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Feb. 11, 2021 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
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Talking to Kids About the State of the World & Building New Tech | DIRECT MESSAGE | Rubin Report
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dave rubin
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dave rubin
Hey everybody, I'm Dave Rubin and this is the Rubin Report Direct Message
for February 11th, 2021.
And we're doing an Ask Me Anything Q&A.
You guys have submitted your questions at rubinreport.locals.com.
That is my OnLocals community, free of bots, trolls, and other psychos.
So do join us there if you haven't, and I'm gonna try to go as quickly as possible because we got a ton of questions, and I won't belabor the point.
Here we go.
I love this question.
Platforms like Locals are providing a space for commentators and pundits,
but any movement needs those who speak to the soul, not just the mind.
I do agree with that.
How can we support and cultivate our own poets, artists, musicians, architects, et cetera?
I love this question.
So one of the things that we're doing with Locals, right now we're building digital homes for creators.
I don't care what kind of creator you are.
Most of the people on Locals, the high-profile people, say like Scott Adams and Tulsi Gabbard and Greg Gutfeld and Judge Jeanine, people like that, are sort of in the political world.
That's absolutely true.
That just is because I'm in the political world and I've been promoting this thing, so my network of people happen to be more in the political world.
But you're absolutely right.
I think one of the problems we're having with society right now is that we don't talk about art.
And music, and architecture, and all of the things of beauty.
So one of the interesting things is, in my community, most people have been brought together through politics, but we do talk about food and wine, of course, and what people are listening to, and I post music that I'm listening to, and people post Spotify playlists, and all that kinds of stuff.
But ultimately, what I want locals to have is many different verticals.
So it'll not just have people that are in the politics world, but we're working on right now, onboarding some people that are big in the sports world, And I would love to go more into the music world and the art world and the fashion world and the gaming world and everything else.
We haven't put a dime into PR.
Everything that we've built basically has come from my network, so that's been a sort of limiting factor so far, but the company's doing really well.
We've raised a nice amount of money, and it's gonna go and continue.
But I also think something that's very cool...
Is that, you know, if you come for politics, you might find out that there's a lot of other stuff that's there that's interesting.
And I would hope that that would be a little less of the case.
Like if you if you sign on to an artist, hopefully not everything would become political there.
But if you go to a political person, maybe you would find out more about a whole bunch of other stuff.
The problem is when things that aren't supposed to be politicized become endlessly politicized.
Stephanie says what do we tell our kids when they ask us what's wrong with the world minor 13 and 16?
You know I don't have kids yet so I can't sit here and pretend that I'm a parent and I can only imagine what it's like particularly in this last crazy year to have Children of that age, 16 and 13, who are really trying to figure out what they think of the world, compare their thoughts and feelings and the stuff that they're learning versus the world as it is, to see so many adults that seemingly are crazy and so many people afraid of their own shadow and all of that stuff.
I don't know how you'd parent in a responsible way But the best I think I can say is to your question, which is what do we tell our kids when they ask us what's wrong with the world?
I would say we've let bad ideas in because we're afraid of standing up for ourselves.
I think that's what all of this boils down to.
All of the ideas of wokeism and collectivism and the modern racism that is being ushered in under the guise of anti-racism.
It's all bad ideas that we've defeated in the past.
We've defeated collectivist movements like communism and socialism.
We've defeated them.
And then in our success, we kinda grew fat.
The freedoms that we have grew fat.
and liberalism in a way grew kind of fat and the soft underbelly of tolerance,
which is such an important part of liberalism was taken advantage of by the wokesters
and the best thing that you can do, I think, I think, and again, I'm not a parent
of a 13-year-old and a 16-year-old, but I think the best thing you can do
is show them that you're kind of brave, that you fight for whatever it is you believe
and you, in this case, perhaps part of you doing that is that you support me on Locals
and it's like, maybe I'm out there doing some of those things, but whatever it is in your own life,
to show them, you have to map, I suppose, for them a world that is a world that you wanna create
so that hopefully they'll do it for themselves.
I think.
I think that kind of works.
Dragonhawk asks, do we get more great beach pictures of you and David Janet from Florida?
We shall see.
You know, you gotta give the people what they want.
I have not, as you know, I'm focused on locals.
I'm not doing it only fans, although we've gotten some requests, and I'd probably make a hell of a lot more money.
God only knows why, but perhaps there will be some pictures.
I am actually, technically, people, to be totally honest with you, as you're watching this video right now, I am in Florida at the moment.
unidentified
We pre-taped this two days ago, so technically today's Tuesday.
dave rubin
You're watching it on Thursday.
I'm probably on the beach right now, hopefully not on Twitter, and perhaps posting beach pictures.
The only way you're gonna find out, though, is to check out rubenreport.locals.com.
What are your plans for Valentine's Day?
Do you celebrate?
So we usually try to do a week in Florida right around now, right around President's Day, which often lines up, President's Week, President's Day, which often lines up around Valentine's Day.
So we're usually in Florida.
So most likely I will be eating swordfish or grouper or some other delicious fish and we'll have some wine and we'll just like have a really pleasant night.
And that really is it.
I'm a romantic guy, 365 days a year, so we don't need Valentine's Day all the time, you know what I mean?
Let's see, I wanna just jump to a couple others here that I wanted to bump around.
The Pragmatist says, any further thoughts on libertarianism's contribution to our current problem and what we can do about adapting it to be a significant part of the solution?
So there's a really ongoing debate right now within the libertarian movement.
Do we focus all of our energies on the libertarian party, which is an abject mess, and you got naked people running on the stage, and terrible candidates that they've put up over the last couple of years, and they don't do anything down ticket, they save it all for the presidency, and then the mainstream ignores them, and the litany of problems that you know that the party has.
And the question is, do you put all of your energy to fixing that structure, because it is on the ballot in most of the states, and there is some base there, or do you focus on sort of making the conservatives a bit more libertarian?
To me, just to me personally, that's the sensible one.
That's one of the things that I've tried to do.
I think I'm actually doing it quite well.
And I've been able to take my conservative friends and show them that they can be a little more okay with something like gay marriage that maybe isn't necessarily within their religious belief.
That's like some way of doing it, like showing the Republicans, hey, don't just talk about lowering taxes, actually do it.
Don't just talk about lowering regulation.
Actually do it.
These were some of the reasons that I ended up becoming obviously okay with Trump because he was doing those things, right?
So even if you think about it from Trump, the guy who had more energy and more media focus and everything before they decided to deperson him, it's like he could have run as a third party candidate, right?
And what would have happened?
We would have ended up.
with a Democratic president.
I'm talking about in 2016.
Like if Trump had been like, okay, I'm going to run as the third party guy because I'm mostly a third party guy.
And then it's a Republican and me and Clinton.
Well, obviously Clinton would have won.
So Trump said, okay, I'm a business guy.
And he was a little more on the libertarian side.
He didn't go to wars, right?
Like that's big for libertarians.
So I think he modified the Republican party in a way.
That's to me the more sensible approach, but I could see how you would argue it either way, and I'm completely down for those debates.
I think I'm gonna go on a couple libertarian podcasts to discuss that with a bunch of people.
Let's see.
In pieces, total fun, just out of the box, no politics.
After...
And after dinner game, Scrabble or Yahtzee?
Definitely Scrabble.
Love the Scrabble.
Used to play Scrabble with my grandma.
She crushed me all the time.
I do love Scrabble.
Bring a bottle of Cab or Red Blend?
Probably depends what we ate, but this is after dinner.
So after dinner, I could go for a blend so that it's maybe a little lighter than a Cab.
If you want a really great red blend.
It's a little on the pricey side, usually around 40 bucks a bottle, but the Prisoner Red Blend is pretty spectacular.
A late night snack of almonds or walnuts.
Almonds are, I do, you know, just you give me just a simple almond.
You don't even have to salt it.
Just a simple almond.
I enjoy chewing it.
They're crispy.
And then you get that chew sensation.
I enjoy the almond.
Gaja6USA says, "Was politics ever really based on facts?
I think politics has mostly been based on emotional needs and thus responded to in that way."
I've never bought into the facts don't care about your feelings, as is often stated by Ben Shapiro.
You know, it's really interesting.
Over the last couple of days, I've been showing you guys these clips of Ronald Reagan on Johnny Carson Tonight Show.
And you can see he's an incredible, incredible communicator of ideas.
And someone who clearly knows what he's talking about, and he's also doing facts, right?
You could take someone like Thomas Sowell, an incredible communicator of ideas.
Even now, at like 91, he still is, but when you watch Sowell, watch some videos, you can find them on YouTube, I watch them all the time, of Sowell like 30 years ago, and you will see just a fabulous, you know, prime peak of his life communicator of ideas.
But also an excellent communicator of facts.
I think we've run into a strange time that facts sort of don't matter for several reasons.
I mean, facts kind of don't matter because everyone just picks what facts they like and then just runs with their narrative.
So that makes facts less important in a certain sense, right?
Not in the truest sense, but in a certain sense.
But then I think the other thing Is that because of social media where everything is on, oh my God, did I get the retweet?
Did I get the like?
Well, then you're going to do that with emotion.
You're going to do that with owning the libtard or crushing the conserva-cuck or whatever the freaking stupid phrases are.
And that then becomes the more important game sort of than what is factual.
So Ben is right, facts don't care about your feelings.
The question is, are we governed by facts anymore or are we governed by feelings?
I would say in many cases, and in most cases especially now, where we care about equity instead of equality, well then it's about feelings.
It's like, oh, it feels right to have an equal amount of people who look like a certain something have equal amount of representation at this job or at this school or something.
And it's like, well, is that factually the best way to build the best business or have the highest level of education or anything else?
Of course the answer is no, but it feels right to a lot of people, and that is a bit of a dangerous thing.
Steamboat says, from a psychological standpoint, what do you believe the perceived reward is for those who subscribe to the woke agenda?
Do you think this is all for intrinsic feel goods, or is there something more they hope to achieve?
I mean, I've talked a lot about this at some level, and by the way, I have Jordan Peterson on the show in a couple weeks, and we will dive into this, because this is exactly what he was warning about, and I'm obviously super psyched to talk to Jordan again.
It's been great that he's making his little foray back into the fight, and he's got the new book coming out and all that stuff.
So what is it that these people get is a great question.
What do the woke people get?
Well, first off, I think you get a tremendous amount of control.
Right, like people, none of us can control the world, right?
You may want to control the world.
The Tears for Fear song, right?
Everybody wants to rule the world.
Well, I don't know that exactly I want to rule the world.
I'm sort of more of a realist in that I see the world as it is, and if I can do a little something to make it a little more in line with the way I think, then that's great.
But I don't really want to Control the world or rule the world or anything else.
I think a lot of people feel really out of control and once you realize that you can get a lot of people to be quiet or to bow to you or to give you money because you're woke, that you can use some crudule against them to get them to behave as you want, you kind of feel like a god.
You kinda do, and I think that they've tricked a lot of otherwise smart, sensible people into thinking that if they speak up, they're gonna be destroyed.
And by the way, a lot of them do get destroyed when they speak up, but the only solution is for more people to speak up.
But I think psychologically, It's about controlling the world.
I think it also has something to do with the God-shaped hole.
You know, it's not a coincidence that most of the woke people are non-believers to some extent.
It's like belief, I've come to the belief that belief is so intrinsic to being a human that if you fully say, I'm not a believer, you in some ways have to find something else to believe in, ironically.
And what they've found is this all-encompassing woke agenda that you're talking about.
And then once you believe in that, then you'll probably do a lot of other things to make people bow to it.
It's scary and dangerous, but we gotta fight it.
Oh, I like this question.
This is from Jenny.
She says, what advice would you have for someone who has lost every friend and family member through this nonsense?
It's hard.
Not to be on an island when COVID restrictions prevent real-life interaction.
Locals has helped with that, so thank you.
So, first off, one of the reasons that I'm so thrilled with the Locals community is that, you know, we've done some dinners together, we've done some movie nights, and we are creating Locals.
We're creating a Local community, and I met people, actual people, at a bar in Dallas.
About 40 people showed up, and I may do one in Florida, and I'll start doing them in LA, too, because we need to rethink community, and we need all that.
Well, first off, you know, if you've lost all these friends and family members, Sorry, like I feel it.
I hear you.
I know how many people are going through this.
I have my own versions of this going on right now and it is not easy.
But I think, you know, the only answer that I can give you that'll make any sense is that it's better this way than the other way.
If the other way means just have people around you who will not know what you really think, who you will never tell, what you're actually feeling and what is important to you and all of those things.
Well, that's just a slow death, right?
Like that's just sort of the frog in the pot death and just one day you won't even remember the person that you were 20 years ago because you've just slowly whittled it away.
The fact that your friends or family, whether they still consider you friends or not, the fact that they know what you believe, well then it's on them to maybe practice a little tolerance, practice a little decency, but you've stood up for what you believe and I promise you, you will find more friends.
You know, one of the things that's kept me sane in this, I've lost a lot of friends in the midst of this, right?
Like, and especially since I came back from the summer and then I officially announced that I was gonna support Trump, like, trust me, I lost a lot of friends.
One of the things that have kept me sane is that my two best friends, I've said this a couple times from childhood, One of them, I met the first day in kindergarten, my buddy John, and I remember meeting him first day of kindergarten.
Now it's 40 years later, and then our buddy Ari moved to town in third grade.
We just saw each other in Dallas for the first time in 10 years, the first time that the three of us were together.
But I have a text chain going with them all the time, and I think if you can find some old people from your life to connect with, That that helps you sort of stay sane.
Boy, that person knew me way back when.
There's something to that.
But I promise you, you will find new friends.
And if the locals community has done anything to be part of that, I think that's just awesome.
Chris says, Dave, there's already speculation that Governor Ron DeSantis will run for president in 2024.
What are your thoughts?
I think that would be great.
I think he's the best governor in the United States right now.
I think he's done a great job in letting people make decisions for themselves.
I think we've seen that by opening up the state and letting businesses do what they think is right, that he's actually kept COVID numbers down.
You know, Florida has the second oldest population, so you would have thought, oh, we're going to keep this state open with all of these old people.
you would have thought that the numbers would be not double, triple, quadruple California or New
York you'd think they would be exponentially higher, right?
Because we're not doing any of the good things that they tell us to do in New York or California.
And yet they're not, their numbers are lower.
I think it's possible that they've gotten to herd immunity faster.
And that more important, that whether there are some mistakes along the way there,
his intuition as a human being was to let people make decisions for themselves.
So, as I tape this on Tuesday, even though it's Thursday, and I'm in Florida as I say this right now, I'm going to be sitting at a restaurant, eating with people, as is our God-given right, at least for now.
So I think he's just done a great job.
I would absolutely support him.
I think that would be awesome.
And by the way, he's mapping out for other people how to be brave, right?
Like he's mapping out for other politicians.
Yeah, you're gonna have to stand up to the mob and they're gonna write hit pieces about you and they're gonna say mean things about you.
But if you got into this game of politics, it's a messy game and fight, man, fight.
Let's see.
Sarah says, how do we get Democratic governors to vaccinate our elderly citizens after they terrified everyone into submission last year?
I think this is another one of the issues.
People are now afraid to go out.
So how do you vaccinate all of these old people?
And you've got people waiting on lines in the cold and all of these things.
I guess we could do more mobile vaccinations.
There's probably like a whole series of ways to do all these things.
But your question really gets to just like the heart of fear thing.
And I think a lot of people are fearful right now.
I think a good portion of that is warranted.
Like there is a pandemic.
I'm not sitting here telling you that there isn't a pandemic.
We're also 11 months off of two weeks to flatten the curve.
But there's also economic problems.
People are more depressed.
I'm actually super interested and I need to do More shows on this.
I'm super interested in the psychological damage that has been done to all of us.
Even me, things have been pretty good here.
My business is online.
We've been able to expand.
Locals is going really well.
I've been able to succeed here.
and do the show this way, which actually, by doing it this way,
instead of always in person with guests, it actually cut down on some of our costs,
it made us a slimmer trimmer operation.
Like, that's all good, but I know there's been a psychological toll on me too.
Like, all of us sitting around going, man, is the world ever gonna get better?
Is anyone gonna save us?
Is anyone gonna fix this?
Just having to constantly worry about that, where if you think back to last February,
you weren't worried about that.
Oh, the world kind of exists, there are some problems.
There's an orange man as president of the United States, but everything's gonna be okay.
Where now it's like, I think most of us are like, whoa, what does the future look like?
And by the way, that's being put into action as we know people are fleeing blue states like crazy
and moving to red states.
And people are thinking about all sorts of things, whether you, what kind of job do you want?
And I don't have to commute anymore.
Do I need a bigger house because I need an office?
And can I, am I married to the right person?
Do I like my family?
Like a whole series, I would say, of like massively existential issues for us all to think about, which is, Super interesting spot to be in.
It's scary, but it's also inspiring in a way, and I think we will get through this, and there are businesses to be built, there are institutions to be built, there are education systems to be built, and it ain't gonna be easy, but if it was easy, everyone would do it!
Pseudomoniker says Obi-Wan said only a Sith deals in absolutes.
Does that mean Obi-Wan is a Sith?
Great question.
It's a question that has been debated by Jedi and Sith alike for years and years and years.
It is an absolute statement.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
Does that mean Obi-Wan is a Sith?
By his own definition, yes.
I'm gonna give Obi-Wan a little bit of a leash here because it was an extremely stressful day.
I mean, think about what he went through that day.
Not only did his Padawan just wipe out, you know, half the Jedi Order and slaughtered everybody, but then he had to get on that long flight to Mustafar.
He then saw her, you know, he saw him choke Padme.
It was hot there.
He's wearing this big robe.
So I think if he just got a little lost in the language, I think that's okay.
Although, Oh, as Jordan Peterson would say, you know, be careful with the words that you choose.
So he should have been a little more careful, but everything being equal, all to death, and then that hot cotton outfit while standing on a lava planet, it's just a lot to deal with.
Jay Venord says, what are some things you are thankful for from 2020?
Well, I'm super thankful for you guys.
I mean, I think that really would be the number one thing.
You guys enabled me to continue doing this show and be independent and communicating with so many of you in the community.
You know, the first thing I do when I, I try not to have my phone in my room, as you know, but when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do once I'm online, I usually have some water and some coffee to start the day.
I kind of stretch out the neck.
Let Clyde out.
But when I do open up the phone, I jump in the community first and I see a whole bunch of good stuff.
Kind of what you guys are talking about.
And that actually does help me frame things, right?
Because I've seen so many people who I used to really respect, hold in really high regard, many people that were on my show, that I feel like have totally lost the plot.
So when I see what I would say are regular people, and I don't mean that to be disparaging, I mean that in the best possible sense.
I'm just a regular person.
When I see just regular decent people coming together and talking about things differently and the funny stuff, sharing memes and all that, I'm very appreciative that I've been able to cultivate some decent people in the world, because I think that's what people are missing.
There's a reason we called it Locals.com.
I think people are missing the local thing, and we used to think about the local community as, oh, the four blocks that live around you, or just your local town or whatever, but we need the local thing online as well.
Let's see, I'll do, uh, what do they tell me?
Two more here, two more real quick.
Uh, formerly ALF.
Says, when California opens back up completely, if that ever happens again, what's the first thing you'll do?
You know what's funny is in the last year, you guys have seen, I post these like crazy tomahawk steaks that I'm making and all this Wagyu stuff and all that, and I love, love, love grilling.
I've always liked grilling, but in the last year from the lockdown, I have learned to love grilling.
I love knowing what the different cuts of meat are, doing a tomahawk, doing a porterhouse, doing a tri-tip.
Doing filets, like I just love it and figuring out what I'm doing on the seasoning side and learning all of it.
I absolutely love it.
That being said, I do miss going to a restaurant every now and again.
When I was in Dallas, I went to a great steak joint.
I think it was called, it might've been called Charlie.
Or something, it's a Curtis Stone restaurant in Dallas.
Can you Google that real quick?
It was a great restaurant.
But the one thing I do, there's a restaurant here in L.A.
called Boa on Sunset Strip, and it's got great ambiance, and it's sort of indoor-outdoor, and the lighting's cool, and it's a little bit of celebrity, but not in the horrible celebrity way.
And I think I've actually mentioned it on the show once before.
No, not Delta Charlie's in Dallas, Curtis Stone Restaurant in Dallas.
Can you just Google that?
I think I mentioned this once before, but that famous picture that went viral a couple of years ago when the whole IDW crew had dinner together in LA, when it was Rogan and Sam Harris and Jordan and Eric Weinstein and Shapiro and me.
Was anyone else there?
Maybe someone else was there.
That was at Boa Steakhouse.
So I do miss that.
Oh, the steakhouse that I'm talking about in Dallas, which was fantastic, that I was at last week, was Georgie by Curtis Stone.
Just amazing.
It's an Australian steakhouse.
It was just phenomenal.
And one more question for you fine people.
What do I wanna do here?
Scroll quick, I'm just gonna pick something.
Okay, let's, I don't know, this seems like a fitting one to end on.
Timothy says, Dave, you've recently started to say that you believe in a God due in part with your time with Jordan Peterson.
Can you elaborate a little further if you've been diving deeper into any particular religions?
So, look, I've been talking about this a lot lately.
I just find belief, At least at this point in my life, at 44 years old, relative to everything happening in the world, I find no way around belief.
It's an odd way to say that you're a believer, I suppose, or an odd way to say you've made the leap of faith.
That is what you have to do as a rational person.
At some point you can say, okay, I think this, I think this, I think this.
But the reason they call it a leap of faith is because at some point then you have to make the jump to say, okay, I believe.
I think as someone that puts so much emphasis on intellect and logic and learning, I think that's been a very difficult thing for me personally.
I mean, I can say this, I also know that in the last couple of years of just traveling around and meeting people and everything else, the people that I've met, and of course it's not absolutely Without exception.
But the people that I've met that generally come from a community of believers or have some set of belief generally seem to be nicer, calmer, more giving, funnier, happier, all of those things.
And I think the proof is in the pudding.
As you may remember, there was a really vocal sort of growing powerful movement of atheists a couple years ago And I even spoke at the Reason Rally in D.C.
at the mall.
Like Forrest Gump, I spoke at that thing, remember?
Forrest Gump, and then she jumps out into the pond.
I spoke there about it, and I was actually calling out social justice.
This is probably like six or seven years ago at this point.
I was calling out social justice and saying, we have to be better.
I was a lefty at the time, because I could see the beginnings of how it was all falling apart because of social justice, and it basically collapsed under that.
And I think in a time when there's such chaos, like for me at least, you know, John Kasich, I can't believe I'm going to quote John Kasich while talking about faith, but when I had John Kasich on, he said something very interesting about faith.
He said, a lot of people can do it without God.
I'm not one of those people.
And I thought that there was something very humbling and decent about that.
And I think I've come to a similar conclusion.
Obviously, I'm Jewish, so that has more to do, I believe in something that is similar to what my father believed, which is what my grandfather believed, and my ancestors.
And that is the strange thing about belief.
If you're Christian, you happen to be born into Christianity, usually, and then you believe a certain set of things.
But that's not the, whittling around the difference between what someone believes as a Jew or a Christian or whatever denomination you might be, that's not the important thing to me, at least right now.
The important thing to me right now is it's sort of a starting off point to build a better society.
And again, as I always say, look, I've got a lot of friends who are atheists, They're deeply moral, decent, good people, and I think it can work at the micro level.
I don't think it can work at the macro level.
I think that's why society is so whacked right now.
I really do.
So I'll keep talking about this.
I appreciate the question, and I think if we did all talk about this in a little more of an honest way that maybe we could get out of some of this stuff.
Guys, tomorrow we are back with a big panel show on Friday.
We're gonna be talking about censorship from a medical perspective and a legal perspective.
And I've got Dr. Drew, who needs no introduction.
I think you guys know Dr. Drew.
I've also got Dr. Zubin Damania, who's a really interesting guy right now, who's been censored a bunch of times.
Dr. Drew's been censored a bunch of times while trying to have honest debates about COVID and lockdown and everything else.
And then lawyer Viva Frye, who's also blowing up right now, who's a really interesting voice.
Reminder that my interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali is already up at rubenreport.locals.com for the full thing.
You can get part two right here on YouTube right now.
Thank you, have a nice weekend, and I'll be on the beach.
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