Beyond the Vapor with Robert Stark
Robert Stark interviews John Arcto about UK Politics & Retro Futurism
[music] This is The Stark Truth, hosted by Robert Stark, brought to you by www.starktruthradio.com. Robert Stark is an American journalist and political commentator. You can read his articles and find out more on robertstark.substack.com. [music] Robert Stark here. I'm joined here with John Arktow, Anglo-futurist, John, great speaking with you. Yeah, likewise. I've seen your... I saw a bit of your podcast with Walt, not that much, though. I know that you are keen on a castitsofuturism. Oh, I don't think I've been interested in promoting that, but that's what... Well, I guess we'll get to those topics later, but that's how Walt... That's how he named the show we did. Yeah, I discovered you via Walt Bismarck. Yeah. John, if you just want to go over your political journey. Yeah, sure. Sure. Sure. I mean, I also like what you reject the dissonant right, and instead brace the term... I think you call it right-wing progressivism instead. Progressive rightism. Okay. You said right-wing progressivism, I suppose. You used to use words in a different order just to make it a bit more... Separate me from people like Anatonee Carlin, I guess. So, yeah, I'm John Arpto. Many of you, you know, will read my sub-stack, or would have seen interviews... ...of me by, like, Alex Koschuter, or Walt Bismarck. It's quite well-known now that I started on the left, became very disillusioned by... ...wokism, how the left had become so kind of intrinsically linked with wokism. And then I kind of moved towards a sort of post-liberal view. And then Covid happened, which made me sort of more suspicious of government, I guess. And I slowly found my way to the distant right by, you know, listening to people like... What if I'll hissed, and Rod Dreher, and Ed West... ...and then eventually people like Chris Rufo and Aaron McIntyre. And I started angling for you, Chris, because I felt the... ...you know, the distant right... ...I've now left the distant right, I did not go on it, because I felt it was too... ...sort of sectarian and black-pilled and sort of averse to sort of political action. So I carried on with the label for a bit, because I... ...you know, I thought Aaron McIntyre kind of was proof that you didn't have to sort of be like that, to be distant right. But, you know, a bit disappointed by his recent book, and so I just think... ...I'm not DR anymore, I like to call myself progressive right, because I think... ...reactionary or right-wing means preserving the status quo... Exactly, yeah, so... ...exactly that thing, so conservative means preserving the status quo. There's nothing to conserve, right? Reactionary means going back to the status quo ante. But, I mean, that just led us to where we are today, right? So, obviously the previous state of society had some really big problems. I like to compare, you know, reactionaries to sort of the sort of French Legitimists. There's three types of French monarchists, there were the Legitimists, the one to be pre-1789 order restored. You have the Orleanists, which, you know, supports a separate branch of the French monarchy... ...and was sort of more kind of liberal. I'd say, you know, all the in it, like most, like, normy cons would be like, "All the inist." And I guess I'm a bonus artist, which I think, you know, both Napoleon and Napoleon III... ...were kind of right-wing progressives of their day, kind of sort of creating something new... ...in a sort of right-wing, which, to me, right-wing just means that you acknowledge... ...that hierarchy exists and is inevitable. Whereas, if you were left-wing, you'd believe in an ideal of equality. So, I would say that, yeah, I am right-wing. But, I mean, it is all relative, but... What are the tenets of your proposed Anglo-futurist movement? So, I mean, I say this all the time, I didn't invent Anglo-futurism. I mean, it was a word devised by a guy called Aristotle Cenas. And it's basically, it is a kind of right-wing progressivism because it simply says we need to look forwards... ...to creating a new Britain that, you know, is technologically advanced, offers a high standard of living... ...but doesn't seek to just completely replicate the past. So, it's quite sort of opposed to the sort of Peter Hitchens, Roger Scrooge's... ...on focus on, like, tradition and sort of wanting to return to the past. Anglo-futurism is, you know, it is sort of oriented towards creating something new... ...but something anti-woke. And in terms of, like, what does it believe, like, on the issues... ...I'd say it's sort of, like, kind of... ...sort of, like, Singapore. It's not social democracy. It's not neoliberalism. It's sort of a sort of a small government... ...but with a sort of competent, efficient state bureaucracy. That was how Aristotle was seeing us envisioned it and, like, sort of... ...I don't claim to agree with him on everything, but I've kind of taken his mantle... ...to try and make that ideology a little bit more comprehensive... ...and, you know, proper movement. Does the right have an elite human capital problem? Absolutely it does. Yeah. I mean, Nathan Kaufman, that's just bang on the money there. And it's no use, Dave Green saying, like, "Oh, you know, the elite decides what's high status." Okay, but, you know, you can build a counter-elite, right? And, to some extent, you know... So, counter-elitism is far superior to populism. Well, yeah, to me, I think that, you know, I do believe in elite theory. I think it's a very helpful tool. Populism and counter-elitism need to be, like, a synergy. Yeah, exactly. So, you need to have a populist movement. And a counter-elite that can replace the old elites to create something substantive. Like, a great example of this FDR, right? You know, FDR was a populist, but he also was able to, you know, create a new establishment. In my opinion, that establishment turned out to be very bad. It was clearly, you know, on and from an American standpoint, unconstitutional. But he did manage to launch a sort of successful populist revolution because he also had a counter-elite to help him, you know, carry his promises out. Do you have thoughts on the upcoming British elections? Yeah, but it's quite complicated to be on it. I mean, I think now even, like, labor is actually pivoting to the right of the Tories on immigration, which is insane. I wouldn't say that's true, I think. So, can the Tories be reformed or has it just been? Well, yeah, this is what I've been exploring. For a long time, I felt that the best approach was that a spoiler party, like reform, should only stand in the conservative and name only liberal, wet, Tory seats in a hope to kind of reshape the conservative party and reform it in a similar way to how the GOP was reformed. But there's a lot of, you know, on the right in Britain, so much sort of low thing of the Tories, you know, that's why you, you know, academic agent zero seats just constantly chartered out. Like zero seats isn't going to happen. And that's partly why I was suspicious of zero seats for a long time. It's like, you know, surely it's better to try and use this sort of popular discontent of the Tories to shape the rump right in a sort of more base direction. But I think the game changed when Nigel Farage returned and their polling went up a great deal. I still think it's unlikely that they will out poll the Tories, like Canada's reform party did the progressive conservatives in the 1993 election. Also, it will probably be a labor victory, but then with Nigel Farage. I would definitely be a labor victory. It's just a question of whether reform or the Tories come second or third respectively. What do you think the Tories aggressively embraced like mass immigration? Because we are, that's an interesting question actually. I think part of it was due to liberal Tories, right? So, you know, there's always been this faction of the Conservative party that's been very accommodating to the left and always sort of adopts an essentially leftist managerial worldview. So comparison in America would be like the Rockefeller Republicans, right? So, there's always been, I mean, that tendency, it's called One Nation. But One Nation, you know, it was created by Disraeli and loads of people on the right will sort of claim the mantle of One Nation. But what it really means, particularly since the 2000s, is meant to sort of liberal, right, Tory. But I think I guess the more interesting question is why did those elements gain so much prominence? And I think it was because they're, you know, like in America, there was a desperate sort of attempt by the sort of camera nights to make themselves sort of palatable to kind of Blairite polite society, which didn't work, of course. People still say, you know, Tory scum and the people they were trying to appeal to, you know, never voted for them anyway. Another thing I guess, particularly on like immigration, it's because, you know, neoliberals like cheap labor. So if you look at like the Adam Smith Institute. And I think what I've heard is Tories are actually like in America, there's been this realignment where the working class are shifting towards the Republicans and more fluent voters towards the Democrats. But I think what I've heard, I'm not sure you can correct me. We almost have that with Boris. We almost have that with Boris. I've heard if the UK is that actually if the Tories still actually have more fluent voters. I mean, we almost have what you were describing with Boris Johnson. I'd like to compare Boris Johnson to Richard Nixon because I feel like he kind of played a similar sort of role in sort of making populist noises, right? And sort of starting a realignment. But in actual fact, when he got into office, you know, both Boris and Nixon were quite liberal, you know, Richard Nixon passed, you know, executive order 11478, which sort of mandated racial quotes in federal hiring. And, you know, Boris Johnson, you know, saw hundreds of thousands net of immigration man. It increased to levels it had never reached before. He also was, you know, wet on things like, you know, abolishing the Blair rights legislation, like, you know, the Equality Act, you know, leaving the European Convention of Human Rights that just allows the courts of, allows European courts to impose on member states an ever expanding living view of human rights is always the latest woke trend effectively. So, I mean, I think, I mean, I'd like to see the Tories moving a different direction, maybe reform or give them a, you know, the kick up the arse they need. But loads of people have expressed severe doubts that this could ever happen. People who spend a lot of time in the Conservative Party, that it's really a sort of very non-ideological, sort of quite kind of, it's a party of power effectively and not really a sort of party of ideas. So, I guess we'll see what happens. I mean, really, I'll talk to my friend about this. We can't really start making plans on the British front until we actually know the election results, because that will, you know, change our approach of what we need to do going forward, whether the best approach is, you know, go down the new party road or whether, you know, the reforming the Tories road is the better option. And this touches on this sort of elite human capital question, but there is this kind of conundrum with becoming more, more kind of like pro-oriented and populist because the problem is, on one hand, a lot of the fluent voters favor things like, like mass immigration globalization, but then shifting to a working class oriented party, you also get stuck with more anti-intellectualism and there's downsides to that as well. Yeah, I think that's a very interesting point. And I think you've got to play meta politics, right? You need to position yourself in a way to be able to communicate certain ideas in a way that doesn't offput, you know, more affluent people. So, I'll tell you a really good example in Britain, a party that has done this, the Social Democratic Party, in a man called William Clustin, when you hear him see... Is that the Lib Dems? No, no, it's very different from the Lib Dems. They used to, well, the old SDP merged with the Liberals to become the Liberal Democrats in the late 80s. But the modern SDP is a faction of the SDP that didn't consent to the merger and they've been like, you know, a tiny, tiny party. But they're having a resurgence now because William Clustin has made, you know, sort of oriented them toward a sort of old left post-liberal view. And I think if you were to sort of see how can quite right-wing ideas be communicated to a more sort of intellectual audience, you know, the way William Clustin speaks is, I think, the way you go there. Has Brexit been a total failure? Oh, yes, it has. I mean, I've written an article on this, "Why are Britain's young people woke?" And I think a big reason for it is Brexit, you know, they gain nothing from Brexit other than losing the means to travel without visas, just to the point in their lives when they were able to benefit from it. I think it shifted immigration. It didn't stop immigration. Oh, no, no, it didn't stop immigration. It was, and I think Aaron McIntyre and Morgoth did a podcast on this. You know, the whole Brexit agenda was hijacked by these kind of neoliberals that wanted it to be "global Britain" and to the allowing sort of, you know, more non-white immigrants. And that's just been a disaster. I mean, I don't like the EU at all. I think it's terrible the way they treat countries like, you know, Hungary and Poland. I still advocate us leaving the European Convention of Human Rights because human rights is just a dog whistle for vocation, you know, at this point. And I just think that we need to do that. We need to actually get legislative sovereignty. And I don't like how the EU is sort of an institution which kind of imposes the sort of woke neoliberalism on member states. But at the same time, I think that the way Brexit was done was terrible. And Farah, as you would say, Nigel Farah deserves a lot of blame in scrutiny. Well, Nigel Farah, the thing about Nigel Farah, she's very charismatic. But you've also got to understand that he's a massive gatekeeper. And he's actually very, very proud of this. He said, you know, "I did more to destroy the BNP than any other person in Britain." So he's always sort of pleasing his right flank to make sure that any of his parties, whether that's you can all reform, don't, you know, go beyond a sort of certain level of discourse. And certainly, you know, keep any talk of sort of the declining percentage of the white population kind of away from the mainstream. And it's funny, because that ridge, Nigel Farah is an improvement of overwritchard ties, right? At least he's got that charisma and he's a little bit more willing to sort of explore certain ideas and sort of attack established narratives. But recently in the British election, there's, Channel 4 did an expose of reform members showing some people saying racist comments. And there's a very high probability that one of those people who, you know, they said was a reform member was actually a plant because he was, you know, people looked him up and, you know, he was an actor. But a Nigel Farah is a condemned that, he's called it an election interference, but yet what does he do at the same time as he's doing that? Oh, he, um, expels all of the people that set the racist comments out of the party. It's like, before me to understand that they, the mainstream media will always call them racist. So I think the American Conservative movement has always done that, but I think now things are just beginning to change on that, where you see more conventional conservative figures like drop the sort of self policing on political correctness, but that's a very recent trend. Yeah, that's true. Unfortunately in America, though, what that is combined with is this sort of democrat to fall something we're against it. And it's super anti-intellectual too. And, you know, anti-intellectual and also like, it's not just like talk about demographics and HPD. It's probably more just these wacky conspiracy theories and Scott Greer made this excellent point that, yeah, it's true that the mainstream is sort of more like exploring the fringes and more tolerant of the fringes. But, you know, most of the fringe isn't, you know, intelligent discourse about, you know, HPD and, you know, the civil rights law. It's, you know, UFOs, anti-vax, although there's kind of crazy conspiracies. And so yeah, I think in America, you're in it in some ways in a better situation, but it's just the difference between sort of, you know, actually like, good, important stuff that's on the fringes. And the fringe is made up of lunatics. Do you have thoughts, like with the rapid demographic change in the UK and Europe, it's different, I mean, different models might make different sense in different places as post United States, but the different models are there's a simulationism, assimilating immigrants, there's repatriation, which is extremely controversial, but I think it's sort of like the right is talking about that more. And then there's like ethno pluralism or right-wing multiculturalism, which I'm much more sympathetic to. Do you have thoughts on those three models and what you're most. Yeah, so I think I struggle to understand right why Americans are so worked up about Hispanic immigration, right, because from our perspective, right, these are European descended primarily Christians that are often no darker in skin tone to southern Italians. Right, and so, you know, southern Italians were able to sort of become part of the white majority group. And really, the only reason why Hispanics haven't done that is because of the civil rights regime, where there is an incentive to not be white in order to sort of get access to sort of discrimination law and all kinds of sort of special benefits. But, you know, America, I don't know, it's sort of a bit of a neo com thing to say, but it is kind of true, particularly from a sort of British perspective. America is a nation of immigrants, right, and those immigrants were white, you know, and the core of American culture was sort of Anglo-Saxon. But, you know, it is true that, you know, I think a nation of immigrants narrative makes far more sense in America than it does in Britain. I think that we don't have in common with you, other than the fact that, you know, we're not a nation of immigrants, you know, the Anglo-Celtic ethnicity has been here for millennia, is that the immigrants coming are far more culturally distinct than Hispanics are to America, you know, Muslim immigration, Indian immigration. It's almost all like non-white, and this is partly why Brexit was such a disaster, because, you know, Polish immigrants to Britain, in a generation they were assimilated. But, you know, when there's that skin tone barrier, even if they look perfectly assimilated on the surface, like I'll give you an example, black Britain's right, you know, you came over, you know, with the wind rush generation. You know, they sort of, they speak English, they have sort of English names, you know, their Christian or secular, but black Britain's because of their skin tone, do not see themselves as sort of part of the same interest as the indigenous white population. And they identify more with African Americans than they do white British people. So, just to sort of finish up, because I know I'm rambling a little bit, but what do I think is the best thing? The three models is the repatriation, which is the most controversial... Activation, I think, I think for recreation of like, sole British citizens, I think the moment's passed for that. It's way, I think you could say that about recent migrants, but I think it's way outside. Yes, so I would be in favor of deporting all the legal immigrants, I would want those who have permanent residency to leave and make plans to return home unless they are absolutely indispensable. And if they're indispensable, we should be working towards as much as possible training, native British people to do those jobs. So I'd like to restrict dual citizenship. I'd want future dual citizenship to be ended. I'd like dual citizens, you know, not having the same full rights. I don't think they should stand for political office, maybe shouldn't vote. And, you know, if dual citizens commit crimes, they should have their British citizenship revoked. And I think if you did that, you know, the percentage of whites would increase. And also like a little bit of ethnic diversity is fine. You know, you have some nice restaurants, for instance, you know, but it's just when it goes above like 5%. So, you know, if it's 95% white and 5% non-white, I'd say that's probably the ideal. There's, you know, a little bit of sort of cultural interchange and exposure. But then if it goes beyond 5%, that's when you start having a problem. So I've no pluralism where different groups have their own enclaves, you think that would lead to too much Balkanization. You're not. Well, I mean, I think we have so many like Muslims that are sole British citizens, right? So I guess I'm quite sympathetic to that sort of pluralist idea. But I'm just, I do want Britain to remain overwhelmingly white, right? And I'm not saying that, you know, non-white or non-white should be expelled. I'm actually very pro-interracial marriage because I see that as a sort of having a bleaching effect, which will allow these sort of minority groups to gradually be incorporated into the dominant ethnicity. Which, you know, most ethnats, to them, that's like treason, right? That is something which they are, they are dead, dead against. They see racial intermarriage as like the worst thing that they want to avoid. Whereas I see it as preferable to the sort of Balkanization. I think we're going to kind of need a bit of all of those approaches, assimilation, a little bit of sort of pluralism. But I think for Britain, we really do need to focus on keeping this country an overwhelmingly white majority country. Is that possible considering that birth rates are declining? Yeah, well, we're not, we're never going to be a homogenously white country anymore. Unless we do, like, repatriating citizens, and I just think that, you know, that's just, there's no demand for that. I mean, I don't have anything, you know, if a non-white person is, you know, patriotically British, fine, you know, I'd rather that than they, you know, support critical race theory. But a lot of them do support critical race theory because they are ethnically predisposed towards that. So, about, what was your question again? The whole issue, how do you address the whole issue, do you think? Yeah, well, the problem is, yeah, well, the problem is, is that in the discourse, you know, I think net zero immigration that is reform's policy is a good policy as a starter. But it's still a deeply taboo in British politics to talk about. That just means a total moratorium. About declining white percentage of the population. It's very taboo to talk about that. You know, some of our most based figures. Completing about immigration. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you can maybe get away with saying like culturally incompatible. Right, you can sometimes get away with saying that. But for instance, people who will say that will say, oh, you know, the windrush generation was fine because they were Christians and spoke English and you're never, ever allowed to talk about the issue of race. And a lot of the time, people like Nigel Farage will sort of praise the windrush generation as like, as like successful immigration, which, I mean, it hasn't, it hasn't been. I mean, you know, the fact that critical race theory has taken root here shows that actually it hasn't been a success. Yeah. You wrote an article advocate advocating for Georgism, which is really interesting. And I interviewed, I had a guest on what it says more, more was more of a lefty advocating for Georgism. And it is kind of, it's very interesting, but also coded as lefty. What is your case for Georgism and how do you address the concerns that it could be used to erode property rights? Yeah, well, I mean, I think that it's very, you know, I don't pose, you know, incorporating left-wing ideas and actually think that us, you know, adopting certain sorts of ideas from the left will help make us a bit more attractive to elite human capital. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And about property rights. Georgism is overlapped with the MP movement and it's a land value tax. Yeah. So about property rights, my views on property rights are not absolute. Okay. So I believe that I think private property is a good thing to exist in society, but it is dependent on that private property being utilized for the public goods. And, you know, I'm not a socialist because I do believe that the market economy ultimately is better at providing the common goods than, you know, totally state-planned economy. But particularly like land, I mean, nobody created land, right? And so I think, you know, natural monopolies, so like land or water, or, you know, utilities that are natural monopolies, like, you know, electricity and water supply, they should be owned in common. That's all. Yes. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm glad you mentioned that article because I don't get sort of asked about that very much. But yeah, I mean, economically, I am a Georgist and I see it as a way bridge divides, which exists on the right on economics, you know, between the sort of Richard Hernagne, sort of neoliberal types and the kind of. So, I think it's sort of a mari Michael in sort of economic leftism. I think Georgism is a sort of ideology which can sort of bridge that divide because it's, you know, I don't think it's really sort of left or right, really. It sort of can be either. I guess it's friendlier towards is interesting because it's sort of populist in some ways, but also friendlier towards business in other ways but then also, like if you own a house in a highly desirable area, then you might be pressured to sell. Yeah, you can't really like Georgism would not allow to have like single family zoning in some more really highly. Yeah, well, I believe in the high density in observing sort of like a right wing. I'm a right wing Yimby right and I think Yimby is, of the kind of like tier, polyure in Canada, advocates is good, but I think without Georgism you do risk having a situation that you had in Ireland, where it just becomes a speculative bubble. So yeah, I believe the Yimbyism and Georgism go hand in hand. I'd also, I mean, another big thing that I'm focused on is like tax simplification, like I think we should only have a few taxes. And a land value tax would be brought in gradually. So I think, you know, if it's immediately like the 100% land value tax that sort of Henry George and the early Georgia's movement advocated. You did that straight away, it would just cause absolute chaos. So, you know, we might want to get to that point eventually, but it would need to be a gradual phase in, and whilst we're facing it in, you know, we'll sort of keep. I mean, I'm comfortable with income taxes as long as they're like flat. So yeah, and also, most Georgia's these days don't just advocate a land value tax, because they are the whole, the Georgia's philosophy is about natural monopolies. We have many different benefits. So, so, so, he govian taxes, like, you know, taxes, which are taxing things, which have a cost to the wider community. Georgists aren't opposed to their big, yeah, like they're really big and taxing like wasteful land use like taxing. Exactly. Yeah. Which have, which have sort of negative externalities, although I think, you know, because it's quite libertarian, a lot of those pigovian taxes might be sort of ring fenced. So they only go to issues directly resulting from the negative externality of that economic activity. So, like, for instance, if you have like an alcohol tax, that tax would be ring fenced to go to like alcoholics, rehabilitation programs, and, you know, subsidizing health funds. So, yeah. Or you could have like, I think there's a room for a lot of flexibility. So maybe like property taxes incentivize like family formation, but they disincentivize people from having just like large empty, like a large homes with lots of empty rooms or something like that. Yeah, I'm not, I don't support property taxes because it disincentivizes development or is a land value tax doesn't incentivizes development. So, yeah, personally, I'd want property taxes all replaced with land value tax, and I'd like a lot of up zoning. It could be a nice sort of art deco style sort of sort of like, like mid 20th century Manhattan would be the sort of the Georgia city, which is sort of beautiful. But another thing I do, right, is with my land value tax, I would allow companies that have invested in improving the land, the overall land value of the area. I'd give them a deduction on revaluation, like because a problem with Georges and the issue of revaluation. And then like in Estonia, it's always a big, like issue, like, you know, when we do the revaluation, it's not formal, formally enshrined by law. And I'd say that in all this is sort of incentivized development and not sort of lead to sort of constantly trying to, you know, reduce the value of land. And I would say that companies that invest in improving the overall value of the community would get a deduction, which would mean that they don't, they, they benefit from that instead of with the, with the revaluation happening, them having to also pay for the value that they added. If that makes sense. Yeah. And also would you are making tax corporate tax structures. Would you support like a simplified corporate tax code or me? Absolutely. Yeah. I'm very, very into that. My idea, right, would be to have just a legal person's tax. So, you know, the level of income tax and the level of corporation tax is the same. But for the corporation tax, I'd do what Estonia does, which is that only the profits that are distributed to shareholders are taxed. And I'd also have, you know, savings would not be taxed. So essentially, because I'm against consumption tax as most of the times, I think they're hard to collect and they incentivize black market activity. But if you make savings tax free, well, you know, a direct income tax would effectively just be like a corporation, sorry, a consumption tax. Right. You have a really interesting article about the movie, Blade Runner. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm really glad. I'm really glad I came on here because you're talking to me about articles, which I'm really proud of. I really like, but I never get asked on. So, thank you. Well, you always, I guess you usually, yeah, usually always get asked about just the British politics, which... British politics, faction of the right host for you. I never get to. I never really get asked about like George's and I hope that I've not been rambling. I hope that I didn't do anything. No, I think we've never had a lot of great subject matter, but I guess I want to go over the Blade Runner article. Yeah, absolutely. The Blade Runner is supposed to be a dystopia. Well, I haven't seen, I actually haven't seen the newer version, but the original film from the early 80s, which takes place in LA, I think, in 2019. Yeah. It's supposed to be a dystopia, but you say it's less dystopian than our current society, so some of the interesting points. I think what really defines like the Blade Runner aesthetic is the more kind of vintage neon signs, which are a lot more beautiful than like the current LED signs, but also the Van Gella soundtrack. Oh, yeah. It makes it very otherworldly and sort of, you say, techno-mystic, but then other angles of Blade Runner is, it's very, it shows a future that's very yimby, but at the same time, you say it's multicultural, but it's... I guess by the standards of the early 80s, it shows a rapid demographic change, but by today's standards, it shows, you'd actually say a non-woke, white-friendly multicultural... And it also shows that Japan is a superpower, which I guess a lot of the weeps online would like... Yeah. Yeah. I do make that point. I mean, multiculturalism hypothetically could work. The issue is with whites is that they allow themselves to be emotionally manipulated by claims of racism. If you want to see it... It works if they really assert themselves. If you want to see a successful example of multiculturalism, and in that Blade Runner article, I think I do infer to it, is do you buy? You know, whites are kind of at the top of society, and they sort of use immigrant labor to sort of build themselves up, but there's no pretense of equality in it at all. Well, Dubai has like an explicit sort of racial caste system where it's... Exactly. Yeah. And Blade Runner kind of is like that. It's like the whites and the Japanese are on top, and then the South Asians are the sort of, you know, laboring class. I mean, I do sort of make a lot of assumptions about the kind of society, but I love it. As I've said throughout, I love the aesthetic to Blade Runner, but it is really affected by a nighttime and drained bias, which makes it seem more dystopian than I think it would be if it was like if we saw more daylight. It's also ironically, ironically, it's also nostalgia for the past because it's supposed to be futuristic, but like those kinds of vintage neon signs were much more common in the past, and today they've been replaced by stuff. So it's also very like film noir nostalgia, so it is. Yeah, and that's great as well. I like the clothes, Rachel wears throughout the film. Like Art Deco kind of. Yeah, and I love Art Deco, like Aztec pyramids. Exactly. Yeah. Honestly, Rob, I'm so glad I was asked about that article, and if anybody is listening, I highly recommend you check it out because it is an article which I loved writing. I loved exploring and when I just don't get asked about very much. What I've done recently with the layout of my substak is I've created sections, so it's a bit more easy to navigate. So people can more easily access some of my older work that's just kind of be buried. You didn't mention this movie. There's another movie with Scarlett Johansson and Joaquin Phoenix called her, and it shows a future LA. Ironically, it shows LA of the future that's super yimby. There's skyscrapers and monorails everywhere, but it also shows LA as being like 70% white. Oh, that sounds great. Yeah, you kind of think like what kind of policies, hypothetical policies led to that future? Maybe David Duke becomes president, I don't know. But he's maybe a bit too. Yeah, I was saying that as a joke. I don't know. I mean, I guess. I mean, I think the big thing with America is you've got to make Hispanics white. You've got to make Hispanics identify as white. That is the big thing. And also, you know, deporting illegals, yes, and closing the border, yes. But I think the easiest thing to do is to dismantle this whole idea of Hispanics being separate from the white population, which is a new thing. It didn't exist prior to the 60s. And you have another article, I think, I forget the specific context, but you show some like will you? Also, thinking maybe more specifically about London, you have like some of the new buildings or more. I mean, I don't totally mind them, but they're a bit sterile, but then you have people who wanted Roger Scruton or even Prince Charles who wanted to kind of preserve London like a museum. But I think like Victorian retrofuturism. Yeah, and I'll tell you one building. One building that I think that does sort of symbolize that is the Gertkin. That I think is one of the few new buildings that I feel is in tune with a sort of architectural tradition. And it's funny that you mention this actually because I did, I generated some big images of a hypothetical alternate history. And people loved it. It was like art Nouveau, Nouveau, how it's pronounced. That would probably be ideal. Yeah, people loved it. Yeah, I mean art deco, it's perfect. It combines sort of a respect for Western tradition and also a sort of... Do you live in London? I drink spirit of modernity. And then that I think is what is the perfect synthesis. That's what we've got to do. Do you live in London? Just outside of London. Yeah, I think about like the like brutalist, a lot of the different like brutalist high rises. Yeah, not a fan. Not a fan really. I mean, yeah, particularly the sort of post-war planners sort of tearing everything down to make room for those sort of soulless blocks. But like on the other hand, the post-war housing programmes were a huge success in the year they cleared slums. They were able to sort of, you know, rehouse people in sort of decent accommodation. So, you know, in that sense, it was good. But yeah, aesthetically, I'm really not a fan. What's interesting is like 80s, like including 80s malls, like a lot of 80s post-modernism was kind of influenced by those Victorian like Victorian era child hurricanes. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, now we're on to the topic of aesthetics. Did you read my article on vaporwave? I just had that next to my outline. Does vaporwave have a reactionary power? I think it does. And you know, yeah, I mean, that's just what I draw from it anyway. Well, I think going back further, so post-modernism, a lot of like I hear like Tucker Carlson has some good takes, but sometimes he's kind of backwards thinking kind of a Philistine. I had mixed feelings on him, but he did a show where he talked about, well, he kind of denigrated like post-modernist architecture and actually like 80s post-modernism was actually kind of right wing because it was a rejection of modernism. And it paid like paid homage to a lot of like ancient or classical forms of architecture. So you take something like the 80s post-modernism, you borrow from neoclassicalism, you try to make it more futuristic. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for enlightening me on that. I'll explore that a bit more because post-modernism is sort of used as an insult. But it's a little bit more complicated than that, I think, because there is a right wing post-modernism that is skeptical of the sort of right side of history, established document that the woke spouts out. It's not a purely left wing tradition, but it's just that what wokeism is, I would say, like a left post-modernism, that is also in, wokeism is really three things, it's sort of critical theory, intersectionality and left wing post-modernism. And left wing post-modernism is sort of about deconstructing things for the sake of furthering equity and the rights of minorities, whereas post-modernism doesn't have to be that. Nietzsche was probably a bit of a post-modernist, so it's not a purely left wing tradition. It's also deconstructionism, deconstructing a lot of the moral authoritarianism, because the moral authoritarianism that puts limits on what you're allowed to think and say, which is different than people who say that's classical liberalism, but actually classical liberalism has a lot of different constraints, and also it could be philosophical and even moral, but it could also be coming up, creating something new and exciting, but being okay, you can borrow from certain aspects of contemporary or even late 20th century culture to create something. Yeah, I mean, just to bring the composition back to vaporwave, I'm not alone in my assessment, because I think Richard Spencer said vaporwave represents the last hurrah of want America. But it's really hidden in nostalgia, but it's not recreating the 80s, it's sort of like a hypnagogic dream of what the future could have been, but it's not exactly, because I think with Gen Xers, they have like the 80s nostalgia being like a high school student in the 80s, and kind of like, I'm at the age where, I'm not sure how old you are, but I'm at the age where maybe I experienced like the tail end of the 80s, but sort of like, I was so young that it was like a hypnagogic dream, which I think is different than just like Gen X 80s nostalgia, but I don't really, like I'm not a reactionary, I don't want to go back to the 80s, but I want to I like the idea of like, recreating the future that should have been like that. Yeah, exactly, and this is partly sort of what Anglo-futurism is. Like, for Anglo-futurism, both in Aris Ralcynos's original article, but also a great Anglo Twitter poster called Bob Rill Gasolshaft, who wrote the prompts, the AI prompt for a lot of the art which I've posted in his brilliant aesthetic style, it's trying to recreate the sort of post-war optimism in Britain. Does it ease New Wave music fit into this? No, because the time scales are a little bit different in Britain and America, right? So the 80s for us was really dreary, and like the miners strike and everything. The 60s for us wasn't the sort of, it wasn't just the counterculture in Britain, you also have like the mods, you have, you know, like the early James Bond films, to give like an example of what this aesthetic is, the sort of, you know, pretty girls, you know, with the sort of straight hair and sort of a kind of, you know, an orientation towards the future, but still grounded in sort of the sort of heritage of Britain. That was sort of the aesthetic of the 60s in Britain, and particularly I think what Anglo-futurism is trying to recreate, because most sort of right-wing, you know, ideas, writing aesthetics in Britain is like trying to go like Victorian. But Anglo-futurism is a little bit more like the kind of the post-war optimism, and so, yeah, the timescales were a little bit different, like we, we don't like, the 80s wasn't as good here as it was in America, but for us, ironically, the 2000s is also considered like quite a good time, whereas I live there briefly in 2002. Yeah, well, we like the 2000s, whereas you associated with 9/11, so, and for you, the 2000s kind of marked the end of the sort of 80s and 90s, 80s. I do remember, well, the Cool Britannia movement era, that was, I think, maybe more than 90s. That was more than 90s. I do remember the music, it was still kind of a lot of that Eurodance music was popular. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do remember it just being like a pretty, even though it was like just after 9/11, which I know is different in Britain, but I remember it just seemed like a very more off. I mean, we certainly felt it. I mean, my dad can recall where he was at the time, but I don't think it kind of changed the national mood to the degree that it did in America, just what I've heard from Americans. 9/11 really wasn't a real cultural shift. So the current era in Britain, would you say, is really bleak and pessimistic? Yes, very bleak, very good. Some old guy was who lived through like the 70s, which where we had all the strikes and stuff. I have never known a more downbeat period of British history. It's true. I mean, it's just, we're going to get a Labour government that absolutely nobody's excited about. The left isn't excited about it. The right is horrified by it, but I think there's just so much disillusionment. Nothing works. We're falling further and further behind in terms of our economy. Emigrations out of control. We can't do anything. The bureaucracy is utterly incompetent and just choked in red tape. It's just a very, yeah, there's really not much optimism in Britain at all, which is which is why Aris Rabezino's wrote the Anglo-Futurism, because it was a attempt to say, okay, well, yeah, the Empire has gone. Sure. But, you know, it's further and further decline. Really what we just have to accept, or can we carve out a new space, a new role for Britain, you know, which can give people something sort of believing. We're at the end of the show. John, do you have any upcoming projects that you want to plug? Well, no, no, really. I mean, you know, anybody who isn't already subscribed to the sub-stack, the Anglo-Futurist, please do. I've got more articles coming up. Yeah, thanks so much for having me on, Rabezino. Very interesting getting to discuss certain things which I often don't get asked about. Yeah, I'd like to hear more on those types of subjects, like architecture and aesthetics. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, and I hope we can, you know, have this conversation again sometime, and yeah, really nice meeting you. And yeah, I'll, yeah, bye. Yeah, great meeting you. Thanks, John Arctow. Great show, and take care, everyone. ♪♪♪ Thank you for tuning in. You can follow Robert Stark on his sub-stack at robertstark.sub-stack or on his website at starttruthradio.com. See you next time. ♪♪♪