Shane Smith, former Vice Media co-founder, traces his shift from vaccine skepticism to questioning the moon landing and "Michelle Obama’s dick" claims—stemming from COVID-era online chaos—and critiques mainstream media’s avoidance of investigative topics like the deep state, citing Peter Dale Scott’s research on Pentagon-linked firms (Raytheon, Boeing) and covert operations. He contrasts Vice’s early grassroots ethos with later corporate bureaucracy, valuing Rogan’s podcast model of small, passionate teams over materialism, like his $50K Patek Philippe now worth millions but burdened by security. Both warn automation and AI could destabilize society without purposeful work, dismissing UBI as a hollow fix unless paired with passion-driven careers. Smith’s Shane Smith Has Questions debuts as a bold alternative to scripted media, while Rogan defends podcasting’s authenticity, advocating live connection over digital stagnation. [Automatically generated summary]
And I went in thinking that vaccines were the pinnacle of human technology and came out thinking that the moon landing wasn't real and Michelle Obama's got a dick.
During COVID, I became obsessed with social media and X and just looking at shit and whatever.
And I'm like, what's true?
What's not true?
Because everybody's speaking so forcibly.
This is one question I wanted to ask you.
You talk to all these dudes all the time.
One of the things I miss, I would be talking to people and be like, Oh, this is going on off Gaston, and I'll be like, oh, I was just there.
That's not what's happening.
Or, you know, this is happening in Iraq.
Oh, I was just there.
I love talking to people.
I love meeting people, and I love sort of knowing stuff.
Like, you can just say, well, I'm going to go there.
I'm going to figure it out.
So I saw all this stuff on social media, and I was like, Wow.
You know, there's all this stuff.
But no one's really going after it and saying, like, as an investigative journalist, saying, what's real, what's not real, what's true, what's not true.
I remember I used to watch Tony Blair during Question Period, and he'd, like, leap up, and he'd be like, blah, blah, blah, and he was so, like, he knew everything and the facts and stuff.
Like, you've interviewed him a bunch of times, or...?
So there's a guy named Peter Dale Scott who actually wrote the book on the deep state and brought like the concept over from Turkey to here and broke it.
And if you talk to him, so he was really involved or wrote about or covered the – they tried to assassinate Castro.
That was the first American deep state thing, which is like – by the way, that's factual.
That's like – there were the mob and Cubans and the CIA and they tried to commit – Many times they tried to kill him.
And then, you know, that sort of morphed, and there's all this sort of mix into the Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy, RFK assassination attempts that this guy was referencing.
And you're just like, deep state has such a negative connotation to it because it's like conspiracy-ish, but you're like, when it got explained to me by the guys who sort of Coined the terms which is you know like there's this intelligence agencies or the Pentagon Career bureaucrats who by the way go back and forth it's a rotating door they go to Raytheon they go to Boeing they go and they get the contract trillions of dollars And they act in cahoots with each other and you're like yeah,
that makes total fucking sense of course like that it's business really business relationship and then if they have Something that needs to happen You have all kinds of people Who will do that thing for you?
Yeah, he was the most remote human until we found those people in Russia and in Siberia who had run from Stalin and this family who had gone up into the mountains and just lived there for like 80 years.
But when you guys were, you know, when it was young, it was like, it was new internet, right?
Because internet opened up a bunch of different possibilities.
And it opened up possibilities for legitimate, independent journalism and legitimate, independent thinkers who were really disconnected from the sort of stiff, stuffy, mainstream perspective of what's going on in life.
And you guys gave...
You guys gave a completely unfiltered perspective as a normal human who's experiencing these bizarre circumstances in these exotic lands.
And it was awesome, man.
It was awesome.
And then now it's this bizarre propaganda machine that's ideologically captured to the point where it's preposterous.
Like, they say things that are just so outlandish and so not in tune with logic or objectivity.
It's so strange to see, going from what you made to what it is now.
Yeah, look, I mean, I could get into the nuances, which are many and boring, but basically what happens is, you know, and I actually called it from the beginning.
I said, look, we're going to get too big, and at that point, we're going to become the thing that we're like we were a challenger brand, and we're going to become the status quo, and then we're going to get our asses kicked, A. B, I said, look, all internet is now consolidating and media is consolidating and everybody's consolidating because they have to because the big five are taking all the money.
And we knew it was coming, but it came...
Like, look, I'll tell you another thing.
In media...
You know, there's not a lot of people picking shit.
Like, you get to pick shit because you run your own shop.
You're the man.
But, like, when you run media, it's like people put on what people watch.
That's the rule.
Like, you just put on shit and people watch it.
And then, like, if you say, I want to do this and nobody watches it, then you don't get to say, I want to do this that often.
And we always had a thing where we gave the company over to the interns.
If we just stayed a Gen X free giveaway, we would have never gotten into video.
In fact, when we got into video, we were derided by the old guys for selling out because going to online video was seen as a sellout because we should have stayed in a magazine.
So I moved to L.A. because our biggest clients were there, the biggest platforms were there, no one was out there, kids, and I was like, okay, I can move to the country and commute into New York or I can move to L.A. So I moved to LA and that started a whole...
That was not smart in retrospect.
Because you leave and it starts like Game of Thrones shit.
And then also, quite frankly, if you want to know the metaphysical fucking reasons why, I can get into it.
The best time for Vice, the time that you're talking about, the time that I loved, was, you know, you would go, before all the big investors and everything, you would go to, like, Italy, right?
And you would get an apartment and, you know, you get a girlfriend and you find an office and you hire people that look like you or hang out like you or just are cool or whatever.
And you would build it.
You would buy the fucking computers on your credit card and you would fucking go to the grandmother's place for fucking lunch in Cinque Terre.
You would like fucking, you know, figure out all the cool places to hang out with you, with your friends and stuff.
And then you'd have a big party and everyone would come and advice would be launched.
Then you'd get on a train and go to Sweden and do the same thing.
You'd live there for six months.
You'd build something.
It was tangible.
The mag would come out.
You'd start shooting stuff.
And it would be fucking awesome.
And then, when it got to be like, you fly in and you meet with lawyers and accountants and it's shit, and then you fly out again the next day, it's terrible, right?
And so, when that happened, I was like, I won't do this anymore.
And I'm not good at it.
Like, I was good at building.
I'm good at building.
I'm good at, like, founders are not necessarily operators.
Yeah, no, he's the best, but it's the most important.
I have friends that have big podcasts, and they have this huge staff, and they have all these people running around.
I'm like, what do all these people do?
And it's like they want this feeling of they're the boss of a bunch of employees for some reason.
Like they want all these production people that are creating content.
But then you have inner office conflicts, and they're always putting out fires, and people are complaining, and then people leave and make videos talking about what a piece of shit boss you were.
And it's like, hey man, you're dealing in this thing where there's currency in that information.
There's currency for these...
These mediocre people.
So you hire these mediocre people and these mediocre people attack you because there's currency in attacking you, but you didn't need them in the first place.
This whole thing was stupid.
You're making a little bit more money, but you have more problems, but you don't notice that money.
You have to pay attention to what you notice, right?
Whatever the fuck you have in your bank account, If you're a fairly wealthy person and you have $100 more, $100 less, $1,000 more, $1,000 less, you don't notice it.
But I'll tell you what you do notice.
You notice hassle.
You notice problems.
Those problems are worth a lot of money to get rid of.
Like, if you had a bunch of employees, like, fuck, what can I do?
There's so many people, it's so annoying.
God, I wish we were small again.
Getting back to small again is a grind.
You gotta fire people.
You gotta downsize.
You gotta figure out how to do it.
That's a mess, man.
You don't want that mess.
So that extra money that you got by making things too big, you fucked yourself.
You got greedy.
You looked at it the wrong...
Like, someone said to me, like, I was in the park on the Comedy Store, this friend of mine was not even very successful.
It was like, I'm trying to find a new assistant.
I go, why do you need a new assistant?
He goes, you don't have an assistant?
I go, no.
I go, this is what you do.
Do less shit.
If you need an assistant, you're doing too many things.
Do less shit.
Don't get a fucking assistant.
You have an assistant, you have what happens to David Spade.
The guy shows up with duct tape and a taser and tries to kill you.
Remember that?
Because they wind up resenting you.
Because if you've got some person who's working for you, he's making $50,000 a year, and you have $50 million, they want to kill you.
After a while, they're like, I'm a part of this too!
They don't think of it as this is a great job, this job could eventually lead to something bigger.
People get resentful.
Also, the type of people that are 34 years old, they're working as an assistant, Probably a little fucked up.
Probably made some mistakes.
Probably, you know, not really on the right path in life.
Now all of a sudden, you're connected at the hip to this person.
And then they want to tell you about their problems.
And maybe got an ex-wife.
Or maybe they got a this.
And if they're making more money, they're going to make more money.
And so you've, because you wanted to appear like you have a, everybody wants a big organization.
Like Vice is big now.
You know, the JRE, we have a thousand employees worldwide.
And look, a fucking punk kid that came from nothing.
So when you have employees, there is actually a Harvard thing where they say, There's a paradox where you hire somebody because you want someone to help you, but they're not as good as you, and you hire someone who's not as good as you, and then you hire someone who's not as good as them.
So then all this stuff, and you have to do more work.
There's more hassles.
Then you have a whole group of people reporting to you, and this is exactly not how to run a business.
And I even knew that going in.
And then you hire, and you're exactly right, and you hire all these people.
All they need to do is be in the same room as you.
I got Johnny Cash's fucking car from 1969. What kind of car is that?
So in 1969, Johnny Cash had the number one show in America, and ABC got him a one-of-a-kind Rolls-Royce, extra-long body, all black, black mahogany interior.
And check this out.
So it was me and Wayne Newton.
Remember, I used to gamble.
I was in Vegas, won a bunch of money.
I actually had to fly to China, and my buddy stayed there, and it was me and Wayne Newton bidding against each other for Johnny Cash's car.
And when we got it, you know, it was like burning fucking fuel oil.
Because when I came out to LA, I'm like, I'm going to get a shit brown Agatha Christie Rolls-Royce and an MS-13 driver with, like, the full 13 and, like, a safety controller.
I used to go, speaking of the old days of ice, I had everyone used to laugh because I'd go for literally years with a backpack.
And I'd just be like, well, all I wear is black jeans and a black t-shirt.
I would just buy new ones if I need something.
You just go to a pharmacy.
To this day, if I go to a fucking pharmacy in a foreign country, I'm stoked.
Because it means I'm getting shit that I need, like shampoo and fucking toothpaste and little scissors from my nose hairs and shit.
And that means I'm on top of my game.
I'm fucking ready to go.
I gotta fucking interview people and do shit.
Because I'm gone to the fucking pharmacy.
And, you know, I love going to a fucking supermarket because you're just like, I'm going to buy some fucking food and then we're going to go do some work and it's going to be fucking awesome.
That shit gives me pleasure.
Fucking a watch or a fucking car or shoes or fucking nothing.
Yeah, I mean, the most expensive are still Patex, but yeah, like, those ones are, I mean, rare ones.
Like, I was obsessed with, so I like the Paul Newman Panda, but they have, like, the lemon or the champagne panda, which is the gold version of that, which they made, like, four of.
And I was chasing that down, and now I'm like, what the fuck?
It's not happened to me, although I have nearly lost them many times, because, you know, you have a few ales on the plane, and Take your shit off and put it in the box.
I've never done it, but it's been close calls, but there's so many stories in the watch world about you're going through customs, you're going through security, you're going through somewhere, someone takes your phone.
I've had a lot of people who are like, how much does that watch?
And you're like, it's fake.
I always just say it's fake.
Anyway, so I'm getting rid of all that shit just because you're like, it doesn't fucking mean anything.
And what actually does mean shit is, like you were saying, you know, Learning shit, like making shit, but also at the same time going like, I'm learning shit.
And if you can figure out how that's your job, and it's not just something that you do on the bus on the way home, but it's actually your job, that's a good life.
And look, everyone's looking at, for us, and then we can get on and other shit, but, you know, who left the fucking porthole open of the Titanic?
And you're like, yeah, it hit a fucking iceberg.
Not just us.
You know, look at all the new media.
Right.
Culturally.
Five...
Companies take up 87 cents of every advertising dollar in the world, and independent media gets the rest.
And it's getting smaller and smaller.
The money dries up, and when the money dries up, you start getting frantic, right?
You start fucking flailing around looking for shit, whatever.
You start looking for solutions.
Other people start looking for solutions.
Young people start fucking saying, this is what we gotta do, this is what we gotta do.
And you have 5,000 people saying what we gotta do, rather than five.
And you got people who are semi-checked out, if not checked out, and you know, shit got set.
Nobody's fucking, it's my baby, nobody got fucking more sick about it than me, but you're like, okay, you know, so now, you know, we're doing, Vice News is me, we're doing the podcast, we're doing, it's fun, again, we're just fucking building, trying to do new shit with fucking AI and with some other stuff, this is fun.
But yeah, I do other shit on my own.
Look, the other thing, too, is I also spent time living my life, which I hadn't been doing, which I'm sure you do out here.
I was saying to someone, because we were the forgotten generation, and everyone, like, I was shitting.
And I was saying to someone, if you look at, you know, the Carl Sagan thing of, like, we live in the greatest envelope of history ever, like, of the billions of planets and the billions of years of this planet, like, we live in this final time when there's oxygen and there's water and you can fucking eat and you can fucking, you know.
And then I'm like, okay, if you look at that, And then go, the best ever time has been, like, our little window.
Like, born in the 60s, grew up in the 70s, fucking free to go play in the creek and fucking, you know, go hunting and fishing and all that shit.
And then, you know, no parental supervision.
But there's never been, like, a major fucking warning.
We're not getting pitchforked in the stomach.
You know, food has been, like, for the first time, really, in history, food is now everywhere as good for every kind of, you know, like, quality-wise, you know?
Travel, luxury fucking international travel, like being able to do freaky jobs rather than work in a factory.
Like all these fucking things happen for Gen X. And God knows if it happens again, because AI is going to be all human endeavor done by machines and environmental shit and fucking, you know, the world is changing in ways we can't even fucking imagine.
All the parents were clucking hands about not learning math.
You're like, AI is going to change fucking everything.
And so I was talking to someone and saying, it's ironic, but Gen X actually lived in the greatest historical window of all time, potentially.
And so I'm not going to just fucking not enjoy that.
I'm going to go out there in life and just be like, I'm literally living in the greatest single fucking window in the history of history.
I'll see you on Saturday at 8. But we were also free from the confines of social media.
And social media has brought an incredible amount of information to people, but has also created a lot of very mentally ill people, whether they realize it or not.
It's like you're getting a low dose of radiation all day long, every day.
If I was not a famous person, I was a person that was who I was when I was 19 years old, I would 100% be leaving shitty comments on YouTube videos and shitty comments on someone's Instagram or Twitter or whatever.
It's what people do.
It's normal.
It's not the people's fault because it's a very disconnected, disassociated way of communicating with people that's not congruent.
It's not normal for human communication.
It's not what we're designed.
We're designed to do this.
I'm looking at you.
You're looking at me.
I smile.
You smile.
We're buddies.
We're having a good time.
That's how people are used to communicating with each other.
When you're communicating with people through text, it's fucking bizarre.
It's very bizarre.
It's very different.
And it's not good for you to take in the opinions of hundreds of thousands of people.
Yeah.
That may or may not be mentally ill, may or may not be going through a divorce.
Or just, look, if you're successful in particular, there's a lot of unsuccessful people that are very bitter, very sad, and they want to find everything wrong with you.
We were talking about this in the green room last night.
I fucking loved the new Beetlejuice movie.
I loved it.
I read so many bad reviews of it.
So many bad reviews that it fell flat.
I had a giant smile on my face the whole time.
I'm a huge Tim Burton fan.
I think the guy's brilliant, and I think his movies are so unique because they have this fingerprint of Tim Burton on them.
It's like it's so obviously through his mind, his vision.
I think the guy's incredible.
I love all his films.
So for me, I was like, oh, this is great.
When they got to the Soul Train, I was like, yes!
I love it!
This is so Tim Burton!
And so many people criticized that in particular.
There was something offensive about the Soul Train.
It was near our old vice office, and we, when we didn't have any money, the hack was you go there, order lunch to go, and you order the burger, because it's all the ends of the steaks, and the fucking killer burger, and you take it down to the river, and you look at Manhattan and have this, it was a $5 burger at the time, and you're like, this is the greatest fucking lunch in the greatest city.
But it's just that people even in that will find negativity.
Everything sucks.
And I think we were talking about this last night that I think this is a symbol of the times we're going through right now because everyone is so anxious.
The presidential elections are headed and no one knows what the fuck is going to happen or what's the right answer.
Is it better if she gets in?
Is it better if he gets in?
Is he going to be a dictator?
Is she going to crack down on free speech?
Are we going to be in World War III? Does Iran have a fucking nuke?
Was that earthquake a nuke or was it just an earthquake?
There's a nuclear test.
The weather.
Why does God hate Florida?
All these different things.
There's so much going on.
Israel and Gaza and the Middle East and Fuck, man.
So everyone is like, fuck Tim Burton, fuck that movie, fuck this, fuck that, fuck that restaurant.
It's just the zeitgeist is disturbed.
It's not a peaceful time in our- There's a lot of anxiety.
And I don't, you know, I think we're missing out on the reality of our existence, which if we lived at any other time, we lived in 1924, and you got a time machine to go to 2024, you'd be like, holy shit, this is amazing!
Well, that's the other problem I wanted to talk to you about is don't you freak – because when I first started studying politics, you have to take stats.
And they're like – there was a Southern dude teaching me.
He's like, you can have a statistic to prove anything.
And my thing now is – and this is what I became interested in.
It's like all the – this is why I started with RFK. Everyone has all the stats, and then they give stats so forcefully that you believe them.
Like, well, that sounds fucking, you think?
And there's stats about this, and there's stats about that, and all the stats are bad.
I think that's the only way we're going to be able to keep people alive.
My fear is that we're going to have too much control over those people if we do that, and those people will have no purpose.
And we'll have an even more disenfranchised population than we have today.
And the haves and the have-nots will be even further and further apart.
And there's no real education that is in school today where you take a child and you say, hey, look, the world is going to change and most of these jobs are going to be useless.
You're going to have to find something that you love that resonates with people.
And if you do that, people are going to be willing to exchange that for money.
So actually, when I was spending a lot of time in Silicon Valley, there was a lot of this talk, and they're talking about universal, you know, living wage or basic wage.
And I was like, what are you fucking talking about?
And they're like, well, the synthesis of AI is all human endeavor done by machines.
I'm like, wow, come on.
So I was kind of the skeptic, you know?
This is 10 years ago, and now all of this shit has come true.
They were already thinking about this back then, because they're also saying exactly what you said, which is, let's say quantum computing happens and AI at the same time, which is probably three years away.
One quantum computer has enough computing power that all the existing computers in the world today, right?
And then you add AI to that, so there's a whole new Fucking tech revolution where it becomes even more rich people who own shit and even more.
So they're like, unless you take care of those people, they're going to come, because we're the nerds, they're going to come with the hammers and the currency is going to be bullets.
It's not going to be chips.
And so it's Planet of the Apes.
You've got fucking people on one side here and the big brains on the other side.
And you're like, oh, they already knew this.
They were already thinking this because they're like, we're going to buy them off.
But people are going to go crazy if you buy them off.
It's a revamping of the education system because you're saying, well, all of these – we were – and this is another great thing on GenX.
We were built to be workers.
Universal education is supposed to just be enough so you can be a good worker and a good taxpayer.
And you get a job, and then, by the way, you get out of college, and you already have debt, then you buy a consumer durable.
You buy a fucking car, you buy a washing machine, and we'll give everybody that, but we give you debt, and then you buy a house, and then you're in debt, and then you finally get out of debt, and then you die.
You know, I was at dinner the other night, and my friend, who's friends with this billionaire, his friend is a billionaire, and his friend was comparing his wealth to friends of his that own multiple corporations that are worth 30, 40 billion.
You have fuck you, buddy, and you're not even saying fuck you.
You should be on a boat somewhere, man.
You should be marlin fishing.
You should be fucking lying in the sun.
You should be doing things you enjoy doing.
You should be taking that trip you always wanted to take.
That's what you're supposed to be doing.
You're not supposed to be keeping up with other billionaires, so you're working 16 hours a day on Adderall just so that you can fucking get those stock numbers moving.
So you don't have to worry about, like, I remember the first check I got, a real check, I got a development deal from Disney, of all people, when I was like, I guess I was like 26. And it was the first time I ever had a good chunk of money, like six figures in the bank.
And I felt weight lifted off me.
Like a physical feeling of, whoa.
Because my whole life, it's like, how am I going to eat?
How am I going to pay my rent?
How am I going to do this?
And then all of a sudden, I don't have to worry about that anymore.
And I was like, oh, I get it now.
And I remember this revelation, like, okay, now I just have to keep this momentum going.
Because once you have a good amount of money where you don't have to worry about money anymore, you don't want to ever get back to that desperation feeling.
That's a terrible feeling.
And that's the feeling most people are listening to this exist in.
And that's why there is a chance, and it was good you brought that up, actually.
That, like, you can kind of take this any way, you know, like humanity can take the next, let's say, 20 years any way we want to take it.
And you can take it to be like, let's fucking learn from what we've learned and be positive and try to take this as a fucking thing where humanity gets better.
And we do this in the right way, rather than just do a fucking knee-jerk reaction, freaking out, like, what the fuck's gonna...
Like, I'm sure that you're gonna look back at a time when, like, social media was fucking fucking up kids' heads, and we're gonna say, that was crazy, dude!
We're going to look at the stock market and go, yeah, it's fucking completely manipulated by supercomputers and trillion dollar funds and the little guy gets fucked.
Why the fuck did we let that happen?
There's going to be all kinds of coming out of the pond moments where we go, hey, we were doing it wrong.
But there's this big chaos is a ladder.
There's this big...
You know, chaotic time right now and you're exactly right and people getting anxious about it and everything.
And you're like, yeah, we got to use that as a time to say, hey, why don't we fucking have an economy where there is a universal basic wage and or living wage and we take that to doing shit where you do something that you like and you're happy about because that your job is probably going away.
And the people that are really going to be fucked are the people that didn't find purpose already.
And then they're like 40 and then that happens.
Because they're going to be sad.
And that's what I'm worried about.
I'm worried about the people that are already sort of indoctrinated into a certain specific way of living.
And then all of a sudden their purpose, which was their job, you know, they worked at the factory and they're like, you know, Johnny's employee of the month.
Johnny, you're doing a fucking great job.
I really appreciate you.
And that guy feels purpose.
He puts in a hard day's work.
When he gets that paycheck, he knows he earned it.
That's who he is.
He's the number one guy at the plant.
He's the foreman.
He's the guy the men respect.
That's a real thing for human beings.
We need a thing that makes us feel like we're progressing.
It's a part of our DNA. Our DNA, the reason why we're still alive, the reason why we survived, is because we solved problems.
We've figured out what's going on.
We've made ourselves useful, and it makes you useful to the tribe.
It makes you feel good.
You have a sense of purpose.
That's the guy that's the best hunter.
She knows how to fucking plant vegetables.
He knows how to make cloth.
Everybody had a job, and it gave you a sense of purpose.
We're going to have to figure this out quick, because I think it's going to be like the birth of a child.
It's going to be like this screaming, wah, painful.
It's going to be this thing filled with anxiety, but it is happening whether we like it or not.
And if we don't start educating children about the benefits of having a fulfilled life where you're doing something you actually enjoy and not telling them, don't do that, it's too hard.
Don't do that, it's risky.
Thank God I didn't listen to anybody because I You wouldn't exist.
I would have not a thing I did ever anybody told me to do.
Not fighting.
My parents tried to stop me from fighting.
When I was doing martial arts, when I tried to do comedy, they were worried that why aren't you...
You did so well in martial arts.
Why are you quitting and doing this new thing?
And every fucking step of the way, when I started doing podcasts, my friends were like, what are you wasting your time doing this for?
We started doing video podcasts.
People were like, why are you spending so much time doing video?
But, yeah, so everyone said no to me, but so now I agree you have to go to kids and say, look, dude, do whatever the fuck you want and do what you're good at, do what you're passionate about, like, do that whole thing.
How many people have learned how to, like, apologize to your friends, apologize to your family if you made a mistake?
How many people have learned to own up to when you were in the wrong?
Instead of just covering it up and pretending and arguing and trying to distort things, just learn.
Learn and grow.
We all make mistakes.
And if you're on the wrong path in life and if you're doing something you don't want to do, figure out a way to get the fuck out of that job and actually do it.
Don't talk about it.
Fucking do it.
And if you do it, it's going to be so exciting.
It's going to be terrifying.
You'll be like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm afraid.
Well, that's when I go back to this thing of, you want to talk about meditation, is whenever you get angry or anxious, whatever, say, look, you're living in the greatest fucking window of time ever in the history of fucking time.
And so when you put it in a sort of grandiose perspective, you're like, I'm going to enjoy the fucking shit out of today because this is the best day in the fucking world ever.
It really is the greatest country the world has ever known.
In the middle of all the bullshit we're going through and all the chaos and all the potential wars that we're involved in and wars we're involved in, It's still the greatest place ever, the greatest time ever.
There's some stat like, again, going back to stats, but there's some stat like 80% of the world's wealth is inherited and by 2045 it's going to be even higher.
And you're like, oh, fuck, you forget because we come from, oh, we made money or Elon made money or fucking Larry Page made money or whatever.
Those are the real rich guy, Bezos.
But the majority of the world, it's like, yeah, my parents had money a thousand years ago, so I have money today.
But my later stages in life, to get into this and to get into the American political I really get this feeling, and maybe we're going to get into it on this, but...
When I was younger, and I was studying stuff, I always feel like I would love to go back to being in college, because when I was in college, I just wanted to get out.
I wanted to get out and make money and stuff, and I just did everything to just get the fuck out.
And now I'm like, if I could just read books and talk to people and then write about that, I'd fucking, where do I sign up?
I'm just thinking about shit.
So I fucking would love to.
It's wrong timing when you're...
But anyway.
But I used to study...
I loved philosophy.
I loved politics.
When I first came down to America, and I had been studying American politics...
Bubba, Clinton, was a consensus politician, reduced the size of government, took the largest deficit of all time, turned the largest surplus of all time, and then Bush got in, turned the largest surplus of all time, largest deficit, increased the size of government.
And I'm like, no one said boo.
No one said anything.
And you're like, the whole fundamental principles of the Republican Democratic Party.
Immigration.
Before Trump, there's none more Reagan than me was the calling card of the GOP.
Reagan was the best president for immigration, if you're an immigrant, ever.
He was super pro-immigration and the Democrats were against it.
They completely switched their platforms on it.
And you're like, to me, when you look at America, you say, okay, it's a republic.
It's a two-party system.
They're always in power.
That's a two-party system you're always in power.
You're always in power or you're fucking trying to control the house.
And you're like, is it all much ado about nothing?
Is it all a political, like bread and puppet theater?
It's like, this is super fucking important for you to watch over here to give you some sort of thinking that I have some agency that I can vote and it's going to fucking matter about anything.
Whereas, what the fuck really changes on the big shit?
Like, what the fuck really changes on the economy?
What the fuck really changes for any of the shit that we're talking about?
About school, about education, about big, like the other shit you talk about, which is fascinating, and it's great that you do it, about big pharma, big food, big education, military, industrial, what the fuck really changes in that?
Because as soon as you had control of the narrative, there's no way the media is going to...
Spoil the relationship that they have with their biggest providers of revenue.
They're not going to do that.
So whether it's the food companies or whether it's pharmaceutical drug companies, they're going to ignore as much as possible about the negatives of these products.
And then you have a propaganda state where you have these people that are literally hired to say stories they know are not true because this will benefit the people that are their advertisers.
And that's where you get fucking crazy.
It's also how that model implodes, which is fascinating.
So that model becomes less relevant, and the Michael Schellenbergers and the Matt Taibis of the world, then people start turning to them, the Glenn Greenwalds of the world.
No, what I'm saying is there's always been money in politics and there's always been money in media.
It's just now, it's more obvious than ever before.
And now, you're right, there are agendas.
So my whole thing is, I'm an immigrant, but I'm non-political.
I'm literally serious.
I believe in the game.
I like the game.
I like watching the game.
And that's why I say, like, I like to take a look, like, okay, there's this whole fucking thing going on over here, where the status quo doesn't change.
And I think you and I are like, look, that's what has to fucking change over there.
That's the real power over there.
This shit for me becomes, and it's funny, because this is like, I don't know what, I'm showing up myself, I don't know what this election is, 53, 54, something like that?
If you want to look at the greatest time of the Republican Party when Reagan was president...
It was his cabinet.
His cabinet was exceptional.
He had dementia, but his cabinet was running America.
It was fucking great.
The cabinet should run America.
I'd rather have the cabinet run something of professionals, people who are designed to do that, rather than one fucking person who's going to go, yes, no, yep, yep, that's great.
They're the fucking queen of England, and they're supposed to be the queen of England.
And he would walk down the street with his capos, and the FBI knew this, and so what they did was they put these little microphones on all the hubcaps so that they could record his conversation as he walked down the street.
So as he's walking down the street, they were recording everything.
I'm sure there's probably some hacks, but Eric Prince It has a new phone called the Unplugged Phone that's designed by the guy who created Pegasus, apparently.
And it's like this untrackable phone that kind of constantly...
It's all digital and soon, very soon, there'll be no digital encryption.
There'll be no digital safety at all.
By the way, you're talking about money.
One of the most fascinating guys, I think you talked to him too.
I went to Russia and I hung out with him at the Metropole, which is funny because famously every room is bugged because it was the only place they let foreigners stay in Moscow.
And so we were at the Metropole, we got into surveillance, but he opened my phone and he was, as we were having the interview, just showing me how they can turn on the phone, how to take out this part and take out this camera and do this and do that.
Just as he was talking about overall government surveillance of everybody, which, by the way, I don't think a lot of people know what he did.
He said, look, the American government is illegally, illegally spying on its own people.
Well, the problem with quantum is it's going to be, okay, there's a whole new...
So when the sort of West or the North or the rich countries or whatever leave everyone else behind, you know, monetarily, is when, you know...
The last 20 years of digital expansion, and we just make trillion-dollar companies, and they're over here, and we make all that money in that economy, and then you go to like two-thirds of the world, and that shit hasn't even penetrated yet, right?
So quantum computing is that on steroids, because it's like, oh, there's going to be a whole new economy, because all the other computers are fucking obsolete.
All the security is obsolete.
There's a whole new economy being generated.
Who's it going to be generated by?
The ultra-smart, ultra-early adopters, super, like, you know, fucking rich people who can afford the quantum, blah, blah, blah.
And everybody else is going even further fucking that way, going, there's no more fucking fish.
And then the real problem with that is, if AI is controlling the news, like, who's controlling AI? Like, what control?
Are we going to get to a point where we say, you know, we're going to have to let sentient AI control information?
And then we find out that sentient AI is withholding information from us because it doesn't think we're emotionally stable enough to process it, which we probably aren't.
You know, if there's some sort of a civil turmoil that could happen because some information gets released?
And, you know, that's going to be the problem with AI is, like, there will be this thing of, like, people moving to building tables or making art or doing whatever.
But there's going to be – this is why I think our kids are maybe okay.
But, like, when you said what I worry about is the 40-year-olds sitting there who bought it all, went to high school, went to college, did all the shit.
Got the fucking job or sitting there, you know, trying to climb the ladder, and that's all gonna go away.
Because if you start losing your house, if you Smith and Ricardo it and start losing your house, which is my long-winded thing to go, there has to be some sort of weird social thing about it.
And you're like, okay, so if you're openly trying to fuck with us...
And by the way, can you imagine, if the Chinese Communist Party is spreading propaganda that there's $28 Big Macs, Then what are they going to do when they have quantum computing?
And they have been this, like, now the fifth dimension, which is now leading to there's infinite fucking universes and infinite possibilities and infinite...
So you're not crazy, because physics is now saying all of this shit is fucking probable.
Two is, when I was talking to a very smart person, I'm not going to say anything because I don't get in any trouble, but they're like, look, interstellar travel isn't going to be you and I go on a fucking spaceship, right?
It's going to be – there's – you download your brain into a computer.
It goes via laser into another thing that's got a 3D printer of a human that resembles you or might not resemble you.
And it goes and you download and that's how you go these vast distances in space.
And you're like, oh.
Maybe.
Maybe.
I'm not saying that that's it.
But if it does happen, then it makes sense that you've got these mixes.
If you're downloading your brain into a computer, then it's possible that that brain gets mixed up with AI. What does that even mean?
I think there is some sort of a life force that's inside of you that's not just your heart beating.
I think there's a thing inside of people, and I think you recognize it when you're around people, and I think it's one of the most unique aspects of being a conscious creature, is that we think of ourselves as individuals, but we're really connected to some Great well of souls.
Yeah, there's some thing that's going on where we're all in this together in some bizarre way that's, for some reason, very difficult for us to recognize in normal, regular life.
It's hard for us to, like, you get these moments where you feel it, whether it's a psychedelic experience, a near-death experience, a profound love feeling.
And it's distributing this consciousness through your unique biology and unique life experiences and where you live and who you're friends with and what you interact with on a daily basis, what kind of energy you get in, what kind of energy you put out.
And it's all somehow or another bizarrely connected to the way the whole universe works, that it all works together as one unique, gigantic system.
And then he left there and they hired him to do propulsion work.
And they brought him in and they showed him this thing that had an American flag on it.
And he was like, oh, it had an American flag sticker on it.
And he was like, oh, they're ours.
That's why everybody's seeing these things.
This is like some top secret thing that we're working on.
And slowly but surely, and again, this is not fact, this is just his story.
Slowly but surely, over time, he's brought in to analyze this thing, tell us how it works.
He realized, like, this is not ours.
It's too small.
The ship...
It was made for three-foot-tall inhabitants.
Everything looked like it was 3D printed.
There was no seams.
There was no bolts.
The whole thing had no – there was no electronics.
It somehow or another was connected to the minds of the pilots, and it had some sort of a reactor that had a stable form of element 115, which was just theoretical at the time.
It wasn't even proven until they proved it with a particle collider in like the 2000s.
So this guy was telling the story about how they have this element and they bombard this element with radiation and it makes this gravity propulsion device.
So one of the things that he said was that they had a very thick book that was all information about religion and that this was one of the things that they had got from these alien inhabitants, that we are vessels, that they look at us as containers for souls.
Well, that's a little duddy, but also, just think about this.
That sounds crazy that we're vessels for souls, but imagine if the life force of a soul is a real thing that's limited to biological organisms, but then you create life that is not biological.
And you create this thing that is this sentient life force that's digital, completely digital, but it doesn't have a life force.
It doesn't have soul to it.
Now, imagine you bridge the gap with hybrids.
So you have a thing that is part alive, part a biological organism, and part interconnected.
And it needs to be, if it wants to continue to have creativity and desire and needs, And it actually has a task that it wants to accomplish.
And that this has to be connected somehow or another to biology.
And that if you want biology, you have to have a soul.
It's interesting because I, speaking of kids, I believe that humanity is a grand evolutionary experiment because a lot of the things that happen to you are weird.
Like when you have a kid, you change.
And when men have kids, they change.
When women have kids, they change.
Kids change.
Like all these things happen.
And it's just like this thing of like, we have to do it, we have to do it.
And it puts you on a path and you're like, are we a grand evolutionary experiment?
Well, if this is what the universe does when it creates superior beings, it kind of makes sense that we have all the attributes that we have.
It makes sense that we're territorial.
It makes sense that we fight over resources.
It makes sense that we're competitive.
And it makes sense that we're inquisitive and that we constantly search for innovation.
We want the newest, best stuff all the time.
We have throughout human history.
We've always aspired to have the best plows, the best trucks, the best this, the best that.
We always want better and we're always working on these things.
Yeah, what does that lead to that leads to artificial intelligence?
It's almost like that's what we're doing We're making this cocoon and the butterfly is gonna come out of the cocoon and we don't even know why we're making it We're just fucking toiling along doing our thing and it also connects to materialism because one of the things that materialism does is it encourages innovation It encourages constant purchasing of goods.
If the phones that we have right now are perfect and we never have to get a new phone, all you have to do is repair them.
There's probably an interdimensional aspect to it.
There's probably some things that aren't even real that you're seeing, but they are real somewhere else, and you have a window to them.
There's probably bizarre states of consciousness where a certain amount of psychedelic chemicals are released by your brain and a certain level of anxiety and a certain environment and circumstance where you have access to a frequency that's not normally available to you.
And I think some people are having these kind of experiences, and they're calling them aliens.
But I do think there's something going on with crafts.
And the thing about these crafts is they existed way before there's any reasonable assumption that people had technology that could do those things.
Like the Kenneth Arnold sightings from the 1950s are the best example.
Something that was moving far faster than anything that we had.
Silent, looked like a saucer, skipping over the sky.
They saw like a bunch of them flying around.
These guys are fighter jet pilots.
They don't have a history of making up things.
They're not liars.
And there's a ton of those sightings.
And those sightings go way back.
They go way back.
And it's probably some of the stories in the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita.
There's a bunch of stories about flying things and flying chariots and wars in the sky.
There's some wild shit.
And you've got to imagine that if this is a long, slow process that every intelligent being goes through in the universe, that this is just like We look out, we see all these different planets that are in the Goldilocks zone.
So we know that the kind of life that we have can exist in these planets.
How many of them have people or things or some form of super intelligent organism?
There's tons of examples of how we behave in those situations, and we're retarded.
If you imagine something that's far more advanced than us, it would be much more sophisticated in its approach, probably would occasionally abduct people and study their biology, probably does have a way to erase memories, probably does leave people with significant trauma and confusion as to how this experience is real.
How do you put it in the context of your normal day-to-day life?
How come it never happens again?
You're just sitting home waiting.
Is this going to happen again?
And then the rest of your life you're like freaked out that the walls are going to melt and all of a sudden you're going to be on a spaceship again.
If that is real, like who fucking knows?
And those people, imagine being one of those poor people that does get abducted by aliens and everybody thinks you're an idiot.
It's going to be a real problem, and I think it's a slow trickle.
So I think that that's what we're experiencing, and I think this is normal.
I think there's deep denial in the 1960s, and there's also Operation Blue Book, which is a concerted effort to dismiss all the sightings as illegitimate and swamp gas.
I mean, J. Allen Hynek, who ran that program, eventually, when he left the program, became a huge UFO believer, and then completely changed his tune and explained how he was told to debunk everything, but there was a bunch of things that he couldn't debunk.
I think the number's like 90-10.
90% of the things, oh, that's Venus, that's this, that's that.
10%, there's no fucking way.
Whatever this is, there's physical evidence, there's a bunch of shit.
Something happened.
And he was a believer before he died, and a proponent, and would talk about UFOs openly.
And I think there's too many of those guys for it all to be bullshit.
There's too many people for it all to be bullshit.
But some of it is bullshit.
And some of it is ours.
I think some of it might be back-engineered.
I think some of the Bob Lazar stuff might be legitimate.
Like they found things, whether these things were left behind for us to discover, whether they made some sort of a deal.
But I think there's intelligent life other than human beings that interacts with us.
And these kind of things, if they're not fascinating to you, that's fine.
That's you.
But I don't know how you could not be fascinated by congressional disclosures, whistleblowers talking about Programs that are beyond oversight that are retrieving crashed UFOs and back engineering them.
And we've been doing this for decades.
Because if they're telling the truth, either this is a spectacular lie or they're telling the truth.
And if they're telling the truth, how the fuck are you not interested?
What I have, to go another level, is the problem that I have is you're like, okay, we're interested in big pharma.
We're interested in big food.
We're interested in oil.
We're interested in military and industrial companies.
We're interested in all this stuff.
But if you start talking about aliens or if you start talking about this or if you start talking about multidimensional whatever, it negates all the other stuff you're talking about.
And the image that you're seeing of these quantum entangled photons is a yin and yang symbol.
But we're trying to figure out, and this is where it gets like in the weed scientifically, is that what it looks like or did you make it look like that to represent these quantum entangled photons but the shape is arbitrary, like you chose a shape?
To get these quantum entangled photons to exist in.
Scientists have used first-of-its-kind technique to visualize two entangled light particles in real time, making them appear as a stunning quantum yin-yang signal.
The new method, called bifoton digital holography, uses an ultra-high precision camera and can be used to massively speed up the future of quantum measurements.
But just the fact that we know that quantum entangled particles are real, just the fact that we know this spooky action at a distance that Einstein talked about, the fact that we know that quantum Quantum particles can exist in a state of motion and still at the same time.
So when I went out with Taylor Wilson and he was picking up fucking uranium and turning into a yellow cake, and he was just speaking to me, talking about someone who's interesting.
And he's like, well, I mean, we all know that, like, uranium is like stars, you know, parts of stars that explode and, like, hit the Earth because they flew.
And so we're just taking a star that landed on Earth and we're taking a piece of it and then we're releasing its power.
And I'm like, I didn't know that.
He's like, speaking like everybody knows that.
And I'm like, wait a minute, uranium?
It's like an X star that blew up that landed on Earth and you can take it and that's how you do it?
But I... I start, it's like, basically I start out, it's like, they're long, they're like three-parters, and it starts out with something I'm fascinated by that's on social media.
So, for example, that's the reason why I'm talking about this stuff, but like, you know, something can come up and there's memes and like the assassination attempt, and then there's conspiracy theories on both sides.
And I'll meet somebody interesting and I'll just say, fuck it, we'll just talk.
And it'll just be a straight podcast and we're just talking for like two hours.
Like Peter Dale Scott blew my mind.
And, you know, there's a lot of people out there.
Like it'll be a mix of...
Big names.
But I also want to go talk to the people who are, you know, putting stuff up and where they're getting their stuff and where they're getting their facts.
Just dig in, basically.
And you can dig in on the high end and dig in on the low.
What I've found is if you get into the creation of the meme and who's creating it, it sort of starts as a wide thing.
And then it goes down into like some sort of...
Like a philosophy or something bigger and then when you get to the people who are like for example with the assassination attempts it got pretty quickly into the deep state and I'm like well let's talk about the deep state because everyone bandies the word around but nobody fucking really knows what it is if you like want to get into clinical explanations.
Or have real positive facts about what are the, like, you know, historical evidence that this exists and that they do this all the fucking time.
And so I'm like, okay, let's chop it up and get into it.
And that was, like, you know, super fun.
And so I'm getting into all the stuff that I find interesting online and, you know, in social media and saying, let's just get into it.
That we don't really know what people actually think and the problem with people is they don't really know what they actually think They know like what people like there's a large percentage I'm gonna just say men because these are the ones that bother me the most men who say things because they know that people want to hear them and Because they know it won't get them in trouble to say it and they don't necessarily believe it It could be about trans athletes.
It could be about some sort of...
A lot of it is connected to woke stuff.
Yeah, politically correct.
A lot of it is connected to ideology.
They'll have a super positive gaslighting version of what's going on at the border.
And then you look into the thing and it's like, oh yeah, like that was before the border, it's after the border and they were trying to get to the border because what they try to do is like basically touch the fucking fence so that the border guards will then come so that they can get processed, right?
Right.
And so, like, the gates open and all that shit, and the whole, like, open border shit, right?
So there's an immigration problem, a huge immigration problem, and there are bad people getting through, and there are cartels running things, and there are illegal people, and there are all this stuff.
And by the way, the Republicans have a great message that they stay on.
The Democrats don't have a response to that message, right?
It's a political – Fucking quagmire.
But I don't care about the political quagmire.
I'm like, let's go down.
We talked to the head of the border guards.
We talked to both the head of the border guards.
We talked to sheriffs.
We talked to militia dudes in Texas.
We talked to everybody, right?
And the problem is that there's this fucking shit on both sides, and there's no...
There's no fucking sanity when it comes to immigration.
There's nobody really saying, okay, this is what's happening here.
This is what's happening here.
Yes, this is bad, but this is this and this is that and the other thing.
And there's two narratives.
And one narrative is there's open borders with rapists and murderers coming in and eating the cats and eating the dogs.
And then on the other side, there's no real, well, That's not really happening.
What happened was they were in Mexico and now they're being released in here.
And here's the stats.
80% come to their meetings, like whatever the fuck it is.
I'm forgetting the word now.
But when they get processed.
No, but they get processed and then they have to come to a meeting and a meeting and a meeting.
And the Democrats are like, yeah, it's 85%.
And the Republicans are like, 90% don't come and 85% do come.
And you're like, Well, where's the fucking stats coming from?
Can we not talk to Homeland?
So we reached out to Homeland.
We reached out to the fucking committee that runs immigration.
We reached out to everybody.
And this is why it gets so frustrating is because nobody...
Like, every answer is different.
Every answer is completely different.
Sorry to interrupt, but this is why I find it fascinating because there are, especially on immigration...
There are so many givens about what shit means.
And in actual fact, like an open border doesn't mean an open border.
It doesn't mean you can just fucking walk across the border into America.
Yeah, that's what's scary about today, is that it's hard to figure out, and depending upon what tribe you're a part of, if you're on the tribe of the right, you think one thing, you're on the tribe of the left.
Even if you're tribeless, I'm sitting there going, okay, so they'll talk to them about something.
When I was interviewing Obama at the end of his presidency, I was like, you know, what are your big, you know, all he wanted to talk about was the Republicans.
He didn't want to talk about his presidency.
So I went to go see Speaker Boehner because I was talking about Speaker Boehner, who, by the way, lovely guy, great guy, and he wanted to talk about his thing.
And so you talk.
And again, ne'er the twain shall meet.
And you're like, at some point, you got to get down to this kernel of truth.
And on immigration, it's almost impossible to find.
The only reason to have no ID, the only reason to have no ID, and to push that, and it's only being pushed by the Democrats, there's only one reason that makes any logical sense.
You want people to vote that probably shouldn't be voting so you can get some extra votes.
That's the only thing that makes sense.
So then if you have people like Nancy Pelosi who's openly talked about giving amnesty to the people that are already here, You have voters now.
So you have voters in swing states that you brought into this country and you provided them an amazing life.
And the Democrats brought them there.
They're going to be loyal to the Democrats, especially if the Democrats continue to provide them with housing and money.
And why would you vote that out?
Why would you vote for a bunch of people that want to deport you?
They're talking about mass deportations.
Imagine if you came here from Haiti.
You lived a terribly poor life in Haiti.
Now you have a good job in Springfield, Ohio.
And you're like, I can't fucking believe we're in America.
This is amazing.
And someone comes along and gives you the ability to vote.
And then another group is saying, we're going to mass deportate you because you people are eating all the dogs and all the cats.
Then there's like this fucking...
Of course, you're getting voters.
You're bringing in voters and you're getting voters.
Look, I'm not going to get too into the app because I only did it through interviews, but the app is an actual thing that tracks the people who come into the country.
Well, it's the big argument on the debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz.
And they tried to frame it as if this had existed for a long time, and that's when J.D. Vance had to step up and stop them and say, you said you weren't going to fact check, and that's not true.
That app did not exist.
You can literally schedule it.
It used to be for people that are already here, like for kids that were born in Mexico but have lived their entire life in America.
Yeah, we've got to find out a way to citizenship for those folks.
That's fucking crazy.
I know a girl, and she's 28 years old, and she came over here when she was a baby, and she's not an American citizen because her family's from Mexico.
If I lived in Ecuador or wherever these folks are from...
And I found out you could just cross America or you could get on your app and you can get into America.
100% I would do it.
And you would too.
And yeah, we have the greatest country in the world.
And that's why people want to come here.
And yeah, you have this land of opportunity.
It's amazing.
But what we really have to do is make sure we don't let in murderers.
Fucking killers and rapists and thieves and gang members and a lot of them are getting through and That's what we have to be careful, but it's not just not letting people in sure I mean I bet we could sustain a lot more people in this country and I bet a lot of those people hard-working very Ambitious people that are excited to be here that they would love to be a part of the American experience They probably love to recognize as as Americans Yes.
But how do you fucking fix it if nobody, if it's become so political, and you can get into COVID on this exact same problem, it's become so political that there's no fucking root basis in truth, and people believe on one side this thing, and believe on the other side this thing, and fucking nobody's going to meet them in the middle.
It's the politicians, of course, that are like the leaders, but you've got these gang members.
Basically, anybody can join.
Anybody can join the left, and anybody can join the right.
And there's a lot of mentally ill people out there.
And so they join this, and their whole identity revolves on crushing the right, or crushing the left, and owning the libs.
You know, that's a giant percentage of social media.
All these mentally ill people that are in a gang.
And that's all it is.
That's why they attack people, try to de-platform them, try to get them fired, letter campaigns.
They're gang members.
It's a gang, and it gives them purpose, because they don't have purpose in their life, which is why they're on Twitter 12 hours a day, because they're mentally ill.
Yeah, so there's a tiny one, and then we had the big-ass warehouse.
We had a gym in there and all kinds of stuff.
It's like things scale up, but the most important thing is...
The reason why podcasts work, I think, is because people are listening and they know it's just a conversation.
So it works in your mind.
It resonates in your mind.
You know, this is not like some heavily produced thing where there's an agenda and there's a script and a teleprompter and you're trying to pretend that you're being real but you're not being real.
And so the more people you have involved in it, the more it's not going to feel right.
My friend had a studio and he has a glass wall and the production staff is all working and walking around behind this glass wall and he sees them.
And I go, that's a distraction.
Why do you have that?
This is bad for the conversation.
You've missed the point.
The reason why it works is because the people at home, the people that have earpods on right now going on a jog, they're just as much in this room as you and I are.
I was driving around our studios in Van Nuys, and I was driving from Malibu to Van Nuys, and I'm like, if you drive through like, I don't know what that, that's why I said Tarzan, it's probably Tarzan.
It literally hasn't changed a lot since 1924. Right.
Like, it's like the same houses, same fucking...
Like, okay, the cars are different, but there's cars.
We both said, like, look, you can either be positivist about it and say, look, let's mold it to be like, great, I can fucking do something I love rather than work in a fucking factory.
Fucking punching out, you know, tool and die fucking pieces.
I can, you know, go do what my first love was or something that makes me feel filled with joy.
Or we can become fucking autobots who are crying because fucking online AI-driven girlfriend dumped me.
Well, the thing is, also, today, there's these kind of conversations that are out there that put these thoughts into people's minds and inspire them to do something that didn't exist when we were young.
There wasn't these kind of conversations that could really light up the fires of your creativity and your ambition.