Michael Malice: Totalitarianism and Anarchy

Lex Fridman (02:09.360)

communism.

Lex Fridman (02:10.360)

And the three I could think of top of my head who are all in my top 10 heroes of all time

Lex Fridman (02:15.020)

are Emma Goldman, Albert Camus, and Orwell being the third.

Michael Malice (02:20.600)

Something that leftists like to throw in the face of people on the right who constantly

Michael Malice (02:25.160)

invoke Orwell is that Orwell said, and I don't have the exact quote off the top of my head,

Lex Fridman (02:29.200)

but something to the effect of every word I have written should be taken as a defense

Lex Fridman (02:34.440)

of democratic socialism against totalitarianism.

Lex Fridman (02:37.360)

So people like Truman was obviously very hardcore, in many ways anti communist.

Michael Malice (02:44.280)

We like to parse things out, you're going to laugh, into binary fashions that left good,

Michael Malice (02:51.920)

right bad, or right good, left bad.

Lex Fridman (02:53.760)

But historically speaking, it would just not fall away into these camps as easily as people

Michael Malice (02:58.720)

would like.

Lex Fridman (03:00.560)

And I think it is important for those of us, it takes a lot more courage to fight the right

Michael Malice (03:06.680)

from the right or to fight the left from the left, because in a sense, a lot of your countrymen

Lex Fridman (03:12.120)

or your fellow travelers are going to regard you as a traitor to the cause.

Lex Fridman (03:15.700)

So every chance I get, I will sing the praises of these three figures, among others, who

Michael Malice (03:21.880)

not all even if they hadn't done what they had done, just lived just amazing lives that

Michael Malice (03:27.320)

all of us can learn from and admire and regard as somewhat a role model.

Lex Fridman (03:34.440)

So

Lex Fridman (03:35.440)

what was the nature of their opposition to totalitarianism?

Lex Fridman (03:38.760)

Is it basically freedom, the value of freedom?

Michael Malice (03:42.560)

Let's go through the three of them.

Lex Fridman (03:43.840)

So Emma Goldman, she was an early anarchist figure, you know, we'll talk about her later,

Michael Malice (03:47.720)

I'm sure she got deported from the United States with her partner in crime, Alexander

Michael Malice (03:52.840)

Birkman, literal crime, he tried to assassinate Frick, who was Andrew Carnegie's main man

Michael Malice (03:58.560)

in the Pittsburgh steel mill strike.

Lex Fridman (04:00.900)

She got deported to the Soviet Union.

Lex Fridman (04:03.600)

And they're like, oh, you want socialism?

Michael Malice (04:05.580)

Because at the time, the anarchists were regarded as socialist, you know, go choke on it.

Lex Fridman (04:09.260)

And she's there.

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And she was watching in great horror what was going on.

Lex Fridman (04:13.600)

And she actually went to Lenin's office and she goes, this isn't what we're about.

Michael Malice (04:16.880)

The revolution is about the individual and free speech and everyone working together

Michael Malice (04:21.080)

to further society.

Lex Fridman (04:23.000)

And he told her that, you know, you know, free speech is a bourgeois contrivance.

Lex Fridman (04:26.780)

And regardless, you can't have these circumstances in the midst of a revolution.

Lex Fridman (04:30.760)

And when she left the Soviet Union, and you know, she went to Britain.

Lex Fridman (04:34.240)

And at the time, before the 1917, there was a lot of discussion among socialist circles

Lex Fridman (04:40.400)

about what would the revolution look like, right?

Lex Fridman (04:42.760)

Would there be the Bakunin anarchist model?

Lex Fridman (04:44.640)

Would there be the Marxist model?

Michael Malice (04:46.120)

Obviously, the Bolsheviks ended up winning.

Lex Fridman (04:48.260)

But even then, it wasn't obvious because there was the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.

Lex Fridman (04:51.640)

And what people, you know, you and I know what those words mean.

Lex Fridman (04:54.500)

But Bolsheviks were kind of funny because Bolsheviks means bigger and Mensheviks means

Michael Malice (04:59.160)

smaller.

Lex Fridman (05:00.160)

The Mensheviks had the numbers.

Michael Malice (05:01.480)

It was sarcastic that they were called Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks were called Bolsheviks.

Lex Fridman (05:06.260)

And Lenin, you know, destroyed all his foes in a very merciless way, obviously.

Michael Malice (05:11.560)

Beforehand, you know, there was the idea like, okay, with all these cockamamie ideas, we

Lex Fridman (05:15.520)

have to work together.

Michael Malice (05:17.100)

You know, we don't know what's going to look like for the cause.

Michael Malice (05:19.000)

Then as soon as he sees power, he's like, yeah, yeah, we're not doing that kind of pluralism

Michael Malice (05:22.360)

anymore.

Lex Fridman (05:23.360)

This is going to be the right approach.

Lex Fridman (05:25.840)

So she left the Soviet Union, as did Berkman.

Lex Fridman (05:29.040)

She wrote a book that they titled, My Disillusion with Russia.

Lex Fridman (05:32.480)

And I remember this one anecdote, which I'm going to discuss in the forthcoming book,

Michael Malice (05:36.280)

where she goes to Britain and the British were very red at the time, they really had

Michael Malice (05:40.940)

something called the Fabian Society, which was the predecessor to the British Labour

Michael Malice (05:44.040)

Party, which were like, all right, we're going to get rid of liberalism and have a socialist

Michael Malice (05:49.080)

kind of nation.

Lex Fridman (05:50.900)

And she gave talks, and there was this one time where she gave a talk and she started,

Lex Fridman (05:55.320)

and there was a standing ovation, by the time she was done, you could hear a pin drop, because

Michael Malice (05:58.860)

she dared to look at these people in the face, something they'd been fighting for all their

Michael Malice (06:03.720)

lives and saying, you know, we've been to the future and it works.

Lex Fridman (06:07.060)

And she's like, guys, this is worse than the czar.

Michael Malice (06:10.220)

You know, people are under house arrest, you're not allowed to have, you know, newspapers

Lex Fridman (06:13.740)

are being shut down if they have heretical views, so on and so forth.

Lex Fridman (06:16.920)

And you know, she was just even more of a pariah than she had been previously.

Lex Fridman (06:20.560)

So she is, you know, deserves huge accolades in that regard.

Michael Malice (06:24.600)

I brought her up and we were talking about with our conversation with Yaron Orwell, I

Michael Malice (06:28.960)

think you don't need me to explain what he has done and continues to do to use fiction

Michael Malice (06:34.280)

to demonstrate the horrors of a totalitarian state.

Lex Fridman (06:39.900)

And Camus, who might be my all time great lighthouse, so to speak, in terms of being

Michael Malice (06:44.840)

a man of conscience, you know, he joined the Communist Party and for a lot of people in

Michael Malice (06:48.560)

the States, you hear, oh, you joined the Communist Party, so I need to hear, it's all you need

Michael Malice (06:51.680)

to, he was a communist, all you need to know.

Michael Malice (06:53.340)

He joined the Communist Party because they were the main ones fighting the fascists in

Michael Malice (06:56.840)

France and other locations.

Lex Fridman (06:58.840)

And he took Nazism, as did many others, of course, very, very, very seriously.

Michael Malice (07:03.240)

He wasn't some committed communist, but this was just his mechanism to take on, you know,

Lex Fridman (07:08.780)

be part of the underground in Vichy France, and so on and so forth.

Lex Fridman (07:11.720)

So he had the quote, which is ascribed to him, which is kind of a misquote, Howard Zinn

Michael Malice (07:17.360)

is the one who actually said it, that it is a job of thinking people not to be on the

Michael Malice (07:21.080)

side of the executioners.

Lex Fridman (07:23.040)

And he very much felt, if you read his speech when he won the Nobel Prize, I forget, in

Michael Malice (07:27.720)

the 50s, where he goes, it's basically the job of writers to keep civilization from destroying

Lex Fridman (07:33.840)

himself.

Michael Malice (07:34.840)

I don't think I'm ever going to be a man on the level of Camus and what he's accomplished,

Lex Fridman (07:39.160)

but I think that vision of it is the job of writers to be the conscience and to point

Michael Malice (07:46.280)

out, you know, this is the leftism at its best when, you know, giving voice to the voiceless,

Michael Malice (07:51.960)

when you have the machine of the state crushing and marginalizing people, and they might not

Michael Malice (07:56.660)

be educated, literate, or have any power at all.

Michael Malice (08:00.540)

He's the guy who's like, you are ruining humans, these humans matter, and I'm not going to

Michael Malice (08:06.400)

let you look the other way and act like you don't know what you're doing.

Lex Fridman (08:10.060)

So in this time, whether we look at the time of fascism, or we look at the fictional Animal

Lex Fridman (08:14.960)

Farm, what's the heroic action then?

Lex Fridman (08:17.940)

So Camus joined the Communist Party, there's a bunch of different heroic actions, some

Michael Malice (08:23.560)

more heroic than others, not just for the, you know, hero is the wrong word, in terms

Michael Malice (08:29.280)

of like effectiveness, what's the effective action, I guess is what I want to ask.

Lex Fridman (08:33.520)

As a writer, as a thinker, as somebody with a mind, what's the heroic action?

Michael Malice (08:38.400)

That's a tricky question, because a lot of times in the West, heroism is regardless intertwined

Lex Fridman (08:42.980)

with martyrdom, right?

Lex Fridman (08:44.300)

So it's kind of this idea of like, you have to speak to, you know, Camus always talked

Michael Malice (08:47.760)

about justice, let justice be done though the heavens fall.

Michael Malice (08:50.540)

This is a common kind of motto among people with conscience, and that you have to do the

Michael Malice (08:55.080)

right thing, even the consequences might not be what you like.

Lex Fridman (08:58.100)

And I think that is a good loose definition of heroism.

Lex Fridman (09:01.500)

So if you meet, I'll give you one example of heroism.

Michael Malice (09:03.960)

This was on Twitter, and I really feel bad that I don't remember the guy's name.

Michael Malice (09:09.820)

This was the line to Auschwitz, I believe it was, and you know, there's the Nazi guards

Lex Fridman (09:13.840)

keeping everyone along.

Lex Fridman (09:16.020)

And if you were certain, I think if you were under 12, they killed you or something, there

Michael Malice (09:19.820)

was some age limit where some kids were killed or some were not, there was some circumstances.

Lex Fridman (09:24.200)

And he asked the mom how old this kid was, and she's like, he's 14, and she's like,

Lex Fridman (09:28.540)

no, he's 12.

Lex Fridman (09:29.540)

And she's like, no, he's 14.

Lex Fridman (09:30.540)

She goes, he's 12.

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And she realized what this Nazi was telling her even in that circumstance, and it ended

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up saving the kid's life.

Lex Fridman (09:37.840)

So I think heroism in this context is defiance and standing true to values of liberalism,

Lex Fridman (09:47.820)

humanism and venerating the sanctity of human life.

Michael Malice (09:51.640)

I think that, and I think it's also important to pick your battles.

Michael Malice (09:56.940)

I don't think if, you know, he got, that Nazi over there got in a bullhorn and said, hey,

Michael Malice (10:02.740)

this is the rules, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's not going to help anyone do anything.

Lex Fridman (10:06.300)

So I do think, you know, people a lot of times attack me for my anarchist views, like, oh,

Lex Fridman (10:11.080)

you know, would you call the police?

Lex Fridman (10:12.400)

Would you use the roads?

Lex Fridman (10:13.400)

Would you pay your income taxes?

Michael Malice (10:15.840)

You know, I got in an argument with Tim Pool, because there was that couple, I think it

Michael Malice (10:19.900)

was at Missouri or Illinois when they had their guns and they were being arrested and

Lex Fridman (10:24.900)

they basically took a plea deal and he said, you should have fought.

Michael Malice (10:27.780)

I go, it's a lot easier to say you should fight, but we don't know what circumstance

Lex Fridman (10:32.320)

someone is under.

Lex Fridman (10:33.360)

And what these totalitarian regimes did very, very well, as you know, is if you were a target

Lex Fridman (10:40.140)

and they can't get through to you, that's fine, you have a family.

Lex Fridman (10:43.540)

So you can sit there, Lex, and gird your jaw and you can stand up to all the torture, cool,

Lex Fridman (10:49.380)

what are we going to do about your wife?

Lex Fridman (10:50.760)

What about your mom?

Michael Malice (10:51.760)

One thing Stalin did, he made it a law that kids up to 14 and up could get the death penalty

Michael Malice (10:57.780)

for certain crimes.

Lex Fridman (10:59.240)

So after that, the rule was from the NKVD, if you were interrogating someone, they would

Michael Malice (11:05.040)

have death warrants for the kid's child on the desk visible.

Lex Fridman (11:09.440)

So I'm interrogating you asking you to commit to, I'm sorry, to admit to some crime that

Michael Malice (11:14.940)

you're not committed.

Lex Fridman (11:16.080)

And those piece of paper, it's Svitlana, she's got a death warrant.

Michael Malice (11:19.960)

You're going to admit to any crime you want.

Lex Fridman (11:22.080)

So this is something Americans, this is even the case right now in North Korea, which I

Michael Malice (11:26.720)

know you had Yonmi Park on, it's something I talk about a lot.

Michael Malice (11:29.360)

Let's talk about it instead of the hypothetical, but this is happening right now on earth.

Michael Malice (11:33.740)

You can look at the map on Google.

Michael Malice (11:35.920)

The great leader, Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea said, class enemies must be

Michael Malice (11:39.620)

exterminated three generations.

Lex Fridman (11:41.720)

So North, when people talk about individualism versus collectivism, Rick Santorum from Ascender

Michael Malice (11:46.540)

says the family is the basic unit of society, unit.

Lex Fridman (11:50.440)

North Korea takes that seriously.

Michael Malice (11:52.080)

The family is punished as a unit.

Lex Fridman (11:54.400)

So if someone does something wrong, three generations have to pay the price and you

Michael Malice (11:58.540)

often don't know who it is that got you all in trouble.

Lex Fridman (12:01.880)

There's not a trial.

Michael Malice (12:03.160)

This to Western minds is something almost incomprehensible.

Lex Fridman (12:07.020)

It's a lot easier to be brave when it's just your skin.

Michael Malice (12:10.640)

It's something when it's your child, your loved ones, every man becomes a coward.

Lex Fridman (12:17.920)

But also what bravery is there for me to write an essay for The Guardian to say, I don't

Michael Malice (12:21.960)

vote.

Lex Fridman (12:22.960)

There's no consequences to me.

Michael Malice (12:23.960)

There's no possibility of consequences to me.

Lex Fridman (12:25.620)

This is the wonderful thing about living in a free country.

Michael Malice (12:29.120)

It would take a lot of courage to be in the Soviet Union and say, I'm not going to vote.

Lex Fridman (12:35.120)

And what would that courage accomplish?

Michael Malice (12:37.480)

Very little.

Michael Malice (12:38.480)

Heroism in the sense of kind of the suicidal stuff and taking a stance with no consequences

Michael Malice (12:43.400)

is a bit overrated.

Michael Malice (12:45.560)

There is some aspect, like the way I think about heroism is something like you said about

Michael Malice (12:50.680)

the Nazi soldier, which is quietly privately in your own life, live the virtues that you

Lex Fridman (12:58.800)

want the rest of the world to live by.

Michael Malice (13:01.160)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (13:02.160)

So like without writing about it is not as heroic as living it quietly.

Michael Malice (13:08.000)

I'll give you a great example of this.

Michael Malice (13:10.840)

I sometimes give talks on networking and I tell the kids, if you know someone's in town

Lex Fridman (13:17.180)

and it's their birthday with nothing to do, take them out.

Lex Fridman (13:19.600)

And I say, I do this for selfish reasons and everyone laughs and I go, think about it this

Michael Malice (13:24.160)

way.

Lex Fridman (13:25.160)

The guy who takes people out for their birthday is awesome.

Michael Malice (13:29.180)

That could be you.

Michael Malice (13:30.280)

Like you have that capacity to be that person and you're making that day feel special.

Michael Malice (13:34.820)

They're going to remember for a long time.

Lex Fridman (13:36.480)

What's the cost?

Michael Malice (13:37.480)

30 bucks, 25 bucks.

Lex Fridman (13:39.320)

So it's very disturbing to me how often people have opportunities to slightly move the needle

Lex Fridman (13:48.160)

and make things a bit better at almost no cost.

Lex Fridman (13:51.900)

And they just literally don't think in those terms.

Lex Fridman (13:54.680)

And one of the things Camus talked about, he's often described as an existentialist,

Lex Fridman (14:00.000)

which he did not like that term.

Michael Malice (14:01.240)

He regarded himself as an absurdist, is the idea that we're basically blank canvases.

Lex Fridman (14:06.040)

And this isn't something that is dangerous.

Michael Malice (14:07.760)

This is an enormous opportunity.

Lex Fridman (14:09.640)

And you have the ability to become the kind of man or woman that you admire and want to

Michael Malice (14:14.760)

be.

Michael Malice (14:15.760)

You don't have to be, I don't know, George Washington or one of these great heroes of

Michael Malice (14:18.840)

all time.

Lex Fridman (14:19.960)

But everyone out there has the capacity to be, excuse me, to be a hero to their kids

Michael Malice (14:26.060)

or to be a hero to maybe some, there's nursing homes and there's old people who are lonely.

Lex Fridman (14:30.840)

I think that you take in a dog that's on its last legs.

Michael Malice (14:35.980)

These are little things, Terry Shepherd does that a lot, I regarded him as a hero.

Lex Fridman (14:41.060)

These are not Terry Shepherd, I'm blanking his name.

Michael Malice (14:43.040)

These are things that people do that aren't heroic in the sense of Superman, but that

Michael Malice (14:48.600)

I find admirable extremely and I think are very underrated because these people aren't

Michael Malice (14:53.280)

championed.

Michael Malice (14:54.720)

Is this some kind of weird, passive, aggressive and direct way for you to tell me that I should

Lex Fridman (15:00.800)

take you off for your birthday on Monday?

Lex Fridman (15:03.120)

Is that why you gave that whole speech?

Michael Malice (15:05.320)

That wasn't it at all.

Lex Fridman (15:06.320)

That was a joke, Michael.

Michael Malice (15:07.320)

No, it was a failed joke.

Lex Fridman (15:09.320)

Nevertheless.

Michael Malice (15:10.320)

There was no punchline.

Lex Fridman (15:12.840)

Without failure, we would not have triumph.

Lex Fridman (15:15.000)

Can we stick on the Camus absurdism versus existentialism?

Lex Fridman (15:19.920)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (15:20.920)

What do you think is the difference?

Michael Malice (15:24.360)

In your ideas about anarchism too, it seems like those are somehow intricately connected

Michael Malice (15:33.120)

because existentialism is connected to freedom and freedom is connected to anarchism.

Lex Fridman (15:40.320)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (15:41.320)

But I mean, Sartre was a defender of the Soviet Union.

Michael Malice (15:46.200)

He said explicitly about things like gulags, like even if it's true, we shouldn't talk

Michael Malice (15:50.340)

about it.

Lex Fridman (15:53.420)

What people don't appreciate is how human beings can have contradictory ideas in their

Michael Malice (15:57.920)

minds at the same time.

Michael Malice (15:59.560)

One would think, okay, someone's a Democrat, they think ABC, therefore they think DEF.

Michael Malice (16:04.320)

People would have all sorts of contradictions and it's not at all clear and they'll have

Michael Malice (16:08.200)

a clean conscience because the human mind is very sophisticated and is capable of doing

Michael Malice (16:12.240)

this.

Lex Fridman (16:13.240)

So Sartre, you would think he's this radical individualist, this sense of ultimate freedom,

Lex Fridman (16:19.060)

but he's defending the Soviet Union.

Michael Malice (16:20.720)

Camus, on the other hand, would probably be, was very much like a social Democrat.

Michael Malice (16:25.600)

He didn't really talk about what politics should be so much as it shouldn't be.

Michael Malice (16:29.920)

His essay, Reflections on the Guillotine, is one of the great masterpieces of all time,

Michael Malice (16:35.220)

an attack on the death penalty, not in terms of no one's evil or it's wrong to kill murderers,

Lex Fridman (16:41.680)

but in terms of what does it do for a society?

Michael Malice (16:44.640)

If you have someone who takes a person and locks them in a room and says, in two years,

Lex Fridman (16:51.040)

I'm going to murder you and you lock them for that.

Michael Malice (16:53.360)

This is not someone we regard as moral, we regard this as someone who's a complete monster,

Lex Fridman (16:57.960)

but that's what the state does with the death penalty.

Lex Fridman (17:01.480)

And he challenges us to think, is this the kind of people we want to be?

Lex Fridman (17:07.440)

And again, he's saying, I'm not saying killing a murderer is wrong.

Michael Malice (17:11.060)

I'm not saying evil is wrong.

Lex Fridman (17:12.640)

His entire career was dedicated to fighting the concept of evil.

Lex Fridman (17:17.120)

But are we the kind of people who want to be doing these things that in any other context

Lex Fridman (17:22.600)

we regard as torture or depraved?

Lex Fridman (17:25.000)

So I'm much more of a Camus person than a Sartre person.

Lex Fridman (17:28.800)

So he was probably against war in that same way.

Lex Fridman (17:31.000)

So I don't, I have to admit, I don't know much about the political side of Camus.

Lex Fridman (17:36.000)

Well, and I don't think his political side is that interesting or relevant.

Lex Fridman (17:38.820)

What I find, sorry to interrupt you, what I find fascinating about Camus and what I

Michael Malice (17:42.760)

think about on a daily basis from him is his insistence that you have to live a life based

Michael Malice (17:48.760)

on conscience, that you have to be accountable to yourself when you put your head on the

Michael Malice (17:53.000)

pelt at the end of the day and ask yourself, did I live a righteous life with integrity

Lex Fridman (17:59.080)

true to my values?

Lex Fridman (18:00.840)

Did I not needlessly cause harm to innocent people?

Michael Malice (18:06.320)

That kind of mindset, did I, if someone is weak, am I using that as an opportunity to

Lex Fridman (18:11.160)

exploit them or to harm them?

Michael Malice (18:13.020)

Or do I feel a bit of sympathy or empathy for this person because maybe they didn't

Lex Fridman (18:17.880)

have circumstances that were as beneficial as other people had.

Michael Malice (18:23.040)

Well, how does that fit absurdism where everything is absurd, nothing has meaning, it really

Lex Fridman (18:29.720)

borders on nihilism.

Lex Fridman (18:31.520)

So he regards, his philosophy explicitly said is a response to nihilism and a attack on

Lex Fridman (18:39.960)

nihilism.

Michael Malice (18:41.320)

He regards cynicism as the worst value people can have.

Lex Fridman (18:46.140)

And I agree with him 100%.

Michael Malice (18:48.160)

A lot of times people call me cynical online and I push back very, very hard because to

Michael Malice (18:53.360)

be a, you know, I had this quote in the new write where I said, I'd rather be naive than

Michael Malice (18:57.240)

a cynic because a cynic is a hopeless man who projects his hopelessness to the world

Lex Fridman (19:01.840)

at large.

Michael Malice (19:03.400)

Camus, this is the metaphor I use and I find it very inspirational.

Lex Fridman (19:07.520)

I thought it was in his work, but I guess I thought if it described it to him.

Michael Malice (19:11.200)

There's two types of people, you imagine you go to a mountainside and you see a blank canvas

Lex Fridman (19:17.840)

on an easel standing in front of this mountainside.

Michael Malice (19:21.160)

One people be like, why is this blank canvas here, you know, what was this, what's going

Lex Fridman (19:25.880)

on here?

Lex Fridman (19:26.880)

And just be confused.

Michael Malice (19:28.260)

Whereas the other type of person will be like, there's a blank canvas here in this beautiful

Michael Malice (19:33.040)

countryside, what a great opportunity.

Michael Malice (19:35.640)

I can paint this river, I could paint that bird, I could paint my friends or myself in

Michael Malice (19:40.360)

the background, infinite choices.

Lex Fridman (19:42.920)

And this is a gift that I have been given.

Lex Fridman (19:45.240)

And I think that also ties very heavily into what I was, I went to yeshiva as a kid, which

Lex Fridman (19:49.140)

is Jewish school.

Lex Fridman (19:50.380)

What we were taught incessantly how to look at life is this beautiful gift that God has

Lex Fridman (19:56.840)

given you and that God wants you to be happy.

Michael Malice (19:59.960)

He wants you to live to the fullest in a moral way.

Michael Malice (1:00:05.320)

I do something similar sometimes, which is I'll have some innocuous comment about like

Michael Malice (1:00:09.940)

bubblegum.

Lex Fridman (1:00:10.940)

I mean, just it's not to be in political.

Lex Fridman (1:00:12.960)

And a lot of times people will respond to this paragraph of just invective about like

Michael Malice (1:00:18.960)

blah, blah, blah, and then this, and you say this, and you're an ass, and just really trying

Michael Malice (1:00:22.520)

to get at me.

Lex Fridman (1:00:24.280)

And in those situations, there are very specific circumstances, I will respond and I mean it

Michael Malice (1:00:29.540)

every single time.

Lex Fridman (1:00:31.040)

I will say, I wish your parents had been kinder to you or your mom or your dad.

Michael Malice (1:00:36.240)

Because even if I'm some idiot on Twitter, who's just talking about bubblegum, and this

Michael Malice (1:00:40.840)

is your, I'm not talking about politics where I can see how people get emotional, COVID,

Michael Malice (1:00:44.200)

my grandma died, now you're talking about her.

Lex Fridman (1:00:46.600)

And I realize this isn't about me.

Michael Malice (1:00:50.260)

Like I'm someone you've never met making some inane point about nothing, and you're getting

Lex Fridman (1:00:55.520)

agitated about this.

Michael Malice (1:00:57.100)

It's clearly something else that's going on here.

Lex Fridman (1:00:59.680)

And someone taught you, someone had to teach you that this is how to respond in this kind

Michael Malice (1:01:04.880)

of very kind of harsh way.

Lex Fridman (1:01:07.120)

And a lot of times they won't say anything or get deleted.

Lex Fridman (1:01:11.340)

And I hope every single time, there's no asterisk here, that they take a second, and they realize

Michael Malice (1:01:19.560)

that the way that they were talked to growing up was not acceptable, that they don't have

Michael Malice (1:01:25.560)

to carry this forward.

Lex Fridman (1:01:27.680)

And that they don't have to be kind to me, I'm nobody to them.

Lex Fridman (1:01:31.040)

But take a second and ask if this is the kind of mindset you want to be your norm, as opposed

Michael Malice (1:01:36.080)

to a weapon you pull out of your pocket sometimes where it's warranted or even when it's not

Michael Malice (1:01:39.280)

warranted.

Michael Malice (1:01:40.280)

I think there's a lot of those people out there, and we forget how hard it is for a

Michael Malice (1:01:50.080)

lot of people to grow up, how they're trained from their parents or the single parent, that

Michael Malice (1:01:55.360)

the only way they're going to get attention is by acting out, that when they do good things,

Michael Malice (1:01:59.640)

it doesn't get comment.

Lex Fridman (1:02:01.080)

But if they do bad things, they get a smack upside their head.

Michael Malice (1:02:04.240)

That I think is far more common than we realize.

Lex Fridman (1:02:07.240)

And it's not hitting the kid that's going to last, the pain is going to give five seconds.

Lex Fridman (1:02:12.840)

But when you're training this child, helpless child, is something that's really, really

Lex Fridman (1:02:17.480)

bad.

Michael Malice (1:02:18.480)

I don't know if it always can be mapped to that.

Lex Fridman (1:02:20.440)

I always wonder about them, what their motivations are.

Lex Fridman (1:02:24.800)

And I just kind of, whenever I think about them, I think only positively.

Lex Fridman (1:02:28.920)

And I don't even think about the childhood thing.

Michael Malice (1:02:31.080)

I think, I don't know.

Michael Malice (1:02:35.840)

I kind of imagine that all of us can go through that stage where we enjoy the derision of

Michael Malice (1:02:42.080)

others.

Lex Fridman (1:02:43.080)

We go through stages of being...

Michael Malice (1:02:44.280)

I enjoy the derision of others, but it has to be, you know, Billy Eide had that quote,

Lex Fridman (1:02:48.200)

like, I like it when people are mean to me, I stop pretending to be nice.

Lex Fridman (1:02:51.540)

But like, what's the worst thing someone can say about you?

Lex Fridman (1:02:53.760)

You're not, what harm are you doing?

Michael Malice (1:02:56.560)

Maybe your podcast is garbage and the people are, the conversations suck and the people

Lex Fridman (1:02:59.660)

are losers.

Michael Malice (1:03:00.660)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:03:01.660)

No, the main thing I would say is I'm way more popular than I deserve to be.

Lex Fridman (1:03:05.540)

What does deserve mean?

Michael Malice (1:03:07.080)

The reality is there's people out there that just enjoy hating on others and I don't fault

Michael Malice (1:03:17.000)

them for it.

Lex Fridman (1:03:18.000)

Like, I don't even think of them as haters.

Michael Malice (1:03:21.240)

I think of them as just people that in this particular part of their life are enjoying

Lex Fridman (1:03:25.000)

this activity of deriding others on the internet.

Michael Malice (1:03:32.040)

I'm not sure what to do with that.

Michael Malice (1:03:34.240)

I just don't want to, I don't want to allow myself to think badly of them, I guess is

Michael Malice (1:03:38.520)

the thing.

Lex Fridman (1:03:39.520)

I'm the one saying don't think badly of them.

Michael Malice (1:03:41.160)

I'm saying that I don't think they're inherently bad people.

Lex Fridman (1:03:43.640)

I think that their thinking is screwed and that I'm steel mounting them.

Michael Malice (1:03:48.000)

I'm saying, let's assume everything you're saying about Lex is true.

Lex Fridman (1:03:51.400)

This is an opportunity for you to outdo Lex.

Michael Malice (1:03:53.560)

Like it's...

Michael Malice (1:03:54.560)

No, but are you saying they should stop hating because I'm saying like, maybe they shouldn't

Michael Malice (1:03:59.420)

just keep...

Lex Fridman (1:04:00.420)

I don't believe in should, right?

Lex Fridman (1:04:01.760)

I'm an anarchist, but I'm saying if this is your belief about Lex, you know what it is?

Michael Malice (1:04:07.480)

I made this comment in my book, The New Right, when people make fun of Andy Warhol and they're

Michael Malice (1:04:11.900)

like, oh my God, he painted a soup can and now he became a millionaire.

Lex Fridman (1:04:15.360)

I could do this.

Lex Fridman (1:04:16.360)

Well, why don't you?

Lex Fridman (1:04:17.960)

So basically if I go up to you with a check and I say, I will give you a million dollars,

Lex Fridman (1:04:22.920)

you could see the check, you got to paint a soup can, what am I waiting for?

Lex Fridman (1:04:27.260)

So clearly there's a disconnect in their thinking between what they're perceiving and the reality.

Michael Malice (1:04:32.720)

Because if it was as simple or as, maybe not simple, but as possible for them as they perceive

Lex Fridman (1:04:38.060)

it to be, why are they leaving comments instead of outdoing you?

Lex Fridman (1:04:42.400)

How great would it be for them to have your bigger audience and drive you into the ground?

Lex Fridman (1:04:46.320)

I don't know how that would work because it's not the NBA, but...

Michael Malice (1:04:48.280)

No, but you want to point out, you do this too on Twitter.

Lex Fridman (1:04:50.600)

You want to point out the hypocrisy, the fraudulence of others, right?

Michael Malice (1:04:57.880)

Sure, but what are you, you're not claiming anything other than this is, the following

Lex Fridman (1:05:01.760)

is the conversation between me and Machique, whatever his name is, right?

Michael Malice (1:05:06.820)

I got the voice down, dude.

Lex Fridman (1:05:07.980)

I got it down.

Michael Malice (1:05:08.980)

I've been walking around my house doing my Lex impression.

Lex Fridman (1:05:11.160)

I've been leaking motor oil everywhere.

Michael Malice (1:05:13.160)

Yeah, but yeah, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:05:16.280)

I don't know.

Michael Malice (1:05:17.280)

I don't know what to make of it because I think there's a more general statement to

Lex Fridman (1:05:21.000)

be made.

Michael Malice (1:05:22.000)

Like I see Twitter this way too.

Michael Malice (1:05:23.640)

When I read a tweet, I try to read it with like the best possible interpretation, meaning

Lex Fridman (1:05:30.080)

like what is the wisdom in this tweet, right?

Michael Malice (1:05:33.360)

As opposed to what I think a large number of people, not a large number, but some fraction

Michael Malice (1:05:40.040)

try to see what is the worst possible interpretation of this tweet.

Lex Fridman (1:05:43.960)

And they want to, they want to destroy you for that worst interpretation.

Michael Malice (1:05:49.440)

Like they want to, there's people, I'm already aware of this with me and certainly with a

Lex Fridman (1:05:54.480)

lot of people, they're waiting for me to fail.

Michael Malice (1:05:57.040)

They want me to be like, this guy talks about love all the time.

Lex Fridman (1:06:01.160)

They want me to be some dark, like a Bill Cosby type character.

Michael Malice (1:06:04.880)

They want you to be in pain.

Lex Fridman (1:06:05.880)

Yeah.

Michael Malice (1:06:06.880)

They want you to be in pain because they don't.

Lex Fridman (1:06:07.880)

Why?

Michael Malice (1:06:08.880)

I'll tell you exactly why.

Lex Fridman (1:06:09.880)

Because this is why I'm so for being white pilled and being for hope.

Michael Malice (1:06:13.180)

Because if you are black pilled, meaning if you think it's pointless, we're all done.

Lex Fridman (1:06:18.160)

You're just wasting your breath.

Michael Malice (1:06:19.760)

If you have any counter examples to this thesis, if there's even a little bit of hope, your

Lex Fridman (1:06:25.060)

entire hypothesis falls through, right?

Lex Fridman (1:06:27.200)

So it's kind of how like you have all these stories of people who are like painting swastikas

Lex Fridman (1:06:32.360)

who aren't Nazis, but just to show that, oh, there's all this Nazism.

Lex Fridman (1:06:35.800)

So I'm going to kind of force the conclusion.

Lex Fridman (1:06:38.840)

So for them, when they see you thriving, you are as a mediocre person with a crappy show,

Lex Fridman (1:06:45.000)

but you're demonstrating that people can succeed.

Lex Fridman (1:06:47.300)

This bothers them.

Lex Fridman (1:06:48.480)

So you are.

Lex Fridman (1:06:49.480)

Anyone can succeed.

Michael Malice (1:06:51.200)

That bothers them.

Lex Fridman (1:06:52.200)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:06:53.200)

So because that, why haven't they?

Lex Fridman (1:06:54.200)

So now you're a counter to their worldview and that is going to cause anxiety when you

Michael Malice (1:06:58.040)

have data that contradicts other data in your, in your worldview.

Lex Fridman (1:07:01.760)

This is the, in your mindset, this is a big issue for them.

Michael Malice (1:07:04.360)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:07:05.360)

So to anyone listening to this, they're annoyed by the look of my face.

Michael Malice (1:07:09.720)

Remember that you could probably do way better than me and you should.

Lex Fridman (1:07:12.980)

But also what would you failing look like?

Michael Malice (1:07:15.720)

Like let's suppose this podcast went from whatever views you had to 100 views an episode.

Lex Fridman (1:07:21.240)

That's still success.

Michael Malice (1:07:22.740)

You are talking to people you like, having conversations about important issues.

Lex Fridman (1:07:26.920)

You're having a good time.

Michael Malice (1:07:28.280)

They're having a good time.

Lex Fridman (1:07:29.280)

How is that a failure?

Michael Malice (1:07:30.280)

If I have dinner with a friend of mine, there's zero viewers and we enjoy that time.

Lex Fridman (1:07:35.660)

That is the height of human success.

Michael Malice (1:07:38.940)

When you are sharing happiness, joy, joy over love.

Lex Fridman (1:07:43.780)

So what's the difference between joy and love, Michael Malus?

Michael Malice (1:07:46.600)

Uh, I think joy is easier to attain.

Lex Fridman (1:07:49.940)

It's more common.

Michael Malice (1:07:50.980)

You could share it with everyone.

Lex Fridman (1:07:53.300)

Give me an example of joy.

Lex Fridman (1:07:55.320)

Like what was the moment of joy for you recently?

Michael Malice (1:07:58.160)

I could give you a great example of joy and this is part in the absurdist mindset.

Michael Malice (1:08:02.540)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:08:03.540)

I love having a bad meal at a restaurant and I'll give you, you can see why.

Michael Malice (1:08:09.320)

You go with your friend.

Lex Fridman (1:08:10.980)

It takes you 45 minutes to get seated.

Michael Malice (1:08:13.260)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:08:14.260)

I'm starving.

Michael Malice (1:08:15.780)

Waiter's not paying attention to you.

Lex Fridman (1:08:17.420)

They bring your water.

Michael Malice (1:08:18.420)

It's got a hair in it.

Lex Fridman (1:08:19.420)

They get the food wrong.

Michael Malice (1:08:20.420)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:08:21.420)

It comes out again.

Michael Malice (1:08:22.420)

It's ripe, but it's cold.

Lex Fridman (1:08:23.420)

At a certain point you're like, okay, I'm hungry.

Michael Malice (1:08:26.020)

I'm living an anecdote.

Michael Malice (1:08:28.340)

This is something that you, if you were at dinner, we could talk about this for years

Michael Malice (1:08:31.800)

because how great is it that the worst thing that's happening to me is I got to wait an

Lex Fridman (1:08:37.700)

hour for this meal that's going to be cooked wrong, right?

Michael Malice (1:08:40.700)

That to me is joy is a holding on to that idea that happiness and thriving are possible

Lex Fridman (1:08:48.460)

even when in the moment it's, uh, everything's going the wrong way.

Lex Fridman (1:08:53.060)

Doesn't every moment have the capacity to, uh, fill you with joy then?

Lex Fridman (1:08:57.540)

Yes.

Michael Malice (1:08:58.540)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:08:59.540)

So it's both the shitty moments and the good moments.

Michael Malice (1:09:00.540)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:09:01.540)

But that, see, that's the way I usually talk about love is like, I love life.

Michael Malice (1:09:07.060)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:09:08.060)

And in that, because life can generate every, everything, the pain, the loss, but also just

Michael Malice (1:09:15.180)

like simple or complicated bliss, all of that, I just love all of that.

Lex Fridman (1:09:20.900)

And that, because it fills me with a kind of, I guess, joy, but joy has a connotation

Michael Malice (1:09:26.740)

that it's supposed to be somehow positive, like you're supposed to be smiling.

Michael Malice (1:09:30.580)

To me, you know, man's search for meaning with Viktor Frankl, you know, just it's, you're

Michael Malice (1:09:38.060)

in the Holocaust, you're in a concentration camp, just having a little bit of food that

Lex Fridman (1:09:42.780)

you didn't expect you will have.

Michael Malice (1:09:45.140)

Or even just thinking about food.

Michael Malice (1:09:47.740)

Or what about there's a kid there, you tell them a funny story and you crack them up.

Michael Malice (1:09:51.100)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:09:52.100)

Like you take away this child's pain for like five minutes.

Michael Malice (1:09:54.420)

That is the height of joy.

Lex Fridman (1:09:55.900)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:09:56.900)

So to me, like all of like life is like infinitely full of possibility for joy.

Lex Fridman (1:10:01.300)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:10:02.300)

And that's what I mean by love, because oftentimes like romantic love is what people think about

Lex Fridman (1:10:07.460)

when they think love.

Lex Fridman (1:10:08.460)

But to me, it's all like part of the same thing.

Lex Fridman (1:10:11.180)

And it's almost like love, romantic love, or love with a friend, friendship is like

Michael Malice (1:10:17.740)

you both notice each other.

Michael Malice (1:10:20.020)

It's like dogs, they look at each other and then they look at the thing they're interested

Michael Malice (1:10:23.380)

in.

Lex Fridman (1:10:24.380)

You both notice each other and that moment of joy.

Michael Malice (1:10:27.340)

You share that moment of joy together.

Lex Fridman (1:10:28.780)

Yeah.

Michael Malice (1:10:29.780)

Like the restaurant.

Lex Fridman (1:10:30.780)

The restaurant.

Michael Malice (1:10:31.780)

Yeah.

Michael Malice (1:10:32.780)

If you're both almost without conspiring, notice the absurdity of how shitty this meal

Michael Malice (1:10:39.460)

is.

Lex Fridman (1:10:40.460)

And like that, again, that little glimmer of realization, that's what makes life beautiful.

Michael Malice (1:10:46.620)

You mentioned your grandmother in Lvov.

Lex Fridman (1:10:49.980)

You were thinking of returning there.

Michael Malice (1:10:52.060)

The plans got a little bit delayed, but what are you hoping from that trip of going back

Lex Fridman (1:10:58.440)

to Russia, going back to Ukraine?

Lex Fridman (1:11:01.420)

What do you hope to get out of it, but what do you think you will feel?

Lex Fridman (1:11:07.540)

A lot of things.

Michael Malice (1:11:08.540)

First of all, I'm going with my buddy, Chris Williamson.

Lex Fridman (1:11:11.500)

He hosts the Modern Wisdom Podcast.

Michael Malice (1:11:13.420)

He is one of my closest friends.

Lex Fridman (1:11:15.720)

We've never met.

Lex Fridman (1:11:16.720)

Oh, really?

Lex Fridman (1:11:17.720)

We've never met.

Michael Malice (1:11:18.720)

He's in Britain.

Lex Fridman (1:11:19.720)

He's trying to get his ass over here to Austin.

Michael Malice (1:11:23.000)

He's filling out his form right now.

Lex Fridman (1:11:24.540)

He's too good looking.

Michael Malice (1:11:25.540)

It's a crime.

Lex Fridman (1:11:26.540)

I call him Apollo and I'm Loki.

Lex Fridman (1:11:29.600)

So right away you have a buddy comedy because we're going to film it, right?

Michael Malice (1:11:32.220)

You have these two guys who on paper are very dissimilar, but we're very, very close.

Lex Fridman (1:11:36.940)

In which way are you similar and close?

Lex Fridman (1:11:40.380)

I think we're both very intense people, very strong emotionally.

Michael Malice (1:11:47.500)

We're both very ambitious in the sense that, not in terms of career, but we want to grab

Lex Fridman (1:11:52.500)

life by the short hairs kind of thing.

Michael Malice (1:11:55.260)

We are just both good experiences.

Lex Fridman (1:11:58.820)

Did he bench more than you or like in the gym?

Michael Malice (1:12:02.420)

Of course.

Lex Fridman (1:12:03.420)

The guy's jacked.

Michael Malice (1:12:04.420)

He's just...

Lex Fridman (1:12:05.420)

Because he's so good looking.

Michael Malice (1:12:06.420)

I think he'd be one of those guys who's mostly biceps.

Lex Fridman (1:12:09.260)

Oh no, no, no.

Michael Malice (1:12:10.620)

If you go to his Instagram, Chris Will X is the handle.

Lex Fridman (1:12:14.240)

It's head to toe.

Michael Malice (1:12:15.240)

It's just sculpted.

Lex Fridman (1:12:16.240)

Oh, wow.

Lex Fridman (1:12:17.240)

So he's perfect in every way.

Lex Fridman (1:12:18.240)

That's great.

Michael Malice (1:12:19.240)

He...

Lex Fridman (1:12:20.240)

What flaws does he have?

Michael Malice (1:12:21.900)

Because I need...

Lex Fridman (1:12:22.900)

He has bad taste in friends and his accent is all crazy.

Michael Malice (1:12:29.560)

He pronounces it...

Lex Fridman (1:12:30.560)

He's an underwear muddle, so now I spell it M U D L.

Michael Malice (1:12:35.880)

Just us two, British and American, and just two different dudes, it's going to be a lot

Lex Fridman (1:12:39.540)

of fun.

Michael Malice (1:12:40.540)

Although, to be fair, as you know, I'm an underwear model now as well, so...

Lex Fridman (1:12:43.540)

Yeah.

Michael Malice (1:12:44.540)

We're going to talk that in a second, maybe, but yeah, sheathunderwear.com.

Lex Fridman (1:12:49.100)

Yeah, this episode is brought to you by Sheath Underwear.

Lex Fridman (1:12:52.100)

Are we going to get some pictures eventually?

Lex Fridman (1:12:53.940)

I think we might.

Michael Malice (1:12:54.940)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:12:55.940)

Yes, I have them on my phone.

Michael Malice (1:12:56.940)

We'll have them.

Lex Fridman (1:12:57.940)

We could share them right...

Michael Malice (1:12:59.260)

You could slice it in right here.

Lex Fridman (1:13:01.020)

So to be able to go with someone who is a very close...

Lex Fridman (1:13:05.860)

I mean, we meet and talk like every day, right?

Lex Fridman (1:13:08.020)

So to someone who generally cares about you, who's...

Lex Fridman (1:13:12.620)

He's very, very grounded, right?

Lex Fridman (1:13:15.320)

So like a lot of times I'll have like some concern and he's really good, and if you listen

Michael Malice (1:13:19.900)

to his show, at slicing through the noise and being like, hold on a second, I can't

Lex Fridman (1:13:23.780)

do the accent yet.

Michael Malice (1:13:24.980)

Have you considered A, B, and C because, you know, whenever I had this situation, this

Lex Fridman (1:13:28.820)

is what I did.

Michael Malice (1:13:29.820)

He was really good with that.

Lex Fridman (1:13:32.780)

So to have a...

Michael Malice (1:13:34.060)

First of all, just like two buddies on a trip is really a lot of fun.

Lex Fridman (1:13:37.760)

Second of all, I know that it's going to be very intense.

Lex Fridman (1:13:41.660)

So for you, you left Russia much later than I did.

Lex Fridman (1:13:44.660)

How old were you?

Michael Malice (1:13:45.660)

Thirteen.

Lex Fridman (1:13:46.660)

Thirteen, right.

Lex Fridman (1:13:47.660)

So you remember it, I'm sure, very, very well.

Lex Fridman (1:13:48.660)

I left when I was one and a half too.

Michael Malice (1:13:49.660)

I don't remember it all.

Michael Malice (1:13:50.660)

To go to the streets where, you know, my family had to go through this stuff to see the...

Michael Malice (1:13:57.820)

They came to Lviv, they slaughtered all the Jews.

Michael Malice (1:13:59.860)

I mean, to have that little memorial there that's there now, and to just look around

Lex Fridman (1:14:04.020)

and know, yesterday, basically, they came here, they rounded everyone up.

Lex Fridman (1:14:08.580)

And also, from the other side, you had the Stalinists coming in and starving all the

Michael Malice (1:14:12.260)

people.

Lex Fridman (1:14:13.260)

It's just to know that so much horror and death.

Michael Malice (1:14:16.420)

There's this quote I saw once about a woman who went to Auschwitz and she just made the

Lex Fridman (1:14:21.500)

comment like, grass grows here.

Michael Malice (1:14:23.560)

Because we think, you know, that when it comes to the nature of evil, that you're going to

Lex Fridman (1:14:27.100)

go there, there's going to be this pits of hell or whatever.

Michael Malice (1:14:29.820)

There's birds, you know, there's, you know, robins hopping around looking for the worms

Lex Fridman (1:14:34.100)

or whatever.

Michael Malice (1:14:35.100)

They think it's perfectly nice and you stand there to understand that so much suffering

Lex Fridman (1:14:39.140)

happened here or there is going to be very jarring.

Michael Malice (1:14:43.020)

I know that it's going to be an issue because I speak Russian and not Ukrainian.

Lex Fridman (1:14:47.500)

And to speak Russian to Ukrainians is like a big deal.

Lex Fridman (1:14:50.260)

So that's going to be a concern.

Michael Malice (1:14:51.780)

I'm also worried about going to Russia because every Russian has this idea that even though

Michael Malice (1:14:56.420)

they've just met you, they feel that they're in a position to tell you what you're doing

Michael Malice (1:15:00.580)

wrong with your life, what you should be doing, if they're a cab driver, I have no tolerance

Michael Malice (1:15:04.320)

for unsolicited advice on it based at all.

Lex Fridman (1:15:07.180)

That's going to be horrible.

Michael Malice (1:15:08.220)

They're going to be telling me I need to speak Russian better because ты говоришь по

Lex Fridman (1:15:10.740)

русски как даунчик.

Michael Malice (1:15:12.300)

I'm not hearing it.

Lex Fridman (1:15:13.420)

I'm not interested in hearing it.

Lex Fridman (1:15:15.380)

So that I think, and also, you know, given my upcoming book, The White Pill and covering

Lex Fridman (1:15:21.080)

what happened back in the day under Stalinism and later to see this was the Ljubljanka,

Michael Malice (1:15:26.660)

this was the basement where they would, you know, this is something that people might

Lex Fridman (1:15:30.260)

not realize.

Michael Malice (1:15:31.260)

There's a superb film, The Death of Stalin, which is kind of, that's what I do with North

Lex Fridman (1:15:35.340)

Korea, you know, puts a humorous spin on it.

Michael Malice (1:15:37.500)

Then when you take a step back and you realize what they're actually saying, it's just like

Michael Malice (1:15:40.180)

it's very, very disturbing how when Stalin was dying, he had a stroke, he's laying there

Michael Malice (1:15:45.360)

in a pile of his own piss, he's unconscious.

Lex Fridman (1:15:48.660)

Right before he died, he thought the doctors were all plotting against him.

Lex Fridman (1:15:52.340)

So they were being tortured to confess that they were trying to murder him.

Michael Malice (1:15:56.380)

They had to get the doctors out of the torture chambers to attend to him and they did it.

Lex Fridman (1:16:01.840)

So this kind of thing to like go there, like Red Square and see this is where it happened,

Lex Fridman (1:16:07.420)

to see Lenin's body, like this is the guy who Emma Goldman yelled at.

Michael Malice (1:16:11.740)

It's going to be really, because I've worked so much in this space, jarring and intense

Lex Fridman (1:16:17.980)

and emotional.

Lex Fridman (1:16:19.100)

And as intense as it is for me sitting here talking to you about it, to see it and to

Michael Malice (1:16:22.700)

see the faces and to see Cyrillic everywhere, you know, other than Brighton Beach in Brooklyn,

Michael Malice (1:16:28.020)

it's going to, I'm sure it's going to do a huge number on me because as Western and as

Michael Malice (1:16:34.380)

a Tupoi Mirikanyets as the Russians will say I am, this is still where I came from.

Lex Fridman (1:16:39.380)

So no matter, to see it face to face, I don't know how I'm going to react, but I don't think

Lex Fridman (1:16:43.380)

it's going to be like, meh.

Michael Malice (1:16:45.860)

You've assembled a number of essays from anarchist thinkers in a new book called The Anarchist

Lex Fridman (1:16:51.260)

Handbook.

Michael Malice (1:16:52.800)

You mentioned Emma Goldman.

Lex Fridman (1:16:55.740)

What interesting things do these thinkers agree on and what do they disagree on?

Michael Malice (1:17:00.780)

The Anarchist Handbook.com is the website.

Michael Malice (1:17:03.180)

It covers from the 1790s to, I think my essay is the last one from 2014, which a friend

Michael Malice (1:17:09.060)

of mine who's kind of a mediocre scientist is going to be reading for the audio book.

Lex Fridman (1:17:14.020)

Also podcast.

Michael Malice (1:17:15.020)

Podcast.

Lex Fridman (1:17:16.020)

I never had, but it's not a podcast anyone would have heard of.

Michael Malice (1:17:19.180)

It's like Tom Woods but even worse.

Lex Fridman (1:17:20.900)

So what they all agreed on was the illegitimacy of government and also the malevolence of

Michael Malice (1:17:29.460)

state actors and the consequences of governments.

Lex Fridman (1:17:34.180)

So they range in terms that most people would easily regard as either left or right wing.

Lex Fridman (1:17:41.840)

But it tackles the nature of government and also creates positive non state alternatives

Lex Fridman (1:17:48.620)

from really many different angles.

Michael Malice (1:17:50.620)

The slogan I have is the black flag, which is the traditional flag of anarchism.

Lex Fridman (1:17:54.300)

The black flag comes in many colors.

Lex Fridman (1:17:56.580)

So they were really all over the map in terms of what they're for, but their disagreement

Lex Fridman (1:18:01.000)

is about the nature of state and the nature of power.

Lex Fridman (1:18:04.700)

And it's very edifying because this is an ideology that's been in many ways swept under

Lex Fridman (1:18:09.180)

the rug.

Michael Malice (1:18:10.180)

I want to seriously grow up that I can allow people to sit down and read these essays and

Michael Malice (1:18:16.780)

see for themselves just how beautiful this tapestry over the decades and centuries has

Michael Malice (1:18:22.180)

been woven about people who genuinely believed in freedom as the most important and how to

Lex Fridman (1:18:28.440)

maximize that for society.

Lex Fridman (1:18:32.500)

So maybe it's useful to talk about a few contrasting thinkers in there.

Lex Fridman (1:18:36.220)

So one is Leo Tolstoy.

Michael Malice (1:18:39.100)

Oh yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:18:40.260)

Who I think not many people know is an anarchist.

Michael Malice (1:18:46.060)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:18:47.060)

A Christian anarchist.

Michael Malice (1:18:48.060)

An anarchist.

Lex Fridman (1:18:49.060)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:18:50.060)

So he came to despise government for his deceit and his violence.

Lex Fridman (1:18:56.180)

But to him, the Christian principles of nonviolence, I think are important.

Michael Malice (1:19:00.220)

Oh yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:19:01.220)

And it's kind of pacifist kind of mindset of, you know, it's better to someone to punch

Michael Malice (1:19:06.220)

you than to punch them back.

Lex Fridman (1:19:07.800)

So he's in that way, at least I've read he influenced MLK and Gandhi.

Lex Fridman (1:19:12.500)

What do you think about this flavor, color of the anarchist flag of nonviolence, nonviolent

Lex Fridman (1:19:19.300)

opposition?

Michael Malice (1:19:20.300)

I will put the caveat that it bothers me when people bring up MLK because he's become so

Lex Fridman (1:19:26.140)

corporate and everyone just brings him up without knowing about him.

Michael Malice (1:19:29.540)

One of the things that Martin Luther King did so very well was that he forced people

Lex Fridman (1:19:35.100)

to face the consequences of what they were putting forward.

Michael Malice (1:19:40.300)

You want to be racist.

Lex Fridman (1:19:41.380)

You want to be for Jim Crow.

Michael Malice (1:19:42.500)

You want to be for segregation.

Lex Fridman (1:19:43.780)

Okay.

Michael Malice (1:19:44.780)

It's easy for you to do that from your living room.

Michael Malice (1:19:46.660)

Now turn on your news and you see men and women in suits being attacked by dogs, being

Michael Malice (1:19:52.980)

attacked by fire hoses and beaten by cops just so they could sit on the front of the

Lex Fridman (1:19:58.140)

bus.

Lex Fridman (1:19:59.140)

And now for a lot of people who were still racist, who were still had animus toward black

Michael Malice (1:20:03.180)

people are watching this and it's going to be a lot harder to be like, I'm okay with

Michael Malice (1:20:09.420)

this.

Michael Malice (1:20:10.420)

I'm okay with human beings, even ones I regard as somehow bad or inferior to be beaten and

Michael Malice (1:20:15.420)

attacked by trained dogs and they're not doing anything in response.

Michael Malice (1:20:20.380)

That strikes to, I think, a very basic nature of, especially American, like, okay, whatever

Michael Malice (1:20:26.060)

you're for, I'm not for people getting beaten and attacked when they're not really doing

Lex Fridman (1:20:30.700)

anything.

Michael Malice (1:20:31.700)

I think pacifism is something that's very easy to make fun of, but people don't underestimate

Lex Fridman (1:20:38.340)

how powerful it is for someone to say, you can do what you want to me.

Michael Malice (1:20:43.780)

I'm not going to fight you back.

Lex Fridman (1:20:45.420)

I just want to live peacefully and have the same rights as you.

Lex Fridman (1:20:49.260)

And to say, screw you, you should get beaten.

Lex Fridman (1:20:52.620)

That's a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow.

Lex Fridman (1:20:55.180)

So I think he was really, and Gandhi, of course, as well, were excellent in that regard.

Lex Fridman (1:21:00.260)

There's a little bit of Machiavellianism to it.

Michael Malice (1:21:02.140)

They've both been beatified in regard to saints, but their strategy worked very, very well

Lex Fridman (1:21:08.220)

for their purposes.

Lex Fridman (1:21:09.340)

So I think just all of us, when you see someone in this kind of Christian, I know you're wrong,

Michael Malice (1:21:16.020)

obviously, it's nothing very highly Christianity, but if he's someone who's willing to take

Michael Malice (1:21:21.820)

a punch and to say, you could do whatever you want to me, I'm not going to hurt somebody

Lex Fridman (1:21:26.700)

else instinctively, and maybe this is kind of a hack.

Michael Malice (1:21:32.180)

Most people want to side with that guy, step in between and be like, oh, okay, let's take

Lex Fridman (1:21:35.980)

a step back, because whatever led to this is not tenable.

Michael Malice (1:21:39.500)

We need to go back to the drawing board if the consequence is people are having these

Lex Fridman (1:21:43.500)

as a result of my decisions and actions.

Lex Fridman (1:21:45.940)

So I think that aspect of anarchism is very, very, in certain contexts, healthy, and much

Lex Fridman (1:21:53.780)

smarter and more sophisticated than people give it credit for.

Lex Fridman (1:21:57.660)

And let's also point out that Tolstoy wrote War and Peace, and he wrote Anna Karenina.

Lex Fridman (1:22:03.380)

So this was not some naive or innocent, whatever word you want to use.

Michael Malice (1:22:07.200)

He knew the nature of evil.

Lex Fridman (1:22:08.980)

He knew how bad things get.

Lex Fridman (1:22:10.820)

So he wasn't saying at all that human beings are inherently nice and kind.

Michael Malice (1:22:15.180)

He was saying it's much more effective to not fight back and to force them to face that.

Michael Malice (1:22:21.500)

I'll give you another example.

Michael Malice (1:22:22.500)

I was on the show Trigonometry, and I was talking to the host, and one of them talked

Michael Malice (1:22:28.220)

about how someone he knew had been the Gulag, or his mom was born the Gulag grandma.

Lex Fridman (1:22:35.060)

And after Stalin died and the Soviet Union liberalized and lots of the people in the

Michael Malice (1:22:39.180)

Gulags were freed by Khrushchev and so on and so forth, I didn't know this, many of

Michael Malice (1:22:44.140)

the, or some, let's say some, of the guards of the Gulags killed themselves because they

Michael Malice (1:22:49.020)

had genuinely believed that everyone in these camps was there for a reason.

Lex Fridman (1:22:54.420)

And when they found out that these people were completely innocent, didn't even have

Michael Malice (1:22:58.540)

trials, and that they were the ones forcing them to work themselves to death and starve,

Lex Fridman (1:23:02.980)

they couldn't deal with that guilt.

Lex Fridman (1:23:05.240)

So when you are a pacifist or non retaliatory and you're forcing someone who's using force,

Lex Fridman (1:23:13.020)

like look what you're doing, look what you've become.

Michael Malice (1:23:15.860)

For some people, some people don't care, like the guy in Scare Tactics, like I mentioned

Michael Malice (1:23:19.820)

earlier, where for a lot of others, they're going to be like, okay, is this who I wanted

Lex Fridman (1:23:24.180)

to grow up to be?

Michael Malice (1:23:25.180)

They will have that little flame of conscience that you and I talked about earlier.

Michael Malice (1:23:27.820)

They will be like, how did I get to the point where there's this lady who wants to ride

Lex Fridman (1:23:32.860)

the bus and she's lovely dressed, put together, and I have a, sending a dog on her?

Lex Fridman (1:23:39.200)

What kind of person am I?

Michael Malice (1:23:40.460)

For some of those people, they're going to be like, okay, I can't be a part of this.

Michael Malice (1:23:45.020)

I don't even understand the politics.

Lex Fridman (1:23:46.620)

I still am racist, but I'm not going to take part in this atrocity.

Michael Malice (1:23:51.540)

Well, that was for him from the individual perspective, perhaps he calls that Christian,

Lex Fridman (1:23:58.260)

but listening to that voice of conscience, like whatever that is in you.

Lex Fridman (1:24:04.420)

So for Tolstoy, it seems like anarchism from the individual perspective is silencing the

Michael Malice (1:24:13.800)

rest of the world and listening to the, for him, probably God given voice of conscience.

Lex Fridman (1:24:20.180)

And so that's what it means to live, embody anarchism for him.

Lex Fridman (1:24:25.340)

And to embody Christianity, I would think he would say.

Lex Fridman (1:24:27.460)

But he would see those as basic.

Lex Fridman (1:24:29.220)

Yes, correct.

Michael Malice (1:24:30.220)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:24:31.220)

So in terms of forms of government, the Christian government is one that's no government.

Michael Malice (1:24:37.860)

Yeah, correct.

Lex Fridman (1:24:40.860)

What do you think about that as advice for an individual?

Michael Malice (1:24:45.500)

Turn the other cheek.

Lex Fridman (1:24:46.500)

Do you think, I tend to believe that that's a really good way to live.

Michael Malice (1:24:50.340)

I think it's very underrated.

Lex Fridman (1:24:52.180)

And this is me talking.

Michael Malice (1:24:53.740)

I think a lot of times when someone, let's suppose you're having an argument and, but

Lex Fridman (1:24:59.540)

you have to pick your battles, right?

Michael Malice (1:25:01.180)

Let's suppose you're having a heated argument and someone says something very cruel to you,

Lex Fridman (1:25:04.540)

where you have attempted to double down and hit back twice as hard.

Lex Fridman (1:25:07.860)

But if it's someone who at all cares about you, where they're just in the moment and

Lex Fridman (1:25:11.020)

you just stop and you just say, did you hear what you just said to me?

Michael Malice (1:25:14.880)

For some cases, that person will take a step back and be like, just like when I snapped

Lex Fridman (1:25:19.180)

at Michael at Bitstein years ago, I'd be like, wow, okay, this is bad.

Michael Malice (1:25:24.420)

This is bad.

Lex Fridman (1:25:25.420)

I'm sorry.

Lex Fridman (1:25:26.420)

And they kind of, it's kind of like they have to get to 10 before they control delete to

Lex Fridman (1:25:31.060)

use your language.

Michael Malice (1:25:32.060)

Thank you.

Lex Fridman (1:25:33.060)

Yeah.

Michael Malice (1:25:34.060)

Buffer overflow.

Lex Fridman (1:25:35.060)

I appreciate that.

Lex Fridman (1:25:36.060)

And for some, they're going to, they're going to just twist the knife.

Lex Fridman (1:25:39.160)

But I think this is a very useful technique.

Lex Fridman (1:25:41.820)

And also you can also sleep well at night cause you could be like as much as this person

Lex Fridman (1:25:47.280)

tried to hurt me, I still didn't reciprocate.

Lex Fridman (1:25:51.080)

And yeah, I, I took that punch and it sucks, but at least I never said anything that I

Lex Fridman (1:25:56.580)

could feel guilty about.

Michael Malice (1:25:58.340)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (1:25:59.620)

Do you think that's ultimately a good way to implement anarchy in your personal life?

Michael Malice (1:26:05.620)

Anarchy, implementing anarchy in your personal life just means respecting people's boundaries.

Lex Fridman (1:26:12.500)

It means not forcing people to do things they otherwise wouldn't want to do.

Michael Malice (1:26:18.420)

I think you then have to take a case by case, like there's so many human interactions that

Lex Fridman (1:26:25.160)

are required for life and there's tension and all those kinds of things.

Michael Malice (1:26:29.620)

It's not always.

Lex Fridman (1:26:30.620)

Am I being naive?

Lex Fridman (1:26:31.620)

Are you innocent?

Lex Fridman (1:26:32.620)

You're being so naive.

Michael Malice (1:26:33.620)

No.

Lex Fridman (1:26:34.620)

Did you put the hat on?

Michael Malice (1:26:35.620)

The hat's on the other head now.

Lex Fridman (1:26:36.620)

Well, I had to take off the hat cause it's like Frodo with the ring.

Michael Malice (1:26:41.100)

I was starting to feel like powerful.

Michael Malice (1:26:43.700)

I wanted to give you orders and I'm like, no, I just, I think there's a ways of dealing

Michael Malice (1:26:49.940)

with the tensions that are natural to human interactions that can't be simply, you know,

Michael Malice (1:26:58.760)

it's not as simple as saying you want to respect the freedom of others and the boundaries of

Michael Malice (1:27:05.780)

others.

Lex Fridman (1:27:06.780)

It's like you both have to agree on stuff and work something out.

Lex Fridman (1:27:10.900)

And the mechanisms of that agreement, the game theory of that agreement requires different

Lex Fridman (1:27:15.220)

hacks and strategies.

Lex Fridman (1:27:16.820)

And the question is for an anarchist collective that's well functioning, what kind of hacks,

Lex Fridman (1:27:27.780)

what kind of ways of behavior are more likely to be productive and not, you know, that that's

Michael Malice (1:27:33.960)

almost like the question, do you want to turn the other cheek or do you want to stand your

Lex Fridman (1:27:37.420)

ground really firmly?

Michael Malice (1:27:39.160)

When somebody is an asshole to you, you walk away.

Michael Malice (1:27:42.780)

Or when somebody is an asshole to you, you turn the other cheek and give them a chance

Michael Malice (1:27:46.480)

to rise to the best version of themselves and then find a common ground kind of thing.

Michael Malice (1:27:52.060)

It's an open question of how to form those collectives when there's people with difficult

Michael Malice (1:27:56.940)

childhoods and all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:27:59.780)

Well, this also comes down to what is your relationship with this person?

Lex Fridman (1:28:03.300)

Is this out of character?

Michael Malice (1:28:04.300)

If you and I got into a disagreement, all of a sudden, you started getting very personal.

Michael Malice (1:28:08.100)

First of all, I'd be very hurt.

Lex Fridman (1:28:09.100)

But then I'd be like, this is out of character for Lex.

Michael Malice (1:28:11.240)

I'm sure I could be like, whoa, let's take a pause here.

Lex Fridman (1:28:13.620)

Like you're getting heated.

Michael Malice (1:28:14.780)

I'm trying to work this out.

Lex Fridman (1:28:16.420)

What's going on here?

Lex Fridman (1:28:17.420)

And you get a kind of a meta conversation.

Lex Fridman (1:28:19.220)

But again, you and I have a relationship of mutual respect.

Lex Fridman (1:28:21.880)

So as opposed to if it was a stranger who just wants a piece of you, it's just like

Lex Fridman (1:28:28.300)

you are coming at me not correct.

Michael Malice (1:28:29.780)

I don't have to reciprocate in kind.

Michael Malice (1:28:31.740)

I'm not going to shoot you, but I'm not going to pretend that you deserve respect when you're

Michael Malice (1:28:36.220)

treating me with such contempt.

Michael Malice (1:28:39.020)

I do defer, especially with people I know, because this is smart long term game theory

Michael Malice (1:28:44.480)

as well as the right thing to do.

Lex Fridman (1:28:46.180)

I do try to give them the benefit of the doubt at first, right?

Michael Malice (1:28:48.840)

Because if you're going to go aggro, you can't go back.

Michael Malice (1:28:51.140)

You could always go from like, let me hear them out and then then I could go aggro.

Lex Fridman (1:28:54.940)

So there's a big asymmetry there.

Lex Fridman (1:28:56.980)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:28:57.980)

And that's, I mean, I don't think anyone has the answer to this question is, is that the

Lex Fridman (1:29:02.340)

right strategy?

Michael Malice (1:29:03.460)

To me, game theoretically, it seems the right strategy is to...

Lex Fridman (1:29:06.660)

With reciprocity is what game theory says is the right strategy.

Michael Malice (1:29:09.420)

They did the prisoner's dilemma and they found tit for tat is the one that's the most advantageous.

Lex Fridman (1:29:13.720)

So that's for when it's perfectly rational actors.

Lex Fridman (1:29:16.180)

But when you have, I mean, there's noise that there's a, I think, benefit to just, even

Lex Fridman (1:29:23.620)

if they keep being shitty to you, still being nice to them.

Michael Malice (1:29:27.860)

Well then there's the inverse where girls are turned off.

Michael Malice (1:29:30.060)

Some people are like, if you're in a relationship and not just girls, but like some people,

Lex Fridman (1:29:34.380)

when you're kind to them, they find you less attractive, right?

Lex Fridman (1:29:37.940)

That is kind of this weird, what am I supposed to do?

Michael Malice (1:29:40.620)

Like you're only into me if I'm mean to you.

Michael Malice (1:29:43.380)

I don't want to be mean, but then I'm getting punished for doing the right thing.

Michael Malice (1:29:46.840)

That's another tricky one.

Lex Fridman (1:29:48.340)

And I mean, this is nothing that necessarily do with anarchism so much as like, you know,

Michael Malice (1:29:52.540)

human beings are infinitely complex.

Lex Fridman (1:29:54.320)

We don't often know the backstory.

Michael Malice (1:29:55.820)

Like for example, just yesterday, Jay, who's here is one of my closest friends.

Lex Fridman (1:30:00.320)

I had a dinner with a bunch of people.

Michael Malice (1:30:02.260)

I couldn't bring a plus four, so he wasn't invited.

Lex Fridman (1:30:06.340)

He didn't know the circumstances.

Michael Malice (1:30:07.700)

He just thought we were having dinner without him.

Lex Fridman (1:30:09.220)

He was hurt.

Michael Malice (1:30:10.320)

Once I spelled it out, he completely understood and I felt horrible because for me to have

Lex Fridman (1:30:14.660)

any of my friends feel left out is just a very, very cruel thing.

Lex Fridman (1:30:19.380)

And I felt bad and I'm glad to apologize again publicly that that's ended up being the circumstances.

Lex Fridman (1:30:23.580)

But yeah, a lot of times we're also in Plato's cave.

Michael Malice (1:30:27.460)

When you're dealing with somebody else, you have very, very limited information about

Lex Fridman (1:30:30.780)

their background and circumstances.

Lex Fridman (1:30:32.660)

And that's why I will always, if it's someone I even have a little bit of a relationship

Michael Malice (1:30:37.220)

with, try to give them the benefit of the doubt because I found, especially this comes

Michael Malice (1:30:41.860)

from being a coauthor, when you coauthor books and you're walking in other people's shoes,

Lex Fridman (1:30:45.380)

you don't know a lot of the information.

Lex Fridman (1:30:47.560)

So a lot of times it's just a misunderstanding.

Lex Fridman (1:30:51.180)

But isn't that a fundamentally anarchist question of how we figure out this puzzle

Lex Fridman (1:30:56.260)

of human complexities in order to form voluntary collectives?

Michael Malice (1:30:59.620)

Like when you have to figure that out, how to make people feel good, how to make people...

Michael Malice (1:31:04.140)

I agree.

Lex Fridman (1:31:05.140)

That's fair.

Michael Malice (1:31:06.140)

I think not only anarchists have to think about this as my point, of course.

Lex Fridman (1:31:10.820)

Well...

Lex Fridman (1:31:11.820)

But we have to think about it more than others do.

Lex Fridman (1:31:13.780)

Right.

Michael Malice (1:31:14.780)

I feel like I should try to argue against anarchism at some point, out of love, out

Lex Fridman (1:31:19.180)

of love.

Michael Malice (1:31:20.180)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:31:21.180)

And so because people...

Michael Malice (1:31:22.180)

Out of joy.

Michael Malice (1:31:23.180)

People enjoy seeing me, what is it, when like Ben Shapiro argues against like a 20 year

Michael Malice (1:31:29.340)

old feminist.

Lex Fridman (1:31:30.340)

Ben Shapiro destroys high school students with facts and legends.

Michael Malice (1:31:32.540)

This is this video of Michael Miles destroys a Marxist, Russian, communist pig.

Lex Fridman (1:31:40.440)

So anarchism is opposed to hierarchies.

Michael Malice (1:31:43.540)

Well that's left anarchism, anarcho communism, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:31:45.980)

The state.

Lex Fridman (1:31:46.980)

But there are many hierarchies that are not the state.

Lex Fridman (1:31:48.740)

We have a hierarchy here.

Michael Malice (1:31:49.740)

This is your show.

Lex Fridman (1:31:50.740)

I'm differential to you.

Michael Malice (1:31:51.740)

Right.

Lex Fridman (1:31:52.740)

But they're...

Michael Malice (1:31:53.740)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:31:54.740)

Rigid hierarchies.

Michael Malice (1:31:55.740)

Forced hierarchies is the...

Lex Fridman (1:31:56.740)

Forced hierarchies.

Michael Malice (1:31:57.740)

Forced hierarchies.

Lex Fridman (1:31:58.740)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:31:59.740)

So humans, when left on their own accord, they form hierarchies naturally.

Lex Fridman (1:32:04.940)

Yes, inevitably in my opinion.

Michael Malice (1:32:06.620)

Inevitably.

Lex Fridman (1:32:07.620)

Which is why I disagree with the left anarchists.

Michael Malice (1:32:08.620)

I think it's not a coherent thing to argue for nonhierarchical relationships, even in

Lex Fridman (1:32:14.380)

theory.

Michael Malice (1:32:15.380)

It doesn't make sense to me.

Lex Fridman (1:32:16.380)

And I know the old school anarchists will call me stupid or uninformed, but I've never

Michael Malice (1:32:22.140)

been able to even wrap my head around this claim that you could have relationships without

Lex Fridman (1:32:25.940)

hierarchy.

Michael Malice (1:32:26.940)

Right.

Lex Fridman (1:32:27.940)

So this is a certain sense in which we're living in an anarchism now.

Lex Fridman (1:32:30.980)

And I don't mean just like, because the nations, as you've said, are in anarchism relative

Lex Fridman (1:32:36.780)

to each other, but isn't the United States just a collective that was formed in anarchy?

Lex Fridman (1:32:42.700)

And this is just the collective that we're operating under, this hierarchy that was naturally

Lex Fridman (1:32:47.180)

formed.

Michael Malice (1:32:48.180)

It wasn't...

Lex Fridman (1:32:49.180)

Well, the United States was not naturally formed.

Michael Malice (1:32:50.180)

It was formed by force and by fiat.

Lex Fridman (1:32:51.820)

But to your point, I stress this throughout the book.

Michael Malice (1:32:56.780)

I always say this anarchism is not a location, it's a relationship.

Lex Fridman (1:33:00.500)

So yeah, you and I do have a hierarchy and this is your show, but neither of us really

Michael Malice (1:33:05.020)

has an authority over the other.

Lex Fridman (1:33:06.620)

Like I'm here voluntarily.

Michael Malice (1:33:08.140)

You can kick me out if you want.

Lex Fridman (1:33:09.340)

I can leave it anyone.

Michael Malice (1:33:10.780)

Neither of us has the power to force the other to be in this relationship we've chosen.

Lex Fridman (1:33:13.920)

My lawyer, I defer to his judgment.

Michael Malice (1:33:17.420)

He's not forcing me to do it.

Lex Fridman (1:33:18.580)

He gives me his advice and I could take it or leave it.

Michael Malice (1:33:20.940)

Same with the doctor.

Lex Fridman (1:33:21.940)

So there is a clearly like who's in charge and who's not in charge, but they're not in

Michael Malice (1:33:25.300)

a position to impose their will on everybody else.

Lex Fridman (1:33:27.620)

And you could very easily see John is Stephanie's lawyer and Stephanie is John's doctor.

Lex Fridman (1:33:33.900)

And in each of those contexts, one has this position of ostensible authority over the

Lex Fridman (1:33:37.980)

other.

Lex Fridman (1:33:38.980)

So anarchism is in fact not some utopian crazy thing.

Lex Fridman (1:33:42.140)

It is the norm of human relationships where you meet people.

Michael Malice (1:33:46.660)

You're not necessarily equal.

Michael Malice (1:33:48.100)

Someone's going to be taller, someone's going to be stronger, someone's smarter, wealthier

Michael Malice (1:33:50.980)

with others.

Lex Fridman (1:33:51.980)

So you're not at all thinking I am here and I could tell you what to do and you are legally

Michael Malice (1:33:57.860)

or morally obligated to follow my wishes.

Lex Fridman (1:34:01.460)

That is the basis of anarchism.

Lex Fridman (1:34:03.260)

So in what way is the United States imposing by force something on you, do you think?

Lex Fridman (1:34:09.480)

If you leave your house, you will go to jail.

Michael Malice (1:34:12.820)

My money being taken from me via taxation.

Lex Fridman (1:34:15.720)

But don't you have the freedom to not operate under that?

Michael Malice (1:34:19.180)

No, but that's like, yeah, like technically if someone comes up to you and mugs you and

Lex Fridman (1:34:22.820)

says your money or your life, you are making a choice.

Lex Fridman (1:34:26.120)

But what the anarchist argument is, they're not in a position to force you to make that

Lex Fridman (1:34:30.380)

choice.

Michael Malice (1:34:31.380)

That is not morally binding, even though they have practically the power to force you into

Lex Fridman (1:34:35.900)

that dilemma.

Lex Fridman (1:34:37.260)

But you have the freedom to live under the United States or not.

Lex Fridman (1:34:41.300)

So even...

Lex Fridman (1:34:42.300)

Yeah, the argument is if you don't like it, leave, right?

Michael Malice (1:34:46.680)

Not necessarily leave like geographically, but there's ways to live outside the force

Michael Malice (1:34:53.940)

of the United States.

Lex Fridman (1:34:55.300)

There's ways, it's just very difficult to operate that way.

Lex Fridman (1:34:57.400)

But that's like saying you could outrun the mugger, which is true, but the issue is does

Michael Malice (1:35:01.320)

that mugger have the right to tell you at gunpoint, you're either giving me your money

Michael Malice (1:35:08.180)

or I'm going to shoot you or secret plan C, you get to run away.

Lex Fridman (1:35:12.420)

Is that person a moral actor?

Lex Fridman (1:35:14.580)

And the anarchist answer is never.

Lex Fridman (1:35:16.540)

And just one more thing, the anarchist view is the difference between that mugger and

Michael Malice (1:35:21.380)

the government is only an air of legitimacy.

Lex Fridman (1:35:25.660)

Literally they're morally identical.

Lex Fridman (1:35:27.180)

So is it possible that every hierarchy that gets big enough and successful enough such

Michael Malice (1:35:33.180)

that it can monopolize a bunch of services it provides, isn't it always going to be amoral

Lex Fridman (1:35:41.300)

in your sense, the way the United States government is amoral?

Michael Malice (1:35:44.540)

I don't want to say just like the United States government is amoral because that implies

Michael Malice (1:35:47.780)

the United States government is uniquely or especially amoral.

Lex Fridman (1:35:50.500)

Governments, I apologize.

Michael Malice (1:35:51.500)

I just want to clarify that because I know you didn't mean that and I don't want that

Lex Fridman (1:35:53.740)

to be the implication.

Lex Fridman (1:35:56.460)

Can you repeat the question?

Lex Fridman (1:35:57.460)

I'm sorry.

Lex Fridman (1:35:58.460)

So like won't every Okay, so that's right.

Lex Fridman (1:36:01.540)

So that's progressive economics.

Lex Fridman (1:36:03.300)

So the argument is in any market at a certain point, things tend to centralize and then

Lex Fridman (1:36:07.980)

that organization de facto can dictate price, can dictate so on and so forth.

Michael Malice (1:36:12.540)

That is completely historical.

Michael Malice (1:36:14.740)

If you look at any market, the trend is always towards decentralization, the music industry,

Lex Fridman (1:36:20.020)

right?

Lex Fridman (1:36:21.020)

When we were kids, there were four or five record labels.

Michael Malice (1:36:23.460)

They were the ones who made all the songs that you're going to see in the Billboard

Lex Fridman (1:36:25.740)

Top 100 with a few exceptions.

Michael Malice (1:36:27.560)

Now anyone can go to direct to market.

Michael Malice (1:36:30.020)

If you look at TV stations, right, it went from CBS, NBC, ABC, then you got Fox, then

Michael Malice (1:36:35.100)

you had cable, which is 100.

Michael Malice (1:36:36.620)

Now you have satellite, which have sounds around the world and you have YouTube, which

Michael Malice (1:36:39.380)

is literally infinite.

Lex Fridman (1:36:40.700)

So as technology improves and as wealth increases, which is a function of free enterprise, you

Lex Fridman (1:36:45.780)

are going to always have more and more choice, even within a monopoly, Coca Cola, right?

Michael Malice (1:36:52.900)

This is an example I used, I think in the new right, when we were kids, every terrible

Lex Fridman (1:36:56.460)

comedian would be like, oh, now that I've got diet caffeine free Coke, what's next?

Lex Fridman (1:37:02.220)

It's like, yeah, that's good.

Michael Malice (1:37:03.880)

You want to have, what was his name, Cayman, the guy who invented the Segway.

Michael Malice (1:37:08.900)

If you go, Dean Cayman, if you go into some restaurants right now, you will have those

Michael Malice (1:37:14.860)

machines.

Michael Malice (1:37:15.860)

You have like 80 kinds of Cokes and then you could have whatever flavor you want to add

Michael Malice (1:37:19.580)

to it.

Lex Fridman (1:37:20.580)

Grape, cherry, lemon, lime, so on and so forth.

Lex Fridman (1:37:22.700)

So in any field, you're going to have more and more competition.

Michael Malice (1:37:27.200)

You're going to have less competition and less choices when the state gets involved

Michael Malice (1:37:31.660)

because the state wants control.

Michael Malice (1:37:33.640)

The state wants one big neck with one leash around it and that way it could just pull

Michael Malice (1:37:37.980)

that dog in one direction or another.

Lex Fridman (1:37:39.940)

And you saw this last year with the lockdowns, Carol Roth wrote this amazing book called

Michael Malice (1:37:44.380)

The War on Small Business and she talked about, we have seen for the first time in history

Michael Malice (1:37:49.620)

a massive wealth transfer from small and medium business towards organizations like Target

Lex Fridman (1:37:55.380)

and Amazon who made trillions of dollars last year.

Michael Malice (1:37:59.140)

Whereas mom and pop, which to me at least is like the acme of American achievement.

Michael Malice (1:38:03.540)

You come to America, you have a fruit stand, a laundromat, you make socks, whatever it

Lex Fridman (1:38:08.780)

is, you're that unique artisan creating something special.

Michael Malice (1:38:11.860)

They're the ones who didn't last whereas Target and Amazon did.

Lex Fridman (1:38:14.780)

So when you have the state involvement, it will always be in favor of Jeff Bezos and

Michael Malice (1:38:18.460)

for the simple reason that it's going to be a lot easier for Jeff Bezos to get Nancy Pelosi

Lex Fridman (1:38:23.100)

and Mitch McConnell on the phone than it is for me making socks on Etsy.

Michael Malice (1:38:27.780)

Your sense is that there'll be less and less over time Jeff Bezos is like whatever industry

Michael Malice (1:38:34.620)

we look at, there's be less, there's a trend towards decentralization across all industries.

Lex Fridman (1:38:42.100)

And when I say decentralization, I just mean choice, right?

Lex Fridman (1:38:45.660)

So if you look at again, networks, you're going to, if you were in the 80s and you had

Michael Malice (1:38:50.100)

a network just for LGBT issues, first of all, it's going to be complete heretical.

Michael Malice (1:38:55.220)

That's not going to happen and there's not going to be enough necessarily people identifies

Michael Malice (1:38:58.420)

that to have an audience.

Lex Fridman (1:38:59.740)

Then there was something called logo.

Michael Malice (1:39:01.020)

They have that and there's lots of other shows like that in this way.

Lex Fridman (1:39:03.640)

So more specific, look at websites.

Michael Malice (1:39:06.580)

I am positive that you and I, if we wanted to look up breeding guinea pigs, would find

Michael Malice (1:39:12.940)

thousands of websites about different breeds and all this other stuff 20 years ago, 30

Michael Malice (1:39:17.580)

years ago, like you're going to have two books and they're not going to be dynamic as these

Lex Fridman (1:39:21.660)

new breeds are developed.

Lex Fridman (1:39:24.560)

So at the same time it does, following on your argument, it does seem easier to move

Lex Fridman (1:39:31.780)

and immigrate from state to state within the United States and to other countries.

Lex Fridman (1:39:37.020)

Do you think that's a form of freedom that embodies anarchism where you can resist the

Lex Fridman (1:39:45.020)

force of state by choosing where you live?

Michael Malice (1:39:47.540)

To some extent, but the line of people, some of these boomers will go at me on Twitter

Michael Malice (1:39:51.860)

if I'm going after the police or something and be like, if you don't like America, get

Michael Malice (1:39:55.100)

out of here.

Lex Fridman (1:39:56.100)

And I tell them freedom means I do what I want, not what you want.

Michael Malice (1:39:59.780)

Freedom means I don't have to move.

Lex Fridman (1:40:01.640)

You don't have to move.

Michael Malice (1:40:02.880)

Free speech is a good example.

Lex Fridman (1:40:04.020)

It doesn't mean I have to be on Twitter, right?

Michael Malice (1:40:05.880)

Twitter has the right to ban me.

Lex Fridman (1:40:06.880)

But what I'm saying is I'm saying something and you don't like it, too bad.

Michael Malice (1:40:11.460)

You're the one who has to accommodate me because I have a right to do what I want with my person

Lex Fridman (1:40:15.860)

as long as I'm being peaceful.

Lex Fridman (1:40:18.100)

So I guess I'm trying to get to the difference between the state and what you would naturally

Lex Fridman (1:40:24.660)

want in anarchy, which is like a security company, all of those things.

Michael Malice (1:40:31.300)

They will, as they become successful, start looking more and more like the state.

Lex Fridman (1:40:36.640)

Because you get to elect, you give them money, they have leaders.

Michael Malice (1:40:42.180)

What's the difference between a government and a very successful service provider in

Lex Fridman (1:40:49.380)

anarchism?

Michael Malice (1:40:50.380)

Well, this gets a little confused in America as big companies necessarily are hand in hand

Lex Fridman (1:40:55.420)

with the government ended up in bed with them.

Michael Malice (1:40:57.580)

The answer to this question is a long, complicated one.

Lex Fridman (1:41:00.020)

And thankfully, it's all in the Anarchist Handbook.

Michael Malice (1:41:02.340)

There was an essay by Murray Rothbard who Dave Smith, this is the essay that converted

Lex Fridman (1:41:06.000)

Dave Smith.

Lex Fridman (1:41:07.000)

So maybe it's not as good as it could have been otherwise called Anatomy of the State.

Lex Fridman (1:41:11.100)

And Murray Rothbard points out that state is the only agency in a country which gets

Michael Malice (1:41:16.480)

its goods through force.

Michael Malice (1:41:18.580)

The state is the only agency that is not a producer, but inherently a parasite because

Michael Malice (1:41:23.980)

it does not get its money voluntarily, but through taxation and by imposing its values

Lex Fridman (1:41:28.860)

on a country.

Michael Malice (1:41:30.140)

That is what makes a state uniquely different from, let's suppose, an Amazon or a Barnes

Lex Fridman (1:41:34.840)

and Noble or a Target.

Michael Malice (1:41:36.380)

Jeff Bezos does not have the authority or the moral legitimacy to get an army and go

Michael Malice (1:41:42.980)

into somebody's house, whereas Andrew Cuomo or Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump and Barack Obama

Michael Malice (1:41:48.900)

certainly do.

Lex Fridman (1:41:50.160)

But is it possible that to reframe, so Jeff Bezos does if he hires a security force, also

Lex Fridman (1:42:00.900)

is it possible to reframe taxation as a form of payment?

Michael Malice (1:42:06.060)

If it was done much better, if you could pay this collective that we call government in

Michael Malice (1:42:11.660)

ways where you could pay for things that you care for, your money would be much more directly

Lex Fridman (1:42:18.780)

contributing to the things you care for.

Michael Malice (1:42:21.120)

If you care for a service like healthcare, you'll be able to buy essentially insurance

Lex Fridman (1:42:25.740)

from the government.

Lex Fridman (1:42:26.740)

Why am I buying insurance from the government as opposed to insurance from an insurance

Lex Fridman (1:42:29.780)

company?

Lex Fridman (1:42:30.780)

What do you perceive as the difference between a tax and a price?

Lex Fridman (1:42:33.140)

Do you see the difference?

Michael Malice (1:42:34.140)

Yes, I know on the surface level, I'm trying to get deeply to say there's a lot of similarities.

Lex Fridman (1:42:40.980)

But what I'm saying is there's one essential difference, which is taxes are imposed on

Michael Malice (1:42:45.860)

you and you have no choice.

Lex Fridman (1:42:48.940)

Here's an example.

Michael Malice (1:42:49.940)

My book, Ego and Hubris, my biography, it goes for $500 on eBay.

Lex Fridman (1:42:53.780)

Someone paid for it.

Michael Malice (1:42:54.780)

Some crazy person.

Lex Fridman (1:42:55.780)

People were showing me that it's on Amazon for $3,000, something like that.

Michael Malice (1:42:59.940)

You could put a million for it.

Lex Fridman (1:43:01.360)

You could charge whatever price you want.

Lex Fridman (1:43:03.100)

The question is, is someone paying that $3,000 for it?

Lex Fridman (1:43:05.460)

Is someone paying that million for it?

Michael Malice (1:43:07.400)

It's actually the buyer who establishes the price because the seller can put any price

Lex Fridman (1:43:11.820)

that he wants, $80 trillion.

Lex Fridman (1:43:14.340)

But unless someone's paying that amount and clearing the market, that price has literally

Lex Fridman (1:43:18.220)

no real meaning.

Michael Malice (1:43:19.540)

It's not an indicator of value or worth or market price.

Lex Fridman (1:43:22.180)

Taxation, on the other hand, is by fiat.

Michael Malice (1:43:25.100)

I can decide it's fair that you, Lex, have to pay 40% and Joe has to pay 45%.

Lex Fridman (1:43:32.180)

Joe and Lex are in no position to be like, this price is too high.

Michael Malice (1:43:36.100)

Not only is that money set just completely out of their hands, for people who are employees,

Lex Fridman (1:43:43.380)

it's taken out of their paychecks before they even see it.

Lex Fridman (1:43:45.700)

So they don't even have the choice to be like, you know what?

Lex Fridman (1:43:48.140)

I agree that the government has the right to pay taxation.

Michael Malice (1:43:50.940)

Here's my check for 40%.

Lex Fridman (1:43:52.340)

It's going on.

Michael Malice (1:43:53.340)

It's a completely different paradigm than you are when you're paying for price.

Lex Fridman (1:43:56.620)

The government provides a lot of services in the current system.

Lex Fridman (1:43:59.980)

But there's no service the government provides that would not be provided better, more efficiently,

Lex Fridman (1:44:05.180)

and with more choices in a market.

Michael Malice (1:44:07.180)

That's a hypothesis.

Lex Fridman (1:44:08.180)

No, that's very likely.

Michael Malice (1:44:09.180)

Well, that's not a...

Lex Fridman (1:44:10.180)

I can demonstrate this to you very easily.

Michael Malice (1:44:11.180)

I love it when you get flustered.

Lex Fridman (1:44:15.940)

This is what people like.

Michael Malice (1:44:17.940)

It's so cute.

Lex Fridman (1:44:18.940)

The robot's...

Michael Malice (1:44:19.940)

Don't make me put on the hat again.

Lex Fridman (1:44:21.940)

The robot has a fire.

Michael Malice (1:44:22.940)

There's smoke coming out of his ears.

Lex Fridman (1:44:26.300)

What is price?

Michael Malice (1:44:28.300)

I will tax love.

Lex Fridman (1:44:33.620)

I think of the government as a kind of subscription service.

Michael Malice (1:44:36.660)

No, no.

Lex Fridman (1:44:37.660)

That's the anarchist view.

Michael Malice (1:44:38.780)

The anarchist view of private security would be a subscription service.

Lex Fridman (1:44:42.620)

So that's exactly correct.

Lex Fridman (1:44:44.060)

But everyone hates when you sign up to a gym, and then you realize in the contract, it's

Lex Fridman (1:44:50.100)

very difficult to cancel that membership, and then they up the price.

Michael Malice (1:44:54.940)

There's a lot of unpleasant things with a subscription service that then you can elect

Lex Fridman (1:45:00.540)

to go to another subscription service.

Michael Malice (1:45:03.620)

Or you could go and Yelp and complain, and if there's enough people to do that, the gym

Lex Fridman (1:45:06.980)

will be receptive.

Michael Malice (1:45:08.140)

Look at the power of Yelp versus the power of the vote.

Lex Fridman (1:45:11.060)

Well, we could talk about that too.

Lex Fridman (1:45:13.380)

So you're saying Yelp is more effective than voting.

Lex Fridman (1:45:18.740)

The thing is, I agree with you, but you take a further step.

Michael Malice (1:45:25.340)

You say that Yelp is ethical and moral, and voting is amoral.

Lex Fridman (1:45:31.180)

Or like not voting, but government is amoral.

Lex Fridman (1:45:34.580)

So like it's not only is one more efficient than the other, you're saying like, because

Michael Malice (1:45:38.960)

I would say government sucks at doing what it does, and it's gotten a lot better at it,

Lex Fridman (1:45:44.460)

and I believe it can keep getting better as it gets smaller and it leverages companies

Lex Fridman (1:45:50.900)

more and more.

Lex Fridman (1:45:51.900)

But you're saying, no, no, no, government is fundamentally as an idea gets in the way

Lex Fridman (1:45:59.620)

of companies that should be doing those things anyway.

Michael Malice (1:46:03.420)

I just think that companies, when you take away government, will start looking like government.

Lex Fridman (1:46:07.660)

Just because something looks like something does not mean it's the same.

Michael Malice (1:46:11.520)

If someone puts out a yarmulke and tefillin and they go to shul, they're not Jewish.

Lex Fridman (1:46:16.740)

Right.

Michael Malice (1:46:18.220)

The basic objection you have with government, because you can leave, like I apologize that

Lex Fridman (1:46:23.580)

this is that stupid Twitter cliche statement.

Lex Fridman (1:46:26.740)

But your opposition to this idea of leaving the United States is that it's just, it's

Lex Fridman (1:46:34.380)

a lot of effort.

Michael Malice (1:46:35.380)

It's too much friction.

Lex Fridman (1:46:36.380)

That's not the option.

Michael Malice (1:46:37.380)

The opposition is in the introduction to the book, I say anarchism can be summed up in

Lex Fridman (1:46:43.940)

one sentence.

Michael Malice (1:46:44.940)

You do not speak for me.

Lex Fridman (1:46:46.500)

Everything else is application.

Lex Fridman (1:46:47.900)

So the claim that somebody I've never met or who I voted against, let's say, I hate

Lex Fridman (1:46:53.180)

Donald Trump, I despise him, I want Hillary Clinton to be president.

Michael Malice (1:46:56.980)

Too bad Trump's your president, that's not what I want.

Michael Malice (1:46:59.940)

The idea that this person can come on me and make any claims onto one second of my time,

Michael Malice (1:47:05.200)

as opposed to try to persuade me, that is something that I, an anarchist, regard as

Lex Fridman (1:47:09.700)

inherently evil and nonsensical.

Lex Fridman (1:47:12.780)

But to operate large organizations, like you see this with cryptocurrency, there's governance,

Lex Fridman (1:47:18.180)

you have to make difficult decisions.

Michael Malice (1:47:20.220)

It's a block size wars for Bitcoin.

Lex Fridman (1:47:22.140)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (1:47:23.140)

So you will, there is a voting mechanism often with membership when you're a subscription

Lex Fridman (1:47:27.060)

service.

Lex Fridman (1:47:28.060)

But see, the thing is, you're using these words and you're switching definitions.

Michael Malice (1:47:31.740)

Because like, if I go to a store, I can technically say I'm voting for Tropicana orange juice

Michael Malice (1:47:35.980)

as opposed to another one.

Lex Fridman (1:47:37.700)

But to kind of say, oh, well, you're making a choice there for every choice is a vote.

Michael Malice (1:47:41.800)

I don't, I think that that's something that the Venn diagram is not.

Lex Fridman (1:47:44.780)

No, I literally mean vote in this case, not money.

Michael Malice (1:47:47.060)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:47:48.060)

There's some decisions, like, should Bitcoin have increases block size?

Michael Malice (1:47:52.460)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:47:53.460)

There's a bunch of different, they're called soft forks or hard forks.

Lex Fridman (1:47:56.820)

Oh, I'm not saying you should never vote, like stockholders have to vote, right?

Lex Fridman (1:48:00.940)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (1:48:01.940)

But there's no pretense.

Lex Fridman (1:48:02.940)

Here's, let's look at this.

Lex Fridman (1:48:04.420)

If you want to build robots, right?

Michael Malice (1:48:06.280)

You would sit down with the company, you would, you guys would be like, we should do this

Michael Malice (1:48:09.060)

kind of robot, we should do this kind of robot.

Michael Malice (1:48:10.780)

The stockholders would have a vote or the board in proportion to their investment in

Michael Malice (1:48:14.860)

the firm.

Michael Malice (1:48:15.860)

Me, who knows nothing about robots, the idea that I'm in a position to walk in and be like,

Michael Malice (1:48:22.480)

this is what you should do is crazy and bizarre and wrong because I'm not in a foreign position.

Lex Fridman (1:48:28.060)

So what democracy does is it forces people who run businesses well to run businesses

Michael Malice (1:48:33.500)

poorly by people who don't know how to run businesses at all.

Lex Fridman (1:48:37.080)

That's the, that's one of the many concerns.

Lex Fridman (1:48:39.220)

But you're saying that's the fundamental property of the state.

Michael Malice (1:48:43.300)

I have a sense that the state could become as effective as what we think of as companies.

Michael Malice (1:48:47.820)

I mean, as.

Michael Malice (1:48:49.060)

This is why they can't, because the state does not have access to data the way that

Michael Malice (1:48:53.720)

firms do.

Lex Fridman (1:48:55.020)

And this is one of Ludwig von Mises's great points, what he called the calculation problem.

Michael Malice (1:48:59.660)

If I'm looking at comic books, right, and I have Detective Comics, if Detective Comics

Michael Malice (1:49:04.900)

26 is a thousand and Detective Comics 28 is a thousand and Detective Comics 27 is 50,000,

Michael Malice (1:49:12.500)

that is telling me that even if I don't know anything about comics, that Detective Comics

Lex Fridman (1:49:16.780)

27 is either very, very scarce for some reason or very, very desirable.

Michael Malice (1:49:21.620)

It's the first appearance of Batman, whatever, but you don't need to know that to just look

Lex Fridman (1:49:24.880)

at this data and be like, okay, this is the market, tell me something.

Michael Malice (1:49:28.620)

If prices are set by the government, which the government is a monopoly, I have no way

Lex Fridman (1:49:33.120)

of picking those winners or losers.

Michael Malice (1:49:35.220)

I don't have that data of supply and demand of an entire nation or a world of people making

Michael Malice (1:49:40.620)

individual decisions and having price be dynamic and informing me as the organization where

Michael Malice (1:49:47.420)

I should allocate my resources.

Lex Fridman (1:49:49.380)

So the price is a really strong signal that allows you to operate a voluntary collective

Michael Malice (1:49:58.100)

where people get what they want and don't get what they don't want.

Lex Fridman (1:50:01.900)

And it tells me what to produce, what not to produce.

Lex Fridman (1:50:04.580)

And it also is great because if I see this podcasting industry, which didn't exist five

Michael Malice (1:50:08.860)

years ago, and now these people are making bank, that tells me as someone who is an investor,

Michael Malice (1:50:15.380)

they're making 50%, whatever, 10% profit on their capital.

Lex Fridman (1:50:19.540)

In the plant industry, it's 2%.

Michael Malice (1:50:22.260)

If I'm going to further my capital to this 10%, and that's going to lower the profit

Lex Fridman (1:50:26.940)

rate as that builds up.

Lex Fridman (1:50:29.060)

And that is how markets are regulated, voluntarily.

Lex Fridman (1:50:32.500)

But the word government, I just think it's possible to have collectives of human beings

Michael Malice (1:50:38.880)

that represent others based on their voluntary...

Lex Fridman (1:50:42.220)

Yes, of course, you have private governance.

Michael Malice (1:50:46.540)

Any company, you can have a CEO, you can have a board of directors.

Lex Fridman (1:50:50.040)

But then you, I just, it starts to look very similar to me, a successful private governance

Michael Malice (1:50:57.980)

mechanism at a scale of the United States starts looking a whole lot like the current

Lex Fridman (1:51:04.260)

government of the United States.

Michael Malice (1:51:07.600)

Even Amazon, I don't think is anything close to the federal budget, size wise or budget

Lex Fridman (1:51:12.300)

wise or power wise.

Michael Malice (1:51:13.580)

No.

Lex Fridman (1:51:14.580)

So you're saying you just, it's not even state, it's almost like anything at that size.

Michael Malice (1:51:19.600)

You want to keep things smaller.

Lex Fridman (1:51:21.500)

And I don't, markets are not going to combine to that level of the state because Jeff Bezos

Michael Malice (1:51:29.160)

will never be in a position to tell everyone in America, I'm going to take 40% of your

Lex Fridman (1:51:34.100)

money before you even see it.

Michael Malice (1:51:35.580)

That to me is actually unclear.

Michael Malice (1:51:37.380)

We don't know that to be true, where that Google or Amazon can't grow to the size.

Michael Malice (1:51:41.580)

If you take away the US government, I'm not so sure that Amazon can't grow to the size

Lex Fridman (1:51:46.180)

of the US government.

Lex Fridman (1:51:47.180)

Okay, so worst case scenario is we're back where we started, right?

Lex Fridman (1:51:52.700)

That's not worst case scenario.

Lex Fridman (1:51:54.260)

But the concern is that Google is going to be the federal government?

Lex Fridman (1:51:58.600)

That's not the concern.

Michael Malice (1:51:59.600)

I'm saying like, this is what it looks like when Google is the federal government.

Michael Malice (1:52:02.580)

It's not, it's like, to me, the US government is our best attempt so far to have large scale

Michael Malice (1:52:10.140)

representation of people's interest.

Michael Malice (1:52:12.460)

It really sucks, but it's our best attempt so far and the question is how to improve

Michael Malice (1:52:16.580)

it.

Michael Malice (1:52:17.580)

Like if you take away all, if you take away the US government, I'm trying to see how do

Michael Malice (1:52:21.740)

we improve on that level, that scale of representation of people's interest.

Michael Malice (1:52:27.780)

Let me give you one example that people could wrap their hands around very easily.

Lex Fridman (1:52:30.740)

I'm against government police monopoly, I'm for private security, right?

Lex Fridman (1:52:34.780)

You don't have to be an anarchist to understand this.

Michael Malice (1:52:37.180)

Can everyone agree, or at least as a hypothesis, everyone can wrap their heads around, here's

Lex Fridman (1:52:42.780)

a big concern, 911, right?

Michael Malice (1:52:44.980)

I've heard this 911 call, it's very chilling.

Lex Fridman (1:52:47.340)

There's a kid in a closet, his family's being murdered outside, right?

Michael Malice (1:52:50.100)

He has to call 911, he's whispering.

Lex Fridman (1:52:51.860)

It's horrifying to hear.

Michael Malice (1:52:53.940)

There's no reason why the number I call for my family's being murdered is the same number

Lex Fridman (1:52:59.540)

I call for the fire department is the same number I call for an ambulance.

Lex Fridman (1:53:02.660)

What if instead it operated like Uber?

Michael Malice (1:53:04.620)

You have buttons on your phone, if there's a real emergency, like someone's gun flyers,

Michael Malice (1:53:09.220)

someone's being killed, you press this and it sends instead of the one police district,

Michael Malice (1:53:14.660)

whatever company is nearby, you have a bunch of them and they're the ones who are going

Michael Malice (1:53:18.320)

to come to your house to save you.

Lex Fridman (1:53:20.260)

People can wrap their heads around that very easily.

Michael Malice (1:53:22.280)

That is one very clear way to go from having a government security monopoly towards having

Lex Fridman (1:53:27.500)

a more free enterprise system.

Lex Fridman (1:53:29.660)

So when you apply that to pretty much anything, it doesn't become that complicated of an alternative.

Lex Fridman (1:53:34.360)

So what I would, you're going to criticize this, but I believe the government, it's like

Michael Malice (1:53:42.140)

the parenting thing we've talked about earlier, I think it creates a safe space for gov, for

Lex Fridman (1:53:49.480)

I'm for safe spaces, so I'm not going to laugh at you about that.

Michael Malice (1:53:52.820)

I want people to be safe.

Lex Fridman (1:53:54.060)

But for a safe space for entrepreneurship.

Lex Fridman (1:53:57.340)

So I believe that good government, hold on a sec, give me a sec, give me a sec.

Lex Fridman (1:54:02.180)

Sure, sure.

Michael Malice (1:54:03.180)

I'm sorry.

Lex Fridman (1:54:04.180)

I'm sorry.

Michael Malice (1:54:05.180)

You're right.

Lex Fridman (1:54:06.180)

You're right.

Michael Malice (1:54:07.180)

I'm sorry.

Lex Fridman (1:54:08.180)

I think government gives a opportunity for companies to out compete it.

Michael Malice (1:54:11.700)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:54:12.700)

UPS, FedEx, 100%, not a question.

Lex Fridman (1:54:16.140)

So I believe you need to have private schools, government to give a chance for UPS, FedEx,

Michael Malice (1:54:23.780)

for SpaceX, oh there's an X in there, to pop up and then government will naturally back

Michael Malice (1:54:30.660)

off from that place.

Lex Fridman (1:54:32.260)

So like you, but you need the innovators to step in and build the thing.

Michael Malice (1:54:36.300)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:54:37.300)

Like you can't just.

Lex Fridman (1:54:38.300)

When has government ever backed off though?

Lex Fridman (1:54:39.840)

That never happens.

Michael Malice (1:54:40.840)

I back, well, from FedEx and UPS, from SpaceX, from Amazon.

Lex Fridman (1:54:47.660)

Wait, wait, hold on.

Michael Malice (1:54:49.500)

The US Postal Service still competes with FedEx and UPS.

Lex Fridman (1:54:52.720)

So here's the other thing.

Michael Malice (1:54:53.940)

Not nearly.

Lex Fridman (1:54:54.940)

Not well, but they still exist.

Lex Fridman (1:54:55.940)

And the point is.

Lex Fridman (1:54:56.940)

They're dying.

Lex Fridman (1:54:57.940)

But UPS and FedEx are taxed.

Lex Fridman (1:55:00.840)

So not only are they paying for their own company, they're paying for this competitor.

Michael Malice (1:55:04.320)

This is the essential difference.

Michael Malice (1:55:06.220)

Imagine if you didn't have UPS, excuse me, the federal government and no post office.

Lex Fridman (1:55:10.340)

So you had FedEx, you have DHL, you have US Postal Service and many others.

Lex Fridman (1:55:13.940)

How about in this scenario, UPS has the capacity to take 20% of FedEx's DHL and couriers money

Lex Fridman (1:55:22.480)

and put in their own pocket and they never have to do anything in return.

Lex Fridman (1:55:25.220)

This is going to be an enormous advantage of UPS.

Lex Fridman (1:55:28.340)

And then when you add the addition that UPS is not necessarily going to be more efficient

Lex Fridman (1:55:32.180)

than the others, this is going to be a huge distortion in the market.

Lex Fridman (1:55:35.300)

Can you imagine if your podcast, you just automatically got 20% of the views of everybody

Lex Fridman (1:55:39.180)

else?

Lex Fridman (1:55:40.180)

I mean, would there be any incentive for you to be great?

Michael Malice (1:55:42.420)

Or you could just sit in your laurels and do whatever you want even more than now.

Michael Malice (1:55:47.060)

It's hard to imagine more than now.

Lex Fridman (1:55:48.500)

That's because you're a robot and lack imagination.

Michael Malice (1:55:51.300)

I think there just has to be, of course you can do it completely without government, but

Lex Fridman (1:55:56.260)

government...

Michael Malice (1:55:57.260)

That's all I need to hear.

Lex Fridman (1:55:58.260)

Okay.

Michael Malice (1:55:59.260)

That's all I need to hear.

Lex Fridman (1:56:00.260)

Show's over.

Michael Malice (1:56:01.260)

Show's over.

Lex Fridman (1:56:02.260)

What else you can do without government at the end?

Michael Malice (1:56:03.260)

Let us try.

Michael Malice (1:56:04.260)

The question is that safety net that's needed for entrepreneurship, that's needed for, I'm

Michael Malice (1:56:09.860)

sorry to say, but I have a sense that there needs to be a bit of a safety net for freedom.

Michael Malice (1:56:14.480)

I'm much more comfortable with saying you need a safety net for freedom than you need

Michael Malice (1:56:18.700)

one for entrepreneurs.

Michael Malice (1:56:20.200)

The beauty of markets is with your startup, if you have a startup and it completely fails,

Michael Malice (1:56:25.740)

the only person who's screwed is you and your investors.

Michael Malice (1:56:28.440)

If I'm a government and I make a startup, the entire society fails, like the Iraq war.

Michael Malice (1:56:32.620)

If I have this cockamamie plan, everyone else doesn't have a choice.

Lex Fridman (1:56:36.460)

They are both funding it and sometimes even drafted or forced into it.

Michael Malice (1:56:40.340)

The safety net, the antlers, getting back to the early anarchists, one of the things

Michael Malice (1:56:44.260)

that I admire about them, the inaugural communists, the old school left anarchists, is people

Michael Malice (1:56:49.380)

don't remember what context they were in.

Michael Malice (1:56:51.620)

They were in context without a welfare state, they're immigrating in huge numbers from

Michael Malice (1:56:55.280)

Eastern Europe, you go to the Tenement Museum in New York, people like 12 to a room, kids

Michael Malice (1:57:00.060)

are working in factories, they're either working in factories or they have to starve.

Michael Malice (1:57:03.420)

It's not that their parents didn't love them, it's that the parents didn't have birth control,

Michael Malice (1:57:06.500)

which was a felony, and they also were in a position to put food on the table for their

Michael Malice (1:57:09.960)

kids because they're uneducated and the jobs are paying nothing.

Michael Malice (1:57:13.180)

You could understand why Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Proudhon, and all these other figures

Michael Malice (1:57:17.980)

were like, this is untenable, we see Carnegie with 80,000 mansions, whereas this lady whose

Michael Malice (1:57:24.100)

husband died at age 30, who's never been to high school or even junior high school, has

Michael Malice (1:57:29.780)

10 kids, how's she going to put food on the table, it's not going to happen.

Michael Malice (1:57:33.340)

You could understand why they would be like, all right, we need to seize this money and

Michael Malice (1:57:36.780)

distribute it around the people, that makes a lot of sense.

Michael Malice (1:57:39.120)

In a contemporary context, where food is much cheaper, where shelter to some extent is more

Michael Malice (1:57:44.940)

available, when medical care, we're so oblivious to how bad things were that we see things

Lex Fridman (1:57:53.180)

are bad now, so we assume that they were better than in some contexts.

Michael Malice (1:57:56.140)

They were much, much worse there in many contexts.

Lex Fridman (1:57:58.580)

So if you're going to make an argument for government, for me, the strongest argument

Michael Malice (1:58:03.260)

is like food stamps or like free lunches for children, because I agree that would be very

Michael Malice (1:58:08.900)

inefficient and it's going to probably make them obese because you're going to have Nabisco

Michael Malice (1:58:13.940)

lobbying to make sure that if you're going to have this protein, you're not going to

Lex Fridman (1:58:18.420)

give the kids an Oreo, aren't you?

Michael Malice (1:58:19.780)

These kids are poor, you want them to have some pleasure and that's going to have deleterious

Lex Fridman (1:58:24.220)

effects.

Lex Fridman (1:58:25.220)

But if the choice is an inefficient government program and mass starvation, that is one where

Lex Fridman (1:58:29.780)

as an anarchist, I could easily see making the argument for that one.

Michael Malice (1:58:36.200)

Even though I think very clearly private charity would be more efficient and distribute it

Lex Fridman (1:58:39.500)

more effectively.

Lex Fridman (1:58:40.500)

But at that point, I don't really care about efficiency.

Lex Fridman (1:58:42.780)

If you're throwing out food to make sure these kids get fed, I don't care.

Lex Fridman (1:58:46.620)

So would engagement in military conflict be one of the biggest negative things about the

Lex Fridman (1:58:53.900)

state to you?

Michael Malice (1:58:55.860)

Yeah, of course.

Lex Fridman (1:58:57.820)

War is the state at its worst.

Lex Fridman (1:58:59.420)

So if we take away war or make it defensive instead of aggressive, yeah.

Michael Malice (1:59:05.140)

I mean, wouldn't that be a huge step forward if war instead of regarded, we're always,

Michael Malice (1:59:09.400)

this is what drives me crazy.

Lex Fridman (1:59:11.100)

We're taught as kids in school that war is a last resort.

Lex Fridman (1:59:15.020)

And I agree with that.

Lex Fridman (1:59:16.580)

And yet when you look at the corporate press, war is always the first response.

Lex Fridman (1:59:21.700)

And these people do not talk about what war means.

Michael Malice (1:59:26.580)

They'll show examples during the Bush years of soldiers coming home in caskets, which

Michael Malice (1:59:31.860)

already is an unacceptable price in many cases for me.

Lex Fridman (1:59:34.680)

But they don't even pretend to care about the people overseas whose countries we've

Michael Malice (1:59:39.020)

ransacked and lives we've ruined.

Lex Fridman (1:59:41.660)

And it's just like, well, what are you going to do?

Lex Fridman (1:59:43.020)

Not ransack those countries?

Lex Fridman (1:59:44.640)

So that war to me is the state at its worst.

Michael Malice (1:59:48.900)

See, I think that there is value from small government that doesn't engage in wars.

Michael Malice (1:59:55.140)

I do think that the kind of collectives that you imagine functioning well would look like

Michael Malice (20:03.400)

I remember the first time I went into a church and they were asking questions about the Jewish

Lex Fridman (20:08.160)

concept, the afterlife.

Michael Malice (20:09.200)

They weren't familiar with Jewish thought.

Lex Fridman (20:11.000)

And it took me a second because I didn't really have answers.

Lex Fridman (20:13.200)

And then I remembered what we were taught, which is, let's suppose you're at this banquet,

Michael Malice (20:18.300)

the best chef on earth, and the table is so heavy because you've got steaks and you've

Michael Malice (20:22.340)

got chicken and you've got sushi and the wine's flowing and you've got your Dr. Pepper and

Lex Fridman (20:29.120)

Mr. Pibb and the store brand, everything you want.

Lex Fridman (20:31.780)

And you're looking around at this amazing bounty, right?

Lex Fridman (20:34.860)

And then you turn to this best chef on earth and you're like, oh, so what's for dessert?

Michael Malice (20:39.000)

I mean, the offensiveness of that is just so insane.

Lex Fridman (20:44.400)

You have this, eat the meal.

Michael Malice (20:45.800)

I promise you, if I could deliver this meal, the dessert's going to be okay.

Lex Fridman (20:50.140)

So this focus on the afterlife when we've been given this amazing gift on this earth

Michael Malice (20:56.760)

is a very kind of different mindset from both the Jewish tradition as I'd been taught and

Lex Fridman (21:01.640)

the Camus mindset.

Michael Malice (21:02.640)

Obviously, Camus was an atheist, didn't believe in an afterlife.

Michael Malice (21:05.440)

This concept that life is meaningless, but that means you have that opportunity to find

Michael Malice (21:13.720)

value, to seek for truth, to seek for happiness.

Lex Fridman (21:17.540)

And Camus has this quote, it's ascribed to him, it's like a meme.

Michael Malice (21:20.080)

I've never found the source, so maybe he doesn't really say it, but he says, maybe it's not

Lex Fridman (21:24.080)

about happy endings, maybe it's about the journey.

Lex Fridman (21:26.740)

And I think when you have that mindset, and as you and I, I think you and I both found

Lex Fridman (21:30.240)

this because neither of us, when we were kids, thought we'd be doing this, right?

Lex Fridman (21:34.640)

But now that we are really fortunate.

Lex Fridman (21:37.320)

Definitely this.

Michael Malice (21:38.320)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (21:39.320)

And definitely that.

Michael Malice (21:40.320)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (21:41.320)

But now that we're fortunate enough to do this, and that we're blessed enough that there's

Michael Malice (21:43.160)

people who find this of value and interest, and we could pay the rent doing this, there's

Michael Malice (21:47.240)

not a day that goes by where I don't think you and I think, this is pretty absurd, but

Michael Malice (21:53.320)

it's also pretty wonderful.

Lex Fridman (21:54.780)

And as a consequence of us thriving, it also shows other people that happiness is possible

Michael Malice (22:00.640)

on this earth.

Lex Fridman (22:01.920)

And I think cynicism is the lie.

Michael Malice (22:05.080)

It's not just the worldview, it's a lie that happiness is not possible on this earth.

Michael Malice (22:10.120)

Or it's only possible if you sell your soul and you're a bad person, you screw other people

Michael Malice (22:16.240)

over.

Lex Fridman (22:17.240)

I reject that in every aspect.

Michael Malice (22:20.200)

As you said, my birthday is coming up.

Michael Malice (22:21.880)

I've been feeling just a lot of really great things have been happening very, very recently.

Lex Fridman (22:27.300)

So it affects me very heavily emotionally, especially when I see the response it gives

Lex Fridman (22:33.200)

to the kids.

Lex Fridman (22:36.120)

So it's one thing to say, this is what I'm for.

Lex Fridman (22:38.800)

But when you can provide proof of concept that what you've been advocating does result

Michael Malice (22:43.760)

in positive responses.

Lex Fridman (22:45.160)

I got a message from this kid who had tried to kill himself a year ago.

Lex Fridman (22:50.300)

And then he was like, look, I found your work, I found some other stuff.

Lex Fridman (22:54.000)

And now I realized I'm going to make something of myself.

Michael Malice (22:56.560)

I was born in a meth house, you know, whatever, 19, 20 years old, I should be in the garbage.

Lex Fridman (23:02.240)

But I'm going to try to be a stand up because I have opportunity on this earth.

Michael Malice (23:06.600)

Even if he fails as a stand up, you know, he's still such whatever he does, washing

Lex Fridman (23:11.600)

dishes, there's no shame in that.

Lex Fridman (23:13.640)

Is it so bad to have a crappy job and a girlfriend who you don't really like?

Lex Fridman (23:18.380)

But as compared to the alternative of like, I'm going to kill myself.

Michael Malice (23:20.960)

This is heaven.

Michael Malice (23:21.960)

Well, I think there's beauty to be discovered in all of it and all of those experiences.

Michael Malice (23:27.600)

Yes.

Michael Malice (23:28.600)

So, but at the same time, so I often think about I just recently reread The Idiot by

Michael Malice (23:34.920)

Dostoevsky.

Lex Fridman (23:35.920)

I often feel like the idiot.

Michael Malice (23:38.120)

That's why when I say I'm an idiot, I often think about Prince Mishkin, that kind of idiot,

Lex Fridman (23:43.280)

which the world sees you as naive.

Michael Malice (23:45.200)

I don't think he's naive.

Michael Malice (23:46.200)

I don't think I'm naive, but I tend to see the good in people and the good in every moment.

Lex Fridman (23:53.800)

And the world often is cynical.

Lex Fridman (23:57.440)

And in fact, especially in what we do, often the intellectual is supposed to be cynical.

Michael Malice (24:04.320)

This is very much an urban, elite, educated mindset, where if you write a book about someone

Michael Malice (24:11.000)

who's, let's suppose, a drug addict or a prostitute, that has heft and that's valid.

Lex Fridman (24:15.600)

But if you're writing a book about like a love story, you know, two people fall in love

Lex Fridman (24:19.120)

and they're in roller coasters or carousels, that's less legitimate.

Michael Malice (24:22.960)

I hate that.

Lex Fridman (24:23.960)

I hate that.

Michael Malice (24:24.960)

I hate that so much because the message it gives to people is you have to choose between

Lex Fridman (24:29.840)

thriving and happiness and silliness and seriousness and depravity.

Lex Fridman (24:34.400)

And I'm not saying a drug addict or prostitute is depraved, but they're basically their worldviews.

Lex Fridman (24:38.200)

Unless it's dark and twisted, it doesn't really count as art.

Lex Fridman (24:40.960)

And I despise that mindset, that subtext.

Lex Fridman (24:43.960)

So the internet and people around me often will call me naive.

Michael Malice (24:47.440)

Because I don't know.

Lex Fridman (24:48.440)

I think the word they want is innocent.

Lex Fridman (24:49.440)

Don't you think?

Lex Fridman (24:50.440)

It's a better word.

Lex Fridman (24:51.440)

But it's not that innocent.

Michael Malice (24:52.440)

No, but innocent in that you genuinely in your heart, I know you fairly well at this

Michael Malice (24:56.800)

point, believe that goodness is possible and that people can, if not be good, at least

Lex Fridman (25:02.440)

be better than they were yesterday.

Michael Malice (25:04.040)

See, even the word naive or the word innocent presumes that there's not wisdom in that.

Michael Malice (25:09.880)

Presumes that somehow that's, oh, isn't that beautiful to live that life of a child who

Michael Malice (25:16.200)

sees the world with these bright eyes and is hopeful about the future, but just wait

Lex Fridman (25:21.280)

until they grow up and realize that reality is much harsher than they think.

Lex Fridman (25:26.080)

But that child might be wiser than all of the adults in the room.

Lex Fridman (25:31.360)

And don't you want to be, if the world is like that, don't you want to be the guy who

Lex Fridman (25:36.200)

takes it on and changes it for the better?

Lex Fridman (25:39.120)

So it's like saying, well, you know, cancer is everywhere.

Michael Malice (25:42.360)

It's inevitable.

Lex Fridman (25:43.360)

Well, don't you want to be the one who says, not anymore.

Michael Malice (25:45.920)

I'm here and I'm going to make that change and I can see it being better than it is now.

Lex Fridman (25:51.280)

So I think you and I have the same analysis of your worldview and I don't think that there

Michael Malice (25:58.200)

is a good word for it.

Lex Fridman (25:59.900)

So I guess it's this idea of inherent benevolence might be wordy, but I think that's more accurate

Michael Malice (26:05.480)

because, you know, you and I did not have such easy lives growing up, to put it mildly.

Lex Fridman (26:11.260)

You constantly talk about just horrific aspects of life.

Lex Fridman (26:15.960)

So to claim that you kind of don't know that they exist or you sleep under the rug is completely

Lex Fridman (26:20.040)

not accurate to your work and your mindset.

Lex Fridman (26:25.120)

Can we talk about World War II and the Soviet Union?

Lex Fridman (26:30.320)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (26:31.720)

So on Sunday, June 22nd, 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, which was the surprise

Lex Fridman (26:41.140)

invasion of the Soviet Union.

Michael Malice (26:43.960)

If I could read to you a few lyrics from a song that for some reason is stuck throughout

Lex Fridman (26:49.920)

my childhood.

Michael Malice (26:50.920)

It was a famous song during that time.

Lex Fridman (26:54.240)

Двадцать второго июня ровно в четыре часа Киев бомбили, нам объявили, что

Michael Malice (27:02.000)

началась война, война началась на рассвете, чтобы больше народу убить, спали родители,

Lex Fridman (27:09.640)

спали их дети, когда стали Киев бомбить.

Michael Malice (27:14.120)

The song talks about Kiev, like that moment as part of that operation that Kiev was first

Lex Fridman (27:21.280)

bombed and it was announced on June 22nd.

Michael Malice (27:24.520)

The song says at exactly four o clock that the war has begun.

Michael Malice (27:28.880)

For some reason this song haunts me because the exactness of that time and this realization

Michael Malice (27:39.760)

that at any moment you can have this thing happen to you in your own personal life.

Michael Malice (27:46.360)

Maybe we had something like 9 11 happen where everything changes and it's just like haunting

Michael Malice (27:52.840)

because it makes me think that at any moment something like that could happen that changes

Michael Malice (27:57.960)

everything and I just think about like normal life going on in Kiev at the time and then

Michael Malice (28:05.800)

all of a sudden the bombs are dropping and they announce that the war has begun and you

Lex Fridman (28:10.880)

thought you were going to stay out of the war.

Michael Malice (28:23.000)

This is something that is very intensely emotional for me because you and I are both Russian

Michael Malice (28:28.720)

Jewish so to know that my grandparents and my great grandma were told that the Nazis

Michael Malice (28:37.940)

are coming and this wasn't a dress rehearsal and that if they get here, which they do,

Michael Malice (28:45.160)

they did, Lvov is very western Ukraine, that 100% you and all your relatives are going

Michael Malice (28:50.680)

to be murdered.

Michael Malice (28:56.600)

There's a monument now in Lvov where I'm from about this but I don't think either of us

Michael Malice (29:02.920)

can imagine what it's like to think that we're about minutes or whatever hours or there's

Michael Malice (29:13.720)

just the Russian army standing between us and everyone we are related to are going to

Lex Fridman (29:20.600)

be murdered for no reason and what's the closure here?

Michael Malice (29:29.560)

They evacuated a lot of people but they didn't evacuate enough and to know that there is

Michael Malice (29:35.720)

this force coming to 100% murder you, this isn't some kind of the TV news being hyperbolic,

Lex Fridman (29:45.920)

they're coming to kill you and if they get you, they will kill you.

Michael Malice (29:52.280)

We all think about war like, oh, we hope America wins in Iraq, but if America got their ass

Michael Malice (29:57.960)

get kind of in Vietnam, it's not really going to affect America in the sense that you're

Michael Malice (2:00:01.620)

the best version of government that I imagine.

Lex Fridman (2:00:04.260)

So I see them as the same.

Michael Malice (2:00:08.620)

I think a lot of it is just terminology.

Michael Malice (2:00:10.940)

I have no problem saying that I'm using the word anarchism incorrectly and to go for what

Michael Malice (2:00:15.740)

you want.

Lex Fridman (2:00:16.740)

I have no problem with that or anything, really.

Michael Malice (2:00:19.500)

Because like I said, life is beautiful.

Lex Fridman (2:00:21.380)

But nevertheless, you wrote the essay, why I'm not going to vote this time or ever.

Lex Fridman (2:00:29.380)

Why I won't vote this year or any other year or any year.

Lex Fridman (2:00:33.980)

And the basic idea.

Michael Malice (2:00:34.980)

I hope you do a better job reading it than you just read that title.

Lex Fridman (2:00:37.500)

I guess you'll take as many takes as necessary.

Michael Malice (2:00:42.220)

I'll read it in Russian and then pay somebody to translate it.

Lex Fridman (2:00:45.340)

This isn't even Russian at all.

Michael Malice (2:00:46.340)

He's just making up words.

Lex Fridman (2:00:47.340)

Where'd you find this guy?

Michael Malice (2:00:48.340)

You get what you pay for.

Lex Fridman (2:00:49.340)

Yeah, exactly.

Michael Malice (2:00:50.340)

This is anarchy.

Lex Fridman (2:00:51.340)

This is what you wanted.

Michael Malice (2:00:56.340)

Like your basic summary is, let me see, if pressed, the simplest explanation I have for

Michael Malice (2:01:09.140)

refusing to vote is this, I don't vote for the same exact reasons that I don't take communion.

Michael Malice (2:01:16.180)

No matter how admirable he is or how much I agree with him, the Pope isn't the steward

Lex Fridman (2:01:22.020)

over my soul, nor is any president the leader of my life.

Michael Malice (2:01:27.820)

This does not make me ignorant or evil any more than not being a Christian makes me ignorant

Lex Fridman (2:01:32.420)

or evil.

Michael Malice (2:01:33.560)

If I need representation, I will hire the most qualified person to do so.

Michael Malice (2:01:38.780)

Isn't voting our current best developed way of hiring the most qualified person to represent

Lex Fridman (2:01:44.300)

you on some things?

Lex Fridman (2:01:45.740)

No, because if I have a lawyer and the lawyer screws up, I can fire him.

Michael Malice (2:01:50.900)

If I vote for someone, I don't get who I want.

Lex Fridman (2:01:53.420)

I get for who my neighbors want.

Lex Fridman (2:01:55.300)

So that makes no sense.

Lex Fridman (2:01:57.700)

Representation means I want you to speak for me.

Michael Malice (2:02:00.740)

Whereas voting is like, I kind of want you, but I'll take what I can get and I'm going

Lex Fridman (2:02:04.660)

to take what I could get regardless.

Lex Fridman (2:02:06.260)

So what's the point?

Lex Fridman (2:02:08.060)

In governments, again, that's what Bitcoin is.

Michael Malice (2:02:11.700)

You want to be represented in deciding what to do, but once...

Lex Fridman (2:02:15.540)

Wait, Bitcoin isn't picking a person.

Michael Malice (2:02:17.680)

They're not picking a president of Bitcoin.

Lex Fridman (2:02:19.980)

They're picking an idea.

Michael Malice (2:02:20.980)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:02:21.980)

It's more like a referendum.

Lex Fridman (2:02:22.980)

And to me, a referendum is much more coherent and defensible than it is voting for a representative

Michael Malice (2:02:29.740)

because if I'm voting for Joe Biden, I'm saying this person speaks for me for abortion, taxation,

Lex Fridman (2:02:35.940)

environmental policy, immigration, war, right?

Michael Malice (2:02:38.420)

The odds that unless you're a complete NPC, that this one person will speak for you for

Michael Malice (2:02:42.660)

everything and will deliver what he promised and has the power to deliver what he promises

Lex Fridman (2:02:47.340)

is not true.

Michael Malice (2:02:48.340)

Whereas if I have Brexit, if I say I want Britain to remain part of the European Union

Lex Fridman (2:02:54.100)

to say yes or no question, that makes a lot more sense to me.

Lex Fridman (2:02:57.900)

But even that is not pure democracy because going back to the idea of the circulation

Michael Malice (2:03:02.300)

of elites, which James Burnham talked about, Pareto and Moscow and all them, you're still

Michael Malice (2:03:06.780)

going to have someone telling you what you can and can't vote for and how these questions

Lex Fridman (2:03:11.380)

are framed.

Lex Fridman (2:03:12.380)

So in contradiction to what the left anarchist said, some element of hierarchy is always

Lex Fridman (2:03:17.920)

going to be inevitable.

Lex Fridman (2:03:21.700)

So listen, I agree with this aspect very much so that we should be voting for ideas and

Michael Malice (2:03:27.980)

issues not voting for leaders, for leaders to represent us across the full spectrum of

Michael Malice (2:03:33.740)

issues.

Lex Fridman (2:03:34.740)

It seems to make no sense.

Michael Malice (2:03:35.980)

Okay, good.

Lex Fridman (2:03:36.980)

Yeah, this is great.

Lex Fridman (2:03:38.340)

But I do think there should be a leader, I do believe in voting for representatives to

Lex Fridman (2:03:44.460)

debate, to be communicators of ideas to us.

Lex Fridman (2:03:48.500)

But let me start to interrupt you, but you could have those two things.

Michael Malice (2:03:52.740)

For example, wouldn't this be an improvement if they have that now, you have a referendum,

Michael Malice (2:03:56.900)

you want tax rates to be 30 or 40, whatever percent, you have the guy leading the campaign

Michael Malice (2:04:01.080)

for 50, fight for 50, then you have the lady leading the campaign for 40, fight for 40,

Michael Malice (2:04:05.940)

they'll go out there, they can have debates, they can talk about the issue, but you're

Lex Fridman (2:04:09.420)

still not voting for one of them, you're voting for the issue.

Michael Malice (2:04:12.340)

That makes much more sense to me than I'm going to vote for him and hope that he puts

Lex Fridman (2:04:16.220)

forward 50 and that depends on 99 other senators.

Michael Malice (2:04:18.980)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (2:04:19.980)

But also, I mean, I do like the idea of voting for certain people to debate certain ideas.

Michael Malice (2:04:23.740)

Yes, I think that's a major improvement.

Lex Fridman (2:04:25.600)

But the final vote should be based on the idea.

Lex Fridman (2:04:27.980)

So okay, so we agree.

Michael Malice (2:04:29.340)

That would be nice to have, plus no wars, and then you'll stop tweeting so aggressively.

Lex Fridman (2:04:35.740)

And to decriminalize things that don't hurt people.

Lex Fridman (2:04:39.180)

Drugs.

Michael Malice (2:04:40.180)

Drugs especially, prostitution is a big one.

Lex Fridman (2:04:43.900)

And this is me talking, all cops are criminals.

Michael Malice (2:04:47.240)

There's no one, or maybe other than abused children, who needs access to the police other

Lex Fridman (2:04:52.580)

than sex workers.

Michael Malice (2:04:54.300)

They're the ones who are the most likely to really put themselves in danger situation,

Lex Fridman (2:04:58.580)

so they need to be able to call security, because that's why they have pimps.

Michael Malice (2:05:02.340)

Because you're a woman dealing with some strange dudes who are a lot of the time going to have

Michael Malice (2:05:06.980)

weird kinks, you want to be able to be sure, even if you don't approve of prostitution,

Michael Malice (2:05:11.660)

think it's horrible, that she's not going to be raped and murdered and have no consequences.

Lex Fridman (2:05:15.780)

And if you're going to say, oh, well, she's a prostitute, she can't be raped.

Michael Malice (2:05:19.620)

Just think for a second, if you're agreeing to sleep with somebody, and then he starts

Michael Malice (2:05:23.120)

choking you and beating the crap out of you and saying it's now it's a dom situation,

Michael Malice (2:05:26.400)

that is clearly beyond the pale of salt.

Lex Fridman (2:05:29.020)

And the same thing with drugs, heroin, cocaine, crack.

Michael Malice (2:05:35.780)

The people that need help the most are the ones who are addicted to those drugs and putting

Lex Fridman (2:05:40.720)

punishment.

Lex Fridman (2:05:41.720)

Let's suppose you think drug dealers should be in jail, right?

Michael Malice (2:05:44.700)

It is very hard for me to say that someone who sells cocaine should be treated or in

Michael Malice (2:05:51.300)

the same building as someone who rapes children, or as a murderer.

Michael Malice (2:05:55.340)

These are not similar types of evil, even if you believe that that drug dealer is an

Michael Malice (2:05:58.780)

evil person.

Lex Fridman (2:05:59.780)

Yeah, I have.

Michael Malice (2:06:00.780)

I mean, there's an essay in there called by Alexander Berkman, who was Emma Goldman's

Lex Fridman (2:06:06.100)

partner on prisons and crime.

Lex Fridman (2:06:09.120)

And this is leftism at its best, forgetting the person is forgotten.

Lex Fridman (2:06:13.220)

And the fact that we have the world's largest prison population, the fact that so many people

Michael Malice (2:06:17.180)

are just like, oh, you commit a crime, just put them in jail, throw away the key.

Lex Fridman (2:06:20.660)

At the very least, if you want to be totally immoral about it, it's expensive.

Lex Fridman (2:06:24.260)

And second of all, the concept that all criminals should be locked in a room together in these

Lex Fridman (2:06:28.240)

kind of largely inhuman conditions, and that's going to help people.

Michael Malice (2:06:31.820)

I don't think that that's the ideal mechanism.

Michael Malice (2:06:33.980)

Yeah, I tend to believe, I usually don't speak so negatively about politicians, but I do think

Michael Malice (2:06:40.220)

that politicians have done more evil in the war on drugs than did the people that are

Lex Fridman (2:06:46.660)

supposed to be the criminals in this picture.

Lex Fridman (2:06:49.020)

And I'll give you another example of how this is the anarchist critique of power.

Lex Fridman (2:06:52.860)

Hunter Biden, and I'm not making fun of him, I'm not taking shots at him.

Michael Malice (2:06:56.420)

He had an article in the New Yorker, where he talks about when he was in LA, he was buying

Michael Malice (2:07:01.260)

crack and there was a misunderstanding or like he left the crack pipe in the Hertz car

Lex Fridman (2:07:05.660)

and then blah, blah, blah, there's an issue.

Lex Fridman (2:07:07.720)

He's admitting to a felony in writing to a reporter.

Lex Fridman (2:07:11.100)

And I'm sure this was within the statute of limitations.

Lex Fridman (2:07:13.980)

There was no possibility he was going to have consequences.

Michael Malice (2:07:17.260)

Kamala Harris, who was a cop, talked about when she was in college, she was smoking weed.

Lex Fridman (2:07:22.380)

And it's like, I don't begrudge you guys smoking your crack or smoking your weed, but for other

Michael Malice (2:07:27.740)

people who are poor or maybe just had the short end of the stick, this is years of their

Lex Fridman (2:07:32.740)

life being destroyed.

Michael Malice (2:07:35.180)

At the very least, even an arrest is a traumatic situation.

Michael Malice (2:07:37.880)

If you have a weed or cocaine or crack, you're arrested, that's really going to screw up,

Michael Malice (2:07:42.580)

it's going to do a number on you being locked up.

Lex Fridman (2:07:44.800)

So to have that double standard to me is completely unacceptable.

Lex Fridman (2:07:48.780)

And that has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat.

Lex Fridman (2:07:51.740)

George W. Bush was a coke head back in the day.

Michael Malice (2:07:55.220)

He talks about overcoming his addiction, and I'm glad that he did, more power to him.

Lex Fridman (2:07:59.500)

But just to have this kind of, you know, it's just really kind of disturbing to me, and

Michael Malice (2:08:04.100)

this is my anarchist brain, like how prevalent drug use is in college.

Michael Malice (2:08:07.980)

I think there's a joke on South Park, like, there's a time and a place to try drugs, and

Michael Malice (2:08:11.020)

that's called college where people experiment.

Lex Fridman (2:08:13.020)

But all those college kids, which are going to become next generation's elite, don't really

Michael Malice (2:08:17.100)

have that worry that if they get caught, then anything's going to happen to them.

Lex Fridman (2:08:21.580)

But that kid in the street who did not have that good upbringing, even if he's a piece

Michael Malice (2:08:25.620)

of crap, like he's not going to have a different punishment, I think that's just really at

Lex Fridman (2:08:30.780)

his base on American.

Lex Fridman (2:08:33.320)

So in contrast to Tolstoy, let me ask you about Emma Goldman.

Michael Malice (2:08:37.140)

You wrote that if anarchism believed in rulers, then Emma Goldman would be the undisputed

Michael Malice (2:08:44.260)

queen.

Lex Fridman (2:08:45.260)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:08:46.260)

What ideas defined her flavor of anarchism, would you say?

Lex Fridman (2:08:51.940)

Emma was really an old school radical.

Michael Malice (2:08:56.420)

She was a radical among radicals.

Michael Malice (2:08:58.800)

I don't know what ideas, I mean, what would define her was anarchism, obviously.

Michael Malice (2:09:04.020)

There's the violence.

Michael Malice (2:09:05.020)

I mean, she was more open to the idea of violent opposition versus somebody like Tolstoy.

Michael Malice (2:09:11.340)

Oh, sure, for sure.

Lex Fridman (2:09:12.620)

So basically, Emma and Alexander Berkman, their mentor was someone named Johann Most.

Lex Fridman (2:09:17.340)

And Johann Most was a very early free speech, not very early, but he was a free speech concern

Michael Malice (2:09:22.540)

because he published a pamphlet in Europe that was translated in the States about how

Michael Malice (2:09:26.900)

to build dynamite.

Michael Malice (2:09:28.540)

Because his idea was, all right, you have this oppressive government, this oppressive

Michael Malice (2:09:32.100)

police force that use batons and bolts against us.

Michael Malice (2:09:36.380)

The only way for us as the working class to level the playing field is through dynamite

Lex Fridman (2:09:40.860)

and here's how you build it.

Lex Fridman (2:09:42.440)

So the question is, all right, is this something that could be allowed to be legal now that

Lex Fridman (2:09:46.500)

you're allowing the layman to, in his own house, build bombs?

Lex Fridman (2:09:50.360)

So Johann Most, basically, they had a big parting of ways because when Alexander Berkman

Michael Malice (2:09:56.560)

tried to assassinate Frick, Johann said, no, no, no, this is not something I'm for.

Lex Fridman (2:10:02.880)

And in fact, they thought with this assassination, this failed assassination, this would be the

Michael Malice (2:10:07.540)

thing that's fired off the revolution because you had the strike, the Pinkertons involved,

Lex Fridman (2:10:11.540)

Pinkertons getting killed, strikers are getting killed.

Michael Malice (2:10:14.420)

This is what Marx predicted, they're gonna light the spark and everything's gonna come

Lex Fridman (2:10:18.060)

falling down.

Michael Malice (2:10:19.060)

He ends up going to jail for 13 years instead, Alexander Berkman does.

Lex Fridman (2:10:23.060)

And then Goldman and Berkman had a big issue because when Leon Salgas killed McKinley

Michael Malice (2:10:28.780)

in 1901, it was really, it's kind of humorous in retrospect.

Lex Fridman (2:10:32.640)

He gets arrested and they're like, why'd you kill the president?

Michael Malice (2:10:34.740)

He goes, I was radicalized by Emma Goldman and she's like, oh, damn it, she's on the

Lex Fridman (2:10:39.300)

run.

Michael Malice (2:10:40.300)

I don't even know this guy.

Lex Fridman (2:10:42.580)

And she made the point about like, why is it worse than the president being killed and

Lex Fridman (2:10:47.140)

somebody else?

Lex Fridman (2:10:48.140)

We're all equal.

Lex Fridman (2:10:49.260)

And you would think if you're against capitalism, against the ruling class, this would be your

Lex Fridman (2:10:53.000)

first target.

Lex Fridman (2:10:54.120)

But Berkman, who went to jail, who tried to assassinate someone, he had said, McKinley,

Lex Fridman (2:11:01.320)

this is your villain?

Michael Malice (2:11:02.320)

He's just a party hack.

Lex Fridman (2:11:03.540)

He's like a symptom of the times, this is foolish.

Lex Fridman (2:11:06.800)

And Goldman disagreed with him.

Michael Malice (2:11:08.220)

He thought it wasn't necessarily justified, but it may have done something that was defensible.

Lex Fridman (2:11:14.800)

So the three of them, you know, had their differences on the use of violence.

Lex Fridman (2:11:19.280)

And in fact, when she came back from Russia and was denouncing it in her book, My Disillusionment

Michael Malice (2:11:24.060)

in Russia, My First Disillusionment in Russia, the last chapter she goes, look, I'm not saying

Lex Fridman (2:11:28.300)

I'm against violence.

Michael Malice (2:11:29.960)

When there's the revolution comes, we're going to have to use force.

Michael Malice (2:11:32.220)

She goes, but it's not the force of the state against the working class, against the masses.

Michael Malice (2:11:37.140)

This is exactly what we're opposed to.

Lex Fridman (2:11:38.640)

This is a complete obscenity to our principles.

Lex Fridman (2:11:41.840)

So that was interesting.

Michael Malice (2:11:43.320)

The fact that she was a, her periodical Mother Earth was a clearinghouse for many prominent,

Michael Malice (2:11:49.920)

you know, ideas of the day that weren't anarchist, but were certainly radical.

Lex Fridman (2:11:52.940)

So she was a bit, and also she was like tiny, she was like 5.1.

Lex Fridman (2:11:55.880)

So to have this little woman who was so feisty and...

Lex Fridman (2:11:59.920)

Talk back to Lenin.

Michael Malice (2:12:01.040)

Talk back to Lenin.

Michael Malice (2:12:02.040)

She took on Lenin, Woodrow Wilson, J. Edgar Hoover was the one who deported her.

Michael Malice (2:12:07.420)

Someone who just...

Lex Fridman (2:12:08.420)

And the thing is, you have to be careful because I think just like war, it's very easy to glamorize

Michael Malice (2:12:14.760)

violence and to regard it as something admirable or heroic, like you're fighting for the cause.

Lex Fridman (2:12:20.560)

But if you take it out of the romanticism, you're like, you're killing someone who had

Michael Malice (2:12:24.600)

kids.

Lex Fridman (2:12:25.600)

You are, you know, killing someone with a family.

Michael Malice (2:12:27.280)

You're making your, if you're going to shoot someone, they're probably going to retaliate

Lex Fridman (2:12:30.840)

twice as hard.

Michael Malice (2:12:32.340)

Violence sings its own song and this is a very dangerous road you're going down.

Lex Fridman (2:12:35.680)

So you really need to be careful about what you're preaching here.

Lex Fridman (2:12:41.440)

And you know, she kind of had this mixed feelings about it, but that is certainly not Emma Goldman

Lex Fridman (2:12:46.440)

her best.

Michael Malice (2:12:47.600)

Emma Goldman her best was about the ultimate freedom of the individual, of caring about

Michael Malice (2:12:54.080)

people who are desperately poor, who despised the corporate idea that we all had to be made

Michael Malice (2:12:59.120)

into cookie cutters and be interchangeable and all have to start work at the same time.

Lex Fridman (2:13:04.120)

And basically our entire lives slave for corporation that have nothing to show for it while they

Michael Malice (2:13:08.260)

get wealthy and you have no opportunity for either productive work or creative work.

Lex Fridman (2:13:13.400)

So that I think the valorization of kind of the lowest of the low is something I find

Michael Malice (2:13:19.320)

very admirable.

Michael Malice (2:13:20.360)

There's a quote of hers, which I think even for those of us who are, you know, for property

Michael Malice (2:13:24.600)

rights is left anarchism at its best, but she goes, go and ask for work.

Lex Fridman (2:13:30.760)

If they don't give you work, ask for bread.

Michael Malice (2:13:33.400)

If they don't give you bread, take bread.

Lex Fridman (2:13:35.280)

So the idea that like, if you're that poor and you're honestly trying to work and work

Michael Malice (2:13:38.800)

isn't available and you steal food to keep alive, that you shouldn't feel guilt about

Lex Fridman (2:13:43.680)

it.

Michael Malice (2:13:44.680)

I don't know that I would disagree with that.

Michael Malice (2:13:46.080)

I think that there's something to be said at that point where it's just like, you know,

Michael Malice (2:13:50.580)

if property rights come between that and mass starvation, it's going to be very hard for

Lex Fridman (2:13:54.680)

anyone to make the case for property rights.

Michael Malice (2:13:56.280)

Now, my argument is when you have free enterprise, food becomes so plentiful that now obesity

Lex Fridman (2:14:00.880)

is an issue.

Lex Fridman (2:14:01.920)

But at the time she did not have, of course, have that data to access.

Michael Malice (2:14:06.360)

Is there somebody you left out from the book that you thought about leaving in like some

Lex Fridman (2:14:12.480)

interesting figures?

Lex Fridman (2:14:14.120)

Yeah, there's a couple.

Lex Fridman (2:14:15.960)

So Chomsky would have been one, of course, because he's probably one of the biggest anarchist

Lex Fridman (2:14:22.760)

thinkers in contemporary times.

Michael Malice (2:14:26.040)

I was on the fence about Herbert Spencer because he's not an anarchist.

Lex Fridman (2:14:30.080)

Chris Williamson's reading the chapter for the book.

Michael Malice (2:14:32.120)

He coined the term Survival of the Fittest and the chapter is called The Right to Ignore

Lex Fridman (2:14:35.320)

the State from his book, Social Statics.

Michael Malice (2:14:37.680)

It was deleted from later editions, but people found it and reprinted it.

Lex Fridman (2:14:42.400)

And Randolph Bourne, he was an early progressive.

Michael Malice (2:14:47.320)

He was the only one or one of the very few fighting against entering the Great War.

Lex Fridman (2:14:51.720)

And he had an essay called War is the Health of the State, which is basically about how

Michael Malice (2:14:55.700)

states love war because it gives them an excuse to increase their power.

Lex Fridman (2:14:59.640)

And it's very hard to argue against increasing state power in a time of war.

Lex Fridman (2:15:03.220)

But since he was not himself an anarchist and there was plenty antiwar in there already,

Lex Fridman (2:15:07.280)

I didn't include him, but those would be the ones.

Michael Malice (2:15:09.280)

Is there some people that you think the public would be surprised to learn that they are

Lex Fridman (2:15:16.520)

at least in part anarchists?

Michael Malice (2:15:17.760)

Like I saw that Howard Zinn is supposedly an anarchist.

Lex Fridman (2:15:20.840)

I mean, is there, like, just like Tolstoy is an anarchist.

Michael Malice (2:15:25.480)

Is there some people like that that you think in our modern life that would be surprised

Lex Fridman (2:15:29.680)

to learn they're anarchists?

Michael Malice (2:15:31.100)

I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Michael Malice (2:15:34.200)

I mean, you could say Carl Hess, who was like Barry Goldwater's speechwriter from the 1964

Michael Malice (2:15:38.520)

campaign, but he's hardly a household name.

Michael Malice (2:15:41.200)

I mean, I think a lot of people would not ascribe to that term, but are certainly informed

Michael Malice (2:15:48.160)

with this complete distrust of all authority.

Michael Malice (2:15:51.480)

Murray Rothbard had an essay, if I didn't include anatomy of the state, I was going

Michael Malice (2:15:54.740)

to include this one.

Lex Fridman (2:15:55.740)

It's much, much shorter.

Lex Fridman (2:15:57.280)

And his question was, who are our allies and who are our enemies?

Lex Fridman (2:16:00.680)

And the point he made is there's lots of people who would call themselves anarchists who are

Michael Malice (2:16:04.880)

of little use, whereas someone who is still like a minarchist or for government, but genuinely

Michael Malice (2:16:10.200)

hates the question Rothbard had is if there's a button and you could press that you would

Lex Fridman (2:16:14.920)

end the state, would you press it so fast your finger would get a blister?

Lex Fridman (2:16:18.340)

Those are allies, even if they're, you know, somewhat of a minarchist.

Lex Fridman (2:16:22.100)

So I think that is kind of a better lens of looking at it.

Lex Fridman (2:16:26.100)

And I don't think anyone needs to really ascribe to anarchism as a whole ideology in so far

Michael Malice (2:16:31.600)

as you're seeing right now, many people in certain fringe elements are just essentially

Michael Malice (2:16:36.720)

or are decreasingly fringe and increasing mainstream elements are realizing that this

Michael Malice (2:16:42.680)

idea that whatever the state does is somehow morally binding or legitimate is something

Lex Fridman (2:16:47.400)

that at least bears strong questioning.

Michael Malice (2:16:50.080)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (2:16:51.080)

And I mean, I guess there's a lot of groups like the libertarians, for example, have some

Michael Malice (2:16:57.680)

element of that.

Lex Fridman (2:16:58.680)

Oh, sure.

Michael Malice (2:16:59.680)

For sure.

Lex Fridman (2:17:00.680)

I mean, I think that's the beginning of the ways of government.

Lex Fridman (2:17:02.780)

And also, I think what I love, I mean, if there's one issue where I would want people

Lex Fridman (2:17:07.820)

to have this kind of analysis, it is war.

Lex Fridman (2:17:10.560)

And it is like, okay, are you really sure?

Michael Malice (2:17:13.780)

Because this is 100% going to result in a lot of people being killed, a lot of people

Michael Malice (2:17:18.340)

being traumatized, a lot of people who are never going to recover, children, innocent

Lex Fridman (2:17:23.320)

people.

Lex Fridman (2:17:24.320)

Are you really sure this is the right thing to do?

Lex Fridman (2:17:26.780)

And I think a lot of times if the answer is, well, it's the profitable thing to do.

Lex Fridman (2:17:30.880)

And that is, I think, again, government at its absolute most venal and worst.

Lex Fridman (2:17:37.420)

You Michael Malice in many ways are a New Yorker.

Michael Malice (2:17:40.960)

Oh, yes.

Lex Fridman (2:17:41.960)

I'll give you one example.

Michael Malice (2:17:43.480)

I don't know where Austin is on the map.

Lex Fridman (2:17:45.200)

No idea.

Michael Malice (2:17:46.200)

Not even kidding.

Lex Fridman (2:17:47.200)

But does it even matter?

Michael Malice (2:17:48.200)

It doesn't matter.

Lex Fridman (2:17:50.120)

But nevertheless, you've decided to move to Austin.

Michael Malice (2:17:53.080)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:17:54.080)

Why do you think you're moving to Austin, or why do you moving both to Austin and away

Lex Fridman (2:17:59.620)

from New York?

Michael Malice (2:18:00.720)

This was one of the both, I hate it when people talk like this, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

Michael Malice (2:18:05.640)

This was one of the hardest and easiest decisions of my life.

Lex Fridman (2:18:08.920)

It was hard because I've lived in New York since I was two, other than college.

Michael Malice (2:18:13.440)

It's the only home I've known.

Lex Fridman (2:18:14.700)

I know it intimately.

Michael Malice (2:18:16.160)

I know all the cool spots.

Lex Fridman (2:18:17.520)

I love it with every fiber of my being or I did.

Michael Malice (2:18:20.920)

It was very much, you know, ingrained in my personality, my outlook about what cities

Lex Fridman (2:18:25.360)

can be and can't be and should be and shouldn't be.

Michael Malice (2:18:29.760)

Deciding to move was not done.

Lex Fridman (2:18:31.560)

But when you see your crew, your chosen family, one by one whittling away, it's not easy.

Michael Malice (2:18:39.340)

They all left.

Lex Fridman (2:18:40.340)

There's just a couple of us left in New York.

Lex Fridman (2:18:43.440)

And I don't see any mechanism by which New York is going to improve.

Lex Fridman (2:18:47.400)

Things are getting much worse all the time.

Michael Malice (2:18:49.440)

It's just completely outrageous.

Lex Fridman (2:18:51.800)

Here I would have a huge crew.

Michael Malice (2:18:54.500)

I didn't realize how much cheaper real estate is than in New York.

Lex Fridman (2:18:57.480)

This is another way.

Lex Fridman (2:18:58.480)

So New Yorkers are the most provincial people on earth who are completely oblivious to the

Lex Fridman (2:19:01.520)

rest of the country.

Lex Fridman (2:19:02.680)

So for a long time, the argument was New York versus LA, right, for certain types of people.

Lex Fridman (2:19:06.720)

And they would say LA is cheaper in terms of rent.

Lex Fridman (2:19:08.920)

So in New York, let's suppose the rent is a thousand, LA was 700, but you have to get

Lex Fridman (2:19:12.320)

a car.

Michael Malice (2:19:13.320)

I'm like, this is kind of a wash.

Lex Fridman (2:19:14.520)

So I assumed Austin would be like 80% of New York prices.

Lex Fridman (2:19:18.440)

And I'm looking at these houses and for like 700,000, you could get a house here that would

Lex Fridman (2:19:23.360)

cost like 3.5 million in New York.

Lex Fridman (2:19:26.200)

And you could have a gun.

Lex Fridman (2:19:27.240)

And it's just like, I could have a yard and I could have a dog and I could have a three

Michael Malice (2:19:30.840)

bedroom and I could have, you know, aquariums and my weird plants.

Lex Fridman (2:19:35.680)

So to have all that, and it's just to have, I am very, very lucky that I have such a supportive

Michael Malice (2:19:44.160)

crew.

Lex Fridman (2:19:45.160)

And they were also very smart because they sat me down and they said, whatever excuse

Michael Malice (2:19:49.520)

you have not to move here, we are going to make sure that doesn't count.

Lex Fridman (2:19:53.880)

So my buddy Matt said, because I have a huge library, he goes, I will go to your house

Lex Fridman (2:19:59.400)

and I will pack every single book you own myself so you can get that as an excuse the

Lex Fridman (2:20:04.160)

other way.

Michael Malice (2:20:05.160)

I don't know how to drive and you do this, she's like, we're going to take driving lessons

Lex Fridman (2:20:09.360)

together.

Michael Malice (2:20:10.360)

There goes that excuse.

Lex Fridman (2:20:12.320)

How do I find an apartment?

Michael Malice (2:20:13.800)

They're like, we'll go to with the realtor and we'll take pictures for you.

Lex Fridman (2:20:17.520)

We'll report back.

Michael Malice (2:20:18.520)

You can trust our judgment.

Lex Fridman (2:20:19.520)

And I'm like, that's great.

Michael Malice (2:20:20.520)

I would do that.

Lex Fridman (2:20:21.520)

That sounds like fun shopping for houses that have to buy them.

Michael Malice (2:20:23.800)

Then Matt just yesterday had the idea goes, come here, rent a furnished apartment for

Lex Fridman (2:20:29.640)

a few months.

Michael Malice (2:20:30.640)

You don't have the pressure of buying.

Lex Fridman (2:20:32.480)

And it's just, it's going to be an easy transition.

Michael Malice (2:20:34.480)

The rent's not going to be anything compared to New York.

Lex Fridman (2:20:36.640)

I'm like, these are all very valid things.

Michael Malice (2:20:39.560)

You're here.

Lex Fridman (2:20:40.820)

Lots of other people.

Michael Malice (2:20:41.820)

Yeah, that's what this is.

Lex Fridman (2:20:43.920)

I made sure that's renting month to month.

Michael Malice (2:20:47.000)

Oh, this is rental.

Lex Fridman (2:20:48.000)

This is rental.

Michael Malice (2:20:49.000)

Oh, you didn't realize this.

Lex Fridman (2:20:50.000)

I thought you bought this.

Michael Malice (2:20:51.000)

No, no, no.

Lex Fridman (2:20:52.000)

This is rental.

Michael Malice (2:20:53.000)

We can talk.

Lex Fridman (2:20:54.000)

Why?

Michael Malice (2:20:55.000)

I thought you bought it.

Lex Fridman (2:20:56.000)

No, it's rental.

Michael Malice (2:20:57.000)

Well, I really value freedom.

Lex Fridman (2:20:58.000)

Yeah, of course.

Lex Fridman (2:20:59.000)

Who are you talking to?

Lex Fridman (2:21:00.000)

I've heard of this thing, freedom, it's really great.

Lex Fridman (2:21:05.440)

But not everybody in the implementation of freedom is different for everybody.

Lex Fridman (2:21:08.960)

Of course.

Michael Malice (2:21:09.960)

I don't want to make a statement about others.

Lex Fridman (2:21:14.280)

I'll just speak for myself.

Michael Malice (2:21:15.640)

I think when you buy a house, that is not just a wise financial decision or all those

Lex Fridman (2:21:22.880)

kinds of reasons that people have, investment, all those kinds of things.

Michael Malice (2:21:26.340)

I think it's also a hit on your freedom because the positive way to frame that is you make

Lex Fridman (2:21:32.000)

it a home.

Michael Malice (2:21:33.000)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:21:34.000)

You have a deep connection to it.

Lex Fridman (2:21:35.340)

But the negative way to frame it is you're now a little bit stuck there.

Lex Fridman (2:21:39.360)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:21:40.360)

And you may stay there way longer than you should when much better opportunities for

Lex Fridman (2:21:44.760)

life come up.

Michael Malice (2:21:46.960)

There's stages in life when you're not sure exactly what the future will hold.

Lex Fridman (2:21:50.080)

I would argue that's very often the case, basically at every stage in life.

Michael Malice (2:21:54.640)

I just want to make sure I maximize the freedom to embrace the most ambitious, the craziest,

Lex Fridman (2:22:03.120)

the wildest, the most beautiful opportunities that come by.

Michael Malice (2:22:07.360)

You've actually brought this up too, because I said I really enjoyed the conversation with

Michael Malice (2:22:10.640)

you and Yaron, talking to you and somebody else, and I think you make a really significant

Michael Malice (2:22:19.360)

effort.

Michael Malice (2:22:20.360)

You've said this before, but it really is true and it stands in contrast to other folks

Michael Malice (2:22:26.040)

who are also good conversation.

Lex Fridman (2:22:27.360)

You really make an effort for that person to meet the person.

Michael Malice (2:22:32.000)

Oh, for sure.

Michael Malice (2:22:34.920)

You made me realize it's kind of an art form, but it's also just, it's a thing worth doing

Michael Malice (2:22:45.280)

of putting in that effort and that leap of humanity to reach the, whether you're talking

Michael Malice (2:22:51.000)

to Dave Rubin or Alex Jones or Joe or me, just those are different human beings and

Michael Malice (2:22:58.720)

they're taking that leap.

Lex Fridman (2:22:59.720)

It's fascinating.

Lex Fridman (2:23:00.720)

I mean, do you have, how do you think about that?

Lex Fridman (2:23:04.120)

I'm a huge introvert as you are, I think.

Michael Malice (2:23:08.840)

I feel very, very, very lucky that I get to get on a mic and run my mouth and for some

Lex Fridman (2:23:18.040)

people, for some reason, people like this.

Lex Fridman (2:23:20.080)

So I know what it's like to have a good convo and I know what it's like to have a bad convo.

Lex Fridman (2:23:27.960)

So before I'll do a show, I will have like some things I would want to talk about.

Lex Fridman (2:23:33.600)

And then I'll think about how to say them in an engaging way.

Lex Fridman (2:23:36.440)

So I do my homework in that regard.

Michael Malice (2:23:38.200)

I'm also very good at, or I pride myself at taking people who are cerebral or intellectual

Lex Fridman (2:23:45.320)

and making them a little bit silly, but also making them feel safe to be silly because

Michael Malice (2:23:49.760)

I'm not going to be making a buffoon of them that we're having fun as opposed to disrespecting

Lex Fridman (2:23:55.120)

the person.

Michael Malice (2:23:56.120)

I think we all saw that with Yaron, who's very cerebral, very serious, but we were all

Michael Malice (2:24:00.040)

cracking jokes and he was having a good time and he knew even if I'm making fun of him

Michael Malice (2:24:05.480)

to his face, it is coming from a place of kindness and he's in on the joke and we're

Lex Fridman (2:24:09.800)

all having fun.

Michael Malice (2:24:11.280)

That is something I try to do as much as possible.

Michael Malice (2:24:15.960)

I had an episode of my show a couple of weeks ago and someone who's been a friend of mine

Michael Malice (2:24:20.680)

for a long time and someone I admire a lot, Elizabeth Spires, she was the founding member

Michael Malice (2:24:25.080)

of, founding editor of Gawker, she's worked for the Observer for Jared Kushner, her resume

Michael Malice (2:24:31.320)

second to none and she was on my show and she was talking, her politics are pretty straightforward

Michael Malice (2:24:37.280)

like corporate journalist, blue pilled politics and my audience was very upset that I wasn't

Michael Malice (2:24:41.920)

pushing back or whatever.

Michael Malice (2:24:43.320)

I'm like, my job, if someone is coming to a place where the audience is at least going

Michael Malice (2:24:48.520)

to be somewhat hostile, is not to make her have negative consequences for doing something

Lex Fridman (2:24:54.740)

that she didn't need to do.

Michael Malice (2:24:56.140)

My job is to make sure that the experience is a positive one for her as the host.

Lex Fridman (2:25:02.080)

So when I'm the guest, I always feel that my job is to make the host look good and make

Michael Malice (2:25:07.500)

the host not feel like it's work and the audience really likes that because instead of it being

Michael Malice (2:25:11.500)

an interview or intense, it is a conversation, nine of us know what's going to happen and

Lex Fridman (2:25:16.640)

so this is something I think about a fair amount and I try to apply and insofar as it's

Michael Malice (2:25:21.640)

successful, I'm delighted and there's times when it's not successful and that's a shame

Lex Fridman (2:25:26.240)

but all we could do is do our best.

Lex Fridman (2:25:28.760)

Yeah, I really enjoyed that conversation with her.

Michael Malice (2:25:30.600)

I was surprised by the dislikes and all that kind of stuff.

Michael Malice (2:25:34.320)

Well, one of the things I always talk about is I don't care what my friends politics are.

Michael Malice (2:25:38.800)

I care about if I'm having a bad day, can I call them up and ask for advice and Elizabeth

Michael Malice (2:25:43.120)

has been there for me in the past and then when I do it on a camera in front of mics,

Michael Malice (2:25:47.680)

people freaking out.

Lex Fridman (2:25:48.680)

I'm like, I'm practicing what I preach.

Michael Malice (2:25:51.160)

My, the relationships are more important than someone's political views and it's not hypocrisy

Lex Fridman (2:25:57.240)

at all to demonstrate that and not to push back.

Lex Fridman (2:26:01.260)

And there was great humor there.

Michael Malice (2:26:02.600)

You're both a bit of trolls in very different ways but nevertheless, that connection, the

Michael Malice (2:26:07.600)

humor and the mutual respect and love that was all there, yeah, it's just fascinating.

Lex Fridman (2:26:14.400)

You've talked to Alex Jones a couple days ago.

Michael Malice (2:26:16.520)

Sure, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:26:17.520)

I haven't seen him many times before but you've had him on your podcast.

Michael Malice (2:26:21.200)

This week, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:26:22.200)

This week.

Michael Malice (2:26:23.200)

I was kind of surprised that he mentioned that human animal hybrids was like the number,

Michael Malice (2:26:31.880)

the main conspiracy that people should look into to open their eyes to the, you know,

Michael Malice (2:26:38.840)

to all this, to the globalists, to all the conspiracies that are out there.

Lex Fridman (2:26:42.560)

Was that surprising to you?

Michael Malice (2:26:44.520)

No, because I came in there with questions and I was very focused on corralling him and

Lex Fridman (2:26:51.320)

having it be like kind of a coherent intellectual conversation.

Michael Malice (2:26:54.120)

That was a really, really good, it was only an hour but it was a very good conversation.

Lex Fridman (2:26:58.120)

Yeah, thank you.

Michael Malice (2:26:59.120)

I, the response was overwhelmingly positive and I'm like, all right, I'm in a unique position

Michael Malice (2:27:04.280)

because Alex, I met Alex, well, that's not true, but I was on Alex, with Alex on Tim

Michael Malice (2:27:08.800)

Pool a couple of times.

Lex Fridman (2:27:10.320)

It was mayhem, it was anarchy and I'm like, all right, let me get.

Lex Fridman (2:27:14.160)

But the thing is what people enjoyed is I was the one who was basically able to translate

Lex Fridman (2:27:18.040)

Alex's ease.

Michael Malice (2:27:19.040)

He's obviously very performative and a lot of times Alex will say things that are not

Michael Malice (2:27:23.360)

really particularly controversial, but he'll say them in such a way that it sounds crazier

Michael Malice (2:27:29.200)

than it is.

Lex Fridman (2:27:30.200)

You know, I think Joe's made this observation as well.

Lex Fridman (2:27:32.440)

So what I wanted to have him on my show is, all right, let's go through all these conspiracies

Lex Fridman (2:27:38.720)

which have validity, which don't.

Lex Fridman (2:27:40.800)

And I knew if I asked him, because he's got a lot of historical knowledge, even if you

Michael Malice (2:27:43.920)

think of a lot of it's nonsensical, let's sort out the wheat from the chaff, you know,

Michael Malice (2:27:49.040)

because everyone has someone crazy in them.

Michael Malice (2:27:50.680)

I have this expression, you take one red pill, not the whole bottle, you take the whole bottle

Michael Malice (2:27:54.960)

of red pills, you assume literally everything in the media is a lie, that's just not a coherent

Lex Fridman (2:27:59.120)

position to have.

Lex Fridman (2:28:00.120)

Is the weather a lie when they tell you that temperature is going to be wrong tomorrow?

Lex Fridman (2:28:03.060)

So that was fun to watch him go through that.

Lex Fridman (2:28:05.400)

And he felt bad because he felt incorrectly, in my opinion, that he was needlessly aggressive

Lex Fridman (2:28:10.820)

and disrespectful toward me on Tim.

Michael Malice (2:28:12.320)

I didn't feel disrespected at all.

Lex Fridman (2:28:13.640)

It got heated, but I didn't take it personally.

Michael Malice (2:28:15.760)

People have heated debates all the time.

Lex Fridman (2:28:17.360)

So I think he promised me he wouldn't interrupt and would be deferential, but that because

Michael Malice (2:28:21.640)

he promised to be on his best behavior, that gave me an opportunity to address him seriously

Lex Fridman (2:28:27.480)

and not to bring the clown aspect out of him, which is easy to caricature him.

Michael Malice (2:28:32.200)

My friend Ethan Suppley, who I'm sure people know, played basically a character based on

Lex Fridman (2:28:36.000)

him in The Hunt, because Alex is kind of this cartoon archetype.

Lex Fridman (2:28:40.320)

So it was really fun to get another side of him.

Lex Fridman (2:28:45.680)

And also, it's just fun being on his show, just him being bombastic and just trying to

Michael Malice (2:28:49.080)

be the calm voice of reason.

Lex Fridman (2:28:51.040)

And for once, the trickster was Apollo.

Michael Malice (2:28:52.800)

Well, I like this thing he said before.

Lex Fridman (2:28:57.000)

And that's what makes me the most interested in Alex is the Nietzsche quote about gazing

Michael Malice (2:29:03.520)

into the abyss.

Michael Malice (2:29:04.920)

I think he said on your show that he has become the abyss or something like that.

Michael Malice (2:29:08.980)

I think that makes him fascinating that when you really take conspiracy theories seriously,

Lex Fridman (2:29:14.840)

the kind of effect it has on your mind.

Michael Malice (2:29:17.840)

That to me is fascinating.

Lex Fridman (2:29:18.840)

Well, can I say one thing, that term conspiracy theory?

Lex Fridman (2:29:22.140)

If you ask any layman, look, it's like this, you say, do you like puppies?

Lex Fridman (2:29:26.480)

I hate them.

Lex Fridman (2:29:27.480)

Do you like baby dogs?

Lex Fridman (2:29:28.480)

Oh, they're the best, right?

Michael Malice (2:29:29.480)

People, the human mind is capable of doing this.

Lex Fridman (2:29:31.960)

So if you ask people, do you think extremely powerful people often get together and manipulate

Lex Fridman (2:29:38.640)

data or rules in order to further their power and control and maintain it?

Lex Fridman (2:29:43.160)

I think 90 plus percent of people would be like, of course.

Michael Malice (2:29:46.380)

Then you say, oh, so you believe in conspiracy theories.

Lex Fridman (2:29:48.200)

Oh no, that's for crazy people.

Michael Malice (2:29:49.760)

Those concepts are identical.

Michael Malice (2:29:51.440)

Now that term is used for people who are like, all right, there's conspiracies in government

Michael Malice (2:29:58.120)

to experiment on people like Tuskegee.

Lex Fridman (2:30:00.040)

This is not in dispute.

Michael Malice (2:30:01.040)

The CIA has unsealed things, Operation Mockingbird, so on and so forth.

Lex Fridman (2:30:05.480)

And at the same time, conspiracy theory applies to people who say 9 11 never happened and

Michael Malice (2:30:09.700)

those are holograms.

Michael Malice (2:30:11.040)

Now it's the same word for both, but these are not at all equal truth claims and they

Michael Malice (2:30:16.240)

do not at all have equal evidence to them.

Lex Fridman (2:30:18.360)

But it's very useful for powerful people to have that term in the zeitgeist because then

Michael Malice (2:30:22.840)

I don't have to explain or defend.

Lex Fridman (2:30:24.400)

It's like, only lunatics are going to look further on this.

Lex Fridman (2:30:27.560)

Do you really want to be a lunatic kid?

Lex Fridman (2:30:29.440)

And that takes care of the issue.

Michael Malice (2:30:31.400)

Unfortunately the same problem applies, language applies to a lot of other areas.

Lex Fridman (2:30:35.720)

100%, that's the nature of language, yeah.

Michael Malice (2:30:37.800)

It's used not just to communicate, but to obfuscate.

Michael Malice (2:30:39.880)

Obviously that could be fixed by coming up with different words to label conspiracy theories

Michael Malice (2:30:46.320)

that are much more likely to be true.

Lex Fridman (2:30:48.720)

Yeah, like power elite analysis is another, is basically conspiracy theory.

Michael Malice (2:30:53.720)

This is the black pill versus white pill question with the abyss.

Lex Fridman (2:30:59.200)

Do you think thinking about these things can destroy the mind, can make you deeply cynical

Lex Fridman (2:31:06.780)

about the world?

Michael Malice (2:31:08.280)

Yeah, because if you are thinking that you are not aware of, or no one is aware of who's

Michael Malice (2:31:15.320)

controlling things and that the level of their control, it gives you the sense of powerlessness

Lex Fridman (2:31:20.520)

and hopelessness.

Lex Fridman (2:31:22.160)

And my counter is the people in charge, one of the reasons I'm an anarchist, are nowhere

Lex Fridman (2:31:27.520)

near as smart and crafty as you think they are.

Lex Fridman (2:31:30.360)

And certainly maybe the ones complete in the shadow maybe are, but the ones who are in

Michael Malice (2:31:34.320)

the public face most certainly are not, as social media has demonstrated, when you look

Michael Malice (2:31:38.240)

at how senators and Harvard professors tweet, these are not, you know, intellects that you're

Lex Fridman (2:31:45.200)

in awe of, to put it mildly.

Lex Fridman (2:31:47.320)

So I think that kind of takes the bloom off the rose to a great extent.

Michael Malice (2:31:52.680)

You mentioned that you've been doing a lot of amazing things, been truly joyful recently.

Lex Fridman (2:31:57.480)

But I don't know if you have a bucket list.

Lex Fridman (2:32:02.400)

Is there items on the bucket list you haven't done yet?

Michael Malice (2:32:05.800)

Are you pretty much satisfied and happy, and if you die today, if I murder you, you'll

Lex Fridman (2:32:11.440)

be happy?

Michael Malice (2:32:12.440)

I could die today.

Lex Fridman (2:32:13.440)

Is there an item on the bucket list you want to get done?

Michael Malice (2:32:17.840)

I don't, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:32:20.000)

Deep Sea submersible.

Michael Malice (2:32:21.000)

That would be number one on the bucket list.

Lex Fridman (2:32:24.640)

Why?

Michael Malice (2:32:25.640)

Because that's where all the most interesting zoology is.

Lex Fridman (2:32:28.600)

And to be in a place where like virtually no human being has been, and to see these

Michael Malice (2:32:35.720)

gods mistakes and their natural environment.

Lex Fridman (2:32:38.720)

My friend coined that term gods mistakes.

Michael Malice (2:32:40.600)

If you look at deep sea creatures, you can imagine god making some animal being like,

Michael Malice (2:32:44.480)

oh god, this is hideous, I'll just throw them on the ocean, no one's gonna see this.

Lex Fridman (2:32:48.200)

So that would be my number one bucket list thing.

Lex Fridman (2:32:51.040)

I would say go to the White House as a guest would be a bucket list thing.

Michael Malice (2:32:55.800)

Russia, go to Russia would be a bucket list thing.

Michael Malice (2:32:59.600)

I want to go, these are secondary, like go to Eritrea would be a bucket list thing.

Michael Malice (2:33:04.000)

I've got a long list of books I need to write.

Lex Fridman (2:33:06.600)

That's that's, I don't know if that's really a bucket list per se.

Michael Malice (2:33:12.680)

There's not that much, what I'm at a point in my life is once you cross up certain things,

Lex Fridman (2:33:18.520)

you basically, instead of driving the car, start surfing.

Lex Fridman (2:33:21.800)

And just amazing thing, I talked to you about this medical thing, you know, before we started.

Michael Malice (2:33:25.880)

At a certain point, and I'm sure this happens to you, because your platform is a lot bigger

Michael Malice (2:33:29.120)

than mine, all sorts of things start coming your way that you never would have thought

Lex Fridman (2:33:32.760)

of.

Lex Fridman (2:33:33.760)

And you're like, this is pretty darn cool.

Lex Fridman (2:33:35.440)

So to be, and that's happening at an escalating rate.

Michael Malice (2:33:38.560)

Like I'm at a point now where I get stopped every day by people.

Lex Fridman (2:33:43.100)

So that's going to be a weird thing for me to get adjusted to.

Michael Malice (2:33:47.720)

Like without exception, everyone who has ever stopped me on the street has been cool.

Lex Fridman (2:33:53.160)

And it's been a pleasant experience.

Michael Malice (2:33:54.840)

There was one exception at an event where someone was genuinely on the spectrum and

Michael Malice (2:33:58.880)

they didn't understand like distance and you don't touch people and that, but that's as

Michael Malice (2:34:02.680)

bad as it got.

Lex Fridman (2:34:04.200)

So that is something that's going to be weird for me to have to deal with over the next

Michael Malice (2:34:09.400)

couple of years.

Lex Fridman (2:34:10.400)

But you know, it's the price you pay and it's hardly a small price when people come up to

Michael Malice (2:34:14.440)

you and say you've made my life better.

Lex Fridman (2:34:16.320)

But it's just weird when you go and like, like I was at the gym and then someone tweets

Lex Fridman (2:34:20.380)

like, did I see you at the gym just now?

Lex Fridman (2:34:22.600)

It's kind of weird.

Lex Fridman (2:34:24.000)

And I'm sure it's the same for you when you're walking around and you don't think about it,

Lex Fridman (2:34:27.920)

but people know who you are and you don't know who they are that you're being watched.

Michael Malice (2:34:30.880)

Even though it's not malevolent, it's still just, you don't get prepared for that.

Michael Malice (2:34:34.880)

Michael, there were, there will be two really big names that wanted to do this podcast.

Michael Malice (2:34:42.200)

We'll do this podcast that I considered to do episode 200 with.

Lex Fridman (2:34:46.060)

But then I realized why the hell talk to somebody famous when I could talk to somebody I love

Michael Malice (2:34:54.840)

that nobody knows or cares for.

Lex Fridman (2:34:56.840)

You just hit a random number generator.

Michael Malice (2:35:00.680)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:35:01.680)

Just, I listed all the Russians I know and who is the easiest to get.

Michael Malice (2:35:04.800)

You're the.

Lex Fridman (2:35:05.800)

Yeah, who's the most desperate for camera stuff.

Michael Malice (2:35:07.800)

He's got a shitty book out, we can talk about that for five minutes.

Lex Fridman (2:35:12.600)

This garbage cut and paste that he did.

Michael Malice (2:35:15.120)

Uh, it turned out okay, I think slightly above average.

Lex Fridman (2:35:20.640)

Michael, I love you.

Michael Malice (2:35:22.560)

You're an incredible human being.

Lex Fridman (2:35:24.040)

It's an honor that you would talk to me and you'll be my friend.

Michael Malice (2:35:26.800)

Thanks so much for doing this.

Michael Malice (2:35:27.800)

Uh, the respect that I got, uh, when you asked me to be the guest for the anniversary episode

Michael Malice (2:35:34.500)

was similar to the respect when my two friends, Josh and Zoe, they were going to get married

Lex Fridman (2:35:38.520)

at city hall and they said, we want someone to witness at the Basque.

Lex Fridman (2:35:41.840)

So it's one thing when people tell you they like you and respect you, which I had growing

Lex Fridman (2:35:46.680)

up.

Michael Malice (2:35:47.680)

It's another thing when they show it.

Lex Fridman (2:35:48.680)

And this is something that I do not take lightly and I hope no one takes lightly.

Lex Fridman (2:35:51.960)

And if someone does right by you and shows you respect, going back to kind of taking

Michael Malice (2:35:56.360)

out for dinner, thank them, buy them a candy bar, buy them a soda, do something to show

Michael Malice (2:36:01.840)

that you don't take it for granted.

Michael Malice (2:36:03.840)

Because I think what you and I both want to do is increase human kindness as much as possible.

Lex Fridman (2:36:09.960)

And I'm going to look at the camera, be kind to yourself, because a lot of you deserve

Lex Fridman (2:36:16.040)

it.

Michael Malice (2:36:17.040)

Thanks for listening to this conversation with Michael Malice and thank you to Gala

Lex Fridman (2:36:23.880)

Games, Indeed, BetterHelp and Masterclass.

Michael Malice (2:36:27.760)

Check them out in the description to support this podcast.

Lex Fridman (2:36:31.480)

And now let me leave you with some words from Jack Kerouac that perhaps begins to explain

Michael Malice (2:36:37.160)

the nature of and the reasons for my friendship with Mr. Michael Malice.

Michael Malice (2:36:42.400)

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad

Michael Malice (2:36:47.880)

to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say

Michael Malice (2:36:53.160)

commonplace thing but burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders

Michael Malice (2:37:00.400)

across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes

Lex Fridman (2:37:05.920)

ahhhhh.

Michael Malice (2:37:09.120)

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

Michael Malice (30:03.640)

going to have the body bags and all the kids being killed and that's something that I'm

Michael Malice (30:06.560)

not super in the rug, but no one in America thought the Vietnamese are going to come here

Lex Fridman (30:11.360)

and kill them, right?

Michael Malice (30:12.360)

They were secure in their person.

Lex Fridman (30:13.960)

So to have that sense of we really need to win because if we don't win, we are 100% if

Michael Malice (30:23.800)

we, they, the Russian army doesn't win, we are 100% all going to be slaughtered and often

Michael Malice (30:30.280)

in not just a bullet to the head and in sadistic ways is something that to know that people

Michael Malice (30:36.460)

who share my blood saw and went through is very hard for me to kind of wrap my head around.

Lex Fridman (30:45.480)

And there's no possibility to delude yourself.

Michael Malice (30:48.600)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael Malice (30:49.960)

Because I mean, they, they would, as the song also talks about, but that they would burn

Michael Malice (30:55.040)

the factories.

Lex Fridman (30:56.640)

So it's basically saying we're in the war now.

Michael Malice (31:00.120)

This is like, this is your life.

Lex Fridman (31:02.480)

Yeah.

Michael Malice (31:03.480)

Like this is our life now.

Lex Fridman (31:04.480)

You know how you, yesterday you worried about like, oh, I misplaced my pen.

Lex Fridman (31:07.560)

Where is it?

Lex Fridman (31:08.560)

Like, it's like, yeah, this was paradise.

Michael Malice (31:11.760)

Most of us are going to just, our life now is that most of us are going to die.

Lex Fridman (31:17.680)

And if we want to prevent all of us from dying, we, we have to fight.

Lex Fridman (31:23.840)

And we also can't sit down in some kind of weird, like, desert island or, you know, plane

Michael Malice (31:30.040)

crash situation and be like, let's decide between us who's going to be the first to

Michael Malice (31:33.880)

die.

Lex Fridman (31:34.880)

Maybe the like Titanic, the Titanic, right?

Michael Malice (31:36.880)

They sat down and there were like women and children in the lifeboats.

Lex Fridman (31:40.020)

You know, they had this rational agreement.

Michael Malice (31:41.800)

You don't have those choices in a war.

Lex Fridman (31:44.560)

So it's, it's something that I, it's, it's just very chilling and it's something I don't

Michael Malice (31:52.280)

really have the emotional space to understand or grapple with.

Michael Malice (31:58.400)

Even, you know, obviously I've been to North Korea, you can see it and so on and so forth.

Michael Malice (32:04.440)

You and I can't, or anyone listening to this, except for maybe on me and people like that,

Lex Fridman (32:10.100)

you can't imagine what that's like to live it.

Michael Malice (32:13.080)

We can't, I, we can't imagine what it's like to live in those situations where it's not

Michael Malice (32:18.400)

like before Hitler came, everyone's, you know, dancing around and having a great time.

Michael Malice (32:23.200)

I mean, imagine how, what that life is like where your preference to Hitler is starving

Lex Fridman (32:29.360)

and waiting on line for hours for bread and to have the secret police and your friend's

Michael Malice (32:33.640)

attorney went and your phones are all tapped and you're a prisoner.

Lex Fridman (32:36.600)

But to you, this is infinitely better than the alternative.

Michael Malice (32:40.520)

Like these are the choices that, you know, our family had to deal with.

Michael Malice (32:45.200)

It's something that no matter how much you, it's like a, let me put it in terms of people

Lex Fridman (32:50.440)

can understand, you know what I mean?

Lex Fridman (32:51.440)

It's like your first bad breakup, right?

Michael Malice (32:53.720)

Like that's a much simpler thing to wrap your head around because it's like, if you've never

Michael Malice (32:57.920)

had it, you can't really, but when you feel it, it's just so intense, but you can't tell

Michael Malice (33:02.160)

someone what's like, we could sit down for days and hours and have people tell us, but

Michael Malice (33:07.400)

until it's the totality of your environment and your life and your mindset, I remember

Michael Malice (33:13.440)

my grandma, she would talk about it like, when you're that hungry, all you're thinking

Michael Malice (33:30.240)

about is bread because your brain won't like, you know, human beings, you know, we're evolved,

Michael Malice (33:36.440)

we have instincts, whatever, and the mind is telling you food, food, food, food, food,

Lex Fridman (33:42.720)

and that there's kids thinking this and that they're not going to get the food.

Lex Fridman (33:48.960)

And imagine being a parent and you're watching your kids without food and knowing they're

Lex Fridman (33:54.320)

not going to get the food.

Lex Fridman (33:56.600)

And the fact that this happened in North Korea in the nineties, I met a refugee and he had

Lex Fridman (34:04.960)

to watch his dad starve to death.

Lex Fridman (34:07.560)

And thank you.

Lex Fridman (34:11.320)

And we have no concept of what it's like.

Michael Malice (34:19.520)

I mean, we kind of, you know, it's just like last night here in Austin, all the places

Lex Fridman (34:25.480)

were closed and I couldn't get my protein powder.

Lex Fridman (34:28.640)

And this is the extent of my suffering when it comes to food, you know, or if I couldn't,

Michael Malice (34:34.580)

there was a restaurant that I went to in Brooklyn where for some faqaqta reason, they weren't

Michael Malice (34:40.240)

serving sashimi, they only had sushi, so I had to have the rice and the carbs.

Michael Malice (34:44.760)

To live a life where that is the extent of your food problems as opposed to the choice

Michael Malice (34:51.160)

is either Hitler killing you or being hungry 24 seven.

Michael Malice (34:55.240)

You know, my grandma told this story of how they had a close call, it was her and her

Michael Malice (35:00.200)

brother and her mom, my great grandma who passed, and I think there was like either

Michael Malice (35:05.040)

helicopter overhead or something, and my great grandma jumped on top of my grandma's brother

Lex Fridman (35:11.680)

and not my grandma.

Lex Fridman (35:12.680)

So she basically did a Sophie's Choice, my grandma's name is Sophia, and chose the brother.

Lex Fridman (35:18.920)

And this is something that she felt, you know, all her life that her mom had chosen her brother

Lex Fridman (35:23.280)

over her.

Lex Fridman (35:24.480)

But these little things that happen, these little kind of decisions we have to make in

Lex Fridman (35:29.720)

life.

Michael Malice (35:30.720)

Or there's a book I read called Five Chimneys, I think, this woman who was an Auschwitz survivor.

Lex Fridman (35:37.080)

And what she talked about what people don't appreciate, it's not necessarily the slaughter

Lex Fridman (35:42.640)

and the torture, it's that there's no rhyme or reason to it.

Michael Malice (35:46.200)

Like she talked about how they had a camp just for people from Czechoslovakia, and they

Lex Fridman (35:51.560)

were treated better than the Jews, and then one day they just killed them all, right?

Lex Fridman (35:55.680)

And she's like, I still don't understand why they're giving them food and treating them

Michael Malice (36:00.320)

well, and then the next day they're all killed, and we will never get answers, you know.

Lex Fridman (36:04.960)

And things like she talks about how they decided to kill all the kids, and they didn't really

Michael Malice (36:12.440)

either for some reason they didn't have the courage to or they wanted to be cruel, so

Michael Malice (36:16.480)

instead of shooting them, they just kept walking them in the snow until they all died.

Lex Fridman (36:20.200)

So it's things like this, that the fact that you and I dodged these bullets, and that we

Michael Malice (36:26.280)

can be here and be doing this and, you know, running our mouths for a living, I think about

Michael Malice (36:33.120)

it all the time, and it's just very disturbing to know, and I know you know this as well,

Michael Malice (36:43.320)

that there's lots of places on earth where if people had a choice, they would kill us

Michael Malice (36:46.960)

on sight and be proud of themselves for it.

Michael Malice (36:49.200)

Yeah, there, I don't know what to make of the contrast, you were talking about the fact

Michael Malice (36:54.760)

that you've been truly happy the last few weeks and months, there's been a lot of moments

Lex Fridman (37:00.920)

of happiness and joy, and that joy is built on a history of human suffering.

Michael Malice (37:08.000)

Like in your roots, in your blood, is a lot of people that were tortured that suffered,

Lex Fridman (37:13.260)

so that you could have this joy, and you have both the, you have the responsibility to truly

Michael Malice (37:18.160)

be grateful for that joy.

Lex Fridman (37:20.020)

But it also shows that there's the happy ending, that it does end, and a good note that it

Michael Malice (37:24.080)

does get infinitely, infinitely better.

Lex Fridman (37:27.880)

And that I think there's a, I don't like using the word responsibility, but there is an opportunity

Michael Malice (37:34.520)

for those of us who did dodge that bullet, to give testimony to these people.

Lex Fridman (37:41.160)

And more importantly, to give testimony to the people who are going through this now.

Lex Fridman (37:46.340)

So one of the reasons I talk about North Korea so much, why I wrote Dear Reader, is because

Michael Malice (37:51.780)

it's very easy, and this is human nature, I'm not condemning people, I think that's

Michael Malice (37:57.160)

just how people are wired.

Michael Malice (37:58.620)

When you see an Asian country with Asian people, and things are bad over there, I think in

Michael Malice (38:04.360)

the West it's like, oh, Asia, they're all crazy, they're wacky, they eat dogs or so

Michael Malice (38:08.600)

on and so forth, some weird stereotype, and they think of them as kind of Martians.

Lex Fridman (38:12.900)

So it's important for people who aren't of that kind of ancestry to kind of speak on

Michael Malice (38:18.840)

behalf of these people, because it's very different how just people just naturally react

Michael Malice (38:22.740)

when you have a Westerner talking about this.

Michael Malice (38:25.480)

Instead of it becoming them over there, it becomes, you know, this could have been us

Michael Malice (38:31.080)

very easily.

Michael Malice (38:32.080)

I have a friend, Peter Vahansky, great dude, and I was showing him photos when I was in

Michael Malice (38:36.520)

Pyongyang, and he goes, this looks like a Russian city with Asian people.

Lex Fridman (38:40.320)

It completely disturbed him.

Lex Fridman (38:42.640)

So that was one of the reasons I did go to North Korea, because that was as close as

Michael Malice (38:46.560)

I would get to see what your family went through, to see what my family went through, and they're

Michael Malice (38:50.800)

still living under this regime.

Lex Fridman (38:54.680)

And one of the things I fought very hard to do with Dear Reader, which I was successful

Michael Malice (38:58.600)

in amazingly, and I said, I could die now.

Michael Malice (39:02.920)

I feel like if you just move the needle a little bit, then you've kind of paid your

Michael Malice (39:08.100)

due for your time here on this earth, to have it change from being a laughing stock.

Lex Fridman (39:14.560)

And I think Team America did a good job.

Michael Malice (39:17.200)

They made Kim Jong Il into a clown and they made a joke of it, but you're going from nothing

Lex Fridman (39:22.240)

to joke.

Lex Fridman (39:23.240)

So at least now people are aware of it that it exists, right?

Lex Fridman (39:26.100)

And then I and many others took it from a joke to like, guys, this is really, really,

Michael Malice (39:32.040)

really bad, and none of us can even appreciate how bad it is.

Lex Fridman (39:35.560)

And I think now there is an understanding, other than a few people who are just looking

Michael Malice (39:38.920)

at it through a Trump lens and wanting Trump to fail because Trump's an asshole and that's

Lex Fridman (39:41.800)

fine, to be like these poor people.

Lex Fridman (39:45.160)

And it's really unfortunate because there's a segment of Western culture who thinks that

Michael Malice (39:50.680)

correctly, often when you're complaining about or discussing the plight of another country,

Michael Malice (39:58.040)

that's just your prelude to war and an excuse to invade.

Michael Malice (40:01.120)

Like the Kurds in Syria, you know, we're talked about, if we don't in Syria tomorrow, it's

Michael Malice (40:04.360)

going to be another genocide, blah, blah.

Lex Fridman (40:06.360)

I'm not saying let's invade North Korea and things like that.

Michael Malice (40:09.240)

All I'm saying is, you know, thank God that this isn't your life.

Lex Fridman (40:14.440)

I bring this up all the time.

Michael Malice (40:15.960)

The woman who was my guide when I was there, I'm aware of what she's up to now.

Michael Malice (40:22.160)

She's extremely rich by North Korean standards, but she'll never be in a position to buy medicine.

Michael Malice (40:28.680)

She'll never be in a position to go on a vacation.

Lex Fridman (40:31.580)

Things that you and I just, you know, whatever, she can't go on the internet.

Michael Malice (40:36.440)

She can't get an encyclopedia.

Michael Malice (40:39.260)

She can't better herself as a person other than through what the state allows and meaning

Michael Malice (40:44.000)

better yourself as a person in service to the state.

Lex Fridman (40:47.240)

So I mean, it's also frustrating because there's only so much that I can do as an individual.

Michael Malice (40:54.520)

What's your takeaway about human nature from looking at North Korea and looking at how

Lex Fridman (40:59.240)

the rest of the world is looking at North Korea?

Michael Malice (41:02.880)

This is a great question.

Lex Fridman (41:03.880)

I think about it fairly often.

Lex Fridman (41:05.400)

I always say human beings are animals, right?

Lex Fridman (41:08.040)

When you say someone's an animal, it's like a slur, like he's like a beast.

Michael Malice (41:12.440)

Animals are capable of enormous kindness, empathy, sympathy.

Lex Fridman (41:16.840)

You know, they look out for one another, groom one another.

Michael Malice (41:19.920)

There's a thing with apes where they groom each other for parasites and even if there

Michael Malice (41:24.560)

are no parasites, they pretend there's parasites just to have that kind of bonding.

Michael Malice (41:28.620)

You see infinite photos online of like cats raising puppies because the puppies, mom died,

Lex Fridman (41:34.880)

things like this.

Michael Malice (41:35.940)

That's part of being an animal.

Lex Fridman (41:37.360)

Part of being an animal is also just the most monstrous cruelty.

Michael Malice (41:42.480)

Killer whales, you know, there's this big PC move to not call them killer whales and

Lex Fridman (41:46.320)

just call them orcas.

Michael Malice (41:47.720)

They will murder blue whale pups, calves, excuse me, and play with them and not even

Lex Fridman (41:53.840)

eat them.

Lex Fridman (41:54.840)

So they just murder for the sake of fun.

Lex Fridman (41:58.160)

Even cats, you know, kill birds all the time, things like this.

Lex Fridman (42:00.740)

So it runs the whole gamut.

Lex Fridman (42:03.280)

And I think it's, you know, when Yaron and I were on your show, I don't think Lord of

Michael Malice (42:07.840)

the Flies is accurate.

Lex Fridman (42:08.840)

I don't think Hobbs is how reality works when you're in that kind of state.

Lex Fridman (42:14.140)

But I think we've seen countless examples of human beings, especially when human beings

Michael Malice (42:21.240)

have power over someone who's powerless, of allowing themselves to engage in not just

Michael Malice (42:28.040)

harm, but cruelty.

Lex Fridman (42:31.340)

And that is something as Soviets, you and I are very painfully aware of.

Michael Malice (42:35.560)

It's not just about the oppression, which as bad enough as it is, it's that mediocre

Lex Fridman (42:40.680)

person with that little bit of power.

Lex Fridman (42:43.800)

And now they're standing between you and your daughter having medicine, and they love it

Lex Fridman (42:50.000)

to make you dance, to be like, oh, you need me to get this medicine?

Lex Fridman (42:54.340)

Make you go through hoops?

Michael Malice (42:56.160)

Because now they feel like for the first time in their life, they're in a position of strength

Lex Fridman (42:59.280)

and power.

Michael Malice (43:00.280)

I think that is, in many ways, the more common nature of evil that what Hannah Arendt talks

Michael Malice (43:05.400)

about the banality of evil, then someone who's like an SS guard, you're shooting someone

Lex Fridman (43:09.440)

in the head.

Michael Malice (43:10.440)

Like that, I think we could all wrap our heads around to some extent, like, okay, I'm a military.

Lex Fridman (43:14.800)

It's not easy.

Michael Malice (43:15.800)

I have to execute people pulling a trigger, you could kind of have this mental disconnect

Lex Fridman (43:18.900)

between the finger and the victim.

Lex Fridman (43:20.880)

But like that little day to day stuff, like, are you doing the right thing on a day to

Michael Malice (43:24.280)

day basis that I think is far more common, and far more disturbing aspect in certain

Michael Malice (43:29.100)

senses of the human psyche.

Michael Malice (43:30.920)

Yeah, there's something especially disturbing about a weak man, given power, and just abusing

Michael Malice (43:43.320)

that power.

Michael Malice (43:44.320)

There's something about not just weak, but like, mediocre at everything it does, or less

Michael Malice (43:49.480)

than mediocre.

Michael Malice (43:50.480)

A great example of this, which I'm also talking about in the next book is Ceausescu, who was

Michael Malice (43:55.000)

the dictator of Romania.

Lex Fridman (43:56.420)

So you know, the Cold War is still somewhat poorly understood in, you know, popular culture.

Lex Fridman (44:02.900)

But the different countries in the second world, the Soviet bloc, some are more liberal

Lex Fridman (44:06.980)

than others, some are more sane than others.

Lex Fridman (44:08.800)

And Ceausescu, at first was one of the, you know, more Western friendly, more the free

Lex Fridman (44:13.400)

ones.

Michael Malice (44:14.400)

Then he met the great leader Kim Il Sung from North Korea, and he had the idea to impose

Michael Malice (44:17.760)

a personality cult on Romania, and it's the kind of things like forcing people to breed

Michael Malice (44:22.360)

because he wanted to make people taller.

Michael Malice (44:24.440)

I think he made like the biggest building in all of Europe, the People's Palace, but

Michael Malice (44:28.200)

it was just for him, while there's no electricity, you know, elsewhere.

Lex Fridman (44:31.900)

But you look at this guy, you know, Stalin's a badass, right?

Michael Malice (44:34.680)

He was a bank robber.

Lex Fridman (44:35.680)

If you look at photos of him as a kid, he was a hunk.

Michael Malice (44:37.920)

Lenin was clearly intellectual.

Michael Malice (44:39.920)

These were powerful Trotsky, these were powerful men with huge egos, huge force of personality.

Lex Fridman (44:46.120)

But you look at this Ceausescu guy, and you could, like for example, on my driver's license,

Michael Malice (44:52.240)

instead of my address, I'm not giving my real address, being like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5th Avenue,

Lex Fridman (44:56.640)

by mistake it says 1, 2, 3, 4, 5th Street, right?

Lex Fridman (44:59.800)

So you can imagine him being in the post office and me giving him my ID to get my package

Lex Fridman (45:04.000)

and him being baffled because this says street, this says Avenue instead of understanding.

Lex Fridman (45:08.240)

And this, the look on his face, this dullard, that you can see how, you know how sometimes

Lex Fridman (45:12.620)

I'm going to, can I curse?

Lex Fridman (45:15.160)

Fuck yes.

Michael Malice (45:16.160)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (45:17.160)

So if you know, like how if you're in the airport and you see someone and you look at

Michael Malice (45:18.280)

them and an adult and you think, okay, this person was born fucked up, just like on sight,

Lex Fridman (45:21.960)

like something's wrong with them.

Lex Fridman (45:22.960)

How are they traveling alone?

Michael Malice (45:24.060)

You look at Ceausescu, you look at him, you're like, something's not right with this guy.

Lex Fridman (45:28.040)

Not in the sense of like evil, but in the sense of he's a simpleton, right?

Lex Fridman (45:31.340)

And now he's in charge of this whole country and everyone's taught to regard him as one

Michael Malice (45:35.160)

of the great geniuses of all time.

Lex Fridman (45:37.440)

And it's this, the idea, this mediocre nobody, this guy would have in any other culture been

Michael Malice (45:43.400)

accomplished nothing or would have had an honest job where he's like, okay, he works

Lex Fridman (45:49.280)

at the mail service and he's bad at it, okay, fine, he's not hurting anyone.

Lex Fridman (45:52.780)

And now as a result of this, he's responsible for mass death, secret police, and incarceration.

Lex Fridman (45:58.380)

And you know, one of the greatest things I've ever seen, which I'm sure many people see

Michael Malice (46:03.440)

as well, if you go on YouTube, it's his speech, and it's the first time the crowd turns and

Lex Fridman (46:08.480)

his head kind of like, because they start booing him, which was unheard of.

Lex Fridman (46:11.880)

And he was shot with his dog faced wife not that long after, it was just a great moment.

Lex Fridman (46:16.700)

But it's things like this, I agree with you, that mediocre, weak person is now in a position

Michael Malice (46:22.220)

of power over somebody else.

Lex Fridman (46:24.120)

And that sense of vindictiveness, like I'm going to feel strong for once in my life,

Lex Fridman (46:29.160)

but it's going to be at your expense.

Lex Fridman (46:31.000)

That I think is, you know, human nature, it's most primal.

Lex Fridman (46:34.640)

And every time I meet a person in this world, you're the first person to get me to cry on

Lex Fridman (46:39.040)

a fucking podcast.

Michael Malice (46:40.040)

Fucking the robot gets me to cry.

Lex Fridman (46:41.840)

What the fuck is going on?

Michael Malice (46:43.400)

Every time I meet a weird person, somebody, to me, heroism is also taking a risk to rebel

Lex Fridman (46:52.240)

against mediocrity.

Michael Malice (46:55.640)

Like in the most simplest of ways, like the license address, like taking a risk to break

Michael Malice (47:02.240)

the little bit of rule that nobody will know about, to take that little bit of a leap of

Michael Malice (47:07.720)

like that little protest against the bureaucracy.

Lex Fridman (47:11.080)

Like that Nazi guard where he just spoke out, he's like, hey lady.

Michael Malice (47:14.400)

That's a big one.

Lex Fridman (47:15.400)

Oh, that's a big, sure.

Michael Malice (47:16.400)

I mean, like literally at the line at Starbucks or something like that.

Michael Malice (47:19.600)

Like even in the tiniest of ways, when I see people just like, it's almost like that little

Michael Malice (47:26.280)

like glimmer in their eye, a wink, like we're in this together, there's all this conformity

Lex Fridman (47:32.040)

all around us.

Michael Malice (47:33.640)

That's at a different time could have been Nazi Germany, could have been a Stalinist

Lex Fridman (47:38.920)

Soviet union.

Michael Malice (47:39.920)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (47:40.920)

We're in this together.

Michael Malice (47:41.920)

We're going to rebel against that conformity by just taking the risk, that little bit of

Lex Fridman (47:47.080)

risk against mediocrity.

Michael Malice (47:48.920)

I don't know.

Lex Fridman (47:50.400)

And then once again, I see this in companies too.

Michael Malice (47:55.200)

When I see the mediocrity, I see this, I used to work at Google, I see it in Google and

Lex Fridman (48:00.960)

when the companies grow, that mediocrity is overwhelming.

Lex Fridman (48:04.600)

The Peter principle, right?

Lex Fridman (48:05.780)

The Peter principle.

Michael Malice (48:06.780)

Yeah.

Michael Malice (48:07.780)

My hope is that all of us have the possibility for that glimmer, that risk taking, the leap

Michael Malice (48:16.120)

of faith, whatever the heck that is, the leap out of the ordinary, out of the conformity,

Lex Fridman (48:21.120)

out of the mediocrity.

Lex Fridman (48:22.540)

So this is where you and I disagree.

Lex Fridman (48:24.860)

I think most, a lot of people are not capable of that.

Michael Malice (48:28.960)

They're accustomed to it.

Lex Fridman (48:30.760)

I don't know if they're not capable.

Michael Malice (48:32.680)

I understand your position.

Lex Fridman (48:34.400)

I'm disagreeing with it.

Michael Malice (48:35.400)

I'm saying I do not think they're capable.

Lex Fridman (48:36.840)

I think a lot of people effectively don't have souls.

Michael Malice (48:40.720)

They do not have a conscience in this sense where they're going to look at an issue, bring

Michael Malice (48:45.680)

their critical thinking and say, all right, I am going to do the right thing, although

Michael Malice (48:51.720)

I'm taking a risk.

Lex Fridman (48:52.720)

Do you think thinking is involved or is it just taking that leap?

Michael Malice (48:56.120)

There's something about that basic human spirit.

Lex Fridman (48:58.760)

Forget the thinking part.

Michael Malice (49:00.720)

It's just saying, I'll take that risk, taking that adventure, the same thing that got people

Michael Malice (49:06.740)

to explore the seas throughout human civilization, explore land, explore the oceans, that exploration.

Michael Malice (49:18.400)

We've done stuff this way all this time.

Lex Fridman (49:21.920)

I'm going to take a leap and that comes out of nowhere seemingly.

Lex Fridman (49:25.040)

But those people are the heroes, but I don't think that's universal.

Lex Fridman (49:30.760)

I'm going to use a very gauche example.

Michael Malice (49:33.420)

There was a show called Scare Tactics, which was basically a candid camera, but they would

Lex Fridman (49:37.240)

scare people.

Michael Malice (49:38.240)

They'd have vampires, whatever, a hidden camera and people's reactions.

Lex Fridman (49:45.240)

Sometimes the prank didn't work out like they expected.

Michael Malice (49:48.920)

There was one where they were hiring the people who were the marks, the contestants so to speak,

Lex Fridman (49:54.200)

was hired to be a security guard.

Michael Malice (49:56.560)

You have to watch this factory overnight and you get paid.

Lex Fridman (50:00.720)

But the setup was some people were breaking out of the factory in the middle of the night

Michael Malice (50:05.840)

like in rags and they were saying they were keeping us prisoner here, blah, blah, and

Lex Fridman (50:10.360)

just watch the person reaction to this.

Michael Malice (50:12.600)

There was one security guard where he basically forced them back into the building and they're

Lex Fridman (50:19.000)

working us 24 seven, we're getting beaten.

Michael Malice (50:20.960)

He's like, I'm here to do a job, get back in there.

Michael Malice (50:24.500)

You watch this and it never even enters his head to be like, something's wrong here.

Michael Malice (50:30.080)

He was given his orders, he's following his orders and to me, that is not uncommon and

Michael Malice (50:37.600)

that person, although they look like you and I, there's something essentially human missing

Michael Malice (50:43.200)

with them.

Lex Fridman (50:44.200)

Now, very quickly, the reaction is, well, it's one step from there to Nazism.

Michael Malice (50:49.920)

I don't think it's something that, I'm not saying this person should be killed, but I'm

Michael Malice (50:54.560)

just saying to expect that every human being has the capacity to have that defiance, especially

Michael Malice (51:02.640)

at a cost to their own life, that I think is not realistic.

Lex Fridman (51:07.440)

But at the same time, I feel like an octopus on the eighth hand, it is those few of us,

Michael Malice (51:13.680)

or if you want to include me in this, who do make these tiny little protests, who look

Lex Fridman (51:20.640)

the other way when someone is hungry, who's stealing food from the supermarket, right?

Michael Malice (51:25.480)

It's like, all right, I'm going to pretend I didn't see anything.

Michael Malice (51:30.040)

Those little elements of heroism are what move humanity forward and demonstrate the

Michael Malice (51:37.420)

validity of the human experience, whereas everyone else is kind of like scenery.

Michael Malice (51:42.260)

I think almost everybody in the world can derive deep meaning and pleasure from having

Michael Malice (51:48.560)

done those courageous acts, and I also think they have the capacity to do them, to discover

Lex Fridman (51:54.280)

that meaning and happiness.

Lex Fridman (51:55.480)

So you're the cynic, then why aren't they doing it?

Michael Malice (51:57.560)

They haven't gotten a chance to, like I've never tried LSD or DMT, you haven't gotten

Michael Malice (52:05.340)

the chance to try this amazing journey, which is taking the risk.

Michael Malice (52:09.760)

That's nonsense, because as you just said two minutes ago, everyone has that chance

Michael Malice (52:15.320)

every day to do the right thing.

Lex Fridman (52:17.800)

We have the chance to do a lot of things and we don't realize.

Michael Malice (52:20.760)

There's a lot of stuff right in front of our nose that we don't realize, because you have

Lex Fridman (52:24.960)

to kind of wake up to it.

Michael Malice (52:26.680)

Sometimes you need the catalyst, there needs to be some kind of thing that happens that

Lex Fridman (52:33.040)

wakes you up.

Michael Malice (52:36.000)

The fact that most people don't take the small acts of rebellion doesn't mean they don't

Lex Fridman (52:42.440)

have the capacity to both do so and to derive a lot of meaning from it.

Michael Malice (52:49.000)

Then it's a discussion about how to create societies that get more and more people to

Lex Fridman (52:55.120)

be free actors and free thinkers.

Michael Malice (52:59.280)

That's the question.

Michael Malice (53:00.720)

That probably leads us into a discussion of anarchism and so on, but I just think we are

Michael Malice (53:04.940)

very young as a species.

Michael Malice (53:07.440)

We're trying to figure out how to get ourselves to first be collaborative, but at the same

Michael Malice (53:14.440)

time be free spirits.

Lex Fridman (53:16.480)

I think both of those are within human nature for most of us.

Michael Malice (53:19.440)

I think another big concern is that there's enormous disincentives, and this is Michael

Lex Fridman (53:25.880)

Malus speaking, for human beings to be kind and for tenderness.

Michael Malice (53:31.960)

I think, especially when you're young, you know what I mean, when you're immature, a

Michael Malice (53:36.400)

lot of times someone will reach out to you with kindness or vulnerability and you think

Michael Malice (53:40.840)

it's funny to kind of dunk their head in the water in a pool or something like that.

Lex Fridman (53:44.920)

When you get older, there's this one example of this.

Michael Malice (53:50.440)

This was in the 90s, and there was a woman.

Michael Malice (53:53.600)

She became a stripper or something like that or whatever it was, but she had this amazing

Michael Malice (53:58.880)

body.

Lex Fridman (53:59.880)

She was just gorgeous.

Michael Malice (54:01.240)

The show was, she was talking about how when she was in high school, she was bullied a

Lex Fridman (54:04.680)

lot and that there was this football player.

Michael Malice (54:07.240)

He messed with her every single day.

Michael Malice (54:10.160)

One day, she even threw pickles in her hair and her hair smelled like pickles and it was

Michael Malice (54:13.120)

laughing at her.

Lex Fridman (54:14.640)

This really screwed her up, I mean, up to that show.

Michael Malice (54:17.520)

They took her backstage and they brought out the football player, and now he's a dad and

Lex Fridman (54:21.280)

a regular dude.

Michael Malice (54:22.280)

He's like, do you know why you're here, and he's like, no, and they're like, oh, what

Lex Fridman (54:26.880)

were you like in high school?

Michael Malice (54:27.880)

He's like, I was kind of a jock, bully, whatever.

Michael Malice (54:30.200)

They brought her out, and he didn't even remember her really, and she just starts crying about

Michael Malice (54:34.640)

the pickles and whatever, and this is something that affected her for 20 years, and I've never

Lex Fridman (54:38.680)

seen a clearer example of someone who wanted to kill themselves than this guy.

Michael Malice (54:43.560)

The guilt on his face, and he's looking at her, and he's desperate to be like, what can

Lex Fridman (54:48.580)

I do to take your pain away, to make it better?

Michael Malice (54:54.160)

He was just crippled by it because he knew there's nothing he could do.

Lex Fridman (54:57.080)

He knew he 100% did the wrong thing.

Michael Malice (54:59.640)

He knew he did the wrong thing unthinkingly.

Lex Fridman (55:02.260)

You can imagine, I got to screw over this lady to feed my family, that's fine.

Michael Malice (55:08.480)

At the time, it meant nothing to him, so of course he didn't remember, and he was just

Lex Fridman (55:11.840)

paralyzed by this sense of crippling guilt.

Michael Malice (55:14.560)

One of the reasons I always try to do the right thing isn't because I'm an inherently

Michael Malice (55:19.240)

good person, which I do not think I am, I don't think anyone is inherently good, but

Michael Malice (55:23.240)

because I will feel guilty about it for a very, very long time because if you do the

Michael Malice (55:29.020)

wrong thing, this is a very Camus idea, if you do the wrong thing to a good person, that's

Lex Fridman (55:35.760)

really, really bad because what kind of person are you?

Michael Malice (55:39.120)

In the same way that everyone can be that guy who takes someone out for their birthday,

Michael Malice (55:44.180)

everyone has that ability for someone who did the wrong thing to someone who's a normal

Lex Fridman (55:48.600)

person and do you want to be that guy as well?

Michael Malice (55:52.080)

My friend, Bittstein, he's a big Bitcoin person, my biography ego in hubris is like $500 now

Lex Fridman (56:00.920)

on eBay, it's hard to find, came out in 2006.

Michael Malice (56:04.480)

He had told me that you can get it on torrent, it's downloadable, and I'm like, oh, I thought

Lex Fridman (56:11.100)

if you're my friend, you'd want to buy it.

Michael Malice (56:13.380)

At the time, it was not $500, I assure you, and he goes, I did buy it, I'm just telling

Michael Malice (56:18.000)

you that you could also get it for free, this information that you might want to use.

Lex Fridman (56:22.600)

And I snapped at this kid who was doing right by me and I felt, it just stuck in my head,

Lex Fridman (56:30.840)

I'm like, you're an ass.

Lex Fridman (56:32.780)

And then years later, I apologize, he had no memory of this at all and I'm glad to be

Lex Fridman (56:36.420)

able to reiterate the apology again.

Lex Fridman (56:38.320)

But a lot of times I'm extremely aggressive on Twitter and in other venues, I always try

Michael Malice (56:45.860)

to and maybe I fail and that's my moral failing, always do it as a counter attack.

Michael Malice (56:51.580)

If you're going to start going personal, if you're going to start being aggressive against

Lex Fridman (56:55.400)

an individual, I'm not going to necessarily hold back when I reciprocate.

Lex Fridman (57:00.360)

And it's something that is very common on social media, but I don't think it is normal.

Michael Malice (57:05.680)

Just because a lot of this, you're talking about the quiet little rebellion, just because

Michael Malice (57:09.680)

everyone else around you thinks it's okay to just go up to people and attack them in

Michael Malice (57:14.120)

the most personal ways, impromptu because of their views, really just take a step back

Lex Fridman (57:19.400)

and realize what you're engaging with.

Michael Malice (57:21.000)

Now, if that's the fight they want, then my Soviet cruelty could come out and that's kind

Michael Malice (57:26.800)

of why I don't drink because I do enjoy it, but at the same time, be aware of what you're

Lex Fridman (57:32.200)

doing.

Lex Fridman (57:33.200)

And again, this goes back to Camus's sense that conscience really is what makes us human

Lex Fridman (57:39.520)

beings.

Michael Malice (57:40.520)

That's the thing I was saying, I don't think most people think in terms of conscience.

Michael Malice (57:44.440)

They don't think it, we are taught, this is that creeping cynicism that, oh, grow up.

Michael Malice (57:51.240)

When you're an adult, you have to make sacrifices, blah, blah, blah.

Lex Fridman (57:55.520)

And even if I buy that for a second, which I don't, but if I have to make sacrifices

Michael Malice (58:00.080)

sometimes, that doesn't mean it's okay for me to make a sacrifice of my values in this

Lex Fridman (58:05.680)

moment.

Michael Malice (58:06.680)

If I have to maybe be at work and my boss is a jerk to me and calls me names, I have

Lex Fridman (58:10.800)

to be humiliated, but I got to put food on the plate.

Michael Malice (58:13.800)

That doesn't mean it's okay later if I'm at a party and I'm just extremely offensive to

Lex Fridman (58:18.600)

someone for no reason.

Michael Malice (58:21.720)

My own flavor of a little bit of rebellion.

Lex Fridman (58:26.160)

Sometimes I use the number two.

Michael Malice (58:28.680)

You know, you're very witty on Twitter and Twitter likes mockery and wit and a counter

Lex Fridman (58:45.560)

attack is, Twitter loves that, somebody who's skilled at it.

Michael Malice (58:51.200)

My own flavor of a bit of rebellion is to say things very simply, bordering on cliche

Michael Malice (59:03.080)

with authenticity and like genuinely meaning the words I say, but knowing that those words

Michael Malice (59:09.800)

would be, are easy to attack.

Lex Fridman (59:13.720)

And that sometimes those attacks can hurt because people would just mock me.

Michael Malice (59:20.400)

People don't like earnestness because they've been taught to be too cool for school.

Lex Fridman (59:24.800)

So there's this pressure for me to be sound way more sophisticated.

Michael Malice (59:29.440)

Use bigger words, sometimes throw in a criticism of institutions or something like that, almost

Lex Fridman (59:38.840)

as if I have a deep wisdom about the way the world is broken.

Lex Fridman (59:42.800)

But when you speak very simply about beautiful things in life, it's very easy to sound like

Lex Fridman (59:50.040)

you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Lex Fridman (59:52.800)

And I kind of, I stick by that.

Michael Malice (59:55.480)

I don't know where that's going to end up, but it's like the idiot from Dostoevsky.

Michael Malice (59:59.480)

It feels like that's the right thing, even if it hurts when I'm attacked for it.