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Speaker 9: Okay, all right, Michael Ferriss, Welcome to the Jay Burton Show.
How are you doing?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 7: Good man, thank you for thank you for inviting me on.
I am looking forward to talking to you. And let
me just start off by saying you're doing some great
work and you had some great guests, and listen to
your recent conversation with Lucas Batkin, and uh, thanks man. Yeah,
I had Isaac on a few years ago. So his
brother Isaac and then prior to that, Drew Hopkins and
Josh Flowery they were working a t REX. So when
I saw you talking, when I saw you talking to Lucas,
can my brother straight here because they have another brother too,
I was like, oh my god, Like Jay was talking
to Lucas like you know, small world. So that was great.
Speaker 9: Yeah, And that's always the interesting thing because look, right, like,
if you're an interviewer, it sort of pays to watch
tape because you can go through and it's like, oh,
I've never heard of this guest, But it is kind
of funny because you realize that everyone has this sort
of circle, you know, to one degree or another, and
there's definitely some overlap, right, Like you recently spoke to
my friend Will Tanner as well as you know, any
number of other people I've had on and so yeah, man,
your your guest list is great. I'm actually I haven't saved.
I haven't listened to it yet. Your interview with John Carter,
who's a favorite substacker of mine. Talked to him a
couple of times. But you know, obviously I'm familiar with
your work, but my audience might not be. So who
are you and well, what do you do.
Speaker 7: Well, my name is Michael Ferris. I'm the host of
my podcast is called Coffee and a Bike and I
ky and I wish I could take credit for the name,
but a friend of mine came up with it. So
shout out to my friend who helped me start this
eight years ago. So I'm on my yeah, my eighth year. Now.
It would be completed date in September. And the original
intention behind it was I live in Phoenix, I love
to ron, I love boxing, and Arizona's a big running community,
so I thought, oh, I'll do I like food too,
so you know, I do food in person. Running. I'd
go up to flag Staff that's like a mecca for Olympians,
and then I would go over to la if I
could connect with people, and uh, you know, in the
entertainment world, I meet up with them and record record conversation.
So that was the original tension behind it. And then,
as you know, you have this idea in your head
and life is not life is not a straight line.
And uh so when COVID happened, I had to figure
out I couldn't do them in person anymore. So I
I started doing them over with the Zencaster I think
was the app and just grabbing the audio, and you know,
then I started getting into the medical freedom, freedom medical
the health freedom. My friend Ryan Cole started with that,
Molly James, and then it just evolved. I started looking
at it as like, oh, trading cards. Oh, I want
to get the whole set, like and then they would
mention other doctors or scientists. I'm like, oh, there's some
more cards to collect, and it started becoming like, you know,
just just wanted to talk to more and more people
in that space. And then twenty twenty. That was in
twenty twenty, but then also the election, I started getting
involved in that never thought I would, and you know,
and then you know, later on I talked to Rudy
Giuliani and you know, Christina Bob who was at One
American News who ended up becoming an attorney for President Trump.
And yeah, I've just always been one to like learn,
you know, you know, I wanted to learn about things
because there's so much that I don't know, and I
use this space as an opportunity to just find people
I thought were interesting and just learn more. So it's
kind of a long winded answer, but yeah.
Speaker 9: It's sort of an interesting shift for a lot of people,
myself included, you know, the whole twenty twenty saga. I've
said this enough times my audience is probably sick to
hear me talk about it. But I was in college
during that time, and that was a dramatic change of pace.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 9: You get to school, you know, you're ready to kind
of launch yourself as an adult, and then all of
a sudden, you're under shall we say, rather strict limitations, right,
you know, my school tried to drum me out for
certain medical choices I made, and a lot of people
were sort of stuck in that. And I think for
many people it was sort of that whether you know,
we use the term like leaving the matrix moment where
it is all is not as you had seen it,
all is not as you've expected, and you know, look
like people take that in many different directions. But I
think that's sort of an interesting moment where the official narrative,
which it obviously had cracks in it, you know, going
back to the global war and terror, you know, nine
to eleven, but even you know, well before that had
started to chip, all of a sudden was truly broken
for many people, and it's interesting to hear you say
that I wasn't aware of, you know, the way in
which COVID affected your work so dramatically, But it makes
a ton of sense. It's like, well, look like, if
that didn't change your life, what are you doing? You know,
it made it clear that the rules you thought, you know,
governed the game, it did not apply right as we
saw that election in other instances.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well that's what I find interesting about the times
right now because I don't know about you, but like,
I question everything now, and I wasn't that person before
twenty twenty. But you know, first of all, you know,
I'm a cynic with some of the stuff, and you know,
I question everything. I don't believe it's so hard with
the Internet and with social media. You know what you're seeing.
You've gotta be careful, like you know what's real, what's
not real? But uh, yeah, I mean that. But I
find now what I find interesting now is people I
think they like forgot because I think one of the
like the biggest things right now is to not be
an absolutist, to not just think it's okay, it's going
this way, or this is happening, or this is the
way it is because I didn't twenty twenty shouldn't that
have taught us like not to be an absolutist and
just trust everything and like.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, I mean you're you're, you're completely correct, And
you know, I sort of had this same discussion with
a couple friends because, you know, in my mind, going
back to the kind of you know, twenty sixteen, twenty
seventeen era, I was graded on a curve of the
American population pretty far off the reservation anyway, right, just
the you know, the environment. I was raised in my
intellectual influences, but I guess I just lacked the life
experience to know how shamelessly like the media and you know,
the regime as it were, just lied. And so I
think a great example of this is the whole Pizza
Gate stuff right where, and look, I'm not going to
go in a full tenfoil hat rant here, but the
version of that story passed down to me and many
other people was, you know, a bunch of crazy idiots
on the internet got into Hillary Clinton's emails, came up
with this wild conspiracy theory, and it's been completely and
totally debunked. This guy had a mass shooting and that's
why you can't trust conspiracy theories. And then obviously with
recent revelations as well as others, you get like one
level down you're like, wait a minute, One, there may
have been something there. And two, this mass shooting was
a guy who went in there with a gun and
fired one bullet that destroyed the hard drive on the
computers and the forty thousand dollars server racks that a
pizza place has. And you're like, okay, well, at the
very least, I'm not going to say I have the
smoking gun. I have the you know, the the key
that opens this. But you're like, okay, well that wasn't correct, right,
That kind of oppressive, top down narrative about conspiracy theories
was dishonest, And I mean, look like it seems to
be that twenty twenty six is the year where every
conspiracy theory is prooved correct, you know, one way or another.
And I think it presents a really interesting, you know,
challenge for the regime because, to be honest, they've really
relied a lot on that soft power, that ability to
dictate what is crazy, what is beyond the pale, what
you can and cannot question, and you know, they're losing
that sort of epistemic grasp both through you know, political
revelations and then also technological right you mentioned earlier, like
you see a video you don't know if it's real,
like one like okay, well, you know, AI has just
destroyed any form of reality. From a certain perspective, it
is to make my second matrix reference in eight minutes
and twenty one seconds right the desert of the real.
But also, if you're even slightly conspiratorially minded, you're like,
wait a minute, if we have this, how long has
this technology existed for others? And so I don't know.
It's sort of an interesting moment where, you know, really
like the whole Ben Shapiro framing of well, facts don't
care about your feelings is sort of crumbling because the question,
of course is well, what facts right? And it seems
to be that there are you know, multiple completely independent
kind of belief systems with their own your TL teleology
or whatever, just fighting for domination of like the you know,
the mind of the populace. But anyway, this kind of rant, Michael,
I'll throw it back to you.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, it makes me makes me think of
me saying you know who. I'm paraphrasing what you just said,
but like, you know who who puts out the facts?
And I think back to this show. It's called Bordwalk
Empire and uh ja Agar Hoover is one of the characters.
He's interrogating this guy, Jeffrey Wright, and he asked him
something along the lines of you know who who who
administers the truth? And he responds back with those that
are in power. I'm getting the line wrong, but you
get what I'm saying, Like, so the facts are those
who are in power administer of the facts and these
are and this as far as you and I know,
these are the facts, and don't question the facts, right,
Like that just made me think of that when you
when you said that, so is a matrix like your
favorite movie.
Speaker 9: No, No, it's really not. I've seen it like twice.
It's just happened to be relevant two times, right in
this discussion. I'm not going to pretend to be an
expert on it, but I mean to be fair, the
Wochowski siblings, individuals, people were pulling a lot from, you know,
the French post structure. It's like a lot from Deluze.
I think that line is you know, sort of cribbed
from him. And you know, sure they may have been weird,
you know, sex pests, as French people seem to be,
but they were ahead of the curve on that, right.
Speaker 7: Well, they make good movies, and you know, and this
is like, you know, I don't know if you want
to talk about movies at all, but like just getting
I'm getting bad. I'm trying to you know, putting political
side with some of this stuff. There's still good movies.
Matrix is a phenomenal movie, like and so, I mean
I was in that space for a little while where
you're like, ah, yeah, I want to watch this because
they're political lead, but you know, they're still good. Movies
are still good. Some of them are still good. They're
not all bad.
Speaker 9: Well, I mean, to that point, I think you're you're correct,
But there's also like there's a reason that a lot
of the you know, the kind of like modern you know,
right wing individuals for whatever you want to construe that
to mean, got their start in media analysis. Because, to
be honest, the lefties aren't wrong when they say, you know,
everything is political. They're wrong in the sense that they mean, well,
I should be able to have you know, a long
monologue about a trans person of color inserted into you know,
whatever piece of fiction this is. But you do sort
of see it's like a photographic negative right of a
specific culture, of a specific system of thought in a
piece of art. And that's fascinating. And you can even
look at something and say, well, I don't agree with this,
but still.
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Speaker 9: There's an idea there to discuss. I have an unreleased episode.
It might come out shortly after this actually going through
Buffalo sixty six, right, kind of weird independent film from
the late nineties, and she's fascinating yea, yeah, Vincent Gallo.
Speaker 7: Yeah, wasn't that rated? I don't think I ever and
never I never saw it. But wasn't that rated? Like
the worst movie at one point of all time or something? Uh?
I maybe I don't know it shouldn't Christina, Not to
interrupt you, I think yeah, no, she was, yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, he's a fascinating figure. He has one of the
funniest personal stores ever where you can get his handmade
one of one T shirts which include like a picture
of Barack Obama with like a hand scrolled slur for
a homosexual mail on it. He's kind of a lunatic.
But point is, the movie's really interesting. And the reason
I bring it up is because if you if you
went down and said, like, what are the values of
this movie, like what is it is it directing you
to do? As the audience, Like, I don't really agree
with any of those. But because one it's made by
kind of an insane outeur, it's fun. And two there's
actually a very interesting critique of like a previous version
of kind of flyover American culture in there that funny enough,
was written at a time where that was you know, oh,
my working class you know boomer dad, I hate him.
But you're like, wait a minute, this exact same mechanism
is happening now, but it is again my upper middle
class you know, boomer aunt, uncle, whatever, who's addicted to
you know, MSNBC or NPR. It's like that that critique
is still accurate, but the culture has shifted around it.
And so to be honest, man, I've been doing a
lot of film analysis as well, just because it's it's
really interesting and as I'm sure you're aware of someone
who's been doing for longer than I have. If you
talk about politics every day for eight years, you will
go insane. And there are many people who have done it.
So I think it's a it's a smart move there.
Speaker 7: Well I also think too, it's like, you know, I've
been talking about this a lot. I mean, I recorded
earlier today with Plump Chambers and we were talking about markets.
But you know, he's a very optimistic guy, and and
you know, and you brought up Will Tanner. I've been
talking about that conversation I had with him last week.
I keep bringing it up because I even share this
with him. Yet it'll be interesting to see we were
actually talking about you when I recorded. Your name came up,
and but you know, Will, And it's funny reading the
comments of people like, well, what good is what good
is it going to be? If you know, if society's
not here? You know, if you if you just live
within your own environment and work with what you have
within your own area, and it's like, okay, well, if
the sky's going to fall there's not much you and
I can do about that. But Will it takes a
very practical approach. And I mean that in the in
the greatest respect because he actually is. People get mad,
they don't hear solutions, but he's providing solutions. It's not
what people want to hear because they want everything to
like just go away and go back to the lattes.
But I tell you, I was so like impressed by
by him and and you know, just his knowledge of
history too, Like this guy is not you know, this
guy is not going to fall. It's not going to
be mad Max tomorrow. I mean, I guess it could happen, but.
Speaker 9: Sorry, muted professional podcaster ladies and gentlemen. But in all seriousness, right,
and this is something that I know Will and I
agree on, but is a and I hate to say this,
but you see this a lot in kind of like
the like the bitcoin gold space. I realized this aren't
the same thing. But this idea that like, oh, you know,
it's all going to come grumbling down, right, and you
see it look like in the like malicious space of
you know, thirty years ago. It's a common narrative that
like the end of nine and like, don't get me wrong,
Like there are by any number of metrics things are
not going well.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 9: We can talk about, you know, affordability, we can talk about,
you know, the birth rate. We can talk about the
rate of people who are just simply talking to girls,
you know, like very basic things that we're just kind
of assumed parts of human society. It's like, okay, well
that's not good.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 9: If I could wave a magic wand and fix it,
I would, But Mike, you and I can't. Right, our
agency does not extend to that level. We do still
have agency. There are things we can control. So it's like, okay, well,
given that limitation, what can be done? Because if you
simply kind of wallow in despair, and you see this
constantly on the internet, especially in hyper politicized spaces, it's like, well, one,
you're basically new to and to your life is miserable,
and does that really help you in any way? Right, Like, sure,
you may be eventually correct when you know the sky falls,
but for the intervening fourteen fifteen years of your life,
you lived a horrible life. And also, like you do
still have agency, maybe not like the amount required to
avert that crisis. But in the meantime there are things
to be done. And yeah, I think that one of
the other things that is relevant to that discussion is
that generally, you know, as Smith said, right, there's a
lot of rude in a nation. Things can keep getting
worse for a lot longer than many would like to believe.
And I think that, you know, that sort of collapse
in my mind functions in a similar way to how
the revolution does, or the kind of socialist types or
is this sort of deis x mac in a where
it's like, why this dramatic thing will happen and then
you know, I will be justified. And I understand the
utility of that psychologically, right from the perspective of like,
oh well, I don't see how my goal is going
to be or my prediction is going to be realized.
But fundamentally that doesn't actually help you do anything in
the here and now. It is sort of a deferral
of that, sort of an abnegation of responsibility, I guess.
And again, I don't want to be seen as a Pollyanna.
I don't want to be seen as someone who has
an overly optimistic view on things. Far from it. But
to me, I see that as being sort of a trap,
and it reminds me, honestly, a lot of the writings
of C. S.
Speaker 6: Lewis.
Speaker 9: He has this, and it comes up multiple times in
his work Pilgrim's Regress as well as others, where he
talks about this idea that the most realistic, the most
he would have said, manly or kind of act you're
at version of the world is the most nasty, the
most brutish, you know, the vision of the world where
it's all screwed. And Lewis says, one, that's not true.
That's an ideological framing. You actually, uh, George R. Martin,
you actually see this very clearly in right, the idea
that the most realistic, accurate portrayal of human natures is
kind of like Hobbsey and misery, but also right, that
produces a measurable change in you and a measurable change
in those around you. His infamous h you know, men
without chests essay the idea that if you tell people
that there is simply nothing to the world more than
the material, more than the nasty and the brutish, well
then people don't run into burning buildings to say the kid, right,
that the kind of heroic, transcendent actions which actually do
have a chance at you know, either averting catastrophe or
sort of being generative doing the things that you know
created a nice civilization. Those are incompatible. And this is
a hell of a rant. And I realize I'm supposed
interviewing you, but it is an attitude that I think
is completely and totally unhelpful and really limiting, and in
any one of these alternative spaces, whether it's you know, prefers,
whether it's you know, whichever one of those groups, I
see that same, to be honest kind of coping mechanism. Sorry, Mike,
it's a whole bunch for me. So I'll throw it
back to you.
Speaker 7: No, no, no, I I you know, listening to you,
he's got the thought of my head, like, yeah, I'm
not taking a nuclear sleeping bag with me if I
have to run over to the store. I don't have
a nuclear I don't even know if those exists, but
the whole idea of like I've got to take my
nuclear sleeping bag that way, if the nuclear war happens
while I'm at the store, I'm prepared. Or I need
to take my my Batman utility kit or my James
Bond survival kit. That way, I'm prepared. If you know,
the government falls like running errands. I don't want to
live that way. So so you know, I just I
don't know. I mean, look, all these things could happen, right,
I mean I can't. I can't sit here and say,
you know, nothing is for sure, but the likelihood that
it will I think, I think are I think the
probability is we're going to be okay.
Speaker 9: Well, and look like I had a recent conversation UH
with I think he's the media liaison. He's a you know,
he has some sort of official role and in Rania right,
the kind of planned community out in South Africa. And
to me, I really like talking to the South Africans
one because I tend to get along with them. I
think that they're you know, they're fun to hang out with.
They're funny. There's something about that kind of Calvinist view
on life that I appreciate. But like, we really could
get down to the brash tax It's like, okay, well,
that situation is way worse than what we've got here
from a pure numbers perspective, from a look like the
amount of violence, the lack of you know, government services,
even something as basic as power. And so to me,
that's an interesting example for two reasons. One because it
shows you like, things can get a lot worse before
they're over right. That is a group of people both
you know, the Iranians and also like the solid Aratop movement,
like they're doing things, they're you know, arguing their case,
they're doing well for themselves, they're building something, they're doing
something productive. But also I think that it attacks a
similar myth that you tend to see in I'll just
use the broadest possible term alternative communities, the far right,
the far left, people who have certain views on diet, whatever,
which is the idea that material conditions, things will get
bad enough that you know, Joe public will wake up
and sure, you know, people do react to stimulus, and
if things got as bad as South Africa, more people
would say, oh, that's a bad idea to you know,
do X, Y and z I will adjust accordingly. They're
not going to deny that. But also they still have
libtards in South Africa, a lot of them, even in
what's basically a ward zone. So I think that's an
interesting myth as well that you see kind of off
repeated the idea that oh, people will wake up. For instance,
in my home stated Virginia has gone through, you know,
a massive political shift. And you know when I'm down
at the pawn shop talking to the boomers there, they're saying, oh, well,
they'll they'll get it now. They will, they will understand
the error of their ways. It's like, I don't know
about that, man. I understand why that's a comforting thing
to believe, but I don't know if that's necessarily born
out in reality.
Speaker 10: You see what I'm getting it well, and don't don't
you think it's it's it's about individualism and not collectivism,
and that I mean, that's what made this country great,
so you as the individual.
Speaker 7: Look, I can't change what happens at the top level, right,
I can't. We why we talk about it because you know,
part of our job, right, But the reality of it
is what happens at the very top. I can't do
anything about.
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Speaker 7: You know, if if these cities, you know, these cities
break out with some type of uh, you know, ice
rist approach, there's nothing I can do about that. So
as an individual, though, there's a lot of things I
can do within my environment. And this is what you know.
I went back to my conversation, well because because somebody said, oh, well,
you know, there's gonna be nothing left in society, but
you can you can still make money. Well you missing,
You're missing the point like there are there's there are
opportunities out there right now. And I fell into this
trap too, and I and I'm saying it. I'm saying
on my own show, and I'm saying it with you.
Uh you know, I I need to be better about that,
because there are opportunities. You know, look at I mean,
I get a chance, I'm on your show, I get
to talk to people on mine. You know, there's so
much there's so much room to learn and grow and financially,
there's opportunities, and uh, you know, I just I don't
want to subscribe the narrative anymore of like, you know,
we're all gonna I mean, we're all going to die
at some point, but we're all going to die tomorrow
type of thing, and society is going to collapse, and
I don't know, I just it's just not productive.
Speaker 9: Well, I want to maybe slightly push back on the
individualism comment, because in my mind, when we look back
to our own countries past, that question of is it
more individualistic or more collectivist actually quite complicated, because sure,
there's no nationalized healthcare, there's no insurance, there's none of
there's really not much of a government per se. But
also the kind of informal social bonds were much stronger, right, Like,
I mean many states had blasphemy laws, however infrequently enforced.
And also right in that kind of frontier setting, you
required human cooperation, right Like you simply could not exist
on your own because well you would starve to death.
And when I look at our current setting, it's like, well,
on one hand, yes, it is extremely collectivized, right, people
have their you know, their entire ideology, what they think,
dictated to them by the skinner box in their pocket.
But also at the same time, when you actually look
at people how they live, they're sort of more radically
autonomous than ever. Right, there are very few social bonds
you actually have to do anything with, Okay, Like, even
if you're married, you just leave your wife, and sure
you have to pay, right, but like there's really not
even a social consequence to doing that. You can simply
go somewhere else. I mean, even down to the point
of door dash. You know, all of these things which
enable you to live as a completely unconnected economic unit.
And so to me, in my mind, when I look
at the solutions, when I look at the people who
are kind of threading the needle of modernity. They're collectivists.
I mean to go back to Irania, right, they have
very strict labor controls on who you are and aren't
allowed to hire. Basically they say, well, if you're here,
you hire the people that live here. And you could
look at that and say, well, that is a collectivist solution.
Not entirely, it's not communists by any means. There's sort
of a walled free market. And so I'm wondering, and
maybe I'm curious to get your response if that individualistic
to collectivist binary might not necessarily map on what we
see happening.
Speaker 7: Wow, that's a good question. I mean when I referenced it,
I think I think of myself as an individual of
opportunity right to where and you and as an individual
you have you have an opportunity within your own community
to build out your community as an individual and find
like minded people to make that community on the law
local levels stronger, if that makes sense. So that's where
I was reverencing the difference between individualism and collectivism. Yeah,
and I.
Speaker 9: Think that that also you see the kind of you know,
when you have limited power where do you deploy it?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 9: Because you and I have effectively no power whatsoever of
what happens in Washington, right, you know, you and I
can stomp our feet and get angry about, you know,
a change in federal policy, and quite literally nothing will happen.
You know, they will continue to do the things that
you or I may not like. But you know, on
a local level, right, there's much more to be done.
You are a larger piece of that polity. So I'm curious,
right because you've you've been around for a long time,
and you've seen the kind of kind of rises and
and I guess falls of certain kind of groups or movements,
and so I'm curious, right, do you do you see
there being some kind of through line as to you know,
which groups, which ideas succeed in which don't, because it
seems to be, you know, there's a broad shift. We
can look back over the last ten years. But at
the same time, many of those figures that were prominent
have fallen by the wayside. You know, names I'm sure
you remember, but you know who don't really come up anymore. Like, Honestly,
one of the one of the ones I always think
about is, oh, shoot, I was about to bring that
up and then it just completely fell off my fell
off the tip of my tongue. But point is right,
there any number of figures who are no longer nearly
as prominent as they were. And so I'm curious, what
do you see as being the dividing line through kind
of the last two years of or last ten years
rather of you know, discourse, what caused it?
Speaker 7: Is thatver you're asking, or if.
Speaker 9: There's some kind of like, what do you think is
a common thread and you know what seems to from
your view predict success and failure over that time.
Speaker 7: Well, the first thing that comes to mind is the
just the technology space, right the social media, how people
are just consumed by their devices. And I mean I'm
guilty of it. You know, X and sub stack and
these things are I mean, they've had positive impacts in
my life. I mean, I wouldn't be talking to you
right now. I wouldn't talk to probably ninety five percent,
probably more than that of the people on my show.
But wasn't for wasn't for it, you know, for Instagram
to begin with, And then I didn't have Twitter at
the beginning. I just had Instagram. I was staying away
from Twitter. But as long as I created it, because
I had a friend of mine doctor, she didn't have Instagram,
and she said, create in Twitter and I'll retweet it.
That's how it started to be down that rabbit hole
for you learn this stuff as you go on, right,
like you know, add little things here and there. But
but yeah, I think that's been a huge, a huge
positives to it. But then the negatives, right, the trade
off of the divide, just the divide because people don't
talk to each other. People are so consumed by the
devices like robots. I mean, Jay, I see people walking
across the street looking at their phones. They're not even
paying attention to the intersection. It's unbelievable. And I crossed
the street to go to the gym, so I'm like,
you know, very cognizant. I'm not looking at my phone.
But then when I'm driving, you know, or yeah, when
I'm driving, I see it the same thing, people just
looking at their phones across the street. But then the
same tome when I'm crossing the street, people are looking
at their phones while they're making the turn.
Speaker 9: Honestly, you're entirely correct, and this is one of my
this is a very weird pet peeve, but you know, nonetheless,
we'll go with it. Is that you see this in
like social settings as well. I went out with my
family grabbing dinner, and you're kind of over over someone's shoulder.
I could see the table behind us was I guess,
I'm not sure or I don't know the high school schedule,
but it was some sort of formal event.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 9: There are a bunch of teenagers there, and this couple
is on a date, and I felt so bad for
this guy. This girl is as apparently they had taken
photos together, and she's sitting down at the dinner table
editing on her phone the photos instead of talking to
this kid. So he's just melting right because of course
he's a little bit awkward obviously, and I don't really
don't want to look at him because I know he's
probably feeling worse. To watch the like very clearly realize
what's going on. But even then, right, you see that
that that is an interaction, which at least for her, like,
the interaction isn't there to actually have it, right, the
purpose of that is not to actually go on a date.
It's to have something that can be broadcasted onto the internet, right,
that was the purpose for her, and so the photos
being done, that's what she's you know, motivated by. And
you see that, you know, one that obviously the addiction
to the screen, but also the sense that like, well
so so many things now are mediated through that kind
of external audience. Right, They're not done for their own sake,
They're done to be broadcasted, you know. It's kind of
like the extension of like reality TV to everyone at
all points. And I think that's an interesting shift from
and you see this at music venues as well, right,
where how many people at a concert are there but
with the phone up recording one. I feel like we
all know this. Nobody wants to watch those videos. They
come out horribly anyway. But again, you see that literal
intermediation where you are there, but you're also viewing it
kind of up through a two forty p camera. It's
sort of a bizarre thing. And I think that in
my mind, one of the biggest changes is how that
has affected even older people. Right, where social media went
from something that was used by college students and teenage
to now I mean not literally my grandparents, but people
my grandparents' age seem to basically spend all of their
time on the Internet. Like it's no longer a thing
for weird people or people who are kind of doing
something alternative. It is for everyone at all moments, which
I think is an interesting change as well.
Speaker 7: Well. And it absolutely I mean you can go down
the rabbit hole and YouTube. I mean I have friends
parents are retired and they'll sit on YouTube all day long,
all day long, fishing or whatever. I mean, you can
find everything's on YouTube. But also, you know, I think,
like what I said earlier, I mean, you got social media,
but it also but in addition, is this absolutism. I
don't even know if that's a word, but you know
where it's hardline, it's this, it's this, it's this is this,
and I am not budging. This is my stance. And
so you had the whole you have the whole left
right thing right, it's it's it's I'm pro choice or
I'm pro life or and and now, yeah, that's where
I thought twenty twenty would have woken people up. But
apparently it hasn't woken You know, I thought I wouldn't
thought it would have woken up more people than what
it has because now you've got this absolutism on the right,
like and it just keeps dividing, dividing and dividing. It's like, okay,
whatever happened to just not subscribing to a certain narrative.
You could take things not the thing's black and white. Not.
Most things aren't black and white, especially in the economic
the political landscape are and it's very gray. So you know,
I mean, perfect example, right now, people want to talk
about the twenty eight election. It's like, how can you
even talk to you? How can you even talk about
that right now? It's three years from now. I'm not
even like talking about the midterms. End of summer. You'll
get kind of an idea, I think, midsummer, end of summer. So,
I mean, this is not black and white. Not. I'll
give you my line, Jay, this is not a superhero movie.
I've been saying that on my show all the time
because apparently people think we are, You're a superhero movie.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, I mean I think that, and this is
kind of a thesis I've been working on for a while.
But I think there's there's something to it, which is
it seems like we're kind of at the end of.
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Speaker 9: A system of thought right, a collection of you know,
beliefs about you know, what is and isn't acceptable. You know,
what is the point of society, what is the point
of your life? And there's this sort of you know,
all against all fight for what comes next, and so
that that totalizing all you're feeling. It's definitely there. And
I think what it is is that you know, whatever
the old system was right this you know, the kind
of ideology of you know, the FDR administration, the sixties.
Whatever kind of you know camera you look at is
sort of dying out. And you see this from both
the left and the right. I mean, look like you
look at the kind of rising stars and the Democratic Party,
it's like are they liberal? And no, they're not liberal.
I mean like, sure they have left wing ideas, but
like the things that the way in which they view
the world is not fundamentally liberal. And you see this
in their party affiliations, right, you know, more and more
of them are self describing as socialists. You know, they
speak in extremely dramatic language about you know, what needs
to be done to their enemies. That's totalizing. And in
the same way, I think you're starting to see the
rumblings of a similar thing on the right, where it
is not simply that you know, you can imagine a
you know, a presidential candidate saying, oh, well, you know,
my opponent, we have our disagreements, but we ultimately both want,
you know, what's best for the country. I think that
those two narratives, and it's not just those two, they're
you know, dozens within them and then also around them,
are ultimately mutually incompatible. At this point, the I mean,
as a stupid kind of hackneyed example, but even the
conversation around something like you know, transgender people, right, Like
that is a fundamental reality claim yes or no? Right,
a very basic one, and you see many others like
what is the purpose of a nation?
Speaker 13: Right?
Speaker 9: Is a nation a home for a people? As a nation?
You know, simply an idea anyone can subscribe to. And
that sort of epistemic breakdown where you have the kind
of central organizing ideas that you know, produce a society crumble.
It's it's kind of a power vacuu. And so I
wonder if you know what you're identifying is basically a
scramble for that kind of like that that king of
the hill role, right, who gets to dictate, you know,
what is generally seen as acceptable. It's just a kind
of thesis I've been working out, but I'm curious to
get your thoughts on.
Speaker 7: It, Like, so who determines what the facts are? Basically?
Is that what you're asking effectively?
Speaker 9: And that's what the fight is, that kind of totalizing
you know game you're seeing.
Speaker 7: Right, But but but also don't you think like the
fight will never end. It'll go on after me, It'll
go on after you. It will never They'll never be
a winner. It'll just keep going and going and going,
and it'll and I'm more into the belief now it's
like it's just gonna shift shift, shift, like and and
you know a slow burn as well, right, Like you're
seeing our society just kind of slowly, Like the decay
is just slow burn, slow burn, slow burn, slow burn.
So I you know, I who will you know which
way will the pendulum swing next? Hard to say. I
mean it's hard to say three years from now where
where this will go. I mean I could guess, but
you know, everything we say is guessing, right, nobody knows.
People people proclaim they know.
Speaker 9: That's that's fair. I guess that in my view of
in my view of things, and maybe this is maybe
this is naive, but to me, like there is a
certain secular pattern to this in the sense that and
we've had this in America, right, like we are still
kind of living in the world FDR built. But the
country before that was the country that Lincoln built, and
then before that Jackson and before that you know, Washington
and Jefferson, and you know, after that kind of big
crack up, that shift like politics still goes on right,
Like you know, man is the political animal, right, as
the Greeks tell us. So like that level of politics
we could consider like small pe. Politics keeps going, but
it seems that those you know, those big questions of organization,
those once they are decided again, politics continues, but it
is within certain bounds. Right, The bounds are set for
a time until they decay. I mean the Romans are
a great example of this as well. Right, that transition
from a republic to an empire. It's like, well, of course,
you know, there's constantly men, you know, fighting for their fortune.
There's constantly in the kind of daily grind of politics.
But fundamentally, right, the bounds had shifted. And I wonder
if that's what we're going through. It just kind of
in the very like early moments of which is you know,
a transition from sort of one sort of system to another,
or at very at least the death of one. But
I'm curious to get your your thoughts on this from
both the kind of you know, the the right and
the left. You you hear a lot about division, and
h I don't necessarily understand how that division can be healed,
because in my mind I see it as almost of
you know that the crack has gotten too deep. But
I'm curious, do you think that there is a way
to you know, to bridge that gap or to kind
of restore some kind of healthy uh, you know, good
faith discourse.
Speaker 7: You mean at the top level or on our level
either or H Well, I think I think, I think
I think you have to focus on what we can
do as individuals. To come back to my individualism because
as individuals, the people that might you know, I don't
even I am quoting my friend michaellyy On here, but
you know, when he's a line when people start coming
up to me, I don't know if it happens to you,
not come up to you, but you start talking about
things like this, and they're like the people that watch
CNN or they watch Fox News or you know, they're
not paying attention to it as close as not that
I'm an expert by any stretch, but you know, we
watch this stuff. This is what we do. But you'll
have people that have come up and they start talking
about abortion or something. It's like, you know, go sit
at the kids table if you're that you know, Michael
always says that I love that line, Go sit at
the kids table. We don't have time for that right now.
We don't have time for that type of discussion. And
so but also with that, I get how heavy for
people to follow this stuff and the father and the
more you pay attention with the I feel like the
less I know, right, the farther down the rabbit hole
you go. No, I don't really anything like so I
can't imagine when it's like somebody who's working eight to
five and you know, they tune into whatever network that
they pay attention to and you know, try to figure
out what what what is going on? I mean, they're
just they're getting fed the information and they're just grabbing
onto that. But I do think they're I mean I
think I think on our level, you know, you you
work within your sphere, right, that's all you can do.
And but at the top level, you know, where does
that all go? I don't know. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 10: I I I.
Speaker 7: Think I don't want to use the word hope because
I hate that word. I hope. It's not a strategy. Well,
and I were talking about that. How do you feel
about that word?
Speaker 9: Well, actually, I mean I think probably in agreement with Will,
I mean, going back to that earlier digression about like
the revolution or you know, the the boogloo, the crack up,
the fractice, you know, tick quote uh Manson, Yeah, yeah,
whichever one of those, you know, the helter skelter actually
I think that was Manson, whichever one you pick. It's
like to be honest, right, Like it's a dark form
of hope, but that's basically what it is. It's like
something will dramatically change and put me in a position
where I can do X, y Z. And like when
you talk about hope as a virtue, I think that
that's incredibly important because like hope is the opposite of
a black pill, right, it's the opposite of that kind
of creeping nihilism that nothing matters, and like, functionally, the
revealed preference of most people, myself included, is basically nihilistic materialism.
You know, it's this idea that and it's not something
most people ever explicitly say, but it is sort of
absorbed wisdom is that the here and now is what matters, right,
what you can touch, what you can that is the
that is of prime prime value and you know ald
you know, values are you know, these kind of higher
things are they're hobbling And yeah, sure that that prism
has its uses, right, that can be a useful analytical tool.
But I think that ultimately, when we look at hope
and kind of like a sense is like one of
the you know, the cardinal virtues, it's like, well, you
sort of need that to exist, you know, like the
the example of like, right, the the the rat trapped
in the bucket, like it will keep swimming until it
can't anymore. And you can look at that as this
kind of like great, you know, statement on futility, or
you can say, well, like no, that is the biological drive, right,
That is the reason that America is a country because
people had, you know, a certain set of hope. They decided, well,
you know, I'll get on a wooden boat across three
thousand miles of extremely dangerous uh you know ocean. Oh
and then when I get there, I've got a rifle
and it's me versus a continent of you know, people
who want to scout me. Well it's like yeah, you
could again, like that requires you know, a certain bravery
and hope to it. And I was actually just talking
to this is relevant, I promise to Nick Griffin, Right,
involved in the BNP, a kind of old school British nationalists,
and he made much the same point where he's like,
look like, if you view your life exclusively as kind
of a financial balance sheet, there are there any number
of things that you won't do, that you won't value,
that you need to in order to have a culture,
to be a bearer of culture, and sort of past that.
For for Ince, he was talking about kids, England is
ruinously expensive and he's like, well, like I if I
did the math on it, I never would have done
this right, it would have I would have been much
richer had I not. But my genes carry on, right,
there are people related to me who will carry on
into the future with certain you of culture, a certain
view of you know, what is important, and that matters
more than that kind of you know, financial calculation. And
I think that ultimately that is an expression of hope.
And so you know when we say that, like what
do you think of hope, it's like, well, and this
is a horrible podcasting answer, but I'll give it to
you anyway. It's like, what do you mean?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 9: Because again, like there is that kind of what the
you know, the Zoomers say like hopium. Right, you're smoking opium.
You've just got this vain idea that you know Trump
will save you, or you know the revolution will save you, you
know the crack up will save you. Well, that's obviously stupid. Clearly,
you know, people have been making those arguments for hundreds
of years, and the revolutions we got were by and
large completely and totally emiserating events for everyone involved. You know,
look at France, look at Russia, you know the Germans,
like in any instance, right and so, and actually I
should be clear, I should be it should be I
was talking about the eighteen forty eight ers, so you know,
you German history buffs, don't jump down my throat.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 9: But again, like it's it's one hope in what and
what time of hope? What kind of hope? Rather, I
guess it's this sort of you know, the operative there
by the way, this is a bad habit. But you
interviewers I've interviewed quite a number of my coworkers, right,
are always very good at this. You end up judo
flipping me into talking the entire time I'm.
Speaker 7: Trying not to be talking to try I'm trying not
to you know, and I was like, I'm like, man,
I'm trying not to be to be that guy, but
it's just a tendency. And for all the more recent
and all the more reason you got to come on
my show because I'm like, I'm like holding back my
questions because it's like, all right, this is not my gig,
this is not my this is not my this is
not my show.
Speaker 9: But I did it one hundred percent. I'll we can
do some scheduling off there. There's no reason why people
have to listen to us go back and forth with
random dates. But we're coming up on the hour. I
wanted to give you a chance first to sort of
respond to that question of hope if you will, and
then also obviously before we wrap up, tell people where
they can find you.
Speaker 7: Well, I think I think there's you know, there's different
definitions of hope, right, and and this is one of
the things that uh, you know, I I look forward
to talking talking to you next week on my show
or you know, whenever we decide. Uh. And people like
Will and people like John Carter, Ben Kellerin's another one.
I don't know if you've connected with Ben, you know,
I'll just send you his information. Uh, you know, my
friend Matt Smith and Iruguay, he wrote a book with
Doug Casey about his son Maximum called The Preparation. So
you know, so to that is a hope to where
you know there's there's plans, right, there's a plan in place,
you're doing something. So yeah, there's different ways of interpretation hope.
But when I make fun of it, I just you know,
the people that are that were hoping that like rfk
Elon Tulsea, Gabber, Trump, jd Vance, Marco Rubio, We're going
to be the Avengers and just save everything and they
could just go back to the lived lifeless before because
that's not happening. I mean, I think you've got the
indication since twenty twenty life has not gone back to
what it was before that and it's not going to.
So that's where you know that kind of my you know,
there's you can interpret hope in different ways, and yeah,
so I make fun of hope. That's i'd make fun of.
More's the boomer, the Fox News watchers, the ones they
haven't had the awakening yet of kind of where we
are and they're still being the information.
Speaker 9: So obviously you've mentioned coffee and mic podcast. People can
find it on substack as well as YouTube, and then
you have your Twitter as well.
Speaker 7: Did I miss anything, Yeah, myn Ex, Instagram, Coffee and
of mic, substack, YouTube Rumble, and then you can Downloa
on Apple Audio on Apple Spotify and yeah, I'd appreciate you.
Appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 9: Sure thing, man, I'll be sure to put those links
down in the description. As far as my stuff, the
Jay Burtons Show again, all those same platforms. Basically, this
is what I do. It's my full time job. If
you want to throw me a few bucks a month
on Patreon, Substack or gum Road, get the episodes early
and ad free. I know the ads are irritating, but
it's kind of expensive to live and so I kind
of need to do it, so I appreciate that. You
can also check out our sponsor, Axios Remote Fitness Coaching.
JD is very good at what he does. I use
his product four days a week and I really like it,
so be sure to head over to him if you
have any questions about that. Again, Mike, it was a
ton of fun, man. I appreciate it.
Speaker 7: I look forward to it. Thanks for having me on.
I look forward to speaking to you on my show
very soon. Thanks Jack.
Speaker 9: Everyone at home, keep your head up, good night.
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