Michael Malice: Totalitarianism and Anarchy | Lex Fridman Podcast #200

The following is a conversation between me and Michael Malice. Michael is an author, anarchist and simpleton, and I'm proud to call him my friend. He makes me smile, he makes me think, and he makes me wonder why I sound so sleepy all the time. And now enjoy this conversation with Michael Malice in the Tupaglovi language that I'm increasingly certain I'll never quite able to get the hang of.

Hello comrade. So Animal Farm by George Orwell is one of my favorite books. It's an allegory about, at least I think, about the Soviet Union and the Russian Revolution of 1917. So for people who haven't read it, it's animals over overthrow the humans and then slowly become as bad or worse than the humans. So comrade, if we lived on this farm in the book Animal Farm, which animal would you most rather be? Would it be the pigs, the horses, the donkey, Benjamin, the raven, Moses, the humans, Mr. And Mrs. Jones, the dogs or the sheep?

I'm going to go with the Milton answer, which is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven, right?

It's better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.

Yeah. So I would have to go with the pigs. So I guess I'd be a cop.

At the very top. So the leader, the main pig, Napoleon versus like snap all into the others.

I would say it's not sure it's an allegory about the Russian Revolution, but I think Orwell's point was this is broader towards most totalitarian dictatorships. I mean it could very easily be read as an indictment of Mussolini or Hitler or many of these others. I'm a huge George Orwell fan. One of the things that I think people on the right need to appreciate is the courage of many of these undisputably left wing voices who were the strongest ones to take on totalitarian communism. And the three I could think off the top of my head who are all in my top 10 heroes of all time are Emma Goldman, Albert Camus and Orwell being the third. Something that leftists like to throw in the face of people on the right who constantly invoke Orwell is that Orwell said, and I don't have the exact quote off the top of my head, but something to the effect of every word I have written should be taken as a defense of democratic socialism against totalitarianism. So people like Truman was obviously very hardcore in many ways anti communist. We like to parse things out. You're going to laugh into binary fashions that left good, right bad or right good, left bad. But Historically speaking, it does not fall away into these camps as easily as people would like. And I think it is important for those of us. It takes a lot more courage to fight the right from the right or to fight the left from the left because in a sense a lot of your countrymen or your fellow travelers are going to regard you as a traitor to the cause. So every chance I get I will sing the praises of these three figures among others who not only, even if they hadn't done what they had done, just lived just amazing lives that all of us can learn from and admire and regard as somewhat a role model.

What was the nature of their opposition to totalitarianism? Is it basically freedom, the value of freedom?

So let's go to the three of them. So Emma Goldman, she was an early anarchist figure. We'll talk about her later. I'm sure she got deported from the United States with her partner in crime, Alexander Berkman, literal crime. He tried to assassinate Frick, who was Andrew Carnegie's main man in the Pittsburgh steel mill strike. She got deported to the Soviet Union. And they're like, oh, you want socialism? Because at the time the anarchists were regarded as socialist. Go choke on it. And she's there and she was watching in great horror what was going on. And she actually went to Lenin's office and she goes, this isn't what we're about. The revolution is about the individual and free speech and everyone working together to further a society. And he told her that free speech is a bourgeois contrivance and regardless, you can't have these circumstances in the midst of a revolution. And when she left the Soviet Union she went to Britain and at the time before the 1917 there was a lot of discussion among socialist circles about what would the revolution look like. Would there be the Bakunin anarchist model? Would there be the Marxist model? Obviously the Bolsheviks ended up winning but even then it wasn't obvious because there was the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and what people. You and I know what those words mean. But Bolsheviks were kind of funny because Bolshevik means bigger and Mensha means smaller. The Mensheviks had the numbers. It was sarcastic that they were called Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks were called Bolshevik. And Lenin destroyed all his foes in a very merciless way. Obviously beforehand there was the idea like all these cockamamie ideas, we have to work together. We don't know what it's going to look like for the cause. Then as soon as he sees power he's like, yeah, yeah, we're not doing that kind of pluralism anymore. This is going to be the right approach. So she left the Soviet Union, as did Berkman. She wrote a book that they titled My Disillusionment with Russia. And I remember this is one anecdote which I'm going to discuss, discussed in the forthcoming book where she goes to Britain. And the British were very red at the time. They really had something called the Fabian Society, which was the predecessor to the British Labour Party, which were like, all right, we're going to get rid of liberalism and have a socialist kind of nation. And she gave talks and there was this one time where she gave a talk and she started and there was a standing ovation. By the time she was done, you could hear a pin drop because she dared to look at these people in the face, something they've been fighting for all their lives and saying, you know, we've been to the future and it works. And she's like, guys, this is worse than the Tsar. You know, people are under house arrest. You're not allowed to have, you know, newspapers are being shut down if they have heretical views, so on and so forth. And you know, she was just even more of a pariah than she had been previously. So she is, you know, deserves huge accolades in that regard. I brought her up and we were talking about, with our conversation with Yaron Orwell, I think you don't need me to, to explain what he has done and continues to do, to use fiction to demonstrate the horrors of a totalitarian state. And Camus, who might be my all time great lighthouse, so to speak, in terms of being a man of conscience, he joined the Communist Party. And for a lot of people in the States, you hear, oh, you joined the Communist Party. So I need to hear he was a communist. All you need to know, he joined the Communist Party because they were the main ones fighting the fascists in France and other locations. And he took Nazism, as did many others, of course, very, very, very seriously. He wasn't some committed communist, but this was just his mechanism to take on, be part of the underground and Vichy France and so on and so forth. So he had the quote which is ascribed to him, which is kind of a misquote. Howard Zinn is the one who actually said it, that it is a job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners. And he very much felt, if you read his speech when he won the Nobel Prize, I Forget in the 50s when where he goes, it's basically the Job of writers to keep civilization from destroying himself. I don't think I'm ever going to be a man on the level of Camus and what he's accomplished. But I think that vision of it is the job of writers to be the conscience. And to point out this is the leftism at its best. When giving voice to the voiceless, when you have the machine of the state crushing and marginalizing people and. And they might not be educated, literate, or have any power at all. He's the guy who's like, you are ruining humans. These humans matter. And I'm not going to let you look the other way and act like you don't know what you're doing.

So in this time, whether we look at the time of fascism or we look at the fictional Animal Farm, what's the heroic action then? So Camus joined the Communist Party. There's a bunch of different heroic actions, some more heroic than others, not just for the, you know, Hero is the wrong word in terms of, like, effectiveness. What's the effective action? I guess is what I want to ask as a writer, as a thinker, as somebody with a mind. What's the heroic action?

That's a tricky question, because a lot of times in the west, heroism is regarded as intertwined with martyrdom, right? So it's kind of this idea of, like, you have to speak. You know, Camus always talked about, just let justice be done, though the heavens fall. This is a common kind of motto among people with conscience, and that you have to do the right thing. Even the consequences might not be what you like. And I think that is a good loose definition of heroism. So if you meet. I'll give you one example of heroism. This was on Twitter, and I really feel bad that I don't remember the guy's name. This was the line to Auschwitz, I believe it was. And, you know, there's the Nazi guards keeping everyone along. And if you were a certain. I think if you were under 12, they killed you or some. There was some age limit where some kids were killed or some were not. There were some circumstances. And he asked the mom how old this kid was, and she's like, he's 14. And she's like, no, he's 12. And she's like, no,' he's not. He's 14. She goes, he's 12. And she realized what this Nazi was telling her even in that circumstance, and it ended up saving the kid's life. So I think heroism in this context is defiance and standing true to values of liberalism, humanism and venerating the sanctity of human life. And I think it's also important to pick your battles. I don't think if he got that Nazi over there, got in a bullhorn and said, hey, this is the rules, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's not going to help anyone do anything. So I do think people a lot of times attack me from my anarchist views. It's like, oh, would you call the police? Would you use the roads? Would you pay your income taxes? I got an argument with Tim Pool because there was that couple, I think, in. What was that, Missouri or Illinois, when they had their guns and they were being arrested and they basically took a plea deal. And he said, you should have fought. I go, it's a lot easier to say you should fight. But we don't know what circumstance someone is under. And what these totalitarian regimes did very, very well, as you know, is if you were a target and they can't get through to you, they, that's fine. You have a family. So you can sit there, Lex, and gird your jaw and you can stand up to all the torture. Cool. What are we going to do about your wife? What about your mom? One thing Stalin did, he made it a law that kids up to 14 and up could get the death penalty for certain crimes. So after that, the rule was from the nkvd, if you were interrogating someone, they would have death warrants for the kid's child on the desk visible. So I'm interrogating you, asking you to commit to. I'm sorry, to admit to some crime that you're not committed. And those pieces of paper, it's, you know, Svetlana, she's got a death warrant. You're gonna admit to any crime you want. So this is something Americans, this is even the case right now in North Korea, which I know you had Yeonmi park on. It's something I talk about a lot. Let's talk about instead of the hypothetical. But this is happening right now on Earth. You can look at the map on Google. The great leader Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea, said, class enemies must be exterminated to three generations. When people talk about individualism versus collectivism, Rick Santorum, former senders, says the family is the basic unit of society unit. North Korea takes that seriously. The family is punished as a unit. So if someone does something wrong, three generations have to pay the price. And you often don't know who it is that got you all in trouble. There's not a trial. This to Western Minds is something almost incomprehensible.

It's a lot easier to be brave when it's just your skin. There's something when it's. When it's. Yeah, when it's your child, your. Your loved ones, your. Every man becomes a coward.

But also, what bravery is there for me to write an essay for the Guardian to say, I don't vote. There's no consequences to me. There's no possibility of consequences to me. This is the wonderful thing about living, excuse me, in a free country. It would take a lot of courage to be in the Soviet Union and say, I'm not going to vote. And what would that courage accomplish? Very little. So I think heroism in the sense of kind of the suicidal stuff and taking a stance with no consequence is a bit overrated.

There is some aspect, like the way I think about heroism is something like you said about the Nazi soldier, which is quietly, privately, in your own life, live the virtues that you want the rest of the world to live by.

Yes.

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

I'll give you a great example of this. I sometimes give talks on networking and I tell the kids, if, you know, someone's in town and it's their birthday with nothing to do, take them out. And I say, I do this for selfish reasons. And everyone laughs. And I go, think about it this way. The guy who takes people out for their birthday is awesome. That could be you. Like, you have that capacity to be that person, and you're making that day feel special. They're going to remember for a long time. What's the cost? Dinner. 30 bucks, 25 bucks. So it's very disturbing to me how often people have opportunities to slightly move the needle and make things a bit better at almost no cost. And they just literally don't think in those terms. And one of the things Camus talked about, he's often described as an existentialist, which he did not like that term, he regarded himself as an absurdist, is the idea that we're basically blank canvases. And this isn't something that is dangerous. This is enormous opportunity. And you have the ability to become the kind of man or woman that you admire and want to be. You don't have to be, you know, I don't know, George Washington or one of these great heroes of all time, but everyone out there has the capacity, capacity, excuse me, to be a hero to their kids or to be a hero to maybe some. There's nursing homes and there's Old people who are lonely. I think that you take in a dog that's on its last legs. These are little things. Terry shepherd does that a lot. I regard him as a hero. These are not. Terry Shepard. I'm blanking his name. These are things that people do that aren't heroic in the sense of Superman, but that I find admirable. Extremely, and I think are very underrated because these people aren't championed.

Is this some kind of weird, passive aggressive and direct way for you to tell me that I should take you out for your birthday on Monday? Is that why you gave that whole speech?

That wasn't it at all.

That was a joke, Michael.

No, it was a failed joke. Nevertheless, there was no punchline.

Without failure, we would not have triumphed. Can we stick on the Camus absurdism versus existentialism?

Sure.

What do you think is the difference in your ideas about anarchism, too? It seems like those are somehow intricately connected because existentialism is connected to freedom and freedom is connected to anarchism.

Sure, But, I mean, Sartre was a defender of the Soviet Union. He said explicitly about things like gulags. Like, even if it's true, we shouldn't talk about it. So what people don't appreciate is how human beings can have contradictory ideas in their minds at the same time. So one would think, okay, someone's a democrat. They think abc. Therefore they can think def. People would have all sorts of contradictions and it's not at all clear. And they'll have a clean conscience because the human mind is very sophisticated and is capable of doing this. So Sartre was. You would think he's this radical individualist, this sense of ultimate freedom. But he's defending the Soviet Union. Camus, on the other hand, would probably be. Was very much like a social democrat. He didn't really talk about what politics should be so much as it shouldn't be. His essay Reflections on the Guillotine is one of the great masterpieces of all time. An attack on the death penalty. Not in terms of no one's evil or it's wrong to kill murderers, but in terms of what does it do for a society. If you have someone who takes a person and locks them in a room and says, in two years, I'm going to murder you, and you lock them for that. This is not someone we'd regard as moral. We regard this as someone who's a complete monster. But that's what the state does with the death penalty. And he challenges us to think, is this the kind of People we want to be. And again, he's saying. I'm not saying killing a murderer is wrong. I'm not saying evil is wrong. His entire career was dedicated to fighting the concept of evil. But are we the kind of people who want to be doing these things that in any other context, we regard as torture or depraved? So I'm much more of a Camus person than a Sartre person.

So he was probably against war in that same way. So I don't. I have to admit, I don't know much about the political side of Camus.

Well, and I don't think his political side is that interesting or relevant. What I find. Sorry, interrupt you. What I find fascinating about Camus and what I think about on a daily basis from him is his insistence that you have to live a life based on conscience, that you have to be accountable to yourself. When you put your head on the pill at the end of the day and ask yourself, did I live a righteous life with integrity, true to my values, that Did I not needlessly cause harm to innocent people? You know, that kind of mindset? Did I. If someone is weak, am I using that as an opportunity to exploit them or to harm them? Or do I feel a bit of sympathy or empathy for this person because maybe they didn't have circumstances that were, you know, as. As beneficial as other people had?

Well, how does that fit? Absurdism, where everything is absurd, nothing has meaning, you know, it really borders on nihilism.

So he regards his philosophy, he explicitly said, is a response to nihilism and a attack on nihilism. He regards cynicism as the worst value people can have. And I agree with him 100%. A lot of times people call me cynical online, and I push back very, very hard because to be a. You know, I had this quote, and then you write where I said, I'd rather be naive than a cynic, because a cynic is a hopeless man who projects his hopelessness to the world at large. Camus. This is the metaphor I use, and I find it very inspirational. I thought it was in his work, but I guess I thought if it described it to him. There's two types of people. You imagine, you go to a mountainside and you see a blank canvas on an easel standing in front of this mountainside, want people be like, why is this blank canvas here? You know, what's going on here and just be confused. Whereas the other type of person will be like, there's a blank canvas here in this beautiful countryside. What a Great opportunity. I can paint this river. I could paint that bird. I could paint my friends or myself in the background. Infinite choices. And this is a gift that I have been given. And I think that also ties very heavily into what I was. I went to yeshiva as a kid, which is Jewish school. What we were taught incessantly how to look at life is this beautiful gift that God has given you. And that God wants you to be happy. He wants you to live to the fullest in a moral way. I remember the first time I went into a church and they were asking questions about the Jewish concept, the afterlife. They weren't familiar with Jewish thought, and it took me a second because I didn't really have answers. And then I remembered what we were taught, which is, let's suppose you're at this banquet with the best chef on Earth, and the table's so heavy because you've got steaks and you've got chicken and you've got sushi and the wine's flowing, and you've got your Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb and the store brand, everything you want. And you're looking around at this amazing bounty, right? And then you turn to this best chef on Earth, and you're like, oh, so what's for dessert? I mean, the offensiveness of that is just so, you know, insane. Like, you have this. Eat the meal. Like, I promise you, if I could deliver this meal, the dessert's going to be okay. So this focus on the afterlife when we've been given this amazing gift, you know, on this Earth, is a very kind of different mindset from both the Jewish tradition, as I'd been taught, and the Camus mindset. Obviously, Camus, an atheist, didn't believe in an afterlife, but this concept that life is meaningless, but that means you have that opportunity to find value, to seek for truth, to seek for happiness. And Camus has this quote. It's ascribed to him. It's like a meme. I've never found the source. So maybe he doesn't really say it, but he says, maybe it's not about happy endings. Maybe it's about the journey. And I think when you have that mindset, and as you and I, I think you and I both found this because neither of us, when we were kids, thought we'd be doing this, right? But now that we are really fortunate, definitely this. Yeah.

And definitely that.

Yeah. But now that we're fortunate enough to do this and that we're blessed enough that there's people who find this of value and interest, and we could pay the rent doing this. There's not a day that goes by where I don't think you. And I think this is pretty absurd, but it's also pretty wonderful. And as a consequence of us thriving, it also shows other people that happiness is possible on this earth. And I think cynicism is the lie. It's not just a worldview. It's a lie that happiness is not possible in this earth. Or it's only possible if you sell your soul and you're like a bad person. You screw other people over. I reject that in every aspect. You know, as you said, my birthday is coming up. I've been feeling just a lot of really great things have been happening very, very recently. So it affects me very heavily emotionally, especially when I see the response it gives to the kids. Right. So it's one thing to say, this is what I'm for. But when you can provide proof of concept that what you've been advocating does result in positive responses. I got a message from this kid who had tried to kill himself a year ago, okay. And then he was like, look, I found your work. I found some other stuff. And now I realize I'm going to make something of myself. I was born in a meth house. You know, I'm whatever, 19, 20 years old. I should be in the garbage, But I'm gonna try to be a standup because I have opportunity on this earth. Even if he fails as a standup, you know, he's still such. Whatever he does washing dishes, there's no shame in that. Is it so bad to have a crappy job and a girlfriend who you don't really like? But as compared to the alternative of, like, I'm gonna kill myself, this is heaven.

Well, I think there's beauty to be discovered in all of it and all of those experiences.

Yes.

So. But at the same time. So I often think about. I just recently reread the Idiot by Dostoevsky. I often feel like the idiot. That's why when I say I'm an idiot, I often think about Prince Mishkin, that kind of idiot, which the world sees you as naive. I don't think he's naive. I don't think I'm naive. But I tend to see the good in people and the good in every moment. And the world often is cynical. And in fact, especially in what we do, often the intellectual is supposed to be cynical.

This is very much an urban elite, educated mindset where if you write a book about someone who's. Let's suppose a drug Addict or a prostitute, that has heft, and that's valid. But if you're writing a book about, like, a love story, you know, two people fall in love and it's. They're in roller coasters or carousels, that's less legitimate. I hate that. I hate that. I hate that so much. Because the message it gives to people is you have to choose between thriving and happiness and silliness and seriousness and depravity. And I'm not saying a drug addict, prostitutes, depraved, but they're basically their worldviews. If it's. Unless it's dark and twisted, it doesn't really count as art. And I despise that mindset, that subtext.

So the Internet and people around me often will call me naive because I.

Don'T think the word they want is innocent. Don't you think it's a better word?

It's not that innocent, no.

But innocent in that you. You genuinely, in your heart, I know you fairly well at this point, believe that goodness is possible and that people can, if not be good, at least be better than they were yesterday.

See, even the word naive or the word innocent presumes that there's not wisdom in that, presumes that somehow that's, oh, isn't that beautiful? To live that life of a child who sees the world with these bright eyes and is hopeful about the future, but just wait until they grow up and realize that reality is much harsher than they think.

Right?

But that child might be wiser than all of the adults in the room.

And don't you. Don't you want to be. If the world is like that, don't you want to be the guy who takes it on and changes it for the better? Right? So it's like saying, well, you know, cancer's everywhere. It's inevitable. But, well, don't you want to be the one who says, not anymore. I'm here, and I'm going to make that change. And I can see it being better than it is now. So I think you and I have the same analysis of your worldview, and I don't think that there is a good word for it. So I guess it's this idea of inherent benevolence may be wordy, but I think that's more accurate because you and I did not have such easy lives growing up, to put it mildly. You constantly talk about just horrific aspects of life. So to claim that you kind of don't know that they exist or you sweep under the rug is completely not accurate. To your work and your mindset.

Can we talk about World War II in the Soviet Union?

Sure.

So on Sunday, June 22, 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, which was the surprise invasion of the Soviet Union. If I could read to you a few lyrics from a song that for some reason has stuck throughout my childhood. It was a famous song during that time. The song talks about Kyiv, like that moment as part of that operation that Kyiv was first bombed. And it was announced on June 22nd. The song says at exactly 4 o' clock that the war has begun. For some reason, this song haunts me because the exactness of that time and this realization that at any moment you can have this thing happen to you in your own personal life. Maybe we had something like 9, 11 happen where everything changes. And it's just, like, haunting because it makes me think that at any moment something like that could happen that changes everything. And I just think about, like, normal life going on in Kiev at the time. And then all of a sudden the bombs are dropping and they announce that the war has begun. And you thought you were going to stay out of the.

This is something that is very intensely emotional for me because you and I are both Russian Jewish. So to know that my grandparents and my great grandma were told that the Nazis are coming and this wasn't a dress rehearsal, and that if they get here, which they do, they did. Lvov is very Western Ukraine, that 100%, you and all your relatives are going to be murdered.

Yeah.

And there's a monument now in Lvov, where I'm from, about this. But I. I don't think either of us can imagine what it's like to know. To think that we're about, you know, minutes or whatever, hours, or there's just. There's just the Russian army standing between us and everyone, everyone we are related to are going to be murdered for no reason. And, you know, like, what's the closure here? Right. Like, they evacuated a lot of people and. But they didn't evacuate enough. And to know that there is this force coming to 100% murder you. This isn't some kind of the TV news being hyperbolic. They are coming to kill you, and if they get you, they will kill you. And you have to. We all think about war like, oh, we hope America wins in Iraq, but if America got their ass kicked kind of in Vietnam, it's not really going to affect America in the sense that you're going to have the body bags and all the kids being killed, and that's something that's. I'm not sweeping in the rug. But no one in America thought the Vietnamese are going to come here and kill them. Right? They were secure in their person. So to have that sense of we really need to win, because if we don't win, we are 100%. If we, they. The Russian army doesn't win, we are 100% all going to be slaughtered. And often in not just a bullet to the head in sadistic ways is something that. To know that people who share my blood saw and went through is very hard for me to kind of wrap my head around.

And there's no possibility to delude yourself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because, I mean, they. They would, as the song also talks about, but they would burn the factories. So it's basically saying, we're in the war now.

This is like, this is your life.

Yeah, like, this is our life now.

You know how you yesterday, you worried about, like, oh, I misplaced my pen. Where is it? Like, it's like, yeah, this was paradise.

Most of us are going to this. Our life now is that most of us are going to die. And if we want to prevent all of us from dying, we. We have to fight.

And we also can't sit down in some kind of weird, like, desert island or, you know, plane crash situation and be like, let's decide between us who's going to be the first to die. Maybe the like, Titanic. The Titanic, right. They sat down and they were like women and children in the lifeboats. You know, they had this rational agreement. You don't have those choices in a war. So it's. It's something that I. It's just very chilling. And it's something I don't really have the emotional space to understand or grapple with. Obviously I've been to North Korea. You can see it, and so on and so forth. You and I can't. Or anyone listening to this except for maybe Yeonmi and people like that. You can't imagine what that's like to live it. We can't imagine what it's like to live in those situations where it's not like before Hitler came. Everyone's, you know, dancing around and having a great time. I mean, imagine what that life is like where your preference to Hitler is starving and waiting online for hours for bread and to have the secret police and your friends are turning you in and your phones are all tapped and you're a prisoner. But to you, this is infinitely better than the alternative. Like, these are the choices that, you know, our family had to deal with. It's something that no matter how much you. It's like a. Let me put it in terms people can understand. You know what I mean? It's like your first bad breakup. Right. Like, that's a much simpler thing to wrap your head around because it's like, if you've never had it, you can't really. But when you feel it, it's just so intense. But you can't tell someone what it's like. We could sit down for days and hours and have people tell us, but until it's the totality. Totality of your environment and your life and your mindset. I remember my grandma, She would talk about it, like, when you're. When you're that hungry, all you're thinking about is bread.

Yeah.

Because your brain won't let you know. Human beings, we evolved. We have instincts, whatever. And the mind is telling you, food, food, food, food, food, food. And that there's kids thinking this and that. There's. They're not going to get the food.

Yeah.

And you imagine being a parent and. You're kidding.

Watching your kids without food and knowing they're not going to get the food.

And the fact that this happened in North Korea in the 90s, I met a refugee and he had to watch his dad starve to death. And. Thank you. And we have no concept of what it's like. I mean, we kind of. You know, it's just like last night here in Austin, all the places were closed and I couldn't get my protein powder.

Yeah.

And this is the extent of my suffering when it comes to food, you know, or if I couldn't. There was a restaurant that I went to in Brooklyn where, for some fakakta reason, they weren't serving sashimi. They only had sushi. So I had to have the rice and the carbs. To live a life where that is the extent of your food problems, as opposed to the choice is either Hitler killing you or being hungry 24 7. You know, my grandma told this story of how they had a close call. It was her and her brother and her mom, my great grandma who passed. And I think there was like either a helicopter overhead or something. And my great grandma jumped on top of my grandma's brother and not my grandma. So she basically did a Sophie's Choice. My grandma's name is Sophia and chose the brother. And this is something that she felt, you know, all her life, that her mom had chosen her brother over her. But these little things that happen, these little kind of decisions we have to make in war. There's a book I read called Five Chimneys. I think this woman who was an Auschwitz survivor and what she talked about, what people don't appreciate, it's not necessarily the slaughter and the torture, it's that there's no rhyme or reason to it. Like, she talked about how they had a camp just for people from Czechoslovakia, and they were treated better than the Jews, and then one day they just killed them. All, right? And she's like, I still don't understand why they're giving them food and treating them well, and then the next day they're all killed and we will never get answers. You know? And she's. And things like. She talks about how they decided to kill all the kids, and they didn't really. Either, for some reason they didn't have the courage to, or they wanted to be cruel. So instead of shooting them, they just kept walking them in the snow until they all died. So it's things like this that. The fact that you and I dodge these bullets and that we can be here and be doing this and, you know, running our mouths for a living. I think about it all the time, and it's just very disturbing to know, and I know you know this as well, that there's lots of places on earth where if people had a choice, they would kill us on sight and be proud of themselves for it.

Yeah, they're. I don't know what to make of the contrast. You were talking about the fact that you've been truly happy the last few weeks and months. Yes, there's been a lot of moments of happiness and joy. And that joy is built on a history of human suffering. Like, in your roots, in your blood, is a lot of people that were tortured, that suffered so that you could have this joy. And you have both the. You have the responsibility to truly be grateful for that joy.

But it also shows that there's the happy ending, that it does end in a good note, that it does get infinitely, infinitely better, and that I think there's a. I don't like using the word responsibility, but there is an opportunity for those of us who did dodge that bullet to give testimony to these people and more importantly, to give testimony to the people who are going through this now. So one of the reasons I talk about North Korea so much, why I wrote Dear reader, is because it's very easy. And this is human nature. I'm not condemning people. I think that's just how people are wired. When you see an Asian country with Asian people and things are bad over there. I think in the west, it's like, oh, Asia, they're all crazy. They're wacky, they eat dogs or so on and so forth. Some weird stereotype. And they think of them as kind of Martians. So it's important for people who aren't of that kind of ancestry to kind of speak on behalf of these people, because it's very different how just people just naturally react when you have a Westerner talking about this, instead of becoming their, you know, them over there, it becomes, you know, this could have been us very easily. I have a friend, Peter Vahanski, great dude. And I was showing him photos when I was in Pyongyang, and he goes, this looks like a Russian city with Asian people. It was completely disturbed him. So that was one of the reasons I did go to North Korea, because that was as close as I would get. To see what your family went through, to see what my family went through, and they're still living under this regime. And one of the things I fought very hard to do with Dear Reader, which I was successful in, amazingly, and I said, I could die now, I feel like if you just move the needle a little bit, then you've kind of paid your due for your time here on this Earth to have it change from being a laughingstock. And I think Team America did a good job. They made Kim Jong Il into a clown and they made a joke of it. But you're going from nothing to joke. So at least now people are aware of it, that it exists. Right? And then I and many others took it from a joke to like, guys, this is really, really, really bad. And none of us can even appreciate how bad it is. And I think now there is an understanding of other than a few people who were just looking at it through a Trump lens and wanting Trump to fail because Trump's an asshole. And that's fine to be like, these poor people. And it's really unfortunate because there's a segment of Western culture who thinks that correctly. Often when you're complaining about or discussing the plight of another country, that's just your prelude to war and an excuse to invade. Like the Kurds in Syria, you know, we're talking about, if we're not in Syria tomorrow, it's going to be another genocide, blah, blah, blah. I'm not saying let's invade North Korea or anything like that. All I'm saying is, thank God that this isn't your life. I bring this up all the time. The woman who was my guide when I Was there. I'm aware of what she's up to now. She's extremely rich by North Korean standards, but she'll never be in a position to buy medicine. She'll never be in a position to go on a vacation. Things that you and I just, you know, whatever. She can't go on the Internet. She can't get an encyclopedia. She can't better herself as a person other than through what the state allows and meaning, better yourself as a person in service to the state. So, I mean, it's also frustrating because there's only so much that I can do as an individual.

What's your takeaway about human nature from looking at North Korea and looking at how the rest of the world is looking at North Korea?

I think I always. This is a great question. I think about it fairly often. I always say human beings are animals, right? When you say someone's an animal, it's like a slur, like, he's like a beast. Animals are capable of enormous kindness, empathy, sympathy. You know, they look out for one another, groom one another. There's a thing with apes where they groom each other for parasites, and you're. Even if there are no parasites, they pretend that there's parasites just to have that kind of bonding. You see infinite photos online of, like, cats raising puppies because the puppy's mom died. Things like this. That's part of being an animal. Part of being an animal is also just the most monstrous cruelty. Killer whales. You know, there's this big PC move to not call them killer whales and just call them orcas. They will murder blue whale pups, calves, excuse me, and play with them and not even eat them. So they just murder for the sake of fun. So there's. And cats, you know, kill birds all the time, things like this. So it runs the whole gamut. And I think it's. You know, when Yaron and I were on your show, I don't think Lord of the Flies is accurate. I don't think Hobbes is how reality works when you're in that kind of state. But I think we've seen countless examples of human beings, especially when human beings have power over someone who's powerless, of allowing themselves to engage in not just harm, but cruelty. And that is something, as Soviets, you and I are very painfully aware of. It's not just about the oppression, which, as bad enough as it is, it's that mediocre person with that little bit of power, and now they're standing between you and your daughter having medicine, and they love it to make you dance, to be like, oh, you need me to get this medicine? Make you go through hoops. Because now they feel like for the first time in their life, they're in a position of strength and power. I think that is in many ways the more common nature of evil. What Hannah Arendt talks about the banality of evil. Than someone who's like an SS guard just shooting someone in the head like that. I think we could all wrap our heads around to some extent, like, okay, I'm a military. It's not easy. I have to execute people pulling a trigger, you could kind of have this mental disconnect between the finger and the victim. But like that little day to day stuff, like, are you doing the right thing on a day to day basis, that I think is far more common and far more disturbing aspect in certain senses of the human psyche.

Yeah, there's something especially disturbing about a weak man given power and just abusing that power. There's something about not just weak, but like, mediocre to everything he does, or less than mediocre.

A great example of this, which I'm also talking about, the next book is Ceausescu, who was the dictator of Romania. So, you know, the Cold War is still somewhat poorly understood in popular culture, but the different countries in the Second World, the Soviet Bloc, some were more liberal than others, some were more sane than others. And Ceausescu at first was one of the, you know, more Western friendly, more the free ones. Then he met the great leader, Kim Il Sung from North Korea. And he had the idea to impose a personality cult on Romania. And it's the kind of things like forcing people to breed because he wanted to make people taller. I think he made, like, the biggest building in all of Europe, the People's Palace. But it was just for him. There's no electricity, you know, elsewhere. But you look at this guy, you know, Stalin's a badass, right? He was a bank robber. If you look at photos of him as a kid, he was a hunk. Lenin was clearly intellectual. These were powerful. Trotsky. These were powerful men with huge egos, huge force of personality. But you look at this Ceausescu guy and you could, like, for example, on my driver's license, instead of my address, I'm not giving my real address being like 1234 Fifth Avenue by mistake, it says 1234 Fifth street, right? So you can imagine him being in the post office and me giving him my ID to get my package and him being baffled because this says street, this says avenue, instead of understand? And this, the look on his face, this dullard that you can see how, you know how sometimes I'm gonna. Can I curse?

Fuck yes.

Yeah. So if, you know, like how if you're in the airport and you see someone and you look at them, an adult, and you think, okay, this person was born fucked up, just like on site, like something's wrong with them. How are they traveling alone? You look at Ceausescu, you look at him, you're like, something's not right with this guy. Not in the sense of like evil, but in the sense that he's a simpleton, right? And now he's in charge of this whole country. And everyone's taught to regard him as one of the great geniuses of all time. And it's this, the idea of this mediocre nobody. This guy would have, in any other culture been accomplished nothing or would have had an honest job where he's like, okay, he works at the mail service and he's bad at it. Okay, fine, he's not hurting anyone. And now as a result of this, he's responsible for mass death, secret police and incarceration. And one of the greatest things I've ever seen, which I'm sure many people have seen as well, if you go on YouTube, it's his speech and it's the first time the crowd turns and his head kind of. Because they start booing him, which was unheard of, and he was shot with his dog faced wife not that long after. It was just a great moment. But it's things like this, I agree with you. That mediocre, weak person is now in a position of power over somebody else. And, and that sense of vindictiveness, like, I'm going to feel strong for once in my life, but it's going to be at your expense. That I think is, you know, human nature. It's most primal.

And every time I meet a person.

In this world, you're the first person to get me to cry on a fucking podcast. Fucking the robot gets me to cry. What the fuck is going on?

Every time I meet a weird person, somebody. To me, heroism is also taking a risk to rebel against mediocrity.

Yeah.

Like in, in the most simplest of ways, like the, the license address, like taking a risk to break the little bit of rule that nobody will know about. To take that little bit of a leap of like that little protest against the bureaucracy.

Well, like that Nazi guy where he just spoke out, he's like, hey, lady.

But that's a big one.

Oh, that's a. Sure.

I mean, like literally at the line at Starbucks or something like that.

Okay.

Like, even in the tiniest of ways, when I see people just like, it's almost like that little, like, glimmer in their eye, a wink, like we're in this together. This, there's, there's all this conformity all around us that's at a different time. Could have been Nazi Germany, could have been Stalinist Soviet Union. We're in this together. We're going to rebel against that conformity by just, just taking the risk. That little bit of risk against mediocrity. I don't know. And that. And then once again, I see this in companies too. When I see the mediocrity, I see this. You know, I used to work at Google. I see it in Google, when the companies grow, that mediocrity is overwhelming.

The Peter Principle, right?

The Peter Principle, yeah. Yeah. My hope is that all of us have the possibility for that glimmer, that, that risk taking, the, the leap of faith or whatever the heck that is. The leap out of the ordinary, out of the conformity, out of the mediocrity.

So this is where you and I disagree. I, I think most, a lot of people do. Are not capable of that.

They're accustomed to it. I don't know if they're not capable.

No, I, I, my, I understand your position. I'm disagreeing with it. I'm saying I do not think they're capable. I think a lot of people effectively don't have souls. They do not have a conscience in this sense where they're going to look at an issue, bring their critical thinking and say, all right, I am going to do the right thing, although I'm taking a risk.

Do you think thinking is involved or is it just taking that leap there? There's something about that basic human spirit. Forget the thinking part. It's, it's just saying, like, I'll take that risk. They're taking that adventure. The same thing that got people to explore the seas, you know, that the. Throughout human civilization, explore land, explore the oceans, like that. Explore exploration. Like we've done stuff this way all this time. I'm going to take a leap. And that comes out of nowhere, seemingly.

But those people are the heroes. But I don't think that's the universal. I'm going to use a very gauche example. There was a show called Scare Tactics, which was basically a candid camera, but they would scare people. Like they'd have vampires, whatever, and hidden camera and people's Reactions. And so a lot of. But sometimes the prank didn't work out like they expected. So there was one where they were hiring the people who were the marks, you know, the contestants, so to speak, was hired to be a security guard. Okay. And you have to watch this. This factory overnight, and you get paid. And what the setup was, some people were breaking out of the factory in the middle of the night, like in rags. And they were saying they were keeping us prisoner here, like, blah, blah. And just watch the person reaction to this. And there was one security guard where he basically forced them back into the building. And they're like, they're working as 24, 7. We're getting beaten. He's like, I'm here to do a job. Get back in there. And you watch this. And it never even enters his head to be like, something's wrong here. He was given his orders, he's following his orders. And to me, that is not uncommon. And that person, although they look like you and I, there's something essentially human missing with them. Now, very quickly, the reaction is, well, it's one step from there to Nazism. I don't think it's something that. I'm not saying this person should be killed, but I'm just saying to expect that every human being has the capacity to have that defiance, especially at a cost of their own life, that I think is not realistic. But at the same time, I feel like an octopus on the eighth hand. It is those few of us, if you want to include me in this, who do make these tiny little protests, who look the other way when someone is hungry, who's stealing food from the supermarket, right? It's like, all right, I'm going to pretend I didn't see anything. Those little elements of heroism are what move humanity forward and demonstrate the validity of the human experience. Whereas everyone else is kind of like scenery.

I think almost everybody in the world can derive deep meaning and pleasure from having done those courageous acts. And I also think they have the capacity to do them, to discover that meaning and happiness.

So you're the cynic. Then why aren't they doing it?

They haven't gotten a chance to. Like, I've never tried LSD or dmt. You haven't gotten a chance to try this amazing journey, which is taking the risk.

That's the risk. Because as you just said 2 minutes ago, everyone has that chance every day to do the right thing.

We have the chance to do a lot of things, and we don't realize there's a lot of stuff right in front of our nose that we don't realize, right, that you have to kind of wake up to it sometimes. You need the catalyst. There needs to be some kind of thing that happens that wakes you up. That the fact that most people don't take the small acts of rebellion doesn't mean they don't have the capacity to both do so and to derive a lot of meaning from it. Then it's a. A discussion about how to create societies that get more and more people to be free actors and free thinkers.

That's.

That's the question. And that probably leads us into a discussion of anarchism and so on. But I just think we are very young as a species. We're trying to figure out how to get ourselves to first be collaborative, but at the same time be free spirits. And I think both of those are within human nature for most of us.

I think another big concern is that there's enormous disincentives, and this is Michael Malice speaking, for human beings to be kind and for tenderness. And I think, especially when you're young, you know what I mean? When you're immature, a lot of times, someone will reach out to you with kindness or vulnerability. And you think it's funny to kind of dunk the head underwater in a pool or something like that. And when you get older, you look. You know. There's this one example of this. This was in the 90s, and there was a woman. She became a like. Like stripper or something like that or whatever it was. But she had this amaz. She was just gorgeous. And the show was. She was talking about how when she was in high school, she was bullied a lot. And that there was this football player. He messed with her every single day. And, like, at one day, she even threw pickles in her hair, and her hair smelled like pickles. And everyone was laughing at her. And this really screwed her up. I mean, up to that show. And they took her backstage and they brought out the football player. Now he's a dad and a regular dude. And he's like, do you know. Do you know why you're here? And he's like, no. And they're like, oh, what were you like in high school? I was kind of a jock, bully, whatever. And they brought her out and he didn't even remember her, really. And she just starts crying about the pickles and whatever. And this is something that affected her for, like, 20 years. And I've never seen a clear example of someone who wanted to kill themselves than this guy. Like, the guilt on his face. And he's looking at her, and he's desperate to be like, what can I do to take your pain away to make it better? Like, he was just crippled by it because he knew there's nothing he could do. He knew he 100% did the wrong thing. He knew he did the wrong thing unthinkingly. Like you can imagine. You know, I gotta screw over this lady to feed my family. You know, that's fine. But at the time, it meant nothing to him. So of course he didn't remember. And he was just paralyzed by this sense of crippling guilt. One of the reasons I always tried to do the right thing isn't because I'm an inherently good person, which I do not think I am. I don't think anyone is inherently good, but because I will feel guilty about it for a very, very long time. Because if you do the wrong thing, this is a very Camus idea. If you do the wrong thing to a good person, that's really, really bad. Because what kind of person are you? In the same way that everyone can be that guy who takes someone out for their birthday, Everyone has that ability for someone who did the wrong thing to someone who's a normal person. And do you want to be that guy as well? My friend Bitstein, he's a big gold. Excuse me, Bitcoin person. My biography, Ego and hubris is, like, $500 now on eBay. It's, like, hard to find. Came out in 2006, and he had told me that you can get it on Torrent. It's downloadable. And I'm like, oh, I thought if you're my friend, you'd want to buy it. At the time, it was not $500, I assure you. And he goes, I did buy it. I'm just telling you that you could also get it for free, this information that you might want to use. And I felt. I'm like. I snapped at this kid who was doing right by me, and I felt it just stuck in my head. I'm like, you're an ass. And then years later, I apologize. He had no memory of this at all. And I'm glad to be able to reiterate the apology again. But this is. A lot of times I'm extremely aggressive on Twitter and in other venues. I always try to. And maybe I fail. And that's my moral failing. Always do it as a counter attack. If you're gonna start going personal, if you're gonna start being aggressive against an individual, I'm not going to Necessarily hold back when I reciprocate. And it's something that is very common on social media. But I don't think it is normal just because a lot of this. You were talking about the quiet little rebellion just because everyone else around you thinks it's okay to just go up to people and attack them in the most personal ways. Imprompted because of their views. Really just take a step back and realize what you're engaging with. Now, if that's the fight they want, then, you know, my Soviet cruelty could come out. And that's kind of why I don't drink, because I do enjoy it.

Yeah.

But at the same time, be aware of what you're doing. And again, this goes back to Camus sense that conscience really is what makes us human beings. But that's the thing I was saying. I don't think most people think in terms of conscience. They don't think it. They. They. We are taught this. Is that. That creeping cynicism that, oh, grow up. When you're an adult, you have to make sacrifices, blah, blah, blah. And even if I buy that for a second, which I don't. But if I have to make sacrifices sometimes, that doesn't mean it's okay for me to make a sacrifice of my values in this moment. If I have to maybe be at work and my boss is a jerk to me and calls me names, I have to be humiliated. But I got to put food on the plate. That doesn't mean it's okay later if I'm at a party and I'm just extremely offensive to someone for no reason.

You know, my own flavor of a little bit of rebellion.

Sometimes I use. The number two is.

You know, you're very witty on Twitter.

Thank you.

My. And Twitter likes mockery and wit. And counter attack is. Twitter loves that. Somebody who's skilled at it. My own flavor of a bit of rebellion is to say things very simply, bordering on cliche, With authenticity and, like, genuinely meaning the words I say but knowing that those words would be. Are easy to attack.

Sure.

And that sometimes those attacks can hurt because people would just mock me.

Sure. People don't like earnestness because they've been taught to be too cool for school.

Yeah. So, like, there's this pressure for me to be sound. Way more sophisticated.

Yeah.

Use bigger words sometimes. Throw in a criticism of institutions or something like that. Like. Like almost as if I have a deep wisdom about the way the world is broken. But when you speak very simply about beautiful things in life, it's very easy to sound like you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Sure.

And I kind of. I stick by that. I don't know where that's going to end up. But it's like the idiot from Dostoevsky. It feels like that's the right. That's the right thing. Even if it hurts when I'm attacked for it.

I. I do something similar sometimes, which is. I'll have some innocuous comment about, like bubble gum. I mean, just. It's not even political. And a lot of times people will respond to this paragraph of just invective. Yeah. About like, blah, blah. And then this. And you say this and you're an ass and just really trying to get at me. And what I. In those situations, they're very specific circumstances. I will respond, and I mean it every single time. I will say, I wish your parents had been kinder to you or your mom or your dad. Because if someone is some. Even if I'm some idiot on Twitter, right. Who's just talking about bubblegum. And this is your response? I'm not talking about politics where I can see how people get emotional. Covid. My grandma died. Now you're talking about her. And I realize this isn't about me. Like, I'm someone you've never met making some inane point about nothing. And you're getting agitated about this. It's clearly something else that's going on here. And someone taught you. Someone had to teach you that this is how to respond in this kind of very kind of harsh way. And a lot of times they won't say anything or get deleted. And I hope every single time there's no asterisk here, that they take a second and they realize that the way that they were talked to growing up was not acceptable, that they don't have to carry this forward and that they don't have to be kind to me. I'm nobody to them. But take a second and ask if this is the kind of mindset you want to be your norm, as opposed to a weapon you pull out of your pocket sometimes where it's warranted or even when it's not warranted. I think there's a lot of those people out there. And we forget how, you know, how hard it is for a lot of people to grow up, how they're trained from their parents or the single parent, that the only way they're going to get attention is by acting out, that when they do good things, it doesn't get comment. But if they do bad Things they got a smack upside their head. That I think is far more common than we realize. And that's such a. It's not even. It's not hitting the kid that's going to last. The pain is going to give five seconds. But what you're training this child, helpless child, is something that's really, really bad.

I don't know if it always can be mapped to that. I always wonder about them, like, what their motivations are. And I just kind of like, whenever I think about them, I think only positively. And I don't even think about the childhood thing. I think. I don't know. I kind of imagine that all of us can go through that stage where we enjoy the derision of others. We go through stages of being.

I. I enjoy the derision of others. But it has to be, you know, Billy, I'd have that quote, like, I like it when people are mean to me. Stop pretending to be nice. But, like, what's the worst thing someone can say about you? You're not. What harm are you doing? Maybe your podcast is garbage and the people are. The conversations suck and the people are losing.

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

What does deserve mean?

The reality is there's people out there that just enjoy hating on others. And I don't. I don't fault them for it. Like, I don't even think of them as haters. I think of them as just people that in this particular part of their life are enjoying this activity of. Of deriding others on the Internet. I'm not sure what to do with that. I just don't want to. I don't want to allow myself to think badly of them. I guess is the thing.

I'm the one saying don't think badly of them. I'm saying that I don't think they're inherently bad people. I think that their thinking is screwed and that I'm steel manning them. I'm saying let's assume everything you're saying about Lex is true. This is an opportunity for you to outdo Lex.

No, but are you saying they should stop hating? Because I'm saying, like, maybe they shouldn't just keep.

I don't believe in should. Right. I'm an anarchist. But I'm saying is, like, if this is your belief about Lex. Yeah, you know what it is? I made this comment in my book then youn write when people make fun of Andy Warhol and they're like, oh, my God, he painted a soup can and now he became a millionaire. I could do this. Well, why don't you?

Yeah.

So basically, if I go up to you with a check and I say, I will give you a million dollars, you could see the check. You gotta paint a soup can. What am I waiting for? So clearly there's a disconnect in their thinking between what they're perceiving and the reality. Because if it was as simple or as maybe not simple, but as possible for them as they perceive it to be, why are they leaving comments instead of outdoing you? How great would it be for them to have your bigger audience and drive you into the ground? I don't know how that would work because it's not the NBA.

But you want to point out, you do this too on Twitter. You want to point out the hypocrisy, the fraudulence of others, right?

Sure. But what are you. You're not claiming anything other than this is the following is a conversation between me and Machiki, whatever his name is, right? I got the voice down, dude. I got it down. I've been walking around my house doing my Lex impression. I've been leaking motor oil everywhere. Yeah.

But, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to make of it because I think there's a more general statement to be made. Like, I see Twitter this way too. When I read a tweet, I try to read it with like, the best possible interpretation, meaning, like, what is the wisdom in this tweet as opposed to what I think a large number of people, not a large, but some fraction, try to see what is the worst possible interpretation of this tweet. And they want to. They. They want to destroy you for that worst interpretation. Like they want to. There's people. I'm already aware of this with me, and certainly with a lot of people. They're waiting for me to fail. They want me to be like, this guy talks about love all the time. They want me to be some dark, like Bill cosbytech.

Yeah, they want you to be in pain because they don't. Why? I'll tell you exactly why. Because this is why I'm so. For being white pilled and being for hope. Because if you are black pilled, meaning if you think it's pointless, we're all done, you're just wasting your breath. If you have any counterexamples to this thesis, if there's even a little bit of hope, your entire hypothesis falls through, Right? So if it's. It's Kind of how, like, you have all these stories of people who are, like, painting swastikas who aren't Nazis, but just to show that, oh, there's all this Nazism. So I'm going to, you know, kind of force the conclusion. So for them, when they see you thriving, you are as a mediocre person with a crappy show, but you're demonstrating that people can succeed. This bothers them. So you are.

Anyone can succeed. That bothers them.

Yeah, because then why haven't they. So now you're a counter to their worldview, and that is going to cause anxiety when you have data that contradicts other data in your worldview. This is in your mindset. This is a big issue for them.

Yeah. So anyone listening to this, they're annoyed by the look of my face. Remember that. You could probably do way better than me, and you should.

But also, what would you failing look like? Like, let's suppose this podcast went from whatever views you had to 100 views an episode. That's still success. You are talking to people you like, having conversations about important issues. You're having a good time, they're having a good time. How is that a failure? If I have dinner with a friend of mine, there's zero viewers, and we enjoy that time. That is the height.