WEBVTT - Part Two: Curtis Yarvin: The Philosopher Behind J.D. Vance 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.240 Also media. Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:11.120 about the worst people in all of history and with 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.320 us today, someone who, as far as I am aware, 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:17.759 is not one of the worst people in all of history. 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.520 Ed Helm's, Ed, have you ever committed a crime? 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:23.440 Lots? 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.320 Okay? Well, okay, well I expected the opposite answer. 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:36.040 I've only murdered jerks. Yeah, you know, you're fine. 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.440 I'm on the right side of I still have like 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.479 if you're just killing bad people, like, who's got a 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:50.800 problem with that? Right? Yeah? Just jerks. It's like we 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:52.760 were It's like we were talking about early. You can't 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.440 have a black and white like murders always bad because 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:58.360 like what if somebody's a jerk? Just wondering? Can I 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:00.480 send you a list of names for note no apparent 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:05.039 reason they're jerks? Yeah? Okay, okay, this is great info 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:09.960 to have it. Welcome back to the show, Ed Helms. 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.800 I mean again, I don't feel like you necessarily need introduction, 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.839 but I will remind everyone about your excellent podcast SNAFU 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:23.040 and you just had season two drop talking about the 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:27.080 wonderful activist burglary of an FBI building in nineteen seventy 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.759 one that led to some of the most important revelations 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:35.800 of the burgeoning security state in history. So yeah, great show. 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.959 People should check it out. Ed, are you ready? 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.560 I'm ready here more. As you described season two of SNAFU, 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.160 I couldn't help thinking about how how well it connects 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:47.680 to our subject matter. 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:50.040 Yep, untrammeled authority. 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:54.320 Yeah, because Jagar Hoover basically had some degree of unchecked 0:01:54.400 --> 0:02:01.040 authority within Yeah. Oh yeah, and he was doing really 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:02.000 awful stuff. 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.840 Well, he's a great example because he was this kind 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:09.919 of ceo god king of the security state for decades 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:14.239 and it didn't end well or middle well or start 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:18.160 well come back. 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.480 Comes back to that. I think at the beginning of 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:22.440 the last episode, I was like, how do you pick 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.800 the guy right? Right? The guy? How can you be 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:27.800 sure you got the right guy. 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:31.720 It's also this thing of like I think with Hoover, 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:34.320 you really did see a man who he wasn't the 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.880 same guy at the start of his time running the 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.000 FBI as he was at the end, you know, because 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.720 number when he aged, our brains change as we age, 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.280 we in many cases get worse at some things, right, 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:50.120 And like he also the period of time that he 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.760 had with power, he got used to doing increasingly extreme 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.320 things with it, you know, like there was this constant 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:02.640 escalation of his authoritary impulses, like the job was bad 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.160 for him, like it was bad for j Edgar Hoover, 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:08.800 and it was it made him a worse person. And 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:12.200 I think that kind of fundamentally, guys who advocate for 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.839 these systems never take that into account, in part because 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:16.480 I just don't think they believe it the way that 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:20.079 I think most normal people do. Like we you don't. 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.880 You don't have to be like on the left or 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.119 a libertarian or an anarchist to be like, well, yeah, 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:28.120 if you give people access to all of the power 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:33.639 in the world, they generally do horrible things with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:36.800 yeah I would anyway, huh. I would. Yeah. I would 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.040 do awful, nightmarish things. I do really fun things, but 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.320 people might get hurt. I would have a good time, 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:48.080 but not everyone would have a good time. I think 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:50.280 maybe that's just how these guys think about it, right, 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:52.840 I'm going to be the one having a good time. 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.280 So and again, that's part of why we're doing these episodes, 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.120 because Curtis Yarvin could potently be on the brink of 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.600 having a very good time, and I really want to 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:11.320 emphasize what a bad idea that would be. So I 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:13.960 have referred to Yarvin as a monarchist a few times 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.680 in these episodes, and I will again. I do think 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.479 it's important to note he would disagree with me using 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.440 that title because he thinks that calling someone a monarchist 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.320 brings to mind the constitutional monarchies that largely failed in 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.520 the early twentieth century, and he blames that failure on 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.520 compromises in absolute power. Now, we talked last episode about 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.720 Yarvin's core beliefs democracy isn't really real, and if it 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.840 was real, it wouldn't be a good idea. The cathedral 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.599 who really runs things are the enemy, and some sort 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:46.159 of aristocracy in an absolute CEO monarch paired with the 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.920 freedom to exit if you don't like the particular flavor 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.320 of oppression in your home is the ideal state of governance. 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.800 As a tech guy, though Yarvin doesn't like to couch 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.320 his yearning for a king, which is what this is, right, 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:00.560 he's a monarchist. He's not this the same kind of 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:03.760 monarchists that, for example, like guys like JR. R. Tolkien were, 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.400 But he's very much a monarchist, and he doesn't like 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.719 to he doesn't like to seem like the regular people 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:11.880 who long for the days of having a king. Right, 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.520 He's got to be like a little bit smarter about it, right, 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:17.839 And this is where kind of the big tech line 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.960 of things comes in and his argument. He starts making this, 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:24.320 you know, in the early period of like the web 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.159 two point zero tech boom, you get smartphones, you get 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.640 like apps like Twitter and YouTube and Facebook, and there's 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.919 this period of time, I know it feels very distant 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:36.520 to us, but where people thought this was going to 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.279 enhance democracy around the globe, right, that all of these 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.320 connecting technologies were going to be a massive boon for 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:48.960 like liberatory movements across the planet. That's not what happened. 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.400 And Jarvin very early on isn't just saying that's not 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.520 what's going to happen. He's saying that's not what should happen. Right, 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.719 Big tech shouldn't enable democracy around the world. It should 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:03.400 take control in a very literal sense. And he becomes 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.160 an advocate of a kind of political philosophy he called 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:10.839 neo cameralism, which Francis Sang described in an excellent essay 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.359 as quote, arguing that the state should be run like 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.920 a business ie with a CEO at its head and 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:20.080 no democratic mechanisms. Jarvin has always taken pains to express 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.440 in public his belief that this change can be done peacefully, 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.440 and you know, we're not. He thinks we're not already living, 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:28.479 We're already not living in a democracy, so there's no 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:30.960 reason this has to be painful. But a study of 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:32.800 his writing over the years makes it clear that not 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.480 only is he open to violence, but an enthusiastic about it. 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:38.960 And this brings me to one of the uglier parts 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:42.479 of our story. In twenty eleven, a Nazi named Anders 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.080 Brevik shot up a summer camp hosted by the Workers 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:49.160 Youth League, a left wing political organization in Norway. Brewick, 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:52.240 who considers himself a member of the Knights Templar, acting 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.520 to defend his faith and race from evil communists, shot 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:59.920 and killed or bombed seventy seven people. Jarvin wrote about 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.640 this as well, arguing that terrorism was a legitimate tactic 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.160 and that Nazi terror had been legitimate because it worked 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:11.760 for the baffler. Corey Payne summarizes quote Breviks killing spree, 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:15.280 which targeted young Norwegian leftists was illegitimate because it was 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:19.600 insufficient to free Norway from euro Communism. After all, he 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:22.920 only killed seventy seven people. We can note the only 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:26.040 thing he didn't screw up. At least he shot Communists, 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.280 not Muslims. He gored the Matador and not the cape. 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.520 Jarvin wrote on July twenty third, twenty eleven, one day 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.080 after the terror in Oslo. So that is I mean, 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:38.120 we've gotten now from a guy who is just sort 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.440 of like preaching his idiosyncratic political system to a guy 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.880 who was being like he didn't kill enough kids for 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.360 it to matter, right, Like this is you know, it's 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:50.920 important not to lean into the fact that like this 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.640 is not just a guy whose politics would lead to 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.680 bad directions. This is a pretty vile person. Where is 0:07:56.720 --> 0:08:00.800 he writing this on his blog Unqualified Reservus, which is 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:02.920 just publicly available blog. 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.640 Yeah, yeah, not, He's not like in the dark recesses 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:07.520 of four chan. 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.080 No no, no, no. This is a publicly available blog. 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.200 Now it's not. It's not. It's very popular with a 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.720 certain subset of the world, and he's writing under a pseudonym, 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.440 so people don't know his real name. In twenty eleven. 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.400 Right now, the pseudonym could mean that there's some measure 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.360 of trolling going on, but not. But but this is 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:33.080 there's no, there's no, there's no kind of like winky irony. 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:35.280 I mean, this is some of the most if it's 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.280 remotely humorous at an attempt, it is some of the 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:43.760 most like wretched, awful and heart wrenching. It failed at humor. 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:49.520 But but if again, like there's no version in which 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:55.120 as it's using a pseudonym, he's being like, I can't even. 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.840 Think of no, no, this is this is very much 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.480 not him fucking around like this is because I mean 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:03.440 you can tell for a degree, like the like talking 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.760 about grinding up people for biodiesel. I've seen some articles 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:08.959 where people mistake that for a serious position if you 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.720 read it in context, he's clearly like joking, right, Like 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.840 it's thrown out as a joke. This essay is him 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:18.280 talking about like why the Brevic attack was bad, and 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:20.760 it's bad not because he killed all those people, but 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:25.240 because it's not big enough to destroy the left, right, Like, 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.440 that's that's very much the take that he has on this, 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.120 which is not really he's not being satirical, he's not 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:32.680 not that you know, it would be good to be 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.400 satirical about this, but that's not really what he's doing. 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:38.560 And this is this kind of stuff. Like part of 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:40.880 why people don't catch on to this more often about 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.840 Jarvin when they write about him, for like mainstream news sources, 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:47.160 is that he writes so much like to catch this stuff, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:49.560 like I wouldn't have caught all of this stuff if 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:51.360 I had just been I wouldn't have had time to 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.240 read all of his archive. Thankfully, guys like Corey Pine 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:56.440 did a lot of that work, and so people have 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.440 been collecting kind of like the worst hits of Curtis 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:03.320 Yarfin for a while now, but it's not immediately easy 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:05.640 for people to do, and it gets missed by the 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:07.960 people who aren't really like big fans of his a 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.280 lot of the time, right, because there's just so much there. 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.640 And he writes he's got kind of log area, right, 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.440 diarrhea of the mouth a bit, he's very worthy. So 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:20.480 around the same time as he's writing his articles about 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.560 the Yetoya shooting, Jarvin is also pushing an acronym out 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.319 in his writing to the people who are like built 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.000 this kind of like political circle around him, which is 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:33.640 kind of liberally sprinkled with Peter Thiel dollars. And the 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.320 acronym that he starts pushing is rage, which means retire 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:42.040 all government employees. And this is a term that he's 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.640 come to for this policy plan that he starts pushing 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:49.680 among the young conservatives following him, that we need to 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.080 get a president who is our kind of guy in 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:57.480 office and have him forcibly retire the entire professional cast 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.880 of the government and replace them with are people with 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:02.439 people who think, and that's how we. 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:03.640 Shift twenty five. 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.120 Yes, yes, yes, exactly, that is and this is something 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.760 he is pushing in the early aughts, right, like yes, 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.600 And to be honest, a lot of Project twenty twenty 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:15.800 five is people cribbing from Yarvin, and it's because it's 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.720 people who were influenced by him or influenced by people 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.000 who are influenced by him, right. But a lot of 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:26.080 this intellectually starts with him. You know, obviously he's not 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:28.640 the only guy thinking about stuff like this, but he's 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:30.560 putting it out in a form that is like a 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:35.080 cohesive ideology. So in the early years, and we're talking 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.480 kind of the mid aughts around like twenty eleven up 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:42.640 through twenty fourteen. His adherents are mostly other tech industry creatures, 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.800 and one of these people is someone named Justine Tunney. 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.599 Justine started out as someone who was like more progressive. 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.359 She was an occupy activist back during you know occupy, 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.280 and she gets hired as a Google engineer. In March 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.960 of twenty fourteen, Esteem published a petition on the White 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:06.520 House website demanding a national referendum on three points. Number one, 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:11.240 retire all government employees, number two, transfer administrative authority to 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.880 the tech industry, and number three appoint Google CEO Eric 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:19.400 Schmidt's CEO of America. Now, this is a very silly 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:23.360 idea for one thing who's looking at Google today thinks 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:28.520 Eric Schmidt should run the country like But in defense 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.160 of this, Tunney wrote, It's time for the US regime 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:33.480 to politely take its exit from history and do what's 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.840 best for America. The tech industry can offer us good governance, 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:41.400 prison and prevent further American decline. Now part of why 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:43.360 I think Tunny is an interesting case study and like 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.800 followers of Moldbug, because she tells people on Twitter who 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.120 are questioning her about this petition she's put up that 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.880 they need to read mensious. Moldbug Tunny is interesting because 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.840 she doesn't come out of the traditional right. She's a 0:12:56.920 --> 0:13:00.680 transgender woman who had built herself as an anarchist earlier 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.320 in her ideological life, prior to finding Mouldbugs writing, and 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.679 so this arc she takes from an economic justice advocate 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:11.640 to tech industry monarchist shows how seductive a lot of 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.560 intelligent people found Yarvin. And the fact that people like Tounny, 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:18.960 who don't come out of where you would expect someone 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.319 to wind up believing these far right ideas get enraptured 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.400 by Jarvin's writing is part of why he starts to 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:28.080 get this reputation for almost being this kind of like 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.520 mental sorcerer, someone whose work has this almost like lovecrafty 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.920 and pull in twisting people's beliefs and ideals. And that's 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.480 very much the reputation that he starts to pick up 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:43.840 in like the aughts. There's a philosopher, kind of a 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:48.520 reactionary philosopher named Nick Land who's a fan of Jarvin's writing, 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.240 who gives it the nickname the Dark Enlightenment, right, that's 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:54.640 the term that he comes up with to refer to 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:59.800 these kind of neo reactionary, anti democratic, monarchist policies. And 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:03.600 it's written that way because supposedly, once you read Jarvin's 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.480 arguments for why democracy can't work and like this sort 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.880 of authoritarian system is better, it's like this through the 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.720 looking glass breaking moment. I've taken the red pill, and 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:15.360 I can never go back right. 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.920 Emally endowing this sky and these writings with a lot 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:25.400 of oh yes, like magical power in a very absurd 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:29.160 way it is, and it takes them out of the 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:34.400 realm of like intellectual exploration and dialogue and idea sharing 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:40.280 it into this like truly like conspiratorial, like come into 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:44.240 the fold, put on your dark cloak and join the 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:45.440 dark enlightenment. 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:50.320 And that's what Moldbug wants. Right. That's good branding for 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:52.760 you if you're this guy, that's certainly how you want 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:56.400 to be seen. Okay, I think that's not really accurate 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:58.160 to what's happening to Tony or to what's happening to 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.160 most of the people following them, in part because I 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.320 have a degree of, like a professional understanding from my 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:08.640 former career writing and analyzing terrorist groups of how people 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.680 get radicalized, right, and a thing that gets missed a lot, 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.000 and scholar Scott Atron was kind of the guy who 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:17.840 I started reading who wrote about this a lot. But 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:22.040 about how people get radicalized, it always happens nearly always 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.880 in communities, right, even if it's not a physical community, 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:30.120 if it's online. People don't generally get brought into radical 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:34.960 belief systems or extremist politics on their own. They get 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:38.320 brought in in part because there's circle of friends that 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:42.520 people they respect and think are cool get drawn into it, right. 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:44.560 And I think that's what's happening to Tunny, And I 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:48.160 think that's a lot of the power that Mouldbugs writing 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.760 has is that he is telling the Silicon Valley set 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:54.720 of people who got a lot of money very quickly 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:57.800 when they were young and got kind of lost their 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.840 minds and their belief about their own genius. He's telling 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:04.240 them what they want to hear, that they should run things. 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.440 They start sharing his stuff with each other, they start 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:10.840 talking like him because of the way he writes, and 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.320 it becomes like the cool thing within a certain set 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:18.760 in Silicon Valley to be into Moldbug, right, And that's 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:21.360 a lot of the appeal, right. It's not that his 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:25.800 writing has some sort of like magical mindwarping effect. It's 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:29.360 that this community of people that a lot of folks, 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.000 especially like newer folks coming into the tech who want 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.640 to be you know, get founder money, who want to 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.080 be part of this like in crowd, they all like 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.480 it's the cool thing to be talking about to believe in. Right, 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:43.760 Like that's I think where a lot of the power 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:46.960 that he initially has comes from. And I think that's 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:48.440 always the case. If you want to look at like 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:50.800 why a lot of people joined ISIS a lot of 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.320 these young communities, it's because Isis was cool, right to 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.480 a lot of these young people, the way that they talk, 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.600 the slang they use, the media they put out. Communities 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:04.080 of people got radicalized in part because it was attractive 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:06.280 in that way to them. Right, It's not like a 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.199 mind virus. It's kind of the same way fads and 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.760 trends always work. Right, This is the way that like 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.240 any fad takes hold. You know, it's just a much 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.800 darker example of that. But that is how radicalization tends 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.280 to occur. And I think that's what's happening with moldbugs writing. 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:28.600 Yeah, it's interesting that the you're saying Tonny Tunny is 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.320 her name, right, Yes, Justine Tunny in Tunny was sort 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.760 of brought in even just talking sort of more generally 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:41.199 about radicalization that it's often the product of a community. 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:46.399 What about the what about the Jarvins, Like do you 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.000 think that that was Are they the outlier the kind 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:53.359 of like the well no special beacons of or or 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:58.240 did he come from that youth community that you know, 0:17:58.359 --> 0:17:59.080 from his youth. 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:01.920 I think that's a great question. But I do think 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:04.160 if you look at kind of his background, you see 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:07.399 the community he was radicalized in. Right when he starts 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:09.879 working for the tech industry, When when he's you know, 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:12.439 in the internet in the mid nineties, he starts talking 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.879 to these guys who are these big Austrian school advocates, 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.320 who are you know he admires. These are generally men 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:21.040 who are a bit older than him, who are more 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:23.320 accomplished in their careers, and they're telling him, Oh, you 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.879 should read you know, hansrmon Hop, you should read Ludwig 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.560 von mess you should read Thomas Carlyle, you should read 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:34.240 Murray Rothbard, right, And he reads these guys and he 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.160 takes their thinking seriously, in part because people he respects 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:39.879 and thinks are cool are telling him to write. So 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.400 I do think it's a version of the same process, right, 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.800 in part, because that's just how human beings adopt ideas, right, 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.920 Like it's the if you're you know, I know people 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:57.160 who are like evangelical Christians, right, And there's a couple 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:00.639 of different attitudes towards how you should evangelize, But the 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.080 one that people I think are generally of good will 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.800 have is that like, well, if you're a really good 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:09.720 and admirable person, people will will find will be interested 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:11.480 in like what you believe. And that's the best way 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.520 to prostlytize, right by just actually like being kind of 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.760 rad And that's how I've found, Like, when I got 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.399 into radical politics, it was because I ran into a 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.439 bunch of like anarchists who were on a regular basis 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:25.639 going out and feeding homeless people, and I thought that 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:27.760 was dope, and that got me interested in what other 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:32.119 things do these people believe because I thought they were cool? Right, Like, 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:34.560 that is how I think it's just like mostly how 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.159 people work. Right. But it's in the interest of a 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:41.160 guy like Jarvin to make it feel like his writing 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.320 has this like love crafty and power to enrapture and 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:49.720 warp minds anyway, cool people and all the world's all 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:54.960 just high school right, Like, oh so tunny is you 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.600 know a good example of these kind of early adherents 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.720 to Moldbug, who are mostly young, disaffected engineers, software engineers, 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:06.480 tech industry people. And when Yarvin kind of part of 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.199 where this sort of dark Enlightenment turn takes off is 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:13.440 that in around twenty thirteen twenty fourteen, when mainstream news 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.160 starts writing about him, the most attractive angle to take 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.359 with this guy is not, here is a trend in 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:24.760 a certain subset of like Silicon Valley tech people. Let's 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:26.840 look at the reasons why this trend might be popular. 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.919 It's this dark enlightenment guy whose work has this like 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:35.560 dangerous rapture. Like the media helps create the myth of Yarvin, 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:37.600 and he manipulates it effectively, And I think this is 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:41.040 part of why you know, this reinforces his beliefs to 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:45.440 an extent about like how bad the cathedral is these 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.320 like media organizations that like, wow, it's so easy for 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:53.240 me to manipulate them. Right, So yeah, anyway, that's kind 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.640 of what's happening in the late aughts with this guy. 0:20:57.480 --> 0:20:59.840 So one of the people who is going to come 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:04.800 to be sort of a follower of him in this 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.440 kind of later period after he starts to achieve more 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:14.240 prominence is JD. Vance. And it's because moldbugs writing is 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:16.960 really appealing to these people who got a lot of 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.400 money and power very quickly, often because they were either 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.080 in like venture capital, because they were in you know, 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:25.320 the tech industry or something, and so they have all 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:29.119 this wealth, but they don't come out of like they 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:31.320 don't come out of academia. They don't have any sort 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:36.280 of like place in the traditional like media hierarchy that 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:39.560 demands respect. Right, you may have a lot of money, 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:41.719 but like, why should I care what some software engineer 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:45.000 about Google says about politics or whatever? Right, why should 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.280 I care about what some like finance dude who was 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:49.480 really good at like gambling on the housing market has 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:51.359 to say about politics just because you have a bunch 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:54.760 of money. And that's where Vance comes out of. You know, 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:56.879 he's one of these guys who's got like a background 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.120 in private equity, and he's one of these guys who 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:03.280 is kind of like angry that that doesn't automatically afford 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:05.920 him the respect of like what he considers to be 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:10.479 an elite in society. Another one of the proponents of 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:14.680 Jarvin's thinking about particularly this retire all government employees thing, 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.960 is Blake Masters, who's a twice failed Arizona congressional candidate 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.680 and another Peter Teel protege right. In an interview with 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:25.800 Vanity Fair before the first of his failed campaigns, Masters 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:29.320 was act asked how he would drain the swamp in 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:32.919 practice if he was like brought into Congress, and he responded, 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:35.840 one of my friends has this acronym he calls rage 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:39.680 retire all government employees. And he was referring to Yarvin. 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:42.480 He and Yarvin are friends, just like Vance and Yarvin, 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:44.240 you know, go to a lot of the same parties 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.480 and whatnot. Like these are all guys who are not 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:51.359 just close ideologically, but like are in the same physical 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.080 spaces a lot of the time talking with each other. 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:58.960 That's an important, yeah, aspect to this. That's that's new. 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:02.280 So that this just a a kind of like, Hey, 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.840 I read your stuff and or I read this guy's stuff, 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:09.359 and I think it's compelling and I'd like to crib 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:15.360 some ideas from this. It's more it's also that they're 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:19.920 hanging out. Yes, it's moving, and that really starts. We'll 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:22.879 talk about this in a little bit, But once Jarvin 0:23:22.960 --> 0:23:26.240 gets kind of docked, right, so people in twenty fourteen, 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:29.160 I think it is tech Crunch publishes what his actual 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:32.960 name is and instead of like there's this period of 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:35.959 time where there's some backlash against him, but mostly what 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:37.680 it does is kind of elevate him. 0:23:37.720 --> 0:23:40.560 Like he does it. He's not hiding behind a pseudonym anymore, 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:43.359 but now he's free to be a public figure in 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:45.639 more of a way. And so he starts publicly showing 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:48.480 up at these parties and events where guys like jd 0:23:48.640 --> 0:23:52.359 Vance and Blake Masters are in attendance, where like people 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:57.040 who are making inroads into the actual like political strata 0:23:57.280 --> 0:23:59.399 of the right are in attendance. And that's a thing 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:02.359 that's increasing happening, like once we kind of hit the 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:06.720 Trump era, and yeah, it's it's kind of important. The 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:10.560 best example of the degree to which Jarvin's thoughts and 0:24:10.640 --> 0:24:15.080 policies have entered mainstream politics is rage. Is this idea 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:17.680 that we need to bring in a guy who's going 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:20.080 to fire everyone in the government and replace it with 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:23.119 our people. This is the kind of thing that, like, 0:24:23.359 --> 0:24:25.520 not only is this something that guys like Masters and 0:24:25.800 --> 0:24:28.960 Dvans are talking about. Trump tried to do this already 0:24:29.040 --> 0:24:32.000 in twenty twenty at the end of his term. He 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:36.399 sought to reclassify thousands and thousands of federal employees in 0:24:36.520 --> 0:24:39.120 order to strip them of job protections and make them 0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:42.800 at well employees that he could fire. This was reversed 0:24:43.400 --> 0:24:45.159 under Biden, but it is the kind of thing that 0:24:45.240 --> 0:24:47.880 Trump could bring back and plans to bring back if 0:24:47.880 --> 0:24:50.480 he wins again, because he has promised that if he 0:24:50.520 --> 0:24:52.800 takes office again in twenty twenty five, one of the 0:24:52.840 --> 0:24:54.920 first things he's going to do is fire thousands of 0:24:54.960 --> 0:25:01.200 quote unquote crooked government employees. Trump has repeated disavowed Project 0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:03.720 twenty twenty five because it's become kind of a toxic 0:25:03.800 --> 0:25:07.680 thing politically for him, But he has promised that when 0:25:07.720 --> 0:25:09.639 he takes off as he's going to like, you know, 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:12.000 clean house within the federal government and put his own 0:25:12.040 --> 0:25:14.640 people in there. And this is very in line with 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:18.360 what Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts told The New York 0:25:18.359 --> 0:25:21.800 Times he hoped a second Trump term would bring quote 0:25:21.800 --> 0:25:24.600 people will lose their jobs, hopefully their lives are able 0:25:24.640 --> 0:25:27.040 to flourish. In spite of that, buildings will be shut down. 0:25:27.119 --> 0:25:30.600 Hopefully they can be repurposed for private industry. And that's 0:25:30.680 --> 0:25:32.879 Kevin Roberts is not a guy who's ever said Curtis 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:37.760 Yarvin's name that I can find. But that's Menschus moldbug, right, Like, 0:25:37.800 --> 0:25:40.600 that's exactly what he has been talking about for years. 0:25:41.480 --> 0:25:45.440 Would you draw a direct line from Minshus to these positions? 0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:47.840 I mean, and I know absolutely aim, But are you 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:51.880 do you feel very very confident that moldbug is the 0:25:51.920 --> 0:25:54.439 source of these ideas or was this sort of a 0:25:54.520 --> 0:25:59.520 general sentiment that Minsches was reflecting among like a certain set. 0:26:00.280 --> 0:26:03.360 I think it's best to think about it like a garden, right, 0:26:03.640 --> 0:26:09.480 And what Minschus did was kind of spread fertilizer over 0:26:09.520 --> 0:26:12.159 that garden. That made a climate where a lot of 0:26:12.200 --> 0:26:15.080 these ideas, many of which do come kind of directly 0:26:15.240 --> 0:26:20.000 from his writing, but he also helped kind of set 0:26:20.040 --> 0:26:23.439 the ideological climate on the far right. And as the 0:26:23.480 --> 0:26:27.399 far right took over kind of the center right Republican Party, 0:26:27.880 --> 0:26:30.240 it brought a lot of these mold buggy and ideas 0:26:30.280 --> 0:26:32.400 with it, which is part of why guys like Peter 0:26:32.520 --> 0:26:36.359 Teel are anti democratic activists and use a lot of 0:26:36.400 --> 0:26:40.520 their money to that end, have funded yarbin Is. They 0:26:40.640 --> 0:26:43.280 see him as useful for that sort of thing, right, 0:26:43.840 --> 0:26:46.320 And a lot of these guys who have gone on 0:26:46.359 --> 0:26:48.720 to work at the Heritage Foundation, you know, in the 0:26:48.760 --> 0:26:52.360 early two thousands, in two thousand and eight, nine, ten eleven, 0:26:52.800 --> 0:26:55.919 where like kids in high school and college passing around 0:26:55.920 --> 0:26:59.359 minshus Moldbug tracts, right, Like, that's kind of how this 0:26:59.480 --> 0:27:02.159 has worked. So I would see him as he really 0:27:02.320 --> 0:27:05.959 he prepared an environment for these kind of politics to grow. 0:27:07.440 --> 0:27:10.439 And I think there is a very direct line between 0:27:10.480 --> 0:27:12.080 him and a lot of what you see with Project 0:27:12.119 --> 0:27:13.960 twenty twenty five, a lot of the stuff. Even though 0:27:14.200 --> 0:27:16.720 Trump certainly has never read one of these guys articles, 0:27:16.880 --> 0:27:20.600 he's surrounded by people who are telling him and who 0:27:20.600 --> 0:27:23.480 have ideas about how absolute power can be attained that 0:27:23.520 --> 0:27:27.320 are based on things Moldbug is written. You know, I 0:27:27.359 --> 0:27:31.960 think that that's absolutely something I'm confident arguing and confident 0:27:32.000 --> 0:27:35.360 part because there's so many financial ties and direct personal 0:27:35.400 --> 0:27:39.439 ties between him and people around Trump, you know, So 0:27:40.240 --> 0:27:43.359 I know that's dark. So let's just go to ads 0:27:43.400 --> 0:27:44.960 and try not to think about it for a second, 0:27:45.080 --> 0:27:53.000 think about these products for a minute, and we're back. 0:27:54.040 --> 0:27:57.479 So one of the things I find interesting about Jarvin 0:27:57.600 --> 0:28:00.760 is there's this degree of insecurity to some of his 0:28:00.840 --> 0:28:05.440 writing where he definitely is a monarchist, and he's definitely 0:28:05.440 --> 0:28:08.159 someone who feels a sense of nostalgia to some of 0:28:08.160 --> 0:28:11.440 these old absolute monarchies. But he doesn't want to get 0:28:11.480 --> 0:28:15.480 lumped in with the guys who are like unronically stands 0:28:16.160 --> 0:28:18.400 of the czar or whatever and think that, like, oh, 0:28:18.440 --> 0:28:21.119 if only we could bring the Romanovs back to power 0:28:21.160 --> 0:28:25.000 in Russia, everything would be better. Jarvin doesn't isn't a 0:28:25.000 --> 0:28:27.520 monarchist for shallow reasons, right. He doesn't want to be 0:28:27.600 --> 0:28:30.879 seen as someone who advocates this because he's nostalgic. He 0:28:30.920 --> 0:28:32.520 wants to be seen as someone who has run the 0:28:32.600 --> 0:28:36.440 numbers and concluded that there's no alternative to this system. 0:28:37.040 --> 0:28:39.600 And so whenever he makes his arguments for why things 0:28:39.640 --> 0:28:44.080 should be this way, he liberally sprinkles them with citations. Now, 0:28:44.120 --> 0:28:47.680 his citations are a bunch of old reactionaries who had 0:28:47.720 --> 0:28:51.200 like argued against kings and emperors giving up any power 0:28:51.280 --> 0:28:54.960 back in like the eighteen fifties and the like. But 0:28:55.720 --> 0:28:58.520 he has this kind of belief that any sort of 0:28:58.600 --> 0:29:02.880 quote from an old, dead guy is a primary source. 0:29:02.920 --> 0:29:06.760 That is something like people should take more seriously when 0:29:06.800 --> 0:29:09.080 they're like trying to make their minds up about how 0:29:09.120 --> 0:29:11.160 the world works. He has this kind of he's an 0:29:11.200 --> 0:29:14.440 autodide act and that he's someone who is self taught 0:29:14.680 --> 0:29:17.520 through reading a bunch of books about the things he likes. 0:29:18.000 --> 0:29:20.800 And he's convinced that this is sort of like a 0:29:20.880 --> 0:29:24.400 more ideologically rigorous thing than what people do in academia, right, 0:29:24.720 --> 0:29:26.800 and kind of the key thing in academia is that 0:29:27.080 --> 0:29:30.120 if you have ideas or theories, or if you're making arguments, 0:29:30.360 --> 0:29:33.280 you have to expose them to other people and debate 0:29:33.360 --> 0:29:36.600 and have them like torn down. And you know, that's 0:29:36.760 --> 0:29:39.800 like a key part of the way the academic process works. 0:29:40.280 --> 0:29:42.920 He's only ever existed inside his own head, and so 0:29:43.040 --> 0:29:45.240 you get stuff like this two thousand and eight blog 0:29:45.280 --> 0:29:50.160 post titled an open Letter to open Minded Progressives, where 0:29:50.200 --> 0:29:54.120 he writes this about primary sources. The neat thing about 0:29:54.120 --> 0:29:57.120 primary source is is that often it only takes one 0:29:57.200 --> 0:29:59.240 to prove your point. If you find the theory of 0:29:59.280 --> 0:30:03.440 relativity ancient Greek documents, and you know the documents are authentic. 0:30:03.760 --> 0:30:07.160 You know that the ancient Greeks discovered relativity. How why 0:30:07.240 --> 0:30:10.240 it doesn't matter your understanding of ancient Greeks needs to 0:30:10.280 --> 0:30:15.360 include Greek relativity. Now that's a non sequitur, because, like, 0:30:15.640 --> 0:30:18.920 if you were to find an ancient Greek wrote write 0:30:18.960 --> 0:30:23.000 about the theory of relativity, that alone wouldn't necessarily alter 0:30:23.160 --> 0:30:25.400 your understanding of ancient Greece, because there's a lot of 0:30:25.400 --> 0:30:28.560 other questions, like did anyone else come across this writing 0:30:28.560 --> 0:30:32.120 at the time, was this idea disseminated, was it adopted 0:30:32.160 --> 0:30:34.880 on any kind of scale into the dominant theoretical models 0:30:34.880 --> 0:30:37.200 of the time, or was it one cranks weird belief 0:30:37.200 --> 0:30:39.160 that he laid out in an old letter to a friend. Right, 0:30:39.480 --> 0:30:41.920 the fact that you might find something that sounds like 0:30:42.040 --> 0:30:45.640 an argument for about relativity in an ancient Greek document 0:30:45.880 --> 0:30:49.800 doesn't necessarily change your understanding of ancient Greece in a 0:30:49.840 --> 0:30:52.280 meaningful way. Right. The fact that you could cite that 0:30:52.440 --> 0:30:55.480 primary source wouldn't be enough to say the ancient Greeks 0:30:55.560 --> 0:30:57.960 had an understanding of relativity, because you don't know that 0:30:58.080 --> 0:31:00.560 it wasn't just one guy who was viewed widely as 0:31:00.600 --> 0:31:03.880 a crank, right, and a good example of this kind 0:31:03.920 --> 0:31:06.360 of thing from real world history, because he's just making 0:31:06.400 --> 0:31:09.520 up fake history there. Because again there's not really a 0:31:09.560 --> 0:31:10.520 good argument. 0:31:10.200 --> 0:31:10.680 To be made. 0:31:11.440 --> 0:31:14.120 But I will make an interesting argument, and it's about 0:31:14.120 --> 0:31:18.520 something called the Alio file, which was an ancient steam 0:31:18.560 --> 0:31:21.760 engine that was first described by Hero of Alexandria in 0:31:21.840 --> 0:31:25.680 the first century AD. It was actually technically a steam turbine, 0:31:25.720 --> 0:31:28.200 but it was a precursor to a steam engine that 0:31:28.320 --> 0:31:32.400 existed in ancient Rome. Right Now, that's a cool bit 0:31:32.440 --> 0:31:35.160 of history. But does that mean that the Romans had 0:31:35.160 --> 0:31:38.479 steam engines and the ability to make trains? No, because 0:31:38.480 --> 0:31:40.560 this was only ever used as like a party trick, 0:31:40.680 --> 0:31:42.920 Like a couple of prototypes were made and they were 0:31:42.960 --> 0:31:46.200 like made to impress people at like gatherings for rich people. 0:31:46.520 --> 0:31:49.080 No one ever did anything with it. So the fact 0:31:49.120 --> 0:31:52.280 that technically there was the knowledge to make a steam 0:31:52.280 --> 0:31:56.000 engine in ancient Rome doesn't change your understanding of ancient 0:31:56.120 --> 0:31:58.640 Rome because they still didn't have steam power. 0:31:58.920 --> 0:32:05.600 Right. Yeah, it's like somebody's showing off their Aston Martin like, right, 0:32:05.720 --> 0:32:08.840 not everybody had Aston Martin's or has asked, Yeah, some 0:32:08.960 --> 0:32:10.600 rich guy is like check it out. 0:32:11.400 --> 0:32:13.320 Yeah, And then you were to say that, like, well, 0:32:13.360 --> 0:32:15.560 that this meant that the Aston Martin was the car 0:32:15.600 --> 0:32:18.080 of the twenty first century. Like no, like like like 0:32:18.160 --> 0:32:20.640 a couple hundred people had them or whatever, you. 0:32:20.560 --> 0:32:22.560 Know, I would say, I mean, I would say that 0:32:23.400 --> 0:32:26.600 he has a point that depending on the assertion by 0:32:26.600 --> 0:32:31.080 a primary source, sure it can have like pretty powerful 0:32:31.560 --> 0:32:33.600 value in an historical context. 0:32:34.120 --> 0:32:37.640 Oh absolutely, But you also you have to take into account. 0:32:38.000 --> 0:32:39.800 I think part of it is that he's he's talking 0:32:39.800 --> 0:32:42.800 about this in like internet debate terms, where like someone 0:32:42.840 --> 0:32:44.920 makes an argument and you throw in a quote from 0:32:44.920 --> 0:32:48.160 a source and like it's probably done because most people 0:32:48.200 --> 0:32:50.280 don't have the time or the breadth of knowledge to 0:32:50.320 --> 0:32:53.440 really argue these things in detail, as opposed to like 0:32:53.760 --> 0:32:56.400 in academia. Part of what you would be trying to 0:32:56.400 --> 0:32:59.120 do is like not just here's what one source said 0:32:59.160 --> 0:32:59.800 about this. 0:32:59.720 --> 0:33:01.440 But wanted to be irrefutable. 0:33:02.000 --> 0:33:04.920 Yeah, here's the balance of sources. Like we can do 0:33:04.960 --> 0:33:06.959 a survey of all of these different people from the 0:33:06.960 --> 0:33:10.120 time writing about this moment, and we found you're gonna 0:33:10.160 --> 0:33:12.960 find conflict, right, because you know, if you have like 0:33:13.080 --> 0:33:16.320 ten people who are all present at the same shooting 0:33:16.440 --> 0:33:19.240 or car crash or whatever. You're gonna get ten slightly 0:33:19.240 --> 0:33:23.000 different accounts, right, those are all primary sources. A primary 0:33:23.040 --> 0:33:25.680 source does not mean something is right. It just means 0:33:25.760 --> 0:33:30.200 it's from someone who was there, you know. But that's 0:33:30.200 --> 0:33:32.800 not how Mouldbug thinks about it, because he very much 0:33:32.840 --> 0:33:37.280 has this. He thinks about these these old dead reactionary 0:33:37.320 --> 0:33:39.920 writers the way he wants to be thought about, right, 0:33:39.960 --> 0:33:42.800 which is as someone who is like more or less 0:33:42.840 --> 0:33:47.560 ideologically unimpeachable, right, because they're his favorite writers. And so 0:33:47.720 --> 0:33:50.040 I think it behooves us to talk about probably his 0:33:50.200 --> 0:33:53.400 favorite of these old dead reactionaries, because it tells us 0:33:53.400 --> 0:33:56.880 a lot about some of the things that Yarvin believes. 0:33:56.880 --> 0:33:58.600 And this is who we've talked. We talked about this 0:33:58.600 --> 0:34:03.520 guy in part one, Thomas Carlyle. Now Carlyle is writing 0:34:03.600 --> 0:34:09.399 in the mid eighteen hundreds. He's a Scottish writer who 0:34:09.640 --> 0:34:11.080 you know. One of the things he wrote about, he 0:34:11.120 --> 0:34:13.200 was an early writer, kind of talking about the plight 0:34:13.280 --> 0:34:17.880 of the working class under industrialization. So there's a degree 0:34:17.880 --> 0:34:19.759 of what he was writing about that I think was 0:34:20.239 --> 0:34:23.560 fairly valid. But he was also a massive bigot and 0:34:23.640 --> 0:34:25.279 for kind of an overview of that, I found a 0:34:25.320 --> 0:34:28.400 write up by the Glasgow Museum of Slavery aptly titled 0:34:28.480 --> 0:34:34.760 Thomas Carlyle Historian Writer Racist, that describes an essay Carlyle wrote. Quote. 0:34:35.160 --> 0:34:38.440 Carlyle complained that emancipated black people in the West Indies 0:34:38.480 --> 0:34:41.239 were lazy, working little bit, eating well, benefiting from the 0:34:41.239 --> 0:34:45.000 favorable climate and abundance of tropical fruit, while sugarcane on 0:34:45.080 --> 0:34:48.040 British plantations rotted due to lack of labor. In the 0:34:48.080 --> 0:34:50.759 context of recession and unemployment back in Britain and the 0:34:50.760 --> 0:34:53.920 potato famines in Ireland, this was an emode of accusation. 0:34:54.200 --> 0:34:57.200 It was also blatantly untrue, according to figures produced by 0:34:57.200 --> 0:34:59.799 the Anti Slavery Society in eighteen forty seven to forty 0:34:59.840 --> 0:35:02.479 t nine, which showed that sugar production had in fact 0:35:02.560 --> 0:35:05.680 gone up. However, the emancipation of slaves in the British 0:35:05.719 --> 0:35:08.360 Empire in eighteen thirty three had created a labor problem 0:35:08.360 --> 0:35:11.840 that had cut into profit margins, exacerbated in eighteen forty 0:35:11.880 --> 0:35:14.719 six when the Sugar Duties to Act ended subsidies for 0:35:14.760 --> 0:35:18.560 British plantation owners. And this is the kind of thing. 0:35:18.600 --> 0:35:23.399 Because the Glasgow Museum of Slavery is trying to view 0:35:23.400 --> 0:35:27.279 things from an academic and an accurate standpoint, they're able 0:35:27.280 --> 0:35:30.000 to look at what Carlyle said, and what he said 0:35:30.040 --> 0:35:32.960 that was like demonstrably not just racists, but like we 0:35:33.040 --> 0:35:36.920 can argue completely factually wrong about like the economics of 0:35:37.000 --> 0:35:40.160 the system that he was arguing in favor of. Moldbug 0:35:40.239 --> 0:35:43.239 can't really engage in a lot of these criticisms of 0:35:43.280 --> 0:35:47.120 Carlyle because the whole reason Carlyle was wrong was that 0:35:47.200 --> 0:35:52.400 plantation owners, this natural aristocracy, were lazy, corrupt and incompetent, 0:35:52.480 --> 0:35:55.200 and that flies in the face of Jarvin's belief system. 0:35:55.520 --> 0:35:59.239 So instead, when Curtis Jarvin writes an essay on Thomas Carlyle, 0:35:59.280 --> 0:36:03.400 he writes that is quote a natural human relationship like 0:36:03.480 --> 0:36:06.920 that of patron and client and enthusias. That Carlyle is 0:36:07.200 --> 0:36:09.760 the one writer in English whose name can be uttered 0:36:09.760 --> 0:36:13.719 with Shakespeare's. Like this guy who's big claim to fame 0:36:13.800 --> 0:36:16.280 is his essay on why slavery is good and natural, 0:36:16.520 --> 0:36:20.360 is just as as brilliant a thinker as William Shakespeare. 0:36:20.960 --> 0:36:24.440 Like again, one an idea of kind of how vile. 0:36:24.200 --> 0:36:26.360 This guy is how well was it written? 0:36:27.200 --> 0:36:33.400 I mean it's okay, yeah, it's it's it's not it's no, no, 0:36:33.440 --> 0:36:35.640 it's it's definitely non Niamic pentemy. It's not even in 0:36:35.719 --> 0:36:41.520 dactyla texameter. You know, Like, come on, can we back 0:36:41.600 --> 0:36:44.239 up for one second? Was there anything yeah said in 0:36:44.280 --> 0:36:49.319 this open letter to open minded progressives that was that 0:36:49.360 --> 0:36:51.080 would change a progressive's mind? 0:36:51.600 --> 0:36:54.200 Or like what was the gist? What was the logline 0:36:54.280 --> 0:36:57.920 of that? Because you got into a quote, but I 0:36:58.160 --> 0:37:00.279 I was just fascinated by this open letter. 0:37:00.840 --> 0:37:03.680 Yeah, it's largely a series of art. It's really largely 0:37:03.680 --> 0:37:06.960 trying to convince people that these sort of ideas of 0:37:07.280 --> 0:37:10.080 democracy in human progress that are kind of inherent to 0:37:10.120 --> 0:37:14.440 the progressive tradition. Right of this like gradual march of 0:37:14.560 --> 0:37:17.680 progress in terms of like pushing for for more rights 0:37:17.719 --> 0:37:21.879 and more justice in society is kind of fundamentally fallacious 0:37:21.920 --> 0:37:25.680 and flawed, Right that, like none of this actually works, right, 0:37:25.760 --> 0:37:29.800 that it only it only creates new tyrannies. That's his argument. 0:37:29.840 --> 0:37:33.480 It's this whole you advocating for your own rights is 0:37:33.520 --> 0:37:36.279 really you restricting my rights? You know, Like that's that's 0:37:36.360 --> 0:37:39.840 kind of the gist. Of the argument that he's making there. Wow, 0:37:39.920 --> 0:37:44.160 that's in fourteen chapters. Everything he says takes too long. 0:37:44.840 --> 0:37:48.040 Also, slavery is cool, Yeah. 0:37:47.920 --> 0:37:52.040 Yeah, slave, I mean, slavery is a natural relationship, right 0:37:53.600 --> 0:37:56.120 based because again he believes that, like, it can't just 0:37:56.160 --> 0:37:58.719 be that one group of people were at one time 0:37:58.840 --> 0:38:01.239 able to exert more of violence than another group of 0:38:01.239 --> 0:38:03.960 people and so they took them into their possession, right, 0:38:04.360 --> 0:38:07.840 because that makes it sound awful. It's got to be that, like, no, 0:38:07.960 --> 0:38:10.920 this group of people are naturally inclined to rule in 0:38:11.000 --> 0:38:13.040 this other group are naturally inclined. 0:38:12.640 --> 0:38:13.879 To be ruled, you serve. 0:38:14.920 --> 0:38:20.120 Yeah, So, when it comes to talking about Jarvin as 0:38:20.160 --> 0:38:23.319 this sort of dark Enlightenment figure, this guy who's able 0:38:23.360 --> 0:38:26.799 to enrapture people's minds with this almost magic quality of 0:38:26.840 --> 0:38:29.919 his pros, I want to kind of I think we've 0:38:29.920 --> 0:38:31.760 talked a little bit about why I don't think that's 0:38:31.960 --> 0:38:35.120 accurate to how his work was appealing to people. But 0:38:35.160 --> 0:38:38.839 I want to really puncture that myth by pointing out 0:38:38.840 --> 0:38:41.279 one of the examples where he was very much in 0:38:41.360 --> 0:38:43.520 line with kind of like the gutter of the right 0:38:43.560 --> 0:38:46.040 wing and not at all like this sort of more 0:38:46.040 --> 0:38:49.400 intellectual side that he tries to present himself as, sometimes 0:38:49.600 --> 0:38:53.359 in articles like that open letter to Progressives. In two 0:38:53.440 --> 0:38:55.879 thousand and eight, he published a blog post titled did 0:38:55.920 --> 0:38:58.880 Barack Obama go to Colombia? And this is written by 0:38:58.920 --> 0:39:02.080 Jarvin as a serious and investigation into whether or not 0:39:02.160 --> 0:39:05.960 Barack Obama had faked his attendance at Columbia College. And 0:39:06.000 --> 0:39:09.440 the evidence Yarvin had that Obama had faked his attendants 0:39:09.840 --> 0:39:12.600 was that several other Columbia grads from the same year 0:39:12.880 --> 0:39:15.680 said they didn't know him. Right, this was a huge 0:39:15.800 --> 0:39:18.239 thing on like the right at this time. You would 0:39:18.280 --> 0:39:20.799 get like Trump and stuff, you know, retweeting this way 0:39:20.840 --> 0:39:23.239 back in the day that like, well, a bunch of 0:39:23.280 --> 0:39:26.319 guys who went to Colombia didn't know Barack Obama. Like 0:39:26.440 --> 0:39:28.640 this man came out of nowhere. He must have faked 0:39:28.640 --> 0:39:32.480 his attendance at this college. And here's what Jarvin writes 0:39:32.520 --> 0:39:34.600 about it, so you can get a hint at his 0:39:34.719 --> 0:39:38.279 like sparkling prose. So let me ask anyone who cares 0:39:38.320 --> 0:39:41.400 to comment below, how exactly do we the American people, 0:39:41.480 --> 0:39:45.000 lord help us know that Barack Obama attended Columbia, or 0:39:45.040 --> 0:39:47.759 more precisely, why should we assume, on the basis of 0:39:47.760 --> 0:39:50.680 the evidence we have that he did, do we serious belief, 0:39:50.760 --> 0:39:53.440 seriously believe it is possible for a future president to 0:39:53.440 --> 0:39:58.520 be unremembered at his alma mater. Now, the very next 0:39:58.560 --> 0:40:00.680 paragraph in that article is what we know is that 0:40:00.719 --> 0:40:04.840 a Columbia spokesman has confirmed that Obama attended Columbia. And like, 0:40:05.200 --> 0:40:07.560 I would say, well, that's part of how you find out, right, 0:40:07.600 --> 0:40:10.399 as you asked the school did this guy attend, as 0:40:10.400 --> 0:40:13.480 opposed to ask random people who happened to go to 0:40:13.520 --> 0:40:16.960 a school with thousands of folks did you know this guy? Like, 0:40:20.120 --> 0:40:23.319 it's just such like the logical line there is. So 0:40:24.719 --> 0:40:27.120 it's very much a guy picking the reality he wants 0:40:27.160 --> 0:40:30.000 to have, right, which is that Barack Obama is a fraud. Right, 0:40:30.040 --> 0:40:32.360 He's a fraud and he faked his attendants at Columbia. 0:40:32.640 --> 0:40:35.080 He wants to believe that he finds a couple of 0:40:35.120 --> 0:40:37.560 other Columbia grads who don't like Obama and say, well, 0:40:37.560 --> 0:40:39.920 I never knew him, and that's the only facts that 0:40:40.040 --> 0:40:43.000 Jarvin needs here, as opposed to like, well, is there 0:40:43.000 --> 0:40:45.480 any actual evidence that he attended? And it turns out 0:40:45.520 --> 0:40:48.239 that is, and like thirty seconds of googling, I found 0:40:48.280 --> 0:40:51.000 an article by a writer in the Jewish Journal who 0:40:51.080 --> 0:40:54.160 attended Columbia at the same time as Obama. And also, 0:40:54.719 --> 0:40:57.040 like all of these guys who were giving interviews to 0:40:57.040 --> 0:41:00.280 writing papers in two thousand and eight didn't remember Barack 0:41:00.320 --> 0:41:03.960 Obama because it's a big school. But this guy dug 0:41:04.000 --> 0:41:06.840 through a bunch of his old graduation papers and found 0:41:06.840 --> 0:41:10.840 a graduation program that lists Barack Obama by name because 0:41:10.840 --> 0:41:14.760 he went to Columbia University. This was where were people 0:41:14.880 --> 0:41:17.480 pointed this out at the time. There's pictures of him there, 0:41:17.719 --> 0:41:20.800 He's on all sorts of documents. He did know people. 0:41:21.160 --> 0:41:24.040 It was just this like fever dream that spread through 0:41:24.040 --> 0:41:27.080 the right and the same way this myth about Haitians 0:41:27.120 --> 0:41:30.120 eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio is spreading right now. 0:41:30.160 --> 0:41:35.200 It's deliberate disinformation, and it's it's disinformation that is believed 0:41:35.239 --> 0:41:38.279 by people who need an explanation for like how a 0:41:38.320 --> 0:41:41.319 guy like Obama, who they don't think should be able 0:41:41.360 --> 0:41:44.400 to do the things that Obama did, was able to 0:41:44.440 --> 0:41:46.759 do it right. These are racists right who need a 0:41:46.800 --> 0:41:51.920 reason why, how how Barack Obama became the president that isn't. Well, 0:41:52.000 --> 0:41:56.480 he's the most charismatic man in American politics, right, he 0:41:56.600 --> 0:41:59.080 was really good at elections, he was really good at 0:41:59.160 --> 0:42:02.920 running at campaign. That's not a thing that works with 0:42:03.000 --> 0:42:06.799 their belief systems. So Jarvin has to buy into these 0:42:06.880 --> 0:42:10.360 fantasies in order to accept this reality because it just 0:42:10.440 --> 0:42:15.520 doesn't correlate with his racism. And in this he's just like, 0:42:15.640 --> 0:42:17.759 I mean, he's Donald Trump was doing all this shit 0:42:17.880 --> 0:42:20.480 back at the same time, he was like a birther right, Like, 0:42:20.520 --> 0:42:25.000 this is not any intellectually higher up than Bertherism. But 0:42:25.760 --> 0:42:28.640 you know, I think it's kind of important to look 0:42:28.680 --> 0:42:32.000 at this ugly stuff because it contrasts to this dark 0:42:32.120 --> 0:42:35.040 Enlightenment puppet master view of Yarvin and paints a picture 0:42:35.080 --> 0:42:38.040 as a guy who is not just writing stuff that 0:42:38.160 --> 0:42:41.040 is influential, but is also going along with the flow 0:42:41.120 --> 0:42:44.799 and getting caught up in conspiracy theories and bullshit the 0:42:44.880 --> 0:42:47.759 same way anyone else in that space is right, he's 0:42:47.800 --> 0:42:56.160 not special and he's not a hyper genius. Yeah anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:42:56.320 --> 0:42:59.720 that's dumb. I mean, yeah, I think it's dumb. Yeah. 0:43:00.640 --> 0:43:04.080 I think people don't catch it because his articles are 0:43:04.120 --> 0:43:07.560 always he like throws in Latin quotes and like references 0:43:07.560 --> 0:43:09.879 and quotes from like these old You know, he's got 0:43:09.960 --> 0:43:14.400 a great backlog of like witticisms by different historical thinkers. 0:43:14.800 --> 0:43:17.440 I would describe his writing style as like if Fraser 0:43:17.480 --> 0:43:20.560 were written by a fascist, right, Like that's how Curtis 0:43:20.640 --> 0:43:24.759 Jarfin writes. But it very much is kind of just 0:43:24.840 --> 0:43:27.080 to paper over the fact that he's the same kind 0:43:27.080 --> 0:43:29.160 of blowhard as like rush Limbaugh. 0:43:29.360 --> 0:43:33.600 Right, how does this comport with the right sort of 0:43:33.800 --> 0:43:35.879 fetishization of the Constitution. 0:43:36.719 --> 0:43:40.120 Well, I'll be clear, Jarvin does not fetishize the Constitution. 0:43:40.760 --> 0:43:43.280 I think he views it I think is pretty clearly 0:43:43.320 --> 0:43:46.240 a misstep, right, because it hands all of this power 0:43:46.520 --> 0:43:50.640 over to groups that should not like or at least 0:43:50.680 --> 0:43:52.879 he believes. I think if you were to go back, 0:43:52.920 --> 0:43:55.880 he would argue that, like the basic ideas behind a 0:43:55.920 --> 0:43:57.759 lot of the founders, which is that we should have 0:43:57.840 --> 0:44:01.680 this republic that is governed by elites, this like natural 0:44:01.800 --> 0:44:05.880 elite aristocracy, like Jefferson believed in this kind of natural 0:44:05.920 --> 0:44:10.920 aristocracy of intelligent white men. Right, that is pretty close 0:44:11.080 --> 0:44:14.719 to what Moldbug believes about the world. But obviously, as 0:44:14.760 --> 0:44:18.040 the franchise was extended to larger and larger chunks of people, 0:44:18.120 --> 0:44:21.480 as slavery was ended, as we've repeatedly had these movements 0:44:21.480 --> 0:44:25.439 towards social justice and towards bringing more people into being 0:44:25.440 --> 0:44:29.239 able to have a voice in the system like that. 0:44:29.320 --> 0:44:31.560 The fact that that was allowable at all was a 0:44:31.680 --> 0:44:34.799 terrible flaw in the Constitution as written right, The fact 0:44:34.800 --> 0:44:39.200 that it included the potential for democratic change was kind 0:44:39.200 --> 0:44:41.400 of its its fundamental fatal failure. 0:44:43.440 --> 0:44:47.080 Yeah, I mean, I don't know the nature of this, 0:44:47.360 --> 0:44:54.200 of Jarvin's relationship or friendship or whatever you want to 0:44:54.239 --> 0:45:00.279 call it with JD. Van's, but it's saved to say. 0:45:00.280 --> 0:45:01.840 I think a lot of people on the right would 0:45:01.840 --> 0:45:07.360 would agree that that Yarvin is is taking some seriously 0:45:07.560 --> 0:45:12.840 on American views here, espousing some very un American views, 0:45:13.160 --> 0:45:17.839 un American just meeting like oh yeah and so, and 0:45:17.920 --> 0:45:22.319 yet we have a vice presidential candidate was presumably at 0:45:22.440 --> 0:45:24.919 least hobnobbing. I don't know if they're friends. I don't 0:45:24.960 --> 0:45:27.200 know if if I don't know if Jady Vance would 0:45:27.200 --> 0:45:28.200 say Jarvin. 0:45:28.080 --> 0:45:31.719 Associates, Yeah, yeah, I don't know, associates. 0:45:31.560 --> 0:45:37.560 Has Jadie Vance been asked about Jarvin? Has he has 0:45:37.600 --> 0:45:40.400 he take. Has he had had any sort of public 0:45:40.560 --> 0:45:41.439 expression of. 0:45:42.280 --> 0:45:44.239 Yeah, I mean he's been there was actually really good. 0:45:44.280 --> 0:45:46.640 I think it was a New Yorker article from about 0:45:46.680 --> 0:45:49.560 two years ago, right before his Senate run, where he 0:45:49.640 --> 0:45:52.920 was like at a conference with Yarvin and like at 0:45:52.960 --> 0:45:57.320 a party with him and talking like you know, was questioned, 0:45:57.440 --> 0:45:59.920 you know, or the writer of that article talked with 0:46:00.040 --> 0:46:02.400 him in part about like some of Jarvin's ideas, like 0:46:02.440 --> 0:46:06.160 this retire all government employees thing like he's he's he 0:46:06.200 --> 0:46:09.360 has been like publicly associated with him. I think the 0:46:09.760 --> 0:46:12.000 kind of the one of the more interesting points is 0:46:12.040 --> 0:46:15.600 that like Jarvin spent the twenty sixteen election at Peter 0:46:15.680 --> 0:46:20.320 Teel's house like watching the returns, like he's he's gotten 0:46:20.400 --> 0:46:23.799 increasingly sort of like publicly plugged into this set of 0:46:23.800 --> 0:46:27.719 people who have direct connections with power brokers on the right. 0:46:28.320 --> 0:46:31.000 And you're right, one of the interesting things about him 0:46:31.040 --> 0:46:35.960 is that he's not really directly He's never become famous 0:46:36.000 --> 0:46:38.439 in the same way that like a guy like JD. 0:46:38.560 --> 0:46:41.600 Vance has right because he is too toxic to like 0:46:41.880 --> 0:46:47.120 bring out and and kind of publicly embroder his ideas. Yes, yes, 0:46:47.520 --> 0:46:50.160 but you will get people who will talk about stuff 0:46:50.200 --> 0:46:52.880 like you know, Blake Masters and Jdvanser are comfortable talking 0:46:52.920 --> 0:46:56.680 about rage, right, this idea that really comes out of 0:46:56.719 --> 0:47:01.640 mouldbugs writing. And so it's it's he remains kind of 0:47:01.680 --> 0:47:04.279 toxic enough that you don't want to bring him out 0:47:04.280 --> 0:47:08.600 too publicly, but he's also popular enough that part of 0:47:08.680 --> 0:47:11.880 like how you signal to other people who are on 0:47:12.000 --> 0:47:14.279 this chunk of the right that like you're one of them, 0:47:14.800 --> 0:47:18.399 is you kind of signpost that you believe a lot 0:47:18.400 --> 0:47:20.279 of the same things that he believes, right, and you 0:47:21.440 --> 0:47:23.319 like you show up at the same events at the 0:47:23.360 --> 0:47:27.640 same kind of like you know, like conferences and whatnot 0:47:27.640 --> 0:47:31.520 where he gives speeches. These are kind of like you 0:47:31.560 --> 0:47:34.120 can see the it's not very hard to draw the 0:47:34.120 --> 0:47:38.000 connections between these people. But Jarvin's not a face man, right, 0:47:38.080 --> 0:47:40.200 He's never going to run for office, and you certainly 0:47:40.239 --> 0:47:43.759 don't want him like arguing about like his neo monarchist 0:47:43.920 --> 0:47:46.799 views on Fox News, Right, that's still a little bit 0:47:46.840 --> 0:47:50.240 too extreme. But if you say, we need a strong 0:47:50.360 --> 0:47:52.719 executive leader who's going to run the country like a 0:47:52.840 --> 0:47:56.720 CEO and fire all of these unelected bureaucrats and replace 0:47:56.800 --> 0:47:59.080 them with like people who are going to fight for 0:47:59.160 --> 0:48:02.080 quote unquote liber right, and we need to punish all 0:48:02.120 --> 0:48:04.520 of our political opponents. We need to like lock up 0:48:04.640 --> 0:48:07.239 members of the lying news media. Now, all of these 0:48:07.280 --> 0:48:09.439 are things that you will get a lot of buy 0:48:09.480 --> 0:48:11.520 in on on the trump Ist right. Right. This is 0:48:11.560 --> 0:48:15.480 all stuff that Trump himself talks about a lot, And 0:48:15.520 --> 0:48:19.120 it's the kind of thing people wonder, how did how 0:48:19.120 --> 0:48:22.400 have we gone so far down this road seemingly so quickly, 0:48:23.120 --> 0:48:26.080 And it's because it didn't all start with Donald Trump, right. 0:48:26.160 --> 0:48:29.840 People were kind of tilling the ideological soil for years 0:48:29.880 --> 0:48:32.400 before that point. And like one of those guys is 0:48:32.560 --> 0:48:35.680 Curtis Yarvin, and he's one of the most influential ones 0:48:35.719 --> 0:48:36.560 of those guys. 0:48:36.320 --> 0:48:40.440 As the Jarvin taken a position on Trump publicly. 0:48:42.080 --> 0:48:45.360 I mean, yeah, he again he understands like there's a 0:48:45.400 --> 0:48:51.360 degree of like toxicity to his endorsement, but he watched 0:48:51.360 --> 0:48:54.080 the election at Peter Teal's house and was like very 0:48:54.120 --> 0:48:57.400 excited that Trump had won, so like he is essentially 0:48:58.200 --> 0:48:59.759 he has come out being like this is I think 0:48:59.800 --> 0:49:02.920 as close to the kind of guy we're going to 0:49:03.000 --> 0:49:05.920 get to start the process of turning the country in 0:49:06.000 --> 0:49:08.560 the direction that I want right now, He's not a 0:49:08.560 --> 0:49:12.839 guy who wants the entirety of the United States run 0:49:12.880 --> 0:49:15.800 by one dude. He seeks this kind of political devolution 0:49:16.000 --> 0:49:20.959 into these competing corporate city states. But he sees Trump 0:49:21.040 --> 0:49:23.000 as like a step on that road. This is a 0:49:23.000 --> 0:49:26.960 guy who will centralize power, who will get these bureaucrats out, 0:49:26.960 --> 0:49:30.120 who will destroy you know, the left as an organized 0:49:30.120 --> 0:49:34.839 political force, and that will allow these other kind of interests, 0:49:35.320 --> 0:49:38.000 these corporate interests, to kind of take and centralize more 0:49:38.040 --> 0:49:41.800 power themselves as kind of the state gets whittled down 0:49:41.920 --> 0:49:45.080 and we can devolve power to what are effectively like 0:49:45.200 --> 0:49:46.160 corporate warlords. 0:49:46.239 --> 0:49:46.399 Right. 0:49:46.440 --> 0:49:49.080 That's kind of the end result of his system. You 0:49:49.120 --> 0:49:52.480 can see it in there's this group of guys on 0:49:52.520 --> 0:49:54.759 Silicon Valley, in Silicon Valley right now who are start 0:49:54.880 --> 0:49:58.120 trying to start their own city backed by like Silicon 0:49:58.239 --> 0:50:03.120 Valley VC money. Yeah. Yeah, And they've talked a lot about. 0:50:03.080 --> 0:50:05.360 They they've given up on that, right. 0:50:06.160 --> 0:50:09.719 No, no, no, no, that is still very much an 0:50:09.760 --> 0:50:14.360 effort being made. It's and there's there's been like efforts 0:50:14.400 --> 0:50:16.840 to kind of take over local San Francisco politics, and 0:50:16.880 --> 0:50:21.120 there's a lot of Moldebug associated guys in that as well, 0:50:21.680 --> 0:50:25.239 Like one of the lead figures there is a big 0:50:25.280 --> 0:50:27.400 fan of his writing who has been kind of pushing 0:50:27.400 --> 0:50:30.040 this idea as again a step on the road to 0:50:30.120 --> 0:50:34.160 these corporate controlled city states. Right, this is obviously like 0:50:34.239 --> 0:50:38.239 part of the process of devolving any kind of accountable 0:50:38.320 --> 0:50:42.440 state power into the control of what are effectively like 0:50:42.520 --> 0:50:48.640 ceo kings, Right, and yeah, that's that's that's uh, that's 0:50:48.719 --> 0:50:49.799 kind of where we're going here. 0:50:50.440 --> 0:50:52.280 But we all get to be Twitter's. 0:50:52.880 --> 0:50:55.720 Yeah, everything gets to be run like Twitter. Isn't that exciting? 0:50:55.880 --> 0:50:57.240 We get to live in a Twitter? 0:50:58.360 --> 0:50:59.920 Yeah? Don't you want to live in Twitter? 0:51:00.280 --> 0:51:05.000 No? I wish I could just be a tweet that 0:51:05.200 --> 0:51:08.680 lived in Yeah exclusively. 0:51:08.719 --> 0:51:13.279 Yeah, it seems like such a nice place. Speaking of 0:51:13.400 --> 0:51:18.719 nice places, our sponsors all, they'll create a nice little 0:51:18.719 --> 0:51:21.280 place for your ears to live for like three minutes, 0:51:21.400 --> 0:51:31.080 however long an ad break is. We're back. So I 0:51:31.200 --> 0:51:33.239 kind I really debated with myself, like how much do 0:51:33.280 --> 0:51:35.320 we get into of like all of the different terrible 0:51:35.320 --> 0:51:37.400 things he said, like all of each of the different 0:51:37.440 --> 0:51:39.319 like beliefs. Yarvin has a spouse and this is a 0:51:39.320 --> 0:51:42.880 guy who's been writing thousands of words a week on 0:51:42.920 --> 0:51:45.839 the internet for years, So there's like there's too much 0:51:45.880 --> 0:51:50.959 there for us to give a comprehensive look into the man. 0:51:52.080 --> 0:51:56.799 He just completely summarize all of his writing, right, I. 0:51:56.840 --> 0:51:58.880 Mean, there's enough of it out there that it can do, 0:51:59.280 --> 0:52:02.040 Like it can give you a decent amount on mold bug, 0:52:02.040 --> 0:52:04.560 although you're going to miss stuff, like you know some 0:52:04.600 --> 0:52:06.520 of this you have to know a little bit more 0:52:06.520 --> 0:52:09.200 about the far right in order to catch references he makes. 0:52:09.239 --> 0:52:11.279 Like I was reading one essay of his where he 0:52:11.320 --> 0:52:13.799 talks about Rhodesia. Do you know what? Rhodesia was. 0:52:15.640 --> 0:52:20.879 The source of the of those unusual ridge backed dogs. 0:52:21.440 --> 0:52:23.840 It is the source of those dogs. It was also 0:52:24.120 --> 0:52:28.720 a white ethno state in Africa that was like initially 0:52:28.800 --> 0:52:32.239 started out as a colony of the UK. They refused 0:52:32.400 --> 0:52:35.920 to give up like the power of the white minority, 0:52:35.920 --> 0:52:38.279 which is like three percent of the country and had 0:52:38.360 --> 0:52:42.360 essentially total electoral power. They became like a pariah. This 0:52:42.480 --> 0:52:44.680 is like during like the nineteen seventies, a lot of 0:52:44.680 --> 0:52:47.719 this is happening, and wound up fighting a very long 0:52:47.800 --> 0:52:53.160 war with like the vast majority of the country in 0:52:53.239 --> 0:52:56.160 order to try and maintain this state of white minority rule. 0:52:56.200 --> 0:52:59.319 It was a very brutal period of time. This bush 0:52:59.400 --> 0:53:01.560 War they x acuted was where a lot of early 0:53:01.560 --> 0:53:03.680 insurgent tactics were carried on, and it was carried out 0:53:03.719 --> 0:53:06.440 in the name of keeping white people in charge of 0:53:06.480 --> 0:53:10.480 this massive population of black people who had effectively no power. 0:53:11.040 --> 0:53:14.640 And Rhodesia was close to the ideal state for Moldbook. 0:53:14.680 --> 0:53:16.800 I found an article of his where he writes about 0:53:16.880 --> 0:53:20.400 Ian Smith, who was like the guy who was leading 0:53:20.480 --> 0:53:24.319 Rhodesia during its like quote unquote war for liberation. And 0:53:24.400 --> 0:53:28.200 he writes because because Smith died a few years back, 0:53:28.280 --> 0:53:30.840 and Moldbook like wrote this elegy to him that opened 0:53:30.840 --> 0:53:33.759 with the words the last great Englishman is dead and 0:53:33.840 --> 0:53:38.879 fuck who disagrees, And it's basically this piece about how 0:53:38.960 --> 0:53:42.399 like Smith was the last man who was brave enough 0:53:42.440 --> 0:53:44.439 to fight for what we all know is the only 0:53:44.560 --> 0:53:46.319 kind of state that can work, which is one in 0:53:46.360 --> 0:53:50.520 which a natural biological elite rules over the masses who 0:53:50.560 --> 0:53:55.160 are unfit to have any sort of power. It ends 0:53:55.200 --> 0:53:57.560 on these lines, which I think are kind of telling 0:53:57.600 --> 0:54:01.160 to his ideology, and one we will either be hacked 0:54:01.200 --> 0:54:03.480 to death in our own Beds or some similar or 0:54:03.600 --> 0:54:06.640 nasty thing, or Ian Smith or Enoch Powell, and even 0:54:06.680 --> 0:54:09.600 our own tailgunner Joe will have another life in bronze. 0:54:09.880 --> 0:54:12.160 But do you know us, I'm not sure we have 0:54:12.200 --> 0:54:15.920 been introduced. We are the neo mccarthyists. Our motto this 0:54:16.120 --> 0:54:19.439 time will finish the job. And so what he's saying 0:54:19.480 --> 0:54:22.919 there is that like Smith is like Joe McCarthy. He's 0:54:22.920 --> 0:54:26.319 one of these guys who embodies the violence of the 0:54:26.360 --> 0:54:30.920 politics that we're advocates of. Right and again, he's never 0:54:30.960 --> 0:54:32.560 going to come out and say I think we should 0:54:32.640 --> 0:54:35.040 kill all the people who disagree with me. But he 0:54:35.120 --> 0:54:39.200 will harken back to these figures and say, these are 0:54:39.760 --> 0:54:42.560 my kind of ideological heroes. And the movement that I 0:54:42.640 --> 0:54:45.040 am seeking to incite is going to finish the job. 0:54:45.120 --> 0:54:48.239 It's going to kill all the communists, it's going to 0:54:48.360 --> 0:54:52.800 win where Rhodesia lost. Right, Like, it's not as direct 0:54:52.840 --> 0:54:55.719 as saying, you know, I'm a white nationalist, and in fact, 0:54:55.719 --> 0:54:57.960 he will never admit to being a white nationalist. But 0:54:58.000 --> 0:55:01.080 what is the conclusion when you're t talking about the 0:55:01.080 --> 0:55:04.359 failure of Rhodesia as being a tragedy other than well, 0:55:04.480 --> 0:55:08.680 just someone who supports white nationalists. Right, you can see 0:55:08.760 --> 0:55:11.920 kind of like the violent, inherent violence inherent in what 0:55:12.040 --> 0:55:12.799 he's pushing for. 0:55:13.000 --> 0:55:13.239 There. 0:55:14.160 --> 0:55:16.840 In that same essay, he praises the novel The Camp 0:55:16.880 --> 0:55:20.040 of the Saints, which is a racist book about migrants 0:55:20.040 --> 0:55:24.320 from India flooding Europe and destroying civilization, which is Steve 0:55:24.440 --> 0:55:28.919 Bannon's favorite book. And Steve Bannon is another influent Yeah, yeah, 0:55:28.960 --> 0:55:32.520 it's great replacement stuff, right. Bannon is a big fan 0:55:32.560 --> 0:55:35.960 of Curtis Jarvin. Again, all of these people are connected 0:55:36.000 --> 0:55:39.839 and they're all fans of each other. Like the kind 0:55:39.840 --> 0:55:43.759 of like ideological simpatico here is a crucial part of 0:55:43.800 --> 0:55:47.319 the story. Now, in the last few years, as he's 0:55:47.360 --> 0:55:50.319 gained more of an influence online, Jarvin has grown a 0:55:50.360 --> 0:55:53.680 bigger head. He started referring to himself as the sith 0:55:53.760 --> 0:55:56.640 Lord of the modern anti democratic right because he is 0:55:57.160 --> 0:55:59.759 a big nerd. He's also he's the guy who brought 0:55:59.800 --> 0:56:03.160 the red pill into right wing politics, like taking it 0:56:03.200 --> 0:56:13.719 from The Matrix. Yeah that's cool, huh that yeah, yeah, 0:56:13.760 --> 0:56:16.360 And he's you know, it's interesting because like obviously The 0:56:16.440 --> 0:56:21.080 Matrix was a movie written by two trans women in 0:56:22.320 --> 0:56:24.080 not at all about right wing politics. 0:56:24.160 --> 0:56:27.839 Right, the matrix is sort of a great allegory for 0:56:28.280 --> 0:56:29.399 his beliefs. 0:56:29.880 --> 0:56:32.200 I do think it is an allegory for his beliefs, 0:56:32.239 --> 0:56:36.040 and like the violence and depression that they necessitate. I 0:56:36.080 --> 0:56:39.920 think like he tends to take it as like realizing 0:56:40.360 --> 0:56:43.040 that democracy is fake and that like all of these 0:56:43.080 --> 0:56:46.960 social justice movements are inherently like evil, flawed attempts to 0:56:47.040 --> 0:56:50.839 like destroy the natural aristocracy. Like that's the matrix, right 0:56:51.040 --> 0:56:53.799 is you know, people who don't look like him being 0:56:53.840 --> 0:56:58.200 able to vote, which is much shallower. 0:56:58.400 --> 0:57:02.400 Yeah, the violent its inherent in these systems that that 0:57:02.440 --> 0:57:08.160 you're referring to. It does it does seem to And 0:57:08.200 --> 0:57:13.880 I hate to armchair psychoanalyze anybody, and I'm not equipped 0:57:13.920 --> 0:57:15.840 to do that. So this is more of a just sort. 0:57:15.640 --> 0:57:18.320 Of we always say we hate it, but we always 0:57:18.360 --> 0:57:18.960 do a little bit. 0:57:19.120 --> 0:57:22.320 Oh we can't help it, right, Yeah, but no, this 0:57:22.440 --> 0:57:25.400 is just sort of a pontification. But does it feel 0:57:25.760 --> 0:57:27.480 to you because it does to me a little bit, 0:57:27.560 --> 0:57:31.560 like like to really take these these positions seriously and 0:57:31.680 --> 0:57:36.880 advocate for these things is is, in its own way 0:57:36.920 --> 0:57:42.800 a kind of enjoyment of violence or a an and 0:57:42.880 --> 0:57:46.080 in that way, almost like a psychopathy, like a like 0:57:46.520 --> 0:57:52.200 violence is wonderful? Yeah, yeah, Is there is there anything 0:57:52.200 --> 0:57:55.960 to be found in Arvin's writings that is that that 0:57:56.080 --> 0:58:02.280 laments the that violences or subjugation or the suffering of 0:58:02.320 --> 0:58:07.240 any humans, is a is an unfortunate side effect of 0:58:07.320 --> 0:58:11.280 these systems but necessary? Or is it just sort of 0:58:11.360 --> 0:58:15.960 like no, that's just an awesome part of it. 0:58:15.680 --> 0:58:18.400 It's more like number one. I think a big thing 0:58:18.440 --> 0:58:20.720 that he tries to do is minimize the degree to 0:58:20.760 --> 0:58:23.720 which that's necessary. But when it does come up, it 0:58:23.800 --> 0:58:27.000 is this very full throated embrace of like, well they're communists, 0:58:27.040 --> 0:58:28.600 you know, like this is what we have to do. 0:58:28.680 --> 0:58:33.160 Like the terrorism of the Nazis was great because it worked, right, Like, 0:58:33.600 --> 0:58:36.440 I don't think he's a guy who feels bad at 0:58:36.440 --> 0:58:39.960 all about the inevitable consequences of his beliefs. And I 0:58:39.960 --> 0:58:42.400 certainly don't get that hint from his writing that there's 0:58:42.440 --> 0:58:45.480 any sort of like real regret. There maybe some like 0:58:45.600 --> 0:58:49.600 sign postings to regret about the unfortunate you know, necessities 0:58:49.640 --> 0:58:52.000 that will come about, But this is I think you're 0:58:52.040 --> 0:58:54.320 right on the money. There's a lot of like violent 0:58:54.520 --> 0:58:57.560 fantasizing here. Against this is a guy who spends a 0:58:57.600 --> 0:58:59.720 lot of time obsessed with the things that annoy him 0:58:59.720 --> 0:59:02.840 in the world world and convinced that like the right 0:59:02.920 --> 0:59:06.360 solution to those things is a sort of terminal force. 0:59:06.720 --> 0:59:09.360 And you get this all over with people who get 0:59:09.440 --> 0:59:12.840 kind of too wrapped up in like the specifics of 0:59:12.880 --> 0:59:16.200 their ideology and their anger at its discontents. You can 0:59:16.240 --> 0:59:19.880 find like you know, maoists and whatnot online who will 0:59:19.880 --> 0:59:22.480 fantasize about like when our revolution takes over, you know, 0:59:22.480 --> 0:59:25.040 we're going to put people in re education camps or whatever. 0:59:26.040 --> 0:59:29.439 It's a it's a necessary byproduct of not having enough 0:59:29.480 --> 0:59:32.200 empathy and spending too much time alone in a room 0:59:32.360 --> 0:59:35.560 obsessing over how right you are? Right is anything that 0:59:35.880 --> 0:59:38.960 kind of inherently conflicts with that as the world, in 0:59:39.000 --> 0:59:43.200 all of its complexity, will always do should be solved 0:59:43.200 --> 0:59:45.440 by the most violence I can bring to bear right. 0:59:45.480 --> 0:59:47.960 And that's why we need to capture the presidens. 0:59:47.600 --> 0:59:49.400 So certain solution which is. 0:59:49.720 --> 0:59:54.120 Yeah, And that's why these guys, that's why their big 0:59:54.160 --> 0:59:56.960 goal is the presidency right, because the way they see it, 0:59:57.000 --> 0:59:58.720 and certainly the way the Supreme Court is set it up, 0:59:58.800 --> 1:00:02.200 getting the presidency gives you access to the greatest store 1:00:02.200 --> 1:00:05.840 of violence that has ever existed in human history. Right, Like, 1:00:05.880 --> 1:00:09.840 that is what the president has access to. Right. People 1:00:09.840 --> 1:00:11.680 don't like to talk about it that way, but there's 1:00:11.680 --> 1:00:15.320 no other real way to view it, potentially, And if 1:00:15.360 --> 1:00:17.360 you see the president as someone who should have no 1:00:17.480 --> 1:00:19.760 guard rails, and this is very much what we're going 1:00:19.800 --> 1:00:22.440 to advocate for, as a president that has no restrictions 1:00:22.440 --> 1:00:24.960 on his power, then what you're looking at is a 1:00:25.000 --> 1:00:28.320 guy who has the ability to use the most violence 1:00:28.360 --> 1:00:31.800 ever concentrated in cleansing the world of the people who 1:00:31.840 --> 1:00:35.680 make it not fit this schema that I've cooked up 1:00:35.720 --> 1:00:42.080 in my head that I find very attractive. Yeah, it's 1:00:42.120 --> 1:00:45.320 good stuff. So if you're looking for a writing on 1:00:45.760 --> 1:00:47.840 you know, Jarvin to this day, if you're looking at 1:00:47.920 --> 1:00:50.640 like what people have come to call the strain of 1:00:50.680 --> 1:00:53.240 thought that he helped ignite, the term you'll come across 1:00:53.240 --> 1:00:57.680 the most is neo reactionary or NRX. Right, this is 1:00:57.760 --> 1:00:59.800 kind of the how you'll see it written about a 1:00:59.800 --> 1:01:04.040 lot in like blogs by Bay Area techies. And this 1:01:04.760 --> 1:01:07.120 term started to be used more in like twenty thirteen, 1:01:07.120 --> 1:01:10.000 twenty fourteen. I think it is when it really took off. 1:01:10.040 --> 1:01:12.880 You had some sort of writing by people like Clint 1:01:12.880 --> 1:01:16.160 Finley at tech Crunch in twenty thirteen that noted that 1:01:16.480 --> 1:01:18.720 you were seeing a lot of these this thought take 1:01:18.760 --> 1:01:23.280 off among influential people in big tech. Finley wrote PayPal 1:01:23.760 --> 1:01:27.560 founder Peter Teal his most voice similar ideas, and Pat Dickinson, 1:01:27.560 --> 1:01:30.680 the former CTO of Business Insider, say he's been influenced 1:01:30.720 --> 1:01:34.320 by neo reactionary thought. It may be a small minority worldview, 1:01:34.320 --> 1:01:36.000 but it's one that I think shines some light on 1:01:36.040 --> 1:01:40.200 the psyche of contemporary tech culture now. It was through 1:01:40.240 --> 1:01:44.040 tech Crunch in twenty fourteen that Minsius Moldbug was first 1:01:44.080 --> 1:01:47.800 revealed to be computer scientist Curtis Yarvin, and it was 1:01:47.840 --> 1:01:51.200 revealed that Yarvin was working at a startup funded by 1:01:51.200 --> 1:01:56.520 Peter Teal's money called Tlawn. Now Tlawn was the name 1:01:56.560 --> 1:01:59.360 comes from a short story like a sci fi short 1:01:59.400 --> 1:02:03.080 story written by a fella named Borges in nineteen forty 1:02:04.040 --> 1:02:06.480 and one summary of the story I found from Francis 1:02:06.480 --> 1:02:10.240 Saying writes that it quote describes a secret society Orbis 1:02:10.320 --> 1:02:14.560 Tertius that architects an entirely new world Plawn by establishing 1:02:14.640 --> 1:02:18.400 an encyclopedia describing it. Over time, bits of this fictional 1:02:18.400 --> 1:02:21.160 world begin to emerge in the real world, consuming it. 1:02:21.840 --> 1:02:25.320 And this is kind of how Muldbug thinks of his writing. Right, 1:02:25.480 --> 1:02:29.680 I am writing the future into being by theorizing it. 1:02:29.840 --> 1:02:30.000 Right. 1:02:30.040 --> 1:02:32.320 That's why this company is named after it. That's why 1:02:32.320 --> 1:02:37.920 he finds that story so influential. The kind of process 1:02:38.200 --> 1:02:41.000 of this is called hyperstition. It's this process of like 1:02:41.440 --> 1:02:44.520 taking ideas that exist only in people's heads in fiction 1:02:44.720 --> 1:02:48.120 and like forcing them into the real world. It's one 1:02:48.160 --> 1:02:51.040 of those premises that seems silly until suddenly a guy 1:02:51.040 --> 1:02:53.720 who might be the vice president starts ranting about how 1:02:53.800 --> 1:02:56.440 childless women are psychopaths and we need to fire the 1:02:56.440 --> 1:02:59.480 government so Donald Trump can remake it in his own image. 1:03:00.120 --> 1:03:03.120 This is all very like silly seeming until it isn't. 1:03:03.520 --> 1:03:05.720 And kind of the scariest thing about Jarvin is that 1:03:05.920 --> 1:03:09.280 he has to an extent been successful in like writing 1:03:09.920 --> 1:03:13.320 a different world into being like he has. He has 1:03:13.360 --> 1:03:16.600 had more influence in this than you want to believe. 1:03:17.640 --> 1:03:21.120 Kind of the tipping point for Jarvin's influence and culture 1:03:21.160 --> 1:03:23.480 and for that kind of politics starting to take over 1:03:23.520 --> 1:03:26.840 the right was twenty fourteen, and it happened appropriately enough 1:03:26.880 --> 1:03:29.200 on the Internet with something called gamer Gate. 1:03:29.600 --> 1:03:30.440 H and there we are. 1:03:30.480 --> 1:03:33.400 I was wondering how long it would Takejanopolis to show 1:03:33.520 --> 1:03:36.960 up gamer Gate. A lot of the people who are 1:03:37.560 --> 1:03:40.640 thought leaders in Gamergate, who are like, like, who are 1:03:40.760 --> 1:03:44.760 some of the early uh like voices behind that and 1:03:44.800 --> 1:03:48.200 behind that kind of neo reactionary swell as it enters 1:03:48.640 --> 1:03:52.440 public consciousness are fans of Yarvins. One of them is 1:03:52.480 --> 1:03:55.320 Steve Bannon. Bannon is a big behind the scenes player, 1:03:55.400 --> 1:03:59.520 and what happens there as is Milo Yanopolis, and Yanopolis 1:03:59.760 --> 1:04:03.920 is kind of a guy who comes to fame through Gamergate, 1:04:04.000 --> 1:04:06.280 as like making himself into kind of a voice of 1:04:06.280 --> 1:04:09.960 the movement, and Yanopolis is an adherent of Yarvin's philosophy. 1:04:11.200 --> 1:04:14.800 The next year, after Gamergate twenty fifteen, Trump descends his 1:04:14.920 --> 1:04:17.600 Escalator to launch his campaign, and in short order, the 1:04:17.680 --> 1:04:22.760 alright is eternal. Yeah, and the alright becomes kind of 1:04:23.200 --> 1:04:26.320 undeniable to anyone. Right, It's not something you can ignore anymore, 1:04:26.520 --> 1:04:31.040 And figures like Janopolis and Bannon are major like faces 1:04:31.160 --> 1:04:35.080 of the movement, while Jarvin remains kind of obscure still, 1:04:35.160 --> 1:04:37.760 you know, people who are in the know, who understand 1:04:38.080 --> 1:04:40.760 where a lot of the ideas guys like Eanopolis are 1:04:41.200 --> 1:04:44.400 spouting in public come from, know that he's a player 1:04:44.480 --> 1:04:47.280 in the field, but he's kind of obscured and shadowed 1:04:47.320 --> 1:04:50.440 by the cloaking factor of his very dense, clumsy prose. 1:04:51.200 --> 1:04:53.480 Corey Pine at The Baffler is probably the first guy 1:04:53.520 --> 1:04:57.760 to cohesively suggests that Jarvin's relationship to Peter Teel and 1:04:57.800 --> 1:05:00.360 to the folks around him were part of a whider 1:05:00.360 --> 1:05:04.520 movement towards anti democratic change. His work was influential enough 1:05:04.560 --> 1:05:07.000 to get The New York Times to ask Peter Teal 1:05:07.160 --> 1:05:10.040 if he was working to fund a monarchist coup, and 1:05:10.120 --> 1:05:13.120 Teal replied in a cryptic fashion, it was a full 1:05:13.160 --> 1:05:16.560 on conspiracy theory. In truth, there's nobody sitting around plotting 1:05:16.560 --> 1:05:19.000 the future, though I sometimes think it would be better 1:05:19.040 --> 1:05:22.640 if people were, which is like the most sinister way 1:05:22.680 --> 1:05:27.200 to reply to that. Right, So twenty sixteen comes along. 1:05:27.280 --> 1:05:30.680 Next Trump wins the election, and suddenly even normal people 1:05:30.680 --> 1:05:33.360 who don't spend their free time online looking at fascists 1:05:33.400 --> 1:05:36.120 on the internet become aware that something is very wrong. 1:05:36.600 --> 1:05:40.400 In twenty seventeen, BuzzFeed News publishes an expose based on 1:05:40.480 --> 1:05:43.040 leaked emails between a bunch of members of the alt right, 1:05:43.160 --> 1:05:46.600 including Bannon and Yanopolis, and I'm going to quote Corey 1:05:46.640 --> 1:05:49.800 Pine describing these leaks and from some of the most 1:05:49.800 --> 1:05:53.880 revealing reveals. In that piece, BuzzFeed reported that Teal and 1:05:53.920 --> 1:05:57.120 Eanopolis had made plans to meet during the July Republican 1:05:57.240 --> 1:06:00.680 National Convention, but much of Eanopolis's knowledge of seems to 1:06:00.760 --> 1:06:03.520 come secondhand from other right wing activists, as well as 1:06:03.600 --> 1:06:06.920 Curtis Jarvin, the blogger who advocates the return of feudalism. 1:06:07.280 --> 1:06:10.760 The story then quotes this exchange. Jarvin told Yanopolis that 1:06:10.800 --> 1:06:14.720 he had been coaching Teal. Peter needs guidance on politics, 1:06:14.720 --> 1:06:18.040 for sure. Yanopolis responded, less than you might think, Jarvin 1:06:18.080 --> 1:06:20.440 wrote back, I watched the election at his house. I 1:06:20.480 --> 1:06:23.920 think my hangover lasted in this Tuesday, He's fully enlightened. 1:06:23.960 --> 1:06:29.200 He just plays it very carefully. And you know, if 1:06:29.240 --> 1:06:31.919 you're looking for direct connections, it's something that we only 1:06:31.960 --> 1:06:35.400 really have because of you know, leaks like that. But 1:06:36.080 --> 1:06:39.720 these are not like conspiracy theory connections that we have 1:06:39.800 --> 1:06:42.439 to draw between people, like we have texts between these 1:06:42.480 --> 1:06:46.240 guys talking about how they're trying to convince moneyed interests 1:06:46.320 --> 1:06:49.440 of their plans to like end democracy in the United States, 1:06:49.480 --> 1:06:52.280 and they've been doing it for a while. And that's 1:06:52.840 --> 1:06:57.160 that's most of what I've got to say about Curtis Yarvin. Now, 1:06:57.320 --> 1:06:59.080 I would be doing you at a service if I 1:06:59.120 --> 1:07:01.760 didn't end this by talking at least for a little 1:07:01.800 --> 1:07:04.240 bit about the other side of his professional life, because 1:07:04.280 --> 1:07:07.880 while he's been writing all of this fascist theorizing and whatnot, 1:07:08.280 --> 1:07:10.600 he has a career as a software developer and a 1:07:10.640 --> 1:07:14.240 project that represents he and he will state represents like 1:07:14.240 --> 1:07:15.480 his political dreams. 1:07:15.760 --> 1:07:16.040 RBIT. 1:07:16.920 --> 1:07:20.880 Now, RBIT is like a period on paper. It's supposed 1:07:20.880 --> 1:07:23.600 to be basically a period of peer social networking tool 1:07:23.640 --> 1:07:27.640 like masted on that allows individual users more control over 1:07:27.680 --> 1:07:30.880 their information in digital life. And when he talks about ERBIT, 1:07:31.800 --> 1:07:34.840 Jarvin talks about it as like this is me building 1:07:34.840 --> 1:07:39.000 in software a representation of my ideal form of government, right, 1:07:39.400 --> 1:07:41.640 And he frames it as like something that gives you 1:07:42.000 --> 1:07:45.760 control over your own life and data, not some central 1:07:45.800 --> 1:07:48.840 company like Twitter that like can be corrupt and used 1:07:48.840 --> 1:07:53.760 to bad ends. And that's complete bullshit, right. The reality 1:07:53.800 --> 1:07:56.840 is that Rbit is backed by Peter Thiel money, and 1:07:56.920 --> 1:08:02.400 it is an attempt to effectively like build a different 1:08:02.520 --> 1:08:07.040 kind of social networking infrastructure for the Internet that Curtis 1:08:07.160 --> 1:08:10.240 Yarvin has complete control over. Right now, the good news 1:08:10.360 --> 1:08:14.280 is it hasn't actually taken off. This company is largely 1:08:14.320 --> 1:08:17.799 a failure. It's generally agreed to be pretty badly coded. 1:08:18.640 --> 1:08:21.360 I found a pretty good analysis of it by Francis Saying, 1:08:21.400 --> 1:08:23.880 who runs a website called Distributed Web of Care, who 1:08:23.920 --> 1:08:27.360 points out that, like, while Jarvin tries to frame this 1:08:27.439 --> 1:08:30.360 as like Mastodon, is like, well, you keep control of 1:08:30.400 --> 1:08:32.920 your data. You're in charge of your digital life, not 1:08:33.040 --> 1:08:36.200 some company. The way everything is set up is you 1:08:36.320 --> 1:08:40.280 have these like different nodes, and there's a limited number 1:08:40.280 --> 1:08:43.320 of nodes, and most of them are controlled by Jarvin 1:08:43.439 --> 1:08:45.800 and the Herbit company. So what he's like really trying 1:08:45.840 --> 1:08:48.799 to do here is set up like a landlord scam, 1:08:49.000 --> 1:08:51.639 like on the Internet, right where he's the big landlord. 1:08:51.680 --> 1:08:54.160 And I think this is kind of revealing, not because 1:08:54.200 --> 1:08:57.439 herb it's important, but because it shows we've kind of 1:08:57.439 --> 1:08:59.800 been talking this whole time. How much of this does 1:08:59.800 --> 1:09:02.559 he really believe? How much of this is like him 1:09:02.640 --> 1:09:05.679 kind of dressing it up, and I think you get 1:09:05.720 --> 1:09:08.240 the real Curtis Jarvin here, which is not a guy 1:09:08.760 --> 1:09:13.280 with any real high minded intellectual desires beyond I want 1:09:13.320 --> 1:09:15.360 to be the one in power, right, Like I want 1:09:15.400 --> 1:09:17.240 to be the one with the money. I want to 1:09:17.280 --> 1:09:19.920 be the big landlord. Right. He doesn't hate Twitter and 1:09:20.000 --> 1:09:23.920 Facebook because they ruined his old Internet. He hates it because, 1:09:23.960 --> 1:09:27.439 like he's just another guy in all of those systems 1:09:27.439 --> 1:09:29.240 and he wants to be the king or at least 1:09:29.240 --> 1:09:31.920 a night right. I think that's kind of like the 1:09:31.960 --> 1:09:34.479 note to end on is pointing out, like, underneath it 1:09:34.520 --> 1:09:38.040 all and underneath all of the like dressing up in 1:09:38.040 --> 1:09:41.639 intellectualism that he puts on, this is just a guy 1:09:41.800 --> 1:09:44.960 who's angry that he's not currently the one with all 1:09:44.960 --> 1:09:48.640 the power, right, And that's that's really what it's all about. 1:09:49.400 --> 1:09:58.880 Whoah, sorry, because that I've learned. Yeah, I'm not a fan. 1:10:00.120 --> 1:10:03.080 Yeah that's good to hear. That's good to hear. 1:10:04.000 --> 1:10:06.320 But I do I do want to read up more 1:10:06.800 --> 1:10:10.040 and get a sense of his tone and and and 1:10:10.120 --> 1:10:13.760 maybe well I'd love to hear him speak and get 1:10:13.760 --> 1:10:16.160 a more better sense of his persona and kind of 1:10:16.200 --> 1:10:16.559 what that. 1:10:17.240 --> 1:10:20.920 Oh, yes, he's on many podcasts. 1:10:21.080 --> 1:10:27.320 How does that Bannon reconcile someone openly advocating for the 1:10:27.320 --> 1:10:32.040 the basically just the burning of the Constitution with also 1:10:33.439 --> 1:10:41.160 being a leader for for just like Republican ascendancy, Like, 1:10:41.200 --> 1:10:44.120 how does how do you reconcile those things? I'm so 1:10:44.240 --> 1:10:48.639 confused with that unless there's unless it's is it a 1:10:49.760 --> 1:10:53.240 you know, do you think it's a like if we 1:10:53.240 --> 1:10:57.439 were to say JD. Vance gets to be president one day, 1:10:57.520 --> 1:11:02.439 do you think it's a bait and switch? Are they like, 1:11:03.160 --> 1:11:08.040 is it really a you know, is that Peter Thiel's 1:11:08.080 --> 1:11:10.400 game to sort of bait and switch the Americans into 1:11:10.479 --> 1:11:12.640 like just get him into office and then we're going 1:11:12.720 --> 1:11:15.599 to make him a dictator? Or is it? 1:11:16.600 --> 1:11:16.920 Uh? 1:11:17.680 --> 1:11:20.320 Is it a thing where someone like a JD. Vance 1:11:20.920 --> 1:11:25.000 who's participating in American democracy as a candidate, is really 1:11:25.120 --> 1:11:28.320 sort of like I like some of these ideas. I 1:11:28.479 --> 1:11:33.080 like the CEO approach to a presidency, but like, I 1:11:33.120 --> 1:11:37.800 still believe in the Constitute. I still believe that democracy 1:11:38.120 --> 1:11:41.160 is our our is our bedrock. 1:11:42.520 --> 1:11:44.560 I don't think for one thing, just based on a 1:11:44.560 --> 1:11:46.840 lot of stuff that Vance has said on some of 1:11:46.840 --> 1:11:49.559 these far right podcasts. I don't believe he believes that 1:11:49.680 --> 1:11:53.519 democracy is our bedrock. I think a lot of what 1:11:53.680 --> 1:11:56.200 ways these guys will couch it is that's saying, like, well, 1:11:56.240 --> 1:11:58.680 I believe in a republic, right, and kind of what 1:11:58.720 --> 1:12:03.400 they're hearkening back to this very classical idea that well, 1:12:03.680 --> 1:12:08.040 only like property owning men should be able to vote. Right, Like, sure, 1:12:08.080 --> 1:12:11.519 there should be right some voting, but like not the 1:12:11.560 --> 1:12:14.400 franchise should certainly be And this is something Vance has 1:12:15.080 --> 1:12:17.559 has embraced when he's talked about how like people without 1:12:17.640 --> 1:12:21.519 children shouldn't have the same degree of electoral say, right, 1:12:21.760 --> 1:12:23.559 you should have men, If you're the head of a family, 1:12:23.600 --> 1:12:26.360 you should get to vote, have more votes that basically 1:12:26.400 --> 1:12:28.640 account for how many kids you have, and probably for 1:12:28.720 --> 1:12:32.120 your wife too. Right. These are things Vance has talked 1:12:32.160 --> 1:12:35.200 about on different podcasts he's appeared on, and Bannon has 1:12:35.880 --> 1:12:38.639 expressed a lot of anti democratic sentiment. I think part 1:12:38.640 --> 1:12:41.400 of the problem is that when these people get confronted 1:12:41.600 --> 1:12:46.280 by the media, there's this inherent impulse that like mainstream 1:12:46.320 --> 1:12:50.400 political reporters have to normalize them in a way that 1:12:50.680 --> 1:12:53.680 I don't think is that I think provides them with 1:12:53.760 --> 1:12:57.120 cover right to not just to not talk about them 1:12:57.160 --> 1:13:00.720 as if they are people who are trying to end democracy, 1:13:00.840 --> 1:13:04.400 because they very much are. You know, that's not the normal. 1:13:04.840 --> 1:13:07.880 That's not the norm within like people who vote for 1:13:07.920 --> 1:13:10.760 the Republican Party. But when we are talking about guys 1:13:10.760 --> 1:13:16.360 like JD. Vance and Steve Bannon and Steve Miller, you know, 1:13:16.760 --> 1:13:21.160 Trump's former associate, like all of these guys, that is 1:13:21.200 --> 1:13:23.960 the norm among these people. And part of what part 1:13:23.960 --> 1:13:27.200 of how they see Trump as useful and potentially Advance 1:13:27.320 --> 1:13:29.320 is useful, is not that they're going to get us 1:13:29.400 --> 1:13:32.400 to this end system that Jarvin theorizes. And when they 1:13:32.479 --> 1:13:35.040 when they take Yarvin's ideas, I don't think most of 1:13:35.080 --> 1:13:37.679 them want exactly the same kind of system that he does, 1:13:37.760 --> 1:13:40.240 because he's kind of a kook, and right his system 1:13:40.320 --> 1:13:42.719 is unworkable, and none of them really want to devolve. 1:13:42.760 --> 1:13:45.000 Most of them don't want to devolve power. Right, A 1:13:45.040 --> 1:13:48.519 guy like Teal may want to devolve some powers so 1:13:48.600 --> 1:13:51.920 that he can run, you know, effectively his own little 1:13:51.960 --> 1:13:54.280 city state where he gets to make all of the rules. 1:13:55.560 --> 1:13:58.200 But there's a degree of like chaos inherent and the 1:13:58.240 --> 1:14:01.760 actual thing that Yarvin advocate that makes it unworkable, but 1:14:01.800 --> 1:14:05.840 they find ideas that he has very useful. And likewise, 1:14:06.240 --> 1:14:09.519 I think folks like Jarvin think that a guy like Vance, 1:14:09.560 --> 1:14:13.040 even if he doesn't back believe everything they believe, would 1:14:13.080 --> 1:14:16.400 be useful because he brings us closer to this kind 1:14:16.439 --> 1:14:18.120 of a system. And part of how we would do 1:14:18.160 --> 1:14:21.520 that is by purging the left, by purging and destroying 1:14:21.560 --> 1:14:24.320 like all of these journalists, by by locking up our 1:14:24.360 --> 1:14:27.680 political opposition, right, Like that is a big part of 1:14:27.720 --> 1:14:30.800 it for them, is we want to use the violence 1:14:30.880 --> 1:14:34.200 that the state has access to to destroy the people 1:14:34.280 --> 1:14:36.679 who don't want the world to be this way, right, 1:14:36.720 --> 1:14:39.960 And there very is this kind of yearning for having 1:14:40.000 --> 1:14:43.800 a freehand to utilize that violence to crush opposition. That 1:14:43.960 --> 1:14:46.559 is key to that's what binds all these two guys together. Like, 1:14:46.640 --> 1:14:49.200 as you've stated, and I think this is an important point. 1:14:49.560 --> 1:14:52.920 It's not like Steve Bannon, like believes to the letter 1:14:53.040 --> 1:14:55.599 and all of the crazy shit that Jarvin writes about, right, 1:14:55.640 --> 1:14:58.320 It's not like JD. Vance is like sleeping with a 1:14:58.320 --> 1:15:01.559 bunch of printouts of unqualified resid under his bed. There's 1:15:01.600 --> 1:15:04.360 some ideas they find useful. They like the way he messages, 1:15:04.680 --> 1:15:07.200 They think it's like, especially like rage. They think that's 1:15:07.240 --> 1:15:09.320 good messaging for this thing that we want to do. 1:15:09.960 --> 1:15:12.880 But they're all kind of tied together by we want 1:15:12.960 --> 1:15:16.120 supreme executive power so that we can wield violence against 1:15:16.120 --> 1:15:19.920 our enemies, right, And that's where they're all simpatico. Right, 1:15:20.040 --> 1:15:22.640 And that's I think kind of the most important takeaway 1:15:22.680 --> 1:15:26.040 here is not all of these people have been enraptured 1:15:26.080 --> 1:15:29.760 by Curtis Jarvin and are like thought zombies to his beliefs. 1:15:30.160 --> 1:15:33.000 They find some of his ideas useful, and likewise, he 1:15:33.120 --> 1:15:35.680 and the people who follow him like they're all in 1:15:35.760 --> 1:15:38.000 agreement about one thing, and it's who they want to hurt. 1:15:38.160 --> 1:15:43.720 Yeah, it's interesting because I've always I felt that there 1:15:43.760 --> 1:15:45.519 was an article and I think it was New York 1:15:45.600 --> 1:15:50.639 Magazine during the run up to the twenty sixteen election 1:15:51.400 --> 1:15:57.160 that said, I think the phrasing was electing Trump would 1:15:57.200 --> 1:16:02.160 be an extinction level event for the United States. Yeah, 1:16:03.160 --> 1:16:05.280 a lot of people are scared of a second Trump 1:16:05.800 --> 1:16:10.320 presidency because they feel like democracy would crumble under Trump. 1:16:10.360 --> 1:16:14.519 And that's that's been a you know, rallying cry of 1:16:14.560 --> 1:16:18.320 the left now for quite a while. And I agree 1:16:18.360 --> 1:16:20.679 to some extent I do think that he's a threat 1:16:21.080 --> 1:16:24.160 to democracy. I don't know that he wants to completely 1:16:24.240 --> 1:16:27.320 topple it, but I I do think that how he 1:16:27.400 --> 1:16:30.920 handled the transition of power was very very alarming and 1:16:31.000 --> 1:16:37.680 unnerving and should be disqualifying, but at least to be 1:16:37.800 --> 1:16:44.880 for a party to nominate him, if not legally disqualifying. So, 1:16:46.200 --> 1:16:49.560 but I've always thought that his his threat to democracy 1:16:49.640 --> 1:16:53.519 is more his unwieldiness and his sort of lust. Trump's 1:16:54.280 --> 1:16:59.200 just narcissism and lust for power and lust for staying 1:16:59.280 --> 1:17:02.080 the center of it, tension like that was almost the 1:17:02.120 --> 1:17:06.439 most That's why he's a threat, and and that and 1:17:06.479 --> 1:17:10.680 that that's just kind of wild and crazy and ridiculous 1:17:10.720 --> 1:17:15.280 of him, of Trump, And but it is it's dangerous 1:17:15.360 --> 1:17:18.439 if he gets there. But it's a but it's a 1:17:18.720 --> 1:17:22.760 it's a kind of danger that is almost cartoonish, like 1:17:22.840 --> 1:17:26.360 it's it's just so ridiculous. But what you've been laying 1:17:26.360 --> 1:17:30.439 out these last two episodes, Yeah, very sort of as 1:17:30.479 --> 1:17:39.000 a much more sinister intellectual underpinning with dismantling of democracy, 1:17:39.360 --> 1:17:46.120 that is, uh, that is arguably far more serious kind 1:17:46.160 --> 1:17:52.400 of threat. Uh as a as a doctrine. Yeah, And 1:17:52.479 --> 1:17:55.240 I've never perceived Trump as someone driven by a sort 1:17:55.280 --> 1:17:57.680 of like anti democratic doctrine. I just thought he was 1:17:58.000 --> 1:18:01.160 he isn't. I just was always thought like, oh, he's 1:18:01.160 --> 1:18:05.880 a dictator just because he's a megalomaniac and he wants 1:18:05.920 --> 1:18:07.519 to behave like he wants to have all the power 1:18:07.520 --> 1:18:09.559 of a dictator. He wants to behave he wants to 1:18:09.600 --> 1:18:13.640 be like you know mel Brooks, like it's good to 1:18:13.640 --> 1:18:16.480 be the king, Like that's all he wants. Yeah. Yeah, 1:18:16.520 --> 1:18:19.920 But here is a group of people or a person 1:18:20.720 --> 1:18:26.880 with some measure of influence. Uh, really thinking this stuff through? 1:18:28.240 --> 1:18:31.040 You're right that I think this is has been generally missed. 1:18:31.479 --> 1:18:34.000 You know, people have started in particularly like kind of 1:18:34.000 --> 1:18:37.519 the mainstream Democratic party, but also just like like centrists, 1:18:37.520 --> 1:18:39.960 you know, people who are not particularly political, but are 1:18:40.439 --> 1:18:42.639 I think most people who are people of goodwill don't 1:18:42.640 --> 1:18:44.960 want to live in a dictatorship. Right. That would be 1:18:45.280 --> 1:18:47.400 how I would describe a person of goodwill is you 1:18:47.400 --> 1:18:49.640 don't want to institute a dictatorship. What? 1:18:49.920 --> 1:18:50.120 Well? 1:18:50.160 --> 1:18:54.040 I think that's a key part, right. I think people 1:18:54.080 --> 1:18:57.799 have started to realize the intellectual threat and the broader 1:18:57.880 --> 1:19:01.240 threat that trump Ism has opened the door for. With 1:19:01.320 --> 1:19:04.120 Project twenty twenty five. But what has happened with Trump? 1:19:04.120 --> 1:19:05.760 Because I think you're right on the money with your 1:19:06.000 --> 1:19:09.160 characterization of him. He is not an ideologue. If he 1:19:09.240 --> 1:19:11.640 thought he could have gotten to power running as a 1:19:11.680 --> 1:19:14.000 Democrat and you know, still been the big man on top, 1:19:14.040 --> 1:19:15.800 he would have done that, right. That just was not 1:19:15.960 --> 1:19:17.519 the what wound up working for him. 1:19:17.600 --> 1:19:17.800 Right. 1:19:18.760 --> 1:19:21.320 He is a Trumpist, and that he believes in himself 1:19:21.400 --> 1:19:24.240 and himself being the guy who is the most important person. 1:19:24.840 --> 1:19:29.679 But when he started running and when he first took 1:19:29.680 --> 1:19:34.880 over the Republican Party, he started breaking norms, right. And 1:19:35.000 --> 1:19:36.880 sometimes it's good to break norms, right. It used to 1:19:36.880 --> 1:19:38.360 be the norm that, you know, a huge chunk of 1:19:38.360 --> 1:19:40.439 this country was segregated, right, and that was something that 1:19:40.439 --> 1:19:42.479 we had to very that was something that forcefully had 1:19:42.520 --> 1:19:44.400 to be broken, right. The government had to deployee forced 1:19:44.479 --> 1:19:46.599 to do that. And in that case that was very 1:19:46.680 --> 1:19:50.120 much a good thing. But when you break norms, it 1:19:50.280 --> 1:19:55.400 opens up space for people who have extreme views to 1:19:55.560 --> 1:19:59.439 push those views into the public sphere. And what happened 1:19:59.479 --> 1:20:02.719 with Trump as he destroyed the Republican Party that had 1:20:02.720 --> 1:20:05.200 been he wound up pushing out a lot of people 1:20:05.280 --> 1:20:09.160 who had been influential in that party, and that opened 1:20:09.240 --> 1:20:12.840 up space for a whole bunch of people as long. Basically, 1:20:12.920 --> 1:20:16.799 anyone could become an influential part of the Republican Party 1:20:17.000 --> 1:20:19.280 if you could do one key thing, which was been 1:20:19.360 --> 1:20:22.240 to the knee to Trump and also get along with him. 1:20:22.560 --> 1:20:24.840 And so guys like Stephen Miller, right, are people who 1:20:24.960 --> 1:20:28.360 understood how to do that. You know. That's how like 1:20:28.400 --> 1:20:30.920 what jd. Vance has done, that's how he became the VP. 1:20:31.200 --> 1:20:34.280 Right as he started courting Trump, he started like helping 1:20:34.360 --> 1:20:36.439 out with stuff like when Trump would do like public 1:20:36.479 --> 1:20:42.320 appearances after that big chemical spill in East Palestine like 1:20:42.479 --> 1:20:44.439 a year or so ago. Like Vance is the guy 1:20:44.439 --> 1:20:46.400 who handled a lot of the advance work for that. 1:20:46.520 --> 1:20:48.920 He had pressed Trump. He was good at sucking up 1:20:48.920 --> 1:20:51.799 to him. And they did all this consciously, not because 1:20:52.080 --> 1:20:54.439 they are all believers that Trump should be the most 1:20:54.439 --> 1:20:58.559 important person in politics, but because they understood that with 1:20:58.640 --> 1:21:01.599 access to Trump comes the ability to kind of twist 1:21:01.640 --> 1:21:04.240 the country in this direction if you can just convince 1:21:04.320 --> 1:21:08.400 him it's the way to go right, and that is 1:21:08.479 --> 1:21:11.360 the way, this kind of capture of the system, that's 1:21:11.520 --> 1:21:13.400 that's how they want it to like that's what they 1:21:13.439 --> 1:21:15.960 are very consciously trying to do. And so it's it's 1:21:16.000 --> 1:21:18.760 a situation where, because of who he is and the 1:21:18.800 --> 1:21:21.559 things that he has made possible, we do have to 1:21:21.600 --> 1:21:25.040 confront the fact that these these very extreme people who 1:21:25.080 --> 1:21:28.200 have a very dark vision for what our society should 1:21:28.200 --> 1:21:33.640 be are kind of at the gates right now. And you, 1:21:33.640 --> 1:21:39.600 you know, it's unfortunate, but I think at this point undeniable, 1:21:40.560 --> 1:21:43.280 and I do think it's it's a thing people kind 1:21:43.280 --> 1:21:47.400 of have to look at with with with clear eyes, 1:21:47.560 --> 1:21:54.680 because it's it's at this point a very immediate threat. Anyway, 1:21:54.560 --> 1:22:00.800 you had a good Friday, ruining my day, Maybe it'll 1:22:00.800 --> 1:22:01.000 be up. 1:22:02.080 --> 1:22:04.920 I'm gonna go home and be like bitter and angry 1:22:04.960 --> 1:22:09.400 at my family. What are you doing to help save democracy? 1:22:10.160 --> 1:22:10.360 Dad? 1:22:10.439 --> 1:22:13.400 I'm three, but get out there. 1:22:15.640 --> 1:22:18.120 That's kind of a normal reaction after coming on the show. 1:22:18.240 --> 1:22:21.519 Unfortunately. Yeah, I'm gonna go home and be mad. 1:22:22.040 --> 1:22:25.320 I'm gonna be angry all weekend. Well Ed, I'm gonna 1:22:25.320 --> 1:22:27.240 be happy all weekend because I got to have a 1:22:27.280 --> 1:22:28.759 fun time talking with you today. 1:22:29.560 --> 1:22:32.640 This was fun. I really appreciate thanks for having me. 1:22:32.760 --> 1:22:36.559 Yeah, yeah, thanks for being on. People should check out 1:22:36.600 --> 1:22:41.040 your podcast, Snap Who Season two is great. I haven't 1:22:41.040 --> 1:22:43.240 listened to season one yet, but I'm sure it's also great. 1:22:43.479 --> 1:22:46.920 I'm excited to get into that as well soon. Yeah, 1:22:46.960 --> 1:22:48.600 I had anything else you want to plug before we 1:22:48.680 --> 1:22:49.360 roll out today? 1:22:49.439 --> 1:22:56.400 Snap and season one Season one is super fun. Yeah yeah, 1:22:56.479 --> 1:23:00.519 yeah yeah, so Jack, You're both out that out. 1:23:01.080 --> 1:23:03.760 Thank you, Ed and everyone have a good rest of 1:23:03.800 --> 1:23:09.760 your week. Behind the Bastards is a production of cool 1:23:09.840 --> 1:23:12.720 Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media, visit our 1:23:12.720 --> 1:23:16.439 website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the 1:23:16.479 --> 1:23:20.320 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.