Navigated to Conversation with Nikos Sotirakopoulos -- Socialists of the Right | Yaron Brook Show - Transcript

Conversation with Nikos Sotirakopoulos -- Socialists of the Right | Yaron Brook Show

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1

A lot of funds of aldo little self interesting and an individual loss.

Speaker 2

This is the show, Oh right, everybody walk up to your one book show on this Monday, December twenty nine.

And I am super happy to have Nikos join us from Greece Athens.

Speaker 1

I assume Athens somewhere somewhere there, somewhere.

Speaker 2

There, somewhere in the outskirts of Athens, in the in the land of Greek philosophy.

We wish, right, it would be nice if if Greek philosophy had an impact on Greece of today, that would be amazing.

But but yes, thanks Nicos for joining us.

I know it's I know it's laid over there, so I appreciate it.

Speaker 3

It's becoming a tradition.

Speaker 1

Right last year, we had a discussion around this time of the year.

Speaker 3

It was very cool.

So let's make it a thing.

Speaker 2

Okay, I didn't know.

I don't know we did it at the same time of year.

Okay, we'll make it a thing.

The the the interview before New Years is a Nicos interview.

We'll just make that.

I'll let Angela know and we'll just book it in advance.

So you know, it's been a busy year.

It's been an interesting year.

So you kind of specialize in intellectually on kind of the far left and the far right of the political ideological spectrum.

Uh, and it's been an interesting year for you, right.

Speaker 3

Yeah, unfortunately.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I've been quite busy, so I take people for tours in the Museum of Horror, horror of history, but also horror of the present.

Speaker 3

So it's it's I think we were among the.

Speaker 1

First people who years ago we noticed something that is happening in the right, that the right is more and more trying to cut ties from a classical liberalism.

They view the relationship with classical liberalism as a liability, as a problem.

Speaker 3

And I remember where I was.

Speaker 1

I was in Lathbourg University when I first heard you talk about the alt right.

That was two thousand and fifteen, twenty sixteen.

Very few people were talking about the alt right back then, and here we are in nine years later, and what developed out from the altright now has audience of tens of millions of people.

Speaker 3

So yeah, definitely something is happening there.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean I remember during Trump campaign, that's when the out right came out, and then you know, they got involved in by I think Charlottesville, But I think I predicted at the time that they would increase an influence on the right because there was really no opposition to them anyway.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and to to give to people some notion of how fair it seems from today that you were talking mostly about people like Milo Yanopulos even and remembers him and Richard Spencer.

So the persona of the Ultraine back then is Richard Spencer.

Of course, if you compare Richard Spencer to the figures that are today the new Right, Richard Spencer in retrospect looks like this very serious intellectual compared to what we have today.

But yeah, that's a little bit who.

Speaker 2

Richard Spencer was, because I don't I don't think people remember him.

My loss still around.

I just saw him some podcasts accusing Nick Fuentes being accusing everybody being they all homosexual, but accusing him of all kinds of things, raping little boys, you know, he was.

He was accusing all kinds of people of all kinds of stuff.

And you know, I think it was Charlie Cook, you know, was a bad guy.

He's just he hasn't changed one bit.

He still is nutty, you know, But he's not taken quite as seriously today as he was based.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so that all tried came out, let's say, of the paleo conservative movement.

So Spencer himself, now it's not very fresh in my memory, but he was working in the Taki magazine.

Tacky magazine was this kind of paleo conservative stuff.

So they were the first people in the who understood that the climate is very fertile for racial thinking.

So they said, look, everyone out there is talking about their identity.

Speaker 3

Black people are talking about their identity.

Speaker 1

It's time also for us for white to talk about our identity.

And of course, this within a few years, as it was one hundred percent predictable, this became indeed the trend.

So of course Richard Spencer was still talking the language of let's say the old white nationalist fused a bit with the critical race theory type of language.

You know, they talked about that they need to be let's say protected, they need to be recognized, that need to be viewed, they need to be seen.

Speaker 3

As white as white people.

Speaker 1

So it wasn't anymore so much white supremacy that we are we are the best, and we are the most powerful.

It's more white vulnerability right, because this was the currency that was working, This was the current that was selling that we are in need of protection.

Everyone is offered protection.

Now it's time for us to be offered protection.

Now he got you know, he got involved with the tragedy and the de buckle in Charlottesville, so soon he was not as relevant.

Later he tried to rediscover himself as something else.

But but it's interesting if you see, for example, today Nick Fuentes, who doesn't even have this, let's say, claim to intellectuality.

So if you if you view, for example, figures white national like Jared Taylor, you know there were people who would present yourself, I'm cultured, I aspire to this higher sense of Western civilization, all the stuff.

Whereas today it's more like it's it's it appeals to what is the worst in all of us.

You know, we are too lazy to get involved with ideas.

It's just about you know, trolling, talk about the last stupid conspiracy theory, just blame the Jews.

Speaker 3

So even even if you go to.

Speaker 1

That corner of that freak show, corner of the how you want to qualify right, even here you see a rapid dropping for lack of a better world, quality of of of of the discourse.

Speaker 2

There to what extent If they all become Milo in a sense.

Speaker 1

The question is, yeah, they become more like Milo.

But the question is, so, there's no question Milo was very clever, like he was one of the first like self entrepreneurs of the troll era.

This he made himself as this as this troll.

So when you see someone like Tacker, for example, like, I don't know, I'm interested in your view.

Does he believe these things or is he too clever?

And he sees that, oh, this is my audience, the audience like I'm gonna bring this random guy and said, hey, here's a homeless guy who had sex with Obama and they're gonna buy.

So it's a question whether they have dropped their own standards to meet their audience, or they actually believe these.

Speaker 3

Things, or there's something else happening.

Speaker 1

I don't know, money or serious problems in their head.

Speaker 3

I don't know, what do you think?

Speaker 2

I think something.

It's hard for me to say about Tucker.

I mean, I remember Taker fifteen years ago, twenty years ago.

He was a bow tie wearing kind of libertarian heritage foundation, like the libertarian at heritage.

He was a free market guy at a conservative place, and then he got involve in Fox and and I think the dynamics of appeal, and he got involved with Trump, and I think, look, we can talk about this, but I think Trump Trump's assent changed everything.

I mean it it were, we are in it everything.

I mean, they had idea shape history, but you know, the particulars are determined by the particulars and the particular people.

And I think Trump changed everything.

And I think Tucker got caught up in a in in the masses, in the in the in the glory of of appealing to large audiences.

I mean when he took over his big show on Fox, he took it over from I forget the guy's name.

I used to be on the show, but I forget no, not Hannity.

It was a guy from the from the two thousands who I was on a show and Lennard was on a show.

Anyway, it doesn't matter.

But he got a large audience and he you could see he slowly shifted Bill O'Reilly, thank you, somebody said, Billy.

He slowly shifted more and more and more to the crazy, and he was constrained by the corporate entity of Fox, and then when he left Fox, he was unconstrained.

Now, whether he went crazy, and you know the fact that he can tell you with a straight face, the demons attacked him as bad and he's got the scratches to prove it.

And all that suggests to me that something psychological, something mental, has happened to him.

Is he also paid by the Kataris?

Is he also just cynical and thinks the world is a horrible place?

And who cares?

You know?

Possibly?

So I think he believed some of it, and I think that I think that he is cynical about other stuff.

Speaker 1

And you know what, maybe at the end of the day doesn't really matter, because Okay, let's say Tiger went crazy.

Let's say even condes Owens went crazy.

Speaker 2

Cans that they have smart.

Candas was never smart.

Cannas was never smart.

Candice would would.

I mean, she was discovered basically by Charlie Cook, and she would basically repeat Charlie's talking points.

So she was very good at whatever she was fed.

Because she was a woman in black, she had her own audience, and she could repeat those things and and get and and gain credible, gain audience.

Speaker 1

But then as soon as she came to say things that no one else could.

I remember so was the first person who said, you know what, George Floyd might not be the hero you think is.

And back then we're like, wow, this is all so grave.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what these individuals are, because what mothers is they have millions of followers.

Sometimes Spotify releases this data and you see which are the most popular podcasts, and quite often they are top five or sometimes even the top three.

Speaker 2

Yep.

Yeah, and so they have a massive audience.

And you know, you're right.

They're non intellectual, none of them, I mean, the complete nutcases, right, I mean, and you see the people Tucker brings on.

So tucka is the most mainstream of them, right, And he could have anybody come on the show pretty much, you know, anybody would come in the show.

And the people he brings on are these you know, none of them are intellectually of any significance.

Even the racist.

He could find a good racist.

I mean, he could find an intellectual racist, but he doesn't even do that.

The people he brings on the margins, they're not very smart, they're not able.

They come up with the weirdest, stupidest conspiracy theories that are easy to debunk.

I mean, it really takes five minutes.

And what they're praying us is laziness, right, I mean the laziness of the public and emotionalism, not even to check, not even to care.

Speaker 1

He's a bit I wonder if he's a bit like this, why not or even do diac who says, I will serve you anything and you will buy it, Like I will said with this this what was this woman from the Middle East who said that, oh yeah, Israel is persecuting Christians And as you said, it takes two minutes of googling to figure out this is a crazy narrative, but no, you will buy it.

I will bring you a homeless person who claims he had sex with gay sex with Obama, and you will buy this.

Is it's almost not bulling his audience, but almost I don't know, it's it's almost.

Speaker 3

Daring his audience.

How far can I take it?

Speaker 1

I'll take it even farther and you will fall for this because this is who you are.

Speaker 2

That's a good point, I think.

I think I think maybe that's part of what drives him.

Is it is just to show how exactly that two e kind of mentality of to show people how stupid they will we are to make that, to make that a point.

Yeah, I mean she was a nun, so she had the credibility of being a nun.

But and he followed up, this is the thing about Okay, so he does something like that, it's debunked, and then he follows it up with like memes saying no cuts out as much friendly as to Christians and israel Is.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and yeah, that's that's the thing.

Speaker 1

And it's interesting, as you said, like it's what we were saying earlier that even in that level of the discussion, even the racist or the white naturalists have become less intellectual.

Speaker 3

And you mentioned Trump.

Speaker 1

I think the other big thing that destroyed their mind was COVID because there was this healthy skepticism that was warranteed.

And you and me were among the first were in the barricade that went against the lockdowns, So there was this healthy element of Okay, something is happening here which.

Speaker 3

Needs to be resisted when it comes the state over it.

Speaker 1

But together they threw any semblance of reason and that yeah, there are facts.

They became full postmodernists after COVID that anything the powers to be are telling me is a lie.

Like the thing my teachers told me about World War two is a lie.

So they try to find who is the biggest sacred cow that the powers to be believed.

Speaker 3

I'm going to believe the opposite.

Speaker 1

This is how you ended up in the world where now you have millions of young people giving another chance to Hitler because it's like everything they told me is a lie.

So obviously also what they told me about Hitler is a lie.

So maybe you know there's a there's a point to Hitler.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean I think that's a good point.

So authorities, intellectual authorities out because they somehow bamboozo us on COVID, and therefore we can't trust them and anything else.

I have seen some data.

It's really interesting if you look at the data, you know, if you look at who wanted to open up America, who want to open up after the lockdowns, it's actually the people the masses were anti lockdown.

Sorry, we're pro lockdown, and actually that spirts wanted to open up, and it's the people who didn't on average, right, so so in and it's and people people completely misremember that that Tucker was one of the first people to go to Trump and tell him to to lock If you think down, there was a Bannon.

Bannon panicked, Bannon told Trump to lockdown.

They can't remember any of this.

And I get accused all the time of being pro lockdowns because I was pro vaccines.

So if you're pro vaccines, you're automatically pro lockdown because they can they can't they can't think in terms of you know.

Speaker 1

Yeah, they can't think in terms of nuance because they can only think in terms of tribes.

So Yarn was on the vaccine tribe.

Therefore obviously he was also in the lockdown tribe.

So this is almost that I don't I don't remember how a three year old thinks because it's been sometimes you know it was three year old.

Speaker 3

But they're probably thinking a bit like that.

Speaker 1

This is this is like intellectual underdevelopment, like you you retreat back to the thinking of like this is what we say, like tribalist makes you literally stupid, Like tribalist makes your own self worse enemy.

I wonder how these people manage to drive to work, and they don't.

They don't end up like falling on the sea or something with the way they think.

Speaker 2

Or don't think or don't think.

So, I mean, I'm really focused on on kind of the weight in the US.

Is there any are you seeing anything different in Europe?

The characteristics of the weight in the UK and in in in Europe itself any different?

Speaker 1

So in some way because in Europe.

So okay, So let's let's start from something.

Thats for me, the biggest failure of the of the right is of the new right.

Is there miss their failure and understanding that we are experiencing a civilizational war when it comes to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and rather Al Islam.

So for me, this is the major test they failed.

So you would expect that because at least they portrayed themselves as these defenders of the West, they would understand that the war that took place for the last two years was a war for the ages, perhaps the most important war the West has fought since at least the Cold War, And they missed that completely.

Now because in Europe, the threat of radical Islam is a bit more reminent, is a bit more in your face.

I was positively surprised by many people in the European right, which otherwise I would expect that they would fall in the same tribals, in the same type of contrary and thinking that.

Speaker 3

Oh, you know, whatever the elites tell me, it's the opposite.

Speaker 1

So in Europe the right is a bit more on these specific issues.

For example, on Israel, they're a bit better and they haven't completely lost their mind in the way they have lost their mind in the United States.

Maybe because the problems again are more more imminent, so you cannot afford to completely lose your lose your mind.

Speaker 2

Right now, they're more focused on hating the Muslim immigrants than they aren't hating Jews in Israel.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, so you don't see you don't see this anti Semitism.

But also you they still view themselves as we are here defending the West.

They probably don't understand what the West is, but at least they respect this label that.

Speaker 3

Is the West.

Speaker 1

You don't see what you see in the United States, which is a conscious of disassociation with this notion of the of of the West, like you wouldn't see Europeans of right wing Europeans you know, going and saying thinks good things about Katar, for example, that would be that would be unheard, that would be unheard of.

Of course, you have the issue of their relationship some of them, the dubious relationship with with Russia, or the relationship in terms of not you know, disassociating and not condemning it strong enough.

There are also these discussions about many floating around, either from Russia or from other governments of similar ideological persuasions in Europe.

So they're definitely not not perfect, but they're not as bad, they're not as deranged as the new Right in the US.

Speaker 2

What about religion to what extent I mean, religion plays a huge role on the way in the US, not in any particular thing they say, but in the kind of intellectual backup you know, it's always in the name of Christianity.

Everything they do.

This is Christianity player role for the for the for the new weights in Europe.

Speaker 1

Well, well, national Conservatives in a way first was an institutional thing in Europe before it became an institutional thing in the US.

So let's say the Kremlin to use them called the war metaphor of National Conservatives was Hungary, Hungary with Victor Orburn, So it plays a role.

Speaker 3

But also because in Europe.

Speaker 1

In some countries, you know, it's not clear which is stronger, Catholicies, Protestantism.

It's it's not so strong yet as V rallying cry.

Speaker 3

So you don't see it.

Speaker 1

So you don't have integralists in Europe having as a distinct voice as they do in the US, or at least you don't.

Speaker 3

I mean, you.

Speaker 1

Couldn't say that the AfD in Germany or the Reform part in the UK, you couldn't say they're integralists.

You don't hear voices who say, for example, that you know, we need this soft theocracy, because in my mind, this is what the integralists are in the US.

They're basically theocratsy in fancy suits.

Speaker 2

Yep.

Speaker 1

But then again, because these movements in Europe don't have their own ideology, they don't have a very distinct They know what they're against woke Islam and all the stuff, but they don't have an identity of what they are for.

I wouldn't be surprised if they're still looking for this identity, and I wouldn't be surprised if Christianity is what actually gives them this identity, because I can tell you for sure adfortunate.

It's not gonna be classical liberalism, it's not gonna be objectivism.

So yeah, at some point they will have to end up to some meaning giving system, and the obvious candidate is Christianity.

Speaker 2

So you know, the way everywhere, it seems to the one thing they all agree on is they've really, as you said, a man in classical liberalism, in certainly in a sense of free markets.

None of them believe in free markets anymore.

I assume that's true.

I think with reform and Lapen and a FD.

Speaker 1

Yeah, Leapen is actually even worse than her father.

Her father was worse than Lapen in everything, but at least in economics he was.

So Lapen is more state.

It's even than her her father.

Her father was Don Marie Lepen, so he was.

He was way worse in in.

Speaker 3

Everything that else.

Speaker 1

Nigel Faraz recently voices in his party have talked about nationalizing some key industries.

Just to remind people that fifteen years ago Faraz was presenting himself as this kind of libertarian.

I remember an anarcho Capitalist podcast interviewing Faraz and disagreeing, well, at what point do we you know, at what point do we get rid of the stage.

So this was this was Faraz circa two thousand and eleven twenty twelve, and today he's talking about nationalizing, nationalizing key industries.

And the AfD AfD hasn't has different character in different German states.

So Germany, you know, it's not so much like a Leninist type of party, So in different localities it has different characters, but it's not the tranjector is not towards more economic freedom.

And this is because for them, freedom is a problem to be mitigated, not only economic freedom, but also personal freedom.

Speaker 3

So they view you.

Speaker 1

As so basically say, freedom opens you up to mistakes.

It could be you what's important, or employing immigrants, or moving away from your parents because remember your respect to your parents, or employing people who are not local, or God forbid, taking your business and going somewhere else.

So whether it is the economic field or the personal field, they view freedom as making you basically a basket case that you're going to take all the wrong decisions, which is going to ruin your life because for them, a non Christian, non virtues in the Christian way life is a bad life and you're going to ruin also your community, because you're going to upset it, You're going to upset the norms.

So for them, the key thing to be preserved is the norms, tradition, business as usual.

We cannot go too fast forward.

You cannot go too fast ahead because then what happens to the organic community?

So you cannot be Let's say, how our drag to use an example that we will understand in the worldview of the new right.

In the world view of the new right, we all have to rise together, and we all have to rise together while maintaining society and tradition as it used to be.

So this is why freedom is an existential problem for them.

It's a problem that has to be managed, that has to be mitigated, your freedom to do whatever you want with your life, but also obviously economic freedom.

Speaker 2

And how far do you think these political parties are willing to go on this?

I mean they will get they will need to eliminate political freedom.

Is that in their agenda?

Are they thinking about it now?

Speaker 3

Not in the way that for example, the fastest the fastest.

Speaker 1

We're very clear that we are a revolutionary, radical movement.

We want to do away with parallel mentors and all that stuff.

There's not a single such movement in at least in Europe who wants to do these who wants to do these things.

But again, you know the fact that at least rhetorically they want to maintain the rule of law is.

Speaker 3

Quite is a good thing.

So that's why I don't like the you know.

Speaker 1

The they relate them to fascist.

It's not fascist, and it's not it's we don't have it's not a good it's not a very good parallel.

It's a very good parallel in terms of we face similar let's say, problems, and that they are following the rule book of we have a crisis and we're afraid of the left, and the left is so bad that anything goes.

So when it comes to this part, there are similarities with the ninety thirties, but there's definitely no similarities in them wanting to revolutional, to follow a revolutionary road of remaking society, because that was fast, That's what fastest was fast.

It was a revolutionary movement.

And of course I'm not using the term revolutionary in a positive way.

Speaker 2

So when Mussolini takes over, it is it clear that his agenda is that there's alve parliaments and to do away with with you know, those institutions.

Speaker 1

Well he doesn't.

He doesn't in the last months before he takes power.

This is not what he says.

But Mussolini is a revolutionary when he begins, he begins as a social list.

He joins forces with revolutionary synthically.

So basically, people who say we need a new society, we knew the society where the state controls everything.

Where why do we have all these political parties, Why do we have all these disagreements.

The nation needs to be this one organic unity.

So to anyone paying attention, they should understand that, yeah, Mussolini is someone who is a revolutionary, even more with Hitler, because Hitler spelled it all, spelled it all out in.

Speaker 3

In mind camp.

Speaker 1

So yes, you should expect that these people would come to power as radical revolutionary movements.

They had their own militias at some point, the Nazis had the militias like street fighters of hundreds of thousands of people.

There's not a single movement in the world today that has such even an ambition of such actions.

So we're dealing with something which is at least in euro which is not good.

But it's not at least at this point, we're not going to see dark sir militias and taking taking power through force or whatever, or taking power and then dissolving parliaments and stuff.

Speaker 2

Do you think part of it is that, you know, if they learned from Auburn and from Putin that you can do it in other ways.

That is, in a sense putting stuff has elections.

You know, he still pretends it's a it's a you know, a free country in some sense.

Aba certainly does.

And maybe the elections in Hungary are legit, you know, it's hard to tell.

It seems like our position might actually win against Oban in the future, but it's basically dismand on media.

He disbanded independent court system.

He's disman of a lot of this.

He's an authoritarian in kind of a system that still allows elections.

Speaker 1

Yeah, the main thing is none of these figures in Europe that I come to my mind, I don't think they have the commitment that it takes to be a dictator for what it's worth.

I think the same is with Trump, Like to be a fascist require the commitment that these people are definitely Trump So Trump has the authoritarian instinct, right, but he hasn't got the instinct to commit to coming up with a program a vision like this, this notion of I have this higher image about life, about he's He hasn't got any of these things.

And I don't think, like does anyone seriously think like Fara's they dreams of some national repair of in any particular way.

So I don't interestingly, I think it's more of a threat in the United States because in the United States you have more ideologues who are who are consciously against liberal democracy.

I don't think Nigel Farraz has any interest in getting rid of liberal democracy.

I do know though, that the National Conservatives and the integralist they have a problem with liberal with the classical liberals to put it, to put.

Speaker 3

It this way, not to mention Bannon and and all these people.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yes, I mean Bannon, I think is the is a I think in his heart he's an integralist and he but he's the marketing guy of the of the movement or the I don't know what he is, the thug.

Uh So let's talk a bit about the integralists and whatever gender is.

I think there's a bit of a difference between the integralists and the National Conservatives, and then there's the Christian Conservatives who are more explicitly National Conservatives, who are explicitly Christian, whereas the National Conservatives try to because it was founded by an Israeli Due the national Conservative movements, they stay away from religion a little bit, whereas the Christian Conservatives there's no hope, they don't hold back.

Speaker 1

So let's put it simply then for people not to get confused.

So let's say we have three Venn diagrams.

Right, these Van diagrams in there are attached with each other, but are separate.

The one is the postive Liberals.

There we could have the figure of Patrick the nin as the key figure.

They explicitly claim that liberalism, as in classical liberalism, has failed, and they think also that capitalism is a problem.

So if you read the name, he literally quotes Marks.

He talks the language of ali nation, the language of exploitation.

Now they're different from national conservatives.

Conservatives belief that yes, liberalism has failed, but the vehicle, the vehicle to get beyond liberalism is going to smaller communities, from the family to the tribe to the nation.

Whereas the post liberals, you know, they think it's more of a I don't know, maybe a universalist project.

So they don't think like what is special about the nation or what is special about the family and the tribe, So they disagree on that level.

On the level of do we want to use another example, socialism is in one country, or socialism let's say international socialists.

Of course, if you know anything about the Commonist movement, this was completely a secondary and historically overplayed the difference.

So at the end of the day, there's not a huge difference between national conservatives and post liberalists.

The integralist, as you say, they want to integrate really religion with politics, so they want this type of dual power.

Again, to use an example from the left, the church has power in some areas the state, though there is still a state, so we're not governed by mulas, so they're not at that point yet we have dual power.

Of course, dual power means that one of the two has to be stronger at the end of the day.

And obviously my fear is that at the end of the day all decisions will be made on Christian morality, so they want to impose Christian morality on politics.

So technically someone could be a post liberal and dnatheist.

For example, they say, I want I want a more integrated quote unquote integrated organic community without competition, without the destabilizing effect of the market.

But I don't want religion, whereas someone could be a post liberal and to believe in that Christian needs to have a more of a roll.

So these are smaller differences, but at the end of the day, all of them agree your freedom is a problem that we have to control and that we have to mitigate.

Now what do the different central planners will do in terms of like should the shops be open on Sunday?

Maybe there shouldn't be divorced, maybe there shouldn't be pornography.

So they would disagree on the specifics, but the essences your freedom is a problem, and it's time to name freedom and liberalism and capitalism as a problem.

Speaker 2

I mean, one of the advantages I think they do exist in the US is that the Christians can agree amongst each other.

Not only is the graphics and Protestants, but a million different types of Protestants, and none of them can actually agree, and they will if it ever gets to that, they will be It's just like pud Muslims you know, one of the things that prevents Islam for being more powerful mirtarily is that they hate each other.

As soon as it and isis and versus Arkaida, versus you know whatever, they will kill each other easily.

And and I think I think among Christians, particularly in the US, the the divisions are significant and large.

Speaker 3

But and there's also historical baggage there.

Speaker 1

For example, it's interesting to see how the earlier JKK, for example, you know, how they deal with these of Catholics, Catholics and or Protestants.

One of them only is part of the real Americans.

The other are not the real Americans.

So yeah, it's it's it's not the perfect ground to to to unite, that's for sure.

Speaker 2

It is interesting that the attack, as you said, once you they've started this attack on freedom, and once you stought that, it goes everywhere.

See you've got very very well known preachers now in the US saying things like, well, the women shouldn't have the vote.

Speaker 4

And the thing is, if you take your religious series in the books and the scripture seriously, you're gonna start seeing all these issues that you'd expect that they're resolved intellectually.

Speaker 1

Yeah, they come they come, they come back.

I mean, did a Nick Fuentes also say the same thing in they were having that discussion actually with Tacket or was it within in one of these interviews that he would.

Speaker 2

Yeah, he does not like women, that is clear.

And uh and yeah, so the women should have the vote.

Gay gay marriage of course is out.

You know, anti gay laws would be reintroduced and and things like that.

Sure you said something earlier about how it worked, which is which reminded me of the fact that one of the things that is these national conservatives in America at least, and I don't know about you, but in America have made a big deal of his architecture.

I don't know if you've you've seen this, but you know, all buildings, all government buildings now have to be done in the traditions of Greece and Rome.

Speaker 1

Yeah, now, okay, so this this gives us a good leeway to discuss also why these movements find a lot of appeal.

And I will be very honest to you.

I follow so many accounts on Twitter that post these you know, beautiful rural England houses and all that stuff, and I check them out and then I go Torbnb and like, oh, I want to to to book a house there.

This is so beautiful, So ideally there is some power and political power even in this notion of beauty that that, you know, they say, we aspire at least to something which is outside of the mundane.

And I know you have your views on aesthetics and they are very well thought, and I won't even get in a discussion on that.

But at least they are aspired to tell people there is a vision where your life there should be there could be beauty in your life, and there is a void there in the rest of the political spectrum.

So I totally understand how they can attract people through their at least pretense of caring about beauty and about some higher meaning in life.

Of course, they eventually they find this meaning only in sacrifice, that you have to live for something bigger than yourself.

But still there is some meaning there and the realm of meaning has been completely abandoned by let's say the good guys, or at best they give a similar message of you know, effective alter Yeah, you know, maybe we should our goal in lives would be to be better altruists.

So this is the yeah, this is why they found such a fertile ground because they they talk about, you know, you should have this fire inside you about something.

Now the country exactly what this something is.

But at least they understand that people have a learning for the.

Speaker 2

Well and are just super important, right so, and and you know, there's certainly the bad guys have always understood this.

The Catholic Church understood it.

It's why they hired Michelangelo and Raphael and all these guys to decorate their churches and Bach to write the music and and all of that.

They they they knew that, you know, art is power, and the Communists and the Nazis understood this.

And while they art was not very good, you know, they understood the symbolism that it represented the inspiration that could provide.

And they certainly, you know, and you know, hated, you know, the Nazis in particularly hated the kind of decadence of what they call the decadent modern arts.

And in most cases I agree with them in terms of how bad the stuff that was going on in the frem of Republic was.

But yes, you know, they understood the problem.

I think at least the the the Church in the Renaissance had taste.

I don't I don't think I don't think these people have taste.

I think they they you know, what resonates with them is the fact that it's old.

What resonates with them is the fact that it's that it's traditional.

And you know, beauty is not is not at the top of mind.

There is a question of you know, what should government buildings look like.

You know, you certainly don't want them to be brutalist and and kind of ugly nineteen sixties modern.

But if anybody wants to see beautiful kind of big you know, big buildings or even government buildings, Fank Lloyd Wright has some good examples.

Speaker 1

So and speaking about beauty, let's remember for a second what the privilege it is for us objectivists.

I mean, we're not a political movement, but we have this perfect example of beauty aspiration to something great and which is which is the art of iron Rand and what the same that classical liberals and all these people completely completely snob that and completely miss how people have this need for for the heroic, for the for the beautiful, for the for the higher, not higher in terms of you know, other life, or for something bigger than yourself, but make your life something important make your life something heroic, make your life something which is there's a fire in it, not just this you know ZDP and just you know.

Speaker 2

But that's just the problem with the you know, so many of the classical labels are inspired by people like Hume.

So the skeptics, and if you're skeptic, it's very hard to get excited about heroism and beauty and yeah said, it's beautiful for you, is not beautiful for me?

It's you know, or what does it mean to be here?

But they were all skeptics.

I mean, hyak of course is.

And then if you look at if you look at it.

I remember sitting next to one of the founders of Adam Smith Institute.

He is in a montpel And dinner and we're having this thing and he said, you know, I'm I have ninety five percent confidence that I'm holding a folk right now.

It couldn't even agree.

They say, there's certainty about the fact that this is a folk.

Speaker 1

I mean, that's that now that you said this, I just thought of something, right.

So at the end of the day, these people they don't these people don't mean that Ada's meat.

I mean the new right.

At the end of the day, they are.

They don't stand for something positive.

They stand for negatives, like they stand at the end of Like I'm not convinced that Nick.

Speaker 3

Fuenten's wants to see the resurrection of the West or something.

Speaker 1

So notice how this, at the end of the day will lead to a nihilism, even when it comes to a nihilism in the form of art and beauty and beauty for example.

So notice you did you you something else that you spotted early on you were talking about Bronze aids pervert and bronze age's mindset when no one else was understanding what's happening there.

And this was again there was something there which was, you know, aspire to some idea, even if it was you know, whether we're good or a bad idea, it is a different discussion.

But today even this is out of the question, right So you so, particularly the growerper movement, they don't even aspire to this, let's say, the aesthetics of the body or the aesthetics of you know, conquering something.

It's more it's just this negative, this kind of nihilistic you know, trolling, attacking, destroying, not building, but just just destroying.

So it's it's it's a race to the bottom at the end of the day.

Speaker 2

Really is I mean, bunch is provid at least demanded that you go exercise, right, say that you do something and that you have a standard a beauty.

Whether it's a good stand, it's a bad stand.

But whatever Nick finders doesn't require you to do anything.

It's like you're sitting in your mother's basement and play video games all day and you can be a goypa and you're complete legit.

You can never have sex, which you know, he's proud of the fact that he's never had sex.

And that's cool, that's a good thing, that's a positive right.

Speaker 1

Well, now he has rationalized it, of course that No, it's not.

It's it's because the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church sens So this is his latest rediscovery.

Speaker 2

Yeah, but he's giving the in cells and the men going their own way or whatever you want to call it.

That he's given him legitimacy in a sense of yeah, women are hobable, you shouldn't have anything to do with them.

And yeah, the Catholic Church also doesn't allow me.

But but it's it's there's no positive, positive action.

These kids need to do except go harass speakers and talks.

Speaker 1

Yeah yeah, and even question with the women.

Right, so, at least the meek dows, you know, and the whole red pill.

The idea was, I'll give you a way to understand women and then use them.

You could say, okay, sex is whatever, but it's there's at least the aspiration of you, you're going to achieve something.

Now it's not even that, like, don't even bother.

Actually this is this maybe is the mot of the groppers.

Don't even bother, don't even bother in anything?

Speaker 2

Yep.

Yeah, So any sense of can I have this plays out politically?

I mean in the US whef JD events, it really does look like the Way is going to make real progress in Europe, whereas I'm not sure in the US.

I think Trump is in a sense blown it for them.

You know, if not a health Trump would probably be quite popular today, the economy would be booming, and he'd be doing quite well.

But I think it's just this attitude.

Everything about him is unappealing and it's going to be difficult for the Way to capitalize, whereas in Europe there really no options, it looks like right now.

Speaker 1

Yeah, So I don't know how it worked with the markets and how you can bet money, but my political betting would be at some point in Europe, in all the major countries, some form of a new right how to call it, will be victorious.

And the reason is, of course the issue of not a station of radical Islam, because, as you said in an episode not so long ago, this is a problem that can be solved if there is a political and moral will, but the fact that everyone else is so unwilling to even deal with it.

So, for example, if you see what happens these days in the United Kingdom and how the government and is treating radical Islam with and the preachers of hate of radical Islam, it is a number.

It is just an issue of time.

Speaker 2

When so what are they doing?

Tell us a little bit about what the British coman is doing with the preachers of vertical Islam, because I don't think.

Speaker 1

So that they brought back this guy.

They brought this Egypsian activist as he was portrayed, and it's like, oh yeah, this guy.

It's such a victory that he was repatriated, someone who was making comments that would land any British person if he made these comments about Islam in prison.

So the things that you hear about the UK that people go to prison for tweets.

I mean for months, I didn't pay much attention because I thought, Okay, that can't be.

Speaker 3

But turns out it is.

Turns out it is.

Speaker 1

And noticed that this happens with legislation that the Tories, which is, let's say they're respectable, right, they were in power from two thousand and ten, so let's say they were in power for more than a decade, and they did nothing to repeal this legislation.

They did nothing to culturally fight against a for free speech but also against radical Islam.

And of course when then more reasonable people so to speak, don't deal with a problem, then you leave the field open for the a f D in Germany or for the Leapen in for the Leapen in France.

So yeah, I predict that at some point this new right in Europe will have it, will have its day.

They're not gonna do much because they don't have any real plan on what to do.

Speaker 2

I was gonna say, will they do anything with this nam?

Speaker 3

I don't know.

Speaker 1

I mean, I have you read a book by Michelle well Beck, The Weird friends called Submission.

Speaker 2

I did a show on it.

I did all show a long term excellent.

Speaker 1

So anyone who reads Submission carefully, they will understand that the big revelation in the book is not that Islam is gonna win.

The big revelation is Islam is gonna win.

And most of the conservatives in Europe are gonna be okay with it because they will view this as a power of order, as the power of conserving whatever.

Speaker 2

It is, the kind of for the kind of reasons.

The Tucker Cousen mentions that he likes Islam.

He says, you know, the entire abortion they don't like gays.

We share more with the Kataoists than we do with israelis you know, in abortions and abortions.

Speaker 1

And the moment of truth for me that when I said, okay, well, bag got it right was when when when when Tate, when Andrew Tate converted to Islam, I was like, Wow, this is it.

This is someone who tells you I find my truth of the things that I stand for in Islam.

I can't have many women and they will know their place and no walk and all that stuff.

Speaker 3

So it's it's well.

Let Beck was onto something.

Speaker 2

Ye scary, yea, yeah, I interrupted you.

You you know, would they do anything so based on well Beck, maybe not.

Speaker 3

But I mean, what are they gonna do.

Speaker 2

They can't do anything economically because they don't believe in anything economically.

They can't.

So so it's gonna be interesting what happens after them.

Where do we go after that?

That?

Speaker 1

I don't I have zero idea.

I don't know, I don't know what I mean.

There can always be positive surprises.

I mean, who who saw me lay coming five years ago?

But this is this is more like a black sworn event, not something that was the result of systematic work in preparing, preparing the ground.

Speaker 2

No.

I think it's a combination of things going really bad and his unique personality, and that's it's it's a it's a it's a fluke.

Even the even though all the other elections in South America going to the rights, they're not going to anybody like they're going.

Speaker 1

To and by process of elimination, by the way, I think he is the best state leader in peace time that I've seen in the Western world, at least in my time.

And I would put him above that and above and above a Reagan.

So no one expects that we would experience these five years ago, and yet you know it happened.

But yeah, another another trend very quickly that I think is very promising, promising in terms of being able to win it's going to be horrible is the populist left.

So imagine someone who will see where the wind goes.

They will understand that walk is dead.

They will understand that.

Yeah, you know, don't talk too much about immigration, don't talk too much about the environment.

Speaker 3

But let's attack the one percent.

Speaker 1

Let's attack Israel, let's have let's see what worked in Maga.

Let's put to it a left wing kind of uniform.

So the New York Times will be with us, Trump voter will be with us, The students who hateit will be with us.

This is a recipe.

This is a recipe for a success for them and the distraction for the country and for us.

Speaker 2

I think it's right.

And at that point there's no difference between left and right, and they can unite around a banner of hatred and uh and seize control.

Yes, I think I think that's that's where we're heading.

You still need a positive element to really to sustain authoritarianism.

Real authoritarianism.

You need a positive element, and as Lended is said in in the US, it seems like religion is the positive element.

Yeah, I'm not sure what it is in Europe.

It used to I used to think it might be environmentalism, but that seems to be has lost a lot of its appeal because of climate change and energy.

So the question is what can they unite Europe around, Europeans around and I'm not sure.

So that's positive nationalism maybe, but then but the EU project is too big, so I don't think it really.

I mean, even these light being parties are not talking about doing a Brexit.

Speaker 1

Yeah, actually yeah, they're not talking about it during a doing a Brexit.

And of course there is a history in Europe where the far right is in favor of a European integration at least, I mean at least in its like Oswald mostly when he saw that Fastest felt he was talking about the United Europe most neo fascist and the new right.

They all do new right in the neo fast let's say Europe increased.

They were talking about European integration because the idea was we are a common civilization, a common culture, and all that stuffy common blood, the common ethnic roots, race and all that stuff.

Speaker 2

Other than Milay anything positive in the world that then.

Speaker 1

Other than Milaye Ito wasive in the world.

Where not in politics?

Maybe I know you have many viewers who like sports, so we can you posit the stuff there, but not in politics.

Speaker 2

Celtics are playing pretty well, so I'll take it without the number one players.

Not bad.

Speaker 3

Well, yeah, it's not.

This is a season.

Speaker 1

It's yeah, it's it's it shouldn't be even in the books.

Speaker 2

All right, let's see, we've got a bunch of questions.

Let's go to the questions and yeah, guys keep fifty to keep asking.

Speaker 3

Yeah, let's nerd it out.

Any question.

You have far right, far left, fastest communist tallin only.

We're here for this, so let.

Speaker 2

Me ask you this are you seeing I mean, we know in France there's a populist left, it's quite substantial.

Are you seeing a populist left?

There's nothing in England, I mean the labor parties.

You know it's going to be blown.

There's not.

And you see a populist left in Germany elsewhere around Europe, well.

Speaker 1

Not particularly because they don't have this.

The The role of personality is important, right, So if they don't get they don't have that.

Speaker 3

They've lost the populist instinct the left.

Speaker 1

So because they were so complacent and comfortable in this, you know, controlling the institutions, talking down to people.

You know, how there you're not recycling?

How they are you being left?

How are you being racist?

They've lost this kind of emotional appeal to the masses.

So it will take them some time to regain this, or they will find the charismatic person who will do it.

But it's it's nowhere there in the in the horizon.

I mean in the UK, it's mostly now these days the Green Party, which is so in bed with everything bad in Islamist that I don't think it has any major appeal potential.

Speaker 2

Yeah, my guess is you're going to have to see the right place things out before the left has a rebound.

So here's a piece of good news before we go to the questions.

I don't know if you've been seeing this, but it's just happening over the last two days.

You're seeing mass demonstrations in you won.

Speaker 1

I mean, I've been seeing this, but I've seen this so many times in the past, so you know, every the thing I post on Twitter every time when I see something like this.

The day the zim of the Mulas collapses will be humanities most important day since eight of May.

Speaker 3

Ninety forty five.

Speaker 1

It will be the It will be a day for the ages, a day to celebrate.

We should remember it as the day the Berlin Wall fell, and even more important because towards the end, no one was seriously believing in communism, whereas radical Islam is a vibrant and dangerous movement.

So the day the Mula's fall, it's going to be more important than the day of the Berlin Wall fall.

Speaker 2

It's huge.

This could be different, I'm I'm just gonna say it could be different, partially because the shutting down the markets, So this is more like two thousand and nine.

I think there were some demonstrations around if you combine the shutting down the markets with the ghost revolution or the general people have just pissed off at the regime.

And so this is driven by partially by economics, which is good because the Ranian stake that seriously.

Partially if I want a willingness to be free, and at least it looks like you know this the Shaw, the son of the Shaw is actively engaged in so it seems to be an opposition where it seems to be somewhat organized.

When in the past the people went out the streets was there was no leadership.

Now this seems maybe this leadership.

Maybe he's been organizing that leadership since the war, the Twelve Day War, because if this happens, I Joe needs to get credit for it happening, and it could be that he has been organizing something internally since then.

Speaker 1

I don't know with the SAB because he has a very good pr mechanism in social media, and I'm not saying this negatively, but it's difficult to know how and most of these people are outside of Iran.

So most of the people who post about the SAH or the flag, you know, with the Lion, they're outside Iran.

So I don't think we don't know how much he has inside it.

Speaker 2

Ran.

Speaker 1

By the way, let me say that one of my strongest memory of twenty twenty five is following you early in the morning of the day of the beginning of the Twelve Day War, So yeah, your own monitoring the situation was one of my strongest twenty twenty five.

Like public affairs, memories.

Speaker 2

I appreciate that I can't remember it, but that's okay.

It all it all is a blow, it seems, I mean, I again, I don't want to be too optimistic, because yes, we've been disappointed many many times.

But it does seem like some of the chants that people are recording and putting up videos mentioned the shaw it and and again the the the whole thing started with the closing of the markets.

And that's huge because the the seventy nine revolution really became a revolution when when the when the markets were closed, when when the kind of what they call the middle class is pretty poor middle class, but when when the middle class got engaged, when the when the merchants got engaged, that's when it really accelerated.

Speaker 1

So and also when the police of the then resume decided it's not worth going for the blood seed, which is exactly what happened also in this Germany.

Speaker 2

And it does look like nobody's being shot yet, or at least we're not getting reports of people being shot in any significant way.

So anyway, maybe maybe that's not true that sounds of people running.

Speaker 1

So.

Speaker 2

We're looking for positives and maybe something's happening in Iran.

We'll keep an eye on it and see what happens.

Would be a great way to start twenty twenty six if it happened.

All right, let's see who do we have here?

Right?

Questions coming in.

Let's start with James fifty dollars, Thank you, James.

Interesting how social policies manifest themselves in cities like San Francisco, which allow tons of innovation and high salaries whilst simultaneously flooding its streets with homeless.

Are we in an age of symbolic socialism rather than actual socialism?

Speaker 1

Okay, that's a very interesting question because it has to do with who.

Like if you ask a left if are these people better off being left at the street or would they be better off Let's say I'm making this up.

Okay, you gather them and you put them.

Let's say in the park, they have foods, they have rehabilitation programs.

Nine out of ten left you say, no, no, no, that would be like the equivalent of the Nazis concentration comes and all that stuff.

And then you start wordering do they actually want to see the cities dirty?

And is this like envy?

Like if I cannot live in a great neighborhood neither can you.

But then you realize that their own neighborhoods turn out like that.

So I don't know.

I've been I've been struggling.

I've been grappling with these thoughts.

Why are the left is okay with this?

But I haven't got I haven't got a nunder So what about you?

Speaker 2

Well, I mean, I think it's it's the modern left.

It's not a socialist like the old left.

It's not a left that believes that the station only means of production.

It's just solve every individual's problems from the top.

It's much more nihilistic left that basically sees, you know, it's quite happy to leave people to shoot up drugs and to be homeless and to defecate in the streets.

You know, who are we to tell them what to do?

Kind of pseudo freedom.

It's a pretense of freedom.

And it's why they they're not going to nationalize Silicon Valley, right, because that's part of the question is why don't they Why don't they going after because they realize, again they're not ideologically socialists, they're not ideological Marxists.

They realize there's a goose that's laying a golden egg here.

Why not exploit this.

Plus it's kind of cool.

They kind of all think it's cool, right, And many of the worst leftists in San Francisco are in Silicon Valley and work at Silicon Valley and work for these companies.

They realize that there's value there.

So it's this again.

It's it's a little like the right.

There's no ideology there, it's not like the ideologues.

And then they see it's really ruining the neighbors, they vote the bastards out, they vote other people in.

We're not really going to clean it up completely, but it can give you the pretense of things a little bit better.

And then and then it'll swing back after a while.

So there's no there's no ideas here.

It's just it's just emotional responses.

But there is this perception.

I think you're right of we're not going to organize things.

We're gonna not gonna round people up, we're not going to nationalize businesses.

We're gonna regulate what will tax them.

We want a billionaires tax.

That's a big thing in California now, is a billionaires tax.

We want a billionaire tax.

Well, we don't want them to leave and and we don't, and we don't want to nationalize them.

We want to milk them for everything that they've got.

Speaker 1

Yep, it's and most of them would agree with being milked.

Speaker 2

And it is interesting how many of them are becoming rightists.

So, I mean, I think the most interesting character here is the CEO of sales Force, whose name escapes me right now.

Salesforce is a is a huge company in Silicon Valley.

It has this magnificent tower in downtown San Francisco is a cell Force building.

And the CEO of cell Force was an avid leftist, right a real committed leftist environmentalism and helped the homeless and everything, all all this stuff, Mark Binioff.

Mark Binioff is his name.

And over the last year he's suddenly become pals with Donald Trump.

He's uh, he's on the bandwagon of of kind of the new right, uh and uh and all this stuff because it all appeals to kind of even though he is a producer, right, he built this company.

He's the founder.

He's not just the CEO, he's the founder of the company.

The the whatever element of kind of nihilistic I don't know what it is, that they have.

Some days the left appeals to it.

Some day it's the right appeals to it.

You know, they'll go where it takes them.

Speaker 1

Or it's even this needs un think even either I'm going to be a sacer or I'm going to rule.

This is like I'm gonna be the central planner rather than I'm going to be the subject of central planning.

Speaker 2

Absolutely, And you combine that with people who think they're smarter than everybody else already, and they probably are right.

They are smarter than everybody else.

And they built big companies.

They've done central planning, right, They've done central planning on a large scale.

And why can't I take my success at Salesforce and my success at Google, my success anyway and just apply it to the state.

What's the difference?

They can't see the difference, you know, it's it's economic power and political power, the differentiation between those.

It's like only objectives see that.

It's amazing how few people.

It's why monopolies, you know, Oh no, this company has forced it's forcing people to buy their product.

What do you mean?

Speaker 1

So it's.

Speaker 2

They think there philosopher kings and they think they can go out and rule h James.

Thank you, uh Wes, also fifty year olds, thank you Wes.

Whenom question Nichous, do you read fiction any favorite snors or authors?

Speaker 1

Yeah, So I go through phases, so at some point I read everything from well back.

I read a lot of Fagatha Christie.

We have this game with my girlfriend.

We try to figure out who the murderer is as early as possible.

In the last novel, I think I found the murderer at six percent.

He has finished it.

Speaker 3

I haven't, so I don't know if I'm if I'm if I'm.

Speaker 1

Right, but mostly because when I get when I prepare a new project, I want to get completely immersed in it.

So currently I'm working on a new course for the ARII Life courses on the history of the far right, so I try to read historic fiction on Nazism on a fascist Italy.

I'm reading a book called The Song of the Century with about Mussolini, which is also a TV series I haven't was a TV series.

Speaker 3

So these days, for.

Speaker 1

The last actually many months, I mostly read historic fiction that has to do with anything that has to do with fascism and the Nazism.

And now currently I'm reading a book which on an alternative history, where Oswald mostly when the UK is in pis terms with Hitler and Osvard mostly is becoming the most popular person in the country.

And by the way, talk about people being economically literate, the author things that when fascist takes over, they're going to be all about free trade and more power to corporation.

So even in alternative reality, we cannot get rid of the economic ignorance of the left.

Speaker 2

Is any of the books historical fiction that you're eating, would you recommend?

Speaker 1

I would recommend.

I would recommend The Song of the Century, the Song of the Censury.

It's not historical fiction, it's something between fiction and actual history, and I would definitely recommend it.

It's too much detailed, though, so it goes month by month and how fast it came to power.

But you will get one main lesson from that, which applies to leftist today.

Be careful when you think violence is cool, because you're always going there's always gonna be somewhere out there more violent than you.

So this is what the leftist did in Italy.

They were oh, yeah, we're gonna occupy factories, We're gonna thug people around, not realizing that the other side has veterans of the special forces of the Italian Army in the First World War.

So maybe it's not a good idea to, you know, fight it out with them on a massive level.

Speaker 2

So say something about your course for AOI life and how people can find out more information about it.

Speaker 3

Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1

So the course name is Reactionary Authority Tyrannists from Musolini to the New Right.

So we cover everything from Fascist in Italy, Nazism in Germany, World War Two, the intellectuals and fascism, neo fascism, and then we have also some works about the United States, the history of the authorittiant right in the United States, and obviously today the MAGA write and the New Right.

People can go to ARI Live courses and you will find it their reaction or authority Titanist from Usolini to the New Right.

You can't miss it because the thumbnail is Mussolinium Hitler, so I'm sure you're going to be able to recognize it.

Speaker 3

So if you you want to give your discount code, yes, if you.

Speaker 2

Got a dot org slash thought here, there'll be a link there for all the courses and you can you can find them.

And then if you want a discount.

As a U one Box show listener, you can get a ten percent discount.

It's twenty six YBS ten twenty six YBS ten in Van Rogue Slash start here.

So I'm reading this book.

I wonder if you've read it.

You probably have.

I'm reading it because somebody is paying me to do a review of it.

It's right the Tiger by Ivola.

Speaker 3

I've got it over there.

Speaker 1

So my view of Evola is this guy is clearly a hippie.

Like the fact that this guy's in the Father, This guy could very easily.

Speaker 3

Be in woodstock smoking weed.

Speaker 1

It's it's I don't know how life got him to be like the most He's been characterized the most right wing thinker in history.

But the guys, the guy's actually a hippie.

It's like premise of consciousness instead of it's yep.

Speaker 2

So if you read that book, of course, yes, y yes, yes, I mean he's an Eastern mystic, just like a hippies were right, it's all about George Harrison smoking dope, you know, smoking, taking drugs and and uh and trains trains something uh, you know, experiences.

He and Sam Harris would get along.

Speaker 5

Uh now, but here's something else about here's something interesting about Evola.

Speaker 1

He considers after the world the biggest danger not communism but America.

Why because he understand that America stands for the United States, stand for you know, you living your life for yourself using your mind, and this, for ever, like, this is the thing he cannot stand.

He's okay, he would rather you lived in goolags rather than you becoming a handk redd and living your life for yourself and your own happiness and building nice things.

For this app So anyone who likes this people like, just keep this in mind.

If you consider yourself still a capitalist, keep in mind that these people would rather have communism than anything related to capitalism.

Speaker 2

And another thing I noticed a bit about half the book, and you're talking about the nature man and critique of Nietzsche and all this stuff.

One word never appears in the book.

There's no mention of it.

And that's reason.

It's just human reason doesn't exist.

Irrationality.

Reason is just that's he doesn't recognize the phenomena.

Speaker 1

And if people are generous with their money and your generous with your time, you should also read his most famous book, Revolved Against the Modern World, where he actually specifically claims that you know reality is you know reality in the mind.

These are bad things, very very bad things.

These are this is where all the problems began.

Speaker 2

Yep, no, I'm not going to read any more of it.

Speaker 1

And the other thing is not even he's not like nitz is a brilliant writer.

Everyone lies he has.

I don't understand how he has had an appeal following.

Speaker 2

I'm much more interested in history than in delving into these nasty ideas, so I'd rather go back to reading my history books.

Speaker 1

At least he I mean, at least he wasn't.

I was about to say at least he wasn't as bad as the Nazis, but probably his problem was the Nazis were not ideally enough.

So anyway, yep, all.

Speaker 2

Right, I mean I am Akut says, your people off Jesus and you and yours, Oh, your people me off Jesus and yours off Socrates.

Why should I listen to either one of you?

Thank you, Amy Cat, we needed that.

He also says.

He says, it was great listening to you in Tel Avivni because I can see the I can see the back of my head in the according ps Guza must go, must be destroyed.

He he always has a ps and all this.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I don't think that's the way to win hearts and minds.

But anyway, thanks for the note, and thanks for thanks for being in Tel Aviv.

As I was telling to your own, I think before we went live that event in Israel and the trip to Israel, we went to the ground zero of October seven was the most meaningful professional experience of my life.

So say, why, well, why it's so.

You know how all these intellectuals in the thirties, you know, they would go to the Spanish Civil War, and for them this was the most important civilization battle of the time.

It was like fascism against democracy.

Now it they didn't have a proper conceptualization of it, but I could understand that they felt that they were part of something historical.

And this is how I felt traveling to Israel in the aftermath of that war, that I experienced the ground zero of a civilizational war, of an existential war.

You have the West, you have like the forward outposts of the West versus the combined forces of radical Islam.

So I felt that was part of an important moment in the history of the West and I.

Speaker 2

Understand you got a tour of the of the grounds with the slaughter happened on October seventh.

Speaker 3

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1

We went to the ground zero of Nova Festival to where we have the collected the car records.

It was it was an experience.

It was an experience, as you can imagine, and one very interesting moment.

And so you know, it's very often in objectivist we talk about the important of concretizing and abstruction.

So we were in this he'll overlooking Gaza and actually an objectivist from the groove, he sought me an electric wire, an electric let's say, installation that went from Israel towards Gaza and said, this is how we give them electricity.

Speaker 3

This is how we were giving them electricity throughout the war.

Speaker 1

Wow.

Right, talk about It's one thing to talk about, you know, altruism and the moral of self sacrifice, and it's another thing seeing it literally literally over there.

Speaker 2

Ah, it is so infuriating.

Yep.

Yeah.

And he says, I think the new way collectivist fascist media personality is self defeating.

They're so irrational that Americans will rejected dumb theories.

They don't really spread ideas, they spend species species theories, thoughts.

Speaker 1

Well, did fascism actually spread ideas?

Fascist was more of a vibe than it was an ideology.

It was more of an aesthetic experience.

It was based on this idea of a theorist called Sorel of the myth.

The myth is like a meme.

You don't you kind of get what it is about, you know, glory, all that stuff, but it can't be explained.

So it won't be the first time that an ideology that is not that cannot be rationally explained, so to speak, gainst gainst structure.

Now it's not as appealing as fascism because fascists had positive promise about the future.

These people here again, they don't even bother to give you this positive vision.

So I hope our friend is onto something, and you know, maybe people will see through the through the bs.

Speaker 2

I mean, think about how they're softening the culture though, right, So you know, I remember in twenty sixteen I did a show on the ultright, and then I got all this anti Semitic stuff in my inbox and it lasted for a few days and then it disappeared and it was swastikas and it was it was pretty you know, gross, but it was it was quick and went away, and you know, it was weird, it was completely And now I get the anti semitic stuff every day on a regular basis, much more sophisticated.

I mean, still gross, but much more sophisticated.

I don't get swastikas anymore.

They don't, they don't, they're not like that.

But it's it's just just subtle anti semitism.

And some of it does you know, they do say to the gas chambers go basically, but it's now everywhere online, it's like and we've seen it's be normalized.

So yeah, I mean, the bulk of them people are not anti Semitic.

The bulk of the American people are not quite there yet.

But who would have thought ten years ago the millions would be because millions are right, and then what's the next thing to be do we get desensitized to?

Right?

What's the next big thing we get desensitized to?

And you know is Jdvans might lose a few ones next time, but then the left will you know, there'll be a democratic president, he'll screw things up, and then somebody like JD.

Vance will come maybe more charisma than JD and say, look, you know you gave the left a chance, but we've got to complete the Trump Revolution or whatever it is that they think they are doing and rally the forces.

So his I don't think it works quite that way.

You know, it's usually disgusting.

I mean, Hitler was this little obnoxious, horrible and you know, how did Hitler become charismatic?

Right?

I mean he was like a little Nick Fentes.

What was he what was he yelling?

Was yelling intellectuals, you know, deep ideas.

Now he was yelling exactly what Nick Fointeress is yelling.

So any any actually.

Speaker 1

Nick Foendus is more has something that Hitler didn't have.

Nick Foenders can be funny.

Hitler never was that hit was a better ordertor than Nick friends.

But but to understand audience, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's no way someone could have predicted, oh yeah, this guy's obviously you know he's gonna win, and and yet it happened.

Speaker 2

So I mean that's the what we can't do.

I think what we can't do is say, oh, no, these people are not serious, they're never gonna win.

Let's ignore them.

No, I mean, this is the enemy and and uh, they have to be dealt with, They have to be confronted.

I don't know if we can, if we have an impact, but we certainly need to try.

We certainly need to.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and most importantly, they don't have a positive vision.

This is our strongest weapon.

This is the tool that we have that people.

I think at the end of the day, most people would want to see something.

Most people are not.

Their vision of life is not the vision of the Groypers.

Like they have moments where they strive, they thrive or something better, and they're very thirsty for this and no one offers it these days.

Speaker 2

Steph says, I mean taught me how to properly value my life, achievement, relationship, love, and art.

I moved from nihilistic metal music to romantic classical What was your moment of awakening to Iron Man's aesthetic and sense of life?

Me or you?

I think you, you're you're the guest.

Speaker 1

Well, so the sense of life and they're romantic and all that stuff.

So this was there already from communism.

So I used to love Sostakovich.

I still love Sostakovich.

I used to love like you know, the cinemau of Asenstein.

I still like the cinemau of Eisenstein.

I mean out of context.

Obviously I don't like it because I want the boss party to drive.

But I mean, I let me give this challenge to people.

Go and watch in Eisenstein's October the scene where Lendin arrives in the Petrograd station, and I mean, it's impossible not to realize that.

Speaker 3

This is something.

Speaker 1

This is this is like an artistic vision of something brilliant and and you can you can enjoy this quote unquote, quote unquote out of out of context.

And actually I was surprised, so when I when I found out which music I Ran had in her mind when she wrote Harles Concerto, I was expecting something much closer to Sosta Covid or something much closer to maybe Tsaikovski the eighteen twelve overtour, rather than the thing by mussur by what the name of that guy?

Who who's he based?

Speaker 3

So it's very personal, how you sorry?

Speaker 1

No, no, no, it's not rachmanin the concert the Rakhmaninov was one of her favorite ones, but they say that it's it's the other one by Musky, which I'm.

Speaker 2

Not exhibition what pictures and an exhibition by Musoski.

Speaker 1

I think I'm not sure, but I was very surprised.

It was very much like low key, low energy compared to what I had and what I was expected.

Speaker 2

I've always thought it was Wohmaninov.

Speaker 1

And Rachmaninoff is mentioned in The Founder everywhere it says it's the first note.

Speaker 2

And Tchaikowsky is mentioned some way.

Speaker 3

Chaikovsky's mentioned again in the in the Foundry.

Speaker 1

But anyway, what I mean is, you know how you envision, like this esthetic vision is very personal and it has to you do with what are your experiences with with art.

So for example, the most the strongest artistic reaction I ever had to something and your own will will think I'm a complete feelis team was when I recently rewatched Interstellar in IMAX.

So because like this is what got me into I don't know, radical politics or whatever.

It was this vision of you know, of humanity triumphing and conquering and overcoming and all that stuff.

So this is so this is something that it had more effect on me than anything else that I have this vision that you know, we can we can overcome everything and literally sky is the limit.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean that is a that is a an amazingly positive aspect of Interstellar.

Was I going to say, oh, yeah, I was going to say that I I guess I should give just to cover another shot.

I've never Likedchostakovich.

Speaker 1

Listen to Learning Grand Symphony, but listen to it from the version of the Soviet version from the fifties, Like I don't want to suction, you know.

I know Iron Rand even had was thinking of whether she should buy discs from Soviet Union.

But I think they they their understanding of the piece is better than how it's reproduced lately, which is way less glorious.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean, I would say that my awakening to Rand's aesthetics and sense of life happened in two stages.

First, I was reading her novels.

I was young, so I was much younger than eCos.

I didn't have an aesthetic.

I didn't have much of an aesthetic understanding before that, right, I was pop music and I read a lot, So I read a lot of popular and I liked a lot of bizarre European movies, and so I didn't have much of an aesthetic background painting.

My parents had all modern arts in the house, so it was that, and then Phase two was the first time I met other objectivists in Israel.

Literally the first meeting we had, we were sitting around and talking.

First time, I thought it was the only objectives on the planet basically, and they asked me if I knew anything about classical music, and I said no, and he put on, I think it's a second movement of Tchaikowsky's second Piano Concerto, or maybe it's yeah, I think it's a second and I you know, it just blew me away, you know, and they sat quietly listening to the music right the whole There was like maybe five six seven people there and everybody just sat quietly listening to the music, taking it seriously like this is this is this is something you should do, you shouldn't just this is not background, this is an experience, and app blew me away.

And then it became a huge, you know, a huge fan of classical music, and then learned about other art forms and so that was that was the That was when it really took off for me Qua Aesthetics and the objectivist group in Israel at the time.

We spent more time probably on aesthetics than any anything else.

We watched movies together, we saw slide shows of art.

We you know, we listened to music together.

We did all this stuff together.

We'd go to Cinematech regularly to watch movies.

So it's very organized around aesthetics.

Speaker 1

So it seems one last thing, seems our friend looks like he expects a particular moment.

So twenty fifteen, I was working a crappy job as a teaching assistant.

I was traveling a lot because I was doing outreas in my university.

And I remember traveling in a bus in some horrible industrial towns in Kent, listening to the early version of your own Brooks.

Speaker 3

So you had something on Sinatra.

It was an episode.

Speaker 1

So part of the episode was how crappy California regulations were and.

Speaker 3

The other half was Sinatra.

Speaker 1

And I remember being in this kind of decadent post industrial environment and listening about you know, Sinatra, and I still remember the feeling that like, okay, so art is also about what life could be, and you can be in a crappy place but travel live it without listening to the music.

Speaker 3

But I was listening to you talking about Sinatra.

Speaker 1

So this is a moment I remember.

Speaker 3

It was one of these.

I remember where I.

Speaker 2

Was moments twenty fifteen.

Wow.

Yeah, again, I have a vague collection, and maybe I did something like that, but I'm glad it happen.

Absolutely, I'm glad I had an impact, all right, Andrew?

Can I get your on a Nikosa's take on this.

In trying to override altruism with egoism, one must change the essential action concept when denotes with morality by marginalizing the term helping and idealizing creating.

You go first, Yeah, I mean, I really do think that's true.

I mean, there's a sense in which it's like what Aristotle talks about is how do you achieve a golden mean?

You achieve it by going a little beyond right, and then you kind of orient around the mean, but you have to so to experience it.

And I definitely think that altruism conditions you around helping and around feeling guilty if you don't help, and it really has you.

That's the whole orientation in dealing with other people is their well being, not yours, and this certainly needs to be a correction to that.

And while helping is not a bad thing, it might be that for a while you have to not help even when you would help otherwise, because you have to get rid of that urge, that altruistic urge to place the war being of somebody else above your own.

And I think you know creating is part of it.

There's probably more that you could say about than creating, but the whole focus on self and doing your own thing and making an effort to figure out what your own thing is and what actually brings you pleasure and satisfaction and happiness and all of that.

Really devoting time to that is something you know you need to do early on, I think again to get to get to we oient your focus to yourself versus the other.

So, yes, I think there's a lot to that.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I'm obviously you have a better answer.

Speaker 1

I would just say say this is that when it comes to issues that have do with psychology, your own psychology, you cannot just say from one day to the next, oh now I realize that altruithm is, but so from today my life changes.

How Actually it would take many, many years.

So let me give an example.

Okay, let's say you live your whole life being really living in a culture of altruism and also having the character trait of being let's say, people's pleaser.

I don't know what's the physical term, but you get what I mean.

And one day you come across iron rand okay, and slowly you realize, okay, altruism is a poison and rational selfishness way to go.

You fool yourself if you think that you're going to change in your personal life just because you made the philosophical realization that the rational selfisiness is good.

Obviously, now you have let's say, a lighthouse to look forward.

Speaker 3

You have, you have a point of reference.

Speaker 1

But still it's so difficult to get rid of personal and psychological bagage.

So these identifications are good, but they're just the beginning of a journey.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I agree, Liam.

If both parties explicit socialists, what political force is left to defend individual rights?

Is it in the courts?

Speaker 1

Well, in the court someone you know, someone puts these courts, these courts at place.

So at the end of the day, if you've lost completely the battle of ideas, nothing can save you, nothing can protect it.

Speaker 3

Starts and events from the battle of ideas.

Speaker 1

If both parties are a socialists, we need to run a guerrilla warfare in a different field.

In the field of ideas on social media and institutions, putting pressures on institutions like what are you know what some common friends did with living heritage.

This is the type of stuff that you can do.

But there is no magical formula where the whole culture is completely alien to the idea of freedom and you know, somehow you can you can save yourself, I mean your culture from what is coming.

There is no such hack.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and Asna says, the courts are just products of ideas.

So they can slow things down in the US because they have lifetime appointments and they can stay there for a long time.

But they can't prevent it.

They can just slow it down.

Mhm right.

Rufel says, well, I see both of you in Poto next year.

It's time for Nikos to meet the real hardcore European objectivists.

Speaker 1

Of Yes you will.

We will be in Porto in I think the second week of April or something like that.

Speaker 2

It was thirteenth something like that, seventeenth eighteenth.

Speaker 1

Yeah, seventeenth thirteen, something like that.

This is where our yearly, our annual European conference will be.

So looking forward to Porto, a town very meaningful for all Greeks because this is where we won the semi final of euro two thousand and four against Czech Republics.

Or Porto is in our hearts.

Speaker 2

Wow, Okay, I didn't know it had that historical significance.

I thought maybe ancient Greece had established some kind of outpost there.

No, No, because they didn't.

Speaker 1

I'm sure they did at some point.

They definitely went to Marseille to the friend.

Speaker 2

No, they also went up the Atlantic coast of Spain.

They were they were the side, so I do know that, but I don't know if they went as north as Poto, but they definitely were in the region.

Yeah, you guys should come.

Nicos will be there, I will be there.

I think is going to join us and Ben, and I think Ben is not coming, but Tala is going to be there, and and uh yeah it's gonna be and and the Portuguese are.

Speaker 1

Really cool and and Aaron Smith.

Aaron Smith is also part of the very very cool guy.

That's why I'm mentioning.

Speaker 2

I don't think Alan's gonna be there, and I don't think Ben's gonna be there.

But maybe I'm wrong.

You'll left to check.

I think I think it's only the four of us.

But we'll see.

But anyway, it's gonna be cool no matter what.

So we we did.

Speaker 1

We we managed to have a very cool confidence in Australia.

It was just three of us, Me, you, you're not Don plus Hailey, so we can we're can run a good confidence even absolutely.

Speaker 2

I keep telling him just just leave, leave, leave the world to Nicos and me.

You can have the US.

Well we'll take the world and and everything will be good.

But yeah, you guys should come again.

If you go to inand dot oak Star's start here, you can find a link that information about the conference.

I think that discount code might even apply for that.

For those of you who who do not qualify for a scholarship, I'm not I'm not sure if they're still taking scholarships.

I think they are, so you should you should.

Speaker 1

Oh yeh, yeah, they definitely are still taking scholarship.

Don't quote me on this, but I think they are.

So.

Speaker 2

If you're under thirty four, I think it is i e.

Young, or if you.

Speaker 1

Are young at heart, Like if you're thirty four and eleven months and you have a good reason, you give something else.

Speaker 2

So apply for scholarship.

We'd love to see you.

It's going to be port Us, a beautiful city, and again the Portuguese are amazing, and it's a nice hotel.

It's it's gonna be it's gonna be a really it's gonna be a good confidence, good confidence.

So look forward to seeing Rafael again.

There Shaw's bott fifty dollars thanks.

If a corpulation did establish a Moon colony, what are the chances that it would be more capitalist than any Earth country, especially after it became self supporting.

Speaker 3

It depends on who.

I mean.

Speaker 1

It's look okay, you would hope that, okay, I'm gonna do some Marxism here, right, Like the economic determinies, you would expect that if someone has a brilliant mind to establish this colony, he also has brilliant ideas about economics.

But let me remind you that Einstein wrote an article called white Socialism.

So Einstein one of the highest I people to ever live.

He was a socialist.

So the fact that you have a brilliant mind in science and even in technology doesn't guarantee that you're going to have the good ideas.

Speaker 2

We are not Marxists, yeah, absolutely absolutely, But if you want to be inspired by what is possible.

In Mars is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Hendline, which is a fun book.

It actually has a randy and character so called objectivist in it, and Headline generally has kind of a positive view of what happens in the once once we reached the stars, and you keep having to move from star a star, because once civilization reaches everywhere, it becomes a collectivist.

But you can keep moving.

That's the beauty of science fiction.

You can keep going further away.

It's not like the Earth, which is you know where you're gonna go.

We're stuck, right, Neo.

Did you read Headline?

Speaker 1

I started reading it to do my objectivist duty.

I can't get into science fiction.

It's I cannot, I cannot.

I cannot put myself into that world.

So I got confused, to be honest, like who is who?

Where do they come from?

Which?

Which?

Speaker 2

Which novel did you try?

Which wanted you?

Shoy?

Speaker 1

The Moon is a Heart's Mystery.

Speaker 2

I reread it years afterwards.

I read it my twenties and then I reread it and it wasn't it doesn't really have a plot.

It's not it's not very good.

The one my favorite is time Enough of Love Time Enough of Love is my favorite with it.

Speaker 1

I've read a libertarian science fiction where there are some libertarian garillas, which has a weird name, but I can't remember it.

Speaker 2

Yeah, Neo has the October seventh War strengthen religion in Israel.

Many Israeli YouTubers I watch once atheists say they become more religious a way to unite the population.

Speaker 1

That's for you.

Speaker 2

I mean, I don't know.

The truth is I don't know.

I wouldn't be surprised if it affected people both ways.

Is that it made some people more religious and made other people less religious.

I don't understand how you can have an October seventh and then become more religious, like now I really believe in God because he's such a good guy.

I mean, shouldn't you really be pissed off at God after in October seventh?

But the same thing happened during the Holocaust.

So a lot of after the Holocaust survivors, many of them became less religious, became atheists, but many also became religious more religious.

So it affects It depends on your psychology.

It affects people in different ways.

There is an element of we need something to unite US as a country.

I mean, people think as well as all these Jews, and therefore it's ethnocentric or collective, you know.

But all these Jews are just a bunch of individuals, you know, and the they don't have the vocabulary to say that they're fighting for freedom.

Sadly, they don't have the philosophy.

So they might look to religion to unite them.

But I haven't seen any data, and we'd have to ask bo was.

I haven't seen any data to suggest that it's overwhelmingly in one direction or another.

I mean, my family is all secular.

I don't think any of them will become more religious post October seventh, and maker says Coca Cawson Catlson.

I think is the two heat of the right.

Well to he was, he gives them too much credit.

Speaker 1

Yeah, do he had the plan?

He was a very talented, you know, evil mastermind.

I don't think target is.

If he was like that, he wouldn't be bringing you the random guy who said that I had a drag infuse their homeless, say homosexual sex with Obama, Like he would do something better than that.

Speaker 2

All right, Not you have a algorithm, says yeah, you shouldn't ask these kind of questions, because can you speak to the AOI high command to make sure your run is on the stage with Stephen Pinker?

Ocon I don't think so.

Speaker 1

You you are you are talking to the to the chairman of the board of AARI, and I'm gonna talk to aar I to put the sage right by the way.

Are you not on stage with Pinker?

Speaker 2

I have no idea.

Nobody's spoken to me.

I'm not the high command, so the people who make decisions don't don't don't ask me about it.

Speaker 1

So I appreciate the contribution to the soul.

So if I get the chance, I'll ask.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I have no idea.

Who is it's a It's gonna be an interesting panel or whatever it is with Stephen Piker, and I hope akas on there that that I can say.

Speaker 1

Oh, yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, you and on car would be the obvious choice.

Speaker 2

I think that would that would be fun.

Speaker 1

That was also the plan for the Peterson panel in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 2

And somebody overworld somebody.

Speaker 1

Oh no, I think I think, I mean I was on wasn't not Yeah, but he wasn't known because he had something else to do or.

Speaker 2

Something, And it was greg I think, ye, I like numbers.

When do you think racists are more were more intellectual?

Speaker 1

Races were more intellectual when they viewed racism as science first of all, so they they viewed themselves as following following the progress of science.

And again, I mean, you know, go read and don't go read.

But if you want go read the American Renaissance then let's say the official portal of the of White national Listen.

Compare them with with the Nick Friends runs, and you see that the one has at least the ambition of presenting an intellectual and intellectual view.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and and and the the think about think about the South during slavery, they were super I mean they wrote books and essays and and philosophical justification was very influenced by Hegel and uh and and you know this was not a I mean, it's all a rationalization, right, but they they offered an attempt at an intellectual defense of their racism.

What kind of intellectual defense do you get from these guys today?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean even if you watch, if you go and read what's Pat Buchanan's famous culture war speech, I mean, you compare it with anyone from a sea pac or amfest or I mean, there's no comparison.

Speaker 2

Rock, does China have an advantage of America by not worrying about wasting time or resources on the demands of morons, woke religion, fantasy, socialism, the whole thing, You know, do they have anything?

Speaker 1

They do have an advantage on that, but they have a disadvantage at the end of the day.

They're a state around economy, so it's not an advantage, it's just cutting some of the disadvantage.

Or put differently, the West is imposing disadvantages on itself that it should be ages ahead of China, and it's not because of all these things that you mentioned.

Speaker 2

Rock continues on the China theme.

Could you argue that the US is nearly as corrupt as China?

Well, China is more realistic.

US politicians are true believers or want to be central planners restrained only by the Constitution.

Speaker 1

Yeah, First of all, with A, you can't say that.

B you can't say almost anything in China because I doubt whether there's a handful of people in the world who can and definitely not one of them who can understand what is happening in China.

So you know, you think China has this thing that looks like a free economy.

Actually, most of the enterprises in China are controlled by the Chinese Communist part or people close to the Chinese Communist Party.

So for what it's worth, I think we are over hyping China.

And I know this because we did the same thing with Soviet Union.

So I wouldn't be surprised if China is a giant, like a paper tiger in economic terms, more than with the than we'd expect.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean the differences.

China has skyscrapers and SOVIETID but and it has it has tech.

But yes, I think we over hype China.

You know, there's no question, Land says.

I like this new tradition of having Nikos on before the new year.

Thank you Allan, we make it happen.

Andrew, what experienced set of experiences made me Coos seriously question his former political collectivism.

Speaker 1

Mostly reality to be honest with you, my friend, and so, first of all, taking seriously Marxist labor theory of value and not being able to see it in real life.

But the big thing was the financial crisis in Greece.

I tried to apply the Marxist schemes to explain the crisis in Greece, and it was absolutely impossible.

So you had a system that made sense as a as a closed system, as long as you don't try to apply it to the reality, to the real world.

So it was a rationalization, as we would say today, something that is not connected to reality.

So this is where I started questioning Marxist when it couldn't explain life, and also when I realized that my former comrades were not really interested on progress.

Speaker 3

So I was very big on progress.

Speaker 1

You know what today you'd call transhuman is quote unquote, and I realize these people, they find it too much, even if you didn't recycle.

Speaker 3

So I thought, I'm on the wrong train here.

Speaker 2

Let's see Christian A great discussion of two great thinkers.

Off topic, but who win the Champions League next year?

I would put my money on the.

Speaker 1

Gunners, Okay, the Arsenal So the Gunners is Arsenal, So Arsenal is I think they have more chance of winning the Champions League than the Premier League because they're this thing, this team that they're excellent in not conceding goals and winning one goal.

And usually these type of teams can do better in competitions with a lot of knockouts.

Now, every second that this discussion goes on, American viewers are dropping off because they don't probably understand even about what sport that we're talking about.

So, yes, I think it's more possible that Arsenal wins the Champions League than the Premier League.

Speaker 2

But who do you think will win the Champions League?

Speaker 1

It's you can never tell who's gonna win the Champions League because, as opposed to the NBA, which has series, Champions League is either knockout at games of two or the final is a single game.

So a lot has to do with lack.

So last year the best team won the Champions League, which was parisons their men.

Quite often the best team does not win the Champions League because so much has to do with timing, luck, injuries.

Otherwise, Manster City of pep Guardiola would win the Champions League basically every year, but it only happened once.

Speaker 2

Cook says Detroit Basketball with lots of exclamation points.

Speaker 1

Yeah, very good for the regular season.

I don't think it's going to go far in the playoffs.

Having said that, the East this year is very open, so actually not.

Now that the thing about it?

Yeah, who's gonna stop them in the East?

Speaker 2

Yeah?

Maybe, but.

Speaker 1

Don't overhype teams in the regular season.

Speaker 2

So who wins the NBA Championship?

Speaker 1

Someone from the West?

I never, I will never bet against your kids.

So yeah, Balkan Balkan power.

Speaker 2

It's Denver Okay, Molten splendor.

Who currently in power in the US?

Would you consider a fascist who is currently working to create a fascist state in the US?

Speaker 1

Well, no one is working to create the fastest state.

But there's no question that there are many people in the American right who have a vision that the state should have more power.

Speaker 3

No, is it going to be fastiest?

Speaker 2

No?

Speaker 3

Are they dangerous?

Yes?

Speaker 1

So yeah, I would say Jay devansis is he he would be happy with more power, Let's put it this way.

And he has the he has the intellectual and two rads to dress it intellect where as Trump is more of an instinctive authoritarian but not someone who can dress it intellectually.

Speaker 2

Kim should one even try to debate commism socialists in the wild?

If he has what a good strategies of things to address?

Speaker 3

So would it be worth doing?

Speaker 2

It?

Speaker 3

Depends who is the audience.

Speaker 1

So it's gonna be hard on you, it's gonna be unpleasant for you, if you think it's worth it.

And there's some people in the audience who are.

Speaker 2

But I know she is in the wild.

I think she's implying that in the wild means not in front of an audience.

I mean, you know, just as a normal human being, would you go.

Speaker 1

Oh no, no, no, unless if you want to learn something, unless if you want to learn something.

So there used to being the past that I knew someone who was a white nationalist and we were in the same circles in a let's say, how to put the sports training environment, and you know, someone would say, oh, you know, you shouldn't sanction.

But he was literally the first person I knew from that movement.

So I thought I was very curious to like, Okay, what do these people actually believe?

And it was very interesting you realize that some of the things that you think, oh, you know, they would never believe them, they actually believed them.

But the point was not to debate them to prove them wrong.

The point was to see, out of intellectual interest, what do they truly believe?

Now this is very specific.

This is something to that has to do with my job.

So I think for the average person, no, it's not worth it.

Speaker 2

Yep, thank you, Kim Christian.

Constantly the populist left in Germany, Niicos must pay attention to sow Wagon.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you know they left in Germany.

The publish left did better in the last elections, but.

Speaker 2

Have to I think she was disappointing, right, I mean, I think they expected her to do much better than she really did.

Speaker 1

Well, she did better than you know, what they would expect from the Linker back in the day.

But again the German the left German that the left in Germany is too specific.

You also have the Green Party which has become way more institutionalized.

So it's I'll say the same thing I said about the Detroit Pistons.

Let's wait and see.

It's it's too premature.

Speaker 2

Well it says I think the left likes to see homeless in American cities because they see they can point their fingers and say see capitalism bad.

Speaker 3

Oh yeah I can.

Speaker 1

I can definitely verify this.

This was my psychology as a leftist.

It was, and it was very nihilistic and envious.

I'm not proud of.

Speaker 2

It, but it was true, Khudababa is there quin code poem on the wall behind Nikos.

No, she was ever sailed.

It's called the pitchure of a sailing ship.

Speaker 1

Yes.

So the history of this is I read this poem at the darkest dark of the first lockdown, when the Cords were also doing their civil disobedience against the lockdowns.

So I communicated to them my admiration.

We were also back then in the same we would meet through the andre and Center UK programs.

So Linda Cord very kindly tried to post this in Greece because we are basically a third world country.

They returned it to here, so she gave it to me in person, last token, and I'm very thankful to both the Cords.

Speaker 2

Nice.

Speaker 1

It's a very beautiful poem and it's very nice to have in my house.

Speaker 2

Good matches.

Why to put an Orthodox Christians like Dostoyevsky.

Speaker 1

That's a question for for you.

I think you've explained it us.

It it cut SuDS the darkness and the malevel and premise of Rosa Litterally, I wouldn't know, I wouldn't know much, and I wouldn't even trust that these people can enjoy anything like I think someone like dug him, do you think he enjoyed he truly enjoys anything.

So I think we give them too much credited.

We think they enjoy Dostojevky.

Probably they like to name drop him.

And by the way, Dostoyevsky was very popular among many early fascists.

Speaker 3

I don't know, but I don't know why.

So, I mean that's a good answer.

Speaker 2

It's a rejection.

I mean he basically says that without authority, and in a sense of religion, religious authority, ye have an oky right and and okay, as a negative, not a s positive, you know, you have nihilism.

So the only alternative to Christianity is nihilism and and just fill in authoritarian commandment based system instead of Christianity.

So anybody who's got an authoritarian bent, I think, is going to intellectually that's not let's say, like the literature, but intellectually appreciate Dostoevsky.

Speaker 3

Maybe it's not.

Speaker 1

Well Matt's quoted line, if God doesn't exist, everything is permitted.

So it's what you said, without God, without authority, there's anarchy.

Speaker 2

And he concreatizes it.

Well, right, I mean, he gives us a psychology of somebody who stops believing in God and as a nihilist, so he really concreatizes it makes it real, right, Silvana says, strangely and a strange land is my choice for hand line?

How you on?

And nicause I didn't?

I mean, I liked the book.

I enjoyed it when I read it a long, long long time ago.

But I have to say I enjoyed some of his other books more.

It's a weird book, strange and strange line, and I'm sure for with it today I think it was even with it power crash bang.

How would an objective society handle wealthy Wolfe?

Wolfe doesn't fighting as a SOULDI require some kind of altruism.

Speaker 1

Well, okay, this is the I mean, the obvious example I give there is let's say you are the Coods and you're fighting isis.

So the prospect is either I live as a slave to some medieval sadists, or I die, or someone stands up to them with a very real, cast very real sorry possibility that you die.

In that case, it's not really a sacrifice.

It's just that the prospect of dying is better than living under these beasts.

Now, the army in particularly the special corps of the army have something which is also appealing, that you can try to be your best self, that you have the pride of defending the values that are important to you.

I can totally imagine people joining, and people are joining and have joined forever professional army or the special forces in the army with a put it this way, selfish, selfish motivation, which is, let me see my limits, let me see how my life will be.

And actually I didn't go to the army.

I was drafted to the army and I joined despite my will, you know.

Actually, so I wouldn't say that I would want people to experience what experience.

But in retrospect, the army and joining a special corporate very good.

Good for me because it was the first time in my life that I felt pride that I actually did did something.

So obviously this is not to say it's in favor of the draft, but in retrospect I could see good reasons why someone would want to go through this voluntarily for very quote unquote selfish reasons.

Speaker 2

Yes, I agree with what Nico said.

I mean the point is that people who go fight in the military.

I mean it could be as extreme as an example of the coulds and isis.

But it could be that you want your children and your family, the people close to you, the people important to you, and you yourself to be free from you know, the risk of being murdered by terrorists or you know October seventh happening to you right if you're in Israel.

I mean, Israeli's volunteered like crazy to go fight after October seventh.

Why because they understood the existential nature of it.

So I think many Israelis who are very skeptical about the army and then really want to go and October seventh to really change them because they suddenly it conquitized to them in a really horrific way what they were fighting for.

They were fighting for their lives.

Now, one of the things you get when you have a free country is and you have an objective of society, is that when there's a war that is indeed sacrificial, you're going to get people resisting going to fight for it.

So imagine imagine World War One in America, without a draft and with a more rational society, people would go, why am I going to Europe to dine in the trenches for who?

For the British or the Germans who cares.

They're no good guys and no bad guys here, what's the point?

So nobody would volunteer, and if taxation was voluntary, nobody would pay extra taxes to go to war, and America could never join the war because there would be never there'd never be enough support to join it.

So an objective of society has to you only go to war when it's essential to go to war, which means only when you're truly fighting for the protection of the individual rights to the people.

And people would be willing to fight such words because of what you're fighting for.

Speaker 1

And on a psychological level, our friends who think, how many people freely go and become, for example, mixed martial artists, which is very a brutal endeavor.

So many people want this adrenaline and this type of life, so they would do it also voluntarily.

Speaker 2

For the army.

Yep, I think that's right, Iconivore something like that.

You and let's really impress Nikos.

I don't know if you're on person or insulting.

I'm going to take a shot at this.

Speaker 5

So TiO UK police now sixty right, yeah, So here's the out for me.

Speaker 2

He spelled it out phonetically.

Speaker 1

It's very simple.

You read every syllable as you read it, you pronounce it as you read it.

So ct polus, yeah, no pulaws you read what do you see?

It's not one of these like Eastern European group.

It's actually very easy to pronounce, much easier than you think.

Speaker 2

I don't think.

I don't think.

When I learned to read, I learned using phonics.

Speaker 3

But what okay, maybe that's I think that's a problem to my European mind.

Speaker 1

It's very simple and easy.

Speaker 2

So all right, power crash bang.

How are people in dreary menial jobs?

Okay, I guess he's new to objectives and trying to understand.

Okay, how are people in dreary menial jobs supposed to find fulfillment in their career?

Garbage collectors and Janeitus, for example, how can their job provide a robust, central purpose and happiness?

Speaker 1

Okay, So I've literally I'm not going to be one of these, jow I've literally been a garbage collector.

But I've literally been a garbage collector.

And I'll let me tell you something.

It was a job I held for a few months while I was doing my PhD.

And here's how it gave a meaning.

A it was the first time in my life that did that.

I made quote good money.

So this was the time where there was a crisis in Greece and it was a job in the university that no one wanted, so therefore it paid well.

So you find meaning first of all because you support yourself.

And second, you're not going to have these odds are you're not going to have this job for the rest of your life.

You use this job and you do it as best as you can because you get pride.

I mean I got pride when it was Sunday morning after a night which was an absolute mess at the club.

Imagine now at the university night club, and then after you're there for two hours, it's again clean.

So any job that you do it well give you some form of pride.

But also you're not going to do it for the rest of your life.

You do it well and then you go on.

Speaker 2

But some people are going to do it for the rest of their life, right, Some people have limited ability and this is.

Speaker 1

Yeah, but still, I mean I usually always the example of there's a lady cleaner that my family we've been using her for ages.

Sheees, I think she's like the Lebron James of cleaner.

She cleans so efficiently and quickly, and she's in such high demand that I have to book here like weeks weeks in advance.

And she takes pride in it.

Speaker 3

It's very good.

I know how to do it.

Speaker 1

She doesn't take breaks, she doesn't check her phone, sees a productivity like people have things to learn from her, and she's proud about this.

This is and she has other hobbies also, so it's not that her horizons are low.

But she's good at it, she's okay with it, and you know, she tries to give more time to her family, so she wasn't interested in doing a different profession.

Also, she was an immigrants, so but it's there's nothing wrong with it and nothing demeaning.

It doesn't her best of your ability.

She's very good at it.

She gets she's proud on it, and there's no problem with it.

Speaker 2

Yeah, And and you can find ways to improved, to do it better, to challenge yourself, even in the most menial jobs.

You can do that.

And a lot of times they're happier people who have sophisticated jobs.

Andrew, do you see any signs of a rational left contingent forming that is open to being more pro free markets.

Speaker 3

Yes, as as long as it's not part of the left.

Speaker 1

So the only good thing that came out of the debuckle of the left after October seven is how many people realize that, what do I have to do with this freak show?

So these people can be more open to our methods, and as long as they as they as long as they are now in search of a new intellectual alliance, we can have discussions with them at listener.

Speaker 2

Carl Nikos, has religion had any influence in your life during your teenage years or before your twenties.

Speaker 1

Yeah, very very little impact.

It had a huge cultural impact.

So the reason I was so much anti West is because in Greece being anti West has to do not only with anty capitals of the left, but also with the anti Western sentiment of the Orthodox, the Orthodox Church.

So always Western influences, American influencers were viewed with the suspicions.

So maybe this is the only way it had an impact.

And also it had the impact that the altruism of the left I was getting the thumbs up even from religious people.

Speaker 2

So there was.

Speaker 1

It's never a doubt that, even though I was a radical leftist, I was part of the good guys.

Even my political enemies would tell me so, because I was still an altrlist.

Speaker 2

Interesting sender says, what are some of your favorite nonfiction non wan fiction books, non ruand fiction books.

Favorites?

Speaker 1

Okay, So growing up it was Jules vern particularly Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

I view it as almost a Randi and Ethos of a book, because you have a man of the mind declaring a revolt against the rest of the world.

Speaker 3

That's Captain Nemo.

Speaker 1

By the way, Well, I love saying I consider saying, you know, the Cowboy, the best encapsulation of the best congredization of this notion of you know, of virtue and march masculinity.

Speaker 3

How we're going to put it.

I recently read The Count of Monte Cristo.

Speaker 1

I finished it.

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant, obviously more like reading Agatha Christie and I go through phases.

Speaker 3

I liked Milan Kundra for many years.

Speaker 1

What else, it's.

Speaker 3

That's that's the first thing that come to mind.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I would say throughout my life Zules Verne so things with a positive positive positivision.

Speaker 2

Ju eat can I who called my m a y?

You don't know they make a couple of books, you know, I can't they were Westerns.

Speaker 1

Oh no, okay, yeah, I've read some Westerns, but I don't remember.

I don't remember tal I like so his.

Speaker 2

The famous thing about him is that he was Hitler's favorite author.

Speaker 1

I tried to find some German romantics who were the favorite of Himmler, because I told you, I want to image myself.

It's difficult to find them even in Amazon there.

Speaker 2

So you know what's funny about Kamai.

He was Hitler's favorite author.

All his books were translating Hebrew.

I read all of them when I was a teenager.

Right, It's hugely popular in Israel, and only one or two of them were ever translated into English.

And it's almost impossible to find any of his books, but in Hebrew you can find them all.

Speaker 1

That's where that's very interesting.

Yeah.

So, as I said earlier, I go through I try to read fiction that has that helps me also understand nonfiction.

So German romanticism, like medieval stories, that type of stuff is another area where I jumped into.

I even read that book that was that gave rise to the birth of the nation and white supremacism, The Landsman Oka And yeah, not not particularly not something particularly interesting even as propaganda.

So yeah, anyway, okay.

Speaker 2

We got two last questions.

I think Linda says, I recommend The Martian Way by Isaac Asimov.

Speaker 3

I had this as a kid.

I never read it.

Speaker 1

Isaac Asimov is quite a popular in Greece, yep.

Speaker 2

I read some of his books when I was a kid.

Andrew says, isn't because optimistic about the future trajectory of the influence of objectivist movements on the culture.

There's a closing question for.

Speaker 1

You, Okay.

So the question I always have is we should be Why are we I think we should be angrier for the fact that we don't have the impact that we should have.

So I always try to wonder why his toys, for example, having such a cultural appeal whereas we don't.

Why does Jordan Peterson have a bigger audience than your own?

So the answer is yes, we should at least be willing to have the aspiration to have much more.

That's where it will start.

It will start by us becoming angry that we don't have this impact.

Speaker 2

What do we do with that anger?

What happens?

Speaker 1

Then we try to find ways to make it more relevant.

We don't become complacent.

We learn from other people.

So for example, I try to understand what does Ryan Holly they do to maketices, to maketices think.

We try to see what other movements are doing.

So, for example, I read with a lot of interest the biography of Malcolm X.

It was horrific intellectually, like one of the most racist books I've ever read in my life.

At the same time, this guy was basically a movement by himself.

So I try to learn and get ideas even from bad movements.

The problem is that bad movements usually appeal to different things than the ones that we appeal so there's not much we can learn, let's say, from fascist although fastest was a machine of political propaganda, because we appeal to different things than what the Fastest or Marlcolm X was appealing.

But at least it's worth trying to understand how movements become successful.

Speaker 2

I mean, the one positive movement worth reading is the Enlightenment.

Is to try to figure out what they did in the Enlightenment that had the kind of profound impact that it did.

It's it's much subtler.

There's no leader, there's no one guy that you know does it all.

But it's probably how we will change the world rather than how the negative because the negative movements are often around one person, you know, somebody with charisma and ideas and marketing ability.

Speaker 1

Yeah, but to use that night that line from night Rider, one man can make a difference.

Speaker 3

And again see what happened with me, Laye.

Speaker 2

Yep.

Speaker 1

We don't know what's going to be the trajector of the country, but it's worth it's worth trying.

And again I'm talking to the person who did more as one person to spread this this idea.

So I think you, you know, you understand very well what one person can can do.

Speaker 2

Yes, I'd still like to have as beginning audience as Judan Peterson.

I've been angry, So I've done that, all right, Loan.

The sentence says Inland was the most persuasive objectivist obviously, so what can we learn from her?

A good question.

Speaker 1

Well, it's not much we can learn because he operated at the level which is different for us to operate.

Having said that, I don't think it was a particular.

You know, she didn't aspire to be a great public speaker or a great that was not her thing, like reaching the masses through other means rather than her book or get philosophy that was not here, that was not her work.

So it's it's like, you know, you start playing basketball and water.

What can I learn from Michael Jordan?

Well, not much, it's not it's not.

It's you know, start with more realistic role models.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and and and invader as an artist, and that that also differentiates We're not artists.

I'm not going to write a novel.

Nichols is not going to produce a great painting.

And so it's it's it's we operate on just one of the dimensions that I operated or she was very multi dimensional, and it's really your art that elevated her and made her as popular and as big as she she was.

We're leveraging her art in order to you know, to be successful.

Speaker 3

And what the privilege it is.

Speaker 1

Again, let's let's finish with this right that as a movement, we're very very lucky that we have this vision and this can be so inspiring to so many to so many people.

So let's make good use of.

Speaker 2

It absolutely all right, always a pleasure, Nicos, thank you, thank you, ern I will see you in Porto.

Speaker 1

And before then in Zoom.

But yeah, see all important.

Just to remind people the course AARI Live courses.

Find that course with you'll see Mussolin and Hitler and if you want to give me a follow on Twitter and YouTube.

Speaker 3

That should also be appreciate.

Speaker 2

Yeah, Nicos is a great Twitter feed.

He really does good tweets, so check him out on Twitter and follow him there.

And yes, check out er I Live and then particular Nicos's course.

I'm also teaching a course next semester on air I Live.

But check it out and take advantage of discount and sign up and have a happy new year.

Everybody happy happy.

I'll see you guys tomorrow and Wednesday.

We got the big show on Wednesday, uh you know, raising tons of money.

But but unicos, have a great new year and I will see you in Poto by everybody much, Bi

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