back to indexJosh Barnett: Philosophy of Violence, Power, and the Martial Arts | Lex Fridman #165
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The following is a conversation with Josh Barnett,
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one of the greatest fighters
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and submission wrestlers in history,
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with an epic 25 year career
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that includes being the UFC heavyweight champion
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and countless other accolades.
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He also happens to be one of the most intelligent
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and brutally honest human beings in all of martial arts,
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and especially so about his appreciation of
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and fascination with violence.
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Quick mention of our sponsors,
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which feels ridiculous to say after that introduction.
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Mung Pak low carb snacks,
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Element electrolyte drinks,
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Eight Sleep self cooling mattress,
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and Rev transcription and captioning service.
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Click the sponsor links to get a discount
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to support this podcast.
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As a side note, let me say that I've been a fan
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of Josh Barnett for a long time.
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This conversation was indeed a long time coming,
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and I'm sure we'll talk many times again.
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For what it's worth, I'm a student of combat sports
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and admire when they're done at the highest level,
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either through masterful execution of skill
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or relentless dominance of pure guts.
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For context, I'm a black belt in Jiu Jitsu
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and have competed in wrestling, submission grappling,
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Jiu Jitsu, Judo, and even catch wrestling,
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which is a variant of submission grappling
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that Josh is one of the great practitioners,
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scholars and teachers of.
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I could probably talk for hours
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about what I've learned from my time on the mat,
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but if I were to say one thing,
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it is that the mat is honest.
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You can't run away from yourself when you step on the mat.
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It reveals your fears, the lies you might tell yourself,
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all the delusions you might have, or at least I had,
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that there's anything in this world that can be achieved
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except through blood, sweat, and tears.
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That honesty, taken to the highest levels,
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as is the case with Josh,
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creates the most special of human beings
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and definitely someone who is fascinating to talk to.
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If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
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review it on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify,
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support it on Patreon,
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or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
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And now, here's my conversation with Josh Barnett.
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Who were the philosophers and philosophical ideas
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that influenced you the most?
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Are we just jumping right in?
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That's it. We're right in.
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We're not, no foreplay on camera, all right.
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I had an interesting philosophical journey,
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at least I think it's interesting,
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and that was, I think, as far as organized philosophy
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or maybe, authentic's not the right word,
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but like, yeah, we'll say organized.
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I would say that Nietzsche is probably one of the people
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with the most influence on me,
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but I also feel like, to a degree,
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your personality will oftentimes dictate
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what philosophers that you can vibe with, yeah.
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So what ideas from Nietzsche, was it the Ubermensch?
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Definitely the Ubermensch is huge to me
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because I see it as an extension
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of basically the religious concepts of God
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and higher ideals,
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but just put into a different, a secular context.
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And the idea also that the Ubermensch is striving
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and overcoming something that you're always working towards
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that very few will ever,
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it's not like the concept that you can just make them.
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It doesn't happen that way.
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And it's not based simply upon if you were, say,
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put through a genetic program
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and turned into a super soldier,
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like that wouldn't make it.
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That's like the very surface level
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and incorrect understanding of what the Ubermensch is.
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The Ubermensch is the idea of this kind of human
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that transcends all the weaker, lower aspects of humans,
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which we're full of.
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But I also think that there's an element in Nietzsche's
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writing that suggests that it's not something
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you can even be in all the time.
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Like it's even a temporary state
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because it's not something
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that we're capable of maintaining.
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It's something to strive for.
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Like a morality, an image, an ideal, a set of principles
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that we can connect to that doesn't rely on
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otherworldly kind of out there things.
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It's deeply human.
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With Nietzsche, I feel like the concept of the Ubermensch
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is something built on authenticity as well.
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Heidegger was like Dasein, right?
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So when you are authentic
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and Heidegger being a follower of Nietzsche's
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and highly influenced by him,
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I think that the Ubermensch is an example of authenticity
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in that it isn't about trying to be anything
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that you cannot be or to go against who you are,
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but to actually understand that, accept that,
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and then work with what you can work with
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and create from your lump of clay that is you.
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Because I can't become...
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There's certain things that are just not gonna happen
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for me because it's not in my proclivity.
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I mean, I'm never gonna be five foot tall
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and 120 pounds, I mean, that again, I guess.
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But I know, as you get more in tune with who you are,
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as you start learning more about what unique things
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or at least what that combination that makes you,
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that gestalt part of yourself,
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what those things are and how you can use them,
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then you can work towards being that,
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taking what that is and seeing if you can
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get to that point.
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Now, the likelihood is, no, maybe, probably never.
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I mean, but we can never achieve Godhood yet.
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Religion is a constant striving
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and a look at a higher ideal concept.
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Even if it's multiple gods or one God,
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it's still essentially all built around this concept.
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I like the idea of Catholics original sin.
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If you think of sin, not as evil,
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but as missing the mark, the archer's term where it derives,
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or even like in Spanish,
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you know, without.
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So as being, if you accept that you are imperfect,
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if you accept that you need to constantly strive
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even against yourself,
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because you will figure out the best ways
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at which to submarine your own capabilities,
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submarine your own dreams and wishes and whatever,
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you will ruin them more than anything else.
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And you will tell yourself that you ruined them on purpose
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for a good reason, or you'll say that you'll figure out
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a way to put it on everything else but yourself.
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And so the idea of thinking of,
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well, as I'm starting off on this whole thing,
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I got a lot of work to do, and that's just the way it is.
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And I gotta figure out what areas those are gonna be.
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And so, you know, I thought, oh yeah,
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if I think of original sin actually can be,
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that can be kind of a clever idea,
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but it's also just accepting that
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we're all uniquely strange and unequal in our own ways,
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but we have to figure out how that fits in.
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The word authenticity kind of connects to all of that.
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So striving to be your authentic self means
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figuring out exactly the shape of the flaws,
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the character of your little demons that you get to play with
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and around them finding a path to whatever the hell
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ideal versions of yourself you can carve
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and pretending like that's such a thing as even possible.
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The other idea about Nietzsche is on his idea of morality.
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He presents the argument that morality is a human illusion
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and that there's not such a thing as good and evil,
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and these are all kind of constructs.
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Do you think there's such a thing as good and evil
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that's connected to some objective reality?
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I think that there are some,
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I actually do believe that there are some universals.
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I'm not Kantian in any way,
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but I do think that there are some universals.
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And the thing that actually brought me
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to even the concept of that was Jung.
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So Jung's concept of collective unconsciousness
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and then taking that thought
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and then applying it to looking through history
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and the most varied history you can find.
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So I would say probably religion is your earliest one
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that you can get for written history
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or written examples of human behavior and psychology
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at the furthest that we can look into it from man's hand
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to whatever the medium is, cuneiform or whatever.
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But as you do that, and then let's say going
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from Mesopotamia to India to Europe
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and just going from all these places,
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as disparate as they may seem,
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as many different cultures and ethnicities and religions
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and how the religions will vary quite a bit
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from monotheist to polytheist and so on and so forth.
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But then just seeing how there's all the through lines.
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And of course, Campbell, he did this
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much earlier than me thinking about it.
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But I think that by looking at things that way
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and starting to find the threads
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instead of always just looking at everything
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as being its own compartmentalized concept
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as if it only applies to this time, this people,
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like getting overly pomo about it
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is just a really idiotic postmodern.
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So you think that there is, just like with Joseph Campbell,
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there's a thread that connects all of these stories,
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narratives that we constructed for ourselves as we evolve.
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And that thread is grounded in some kind of absolute ideas
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of maybe on the morality side,
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which is the trickiest one of good and evil.
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Somewhat, yeah, I think that a lot of this stuff
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is just derived from a biological perspective.
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I feel like these things are innate within us.
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Do you think our innately humans are good?
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I feel like, I also feel like there's the issue of scale too.
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Like Nassim Taleb likes to talk about how he views his,
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the way he interacts with groups in terms of scale.
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What is this thing about like at the familial level,
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I'm a communist and then at the civic level,
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I'm a Republican or something.
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And at this other level,
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and then it goes on at the widest level,
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he's a libertarian or something of that nature.
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Like fundamentally human interaction changes.
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On scale. On scale.
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And scale and also from subjective
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to the environment around them.
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So, and I don't even mean environment
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just in the sake of physical environment, nature, right?
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Like nature is constantly trying to murder you.
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Well, it's not really trying.
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It's just nature's being nature.
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The universe is the universe.
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And at times it takes you out.
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It's just not with any particular compunction or prejudice.
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It's just, oops, you know, sorry, there's no more dodos.
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But don't you think the particular flavor
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of the complexity that is the human mind was created,
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like let me make an argument
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for that all people are fundamentally good.
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Is there's an evolutionary advantage
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to being, to striving to cooperate,
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to add more love to the world of like compassion, empathy,
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all that kind of stuff.
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And that the very thing that created the human mind
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was this evolutionary advantage,
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whatever the forces behind this evolutionary advantage.
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So when we're dealing with a small tribe, sure.
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When you meet another tribe, maybe.
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There's other factors that are going into that.
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Let's say you scale up.
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And so your 150 has exceeded their 150.
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And like, you start to get to a certain point
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where you can't really be close enough
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to someone down the line of some of that next,
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like that 150 is 150, 150.
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And they just now all of a sudden become some guy, whatever.
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And when it comes to some guy, once it starts hitting scale,
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I don't know that it's capable.
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People can be as magnanimous to a stranger as to the known.
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If they orient themselves to be secure enough,
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because it does come to security, insecurity
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in one way or the other, either brought on by the unknown,
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brought on by an actual threat,
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brought on by even their own,
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as we would use the word insecurity in that
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their own insecurity within their own capabilities,
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their own belief in themselves,
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all these things can change things
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from being compassionate and what have you
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to at least at the very least, maybe not evil,
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but self interest driven to the point of a negative results
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for those that aren't, you know what I mean?
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But another way to frame that is maybe it's less about scale
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and more about the amount of resources available.
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So if we're overflowing with resources
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in terms of security and safety,
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all the things you've mentioned,
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if we have more than enough resources,
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then the way we treat a stranger,
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the way we position ourselves towards that stranger
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might be in a way that allows us to be our real human selves
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as opposed to sort of our animal self.
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And therefore it's mostly about
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how clever can we descendants of Abe's be
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in coming up with all cool kinds of technologies
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and ways to efficiently use the resources we have
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such that we're not constrained.
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And my hope is that human innovation
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will outpace the growth of our,
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the number of people that are starving for resources.
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Yes, I think that there's a lot of rationality
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behind this argument.
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And in some ways I agree and in a lot of ways
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I see it as missing the point
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of how this experiment has been playing out across time.
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When you look at what, for one, it's like define resources.
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What is a resource of as humans would define it, right?
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And so you can say, well, an iPhone's a resource,
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the internet's a resource, water obviously is a resource.
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But if we weigh them, what is more important
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to human beings, water, internet or iPhones?
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It's water, right?
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So if we look at resources, if we start with
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what do human beings need to live?
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I mean, actually live, not live here
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in this bullshit fantasy creation extension
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of our own ingenuity and a prison of our own creation
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and also a paradise of our own creation.
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But this is not how human beings normally live.
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This is all built upon stuff,
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it's built on concept, on idea and some of it's built
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on just, well, this is the paradigm so this is what you do.
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Human beings need food, they need water to survive,
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they need shelter from the elements
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and they need certain skills to perpetuate these things
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and be able to pass them down so that they can,
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so that these things don't become,
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you don't end up in this gap where you have
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to relearn things because if it's lost,
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then that time before you can get it back again
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is going to be dark ages of sorts
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or it's going to be highly detrimental to your group
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because not knowing how to fish, not knowing how to hunt,
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not knowing how to even clean and cook the game
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once you have it could be lethal.
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That's fascinating to think of that as a basic resource,
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the knowledge to attain the very low level things of water.
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Right, and we'll figure it out.
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We did it once before and we've done it over
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and over and over and over again.
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Yes, it has costs for sure.
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But when you think of how you look at the,
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well, we'll just deal with the first world of the West.
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You look at the pathway of Western civilization
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and its growth and then you look at how technology
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injected into it over time,
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how it magnifies things or pushes things
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at orders of magnitude faster
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and then the internet comes along and even faster.
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So you're watching industrial revolution to,
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what is it, the capacitor and then so on.
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It goes further and further.
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And as the internet and technology,
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especially on the electronic side of things,
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start increasing in capability,
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it massively outpaces even our necessity for it at times.
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It becomes, you know, plant obsolescence happens quicker
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and over and over and over again
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and wealth increases, increases, increases, increases
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in terms of the things that we're able to acquire, right?
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I mean, I've seen homeless people with smartphones,
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you know, so we're living in the most wealth laden,
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luxury laden age of all of humanity yet.
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What happens when we see calamity
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or people go on hard time?
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What are the things that they value?
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You know, what do people go to an argument
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about the cost of things that are luxury items generally
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and not necessity items?
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You know, we get into fights about things that are
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at the end of the day, not necessities to us.
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You know, people are so concerned about Netflix
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and the internet and personally,
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I'm very concerned about the internet
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because I look at it as my own little personal library
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of Alexandria in my pocket.
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That's what I love about it.
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And the ability to have a tool as effective as it is,
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even though I'm in a constant battle
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to not let that tool become a vice
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or to become something that actually
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brings me to a lower state.
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But are we willing, the question is over the,
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are we willing to murder each other over Netflix
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versus murder each other over water?
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We're willing to murder each other over water.
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Right, but that's our animalistic selves.
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Well, it's also a necessity for, it's animalistic,
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but it's also either you do it or you don't, right?
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Like unless somebody's willing to share that water
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or if that water is of such a limited capability
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or such a limited amount,
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then you will have to murder to have that water.
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Netflix, the argument is the higher,
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we get up to this hierarchy of what we consider
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in Los Angeles resources,
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we're less willing to be, to commit violence.
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We're less willing to commit violence,
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I would say over Netflix,
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but we are willing to commit violence over Netflix,
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over everything associated with Netflix,
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over televisions, over sneakers,
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over, you know, I mean, when we look at a good,
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I mean, the majority of the stuff
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that came with the riots,
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I mean, it was used car dealerships, targets.
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I mean, and then you look and it's like, well, okay,
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well, what are people, what do they gotta,
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what are they so hell bent to get out of this whole thing?
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And I'm even talking about the ideological elements
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or anything like that.
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Just like, okay, something's going on,
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boom, looting, whatever, you know,
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what are you gonna loot?
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You know, you'll have AOC say, oh, people needing bread.
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I didn't see a single loaf of bread.
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You know, I saw televisions and shoes and you know,
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but to me, it is poetry in a sense,
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because you get to see who we,
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how we actually are operating, you know,
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what is becoming first principles to most people.
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But wait, wait, but you could also argue though,
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those riots were more like the madness of crowds,
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which is definitely a lot more than just that.
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I'm just saying that given a chance, it's like, okay, boom,
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the lights are off, the grid is down.
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We've hacked into the whole system,
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turned into an 80s movie.
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And you have the ability to go get ahold of whatever it is
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that you think is most important.
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And what do we do?
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And I say, we, as in, you know, including all of us,
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we grab a TV, we attack it.
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We break into a sneaker store in Melrose.
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We do, it's just like, ah, we still giant cause statues
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where the value of that is completely market driven.
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Like it's just a piece of polypropylene or whatever,
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butyl and you know, it's cool.
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I'm a big fan of art, but it's like,
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you know, I can't eat that.
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And at the end of the day, man,
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you're sitting there with your, like,
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what'd you do today, honey?
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You know, man, we were able to, you know,
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oh, I got this, I got this designer art statue.
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Are you going to go, well, you can't really sell it
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on the, on like the art markets
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where people were really going to pay for it.
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So are you going to become an underground art dealer
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with your one piece of cause art?
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One interesting thing you just said before I forget it,
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you mentioned the library of Alexandria and your.
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Well, your phone, but also just thinking
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of your little world that you're creating
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for yourself on the internet.
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That's a really powerful way to actually phrase it.
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One of the things that you've been on Joe Rogan
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Although everybody always comes to me and go,
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oh, that was so great.
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I didn't know you, you're on, you've on Joe Rogan.
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I go, this is like my fifth time, dude.
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I've been a fan of yours for a long time
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from other avenues.
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This is a long time coming actually.
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Everybody, you have no idea.
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Like how many times through messaging
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and missing each other over the years.
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This is ridiculous.
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This is a long time coming.
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You don't realize how special this is for us.
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This is, well, I'm also starstruck.
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We'll talk about this,
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but you symbolize something very important to me
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through my journey, through wrestling,
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through Jiu Jitsu, through Judo,
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through just street fighting, through just combat.
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There's a, you're the, in some sense,
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the devil on my shoulder of like, of violence.
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In a good, in a, devil gets a bad rap.
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He does get a bad rap.
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I realize, you know, sitting encased in ice
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down at that low ass level, you know.
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But, you know, the angel side is more like the athletic,
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the sport, the science, the technical,
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the chess side of things.
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So, but on the library, Alexander, let me ask,
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because you were on Joe Rogan,
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it does make me really sad.
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And I realize that I'm just probably being romantic
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that his, most of his library of interviews
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that were on YouTube have now been taken down
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because he went to Spotify.
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And that was the first, I'm probably an idiot,
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but it was the first time I realized
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that this knowledge that we've been building up
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on the internet doesn't necessarily last forever.
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No, it doesn't, unless you preserve it.
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I mean, it's like all things.
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If you do not preserve them, if you do not make efforts,
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you know, so many of my, it just really brings
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the minor off the top of my head.
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All my, so many friends of mine that are Jewish,
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you know, they're basically secular.
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But yet through even the secular aspect
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of just keeping the traditions alive, it's like,
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well, you could always pick a book and read about it.
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Clearly, it's called the Torah.
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But if you don't put these things into action,
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if you don't make them a part of your consciousness,
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maybe even on the subconsciousness,
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just through repetition, they will die.
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They will become simply something that exists somewhere
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until you find it again.
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And Carl Gotch used to say something,
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he would say that I don't invent moves,
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I just rediscover them.
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But yet Gotch and Billy Robinson also would understand
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that you, if someone's not carrying the torch,
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Now that doesn't mean fire can't be rekindled.
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It just means that it, that torch no longer
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is lighting the way on this knowledge.
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And so it's important to be an individual,
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even on an individual level,
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to be a repository for aspects of knowledge.
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You mentioned Gotch.
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You consider yourself a catch wrestler.
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So I've mentioned to you offline that I competed
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in a couple of catch wrestling tournaments.
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Can we go Wikipedia level at the very basic,
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you're the exactly right person to ask,
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what is catch wrestling?
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And what are its defining principles?
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I would say the easiest way for us to talk about
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and give an overview of what catch is
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in the simplest terms is think of collegiate wrestling
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That is essentially what catch is.
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And it's not surprising because collegiate wrestling
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is actually derived from catch as catch can.
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It's just that over time certain aspects
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were removed from the competition structure
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so that they became null elements,
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things that were discarded.
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But it's funny that you can take a high level
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amateur collegiate types and you can show them a move
link |
and then add a little bit to it and go,
link |
oh, well, hey, that was just like what we already do here,
link |
but except, oh, I didn't know you could take it
link |
all the way to this point.
link |
Or things of that nature,
link |
especially when it comes to professional wrestling,
link |
teaching people like, no, I know you're just using this
link |
in a show, but this is actually a real move
link |
and here's how it really feels.
link |
And so collegiate wrestling and wrestling in general
link |
for people who are not aware is basically
link |
two people start on their feet and they have to score,
link |
they're trying to take each other down
link |
and they score points along the way.
link |
You can end matches by pinning them,
link |
for example, on their back.
link |
I think one way to describe wrestling
link |
is it's very much about figuring out ways
link |
to establish control and leverage
link |
in these kind of tie ups,
link |
or there's different styles where you can do more
link |
from a distance to where it's more about the timing
link |
and all that kind of stuff.
link |
Ultimately, it's an art of like both upper body
link |
and lower body and you could choose the different puzzles
link |
that you solve there.
link |
You could be attacking the head, the arms,
link |
you could be attacking the legs.
link |
There's also part of collegiate wrestling
link |
that's on the ground that has more,
link |
what's called like a referee's position or whatever.
link |
The referee's position where you're on your hands
link |
and knees basically.
link |
Do you understand what that's supposed to simulate?
link |
Why is that one of the standard positions?
link |
It's one of the standard positions because one,
link |
it's one of the easiest ways to actually get up,
link |
but two, it's because you cannot be on your back.
link |
If you're on your back, you're getting pinned.
link |
And back exposure or being pinned
link |
is pretty much the universal wrestling thing.
link |
One, taking the guy from their feet to the floor
link |
and two, pinning them.
link |
As you go from like, what is it?
link |
Cornish wrestling, Turkish oil wrestling, Mongolian, Sumo,
link |
Indian, well, they'll call it Palwani.
link |
It's also called Kushti, Jiu Jitsu, Judo.
link |
So many of them is like, there's a,
link |
you sombo, even if it doesn't end the match,
link |
it's still like one of the most important aspects
link |
of the competition itself, across almost every style.
link |
And this is where submission, like catch wrestling
link |
or submission wrestling or Jiu Jitsu feels different,
link |
which it seems like for most wrestling,
link |
for a lot of wrestling, the dominance is the goal,
link |
as opposed to submission,
link |
which I guess those are two are related,
link |
but dominating the position.
link |
So that's what pinning is.
link |
It's almost like breaking your opponent,
link |
like breaking through all of their defenses
link |
to where they're completely defenses
link |
and you could do anything with them that you want.
link |
Maybe that's what could be a definition of dominance.
link |
I mean, it sounds very much like a chain to a radiator.
link |
Yeah, there's a threat that connects all runners,
link |
but submission feels different.
link |
It is actually different when you think about it
link |
across the landscape.
link |
I don't think radically different,
link |
but just still slightly different.
link |
And that if you think of wrestling
link |
as being derived from combat, right?
link |
So, well, it is combat sports, but more lethal combat.
link |
Getting somebody off their feet and onto their back
link |
is about as lethal a place
link |
for the person on bottom to be in general.
link |
I mean, don't come at me with your talks
link |
about your fucking worm guards and blah, blah, blah,
link |
and whatever spider, bear, okay, get out of here with that.
link |
We're not talking about you
link |
in this highly regimented sporting environment.
link |
We're talking about general, all the body hair,
link |
none of the waxing human beings.
link |
So getting someone on their back,
link |
okay, as you're trying to get up,
link |
you're getting hit with a rock or stabbed
link |
or what have you set on fire, who knows?
link |
Generally, these conflicts are not just isolated
link |
If it's four on two,
link |
your buddy that was with you back to back,
link |
now he's on his back.
link |
What do you think?
link |
And now it's gonna be one on one while three go on one.
link |
So, and then you elevate this to armored combat, right?
link |
And it's boom, put them on the ground.
link |
Oh, crap, it's hard to get up.
link |
Well, while you're struggling to get up, stab.
link |
That's where jujitsu's concepts come from
link |
with all their leveraging and off balancing is,
link |
oh man, if I end up in this situation
link |
in tight close quarters combat,
link |
yes, we could fight it out with swords and knives
link |
and what have you, but it's way easier
link |
if the first thing I can do is foot sweep you on your back
link |
and then pull my knife and just go stick.
link |
Is there a thread that connects all of these different arts
link |
from not just arts, but from the very base violence of war,
link |
just like you said that there's no rules
link |
to the very regimented IBJF.
link |
Jiu Jitsu tournaments and just,
link |
you've kind of laid out some of it,
link |
but can you go all the way to the.
link |
So when you start off with absolute skills
link |
in the sense of absolute offense and defense
link |
in the taking or preserving of life, right?
link |
Full on at its purest form of self defense
link |
and self preservation, okay?
link |
And then you extrapolate part of that
link |
in that all animals train in violence.
link |
All play usually degenerates
link |
into some sort of soft violence.
link |
So be it cats when they're kittens and puppies
link |
and everything learns how to kill, how to fight.
link |
Not that, you know, just that dumb alpha meme stuff
link |
where the idea is that, oh, by being alpha,
link |
that means you run around like basically just being a bully
link |
No, actually alpha wolves spend very little time fighting
link |
because if you were actually alpha,
link |
you don't get into fights, there's no need to.
link |
And if you're probably getting
link |
into any large amount of fights,
link |
it's probably because you're being shitty at being an alpha
link |
and now people are tired of you being in charge.
link |
And yet in the animal world,
link |
and it would be the same for human beings
link |
at that base beginning level of violence,
link |
there's a big risk.
link |
So I know that we live in this place with healthcare
link |
or you might be in a place with nationalized health,
link |
So there's band aids, there's penicillin,
link |
there's all that kind of stuff.
link |
But that's not the normal way of things, you know?
link |
Yeah, there's a channel that just hurts me every time.
link |
I used to follow it and I had to unfollow it
link |
because it was too painful for me as a human being
link |
called Nature is Metal on Instagram.
link |
It was sobering and then it was like, this is too sobering.
link |
It's very sobering.
link |
So in there, the risk is at its highest level.
link |
The damage you take, the winner walks away hurt.
link |
Getting lamed when you need every aspect
link |
of your physical and athletic faculties to survive
link |
because this isn't the first
link |
and it's definitely not gonna be the last,
link |
especially if you're the slowest one.
link |
What is it, there's a lyric from a clutch song.
link |
Don't go for the fat ones, just go for the slow ones.
link |
Oh man, but that's the universal truth
link |
of the way nature works.
link |
You said it's not cruel, it's not cruel,
link |
it's just the way it is.
link |
Yeah, I mean, watch animals getting into fights
link |
on any of these sort of documentary stuff.
link |
You'll see an intense short and then dispersal.
link |
You'll see as soon as one feels like things have switched
link |
just enough to boom, the bear or whatever it is takes off.
link |
It's like, I'm done with this.
link |
Because if you can get out of there with just some scars
link |
and what have you, okay.
link |
You lose an eye, nah, it's not as good.
link |
You really get hurt bad and get infected, you're done.
link |
So there's a serious risk to be
link |
that can come with these sort of things.
link |
Yet, I believe that we are inherently born
link |
for at least aspects of and use of violence.
link |
And so at the end of the day, we need these things
link |
not just to, not just survive each other,
link |
but they're a part of being able to hunt and other things.
link |
So violence is a part of human nature.
link |
Violence is, it's an absolute.
link |
It is in every person, it is a part of every interaction,
link |
it is a part of every law, everything.
link |
And I'm not, by the way, I'm not an ANCAP.
link |
So don't even, don't hit your wagon to me on that one.
link |
ANCAP is anarchic capitalist. Anarchic capitalist, yes.
link |
They have nice book shops.
link |
I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and shit talk ANCAPs.
link |
Although I also used to get into the conversations
link |
with an ANCOM, anarcho communist, a good friend of mine.
link |
And he would bring up this stuff and I'm like,
link |
yeah, cool, man, I'm down with anarchy.
link |
You ain't gonna like it.
link |
I go, cause I'm gonna take all,
link |
I'm gonna gather all kinds of people together.
link |
I'm gonna make this, I'm gonna get the strongest together
link |
and I'm going to take your shit.
link |
Okay, can I ask you on that topic,
link |
I have a friend of mine now,
link |
a fellow Russian, Ukrainian, Michael Malice.
link |
Oh, yeah, I'm familiar with Michael Malice.
link |
I watched a little bit of your guy's show.
link |
I watched a little bit of your guy's conversation.
link |
So this is really good to ask you because...
link |
I like how he's in the white suit
link |
and you're in the white and black.
link |
But he lives in New York City.
link |
He espouses ideas of anarchism and his idea,
link |
and this is different than sort of the Ayn Rand set of ideas
link |
that there's a line between sort of capitalism
link |
that's backed by the state and just pure anarchism.
link |
And his idea that violence won't take over in an anarchism
link |
is one that feels to me not grounded in reality.
link |
So is there some, so the idea with pure capitalism is that...
link |
You mean laissez faire, completely deregulated?
link |
Yeah, well, what it will agree, it'll end up in one,
link |
it'll end up in, if you're anti globalist,
link |
it's gonna be that.
link |
It's gonna be globalist 100% because it has no...
link |
Pure capitalism has no consideration for your native users
link |
or of any sort, like it doesn't matter.
link |
But the idea of governments is that the land,
link |
the little piece of land geographically you're born on
link |
means you're going to stick
link |
to whatever founding documents created that little land.
link |
So anarchism is against that.
link |
And the argument is you should be able to choose
link |
which ideas you live with.
link |
And the concern there is nobody,
link |
this geographical land, the governments
link |
that organize on that land
link |
do not need to protect you from the violence.
link |
And my sense is there does need to be an army,
link |
there does need to be police that help,
link |
however the form that police takes.
link |
But there needs to be a more centralized,
link |
not completely centralized,
link |
but more centralized safety net
link |
to protect you from the violence.
link |
Scale again, right?
link |
So if you want to have your anarchist utopia,
link |
well, we won't call it utopia,
link |
your anarchist creation here.
link |
At certain scale, I'm sure it's doable.
link |
But as it scales, as the scale increases,
link |
it's completely untenable.
link |
And a state will emerge.
link |
A state will always emerge.
link |
Because even people always think of states
link |
as like people rubbing their hands
link |
and smoking cigars in back rooms
link |
and just out of nowhere coming around
link |
and just like, oh, we're going to create
link |
this big centralized thing
link |
and just so that we can tell everybody what to do
link |
and we can be in charge.
link |
I mean, I know that there are people like that that exist,
link |
that they would like to do things of that nature
link |
and that they see the use of power
link |
as something to be used more for their personal gains
link |
over first, which again, self interest in human beings.
link |
But eventually a state, people want,
link |
they want something to go like, okay,
link |
who's taking care of this?
link |
And who's taking care of that?
link |
And how do we create some sort of protocol for this?
link |
Like, okay, well, when it's not Bob,
link |
when is it Susie, when is it whatever?
link |
I mean, like, how do we, it's gotta get done
link |
if we want this thing to become bigger,
link |
if we want all of our plumbing to work right,
link |
if we want, it's just, I'm sorry, a state's gonna happen.
link |
A state is also, when you think about it,
link |
it's supposed to have consideration to tribe, right?
link |
So if people think that we're not tribes,
link |
well, you're not really thinking very deeply.
link |
We're all tribes of a sort.
link |
And everybody likes to use the word tribalism
link |
in this idea of this antagonistic concept.
link |
And while sure, tribalism can be antagonistic,
link |
tribalism can also be a positive thing,
link |
or I could just say, it just seems to be a natural thing.
link |
People, they create their groups of one sort or another.
link |
And so when you have, well, when you think about
link |
when nation states really started to become a thing,
link |
and I don't mean even the more modern looking variants
link |
that we could think back up and say the 19th century
link |
or something like that, even older than that.
link |
I mean, you think the Assyrians
link |
didn't have a state of some sort?
link |
Of course they did.
link |
How do you increase your empire
link |
if you don't actually have a place to start from?
link |
Just to be a ruler.
link |
So you're saying like naturally,
link |
when you start talking and thinking about scale of humans,
link |
naturally states emerge.
link |
And so can we try to make an argument for anarchism,
link |
which is, so anarchy in a sense is an opposition
link |
to the unhelpful, unproductive, inefficient bureaucracies
link |
that eventually the states lead to.
link |
Yes, and that's what we can see.
link |
I mean, I would say less anarchy,
link |
more study James Burnham, you know,
link |
or, well, anybody that wants to talk
link |
about the managerial problem and the managerial.
link |
I see, so you have a sense, a hope,
link |
maybe let's think like what is the path forward
link |
with the inefficient state?
link |
Is it revolution or is it to work within the system
link |
to constantly improve it, to manage better?
link |
Man, I don't know that one.
link |
I mean, my general sense,
link |
and maybe this is the Nietzschean part of me,
link |
is that, yeah, it would take maybe not even just,
link |
maybe not even defining it specifically as revolution.
link |
Maybe it would just take just total calamity
link |
to get people to stop being shitty,
link |
to not stop being a lesser version of themselves,
link |
to stop thinking more about things
link |
from the paradigm that we exist in now,
link |
where we're giving so much value to stuff
link |
that isn't really all that valuable.
link |
Where we're so concerned about likes,
link |
and I don't just mean like whether we get them or not,
link |
but that, oh man, maybe we should take this off
link |
because this is too destabilizing to people.
link |
Because once you exceed Dunbar's number,
link |
I think it's actually,
link |
without having the right faculties,
link |
which would need to be developed,
link |
because this is dealing with tech that brings things,
link |
ways of approaching being that we are not
link |
naturally programmed to be able to handle appropriately.
link |
And I think it's even more detrimental to women than men,
link |
because I think women have a more natural proclivity
link |
towards group association
link |
and more group oriented thinking and patterning.
link |
And now, and with also coupled with
link |
seemingly more sensitivity towards human states.
link |
So I feel like women, like the classic idea is like,
link |
oh, you know, women are psychic,
link |
you know, they have a sixth sense and what have you.
link |
And I think that's just a way of simplifying,
link |
what I think is that women may be more in tune
link |
with picking up on the unsaid.
link |
Like they might be better at seeing physical cues,
link |
inflection and tone, like different,
link |
like they may be far more sensitive to these things,
link |
which to me would make sense,
link |
because dealing with children that can't communicate.
link |
So distinctively, right now, okay.
link |
Now, whether it be a woman or a man,
link |
but especially with even the social push
link |
on this concept of empathy,
link |
which of course it gets to the point
link |
where it loses any meaning anymore.
link |
Like people use the word empathy
link |
absolutely incorrectly all the time.
link |
And they don't even understand
link |
what you're really asking of people.
link |
But let's just take it as we're using empathy
link |
in the correct sense.
link |
And you're taking on the emotional content
link |
of the thing itself.
link |
Now you open that up to thousands of people,
link |
maybe hundreds of thousands of people all across the world
link |
that you will never meet, that you will never know,
link |
that you're not even getting an actual true representation
link |
most of the time of who these people are.
link |
You're meeting persona.
link |
And some of these personas are even deliberately created
link |
to elicit a response inauthentically.
link |
Are you referring to bots or?
link |
Could be bots or actual people.
link |
Bots are one thing, but I mean,
link |
there are literal people out there
link |
that will create something, create GoFundMes
link |
for tragedies that never didn't really,
link |
or events that didn't happen or any number of things.
link |
Okay, I mean, burn their own house down
link |
and then say, you know, we were attacked.
link |
And then it comes down, oh, you did it to yourself
link |
because you wanted money and empathy and this, that.
link |
And you wanted all this emotional wealth,
link |
let's say this emotional coin,
link |
as well as actual if possible.
link |
You wanted to leverage it in some way.
link |
That's not the majority of people,
link |
but I would say a good amount of folks are thinking,
link |
well, if I post this photo
link |
and I put this little blurb in there,
link |
I bet I can get this much cache out of it in this sense.
link |
And I'm not even, and this isn't just a reference
link |
to like butt pics and stuff like that.
link |
Because clearly, obviously people understand
link |
that our inborn sexual nature is easy to manipulate.
link |
I mean, that's pretty obvious.
link |
But you're saying this kind of new medium
link |
of communication on social media is unnatural.
link |
And it preys on us.
link |
And so as you want this, you know,
link |
you look at an anarchist kind of mindset, right?
link |
And so you're just like, there's no,
link |
there is no overarching state to create
link |
any kind of a structure, right?
link |
And so if you have that unfettered capitalism aspect
link |
with it, and before I say anything particularly damning
link |
about unfettered capitalism, I'm a massive capitalist
link |
because I view capitalism essentially as,
link |
what it boils down to is I get these arguments to people too.
link |
They start giving me all these extra definitions
link |
about capitalism like, no, no,
link |
this is obviously some sort of theory
link |
you're taking from other shit.
link |
But that doesn't describe capitalism.
link |
Capitalism is the ability for us to create whatever we want
link |
or, you know, create our thoughts, ideas, physical things
link |
and trade them freely amongst each other
link |
in ways that we find acceptable, right?
link |
You know, I'm not even using the word fair
link |
because I might think it's fair to me.
link |
You might think, huh, well, I mean, that was actually,
link |
I think what he thought was unfair to him
link |
and it's more fair to me.
link |
And then someone, a third observer goes,
link |
oh man, you should not have paid that for that.
link |
You should have paid this.
link |
And it's like, well, you know what?
link |
It works for me without...
link |
Sufficiently acceptable that you both agree
link |
to the transaction.
link |
But also at the root of that is freedom, right?
link |
And as far as I can tell,
link |
I've been banging this around in my head,
link |
it's like for every one unit of freedom,
link |
you need two units of accountability.
link |
And if you don't have that,
link |
what you end up with is human self interest.
link |
We're not even gonna get into evil.
link |
Human self interest, sabotaging other things,
link |
even not in a sense to be malicious.
link |
Okay, so in terms of,
link |
let's put this as mathematically speaking,
link |
So anarchism is more like two units of freedom
link |
and one unit of accountability
link |
or maybe zero units of accountability.
link |
Possibly, I mean, the anarchists tend to think like,
link |
no, everyone will be accountable.
link |
It's like, fuck they will.
link |
When have you seen this happen in real life?
link |
People aren't even accountable
link |
in their revolutions at the time.
link |
So you aren't looking at the way people really are.
link |
Marx is like, yeah, the people are like this,
link |
they're like that.
link |
Look at how capitalism does it.
link |
I mean, he of course assigns a lot of really
link |
ridiculous economic principles and practice,
link |
but and also assumes that everybody
link |
who makes any profit from anything is somehow stealing it
link |
and really assigns a negative moral aspect to them.
link |
And then it's like, oh yeah,
link |
but then eventually communism will happen.
link |
No one will act that way anymore.
link |
And you're like, whoa, hold on.
link |
You just said that people are all,
link |
are you saying it's all due to capitalism
link |
It's just, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of,
link |
and it's like, hey, look at you.
link |
You're like a notorious, like antisemitic, angry,
link |
like just absolute curmudgeon of a human being
link |
who seems to be really not all that fun to be around.
link |
Yeah, and then it's just like.
link |
So you have to think like,
link |
if there was 1 billion Marx's in the world,
link |
how would they behave?
link |
It would be absolute.
link |
They would hate each other so bad.
link |
And this isn't, for me to even poison them well on Marx
link |
is like, oh, his personality sucks.
link |
Like there's lots of people whose personality sucks.
link |
That doesn't mean they can't make,
link |
I don't know that it's never, what?
link |
You know what, somebody argues.
link |
He's just a loner.
link |
I mean, I don't know that his personality sucked at all.
link |
Let me walk that back and that he was human.
link |
Say his personality sucked.
link |
He was sometimes contradictory, irrational.
link |
Sometimes he was quite sexist
link |
despite the emails I've gotten.
link |
That told me that there's people who has written to me
link |
that Nietzsche has been unfairly labeled as sexist
link |
in his discussion about women.
link |
I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of documents
link |
where he's just like, he's just a bitter guy.
link |
I will agree with you.
link |
And Marx is as bitter as they come to,
link |
but bitterness in and of itself
link |
doesn't make, like why I hate Marxism
link |
comes from the entirety of the thing.
link |
But I'm not going to say that Marxism or practic...
link |
Man, you can find any forbidden book
link |
and it could have something good in it.
link |
As colonel is a good idea.
link |
Yeah, and like at the end of the day,
link |
Marx is a human being.
link |
He's got a nice beard.
link |
He does, he had a hell of a beard.
link |
Yeah, a decent portrait.
link |
I mean, he looks like the kind of guy like,
link |
I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley,
link |
but thankfully I don't think he was much of a fighter.
link |
But in any case, I mean, not the anarchists
link |
or they're more hot for like Max Stirner.
link |
People like to think that Nietzsche borrowed a lot
link |
from Stirner and my argument is one,
link |
you don't have any real evidence for that
link |
and two, bullshit, you know?
link |
I mean, anybody could, the fact that they have
link |
some overlapping thoughts doesn't make it lifted.
link |
Not to mention, go read a lot more philosophy
link |
and see how there's so many different things.
link |
Oh, this guy said it in 1722.
link |
Well, and then this guy says it again in 1922.
link |
Does that mean he read the other guy's stuff?
link |
I mean, he's working from the same type
link |
of human physiological construct as anybody else.
link |
Like, of course it's possible
link |
that this guy could think the same thing.
link |
We think a lot of the same things, to be perfectly honest.
link |
I mean, reading the Hagakure,
link |
going back to philosophy books,
link |
this was really impactful on me as a younger adult
link |
because here's a book written in the 19th century
link |
about someone who lived through the 19th
link |
and 18th century at times as a samurai, now a monk,
link |
and his objections to society at the time,
link |
the same objections one was having to society
link |
as I was reading it.
link |
Like, the same human behaviors,
link |
the same impetus for action that he found a problem,
link |
like, well, that's the same shit now.
link |
Like, we're not, and this was the thing,
link |
and then I'm reading more religion,
link |
and I go, oh, we're no different
link |
than anyone who wrote the Torah or older.
link |
We are the same thing with the same problems,
link |
with the same psychological issues,
link |
the same human behaviors.
link |
Like, these things are not different,
link |
and we haven't changed.
link |
Growing set of tools, though, to kill each other with
link |
or to communicate together and all that kind of stuff,
link |
but underlying it, there's a human nature.
link |
Well, we're also trying to understand that human nature.
link |
I think we've, just like you said,
link |
learning how to fish,
link |
acquired more and more knowledge about that human nature,
link |
but it's been a very slow journey,
link |
slower than people realize
link |
in terms of understanding human nature.
link |
Let me ask, in terms of egoism,
link |
to be curious, to get your sense about Ayn Rand
link |
and her whole idea of virtue of selfishness and her,
link |
because you mentioned that everybody has a kernel of truth.
link |
There's potential for a kernel of truth
link |
to be discovered in anything.
link |
For example, I've been recently reading Mein Kampf.
link |
You know what, that's the thing.
link |
Even, there's something in, there's probably things
link |
in Mein Kampf that are not the surface level read.
link |
If you get all hung up on all,
link |
probably all his crap about his anger at Jews
link |
and this and that, all this crap,
link |
it's like, okay, yeah, that's right on the surface.
link |
Try to get below that.
link |
Try to see, how is he creating the Jews as a cope somehow?
link |
Like, how is he using, why are they his scapegoat,
link |
and I mean scapegoat in the,
link |
so René Girard's concept of the scapegoat,
link |
I mean it in that sense, whereas Hitler uses,
link |
he wants to make the Jews the scapegoat for World War I.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
For me, the starting point, similar with Ayn Rand,
link |
is that Mein Kampf is not a good place to search,
link |
not just because Hitler is evil,
link |
but it's just not full of ideas.
link |
It has its significance due to a lot of things.
link |
Historically speaking.
link |
The starting point for me with Hitler
link |
is to acknowledge that he is human
link |
and to at least consider the possibility
link |
that any one of us could have been Hitler.
link |
So like, not to make it.
link |
Well, that's a Peterson kind of concept.
link |
Also, Jonathan Haidt has a thing
link |
about the difference between hate and disgust mechanisms
link |
and things like that, and so he goes into the,
link |
looking at Hitler through his diary entries
link |
and journals and stuff like that
link |
to look and see it more as the disgust mechanism
link |
than also trying to see if there's any
link |
evolutionary biological attachment to this, whatever.
link |
I mean, you're right, he is a human being.
link |
Any of us, we're all human beings.
link |
It's not that, it's probably jarring for people to think,
link |
but we're all, I guess, supposedly potentially capable
link |
of just being in, and all these evil people in the world
link |
think they're doing it for the sake of good,
link |
which makes them the most dangerous.
link |
And there's some, there's differences in levels of insane.
link |
I think Hitler was way more insane than Stalin.
link |
I think Stalin legitimately thought he was doing good.
link |
I would say that's probably true.
link |
Stalin was just outright brutal.
link |
Like he had his five year plan, he had all those other things.
link |
He just had a much lower value for human life,
link |
and so he was willing to take, make decisions
link |
about what he actually, as a good executive,
link |
which he was, of managing different bureaucracies and so on,
link |
he was willing to make decisions
link |
that resulted in mass human suffering,
link |
where Hitler was, it seems like to me, much moodier.
link |
So allowed emotions and moods to make decisions.
link |
I think we also have to consider the different trajectories
link |
and how, where, and when they were making their decisions.
link |
And I mean, not by time specifically,
link |
but Hitler engaged into this conflict
link |
across multiple continents.
link |
And then that, everything that comes
link |
with basically fighting the whole world,
link |
Stalin had his conflict,
link |
and then he really mostly compartmentalized the rest of it.
link |
So he was dealing with his own internal
link |
instead of dealing with the internal and the external.
link |
So if Stalin was put under a World War scenario,
link |
I don't know, maybe he would have
link |
eventually lost his marbles too.
link |
Yeah, I'm not sure that that's, you're right.
link |
The hunger for power was more internalized for Stalin.
link |
He wanted to control the land that already existed
link |
as opposed to wanting to colonize other land.
link |
He was as nationalistic as Hitler,
link |
but, and was as capable and willing
link |
for violent conflict as Hitler,
link |
for the aims of the state.
link |
But he centered and internalized
link |
prior to then externalizing and moving outwards.
link |
Whereas even maybe prior to him,
link |
there was an interest to continually push communism
link |
in an aggressive sense following on the momentum
link |
from the 1918 revolution.
link |
And that, the halting of that through various aspects,
link |
I guess in Germany, part of that was the National Socialists.
link |
Like they came up and then they were the other ones
link |
to fight the communists,
link |
and so you had the two totalitarians going after it.
link |
But then in the rest of the world
link |
that was not dealing with totalitarian aspects,
link |
it was just, it wasn't gonna stick,
link |
especially in the West and other places.
link |
But Stalin, just casually thinking,
link |
it seemed like Stalin decided to go,
link |
all right, well, we're not gonna go
link |
just start launching right into more conflicts here.
link |
We're gonna, these dudes are going down,
link |
so that's cool for us,
link |
because they hate us and we hate them.
link |
But now we're gonna focus internally,
link |
and then we're gonna work on growing at a slower rate
link |
and picking our battles a bit more specifically.
link |
And of course there's, you can get to the,
link |
even this is after Stalin,
link |
but you got the Bezmenov type stuff
link |
talking about subversion in cultural aspects.
link |
Yeah, I mean, there's this fascinating dynamics
link |
to propaganda throughout the whole period that's.
link |
Yeah, it's a whole nother kernel, yeah.
link |
Do you think Hitler could have been stopped?
link |
One of the things that's kind of fascinating to look at
link |
is how many nations, both journalists and nations,
link |
wanted, almost craved to take Hitler at his word
link |
that he wanted peace until it was too late.
link |
They almost wanted to delude themselves.
link |
I mean, the same is true with the Stalin,
link |
people wanted to take Stalin at his word for.
link |
Oh, they still delude themselves.
link |
We will delude ourselves over any number of things
link |
until even after the fact where the history just says,
link |
hey, fuck face, you know?
link |
You cannot supplement your pseudo reality
link |
onto actual reality here.
link |
But yet, we deal with people in pseudo realities constantly.
link |
I mean, we will always find a way
link |
to change reality to suit our needs.
link |
Well, the nature of truth now,
link |
there's now multiple actual truths.
link |
It's kind of fascinating.
link |
There's multiple versions of history
link |
that people are telling.
link |
You know, the version of the Great Patriotic War in Russia,
link |
the World War II in Russia is very different today
link |
under Putin than the version
link |
that we're learning in the United States
link |
and then different than the version in Europe.
link |
In the United States, the hero of the war
link |
is the United States.
link |
In Europe, there's a much more sad and solemn story
link |
of suffering and so on.
link |
In Russia, it's the Great.
link |
It was a unifier of a sense.
link |
And it, I mean, yeah, I mean,
link |
you can't argue that war and conflict that,
link |
and or just even reducing that to stressors,
link |
agitation, suffering doesn't create human motivation.
link |
You know, we started this off.
link |
You brought up a Frankel.
link |
I'm like, yeah, Frankel's dope.
link |
Man, it serves for meaning.
link |
And I talked to you about how I started to think like,
link |
man, do the ability for human beings to live
link |
and or potentially flourish
link |
in the worst environments you can think of
link |
is pretty incredible in and of itself.
link |
And that it's a crazy thought to think that
link |
without Frankel and Maslow ending up in concentration camps,
link |
do they write some of the most important books
link |
on philosophy in the 20th century?
link |
And that's insane on a lot of different levels.
link |
But, yeah, suffering is a creative force.
link |
I mean, I don't, do you think we'll always have war?
link |
Yes, we will always have war in some form or another.
link |
We need, quote unquote, air quotes,
link |
for those just listening, war to survive.
link |
We need war to flourish.
link |
Can you explain the quote, the air quotes around the war?
link |
Well, because take, take, take, take the.
link |
You see wars as violence?
link |
No, wars are not violence.
link |
So like, so when we're talking.
link |
No, air quotes because while us getting on the mat
link |
or just getting on these hardwood floors
link |
and wrestling around is not literal war,
link |
it's war of a sorts.
link |
It is a diluted form of war.
link |
American football is a diluted form of war.
link |
All this, these are diluted forms of war.
link |
Tennis is a diluted form of war.
link |
And I think one of the best explanations I ever got
link |
from this, and another person very impactful
link |
on my life and outlook and thinking about things,
link |
And so in Blood Meridian, there's this fantastic speech
link |
about war given by the judge,
link |
which there's a ton of fantastic speeches
link |
on things given by the judge, yeah.
link |
All that exists in creation without my knowledge
link |
does so without my consent.
link |
Okay, that's pretty heavy.
link |
That's, that's hard.
link |
Go ahead, can you break that up?
link |
Can you say that again?
link |
All things that exist in creation,
link |
all things that exist without my knowledge
link |
do so without my consent.
link |
What does that mean?
link |
Well, I think from the judge's perspective,
link |
it's like, well, I didn't consent to that bird
link |
or that dog or this building or all this,
link |
like all of this, you know, I didn't create it,
link |
so it's done so without my consent.
link |
And if it's up to my consent,
link |
well, I'll design it how I want to.
link |
There's another similar look into how the judge is
link |
in that book is he would study everything
link |
everywhere he went.
link |
And so he's collected this group of nary do wells
link |
from all over to go on these hunts
link |
against certain tribes in the Southwest
link |
and getting paid by the US government,
link |
the Mexican government.
link |
So he's on these Indian hunts
link |
and yet they're going to all these different places
link |
and they would stay the night in a cave somewhere
link |
and he would find cave paintings,
link |
he would write them all down,
link |
or he would find old pieces.
link |
There's an example of him, the narrator,
link |
explaining how watching the judge and how he drawing,
link |
I mean, he's got this notebook just full of things,
link |
drawings and writings,
link |
and how he found like a piece of armor
link |
from a conquistador or something way back in the day,
link |
Spanish armor, and he draws it into his book
link |
and then crushes it.
link |
And so the reason we'll always have war
link |
in this society is because there's this struggle
link |
amongst people that want to be the designers.
link |
There's that, but I'm just saying
link |
that he's got this whole quote on war,
link |
like war is play, war is a game,
link |
and the difference is is that what's at stake.
link |
So all things are a game of some sort
link |
and you're putting up for it
link |
or what you're willing to put up for it
link |
determines whether or not you're going to participate or not.
link |
And all aspects of any game is war
link |
and it's just, what is at stake?
link |
If it's your life, it's a different story.
link |
If it's just a coin, it's another thing.
link |
A nice way to put it is if humans play a game
link |
in this kind of pursuit of creating,
link |
whatever the hell the reason is
link |
that we keep creating cooler and cooler things,
link |
it seems to be the result of a game
link |
that we naturally play, we naturally crave.
link |
I don't know, I mean, that's been the struggle of philosophy
link |
is to understand what is the underlying force of all that.
link |
Is it the will to power?
link |
I think will to power is a really great way
link |
Do you want to be the winner of the game?
link |
No, not just, no, I don't look at will to power
link |
as being the winner of the game.
link |
Well, I mean, if we're going to get philosophical,
link |
yes, you want to be the winner of the game.
link |
What does winning the game define how you win?
link |
Everybody's going to define that win differently.
link |
You could define the win in the most base level
link |
like, oh, I got all the things.
link |
Well, if you got all those things
link |
without the needing component of fulfillment,
link |
then you're going to be a very unhappy person
link |
with a whole lot of things.
link |
But there's a self referential aspect to where, to me,
link |
the winner of the game is defined
link |
by the people playing the game.
link |
So if I'm playing a game, I want to win in the sense
link |
that most of the other people who are playing the game
link |
will say, yeah, that guy won.
link |
By our collective definition, if I just come up,
link |
listen, I'm sort of, if I come up with my own.
link |
That's a lot of weight on the external on you.
link |
Right, but that's how games seem to work.
link |
So I'm already a winner in my life
link |
by defining my own definition of success.
link |
I'm basically the best person in the world at doing me.
link |
Yeah, so like, and I'm really happy with that.
link |
That's a source of happiness.
link |
Well, I mean, think about it.
link |
Games are also iterated, right?
link |
So you start off with your game
link |
and then your game with your immediates
link |
and then the game further than that
link |
and the game further than that
link |
and then the game today and the game tomorrow
link |
and the game next week.
link |
And so it never ends.
link |
And if you try to keep thinking about it that way,
link |
no wonder people go crazy.
link |
But we don't want to think about things that way.
link |
We don't want to think about being towards death.
link |
We don't want to think about whether or not
link |
I'm going anywhere after this
link |
other than in the ground or what have you.
link |
All of these games are a sense of some distraction.
link |
This is where we brought up.
link |
Kind of, but I mean, it's violence is that
link |
we need to let this out.
link |
And so it is of our, kids need to wrestle and play
link |
just like animals need to wrestle and play.
link |
We need to have forms of competition.
link |
We need to have ways to test ourselves,
link |
to create when, what is it?
link |
When at peace a man of war makes war with himself.
link |
And so we need to be able to competently
link |
go at war with ourselves and go at war with our neighbor
link |
and go at war with our neighbor's neighbor
link |
in a way that is repeatable at the very least.
link |
So one way of saying that there will always be war,
link |
I mean, that's my hopeful view
link |
is that most of the war conducted in the future
link |
will be, like you said,
link |
the man must go to war with himself.
link |
That would be great.
link |
That's what to me love is,
link |
is like focusing on yourself and your own improvement
link |
and your own creativity and towards others feeling,
link |
sort of emphasizing cooperative behavior
link |
and compassion and empathy.
link |
It would be great.
link |
But I mean, you can have, well, I'll put it to you this way.
link |
If you have a whole community of Randians
link |
and a whole community of Ancoms,
link |
and they could all like, I don't know,
link |
toast of London on Netflix,
link |
and they love Netflix and they love the internet
link |
and they love picking apart Mon Comp with you.
link |
They love like, they like all these things,
link |
even the esoteric that they can get on with.
link |
But at the fundamental root,
link |
they cannot help but go to war
link |
because they are literally oil and water.
link |
No, but see, but they would,
link |
the very labels they assign to themselves
link |
would need to dissipate.
link |
Well, this is true.
link |
Well, then you would have to stop being
link |
whatever it is that you took on
link |
as your ideological or religious point, right?
link |
Yeah, I mean, there's some days I'm Ancom,
link |
some days I'm Ancaps and whatever the anarchic capital.
link |
I mean, it depends on the hour, the minute of the day,
link |
you constantly changing moods and embracing that flow,
link |
the change of opinions, of ideas.
link |
As there's some days like,
link |
I'm actually cognizant of the fact
link |
because I've been not getting my sleep.
link |
And after I get some sleep,
link |
I see I'm so much more optimistic about the world.
link |
The less and less sleep I get,
link |
the more sad and cynical I get.
link |
There's an up and down constantly.
link |
I don't even let my, well, okay.
link |
And most days it's never a problem.
link |
Any sort of like, what the kids call it now,
link |
blackpilled way of thinking,
link |
be my over, the umbrella which I hang under.
link |
So we actually, to drag us back,
link |
can we talk about Carl Gotch and Cat Tressley?
link |
Because I do want to make sure I touch it.
link |
I mean, what, who were?
link |
Is he the greatest catch wrestler?
link |
I don't know if he was the greatest catch wrestler ever.
link |
I don't, I mean, he's one of them for a myriad of,
link |
Carl Gotch, Billy Robinson.
link |
Gotch and Robinson's trainer, Billy Riley.
link |
So who are these figures and what did they bring to you?
link |
Joe Maeda, he's one of the greatest catch wrestlers ever
link |
because he's responsible for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
link |
Along with Cristal Gracie.
link |
Okay, there's so much of things I'd like to say here,
link |
but one of the things that catch wrestling
link |
seemed to espouse as a principle is that of violence.
link |
I just, the tournaments I competed at,
link |
the unfortunate thing,
link |
and we'll probably hopefully talk about it a little bit.
link |
They were disorganized and the level of competition
link |
was pretty low where people really sucked.
link |
Is that typical, okay.
link |
Well, it's, I mean, think about local run of the mill
link |
Jiu Jitsu tournament versus IBJJF created,
link |
you know, a vast difference, so.
link |
So I, you know, but there is, to me as a human being,
link |
like intellectually, philosophically,
link |
it was more interesting to go to catch wrestling tournament.
link |
It seemed more real and honest
link |
because of the way they communicate about violence
link |
and aggression. I love that.
link |
So it is often more honest.
link |
Does that originate from, gosh, is that really Rob said?
link |
Well, I mean, it originates from all wrestling
link |
in that even Wade Chalice,
link |
not a classically considered catch wrestler,
link |
yet the reason why he has the world record
link |
for most amount of world champions pinned
link |
or the record for pins in the NCAA is because,
link |
well, of course the idea is to put you on your back
link |
and pin you, but there's no way you're gonna let me do that.
link |
So how do I make it so that you want me to pin you?
link |
Well, it's by you put them in excruciating pain.
link |
So at the end of the day, you're both there.
link |
You both wanna win.
link |
Neither one wants to allow anything to the other.
link |
So how do I get you to lose to me?
link |
Well, I make it so unbearable for you
link |
that you decide losing is better than staying.
link |
So those two are so fascinating
link |
because so coming from Russia,
link |
I don't know if that's where I got it
link |
or if it's just my own predisposition
link |
is I always loved the,
link |
there's two ways to get you to want to pin yourself.
link |
One is to making it so painful not to pin yourself
link |
that you pin yourself or whatever.
link |
And the other is, it's sort of like a Bruce Lee,
link |
water flows, make it so easy to pin yourself.
link |
So it's technique, it's like the elegance,
link |
the ease of movement.
link |
This is the Satya brothers, Vasya, Satya,
link |
like the, just the elegance, the efficiency.
link |
Yeah, they're practically like ballet watching those guys.
link |
You know, it's incredible.
link |
Satya brothers are massive.
link |
And I'll also caveat a little bit that like,
link |
if you're approaching this from a Russian perspective,
link |
Russians are quite truthful about things,
link |
especially when it comes to something like combat.
link |
They just, this is how it is.
link |
And this is how it's going to be.
link |
And honesty is what I really like about catch wrestling
link |
because I find that we, given any opportunity
link |
for us to be dishonest for any number of reasons,
link |
we're gonna, especially if it's a dishonesty
link |
towards a positive, right?
link |
Like, oh, well, you know, it's all technique
link |
and it's all this and it's the gentle art and blah.
link |
Bro, I have rolled with ADCC world champions,
link |
you know, some of the best you have ever heard of.
link |
There ain't a lot of gentleness when it comes to like,
link |
oh yeah, they wanted to sweep you and you said no.
link |
And then you did, said no again.
link |
And then you said no and attacked their leg.
link |
It ceases to be all that gentle
link |
because at the end of the day,
link |
these dudes are strong as hell.
link |
They're all, I mean, they're,
link |
the difference between the athleticism
link |
and the ability to actually win is a pretty wide gap.
link |
The athleticism shows up,
link |
but then there's all that other extra
link |
and part of that is meanness and pain
link |
and getting what you need out of it.
link |
But see, there is a philosophical difference
link |
in the way it's thought because.
link |
I think some of it is just, they just in denial.
link |
Like, oh, people will, they like to,
link |
people like to espouse a lot of things as theory
link |
and then it's like, okay, let me watch.
link |
When they're, oh, you're not doing anything
link |
about what you said right now.
link |
In fact, you're doing the opposite.
link |
You're literally hurting that guy
link |
because your shit ain't working
link |
in the way that you'd like it to.
link |
So you're having to use strength.
link |
You're having to, it's one of my favorites,
link |
like, oh, you're using too much strength.
link |
And it's like, well, hold on.
link |
Do we want people not to use strength at this point
link |
to understand more of mechanics?
link |
Or are you trying to tell people
link |
if they use strength at all,
link |
that they're somehow bad at what they do?
link |
Cause you know, it's not my fault.
link |
You're not stronger than me.
link |
But see, I'm speaking to something else that's, that's.
link |
Well, I tend to think what it comes down to is like,
link |
strength is fine until you beat me with it.
link |
Okay, so strength is another thing.
link |
I'm speaking, I'm thinking about more like anger.
link |
I've seen a lot of angry guys in jiu jitsu, I know that.
link |
Okay, okay, good, well, but let's talk about,
link |
let's talk about the highest level of competitions.
link |
There's a book called Wrestling Tough.
link |
It's a really good book.
link |
There's, I've encountered in my life a few,
link |
especially in wrestling,
link |
people who really try to find a way to use anger,
link |
to get really angry at their opponent.
link |
Not like stupid anger, but just like.
link |
Intense, pointed anger distilled into something
link |
that you can use as fuel.
link |
And like, I remember this story.
link |
I don't know where I read it.
link |
Might be Wrestling Tough,
link |
where a person was imagining that their opponent
link |
just raped their mother, raped their girlfriend
link |
or something like that,
link |
to create this like method acting thing in their head
link |
to be like, to snap them out of this polite interaction
link |
of usual like athletic convention and like.
link |
You know, that's a design of necessity.
link |
So my anecdote for this was,
link |
I was sitting with backstage before a fight,
link |
And I'm working with this guy and this dude is,
link |
this is a world champion guy.
link |
And he's competed at the highest levels.
link |
And he looks at me and he goes,
link |
you know, do you ever get nervous before fights?
link |
And I looked at him and I went, no, I don't.
link |
And he just looks at me and he's like,
link |
fuck man, I'm so nervous.
link |
You know, how do you do it, man?
link |
Or, you know, I wish it could be like you.
link |
And I said, you know what?
link |
That doesn't mean that what I'm doing is better.
link |
It's just what is necessary for me.
link |
It's the way I am.
link |
And I told him, so this anecdote goes into another anecdote.
link |
This is a Family Guy episode, I guess.
link |
So, where some, another famous high level guy told me
link |
about this experience with a world champion boxer in Japan.
link |
And this guy would get insanely nervous and worked up
link |
and anxious before his matches.
link |
And he hated it and hated it and hated it.
link |
And so he wanted to get rid of that feeling.
link |
So he went to a hypnotist for a bunch of sessions
link |
and managed to, and he goes in and next fight,
link |
he's cool as a cucumber and doesn't perform and loses.
link |
And so what I said, going back to anecdote one,
link |
was, you know, whatever is necessary for you
link |
to get yourself in the best state of being right now
link |
to compete, whatever that may be,
link |
it could be absolute stress and fear,
link |
it could be anger, it could be calmness,
link |
it could be whatever.
link |
But there is a, but there is a state
link |
at which you need to be in to do your best.
link |
And you as the individual, you have to find that.
link |
Can you comment on Tyson, Mike Tyson?
link |
Oh, yeah, that thing.
link |
So first, so he, there's two things I wanna,
link |
so he's a, in terms of fear, there's a clip there,
link |
I think from a documentary where he talks about
link |
he is like fully afraid as he walks up to the ring
link |
and as he gets closer and closer and closer,
link |
he gets more confident until he gets in
link |
and then he's a god or something like that.
link |
That coupled with his statement on Joe Rogan
link |
that he gets aroused at the possibility of true,
link |
like of hurting somebody in the ring.
link |
So like he gets aroused at the violence.
link |
I like it because it's coupled to your basically statement
link |
that we need to own, to find our own unique way
link |
of existing at our top level of performance.
link |
And that perhaps is Mike Tyson.
link |
But do you think there's something more deeply universal
link |
to the Mike Tyson speaking to the fact
link |
that he's aroused at the possibility of violence?
link |
Yeah, I do actually.
link |
Although I don't think that it always equates to arousal
link |
for people, in fact, I would say in general, it doesn't.
link |
I can say I've never had a boner in the ring.
link |
In fact, if anything, old combat cock is like,
link |
we're not hanging around, we're leaving, we're going up.
link |
We're taking off, we don't want anything to do with this.
link |
You have fun, come back to us when you have something
link |
warmer, softer, smells better.
link |
But the power, the feeling of aliveness,
link |
yeah, I could see it.
link |
Back to even the concept of the Ubermensch,
link |
I feel like the states, the highest states of being
link |
I've ever been in were in the midst of conflict.
link |
I felt like that was the times,
link |
those are the moments in my life where I felt like
link |
I was at the highest level of being as a human in existence.
link |
But yet, even being in that state was not,
link |
it was not something that you could interact with
link |
people that weren't in that state with you.
link |
They wouldn't get it, you would almost seem,
link |
and to be that way all the time,
link |
either A, might drive you mad, or B, is you're not,
link |
you're something that's untenable to the rest of society.
link |
You can't function with everybody else.
link |
It's just like you said with the Ubermensch,
link |
it's like it's perhaps that ideal
link |
is not something you can hold for long.
link |
That's the very nature of it is.
link |
Yeah, well, there was an example in The Spoke Zarathustra
link |
about a snake being down the person's throat
link |
and biting it, and then having this maniacal laughter
link |
erupting, and to me it was, at least I read it as,
link |
yeah, okay, there's this insane moment that isn't forever,
link |
but that it is life and death, and the overcoming it
link |
is the thing that all of a sudden gives you
link |
that tapping into your highest state, right?
link |
This is, man is a chasm, a tightrope
link |
between man and Ubermensch.
link |
Well, I don't wanna leave your thought about,
link |
we'll call those things flourishes
link |
to the aspect of Tyson's interpretation
link |
or his expression of his feelings in combat,
link |
and so I gave this anecdote to the guy,
link |
and my first anecdote to that athlete I was working with,
link |
and I said, you know, there isn't a superior way
link |
There is the way that works for you.
link |
That may be something you can implement to other people
link |
if you find that person,
link |
because we all have different personalities,
link |
and to me that's an absolute.
link |
I don't wanna, don't come at me
link |
with all your other fucking social sciences crap.
link |
No, we have distinct personalities.
link |
That personality, who you really are,
link |
and this, again, Heidegger, Dasein, being authentic.
link |
If you're authentic with who you are, goods and bads,
link |
you will know how to create what that is,
link |
and for me, violence and fighting and conflict
link |
was something that always felt normal to me,
link |
and I don't mean normal in, like I grew up in a war zone
link |
or an abusive household or something like that.
link |
I just meant that, and I was a kid who was very
link |
joyful and inquisitive,
link |
and spent a lot of time around older people, of all things,
link |
and also, while I don't think I have much capability
link |
toward engineering, my mom said that one of the first things
link |
as like a little baby,
link |
when she put me in my sister's old crib,
link |
instead of my sister who just milled about
link |
and was fine with it all,
link |
the first thing I did was I completely deconstructed it.
link |
I didn't break it.
link |
I figured out how to pull it apart.
link |
Curiosity about the world, and yet,
link |
that wasn't in conflict with the idea of violence?
link |
No, not at all, and so being a very joyful and nice kid,
link |
but kids are kids, and if kids can find that you respond
link |
maybe more easily to agitation, they will agitate you,
link |
and if you should stand out in some way
link |
by being taller or bigger or something, or caring,
link |
especially, they will agitate you.
link |
They don't really fully understand it either,
link |
and so I don't hold anything against any of the kids
link |
that used to pick on me or whatever,
link |
especially at the youngest ages.
link |
Man, they don't know shit either, so,
link |
but once that line was pushed, for me it was,
link |
oh, well, I was being cool.
link |
Now you're being uncool.
link |
Well, then that gives me license for everything,
link |
and so, boom, we would just go at it,
link |
or kids that would try to initiate a fight,
link |
and I was like, okay, and being in that moment
link |
of just going to town with someone else,
link |
it just felt like this is, this is.
link |
Yeah, it was never a problem for me.
link |
In fact, if anything, what I had to understand was,
link |
well, not only did I learn the hard way,
link |
that it doesn't matter, at the end of the day,
link |
it doesn't really matter what anybody else does
link |
if your response in violence, even to their violence,
link |
if you're the winner,
link |
is often going to be penalized severely.
link |
Society, state apparatus, they don't want any of that.
link |
They wanna be the only arbiter of violence
link |
in the world, always.
link |
But I learned a very difficult lesson with that,
link |
and it was really impactful in a negative way on me,
link |
but also I had to learn, on an individual sense,
link |
to, you need to manage violence, too,
link |
because, hey, if someone attacks you
link |
or starts a fight with you and you go at it,
link |
okay, beating them up is one thing,
link |
trying to grab a handful of broken glass from the street
link |
and throw it in their face,
link |
maybe that's a bit much at seven.
link |
So you need to learn what level is necessary,
link |
and you need to learn what comes with all,
link |
what's the responsibility of,
link |
when you enact violence, I mean, you take on something
link |
when you have a responsibility for that.
link |
This is the extension of your actions.
link |
But as I got older, and especially as I found sports,
link |
and then combat sports,
link |
now this was a place for me to flourish,
link |
and to the point where I was more myself in that space
link |
than I was outside of it until time enough
link |
where I could learn to get this back together again.
link |
And I never say that I'll merge the two
link |
or anything like that.
link |
No, all what happened,
link |
my journey from adolescence on to manhood,
link |
a huge portion of it,
link |
besides the normal finding yourself, whatever, whatever,
link |
actually what it was was getting back to who I always was.
link |
Getting back to the kid.
link |
The curious kid, the kind kid.
link |
Getting back to the guy
link |
that I should have been allowed to become
link |
instead of what happened under the pressures of other things.
link |
And the attempt for society and certain people
link |
within managerial positions to compress what that was
link |
into something that they found more suitable.
link |
Yeah, but those pressures allow you
link |
to discover this little world, forbidden world,
link |
in many ways, of violence that you could explore.
link |
Through sport, you can explore it,
link |
and it's more socially acceptable to explore it through sport.
link |
But even then, at times, it's socially unacceptable.
link |
So I beat Sem Schilt.
link |
He cut my right eyebrow.
link |
I cut him and busted his nose,
link |
and he's bleeding all over me as I have an armbar on top.
link |
I'm getting, you know, it's raining blood.
link |
Quote some slayer from a lacerated Sem Schilt,
link |
bleeding in his horror, creating my structures.
link |
Now I shall rain him blood.
link |
But I win the fight, armbar, nasty one.
link |
I get on my feet, and the first thing I do
link |
is I wipe all the blood off onto my hands,
link |
and I lick it, and I do my thing.
link |
And all the MMA journalists freaked out.
link |
Dana Wise, like, man, I don't know about that.
link |
You know, we don't want him doing,
link |
everybody had this huge problem.
link |
And then some folks would even contend,
link |
oh, you know, you're trying to do,
link |
like, no, no, no, this isn't planned.
link |
I don't think of these things.
link |
This is how I really feel.
link |
This is who I really am.
link |
And, you know, it was even kind of comical after the fact,
link |
you know, and BJ Penn was on the very card with me,
link |
watching him at some point in his career all of a sudden
link |
win fights and then do this licking the glove thing,
link |
and everyone thinks it's the coolest thing ever.
link |
And I'm like, hey, fuck faces.
link |
I did this in 2002 or one, 2001,
link |
and BJ Penn actually back then was like,
link |
dude, you're a badass, you're a killer, you know?
link |
Where did that come from?
link |
Because that seems like a deeply human moment.
link |
I could say, I could just be, you know, goofy about it
link |
and call it orgiastic to align with Titan.
link |
Are we back to Mike Tyson?
link |
Yeah, but Tyson, but no, no, it isn't, it's beyond that.
link |
Is it a celebration of human nature?
link |
I've had some pretty decent orgasms
link |
in my life at this point, I'm 43.
link |
So, but no, none have ever compared to that.
link |
Like I said, it is a feeling of highest being to me.
link |
It's your Ubermensch moment.
link |
This is where I feel like the restrictions
link |
of general existence in society are gone.
link |
And I get to fully live in a state
link |
that feels more meaningful, of the most meaning.
link |
You know, I think of it as life and death.
link |
And it's just, it is the way I'm built.
link |
And I don't have, I've never had any problem
link |
applying violence.
link |
Like it doesn't, I don't know where it comes from
link |
or how you would define it or whatever,
link |
if you want to stick me under in a psychologist chair,
link |
but like I don't, there's a part of me
link |
that can just like, no, if I'm gonna apply,
link |
I can apply violence to any level and be okay with it.
link |
And it doesn't, I don't lose sleep.
link |
It doesn't bother me.
link |
It's not a problem.
link |
It was me learning how to fully understand violence,
link |
humans, and the broader perspective
link |
that allowed me to think about things
link |
and like, well, what do I really want to accomplish
link |
with my actions in the world just on a whole?
link |
You know, not compartmentalizing my sporting career.
link |
Even when I get in the ring,
link |
I don't have any mercy generally.
link |
And if I do, it's because I make a really deliberate attempt
link |
to be in a state where I can have mercy.
link |
If I just go in there to fight with everything I got,
link |
there is zero mercy.
link |
The natural state of violence.
link |
There's nothing, there's nothing that will hold me back
link |
other than the referee and that's that.
link |
You know, I know I agreed to be allowed to do
link |
and not to do, but within that, no.
link |
And I expect it to be done to me.
link |
But in terms of values, in terms of seeing what,
link |
to me, violence is just yet another canvas
link |
that humans can paint beautifully on.
link |
Clearly, I mean, we have venerated the violent.
link |
There are communists that venerate the violent
link |
There are national socialists
link |
that venerate the violent there.
link |
And then if you remove it from an ideological perspective,
link |
we venerate the violent when they're a hero.
link |
We venerate the violent in our religion.
link |
Well, I mean, I guess some people venerate the violence
link |
of Yahweh and Sodom and Gomorrah, right?
link |
So, or do we say Jehovah?
link |
Is there, you've already mentioned one,
link |
but is there a fight where you've achieved
link |
the highest of heights for your own personal being
link |
just when you look within yourself
link |
that you're the proudest of,
link |
or maybe it was your most beautiful creation?
link |
Is there something that stands out?
link |
Yeah, there are a few, actually.
link |
Fighting Semishield and a rematch.
link |
Well, the first one was pretty good, too.
link |
But the rematch was, I was suffering,
link |
I had suffered prior, the week prior,
link |
to food poisoning.
link |
And so while my abs are looking all right,
link |
I, in the ring, didn't have the power that I expected to.
link |
And I was struggling in ways,
link |
in some of the grappling with the submission stuff
link |
that I hadn't accounted for.
link |
Just exhaustion or mental exhaustion?
link |
No, I mean, just physical,
link |
I wasn't back up to 100% in terms of just power output.
link |
And Semi was, well, he's always seven foot tall.
link |
But this time he was, the first time I fought him,
link |
he was 260, or 257, or 260 something, something like that.
link |
This time he was like 290.
link |
And so he was a significantly bigger cat.
link |
And he's a big dude.
link |
And I just remember being up against the ropes with him,
link |
changing levels, trying to take him down.
link |
And he's fighting, and he's hippin'.
link |
And I just thought in my head,
link |
there's no fuckin way I'm gonna lose this fight.
link |
There's no way, you are not going to beat me.
link |
It's not gonna happen.
link |
And I armbarred him, the other arm.
link |
Even out of the fact he's like,
link |
man, I really wanted to get you for that,
link |
I wanted to get that match back.
link |
And then you fuckin got my other arm, dick.
link |
And I'm like, eh, dude, I still love you though.
link |
You know, and that.
link |
But the whole time you're like,
link |
so this has to do with the dichotomy
link |
of you're feeling your worst.
link |
And having to overcome.
link |
You're like literally mentally telling yourself
link |
There's no fuckin way I'm gonna lose this fight.
link |
And then there's even my last bare knuckle match.
link |
And getting in the ring and fighting bare knuckle boxing
link |
for the first time.
link |
And just thinking, just being in a great state.
link |
And just looking so forward to seeing.
link |
I mean, I called someone.
link |
I was talking to them the night before.
link |
And I said, yeah, well, I video called you
link |
because this face might not look like this
link |
when I see you next.
link |
And they're just like, ooh, uh, okay.
link |
That's not just like empty trash talk.
link |
That's like a clarity of mind and a seriousness about.
link |
I go, I might die.
link |
Most, pretty high chance of being deformed some way.
link |
I don't really care.
link |
Are you, do you think about,
link |
are you accepting your own death?
link |
Yeah, I, in fact, and that's, in a strange way,
link |
that's partially what makes it so elevated
link |
in terms of my sense of feeling.
link |
By being able to have death at my side, it feels good.
link |
And to be there and to think that this could be the one,
link |
like, why not, you know?
link |
I'm not a religious person at all,
link |
even though I very much have to seem,
link |
it seems to bang on the drum about the usefulness
link |
or understanding the usefulness of religion for people.
link |
But, you know, if I gotta do something,
link |
then yeah, put me in Valhalla, man.
link |
I don't wanna be anywhere else.
link |
Nothing else seems like a good place for me to be.
link |
I wanna fight all day long and feast all night.
link |
You know, it sounds great.
link |
I saw you throw your hat into the ring of Fader Emelianenko.
link |
He got COVID, I guess.
link |
I hope he overcomes it and comes out just as good,
link |
Did I understand correctly that might be his last fight?
link |
Yes, that's my understanding.
link |
And it would be epic as hell.
link |
And it would be epic as hell
link |
because the person that I wanna give my most to
link |
is a person that I respect,
link |
especially at this long career of mine
link |
and getting at this twilight years.
link |
It's like two warriors.
link |
And that's the thing about even this going in there
link |
with the aspect of being with death and all that
link |
is that when that person is in there,
link |
they are my brother with me in this.
link |
And so when you give me your best,
link |
even if I win dominant fashion,
link |
but if you show up and you're as authentic
link |
and being here as I am, then I love you.
link |
And I'm glad for you to be here.
link |
And we're in this together.
link |
And at this point, your loss or my loss or whatever
link |
is no less deserving of veneration than the win.
link |
Like we're here in this.
link |
And so to be in the ring with Führer
link |
and to venerate him in win or defeat,
link |
to be in there with someone like that is, to me,
link |
It's incredible how the ultimate violence
link |
is coupled with love or respect.
link |
And it's weird how the competition in its violent form
link |
is also a veneration of just human connection.
link |
It's also the removal.
link |
I feel like it's the purest, one of the purest ways,
link |
purest, most honest places a person can exist.
link |
That line in Fight Club, you don't know really
link |
who you are until you've been in a fight.
link |
I mean, I believe that.
link |
And I've seen so many examples of people
link |
trying to portray themselves as one thing.
link |
And then in the ring, you see who they really are.
link |
Or even when they're trying to portray themselves
link |
as one thing and they're winning,
link |
the crowd, at times, will see who they really are
link |
and still hate them, you know?
link |
And it's like, well, I said all the good things.
link |
Bro, don't work that way.
link |
Yeah, but speaking of Führer,
link |
if we take you out of the picture,
link |
who are the greatest mixed martial arts fighters
link |
You out of the picture.
link |
As a cop out, to some degree,
link |
I feel like we need a little bit more time, you know?
link |
So, to see how this unfolds.
link |
Because you gotta compare a lot of things.
link |
And I, did I, I think I'm.
link |
I did an interview.
link |
I don't know about centuries.
link |
But that would help if we can keep accurate records
link |
and not allow too much bias to fall in.
link |
Too much propaganda.
link |
The victor's still there, right?
link |
Yeah, but I made an argument.
link |
I was in, I get a, it was a interview
link |
with an MMA outlet of some sort.
link |
And I can't recall who it was.
link |
But, oh, it was an argument about
link |
will the winner of Cain Velasquez versus Steve Amiocik
link |
be the greatest MMA heavyweight of all time?
link |
And I said, fucking no way.
link |
Oh no, it was Cormier Amiocik.
link |
That's what it was.
link |
I said, absolutely not.
link |
And I said, these guys need a bit more time
link |
to see how things go.
link |
And also how things go for some of their opponents.
link |
And like, there's more factors than just this one fight.
link |
And I go, and when you wanna weigh these people,
link |
even if let's say, we'll bring Alistair Overeem
link |
into the end of the equation.
link |
Okay, you judge him on what you know now,
link |
what he's done for you lately, okay?
link |
Which is a very myopic way of doing it.
link |
What has he done over his career?
link |
He was a champion in DREAM.
link |
He, Strike Force, blah, blah, blah.
link |
His overall record.
link |
The entirety of all the different opponents he's fought.
link |
And I just sit back and I go, okay, he's not the UFC champ.
link |
But his accolades, his merits,
link |
in some ways, actually stand up higher
link |
than Cormier's and Amiocik's.
link |
So what about the moments, do you give much value
link |
to the special moments, like the highest heights
link |
you rise to, not in terms of records or the strikes landed,
link |
but just creating a magical moment in a fight?
link |
It doesn't have to be even a championship fight,
link |
but just, Conor McGregor is an example
link |
of somebody who creates a narrative,
link |
who creates a story, who creates a drama,
link |
and a special magic happens, even if it's like, not with.
link |
Myth is greater than reality.
link |
And that is always the case.
link |
And so I understand that so very much,
link |
and it takes an asshole like me to poo poo on your myth.
link |
They at least get you, at the end of the day,
link |
you're not gonna abandon your myth,
link |
but perhaps temper it with the facts and logic.
link |
So you're not a fan of myth?
link |
No, I'm an absolute massive fan of myth.
link |
But you prefer facts and logic.
link |
It's like when I, no, I mean.
link |
I like saying facts and logic, because people,
link |
I also, I am not a materialist in that sense.
link |
I don't think that materialism can solve for everything.
link |
It's not robust enough, I'm sorry.
link |
If facts and logic and, or reason,
link |
as the Enlightenment scholars all thought,
link |
including Marx, was enough for people,
link |
then we would never, we wouldn't have any religions.
link |
We wouldn't have any, like there would be no,
link |
we wouldn't have narratives and myths
link |
and all this kind of stuff.
link |
It would not, it just, I'm sorry, there is no,
link |
there's nothing about history that supports the idea
link |
that rationality will overcome all.
link |
There's something about Ben Shapiro's facts
link |
don't care about your feelings,
link |
that feels to be miss, feels to be missing
link |
something fundamental about human nature.
link |
It's not clear to me exactly what is missing.
link |
To give old Ben a fair shake.
link |
And I don't know Ben Shapiro.
link |
I don't really listen to Ben Shapiro,
link |
not against Ben Shapiro.
link |
I don't, I'm not here to say anything
link |
particularly bad about him.
link |
Although I will say at one time,
link |
Tom Arnold was seemingly trying to pick
link |
an actionable fight with Ben Shapiro.
link |
Or in the. Somewhere, yeah.
link |
And I just, and I actually responded,
link |
I like, and I tried to get him to clarify,
link |
I said, hey, are you saying that you want to fight
link |
Ben Shapiro, that you're looking to actually,
link |
because I was waiting for him to say something
link |
and then I can be like, okay, well,
link |
it's one thing to want to get into a fight with someone.
link |
It's another thing to go pick on a little tiny,
link |
you know, guy like Ben, who's much smaller than you
link |
and doesn't train or whatever, but you know,
link |
if it's not me, I can find someone your size
link |
and you can go fight him.
link |
You know, don't be a, basically,
link |
don't be a bully piece of shit.
link |
Yeah. You know, which by the way,
link |
Tom Arnold, you are a mental midget.
link |
You are never going to be able to compete
link |
even with Ben Shapiro in an argument
link |
on any level about anything.
link |
Oh, intellectual argument.
link |
Yeah, intellectual argument.
link |
Maybe you can scream louder than him, but whatever.
link |
But nevertheless, in the discussion of greatness in fighting.
link |
I think you need to look at some of the numbers.
link |
You need to look at some of the numbers.
link |
And there's the magic.
link |
There is some context also in that,
link |
where did Alistair Overeem fight?
link |
Oh, he fought in Pride, where you could soccer kick people
link |
and stomp their head and this and that.
link |
And so the game environment is actually different too.
link |
There's more uncertainty, there's more chaos in Pride,
link |
Go back a little further and go like,
link |
what about the guys that used to,
link |
like Dan Severn fought bare knuckle,
link |
head butts, the whole nine.
link |
You beat Dan Severn, right?
link |
I did beat Dan Severn.
link |
That was killing an idol, so to speak.
link |
Although I didn't really kill him because I still love him.
link |
He's still an, I mean, he's still responsible
link |
for inspiration along this whole pathway.
link |
It's meeting your God and then putting a knife in it,
link |
Realizing they're human and then bringing them down
link |
Exactly, but also there's a huge misconception there
link |
and that is that I could bring,
link |
maybe I could bring Dan Severn down to my level,
link |
but I couldn't bring his mustache down to my level.
link |
It is of mythic proportions and...
link |
Greater than yours.
link |
Your facial hair is greater than yours.
link |
My facial hair is creating its own legacy,
link |
but it is not Dan Severn mustache level
link |
or now Don Fry mustache.
link |
So Don Fry mustache, Dan Severn mustache.
link |
Now you have like Shia versus Sunni.
link |
You think there'll be a Karl Marx painting
link |
of Josh Barnett one day with the beard
link |
and is that basically what you're trying to say?
link |
I will actually comb my hair, unlike Marx, but...
link |
Chaos has a charm to it.
link |
I mean, we all thought Doc Brown in Back to the Future
link |
was quite charming.
link |
You have to throw that into the calculation
link |
where they fought.
link |
This is the interesting thing.
link |
And the rules that they fought under.
link |
Some guy like Eerov Chanchin won a 32 man tournament
link |
or something like that.
link |
Steepa and Daniel Cormier are awesome
link |
and they will for sure be revered for their careers.
link |
Can you say that they're particularly even better overall
link |
than Eerov Chanchin?
link |
Well, maybe one of them could have beat them.
link |
Maybe one of them wouldn't have.
link |
Maybe Eerov would have got them
link |
with the knuckles right away.
link |
Well, maybe if they fought them in pride,
link |
they wouldn't have won.
link |
Maybe if they fought them bare knuckle, they wouldn't won.
link |
And there's something about the chaos,
link |
like do you put Royce Gracie in the top 10?
link |
There's something about...
link |
Top 10 of all time in terms of competitors is capable.
link |
I'd have to think about that.
link |
Maybe not, but I put Royce Gracie as like pyramid level.
link |
Like, wow, dude, what an amazing man.
link |
Yeah, he's so important.
link |
Absolutely, incredibly important.
link |
But there's something about stepping into,
link |
like fighting another human being
link |
under all the uncertainty that the early UFCs had.
link |
I mean, you don't know.
link |
What is going to happen?
link |
And coupled that with not much money.
link |
So the purity of it too.
link |
There's something about money.
link |
I mean, I guess it's shit for that cat post world,
link |
but that ruins the purity of the violence.
link |
Yeah, people given the opportunity for...
link |
The bigger things get, the more...
link |
I love the fact that fighting has opened up
link |
to such a degree that the career business side of it,
link |
because I absolutely distinctly separate the two.
link |
The business side of it has opened up
link |
to give me far more possibilities,
link |
opened way more doors for me than I ever intended it to.
link |
Whereas the athlete side of things has,
link |
if anything, just gotten substantially worse, I would say.
link |
And some of this is due to the nature of all games
link |
will be learned, will be gamed
link |
without even the rules being broken.
link |
And once that's figured out, you need to make an adjustment.
link |
No adjustments have been made.
link |
So the game just appears to be the same game
link |
over and over and over and over and over again
link |
on ESPN+, on whatever, on whatever, on whatever.
link |
It doesn't really matter which night you watch.
link |
It's the same game constantly.
link |
And that's not because the athletes are worse or better.
link |
It's because they have had that game structure long enough
link |
that they figured out what do you do
link |
to be the most successful at it?
link |
What is the highest percentage way of approaching it,
link |
essentially, even if you're not thinking of percentages?
link |
If we take a step back, it's really fascinating
link |
to think about the early UFCs.
link |
Did you fight Dan Severn in the UFC?
link |
I fought him in Super Brawl.
link |
Super Brawl, so that was in the early, early days,
link |
your undefeated... 2000.
link |
What were those early days, let's say,
link |
of mixed martial arts like?
link |
Let me tell you the day of high adventure.
link |
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
link |
It was so much fun.
link |
And it made you feel absolutely like you were a part of a novel,
link |
I mean, I would love to transcribe my experiences
link |
as what I consider a second generation MMA athlete,
link |
except I'm way too sensitive to anybody's personal,
link |
any things that are not even to...
link |
I'm not a gossipy person.
link |
I really do believe that small people talk about others.
link |
Big people talk about ideas.
link |
But there's just some stories that you can't tell
link |
without telling the whole story.
link |
And there are so many amazing stories that could be told.
link |
People being at their best, people being at their worst.
link |
Yeah, the whole niche of gossip.
link |
Is there something you could speak to the chaos of the time?
link |
Well, okay, so we at AMC got connected to somebody
link |
that was throwing an event in Nampa, Idaho,
link |
and we all piled into this.
link |
And Matt Humes, Subaru Wagon, and we jammed out.
link |
And we left Kirkland and we headed over to Idaho,
link |
only to find out that there was nothing really put in place.
link |
Nothing really put in place, it was absolute disrepair and chaos.
link |
They didn't have a rain, they didn't have this.
link |
It was such a bullshit adventure.
link |
But we were like, well, there's hardly anywhere to fight.
link |
It's tough to find these opportunities.
link |
So, okay, well, how about this?
link |
Whoever is here to fight and is willing,
link |
all right, well, since there's no venue, there's no this,
link |
whatever, we all got gloves, we got mouthpieces,
link |
we'll just go to the park, as long as we still get paid.
link |
And so folks were kind of like, I don't know about that.
link |
The guy I was gonna fight was, he finally gets information
link |
on who I actually am, and I was undefeated at the time.
link |
I think I had fought Super Brawl 13
link |
and already won that tournament.
link |
And so he's like, yeah, I had no clue.
link |
I'm so glad we didn't fight, you would have murdered me.
link |
And eventually Matt had to strong arm the guy
link |
and get our money that we were supposed to all get
link |
And because his whole position was,
link |
well, there ain't no fucking way,
link |
we drove all the way out here for free.
link |
This is on you, you fucked this up, not my problem.
link |
But what is my problem is the lack of cash in my account.
link |
So fix it, or me fighting my first organized fight
link |
against an AMC guy on 11 days notice
link |
through a connection to an old wrestling coach I had.
link |
And I just gathered up with all my old martial arts instructor
link |
that I had worked with and we grappled in his apartment.
link |
We did tie pads in the park.
link |
I ran a couple miles every day and then,
link |
all right, boom, show it up.
link |
Won my fight by front choke in two minutes.
link |
And then Matt goes, okay, well, hey, you did really great.
link |
We'd like you to come back and fight again in the summer.
link |
What do you think?
link |
Okay, go back off the university.
link |
And then I think, hmm, well, that fight didn't go exactly
link |
as how I wanted it to.
link |
So I gotta find a way to get more experience.
link |
I would literally fight people in the university,
link |
like rec center on the old wrestling mats,
link |
as they didn't know I had a wrestling team.
link |
I would find anyone doing martial arts,
link |
anyone talking about getting into street fights,
link |
anyone, whatever, and just basically go,
link |
oh, you ever watch UFC?
link |
Yeah, yeah, that stuff's cool.
link |
What do you think?
link |
Oh, man, I'm super into it, man, it's badass.
link |
So would you wanna fight?
link |
Would you wanna fight? I mean, it was way easier picking fights
link |
than it was, you know, getting a girlfriend.
link |
So I just, you know, path least resistance.
link |
I think it might be useful for us
link |
to get some advice from you.
link |
Because you've accomplished,
link |
for the journey of a martial artist first,
link |
if you accomplish some of the greatest accolades
link |
there is in the sport, if somebody who's starting out now,
link |
or early on in their journey, what advice would you give
link |
on how to become a martial artist, catch wrestler, a fighter?
link |
Well, I mean, really what it comes down to
link |
is do it because you love it.
link |
Do it for that reason and that reason alone.
link |
Most people that get into this
link |
and attempt to make any sort of professional inroads with it,
link |
you are not going to be the world champion.
link |
You probably will never even fight for a belt
link |
and you're probably not going to net make money at this.
link |
So don't do it for those reasons.
link |
Do it for the reason of the passion.
link |
Do it for the reason to be the absolute best
link |
that you can be, whatever that ends up being.
link |
You might at best only be mediocre,
link |
but you won't even be mediocre if you don't do it
link |
like you really mean it.
link |
The passion, look, where is the kernel of the passion,
link |
would you say, is it in the learning process itself,
link |
I think it really depends on the person, right?
link |
I mean, there's some people that really love the fact of,
link |
they feel like they're growing, right?
link |
Well to power, you're growing, growing stronger,
link |
The idea of eliminating weakness.
link |
So, to which I'll quickly define weakness
link |
as just like things that weaken you,
link |
not like being physically weak.
link |
Sure, you could call that weakness,
link |
but maybe you're not meant to be a super strong guy.
link |
But choosing to be weak is really a different story
link |
other than just like,
link |
we're all deficient in some way or another.
link |
So that's neither here nor there.
link |
It's a matter of what you decide to do with it.
link |
And that's different from strength and weakness,
link |
at least the way I look at it.
link |
Like strength is choosing,
link |
regardless of the difficulty, to make improvements.
link |
Strength is even choosing to acknowledge that you do lack.
link |
And accept it and then make a decision what to do with it.
link |
Yeah, but there's also, there's a bunch of stuff
link |
that just like you said, it's what you're drawn to.
link |
There's an honesty to just grappling
link |
that it seems more real than anything else you can do.
link |
Sure, well and also.
link |
And that's where the passion and love can come from.
link |
Yeah, I mean, being in an environment, hopefully,
link |
that is as true as possible, would be a starter.
link |
So, it's hard to be a bullshit person
link |
when you're literally trying to tear each other's arms off.
link |
You know, you really sort of see who somebody is.
link |
I also feel like you really get to see somebody who,
link |
there are a couple instances where you really see
link |
who people are on the mats and in the bedroom.
link |
So, even the aspect of self betterment,
link |
growth along a path.
link |
I mean, hell, that's part of the divisive capture
link |
for martial arts as a business.
link |
Give you a belt, put a stripe on your belt.
link |
Each of these iterations cost 20 bucks.
link |
But there's a benefit to that too.
link |
I really enjoyed the progression of belts.
link |
You know, a bit of it is OCD or whatever,
link |
but you're enjoying the recognition, your growth
link |
when you feel, when you're made to feel,
link |
when I think genuinely you do earn it.
link |
It makes complete sense to me.
link |
It just, it's anything that is, has a goodness
link |
in its purity can also have a detriment in its perversion.
link |
And there's a value to competition.
link |
I've gotten some shit in the past for saying this.
link |
I've gotten the most value in giving everything I have
link |
to try to win and lose.
link |
So like, I've gotten, I remember most of the matches
link |
I've lost and I think that's what I've gotten the most
link |
from the sport is losing.
link |
I mean, if you really think about it,
link |
what makes you wanna actually, in detail,
link |
go over what happened?
link |
Oh, it's the time when you didn't get what you wanted.
link |
It's a time when you gave it everything you had
link |
and you came up short.
link |
Or failed miserably.
link |
Especially if you're embarrassed in some way.
link |
It's usually the only time people, again, calamity,
link |
is the impetus for them to actually turn around
link |
and go, who the fuck am I?
link |
What am I doing and why am I doing it?
link |
Instead of naturally going, hmm, okay, well I won.
link |
What was it the cause?
link |
And so I think part of my success is that when I win,
link |
When I lose, I'm brutal.
link |
And there is no in between.
link |
So I remember losing the rematch against Noguera.
link |
And I still feel like it was a bullshit call.
link |
I feel like I won that fight.
link |
But my opinion is that, and this even came up,
link |
so one of the coaches in the back was like,
link |
oh, you did great, don't feel bad, blah, blah, blah, blah.
link |
And I go, no, fuck that.
link |
I didn't finish him.
link |
I allowed the referees to make a judge,
link |
a decision that I think is incorrect and bad,
link |
but that came because I didn't take him out.
link |
Fuck that, no, no.
link |
He won, he's gonna get more money,
link |
he's gonna get more recognition,
link |
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
link |
I accept all this and it's not okay.
link |
And I need to, when I get a chance to fight him again,
link |
I gotta figure out how to take this guy out.
link |
I don't wanna say forever.
link |
I'm not trying to put him six feet underground.
link |
Well, when I fight, yes I am.
link |
But the point being, I need to find a way to,
link |
this is definitive.
link |
You don't get to say shit about it
link |
because I'm the only one who can stand right now.
link |
That's the way it's gotta be.
link |
Anything less than that is not good enough.
link |
And even if I achieve that, then I gotta figure out,
link |
okay, it's not a given.
link |
How did I get to this point?
link |
How did I make that happen?
link |
Was it simply because of his own mistakes
link |
or was it because of my successful action?
link |
So it's always self critical.
link |
Always, constantly.
link |
I read this somewhere.
link |
You mentioned Blade Runner is a favorite.
link |
Number one of all time, the final cut.
link |
So you would say Blade Runner
link |
is the greatest movie of all time.
link |
It's one of the greatest movies of all time.
link |
And it is my number.
link |
What's in the top?
link |
My top five, Blade Runner, final cut.
link |
This is the original Blade Runner.
link |
And I used to own, on tape, the original.
link |
The original cut, yeah.
link |
And I had the director's cut on DVD.
link |
Why Blade Runner, by the way?
link |
What connects you to it?
link |
As a kid, I just thought it was so cool.
link |
There was something about it that really spoke to me.
link |
The whole cyberpunk landscapes
link |
and this guy chasing down rogue androids, replicants,
link |
Is it just the entire cyberpunk universe
link |
or is it just robots as well?
link |
No, I mean, the cyberpunk universe is part of it.
link |
On the surface, I've always tended towards
link |
dark subject matter.
link |
Things that are of the dark, so to speak,
link |
are things that I've always been gravitated towards.
link |
I think maybe part of it is that things that are darker
link |
are more accepting and more upfront with death.
link |
And perhaps, I think, maybe that is what was...
link |
Yeah, somehow more honest, perhaps.
link |
I mean, there's also the aspect of rebelliousness, usually.
link |
Like, I was never one to wanna just do
link |
what somebody told me to do, you know?
link |
I'm not sitting around trying to always be
link |
such a radical individual that I can't take orders.
link |
No, in fact, I'm more than willing to take orders
link |
from somebody that I feel is competent and has merit
link |
and reason behind what they're doing
link |
and makes like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
link |
Not only can I take orders,
link |
I will help you achieve whatever it is
link |
if I think it's worthwhile, even at my own expense.
link |
But to get to that point is a rarity.
link |
Like, it's just not a given.
link |
And so you can even imagine being a grade school teacher
link |
and this kid doesn't respect you
link |
and he doesn't really think you're that smart.
link |
They don't really appreciate that.
link |
So cyberpunk is number one.
link |
What else is there?
link |
Cyberpunk is kind of number one.
link |
It's an environment I love, but at the same time,
link |
Conan the Barbarian by John Milius
link |
is one of my favorite films of all time.
link |
And you know, that's such a pure film in a way.
link |
Like, the motivations are pure.
link |
They're very easy to follow, but not lacking in depth.
link |
You know, it's not just explosions and teal and orange.
link |
It's more on the human condition and I love it.
link |
And it's shot incredibly well.
link |
It's got an incredible soundtrack.
link |
Yeah, I fucking love it.
link |
But with Blade Runner also in a deeper sense,
link |
you know, again, the human condition.
link |
You know, you start seeing like, what is being?
link |
What is being human?
link |
You know, how does this relate to if you can make it
link |
and you can tell it what to do,
link |
at what point is it like you should or you shouldn't?
link |
You know, why do you get to determine what's alive
link |
What's a life that should be allowed to live and what isn't?
link |
And what would be the strain of being Roy Batty
link |
and seeing all these incredible moments
link |
that with his passing will no longer exist?
link |
Especially if he hasn't had a chance
link |
to put that flame into another torch, so to speak.
link |
If he hasn't written them down,
link |
if he hasn't passed them down to somebody else.
link |
Gone like tears in the rain.
link |
Like tears in the rain, that scene is incredible.
link |
But it's funny, because those two universes
link |
are very different, Conan and the Barbarian and Cyberpunk.
link |
Is there, that makes me curious about
link |
what else might be in the list at the top.
link |
Well, let me think.
link |
Do you like the Godfather type of universe?
link |
No, no, I mean, I'm sure the Godfather,
link |
I've never actually even watched the whole Godfather.
link |
No, but also like, was it Casino, Goodfellas?
link |
Goodfellas is a good movie, but no, that's not in my top.
link |
It's a good flick, but it doesn't really do it for me.
link |
If people really wanna get into this a little more,
link |
I did make a list of 100 of my favorite movies
link |
on my Facebook fan page.
link |
Do you remember what like, some of the top.
link |
Oh yeah, like Blazing Saddles is on there,
link |
Rage of the Lost Ark,
link |
Valhalla Rising by Nicholas from Winding Refn,
link |
Maniac by William Lustig.
link |
It's a 1980 gnarly video nasty horror movie
link |
about a serial killer who murders women and scalps them.
link |
And it's gnarly as hell and very brutal and very bleak
link |
and very, I mean, it's the kind of thing
link |
that like a lot of people would have
link |
a real hard time watching.
link |
But one, again, I like things that are dark,
link |
but two, I thought the performances were fantastic
link |
in this film and they really got out,
link |
I think what the underlying thing was,
link |
and it was a guy who was basically just like run amok
link |
by the overbearing mother, Jungian archetype.
link |
And it, she was, she imparted her insanity into him.
link |
And he, but yet there is this aspect you could see
link |
of him wanting to try and actually be able
link |
to be in the world and have love
link |
and have a feminine companionship
link |
to go with his masculine aspect.
link |
But he had no way of understanding
link |
how to really make that happen.
link |
And he had a complete negative connotation to the feminine.
link |
So his struggle with, and there's a little part
link |
in the movie where he somehow comes across
link |
this model or something, and they actually,
link |
he starts to feel like maybe he might be able
link |
to actually have a relationship with somebody
link |
and it goes somewhere.
link |
But yeah, even the Elijah Wood remake I felt was
link |
really well done and captured most of the essence
link |
of what the movie was about.
link |
But I still feel like the original
link |
by William Lustig is the best.
link |
What's the greatest love movie of all time?
link |
Greatest love movie of all time.
link |
So like something where love is, I mean,
link |
I suppose love underlies most of these movies,
link |
and especially like The Dark.
link |
I mean hell, Takashi Miike's films are all about family
link |
of all things, as bonkers as those movies are.
link |
They, the general theme is family almost entirely
link |
in all of his films.
link |
Yeah, there's very, I mean, even you can argue later on.
link |
Yeah, it's everywhere.
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Greatest love film of all time.
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That's, I mean, is Excalibur a film about love?
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What's Excalibur about?
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Excalibur is about Arthur becoming king of the Britains
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and his love of his country and his love of Guinevere.
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But eventually, yeah, it becomes more of about
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the necessity for the king to love,
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to hold Excalibur, to stay, to realize that while,
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if you're the king, you can love your wife
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and you can love your best friend,
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and they may fuck each other behind your back
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and as they fall in love too.
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But at the end of the day, your responsibility,
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your love has to be to the country and everyone else first
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and not your own personal wants,
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which, you know, made a much more interesting story
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when you have Carmen Berenna and oh, oh, what is that one?
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It's a German opera, but you know, and horses and slow mo
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and sword fights and an epic death scene
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between Arthur and his son.
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Okay, now I definitely have to watch it
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and Evan watched it and embarrassed me.
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It is John Boorman's second film in Hollywood,
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his first one being Point Blank with Lee Marvin,
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which is also on top, one of the upper echelon movies
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on my list, derived from a book called The Outfit by,
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I forget, but Darwin Cook, the comic illustrator,
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Donald Westlake wrote, so Darwin Cook does an amazing
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comic book send up of Darwin Cook's novels
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and they are fucking incredible.
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So anyways, but the Point Blank with Lee Marvin,
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you know, it's a man driven by purpose, revenge,
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but also by like really pure motivations.
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He wants his money, he was betrayed and he wants his cash
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because this is what he agreed to do the thing for
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and this is, which also is part of the reason
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why I like No Country for Old Men so much,
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which I felt was a great movie, even better book,
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but I remember talking to my friend and I go,
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you know, Anton Chigurh is the most pure human being
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in that whole book.
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Well, that guy's the villain.
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I go, ha ha, is he evil?
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He's the one, he lies to no one.
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He does everything he says he will do.
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He always follows his word and on the rare occasion,
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he allows fate to make a decision as he figures like,
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well, whatever all led us to here will lead us
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one way or the other and if we're at this crossroads,
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what, how is there any better or worse way
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than to do it over a coin flip?
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And so that whole scene where the guy's going,
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well, what am I putting up?
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And he goes, everything, you've been putting it up
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every day of your life and that's true.
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Everything we do is a decision, is a calling, is a choice.
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And then it bummed me out that they reduced
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the last interaction between Chigurh
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and What's His Face's wife and he finally finds her
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and she's like, you don't have to do this.
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I mean, he's like, yes, yes, I do.
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This is the way it is.
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You can think that your life could've turned out
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any sort of way, you could've done this,
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you could've done that, but the reality is
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this is the way your life is
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and it's the way it was always going to be.
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You know, the fact that I'm here is the end of it
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Yeah, it's funny, if you're honest, this with dark movies
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reveal that the villains are the purest of humans
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and can teach us the most profound lessons
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and that's certainly an example of it.
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What do you think the big ridiculous
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last philosophical question, what do you think
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is the meaning of this whole thing we've got going on
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of life and existence on Earth from your individual
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perspective but the entirety of the human species?
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Life, the universe and everything?
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We could just leave it at that.
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You knew exactly where I was going.
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Josh, I love you very much.
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You've been a huge inspiration.
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I have a friend who she said,
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do you know Lex Friedman?
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Have you gone on Lex's content?
link |
And I go, yes, I know Lex Friedman is.
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I've sadly been way too long in contact
link |
without making it happen for too long
link |
and yes, I will 100%, I even cut a shirt
link |
at the beginning of the pandemic
link |
to make my own little mask at one point
link |
due to the Lex process and hello, I was like,
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I can't really hear you but I'm demonstrating.
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Just let's see it through but this has been a blast.
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And next time, next time let's drink
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some of the Warbringer whiskey.
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I will bring some Warmaster.
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I wasn't sure if you were, if you imbibed at all in spirits.
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100%, it felt a little weird to do it early on
link |
in the morning, especially because I'm flying out there.
link |
I mean, I've had some wonderful morning whiskey at times.
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It, now that you've mentioned it, it doesn't at all.
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So next time let's make sure what Joe Organ calls
link |
the adult beverages, let's make sure we indulge.
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I have zero reservations for doing such a thing.
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Josh, thanks for talking to me.
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Thanks for listening to this conversation
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with Josh Barnett and thank you to our sponsors.
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Click the sponsor links to get a discount
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and to support this podcast.
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And now let me leave you with some words
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from Sun Tzu in the art of war.
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The Supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy
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Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.