PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ What is your personality type？
Episode Stats
Summary
Dan Tubb is a regular on the Lotus Eaters, an online political talk show known as much for its irreverent style as for its undeniable Britishness, Dan is known for presenting his own segment on the show Brokernomics, where he combines his depth of insight into the failing economic systems that grip our country with an on-the-edge sense of humor that is tantalizing to watch.
Transcript
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
00:04:58.760
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
00:12:11.700
if you would like to see the full version of this premium video please head over to
00:12:18.480
lotus eaters.com and subscribe to gain full access to all of our premium content