The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1276 - Ben Shapiro

00:00:08.000 Yes.

00:00:09.000 We're live, Ben Shapiro.

00:00:10.000 Hey, how's it going, dude?

00:00:12.000 Very good.

00:00:12.000 How's it going with you, man?

00:00:13.000 It's going well.

00:00:14.000 I love the new digs.

00:00:15.000 Thank you.

00:00:15.000 I haven't been here since you finished it over, and I walked in, I thought to myself, I've been doing my business wrong.

00:00:21.000 I mean, you got, what, three employees?

00:00:23.000 Yeah, there's not that many folks working on this.

00:00:25.000 Yeah, I mean, so in my offices, we have like 80, and our offices are not nearly this cool.

00:00:31.000 So I'm going to go back to my office and fire everyone, and then have your folks come in and design, because...

00:00:37.000 I mean, it's either a lot of people or I could have cars in my office.

00:00:41.000 Yeah, but you wouldn't go down this route.

00:00:43.000 You're more of a conservative gentleman than myself.

00:00:46.000 You're wearing a suit jacket.

00:00:47.000 You're your own boss.

00:00:49.000 Nobody tells you how to dress, and yet you dress like a grown-up.

00:00:52.000 Yeah, well, you know, I won't pretend that nobody tells me how to dress.

00:00:55.000 We have people who tell me how to dress.

00:00:57.000 We have people who do my hair.

00:00:58.000 Do you have all that stuff?

00:00:59.000 You have, like, fashion folks?

00:01:00.000 Yeah, yeah, because I used to, I mean, if you look at the old photos of me, I have, like, the Hitler hair. 0.72

00:01:05.000 I've got, like, the hair, that's the only thing about me that's hilarious, was my old hair, and I've got the hair that kind of comes down over the forehead, and I still walk into the office wearing basically an undershirt every day, because I'm incredibly lazy when it comes to that stuff, but we have...

00:01:17.000 You should be able to.

00:01:18.000 Yeah, I mean, that's the prerogative of being the boss.

00:01:20.000 Maybe you'd be more relatable.

00:01:21.000 Maybe if you showed up wearing, like, flip-flops and a t-shirt.

00:01:24.000 That kind of kills my brand, though, no?

00:01:25.000 Does it?

00:01:26.000 What is your brand, exactly? 1.00

00:01:28.000 I thought I was being an asshole. 1.00

00:01:31.000 I think you're an asshole, though. 1.00

00:01:32.000 Well, thank you. 1.00

00:01:32.000 I appreciate it. 1.00

00:01:33.000 You're a very nice guy.

00:01:33.000 You're just conservative.

00:01:35.000 That's the dirty little secret, though.

00:01:36.000 Yeah.

00:01:36.000 We're not supposed to talk about that.

00:01:38.000 But this is one of the things that bothers me so much about you being so misrepresented.

00:01:42.000 When I read things about you, there was the article that we were just talking about, the alt-right sage without the rage, they called you, and you're not even remotely alt-right.

00:01:51.000 In fact, you were the leading target of anti-Semitic abuse for all of 2016, weren't you?

00:01:57.000 Yeah, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which is no ally of mine, so...

00:02:00.000 Yeah, I mean I'm – not only am I not alt-right, I've spent the last four years like legitimately battling the alt-right, talking about how evil I think their ideology is, how evil I think white supremacy is.

00:02:10.000 I mean first of all, like people with yarmulkes, typically not the favorites of the alt-right.

00:02:14.000 And then beyond that, I mean I think their ideology is legitimately a devastatingly awful – Twist on what Western civilization is supposed to be.

00:02:22.000 What's amazing is a review of my new book, and my new book has several sections in there dedicated to how terrible the alt-right is.

00:02:28.000 And then the interview they did with me doesn't talk about alt-right stuff at all, but they just assume I'm on the conservative right.

00:02:34.000 That must mean that I am alt-right. 1.00

00:02:36.000 And it's like, no, you stupid... 1.00

00:02:38.000 There's a problem with these labels. 1.00

00:02:40.000 They're disingenuous.

00:02:41.000 People are labeling people in a very simple manner to try to categorize them as the enemy.

00:02:47.000 And instead of just addressing these points, like, I love watching your debates where you do Q&As with college students and with people in the audience.

00:02:55.000 Because you can see you agree with you or disagree with you.

00:02:58.000 You have well-formulated ideas. 1.00

00:03:00.000 This isn't just some bullshit that you're spouting out. 0.99

00:03:03.000 You've thought these things through. 0.99

00:03:04.000 I've been doing this for legitimately more than half my life.

00:03:06.000 I'm 35, and I started when I was 17, and I started writing a syndicated column at that point. 0.91

00:03:10.000 And when you're 17, you think a lot of dumb stuff.

00:03:12.000 And then you get older and you educate yourself and you spend a lot of time reading and a lot of time studying.

00:03:17.000 Hopefully you have some cogent arguments after 20 years of doing anything.

00:03:22.000 But the demonization is pretty astonishing.

00:03:24.000 We had Andrew Yang.

00:03:26.000 He's the only Democratic candidate who has agreed to go on the Sunday special that I do.

00:03:30.000 We did a full hour on UBI. It was perfectly nice.

00:03:32.000 It was perfectly coherent and...

00:03:36.000 And conciliatory, and yet people will suggest that everything I do is about destroying people on the other side because of all the Ben Shapiro destroys videos and all that kind of stuff.

00:03:44.000 There are certain groups of people where that's their shtick. 0.83

00:03:47.000 They're goons, right? 0.98

00:03:49.000 They just go after people online for attention. 0.75

00:03:52.000 This is a shtick.

00:03:54.000 This is not you, and this is what bothers me so much.

00:03:57.000 I know that you've said some things in the past, particularly about Arabs and when you were a younger man, that you said, I shouldn't have said that.

00:04:04.000 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:04:05.000 That's exactly right.

00:04:05.000 Some of those things were taken out of context, like that one particular tweet, which is a bad tweet.

00:04:09.000 It was a tweet that was part of a tweet thread in which I was specifically contrasting Israel and the Hamas leadership and saying that the Israeli government likes to build and the Hamas leadership would prefer that their citizens live in sewage and bomb things. 0.72

00:04:20.000 But that was a bad tweet, obviously.

00:04:23.000 My entire history on Muslim relations is one – like I supported the ability of Ilhan Omar to wear a hijab on the floor. 0.89

00:04:32.000 I opposed President Trump's originally proposed Muslim ban.

00:04:36.000 In the last three weeks, I've had on Majib Nawaz.

00:04:39.000 I've had on Kanta Ahmed.

00:04:41.000 I had on yesterday, a reformed Muslim.

00:04:44.000 Like, these are conversations that have to be had.

00:04:46.000 But to take—this is one of the things that bugs me so much.

00:04:49.000 I've tweeted, I think, 140,000 times.

00:04:52.000 I've written millions of words.

00:04:53.000 I'm sure you can find something I don't even remember having written.

00:04:57.000 That is bad.

00:04:58.000 I have a running list, by the way.

00:04:59.000 I try to be honest about this.

00:05:00.000 I'm one of the only people I know who has – I have a running list. 0.90

00:05:02.000 It's called So Here's a Giant List of All the Dumb Stuff I've Ever Done.

00:05:04.000 And I actually go through all this.

00:05:06.000 You can look it up.

00:05:07.000 This is not me saying this now.

00:05:08.000 I mean you can go and look up all the things that I think I've done wrong, and I'll apologize for some, and I'll say some were dumb, and I'll say some I'm fine with, and you're just taking it out of context.

00:05:16.000 But I mean I hope that's what honest people try to do.

00:05:19.000 But this is the problem.

00:05:21.000 You're not dealing with honest people.

00:05:23.000 When people are trying to categorize you as alt-right or they're trying to put you into this category of internet goon, they're taking some little tiny phrase that you said seven years ago and trying to say, this is you.

00:05:38.000 This is you now.

00:05:39.000 That's such a disingenuous thing to do.

00:05:42.000 I hate it, and I hate it across the aisle, by the way.

00:05:44.000 I was a defender of James Gunn.

00:05:45.000 I thought James Gunn shouldn't have been fired from Guardians of the Galaxy.

00:05:48.000 Yeah, I thought so too. 0.99

00:05:49.000 They were just dumb jokes. 0.99

00:05:51.000 That's exactly right. 0.91

00:05:52.000 And even if somebody tweeted something bad like 10 years ago, bringing it up now is not an attempt to actually make the public space better.

00:06:16.000 I don't remember saying that.

00:06:18.000 I mean, I felt the same way, by the way.

00:06:20.000 I try to be consistent.

00:06:21.000 I really do about this stuff.

00:06:23.000 I said the same thing about, for example, Ralph Northam, the governor of Virginia, who is excoriated for having this terrible racist photo on his yearbook page back in medical school in 1987. And people are saying, well, this is evidence he's racist now.

00:06:35.000 It's like, well, no, that's evidence that he was doing a racist thing then.

00:06:38.000 That's not evidence that he is racist now.

00:06:39.000 You sort of have to look over the broad course of his career.

00:06:42.000 And he ended up doing what everyone now does, which is you just don't apologize for anything.

00:06:48.000 You just try to pass it off as a nothing.

00:06:50.000 The public space is actually getting worse.

00:06:53.000 Let's say that you did something bad in the past.

00:06:55.000 There are a few human responses, too.

00:06:56.000 I did something I don't like in the past.

00:06:58.000 Human response number one is, you know what?

00:07:00.000 I apologize.

00:07:01.000 That was wrong.

00:07:02.000 These days, that gets your face step done.

00:07:04.000 You say, I apologize.

00:07:05.000 I was wrong.

00:07:06.000 It means, well, why did you do it in the first place? 0.96

00:07:07.000 Because you're a bad person.

00:07:09.000 Apologies are not accepted.

00:07:10.000 And then number two is you brazen it out.

00:07:12.000 You do the Trump.

00:07:13.000 I never did anything wrong, ever.

00:07:15.000 I'm perfect.

00:07:16.000 And then you get your defenders to come and surround you, and then nothing ever gets cleansed.

00:07:20.000 Or opportunity number three is you do what Barack Obama did, which is you come out preemptively, and you try to remember all the bad stuff you do, and then you confess it in public.

00:07:28.000 So in Dreams from My Father, he says, When I was back in high school, did a little blow.

00:07:33.000 And everybody's like, oh, okay, so he did cocaine when he was in high school.

00:07:36.000 That's cool.

00:07:36.000 Whereas if it comes out during the campaign, then he's boned, right?

00:07:39.000 Then he's got a real problem.

00:07:41.000 The problem is that right now, even if you preemptively come out and say I did something wrong, like, for example, Liam Neeson talking about years ago when he had a racist thought that he didn't act on, when he had a racist thought.

00:07:53.000 This is now—we're going to try and ruin your career for something that you admit was bad, that you did 30 years ago.

00:07:59.000 We're going to try and ruin you over that. 0.99

00:08:00.000 If you apologize for something that you did 30 years ago, which you would have preferred, just got forgotten because it was embarrassing and stupid, then we say you're bad. 0.99

00:08:07.000 And so all you're left with is, like, the most shameless people in the world who are in the public space, right? 0.97

00:08:13.000 The incentive structure is to be deeply shameless, to just say, yeah, man, I own that, and it was great when I said it.

00:08:20.000 Or I didn't say it at all.

00:08:21.000 And you're just full of it.

00:08:22.000 I never said that stuff.

00:08:23.000 Who are you going to believe?

00:08:24.000 Your eyes or me?

00:08:26.000 And it makes for a really bad politics.

00:08:28.000 Well, it's just the culture of going after people for things and finding anything to categorize them as someone who's a viable target.

00:08:39.000 And this is what I've seen thrust your way.

00:08:42.000 It's like there's nothing wrong with being conservative.

00:08:44.000 There's something wrong with wanting everyone to think the way you think, though.

00:08:48.000 This is the difference.

00:08:49.000 What I like that you do is you debate your points, you state your positions, you have a philosophy.

00:08:55.000 And what I don't like is when people try to pretend that that philosophy is somehow hateful or somehow regressive, that you condemn people for their thoughts.

00:09:07.000 You just don't.

00:09:09.000 This is not what I see with you.

00:09:10.000 I appreciate it, and I appreciate the accuracy, because I think that's true.

00:09:13.000 I mean, I've come out against virtually every Twitter ban, including people who have personally targeted me.

00:09:19.000 I've come out against that.

00:09:20.000 I've come out against virtually every YouTube ban.

00:09:21.000 Let's talk about that, because what are your thoughts about this idea of deplatforming?

00:09:26.000 And this is something that we were just discussing before the podcast, where the CEO of YouTube and Kara Swisher is her name?

00:09:34.000 Yeah, from Recode, I think.

00:09:35.000 Kara Swisher, they were talking about removing you from YouTube, and I thought it was the CEO of YouTube, but it was actually Kara who said, I would if I could.

00:09:43.000 Yeah, she was pissed because her son apparently listens to my podcast.

00:09:45.000 That's kind of funny, if she's being funny saying, but I thought it was the CEO of YouTube, which would make it much more disturbing.

00:09:52.000 She was trying to do the same thing that they do with you or with Dave Rubin or Jordan Peterson, which is that anybody who is sort of heterodox, because in that group I think I'm the only registered Republican, Anybody who's heterodox is now being portrayed as a – Meaning just thinks differently from kind of the down the line Democratic Party platform.

00:10:11.000 You're not like down the line with Hillary.

00:10:13.000 Like Sam Harris is a Democrat.

00:10:15.000 Sam Harris is heterodox because he disagrees that – Right.

00:10:42.000 Do things that are really bad.

00:10:44.000 It's like, well, dude, I have like millions of people who are members of my audience.

00:10:48.000 I have 5 million Facebook followers.

00:10:49.000 I have 2 million on Twitter.

00:10:50.000 And you're way bigger than I am. 0.70

00:10:51.000 I assume that some of those people are going to be crazy. 0.72

00:10:55.000 Yeah, I would assume. 0.85

00:10:56.000 Yeah.

00:10:56.000 The idea that you're responsible.

00:10:57.000 Well, this is what YouTube tried to do.

00:10:59.000 You know about the comment thing.

00:11:00.000 Where YouTube was going to try to make people responsible for the comments and their videos.

00:11:04.000 Which, what is a normal, Jamie, like a normal video that we get?

00:11:09.000 How many comments does it get?

00:11:11.000 I don't know, like 10,000.

00:11:12.000 That's like an average one. 1.00

00:11:13.000 How the fuck? 1.00

00:11:15.000 How the fuck? 1.00

00:11:16.000 Am I supposed to have some dude with his itchy trigger finger standing by in front of a keyboard just waiting for something offensive to pop up? 0.99

00:11:23.000 And this was in response to something that happened with them where there was pedophiles who were watching videos of children doing things and they were commenting stuff in the, you know, like children's gymnastics and stuff like that.

00:11:34.000 They were commenting and like communicating with each other through the comments and it was...

00:11:52.000 Right.

00:11:56.000 There's certain people that can't do that.

00:11:58.000 It's totally insane, and it's insane in virtually every respect.

00:12:01.000 And it's funny how it's only applied kind of by the media on one side of the aisle.

00:12:05.000 So to take an example, a congressional baseball shooting happens a couple of years ago.

00:12:08.000 A guy happens to be a Bernie fan.

00:12:09.000 Is that Bernie Sanders' fault?

00:12:11.000 Right.

00:12:11.000 No, that is not Bernie Sanders.

00:12:12.000 That went away.

00:12:13.000 Literally, people stopped talking about it.

00:12:15.000 And that was shooting of legislators, like elected people.

00:12:19.000 One nearly died, and that kind of went away.

00:12:21.000 We didn't talk about Bernie's responsibility, but there's a shooting in Christchurch, and it's Jordan Peterson's fault.

00:12:26.000 And Jordan Peterson has no relationship with the shooter whatsoever.

00:12:29.000 It's my fault. 0.99

00:12:29.000 I have no relationship with the shooter and denounce everything that that piece of crap stands for. 0.99

00:12:34.000 And suddenly, it's really ugly. 1.00

00:12:37.000 And it will come home to roost.

00:12:39.000 I mean, here's what's going to happen is Facebook and YouTube are going to fall prey to their own standards.

00:12:44.000 Because if their standard is that you're responsible for your followers, or I'm responsible for my followers, or Jordan, or anybody else is responsible for all the people who view their stuff, okay, then why isn't Facebook responsible for all the people posting on its platform?

00:12:56.000 If they are, right, if Facebook becomes responsible for all the people posting on its platform, they'll be bankrupt in a week.

00:13:02.000 We're good to go.

00:13:24.000 If you post something false on Facebook, Facebook doesn't get sued.

00:13:27.000 But now Facebook has deemed itself the morality police, and they'll ban people they don't like, and they'll decide what editorially ought to be elevated and what ought not to be elevated.

00:13:35.000 Does that sound more like the phone company to you?

00:13:37.000 Or does that sound more like my website, where I decide what gets published and what doesn't, right?

00:13:41.000 Because Facebook's case for exemption from these laws is, well, we're like the phone company, right?

00:13:45.000 When you're on the phone with somebody, if that person says something criminal, AT&T isn't responsible for the person saying something criminal.

00:13:51.000 It's not criminal or terrible.

00:13:52.000 It's just the phone company.

00:13:53.000 But Facebook isn't doing that.

00:13:54.000 Facebook is jumping into the middle of conversations and then saying, well, we don't really like this conversation, so we're just going to kind of shut it down.

00:14:03.000 Not because of legal threat, but because we just don't like it.

00:14:07.000 So are they actually doing that?

00:14:08.000 Say if you put a post up on Facebook and they don't like the way you worded things or described things, will they actually shut down your post?

00:14:17.000 What will they do?

00:14:18.000 So they've done it in the past to some conservative – it's pretty controversial because they're not transparent at all.

00:14:22.000 I can tell you that at the beginning of 2018, we lost about 35 percent of our traffic because Facebook started cracking down on mostly conservative sites.

00:14:31.000 They said that it was kind of news sites generally, but that's not what the statistics – They're doing it more often with things that we all sort of agree are bad.

00:14:39.000 We all agree white supremacy is bad. 0.95

00:14:41.000 White nationalism is bad. 0.99

00:14:42.000 Now they say they're going to censor that stuff. 0.96

00:14:43.000 But here's where I'm uncomfortable.

00:14:44.000 I think that that stuff is awful and evil and those people are the ones – they're the reason I have personal security.

00:14:51.000 Once you get into the business of Facebook gets to decide which speech is good and which speech is bad, they're an editor.

00:15:16.000 Alex Jones' material.

00:15:18.000 I've been very, very critical of Alex Jones.

00:15:20.000 I didn't think he should get banned from Twitter unless he actually violated the law, unless he was responsible for a violent threat, unless he was defamatory or something.

00:15:28.000 They're definitely going down this road of being the moral arbitrators.

00:15:33.000 They're the ones who get to decide what the conversations are.

00:15:37.000 And that's an insane responsibility.

00:15:39.000 The responsibility of getting to dictate what should and should not be discussed and to have it be a handful of people and have these people almost exclusively live in the Pacific...

00:15:51.000 You know, north of San Francisco.

00:15:54.000 That whole tech community.

00:15:55.000 I mean, it's all tech liberals who really, if you're around those people, they live in this really strange, uber-wealthy bubble of super-genius people.

00:16:08.000 Spectrum people who are coders and super capitalists and people that are raising money all over the place and designing technology, and they have an ideology.

00:16:18.000 And it's not necessarily a bad one, just being honest and upfront about what it is.

00:16:23.000 It's incredibly progressive, which is very unusual for big business, right?

00:16:27.000 For big business to be just openly, transparently progressive and pushing social justice, it's very unusual.

00:16:35.000 Well, I think that there is a sort of misunderstanding of when we say what big business is, what big business is.

00:16:40.000 So I think that there's a wide variety of owners of businesses and how they think about politics.

00:16:45.000 Obviously, Bill Gates is a progressive guy.

00:16:46.000 Warren Buffett is a progressive guy.

00:16:47.000 They are now.

00:16:49.000 I think Bill Gates has been for a while.

00:16:51.000 Was Bill Gates progressive his whole life?

00:16:53.000 He's ruthless with Microsoft.

00:16:55.000 Well, so I think that there are a lot of people – listen, I think that the vast majority – I think Mark Zuckerberg is ruthless with Facebook and he's progressive.

00:17:01.000 I think Jack Dorsey is as ruthless as the next guy when it comes to profit.

00:17:04.000 I mean he's still got to be answerable to his shareholders.

00:17:06.000 So I think a lot of the progressivism is sort of a way to excuse your own – Your own involvement in the capitalist market.

00:17:14.000 When Facebook took off, don't be evil.

00:17:17.000 That was their thing.

00:17:18.000 Don't be evil.

00:17:19.000 They decided to remove that.

00:17:20.000 Yeah, it was Google, right?

00:17:21.000 Oh, yeah.

00:17:21.000 Did I say Facebook?

00:17:22.000 I'm sorry.

00:17:22.000 Google.

00:17:23.000 Yeah, when Google did that.

00:17:24.000 I met Google.

00:17:25.000 It's funny when you think something, but you're saying another thing.

00:17:28.000 When they did that, it's like, why would you ever take off, don't be evil?

00:17:32.000 Like, keep that.

00:17:34.000 But here's my thing.

00:17:35.000 I think that if our tech companies were honest, they should take that stuff off.

00:17:39.000 Like, stop pretending you're do-gooding.

00:17:40.000 You're not do-gooding.

00:17:41.000 You're providing a platform.

00:17:42.000 And maybe the platform is the good, right?

00:17:44.000 In a capitalist economy, the product that you provide is the good.

00:17:47.000 I don't need additional good to come from your product, right?

00:17:50.000 If you want to provide me a solid morning drink, right, I don't need your politics along with that.

00:17:55.000 I just need the drink.

00:17:56.000 Well, if I want a social media company, I don't give two craps about what Mark Zuckerberg thinks about politics.

00:18:01.000 Dude hasn't studied it.

00:18:02.000 I don't care at all what Jack Dorsey, who vacations in Malaysia and gets bitten by a million mosquitoes while meditating, has to say about the nature of life.

00:18:11.000 Like, why do I care about Jack Dorsey's political view?

00:18:13.000 He has provided me a good.

00:18:15.000 The good is this basic chat room where I'm consuming news.

00:18:18.000 How about that would just be enough?

00:18:20.000 But it's not enough for a lot of these folks.

00:18:22.000 It's the The kind of Hooli from Silicon Valley, we're gonna pretend that we're here to do good.

00:18:27.000 And it's not enough just to acknowledge that maybe the thing that you provided is the good.

00:18:32.000 Like Bill Gates has done more good with Microsoft than he has done with any of his charities.

00:18:37.000 He's given a lot of money to charity, but Microsoft has provided legitimately hundreds of thousands of jobs and created enormously productive lines of business and made enormous profit for a lot of people.

00:18:47.000 A lot of people have stock in Microsoft.

00:18:49.000 As a basic factual thing, he has done more good doing that than giving tens of millions of dollars to various outside causes.

00:18:57.000 So it feels like a lot of the progressivism in corporate halls in Silicon Valley is bifurcated mentally.

00:19:05.000 It's like people have – they're like dolphins.

00:19:06.000 It's one side of the brain on at a time.

00:19:07.000 Here's my capitalist side where I go out and make money and profit, and then here's my other side where I show people what a great person I am by proclaiming that I'm for Bernie Sanders while parking my money offshore to make sure that it's shielded from the tax man.

00:19:22.000 Yeah, well, that's a good assessment.

00:19:25.000 What I'm saying is that the don't be evil thing, like, one of the things that I thought was, what if that was like a legal decision?

00:19:33.000 Me being cynical that they were pulled into some sort of an office and said, if we say, don't be evil, and you take someone off the platform, you're accusing them of evil.

00:19:43.000 Maybe we should slow that down.

00:19:45.000 Maybe.

00:19:45.000 I mean, again, this self...

00:19:48.000 Yeah.

00:20:08.000 to tell you that you are not allowed to be on a platform because we disagree.

00:20:12.000 It's one thing if you're threatening violence, which is an actual violation of law, but this crap where people like me, because I believe in a social fabric built on certain Judeo-Christian values, but I'm not forcing you to be part of that, and I don't think the government should compel you to be a part of that, or I'm the tyrant, but the person who sits at the top of Twitter or Facebook who is saying that they get to police what you see And they're going to nudge you in the right direction,

00:20:34.000 nudge you in the right direction without your consent, without them even telling them what you're doing, right?

00:20:39.000 They're going to push you a little bit because they know better than you, and they can sort of massage you into better views if we control your channels of information.

00:20:46.000 This is something the Obama administration was very fond of.

00:20:49.000 There's a scholar named Cass Sunstein.

00:20:50.000 He's a legal scholar, and he wrote a book called Nudge.

00:20:52.000 He was very famous.

00:20:53.000 It was used as sort of a handbook during the Obama administration.

00:20:56.000 And the idea is, well, if we can just use...

00:20:59.000 Non-forceable means to sort of nudge people in a particular direction without them even knowing they're being nudged.

00:21:04.000 Then shouldn't we do that?

00:21:06.000 And I think, no, you shouldn't.

00:21:08.000 You shouldn't. 0.99

00:21:08.000 Because transparency is the only way I can tell what kind of bullshit you're trying to sell me. 0.99

00:21:13.000 Well, not just that. 0.98

00:21:15.000 You're closing down even conversation.

00:21:18.000 As soon as you're trying to silence this other voice, if you believe one thing and another person believes a different thing, you should probably talk about it.

00:21:27.000 And the way that I know for sure there's something wrong with your argument is if what you're trying to do is you're sneakily trying to silence these voices.

00:21:36.000 And again, as long as we're not talking about threats of violence and as long as we're not talking about harassment or doxing, we're just talking about conversation.

00:21:43.000 You're just talking about people with differing points of view.

00:21:46.000 If you want to silence differing points of view, I have to wonder about your intent.

00:21:50.000 I have to wonder about whether you're going into this conversation with good faith.

00:21:53.000 I have to wonder whether you've really objectively assessed whether or not your argument does hold up against scrutiny.

00:22:00.000 Because this is also part of the problem.

00:22:01.000 When you're in an echo chamber, you often don't formulate these arguments very well.

00:22:05.000 When you confront people about certain biased beliefs that they have, and you have an opposing belief, if they're part of a bubble, sometimes they might not have even ever considered some of the things you have to say.

00:22:16.000 And I've seen that with some of your videos.

00:22:17.000 Yeah, I mean it does happen all the time and with sophisticated people.

00:22:21.000 I've spent my entire life, literally my entire life, in areas where everyone disagrees with me.

00:22:25.000 I grew up in L.A. I went to Harvard Law School for three years.

00:22:28.000 I was in Cambridge where everyone disagreed with me and then I came back to L.A. So I have never spent more than a week at a time in a red state. 0.65

00:22:34.000 Have you ever – have your conservative values moved in one way or another?

00:22:40.000 Have they shifted at all?

00:22:42.000 My personal values probably haven't shifted very much, but my political values have shifted libertarian.

00:22:47.000 I mean so I used to be a proponent of criminalization of marijuana.

00:22:50.000 I'm no longer.

00:22:51.000 I've been in favor of decriminalization of pot.

00:22:52.000 What changed that for you?

00:22:53.000 A couple of things.

00:22:54.000 One was just a general sense the government sucks at everything, and the more I see the government try to crack down on things, the more prevalent it becomes.

00:23:01.000 I mean people were dealing pot.

00:23:05.000 Welcome to LA. Again,

00:23:25.000 there's you ruining your own life through use of drugs, and there's drugs that legitimately ruin other people's lives.

00:23:29.000 There are drugs that remove your ability to even reason or think.

00:23:34.000 I think there are only two reasons to criminalize drugs in any fashion.

00:23:36.000 One is if there are drugs like, for example, PCP that legitimately make you violent, and then you are going out and committing acts of violence against people.

00:23:44.000 Then there's a case.

00:23:45.000 Or if you're talking about a drug where it legitimately robs you of your capacity to reason, heroin, if you're able to actually crack down on it successfully.

00:23:55.000 But even there, I'm not sure that the proper government solution is criminalization because we've criminalized it and it's still incredibly prevalent.

00:24:03.000 I agree with you.

00:24:04.000 I agree with you on that.

00:24:05.000 And I agree with you in terms of drugs being...

00:24:09.000 Extremely detrimental.

00:24:10.000 And the other part is that there's comparable drugs that are legal.

00:24:13.000 And comparable drugs meaning not even really comparable, drugs that are far more devastating, like alcohol.

00:24:20.000 You could just go to any grocery store and buy a jug of whiskey and kill yourself with it.

00:24:26.000 It's not difficult.

00:24:27.000 We have laws on the books already that prevent externalities.

00:24:31.000 If you drive high, it's the same as driving drunk.

00:24:32.000 So I'm not sure that you need additional laws to do that.

00:24:35.000 And also, I'm not opposed to zoning laws.

00:24:37.000 I don't think a pot shop should open up right next to my house.

00:24:40.000 They're residential zoning.

00:24:41.000 That's fine.

00:24:42.000 Same with liquor stores, though.

00:24:43.000 Right.

00:24:44.000 I don't want a liquor store right next to my house.

00:24:45.000 This is correct.

00:24:46.000 So I've become libertarian in some ways on that sort of stuff.

00:24:50.000 The same thing is true, by the way, when it comes to the issue of same-sex marriage.

00:24:53.000 So on a personal moral level, I'm opposed to same-sex marriage. 1.00

00:24:56.000 I'm an Orthodox Jew, and I believe that a man and a woman were made for each other.

00:25:01.000 When it comes to government involvement, I don't think that's anybody's business.

00:25:03.000 I think a lot of things.

00:25:04.000 I think adultery is bad, too.

00:25:05.000 I don't think the government ought to be involved in adultery.

00:25:08.000 I'm so strict, I don't think premarital sex is a good thing, right? 1.00

00:25:11.000 I've been very vocal about this.

00:25:12.000 I was a virgin until I was married.

00:25:13.000 My wife was a virgin until she was married. 1.00

00:25:15.000 I think that's a good thing.

00:25:15.000 So I think the government has anything to do with any of those things.

00:25:19.000 No, I don't.

00:25:19.000 I don't think it's any of the government's business.

00:25:21.000 It's consensual activity.

00:25:22.000 There are no externalities.

00:25:23.000 So what exactly is the government getting involved in?

00:25:27.000 And when the government gets involved in stuff, then there are externalities.

00:25:30.000 Once the government starts to cram down its vision on people, then you start to get unintended externalities.

00:25:37.000 So for example, with the legalization, my view on marriage is that the government should get completely out of the business.

00:25:43.000 I don't think the government should be involved in straight marriage. 0.99

00:25:44.000 I don't think it should be involved in gay marriage. 1.00

00:25:46.000 I think the government should be out.

00:25:47.000 I agree 100%.

00:26:06.000 I think that's true for most religious people.

00:26:08.000 The religious ceremony matters a lot more than the state saying a thing.

00:26:11.000 And the state isn't incentivizing marriage.

00:26:13.000 People aren't getting married because they're like, yeah, I need the tax break.

00:26:16.000 So that's a bunch of nonsense.

00:26:17.000 And once the government decides what version of marriage it wants to push, that then comes into conflict with other values.

00:26:22.000 So for example, once the state of California decides that same-sex marriage is on legal par with heterosexual marriage, now I'm worried about the externality of I have a religious day school or I have my synagogue.

00:26:33.000 My synagogue It's a religious institution.

00:26:35.000 It doesn't approve of same-sex marriage.

00:26:37.000 Now is the government going to come in and tell my synagogue how it ought to act with regard to same-sex marriage?

00:26:41.000 I don't think that's the government's business.

00:26:43.000 So how about this?

00:26:44.000 How about everybody gets to do basically what they want, associate with whom they want, and it's none of the government's business.

00:26:48.000 This seems like a pretty good, happy medium.

00:26:50.000 I'm so glad you talked about the two things that I wanted to talk to you about that I'm sure we disagree about.

00:26:55.000 One of them being marijuana and the other one being gay people marrying each other. 0.99

00:27:00.000 So let's start with the marijuana one.

00:27:02.000 Do you think marijuana ruins people's lives?

00:27:04.000 Is that one of your contentions?

00:27:08.000 I think that it can, and I think in the same way alcohol can.

00:27:10.000 Have you ever had any experience with marijuana?

00:27:12.000 No.

00:27:12.000 I'm just talking about the statistical overuse of marijuana among teenagers does have detrimental brain effects that have some long-term after effects.

00:27:20.000 It's pretty proven, and that's one of the things that I really – I'm glad you said that because I wanted to cover that when you were in the middle of a rant when we were joking around about 6th and 7th graders selling pot.

00:27:30.000 Don't smoke pot when you're young.

00:27:31.000 You really should.

00:27:32.000 It's not good for the development of your brain.

00:27:34.000 Same thing with drinking.

00:27:35.000 You know, I didn't smoke a lot of pot when I was a kid.

00:27:38.000 I did it a handful of times until I was 30 years old.

00:27:40.000 But I did drink a bunch of times when I was young and in high school.

00:27:43.000 And it's terrible for brain development.

00:27:45.000 Right.

00:27:45.000 Especially before you're 25 and your frontal cortex hasn't even fully formed.

00:27:50.000 Your frontal lobe is like this.

00:27:52.000 It's a developing thing.

00:27:54.000 There was an article recently that I posted from BBC that was saying that you probably shouldn't be considered an adult until you're 30. Right, they're saying brain development doesn't even stop until you're 26 or 28. This is why when people are saying, let's lower the voting age to 16, I'm like, what the?

00:28:07.000 What the fuck are you talking about? 0.99

00:28:09.000 What in the world? 1.00

00:28:09.000 When I was 16, I was a chimp. 1.00

00:28:12.000 I mean, really, I was a chimp in a high school.

00:28:15.000 Now, the problem that I have with many people's perceptions on marijuana is that it's based on ignorance, meaning no personal experience with it.

00:28:26.000 Listen, I'll admit, I have no personal experience with marijuana.

00:28:29.000 I know you don't.

00:28:30.000 I'm not speaking from experience.

00:28:30.000 You probably should get high.

00:28:31.000 That's what I'm trying to say.

00:28:33.000 Man, I've seen the effects on stock prices when people get high in the studio.

00:28:37.000 Oh, they jump up, man.

00:28:38.000 They jump down for a little when a bunch of chickens jump off the boat, but then they come right back up.

00:28:45.000 The marijuana thing is, in my opinion, it's another one of those things where people have this categorized box that they like to put marijuana users in. 1.00

00:28:55.000 Like, this is the category, lazy, stoner, stupid, delusional. 1.00

00:28:59.000 It's too widespread for that. 1.00

00:29:00.000 I mean, there are people I know who are doctors who use marijuana.

00:29:04.000 Well, the jujitsu community is a big one.

00:29:07.000 There's a giant percentage of the jujitsu community that does jujitsu high.

00:29:12.000 They have competitions.

00:29:14.000 Sounds like more of a party.

00:29:15.000 It's not, man.

00:29:16.000 I'm telling you, because it's not what people think it is.

00:29:19.000 If you've never smoked marijuana, this is going to be a very difficult thing to grasp, but marijuana enhances jiu-jitsu because it eliminates the rest of the world.

00:29:27.000 When you're rolling, which rolling is like, say, if you and Jamie were going to have a sparring match, that would be rolling.

00:29:34.000 Like, you'd slap hands, and then you'd go.

00:29:36.000 And you're trying to choke him, and he's trying to get you in an armbar, and you're going after it.

00:29:39.000 When you do that on marijuana, it's like you don't...

00:29:42.000 Think of anything else other than those movements and it becomes like this very intense meditation and violence.

00:29:49.000 Like it's not violent in terms of most of the time you don't really even get hurt.

00:29:53.000 It's like you get to the point like one of the beautiful things about jujitsu is you can grab ahold of someone and choke them to the point where they're going to go to sleep and you would kill them if you kept going and they tap and then you're friends again.

00:30:05.000 And everybody's cool.

00:30:05.000 And you try to do it to me and I try to do it to you.

00:30:07.000 And you really can do it reasonably hard without people getting hurt.

00:30:13.000 And it happens every day all throughout the world.

00:30:15.000 A lot of these people are high.

00:30:16.000 And they're doing this jujitsu practice in this almost like, it's a transcendent state.

00:30:24.000 If you can function when you're using marijuana, I don't care.

00:30:27.000 But you can, this is what I'm saying.

00:30:28.000 The perceptions are off.

00:30:31.000 I mean, I would assume there's a small subset of the population for whom that's not true, right?

00:30:35.000 Who are overusing marijuana.

00:30:37.000 Yes.

00:30:37.000 And that's probably the majority, in fact.

00:30:39.000 Okay, so then, you know, but again, that's not a case for- I agree.

00:30:44.000 So I don't think there's anything we disagree about here because I'm not talking about criminalizing marijuana use.

00:30:49.000 I think that we should honestly discuss the evidence that for a subset of the population, there is some evidence that marijuana is addicting, but it's a subset.

00:30:57.000 It's not everybody who's on marijuana.

00:30:59.000 The vast majority of people on marijuana are not addicted to marijuana.

00:31:02.000 I think- In the same way, alcohol, I mean, it's true of alcohol as well.

00:31:04.000 There's people that are going to be addicted to almost anything.

00:31:07.000 And I think there's absolutely people that are addicted to sugar.

00:31:11.000 There's, for sure, people that are addicted to nicotine and alcohol and all these things that we let people have.

00:31:16.000 The material addictiveness of marijuana is not comparable to opioids, though, for example.

00:31:20.000 It's not even comparable to alcohol or nicotine.

00:31:22.000 It seems to be very rare when people become physically addicted to it.

00:31:26.000 Extremely rare.

00:31:27.000 And what's common, though, is abuse.

00:31:32.000 It's common in everything that human beings consume.

00:31:35.000 Abuse is common, as we said, with food.

00:31:37.000 It's certainly common with alcohol.

00:31:38.000 It's certainly common with pills.

00:31:40.000 But this is why I really believe that the way to solve some of these problems is a social fabric problem.

00:31:45.000 It's a parenting problem.

00:31:46.000 It's a social fabric problem.

00:31:48.000 It's a personal choice problem.

00:31:49.000 Yes.

00:31:50.000 That's why virtually every solution I suggest is so funny.

00:31:52.000 I'm constantly – conservatives like me who are libertarian-leaning are constantly accused of being non-compassionate.

00:31:57.000 No, it's just our compassionate solutions don't involve the use of government.

00:32:00.000 It's like we're going to encourage people to make better decisions with their lives.

00:32:04.000 And if you choose not to do that, it's a free country.

00:32:06.000 Well, you know, coming from a religious background, you have this community that reinforces this kind of behavior and thought.

00:32:12.000 And I think that's one of the major—really one of the best benefits of religion is that moral fabric and that community, the sense of community. 0.96

00:32:20.000 Even silly ones like Mormons, you know, they're the nicest folks, right? 1.00

00:32:24.000 They believe something that is fucking patently insane. 1.00

00:32:27.000 If you go and read the Joseph Smith text from 1820 when he was 14 years old, the shit that he wrote, like— I try not to get into doctrinal insanity. 1.00

00:32:35.000 I wear a funny hat all day. 0.99

00:32:36.000 I hear you.

00:32:37.000 I'm just going to get to that.

00:32:38.000 Yeah, but with that said, I mean Alexis de Tocqueville talks about this early on in the American Republic.

00:32:45.000 The idea is that what makes America very different is the idea you don't need a big government when you do have a supportive social fabric where people feel like they're at least oriented toward a common goal.

00:32:53.000 It's one of the problems that I think we have in the country right now.

00:32:56.000 I'm not sure people are oriented toward even a common sense of conversation.

00:33:00.000 Yeah.

00:33:01.000 I mean it's – you don't have to agree on everything in order to have a common sense of the important values that unify the country or should.

00:33:09.000 I always use Sam Harris as sort of my bet noire here because he's obviously a militant atheist.

00:33:13.000 I'm in equally – Strong believer.

00:33:17.000 And yet when it comes to the things that we would like to see happen in the country, not on a government policy level, but on a let's have a conversation level and discuss on evidence level, we're on the same page.

00:33:27.000 There are certain core assumptions you have to make in order for that to happen.

00:33:30.000 My argument about America and the West is that those core assumptions are built on Judeo-Christian foundations. 0.53

00:33:36.000 Sam's core argument seems to be that they're built on evolutionary biology.

00:33:40.000 We differ a little bit there.

00:33:42.000 I don't want to let this marijuana thing go just yet.

00:33:45.000 One of the things that I wanted to bring up to you was this idea that if you're a religious person...

00:33:51.000 Don't you think that there's certain things that maybe God put here for us to consume, to change your perspective, to allow you to reach new levels of consciousness?

00:34:03.000 Don't you think it's entirely possible that some of these things that are here, and I know you haven't experienced them, but they might literally have been put there by God.

00:34:11.000 And there's some evidence to say that a lot of the texts from the Bible, that in particular there was, I think it was the University of Tel Aviv, Somewhere in Jerusalem where these scholars were, they were trying to decipher what it meant when Moses encountered the burning bush.

00:34:31.000 And they believe that it may have been the acacia tree, which is very rich in dimethyltryptamine, which is a psychedelic substance that actually that the brain produces and it's very common in plants.

00:34:41.000 And they think that this might have been, when he met God and God was a burning bush, that this might have been some Crude translation of them being involved in some sort of a psychedelic experience.

00:34:54.000 Now, it sounds outlandish unless you've had that psychedelic experience.

00:34:57.000 And when you have, you very well could think that you were in a conversation with God.

00:35:02.000 This is on earth.

00:35:05.000 And this is something that may very well have been lost information, or this may very well have been rituals that people participated in to bring them closer together and to reinforce that sense of community that you do get from a church and you do get from a group of people that share moral beliefs and values.

00:35:21.000 And there's real good discussion.

00:35:24.000 That a lot of these experiences that became these religious doctrines came from psychedelic experiences.

00:35:30.000 Now, as someone who's never experienced that before, I know this is probably a very strange thing to try to even wrap your head around.

00:35:36.000 It is entirely alien until you experience it, but it might very well be religious.

00:35:42.000 I mean, I've heard that from other people who have used those kinds of drugs.

00:35:47.000 Sam actually made this argument to me, too, about the use of psychedelics.

00:35:51.000 I mean, maybe.

00:35:52.000 God made apples.

00:35:54.000 Well, okay.

00:35:54.000 So this argument, I will say I'm not super fond of the argument that God made something and therefore it's ours to use or – I mean like I keep kosher.

00:36:03.000 God made pigs. 1.00

00:36:04.000 I don't eat them.

00:36:05.000 So I am not a huge fan of the argument that because something is here or because an urge is natural, therefore we ought to imbibe or therefore we ought to participate in a particular activity.

00:36:17.000 One of the things that I'm very big on – A rationalist when it comes to religion as much as you can be a rationalist with regard to religion to the extent that I think that it's up to us to use our reasonable faculties to determine the proper use of things, which is why you shouldn't overuse drugs even if you're going to use drugs,

00:36:35.000 for example.

00:36:35.000 But this is part of the problem of making things illegal.

00:36:37.000 You make things illegal, then you really don't know what it is or how it affects the body or what's the right dose or the wrong dose, and then people get involved in these terrible situations where they're taking things and they're just guessing with you.

00:36:50.000 I mean, there's truth to that, but it's also true that on a social level—I'm not talking about legal because we totally agree on the legal level.

00:36:55.000 On the social level, there's a couple of things that are true of, for example, the Orthodox Jewish community.

00:37:00.000 Low rates of addiction because people have that social fabric.

00:37:04.000 They don't feel the necessity.

00:37:05.000 Also— As you say, substance use in moderation can actually be quite a good thing.

00:37:10.000 So low rates of alcoholism in the Jewish community, and part of that is the fact that you are given kiddish wine from the time you're a kid, right?

00:37:15.000 I mean you actually are— It's destigmatized.

00:37:17.000 Yeah, it's destigmatized, and the idea is that in its proper context, this could be a good thing.

00:37:23.000 So I'll admit I don't know enough about the proper context of marijuana to know when it would be a quote-unquote good thing.

00:37:29.000 It can be a good thing.

00:37:31.000 This is what I'm telling you.

00:37:33.000 The truth is I don't enjoy drinking.

00:37:35.000 I'm not a drinker.

00:37:37.000 I like reality.

00:37:38.000 I like living in reality, and I like experiencing it totally sober.

00:37:42.000 So I've never really felt the urge to do any of that stuff.

00:37:45.000 I hear the pitch.

00:37:46.000 I hear the pitch.

00:37:47.000 But I've never really...

00:37:50.000 I completely understand that.

00:37:52.000 I think that what we're dealing with though is perceptions that have been molded by laws that were shaped by tyrants.

00:38:00.000 That's what I think.

00:38:01.000 I mean again that's totally possible and plausible.

00:38:05.000 Yeah, but it's historically accurate.

00:38:07.000 I mean, when it comes to prohibition, prohibition with alcohol didn't work, prohibition with drugs is just making the cartels bigger, and it's causing more problems with organized crime.

00:38:17.000 I agree with that on a practical level.

00:38:18.000 Whether you like drugs or don't like drugs, government interventionism is generally a giant fail.

00:38:22.000 I think our perceptions of what is good for you and is bad for you is also based on laws that the government created ignorantly.

00:38:30.000 The sweeping psychedelic act of 1970, which made virtually everything psychedelic.

00:38:35.000 They missed a few things.

00:38:37.000 A few things slipped through the cracks.

00:38:38.000 But all of the tryptamines, or most of them, Psilocybin, LSD, all that stuff was made completely illegal by people who really didn't even know what it was.

00:38:48.000 And a lot of that is why we base our ideas of what's good or bad for you.

00:38:53.000 It's based on what is legal and what other people have done with it.

00:38:58.000 On this area, I'll admit not only complete experiential ignorance, but complete evidentiary ignorance.

00:39:03.000 So I haven't examined the evidence.

00:39:04.000 I really don't have strong opinions on any of this stuff.

00:39:06.000 I think it's one of the bridges.

00:39:08.000 That we all could use between conservative thought and liberal thought, particularly for people that are dying.

00:39:15.000 It's one of the things that Johns Hopkins found and there's been other studies done and there's been therapy done on people that are dying.

00:39:23.000 Mm-hmm.

00:39:25.000 Mm-hmm.

00:39:51.000 I mean, listen, if that's something that works for people and that's what it's designed to do, then— I don't know if it's designed.

00:39:57.000 See, if it is designed, it might be designed by God.

00:40:00.000 Like, it literally might.

00:40:01.000 That's fine.

00:40:02.000 I mean, I think there's also the generalized religious counterargument that there are no shortcuts to happiness.

00:40:08.000 So let's pose a sort of thought experiment.

00:40:11.000 I don't think it's a shortcut.

00:40:12.000 Well, this is the question, right?

00:40:13.000 I mean, like, let's say that— I could guarantee you that tomorrow you're going to be a happier person.

00:40:17.000 All you have to do is take this regimen of drugs that you're going to take every day, and it's going to make you a happier person, a more well-rounded person, but it's going to permanently change your brain chemistry.

00:40:28.000 Is that something that you think is good, or is it something you think is bad?

00:40:30.000 Because from a religious perspective, there's an argument to be made that this is work you need to do on yourself without outside aid, if possible.

00:40:37.000 If there's cases where you can't, then you can't.

00:40:41.000 It's an interesting thought experiment.

00:40:42.000 Terrence McKenna had a line about that.

00:40:44.000 He said that there was a joke about there was a monk and he met Buddha because Buddha came to town and he said Buddha he wanted to impress him he said I practiced the city of levitation and I have done this for 10 years and now I can walk on water and the Buddha says but the ferry is only a nickel. 0.99

00:41:05.000 What are you fucking wasting your time? 0.96

00:41:07.000 You can aid the progression rapidly with psychedelic drugs. 0.99

00:41:13.000 Do you know about MAPS and their work with MDMA and soldiers that have had PTSD? Not too much, no.

00:41:20.000 It's phenomenal.

00:41:22.000 By giving these soldiers MDMA therapy, meaning they give them MDMA, which is essentially what people think of as ecstasy, the street name, We're good to go.

00:41:59.000 It is shown to be one of the very best things we've ever discovered for helping people get past something.

00:42:05.000 To me, and I'm thinking about this on the fly because this is stuff I don't think about very much, but there's a complex moral equation to the extent that If you're talking about somebody who has PTSD, somebody who has a condition, and the only way to help that condition is to use these drugs,

00:42:21.000 I've never had a problem with any of that stuff.

00:42:24.000 My grandfather was schizophrenic.

00:42:26.000 Maybe bipolar, maybe schizophrenic.

00:42:28.000 The diagnosis is not exactly clear.

00:42:29.000 They prescribed him lithium.

00:42:30.000 It made him a lot better.

00:42:31.000 Would he have been better off struggling with the schizophrenia?

00:42:33.000 Of course not.

00:42:34.000 It's much better that he should have the lithium and then be able to live in his rational mind.

00:42:38.000 So when there's a problem, using drugs to get past it and work with it is a good thing.

00:42:43.000 You do run the risk of the sort of brave new world situation where you have a group of people who have a certain level of ersatz happiness that is not driven by...

00:43:04.000 I think?

00:43:22.000 I do wonder whether that robs people of a certain level of purpose, that the struggle is part of being human.

00:43:26.000 I think we're changing what it is to be human just by carrying around phones and just— Is the idea that you are struggling.

00:43:40.000 I think the struggle is actually meaningful.

00:43:43.000 And I think that's why religions tend to set prophylactic rules, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill.

00:43:48.000 So, for example, I'm addicted to my phone.

00:43:50.000 I mean, there's just no question, right?

00:43:51.000 It's in my hand all the time.

00:43:53.000 But from Friday night to Saturday night, it's off.

00:43:56.000 I can't look at it.

00:43:57.000 I'm forbidden from looking at it.

00:43:58.000 And this breaks the cycle, at least for one day a week.

00:44:01.000 And that's a good thing that makes me better as a human being, because a limit I set for myself, and then a limit that I abide by, And if you believe in self-mastery, where's the happy medium between self-mastery and I need a little bit of aid?

00:44:14.000 And I think that there is a happy medium there, but I'm not sure that drugs are the answer to – I don't think you're suggesting drugs are the – No, I'm not suggesting that.

00:44:22.000 And I think there's also a problem with the word drugs.

00:44:26.000 Everything is under that blanket, and that blanket can be entirely negative or extremely positive.

00:44:31.000 I know, but there's a problem.

00:44:34.000 I use it too.

00:44:35.000 It's not accusing you, but that term, it's a problem.

00:44:39.000 It's a problem term.

00:44:40.000 Because what these are are substances that are psychoactive, and some of them can be extremely beneficial, and some of them have short-term experiences that last with long-term results.

00:44:51.000 And I don't think that there's enough knowledge that I don't think the people that are negative against it have experienced enough of it or have looked at it in an objective, rational way, because I think it's something that could be here to aid perspective,

00:45:09.000 to give people a chance to think outside of their normal Conditioned way of thinking that might have been established by their community or by their church or by their neighborhood, whatever it is, sometimes a little bit of a break, a little bit of a mental break from what you're experiencing and the vibration that you exist on almost every day to separate from that and to get a look at it from the outside,

00:45:34.000 sometimes it allows you to have a renewed perspective that can enhance your life greatly.

00:45:39.000 As long as when people re-engage, they're re-engaging at a level of commonality, right?

00:45:43.000 Yes, but that's a discipline thing, and this is what we share.

00:45:44.000 You and I are both disciplined people, and it's one of the things I really respect about you.

00:45:48.000 You're a very hard worker.

00:45:49.000 You're always on the ball.

00:45:51.000 You're very disciplined.

00:45:52.000 And I know that a lot of conservative people admire that, and they admire that in folks, and they think that people who are liberal are not disciplined.

00:46:01.000 They think that they're lazy.

00:46:03.000 It falls into this, like, weak, Beta male sort of category of people that are progressive and liberal. 0.64

00:46:09.000 And I think that's a misunderstanding.

00:46:12.000 I think you and I both agree that the struggle is very important.

00:46:17.000 But I'd struggle physically so that I don't have to struggle mentally.

00:46:22.000 I struggle physically so that I can have a better way of looking at things with less stress.

00:46:28.000 So we have this shared belief that things should be a struggle.

00:46:33.000 I force my struggle on myself so that I can have a better perspective.

00:46:38.000 And this is something that you and I differ on.

00:46:39.000 Like, I think you exercise, right?

00:46:41.000 Yes.

00:46:41.000 How often do you do it?

00:46:42.000 I try to every day.

00:46:43.000 Yeah.

00:46:44.000 Makes a big deal.

00:46:44.000 Yeah, it's a huge deal.

00:46:47.000 Yeah, I mean, I think we both understand that...

00:46:51.000 Struggle is an important part of understanding yourself.

00:46:54.000 If you do not push yourself, if you do not struggle, you're not going to really get who you are or what your boundaries are.

00:47:00.000 And if you're self-indulgent, if every day you're stuffing things in your face that you want to, it's good to have a rule.

00:47:05.000 Like, hey, for this next month, you can't eat this, or you can't do that, or I want you to start fasting 16 hours a day.

00:47:12.000 Is it that hard?

00:47:13.000 Just eat for eight hours a day and fast for 16?

00:47:16.000 No, but just doing something like that and setting these guidelines for yourself and putting yourself into a disciplined state can be extremely beneficial.

00:47:26.000 Like Jocko Willink always says, discipline equals freedom.

00:47:28.000 It is a great formula and it's real.

00:47:31.000 Well, again, it is the basis of a lot of religion.

00:47:34.000 I mean, a lot of religion is very practice-based.

00:47:36.000 It's one of the reasons I like Judaism as opposed to other religions. 1.00

00:47:38.000 It's a very practice-based religion.

00:47:41.000 Sometimes you can take that too far in one direction, which, as I say, you need to balance reason with dictates that are meant to make you better.

00:47:48.000 But that goes all the way back to Aristotle.

00:47:50.000 I mean, Aristotle talks about how you have to practice to be good, right?

00:47:52.000 You have to practice to be virtuous.

00:47:53.000 Right.

00:47:53.000 What makes you a virtuous person is acting repeatedly in accordance with right reason, and that is setting rules for yourself.

00:48:00.000 That is not violating every rule.

00:48:02.000 I think when we talk about, on the conservative side, folks on the left being lazy, I don't mean that in terms of work.

00:48:08.000 I mean, Mark Zuckerberg is a hard worker, I assume.

00:48:11.000 I think Jack Dorsey, when he's not getting bitten by...

00:48:18.000 I think it's a certain perspective on the necessity of rules and the mindset that if I don't know what a rule is for, I'm going to remove it.

00:48:28.000 So G.K. Chesterton has this very famous...

00:48:31.000 Kind of contrast that he draws between people who tend to be right-wing politically and people who tend to be left-wing politically.

00:48:36.000 He says people who tend to be left-wing politically, you're walking through the woods and you come across a fence.

00:48:42.000 You don't know why the fence is there.

00:48:43.000 You say, I don't know why this fence is here.

00:48:44.000 I'm removing it.

00:48:45.000 And the person who's right-wing walks through the forest and sees the fence and says, I have no idea why the fence is here.

00:48:50.000 I'm going to go find out why the fence is here and then maybe I'll remove it.

00:48:54.000 And that's the kind of Berkey and conservative attitude toward rules, the attitude that this rule was put here for a reason. 0.97

00:49:00.000 Now, maybe the rule sucks. 0.87

00:49:01.000 Maybe the rule has to go.

00:49:02.000 But let's try and figure out what was at the root of the rule before we just wipe out all the fences and then try to rebuild from the ground up all these new fences.

00:49:09.000 And that's especially true in a civilization that's the most prosperous and free civilization ever created.

00:49:13.000 I mean, if the system really sucked, that would be one thing.

00:49:15.000 But I think people are kind of ungrateful about the fact that we live in the best possible time in the best possible place.

00:49:21.000 Yeah.

00:49:22.000 That's the reality.

00:49:23.000 And everybody who's so negative about living in America, it's like, okay, in 1900, one in ten American children died in the first year of life.

00:49:31.000 In 1850, the average life expectancy in Europe was under 40. So what are you talking about?

00:49:38.000 What are you talking about?

00:49:39.000 Like our biggest problems today, really, for the vast majority of people is that we are too fat.

00:49:46.000 We don't have a job, but we still have somebody who's basically making sure we have food.

00:49:51.000 Starvation is not a serious problem in the United States.

00:49:53.000 There's a problem of poverty, but there's not a problem of widespread starvation.

00:49:56.000 In fact, poverty tends to align with obesity.

00:49:59.000 This is a pretty unbelievably great society.

00:50:02.000 So maybe we ought to look back at the roots of that society before we start willy-nilly tearing up all of the moral boundaries.

00:50:07.000 I think you and I agree that this is the greatest time ever to be alive.

00:50:10.000 I think what these other folks are saying is that we can do better.

00:50:13.000 And I think we all agree with that.

00:50:15.000 Yeah, sure.

00:50:16.000 But to classify this time as being a terrible time is, I think, wholly inaccurate.

00:50:21.000 By the way, I hate it right and left. 0.77

00:50:22.000 It's one of the reasons why I think there's a certain point where the Trumpian populist right meets the Bernie Sanders populist left, and that is them walking around saying how much things suck. 0.94

00:50:31.000 And it's like, no.

00:50:32.000 No, that's just wrong.

00:50:33.000 Sorry.

00:50:34.000 It's an amazing time.

00:50:35.000 It's an amazing time for communication, too. 0.50

00:50:37.000 It's an amazing time for people to kind of understand other people's perspectives and points of view, which is one of the reasons why deplatforming and silencing of conservatives, even though I'm not conservative, bothers the shit out of me.

00:50:49.000 Yeah.

00:50:55.000 That I think could lead to people having much more open and much more balanced communication.

00:51:01.000 I mean this should be the time when we are having more conversations and more fun with each other and where we are feeling more entrepreneurial.

00:51:06.000 We have a better social safety net than ever.

00:51:09.000 So one of the statistics that really bothers me is that the level of American mobility has declined rapidly in the United States.

00:51:15.000 So the number of people who are leaving their home state to go somewhere else to work a job, for example, is at decades low.

00:51:22.000 Why?

00:51:22.000 It's easier to get anywhere.

00:51:24.000 Now, there's seven million unfilled jobs.

00:51:25.000 I keep hearing from folks who I personally like, people like Tucker Carlson, that you grew up in this small town and the town is dying, the industry left.

00:51:34.000 Well, the government somehow owes it to you that you get to grow up in this town and stay in that town even if all the industry left.

00:51:41.000 And I just think to myself...

00:51:43.000 By whom?

00:51:44.000 Who gave you this guarantee that you get to stay there?

00:51:47.000 And I know, listen, I'm a lucky guy.

00:51:49.000 I grew up in a two-parent household.

00:51:51.000 We didn't grow up wealthy, but we were middle-middle class.

00:51:53.000 Like, I grew up in a small house in Burbank with two bedrooms, and I had three sisters.

00:51:56.000 It was me and my three sisters in one bedroom and one bathroom for six people.

00:52:00.000 That's not poor.

00:52:01.000 That's middle class.

00:52:01.000 That's a great life.

00:52:03.000 And I understand some people don't have that life.

00:52:05.000 But one thing that is guaranteed to you is the opportunity for adventure in this country.

00:52:10.000 Go and move.

00:52:11.000 Like, why are we inculcating a feeling of victimhood in a society where if you make the right decisions, you will do well?

00:52:18.000 I mean, not you might do well.

00:52:19.000 If you make basic, basic right choices, you will finish better than you started in American society.

00:52:25.000 I mean, we're talking like the most basic choices, like finish high school and don't have a baby out of wedlock and get a job.

00:52:30.000 Like, you do those three things, and the Brookings Institute says that you will not...

00:52:36.000 We're good to go.

00:52:52.000 The lack of optimism in a society where it should be running rampant is kind of astonishing to me.

00:52:57.000 Well, it's perspective, right?

00:52:58.000 I mean, rich kids grow up with this perspective of constantly being rich, and people grow up with this perspective of how they view the United States as this negative thing or that they don't know how to change their life, they don't know how to take action because they haven't had anyone around them that's done it.

00:53:16.000 That's part of the problem with small-town mentalities is that you kind of inherit the vibe of the people that are around you.

00:53:22.000 And if they're ignorant or if they're shallow-minded or if they're stuck in this one town and they're never going to leave and you get caught in that vibe, you can one day wake up and you're 32 and you've never done anything.

00:53:36.000 I mean, this is what J.D. Vance talks about in Hillbilly Elegy, right? 0.83

00:53:39.000 People who are in these small towns and they've basically been told that they have two choices.

00:53:42.000 They can go on welfare or they can leave.

00:53:43.000 Yeah.

00:53:44.000 And it's like, okay, fine, I'll go on welfare.

00:53:45.000 Everybody around me is.

00:53:46.000 Why not?

00:53:47.000 There's nothing morally deficient about going on welfare.

00:53:50.000 It's actually one of the bigger problems I have with the welfare state generally is that it disconnects the person receiving the aid from the person giving the aid.

00:53:56.000 In our religious community, to take an example, there's a time a few years back where a guy came to me.

00:54:02.000 I bought some art from him.

00:54:03.000 He's an artist.

00:54:05.000 And...

00:54:06.000 Really does good work.

00:54:07.000 He came to me and he said, my family doesn't have enough money to make the rent this month.

00:54:10.000 Can you offer me in advance on art that you'll buy somewhere down the road?

00:54:13.000 And of course I'm like, sure.

00:54:14.000 So I signed him a check.

00:54:15.000 And he understood that five years later he came back to me and he said, you know, you still haven't bought that piece of art.

00:54:20.000 I owe you a piece of art because he knew who gave him the money.

00:54:23.000 Right, right.

00:54:23.000 And so he was willing to understand that that was an act of charity and he wanted to make sure that that was paid back.

00:54:29.000 You see this in Cinderella Man with Russell Crowe, that moment where he makes his money, he walks back into the welfare office, and he rolls out a wad.

00:54:37.000 That feeling that the government isn't just a giant cash machine that exists to pay you money, but that that money actually comes from somewhere.

00:54:44.000 Either it's coming from the future because we're going to have to pay back the debt, or it's coming from somebody's tax money, and that we all owe something to each other.

00:54:51.000 By the same token, what I owe to my neighbors is that if they're in trouble, Then it is my obligation as a good person to try and help them out on a personal level.

00:55:00.000 Charity in religious communities is extremely high.

00:55:02.000 That's the social fabric that I'm talking about.

00:55:04.000 Without that sort of dutiful sense to one another, you can't have rights.

00:55:08.000 Because if you just have rights and no duties, then there will be no one to take care of each other.

00:55:14.000 It's why, while I'm libertarian when it comes to government, I'm very conservative when it comes to the need to build a social fabric and communities and have people...

00:55:23.000 With working families and communities of working families.

00:55:26.000 Yeah, I really think that that's one of the best things that comes out of religion is when you have a tight-knit community like yours and you do have that sense of charity where you really are a community of people that care for each other and look out for each other.

00:55:39.000 The problem is, of course, doing that large scale.

00:55:41.000 And then the problem is doing it in some sort of a non-denominational way where people, they don't have to have the exact same beliefs, but they still share these core values of community and taking care of each other.

00:55:53.000 I mean, that's what people really benefit from.

00:55:55.000 When they've done studies with people, when they show happiness and what is happiness correlated with, it's almost always correlated with friends and loved ones and family.

00:56:03.000 It's the most important thing you can have.

00:56:05.000 And when it comes to diversity, you know, there's this slogan that diversity is our strength.

00:56:08.000 Well, there's Robert Putnam, who's a sociologist over at Harvard, We're good to go.

00:56:31.000 We're good to go. 0.78

00:56:55.000 They don't give a crap about the diverse backgrounds of the people they were serving with. 0.95

00:56:58.000 They're all aiming their guns in the same direction. 0.91

00:57:00.000 Well, in the United States, we have to be aiming our guns in the same direction, or we can't really have a functioning social fabric at all.

00:57:06.000 I'm perfectly willing to give charity to people who I don't know, who still believe, like I do, that America is a fantastic country rooted in immutably good principles.

00:57:17.000 I think?

00:57:39.000 I'm going to give my money to the person who basically agrees with me on those fundamental values.

00:57:42.000 And again, I don't think those fundamental values have to be religious.

00:57:44.000 I don't think you have to be a God believer to receive charity from me, or I don't think I should have to be an atheist to receive charity from you.

00:57:50.000 But I do think that you do have to take into consideration a few things, and now we're on the same page.

00:57:56.000 Personal responsibility.

00:57:57.000 The idea that you do live in a free country, just historically and relatively speaking, this is a free country, which means decision-making is on you.

00:58:05.000 So man up a little bit.

00:58:07.000 The decisions that you make, we should all have sympathy for people who have had worse lives and worse experiences.

00:58:13.000 But in the end, if you are capable, if you are not fundamentally disabled in some way, that you need to make a plan for your own life.

00:58:20.000 Are you more willing to give charity to somebody who has a plan for how to get themselves out of the hole?

00:58:25.000 Of course.

00:58:26.000 Yeah.

00:58:27.000 But that relies on that person feeling an obligation to do that.

00:58:30.000 But I also think that what you're talking about with charity within the community is so much more—there's so much more connection than charity from the government.

00:58:40.000 When you're talking about welfare, the problem is that there's this dissolving of responsibility because it's just a check that comes in that you feel like, well, this is a rich country.

00:58:49.000 I'm owed this anyway.

00:58:51.000 When I was a kid, we were on welfare, and we used food stamps, and I remember being very ashamed of it.

00:58:58.000 And feeling really weird that we were that poor, that we needed help from the government.

00:59:02.000 But my parents worked their way out of it.

00:59:06.000 They were young.

00:59:07.000 They had a kid.

00:59:08.000 My guess is that the social stigma probably had something to do with that.

00:59:12.000 Meaning that they didn't want to be on welfare.

00:59:14.000 They didn't want to be on food stamps.

00:59:16.000 Contrast your story with Adam Carolla's, right?

00:59:17.000 Adam talks all the time about how... 0.99

00:59:19.000 His parents were also on food stamps and welfare, and they just didn't give a shit. 0.99

00:59:24.000 And he always resented that. 0.99

00:59:25.000 He thought that was bad.

00:59:26.000 He said, like, you could work.

00:59:28.000 Why aren't you?

00:59:29.000 And that gave him the impetus to get up and do what Adam has done.

00:59:35.000 It's not pick yourself up by the bootstrap because helping hands are good, but it is if I were capable of picking myself up by my bootstraps, would I do so?

00:59:44.000 And if the answer is yes, then we're all on the same team.

00:59:47.000 Well, there's...

00:59:48.000 This is a real problem, too, in that some people just get a horrible hand dealt to them at birth.

00:59:55.000 They're with parents that really are doing a terrible job raising them. 0.99

00:59:58.000 They're fucking them up every step of the way. 1.00

01:00:00.000 You're around a bunch of people that are criminals. 1.00

01:00:02.000 Everybody's fucking up. 1.00

01:00:03.000 There's no examples of anybody that's doing well. 0.98

01:00:06.000 I mean, it's one of the unique things about the Internet today is that a kid that's in that environment can get a hold of maybe something that you've said or something that, you know, someone else has said and start reading books and start taking in information that gives them a different perspective and fuel that perspective with more motivational stuff and more information and education.

01:00:26.000 And sometimes kids, just like you were saying with Adam Carolla, they grow up with these parents that are just not ambitious at all, so they become very ambitious and they work very hard to not be like them. 0.91

01:00:35.000 I mean, sometimes it's good to see that example, but most of the time, it's just fucking hard for them to reprogram their head. 0.91

01:00:42.000 Well, for sure.

01:00:42.000 It's hard to do that, and it's also hard—I really think that there's a lot of focus in the country right now on raising awareness, which is fine, raising awareness of our history and all the bad things that we've done.

01:00:52.000 Yeah.

01:00:52.000 Good.

01:00:53.000 I mean, people should know about all the good things and all the bad things, right?

01:00:56.000 History is history.

01:00:57.000 But this incessant focus on— The idea that people's lives are getting better by suggesting that they're perennial victims in the United States, I just don't understand how that's a good thing.

01:01:08.000 As a member of a historically persecuted group, if I had grown up and my parents had said to me, no matter what you do, you will be put under the thumb of the dominant society, that's a pretty horrible message to tell to a kid.

01:01:19.000 And I think that's true for politicians, again, on both sides of the aisle.

01:01:22.000 I think you get it from President Trump when it comes to some rural areas where it's like, well, It's the Mexicans and the Chinese coming in to steal your jobs, and you're under the thumb of people who are trying to destroy you.

01:01:31.000 And on the other side of the aisle, people who say, well, you're in the inner city, and therefore the cops are racist against you and want to destroy you, and everybody's out to get you. 0.61

01:01:39.000 And it's like, well, how about this?

01:01:41.000 How about, like, again, the single best thing you can do for yourself is make basic decisions that are entirely within your control. 0.99

01:01:48.000 Unless you are raped, God forbid.

01:01:51.000 Single motherhood is a choice that you get to make about your life. 1.00

01:01:55.000 This is a choice you get to make about your life.

01:01:57.000 Finishing high school, unless you are legitimately disabled in some way, especially in LAUSD where you basically have to be able to read at third grade level to finish high school.

01:02:07.000 These are decisions, personal decision making.

01:02:11.000 I've never seen somebody's life get better by complaining about reality.

01:02:15.000 I've seen a lot of people's lives get better by acknowledging that reality is what it is and then making personal decisions to make their lives better.

01:02:21.000 And that's considered non-compassionate.

01:02:22.000 But it seems to me that the essence of compassion sometimes is saying, at least make the baseline decision.

01:02:27.000 If you make the baseline decisions and then you fail, we can talk about what happened.

01:02:30.000 I don't think it's non-compassionate.

01:02:32.000 I think it's pragmatic.

01:02:33.000 And I think you're right.

01:02:34.000 But I also think that there's some people that are...

01:02:39.000 They're in situations that require something external to assist them.

01:02:45.000 The way their life has been set up, and this is what I think when people think about compassion and people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, if you really have an honest and accurate assessment of extreme poverty and terrible neighborhoods,

01:03:02.000 It's not as simple as do something good to better your life. 0.98

01:03:06.000 Part of it is you gotta fucking stay alive. 0.95

01:03:09.000 Part of it is you're surrounded by people who either have committed crimes or will commit crimes. 0.98

01:03:16.000 I mean, one out of every four people you run into might be a criminal.

01:03:23.000 We're good to go.

01:03:38.000 We're good to go.

01:03:43.000 We're good to go.

01:04:10.000 I mean, here's the reality.

01:04:23.000 Is the other side of what the government does, which is you need more cops in that area. 0.97

01:04:26.000 I think that the great lie that these communities that are crime-ridden—I'm talking about white Appalachia and I'm talking about black inner cities—these communities do not need fewer cops.

01:04:36.000 They need more cops. 0.63

01:04:37.000 Because the precondition to investment in those communities and increased tax dollars in those communities and increased social capital in those communities is people not getting shot every five seconds.

01:04:46.000 The worst thing that can happen to law-abiding minorities It's for the cops to abandon areas where crime is high.

01:04:52.000 It just doesn't make any sense.

01:04:53.000 And that's not just me saying that.

01:04:54.000 Jane Levy is a reporter at the LA Times, very much on the left, has said the same thing.

01:04:58.000 Law-abiding people want crime rates to go down.

01:05:01.000 Conditions have to change in a community for conditions to change in the community.

01:05:05.000 Did you ever see The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia?

01:05:11.000 No.

01:05:11.000 Was it Johnny Knoxville?

01:05:13.000 Did he produce that documentary?

01:05:15.000 No.

01:05:15.000 I think he did, right?

01:05:17.000 Dude, it's about this family that lives in West Virginia that is just a bunch of psychotic criminals, these crazy white people, the kids drinking Mountain Dew and doing backflips on the bed, and they're all on pills. 0.99

01:05:28.000 It's bananas. 0.82

01:05:30.000 And it gives you this insight, like if you are in this community, if you are in this family, and this is obviously a very extreme family, but there's many more of them out there that have not been documented. 0.97

01:05:40.000 If you are in that community, Good fucking luck getting out. 0.93

01:05:46.000 Good luck. 0.99

01:05:47.000 The money that you get other than welfare is from selling pills.

01:05:50.000 You know, everybody's on these pills, so you're all whacked out. 0.98

01:05:53.000 You don't know what the fuck is going on half the day. 0.99

01:05:55.000 You're on opiates. 0.99

01:05:57.000 I mean, it is a...

01:06:00.000 We're good to go.

01:06:16.000 There's got to be some way where you can give these people the opportunity to step out of that pattern.

01:06:22.000 For sure.

01:06:23.000 Community centers, outreach programs, whatever it is.

01:06:26.000 I don't know what it is.

01:06:26.000 I mean, the truth is that historically speaking, it was people actually going to church.

01:06:30.000 Yes.

01:06:32.000 There's a lot of good...

01:06:34.000 I'm not a church-going person, but I absolutely recognize that there's a lot of good involved in having that framework.

01:06:41.000 I don't think you can create sort of a fake social fabric with just a government welfare system.

01:06:49.000 It hasn't worked.

01:06:50.000 Disability exists.

01:06:52.000 It's been increasing every year.

01:06:54.000 It's a question I asked Andrew Yang, actually.

01:06:56.000 Our episode comes out on Sunday, and obviously Andrew is a big fan of I mean I said it to him.

01:07:23.000 People are on disability. 1.00

01:07:23.000 I don't know what they're doing. 1.00

01:07:25.000 If you're on disability, the people you're talking about who are suffering, they're not out there writing poetry.

01:07:29.000 I mean the rise of the opioid epidemic and people who are ODing on drugs and all this stuff, that's in precisely the same demographic you're talking about.

01:07:39.000 You're just talking about a check from one place as opposed to another place.

01:07:41.000 I don't really see how that solves the problem.

01:07:43.000 I think we have a crisis of purpose right now, and I don't think that that crisis of purpose is solvable.

01:07:50.000 On the one hand, by changing our trade rules, and I also don't think that that crisis of purpose is solvable by cutting a government check.

01:07:56.000 I just don't think that that's how people are wired.

01:07:59.000 I absolutely agree with you that there is a crisis of purpose.

01:08:02.000 My concern is about automation, and my concern, and obviously I haven't really studied this other than talking to Andrew Yang and talking to Elon Musk and a few other people that are proponents of universal basic income, they think that there's going to be such a massive loss of jobs in such a short period of time From people that are non-skilled laborers,

01:08:21.000 it's going to go away.

01:08:22.000 There's millions and millions of jobs, and these people are not going to have anything, and that it could be chaos.

01:08:27.000 Right.

01:08:27.000 So there's two problems that come up there, and this is where Andrew's book is interesting.

01:08:31.000 Because problem number one is that the people will be poor.

01:08:34.000 They won't have a source of income.

01:08:35.000 UBI solves that.

01:08:36.000 Sort of, but does it even?

01:08:37.000 It gives them $1,000 a month.

01:08:39.000 Even if you upped it, right?

01:08:40.000 Even if you just had a Swedish redistribution system and the average tax rate went up to 60% or something.

01:08:47.000 Let's say we could solve the money problem for a second without tanking the economy, which is questionable.

01:08:53.000 But let's say we could do that.

01:08:53.000 We could add trillions of dollars to the budget every year, and we could solve that.

01:08:57.000 I'm still not sure that that solves the deeper problem, which is that when people lose jobs, they lose purpose.

01:09:01.000 Yes.

01:09:01.000 So I'm not sure that UBI solves that problem.

01:09:04.000 It does.

01:09:04.000 As I say, we have a rich social welfare network in the United States, and we're seeing this stuff happen anyway.

01:09:10.000 I'm a little bit less catastrophic.

01:09:13.000 By a little bit, I mean a fair bit less catastrophic in my thinking about automation than either Andrew Yang or Elon Musk.

01:09:18.000 Do you think that people will be able to adapt quick enough to avoid the problems?

01:09:21.000 They'll realize the jobs aren't there anymore, and they'll just naturally gravitate towards other professions?

01:09:26.000 I think over time that people will do that, but they're not always the same people.

01:09:29.000 I mean, there's always shift in the economy, and the ideal economic model has a trucker becoming a coder, right?

01:09:34.000 But that's not real.

01:09:35.000 Well, that was that whole learn to code fiasco that got people kicked off of Twitter.

01:09:39.000 Still does, apparently.

01:09:41.000 Yeah, apparently, if you say it to journalists, then that's very bad.

01:09:43.000 If you say learn to code to a trucker, yeah, that's what it was.

01:09:45.000 If you say learn to code to a trucker?

01:09:47.000 If you say learn to code to a trucker, then that's just you being helpful.

01:09:50.000 If you say learn to code to a journalist, then that is targeted harassment on Twitter.

01:09:53.000 That's where that started.

01:09:54.000 What if someone says it to me?

01:09:56.000 How does that work?

01:09:57.000 Twitter doesn't care about you.

01:09:57.000 I can say whatever I want to do on Twitter.

01:10:00.000 But if you just say it to a friend, hey, fuckface, learn to code. 0.99

01:10:07.000 I don't know. 0.99

01:10:07.000 Is your friend going to report you to the censorship board over at Twitter? 0.99

01:10:11.000 It's such a dumb thing to take people out for.

01:10:12.000 It's one of the best examples of how censorship oversteps its boundaries and becomes almost like satire. 0.97

01:10:20.000 Yeah, it's really, really absurd.

01:10:22.000 The idea that this is the biggest aggression ever, learn to code.

01:10:25.000 Learn to code. 1.00

01:10:26.000 This is a stupid thing that someone said about coal miners. 1.00

01:10:31.000 They literally said that about coal miners, that maybe they can learn to code. 1.00

01:10:34.000 And so everybody was like, what the fuck? 0.98

01:10:35.000 And so learn to code became a joke and became something that you would mock people. 0.99

01:10:39.000 Their explanation for it was so crazy.

01:10:41.000 It was like, no, then learn to code got connected with all this white supremacy and all this other stuff.

01:10:46.000 Well, that's the...

01:10:47.000 That's the Hitler owned a dog argument, right? 0.80

01:10:49.000 It's like dogs are bad.

01:10:50.000 Hitler owned one. 1.00

01:10:51.000 Okay, white supremacists are bad. 0.98

01:10:52.000 They use the phrase learn to code. 1.00

01:10:54.000 That means if you say learn to code, you're a white supremacist.

01:10:56.000 Like, what the? 0.89

01:10:56.000 They lost the frog. 0.89

01:10:58.000 That fucking frog. 1.00

01:10:58.000 The feels good man frog. 1.00

01:11:00.000 That's what happened to Pepe.

01:11:01.000 They lost him.

01:11:02.000 They killed the frog. 1.00

01:11:03.000 They turned the freaking frog gay. 1.00

01:11:04.000 I mean, what? 1.00

01:11:04.000 Yeah, it is. 1.00

01:11:05.000 Oh, that's, yeah.

01:11:35.000 I'm not sure that I buy it.

01:11:37.000 The reason I don't buy it is because you still are going to need someone sitting behind the wheel of that truck.

01:11:40.000 There are human drivers on the road.

01:11:42.000 There will be a gradual transition away from some of these jobs.

01:11:46.000 Andrew Yang talks about radiologists and how radiologists are going to be priced out of the market by computers that can do a better job of diagnosing tumors.

01:11:52.000 First of all, awesome.

01:11:54.000 I mean, that's good.

01:11:55.000 First of all, that brings down cost and you won't get cancer as advanced.

01:11:59.000 That would be a good thing.

01:12:01.000 But second of all, what...

01:12:03.000 A lot of technology studies have tended to show is that technology just gets integrated in a different way in particular careers.

01:12:09.000 So there will be jobs that are eliminated for sure.

01:12:11.000 There will be jobs we haven't heard of that will be created also.

01:12:13.000 And mostly technology will become more of a productivity aid to people.

01:12:18.000 So this is true in factories.

01:12:21.000 Jobs have been lost in factories.

01:12:22.000 It's the best example of where jobs are lost.

01:12:24.000 But it's mostly true in offices, right?

01:12:25.000 How many office jobs have been created because you have computers?

01:12:28.000 Would more office jobs exist because I write by hand?

01:12:30.000 Do you think that this is akin to, like, a government bailout?

01:12:33.000 Like, the idea of the government bailout was, like, the banks are too big to fail.

01:12:37.000 And some people thought, you know what, you gotta let them fail so you figure out why they failed and we'll never have it happen again.

01:12:44.000 If there is this thing and the government steps in and says, wait a minute, I know you lost all your jobs, we're gonna give you $1,000, you don't have to figure it out.

01:12:51.000 $1,000 a month, and some people go, okay, I'm not gonna figure it out now.

01:12:54.000 Whereas those people might have gone on A fear-filled journey to try to figure out their purpose in life because now they're stuck where their job doesn't exist anymore, so they're put in a corner and they have to act.

01:13:08.000 There is enervation that comes from a welfare check.

01:13:11.000 I mean, there are people who become dependent on government and they're used to being dependent on government.

01:13:14.000 I mean, that stuff is true.

01:13:16.000 It does happen.

01:13:17.000 Listen, Milton Friedman made an argument for universal basic income as a replacement for the welfare system.

01:13:22.000 There is another problem with universal basic income that I asked Andrew about also, and that was One of the big issues is that poor people, very often, people who are permanently impoverished, not people who are temporarily poor, but they tend not to spend money where we think they ought to spend money.

01:13:37.000 They're not taking that money and they're not putting it into education or into...

01:13:40.000 They might just be buying ho-hos and cigarettes. 0.99

01:13:42.000 Right.

01:13:43.000 I mean, the average person who is making less than, I think it was $16,000 a year, is spending $400 a year on lottery tickets.

01:13:50.000 That's legitimately just flushing your money down the toilet.

01:13:52.000 So how do you...

01:13:55.000 Aren't you just going to end up back in the same place in six months where people took that money and used it in ways that actually didn't benefit them?

01:14:02.000 And at a certain point, the question is, do you own your decisions or do you not own your decisions?

01:14:06.000 And at what level of incompetence or inability do we say, you no longer own your decisions and so we're just going to take care of you on a permanent basis?

01:14:13.000 That's really the...

01:14:15.000 I think we're looking at, when you're talking about welfare, we're looking at worst case scenario, right, where someone does get dependent upon the welfare state and does use that money frivolously and does make poor decisions.

01:14:28.000 But then there's got to be other people that are single moms that, you know, maybe... 0.99

01:14:37.000 For sure.

01:14:53.000 But I think part of this is to recognize that incentives matter on both ends.

01:14:57.000 So the idea is that you give some people more money and they'll do well.

01:15:00.000 It's also true that if you create a welfare system that benefits single motherhood, you will get more single motherhood. 0.91

01:15:04.000 I mean, the single motherhood rate in the black community before welfare was 20%.

01:15:07.000 Now it's 70%.

01:15:08.000 In the white community, it was like 5%.

01:15:10.000 Now it's 40%.

01:15:10.000 You've said that out-of-wedlock children and having a kid when you're young, it's a terrible idea for your life.

01:15:18.000 But what do you recommend to have kids avoid that?

01:15:22.000 Are you one of those people that thinks in absence— Don't put it there without that thing on it.

01:15:25.000 No condoms, is what you're saying.

01:15:27.000 Right, like, don't have unprotected sex.

01:15:29.000 I mean, like, this is not...

01:15:31.000 Pardon my fake cursing.

01:15:34.000 It's not effing rocket science.

01:15:35.000 I mean, like...

01:15:36.000 You're apologizing for not cursing.

01:15:38.000 I'm apologizing for not cursing.

01:15:39.000 Yeah, it's...

01:15:41.000 It's not rocket science.

01:15:42.000 This one always bothers me.

01:15:43.000 It's not, but kids make mistakes.

01:15:44.000 And that's what happens.

01:15:45.000 People get pregnant. 0.99

01:15:46.000 And then if the government pays for those mistakes, it becomes less...

01:15:49.000 So what should happen?

01:15:51.000 Should the kids suffer?

01:15:53.000 How should it be worked out?

01:15:57.000 It depends on the situation.

01:15:59.000 If there are parents available to the kid, presumably the parents, the grandparents, would take a pretty active role in the raising of that kid.

01:16:07.000 Let's assume they're there.

01:16:09.000 Well, how about this?

01:16:09.000 How about we assume that if you are old enough to get pregnant, then you are old enough to – let's talk about a 17-year-old or 18-year-old.

01:16:16.000 It used to be shotgun marriages were a thing. 1.00

01:16:19.000 Do you think that's a good idea?

01:16:20.000 I think the idea of parents staying together for the sake of a kid that they accidentally bore is absolutely a good idea.

01:16:25.000 Yes.

01:16:25.000 I think that it's a better idea than the man walking away and the kid being without a man in the house for the rest of their childhood.

01:16:32.000 So you think the parents should figure a way to work it out?

01:16:34.000 Yes.

01:16:34.000 And if they were both reasonable, they could do that?

01:16:36.000 Yeah.

01:16:37.000 And I think that, by the way, a huge percentage of American births in the 40s and 50s were exactly this.

01:16:43.000 There were a lot of seven-month babies in the 40s and 50s.

01:16:45.000 Something like 30 to 40 percent of all kids born in the 30s and 40s and 50s were seven-month babies.

01:16:52.000 Remember, somebody got knocked up, and then the expectation was, like, you did the crime, now you do the time, right?

01:16:59.000 Yeah, but that puts people in relationship prison. 1.00

01:17:03.000 Good.

01:17:04.000 Then don't have sex. 0.97

01:17:06.000 Then don't have sex. 0.98

01:17:06.000 Find somebody to have sex with who you actually think is worthy of a relationship. 0.98

01:17:13.000 Right. 0.99

01:17:14.000 Or online pornography is available to you.

01:17:16.000 Like, figure it out.

01:17:17.000 You're okay with that?

01:17:18.000 On a moral level?

01:17:19.000 Yes.

01:17:19.000 No, but if I'm going to compare that to having a baby out of wedlock, then yeah.

01:17:23.000 This is what I think about pornography.

01:17:25.000 They could stop now, and we're good forever.

01:17:28.000 But yet, they keep making it.

01:17:31.000 I think you guys enjoy it.

01:17:33.000 There's no supply and demand problem in pornography.

01:17:36.000 I think you like making it. 0.98

01:17:37.000 You guys are a bunch of freaks.

01:17:41.000 I mean, there's no—it's like a business—it's almost like you have excess houses that stack up to the moon.

01:17:46.000 Like, there's no way everyone's going to live in all those houses.

01:17:50.000 Why do you keep making houses?

01:17:51.000 There's no way one person has ever jerked off to every video that ever existed.

01:17:55.000 It's not possible.

01:17:57.000 It's like— And it's also like other forms of media where they just stack up.

01:18:02.000 I never really thought of that until...

01:18:03.000 When you have the backlog of internet pornography and you're like, God, I'm a month behind now.

01:18:07.000 But just think about music, right? 0.99

01:18:08.000 There's all the music that existed before in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s and the 80s and there's new shit every goddamn day. 0.99

01:18:15.000 It never ends. 0.98

01:18:16.000 It's this overwhelming library of stuff that we have to experience.

01:18:21.000 Look, it would be good if that music changed from time to time.

01:18:24.000 The same song recorded seven different ways, you know. 1.00

01:18:28.000 What kind of shit do you listen to? 1.00

01:18:30.000 What do you think I listen to? 1.00

01:18:31.000 Do I listen to classic jazz and classical?

01:18:33.000 Do you?

01:18:33.000 Of course, yeah.

01:18:34.000 You're so interesting to me.

01:18:35.000 I was a concert-level violinist until I was like 17 years old.

01:18:39.000 Do you still practice?

01:18:40.000 Yeah.

01:18:40.000 I mean, the only expensive object that I own other than my house is a violin.

01:18:44.000 Oh, really?

01:18:45.000 Yeah.

01:18:45.000 Is it a Stradivarius?

01:18:46.000 It is not.

01:18:46.000 It is a...

01:18:48.000 It's not...

01:18:48.000 That's all I know.

01:18:49.000 Yeah.

01:18:51.000 The two that people may know are Strad and like a Guarneri.

01:18:54.000 But those ones are like hundreds of thousands of dollars.

01:18:56.000 This is in the tens of thousands of dollars.

01:18:57.000 A Stradivarius is hundreds of thousands of dollars?

01:19:00.000 Yeah, I had a guy who my family knew he had a million dollar Stradivarius.

01:19:04.000 What was so big about it?

01:19:05.000 What was the big deal?

01:19:06.000 Well, I mean, aside from the historic value of the thing, they're not making any more of them, it does play very differently.

01:19:12.000 I mean, very differently.

01:19:13.000 Like, I had a crappy violin for most of my, like, really until the last two years.

01:19:16.000 I had a violin that was handed down from my grandfather that was worth maybe 1,300 bucks. 1.00

01:19:20.000 And it was a piece of crap. 0.99

01:19:21.000 I mean, it was not a good violin. 1.00

01:19:23.000 If you're good enough, then you can tell the difference between a really great violin to play and one that is a piece of garbage.

01:19:30.000 And I was good enough to do that, so that's...

01:19:33.000 Yeah, I mean, I was a classical guy.

01:19:35.000 I played...

01:19:36.000 I played violin for years.

01:19:38.000 Growing up, my dad was a pianist.

01:19:40.000 Look at what Jamie just pulled up.

01:19:42.000 The most expensive violin in the world sold for an estimated $16 million for a Stradivarius.

01:19:51.000 They never lose value.

01:19:52.000 I mean, really, they don't.

01:19:53.000 It's a good investment.

01:19:55.000 I know a guy who was offered a Strad at, I think it was $250,000 maybe 10 years ago, and he's like, no.

01:20:02.000 It's worth like $3 million today.

01:20:05.000 What is the deal?

01:20:06.000 If you had to explain what's the difference between the sound that this makes?

01:20:11.000 It has to do with the acoustics of the instrument, meaning the wood quality.

01:20:14.000 There's slight variations in the construction of the instrument.

01:20:18.000 Certain parts of it are thicker or thinner.

01:20:21.000 It's easier to play a better violin.

01:20:23.000 It almost covers for your mistakes.

01:20:25.000 When you play a bad violin, it tends to scratch and screech more.

01:20:29.000 That's why when you get in the upper register with a violin, you hit very high notes.

01:20:32.000 It can either be very screechy or it can be very beautiful.

01:20:34.000 Some of that, most of that's the player.

01:20:37.000 Some of that's the violin.

01:20:38.000 Yasha Heifetz, who's widely considered the greatest violinist to ever live, he had a Strad.

01:20:43.000 Look at this!

01:20:44.000 Lady Blunt Stradivarius cost $15.9 million.

01:20:49.000 People buy these and then they lend them out on loan to world's great violinist.

01:20:53.000 God, it's so pretty.

01:20:54.000 In the end, it really is the quality of the player.

01:20:57.000 There's a famous Yasha Heifetz story where he was playing at Carnegie Hall and some lady came up to him afterward and she said, you know, your violin, it sounds so beautiful.

01:21:05.000 And he picks up the violin, puts it to his ear and he says, funny, I don't hear it right now.

01:21:11.000 So do you listen to any other kind of music?

01:21:14.000 Yeah, I mean, I like some classic rock.

01:21:16.000 Do you?

01:21:16.000 I could see you rocking out.

01:21:18.000 Yeah, I went to a Doobie Brothers concert with my parents.

01:21:21.000 No, you didn't.

01:21:21.000 Really?

01:21:22.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:21:23.000 That's a band that was named after a joint.

01:21:26.000 That is true.

01:21:26.000 That's outrageous.

01:21:27.000 That is accurate.

01:21:28.000 I know.

01:21:28.000 Did you feel like a sinner?

01:21:30.000 I was a rebel that day.

01:21:31.000 I was really...

01:21:33.000 Going to the Doobie Brothers concert with the other boomers. 0.99

01:21:35.000 So the other thing is same-sex marriage.

01:21:38.000 That's the other thing that I think that we disagree with.

01:21:40.000 Well, we agree with the marriage thing.

01:21:42.000 Right, on a governmental level.

01:21:44.000 I don't think the government should be involved.

01:21:45.000 I think where people should be protected is through assets and – Contract.

01:21:52.000 Yes.

01:21:53.000 I think that all makes sense to me.

01:21:56.000 In terms of alimony and child support and all those things make sense to me.

01:22:00.000 And the idea that the community reinforces it, which would then become the government reinforced and all that stuff, that all makes sense to me.

01:22:07.000 I understand it.

01:22:08.000 But why do you care if two gay guys want to get married? 0.99

01:22:13.000 So from a religious point of view? 0.60

01:22:15.000 Sure.

01:22:15.000 Let's go from religious first.

01:22:17.000 So you want me to do a secular point of view first.

01:22:19.000 So the idea is not that I care deeply whether two gay guys want to get married to each other.

01:22:24.000 The idea is that do I prefer traditional marriage to same-sex marriage?

01:22:29.000 Let me phrase it this way. 0.65

01:22:30.000 What do you think a gay guy is?

01:22:32.000 Do you think they're making a choice, or do you think that this is how they were born?

01:22:36.000 So the religious point of view on this, and I think this is actually just the general conservative point of view on human action generally, is I don't know, meaning that for the vast majority of people, I would assume that they have a biological drive to engage in that behavior, but the traditional sort of will point of view is that Biological drive does not necessarily match up to the activity you ought to engage in.

01:22:57.000 Men, for example, have a biological drive to impregnate many women.

01:23:00.000 That's not something religion is cool with either.

01:23:05.000 Religion is cool with a man being with one woman and impregnating her, but you're not cool with a man being with a man. 0.91

01:23:13.000 So I can give you the religious explanation and I can give you the secular explanation.

01:23:17.000 So the religious explanation is that there is something different about a woman than there is about a man, and a man is made better through his union with a woman, and that if you pervert the sex drive to pursue...

01:23:31.000 Mere pleasure instead of a lasting relationship upon which the basis of society is built, then you are foregoing the proper use of your sex drive.

01:23:40.000 Right, but if you wanted to step in and argue against that, you would say that just because someone can't get pregnant doesn't mean that they don't have a loving relationship that contributes to society.

01:23:51.000 Well, that's true, but it is also foregoing the more productive relationship of being able to bear and rear children and also recognizing that the sexes are not different and recognizing also the sexes are not the same.

01:24:03.000 So being with a man is in a relationship different than being with a woman, I would assume. 0.99

01:24:08.000 I mean, I assume that's why gay guys are gay. 0.99

01:24:09.000 If it weren't, then I assume that they would be fine with being with a woman. 0.99

01:24:12.000 So that relationship from a religious perspective is more valuable because women have different qualities than men. 0.94

01:24:20.000 You round off each other's harsh edges.

01:24:21.000 It changes you.

01:24:22.000 I mean, you're married.

01:24:23.000 Being married changes a man in a different way than being married to a member of the same sex would. 0.77

01:24:27.000 Right, but I don't want people to have to do it.

01:24:29.000 But if you're- Meaning that I'm not forcing anybody, right?

01:24:31.000 But I want them to have the option.

01:24:33.000 If you're a gay person and we- Are you talking legally?

01:24:38.000 No, I mean, of course legally.

01:24:40.000 Because legally we agree, right?

01:24:41.000 Yeah, legally.

01:24:41.000 And I keep making this distinction because whenever I talk about my moral perspective on things, then people immediately assume that I'm a theocratic fascist.

01:24:48.000 And I just want to keep underscoring my personal views.

01:24:51.000 On Dave Rubin's marriage are of no consequence to public policy in any way whatsoever.

01:24:57.000 Right. 0.87

01:24:58.000 But I agree with you on that and I don't think it should be a part of public policy and I think people should absolutely be allowed to marry and divorce and do whatever the fuck they want to do no matter who it is. 0.87

01:25:08.000 But why do you care? 0.98

01:25:10.000 Like, as a person who's a rational thinker, it's pretty clear that people are gay. 1.00

01:25:14.000 And I don't really think that this is a decision they make in terms of, like, I'm going to make a clear choice to defy God and be gay. 0.98

01:25:23.000 I think they're just gay. 1.00

01:25:24.000 Well, again, I think that's a conflation of— And I don't think it's everyone.

01:25:26.000 It's a conflation of identity and drive with activity, which is something that religion fundamentally rejects.

01:25:32.000 So religion fundamentally rejects the idea that you are driven to do something.

01:25:35.000 Therefore, it is your identity.

01:25:37.000 Therefore, you get to participate in a behavior.

01:25:38.000 That's a chain of thinking that religion does not accept. 0.96

01:25:41.000 So in religion, if a man is gay, in your religion, if a man is gay and they're in love with another man, they should just squash those thoughts and find a woman.

01:25:49.000 Well, ideally, they would be honest with the woman they marry, so they're not messing up the woman.

01:25:54.000 But they would want to go and get a woman. 0.97

01:25:56.000 Ideally, you would still get married and have children in a heterosexual relationship.

01:25:59.000 If you're not up to that, then you wouldn't get married at all.

01:26:02.000 When you describe this to a gay man, they will tell you, imagine Ben Shapiro.

01:26:07.000 Someone said to you, you should stop being with your beautiful wife and you need to now marry a man because this is what God wants you to do. 0.82

01:26:16.000 So you're going to have to...

01:26:17.000 Shtup this man, and he's going to shtup you.

01:26:20.000 Because this is how the rules are set up.

01:26:22.000 So far, this sounds pretty terrible.

01:26:23.000 Sure.

01:26:24.000 Right. 0.96

01:26:24.000 Well, this is how it sounds to gay folks when you're telling them they have to find a woman. 0.96

01:26:27.000 They're like, I like dudes.

01:26:28.000 I'm not saying you have to find a woman.

01:26:30.000 I'm saying you can't do X. I'm not saying you must find a woman. 0.98

01:26:33.000 But say you can't, but by whose determination?

01:26:36.000 If you decide to participate in this religion, then there is a buy-in to the precepts of the religion. 0.91

01:26:43.000 And the buy-in is you can't be gay. 1.00

01:26:45.000 Well, no. 0.77

01:26:46.000 The buy-in is that you can have whatever sexual orientation you please, but there's certain activity you can't participate in. 0.99

01:26:50.000 So you can be gay, but you can't have gay sex. 1.00

01:26:53.000 Correct. 0.98

01:26:54.000 By the way, that's what the Bible—I mean, if we want to go direct to the text of the Bible, that's what the Bible actually says, right?

01:26:59.000 I mean, even the parts of the Bible that people really hate, those parts say that a man shall not lie with a man.

01:27:03.000 It doesn't say a man can't be attracted to another man.

01:27:05.000 That's Old Testament, right?

01:27:06.000 Yeah, that's our stuff, right?

01:27:08.000 New Testament— It gets a little harsher in the New Testament in some places, Romans, Corinthians.

01:27:13.000 But in any case, again, what I'm puzzled by is the idea that this is a unique area of human behavior that religion is supposed to treat differently.

01:27:25.000 Meaning religion treats virtually every human activity like this.

01:27:29.000 Sin is a failure to abide by a covenant, right?

01:27:32.000 That's the definition of sin.

01:27:34.000 When you commit a sin in Judaism, in Avera, in Judaism, what you are doing is failing to do a mitzvah, which is a commandment. 0.77

01:27:40.000 You're violating a commandment.

01:27:41.000 Well, there are lots of commandments that go directly against what people are driven to do.

01:27:45.000 Just because the drive is stronger does not make it more morally...

01:27:51.000 Non-culpable to violate that commandment.

01:27:53.000 So when people pick this one out and they say, well, this one is particularly intolerant, for example, I don't see why it's more particularly intolerant than saying to a man that you have to marry one woman or saying to a Jew that you are not allowed to eat this stuff.

01:28:08.000 It may be harder.

01:28:11.000 I don't think there's any question.

01:28:12.000 It's harder to abide by those commandments.

01:28:14.000 But it is well within religious tradition, like literally every religious tradition, that there's a bunch of stuff you are driven to do that you can't.

01:28:19.000 Now, again, you don't have to agree with my program.

01:28:22.000 I'm not trying to convert you.

01:28:23.000 It's one of the nice things about my religion. 0.99

01:28:25.000 I don't give a crap whether people are Jewish or not. 0.99

01:28:27.000 We actively discourage converts. 0.99

01:28:29.000 But if you're going to proclaim that you are – Abiding by traditional Judaism, this is the buy-in, right? 1.00

01:28:36.000 There's lots of buy-in.

01:28:37.000 You have to wear a funny hat sometimes.

01:28:38.000 You have to go to shul on Saturdays.

01:28:40.000 You have to keep Shabbat. 0.97

01:28:41.000 There's a lot of buy-in.

01:28:42.000 And as long as I'm not bothering anybody else, I frankly don't see what business it is of legitimately anybody's, what I think about personal relationships.

01:28:49.000 I'm not imposing my view on anybody else. 0.99

01:28:51.000 Well, I do acknowledge that out of all the religions, Judaism probably makes it the most obvious they don't give a fuck what you do. 0.99

01:29:01.000 Go ahead. 0.99

01:29:01.000 Do your thing. 0.99

01:29:02.000 Like, they're not trying to proselytize.

01:29:03.000 We're doing our business.

01:29:04.000 You're doing your business.

01:29:05.000 My uncle converted.

01:29:06.000 And when he converted—it was a grind, man. 1.00

01:29:08.000 He had to learn a lot of shit. 1.00

01:29:09.000 It's like three years of a grind. 1.00

01:29:11.000 It's a long time, man.

01:29:12.000 Yeah, for sure.

01:29:12.000 It's a long time.

01:29:14.000 So that was the religious perspective.

01:29:15.000 And the secular perspective, when it comes to— Right.

01:29:27.000 Right.

01:29:40.000 Right.

01:29:41.000 So you are just sticking to your rigid ideology in terms of what you believe to be a sin and not believe to be a sin based on your religion, based on this very strict moral fiber that this religion is operating in.

01:29:55.000 In a religious context, meaning it applies to me, it applies to my family, it doesn't apply to you.

01:29:59.000 Right, but is there any room for growth in that when people have a better understanding about biology?

01:30:05.000 If it was proven, if there's proven like, oh, this is why a person develops blue eyes, this is why a person is gay, this is why, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just a variation. 0.84

01:30:17.000 It's red hair, it's freckles, it's gay, it's straight. 1.00

01:30:21.000 You can tell me that homosexual orientation is 100% biologically driven, and I will... 1.00

01:30:26.000 I almost completely agree with that.

01:30:28.000 I think that there are some cases where it's not, but those are rare.

01:30:30.000 By the way, the research tends to show that there's more sexual fluidity among females than males.

01:30:35.000 Males tends to be either heterosexual or homosexual. 0.84

01:30:37.000 That research is all done by dudes who want their wives to hook up with chicks, but keep going. 1.00

01:30:43.000 Don't let me stop you.

01:30:44.000 Honey, let me just show you the paperwork.

01:30:47.000 There's something wrong.

01:30:48.000 But again, it's a question that I've always found actually not particularly interesting simply because it doesn't take into account the worldview generally, which is that a biological drive does not equal – Excuse for behaving in a certain way.

01:31:03.000 But that's where it brings me back to this.

01:31:05.000 Like, is it possible that these laws in this religion were written when they're—I mean, who do you think wrote the stuff?

01:31:12.000 Do you think people wrote the stuff, or do you think God wrote the stuff?

01:31:14.000 I think either way.

01:31:15.000 Even if it were—I mean, because I am an Orthodox Jew, I believe that at the very least it's God-inspired and God-written, right?

01:31:23.000 But even if I believed on a secular level that human beings wrote that stuff, do I think that people— 3,000 years ago had never seen a gay person before?

01:31:30.000 Or a person who had homosexual tendencies?

01:31:31.000 Like the very reason to have a commandment is because certain people in your community are behaving in a particular way, presumably. 0.98

01:31:36.000 There's no commandment not to take your head and shove it in a meat grinder.

01:31:39.000 Well, this is also the argument against pork.

01:31:41.000 It's because they didn't understand trichinosis.

01:31:43.000 They understand you have to cook the meat to 145 degrees and pork parasites, which are very dangerous for people.

01:31:48.000 So, I'm not a huge fan of naturalistic explanations for religion.

01:31:52.000 Don't you think that's a good one, though, for pork?

01:31:54.000 I mean, I don't know.

01:31:57.000 Like, I think you could make an argument, maybe?

01:31:59.000 There's a kid who just died in India, and there was horrific x-rays of his head.

01:32:03.000 He had parasites from pork that had gotten into his body, and they had nested in his brain, started developing all these cysts inside of his head, and they couldn't do anything about it, because it was so deep in his head...

01:32:16.000 That if they gave him the anti-parasitic medication, it would cause swelling of the brain.

01:32:23.000 And it was so far gone.

01:32:25.000 So how are you feeling about bacon right now?

01:32:27.000 Because you tell the story. 1.00

01:32:28.000 It's actually pig shit, apparently. 1.00

01:32:30.000 Oh, that's him. 1.00

01:32:30.000 People accidentally coming in contact with pig shit produces this particular type of parasite. 1.00

01:32:35.000 Yeah, that's not kosher either. 1.00

01:32:36.000 It's more rare.

01:32:37.000 But trichinosis was pretty common for a long time.

01:32:40.000 Well, again, their attempts to sort of paint back into the Bible certain rationalistic explanations.

01:32:46.000 Doesn't that make sense, though?

01:32:49.000 I think...

01:32:50.000 Why else would it be bad to eat pigs?

01:32:53.000 Like, Jesus loves pigs?

01:32:54.000 Is that what's going on?

01:32:55.000 Well, I think that the reversal of the kosher laws in the New Testament, you know, from a Jewish point of view, where we don't believe in the divinity of Christ, I think that there you can make an argument that the Gospels, which were written...

01:33:05.000 He was just a prophet, right?

01:33:07.000 No, no, no.

01:33:08.000 We don't even believe he was a prophet.

01:33:09.000 What do you think he was?

01:33:10.000 What do you guys think he was?

01:33:11.000 I mean, what I think he was historically, I think he was a Jew who tried to lead a revolt against the Romans and got killed for his trouble, just like a lot of other Jews at that time who were crucified for trying to lead revolts against the Romans and got killed for their trouble.

01:33:20.000 So he became legend in story, and it became a bigger and bigger deal as time went on.

01:33:24.000 Yeah, he had a group of followers, and then that gradually grew.

01:33:28.000 Do you think he was resurrected?

01:33:30.000 No, that's not a Jewish belief.

01:33:32.000 Okay, I just want to check.

01:33:33.000 Yeah, no.

01:33:33.000 We're not into the miracle stories.

01:33:36.000 No?

01:33:37.000 Do you don't have any miracles here?

01:33:38.000 No, not by Jesus.

01:33:40.000 There are ones in the Old Testament.

01:33:41.000 Yeah, you've got Moses splitting the sea and all that.

01:33:43.000 What do you think happened there?

01:33:45.000 What do I think happened there?

01:33:46.000 Yeah.

01:33:46.000 Well, I'll go with the Maimonidean explanation.

01:33:48.000 I mean, it says in the Bible there was a strong east wind.

01:33:51.000 So there's a naturalistic explanation for a physical phenomenon.

01:33:55.000 That makes sense.

01:33:56.000 I mean, that's what Maimonides is constantly trying to do is read nature back into the Bible.

01:34:00.000 Mm-hmm.

01:34:01.000 Yeah.

01:34:01.000 That is the problem with these texts, right, is that you're trying to decipher translations from original texts which were written in ancient Hebrew thousands of years ago and were told in an oral tradition for longer than that.

01:34:13.000 Right.

01:34:13.000 I mean, this is where my book, which I always hesitate to pitch my own stuff because it sounds gauche.

01:34:19.000 Pitch away! 1.00

01:34:19.000 But the new book, The Right Side of History, number one New York Times bestselling nonfiction book. 1.00

01:34:23.000 Wait a minute.

01:34:24.000 You got number one in the New York Times bestselling fiction?

01:34:27.000 Really?

01:34:27.000 Yeah, we sold enough that we knocked Michelle Obama out of the number one slot for a week, so that was nice.

01:34:31.000 Is there a protest?

01:34:47.000 That that tradition is a tension and that that tension is where Western civilization lives.

01:34:52.000 That basically civilization is a suspension bridge.

01:34:54.000 It takes certain fundamental precepts of Judeo-Christian values on the one hand and then takes Greek reason and they're pulling against each other.

01:35:00.000 And sometimes reason feels like it's going to dominate religion and sometimes it feels like religion is going to dominate reason.

01:35:04.000 But in the best of all available worlds, you have a bridge that is capable of...

01:35:10.000 Building upon, where you can actually have a functional civilization.

01:35:14.000 And if you lose reason in the name of theocracy, then you end up with tyrannical theocracy.

01:35:19.000 And if you lose religion in the name of reason, you end up in some pretty dark places because human beings don't have a very good track record of creating their own purpose, creating their own meaning, creating their own systems.

01:35:30.000 We tend to get very utopian very quickly, and things get really ugly, which is sort of the story of particularly the first half of the 20th century.

01:35:37.000 Right.

01:35:37.000 So this is the benefit of sticking to the rigid ideology that's prescribed by religion, is that you don't allow the human beings to keep updating it and changing it, because if you do, they will eventually slide into chaos.

01:35:48.000 Yes, which is not to say there's not play in the joints.

01:35:51.000 Religion has morphed over time.

01:35:54.000 Judaism, as it was practiced originally, probably in many ways does not resemble Judaism as practiced now.

01:36:00.000 In fact, the Talmud even says this.

01:36:03.000 Kind of fascinating and counterintuitive section of the Talmud where Moses is—it's what is called the Gadotah, which are some of these stories that are just kind of put into the middle of the Talmud, where Moses comes back and he's watching from on high as a bunch of rabbis in, you know, second-century Palestine are talking about— Judaism,

01:36:24.000 and he's like, I don't recognize any of this stuff.

01:36:25.000 Like, I brought down these books from the mountain, and I do not recognize any of this stuff.

01:36:29.000 And God says to him, you know, God says to him, right, I mean, this is how this is morphed, and Moses is pleased.

01:36:37.000 In other words, he's not—Judaism has always had a common law tradition where you're using reason to try and develop the ideas behind the commandments and then try and extend them or broaden them.

01:36:46.000 And I think that's a good thing, but you have to be careful not to completely undermine fundamental roots or— Or get rid of basic precepts.

01:37:18.000 Masturbation is not okay according to Judaism. 0.98

01:37:21.000 I assume that a vast majority of young Jewish men, even the Orthodox, are masturbating. 0.99

01:37:26.000 People sin. 0.96

01:37:27.000 I mean, that's a recognition.

01:37:29.000 It's always...

01:37:30.000 Again, I think I can speak on behalf of...

01:37:32.000 I will audaciously speak on behalf of both Jews and Christians here.

01:37:34.000 I think that religious people are told that when they say that something is a sin, this means that they are looking askance at the people who are committing the sin.

01:37:43.000 And that is not correct.

01:37:45.000 I mean, what Judaism and Christianity say is that we are all committing sins on a fairly regular basis.

01:37:52.000 Where we get uptight is when people start saying because I have a desire for the sin the sin is no longer a sin.

01:38:00.000 Yeah.

01:38:01.000 The real problem is, like, why is it a sin?

01:38:04.000 Like, who says it's a sin?

01:38:05.000 So, again...

01:38:06.000 Again, these rules, we're assuming, are influenced by God.

01:38:11.000 Right.

01:38:12.000 But clearly written by people.

01:38:13.000 Well, this one, you would say, if you're a fundamentalist or at least somebody who believes in the idea that the Torah was given by God, it was given literally by God.

01:38:21.000 But, again, that doesn't...

01:38:23.000 The logic behind the rules, which...

01:38:25.000 People like Maimonides have tried to explicate.

01:38:28.000 The idea is, as I said, this you can do without God.

01:38:32.000 This part you can do without God.

01:38:34.000 The human sex drive was made to procreate within a stable relationship in order to progenerate and have future generations of people.

01:38:43.000 Misuse of that sex drive in any way, whether you're talking about from masturbation to homosexual activity, is therefore a diminishment of the use of that drive.

01:38:51.000 That's the natural law case against homosexual activity. 0.84

01:38:54.000 And again, I will reiterate for Media Matters for the one millionth time, I'm not in favor of any of this being encoded into American law because freedom is freedom.

01:39:01.000 People should be able to sin how they choose so long as they're not harming anybody else.

01:39:04.000 Right.

01:39:04.000 But what about people that have had vasectomies?

01:39:07.000 And what about women that also... 1.00

01:39:09.000 Judaism is not cool with vasectomies.

01:39:11.000 Not cool with it.

01:39:12.000 And neither is Catholicism from what I understand.

01:39:13.000 Right.

01:39:14.000 Yeah, well, I'm not a big fan of that one either.

01:39:19.000 That one I have more experience with.

01:39:20.000 But so...

01:39:22.000 What if a man is sterile and the woman's sterile? 0.99

01:39:26.000 Are they allowed to have sex? 0.88

01:39:27.000 If they both know?

01:39:28.000 So yes, because there are ancillary benefits to married couples having sex, like relationship building, but that's not a generalized case against the favored view of sex.

01:39:37.000 Right?

01:39:39.000 That's sort of like arguing that intersex people mean that there's no such thing as two separate sexes.

01:39:43.000 There are two separate sexes and also there are intersex people who have a condition.

01:39:46.000 Yes.

01:39:47.000 Right?

01:39:47.000 And that's the same thing here.

01:39:48.000 The case in favor of heterosexual sexual activity does not change based on the fact that some people can't actually participate in that.

01:39:55.000 What would you do if a young gay guy came to you for advice? 0.91

01:39:58.000 If someone said, hey, Ben, I'm an admirer of yours.

01:40:02.000 I love the way you think and follow your philosophies, but I've got a problem.

01:40:07.000 I'm a young Jewish man, and I'm gay, and I don't know what to do.

01:40:11.000 What would you tell them to do?

01:40:12.000 I mean, I can't tell them to do anything.

01:40:15.000 What would you advise?

01:40:17.000 Would you tell them to not act out on those feelings?

01:40:20.000 I would say you do the best you can as a human being.

01:40:23.000 And from my moral perspective, you try to avoid sin as best you can, but everybody sins.

01:40:30.000 The problem with that sin, though, it seems to me that it was defined by people that didn't understand biology because they were dealing with humans that existed thousands of years ago, no books, no real understanding of why people were gay.

01:40:43.000 I mean, again, I really don't think that biblical commandments are linked, and religious commandments generally are linked to a view of biology, meaning that— You don't think so?

01:40:52.000 No, I think that all sin is a recognition that we have drives that we are supposed to forego.

01:40:58.000 Okay.

01:40:58.000 I mean, that's fundamental to certainly Judaism and to Christianity as well, I would say.

01:41:03.000 Islam even has this basic precept.

01:41:05.000 Right, when I think we can agree that there's some real benefits to discipline.

01:41:10.000 There's real benefits to having structure, and it doesn't mean that you can't be creative.

01:41:14.000 It doesn't mean that you can't be...

01:41:16.000 Free and do whatever you want some of the time, too.

01:41:18.000 But I think we can both agree that this is one of the best benefits of an ideology, hopefully a positive ideology.

01:41:26.000 Right.

01:41:26.000 And one of the things that I – the reason I keep coming back to the governmental regulation point is because my view is that if your view of discipline is not my view of discipline, good on you.

01:41:37.000 Go do what you want to do.

01:41:38.000 I've never had a conversation with Dave Rubin about him being a gay guy.

01:41:42.000 Right, but you did say that you wouldn't go to his marriage, right?

01:41:44.000 Well, right.

01:41:45.000 As a religious person, I can't actively participate in something that I consider to be a sin, but I would go out to dinner with Dave and his husband any time.

01:41:52.000 My wife and I would do that, of course.

01:41:54.000 We'd have him over to our house with his husband.

01:41:56.000 You don't find any contradiction between your religious perspective and your personal perspective in that regard?

01:42:01.000 That you wouldn't be there for religious reasons?

01:42:06.000 But that you would be there for personal reasons?

01:42:09.000 Would you go to the after party?

01:42:11.000 If you wouldn't go to the wedding, would you go to the after party?

01:42:14.000 Anything that was a celebration of same-sex marriage, no. 0.76

01:42:17.000 Wow.

01:42:17.000 You wouldn't even go to the party?

01:42:20.000 No.

01:42:22.000 What if there was a barbecue the next day?

01:42:23.000 Would you consider it?

01:42:28.000 And again, I'm not a good party person, so I'm not sure why anybody would want me at their party, frankly.

01:42:34.000 You'd be a great party.

01:42:35.000 I haven't been to a party with you, but I went to a dinner party with you.

01:42:38.000 That's true.

01:42:38.000 We had a great time.

01:42:39.000 That was a good time.

01:42:40.000 That's a funny picture, man.

01:42:41.000 That is a wild picture. 0.99

01:42:42.000 People don't know what the fuck to think about that picture. 0.98

01:42:44.000 That is certainly true. 0.95

01:42:45.000 Eric and...

01:42:47.000 Jordan and Sam and Dave and you and I. It's like, what in the fuck? 1.00

01:42:51.000 All the white supremacists in one place, right? 1.00

01:42:53.000 Yeah, that is a disturbing one when they'll just lump you in with a bunch of fucking psychopaths just because it's convenient for them and it's an easy way to diminish you. 0.99

01:43:04.000 That is a thing that I see more from the left than from the right, and it's really disturbing. 0.99

01:43:11.000 I always thought, until this clickbait generation came along, I always thought that especially, well, you know, the New York Times is obviously the higher standard, but that you would never see that kind of shit from progressive people. 0.95

01:43:25.000 You would never see willful distortion of reality to define their narrative in a really disingenuous way. 0.95

01:43:34.000 And it happens so often now that people get called, my favorite is alt-right adjacent.

01:43:41.000 I don't even know what that means.

01:43:42.000 It doesn't – they don't know what it means.

01:43:44.000 It's a new thing.

01:43:45.000 It's a new thing people are trying out.

01:43:46.000 They're trying it out.

01:43:47.000 It might go away.

01:43:48.000 It's – again, trying to lump everybody into one group for purposes of castigating their motives is really what this – you don't have to have an argument with somebody if you assume they're a Nazi.

01:43:56.000 So I guess if you call everybody a Nazi, you don't have to have an argument. 0.56

01:43:58.000 It is goofy. 0.65

01:44:00.000 But I think – When it comes to the gay marriage thing, what people really worry about is other people trying to stop people from doing what they want to do.

01:44:11.000 You don't have that in you.

01:44:13.000 That's not you.

01:44:14.000 What you are doing is opposing it from your religious beliefs.

01:44:19.000 Right.

01:44:19.000 Like if you want to join into my shul, that shul has religious beliefs.

01:44:24.000 And that's their business.

01:44:26.000 By the way, I can't join a church, I assume.

01:44:28.000 I don't believe the things that people in the church believe.

01:44:30.000 You probably could if you donate.

01:44:33.000 You've got to give the right amount of money.

01:44:34.000 Well, I don't believe in the Jesus, so there's that.

01:44:36.000 The Jesus?

01:44:37.000 Yeah.

01:44:38.000 That's not my thing, right?

01:44:39.000 I wouldn't expect to walk into a mosque and expect them to change their standards on religion.

01:44:44.000 I find it really audacious when people actually expect other people to view the world the same way that they do and then expect that they're going to be catered to in that way.

01:44:54.000 I wouldn't walk into a gay-owned bakery and expect them to Bake a cake that has verses from Leviticus on it. 1.00

01:45:02.000 That story is a weird story.

01:45:04.000 You know, that bake a cake story because it gets bandied about.

01:45:08.000 Those folks went to several bakers until someone said no.

01:45:11.000 This is correct.

01:45:12.000 They were looking for a court case.

01:45:14.000 And honestly, that's not you being a civil rights hero. 1.00

01:45:17.000 That's you being a jackass. 1.00

01:45:18.000 Seriously, go to the other bakery. 1.00

01:45:20.000 What did these people do to you?

01:45:20.000 They didn't have anything to do with you.

01:45:22.000 They don't owe you their cake.

01:45:23.000 And if you want to boycott them, boycott them. 0.72

01:45:24.000 You want to get all your friends to say we're not going to go buy a cake from these discriminatory humans? 0.55

01:45:29.000 Fine.

01:45:29.000 It's a free market.

01:45:30.000 Have at it.

01:45:31.000 But this notion that somebody owes you their services, that to me, it's not even a freedom of religion case to me.

01:45:37.000 That one's a freedom of association case.

01:45:39.000 Well, I think the goal is to shame a business into submission and also to put it out there in the public eye so that people understand that this is a discrimination that does happen with gay folks where they will go somewhere and someone won't make a cake for them.

01:45:55.000 Right.

01:45:56.000 And so I think they wanted to highlight it.

01:45:57.000 So if I was being very charitable and I didn't think they were being attention whores, I would say maybe that's what they're doing. 0.99

01:46:04.000 Maybe they're just trying to highlight this very real problem.

01:46:06.000 That's fine, but they actually took it to the government.

01:46:08.000 Once you start pointing a government gun at people, I get real uptight.

01:46:11.000 Yeah, it's a weird one.

01:46:12.000 If you were just to walk into— Yelp review, yeah.

01:46:15.000 Right, exactly.

01:46:15.000 Yelp review it, talk about how much you don't like them.

01:46:18.000 Fine.

01:46:18.000 I may disagree with you or I may agree with you.

01:46:20.000 Whatever.

01:46:21.000 That's fine.

01:46:21.000 But once you start going to the government and having the government levy $100,000 fines on family bakeries because you couldn't find a gay baker in Colorado, supposedly.

01:46:33.000 Yeah.

01:46:34.000 No.

01:46:35.000 I'm sorry.

01:46:36.000 That's not cool.

01:46:36.000 And I feel the same way.

01:46:38.000 If I walked into a bakery and they're like, you're Jewish. 1.00

01:46:40.000 We're not serving you. 1.00

01:46:40.000 I'd be like, okay, you're an a-hole. 1.00

01:46:43.000 But, all right. 0.94

01:46:44.000 I mean, it's free country.

01:46:45.000 And there's a bakery across the street.

01:46:47.000 Or maybe I'll just open a bakery next door to you and take all your business. 1.00

01:46:49.000 Yeah.

01:46:50.000 Well, it's unfortunate that anyone would ever think like that.

01:46:55.000 But should it be a law to force someone to think differently?

01:46:59.000 You can't.

01:47:00.000 It doesn't work.

01:47:01.000 This is my point.

01:47:03.000 People will point to my religious beliefs and they'll be like, oh, you're a theocrat.

01:47:05.000 And I keep coming back to, I'm not though.

01:47:08.000 I don't want to force my beliefs on anybody.

01:47:10.000 You just have those beliefs.

01:47:12.000 Those are my beliefs, so leave me alone.

01:47:13.000 And those are your beliefs, so leave you alone.

01:47:15.000 And if we can't have a system where we acknowledge that those beliefs can coexist and we can still have conversations with each other or be friends, it's going to be real hard to have a society.

01:47:22.000 When you told Dave Rubin that you wouldn't go to his wedding, did he get butthurt?

01:47:26.000 No pun intended.

01:47:27.000 No, he wasn't upset about it.

01:47:28.000 No?

01:47:28.000 No, because Dave and I were friends.

01:47:30.000 He knows that I have no anger or upset about him doing whatever he wants. 1.00

01:47:35.000 I would be like, what the fuck, Ben? 1.00

01:47:36.000 Come on, man. 1.00

01:47:37.000 I don't know.

01:47:38.000 I'm not a friends person.

01:47:39.000 You don't have any friends?

01:47:40.000 I mean, I have friends, but it's like very close friends and then acquaintances.

01:47:45.000 I tend to keep a pretty close social circle.

01:47:47.000 That's smart.

01:47:48.000 You have so much time in this life.

01:47:51.000 That's pretty much how I feel.

01:47:52.000 Yeah.

01:47:53.000 If you're the kind of person where it feels like a true obligation for me to drive you to the airport, not a thing, man.

01:47:58.000 I'm not driving you to the airport, bro.

01:47:59.000 You can get an Uber.

01:48:01.000 Correct.

01:48:01.000 They're people who make money off of you driving to the airport, as it turns out.

01:48:03.000 You know how to do that.

01:48:04.000 This is exactly correct.

01:48:06.000 Those people.

01:48:07.000 But that kind of went away for the most part. 0.99

01:48:09.000 So if you find someone who's still asking for a ride to the airport, that's a greedy motherfucker at this point. 1.00

01:48:15.000 She's a greedy bitch. 1.00

01:48:16.000 You don't save her 30 bucks on the Uber? 1.00

01:48:18.000 Yeah, unless it's like your wife or your girlfriend and she wants to talk to you when you drop her off at the airport. 0.77

01:48:22.000 That's totally cool.

01:48:24.000 That's understandable.

01:48:25.000 But that's what I mean by my circle of friendship.

01:48:26.000 Like somebody where I'm in the car with them for half an hour and it doesn't feel like an obligation.

01:48:30.000 Yeah, you have a nice conversation.

01:48:32.000 That's fine.

01:48:34.000 I value community.

01:48:36.000 And I value people talking and trying to understand each other.

01:48:41.000 And I've seen so much conflict that's unnecessary because I see so much conflict that's rooted in people not communicating instead of communicating.

01:48:51.000 And I think this is one of the things that I'm most nervous about with all this De-platforming and censoring people and the silencing of people on the right.

01:49:00.000 And it's not that I agree with these people.

01:49:02.000 It's that I see how this is just going to shore up these two sides and it's going to make it a much more difficult...

01:49:10.000 Much more difficult atmosphere for communication, for real understanding, and coming to agreements on things, and recognizing the things that we all, all good people seem to agree.

01:49:21.000 You should try to help each other.

01:49:23.000 You should be kind to each other.

01:49:24.000 You should work hard.

01:49:25.000 You should have good morals and ethics.

01:49:27.000 You shouldn't steal.

01:49:27.000 You shouldn't take from people.

01:49:29.000 You shouldn't lie.

01:49:29.000 You shouldn't try to cheat the government.

01:49:31.000 You shouldn't try to cheat people. 1.00

01:49:32.000 Just be a good fucking person. 0.99

01:49:34.000 And that this transcends religious ideologies. 1.00

01:49:38.000 It transcends political leanings.

01:49:40.000 It really does.

01:49:41.000 It should.

01:49:41.000 And we can have a truly diverse community.

01:49:45.000 Truly diverse.

01:49:46.000 Not forced diversity.

01:49:47.000 Diverse meaning some people are progressive.

01:49:49.000 Some people are conservative.

01:49:51.000 Some people are libertarian.

01:49:52.000 You can joke with each other. 0.97

01:49:53.000 We can all get along together and disagree with things, just not be fucking hateful towards each other. 0.60

01:49:58.000 This is possible, but it becomes less possible when people feel like they're being silenced or censored. 0.81

01:50:05.000 This is totally right. 0.99

01:50:06.000 And it's also true that when you castigate somebody as morally unequal, what you're really doing is you're giving an excuse to get into their shit. 0.98

01:50:12.000 I mean, this is what's really happening here. 0.98

01:50:15.000 If I had a slogan beyond the facts don't care about your feelings stuff, it would just...

01:50:19.000 Leave me alone. 1.00

01:50:20.000 Don't get into my shit. 1.00

01:50:22.000 Like, I'm not bothering you, so why are you bothering me? 1.00

01:50:24.000 And if I have a belief system that's different than yours, then so the hell what?

01:50:27.000 As long as I'm not bothering you, what difference does it make to you how I feel about things? 0.97

01:50:30.000 The only thing about the gay thing is that it's not you. 1.00

01:50:33.000 You have a belief about things that's not you.

01:50:36.000 But I have lots of beliefs about things that are not me.

01:50:37.000 Right, but they're people that aren't hurting each other.

01:50:39.000 But it's...

01:50:40.000 So what?

01:50:41.000 I mean, I can believe that people who aren't hurting each other...

01:50:43.000 Like, I'm not a fan of prostitution.

01:50:45.000 So...

01:50:47.000 Like, so?

01:50:48.000 I'm not a fan of people. 0.99

01:50:49.000 Here's some- Prostitution's clearly more of a choice than I think gay people are. 1.00

01:50:54.000 Okay, but you're coming back to the same moral distinction, which I've repeated a few times, which is that I'm not a believer that a natural desire to do something therefore makes an activity okay.

01:51:06.000 But that's- A view that has no externalities.

01:51:10.000 My view has no externalities.

01:51:11.000 So in the same way, listen, I have beliefs about people who eat too much and get obese because they eat too much.

01:51:15.000 I think it's a bad thing to do.

01:51:16.000 I do as well.

01:51:17.000 I don't think it's my business.

01:51:18.000 You want to do it?

01:51:18.000 Your problem.

01:51:19.000 You want to F up your life?

01:51:21.000 That's what freedom is called.

01:51:22.000 Isn't it one of the seven deadly sins?

01:51:24.000 Gluttony?

01:51:24.000 Yeah, again, a Christian thing, but yeah.

01:51:27.000 But yes, I mean, and I have lots of beliefs about lots of things that people do.

01:51:32.000 And by the way, so do you, things that don't affect you, right?

01:51:34.000 I mean, we all do.

01:51:36.000 But as long as I'm not forcing that on you, because there are no externalities to your behavior, I don't see why it bothers you.

01:51:42.000 Like, they're legitimately...

01:51:44.000 I would assume tens of millions of people in this country who believe that when I die I will go to hell.

01:51:48.000 I don't believe in Jesus and so there are a lot of people who believe I don't believe in Jesus therefore I am bound for hell.

01:51:54.000 That does not bother me one iota because no one's bothering me.

01:51:57.000 So what do I care?

01:51:59.000 I don't understand why everyone doesn't take this view.

01:52:01.000 If I'm not legitimately bothering you Why should you care what I think?

01:52:05.000 This is what would be puzzling me.

01:52:07.000 If somebody came to me and they wanted my opinion on something because they valued my opinion that much, I'd give my opinion.

01:52:12.000 But you don't have to care about my opinion.

01:52:14.000 I think when it comes to the gay thing, what people are looking for is for other folks to be accepting of who they are.

01:52:22.000 And I think for a lot of these gay folks that have been in the closet their whole life, that's the big thing is they're always worried about someone treating them differently or someone diminishing them because they're gay.

01:52:33.000 Then when they hear someone like you say that you think it's a sin and that you shouldn't act on your biology even though you have these urges that you should instead find a woman, they feel the same pangs of rejection.

01:52:45.000 And I get that.

01:52:47.000 I for sure get that, but the confluence between activity and identity is actually kind of a dangerous one, meaning that the idea that if I disapprove of an activity in which you engage, that I disapprove of you, I disapprove of lots of activities in which lots of people engage,

01:53:04.000 including most members of my family, including my children a lot of the time.

01:53:08.000 That does not mean I disapprove of them as a human being or that I'm saying they are lesser as a human being.

01:53:13.000 Right.

01:53:14.000 We all interact with people this way.

01:53:16.000 You disapprove of my view on this.

01:53:18.000 I don't get the feeling you disapprove of me as a human being.

01:53:21.000 No, I don't.

01:53:21.000 I practice a religion.

01:53:22.000 You obviously think my religion is bullshit, but that's okay. 1.00

01:53:24.000 I don't care. 1.00

01:53:25.000 I don't think it's bullshit. 0.99

01:53:27.000 I wouldn't say I think it's bullshit. 1.00

01:53:29.000 You think that God spoke to somebody in the mountains is bullshit, right? 1.00

01:53:32.000 Well, I don't even know if that's bullshit. 0.99

01:53:34.000 What I do know is that it's a historical interpretation of stories that were as much as they could or as little as they wanted to be accurately defined and written down and then passed on from generation to generation to generation. 0.92

01:53:49.000 Okay, so let me think of an example. 0.99

01:53:50.000 You think the fact that I won't eat pork is kind of stupid bullshit? 1.00

01:53:52.000 No, I don't think it's stupid bullshit. 1.00

01:53:54.000 First of all, I think pigs are intelligent. 1.00

01:53:55.000 I wish they weren't wild. 0.85

01:53:57.000 I have a deep affinity to pigs.

01:53:59.000 I really do. 0.59

01:54:00.000 I picked the wrong example here. 0.99

01:54:01.000 I love them, but I also kill them and I eat them. 1.00

01:54:04.000 I mean, I kill wild pigs. 0.99

01:54:06.000 Let me be broader about this. 0.80

01:54:07.000 You're not an Orthodox Jew, so I assume there are things about the things that I do. 0.97

01:54:09.000 But I don't think it's stupid. 0.97

01:54:10.000 But there are certain things of which I believe or practice that you probably disapprove or you don't think they're the smartest or you think that they're – I might not think it's the smartest, but as I've gotten older and hopefully wiser, I give a fuck less about why you do what you do, 0.61

01:54:29.000 but whether or not the benefits seem to be worth—the juice is worth the squeeze.

01:54:35.000 Right.

01:54:35.000 And in your case, I think the juice is worth the squeeze.

01:54:37.000 I think you're a very successful person.

01:54:39.000 You're very reasonable.

01:54:40.000 You're very intelligent.

01:54:41.000 You're an outstanding debater, and I enjoy talking to you and listening to you on YouTube.

01:54:46.000 I think part of that is because of the fact that you're a religion.

01:54:50.000 I think it's cross-training.

01:54:52.000 I think in a lot of ways it's like if you lift weights for jiu-jitsu, it makes you stronger, it'll make you jiu-jitsu better as long as you keep training.

01:55:00.000 I think your discipline from your religion has – there's psychological benefits to it. 0.96

01:55:07.000 There's ethical benefits to it.

01:55:08.000 It's a real thing.

01:55:09.000 I totally get all that.

01:55:10.000 I guess the point is that we're different people.

01:55:12.000 So there are certain activities in which I engage that you probably think, well, I wouldn't do that. 0.98

01:55:15.000 It's kind of dumb. 0.95

01:55:16.000 And that's okay. 0.98

01:55:17.000 But I wouldn't, though.

01:55:18.000 I would, but I wouldn't.

01:55:20.000 I wouldn't.

01:55:20.000 I don't want to do it.

01:55:21.000 I don't want to wear a yarmulke.

01:55:22.000 But I get it.

01:55:23.000 I understand why you do it.

01:55:23.000 It'd be hard to keep it on your head, I mean, frankly.

01:55:25.000 Just glue it.

01:55:25.000 What do bald dudes do?

01:55:27.000 They put a piece of double-stick tape there?

01:55:29.000 Not much you can do.

01:55:29.000 You're not allowed to?

01:55:30.000 No, you can.

01:55:31.000 You totally can.

01:55:31.000 Oh, okay.

01:55:32.000 But that seems painful and uncomfortable.

01:55:33.000 Yeah.

01:55:35.000 The point is that living in a society, we all are constantly disapproving of each other.

01:55:39.000 Politics is just us disapproving of each other all the time.

01:55:41.000 And so long as we're not forcing that on anybody else, I really don't see the problem.

01:55:45.000 And I think everybody should sort of get over it.

01:55:47.000 Like, if I don't approve of your personal behavior...

01:55:49.000 Welcome to the club.

01:55:50.000 I disapprove of 99% of people's personal behavior, including my own half the time.

01:55:54.000 How often do you debate people on the merits of religion or the merits of your belief system?

01:56:00.000 Not super frequently, but not infrequently.

01:56:03.000 I've had this conversation with Sam a couple of different times in public.

01:56:07.000 Well, he's so rabid as an atheist, but yet you guys...

01:56:11.000 He's more religious.

01:56:11.000 Sam is more religious than I am.

01:56:13.000 Sam is more of a religious atheist than I am.

01:56:15.000 Like, I'll admit questions about my own religion.

01:56:17.000 Sam is very, very convinced of his correctness and his viewpoint.

01:56:21.000 Sam's a religious dude.

01:56:22.000 He's a fascinating guy.

01:56:23.000 He is.

01:56:24.000 I like Sam a lot.

01:56:24.000 I do, too.

01:56:25.000 And Michael Shermer I've had on my show to talk about religion and skepticism and all that.

01:56:31.000 I'm not shy about talking about it.

01:56:32.000 I just...

01:56:34.000 Sometimes I find that it's kind of a dead end because sometimes it just turns into, I believe in God.

01:56:38.000 And then the other person is like, I don't believe in God.

01:56:40.000 And it's like, well, okay, fine.

01:56:41.000 Now can we talk about the stuff we think are the – what are the fundamental building blocks upon which you can base a society or base a politics?

01:56:49.000 And if we agree on those, then the God stuff, I think God is a better base for those fundamental – I don't think that you can actually get to human beings are of inestimable value from scientific materialism.

01:57:13.000 If you believe that human beings are effectively just animals, then I don't know why they would be of infinite value, nor why I should respect somebody's belief system simply because they're human.

01:57:21.000 I don't respect animals, and if we're just another animal, there's nothing that necessitates that logical line.

01:57:27.000 In fact, for most of human history, it was not the logical line of thinking. 0.98

01:57:30.000 It was, if you're a member of my tribe, then we like you, and if you're not a member of my tribe, then we get to kill you. 0.98

01:57:34.000 But is that a logical comparison? 0.98

01:57:38.000 Isn't there a difference between single-celled organisms and the way a primate interacts with its environment?

01:57:43.000 I mean, yes, but I'm not sure why that would indicate any sort of greater existential value.

01:57:48.000 It's not necessarily a greater existential value, but as we were talking about the value of community and the value of having a group of people that you care about, that this is a core component of being human.

01:58:00.000 It's a core component of this understanding mind, this rational, intelligent interfacing with the universe in a way that no other animal is capable of.

01:58:10.000 I'm not saying you can't get to...

01:58:13.000 I'm saying that I think it's less convincing than Sam thinks it is.

01:58:16.000 Meaning there's an alternative line of thought that says, okay, you're right, social fabric is great.

01:58:21.000 You know where that social fabric is particularly awesome?

01:58:22.000 Among me and my friends.

01:58:23.000 You know where it ain't that great?

01:58:24.000 Those guys over there. 1.00

01:58:25.000 Let's go kill them and take their shit. 1.00

01:58:27.000 That was pretty much how humanity works for a very, very long time. 1.00

01:58:31.000 And the simple and effective idea that the reason that human beings are of value is because we are more than just our material bodies, that there's something that is us that is of inestimable value.

01:58:42.000 That's a religious concept, and it has a lot of weight.

01:58:45.000 Now, if Sam wants to get to the same place and we can build a political conversation from there, that's fine.

01:58:49.000 My real argument with Sam is Sam and I go down to the bottom of the iceberg about 90% of the way.

01:58:55.000 We have the same fundamental values about free speech, diversity of opinion, about I think to mostly an extent free markets.

01:59:02.000 I think that we agree on a lot of these fundamental principles.

01:59:05.000 He then says that he gets those from pure reason.

01:59:08.000 I have serious questions about whether pure reason necessitates those conclusions.

01:59:13.000 He tends to think that Those are the only conclusions a reasonable person could come to if you properly apply your reason.

01:59:18.000 I don't think that's right.

01:59:19.000 What do you think is happening there?

01:59:21.000 What's the mechanism?

01:59:22.000 I think that the mechanism is that we are – what I said to Sam when we were debating this in San Francisco is it's real weird.

01:59:29.000 He's a materialist, a scientific materialist atheist who is sitting across the stage from me, a religious Jew.

01:59:34.000 We agree on 95 percent of our values.

01:59:36.000 So how?

01:59:39.000 His answer was, well, you know, here's where I've studied.

01:59:41.000 I've studied Buddhism.

01:59:42.000 I've studied these philosophies and I've studied science and all this.

01:59:44.000 He said, right, I haven't studied a lot of those things, but we have the same values.

01:59:47.000 So why?

01:59:47.000 It seems to me a better historical explanation is that we grew up 10 miles from each other in Los Angeles after 3,000 years of common history of Judeo-Christian development.

02:00:12.000 I don't want to get too deep in the weeds here.

02:00:14.000 There's a weird kind of nexus on what truth is, where you've heard Sam and Jordan Peterson debate this.

02:00:19.000 That was insane.

02:00:20.000 It's wild, right?

02:00:22.000 And the truth is I'm closer to Sam than Jordan on this.

02:00:24.000 I'm closer to Jordan than Sam when it comes to the value of religion, and I'm closer to Sam than Jordan when it comes to objective truth.

02:00:30.000 Sam believes that there is such a thing as objective truth.

02:00:32.000 Jordan tends to be more of a pragmatist.

02:00:34.000 He tends to believe that truth is sort of what is useful to a certain extent.

02:00:37.000 And I agree with Sam, but I'm not sure how he gets to objective truth from a scientific materialist worldview.

02:00:45.000 Why is there objective truth as opposed to what you think being evolutionarily beneficial?

02:00:50.000 How do you get from that to it's a universal principle that is objectively true?

02:00:54.000 It's a bit of a jump.

02:00:56.000 Well, it depends on what the concept is, right?

02:00:57.000 Like what are you talking about in terms of objective truth?

02:01:00.000 I'm talking about anything that Sam says is true.

02:01:03.000 What makes it true as opposed to just evolutionarily beneficial for us to think so?

02:01:07.000 Meaning what evolution does is it creates a series of thoughts in our mind presumably if you're a materialist that are beneficial to your preservation and promulgation of the species.

02:01:18.000 They're not actually true.

02:01:19.000 So if it's beneficial, this is Sam's explanation for the prevalence of religion, for example.

02:01:23.000 He'll say religion isn't true, but evolutionary biology sort of drives people toward religion so you can have group bonds that are beyond 150 people or whatever.

02:01:31.000 So why doesn't that apply to math?

02:01:33.000 Why is it that two and two—how do you know that two and two actually equals four?

02:01:36.000 As opposed to it is evolutionarily beneficial for you to believe that two plus two equals four.

02:01:42.000 So Sam believes there's an objective truth somewhere out there that two plus two equals four.

02:01:45.000 I don't know what evolution has to do with that sort of stuff.

02:01:48.000 So what do you think is happening that he disagrees with?

02:01:52.000 So I think that what is happening is that human beings were placed in an orderly universe through the processes of biology and have a unique capacity to understand that universe because we are made in the image of God.

02:02:04.000 This is where I think that the religious viewpoint diverges pretty strongly from Sam's evolutionary viewpoint.

02:02:10.000 But you believe in evolution?

02:02:11.000 Yes.

02:02:12.000 You believe that evolution was a process that was created by God to formulate human beings?

02:02:17.000 Yes.

02:02:18.000 Interesting.

02:02:19.000 Yeah, I mean, that's the nice thing about being religious.

02:02:21.000 You can attribute most everything to God, as Sam would say, right?

02:02:25.000 Well, here's the thing.

02:02:26.000 It's not that implausible.

02:02:30.000 If there was some sort of a grand plan, there would be no regard for, like, oh, we've got to get a rush on this.

02:02:37.000 Right.

02:02:37.000 Making the evolutionary being, you know, we're going to accelerate the process.

02:02:43.000 And there's all sorts of fine-tuning arguments about how implausible it would be for just atoms roaming around the universe randomly to end with human creation.

02:02:51.000 The alternative explanations seem no less implausible to me.

02:02:57.000 The multiple universes theory, plausible, but we have no way to prove it because we can't get to those multiple universes, so how is that testable?

02:03:04.000 Or the now popular theory that we're living in an AI simulation, not sure how that's more testable than God.

02:03:10.000 Not sure how it's more testable that aliens put us here.

02:03:13.000 Why is that more testable or more plausible than the idea that there is a force behind that which we see that has mind?

02:03:23.000 Well, let's just break this down slowly.

02:03:29.000 I think?

02:03:45.000 Why is it happening?

02:03:46.000 Is it happening because of random events that sort of coincide with biology and technology and all these things come to fruition to you and I standing across from each other talking on this podcast in front of millions of people?

02:04:02.000 Or is this just how things go?

02:04:06.000 Is things compete constantly, try to get better, and then in this gigantic ecosystem of all these things competing and trying to get better, one super successful organism, us, rises above and continues.

02:04:19.000 Right.

02:04:19.000 And continues and by far passes all these other creatures below it and moves.

02:04:25.000 We...

02:04:27.000 I mean if you really believe in evolution, you can't think we're done.

02:04:30.000 It's got to be moving towards some better product.

02:04:33.000 It keeps going until it creates something like that.

02:04:35.000 So this is why I say that Sam is more religious than I am.

02:04:38.000 I think that there's a plausible argument for atheism.

02:04:40.000 I just don't think that there is a plausible argument for Sam's moral vision of atheism, meaning that what Sam tends to do is – For example, you and I have talked a lot on this particular podcast about the value of self-betterment and making decisions and being responsible for those decisions.

02:04:58.000 How does that work in an area where we don't have free will?

02:05:00.000 So Sam actively says we do not have free will.

02:05:02.000 Yeah, that's a weird conversation.

02:05:04.000 It is a weird conversation and sort of a self-defeating one.

02:05:06.000 Sam suggests when it comes to the scientific method that we are using science to find out truths about the universe, and we're using reason.

02:05:13.000 Sam's very big on reason.

02:05:14.000 I also am big on reason, but I don't know how Sam is defining reason as opposed to just an evolutionarily beneficial firing of neurons, meaning that That's what we are.

02:05:25.000 We're balls of meat wandering purposeless through the universe.

02:05:27.000 And then he'll talk about making our own meaning or seeking human prosperity or flourishing is the word he likes to use.

02:05:36.000 These are all very active verbs.

02:05:37.000 This is an active vision of man in the universe.

02:05:40.000 And I'm not sure how that flows from we're a ball of meat that evolved from another ball of meat that evolved eventually, if you go back far enough, from non-balls of meat without any free will, without any capacity to choose.

02:05:54.000 I don't know how you build a civilization on that.

02:05:57.000 Well, there's two different conversations here.

02:05:58.000 One is determination or determinism, rather.

02:06:01.000 Whether or not you have free will or whether or not your life and your actions are being dictated by the past, by your biology, by your learned experiences, by external pressures.

02:06:11.000 What is causing this...

02:06:14.000 Very clear decision that you make.

02:06:16.000 Is this free will? 0.99

02:06:17.000 Are you deciding, I'm going to get my shit together? 0.79

02:06:19.000 Or are all the factors around you pushing you and funneling you into this direction that it's unavoidable to you? 0.98

02:06:27.000 And that you are not a product of free will.

02:06:30.000 You're just a product of a lot of different factors.

02:06:32.000 Or is it both?

02:06:35.000 Is it that you are the product of your environment and your life experiences and you also have free will?

02:06:42.000 Right.

02:06:42.000 And I'm in the latter group.

02:06:44.000 I'm in the latter group, I think, as well. 0.90

02:06:45.000 I think we also experience great benefit from making positive choices and then experiencing like whenever you meet someone who's lost a lot of weight, one of the things they have is this fucking tremendous feeling of accomplishment. 0.82

02:06:58.000 Yeah, I lost 100 pounds. 0.99

02:07:00.000 You're like, holy shit, man, 100 pounds! 0.99

02:07:02.000 They get this positive feedback from it. 0.99

02:07:05.000 There's real good in making good choices. 0.92

02:07:08.000 And when people decide to get their shit together and make a good choice, they're rewarded. 0.77

02:07:13.000 The question is, are you doing that because of determinism or are you doing that because of free will? 0.97

02:07:18.000 Or are you doing that because of a combination of both of those things?

02:07:21.000 And can you fuel that free will purposely through outwardly seeking things that are motivational or things that are educational, things that allow you to kind of remap the way you process reality?

02:07:34.000 Right.

02:07:34.000 Which can be extremely beneficial and can aid in you taking steps towards exercising your free will.

02:07:40.000 Right.

02:07:40.000 And this is why I think that in the end...

02:07:44.000 Right.

02:07:45.000 But I think that's a pretty fundamental question, and I think that that's why in the end I'm religious and I'm not sure why Sam isn't because he agrees with the same premises.

02:07:55.000 He'll talk about self-betterment and decisions that you can make, and then he'll write a full book about why free will doesn't exist, and I just don't understand how those two things can coexist.

02:08:03.000 Yes.

02:08:04.000 Well, I think it's a thought experiment, first of all.

02:08:08.000 I think the whole determinism thing is a thought experiment because there's really no way to determine.

02:08:13.000 Right.

02:08:13.000 But you have to act as though, for sure, right?

02:08:16.000 I mean, there's just no way to act otherwise.

02:08:19.000 I absolutely act as if I have free will.

02:08:23.000 Right, and we all do.

02:08:24.000 And I get angry at myself when I fuck things up.

02:08:26.000 I don't say, well, it's just determinism, man.

02:08:29.000 Right.

02:08:29.000 No, that doesn't get you in it.

02:08:31.000 But maybe it's determinism that has put me in this position where I'm the kind of guy that gets upset if I fuck things up.

02:08:37.000 Right.

02:08:38.000 I don't know.

02:08:39.000 I don't know, man.

02:08:40.000 I don't know, but I don't know if you know either.

02:08:42.000 That's my take on all these things.

02:08:43.000 When people get really rigid with their ideologies, I'm like, okay, I want to hear it out.

02:08:48.000 I want to hear the whole thing.

02:08:50.000 I want to hear it all.

02:08:51.000 I'm not sure if you know.

02:08:52.000 No, I think there's a lot that I don't know, but I think that there's more plausible and less plausible.

02:08:58.000 I agree.

02:08:59.000 This is where I think people misunderstand you.

02:09:02.000 You have your beliefs, but you're not a guy that imposes them on people.

02:09:07.000 And I think we need to be way more reasonable in terms of the way we address people's beliefs.

02:09:16.000 And I've been guilty of this in the past.

02:09:19.000 I'm sure many people listening have.

02:09:21.000 Everyone has.

02:09:21.000 But I think it's a core component to a healthy community, is to allow people to have their own beliefs.

02:09:27.000 And, you know, who knows, man?

02:09:29.000 Maybe your beliefs on gay people will adjust and move over time as you get older and move into a gay neighborhood. 0.60

02:09:35.000 Again, it's not... 0.61

02:09:36.000 Look, dude, it's not about tolerance for gay folks.

02:09:39.000 I understand.

02:09:39.000 I know.

02:09:39.000 It's a religious thing.

02:09:41.000 I mean, I don't...

02:09:42.000 Yeah.

02:09:42.000 It's...

02:09:44.000 It's a difference between understanding people as whole people and then saying that I don't like some of the things that they do and simply saying – making the assumption that because I don't like some of the things that you do, we can't be friends or I disapprove of you as an entire human being, which I think is not true.

02:09:58.000 It's a good belief system to have if you're straight and then you go, look, got it locked down.

02:10:02.000 Don't need to worry about that.

02:10:04.000 I got a problem. 1.00

02:10:04.000 But if you were gay, god damn, that would be a pain in the ass. 1.00

02:10:06.000 Yeah, absolutely. 1.00

02:10:07.000 Fuck, it would be annoying if you just always wanted to bang dudes and everyone's saying no. 1.00

02:10:12.000 And you're like, but that's what I want to do and they want to bang me. 1.00

02:10:15.000 Nobody said religion's easy, man.

02:10:17.000 What's the value in it, though? 0.99

02:10:19.000 If you're a giant homo, all right, and all you want to do is go to gay discos and party your ass off, that's what you enjoy. 1.00

02:10:25.000 Some people like golf, okay? 1.00

02:10:27.000 Some people like parasailing. 0.99

02:10:30.000 Some dudes just want to fucking get it on, man. 1.00

02:10:32.000 They want to... 1.00

02:10:33.000 Dress up like the village people and go have a fucking party. 1.00

02:10:36.000 That's why Santa Monica Boulevard is such a hot spot. 1.00

02:10:39.000 They find each other.

02:10:40.000 Do whatever you want to do.

02:10:42.000 Honestly, do whatever you want to do.

02:10:46.000 Don't ask me to put my stamp of moral approval on it.

02:10:49.000 I understand that.

02:10:50.000 But do what you want to do.

02:10:51.000 It's a free country.

02:10:52.000 And it should be a free country.

02:10:53.000 Not just it is a free country.

02:10:54.000 It should be a free country.

02:10:55.000 It should not be my job to police your personal behavior.

02:10:59.000 It doesn't mean I have to approve it on a personal level.

02:11:03.000 But... 0.96

02:11:03.000 I'm a jerk if I want to impose my belief system on your personal behavior that affects no one else. 0.96

02:11:08.000 I mean that's the definition of being an ass. 1.00

02:11:09.000 And I'm a hypocrite if I continue to berate you about your opinion on gay folks. 1.00

02:11:15.000 Why do I give a fuck what your opinion is? 1.00

02:11:17.000 Correct. 0.98

02:11:17.000 Because you are a reasonable person and you do – you're very polite and you're even friends with Dave Rubin. 0.98

02:11:22.000 So there you go.

02:11:25.000 There's gotta be something there.

02:11:27.000 It's a strange thing, though, this need that people have for everyone to think the way they think.

02:11:33.000 And I understand the need to reinforce your own thoughts and argue them and...

02:11:44.000 Try to figure out a way to debate that the other person's perspective is incorrect and your perspective is correct.

02:11:50.000 I understand all these inclinations that people have.

02:11:53.000 But I think that they conflate that with bigotry.

02:11:58.000 And I don't think you're a bigot.

02:12:02.000 I don't agree with you about gay folks, but that's one of the few... 1.00

02:12:05.000 The marijuana thing is just I just don't think you have any experience in it.

02:12:08.000 Right.

02:12:08.000 And as far as disagreeing, I think that we probably don't disagree on gay folks.

02:12:13.000 I think...

02:12:14.000 We disagree on identity and gay activity and all the rest of it. 1.00

02:12:17.000 I mean, as human beings, I know many gay people who I think are significantly better human beings than religious people than I know.

02:12:27.000 Yeah.

02:12:28.000 I'm glad you said that.

02:12:30.000 Yeah, I think, in a way, I don't have a defined religion.

02:12:40.000 But in a way, I have some pretty rigid ideas that I have in my head about behavior and ethics and morals and how you treat people you care about.

02:12:49.000 Those are like, they're pretty rigid.

02:12:51.000 And I think One of the things that religion does is it allows you to have this sort of ethical framework, sort of like scaffolding.

02:13:04.000 It allows you to develop a more disciplined life and it just shows you this is good and this is bad and it's clear.

02:13:13.000 For the most part, it's good.

02:13:16.000 For the most part, these are good patterns to follow.

02:13:19.000 And I think that I've most certainly sort of adopted my own somewhere along the line.

02:13:26.000 I think we all do.

02:13:27.000 I mean, honestly, a value system effectively is usually a form of religion.

02:13:31.000 Right, so when you're saying that Sam is religious, he's a religious atheist, you're not being inaccurate.

02:13:38.000 There's a lot of folks do that.

02:13:40.000 We do develop these sort of Principles that we follow.

02:13:43.000 We're not just free willy-nilly, just doing whatever we want all day long.

02:13:47.000 No one does that.

02:13:48.000 And the reason I say it is sort of facetiously, but I think that we all make fundamental assumptions about the nature of human life.

02:13:53.000 And we have to recognize that those are assumptions.

02:13:55.000 It's not reason all the way down.

02:13:58.000 Because that tends to actually become even more inflexible.

02:14:02.000 I'm the only reasonable person in the room.

02:14:03.000 My reasons are the only ones that matter.

02:14:05.000 And so it's my reasons all the way down.

02:14:07.000 Acknowledge that we're all making some assumptions, and then we can discuss whether those assumptions are worthwhile or not.

02:14:11.000 Yeah.

02:14:12.000 The thing that, when it comes with religion in defining whether or not other people's behavior is sinful, where it doesn't involve you, that's where a lot of folks start thinking that maybe these ideas are bigoted.

02:14:25.000 Right.

02:14:25.000 But it does involve me.

02:14:27.000 It does.

02:14:27.000 Well, I'm enjoined.

02:14:29.000 Every sin that I say is a sin is a sin that enjoins me.

02:14:31.000 It's just that I may not have a desire for that particular sin.

02:14:35.000 Meaning I'm not holding people to a different standard than I hold myself, nor am I saying that I never sinned.

02:14:40.000 Right, but you know that you have different biological desires than they do.

02:14:44.000 You kind of acknowledge that, right?

02:14:45.000 Of course that's true.

02:14:46.000 Of course that's true. 0.97

02:14:47.000 By the same token, I assume that a gay guy doesn't have the desire to shoot up a thousand women, which most straight guys do. 0.96

02:14:52.000 Yeah. 0.97

02:14:53.000 Why do you think, if God has a plan, why do you think he would create gay people? 1.00

02:14:58.000 I mean, I think that God creates—first of all, I don't think that I'm in a position to evaluate God's plan.

02:15:04.000 I wish I were.

02:15:05.000 But if you had a guess, God creates people with all sorts of different challenges, and those challenges span the spectrum.

02:15:12.000 I mean, I'm not— So God sneaks it up on you. 0.96

02:15:15.000 Hey, man, I know this is going to be fucked up, but you're going to just like dudes. 0.99

02:15:20.000 Like, forget about women. 1.00

02:15:21.000 You're gonna like dudes.

02:15:22.000 But I want you to ignore that.

02:15:24.000 I want you to listen to my old book.

02:15:26.000 I don't know why God gives people drives.

02:15:28.000 I don't know why God gives kids cancer.

02:15:29.000 I don't know a lot of things about God.

02:15:31.000 Wish I did.

02:15:32.000 It would make my life a lot easier.

02:15:33.000 So you think that that is a challenge akin to any other challenge that a human being might face in this life?

02:15:40.000 That the challenge of being...

02:15:41.000 But a lot harder.

02:15:42.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:15:42.000 But a lot more difficult and a lot more straining and a lot...

02:15:44.000 Yeah, of course.

02:15:45.000 But you think there's value in following that challenge and not acting on gay urges? 1.00

02:15:49.000 I think there can be. 1.00

02:15:51.000 And having sex with a woman, plug your nose, go ooh, and make a face because you're disgusting. 1.00

02:15:55.000 I don't know. 1.00

02:15:55.000 Did you create a baby out of that? 1.00

02:15:57.000 Is that baby a part of your life now that is deep and meaningful?

02:16:01.000 Maybe.

02:16:02.000 In the past, there were a lot of gay guys having kids.

02:16:04.000 What about people saying living their truth?

02:16:06.000 I'm living my truth, Ben Shapiro. 0.99

02:16:08.000 Well, I mean, as a general rule, living my truth is a bunch of crap. 0.98

02:16:12.000 There's living your opinion, which is fine. 0.99

02:16:14.000 Live your opinion how you want.

02:16:15.000 Again, that gets back to do what you want as long as it's not bothering me.

02:16:18.000 Living my truth is a different thing.

02:16:20.000 That's one of those social media creations.

02:16:23.000 Living my truth. 1.00

02:16:24.000 That's just bullshit. 0.97

02:16:25.000 I'm sorry. 0.99

02:16:26.000 Living my truth is bullshit. 0.97

02:16:28.000 There's no such thing as your truth. 0.99

02:16:29.000 There's the truth and then there's your opinion and we do have to – for purposes of conversation at the very least, it's deeply irritating when people say living my truth because then it's like I disagree with you and then they're like, well, you're disavowing me as a human being.

02:16:40.000 No, I just disagree.

02:16:42.000 You can be you.

02:16:43.000 You can do what you want.

02:16:46.000 Whatever, man.

02:16:48.000 Calm down.

02:16:50.000 How did I become the most loosey-goosey, libertarian, lean-back guy in the world in this society?

02:16:56.000 How is this possible?

02:16:57.000 I'm the most uptight person I know.

02:16:58.000 How is this a thing?

02:16:59.000 Well, you know as well as I do that the further you go left, you reach the same sort of zealotry that you do when you go all the way right.

02:17:09.000 This is correct. 0.97

02:17:10.000 You meet these crazy people that are just completely connected to their idea of being correct, and they take the most rigid stance on all these issues on the left side or on the right side, and it's so goddamn common. 0.94

02:17:23.000 It's a pattern of human behavior. 0.97

02:17:25.000 It's also incredibly boring.

02:17:26.000 I mean, there's just nothing to discuss with people.

02:17:28.000 Yeah, I agree.

02:17:29.000 And that's one of the reasons why it's so disgusting when people mislabel people.

02:17:33.000 Like, so there was an article that connected me with Richard Spencer. 0.99

02:17:37.000 Like, what in the fuck? 0.99

02:17:39.000 Like, that is such a disingenuous thing to do. 1.00

02:17:42.000 And they know what they're doing.

02:17:44.000 They're either trying to get me to react to it and talk about it and get more clicks. 0.99

02:17:48.000 But it's horseshit. 0.64

02:17:49.000 But if you are locked into that far-left ideology, as far-left as you can go, and it's one of the problems with ideologies that have these extremists, is that you believe in a percentage of the things these people say, 0.98

02:18:06.000 but then they go way too far with it.

02:18:08.000 But you're connected with them.

02:18:09.000 You're connected with them because you're a part of that, even though you don't have a similar notion.

02:18:18.000 Failure to ask questions and give plausible answers gives credence to the alt-right.

02:18:24.000 So he did a whole speech where he said, listen, there are lots of conversations about IQ and race, and the alt-right loves these conversations because then they suggest wrongly that black people are inherently unfit and white people are more fit and all that kind of stuff.

02:18:38.000 And he says there are great ways to explain how much of IQ is cultural, how much can be changed, how much is genetic, how much that actually matters in terms of real-life outcomes.

02:18:50.000 We can do all those things, but when you say, don't ask the question, stop asking the question, then you make people Google, and the only thing that they will Google and find are answers that are given by people who are actually alt-right.

02:19:00.000 And he got ripped as alt-right for this.

02:19:02.000 His entire argument was don't allow people to push into alt-right answers by failing to give them proper responses or by throwing them out the window.

02:19:09.000 And then people are like, well, you're alt-right now because you're saying that people should be able to ask questions.

02:19:14.000 It's the exact same version as people in the religious community where it's like, you know, I used to go to Sunday school and then I asked too many questions and they kicked me out.

02:19:22.000 Right?

02:19:22.000 That's not how religion is supposed to work.

02:19:24.000 That's not how reason is supposed to work.

02:19:27.000 That's not how any of this is supposed to work.

02:19:28.000 Right.

02:19:29.000 And there's also – when you're investigating anything, any measurable thing, when you find a number, whatever it is, like these people, like Asian folks are better at mathematics – European folks are better at this. 0.92

02:19:45.000 What's the reason for that?

02:19:47.000 Let's find out.

02:19:47.000 Is it cultural?

02:19:48.000 Is it biological?

02:19:50.000 Can we learn about how human beings evolved and adapted?

02:19:53.000 Why are Nigerians so smart? 1.00

02:19:55.000 There's so many Nigerians that come to this country.

02:19:57.000 They thrive.

02:19:58.000 They thrive in business.

02:19:59.000 They're extremely motivated.

02:20:02.000 They're extremely disciplined.

02:20:03.000 It's almost like Korean folks. 1.00

02:20:05.000 Why are they so hardworking?

02:20:09.000 Why do they strive?

02:20:10.000 Obviously, these are big generalizations.

02:20:12.000 But what is it about Italians? 0.93

02:20:13.000 What makes them wear gold chains and love mafia movies?

02:20:17.000 What is it?

02:20:18.000 Those are my people. 1.00

02:20:19.000 What the fuck? 1.00

02:20:20.000 Why do they all talk like that? 1.00

02:20:22.000 What is that?

02:20:23.000 What causes any sort of ethnic group to turn out the way they turned out?

02:20:28.000 Why are so many European Jews Nobel Prize winners? 1.00

02:20:31.000 What the fuck is going on over there? 0.99

02:20:59.000 And who are giving convenient, easy, and self-flattering answers about the nature of themselves. 0.99

02:21:04.000 The fear is it being used by racists to reinforce their positions.

02:21:08.000 But what you find out is that the Asians are the superior race. 1.00

02:21:12.000 And they'll do that anyway. 1.00

02:21:13.000 One of the funniest things about white supremacists is they're so fucking stupid. 1.00

02:21:17.000 Pardon the language. 1.00

02:21:18.000 The white supremacists are invariably not the Nobel Prize winners. 0.91

02:21:24.000 Go to a white supremacist compound.

02:21:25.000 You're not looking at a bunch of people who are curing cancer. 1.00

02:21:28.000 These people piss me off.

02:21:29.000 And I'll say all that.

02:21:31.000 It won't matter.

02:21:31.000 The media will label me outright tomorrow because that's the way this goes.

02:21:33.000 Well, the disingenuous media that's being less and less taken seriously, taken less and less seriously. 0.79

02:21:40.000 It seems to me that that trend, which is a common trend that's existed for the last few years of these clickbaity bullshit articles and mislabeling people, it's going to go away.

02:21:50.000 Because your perspective is not going to be appreciated. 0.92

02:21:53.000 It's not going to be respected if you're obviously making disingenuous statements like that.

02:21:59.000 And I think we're in this weird position where it's very difficult to find real journalism and real objective takes on things that aren't flavored by their ideology.

02:22:09.000 And everybody's trying to shape everybody and they feel like it's their obligation.

02:22:12.000 They feel There's many people that write things that feel like it's their obligation to change your perspective on national subjects and things that are important to us.

02:22:22.000 It's not their obligation to just report what's going on, but also their obligation to flavor things in a way that'll make one side look favorable to the other.

02:22:30.000 Yeah, well, I'm very much in favor of journalists revealing their biases.

02:22:33.000 I think that the greatest lie in media is that objective journalism is a thing.

02:22:37.000 So I'm a conservative.

02:22:38.000 You want to go to my site, you'll get a conservative spin on the news.

02:22:40.000 That's the way it's going to work.

02:22:41.000 And guess what?

02:22:42.000 CNN's liberal, and they are going to give you the liberal spin on the news.

02:22:45.000 And that's just the way this is going to work.

02:22:46.000 Did you see the video when the Mueller report came out and it looked like somebody got killed?

02:22:50.000 Oh my god.

02:22:50.000 It was crazy.

02:22:51.000 It was the day that Kennedy got shot.

02:22:54.000 Shouldn't you be happy? 1.00

02:22:55.000 If you guys believed in Mueller, everybody was like, Mueller is the fucking man. 0.99

02:22:59.000 He's going to go get Trump. 0.99

02:23:00.000 This guy is methodical.

02:23:02.000 He's precise.

02:23:03.000 People were buying votive candles.

02:23:04.000 He's going to find out everything.

02:23:05.000 Votive candles with his face on them that they could burn.

02:23:07.000 They were pumped.

02:23:08.000 Yeah.

02:23:08.000 And then he came out and it was like, well, no collusion.

02:23:10.000 Everybody's like, well, I guess now it's a cover-up.

02:23:12.000 Yeah.

02:23:14.000 Wait a minute.

02:23:16.000 Maybe the narrative has trumped the actual job you were supposed to do, guys.

02:23:21.000 Well, it's just so many people were so convinced, and there were so many people that were making statements that, in retrospect, are probably – you could probably – I mean, I don't want to say I'm not a litigious person,

02:23:38.000 but if I was a guy like Donald Trump, there's so many people to sue.

02:23:43.000 It was amazing.

02:23:45.000 I mean, I remember I was on Bill Maher's show, and we were supposed to talk about free speech stuff, and like five minutes before, and he's like, let's talk about Russia.

02:23:50.000 His producer came in.

02:23:51.000 Let's talk about Russia.

02:23:52.000 And I was like, okay, fine.

02:23:53.000 So we get on.

02:23:54.000 The producer said that?

02:23:55.000 Yeah, this is like right before they switched the topic.

02:23:57.000 How goofy are TV shows where they just tell you what you have to talk about?

02:24:00.000 I don't know.

02:24:00.000 Some guy comes in with a clipboard.

02:24:02.000 Yeah, it was a little bit strange.

02:24:05.000 And we get on stage and he's talking about Trump-Russia collusion.

02:24:08.000 And I said what I've always said, which is I'll wait for the evidence to come out and then I will make a decision as to whether Trump-Russia collusion was a thing.

02:24:14.000 You're radical.

02:24:15.000 I know.

02:24:16.000 And Bill Maher goes, you don't believe it was a thing?

02:24:19.000 And I was like, well, I don't see any evidence yet that it was a thing.

02:24:21.000 Like, I see some evidence of attempts to collude, like Tom Jr. I see some attempts of people trying to get information.

02:24:26.000 But I don't see evidence of, like, actual legal collusion.

02:24:28.000 And why don't we just wait?

02:24:30.000 Like, you guys keep wanting Mueller to give us—like, let's just wait on it.

02:24:33.000 And Maher could not believe that this was my perspective.

02:24:37.000 It was shocking to him.

02:24:39.000 Why should the perspective, I'm waiting for more evidence, be shocking to anyone when it is obvious the evidence is not out?

02:24:45.000 Why is that in any way controversial?

02:24:48.000 It's bewildering to me.

02:24:49.000 Well, it's because people have this need to let everyone know that they're on the right side.

02:24:56.000 And they want you to know that they do believe in the collusion.

02:24:59.000 If you disagree with that for whatever reason, you must either be a right-wing person, a Trump supporter, someone who's in denial, someone who doesn't look at the evidence, and you're a part of the problem.

02:25:11.000 But the real problem was jumping to conclusions.

02:25:14.000 There obviously seemed to be some attempts.

02:25:16.000 There's obviously some fuckery with that IRA company, the internet research agency that is responsible for millions of interactions with people online where they pretended to be different supporters.

02:25:29.000 They caused conflict.

02:25:31.000 Like, constant conflict in regards to political opinion, and that's all real.

02:25:35.000 That was a coordinated effort to try to change people's opinions.

02:25:37.000 But how much did that have to do with Donald Trump?

02:25:40.000 How much did he ask for?

02:25:41.000 You got no evidence.

02:25:42.000 Also, I was always bewildered by this theory.

02:25:45.000 Like, did you watch that campaign?

02:25:46.000 That was not the most well-coordinated campaign.

02:25:49.000 It was chaos.

02:25:50.000 I mean, I knew everybody who was in the campaign. 1.00

02:25:52.000 Like, it was a shit show. 1.00

02:25:54.000 And the idea that they're sitting there, but when the mask comes off at night, They call it Vladimir Putin. 1.00

02:25:59.000 And they put together a point-by-point plan on how they're going to swing this particular precinct in rural Michigan.

02:26:07.000 It's like, what are you—are you guys high?

02:26:09.000 What are you talking about?

02:26:12.000 If you could attribute this to—here's a good rule of thumb for politics. 1.00

02:26:17.000 Attribute everything to stupidity unless you can prove malice. 0.98

02:26:21.000 The real problem, and this is something that is very similar to what we were talking about earlier, when you say something, and you say it over and over and over again, and you say it with such conviction, and it becomes a giant part of your news narrative, 1.00

02:26:37.000 and then that something turns out to be horseshit, you just massively empowered Trump.

02:26:43.000 That's exactly right.

02:26:44.000 I've said for a long time that I'm not a big fan of Trump's fake news shtick because I think he applies it too broadly.

02:26:49.000 I think that whenever there's a bad piece of news, he's like, fake news.

02:26:51.000 And it's like, well, sometimes yes and sometimes no.

02:26:54.000 But now that you just blew a two-year narrative where he was clearly in Putin's pocket, how many people do you think are going to listen to the nuanced view of fake news now?

02:27:01.000 And how many people do you think are going to actually believe Trump when he says that a bad piece of news is legitimately a fake piece of news?

02:27:06.000 Yeah, it empowers him in a spectacular manner.

02:27:10.000 They made a giant mistake.

02:27:12.000 Oh yeah.

02:27:12.000 And they blew this one in spectacular fashion.

02:27:15.000 And people are still hanging in there with it.

02:27:18.000 All they had to do, this is true for so many people right now, all you have to do is not be crazy.

02:27:22.000 Just stop it.

02:27:23.000 That's all you have to do. 0.98

02:27:24.000 Who was the guy that was talking about the possibility that Trump has been a Russian asset since like 1987 or some shit? 0.99

02:27:29.000 Who the fuck was that? 0.99

02:27:30.000 I mean Andrew McCabe, the former FBI director, was asked whether Trump was legitimately a Russian asset and he's like, I don't know. 1.00

02:27:36.000 It's like you're using the power of the institution you used to run to spread this nonsense.

02:27:40.000 And you got that from John Brennan.

02:27:42.000 You got it from James Clapper.

02:27:44.000 These are all former heads of the intelligence agencies.

02:27:46.000 It just makes me think the intelligence agencies need to be wildly curved back if these were the heads of them.

02:27:50.000 I mean, if, like, the heads of the intelligence agencies are using their platform to proclaim that they have inside information about Trump that turns out to be utter nonsense, I'm not sure these people should have that much power to, like— Is that what he's saying, or is he saying he doesn't know?

02:28:03.000 He didn't say—I don't know.

02:28:04.000 He was saying, like, I have—basically, I expect that Mueller is going to indict as a former intelligence professional.

02:28:10.000 I expect—yeah, there's a lot of that.

02:28:12.000 It was ugly.

02:28:14.000 Adam Schiff on the Intel committee doing the same thing.

02:28:16.000 It's crazy now, because what do they do now?

02:28:19.000 How do they rebound from this?

02:28:20.000 If this is something that you didn't just say once, this is something you said for two years?

02:28:24.000 Right.

02:28:25.000 You've seen the compilation videos?

02:28:26.000 Oh yeah, they're hilarious.

02:28:28.000 They've done them to rap music.

02:28:29.000 They put a beat behind it.

02:28:32.000 Have you seen it?

02:28:33.000 No, I haven't.

02:28:33.000 No, there's some great ones.

02:28:35.000 There's compilations of people saying, possible collusion, possible collusion, possible collusion.

02:28:41.000 And then there's music that goes with it, and they just cut to possible collusion with the Russians.

02:28:45.000 Possible Russian collusion.

02:28:46.000 Yeah.

02:28:46.000 Possible Russian collusion.

02:28:48.000 Yeah, they blew it in a major way. 1.00

02:28:51.000 Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of shit to complain about. 0.99

02:28:53.000 You didn't have to go with that. 1.00

02:28:54.000 The idea was that he was a traitor. 0.84

02:28:56.000 He's a target-rich environment, and you decided to go to he's a Russian traitor.

02:29:00.000 Like, it's No Way Out or something, and he's Kevin Costner in the last scene.

02:29:03.000 The only way he could have ever beaten Hillary.

02:29:06.000 Sorry, I don't mean to check my watch.

02:29:07.000 Do you have to get out of here, man?

02:29:08.000 I do a little bit, yeah.

02:29:09.000 When do you have to leave?

02:29:09.000 Right now?

02:29:11.000 I wanted to ask you one more question.

02:29:12.000 Yeah, let's do one more question.

02:29:13.000 What do you think about this Chelsea Manning situation? 1.00

02:29:15.000 Because I don't know exactly what happened other than she's in contempt of court, and so they've got her in solitary confinement now. 0.55

02:29:24.000 This is about testifying against WikiLeaks?

02:29:26.000 Yeah, I'll be honest.

02:29:27.000 I haven't been following it that closely.

02:29:28.000 I mean, my understanding is that Chelsea Manning, who... 1.00

02:29:33.000 Okay, so here's where we get controversial.

02:29:34.000 Do you call her Bradley?

02:29:35.000 No.

02:29:36.000 He changed his name to Chelsea.

02:29:38.000 He is a biological male.

02:29:40.000 Oh! 0.60

02:29:40.000 I can't believe you're misgendering. 0.60

02:29:42.000 Are you deadnaming as well?

02:29:43.000 No, no, I don't deadname.

02:29:45.000 Unless we were talking about when he committed his crimes, at which point he was actually Bradley as opposed to Chelsea, right?

02:29:50.000 So if we're talking about the person who was convicted, that was a male named Bradley Manick.

02:29:54.000 Did you say the artist formerly known as Bradley?

02:29:57.000 If we're talking about the human being who's currently in jail, that is a male who is currently known as Chelsea.

02:30:02.000 So my understanding is that Chelsea Manning refused to hand over information that he was legally bound to hand over about WikiLeaks.

02:30:14.000 And now there were complaints that he was being held in solitary, but that's not true apparently, and that he's being mistreated.

02:30:20.000 I do find it weird that the same people who are complaining about Donald Trump coordinating with WikiLeaks are very upset about...

02:30:26.000 Chelsea Manning going to jail for coordinating with WikiLeaks.

02:30:29.000 You're gonna need to pick one or the other.

02:30:30.000 Is WikiLeaks bad or is WikiLeaks not bad?

02:30:31.000 Yeah, what is WikiLeaks?

02:30:33.000 It's only dependent upon whether or not they're supporting the narrative that you want.

02:30:37.000 That's exactly right.

02:30:38.000 It used to be that WikiLeaks was very good, remember?

02:30:41.000 Exactly.

02:30:41.000 It was right and left, by the way.

02:30:43.000 There are people on the right where it's like, Julian Assange is the worst.

02:30:45.000 And then 2016 happened, like, Julian Assange, now there's a person I can really talk to.

02:30:50.000 It's like, well, no, I'm pretty sure Julian Assange is a WikiLeaks.

02:30:54.000 Good information suggests they are a Russian front group.

02:30:57.000 And make of that what you will.

02:30:59.000 End of story.

02:31:00.000 Do you think that they became a Russian front group to try to stay operative and stay safe because they were obviously being attacked by the United States government and in danger of being shut down?

02:31:11.000 I'll be honest, I really don't know enough about WikiLeaks to really get into a sort of historical...

02:31:16.000 But I know that he's been trapped in that embassy since 2012. Yeah, I mean, I hope that he's got some video games or something in there.

02:31:24.000 Fuck, man. 0.99

02:31:25.000 He's been in there for like seven years now, right? 1.00

02:31:27.000 That's a long time to be in an embassy.

02:31:28.000 That is a long time.

02:31:29.000 He can't go outside, no sunlight.

02:31:32.000 Pamela Anderson visits every now and then. 1.00

02:31:34.000 He's fucked, man. 0.99

02:31:35.000 I mean, it's a terrible place to be, and I don't know if it's better than prison, because it's like the stress of him never knowing when they're going to come knock down the door and pull him out of there. 1.00

02:31:44.000 I was like, how well does that guy sleep?

02:31:47.000 Seven years in that embassy.

02:31:48.000 It can't be great.

02:31:49.000 It can't be great.

02:31:50.000 It's got to be awful.

02:31:50.000 They took his internet away, right?

02:31:52.000 I think they did. 1.00

02:31:53.000 That's fucked. 0.99

02:31:54.000 Although, to be fair, WikiLeaks was releasing information on specific American soldiers in lines of combat. 0.99

02:31:59.000 Were they?

02:32:00.000 Yes.

02:32:00.000 They didn't redact any of the names?

02:32:02.000 That was the problem.

02:32:03.000 That's why people were pissed.

02:32:04.000 Really?

02:32:04.000 Yes.

02:32:05.000 Because the original dump from Chelsea Manning was that he dumped all the information to WikiLeaks, including the stuff that was unredacted.

02:32:10.000 And Ricky Leakes just released it?

02:32:12.000 Yeah, that was the claim.

02:32:13.000 That was the claim anyway.

02:32:14.000 I don't know if that's accurate.

02:32:16.000 If you find it differently, then let me know because I'll be happy to correct always.

02:32:20.000 I'm sure you would.

02:32:21.000 I just don't know if that is...

02:32:23.000 I don't know.

02:32:24.000 I don't have the information in front of me.

02:32:25.000 Do you want to check?

02:32:26.000 No.

02:32:27.000 That'll take too much time.

02:32:29.000 Folks, you're going to have to Google this one.

02:32:32.000 But...

02:32:32.000 So...

02:32:35.000 One of the things that I was thinking when Trump got into office with all this drain that swamp shit, I was like, I wonder if Trump would be a WikiLeaks supporter. 0.99

02:32:42.000 I wonder if Trump would be happy. 0.99

02:32:44.000 Depends.

02:32:44.000 If it helped him, sure, right?

02:32:46.000 Right.

02:32:47.000 And Snowden as well.

02:32:48.000 I was wondering about that.

02:32:50.000 Yeah, I mean, it's the same sort of thing.

02:32:51.000 I mean, unfortunately, politics very often has little to do with principle and everything to do with convenience.

02:32:55.000 Yeah.

02:32:56.000 So, if it's helpful, sure.

02:32:57.000 If not, then no.

02:32:58.000 But wouldn't a guy like him, who's always anti-deep state and talking about these – I mean, he's extremely critical.

02:33:04.000 Yes, but I do – I have a feeling that once you actually sit in the big seat, I think that tends to change.

02:33:09.000 Remember, Obama was too.

02:33:10.000 Yeah.

02:33:10.000 And then five minutes later, he was droning people.

02:33:13.000 So, like, it is – so – Well, listen, I know you've got to get out of here.

02:33:18.000 So let's just wrap this up.

02:33:19.000 Tell people about your book.

02:33:20.000 Yeah, so you can check out my book, The Right Side of History.

02:33:22.000 It talks about a lot of the sort of deeper issues we were talking about, Judeo-Christian values and reason.

02:33:27.000 It's a kind of short-form philosophical history of the West from Sinai through Greece and talking about all the major Enlightenment philosophers.

02:33:34.000 Some of the things we talked about on the show are in the book.

02:33:37.000 It's the number one bestseller on the New York Times nonfiction list, at least at the moment.

02:33:41.000 Congratulations, man.

02:33:41.000 That's awesome.

02:33:42.000 I appreciate it.

02:33:42.000 That's really pretty spectacular.

02:33:43.000 It's pretty exciting, sir.

02:33:44.000 Your show, also, Ben Shapiro Show.

02:33:47.000 You can get the Ben Shapiro Show on iTunes.

02:33:49.000 You can get it on YouTube.

02:33:50.000 Your Sunday review, which I did once.

02:33:52.000 Yeah, the Sunday special.

02:33:53.000 It was a blast.

02:33:53.000 Sunday special.

02:33:54.000 We'll have to have you on again.

02:33:54.000 I would love to.

02:33:55.000 Thank you.

02:33:56.000 Thanks for being here.

02:33:57.000 And your book's available on Amazon, everywhere.

02:33:59.000 All the places, yep.

02:34:00.000 Ben Shapiro, ladies and gentlemen.

02:34:04.000 That was great.

02:34:05.000 Thank you.

The Joe Rogan Experience - April 03, 2019

Joe Rogan Experience #1276 - Ben Shapiro

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Summary

Transcript