WEBVTT - Part One: How Peter Thiel Became the Gravedigger of Democracy 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:09.360 Also media, Ah, what's Dick my Cheney's This is Behind 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.240 the Bastards, a podcast where every week we talk about 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.720 the great decisions being made by the Democratic Party, which 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:20.840 this week includes really really burnishing their Dick Cheney credentials. 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:23.239 We'll see how that works out in about three weeks 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.760 with me to talk about, you know something related to 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:31.680 this election is our lovely Yeah, is our lovely guest 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:35.960 today A contributing writer at Rolling Stone and contributing editor 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:43.680 at Wired, Noah Shackedman. Noah, welcome to the podcast program show. 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.240 You gave this very confused look in between. My first 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:47.760 and last name was over time. 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.520 I wrote your the stuff you wanted me to, because 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:53.760 we have a different intro for you this time. I 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.080 wrote it up at the top of the piece, And 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:58.600 so the top of the piece is just the words 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.280 Peter Teel because that's the sub of our episodes. So 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:03.520 at the top of my article it says contributing writer 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.640 Rolling Stone, contributing editor at Wired, Peter Teal And wait 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:09.280 a second while, so I had to like catch my 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:10.880 brain and fix it in between. 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.679 Look, I welcome my new colleague. 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:17.679 Yeah, Peter Teel would be a great guest on the program. 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.040 But I wouldn't do Peter Teal for the you know what, 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:22.360 I might do Dick Cheney for the Peter Teal episode 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:31.199 about who does me? Yeah, Peter Teal? Noah oh Man, 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:37.279 So yeah, Noah. How do you feel about being friendly 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:39.720 with Dick Cheney. It's a good decision. Is this going 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:41.320 to work out for the Harris campaign? 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:42.640 You know? 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:43.399 Uh? 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:51.560 I am not incredibly bullish on the old befriending war 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.280 criminal campaign strategy. 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.600 It's the it's an impart a decision you make if 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:04.160 like you don't understand Republicans because like I grew up loving, 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.760 like with a family that loved George W. Bush right, 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.120 Like he was a hero in my household as a kid, 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.200 and no one liked Dick Cheney, Like they didn't hate him, 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:16.280 but like he was not a figure of admiration to 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:18.959 anyone in my family, like because he was. That was 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.120 kind of the point of Dick Cheney is he was 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.639 like the guy behind the scenes that you don't need 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.840 to like very much. It's just confusing to me that 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.440 they think there's a bunch of Republicans out there who 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:31.919 will change their vote based on this. 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:34.960 It was wild at the DNZ how credible it was 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.560 that this rumor that George W. Bush was going to 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:38.959 come out and speak at the DNC. 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:40.600 I would have lost my mind. 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:43.400 Everyone was like, Oh, he's coming, He's coming. 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:43.640 It was. 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:45.720 It was like more credible than Beyonce. 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:51.960 It's happening here. Yeah, there's there's still time. There's still time, 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.600 and you know who. I don't know if he's he's 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:57.920 got a chance to be worse than George W. Bush. 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:02.320 I wouldn't say he's there yet. Peter Teal, Peter Tele Uh, 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:03.880 And that's what we're going to talk about when we 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.720 come back from the cold open to warm things up 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:16.080 a little bit. Noah, so we're back, Peter Teal, how 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.760 would you describe in brief if someone is like, hey, 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:22.040 I hear there's this Peter tele guy who's influencing elections 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.920 or whatever. Who is he? How would you describe Peter Teal? 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.120 What would be your like elevator, Like, Oh, that's who 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:27.720 this guy is. 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:35.000 He's like the power behind like the weirdest curtain. 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:35.800 Yeah. 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.000 I guess this is how I would describe it, like 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.920 deeply strange, deeply influential. I think it would be my 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:43.800 elevator pitch. 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:46.720 Yeah, Yeah, he's I would say, like, he's the guy 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:52.520 whose money is responsible for getting Oh shit, what's his name? 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:57.040 The hillbilly jd Vance started. He's the guy who you know, 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:02.160 like backed Trump pretty early on in twenty sixteen. He 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.640 was the you know, the billionaire who came up and 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:08.760 endorsed him at the RNC that year and talked about 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.560 how like he was supporting the Republicans as a gay man. 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.080 These are all glad about Peter Teeter. 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:17.240 I'm really glad you're able to forget jd Vance's name 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.120 like that. That feels That feels healthy to me. 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.720 Yeah. It took a lot of work and a lot 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.560 of gas station substances, but I managed to do it, 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.000 and managed to do it. It was mixing the kraton 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.880 Clemato and then one of those yellow jackets truckers take together. 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.160 I reached a state of what I think the Buddhists 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.279 called nirvana, and yeah, all knowledge of jd Vance fled 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:41.039 from my mind. 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:47.640 Dude, I'm gonna fucking throw up on a keyboard. Yeah, 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.200 I mean, it seems like it's like in the weirdo 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:58.120 crypto fascist right, if you follow the roots down far enough, it. 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.000 All comes back to Peter. Yeah. 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:01.000 Yeah. 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:03.599 And there's a couple of ways of looking at Tel. 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:08.880 One of them is he is a capitalist Lenin, And 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.520 what I mean by that, I'm not comparing the two 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.680 like ideologically, but Lenin is a guy who grew up 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:17.800 kind of in the upper middle class strata of his 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:23.200 society and from an extremely early age hated the system 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:25.960 that he lived under because his brother was killed by 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.800 the czar, and dedicated himself to its destruction, and he 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:35.400 went about destroying that system very methodically and very effectively. Right, 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:38.400 Peter is a guy who grew up in the upper 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:42.719 middle class strata of his culture always seems to have 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.600 hated the systems that ran the country he lived in, 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:50.520 and dedicated himself from an early age at getting resources 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:54.920 and then kind of methodically destroying the system, which is 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.240 representative democracy, that he lived under. That's one way of 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.160 looking at Peter. The other is that Peter is a 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:06.200 guy who is fairly intelligent, has okay instincts, but not 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.200 as good as he thinks they are, and he's just 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:12.520 kind of been careening from point to point, making gambles 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.560 that have led him to this position where he is 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.600 now backing the Republicans to the hilt in order to 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:25.360 hopefully crumble the system of democracy enough that like he 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.000 gets to rule his own little bitty city somewhere on 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.479 the West coast, right, Like one of them is Peter 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:33.599 Teel is the master Plotter, and the other is that 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:38.680 he's this kind of like reactive figure. And I don't 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:40.800 actually know which is the better way to look at 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:43.120 this guy is some of it's got to come down 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:48.039 to like personal preference. But he's an interesting character, and 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:50.599 I think he's probably, of all of the figures on 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.679 the right now, one of the ones that it's more 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.440 it's easiest to kind of respect at an intellectual level 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:01.560 because he's very smart and he's succeeded in a lot 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:03.760 of his Like the reason why the master Plottery thing 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.520 kind of has a lot of traction is he's been 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.280 very successful in a lot of his goals over time, 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:11.320 Like he's been willing to, he's been able to. He 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.920 has a degree of like focus and discipline that's fairly 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:15.880 rare on the right. 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:20.440 Yeah, it's pretty weird, wells, isn't he also like drinking 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.760 the blood of younger people or something like that. 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.640 We're going to talk about that later on in the series. 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:28.960 It's unclear to me if he's ever drank any young 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.280 people's blood, but he's definitely been accused of it and 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.520 has like expressed an interest in it. I think the 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:39.120 guy who definitely is drinking young people's blood is Brian Johnson. 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:44.920 That like like rich founder dude who's obsessed with reducing 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:49.760 his biological age back to seventeen. He takes his son's 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:53.760 blood as a supplement. Really yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:56.800 mean he brags about it. Yeah, Like he's very open 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.720 about that. Peter has always Peter is on the record 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:01.880 to say I don't do that. He was just kind 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:03.960 of He's invested in a lot of companies that did 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.640 anti aging stuff, some of which like we're looking into 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.000 plasma replacement, right, But it's unclear if he ever did it, 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:13.559 and if he didn't do it, it would be because 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:16.360 like he just didn't think it worked. He is a 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:20.720 big advocate of taking human growth hormone as an anti 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.840 aging supplement. So I think it's one of those things 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.000 where if he doesn't, if he hasn't done the young 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:28.920 people's blood thing, it's just because he decided the science wasn't. 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.960 There, or he's just so fucking roided out that he's. 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:36.960 Just yeah, the ruids have given him enough blood. There's 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:43.560 no more room for blood in Peter's body. So no, 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:46.280 Like many of the worst things on this earth, Peter 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:51.120 Teel began in Germany, Frankfort to be specific, where he 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:56.040 was born on October eleventh, nineteen sixty seven. His father, Klaus, 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.520 was a chemical engineer who the very next year, sixty eight, 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:03.400 got high by a consulting firm that specialized in heavy industry, 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.280 including oil and gas refining. The founder of the company, 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.800 Arthur G. McKee, had owned a series of steel foundries 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:14.120 in the Cleveland area, where the Teals moved in nineteen 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.120 sixty eight. So now, at this point, and I think 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.520 this is probably clue to most of our listeners, in 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.680 nineteen sixty eight, Cleveland is just a series of river 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.400 fires with some subjects attached, right Like, It's not the 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.560 city we know and tolerate today. It's nothing but the 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:32.080 kyah Hogan burning and a couple of soot drenched houses. 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:34.560 And the reason the Kyahogue is always on fire is 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.280 guys like Arthur McKee, who runs steel boundaries. 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:38.040 You know. 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.520 So that is that Peter grows up with his dad 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.520 kind of working in the destroying the planet industry, Like 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.520 he's an oil and gas man working for an industrial 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:53.520 magnate in fucking Cleveland. So Klaus works for a firm 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:55.800 in Cleveland for a couple of years while he gets 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.240 his graduate degree, and in nineteen seventy one, when Peter 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.320 was four, his parents have a second child, Patrick now 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:07.880 tealsby biographer Max Chafkin, author of The Contrarian, which is 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.240 a book that will be a sizable source for this. 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:13.520 Although I do have some disagree. I think Chaefkin's a 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.760 very good writer, good biographer. There's a couple of areas 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:18.760 where I disagree with them that we'll talk about here. 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:23.400 But yeah, he has described Klaus and Peter's mom Suzanne, 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:29.200 as fanatical Republicans who were absolutely gaga for Nixon. That 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.080 may be true, you know, chaef Cains certainly knows more 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.319 about this than me. However, Peter disagrees with that characterization 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:38.560 of his parents. He doesn't seem to have considered them 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:42.360 to have been fanatical Republicans or religious extremists, and chaf 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.600 Can also kind of paints them as Christian like hardcore 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:52.200 Christian conservatives. Peter is an outspoken Christian. It's unclear to 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:56.360 me again, if this is just Peter disliking the description 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.160 of himself and his parents as extremists, or if this 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.000 is that Chase can you know, maybe doesn't have all 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:03.720 of the context. We don't get a lot of detail 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:10.160 about Teale's parents, so it's not perfectly clear, right. Chaefkin 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:15.960 describes his father as cold, bordering on cruel at times. Again, 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:19.760 this is a characterization Peter would disagree with, at least 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:24.800 publicly in terms of like stories that paint that picture 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.640 of his dad is cruel. I don't see a lot 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.040 of really good detailed evidence about it. The story that 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:33.559 Chafkin cites is kind of evidence of how cold and 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.640 cruel Peter's dad was. Is a story that Peter tells 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.840 a lot. Two biographers I've seen this or two interviewers 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.560 I've seen this story recounted in a couple of different 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:46.640 articles that interviewed Peter before Chaefgin's biography came out. And 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:48.760 the story is that one day, when Peter is a 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:50.880 little kid, like maybe four or five, he was looking 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:53.160 at a rug in the family home that was made 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:55.800 from a cow hide, and he asked his dad where 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.440 did this rug come from? And Klaus, matter of fact, 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:00.480 they explained that it was made from a dead cow. 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:03.480 Peter asked, like, what what does it mean that something's dead? 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.800 And his dad told him, quote, death happens to all animals, 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.160 all people. It will happen to me one day, it 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.560 will happen to you one day. And Chafkin describes this 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.199 as a moment of like brutal honesty, and he kind 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.400 of insinuates that it may have done some damage to Peter, 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.200 writing that he quote would return to the cow and 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:23.680 the brutal finality of the thing again and again, even 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.120 in middle age. Now, it does seem to be accurate 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.880 that Peter is stuck in his mind. I just don't 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:34.160 know that I consider that a brutal description of death. 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.959 That seems like, you know, kind of just factual, right, 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:40.960 Like I had a conversation with my dad about death 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:43.440 that wasn't all that different from this, right, Like, it 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:45.920 happens to everything, it'll happen to me, it'll happen to you. 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:47.959 Like how else do you explain death to a kid? Right? 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.840 Yeah, Yeah, I mean I don't know. That feels like 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:57.000 pretty like a pretty weak antecedent for everything that's about 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:57.720 to transpire. 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:00.880 I think what's going on here is that Peter is 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:02.559 obsessed with death and dying. 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:02.800 Right. 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.679 He's put a huge amount of money into like reversing 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.320 aging and anti senizence and all this kind of stuff. 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.920 So like, he clearly is a guy who's obsessed with 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:15.480 his own mortality, and like you're looking for evidence of 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:17.760 that in his childhood, and he does tell this story. 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:20.000 He told The New Yorker in twenty eleven that this 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.640 was a quote very very disturbing day. So obviously this 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.320 does stick in his mind. But I don't know that 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:28.920 that makes the case that his dad is like cold 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.319 because this I just don't see it from that anecdote. 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:32.480 You know. 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.239 Obviously that's one anecdote. We're talking about a whole childhood, 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:37.920 So that doesn't mean that he was not cold. I 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.679 just don't I feel like what we may get from 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:45.640 the fact that this story fucks Peter up so much 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:47.960 says less about his dad and more about like who 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.480 Peter is as a person, because I think most of 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.400 us have this experience and like don't grow up dedicated 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.440 to conquering mortality, whereas kind of like, oh yeah, everything dies, 0:13:57.720 --> 0:13:59.720 all right, well, I better figure out something I'm going 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:04.440 to do with my life, right yeah, yeah, you know, 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.880 like gas station drugs. That was my That was my decision, 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.840 which I think if Peter had gotten into that just 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:14.319 by some of these trucker pills, Peter, you know, yeah, 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.560 they'll keep you, they'll keep you alive forever, as well 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:24.560 as HGH will. So anyway, Peter has never made peace 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.080 with death, or what he calls the ideology of the 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:31.200 inevitability of the death of every individual. I also love 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.640 that the ideal. It's not an ideology, man, it's just 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:38.040 a fact. That's like, that's like seeing some people who 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.360 are like staying back from a cliff's edge on a 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:42.520 windy day and be like, oh, you've fallen for the 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.120 ideology of dying in a fall. 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:49.480 Come on the ideal, man, the inevitability of the death 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:50.920 of every individual. 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.640 Yeah, I think I've had conversations with anti seatbelt guys 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.960 about like the ideology of safety of like a nanny 0:14:57.960 --> 0:14:59.760 state culture, and it's like, no, man, I just don't 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:01.600 want to diet at car crash. 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:05.960 This huge old libertarian right. 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:08.840 Oh yeah, as all hell. Well, you see nowadays, I 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:10.600 don't know if you'd call it that, but he definitely 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:12.200 comes out of libertarianism. 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.640 Yeah, and so, and when I think of libertarians, I 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:20.200 think of like people who never evolved past like second 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:26.920 semester freshman dorm room, uh ideology, And that feels very 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:31.600 much like the like the the the ideology of the 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:37.119 inevitability of death feels very like third bong hit freshman 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:39.080 year dorm room. 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:46.560 Yeah, dude, yeah, yeah, I agree with that. You know 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.120 what I will say for libertarians, I always have to 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:51.520 give a little bit of pushback just because of where 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:53.920 I come out there. You've got your two kinds, You've 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:57.040 got your like dorm room. I'm gonna read fucking Murray 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:01.600 Rothbard and basically become a fascist whenever anyone suggests I 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:06.600 pay my fair share in taxes Libertarians, which Peter is no, no, no, 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:10.080 My kind the kind that I respect are I'm not. 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.000 I wouldn't say I'm there now, but I have I 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:13.680 do have a degree of respect and love for Like 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:17.080 after the big hurricane in North Carolina, you had like 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.240 several dozen guys who owned their own helicopters and often 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.200 built their own helicopters, who like flew in just because 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.800 they're like they're like helicopter libertarians. I like my helicopter 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.800 libertarians where it's like I just don't trust the States, 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.200 so I bought my own helicopter a disaster rescue. Those 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:35.000 guys are fine. 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:39.040 Yeah, yeah, although are those the same guys that also 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.120 were the militia that tried to interfere with. 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.080 Those guys were in trucks. Those guys were in trucks. 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:53.680 That might be yet another different kind of libertarian Helicopterah, 0:16:54.040 --> 0:17:00.200 we're very very pro helicopter libertarian in this ass. Those 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:05.920 guys are fine. So yeah, that's a Peter's like kind 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:07.120 of inciting incident. 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:07.320 Right. 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.560 If you're making the Peter Teal movie, you started with 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.119 his dad explaining death to him while looking at this 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:17.760 cowhide rug. Now, shortly after that conversation, his dad decides 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.399 to move the family away from Cleveland, usually a good 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.520 decision and live every engineer's dream, which is, of course 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:31.199 helping South Africa build a uranium mind. You know what 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:35.920 engineer doesn't want to live that? So the Teal family 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.200 moves to South Africa kind of yeah, I mean they're 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:43.679 technically in South Africa. Peter's parents send him to an expensive, 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:48.160 whites only private school called Pridwin. According to the school's website, 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.480 it was founded in nineteen twenty three as a non 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:56.240 denominational school rooted in Christian ethics and values. Today, the 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.680 Pridwood website prominently features numerous stock photos of non white kids. 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.240 So it does seem like maybe things have been forced 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:08.119 to move forward there. But when Peter went there, it 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:11.000 would have taught racial separation as an obvious good and 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.119 a necessity. Right this is we're talking South Africa in 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:18.679 the seventies, right after Pridwen. Peter went to a German 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.119 language public school. He was a good student. He always 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:24.919 does well in school, but these are not happy years 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.919 for him, at least his chafkin paints it quote. A 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.560 picture from that era shows a sullen boy in shorts, 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:34.119 knickers and a tie carrying an adult sized briefcase. A 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.960 grade school classmate in Namibia, George erb recalled Teal as 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.080 smart but withdrawt. He had that distinct, striking smart look 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.080 about him, almost like he seemed bored. Rb said, we 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:46.560 didn't really mingle a lot with Peter in school, though 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:49.080 we always knew the miners' kids would not stay long 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:51.399 in town. Now, as he noted here, I said that 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:54.119 they moved to South Africa. They are, though actually not 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:58.080 in what in South Africa. They were in Namibia, which 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.800 a big chunk of Namibia is governed and run by 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.359 South Africa. At this point, right at the time, a 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:07.679 lot of what we call Namibia today was known to 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.720 South Africans as South West Africa, and it was governed 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:14.800 under a military occupation, as if it were essentially the 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.520 little brother of the apartheid state. The whole reason that 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.959 South Africa has a uranium mine comes down to environmental 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.439 regulations in western nations. Around this period, some of the 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.320 very earliest waves of uranium had been mined in places 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:31.679 like the US and Australia. But pretty quickly, once it 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:33.920 becomes clear that we're going to need a lot of uranium, 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:37.280 it also becomes clear that like uranium mining is really 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.919 bad for the environment, so we'd better do that a 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:43.080 lot in Africa, right, like a big bit. Actually, King 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:46.400 Leopold's old colony in the Cargo becomes a major source 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.720 of uranium mining, and Namibia in this period becomes the 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.400 fourth largest global producer of uranium. During the Cold War, 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.080 when we are using up quite a lot of the stuff, 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:00.480 so That's why South Africa is a big. Part of 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.400 why South Africa is so hesitant to give up their 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:06.000 occupation of Namibia is like, Namibia has a shitload of 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.920 uranium and South Africa wants that for several reasons, none 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.119 of them good. Now, the managing and engineering staff at 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:16.560 the mine where Klaus worked was white. The workforce were 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:20.959 largely migrants on one year contracts for white families. This 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:24.120 was a good job. You had good access to medical care, 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.240 you had nice houses. You're basically living in a company 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.760 town that is built for the white employees of this mine. 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:34.320 There's a country club there, there's quality schools. Things are 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.400 a lot uglier for the contract workers who are being 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:39.480 brought in to do a lot of the heavy lifting 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.479 at the mine. Now, much of this ugliness came from 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:45.600 the fact that South Africa was not allowed to be 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:49.040 in Southwest Namibia. Right, They are not supposed to be 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:53.240 occupying this chunk of Namibia. The UN had ordered them 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:56.240 to leave in nineteen sixty six, but by the time 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:59.040 the Teals moved into the country, South Africa had yet 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:01.840 to move their troops out. This is like nineteen seventy 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:06.560 to one or two, right, So they've overstayed their visa 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:08.480 by quite a while. But you don't really need a 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:10.320 visa if you have enough guns. 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:15.600 Yeah, this whole thing is fucking grim man. Yeah, it's 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.440 parteid uranium. Mind, just fucking grim. 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:23.480 Peter's childhood is in an apartheid uranium mine. 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:28.480 Like I thought Elon Musk had liken uh kind of 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:31.720 like super villain origin story with the emerald mine. But 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.119 the uranium not really trumps. 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:37.280 Honestly, bro, I'll take an emerald mine over this any 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:42.280 day in a fucking week. So in nineteen seventy three, 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:45.200 the ICC, the International Criminal Court, upheld that you in 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.840 ruling and said again South Africa, you've got to leave Namibia. 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:51.480 This is not your country. What are you doing there, 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:53.720 to which South Africa says, we are getting a lot 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:57.119 of uranium and we're not going to leave. This leads 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:00.159 to sanctions against the sale of minerals from mine and 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:04.000 occupied Namibia, sanctions that are ignored by much of the West. 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:07.680 And I'm going to just quote read about that via 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:10.800 a quote I found on the website Mining Sea. The 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:15.119 decree warned that anyone found extracting and selling minerals from 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:19.360 Namibia would be held liable beneficiaries to Namibia's minerals, including 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:23.119 Britain and the United States, except Sweden did not honor 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:26.320