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I can't help but wonder why we don't see anything like this now that this Epstein stuff has come out when there's evidence of people eating children and trafficking children. Not a single protest. And look, I'm not I'm not an advocate for for looting and burning down businesses and and I think I don't think it gets you anywhere, but I think it's important that we have the right to do it. I don't I don't think it has any benefit to society. But I just I can't help but wonder why we don't see anything to that degree with the stuff that's happening now. Yeah.
It's unfathomable because the implications it's not just that you had uh this group of monsters apparently engaged in all of this unthinkably evil behavior. But the relationship to power is so clear in the so-called Epstein files that the question is, you know, we have monsters near power. That's extremely dangerous. That's that's not one person you say being murdered. I think there's a question as to whether or not that's the correct designation for what happened to George Floyd. >> Um. >> Right. Right. Right. Right. But nonetheless, we are just off with respect to knowing what to direct our energies at. To the extent that massive protest protests would be clearly warranted in the case of the Epstein revelations, the fact that they haven't shown up is wild and I think suggests something very dire. we don't even know how to think about this or somebody has figured out how to release the pressure so that you know we never end up getting to the proper level level of anger over what was apparently taking place >> trying to release the pressure. >> Yeah.
That there's some pressure that builds up that would cause people to spill into the streets. If you release it at just the right rate, people feel like they've gotten it off their chests and they're not motivated to go out and make their anger known. And you know, one thing that is true of the Epstein releases is >> they're wildly incomplete >> and >> systematically so, right? The way in which we're effectively looking at the result of some sort of filtering process. They decided what to show us and what not to show us. And they do seem to have found a quantity that is on the one hand overwhelming. I know that stuff is passing me by that I'm not even seeing because there's just too much of it. >> Um, it's a lot. It makes us feel like we've seen the Epstein files. On the other hand, there are a lot of files we haven't seen. And what's more, I think there's even a kind of bait and switch in here. To me, the Epstein files before we had seen them would really be like the FBI file. It would tell us something not only about the raw evidence of the conversations that were taking place, but it would tell us something about what the FBI made of it. >> Right? What did the FBI conclude jerky was a code word for? I want to know what they concluded and why. I don't want to guess. I want to know whether they did a credible investigation and they came up with an answer for that. I want to know why it is they decided to search the island and the New York residence and not the Zoro ranch. What was that? How did that decision get reached? What are these things? We don't know. And unfortunately, back to the issue of there being a conspiratorial thread that seems to link all of these different events. The overwhelming implication of the files that we have seen and not seen in the things that are conspicuously missing from our model in the public is the fact that you don't really appear to have an FBI. >> Right. >> Right. The FBI did not properly investigate Epstein. We know that. How do we know that? Well, the Zoro Ranch would be the obvious indicator >> that >> we we can literally take a time machine and go back and like go month for month back to July and look at every single clip of Cash Patel talking about this stuff and it's just like it's insane. >> We have no FBI, which okay, [clears throat] what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, >> right? >> Well, we don't know why cuz we don't have an FBI. So what happened to Charlie Kirk? >> Mhm. >> I don't feel that I know because we don't have an FBI. Somehow this is left to the public and conjecture. And yes, sometimes social media does a pretty good job of, you know, unearthing evidence and sometimes it can do an analysis of the sound waves and the trajectory of the bullets and all of these things, >> but it's nothing compared to an institution that has privileged access to the raw evidence and a budget with which to analyze it and is subject to review by, let's say, the Congress. We don't have that. And it's worse than even not having it. What we have is a thing called the FBI that actually stands in the way of our ability to do the job the FBI is supposed to be doing. Right. The FBI after Butler, Pennsylvania, the next day, I believe, was literally washing the roof of evidence. Why would it do that? >> Right. >> Right. [clears throat] The only reason I can think of is to prevent anybody from checking the garbage story that we were handed. So, as an American, as a patriot, I'm spooked that something seems to have gained control over the FBI and turned it to an obstructionist purpose rather than an investigatory purpose.
>> Yeah. And if we have all these whistleblowers that have come out over the years trying to call out the the global, not the global, but the national surveillance on American citizens by the NSA and the CIA and all this sweeping stuff that they've been trying to do. If they are doing that, how were they able to miss something like this when there was I mean Tucker did a whole documentary on this guy from Butler where he there was videos of him on message boards online and stuff like shooting guns doing target practice and stuff like this asking questions about automatic weapons and stuff like how how does the NSA miss something like that? I don't I don't understand. >> Right. And you know when you and it's not just the NSA, right? The MSAD assures us that Epstein wasn't theirs. Okay. But >> that's hilarious that they actually said that. Did they actually say that? That was that was an official statement. >> Uh Netanyahu said on their behalf, I believe. But um >> Okay. So, they say he wasn't theirs. >> Are they telling us that they didn't know of his activity? That raises certain questions. I don't think they could possibly even if he wasn't theirs I don't think they could possibly have been unaware of his activities. I mean you know he has Ahoud Barack as a repeated guest that Msad would surely have known about it. So the point is by telling us that he wasn't theirs and not telling us what they knew. >> There's a whole second layer of question even if you assume he wasn't actually theirs. They knew about him >> and they didn't tell us why. Right? in light of the evidence of what was taking place, if he was just some freelancer, which I don't believe, but if that is the explanation, then there will certainly have been some set of discussions and somebody decided to let this predator continue to traffic girls and young women and do nothing about it. >> Mhm. >> How was that decision being made? And why is this not a focus of outrage in in Israel and the US? Mhm. >> It should be um so again some kind of manipulation is taking place where we are allowed to know certain things certain very damning things. We are entitled to speak somewhat freely about our feelings on these things, but we are denied the substance of a functional system that would address something like this with the utmost seriousness because any anyone with basic human decency understands why you can't have somebody like this functioning with impunity.
>> Mhm. Howdy, folks. 70% of y'all aren't subscribed. Did you know that? So, if you're already watching, I think you rock and I'm really glad you found us. So, hit the subscribe button down below to get more awesome episodes like this, which will also help us get more great guests. Now, back to the show. Yeah. And the signal that I'm getting is that we are we exist on some kind of a massive chessboard that we do not understand. >> We make certain mistakes. We assume that the people on the chessboard are like us, which is an assumption that is generally warranted. If you run into somebody in a bar, the chances that they are interpretable by you is pretty high. People aren't that different in general. But there are certain things that change that assumption or invalidate it. One, there are certain people who have no capacity for moral self-restraint. In general, such people do not do well, they end up in prison or dead. >> Mhm. >> But if they happen to have that characteristic and are simultaneously very insightful, so they learn not to do the things that catch the attention of others. They learn to simulate the speech patterns of somebody who does have sympathy with other human beings. >> They have an advantage. And the advantage is they're capable of doing things that you will assume nobody would do because you couldn't imagine doing it. >> This is like what a psychopath is, right? >> Yeah. But a [clears throat] highly functional highly functional >> a highly functional psychopath. So, one thing that is true is our system probably finds those people and makes use of them. it brings them into collaboration because their uh moral flexibility >> makes them useful. So >> that's one thing. The other thing I get is that I don't think whatever the power structure is that we're up against that it's making all of these moves because they're preferred. I think a number of these things we have actually made surprising gains especially in the last oh I don't know since 2017 we in the public have certain rights those rights are not fully intact but we basically have the right to discuss things more or less openly and then the algorithms will tamp down certain things you mean >> yeah so you know if you look at co for example Yeah, >> co we got hit hard during that time. >> Who? We all of us. >> I know you did more than anybody, but >> my goodness, you know, well, let's put it this way. It was awful. It's also um [clears throat] a set of lessons that you can't buy at any price. We learned a lot about the way power functions during co and we learned a lot about how power views our right to discuss things openly. Mh. >> Um, and you know, we didn't win, but we didn't lose either. I think we punched way above our weight class. And so, uh, I think we need to take those lessons to heart. And what those lessons suggest is that there is an ability for rational voices speaking carefully in public to move the needle of public opinion. And so that's why there's this neverending quest to come up with an excuse good enough to do away with free speech permanently, right? It's probably why there is uh a neverending quest to come up with a reason good enough or an atrocity great enough to uh do away with our Second Amendment rights. There are people for whom our constitutional rights are [clears throat] nothing but gling. There are things they'd like to do that the Constitution makes difficult. This is why our tyranny is less intense than it is at the moment in Britain or in Australia >> or Canada. >> Mhm. >> Um, you know, we happen to have an industrial strength constitution and it's uh tattered, but it's still there. So, part of what I'm telling you is that I think we forced a rethink of how to address the Epstein stuff, right? I mean, in fact, in during this presidency, we've been told it was in our heads, right? We've been told it's hoax. >> Yeah, it's a democratic hoax. And then months later, it's like, you know, here's 3 million documents. I thought it was traffic to himself, >> right? So, I think we have forced Goliath, a a term I'm happy to defend if you want me to, but we have forced Goliath into a limited retreat, into regrouping, and into taking a different approach. Goliath decided to throw some people under the bus. He decided to give us something to satisfy our quest for information about what the hell this was. He decided he could re release the pressure a bit. He decided he could divide us between different narratives, whatever it was that he was up to. So the basic point is we're on a chess board. We are playing whether we understand that or not against a ferocious enemy with many asymmetric advantages. >> Mhm. >> But we are succeeding surprisingly well because at the end of the day the truth is on our side right it gives us an advantage in that battle and so I don't know whether we win or lose in the end but at the moment I would say take the lessons of co and apply them to this. It's the same. >> Yes, >> it's mostly the same enemy, which is >> crazy enough though, any content that has to do with the Epstein stuff doesn't seem to have any throttling attached to it. Like there's there's no suppression of this kind of stuff. And at the same time, I think that this story is probably the most [snorts] it's the it's it goes across both the whole political spectrum. It's unifying. This is one of the most unifying things both left and right. It basic it it illuminates to everybody that the the battle that we have in front of us is not Democrats versus Republicans. It's it's us, the normal people versus the people up there in that layer of reality. >> The people for whom the trafficking of children is a tool, >> a tool for them, >> a tool. It has a value. It has a risk. You know, to a normal person, it's the brightest possible red line, right? Anybody who would contemplate using this would hide the fact that they've discovered somebody who is using it, those people are built of different stuff and they cannot be allowed to continue to wield power.
>> Right? We don't know how many. We don't know in what roles they are. And most importantly, we do not know what role they have played in modern history right up through today. We do not know. And that's the question we need to answer. The Epstein stuff, the details of it are um impossible to look away from, but it's the implication of it that is so important. This was about power. We don't know how it even worked yet. Was it outright blackmail? Probably not. You know, as Mike Benz points out, it's very hard to run an operation like that where outright blackmail is the mechanism. >> What do you mean outright blackmail? >> Where somebody says, "Hey, here's the stuff on you. You do this or we're going to release it." Well, it was definitely that case with Bill Gates because there's the email that basically shows >> you're talking about the uh Russian prostitutes and >> yeah, there was an email with Bill Gates where he's like, "Look, he's like, I don't know if he sent it directly to him or he typed it out to himself, but he's like, I did this for you, this for you, this for you. I got you the STD pills, the serum to put in your wife's drink and all this stuff. I need you to pay up." Like, basically, that was the summary of it. >> My recollection is that is an a letter he wrote to himself. Mhm. >> So the point is, does it hint at blackmail? Of course. >> Is it tantamount to a letter that he actually wrote to Bill Gates? >> Presumably not, or we're not supposed to know. But anyway, the the point that Mike Benz makes, and I think we have to take it seriously, is that if you were to build an operation like this and it worked through outright blackmail, it would blow itself up in the first or second use, right? it would make itself in it would make itself uh unusable going forward because people would just stay away from it. So that's probably not how it worked. On the other hand, I do think it was about exactly the sort of power wielding that we in the public who don't live in this realm, >> right, >> imagine was about blackmail. But I think it worked through different mechanisms that we have yet to understand. And so the important thing is what was the power that was accumulated by Epstein used for and what role is it playing in our current political environment? What are we doing that we wouldn't otherwise be doing except that somebody who owns the Epstein library or whatever it is [laughter] is making happen? That's the key question because it's really the most fundamental question in in the democratic republic that is the United States. >> We have a right to self-determination. The consent of the governed is the sole basis for the legitimacy of governmental power. To the extent that somebody we didn't elect is wielding tremendous amounts of power through compromat or however it worked, that is a violation of the founding principles of this country and it is intolerable.
>> Mhm. What do you make of all of the files missing between the year of 1999 and 2001? >> I'm cautious about it because I want to know for sure that that's a real pattern and not a trap. But if it is a real >> suspicious >> I'm suspicious all the time because let's put it this way. If I'm right that we are on a chessboard and the public is playing against some force the identity of which we don't know >> and we are trying to make sense of the world faster than it can derange [clears throat] us. Then one way to deal with people who do have a knack for figuring out what's taking place is to lure them into stuff where they will embarrass themselves, right? To put something out there that just matches your expectations so well that you're just eager to tweet that thing. Say, "See, I was right." Right? And then it blows up on you and it's like, "Oh, haha, conspiracy theorist." Mhm. >> So I'm always looking out for the case in which something matches too well. And the problem is the absence of the documents seems to tell a clear story that there is something to hide there. But what happens let's say if the some large set of files that is the remainder right not the whole thing I assume we'll never see the whole thing but some big trunch of files gets released and it fills in that gap and there's nothing there right that worries me um for one thing that you know there are tantalizing hints in the stuff that we have seen you know >> Epstein wants to put together a shadow commission right >> to figure out what happened on 9/11. Well, >> they invited Guilain to the Shadow Commission, >> right? So, >> with a secret a secret membership list, >> of course, naturally. Um, but okay, for all of us who have been, you know, tarred and feathered for saying, "Hey, I don't know what happened on 911, but I know that the story that we've been told doesn't add up." I mean, Max Cleland, who was on the 9/11 Commission, quit in disgust saying it was a setup, right? So, the story we've been given doesn't make sense. There's an awful lot of evidence of various things, including the possibility of foreign knowledge on the part of several people who, you know, miraculously survived because they were doing implausible things on the day of >> the attack. Um, we need to know. Um but yeah, I I do feel that we've seen hints. The missing documents, >> yeah, >> have a particular stench to them. It could be a trap. Maybe it's not.
>> And I think some of the people in Washington, their behavior has been very telling. >> Not just Bill Clinton's recent deposition, >> but um I think Trump's behavior has been very telling. I don't know if you remember during the 2016 debates when Trump marched out all those women who were accusing Bill Clinton of >> I don't remember that. So right before that debate, he held a press conference with I forget what it was, maybe a six or half dozen women who were accusing Bill Clinton of and held that press conference right there when Bill and Bill and Hillary were sitting in [clears throat] the front row at this national, you know, biggest televised event on television that year. And then publicly during the debate talked about that. And you there's a there's a a famous photo of Bill Clinton's face when he says that during the national debate and Bill Clinton's eyes are like you could just see his face. He's like stunned. So we know like they they used to be friendly, right, leading up to 2016, no longer. I I don't think when you're friends with somebody and then you publicly accuse them of on national television, I think that kind of burns the bridge permanently, right? I don't think there's any coming back from that. >> Yeah. But then you have just two weeks ago Trump being like, I actually really like him. I really like him a lot. I don't I don't want him to get any harm from this. This is weird. Okay. Then Bill Clinton, the man who was accused of this on public television during the freaking debate during his deposition, after the deposition's over, he says, "I just want to make this clear. I want to add this to the record. I don't think Trump I I think he's been falsely accused. I don't think he's done anything wrong. Why are these guys both doing this? It does not add up. Uh a lot does not add up. And it is suggestive of [snorts] a coordination. Yeah. And >> so in my mind, I'm always when I say Goliath, I mean the force that opposes meaningful change, something very powerful that does not wish to be challenged by novel sources of power. It gives us certain liberties. It prevents us from doing other things. And it is composed of elements that are both colluding consciously. You know, there are meetings and rooms in which things are discussed, plans are hatched. And it's also got emergent elements where you have people who don't know that they are part of Goliath who are doing its bidding because the incentives around them lead them in this direction. Right? Some some of the people crowing about the fact >> that the Epstein files were a nothing burger. It's like, well, >> what the hell files are you reading, >> right? >> That's not a nothing burger. It's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but this isn't a court. You don't need proof beyond a reasonable doubt. What we have is a prepoundonderance of the evidence of some very powerful, very serious thing that we don't know how far it reaches. That's clear as day. But why do you have, you know, a dozen relatively highprofile voices saying, "Huh, told you nothing there." Well, they've been trained. >> Who's saying that? Oh, Michael Tracy, Claire Layman, Robbie Suave, you know, lots of lots of folks who show up at a fairly prominent level. My contention is that they have actually been trained to respond this way, that if the idea is, well, there's an illegal move, you can embrace a conspiracy theory. If you embrace a conspiracy theory, you're going to pay a price. You may survive. Maybe you'll get an audience of conspiracy theorists. But basically, we are going to drive you from polite society if you talk about the anomalies surrounding 9/11, for example. Right? So, there's a whole class of people who have gotten lazy and they've gotten paid for ridiculing people who cross that line. Not because the people who cross that line are ridiculous, >> but because there is something that wants a chorus to always pile on to somebody who is alleging collusion of any kind. Right? So my point is those people are now way the hell out over their skis. They don't know what they've read in the Epstein files. For some reason, they think this is a court of law and that somehow those files failed to reach beyond a reasonable doubt. Well, they do fail to reach beyond a reasonable doubt. But reasonable doubt is a standard that was deliberately constructed by the founding fathers to protect citizens from the ferocious power of government. Right? It's an artificially high standard. It's not a logical standard at all. It is designed to protect citizens. So why are these journalists appealing to this standard? Where's the court? This isn't a court. the preponderance of the evidence is plenty to say, "Holy hell, there is a lot here and we need to find out. We need to get to the absolute bottom of it." >> So anyway, Goliath trained these people. I don't think that they're working for Goliath. Not that they know. They just know that their bank account gets fatter when they make certain noises about conspiracy theorists. And so they're doing it reflexively. It's not that hard to imagine a scenario in which we go from an intense regional quagmire to a nuclear exchange. Yeah. There's been reports that Israel basically told the Trump administration, "If you guys don't let us go in and do this war and you don't help us, we're going to send a nuke there." >> Right. And like that's just a mindbending if that's real. Like we're going to use the nukes. we stole from you that are not declared under the IEA treaty if you don't help us fight this war. Like what? Well, frankly, whether or not that interpretation is correct, that there was an actual threat made, >> the simple fact that we have Israel behaving in a belligerent way and according to Marco Rubio leading us to act in a way that we wouldn't have, whether that was strictly about the timing or the launching of the attack in the first place. The idea that we have a small vulnerable state in a terrifying neighborhood. >> Yes. >> With a nuke acting in a belligerent way >> stops me in my tracks because I mean he I I spent a lot of time uh a year ago thinking about this puzzle and I don't think I ended up saying it into a camera. It was frankly um it gave me pause. But the I think we needed to have a discussion back then about what it means that Israel has nuclear weapons. On the one hand, I see the vulnerability of Israel. I don't want to destroy it and I know that those nuclear weapons will give its neighbors pause. But why? Because if Israel finds itself facing an existential threat, it's sure to use them. >> Mhm. >> What else are they for? >> Mhm. >> So to me, that puts a moral obligation on Israel and on us as Israel's ally to keep Israel out of trouble. In other words, if you, you know, just like this uh protester at the ICE thing who was packing a SIG 320, >> you know, one in the chamber, it seems like. >> Mhm. >> That guy had an obligation not to get into an altercation with officers, right? Because you've got a loaded weapon, as they say in gun circles. [clears throat] If you have a a gun, then any fight you get into is a fight with a gun in it, right? >> Mhm. If Israel is a nuclear state, which it clearly is, any fight it gets into has that as a risk, especially if that fight might go badly and Israel feels like this is its only mechanism to protect itself. So, you know, a year ago, I thought we should be having a discussion about the moral obligation to avoid conflict that comes with having a nuclear weapon. And I watch the Netanyahu regime doing exactly the opposite, right? It's it's pick and fights. >> Yeah. >> Um and I think that should worry everyone on Earth.
>> Hold that thought. I got to take a pee real quick. We'll be right back. >> Yeah, we're covering a lot of good stuff. >> Yeah, we sure are. I hope it doesn't get me killed. [laughter] >> I actually do worry about it. >> What's that? >> I actually do worry about it. >> Do you really? >> Yep. I mean, you want to talk about that? >> Sure. >> I'd be willing to. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What What specifically has you worried about your safety? >> Um, let's put it this way. We're up against some very powerful forces that have a very clear understanding of what they want to happen. And I, let's put it this way. I think people could hear me say that and they probably would have the natural reaction of, "Come on, you're not that important." right? They got better things to do and I get that. But on the other hand, to have a Jew talking about his concern about the Israeli regime, about the [clears throat] functioning of the US government, what I think is on behalf of the Israeli regime in a reckless adventure in the Middle East that >> uh we should have avoided. I think that that is pretty inconvenient because the way this has worked is people have been bullied into accepting this action because if they oppose anything in the neighborhood, they get accused of anti-semitism and [clears throat] people of course uh there is lots of anti-semitism and people do not want to get you know lumped into a category with a bunch of people who really do hate Jews. Mhm. >> And then of course the typical move would be that you know if a Jew says I'm not uh I'm not down with this. This is seems very dangerous to me. It seems very bad for the United States and very dangerous for Israel. Then you know the next move would be to accuse them of being self-hating. But I'm not self-hating. Pretty obviously not. What's more I have a >> It's very rational. You're calling out a government. >> It's very rational. I'm somebody with expertise in complex systems and a certain >> uh experience thinking about historical events. >> And what's more, the story from 2017 says that I'm a guy who will stare down accusations about my character that aren't true and come out okay on the other side. So if your point is you want certain things to happen and that means that nothing can stand in their way then what you don't want is an actual discussion in which people can formulate their own opinion and not be shouted down with accusations about bigotry. Um so I think I think there's bound to be some consternation in very powerful circles about my stepping out of line by saying these things. On the other hand, I think it's my it's my patriotic duty to call it like I see it. >> Mhm. >> And uh that's that's what I'm doing. >> When you say powerful circles, what do you mean specifically? >> I mean, look, I don't know what that Epstein stuff was. >> Yeah. >> It was about power. >> Yes. >> Those people were obviously perfectly comfortable with the destruction of innocent people. >> Right. >> Right. >> Right. If you're trafficking girls and young women, these people didn't do anything to ask for that. >> Those are innocent. And you're okay with literally destroying them in order to wield more power. >> Mhm. >> So something that is comfortable with that. >> Mhm. >> What do you think it thinks about somebody who speaks inconveniently? >> Yeah. But you're such a public figure, you're so big. Like that would be Don't you think that's like too obvious? uh >> you kind of like have achieved escape velocity already. >> You would hope maybe I I comfort myself with that thought, but then I have this other thought that's so uncomfortable, which is first of all, let me say I don't think Goliath kills. It's a last resort. Goliath does kill, but he doesn't want >> easier ways of ruining your life. >> Yeah, they have Yeah, they they have ways of ruining you, of capping your reach, of robbing you of your income, all those things. And I've I've faced many of those. But it will kill if it doesn't have a choice. And the thing about, you know, being a public figure is that they're there two reasons that you might eliminate somebody from the chessboard. One is because you don't like what they're doing on the chessboard, and the other is to send a message to others who might think about doing the same thing. M >> so you know I guess my hope is that my hope is that I'm imagining that danger that it's not real. If it is real, I hope that they will decide it would not be a good idea in light of, you know, all of the people, yourself included, who have big platforms who >> uh would, you know, would look at a failure to investigate such a thing and end up talking about what its implications are. >> Yeah. >> Um, >> sure. >> But I don't know. I think about this sometimes, but then, you know, obviously I'm not like as a widely known public figure like yourself, but I do you can't help but think about this stuff sometimes and other people that are way bigger than me who talk about these crazy divisive geopolitical conflicts all the time. But then I remind myself Tucker Carl still Tucker Carlson is still walking around and he seems fine and he is like at the tip of the spear when it comes to this stuff. And I don't know about any sort of personal stuff that he's dealt with that he maybe hasn't been public about or whatever he's been dealing with, but um I mean that guy is going around kicking every [ __ ] hornets nest around the world. And I I don't know I don't know what drives him. I don't know if I could do that. Yeah. I I think first of all he has paid a very high price now. He is so spectacularly independently powerful and wealthy on the basis of all that he's >> done up to this point that he can afford to be slandered. >> But I know that amongst amongst people who are in my circle but have not been part of the battle over COVID. They haven't they haven't been through the ringer themselves. Mhm. >> He is viewed as a lightweight lunatic with terrible perverse incentives. Now, I know him. That's not what I see at all. In fact, I don't think if you were to just say, "Okay, I'm going to give it a week and I'm going to listen to what Tucker Carlson has to say and then I'm going to re-evaluate what I thought about him." If you did that, I think you would inevitably come away with a very different picture. But the useful thing, and I know because I've faced this attack so many times, the way they hurt you is they lodge, it's a sneaky trick. They lodge this idea in people's minds which is that person is so crazy or so dumb or so corrupt that if you listen to them and that makes sense to you, there's something wrong with you. >> Right. >> Right. >> Right. >> Nobody could be fooled by Tucker Carlson. Right. That's the idea. And so the point is, why is that sneaky? Because [clears throat] if you decide, hey, wait a minute. I'm I'm not going to be bossed around. and I'll make my own decision. And then you go and you start listening to Tucker and you hear, "Actually, that doesn't sound racist. That sounds reasonable. Hey, that's a good point." >> Then you start to think, "Oh god, am I one of those people who can't see it? Am I a sucker?" Right. >> Right. So anyway, they they wield this trick. Uh I call it >> gaslighting by ricochet. The idea is they lodge they launch an attack on somebody. >> Yes. >> It doesn't fool them. >> So you don't want to associate yourself with them. >> Yeah. It hits the person who's giving that person a chance. So I've seen this happen so many times. But the point is >> they have done a good job of pruning Tucker away from polite society. And you know, is there enough left over of other people for him to spend the rest of his career productively? Sure, there is. But that let's just say they it is not that they have not had an effect on how far his reach is. His reach is still vast, but it exists in one quadrant and not at all in another where he is treated as somebody who's lost his mind, gone off the deep end, whatever your metaphor might be. >> So anyway, yeah, but he is still alive and that's good news. uh one of the things that I have worked on evolutionarily in the last decade is a model that I call lineage selection which I believe has everything to do with understanding human history um up until the present but especially not in the west. So the model works like this >> especially not in the west. >> The west is the exception okay to lineage selection. Lineage selection, I would argue, covers all creatures throughout evolutionary history. It's it doesn't matter whether you're a plant or you're, you know, a monkey. Makes no difference. The basic idea is that if you think about what you've >> read or heard about evolution, right? We understand why you act in your own interest. It's obvious, right? That's how you get into the future. That's what evolution is about. Yeah, >> we don't have too much trouble explaining why you might risk your own life to save your child from a burning building, right? In fact, if we're to be narrow about it, we can say, well, that child has 50% of your genes, they are your ticket into the future. So, your willingness to take a risk to save that is a kind of selfishness genetically speaking, if we zoom out, right? And you know we've known for I don't know six seven decades that you could extend this logic to you know let's say cousins for example. In fact the evolutionary biologist JBS Haldane once joked that he would gladly give his life for two brothers or eight cousins hinting at the exact math that describes how related your first cousins are and and your brothers. >> So anyway that logic is uncontroversial. Every evolutionary biologist knows it. What is controversial is that that logic actually extends out even when we get into levels of relatedness for which there's no name. Right? You and I have a degree of relatedness. We don't know what it is. But the point is that level of relatedness, you and I might be very distantly related. But if you brought in, you know, a Somali, then the chances are you and I, if you were to draw a fogyny, are on the same branch here and here. and the Somali is one branch down. Right? So the point is in every >> conflict you could draw the evolutionary fogyny of the populations who are battling and you could predict what the alliances are going to look like. So for example, you know, you've got uh the Catholics and the Protestants in Ireland. >> Mhm. >> You can't get those guys into the same room for anything. Right. >> Right. >> Except you can. Right. immigration from Africa caused them to actually march together, right? Why did they march together? Well, I would argue it's a straightforward prediction of lineage selection. So, to make a long story short, history and prehistory, prehistory being before history was written down, but in history and prehistory, populations displaced each other. That was what they did. And that may sound petty and nasty, but the point is you either displace others or they displace you. And so history is overlapping patterns [clears throat] of displacement. >> Mhm. >> That are based on genetic relatedness. Again, that's controversial in evolutionary biology, but I believe it's straightforward logically speaking. >> You meaning similar genetics? >> Yeah. that you know people team up based on how closely related they are between populations. Uh when there's no enemy they break apart. You have this constant factioning based on >> on relatedness >> and displacement is the goal. Why? Because >> territory is effectively your ticket into the future and evolution is about lodging your genes as far into the future as you can get them. So, how are you going to get to the future? Well, if you've got a certain amount of territory and you can expand it, that's a good hedge against going extinct, right? Bigger piece of territory can have more people who are related to you. >> So, I would argue you can take all of the most grotesque events in history and understand them in this regard. Why did the Nazis go after the Jews? Well, you had a small population with a certain amount of resources couldn't defend itself, and this was a way of providing what felt like growth to the German population by stealing the niche that was held by this diaspora Jewish population, >> right? >> Very straightforward. Um but anyway that process of lineage selection is supplanted by a different process in the west where we agree in the US to not prioritize relatedness and instead to collaborate with each other because we're Americans and because there's stuff to do. Right? So that's the alternative I would argue is a society society based on reciprocity rather than based on relatedness. That's why this prototype has to be protected because frankly a world based on relatedness with nuclear weapons and AI surveillance and all of the rest isn't going to last. >> If we want humanity to survive, we have to have a system in which we sideline our instinct to go after each other based on who we're related to. Mhm. >> And so anyway, I think this um unfortunately if you look at Israel, Israel is on the one hand a modern state. Its head of state is I think a secular guy. I I don't find any evidence that he's a believer >> and Israel has one foot in the modern west, right? It's fully capable of being a high-tech cosmopolitan society. on the other hand, it has one foot in the Old Testament. And my concern for years has been that Israel falls back into its Old Testament instincts and drags the world backwards into the Old Testament in a outbreak of lineage against lineage violence that is unconstrained in the Middle East. And unfortunately the modern conflict looks exactly like this, right? You have um [clears throat] a Jewish state partnered with a state founded on Christian values, though it is not a Christian state. I want to be clear about that. Um partnered in a battle against Shia Muslims. Um now that battle has one unagnowledged nuclear state and is ostensibly about another state which we are told has nuclear ambitions. But >> nonetheless >> this if we if you look at the what one interpretation says are the expansionist aims of Israel that looks like lineage against lineage violence and displacement. Mhm. >> Um as frankly does what took place in Gaza. >> So right because [clears throat] what I heard was that the go the the the the Palestinians and the Israelis the the native Israelis are virtually identical genetically. >> They are actually closely related. That's certainly true. >> Which is insane. >> It is insane. And it it raises, you know, their >> pro- regime accounts spread false claim that Ben Gavir was killed in Iranian air strike. Okay. >> Yeah. All right. So, it's not true. >> Not true. >> All right. Um, so >> to fight another day. [snorts] >> And you do, I will say there is a question. You have Ashkanazi Jews from Europe who are much more distantly related to uh the Misrai Jews and the Sphartic Jews than the local Arab populations. >> Ashkenazi's Russian Jews >> uh Eastern European >> like Okay, which ones are from Spain? >> Uh those are Sphartic. >> Sphartic. Okay. >> Yeah. Um but anyway there are questions about how this works and you know you find the same thing in Islam right you have African Muslims you know you have Indonesian Muslims and you have uh Muslims in the Arab world so you have these different factions and you have the confusing fact that they are to one extent or another united by belief structures right so obviously Islam is uh Islam is a series of lineages which is united by uh basically belief in the Quran. Um likewise the Torah but for Jews but >> anyway >> second biggest religion in the world right >> Islam. >> Islam >> yeah at two billion people. >> Christianity being the largest at 2.4 billion >> and it's the second largest in America right? >> Uh Islam. [clears throat] >> Oh >> number one is Christianity. Number two is Islam I think in America. >> That makes sense. Um, >> yeah. >> So, in any case, I'm concerned that basically an old evolutionary dynamic that results in a displace or be displaced mentality is reasserting itself and that it what it what it is going to do is hobble and displace the west because the west is the alternative >> to that uh style of thinking. Yes, >> this is all playing out absurdly because my field, evolutionary biology, >> is stuck. Most of the people in it don't realize it's stuck and it's just like the rest of the academy. You know, it's dysfunctional. Now, how it got dysfunctional, we could have an argument about that. I can't say that I know for sure, but I can say it's become feeble. And what I said on my last uh my last episode of Rogan was that I think there's a way to understand evolutionary dynamics that adds an element which greatly increases the
power of Darwinian evolution. So, I think guys like Tucker are listening to people like Steven Meyer who are correctly identifying that the story the public has been given about how Darwinian natural selection works is not powerful enough to account for the creatures that we all see. Right? I believe the story that is in your bio 101 textbook is not complete. I don't think it's untrue, but it is not complete.
And that the field has been very reluctant to admit what it doesn't know because it thinks that opens the door to creationists, right?
And at the same time, [clears throat] at the same time, those people like to write off the religious [snorts] people as quacks when it seems like the reality is God and religion seems to be like a fundamental puzzle to the human brain.
Oh, let's put it this way. The biggest error of all, the one that is resulting in all of the uh missteps that are the product of paranoia about creationists, is the abuse of religious people by naive Darwinists.
Mhm.
So, look, religious faith, religious belief, stories that constrain what you're allowed to do on Earth are fascinating evolutionary puzzles. We don't treat them that way.
Right?
Richard Dawkins will literally tell you religion is a mind virus. He's telling you it is a pathology that it is causing an organism that is otherwise well-b built to function to function poorly.
Mhm.
[ __ ] This is a pattern deserving of explanation every bit as a wing or an eye or a leaf or anything else that we find in nature that has this elegant aspect to it.
Mhm.
So, to treat it as a virus, as a pathogen, is not to give it its due.
Right. The right thing to do is to say, "Huh, that's a huge amount of effort that humans put into something that is not obvious why it would be productive."
Mhm.
So, the onus is on us to figure out in what way that works out for creatures who believe and apparently does not work out for creatures that don't.
So, or humans that don't. So, in any case, that whole mess has caused evolutionary biologists to fail to find the ways in which the story that we tell about how evolution works is incomplete and that there are other aspects that enhance the power of that mechanism. So, I laid that out on Rogan. I'm not going to run you through it. It's a pretty long explanation, but if people want to check it out, check out the most most recent uh Rogan podcast. And I think it's the first 20 minutes.
Yeah. There's a great book also called The Age of Reason by Thomas Payne where he—I'm not sure if you're familiar with it—but he does a—it's a old, old book—but he, uh, I think he was like friends with Thomas Jefferson actually, where he basically makes the case that it's like, um, it's the gift of reason that we're able to discover God in the first place, right? Like, because human beings have reason, that is why we can assume, or we have to—we have to think of some sort of a creator that created, like, who was the first one? Like, I came from my dad, my dad came from his dad, eventually that has to, like, where does it start, right? So, it's like a—it's a—it's a—it's a part of our psyche that has to be filled with something, and if you—if used for good, it's a great—I mean, it makes perfect sense why, you know, that has to be there. And it's—it is interesting, you know, how does that evolve? And I think you said it was adaptive or something. Religion is adaptive.
Oh, 100%. Um, I mean, not every word in every text, but a longstanding religion or a religion that's been around hundreds or thousands of years that restricts what you can do, right? That's a cost evolutionarily speaking. If a book tells you who you're allowed to reproduce with and who you're not, that's interesting because evolution has a lot to do with reproduction.
Mhm.
So, you would think, "Oh, reproduce with whoever you can reproduce with." Nope. Book says no. Huh? Why would it say no? Why, in what way, do you win in the long term, evolutionarily speaking, if you agree to lose out in the short term based on what it says in this book? That is—that's the mother of all puzzles when it comes to human behavior. Why would you restrict yourself from profiting? And the answer is, oh, in the long term, that's the only way to persist. If you, you know, are constantly reproducing with in every way that you can, with every opportunity in front of you, you don't end up with a civilization, right? You can't have a civilization if that's the mode.
So, right, it's a very important puzzle, and uh, I am neverendingly disappointed in my colleagues for failing to honor it and for even worse, ridiculing believers as if they had a mind virus. That's just—that's nasty and completely unjustified, and it is the result of illogic of evolutionary biologists that they would have arrived at that conclusion.
Mhm.
Yeah. And it can—it's like a double-edged. It's a—it's a—it's a—it's a weapon that can be—it can be used. Religion is something that can be used for good, and it's vast—I mean, just it's—it's used for good probably more than it's used for bad. But the problem is, you just don't hear about the good stories. You only hear about the negative stories.
Well, you know, let's put it this way. What I've said is not a defense of it at a moral level. Obviously, many traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, contain moral constraints that are highly desirable differentially. So, we can compare those traditions, and we can say which level of constraint leads to the best society. And I would argue that one of the ways in which the Torah falls down is that it is a book built for lineage against lineage violence, and that we are better off with the update that is the New Testament, which tells us a different way to live in which we—we don't stop competing, but the point is, we stop competing with violence and we start competing in something that looks more like a marketplace.
And, you know, it's still competition; there are winners and there are losers, but it's a vastly better way to live.
Yes.
Right. It's safer. It's fairer. It's just simply superior according to all the values that we think we hold.
And the other problem, which goes back to what you said a couple minutes ago, is that when that tendency to want to believe in something that enables you, that empowers you, that makes you and everyone you care about better off, when that thing is not met with a proper belief structure, it gets filled by something else.
Right? So, the woke revolution—that was not a religious phenomenon—that was something that was a cult, right? That was something that took over that religiosity that is built into people and directed it at something that wasn't even true, right? The fervor with which people are supporting Benjamin Netanyahu in his reckless, nuclear tipped campaign in the Middle East. Some of the people supporting it are very religious and have their own beliefs about the second temple and the third temple and, sure, the Alexa complex and all of that, and that's very frightening.
But a lot of the people who are the most excited about this are secular. And it's almost as if they have come up with a kind of religious devotion to the PowerPoint presentation that told them that Iran or Iran was next.
That phenomenon is quasi religious. And so this war, even though there's a whole lot of secularness involved in making it happen, it is in some ways an undeclared holy war. It is.
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