Peter Thiel and Michael Malice dissect Hans Hermann Hoppe's controversial arguments, contrasting monarchy with democracy via private property simulations and critiquing utilitarianism against natural rights. They analyze Hoppe's influence from Ayn Rand, the collapse of political centrism, and the necessity of strict boundaries for peace, illustrated by subway smoking anecdotes. While acknowledging Hoppe's offensive remarks regarding race and sexuality, the hosts defend his logical foundations in argumentation ethics and his complex relationship with Murray Rothbard, ultimately suggesting that true liberty requires rejecting hedonistic libertarian norms to enforce genuine property rights. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Monarchist War Restraint00:13:06
All right, let's start the show.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
Hello, hello, everybody.
Welcome to a brand new episode of Heart of the Problem.
The legendary crossover continues.
And I am joined by the great Michael Malice.
How are you, sir?
I am super.
Very good.
This is our first nighttime episode.
And you were kind enough to adjust to my schedule today.
And I wanted to, for this episode, I wanted to geek out about philosophy a little bit.
Sure.
And in a very specific way.
I was thinking about this.
So I wanted to do an episode discussing Hans Hermann Hoppe, who is one of my favorite philosophers.
You should have him on the show.
Son of a bitch.
Son of a bitch.
Okay, so.
Maybe Tom could have him on.
So if people don't know, Michael actually is like the only one who scored an interview with Hans Hermann Hoppe.
And so I was, I literally, it just dawned on me.
I was like, oh, this would be the perfect thing to talk to you about because you've actually met the man, interviewed the man, spent some time with him.
And so you can give a unique take.
You say scored, I say earned.
All right.
You know what?
That is, it's actually true.
I remember, and this is, and Michael is, keep in mind, right?
That people just listening here who just maybe follow Michael Malice or, you know, are a fan of his work or something.
Michael is a genuinely good friend of mine.
And I, after he had the interview with Hans Hermann Hoppe, I texted him and I said, dude, how did you pull that off?
And his response to me was, I'm fucking Michael Malice.
That was the tweet, the text that I got back.
So that's the level of insight I have.
It's what you would expect him to tweet at somebody he barely knows.
That's what I got.
That's all I know.
I stole that line from Gossip Girl.
I'm not kidding.
And now the veil has been pulled.
But you know what?
I'll tell you, Hoppe is one of my favorite philosophers and economists.
And he is for sure in the libertarian world, one of the most controversial figures.
And I also think one of the most misunderstood figures in many ways.
And so I wanted to talk about, you know, like do an episode about my thoughts on him.
And then, you know, I was like, this is a conversation me and you should have because you are somebody who really met the man and sat down with him.
So I wanted to ask you, because I know that you have, you haven't read that much Rothbard.
But I mean, there was a point where you were like, I've barely read any Rothbard, but at this point, you have read, you know, a few of his books and several of his essays.
But have you read a lot of Hoppe or did you know a lot about him before you met and interviewed him?
I read Democracy the God That Failed many years ago.
I got my copy signed by him when I met him.
And also when I was at his event, the Mises Institute, I don't know if this is publicly available yet.
They had an essay, a collection of essays called Libertarianism Done Right or something like that.
A little, it's a small, kind of almost like a pamphlet, the black cover.
So I was more familiar with him in a sense than with Rothbard.
A friend of mine even has a keychain that has, you know, the anarchy symbol is greater than the monarch, the crown for monarchy is greater than the ballot box.
So I remember when I was first swimming in these circles, I don't remember in what context, but there were people talking about how ridiculous it is that there's someone who's a libertarian and is making the case for monarchism.
And I don't love his case for monarchism.
He's not making the case for monarchism per se.
He's making the case for monarchism as compared to democracy, obviously, to be fair.
But I don't love it.
But I think anytime you have someone who is criticizing something that all of us have been trained since kindergarten to take for granted as the basis of where good things come forward, I think that is a very high-quality thinker and that's of great use to many people.
Yeah, you know, I kind of have a very similar feeling.
I think Democracy, the God That Failed, is like required reading if you're a libertarian anarchist.
Like I can't recommend it high enough.
And I'm not sure I completely agree with the argument, but it's a nuke of a thought experiment.
And just like you indicated, it's because it's asking you to consider what is taken as a given, an unthinkable idea, which is basically, for people who haven't read it, more or less the argument that Hoppe makes throughout the book.
And it's a really fascinating book with a lot of just great points.
Like it's really cool the way it's laid out.
Also, it kind of reminds me of the way you lay out your books, where particularly The New Right, where each chapter almost stands alone, but they also fit together as a book.
You know what I mean?
Like each chapter could be its own thing.
But basically, what he's saying is that, look, the ideal society is anarcho-capitalist libertarianism, but monarchy is preferable to democracy.
And we basically had a huge switch in the West from monarchy to democracy.
And if you looked at any of the leading thinkers in, say, the late 1700s, they laughed at the idea of democracy.
The idea of democracy, all of the founders of America, even, I mean, it was a constitutional republic, but none of the founders would have supported the idea of democracy.
Or even if there were some democratic processes, they'd be very limited and it wouldn't be.
And if you just asked them about like the word democracy, they'd be like, no, that's a disaster.
That's crazy mob rule.
That was just taken as a given.
And throughout Europe, it was monarchs who dominated.
And this all flipped after World War I, where democracy sweeped Europe.
And now democracy is a word that is in common parlance synonymous with good.
Liberty.
Yes, liberty, good, positive, anything you can think of that's positive.
And this is a kind of profound shift.
And let's question it.
And I just think there's something so powerful about that to at least go, hmm, there is a heck of an argument to be made here.
Now, again, I'm not sure he's right, but it is really, really important reading.
This is why I find it so, I don't know what the word would be, like eye rolling, when so many anarcho-capitalists can't even begin to wrap their head around the possibility that Hamilton was a great founding father, certainly recently with regards to Jefferson, right?
Because they will say with one, they can wrap their heads very easily around the argument and hold the position that if you have to choose between monarchism and democracy, you're going to choose monarchism.
And then you go to the founding fathers and be like, the most monarchist founding father was Hamilton.
The most pro-democracy was Jefferson.
And they're like, well, Hamilton is the most evil person who ever lived.
So I'm like, you seriously can't even at all bridge the logic between these two, from your position, absolutely contradictory stances.
So that is a very interesting point that I've never thought of in those terms.
Yeah, but it's so obvious to me.
Like he was the principle of retaining elitist monarchist rule.
Now, elitist in contemporary times has come to mean this.
I graduate from Harvard.
I work at the New York Times situation.
That's not what elitism meant then.
And what elitism meant then is something that I think would be much more in the Ayn Rand sense, where it's the men of the mind, it's the quality people who are basically deferred to by virtue of their accomplishments and achievement, not by virtue of their birth and not by virtue of their election.
Yes, that is, there is something about that that's a very new development in society.
And when I say very new, I mean over the last four decades or so, where, and I think it has something to do with our affluence and our decadence, but the elites became very unimpressive.
And whatever you'll say about elites historically, they were usually very impressive people.
I love that Tucker Carlson line when he said, I'm not against elites.
I'm an elitist.
I just believe in impressive elites.
And Maxine Waters ain't it.
You know, like I added that last part, but that was kind of his point.
And say whatever you will about all of the founding fathers.
They were pretty much all impressive people, particularly, you know, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Franklin.
Yes, all of the very impressive people.
I mean, really, really brilliant men.
Not to say that they got everything right, but Thomas Paine, even if he's officially in the club or not, I'm not sure.
But all of these guys, very, very impressive.
And any society, this is what the commies deny, but any society is going to have elites.
That's just baked into human nature.
Now, Hoppe's argument about why monarchy is superior to democracy is basically that he says it's a better simulation of private ownership of property.
So a king or you know, basically owns the government and he can pass it on to his heirs, which is very similar to the way a private property owner owns something.
He doesn't have to worry about getting re-elected next year.
He's not temporarily in charge of the taxing capacity.
This is his.
So he's going to worry in the same way that we all know that you're going to spend your own money better than you spend someone else's money.
He basically has ownership of it.
Whereas in democracy, all of the incentives are to rack, you know, rake in as much of the taxpayer dough as you can while you're there.
And whatever happens to the next guy, it's the next guy's problem.
Now, again, as you said, I think there is a counterargument to that, but that is a really good point.
And there's something to that.
One of the criticisms that the left has of capitalism is that business, which is just a really bizarre criticism, that businesses are focused on the bottom line.
So therefore, they're doing everything short term, right?
And they don't really, and they'll destroy the environment because they're not planning like 10 years ahead.
It's completely counter to how businesses are run, but this is kind of their model of how businesses are run.
And Hoppe makes the point, which I think is very insightful, that if you have wars between monarchs, they tend to be much more restrained than wars between democracies.
Because when you have a war between a democracy and something else, when you have two monarchs, that monarch is going to be around after.
So he's going to want to cut a deal and kind of not have it be complete catastrophe.
Whereas if you have a democratic war, which is based on ideology, where you have the people in power are only going to be in power insofar as they really win this war, that ratchets up the consequences.
And, you know, one of the things I'm writing about in my upcoming book is: remember, before World War II, the most evil man on earth was the Kaiser.
And, you know, your definition of a German supervillain was Kaiser Milhel.
Hitler Shirt Debate00:03:02
And with a straight face, you're like, my God, this guy's like, he's like literally Hitler, whoever that is.
I don't know why we keep saying that expression, but he's this guy's literally Hitler.
And then when you have the collapse of all the, you had Italy, you had Austro-Hungarian Empire, you had Turkey, the Kaiser in Germany, Russia, all it's people don't realize how many of them were led by monarchs when they all fell.
And it's like, okay, making the world safe for democracy, Woodrow Wilson's argument.
You know, what came afterwards was World War II was not like nicer and kinder and gentler than World War I.
I don't think anyone would say that.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And, you know, it's always one of the tragic kind of funny things about history as Woodrow Wilson saying, we're going to make the world safer democracy.
And you see these kind of, you know, despot monarch leaders.
And it's like, okay, yeah, that kind of sounds good until you're looking at Stalin and Hitler.
And then you're like, ooh, wow, those guys seem actually pretty cool in comparison.
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Soviet Union Lessons00:15:05
You saw it also in 1979 in Iran where they're like, oh, the Shah's the Shah.
He's out of control.
This guy.
I mean, people don't realize the Shah was so westernized.
He had Andy Warhol come visit him all the time.
And Warhol in his diaries would talk about how he knew the Shah wasn't doing so hot because there was less caviar on the table.
So they're like, oh, we got to get rid of the Shah.
What is this?
The 12th century?
Blah blah.
It's barbarism.
Okay, you got rid of him and now you got the Ayatollahs.
Like this, this.
So you had your wish.
How's that working out for you?
And for the people of Iran.
Right.
And unfortunately, in the Middle East and Northern Africa, there's many examples of this in the last 20 years, right?
Libya, Saddam Hussein, of course.
I mean, there's a long list of these examples where it's, look, it's not to say that if you get rid of something, what comes next is always worse.
But it at least should be on your mind that things can get worse.
And that's something to pay attention to.
So Hoppa's argument.
Of course, this is just to remind me.
Like, here's an example that they knew at the time, which is, what would you rather have, the French Revolution or Napoleon?
Right?
Would you rather have that strong man, he's a militarist, or would you rather have the guillotines?
And like, like every day, different people are just getting executed and terror was regarded as aspirational.
Yeah, someone asked me the other day, and again, I don't think the comparison is perfect, but someone commented on social media where they said, you know, and they were referring to the feds cracking down on the protesters in Portland.
But they said, hey, if the czar cracked down on the Bolshevik Revolution and was able to snuff it out, now you could say like, well, that's statism and that's not what libertarians stand for.
But could you at least admit that that probably then stops the rise of the Soviet Union, Mao Seitong, the North Korean government?
Like everybody probably then doesn't rise up after that because it's pretty hard to make the argument that North Korea goes commie or China goes commie without the Soviet Union.
So, you know, now not to say that that's a dangerous game to play to support the state cracking down on a movement because they could lead.
But in hindsight, in that example, you kind of do have to admit, yeah, we all wish the czar had just cracked down on that movement and won.
So there's, you know, yeah, there's, it's, it's a complicated world, but that is something that's interesting to think about.
So one of the other things that I think is really an important point about the preference of monarchy to democracy is that, so, so, in general, anarchists like me and you, we will, there's basically two things about the state that are what drives us the most to be against it.
And the number one obvious thing is that what they do is horrible.
You know, they kill people, they imprison people, they steal from people, all of these awful things.
But the second thing that's kind of equally important is that it's perceived as legitimate.
And that is what separates it from other groups of people, not just the magnitude, that's part of it too, but that's what kind of separates them from private criminals.
Like private criminals, we all kind of recognize that they're wrong.
You know, if someone gets mugged or raped or kidnapped or something, everybody knows that's wrong.
But when the state mugs you, it's called taxation.
When the state kidnaps you, it's called conscription, you know, yada yada, the whole anarchist thing.
And I think that there's something about a monarch that isn't as devastating in the second part of that.
I think people tend to go like, well, yeah, this is like, you know, this is someone who rules over us.
Not to say that no one believes in the religiosity of all of it, but they go like, yeah, this guy rules over us.
He asserts his will on us.
We avoid it as much as we can and we give what we have to.
And this goes to your point about the wars getting bigger.
When you have democracy, there's also this feeling that like we are the government.
We are part of them.
I mean, I cast my vote, so I kind of own who the leader is.
And even though I cast my vote for the other guy, if I had one, I would own who it is.
So I still kind of own this situation.
And I think democracy creates that, whereas monarchy didn't.
And that is also an advantage of monarchy.
I forgot if this is in my book or not, but it's taken for granted, because I had it in there at one point.
It's taken for granted in school that basically you're supposed to sit there, pretend you're Stalin, right?
Visualize exactly how you want the country to be in every aspect, right?
And then you vote your way towards that by choosing the person who implements it.
So at a very basis, we are taught that like absolute like totalitarianism is where you start thinking about political analysis.
It is such a warped message to teach kids that basically your starting point is everyone and everything is on the table and now figure out what you, the dictator, are going to do.
And then it's like, well, psych, it's not you.
It's going to be someone you voted for and they're going to do whatever they want.
But hey, cool thought experiment, kids.
Right.
Yeah, that's such a good point.
I don't think I ever thought about it exactly like that.
But it's more than just you're a part of the government or on the hook for it.
It's actually teaching you to participate in this authoritarianism that, hey, you need to get in here and also have a say in how we rule over everybody else.
And that is profoundly disturbing.
Yes.
A message to teach little kids that it's like, well, hey, you got to vote on how everybody else gets to live.
And you got to get in there with really no really well-defined, explained boundaries on what you get to vote for.
Just kind of like, vote.
What do you think?
How do you think the world should be organized?
I have this line about democracy is people who run businesses well being forced to run businesses poorly by people who can't run businesses at all.
And you see it all the time when someone is firing employees or giving them a raise or not having whatever prenatal care.
I don't know what the situation is.
And people on social media just feel comfortable opining about a company whose balance sheet they know nothing about, which they wouldn't be able to understand if they saw it, do not understand the industry, but just are like, oh yeah, you know, like, this is how you should run your company.
It's like you couldn't run a lemonade stand, literally, by law.
You need a license.
And you're sitting here and you're blithely pontificating over a gigantic corporation simply because you're like, yeah, this is what it should look like.
It's so odd.
And yet you can't really blame them because they were taught since they were kids that this is something we all have a responsibility to do.
We have a responsibility in our democracy to be informed citizens and have opinions about how strangers run their companies because it affects all of us.
And it's just like, oh, okay, cool.
Yeah.
I know you've said many times that there are many ideas that people claim work on paper but don't work in reality.
And democracy is one of those ideas that doesn't even work on paper and somehow has become the reality.
And it really is true.
And it's like the idea, even that the why, you know, the idea that the wise leader that you choose would be able to run all of these things is preposterous.
The idea that any human being, even the most brilliant human being imaginable, would be able to say, listen, I know exactly how to run the banks, the manufacturing, the military, the healthcare industry, the pharmaceuticals, yada, yada, yada, on and on and on.
That anyone would be an expert in all of those things is preposterous.
But the idea that the average Joe who you know will be able to pick that genius is actually even more just impossible.
How many times have you and I gotten, you get it probably more than I do because I've been much more stringent about enforcing boundaries and being explicit about them, get unsolicited feedback from our shows or maybe your stand-up or social media.
A lot of times those ideas are great.
I've gotten a lot of great ideas, no question.
But statistically, like to say that they're all great or like the vast majority are great, they're not.
And yet democracy is kind of like we should take them all seriously and everyone's worth hearing out.
This is demonstrably false.
This is demonstrably insane.
And it's statistically chronologically impossible.
That's a great way to look at it.
I have gotten actually some great advice, unsolicited advice before, but to imagine that it approaches 51%.
I mean, it's, I mean, it hasn't even kind of cracked 1% yet.
To imagine that it could ever gain a majority of the feedback is really quite a stretch.
Yeah.
And it's also kind of funny how most people have a aversion to, and I've had this argument a lot, is if they're averse to having empathy or if they're incapable of having empathy and they cannot understand things from other people's perspectives.
And I was just getting into this yesterday when people were yelling at Cernovich for like, you know, how he runs his Twitter.
And the simple point is he has 600,000 followers.
Do you not think that someone who is dealing with in any situation, reading newspapers, playing a video game, someone who is dealing with literally a thousand times more data than you would have to have different metrics about how they engage with a certain apparatus?
If I go to the supermarket and I have a thousand bags of groceries and Dave, you come back with one bag of grocery or three bags of groceries, we are not in the same position about how are we going to get it home, how are we going to put in the covers, what are we going to do with this food?
I'm going to have to eat things that are going to spoil.
That's not going to be an issue for you.
You know, I don't have the strategy.
Am I throwing this out?
And people can, they're like, well, I wouldn't block someone for this, so they shouldn't block someone for this.
And it's like, you're not them, and you would be them, probably, possibly, if you were in their position.
Yes, I've had that a lot, and I'm sure you have too, where people with no sense of irony at all will tell you this is not how you're going to build an audience, or this is not how you're going to be successful.
And it'll be somebody with 25 followers will tell you you're not going to build an audience this way.
And it's like, well, but come on.
Do you not see the ridiculousness in you explaining to someone else?
And I don't even mean just like some person.
It'll be some person where like their bio is podcast host and they have 25 followers and they're like, you're not going to keep an audience this way.
And you're like, wow, that is a very interesting psychological phenomenon where I know you want it to be this way, but you're making an is claim that this like will not work.
And that's, yeah, there's it's really why democracy is doomed to fail.
And so that alone, Hoppe, whether or not you think monarchy is preferable to democracy, I'm somewhat agnostic on it.
I don't exactly know.
I don't think he's wrong or right, but I think it's a fascinating thought experiment.
And I love that it is just an assault on democracy, which I know me and you both support.
That just the idea of democracy has to be really just taken to the wood chipper and shredded.
Oh, so that's the big disagreement among NCAPs.
Are you a wood chipper and cap or are you a helicopter and capital?
Like down to that level.
Do you know where the title comes from?
Do you know what the title is a reference to?
Because I only learned that in the last year.
No, I don't know.
See?
So The God That Failed was a book, which is a collection of essays by former communists who had seen what the Soviet Union had done and recanted.
And they wrote about how they were wrong and how they changed their point of view.
I have it on my bookshelf.
I haven't cracked it open.
But I think it was like even 1940.
Let me look up what year came out.
But I'm imagining it that it was absolutely 1950.
It came out and it must have been six essays.
Lewis Fisher, Andre Guidet, Arthur Kessler, who wrote Darkness at Noon, Richard Wright, Steven Spender, and Ignacio Salone.
And it really is very known for, and that's so early, 1949, about what were we thinking.
And I cannot wait to read that book.
So that's a reference there.
Okay, that is new information for me.
That's awesome.
That's really interesting.
Okay, so the other thing in terms of Hoppe's legacy that I think is important, I would really recommend to you and to everybody out there to read A Theory of Capitalism and Socialism.
I thought it was just really excellent.
It's kind of his economic manifesto in a way.
And it's just great.
I mean, it contains a lot of information that you probably already know, but it has its own brilliant, cold German Hoppe twist on it, and it's really wonderful.
But the thing that I think is his biggest achievement, and what he told you in your interview that he believes is his biggest achievement, is argumentation ethics, which I'm not sure.
Like, are you familiar with that?
Have you read about that whole philosophy?
I've read it, and I don't see why he thinks it's his biggest achievement.
I think it is.
Okay, let's hear it.
Why you think it is?
Well, tell me first why you don't think it is, and then I'll tell you why.
Because I feel like it's a lot less compelling than the God that failed.
And it's the kind of thing where it's a sophisticated logical argument.
And when you get to that point, it's pretty easy for people to not grapple with it and dismiss it.
And I feel like if you read Democracy, the God That Failed, you can't just ignore it.
It will challenge basic assumptions of your thinking.
So I think in that sense, that is more of a greater accomplishment in that it is more provocative, Democracy, the God that failed, and more challenging, and it demands a response.
Gold and Crypto Investing00:04:49
Okay, well, that's fair.
And I think that's the reason why Democracy, the God That Failed, is his biggest popular success, you know?
And so I get your point about that.
And then you could argue that, well, a popular success that can actually grab more people is more important.
But I think why he says argumentation ethics and why I say it too is that in terms, strictly philosophically speaking, I think that was his biggest contribution.
And I'm not saying that it's perfect, but it is a there is so more or less he came up with this whole line of logic that Murray Rothbard flipped out about when he came up with this.
And he put this out in his, I believe, early 30s.
So he was younger than both of us when he put this out, I think in the 80s.
And he, a bunch of people rejected it and didn't like it.
And as you said, just kind of, you know, dismissed it and didn't really grapple with it.
But Rothbard was like, this is the next level of libertarian philosophy.
And basically what he did was he, and this is what's really interesting about it.
And I think that me and you will both appreciate, right?
Is that there are traditionally, and we've gotten into this in some of our crossover episodes, that there are traditionally basically two schools of libertarian philosophy or anarchist libertarian philosophy.
And they're the consequentialist, utilitarianist worldview and the natural rights position.
And me and you both, while we're very committed, you know, anarchists, see problems with both of them.
Sure.
Like there's kind of an issue with both of them.
And me, like, so the, you know, and I think to me, smacking down the utilitarian approach is easier.
And the utility, there's like an old example that I think is the best.
I don't know who came up with this, but I think it's the best way of smacking down the utilitarian consequentialist approach is like, okay, so let's just say that a doctor, you go into a doctor's office and you're there for a checkup.
He shoots you with a shot in the back, puts you out, cuts you open and takes all of your organs.
Now he can save probably like six or seven people with the organs that he takes out of you.
So is that morally justified or is that a good action?
Because it will help the greatest number of people.
The consequence of this will be better.
This is for people who argue that we believe in freedom because it creates a better society.
Well, you can argue that that creates a better society, but we all see what the problem with that is right away.
That it's like, yeah, but that's just horrible that you could do that to someone.
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Now, me and you love people like Rand and Rothbard.
Libertarian Conflict Norms00:07:56
Both of them subscribe to the natural rights philosophy, the natural order philosophy, that liberty is something that's natural to man.
But as we've discussed before, there's a problem with that, which is that, well, you're really just saying I think people ought to have natural rights.
And you can't really, you know, the old hum is all problem.
You can't really find anything in nature that says this is the natural law or this is the natural way.
Is that a fair summation of both those things to you?
Sure.
I mean, I think there are things in nature that you can say because animals do understand territory.
So it precedes conceptual thought.
And it's also conducive towards peace as both theoretically and in practice.
So there is some.
Yeah, but a lot of that is based on conquest and domination, not exactly on, you know, like, you know, property rights or something like that.
Well, I mean, I mean, at a certain point, isn't property rights just dominating a certain area with your will?
Yes, but I mean, in terms of like intimidating in a threatening manner someone else to gain those rights.
Oh, sure, sure.
So in nature, it's there, I mean, I get what you're saying.
There's something there for sure.
But also in nature, you see a lot of brutality and aggression.
Things that we would be against.
So what Hoppe does is he creates this kind of a priori position, which is just, you know, a priority, just meaning for people who aren't like immersed in this world like we are, just meaning that it's something that you kind of think through and figure out logically rather than, you know, observe or demonstrate empirically.
And what he says is his starting point is argumentation.
And that basically anyone involved in this world, whether anybody who's talking about politics or philosophy or any type of norms and how society should organize themselves, has to embark in arguments.
You can't do it without talking to other people and trying to convince them and arguing with them.
And that this is something that nobody can argue against without committing a logical contradiction.
So you can't argue that you don't have to argue because then you're arguing, right?
This type of thing, like saying, I don't exist or language doesn't matter, something that's a self-detonating argument.
And he basically takes it all the way to the limit of saying that anything other than being a libertarian anarchist, you have to be involved in some type of contradiction along the way.
And he lays it out brilliantly and just very quickly, because, you know, go read this stuff if you're interested in it.
But very quickly, the argument is basically that, okay, so we have to argue in order to figure these things out.
If you are arguing, you're already conceding, or we can deduce from that several things.
And number one is that you prefer argument to conflict, physical conflict.
You'd rather talk to someone than bash them over the head.
Otherwise, we wouldn't be discussing anything at all.
You also have to concede that we're all the owners of ourselves because I can't argue with you unless I concede that you kind of own you and you're speaking and you're you and I'm me.
And we also have to concede that we should all exist because we couldn't argue if we don't exist.
And we need to, you know, utilize scarce resources in order to exist.
And therefore, you can kind of conclude that we all need to have norms that reduce conflict with when dealing with scarce resources, there has to be a rightful owner.
And he lays it all out to the point where it really is pretty compelling that the only system that can be compatible with all of this without contradicting yourself is that basically there should be the first just acquisition of property and then voluntary exchange and a libertarian social order.
And it's really, to me, I think just brilliant, brilliant philosophical stuff.
And I think the toned down version of that, which is something I do use a lot, is that rights are the mechanism by which you could have peaceful discussion and peaceful disagreement.
Because when you have the, you know, what you and I point out and many others is that it's the state that causes chaos.
Whereas if you have people in a peaceable anarchist relationship to each other, they will very quickly find some mechanism to resolve disputes.
When you're dealing with, and this is something else I think he talks about in Democracy Gottfailed, if I'm not mistaken, when you're dealing with things like democracy, people are dealing with ideas like justice.
And that becomes very dangerous very quickly because let's suppose, you know, you mailed me something on eBay and I never got in the mail.
Now you can make the argument, well, I mailed it, so too bad you didn't get it.
Or I can make the argument, well, I didn't get it.
So, you know, too bad.
And there's something called bill of sale and there's different ways of looking at this.
And since you and I are friends and it got lost in the mail and F the post office, we could be like, look, let's just split the difference.
Sure.
Or like, you'll be like, I'll get you next time, or I'll be like, you know, whatever, vice versa.
But when you're dealing with the state and the idea of justice, you don't get to cut a deal.
You're interested in like, no, I have the force of right on my side and I'm not going to budge.
And that's when things, even though you and I are ideologues, in this sense, we're actually the real moderates because our long-term goal, the broader goal, is peace.
And if you have to, at a certain point along the way, you know, lose a shoe or something gets lost in the mail, or you know what, this is just the cost of doing business with Macy's.
I'm just not going to patronize them in the future.
We are fine with that.
Whereas someone who is this has a kind of justice mentality, they become very rigid and that tends to escalate things.
Whereas we, who are much more interested in de-escalating things and resolving things and moving forward.
So I would just, I'd like to point out that after all of these crossover episodes, I finally got you to admit that we are both moderates.
We are both, in fact, the moderates.
But you're absolutely right, right?
You know why I'm saying that?
Because Jeb Bush just replied to my DM.
No, did he really?
Oh my God.
You have to tell me afterward: if you score Jeb Bush, I'm going to lose my goddamn mind.
Well, forget Hoppe.
We'll do a whole podcast on the philosophy of Jeb Bush.
But there is, but you are actually right.
The thing that's the like, and I've noticed this even more in the last few years with the kind of populist uprising of the populist left and the populist right, and realizing that the anarchist libertarian position is really to almost come in between those guys and say, we are the center here.
Okay, I get your point.
I get your point, but let's just the reasonable middle ground should be freedom.
And we can all kind of choose how we want to go about organizing our own communities.
And the crazy, perverted thing is that what is currently the center is Hillary Clinton and Lindsey Graham, who are actually the most extremist out of all of them.
And they're posing as the center.
And really, they're, you know, they're, they're the ones who are like, well, we can't be like, you know, not killing people.
Right, right.
We can't be a democratic socialist or a nationalist populist.
We just have to go overthrow six more regimes in the Middle East and spend 20 trillion more dollars.
And you're like, wait, that's the center?
And you're like, yeah, be an adult here and come in the middle.
And it's really, that's the mind fuck of all of it is that the center has collapsed.
And then we almost want to replace that center and be like, hey, you know, look, to say Larry Sharp actually said it pretty well.
You can be as left-wing as you want to or as right-wing as you want to.
Political Wing Extremism00:15:42
You just can't force that on anybody else.
And that's basically our position.
So Hoppe comes along with this argument.
And as I said before, it was largely dismissed by a lot of people, but I do think there's really something there.
And that most people, I think on some level, who are libertarians, who are anarchists, realize that that's kind of that the truth is that you're not going to like the only logically consistent position is this.
It's universalizable and it's workable.
And that's something that I think he really lays out in detail that nobody else, even Rothbard or Ayn Rand, quite got to the point that he got with that.
So I think that's why, to me, it's the biggest part of his like.
I will also tie him into Rand through the back door, which is Rand is very big on the concept that there's no distinction between morality and practicality, right?
That something that is good strategy is also going to be good morally and vice versa.
Because if your morality is in touch with realities based on reality, then of course it's going to be good strategy because good strategy is also based on what works and what is real and what is true.
And for Rand, the accomplishment of morality isn't, you know, heaven or peace on earth.
It's your own happiness.
And your happiness is a consequence of having achieved your values through your hard work and using your mind.
And this ties in this way because something I stress constantly, daily, is the importance for happiness for setting boundaries.
How psychologically important it is to not put up with people's crap, to not feel the need to engage with people who are not engaging in good faith, who are coming at you disrespectfully.
If someone thinks poorly of you or they think you're doing something for the wrong reason, it is not incumbent on you to explain it to them.
It is not of value to you to explain it to them.
It probably isn't even possible because they're not hearing it.
They've already decided.
Whereas if you draw these strict boundaries and do surround yourself with quality people who care about you, or if they don't care about you, at least bring value of some sort to your life, that is the way to achieve greater happiness.
And that dovetails to what he's saying, because having these boundaries is the way to peace.
It is the way to have the alternative is, are you going to have these murky areas and then tragedy to come?
It's just happened today on the subway, just today on the subway.
I was going to compound rehab and everyone's on the train.
And some dude asks the lady next to him.
I put this on my Instagram.
He goes, do you mind if I light up?
And he pulls out a cigarette.
And he starts explaining to her that he's right above the vent and watch, it'll go straight through.
And he's not wrong because I don't think, I think there obviously is some airflow in those trains.
It's not, it's enclosed to this guy's system.
And he's just smoking on the train and he just turns to the other lady next to him and he's like, I'm not going to get in trouble because two people got slashed and no one went to jail.
I'm not even going to get a ticket.
And he's right.
He's absolutely effing right.
But this is a consequence of what happens when you don't have boundaries, when you have a venue that is open to literally everyone and that there is no mechanism for saying you are not welcome here and will never be welcome here.
I don't know where you it's just that line about like I know where you're sleeping tonight, but I ain't here.
So and this is the difference between private property and public property.
In public property, this guy has to kind of, I can't, what can I get away with?
In private property, it's real easy.
You're not, you're not pushing those buttons because you're out the door in two seconds because they're worried about making everyone else make sure they stay.
And no one even feels bad about it.
I mean, even the most bleeding heart libertarian, right?
Like if the cops came up to that guy and started pushing, you would hear a lot of libertarians, particularly left libertarian types, who'd be like, well, the cops are cracking down a guy.
I mean, all he did was light up a cigarette, you know, blah, blah, blah.
They're throwing him around.
They're doing all this.
But if a mall security throws someone out for smoking a cigarette, it's like, well, yeah, I mean, hey, that's their mall.
They have the right to do what they want to do.
And, you know, I think that part of, and I know we've touched on this before, but part of the reason, because what I want to do in the last few minutes of the show is kind of talk about why Hoppe, who I think made these great contributions, is such a controversial figure.
And by the way, I did just want to mention on what you said a second ago, that even though I've never heard Hoppe talk about Rand, like he talked about Mises and Rothbard being huge influences on him.
And it's quite possible that by the time he came around, there was already bad blood between them.
No, no, didn't he speak highly of her during the 10th anniversary thing?
I don't know.
Oh, you know, I was there for that with you, but I wasn't there for his speech.
I came the night before.
It's actually the only time I ever met Hans Hermann Hoppe was the night before.
I was grabbing a drink at the bar and looked behind me, and it's just Hoppe was behind me in line.
And I remember like one of the few moments in my life where I went, oh shit, it's Hans Hermann Hoppe.
And then we like exchanged a few words with him later that night.
That happened twice.
It was Hans Hermann Hoppe and Louis J. Gomez.
These are the two times where Jesus, oh my god, Jesus Christ.
I'm so honored with Lewis.
This was last night.
Even after knowing him all these years, I was still like, holy shit, it's Louis J. Gomez.
Louis J. Gomez.
Hoppe was way taller than I remember him being.
This might just be my memory, but I think he was like 7'10.
He was huge, huge, towering figure.
But that was the New York event there.
But I missed his speech that night.
I think I may have watched it on YouTube, but I don't remember if he mentioned Drew.
I'm positive that he is a big fan of Rand.
Well, there's no question that this is what I was going to say, even not remembering that he mentioned her.
I go, there's no question he was influenced by her.
I mean, you can see the Randian influence.
And there's also something about, I mean, maybe it's, you know, I mean, obviously, she was a Russian immigrant.
He's a German immigrant, but there's something really similar about their just cold, brutal, like unapologetic demeanor that I love about both of them.
But he is really a triggering figure, even within the libertarian world.
And what I've said that we've talked about before, I think part of it.
Are we going to talk about the helicopter toy?
Sure, yes.
We'll get ready to go.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
Well, we're going to absolutely get into that because that was what I was going to close with: where your like experiences with him and stuff.
But I just wanted to mention quickly, and I almost feel bad because I feel like I'm picking on this person because I've mentioned this comment a few times before on the podcast.
But again, she's cool, nothing against her.
But I just remember I was debate, I had a debate about abortion where I took the pro-life position.
It was shortly after I had converted and seen the light and stopped being a supporter of baby killing.
But it was me versus Avins or Avins, I'm blanking on her name, and Walter Block.
And she was taking the pro-choice position.
I was taking the pro-life position, and Walter Block took the evictionist position.
Me too.
I love Walter Block, but I don't like that.
No, it's not a good argument.
But she said at one point, and I really thought this summed up like left libertarianism, at least the popular version of it.
And I don't think she identifies as a left libertarian, but to me, I'm like, you are left libertarian if you believe this.
You are.
And what she said to me was, she goes, I mean, you know, are libertarians really going to say we're against abortion?
I mean, the whole libertarian thing is that we don't really tell people what they can and can't do.
And I remember thinking that and going, like, wow, I go, okay, so to me, that's the antithesis of libertarianism.
What we do is tell people what they can and can't do.
That's the whole thing.
We're right here.
The whole philosophy is what you can and can't do.
And here's what you can't do.
You can't initiate violence against peaceful people and you can't violate their property.
That's what you can't do.
And that's it.
But that's the whole thing.
It's not just this kind of live and let live.
We all have fun.
And I really do think, and this is me, you know, psychoanalyzing people who I'm not qualified to, you know, do, but here we go.
But here we go.
I really think that a lot of people are drawn to libertarianism because they exist in a world where they had authority figures in their life, parents, teachers, whoever, and they reject these authority figures and they don't like them.
And oftentimes for really good reasons, because their authority is arbitrary and it's bullshit and it's repressive or oppressive and fair enough.
And then they feel guilty about wanting to do the things that all these authority figures told them they're not allowed to do.
And libertarianism to them becomes this justification to not have to feel guilty.
Hey, I'm not initiating violence on anyone.
And if you go to Pork Fest or you go, which I love, by the way, nothing against, I love it.
But you hang out at night there and you see pretty quickly, it's not people sitting around a campfire comparing notes about what the real meaning of Atlas Shrugged was.
It's people sitting around doing drugs and getting drunk and hooking up and enjoying their life.
And that's fine, like nothing against that.
But I think they fall in love with this idea that libertarianism is just that.
We're not telling anyone what to do.
Hey, no judgment.
You're not initiating violence on anyone.
You're fine, bro.
You don't have to feel bad about any of this.
And then Hoppe comes along and goes, no, I'm your libertarian father figure.
And vis-a-vis, so to speak, you can't do any of this fucking shit.
And if I'm the property owner and I don't like you doing this, you're right off my goddamn property, physically removed.
Get out of here.
And they hate him for it.
And it inspires this like visceral, you know, like hatred, like right back to he's the same authority figure that they were rejecting the whole time.
I understand this is all amateur hour for me to say this, but I really do think I'm onto something with that reason why people hate Hoppe so much.
I think they also hate him because one of the arguments he makes, which I think is superb, or one of the points he makes, I don't think this is disputable, is that in a free society, it is absolutely not a given that people will have more liberal social rules.
The way you can act at a public library is looser than the way you could act in many cases at like a movie theater or a concert, which are private venues.
So it is absolutely not a given that in a privatized world, you are going to be able to buy alcohol when you're 21, for example, or that drugs would be available to you without some kind of, maybe your condo or your building has, you have to take drug tests.
Like you might get caught with possession of drugs and be like, oh my God, I'm going to spend the night in jail and then I'm going to have a fine to pay after that.
But maybe you get caught with possession of drugs and you forfeited your house because you had to sign that contract before.
Yeah.
Right.
And the fact that he's saying this approvingly, I mean, this also kind of speaks to what, you know, the point we often make when they're like, how would it look like in an anarchist society?
And the point we say is, if you could predict how the market would work, then central planning would work because you could just sit there and be like, all right, do, In a free market, this would be the price.
And this is how many people of color we would hire.
And, you know, these are where the roads would be.
So just do that.
And then we don't have to waste any time, right?
But we don't know.
The market is millions of minds making billions of decisions, changing at infinite pace every second of the day.
And things come out of it as a consequence.
I think they hate the idea that this, he's like one of the few people who would be like, I don't, this is going to be an example.
I don't know that there would be gay rights in this and Kapistan.
And he's like, and I don't know, that's a bad thing.
And for them to be like, everyone else has agreed to this.
Okay.
This conversation is supposed to be over.
And this asshole comes along, supposedly from our house, and is like, hold up, gay marriage, blah, blah, blah.
And they're like, what the dude?
We had this all figured out.
So I think a lot of the resentment comes that he, from their perspective, is bringing from their perspective the worst kind of social conservatism in a space that is historically and logically and psychologically much more governed by openness.
Yes.
And he removes in many ways your ability to virtue signal to anyone else.
Because if you want to just be like, no, libertarians are like no laws against, you know, homosexuality, no laws against drugs or any of that shit.
And then he's like, well, actually.
But rules.
We could have as many rules as we want.
Yeah, you're right.
No laws, but really harsh rules.
And that is, you know, like, I think very difficult for people to wrap their heads around.
But I also think it's important for people to grapple with the idea that what we're advocating in a voluntary society is not necessarily going to be rule, you know, what people imagine almost like, yeah, that's not what it's going to be.
And my guess, and I don't know, is that there would be areas, there would be pockets of wood stocks, but there's also going to be lots of pockets of no fucking wood stock hippies allowed.
And that's also okay.
There are still dry counties now.
After prohibition was repealed on a constitutional level, there are still places where you are not allowed to buy and sell alcohol.
Now, this is obviously the state.
This isn't private, but it's very easy to imagine having some kind of gated community.
And that gated community is a dry community, whether it's a Mormon community or maybe it's for people who are former addicts.
I remember when Gene Epstein debated Bhaskar Sankara, who's a popular democratic socialist.
And I thought one of Gene's most powerful points in the debate was when he said, he was like, well, look, you have these like economically left-wing views.
Offending Humor Lines00:12:01
I'm paraphrasing, but he said you have these economically left-wing views and these socially left-wing views.
But let me ask you, if the workers really, the American working class really got to decide, I mean, how are you so confident that a democratic vote, like how many mosques do you think they would vote to produce?
How many Qurans do you think they would vote to produce?
How much birth control would they vote?
You know, it's like you guys rely on these lefty values that are really bougie values.
They're really not the values of the working class.
And truthfully speaking, if you just left it up to a vote, they're probably not going to vote with you guys.
And I mean, you see this where the working class basically voted for Trump in the last the working class likes Bud Light and fucking the American flag.
They voted against NASCAR.
They vote against gay marriage every chance they get, including California.
Yes, you know, and so it's just a really, you know, you have to almost grapple with that.
And Gene's, you know, point was that at least in a market economy, someone who wants to produce Qurans, if he can find a customer base for it, he can produce them.
He can produce them.
The will of the workers be damned.
He can make what he wants to make for that customer.
But the same point does to some degree at least apply for an anarchist libertarian society, where it's like, yeah, but there's still a whole lot of people who aren't really interested in any of that shit.
And they can go form their communities and all of that.
So, anyway, as we wrap this up, I want to ask you for his contributions and his controversy.
You sat down with the man.
You brought a helicopter to give to him to take a picture with, which was hilarious.
And I just kind of want to know, like, what were your impressions of Hoppe?
Obviously, we can all watch the interview, and it was really, if you haven't, I really recommend it.
It was a fantastic interview.
But what were your just impressions of him?
It's in the gas archives, by the way.
So, this was an episode.
So, yeah, you can watch it there.
The helicopter was when he was in New York.
So that was separate when I interviewed him.
And the first thing, and I didn't know.
So I was part of something called the troll board, which I write about in my book, The New Write.
And we were the ones who came up with this conflation Pinochet and Hoppe and having these memes about physical.
It really took off.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And my friend designed the shirt that people pass around that says Augusta Pinochet's helicopter school established 1973.
And it has a little helicopter, the guy getting kicked out of it.
And I've stopped using that joke because Bolsonaro in Brazil is actually going in that direction and is kind of talking about like, oh, yeah, I'm just going to start executing.
It's like, no, this isn't really kind of funny.
Yeah.
It's like, okay, let's take a step back here.
I didn't know if Hoppe had a sense of humor because he's so German.
I was not intimidated by him at all because he's not a household name.
He's Michael Jordan in this very specific space.
But it was the same thing with a very failed podcaster, Tom Woods.
I didn't really know who Tom Woods was.
This is a testament simply to my ignorance, not to his accomplishments, which are few and far between to be care.
But all my friends, all his books are a disaster.
His podcast is nil in the Nielsen ratings.
It's sure to be canceled.
All my friends are like, oh my God, Tom Woods.
Oh my God, Tom Woods.
And I'm like, I'm going to become friends with this person just because you guys think it's so impressive.
And I did it.
No one ever said it about you, but that's not here.
I just became friends because I actually liked you, not because anyone's impressed by this.
I don't know.
I got a million of them, baby.
Hoppa, everyone's like, oh my God, Hoppe.
The troll motto, the official motto of trolling, is you're either going to have fun with me or you're going to be fun for me.
And I brought that helicopter.
And Kinstefan Gonsella, who's like the biggest anti-IP libertarian, very good buddy of mine, great guy.
He's close with Hoppe.
I think he manages Hans Hoppe's website.
And I'm like, oh, I want to meet Hans.
And he introduced us.
And I brought, I had to buy, like, it's not easy finding a toy helicopter, let me tell you.
I had to go to Kmart and buy like a 1,000-piece Army man just to get the helicopter out of it.
And I gave it to him because I knew this photo would be such an epic meme.
And it was such a great picture.
Tom Woods took the photo.
And I hand him.
I go, oh, Mr. Hoppe, can I get a picture with you?
And he looks at it and goes, it should have had the Chilean flag.
So he knew exactly what the joke was.
And then people were like all butt hurt that he's taking a picture with this helicopter as a joke.
It's like, okay, calm down, people.
When I was seeing him in Turkey at his event, he does have a certain humorlessness about him, not in like an asshole kind of way, but more like in a, and not in someone like, oh, I take myself so seriously, but just not someone who's particularly jokey.
And I'm like, you know what?
I think it's really fun, like from a buddy comedy movie, when you have someone who's accomplished and bright and self-assured, but not having like, not like a crusty old dean.
And then you have this zany, you know, troll freak kind of bouncing around him.
Like that combination leads to a lot of fun.
And he rolled with it completely.
So, you know, I asked him if a hot dog is a sandwich.
He wasn't like, what is this question?
I mean, he went with it.
So there were no points when anything I asked him, he took umbrage to, was offended.
It was a very big deal because I think at that point he said he wasn't doing any more interviews.
And I'm like, I got in a plane.
You're getting, I'm getting the interview.
It was also really fun that I got him to sign his book to Michael, I like you better than Tom.
And then he wrote, until Tom visits here.
And I photoshopped that out and put it on Instagram.
Very sad.
And Tom was like, what the F?
I've never gotten hop on my show.
I'm like, well, you know, that's why you're very failed.
And people would ask, he was like the most requested, you know, guest on the Tom Woodshop.
We're like, get hop on.
And he goes, he doesn't do interviews.
That's what Tom used to always say.
He doesn't do interviews.
And then you just come out with the interview of him.
I am, I pride myself on knowing that I will make any guest comfortable.
It's not going to be gotcha.
I, you know, a lot of times people ask me why I don't push back harder on somebody.
I don't do that kind of interview.
I'm more interested in picking someone's brain than in being confrontational.
I think it's shitty to invite someone to your space and then kind of yell at them unless it's certain specific contexts, like there was a pitch of bad blood that you want to work out.
Or if it's in the context of let's debate this topic.
Exactly.
So like I completely agree with that.
And I've gotten shit for not giving more pushback to guests too.
But you're almost like, look, I mean, you like, I will, you know, go like, okay, well, but what about this?
And this is my position on this and kind of things.
But if you didn't invite someone on with the express, you know, kind of we're having a debate, I do agree that I think it's shitty to just kind of pounce on them the whole time rather than to listen to what they have to say and let the audience decide.
Yeah.
And also, and sorry, go ahead, but just the like our audiences at this point, if you listen to you are welcome or if you listen to part of the problem, you know where we stand on these issues.
I don't need to assert that at every single moment.
Everyone knows our position.
So yeah, anyway, go ahead.
I think the only people that I would be like, like, oh my God, would be like Camille Polly and Fran Libowitz, who are like my two like role models in terms of being professional talkers.
But I wasn't intimidated at all, especially because the first time I met him, he was cracking up about the helicopter.
So like, all right, this guy has a sense of humor and self-awareness.
And also his speech, which you missed, was quite funny because he was, he mentions at one point the speech, he's like, oh, you know, some websites I go to, you would be very shocked to learn about.
Like, so there was that little reference?
Like, is he a Fortune?
And then at one point, he's talking about his friendship with Rothbard.
And he goes, you know, we were very different people.
Murray was 20 years older than me.
This is this.
This is that.
Plus, as you know, about the historic disagreements between the Germans and the Jews.
And I'm like, holy shit, this guy's just thinking this Holocaust joke.
Like, oops, made some mistakes.
Can I tell you something, though, else, that I actually, I remember him writing about this at one point.
I forget where exactly he wrote about this, but I actually thought it was really sweet and a heartwarming story.
So he literally worshipped Murray Rothbard before he came to America.
And he was like, Murray Rothbard is the greatest mind in the country.
And he said he was blown away by how broke basically Rothbard was.
Like, he's like, I'm coming to the capitalist country.
And he's the most famous capitalist philosopher.
Like, where's your mansion or whatever?
And he's like, oh, shit, Murray Rothbard is not.
Yeah, he talked about that in the time.
Yeah, but he said, and this was in a piece that he wrote years ago.
I don't remember.
But he said that he was really nervous about meeting Rothbard because he was like that dynamic where he's like, oh, dude, this is a Jew and I'm a German.
And I know I'm supposed to be riddled with this kind of guilt over like what our country did to Jewish people.
And he said right away, Rothbard like dispelled him of any of that and was like, Hey, dude, you're not responsible for anything.
And hey, German society contributed like all these great things to the world and blah, blah, blah.
And you can be proud of your heritage and not have to own the horrible things that happened that you had nothing to do with.
And I thought there was something really sweet about that.
Here's a guy in his 30s, you know, looking up to this guy in his 50s.
And he's not like this kind of like, oh, I hold this over your head.
He goes, look, none of that shit ever happened.
So don't worry about it.
Well, no, I wouldn't say I had nothing to do with it.
I think we both just went complete opposite fucked up angles.
My angle was Rothbard was like, I don't believe anyone even died in that thing.
And your angle was like, I was pretty involved in this.
I wouldn't say central planner, but maybe incidental planner.
But you know, is it part of this thing, man, where there are these?
And look, I will say before closing that there are like, you know, there's four or five things that I've heard Hoppe say that I understand where people are offended by and think they're fucked up.
I mean, look, I did think that the thing he said about like gay people having a lower time preference than straight people, I think that's wrong.
Like, not I'm offended wrong.
I think it's factually wrong.
I've just known too many gay people in Chelsea and New York who are like, oh, they really do plan for the future.
They actually are like, I don't know.
I thought he was saying it in terms of since they don't have children, they're going to have a well, that's what he was saying.
Yes.
But even that, even I don't know.
I mean, I know people who have kids who live really irresponsibly and then people who don't have kids.
And I'm not sure that it's even, that's what it's about.
And I don't mean to just be anecdotally, there's one exception.
I'm not, I'm not sure that's a rule.
And I know he said things about like a kind of white majority society seems to be the one that works the best.
And okay, I understand where people are offended by that stuff.
But I don't know.
I kind of look, every interesting thinker that I've ever really loved will always say a bunch of different shit.
And I'm sure you can always pick, you know, three or four things that you're like, well, that was pretty offensive.
But his major contributions were really great.
I think he's a really fascinating guy that everyone should read.
And I mean, you know, he held the fucking helicopter.
How hilarious is that?
You can't beat that.
And he kept that thing too.
Yeah.
God damn it.
Look at that.
He kept it.
I think, and he's going to write about how it was a just acquisition of property from a voluntary trade.
That's not a great impression.
But anyway.
All right, cool.
I'm really glad we did this episode.
And I look forward to the next one with the great Michael Malas.