The Auron MacIntyre Show - Cargo Cult Democracy ｜ Guest： Curtis Yarvin ｜ 2⧸23⧸23

00:00:00.260 What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue?

00:00:04.120 A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door.

00:00:10.840 A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool.

00:00:15.320 Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered.

00:00:19.460 Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.

00:00:24.340 Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply.

00:00:27.020 Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver.

00:00:30.000 Instacart. Groceries.

00:00:32.240 Subtitle. Groceries.

00:00:34.620 Hoodoo UCI. 0.98

00:00:36.740 100g��grampm

00:00:39.980 The chaudows off. 1.00

00:00:42.520 And it says 3rd in progress.

00:00:43.840 Look over this week.

00:00:52.980 We are fully ready to go.

00:00:56.200 cope...

00:00:58.420 Thank you.

00:01:28.420 Hey, everybody. How's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I've got a great stream with a great guest that I know you guys are really going to enjoy. I don't think we need a lot of introduction, but Curtis Yarvin is a political theorist. He writes on Substack at Gray Mirror. Curtis, thanks for joining me.

00:01:51.000 Thanks for having me, Oren.

00:01:52.380 Absolutely. So there's been a surprising amount of contact between your ideas now and a lot of more mainstream kind of political operators, guys in the GOP, activists on the right, that kind of thing.

00:02:07.300 And so I wanted to start out by asking you what you think about some people and their reactions, kind of the way they're going. We've got a lot of people like, say, Chris Rufo, who are saying your approach is a little too cynical, that there's still democratic solutions.

00:02:23.560 You do the right kind of activism. You kind of bring this right wing kind of Alinsky tactic to bear on things and you can make real change. What do you think about what he's doing in the prospects that that has?

00:02:34.680 Well, you know, there's a great quote by, do you know, the name R.L. Dabney. You might know the quote that I'm thinking of.

00:02:44.180 You know, R.L. Dabney was, shall we say, a 19th century writer. And he has this line where he says, you know, the only role of conservatism is, I'm paraphrasing here, I don't have the exact quote,

00:03:00.180 but he's basically like the role of conservatism is to basically keep radicalism in shape and give it this sense of having an enemy, which is like always out there and like ready.

00:03:15.380 Basically, you know, basically you're creating. When you sort of think about what you're doing, when you basically administer these kinds of little pinpricks that seem basically designed to create as much hostility as possible at as much sort of fear as possible.

00:03:35.720 Because, you know, let's look at, for example, what DeSantis is doing with a new college in Florida.

00:03:44.480 Let's just take that as like a picture of, OK, what's going on here, what's being done?

00:03:51.320 And I don't know exactly what's going on there and what's being done, but I can think of a sort of a number of different options and directions.

00:04:01.200 Essentially, there was this little old hippie college that somehow became affiliated with the state of Florida that, you know, enables the governor of Florida to select the board of this college.

00:04:16.800 Right. And so the idea is, you know, I was talking to a friend about this and he referred to it as like, you know, the opening salvo, you know, as if like, you know, like the way D-Day had worked was that first you'd sent like a fishing boat there with like a couple of guys with like, you know, like rifles and they, you know, taking some pot shots at the beach.

00:04:39.100 Right. You know, and just to let the Germans know you're there, you know, basically kind of feel at the softness of the territory.

00:04:45.760 Right. And, you know, no, D-Day was not announced, you know, and and the and so when you sort of dig down into the details, you basically see that what you're generating with this effort is, OK, what's the optimal result?

00:05:04.100 The optimal result is you get another Hillsdale, which for those of you don't listening is a very, you know, nice, classical Christian, you know, constitution oriented.

00:05:15.780 I'm not sure they approved me at Hillsdale, you know, college in where is it? Michigan, something like that.

00:05:22.140 So, you know, basically you're like, OK, you're creating like Hillsdale in Florida.

00:05:26.640 OK, now, if you have the funding to create Hillsdale in Florida, your very best solution to creating Hillsdale in Florida, supposing that you think that will solve a problem, is to buy a tract of Florida swampland, put up some buildings on it, hire some faculty and basically say who wants to come to this thing.

00:05:50.740 So if you basically say, OK, you know, if your goal is to create something, that's probably what you do.

00:05:59.580 If your goal is to basically generate press and headlines and like media flow and campaign contributions, what you would do instead is pick as much of a fight as you can.

00:06:13.240 So the way if you wanted to pick a fight, what you would do is and it's funny when the, you know, the people sort of trying to do this kind of thing don't really, you know, the history, if you look at the history of politicians trying to basically get communism out of the educational system,

00:06:35.220 which is, you know, obviously a cause, you know, at least as near and dear to my heart as Chris Ruffo's, you'll see that its peak was really sometime around the 1920s.

00:06:45.040 And, you know, institutions like tenure were specifically adopted, like the idea of the state legislature banning communism in the state university is an idea that's like 100 years old.

00:06:57.400 And 100 years ago, needless to say, it was undertaken with quite a bit more, shall we say, prejudice than anything that Ron DeSantis could do with.

00:07:08.680 Right. And so, OK, you have a majority on the board of new college.

00:07:15.100 What are you going to do with that majority?

00:07:16.460 Now, if I were sort of restricted to those limitations, then what I would do is to say, OK, what kind of departments do we have at the new college?

00:07:36.560 We have humanities and STEM, STEM, actually, I hate it.

00:07:43.660 So, OK, we're basically going to clear out the humanities department, hire an all new humanities, you know, faculty from like credential to nonce and, you know, boot this thing back up.

00:07:55.560 And then, of course, you have to deal with the accreditation departments, because if new college loses its accreditation, which it will, it's just a diploma bill.

00:08:04.000 It's not even an official part of the system.

00:08:05.740 So, actually, accreditation besides, you know, tenure, I don't I'm not even sure if this board can legally get rid of the most of the, you know, English department of new college.

00:08:17.960 Probably they can't. Of course, they can pass a rule saying, hey, no communism in the classroom or whatever.

00:08:24.000 Don't say gay. Like, I don't know. Right. 0.82

00:08:25.920 You know, and the thing is, the whole thing is just like, you know, incredibly ineffectual and provocative thing where you're just like, oh, we're going to tell all the like, you know, woke kindergarten teachers in Florida.

00:08:40.100 But they have to be, in theory, a little more delicate about, you know, putting the trans flag in the classroom or whatever, maybe put it in the back or something.

00:08:50.120 There's no enforcement structure.

00:08:51.840 There's no like, you know, if you actually wanted to enforce these rules on existing institutions, great, you know, hire, you know, 20,000 people to like, you know, create, you know, do what they did in Canada with like the human rights tribunals, where they basically created this whole new superstructure of human rights law, which of course is like woke law.

00:09:14.120 And then they created a new court system to impose it slightly better than infiltrating the existing court system, you know, and so it's or like in the Islamic Republic of Iran, you know, you have, you know, Islamic tribunals that will Islamify everything you want to do that. 0.57

00:09:30.040 Like, OK, you know, like what I object to is basically like I'm not saying that if you want to go like full Islamic Republic of Iran in Florida, it wouldn't work.

00:09:42.200 It would work. I don't think it really matches the temperament of Floridians.

00:09:46.360 I don't think that they're really a whole lot like Iranians in 1978.

00:09:52.520 But, you know, am I saying it like wouldn't work?

00:09:56.440 I wouldn't saying that, you know.

00:09:57.920 But the thing is, it's like.

00:10:00.700 There's a very important like issue of like power and how it's used here.

00:10:08.140 And, you know, one of my, you know, Machiavellian beliefs is that the principal use of power, the only proper use of power, especially when you have almost none, is to use it to get more power, not to spend it on things that will, things that are sort of evanescent and ephemeral.

00:10:29.780 And so when I basically look at sort of this approach to the culture war, where you're basically going to like take a fortress of the enemies, like by force, by political force and like storm it.

00:10:46.020 What are you going to do with all the like the lib students at like new college, by the way, are you ideally maybe you'd keep like the lib professors around and like, you know, your freshman class would have, you know, based freshmen and based professors.

00:10:59.120 And then the sophomores would be like lib freshmen with lib professors or something.

00:11:04.220 It's just weird.

00:11:05.080 Like if you want to start like, you know, if you want to start a like dental floss company, don't like acquire like a car company and try to turn it into a dental floss company, because that's roughly the difference between what new college is and what it should be.

00:11:18.760 Moreover, I can guarantee you that what they're going to do to new college is nowhere near as like basically they'll have this like built in headline generating force as the like the noble like, you know, professors of new college stand up to censorship and the students organize and like show themselves.

00:11:39.100 Right. You know, you basically got this like New York Times content generator that's going to give you like a scopes trial, like, you know, because this was basically the same thing is like the scopes monkey trial in the 1920s.

00:11:51.280 Right. You know, and and instead of like, don't say gay, it was don't say evolution.

00:11:56.460 Right. And the like I'm using these like ridiculous. 0.99

00:12:01.040 Of course, this is like this ridiculous lib caricature of both the Florida quote, don't say gay law and the, you know, evolution law that Clarence Darrow was challenging. 0.96

00:12:12.500 Doesn't matter. Basically, you're giving goals to your enemies. 0.89

00:12:15.900 And when basically you're doing something that purports to be strategic, but is actually this like printing press for your enemy, like, why are you doing this?

00:12:25.540 Like you're actually that's like sort of objectively somewhat, you know, it's like and and so when I basically look, you know, circle back at what's tempting to be done here.

00:12:41.480 And I would say that myself and like Chris Ruffo agree on the fundamental existential importance of owning the lips.

00:12:53.560 However, we disagree completely on the way to do it.

00:12:59.080 My feeling is that owning the libs involves and like in a way politics is like sex, like you're you're you're sort of aiming to build this like relationship of like ownership, which is almost a sexual relationship.

00:13:13.900 And there's there's sort of two ways to kind of create, you know, the ownership of that kind of bond, which you might call seduction and rape.

00:13:21.840 And, you know, both seduction and rape has created many, you know, wonderful human beings.

00:13:29.440 Many of our ancestors were the products of rape. 0.94

00:13:31.620 I'm not saying rape can't make babies. 0.99

00:13:34.340 OK, rape can make babies. 1.00

00:13:36.560 However, I am on the side of seduction. 0.97

00:13:38.280 And the reason I'm on the side of seduction, especially in this case, is I don't think Chris Ruffo and Ron DeSantis have it in them to be rapists. 0.93

00:13:48.860 I think what they're doing instead is that they're being a little bit rapey. 0.89

00:13:54.000 And I can tell you that being a little bit rapey never once conceived a child.

00:13:59.160 We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.

00:14:02.000 Rocky's vacation.

00:14:03.240 Here we come.

00:14:04.760 Whoa, is this economy?

00:14:06.860 Free beer, wine and snacks.

00:14:09.320 Sweet.

00:14:10.400 Fast free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land.

00:14:14.460 And with live TV, I'm not missing the game.

00:14:17.500 It's kind of like I'm already on vacation.

00:14:20.680 Nice.

00:14:21.820 On behalf of Air Canada, nice travels.

00:14:24.680 Wi-Fi available to airplane members on equipped flights.

00:14:27.060 Sponsored by Bell. Conditions apply.

00:14:28.260 LassierCanada.com

00:14:29.440 So I think what most people are going to push back at, besides the metaphor there, is the assertion that they're not trying to acquire power, right?

00:14:40.200 Because I think you're right.

00:14:41.160 And you've said this often.

00:14:42.280 I think it makes perfect sense.

00:14:43.340 But they're going to say, look, we're going to a place that manufactures consensus.

00:14:48.340 We're trying to take control of it, right?

00:14:50.960 Like this is a move that – and these people are going to call you Hitler if you sneeze anyway, right?

00:14:55.700 Yeah.

00:14:55.900 So saying that you're feeding people narratives is something that I think a lot of people have a problem with because they say, look, they have a narrative if we sleep at night.

00:15:04.040 And so no matter what action you take, we'll be decried as the second coming of the mid-century Germans.

00:15:09.960 Actually, like, you know, that's also wrong, I would say, in that you're like, yes, you know, basically any way that you have of being a little bit rapey is going to be like, this is Hitler. 0.94

00:15:25.260 This is like the king of all rapists ever, right? 0.54

00:15:27.840 And so they're like, you know, why shouldn't I be a little bit rapey? 0.93

00:15:30.340 I'll be called a rapist even if I'm not, you know, doing anything rapey.

00:15:33.840 The reality is, like, dude, you're not doing anything rapey.

00:15:36.440 But even if you're, like, thinking in a rapey way, like, you know, these people will, like, feel it.

00:15:42.100 And then they'll be like, are you a rapist?

00:15:43.800 They're like, well, I don't usually rape, but, you know, right? 0.95

00:15:46.080 You know, and so, you know, getting yourself in the mindset of, like, no, the only way to win is to actually seduce my enemies, to actually tempt them into showing them that I have something sexier than who they're married to right now, right?

00:16:04.660 You know, and that's, like, just a deeply, deeply different approach from, like, anything, like, rapey.

00:16:13.660 Like, and that's an approach that basically says, okay, here's how you're going to win the culture war.

00:16:20.900 You are going to make not even mainstream, like, it's not even you're going to, like, make more money with your conservative movies.

00:16:29.360 Like, no, that's not even the first step of the problem is to make money with your conservative books and movies or whatever.

00:16:36.320 No, actually, what's an even deeper problem is you have to be cooler than them.

00:16:40.300 You have to basically make, you know, you have to get to win the culture war.

00:16:47.020 You have to have the coolest culture.

00:16:49.260 No way around that, right?

00:16:50.920 And so when I look at the kind of people that are kind of trying to win the culture war by sort of this, like, dominance of, like, mass institutions, it's like you come across, like, you love trees.

00:17:03.020 And you come across one day, like, there's this, like, forest, which, like, has been cut down.

00:17:11.040 It's terrible.

00:17:11.820 Beautiful old trees cut down.

00:17:13.740 And so you're like, okay, you know, I want to have a forest here.

00:17:16.680 This is bad.

00:17:17.620 So what do you do?

00:17:18.800 You start taking these, like, cut down trees and, like, get a bulldozer and, like, jam their ends into the dirt.

00:17:25.040 Right?

00:17:25.320 You know, and that's what you're doing when you basically try to win the culture war in this kind of, like, rapey way.

00:17:32.360 You actually would be getting a much better yield of trees if you were planting acorns instead of trying to replant these cut down trees.

00:17:41.120 But you'd have to be more patient.

00:17:43.360 You'd have to basically be doing something that doesn't have this spellbinding return of, like, this feeling, you know, all of, like, conservative, like, propaganda sort of, you know, it's, like, always, like, the name of Turning Point USA, like, like, embodies this situation where it's just like, we're about to win.

00:18:02.640 We're on a turning point.

00:18:03.580 Right? 0.99

00:18:03.940 Dude, you're nowhere near a fucking turning point. 0.99

00:18:06.100 Excuse my French. 0.99

00:18:06.780 And, like, you know, like, to get to a turning point, you'd have to be, like, unrecognizably different from where we are.

00:18:18.060 Instead, you're basically selling, you know, people this delusion of impact and this delusion of getting something done that will, like, solve the problem of, like, wokeness in America.

00:18:30.240 And I'm, like, you know, I can give you, I think, a pretty persuasive argument that the age of the problem of, like, wokeness in America is probably between 400 and 500 years old.

00:18:41.800 I think it can be traced back to the reign of Henry VIII.

00:18:45.300 Right?

00:18:45.680 And I'm not, and certainly to Elizabeth.

00:18:48.380 And the, like, and, and, and because you're basically, wokeness is the modern creation, it's the modern iteration of Puritanism.

00:19:01.960 It's the, like, the religion of New England.

00:19:04.080 It's, like, you know, the same thing over and over again.

00:19:07.240 Right, and so when you're basically saying, hey, this is not a problem that started in 2012, this is something bigger and deeper and much more historical than anything.

00:19:19.940 And it is not going to be fixed by a Band-Aid.

00:19:22.560 It is not going to be, sort of, like, fixed in this, like, kind of, like, cheap, like, rapey way.

00:19:27.960 It's, like, no, actually, you have to be, like, you know, tell me, like, Ron DeSantis, if you're on this call.

00:19:35.520 No, it's not a problem.

00:19:36.920 But, you know, if Ron DeSantis was on the call, I would basically be, like, suppose you had actually, you know, I don't, it doesn't even make, this concept doesn't even make sense.

00:19:48.220 But suppose you had, basically, absolute power in Florida.

00:19:52.200 What would you even do?

00:19:53.620 What do you want to do?

00:19:54.580 What's your, like, bucket list?

00:19:56.060 What's your fantasy?

00:19:57.380 And the answer is, I bet he doesn't even know of it, you know, because why would he know?

00:20:02.100 Like, how is that going to happen?

00:20:03.100 It's never going to happen.

00:20:04.040 Right?

00:20:04.400 And so the problem is that if you come, if knowing that nothing like this can ever happen, you come out and you say, well, nothing like this can ever happen.

00:20:15.800 You know, we're just, like, putting some band-aids on managing the decline here.

00:20:19.060 And, you know, giving a place for you to send your, like, kid where, to college so he, like, learns math instead of, you know, acquiring three breasts.

00:20:33.320 Then, you know, and, and if Ron DeSantis could come out and basically say, this is not a solvable problem.

00:20:39.840 You can't solve the problems with this problem with a tool that you have.

00:20:43.100 You're basically, if this is the America that you believed in, this is not your America, never was your America.

00:20:49.120 And basically just, like, bend over, lube up, you know, and, and that's not a message that gets a lot of, you know, I believe that to be the truth, sort of from at least the perspective that someone like Ron DeSantis is operating in.

00:21:03.680 I believe that basically, you know, the effects of the, on the national conversation of DeSantis, you know, type stunts, you know, Martha's Vineyard or whatever, right, is basically to generate more subscribers to the New York Times, more contributions to the ACLU,

00:21:27.120 more feeling among, you're giving the aristocracy of this country, the blue state elite, exactly what they want, which is this basically fee, enough fear that they basically feel that they have to, like, band together and, like, you know, put in machine gun posts to repel the crazy peasants with pitchforks, and you're not actually threatening them.

00:21:52.980 You're not actually doing anything, like, dangerous. You're not actually going to park any tanks in Harvard Yard. You're just making them, giving this, like, giving them this, like, little frisson of excitement that they need to get through their, like, stale bureaucracy-ridden days.

00:22:07.300 So, really, actually, you're providing this incredibly needed service to the, I mean, think about what you're doing for, like, journalism. You're, like, basically, like, everyone can come out and say, wow, you know, we're scared of the new, like, the new American fascism is developing with, like, Ron DeSantis, who is Italian, like Mussolini, who is the original fascist, right?

00:22:29.780 You know, and, like, and, like, and, I mean, they played that game with Trump for years. I mean, Trump won the Republican nomination because he was just too good for the liberal media not to cover, right?

00:22:41.320 They loved him, and the, like, they're not going to do that this time. I think they got genuinely scared, but, you know, they're, I mean, the DNC is supporting, like, all the kook candidates in Republican primaries that it can find, 1.00

00:22:56.860 and so, typically, you're going to get this effect where, you know, your primary is, like, a Koch brothers-supported, like, Bushite versus, like, the craziest kook that the DNC can find, and, you know, like, there's nothing, again, you're just,

00:23:19.480 you're completely jammed up there in terms of anything sort of reasonable and realistic and effective, so, yeah, I think that, you know, unfortunately, one of the things that I sort of really dislike about this kind of, like, regime change light rhetoric is that it just falls into this sort of, you know,

00:23:45.240 the culture war rhetoric, it just falls into this, like, category of something that's, like, really good for its enemies.

00:23:54.680 If you want to understand how to win a culture war by force, by political force, then go to Wikipedia and look for the entry for denazification,

00:24:09.240 denazification, and you'll find what it takes to basically change the mind of an entire country by force.

00:24:17.620 It basically requires, like, you know, having, like, 10% of the country fill out a de-woke-ification questionnaire that will then be judged by a new, like, judicial force of, like, 50,000 base judges

00:24:30.520 who will decide whether you get canceled for, like, having been woke or, you know, just even not having been anti-woke.

00:24:37.660 If you weren't anti-woke, don't expect to keep that job as a professor, right?

00:24:41.900 You know, and the thing is, if you're prepared to do something like that and you actually have the power to do it,

00:24:49.700 the support to do it, the energy to do it, who am I to say no?

00:24:54.440 I'll tell you what's going to work.

00:24:55.880 But the thing is, basically, you know, like, being a little bit rapey, especially from someone who's basically just simply does not have any qualifications to be a rapist, frankly, 0.96

00:25:08.720 is just, like, this sort of ridiculous stunt that can only end badly. 0.84

00:25:12.680 And the fact that sort of DeSantis' stunts are, like, more realistic than Trump's stunts, which usually didn't even happen at all,

00:25:23.080 is just, like, it's sort of the wrong message in the wrong direction.

00:25:28.120 So, it does.

00:25:31.000 I think the problem for most people is, well, I think they hear you and they say, okay, seduction instead of this, right?

00:25:37.520 I need something that's going to slowly change this and woo people to it.

00:25:41.380 But in the meantime, you know, my kids go to school and they have to have friends and they have to find people to marry.

00:25:49.540 And, like, there's the things that we're talking about are affecting them right now.

00:25:54.220 Well, yeah.

00:25:54.700 So, if you want to, like, if you basically, like, the choice, being a little bit rapey is, like, not an effective choice here.

00:26:06.420 And so, if you're basically ready to seduce with a lot of power very, very fast, that's an option, too.

00:26:15.840 But the thing is, again, you have to, like, do it and seducing, like, you know, let's look at, for example, if, like, DeSantis was like, okay, I'm going to basically, like, seduce a new elite.

00:26:33.480 And I'm going to basically say, okay, you know, all the cool kids who don't fit in and are, like, get 1600s on their SATs are going to want to go to new college. 0.84

00:26:44.500 If you wanted to go to MIT but you're tired of woke shit, that's got to be 15% at least of the MIT application pool, like, go here. 0.70

00:26:55.180 You know, that's something relatively faster you can do. 0.96

00:26:58.160 If you want to go even faster, you know, do crazy things like take the whole Florida public school system and put every public school under the control of the local PTA.

00:27:10.260 Like, at that point, you're basically, like, saying, okay, yeah, we're, like, you know, like, if you want to start actually blowing up large things, either you have the power to blow up large things or you don't.

00:27:25.600 If you don't, ask for the power to blow up large things and basically say, hey, Floridians, you know, if you elect me next year, we're going to have radical change to the public school system.

00:27:39.960 Radical change will consist of every public school is under the absolute control of its parents.

00:27:46.100 They can run it themselves, which would be crazy, or they can hire a contracting firm to run it for them.

00:27:52.460 And, like, that's how you're going to get different textbooks in Florida. 0.97

00:27:56.240 You're going to get textbooks that basically appeal to some firm that is working on behalf of the parents that's like, holy shit, we're a Christian school. 0.97

00:28:03.360 We need Christian textbooks. 0.91

00:28:04.380 You know, versus the, like, little bit rapey version of saying we're going to pass a law that says textbooks in Florida will not endorse, you know, communism or race communism or whatever, you know, wokeism or whatever, you know, whatever the kids are calling it these days.

00:28:17.540 Right. You know, and basically, you know, it's like these, like, big, effective, like, powerful moves.

00:28:27.980 Yeah. Like, if you can sort of imagine making that move or if you can even say, OK, this is the kind of move that we need to make where we're just going to basically take everyone in the Florida public school system who is not a teacher,

00:28:42.460 fire them all and put the teachers under the exclusive control of the local PTA.

00:28:48.240 And if they want the local PTA wants to teach them that, like, Jesus created the world in 4 B.C., like, we'll order up some books and they'll be about Jesus creating the world in 4 B.C.

00:28:59.180 And, you know, probably what happens if you're like a blue state person who believes in the Big Bang and all of that?

00:29:04.920 Well, probably you shouldn't have moved there. Get out.

00:29:07.120 You know, and like the like, again, you know, you can imagine sort of moving with actual strength if you get your mind out of this mindset that believes that these really negligible actions,

00:29:27.580 which basically only stimulate the enemy, are substantive.

00:29:32.380 You know, I came up with a with a, you know, funny analogy for this, which is simply, you know, when you're talking about power,

00:29:40.560 you're talking about something that can be defined on a unit range.

00:29:45.340 It's like zero to one or zero percent to 100 percent.

00:29:47.840 You either have no power, which is zero percent, or you have absolute power, you know, maybe just in some space and that's 100 percent.

00:29:55.260 And one way, but, you know, one way of talking about percentages, you know, that I like because I like to drink is alcohol.

00:30:05.960 So, you know, we can instead speak in terms of proof and we can say that basically, let's say Ron DeSantis wants to turn the Florida educational system

00:30:16.980 into what it was in 1890 modulo and, you know, a few changes, you know, or turn it into anything, turn it into anything he wants.

00:30:27.720 And basically, or anything the parents want or just like complete regime change in the Florida schools. 0.50

00:30:33.420 OK, that's like 200 proof. That's like the grain alcohol.

00:30:36.880 My little like give control of the schools to the PTA is like the grain alcohol of education reform.

00:30:42.200 OK, so, you know, when we basically say compare the grain alcohol of education reform to don't say gay or whatever you call it, if you're not a lib, what do you call it if you're not a lib? 0.58

00:30:54.400 The don't say gay law.

00:30:56.220 I believe it's the parental rights or protections bill.

00:30:59.900 The parental rights or protections bill.

00:31:01.780 So you compare my proposal for protecting parents' rights and that proposal for protecting parents' rights.

00:31:10.380 So if my proposal is basically 200 proof, 180 proof, whatever, straight up ever clear, you know, how would you describe the actual thing that got passed in terms of proof?

00:31:22.240 Well, you know, it's a little known fact that I think you're on the lower range, frankly, of alcoholic beverages.

00:31:29.380 In fact, I think you may even be below the range of what we normally consider alcohol.

00:31:34.880 It's a little known fact, for example, that orange juice, even Florida orange juice is often about one proof.

00:31:41.080 And so basically what you're doing when you're doing this is basically selling people a glass of orange juice and calling it a screwdriver.

00:31:47.940 And like, you know, for money and office and fame and all of these like corrupt things.

00:31:53.820 And I just like I can't get behind basically taking these people who have this like real desire to like send their children to school and like have their children come out of that school with the same beliefs that they learned at home and were taught.

00:32:07.720 And, you know, it's really none of my business how like, you know, offensive those beliefs are to like myself as like a California, New York Jew.

00:32:16.920 Right. You know, and and if you basically take those people who have a real problem to solve, they really need to get hammered.

00:32:27.220 They're at that bar for a reason. Right.

00:32:28.940 They need that screwdriver. And you're basically saying, OK, here's a screwdriver and you pass that person a glass of orange juice like you're not a good person.

00:32:38.920 Like you're not doing a good thing. You're not like, you know, this is not the initial salvo.

00:32:43.800 And, you know, this person is going to be pretty sad at the end of the night.

00:32:46.640 They feel that they've had six screwdrivers and they should be absolutely wild.

00:32:50.540 And instead, like nothing is happening and they're just pretending to be drunk.

00:32:54.500 And and like this is what you're doing when you basically do the sort of take the kind of little bit rapey approach to culture war.

00:33:03.020 But doesn't it feel like everything then is too incremental? Right.

00:33:05.860 Like I agree that the program you're describing would be far more total in its ability to to kind of change the paradigm.

00:33:12.720 Sure. I mean, it's still insufficient. Right.

00:33:15.400 People are going to say, well, overall shape, shape, you know, like but at least it's like something.

00:33:20.560 Right. It's still like basically not, you know, it's not a like deep national transformation of the spirit.

00:33:27.940 Right. You know. And so, you know, like you have to acknowledge that if you think America is on as wrong a path

00:33:40.240 as it seems to be to the people who voted for Ron DeSantis, then, yeah, you actually do need a deep national transformation of the spirit.

00:33:49.920 And you don't get a deep national transformation of the spirit without a deep national transformation of the regime.

00:33:56.520 Right. You know. And and so, like, there are plenty of ways to imagine the depth of that change and the depth of such a change.

00:34:06.560 And not only does it not have to involve any kind of violence, I can't even imagine it coming close to working if you thought about it that way,

00:34:14.040 because it has to be basically much more seductive than rapey.

00:34:18.540 And, you know, and like the feeling of any kind of change like this should be like extremely joyous.

00:34:25.820 And it should be extremely joyous, basically involving the like it should have an avant garde of people that just like absolutely feel the right to be in charge.

00:34:43.700 And these are people who know that there is no one in the world cooler or more on top of it or like better informed of them.

00:34:52.440 These are people who, like, believe they are the future. You've got to grow that. You don't have it.

00:34:58.240 And like and so, yeah, I'm like, OK, I can imagine sort of more like rapey ways to do things like my proposal to, you know, give the parents control of the school system.

00:35:12.260 Are are they ready for that in Florida?

00:35:14.940 You know, but like the thing is that, you know, even if you basically adopt this sort of approach of dominating by force,

00:35:25.840 having this kind of like clean, decisive, the old thing is out and the new thing is in is like very different from I mean, you know,

00:35:35.180 it's like my like metaphor of like the sort of loss of I mean, just absence of will that characterized the Trump administration.

00:35:44.480 It's like you had this incredible like populist revolution.

00:35:47.540 People really thought that they were like electing a totally different future.

00:35:50.980 And they get this guy, Donald Trump, who really feels like a big man, feels like a king, talks a big game.

00:35:57.480 And, you know, he's like a winner. Right. And they get him and his job is to basically make sure Humpty Dumpty has a great fall.

00:36:06.080 And he gets up there on the wall with Humpty Dumpty and it's like it's really high up and he like looks down. 0.97

00:36:11.520 He's like, holy shit, I could fall. And like what's going to happen here? 0.93

00:36:15.040 And instead of pushing Humpty Dumpty off the wall, he basically reaches over and gives him a little little tap on the eggshell.

00:36:21.080 All right. And Humpty Dumpty flips the heck out and is like, oh, my God, it's a long way down.

00:36:27.720 I'm a frickin egg. I could be like, you know, and he like gets his tap on the face.

00:36:32.000 He kind of rocks back and forth. He's like, I'm going to fall. And he's like, OK, I'm not going to fall.

00:36:36.820 And then he's like calls for like all the king's horses and all the king's men and all the king's horses and all the king's men would not have been able to put Humpty back together again.

00:36:45.260 But can they knock Donald Trump off the frickin wall and can they tear him apart?

00:36:49.380 They sure can. And can they tear apart anyone who ever supported or worked for him?

00:36:54.100 They sure can. And that's exactly what they did.

00:36:57.040 And like, you know, down to like the ridiculous January 6th like fiasco.

00:37:01.280 And like it just shows that like, you know, there's a sense in which you look at like the whole Trump experience and like MAGA and Twitter and all of that.

00:37:14.060 And you're just like you're not tall enough for this ride.

00:37:16.680 And the problem is that, you know, Ron DeSantis comes in, who's like, you know, gone to Harvard and Yale and been in the Navy and is only in his 40s.

00:37:26.860 And like, you know, probably, you know, did he kill people?

00:37:29.440 Has DeSantis, did DeSantis kill anyone in the military? Was he a jag?

00:37:33.520 I think he was a pilot, but I'm not sure.

00:37:35.860 Yeah, yeah. I worry that he was a jag because he went to law school in which instead of killing people, he got Americans killed. 0.97

00:37:41.420 But I'm sure if he was a jag, he worked on the rules of engagement as best he could. 1.00

00:37:47.100 But, you know, that's a shit show. 0.99

00:37:49.400 And and, you know, in any case, you're basically like this is a serious person. 1.00

00:37:52.840 This is a military guy like you can imagine.

00:37:55.020 And then he basically comes in and like, you know, does these stunts that are like more realistic than Trump stunts.

00:38:05.560 And the like, but it's still a grift.

00:38:09.920 Right. And like, I just don't believe that like, you know, are we on the blaze?

00:38:14.600 Is that the network we're on?

00:38:15.720 Yeah, the you know, I don't believe that like blaze viewers like buy subscriptions to the blaze and like because they want to be grifted.

00:38:23.860 I don't believe that anyone supports Ron DeSantis because they want to be grifted. 0.99

00:38:27.700 I don't believe anyone supports Ron DeSantis because they want to basically give put a shot of energy in their enemies veins while accomplishing essentially nothing.

00:38:35.800 But I like, you know, and so, yeah, like I think that, you know, the the, you know, clearly people like Chris Ruffo like see a real problem and they're like very good at like exposing that problem.

00:38:50.380 They're sort of exposing it in a world where like you're exposing it to who and what are they going to do?

00:38:55.980 Right. You know, and then you actually start like trying to do things and you're basically just like.

00:39:02.420 You know, I don't know what they're going to plan to do to like new college, but, you know, the idea that you're going to get this board in there and they're going to like pass some like rule that says, you know, there will be no woke at new college.

00:39:16.600 Right. And then, you know, all the students will like defy the rule and hold huddle little, you know, meetings in which they like get woke together.

00:39:23.540 Right. You know, and it's just like it's so childish. It's so small. It's so and it's so like self-defeating and and it sort of lacks the confidence that you would expect to see in anything that had a potential to create real change.

00:39:41.660 I love saying creating change when I mean regime change, but the yeah, it's it's like, you know, so it's sort of like to sort of see these existential chiliastic even ideas become sort of a little more mainstream is one thing.

00:40:02.900 But it basically the problem is that it really tends to emphasize rape over seduction and when you dilute it like to, you know, one to a thousand, you basically get this formula for being like a little bit rapey, which is this like perfect sort of grift formula and it's like perfectly designed to essentially not like work.

00:40:31.760 And it's not like and like as far as like the question of like sincerity of the people behind it, I don't think any of these people basically go in with like, I'm going to be a grifter. I'm going to like grift today.

00:40:45.580 You know, it's just like the path of the grifter is the path of least resistance. It's sort of the path down which you flow and like you come in there trying to make a difference and do something different.

00:40:58.300 And 10 years later, having followed the path that like functions and works and like gives you like momentum and like, you know, mass and like seems to be working and you look down at yourself and you notice that you have become completely a grifter because you basically followed that path of least resistance.

00:41:17.940 And I mean, like if there's a sin here, it's original sin, right? You know, it's like, these are not bad people like by any means, but, you know, and it's would be very hard for me.

00:41:35.600 Like, I can't imagine like being, you know, if I was in a room with Ron DeSantis, what I what would I tell him to do instead?

00:41:49.840 I don't know, I wouldn't be this, but like what I have some like great optimism that there was some like great plan, I got to get next to Ron DeSantis to give him my like my like great plan, you know, like, I don't, you know, think I have anything like that.

00:42:02.800 And so, you know, my extent, you know, the, the being in the position of blaming someone for doing something rather than nothing, when I think they should do nothing really is like, yeah, I don't, I, you know, I don't want to sound like too like nasty here, but I think you get where I'm coming from.

00:42:24.400 Yeah, I just think for a lot of people, it sounds like saying, well, red Americans should just give up, like, sorry, Chuds, pack it up, you know, you're just going to be under this until, you know, some cadre of elites, you know, rolls in to save you and, you know, sweeps everyone off their feet until then and just kind of buckle down.

00:42:41.860 And the reality is that what I'm actually saying to the Chuds is, reculer pour, I'm going to butcher some French for you, like French is going to be murder here, reculer pour mieux sauter, which means step back to jump farther. 1.00

00:42:55.060 And the thing is, if you recognize that this is not a cosmetic problem, this is a serious problem, and you need to devote serious attention to it rather than, like, you know, frankly, like, hey, Chuds, like, if you treat this like a Pac-10 game, like, you're not going to win, you're not being a college football fan here. 0.98

00:43:15.860 Like, you know, stop, like, feeding your emotions and feeding, like, your need for drama and things that make you go, rah, we're going to own the lips.

00:43:24.800 No, no, actually, like, this matters. This is important. And, like, you actually have to, like, win in a sense that works.

00:43:31.880 Because, yeah, things are just going to get worse and worse and worse. And we already know what that future looks like. It looks like the third world. 0.84

00:43:38.880 It looks like the third world. And we're going to get a moment in about 10 or 20 years when the Supreme Court rules that, to use a phrase that you often hear in California, no person is illegal.

00:43:49.920 And you're going to basically see that the entire idea of restricting human beings to keep them out of the North American continent is a racist.

00:44:02.760 And that's at a point when basically you get about approximately, well, certainly hundreds of millions of Africans moving to this country because they can.

00:44:13.020 And why wouldn't you? And at that point, you're in a completely different ballgame.

00:44:18.440 And you've basically, like, lost this ballgame because you were just, like, screwing around.

00:44:24.440 And, like, the, because the thing is that, like, when you look at the way that American sort of populism, the, like, the mass of the right, the people who are opposed to, like, the elites, have used their power since really the 1920s. 0.99

00:44:39.980 What you basically see is that power has been diminishing since the 1920s and every point it's been basically squandered on bullshit.

00:44:50.920 And so, yeah, the reality is, like, okay, Chuds, you know, maybe you might want to figure out how you can get more than 50% of you to, like, vote in an election. 0.96

00:45:01.340 Maybe you can try to figure out how you can basically win every primary by actually getting primary voters to the polls, which are very sparsely attended, in order to basically produce a faction of, you know, Thomas Massey's and J.D. Vance's, essentially.

00:45:19.420 And, you know, people who are, like, actually serious, capable people who are, you know, nonetheless completely determined, those people out there, you know, find them, make sure they win the primaries, make sure that every Republican voter in Florida has an app on his phone, his or her phone, that is going to send them to the primary to vote for the right person on that election.

00:45:44.220 And literally, like, gives them a freaking map pop-up and tells them how to walk to the polling place, gets a mail-in ballot delivered to their house.

00:45:52.220 Like, basically, yeah, like, you want to win, don't care about issues, care about power.

00:45:58.200 And, you know, when you're basically caring about issues and, like, you're just showing that you're not serious and your enemies only pretend to care about issues, all they care about is power.

00:46:09.060 They'll take any issue that gives them power in any direction.

00:46:13.800 They'll be globalists, you know, one day and nationalists another day.

00:46:17.700 They'll be the same at the same time.

00:46:19.700 You know, like, every time you hear a liberal do a land acknowledgement, I don't know if they do these in Florida or in occupied Seminole land, they're endorsing the Nazi principle of blood and soil. 0.72

00:46:30.640 And, you know, what that basically tells you is that these people will say anything to win.

00:46:37.140 Okay, you're not like that.

00:46:39.120 You're not there to say anything to win.

00:46:41.220 You're there to be the faction of truth, the side of honor and decency.

00:46:45.020 You won't say anything to win.

00:46:46.480 So if you won't say anything to win, you have to do anything to win.

00:46:49.180 And, like, you have to actually think about it as a game whose goal is not some dividend that you expect to win with power.

00:46:58.240 No, you want power itself.

00:47:00.440 And, like, so, for example, one of the best things that, you know, DeSantis has done, let's praise DeSantis for a moment.

00:47:07.980 Like, you know, you'll notice, you might have noticed that in the 2022 midterm elections, there was a rather, one of the reasons why some early commentators got a little tripped up is that they saw the results coming out of Florida.

00:47:23.440 And the results coming out of Florida were for a giant red wave.

00:47:27.740 Strangely, this wave did not appear elsewhere in America.

00:47:33.640 I'm sure this has nothing to do with the election reforms of Ron DeSantis.

00:47:39.880 Well, maybe it does.

00:47:42.340 Right.

00:47:42.560 And so the thing is that basically if you want to cause, let's compare two potential causes for conservatives.

00:47:51.340 You could want to repeal Roe versus Wade.

00:47:55.840 Oh, wait, right.

00:47:56.560 You already did that.

00:47:58.240 What does that do?

00:48:00.120 More massive contributions to the ACLU.

00:48:02.560 New York Times subscribers up.

00:48:04.540 You lost the midterm elections because of this.

00:48:08.220 But you added the cost of a Greyhound ticket to the cost of an abortion. 1.00

00:48:11.440 So you probably saved some innocent, unborn loss.

00:48:15.040 Okay.

00:48:15.320 Now, suppose your cause instead was to say, okay, we as Americans are going to go back to one-day elections with a secret ballot.

00:48:26.620 And, like, you got to, you know, elections are about showing up.

00:48:30.960 You got to be there.

00:48:31.660 You got to show up.

00:48:32.560 If you want an absentee ballot, like, ask a court or something.

00:48:36.980 Right.

00:48:37.280 You know, so maybe a little more extreme than what DeSantis did.

00:48:41.160 But basically, strangely enough, when you basically be like, you know, you put a little bit of energy into a certain kind of election security, then, I don't know, maybe it's just DeSantis' like personal popularity that caused these disparities in voting between Florida and non-Florida.

00:49:03.680 All I know is that looks like it worked.

00:49:06.280 Right.

00:49:06.760 And so when you basically say, I'm going to basically get some power by being elected governor of Florida, and then I'm going to use that power to, like, you know, implement election security, and that power is going to sort of pay a dividend of, like, keeping me in power.

00:49:26.200 Like, you know, then you're using power in the right way.

00:49:29.920 You're actually doing a thing that works.

00:49:31.520 And, you know, if this country could get back to one-day elections with the secret ballot, I don't know how many extra, like, Republican, how that would change the balance of voting.

00:49:46.180 I mean, it's really hard to know sort of what goes into, like, a mail-in ballot campaign.

00:49:54.580 I guess it's somewhat messy.

00:49:56.020 But, you know, yeah, that seemed to deliver, like, a solid Republican edge in Florida of, like, 2% to 5% of the vote or whatever in a very unimpeachable way.

00:50:06.840 And so doing that sort of thing where you basically use power to build more power instead of getting power and just, like, you know, spending it immediately like a ghetto lottery winner is, like, you know, yeah, right. 0.89

00:50:24.940 If you're in it to win it, the way to be in it to win it is not to be, like, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah.

00:50:30.060 You know, it's to actually use your energy much, much more efficiently, you know, recognize that it's not 1776.

00:50:39.920 Americans are not going to arm themselves and, like, take to the streets and, like, you know, storm the government buildings or whatever the heck. 0.93

00:50:46.580 You know, no, you want basically simple and easy things that basically allow your voters who just want a grill to do one thing one time and win completely.

00:50:57.840 And if that's your mindset, you're going to get, like, way better and way different results.

00:51:06.380 Moreover, you know, even you have to respect the grift.

00:51:10.660 It's very important to respect the grift.

00:51:13.100 If, like, the world tells you that there's, like, an element of, like, grift here, like, okay, you have to basically.

00:51:20.560 But the thing is doing it for real is often a better grift, right?

00:51:26.140 Really, actually, like, if you're, like, okay, I'm a grifter.

00:51:30.020 I need my YouTube revenue, whatever.

00:51:31.840 Like, but the thing is the more you can keep it real, like, the more real you can be, the more you will, like, feel the energies of, like, heaven moving behind you.

00:51:41.980 You know, and saying, like, this grift has substance.

00:51:44.560 And people will, like, hear your grift and be, like, and then compare it to the other grift, which is so much less real. 0.99

00:51:50.080 And they'll be, like, wow, this is the real shit, you know? 0.95

00:51:53.400 And so, again, like, you know, doing it in this sort of little grifty, like, way, which sort of seems to be scary and is just, like, provocative is, like, so different from, like, you know, you know, the future is a completely different world. 0.99

00:52:13.120 And this is how we start.

00:52:15.920 And, like, the future is a completely different world can be, like, you know, there's, there's, it is possible to seduce even blue elites. 0.72

00:52:29.440 It's, I know this because I'm a blue elite myself, you know, and I read the wrong books and I got seduced and I can never come back.

00:52:38.360 And, you know, and, and, and, like, the, you know, these were, these were old books, right?

00:52:43.600 You know, it's possible to, like, refine that message and make it more seductive and basically, you know, point yourself in the direction of, like, what used to be the dirt bag left.

00:52:57.060 And you're, like, yeah, actually, these are people who, if you're selling them, sorry, if you're selling them, if you're selling elites a real future that is, like, really different, they want to be on that bandwagon.

00:53:17.980 They want to be part of it.

00:53:18.940 They want to be in charge of it.

00:53:20.320 And, like, to say that that real future involves, like, peasants in the Florida panhandle who, like, believe in God and, like, just want to grill and, you know, all they got to, all they want to do is raise their children to believe in, like, the Sky Fairy like they believe it.

00:53:39.460 You know, like, actually, there's a way that you can say to even blue state people, okay, I know you believe in science, science, not God, right?

00:53:50.080 But actually, you can let these people be.

00:53:53.980 And, and, like, you don't need to, like, persecute them.

00:53:56.420 You don't need to trans their children. 1.00

00:53:58.180 Do you do that to the Amish?

00:53:59.880 Are you, like, going into, like, Amish country and saying, like, all the Amish must become trans?

00:54:03.860 No, you're by their beautiful furniture with your, like, you know, funny money that the Fed prints for you, right? 0.90

00:54:09.840 You know, like, and, and that's, like, a much more, you know, if you basically, it's, like, you know, the, you know, being seductive versus being rapey.

00:54:19.340 Being rapey is, like, okay, I'm going to, like, threaten the libs into, like, you know, they're going to fear me and they're going to do, you know, you know, what I want because I'm, like, going to make them fear me, you know, which is, like, a strategy.

00:54:33.960 Reminiscent of the bad custody battle, you know, and where I'm, like, you know, like, threaten this person into, like, doing the right thing, right?

00:54:41.680 You know, and, and the, like, actually, you know, if you basically say to the blue state elites, hey, like, you don't have to be afraid anymore, right?

00:54:54.780 You know, here's a new thing.

00:54:56.620 It's better than the old thing.

00:54:57.820 It's what the hobbits out there in Florida should want. 1.00

00:54:59.920 It's also what you should want, like, because it's going to be amazing for you, too, and, like, we're not going to, like, try to turn you into hobbits and, you know, you don't have to go and take all the, you don't have to protect yourself by this, like, impossible task of turning these, like, Cajun swamp creatures into, like, Jews, right? 0.92

00:55:19.080 You know, like, you could give up on that, you know, it's expensive.

00:55:22.140 It doesn't work.

00:55:23.040 It's very frustrating.

00:55:24.160 Just let them be hobbits, you know, and, and, and, like, that sense of, like, I'm going to take away your fear, not by, like, making you agitated, but, like, by, like, actually, like, making you more chill.

00:55:38.200 And saying, okay, you can actually, here's a future where, hey, you know, when I imagine the right government for America, America has many kinds of people in it, including both progressives and conservatives.

00:55:52.720 And, like, yeah, if you're a progressive, your children should go to a progressive school.

00:55:57.560 And if they're conservatives, if you're a conservative parent, your children should go to a conservative school.

00:56:02.680 And, like, you know, if I say that and people look at me like I'm crazy, like, I'm going to keep saying it, you know.

00:56:08.580 And, and that's a very, and so in that kind of vision, basically, you're a progressive.

00:56:15.160 You don't have to be afraid of, like, you know, some, like, Southern Baptist minister coming to your, like, little progressive education Waldorf school and, like, convincing your children that, like, Jesus will take you to hell or something, right?

00:56:30.200 You know, and, and, like, that's actually, it's kind of more appealing.

00:56:34.960 And it also involves, like, a kind of appeal to power that is actually rather attractive because, yeah, you know, standing between, like, elites want power.

00:56:47.980 That's what elites do.

00:56:49.340 Like, they're, they scheme for power.

00:56:51.560 They have nothing better to do.

00:56:52.480 And if you basically offer that to them in a way that's appealing, that, like, is actually, like, real and not a stunt, and it's not like, oh, I'm going to, like, scare you into, like, supporting your enemies, like, it's actually much more appealing.

00:57:10.740 It's actually, like, something that can sell.

00:57:13.820 And when you basically say is, you know, okay, I want to fight, I want to attack, I want to own the libs.

00:57:25.360 Yeah, you want to own the libs. 0.95

00:57:26.560 You want to go out there and seduce their children. 1.00

00:57:28.720 I mean, not literally, but, like, you want to get them to vote for you, you know?

00:57:32.100 Easy.

00:57:32.740 And, like, like, two can play at that game, you know?

00:57:35.560 So, and so, here's the only problem.

00:57:37.640 I think a lot of people have a real difficulty in seeing the progressive coalition ever do this, right?

00:57:44.880 Because the only thing gluing them together is their hatred and their right to rule and punish the Chuds, right? 1.00

00:57:50.160 Like, denazification is the unifying religion of the left.

00:57:54.340 Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

00:57:55.720 So, the idea that they're just going to be, like, convinced to leave you alone and let you.

00:58:00.440 It's a stale religion. 0.94

00:58:01.840 And the thing is, it's not, like, you know, like, what you're doing from the perspective, like, they actually, the thing that's motivating these voters on both sides is actually on the, among the libs, yeah, there's a substantial portion of hate amongst the fear, but there's a lot of fear.

00:58:27.500 And, like, and so, they, you know, they're really, like, you know, the Times is, like, selling them fear every day.

00:58:34.680 And the, and this has been the case since, like, the 80s when I started reading, like, the New York Times, right?

00:58:40.440 I would get my daily dose of, like, being afraid of the peasants, like, every day.

00:58:44.740 And it's just, it's tiresome, and it's not really consistent with their values.

00:58:50.420 And because it's not really consistent with their values, where they're, like, have this weird cognitive dissonance of, like, going to their Unitarian Universalist church and being taught not to hate, and then reading the New York Times and being taught to hate, right?

00:59:03.320 You know, is, like, that's a burden that they have to carry.

00:59:08.200 And, you know, if you want people's, like, support, give them a way of, like, laying down that burden, and then give them something that they have to destroy to, you know, lay it down.

00:59:20.040 And, you know, what you're basically, for the latter, of course, yeah, if you want to, like, overthrow anything, you need a friend-enemy conflict.

00:59:28.120 Like, guess what your friend-enemy conflict is?

00:59:30.300 It's just generational, right?

00:59:32.100 You know, and so the thing is that, like, you know, if you basically have a viewpoint which is culturally aligned with the ruling class that basically persuades the younger members of the ruling class that the older members of the ruling class should be overthrown, that is a product that you can sell.

00:59:58.620 Do you think that the United States could make it through this transition intact?

01:00:04.360 There's a lot of talk about national divorce, of course, right now.

01:00:07.320 Yeah, I mean, you know.

01:00:07.760 I think a lot of people mean different things by it, like the self-sorting aspect or, you know.

01:00:12.080 Yeah, people are sort of LARPing, like, geography, right?

01:00:14.640 And the thing is, when I imagine a kind of national divorce that makes sense, like, you know, geographically, it's ridiculous.

01:00:24.080 But, you know, the thing is, like, we're not really a nation in which geography matters anyway.

01:00:32.440 When I imagine something close to a national divorce that works, it's more like, okay, citizen, here's a form.

01:00:42.220 You're going to write on the form which group you're part of.

01:00:45.640 And which group you're part of will determine whether your kids go to the blue schools or the red schools.

01:00:50.640 This is called pillarization in the Netherlands, works perfectly fine, basically allows each of these groups, you know, sort of takes away their reasons to mess with each other.

01:01:04.460 And it doesn't have to be, like, geographic sorting.

01:01:07.560 Like, you can live, you know, next door to someone and your kids can go to different schools.

01:01:14.240 That works.

01:01:15.940 You know, you can live next door to someone and you can have different laws that govern your marriage than them. 0.99

01:01:21.520 And then, okay, you know, if you want to, you know, Romeo, red state Romeo wants to marry blue state Juliet, right?

01:01:27.620 You know, that's a little more problematic, can be done.

01:01:31.020 And, you know, but you're still basically that kind of national divorce is, like, basically makes a lot more sense than the, like, okay, Texas will become a red state.

01:01:43.260 And, like, expel the entire population of Austin and, like, a new trail of tears to New Mexico or something, right? 0.95

01:01:48.700 You know, just, like, retarded ideas like this. 0.99

01:01:52.340 And can we say retarded on the blaze? 0.99

01:01:54.760 Is that okay? 0.76

01:01:55.500 I mean, we already have, so.

01:01:57.160 There we go.

01:01:59.100 Sometimes I'll be talking in a more, you know, authorized context and I'll just say the R word, which works rather well. 1.00

01:02:05.960 Or, you know, and the, or I'll say regarded instead.

01:02:11.940 You can try saying regarded, people will look at you and then we'll get it, right?

01:02:15.400 You know, and, and the, I'm sorry, I'm, you know, it's been kind of tone, Berkeley.

01:02:20.180 But the, like, yeah, you know, like, that is, like, the difference between, like, this sort of thing that's, like, this, like, LARP-y idea based on, like, 18th century politics.

01:02:33.800 And, like, a reality that, like, actually works is, like, is sort of emblematic of, like, the difference between, okay, I can see that you feel that this thing is uncomfortable.

01:02:48.900 But, like, if you chuds basically hate this thing, but don't hate it enough to stop LARPing and, like, deal with it like grownups, then, yeah, actually you do deserve to lose. 0.99

01:03:02.000 Because history just doesn't, has no, history has no pity for losers. 1.00

01:03:06.320 Losers just lose. 0.99

01:03:07.060 That's the way it works. 0.91

01:03:08.700 And, like, and so to think in a non-LARP-y way rather than to, like, you know, sort of, conservatism has always sort of operated on this kind of unspoken principle that, like, as you, like, turn the dial up on, like, conservatism, it's, like, don't vote.

01:03:27.300 Or votes, you know, joins militia, joins militia, militia storms capital or whatever.

01:03:33.140 That's not the dial.

01:03:34.540 Like, the dial is basically how well organized can you be and how much are you actually determined simply to take power from your enemies.

01:03:44.160 And if you focus simply on building power and taking it from your enemies, you will think in a very, very different and much more effective way.

01:03:52.940 So, one thing that you've advocated for pretty regularly is kind of the tech CEO monarch, right?

01:04:01.040 Just the takeover.

01:04:03.320 Sure.

01:04:03.580 I've always wondered.

01:04:04.220 I mean, that's just because tech CEOs are better than other CEOs, like, you know, but that's something, you know.

01:04:08.620 That has nothing.

01:04:09.760 You can make toilet paper very well, but, like, yeah, sure, right.

01:04:12.760 So, my question is this, you know, you've talked a lot about, you know, being influenced by Thomas Carlyle, you know, condition of England.

01:04:22.040 You know, he's looking at these, you know, basically the spreadsheetification of our world and inability of leaders to understand these problems.

01:04:30.600 But don't you feel like encouraging a tech CEO to become your monarch is just doubling down on this problem of turning everything into a spreadsheet and quantification?

01:04:40.420 Do you feel like that really changes the issue?

01:04:42.740 Well, I mean, anything can be done badly, right?

01:04:47.700 I mean, you know, the thing is that, like, any CEO or any kind of leader, if they have any kind of competence, will, like, inhabit the problem in front of them.

01:05:00.200 And, furthermore, if you're a tech CEO doing anything significant and the only way that you can make decisions is by metrics, like, you're a terrible CEO.

01:05:15.680 And, like, actually, often, like, the job of being a CEO involves making decisions that are fundamentally aesthetic with, you know, completely inadequate amounts of information.

01:05:29.640 You cannot, like, A, B, test your way to, like, from, like, three guys in a room to a billion-dollar corporation.

01:05:36.080 It just can't be done.

01:05:37.460 And so you basically need, you know, like, all I'm saying, in a way, is, like, I really don't care if it's a, you know, tech CEO or, like, a, like, you know, construction firm CEO, right?

01:05:53.220 You know, the job of, sort of, being a leader with, like, a vision and a purpose and a, like, you know, goal is, like, that's an age-old problem.

01:06:07.540 And, you know, it takes a certain kind of human being.

01:06:11.940 And it takes, like, and the thing that's sort of most important, like, you know, message to the Chuds, Chud, in case you don't know, is, like, a sort of, it's a racial slur that's used for, like, normal Americans by these blue state people, right?

01:06:26.360 And if you don't know what a Chud is, you're a Chud. 1.00

01:06:29.420 And, or almost, right?

01:06:31.080 It's, I guess, a younger term.

01:06:32.260 But, like, it's basically a racial slur, you know?

01:06:35.320 And, but, like, the great thing to do with racial slurs is to appropriate them, of course.

01:06:39.320 And so, you know, my message sort of out, you know, to the Chuds out there is that politics kind of has this, like, pornographic quality where you're just, like, you're viscerally excited by participating in this drama in the same way that you're viscerally, 1.00

01:06:56.360 excited by watching, like, Alabama play Auburn, you know?

01:06:59.860 But when you're watching Alabama play Auburn, you're not actually doing anything.

01:07:03.800 And so, you know, everything in politics that gives you this sort of feeling of, like, emotional reward is a luxury.

01:07:15.360 It's something that you're doing for yourself and not for others.

01:07:18.680 And if you can basically abandon your need for that sort of emotional reward of group participation and, once again, think sort of coldly and cleanly about how to be as powerful as possible,

01:07:32.840 you will, again, find yourself getting very, very different answers as to what to do.

01:07:39.700 And, you know, so, you know, the mentality of, like, you know, there's this sort of classic sort of mentality of complaint that is part of the legend of American politics where, like, wow, the people are really abused.

01:07:55.280 We're not going to take it in.

01:07:56.100 We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.

01:07:57.900 Remember that movie, right?

01:07:58.820 You know, the thing is, the principle of, like, we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore will rise up because of the long list of oppressions that George III has inflicted on us.

01:08:10.740 Frankly, that's not actually what happened in the American Revolution.

01:08:14.040 That's not why the American Revolution happened.

01:08:16.240 That story wasn't even true then.

01:08:17.880 And it's really not true now.

01:08:19.760 And so, you know, the luxury of basically confusing your actual, like, need to win with this kind of rah-rah costume drama stuff, you know, is, like, it's a luxury.

01:08:37.700 Like, it's really not helping you out there, Chuds. 1.00

01:08:40.640 And, like, it's true that, like, you know, when you look at the difference between DeSantis and Charlie Crist or whatever, you know, you sense, okay, DeSantis is a much more serious person and much more, much less of, like, just a pure GOP, Inc. grifter.

01:09:03.840 But the kind of grift that he represents is arguably sort of more, like, because it takes the people that really want to do something and makes them feel like they're doing something, it's in some ways an even more dangerous grift.

01:09:29.000 And, like, taking that energy, taking that desire to, like, participate in the grift, taking that, like, no, we actually need, like, a government that is not trying to destroy us and destroy our nation, which, you know, is, like, as the Bible says, you know, when I become a man, I put aside childish things.

01:09:53.860 And I feel like there's still much that is, like, very childish about the way that Republican politics is conducted today.

01:10:05.640 Well, that's certainly true.

01:10:08.120 One thing I've heard you say, and it's very interesting because James Burnham obviously did a lot of work with the Machiavellians, I've heard you say that you're not a fan of the managerial revolution.

01:10:19.560 Do you think the idea of the managerial class is just bunk, or what is your problem?

01:10:23.380 The problem with the idea of the, you know, if you'd have called it the bureaucratic revolution, I wouldn't have had a problem with it.

01:10:30.220 The fundamental, you know, like, unfortunately, the main idea of the managerial revolution is also the most wrong idea of the managerial revolution, because it's this equation between bureaucrats and managers.

01:10:43.960 And, you know, as someone who sort of has seen the bureaucratic side of it and, like, knows, just from my background and knows the managerial side of it directly, these things couldn't be more different.

01:10:58.220 Because bureaucracy fundamentally has this bottom-up tone of, like, diffusing responsibility, whereas management is the concentration of responsibility.

01:11:08.980 And so, you know, when you look at a bureaucratic organization, it functions by process.

01:11:16.160 And when you look at a kind of truly managerial organization, it works like an army, it works by command.

01:11:24.760 And there's really, like, command and process are, like, the two opposed poles of how to run a large organization.

01:11:33.080 There's always a little bit of process with your command.

01:11:37.320 There's always a little bit of command with your process.

01:11:40.260 But essentially, you know, by equating the two and by describing this, like, managerial class, which, you know, okay, it's like an educated class, is the, like, as the same as, like, government bureaucrats is, like, fundamentally not correct.

01:12:03.080 So, if you just switched out the phrase bureaucratic class, would you find that the self-interest and the bureaucratic drift inside things like corporations and guarantees a compelling narrative?

01:12:17.640 Well, if you look at the bureaucratization of the private sector, again, you know, equating, like, you know, if you equate a bureaucrat with a manager,

01:12:30.060 you basically don't see the tension between the two and you don't see basically how, if you look at, like, Google over the last 20 years, it goes from being this very command-oriented, very startup-y kind of organization to this very bottom-up, long-house-y, bureaucratic, oligarchical structure.

01:12:51.340 That's very related to Google being a monopoly and having no real competitive pressures from the outside.

01:12:59.840 And the, like, I mean, monopoly should either be part of the government or they should be part of an economic order that's structured to allow competition.

01:13:10.520 And, you know, when you have sort of neither, you have, like, unaccountable stuff and you have stuff that decays like Google.

01:13:17.900 And when you have a monopoly that is not externally responsible in the proper way, then the, like, the, you know, it's just, like, bureaucracy grows like mold and fungus.

01:13:39.060 And bureaucracy is fundamentally, unlike a command organization, bureaucracy is fundamentally self-interested.

01:13:46.060 And so it basically develops these James Burnham-like things.

01:13:51.940 Bureaucracy is interested in power, so it grows in HR, you know.

01:13:56.820 I mean, the right doesn't work like the left, but imagine, you know, Google's HR being taken over by, like, Christians, like, really hardcore Christians. 0.99

01:14:06.220 And then, you know, they basically put a, you know, a thumb on the scale, like, if you believe in God, you know.

01:14:11.620 I mean, nothing's, you know, this is, like, to examine the level.

01:14:18.080 I mean, revolutions, you know, have arrows.

01:14:23.220 They don't work in the opposite of revolution is not revolution in the opposite direction, as Maestria said.

01:14:31.320 But if we imagine, you know, I was just talking to a very libertarian, you know, California tech libertarian friend who recounted his time in the 90s protesting while he was at UC Berkeley against loyalty oaths, which were the last vestige of, like, the 1950s.

01:14:50.300 Some fool in California in the 1950s, in a very DeSantis-like way, had passed a law saying, professors have to sign an oath that they're not communists.

01:14:59.720 Well, what do you suppose the communist professors did? 0.92

01:15:02.620 They signed an oath that they weren't communists.

01:15:04.920 Who was enforcing this?

01:15:06.580 Nobody.

01:15:07.200 It was a dead letter.

01:15:08.380 And basically, you know, my friend is, like, Stancy's, like, these loyalty oaths are an outrage, right, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 0.97

01:15:13.720 Of course, this is, like, completely toothless, like, you know, sort of sop to the, like, idiotic voters of Tolaire County who are subsidizing UC Berkeley, right?

01:15:24.780 You know, whereas the 2020s were all around and suddenly we have loyalty oaths again, except they're called, you know, inclusion statements or whatever, and they are enforced. 0.66

01:15:35.600 And, like, it does matter, like, what you've done.

01:15:38.600 So you want to really imagine having power over these institutions.

01:15:42.480 Imagine, you know, a situation where to get hired as a mechanical engineering professor at Florida State, you have to submit a document talking about your Christian faith, what you've done for Christ, how you've helped Christians in an academic setting, you know, how you've fought back against, you know, like, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

01:16:07.000 That's not the way to do it.

01:16:08.460 That's not the way that, sort of, diversity statements will disappear.

01:16:15.820 It's sort of more of a thought experiment of just being, like, this is, these are the levels of power that we're dealing with.

01:16:23.300 And the problem is that when you basically do the DeSantis thing of saying passing some, like, toothless law, you know, in the same way that was done in the 20s and the 50s, you're going to pass some toothless law.

01:16:35.140 You're basically giving people all of the energy that they would have if, well, they wouldn't have this energy even, but they're sort of imagining a world where to get a job as a professor, you have to show, you know, what you did for Christ.

01:16:51.280 And then, hey, you want to work in the private sector, you know, have you made any anti-Christian statements on your Twitters, right?

01:16:58.520 You know, have you taken God's name in vain, right?

01:17:01.840 You know, and they'll go back and they'll find something from 2018 where you took God's name in vain or something.

01:17:07.020 And you'll be like, you know, how can this person, how can a person who takes God's name in vain be working with young people?

01:17:13.620 What a travesty this is, right?

01:17:15.480 You know, that's the level of power if you wanted to be, like, be rapey and do it in their way. 0.96

01:17:22.460 That's, you know, you want to really, like, conceive a child through rape? 0.97

01:17:25.640 Go ahead. 0.77

01:17:26.340 Like, if you can get there with basically having your, like, Christian HR departments in every, you know, company in Florida. 0.93

01:17:35.100 Like, but, you know, as soon as you say it, you realize that it's, like, not real. 0.96

01:17:39.080 And, but, you know, what's even less real is basically pretending that you can get the same result with basically a stupid law that says no communism in the classroom or something. 0.98

01:17:51.340 Like, that's just embarrassing. 0.91

01:17:52.460 And, and, and, and, like, you know, and it's sort of, like, like, what I, like, want, like, people to hear, you know, is, like, yeah, like, actually, don't just do nothing.

01:18:14.420 Don't just do something, stand there.

01:18:16.020 Like, things that seem like positive actions can have, like, negative results.

01:18:20.560 But even if you're just standing there, you're not standing there just to stand there.

01:18:25.120 You're standing there to realize, like, what would it mean to actually solve this problem rather than just sort of, like, you know, it's like if you're an animal and you're, like, in the teeth of a predator, right?

01:18:41.220 That's a dangerous situation to be in.

01:18:43.200 And your natural impulse is to, like, struggle.

01:18:46.940 That predator is designed for animals that basically take out their natural impulse and, like, struggle.

01:18:53.800 Struggle sort of implies, like, desperation.

01:18:56.840 It implies chaos.

01:18:58.080 And it's like, you know, if you don't struggle, you strategize.

01:19:03.000 You plan, right?

01:19:04.500 You basically, you know, it's like the Gom Jabbar scene from, like, Doom. 0.84

01:19:09.740 Like, you know, you want to win, like, be a human, don't be an animal.

01:19:14.240 And when you're basically trying to win, like, an animal, you're just, like, anything that gives me this, like, hit of dopamine of, like, we owned the libs.

01:19:21.840 We sent the immigrants to Martha's Vineyard, right? 1.00

01:19:24.360 You know, like, it's just, like, it's this huge, like, you know, like, like, like, it's exciting, right, to, like, hack the libs, like, that way.

01:19:32.440 But it's really, like, all you're doing is, like, hacking the dopamine systems of your supporters so that they basically get another hit so that they keep coming back to your show.

01:19:45.220 But to say, okay, this is not a show.

01:19:48.600 Like, we're not going to do this as a show.

01:19:50.300 This is going to be real this time is, like, actually in its way, like, much more exciting.

01:19:56.300 Like, that's what drives me crazy.

01:19:58.020 Like, doing it for real is actually a better grift.

01:20:00.300 Do you have a little bit of time for the questions of the people?

01:20:06.120 Sure.

01:20:06.420 Let's take the questions of the people.

01:20:08.100 All right.

01:20:08.920 So, Kyle Jones for $10.

01:20:11.720 Thank you very much.

01:20:13.060 Haiti just needs democracy to be Norway. 0.94

01:20:15.480 Viva La Barbeque.

01:20:17.160 One good vote away.

01:20:18.960 The one good vote away.

01:20:20.860 Actually, Haiti has actually, there are actually no elected officials in Haiti anymore.

01:20:25.600 The whole thing just expired before they could hold elections.

01:20:29.080 And the real power in Haiti, according to New York Times anyway, is a gang leader named Barbeque.

01:20:35.920 Now, there's some debate over the name, actually, of this fellow, Barbeque.

01:20:40.460 You'll see it covered on his Wikipedia page.

01:20:42.580 You know, according to him, the name Barbeque was given to him because his mother sold fried chicken on the streets of Port-au-Prince.

01:20:51.900 And it has nothing to do with burning his enemies alive.

01:20:54.700 And, you know, like, let's choose to believe that.

01:20:57.920 Let's, you know, maybe we could support, like, there could be, like, a GoFundMe for Barbeque.

01:21:02.680 You know, we could support him as, like, the new leader of Haiti or something because, you know, I prefer to see the de facto become the de jure.

01:21:13.840 But, you know, it's sort of interesting to look at even just the history of U.S. engagement with Haiti because you've suddenly reached the point where actually there is no appetite in the international community for another invasion of Haiti.

01:21:27.940 Like, you know, they could do it in the 20s with the Marines and then, you know, they're doing it in the early 2000s.

01:21:33.940 They send the Nepali UN peacekeepers in and the Nepali UN peacekeepers not only accomplish nothing, but, like, give them, like, this, like, nasty Nepali strain of cholera, which is now, like, infesting the country. 0.80

01:21:46.420 And, you know, you've got to, like, and this challenge, okay, you know, like, I was talking to, this is a reference to a conversation I had with a lib in which he basically suggested that the right public policy for Haiti, like, the thing that would really fix Haiti would be to have a higher minimum wage.

01:22:03.780 You know, I mean, you know, you've got to hand it to anyone who has the courage of that level of conviction, right?

01:22:11.360 But the thing is, then you go to conservatives and you're like, well, you know, what would be the right thing for Haiti?

01:22:16.360 And they would be like, well, they should, you know, the vision of Martin Luther King, you know, was to have the U.S. Constitution in Haiti.

01:22:23.260 So, you know, what they really need is the separation of powers and, you know, wisdom of the founders.

01:22:28.660 You know, right, right, right.

01:22:30.540 So, you know, so these, for, like, understanding political, real smash mouth political signs from, like, the ground up, like, don't think about, like, oh, what is the right political system for Norway?

01:22:44.220 Like, you know, think about what is the right political system for Haiti and then, like, generalize that problem from the hard case of Haiti to the easy case of Norway.

01:22:53.080 Because, honestly, Norway can pretty much basically govern itself.

01:22:56.220 I mean, Norway's, like, the, like, net testosterone of, like, Norway has been, as far as I can tell, decreasing for, like, the last 2,500 years.

01:23:06.380 And there's currently as much testosterone in Norway as there is in the average, like, Ohio high school football team, you know.

01:23:15.120 That might mean that someone else might eventually govern Norway, but yeah.

01:23:19.200 Yeah, yeah, it might.

01:23:20.420 It might.

01:23:20.740 It might.

01:23:21.040 You know, really, a farsighted government of Norway would be, like, have, like, a testosterone restoration plan, you know, which might involve. 0.67

01:23:28.380 Start slonking the eggs, guys.

01:23:29.720 Start slonking the eggs and playing football.

01:23:31.980 Exactly.

01:23:32.620 So, Prague Skeptic for $10.

01:23:35.060 Hey, Curtis, big fan of your work.

01:23:36.400 I'm currently trying to read up on colonialism's history in South America and Africa.

01:23:42.280 I don't trust Amazon to give me unbiased suggestions.

01:23:45.040 Any recommendations?

01:23:45.740 Oh, yeah, that's an interesting, I guess, I think my recommendation is sort of more for, like, method than for, it's a sort of pretty broad topic.

01:24:00.920 So, really, what you're looking for is one out of two things, either books published before 1940 and preferably before 1930, because really the publishing industry becomes essentially woke-ified between 1930 and 1940.

01:24:19.720 Or you're looking for obscure publishers, typically between 1950 and 1975, who are basically taking, publishing books by people with pre-war educations and perspectives.

01:24:36.960 And so, there you're looking for more niche presses, Western Islands, Arlington House, Devin Adair.

01:24:44.880 There's probably equivalents in the UK, but I don't really know them.

01:24:48.520 But, yeah, when you basically fall into, you know, the sort of, like, I mean, books from the other side did get published, and you'll know them when you see them.

01:25:01.660 And they're all, I mean, you can, you know, I always recommend the fun old movie, Africa Addio, which is like this Italian pro-colonialist history of decolonization in Africa that was made in the late 60s.

01:25:15.060 Might want to fast-forward some of the animal cruelty sections, but really a great movie.

01:25:23.940 But, yeah, like, you basically, like, you just have to, you know, go looking in the right periods from the right publishers for stuff like that.

01:25:34.740 Banned again for $50. Thank you very much, sir. Very generous.

01:25:39.460 What does total victory look like? What does total defeat look like?

01:25:43.620 Well, I think we touched a little bit on those, but, yeah, a lot of people, what does victory look like here?

01:25:49.960 How do we know?

01:25:50.700 I mean, total defeat looks like, you know, what we have now, but worse.

01:25:55.500 It just looks like the third world getting closer and closer and more and more, like, you know, unsolvable.

01:26:03.080 I think total victory is a more, the way to sort of conceive of total victory is to imagine the way the future will look at the present, which is its past.

01:26:23.020 And if you think about the way people in, like, Germany in 2005 looked at East Germany, you'll sort of have a picture of that where you basically see this, like, you look backward and you see this thing that's, like, yeah, there's, like, you know, sort of economic things wrong with it, like you can't get a banana or whatever.

01:26:44.980 But it's just, like, this feeling of, like, complete depression and futility.

01:26:50.460 And the number of people in our society who basically, honestly, in their, like, professional and even personal lives are not in a state of, like, depression and futility and general enemy are, like, very low.

01:27:07.420 Like, you'll go and find, like, the only sector of society that feels in any sense alive is the uppermost upper class.

01:27:21.660 And you'll find, like, lower Manhattan is hopping, you know, like, it's doing great, you know.

01:27:29.100 And, you know, if you're part of the ruling class, life still works for you.

01:27:36.080 We can't imagine a world in which life has begun to, like, work again for people who are not in the laptop class.

01:27:46.480 And even for people in the laptop class, like, actually, your life could be a lot more fulfilling and enriching.

01:27:54.760 You could have a lot more community.

01:27:56.380 You could have a lot more meaning.

01:27:57.620 Probably for at least half the people in that class, you would find a much more meaningful life doing something with your hands than with your laptop.

01:28:07.660 And the, like, making all of those things, like, possible and, like, feeling, you know, it's like if people from America from 100 years ago saw this country, yes, they would be disturbed by various, you know, areas of, like, squalor and, like, decay.

01:28:27.140 But the country would just seem kind of dead to them, except for these little, except for, like, lower Manhattan, right, you know, and, you know, things that look like lower Manhattan with people that are, like, lower Manhattan people.

01:28:39.900 And, you know, the feeling of, like, most, I mean, a couple summers ago.

01:28:44.060 I'm not sure that people from 100 years ago would be dazzled by lower Manhattanites, but go ahead.

01:28:48.460 No, they'd be, they'd be, like, they'd find it acceptable.

01:28:50.940 Like, you know, they'd accept, no, well, they'd find that they were dressed very badly.

01:28:55.400 But, like, you know.

01:28:56.500 I don't know if that would be their main concern, but, okay.

01:28:58.640 Like, well, you know.

01:28:59.860 It might be, it might be the castration of children in schools and stuff.

01:29:03.540 Yeah, yeah, but that might be scandalous.

01:29:05.020 That's not being done on the, you know, that's not being done in broad daylight on Brum Street, you know.

01:29:09.220 Okay.

01:29:11.720 And the, maybe it should be, you know, if you're going to do that, do it in public.

01:29:15.400 Own it in public, yeah.

01:29:16.600 Own it in public, right.

01:29:17.740 But, yeah, I mean, you know, sure, they would see that, they would see things that disturb them.

01:29:21.860 But, like, just the level of, like, watching, like, video footage from the future and being, like, oh, my God, it's dead.

01:29:29.020 Like, imagine, like, the citizens of, like, Birmingham, Alabama, you know, in 1923, seeing Birmingham, Alabama in 2023.

01:29:37.540 They would just be, like, alien invasion.

01:29:40.340 Like, you know, I mean, and so the thing is that, you know, what total victory looks like is just sort of a tremendous sense of, like, civilizational rebirth in which everyone's kind of excited to participate.

01:30:00.940 And that feeling of rebirth is what you should have if you, if you have anything that's sort of like a regime change and it doesn't have that feeling of, like, joyous rebirth, then you're probably doing something wrong.

01:30:14.540 So, Sage, here for five euros, I think.

01:30:17.920 Why did you settle in the elves, hobbits analogy?

01:30:22.160 What happened to the Armager's Yeoman and Lazari?

01:30:24.860 Also, is the book ever coming out?

01:30:26.620 Yeah, the book is, I mean, I, like, you know, the book is coming out with Passage Press.

01:30:34.640 I'm recently, you know, my personal life has been somewhat in turmoil, but I'm going to release a, you know, the, I have, I sort of, I posted a bunch of drafts of a version and then I'm like, this isn't quite right.

01:30:48.360 And I have a first chapter that will, of a new thing that will come out soon.

01:30:52.800 As for the analogies, like, you know, you know, if I can say the same thing in a way that's more mass market accessible, but I'm still saying the same thing, like, I will.

01:31:11.320 And, you know, so the sense of, like, basically, you know, I think my earlier work had sort of more of a sense of, like, creating an alternate universe and I, like, sort of focus a little more these days on, like, converging that alternate universe with, like, the real version, the real universe that we live in.

01:31:35.280 Yeah, we don't get a lot of patchwork anymore.

01:31:38.100 Yeah, it's all there.

01:31:39.220 It's coming.

01:31:40.780 Many people will be happy to hear that.

01:31:42.900 Oh, definitely.

01:31:43.960 The answer is definitely I would have been a Bonapartist in 1810 if I was, if I was French.

01:31:49.700 And, you know, the feeling of, like, actually Napoleon, the feeling of Napoleonic France is, like, in some ways the most accessible kind of feeling of, like, national transformation you can imagine.

01:32:06.280 Unfortunately, it's associated with this, like, world war, which was not good and which Napoleon eventually lost.

01:32:12.480 But still, basically, Napoleon's, like, reinvention of France is, like, so, for example, you know, one of the things Napoleon finds, Napoleon's basically a startup guy.

01:32:22.720 He's very, like, a tech CEO. 0.66

01:32:24.460 And one of the things he finds when he looks at France is that the legal system is a complete shitshow. 0.97

01:32:30.580 You know, one of the things that you may find if you look at America, have you ever been involved in a legal matter, is that the legal system is a complete shitshow.

01:32:37.580 And, you know, the idea of basically taking this thing and, like, redesigning it, rebuilding it from scratch seems just, like, as impossible to us as the idea of, like, rebuilding Microsoft Windows from scratch.

01:32:49.380 And yet Napoleon did it.

01:32:50.500 And basically, Napoleon rewrote the operating system of France.

01:32:54.260 And France, to this day, despite many, much water that has flowed under the bridge, is still kind of basically running on the Napoleonic operating system.

01:33:02.380 And that's sort of what makes it, other than Japan, I would say, France is still one of the least American countries in the Western world.

01:33:14.300 And that's due to Napoleon. 0.64

01:33:17.000 Yeah, it was just there recently.

01:33:18.900 It is definitely one of the least American. 0.50

01:33:21.640 So, Christian Smitherman for $2.

01:33:25.280 Curtis, what do you like most about Michael Malice?

01:33:28.080 That's a $2 question.

01:33:35.880 I feel like you should have paid more, yeah.

01:33:38.040 Yeah, no.

01:33:39.440 Well, if Malice is going to send a sock account in here, he's got to put some more money down, you know.

01:33:44.860 Yeah, yeah.

01:33:45.940 I would say, without going into details, I would say his openness to new kinds of experience.

01:33:53.860 It's very exciting.

01:33:55.560 Sounds very exciting.

01:33:56.420 I'll know what I mean.

01:33:58.080 The Salty Rainbow for $20, Return to Christ, Don't Listen to Pharisees. 0.95

01:34:02.300 Well, Return to Christ is always...

01:34:04.220 Well, you know, the Pharisees, to paraphrase the Bible, the Pharisees we have always with us, right? 0.91

01:34:09.560 You know?

01:34:10.300 And the Pharisees are, I think, historically actually quite similar to the blue state elites we have to deal with now. 0.89

01:34:23.800 Not that my Bible history is all that great.

01:34:26.380 You know, at the same time, you know, of course, one never steps in the same river twice.

01:34:33.520 You know, the, like, I don't know what the organizing principle of the next regime will be.

01:34:45.520 I think, you know, Christ has done fine for a couple thousand years.

01:34:51.400 It's like, I tend to feel that we're simply in a very impious and very ironic age.

01:35:00.860 And so, you know, the sort of, like, there's a way, you know, which makes it a sort of satanic age.

01:35:11.820 And the question of how that satanic character of the age, because, like it or not, politics is the art of the possible.

01:35:22.580 And sort of the art of kind of converting the satanic character into something that looks like the kingdom of heaven

01:35:34.540 is the sort of jiu-jitsu feat that maybe, you know, involves using the forces and methods of the day for something that has got to, again, look a little bit like the kingdom of heaven.

01:35:55.380 Right, you know, and that's a delicate, like, feat of martial arts.

01:36:03.120 And, like, once again, there's a sort of, like, you know, in the kingdom of Satan can, like, men be seduced by Christ, you know, and how does Christ accomplish that?

01:36:18.240 These are questions that I don't understand.

01:36:20.800 But, like, I definitely, to say that the, like, theological echoes of the modern problem are not real is, like, you know, no, you can really, you can't.

01:36:34.980 Even a person, even a completely atheistic, secular person with a completely, like, blue state background like mine

01:36:45.180 can sort of parse this conflict and see the way in which it can really be seen in a deep and non-frivolous way as the contest of Satan and Christ.

01:37:01.360 Okay, Jay here for $20.

01:37:03.460 Credentialism was supposed to lead to real-world jobs, which no longer is the case outside of STEM and is number one burden of debt on Gen Y.

01:37:13.300 Could drastic public school job internship programs help deal an effective blow to academia?

01:37:19.740 Do you think there's a new-

01:37:21.400 Yeah, you have a serious problem there, which is, you know, elite overproduction.

01:37:25.800 And so, you know, when you basically lead people on paths out of the system, your question is often, like, okay, but, like, where are they going?

01:37:35.480 Right, and the thing is that there aren't really super-duper clear answers to that.

01:37:43.520 It's true, for example, that we have, like, a rather large shortage of basically skilled blue-collar work in this country, and shortages lead to, like, high pay.

01:37:56.040 And, you know, it's a fact that it's getting pretty expensive to call the plumber.

01:38:01.580 And, you know, does that lead me to, like, want my son to be a plumber?

01:38:06.260 That's a harder question.

01:38:09.720 Like, I'm thinking probably not really.

01:38:12.560 And so, you know, the sense of, like, you know, I'm sort of, this is why it feels sort of more promising in some ways to, like, infiltrate these systems, you know, as, like, depressing as it is to work inside them.

01:38:33.600 And you're not really, like, infiltrating them sort of in this, like, conspiracy sense.

01:38:38.320 You're just sort of, like, spreading, like, you know, one of the things that I like to say is that every regime can resign.

01:38:46.520 Every regime can sort of grow tired of life.

01:38:49.100 You know, there's no monarchy that has, like, a provision for abdicating in it.

01:38:53.580 But it somehow turns out that any king can abdicate.

01:38:56.040 And so, you know, when I'm basically, like, you know, what is the path for someone who is, like, based to, like, exist in this world, you know, I want to, my answer to the question winds up always being, like, just, like, hide your power level and just follow the track that works for you.

01:39:20.540 I don't know that, like, pulling people aside from that is a way that, like, actually works.

01:39:30.100 But do you feel...

01:39:31.000 Yeah, sorry.

01:39:32.900 Well, I was going to say, do you feel like the breaking the stranglehold of academic credentialism is an essential part of kind of shifting things?

01:39:42.100 Well...

01:39:42.620 Not in the short term, obviously.

01:39:44.000 Yeah, no.

01:39:44.660 I mean, the thing is, you have, you know, there are two kinds of credentials.

01:39:47.380 There are credentials that, like, mean something and credentials that don't.

01:39:51.420 And so, you know, to the extent that you can basically produce, you know, credentials in the tech world that mean something without the involvement of academia.

01:40:03.320 Of course, these are, like, you know, kind of, these are high status rather than low status jobs.

01:40:08.180 It's not quite the same as being a plumber.

01:40:11.720 Yeah, it's good.

01:40:14.000 And, like, and the, like, but ultimately, it's, like, when you try to, when you try to kind of take energy away from these systems, like, you have to, you know, it's like people say, well, you know, Harvard is just a hedge fund, you know, now, right?

01:40:40.360 It's like, basically, people are still going to go to Harvard to get English lit in sociology degrees, let alone, like, computer science degrees.

01:40:50.040 You're still, you know, these institutions being dominant institutions are still going to attract amazing people, however much they screw up the admissions, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

01:41:01.760 And so, it's basically what these private sector things are doing if you look at, like, say, Lambda School, like, you know, would I rather have hire someone who had an undergraduate degree in computer science from Harvard or a graduate of, like, the sort of Lambda School boot camp?

01:41:24.360 Well, and I'd rather hire the Harvard grad.

01:41:27.600 Conversely, if I had the opportunity to go to either of those things when I was a kid, I'd still rather go to Harvard.

01:41:33.860 You know, so breaking that is, like, breaking that is really hard.

01:41:39.100 Moreover, if you're breaking it as a business, your business tends to operate around, like, the middle of the curve because it needs volume.

01:41:46.860 And it doesn't really operate at, like, the peak.

01:41:49.680 And, like, the peak is if I want to compete with Harvard, I need a collection of, like, computer scientists that are, like, more amazing than the average, like, Harvard professor.

01:41:59.020 And, you know, that's a sort of different, you know, which can be done, right?

01:42:03.020 I can imagine doing that.

01:42:04.340 It's a very different thing from Lambda School.

01:42:05.980 And so, yeah, you know, those things, when those things come out as, like, businesses, they turn out to, like, not be the path to, like, actually competing with Harvard.

01:42:24.880 Sure, but, I mean, if Harvard and Yale and stuff, you know, they turn down enough qualified, you know, really bright, like, white and Asian kids because they just don't check enough boxes. 0.99

01:42:35.600 They weren't really willing to change their pronouns to kind of make that happen.

01:42:39.560 Then eventually, no matter how much prestige they're handing out, like, there's a problem, right?

01:42:44.040 Yeah, there's, you know, if they're doing that, well, there's not really a problem.

01:42:48.760 It's just that there's, like, free energy for some opposing system to collect.

01:42:54.040 But you still got to collect it.

01:42:55.840 You still have to, like, do the work.

01:42:57.520 You still have to basically get donors to throw, you know, tens or hundreds of millions of dollars at something that is not going to produce a return, even as a return on power for decades.

01:43:08.360 And, you know, part of the problem that the right has is, like, it's just full of this, like, easy gratification kind of thinking.

01:43:19.300 And so the idea of, frankly, a right wing activist saying to donors, hey, you know, you need to, like, invest money deeply for the long term, long term, rather than basically saying, how am I going to throw $20,000 at this and get a $20,000, you know, sugar rush when you're worth $20 billion?

01:43:42.060 No, like, that's not, you're just, like, not serious.

01:43:46.660 You're not, you know, you're playing too small ball.

01:43:50.680 And just, like, all over the right, even despite the, like, escalations and, like, levels of ball playing, you know, the, like, the, the everybody's playing sort of small, quick ball rather than, you know, really trying to win the game.

01:44:08.180 It is shockingly difficult to get people who are theoretically right wing to make serious long term investments and in victory.

01:44:16.000 You're absolutely right about that.

01:44:18.540 Lev from Break the Rules here, letting us know that he's shitting out his two favorite Break the Rules guests.

01:44:24.940 Thank you for stopping by, sir.

01:44:26.160 All right. Shout out, shout out to my favorite ho-ho. 1.00

01:44:29.040 And I don't know what that means.

01:44:32.820 I hope so.

01:44:33.820 It's a, it's a, it's a racial slurp, but, but it's okay. 0.99

01:44:37.680 I've thought about Americans.

01:44:41.000 Let's see.

01:44:41.720 Evan Schultz, I appreciate your, your super chat, sir, but unfortunately we have to stay monetized on YouTube, so we won't be going through those.

01:44:50.200 Let's see.

01:44:53.800 Pernomi and Chomsky.

01:44:55.760 What are some of, you know, I mean, you know, it's just like, honestly, I think like.

01:45:02.500 What's the secret Twitter handle?

01:45:03.940 You can tell us.

01:45:04.560 I don't, I'm not on Twitter.

01:45:05.940 Like, you know, I think, honestly, I think a non, you know, frog Twitter, if you will, is very much like an effective meritocracy.

01:45:17.800 The problem is that it's a meritocracy, like, with like random, like shootings.

01:45:22.120 And so I find, you know, these days that, you know, people, for example, don't even know the names like Hakan Rodenwort or Menachinone IV.

01:45:31.320 You remember those fellows.

01:45:32.860 I was at a, you know, a hopping party in New York two or three months ago, and these two people come up to me on the floor.

01:45:40.220 And it is literally Hakan and Mena together.

01:45:43.120 And I'm like, oh, my God, like, I'm, you know, I feel like I've been visited by like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington together.

01:45:49.940 And then we talk for like five minutes and then the party ends and then I direct them to the wrong after party.

01:45:56.040 Like, you know, so, so I think that, you know, frog Twitter is actually a pretty good meritocracy and the people who have strong reputations there really are, have like depth and strength.

01:46:10.640 But like, you have to consider the fallen, right?

01:46:13.900 You know, and like the greats are not just the greats that are publishing currently.

01:46:18.500 And so when I find that people are, have never heard of like Hakan, you know, who was the first, for example, to inform us that women only like camping because it reminds them of being abducted by an enemy tribe is, is like, you know, yeah, there's, there's, there's old kids.

01:46:36.680 Kids don't even know the classics anymore.

01:46:38.240 Kids don't even know the classics anymore.

01:46:40.500 It's very sad.

01:46:40.980 Very sad.

01:46:41.520 All right.

01:46:41.840 All right.

01:46:42.060 A little, I'm, I'm close to having to run here.

01:46:44.380 Well, good news.

01:46:44.800 Cause we just got through all of them.

01:46:46.000 So you tapped out just in time.

01:46:48.040 Curtis, I know you've got, uh, you got to go, but do you want to, uh, I thought I saw a qualified reservations book coming out.

01:46:55.780 Yeah.

01:46:56.160 So passage, passage press is putting out, um, a, uh, a book of old unqualified reservations classics, uh, which, uh, you know, actually I haven't read this stuff since it was published.

01:47:07.260 So, you know, but I'm, I'm told it's good.

01:47:09.340 And then, uh, you know, my sub stack gray mirror is, uh, among other things, uh, drafting, you know, my book to be called a gray mirror.

01:47:18.020 And that's gray mirror.substack.com gray with an a, the American way, check it out, read it, subscribe to it.

01:47:25.480 Excellent.

01:47:25.940 Well, thank you for coming by everybody.

01:47:27.980 Make sure you check out Curtis's work.

01:47:29.940 Of course, if you have not subscribed to this channel, please do so.

01:47:33.200 And if you'd like to hear this as a podcast, you can go ahead and check out the Oren McIntyre show on all your favorite podcast networks.

01:47:39.800 Make sure you go ahead and leave a rating and review.

01:47:42.620 If you do, thanks for all the great questions, guys.

01:47:45.180 We really appreciate you coming by.

01:47:46.600 And as always.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - February 23, 2023

Cargo Cult Democracy ｜ Guest： Curtis Yarvin ｜ 2⧸23⧸23

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript