The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - September 16, 2025


PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ What is your personality type？


Episode Stats

Length

12 minutes

Words per Minute

175.18837

Word Count

2,170

Sentence Count

2

Misogynist Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I've got a little introduction
00:00:29.920 yes please do please do I'll be ready for it
00:00:32.880 excellent well hello everyone for those that don't know me my name is Jack Aaron and I'm a
00:00:38.740 business psychologist who specializes in the assessment of personality type today I'm honored
00:00:44.220 to be interviewing Dan Tubb a specialist in technology venture capital who's most well
00:00:49.700 known for being a regular on the Lotus Eaters an online political talk show known as much for its
00:00:55.820 irreverent style as for its undeniable Britishness Dan is known for presenting his own segment on
00:01:01.540 the show Brokernomics I believe he is currently in the studio for Brokernomics and yes this is where
00:01:08.080 he combines his depth of insight into the failing economic systems that grip our country with an
00:01:13.680 on-the-edge sense of humor that is tantalizing to watch so without further ado Dan welcome to
00:01:20.260 public personalities um it's a delight to have you on here um how are you today thank you very much
00:01:27.220 for having me and it's good to see you Jack um I'm looking very much forward to my psychological
00:01:31.800 evaluation I've been revising for it all morning so um apparently that apparently if you ask me what
00:01:38.560 my greatest flaw is I'm supposed to say something like I'm a perfectionist because it kind of turns
00:01:44.180 it around you see and it turns and also when you start showing me the ink blots no matter how much
00:01:51.160 it looks like a hooker in a pool of blood do not say that like say say it looks like a butterfly or
00:01:57.500 something so yes I'm I have revised and I'm ready and I think I can get through this one well under
00:02:04.120 the radar I'm sure you'll be able to hide the very darkest and most psychopathological parts of
00:02:10.900 yourself for this interview that is the goal isn't it yes absolutely so Dan I am I did a little bit
00:02:18.060 of research and it sounds to me as though before you went into venture capital you're actually in
00:02:24.800 the world of politics can you tell me a little bit more about that oh yes um so um I got interested
00:02:31.220 in politics in the 1997 general election not a great place to start that one um because um I thought
00:02:38.200 oh yeah there's this Tony Blair chap everybody seems to like him um but I'm a bit suspicious of
00:02:43.320 him I was a bit I was a bit like that detective of um of Dexter the only one who could see the
00:02:48.260 psychopath and I was just looking at this Tony Blair chap and I was you know I don't I don't like the
00:02:51.700 cut of your jib sir um so I got involved in politics then and um so so for the first 20 years it was
00:02:59.340 he was basically just losing everything um all the time um and um that sort of culminated in uh just as I
00:03:07.040 was finishing university Michael Portillo was um having his leadership campaign uh to take over
00:03:12.860 the party and um yeah I thought okay fine uh and I kind of been dragged along and getting getting more
00:03:18.440 and more involved in that sort of thing all along and so I ended up on his um campaign team operating
00:03:24.980 out of a little office in in Westminster on Barton Street and um I guess if it had gone a different
00:03:32.040 way I I would have just ended up being a politico my whole life and I probably would have you know
00:03:37.140 probably be a Tory MP well I'd be an ex Tory MP now I mean I would would have almost certainly lost my
00:03:42.480 seat um but anyway that didn't happen he didn't win that leadership election and so I thought oh right
00:03:48.020 well what am I going to do now so I went into finance funnily enough I did actually meet Rupert I'm
00:03:53.860 pretty sure it was Rupert Lowe that I met at that time yeah and and um he offered me a job at
00:04:00.840 Southampton Football Club not as a player or anything um but you know on on the business side
00:04:05.280 and um I just said well I'm very sorry but I I think football was very very silly um in retrospect
00:04:12.500 it could have been a more interesting career than moving spreadsheets up and down but no I didn't end
00:04:17.060 up going into politics in the end why did you initially want to get into that fray it was was it
00:04:25.660 simply because of Tony Blair and having a funny smell about him or um anything else motivated you
00:04:31.600 well I was listening to a Michael Malice um interview on the way up in the car this morning
00:04:36.620 and he was making the argument that psychopaths are just drawn to politics
00:04:40.320 so I assume it's that but I'm not sure but I guess that's why I'm here
00:04:46.620 why do you think that you have psychopathic traits
00:04:51.640 well because I'm drawn to politics and finance
00:04:58.760 and I mean isn't isn't that just the most enormous red flag for for psychopathy I mean
00:05:06.380 I mean it kind of is isn't it I mean it depends why it depends why what
00:05:14.060 money and power I think money and power yes yes they sound good to me
00:05:21.080 would you then say that your move towards finance to finance after um politics was that
00:05:31.580 a sense then of well if I can't have political power I can have finance financial power I don't
00:05:37.920 know if I was thinking about it in that terms I think it was all sub you know not what you
00:05:43.420 bit you know the brain though it was not in the prefrontal cortex or anything it was just
00:05:47.400 you know if I'm going to do something you know what is it and I just kind of found myself being
00:05:53.600 drawn to that or having the right conversations that ended up getting me invited to the right
00:05:57.640 interviews or something I'm not exactly sure you know it was it was all based programming at that
00:06:02.640 level but I just thought well you know you come out of university and your goal is to get a job
00:06:06.840 become economically independent and I just thought well rather than buggering around with widgets or
00:06:12.200 something why don't I just work directly with the money I mean that just seems a lot easier to me
00:06:15.540 so I did that yeah so you said you came out of university what did you do at university and why
00:06:24.620 um I did um economics and politics and there's a bit of philosophy in there and um I don't know I
00:06:33.060 just thought I just thought it might be interesting I was completely disappointed by the course I
00:06:36.360 I envisaged going in and having a debate about why Hong Kong was more successful um you know per
00:06:44.060 capita than than you know a Scandinavian country a high tax high welfare country like that or you know
00:06:49.120 that kind of thing and it wasn't any of that it was just getting lectured on Marxism um every day
00:06:54.360 yeah so I actually got a very bad degree it was like a second or something and um in fact I was heading
00:07:02.120 for a third and then when it came to the to the final six months I realized that and started getting
00:07:08.840 sort of top firsts in everything and that was enough to drag me back into a into a second um but
00:07:14.500 no I just always just I always just did whatever seems the most interesting thing to do at the time
00:07:19.360 right that oh that sounds like that from the look on your face that's another red flag you've spotted
00:07:25.320 no no not a red flag it's it's just an illuminating flag it it tells me what color is it illuminating
00:07:32.900 well it's illuminating I would say green oh green but yes it's a good thing because it's telling me
00:07:41.200 we're on signal right now we found what because if you if someone tells you someone tells you oh you
00:07:48.220 know I was interested in in the power I was interested in the in the in the prestige and the ability to
00:07:55.120 to influence things for its own sake but then you say well I went into a degree which you know had a
00:08:01.120 mixture of politics a mixture of economics a bit of philosophy and you're looking forward to having
00:08:06.160 debates on things that tells me it's a different motivation than power it's and and then you put
00:08:12.560 that you put the title on it you do what is interesting yes I'll tell you I'll tell you my
00:08:17.300 philosophy on achieving power it's it's kind of because I I mean I didn't end up going down that route
00:08:25.060 but I kind of feel like me or somebody like me should to stop people who are worse from getting
00:08:30.820 it and then once you've got it don't do anything with it just leave everybody alone if possible
00:08:36.200 yes because otherwise dark forces will well you know surmount that hill
00:08:42.280 hmm so for you it's not about controlling it's not about being in power so much as preventing other people
00:08:51.640 from wielding power against you and taking away your own freedoms yes I think that's fair but as long as that
00:08:58.260 is what is actually happening under the you know in the in the base code and not just the story that I tell
00:09:05.140 myself to to mask my own psychopathy I don't I'm not really sure well that's why I find it very
00:09:12.340 interesting that you chose a degree which at least in terms of your hopes was one of intellectual
00:09:18.160 exploration you were hoping to be talking about you know the it's the more interesting and slightly
00:09:24.800 wonkish aspects of the Hong Kong Hongi's economy and instead it became a um a brainwashing exercise in
00:09:32.060 Marxism yes yes yes very disappointing I've always drawn I'm always drawn to I love having
00:09:37.840 good arguments yes and but it's very difficult to to get them that my demand for arguments is is much
00:09:46.320 much higher than the supply of arguments and and and being surrounded by normies my whole life
00:09:52.040 it's been very disappointing because because you think that you know you've you've you're having a
00:09:58.000 chat about something you think oh hang on there's a thread there oh there could be a lovely
00:10:01.660 argument there and then and then nothing happens or they just back away or just say oh well that's
00:10:06.400 just my opinion or something they drink their pint and it's oh damn and lost another one that's why
00:10:11.120 quite like it here because you know we get to have some good arguments why do you think that people back
00:10:19.220 away from these arguments I think because they're normal I think that's what normal people do that
00:10:29.120 they avoid confrontation whereas I've always quite liked a good bit of confrontation I mean I love I love
00:10:35.960 the COVID era because I could stride around shops very clearly not wearing a mask um and then every so
00:10:43.860 often somebody would confront you and you could tell them how bloody silly they are um I enjoyed that
00:10:49.860 um but but no generally people just people just I mean people like they're just they're just not built
00:10:55.420 like that are they you know most people are are followers they're sort of sheep whereas I kind of
00:11:00.920 always want to be you know the guy who's who's not doing whatever the thing is and and I get why a
00:11:06.600 population as a whole needs a certain number of people like that just a fairly limited number of
00:11:11.820 them because they can go off and do crazy things and most of them will end up being eaten by a bear or
00:11:17.220 something but but some of them will discover new pastures and then the sheep can could follow up so
00:11:23.800 I I just assume that I'm one of them you're one of those who's going to go into chaos to bring back
00:11:32.240 something of value for the rest of society yes bring order to it hopefully yeah makes sense so what is it
00:11:41.040 about a debate that you enjoy when you see that that thread what is it about you that grabs your
00:11:50.580 attention because it's because you might lose you there's a challenge there it's a bit like what why
00:11:56.880 do you why do you why do you play a video game you know what when you play a video game why do you
00:12:01.380 just not immediately put it on the on the easiest difficulty setting and and enable cheats
00:12:07.200 because because it's all about that you might lose and then you feel something
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