The Auron MacIntyre Show - August 30, 2024


Can the Algorithm Return Us to Tradition？ ｜ Guest： James Poulos ｜ 8⧸30⧸24

Topics
trad life posters job stacking trad content flooding internet digital age & particular connections
Hosted by
Auron MacIntyre
Guests
James Poulos
Mentioned
James Polis Ted Kaczynski John Morton Aurora Andrew Gustafsson Michael Robertson Stephen Colbert Oswald Spengler Darth Novikov Stephen King Ralph Halza Luke Hill Gen Z Hellraiser McIntyre Milton Rocky
The FBI Censors Facebook, GOP Declares Victory？! ｜ 8⧸29⧸24 NYT Claims the Constitution Is Dangerous ｜ 9⧸4⧸24

Episode Stats


Length

58 minutes

Words per minute

178.32

Word count

10,453

Sentence count

569

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Toxicity

26

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of Zero Hour, host James P. Polis talks about the TikTok trend, and how it connects back to a more traditional way of life, honor one s ancestors, and honor the culture of the past.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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00:00:30.560 Hey, everybody. How's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon.
00:00:34.320 I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.
00:00:38.360 If you spend any time on social media, you know it's full of all kinds of random trends.
00:00:44.100 And one thing that continually shows up over and over again in the sea of algorithmic information is this trend of trad life posters.
00:00:53.640 You have trad wives. 0.83
00:00:55.320 You have people doing prep.
00:00:56.860 You have people doing different things around their house to try to turn it into something closer to a sustainable farm.
00:01:03.160 You have people trying to create traditional art, get back to their roots.
00:01:07.240 There's a lot of this stuff everywhere.
00:01:09.460 And the thing that's really been sitting on the top of my mind is can this actually return us to tradition?
00:01:15.820 Is there a way that this can lead us back to more organic and healthier ways of being?
00:01:21.900 Or has this stuff just turned into some kind of abstract pornography?
00:01:26.560 It's just ruined by the medium itself.
00:01:29.200 Somebody who thinks a lot about digital life and how it applies to our spiritual well-being is author and host of Zero Hour, James Polis.
00:01:38.600 Thanks for joining me today, James.
00:01:40.340 Absolutely. Good to be with you.
00:01:41.780 We're going to get into the TikTok trend that has been coming up right now about grave cleaning, how that connects to traditional life, honoring one's ancestors.
00:01:51.900 Is this something that can actually lead us back to a value that will bind us into the great chain of being?
00:01:57.900 Or is this just more information and entertainment to pour over us and pull us away from real life?
00:02:03.900 We'll get into all that, guys.
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00:03:28.360 All right, so like I was saying, I've been seeing a lot of this trend all over social media, very popular.
00:03:35.780 Of course, girls going through wheat fields and, you know, the different lives that trad wives can now lead. 1.00
00:03:41.340 Even had the trend of stay-at-home girlfriends, the LARPing as the wife. 0.76
00:03:46.560 They just don't need the commitment, all of these things, right?
00:03:48.460 But there's something fetishized about, you know, women sitting there and actually doing laundry or taking care of the house. 1.00
00:03:54.300 All of a sudden, this is something that becomes digital content.
00:03:58.020 And then I came across this video.
00:04:00.860 This is from TheCleanGirl.
00:04:03.500 She has a TikTok and a YouTube.
00:04:06.640 It's a lot of her, as you would expect, cleaning a bunch of things. 0.96
00:04:09.240 She cleans up beaches. 0.99
00:04:10.420 She cleans up other things.
00:04:11.860 But the thing that she is focused on in many of her videos is cleaning grave sites.
00:04:16.280 Let me play this for everybody real quick so they know what we're talking about here.
00:04:19.740 A random grave.
00:04:21.120 Who do you think is buried here?
00:04:25.660 Let's clean it and find out.
00:04:27.080 I have so many questions.
00:04:28.580 How old is this grave?
00:04:30.260 It looks like it's been here for 500 years.
00:04:32.880 How did this grave get so dirty?
00:04:36.720 Look, there's a tree growing out of it.
00:04:39.480 I love plants.
00:04:40.600 This transformation is extremely hard for me.
00:04:43.380 But I believe everyone deserves a beautiful grave.
00:04:45.900 Okay, so I did some research.
00:04:47.440 A woman is buried here.
00:04:49.160 And she has two brothers, just like me.
00:04:51.220 I need to make her family proud.
00:04:53.200 This is so satisfying.
00:04:54.740 I wish I could live in the graveyard.
00:04:56.660 Are you ready to find out who's buried here?
00:04:58.500 Maria Lugo Texador.
00:05:23.100 She died on the 19th of January, 1990.
00:05:26.200 I get to do this work because you support and...
00:05:28.580 All right, so you get the idea here.
00:05:31.660 Obviously, the affectation is pretty annoying.
00:05:35.060 The approach is specifically one geared towards social media and attention.
00:05:39.820 But I do have to say, of all of the much more focused trad life posting with the sundresses or the I'm churning butter in the most specific and old way, this does have some connection to what was a much more traditional behavior.
00:05:57.280 You're caring about your ancestors, caring about your ancestors, caring about the condition of their final resting place, taking a moment to honor, you know, that they are still, that they are remembered.
00:06:07.040 And that, you know, perhaps if you, you know, one of the more ancient ancestor worshiping civilizations, that you're caring for them in the afterlife by caring for their gravesite there.
00:06:18.260 What do you think about this approach, James, any hope that this can tether people back to an understanding of something important about life or spirituality?
00:06:27.960 Well, there's always hope.
00:06:30.720 We don't, we don't know, you know, we don't know what it is that someone's going to come across in their real life, in their real experience that might turn their heart around toward a spiritual reawakening or rebirth.
00:06:45.400 That's, it's oftentimes not up to us.
00:06:47.360 Although, of course, you know, we can, we can sometimes play that role in people's lives.
00:06:50.720 Although, you know, you can't just go up to someone and force them to have this experience.
00:06:54.640 Right.
00:06:55.760 And so the question is, you know, can it happen over the internet?
00:06:59.760 There's no reason why it can't.
00:07:01.400 But obviously we wouldn't want that to replace what happens offline, what happens in real life.
00:07:08.500 And there are a lot of contradictions in what you see in a video like that.
00:07:13.820 Plenty to critique, plenty to defend.
00:07:16.800 An infinite number of attorneys and an infinite number of courtrooms could litigate the relative merits or demerits of that video.
00:07:24.640 For infinity.
00:07:26.180 And I think what's most important about, you know, content like that and our experience with it is to not fall prey to that temptation to just become these sort of, you know, an infinite number of monkeys litigating an infinite number of pieces of content on the internet.
00:07:42.340 That will drive us away from real life and deeper into a simulated life more than, you know, the girl who's scrubbing the tombstone on TikTok.
00:07:53.800 Would it be better if people scrubbed tombstones in secret?
00:07:58.220 Yes, I think, I think it would. 0.96
00:07:59.600 But, you know, it's, it's not, what am I really gaining from being the one to stand up and say, your content sucks and you shouldn't be doing that.
00:08:07.060 It's really not a very good use of my time or of anyone else's.
00:08:10.860 So I think that's kind of my first cut.
00:08:12.660 Yeah, the critique of the thing takes you more into the thing.
00:08:16.620 It gets you focused.
00:08:17.420 You're accelerating down that pathway rather than saying, okay, well, if I don't like this, I'm just stepping away and finding some, some more meaningful thing to plug into.
00:08:26.460 But I guess this brings us to the broader question, really not, not so much that specific video, but what do you think about the general engagement with, I guess, tradition posting in digital spaces?
00:08:39.760 Do you feel like the medium destroys the message in this way that it's always going to suck us down this path of perhaps critique or, or, or more simulated lives?
00:08:49.900 Or do you think that there is a positive side to this type of content showing up and there's an interest, a yearning, does this underlie a critical movement that is happening inside the culture?
00:09:01.420 Or is, or is it just, like I said, pornified, it's just, you're just taking something completely out of de-territorializing it completely and putting it in a context into which it really can't connect to any traditional behavior or organic understanding of a healthy life.
00:09:16.200 Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, the porn is always an interesting case study or an example, because what is it really, you know, and, and one concept of porn is that it's a simulation of sex, you know, yes, I guess there are some people involved having some sort of intercourse, but maybe not, maybe it's just a couple AIs just moving the pixels around.
00:09:36.760 There's another perspective, which would say, well, no, it's not really simulated, it's real, and what you're doing is you're participating in a kind of telepathic form of, of physiological communication.
00:09:51.100 And if you turn to kind of the loudest voices, I think, on the internet about the future of technology, the, the sensibility is one that says like, hey, we just want these, these experiences to converge, the simulation and the telepathy can converge into one thing.
00:10:10.220 And we can have this collective human consciousness and extend the light of that consciousness throughout the universe and become divinities, cyborg divinities, live, live happily ever after or, or something.
00:10:20.200 Regardless of how exactly you, you know, you know, way that up in your minds, I think the proper lens to understand what's going on there is that it's a temptation, it's always going to be tempting to some degree, even for people who think that it would be a tremendous travesty against man and God to go in that direction or to try to go in that direction.
00:10:47.060 So when I see trad content flooding various parts of the internet, I see the temptation to turn it into a, a simulation or, you know, an automated simulation of, of what is, there should be.
00:11:01.520 But I also see, you know, I see deep seated yearnings in the human breast for, for a recovery of those forms of those ways of being a deep seated longing to remember the past at all.
00:11:15.940 Um, that's in the mix.
00:11:17.960 Uh, and then I see a deep seated longing for people to communicate without words.
00:11:22.600 There are so many freaking words flying around.
00:11:25.380 Um, a lot of them have lost their power and some of them are being imbued with dark spiritual power.
00:11:30.800 And I think it's, it's, uh, commonsensical to, to reason that people in that kind of environment where they're just overloaded with words and verbal communication, written communication, want to kind of retreat or recover, uh, the experience of a more, um, a more visual language, uh, uh, a communication through, through imagery.
00:11:52.140 Uh, and I think a lot of what makes that kind of trad content catch on and spread so well is, yeah, you know, you can just hit that mute button or just watch, you know, watch the, the feed without audio.
00:12:04.080 And in some ways it says even more, you know, silence is powerful.
00:12:09.280 And, uh, although these things can get muddled and there are temptations at every turn, I do think that clearly people are seeking out trad content because of how visual it is.
00:12:19.320 And because of how the, its visual character pairs so well and is expressed so fully through a kind of silence, which, you know, recovering silence in our lives and in our communication, that's very powerful too.
00:12:31.880 And I think, you know, this is a time when we would benefit from more of it and when people are, whether they know it or not, seeking it out for that reason.
00:12:38.680 So a lot of people look at this type of content and their first, uh, criticism is that what she's doing here is, and this would, of course, I would recognize this as well.
00:12:51.320 It's, it's separated from the actual connection.
00:12:54.400 She's discovering who this person is.
00:12:56.240 She says, oh, well they had, you know, siblings, the same number of siblings I did.
00:13:00.220 So there's, there's some interest in understanding who that person is, but it's not a big focus, right?
00:13:05.160 It's more about just watching her do the thing that she's doing, which like you said, could, could itself be, be more powerful than a lot of things that are said.
00:13:14.300 But the criticism would be that she's really detached from what the maintenance of a grave would mean.
00:13:20.080 You know, previously the maintenance of a grave would be one that is part of your family or part of one of your community.
00:13:26.720 It's, it's a long line of ancestors that you have and you care for this grave site.
00:13:31.220 You care for the tombstone, the people, uh, who come to that grave site are there to honor, uh, the past.
00:13:38.220 And so they have a very specific generational, particular connection to, uh, this background.
00:13:44.240 And that when you take something like this and you uproot it from that, you, you, you break that connection and you just are doing it for the act of the attention.
00:13:53.740 These kinds of things that, that makes it harder for people to understand why that matters.
00:14:00.400 You know, and we see this across many of the, the trad content.
00:14:04.360 Again, the, the, the people who are criticizing it most often are saying, oh, well, you know, that, that person's not part of the real tradition.
00:14:11.140 They didn't, they're not really living in that mode.
00:14:13.580 You know, this, this is just, uh, some, some simulation they're doing on top of a very modern life and there's, there's no connection to a past or to a history or to a people.
00:14:22.800 And so therefore it, it's separating people further and further away.
00:14:27.400 Is there a, is there still a way in which this does connect people to those modes of being, even though it has been, uh, you know, disconnected from those roots that, that organic life, uh, from which it really was supposed to be born in.
00:14:41.960 Um, yeah, again, I, you know, the, the criticisms are easy.
00:14:45.680 It's so easy to criticize this stuff or any content or any person.
00:14:49.600 And if we get stuck at the level of criticism, uh, we're, we are doing more harm, I think, than, you know, than, than people who are out there, at least trying to, trying to make something happen, trying to take some kind of action.
00:15:03.020 Uh, this is maybe a weird comparison, but I think it holds true.
00:15:06.520 You know, there are, um, there's a certain kind of Russia critic out there who loves like debunking people who say like, well, at least, you know, sort of like more or less Christian country and, you know, whatever they're, they went through communism.
00:15:19.660 It was really rough.
00:15:20.640 And like, maybe there's something that we can learn there before our empire collapses.
00:15:24.180 And we find ourselves face to face with how incredibly culturally and spiritually impoverished so many of us have become.
00:15:31.100 Um, and, uh, it's easy to pile on those criticisms.
00:15:34.600 Oh, they're all alcoholics.
00:15:35.780 Oh, the abortion rate is so high.
00:15:37.220 Oh, they're, you know, they're, they're TFR so low or whatever.
00:15:40.420 Okay.
00:15:40.840 Okay.
00:15:41.080 Okay.
00:15:41.340 Okay.
00:15:41.540 Okay.
00:15:41.820 Okay.
00:15:41.900 But you know, what I see is I see that's sort of like criticizing, like a dog who got lost and is trying to find its way home.
00:15:53.040 And it's like flea bitten and it's been through some fights and it's like eating some roadkill.
00:15:58.620 And it's like trying to like crawl its way back to home. 0.99
00:16:01.600 And a passerby is like, look at this pathetic creature. 0.99
00:16:04.640 Like it's such a mess and you're never going to make it home. 1.00
00:16:07.460 I'm like, oh, it's disgusting.
00:16:08.720 You know, laugh at it, poke it with a stick.
00:16:10.600 That is the vibe of so much criticism.
00:16:14.060 And the alternative to that kind of criticism is not enabling people, right?
00:16:18.320 Enabling people, making excuses for people.
00:16:20.320 This is not the only alternative to that kind of contemptuous criticism.
00:16:26.200 You can have mercy on people.
00:16:27.920 You can feel pity for people.
00:16:29.640 You can recognize that people out there are profoundly culturally, spiritually impoverished.
00:16:35.040 If you don't have the church, you don't have the extended family.
00:16:37.420 You don't have the, the husband or the wife. 0.70
00:16:39.540 You don't have the kids. 1.00
00:16:40.600 You don't have much except one of these and an idea and say what you will about these stupid 1.00
00:16:47.980 phones. 0.99
00:16:48.700 But if you have one and you have an idea and you have a yearning, you can actually just
00:16:55.520 get up and go outside and do some stuff and put it in front of a large audience potentially.
00:17:02.340 And does that mean that that's the way we should all live?
00:17:05.660 No.
00:17:06.140 Does it mean that people have these yearnings and they're coming to terms with the fact
00:17:10.580 that in an incredibly brief period of time, you know, a couple of decades tops, America
00:17:15.320 has gone from an extremely prosperous feeling, dominant feeling, confident feeling place into
00:17:22.920 one where people are incredibly lost, confused, unhealthy, broken, unsure of how to proceed,
00:17:29.660 frightened of their own tools, frightened of one another, unsure what's to come.
00:17:34.720 What do you do with a civilization full of people like this?
00:17:39.520 Do you mock them?
00:17:40.520 Do you ridicule them? 0.93
00:17:41.660 Do you kick them while they're down?
00:17:43.280 Or do you try to meet them where they're at and try to find a way with, you know, with
00:17:49.800 a combination of sort of, you know, tears and suffering, but also a feeling of joy in the
00:17:54.560 fact that we're even still here at all.
00:17:56.180 And we can, you know, we still have an opportunity to make something of ourselves spiritually that
00:18:00.380 it's not, it's really not too late.
00:18:02.020 You know, it's not, the apocalypse is literally not raining down on us.
00:18:06.060 I think that's the better path.
00:18:07.780 And, you know, I think in the time that it takes to do a three hour deep dive into the
00:18:16.140 cringiest, most pornified trad content and sort of, you know, lambast it and ridicule it.
00:18:21.700 Um, in the time that it takes to do that, think of how else you could spend those three
00:18:25.840 hours.
00:18:26.120 You know, not that I think this conversation is, is a waste of time, but all the other
00:18:30.260 ones, right, right, right.
00:18:31.260 Well, maybe not all the other ones, but it's easy to see how that temptation to pull it
00:18:36.060 into that sort of, you know, I mean, Satan is not just the adversary.
00:18:41.180 Satan is the accuser.
00:18:42.160 And when we all take the form of the accuser, we are evacuating our, our personal given identity.
00:18:48.920 We are burying our spiritual treasure and we are becoming collaborators in a dehumanizing
00:18:54.220 system.
00:18:54.980 So, you know, let's, let's not do that and let's find the opportunity, you know, if that
00:18:59.700 girl can go out and find a stranger's grave and clean it. 1.00
00:19:02.580 Yeah.
00:19:02.740 Maybe it's like two ASMR and maybe she sounds like she's a voiceover that was programmed
00:19:07.660 by someone in China, but you know, gosh, I mean, maybe we can go out and find a person
00:19:13.620 in real life and have an encounter with them that leaves us both better off and puts that
00:19:18.200 spiritual treasure into circulation.
00:19:20.660 Yeah.
00:19:21.260 That really resonates with me.
00:19:22.820 One of my favorite, or I should say, one of my pet peeves is the term LARP.
00:19:28.360 Whenever someone is trying to better their lives, they're trying to reconnect to a tradition.
00:19:33.940 They're trying to find something that is real.
00:19:36.800 The thing that I've seen thrown most often at them is, oh, you're LARPing.
00:19:40.600 You're just LARPing it.
00:19:41.440 You don't, you don't really have any connection to this.
00:19:43.520 It's not really a part of your life.
00:19:45.100 It's all fake.
00:19:45.960 It's all simulated, these kinds of things.
00:19:48.240 And I just look around, you know, I am myself 40 years old.
00:19:53.260 So I'm sitting right in that between, you know, I'm on the edge of the millennial closer
00:19:57.940 to Gen X, but, but at the start of the millennial bracket.
00:20:02.420 And it's an annual, right?
00:20:03.760 Yeah.
00:20:04.040 Yeah.
00:20:04.260 There you go.
00:20:04.780 And, and so many of the people that I know in my life are in this situation where they
00:20:11.460 got to midlife and they didn't connect the way they were supposed to.
00:20:15.300 They didn't build the traditions.
00:20:16.940 They didn't build the bonds.
00:20:18.280 They didn't build the faith.
00:20:19.660 I was very lucky.
00:20:20.720 I was very blessed.
00:20:21.580 My, my parents were devoted Christians from the beginning.
00:20:24.480 I always had an excellent home life.
00:20:26.260 I always knew that God was real.
00:20:28.080 And I always knew that, you know, Christianity was the way forward.
00:20:30.820 But this, I, but I am the exception among most of my friends.
00:20:34.680 I was incredibly, incredibly blessed.
00:20:37.060 Most people are not in this position.
00:20:39.000 Many people don't believe, or they don't know how to believe they're showing up to a
00:20:43.400 church, but they feel awkward.
00:20:44.480 They don't know what to do with it.
00:20:45.980 They're trying to connect to the past, their history.
00:20:49.260 But, but they just don't know where to start.
00:20:51.900 And I think the worst thing in the world, the thing I hate the most is really watching
00:20:56.280 people who are taking that step, trying for the first time to really put themselves out
00:21:01.220 there and connect in a meaningful way, a spiritual way.
00:21:04.620 And then all of a sudden they have to hear all this.
00:21:06.700 Oh, well, this is just LARPing.
00:21:07.900 This is just fake.
00:21:09.040 This, you know, this doesn't mean anything.
00:21:10.600 You're not really ever going to get connected.
00:21:12.400 It can't ever really mean anything to you.
00:21:14.020 This is just the worst thing I see from people over and over again, especially of course,
00:21:17.860 online where everyone wants to remind you that you can't possibly escape from, you know,
00:21:23.420 we're all here chasing dopamine together.
00:21:25.640 There's no way that you could actually connect to something real. 0.99
00:21:28.940 Well, look, I mean, it's, it's, it's of course, very easy to surface the, the, the most foolish 0.98
00:21:36.060 looking individuals in the world running around in some, you know, even more foolish costume, 0.98
00:21:41.760 acting as if what they were doing was invested with some great spiritual significance that
00:21:46.620 it sure seems to lack, right?
00:21:49.260 It's easy to do that in the same way that it's easy for the local news to put the murder and
00:21:54.460 the car crash and the car chase and the whatever, the break in on the local news every night.
00:22:00.720 It's, it's the filter.
00:22:04.380 As a result, I think a lot of people, when they think about LARPing, they think about
00:22:10.440 an action, right?
00:22:11.900 People out there acting, running around, wearing the costumes, doing whatever.
00:22:15.680 When in reality, you know, the thing that matters even more than that is the LARP in our hearts.
00:22:22.440 You know, like if you are BSing yourself in your heart about who you really are and what
00:22:30.380 it is that you should really be doing, like that is where the rubber hits the road.
00:22:34.640 But in that, you know, in that secret place in your heart, the, the only judge of whether
00:22:41.380 or not you are LARPing in your heart is God.
00:22:44.880 And, you know, that's not even the internet allows us to penetrate into the secret depths
00:22:51.660 of everyone's heart.
00:22:52.520 And were it to try to become that, that would, you know, that's a story for another day, but
00:23:00.140 that would, I think that would be a, a terrible, terrible affront to God himself and definitely
00:23:08.140 a bad idea.
00:23:09.000 So, gosh, you know, I mean, yeah, there's, there's LARPing out there. 0.99
00:23:12.660 It's always easy to, to pick on the biggest fools in town. 0.94
00:23:15.560 Um, but, uh, something that requires a little bit more, uh, spiritual discipline and strength 0.99
00:23:21.600 and courage and honesty is to confront the fool within. 0.97
00:23:27.200 Um, and, uh, it, it, you know, it might even turn out that the fool within is not quite who 0.99
00:23:32.460 you think, uh, he or she might be. 0.74
00:23:35.000 So, uh, you know, internet wants us to turn outward, wants us to look at appearances.
00:23:39.400 Um, uh, but if we do that at the expense of, uh, of looking inward, then we're, we're really
00:23:45.800 going to be in trouble.
00:23:47.000 We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
00:23:49.040 Rocky's vacation.
00:23:50.240 Here we come.
00:23:51.760 Whoa.
00:23:52.360 Is this economy?
00:23:53.860 Free beer, wine, and snacks.
00:23:56.380 Sweet.
00:23:57.420 Fast, free wifi means I can make dinner reservations before we land.
00:24:01.400 And with live TV, I'm not missing the game.
00:24:04.220 It's kind of like I'm already on vacation.
00:24:07.700 Nice.
00:24:08.140 On behalf of Air Canada, nice travels.
00:24:11.920 Wi-Fi available to airplane members on equip flights sponsored by Bell conditions apply.
00:24:15.400 See your Canada.com.
00:24:17.120 One of the things that I think is most challenging for people who are trying to make that kind
00:24:22.860 of more organic connection right now, something real in the real world is that those connections
00:24:28.460 tend to be very particular.
00:24:30.680 And we live in a world that seems to be waging a war on the particular.
00:24:35.920 Specifically in the digital realm, everything is connected.
00:24:40.200 Yeah.
00:24:40.340 Everything is public.
00:24:42.340 Everything is, uh, breaking down those barriers that would really define a specific connection.
00:24:49.060 Uh, and I think that is a huge problem for people because they don't know where to begin,
00:24:54.760 right?
00:24:55.100 Like you can choose from any faith, you can choose from any music, you can choose from
00:24:59.660 any time or place.
00:25:00.980 You can immerse yourself and live in a simulation of any real, really period of pop culture in
00:25:07.340 history.
00:25:07.820 And it becomes, it feels harder and harder to plug into something that is more grounded
00:25:13.120 and specific and coming from a real community.
00:25:16.800 Is, is that just a, a casualty of the digital age?
00:25:20.420 Can the digital age facilitate that?
00:25:22.740 Or is it only something that can kind of de-territorialize those, uh, more sacred things?
00:25:28.660 It seems so new, it seems so novel to be presented with this, you know, infinite sushi restaurant
00:25:36.600 parasol of morsels to choose from, um, and to, you know, try to eat them all if you want.
00:25:45.880 Um, but it's actually not as new as it seems.
00:25:48.780 Um, that temptation to believe that the simulation of the thing is better than nothing, that has
00:25:59.120 always been with us.
00:26:00.700 Uh, you can go all the way back to the garden of Eden with that, and you can go to like,
00:26:05.860 you know, Milton and you can go look at, it's better to reign in hell than to serve in paradise.
00:26:13.380 Um, once you are kicked out of paradise, uh, due to your own fault, um, that temptation 0.90
00:26:21.060 is extremely strong to like, well, if I can't have the real thing, then gosh, darn it, we're 0.93
00:26:26.220 going to make a fake of it.
00:26:28.000 And we're going to make it so good that we forget that we are responsible for not having
00:26:33.860 the real thing.
00:26:34.480 That is not something that digital technology created.
00:26:39.080 It's not the fault of digital technology, that this is something that human beings keep
00:26:43.800 returning to time and again, and do whatever they can to try to create that substitute.
00:26:50.020 Um, it's just that the substitute on offer is, uh, is a shiny new object, uh, relative to,
00:26:56.940 you know, TV or cinema or radio or the book or the alphabet or whatever, you know, these
00:27:02.840 tools can always be abused in this way.
00:27:05.220 The temptation is always there and this is, you just seeing the fall play out every minute
00:27:12.400 of every day in every era that human beings have ever lived in.
00:27:17.320 Um, and so for all of the, um, you know, for, for all the commonsensical hesitation that people
00:27:25.200 feel when they really come face to face with the intensity of the, uh, promises that technology
00:27:34.600 is being used to make about, no, no, really, this is it guys.
00:27:38.800 Like, this is the one, like this time we are going to create the fake paradise and we are
00:27:43.600 going to forget that you, we are, you kicked out of paradise because of our own, you know,
00:27:49.080 our, our, our own sin.
00:27:50.440 Um, when people realize that, uh, they have different, um, different reactions.
00:27:58.160 And some of those reactions are, uh, are, are akin to the, the famous scene in the matrix
00:28:04.460 where I'm going to eat the juicy sizzling steak, even though I know that it's not a real
00:28:08.580 juicy sizzling steak because you know, what's the alternative?
00:28:11.560 Um, the, the quip that I have started going back to, to try to help people at a glance,
00:28:18.360 get an understanding of like what this regime is, um, is from, uh, from Ghostbusters, uh,
00:28:26.720 where the big bad appears at the end and says, choose the form of your destroyer.
00:28:31.540 Like that's choice.
00:28:33.220 Maybe it's infinite choice.
00:28:34.720 You know, there are infinite ways of, of destroying yourself or offering yourself up, uh, as a blood
00:28:40.480 sacrifice to a false God.
00:28:42.440 Um, and as long as, you know, if people just kind of kept that in mind when they approached,
00:28:48.360 uh, things online, um, I think it would help probably give them a little bit more of the,
00:28:56.700 the perspective, uh, that oftentimes the algorithm does not bump up to the top of their own speed.
00:29:05.160 So one of the things that I think a lot of people are looking for when they're looking
00:29:08.940 for this traditional connection is community.
00:29:12.680 That's what people seem to be missing more than anything else.
00:29:15.760 It's the lives that we live are ones where we at least can make excuses for leaving our
00:29:22.180 homes, leaving our families, never starting ones of our own, never plugging into faith.
00:29:26.460 And suddenly you realize you're in the scenario where you don't have anyone around you who shares
00:29:33.140 your values, shares your, your worldview, who you want to do life with.
00:29:37.300 And people start to recognize that probably, you know, the, the most important thing may
00:29:41.800 not be chasing that paycheck or that degree, or, you know, that, uh, that hedonistic experience,
00:29:47.940 but there might be something to the fact that most people tended to live in these closer tight
00:29:53.380 knit communities through their lives.
00:29:55.720 And one of the trends I've really seen, and this is probably the most encouraging trend
00:30:00.740 is a lot of people who, you know, they live in areas where no one around them shares their
00:30:05.420 values.
00:30:05.880 They recognize the difficulty of this, the problems with this, and they're trying to
00:30:10.340 connect with those that do.
00:30:12.480 And the only place they can do it is the internet for many of them, because they're so separated
00:30:16.920 geographically from anyone else who shares say a particularly right wing or traditional or
00:30:21.960 Christian rule review, whichever one of these they might be focusing on.
00:30:26.380 And so what has been happening is a lot of people are moving towards creating intentional
00:30:31.000 communities, trying to organize with other people online to create spaces where they can
00:30:38.100 move to and share those communities, share those values.
00:30:41.540 In one sense, this seems a very positive usage, right?
00:30:44.740 You're taking something that was purely digital, purely a simulation online, a community that was,
00:30:49.480 that was entirely artificial, and you're grounding it in real life, you're going to actually live
00:30:54.700 together, you're going to actually create a community, you're going to try to bind people
00:31:00.140 together in a more traditional sense.
00:31:02.440 In the same way, most of these communities that originally existed were ones of, in many ways,
00:31:08.480 geographical convenience, their way of being was defined by the fact that their generations,
00:31:14.120 their, you know, their heritage, they grew up together, they formed this tradition
00:31:19.440 because they were located to each other.
00:31:21.600 It wasn't, it wasn't a, you know, they didn't pick from the sushi buffet, as you're talking
00:31:25.920 about, to create an internet ideology or a way of life that they all wanted to share, and
00:31:31.220 then go into the community.
00:31:32.420 They were in a community, and they found each other in a situation where they needed to cooperate,
00:31:38.020 they needed to communicate, they needed to share certain resources and experiences.
00:31:42.360 And so things like language and religion became the substrate from which the community arose.
00:31:48.840 What do you think about these intentional communities?
00:31:52.840 Do they have a future?
00:31:53.880 Are they missing something because they did not emerge from this more organic organization?
00:31:58.840 What do you think?
00:31:59.840 One way of looking at this is, it doesn't matter if you have community, it doesn't matter if
00:32:07.840 you have friends, it doesn't matter if you have extended family, if you are failing to wage
00:32:17.360 the spiritual war inside of yourself, if you are not doing the ascetic labors required to draw closer
00:32:27.040 to God rather than to fall further away.
00:32:30.880 Small towns are not going to save you, you know, like all you have to do is like read those early
00:32:36.000 Stephen King novels.
00:32:36.960 And yeah, the guy definitely not, not a Christian, but definitely right that like the village can be 0.99
00:32:43.760 a hell, it can be a horrible place.
00:32:46.320 Um, it depends on what's going on inside of each person's heart.
00:32:50.240 And so if you find yourself in a position where, you know, unfortunately you go to work and you
00:32:55.280 come home and you're in your neighborhood or you're in your micro apartment or whatever,
00:32:58.960 and there just doesn't seem to be anyone around you who helps you to wage that spiritual battle
00:33:07.360 in your heart, uh, rather than making it harder for you to do that.
00:33:11.040 Uh, right.
00:33:11.920 Yeah.
00:33:12.240 Pick up the phone and find some folks who can maybe help you out a little bit.
00:33:15.840 Give you a little encouragement, share some, you know, some memes of saints quotes or what,
00:33:20.560 like it's clear, like one is going to be more helpful than the other.
00:33:26.560 Um, but again, you know, this is like, if you find yourself in the wilderness and you have
00:33:32.960 no food or no water, you know, what you eat and what you drink are probably not going to be
00:33:37.280 ideal and they're not going to be a proper substitute for the, for proper nutrition.
00:33:42.400 But yes, you know, try the berries, like eat the fungus, like see if you can make it to the next day.
00:33:49.760 Um, so there's a role there and, uh, in that I I've seen it work.
00:33:56.160 There are definitely people and definitely situations where having that lifeline to those
00:34:01.920 people who you can confide in people who are helping you, not hurting you in your spiritual life
00:34:07.200 are on the internet and they're getting harder to find in real life.
00:34:10.400 I don't think it's that controversial to observe that, but at the same time,
00:34:13.920 we have to acknowledge like there are costs to more and more people leaning that way,
00:34:18.560 rather than, uh, doing, you know, the, the even more difficult work of, uh, of, of making that happen
00:34:25.040 in real life, in their own neighborhood, turning your back on your neighbor
00:34:29.280 is not going to be the path to, uh, to spiritual wellness.
00:34:35.680 You know, if I can put it that way, um, it's if enough people do that, and I think you're already
00:34:40.800 starting to see this, not just in the big cities, but in rural communities too, where it's like the,
00:34:46.480 the, the civic core of, uh, of the neighborhood is disintegrating because people are saying, well,
00:34:54.400 you know, there's this magic box right here and inside the magic box is, uh, you know,
00:35:00.560 I don't know, a hundred thousand, a million, 10 million people who are just clapping and nodding
00:35:07.360 along to everything I'm saying as if I was Stephen Colbert and they were my live studio audience.
00:35:12.000 Like they can't get enough of me because I'm just like them. So maybe a little bit better.
00:35:16.960 Um, that's, that is extremely damaging to the fundamental structures of real life,
00:35:22.240 not just the family. Although you go to Alexis de Tocqueville and what was he worried about?
00:35:25.840 He was worried about, uh, uh, a, an onrushing future in which people would become so isolated
00:35:32.400 and so, um, interchangeable and insignificant in their own experience that they would retreat even
00:35:38.160 inside the family into their own little rooms and just kind of be stuck in their own headspace.
00:35:43.200 And, uh, and that's definitely happening and it's happening in ways that Tocqueville, uh,
00:35:48.480 understood were a problem for us, but it's also happening in, you know, clearly much more
00:35:52.880 exaggerated and intense ways that he didn't see kind. So you've mentioned a few times that really
00:35:59.360 we can adjust kind of these outside factors and they may or may not have different advantages.
00:36:04.000 It might be, you know, you build those support systems. Yes. Those kinds of things. But you mentioned
00:36:09.680 repeatedly that really it's the internal struggle. Ultimately it's the, the decision to
00:36:15.120 be searching for God or, or, or to be, you know, do, doing that work internally that,
00:36:20.400 that is going to matter most. Like I said, for a lot of people watching this, that's going to sound
00:36:26.240 nice, but incredibly foreign. And they're going to have no way, you know, to, to figure out how to 1.00
00:36:33.120 take that first step. So if you're speaking to someone who's just completely disconnected from any
00:36:39.040 spiritual condition, uh, tradition just doesn't know, you know, has heard about, you know, uh,
00:36:44.240 Christianity at some point, that kind of thing. Uh, but, but really is just not familiar with what
00:36:49.520 it would mean to reconnect to that. What, what would you say would be the best way for them to begin,
00:36:56.080 uh, you know, uh, some, some, some attempt at an earnest journey towards, uh, you know, faith.
00:37:02.720 Yeah. I mean, you know, I, honestly, I don't, I don't think it is that foreign to people deep down.
00:37:08.800 I think people are very well acquainted with their, their darkness, very well acquainted with their
00:37:14.720 demons, uh, uh, whether, you know, uh, uh, literally or, or, uh, as, as shorthand or their,
00:37:23.200 their sins, their, uh, the, the, the passions and the desires that, um, are, are dragging them down
00:37:31.120 in life. I think everyone has a pretty, you know, pretty honest, it's, it's hard to ignore those things,
00:37:38.400 to pretend they're not there to rebrand them as, uh, actually the, the most fabulous things about
00:37:45.040 you, which, you know, there's a relentless propaganda campaign in the society to rebrand
00:37:50.480 the desires and passions that bring you down in your life as superpowers. And it's disgusting 0.90
00:37:55.440 and it's out there, but people know they really know better. And if you want to begin that aesthetic
00:38:00.320 spiritual struggle, it's not some abstract thing. You don't have to go find a monastery. Although if you
00:38:04.800 want to, you want to go visit a monastery, please do. I think you'll get a window into a whole nother
00:38:11.200 way of understanding how to make it through this life. Um, but you can start right wherever you are
00:38:16.720 right now, you know, unless you're like, uh, driving a fire truck or something, you can probably sit down
00:38:22.960 and be quiet and arrive pretty quickly at a recognition of what it is in your life that you're
00:38:31.040 doing to yourself. That is hurting you spiritually and probably also physically that is bringing you
00:38:37.200 down. That is making you, uh, hate yourself or feel depressed about yourself. Um, it can be something
00:38:45.520 big and horrendous. Like, uh, you know, those 10 people I killed, like still bothers me. Right. Or it
00:38:51.280 can be something relatively trivial. Like, Oh, you know, I've, I see that I've gone from a bottle of
00:38:57.280 wine a night to a bottle and a half of wine tonight. Like, it doesn't make me feel great
00:39:01.600 about myself. Well, what do you do? Do you, do you try to like stop cold Turkey, you know, porn, 0.98
00:39:07.200 whatever it is, uh, you, you can try sure. But oftentimes what happens, and this is, you know,
00:39:12.720 you have centuries of, of, uh, testimony of, of saints saying like, don't try to take it all on at
00:39:19.120 once. This is pride. You will fail. And then you will think that you deserve condemnation,
00:39:24.000 that you deserve to be abandoned by God. And maybe that is what you deserve, but this is a
00:39:30.000 God of infinite love. Who's ready to forgive you. If you are ready to even start trying to
00:39:34.080 turn the ship in the other direction. So take that small step. You know, if you're tired of
00:39:39.200 drinking a bottle and half of wine a night, take it down to a bottle and a quarter today, right?
00:39:45.040 Take it down to a bottle by the end of the week. It's kind of like going to the gym. You know,
00:39:49.680 you go to the gym, you're not satisfied with your progress. You're not going to just add two
00:39:53.440 more plates and fail and want to kill yourself. You know, you got to be patient. You have to be
00:39:59.280 patient and you have to have the discipline to trust that it's big things happen from small beginnings.
00:40:05.440 And that, that advancement is cumulative. And if you try to rush it, if you try to shortcut it,
00:40:12.080 if you try to do substitutes instead of supplements, you are going to, uh, you're going to hurt yourself
00:40:17.840 even more. Um, so I think people actually know this and they just feel in their hearts. Well,
00:40:23.600 well, you know, I would do it this way, but I can't, but I'm too crazy, but I'm too much a victim
00:40:27.840 of injustice, but I don't have enough money. There's always, there's always a, but, and that's part of
00:40:34.080 what everyone goes through. So, you know, uh, taking on that, that spiritual journey is,
00:40:40.000 is hard to do when you are entirely on your own. And that's why people who went into the desert,
00:40:48.640 um, you know, a thousand plus years ago to try to take on that spiritual struggle alone. That is why
00:40:56.080 we still know their names and we still talk about them. Uh, it's, um, this has always been with us.
00:41:01.760 And, uh, and I think, you know, if you have a little bit of extend, a little bit of mercy to people and a
00:41:07.680 little bit of understanding and meet them where they're at spiritually, you will discover that,
00:41:12.160 um, that these things are not so foreign to them and that they do have this awareness in their
00:41:15.840 hearts and they're just trying to figure out how to begin. You mentioned earlier that technology
00:41:22.480 didn't create this problem, that the, the, the desire for the simulation as to nothing is, is not a,
00:41:28.160 a new thing, but I do think there is, uh, the question of technology and whether the medium itself
00:41:35.280 or the technology itself can have an overall positive or negative impact. There's a lot of
00:41:41.920 people who think that you basically need to abandon all of this, just, you know, uncle Ted, your way,
00:41:46.560 uh, you know, out of this problem, there are some people who say there's simply no avoiding the
00:41:52.640 technology and it's only going to become more and more part of our lives. So you might as well embrace
00:41:59.440 that, uh, and, and find the best way forward with it. I understand that the, you know, part of the
00:42:04.960 answer is just going to be, well, the answer is going to be different for everybody. I understand
00:42:08.960 that. But in general, do you feel like there's a technological avoidance that's necessary to
00:42:14.800 reconnect with the reality? Do you think that there's just inescapable and you need to find a way
00:42:19.760 to manage it as you move forward together? Do you think it can actually be a positive tool for
00:42:23.760 reconnecting these things? Is there an overall understanding of the role that technology could
00:42:28.800 play in the health, the spiritual health of people? Well, I don't think there's any question that
00:42:34.720 this particular technological system that we are constructing and being onboarded into oftentimes
00:42:44.400 without any say over exactly how that goes on. Um, that the power of this technology is to kind of
00:42:51.840 combine the power of all previous technologies, uh, into a force that has, um,
00:43:03.840 exponentially increased, uh, powers of, uh, of, of escape, I guess you could say like, you know,
00:43:15.280 want to run away from God, this rocket ship will blast you off there. Want to run away from your fellow
00:43:20.400 man, like step right through this portal, want to run away from your memories right this way, folks.
00:43:26.960 You know, you don't, it's admission is free. Like this is different from what has come before.
00:43:33.040 It's not totally different. You know, we've got to remember like the guy at the, uh, at the screening
00:43:38.640 of, uh, of 2001 who ran down the middle of the aisle screaming, I see God and like smashed through the,
00:43:45.840 the screen. I mean, you know, these, uh, these, these feelings have been with us for a long time,
00:43:51.600 but, but there is something about digital technology that is especially disincarnate and especially
00:43:57.360 tempting and especially deceiving. Uh, you just go back to the Turing test, the insanity of the Turing
00:44:05.520 test. Oh, like we can, we can tell whether a computer is, uh, as, as smart as a human being,
00:44:13.360 if it tricks a human being into thinking that it's as smart as a human, like this doesn't,
00:44:19.040 you know, this I, I'm mangling it a little bit, but for dramatic effect, you know, like
00:44:22.880 we really need to like remember, um, that, uh, that, that, that the smartest people are as capable 0.97
00:44:30.480 of being deluded as the dumbest people. And in some cases in even more, more important and,
00:44:37.280 and dangerous things than, than the dumb people can be deleted. Uh, that's all out there. So, uh, 0.99
00:44:43.040 yeah, you know, I, I think there, there is, there are some unique and special things
00:44:47.360 about digital technology that, that ought to make us exercise heightened discernment. But
00:44:52.960 you look at Ted Kaczynski and, you know, this is an example of this, this longing for escape. I mean,
00:44:57.440 you know, you want to go live in the woods, have some quiet time, like, okay, you know, all right.
00:45:01.520 Uh, but what do you really, why in service of what, um, if you want to prevent, uh, the technological
00:45:10.080 apparatus from taking over the world, um, does it really make sense to move into the woods and start
00:45:16.000 building technological apparati that you then like mail to people for the purpose of killing them?
00:45:20.880 Like that seems maybe not, not to be logically consistent. Um, but, but uncle Ted, you know,
00:45:27.360 Ted Kaczynski wasn't just trying to escape, uh, the technological apparatus. Um, seems to me,
00:45:33.440 he was also trying to escape God and he was trying to escape his fellow man. And, uh, if, if you're,
00:45:38.880 you know, if you're really trying to escape the world and escape your fellow man, um, you would better 0.78
00:45:45.680 be doing that in service of trying to really, uh, approach God in a, in a serious and humble way.
00:45:54.160 Uh, because if that's not part of it, then, um, then what are you, what are you doing really?
00:45:58.720 You know, then your motives are suspect. And, uh, and I think, you know, a lot of Americans really
00:46:03.520 like the idea of escape and they like the idea that like, well, you know, worst comes to worst.
00:46:07.840 I can just kind of hit the road and be gone. And it's getting harder to do that. It's getting harder
00:46:14.240 to do that. Uh, just geographically in, in the, in the country we live in, as it's filling up with
00:46:21.120 large numbers of people who are legally speaking, not supposed to be present in this country.
00:46:26.080 Um, it's also getting hard to do conceptually and spiritually. Uh, and the internet is, is part of
00:46:32.560 this project that has formed to fill up the world and to fill up a, a clone of the world, uh, so that we can
00:46:43.040 all move over there and really, really escape God this time once and for all and escape creation with
00:46:49.360 it and escape all the limits, uh, of our, of our given human form and escape, uh, the, the humility
00:46:58.400 and the patience and the discipline that is required to actually achieve divinity instead of this, uh,
00:47:04.320 uh, off the shelf version, which, you know, people, it looks good. It sounds good. You get in the box and
00:47:12.400 then you realize that, uh, that it's not what it seemed. Uh, you know, if you want to watch something
00:47:18.400 that dramatizes this, you can watch like Hellraiser where, uh, where the, you know, the sort of demonic
00:47:24.480 guy from another dimension who looks like, uh, you know, he, he's earned a stripe on the, on the pride
00:47:30.640 flag all his own says, uh, the box you opened it, we came. I mean, this is, you know, this is, uh,
00:47:36.800 this is ancient stuff that we are confronting, uh, with, with new force, uh, not for the first time,
00:47:42.320 but in a distinctive way. And, uh, and I think, you know, we, we must always interrogate ourselves as
00:47:48.480 to whether we are trying in our lives with, uh, our, our eyes glued to screens or not, whether we
00:47:54.000 are trying to, uh, to escape or avoid, uh, God's presence in our life. Yeah. That makes me think
00:48:00.240 about Oswald Spangler. Of course, he refers to Western man as Faustian, which, you know, has obviously 0.64
00:48:06.080 the very important connotations. And one of the, uh, one of the traits of Faustian man that he points
00:48:12.000 out is the need for infinite space to the point where he says, you know, once Faustian man has conquered
00:48:17.280 all of this open space, he will create new spaces. And you can think of, you know, for conquest,
00:48:22.640 but also for escape, as you say, you know, the conquest is one way to understand it, but another
00:48:27.120 way is getting as far away as possible in all of these situations from where you were. And, you know,
00:48:33.040 while the digital realm has created what seems like infinite space, you can lose yourself forever
00:48:39.840 in social media and video games and the infinite worlds for you to conquer infinite places for you to
00:48:45.040 run to, uh, infinite simulations of important experiences for you to have. Ultimately, we,
00:48:51.920 we eventually do come back to this spiritual emptiness that, that we can't truly ever really
00:48:58.720 avoid. And it does feel like in many ways, while the technological realm has created this infinite space,
00:49:07.280 we are coming to the consequences of that in a very real way. We are feeling the edges of that.
00:49:13.360 The space might go on forever, but can we survive moving through it? You know, and I think that's
00:49:19.120 really something that a lot of people are feeling right now. They thought that that escape would be
00:49:24.160 available to them forever, but once they hit a certain point of life, or once they get to a
00:49:29.040 certain point where the meeting is so abstract and they no longer feel any connection, they recognize
00:49:34.160 that actually there is a time is running out. Space is running out. There is only so far you can go.
00:49:39.520 There's only so much escaping you can go or you can do. And especially as the consequences of in the
00:49:46.320 real world of, I think, uh, you know, uh, competency collapsing and law and order collapsing and these
00:49:53.360 other things that hold that artificial world aloft falling apart under it as more of the more and more
00:49:59.600 of that base erodes, uh, people come into contact with their reality in very harsh ways and recognize that
00:50:06.960 they do have to find a way back to something real. Yeah, I think that's right. Uh, you know,
00:50:11.840 there's, uh, there's this guy, Nick land who you're, you're probably familiar with and maybe,
00:50:16.000 maybe some others aren't, maybe that's a good thing. You know, it's for another day. Uh, but the first
00:50:21.840 thing that I ever read from Nick land and, uh, and I will out myself and say that it was the first and
00:50:26.640 the last thing that I read from Nick land because I felt like it was, it was all that I needed to sort of
00:50:32.320 take and run with. Um, and that was an essay called the lure of the void. And, uh, I won't
00:50:39.280 spoil it for those, uh, those watching at home who want to know what's in the box. Um, but, uh, I think
00:50:46.880 the lure of the void is real. Um, and I think what's so dangerous about it is there is no void. There is
00:50:53.280 no place where there's nothing in this created universe in all of creation. Um, and when you talk
00:51:00.400 about Faustian man and the desire to just stay one step ahead of your own creator by, uh, by
00:51:10.080 frantically and ingeniously filling up more space, uh, you do get to a point where you're like,
00:51:16.640 well, we need more space. How do we create more space? Uh, okay. Well, we created cyberspace. Nice.
00:51:22.480 Now there's a new thing for us to fill up and then we fill up cyberspace and then, uh, what do we do?
00:51:27.680 Well, I guess we need to get off planet and we need to go, you know, I, this is, uh, uh,
00:51:32.560 maybe a, a less arcane reference is the film interstellar. And, uh, you know, the big joke for
00:51:37.920 me about, about interstellar is like men will literally fly into a black hole instead of going
00:51:43.440 to church. That is my take on interstellar, but this is Faustian man, right? Faustian man ultimately
00:51:49.200 finds himself in a position of, uh, needing nothing in order to sort of like, okay, you know, we, we 0.82
00:51:56.640 raped nature, we raped man, we raped, uh, the planet, we raped everything that we could so that we could 0.99
00:52:03.680 conceive this new stuff. And so now the only place that we have left to rape is the void. So we got 0.98
00:52:09.520 to go out there and find the void and maybe we'll be sort of, maybe the black hole will destroy us,
00:52:15.600 but it's a risk worth taking because we need to create more stuff. And the only way that
00:52:20.720 we can create more stuff is by forcibly reaching into the void and creating something out of nothing
00:52:27.120 that ain't going to happen because there is no, nothing in our created cosmos.
00:52:33.840 All right, guys, I think we're going to head over to the questions of the people, but before we do,
00:52:38.960 James, where can people find all of your great work?
00:52:41.360 Uh, assuming that it's all great. Uh, I mean, where can they find the bad work? Tell them that
00:52:48.640 first. Then that's a story for another day. For sure. Uh, I'm on x.com at James Polis. I am also, uh,
00:52:58.560 on YouTube and at blaze TV. The show is zero hour. Uh, gotta get you on there at some point soon.
00:53:05.040 Um, scattered across the internet. Uh, also, uh, in, uh, in, uh, blazes tech vertical return,
00:53:12.960 uh, where you can see my, my various scribblings. Um, one of my leaving out, uh, there's lots of stuff,
00:53:19.600 uh, maybe too much stuff. So, uh, so, uh, read with, uh, discernment folks.
00:53:25.680 I think that's a good start. All right, guys, let's head over to your questions. Tiny stupid demon says, 0.96
00:53:31.840 greetings from Aurora, uh, Aurora, Colorado, really, uh, where you call an, uh, where, 1.00
00:53:37.280 what you call a narco tyranny, we refer to as co-governing with our new Venezuelan friends.
00:53:42.240 Yeah, man, I've seen, uh, I've seen that video on Twitter. Uh, stay safe. Uh, look, looks bad. Um,
00:53:52.560 I'm sorry. This is the land of wolves now. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Excuse me. All right,
00:53:59.120 let's see. Um, Michael Robertson says, clean your grave, bucko. Well, well done. Nice. Well done.
00:54:06.080 Uh, let's see here. Uh, John Morton says it's possible to LARP it till you live it. Uh, if some,
00:54:14.080 if some stopped drinking and went to church every week, would it matter if they didn't believe
00:54:19.440 in God? Well, and I think more importantly, once you start to take those actions, you find yourself
00:54:26.400 believing more and more, you know, CS Lewis had the, I'll butcher the, the quote real quick as,
00:54:31.520 you know, I find myself, or, you know, I'm told to love my neighbor. I don't love my neighbor.
00:54:37.440 I act as if I love my neighbor. And sooner or later, magically I find myself loving my neighbor.
00:54:43.600 And that doesn't sound real until you've lived those experiences and you recognize that's exactly how
00:54:49.040 life actually works. It's, it's very rarely an intellectual decision you make right on the spot
00:54:54.560 and is much more often a, a way of being a pattern of behavior that leads you closer, uh, to the
00:55:00.320 things that are, are true and real. Um, but one of the great lines from Hamlet where he's, uh, he's
00:55:06.480 chewing on his mom for, uh, sleeping with his, uh, you know, his father's evil brother. He's like, look,
00:55:12.560 you know, just, just start not doing it because you know, like habit can change the stamp of nature.
00:55:19.040 John also follows up with, plus you might not believe in God, but if you bring your children up in the
00:55:22.960 faith, then they will at least, uh, have healthy values. Yeah. And, and again, you know, that by
00:55:29.760 simply sharing that experience with your children, by making that something that your family does
00:55:34.560 together, by being, having that be something that binds you together, you are much more likely to grow
00:55:40.720 in that direction. And I have so many friends, um, who, who really are in this position who say,
00:55:46.960 I don't believe, and I'm not sure how to believe, but I want my kids to believe. I want the next
00:55:52.320 generation to, to know this joy, to know this piece, to know, uh, that, that this is something
00:55:57.760 that they started young. And so I, I think it is available to you, but if you're bringing your
00:56:02.560 children to it and that's your motivation, well, that that's a great motivation, man.
00:56:06.400 So I, I thoroughly encourage that. And it is also a token of belief in its own right.
00:56:12.480 Very much. That's very true. Just having, having, being willing to sacrifice that time,
00:56:17.120 make that time, invest that is itself a, a statement of, of belief on some level.
00:56:22.640 And then, uh, Darth Novikov, sorry if I pronounced that incorrectly, uh, two of my favorite prophetic
00:56:28.240 voices. Thank you for the conversation. I feel a sense of loss for my children who are growing up
00:56:32.960 in a world so foreign to what I remember. Any words of encouragement? What do you got, James?
00:56:39.520 Uh, help them remember, teach them what was, uh, things, all things come and go, uh, um, on this
00:56:49.520 earth. And, uh, and we do have to, you know, every, every single day we got to get out there and, uh,
00:56:56.320 and do our part to keep, uh, to keep things from, um, from passing away and for, for being lost to
00:57:03.440 memory. So, uh, it's always, you know, it's always work that needs to be done. I think that's the
00:57:08.400 constellation. Yeah. If you want the flame kept, you've got to keep it. You can't, you can't sit
00:57:12.480 around waiting for someone else. You can't, uh, lament, uh, that the whole culture is no longer
00:57:17.200 behind you. Uh, there are, there are many religious traditions, many communities, uh, that have survived
00:57:24.560 much worse, uh, and, and have managed to battle through all of these things because they were
00:57:29.840 dedicated to who they are and what they believed in and what they stood for. And they were willing to
00:57:35.200 pass that down to their children and defend that, uh, you know, uh, with their sacred honors.
00:57:40.160 And I think ultimately that that's really what you have to remember is, uh, you know, you can't,
00:57:44.560 you can do that. You, but it's, it's gotta be about, you know, you taking that action. It's,
00:57:48.800 you can't just lament the fact that the rest of the culture is not doing that for you.
00:57:53.040 All right, guys, we're going to go ahead and wrap, wrap this up and make sure you are following
00:57:56.720 James that you're watching his show. He does great work. If it's your first time on this YouTube
00:58:01.200 channel, make sure you subscribe, click the bell notifications, all that stuff that lets YouTube
00:58:05.760 know you actually want to watch things when they go live. If you would like to get these broadcasts
00:58:10.000 as podcasts, make sure that you subscribe to the Oren McIntyre show on your favorite podcast platform.
00:58:14.880 And if you want to pick up my new book, the total state, you can do that on Amazon,
00:58:18.960 Barnes, Noble books, a million, anywhere that books are sold.
00:58:22.320 Thank you everybody for watching. And as always, I'll talk to you next time.