in this world I don't know
01:19:35.000And everything's become so, again, needlessly translocated elsewhere that you're irrelevant.
01:19:44.000And increasingly likely to be irrelevant as culture becomes more and more technologized.
01:19:48.000Technologized to the point where we're just redundant little pods that get shit food pumped in one end and then pharma pumped in at the other end of your life.
01:20:05.000Not some impersonation of a life, but a life that has meaning, you know?
01:20:10.000Yeah, I mean, you know, the outdated hardware problem, you know, that you point to is real.
01:20:16.000You know, it's a sort of consequence, you know, a natural consequence of sort of technological advancement.
01:20:22.000I mean, and, you know, it's, you know, like you can't, you know, you have to Is this the temptation to say, you know, we can only go back just because it's not possible?
01:20:29.000I mean, it's clear people want the modern science, the modern medicine, you know, modern technology, you know, the small groups where, you know, you know, 60 people your whole lives that can be, you can imagine that could be very suffocating.
01:20:40.000Some people like to move to the big city, you know, where they, you know, they can sort of start over, they can have new relationships, they're not, you know, limited by their reputation or what's happened in the past.
01:20:50.000And so, yeah, I mean, there, you know, there is like, there has to be a way to sort of I wonder.
01:20:54.000these things and there has to be a way to sort of, you know, not, you know, some
01:21:00.000groups do reject technology, I mean you have the Amish and stuff, I mean, but
01:21:03.000they're, you know, a small minority and it'll be a very small number of people
01:21:06.000who will ever do that. The rest of us have to sort of, you know, hopefully use
01:21:10.000the tools of technology to maybe create something more consistent.
01:21:15.000But what I consider it, Richard, is that technology is a subset of an economic ideology that biases its trajectory
01:21:20.000continually and And perhaps we needn't look any further than diet for an example of what happens if you have exaggerated access to sugar and fat and seed oils.
01:21:58.000We're going to build communities that use technology, but we are not used by that technology.
01:22:06.000The technology is a tool for furthering our culture.
01:22:09.000And when we look at some of the unqueried myths of our time, i.e.
01:22:12.000progressivism, which I believe, because of the false markers of technology and medicine, we consider that we are continually, oh look, we're off into space, oh my god, there's a vaccine for that and a tablet for that.
01:22:22.000Well actually, elsewhere, we are atrophying and perhaps receding, you know, that this is perhaps a kind of dark age, that we're not In connection with subtler ideas that are not so easy to materialistically appreciate and I think that to sort of just like you know your example of a metropolis is a good one I think because I think that you could say of course who hasn't been drunk on life in New Orleans or Manhattan or Gideon Berlin and the sort of what can be offered the entertainment the sort of mad and pleasurable cataclysm of a city is a joy of course but
01:22:58.000I feel that the carnival is something that human beings have always tended towards.
01:23:02.000Temporary stepping out of being in step and harmony with what we are evolved for.
01:23:09.000Again, actually mate, to refer to some earlier parts of our conversation, it's not something that I would imagine being imposed from the top down.
01:23:16.000You lot, buttons are banned and you're going to wear this wide brimmed hat.
01:23:19.000It's more like, One of the reasons you might be suffering the same way that people like we if you eat sugar the whole time now you know that it's likely to be detrimental and I wonder if there are behavioral components that might be similar to that?
01:23:34.000Yeah I think you're right and I think we see a little bit of that like with social media you know there's been a lot of talk of social media and you know it's a new thing and you know causing mental damage to young people particularly young girls But now, I've noticed a lot more, like you'll go to an
01:23:48.000event and they'll say, just no phones, just absolutely keep your phone off.
01:23:52.000There does seem to be sort of an adjustment where people aren't just not naively buying,
01:23:56.000okay, it feels good to check the iPad right now, just do it.
01:23:59.000I think there's more of a sense of like, okay, this technology is good, but you need to limit