Speaker 1: Meaning a light man like this man letting butterfly flapping
Speaker 1: his wing.
Speaker 2: They've down in a forest. Man, it gonna cause the
Speaker 2: tree fall, letting five thousand miles away.
Speaker 1: Many nobody seen nobody else. You might seem like you
Speaker 1: don't need to know, man, You don't They like you
Speaker 1: followed another story and you got back to protect thats win.
Speaker 1: Man got back and dag on the panel.
Speaker 2: Man, Now you don't don't better Mankay. Today's episode is
Speaker 2: something slightly different to an interview I did with Conscious
Speaker 2: carecle Ernst ben Zeel, South African political commentator and activist
Speaker 2: about a week and a half ago, discussing what I
Speaker 2: think is an interesting question, how much is what we
Speaker 2: do talking on the internet actually matter? And they're multiple
Speaker 2: levels to it, because obviously we understand that us saying
Speaker 2: something doesn't directly produce policy. Look, all of the angst
Speaker 2: over both the start and then the sensation of the
Speaker 2: Iran war seemingly has done little. Now it's difficult to
Speaker 2: say to what degree we do impacts internal party politics.
Speaker 2: There's at least some of it, right, we see this
Speaker 2: in the negative all the time. Our guys get perched,
Speaker 2: people who have unacceptable quote unquote opinions get pushed out,
Speaker 2: which indicates, well, there must at least be people with
Speaker 2: our opinions trying to get close to power. That makes sense.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I also see the email list for
Speaker 2: my substack. There are some names in there who knows
Speaker 2: what they get from it. Now they're taking their marching
Speaker 2: orders from me. But there's something there for the real problem, right,
Speaker 2: it's how politics actually works. We understand that politics is
Speaker 2: top down, not bottom up. So the idea that you
Speaker 2: can simply make something popular and it will affect politics, well,
Speaker 2: clearly that is in the case. We have a number
Speaker 2: of case studies on this where we see the exact
Speaker 2: opposite gay marriage, row versus Wade, integration, all things in
Speaker 2: the US that were unpopular until they were legal and
Speaker 2: then they became popular. They see similar stuff with we legalization.
Speaker 2: But a culture war does matter to at least some degree.
Speaker 2: We're seeing in real time ideas being mainstreamed. We're seeing
Speaker 2: things that were previously off limits brought into politics, and
Speaker 2: this has produced different results. Go back to the defeat
Speaker 2: of Thomas Massey. He was certainly defeated, but it brings
Speaker 2: up an important point that you need a bare fig
Speaker 2: leaf of legitimacy. When that has gone, it becomes very
Speaker 2: differentficult to run a political system, a problem we're seeing now.
Speaker 2: So I don't know right to what degree, what percentage,
Speaker 2: what we do matters, But what I am quite sure
Speaker 2: about is that who's in the audience matters. You can
Speaker 2: look at someone like Alex Jones, for example, who has
Speaker 2: a huge audience but doesn't seem to be able to
Speaker 2: get the government to do what he wants. A wide
Speaker 2: dispersed audience of people without power isn't particularly helpful. Now,
Speaker 2: compare and contrasts that to NPR the New York Times
Speaker 2: comparatively small audiences declining audiences. Trump himself has been loudly
Speaker 2: growing this. But they are the paper of record, They
Speaker 2: are legitimate and important. People read what they have to say.
Speaker 2: I think that there is an information advantage in what
Speaker 2: we do. There are things here that are true that
Speaker 2: you can't talk about elsewhere, that are everboden. And so
Speaker 2: we are seeing, at least in some small part, people
Speaker 2: with a vested interest in an information advantage. Venture capitalists,
Speaker 2: guys who are paid to be on the cutting edge
Speaker 2: infiltrating these circles for good or for ill. But that's
Speaker 2: a leading indicator in my mind that there's something here.
Speaker 2: Now again, I don't think that means people power, we
Speaker 2: will reach a fifty plus one percent. But if I
Speaker 2: didn't think this mattered, if I didn't think there was
Speaker 2: a connection between the online space and reality, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be doing this now. It's important to say that online
Speaker 2: activism and in real life activism are not the same.
Speaker 2: Ernst in this talks about documentaries he's made with tens
Speaker 2: of millions of views that resulted in a handful less
Speaker 2: than ten members of his political organization, whereas he could
Speaker 2: go to a small town twenty thousand people give a
Speaker 2: speech and end up with double that. So are not
Speaker 2: the same thing. And it's also distorted by the fact
Speaker 2: that there is money to be made in this. There
Speaker 2: are people looking to advance themselves the expense of any message.
Speaker 2: I think that question of do what we is what
Speaker 2: we're doing important, It's one we should ask ourselves because
Speaker 2: look like there is a certain aspect of this that's entertainment.
Speaker 2: You're basically using a podcast, using a video entertainment or
Speaker 2: companionship company, right like Boomer's watching the television, And that's
Speaker 2: not the end of the world. Right, that's not bad.
Speaker 2: Not everything needs to be super serious, Not everything needs
Speaker 2: to be didactic, because we understand that there is also
Speaker 2: a war for your sanity, to be perfectly honest, a
Speaker 2: deliberate desire to make you blackpilled, insane and impotent, and
Speaker 2: so an antidote to that is useful in and of itself.
Speaker 2: But remember, and this is a quote I'm stealing from
Speaker 2: Dave Green, the point of the Internet is not to
Speaker 2: win the Internet. Point of the Internet is to get
Speaker 2: you to do something in real life, to get you
Speaker 2: out of the bugman box, the cube, the wage cage,
Speaker 2: as it were. And I think that that's an important
Speaker 2: social function. So anyway, here is my interview with Ernst.
Speaker 2: Back to regularly scheduled programming on Monday, as per usual,
Speaker 2: episode sponsored by Fox and Sun's Coffee. It's good coffee.
Speaker 2: I drink it almost every day. Use the code Jay
Speaker 2: Burden you get some percentage off and also some one
Speaker 2: of the episodes early in NED free. Just head over
Speaker 2: to Patreon, substack or gum Road look for the Jay
Speaker 2: Burton Show. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Alright, Greetings from the Dark Continent. Conscious character here or
Speaker 1: at fun Sale here to shine a lights on the
Speaker 1: goings on down south via at the southern tip of Africa.
Speaker 1: But tonight we're going to be shining a light on
Speaker 1: some ideas and some concepts rather than what's happening in
Speaker 1: a particular place. And joining me tonight for tonight's Tonight's
Speaker 1: theme is Jay Burden. He's been a regular guest on
Speaker 1: this channel. I've also been a regular guest on his show,
Speaker 1: so I think there's a lot of cross pollination with
Speaker 1: the audiences. So I assume most of the people in
Speaker 1: my audience will already recognize who you are. But for
Speaker 1: those who don't know, Jay Burden is a political and
Speaker 1: cultural commentator who lives in America, and he analyzes and
Speaker 1: unpacks many of the phenomena that we see in the
Speaker 1: world around us, in particular American politics and some international
Speaker 1: politics as well, with the help of a very long
Speaker 1: laundry list of fantastic guests that he has on his show.
Speaker 1: So Jay, welcome back, and I'm looking forward tonight's conversation.
Speaker 1: How are you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm doing quite well again. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2: You're an I conversation. Our conversations are some of my
Speaker 2: favorite and there are things I stole from you five
Speaker 2: years ago that I am still using constantly. So I
Speaker 2: think that there's a very productive kind of interplay between
Speaker 2: our channels, our work, and so I'm really glad to
Speaker 2: be here again.
Speaker 1: Man, Well, thank you very much for your time. I'm
Speaker 1: glad we could make the time zone difference work. That's
Speaker 1: always the only real hurdle for making these types of
Speaker 1: conversations happen so to the audience. As you can judge
Speaker 1: by the title of tonight's episode, how much does what
Speaker 1: happens online influence real life? You can see that's the theme.
Speaker 1: But Jay, that's the question that I actually want to
Speaker 1: start off our conversation with, and that's the internet proverbal
Speaker 1: Internet saying that we all know, and that is that
Speaker 1: the Internet is not real life. It's a bit of
Speaker 1: a twenty tens ism, maybe two thousands ASM. I don't
Speaker 1: know exactly when it was at its peak of popularity.
Speaker 1: But what's your what is your what are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on that thesis that is so common online from left
Speaker 1: wing to right wing circles, just across the entire spectrum.
Speaker 1: There seems to be this quote unquote common knowledge that
Speaker 1: the Internet is not real life, even though some people's
Speaker 1: actions online don't reflect that they actually buy into that idea.
Speaker 1: Where do you stand on it?
Speaker 2: So obviously there's a kernel of truth to it. One
Speaker 2: of the things the Internet has done to culture is
Speaker 2: it's completely and tootally fragmented it. I mean, look, the
Speaker 2: top call of duty streamer in the world is probably
Speaker 2: a very wealthy man who has more influence than you
Speaker 2: or I ever will. But I don't know who that is,
Speaker 2: and I guarantee if I showed you a photo of
Speaker 2: that man, you would have no idea who it is. Right,
Speaker 2: in that sense, the Internet is not real life. But
Speaker 2: what we've seen at kind of increasing rapidity is that
Speaker 2: the Internet in real life are converging. Obviously, our enemies,
Speaker 2: foreign and domestic understand this. Just look at the attempt
Speaker 2: on speech control and on internet control we've seen within
Speaker 2: the EU and in Britain. They understand that if a video,
Speaker 2: for instance, a video that recently went massively viral of
Speaker 2: a migrant trying to save someone's head off, that produces
Speaker 2: real world consequences that can jump it becomes big online.
Speaker 2: And then there are you know, lads throwing bins at
Speaker 2: policemen there's a correlation there, so we understand that there
Speaker 2: are extremes on both ends. As regards the explicitly political content,
Speaker 2: is there a one to one correlation. I have a
Speaker 2: big tweet and Donald Trump signs the law? I mean
Speaker 2: obviously not. I mean I've realized that we don't want
Speaker 2: to get into specifics. It can be boring and kind
Speaker 2: of annoying. But the Iran war is helpful because his base,
Speaker 2: particularly online, has not been happy about that, and yet
Speaker 2: it still happened, right, is continuing to happen in some form,
Speaker 2: So we understand that there's a disconnect there. But what
Speaker 2: the Internet does have the ability to do is to
Speaker 2: shift culture, right, is to shift the Overton window and
Speaker 2: the og Alt writers, the guys who are out kind
Speaker 2: of before you and I were blazing the trail, I
Speaker 2: think over relied on that. The idea was we can
Speaker 2: introduce new ideas into the mainstream and create a cultural
Speaker 2: shift that will enable us to do whatever they wanted, right,
Speaker 2: transform the nation, get a job as a commentator, and
Speaker 2: that didn't work. Were they wrong? No, they were right,
Speaker 2: but it was just over a much longer time span
Speaker 2: than they could have expected. You read back a lot
Speaker 2: of those older writers from that time, and it's sort
Speaker 2: of quaint, you know. It's the ideas that shure, we're
Speaker 2: incredibly revolutionary in twenty fourteen, but are now at least
Speaker 2: on the right side of the political spectrum, sort of
Speaker 2: received wisdom. We've all internalized them, even if we'd never read.
Speaker 2: I think of guys like you know, all type who
Speaker 2: I don't have anything against. I'm not picking on him,
Speaker 2: but there are essays that at the time were completely
Speaker 2: and totally revolutionary that now you know, someone who went
Speaker 2: back and read these a year or two ago. It's
Speaker 2: not that they're not good. They are, but that information
Speaker 2: has been so widely disseminated that it's sort of like
Speaker 2: watching the matrix for the first time in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: I've seen this before, you know. That doesn't take away
Speaker 2: from how groundbreaking the original was. So I understand that
Speaker 2: that assumption of the OG writers was incorrect. They all
Speaker 2: got their lives through it to one degree or another,
Speaker 2: because they were correct they were going to shift culture,
Speaker 2: but not in a timeframe helped them from losing their jobs,
Speaker 2: losing their social lives, and sort of being ruined by
Speaker 2: the state. So the internet does affect culture. Now does
Speaker 2: culture affect politics? Not immediately right, We're seeing another You've
Speaker 2: seen this in American politics with the fracturing megabase, is
Speaker 2: that a significant percentage of the base is unhappy with
Speaker 2: the direction of the party, and yet the party continues
Speaker 2: on full steam ahead. And so, to be honest, what
Speaker 2: I think that we're seeing is one a cultural lack, right,
Speaker 2: a difference between when an idea becomes popular on the
Speaker 2: Internet and it hits the point where it was kind
Speaker 2: of spread through culture. But also we have this problem
Speaker 2: of well, power is not bottom up, it's top down. Now,
Speaker 2: what our enemies understand is that culture does select for
Speaker 2: those guys at the top. You know how many of
Speaker 2: us have made fun of boomers, whether conservative or liberal,
Speaker 2: for having certain inherent cultural ideas baked into them that
Speaker 2: they take and apply to policy, even when that contradicts
Speaker 2: their stated values. So at least on that perspective, really
Speaker 2: the question is does culture matter? Right? The Internet is
Speaker 2: a forum for culture. It produces subcultures and eventually those
Speaker 2: hit meat space, as they used to say, But how
Speaker 2: do we go from cultural sentiment to cultural change? I
Speaker 2: mean to put a bone on it, ernest and then
Speaker 2: I'll kick it back to you. That's the million dollar question, right.
Speaker 1: I do agree with that thesis to a large extent.
Speaker 1: I think your your summation of the Internet as an
Speaker 1: information dissemination machine is right on the money. I mean,
Speaker 1: the Internet is a fantastic vehicle for getting good and
Speaker 1: bad information to real people. So to start answering that
Speaker 1: question of is the Internet real life, Well, it gets
Speaker 1: real information and fake information to real people very effectively
Speaker 1: that we've seen. I mean, if that was not the case,
Speaker 1: we would not see as hard a push for Internet
Speaker 1: censorship if the Internet was a terrible information dissemination means.
Speaker 1: But well, I'm the same, I.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't be tat right, Like, if there was simply nothing
Speaker 2: valuable to be found, you and I would never have connected,
Speaker 2: right anyway, Sorry, continue.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so, the Internet absolutely gets information to real people
Speaker 1: and real individuals, and that affects their thoughts and it
Speaker 1: affects the way that they see the world. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of us have had our thoughts and opinions
Speaker 1: and perspectives shifted through well. I think all of us,
Speaker 1: it's very not even speculative to say this, have had
Speaker 1: information that we've seen on the Internet has changed the
Speaker 1: way that we see the world to different degrees. But
Speaker 1: I remain where my skepticism comes in is how much
Speaker 1: the Internet and that dissemination of information effect affects collective action.
Speaker 1: So we see a lot of what I mean, the
Speaker 1: classic slang would be people quote unquote waking up to
Speaker 1: whatever topic. I mean. The list is endless of what
Speaker 1: different people of different ideologies think the masses need to
Speaker 1: quote unquote wake up to what secret information, And we
Speaker 1: see a lot of that. It's such a it's become
Speaker 1: such a cliche of just constantly saying we were witnessing
Speaker 1: the masses wake up, because there's this logic of if
Speaker 1: you just bombard people with enough good arguments the battle
Speaker 1: of ideas. If you win the battle of ideas, you
Speaker 1: win the battle of action. I don't think that connection
Speaker 1: is as easy to prove in regards to having the
Speaker 1: best arguments and having the best information and being the
Speaker 1: most effective at disseminating information and that translating into real
Speaker 1: world collective action. Maybe a final little caveat there. I
Speaker 1: do think that the Internet is very good at inspiring
Speaker 1: individual action, so and often in evil ways. We see this.
Speaker 1: In the most classic example would be mass shooters, mass
Speaker 1: casualty events, terrorism. A lot of these mass shooters of
Speaker 1: the past few years are very, very clearly, almost exclusively
Speaker 1: terminally online individuals, people that have had their entire worldview
Speaker 1: warped by what they have worked consuming online. We are
Speaker 1: increasingly seeing online jargon and lingo bleed into the manifestos
Speaker 1: of these people themselves. So there's an endless list of
Speaker 1: case studies of individuals being driven into action of an
Speaker 1: evil action by their online concentsumption habits. But I've not
Speaker 1: seen as much collective action in regards to that dissemination
Speaker 1: function of the Internet inspiring a lot of people to
Speaker 1: do things in the real world that have lasting impact.
Speaker 1: As you've mentioned the Belfast protests now the most recent example.
Speaker 1: We see people getting angry, we see people burning garbage bins,
Speaker 1: we see people showing their rage for a few days
Speaker 1: and then it's gone again. So that's that seems to
Speaker 1: me in general, to be the limit of real world
Speaker 1: organization and action inspired by the dissemination machine called the Internet.
Speaker 2: And this is a point I actually I completely agree
Speaker 2: with you. I think that there are kind of two things,
Speaker 2: which is one, can you can you translate Internet outrage
Speaker 2: into a political movement and clearly not right. How many
Speaker 2: of these horrendous events have happened what has changed? But
Speaker 2: what I do think that you have is you have
Speaker 2: the ability to use the Internet as an organizational tool
Speaker 2: to connect, to find something to plug yourself into. I
Speaker 2: know that organizations you were a part of have experienced this. Right,
Speaker 2: you can get your message out, particularly if it's contrary
Speaker 2: to the wishes of state media. And sure you may
Speaker 2: get you know, four hundred thousand likes on a post,
Speaker 2: and of those four hundred thousand people, of course, the
Speaker 2: vast majority just scroll on to whatever's next on their feed.
Speaker 2: But it's a funnel, right, you can get someone okay,
Speaker 2: from you know, one touch to you know, engaging with
Speaker 2: what you put out to in doing something simple like
Speaker 2: you know, donating to an organization to joining as a member. Right,
Speaker 2: something that you can basically take someone who is unconnected, unaffiliated,
Speaker 2: uninterested and turn them into someone doing something real like
Speaker 2: the organization I'm a part of, the Old Glory Club
Speaker 2: was a desire to do exactly this, to take something
Speaker 2: based on the Internet, you know, a million different fractional
Speaker 2: group chats like an archipelago and say all right, like, well,
Speaker 2: let's meet up. We've got fifteen guys in your city,
Speaker 2: start something, do something, see each other. And look, that
Speaker 2: does not a country, save at least initially. But if
Speaker 2: we're looking at how to bridge the gap between the
Speaker 2: sort of memetic ecosystem and the one outside, well that
Speaker 2: can be done.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a relatively new project. It's not cooked,
Speaker 2: it's not done yet, but it's showing promise. I don't
Speaker 2: know how many numbers I'm allowed to say, but we
Speaker 2: have basically grown by over one hundred times and you
Speaker 2: know the last four years, and okay, you know, against
Speaker 2: a population of nearly four hundred million, that is it huge.
Speaker 2: But it is more influenced than simply you know, a podcast, right,
Speaker 2: And I think it also what really depends on how
Speaker 2: much influence the Internet has is who's watching. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: if you look at raw numbers, Alex Jones demolishes The
Speaker 2: New York Times is much more readership, a much wider audience.
Speaker 2: But when Alex Jones says something, do any politicians listen?
Speaker 2: I mean maybe one or two when they were at home,
Speaker 2: if they're looking for a laugh. But he doesn't have
Speaker 2: that sort of power. Well, when The New York's Times
Speaker 2: says something, it matters because of their readership. NPR, National
Speaker 2: Public Radio in America, is another great example. They never
Speaker 2: had huge viewership. There were never, never more people listening
Speaker 2: to that than watching sports. But what type of people
Speaker 2: right where does that information go and how is it incorporated?
Speaker 2: And again, this is something that I think conservatives get
Speaker 2: wrong often. You hear that phrase go woke, go broke,
Speaker 2: and the assumption is if something is off putting to
Speaker 2: the majority of people, it's going to be a failure. Answers, No,
Speaker 2: it is, No, it doesn't because what matters is basically
Speaker 2: the audience. Who is listening, whose ear you have from
Speaker 2: a media perspective, And so you know, we've seen conservative
Speaker 2: figures with huge audiences. You know, you think of pastors
Speaker 2: like Billy Graham or you know Jerry Folwell in the
Speaker 2: US from sort of a previous generation, and they were
Speaker 2: unable to turn that into you know, lasting positive political change.
Speaker 2: And if you doubt that popularity and politics are in
Speaker 2: no way related, I mean just look at the example
Speaker 2: of gay marriage in the US when it was handed
Speaker 2: down as a ruling, the population was but roughly sixty
Speaker 2: forty against. If it had gone to an election, it
Speaker 2: would have been a blowout. But Power was listening to
Speaker 2: someone different. They had different ideas, and so that's what
Speaker 2: actually mattered. As regards the Internet, I think that it's
Speaker 2: going to be interesting watching this generational divide. You know,
Speaker 2: much has been made over for the boomers, and you know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to descend into that, but what we're
Speaker 2: seeing is sharply different media ecosystems. I think the average
Speaker 2: age of a CNN viewer is in their mid to
Speaker 2: late sixties. You know, these are not what generations below
Speaker 2: the boomers are experiencing their children, even their relatively old children. Right,
Speaker 2: people in their fifties. They still get information off the internet,
Speaker 2: maybe in a different way than you or I do, earnest,
Speaker 2: but it will be an interesting test case to see,
Speaker 2: Oh well, when we finally have people who are getting
Speaker 2: most of their information off the internet, and I realize
Speaker 2: baby boomers and older people do use certain sites like Facebook,
Speaker 2: but that's a conversation for another day. I think that
Speaker 2: that will be profoundly interesting to watch that test case,
Speaker 2: and I wonder if the relative amount of freedom on
Speaker 2: the Internet will be curtailed precisely as it becomes more
Speaker 2: and more important. Maybe a speculative point, but I'll kick
Speaker 2: it back to you, conscious caricle.
Speaker 1: I think one to add to a point that you
Speaker 1: made there in regards to you've been able to effectively
Speaker 1: organize for your organization online, I've been thinking about how
Speaker 1: to quantify online activism versus real world activism and the
Speaker 1: long term impact that you get in regards to building
Speaker 1: something real. You mentioned now, just getting people angry doesn't
Speaker 1: really count count for much, and that's a point that
Speaker 1: I try to make as often as possible. I'm sometimes
Speaker 1: the villain on the right side of the spectrum because
Speaker 1: I tell people, I mean, just because people are burning
Speaker 1: things in the street, that doesn't automatically translate into action
Speaker 1: or translate into real world change. You're reading the formula wrong.
Speaker 1: On the left side, the left does not get what
Speaker 1: they want because they right, the riot is just kind
Speaker 1: of like the little source that they pour over the
Speaker 1: system to make it seem a bit more legitimate in God,
Speaker 1: so how they get what they want. But that's not
Speaker 1: how it works because rage is not magic. Like it's
Speaker 1: not like you get people angry enough and then you
Speaker 1: reach some point and then people are so angry they
Speaker 1: get beyond angry, and then everything changes because you reach
Speaker 1: that little rage meter to the right point. But when
Speaker 1: I was to get back to trying to quantify how
Speaker 1: much what you do and say online affects the real world,
Speaker 1: it really comes down to, for me, at least, that
Speaker 1: experience of having a nap where you nap for five minutes.
Speaker 1: And we've all had that experience. You fall asleep for
Speaker 1: five minutes and you shouldn't be napping, but you're just
Speaker 1: very tired, and you live an entire lifetime and a
Speaker 1: dream within that five minute nap, and then you wake
Speaker 1: pick up and then you look at you're watching You
Speaker 1: just you just dozed off for like five minutes. But
Speaker 1: like in that dream, you were born, you went to school,
Speaker 1: you went to university, you had an entire career, you
Speaker 1: had a wife and family and children. That in that dream.
Speaker 1: But it's just the relationship between dream time and real time,
Speaker 1: I think is very close to internet activism versus real
Speaker 1: world activism. The question is not does online activism the
Speaker 1: effect the real world? Of course it does, but how
Speaker 1: much does it? Well, maybe you should divide the amount
Speaker 1: by ten or one hundred even one thousand. I'll give
Speaker 1: you an example. So for example, last year, afri Forum,
Speaker 1: the organization that I represent, made a documentary on South
Speaker 1: Africa about far murders and expropriation of our compensation and
Speaker 1: all the bad things happening in South Africa. And we
Speaker 1: were very lucky enough that Elon Musk somehow got this
Speaker 1: documentary into his hands or it appeared on his radar
Speaker 1: and he shared it, and that documentary went from five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand views to forty three million views, which is
Speaker 1: almost the population of South Africa. But the amount of
Speaker 1: people that joined as Africa Forum members from that documentary
Speaker 1: being shared to forty three million people online, I think
Speaker 1: we gained like ten new members, which is very very small.
Speaker 1: But when I visited a small town in South Africa
Speaker 1: earlier this year to do a speech there and talk
Speaker 1: about here's how afric Forum is going to serve your
Speaker 1: town if we open a branch here, and this is
Speaker 1: how we're going to organize people to make a difference,
Speaker 1: I signed up thirty new members even though I visited
Speaker 1: a town of maybe ten to twenty thousand people. So
Speaker 1: there's this massive discrepancy between a documentary of your organization
Speaker 1: gets shared to forty three million people, you get ten
Speaker 1: new members. That's a real world effect. But I visit
Speaker 1: and do a speech in a town of Tenerand or
Speaker 1: twenty thousand people, and I get thirty new members for
Speaker 1: the organization. That discrepancy is massive. So I think that's
Speaker 1: really where the conversation needs to be had in regards
Speaker 1: to Yes, online activism can be quite effective, but you
Speaker 1: have to do a whole lot of it to get
Speaker 1: the same effect as real world activism, or rather real
Speaker 1: world action.
Speaker 2: So, and this might be a sensitive subject, so feel
Speaker 2: free to disregard the question. But couldn't you look at
Speaker 2: the changing relationship between your country and mind right, how
Speaker 2: the Trump administration has treated South Africa, how it treated refugees.
Speaker 2: Couldn't you say, well, that seems to be the result
Speaker 2: of online activism.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: A number of conservative people have through the last twenty
Speaker 2: years seen, you know, what is happening in your country,
Speaker 2: most likely on the internet. I mean, I doubt all
Speaker 2: of them have been to South Africa, and that left
Speaker 2: an impression on them. I said, you know what, this
Speaker 2: is something worth doing. And regardless of if that changing
Speaker 2: stance was good or bad, or if it should have
Speaker 2: happened or not. Do you see what I'm saying? Those
Speaker 2: are kind of two different orders of effect. You could
Speaker 2: look at, you know, the primary driver of you know,
Speaker 2: butts and seats, how many people you have recruited from
Speaker 2: a documentary versus the last twenty years of you know,
Speaker 2: Africans africaners on the internet, and then that produces, you know,
Speaker 2: a pretty massive change with you know, the United States.
Speaker 1: Now, I think that's a fantastic point. I think it
Speaker 1: comes down to the nature of the effect on reality.
Speaker 1: On the one side, you have a policy direction being
Speaker 1: influenced by what is seen or information dissemination online. I
Speaker 1: think that's undeniable. But then on the other side, the
Speaker 1: case study of building an organization, organizing a movement, building
Speaker 1: something tangible like an institution, that on the other side,
Speaker 1: is much more effective if you're doing real world action
Speaker 1: and building rather than trying to build it online and
Speaker 1: then it kind of materializes. So I think that's where
Speaker 1: the discrepancy comes in. On the one side, the online
Speaker 1: dissemination of information might be very effective at influencing policy.
Speaker 1: You're thinking through the lens of government and the bureaucracy
Speaker 1: and through state power. But when it comes to building
Speaker 1: non state power, it seems that building in the real
Speaker 1: world and real world looking someone in the eye and
Speaker 1: explaining how this is going to look seems to be
Speaker 1: the king when it comes to real world organization, in
Speaker 1: building organizations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple of things there. This reminds me very
Speaker 2: much of you know, Dave Cream's Green's commentary on this,
Speaker 2: and I realize referring to a speech that you know
Speaker 2: you weren't there for Ernest is you know, probably poor podcasting,
Speaker 2: but he gave a speech at this most recent conference
Speaker 2: talking about exactly this, right, like what is the relationship
Speaker 2: between you know, the internet and everything else, talking about
Speaker 2: this kind of grifter cycle. You know that there's all
Speaker 2: of this outrage that gets converted into either social or
Speaker 2: literal currency by influencers, and it's made it really messy.
Speaker 2: You know, I know you and I have had this
Speaker 2: conversation before in real life about people using South Africa
Speaker 2: to do that, right, using that what's happening in your
Speaker 2: country to try and build a brand for themselves and
Speaker 2: profit off of it. So that muddies the waters, right,
Speaker 2: because you have this issue where well the incentives of
Speaker 2: the Internet are not actually to use it to do
Speaker 2: anything productive. They're to pour that attention back into your
Speaker 2: personal stockpile of clout, if we can use kind of
Speaker 2: an outdated term for it, and that creates a pull
Speaker 2: on everything. Like certainly you see it in politics, but
Speaker 2: if you have any other interest you follow on the internet,
Speaker 2: you see the exact same thing. There always is that
Speaker 2: ability to sort of blow up the conversation to advance
Speaker 2: yourself whatever it's about, you know, whether it's about classic
Speaker 2: cars or you know, immigration. But I think that Dave
Speaker 2: Green's point, one that he made years ago that's always
Speaker 2: stuck with me, is that the point of the Internet
Speaker 2: isn't to win the internet, right. The point of Internet
Speaker 2: activism isn't simply to accrue the most likes, clicks and follows.
Speaker 2: It's to produce a change. And I think we can
Speaker 2: see examples. I won't name names of people who have
Speaker 2: and have it done that correctly. And when I say correctly,
Speaker 2: I mean correctly graded on the scale of actually doing something,
Speaker 2: not on making yourself very rich.
Speaker 1: And they would be doing that effectively.
Speaker 2: Yes, doing that effectively. And I think it bears repeating
Speaker 2: that the incentive. Structure of the Internet is not designed
Speaker 2: to produce effective action. It's designed to harvest attention, designed
Speaker 2: to harvest outrage, and so I think we all have
Speaker 2: to be careful with that. And I realize as someone
Speaker 2: who is on the internet, you know this is someone
Speaker 2: ironic advice for me, But look, there is information to
Speaker 2: be had there, but it's also stealing your time, stealing
Speaker 2: your attention, and so there's an advantage to know what's happening,
Speaker 2: particularly if you're kind of a warrior in the mimetic space.
Speaker 2: You know, you're writing, you're talking, whatever, you have to
Speaker 2: know what's happening. But at the point at which it
Speaker 2: is sapping your attention to do real things that matter,
Speaker 2: where that you know that return on investment is much
Speaker 2: much higher. As you said earlier, the difference between talking
Speaker 2: to a town and creating a documentary with forty three
Speaker 2: million views. I don't want to be rude to your
Speaker 2: YouTube channel, Earns, but I feel like I'm pretty confident
Speaker 2: in saying most of your videos don't get forty three
Speaker 2: million views. Yes, yeah, neither to mine, obviously. But you know,
Speaker 2: even if you're doing that calculation where you could just
Speaker 2: hit a button and instantly reach forty three million people
Speaker 2: versus all of the time it took you to go
Speaker 2: to a pound of twenty thousand. Well, as you said,
Speaker 2: the return to one is much greater than the other.
Speaker 2: And at the point where the online activism which does
Speaker 2: have an effect, you know, we've seen cultural attitudes shift
Speaker 2: and that is certainly an important thing, but we're limited creatures.
Speaker 2: Everything comes with an opportunity cost, and at the moment
Speaker 2: where you're robbing Peter to pay Paul, you've decreased the
Speaker 2: amount of effect you can. If you and I were
Speaker 2: first year economic students, we could probably build out an
Speaker 2: equation to find this. I have no interest in doing so,
Speaker 2: but you see what I'm saying where there's sort of
Speaker 2: a push pull relationship, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's where a lot of people
Speaker 1: get lost or a lot of attention is misdirected, where
Speaker 1: the whole point is to get as much reach as possible.
Speaker 1: It comes down to that flawed logic again, if we
Speaker 1: wake up quote unquote enough people, then the change will
Speaker 1: magically happen. And I think that's where when you talk
Speaker 1: about trying to accumulate that online clock, accumulate that online
Speaker 1: retweets or shares or whatever metric is used on this
Speaker 1: particular social media website. I think that's where people get stuck.
Speaker 1: Very talented, very smart people much more talented, talented and
Speaker 1: smart than me, get stuck in just chasing. I just
Speaker 1: need to reach as many people as possible. I need
Speaker 1: to use a very very old term from the Internet's
Speaker 1: skeptic era. I have to win the battle of ideas,
Speaker 1: or the classical liberal idea of if we win the
Speaker 1: battle of ideas, we win the battle of the real
Speaker 1: world of meat space. And that has proven to be
Speaker 1: very catastrophically false. You can have the best arguments, but
Speaker 1: that's not going to make a difference. And to add
Speaker 1: to that, you can have the most effective social media
Speaker 1: strategy of gaming the algorithm, getting hit tweet after bang
Speaker 1: it tweet after great gem posts, and still if you're
Speaker 1: not effectively channeling that attention that you're garnering correctly, you're
Speaker 1: not going to have any effect. And I mean here again,
Speaker 1: I'm probably going to step on some toes and throw
Speaker 1: some cold water on people's passion, but it's a point
Speaker 1: that needs to be made. I've witnessed my fair share
Speaker 1: of misidentified turning points and points of no return being
Speaker 1: reached over the many years that I've been on the Internet.
Speaker 1: I mean, my YouTube channel is ten years old, a
Speaker 1: decade all this, so I've been around for a while,
Speaker 1: and I've seen so many of these tragedies happening in
Speaker 1: real life and then the entire Internet declaring this is
Speaker 1: going to be in the history books as the point
Speaker 1: where everything changed. And even just in the past year,
Speaker 1: we've probably seen about six or seven or eight quote
Speaker 1: unquote turning points. The tragic murder of Charlie Kirk, that
Speaker 1: girl we're holding that wielding the axe and the knife
Speaker 1: looking at the camera in Scotland, Ariano Zarutzka's tragic murder,
Speaker 1: Henry Novak's tragic murder, and the riots and the protesting
Speaker 1: in Belfast. The list goes on and on that just
Speaker 1: in the past year, and each of these events, these
Speaker 1: current things that ignite the passion and the rage online
Speaker 1: always are framed as this is the point where everything changed,
Speaker 1: where people got angry enough, where rage started working like magic,
Speaker 1: and then people just got angry enough and things changed.
Speaker 1: But to end the off the point, I've seen this
Speaker 1: sad allegedly awaken more times than I can can't if
Speaker 1: you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Well, And and to that point, this is a fundamental
Speaker 2: misunderstanding of politics. As a friend of mine often says,
Speaker 2: we're not Mormons. You know, we're not going door to door,
Speaker 2: you know, asking for new recruits.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: What matters is capable, competent people. That's who you're looking for.
Speaker 2: And much like the American public was completely and totally
Speaker 2: convinced on gay marriage. It went from being highly unpopular
Speaker 2: too very popular in just a few I mean a
Speaker 2: few years.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: What happens is, or what needs to happen, is a
Speaker 2: decision needs to be made, and you know, as elitist
Speaker 2: as it sounds, most people will go along with it.
Speaker 2: Right that whatever marginal group of people who went from
Speaker 2: opposing gay marriage to supporting it. It's not like someone
Speaker 2: sat down, you know, laid out the pros and cons
Speaker 2: showed the mature. Well, it's just what was done. It's
Speaker 2: the legitimate opinion. It's what the government says, it's what
Speaker 2: your school says, it's what all good people say. And
Speaker 2: so one of the advantages of the Internet is the
Speaker 2: ability to connect capable competent people, right, the ability to
Speaker 2: put someone in touch with a group of other people
Speaker 2: who think like them. And sure, there's purity spiral and
Speaker 2: there's sort of crabs in the bucket mentality you often
Speaker 2: see in online space. But I think for a lot
Speaker 2: of people like I'll use you as an example, Ernest,
Speaker 2: I was, you know, living in kind of a crumbling
Speaker 2: American city, literally walking down Monument Avenue in Richmond where
Speaker 2: that famous statue of Lee was being pulled down, and
Speaker 2: I listened to I think it was it was a
Speaker 2: video essay you had done or maybe a podcast I
Speaker 2: can't remember about the famous you know, digging a Trench article,
Speaker 2: and I had this realization like, wait a minute, no,
Speaker 2: I can't do this anymore. I'm not living here. There
Speaker 2: were people who think like me, and I need to
Speaker 2: find them. And so, okay, did that essay change the world?
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I don't think that any president
Speaker 2: read it. I don't think that the digging a Trench
Speaker 2: law was passed. But that's a moment in my life
Speaker 2: where I can look at where I say no, no, no.
Speaker 2: That was a turning point, maybe not for culture, but
Speaker 2: a point at which I decided I'm doing things differently.
Speaker 2: We have to do something else, and my life is
Speaker 2: completely and totally different. I have become you know, if
Speaker 2: we if I can use the term, but I guess
Speaker 2: technically an online activist, right, someone who does this professionally
Speaker 2: whatever that's worth for And so okay, again it's not
Speaker 2: a direct one to one, but if you're looking for
Speaker 2: a recruiting pool of guys who realize, like, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: there's something not right here. I could be making money,
Speaker 2: I could be doing something, you know, trying to kind
Speaker 2: of avoid these problems and keeping my head down. Well,
Speaker 2: once they've realized or once they've seen on the Internet
Speaker 2: or elsewhere, that no, this is a problem that needs addressing, well,
Speaker 2: that shifts things, because this goes from being an extreme
Speaker 2: minority of those kind of ultra far sighted individuals, the
Speaker 2: guys who were here ten fifteen years ago kind of grazing,
Speaker 2: gazing into their crystal balls, or even you know, if
Speaker 2: you've had the pleasure to meet guys like you know,
Speaker 2: my friend Peter Bremlo or Jattris, any one of these
Speaker 2: guys who are the good boomers who were forty years
Speaker 2: ahead of all of us, that's an extreme minority talent, right,
Speaker 2: The ability to see you know way in advance that
Speaker 2: this is going to go badly, But when it is
Speaker 2: going badly, when something needs to be mended, needs to
Speaker 2: be fixed. And there are a great number of institutions
Speaker 2: media companies specifically designed to make sure you never notice
Speaker 2: something is wrong, even though simply on the personal level,
Speaker 2: like Ernest, if I never got on the internet, it
Speaker 2: probably would have been better for my soul, and let's
Speaker 2: be honest, for many other people as well. But if
Speaker 2: I had simply heard that essay never talk to you,
Speaker 2: never went on the Internet again, but decided to move
Speaker 2: back to my hometown, the church that I grew up
Speaker 2: at and marry someone, well, my life would have been better.
Speaker 2: It would have been changed, instead of living in some
Speaker 2: godless hell hole. Right, So it does matter. There is
Speaker 2: a connection, But I think what we're really coming down
Speaker 2: to is that there is not a huge correlation between
Speaker 2: social media attention, social media clicks, and anything changing. Now,
Speaker 2: part of that's content. Why is it being put out?
Speaker 2: Is it being put out to cash in on that
Speaker 2: sort of raige cycle or is it designed to produce change?
Speaker 2: And then also I think the numbers game you're talking
Speaker 2: about is entirely accurate. You know, when you're going to
Speaker 2: forty three million random people, who knows how many of
Speaker 2: them watched the video at all? Who knows how many
Speaker 2: of them watched it and hated it they said, good,
Speaker 2: I'm glad it happening, versus how many of them are
Speaker 2: Cambodian rice farmers, who, to be honest, have no idea
Speaker 2: what's going on, nor should they. Right, it's a wide,
Speaker 2: wide net. And look, I don't pretend to know those
Speaker 2: ten guys who it worked for. But if one of
Speaker 2: those ten guys you know is that you know, one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty IQ guy needed to make the breakthrough
Speaker 2: or became a leader, it's like, well that was a
Speaker 2: good investment.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And then we take the cultural question, which is why
Speaker 2: are American political elites on the conservative side, why do
Speaker 2: they even care about South Africa? Well, there's kind of
Speaker 2: multi layers to it. And I one hundred percent share
Speaker 2: your misgivings about the Internet. Look, I talk about it
Speaker 2: all the time, and I think that that sort of
Speaker 2: missionary idea that we're going to wake up the masses
Speaker 2: will get fifty plus one support for whatever your favorite policy.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's laughable, that's not true. But if you realize, hey, look,
Speaker 2: we're a minority in your case quite literally in my case,
Speaker 2: let's be honest, also literally even if they haven't got
Speaker 2: the numbers out yet. But certainly by virtue of our opinions,
Speaker 2: we don't have the advantage of mass media mass control.
Speaker 2: We can't make a policy that instantly sixty percent of
Speaker 2: people will support just because we said it. So we
Speaker 2: have to play the game smart. There has to be
Speaker 2: a small group of talented men who, let's be honest,
Speaker 2: if you've done your historical reading, that's pretty much how
Speaker 2: anything ever gets done, right. And how do you find them? Because,
Speaker 2: again partially due to the Internet, people are incredibly atomized.
Speaker 2: There aren't really social institutions in the way there used
Speaker 2: to be. You can't go down to the Elks Club
Speaker 2: or you know, whatever institution that used to be in
Speaker 2: your town. Well you got to find them. Well how
Speaker 2: do you find the Internet? But what you do next
Speaker 2: get off the internet? You know, it's sort of this paradox, right, Yeah, And.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's the key to it, is the
Speaker 1: fact that we've been talking about these two different concepts,
Speaker 1: the idea of online activism get disseminating information which is
Speaker 1: good information, which is a good thing. But then also
Speaker 1: how does that translate into real world action. I think
Speaker 1: the marriage between these two ideas is locked up in
Speaker 1: that case study that you mentioned. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: like using my own work as an example, but you
Speaker 1: brought it up. I mean, if I wrote an article
Speaker 1: or did a podcast talking about how you should dig
Speaker 1: a trench and that inspires someone to move back to
Speaker 1: their hometown or to dig a trench, that was effective
Speaker 1: because my content was not just waking people up in
Speaker 1: regards to this is the state of affairs, This is
Speaker 1: you need to see the world through the reality glasses,
Speaker 1: but rather this is how the world is, and this
Speaker 1: is what you can do about it. That there's a
Speaker 1: normative side to it of and this is how you
Speaker 1: can change that. This is how you can make a difference,
Speaker 1: to change it from the current state of affairs and
Speaker 1: start building towards something new. And I think that maybe
Speaker 1: is a challenge that we can start giving to all
Speaker 1: of the good content creators that we know all of
Speaker 1: the content creators make doing good work in our circles
Speaker 1: is to start challenging each other more to always accompany
Speaker 1: a piece or an episode or whatever content you're creating,
Speaker 1: to not just have it be a descriptive topic of
Speaker 1: this is how things are, but to try and always
Speaker 1: marry it or accompany it with and this is what
Speaker 1: we need to do about it, or this is what
Speaker 1: we should start doing to change the state of affairs.
Speaker 1: It's the classic example of a train getting derailed, and
Speaker 1: then people go to the train derailment site and they
Speaker 1: take pictures of the derail train, and they draw the
Speaker 1: derail train, and they write the newspaper about the derail train.
Speaker 1: They do a three D model with the latest technology
Speaker 1: of the derail train. They start writing a book about
Speaker 1: how the train was derailed and what effect it had
Speaker 1: on the world in the community. But then at some
Speaker 1: point someone has to raise his hand and say, well,
Speaker 1: how are we going to get this train back on
Speaker 1: the tracks? Like we've documented every single micro millimeter of
Speaker 1: this disaster. I think everybody knows something is wrong with
Speaker 1: this train is in a bad shape. How we're going
Speaker 1: to get it back on the tracks. But the difficult
Speaker 1: thing is not a lot of people want to do
Speaker 1: that because it's much easier metaphority to stand there taking
Speaker 1: pictures and talk about how devastating the train deralment is
Speaker 1: and what you're seeing with your eyes rather than saying
Speaker 1: being the guy that says, all right, and here's my
Speaker 1: plan on how we're going to get the train back
Speaker 1: on the tracks.
Speaker 2: No, certainly, and I mean I think that's that This
Speaker 2: also brings up a sort of uncomfortable truth, which is
Speaker 2: why do people engage with political content.
Speaker 1: You will get.
Speaker 2: Answers like, oh, I want to be more informed, or oh,
Speaker 2: you know, in part of some cause. And that's certainly
Speaker 2: true in certain instances, but oftentimes it's an entertainment product.
Speaker 2: It's Team Sports Eve instead of the spring Bocks and
Speaker 2: don't know, another team in that league whatever, another team
Speaker 2: it's Team Blue and team Red. Right, pick your your
Speaker 2: local colors, you know, as they apply. And you certainly
Speaker 2: have seen that in the explosion of conspiracy content. And
Speaker 2: when I say conspiracy content, I don't mean you know,
Speaker 2: for instance, guys who were saying, hey, this wealthy in
Speaker 2: New York financier Jeffrey Epstein sure seems to be up
Speaker 2: to some weird stuff. Ten years later, those guys are
Speaker 2: completely justified. But the sort of you know, Emmanuel mccron
Speaker 2: is a man, everyone is lizard people either the David Ike,
Speaker 2: you know, the kind of low quality slop. It's gotten very,
Speaker 2: very popular because ultimately it is an entertainment product, and
Speaker 2: I guess that is more entertaining than you know, a
Speaker 2: Marvel movie. And look, I've mentioned Alex Jones, who I'll
Speaker 2: be honest, I think is the most entertaining man in
Speaker 2: the world. I think he's hilarious. So I'm not even
Speaker 2: saying I'm above it. I get it. But you see
Speaker 2: that same truth in the kind of extreme example that
Speaker 2: politics is an entertainment product, and that sense of outrage
Speaker 2: that you and I and our people like us were
Speaker 2: so eager to point out in the kind of SJWs
Speaker 2: of yesteryear. Right, Oh, these people are getting outraged about
Speaker 2: things that don't matter. Well, okay, sure we think it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter because we think their values are stupid, horrible
Speaker 2: and you know, lead to horrible results. But if you
Speaker 2: look at the mirror image we have our own outrape cycle.
Speaker 2: Now the causes are much more just. You know, it's
Speaker 2: much more understandable, at least from my perspective, to be
Speaker 2: upset about Austin Metcalf than George Floyd. But it's the
Speaker 2: same ecosystem, it's the same instinct in our kind of
Speaker 2: human nature. And so I think it's important to be
Speaker 2: careful of that that what is entertaining is not necessarily
Speaker 2: what is politically efficacious. And look, you know, I'm not
Speaker 2: saying everything needs to be you know, kind of dry
Speaker 2: political theory. Here's what you do vote in this election.
Speaker 2: But I think don't kid yourself, Like, look, my most
Speaker 2: recent episode was a review of the nineteen eighty movie Airplane. Like,
Speaker 2: it's not serious. It's me hanging out with a friend.
Speaker 2: You guys can come along. There's nothing ultimately important in that.
Speaker 2: And I also want to say that I think there
Speaker 2: is a psychological element to this, to the kind of
Speaker 2: politics as an entertainment product that isn't wholly negative, especially
Speaker 2: if you're living behind enemy lines, you know, deep in
Speaker 2: blue territory, you can get this feeling that you're all
Speaker 2: by yourself, You're completely and totally alone, that everything, whether
Speaker 2: it's a concert or a restaurant, is marked by the enemy.
Speaker 2: You know, you go out to grab a slice of
Speaker 2: pizza and there's, you know, that garish little flag in
Speaker 2: the corner. You know, you feel like I can't ever
Speaker 2: be myself, and you know, if you can sit back,
Speaker 2: you know, listen to something that's kind of fun, that's
Speaker 2: not even necessarily political, but from your perspective, it makes
Speaker 2: you feel like, yeah, I'm not the only one here.
Speaker 2: And I think it's important to recognize that the psychological
Speaker 2: aspect is very real, because what is one of the
Speaker 2: main consequences of that outrage cycle. Well, you'll make a
Speaker 2: fool of yourself. Sure, the internet's great at doing that,
Speaker 2: but there's also a huge burnout. Right, you take the
Speaker 2: infamous blackpill, you basically hit a point of nihilism where
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter where we're all screwed anyway. And if
Speaker 2: our minds didn't matter, if what we thought was completely irrelevant,
Speaker 2: well they wouldn't spend so much time trying to convince
Speaker 2: us it's all already over. Just give up. And so
Speaker 2: I think there are things that even aren't necessarily the
Speaker 2: most high end, you know, political insight or didactic here's
Speaker 2: what you ought to do that do serve a purpose,
Speaker 2: because look, you and I are lucky enough to be
Speaker 2: part of community, right, we have people around us who
Speaker 2: think the same way. But for a lot of guys
Speaker 2: who don't, who have the capacity to make a real
Speaker 2: difference to do things well. You know, that sort of
Speaker 2: psychological refuge is really helpful. Right. If that's the thing
Speaker 2: that keeps you from, you know, taking the black pill,
Speaker 2: then you know what, maybe a stupid podcast or some
Speaker 2: kind of political entertainment isn't the worst thing. But sorry,
Speaker 2: I maybe rambling, Ernest. Do you see what I'm getting
Speaker 2: at there?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? And I mean once again, I think that comes
Speaker 1: down to, on the one side, we need to be
Speaker 1: disseminating good, high quality information because there's still a lot
Speaker 1: of people out there that don't see clearly what's going on.
Speaker 1: I mean that might be hard to believe. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people that spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: online think that people are just constantly aware. Everyone's just
Speaker 1: monitoring the situation. But that is very clearly not the case.
Speaker 1: So I think on the one side, yes, we need
Speaker 1: to continue disseminating good, high quality information. I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm not going to knock that in any way. As
Speaker 1: I said earlier, found that gets to your point now
Speaker 1: as well, we need to be pairing that as well
Speaker 1: with all right, and once you figured out what's going on,
Speaker 1: once you have a clearer picture of the world, here's
Speaker 1: what you can do to make it better, or here's
Speaker 1: what you can do to embody some real change. And
Speaker 1: I think if we can get those two together, we
Speaker 1: can marry the one side of disseminating high quality information
Speaker 1: continuing to do that while also challenging ourselves to provide
Speaker 1: real answers in regards to what is there to be
Speaker 1: done about this state of affairs that we're painting or
Speaker 1: sketching for the world. I think we're going to see
Speaker 1: a lot more of what you're describing there where on
Speaker 1: an individual basis, at least people are inspired to change,
Speaker 1: maybe their habits, change their lifestyles, change the way that
Speaker 1: they approach organizing with other young men, organizing with people
Speaker 1: in their community. I think that's a real avenue that
Speaker 1: we can exploit to make a difference. But that's going
Speaker 1: to start with doing the I don't want to say
Speaker 1: the hard work is the hard work is going to
Speaker 1: be the real world organization. But the online equivalence of
Speaker 1: hard work is not just pointing out the problem. It's
Speaker 1: then also assaulting the problem with your thoughts that you
Speaker 1: can actually get to. All right, but what we can
Speaker 1: can we do about it? Because it's much easier to
Speaker 1: describe the situation than to say, all right, well, because
Speaker 1: are we going to change it? So I think that,
Speaker 1: in the end, is what we need to be challenging
Speaker 1: ourselves on an individual basis as content creators constantly is
Speaker 1: to constantly challenge ourselves to say, well, I'm going to
Speaker 1: try and at least put my neck out there and
Speaker 1: suggest a solution to this problem, or suggest what people
Speaker 1: can do to make a difference, even if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: even if people judge me for it, because I think
Speaker 1: that's what keeps a lot of people away from making
Speaker 1: suggestions on a solution, because if you're going to be
Speaker 1: tying your flag to the mask of a particular solution,
Speaker 1: there's always going to be people saying, no, but that's
Speaker 1: not my way, that's a terrible idea, or that's a
Speaker 1: stupid idea. So I think there's a lot more inherent
Speaker 1: risk in proposing a solution or proposing real world actions,
Speaker 1: and I think that keeps people away or disinsanctivizes people,
Speaker 1: and keeps people just focused on I'm just going to
Speaker 1: describe the problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's definitely true. And I think that
Speaker 2: part of this also derives from how the online right
Speaker 2: sort of sprang up. That so much of that early
Speaker 2: content was focused on analysis and deconstruction of the system
Speaker 2: as it is, and that's helpful. It's useful to understand
Speaker 2: how your enemy works and how he achieved his position
Speaker 2: of power. But at a certain point there's only so
Speaker 2: far into your own navel you can gaze before you
Speaker 2: just you become kind of the oroboros right, eating your
Speaker 2: own tail. And again that analysis is fond, it can
Speaker 2: be helpful, but that second stage, the positive vision, is
Speaker 2: much much more difficult, especially because it's an area in
Speaker 2: which we are not aligned. If you can say one
Speaker 2: thing about whatever the online right is, it's that they're
Speaker 2: opposed to the left. They don't like it. But then
Speaker 2: you ask, well, what do you all have in common otherwise?
Speaker 2: And it's like, well, you know, I'm an odentic pagan,
Speaker 2: you're a Christian. It gets very uncomfortable, very quickly. So
Speaker 2: I understand that, but it needs to be done. So
Speaker 2: I'll respond to this question in chat that you've put
Speaker 2: up on stream from Gilgamesh whatever I can't read it,
Speaker 2: asking can't you find competent people in real life as well?
Speaker 2: Church's universities, talking to your local community, since you know
Speaker 2: among who among them is competent oh one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: These are not mutually exclusive strategies, and this also depends
Speaker 2: highly on where you are, so at least where I am,
Speaker 2: church is a good start. You know, I could definitely
Speaker 2: find people who are aligned, you know, going to a
Speaker 2: conservative religious institution if you live in Springfield, Massachusetts, if
Speaker 2: you go to your church, you will probably be beaten to
Speaker 2: death by a lesbian, only a slight exaggeration, like it
Speaker 2: is not something where you will find allies. Similarly, universities
Speaker 2: highly dependent. Again, I'm lucky to live next to a
Speaker 2: large Christian university where, yeah, all the kids there probably
Speaker 2: agree with me to some degree or another. But the
Speaker 2: small liberal arts school one hundred yards away from me. Again,
Speaker 2: if they knew who I were, or who I am
Speaker 2: or what I do, I would have protesters outside. So
Speaker 2: it's completely and totally dependent. And one of the advantages
Speaker 2: of having, you know, being an extreme minority, you know,
Speaker 2: being in a position where you really can't depend on
Speaker 2: someone seeing things the same way you do in a
Speaker 2: room of any one hundred random people, is that if
Speaker 2: on the Internet you can find oh wait, in my
Speaker 2: town there are fifteen guys. Well, guess what, that's a
Speaker 2: huge jumpstar. You can start with a group of fifteen,
Speaker 2: and within that group, of course, source for who's competent,
Speaker 2: Whose actually a real you know, as you'd say, hitter
Speaker 2: versus who just wants to scroll on their phone. Well,
Speaker 2: that could be done one hundred percent, But I think
Speaker 2: of you know, I've met a half dozen guys, and
Speaker 2: some of them are very good friends. You know, people
Speaker 2: who were over at my house a couple times a month,
Speaker 2: our wives have met, their children are over all the time. Well,
Speaker 2: that's a connection made on the internet that became a
Speaker 2: community connection. And that's a guy who lived a mile
Speaker 2: away from me. His mom taught my wife in preschool. Right,
Speaker 2: very very close social connection. But we'd never cross paths.
Speaker 2: We never talked politics. And could I have done that organically, sure,
Speaker 2: you know it would have been a little difficult, especially
Speaker 2: if I didn't know who I was looking for. But
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, that's a two three year friendship.
Speaker 2: Jimp started off of a random DM off Twitter. Right.
Speaker 2: So again, the point is not to only talk to
Speaker 2: people online or only talk to people in real life,
Speaker 2: but realized that the internet provides an incredible advantage to
Speaker 2: force multiplier for taking or for finding those sort of
Speaker 2: diamonds in the rough in your local neighborhood. Now, I
Speaker 2: will say, of course, be careful, don't just meet random
Speaker 2: strangers on the internet. Your head will end up in
Speaker 2: a freezer somewhere. But you know you're all adults here.
Speaker 2: You understand what I mean.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. What you're biskely saying is you need to start
Speaker 1: a gang, but a gang of virtuous men rather than
Speaker 1: common criminals.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, look, politics as a team sport earnest
Speaker 2: as you've no doubt figured out, and as the intermediary
Speaker 2: institutions that government set up to sort of push that
Speaker 2: fact into the background decay, it becomes more and more obvious.
Speaker 2: And one of the ideas that I think that has
Speaker 2: fallen out of fashion harder than anything else is the
Speaker 2: classical liberal obsession with individualism, the idea that you know,
Speaker 2: I am a man by myself, I am an island
Speaker 2: and bok man. I'm sure that sounds great, but guess what, Uh,
Speaker 2: there's a mob outside and they don't care. They don't
Speaker 2: care what you think about John Locke.
Speaker 1: Uh, they don't okay, because you'll, you'll, you'll you need
Speaker 1: to know your enemies are teaming up. They're not rug exactly, Joe,
Speaker 1: they are they're filming a gang.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, exactly. And if you're looking to I shouldn't
Speaker 2: say that so directly. If you're looking to start such
Speaker 2: an enterprise, well you know, the Internet's a huge tool
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah.
Speaker 2: And so again to this question, Ernest right to kind
Speaker 2: of bring it back to how much does online influence
Speaker 2: matter to you know, real world politics. It's kind of
Speaker 2: an unsatisfying answer of uh, well, it depends, right, It
Speaker 2: depends on one. What do you mean my influence? Can
Speaker 2: you make a viral video? And will the president watch it?
Speaker 2: If he does watch it, will he change No? But
Speaker 2: if you accept that, look, you know, politics is alltimately
Speaker 2: determined by you know, organized groups of competent people. I
Speaker 2: would like to start such an organized group of competent people. Well, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know about the bar closest to you,
Speaker 2: but uh, I think I'd take my chances online, you know,
Speaker 2: not even anything against those guys. But you know you
Speaker 2: have to you have to cross a lot of you know,
Speaker 2: barriers to do that. And so Yeah, I think it's
Speaker 2: an incredibly important tool, but it has huge pitfalls to it.
Speaker 2: You know, it can eat you, it can completely ruin
Speaker 2: your life and turn you into a lunatic and also
Speaker 2: make it sure that you don't get anything done. So
Speaker 2: it is a tool. It's a particularly dangerous tool, but
Speaker 2: it's also one I don't think we can we can
Speaker 2: afford to avoid.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean, we need to use the tools that
Speaker 1: are at all disposal of our time. You can't just
Speaker 1: be a lutite and say I'm not going to use
Speaker 1: these fantastical technologies that are unprecedented in how they are
Speaker 1: able to disseminate information. As we've established, I've been neglecting
Speaker 1: the chat for a while. Now, I just want to
Speaker 1: read some super chats that came in. I'm very appreciated
Speaker 1: of them. Before we get to the super chats, here
Speaker 1: is from recon one our doors is conscious caricle. Now'll
Speaker 1: throw in the elements of earning money for outrage. Yah. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a whole different episode we could be doing about
Speaker 1: the monetization of online activism as we see unfortunately with
Speaker 1: the monetization of X. But well, that's a topic for
Speaker 1: another day. Sideliner opinions with fifty rand super Chat. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. He has a question for you, Jay,
Speaker 1: He says, Jay Burden, when are you coming to visit
Speaker 1: us in South Africa?
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, really the moment I can. I am
Speaker 2: incredibly interested in your country. I think it's incredibly beautiful. Actually,
Speaker 2: recon One Outdoors has a lot of great footage. I
Speaker 2: assume he's South African just from kind of scrolling through it,
Speaker 2: I've seen much much more. And uh, yeah, I really
Speaker 2: want to go. It's just if you haven't noticed, Ernest, Uh,
Speaker 2: it's pretty far away and kind of expensive to get there.
Speaker 2: And uh so, really as soon as I can. I've
Speaker 2: actually and we can talk about this on offline, but
Speaker 2: I have some very close friends who who just got back,
Speaker 2: and hopefully later this week I'll be, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: meeting some more africaners in my my small town in America.
Speaker 2: So really, as soon as I can. I'm fascinated by
Speaker 2: your culture and just the landscape of the country itself fantastic.
Speaker 1: And yeah, when you visit here in Pretoria, you'll definitely
Speaker 1: not be having to spain anything. I'll I'll show you
Speaker 1: around here and all experienced spied Mark meiber S say,
Speaker 1: for viny On Donkey, I hope for Cunci. Marklier act
Speaker 1: with for Vinyan Donkey, c of like by donkey, but
Speaker 1: he does oft ai for vin On Donkey see Bye Donkey,
Speaker 1: Nan that henko for Caanci. And then Dawn Browning gives
Speaker 1: a twenty Australian dollars supersticker thank you very much, and
Speaker 1: then a non super chat comment here that just I
Speaker 1: found very amusing. Vingal says it's good to hear mister
Speaker 1: Fansale's voice and accent again. Yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that inger, and also thank you to
Speaker 1: all the superchats. As you know, all of the super
Speaker 1: chats on this channel. I am completely transparent in the
Speaker 1: fact that all of this money is going towards my
Speaker 1: backyard chickens. I'm going to be buying more feed for them,
Speaker 1: upgrading the chicken coop, getting more medicine because there's been
Speaker 1: a little bit of a virus going around. So yeah,
Speaker 1: all of those expenses are covered by my huge super chats,
Speaker 1: So thank you very much. Those those dollars and pennies
Speaker 1: and quarters that you're throwing my way are going into
Speaker 1: the chicken fund. So thank you very much for that.
Speaker 1: Really appreciated JA. The last question, as you always say
Speaker 1: on your channel, we're fast approaching the end of this
Speaker 1: great conversation, But the last thing I wanted to know
Speaker 1: from you is in particular your personal experience. I think
Speaker 1: I want to add in this conversation actually on a
Speaker 1: personal case study in regards to specifically how much you've
Speaker 1: seen online discourse, slang, online activism bleed into your own
Speaker 1: just personal interactions with people in the real world. I'll
Speaker 1: just give you a brief example before I give you
Speaker 1: the opportunity to answer. I remember being in university and
Speaker 1: answering or making a comment in class that has a
Speaker 1: little bit of a veiled reference to a meme before
Speaker 1: memes was really even a thing. But at that time,
Speaker 1: making a little reference to a meme, there would be
Speaker 1: one guy in the class that looks around at you,
Speaker 1: and you make eye contact and he's pointing at you,
Speaker 1: and you're like, you know, if you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you know what I did there. But today that would
Speaker 1: not be the experience. Today, I would make that reference
Speaker 1: to a basic meme and everyone in the class with
Speaker 1: note it would not even be something. They would not
Speaker 1: even be a laugh, It would just be part of
Speaker 1: the lingo. It would just be part of the slang
Speaker 1: that's being used. And that's really something that's changed from
Speaker 1: what I've experienced, is that the online references, memes, if
Speaker 1: you will, or online humor and slang is constantly, in
Speaker 1: my experience, increasingly bleeding into the real world. How have
Speaker 1: you experienced it just in your own personal capacity, that
Speaker 1: online real world barrier in regards to basic things like,
Speaker 1: as I said, the language people use, the references they make,
Speaker 1: maybe even the culture that they as an individual or practicing.
Speaker 1: Have you also seen that increase in that line being blurred?
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean one hundred percent. I've said before. My wife,
Speaker 2: you know, worked as a teacher and for the kids
Speaker 2: in kind of elementary school. It's it's oppressive and omnipresent.
Speaker 2: Ask ask anyone with small children, uh the significance of
Speaker 2: the phrase six seven uh, and you'll understand that, like
Speaker 2: meme culture has just completely and totally take it over
Speaker 2: the globe. But on a more serious level, you know,
Speaker 2: as the Internet has gotten more political for good or
Speaker 2: for ill, and people have gotten more online. I've certainly
Speaker 2: seen it. I mean among my friend group, which is
Speaker 2: you know, right of center guys, but not necessarily the
Speaker 2: people that we you know, I talk politics with you,
Speaker 2: just the guys I you know, watch sports with or
Speaker 2: grab beers with. H. The amount of content that was
Speaker 2: previously highly censored and not at all for normal people
Speaker 2: that I hear is is constant. I mean, look, you know,
Speaker 2: not not to you know, blow up your spot here,
Speaker 2: but like the amount of times that bb Net and
Speaker 2: Yahoo personally is used as the punchline to a joke.
Speaker 2: You know, the idea that, oh, you know, if you
Speaker 2: didn't pay your bar tab on time, oh now your
Speaker 2: rabbi blah blah blah, and like, okay, those aren't super
Speaker 2: phisticated ideas, you know, it's not like there's a wealth
Speaker 2: of you know, political theory behind it or even a
Speaker 2: super developed idea. But you see something. You see a meme,
Speaker 2: an attitude which even relatively recently, like three or four
Speaker 2: years ago, would have been completely and totally inappropriate. The
Speaker 2: sort of things where it's like, all right, come on, guys,
Speaker 2: like don't say that has now achieved the point of
Speaker 2: being you know, barroom banter. The things that guys just say,
Speaker 2: you know, to fill air while you're you know, watching
Speaker 2: the game, or someone goes up to grab another beer,
Speaker 2: something like that. So I've seen it, I mean, honestly,
Speaker 2: much much more so than you'd think, and as much
Speaker 2: as I'm sorry to say it, on both the right
Speaker 2: and the left, what I have noticed is that there
Speaker 2: is a minority of lefties that are much much more
Speaker 2: aware of our symbols and our phrasing than there used
Speaker 2: to be. So obviously, you know, if you go in
Speaker 2: you know where, one of a certain number of prescribed flags,
Speaker 2: you're probably going to get thrown out of a bar.
Speaker 2: We understand this, right, But I've heard half a dozen
Speaker 2: stories now of guys wearing you know, a T shirt
Speaker 2: or a pin for something relatively obscure. You know, a
Speaker 2: record label maybe who published some authors or published some
Speaker 2: musicians you're not supposed to listen to, or a publishing
Speaker 2: house that you know, you or I could probably get
Speaker 2: a book there if we wanted, you know, nothing crazy.
Speaker 2: So I think that that sort of dissemination and politicization
Speaker 2: is I mean, it's cranking up. I realize these are anecdotes,
Speaker 2: but it's what I'm seeing on the ground. You know,
Speaker 2: things that used to be on the far far fringes
Speaker 2: of the Internet are now, you know, in your local
Speaker 2: gaming group.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And I mean just it's happened in such
Speaker 1: a short period of time, and I'll postpone or leave
Speaker 1: that for the next conversation. In regards to the particular
Speaker 1: effect on culture that the internet has had, it's happened
Speaker 1: in such a short period of time. It's pretty much
Speaker 1: in a teen year, and that this radical change has happened.
Speaker 1: Where me making a reference to a very popular meme
Speaker 1: online in a classroom of two hundred students gets one reaction,
Speaker 1: a very very nice reaction, because you didn't expect anyone
Speaker 1: to get the meme, where today it's just normal. A
Speaker 1: lot of trumpisms have become very normal. I've been in
Speaker 1: conversation and someone will talk about many such cases. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you have no idea where I know for a fact,
Speaker 1: you don't know where that phrase comes from, but you're
Speaker 1: using it just like you would use an idiom.
Speaker 2: Well, I can think of an instance where someone said
Speaker 2: the phrase boy slop, you know, without having any idea
Speaker 2: the connotation, and I'm like, that's very funny, but you
Speaker 2: should not say that you don't know exactly what that means.
Speaker 2: And you know, we can agree or disagree with the
Speaker 2: message of that seeing that term all right, something that
Speaker 2: came out of like the you had to be really
Speaker 2: hyper online to have hit that when it first came
Speaker 2: out to sort of escape into the wild. You know,
Speaker 2: it would be like if I walked outside and saw
Speaker 2: a zebra, be like, how did this get here? You know,
Speaker 2: I know this existed, but why is it in my garden?
Speaker 1: You know, it's like talking to someone in twenty fourteen
Speaker 1: or twenty fifteen and they're like, you know who Jordan
Speaker 1: Peterson is? And You're like, how do you know that name?
Speaker 1: Like you're not supposed to have this forbid and knowledge.
Speaker 1: And then today you'll just like be listening to like
Speaker 1: public radio and someone will be quoting Jordan Peterson on
Speaker 1: like South African public radio and will not be strange.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, yeah, that's just it's just one of
Speaker 1: the people of our time.
Speaker 2: No, definitely, we'll get Ernest. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: having me. This was a fascinating discussion, and I it's
Speaker 2: an interesting question because it's not one where you and
Speaker 2: I could set up an experiment and prove it. You know,
Speaker 2: this is exactly the degree it's not possible to quantify,
Speaker 2: but there are multiple interesting perspectives and I feel like
Speaker 2: we at least gave every side of this a fair shake.
Speaker 2: So again, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1: And yeah, thank you for sharing your ideas. Again on
Speaker 1: the topic of the online content creation side of this topic.
Speaker 1: The last question I have few is just housekeeping. If
Speaker 1: people are this is the first time they're hearing your
Speaker 1: ideas or your takes on mats is, where can they
Speaker 1: find more of your ideas if they want to go
Speaker 1: on a binge now after this episode?
Speaker 2: Of course, my primary output is the Jay Burdens Show,
Speaker 2: which you can find anywhere you listen to podcasts. Can
Speaker 2: also find me on substack for either premium episodes which
Speaker 2: are a little bit early, and also some articles or
Speaker 2: check out chronicles where I have written. I think there's
Speaker 2: three or four articles there, so you can find my
Speaker 2: longer form more serious content there as well. But Ernest,
Speaker 2: thank you so much. I appreciate it, and this is
Speaker 2: a time a fun man.
Speaker 1: No well, as I said, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: your insights here today, and I just want to read
Speaker 1: one more comment here from sideliner Opinions. It says Thank
Speaker 1: you Jay Burden for your friendship and support of Adams.
Speaker 1: Great to see two great minds from different continents connecting
Speaker 1: and producing new ideas well. Thank you very much Sideliner Opinions.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that. And then my last thanks is
Speaker 1: just to the audience. Thank you for tuning in here
Speaker 1: on a Wednesday evening usually on a Tuesday evening. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much for your comments and your questions that
Speaker 1: I could incorporate into the content. And then also all
Speaker 1: the links to Jay Burden's content is in the description.
Speaker 1: Go check it out. Next week. On this Tuesday, seven
Speaker 1: o'clock Central Africa time, is another episode live. It's just
Speaker 1: going to be a discussion stream me and you, no guest,
Speaker 1: it's one of the milestone episodes for this channel. We've
Speaker 1: been doing a lot of them recently. We recently did
Speaker 1: the one million views milestone and now it's the ten
Speaker 1: years milestone, a decade of content on this channel. So
Speaker 1: thank you very much for everyone that tune in, and
Speaker 1: Jay Burden, I hope you have a fantastic rest of
Speaker 1: your week and we'll chat again real soon.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: And then also to the audience, cheers, guys, have a
Speaker 1: good one God. Bless and enjoy your weekend. I'll chat
Speaker 1: to you again. Cheers,