Valuetainment - Is America About to Become an Anarchy？

00:00:00.000 My guest today, everything he says, it's non-controversial. He's very much of a guy that

00:00:06.180 likes to follow the rules. He is not a fan of ruffling the feathers. He's always walking on

00:00:12.160 eggshells, worried about hurting other people's feelings. I mean, I don't know what other way to

00:00:16.320 tell you about my guest today. It's Michael Malice. He's a free speech proponent. He's a

00:00:22.040 anarchy philosophies and a lot of other philosophies that mainstream folks are not

00:00:28.660 big fans of. He's written a book. Out of everybody you could have written a book about, he decides to

00:00:33.160 write a book about Kim Jong-il because he was in North Korea for a week. And he's got a lot of other

00:00:39.500 great stories. I have a feeling you're going to really enjoy this interview. With that being said,

00:00:42.280 Michael, thank you so much for being a guest on Valuetainment. I'm really, really, really

00:00:46.620 irrationally excited about this. Irrationally excited about this. So here we go. So most people

00:00:53.460 think I'm a Jew, but you actually, you know, we started the conversation that way. Yeah. I mean,

00:00:58.440 I got the full on, you at least have a nice note. Well, I got, I got mine taken care of.

00:01:03.160 Oh, you did? Now, now I can pass. I don't have your kind of money. I also got uncircumcised.

00:01:08.500 You did? Twice. What, what, what inspired you to do that? Was it like a compliment from a female?

00:01:15.600 Was it, what was it? What influenced you to do that? I just, I guess I don't get along too well

00:01:20.320 with my family. So I'm like, to heck with this. I'm going to be a guy now. So, so Michael,

00:01:24.660 walk me through this. Like in your family, you're, you're, you're from a good size family,

00:01:28.980 right? I mean, you got, no, how, how, my parents are, my parents are both only children. Both of

00:01:33.880 them are. Yeah. Okay. So it's not the typical, typical family that you got a lot of cousins.

00:01:39.260 You got a lot of, no, no, no. How, so, so your family reunions, your mom, your dad, and yourself.

00:01:44.660 Well, grandma and my sister, but they're not all on speaking terms. So it's, there's not gonna be

00:01:51.080 much of a reunion. So is that, is that a genetic, genetic thing? Is the family pretty, they're

00:01:56.560 always debating, arguing, like, what was it like growing in the malice family? I'm curious.

00:02:03.080 It wasn't very nice. I think a lot of people who have a Russian background will appreciate

00:02:10.880 that it is not very conducive towards children thriving. There's a lot of, like any, and this

00:02:19.280 isn't extreme in my family situation, nor is it unique to my family situation, but in, you know,

00:02:25.140 Russian households, any kind of tenderness or kindness are used as opportunities for harm.

00:02:33.380 And anytime you, I mean, you laugh, but you think about this as a kid, you know, it gets to you.

00:02:38.520 You're from Baku. So you have to know that. Oh yeah, exactly. I need to tell you.

00:02:42.600 I know. I was raised around the Russian culture. So I relate. Compliment. If you do get a compliment,

00:02:51.460 you should take a note and document it because it may never happen again.

00:02:56.140 And right. And there's also the concept that when something potentially exciting happens to you,

00:03:02.280 you're a businessman. I don't need to tell you how many times you had a meeting. It went great.

00:03:06.980 Second meeting goes great. Nothing comes of it. Having that good first meeting or like having a

00:03:13.080 good first date, even if nothing comes of it, it's still fun and exciting, you know, whatever.

00:03:17.420 But in a Russian household, as soon as you're like, oh, I met this girl or I had a job interview,

00:03:21.920 don't get your hopes up, blah, blah, blah. And that mentality, I think is very, very sinister.

00:03:28.520 And it's very un-American in a bad sense. And it also is, you know, my family still can't wrap their

00:03:36.240 heads around. My last book, The Anarchist Handbook was the top nonfiction book on all of Amazon. I was

00:03:40.780 outselling randos like Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey, right? The point is my family still doesn't

00:03:46.060 understand how I can pay the rent if I don't go to an office. It makes literally no sense to them.

00:03:51.880 So it's, I do not have a good relationship with my family at all. And it takes a long time for any

00:03:59.200 of us. I'm sure you have similarities, you know, with an Iranian background. That's no cakewalk

00:04:03.360 to realize, oh, this isn't normal or conducive to life. This is really bad. And I have to do work to

00:04:10.900 kind of fix it. And what do you think about that? What do you think? Like, is your desires to

00:04:17.320 find a way to get everybody together? Is it that I'm hopeless? It's never going to happen? Is it

00:04:23.280 we'll see what's going to happen? Is it I've tried a million times? It's just not going to happen?

00:04:27.440 They're too stubborn. How do you feel about the future of the family coming together?

00:04:32.880 There's zero hope nor desire. And I'll give you no, no, I'll give you an exactly what happened.

00:04:38.380 On July 12, 2010, my mentor, Harvey Pekar, died on my birthday, right? And which was not fun,

00:04:48.140 I can assure you, as I'm sure many people can imagine. Yeah. And one of the points I always make

00:04:53.300 is I don't judge people by their political views. Like, I don't care. I judge someone if something

00:05:00.060 bad happens in my family, and I make that call, are you going to be what do you need? Or, you know,

00:05:06.700 that's all that matters. That's the mark of a good relationship. So seeing the reactions that I had

00:05:12.020 at home, when, you know, Harvey died on that day was very, very telling. And the point is,

00:05:18.200 and I don't just mean my family, I mean friends as well. If you're not going to be there for me today,

00:05:23.980 well, I don't need you at a party. There's no shortage of people I can be friendly with at a

00:05:27.860 party. Like, for me, the measure of a person in a relationship is when stuff hits the fan,

00:05:33.280 are they going to be a reliable resource to make things better for you? And can you reciprocate?

00:05:38.680 You know, I want to be of value to my friends and associates and things like that. I want their

00:05:43.980 lives to be better as a result of having known me, because what better compliment can you tell

00:05:48.980 about a person than that he or she increases the thriving of everyone around them? This person's

00:05:55.800 amazing. And we all have that capacity to some extent to be that person.

00:05:59.000 Now, let me ask you, I grew up in a family, my mother's side, their Bible was Karl Marx,

00:06:02.940 communist manifesto, their communist, my mother's side, my dad's side, they're imperialists. They

00:06:08.720 love the Shabby Ron. So it's, I mean, my parents got a divorce twice in 20 years. So it's very obvious

00:06:13.340 and proven. You should probably not get married to another person who's an imperialist or communist.

00:06:18.040 Mathematically, it's going to fail, but I'm glad they got married because I came after the second

00:06:21.960 time they got married. It was kind of like, let's try to make it work and boom. What were your

00:06:27.140 parents' political beliefs and what kind of influence did that have on you growing up?

00:06:33.200 That's a great question. I think when you are raised in a Soviet household, you know,

00:06:38.580 we spoke Russian at home and had that mindset in an, I mean, I came here when I was two in another

00:06:43.340 country, you're going to perceive things in a very different light than things that people who grew

00:06:48.600 up in a culture, country or culture take for granted. There's this analogy of two fish are in a river

00:06:54.800 and one says, oh, the water is really warm today. And the other one goes, what's water?

00:06:59.240 Right? Because when we're in an environment for a hundred percent of the time, we become oblivious

00:07:02.960 that that's the environment as opposed to just think it's the world or the norm. So having an

00:07:08.740 enormous amount of skepticism towards authority is something that I was taught at an extremely young

00:07:14.840 age. You know, coming from the USSR, the idea that journalists or politicians have any kind of

00:07:23.040 correlation to the truth is not only false, but just a joke. You know, obviously the Soviet Union

00:07:29.540 is way, way, way more extreme and worse than the West. And let's make that perfectly clear.

00:07:36.060 Pravda and the New York Times, I have my issues with the New York Times, but this is in many ways

00:07:39.520 night and day, both as a function of New York Times and as a function of the culture surrounding the

00:07:43.780 New York Times and our liberal democracy. But things like that, things like having veneration

00:07:49.600 towards agents of the state is something that was completely foreign to my thinking. Things like

00:07:55.960 believing that everyone matters and has something to contribute is something that was foreign to my

00:08:01.480 thinking, that every human being is special. So those are just kind of things that are just,

00:08:06.480 I was raised and have grown to reaffirm as an adult that I was taught as a kid. That would be very

00:08:12.140 different to American ears. Now, let me ask you, when you ask your parents, mom, dad, why do we leave,

00:08:18.040 where are we left? What do they tell you? Like, why do we come to America? Why do we come?

00:08:22.400 Because, can I curse? Of course, yeah. So, because Russia is a shithole and it's also people in this

00:08:29.440 country who complain about racism and all these other isms are, given your background, I need to

00:08:34.740 tell you this, are completely oblivious to the amounts of prejudice and oppression and repression in

00:08:40.040 other parts of the world. To be Jewish in the Soviet Union, you are never going to go a day that goes by

00:08:46.060 when you're not reminded of this. You know, my dad would tell me the story of how he was in college

00:08:50.640 and a college professor who, you know, we tend to think of as educated and informed and kind of

00:08:56.120 classical liberal, put his hand on my dad's shoulder and told him, you're one of the good ones.

00:09:01.880 So it's the kind of thing where it's, this is unimaginable to Americans, that a professor would say

00:09:07.680 something like this and genuinely trying to be complimentary. Whereas, you know, it's, it's just

00:09:11.960 really, you know, very kind of condescending and offensive. And at a certain point, they're like,

00:09:16.680 why do I need this? Like, let's create a better life for my son, which they were instrumental in doing.

00:09:21.500 And I am extremely grateful for them. You know, I'm a huge patriot. And I love this country. I hate the

00:09:28.920 government because I love this country.

00:09:32.640 I hate the government because I love this country.

00:09:34.940 Yeah. Let me, let me ask you this question. Your parents, they come there, you know,

00:09:39.700 you came here at two. So they were there college that grew up, you know, jobs, all that other stuff

00:09:44.140 they experienced. But you come over here, what part of political beliefs do you agree with them?

00:09:49.640 And which part do you guys clash in?

00:09:53.000 We weren't talking politics when I was a kid much, obviously.

00:09:56.360 I'm talking when you were here, like I'm talking, you become, I'm talking about the 18 year old Michael.

00:10:00.780 Now you, I'm assuming you have strong opinions. What parts did you say, I agree with them?

00:10:05.540 What part did you clash with?

00:10:07.880 I never really talked politics at home. There were no clashes. My parents both have this very

00:10:15.640 cynical, cynicism view toward the state, not to the extent that I do, but I can't think of anything

00:10:22.920 where there would be a clash. And I, I, I find it hard to empathize, although I sympathize

00:10:28.300 with people who go home for Thanksgiving and for, and they haven't seen mom or dad in a while,

00:10:33.500 and it becomes a political debate that is so contrary to my constitution and how, if I'm going

00:10:40.340 on a trip, right? I don't want strife with my loved ones. I want to catch up. Oh, you, this is your hobby.

00:10:48.300 Tell me about your hobby. This is my job. This is who I'm dating. So on and so forth.

00:10:52.540 There's enough of that nonsense on Twitter and I don't engage in it. I'm not big on arguments.

00:10:58.240 I'm big on shutting down discourse. So that I can't think of anything where that there was a big

00:11:06.180 conflict about politics at all. If that, even if they disagreed, it would be like, okay, you're just

00:11:11.900 a dumb kid, like tongue in cheek, but it, you know, like, ha ha ha. But it wasn't like they were

00:11:18.500 offended or there was some kind of drama. That's great to hear. I mean, it's very great. I'm blessed

00:11:23.380 in that regard. No question about it because sometimes, you know, it's, it's a, I've seen

00:11:27.320 the opposite and it can be pretty ugly when you see the complete opposite of that. And it's so

00:11:32.300 needlessly ugly. It's like, if this is your kid and the question to me is, is this person happy or

00:11:39.800 thriving? Right. I have many friends who I'm an anarchist. Most of my friends don't agree with me.

00:11:44.640 Many of my friends, I don't know what their politics are. Why would I care? Like I've got

00:11:48.620 a friend. This is what he does. This is when he does his spare time. This is how he treats his

00:11:53.060 wife. This is what we talk about at dinner. It makes no difference to me. If they're pro-life,

00:11:58.760 pro-death penalty, pro-Iraq war. I mean, we could talk about it because this is my job,

00:12:03.300 but in no way is it going to affect my impression of them as a person. The only way would it matter

00:12:08.440 is they insisted on talking about it constantly. In which case it's like, this isn't going to work

00:12:13.820 because I talk about it professionally. I just want to hang out and relax.

00:12:17.540 Interesting. So when you take off the hat off, you know, what you're doing professionally,

00:12:22.760 podcasts, all these other things, you kind of want to just kick back and just talk life rather

00:12:27.040 than talk about what you talk about on your podcast, politics.

00:12:31.160 And the other thing is when you're talking to friends who this isn't their job, right? Like

00:12:35.100 anyone who's a professional, like you were talking about my North Korea book. What happens is if you're

00:12:40.540 at an event and you know what, Oh, you're an author, what kind of books do you write? My book

00:12:44.200 was on North Korea. And they start just for some reason, they have this spontaneous need to tell

00:12:48.620 me everything that they know about North Korea. It's like, it's okay that you know nothing. This

00:12:53.160 is not, you know, how, what are the colors in a streetlight? This is the most cryptic hidden

00:12:57.780 country on earth. I wrote the book because then you could be informed, but if you know nothing,

00:13:03.360 that's perfectly fine. There's lots of things I know nothing about. And if I meet an author of that,

00:13:07.760 I'll be like, Oh, that's interesting or not, but that doesn't reflect on my character as you know,

00:13:11.580 perfectly well. And more people should know the smartest person is going to be ignorant of 99%

00:13:16.640 of knowledge. It doesn't mean they're dumb. They just means, okay, I didn't study this. And that's

00:13:21.140 perfectly fine. There's so much out there to learn. No question about it. So Michael, give me your

00:13:25.760 philosophies. You say I'm an anarchist. Tell me, tell me your core. Like I believe in this. I don't

00:13:30.900 believe in this. I believe in this. I believe in this. Just kind of walk me through it.

00:13:33.440 Okay. Anarchism can be reduced to one sentence. You do not speak for me. Everything else is

00:13:39.160 application. Okay. So there's your elevator pitch answer in one second. In terms of morals,

00:13:45.780 I think it's just a function of integrity, living according to your values, be a resource to your

00:13:53.080 allies, and surround yourself with people who are making it happen. Because not only is luck rub off

00:14:01.580 on you, but I am so glad that I have friends who are, have made it because if I'm having a personal

00:14:08.360 problem, maybe they're not in my industry, but they're still dealing with similar problems,

00:14:13.160 then you could pick the phone and now they're delighted. And I'm sure you are with your friends.

00:14:17.360 It's like, I've been dealing with this crap for years. I figured things out fine. Now I can ameliorate

00:14:23.680 your headaches and suffering by just giving you 30 seconds of my time. So that's kind of the mindset

00:14:29.420 I'm working with. What's the biggest area of aspect of your philosophy they get pushed back

00:14:36.020 with? Which part of it? Oh, if there were no government monopoly on police, you would be

00:14:41.240 raped and murdered immediately. And what do you think about that?

00:14:44.920 Why don't I have a gun? Why can't I hire a bodyguard? Why can't I get a security system? It's a very

00:14:51.780 bizarre. And if someone's coming to break in my house right now, the cops aren't going to do anything

00:14:57.320 anyway. How am I getting to the phone? So it's a very weird scenario they construct because the

00:15:03.660 argument is apparently under an anarchist system, all combat is one-on-one and weapons don't exist.

00:15:10.880 Got it. So what you believe in, you don't believe in defunding the police. You just believe we don't

00:15:16.440 need cops, right? Well, we don't need a government monopoly on cops. You certainly need security.

00:15:20.960 But in the same way that if the government didn't produce clothing, we wouldn't all be naked.

00:15:25.540 If you didn't have a monopoly, and any monopoly, if you have a monopoly on a product, it's always

00:15:30.580 going to be delivered inefficiently, poorly, and almost inevitably at the cost of human life.

00:15:36.300 Whereas if you had choice and if you had options, you would have innovation and you would have

00:15:42.060 solutions instead of having a system where the problems are perpetuated for the sake of those in

00:15:47.580 power. So if you have an anarchy, you don't have a government that has a monopoly on cops,

00:15:54.060 right? Which means they control that. But if you have an anarchy, in an anarchy, what does the

00:16:00.060 government look like? How limited is it? Or is it not? There's no, there's no government. That's

00:16:04.500 what anarchy is. Yeah. So if there's no government and everybody is, everybody is running on their own,

00:16:09.900 give me an example of when that worked effectively, anarchy. When you returned a sweater to the

00:16:15.020 department store. When you returned a sweater to the department store. Yes. You had a conflict.

00:16:21.880 Neither of you is in a position of authority over one another. And the conflict was resolved

00:16:27.120 amicably and peacefully in seconds. Now, if I'm involving the government and there's a conflict,

00:16:32.340 I have to pay a lawyer, which is exorbitant, going to cost more than a surgeon. And the outcome will

00:16:37.380 be uncertain. But what we're certain of, it's going to take a very long time. So that is one difference

00:16:42.160 between how the market and freedom solves for disputes as opposed to having it go through the

00:16:47.020 state. I guess what I'm asking is give me a country that had a system of anarchy that did

00:16:51.880 very well for, you know, a handful of decades. First of all, you're not going to have an anarchist

00:16:57.180 country by definition. Second of all, I can give you several examples like medieval Iceland and

00:17:02.180 medieval Ireland, which had it for a thousand years, far along with the constitution. I don't think

00:17:06.680 that's a valid question for several reasons. One is just because it worked in Iceland and Ireland

00:17:12.620 doesn't mean it's going to work in 2021. And just because it hasn't happened anywhere previously

00:17:17.780 doesn't mean it's going to be working in 2021 either. One example of this is the internet,

00:17:22.100 right? Before the internet, if you sat down and posited the internet, it would sound maybe,

00:17:27.440 if not crazy, certainly hard to wrap your head around. We would have no idea what websites would

00:17:31.580 look like. But at the same time, there's something that ended up happening has now become a universal

00:17:35.300 faction of human life. So anarchism isn't a location, it's a relationship. And it simply means that one of

00:17:42.200 the, or that none of the parties claims authority or has authority over one another. So every country

00:17:48.220 on earth right now is in a state of anarchy toward one another. Every country right now, the world

00:17:52.920 right now is a state of anarchy towards one another. Every country in the world right now is a state of

00:17:57.060 anarchy. Okay. So let's go, let's go a little bit deeper. So meaning there's not going to be a country

00:18:05.200 with anarchy, because if there's anarchy, there is no country. So there means there's no borders,

00:18:09.620 there is no, so then how do you deal with property? How do you deal with ownership? How do you deal

00:18:14.700 with community? How do you deal with, is there laws and regulations in the world that you visualize?

00:18:20.520 Is there laws and regulations there? There would be certainly rules. And for example, if I am part of a

00:18:26.640 gated community, right, there are certain rules that I have chosen to, by living there, ascribe to. And for

00:18:34.100 example, Macy's, the earlier example, Macy's has many grounds on which I can't enter the store.

00:18:39.560 If I'm not wearing shirts, if I'm not wearing shoes, if I can't, if I'm blasting music. So what

00:18:44.720 it would do is to, it would maximize freedom. And everyone who has dominion over their own property

00:18:50.280 would be the one setting those rules as he or she sees fit. How security would be provided is the

00:18:56.600 same way that fashion would be provided. You would have many different outlets selling their wares and

00:19:01.700 whoever wanted to. What people, another common criticism is like, what if you're poor, right?

00:19:06.720 And then you can't afford security. You're just going to get killed on the street. Well, security,

00:19:11.060 look at, look at a bar, right? A bar is filled with young, drunk males, full of testosterone,

00:19:16.900 often itching for a fight. There's no cop there, but there's a bouncer. And the bouncer's job is to

00:19:22.320 make sure that things don't get out of hand. And the bouncer's job is to make sure that some people can't

00:19:26.980 even get in to begin with, and to keep the proportions of the genders in the bar at a certain level.

00:19:31.240 If you had a private society, security wouldn't be a function necessarily of the individual. You

00:19:38.060 would also have security over areas, just like you have at Macy's or at a bar right now.

00:19:42.700 The problem is when the government monopoly is in charge of security, that is where crime is allowed

00:19:48.180 to happen. And if you think about the places you're most likely to be the victim of an assault,

00:19:52.320 it's things like alleyways, streets, the subway, all areas where the government monopoly is in charge

00:19:59.100 of security. Whereas if you think of a place like a bar or a hotel where everyone is a stranger to

00:20:04.360 that area and is not going to be able to be tracked down too easily, those are much safer than public

00:20:10.340 venues.

00:20:11.960 Yeah. So, so then, then the priority of what things you have to get good at, if it's anarchy with no

00:20:18.400 government, self-defense becomes a very high priority.

00:20:22.860 Why?

00:20:23.440 Why wouldn't it? Because if, if I have a non-regulatory environment without law and order.

00:20:30.900 You have order.

00:20:32.500 Order based on who though? Based on community, right? Based on individuals, not based on.

00:20:37.420 Sure.

00:20:37.620 And I don't have to agree with the order that you come up with because my set of orders may be

00:20:41.140 different than yours. No?

00:20:42.440 Correct. Correct.

00:20:43.300 So then, so then the part becomes, if we're living on two sets of orders, I don't have to

00:20:49.100 be a loyalist to your set of orders. So our orders then may clash. And if our orders clash,

00:20:55.200 then how the hell do we cooperate? How do we have, what happens right now? If I rear-end you

00:21:01.980 and we have different insurance companies? I, the first thing you do is I ask you for your license.

00:21:08.500 You ask me for your mind, for mine. There's a mechanism, right?

00:21:11.940 Here's a mechanism. I get your driver's license. If you run off, I take a picture of your driver's

00:21:15.320 license, let's just say, but you say, Hey, can we work this out? Great. Here's my insurance card.

00:21:18.580 And we exchange information.

00:21:19.740 Right. The, the, the, the possibility that it gets violent sometimes happens. People get hotheaded.

00:21:25.120 My God, my Ferrari. But when you say over 99% of the time, even if it's antagonistic,

00:21:31.200 it's not reaching the point where violence is escalating that we see car accidents all the time.

00:21:35.580 It never becomes violent or deadly. And that's not simply a function of, Oh, I'm going to go to jail.

00:21:41.300 It's because I just want this resolved. I want to get out of my life. I hate this guy.

00:21:44.760 I want him out of my sight. This would be the exact same principle applied on a person or

00:21:49.740 location basis. You would have your security agency. I would have mine. We have a dispute.

00:21:55.780 If you want to go to fisticuffs, just like right now, I can't really stop you. I mean,

00:22:00.160 although I would be armed on the other hand, what we could do is I hate you, Pat. I hate you,

00:22:05.900 Michael. We're going to let our security people take care of it. And they're going to take the steps

00:22:09.900 as appropriate. What if I don't have the money to pay my security people?

00:22:14.120 Well, that's, that's what if you don't have the money to pay for car insurance? What happens then?

00:22:17.620 Well, you know, the difference is if I pay for car insurance, the cost isn't as much as me needing

00:22:24.860 to like car insurance. I can do it for 60 bucks, a hundred bucks, 150 bucks. I'm still, I'm still,

00:22:29.880 uh, uh, look, I mean, you got to realize I'm, I'm, uh, I'm more on your side. I'm just trying to

00:22:36.120 break it apart. Like for me, let me, let me tell you how I am. Like, uh, my kids play outside the

00:22:40.920 other day, my kids climbed on top of the house. And let me tell you this house. Like, I don't even

00:22:44.320 know what the hell they did. My wife says, babe, you have to see this. My wife is 38 and a half

00:22:48.200 weeks pregnant. She says, come take a look at what they did. So I'm like, babe, these got Melba

00:22:52.240 showed it to be my nanny. They walked to the second floor. They opened the door and you know, in our house,

00:22:56.920 when the door opened, ding, ding, you hear the sound, the doors open. So they go up,

00:23:00.680 they climb on top of the ceiling. They're 30 feet up. And then they come back down and everyone's

00:23:07.500 panicking. And I say, babe, what are you going to do about it? I mean, honestly, you think we tell

00:23:12.820 them don't do it. Do you think they're going to do it? So I'm more, I'm the guy that, you know,

00:23:17.060 my mom, my wife and my nanny, they walk the dogs with leashes. I like to walk the dogs and we just

00:23:21.720 kind of, you know, figuring out, don't get me wrong. If I had a German shepherd or a pit bull,

00:23:24.680 I probably cannot do that, but I'm more leaning towards, I let's, let's kind of give you a little bit

00:23:29.260 more freedom. So you're willing to be more loyal to me than, Hey, come here. You better do this. So

00:23:33.520 I'm leaning towards that side, but there's also part of it where who wins in a situation like that,

00:23:39.520 whoever has more money, like even today. But that's, but that's the current status. See

00:23:44.040 what are presented as the strongest, sorry to interrupt you. What are presented as the strongest

00:23:47.720 arguments against anarchism are inevitably descriptions of the status quo. Even today,

00:23:52.460 if I'm rich, OJ Simpson is a good example. I have better lawyers. I'm going to be able to get away

00:23:58.100 with a lot. Jeffrey Epstein is another one. I'm going to be able to get away with a lot more than

00:24:02.080 a poor person will. This concept of equality under the law makes no sense. If you think about it for

00:24:06.740 five seconds under the law, rich people and powerful people are always going to have access to both

00:24:12.260 reputation. So they're going to be regarded better by the jury or possibly worse if the jury has an

00:24:16.540 animus against rich and powerful people. But the very least I will have access to better lawyers.

00:24:22.000 Now the law, there's an essay in the book by Haznes, who was a Georgetown law professor

00:24:26.540 called the myth of objective law. And he points out this concept that law can be applied objectively

00:24:32.900 makes no sense even for three seconds. If you think about it, the law is always inevitably subject

00:24:38.540 to interpretation. And it is the job of lawyers as a class. And this is a condemnation of lawyers

00:24:44.220 to take what is written in plain English and to twist it. So it forces the result that your client

00:24:51.200 regards as desirable. So these are all problems that at the very, very, very, very least

00:24:57.560 are extremely expensive and time consuming. And this demonstrates if you ask someone, how often

00:25:03.960 had you had a problem with someone on eBay? How often you had a problem with Starbucks or Macy's

00:25:09.200 or a friend? And how often you had a lawsuit? If lawsuits were an effective mechanism of adjudicating

00:25:14.840 disputes, then people will be doing a lot more frequently in the same way that they return their

00:25:19.300 clothes very frequently because it'd be something that's like, okay, even if I lose, I'm going to

00:25:22.860 have my answer within a day or two. As now, you're losing years of your life and tens of thousands

00:25:29.140 of dollars, which makes it not a possibility for most people in terms of adjudicating and solving

00:25:35.180 disputes, which is something we all desperately need. Michael, you think most people have good

00:25:41.400 intentions? I don't think most people have minds. So they don't have good or bad intentions.

00:25:47.260 They're working on an animal level. So you don't think most people have minds. Okay. So let's

00:25:51.520 go based on that. If you don't believe most people have minds, what percentage of people you think are

00:25:56.000 emotional and irrational? I wouldn't say irrational. I would say non-rational because irrational is like

00:26:04.520 a crazy person who's acting erratically. They act in predictable patterns, but they have either

00:26:11.240 lacked the capacity or had it been trained out of them in schooling and in the media to forestall

00:26:18.060 critical thought. As an individual, let's just say there's the four different types of personalities,

00:26:23.660 those who are extremely structured, organized, those who are extremely technical, analytical,

00:26:28.680 those who are extremely action-oriented, ambitious, and those who are all about relationship, love.

00:26:33.340 So which one of those four would you put yourself as? Structure?

00:26:37.840 The second one.

00:26:38.640 Technical? Analytical?

00:26:39.800 Yeah.

00:26:40.000 Okay. I would agree with you that you're technical, analytical. Okay. Would you say you are a pretty

00:26:45.160 independent guy? Are you an independent?

00:26:47.000 Yes.

00:26:47.420 Okay. You're 1976, July something, right? You're a 1976 person. We're two years apart. I'm 42. I don't

00:26:54.420 know. You're about to turn 45. I'm about to turn 43 in a couple months. I'm after you, right? But we're right

00:27:02.060 next to each other age-wise. Same age we are. You know, a long time ago, and I want you to tear apart

00:27:08.760 my argument here, what I'm about to tell you. A long time ago, I'm 25, 26 years old, and, you know,

00:27:15.560 I'm like, Dad, I believe anybody can have their dreams become a reality, and I'm an optimist, and I just

00:27:20.060 believe my dad's like, stop it. I'm like, no. So, you know, this guy comes into the house, and, you know,

00:27:25.120 every time he sees this guy, the guy's gained 10 more pounds, 10 more pounds, 10 more pounds. Over a span of,

00:27:29.960 like, you know, five years, that guy gains 80 pounds. One of my friends, he gains 80 pounds,

00:27:34.540 right? And he says, it's because of business. You know, we work so hard, and I put on 80 pounds,

00:27:39.200 and I'm like, but I believe he can change. I believe he can. It's one of my best friends. I

00:27:42.500 believe he can change. I believe he can change, and we have this clash, my dad and I. He finally says,

00:27:48.500 you think everybody is as independent as you are? You think everybody can go, you know,

00:27:57.280 survive for themselves and be independent. Some people need to be led and managed and,

00:28:02.600 you know, directed to go. Some people need rules and regulations and guidelines. Some people need

00:28:08.560 eight to five. Some people need that part being in place. Some people don't. So the part becomes,

00:28:14.660 do you think sometimes you think because you would exist in an anarchy type of an environment,

00:28:20.460 you and I probably would be fine. But do you think everybody else is like you?

00:28:25.420 No. God, no. But, and that's why I don't think I should be living on their terms. By the way,

00:28:31.260 what you just said, I agree with everything. That doesn't make them a bad person.

00:28:34.460 No, I never said you're a bad person.

00:28:35.680 No, I just want to be clear for them. Not me, your friend. It's not, of course. I think a lot of people

00:28:40.420 who are maybe wired like you and I see someone who needs rules and regulations and tend to be

00:28:47.220 dismissive or contemptuous of them. It's like, no, no, this is how this person's wired. And you,

00:28:52.760 Pat and me are going to be extremely frustrated. If you believe what we're taught at school,

00:28:59.120 that everyone thinks the same and everyone's wired the same, that is completely inaccurate.

00:29:04.420 And just because they're wired differently doesn't mean bad things should happen to them

00:29:07.400 or they shouldn't thrive. This is just their path. But neither does it mean that just because

00:29:12.260 there's a lot of people who are like your friend, that should have any kind of impetus or impact.

00:29:17.560 I don't know why I just said impetus, any kind of impact on me and my personal choices and

00:29:22.220 preferences. It seems like every podcast I've been doing, I've been using the same quote,

00:29:26.220 but it's such a good one. HL Mencken, who, if people don't know who he is, should really look

00:29:29.760 him up. He was a great newspaper man in the early 20th century, one of the first American wits.

00:29:35.140 He had the quote that the average man does not want to be free. He merely wants to be safe.

00:29:38.680 And I think we see that constantly. Oh, I mean, how can you not believe that?

00:29:44.860 You just say, just like your friend, you said, he needs his rules and regulations. He doesn't want

00:29:48.760 choice. How does the average man then survive in an anarchy? Well, I'm not, I'm concerned about me

00:29:53.760 and I'm concerned about the above average. Now in an anarchy, it would be same thing here. They would

00:29:58.700 just hire security. They would not be a target because they're not sticking out. They're going to

00:30:04.020 their jobs. They're coming home. They're watching big bang theory. Uh, they're upset by things that

00:30:09.720 they're told to be upset about and they go to bed and they would have perfectly healthy, peaceful

00:30:13.840 lives. Yeah. So you said, I'm concerned about me, not the other person. So not that type of person,

00:30:20.520 correct type of person. But in an anarchy, what is the responsibility of you being concerned about

00:30:25.740 others? Zero, right? It's not just like, just like, just like in the, just like in real life.

00:30:30.520 Just like in real life. Just like now. I, I, I have, I wish your friend well,

00:30:36.620 but he has no claim on my person. What I didn't know he existed. Do you have any kids or not yet?

00:30:42.320 You know, not yet. Okay. Um, yeah. I mean, you know,

00:30:46.100 philosophically I'm on your side. Philosophically, I live by what you say. Like, I don't need anybody

00:30:55.000 to help me. I got it. I'm gonna do my part. But at the same time, I know if I want to do something big,

00:30:59.820 I need the help of others because I'm sure I need all this other stuff. Right. Right. Of course.

00:31:05.020 And, and, but to, to say like, if I, if I was to put everybody in the same room together,

00:31:10.580 let's just say we put a hundred people in the room and we're gauging you against a hundred other

00:31:14.440 people. You're probably going to be in the top one percentile or whatever number that we use

00:31:19.340 or intelligence and technical and analytical. You're going to be, you're going to school the hell

00:31:23.600 out of everybody. Right. Which means, okay. You'll probably be able to maneuver better,

00:31:27.400 find a better solution. You'll probably be better at synchronizing your, well, at what

00:31:32.160 stage of sequencing your next five, 10, 15 moves versus another person. I don't know what to do.

00:31:37.540 You know what? I just like Michael. I'll follow Michael. Where are we going? Right. But then

00:31:41.080 if I said, Hey, we're going to do a fist fight, you may be like, dude, I don't know if I want to do

00:31:45.360 a fist fight. I'm not in the top 1% of it. There's, there's just one big guy that's just thick and

00:31:50.140 you may lose in that area. So yeah, I definitely lose. Yeah. So, so all I'm saying is

00:31:56.000 it makes sense, but brother, the, the strong people who are driven by ego and

00:32:03.220 extremely, but there's 99 of, there's 99 of us in one of him. Why am I fighting him one-on-one?

00:32:11.040 Why don't I have a gun? Why can't I hire a bigger guy? Okay. So in your environment,

00:32:14.540 you would be okay with having guns, everybody. So second amendment, everyone can have a gun,

00:32:18.140 whatever you want to do. You can have a gun. Of course. Okay. So an anarchy,

00:32:21.820 everybody wouldn't own a gun. So let's just, if they wanted to, they, not everyone have one,

00:32:25.600 they'd have the ability to get one, but maybe not even true because there's certainly,

00:32:29.220 it's certainly possible that gun stores would say you'd have a rep, you know, eBay,

00:32:32.900 right? You have a reputation score, right? Yeah. So if you have a certain rating,

00:32:36.260 you might have a card and this gun store will say, unless you have a certain reputational score

00:32:41.420 that you can demonstrate to me, I don't feel comfortable selling you firearms. And that's

00:32:45.180 the case now. I'm not a gun owner, but if you go to gun stores by and large, they're very

00:32:49.880 cognizant of the dangers of what they're selling. And they do want to create a peaceful community

00:32:57.260 and not just, you know, warfare. Michael, how do you handle ownership? Like I own my car. That's

00:33:02.080 my car in an anarchy. That's my house. That's my land. How do I manage for you to not come and take

00:33:06.840 it away from it? Say what's stopping me now? Rules and laws and order law and order. No, not really.

00:33:14.380 Like if I could, if I could go to your, let's pretend I'm at your house right now. You ever

00:33:17.300 been in jail before? No, but let me give you an example. I'm at your house right now. There's

00:33:21.140 books behind you. I am sure that if I could get, if I was there, I could take one of those books and

00:33:26.540 you wouldn't know. Or if you did know, how are you going to get it back? Right. Sure. It would never

00:33:30.260 enter my head. Now let's talk about bigger things. Let's suppose I could somehow steal your house.

00:33:34.800 Right. And not somehow get away with, or your car is an easier one because cars are portable.

00:33:39.960 You would have a security, either your insurance or your security company, their job would be to

00:33:46.280 return the car. Some of the police are completely incapable of doing and don't even pretend to have

00:33:50.760 an interest in doing. Ask anyone who's ever been burglarized. The cops show up. There's not,

00:33:55.380 if you watch sitcoms, right? Even in sitcoms where everything's completely imaginary,

00:33:59.800 when a character is robbed and the cops show up, the cops don't even pretend they're going to get your

00:34:03.580 stuff back. They're like, oh, we'll take down a report and nothing ever happens. Even this

00:34:07.360 completely imaginary world. So let's talk about anarchism. I go and I steal your car. Well,

00:34:12.360 either your insurance provider or your security provider would, for a fee, return that car to

00:34:18.280 you, or they would pay you back in terms of having a homeowner's insurance. And that is how the

00:34:25.060 different firms would compete. Unlike now, where you have a government monopoly and the government

00:34:29.940 monopoly doesn't even pretend to provide you the service that you're paying much more money than you

00:34:35.080 would be paying to a private firm, like our bounty hunter. So to me, okay, let me, let me respond to

00:34:40.500 that. So to me, I, I live in life of odds. And here's what I mean by odds. You're sitting with

00:34:45.960 somebody and you want to marry somebody. You're like, let me tell you, um, you've got one too many

00:34:50.740 boyfriends. You know how you're sitting across the table and you're not saying it. You're just

00:34:54.520 thinking, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, you told me you've been with 10 guys. I'm in the bed.

00:34:59.120 You probably want a lot more. A couple of times you were drunk and I don't know who those guys are.

00:35:02.100 Hopefully you've not been with anybody. I know maybe if you have, would I ever know about it?

00:35:05.240 And have you ever done this? Have you ever kissed a girl? Have you ever fold around with that?

00:35:08.980 How bad of a money issue do you have? Let's just say sexually transmitted disease that you're

00:35:13.040 calculating all this stuff. Yeah. You never tell the other person, but we do. And she says,

00:35:19.120 I don't know about you right now. You seem a little reckless and you were a little too close to your

00:35:23.060 exes in the past. And they always call you and your mom is this and your dad is this. I don't know.

00:35:27.600 This is a little, but you know what? I think there's a 40% chance this marriage is going to work out.

00:35:31.400 Screw it. Let's do it. Right. So it's right. Correct. So, so for me, I think of odds and that's

00:35:37.880 how I'm wired. You stealing a book without me knowing about it. Great. But if you take it and

00:35:42.620 say, I'm taking this book, I can't say shit to this guy. He's more powerful than me. Okay, go ahead.

00:35:47.220 So that's an aspect of bullying. Right. So, but the guy that's a criminal, like, you know how they say

00:35:52.920 Sammy DeWolf Gravano once told me, look, you can take guns from good people, no matter who you take guns

00:35:57.460 away from. I promise you a bad person. I'm still going to have a gun. There's nothing

00:36:01.360 you can do about bad people having guns and criminals having guns. He's right.

00:36:05.100 Wait, can I say one more thing that's important here? Not only is he going to have guns, he's going

00:36:09.100 to have friends in the police department who are going to make sure he doesn't get trouble.

00:36:13.260 Sure. And, and, and again, I think yes too. But the part I go to is when you're sitting there,

00:36:19.600 sitting there, you're like, I'm going to, I'm going to steal this guy's car. Let's just say

00:36:23.480 I get caught in today. If I get caught, I'm going to be facing three years in jail. I got a kid at

00:36:28.800 the house. Do I really want to do it? Ah, you know what? I was thinking about it. I'm not. There's a

00:36:33.220 lot of things in our lives we were about to do that were stupid thought maybe you haven't, but many of

00:36:38.600 us. Sure. No, I absolutely. I'm about to do something real stupid. And in your mind, you're like,

00:36:42.980 you know what? No, I'm going to move on. Right. So that's the part where I think law and order

00:36:50.320 eliminates maybe 10% of crimes and stupidity. What's your argument to that?

00:36:57.020 It's quite the opposite. What you are calling, first of all, it's not order at all, but what

00:37:00.680 you're calling law, in fact, encourages this kind of behavior. And I'll give you one good example.

00:37:06.460 If, if you had a credit score like eBay or something like that, or you're a period, whatever,

00:37:12.160 whatever account for your credit cards, that right is a chance. They can, there's different,

00:37:18.340 not only is that the market provide at least three credit firms. So they each have different

00:37:21.860 mechanisms that tells me, and I can look up mine and you can look up yours. What are the odds

00:37:27.400 if I lend this guy money historically based on his past behavior, that he's going to repay it,

00:37:34.500 that he's a good risk. It's always going to be a risk. It's never a hundred percent,

00:37:37.080 even if it's Bill Gates and it's never 0%, right? Now, if you are a car robber and have been arrested

00:37:45.320 and I go, you come in for my company and I interview you, it is illegal now for me to ask you

00:37:52.800 if you've ever gone to jail and committed crimes. So I have no way of running a background check.

00:37:59.060 Whereas in a free society, these kinds of things that you've done will follow you around for quite

00:38:06.620 a long time. I don't think jail is a very big deterrent, but I think reputation is a much

00:38:13.260 stronger deterrent and a much more peaceful deterrent than something like the threat of three

00:38:19.160 years in jail. Because a lot of these criminals know perfectly well that they're not going to be

00:38:23.060 doing much time. And if they are doing time, they don't really care about it.

00:38:27.340 Okay. Partially agree on the jail side, because there's a lot of people nowadays that are wanting

00:38:31.380 to go to jail because it's a lot better than the current situation they're in.

00:38:34.060 And their friends are there.

00:38:34.960 Sure. But the difference is you probably wouldn't like to go to jail. You, you probably wouldn't

00:38:39.660 like to go to jail.

00:38:40.580 I think, I think the odds of that are a hundred percent.

00:38:42.200 Yeah. So the point is, but that gets a guy like you to say, you know what?

00:38:47.340 No, it doesn't. Well, I wouldn't, I'm not thinking of robbing your car except for jail. That's not,

00:38:52.020 I don't even know how to drive.

00:38:53.760 Yeah. But, but, okay. So maybe, maybe not. Okay. So let me give you a different example here. My

00:38:57.980 mother and her brother, late brother, her brother just died a couple of years ago. God bless his

00:39:03.120 soul. I, he always brought me caviar late at night and we had great.

00:39:05.980 I love caviar. You know, I grew up on caviar. I used to make fun of me in elementary school.

00:39:09.440 I'm a diet. Probably there's so much fish eggs in my body. I'm probably semi fish right now. I don't

00:39:15.240 know, but so, so.

00:39:16.720 Or you're pregnant.

00:39:17.760 One of those two. I'm definitely pregnant with fish somewhere in there, but you know, my,

00:39:22.020 my, my great grandfather was very well off. Okay. He was the only one on my mother's side

00:39:28.080 that was not a communist. He was a worker and they all were like, yeah, but, but, but. And

00:39:32.800 he wanted everybody to work, but they kind of were like, oh, grandpa's so rich. He had

00:39:36.580 nice house, waterfront, all this other stuff.

00:39:38.540 That he earned, that he earned. Make that clear. Yes.

00:39:42.860 So then he dies. Okay. Money goes to his kids and my grandfather, my grandmother, the money

00:39:50.220 from there gets rolled down and they're about, uh, they die in that money that gets passed

00:39:57.340 down, gets passed down to my mom's brother, uncle. It's about a half a million U S dollars,

00:40:03.600 which in Iran, it's a lot of money. It's a U S a lot of money, but in Iran, it's a lot

00:40:06.840 of money. My uncle was a very strong personality, physical man that pushed his weight around

00:40:13.640 was a boxer. Like you did not want to mess with this guy. It was a tough guy. He was

00:40:18.200 a bootlegger back in the days. That's how he made his money because bootlegging was illegal

00:40:21.100 in Iran. Still is still there. So it was a business model. My mom never saw a penny, penny

00:40:26.120 of that money right there because he just said, I'm not going to give it to you. I'll take

00:40:29.740 care of you, but I'm not going to give it to you. There's nothing my mother could do

00:40:33.560 to get my, the money from my, uh, uncle, because it's like, what are you gonna do about it? It's

00:40:41.780 my money. Say something, do something. So I think naturally there will be a lot of people that will

00:40:48.220 be abused by those. You remember back in the days that would make fun of capitalists and they would

00:40:52.680 show all capitalist pictures as what, you know, those pictures of fat guys. And now these

00:40:57.420 capitalists are like six pack cut up like shit. I thought capitalists were supposed to be fat,

00:41:01.280 lazy, you know, guys that just took the money and they went around. And there used to be a time where

00:41:05.260 that was the case where it's like just money being passed down and the next money, the next one. So

00:41:09.160 it's like, so, Hey, you better not do this or else I don't care. So people know how to kind of

00:41:13.880 throw their weight and bully the little guy. My concern is in an environment like that, it may give

00:41:18.260 birth to a lot of bullies. What do you think? That is the status quo. You're describing pretty much

00:41:23.440 not only every politician, but the behavior of the vast majority of low status people during the

00:41:28.240 lockdowns, which gave them an excuse to assert dominance and rank over those who they were told

00:41:32.960 and regarded as their subordinates and inferiors. Number one. Number two is you don't want that bully,

00:41:39.100 which would 100% exist under anarchism. Let me make that clear. What you're describing as a

00:41:43.620 personality type has been here for thousands of years. They probably wrote about it in the Old

00:41:48.280 Testament. They're going to be writing about in 4,000 years. That's not changing. I I'm not

00:41:52.220 one of your communist relatives have the complete delusion that if they structure society a certain

00:41:59.520 way, it's going to change human nature and not only make them change, but it's also going to make

00:42:04.400 them uniform. This is completely nonsensical. If you look at a dog litter, you're going to have

00:42:09.200 different personalities there. So the claim that some, a mind as complex as a human being is all going to

00:42:14.840 be able to think in the same way. It just makes no sense on any level. Number one, what you want

00:42:19.620 is to have power be as decentralized as possible. So that bully who is going to be drawn to power in

00:42:29.200 the same way that let's suppose a musical theater graduate is going to be drawn to Broadway. You want

00:42:33.980 to limit his capacity to be able to enforce his will on others. And the way to do that is to maximize

00:42:41.200 choice, opportunity, and competition, which is what freedom allows. Under the current system,

00:42:47.880 there are very many mechanisms in America for this guy. And I'm not going to talk about your uncle. I

00:42:53.520 don't want to talk about your family. Let's suppose your uncle on steroids, just a really jerk, like a

00:42:57.060 horrible human being. You wouldn't get along with him. There are so many venues right now, thanks to

00:43:01.920 the state where this person can put their will into power and have literally deadly consequences.

00:43:08.700 I would want to return it to a situation which is not utopia, but certainly where the worst thing

00:43:15.700 this guy could do is beat somebody up, which is something that's inevitable. A big dude will

00:43:19.540 always have that capacity. You're not going to be able to take it away unless you're literally living

00:43:23.360 in the matrix. So what I want to do is to minimize his ability to impose his will on large groups of

00:43:30.380 people. And I don't think that's necessarily a function of his size. I mean, there's plenty of small

00:43:34.900 dudes and women who revel in having that sense of domination and authority over others. And I want

00:43:41.500 to pull out the rug from under them. Yeah. I mean, anyone who's been married knows perfectly well

00:43:46.900 that it's not about size in terms of who's going to be dominating who necessarily. I don't think

00:43:50.160 it's size. I think it's an aura. I think it's a personality of the individual. I know a lot of

00:43:54.140 guys that are nice guys. And I know of course the kindest with small guys. So, uh, uh, small guys

00:44:00.540 are usually jerks much more than big guys. Cause we can get away with it. Like this is what people

00:44:05.120 don't appreciate. Like they'll say, Oh, and ran it. Cause you get your ass kicked. It's a lot easier

00:44:08.800 for me to shove a dude. I'm five, uh, whatever. Then if a six foot four guy comes up to me at a bar

00:44:15.700 and shoves me, he's in a lot of trouble because not only is immediately everyone jumping on him and

00:44:20.820 pulling him away. Good luck telling whatever the, in this case, it would be the police in another

00:44:25.620 society would be a security system. Good luck telling them that I started it. You're a six,

00:44:30.580 four. You have the obligation to walk away. Uh, is how it tends to work.

00:44:34.800 Sounds like you have experience with that. I don't know if that's it.

00:44:36.960 I don't, I've, I, I actually have been so bad at getting into fights. I got, I made my friend do a

00:44:41.880 fight club with me. So I know what it's like.

00:44:43.600 I had a guy, I had a sergeant of mine in the army. This guy was a fricking nutcase, but I loved him.

00:44:47.820 We would go to bars. He was five, six, maybe 120 pounds on a good day, but rain, maybe one 25.

00:44:53.580 And he would go talk shit to everybody. He will you motherfuckers. I dare you throw a punch and

00:45:00.240 all this others. And then he'd get into a fight and would say, that's my friend right there. And

00:45:03.980 then he would, I'm like, Oh, this fricking. So we'd get into fights. He would be out of,

00:45:08.520 I'm like this nutcase. He got us in trouble all the time. But again, until today, I'm friends with

00:45:12.880 them. And I love the guy. But it's also, if you look at, let me just, one more point. If you look

00:45:16.680 at dogs, it's the small ones that tend to be the aggressive ones. Cause they just, yeah.

00:45:21.660 Yep. I agree. So, so let me ask you a question. Give me a step pre-anarchy. Like, let's just say

00:45:26.820 we're not going to go full anarchy, hypothetically, because now I get the fact that you're an anarchist.

00:45:31.660 You believe in that. The chances of that happened in America anytime soon is slim to none of happening

00:45:36.420 that. I think it's a hundred percent that it's going to happen. Yes. Okay. So before we go to the

00:45:41.500 argument, a hundred percent, let me just make sense. Let me clarify what I mean by a hundred

00:45:46.080 percent. I don't mean that the federal government is going to be abolished, but I do think there is

00:45:51.400 a 100% chance within the next, let's suppose, a hundred years that there will be space for people

00:45:57.040 to live free without the threat of the state over their heads. It doesn't have to be all of America,

00:46:02.340 but that's not a hundred percent anarchy though. You're talking, well, no, it would be not worldwide.

00:46:06.940 I get that. So you're talking about, are you talking about like a John Galt, Ayn Rand type

00:46:13.920 of a setting? Is that kind of what you're thinking about where they're going to create their own

00:46:17.620 place where everybody kind of leaves each other alone and we don't have law and order. We just

00:46:22.660 trust the fact that you're going to improve, I'm going to improve, and we're going to attract

00:46:25.060 only people that are wired like us. You have to get it out of your head that anarchism is no law and

00:46:31.240 order. Anarchism is the mother of order. When people engage voluntarily. But law and order is based

00:46:38.240 on individuals. It's not based on a government. Right. So I would probably word it more values and

00:46:45.140 principles, less law and order. Right. Because this is a good example. You have a show. You invited

00:46:52.220 me on. We negotiated times. We negotiate how long it's going to take. The possibility of this getting

00:46:57.720 violent was literally zero. We wish each other well and we came to a mutual agreement. So there's

00:47:03.360 many examples of day-to-day basis where people come to agreement and set up and the rules is it's

00:47:09.720 your show and you run it like you want. And if you tell me to shut up, I either shut up or you cut me

00:47:15.120 off or you hang up, you know, whatever it is. You're the one who's in a position to impose your rules,

00:47:19.100 but there's no real law here whatsoever. It's something that we have spontaneously. And we do this

00:47:24.060 on a day-to-day basis with everyone we encounter have a mutually agreed upon negotiation based on

00:47:30.340 certain parameters that we also mutually agree upon. Yeah. There's a big difference, but this is

00:47:34.080 understanding, mutual understanding, almost like a code that we live by. Exactly. But, but law and

00:47:41.060 order is on paper. I got to follow that law and order in an anarchy. There's not going to be a law

00:47:46.460 and order. It's going to be mutual understandings that we have. And if I don't like the way you handle

00:47:50.680 yourself, you and I are probably never going to do business together. And I'm going to go my way.

00:47:53.400 You're going to go your own way. So, and we'll, and we'll wish each other well. So what comes

00:47:57.240 before anarchy? What's before anarchy in your eyes, a libertarian? What is anarchy? I don't think it's

00:48:03.260 a gradual process. I think it's going to be somewhat of a binary process, but I think what needs to

00:48:07.520 happen first is a increase in the skepticism and contempt for the state and its actors. So I think

00:48:15.500 when you're seeing what's very healthy in this country as a phenomenon, especially on internet circles

00:48:21.460 is enormous amount of skepticism, if not contempt toward corporate media, a recognition that just

00:48:28.920 because someone was elected to office, the, the claim that they should have some kind of say over

00:48:34.360 your life or your person is bizarre, if not nonsensical. Those are two kinds of, and also

00:48:40.120 ending a very, this is the one I'm most excited about and strongly increased skepticism towards war

00:48:46.880 as a mechanism of resolving human disputes. I think we've seen that happen in the last 20 years,

00:48:52.420 shift very, very hard. And I'm very, very excited to see that happen.

00:48:56.000 Michael, you ever see this, uh, the, when, when there's elections and, you know, Melissa Milano

00:49:00.460 will come out and say, I swear to God, if Trump gets elected, I'm leaving the country, I'm going to

00:49:04.580 Canada or I'm going this right. Or, Hey, you know, another person comes out and says, Hey, if Biden gets

00:49:10.220 elected, I'm leaving. Everybody says that stuff from both sides.

00:49:12.680 No, no, it's not both sides. It's always the Democrats. I would say 90% is Democrats,

00:49:17.480 but I've heard people also say it on the right side. There are people, but they're sure. No,

00:49:21.300 they will. It's just not bigger names, but people say there's no way I'm standing here.

00:49:24.700 Believe me, I live in Florida. I look at yachts going past my house every single day,

00:49:29.240 thousand of them every day, boats and yachts that go by Trump flag is 99% of the time to Trump flag.

00:49:33.800 Oh, sure. I'm sure. But my point, my point is, I think there was an asymmetry in that the people

00:49:39.960 who disliked Trump disliked him a lot more than the people who disliked Biden, disliked Biden.

00:49:45.500 Okay. So, so the point where I'm going with this part is this, here's where I'm going.

00:49:50.900 If you're an anarchy guy and right now, if I'm not mistaken, you're still, are you in New York or

00:49:56.820 you're not in New York? I'm still in Brooklyn. I'm moving to Austin.

00:50:00.500 You're moving to Austin. You're moving to Austin because Austin gives you a little bit more

00:50:04.600 feeling of what you're looking for over New York or what I'm moving. I'm moving for there's moving

00:50:10.820 anywhere when you've been somewhere all your life is a very complex issue with lots of, I agree.

00:50:14.440 Number one, uh, the fact that all my friends are there, the fact that one of my dreams was as a

00:50:20.320 New Yorker was to have a townhouse. Cause that's when you're like, you've really made it. You have

00:50:23.580 a New York townhouse. Austin has townhouses. I just learned. And they're a third, the price.

00:50:28.580 So it's like, why am I, New York has gotten very, very bad. It's only going to get worse.

00:50:35.020 There's no mechanism for turning the ship around in the near future. And I was on a Lauren Chen show.

00:50:39.860 She's a Canadian pundit and she had, her dad had cancer and under Canada's healthcare system during

00:50:45.680 COVID, he couldn't even get like, like seen for like a year or something absolutely crazy. And she,

00:50:50.120 you know, sometimes someone will say a line and it's just matter of fact and casual, but it like,

00:50:54.060 it breaks your brain. And she just said to me, why am I funding my own oppression?

00:50:58.580 And I'm like, holy crap, Lauren. And I'm like, why am I staying here and working hard and it's

00:51:04.200 dirty and none of my friends are here and all the stores are like to been closed down and I'm paying

00:51:08.380 a lot of taxes. What have I got to show for it? You know, given the kind of careers you and I have

00:51:13.820 and what you talk about in your work, freedom means, you know what, this place sucks. I'm out of here.

00:51:19.900 And that is something I feel very privileged to have. This is something that very few people on earth

00:51:24.980 have. And I'm absolutely going to take advantage of it. And, and a lot of people are like, oh,

00:51:29.340 if you're an anarchist, you should live in the woods. It's like, you know, there's Yankee fans

00:51:32.860 who live in Boston. It's my highest value, but it's not my only value.

00:51:37.080 Got it. So the idea of, okay. So if it wasn't us and if it wasn't Austin, if it wasn't in the States,

00:51:41.600 is there a place where you would say, I'd feel good living in XYZ place or no?

00:51:46.520 I don't, I mean, it's already going to be hard for me moving to Austin or even how to drive.

00:51:49.380 Well, you're going to have plenty of Uber and Lyft over there to take care of you. You don't

00:51:52.700 have to worry about it. Sure. But I want to get a car. It'll be cool. I'll get one of those 1980s

00:51:57.480 Cadillacs, which I always wanted as a kid. I keep in the garage because it's not going to run, but

00:52:00.980 yeah, I'm going to get one. 1980s Cadillac. I can see you in that. That's, that's. They're cool.

00:52:04.800 They're so cool. Bensonhurst. So, you know, you know, Bensonhurst 44. So 42. So 42, 1978, 1970. So,

00:52:13.480 so you were there were, you know, some of the biggest, most powerful mobsters are from that

00:52:19.440 city. Did you, do you have any stories with the mob or no? Cause that's a mob central city you're

00:52:23.800 in. Well, I was five. So of course I was hobnobbing with all them. No, no, no. But what I can tell

00:52:28.660 you, I mean, even at 10 years old, if you were 10 years old, that would be 1986. That's still the

00:52:33.860 peak. You're talking about STEMI, Carmine. There's a lot of guys there. They kept the neighborhood very,

00:52:39.760 very safe. People always talk about mafia neighborhoods. Mafia neighborhoods don't

00:52:43.620 really have much street crime. So they kept Bensonhurst very, very safe. What was funny to

00:52:47.940 me, but as this, the big takeaway was when Jersey Shore came out and everyone's like, oh my God,

00:52:54.260 they discovered Guidos. I'm like, I grew up with these people. Like how, how is this? Like, it's,

00:52:58.480 it would be like having a TV show where you're watching a goldfish tank. It's like, this is news to

00:53:03.300 you. This is second nature to what I grew up with. So that was kind of the environment, but Bensonhurst

00:53:08.260 has fallen now and it's not Italian anymore. The Italians all went to jail or Jersey or Long

00:53:13.400 Island. That is true. But did you have any interactions with them? Did you have any

00:53:17.420 stories? Did you, any stories? I was a very sheltered kid. Okay. Got it. So your, your parents

00:53:22.580 kept you away from all of that? Oh yes, for sure. Yeah. I mean, you're in the capital of capital,

00:53:28.080 like, like it's, oh yeah. Yeah. I know it's, it's what Southwest Brooklyn, right? Is it Southwest

00:53:34.400 Brooklyn? Southeast. You're thinking of Bay Ridge or Southwest. Southeast Brooklyn. Yeah. Okay. Got

00:53:39.980 it. Yeah. Because I think, man, I can give you a list of names of people that I think came out of

00:53:43.820 there. Okay. Oh, it's a huge list. If you go on the Wikipedia, it's insane. It's a huge list of

00:53:48.440 people that. Those old, the Bronx too, those old ethnic neighborhoods in New York city, the amount of

00:53:54.340 talent that came out of them, people don't even realize it's just, there's such breeding grounds for,

00:54:00.360 you know, you have the immigrants, then you have the kid who like is talented and now has the

00:54:04.160 opportunity to make saying himself. It's, it's, it's a remarkable American success story. And by

00:54:08.380 the way, this is why I have such contempt for people like de Blasio and Cuomo, because every

00:54:12.840 immigrant family who came here and opened a stereotypical laundromat or fruit stand, they

00:54:17.300 were the first ones to lose their lifelong goals and savings. Whereas Target and Walmart are doing

00:54:21.620 just fine. So, so, so I thought for sure you'd be a diehard de Blasio fan. I thought for sure you'd be

00:54:26.840 like a Cuomo fan. I mean, I thought you'd have like, they should be in Gitmo government. If you go to

00:54:32.100 governors to Gitmo.com, you can get the shirts. So, so question, I asked this question and I

00:54:36.780 asked it. Wait, I don't understand. How would an anarchist be a fan of a mayor or governor? It's

00:54:40.380 called sarcasm. And I was hoping you would. It's called, it's called irony and you were bad at it.

00:54:44.980 It's called sarcasm and you missed it. So, so let me ask you as far as, as far as your biggest

00:54:51.620 concern, I asked this from a lot of people. I said, what do you think is your biggest concern?

00:54:54.840 We got a lot of different things that's going on. You know, we had, we went from Obama to Trump to Biden.

00:55:00.040 We go back a year ago, streets, riots, protesting businesses. We're seeing videos of a guy with a,

00:55:06.620 you know, 16, 17 year old running around with an M16. I mean, we saw some weird stuff in the last

00:55:11.080 12, 18 months ago. What is your biggest concern today? We have Biden as a president, Kamado as a

00:55:16.540 VP, Trump's been banned. Facebook's not going to return to ban for a couple of years. Twitter's not

00:55:21.380 going to do that. We're in a very interesting time. We're living into the point where you're getting

00:55:26.780 Bill Maher and people like Russell Brand to start. Jon Stewart is like questioning the fact that this

00:55:32.300 was a man-made virus just three months ago. If that would have been said on Stephen Colbert,

00:55:36.080 they would have been banned. Their show would have been banned. But today it's like going back to it.

00:55:39.320 So what do you see as your biggest concern today in America?

00:55:42.780 Those are all wonderful things in this, not all of them. If it's really great, if you have an entity,

00:55:49.340 whether it's a girlfriend, boyfriend, or the media, can you imagine like you're dating someone

00:55:54.900 and she tells you for a year, baby, I'm loyal, baby, I'm loyal, baby, I'm loyal,

00:55:58.500 and then you find the photographs of her with some dude, she's never going to be able to unring that

00:56:03.160 bell. Even if you guys work it out, that will still always be that this is not the person I thought,

00:56:08.500 this is something she's capable of. So to have the media, which for decades had a monopoly on public

00:56:14.460 discourse in this country until you had talk radio, then you had cable news, like starting with CNN,

00:56:20.340 I think in 1980. Now you have social media. When you have these outlets like CNN, Fox, New York Times,

00:56:28.240 insisting that they're telling you the truth with a straight face, and then it all collapses very

00:56:33.240 quickly when Jon Stewart, who's not exactly some kind of alt-right conservative Republican,

00:56:37.980 is saying, here's the thing. Let's suppose Jon, I don't remember exactly what he said, but let's

00:56:43.000 suppose he's wrong. The idea that we shouldn't be discussing, for future reference, man-made viruses,

00:56:51.900 how we would handle it, what it would look like if it got out, is insane. That was what they were having

00:56:58.540 us banned for, and you are never going to be able to regain the trust of the population. You asked me

00:57:04.220 earlier how we get to anarchism. This is how. The people who are in positions of ostensible authority

00:57:09.740 demonstrate, through their own depravity and malfeasance, that not only are they mistaken,

00:57:15.760 which they're going to be, which you're going to be, which I'm going to be a lot, but they don't

00:57:20.660 care, and they are going to continue with these mistakes. They're not mistakes. I think they're

00:57:27.100 just blatant lies and shutting down our conversations. It is very, very hard if your brand is truth and

00:57:34.680 trust, and you've been demonstrated to be dishonest and untrustworthy to get people to return to your

00:57:40.800 brand. I think it's very asymmetric in that regard. How do they keep existing, though? How do they keep

00:57:46.720 inertia? How do they keep existing? How do they keep being around and relevant and still getting

00:57:53.640 the eyeballs that they're getting? Obviously, I know all the numbers, who's down, who's up,

00:57:57.420 all that stuff. How are they still as relevant today? And I'm talking specifically media.

00:58:03.040 Yeah, it's inertia. If you look at that friend you just mentioned, the one who gained 80 pounds,

00:58:07.460 I'm just going to use him as shorthand. I don't mean him specifically. But if he's grown up,

00:58:12.040 you know, watching CBS at the dinner table with mom and dad, he's never going to, he doesn't want

00:58:18.200 the choice. He's like, this is something my parents watched. It's innocuous. It's not upsetting me.

00:58:23.300 I am learning information. The person to screen seems very respectable and smart. I'm just going

00:58:29.860 to stick with this for the rest of my life. So for that population, the blue pill people,

00:58:34.440 they're not going to change. What I care about are the people from all sides of the political aisle,

00:58:40.140 and those of us who reject politics entirely, who are capable of critical thought to be like,

00:58:44.160 oh, these are really nefarious, malevolent actors, the agencies, and we have to find ways to both

00:58:51.140 mitigate their power and to create alternative paths to information than going through them.

00:58:56.640 Because at the very least, even if they were angels, they're still filtering the information

00:59:01.800 that I might otherwise find of use. And any filter, as you have a tech background knows,

00:59:06.820 you're going to be letting in things you don't want, and you're going to be keeping out things

00:59:09.580 that you do, this basic A-B test. So that is something I think that's very healthy.

00:59:14.900 What are signs that you think we're going in the direction of anarchy? What are signs?

00:59:18.360 Like people getting sick of it?

00:59:21.200 I'll give you one example. This is something I never imagined in a million years. If you sat

00:59:26.540 me down in 2018 and gave me a list of 10, which would you pick and rank them in order,

00:59:34.380 this would be number 10 by far. The fact that conservatives are now skeptical of the police

00:59:40.140 is something I would have thought three years ago was unimaginable. And now you see,

00:59:44.880 I've never seen any group on any issue shift as quickly and violently as conservatives who I

00:59:51.580 thought were a lost cause after what they saw in 2020 are like, wait a minute, these cops aren't

00:59:56.320 necessarily my friends. They're taking orders from the state, which could be a good thing or a bad

01:00:00.840 thing.

01:00:02.060 And who are you seeing saying that?

01:00:04.980 Conservatives all over social media.

01:00:06.320 Who?

01:00:06.480 It's shocking.

01:00:07.380 Who?

01:00:07.560 What do you mean who?

01:00:08.380 Give me names. Who?

01:00:11.000 The people at the Federalist, people who are just average citizens. You see it on the Daily Wire. I

01:00:17.080 mean, these are like really mainstream drank the Kool-Aid places in many cases.

01:00:22.600 Conservatives that are saying that the police is controlled by the government and they're not

01:00:27.120 worried about the police? Conservatives?

01:00:28.820 No, they are. They are worried about the police. Before it used to be back the blue,

01:00:32.560 that the cops are your friends, they have a tough job. Now you see things like in Belgium,

01:00:36.600 an old man in a public park getting beaten on the head with a baton by a cop on horseback,

01:00:40.980 it becomes very hard to defend. And that's another big difference, by the way, you asked

01:00:44.540 earlier about a Russian upbringing versus an American. The idea that cops are heroic is almost

01:00:50.080 exclusively an American concept. It simply doesn't exist in Eastern Europe.

01:00:55.780 So you partially are in favor of defunding the police?

01:01:01.980 I'm in favor of abolishing the government police monopoly.

01:01:04.920 Defunding the police seems like it could become a lot of problems because you're the same police

01:01:10.480 who make the population disarmed are also not going to be doing anything to

01:01:14.620 prevent the crimes that they're fomenting. So you end up getting the worst of both worlds.

01:01:20.260 Last thing here before we wrap up voting. You've never voted. Tell me why.

01:01:24.360 I have voted. I don't believe in voting.

01:01:26.040 Okay. I read somewhere that says you never voted. I don't know where I read that said you never voted.

01:01:29.740 So tell me, tell me why you don't believe in voting.

01:01:32.920 I don't think anyone has the right to represent me other than on a specific issue or a certain

01:01:39.060 context, like my accountant or my lawyer or my doctor. And remember you said earlier,

01:01:44.400 the first thing you asked me goes, can you give me the elevator pitch for anarchism?

01:01:46.980 I said, you do not speak for me. There you go.

01:01:50.880 Donald Trump does not speak for me. Joe Biden does not speak for me.

01:01:53.560 Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio do not speak for me, no matter how wonderful people they each

01:01:59.180 individual may be or how bright, which is saying something.

01:02:02.880 And how the hell like, so, so you, you don't work for anybody. You have your own,

01:02:08.560 you're, you're, you're, you're an independent contract, I'm assuming, right?

01:02:11.800 Right, right.

01:02:12.600 You get paid through the books you write, the speaking engagements you do, the invitations you get.

01:02:17.300 That's how you're making your money currently right now, right?

01:02:19.940 Right, right.

01:02:20.780 Okay. So, so, so interesting. So in a, in an environment of building a company,

01:02:27.180 building a business in a anarchy environment, how do you see the structure of a business?

01:02:32.960 Do you see the same exact way where there shouldn't be a CEO, president, CFO?

01:02:36.760 No, I think it would, I don't know if it would be the same exact way because you would have the

01:02:40.200 market would have innovation. And right now, you know, what we have is you have many different

01:02:44.040 structures for businesses. So there's not absolutely no free society. You would have different types of

01:02:49.520 business, different structures. What I would bet is that there would be a lot less of HR,

01:02:54.560 you know, having control and putting forth the regime's ideas into every corporation.

01:02:59.800 I don't disagree because I do think sometimes too much of the regulation is getting in the way of

01:03:04.400 running the businesses. I see that every day myself.

01:03:07.460 But it's not only the regulations that the people in HR are usually very mediocre people. And this is

01:03:11.340 their chance to kind of promulgate their ideology into an unsuspecting population.

01:03:16.380 There's a part of it that I'll tell you what, what, what happened yesterday. Yesterday,

01:03:19.400 I went to get my global entry card. I don't know if you've done yours or not.

01:03:23.060 I've not. Yeah.

01:03:23.780 So I had it for 10 years and then boom, I missed an appointment. My somehow, someway,

01:03:27.600 I missed the appointment. We paid everything. Boom. Took a year for me to get it. So I haven't had

01:03:31.400 my TSA pre for a year. So yesterday I'm driving up there to go get it done.

01:03:35.020 Now I'm-

01:03:35.300 Wait, I gotta let, I gotta interrupt. I'm sorry.

01:03:36.740 Do you think it's reasonable to wait a year for something like this?

01:03:41.200 Are you kidding me? Like you have to wait for me to make my point. So,

01:03:43.760 so rather than being a dictator, give me a minute here. Let me explain myself. Come on.

01:03:48.040 But I want to be a dictator.

01:03:49.340 Stop. Stop. Maybe just tell us you want to dictate us on what to do. And I think secretly inside,

01:03:54.120 that's what you want. But, but so I go to TSA pre, my assistant calls. She said, Hey, Pat,

01:03:59.980 I talked to them. They're really being very annoyed with me. I'm like, let me just see what happens here.

01:04:04.620 I'm 20 minutes late. I walk in. Are you that David? I am. Yes, ma'am. I'm so sorry for being

01:04:10.560 late. Why are you late? Why did you, she's berating me. Right. And I'm sitting there. I'm like, man,

01:04:17.140 I'm so sorry. Let me tell you what happened. I don't care what happened. Come here. I can't believe

01:04:21.960 we wouldn't take, you're lucky we're taking you. So at this point in my mind, I'm going to, I have two

01:04:26.840 options. I can sit there and snap at this woman and give her all the argument that I got.

01:04:31.960 And I still have to go to clear only. And I can do clear and TSA pre. I probably want TSA pre

01:04:38.640 because there's a lot of benefits to it. And if I go online and I complain on Yelp about what they

01:04:43.020 did at global entry, who the hell gives a shit? Nobody does. Right. So I go in and I'm saying that

01:04:47.720 this lady is disrespecting me nonstop. I go to the other lady. Why'd you miss your appointment?

01:04:55.240 Why just so the second lady and I said, ma'am, I'm so sorry. Here you go. You almost feel like you

01:04:59.260 have to apologize because there's no level of accountability. At the end of my life, I'm

01:05:02.640 leaving. I said, ma'am, I tell you, I, uh, she says, make sure in five years, you don't miss

01:05:07.080 your appointment. I said, ma'am, in five years, I promise you I'll be here on time. And I look

01:05:11.260 forward to seeing you. You will never see me here again. I'm like, okay, are you like leaving

01:05:15.560 this job or something? No, if I know you're coming, I'm intentionally not going to come

01:05:19.040 then. I'm like, well, this just crossed the line right now. I'm like, okay, no problem. Hey,

01:05:23.040 thank you so much. All the best. And I walk in, I'm like, I'm just walking out of this

01:05:25.840 place before they change their minds. I've done the fingerprinting, everything I leave.

01:05:30.040 And I say, this is exactly why no one in the government ever gives you good service. Cause

01:05:34.240 they don't have to. Who the hell? This was an issue actually in North Korea. Kim Jong-il

01:05:38.980 was complaining about this, but let's look a different way. I'm not saying this, this woman

01:05:43.040 wouldn't exist in a free society. What I'm saying is just like your credit score, you would have

01:05:47.980 five, three agencies that could clear Pat to go on the planes. They would probably be more stringent

01:05:53.960 than the TSA because their reputation, they're competing. So they want to make sure that they

01:05:58.280 don't let Muhammad Atta through. And how many times have people gone to a restaurant or a hairdresser

01:06:04.860 or a bookstore and been spoken to like that by a fellow adult, especially, and, and here's the thing

01:06:10.780 that's most important. You knew damn well, there's nothing you can do. If my waiter talks to me like

01:06:16.960 that, my hairdresser, the book, I could talk to their boss. I could go carry on them.

01:06:21.440 Absolutely. But when it's a government, you have no outlet. Now, what happens when you have a cop

01:06:28.740 who doesn't want to investigate or, or any other situation, you have no options where if you had

01:06:34.780 competing security at the very least, you would have people treat you as a customer with a modicum

01:06:40.320 of civility and respect. Here's the thing she could have said, here's something she could have said

01:06:44.840 very easy to you that you would have liked. You know what? I'm trying to do a hard job. There's a lot

01:06:49.340 of people here. It's pretty disrespectful that you showed up late and you'd be like, you're right.

01:06:53.300 I'm sorry. Yeah. And then it, then it'd be a perfectly fine situation. She's getting off

01:06:58.580 because this very, very low status piece of crap is now in a position of power over somebody.

01:07:05.860 And she's going to flex that power to the ultimate of her ability. You talked about your uncle. You just

01:07:11.940 met her. That is your uncle, the hypothetical uncle. Now she's in a position of power. So what I want

01:07:17.520 to do is to not have her have a monopoly and therefore limit, although I can't eliminate,

01:07:23.300 I can't make her cease to exist, her capacity. You're it's ruined your day so much. You're still

01:07:28.020 thinking about it. And for what you showed up late. And here's my, here's my, and you're paying

01:07:32.900 her. Here's my opinion. My opinion is on the flip side, the same thing would happen. Anarchy,

01:07:38.820 same thing would happen. You know, it's not true, but tell me every other industry,

01:07:42.580 where other industry have you been spoken to like that? I don't, I don't on the customer service

01:07:46.940 side. Yes. You're 100% right. But on the, okay. So let me ask you this question. What do you think

01:07:52.260 about laws of monopoly? No, no, no, no, you're, you're shifting goalposts. You just said, yes,

01:07:57.700 you did. You just made a claim. You said under anarchy, this would be the same. Under anarchy,

01:08:05.240 I'm going to ask you. I didn't finish asking my question. Go for it. What other industry,

01:08:10.160 which is currently not a government monopoly, have you been spoken to like that with any kind

01:08:15.260 of regularity, if at all? If the business has a monopoly, they can do that. Let me explain to you

01:08:21.140 what I mean by that. Let me explain to you. I allowed you to finish. So here's my, you didn't

01:08:24.940 answer me. Give me an example. If you allow me to answer that, I'll tell you, if I'm in an area,

01:08:29.420 if I'm, I've lived all over, I've been in every state in America, 40 states in America. I've been,

01:08:33.220 I lived in the army. I've been all over. I've lived in 20 different places in my lifetime.

01:08:36.260 If I'm in an area where I'm in a dry County where there's only one liquor store and I'm 40 miles

01:08:43.980 away. And I know if I don't get the beer from this guy, he can jerk me around and say, screw you. You

01:08:49.460 don't want to go drive the 40 miles. In those types of situations, I've experienced that. Now, again,

01:08:55.920 it's, it's, it's, it's going to be 90% more times on the government type of a setting than this would be.

01:09:02.320 But I think on the one law, like on this guy who has a monopoly in that area, what am I going to

01:09:07.140 say? I'm going to say, you know what? You're right, man. I just want the beer. I'm going to

01:09:09.920 charge you a dollar more. No problem. I'm going to buy this beer for me because I don't have any

01:09:12.780 other choice. I got to buy it from you. You do have a choice. My only choice is what? What is my

01:09:17.400 choice? You have seamless and then you don't have to interact with him in the future. You're right.

01:09:21.740 But if I live close to him and the closest other place is 40 miles away, who the hell wants to drive

01:09:26.400 that 40 miles away? You don't have to drive 40 miles away. You hire someone to go to the beer store for you.

01:09:31.700 So you get the beer and you don't have to deal with the resources. You're assuming you're going to have

01:09:35.560 the resources. If you have enough money to buy beer, you have enough money to pay five bucks for someone

01:09:39.640 to get it for you. That's not going to be five bucks. That gas is going to be a lot more. And

01:09:42.600 especially in that environment, he's not going to the 40 mile of place. He's going to the one close

01:09:46.620 to you. He's going to the one close to me. You, there's this, let's, let's hold on. This is the

01:09:52.740 only liquor store on earth. Yeah. But, but a guy who has that kind of an attitude, a guy who has that kind

01:09:59.440 of an attitude. He's got that attitude towards everybody. Not just me, just like this lady at

01:10:03.480 PSA pre she's got that kind of an attitude towards everybody. What I'm saying is let's suppose this

01:10:09.160 is the only liquor store on earth, right? You could, if you want that beer, but you don't want

01:10:13.800 to deal with this a-hole, you hire someone to go to the store across the street, buy you the beer

01:10:20.060 and deliver it to you. That peace of mind is worth to you more than it is. The amount of exchange

01:10:25.660 would be to hire that person. You don't have that option with the government monopoly. You have

01:10:29.980 to go and look at that woman in the face. You have to have that interaction. Whereas with seamless

01:10:37.060 or any other innovation, you have the option, even if he has a monopoly on the entire planet of not

01:10:43.520 dealing with that individual. You're speaking to the crowd. I mean, this, this is a, I'm a, I'm a,

01:10:48.480 I'm a hundred percent. I'm a free enterprise guy there. And I'm a hundred percent there with you.

01:10:52.120 I do fully agree with that. My only concern. And one more thing in all seriousness,

01:10:55.420 it depends on the size of the, of the location, of course, but no one would dispute that if there's

01:11:02.380 a big enough population and there's one liquor store and the guy's really a piece of crap and

01:11:07.760 there's another liquor store where they make it a good experience, that is one very easy way to

01:11:12.240 compete. It is. And probably what would end up leading happening is over the next year, two years,

01:11:17.560 three years, somebody is eventually going to want to open up a shop to compete with the guy and put

01:11:20.920 them out of business and become the great equalizer. You're right. Or he'll hire a hot

01:11:25.300 chick because it's annoying for him dealing with the beer people and be like, you know what? I'm

01:11:29.020 just going to own this business. You deal with these late people.

01:11:30.880 Yeah. But eventually you have to know that anybody that's got the monopoly laws,

01:11:35.560 the monopoly laws on the businesses. When a guy gets too powerful, it is very tough to compete with

01:11:41.860 somebody when they get too much money and they're too powerful. That would be a concern if someone has

01:11:46.460 way too much power because they can gobble up. I get a call one time from FTC, one of the insurance

01:11:52.600 technology companies that's getting very big. They're about to buy out the last one. If they buy

01:11:56.840 it, they control the marketplace. You don't have a choice. The guy was negotiating with me for the

01:12:01.200 longest time from the standpoint of everybody uses this software. I'm the only one in town. The license

01:12:07.940 costs you half a million dollars and per user, you have to pay this much money. He's telling me this.

01:12:12.380 What do I do? Again, this is a point back to you. The point is I go to the smaller guy. I'm not

01:12:17.800 coming to you because I'm going to go to the smaller guy. When I go to the smaller guy, his software

01:12:22.640 isn't as good as this guy. He doesn't have the kind of support that he has. He cannot do it as fast as

01:12:28.140 this guy does. He cannot do any of that stuff. Guess what happens five years later? This guy ends up

01:12:33.600 buying this guy, right? FTC calls me and says, Hey, we're buying this guy. What do you want to do about it?

01:12:39.440 I'm like, I'm not even getting on this call. They talked to my executive team.

01:12:41.700 Eventually, the FTC prevented this sale from happening. If he does gobble them up,

01:12:47.640 Michael, I'm in the world of business every day. I don't have any leverage on negotiations

01:12:52.320 with this guy anymore. He's winning. The reason this is a situation is because

01:12:57.200 these giant corporations lobby and work with the state to create extremely high barriers to entry

01:13:03.140 in terms of competition. That is one part.

01:13:06.980 That's a major part. In a free society where it would be much easier to enter any field,

01:13:15.060 this would not tend to happen. What you're discussing is a historical fallacy. There's

01:13:19.540 never been a case where one business gobbled up every other because let's suppose I want to gobble

01:13:24.380 a Bitcoin, for example. As soon as I buy some or as soon as I buy a company, the ones who are left are

01:13:30.560 going to be worth that much more and it becomes asymptotic. Even if you have someone who has

01:13:35.160 5% of the market, if this guy is charging so-called monopoly rates of half a million and I'm charging

01:13:41.680 $250,000 and some loss of functionality, I'm still carving a space for myself in the market.

01:13:47.900 Yeah. The challenge with a lot of these arguments, Michael, is we only paint a picture of a perfect

01:13:57.380 world. None of this is perfect. I'm saying it has less functionality and cheaper. That's not perfect.

01:14:01.960 I do agree. It is less functionality and cheaper. You're right.

01:14:04.920 How's that perfect?

01:14:06.260 No, it's not. It's perfect. There's still going to be the people who are, my experience,

01:14:12.020 I'm coming out of high school and I'm going in my life to choose what I want to do in my life.

01:14:16.460 So I had friends of mine who were driven by power. I had friends of mine who were driven by,

01:14:21.920 dude, leave me alone. Don't bother. I had friends of mine that were like, you better do this. I'm

01:14:24.580 like, dude, what is the matter with you, man? Just relax, kick back. So I had friends of mine that

01:14:28.800 went into the space of wanting to impose power to you. That was their way of controlling you.

01:14:34.460 You better do this because, you know, I'm doing this. Okay, great. And then there were some friends

01:14:38.820 like, well, just kind of leave me alone. I'm going to go make my millions. Don't bother me. I'm

01:14:41.580 going to live my own life. For whatever reason, these guys despise these guys.

01:14:44.720 Sure. For whatever reason, these guys are not a fan of these guys that make the money. Now,

01:14:49.680 let me flip it. Here's the problem. Here's the problem. And just, again, give me your argument

01:14:53.280 on this one. Destroy my argument on wherever I'm going here. So this guy and this guy are not the

01:14:58.660 same people, right? Right. This guy's power comes from what? A very powerful institution above him

01:15:04.880 called the government, right? Right. Now watch what happens to this guy. He is like, leave me alone.

01:15:09.720 Let me go live my life. But this guy's going to have four kids. One of his kids is going to become

01:15:14.780 extremely lazy. Let's just say I'm just throwing it out there. Sure. One of his kids is like, do you

01:15:18.480 know who my dad is? Do you know who my dad is? Same role. There's almost like a government

01:15:21.820 mentality. Do you know who my father is? Do you know what I could do to you? Like that type of

01:15:25.320 environment. Sure. This guy ends up dying. He's worth 100 million bucks. 25, 25, 25, 25, 25. 25 is given

01:15:32.020 to one guy who has the same personality as this guy. Now they're equals. They're the same.

01:15:35.960 They're not equals. They're not equals in a sense of attitude. Like they're both driven by power.

01:15:42.320 They're not equals. But the attitude and the mindset of you better or else. It's that you

01:15:47.340 better or else mentality. When people like those who are driven by power get money and they have the

01:15:53.560 you better or else mentality, I think history tells us they have a tendency of destroying a lot of

01:15:58.200 things. What are your thoughts? OK, you work with very many successful people. I do. I can't. It is

01:16:05.620 hard for me to wrap my head around the claim that if someone inherits 25 million dollars, they're really

01:16:11.780 in a position to do much of anything. That's not that much money in terms of changing society.

01:16:17.520 It's not about that. I'm not fine. Fine. Let's suppose 250. Let's suppose 250 million. The point is,

01:16:23.720 no matter how much money. OK, hold on. We can go to trillions. At a certain point, this becomes a

01:16:30.180 problem. But let's suppose Bill Gates. I agree. Let's suppose Bill Gates. Bill Gates has very limited

01:16:36.160 power to impose his will on the population. He gets his power because he's selling a product that

01:16:42.680 people are comfortable buying. If he behaved in depraved ways, I don't mean just political views,

01:16:48.060 people dislike, but just really kind of six Harvey Weinstein. He will be not only driven out of his

01:16:52.780 industry. But my biggest concern is the status quo where Bill Gates can get the president on the phone

01:17:00.000 in a second. And that person has armies, has the FTC. He has all of the Senate at his disposal

01:17:06.520 because lobbyists cost him nothing. So all of these things that you describe, all these things you're

01:17:12.700 describing as a concern are a concern in any society. When you have rich, powerful people and they want to

01:17:19.860 impose their will on everybody else, how do you prevent it? And for me, my answer is the best way

01:17:25.460 to prevent it is to decentralize power as much as possible so that the malevolent Bill Gates can't

01:17:32.160 just seize that one institution. Here's the thing. If he bought The New York Times tomorrow, he will have

01:17:37.740 influence. He will have relevance. He's still not going to be a Hitler or Stalin. Not even close. If he was

01:17:43.100 elected president, he still wouldn't be a Hitler or Stalin. Not even close. Or a senator or Supreme Court

01:17:47.580 judge. No individual in a free society has anywhere near the power of a dictator, even if in a small shithole

01:17:54.660 country. We are on the same page there, coming from a guy who lived in Iran for 10 years. Of course.

01:17:59.940 Lived in Germany at a refugee camp for two years, having been in the U.S. military and seen a bunch of different

01:18:04.400 people. I don't disagree. I think monopolies are a byproduct of the help of a government. It's very hard to have it

01:18:10.280 without it. And we all know what happened when a lot of these bigger companies decided to choose their

01:18:14.440 headquarters. For whatever reason, they all choose headquarters near D.C., DMV, Virginia, because that

01:18:20.340 allows them to buy lobbyists and all this other stuff. And they don't have a choice. Because if I

01:18:25.040 don't hire a lobbyist, my competitors will. And they're going to write the rules. And they're like,

01:18:28.580 I don't blame them. Yeah. And you'll hear them say things like, I think we need to raise taxes.

01:18:32.520 I'm like, what happened? How come you know? Because they're not worried about taxes. They're worried about

01:18:36.220 laws, regulation. They're willing to support politicians increasing the taxes because they're barely

01:18:41.920 paying taxes. They don't take money out of the world. They've already made their money. But a

01:18:45.320 two or three additional laws gives them so much power over everybody. But also, they want the taxes

01:18:51.040 to be raised because if I'm starting out and I don't have that much capital in the bank, it's going

01:18:56.040 to be a lot harder for me for that first year to muddle through. Whereas if I've got my bank and I pay

01:19:00.600 that 1%, which I don't even have to pay because I'm a good accountant, it's win-win for me. And I get to be

01:19:05.420 the good guy. We talked about it today on the podcast where Buffett is like, I'm not paying enough

01:19:09.760 taxes. Oh, dude, forget it. Go ahead, write the check. You're saying it at 89 years old,

01:19:14.660 you know, your age, your late 80s. Why don't you say that at 14 years old when you wanted to be the

01:19:18.680 best investor of all time, rather than saying that as an 18, 89-year-old, it's like you're hurting it

01:19:22.600 for the other guys to want to come up and compete. Anyways. And also, you could pay more if you want.

01:19:26.940 You don't have to pay the minimal tax. You have the choice. Absolutely, you have the choice to do that.

01:19:31.140 Michael, I've enjoyed it. We went 90 minutes. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed talking to you. I enjoyed

01:19:37.020 getting deeper into that crazy, wild, crystal clear in your own mind brain. And hopefully,

01:19:44.740 we'll do this again, buddy. Appreciate you. I hope people go to anarchishandbook.com and

01:19:49.820 hear about it at length instead of my off-the-cuff. But this was a lot of fun.

01:19:54.280 I'm going to put the link to your book and your website below, and they can go find you there.

01:19:58.140 Awesome. Thank you so much, Pat. Take care.

01:20:01.140 Anarchy, do you believe in it? Do you think it could work? You sounded very convincing, or

01:20:04.540 do you think it's got to be a small little region where everybody that's kind of living

01:20:07.920 together, they share common values and principles? But even with that, would somebody eventually

01:20:11.540 become way too ambitious to say, I feel I should be leading this entire place and convince others

01:20:17.600 to do so? I don't know. I want to hear your thoughts. Comment below. And if you enjoyed

01:20:20.880 these two interviews, I got two others that you may enjoy. One of them is with Yaron Brook,

01:20:24.600 the former chairman of Ayn Rand Institute, which was similar dialogue, or with John Perkins,

01:20:30.020 former economic hitman. Yes, he was an economic hitman going to countries, negotiating with

01:20:35.680 the leader of that country, and then eventually taking over territory, oil, or other things.

01:20:39.520 If you enjoyed that kind of conversation, click over here. And if you've not subscribed to

01:20:42.480 the channel, please do so. Thanks for watching, everybody. Take care. Bye-bye.

Valuetainment - June 18, 2021

Is America About to Become an Anarchy？ - Michael Malice

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