0:00:03 [MUSIC PLAYING]
0:00:07 There are three systems in your head, keeping it very simple.
0:00:10 It’s much more complex than that, but simplifying it.
0:00:13 One of the systems will help you think very logically,
0:00:15 and I call that the human system.
0:00:18 It thinks logically, but it’s very slow,
0:00:21 which means if you operate with a human,
0:00:24 your body and your reflexes will slow down,
0:00:26 because you’re analyzing as you go along,
0:00:29 and it slows the system so you’re more pensive.
0:00:31 If he goes into the second system,
0:00:34 which we’ll probably come back to, the chimp system,
0:00:37 this is a primitive system which thinks.
0:00:39 It’s more than just a reaction and impulsive system.
0:00:40 It thinks.
0:00:43 When it moves, it can move at speed,
0:00:45 but it thinks emotionally.
0:00:48 Finally, the third system is a computer.
0:00:49 It just needs programming.
0:00:52 The key to the computer, particularly in sport,
0:00:56 is it moves so fast, it’s approximately 20 times
0:00:59 quicker than the human system to execute,
0:01:02 and it’s about four times quicker than the chimp system.
0:01:03 Habits.
0:01:07 A lot of people are thinking about habits, it’s January.
0:01:11 I made a video on habits a couple of weeks ago.
0:01:13 In a path through the jungle,
0:01:19 you talk about how our habits are influenced by our self-image.
0:01:21 That was a curious sentence to read,
0:01:23 and not something I’d heard before.
0:01:24 What do you mean by that?
0:01:27 Okay, there’s lots of ways we form habits,
0:01:30 whether they’re helpful or destructive.
0:01:32 I’m giving examples, so that’s one you picked out.
0:01:34 It’s quite powerful if you grasp it.
0:01:37 For example, I’ll take the simple example,
0:01:40 which I may have put in the book, I don’t remember.
0:01:42 If I wrote down, I’d say to someone,
0:01:44 “Do you see yourself as someone who,
0:01:46 “as a tidy person, who gets on with things immediately,
0:01:48 “or do you see yourself as someone who procrastinates,
0:01:49 “and it’s pretty untidy?”
0:01:50 I’m untidy.
0:01:53 Right, so if you’ve got that self-image,
0:01:55 and you go home and your room is untidy,
0:01:56 and being very black and white here,
0:01:58 then there’s no feelings at all,
0:02:00 ’cause that’s who you are, you’re untidy.
0:02:00 That’s true.
0:02:01 So, if you don’t do anything.
0:02:02 That’s true.
0:02:04 Whereas if you say, right, change your image,
0:02:06 and say, actually, my chimp being untidy,
0:02:07 I’m a tidy person.
0:02:12 In some cases, you’re now programming the computer,
0:02:14 you now go home and say, wow, this isn’t me,
0:02:16 and that can change.
0:02:19 So, if your self-image is, I’m not my chimp,
0:02:20 that’s an untidy little beggar,
0:02:22 I am actually a tidy person.
0:02:24 How do I change that self-image then?
0:02:26 Well, you’ve got to sit down and reflect on this.
0:02:28 I mean, a lot of the things in the book,
0:02:30 I’ve done as a young doctor,
0:02:32 when I became a psychiatrist, I decided,
0:02:33 I didn’t want to be a psychiatrist,
0:02:35 who didn’t actually manage themself,
0:02:37 and that’s no detriment to psychs who struggle,
0:02:40 because it’s not an easy career, or any therapist,
0:02:42 it’s a tough career.
0:02:44 But I decided, look, I’m gonna work on me,
0:02:46 because I can’t keep doing this,
0:02:47 which is where the chimp model came from.
0:02:49 And it was one of my light bulb moments,
0:02:53 many, many years ago, where I would be procrastinating,
0:02:55 and then I suddenly thought, you know what,
0:02:58 that isn’t who I want to be.
0:03:00 So I thought, that isn’t me,
0:03:02 I’m actually someone who gets on with things,
0:03:04 and they used to get in, and I’d just go, right,
0:03:05 get on with it.
0:03:06 And it’s never left me, I just thought,
0:03:09 no, that is who I am, so I’ve become uncomfortable now.
0:03:11 If things weren’t tidy, I’d agitate,
0:03:14 and say, no, get it tidied up.
0:03:17 So I start perceiving myself as this energized guy,
0:03:18 who’s gonna get up and do stuff.
0:03:20 So if you define yourself image,
0:03:22 you’re actually programming your computer to say,
0:03:25 this is normal, anything else isn’t,
0:03:28 and that will actually help your chimp to agitate,
0:03:31 which will then join forces and tidy the room.
0:03:33 So instead of your chimp going, oh, I can’t be bothered,
0:03:37 suddenly it’s saying, wow, I’m being told we’re not untidy,
0:03:39 so this is an acceptable, not normal.
0:03:41 And that’s what I did,
0:03:43 and I found that very powerful in my life.
0:03:45 – The other thing I found really curious in this section
0:03:48 about habits in chapter, in stage four of the book is,
0:03:50 when people think about habit loops,
0:03:53 they often have a reward at the end of it.
0:03:55 You referenced suffering.
0:03:57 Now, there’s this quote I heard many years ago,
0:03:59 I think it was just over 10 years ago,
0:04:01 it must have been, God, I’m getting old.
0:04:03 Where I heard this YouTuber say,
0:04:05 change happens when the pain of staying the same
0:04:08 becomes greater than the pain of making a change.
0:04:09 And when I’m thinking about friends
0:04:11 that I have in my life, all myself,
0:04:13 where there’s habits or there’s behavior patterns
0:04:14 that I wanna break,
0:04:17 sometimes I’m thinking about one particular person
0:04:20 who’s a musician,
0:04:23 sometimes they have to get to that rock bottom place
0:04:25 before you see change happen.
0:04:26 Is that because of that?
0:04:27 Is that because sometimes the suffering has to-
0:04:30 – Yeah, I mean, it’s sort of self-evident.
0:04:32 If you’re, for example, in a bad relationship
0:04:34 and it’s really not doing any favors
0:04:36 and it’s not doing them any favors,
0:04:38 but it’s not bad enough,
0:04:40 then you struggle along and struggle along.
0:04:41 But if suddenly something happens
0:04:44 where it becomes untenable and it’s painful now,
0:04:47 then you move, you think stop the relationship.
0:04:49 And then you look back thinking, why didn’t I move earlier?
0:04:53 And the answer was because it wasn’t painful enough.
0:04:55 And the same with like untidiness.
0:04:56 You leave it and leave it and leave it.
0:04:59 And then somebody comes in and says-
0:05:00 – A partner. – Yeah.
0:05:02 Lie me, I can’t live with this.
0:05:06 And suddenly you think, wow, suddenly it’s painful.
0:05:07 – Is there a way to get there
0:05:09 without the person needing to point it out?
0:05:10 – Yeah, there is.
0:05:13 I mean, when I talk about relationships are critical to us.
0:05:16 And I say to people, the way we move is we’ve got to,
0:05:18 I have the triangle of change,
0:05:21 which is really the three key things that cause us to move.
0:05:22 And with the one you’ve highlighted
0:05:25 is either it’s got a massive reward
0:05:27 or there’s going to be massive pain and suffering.
0:05:30 So if you’re trying to, you’re courting someone,
0:05:31 you want to form a permanent relationship.
0:05:33 When they say, I can’t stand untidiness,
0:05:36 you’ll guarantee your flat’s perfect when they come in, right?
0:05:37 Because you’re thinking, if I don’t,
0:05:38 I’m going to lose this person.
0:05:40 So the reward is so big.
0:05:42 However, then they marry you.
0:05:44 And for some reason we tip them for granted
0:05:46 and we forget that bit now.
0:05:48 And then the flat becomes untidy.
0:05:50 And then she starts saying to you,
0:05:52 I’m struggling with this, I’m struggling,
0:05:53 but there’s no threat yet.
0:05:55 So now it’s not painful enough.
0:05:56 So she’s struggling with it.
0:06:00 I love the guy, but this is now what I do.
0:06:02 So I say, let’s increase the pain.
0:06:05 I want you to sit down and imagine she can’t cope.
0:06:08 And she’s had a bad day and someone at work says,
0:06:10 I’ll come over and chat.
0:06:13 And this young man has a tidy flat naturally.
0:06:15 And she goes, oh, wow.
0:06:17 And I warn people, how are you going to feel if she walks?
0:06:20 Because once they’ve gone, they very, very come back.
0:06:23 And if you don’t look after them, someone else will.
0:06:25 If you reflect on that,
0:06:29 that can suddenly make reality come to life to say,
0:06:32 I’m not there yet, but blame me, this would be painful.
0:06:34 So I’m suddenly going to stop and think,
0:06:35 let me look after them.
0:06:37 Because if I don’t, somebody will.
0:06:40 So you can increase the concept of suffering
0:06:41 by reflecting and thinking,
0:06:44 what would like be like if she left?
0:06:47 There’s the devil’s in the detail.
0:06:49 Let’s say that you go home and you really make an effort.
0:06:51 You tidy the house and you really clean it up.
0:06:54 And she comes home and she doesn’t notice.
0:06:55 And there’s a danger now.
0:06:58 And I do advocate that sometimes you say to them,
0:07:00 because your chimp needs to get that accolade.
0:07:02 So it’s no good not helping it.
0:07:04 You don’t need that, but your chimp does.
0:07:05 So it’s worth saying, can I just say,
0:07:07 because I love you, I’ve tidied the flat.
0:07:09 Because then your chimp goes, right, good.
0:07:10 I get the accolade now.
0:07:13 So I’m not saying you should not rub the chimp out.
0:07:16 I’m saying you should be getting the chimp so it feels good.
0:07:19 And then hopefully she’ll say, wow, I love you too.
0:07:20 And I appreciate that.
0:07:22 And then that’s nicely rounded up.
0:07:25 But you do get circumcised where I’ll work with people.
0:07:26 I tidied the flat.
0:07:27 I did everything she doesn’t even recognise it.
0:07:28 I cancelled it from my diary.
0:07:30 She didn’t recognise it.
0:07:33 And I think, well, you know, I’m not saying I’m a goodie-goody,
0:07:35 but I’m saying, let them know because your chimp’s saying,
0:07:39 please make sure they know and they’ve recognised it.
0:07:40 And again, I don’t know.
0:07:41 There may be couples where they say,
0:07:42 if I say that, she’ll lose it.
0:07:44 So I say, well, don’t do it then.
0:07:47 Tell me, and I as a therapist will say to you, well done.
0:07:48 And that might be enough for your chimp.
0:07:51 So again, it’s that thing which I keep saying to Steve,
0:07:53 I’ve got to work with the person in front of me
0:07:56 and even potentially their partner or family
0:08:00 and say, well, what would they do before we make a plan?
0:08:02 – That was step one in your triangle.
0:08:04 – Yeah, one of the points.
0:08:07 The other two, for people to shift,
0:08:09 they’ve got to have psychological mindedness,
0:08:11 which means they’ve got to understand
0:08:13 that it’s not about what happens to us in life,
0:08:15 it’s how we deal with it.
0:08:16 That’s basically what we mean.
0:08:19 So we understand that just because you’ve got certain emotions
0:08:23 doesn’t mean you can’t change them and things have to change,
0:08:25 or people have to change for you to change.
0:08:28 It’s within your power to be responsible
0:08:30 for the things you believe and change.
0:08:32 So psychological mindedness means you get up
0:08:34 and start working on this.
0:08:35 It’s within your power to shift things.
0:08:37 – That’s that personal responsibility.
0:08:39 – Yes, and also if you can’t shift them.
0:08:43 Say, go back, let’s say life hadn’t been great for you
0:08:45 and I’m sure you worked hard to get your way you’ve got,
0:08:48 but let’s say you’re still in that poverty situation,
0:08:50 you thought, I didn’t have the skill to do what I’m doing.
0:08:53 I didn’t use that skill because it was never there.
0:08:55 So a lot of people are trapped
0:08:57 and they say, well, I’m still living in a pretty bad place
0:08:59 and I’m struggling financially and that’s a lot of people.
0:09:02 It’s painful, but again, psychological mindedness,
0:09:05 tough as it is, is to say, well, let me deal with that.
0:09:10 I can’t change it, but I can change my approach to it.
0:09:11 And that’s not easy.
0:09:12 I’m not saying that’s easy.
0:09:14 And then you have to work at, how do you do that?
0:09:16 And it’ll be different for different people.
0:09:20 So psychological mindedness means take responsibility,
0:09:22 accept what’s in front of you and then move forward.
0:09:26 So other than that, what you do non-psychological mindedness
0:09:29 where you blame everybody else or blame circumstances
0:09:30 or say this happened to me in childhood
0:09:35 or these may all be genuine, but they’re not actually helpful.
0:09:36 – Disempowering, right?
0:09:38 – Yeah, you’re using them as an excuse
0:09:40 not to take responsibility and turn them over.
0:09:41 And whatever it is–
0:09:42 – You’re just giving your power to something else, right?
0:09:44 – Yes.
0:09:45 And you’ve got to get the power back
0:09:47 and say it’s within my power.
0:09:48 – Why do people like doing that?
0:09:50 – Why do people like making excuses?
0:09:53 – Including me, I have to say.
0:09:54 – Again, it’s really difficult.
0:09:58 So I mean, a lot of people, when they’re in not a great place,
0:10:01 it find it very easy to be the victim.
0:10:03 They don’t want to be a victim, but they find it easy.
0:10:07 So they’ll use an illness, as an example,
0:10:09 so that it gives them that remit,
0:10:10 say, “Well, I’m not well, I’m not well.”
0:10:13 When the reality is they don’t know how to move forward,
0:10:15 so it’s easier to just go, “I’m not well,”
0:10:17 and people then go, “Well, I’m not well.”
0:10:19 And there’ll be some truth in it,
0:10:21 but actually not fully the truth.
0:10:24 So people often use, as a defense mechanism,
0:10:25 the victim role.
0:10:28 Sometimes there have been a victim
0:10:30 and then they need to work through that and process it,
0:10:33 but there’s a danger you start to use it.
0:10:34 Or you start blaming circumstance,
0:10:36 like you might have said to me,
0:10:39 “I didn’t make it because my parents never helped me.”
0:10:40 Well, you know, there are people whose parents
0:10:42 don’t help them, but they do make it.
0:10:44 So you have to say, “Well, hang on, don’t use that
0:10:46 “because it’ll keep you in this not great place.”
0:10:48 There will be truth in it, potentially.
0:10:50 And then I would give the TLC and the recognition
0:10:52 that that didn’t help,
0:10:54 but on the other hand, let’s look at what you can do,
0:10:55 regardless of the background.
0:10:57 – And then that last point in the triangle.
0:10:59 – Right. – The habit triangle commitment.
0:11:01 – Yeah, what I’m saying with this is, again,
0:11:03 teasing out the newer science,
0:11:05 if we go on motivation,
0:11:08 and again, if people use it, great, all right,
0:11:10 but the evidence is that it doesn’t really help,
0:11:11 it doesn’t really work.
0:11:13 It’s very hard to maintain.
0:11:15 Whereas if that’s the chimp system,
0:11:17 so it can work if your chimp is motivated
0:11:19 because the reward is so big,
0:11:21 then motivation will follow that and be high.
0:11:23 But we all know that I get a lot of talks,
0:11:24 “Can you help motivate?”
0:11:27 And I say, “No, not at all, I don’t want to do that,”
0:11:29 because you’re constantly propping it up.
0:11:33 My approach, which is not, as everyone will agree,
0:11:35 is if you look at the newer science,
0:11:37 if you use commitment,
0:11:39 that means I remove my emotion,
0:11:42 and I plan on what I have to do, and I get on with it.
0:11:44 So commitment, there’s a lot of evidence
0:11:46 that that makes us succeed.
0:11:48 So for example, if I’ve got to go and weed the garden,
0:11:50 it’s not my favourite pastime,
0:11:53 but I think, right, the neighbours might complain.
0:11:55 I don’t have any neighbours, but they might.
0:11:57 And my chimp’s gonna leave it.
0:12:00 Who cares? There’s only weeds, and it’s gonna kill you back in it.
0:12:02 But I would then say, which I will,
0:12:05 right, you stay in here, I’m going out,
0:12:08 and if you want to join me, great, but I’m doing the garden.
0:12:11 I remove emotion, and I say what has to be done
0:12:12 is getting done, and is getting done now.
0:12:15 We’re not discussing it, and I will start.
0:12:17 Motivation will follow commitment,
0:12:19 and that means the chimp room will then get behind me,
0:12:21 ’cause by the time we’ve done half the garden,
0:12:24 it’ll say, “I can’t believe we’ve left it this long.”
0:12:26 That’s a typical approach by the chimp,
0:12:28 and then it tries to make me finish,
0:12:31 and I might have to stop and say, “Let’s respect my back now.
0:12:32 “We’ll stop now.”
0:12:35 So I manage my emotions by using commitment,
0:12:38 and if they don’t marry, I move them to one side.
0:12:40 So I don’t really work with emotion
0:12:42 to drive me to do something.
0:12:44 I think if people can use that and use motivation,
0:12:45 that’s great.
0:12:48 My experience has been it doesn’t actually hold.
0:12:50 – One of the things this podcast has taught me
0:12:52 from speaking to all these people across multiple fields
0:12:56 is that sometimes we can feel like our body,
0:12:58 our wiring is against us,
0:13:00 especially as it relates to health, right?
0:13:03 So we know sugar is bad.
0:13:05 So why does our brain send us these cravings
0:13:06 to go and eat sugar?
0:13:08 And in the case of distractions
0:13:11 and sort of behavioral psychology,
0:13:16 I know instinctively and intuitively that distractions,
0:13:20 like hanging out on TikTok for an hour, is bad.
0:13:24 But my brain is doing it.
0:13:26 What does that tell us about how we should
0:13:28 go about adopting behavior change?
0:13:30 – Yeah, so that’s why it’s really about this holistic model.
0:13:33 So that’s what took me the most time to figure out
0:13:36 was what are the four mandatory components
0:13:38 of living without regret,
0:13:40 of doing what you say you’re going to do.
0:13:42 So the first step is mastering these internal triggers,
0:13:44 figuring out why you feel this way, right?
0:13:45 What is that underlying sensation?
0:13:48 So if you’re trying to avoid that chocolate bar,
0:13:51 one might be hunger, or it might not be hunger, right?
0:13:53 So I used to be clinically obese.
0:13:54 And I’ll tell you what,
0:13:58 I did not eat to excess because I was hungry.
0:14:00 I was eating to excess because I was lonely.
0:14:02 I was eating to excess because I was bored.
0:14:05 I was eating to excess because I felt guilty
0:14:06 about how much I had just eaten.
0:14:08 It wasn’t just about the hunger, right?
0:14:11 Very few people who are obese
0:14:12 are just hungry all the time.
0:14:13 That’s not what’s going on.
0:14:15 It’s because we’re eating our feelings.
0:14:16 That’s what’s happening.
0:14:17 So that’s the first step.
0:14:19 We have to understand the deeper reason.
0:14:21 – I’m really compelled by, really interested in,
0:14:23 how you figured out the thing you were trying to escape from
0:14:25 because I think that’s the starting point,
0:14:27 which is a very difficult starting point for most people.
0:14:29 They can see the sort of compulsive behavior
0:14:32 that’s maybe making them live outside of their values
0:14:33 or causing them to excessively eat
0:14:36 or excessively watch porn or whatever it might be.
0:14:39 But diagnosing the root cause of that
0:14:41 is a difficult thing to do.
0:14:43 Most of us don’t know what we don’t know.
0:14:45 – It isn’t, it isn’t.
0:14:48 I mean, I’m not, you don’t have to go to therapy.
0:14:49 No, there’s anything wrong with it.
0:14:50 If it’s helpful, please do it.
0:14:51 But that’s not a requirement.
0:14:53 Something as simple as, you know,
0:14:57 so whenever I work, I have on my desk,
0:15:00 I have a little post-it note and a pen handy.
0:15:03 And when I get distracted,
0:15:05 or when I even feel the sense of distraction,
0:15:08 just noting down that sensation,
0:15:10 just writing down what is it that I felt
0:15:12 right before the distraction.
0:15:14 So I write every day.
0:15:16 And all I wanna do when I write, you know this, right?
0:15:19 When you write, all you wanna do is go Google something
0:15:21 or do some research or go check email for a quick sec.
0:15:23 Or let me just find that one thing that might be,
0:15:25 and they’re all distractions.
0:15:28 They’re all taking you away from the core thing you need to do,
0:15:30 which you said you would do, which is right.
0:15:33 And so if I can just pause for a second
0:15:36 and reflect on what was that sensation
0:15:37 that I was feeling right before.
0:15:38 It was boredom.
0:15:38 It was anxiety.
0:15:39 It was fearfulness.
0:15:41 It was uncertainty.
0:15:44 Just writing it down is an incredible first step
0:15:47 towards gaining power over that discomfort
0:15:48 because then you can start to identify it.
0:15:50 And so what I’ll do many times is just pause
0:15:53 to reflect on, wait a minute, what’s going on there?
0:15:54 What is that sensation?
0:15:56 Because then you can begin to do
0:15:58 what’s called reframing the trigger.
0:16:00 So now when I feel the sensation
0:16:01 of wanting to get distracted,
0:16:03 I say, you know what, what’s going on here?
0:16:07 Okay, I’m feeling the sensation because I’m stressed.
0:16:08 Why am I stressed?
0:16:10 Because this is really important to me.
0:16:13 I wanna get this right for my readers and for myself.
0:16:15 And so reframing it as not a negative,
0:16:17 but something that happens not to me,
0:16:20 but for me, that that sensation is a sign
0:16:21 that I can listen to.
0:16:24 I think most of us, we think when we feel this discomfort,
0:16:26 that’s happening to us, right?
0:16:28 But it’s not, it’s happening for us.
0:16:29 It’s a signal for us to listen to.
0:16:32 Now how we interpret it is up to us.
0:16:34 And that’s where the magic happens.
0:16:36 If you interpret it as something that is harmful,
0:16:38 is dangerous, that you need to escape, right?
0:16:41 You don’t wanna feel that uncomfortable sensation.
0:16:43 You look for distraction.
0:16:47 But what we find is that high performers across every field,
0:16:48 when you think about the arts,
0:16:50 when you think about sports, business,
0:16:53 high performers, when they feel those internal triggers,
0:16:54 they experience the same internal triggers
0:16:55 the rest of us do.
0:16:57 They experience loneliness and stress and anxiety,
0:16:58 just like everyone else does.
0:17:02 But they deal with it by using it as rocket fuel
0:17:03 to push them towards traction.
0:17:05 Whereas distractible people,
0:17:06 as soon as they feel that discomfort,
0:17:08 they try and escape it with distraction.
0:17:09 That’s the big difference.
0:17:11 – And then that second step.
0:17:13 So now I’m clear.
0:17:15 I’m trying not to do this book
0:17:17 because this particular chapter,
0:17:19 I just don’t feel that competent on.
0:17:20 I don’t feel like I’ve researched it.
0:17:24 It’s making my brain feel a bit hot thinking about it.
0:17:27 I reframe it and go, okay, so I’ve understood it now.
0:17:28 Then what do I do?
0:17:30 – Yeah, so step one is-
0:17:30 – Understand it.
0:17:34 – Yeah, is master those internal triggers,
0:17:35 or they become your master.
0:17:36 That’s step number one.
0:17:37 There’s a bunch of techniques.
0:17:38 We’re just covering the surfaces
0:17:40 over a dozen different techniques that you can use
0:17:41 to help you master those internal triggers.
0:17:44 Now, the second step is to make time for traction.
0:17:48 So when you have those doubts,
0:17:50 one of these techniques that is really life changing
0:17:54 is scheduling time for worry.
0:17:56 Scheduling time for worry.
0:17:58 That what happens is in the moment,
0:18:01 we feel these feelings, we think these thoughts,
0:18:04 and a distractible person will say,
0:18:06 well, I gotta deal with that sensation right now.
0:18:08 I have to work through whatever it is
0:18:09 that I’m feeling right now.
0:18:11 And they stop everything to do that.
0:18:12 And that’s not the right method.
0:18:14 The right method is to write down that sensation
0:18:17 and get back to the task at hand as quickly as possible.
0:18:20 We’re using these four strategies.
0:18:23 Then later on, right now that you’ve written down
0:18:25 what that sensation is,
0:18:27 you’re going to make time in your calendar
0:18:30 to think about that sensation.
0:18:31 Start processing it.
0:18:32 – Using the book example.
0:18:34 I’ve hit chapter 12 and I just,
0:18:35 I’m struggling with this chapter.
0:18:36 – Right.
0:18:38 – So you, step number one, you have these tools.
0:18:40 Like maybe I can digress for a second.
0:18:43 I’ll tell you my favorite tool for mastering internal triggers.
0:18:44 It’s called the 10 minute rule.
0:18:46 This comes from acceptance and commitment therapy.
0:18:49 And the 10 minute rule says that you can give in
0:18:52 to any distraction, any distraction.
0:18:54 Maybe it’s smoking that cigarette if you’re trying to quit.
0:18:55 Maybe it’s eating that piece of chocolate cake
0:18:56 if you’re on a diet.
0:18:59 Maybe it’s checking social media, whatever it is,
0:19:02 whatever distraction you can give into that distraction,
0:19:03 but not right now.
0:19:06 You can give in in 10 minutes.
0:19:07 Don’t misunderstand, not for 10 minutes.
0:19:08 Sometimes people get it wrong.
0:19:10 It’s in 10 minutes, okay?
0:19:11 So what does that do?
0:19:13 What that does is we talked about
0:19:14 psychological reactants earlier and you asked,
0:19:17 how do you, what do you do about psychological reactants?
0:19:20 You’re allowing yourself to acknowledge
0:19:22 that you are in control, that you decide.
0:19:25 What many people do is they have strict abstinence, right?
0:19:28 Strict abstinence says, no, I will not do it, right?
0:19:29 I won’t eat sugar.
0:19:31 I won’t get distracted.
0:19:32 I will do this, I will do that.
0:19:34 As opposed to saying, hey, I’m an adult.
0:19:36 I can do whatever I want.
0:19:40 I choose not to go off track for the next 10 minutes.
0:19:41 That’s it.
0:19:43 In 10 minutes, I can give in to whatever I want.
0:19:44 So now I’m in control.
0:19:46 You know, the whole just say no technique.
0:19:48 Turns out, makes you ruminate and think about
0:19:51 and have more discomfort around the thing you want,
0:19:53 increasing these internal triggers.
0:19:55 And that actually is what makes you give in to that distraction.
0:19:56 We know that with smoking, actually,
0:19:57 it’s very interesting.
0:20:00 We’re finding that nicotine is less and less part of the,
0:20:02 the reason people get addicted to cigarettes.
0:20:04 It’s more about the rumination around,
0:20:06 I want to smoke, but I can’t.
0:20:07 I want to smoke, but I shouldn’t.
0:20:09 I want to smoke, I want to smoke, I want to smoke, fine.
0:20:10 I’ll finally smoke.
0:20:12 Now I get relief.
0:20:13 How do we know this?
0:20:15 You ask smokers, why do they smoke?
0:20:17 The number one reason, it’s relaxing.
0:20:18 That makes no sense.
0:20:20 Nicotine is a stimulant.
0:20:22 Makes no sense, right?
0:20:22 Why would it be relaxing?
0:20:25 It’s relaxing because finally I can stop telling myself,
0:20:26 I don’t have to do it anymore.
0:20:28 I don’t have to fight with myself anymore.
0:20:31 And that eases that psychological reactance.
0:20:32 I can finally give in.
0:20:34 So when you use this 10 minute rule
0:20:36 and say, okay, I can give into that distraction
0:20:38 in 10 minutes from now,
0:20:41 what you’re doing is you’re establishing agency, right?
0:20:43 Now you’re in control
0:20:44 and we can do anything for 10 minutes.
0:20:46 And if 10 minutes feels like too long,
0:20:47 try the five minute rule.
0:20:50 The idea is that you’re building that ability over time.
0:20:52 So the 10 minute rule becomes a 12 minute rule,
0:20:53 becomes a 15 minute rule.
0:20:54 And you’re learning, wait a minute,
0:20:56 I can actually delay gratification.
0:20:58 Remember, all these problems of distraction
0:21:00 are an impulse control issue.
0:21:02 So when you teach yourself, wait a minute, okay,
0:21:05 I can delay for five, 10 minutes, that’s no big deal.
0:21:05 You’re proving to yourself,
0:21:08 hey, I’m not addicted to these things.
0:21:09 I’m not powerless.
0:21:10 My brain isn’t being hijacked.
0:21:14 I do have control as long as I use these practices, right?
0:21:16 So the 10 minute rule is a very, very effective technique.
0:21:17 – So what happens then?
0:21:18 So I’ve compartmentalized it.
0:21:20 I’m writing my book on my chapter 12.
0:21:22 I’ve got a bunch of worries popping.
0:21:24 I’m scheduling that for later.
0:21:25 Step three.
0:21:27 – So step three is hacking back the external triggers.
0:21:29 So this is when we do talk about the usual suspects,
0:21:31 the pings, the dings, the rings.
0:21:34 That’s where we very systematically go through
0:21:36 what a lot of people complain about,
0:21:38 but it’s really only 10% of the problem,
0:21:40 because 90% of our distractions begin from within.
0:21:42 But people do have these issues.
0:21:45 We talk about the phone, the computer.
0:21:48 What turns out to be a much bigger problem
0:21:49 is not the technology,
0:21:53 it’s what the technology is attached to, right?
0:21:54 So what if it’s your boss?
0:21:55 That’s the distraction.
0:21:57 What if it’s your kids that are distraction?
0:21:58 We love them to death, right?
0:21:59 Our kids are great,
0:22:01 but they can be a huge source of distraction.
0:22:04 Meetings, oh my God, how many stupid meetings
0:22:06 do we have to attend that are nothing but a distraction,
0:22:08 especially now that Zoom makes it accessible
0:22:10 so that wherever you are,
0:22:13 people can call meetings.
0:22:14 Those are huge distractions.
0:22:16 Of course, Slack channels,
0:22:18 and that’s what we get into more in the book
0:22:19 in terms of, okay, systematically,
0:22:22 what do you do about these various external triggers?
0:22:25 – So we’re in step three of the four steps.
0:22:26 What’s step number four?
0:22:29 – So step four is preventing distraction with PACs.
0:22:33 So PACs are these what’s called a pre-commitment device.
0:22:36 So this is what you do after the first three steps.
0:22:38 So you master the internal triggers,
0:22:39 you make time for traction,
0:22:41 you hack back the external triggers.
0:22:43 As the last line of defense,
0:22:45 as the firewall against distraction,
0:22:46 you’re going to prevent distraction with a PAC.
0:22:47 Now what are PACs?
0:22:49 It’s when you decide in advance
0:22:52 what you will do to keep yourself in that task.
0:22:54 And there’s three types of PACs.
0:22:57 We have what we call effort PACs, price PACs,
0:22:58 and identity PACs.
0:23:01 An effort PAC is when there’s some bit of friction
0:23:04 in between you and the thing you don’t want to do.
0:23:07 So it’s just us and your millions of viewers here.
0:23:10 So I’ll get a little personal, okay?
0:23:11 A few years ago, my wife and I,
0:23:13 and again, we’ve been married for 22 years now.
0:23:15 A few years ago, before I was writing this book,
0:23:19 we noticed that our sex life was suffering.
0:23:21 That every night we were going to bed
0:23:23 and I was fondling my iPhone
0:23:25 and she was caressing her iPad, right?
0:23:27 And we were going to bed later and later.
0:23:30 And not only were we not getting proper sleep,
0:23:32 we all know how important rest is,
0:23:33 our sex life was suffering.
0:23:35 So when I started this research,
0:23:40 I came across this research around
0:23:42 the importance of these effort PACs.
0:23:44 And I went to the hardware store
0:23:48 and I bought us this $10 outlet timer.
0:23:50 Now this outlet timer, you plug it into the wall
0:23:53 and whatever you plug into that outlet timer
0:23:56 will turn on or off at any time of day and night.
0:23:57 So what did we do with that?
0:24:02 We plugged in our internet router into this timer.
0:24:05 So every night in our household at 10 p.m.,
0:24:07 the internet shuts off.
0:24:09 Now, could I turn it back on?
0:24:11 Of course I could, but I’d have to go under my desk,
0:24:14 unplug this timer, reset it and plug it back in.
0:24:15 That would take effort.
0:24:18 So I put some friction in between myself
0:24:20 and the distraction, okay?
0:24:22 And lo and behold, every night we all knew,
0:24:24 okay, the internet’s gonna shut down at 10 p.m.,
0:24:25 finish up whatever you need to do
0:24:27 and it gave me that bit of mindfulness to say,
0:24:30 okay, do I really need to still check email
0:24:32 or social media or whatever silly thing I was doing?
0:24:34 Or is it time to do what I said I was going to do,
0:24:36 which is get some rest, go to bed
0:24:39 and maybe be intimate with my wife.
0:24:39 – Someone’s also gonna say,
0:24:41 listen, you’ve got 4G internet on your phone.
0:24:44 You’ve got cellular internet, so you can just go on.
0:24:47 – True, again, but now it’s effort, right?
0:24:49 If I really wanted to lie to myself, of course I could.
0:24:51 That’s not the point, right?
0:24:52 That there’s always a way.
0:24:55 The point is it adds a bit of friction, right?
0:24:57 It’s that bit of effort that now I have to take.
0:24:59 – And more than anything, it’s a statement
0:25:02 you’re making to you and everyone in your social environment
0:25:03 that at 10 p.m. is a shut off time.
0:25:05 Whether people are dear to that, as you say,
0:25:07 there’s ways to circumnavigate that,
0:25:09 but it’s the statement of having that shut off time.
0:25:11 – Exactly, and now by the way,
0:25:12 it actually wouldn’t even matter
0:25:15 because we all know the internet’s gonna shut off at 10.
0:25:16 We all need to start getting ready
0:25:18 to stop doing whatever we’re doing
0:25:21 because it’s gonna, now we don’t even need it anymore.
0:25:24 It’s become part of our nightly ritual, right?
0:25:25 And by the way, what I wanna illustrate
0:25:28 is the concept, not the practice, right?
0:25:31 Tactics are what you do, strategy is why you do it.
0:25:32 That’s more important.
0:25:34 I think a lot of these books around similar topics,
0:25:39 around dealing with focus and productivity,
0:25:41 it’s a lot of life hacks, right?
0:25:44 But what I wanted was more the strategy,
0:25:47 the psychological principles around why we get distracted
0:25:50 and then I’ll let people come up with their own tactics.
0:25:53 – Willpower is not enough.
0:25:54 This is maybe the most fascinating study I read
0:25:56 of all of them because it really made me ponder
0:25:59 and it kind of disrupted my thinking on willpower
0:26:03 and strength and mental strength and motivation.
0:26:06 And it’s probably a huge reason
0:26:10 why 91% of people don’t stick to their resolutions.
0:26:12 Dozens of studies show that willpower
0:26:16 is the single most important habit for individual success.
0:26:21 And this is true, but for a long time,
0:26:23 people thought that willpower is a skill
0:26:24 that you could develop
0:26:27 and that therefore remains constant forever
0:26:31 until Mark Murravan, a PhD scientist,
0:26:34 argued that if willpower is a skill,
0:26:36 then why does it not remain constant
0:26:37 throughout the whole day?
0:26:38 Or even throughout the whole week,
0:26:42 why does willpower seem to fluctuate?
0:26:44 He conducted an experiment to prove that willpower,
0:26:46 like all of the muscles in our body,
0:26:50 gets exhausted the more we use it throughout the day.
0:26:53 In his lab, he did a fairly simple thing.
0:26:56 He set up one bowl of freshly baked cookies
0:26:59 and then he set up another bowl of radishes.
0:27:01 And listen, everybody hates radishes, including me.
0:27:03 Well, you know, chop them up, put them in a salad.
0:27:05 Maybe I don’t hate them, they’re good for you.
0:27:06 But anyway, in this example,
0:27:08 most people would prefer hot, delicious cookies
0:27:10 than radishes, right?
0:27:11 And the participants in the study
0:27:13 were divided into two groups.
0:27:16 One group was instructed to eat the delicious cookies
0:27:17 and ignore the radishes.
0:27:20 The other group was instructed to ignore
0:27:22 the delicious cookies and to eat the radishes.
0:27:25 I know which group I would have rather been in.
0:27:28 After five minutes into that experiment,
0:27:29 the researchers re-entered the room
0:27:33 and gave both groups of people a puzzle.
0:27:36 But the thing is, the puzzle was impossible to complete.
0:27:38 And here’s what happened.
0:27:40 The people that had eaten the cookie
0:27:43 with their unused reservoir of willpower,
0:27:45 because they hadn’t had to use their willpower,
0:27:47 they hadn’t had to use their restraint,
0:27:48 looked way more relaxed
0:27:51 when they were trying to solve that impossible puzzle
0:27:53 and they would continue to try and solve it
0:27:55 over and over and over again.
0:27:58 Some worked for more than half an hour
0:28:00 before the researcher told them to stop.
0:28:03 On average, the cookie eaters spent almost 19 minutes
0:28:04 trying to solve that puzzle
0:28:06 before they eventually quit, on average.
0:28:09 Now, in the case of the radish eaters
0:28:10 with their depleted willpower,
0:28:13 because they had to practice restraint,
0:28:15 they acted completely differently.
0:28:17 It was a completely opposite story.
0:28:21 They vented as they worked to try and solve that puzzle.
0:28:22 They got frustrated.
0:28:25 One even complained that the whole experiment
0:28:27 was a waste of time.
0:28:29 Some of them put their heads on the table,
0:28:31 closed their eyes, and one of them even snapped
0:28:34 at the researcher when she came back in.
0:28:35 On average, the radish eaters worked
0:28:39 for roughly eight minutes, 60% less.
0:28:41 They tried to solve the problem of the puzzle,
0:28:44 the impossible puzzle, for 60% less time
0:28:47 than the cookie eaters before quitting.
0:28:48 And when I read this study, I was shocked,
0:28:49 but I’m a skeptic.
0:28:51 So I tried to think of why this might be.
0:28:52 I tried to think of other factors.
0:28:54 And I thought of, maybe it’s the sugar.
0:28:56 Maybe the sugar in the cookies
0:28:57 are causing them to work harder.
0:28:58 But when you look at other studies
0:29:00 where there isn’t sugar,
0:29:02 anytime someone’s practicing restraint,
0:29:04 the same effects are seen.
0:29:07 Willpower isn’t just a skill, it’s a muscle.
0:29:10 Like the muscles in your arms or your legs.
0:29:11 And it gets tired.
0:29:14 And it gets tired as it’s forced to work harder.
0:29:17 So there’s less power left over for all of the other things.
0:29:18 And since that cookie study was published,
0:29:22 I think in 1998, numerous studies have built a case
0:29:23 for the exact same thing.
0:29:25 They call it the willpower depletion theory.
0:29:29 In one incredible example, which is almost hard to believe,
0:29:31 volunteers who were asked to suppress their feelings
0:29:33 as they watched an emotional movie
0:29:37 gave up sooner on a test that they did after
0:29:41 of physical stamina than volunteers who watched the film
0:29:44 and were allowed to react in whatever way they wanted to.
0:29:46 So if you were asked to restrain yourself
0:29:48 when you then did a physical exercise,
0:29:51 people gave up sooner in the physical exercise.
0:29:53 In a similar study, which pointed at the exact same
0:29:56 conclusion, people who were asked to suppress
0:29:59 certain thoughts were less able to stifle laughter
0:30:02 in a follow-up test, which was designed to make them giggle.
0:30:06 So if the science here is correct, which I suspect it is,
0:30:09 and willpower is a limited resource,
0:30:12 it’s really obvious that the more pressure
0:30:16 and restrictions and strain you put on yourself
0:30:19 when you’re trying to make a new habit and break old ones,
0:30:21 the less the chance you have of achieving them,
0:30:24 the more chance you have of rebounding and relapsing.
0:30:28 This is why unsustainable crash diets just don’t work.
0:30:31 This is why anytime you feel like you’re depriving yourself
0:30:33 of something that you really want,
0:30:36 you nearly always end up failing and falling into relapse.
0:30:40 This is why in a 2014 study, almost 40% of people,
0:30:42 so they failed on their New Year’s resolutions
0:30:46 because the goal was too unsustainable or unrealistic
0:30:50 and 10% said they failed because they had too many goals.
0:30:52 This is why it’s so important
0:30:54 as you think about what goals you’re setting
0:30:55 to make sure that they’re small enough
0:30:59 and achievable enough to become sustainable
0:31:01 without the need for major sacrifice
0:31:03 which will deplete your willpower reserves.
0:31:06 And that for me was a real revelation
0:31:08 because I think about all the habits I’ve tried to set.
0:31:11 You know, when I talked about trying to get a six pack
0:31:12 for summer, think about what I said.
0:31:14 I obsessively ate healthy food.
0:31:17 I went to the gym every day for six months.
0:31:20 My willpower eventually became depleted and I rebounded.
0:31:23 Rebounded like a yo-yo like you’ve never seen before.
0:31:25 And this is why you shouldn’t try and give up
0:31:27 every bad habit that you have at the same time.
0:31:30 This is why less goals increase the chance
0:31:31 of completing all of your goals
0:31:33 because with too many big unrealistic
0:31:35 sacrifice-centric goals,
0:31:37 your willpower will be under tremendous
0:31:39 unsustainable strain.
0:31:40 It will run out.
0:31:43 You will fail and it will rebound.
0:31:46 And this is also why so many psychologists and scientists
0:31:47 have found that the best way to create a new habit
0:31:51 isn’t by depriving yourself of all rewards.
0:31:53 That is totally counterproductive according to the science.
0:31:57 It’s by finding new rewards, healthier rewards,
0:31:58 less addictive rewards,
0:32:00 but nonetheless making sure
0:32:05 that you still reward yourself in some way
0:32:07 every day along the way.
0:32:10 (upbeat music)
0:32:12 (upbeat music)
0:32:15 (upbeat music)
0:32:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:03 – The world is absolutely crazy right now.
0:00:05 This is one of the most interesting moments
0:00:07 of social, cultural, and economic transition
0:00:09 that I have ever seen.
0:00:12 So I wanted to do something that I’ve never done before.
0:00:14 I called upon three of the leading voices
0:00:17 on social, cultural, business, and economic issues
0:00:20 to give their unfiltered, uncensored points of view
0:00:22 so that we can all make sense of all of this craziness
0:00:24 happening before our eyes.
0:00:26 They don’t always agree on much,
0:00:27 but today they thrash it out
0:00:29 to see if they can agree on something.
0:00:33 We go through the economy, Trump, Elon Musk,
0:00:34 EEI, censorship, woke-ism,
0:00:36 and why so many men are struggling.
0:00:39 Why are tens of thousands of millionaires
0:00:41 running away from the UK?
0:00:43 The terrifying truth and opportunity in AI.
0:00:44 And I ask all of them,
0:00:47 what is the most important thing in 2025
0:00:49 that nobody is talking about?
0:00:51 With the aim of reaching clarity, agreement,
0:00:54 and having a laugh in the process.
0:00:56 This is the episode you probably didn’t know you needed.
0:01:00 (futuristic music)
0:01:02 I find it incredibly fascinating
0:01:04 that when we look at the back end of Spotify
0:01:05 and Apple and our audio channels,
0:01:08 the majority of people that watch this podcast
0:01:11 haven’t yet hit the follow button or the subscribe button
0:01:12 wherever you’re listening to this.
0:01:13 I would like to make a deal with you.
0:01:15 If you could do me a huge favor
0:01:16 and hit that subscribe button,
0:01:18 I will work tirelessly from now until forever
0:01:21 to make the show better and better and better and better.
0:01:23 I can’t tell you how much it helps
0:01:24 when you hit that subscribe button.
0:01:25 The show gets bigger,
0:01:26 which means we can expand the production,
0:01:28 bring in all the guests you want to see,
0:01:30 and continue to do in this thing we love.
0:01:31 If you could do me that small favor
0:01:32 and hit the follow button,
0:01:34 wherever you’re listening to this,
0:01:34 that would mean the world to me.
0:01:37 That is the only favor I will ever ask you.
0:01:38 Thank you so much for your time.
0:01:39 Back to this episode.
0:01:42 (futuristic music)
0:01:46 – You guys are three of the best commentators,
0:01:47 the most articulate people I know
0:01:51 that will also have the most interesting broad experience
0:01:53 and also I think political background.
0:01:54 So I wanted to talk to you
0:01:56 about everything that’s going on in the world.
0:01:58 And I wanted to ask you guys some of the dumb questions
0:02:00 that I ponder alone with myself
0:02:02 and with my dumb friends and my WhatsApp group.
0:02:06 It feels to me that the world is at a real moment
0:02:08 of transition in many regards.
0:02:09 So like social transition,
0:02:11 cultural transition, economic transition.
0:02:14 And I think the US has been a catalyst for all of that.
0:02:16 So that’s why I wanted to have this conversation today.
0:02:18 We’ve got an American here,
0:02:20 I think Scott’s the only American here.
0:02:21 We’ve got Constantine,
0:02:23 we’ve got Daniel, who are two Brits,
0:02:26 but spend a lot of time between America as well.
0:02:28 And so I want to come to Scott first
0:02:29 and ask Scott a question,
0:02:31 which is a very big broad question,
0:02:33 which is from your perspective, Scott,
0:02:36 you know, when I talk about this feeling of transition,
0:02:38 that seems to be like almost inside my chest
0:02:40 that we’re at a really historic moment.
0:02:41 What is your analysis on this?
0:02:43 What is the big picture here?
0:02:46 What’s happened over the last three, four, five, six,
0:02:47 seven months?
0:02:51 And how is that going to impact all of us around the world?
0:02:56 – Well, if you think of the US as setting the tone,
0:02:59 economically, and maybe even culturally for the West,
0:03:03 there’s definitely a reversion away from,
0:03:05 people feel that, quote unquote, wokeism,
0:03:07 and I don’t like to use that word, but I’ll use it here,
0:03:11 was this sort of overcorrection to systemic racism,
0:03:14 and then it began to cause more damage
0:03:15 than it was,
0:03:19 or caused more problems than it was solving.
0:03:21 And I think there’s been a serious kind of lurch back,
0:03:25 if you will, whether it’s executive actions,
0:03:27 declaring the border, a state of emergency,
0:03:31 stuff around, saying that gender is a thing,
0:03:34 there’s male and female.
0:03:36 And most of these issues,
0:03:38 the actually American public supports,
0:03:40 I would say on a more cynical level,
0:03:43 America used to be a platform for prosperity,
0:03:45 the protection of civil rights,
0:03:49 the projection of women’s rights
0:03:51 and power and democracy abroad.
0:03:54 And I would argue that it feels like a pretty quick transition
0:03:56 to almost like a,
0:03:58 I call it a kleptocracy,
0:04:00 but America’s become a platform
0:04:05 for acquiring wealth and then leveraging that wealth
0:04:07 as a means or a proxy of power.
0:04:08 And the ultimate example of that
0:04:10 was the launch of two meme coins,
0:04:12 the Trump coin and the Melania coin,
0:04:14 the day before the presidency,
0:04:17 such that this conversation could have already
0:04:20 or might happen this week and I’ll finish here.
0:04:22 President Trump, it’s Vlad,
0:04:25 we’re thinking about stabilizing our currency
0:04:29 or trying to send the outflows of our reserves.
0:04:31 So we’re thinking about pulsing in about
0:04:34 600 billion rubles into the Trump coin,
0:04:36 which based on my economist estimation,
0:04:40 would take the value of it to a $20 or $30 billion market cap,
0:04:43 making you one of the wealthiest men in the world,
0:04:45 Mr. Trump, and none of this would be disclosable
0:04:46 or transparent.
0:04:48 Also in unrelated news,
0:04:52 we’d really appreciate you seizing arm shipments to Ukraine.
0:04:55 – So I think we’ve gone kind of full kleptocracy
0:04:58 is the way I would describe it.
0:04:59 – Are you optimistic, Scott?
0:05:02 – Well, I’m a glass half empty kind of guy.
0:05:05 I don’t, I don’t know if I’m just getting older,
0:05:09 but no, I don’t see a man convicted of sexual abuse
0:05:12 or found liable who inspired an insurrection,
0:05:15 retaking the White House as a point of light
0:05:17 for the American experience.
0:05:21 – Constantine, I suspect you’d have a slightly different view
0:05:23 on all of the above.
0:05:25 How are you feeling about everything that happened yesterday?
0:05:27 Did you watch the inauguration?
0:05:30 What is your big picture, 30,000 feet view?
0:05:33 – I think it’s incredibly unwise to make bold predictions
0:05:36 about what’s gonna happen over the next six to seven months.
0:05:41 I do think what America had at the election
0:05:43 and what the election of Donald Trump represents
0:05:46 is something that we in the UK don’t have, which is choice.
0:05:47 They had a very clear choice
0:05:50 between two very different perspectives on the world,
0:05:52 between two very different approaches,
0:05:54 between two very different candidates.
0:05:59 And ultimately, criticisms of President Trump
0:06:02 are necessary and legitimate, of course they are.
0:06:03 But at the end of the day,
0:06:06 I believe having spent quite a lot of time in America
0:06:08 around election time and also just generally
0:06:10 and traveling around real America,
0:06:13 not just in DC and LA and New York,
0:06:16 that the reason that he was elected
0:06:20 was that the American people are not prepared
0:06:22 to accept what Europeans have decided
0:06:25 they’re prepared to accept, which has managed decline.
0:06:28 The American people do not want their country to become weaker.
0:06:30 They do not want it to become poorer.
0:06:33 They do not want to impoverish
0:06:35 their fellow citizens through net zero.
0:06:37 What they want is their country to be great,
0:06:39 their country to be powerful,
0:06:41 their country to be influential.
0:06:44 The economic realities for most Americans
0:06:47 are not really reflected in the figures that we are told.
0:06:50 So when people talk about inflation,
0:06:52 the reality of people’s lives on the ground
0:06:54 is that the cost of living has gone up
0:06:58 very, very significantly over the last few years.
0:07:01 And that’s not always reflected directly
0:07:04 in the overall inflation figure that we’re shown,
0:07:06 because certain things are much more influential
0:07:08 in people’s lives than others.
0:07:12 And so whether the decision to elect President Trump
0:07:17 ends up being this positive thing
0:07:19 for which there should be lots of optimism
0:07:22 is a matter of the next four years.
0:07:25 Are we going to see a presidency
0:07:26 that really does everything it promises?
0:07:28 And by the way, if you look at the things
0:07:31 that Donald Trump is promising,
0:07:33 I think whether you’re left or right,
0:07:35 you have to acknowledge that they are things
0:07:37 that are worth doing.
0:07:38 Having a secure border
0:07:41 so that people don’t come into your country legally
0:07:43 is a basic duty of government.
0:07:47 Economic prosperity is a basic duty of government.
0:07:51 Withdrawing America from a kind of
0:07:55 simultaneously aggressive but weak posture around the world
0:07:56 where America sort of says,
0:07:58 “Yeah, yeah, we’re going to get involved
0:07:59 “in these foreign conflicts,
0:08:01 “but we’re not actually going to then practically
0:08:03 “help Ukraine win that war.”
0:08:07 Is a kind of stupid position on both whichever side you’re on.
0:08:09 So on all of these things,
0:08:12 and of course, Scott mentioned workness.
0:08:13 I think he’s absolutely right
0:08:17 that there is a massive backlash happening around the world
0:08:18 because lots and lots of people
0:08:21 who were completely apolitical
0:08:23 until the last three or four years
0:08:27 or maybe until 2016 just feel like the world has gone crazy
0:08:29 and suddenly they’re supposed to pretend
0:08:31 that men can change sex and become women
0:08:34 and now they’re entitled to be in female prisons.
0:08:37 And if your teenager says that they are the opposite sex,
0:08:38 you’re supposed to chop their breasts off.
0:08:40 And all of this other stuff
0:08:41 that ordinary people just look at and go,
0:08:43 “This is crazy.
0:08:45 “Like, I am liberal, but this isn’t liberal.
0:08:48 “This is some kind of weird thing that’s going on.”
0:08:51 And I see the backlash against all of that
0:08:53 all over the Western world.
0:08:56 And I think Donald Trump signifies
0:08:58 that people have fed up of that.
0:09:02 And I have been warning for a very long time
0:09:07 that if the woke left continues to exercise
0:09:10 this level of influence on our public debate,
0:09:12 the reaction will be the rise of the right.
0:09:17 And Donald Trump is one of the most diplomatic
0:09:20 and pleasant versions of what you’re likely to get
0:09:22 if the left keeps going crazy.
0:09:27 We will see what challenges the world throws at him
0:09:28 over the next four years
0:09:31 and whether he’s capable of responding to them.
0:09:34 – Scott, has the left lost its way in your view?
0:09:36 And if so, how did that happen?
0:09:38 And just to respond on some of Constantine’s points
0:09:42 about Trump being the best of a sort of right-wing collective,
0:09:45 are we gonna see right-wing sort of ideologies
0:09:48 spread throughout the Western world over the coming years?
0:09:51 What’s your take on all of the above?
0:09:54 – You definitely, you know, we Democrats,
0:09:58 we get it right and then we just go too damn far.
0:10:02 And so I look at, I’m a professor on a campus.
0:10:05 DEI, 60 years ago, there were 12 Black people
0:10:07 of Princeton, Yellen, Harvard combined.
0:10:08 That was a problem.
0:10:10 Race-based affirmative action makes sense.
0:10:13 This year, more than half of Harvard’s freshman class
0:10:14 identifies as non-white.
0:10:18 But 70% of those non-whites come from dual income homes
0:10:21 in the upper quintile of income earning homes.
0:10:23 The academic gap between black and white
0:10:25 used to be double what it was between rich and poor.
0:10:26 It’s now flipped.
0:10:30 So DEI was a good idea that quite frankly has gone insane
0:10:32 and now just represents the same racism
0:10:35 it was trying to do away with.
0:10:39 So, and then we created two candidates
0:10:43 who were the only candidates who could make each other viable.
0:10:45 Vice President Harris, given the hands she dealt with,
0:10:46 did the best she did.
0:10:48 I think President Biden should be buried
0:10:51 in a crypt of entitled narcissist who decided
0:10:54 that it made sense for him to go back on his pledge
0:10:56 to be a transition candidate
0:10:59 and gave us a British-style election timing
0:11:02 on the Democratic side in a marketplace
0:11:04 where we need time and money.
0:11:07 So it was not, we did not have a great candidate.
0:11:11 There is an understandable swing back
0:11:14 from what is an overcorrection around some of these issues.
0:11:17 You know, parents, we gave them a huge issue
0:11:18 with transgender rights.
0:11:20 There’s a hundred, there’s more peddle players
0:11:22 in California than transgender people.
0:11:24 And yet the Democrats decided to conflate it
0:11:26 with the civil rights movement
0:11:31 and think that it was okay for a woman who transitioned
0:11:34 to transgender women to enter a bicycle race
0:11:36 and finish five minutes before everybody else.
0:11:37 And then we all bark up the same tree
0:11:39 and decide that it’s inspiring.
0:11:41 And parents all over the nation are saying,
0:11:44 what has, you know, we’ve literally gone crazy.
0:11:46 Where I would disagree a little bit with Constantine
0:11:49 is that America choosing economic growth and prosperity.
0:11:51 There are 190 sovereign nations in the world.
0:11:54 189 would change places with America
0:11:56 over the last four years.
0:11:58 We hit 71 new record highs in the markets.
0:12:00 97% of all AI,
0:12:02 we’ve created more market capitalization
0:12:05 and a seven mile radius of SFO International Airport
0:12:07 than Europe’s created in the last 20 years.
0:12:09 We have the lowest inflation in the G7.
0:12:10 We have the highest growth.
0:12:12 We’ve grown 10% since 2020.
0:12:15 That’s triple the rate of Europe.
0:12:19 Biden was unable to communicate any of that effectively
0:12:21 because there’s this psychological dynamic
0:12:23 that when your wages go up,
0:12:24 you credit your own grit and character.
0:12:26 And when the price of cereal goes up,
0:12:28 you blame the president.
0:12:29 Now, similar to the future,
0:12:32 or how William Gibson described the future,
0:12:33 it’s here, it’s just not evenly distributed.
0:12:37 Prosperity is unprecedented in the US
0:12:37 over the last four years.
0:12:40 It just wasn’t evenly distributed.
0:12:42 Now, having said that,
0:12:45 in America you can stop working in August
0:12:46 and you’ve produced more and made more money
0:12:49 than you have in Europe the whole year.
0:12:50 And it has gotten better.
0:12:52 It’s got, it says things are less bad
0:12:54 than anywhere in the world in the US.
0:12:56 Biden was unable to communicate it
0:12:58 and then talking about how great the economy is
0:12:59 when rents were skyrocketing,
0:13:01 tuition was going up.
0:13:02 It was an ineffective strategy,
0:13:04 but I don’t think it’s fair to say
0:13:06 Americans chose prosperity.
0:13:07 We have prosperity.
0:13:09 I would argue that quite frankly,
0:13:11 some of the Republican ideals are on deficit spending,
0:13:12 which are nothing but taxes
0:13:15 on future generations pulled forward.
0:13:17 I mean, we’ll see how that works,
0:13:21 but his signature policies clamp down on immigration,
0:13:25 tariffs, these things are wildly inflationary.
0:13:27 So it constantly it’s right, it’s gonna be difficult.
0:13:29 It’s, you don’t know what’s gonna happen,
0:13:31 but it feels to me, I would argue
0:13:34 that my favorite appointment in the Trump administration
0:13:37 in the adult in the room is the 10 year bond,
0:13:39 which is gonna say, sorry, girlfriend,
0:13:41 when I believe the president tries to implement
0:13:43 some of these economic policies.
0:13:45 – Constantine, is that true?
0:13:46 ‘Cause what I heard there is that effectively
0:13:49 Trump had a better marketing campaign.
0:13:51 And that reality is somewhat different
0:13:53 from what the Americans were sold
0:13:55 in the last election cycle.
0:13:58 – Well, politics is about marketing
0:14:00 and Trump is the marketer and chief.
0:14:02 He’s very good at branding and selling ideas.
0:14:05 And partly that’s what politics is about.
0:14:06 But in terms of the economy,
0:14:08 I think Scott is entirely right.
0:14:11 It’s one of the reasons I admire America so much,
0:14:13 the sense of dynamism and economic growth
0:14:16 and the desire to create things and build things.
0:14:18 It’s an observation I’ve had every time I’ve been there.
0:14:22 If you have a successful restaurant in the UK,
0:14:24 you go, well, I’ve got a successful restaurant.
0:14:26 In America, if you have a successful restaurant,
0:14:28 you open a second one and a third one
0:14:29 and you create a chain, right?
0:14:32 So their attitude to business more broadly
0:14:34 is fantastic and I love it.
0:14:36 But I think the difference is that I don’t think Americans
0:14:40 were comparing the American economy under Joe Biden
0:14:41 to the European economies.
0:14:44 They were comparing the American economy under Joe Biden
0:14:47 to the American economy under Donald Trump
0:14:50 in his first term and also what they expect him
0:14:53 to do for the future, when they look at the fact
0:14:56 that he’s got real business leaders in government now,
0:14:59 like Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk
0:15:01 talking about government efficiency.
0:15:04 We have to admit that all Western countries
0:15:06 have a massively bloated civil service,
0:15:08 what we call civil service in the UK
0:15:11 and the administrative state in the US
0:15:13 that wastes a huge amount of money
0:15:17 that produces very little in terms of output in many cases
0:15:18 and that needs to be slimmed down
0:15:20 and people I think are very excited about that.
0:15:23 And when I talk to business leaders in America,
0:15:26 including ones that were never on the Trump train,
0:15:30 so to speak, so many of them went over to his side
0:15:33 in this election cycle because they just felt
0:15:38 that he was going to continue to accelerate American growth
0:15:42 and continue to deliver prosperity for the American people.
0:15:44 Now, Scott’s point about tariffs
0:15:46 and all of these other things.
0:15:50 I’ve listened to Donald Trump enough now
0:15:52 to know that you not necessarily,
0:15:55 should not necessarily be taking him literally.
0:15:57 I think many of the things he says
0:16:00 are negotiation tactics and signaling.
0:16:03 So when he says, I’m going to build this
0:16:04 or do that or do this,
0:16:07 you have to sort of read between the lines.
0:16:10 When he says, you know, this’ll be the worst thing
0:16:12 that you just go, he’s saying to people,
0:16:13 like you better work with me,
0:16:15 otherwise this is gonna work out badly for you
0:16:17 on all of these things.
0:16:20 And so it remains to be seen whether he’s successful
0:16:22 in those tactics of getting what he wants.
0:16:25 Look, America is always going to be an unequal society.
0:16:29 It’s designed in a way that is going to make it that way.
0:16:32 In America, the focus is how do we grow the pie?
0:16:34 In Europe, the focus is how do we divide it up
0:16:37 so everyone gets their fair little share, right?
0:16:40 So Americans are about expanding the pie
0:16:42 and then the people who bake the pie
0:16:45 get as much of it as they possibly can.
0:16:48 But the question is, can there be a sense in America
0:16:50 that the American dream is alive,
0:16:54 that you do not have to work three gig economy jobs
0:16:55 to pay your rent,
0:16:57 that you’re gonna be able to buy a house,
0:17:00 that you’re gonna be able to afford to have children,
0:17:03 that you’re going to be able to raise a family,
0:17:04 perhaps on a single income,
0:17:07 something that most people only dream about nowadays.
0:17:11 That’s really what this whole economic conversation is about.
0:17:13 And we will see over the next four years
0:17:15 if Donald Trump is able to slightly even change
0:17:17 the direction of travel towards those things
0:17:21 that actually Americans of my generation
0:17:24 and older used to take for granted
0:17:27 as the promise of the country that they live in.
0:17:30 – I’ve thought a lot about this over the last couple of weeks
0:17:32 in particular, because we’re hearing these big headlines
0:17:33 in national papers in the UK
0:17:37 that millionaires are leaving the UK in historic numbers.
0:17:40 I think it’s 10,800 millionaires left last year,
0:17:44 which is an increase of about 160% versus the previous year.
0:17:46 And the general sentiment
0:17:48 in terms of business confidence in the UK
0:17:51 is that a several year low.
0:17:55 So I think the lowest it’s been since just post pandemic,
0:17:57 there’s this, I think it’s the Institute of Accountants,
0:17:59 they call up a thousand accountants every year
0:18:02 and they run a survey to see how much confidence
0:18:04 they have in business in this country.
0:18:08 And it’s fallen 14 points to 0.2% confidence
0:18:09 in terms of business.
0:18:11 But there’s this bigger narrative
0:18:13 emerging amongst my entrepreneurial friends
0:18:14 that if you wanna start a business right now,
0:18:17 the best place to be in the world is to be in America.
0:18:20 It’s to get over to America and to leave the UK.
0:18:21 Now, Dan, how does that square,
0:18:23 I know you have an accelerator,
0:18:24 you speak to lots of entrepreneurs.
0:18:27 How does that sort of compare or contrast
0:18:28 with what you’re seeing at the moment?
0:18:31 – Yeah, 100%, the value proposition for the UK
0:18:34 has dropped through the floor, very, very high tax.
0:18:37 The ecosystem of business is in decline.
0:18:40 Some of the smartest people are now in Dubai.
0:18:43 Some incredible creators that I know have moved to Singapore,
0:18:47 Hong Kong, Dubai, many are going to the USA.
0:18:51 So if people are interested in bigger markets
0:18:52 and bigger opportunities, they’re into the USA.
0:18:54 If they’re interested in lower tax
0:18:57 and more fringe opportunities, they’re in the Middle East.
0:19:03 And essentially, the UK hasn’t found a place in the world.
0:19:04 I think there are three business models
0:19:09 the UK could go for, which is either the head office of Europe,
0:19:13 which is what we were when we were inside the EU,
0:19:18 and everyone used to come here to build a European business.
0:19:21 We could be the back office of the USA.
0:19:23 So the incubator for the USA,
0:19:27 a lot of smart companies get to their first 50 million
0:19:28 of value here in the UK
0:19:30 and then sell to a US private equity firm
0:19:32 or a US listed company.
0:19:36 And a lot of US companies are now actually coming here
0:19:39 to poach talent or to outsource things to the UK
0:19:42 more cheaply than they could do it in the US.
0:19:46 The wages in the UK are through the floor
0:19:48 compared to what you would pay in the US,
0:19:50 especially in tech roles.
0:19:53 So very smart people in the UK are massively devalued.
0:19:56 And then the third option would be
0:19:59 to be an independent tax haven
0:20:06 and to go with the low crime, low tax model of Dubai, Singapore,
0:20:07 you know, those kind of options.
0:20:10 So we haven’t really picked one of those three yet.
0:20:13 We’re still, you know, all these years after Brexit
0:20:17 and we haven’t said which of those three models we wanna adopt.
0:20:21 – Scott, you moved here a couple of years ago to the UK.
0:20:24 And despite everything that’s going on in the UK,
0:20:27 are you still bullish on this being a place
0:20:29 for entrepreneurship and business?
0:20:30 – I was looking at some stats
0:20:31 before we started this conversation
0:20:35 around the sort of key areas of concern for me.
0:20:36 Business stats I’ve talked about there,
0:20:38 the drop in business confidence,
0:20:40 the entrepreneur exodus that we’re seeing,
0:20:44 but things like knife crime in the UK are up 81%
0:20:45 over the last decade,
0:20:47 which I think is a symptom probably of something else.
0:20:49 And one of the big things I think a lot about
0:20:52 as an entrepreneur at the moment is artificial intelligence.
0:20:54 And our investment in artificial intelligence
0:20:56 from a global perspective is down about 2,000%
0:20:58 versus a country like America.
0:21:01 So you’ve moved here, you’ve brought your family here.
0:21:04 Are you bullish on the UK versus the US
0:21:06 from an entrepreneur’s perspective?
0:21:09 – So the question I get most frequently when I speak here
0:21:11 is to compare and contrast the US with the UK.
0:21:13 And I use a personal anecdote.
0:21:17 My parents immigrated to the US from Glasgow and London
0:21:21 when they were 19 and 22, they took enormous risks.
0:21:22 I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life.
0:21:25 I like to think that’s a lot of my successes and my fault
0:21:27 that I inherited sort of that risk taking DNA.
0:21:29 And when I speak to people in the UK,
0:21:33 I say the primary difference is you’re the ones that stayed.
0:21:37 And that is it kind of comes down to a risk appetite.
0:21:39 The US has five times per capita
0:21:40 the number of entrepreneurs.
0:21:44 It has five times the dollar volume per startup.
0:21:46 There’s $5 million in venture capital
0:21:49 waiting to be deployed for every startup
0:21:51 in the US versus one million in Europe.
0:21:54 I love what Constantine said about a restaurant.
0:21:55 I went into this great little restaurant
0:21:57 and so a few weeks ago called Dig In.
0:21:59 And I loved it so much, I said,
0:22:01 I left my card and said, can you have the owner?
0:22:05 I’d like to open another one, does he need money?
0:22:07 I would never, I just would never do that here.
0:22:10 I thought that was a really interesting insight
0:22:14 and the collision of risk, crazy ideas
0:22:16 that occasionally become crazy genius
0:22:20 and technology and intellectual property
0:22:22 and great universities results in a company
0:22:24 that no one had heard of five years ago
0:22:28 being worth more than the entire UK stock market in Vidya.
0:22:31 So there’s just an enormous difference.
0:22:33 The way I would summarize my impression
0:22:37 of the UK economy, I’ll just say London,
0:22:39 I have no experience in it.
0:22:41 I don’t go anywhere that’s not walking distance
0:22:45 from Marlborough and so my bubble is pretty opaque.
0:22:47 But the way I would describe the economy here
0:22:49 is I love the term the Butler economy
0:22:51 and that is all the money I see being made here
0:22:55 is people servicing wealth created somewhere else.
0:22:58 Yeah, you’re either in financial services,
0:23:01 servicing rich people, you’re either opening a restaurant
0:23:04 or hospitality servicing rich people,
0:23:06 but I don’t see a lot of organic wealth creation.
0:23:09 I interviewed the two quote unquote inventors of AI
0:23:10 at one of your prestigious universities.
0:23:12 My first question is how the hell
0:23:15 were you not able to make any money if you invented AI?
0:23:17 Why haven’t you been able to capture any money?
0:23:18 But just for your listeners,
0:23:22 my summation of Europe versus the US
0:23:25 after molesting the earth fell last 35 years
0:23:27 is US is still the best place to make money
0:23:30 and Europe is still the best place to spend it.
0:23:33 – Is this a failing nation, Scott?
0:23:34 – I think you have too much going for you
0:23:36 to be described as a failing nation.
0:23:38 You still have amazing universities.
0:23:40 It’s the second, London’s still the second best city
0:23:42 in the world.
0:23:44 Premier League, it’s an unbelievable export.
0:23:45 I know how ridiculous that sounds.
0:23:46 People want to be here.
0:23:48 There’s still rule of law, rule of play.
0:23:50 You still produce amazing rock and roll.
0:23:54 I just don’t see how you could say this is a failed.
0:24:00 I would argue that the second only to our entry into Iraq,
0:24:02 the greatest self-inflicted wound was Brexit.
0:24:05 Like just, an American can’t understand
0:24:08 why you would decide to increase your prices
0:24:10 while reducing productivity and one fell swoop.
0:24:14 It’s difficult for us to wrap our heads
0:24:17 around some of the economic decisions the UK has made.
0:24:20 But I think a lot of people are kind of betting
0:24:24 or hoping that the UK begins to grow again.
0:24:26 So in a weird way, I’m sort of,
0:24:29 I would call myself cautiously optimistic about the UK.
0:24:32 I think at some point it registers,
0:24:35 it begins to occupy the place it should command,
0:24:37 if you will.
0:24:40 – Constantine, I would ask the same question to you as well.
0:24:42 Do you think the UK is a failing nation
0:24:44 and Scott describes self-inflicted wounds there?
0:24:46 I’ve heard you speak of self-inflicted wounds
0:24:48 when you talk more broadly about the West
0:24:51 and what the West needs to do to turn itself around.
0:24:53 And also just layering a third point on top of that,
0:24:55 which is somewhat linked to this,
0:24:58 is Elon Musk has taken a particular interest in the UK
0:25:01 over the last month in particular,
0:25:03 and he’s started to describe it online,
0:25:06 it seems, as a failing nation.
0:25:07 What’s your view?
0:25:09 – Well, I’m glad you asked me about Elon Musk
0:25:11 because the thing that I love most about the media,
0:25:13 having this massive meltdown about,
0:25:16 oh no, these Americans are interfering in our political,
0:25:19 these are the same media commentators
0:25:22 who are constantly banging on about American politics
0:25:24 and saying, Donald Trump needs to do this,
0:25:25 you need to vote for this.
0:25:27 Like all of this stuff is ridiculous.
0:25:31 The reality is we download our culture, our politics,
0:25:35 our music, almost everything from America, right?
0:25:37 America has become what Britain used to be,
0:25:40 which is the center of Western civilization.
0:25:44 And my request and ask in begging of British people
0:25:47 is if we’re going to download American culture and politics,
0:25:49 let’s at least take the good stuff
0:25:51 instead of all this terrible woke shit
0:25:53 that we downloaded from them,
0:25:55 the DEI and all this other nonsense,
0:25:57 and actually take the entrepreneurial spirit
0:26:00 and all these other things that are really great
0:26:03 about America, the optimism, the positivity,
0:26:05 the willingness to have a go,
0:26:09 to take a risk as Scott was talking about.
0:26:11 So I wish we took more of that
0:26:13 and it speaks to your question about,
0:26:15 are we a failing nation?
0:26:19 Look, I think it’s a deliberately inflammatory question,
0:26:23 which I don’t want to kind of actually accept in that way.
0:26:26 But what I think we should acknowledge is,
0:26:29 are we trending up or are we trending down?
0:26:33 And when you talk about over 10,000 millionaires of left,
0:26:38 I hear that through a normal British person’s ear.
0:26:41 And I worry that there’s quite a lot of British people
0:26:43 who will hear that and say,
0:26:47 “Oh, good, all of these rich parasites have left.”
0:26:50 Because that’s our attitude in the UK to a very large extent.
0:26:53 We see wealthy people, not as what they are,
0:26:55 which is for the most part, not everybody,
0:26:56 but for the most part,
0:26:59 people who’ve created a tremendous amount of value
0:27:01 for their fellow human beings.
0:27:03 And as a result of that, have been rewarded.
0:27:07 We see them because we have this history
0:27:08 of the landed gentry.
0:27:11 And so to us, a millionaire is someone
0:27:15 who has these ill-gotten gains that they don’t deserve, right?
0:27:17 That is not really the world we live in.
0:27:19 When I talk to wealthy people in this country
0:27:21 and pretty much everywhere else,
0:27:24 for the most part, especially in the Western world,
0:27:26 these are people who’ve created something
0:27:29 that has fundamentally helped other human beings
0:27:32 do something better, do something easier,
0:27:34 buy products cheaper, whatever it is.
0:27:37 That’s who the successful people really are.
0:27:39 And we just need an attitude shift.
0:27:41 That’s what we should be downloading from America.
0:27:43 What we should be saying inside our heads
0:27:45 is this person is successful
0:27:48 because they’ve helped other people great.
0:27:51 We want, how do we get more of those people into our country?
0:27:53 And I’m afraid I’m telling you something
0:27:55 that you know better than anyone, Stephen.
0:27:57 If you don’t have entrepreneurs in your country
0:28:00 creating businesses and creating jobs,
0:28:03 the economy is going to stagnate for the rest of eternity.
0:28:06 We have to get smart, talented, driven people
0:28:09 into our country instead of chasing them out.
0:28:10 – Dan, I know this is a subject
0:28:11 that you’re very passionate about
0:28:14 and Constantine’s articulated it really, really well.
0:28:16 I’ve seen lots of your posts about this subject, Dan.
0:28:17 What are you saying?
0:28:20 Is it true that the British attitude
0:28:21 is a form of self-harm
0:28:24 that’s holding us back from our potential?
0:28:27 – There are definitely attitudinal factors,
0:28:28 but you’ll also get the most incredibly
0:28:30 entrepreneurial people here in London.
0:28:33 London is a melting pot for creativity.
0:28:35 You’ve got, sitting in one city,
0:28:37 you’ve got people who are phenomenal at media,
0:28:42 finance, technology, entertainment, politics, defense.
0:28:46 Like all of this, like if you take the best of LA
0:28:49 and Washington and New York and Miami
0:28:51 and kind of start moving it into one city,
0:28:54 you know, you get elements of that in London.
0:28:56 It’s a very diverse city from that point of view
0:28:59 and it creates an entrepreneurial melting pot.
0:29:00 The issue is taxes.
0:29:05 Nobody wants to pay 60% of their income in taxes.
0:29:08 And as soon as you hit, you know, in the US,
0:29:10 you don’t hit the top tax rate
0:29:12 until you are six times the average wage.
0:29:14 Here in the UK, it’s two and a half times.
0:29:17 So as soon as you’re two and a half times the average wage,
0:29:19 you are, you’re in real trouble.
0:29:21 There are so many people in the UK
0:29:25 who deliberately hold their income at 50,000 pounds
0:29:27 because after 50,000 pounds,
0:29:29 you get taxed 40% of your income.
0:29:31 So people just give up and they say, I’m not going,
0:29:34 I know some really smart, really talented people
0:29:36 who could be earning a lot more
0:29:39 and they refuse to pay the 40% rate.
0:29:40 So they like keep everything small
0:29:43 because they don’t wanna go from 20 to 40%
0:29:45 at the 50 grand rate, which is crazy.
0:29:47 And I’ve employed people who have said,
0:29:48 can I have a day off a week
0:29:51 rather than going over that threshold?
0:29:55 So, you know, that’s a huge issue, the tax issue.
0:29:57 The company rate tax is high.
0:30:00 The corporate capital gains rate is tax very high.
0:30:02 The VAT is high.
0:30:04 The council tax is high.
0:30:07 All of these additional taxes just keep piling up.
0:30:09 And then the other cost at the moment,
0:30:12 if we wanna have an AI economy, we need cheap electricity.
0:30:14 One thing that Trump has committed to
0:30:16 is really, really cheap energy.
0:30:21 There is no such thing as a fast growth high,
0:30:24 you know, high octane economy that has expensive energy.
0:30:26 Cheap energy equals fast growth.
0:30:29 And we have the most expensive energy in the world.
0:30:31 We can’t run data centers here
0:30:34 because the energy cost is gonna be too high.
0:30:37 So if we wanna have an AI driven economy, you know,
0:30:39 we can’t do it with windmills and solar panels
0:30:41 that have got frost all over them.
0:30:45 – Scott, you look like a lot of thoughts
0:30:46 are going through your head following those two comments.
0:30:48 What are you thinking?
0:30:50 – Well, with respect to energy,
0:30:52 Trump is shooting executive order,
0:30:54 calling it an energy crisis.
0:30:56 Gasoline in the U.S. on an inflation-adjusted basis
0:30:58 is less expensive than it was 50 years ago.
0:31:01 We are now the largest oil producer in the world.
0:31:05 I would argue that we have a housing crisis
0:31:08 and that the executive order should have been around that.
0:31:09 Just going back to the U.S.
0:31:11 and I’m curious at the same dynamics
0:31:14 and whether Konstantin and Daniel agree with us.
0:31:16 I believe this, the election in the U.S.
0:31:18 was supposed to be a referendum on women’s rights.
0:31:20 Women’s rights did not show up.
0:31:23 This was a referendum on young men in my view.
0:31:25 And that is if you look at the two cohorts
0:31:29 that swung most from blue to red versus 2020,
0:31:32 two of the three cohorts other than Latinos
0:31:34 was people under the age of 30
0:31:36 who in the U.S. are 24% less wealthy
0:31:37 than they were 40 years ago.
0:31:40 People over the age of 70 or 72% wealthier.
0:31:42 Our tax code is basically an attempt
0:31:45 to shove money from the young to the old.
0:31:48 And two, 45 to 64-year-old women
0:31:51 who I would affectionately describe as their mother.
0:31:52 And that is when your son’s in the basement
0:31:54 vaping and playing video games.
0:31:56 And I think a lot about struggling young men.
0:31:59 You don’t give a flying fuck about territorial sovereignty
0:32:02 in the Ukraine or Ukraine, excuse me, or transgender rights.
0:32:04 All you know is your kid isn’t doing well.
0:32:07 And 210 times a day, your kid’s getting a notification
0:32:10 that somebody he knows is on a golf stream
0:32:12 or partying in St. Bart’s and it’s not him or her.
0:32:16 And so we not only have young people not doing as well,
0:32:21 this pornographic wealth is just shoved in their face.
0:32:24 And you end up with, in my opinion,
0:32:26 kind of a young, struggling young men.
0:32:28 No group has fallen further faster in the world,
0:32:31 I would argue, than young men in America.
0:32:34 They are, if you go into a morgue in the United States
0:32:36 and there’s five people who’ve died by suicide,
0:32:37 four of them are men.
0:32:40 One in three men under the age of 30 has a girlfriend.
0:32:42 Two in three women under the age of 30 has a boyfriend.
0:32:43 Why?
0:32:44 You think that’s mathematically impossible
0:32:45 ’cause women are dating older
0:32:47 ’cause they want more economically
0:32:49 and emotionally viable men.
0:32:52 There’s one in five men live at home at the age of 30.
0:32:54 One in three under the age of 25.
0:32:56 They’re not having sex.
0:32:58 They’re more obese, they’re more depressed.
0:33:00 When women don’t have a relationship,
0:33:02 they oftentimes channel that energy
0:33:04 into their professional lives.
0:33:06 More women own, single women own homes in the US
0:33:09 and single men, women in urban areas under the age of 30
0:33:10 are making more money than men.
0:33:13 When men don’t have the guardrails of a relationship
0:33:15 or a job or being in school,
0:33:18 they pour that energy sometimes into unproductive things,
0:33:22 misogyny, nationalism or extreme nationalism,
0:33:23 conspiracy theory.
0:33:26 In some, they become really shitty citizens.
0:33:28 They become sequestered from society.
0:33:30 So I’m worried in the US, our biggest threat
0:33:33 is a new species of asexual,
0:33:37 asocial young men who are incredibly dangerous have lost,
0:33:39 have opted out of America.
0:33:41 60% of 30-year-olds who have one child in America,
0:33:44 and that’s 27%.
0:33:46 So people, I think in the US,
0:33:48 and I am just a genuine question,
0:33:50 I don’t know if it’s the same problem here,
0:33:53 our tax policies have taken money from the young,
0:33:55 stuffed them in the pockets of old people,
0:33:57 so Nana and Pop-Up can upgrade from Carnival
0:33:59 to Crystal Cruises.
0:34:01 Meanwhile, young people can’t afford education,
0:34:03 they can’t afford housing.
0:34:08 And we especially see this really acute emerging crisis
0:34:11 among young men who are just opting out of America,
0:34:13 who don’t even wanna try and date,
0:34:15 don’t even wanna enroll in school,
0:34:17 don’t wanna even try and get a job,
0:34:20 just stick in their basements and go on Reddit or Discord,
0:34:23 or why go try and shower, work out,
0:34:25 and get a relationship when you have U-Porn?
0:34:29 Why get a job when you can trade stocks or crypto
0:34:31 on Coinbase or Robinhood?
0:34:32 I think this is, in my opinion,
0:34:35 this is the most dangerous trend in America right now.
0:34:37 – It was almost like demonizing men for decades
0:34:39 has consequences.
0:34:42 I mean, this is what’s been happening.
0:34:45 Men are the root of all evil, the root of all evil,
0:34:47 the root of all evil, every advert is about,
0:34:49 you know, the woman is strong and capable,
0:34:51 the guy’s pathetic, in every movie,
0:34:54 the woman’s kicking ass and the man is pathetic.
0:34:56 This has been going on for decades.
0:34:59 It’s a cultural thing as well as an economic thing.
0:35:01 And many of us have been saying
0:35:05 that when you take meaning and opportunity away from men,
0:35:07 if you create an education system
0:35:10 that punishes boys for being boys,
0:35:12 if you create a society
0:35:16 in which traditional masculine virtues become vices,
0:35:19 then you will create exactly the sort of thing
0:35:20 that Scott is talking about.
0:35:22 It’s a terrible thing that’s been done.
0:35:25 Having said that, my message is always the same
0:35:27 to young men who I hope are listening,
0:35:29 which is the answer to your problems
0:35:32 is never going to be, as Scott says, porn and this and that.
0:35:35 The answer to your problems is going to take responsibility,
0:35:38 go out and get a job or create a business
0:35:40 and actually make your life better.
0:35:43 No one’s coming to save you, no one’s coming to help you.
0:35:47 There is no, there’s the sort of programs
0:35:49 that we have for women where we sort of go,
0:35:51 well, you know, let’s give them an opportunity here.
0:35:53 None of that’s happening for men.
0:35:56 It’s not going to happen because for evolutionary reasons,
0:35:57 we just don’t feel sorry for men
0:35:59 the way that we do for women.
0:36:00 That’s the reality.
0:36:02 I know it sucks, but the answer for men
0:36:05 is going to be the answer that’s always been the answer
0:36:08 for men, which is for you to get off the sofa,
0:36:11 to get off the couch and go out and actually do and create
0:36:14 and build and find your own way through it,
0:36:17 even if you have to acknowledge that the society you live in
0:36:19 has been conditioned for quite a long time
0:36:20 to think that you’re a piece of shit
0:36:23 ’cause you happen to have the genitalia that you do.
0:36:28 Now, that I think is the harsh reality of it.
0:36:30 And I think Scott is right to point this out as a problem.
0:36:33 And I hope that we start to have both
0:36:34 in terms of economic policy,
0:36:36 but in terms of also just the cultural conversations
0:36:38 and the way we talk about these issues,
0:36:41 we come back to something that human beings have known
0:36:43 through the entire history of our species,
0:36:46 which is men and women are both good
0:36:49 and need to work together in order to thrive
0:36:51 and succeed together in order to have families,
0:36:52 in order to have children,
0:36:54 and in order for us to have healthy communities
0:36:56 and healthy societies.
0:36:59 You need healthy femininity and you need healthy masculinity
0:37:02 and they need to come together and work together.
0:37:05 That’s what we’re supposed to do.
0:37:09 And these stupid gender wars and this idea
0:37:13 that men as a group are this and women as a group are that,
0:37:15 all of that just needs to end.
0:37:17 – I was watching last night as Trump sat there
0:37:19 signing all of those executive orders.
0:37:20 And I also watched his inauguration speak
0:37:22 where he said, “We will forge a society
0:37:26 that is colorblind and merit-based.”
0:37:28 And he signed a bunch of executive orders last night
0:37:31 to eliminate a variety of different DEI programs
0:37:31 in the federal government,
0:37:34 directing agencies to dismantle these practices
0:37:36 within 60 days.
0:37:37 And then over the last couple of months,
0:37:40 we’ve seen Metta come out and dismantle and reverse
0:37:41 some of their DEI programs.
0:37:44 We’ve seen McDonald’s, Walmart, Ford, Harley-Davidson,
0:37:46 Boeing, Amazon, Toyota.
0:37:50 It feels like there’s a real shift happening
0:37:54 in both, you know, sort of identity politics,
0:37:56 but also in the sort of corporate environment
0:37:59 that those identity politics have really emerged from.
0:38:03 Are you supportive of Trump’s move to roll back DEI measures?
0:38:07 – So I think there’s a lot of nuance here.
0:38:10 I would argue in universities we’ve,
0:38:15 DEI uses a giant misdirect from people such as myself
0:38:16 who are enforcers of the caste system
0:38:18 and wake up every morning and look in the mirror
0:38:19 and ask ourselves the same question.
0:38:21 How do I increase my compensation
0:38:23 while decreasing my accountability?
0:38:23 (laughing)
0:38:26 And what I found is the ultimate strategy
0:38:29 is to create an LVMA rejection as bullshit,
0:38:31 elitist strategy, where Dartmouth sits on
0:38:36 an endowment of $8 billion and lets in 500 kids.
0:38:39 So the conversation around who gets in
0:38:41 is a misdirect from the important question
0:38:42 that is how many.
0:38:44 If you are not growing your endowment
0:38:46 or your freshman class faster than population,
0:38:48 you should lose your tax-free status.
0:38:50 We should be letting in more gay kids, more trans kids,
0:38:53 more white Republicans from rural states.
0:38:54 You know who doesn’t talk about DEI?
0:38:57 Junior colleges, ’cause there’s no admissions.
0:38:59 They don’t have a problem with DEI.
0:39:02 So I think DEI on campus has ended up eating its own tail,
0:39:05 started out with the right idea, now it’s nothing.
0:39:07 And I would argue the same as somewhat true
0:39:08 the Democratic Party.
0:39:11 I went to the Democratic National Convention.
0:39:15 On the dnc.org website, it lists 17 special interscripts
0:39:18 and it says explicitly who we serve.
0:39:22 Asian Pacific Islanders, seniors, veterans,
0:39:24 black Americans, the disabled.
0:39:26 It basically lists, I added this up,
0:39:28 76% of the population.
0:39:31 And when you say you’re actively advocating
0:39:33 for 76% of the population,
0:39:36 you’re not advocating for 76% of the population,
0:39:38 you’re discriminating against the 24%.
0:39:39 It’s gone too far.
0:39:41 I would argue in the workplace,
0:39:44 having served on seven public company boards
0:39:47 and I’m gonna do a lot of boasting here
0:39:49 ’cause I’m desperate for all of your affirmation
0:39:51 and 12 private company boards.
0:39:54 There’s still work to be done in the private sector.
0:39:59 There still is a cycle, 40% of all venture capitalists
0:40:02 and probably 70 or 80% of all venture capital deployed
0:40:04 are white guys from just two universities,
0:40:06 Stanford and Harvard.
0:40:08 So I would argue universities, it’s gotten out of control.
0:40:11 I’d love to see the DEI apparatus disassembled
0:40:12 along with the ethics department,
0:40:15 the sustainability department, the leadership department.
0:40:16 These are all bullshit where we hire
0:40:18 formerly important people with no standards.
0:40:19 They never get fired.
0:40:22 It just translates to more student debt.
0:40:25 In the boardroom, in corporations and certain sectors,
0:40:29 I do think there is a need to be thoughtful
0:40:31 about broadening the aperture of the lens
0:40:34 and bringing in people who are underrepresented.
0:40:38 There’s still a dearth of women raising venture capitalists.
0:40:41 So I think it’s nuanced based on sector,
0:40:45 but to just say all DEI is bad,
0:40:47 I wanna move to where the University of California
0:40:48 did in 1997.
0:40:50 They don’t have race-based affirmative action.
0:40:53 They have adversity-based affirmative action.
0:40:55 I’m a beneficiary of affirmative action.
0:40:57 I had something called Pell Grants.
0:40:59 I was raised by a single immigrant mother
0:41:01 who lived and died a secretary, so I got grants.
0:41:06 I had unfair advantage because I came from a household
0:41:07 that was low income.
0:41:10 And I think that there should be affirmative action
0:41:12 and I should think it should be based on color,
0:41:13 but that color is green.
0:41:17 The poor need our help.
0:41:19 The moment you start advocating
0:41:23 for special advantage based on any external factors,
0:41:25 I think at this point in our society,
0:41:28 it probably causes more problems than it solves.
0:41:30 – That’s exactly right.
0:41:31 That’s exactly right, Stephen.
0:41:34 And I think if we take a step back and look at why DEIs
0:41:36 become such a big part of the conversation,
0:41:39 it’s precisely because instead of addressing
0:41:41 the reality of people’s lives,
0:41:43 which is some people are disadvantaged
0:41:45 and some people are advantaged,
0:41:46 actually what we’ve mainly done,
0:41:49 and the Scott alluded to at the very beginning
0:41:53 of our discussion is we’ve given a leg up
0:41:57 to very wealthy ethnic minority people
0:42:00 from successful families and they now,
0:42:04 their children now get into prestigious universities,
0:42:08 which they probably would have done anyway,
0:42:11 some of them because they come from very advanced backgrounds
0:42:13 and the kids that are growing up in poverty,
0:42:15 black and white, have no shot whatsoever.
0:42:18 But the reason that it’s become such a big issue
0:42:20 around the Western world,
0:42:22 actually I don’t think it’s the nuances
0:42:24 that we’ve delved into here, but actually something else,
0:42:29 which is we have created the most ethnically diverse
0:42:30 societies in history.
0:42:34 And what I mean by that is not that we’ve created societies
0:42:36 in which there are large groups of people
0:42:38 who are different from each other,
0:42:40 but for the first time, probably in human history,
0:42:43 we’ve created societies in which there is
0:42:45 a lot of ethnic diversity,
0:42:47 and there is no overt discrimination
0:42:51 against some groups of people in the sense of,
0:42:53 the imperial societies in the past
0:42:55 would have had one dominant ethnic group,
0:42:58 which is the Russians in the Soviet Union,
0:43:01 or the Turks in the Ottoman Empire,
0:43:04 or the Brits in the British Empire, whatever.
0:43:06 That was the ethnic group that was like the dominant one.
0:43:09 And everybody else was a kind of second class citizen
0:43:11 and everybody knew it, right?
0:43:12 We don’t have that anymore.
0:43:14 We have highly diverse societies
0:43:17 where people of every single background exist
0:43:19 in which we have this idea
0:43:22 that we’re all supposed to be equal.
0:43:27 And when we have programs that explicitly
0:43:29 discriminate against people,
0:43:31 there were times when the discrimination
0:43:33 was explicit against black people.
0:43:35 Well, we’ve gone full circle now
0:43:38 where the discrimination was going the other way
0:43:40 in university admissions, in hiring,
0:43:43 in corporate America, in government,
0:43:44 in all sorts of things.
0:43:47 In this country, the BBC has internships
0:43:50 that aren’t available to white people, et cetera.
0:43:53 When you get to that point, as Scott said earlier on,
0:43:55 everyone just goes, “Look, I know I’m not supposed to say this,
0:43:58 “but the reality is this is racism.
0:43:59 “This is a form of racism,
0:44:02 “and I thought we were trying to get away from the racism.”
0:44:06 So to the extent that the elimination of DEI
0:44:10 is about creating a merit-based society
0:44:12 in which people are given an opportunity
0:44:14 because they’re skilled and talented
0:44:17 and they have the potential to actually achieve things
0:44:20 and create wealth, you know, we all know this.
0:44:22 We all employ people, right?
0:44:24 How many of us are thinking about the races
0:44:25 of the people we hire?
0:44:27 I don’t think we think about that at all.
0:44:30 What we’re thinking about is, “I run a business.
0:44:34 “I need the very best person for this job
0:44:35 “at the price I’m willing to pay.”
0:44:39 I don’t care if they are purple, green, blue, white, whatever.
0:44:41 It doesn’t matter.
0:44:44 What matters is, are we getting the best person for the job?
0:44:49 And my concern about identity politics has always been
0:44:53 that if we do not adopt that worldview,
0:44:55 then what we will do is create a worldview
0:44:59 in which we have different racial groups competing with each other
0:45:01 on the basis of race.
0:45:03 And that is a very, very dangerous mix
0:45:05 for a multi-ethnic society like ours,
0:45:08 which is why I’ve been begging people
0:45:12 to let go of this stupid idea of identity politics
0:45:15 and to say, first and foremost, we are all Brits,
0:45:17 or we are all Americans.
0:45:21 We have this umbrella identity under which we all operate,
0:45:26 and our personal ethnicity or sex or whatever is secondary to that,
0:45:28 and actually for the purposes of employment,
0:45:31 for the purposes of college admission, et cetera,
0:45:32 is irrelevant.
0:45:34 Yes, if there is disadvantage,
0:45:37 if we grew up in a single parent home with a low income,
0:45:39 we may need some extra support there.
0:45:44 If we had terrible schooling or education was not good,
0:45:45 we may need extra support.
0:45:48 If there are certain things that make it easier for us
0:45:50 because of the disadvantages we’ve had
0:45:55 to fulfill our talent and potential, I’m all for that.
0:45:57 But what we’ve created so far,
0:45:59 and that’s why I’m delighted it’s being eliminated,
0:46:02 is an anti-meritocratic system which says,
0:46:04 “We don’t care what you bring to the workplace.
0:46:06 “We don’t care whether you deserve this place,
0:46:09 “or we don’t care about the potential you have.
0:46:13 “Actually, we just needed an insert category tick box
0:46:14 “to fill this slot.”
0:46:17 And you fill there, it doesn’t really matter
0:46:18 that you’re not doing your job very well,
0:46:22 because now we can say, “We’re a diverse company.
0:46:23 “I don’t care about that,
0:46:25 “and we shouldn’t care about that as a society.”
0:46:27 And thank God that’s now gone.
0:46:31 Yeah, I think the worst part about it too is that it calls into question
0:46:35 when someone does succeed and they’re from a diverse background,
0:46:37 calls into question why they got that job in the first place,
0:46:39 which I think is horrible.
0:46:42 You know, I just hired from two candidates,
0:46:47 the final two candidates, was a guy and a woman.
0:46:51 I would hate if the woman felt that she got the job
0:46:54 because she’s a woman, and not because she’s best.
0:46:57 She turns out she was by far the best in the process.
0:46:58 And I would love for her to know
0:47:02 that there was absolutely nothing that changed our view.
0:47:05 We weren’t trying to fill a position with a woman.
0:47:06 We were trying to fill the position with the best,
0:47:08 and she should know she was the best.
0:47:10 I think the contrast that was really fascinating
0:47:15 was between Trump’s website and the Democrats’ website.
0:47:18 So in the Democrats’ website, it was Who We’re For,
0:47:20 which was what Scott was saying,
0:47:24 but the Trump’s website was the 20 things we’re going to do.
0:47:25 And it was just a list of 20…
0:47:27 These are the 20 action points.
0:47:29 This is what we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this,
0:47:31 we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this.
0:47:32 So it was a to-do list,
0:47:38 as opposed to the identities that we want to advantage list.
0:47:40 And I think that was the choice.
0:47:41 You know, at the beginning, Constantine,
0:47:43 you said, you know, America had a choice.
0:47:45 And for me, when I looked at those two websites,
0:47:50 I saw this choice between the identities being the main thing
0:47:53 or the to-do list being the main thing,
0:47:55 and very different approaches.
0:47:58 Scott, when I was listening to that Zuckerberg interview
0:48:00 talking about masculinity and identity issues,
0:48:02 one of the lines he said there sounded like something
0:48:04 you’ve said on my show before,
0:48:07 where he said, “I think having a culture that celebrates
0:48:08 that aggression a little bit more,
0:48:10 talking about masculinity,
0:48:13 has its own merits that are really positive.”
0:48:15 Now, Mark Zuckerberg isn’t necessarily someone
0:48:20 that I saw closely aligning to your worldview.
0:48:23 Am I right in thinking that that’s something you agree with?
0:48:24 Because I remember you saying to me,
0:48:26 you think people should be able to walk in a room
0:48:28 and kick everyone’s ass.
0:48:29 – What I’ve said on your show is that,
0:48:32 I think the male form, especially under the age of 30,
0:48:35 with its bone structure, incredible double-twitch muscle,
0:48:40 and then this amazing, amazing chemical called testosterone,
0:48:43 you’re gonna look back at your 25-year-old self
0:48:46 and think, “Why wasn’t I a fucking monster like Steve Barley?”
0:48:47 (laughing)
0:48:52 Because, and also, there is some masculinity
0:48:56 when Russian soldiers pour over the border in Ukraine.
0:48:58 You want some of that big dick energy
0:49:00 that Daniel was talking about.
0:49:02 In the case of Zuckerberg,
0:49:05 I don’t think he really understands
0:49:06 an aspirational view of masculinity.
0:49:08 I think when he couches,
0:49:11 immediately kind of trying to kiss Trump’s ass
0:49:14 because Trump threatened to put him in prison,
0:49:15 and what he used to call moderation,
0:49:17 he’s now calling censorship.
0:49:19 And when you have an algorithm
0:49:22 that elevates incendiary hateful content,
0:49:24 I would not describe that as masculinity.
0:49:26 For me, masculinity comes down to protection,
0:49:29 providing and procreation.
0:49:31 And I don’t think it’s a,
0:49:34 I think to talk about gendering a workplace
0:49:37 in the context of trying to excuse
0:49:41 a total elimination of what I would think
0:49:43 is probably healthy moderation,
0:49:45 I imagine Daniel and Constantine
0:49:46 might have a different view.
0:49:51 I don’t, I think he’s just couching his supplicant,
0:49:53 obsequious, kiss-ass behavior
0:49:55 under the auspices of masculinity.
0:49:57 It just doesn’t ring true for me.
0:50:00 And I’m not sure if we need to man up
0:50:03 or femme up organizations and companies right now.
0:50:04 When I talk about masculinity,
0:50:08 if I say at a conference,
0:50:10 oh, women are better managers.
0:50:12 Everyone goes, yes, that’s right, that’s right, right?
0:50:13 That’s okay.
0:50:15 If I say men are more risk aggressive
0:50:16 and make better entrepreneurs,
0:50:19 you’re a misogynist, you’re out.
0:50:21 And the reality is men and women
0:50:22 bring different attributes.
0:50:24 But the masculinity and femininity,
0:50:25 I think masculinity is a wonderful thing.
0:50:27 I think we need a different image of it.
0:50:28 I think people born as male
0:50:30 have an easier time leaning into those things.
0:50:32 Having said that,
0:50:35 I work out at CrossFit with a bunch of lesbian firefighters.
0:50:37 They bring great masculine energy
0:50:39 and they could carry my ass out of a fire.
0:50:43 So a lot of men demonstrate wonderful feminine qualities.
0:50:46 A lot of women demonstrate wonderful masculine qualities.
0:50:47 I don’t think these things are sequestered
0:50:51 to anyone born as a specific gender.
0:50:53 What I think, what I talk about masculinity,
0:50:55 I don’t talk about it in the world of corporations.
0:50:57 I think that’s this fraught with risk
0:50:59 and not worth talking about.
0:51:00 It should be about shareholder value
0:51:02 or stakeholder value.
0:51:04 I think young men need a code.
0:51:05 We’re going to church less.
0:51:06 We have fewer relationships.
0:51:09 So what’s the code you hold onto
0:51:11 in terms of creating behaviors
0:51:14 that are productive for you, yourself, society?
0:51:16 And I think masculinity needs to be redefined
0:51:17 as something more aspirational
0:51:20 where you’re celebrated for being really fucking strong.
0:51:22 You’re celebrated for not complaining.
0:51:25 You’re celebrated for creating surplus value.
0:51:27 You create more tax revenue than you absorb.
0:51:28 You’re celebrated for being aggressive.
0:51:31 You’re celebrated for breaking up fights at bars,
0:51:33 not starting them.
0:51:35 You’re celebrated for protecting your country,
0:51:36 not shitposting it.
0:51:40 You’re celebrated for approaching strange women
0:51:42 and expressing romantic interest.
0:51:44 That’s not a crime.
0:51:47 And if she’s not interested and you’re rejected,
0:51:49 you’re both going to be fine.
0:51:52 You’re celebrated for getting out of the house.
0:51:53 You’re celebrated for working.
0:51:55 You’re celebrated for making money and liking money.
0:51:58 I think there just needs to be a redefinition
0:52:01 of masculinity in the context of helping young men
0:52:05 find a code that they used to get from the armed services
0:52:07 or from dual-parent households.
0:52:09 And I feel like they’re struggling.
0:52:12 So I like the idea of something that they feel
0:52:16 in their bones and in their body and in their DNA
0:52:18 that they can lean into, that we celebrate.
0:52:21 And the conversation has flipped entirely.
0:52:22 Five years ago, I was called a misogynist
0:52:24 for talking about masculinity.
0:52:28 Now the conversation is being led and advocated
0:52:31 by one group and it’s mothers who are like,
0:52:33 my son is not doing well.
0:52:36 I got three kids, two daughters, daughters and PR
0:52:37 with the other ones at Penn.
0:52:38 And my son is in the basement vaping
0:52:39 and playing video games.
0:52:42 He needs something to latch onto.
0:52:43 He needs a code.
0:52:46 Anyways, but I apologize, word salad.
0:52:48 Zuckerberg and masculinity, give me a fucking break.
0:52:50 He looks like a Chechen Mali dealer.
0:52:53 Sorry, back to you, Steve.
0:52:56 (laughing)
0:52:58 – Well, it’s interesting when you speak, Scott,
0:53:01 because your views on masculinity
0:53:04 appear to me to be most better represented
0:53:07 by the right side of politics than the left side of politics.
0:53:09 They both have their own vision of masculinity
0:53:11 and yours seems to be a Republican view of masculinity.
0:53:15 – To Trump’s credit, he saw the opportunity
0:53:17 and he flew right into the hemisphere.
0:53:22 Rockets, crypto, Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn.
0:53:26 He said, no, I’m not gonna run from this.
0:53:28 I’m gonna fly right into it.
0:53:31 Now I would argue that his vision of masculinity
0:53:35 has too much coarseness, too much cruelty, too much bullying.
0:53:37 I don’t think that’s masculinity.
0:53:40 I think when we talk about Elon Musk taking risks,
0:53:43 sending rockets that are captured by scissors coming down
0:53:45 inspiring the EV race, taking an enormous risk
0:53:47 making a shit ton of money.
0:53:49 Yeah, that’s a great form of masculinity.
0:53:52 Accusing men trying to save high soccer players,
0:53:55 calling them pedophiles, calling your employees
0:53:57 a sex criminal such that they have to leave their house,
0:54:00 having 13 kids by five women or three women,
0:54:02 none of which you live with,
0:54:05 living next to sleeping next to a loaded gun,
0:54:10 losing control of your self-control because of addiction.
0:54:12 I don’t think that’s a great role model.
0:54:14 I think it’s an amazing role model for boys.
0:54:17 I don’t think it’s a great role model for men.
0:54:18 In terms of energy, there are so many reasons
0:54:21 why I’m a big matchup fan, if you don’t already know by now.
0:54:23 And so much so that I actually invested
0:54:26 in the UK’s leading matchup company called Perfected.
0:54:27 And one of my favorite Perfected products
0:54:30 is these delicious matcha pouches
0:54:32 that come in every flavor from salted caramel
0:54:36 to peach flavor to mint flavor to berry flavor.
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0:54:41 which I’m gonna make in just two seconds.
0:54:44 You just take this mixer here,
0:54:45 get a little bit of a powder,
0:54:48 pop it on top of the shaker like that,
0:54:52 put the lid on, shake, shake, shake.
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0:54:58 If you haven’t tried this yet,
0:55:01 you can find Perfected at Tesco and Holland Barrett Stores
0:55:05 or online where you can get 40% off with my code, diary40.
0:55:08 Head to perfected.com and put in code diary40
0:55:11 to try this delicious multi-flavored matcha now.
0:55:12 Highly recommend, and if you do it,
0:55:15 please tag me, send me a message online.
0:55:17 Do you know that 80% of New Year’s resolutions
0:55:18 fail by February?
0:55:21 It’s because we focus too much on the end goal
0:55:22 and we forget the small daily actions
0:55:24 that actually move us forward.
0:55:25 Those actions that are easy to do
0:55:27 are also easy not to do in life.
0:55:30 It’s easy to save a dollar, so it’s also easy not to.
0:55:32 Making one small improvement each day,
0:55:34 one tiny step in the right direction
0:55:36 has a big difference over time.
0:55:38 And that is the 1% mindset,
0:55:40 which is why we created the 1% Diary,
0:55:43 a 90-day journal designed to help you stay consistent
0:55:45 and focus on the small wins
0:55:47 and make real progress over time.
0:55:50 It also gives you access to the 1% community,
0:55:52 a space where you can stay accountable, motivated,
0:55:54 inspired along with many others on the same journey.
0:55:57 We launched the 1% Diary in November and it sold out.
0:56:00 So now we’re doing a second drop.
0:56:02 Head to the diary.com to grab yours
0:56:03 before it sells out again.
0:56:05 I’ll put the link below.
0:56:08 – Konstantin, Elon Musk, censorship.
0:56:11 The word censorship was used there by Scott.
0:56:14 We’ve seen this reversal in Meta’s attitude,
0:56:17 Facebook’s attitude that had been built up over a decade,
0:56:20 where it almost felt like if you had sort of
0:56:22 right-leaning views or really any unaccepted views
0:56:24 and you posted those on Facebook,
0:56:26 you would face maybe having the post deleted
0:56:27 or your account suspended.
0:56:32 This new world of speech, of free speech,
0:56:34 and as it pertains to masculinity,
0:56:37 do you think Elon Musk’s decision to buy X,
0:56:38 which I noticed, Scott, you’d left X.
0:56:42 You no longer post or tweet on X anymore.
0:56:45 Do you think Elon’s decision to buy X
0:56:47 is a net positive for society?
0:56:51 – Net, yes, but I think what people hear
0:56:53 when you say that is there’s no problems
0:56:58 with this system than compared to the ones we had before.
0:57:01 There are definitely disadvantages
0:57:05 to a free platform like X now.
0:57:10 And one of them is inevitably when you remove censorship,
0:57:11 one of the things that censorship was doing
0:57:16 was keeping all the deeply unpleasant people
0:57:20 away from being able to shove things in your face.
0:57:21 And that happens quite a lot on X.
0:57:24 So I don’t enjoy that aspect of it,
0:57:25 but I’ve always said that would be the price
0:57:28 that we would pay for freedom.
0:57:30 Freedom always has a price,
0:57:31 and that’s what we’re seeing.
0:57:33 As for Zuckerberg,
0:57:36 his miraculous transformation into a free speech warrior
0:57:39 is just wonderful, and I’m delighted to welcome him.
0:57:40 I’m sure it’s entirely genuine,
0:57:43 and not anything to do with the election results
0:57:45 we’ve just seen in any way whatsoever,
0:57:47 and the fact that the culture shifted.
0:57:51 And those of us who were being censored by people like him
0:57:54 for years actually winning the argument.
0:57:56 Well, what it shows you is we’ve won the argument
0:58:01 on free speech when it comes to the big tech platforms.
0:58:02 And it’s gonna be messy.
0:58:04 And I always said it was gonna be messy
0:58:08 because inevitably when you create these large platforms
0:58:10 that are algorithmically driven,
0:58:13 where the truth and the moderate reasonable take
0:58:16 is not what usually gets attention,
0:58:19 you’re going to see a lot of unpleasantness.
0:58:23 I value the ability to hear and communicate
0:58:28 truthful ideas and facts over my own subjective feelings
0:58:31 of someone said a thing I don’t like,
0:58:34 or someone was racist, or someone was misogynistic.
0:58:37 I don’t enjoy the fact that that happens,
0:58:39 but I would rather that happened,
0:58:42 and also we were not being censored from saying,
0:58:45 you know, COVID probably came from a lab in China,
0:58:46 which we were.
0:58:50 You know, the Hunter Biden laptop story
0:58:52 isn’t Russian disinformation.
0:58:55 Actually, it’s an important piece of information
0:58:57 that American voters need to hear
0:58:59 when they’re making their decision about the election.
0:59:02 And all of these other things that were being suppressed
0:59:04 and censored across social media for years,
0:59:06 they’re not anymore.
0:59:08 And I think that’s a good thing.
0:59:09 And I think that’s helpful.
0:59:11 And if you look at, you know,
0:59:14 to bring it back to the UK for a moment, Stephen,
0:59:15 as you know, on trigonometry,
0:59:19 we’ve tried to cover the grooming gang’s scandal
0:59:22 and it’s an outrage what happened in this country
0:59:23 over decades.
0:59:25 We’ve been covering that for years,
0:59:29 since about 2019, 2020, to very little purchase.
0:59:32 And one of the reasons is it was just something
0:59:34 that the media sort of covered and then moved on.
0:59:36 When it actually should have been something
0:59:38 we talked about on a daily basis
0:59:39 until serious action was taken,
0:59:44 and we saw real, real change, real change in policing,
0:59:47 real change in social work, real change in government,
0:59:50 real change in the way that these racially aggravated
0:59:52 hate crimes were treated.
0:59:55 Well, none of that was really being talked about seriously
0:59:58 until Elon kicked up a fuss,
1:00:00 amplified the voices of survivors,
1:00:04 amplified the voices of campaigners on X, which he bought,
1:00:09 and now the British government is forced to do whatever it can
1:00:13 to actually address those issues to the extent that it will.
1:00:14 You know, a lot of people will say
1:00:15 it still doesn’t go far enough.
1:00:17 Well, if it doesn’t go far enough,
1:00:20 we now have a platform from which we can continue
1:00:21 to have that conversation
1:00:24 until there is the sort of inquiry
1:00:26 and the sort of outcomes that people want
1:00:27 to actually deliver real change.
1:00:29 So is that a positive?
1:00:32 God yes, God yes, we needed that.
1:00:35 Those women who were raped on a mass scale
1:00:37 needed their voices to be amplified
1:00:40 by someone like Elon Musk on a platform like X,
1:00:41 which is now free,
1:00:43 to the point where Keir Starmer
1:00:45 is forced into defensive action.
1:00:47 That, I wish that was around 30 years ago
1:00:49 because a hell of a lot of young girls and women
1:00:51 wouldn’t have suffered the way they did
1:00:53 if we had the opportunity to get that message out.
1:00:56 So God yes, it’s a net positive.
1:00:58 – Just to pick up on that, Konstantin,
1:01:01 I’ve had a question in my mind for a while
1:01:03 regarding the scandal, which is horrific.
1:01:05 I think it’s something we all definitely agree on,
1:01:08 is why has Elon chosen now
1:01:11 and why has he chosen Keir Starmer
1:01:15 as the sort of central target of this flurry of tweets
1:01:17 around the grooming scandals?
1:01:19 Because there’s clearly,
1:01:20 Elon’s, I think an individual,
1:01:23 which you can kind of see thinking in real time.
1:01:24 Like if you go back through his tweets,
1:01:25 ’cause there’s so many of them
1:01:27 and they kind of come in these spurts,
1:01:29 you can almost see what he’s getting at.
1:01:30 Is there an underlying reason
1:01:32 why he’s made this a central issue
1:01:34 over the last couple of weeks?
1:01:35 – I think there are several reasons.
1:01:37 One of the reasons that it’s happening now
1:01:39 is actually most Americans were completely unaware
1:01:41 of this issue until recently.
1:01:45 I remember a year ago speaking at a private event
1:01:47 in New York and somebody said to me,
1:01:50 “Well, what is the consequence of political correctness?
1:01:52 “Why are you so against it?
1:01:54 “Why are you so against censorship?”
1:01:55 And I talked about the grooming gangs
1:01:57 and people were horrified.
1:02:01 They hadn’t even, and these are well-informed educated people
1:02:03 who are media savvy and whatever.
1:02:05 So one of the reasons is I think to a lot of Americans,
1:02:07 this issue’s only coming to the fore now
1:02:09 in front of their mind.
1:02:11 The second issue, I think,
1:02:14 is that Elon Musk understands what I said earlier,
1:02:17 which is we have a global Western culture now.
1:02:19 And so what happens in Britain matters
1:02:21 just as much as what happens in America
1:02:24 because we are symbiotic with each other now.
1:02:29 When there’s a restriction of speech in the UK,
1:02:32 when we have laws about what people are allowed to say,
1:02:34 that has an impact across the world.
1:02:36 When you see the European Union
1:02:39 trying to pass legislation about online censorship,
1:02:43 that has an impact because if something exists in the UK
1:02:45 and in many European countries,
1:02:47 it’s only a matter of time before people in America
1:02:49 are gonna say, “Well, look, they’ve got this in Europe.
1:02:50 “Why don’t we bring it over here?”
1:02:52 And vice versa.
1:02:54 So what happens in America affects us in Europe
1:02:55 and in the UK,
1:02:57 and what happens in Europe and the UK affects America.
1:03:00 So what Elon, I think, is trying to do
1:03:04 is to say, “We care about our civilization.”
1:03:06 Elon doesn’t really talk that much about the United States.
1:03:08 He talks about our civilization
1:03:11 as I do because I believe that we are now one thing
1:03:13 to a very significant extent.
1:03:16 Now, from our civilizational point of view,
1:03:19 is it a good thing that mass rape gangs in the UK
1:03:22 are being insufficiently investigated
1:03:25 and treated improperly by the police and the government?
1:03:26 No, it’s not, it’s a very bad thing.
1:03:28 So how do we address that?
1:03:29 Well, we address that by putting pressure
1:03:31 on the government of the day.
1:03:33 Now, I don’t see the grooming gangs
1:03:35 as a party political issue.
1:03:37 The Tories didn’t really do anything about it properly,
1:03:39 either, although there were individual members
1:03:42 of the cabinet that tried to do something
1:03:44 like so-called braverment.
1:03:46 But he’s putting pressure on the government of the day.
1:03:50 You can see him going after Nigel Farage of all people
1:03:53 and saying Nigel Farage is not the right leader for reform.
1:03:57 So he’s attempting to shape British politics
1:04:00 in the direction that he feels is the right way.
1:04:01 What does he want?
1:04:03 What outcome does he want?
1:04:04 Look, I don’t know what Elon must want.
1:04:06 I don’t know him personally.
1:04:07 I haven’t even yet had a chance to interview him,
1:04:09 which I really look forward to doing,
1:04:12 because I think he’s one of the great visionaries of our time,
1:04:13 whether you like him or not.
1:04:16 I think that’s undeniably true.
1:04:20 But my sense is he’s trying to talk about all the things
1:04:23 that we’ve been discussing– freedom of expression,
1:04:27 the end of identity politics, and the pursuit of meritocracy,
1:04:30 a pioneering, inspiring vision of the future,
1:04:32 which is why he’s talking about Mars
1:04:34 and a vision for our civilization that
1:04:37 goes beyond the narrow squabbling that we do here
1:04:43 on Earth, and the understanding that human beings are meant–
1:04:44 we left the cave.
1:04:47 We’re not supposed to stay in a place
1:04:51 with the walls closing in on us and feel like we’re in decline.
1:04:53 We’re not supposed to be a civilization that
1:04:58 has 1.5 children per woman and that is simply just leaving
1:05:00 the planet Earth because we can’t reproduce.
1:05:04 We’re supposed to look at the future with hope and optimism.
1:05:07 We’re supposed to say, I want things to be better.
1:05:09 I want things to be better for my children.
1:05:11 I want to have children.
1:05:15 I want the vision of our society being
1:05:18 one of positivity and optimism and a sense
1:05:21 of a pioneering vision and inspiration.
1:05:22 That’s what I think he wants.
1:05:26 And I don’t really see any of that in the current government
1:05:26 in the UK.
1:05:28 And I think he’s right to go after them and say,
1:05:30 you are destroying your country’s economy.
1:05:32 You’re destroying its culture.
1:05:35 You’re destroying its sense of cohesiveness
1:05:37 by allowing illegal immigration.
1:05:40 You are destroying that sense of optimism and vision.
1:05:43 And you’re not saying to people, let’s build something better.
1:05:45 You’re saying, let’s stay small.
1:05:46 Let’s play small.
1:05:48 Let’s not rise above our station.
1:05:51 And I think we need people like that, imperfect as they
1:05:53 may be in all sorts of different ways,
1:05:56 to drive our civilization forward.
1:05:59 To say to us, there is an inspiring vision
1:06:02 to which we’re all moving as opposed to just sitting there
1:06:04 and waiting to die, which is what we’ve
1:06:06 been doing for far too long.
1:06:10 Yeah, I think Elon is taking his word.
1:06:12 He said a year ago that he was going to absolutely dismantle
1:06:14 the both mind virus globally.
1:06:18 And he was going to ensure meritocracy and free speech.
1:06:20 And when he sets his mind on something,
1:06:22 he has the ability to stay focused on it
1:06:26 for a very long time to a degree most people can’t fathom.
1:06:29 And he’s absolutely willing to endure pain.
1:06:30 He loves a fight.
1:06:33 He obviously has the kind of mind that can’t relax
1:06:38 unless he’s grinding up against some gear as well.
1:06:41 Like the way he works needs stress in his life.
1:06:42 He needs a big enemy.
1:06:45 He needs a big fight to engage with.
1:06:47 And I think Keir Starmer just ticked all of his boxes
1:06:49 as someone to go up against.
1:06:53 I think what’s interesting is we talk about these big tech.
1:06:54 I love that Scott has previously talked
1:06:55 about breaking up big tech.
1:06:58 And I think there’s potential for that in the next four years.
1:07:03 All of these guys like Trump and JD Vance and all of them
1:07:07 have locked horns with big tech.
1:07:10 And this is their chance to get revenge on big tech
1:07:11 in the next four years.
1:07:13 They could do a little–
1:07:17 you might see Google have to spin off YouTube.
1:07:19 Or you might see AWS have to come away from Amazon
1:07:20 or something like that.
1:07:21 Who knows?
1:07:25 But it’s interesting that a lot of these big tech guys,
1:07:28 they’re probably cosying up to Trump
1:07:31 because that could be on the cards as well.
1:07:33 There’s been a lot of them–
1:07:35 Trump butt kissing over the last couple of weeks.
1:07:38 I think Trump’s almost bragged about the fact
1:07:41 that everybody’s flown down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss his butt
1:07:42 and to cozy up with him.
1:07:44 And there’s now a headline saying
1:07:46 that there’s this tech oligarchy forming in the United
1:07:50 States where Bezos and Elon and Zuck are all now friends
1:07:53 and they’re stood behind Trump as this unifying force.
1:07:54 Just to touch on a few points of that,
1:07:56 but also on Constantine’s message
1:07:59 that Elon is doing this for the betterment of humanity,
1:08:02 to further humanity, his involvement with the UK,
1:08:04 but his broader involvement in politics now.
1:08:07 Scott, does that square with how you think about Elon?
1:08:10 And I am quite curious to ask you
1:08:12 why you made the decision to leave X
1:08:15 and to go to Blue Sky and Threads and things like that.
1:08:17 Yeah, I can’t speculate on what motivates Elon Musk.
1:08:19 I quite frankly just don’t get the guy.
1:08:22 And also, I don’t have the domain expertise
1:08:24 to comment on the rape gangs.
1:08:26 It’s such a serious upsetting issue.
1:08:31 I don’t know it well enough to speak intelligently to it.
1:08:37 Just a topic of censorship, though, as it relates to meta.
1:08:39 A hallmark of a free society and a democracy,
1:08:41 is it pretty much anyone can say pretty much anything
1:08:42 about pretty much anybody?
1:08:44 I believe that.
1:08:49 The question is, do machines and bots have free speech rights?
1:08:51 Because if I say something–
1:08:55 I believe– I may be paranoid, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
1:08:58 I believe VCs, whose portfolio companies I’ve
1:09:01 said have overvalued, have enlisted thousands of bots
1:09:04 to basically just shitpost me over and over on X
1:09:06 to diminish my credibility.
1:09:08 I think because I’ve been critical of Putin,
1:09:10 that the GRU has hired troll farms
1:09:11 to create lists of thousands of people
1:09:15 to weaponize bots to say disparaging things about them.
1:09:17 Do those bots have free speech rights?
1:09:23 In addition, when Fox News distributes information
1:09:26 to its anchors saying Dominion voting machines were
1:09:28 weaponized by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela,
1:09:31 despite the fact they knew that was not true,
1:09:34 but they tell their broadcasters to do it anyways.
1:09:37 And then Dominion says, this hurt our business,
1:09:38 and you knew it was false, and you
1:09:41 decided to communicate it anyways.
1:09:43 Their courts find them liable.
1:09:46 They have to pay three quarters of a billion dollars.
1:09:48 What happened at Fox News was a dumpster fire
1:09:52 compared to the nuclear mushroom cloud on Meta.
1:09:55 So a lot of what we’re talking about here,
1:09:59 if you want to say that mRNA vaccines alter your DNA,
1:10:01 I think you should have the right to say that.
1:10:03 The dissenter’s voice is important,
1:10:04 because occasionally the conspiracy theorist
1:10:06 ends up being correct.
1:10:09 The question is, when you have a business model that
1:10:12 elevates the most incendiary, ugly content
1:10:15 beyond its organic reach, should you then
1:10:18 be exonerated from all liability and slander
1:10:21 that traditional media companies are liable to?
1:10:26 If we were to say the deal on Musk is a pedophile
1:10:30 and start stating facts and evidence of it,
1:10:32 and he could show that it’s hurt his ability
1:10:36 to raise money for Tesla, and he filed legal action
1:10:38 against this podcast, I think we
1:10:40 would be in a world of hurt.
1:10:44 And that legal liability is warranted.
1:10:46 But the most powerful media companies in the world
1:10:48 have Section 230 protection.
1:10:52 So they have a business model where conspiracy theory
1:10:55 or novel content, which is Latin for bullshit and lies,
1:10:57 and the more angry it is, it gets
1:11:00 elevated beyond its organic reach.
1:11:03 So while I’m kind of down with the notion
1:11:05 that we should have free speech, and anybody
1:11:08 should be able to say pretty much whatever they want,
1:11:11 there’s something wrong when we have algorithms that
1:11:14 have a profit incentive around rage, conspiracy theory,
1:11:17 and lies, and two-thirds of Republicans
1:11:20 believe that the election was stolen.
1:11:25 And when one in five Americans think that 9/11 was an inside
1:11:27 job, I mean, we are–
1:11:28 Let’s be honest.
1:11:30 They thought that before the internet.
1:11:33 I remember watching all the 9/11 Truth of Movies
1:11:33 and all of that.
1:11:35 But your point overall is right.
1:11:36 I totally agree.
1:11:38 And by the way, Elon agrees with you.
1:11:41 When he bought X, he talked about the bot problem.
1:11:44 He talked about the amplification of our rage.
1:11:47 He hasn’t done as much as I hoped he would have done so far,
1:11:49 but I hope that they do address that.
1:11:53 Because that isn’t an Elon or an X problem.
1:11:56 It’s a technology problem of the modern world.
1:11:59 The reality is that the more we live our lives online,
1:12:02 the more you’re going to have the problem of the ability
1:12:05 of foreign governments, of individual people
1:12:09 to create fake accounts, bot farms, et cetera,
1:12:12 to influence the way we look at all of these things.
1:12:16 And we are going to have to come to terms with that reality.
1:12:18 Because it’s a technological issue
1:12:20 that we’re going to have to solve for.
1:12:21 And we haven’t yet.
1:12:23 It’s also very easy for people to get caught
1:12:26 in their own bubbles as well, which is a new phenomenon.
1:12:28 There was a time where if you believed crazy things,
1:12:31 you still had to sit next to someone else in church
1:12:34 and talk to them about their life and what they believe.
1:12:36 And you encountered dissenting voices.
1:12:39 You encountered sane, rational people
1:12:41 who had very different views to you
1:12:43 that you had to be friends with long-term.
1:12:45 Whereas where we are right now
1:12:47 is if you’ve got some sort of a crazy view,
1:12:49 you can find yourself only talking to people
1:12:53 who share those views and only sharing content
1:12:55 that reinforces those views until such time
1:12:58 that you become extremely radicalized.
1:13:00 – I think that’s such an important point
1:13:01 because I think it’s a real shame
1:13:04 that AILLMs aren’t crawling the real world.
1:13:07 I was at Granger’s yesterday, someone comes up to me,
1:13:10 love your content, let’s take a picture.
1:13:11 They’re so nice.
1:13:12 Another person comes up to me and said,
1:13:13 “I disagree with your view on this,
1:13:15 but we have a civil conversation.”
1:13:16 And then I come home to 40 bots
1:13:19 telling me I’m professor genocide.
1:13:22 I mean, people in the real world, generally speaking,
1:13:23 I don’t know if it’s because of the threat
1:13:25 of physical violence or they want to have sex with you
1:13:28 or maybe they think some point you’ll hire their kid
1:13:30 or generally just a comity of man,
1:13:35 but people in real life I find are just lovely and wonderful.
1:13:38 And it’s a shame that these AILLMs aren’t crawling this
1:13:41 because the traif and some of the vile shit
1:13:42 they’re crawling online,
1:13:45 which I don’t even think reflects our species.
1:13:48 I think it reflects technology that has a profit motive
1:13:52 around promoting the most incendiary, hateful content.
1:13:55 So there’s got to be some sort of medium speed here.
1:13:57 And also I got a fax, Steve,
1:14:00 because you don’t like Chick-fil-A, don’t eat a Chick-fil-A.
1:14:03 I, if Musk wants to pay $44 billion
1:14:06 and turning into a Nazi porn bar, that’s his right.
1:14:07 I don’t think there’s, I don’t think it’s illegal.
1:14:09 I don’t think the government should step in,
1:14:12 but I don’t have to pay in his fence
1:14:15 and I can go to another platform.
1:14:16 That’s my right too.
1:14:18 And everyone says, oh, you’re against free speech.
1:14:20 I’m like, no, I’m not, I’m against being on a platform
1:14:21 that makes me feel bad.
1:14:26 So he has the right and all this notion around meta,
1:14:28 free speech, it’s a little different
1:14:30 because they control so much of the media,
1:14:32 but these are media companies
1:14:35 and they should be liable for slander or defamation,
1:14:38 the same way traditional media companies are involved.
1:14:40 I think we could solve a lot of this problem
1:14:41 by just removing 230 protections
1:14:44 for algorithmically elevated content.
1:14:48 If you decide to elevate content
1:14:50 beyond its organic reach,
1:14:52 then you are making an editorial decision
1:14:54 and you should be liable
1:14:57 if that in fact is slanderous or defamatory.
1:14:58 – I think that’s really fascinating
1:15:00 as a way of handling it.
1:15:03 And also we’re living in a world where as of this year,
1:15:06 some of the most phenomenal content you will read
1:15:08 will be algorithmically generated
1:15:10 and some of the most compelling content.
1:15:12 So this idea that Scott’s talking about
1:15:14 should bots have free speech,
1:15:19 it sounds like a kind of intellectual kind of pseudo
1:15:20 intellectual topic,
1:15:22 but it’s absolutely a very practical topic
1:15:26 in the sense that bots now can generate conversations
1:15:29 very easily and some of the,
1:15:32 you could spend all day talking to a bot and not know.
1:15:34 – It’s funny, this subject has come up
1:15:36 because in the last week,
1:15:38 I’ve had a flurry of messages on WhatsApp from friends,
1:15:39 actually I had two tweets yesterday,
1:15:41 which you could probably see if you just searched my name,
1:15:43 because on X at the moment,
1:15:46 there’s multiple ads running that are fake articles
1:15:49 with fake BBC headlines with my face in.
1:15:50 So it says things like,
1:15:52 “The Bank of England is suing Steve Bartlett.”
1:15:56 And this is running as a sponsored ad on X.
1:15:57 And people are tweeting me these things.
1:15:59 My friend says every time he refreshes the feed,
1:16:03 he sees a new sponsored ad of a fake article of me.
1:16:04 And sometimes it’s like,
1:16:06 can’t believe this happened to Steve
1:16:07 and it’s a BBC article.
1:16:09 You click on it, you get scammed.
1:16:11 I think it’s a crypto scam, I don’t wanna click.
1:16:13 I’ll send the link to you guys so you can click on it for me.
1:16:15 But I just, it really has,
1:16:17 ’cause that is a bot, there’s multiple of them,
1:16:19 multiple accounts that have been spun up,
1:16:20 they’re all verified accounts,
1:16:24 and it’s AI generated imagery with a paid ad behind it.
1:16:25 That’s the bit that really gets me,
1:16:27 I get people can post shit,
1:16:32 but sponsoring it is a new level of defamation.
1:16:37 One of the big macro things I’ve been thinking a lot about
1:16:37 that I haven’t shared yet,
1:16:41 is just the amount of social networks that have emerged.
1:16:42 In the last 10 years,
1:16:45 there’s been a 50% increase so far
1:16:46 in new social networks that have emerged.
1:16:48 And we’re seeing this splintering now of the rumbles,
1:16:50 the blue skies, the threads.
1:16:52 And it almost seems, talking about echo chambers,
1:16:54 that social networks are becoming
1:16:56 sort of political environments.
1:16:57 And you’re choosing your social network now
1:16:59 based on your politics.
1:17:03 This doesn’t seem like a net positive thing for society.
1:17:08 – Nope, no, I think we’re living through an era
1:17:10 of the fragmentation of our reality.
1:17:14 And it comes, Scott’s point about people behaving better
1:17:15 in person is true.
1:17:19 Although I would say there is the windscreen effect
1:17:20 or the windshield effect,
1:17:22 which is if you, someone cuts you up in traffic
1:17:25 and you feel that there’s some kind of physical separation
1:17:26 between the two of you,
1:17:29 most people behave slightly differently in that context
1:17:31 than they would if they were sitting next to somebody
1:17:32 face to face in a bar.
1:17:36 So there’s something about being physically present
1:17:38 with other people that changes it,
1:17:40 which is one of the reasons,
1:17:42 I know you have pretty much all your interviews
1:17:44 face to face and we do as well,
1:17:46 because generally speaking,
1:17:49 it’s very difficult to connect authentically with people.
1:17:50 Obviously we’ve managed to do it
1:17:52 in the course of this conversation,
1:17:53 but beyond that, it’s difficult.
1:17:57 And so we’re gonna have to work on that.
1:17:59 But what the point I’m trying to make is
1:18:01 this isn’t a political issue.
1:18:03 It’s not an ex issue.
1:18:05 It’s not an Elon Musk issue.
1:18:06 It’s a technological issue.
1:18:09 We’re living through probably already have lived
1:18:12 through most of the digital revolution.
1:18:14 And I used to, as a kid,
1:18:16 love Isaac Asimov science fiction books.
1:18:19 And one of the reasons I did enjoy reading them so much
1:18:22 is it was a world in which there was an exploration
1:18:26 of what does the creation of robots,
1:18:28 which is what we’re living through,
1:18:31 mean for morality?
1:18:33 What does it mean for philosophy?
1:18:34 What does it mean for humanity?
1:18:36 What does it mean for…
1:18:38 How do we build rules in a world
1:18:40 in which you have these machines
1:18:42 that take every rule literally
1:18:46 and suddenly you find the desire to protect humanity
1:18:48 results in the end of humanity?
1:18:50 How do you navigate all of this?
1:18:52 And that is what we’re living through.
1:18:54 We are also living through a period
1:18:56 when our realities are being fragmented.
1:19:01 And so we believe a very small set of things
1:19:05 that other people like us somewhere
1:19:06 in a very different part of the world
1:19:09 as Daniel was saying earlier, also believe.
1:19:10 And we now live in this,
1:19:15 we don’t live in England or in Scotland or in America.
1:19:18 We live almost like in a world of people
1:19:21 who think like us in the West.
1:19:25 And then other people live right next door to us
1:19:26 who live in a whole different world
1:19:30 because they consume a whole different set of information.
1:19:32 That is the reality.
1:19:34 We can complain about it.
1:19:35 That is not going to change.
1:19:40 And the only thing I really wanna raise
1:19:44 where I disagree with Scott about this idea
1:19:46 that Facebook and X, et cetera,
1:19:51 are they are publishers and not platforms.
1:19:53 I don’t think you can apply
1:19:56 the same media organization section to them.
1:19:59 It just, I don’t think it’s appropriate.
1:20:02 They are platforms in which people publish information.
1:20:05 The artificial amplification is a fair point.
1:20:06 We need to deal with that.
1:20:08 We need to deal with the bot problem.
1:20:09 That’s a very difficult one
1:20:13 because one of the challenges is
1:20:14 the only way to really deal
1:20:16 that I can see with the bot problem
1:20:19 is to get people to verify their identity online.
1:20:23 That obviously has a lot of questions around that
1:20:25 because once you start forcing people
1:20:29 to give their identity over to some anonymous blob online,
1:20:31 who’s collecting that data?
1:20:33 What are they doing with it?
1:20:35 And if you don’t like Elon Musk
1:20:38 or if you don’t like the previous Twitter regime
1:20:40 as I didn’t, then the question for you is,
1:20:44 well, let’s say right now I look at Twitter
1:20:46 and I’m like, I’m happy to verify my identity.
1:20:48 I’m happy to confirm who I am.
1:20:53 Well, what if George Soros buys X of Elon at some point?
1:20:56 Are you still happy that that information is being held?
1:20:58 Are you still happy that the anonymous account
1:21:00 you’ve now made confirmed?
1:21:03 What happens to the anonymous activist speaking
1:21:06 about the Ayatollah’s regime in Iran?
1:21:09 What happens to them when they’ve had to verify their identity
1:21:11 and the wrong person buys our platform
1:21:12 or someone hacks it, et cetera?
1:21:16 So it’s a conversation that’s not,
1:21:18 if there were easier solutions on these issues,
1:21:20 they would have been solved by now.
1:21:23 This is a very difficult thing for humanity to navigate
1:21:25 and we’re gonna have to find a way to do it
1:21:27 and incrementally so.
1:21:28 – I just want to respond to that.
1:21:32 I think you’re guilty of the same illusion of complexity
1:21:34 that protects these companies from acting like actors
1:21:35 such that they can do anything
1:21:37 regardless of the damage to the Commonwealth
1:21:39 to add shareholder value.
1:21:43 If you implemented, first off,
1:21:45 this notion that you don’t want to give up your identity,
1:21:48 trust me, they know everything about you, Constantine, already.
1:21:50 And I could go get a ton of information on you
1:21:54 from the dark web fairly easily with a credit card.
1:21:58 So the notion that somehow we shouldn’t have some sort of,
1:22:02 you could have, we need age verification for social media.
1:22:04 There’s no reason anyone of age of 16
1:22:06 should be on a social media platform.
1:22:10 And regarding the civil rights activists
1:22:12 or the women’s right activists in needs and anonymity,
1:22:14 you could create a number of accounts
1:22:18 and use blockchain or some sort of third party anonymous
1:22:19 to have a certain number of accounts that says,
1:22:22 look, if you want an anonymous parity account,
1:22:24 you want to make fun of people, fine.
1:22:27 If you want an account talking about issues
1:22:30 that you feel are sensitive from other markets, fine.
1:22:33 We could absolutely figure that out and then figure out,
1:22:36 okay, this account is doing nothing.
1:22:39 It has no base, it has no soul, it has no values.
1:22:40 It has 72 followers.
1:22:43 All it’s doing is trying to start fights online.
1:22:45 All it’s doing is trying to make people feel shitty
1:22:48 about Britain or shitty about America.
1:22:51 And the reality is these companies use that illusion
1:22:54 of complexity such that they can have more bots
1:22:56 creating more fake clicks, more Nissan ads
1:22:58 and more shareholder value.
1:23:00 I think there’s a middle ground here.
1:23:02 I think we could figure this out.
1:23:03 – I agree, well, that’s what I’m saying.
1:23:06 I think some of the ideas that you’re putting forward
1:23:08 are right or wrong, I don’t know.
1:23:10 But these are the conversations we should be having.
1:23:11 How do we make sure?
1:23:14 I mean, my son is two and a half years old
1:23:18 and my wife has become a complete screen Nazi,
1:23:21 so he’s probably not gonna get a phone until he’s about 40.
1:23:24 But I think your point about people
1:23:26 shouldn’t be on social media yet.
1:23:31 People shouldn’t be on social media until they’re 16.
1:23:32 Absolutely correct.
1:23:35 What that’s doing to the minds of, well, or everybody,
1:23:37 but particularly young people who are really susceptible
1:23:39 to it, you’re completely right.
1:23:42 The verification dimension is difficult, as I say.
1:23:46 We’re gonna have to hash this all out as humanity.
1:23:47 We’re just gonna have to work this all out.
1:23:50 How do we live in this new world that we now live in?
1:23:51 It’s gonna take some time.
1:23:54 And I hope it’s not as bad as the last time
1:23:57 the information space was revolutionized,
1:23:58 which was the printing press.
1:24:01 That caused about two centuries of religious war.
1:24:03 Hopefully we can avoid that.
1:24:07 And part of the way to do that is to create environments
1:24:08 which are uncensored,
1:24:10 where people can express different ideas.
1:24:12 We can have these battles
1:24:15 and eventually come to some sort of mutual understanding.
1:24:16 I hope that happens.
1:24:18 – What I wanted to ask you all
1:24:21 to really close out this conversation was
1:24:24 these conversations tend to be a bit of a reflection
1:24:25 of what’s in the new cycle.
1:24:27 And what’s in the new cycle tends to be a reflection
1:24:28 of what people are clicking.
1:24:30 And a lot of that’s driven by fear
1:24:31 and the sort of narrative of the time,
1:24:33 whether it’s immigration or the Trump inauguration.
1:24:37 But what is the big important idea
1:24:38 that we’re not talking about?
1:24:40 What’s the most important thing
1:24:41 that we should be talking about
1:24:43 that isn’t getting enough attention right now
1:24:46 as it relates to the future of the West?
1:24:48 And that’s a big broad question.
1:24:49 I’ll start with you, Daniel.
1:24:52 – For me, it’s the schooling system.
1:24:54 I think the schooling system is not preparing people
1:24:58 for a world that exists and that we’re teaching.
1:25:01 We haven’t grasped the fact that AI is going to be
1:25:04 the biggest, most disruptive technology
1:25:05 in the lives of our children
1:25:07 and that the jobs that we think
1:25:10 they might be able to go into probably won’t exist.
1:25:15 We need to have a radical look at this idea
1:25:19 that children should go to school with the same age groups
1:25:22 or study a certain set of topics
1:25:24 or that it should be topic-based at all.
1:25:29 We need to explore, are there better models
1:25:30 for the schooling system
1:25:32 that prepare people for the world
1:25:34 that we’re going to be in?
1:25:37 Our current schooling system goes back to the early 1800s.
1:25:39 It was essentially based on a military schooling system
1:25:43 in Prussia and that’s kind of where it evolved from.
1:25:46 I think what we need to do is think about
1:25:49 what are the skills that our kids are gonna need?
1:25:52 – I see two and I can only,
1:25:55 I don’t feel like I can wrap my arms around UK’s issues,
1:25:57 but in terms of the US political extremism,
1:26:01 I would put it number two at negative 40 Celsius
1:26:04 and Fahrenheit meet and because of our electoral system
1:26:05 and Citizens United,
1:26:07 people from the far left who are crazy
1:26:10 and people from the far right who are crazy
1:26:11 are just overrepresented
1:26:13 and they come together to meet on reckless spending,
1:26:15 deficit spending, they come together
1:26:17 to agree on antisemitism
1:26:18 and there’s just too many people
1:26:19 on the far left and the far right
1:26:21 and the people in the middle,
1:26:23 it’s minority role, they’re just not represented.
1:26:25 However, I think the biggest threat
1:26:26 that people aren’t talking about
1:26:29 and I’ve actually spent some time talking
1:26:30 with the administration around this
1:26:33 or the former administration, I should say,
1:26:37 is loneliness and that is you have the deepest pocketed,
1:26:40 most well-resourced companies and people in the world
1:26:42 trying to convince people, especially young men,
1:26:44 that they kind of have a reasonable facsimile of life
1:26:45 on a screen with an algorithm
1:26:47 and I think they literally go crazy.
1:26:49 I think they wake up and they’re obese and lonely
1:26:50 and have no skills.
1:26:53 We talked about this, I think young people,
1:26:55 I say this jokingly, but have seriously,
1:26:56 I think young people need to get out of the house,
1:26:58 more drink, more make a series of bad decisions
1:27:00 and might pay off.
1:27:02 I think we need, I think we need to,
1:27:04 I think we need more sex.
1:27:08 I think we need more people in third spaces,
1:27:11 I mean, more church, more religious, more institutions,
1:27:14 national service, we’re mammals
1:27:16 and I worry that we’re, one in seven men
1:27:17 doesn’t have a single friend.
1:27:20 One in four men can’t name a best friend.
1:27:23 So this loneliness epidemic where people get into a bubble
1:27:26 and start engaging into conspiracy theory,
1:27:29 not trusting each other, blaming women,
1:27:32 blaming the nation, self-harm.
1:27:35 I just, I worry about, you know what I say to young men,
1:27:37 I coach a lot of young men, romantic comedies
1:27:39 are two hours, not 15 minutes for a reason.
1:27:42 This shit is hard and it’s worth it.
1:27:45 But I worry that we’re raising, like I said,
1:27:47 this new species of asocial, asexual,
1:27:49 being called the young American male
1:27:53 that is obese, anxious and just a shitty citizen.
1:27:57 – Konstantin, the most important thing in 2025
1:27:59 that’s not getting enough attention.
1:28:02 – In the UK and in most of Europe,
1:28:04 it’s an issue that Daniel raised earlier,
1:28:07 which is in the UK, our energy prices are four times
1:28:09 what they are in the United States.
1:28:11 That is an ideological decision.
1:28:13 It’s done because we’re saving the planet,
1:28:15 that’s what we’re being told.
1:28:20 The reality is our contribution to global carbon emissions
1:28:24 is we’re responsible for 2% of global carbon emissions
1:28:25 in the world.
1:28:29 Making British pensioners freeze to death every winter
1:28:31 ’cause they can’t afford fuel bills
1:28:33 is not the solution to climate change.
1:28:35 And if you amplify that further,
1:28:39 driving businesses out of business,
1:28:41 making our economy uncompetitive,
1:28:44 making Britain unable to generate wealth for itself
1:28:47 and for its future is not the moral position.
1:28:51 Net zero, which is the impoverishment of our society
1:28:52 for ideological reasons,
1:28:54 has been positioned as the moral cause.
1:28:57 We’re saving the planet, we’re ending climate change.
1:28:59 We’re not doing any of that.
1:29:01 All we’re doing is virtue signaling
1:29:03 and making our fellow citizens suffer.
1:29:05 So what we should be talking about
1:29:08 is how do we make energy cheap again
1:29:11 so that we can have a prosperous economy?
1:29:12 And guess what?
1:29:13 When people are prosperous,
1:29:15 that’s when they actually start being responsible
1:29:19 about pollution, about throwing away things they don’t need.
1:29:21 And also when you have money,
1:29:24 that’s when you can invest money in scientific research
1:29:27 which allows you to find cleaner, better forms of energy.
1:29:29 That’s what we should be doing.
1:29:32 We should be making sure that we generate as much wealth
1:29:34 for our fellow citizens as possible
1:29:36 because a lot of people are struggling.
1:29:40 And I think it’s deeply, deeply immoral
1:29:44 to impoverish already poor pensioners in this country
1:29:46 and to prevent businesses from hiring people
1:29:48 and giving them jobs and opportunities,
1:29:51 including the young men that Scott is talking about
1:29:53 because we are saving the planet
1:29:55 and we’re trying to keep little Greta happy.
1:29:56 We’re not doing any of that.
1:29:58 We’re not successful in that.
1:29:59 We should stop pretending
1:30:02 and we should do what Donald Trump said he plans to do
1:30:04 which is drill, baby, drill.
1:30:06 We should be exploring and exploiting
1:30:09 all the energy reserves we have in this country
1:30:12 in order to create clean energy
1:30:14 and better forms of energy for the future
1:30:18 as well as to improve the wellbeing of our fellow citizens.
1:30:19 That’s what we should be talking about
1:30:21 a hell of a lot more than we are.
1:30:22 – You need cheap energy, you’re right.
1:30:24 It’s what I would argue,
1:30:28 I think it’s gonna be liquid natural gas and nuclear.
1:30:29 We haven’t talked about AI.
1:30:32 AI requires 10 times the energy at the AI query
1:30:35 as a Google query, the choke point is energy.
1:30:36 I would argue in the US,
1:30:38 I think we’d benefit more from,
1:30:40 as opposed to drill, baby, drill, build, baby, build.
1:30:42 I think young people have seen housing prices
1:30:44 just go crazy.
1:30:45 There’s a psychological benefit
1:30:47 to household formation, forced savings.
1:30:51 So I don’t, I’m gonna take care of your word
1:30:52 because you’re a very smart guy
1:30:55 that Britain has implemented a series of policies.
1:30:59 That energy stat you wrote, that was incredible.
1:31:01 But in the US, like I said,
1:31:04 we’re, I don’t wanna say we’re drowning in oil.
1:31:07 We’ve, there were more drilling permits
1:31:11 issued under Biden than the previous Trump admitted.
1:31:15 I mean, just to call Biden anti-energy
1:31:17 or that somehow we’re have this,
1:31:19 this massively over-inflated energy prices.
1:31:22 It’s just not, that hasn’t happened in the US.
1:31:26 I would like, we need, we need more homes in the US.
1:31:28 – And in the UK too, and Stephen,
1:31:29 let me just before you wrap up,
1:31:32 fill the stats out a little bit more.
1:31:34 Obviously everyone understands that geopolitically
1:31:36 we’re in a pretty tense time
1:31:38 and there’s conflicts happening.
1:31:40 Britain is in a position now
1:31:41 where we would struggle.
1:31:43 You gotta remember British history.
1:31:46 Britain is, Britannia rules the waves, right?
1:31:49 The way that Britain has become a great nation
1:31:52 throughout history is by having a powerfully,
1:31:54 we would struggle to build warships now
1:31:56 ’cause we’ve closed down all our steelworks
1:31:58 ’cause we’re green, right?
1:32:00 It’s insanity.
1:32:05 And on every other issue to do with energy and industry,
1:32:07 we have basically deliberately moved
1:32:10 our production facilities to other countries.
1:32:12 Okay, great idea, globalization,
1:32:14 make things cheaper, ship things, wonderful.
1:32:16 Okay, what happened during COVID?
1:32:20 What happened when suddenly the entire chains of production
1:32:23 weren’t quite operating the way that they normally do?
1:32:25 Oh, China’s suddenly hoarding all the masks.
1:32:27 Interesting, so what do you think is gonna happen
1:32:28 when there’s a war?
1:32:30 Or they’re just gonna keep shipping the steel to us
1:32:31 to make the battleships and the warplanes
1:32:33 that we need to fight them?
1:32:34 That’s what you think is gonna happen?
1:32:37 This whole thing, this whole agenda
1:32:39 is ideological insanity.
1:32:41 And what Ed Miliband is about to do to this country
1:32:43 when it comes to this issue,
1:32:45 needs to talk about way more.
1:32:47 And it is about economic prosperity.
1:32:49 It is about housing because one of the reasons
1:32:52 we don’t build as much housing as we need to,
1:32:55 is again, building housing produces emissions.
1:32:58 And we don’t wanna be not green,
1:33:00 so that’s why people in their 30s and 40s
1:33:03 are now living in flat shares for four people, right?
1:33:06 We have got to let go of this obsession with net zero.
1:33:08 We have got to build, we have got to drill,
1:33:10 we have got to produce energy,
1:33:12 and we have got to stop thinking
1:33:14 that the moral thing to do
1:33:17 is to make our poor citizens suffer
1:33:21 in order that we feel good about saving the planet,
1:33:24 which we’re not even remotely saving by doing this.
1:33:26 – Guys, thank you so much for all of your perspective.
1:33:28 One of the things I realized as you guys were talking is
1:33:32 that you’re all fathers, and you’re all fathers of boys,
1:33:34 although you’re fathers of boys at different ages.
1:33:37 So I wanted to just give you all 30 seconds if you could,
1:33:39 and this is maybe me asking for myself for this advice,
1:33:41 but based on everything that’s happening in the world,
1:33:44 which can feel incredibly confusing,
1:33:45 especially to young people,
1:33:47 where we’re getting a lot of our information
1:33:48 from different echo chambers,
1:33:51 what is the advice that you would all give
1:33:56 to your young boys that would best prepare them
1:33:58 for the future in the next couple of years,
1:34:00 starting with you, Dan.
1:34:02 – Yeah, so I’ve got a six-year-old daughter,
1:34:05 a seven-year-old son, and a 10-year-old son.
1:34:07 It’s an incredibly confusing time
1:34:11 because preparing them for a world that’s fast-changing
1:34:12 is difficult.
1:34:16 We’re taking the approach of a lot of general knowledge
1:34:19 across a lot of things so that you can use AI
1:34:22 to run deep in different topics.
1:34:23 We’re encouraging the kids to interact
1:34:26 with supervised AI conversations
1:34:29 and letting them know that that technology is available.
1:34:33 We’re also just focusing on some manual skills,
1:34:37 like how to fix a boiler and how to saw through some wood
1:34:40 and those kind of things.
1:34:45 And also, we’re doing things like acting classes,
1:34:48 being up on a stage and performing.
1:34:50 So all of those kind of typical things,
1:34:55 but to be honest, it is a point of anxiety in my life
1:34:59 just thinking about what the world looks like
1:35:03 for 10 or 15 years from now,
1:35:04 that they’re gonna be going into.
1:35:06 So if you get clear answers on this,
1:35:08 I’m really open to learning.
1:35:11 – For me, my son’s two and a half,
1:35:13 so it’s a little bit early for this pep talk,
1:35:17 but my message to him when he’s old enough to hear it
1:35:19 is gonna be this.
1:35:22 Your grandfather, your great-grandfather,
1:35:24 my grandfather was taken as a slave laborer
1:35:27 from Soviet Ukraine to Nazi Germany.
1:35:30 Your great-grandfather was born,
1:35:34 your great-grandmother rather was born in the Soviet Gulag.
1:35:37 Your great-grandmother lived through the German occupation
1:35:39 and is now living through Vladimir Putin’s invasion
1:35:40 of Ukraine.
1:35:43 You are not living in the worst time ever.
1:35:45 You’re surrounded by pussies.
1:35:48 If you are a man and if you do your job
1:35:50 and if you learn the skills that you need to do
1:35:52 and if you pursue the things that you want to do
1:35:54 with your life to the best of your ability,
1:35:56 if you believe in yourself,
1:35:58 if you believe that you’re talented,
1:36:01 if you actually achieve the things that you set your mind to,
1:36:04 there’s never been a better time in the history of humanity
1:36:05 than now.
1:36:07 You’re surrounded mostly by people
1:36:08 who feel sorry for themselves.
1:36:11 If you’re not one of them, you’re gonna clean up.
1:36:14 Young women are looking for a young man like you
1:36:16 who’s actually gonna stand up for himself,
1:36:19 who’s actually gonna go out there and achieve and be confident.
1:36:21 Be that and you’re gonna clean up
1:36:24 when it comes to finding the right partner for yourself.
1:36:27 You’re gonna clean up when it comes to making money.
1:36:29 You’re gonna clean up when it comes to your career.
1:36:30 You’re gonna clean up on every front
1:36:32 ’cause the bar has never been lower.
1:36:34 The bar has never been lower.
1:36:38 So just go out and be a man and life is gonna be great.
1:36:40 – I’m older.
1:36:43 I have 14 and 17 year old boys and my observation is
1:36:44 you can’t tell them anything.
1:36:49 The best you can do is you can try and model behavior for them.
1:36:52 So I’m trying to be really kind to their mother.
1:36:55 I’m trying to show them that if you’re serious
1:36:58 about having a good family,
1:37:00 you gotta be a generous, loving partner.
1:37:03 I’m trying to be in great physical shape
1:37:05 and which is getting harder and harder.
1:37:08 I’m trying to be aggressive around them
1:37:12 in terms of business and trying to be kind.
1:37:15 And what I do, I do talk to them
1:37:17 about the concept of surplus value.
1:37:19 I’m like, you’re takers right now.
1:37:21 The UK school system, which is amazing,
1:37:22 is investing a lot in you
1:37:24 and you’re giving almost nothing back.
1:37:26 I mean, your mother loving you a lot more
1:37:28 than you’re loving us.
1:37:30 You’re just taking resources everywhere.
1:37:32 You’re a net negative.
1:37:35 And your crossing of manhood is in sex
1:37:37 or some religious ceremony.
1:37:39 Your crossing of manhood is when you are start
1:37:40 creating surplus value.
1:37:44 You’re loving more people than you’re absorbing.
1:37:47 You’re listening to more complaints than you are complaining.
1:37:50 You’re creating more revenue than you’re absorbing.
1:37:52 That’s the notion at surplus value.
1:37:55 And I have this trick called what a man does.
1:37:57 And I’ve been doing this when they’re kids
1:37:59 and my guests show up, a man goes and gets their luggage
1:38:01 and puts it in their room.
1:38:03 A man’s constantly scanning the table
1:38:05 for empty water glasses.
1:38:08 And I mean, one of the proudest moments I ever had
1:38:12 was when my six year old boy who was all like 30 pounds
1:38:14 got up and went over to a gigantic pitcher of water
1:38:17 at this table and started trying to pour other people’s water
1:38:20 and everyone had no idea what was going on here.
1:38:23 I do these things called what a man does.
1:38:28 A man goes up to, a man asks a woman out for coffee.
1:38:30 A man pays for women.
1:38:32 I’m a sexist that way.
1:38:35 I still have told my men, my son gave me this wrap on,
1:38:37 “Dad, you’re so establishment.”
1:38:39 I’m like, “Do you ever want to have sex?”
1:38:41 I’m like, “Then you need to pay.”
1:38:42 (laughing)
1:38:44 I mean, that’s the bottom line.
1:38:47 Anyways, but what I would say is I’m trying to model,
1:38:52 I’m trying to model good behavior or be a good role model,
1:38:56 but I agree with Constantine and Daniel.
1:38:59 I think every day they have more potential
1:39:02 to lead the most amazing life in history.
1:39:03 I’m not a nihilist.
1:39:04 I’m not a catastrophist.
1:39:07 I think of big problems, but given the blessings
1:39:10 of the sons born to these men in future,
1:39:14 future sons of ELF Steven, Jesus, it’s good to be them.
1:39:15 They have no excuse.
1:39:18 They should rock on.
1:39:20 They should have a wonderful life.
1:39:22 – Constantine Scott, Daniel, thank you so much
1:39:25 for taking the time, short notice to talk
1:39:26 about all these subjects.
1:39:27 It’s an incredibly wide-ranging conversation
1:39:30 and you’ll bring such an interesting, hilarious,
1:39:31 nuanced perspective to these issues.
1:39:33 I’m glad that we can have these conversations
1:39:36 and disagree in a respectful way.
1:39:38 That hopefully clarifies a lot of the confusion
1:39:39 that I experienced and a lot of people
1:39:40 are experiencing at the moment.
1:39:42 So thank you to all of you.
1:39:43 I’m gonna link to all of your work on the screen.
1:39:45 I know, Scott, you’ve got a book coming on masculinity,
1:39:47 which we’re all very, very excited about.
1:39:49 We’ve been waiting, it’s long overdue, please hurry up.
1:39:50 Constantine, you’ve got an incredible podcast
1:39:52 with your trigonometry, which I’m gonna link on the screen.
1:39:55 And I suggest everybody goes and listens to
1:39:56 and subscribes to if they’re looking
1:39:57 for more of this stuff.
1:39:59 And Daniel, you’ve just been on my show already,
1:40:00 but your endless amount of books.
1:40:02 And I think the best place to get more from you
1:40:05 is your website, of course, the Daniel Priestley website,
1:40:06 where you can find all of your books
1:40:08 and all of your work and everything you’re doing there.
1:40:09 Thank you, everybody.
1:40:12 Really, really appreciative and incredibly grateful
1:40:14 for taking part in our first little experiment
1:40:16 of this kind, so, yeah.
1:40:17 Thank you.
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