The following is a conversation with Yannis Papas, a comedian who cohosted the podcast

History Hyenas that I came across when I was researching the Battle of Crete from World War II.

He and his cohosts were hilarious in their rants about history and about life. The chemistry they

have is probably the best of any cohosted comedy podcast or even podcast in general

that I've ever heard. As of a few weeks ago, unfortunately, History Hyenas is no more,

at least for now, because all good things must come to an end. But Yannis hosts a new podcast

called Long Days with Yannis Papas, plus he has a comedy special on YouTube for free.

Quick mention of our sponsors, Wine Access, Blinkist, Magic Spoon, and Indeed. Check them out

in the description to support the podcast. As a side note, let me say that some of you

have noticed that I have not spoken with too many computer scientists, physicists, biologists,

or engineers recently. The reason has to do mostly with the risk aversion of many of these folks

in the time of COVID, especially as they get closer to taking the vaccine. I'm tested several times

a week and still some people are just more willing than others to have an in person conversation in

these times. I only do these podcasts in person because I look for the possibility of a genuine

human connection. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot for that. Maybe it's silly, but I look for the

magic that Charles Bukowski writes about in his poem, Nirvana, the magic that is somehow in the air

on those rare occasions when two people meet, talk, and you notice that while on the surface,

you may be worlds apart, you're still somehow woven from the same fabric. I've had that with

many guests. Jim Keller comes to mind, but many others as well. I'm an AI person. Machine learning,

robotics, computer science is my passion. Trust me, I can't wait to be having more technical

conversations again, but I will also continue to mix in comedians, musicians, historians, and of

course, wise all seeing sages like Yanis Papas and Tim Dillon, just to keep it as Tim likes to say

fun. This is the Lex Friedman podcast, and here is my conversation with Yanis Papas.

You've cohosted until recently an amazing history comedy podcast called The History Hyenas.

So you're a bit of a student of history. Yeah, an F student of history.

F student. Yeah. Okay, I thought it was more like a D minus.

D minus, yeah. Okay. Still got to repeat the grade if you get all D minuses. I actually had a 0.67

GPA average my freshman year and I had to do it again. This podcast is going to be the spectrum

of human intelligence. It runs the gamut from there to here. So this is going to set the low

bar. I'm barely sliding into human. I'm closer to chimp. And I bring that up that you're also friends

with the great, the powerful Tim Dillon. So let's talk about power and the corrupting effects of

power. Sometimes I look at Tim Dillon as he grows in power. I thought you meant he's in size.

Size, I think they're correlated. Yeah, I saw him. I've been in Austin a couple of days. I saw him

once. We had eight meals in one day. Eight meals. Yeah. So I feel like I've been here longer than

I have just because of the meals with Dylan. Kid likes biscuits and barbecue. Okay. So he's more

like, see, I was imagining Putin or something like that. He's more like the North Korean dictator.

They get along great those two. Yeah. I mean, Tim Dillon and King John Ohm would be like,

they could make like a buddy cop movie. They would get along like Lethal Weapon. That would be a good

pitch movie. Great podcast. Yeah, that would be a great podcast. Yeah. So much to talk about. So

many similar ideas about the world. So what do you think the world would look like if Tim Dillon

was given absolute power? He seems like a person that's an interesting study of the corrupting

effects of power. Yeah, you don't want to give him power. I don't even want him wearing a suit.

Like I want a guy who's as thoughtful and educated as you wearing a suit.

Suits corrupt you. You put that suit on, you start feeling that power. Definitely.

It's like, you know, yeah, I don't even want Tim Dillon in his suit. Power would,

he would kill people. He'd get rid of anything that he deemed. I mean, if you made a lobster roll

and it wasn't up to Tim Dillon's standard, he would have you executed. The entire restaurant

staff is just gone. He would have people below his food standard execute. There'd be programs,

not of people who are political dissidents, but of people who don't meet his food standard. His

cuisine standard is high and he's usually right. Do you think power does corrupt people? Yes. Like

one of the reasons we mentioned offline Joe Rogan, he's been an inspiration to me because he gets,

he gets, if you get power, just more famous and famous. And yes, probably a bit of power in terms

of influence. And he's still pretty much the same guy. I'm not sure that's going to be true

for everybody. Do you ever think, ask yourself for that question? Yeah, he's a rare breed.

He's like a benign king. I've, I've, most people I meet who are like really powerful are like

douchebags and that's how they got there. I think that's psychopaths have the advantage because

they don't have feelings. And Joe's a rare example. He's just a powerhouse of will. And he, I do think

about that. Yeah, I think I should be stopped right now. Just stop me right now because yeah,

power for me, I would, when people get power, they indulge. I don't think it changes anyone. It

just reveals your darkest. You know, people aren't supposed to have anything they want. You got to

be able to struggle for everything. So I would have a harem. I'd be like a Roman dictator. Yeah,

I'd be like a Roman emperor. I mean, people call them emperors. They were dictators. The most

effective leaders are dictators. I hope we get back to that. Democracy hasn't worked. I'm ready

for a succession of Caesars and I want to start with AOC. That's true. Dictators get the job done.

They do. They do. At a certain point you got, that's why social workers can only get you so far.

You need action. I was a social worker for five years and all you do is ask about medications and

you don't solve anything. I do ask myself of that because I'm more in the tech space of constructing

systems that prevent me from being corrupt because right now I'm all about love and all

about those kinds of things. But I wonder, you said it just reveals the darkness. The problem

is we might not be aware of our own darkness. I have the same feeling about money actually. I've

been avoiding thinking about money, basically constructing my moral system, my moral compass

around money. At the moment I feel a little too happy about the idea of owning some cool shiny

thing. I started to think, okay, I'm not going to own that shiny thing because I'm afraid of the

slippery slope of it. You ever think about that kind of stuff? Yeah. The funny thing about the

capitalist system is it puts sort of profit motive above beauty. You notice when you see

certain cities, especially in the old days where buildings used to be beautiful and now they're

just like boxes. They throw a kid up and it's just for all profit margin. It's the illusion of

permanence that it's like, oh, let me get as much money as I can. You're like, yeah. My dad used to

say, everyone, it's a cliche, but you can't take it with you. It's comical to me that we're here

trying to get this infinite amount. It's like Sisyphus. We're all trying to climb this hill,

but I mean, rock's going to fall on us. I think that's a healthy outlook. Yeah.

My dad always used to say before he passed, he would say you have to survive not only physically,

but you have to survive emotionally. I think a lot of people forget about the emotional part

of survival. You have to survive emotionally and humor and understanding reality in its

objective context helps with that. Accepting reality as this ephemeral thing that you're

in really just a part of, but not as significant as your ego wants you to believe is a start.

That's a good foundation for surviving emotionally. What does that mean? Surviving emotionally?

Like what's an ideal life look like for you? You can't take things too seriously. You can't

because they're ephemeral. They're not permanent. Nothing's permanent. Your bank account's not

permanent. Your problems aren't permanent. Nothing's permanent. Your abilities aren't permanent.

Your memory is not permanent. Your dick getting hard is not permanent. Can I curse on this or

just go out to dinner? Yeah. You can curse to your heart's content. Okay. Yeah. I mean,

gender's not even permanent anymore. I think I'm going to change maybe and live my second half

as another gender just to have, I'm bored with this gender. So it's like nothing is permanent.

And so accepting that emotionally is a good start to being more flexible. You got to be

flexible. Like my dad used to say, anything too stiff snaps. You got to, you know, it's a cliche

and people have said it a bunch of different ways, but Bruce Lee's right, man. Be water. Be water.

Yeah. Bukowski has this quote about love that love is a fog that fades with the first light

of reality. So he's a romantic, that guy. But that even love is a thing that just doesn't last very

long. No. You know, some people would disagree with that. Maybe morphs, like water. It changes,

right? It might not be, it might not be this, because he's mostly just loved like prostitutes,

I think. So it was kind of love. Yeah. No demand, no responsibilities. Yeah. It's a financial

transaction. Yeah. F Fhermore was ever, you mentioned your dad. He passed away two, a year

and a half ago. What did you learn from him? I love my dad. My dad, I would say my dad was my

hero. He was just my dad really embodied those values. And I think for better or worse, it's

made me who I am. My dad was a painter. He was a lawyer. He was a lieutenant in the military.

He was New Yorker. New Yorker born in Brad Brooklyn. His dad, his dad, you know, surprise owned a

diner. So that's sort of the Greek passport. That's the immigration passport for Greeks

into America. And yeah, my dad played football. He just, my dad did what he wanted. He lived

as he wanted at all costs. And I think I got that from him for better or worse. I think it's hurt me

in my pursuits. If you consider money and fame to be paramount, you know, I've always done what I

wanted. If I stopped wanting to do it, I just stopped doing it. And I think I got that from my dad.

So maybe for better or worse, that's what I learned from him. But that's a real currency,

you know, feeling like you're in love with what you're doing when you're doing it.

Maybe perhaps that's worth more than money. I don't know. You miss him? Yeah, every day. Every

day. But I'm happy that he got 91 years. It's very rare. I mean, he smoked for 60 years.

Talk about like a guy who was an outlier. I mean, he smoked like 60 years, like packs. I mean,

and he didn't die from that. He died. He had prostate cancer, which is the way men should go.

Your dick should give out. It should start from the dick. I mean, we focus so much of our life

on the dick that that's the way that's a successful life. And that's why every man eventually gets

prostate cancer, because that is the universe's way of saying like, the thing you focused on the

most is you put the most energy into is the thing that's spent. And it's going to your rotting is

going to start there. So that's a successful life. And it just spread all over his body. And he slowly

died. I was with him when he died. And that meant a lot to me because me and my brother weren't

talking at the time because we're Greeks. We're talking again. But that's how it is.

You got a few brothers, right? I got two brothers. But I wanted to make sure I was with him

when he died. And I got lucky and I was in the room with him when he died.

You were in the room with your brother and you weren't?

No, my brother wasn't there. We were kind of doing shifts. I was I was there. I spent the night the

dad my the night my dad died. He died in the early in the morning. And I heard the death

right at the last breath. And it was just I think it was he knew I was there. And I think that just

probably meant something to him. And I'm just glad I was there.

Does that make you sad that life is ephemeral, like you said?

Yeah, that you die. Yeah.

What do you think about your own death? Do you meditate on that?

I think it I think the actual if there is a point to life, it's to

hopefully not fear death to accept reality. I think that's important. I think so much goes

awry in the human condition when we lose touch with reality. Every political system that's led

to mass murder and everything, I think because it's because the the tenants of those political

philosophies ended up being utopian. They were detached from reality, detached from nature.

And so I think it's it's very important to accept and acknowledge your own mortality.

I think it's the foundation for what makes a good person, a moral person, a contributing

member of society, because it's true. True things should be the foundation of all things.

If what you believe is based on illusion, you're going to end up doing destruction.

Whether that destruction is on a scale of one to 10, you are going to be

destructive because it's not real. It's a fantasy. It doesn't exist.

See, the thing is the truth is about I don't think you can ever reach truth. Truth is about

like constantly digging and to push back on your idea that you should accept death.

I think the more honest response to death, so the least honest is to run away from it,

create illusions that help you imagine like there's not a death. The next is to accept it,

but the real honest one is to fear it because I I mean, I'm with Ernest Becker as a philosopher.

I wrote a book called Denial of Death. He says that much of the human condition is based in

the fear of mortality. That's the creative force of the human energy. Like Freud said,

do you want to sleep with your mother? He said, no, that's not what motivates you.

Maybe his mom wasn't hot though, I mean, or he wasn't Greek because apparently at a poll,

we found that all things go to bad. Yeah.

Thanks. Thanks for that. Thanks. I just don't know if his mom was a looker or not. I mean,

I have to Google it. All right. Yeah.

I'll look up on Google images. Yeah. No, but I think the honest, as he says,

the thing that we run away from is that there's a terror. He calls it like terror. There's

something called terror management theory that's some philosophers after him followed on that

we're basically trying to run away from this fear and acceptance is actually creating an

illusion for yourself. Like you can actually accept something as terrifying as this. So

he's more with the Stoics. The Stoics constantly meditate on their death. I mean, they, what does

that mean? I mean, it's kind of, you know, acceptance of death isn't a thing you do like

on a Monday and then you're done. It's a thing you constantly have to meditate on, like reminding

yourself, like this ride is over. It could be over today. And that's something you're,

if you think about every single day, it gives you an appreciation of Woody Allen movies,

at least. It gives you appreciation of basically everything, including Woody Allen movies, which

shows you how deep your appreciation for life could be. I've actually haven't been following

much of what Woody Allen's, but apparently he's been a troublemaker from most of his life.

He's, yeah, I mean, you know, he's caused a little bit of strife. He's left a little, yeah, he's

left a little confusion in his wake, for sure. But I mean, you know, that's another one, separate

the art from the artist. He's got, I mean, the guys will go down in history as the greatest.

He's made, I mean, a movie a year and they're all, you can always find something good about

each movie, like the dialogue or whatever. I love what you're saying. It's interesting,

but the only thing I would say to push back a little bit, since we're playing a little table

tennis here, is I don't know if it's a choice to fear death. That's more of an, it seems more

instinctual. It seems like something that nature wants you to do, because I've been in positions

where I thought I was going to die, like I've been shot and I had those moments. And then nature

also kicks in an instinct, which is acceptance, where you kind of, I don't know, it's a chemical

release or whatever. I don't know. We're robots, basically. So some sort of chemical is released

that protects you, but there is an acceptance. I don't know how much was a conscious choice,

probably very little. And that's the point I'm making is it's instinctual. We don't really

have a choice in fearing death. Otherwise, there would be no progression. We wouldn't,

all life seems to want to survive, not by choice, but by instinct.

So he argues that the fear is not the instinctual, it's not the animalistic stuff. That's the thing

that makes us special. What humans are able to do is to have a knowledge that we're going to

die one day. Animals don't have that. Animals fear is instinctual. It's like, holy shit,

what's that sound over there? He says we're actually able to contemplate the fact that this

ride ends. And that kind of cognitive construct is difficult for us to deal with. What the hell

does that mean? Just to think about it's going to be over at a certain point. It's just over,

lights out. It's very difficult to load that into whatever this little brain we got. What

does that actually mean? Maybe that's what gives everything meaning. Because if everything lasted

forever, if this went on an infinite, there would be no meaning to it. I'd be like, hey,

if I don't see it tomorrow, I'll see it in a million years. There would be no meaning.

There would be no urgency. There would be no feelings. There'd be no nothing of magnitude

or superficiality. It would all just be this kind of, it would be torture. That would actually be

torture to be here forever. I mean, I'm already sick of this place. And I'm just in my 40s,

like I'm done. I'm sick of me. I'm sick of everything. A lot of people, when they talk

about mortality, they consider mortality appealing because you get a chance to do basically

all these things you might not get a chance to do otherwise, like all the kinds of travel

broadly, read every book, explore every idea, do every hobby, all those kinds of things.

Somebody else I was talking to mentioned, the reality of being immortal would be

be more likely, I like this idea, more likely would be you just sitting there doing nothing

because and putting off all that travel and exploration till later because you'll always

have time. And so when you're going to have what actual immortality would look like for a bunch

of humans is people sitting there doing nothing. It'll be like a Greek cafe, just sitting around

drinking coffee, watching. I love it. Yeah. It's a lazy man's paradise. Yeah. But it's so interesting

because that rings true to me for what humans are like is we'll basically just put off all

those exciting adventures and just be lazy, become lazier and lazier and lazier because you'll always

have a chance to do all the exciting things and we'll just get, we'll basically become Tim Dill.

We just sit there and have a podcast and that's it. He works hard. Yeah. I mean, that sounds

actually like heaven, dude. That's speaking to my heart really. I mean, I'm at heart. I'm a very

lazy person. I always try to find ways to lie down. Like if I'm sitting, I'll figure out a way to kind

of contort myself till later. That's an interesting thing to like in. Yeah. If you can always push

something off. Yeah. I like that. I think that's heaven. And we just changed your mind. You kind

of like the immortality. Yeah. I kind of like it. No. So there'll be no thirsts. No. You can always

put it off. I want to have, I want to bang this girl. You're like, I'll put it off. But now I'm

thinking about Muslim heaven and they may be offering the best deal. I mean, if it was an expo

and they had a booth, I may go with them because they offer 62 or 72, but then I get sick of them.

I'd want to, I don't know. I always wondered like, are you given the 62 versions or you choose? Can

you create them like an avatar, like a video game or are you just given? I don't know what the

number why it's important to have that high number. First of all, I think it's a mistranslation

about the versions, but outside of that, outside of that, I feel like the conversation is really

important. I don't think they ever specify like what kind of books these girls read. Like what are

they, what are they into? Like the quality of the conversation. I think if you're talking about

eternity, the quality of the intellect and the conversation and the personalities is way more

important. And the Greeks have an ancient, ancient expression, which my mother always used to say,

which is everything in moderation, nothing in excess. So try and always get the status quo.

And yeah, that many women, eventually it's like the magic Johnson effect. I say a Thomas effect,

it's just too much. And you're going to end up, you're going to end up banging a dude is what

I'm saying. You're going to get sick of it because it's too much. And there's going to be a eunuch

that finds its way into your harem that's been proven throughout history, every empire, when

you have all that power. And again, this goes back to power corrupting. If you have, if there's no

struggle, there's no meaning, there's the value is from the journey, the, the working hard to

struggle. And if it's just given to you because you're a sultan or you're Alexander the Great or

whatever, you're going to get bored and you're going to bang a dude. That's, it's, I think that's

a scientific axiom, actually. Eventually you'll get bored and bang a dude. Yeah. But I think it

won't stop there. I think you'll go to animals, you go to robot. I mean, eventually it all ends

up in robots and then the robots rebel and then the humus will be destroyed. Yeah. I'm sorry. If

we're speaking truth, you said the value of life, one of the highest ideals is to seek truth,

I think if we're being honest. Can I ask you a quick question? If you, if you live in a small,

I come from small islands, right? And so there's a stereotype that that's where they bang animals.

But if you come from a very small community, you know, an island or something, and you have

the choice of banging a family member or an animal, which one is worse on the moral scale?

Because you're technically not related to the animal. Right. This is interesting. I mean,

all of these are human constructs, these ideas, but yet for me personally, taboo would be more

taboo to, to, to have sex with a family member. Yeah. I mean, animal, I mean, okay. It's good

to know where you stand on that. I think if you were, you know, that if they didn't have,

they didn't know they had that question. I just, they just learned a little bit about you and now

I know I look forward to the internet clipping that out. Yeah. I mean, there, there is, listen,

outside of, outside of that, I do think about that a lot. It sounds ridiculous about morality

connected to animals in terms of all the, the, the factory farming and so on. It seems like

that's one of the things we'll look because I love meat, but I kind of feel bad about it.

And bad in a way where I think if we look like a hundred years from now, we'll look back at this

time as like one of the great like tortures and injustices that we humans have committed.

And I mean, all that has to do with the sex with the animal has to do with consent and about the

experience of suffering of the animals. The reason I think about that personally a lot,

because I think about robotics, I think about creating artificial consciousnesses, artificial

like beings that have some elements of the human nature. And then you start to think like, well,

what does it mean to suffer? What does it mean for entity to exist such that it deserves rights?

This is something that the founding fathers were thinking about like, you know, all men are created

equal. What is it? Which, who's included in the men who, who's not in that, in that sentence?

And our animals included in that are robots. I honestly think that there will be a civil

rights movement for robots in the future. I don't know. Is that the Turing test? The way you try to,

is that what they call it? Where you're trying to see if AI can think like a human or whatever or

feel like a human? Well, it's the Turing test closely defined as more about talk like a human.

So you can, you can imagine systems that are able to, you can have a conversation like this,

and I would be a robot, for example. But that doesn't mean I would, in the, in society, that

doesn't mean I deserve rights or that doesn't mean I would be conscious. It doesn't mean that I would

be able to suffer and to experience pleasure and dream and all those kinds of human things.

The question isn't whether you're able to talk, which is passed in the Turing test.

The question is whether you're able to feel, to be, I mean, to, I go back to suffering.

The thing that the, that our documents protect us against is suffering. Like we don't want humans

to suffer. And if a robot can suffer, that discussion starts being about like, well,

shouldn't we protect them? Currently, we don't protect animals.

We protect that dog. There's laws. There's actual legislation that protects dogs for

tortures places. Yeah. And you know, dogs is something I don't think people really

understand enough about. It's one of my obsessions. So they, they, my dad always used to say those,

he goes, those things are, those things are basically human. And I mean, they dream,

they have anxiety. And what people often overlook about dogs is without dogs, we wouldn't be here.

We would not have ever evolved from hunter gatherer to agrarian to, you know,

civilization. We wouldn't have cities. We wouldn't have anything. I mean,

they are our partner in survival and they are a magical animal. There's no,

there's no animal that was, it was like destiny almost. I mean, a malleable animal.

There's no animal that's that malleable that in a few generations, you can tailor to

a specific job that you need. And without that animal, without dogs doing that animal,

protecting our crops from, from, you know, scavengers and stuff like that, you know,

the list goes on. We wouldn't be here. So we, that's an often overlooked fact that human evolution

was not done in a vacuum just with humans. I mean, without dogs, we would have never evolved.

I mean, we weren't the apex predator for most of our existence. We weren't even the apex predator.

I mean, we're getting eaten by hyenas, which is my favorite animal. And, you know,

it's kind of an injustice to, I mean, I'm kind of mad at dogs. We deserve to get eaten by hyenas,

but without dogs, we wouldn't be here. And dogs, dogs deserve the protection.

So do horses. They fucking lugged us around for thousands of years. And now these fucking

German psychopaths are eating them or whatever. We should not eat horse meat just on like,

be a good dude, man. These things lugged us around for generations. They're beautiful,

you know, ride them. Or I don't know. I don't know, but it rubs me the wrong way that we eat horses.

Yeah, the horse is one is interesting. And one of my favorite books is Animal Farm by Orwell.

And the horses don't get a good ending in that. I kind of, my spirit animal, I suppose,

is the horse from Animal Farm Boxer, where he says, I will work harder. That's his motto.

I work really hard at stupid things. That's basically what I did. I just hit my head against

the wall for no reason whatsoever. But that probably fulfills, you have a big brain,

you were probably born with a big brain that kind of fulfills. It's killing neurons.

It's exercise for you. Yes. Yes. Don't you think some animals deserve to be eaten though? Kind of

like hyenas? Come on, dude. I mean, you got to respect hyena. Okay, so let me just comment on

the dog thing. There is like conferences on dog cognition from a perspective of people that study

psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, dogs are fascinating. The way they move their eyes

is they're able to, they're the only other animal besides humans, they're able to communicate with

their eyes. They can look at a thing and look back at you and look back at the thing to communicate

that we're all like, through our eyes, communicate that we're collaborating. So every other animal

uses their eyes to actually look at things. The dogs use it to like communicate with us humans.

It's fascinating. There's a lot of other elements of dogs that are amazing. Yeah. I mean, if it

wasn't for them, they are the ones, they were our first alarm system for predators. They would

defend us. I mean, the besenji is one of the most ancient dogs. I mean, they're tiny, but they're

fearless. Yeah. And they would chase off lions. Like, you know, there'd be packs of them and they'd

chase off lions and protect the tribes. It's, it's, it's, I even get tingles like thinking about

dogs because I have a dog, I love my dog. It's just, and there's something about when you're

walking with your dog off leash in the woods, it's like, there's something about it that's like,

that, that tugs at that millions of years of evolution, like that gut, you know, it's like,

I had a Finnish friend of mine, he's a comic Tommy Volamy's once told me, he was like, he was like,

the gut, he's like, I believe in that, like that gut, you know, when you have that feeling,

he's like, always trust that because that is million, those are all your ancestors. That's

the survival instinct of all your ancestors and beginning of time, you know, telling you like,

hey, something's off here, something's, you know, so don't get in the car with Ted Bundy is what

I'm saying, ladies, how fucking stupid, who, how could you fall for that? You know, he's got a

fucking sling on, don't get in. Yeah, follow the gut. My question to you, are psychopaths

essentially robots? So first of all, let's not, you're using the word robot in a derogatory way

that I, I'm triggered by. Okay. So I feel offended. You should be because you know what, people are

always scared of robots, but I actually, I have, I've made the sort of, I've made it to say, hey,

I've thought about it, like robots have been nothing but helpful. It's the people we should

be scared of. Right. Again, we're kind of missing the most destructive thing as us because it's,

but robots are helpful. I mean, this is a fucking robot, you know, I went on hotel tonight,

I'm already booked up, you know, I got my, I can change my flight if this barbecue with

Rogan goes 16 hours, which whatever Rogan wants to do, I'll do if he wants to kick me in the

chest, I'll let him kick me in a chest, whatever. Robots are helpful, no?

Yeah. Tanks and autonomous weapons systems don't kill people, people kill people.

Yeah, that's. Yeah, the other way is about to click that for you.

A lot of love for dogs. I appreciate it very much. And at the same time, you have the other thing

that people seem to have love for, which is cats. And on the flip side of everything you've said,

I'm trying to understand what have cats ever done for human civilization?

They keep rodents away. The domesticated cat is very important, keeps rodents away. Yeah,

that's what they were domesticated for. I mean, they're psychopathic killers who end up killing

innocent neighborhood chipmunks and birds. They really affect the balance of the local ecosystem,

but not as much as dogs. I mean, dogs are, like you said, they look at humans. I actually read

an article there, some people were theorizing they're smarter than chimps because of the way

they can work with humans. And there was one border collie that spoke like 300 words, like a

quarter, almost part of the language. And their nose is like a, I mean, that's like magic, dude.

If you can smell in my ass to what I had for breakfast from miles away.

That's intelligence. That's intelligence. I mean, in some ways that their nose,

if you were to put it on a scale, maybe their nose is more intelligent than our brain for what it

does. It's like, I mean, dude, they can smell you from miles away. You ever see a dog just like

sniffing, catching? I mean, it's smelling like, I don't remember the date on it, but it's like,

they have like millions of receptors or something where we only, thank God we don't have their

nose. That would make sex weird. Be a little too intense.

I think you mentioned when you were talking about Woody Allen separating the

art from the artist. So that brings to mind, Vladimir Putin.

How about that transition? I don't know. I'm so sorry. But if you look at just powerful leaders

throughout history, Stalin, Hitler, but even model ones like Putin, and we're talking about power,

how do you explain them? You said that power reveals not corrupt. But do you think there's

some element to which power corrupted Hitler, power corrupted Stalin after he gained power?

And the same with Putin. When Putin gained power in 2000, do you think the amount of power that

he was in possession with for many years, do you think that corrupted him? I mean,

we're joking about dictators get the job done. There is some sense in certain countries where

dictator is the only thing that can stabilize a nation. The Conor argument to that for democracies

is like, yeah, but that's a short term solution for a long term problem. So you want to embrace

chaos with democracy that might be violent. There might be a lot of just constant changing

of leadership. There might be a lot of corruption in the short term. But if you stay strong with

the ideals of democracy, then you'll be ultimately create something that as beautiful and stable as

the United States. The sad thing is, is I don't know if that if history tells that story. It's

like I said, you look at Greece, you look at Rome, democracy kind of failed. The majority of Rome,

the most successful empire that we've had was a dictatorship for most of its run.

But I do believe in a republic, which is sort of a limited democracy. I do believe

in what we have here. I believe in common law, I believe in individual rights.

But yeah, I think you said it. Nobody could have said it better. Yeah, it's a short term solution.

You look at Saddam Hussein, when we took him out, then there was a lot of infighting that

happened that he was kind of keeping at bay because he was a strongman, dictator.

Well, he's an interesting one. Sorry to interrupt. No.

From my understanding, I'm sure people will correct me, but when Saddam Hussein first came to power,

he was, he's quite progressive. So as far as I understand, the signs of an evil

dictator weren't exactly there. So again, there's, I don't know if power revealed,

the power corrupted. Or that could have been the initial subterfuge to kind of get everybody.

Hitler also is a champion of the people. It's built some new roads. It's what psychopaths do.

And that's why it's interesting to me. I'm not sure if power corrupts psychopaths.

And now that we know that we can do these CAT scans and brain scans, again,

we know that they're born that way. Power definitely corrupts people who have

the capacity to feel and for empathy. Power, I'm not sure. I don't think power corrupts people

who were born psychopathic with that condition or sociopaths who had, who, you know, who were

closer to psychopath and then had some traumatic life. You know, I just think, you know, the best

way to get away with whatever nefarious thing you want to do to feel, I guess the only thing

psychopaths can feel is that excitement is to pretend to be the opposite of what you are.

That's what, that's what killers do. That's what the worst people to look at Bill Cosby.

I mean, he was, what better way to hide, you know, it's like what wokeness is now. It's like,

I'm such a great person. And then you're like, are you, it's a great, the best way to hide

is to pretend to be the opposite of what you are. Just like Ted Bundy. I'm just an innocent,

helpful guy. And then boom, next thing you know, you're getting your tip bit off.

It's really well said. It's actually kind of funny because I talk about love a lot.

And I think the people that kind of look at me with squinty eyes, they wonder,

like, how many bodies are in that closet? You know what I mean? Like,

there's something about the duality of like, we're so skeptical as a culture. Like, if somebody's

just like, seems to be kind of sort of, I don't know, positive and all that kind of,

how do I put it? Just simple, simple minded in the positivity they express,

they think like there's some demons in there. Yeah, especially if you're in New York or we

don't trust any, the nicer you are, the more skeptical we are. I've struggled with that down

here. I've been like, what's your angle? And they're like, no, dude, just I wanted to show

you the best tacos, man. And I'm like, did you really, what do you want? Because in New York,

it's like, if anyone's nice to you, they want something. And that's, the pro side to that is

it makes you very street smart. The downside to that is it makes you way too cynical.

Yeah, I definitely experienced that here in Texas, but people are super, super nice. And

they're like, do all this cool shit for you. And you wonder, what's the angle? What are we doing

here? You mentioned hyenas as your favorite animal. I forgot to ask you, what the hell

were you thinking? Why is hyena is your favorite animal? Yeah, it's fascinating animal. Let's look

at the whole animal kingdom. Like why is it, where do you put, so you like dogs. Love my favorite.

Your favorite is dogs, but they're kind of outside the animal kingdom because you're thinking about

wolves. So the animal kingdom is in nature. Dogs escaped nature. They kind of did, yeah.

Together with humans, like in a collaborative way, exactly. So within nature, within the animal

kingdom, who's, why not lions? Because lions are predictable. Lions are just, you know,

they're regal and kind of they bore me. It's like the hot chick. It's like, we get it. You were born

the best. Yeah. You know, I like a scrappy, by any means necessary, intelligent and cunning.

But aren't they dishonest? Yeah. And that's why I like them. Yes, they're dishonest. They

employ chicanery. And that's just a sign of how intelligent they are and how self reliant they

are and how brutal they are. They're brutally honest in how much they lie, you know, because

they're trying to get the job done. You know, lions are just like, they're too gifted.

Everyone hates the fucking, you know, if I went to school with you, of course,

Lex knows the fucking answer. Lex was born smarter than me, you know, and you'd probably hate me

because I was the kid always seeking attention and making people. It's like, that's not interesting.

The guy that claws his way to the top, and those are hyenas, they're also fascinating just by

merely who they are. I mean, they're not related to any other animal. They're more closely related

to cats than they are dogs, even though they look like a dog. Yeah. But they're very, like very

tangentially related even to cats. So they're their own kind of thing, which is kind of mysterious.

I don't think they fully figured out. And they, the pseudopenist thing is the, I mean,

this is the talk. Can you explain the pseudopenist side? Yeah. So the, it's a matriarchal society,

by the way. So that's the unique in and of itself that this, we're talking about an apex predator

that is matriarchal, much like, you know, the praying mantis. It's very rare, though, and they

are fucking brutal and vicious. And the women are bigger and they let their cubs fight a lot

of fratricide and they do that because they're like, Hey, you're weaker. They let your brother

kill you. And the women have penises. The women have pseudopenises that they give birth out of.

And the birth is violent, but they, they roll around with just huge pieces. They're glue guns

are just fucking swinging, you know, and the women are just run the show. And it's just cool

that they have these pseudopenises. It's almost romantic to eat this guy. They have the strongest

bite force. They, they pulverize bone, like when they eat an animal, the animal's gone.

There's no bones. They eat everything. They can pulverize. Their bite is so powerful. They pulverize

bone and eat it. So if they consume an animal, it, the animal was there and then the animal's gone.

There's no, nothing for the vultures there to, to, to, to grab.

Yeah, I'm going to have to revisit the hyenas because my experience with the hyenas was from,

first of all, his, your hyenas, your show has rebranded them for me, but the Lion King, which is a,

a cartoon, I guess, that I get emotional at every time I, I don't, I hope, I probably have father

issues every, every guy. You probably just, you just have feelings. You're a good guy. I mean,

everyone has that. Yeah, you have feelings. That one gets everybody. I don't know. I get, I get every

father son movie, like Blow with Johnny Depp and Ray Leota. Damn, that's a good movie. And whenever

there's like a, like the disappointment in the father that his son has become like

this incredibly successful drug lord that then ends up with nothing in prison,

just the sadness of them committing through letters. Man, that gets me every time.

But, but, you know, the hyenas are not presented that well in that.

No, they're usually portrayed as like, it's really sad that they're portrayed that way in

lions, like lions aren't dicks. Lions are dicks. They, the, the, the, the alpha lions will kill

the cubs of another rival. They do all types of dick shit. And yeah, the hyenas are more

interesting. Like they'll just roll in like a hyena will like, like you said the lie, you know, because

when you watch the Serengeti, you know, animals will hang out with each other. They're like by

water. So one hyena will just kind of roll in and pretend like it's not hungry. And then bang,

they'll use any means necessary to take an animal down. Like lions will just use brute strength.

Hyenas use cunning and you can even go on the internet and find memes of this where hyenas

will grab the big animal by the balls and just like, we'll sneak up behind it and bite its balls

and you'll watch an animal 10 size, 10 times the size of the hyena just slowly go down. It's brutal,

but it's fucking hilarious. So I, I think that's, uh, I don't know if you, uh, follow the, the,

the channel, um, nature's metal. That's, that one weighs heavy on me and the hyenas on the balls.

I, it's tough to, to intellectualize it. It's tough to think that the entirety of life on

earth has this history of, um, predators being violent, just like just the murder that we come

from. It's crazy. It, uh, just like, we're talking about meditating on death. I actually, I keep

following and unfollowing that Instagram channel because like sometimes it's too much. Like, I

can't, I can't continue with the day after like seeing the brutality, the honest brutality of that.

I don't know how to make sense of it. It's important to acknowledge, I think,

because that it's real and we do come from that. We are, we evolve from that. It's important. We

still do that. We're just hidden from it. You know, when you go to the supermarket and get

your slab of meat and you know, you're so disconnected from where that meat came from,

it came from that. And often that's uglier to watch than because there's some honesty.

You know, the, the, the, the nature channels only show, uh, that's why we have so much sympathy

with the prey. And this is where I think the same thing with mafia movies. They don't show

what the mafia really does. They glorify the good parts. That's why I like state of grace,

because it's really just shaking down old people and fucking being dicks. It's not driving nice

cars and being like, you know, so, and animal channels do the same thing. They only show when

the cheetah gets it because that's, that's the exciting part. But what most people don't know

is that those predators strike out almost always. A majority of the time, the prey wins.

And so if you saw that and put in context, you might not hate it as much when the predator

actually gets the little fawn or whatever, because it's so many fawns got away. It's so hard

to capture your prey. And you know, we, we don't have the, the, the, they,

they, no, no documentary is going to sit around and show you the 99 times the cheetah didn't catch.

Thank you for this perspective. That's murder is difficult. So like,

this is the, they never talk about for people who murder how difficult it is, like, to trap

somebody, to convince them to come back to your place. Give it some respect. Put some respect

on Ted Bundy's name. Yeah. It's not easy to convince somebody to get in your Volkswagen

Beagle and clean up. And then you have to kind of plan ahead because you want to keep doing the

murder, mass murder. You got to learn how to saw them up, put them in duffel bags, bury,

you got to learn how to dig, you got to learn how to hide, you got to learn to lie. I mean,

it's a lot that goes into it that we need to pull the respect on. Yeah.

Yeah. And you have to figure out which tools work the best for the song and all those kinds of things.

So thank you for the perspective. That's what, that's what I was hoping

we would bring to this table before. Yeah. So you, you got a little bit Greek in you.

One of the episodes on, on history hyenas, you talked about the Battle of Crete,

where the Greeks, your people in, in 1941, in the early stages of the World War II,

there's one of the most epic battles of the war. In fact, in 1941, in a speech made at the Reichstag,

Hitler paid tribute to the bravery of the Greeks saying, it must be said for the sake of historical

truth that amongst all our opponents, only the Greeks fought with the endless courage and

defiance of death. So, okay, what do you make of this battle? What do you make of the spirit of

the Greek people? This is one of the closest things to me because my mother was actually

on the island of Crete during this, the first aerial invasion in history. A lot of people

don't know that. So this is a very significant battle. The first time there was an invasion from

the sky. And my mother was a little girl and she lived through four years of Nazi occupation there.

So my mother was a human rights lawyer and everything, but she just always hated Germans.

It's just what it is. She hated Germans and she never got over it. So the most progressive,

open minded woman just could not get over this. It's a monumental battle that a lot of historians

in retrospect have now looked back on and said because the Nazis, first off, you got to take

it back to when Hitler instructed Mussolini, because let's be honest, Mussolini was Hitler's

bitch. You know what I mean? It was like, if it was Fantasy Island, Hitler was the fucking,

and Mussolini was boss of the plane. Mussolini ever say no to Hitler? Or even maybe? It's always

like, yes. Yes, we would do it. And it's like, yeah, you have to take Greece. And so, yeah.

So Italy being much bigger than Greece. Greece is a tiny country, 9, 10 million. So Italy invaded

Greece, you know, and Aukidei's a big holiday for Greeks. And this speaks to the spirit. Greeks

in fight until we have a common enemy, and then we unite. You see it throughout history, Sparta

and Athens. You see it in Greek families, where the brothers will fight. But then as soon as we

have a common enemy, we unite. And maybe it's an overactive brain. We think too much, our traditions

philosophy, and we overthink things, and we fight with each other and take things personally. We're

ultra passionate. But when Italy said, hey, we're going to move troops through, you know,

a Greek said, Aukie, which means no. And that was, and then Italy attacked. And we beat the

shit out of them. A much bigger country, much more well equipped country, Greece beat the

shit out of them, kicked them back into Albania. Actually, not only repelled them,

actually, like conquered some ground in Albania, pushed them back. And then Hitler was like,

fuck, you know, I was planning my march to Russia. But I have to go down because he basically said

to Mussolini, like, you know, you basically bitch lapped, like, I got to do this myself,

because you such a fucking bitch. So then the Nazis invaded Greece. Obviously, they took the

mainland with fight and shot out. The Greeks never give credit to the British and New Zealand

and Australian troops that were there. You know, they were a large part of this, the majority of

it. But the Greeks fight to civilians. I mean, they fought, you know, the Ottomans were there

400 years, you go to Greece now, there's no evidence, there's virtually no evidence of them

ever being there. That's the Greek spirit, kick them out. And we kicked out hummus too.

So it's like, their culture is gone, you're gone. Because Greeks are, it's Philoptimo,

it's called Philoptimo. And it's a real thing. Philoptimo is a very little trans, you can't

translate it, but it's kind of like honor, loyalty, friendship, altruism, it's a, it's,

you can't define it, but Greeks know it and we're taught it from our, from our families.

It's a vibe and it's a Greek cultural thing. And we're an old culture and Philoptimo is what

it's called. Philoptimo and it's, it's love, it's passion. And it comes out and it comes out. And

so, so Hitler had to postpone his invasion of, of Russia, went down the island of Crete,

took 10 days to conquer. It's an island to put that in perspective. The country of France

fell in three or four days. I can't even remember because they fucking just rolled over. So what

is it? What, what is a couple of hours matter when you're that much of a fucking pussy?

Yeah. Okay. What is a couple of 12 hour fucking three or four days?

Uh, the island of Crete took the Germans 10 days to conquer. And because of that,

and because of the Greek resistance, Hitler had to postpone his invasion of Russia to winner.

And of course that was, you know, that was his downfall just as it was Napoleon's. And

never dude, never try to invade Russia. They got millions of people to throw at death.

Every time you read about Russians in history books, like, and a million died. I mean, it's

that you just guys throw millions of people at the problem. And don't fuck with that Russian winner.

And don't fuck with Russian people, dude. They're tough. People in New York know that you don't go

to fucking sheep's head bands are talking shit. You'll end up in a fucking car trunk and they'll

brutally murder you. I do not fuck with Russians. Amen. And then there's, I mean, there's a lot of

people, a lot of historians argue that that battle was because of the Russian winter, because of

delaying the Russian invasion, but also psychologically delaying the invasion. It was the

first time, I think it was the first time the Germans failed not or didn't succeed like they

wanted to early in the war, which is a little like psychologically the impact of that I think is

immeasurable. And also a lot of people argue from a military strategy perspective that the

just like you said, it was an aerial attack and that Hitler didn't think that that kind of attack

would then be useful for the rest of the war. So that's that's a really part where whereas it might

have been very useful. So it's a it's really interesting how these little battles can steer

the directions of war. Of course, me growing up in the Soviet Union, we didn't hear much about this

battle. Just like you said, millions of Soviets died. All those people in history that you read

about dying, those are all civilians, but I mean, not all, but a very large number of them are

civilians. And their stories, obviously, that's the rooted, the literature, the poetry, the music,

just the way people talk, the way they drink vodka, the way they love, the way they hate,

the way they fear, that's all like rooted in World War Two and World War One. And so but we never

kind of think about Europe. And we certainly growing up didn't think about their role in the

United States. All this, there's plenty of stories of heroism in in the Soviet Union, enough enough

for many lifetimes. So but it was fascinating to reach from a Greek perspective. Because I, you

know, I don't have many Greek friends, hoping to change that. This is the beginning of a love affair

of your people. Likewise, the Americans don't hear about the Soviet contribution to the end of

World War Two, because obviously we became, you know, enemies after that, because of the two systems.

But yeah, without the Russians, with World War Two, wouldn't have been one either.

Yeah, the stories are written by the victors. That's really interesting. I just looking at history,

you wonder what's missing. I'll tell you what's missing that I know for a fact. Because my dad

told, my dad told me combats hell, and he would tell me the reality of what it's really like

guys pissing themselves, calling for their mother, the fog of war, obviously. Fracture

side happens all the time. It's pandemonium. I mean, there's skill involved. But I mean,

there's no like, it's a lot of it is just luck. My dad said he my dad won three.

He got, you know, metals, purple hearts, all that shit. And he said the reason was

is because he can't he always said this is another thing he told me you can't pin a metal on a dead

guy. So it's like, those are the guys who deserve it. But you can't pin a metal, you can't do the

pomp and sit with. And I'll tell you one thing is that it is written by the victors. And all

these leaders, they say we're in the front, we're not in the front. We're not. Whenever the history

books say he led his troops into battle, it's like, did he really? Did he? So then how did he live?

Because they put like kids in the front, you know, it's like, nobody limps back from the front

with like a injury, you know, that's, that's army PR. You know, whenever you read, you know,

27 soldiers died, 14 were injured. The word injured is PR. That's like injured. Was he,

did he sprain his ankle? Did he need, did he get carried off the court or, you know, he was maimed?

I mean, he was like, his leg was blown off, you know, it's like, so I think that, you know,

Alexander the Great was just kind of in the back on his horse and just kind of, he had his eunuch

blown a few times and he was like, is it bad up there? And then like after that, he was like,

okay, my scribe, give me my scribe. Okay, when you write this down, can you put me in the front?

Yeah. And I was just, make me a big hero. And I was in there. And then he, you know, he just

blew his, you know, he had sex with his eunuch and rode off into the sunset,

because there's just no way you survive in the front, especially warfare back then. I mean,

it's like brutal. Then again, you have like, Jengus Khan, the sense I got that he was a little bit

up on the front, at least at first. Yeah. Or is that also, is he a little bit outside?

Give me my scribe. Yeah, it's all lore. I mean, you ever play the game of telephone?

You know, it's like, you know, there's no video cameras back then. So shit just get,

turns into myth, you know? And there's no way he was in the front. There's no way he wouldn't have

lived. You know, he was probably good on horseback because those, those dudes were good on horseback.

But it was like Game of Thrones back then, you had all these different people and they kind of,

yeah, the, the, the Mongols were wild, dude. They are actually said like, they started like,

they were more adaptable to the horse because they were so good on horseback that kids started

to be born like kind of bow legged, like to fit the horse. It's wild. And they would stretch their

heads and shit like that. They'd wrap them and stretch their heads. So they find like Mongol

skulls and they look like cone heads and they were brutal and vicious. And they would maraud and

rape and all the fun stuff that, you know, when, you know, when you visit other places back then,

there's no Chachiki stops and souvenir shops. What you do is you take women and those are the

tokens, you know, you burn a few huts different. Tourism was different back then.

Yeah. That's another difficult thing. Just we're talking about nature and predators to think about

the long stretch of history where we're just murder. Yeah. And we made so much progress,

I guess, in the past couple of centuries. The United States is a shiny example of that.

But do you think also that it's that effect that we were,

a lot of good things had to happen too? Or else we wouldn't be here. So do we just focus?

Isn't it like a car crash effect that like we're, you know, the rubber neck of everyone pulls over

to see a car crash? Are we just only focusing on the negative things of history because they're

just more exciting to us? Like it's just not boring to be like, yeah, and then there was a bunch of

villagers and they ate every day and danced and loved. Yeah. I wonder, I wonder how different

those people were, you know, like they might have had the same exact loves and fears and

like they perhaps had the same kind of brilliant ideas in their head, if not more brilliant.

And we kind of think about like this moment in history is like the most special moment.

Like we're doing the coolest shit that we're doing the most amazing building and most amazing

things. But maybe they were building amazing things in their different way with like less

technological, but in the space of ideas, in the space of just all the different, the camaraderie,

in the space of like concepts, mathematics, all those kinds of things. Yeah. I mean,

Greece, you look at the architecture, it still stands up. I mean, all the government play,

it's still arguably, I mean, as far as objective beauty, it's hard to argue that Greco Roman,

it's just something about it with the columns. It's just, it's powerful. It's,

I don't know, even Ayn Rand would probably appreciate it. She doesn't know. No. No.

No. So in your history, Hyena's that unfortunately has come to an end before we're talking about

empires coming to an end, all empires fall. Yeah. That one, you may rise again,

empires might rise again. Who knows? Who knows? I'm obviously a fan, so I hope it does rise again.

But you've seemed to develop your own language. Can you, it's what it is. What is that?

What the hell? Is this some kind of medical condition or can you explain like the linguistic

essentials that catch us up to the linguistic essentials that people need to know to understand

the way you speak? Yeah. You know, Leopold and Loeb, the story of those two, they murdered that

kid and they had this weird relationship. Anyway, it's an interesting thing to Google.

Leopold and Loeb, these two guys who ended up murdering a kid because they developed their

own language with each other and this own reality and this weird thing and they wanted to know what

it's like to murder a kid and they murdered a kid. It's a famous story in American lore and history,

whatever, famous case. But this phenomenon, yeah, me and Chris got together. It wasn't as dark as

Leopold and Loeb. We didn't murder a kid, but we murdered a podcast. Or at least stab it a few times.

Yeah. It was something in the organic chemistry of me and Chris that I think we'll both

end up appreciating even probably more than we do now that it's mysterious. I got to be honest

with you. It was a thing that wasn't conscious, wasn't intentional. It was something that happened

in the music of our energies that just went. It's fascinating. Like when you hear someone

sing or when a jazz band hits a rhythm or even when I'm on stage and I just catch a rhythm,

it's like, dude, I didn't make a choice there. I don't know what that is. I don't know how to

explain it, but it comes from somewhere else and I don't know what it is. It's beyond my

comprehension, but with Chris, there was this magical chemistry that I have chemistry with a

lot of people and it can be funny. I feel zero chemistry here. This is great. It's a little

bit more intelligent than when me and Chris did. Me and Chris, I think we connected on the funny

bone. I found him so funny and we found the same things funny. From that, these organic

expressions came from some part of our brains that was created from this chemistry. We developed

this language and this cult following and people were really upset when we ended, but it was the

right thing to end because like all things that ended, it was kind of done a few episodes even

before we finished. I think we pulled the plug before it started rolling downhill. All great

flings. There's your long relationship, long marriages are boring and comfortable. The one

you really like fucking always ends abruptly and sadly, but you always look back and you jerk off

to it. So you guys made love? Yeah. It was like a hot fling with me and him and it was intense

and we burned the candle at both ends. I think that podcast was meant to be three years and

maybe people will go back and appreciate it and listen to it over and over again.

And I think the new things we do, people will love. I'm doing long days now of that podcast and

people seem to enjoy it. I've been really enjoying the long days on YouTube. I just found myself

just like staring at you ranting for the same with Tim Dillon. I really enjoyed whatever those

rants are, the genius of just one thing after the other, but definitely the chemistry almost

is a study. I remember the reason I first started listening to it, I was trying to get

a perspective on certain historical moments. It was interesting. I tuned in to learn history.

Yeah, I came for the history and stayed for the chaos.

Stayed for the crack open and clean out.

And yeah, it was almost, I listened to Rogan like this sometimes. I'll re listen to an episode

to try to understand why was this so fun to listen to? It's almost like trying to analyze

humor or something like that, but it's nice from a conversational perspective. Why was this so easy

to listen to? And with history, Hain is like, why is the chemistry so good? It's so, it's weird.

It's weird because there's not many podcasts. I don't know any with chemistry like that.

It's interesting. And it's kind of sad that the fling with the prostitute in Vegas has to end.

But that's what makes it special. It's the Bukowski thing with the fog.

The British office, one of my favorite shows was that it ended very quickly. It's only a couple

seasons or something like that. And that was tragic, but that took guts to just end it.

Given all the money you could have made, given all the, you just end it. And that's what makes it

like truly special. Yeah. And I'll tell you, man, I'll just emphasize it because I marvel at it too.

Because as a guy who tries to always figure out what the causes of things, I gotta be honest,

man, looking back on that, even with retrospective wisdom, you know, that 2020 hindsight, we've

been done a couple months now, it's something that I can't explain. It's something that I don't know

how you quantify it. I don't know how you describe it. It's musical. It's really kind of rhythmic.

So maybe, maybe like a Netflix show about history. That's, that's in the, that's in the future.

That with the two of you, you guys will meet like, with that, the way you meet with a fling,

like a decade from now, a diner, and you're both way fatter and uglier. And then you just reminisce

over some cigarettes and coffee. It could be. Yeah, it could be. Yeah. But it's definitely a

classic podcast that people can go back and appreciate. It's fast paced and it was unique.

What was it like to research for, I mean, it was really scholarly, the depth of research that you

performed. It sometimes felt like you almost read an entire Wikipedia article beforehand.

That's exactly true. We were, we were one fan. We attracted such funny people to that podcast,

and the fans were so funny. And one fan called us nicknamed as Wikipedia Sluts. And so it just

stuck. Yeah, we just would read Wikipedia. I would do a lot more research than Chris. Yeah.

And so I would actually, you know, once in a while, he'd get into it too. But for very interesting

episodes, I got some, some, some subject matter would just pull me in, like Bernie Madoff,

just to think of one that was recent. It was one of our last ones. And I think one of our better

episodes. And I'm glad that it kind of ended after that because it was rare to, I think we

started to slip a little bit. I got fascinated and I got, I did a lot of research for Bernie Madoff.

But usually, yeah, we pull up Wikipedia and we'd have fun. We were sort of the antithesis of

Dan Carlin. I mean, you went to Dan Carlin for accuracy and thoughtfulness. And you went to

us for, it was a hang with history. That's why History Hyenas was such an appropriate name,

because it was, it was a little bit of history. Some episodes were more hyena, more wild,

and a little history. And some were a little more dense, like the Battle of Crete and less

hyena. So you were always going to get both. You're either going to get a majority or one

or the other. Yeah. And Dan Carlin is the lion, I guess. And you guys are predictably good.

I mean, what are your thoughts about, I mean, he's a storyteller too. He gets a lot of criticism

for the, from the historians, quote unquote. That's why he likes to not, he keeps saying he's

not a historian. But what's your, what are your thoughts about hardcore history with Dan Carlin?

Like, was he an inspiration to the podcast you were doing? Or, or like an account, like almost

like reverse psychology inspiration, where you wanted to do some kind of opposing type of podcast

in history. Or was history, always just like a, a launching pad to just talk shit about human

nature? More of the latter. I wasn't even aware of his podcast when we started. Oh, interesting.

Yeah. And so we, it was just very organic. Again, like the chemistry, me and Chris became

very good friends. We started the podcast. First, we did a web series called Bay Ridge Boys,

which has a sort of little cult following. We did like five episodes and ended it.

And then we did the podcast. And Hyena's were my favorite animal. And I talk about them passionately.

And I told Chris about them. And then he started appreciating them. And we both love history.

I majored in history. It's one of the things I love. I go to museums all the time. I go to his,

I do history tours. So does he. And so it was just sort of a natural, let's do a history podcast.

And it gave us something to talk about each episode to sort of lean our, you know, hang our hats on

and riff off of. So it had nothing to do with dance. What I think about dance, I think it's great.

I think even if he's inaccurate in the opinions of the historical community, it starts conversations,

which is good. It's like this thing where people go, oh, it's dangerous rhetoric. It's like, no,

rhetoric only becomes dangerous when education fails. What's going on in America is education has

failed. So if you call someone online dangerous, it's not him that's dangerous. It's the fucking

stupid people that's dangerous. And it's the fault of this country. We didn't listen to Aristotle.

The future of a civilization depends on public education. And we failed. Education has failed.

Kids are kids are not interested in shit. And so in some sense, those like Dan's podcast and

podcasts can be incredibly educational. That's he's a, the storytelling that pulls you in

ultimately leads to you internalizing these stories and like remembering them and thinking

through them and all those kinds of things that is much more powerful than any book on history

that's accurate. I think often it inspires you to go learn more. So it's like, I know we did that.

I mean, you know, people would go, I went and learned about this because they knew with us

there was no pretense, which was great that we had no standard. So it's like nobody came to us

for historical accuracy. But I was kind of turned on by the fact that it inspired people to go learn

about this stuff or to at least know like Battle of Crete, like you said, a very underappreciated

battle. Even Winston Churchill said, from here on, we will no longer say that Greeks fight like

heroes, but heroes fight like Greeks. I mean, it was a monumental battle and, you know, not

talked about enough. And our podcast would inspire people to go actually learn more,

to go listen to Dan Carlin or to go pick up a book or to do research on their own. And so

I think podcasts, Dan Carlin's obviously much more accurate than us, but it's good that people are

going to podcasts like yours and to learn shit. Joe is really like the progenitor of that. I mean,

you know, having intellectuals on and getting the public interested with this new medium

in people who are intelligent. It's nice because, you know, what the mainstream press pushes out

is horseshit, gorgeous horseshit. It's got a beautiful veneer, but no substance. And so this,

this is a nice pushback. Yeah, the authenticity of Joe's show. I mean, I'm through, I started

listening from the very beginning, you know, doing my in grad school, you know, like a technical

person. And he just pulled me in and made me curious to learn about all kinds of things

and use my own critical reasoning skills on some of the bullshit guests he's had and some of the

most inspiring guests he's had. And so I teach you to think, can you, I don't know much about

Bernie Madoff as a small tangent. Can you tell me who the hell is Bernie Madoff? Oh, Bernie Madoff

is the goat, the greatest thief of all time, dude. Hedge fund guy, ran a hedge fund and

pulled, stole the most money in the history of America. I mean, a con artist. And he does,

people obviously, he's become, he's a household name because of the magnitude of his crime.

But you got to appreciate, again, you got to appreciate what went into this and how long

he was able to pull it off by tricking the smartest and richest people in the world.

And a brilliant scam. The con man, a con man is short for confidence man. And it came from,

yeah, a con man, basically they exude confidence and they trick people by playing on their ego and

blind spots. And the word comes from a guy I can't remember where, but what do you, what do you

used to do? I can't remember the guy's name, whatever, you can Google it, con man. But it's

very interesting. The first con man that is on record, what do we do? We just go to very rich

people and he'd be very well dressed, right? And he'd go, I bet you, you don't have the confidence

to give me your watch. And he would plan the egos, these very powerful and rich people,

and they would give them the watch for some reason, some sort of reverse psychology bullshit.

And he'd take the watch and he would just steal it. Because basically saying like, I don't,

you don't have the compass to give me the watch because you don't, I don't know, you don't think

I'm going to give it back. And he would just take it. So Bernie Madoff was a very sophisticated

sophisticated con man. And again, we were talking about people pretending to be the opposite of

what they are. Bernie hid his fevery in how available he was to his clients, how he would

show up at every bar mitzvah, every birthday. He was always available for their phone calls.

And he played on their egos. He made it so people were wanted to invest in him. Like they were

competing. He made it very exclusive. He wouldn't just take anyone. And there was a method behind

that madness because he wanted the whales that wouldn't notice that he was, he had this pyramid

scheme going. And so what he would do is he would just rob from the richer and he just kept,

it was like, he'd pay back the richer with the guy who was a little, and it was a pyramid scheme.

And he was able to do it for so long and steal so much money. And he would win people over with

the scheme because with that scheme, he was the only guy who could provide, who could guarantee

like a 1% return even during times of recession. And because he was such a good con man, he hijacked

people's reasoning with his charm. And that's what con artists do. That's what psychopaths do.

They're so fucking charming. They get you in that Volkswagen Beetle because if they use their

reasoning for one second, they'd go, Hey, nobody can provide 1% returns during recessions. How the

fuck is this guy doing it? I'll tell you how he's doing it. He's stealing from another guy to pay

you. You fucking idiot. So charisma is essential to that. Maybe you can help explain something

to me, something I have been affected by. I'm getting way too loud for your listeners.

It's just going to be calm. It's like, tell this guy to calm down. I'm sorry. I'm Greek

apostate. No, it is beautiful. I love it. This is something that I have been thinking about

and have encountered indirectly is Jeffrey Epstein. And I have a sense because of MIT,

because of all the other people that have been touched the wrong term by Jeffrey Epstein in the

sense that literally and figuratively. And it's always felt to me like there's not a deep

conspiracy. I don't know. I don't know, but it felt to me like it's not some deeply rooted

conspiracy where like Eric Weinstein thinks that there's some probability that Jeffrey Epstein is

a front for like an intelligence agency, whether it's Israeli or the CIA, I don't know, but is a

front for something much, much bigger. And then I always thought that he's just maybe you can correct

me, but more of the Bernie Madoff variety where he's just a charismatic guy who maybe a psychopathic

in some sense. So, you know, also a pedophile, but just charismatic and is able to convince people

of that 1% of any idea that in the case of scientists is able to convince these people that

their ideas matter. So, one thing scientists don't really, you know, despite what people say, I don't

think they care about money as much as people think. People are ridiculous when they think that,

yeah, that's why people get into science for the money. The personalities that get into science are

obsessed with minutiae and they do the scientific method. You know how boring that is? Like you

have to have a love for it in order to do it. Love and truth. What drives you is for your ideas to

be then heard. And when a rich guy comes over, probably super charismatic, is going to tell you

that your ideas, especially for some of these outsiders at MIT, at Harvard, at Caltech, at all

these like sort of big science, like physics, biology, artificial intelligence, computing fields,

to hear somebody say that your ideas are brilliant and ideas matter, it's pretty powerful,

especially when you've been an outsider. Like he's talked to a bunch of people who were,

who had outsider ideas. You know, the big negative for me of modern academia is that

most people, actually like most communities, most people think the same and there's just

these brilliant outsiders and the outsiders are just derided. And so, when you have

Jeffrey Epstein, like Hyena, sorry, sorry, sorry, going from on the outside and picking off these

brilliant minds that are the outsiders, he can use charisma to convince them to

collaborate with him, to take his funding and then thereby he builds a reputation,

like slowly accumulates these people that actually results in a network of like some of

those brilliant people in the world, you know, and then pulls in people like Bill Gates and,

I don't know, political figures. I tend to believe one person can do that.

Yeah. I mean, look at Hitler, charisma is blinding. I think that's what Conman,

speaking of Bernie Madoff, that's one of their major tools is flattery, just glib, superficial

charm. It creates those blind spots. People want to hear how great they are. They want to be

flattered. It takes your defenses down. It plays to our ego how much we're all just pieces of

garbage and want to hear how great we are. We want that love from our mother and our father.

It's Freudian and they know because they're not burdened with that need, they're not burdened with

that empathy or emotions and they just see things very calculatively. They play, they know that

we're prey in their game and they use that against us and that is why someone who is not that intelligent

like Hitler can probably convince a lot more intelligent people, you know, and that's why

we can't give him dill in power because, you know, he already stands on a stage. I mean,

if we let that guy, I mean, he will just take over a country and everyone who can't cook well

will be eliminated. Yeah. So it's like, I wonder why he keeps complimenting me while we're in

private. Exactly. Be careful. He looks at me just, you're, I like your suit. I like the cut of your

jib. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you gotta be careful of that kid. He's Hitler. But it's crazy to think

about that. Clip that, please, internet. I mean, Quentin Tarantino said it to Ben. I mean, in his

grip, personality goes a long way, dude. Yeah. I mean, personality can usurp common sense and

reason of the smartest people. These absolute smartest people can be hypnotized. It's sort of

like a sexy woman. It's like, you can just, it just, you can be tricked because we have such a

blind spot for, you know, for, for flattery. Yeah, I wonder, I think there's a BBC documentary on,

I think it's called something like Charisma, Hitler's Charisma or something like that.

There's quite, I mean, that one focused more about the power of the speeches. But I wonder if

most of the success or the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich had to do with the Charisma of

Hitler when he's alone in a room with somebody, with the generals, just one on one. Like, I wonder,

I wonder if that's the essential element of just being able to just look into a person's eyes,

like flatter them or whatever is needed to earn their trust and then convince them of anything

you want. Right. Yeah. I mean, you're right. Cause that's, that's the one piece of history we don't

have. We don't know. We don't know. We do know that the kid crushed. I mean, he was a headliner.

He got up there and his, his hair would flopper. I mean, he crushed it. Yeah. There's certain

elements about nationalism and pride that are really powerful. Like a lot of us humans, I think,

long for that, for the feeling of belonging. And when some charismatic leader makes us feel

like we belong to a group, the, uh, the amount of evil we can do to other humans because of that

is endless scapegoat. Nobody wants to look in. Nobody wants to do the work to be better or look

at where they messed up. Why does it always have to be the Jews that are the scapegoats?

You know, it's like, get over it guys. I mean, it's like they killed Jesus. You get over it.

Yeah. Okay. It's a long time ago. I mean, move on. I'm Jewish. I understand because we do run

the central banks and the weather and the weather. Yeah. Don't forget about the weather. That's a

big one. That's a funny one that people created. Like, who gives a shit? Well, what is the weather?

Like, what's the importance of the weather? All right. The Jews made a rain outside. Good,

you got a fucking, you know, they made it snow. Okay. You get a day off. Thank the Jews. Yeah.

It's like, yeah, there's certain conspiracies that make me like flat earth. Like what, what's the

motive? Like what, who, what's the motivation for lying that the earth is round? Like, what's the

conspiracy? Yeah. What does anyone get out of that? Yeah. What is exactly the profit? What's,

what's the, yeah, what's the strategy? Do you have any, from a historical perspective,

or just a human perspective conspiracy theories you connect with, or you're not necessarily

conspiratorial? I'm, I'm not necessarily conspiratorial. Nobody cares that much. But there,

but then you, you know, what happens is you find out this one or this two.

You start questioning everything. And you start questioning everything, man. It's like,

you know, the Vietnam war started, that was a lie. That was a false flag. And then next thing,

you know, everything's a false flag. There are some strange things on 9 11. You know, there's

some strange things from a scientific perspective. I'm no scientist, but it's like, you know, yeah,

three steel framed skyscrapers falling on the same day in the same way. A lot of people

say, oh, it was the, they were hit by planes. It's like, yeah, but that's not where they fell.

They fell because of fires and usually, not usually, all the time, except for three times.

And there was buildings that have burned for longer than that.

And there might be good explanations, but the lack of transparency, it's like, I feel like

government, I'm building sevens weird. I mean, the way I kind of, I'm just a neat, just a neat

the physical, I mean, you're a scientist. Is that, well, I don't, I, is there resistance from the

steel? And so no, free fall, not all scientists know everything. I'm just a computer guy.

Okay. Cause I had some questions I wanted to ask about my biology.

Yeah. So exactly. I don't understand biology. I don't understand the melting point of steel. I

don't, but I'm just a common sense human that looks at government and institutions when they try

to communicate. And there's a certain human element where you can sense that there's dishonesty

going on. That dishonesty might not be deeply rooted in a conspiracy theory and something

malevolent. It might just be rooted more likely to me in a basic fear of losing your job.

Right.

And so when you have a bunch of people that are afraid of losing their job, you know, and they

just don't want to, like the origins of the virus, whether it came from a lab or not, you know,

that's a pretty, I know a lot of biologists behind a closed doors that, that say it's very likely

it was leaked from the lab, but like they don't want to talk about it because there's not good

evidence either way. It's mostly you're just using common sense. So they're waiting for good evidence

to come out in either direction, but just like nobody in positions of institutional like centralized

power wants to just honestly say, we don't know, or on the point of masks or all those kinds of

things to say, you know, here's the best evidence we have. We're not sure we're trying to figure

that. We're desperately trying to figure that out or just like honesty, especially in the modern

day. That's the hope I have for the 21st centuries. People seem to detect bullshit much, much better

because the internet internet. Yeah. Yeah. And we, we also believe crazy shit too. There's no

yin without a yang, I guess. But I think the conspiracy theories arise only when the people

in positions of power and government and institutions are full of shit. Like the air

will be taken out of the conspiracy theories. If the people in elected power would be much

more honest, like just like real people like Andrew Yang, whatever you think about him,

just more honest. He, he just like says whatever the hell comes to mind. By the way,

he's running for New York mayor. Do you have opinions? Yeah, it's no good. I like Andrew

Yang and it's no good. I'd be honest with you. I'm a lifelong New Yorker. I mean, I'm a New Yorker.

Well, you're in New York, so nothing's good. Well, something is good. Okay. And talking on,

let's be honest about New York. It's a very socially liberal place. It is the head of the snake.

New York is the country. If New York, when New York's not doing good, country's not doing good.

It's the most important city, DC, New York. It's really Rome, be honest. It's, it's a, maybe I'm

biased. I don't know. No. We just did New York as we walk around everywhere and we go, this is

just like New York, but not New York. It's, um, but and New York needs, and I'm a guy who leans

left. I, you know, I just, I'd lean left and that's just what it is. A dictator. Is that where

you're going? No, we need, we need, it's a money town. Let's be, come on, man. I mean, New York

is a money town and, uh, Wall Street. And then when AOC and her cronies, um, at the local level

rejected that Amazon thing, you're going like, what do you think makes cities? What, what, what's

going to create jobs in the 21st century? What do we need? More nail salons, more pizza places?

I mean, we're living in the tech revolution and, you know, whatever your opinions are about Jeff

Bezos, that's the world tech. And they want you to come here. Of course you give them tax breaks.

That's why any companies go anywhere. She's so fucking utopian and that, that progressive wing

is so utopian and that always ends in disaster because not rooted in reality. It doesn't accept

the reality that people are self interested. Now they're going to do this 14%, 15% tax hike

on people making a million dollars more in New York city. A million dollars is not that much.

So people are going to flee New York. The tax base is going to flee. New York's going to fall to

shit like it did before. So you're saying it basically needs a more capitalist front, like

capitalistic type of thing here. Bloomberg, Giuliani, when he was still saying,

and his hair wasn't melting off his face, prosecutor, you need a tough, I mean,

I don't know what's happened to that guy's lost it, but it's fun. Yeah, it's fun to watch. Yeah,

it's fun to watch him be just like Trump's lacking. Like, yeah, boy, whatever you want,

boss, I'll just say whatever you want, boss. But New York is a money town that needs a money guy

and sort of more of a Republican. I have to say on the local level, as more of a guy who leans

left, I'll just be honest, it's a tough city that needs a tough mayor, not some guy who's

going like, I understand we all need free money. Andrew Yang, I think, is right in the big picture

because all the real jobs are somewhere else. You look at those Asian cities, you go like,

oh, that's what our cities used to look like at the Industrial Revolution. There was jobs and

people were making things here. And now you look at those cities in Asia and you're going like,

wow. And then you go to Detroit and you're like, yeah, we're done. You go to Cleveland,

you go, we're done. So I don't actually, it's funny. The reason I really like Andrew Yang is

I've learned a lot every time he talks. Like, it's not his opinions. He's just giving a lot of data,

like information, which I just start a podcast, don't run from there. That's true. He already has

a podcast. I think Yang speaks. Who does it? Who does it? That's the way we communicate. I don't

even talk to people unless it's on a podcast. Listen, man, I'm not going to criticize that

because there is something like I talked to my dad on a podcast for four hours. And I'm not sure

I would, I would ever talk to him in the way we talked without the podcast. What does he do?

Physicist. Oh, shit. But like, yeah, it's episode 100. And, you know,

I, the way I recorded that podcast is I tried to put my ego aside. It's actually really tough to

talk to your dad, especially because you're giving him a platform. Especially at that time,

there's already a bit of a platform for this podcast. And so there's this, as a son, you think,

like, oh, here it goes with this bullshit again. Like that's the natural son thought you have.

But at the same time, I wanted to, the way I thought about it is in 20 years when I look back,

like I want to do a conversation where I'm happy with it. You know, so I want to make him shine.

But I also called him out on like, why are you so distant? Like, like all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, it was very difficult to do, but it was really important to do. And I don't think I'd be

able to do without a, without a microphone. Right. Listen, how often do we sit there and just focus

our attention, just look at the other person? I don't know, man, this is not even recording right

now. I just invited you over. Just so we could actually, you're right. The podcast does make,

like I listened, I've been listening to every word you've been saying. And if we weren't doing a

podcast, I might be looking at my phone or being self conscious about something else or nervous

or anxious. Especially with people close to you. I mean, that was, I recommend that actually for

people to talk to their family on a podcast or like a fake or not. That's really powerful.

It made me realize that there's a clear distinction between the conversations we

usually have with humans and those we have on the podcast as being recorded.

What the fuck were we talking about before that?

I knew you were going to lose your train of thought on that one because that's a big one.

There's a motion behind that one. The podcast with dad is going to take,

that's going to take you to a place. It took you to a place. It took you outside of interviewer.

New York. It went to a place in New York and Yang. So the data, one of the things that really

surprised me about, I like the psycho analysis you just threw in there.

Yeah, that took you to a place. So Angie Yang mentioned,

Can you respect me now, dad? MIT, is it enough? Fuck a million people listening to this?

I got 14 Rogans. Is it enough, dad? I'm creating robots. Is it enough for you?

Yeah. That's what drives you probably. That probably what drives me.

That's what gives meaning to life is it's never enough.

And I hope to pass that on to my kids one day that nothing's ever enough.

Whether they're robot or human, right? Your kids.

Most likely. Let's be honest. Robot. You might call one of your robot. Do you love your robot?

Are you starting to love your, is it going to be like that Pygmalion thing? You create them and

then they kill you. But even while they're killing you, you got a tear roll.

The tear, a slow one tear, one tear and just. Yeah. Why are you doing this Frankenstein?

Why? Why? But I loved you. Those would be the last words out of my mouth.

But Angie Yang mentioned something on the, that it costs a $400,000 over $400,000 per year to

support one person in prison in New York. Like when I heard that number, it was really confusing to

me. Like that it costs that much for $400,000 per person. And it was really refreshing to hear a

politician describe a particular problem with data, that this is this prison industrial complex,

whatever the hell it is. And whether the solution, it's unclear what the solution is.

I think he has solutions, but just the honesty of presenting that information was refreshing.

And I'm not sure a capitalistic person would solve that. Those kinds of problems he might

make worse. And I'm not, you know, I'm a huge fan of capitalism. I think,

I think the free market is the way we make progress in this world. But

it seems to go wrong in certain directions, like the military industrial complex, the prison

industrial, anything that ends with industrial complex. And so I'm not sure. I'm not sure if

all of the problems, you're basically saying, let's put New York's problems aside.

We need to have New York shine first to do what it does best.

Essentially, yeah.

And then the problems will fix them. Well, and then we can focus on the problems. But if you

just say like, here's a problem, here's a problem, here's a problem, let's make sure we have the

safety net that protects against all of these kinds of problems. That's not going to,

that's going to kill the city, the spirit of the city that is in your biased opinion,

the Rome of the world. That said, a lot of people are fleeing New York.

Yeah, that's why I say it. That's the reality of the situation is, you know,

I'm all for the public good. But yeah, there needs to be back to that Greek expression,

pan metronarist. And I also think the free market is responsible for progress.

I think it's the most natural thing, the thing that's most aligned with human nature,

which is self interest, and which I believe not to the extent that I in Randwood, but I do believe

people are mostly self interested, especially with one gun to the head. Morals are out the window,

you know, it's about survival. So, you know, create a system that respects that and acknowledges that.

But socialism works very well, at least right now, as a check as to temper the excesses of

capitalism and in certain scenarios, is the more appropriate system, you know, in a vacuum. So one

being prisons or, you know, governance, you know, maybe even, well, and this is a difficult one,

but in healthcare, healthcare, it's unclear what to write. There's a lot of the base there.

Yeah, doctors want boats. So I guess you're voting for AOC, you're saying.

No, I'm not voting for AOC, but I do. It's just a tough one. That's a tough one. But

ultimately, the Hippocratic oath, it's like, how do you turn people away, man? How do you do that

to people? It's like, it's a tough thing to reconcile helping people, curing people with

the marketplace. It's just, I can understand why that one's so tough. And then you got

hypochondriacs, of course, who drain the system, you know, like people who are having anxiety like

me, who had COVID and called 14, you know, I called 14 ambulances. So, and then, of course,

we're fat and the free market made us fat because it played the marketing made us want all this

junk food and that's a burden on the healthcare system. So we got to do something about that.

We got to get creative. We need new thinkers. I'll be one of them. When you go to a fast food

restaurant, you stand on a scale. If you're over a certain thing, you can't be served.

It's good for the healthcare system. You know, you just handed a salad and say, sorry,

this burger's illegal for right now. If you achieve these certain BMI goals, then you can have this

burger, but right now you can. And that's where the state's important. Okay, to regulate our freedoms.

No slurpees up with you, Bloomberg. Well, I'm with you to go along. I think the salads are too

expensive. They should be subsidized. If you go to like a fast food joint, the burger is always

going to be cheaper than the salad. And this does not make sense. We should run on this platform.

I'll be your vice president. Well, ban burgers for people over a certain way and make salads cheap.

Three day work weeks. Why has that been happening? Okay, where are you going with this one?

Dude, good for the economy stimulates the economy, right? More shifts creates more jobs,

more people spending because they have more leisure time boosts the leisure economy.

Why are we still doing the five day work week that that was that was tempered from the seven

day work week. That was so the seven, it used to be seven day work. It used to be like,

people who are just these libertarians, like, come on, dude, what is this fresh? Are we freshmen

in college? Yeah, you get it. We're going to talk about iron ran next. Like, let's talk about

reality. Okay. And human nature. People are fucking greedy. They lie. You know, there's no end to up,

which is one of my favorite expressions. No end to up. No end to up. There's no end to up.

But can we dissect that? Yeah, from a Randian perspective, there's no end to up, which is

you just keep going. It's never enough. Oh, never enough. It's never enough. No end to up. More,

more, more. And, you know, you have to reconcile, you're going to die. So like, there's no end

to up thing is that balance is just as valuable as progress. So we have to reconcile those two

things and put them on a seesaw and figure out how to get two people who have the equal weight

to keep it like that. And that's the goal. And it constantly vacillates according to the time.

You sometimes you need a little more socialism, sometimes you need a little more capitalism.

You got to, you got to, you got to fly the plane, man. You got to fly the plane, dude.

What's your looking back at history? Is there a moment time period in history, a person in history

that's most fascinating to you? You mentioned birdie made up. Maybe second to birdie made up.

Is there in a battle of Crete? Is there something that you've always been curious about, even if

it's something you haven't actually researched that well yet, just something that pulled your

curiosity that instructed the way you think about the world. An individual or an event or

event, individual, you know, yeah, moment in history or person in history.

There's a few, but, you know, Queen Elizabeth, the Elizabethan era, you know, the sun never

sets in the British Empire, very successful empire. What an absolute success story that is

for a leader and a woman. Can you tell a little bit about her story? I actually don't know much

about the British Empire. Yeah, she had a good run. I think it's like 70 years, you know, as a

Shakespeare, they, you know, the, oh, I guess what's the word, Pax Romana, the, the, the period of

Rome that was that peace and they flourished like a couple of error emperors like Trajan or

some good ones. And I think he was part of the Pax Romana that sort of just a peace and a comfortable

flourishing time. And England had sort of that in their empire under her successful reign. She

murdered her cousin. She, you know, the movies, there's, you know, Kate Blanchett plays her and,

and does so. And she didn't win the Oscar because fucking Gwyneth Paltrow put a, put a British accent

on in Shakespeare in love. It's a tragedy. Why do I know this? Because I'm not a full man. I'm a

comedian, which means I do skits that I perform. And I, Kate Blanchett's incredible actress,

great movies. She was just so, and here's the thing, she, she never got married. She was, she was so

astute at public relations. And, and, and, and imagine how strong you got to be as a woman to

lead the greatest empire, maybe known to man at the time, and to do so, so successfully, how

Machiavellian you have to be, how idealist you have to be, how much of a good marketer you

have to be, propaganda machine was on point. She was married to England. She was adored the way

she adorned herself. You walked in, you're like, holy men, God just walked in here. And of course,

she got fucked. I mean, who doesn't fuck? We all fuck. Even robots one day will fuck. But she was,

she, she did that propaganda thing. And historians aren't, haven't, they haven't decided this,

but I believe she fucked. And I believe she did that as a tool of propaganda, a marry to England.

So you, oh, you're directly referring to like using sex as a way to manipulate people?

Well, she, her, she was known as like the, the Virgin Queen. And, and her thing was like,

I'm married to England. Like I can't be distracted by man or woman, blah, blah, blah,

she never had any kids, nothing. I think she did that as a tool of manipulation.

Yes. What you need, rulers need to, you know, Obama made you feel good and then he went and

carpet bombed everywhere. You need to feel good about your guy, no matter how evil they are.

And she was fucking a dictator. But when you look back at her, everyone's like, oh my God,

she was so great. The horror and the shit that she had to do, she didn't put that in history books.

But that's what probably was part of what made her successful. And she's a fascinating character

to partner with because she was so successful and, and England flourished so much. And it's

just fascinating to me because she was the great Virgin Queen. And can you think of a,

there's no other woman who was that say, I mean, Angela Merkel. I mean, come on. I mean,

there's nobody who comes close and defeating the Spanish or Mata. I think that happened under

her. I mean, I'm no professionalist, but I mean, the woman crushed. And do you think it's more

effective to lead by love, which it sounds like what she did from the PR perspective or by fear?

Where do you land on that? That's a great question. We got to ask Joe.

Well, yeah, this is interesting because I think leading in the 21st century in whatever ways is

different. I think it's very difficult to lead by fear. I mean, that's why I find Putin fascinating

and like really fascinating. Like, is he a relic of another era or is he something that

will still be necessary in the coming decades for certain nations?

I think he's a, I don't think he's a relic from another era. I think his background,

I think he is who you think he is because his background was an espionage. His background

was in subterfusion espionage. I think I've said the word subterfusion maybe 10 times now,

but he... You like big words, intellectuals. I'm just sitting here with you. It's time to flex.

But he's very good at that, right? Like controlling people with psychology and

even if you look at the way he sort of used the internet and has sort of been, you know,

gotten into the citizens of other countries opinions and it's very KGB. He also looks great

without a shirt on a pony. On a horse. On a horse. Yeah. Yeah. I thought he would choose a pony

because a pony's smaller. Would you put Queen Elizabeth as the greatest leader of all time?

Probably. Yeah. I think as a woman and you look at the length of the rain,

I think it's like 70 something years or something like that. She reigned. Success, man. Success.

She used the church. She used public psychology, Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of all time

under her reign. You know, people were going to plays and it was a success front and she was

marauding everywhere else, marauding and culling resources for the empire. Just say absolute

successful. It's even a token of her success. We don't consider her a dictator. Yeah. She's a

dictator. You know, she was queen. This is my thing I love about the feudal system that these

fucking countries still have feudal systems. They're celebrating a horrible thing. Divine

right of kings, oppression. Kings were dictators and now they have fucking ceremonial. Why don't

we have a ceremonial furor? What is in German? He doesn't do any of the bad stuff. He just rolls

around and does this shit. I mean, it's like, what the fuck? There's no difference between a

Hitler and a fucking king. They did the same horrible shit. Why not a fucking ceremonial

conqueror? Alexander the Great walks in, rapes it a little bit, but it's all fun. It's for

ceremony. He represents the country. Macedonia is great. It's interesting to see that some

you're starting to see a bit of that in Russia with Stalin, actually, the celebration of a man

that helped win the great patriotic war. Uh oh. Yeah. Right. So like you you're already starting

to see that is very possible in history books. You'll be seen as maybe like a Jengis Khan type

of character and you forget the millions that he tortured. So you're one of the most successful

and brilliant people the world has ever seen. So you're the good person to ask for advice.

You know, there's a lot of young people that look up to you. God bless their souls and hearts.

Made the right choice. What advice would you give to a young person, maybe to yourself,

to a young version of yourself, you know, and just how to live a successful, a good life?

Be doggedly you. I think the magic happens when you are stubbornly doggedly you and you

meet other people who are doing the same. And the real magic of life, the real true currency in

this ephemeral life is sort of the communication that happens between people. That's the real

currency, friendships, love. It's cliche, but it's I think the meaning of life is to experience,

to experience love. And I think people often mistake maybe it's because of Hollywood films

and things like that, that love is feeling, but it's not. It's an action. So that took me a while

to learn. And I think that's why I've made decisions since that I think have been good for me and

healthy for me. Love is an action. People can say things, you can feel things. That doesn't mean

they're necessarily real. It's all chemical reactions. It's all tied to our immaturity

and psychological issues and survival. But action when you do things, when you act out of love,

and that's what it's about. Is there times when you were younger where you were dishonest with

who you are to yourself? Yeah. In terms of what kind of things did you have to do to shake yourself

up and be like, okay, I thought I'm going to be a scientist, but instead I realized I'm going to do

this. Yeah, my parents want it. I'm going to make funny. Yeah, my comedy is a hard thing to explain

to an immigrant mother who came here and under Nazi occupied Crete and became a human rights

lawyer and lawyer. And my brother's a lawyer. My father was a lawyer. Claude is way up. His dad

was a... So you're a disappointment. I'm the black sheep. Yeah, my brother went to Oxford,

Georgetown Law at Brown. He has master's and law degrees. My mother has four law degrees.

She was on the Human Rights Commission in New York up for a judgeship under Dinkins,

wrote a... She was the editor of Unitar. She wrote a seminal piece on the human rights of

children for the United Nations. And yeah, I was a comedian. I was always a fuck up. And the thing

that I was best at, the only thing I was ever decent at was just making people laugh. I don't

know why. I don't know where that comes from. Was there ever a question or was there a moment

where you decided this is what I'm going to do? There was a moment after I graduated college.

Yeah, but I was thinking about all types of stuff that other people imposed on me. And

I was honest with myself. And once I figured out it was an actual career path, I wasn't even aware.

Back then the internet wasn't huge. You know, in late 99, 2000, it wasn't big yet. So I didn't

even... I thought Robin Williams was just like an actor. I didn't know there was comedy clubs and all.

So once I learned that, I was just like, I tried it. I suffered from massive anxiety. I remember

the first time I did comedy, my arms went numb. I started having a massive panic attack. I have

my first set. I can show it to you. It's like, I suggest I just... I'm video. Yeah, I'm video.

Oh, nice. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And the reason why I kept saying thank you is because

I forgot my whole jokes. I was so scared. And then they laughed because of the amount of times I said

thank you. And then once they laughed, I remembered the whole thing. And I did the five minutes.

And I remember getting off and for a person who never felt like he had a place anywhere,

nothing ever felt right. That felt like, okay, I found it. This is what I'm supposed to do.

This is it. It was the only time in my life I felt that I haven't felt it since,

never felt it before. So it's the only thing I can do. And...

Yeah, I had that. You know, it's funny because there's... I have a similar experience like immigrant

family in the world tells you to do certain things and you think that's right. But then

you put yourself in situations by luck, probably, where it's like, oh, this feels right. I don't

know what this means, but this feels right. I think the biggest moment like that for me was...

I don't know what to make of it exactly, but when I met Spot, the robot, the legged robot,

it was like five years ago, it felt like the depth of fascinating ideas that are yet to be

explored with this thing. This felt like a journey. It was like a door that opened.

I was like, I don't want to be a professor. At that point, I realized I don't want to

do sort of generic stuff. I want to do something crazy. I want to do something big.

That's the reason I stepped away from MIT. That's the reason I have this burning desire to do a

startup. That's the reason I came to Austin. Yeah, I don't know what the hell it all means,

but you just follow that. That's awesome. That sounds like you're following what's

doggedly you. Also, I think just to piggyback off it, I think that means no matter what it is,

because I think the American dream is sold like, hey, if you're not Beyoncé or if you're not famous,

you're not worth it. I hate that. That's what I love so much about certain countries like

Sweden. It's like where everyone has healthcare and stuff like that, because everyone's a little

is valued more. It's like whatever, if you want to be a doorman, dude, it's all the same. Prince

was not happy. Just because you're rich or famous, you're still the same guy, whether your possessions

are a lot little. It's like, I have met some doormen. I have met some tax gapers that a lot of you

not are more fascinating. Comedians are horrible people. I want to get away from all, but I have

very few friends, Paul Verzi, Tim Dillon, who are comedians because they're awful, awful people.

Some of the people who you know the most, who are the most famous, are not who they say they are.

Usually that's the case. They're putting on that public facade because they're fucking sociopaths.

They're horrible people. And some of the most beautiful people I've met and the most interesting

people I've met have regular jobs. There is no shame in any fucking job. We don't all have to be

rappers with rims. It's just a weird thing. Yeah, fame is a drug. And yeah, comedians,

I agree with you. There's some part of me that knows that there'll be a moment in my life when

I'm standing there with a sword or a knife in my stomach and looking at Tim Dillon's smiling face

saying, you shouldn't have trusted me. You stupid fuck. So on that note, Yannis, I've been a huge

fan of yours. I love what you're doing with long days now, your new podcast. And I obviously love

all the stuff you've done before with history, hyenas, the chemistry, the chemistry you have

with yourself is also fun to watch. So man, I'm a huge fan. It's a huge honor that you come down

here. Thanks so much for talking to me. It means so much to me to hear you say that. I really

appreciate I'm a big fan of yours. And have me on has been amazing. And just thank you, man.

Thank you for having me on. And people, if they want to watch my special, it's called Blowing

the Light. It's on YouTube. And please come listen to Long Days of Podcast. And let's go eat some

barbecue. Let's do it. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Yannis Papas. And thank you

to Wine Access, Blinkist, Magic Spoon, and Indeed. Check them out in the description to

support this podcast. And now let me leave you with some words from Karl Marx. Revolutions

are the locomotives of history. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.