Beyond the Vapor with Robert Stark
I chat with Walt Bismarck about White Dudes for Kamala & Job Stacking
[THEME MUSIC] Well, I love Jews. Yes, I love them so much. From the towers of New York to the whaling wall that they touch. From Ben Shapiro's eyebrows to his sister's giant tits. I love the chosen people, just adore them to bits. Oi, bei, oi, bei, oi, bei, oi, bei, oi, bei. I love the chosen people, he'd eat hip, hip, hooray. You never should forget that one's a friend of the Jews. And if you stand against them, then you're going to lose. Oi, bei, oi, bei, oi, bei, oi, bei. I love the chosen people, he'd eat hip, hooray. You never should forget that one's a friend of the Jews. And if you stand against them, then you're going to lose. [THEME MUSIC] Well, I love Jews. Yes, I love them so much. From the towers of New York to the whaling wall that they touch. From Ben Shapiro's eyebrows to his sister's giant tits. I love the chosen people, just adore them to bits. Oi, bei, oi, bei, oi, bei, oi, bei. I love the chosen people, he'd eat hip, hooray. You never should forget that one's a friend of the Jews. And if you stand against them, then you're going to lose. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Radio Tortuga. Today we have, once more, my good Jewish friend, Robert Stark. Robert, how's it going? Great. Well, thanks for having me on. Oi, bei, oi, bei. You don't want to miss the knowledge and wisdom. That-- oh, how'd it have to go? I don't want to miss the knowledge. My friend. There's a tale for you about the podcaster who's known so well. Well, Bismarck's the name, a friend of the Jews. Oi, bei, oi, bei. See, the funny thing is, people are going to associate with me, and it sort of gives me space to say things that are more independent, because I have all these songs about how much I love Jews. It's sort of a hyperbolician movie you can sort of play. But anyway, yeah, great to have you back. So how have things for-- sorry, my cat to run around. How have things been for you in the past few weeks, sir? Yeah, pretty good. I've been prolific on sub-stack. Awesome. So why don't you use this opportunity to show some articles? What's your favorite of all the things that you've published over the past few weeks? I want to start with the whole white guys for Kamala thing. I don't know if you saw that. You saw that, the article I wrote a pretty short article. But I think you have the responses, because the more-- some of the more people embraced it. But I think the response from more to kind of normie, conservatives in MAGA, was like, you got the usual dems are the real racist. But then you also got people who were saying it was actually anti-white, because it's saying like whites need to be subservient. But I would say that it's interesting, because it gives whites agency, because woke people are saying that they actually say colorblindness is white supremacy, because it assumes whiteness is the default. But the question is, are they actually-- are the woke actually right about that? I feel like the whole racial aspect of Kamala Harris, people aren't really tuned in to-- anyone who's actually worked for somebody like Kamala Harris knows that she's not going to be that anti-white. She relies on white men to get stuff done. When you actually work for somebody like that, it's not actually that bad. Someone like Hillary who's actually that scarier. And I don't know about you, but for me, Kamala Harris seems a lot more benign than Hillary did in the 2016 campaign. And I'm not even that concerned about her winning. I don't feel like she's going to-- I think she could end up being kind of incompetent, but I don't see her as a dangerous tyrant the way that Hillary Clinton is. I guess some people who are super pro-Trump will say that there's a whole machine behind her that's dangerous, but just looking at an individual-- I think you're basically right. And I'm not going to endorse Kamala Harris, but there is some case-- you could make an acceleration in this case while it'd be better to have her as president, just because it would sort of hasten people thinking in more terms of post-Americanism. Well, it'd be great for us, right? I mean, our audiences would probably grow like twice as fast as they would under Trump, not to be so crassly, selfish, and cynical about things. But I mean, I do just think, I mean, what is Trump really going to do, right? I mean, it's not like-- even if he did all the best stuff from Project 2025, it's none of the bad stuff. I mean, how much is that really going to have a lingering effect given the whole human capital problem? I mean, I guess I've sort of moved in a direction of not even caring that much about the civil service or government or the bureaucracy anymore. It seems to me that that's not where the right ever is going to have its advantage, right? I mean, academia and the bureaucracy, liberals are always going to predominate there, because right-wingers who are high IQ, they go into consulting or they go into business and they go into fields where they'll make money. So it seems to me that if we're going to build, at least human capital, we need to be competing in those arenas. And that's where we need to be putting our focus, right? It's sort of turning that into a hard institutional power structure, as opposed to working on trying to infiltrate the Department of Commerce or whatever. I mean, it just seems kind of silly. Yeah, yeah, I basically agree. I do want to talk more about like white guys for Kamala. I think, because I remember this complaint that Trump would never acknowledge whiteness. I think maybe he did more recently. He said, well, he Trump did recently say he's doing really well with white men. But I remember the whole thing, which really pissed off the alt-right, where he would acknowledge that he said, we have the greatest unemployment for every single group, except white men. And I do remember, I think Andrew Yang, I remember that was a big deal where he acknowledged like white people back. And I told, when was that like 20? It was 20, yeah. Because because-- Yeah, I don't know that. Even Bernie Sanders maybe said the word like working class whites a few times. But Trump, maybe he's had a shift recently. But Trump's always been-- I think it's really-- a lot of it is just his age. But I think-- I mean, I think people are really getting at something when they say-- when they say, assuming that whiteness is just a default, that's white supremacy. But I don't think white people are-- it denies white-- it denies white people agency. So I think, ironically, it's like, are you familiar if that meme, the woke or more correct in the mainstream? Yeah, oh, they absolutely are, right? Because there is a sense in which the whole dems are real racist is sort of true. I mean, not in the way that stupid Republicans think. But it is true in the sense that that is a sort of like white man's burden attitude, right? And that they have. And a lot of-- I mean, the very first or the second, I guess, podcast, yes I had on this publication was a black woman, a fairly left wing, who her attitude was like, white liberals are more racist than white conservatives, because they're just so patronizing. And there's a lot of black people who just really do despise how patronizing white liberals are. Now, I mean, that kind of poses like dems are real racist and cringe-cuck-serve it to say. But it is sort of true, right? Oh, yeah, for sure. But yeah, I mean, I think your point about like, white dudes for camel is sort of interesting, because there is a sense in which, yeah, like if you're on the left, that does give you space to be a white male rhetorically in an interesting way. And it's almost like you can almost-- because you're coming out from a sort of oblique direction, you can't almost do more for the interests of white men like within that framework that you can within the Republican framework, where it's like, you can like dog whistle really harshly against like, you know, thugs or illegals. But it's like, I mean, what does that really get you? Yeah, or also like multiculturalism. Multiculturalism that includes whiteness is better than just American civic nationalism. Yeah, that's interesting. Like, there's a sense in which-- I mean, like, do you think Kamala Harris would really be opposed to like a patchwork America where like white guys were talking about being white guys? And like, I think I don't think-- I think she just kind of shares about power. But the question is, would-- I mean, would the left and the Democratic Party, would they allow-- would they allow for that? I mean, you had kind of like-- I think whiteness is maybe different than saying like-- like specific, but like, you had like Irish American caucuses within the Democratic Party. And that was-- I mean, that was perfectly fine. So that-- I mean, that's-- I really don't know what this kind of multiculturalism that includes whiteness, whether the left will allow for it at some point, or you could see it emerging from the right. I really-- I can just pontificate, but-- Well, yeah, this is why I wrote that article about the pro-white case for reparations, right? Because it's like, in order to be sort of consciously like a white, quat white in American-- within the overtime window, you sort of need to like, hedge it in something, or couch it in something like sort of antithetical to whiteness. And that's why I think the strongest thing you could do is be pro reparations, but you do it in a sort of pro-white way. And that sort of squares the circle, unless you can triangulate and get above the terms of debate. And you can actually be authentically pro-white in a really robust way. Now, a lot of people didn't like that. But I think that's-- like, you need to think those sort of approaches if you're going to-- if you're going to have any sort of mainstream political cloud. Do you have any thoughts on appealing to elite human capital? I guess before I get to that, is there anything else you'd like to add about just wide identity politics and its real and multiculturalism? No, I mean, I guess I'll just say that I've sort of-- I came back to Substack, and I did this big, grandiose article, why I'm no longer a white nationalist. But you know, plenty of people have said, oh, you're basically a white nationalist. And some people, but then a lot of white nationalists hate me because I'm not like, white nationalist enough. And it's like, I don't know. To some extent, I think that we've almost just moved past the need for those categories. And it's like, yeah, I care about white interests, but it's not the only thing I care about. And it's something I think we should talk about. Just not all the time. And I think it's almost just like become a boring, very normal aspect of American politics. I mean, at least in our circles. I think that we-- it's almost like in our circles, it's sort of passe, and we've sort of like, you know what I mean? Maybe in nation politics, it's still a little spicy. But I don't feel like-- I don't know. I feel like I'm going to get canceled, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not worried about that. Because you do have these kind of like these conservative, grifty, conservative figures who are regurgitating like alt-right talking points from like 2016 now. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, yeah, like Matt Walsh and Charlie Kirk. I mean, they're like basically soft white nationalists. I mean, I mean, yeah, they'll be-- You just use that term in your article why you're not a white nationalist, soft white nationalism. That's basically like American Renaissance and people who don't desire an F no state, but they want to keep America maybe like majority white. That's what that is. Yeah, right, yeah. I mean, but like I would say, just more broadly speaking, it's anyone who sort of just advocates for like white interests as a collective, right? Or like who like talk about like, you know, like I'm not ashamed to be white, or like, you know, like the interests of white men. I mean, like, you know, like Matt Walsh and Charlie Kirk are talking like that now, right? In a way, they wouldn't. I mean, Charlie Kirk like went to war with Nick Fuentes over this kind of shit in 2019. So, I mean, the fact that we've moved to this point, I mean, it's almost like boring on some level, right? It's almost like, like part of the reason I'm still sort of a sort of white nationalist coded figure is almost because I sort of want to like sublimate the white nationalist energy and bring it in a more productive direction. You know, like I sort of feel like too much, there's too much like a victim mindset you see in some white nationalist like the two like, you know, they're just like blaming everyone, whether it's Jews or Indians or like whatever. Like they're just not agentic. They're not like capable of building anything. - That's the word agentic you. Yeah, that's like, I think it used to be Faustian. Like Faustian was your word, now agentic is your word, that's important. - Yeah. - It is important to be agentic. - Well, yeah, the reason it's important to me is because I'm someone who's naturally very prone to addiction and prone to like compulsive behavior. So like it's something I think about a lot is like, I don't just assume everyone has free will. Like I think it's something you have to like very consciously cold it like, do they say we do a free will? It's something that has to be trained like constantly. - So you're basically a vitalist? - Yeah, well, I mean, you know, yeah, I guess I would, I mean that that's, that was my original moniker. When I came back to sub-seg, right? I was the vitalist and then I went back to Walt Bismarck. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I didn't know that had any like ties to BAP 'cause I never read BAP when it's when I came back, I was calling myself a vitalist, but I didn't know it had that connection. So I'm not a big fan of BAP. I mean, I'm sort of adjacent in some ways, but I go in a completely different direction with it. And like- - I think you said you take some issue with BAP as far as is importance he places on male ascetics. - Yeah, yeah. And like I guess what I mean by that is like, it's not that like, you know, guys would be ugly or whatever, just like like fixating on like male beauty or whatever, it's just like very, like men are not going to be able to like compete on those dimensions, like women can't, right? I mean, like, like there's just, like most guys are like a five or six and they're like, we're not supposed to be anything different from that, right? Like that's not supposed to, like it's very unhealthy to sort of like form your self-concept and your self-esteem around like your physique. And, you know, I think you've got a lot of like Zoomer guys going on steroids at a really young age, you know, because they have these, I mean, it's the whole body image issue thing, right? I mean, it's the same thing like women do within the 90s. You know, you get these guys with like perfect like six packs on Instagram or whatever. And you get a lot of like young guys wanting to go and test. And I don't know, I just, I think it's a, I mean, obviously like anything that moves directionally in the favor of testosterone is probably good, but I mean, I just, I don't like the fact that it's sort of like warped everyone's self-consciously because to me it's just very like home or erotic, right? The idea of like valuing men for their bodies like is an aesthetic thing as opposed to like a function, you know? - What are your thoughts on the whole thing of, of calling JD Vance weird from the Kamala campaign and sort of attack on social status? And do you think, what are your thoughts like on that? And just like how important social status is weaponized in politics? - Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. Like, like JD Vance is weird, right? Like he does have a sort of like incel energy. And I sort of relate to him in the sense that I've kind of a common background with him. It's like being sort of white trash. And then like sort of like matriculating into the elite classes, but like feeling like you're really not part of either, right? Like you're not really, you know-- - Well, he's this weird hybrid because he's not really, he's too assimilated to be like a, to be a hell billy, but at the same time, he's not like fully assimilated. He's in this weird in between kind of stage and it comes across as like really awkward. - No, exactly. Yeah, I mean, that's how I feel a lot of times, right? 'Cause I'm too trashy for like upper middle class people. But then if I go back to my trashy family, they think of me as like a weird like a feed faggot or something, you know what I mean? - You said you didn't really connect with the normy white people in Nebraska? - No, not at all, no. So I mean, I understand like where Vance is sort of coming from, like I think he's somebody who's never really felt, I mean, he read his book, like he can tell he's like manicuring it. And like he's probably like covering up a lot of like weird shit he did as a kid. It's just, it's very like- - Even though the couch, the whole having sex with the couch thing is fake, but there is something, there are things about him that are kind of weird. - Yeah, I mean, like you know that he did do weird shit, but like he obviously was manicuring his own image, you know, it's to be expected. But I mean, like there clearly is like a vibe that people are picking up on. And I guess, I guess like the left is, I think they're overplaying their hand because it's, there is an extent to which like the right has- - They're the ones, I guess this is like the basic bitch kind of conservative response, but the conservatives will say they'll post like images of like the left having all this like trans stuff and saying, look, like you're the ones are really weird. And it's kind of, it's kind of petty, but it is weird about how the politics, how the left sort of like, they utilize being, being weird and being transgressive, but then they also switch things around and present themselves as the party of normalcy. - Well, that means it's very, it's a reason to doubt it. - It is actually think it can be an effective strategy to play both sides and the right could do it too. - Well, yeah, but what I'm saying is like, I think that's a recent development, right? I think it's a function of like the whole like emphasis on normalcy that's always been a Republican thing. I mean, even, I mean, like really forever, like the Republican party has been the party of like the sort of core Americans, like normal Americans where the Democrats were like the coalition of the fringes, be they minorities or feminists or gays or whatever, right? And you know, it used to be like ethnic like white ethics and you know, now it's like racial minorities, but it's always been like Democrats were weird, right? And then that would include like nerds and like social rejects and stuff. - Well, yeah, that's another thing. I think nerds used to be like white male nerds in the Reagan era, they sort of leaned to the left and then there was a huge pivot of like white male nerds to the right for obvious reasons. - Well, yeah, depends on what you mean by nerd, right? Because you obviously have like the Funko pop like Redditor type who's always been like that. - Oh, right. - A real nerd, like it's the sort of people who like like guys like us, right? Like we obviously like moved to the right. - Are you all right? It's kind of the, it was kind of the queer movement. - Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, yeah, I agree. And I guess what my point is though is that like the, Democrat party has become the party of like bourgeois middle class sensibilities, right? Of normalcy of being like, you know, whereas the Republican party is now like the party of like weird, it's like the hak to a girl, right? And it's like, it's gonna be like kind of trashy and sort of behavior and that's why I think the Bar School impulse is gonna be very necessary because like the Republican party isn't gonna be like the party. Like the Democrats are gonna be more sexually restrained now than the Republicans. I think the hak to a girl is a sort of like like premonition of that, right? Because it's, I think that like Democrats are gonna be the ones who say like don't talk about sex and public. That's like, you know, you're imposing your fetishes on people that's like sexual, like like they'll use leftist language that it'll be very puritanical. Whereas the right will be the ones who are like, you know, willing to talk about like sex and public. So I think it's gonna be like a total shift on our sensibilities and, you know, 20 years from now, it's gonna be completely unrecognizable compared to when we work in. - Do you have thoughts on strategies? Oh, I guess I wanna hear your thoughts like your thoughts on the whole like elite human capital concept and how the right has this shortcoming of elite human capital and strategies are becoming more of like a high status movement and building distant elites. - No, I mean, I agree with Anani as recent take. I think that like it's basically, and you know, what tracing, what grains and all of them is I mean, I think it's sort of baked into the cake. But I think that we need to just pivot or like we need to build around our strengths. Like we can't like act like it's like it's just like lost or like the, like I don't like how sometimes Anani will just sort of like seed all the ground to the left or I mean, like he'll sort of like wanna own. - I'm not dissing Anani, but he definitely really likes to signal which is which I get. - Yeah, I mean, I hate like right wing judge too, but he does, he like counter signals them like all the time to the extent where he's just like, you know, I mean, it's funny, like poor John Arcto, just just totally like terrorized by him. But, but yeah, no, I guess my thing is like at least human capital is obviously important, but I don't think we need to be building that in academia or journalism or, you know, government bureaucracies. I don't think that matters as much. I think that, you know, the private sector is where the right has always been strong. - But there is, there's like a, like a, there's sort of like a Brahmin versus Vaishia archetype. And like the right tends to be more like Vaishia, more mercantile. And I think for people who are like right wing people who are more Brahmin, in less, I think like like quitting like artists and people interested in academia and philosophy, like they, they can be like really screwed. - Okay, well here's my, here's my big brain take for you. Is that the whole Brahmin versus Vaishia dynamic is based off of like a sort of pre-industrial or even industrial sort of economic script. And when you get into the modern like simple manipulation economy, it's the Brahmin priestly cast that can become the most economically successful. And in fact, that's what's happened. If you look at like Silicon Valley and stuff, it's the white Brahmin's who are the ones who are dominating there. It's not really, it's not, it's not Vaishia types and Silicon Valley, right? So- - Like Vaishia types are more like they're running like auto dealerships. - Yeah, like Vaishias aren't gonna like job stack, right? I mean, I mean, like maybe some of them will as like followers, but like the people who start job stacking it, like the people who even like come up with this, right? Like I'm obviously like a Brahmin sort of person, right? I mean, it's- - Are you obviously it's been around for a while. Would you say are you having a role in really pioneering it? Or you'd say other people? - No, I know. So, yeah, obviously it's been around for a while. Like you have a guy J-Rolf Holzer, whatever on Twitter. - Oh, right. - Yeah, he's the main one. But I'd say that what I've done is I've created like an aesthetic for it. - So like as like a patron is that work for your people? - Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. So I'm giving it like a long-term trajectory that's like out of job stacking itself. But then more broadly, I'm giving it like a sort of moral or ethical, or even just like artistic and aesthetic sort of foundation that makes it like more than just about like being greedy. And like, you know, the idea is like you're, you know, like doing it for pro-social ads and more than that, like even speaks that you are doing it for, you know, 'cause you're a reader, plunder, whatever. It's like it's something you're doing with your bros. It's like you're having fun being a pirate. And there's a whole like, like LARPY aspect to it, which I think is like- - Yeah, your brand is all like everything's been rebranded with the pirate theme. - Well, I mean, like, if you remember like, well, Bismarck's from 2016, I feel like there's a certain similar energy with the pirate stuff, right? I mean, it's sort of like very, like Disney pirates. I mean, it's very so consciously LARPY. - It's camp. Yeah. - Yeah, yeah. But it's like when you lean into what it happens, everyone just kind of, especially his millennials, right? Like we'll just, I feel like like, like most of the guys in my group are millennials. And like, we'll just embrace that a little bit more readily than Zoomers or Gen X milks. - Oh yeah, that's another thing. I think millennials are more camp and more into more into much more into nostalgia. - For sure. Yeah, absolutely. - I don't know like how I described Zoomers are kind of, they're very, they're much more derastinated and cut off from the past. - Zoomers like want to be camp though. Like I think that there's this energy- - I do. - They like want to let loose and be free and like just like be silly, but like they're afraid of being called cringe. But when a millennial comes around and is like cringe or around a Zoomer in like a charismatic way, the Zoomers will go along with it, right? And then the Gen Xers hate that because the Gen Xers want the Zoomers to be able to attach to them like irony, bro, like that, right? But then like really like it was this millennials who are meant to leave Gen Z, not Gen X, right? I mean like Gen X is just kind of like, like what are they doing? (laughing) Like they're kind of just like purposeless. Like they never were able to seize power from the boomers in any meaningful way. And like they're very pathetic sort of generation, you know? So you're a millennial, not Gen X, right? - I'm a millennial, right? - Okay, good. - Do you think it's viable of appealing to people within like the existing elite? - Oh, okay. - Well, you're not, I mean, you're not really a populist, but by its nature, I think it's really failure to end that bit of failure. But have you, do you think you've been reaching out, getting your message out to people from elite backgrounds and how effective do you think it is? - Yeah, I think that there's a certain like heterodox kind of centrist sort of people who will be drawn to like a right-wing, vitalist, you know, high openness movement, just because it's so novel and bizarre to them. And then they'll sort of get drawn into your culture and then by osmosis, they'll sort of become like, you know, like more pro-white or more, you know, like anti-feminist or whatever, than they otherwise would have been. And I think I've certainly seen that in my social circle here on Substack. So I think it's possible, but like these are exceptional people, right? Like I mean, I did a poll in my community and that they were all like 90th percentile openness. You know, like people who are anywhere, even someone who's like 80th percentile openness, like they tend to find me like kind of weird and off-putting or just, I don't know. So I don't even know if it's like a left-right thing because like if anything, like right-wingers seem to hate me more than left-wingers. So I don't even know if it's that so much as like... - Oh yeah, it's like neuro-tribalism, like your psychological profile, sometimes Trump's politics. - Right, exactly, yeah. I mean, I don't think I'm temperamentally that liberal, but I'm sort of like, there's like the gray tribe terminology, you know, like that guy's like that kind of, you know, I don't know, like spiritually libertarian, I'm probably what you call it, but... - What do you make of the whole like right-wing of the center right of the Silicon Valley, like musk, teal, sax, and Andreessen? I think have you been reading some of like Rachel Haywire's commentary about them, about how she said they used to be like more, I'm not sure who she's talking about in particular, but how they used to be more like sense serious and your thoughts on that all seen in general. - Yeah, I think they're just, I mean, obviously like in, it wasn't as politically charged in the past and like tech was more just co-coated as left because, you know, like you think about like, what were the political forces in the country at the time? It was probably like the Tea Party, right, which was very much like a Mill American sort of like hard dealership sort of impulse. You know, we're in a lot of like, you know, tech bros in the Tea Party. Whereas these days, like the sort of, yeah, I mean, you see like, Catholic integrals among tech bros that you'll see like, you know, the neo-reaction types. I mean, like all sorts of dissident right sort of people. I mean, it's more of a prominent thing. So like, I mean, it's sort of just like, like the rights become weirder, right? I think it's probably in part like just a natural coalition or reaction of the left becoming more of the party of like suburban like bourgeois sensibilities. Like as the right becomes weirder than, you know, like tech is going to become more of a right wing sort of scene, especially because like the left wing in this country has been just very, I mean, a lot of it is just like, like left wing journalists are very hostile to like tech bros. And a lot of them just resent that. So they sort of like sent them towards the right when they otherwise wouldn't have. - Yeah. So what do you think? So job stacking, it's sort of a practical solution to fight against corrupt institutions. And I bring up kind of like the termite theory where you sort of become a termite on society, but more on, it could be a negative connotation, but it could also be against corrupt institutions. - Right. - But I would you just like, you've talked about job stacking, like the logistics of it, but what would you say about the whole like political and philosophical angle of it? - Yeah, absolutely. - Against like a lot of the slave morality about like contributing to society that you would get from like boomer conservatives. - Right. Yeah. If you look at someone like Dave Ramsey, he's very much against job stacking because his whole concept of the economy is stuck in this 20th century sort of industrial paradigm wherein, you know, like companies will have loyalty towards you and you're supposed to have loyalty towards the company where, you know, like we haven't had massive liberalization yet where we haven't had these mass movements of people and the sort of like decline in social capital and like common trust. I mean, like all of these, all of these things are sort of like deteriorated. And like the boomers haven't really processed that yet and they still sort of think we're in that, in that, you know, like you get a gold watch and your retirement sort of worlds. But no, like we have Adwil employment in the US, which means that they can fire you at any time for, I mean, not for no reason. Like obviously you can sue them, right? If you think that there's, you know, the combat cause of discrimination or something, but you know, like in theory, they can fire you for any reason. And you can quit for any reason. So neither of you have any obligations morally to the other. And it's all really a sort of cynical power game where you have to game out around the expectation that the other party is going to be as selfish and as cynical as possible. And that's, I mean, you know, like I've worked as a consultant, like in risk management departments and they game around the expectation of employee selfishness. So, so they already have like insurance and like all of their, all of their sort of policies, like their short-term disability policy is like sort of like gaming out that there's gonna be a certain amount of fraud in there, right? Like it's all priced in. So, so basically like we live in a very sort of like over-determined sort of economy where everything is sort of priced in. And I think that because of that, you know, like you need to be doing the best thing for yourself because everyone else who is capable has already priced in like selfishness and that's what they're doing, right? So I mean, really, like you're just being a sucker if you're not like, I mean, you're CEO has absolutely no loyalty to you. And that's even more so the case if you're like a small business, I mean, because then there's a direct sort of financial, you know, like disincentive for them to care about you. So, I mean, like you just can't like we live in a world where like reputation matters a lot less, where like your word isn't as important where people can just move and they can shed their bad reputation in a moment's notice. So there's much less of an incentive for the powerful people to actually, you know, like care about their employees or take it. I mean, like no, bless the police doesn't exist anymore. Because of that, you have to game around that and you have to be just as selfish as the corporations are. So that's the basic like moral stance. Also, the fact that HR is like lying to you all the time, right? I mean, HR is completely deceptive to you and it's trying to like put you in a position where you have as little leverage as possible over the company. So, you know, like if you do the same thing by saying you have ADHD and putting so many, all these like medical things that make it really hard for HR to make any movements against you, then I mean, I see it as just reciprocity. I mean, like you, you are in a much weaker position than they are, right? And, you know, I don't view it as like it seems to be, it's not just slave morality, but it's a very sort of like like like grotesque kind of slave morality when you're saying that like, it's bad when you as the little guy win against the big guy. But, you know, like when the shoe's on the other foot, then like you have to do what they say, right? Because it's like their, their morality's on top. Like it's, it's sort of might make right only when the strong are in charge, but whenever the weak sort of like destabilize things it might no longer makes right. Like to me, that's just completely grotesque. And that's what I'm sort of like pushing back against. So I guess that's how I generally see it. And now in terms of like, is jobs acting like good for society? I mean, obviously it's indicative of a certain like crisis of confidence. You have a lot of these big corporations that have a lot of like bullshit jobs. - What's the good force? I'm not sure how much it can really like undermine these corporate institutions, but it could force, it could expose like corruption and waste and mismanagement and bring it. I think it could bring about either something positive or, but even putting that aside, I think people need to get into mindset of not thinking about society as a whole. It sounds really selfish and kind of maybe kind of bad that people should be thinking more about like enriching their own tribe and thinking like who are your people and you should be helping like your people. People will sort of need to get more of that mindset. And it's really alien to a lot of Americans. - Well, yes, it would be good. - Middle class white people. - Well, yeah, well, only middle class white people. I mean, like every other group, I mean, even like Italians used to have like Italian professional associations. I mean, less so nowadays 'cause they're more assimilated, but like it's a very sort of waspish sort of thing and like you should be purely meritocratic and not like, you know, rely on sort of covert professional institutions that are for your group. I mean, like obviously Jews and Indians and all these other groups will, you know, like do all sorts of things to sort of collaborate behind the scenes. And I don't, you know, the alt-right sort of takes them but I don't blame them. I mean, I think we should, you know, follow in their example. So that's why I support this. But what I was saying, it was like, I mean, I think that there is a sense in which this is proof that there are some very like sort of destructive forces in our economy in terms of waste in this management. As you say, like a lot of these bullshit jobs are just like cinecures for the upper middle class for like an overproduced elite. It's a sort of like, what's it called? - Oh, so with job stacking, you're actually taking those jobs away from people. - Yeah, and I think it's, I mean, like to me, that's a positive because I'm taking it away from like some bug man. It would spend it all on Funko Pops and Marvel movies and that, you know, weed. You know, as I say, I say, you know, far for the better. But yeah, I mean, like it's proof that there's something very inefficient in our economy that this is sort of allowed to happen. But it's a UBI, right? Like these email jobs are UBIs for the elite. And it's a sort of dirty little secret of our entire economy. So it's like, obviously the most capable people can just collect all the UBIs and get really, I mean, it's entrepreneurialism is what it is, right? I mean, I mean, I mean, the closest thing is probably to piracy, which is why my aesthetic works well. But I mean, I view it as a purely entrepreneurial venture. Like we're sort of capturing all of these like loose, like strands of these vectors of cash that are just like otherwise going to go into some like asshole neckbeards pocket, right? So it's like, to me, it's a sort of pro-social thing because here's what we're doing, right? We're sort of creating an incentive for these companies to run themselves more efficiently, right? And we are, like it's sort of like you find the pressure points of society and you like stop on them. And that's sort of, it encourages, like it's a creative destruction. It encourages like a more, no, I mean, this sounds kind of shit-eating 'cause obviously I'm doing this for my own personal benefit and the benefit of my tribe. I mean, I won't deny that. But I do think in a broad sense, like the whole like opposition of the con artist is kind of silly because the con artist is like testing. - We're saying that people hate, like people hate on the grifter, but the problem is like with being a grifter, there's nothing, like to be making money online is the dream, there's nothing wrong with that. But it really like the issue of grifters is the quality of their output. Like if they put out quality output, then there's really no problem. But people can't really even define this term grifter. The issue is like more like the quality of their output. - Well, I mean, it's people who are just like low quality themselves and who can't make anything good, who call people grifter. I mean, like I've never met somebody who like produces something good and makes, like I've never seen like a rich person call anyone a grifter, right? I've never seen somebody like- - It is kind of low, it is low status coded. - Yeah, I mean, like I, but the problem is is like when you have, when you ever have like an echo chamber where, like everyone has the same power, right? Like everyone's voice is sort of, and in a sense, sub stack is more like a egalitarian than like Twitter or YouTube, right? So, in the sense it's easier to call grifter- - Yeah, like on sub stack, once on sub stack, there is more, there is somewhat more reward for quality. When on Twitter, everything is subject to like the algorithms. - Yeah, but what I mean is like, sub stack has a certain middle class aspect to it. In the sense that, you know, writers and readers can like interact very easily. And I think because of that, like there's a certain like leveling effect, right? Where like there's less of a celebrity. And, you know, somebody might, like if I were to do, if I like a lot of the stuff that I get called a grifter for in sub stack, I wonder if I want to get called to grifter for that on Twitter because it's sort of just like, then like there's almost like the Scandinavian aspect of sub stack where it's just like everyone is expected to be on the same like level playing field. And like the whole like, I've seen a lot of people be like very resentful towards like orange checks, right? Like, like there's a certain like craps in the bucket, like Yante Loven aspect where they sort of want to like - And that's how much paid subscribers you have? - Yes, correct. But not how much you're making. So I'm making more now that I think in some people who have like the, you know, the, opaque orange share or maybe not, I'm not sure. But the point is, because I have a ton of founding subscriptions. Like I'm, you know, like like, I actually have a much higher like ratio of like money compared to like my number of paid subscribers and a lot of people. Right post was actually pointing that out the other day. So I don't know. I mean, like I'm proud of like that's the thing is I hate this like notion that like we should be ashamed to talk about money or we should be ashamed to be like, I don't know. I mean, like I guess I do have a certain trashy element. Like I do like like to brag about the money I've made. Like I think it's something to be proud of, you know? And I think we'd have a better sort of culture if people were just more willing to do that. But it has such a like stark sort of a stark, it has such a like stark power thing made like in terms of like status or whatever, like it sort of like hits people where it's like with sex, right? Yeah, it's a way it kind of, it doesn't do way with... It's sort of a slave morality, but it's also a way to mask inequality and wealth. Yeah, because it's like rich people who don't want to talk about money a lot of times. Well, upper middle class people like rich rich people will like to talk about money. But like upper middle class people hate talking about money because like to them, it's like, I think the idea is like they know it'll put a target on their head, right? If they start talking about it. So like they, they're incredibly avoided at all costs because like they're the ones that are... It's kind of the same thing with aesthetics of like people who are well off who go for really bland but all aesthetics to that downplay their wealth. Or you see, or the same like big tech campuses are often like really, really like low strong and really bland and they're not at all like opulent, like the financial like skyscrapers of like 80s. Yeah, I remember I really hated when I first started working, like seeing all these tech bros around me who would like carry their laptop in a backpack. And I was like, why don't you use a briefcase? It just looks so much more masculine in like ornate and powerful or whatever. But like I think there is just that sort of like sloppy like little kid energy that everyone's. So like it's supposed to be casual. It was like not care. It's seen as like having a certain spread to Torah. But I do find it kind of repulsive on some level. - Do you think job stacking what you're doing can be a vehicle for setting up like patronage networks to support like creative projects and for your fear of people? - Yeah, I mean, that's the main goals. I guess my problem is like when we think about patronage on the right, it's either people asking like Peter Thiel or Elon Musk for like millions of dollars or you know, asking everyone in their grandma for like 10 bucks. And it's like, you know-- - There's nothing absolutely nothing in between. - Exactly, yeah. It's like, why can't we just have a bunch of like, we have like a, because on the left there is, right? Because think about it. On the left you have a ton of people who make like 400 or 500 grand a year which is donated like 20 grand to something like fucking foundational. But it's stupid like malaria nets and shit like that. It's like effective altruism and bullshit. So like we need to cultivate like a class of like, like a right-wing gentry class that can sort of, you know, do the same thing and then fund like our shit. Like, I mean, just funding. I don't know, like like paying, like my good friend, Sai, you know, she, she researches like endocrine disruptors and shit. And like, you know, because her research was more like controversial or politically charged. Like she, she had difficulty getting, like if we could just like fund enough sort of like, dissident or just heterodox sort of thinkers, you know, and specifically like you need sort of sophisticated mid-size investors to this because again, like whenever you just get like rich chamber of commerce, like millionaire Republicans, it's always, they're always gonna just donate to like dumb fucking like Tom Sowell, like, you know, like it's always gonna be that stupid bullshit. - All right. - Glenn Lowery. - What's your background? Did you have a tech background? - No, I haven't, I've always been in the arts. - Okay. Well, okay. We talked about this in the first combo. I remember that, okay. - I think we did. - Yeah. I'm like very sorry. I've been up for like over 40 something hours now. My memory's probably not great. - What do you think about like funding like film projects, like movies? - Yeah, I mean, I'm all for it. I mean, I think, it's actually funny. I was, I don't know if I'd say dating, but I was seeing a girl a few weeks ago who's a big like artist, a girl like a filmmaker in the Austin like right-wing art scene. And, you know, she's like looking for people to like invest in her. I think she's, I think she's, she's like, Min just mold bug is a crush on her. So she's trying to get money from him or whatever. But yeah, I mean, like, you know, like I think-- - I'm involved with the movie project. - Oh, you are? - I don't know if I'm, I want to give away the pot because it's in pre-production, but I'm not, I'm not directing it. I'm just going to be an actor in it. - Oh, that's cool. - But when it's, when it's formalized, I'll make like a big announcement and have a show on it when it's, when it's, but we're still in really basically pre-production. - How did you guys get funding? - We hardly have any funding. - Yeah, see that's, one thing I will say is that AI is going to make things a lot easier for a lot of people. I don't know if you're using that at all, but I think that's like generally speaking, you know, it's going to allow just industrial skill production of like high quality art. I mean, I mean, like the sort of songs that I can make with the AI, like I could write like a whole like rock opera in like a week when it was like back in, you know, it would take me forever to like sing those songs that you made back in like 2015. How much work did you put into them? - Well, usually I would do like one at a time. Like I would do almost like everything at once, right? And it would take me probably like 12 hours altogether. Cause I mean, sometimes like, you know, some of the more ship-hosty ones, if I was actually trying to sound good, I would like re-record it over and over. Like I'd record each line separately. So I mean, yeah, I mean, it would take pretty long, but like these days, like set, like set, like that job stacking song I did, I didn't like, you know, two hours, right? Like we're probably, I mean, honestly, in most of the time, like I wrote the lyrics in like 30 minutes. I mean, I was just like refreshing the, you know, the curation process to try to get like a good one, a good role, the dice. So, I mean, I think it's fantastic. Do you use, do you do any AI art stuff at all? - I haven't, to be honest, I haven't got into it yet. But I really, I really should. - Yeah, it lets you scale up shit so fast and cheaply, you know, but of course a lot of people hate that about it, right? Cause they, they view it as like more, you know, like the, there's a certain person who just hates scalability or fungibility. Like if they view it as like the human aspect. - It's good for people who are in automation. Well, I think it will benefit people who are creative. - You know, I mean, I think it'll benefit like conceptual artists, but it won't benefit like very, like craftsman type artists. - But that's true. Do you have thoughts on like what kinds of people will be, will thrive the most and what kinds of people will really, will really suffer under like mass automation? - Yeah, I mean, honestly, I'm sort of like a white pill because I think that like the people who are going to do the best are the people who are very volatile and who can kind of like adjust to different environments very quickly and who don't like, you know, who can sort of like burn their darlings very, very easily or kill their darlings pretty easily. And I think it's going to be like people who can, you know, like deal with a very sort of asymmetric sort of world, like like the Pareto principle, right? Like to me, the modern economy, excuse me, the modern economy is like basically predicated on the Pareto principle more than anything else. And like once you just see how pretty much all the value was coming from like a very small piece of the pie in almost any situation, then you would just like, I mean, it's sort of empowering in a sentence because like, you know, you can, you can sort of like jump on that and you can sort of like capture the, like the source of the value. And then you can, you know, get it very rich from that. But it's also sort of intimidating or sort of black building because it's like, if you're not part of that, you know, valuable, like piece of the pie, if you don't have access to it, then like you don't got shit, right? - With politics, you said that you would reject pluralism now. Can you explain that? - Yeah, I mean, all I meant by that was, you know, I sort of came back to sub-stack with this whole impulse of like wanting to talk to people from all these different worldviews. And, you know, I've met a lot of like really great friends and it was, it was so fascinating. I mean, I still value everybody I met. I mean, I'm just some shout outs. Obviously my buddy Brigitte, bring a leader, crypto gal, Lyropa, Sai. - I interviewed Rajiv. - Oh, yeah, yeah. Have you posted that one yet? I'm trying to remember if I-- - Yeah, that was a few months ago. - Oh, okay, I remember that. - I remember that, yeah. No, yeah, Brigitte was great. I mean, he's becoming kind of his own, and he's involved in the jobs I can think too. So I mean, I think he's fucking awesome. I guess my point is like, I mean, some of like him is like, you know, like completely, I don't want to say politically homeless, but I mean, he's not really like right wing, but he sort of affiliates with us because it's sort of like, you know, like it's really the only place that makes sense for him. Even though he's like a gay brown guy, just sort of like, you know, like he's sort of kind of disgusted with like the aspects of the left that just makes a lot more sense to sort of be on our side. So, I mean, you know, like people like that, I couldn't have met if I hadn't done "The Pluralist" impulse. So I don't regret it in any sense, but what I will say is that I started coming up against like Muslims and track cats and people from communities that are very sort of cohesive and very entrangent and very sort of disciplined, and they sort of march and lockstep with one another. And I mean, like they'll just wage jihad against you. And you can't be a pluralist leader, you know, fighting against jihad. I mean, you're really not even a leader. You're like a zookeeper, right? Like you just, you know, you brought all these elephants and hyenas and shit. And then, you know, like, like, once a zookeeper goes down, I mean, they'll just all go out of their cage and run in different directions. They're not going to come like defend the zookeeper, right? So I think that's sort of what happened. And it's not to say that like my friends were like, obligated to all like come side with me against the track as a Muslim, I mean, you know, whatever. But it's more just like, you know, I, if I'm going to be, like I realize that I'm sort of an asshole. I'm sort of like a disagreeable sort of person. And like, you know, I cause strong reactions to people and I'm going to get a lot of people sort of like, coalescing against me. And I think, you know, it makes sense to have a more unified sort of coalition you're leading. If you're going to be in that sort of situation, right? I mean, like, to stand up against jihad, you need to like sort of your own jihad. And I mean, I don't know, like putting hundreds of thousands of dollars in guys pockets, it's a pretty good way to like inspire loyalty and inspire a sense of cohesion that'll sort of like get everyone on the same page to like pursue our collective interests as specifically like like the whole like thing I'm kind of going for, you know, with Tortuga. I mean, it is pluralist like we, it's not like we're like banning like practice or anything from our organization. However, like ultimately like the sort of like ethos that we have is sort of like white male, upper middle class atheist in like a city. - You have an estimate of like the class demographic breakdown of your fans and followers? - I mean, I'm sure it's overall very pluralist. I say that the guy in Bizbok, or in Bizbok, now it's Tortuga. I'd say they're, you know, quite similar to me, it seems. I mean, some of them, you know, like they're like, a lot of them are just like computer programmers or data people or whatever. - And you think the current scene is more upper middle class than previous iterations of a dissident, right? - I think that like the people that I in particular am interacting with on sub-stack, which aren't all dissident, right? I mean, a lot of them come from like, you know, the Scott Alexander's, you know, rationalist. - Sort of some libertarian, some great tribe, centrism. - Yeah, I mean, I'd say I'm sort of just like mean, great tribe, right? I feel like all the mean, great tribe people gravitate to, but I feel like I'm sort of like, yeah, I don't know. Like, I think both red tribe and blue type people would sort of, I mean, I think red tribe people would hate me more and blue type people would just wouldn't even acknowledge that exist. - Does it serve a metaphysical purpose to talk about how society or politics should ideally be or do you think it's too much of a cope and a distraction? - Oh, that's a really good question. I'm sort of, I guess like inclined to say that, yeah, there's a cope and a distraction that it's, I mean, I was like a philosophy major, I'm a very templative person, but there's part of me that my impulse now is just like, fuck it, like we should just make as much money as possible, build as much power as possible. And then disregard like questions of morality or philosophy or whatever, because it's sort of just like who the fuck cares, like until you have the power. - You're coming up with policy proposals too. - Yeah, I mean, policy proposals though, it's sort of like, it's like the most important thing is that you seize control of the state. I mean, even then, I mean, it's like, you know, like it can just get overturned in an election. I mean, if I found out anything, Rob, it's just like having money and being able to sort of, it's sort of like, not 100% because you can sort of just like not follow the rules, right? And like, you can sort of just make your own rules if you have enough money and you can sort of just like define how things are gonna be in your own little bubble, your own little like, rarefied, you know, bubble. And I think that should be the goal for individual guys is if you wanna get free, don't just like focus on like a like thing around Paul or whatever. I mean, like if you wanna be free, just make money and then you can sort of like, bribe people as you need to, you know, do what you say. And, you know, just kind of create that little zone for yourself. I mean, to me, that's just a lot more effective in practice. - Do you have thoughts on the whole controversy about Vance where he said, how about his comment on childless catways and how the left got really morally outraged by that? But then also, do you think it's stupid to call out your political adversaries for not reproducing? - Yeah, because yeah, I wrote an article about this where I was saying, you know, like most people who don't have kids like who are, you know, like 35 or whatever, it's not that they like don't want to. It's just that you haven't met the right person yet. And if you're like a secular person in like an urban environment. - What it does, it does really hit people on a really visceral level. - Yeah, I mean, the thing is like people who are like been in the suburbs their entire life, like look, I think that there's part of like a status jockeying thing here, right? Where it's like somebody who like, if you're like a two, you know, a two income couple where you like together, you make like 70 grand, and you're in the suburbs, and you're like four kids, and like, you know, you don't have a very high standard of living. And like, you know, the wife is kind of chubby while we're covering people all the time, but you sort of need to feel like you're better than the dinks who are like attractive and skinny and like glamorous or whatever. Otherwise it's like, what do you have, right? So you sort of need to like super seriously say like, oh, you guys aren't, you know, procreative. So you're like a scum. And I think that that's sort of the implicit dynamic is because dinks are just so much higher in social class. And you know, they get to enjoy more vacations. And then, and really, I mean, like we don't talk about this. So there's a sense in which like, you know, you have these dink couples that are making like 400 grand together that are like like bidding up all these homes and all these vacation prices and shit. And it's sort of like putting pressure on like with single income families or even just normal middle class, you know, like dual income families in the hard land. And they're not able to like go to Disney World or whatever anymore because it's too fucking expensive. So I mean, I think there is that sort of like economic rivalry or competition that sort of begets a sort of cultural like status docket. - Well, there's a U-shaped trend in fertility. So it's highest among the poor, but it's higher among the, fertility is higher among the wealthy than the middle class. So I think of the dinks as maybe being like the upper middle class, but fertility might be higher among like the ultra wealthy. - Well, yeah, yeah, I mean, if you're making millions, then yeah, like a lot of those guys, you know, I mean, first off, a lot of those guys probably have like secret families, right? But like, I mean, yeah, I mean, like a lot of those, like Elon Musk is 12 kids or whatever, right? Cause he just has all these concubines all over the place. - Yeah, I mean, because, cause they're really, the U-shaped distribution exists in a lot of things, right? If you look at like, like cars, right? Like rich guys and poor guys will both drive red cars. Middle class guys will never drive a fucking red car. - They'll have like white or gray Teslas. - Exactly, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, it's the upper real class, it's the worst. They're the most, they have like the least like gender differentiation, right? They're the most like men and women sort of like act the same. And it's sort of seen as like very barbaric to have like gendered behavioral norms. And that's why like personally, I just cannot fit in with the upper middle class at all. Even though that's like sort of my like people I swim in, I just, you know, I have a sort of like trashy ethos where I have extreme like gender views on behavior and like just sort of, you know, like talking about money openly, talking about sex openly. I mean, these are things that rich people will do or poor people will do, but like upper middle class people will never do and they despise you if you do it. Because it really, you know, like it's sort of a, they're afraid that you could sort of like beget a sort of like a descent back into like the working class, right? Like that, which is their biggest fear. So, you know, they view it as just inherently barbaric and they'll very much punish you for it in dosing that behavior. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's a weird sort of thing. But I guess what I will say is that I do sort of, like it's not that I identify with the dinks because I would theoretically like to have kids one day. But I do sort of think that like the right wing puts too much of an emphasis on procreation just because like like biometable technology. I mean, you're gonna have stuff like life extension technology is gonna be like people living to like 200. I mean, like you're gonna have like CRISPR, you're gonna have all these artificial wombs. I mean, like I think that the whole landscape is gonna so radically change in 20, 30 years that like all of the like pro natalist, you know, obsessions of the right, it's kind of seem like retarded. - Also like with the whole like natalist obsession of the right, do you think it should be more selective as opposed to for everyone? Like some countries, a lot of like right wing politicians are proposing that kind of policy. - What do you mean like, do you elaborate? - Yeah, so they're like proposing things like handing out money or tax incentives for each kid. - Well, we already do that, right? We have the child tax credit, so like, you know. - Do you think the automation is going to create like major Darwinian bottlenecks? - I think that, I don't even know if it's automation so much as like dopamine traps, which I mean, it's gonna play into automation, right? 'Cause obviously like, you know, if you have like AI generated like video games or porn, it's gonna be just more like hyper salient. But like I think that, like, you know, the dopamine trap, like that's why I'm kind of a vitalist. It's, it's, and again, I mean, I'm someone who struggles with addiction and compulsive behaviors. So for me, it's just something I think about constantly, just the fact that, I don't know, there's something like TikTok, right? Like the human, like really it's, it's just insanely maladaptive that we just allow this in our civilization or I mean, even something gets sick. - Even Twitter, even Twitter, I find Twitter to be like really addictive and it brings, it's a big waste of time. Like I'm multitasked when I'm writing sub-stack articles, but it's still, it's still a big waste of time. - Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, just imagine what it would have been like to be like Leonardo da Vinci or Ben Franklin. I mean, like you can see why they were able to invent so much shit because it's like, they're not being distracted by like all this really fun, like hyper addictive Skinner boxes all the time, right? I mean, so yeah, I mean, I just don't think it's it's, I don't know if I would say we should ban it, but I mean, like to me, I was actually talking to Rachel Haywire about this, like I was saying that like, I think the only way to really, the only thing that for me has ever gotten me to overcome my addiction or my compulsive behavior is to become like more compulsive or more addicted to something that's actually like positive. So for instance, if I'm getting too fat, like instead of having a food addiction, I'll be like addicted to like walking, I don't know. Or like, like recently, right? Like instead of being addicted to like content, like, you know, I'll be addicted to making content, right? And like if you're addicted to creativity or generativity, then you're sort of benefiting from it at least in a lot of ways. Whereas, I mean, you're also creating things that other people will consume. So maybe it's sort of a feedback with that. I mean, at the very least, like you're sort of escaping from it. So I mean, I think that really production in generativity is the one escape from dopamine traps that is available to us. - Are you familiar with like reader selection theory where well society has all these antinatalist selection pressures, the people who are more genetically selected for fertility will end up becoming more, more demographically pronounced in the future. And you also see like these new like different, like social and class groups, and even political groups forming these new ethnogenesis, like basically becoming like new ethnic groups. - Yeah, I mean, I guess like, you know, I think a lot of Christians are sometimes very triumphalist about the idea that they're gonna like take over, but it's like, I don't know why they just assume that all of their kids are gonna like hold to their political beliefs and their religious beliefs as adults. I mean, I think that society has a way of sort of like evening itself out. And I mean, the fact that like in any first pass the post, you know, democracy, you're gonna have like a 50/50 split. Like there's gonna be some sort of like, coded as left-wing impulse that like half of their kids are gonna like go towards, right? So that's one aspect of it. But I mean, I guess I would just say that like, I mean, also like, I don't know, like in a world where you have all these like, like again, like super addictive, like hypersonic dopamine traps. I mean, it doesn't matter. Like if you try like raise your son to like never get addicted to porn, right? It's like you have to like make sure he doesn't get like an iPhone, but in this day and age, that's gonna like put him at a social disadvantage, that like you have to like actually judge, okay? Is it actually worth getting him an iPhone and just sort of like rolling the dice just because he's gonna be like a fucking weirdo if he doesn't have, like you see what I mean? There's all those situations. And I don't think there's like a straightforwardly like good answer. - Is society like America that has a lot of upward and downward mobility, do you see that as desirable? Or do you see major problems with that? - Well, yeah, I mean, I think that these days, America has plenty of upward mobility. I think it's so easy to become rich. I mean, I was seeing a girl like last year who was making like 70, 80 grand a year, like fucking like walking dogs, right? I mean, you know what I mean? It's not hard to become rich in America. Like I think the problem is that America is easy to get distracted. So you get a lot of losers who just get distracted by shit all the time. But I digress. I guess my thing is I feel like being downwardly mobile in America is, I mean, it's like like the consequences are bad like if you get into like the ghetto. But I don't understand how that happens. I mean, I know I have friends who are like losers like layabouts or just like don't do anything all day. And like I don't even think they're on like welfare, but they somehow manage to like pay their rent and like get by. I mean, I don't know if it's possible. Like I don't know if America really does have the downward mobility anymore. I think I think in fact that we're so wealthy, we're so hyper affluent that it's causing a lot of like really weird social dynamics because people just don't have any pressure to like work or or try and anything anymore. And then that's- - Well, it is the whole issue of like competition. It exacerbates competition over real estate. So then that gets into the whole like YMB versus NMB housing issue. Sorry. - There's so like there's so, so there's so many. So, so I think a lot of people maybe they feel poor because of their class, because of how, especially in California, because of how expensive housing is. So the more, more people that are rich, it devalues, it devalues the value in being wealthy. - Oh yeah, I mean, I feel like California is his own thing. I mean. - Yeah, I shouldn't be like, I'm talking, a lot of these things like I'm, I'm such a California centric. Like. - Well, all Californians are Californians that do, right? - I'll go. So, no, I mean, yeah, I guess that is kind of- - You have like California, you have all these people who are like upper middle class, even wealthy who feel, they feel much poorer than they are because of how expensive real estate is. - Well, yeah, I mean, especially in like San Francisco, it's like very weird. I mean, like you'll have like guys who are making like 150 a year, who are like poor because, you know what I mean? Like they're just surrounded by all this. Like, like all these like super wealthy tech bros, you know, I'd like, you know, these crazy like, decent metric return startups, or I mean, like, yeah, I mean, it's a crazy fucking dynamic. And then, you know, you have all the like suburban sprawl, you know, caused by the nimby shit. Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's very much its own thing. But I mean, it's sort of inevitable. I mean, it's, it's weird. If you like, you look at like America's geography, it's like California's so fertile. And then like all around it, you have all these like desert and mountain, right? And then it's sort of, sort of inevitable that like, created like this sort of like parochial sort of attitude. I wonder if that sort of like plays into, you know, you think of someone like Nancy Pelosi, right? She's very like San Francisco, like, there's a certain like super silliestness to her, right? I've like, she lays, I think she like sniffs her own parts. Like she doesn't like recognize the rest of the world. She's this thing. It is really a, really a bubble. We were talking about this, and I kind of cut you off and we didn't really, we kind of moved on to another topic. But do you think of California, like radically embrace yimby? Do you think it could just like drain a lot of the rest of the nation, other population? Because how many people want to live near the coast? No, yeah, I think what's his face saw that BV9's guys on Twitter was writing about this, right? Like if they just like allowed, if they were like high rises like right next to the beach, like LA would have like 100 million people. - Hong Kong, Hong Kong kind of thing. - Yeah, no, it would be exactly, yeah, it would be, but like you'd have like all these areas. Like I mean, it would actually, I think to some extent, like nimby is sort of, maybe it's kind of a spiritual thing. But like I think to some extent, like, if you're in like South Dakota, then maybe not South Dakota, like 'cause they have the oil or whatever, but if you're in like, or not North Dakota, but if you're like Wyoming, right? Like you don't want them to allow that in like LA, right? Because like you need all these, like productive smart people in your own state and they're just gonna move, right? And then you'll just be left with nothing but like refuse. And you know, like, I mean, that's already been a problem in the Midwest. So it's like, they don't want to exacerbate that. So in a sense, like the nimby and like the California nimby is sort of like helping the rest of the nation. - Yeah, that's true. I think to think California would, well, I mean, California would still be pretty diverse, but do you think it would change them graphically? - I think it would, I mean, I think it'd still mostly be like very left leaning. I mean, it'd be like young people who go there, right? The people who are more artsy. I mean, it would be like this where people go to Europe, I think. Yeah, I mean, I sort of get the, because it's like, no one's gonna be going there for like cheap land, right? I mean, I guess maybe if you just completely, you know, allow total like housing, maybe there would be-- - Well, yeah, nimby does create these selection pressures. So it selects for very specific people who need to be in California. So a lot of the population's aging, but it's rapidly aging, but it does select for people who are from like particular immigrant communities that are tied to California, or for people who need to be here to work in tech. But it selects the housing shortage, especially in the barriers, selects for very particular types of people. - Yeah, no, that makes sense. That makes it interesting. - You were posting on sub, on, on sub-stack posts that you think usury is actually a good thing for upward mobility. - Yeah, no, I mean, it objectively is, right? I mean, like, you know, like, if you don't have a, I mean, like you need it for like liquidity, right? Otherwise, people are just gonna like hoard their money 'cause they're not earning anything on it. Like, like, if it facilitates class mobility, people can like take loans. I mean, like, to me, it's like obvious. Like, I don't know why people are like, like, if anything, you want more and more users, 'cause it drives down the interest rate, if it's like an open market, right? Like, you have people competing in it, sort of like, drives down the cost of lending. Whereas if you restrict usury, then you'll just have like some geo charging, like 25% interest, like, you know what I mean? Like, it's obviously better to have as much usury as fucking possible. Like, I'm all for usury, it's great. Like, that's what enables us to like, not live, like, cake and shit, right? I mean, it's like, the whole world is built on debt and you've got these sophisticated financial instruments that all these chuds, like, hey, it's like derivatives or whatever. It's like, the derivatives are what allow us to have a more predictable and stable economy. I mean, if you look at how many, like, if you look at, like, the 19th century, we have like a recession every other year, right? If you look at the-- - Oh, yeah. - Right, right, it was like the Federal Reserve. I mean, you know, it's gonna piss off. - You were, I mean, you were a Ron Paul guy, but so you were saying Ron Paul is basically wrong. - Yeah, I mean, it's like, yeah, he was right about, right about, like, one of the past, what do people say? I'm too tired to remember the exact phraseology, but it was, yeah, I mean, it's like a broken clock because it's right twice. And they all said he was like, you know, right about the, Ron Paul was right, right about-- - I mean, if he were to end the Fed, we probably would have a depression overnight. - Well, yeah, we have one every year, right? Because you just have these constant, like, runs on the banks and these constant crises. I mean, that's what happened in the 1800s. It was a constant turmoil. And the Federal Reserve sort of stabilized things. Now, you also get, like, bigger, if you don't have, like, a good monetary policy, if you have, like, a Fed Germany fucks up, then you'll have, like, a bigger recession and you have the Fed, then if you have a pure free market, but I mean, I think it's still better to have things mostly under control. And I mean, I guess just, like, generally speaking, and just, like, having access to credit is good. I mean, I'm like, I just hate this, like, anti-consumer examples you see in the right where it's like, oh, like, people are, like, so, like, afraid of, like, oh, you've credit card debt, oh, you have a mortgage, it's all, like, you should pay everything in cash. And it's like such a fucking primitive, like, retard-grud mentality, I'm sorry. Just, like, no, I mean, like, like, everyone is better off than we're able to, like, access things on credit. Then it allows us to, like, have class mobility. And when you go into debt, it makes you work harder to pay off your, and, like, yeah, people say it's bad, but, like, it does facilitate just a greater level of social vitality. It's like, people want to have a better lifestyle, so that work harder to pay off the credit card. - Mostly people at the bottom of society who really get screwed over by debt, people in, like, the, not just the wealthy, even a lot of, a lot of middle-class people were able to utilize debt. Well, I don't know, it depends, like, it's a mix back for the middle class, but, like, more successful people. - Well, I'm like, I'm like, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say it's the lower-middle class that's hurt the most by, like, credit card debt and stuff, because I, like, poor people-- - Well, yeah, like, poor people just default, you're right. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like, they don't, it's a very middle-class thing to, like, be afraid of, like, the collector, right? And, like, you think you're gonna get, like, 10 to the principal's office of life abuse, like, you know, like, it's funny. It's, again, it's another U-shaped curve, right? But the poor people and the rich people, like Donald Trump, just to pay his debts. And neither does, like, Chiniqua, but, like, you know, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, they sure do, right? And that's what the whole job stacking impulse is about. It's about, like, trying to get, like, middle-class guys to be, like, pirating, and to say, like, no, fuck you, I'm gonna act like Chiniqua and Donald Trump. - Right, right. You wrote about immigration. You said that you think the United States should brain drain other countries. - I think I specifically said Russia and Ukraine, right? - Oh, is this just Russia or the whole world? - I don't know, I've said a lot of shit. I guess, when it comes to, I was making an argument that we should, like, let in anybody from Russia or Ukraine who wants to come in. And it was sort of a cheeky thing where it's like, I'm supporting open borders, but specifically 'cause it's gonna make the country more white, right? - You wouldn't do that, like, some of the, like, Neil liberals wanna do it with China. You're not super good, how about that? - No, no, that's, I mean, I mean, the thing is, like, with China, it's not that dangerous, though, 'cause, like, what are the Chinese gonna do? It's like, the Chinese in America, they're not impressive. Like, though, they're just kind of, like, beta, right? Like, they don't, like, take a little picture. - You wouldn't do it with India. - I know that my buddy, my buddy Sunshine is gonna counter-sit on me and say, like, oh, the head of the videos to Taiwanese or whatever. I know he's thinking that, like, right now. - No, but what India is, India's scarier, because Indians are sort of closer to us in terms of, like, their souls, like, they sort of, like, can compete with us, right? They have more of that Faustian spirit. They are used Faustian. And, like, I mean, that's why I got my arms around the Brahman question. Like, that's why I was talking to all these Indians, because it's like, I need to understand what's going on here, you know? 'Cause, you know, I was working in Jason's attack, and I was seeing, like, okay, this is gonna be a thing, right? And I was right. I mean, it's hard to become a thing. And I think we just need to, like, make sure we, you know, handle the right. - Is there anything that we didn't touch upon that you'd like to talk about? - Honestly, I'm sure there would have been, but I'm so tired that I'm, like, about to, like, collapse. So I'm gonna have to range about-- - We wrap up. - Yeah, I'm sure we can talk again in the future. And next time I'll interview you about some stuff. I know, you know, I was a narcissist. Like, you talk, you know, ask me questions this whole time, but we'll rectify that on the next time we talk. - Okay, great. Well, it was great speaking with you. - Yeah, it was great speaking with you as well, my chosen friend. Have a great rest of your day. - Take care, bye.