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Speaker 2: In Ireland, we know a thing or two about doing

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things the right way, like the right way to do

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New Year's resolutions.

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Speaker 1: So I was looking at yoga, but then someone said

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about reformer plasses, and I was considering if maybe juicing

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is more me, you know, a little cool.

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Speaker 2: But not all of us are recycling the right way

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just yet. Putting cans and bottles in your mixed recycling

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bin isn't as good as returning when they're kept separate

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more it can be recycled again and again.

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Speaker 1: But then I thought, start small, So I'm returning.

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Speaker 2: This year's resolution return it right.

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Speaker 3: January Sky January Sale time.

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Speaker 2: What It's great.

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Speaker 3: Sky TV, Netflix and Sky Broadband YEP forty four year

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Speaker 1: Meaning a live man, I like it, Man letting, butterfly,

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flattening wave, big down in on the force, Man gonna

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cause a tree fall, letting five thousand mile away. Man,

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nobody seen, nobody.

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Speaker 3: That you know me?

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Speaker 4: No, man, don't like you.

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Speaker 5: Follow in the story and you get back like that.

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Speaker 4: That's the man.

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Speaker 6: Don't like you.

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Speaker 4: Down on PENO don't.

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Speaker 5: I know?

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Speaker 6: All right?

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Speaker 5: Kevin Deanna, Welcome back to Jay Burdon show. How you

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doing Man?

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Speaker 6: Good to be here? Good to be here?

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Speaker 5: Well, look you and I are going to break are

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at as of yet unbroken stream of a doomer real

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politique analysis to be giant nerds and talk about Warhammer

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forty K.

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Speaker 6: So if you could, there's nothing else, there's nothing else

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to talk about. I mean, this is this is a

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fundamental thing. Warhammer forty K is the Western mythos. People

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are like, oh, you know, the Golden legend, and you know,

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where does Western culture come out? No, it builds up

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to forty K. And as one person put it in

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our hearts, we all know it's real. And all we're

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doing at this point is just picking teams one hundred percent.

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Speaker 5: I mean, look like you can't be in these circles

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without you know, imbibing the memes for a little bit

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of context. Obviously I'm a good bit younger, and so

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so I got into this in kind of the twenty tents.

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I'm sure people have this similar memory of you know,

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going to middle school and there would be just sort

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of books that floated around, you know, and so you

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might read at the time, you know, someone's copy of

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The Hunger Games that's been through fourteen different people before

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you got it. And so I think it was like

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the third or fourth book in a series about the Ultramarines.

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So it made no sense to start in the middle.

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But I remember reading it as a kid and was

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just blown away, like I never read anything like this,

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this sort of dark, grim, doomed, technically sci fi world,

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and it really grabbed me. It got my attention, and

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so that was sort of my entryway to it, and

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I sort of you know, waxed and waned over the

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rest of my life and got really into it again.

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I'm in college, you know, sort of after and not

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to get too much into the nerd stuff, but there

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was a major shake up during that time, and so

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watching you know, this thing that I love it that

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I hadn't really impacted the way that I think change

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in a way and it's continued to this day. It

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was sort of an interesting moment where for many other people,

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you know, they were big into Star Wars, and when

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that went woke, it sort of affected them, didn't really

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bother me in the same way. But this is the

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one where you're like, oh no, that's close to my

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soul because as we'll get into the values of this setting,

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and that's really what it is, are deeply, deeply reactionary.

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It is a post liberal world in much the same

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way that Frank Herbert's done is so I'll kick it

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back to you, Kevin.

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Speaker 6: I think Margot did a thing on that too. I mean,

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what's interesting about Warhammer forty K for those people, those

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few who probably have no idea what in God's name

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we're talking about here? When the god and bird's name

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we're talking.

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Speaker 5: About those way it sets basically, Yes, it is two categories.

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Speaker 6: Like I still don't know where my kids came from.

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I don't know how any of this stuff worked.

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Speaker 5: Well, it's like that the you know, the concept right

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of like the born again Virgin and it's like, oh,

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you've made years ago and then you discovered wargaming and

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you're like, you know, there's something to be said for it.

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Speaker 6: There are only there are only two types of people.

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Because there is a war gaming store here where I live,

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and I went in there once and it was just

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like horrifying, you know, looking at the crowd. But then

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everybody else, I know, especially the people who are more

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into tabletop I mean they're all huge, I mean they

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all they all loved more than I do and everything else,

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And it seems to be in predominantly veterans, predominantly like

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people who are into stereotypically masculine things, and it really

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does seem to be, especially with tabletop gaming. It's only

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one of those two types. You're either just genetic debris

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on a level that it's just depressing to see, or

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you're almost a stereotype of really what a space marine is,

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almost like a caricature of like what it is to

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be a tough guy and everything else. And this is

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like your way of I don't know if it's like

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an escape from it or an indulgence in it or

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whatever else, but it's it's only those two things. And

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this is one of the things that we have to

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talk about when we talk about settings, when we talk

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about fandoms, even before we get into Warhammer forty k itself,

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because I feel like this is what happened to just

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about everything. If you referenced Star Wars earlier, Star Wars

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when I was young, because as you pointed out, I'm

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much older than you, Star Wars was a kind of

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thing that like normal people were into back then. There

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were those books Air to the Empire Timothy's On, which

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is where you got Admiral Thraun. You had all these

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people playing the video games and everything else. This is

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before the prequels and all the rest of it, and

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you had normal people into this stuff and playing war

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games and figuring out like how this universe worked, and

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like studying it and telling their own stories with it

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and everything else. And then this became a political battleground

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and there was almost no resistance to what happened because

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it was just so purely an ip And now Star

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Wars basically is just sort of a setting that's an

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excuse for left wing identity politics activists to shove in

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racial minorities, sexual minorities, whatever else. And like whatever story

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this originally was, whatever setting this originally was, it's just

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been completely subordinated to the political thing. With warrem or

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forty K it's very different because Star Wars, even if

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you look at the original three movies, it's basically boomer history, right,

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I mean, like War two in space, it's just World

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War two in space, and you know, we've got like

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a centralized empire and we're the rebels. And then even

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in the sequels, somehow the rebellion wins. But then when

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we come back and visit these things years later, somehow

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the rebellion is still the rebellion, and the first.

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Speaker 5: Right away, right to that point, there is a there

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is a reverse reading of the sequel trilogy right the

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most recent ones, which is actually very interesting on exactly

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that point of winning the war, doing the thing, as

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you know, millennials are one to say, and still being

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forced to cast yourself as a rebel. There's there's an

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interesting comparison to our own empire, right the American empire

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or the post war consensus, And that is a great

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essay that I should write and will never do it.

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So if you're listening, there's a free idea for you.

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But sorry, Kevin, I interrupted.

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Speaker 6: No, but that's core to the point. Actually, I think

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it was with the person who I think made this point,

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and this is a long time ago before the alt

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right was even a thing. Was Richard Spencer pointed that

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out where he said that the funny thing about these

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is somehow the rebels are still the rebels, and it's

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because fundamentally liberals are never comfortable with the idea of

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they are the ones wielding power. It's this forever rebellion

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against the man. They're never actually in charge. I mean,

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I'm sure like Tim Walls presiding over this empire of

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corruption that we're seeing developing in Minnesota. I'm sure he

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tells himself every night that he's fighting the establishment, he's

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standing up for the little guy, he's standing up against

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the billionaires. He can never actually have power, even like

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Gavin Newsom probably tells himself the same thing, or certainly

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the people who support him. What's interesting about Warhammer forty

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K is Warhammer forty k is decidedly not that if

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we imagine that that liberalism, the way people operate today

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is sort of this eternal rebellion against like nineteenth century

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European Christian aristocrats, under whose rule none of us have

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ever actually lived. Warhammer forty k is sort of a

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stereotypical version of it. It is the old world. It

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is in fact the British Empire, but it's in space.

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And what are the values of this empire? What are

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the values of this imperium? They are the values of hierarchy.

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There are the values of aristocracy. They are the values

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of militarism, the values of authority. The only reason you

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can't call the imperium of man fascist is because it's

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too complicated and disorganized to even be fascist. It's something

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closer to like space feudalism, and in a more chaotic

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way than even the Imperium of the Doune universe. And

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what's interesting about Warhammer forty K before we even get

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into what the core of the setting is. It's another

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one of these great examples where there's this whole debate

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about whether it's meant to be satirical or not. It's

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another one of these things where I guess, just like Doune,

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they clearly wrote with an element of satire, but the

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logic of the story inevitably takes you to a certain point.

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The whole point of Warhammer forty K, to get into

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the setting a little bit, is you have this guy,

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the Emperor, and he wanted to create this spacefaring empire

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of humanity that was united by secularism, atheism, science, essentially

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reddit in space. And what we found out is that

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that is not actually the true nature of reality, that

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in fact, there is a supernatural realm, it is altogether evil.

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This leads to this giant conflict which basically cripples both

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the Emperor and the empire that he led, and leads

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the Imperium, which is the Empire, to a ten thousand

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years of basically technological stagnation and bureaucracy and superstition. But

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what is interesting. So there's the satire like, oh, it

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used to be this thing and now you're living in

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the superstitious, backwards empire. There's a sovereign who's on a throne,

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he doesn't really do anything. Nobody even knows if he

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really talks or not. I mean, if you're a British leftist,

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you can see how clever this all is. But of

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course the logic of the story also leads you to

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other conclusions, Well, why if this empire is so backwards

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and stupid, why is it essentially ruled the galaxy for

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ten thousand years? Why do people keep fighting for it?

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Why are people keep being attracted to it? And the

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problem is that the logic of the story sort of

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ends up proving that, yeah, even this caricatured system that

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we've come up with actually makes sense, at least in

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the universe that we've set this thing in. And so

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then you have to deal with the question of, well,

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why is it that people think this is something to

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be attracted to? And then if you start writing books

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about it, you start writing military stories about heroes, whether

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it be space marines, who are these superhuman warriors, or

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whether it's just ordinary guys fighting terrifying aliens or demons

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or traders or whatever else. You have to explain, well,

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what is it that these people think that they're fighting for?

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And eventually you have to make them inspirational and inspirational

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and admirable, and eventually people start rooting for them non ironically.

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And this is sort of where Warhammer forty k ended

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up that I think it may have started out with

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a number of different motivations. Part of it probably was satire,

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part of it probably was just kind of lighthearted comedy,

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part of it probably was deadly serious, and part of

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it was just an excuse to have rules for a

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table talking. But what ended up happening is it became

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a greatly beloved setting precisely because it was maybe the

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only popular fandom where, let's call it, the old fashioned

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values were being whatever the original intent for all intents

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and purposes were being unironically put forward as and this

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is a good thing, and so people started getting attracted

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to it and adopting it. And I think what ended

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up happening was as it became more and more popular,

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and as more and more people started accessing it. The

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people who originally started the setting and the people who

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originally started the companies moved on in this new generation

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that's coming in realized that they have a problem, and

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that problem is that you cannot in a situation whereas

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Curtis Yarvin says, everything is a political background, you cannot

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even have a fictional setting be allowed to exist like this.

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It is subversive. It is a political threat in some ways.

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If we take the example of the society we have

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now as almost like a counter to the imperium the

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traditionalist empire Warhammer forty K Warhammer, the existence of the

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fictional Warhammer forty K universe is itself heresy to a

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liberal democracy.

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Speaker 4: I'm doctor Erwin Gill, consultant pediatrician a children's Health Ireland.

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In my line of work I look after children who

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suffered traumatic brain injuries. In the last year, I've seen

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more than twenty children who have sustained a serious brain

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injury after a full writing an escooter. Many parents don't

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know it is illegal for children under sixteen to write

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an ees scooter. The average day in hospital for these

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children was nineteen days. These are serious injuries and some

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with lifelong consequences. As someone who sees injured children on

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an all too regular basis, I'm asking you please do

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not allow any child under sixteen to write an e

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scooter a message from Children's Health Ireland on the Road

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Safety Authority.

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Speaker 6: Because if people start indulging in this, even as a fantasy,

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eventually they're going to start thinking some thoughts about, well,

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wait a minute, what's so great about the system we

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live under now? And that can't be tolerated. And so

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what we've seen over the last what maybe ten years

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is a very deliberate, specific effort to try to subvert it,

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to try to chase out existing fans and to try

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to import an entirely new fan base. And I think

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what people are not quite getting is they say, well,

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you know, won't go broke, but there's very little evidence

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that's actually true. I mean, all the people who got

293
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involved in breaking Star Wars and turning it into what

294
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it is today, they themselves got paid off pretty well.

295
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And sure Disney may have lost a lot of money,

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but Disney is still a big company. They can afford it.

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I think fundamentally what is taking place here is a

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cultural battle more than any particular business decision. And frankly,

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it's a battle that's actually kind of important in the

300
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cultural sphere because I can't think of another setting or

301
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another fantom that unironically puts forward hierarchical right wing values

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in the same way Warammer forty k does.

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Speaker 5: There are several things there. If we're talking about the

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kind of core illiberal conceits of the Warhammer universe, perhaps

305
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the central one is the existence of absolute evil. And

306
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this isn't the kind of mustache twirling, you know, rob

307
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a million dollars from the bank, but it is Hell

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is real. Hell is another dimension, and the things that

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people do in the material world echo into the ethereum,

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they echo into this sort of alternate dimension. And so

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private individual choices, you know, your sexual degeneracy, your gluttony,

312
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they can quite literally open a portal to Hell.

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Speaker 6: And so there's this.

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Speaker 5: Extreme violent moralism where heretics are burned, whole planets are

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genocided because the consequences are so high, And so you

316
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have a situation where the struggle is not for who

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rules the galaxy. The struggle is does your species exist?

318
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And unlike as we see in many other settings with aliens,

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or settings with other kind of factions. There is no

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accord to be made. The aliens want to eat you.

321
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They want to chop you up into a little bit,

322
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so they want to torture your soul for all eternity.

323
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There is no deal to be made here. It is

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a binary which will survive. And this is something that

325
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obviously liberals are very uncomfortable with the idea of a

326
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definite in group and out group struggle. It is completely

327
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and totally all consuming and all defining. And you mentioned

328
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again the sort of doomed nature of humanity in this

329
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setting where it's been this long, slow decline from their

330
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globe three days, and I realized this is there's signaling

331
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to be a change. I pretend that it doesn't exist,

332
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because that is the setting, right, The setting is, you know,

333
00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:13,279
humanity is dying. The phrase you've heard grim dark comes

334
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from you know that this sort of paragraph that to

335
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put at the beginning of almost everything involving Warhammer. In

336
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the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war,

337
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and there is only war because there are all of

338
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these different groups bent on one another's destruction, but behind

339
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all of them, bigger than all of them. Is this

340
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the seeping force of evil chaos again going back to

341
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the contrast between order, which is an unlimited good, and

342
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chaos were even a small amount, even one little compromise

343
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ultimately poisons you and damns you. And that sort of

344
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uncompromising system where you can justify genociding an entire planet

345
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to prevent the loss of trillions more, that's it's something

346
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that people are very uncomfortable with, and that's why I

347
00:18:02,799 --> 00:18:06,079
think you see that sort of reflexive pivot to oh

348
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it's satirical, Oh, it's all a joke. And sure like

349
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you can point to examples, you know, where they're poking

350
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fun at British politicians or certain elements of you know,

351
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nineteen eighties British culture, and that's certainly there. But as

352
00:18:18,839 --> 00:18:22,720
you've said, the logic internal to that universe leads you

353
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to a place where it is no, humans are good,

354
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Humans ought to exist, and given that premise, you can justify,

355
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and in this setting you do justify almost anything. For example,

356
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the Space Marines are traumatized child soldiers where the induction

357
00:18:40,039 --> 00:18:43,960
is like ninety eight percent fatal failure. Right, They're literally

358
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taking children, shoving them into a science experiment and hoping

359
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to out of every hundred survive let alone. You know,

360
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these sort of like nightmarish industrial planets, you know, so

361
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poisoned by industry that the you know, the water is

362
00:18:58,799 --> 00:19:03,319
toxic and people eat recycled corpses. It's it's grim, but

363
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given the stakes, given the survival of the species, that

364
00:19:08,799 --> 00:19:13,359
sort of action is justified. And again that sort of

365
00:19:13,519 --> 00:19:20,680
deflection to parody or that deflection to satire is there

366
00:19:20,759 --> 00:19:24,039
is a charitable way to make that argument, but when

367
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it is employed nine times out of ten, it is

368
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so I don't have to consider that this is justifiable.

369
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This is a part of the human experience, This kind

370
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of like galactic rosen Kreeg.

371
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Speaker 6: If you will, yeah, I mean the point about satire,

372
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I think the first inquisitor. So, for example, one of

373
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the great things, there's an inquisition, right, what is the

374
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ultimate thing that has power in the imperium in as

375
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far as anybody does other than the emperor himself, it's

376
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this thing called the inquisition. What does the inquisition do?

377
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The inquisition can blow up an entire planet, as you

378
00:19:56,480 --> 00:19:58,920
point out, because if it falls to chaos, that's actually

379
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worse than everybody done. And the words of one inquisitor

380
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in one of the games. Some may question my right

381
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to destroy a planet with ten billion souls, but those

382
00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:08,799
who truly understand, no, I have no right to let

383
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them live. And that's actually that's not like cartoonish evil.

384
00:20:11,960 --> 00:20:15,720
That's like a perfectly logical thing to say given the setting,

385
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like that is actually the correct thing to do. But

386
00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:20,039
then again, if you go back, if you look at

387
00:20:20,079 --> 00:20:22,440
who was the very first named inquisitor in the setting,

388
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he was literally named Obi Wan Clouseau, which tells you

389
00:20:26,240 --> 00:20:28,400
like the kind of influences that these guys had when

390
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they were making this game. But the problem is, once

391
00:20:31,240 --> 00:20:34,559
you have a universe like this, and once you start

392
00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:37,400
explaining the logic of it, even if you have a

393
00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:41,559
joke here and there, it takes on a certain internal consistency,

394
00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:47,160
and that internal consistency presents political problems for you later

395
00:20:47,519 --> 00:20:50,400
if you're trying to reconcile it with the all consuming

396
00:20:50,519 --> 00:20:53,839
ideological and moral system in which we live today, particularly

397
00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:57,920
in today's United Kingdom, where insofar as this thing took

398
00:20:58,039 --> 00:21:01,400
influences from the British past, because as I pointed out,

399
00:21:01,440 --> 00:21:03,119
in many ways, the imperium is sort of the British

400
00:21:03,119 --> 00:21:06,359
empire in space. Those things are now universally a symbol

401
00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:09,480
for evil in modern day England. It's not you can't

402
00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:11,799
go around being like the empire was a good thing,

403
00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:14,880
Like you may very well end up with prison or something,

404
00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:17,640
depending on how you phrase that argument directly. And so

405
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:22,200
they have this problem because if you sat down and

406
00:21:22,319 --> 00:21:24,920
looked at the setting and said, well, why is it

407
00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:28,640
that the cruelest and bloodiest regime imaginable? Which is how

408
00:21:28,759 --> 00:21:32,440
GW itself phrases what the Imperium is, even though it's

409
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:35,759
by no means the bloodiest regime even within that universe.

410
00:21:36,279 --> 00:21:38,400
But let's take that as a premise that it's meant

411
00:21:38,440 --> 00:21:40,000
to be a nightmare, that it's meant to be a

412
00:21:40,039 --> 00:21:43,119
bad thing. Well, how did it last ten thousand years?

413
00:21:43,799 --> 00:21:46,440
And the answer is because not just because the story

414
00:21:46,519 --> 00:21:48,880
required it, but also I think it gets to something

415
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:51,400
pretty disturbing about human nature, which is something I think

416
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:53,319
it was Chris Hedges pointed out, which is war as

417
00:21:53,319 --> 00:21:55,880
a force that gives us Meaning, what is the greatest

418
00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:57,400
thing you can do if you want to try to

419
00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:00,200
reduce suicide rates? What is the greatest thing you can

420
00:22:00,279 --> 00:22:03,039
do if you want to give a society a sense

421
00:22:03,079 --> 00:22:05,680
of mission and purpose and make ordinary people feel like

422
00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:08,039
their lives matter. You make them fight a war, and

423
00:22:08,119 --> 00:22:10,240
you make them fight a war that never ends, and

424
00:22:10,319 --> 00:22:12,119
you make them fight a war for their own survival

425
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where there's an existential enemy with whom no negotiation is possible,

426
00:22:15,799 --> 00:22:18,880
and even if negotiation was possible, it's classified as heresy,

427
00:22:18,960 --> 00:22:20,640
And so you're not going to do it anyway. And

428
00:22:20,759 --> 00:22:23,079
guess what, if you have a society like that, life

429
00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:26,400
may not be very good, but you don't have that

430
00:22:26,519 --> 00:22:29,599
same compulsion to just blow up the home whole thing,

431
00:22:30,119 --> 00:22:33,359
the same way that we see, frankly, the Boomers did

432
00:22:33,799 --> 00:22:37,160
when they were handed the most luxurious society that ever

433
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:39,960
existed in human history. It solves a lot of the

434
00:22:40,079 --> 00:22:43,880
existential problems, and that by itself is kind of disturbing,

435
00:22:44,079 --> 00:22:47,240
But within the logic of the universe, not only does

436
00:22:47,279 --> 00:22:49,680
it make sense, not only is it righteous, but it

437
00:22:49,759 --> 00:22:53,079
has a certain carryover to our own world, where you

438
00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:56,720
have people within our own society, usually the very same

439
00:22:56,920 --> 00:23:00,880
people who praise the values of liberal democracy and tolerance

440
00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:02,440
and all the rest of these things to the sky.

441
00:23:02,839 --> 00:23:05,559
But they're also the same sorts of people who will

442
00:23:05,599 --> 00:23:09,119
say things like, would it not be better for humanity

443
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:11,880
not to exist because this world is full of suffering

444
00:23:12,039 --> 00:23:15,759
or capitalism or something like that. Isn't it irresponsible to

445
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:18,960
bring a child into this world? Isn't it irresponsible to

446
00:23:19,039 --> 00:23:21,920
continue to exist? If we're hurting the environment? Wouldn't it

447
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:25,759
be better if humanity was just gone altogether? The counter

448
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:29,279
to that is essentially a system that depends on faith,

449
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:32,200
that depends on will, that depends on militarism, that depends

450
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:35,279
on existential conflict, not just because the story requires it,

451
00:23:35,319 --> 00:23:37,079
because it's a war game and you can't just it

452
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:39,119
wouldn't be a very exciting wargame of once I just

453
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:44,160
gave up, but also because within this thing, within this universe,

454
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:47,640
you also don't even really have the choice of just

455
00:23:47,759 --> 00:23:51,119
giving up, Because in this the existence of an afterlife

456
00:23:51,279 --> 00:23:54,960
is taken absolutely, at least to us, the viewers or

457
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:57,240
the readers or the players, we know this to be

458
00:23:57,359 --> 00:24:02,599
objectively true, and we also know there's some dispute on this,

459
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:04,559
depending on which bars of the lawyer you look at.

460
00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:07,039
But for ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of

461
00:24:07,079 --> 00:24:10,359
people who have ever lived, the afterlife is horrifying. There

462
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:12,680
is no salvation you just go and your soul is

463
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:15,000
eaten by demons and you suffer, and that's all there

464
00:24:15,079 --> 00:24:17,880
is to it. So that's what you're fighting against. You're

465
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:21,519
not just fighting against objective evil. You're fighting against eternal

466
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:25,599
suffering for every man, woman and child whoever existed. And

467
00:24:25,759 --> 00:24:29,319
that fundamentally is what the Emperor set himself against. So

468
00:24:29,559 --> 00:24:32,079
people will say things like this god emperor of the setting.

469
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:35,680
While he's authoritarian, Well he's arrogant, where he's hierarchical, whether

470
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:38,480
he's militaristic, he makes these mistakes. But yes, what is

471
00:24:38,559 --> 00:24:41,160
he opposing here? And he's the only one who ever

472
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:44,039
really opposed it? So what side do you take here?

473
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:48,519
This is I think the problem that GW and a

474
00:24:48,559 --> 00:24:51,799
lot of the younger writers who maybe got into this

475
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:54,039
game because they thought it was edgy or fun or

476
00:24:54,079 --> 00:24:57,119
whatever when they were younger. But now in a political

477
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:01,119
age where everything has to be just from the official

478
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:04,480
orthodoxy that presides throughout the West, you can't let this

479
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:08,400
thing stay as it was. It's too subversive. It raises

480
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:12,039
too many questions if people are on ironically celebrating the

481
00:25:12,079 --> 00:25:14,400
way the imperium does something, or even ironically do it

482
00:25:14,559 --> 00:25:17,759
using a meme, making jokes about heresy, making jokes about

483
00:25:17,759 --> 00:25:19,920
a terminatus, which is when you blow up a planet

484
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:22,839
to keep it from falling to chaos, even making jokes

485
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,519
as we've seen recently where one of the chaos gods

486
00:25:25,599 --> 00:25:28,920
is called Slenesh is a god of perfection and excess,

487
00:25:29,559 --> 00:25:33,559
and unfortunately it also tends to be linked to sexual degeneracy. Well,

488
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,559
I mean that kind of became a shorthand term for tranees.

489
00:25:37,079 --> 00:25:39,480
And if you look at the old lore from even

490
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:42,920
fifteen years ago, it has taken absolutely for granted that

491
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:47,119
the devotees of this evil god are obsessed with sexual

492
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:51,079
degeneracy and tend to have this androgynous appearance, and in

493
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:55,839
many cases are literal transvestites. You can't have that, you

494
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,880
can't have thirteen year olds reading that, you can't have

495
00:25:59,039 --> 00:26:01,960
people making those jokes now. And so I think what

496
00:26:02,079 --> 00:26:05,279
has happened here is more than with Star Wars, where

497
00:26:05,319 --> 00:26:08,599
it just sort of happened organically or because some younger

498
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:10,759
people wanted to make a name for themselves by inserting

499
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:13,279
left wing identity politics into it. I think in this

500
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,960
you have a deliberate effort from people at the company

501
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:19,920
and people who involved in it, saying we cannot let

502
00:26:20,039 --> 00:26:23,440
this thing exist as it has always existed. It is

503
00:26:23,519 --> 00:26:26,160
a political threat. In some way, we are actually bad

504
00:26:26,319 --> 00:26:29,279
people by letting this go forward. And if you think

505
00:26:29,279 --> 00:26:32,119
I'm overstating the case here, which some may say, but

506
00:26:32,599 --> 00:26:35,599
what I would counter is that in twenty twenty GW

507
00:26:35,839 --> 00:26:39,240
actually put out a statement and they said the Imperium,

508
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:42,799
this fictional setting that they put out with books, with

509
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:45,079
all these heroes and space marines and all these people

510
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:46,720
that we're supposed to look up to. According to the

511
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,759
stuff that they put out, the Imperium runs on hate.

512
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:53,359
This fictional setting. The good guys of the setting is

513
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:56,000
in fact hate is in fact Nazis is, in fact

514
00:26:56,079 --> 00:26:59,680
fascism is in fact evil. But we do not We're

515
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,640
put this out there, but we're good people. We believe

516
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:05,680
in the orthodoxy of the age. You can indulge in

517
00:27:05,759 --> 00:27:08,640
this sort of thing as sort of a dark fantasy,

518
00:27:08,759 --> 00:27:11,279
but don't get into it too much. And of course

519
00:27:11,319 --> 00:27:14,119
the reaction from basically the community was based to make

520
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,279
fun of them, because if the Imperium runs on hate,

521
00:27:17,759 --> 00:27:20,960
then why are you putting out books like lionizing these people.

522
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:23,799
I think what they've done in the year since is

523
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:27,440
they haven't quite squared that circle of how you have

524
00:27:27,559 --> 00:27:29,480
a regime that is supposed to be the counter to

525
00:27:29,519 --> 00:27:33,160
everything you as a good liberal belief. But what they

526
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:35,799
do now is they essentially still conceived, well, the imperium

527
00:27:35,839 --> 00:27:39,799
runs on hate, but it's also defended by brave girl bosses,

528
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:43,160
and every soldier's a black woman, and actually there are.

529
00:27:43,519 --> 00:27:47,160
It's very sexually diverse, so essentially you have the Fourth

530
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:50,680
Reich in space, but it's a racially and sexually diverse

531
00:27:50,759 --> 00:27:54,359
Fourth Reich, which somehow makes it okay. And that kind

532
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:56,799
of seems to be the compromised thing that they've come

533
00:27:56,880 --> 00:27:59,920
up with, but in reality we all kind of know

534
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:02,920
what it was, which was basically it's old School of

535
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:07,839
Europe with certain values, especially those charged by religion in space,

536
00:28:08,079 --> 00:28:10,119
and so people who are going to be attracted to

537
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:13,519
it are looking for those types of things, and you

538
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:16,960
have this very strange situation where the things that make

539
00:28:17,039 --> 00:28:19,559
it popular and the things that make it relevant in

540
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,039
a culture where people are sort of desperately searching for

541
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:25,440
this are also the things that make it. I don't

542
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:28,680
think it's too strong to say despicable in the eyes

543
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:31,519
of the people who actually control the IP I think

544
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,359
more than even more than a politician. We always make

545
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,079
fun of, like how nobody hates Red state voters the

546
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:40,799
way like a Republican politician does. I'm not sure there's

547
00:28:40,799 --> 00:28:45,039
another thing where somebody truly hates their own fans, truly

548
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:48,200
hates their own customers, like on a deep personal level,

549
00:28:48,279 --> 00:28:50,799
wishes they would suffer, wishes they would just go away.

550
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:53,920
Then Games Workshop does towards the types of people who

551
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:55,200
are really into Warhammer forty K.

552
00:28:56,799 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 5: Well, and that's sort of an interesting point because you know,

553
00:28:59,519 --> 00:29:02,599
they're all these catch phrases you know that kind of

554
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:05,799
come around from this setting. You know, you you again

555
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:10,119
have statements about you know, hate and intolerance, right, you know,

556
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,559
basically saying you know, like hate will be my shield,

557
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:16,920
and dramatic proclamations like that, and again, within the logic

558
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,799
of the setting, it is entirely true, because there's this

559
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,519
postmodern element to forty k that I find really fascinating,

560
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:29,240
where human will quite literally has the power to morph reality,

561
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,400
both in the kind of like the etheric world you mentioned.

562
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:36,119
You know this this god Slenesh, who was literally birthed

563
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,119
was not one of the originals because you know, elves

564
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:44,079
and space got really freaky. It quite literally were so

565
00:29:44,319 --> 00:29:48,079
degenerate that they created this sort of satanic Eggregor. You

566
00:29:48,119 --> 00:29:51,000
know that this sort of it took life of its own.

567
00:29:51,759 --> 00:29:55,319
And similarly, when you when you talk about something like

568
00:29:55,519 --> 00:29:59,720
hatred or contempt in this setting, it quite literally becomes

569
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:05,319
ar It quite literally will protect you from contempt exactly.

570
00:30:05,839 --> 00:30:08,839
And there's a whole thing I just real quick, I

571
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:12,279
just want to reference it. There's my favorite character, literally

572
00:30:12,319 --> 00:30:14,960
in all fiction is Gregor o're Eisenhorn, who is one

573
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,599
of these inquisitors who sort of doubt those books are

574
00:30:17,759 --> 00:30:20,319
so good. Oh they're so good, I put them up

575
00:30:20,319 --> 00:30:24,519
against anything. But one of the characters that you come

576
00:30:24,559 --> 00:30:26,960
to meet in his adventures is a guy who used

577
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:29,240
to work for him and then becomes an inquisitor in

578
00:30:29,359 --> 00:30:31,720
his own right, raven Or, And in some sense he

579
00:30:31,839 --> 00:30:35,119
becomes almost like a theologian in this universe, not just

580
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:37,880
an inquisitor, but he's the one who develops this idea

581
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,640
of the armor of contempt, which then is used by

582
00:30:40,759 --> 00:30:43,440
people all the time in other books, and you see

583
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,559
it referenced in video games and in the game itself.

584
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:48,400
What is the armor of contempt? The armor of contempt

585
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:51,519
is a way you steal yourself against chaos and its tentations,

586
00:30:51,799 --> 00:30:55,200
where basically you despite it's not hatred, I mean you

587
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:57,680
can you can hate someone you once loved, right, I mean,

588
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:00,720
the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifferent. But

589
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:04,000
the armor of contempt is where you have such disdain

590
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:07,839
for something that, even if they're offering you something that

591
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:12,359
is objectively better, you have such you look down on

592
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:16,160
it so greatly that even its superiority or even its beauty,

593
00:31:16,599 --> 00:31:20,079
is itself proof of why it should be despised. And

594
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:22,680
so this is the way you steel yourself against it.

595
00:31:22,759 --> 00:31:29,839
Where there's literally nothing that these things can these these forces, chaos, aliens, enemies,

596
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:33,880
even societies that maybe like peaceful liberal democracies but don't

597
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:36,880
worship the God emperor, you look on them with this

598
00:31:37,039 --> 00:31:39,839
sort of disgust and contempt. And that's how you keep

599
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:40,559
your soul pure.

600
00:31:40,839 --> 00:31:42,799
Speaker 6: Well what is that? I mean, it's just another way

601
00:31:42,839 --> 00:31:48,640
of saying tolerance or open mindedness is in fact opening

602
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,960
the doors to corruption and heresy. Now, how do you

603
00:31:52,039 --> 00:31:55,119
square that message with everything that we've been brought up

604
00:31:55,119 --> 00:31:58,519
to believe in? Here? And you can say, well, you know,

605
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:01,480
obviously it's a fictional setting. We do not actually have

606
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:03,839
like chaos, God's waiting for us in the afterlife, although

607
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,240
some might take issue with that. But I think it's

608
00:32:07,319 --> 00:32:11,480
more that as you see this larger crisis of faith

609
00:32:11,599 --> 00:32:14,400
in Western society. And I don't mean the death of Christianity.

610
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:16,640
I don't mean like God is dead in the Nietzsche sense.

611
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,200
I mean in the sense that there seems to be

612
00:32:19,279 --> 00:32:26,079
a palpable sense of panic among Western elites that liberal democracy, multiculturalism,

613
00:32:27,519 --> 00:32:30,720
the rule of law, the post war consensus itself, that

614
00:32:30,799 --> 00:32:33,680
these things are no longer working, that they're not just

615
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,359
under threat from the right. And obviously they hate these

616
00:32:36,359 --> 00:32:38,119
people and they're going to blame us for it. But

617
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:40,680
I think in some sense they're sort of a creeping

618
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:44,200
terror that they understand their system doesn't work anymore. I'm

619
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:47,960
always struck by how these signs of decline that they

620
00:32:48,039 --> 00:32:50,400
talk about in the Warhammer forty k universe to show

621
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:53,200
how the empire is stagnating. Keep in mind this was

622
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,119
all written like a couple decades ago. Most of it

623
00:32:55,559 --> 00:32:59,440
the idea of declining intelligence among the population, and that

624
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:04,200
there's everywhere that there's corruption, that public infrastructure just doesn't work,

625
00:33:04,559 --> 00:33:07,480
that you need to use bribes and to get anything done.

626
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:12,480
That ordinary life is just this frustrating ordeal because you

627
00:33:12,599 --> 00:33:15,720
can't actually accomplish anything anymore because every single system is

628
00:33:15,799 --> 00:33:18,400
breaking down. Well, frankly, that sounds like ordinary life in

629
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:24,079
the West. I mean, the dystopia that supposedly results from

630
00:33:24,079 --> 00:33:28,319
authoritarianism sounds an awful lot like ordinary life under liberal

631
00:33:28,359 --> 00:33:31,000
democracy today, which I think would have been unimaginable to

632
00:33:31,039 --> 00:33:33,759
people even twenty years ago. And I think that's one

633
00:33:33,799 --> 00:33:38,000
of the things that's sort of driving this very strange

634
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:41,359
and bitter battle within the fandom, where you have people

635
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:44,160
saying like, we actually need to sort of stomp this

636
00:33:44,359 --> 00:33:47,559
thing out, We actually need to burn down this thing

637
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:50,599
that was created and rebuild it entirely, because we can't

638
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:53,519
have people thinking in this direction. And even though it

639
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:55,920
is fiction, I think in some sense like they're right.

640
00:33:56,559 --> 00:33:58,759
I mean, the idea of sci fi has always been

641
00:33:58,839 --> 00:34:00,720
kind of dangerous, and it's always been right wing in

642
00:34:00,799 --> 00:34:03,480
some sense because it allows you to put forward It's

643
00:34:03,519 --> 00:34:04,759
one of the few ways that you have where you

644
00:34:04,799 --> 00:34:08,079
can put forward a different world that operates under different

645
00:34:08,159 --> 00:34:11,400
moral premises, and you can see how it operates, and

646
00:34:11,559 --> 00:34:14,239
that is a thought experiment that you really can't have

647
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:18,320
people indulging in a liberal democracy today if you want

648
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:19,400
to keep this system going.

649
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:26,039
Speaker 5: Well, and to that point, it was I can't remember

650
00:34:26,039 --> 00:34:28,320
his first name, but you know Greer has that quote

651
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,559
where he says, you know, look look for the grave

652
00:34:31,599 --> 00:34:34,920
where they buried God. You'll find progress lying next next

653
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:37,960
to him. And you know there is a It is

654
00:34:38,079 --> 00:34:41,280
sort of a fascinating thing because ultimately, like the t

655
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:46,320
loose of liberalism, is this sort of presentism as Lewis

656
00:34:46,599 --> 00:34:49,239
or Chesterton would have called it, or you know, Whig

657
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:52,639
history is moldbug equipped, where it's this idea that you know,

658
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:57,079
technological and social progress and liberation is this ever right

659
00:34:57,159 --> 00:35:01,280
word graph. Things are always getting better, it's always amazing,

660
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:03,639
and the past is horrible and racist and those people

661
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:07,000
were dumb savages. But the problem is is you've mentioned

662
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:09,400
it's like, well, what happens if in a setting like

663
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:11,559
forty k or even in our own there are things

664
00:35:11,639 --> 00:35:14,840
our ancestors built we do not understand, we no longer

665
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:18,119
have command over them. And sure it's not quite as

666
00:35:18,199 --> 00:35:20,960
dramatic as an Italian peasant, you know, shepherding his sheep

667
00:35:21,039 --> 00:35:23,800
under the ruins of the aqueduct. But you start to

668
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:25,119
look at that and you're like, well, okay, like this

669
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:28,679
God of progress is dead, it is no longer alive,

670
00:35:29,039 --> 00:35:31,400
that it can no longer produce miracles. You know, it's

671
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,760
like the oracle when you know, the fumes no longer work.

672
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,280
And I think that that terrory you're identifying is very

673
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,559
accurate because ultimately, and this is again one of the

674
00:35:41,599 --> 00:35:45,320
big lessons of forty K, is that every conflict is

675
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,719
a war of belief. Every conflict takes on a sort

676
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:52,320
of religious element. And when even you are starting to

677
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:55,239
suspect that maybe your God is dead in the forty

678
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:58,159
K context, that maybe you know, the giant, you know,

679
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:02,280
mechanical monstrosity that this their corpses sitting on, he's not

680
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:06,119
even just resting. He's actually dead. It is simply just

681
00:36:06,199 --> 00:36:08,440
a machine. Where do you go from there?

682
00:36:09,199 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 3: Right?

683
00:36:09,519 --> 00:36:11,719
Speaker 6: I mean, that's one of the things. And it's interesting

684
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,559
you point that out. I mean, there's a big thing

685
00:36:14,679 --> 00:36:18,599
there where one of the interesting things that has happened

686
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:20,880
in terms of Lord, and it was never really stated.

687
00:36:21,119 --> 00:36:23,079
I mean, in fact, there was quite a bit contradicting it,

688
00:36:23,199 --> 00:36:26,000
but it was definitely suggested by some of the earliest

689
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:29,719
people saying it was, let's think about this image of

690
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:31,800
the God Emperor you have seen. For those of you

691
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:34,760
who still might not know entirely what's going on, you've

692
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:38,840
seen images of this skeletal figure on this giant throne,

693
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:42,280
which is really this almost mechanical monstrosity that is the

694
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:45,960
God Emperor, near death on the golden throne, and he

695
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:49,199
a thousand souls are sacrificed to him every single day

696
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:52,119
to kind of keep him in this state of undeath,

697
00:36:52,679 --> 00:36:55,440
let's call it forever. And one of the things they

698
00:36:55,599 --> 00:36:59,400
sort of suggested or hinted at in older law was

699
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:02,880
there's actually nothing there except maybe like a remnant that

700
00:37:03,039 --> 00:37:05,719
keeps certain things going. But there's no longer anything there.

701
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:08,880
And so in some sense, the taunts of the enemies

702
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:11,719
of the Imperium that is the corpse God was actually correct,

703
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:15,320
and that you're basically sacrificing people for nothing. And you

704
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:18,320
can see sort of the left wing theme inherent to that.

705
00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:22,079
You know, you're sacrificing people for these outdated ideas, You're

706
00:37:22,119 --> 00:37:25,679
sacrificing people to keep a hierarchy built on fear going

707
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:28,440
and going and going. But what we've seen in recent

708
00:37:28,559 --> 00:37:30,599
low in recent books is, in fact, no, the god

709
00:37:30,639 --> 00:37:33,960
Emperor is very much alive. He is there, he's actually

710
00:37:34,039 --> 00:37:37,000
doing stuff. He's actually getting more active, and while he

711
00:37:37,039 --> 00:37:39,280
can't quite get up from the throne and run around yet,

712
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:42,800
he is acting in the universe. And also these threats

713
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:44,639
are real. One of the other things they also did

714
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:48,000
is one of the old kind of bits in Old

715
00:37:48,079 --> 00:37:50,920
Warhammer forty k lore was basically if you saw a

716
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:56,599
demon saying you saw the objective existence of the other realm. You,

717
00:37:57,079 --> 00:37:59,960
even if you had fought against these things and defeated them,

718
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:03,119
if you were an ordinary person, you and your family

719
00:38:03,159 --> 00:38:05,719
and everybody else was probably going to get killed by

720
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:08,519
your own government because it was just too dangerous for

721
00:38:08,639 --> 00:38:12,119
people to know about this stuff. Now in newer stories,

722
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:15,519
the Empire, so to speak, has admitted like, no, this

723
00:38:15,679 --> 00:38:18,239
is it, Like these things are all all all your nightmares,

724
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:20,880
They're real. We're fighting them, We're at war with these things.

725
00:38:21,079 --> 00:38:23,039
It is a literal holy war in a way you

726
00:38:23,079 --> 00:38:26,239
could not have imagined. But the implication of that is

727
00:38:27,159 --> 00:38:29,800
this system is no longer just being held up by

728
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:34,519
fear religion is not some crazy excuse just to uphold

729
00:38:34,599 --> 00:38:36,960
the social hierarchy the way people would talk about like

730
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,320
Roman Catholicism and pre revolutionary France, where it's just a

731
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:44,360
cynical ploy to justify some people having more than others.

732
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:46,800
It's like, no, this is this is all real, This

733
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:49,320
is one hundred percent true. Those crazy religious guys, they

734
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:53,280
were totally right. And that puts ann spin on the

735
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,599
whole setting where you have this, you have multiple things

736
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:59,199
happening at once, sort of in universe and in our

737
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:03,840
universe that are very interesting because in our universe they're

738
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:08,280
trying to deconstruct it away from the sorts of values

739
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:12,519
that initially attracted people to it, because they don't want

740
00:39:12,599 --> 00:39:16,320
people saying like, well, look, actually, hierarchy has a certain

741
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:18,760
value to it. Actually authority has a certain value to

742
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,119
a tradition has a certain value to it. People are

743
00:39:21,199 --> 00:39:23,559
not equal. Tolerance is not a good thing, at least

744
00:39:23,599 --> 00:39:26,159
not in all cases, Like you need to actually have

745
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:29,400
something that you consider sacred and beyond question if you're

746
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:31,480
going to survive as a society. They're trying to get

747
00:39:31,559 --> 00:39:33,639
rid of all that, but at the same time they're

748
00:39:33,639 --> 00:39:38,760
also seemingly justifying the way the imperium operates more than

749
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:43,159
ever before. We're even the most retrograde institutions like the ecclesiarchy,

750
00:39:43,519 --> 00:39:47,480
which in many ways is a very British satire of

751
00:39:47,599 --> 00:39:50,880
the old school Roman Catholic Church, with all its ceremonies

752
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:54,639
and uniforms and complicated hierarchies and everything else. What we're

753
00:39:54,679 --> 00:39:57,480
finding out is basically they were right about everything, and

754
00:39:57,559 --> 00:40:02,400
we actually need these guys more that even the most

755
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:06,920
remarkable repression that people used to make jokes about is

756
00:40:07,079 --> 00:40:10,920
nothing compared to the stakes that humanity actually faces. And

757
00:40:11,039 --> 00:40:14,000
even these superhuman guys from the past, these prime marks.

758
00:40:14,039 --> 00:40:15,480
We don't need to get into that, but these sort

759
00:40:15,519 --> 00:40:18,400
of legendary figures from the past who used to be

760
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:20,800
a myth, who were kind of coming back to save

761
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:24,079
the empire in its darkest hour. That even these guys

762
00:40:24,559 --> 00:40:27,119
are not able to just snap their fingers and turn

763
00:40:27,199 --> 00:40:32,039
everything into a secular, rationalist, scientific utopia the way that

764
00:40:32,159 --> 00:40:35,360
they might want to. That even they are beginning to

765
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:38,119
adopt the logic of the system and saying no, actually,

766
00:40:38,199 --> 00:40:40,559
we kind of have to keep the imperium rolling the

767
00:40:40,599 --> 00:40:42,760
way it goes, because this is actually the nature of

768
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:45,800
reality and this is what the situation demands. It's a

769
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,840
very strange thing, and I think this is why this

770
00:40:49,079 --> 00:40:54,280
battle within the fandom is so bizarre, because they've abandoned

771
00:40:55,159 --> 00:40:58,199
the satirical left wing element that used to be quite

772
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:01,360
strong within it. At the every same time, they're sort

773
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:06,360
of introducing more obnoxiously woke elements, particularly in regards to

774
00:41:06,559 --> 00:41:07,559
sexuality and race.

775
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:12,840
Speaker 5: That's sort of an interesting point there, right, is that

776
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:15,159
they're out of one side of their mouth trying to,

777
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,280
you know, reaffirm that, you know, all of these these

778
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:21,599
values are completely irrational, but they are confirming more and

779
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:24,599
more that quite literally, if you don't say your prayer,

780
00:41:24,679 --> 00:41:27,599
Satan will rape you for all eternity. Like that is

781
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:30,599
within the things that they are saying equally true. And

782
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,760
so you can understand why this reaction has been so incoherent,

783
00:41:34,199 --> 00:41:36,480
because the way that they're trying to push this is

784
00:41:36,519 --> 00:41:42,360
simply reaffirming the genuineness of this this setting. There's an

785
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:43,960
element I want to go back to this your point

786
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:49,159
about the ultimate futility of kind of scientific rationalism. So

787
00:41:50,239 --> 00:41:55,599
we've mentioned there's Warhammer forty thousand. A large part of

788
00:41:55,639 --> 00:41:57,480
the events that involves sort of the setting up of

789
00:41:57,519 --> 00:42:00,519
this empire occur ten thousand years early. You're in a

790
00:42:00,599 --> 00:42:04,119
previous era. It was vaguely mentioned. It has been established

791
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:08,320
more concretely kind of in the past twenty years plus

792
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:10,639
or minus. So you have, you know, a setting where

793
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:14,079
the emperor is a man who walks around. He's sort

794
00:42:14,079 --> 00:42:16,239
of this depending on who you trust, sort of this

795
00:42:18,159 --> 00:42:22,000
kind of I guess, expression of the human spirit. Right,

796
00:42:22,079 --> 00:42:23,400
he is an aggregor in some way.

797
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 6: Yeah, in some ways he's sort of There are various stories,

798
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:29,760
and we don't need to get into the organs of

799
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:33,119
the emperor. But but there was a point where in

800
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:37,039
some sense he was a man and he he was

801
00:42:37,159 --> 00:42:39,840
he was limited in some sense, he was very powerful,

802
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:43,159
but he was not a god. And it is also

803
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,920
made clear that as a man, even if he is

804
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:49,440
a kind of gestalt consciousness of various things, even if

805
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:55,199
he's whatever as a man, things like love, things like friendship,

806
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:59,639
things like thing, humor, things, irony, things that I like

807
00:43:00,119 --> 00:43:03,880
that I don't like, tastes, the ordinary pleasures like taking

808
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,400
a glass of wine. These are things he can relate to.

809
00:43:07,199 --> 00:43:10,360
And so you have I mean, again, there's there's a

810
00:43:10,519 --> 00:43:15,199
very strong element of this is completely unimaginable in a

811
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:18,480
non Christian society. Like writing this, there is an element

812
00:43:18,559 --> 00:43:21,760
here where it's like, instead of God becomes man in

813
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:24,360
order to save man, this is more a story of

814
00:43:24,599 --> 00:43:26,320
like man becomes God.

815
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:32,519
Speaker 5: And with that, ironically enough, the force protecting human humanity

816
00:43:32,639 --> 00:43:35,760
becomes inhuman. You know, it sort of sheds those vestiges.

817
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:39,800
But what's so interesting is that the Emperor is very

818
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:42,920
much a tragic figure and follows the same kind of

819
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:47,039
beats of you know, traditional Greek or Roman tragedy, because

820
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:50,320
you know, his hubris, his idea of creating this galaxy

821
00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:55,320
spanning empire built on a lie. And the lie is secularism,

822
00:43:55,599 --> 00:44:01,800
which is again a profoundly exactly a profoundly a liberal point.

823
00:44:02,760 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 6: A point even the Imperium, even the Great Crusade, even

824
00:44:05,440 --> 00:44:07,880
all the space Marines. And this has made very clear,

825
00:44:08,039 --> 00:44:10,719
there's this all right, it's very hard not to be

826
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:13,159
like launched into the whole thing. But for people who

827
00:44:13,199 --> 00:44:15,280
have no idea what's going on, and make this very simple.

828
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:18,440
The thing that put the Imperium in the state it

829
00:44:18,559 --> 00:44:21,280
is now, the thing that put the Emperor sort of

830
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:25,840
crippled on the throne was this civil war that happened

831
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:31,000
where essentially nine of his sons turned against him. And

832
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:34,119
the best way I can describe it is imagine what

833
00:44:34,199 --> 00:44:37,400
would happen in the New Testament when Satan goes to

834
00:44:37,559 --> 00:44:41,599
Christ and says, shows them the kingdoms of the world

835
00:44:42,119 --> 00:44:45,119
and says, all of these will be yours if you

836
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,880
bow down and worshiped me. What happens if Jesus says yes.

837
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,880
That's essentially the conflict that sets up the Warhammer forty

838
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:57,679
k universe. That's what happens in thirty the year thirty thousand,

839
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:01,239
which sets up the Nightmare of forty thousand. And what

840
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:05,079
is clear, and because they wrote all these books explaining

841
00:45:05,119 --> 00:45:07,599
the whole conflict and everything else, and what's remarkable about

842
00:45:07,639 --> 00:45:10,159
it is that all the things that define the imperium today,

843
00:45:10,599 --> 00:45:13,760
the complicated hierarchies, the fact that there's an emperor who

844
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:17,119
cloaks himself even while denying God's walks around in golden

845
00:45:17,199 --> 00:45:19,760
power armor with all these sacred symbols and everything else.

846
00:45:20,119 --> 00:45:22,159
The fact that there's an aristocracy, the fact that it's

847
00:45:22,199 --> 00:45:26,000
defined by militarism and conflict. All of these things were

848
00:45:26,079 --> 00:45:29,320
meant to be temporary and what the end goal essentially

849
00:45:29,639 --> 00:45:34,480
was was liberal democracy and secularism. And what you kind

850
00:45:34,519 --> 00:45:38,320
of learn is that you can't get there because that's

851
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,719
not true. It's a lie now in this sense, in

852
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:44,519
this universe. I mean it's a lie because you know,

853
00:45:44,599 --> 00:45:46,840
there's this other dimension and there are like evil gods

854
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:48,360
that live there, and we have to deal with it

855
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:50,760
one way or another. But we can't just lie about them.

856
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:54,199
They make themselves known. But on the other hand, there's

857
00:45:54,199 --> 00:45:56,400
also a deeper, more troubling thing which I think the

858
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:59,159
writers who were all, you know, good liberals, I imagine,

859
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:02,480
are sort of dealing with, which is is there something

860
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:07,400
inherent in the structure of liberalism that undermines itself? Is

861
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:09,800
the idea of insisting that there is no god? But

862
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:13,320
science does that even undermine itself? Because one of the

863
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:15,159
great themes you see over and over again is that

864
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:18,079
man has an inherent need for faith. And what is

865
00:46:18,159 --> 00:46:21,559
the great irony of Warhammer forty K The Emperor as

866
00:46:21,599 --> 00:46:26,039
a man launches a literal, galaxy spanning crusade dedicated to

867
00:46:26,079 --> 00:46:29,239
the imperial truth. What is the imperial truth? There are

868
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:33,000
no gods. If you deny that, your culture gets wiped out.

869
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:36,239
And how does it end up with he himself worshiped

870
00:46:36,239 --> 00:46:37,639
as a god by all of humanity.

871
00:46:39,199 --> 00:46:42,559
Speaker 5: Right, and again that is the sort of great irony

872
00:46:42,679 --> 00:46:46,159
of it is that it Again, there are a million

873
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:49,119
different authors, in a million different sources of this. But

874
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:53,000
one of the reasons that his son, his favorite son,

875
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:58,800
betrayed him is in fact because he saw irrefutable evidence

876
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:02,360
that the spiritual world existed. My father has lied to me.

877
00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:06,039
The Imperial truth is a lie. If that central premise

878
00:47:06,119 --> 00:47:09,000
is a lie, then let the galaxy burn. Right as

879
00:47:09,079 --> 00:47:14,880
the line goes, and there's another fascinating character another for

880
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:17,360
those who aren't aware, imagine if this is sort of

881
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:20,280
one of the lesser apostles, like I imagine if Thomas,

882
00:47:20,639 --> 00:47:24,119
you know, became a Satan worshipper. This character of Logar, right,

883
00:47:24,199 --> 00:47:27,760
who is as you know, a faithful servant, He is

884
00:47:28,119 --> 00:47:31,400
the propaganda department, the guy who goes around and converts

885
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:35,280
the masses. Well, when he turns, he becomes again this

886
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:39,760
sort of demonic figure, right, literally ascends to demonhood and

887
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:43,679
irony of ironies. He is the one who writes the

888
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:47,400
book that becomes the Bible of the imperial And so

889
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:50,880
there's this tension where even this arch devil. Right, the

890
00:47:51,119 --> 00:47:55,559
sort of embodiment of Satan sees that truth more so

891
00:47:55,800 --> 00:47:59,960
even in a corrupted way than the previous existing empire.

892
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:04,440
And that's what's so fascinating, right. The and the reason

893
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:06,840
this is one of my favorite characters is because he

894
00:48:07,079 --> 00:48:11,679
views the world as entirely consisting of wars of belief,

895
00:48:12,119 --> 00:48:16,800
where the currency is worship, it is attention. As people

896
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:19,039
on the internet, we're quite aware of this fact now,

897
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:24,000
but again, ultimately is a contest of wills. In this setting,

898
00:48:24,039 --> 00:48:28,639
it's literal because there is a psychic power derived from worship,

899
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:33,360
derived from even non humans thinking about a thing. But

900
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:36,599
in a current political setting or just human political setting,

901
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:38,719
now it is equally true.

902
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:40,360
Speaker 6: It is a war of belief.

903
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:43,000
Speaker 5: And so you know that these kind of precepts we have,

904
00:48:43,159 --> 00:48:45,280
as you know, people raised in you know, kind of

905
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:48,199
liberal modernity, that there is a debate that there is

906
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:51,559
sort of this you know, genteel discussion that might be

907
00:48:51,679 --> 00:48:56,519
true within a group, but between groups. Civilization is incommunicable,

908
00:48:56,639 --> 00:48:59,639
These value systems are incommunicable, and it is a zero

909
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:03,920
sum game where one win in one loses. And you

910
00:49:04,119 --> 00:49:08,000
can see why that premise is. I mean, it's a

911
00:49:08,119 --> 00:49:11,880
stake to the heart of aggressive liberal modernity, and it

912
00:49:12,039 --> 00:49:15,880
cannot be allowed to exist in that way. And so

913
00:49:16,119 --> 00:49:20,119
I mean, yeah, when we talk about the deliberate destruction,

914
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:22,679
there are a couple things, like one of the creeping

915
00:49:23,079 --> 00:49:27,440
early ones was the re emergence of technological progress. Now, look,

916
00:49:27,519 --> 00:49:30,599
some of this is cynical to sell more plastic dolls

917
00:49:30,639 --> 00:49:33,280
to you know, men in their forties, you know, like, oh,

918
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:35,079
the new stuff came out, you've got to get it.

919
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:38,679
But also let's acknowledge that this is a major departure

920
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:42,440
the idea that, oh, no, you can bring back technological progress,

921
00:49:42,519 --> 00:49:45,440
we can advance again. Then you started to see, as

922
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:50,920
you mentioned the incredible diversification of Earth's armies, right, humanity

923
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:53,079
is a life or death struggle, and we're still throwing

924
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:57,519
one hundred and ten pound women into the meat grinder, right,

925
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:02,599
and then most recently, and this won't necessarily make sense

926
00:50:02,639 --> 00:50:05,159
out of context, but there's been a huge push for

927
00:50:06,599 --> 00:50:10,800
gender representation in context where it makes no sense. For

928
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:13,920
ex instance, we've mentioned the kind of ghastly process of

929
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:16,480
creating a space marine. You're quite literally making a science

930
00:50:16,519 --> 00:50:19,360
experiment out of a nine year old boy. But always

931
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:21,400
from the beginning is the idea. Well, of course, if

932
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:25,119
you were going to spend the equivalent of multiple aircraft

933
00:50:25,199 --> 00:50:28,760
carriers worth of resources to create a semi human killing machine,

934
00:50:29,039 --> 00:50:31,559
well you want to produce the best one. So they've

935
00:50:31,559 --> 00:50:34,280
always been male. There's kind of super space marines. We

936
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:36,599
won't get into. They look like bananas, but they're even

937
00:50:37,079 --> 00:50:41,599
special or for those who aren't familiar with forty k

938
00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:43,760
it is sort of like Chinese history in the sense

939
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:47,199
that every number has like three extra zeros onto it,

940
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:48,719
and you just have to kind of get over that.

941
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:52,840
But again, right, this was a big departure where they said,

942
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:56,559
oh no, no, they've always been women all the time.

943
00:50:56,920 --> 00:51:00,320
You just didn't know that yet. We hadn't told you yet. Again,

944
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:03,960
doesn't necessarily matter a ton from the perspective of a

945
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:06,719
tabletop game. You know, you make your little guys, you

946
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:08,920
can do what you will with them. But again we

947
00:51:09,079 --> 00:51:13,679
see that privileging of or that deliberate desire to quote,

948
00:51:14,199 --> 00:51:15,960
you know, to quote the I think it was Brown

949
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:18,239
who said this, right to rub their nose in diversity

950
00:51:18,599 --> 00:51:21,119
versus idea that like, oh that thing you like, I'm

951
00:51:21,159 --> 00:51:23,840
gonna ruin it for you. I'm gonna mark it with

952
00:51:24,199 --> 00:51:28,280
my mark, because again, the values inherit to the system

953
00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:31,639
are deeply odious. They are completely one hundred and eighty

954
00:51:31,679 --> 00:51:35,840
degree reverse to even kind of a tepid nineties liberalism,

955
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:38,320
let alone this sort of gay race communism. But I'll

956
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:39,400
throw it back to you, Kevin.

957
00:51:40,559 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean there is. Let's to be objective about it,

958
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:45,880
and I try to. I think one of the things

959
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:48,039
that's important for those of us on the far right,

960
00:51:48,079 --> 00:51:50,239
because let's admit it, we're not beyond left and right,

961
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:52,360
we're far right. And one of the things that it's

962
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:55,119
important to keep your mind somebody who's been doing this

963
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:57,280
for a long time and not go insane if you're

964
00:51:57,280 --> 00:51:58,559
on the far right is to have a sense of

965
00:51:58,639 --> 00:52:01,000
irony about the whole thing, in a sense of objectivity.

966
00:52:01,599 --> 00:52:04,480
And let's be honest about what Warhammer forty k is.

967
00:52:04,559 --> 00:52:08,360
I mean, it is a power fantasy for men, for

968
00:52:08,519 --> 00:52:11,480
young men, especially because what is the core of it,

969
00:52:11,639 --> 00:52:15,320
really the idea? What is the faction everybody wants to be.

970
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:16,760
They want to be the space Marines. What are the

971
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:20,000
space marines? They're eight hundred pounds and have three lungs

972
00:52:20,039 --> 00:52:22,719
and two hearts and are killing machines with super reactions.

973
00:52:23,119 --> 00:52:27,400
And oh, by the way, because of the weird process

974
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:31,280
that these things go through, they don't they're not sexual

975
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:34,400
really in any way, so you don't deal with girls.

976
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:38,039
So it's basically just you and your friends having space

977
00:52:38,119 --> 00:52:41,519
adventures for centuries. And when you're eleven is that too

978
00:52:41,599 --> 00:52:44,920
much to ask for? Kevin Well, I mean, that's that's

979
00:52:45,119 --> 00:52:48,000
like when you're eleven years old, or when you're you know,

980
00:52:48,159 --> 00:52:50,400
like in my case, forty two going on eleven, Like

981
00:52:50,480 --> 00:52:53,199
that sounds like the greatest thing of all time. And frankly,

982
00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:56,159
I mean not to make a joke about it, but like, actually,

983
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:59,440
if you're if you are like a married father, like, yeah,

984
00:53:00,519 --> 00:53:02,400
you're playing with your twelve year old kid or whatever.

985
00:53:02,519 --> 00:53:04,320
You're going in this thing. You're playing a video game,

986
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:07,159
you're playing the tabletop whatever. Like YEAD is kind of

987
00:53:07,199 --> 00:53:09,119
like an escape to childhood and like sort of the

988
00:53:09,159 --> 00:53:11,679
little adventures you would you would come up with when

989
00:53:11,679 --> 00:53:13,400
you were a little kid. Like this is why people

990
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:17,119
do these things. So it is a power fantasy. And

991
00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:21,320
there is an argument where you say they've written all

992
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:24,239
these books, they've written all these codexes, codex's or the

993
00:53:24,239 --> 00:53:26,000
books that tell you about the history of these guys

994
00:53:26,039 --> 00:53:29,320
and everything else. They've written all this lore lore that

995
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:33,559
is so complicated and so detailed that there are people

996
00:53:33,639 --> 00:53:37,400
whose entire career just consists on making these like four

997
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:40,679
hour videos every week about various elements of Warhammer forty

998
00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:43,320
k lore. I mean, you could probably major in this

999
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:47,079
as like a college degree. But then, and this is

1000
00:53:47,119 --> 00:53:50,199
a quote one of the leading authors then says, also,

1001
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:52,320
there's no but there's no such thing as canon now,

1002
00:53:53,159 --> 00:53:55,920
and we've written all these books describing how these units

1003
00:53:55,960 --> 00:53:57,880
are developed or some of these characters that you know

1004
00:53:57,960 --> 00:53:59,800
and love, But then we're just gonna kind of throw

1005
00:54:00,079 --> 00:54:02,079
out something on social media, which is, yeah, none of

1006
00:54:02,119 --> 00:54:05,440
that matters, none of that exists anymore. Actually that's not true.

1007
00:54:05,760 --> 00:54:09,400
Actually I just changed it. And what's really You can

1008
00:54:09,480 --> 00:54:12,000
try to justify it in universe. You can try to

1009
00:54:12,159 --> 00:54:14,519
justify it to make the lower consistent, but of course

1010
00:54:14,559 --> 00:54:16,719
it has nothing to do with that. What's actually happening

1011
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:20,719
is I think a twofold process. One is the more

1012
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:24,960
corporate decision, where whether they're getting pressure from investors, whether

1013
00:54:25,159 --> 00:54:27,199
it's just because it's the United Kingdom and they really

1014
00:54:27,239 --> 00:54:30,159
believe this stuff at least at the higher corporate levels.

1015
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:34,800
They're trying to push these sorts of inclusive policies because

1016
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:37,480
they have to or we think it's a good business decision,

1017
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:40,480
and so that's just kind of trampling the storytelling and

1018
00:54:40,559 --> 00:54:42,679
whatever else. But I think the deeper thing, and I

1019
00:54:42,760 --> 00:54:44,559
think what's really driving it, is that we see another

1020
00:54:44,639 --> 00:54:47,079
kind of power fantasy taking place, which is you have

1021
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:50,559
people coming in who did not create this thing, same

1022
00:54:50,599 --> 00:54:52,360
thing we saw in Dungeons and Dragons, same thing we

1023
00:54:52,400 --> 00:54:54,079
saw in Star Wars, same thing we saw in all

1024
00:54:54,119 --> 00:54:57,119
these different fandoms who are in it, who say now

1025
00:54:57,199 --> 00:55:00,960
it is mine, and I'm going to change because that

1026
00:55:01,119 --> 00:55:03,679
gives me power over this thing. And I'm not just

1027
00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:06,679
gonna do it because it makes me feel better. I'm

1028
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:09,920
gonna do it because it makes you feel worse. And

1029
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:12,920
you certainly see this with a lot of the sort

1030
00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:15,760
of social media personalities and journalists and people write about

1031
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:18,960
this stuff where they'll it's sort of like Anita Sarkisian

1032
00:55:19,079 --> 00:55:22,639
with gamer Gate, where she even said like, oh, well,

1033
00:55:22,679 --> 00:55:25,039
I hate video games. I don't like video games, I

1034
00:55:25,039 --> 00:55:26,719
don't play any of this stuff. I don't like this stuff,

1035
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:28,920
but I'm gonna make this my career. Why she didn't

1036
00:55:28,960 --> 00:55:31,000
say this part, but why am I going to make

1037
00:55:31,039 --> 00:55:32,679
this my career to screw it up for the people

1038
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:35,480
I don't like? And I've said it before and I'll

1039
00:55:35,519 --> 00:55:37,639
say it again. I think the strongest force in politics

1040
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:40,840
is spite. And ironically, this is something that you see

1041
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:42,400
in more number forty K and all of a lot.

1042
00:55:42,760 --> 00:55:46,639
Negative emotions are much stronger than positive emotions in the

1043
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:50,320
imperian and I think in real life as well. And

1044
00:55:51,360 --> 00:55:56,639
spite allows you to do things that lovingly protecting something

1045
00:55:56,760 --> 00:56:00,679
that you created does not in the long run negative entropy.

1046
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:04,039
I mean again, this is very forty K. In the

1047
00:56:04,079 --> 00:56:07,199
long run, entropy does win out over order, or McIntire

1048
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:09,599
writes about this in the total state. In the end,

1049
00:56:10,159 --> 00:56:12,960
chaos does win. In the end, everything you leve will burn.

1050
00:56:13,559 --> 00:56:16,119
And you can do your best to defend against this

1051
00:56:16,239 --> 00:56:18,039
kind of stuff, but what can men do against such

1052
00:56:18,079 --> 00:56:21,559
reckless hate? And you have this situation where you have

1053
00:56:21,719 --> 00:56:24,679
people you can talk about gatekeeping all you want, but

1054
00:56:24,760 --> 00:56:28,440
you can't gatekeep an ip that somebody else owns. And

1055
00:56:28,599 --> 00:56:31,639
so the situation that people who have been longtime fans,

1056
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:34,519
who care about the lore who have grown attached to

1057
00:56:34,559 --> 00:56:38,800
certain characters, who who are attached to what my co

1058
00:56:38,960 --> 00:56:41,480
host on Grim Dark Enlightenment, which is another podcast to do,

1059
00:56:41,880 --> 00:56:44,519
Chad calls the texture of the whole thing, the thing

1060
00:56:44,599 --> 00:56:48,440
that makes it internally consistent, that gives its meaning. These

1061
00:56:48,559 --> 00:56:52,960
things are being stripped away not because it's necessary for

1062
00:56:53,039 --> 00:56:56,079
the story, but precisely to destroy the story, and because

1063
00:56:56,119 --> 00:56:58,639
you have people coming in who are deliberately trying to

1064
00:56:58,760 --> 00:57:00,960
destroy it and then move on to the next thing,

1065
00:57:01,039 --> 00:57:05,800
because they are fundamentally incapable of seeing anything outside the

1066
00:57:05,840 --> 00:57:08,239
political values of our own time. And I think this

1067
00:57:08,440 --> 00:57:10,719
is something that you and I and maybe right wingers

1068
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:14,960
generally get, which leftists don't. It's actually a disadvantage. You

1069
00:57:15,039 --> 00:57:18,719
and I can enjoy something beat, a song, beat, a poem,

1070
00:57:18,800 --> 00:57:21,639
be it, a story, beat, a movie from a left

1071
00:57:21,679 --> 00:57:25,400
winger whose values are horrific to us. But I can

1072
00:57:25,519 --> 00:57:28,000
understand the perspective of the character within it. I can

1073
00:57:28,119 --> 00:57:30,320
understand where they're coming from. I can try to put

1074
00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:33,840
myself in their place and see how this plays out,

1075
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:36,199
and maybe even relate to it on some level like

1076
00:57:36,360 --> 00:57:39,360
empathy in the truest sense. For the people who talk

1077
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:42,440
all the time about empathy. I do not think leftists

1078
00:57:42,519 --> 00:57:45,000
are capable of doing that. I don't think they have

1079
00:57:45,119 --> 00:57:48,559
a theory of mind for people who have values other

1080
00:57:48,679 --> 00:57:52,679
than themselves. And so when you have this universe that

1081
00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:55,760
is so different from ours in terms of its values

1082
00:57:55,800 --> 00:57:57,840
and in terms of the way it operates and everything else,

1083
00:57:59,039 --> 00:58:02,719
they can't help but react to it with hostility. They

1084
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:04,719
can't help but think, well, how can we break this

1085
00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:07,679
thing down and turn it into the same stuff as

1086
00:58:07,719 --> 00:58:13,119
everything else, Because they're not This was built by people

1087
00:58:13,159 --> 00:58:16,000
who were indulging, were creating in a kind of fantasy.

1088
00:58:16,519 --> 00:58:18,880
And I think what you have now is you have people,

1089
00:58:19,079 --> 00:58:22,639
especially in the fantasy realm in terms of books, in

1090
00:58:22,719 --> 00:58:27,159
terms of games, who are actually incapable of fantasy in

1091
00:58:27,199 --> 00:58:31,039
the truest sense. They can't help but see things just

1092
00:58:31,159 --> 00:58:33,639
as an expression of whatever the politics or the values

1093
00:58:33,679 --> 00:58:35,559
are in the here and now. And I'm sure there

1094
00:58:35,599 --> 00:58:37,599
are a lot of people out there who are at

1095
00:58:37,639 --> 00:58:39,800
war with Warhammer forty K because they think in some

1096
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:42,599
sense that they took all those memes about Donald J.

1097
00:58:42,719 --> 00:58:45,440
Trump being the god emperor like seriously, and they think

1098
00:58:45,519 --> 00:58:48,760
by screwing this stuff up that they're somehow taking vengeance

1099
00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:50,400
for twenty sixteen in twenty twenty four.

1100
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:56,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's an interesting point, and again it is sort

1101
00:58:56,039 --> 00:58:59,679
of the It is sort of a reflection of what

1102
00:58:59,719 --> 00:59:02,360
you say in this universe, right, that evil is not

1103
00:59:02,639 --> 00:59:09,360
motivated by a misunderstanding, is not motivated by material concerns.

1104
00:59:09,480 --> 00:59:12,599
Even it is not the you know, stealing a stealing

1105
00:59:12,679 --> 00:59:16,480
bread to feed my starving child. It is a hatred

1106
00:59:16,920 --> 00:59:20,800
for anything that is not itself. It is a desire

1107
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:24,719
to and you see this with multiple factions, right, explicitly

1108
00:59:24,800 --> 00:59:27,239
the kind of most alien, the tear in it, the

1109
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:31,199
idea to make everything, quite literally of the same mass,

1110
00:59:31,679 --> 00:59:36,519
to make it all one thing. And to your point again, right,

1111
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:40,880
the deep irony of these people criticizing this world for

1112
00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:45,320
lacking empathy and then reaching into it to break it

1113
00:59:45,519 --> 00:59:47,679
and smash it in whatever way they need to to

1114
00:59:48,079 --> 00:59:50,639
bring it under their totalizing control.

1115
00:59:51,440 --> 00:59:51,639
Speaker 6: It is.

1116
00:59:51,920 --> 00:59:55,039
Speaker 5: It is sort of darkly ironic, right. They have in

1117
00:59:55,119 --> 00:59:58,840
a way they understand the message more so than the

1118
00:59:58,920 --> 01:00:01,760
guys who actually under stand the message. They live it.

1119
01:00:02,239 --> 01:00:06,119
You simply understand it, and it's sort of dark to

1120
01:00:06,159 --> 01:00:08,800
think about it that way. But uh, yeah, I think

1121
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:10,840
it's it's there's something to do that comparison.

1122
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:14,760
Speaker 6: Well, this is the nature of chaos and setting, and

1123
01:00:14,880 --> 01:00:17,599
I mean, this is one of the things where obviously

1124
01:00:17,679 --> 01:00:19,199
people are gonna be like, Okay, you know, it's a

1125
01:00:19,239 --> 01:00:22,280
setting whatever else. But there are some of the lessons

1126
01:00:22,320 --> 01:00:24,599
you sort of see playing out in this because again,

1127
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:26,440
the people who wrote these sorts of stories, you have

1128
01:00:26,559 --> 01:00:28,159
to take it seriously on its own terms. If you

1129
01:00:28,239 --> 01:00:29,960
can write a book about this stuff. And some of

1130
01:00:30,000 --> 01:00:31,920
the books are I mean, obviously some of them are

1131
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:33,800
just sort of what they call bolter porn, where it's

1132
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:36,800
basically guy running around shooting stuff. Some of them, frankly

1133
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:39,159
aren't very good. Some of them are quite good, especially

1134
01:00:39,239 --> 01:00:41,719
the ones that talk about the spiritual nature of chaos

1135
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:44,360
and the spiritual battle and everything else, because you have

1136
01:00:44,440 --> 01:00:47,800
to get into the the nuts and bolts of this thing.

1137
01:00:47,840 --> 01:00:50,280
You got. You gotta figure out like how it actually works,

1138
01:00:50,760 --> 01:00:53,039
why would people fall to this thing? And one of

1139
01:00:53,079 --> 01:00:56,079
the things that you see in it. And this is

1140
01:00:56,119 --> 01:00:59,239
also true of the nature of chaos in Warhammer Fantasy,

1141
01:00:59,320 --> 01:01:02,000
which was the more Middle Aged version of the Middle

1142
01:01:02,039 --> 01:01:04,679
Ages version. I should say this that you would also

1143
01:01:04,760 --> 01:01:06,639
see now it's a total war game, so that's getting

1144
01:01:06,679 --> 01:01:09,840
sort of like a new birth of life. Is chaos

1145
01:01:10,159 --> 01:01:14,719
is self destructive. It's not like it can't. It's going

1146
01:01:14,800 --> 01:01:17,840
to win inevitably, but at the same time, and it

1147
01:01:17,920 --> 01:01:21,360
can also never win. To bring this back to where

1148
01:01:21,400 --> 01:01:25,400
we started, the idea that they can never actually hold power,

1149
01:01:26,039 --> 01:01:29,039
they can never be conscious of themselves holding power. The

1150
01:01:29,159 --> 01:01:31,239
point of the great game is just to keep being

1151
01:01:31,360 --> 01:01:34,400
played forever. The point of destruction is that it's an

1152
01:01:34,519 --> 01:01:36,679
end in itself and to tear down that which exists.

1153
01:01:36,719 --> 01:01:38,920
And if you point out, well, yeah, but at the

1154
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:41,280
end of it, none of this stuff is going to exist.

1155
01:01:42,440 --> 01:01:45,760
If chaos does destroy the material realm, that's the end

1156
01:01:45,800 --> 01:01:48,239
of the material realm and there's nothing to fight over anymore,

1157
01:01:48,239 --> 01:01:49,599
and that's the end of it. And maybe even the

1158
01:01:49,679 --> 01:01:52,039
chaos gods themselves would die off because there'd be no

1159
01:01:52,119 --> 01:01:55,039
more emotions coming in. But they don't think that far ahead,

1160
01:01:55,119 --> 01:01:57,199
or they don't care. If you want to talk about

1161
01:01:57,320 --> 01:01:59,639
a a purely alien thing like the tyrannids. The Tyrannids

1162
01:01:59,679 --> 01:02:02,360
are sort of these bug creatures that want to eat everything. Well,

1163
01:02:02,400 --> 01:02:04,480
if they eat everything, there's not gonna be any food left,

1164
01:02:04,519 --> 01:02:06,639
and they're all going to starve to death, It doesn't matter.

1165
01:02:06,920 --> 01:02:09,400
They have this compulsion to keep going and going and

1166
01:02:09,519 --> 01:02:12,000
going like this, And it's sort of the same thing

1167
01:02:12,079 --> 01:02:13,920
when you look at I mean, this is where I

1168
01:02:13,960 --> 01:02:16,239
get accused of making a stretch, but I'm gonna stand

1169
01:02:16,280 --> 01:02:18,840
by it. This is where leftism goes in real life.

1170
01:02:18,880 --> 01:02:22,119
I mean, what was the compulsion to destroy Rhodesia and

1171
01:02:22,199 --> 01:02:25,280
turn it into Zimbabwe? What was one? What was the

1172
01:02:25,360 --> 01:02:28,760
great victory? Here? There was nothing left but a ruin.

1173
01:02:29,519 --> 01:02:32,760
But nobody learned anything from this, and nobody admits that

1174
01:02:32,840 --> 01:02:35,920
they were wrong. The point was to turn it into

1175
01:02:36,000 --> 01:02:39,239
this ruin. And the people who did that just moved

1176
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:40,960
on to the next thing, and they're going to move

1177
01:02:41,000 --> 01:02:42,880
on to the next thing after that. And you see

1178
01:02:42,920 --> 01:02:44,559
the same thing happening in our own country and in

1179
01:02:44,639 --> 01:02:48,280
Europe and Australia and everything else. It's not people who

1180
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:50,480
are saying things and you see this with conservatives all

1181
01:02:50,519 --> 01:02:53,480
the time that well, your policies are going to lead

1182
01:02:53,519 --> 01:02:58,199
to lef's wealth or safety for the people that you

1183
01:02:58,320 --> 01:02:59,239
claim to care about.

1184
01:03:00,039 --> 01:03:05,360
Speaker 5: Sacrificing ten thousand people to korn will decrease the gi right, Like, yes,

1185
01:03:05,440 --> 01:03:06,000
that's the point.

1186
01:03:06,559 --> 01:03:09,480
Speaker 6: Yeah, the point of destruction is destruction. The point of

1187
01:03:10,079 --> 01:03:14,320
sacrifice is to sacrifice. I mean it's not. The point

1188
01:03:14,480 --> 01:03:17,440
of tearing something down is to tear it down. Like

1189
01:03:17,519 --> 01:03:21,760
that's it. There is no greater thing here and in

1190
01:03:21,880 --> 01:03:24,079
a way, and this also gets I think, to the

1191
01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:27,440
nature of chaos and stuff. It does give you a

1192
01:03:27,559 --> 01:03:32,199
terrible power, and it does give you this this ability

1193
01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:36,360
to do more than normal people can. Because actually, I

1194
01:03:36,400 --> 01:03:38,480
think of all people I think back before, I think

1195
01:03:38,760 --> 01:03:41,519
he really lost it when Richard and Nani wrote that

1196
01:03:41,679 --> 01:03:43,920
essay on why is Everything Liberal? And one of the

1197
01:03:44,039 --> 01:03:46,119
things that he pointed out is that liberals just simply

1198
01:03:46,199 --> 01:03:48,480
care more. And one of the examples he was giving

1199
01:03:48,519 --> 01:03:50,760
whither on social media or in that essay was how

1200
01:03:50,800 --> 01:03:53,119
you have these people who will spend like sixteen hours

1201
01:03:53,159 --> 01:03:56,920
a day editing Wikipedia articles to make sure that they

1202
01:03:56,960 --> 01:03:59,400
can smear this guy or that guy, making up sources,

1203
01:03:59,480 --> 01:04:02,239
doing all these complicated things to create citations, all the

1204
01:04:02,280 --> 01:04:04,800
rest of it. There, It doesn't matter how dedicated it

1205
01:04:04,960 --> 01:04:07,159
we are. You and I are never going to act

1206
01:04:07,280 --> 01:04:09,679
like that, and you're never going to get normal people

1207
01:04:09,760 --> 01:04:12,079
to act like that. How do you fight that? How

1208
01:04:12,119 --> 01:04:14,440
do you fight neurosis? On that level, the answer is

1209
01:04:14,519 --> 01:04:18,960
you don't. And this is sort of the power of chaos,

1210
01:04:19,119 --> 01:04:23,199
like that being driven by a purely negative thing in

1211
01:04:23,280 --> 01:04:27,320
a way actually makes you more powerful than fighting to

1212
01:04:27,480 --> 01:04:30,880
defend that which you love. I mean, the idea of

1213
01:04:31,280 --> 01:04:35,079
hate is actually stronger than love. Is something that's a

1214
01:04:35,239 --> 01:04:39,119
disturbing premise within forty k that unfortunately, I think all

1215
01:04:39,159 --> 01:04:40,519
you have to do is sort of look around the

1216
01:04:40,599 --> 01:04:43,000
real world and you see, well, maybe there's something to that.

1217
01:04:43,639 --> 01:04:45,840
One other thing that's in it too, is when we

1218
01:04:45,920 --> 01:04:47,840
talk about the nature of chaos. I don't want to

1219
01:04:47,880 --> 01:04:49,519
get into the chaos gods or what they are and

1220
01:04:49,559 --> 01:04:52,519
everything else. But for people who are thinking what's ther

1221
01:04:52,559 --> 01:04:55,360
relevance to this, think of a chaos god. In terms

1222
01:04:55,400 --> 01:04:59,760
of an addiction. When you have a real addiction, you know,

1223
01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:02,400
choose life. Why would I do that when I have heroin.

1224
01:05:02,599 --> 01:05:04,960
When you have a real addiction, whether it's to a drug,

1225
01:05:05,000 --> 01:05:08,000
whether it's to a person, whether it's to a particular

1226
01:05:08,159 --> 01:05:11,800
thing that you're dedicated to, it solves so many problems

1227
01:05:11,880 --> 01:05:14,840
for you. In a way, there is no existential despair.

1228
01:05:15,039 --> 01:05:17,280
You know exactly who you are, you know exactly what

1229
01:05:17,400 --> 01:05:20,199
you have to do. You are in service to this thing,

1230
01:05:20,760 --> 01:05:23,960
and your life is organized around this thing, and in

1231
01:05:24,039 --> 01:05:26,760
many ways it allows you to accomplish some incredible things

1232
01:05:26,840 --> 01:05:29,400
in service to this thing, depending on what it is.

1233
01:05:30,280 --> 01:05:35,360
And this is basically what chaos does. It creates. As

1234
01:05:35,400 --> 01:05:37,000
the title of one of the books in the horrorce Heresy,

1235
01:05:37,000 --> 01:05:39,960
it's called Slaves to Darkness. And in the afterword of

1236
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:42,760
that book, the author, I think it's John French, writes

1237
01:05:42,800 --> 01:05:45,000
about what it is to be a slave to darkness.

1238
01:05:45,079 --> 01:05:50,159
It is to be glorified and yet lose one's own will.

1239
01:05:51,159 --> 01:05:53,400
And in many ways it makes you a slave, but

1240
01:05:53,519 --> 01:05:56,039
in another way it makes you stronger than ever. And

1241
01:05:57,039 --> 01:05:59,440
in some ways I think that's sort of what leftism is.

1242
01:06:00,760 --> 01:06:04,679
You abandon the private attachments that I think many of

1243
01:06:04,800 --> 01:06:08,199
us would define the purpose of our lives by. Certainly,

1244
01:06:08,920 --> 01:06:11,239
if you look at the way, like a true revolutionary

1245
01:06:11,280 --> 01:06:13,119
one hundred years ago was driven with the idea that

1246
01:06:13,159 --> 01:06:16,679
there the revolutionary has no private attachments, he has no morality,

1247
01:06:16,719 --> 01:06:19,039
he has no god, He lives entirely in service of

1248
01:06:19,119 --> 01:06:22,840
the revolution. In one way, that's being less than human,

1249
01:06:23,239 --> 01:06:25,519
But in another way that makes you so much greater

1250
01:06:26,079 --> 01:06:30,480
and so much harder. To fight, and weirdly enough, I

1251
01:06:30,599 --> 01:06:34,440
think that using a supernatural metaphor for this in terms

1252
01:06:34,480 --> 01:06:38,000
of chaos is actually the best way to explain how

1253
01:06:38,079 --> 01:06:41,440
does true liberalism, how does true leftism operate in the world.

1254
01:06:42,519 --> 01:06:44,639
It's being a slave to darkness, it's being a servant

1255
01:06:44,639 --> 01:06:45,039
of chaos.

1256
01:06:46,760 --> 01:06:50,199
Speaker 5: Well, and I think that, like, look, you know, the

1257
01:06:50,239 --> 01:06:53,559
phrase grim dark has sort of become a byword for

1258
01:06:54,760 --> 01:07:00,400
this kind of ultimately doomed struggle against entropy. But what

1259
01:07:00,559 --> 01:07:06,039
I think is so deeply attractive about you know, many

1260
01:07:06,079 --> 01:07:10,360
of these characters is that despite the fact that the

1261
01:07:10,440 --> 01:07:14,519
battle is ultimately hopeless, yet they fight on that there

1262
01:07:14,639 --> 01:07:19,039
is this sort of opportunity for heroism and for transcendence

1263
01:07:19,159 --> 01:07:22,920
even in the face of ultimate failure. And I think that,

1264
01:07:23,119 --> 01:07:25,880
you know, as you've said earlier, right, ultimately and entropy

1265
01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:29,239
wins out. You know the famous you know, the famous

1266
01:07:29,320 --> 01:07:32,280
oak door you know from the analogy, right, they will,

1267
01:07:32,559 --> 01:07:34,920
you know, burn your oak door down. It's like, well,

1268
01:07:35,000 --> 01:07:37,800
regardless of if it's burnt or not, eventually it turns

1269
01:07:37,840 --> 01:07:40,360
to dust. The oldest door in the world is one

1270
01:07:40,360 --> 01:07:42,920
thousand years old. It's not that long in the grand

1271
01:07:42,960 --> 01:07:49,280
scheme of things, But yet that fight is still worth fighting.

1272
01:07:49,679 --> 01:07:54,360
It is something that needs to be done store on

1273
01:07:54,480 --> 01:07:57,440
a long enough time span. We're all dead. But yet

1274
01:07:58,039 --> 01:08:01,400
through your sacrifice, through kind of growing yourself on the pire,

1275
01:08:01,920 --> 01:08:04,280
you know, and there are many instances of this, you know,

1276
01:08:04,360 --> 01:08:07,400
this sort of like almost like caliban esque behavior, you know,

1277
01:08:07,599 --> 01:08:09,800
driving a bomb and to the you know, to the

1278
01:08:10,239 --> 01:08:13,920
evil base and blowing it up. These kind of suicidal

1279
01:08:14,000 --> 01:08:19,439
bravery is redemptive. And I think that, you know, when

1280
01:08:19,479 --> 01:08:23,159
we're talking about this, it sort of is slavery is

1281
01:08:23,199 --> 01:08:26,119
a given. You are enslaving yourself to something. There is

1282
01:08:26,319 --> 01:08:29,119
no chance for freedom. But you can either make yourself

1283
01:08:29,159 --> 01:08:33,479
a slave to darkness or a slave to either this

1284
01:08:33,560 --> 01:08:35,920
sort of like odentic great man who may or may

1285
01:08:35,960 --> 01:08:38,840
not even be alive. And those are your two choices,

1286
01:08:38,960 --> 01:08:43,680
there are only two, but one of those is still better, right,

1287
01:08:43,840 --> 01:08:46,520
not better is more effective. But like within the bounded

1288
01:08:46,600 --> 01:08:50,520
rationality of the human species existing, your choice has been made.

1289
01:08:50,920 --> 01:08:55,319
You can either answer the call or not. And I

1290
01:08:55,359 --> 01:08:59,239
think that that clarity of moral focus, that idea of

1291
01:08:59,359 --> 01:09:03,840
having something to give yourself completely and totally too, where

1292
01:09:03,840 --> 01:09:08,479
there is no you know, there's there's no moral gray area.

1293
01:09:08,600 --> 01:09:11,800
There is what I think many particularly young men, find

1294
01:09:12,000 --> 01:09:14,760
appealing about that, because that is, you know, a quest

1295
01:09:14,880 --> 01:09:17,439
I can give myself to. Now you mentioned you know

1296
01:09:17,479 --> 01:09:20,039
space greens, and they're they're obviously they wear armor. They

1297
01:09:20,039 --> 01:09:22,960
are sort of this idealized knight. You know this this

1298
01:09:23,239 --> 01:09:27,039
you know, kind of warrior monk, you know, ascetic, you know,

1299
01:09:27,439 --> 01:09:32,800
martial class. But and with that comes the quest, right comes,

1300
01:09:33,000 --> 01:09:35,680
you know, the search for is is often a plot device,

1301
01:09:36,039 --> 01:09:39,600
some sort of relic, but also, right, the idea of

1302
01:09:40,199 --> 01:09:43,399
you know, honor, the idea of and there are so

1303
01:09:43,479 --> 01:09:45,680
many flavors of this that is impossible to make, you know,

1304
01:09:45,800 --> 01:09:48,960
specific claims here without getting into much too much autism

1305
01:09:49,079 --> 01:09:53,479
for my listeners. But that idea of, you know, effectively

1306
01:09:53,640 --> 01:09:58,159
giving yourself to something greater, and I think that, you know,

1307
01:09:59,119 --> 01:10:03,119
in an era of extreme individualism, that idea of sublimating

1308
01:10:03,199 --> 01:10:09,159
yourself completely to something bigger than you is sort of intoxicating, right,

1309
01:10:09,239 --> 01:10:11,880
It's sort of a as you pointed out right, it

1310
01:10:12,119 --> 01:10:15,119
is you were in some ways it seems as if

1311
01:10:15,159 --> 01:10:20,319
almost identity and meaning are inversely related. You can have

1312
01:10:20,520 --> 01:10:21,520
one but not the other.

1313
01:10:22,800 --> 01:10:25,199
Speaker 6: That's yeah, there's a I mean one of the greatest

1314
01:10:25,279 --> 01:10:31,520
characters in the whole setting is Sigismund. Sigismund is former

1315
01:10:31,600 --> 01:10:34,840
first captain of the Imperial Fists, and he becomes the

1316
01:10:34,920 --> 01:10:37,439
founder of one of the chapters that you'll see a

1317
01:10:37,479 --> 01:10:40,399
lot the aesthetics, the memes are everywhere. The black templars,

1318
01:10:40,720 --> 01:10:43,399
so they've got them Maltese crossed, they've got the black armor.

1319
01:10:43,520 --> 01:10:45,640
They think they look like what they are, their crusaders

1320
01:10:45,640 --> 01:10:48,840
in space, their their main ship is called the Eternal Crusader.

1321
01:10:49,439 --> 01:10:52,319
And there's a very interesting passage in one of the

1322
01:10:52,359 --> 01:10:55,560
books Saturda ny and I Believe, where he's fighting a

1323
01:10:55,760 --> 01:10:59,399
very tough opponent without getting into it too much, and

1324
01:10:59,640 --> 01:11:02,560
it taught about how in his own mind because again

1325
01:11:02,680 --> 01:11:05,479
he's a he's a son of the Imperium, as it was,

1326
01:11:05,840 --> 01:11:08,479
so he believes reason, he believes in science, he believes

1327
01:11:08,520 --> 01:11:11,800
in the imperial truth. He's fighting this long war, he's

1328
01:11:11,840 --> 01:11:15,680
seen all these terrible things, and he's gradually come to faith.

1329
01:11:16,079 --> 01:11:18,439
And he's come to faith in an empire where the

1330
01:11:18,560 --> 01:11:21,920
very idea of faith is still technically illegal, and not

1331
01:11:22,079 --> 01:11:26,279
just illegal, but in some sense treason. And what he

1332
01:11:26,920 --> 01:11:28,960
sort of comes around to the thing that sort of

1333
01:11:29,000 --> 01:11:32,119
gives him inner peace is this idea that he's walking

1334
01:11:32,199 --> 01:11:36,439
along this road, this long road, and the road has

1335
01:11:36,600 --> 01:11:40,039
no end. The road actually doesn't even have a purpose.

1336
01:11:40,119 --> 01:11:42,720
The purpose of doing it is the act itself, and

1337
01:11:42,880 --> 01:11:45,079
the only thing that he has to think about is

1338
01:11:45,199 --> 01:11:48,039
just what is the next thing to do? And once

1339
01:11:48,079 --> 01:11:50,039
he defeats an opponent, the only thing he has to

1340
01:11:50,119 --> 01:11:52,600
worry about next is well, who is the next opponent

1341
01:11:52,640 --> 01:11:54,399
who's a threat to the throne that I can lay

1342
01:11:54,479 --> 01:11:57,479
down before it? And the author talks about this, you know,

1343
01:11:57,600 --> 01:11:59,760
sort of a from our point of view, from the

1344
01:11:59,800 --> 01:12:01,880
god Od's eye point of view, that there's like a

1345
01:12:02,039 --> 01:12:05,199
terrible nihilism implicit in all this, which even like the

1346
01:12:05,319 --> 01:12:07,800
chaos guy that he's fighting sort of sees and is like,

1347
01:12:08,119 --> 01:12:10,000
this is more anti human than what I am and

1348
01:12:10,119 --> 01:12:14,359
sub sense. But from another perspective, it's also sort of

1349
01:12:14,560 --> 01:12:18,039
inevitably where you end up, because I think that the

1350
01:12:18,159 --> 01:12:22,079
great tragedy of and this gets to the whole irony

1351
01:12:22,159 --> 01:12:24,199
that you pointed out, which is the whole story of

1352
01:12:24,279 --> 01:12:27,960
forty K In a way, the starting point, or at

1353
01:12:28,039 --> 01:12:31,119
least the starting goal of what the Emperor wanted to

1354
01:12:31,199 --> 01:12:35,760
accomplish was basically us now this kind of society operating

1355
01:12:35,800 --> 01:12:40,159
on these sorts of principles secoism, rationalism, reddit in space basically,

1356
01:12:40,840 --> 01:12:43,840
but where does it lead? You get people when you

1357
01:12:43,960 --> 01:12:47,199
have a society where people are asking questions like who

1358
01:12:47,319 --> 01:12:50,359
am I? How do I find myself? What am I

1359
01:12:50,520 --> 01:12:53,800
doing here? Like I think Socrates was completely wrong. I

1360
01:12:53,880 --> 01:12:56,800
think knowledge of oneself is actually a sign of decadence.

1361
01:12:56,840 --> 01:12:59,159
I mean, this is actually it's a very bad sign

1362
01:12:59,479 --> 01:13:01,800
when you have to start asking yourself these questions. You

1363
01:13:01,800 --> 01:13:06,399
should just know these things. And one of the interesting

1364
01:13:06,520 --> 01:13:09,640
things about forty k is it's sort of that's basically

1365
01:13:09,800 --> 01:13:12,920
the great lesson for all these things, because the people

1366
01:13:13,079 --> 01:13:17,239
who who stick to to duty, to tradition, to mission,

1367
01:13:17,319 --> 01:13:19,880
to purpose, these are the people who sort of go

1368
01:13:20,079 --> 01:13:22,560
on to be the heroes. And what is the number?

1369
01:13:22,680 --> 01:13:24,840
And you know this too as somebody who's read some

1370
01:13:24,920 --> 01:13:28,279
of this stuff, What is the one thing? What are

1371
01:13:28,359 --> 01:13:31,600
people searching for when they take the first step toward chaos?

1372
01:13:31,720 --> 01:13:33,960
What is the one thing they want more than anything else?

1373
01:13:35,039 --> 01:13:38,960
They want freedom, they want autonomy, they want they don't

1374
01:13:39,039 --> 01:13:42,399
want to be in this society where it's hierarchical and

1375
01:13:42,439 --> 01:13:46,039
they're not in supreme command. It's unfair. They want fair.

1376
01:13:46,119 --> 01:13:48,359
It's like, you know, Joker says in Batman, you think

1377
01:13:48,399 --> 01:13:52,399
about chaos, it's fair. And what does that lead to?

1378
01:13:52,640 --> 01:13:55,560
The search for autonomy, the search for freedom, the search

1379
01:13:55,640 --> 01:13:58,479
for fairness ultimately leads you to a form of slavery

1380
01:13:58,800 --> 01:14:01,159
that is far more absolutely than anything that God Emperor

1381
01:14:01,199 --> 01:14:03,920
could impose on you. And that's sort of the great

1382
01:14:04,000 --> 01:14:05,880
lesson of this whole thing. And in a weird way,

1383
01:14:06,920 --> 01:14:09,239
this was so funny about like where this setting is

1384
01:14:09,319 --> 01:14:13,319
now they're inserting like the wokeness is definitely there in

1385
01:14:13,600 --> 01:14:16,600
comical ways that are almost like it's the kind of

1386
01:14:16,640 --> 01:14:19,000
thing we would make up, Like, oh, there's this one

1387
01:14:19,119 --> 01:14:22,479
chapter space marines that are basically vikings in space. They

1388
01:14:22,520 --> 01:14:24,279
are all these books and stories about them, and all

1389
01:14:24,319 --> 01:14:25,960
have like blonde hair, blue eyes, because you know they're

1390
01:14:26,000 --> 01:14:28,239
vikings in space. But now it turns out like, oh,

1391
01:14:28,319 --> 01:14:30,840
actually all these ones are black for some reason, We're

1392
01:14:30,880 --> 01:14:33,399
going to have female you know, super soldiers in this

1393
01:14:33,520 --> 01:14:36,760
one thing. Every the Imperial Guard, which is just like

1394
01:14:36,840 --> 01:14:39,239
the ordinary people who are fighting all these terrible things

1395
01:14:39,600 --> 01:14:41,560
in older books. It talks all the times about how

1396
01:14:41,600 --> 01:14:43,640
co ed units are relatively rare and most of them

1397
01:14:43,680 --> 01:14:46,159
are obviously men. Now, of course, it seems that every

1398
01:14:46,199 --> 01:14:47,880
single unit is co ed, and it seems like all

1399
01:14:47,920 --> 01:14:50,640
the commanders and super soldiers are ninety pounds women, because

1400
01:14:50,680 --> 01:14:53,319
of course they are. These sorts of things are now

1401
01:14:53,520 --> 01:14:56,880
basically everywhere, but on a deeper level in terms of

1402
01:14:57,000 --> 01:15:01,640
like how the setting actually plays out, strengthening the more

1403
01:15:02,119 --> 01:15:06,159
dare I say, theological justifications for why the Imperium has

1404
01:15:06,239 --> 01:15:08,560
to operate the way it does and why it's actually

1405
01:15:08,640 --> 01:15:12,560
the good guys. They've sort of repudiated what they said

1406
01:15:12,640 --> 01:15:15,560
only a few years ago. They're no longer saying the

1407
01:15:15,640 --> 01:15:18,039
Imperium runs on hate. What they're saying now is that

1408
01:15:18,119 --> 01:15:20,680
the Imperium is, in a way sort of a rather

1409
01:15:20,760 --> 01:15:24,399
than a grim dark, a more noble, bright faction where

1410
01:15:24,920 --> 01:15:28,319
a brave team of racially and sexually diverse humans take

1411
01:15:28,399 --> 01:15:31,199
up arms against evil. Like that seems to be where

1412
01:15:31,239 --> 01:15:34,199
this thing is going. And it's a very strange thing

1413
01:15:34,359 --> 01:15:39,720
because they're simultaneously deconstructing the whole setting and taking away

1414
01:15:39,880 --> 01:15:42,159
so many of the things that made it great, but

1415
01:15:42,279 --> 01:15:45,640
at the same time they're also building up the main

1416
01:15:45,800 --> 01:15:48,960
faction as morally good in a way that it just

1417
01:15:49,199 --> 01:15:52,159
wasn't before. I mean, before you would say, basically, they

1418
01:15:52,239 --> 01:15:54,359
have to be this way because they're in a tough universe.

1419
01:15:54,560 --> 01:15:57,520
Now it's getting increasingly difficult not to just say no, actually,

1420
01:15:57,560 --> 01:15:58,520
they're just the good guys.

1421
01:16:00,199 --> 01:16:01,720
Speaker 5: Can't we just do that here?

1422
01:16:02,399 --> 01:16:04,640
Speaker 6: Right? I mean? And that's just it. And people will

1423
01:16:04,640 --> 01:16:07,199
say things like well, I mean, if you say, well,

1424
01:16:07,319 --> 01:16:09,319
look at all the racial and sexual stuff, it's like, okay,

1425
01:16:09,399 --> 01:16:11,920
well look at Starship Troopers the book, not the movie.

1426
01:16:12,279 --> 01:16:14,920
Well even in the movie too. I mean, what is

1427
01:16:14,960 --> 01:16:17,640
the great reveal if you've ever read Starship Troopers the book,

1428
01:16:17,680 --> 01:16:19,079
what is the great reveal at the end of that

1429
01:16:19,199 --> 01:16:22,479
thing that this guy we've been falling around, Johnny Rico,

1430
01:16:22,520 --> 01:16:26,800
speaks Tagalog, which means that he's probably he almost certainly

1431
01:16:26,880 --> 01:16:29,920
is Filipino. So you've been following this Filipino guy the

1432
01:16:29,960 --> 01:16:33,760
whole way through. And people will say things like, well,

1433
01:16:33,840 --> 01:16:36,880
you know, it's fascist, it's hierarchical, it's militaristic, and it's like, yeah,

1434
01:16:36,960 --> 01:16:38,239
maybe it is all these things, but you know what,

1435
01:16:38,319 --> 01:16:41,840
it's not. It's not racist because it's this global unless

1436
01:16:41,880 --> 01:16:43,800
you want to call it like the human racist thing.

1437
01:16:44,359 --> 01:16:48,199
And you have this global system where it turns out

1438
01:16:48,319 --> 01:16:50,720
that you have all these different people of different races,

1439
01:16:51,159 --> 01:16:54,600
all serving under one flag, and it's operating in this hierarchical,

1440
01:16:56,279 --> 01:17:01,800
arguably authoritarian way. But when the only thing that people

1441
01:17:01,920 --> 01:17:05,079
really seem to understand is like wrong with let's call

1442
01:17:05,159 --> 01:17:09,560
it fascism today, is that it was somehow like racially discriminatory,

1443
01:17:09,720 --> 01:17:13,039
like that was the big problem with fascism, then it

1444
01:17:13,159 --> 01:17:16,119
becomes harder to argue against, like, well, why exactly is

1445
01:17:16,199 --> 01:17:19,119
the imperium bad? I mean, I think like when a

1446
01:17:19,159 --> 01:17:21,399
lot of these things were being written in the nineteen eighties,

1447
01:17:21,479 --> 01:17:25,960
say nineteen nineties, the idea of an overwheeming corrupt bureaucracy

1448
01:17:27,079 --> 01:17:30,640
and religious superstition dominating everything you did, the idea of

1449
01:17:30,720 --> 01:17:34,079
living under its atalitarian state, that by itself was seen

1450
01:17:34,119 --> 01:17:37,800
as bad. You know why was Nazism bad for the

1451
01:17:37,840 --> 01:17:40,279
same reason that fascism was seen as bad or Soviet

1452
01:17:40,319 --> 01:17:43,279
communism was seen as bad. Because you weren't free, because

1453
01:17:43,319 --> 01:17:45,960
you were in number. You were just an input in

1454
01:17:46,079 --> 01:17:48,039
this system. And as they say at the beginning of

1455
01:17:48,079 --> 01:17:50,680
all the forty K books, the universe is a big place,

1456
01:17:50,760 --> 01:17:53,439
and whatever happens, you will not be missed. But now

1457
01:17:53,600 --> 01:17:55,840
we've sort of lost that because we already live in

1458
01:17:55,880 --> 01:17:58,279
a system under liberal democracy when we're just a number.

1459
01:17:58,600 --> 01:18:01,119
I think all of our experiences in with COVID showed

1460
01:18:01,199 --> 01:18:03,720
us that all this talk about individual rights and freedom

1461
01:18:03,760 --> 01:18:06,960
and autonomy was always nonsense, And so what do you

1462
01:18:07,039 --> 01:18:09,359
have to fall back on. He basically had this stuff

1463
01:18:09,359 --> 01:18:12,199
about race and sex, and that's the essence of what

1464
01:18:12,319 --> 01:18:14,319
it is to be a good person or a bad person.

1465
01:18:14,680 --> 01:18:16,800
So I think what GW is kind of done is

1466
01:18:17,279 --> 01:18:18,960
and the people who own this IP have kind of done,

1467
01:18:19,079 --> 01:18:22,079
is they've soft pedaled the things that used to make

1468
01:18:22,119 --> 01:18:25,800
the imperium unattractive because they're justifying it in some sense.

1469
01:18:26,159 --> 01:18:28,680
And then they're just kind of increasing more diversity. But

1470
01:18:29,880 --> 01:18:34,000
even though increasing more diversity undermines the lore, arguably makes

1471
01:18:34,239 --> 01:18:37,359
less compelling and all these sorts of things. Insofar as

1472
01:18:37,479 --> 01:18:41,680
people today have a morality, I think it's basically whichever

1473
01:18:41,920 --> 01:18:45,119
side is more diverse is basically the good guys. I've

1474
01:18:45,199 --> 01:18:47,359
noticed in quite a few movies, like say, Gangs in

1475
01:18:47,399 --> 01:18:49,840
New York, there'll be a black character who has been

1476
01:18:49,880 --> 01:18:52,960
inserted for really no reason that makes any logical sense

1477
01:18:53,039 --> 01:18:55,800
within the story, But I think he's only there to

1478
01:18:55,920 --> 01:18:58,359
tell the audience which side are the good guys and

1479
01:18:58,399 --> 01:19:00,439
which side are the bad guys, because if you wasn't there,

1480
01:19:00,439 --> 01:19:01,319
they would have no idea.

1481
01:19:03,520 --> 01:19:07,239
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's an interesting comparison could be done. And this

1482
01:19:07,399 --> 01:19:10,319
is not only well past the scope of this discussion,

1483
01:19:11,079 --> 01:19:13,520
but a digression that is probably not worth our time

1484
01:19:13,640 --> 01:19:19,279
going into comparing and contrasting the worldview of Ordy k

1485
01:19:19,720 --> 01:19:24,840
and James Cameron's Avatar franchise because they were almost completely

1486
01:19:24,920 --> 01:19:27,560
and totally opposite to one another. Because I watched the

1487
01:19:27,600 --> 01:19:30,199
most recent film, it was awful. I don't recommend it

1488
01:19:30,239 --> 01:19:34,119
in the slightest. But one of the really funny things

1489
01:19:34,239 --> 01:19:39,239
is that James Cameron genuinely hates humans, and so he

1490
01:19:39,399 --> 01:19:41,279
is trying to, as a you know, a good liberal

1491
01:19:41,319 --> 01:19:44,079
who lives in New Zealand, trying to you know, make

1492
01:19:44,199 --> 01:19:48,840
this about, you know, racial diversity, because obviously the aliens

1493
01:19:48,840 --> 01:19:54,800
are coded as tribal. I'll leave it at that. But

1494
01:19:54,880 --> 01:19:58,239
the problem is they're literally going up against a diverse

1495
01:19:58,399 --> 01:20:01,479
one world government ruled by a woman, and the within

1496
01:20:01,560 --> 01:20:04,920
the within the universe. The justification is to genocide those

1497
01:20:05,000 --> 01:20:09,479
people so that one race of aliens can take over, right,

1498
01:20:09,560 --> 01:20:11,479
their planet didn't didn't.

1499
01:20:12,720 --> 01:20:14,399
Speaker 6: I'm blanking on the on the woman's name. Is that

1500
01:20:14,479 --> 01:20:18,119
Danny Newton, the black woman who plays one of the characters,

1501
01:20:18,279 --> 01:20:21,840
or I think it's a I think it was. I

1502
01:20:21,880 --> 01:20:23,720
don't know if it's the right character. That's why I'm

1503
01:20:23,720 --> 01:20:26,039
blanking on the actor's name. But she's made a statement

1504
01:20:26,079 --> 01:20:27,720
being like and she's talking about one of her like

1505
01:20:27,800 --> 01:20:30,039
alien characters. She's like, well, the problem is that she's

1506
01:20:30,079 --> 01:20:32,520
a racist. Like she's even saying, like, the aliens are

1507
01:20:32,520 --> 01:20:35,760
actually the racist here, which you could say that's sort

1508
01:20:35,760 --> 01:20:38,600
of a not the main point, but the problem is

1509
01:20:38,640 --> 01:20:42,880
when that is the focus of all modern morality. Well,

1510
01:20:42,920 --> 01:20:45,239
then by your own standards, the humans are the good guys,

1511
01:20:45,279 --> 01:20:48,520
aren't they, Because like, why should like one race of

1512
01:20:48,600 --> 01:20:50,680
these aliens be able to wipe out everybody else and

1513
01:20:50,800 --> 01:20:53,319
enjoy this planet? Why shouldn't everybody be able to come

1514
01:20:53,359 --> 01:20:55,840
and enjoy this planet, especially when it seems to be Again,

1515
01:20:55,840 --> 01:20:57,359
I haven't seen it, but from what I can tell,

1516
01:20:57,760 --> 01:21:00,119
isn't there this whole thing where basically the humans are

1517
01:21:00,159 --> 01:21:02,960
sort of making themselves into these aliens now and like

1518
01:21:03,039 --> 01:21:06,039
having romantic relationships with them, Yes, and that's that's the

1519
01:21:06,119 --> 01:21:06,720
problem here.

1520
01:21:07,239 --> 01:21:10,880
Speaker 5: That's a problem because they're moving here, and they're assimilating,

1521
01:21:11,039 --> 01:21:13,079
and they're this is the logic of the movie. I'm

1522
01:21:13,119 --> 01:21:15,800
not inserting my own values here. They are corrupting the

1523
01:21:15,960 --> 01:21:19,960
genetic purity. So like if you, if you slightly changed

1524
01:21:20,000 --> 01:21:23,159
the phrasing, this could have been written by Gebels like this.

1525
01:21:23,600 --> 01:21:30,079
This is It's basically like ultra racist, libtard sci fi

1526
01:21:30,800 --> 01:21:32,760
in a way that I don't think Jams Cameron is

1527
01:21:32,800 --> 01:21:36,479
particularly smart enough to understand the conclusions of his own arguments.

1528
01:21:37,000 --> 01:21:39,159
But the more I've been thinking about this movie, the

1529
01:21:39,279 --> 01:21:41,079
more I like it, because it is one of the

1530
01:21:41,800 --> 01:21:45,800
greatest pieces of misunderstanding your own arguments I've ever seen

1531
01:21:45,880 --> 01:21:50,560
in cinema, probably the only good thing about that. But Kevin, dude,

1532
01:21:51,039 --> 01:21:52,880
we're over time. This has been a ton of fun, man.

1533
01:21:52,920 --> 01:21:54,920
I feel like there's there's a lot more to discuss.

1534
01:21:55,039 --> 01:21:56,720
But where could people find you, dude?

1535
01:21:57,399 --> 01:22:00,359
Speaker 6: Well, I mean people can find my stuff on and

1536
01:22:00,399 --> 01:22:03,039
stuff about it at Identity Politics, on Rumble and Odyssey,

1537
01:22:03,079 --> 01:22:05,479
and of course I'm over at American Renaissance amren dot com.

1538
01:22:05,640 --> 01:22:07,439
But of course what really matters to me, like the

1539
01:22:07,520 --> 01:22:09,439
thing that I like, actually care about, of course, is

1540
01:22:09,439 --> 01:22:12,279
Warhammer forty K. So my friend Chad and I have

1541
01:22:12,399 --> 01:22:15,119
a show, Grim Dark Enlightenment. We've got four episodes so far.

1542
01:22:15,560 --> 01:22:17,920
You can find that on I post every new episode

1543
01:22:18,199 --> 01:22:21,079
on x and we'll be doing a substack for that too.

1544
01:22:21,199 --> 01:22:24,479
We'll have more content and everything there. And interestingly it's

1545
01:22:24,520 --> 01:22:27,880
called again Grim Dark Enlightenment, and interestingly you brought it

1546
01:22:27,960 --> 01:22:30,159
the last Avatar thing. One of the jokes that I

1547
01:22:30,239 --> 01:22:33,520
made of the last episode was it was basically like

1548
01:22:33,600 --> 01:22:36,920
the most racist white guy ever and then it's POC girlfriend.

1549
01:22:36,960 --> 01:22:38,479
It's all. I was like, oh, actually, this is just

1550
01:22:38,640 --> 01:22:41,000
like a documentary about like the founding members of the

1551
01:22:41,039 --> 01:22:41,640
alt right, so.

1552
01:22:43,920 --> 01:22:47,479
Speaker 5: Quite literally, and this is why this movie blew my

1553
01:22:47,640 --> 01:22:49,319
mind because.

1554
01:22:49,279 --> 01:22:51,760
Speaker 6: The villain of this, I feel, I feel seen.

1555
01:22:53,159 --> 01:22:56,039
Speaker 5: The villain of this is obviously, you know, the most

1556
01:22:56,159 --> 01:23:00,399
racist man alive with his POC girlfriend. But every thing

1557
01:23:00,520 --> 01:23:04,800
he does is in service of the human race. We're

1558
01:23:04,840 --> 01:23:09,800
all one color human and it is again the he's

1559
01:23:10,640 --> 01:23:13,560
he's ultimately a bio essentialist in the sense that he

1560
01:23:13,800 --> 01:23:18,319
believes he has the spirit of a jacked white boomer

1561
01:23:18,720 --> 01:23:23,680
trapped in the body of flue alien and what matters

1562
01:23:23,800 --> 01:23:26,199
is that is what matters. And I think that the

1563
01:23:27,399 --> 01:23:30,600
the weird way in which he is more liberal in

1564
01:23:30,720 --> 01:23:33,279
that way that he believes that his soul, his spirit,

1565
01:23:33,840 --> 01:23:37,239
his his culture matters more than his biology. And then

1566
01:23:37,279 --> 01:23:40,640
the movie is like, screw that guy, stab him with sticks.

1567
01:23:41,159 --> 01:23:46,159
We're more phrasist. Is incredibly funny to me. Yeah again,

1568
01:23:46,239 --> 01:23:48,359
and I don't see it. That irony is not worth

1569
01:23:48,439 --> 01:23:52,119
four hours, but but it is important and that I mean,

1570
01:23:52,359 --> 01:23:53,840
then I'll shut up. As the last point I would

1571
01:23:53,840 --> 01:23:57,039
make is that we're at a point now where a

1572
01:23:57,159 --> 01:24:01,760
lot of the unspoken premises of liberalism, because every system

1573
01:24:01,800 --> 01:24:06,159
has its own internal contradictions, right, and the internal contradictions

1574
01:24:06,199 --> 01:24:08,640
of egalitarianism are now playing out in a way that

1575
01:24:08,720 --> 01:24:10,640
they can't be concealed anymore. I mean, what is the

1576
01:24:10,720 --> 01:24:12,640
thing I say over and over again in identity politics,

1577
01:24:12,640 --> 01:24:14,520
everybody's a blood and soil and nationalist for the people

1578
01:24:14,560 --> 01:24:17,119
they actually like. We are now seeing this all the

1579
01:24:17,199 --> 01:24:20,079
time where the same people who are screaming about the

1580
01:24:20,119 --> 01:24:23,279
evils of racism are saying it is cultural appropriation if

1581
01:24:23,319 --> 01:24:25,800
you make tacos or something and you're white. I mean,

1582
01:24:26,760 --> 01:24:29,680
it is bled around to it is looped around to

1583
01:24:29,760 --> 01:24:34,520
the point where we have racial essentialism now being championed

1584
01:24:34,520 --> 01:24:37,079
by the very same people who previously told us that

1585
01:24:37,239 --> 01:24:40,560
race does not exist, and to bring it back to

1586
01:24:40,600 --> 01:24:42,760
where we really began. I think this is sort of

1587
01:24:42,840 --> 01:24:45,640
the grand narrative of Warhammer forty k More than the

1588
01:24:45,680 --> 01:24:47,680
battle between order of y chaos, which I think is

1589
01:24:47,720 --> 01:24:50,279
at the root of every great mythology, More than even

1590
01:24:50,319 --> 01:24:54,319
the question of traditionalism and hierarchy or anything like that.

1591
01:24:55,239 --> 01:24:59,079
The great fifty thousand year story of that universe is

1592
01:24:59,199 --> 01:25:03,359
essentially that liberalism contains within the seeds of its own demise,

1593
01:25:03,439 --> 01:25:06,279
and you will end up in a post liberal society anyway.

1594
01:25:06,720 --> 01:25:09,239
And that's a terrifying conclusion that I don't think a

1595
01:25:09,279 --> 01:25:12,760
lot of people can allow to be indulged in, even

1596
01:25:12,800 --> 01:25:16,800
as a fantasy. No, certainly, because again, it is the

1597
01:25:16,920 --> 01:25:20,880
death of progress, It is the death of the animating force.

1598
01:25:21,359 --> 01:25:24,159
And once your own people have recognized that, let alone

1599
01:25:24,199 --> 01:25:28,880
your enemies, you are done. Your God is dead again. Kevin,

1600
01:25:28,920 --> 01:25:31,640
this has been a ton of fun, man. I know

1601
01:25:31,720 --> 01:25:33,720
we were joking about this being the most important thing

1602
01:25:33,760 --> 01:25:36,199
in the world, but I'm so burnt out on politics

1603
01:25:36,279 --> 01:25:40,359
that I've just decided to not be a political shown

1604
01:25:41,079 --> 01:25:43,640
till I decide to be interested in politics again. So

1605
01:25:43,680 --> 01:25:46,520
it just be like the fourth media analysis episode in

1606
01:25:46,560 --> 01:25:50,000
a row to my viewers. If you're annoyed by that,

1607
01:25:50,319 --> 01:25:53,560
go listen to someone else's podcast. There are many out

1608
01:25:53,600 --> 01:25:56,920
there as far as my stuff, The Jay Burdens Show, Apple,

1609
01:25:57,000 --> 01:25:59,680
Spotify YouTube. If you want the episodes early in ad

1610
01:25:59,760 --> 01:26:01,720
free for me a few bucks, you can do so

1611
01:26:01,840 --> 01:26:04,960
on Patreon, Substack or gum Road. I know it's a

1612
01:26:04,960 --> 01:26:07,119
little bit annoying, but it helps keep the lights on.

1613
01:26:07,199 --> 01:26:09,720
It pays my mortgage, and look, I think it comes

1614
01:26:09,760 --> 01:26:12,880
out to twenty cents an hour for my episodes early

1615
01:26:12,960 --> 01:26:16,319
in ad free, which is not bad anyway. That's where

1616
01:26:16,359 --> 01:26:19,039
you can support me. Oh, check out Axios Remote Fitness Coaching.

1617
01:26:19,199 --> 01:26:22,119
My sponsor, who I forget to mention, Jad's very good

1618
01:26:22,119 --> 01:26:24,119
at what he does. Who's actually just helping me make

1619
01:26:24,159 --> 01:26:26,479
a custom program this morning. The app's really good.

1620
01:26:26,920 --> 01:26:27,479
Speaker 6: He's one of us.

1621
01:26:27,520 --> 01:26:30,680
Speaker 5: You should support him. Kevin, I appreciate it. Everyone at home,

1622
01:26:30,920 --> 01:26:33,319
keep your head up. I can't last forever. Good Night,