Episode 43

Robert Tracinski on Workism

Published on: 2nd March, 2022

Robert Tracinski visits us again to expand on three of his recent articles, published in Discourse Magazine. We have a stimulating, thought-provking discussion. Why don’t you listen in?

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Episode 43 (56 minutes) was recorded at 8 PM CET, on February 4, 2022, with Ringr app.. Editing and post-production was done with the podcast maker, Alitu. The transcript is generated by Veed.io.

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Transcript
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We're back in the Foxhole

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again today with Robert Tracinski.

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He's got a recent article on Discourse Magazine called

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In Defense of Workism the Word in Quotes.

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And I want to read what I call the subtitle.

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The goal of public policy should be to

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help people find meaningful work, not to help

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them drop out of the labor force.

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Rob, can you give us a broad

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perspective on why you wrote that article? Okay. Yeah.

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So the subtitle actually was written by the people of

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Discourse, and I think it's a little more boring.

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It gives that it's a public policy angle

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on it, which is part of the article.

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But I really want to go to the

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deeper moral and psychological issues behind it.

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There's been this in the last couple of years.

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This term workism has popped up

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and it's popped up as a pejorative.

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I view it as sort of an updated version

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of workaholic, but it's the idea of how terrible

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it is that people are being encouraged to find

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personal identity and meaning in their work lives.

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And so the argument against workism, is that

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it's unrealistic that most people's work is just going

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to be drudgery and they're not really going to

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be able to find meaning of fulfillment in it.

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And it's really just a way to convince

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people to slave away, to enrich the man,

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to serve the corporate interests and the capitalists.

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And the fascinating thing about this to me is it comes

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from both the left and from the right, because from the

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left, they have the old long standing anti capitalism.

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I was going to say that's

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primarily Marxist ideology kind of a. Yeah.

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Mark had this weird thing where in the ideal society,

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the famous quote is the ideal society, you'll be able

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to be a literary critic before lunch and a herdsman

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in the afternoon, and you sort of meander your way

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through a bunch of different jobs.

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Apparently specialization at the division of labor

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was not something he was into.

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And that you had this sort of casual approach

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because your work wouldn't be tied to making money,

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your livelihood would be tied to your work.

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You'd be able to cash.

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You just do whatever you want.

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In modern parlance, in modern terminology, this

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has turned into this movement that basically

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says having the work is terrible.

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It's all just drudgery.

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And the real ideal is that you

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should be able to live without working.

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So I point out that there is a

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push now for the universal basic income.

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It's called a guaranteed minimum income.

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It has different names over time because they have

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to change the name because the old one falls

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into distribute and they just revive the same idea.

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But given a new name, it sounds fresh

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and futuristic, but this is the idea.

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We all get paid a certain amount of money every

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month, no matter what, regardless of whether we work.

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And we can all support ourselves on that.

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And so in Switzerland, they were pushing this campaign.

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This Ginormous poster just had a

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record for the world's largest poster.

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And the poster said, what would you do

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if your income were taken care of?

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And so it's very openly gotten to be with the UBI.

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That the case used to have the sort of idea

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that, well, it will liberate people to find better work,

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and they still work, but they do better work.

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And now it's become very openly no, the goal here

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is that nobody would have to work at all, and

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you'd be able to focus on things other than work.

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Now, obviously, this doesn't work.

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You project this for a whole society. Who is it?

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Who is taking care of your income if nobody's working?

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They don't think that far ahead of me. Exactly.

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But the money is there. It's just there, right?

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That's right. It grows on trees.

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Well, I think what it really comes out

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to, man,Ayn Rand picked this decades ago.

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It comes down to you'll do something. Mr.

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Rearden, as a seen in Atlas Shrugged,

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what do you get counting on?

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How do you think this is all going to work out?

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And so he says, oh, well, you'll do something.

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And he realizes that's it there will always be a guy

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like Hank Rearden around who will do something and make all

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the money and produce all the goods so that everybody else

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can then spend their time on leisure activities.

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But the fascinating thing to me is this

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is also now coming this attack on workers.

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And I've seen it also coming from the right.

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And the reason is that they see work

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as competition to the religious values as the

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center and meaning of your life.

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That's part of what there's been

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this long sort of alliance between

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uncomfortable alliance during the Reagan years.

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The Reagan years is the high point

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of this uncomfortable alliance between the religious

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right and the free marketers.

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And then we're also just fusionist movement where

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we all work together because we're all against

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the Soviet Union, we're all against communism.

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We can work together.

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But that has been coming apart.

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And part of the way that's coming apart

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is that the religious right thinks family and

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faith should be the center of your life.

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They should be what gives meaning

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and purpose to your life.

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And markets are secondary at best.

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And so they've developed a more

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sort of anticapitalist attitude, very much

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like borrowing elements of the left.

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And their idea is that they don't want anything

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to compete with faith as the source of meaning

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and purpose and value of people's lives.

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Yeah.

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So substitute worship of the state

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for worship of the Church. Exactly.

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The self shouldn't be subordinated to the state.

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The south should be subordinated to the

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Church, to the family, to tradition.

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Didn't someone say a free man on his

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knees doing his duty is a contradiction?

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I don't remember where that quote is

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from I think it was Ms.

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Rand, but I don't remember, honestly. Yeah.

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It doesn't ring a Bell for me.

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I think I've heard it somewhere, but it

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doesn't ring a Bell for Ayn Rand.

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But anyway, I'm sure somebody in our audience

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will look it up and let us know.

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So I figured if there's anybody who's going to

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make the case for work as having as actually

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having meaning and value, as being a source of

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personal identity and meaning in your life, it's got

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to be the Objectivists, right? Yeah.

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And recently, for various reasons,

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I've been rereading The Fountainhead.

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And of course, Howard Roark is making a lot of

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appearances in my articles when I write about this stuff,

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because it struck me that The Fountainhead is the place

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where Ayn Rand deals with this issue of the value

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and meaning of work, the centrality of work.

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But she deals with it not on a political

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or economic level, because more of that comes in

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Atlas Shrugged.

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But in The Fountainhead, she's dealing with

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it on the moral and psychological level.

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And The Fountainhead is all about Howard Roark

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quest to do my work my way. Right.

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And her original title for the

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book was Second Hand Lives.

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And it's about these people, like Peter Keating, who the

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source of meaning of valuing their lives is other people,

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the approval of other people getting the good opinion of

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other people, doing what everybody else wants them to do,

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being what everybody else wants them to be.

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And in contrast to that, if that's not the

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source of meaning, if there's a source of meaning

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that's within yourself, how do you find that?

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And Howard Roark finds that is my work, my way.

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The actual process of coming up, of creating something, of

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coming up with a new idea of building something becomes

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is the central activity by which the self is expressed

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by which your own vision of life is made real.

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And so that's what really

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she's focusing on The Fountainhead.

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So I'm relying a lot on The Fountainhead and Howard

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Roark because he provides such a great example of that.

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Yeah, I agreed.

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I was thinking earlier today, your article again, that this

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phrase again, I'm pretty certain this is for Ms.

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Rand thinking men can't be ruled. Yes.

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And that's why they want everyone. Yeah.

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Don't worry about it. Enjoy yourself.

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We'll pay you something, we'll give you

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something, we'll give you a pittance. Yeah.

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I think that the welfare state and the universal

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basic income, the big argument I've made about that

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is really a plan for creating a permanent underclass,

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because by taking people out of the world of

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work, by giving them no independent sources supporting themselves,

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no independent goals, no independent values that they're working

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towards, it creates a group of people who are

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basically living a dependent life with nothing to support

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them except somebody else providing for them, and usually

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the state's providing for them.

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In this case.

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And it creates basically a permanent group of people

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who are used to being dependent, to having no

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independent goals of their own, and then to just

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being susceptible then to being told what to do

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or to relying on whoever it is that's taking

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care of them, to take care of them.

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So, yeah, it is definitely it creates

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a permanent underclass of purposeless, people who

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are easily enough pushed around and a

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permanent bureaucracy to take care of them. Yeah.

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Again, I think since that's been in place since

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1960s, in the last decade or so, again, we're

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seeing with the walk away movement and things like

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that, we're seeing that starting to crack, I hope.

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What do you think?

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One of the things that's happening I find fascinating is

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that the Hispanic vote is moving to the right, and

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this is a long predicted event that's finally happening.

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And the main reason it's finally happening is that

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the big wave of Hispanic immigration to the US

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from 30 years ago or so, we had this

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peak of people coming across the border from Mexico.

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That big wave has sort of subsided.

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And then what's happened is that what you mostly have

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now, you have a lot more second generation immigrants here,

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people who think their parents came over 30 years ago,

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and now I've got a second generation.

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And they're doing what immigrants have always done in

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America, which is they rise up the ladder.

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More of them complete high school.

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More of them go to College.

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They start businesses.

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They prosper and they get better off.

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And when they prosper and they get better

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off, they actually become more conservative economically in

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their outlook because they're running businesses.

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They understand that the effect that regulations and

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taxes have on their lives tax the richer.

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When you regulate companies, you're not

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just regulating somebody else regulating them. Right.

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The other thing is that they want the American dream.

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That's why they came here as immigrants.

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They came here to get the American dream.

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And as they start to get the American dream, they become

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more susceptible to, more open to a party that wants to

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pitch them on being in favor of the American dream.

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Now I think the Conservatives do it very badly and

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are doing it worse than they've ever done it.

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But they're winning over votes.

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Republicans are winning over votes because

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the Democrats are basically the party

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that's against the American dream.

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I have a new piece up on Discourse.

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Part one just went up today.

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Part two is going up later.

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And it's basically advice to the Democrats on I

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think they need to save the Republic by becoming

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a viable alternative party, giving us something that we

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might actually possibly consider voting for.

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And I think there's a little I'm getting

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hints and nibbles and things like that.

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There are some Democrats who

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are interested in doing this.

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I am trying to set up some interviews with a

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few Democratic politicians who are trying to form a

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center left or more reasonable version of the Democratic

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Party, where the agenda isn't all dictated by Alexandria

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OCASIOCORTEZ and the progressive left.

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And so this is basically my suggestions for if

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you want to put together a viable Democratic Party

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agenda that would not be dictated just but not

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to be a watered down version of whatever crazy

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fever dream the far left came up with this

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morning, because that's exactly what happens, right?

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Yes, Alexandra says something and it's completely insane and she

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has no idea how it's ever going to work.

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But that sets the agenda.

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And everybody else in the Democratic Party has to

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say, well, here's a moderate watered down version.

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So they have to come up

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with their own independent agenda.

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So I make a suggestion for that.

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And one of the counter key points of that is

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I said, people don't want handouts, they want prosperity.

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And I talked about this issue of Hispanic voters.

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They came here for the American dream.

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If you had Democrats who actually embraced the American dream

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and talked about the American dream, and we're in favor

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of entrepreneurialism and people getting ahead and then rising up

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in the world and not just touting, oh, here are

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the welfare benefits we gave out.

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They could actually start to win.

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They could win those voters back to do a lot

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better than they're doing right now, whereas they had the

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most unpopular opponent that they could possibly wish for in

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Donald Trump, and they narrowly won the election.

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And they're going rocketing down in the

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polls every day to pull themselves.

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I think there's a bit of panic out there.

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I think it's why you get these feelings.

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It's a bit of panic out there that they

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realize we had to pull ourselves out of this

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funk, that the woke agenda is not winning over

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the American people, that the American people only in

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the last election, the American people only hated us

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slightly less than the other guys I know.

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Could that be the case then, for

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new liberalism or Neo, the Latin word? Exactly.

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Classical liberalism that you wrote a peace on? Yeah.

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Before we started, you guys mentioned I've been doing a lot

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of pieces at Discourse, and they've actually put me on a

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kind of a regular column, a once a month column.

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Now, I do other pieces in addition

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to the column, but my monthly column

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for them is called The Neoclassical Liberal.

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So it's basically the idea of saying, let's

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try to take classical, classical Liberal ideas, the

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ideas of the free marketers, the Liberals in

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the 19th century, since Liberals in the Henry

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Hazlitt sense, let's take those ideas and then

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also reach across to the, quote unquote neoliberals.

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And the neoliberals are the sort of relatively market friendly,

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relatively sane center left people and try to find some

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way to influence them and make common cause with them

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and get them to adopt a better agenda.

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Because when you think about it, this is a

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50 year process here in which you had basically

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the far left hippie counterculture that came up and

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sort of took over the Democratic Party circa 1960,

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1968, 72 somewhere in there.

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And ever since then, they've been sort of struggling with

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the fact that, okay, we have a more sane and

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moderate group of Democrats and a more sane and moderate

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Democratic base, but we have these basically insane academic types

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taking these ideas, preposterous ideas from academia, and then demanding

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that the party has to fall in line, and that

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becomes the Democratic Party party line.

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And that's that conflict within the party.

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It happens to every political party that Republicans have

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had the same thing in various forms over the

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years with the religious rights, wanting everybody to fall

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in line with whatever their crazy new ideas.

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So the Democrats are really struggling with that.

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And I think what happened in the last ten

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years or so, especially in the last ten years,

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is that the far left sort of on campus

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woke faction of the Democratic Party became extremely dominant.

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And I think you're starting to see a

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little pushback and backlash against that to say,

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wait a minute, let's come up with agenda

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that's not entirely dictated by these people.

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So I'm not super optimistic they're going to be able

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to do that, just as I'm not super optimistic about

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what the Republicans are going to be able to do.

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But I'm glad that some people are trying.

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And part of my goal is to say, let's try to reclaim

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the idea of liberalism from the left and create that idea.

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There's another alternative.

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And the most promising thing I see right now

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is that party identification of the two major parties

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is lower than it's been in a long time.

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People want an alternative.

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They want to be independent, and

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outside of they're not signing on.

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I saw a great poll the other day that something

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like only 30% of voters want either Donald Trump or

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Joe Biden to run for President in 2004.

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So it's like, well, that makes sense.

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That's a real sign of sanity there that

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two thirds of the people realize, two thirds

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of the public is sitting around thinking, can't

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we do better than these two guys?

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I know what you mean. Believe me.

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I'm going to jump back.

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In your case for neo classical liberalism

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article, can you outline a bit what

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you meant by cost disease socialism? Oh, yeah.

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So cost disease socialism isn't my coinage.

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It's something that came from the neoliberal side of

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things, but it refers to student loans are a

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great example where the government goes in.

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And it's really a version of why for years have

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been writing about what I call the paradox of subsidies.

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This is the idea that government goes

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in to subsidize something because it thinks

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people really need the education.

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People really need to be able to go to College.

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They need higher education.

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It would be good for them.

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We'll come in and subsidize it, and then in the

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process of subsidizing it, they end up pouring so much

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money into it that they make it more expensive.

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And this is the classic case of student loans, where

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like two thirds of all student loan and federal money

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grant money that goes into higher education, about two thirds

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of it gets swallowed up by the education bureaucracy, by

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the administration of the school, and ends up basically just

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driving up the actual cost of tuition and making it

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harder for people to afford College.

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So they need more subsidies, et

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cetera, in this vicious cycle.

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And that's sort of what cost disease socialism is

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the center left attempt to grapple with this.

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The idea that the government comes in to provide you

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with something and ends up just making that thing more

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expensive and meaning you need more subsidies to get it.

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And they're doing this with they're talking

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about doing this with Daycare federal daycare

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subsidy that would make Daycare more expensive

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and less affordable for the average person. Right there.

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The goal is to drive out private mom

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and pop daycare, to have government control. Yeah.

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And that's part of it is that we're going to

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try to cover funding for daycare, but then we're going

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to put all these new rules about who you have

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to hire and how you can do it.

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And so the mom and pop daycare place that

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somebody might have been sending their kids to before

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suddenly that you can't run that anymore.

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And so you have fewer

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providers and more government subsidies.

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And what do you think is going

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to happen to the price of this?

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It's going to keep going up.

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And that's what they've done with health care on there.

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Obamacare is arguably I think it's a great

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case of that where there's huge government subsidies.

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But what that means is now nobody can afford to

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do what I used to do 20 years ago as

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a freelancer before all this came in, I used to

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buy my own health insurance and I got better insurance

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for less money that is available today. And okay, great.

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There are government subsidies now, but you've made

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it so that it would be utterly impossible

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for anyone to afford it on their own.

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Yeah, but you've got this choice of health

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care plans, all administered by the government.

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So it's not really a marketplace of health care.

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Like I said, plans are generally worse than what

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I used to have, higher deductibles and all.

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I used to buy a higher deductible health

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insurance because I was 20 years younger, right?

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Yeah.

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I was a lot less likely to use

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my health insurance on a regular basis.

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And it was basically there.

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If I got hit by a car and I got hit by

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a bus and needed $30,000 in medical expenses, I wanted to be

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covered, but I didn't want to be covered for every little thing.

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And so it was really easy to get

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a high deductible insurance that was relatively cheap.

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Well, the Obamacare insurance is really expensive,

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but it's also a high deductible insurance.

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So I have a bigger deductible that I used to have.

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It covers less of my regular day to

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day expenses, and I'm paying more for it.

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And I'm thinking how only the government could

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come in and help you by creating set

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out to help you and create that situation.

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This goes back to this issue of Work Ism Too,

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which is that one of the things I came up

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with in this recent article that really struck me.

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I've written before a little bit about

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this fantasy of this guy who wrote

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a whole book called Star Trek Economics.

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I think he called The Truck

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and Amics or something like that.

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But it's this idea of taking Star

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Trek as his inspiration and he's taking

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the Utopian Roddenberry version of it.

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Like in the future, there'll be no money and everyone

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will be well off, but nobody has to work.

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The whole economic system we run as a

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sort of weird utopian socialism, which is glancingly

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referred to here and there in the franchise.

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Well, this person takes it seriously and says, oh,

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yeah, we can do this because we're going to

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have such great high technology that we'll have the

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replicators and we can make whatever we want.

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So therefore, we're a post scarcity society and

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everyone can be provided for without the need

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for work or trade or commerce.

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And the thing that struck me about it in this

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one, though, is that in writing this article about work

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ism, is I realized that if we were ever to

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get to the Star Trek future that's projected in science

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fiction, imagine that literally centuries of dedicated work that's going

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to be required to get us anywhere close to having

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Warp drive and replicators and all this amazing technology that

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they show in the TV shows and in the movies.

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And so there's this weird sort of techno utopianism

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that imagine we're going to have socialism with all

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this amazing high tech, but they don't even think

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about what kind of work ethic is required to

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get us anywhere close to that.

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Yeah, the merciless dedication of completing a task that's

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the other thing I point out is one of

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the things I like about the Star Trek series,

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or at least the Next Generation version of it

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especially, is that everybody in there is actually there's

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supposedly no money, but everyone in there is actually

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really dedicated to their work.

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And that's what makes it interesting.

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And by some of my favorite episodes are

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the ones where it's like Geordi La Forge

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spends an hour solving an engineering problem. Right.

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And they make it exciting

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and interesting in the process.

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That's basically the idea that you have to

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have that attitude of work and solving problems

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and new technological ideas and building the future

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is exciting and meaningful and interesting.

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It's a source of identity

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and meaning in people's lives.

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And why wouldn't it be?

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Because you're talking about building the future.

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You're talking about creating new things and solving

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problems and basically taking on all the problems

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of human life and solving them.

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Of course, that's a source of meaning

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and identity and value in people's lives.

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How could it not be? Exactly.

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Let me Echo then RoyK, obviously one

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of my favorite heroes my whole life.

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But the way that Ms.

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Rand describes just the philosophical aspect of work

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should be the central purpose of your life.

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Can you expand on that a bit for the audience? Okay.

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We talked about it all the show so far,

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but let's keep going there, if you don't mind. Yeah.

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Now, of course, one of the things

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people object is what about family?

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What about other aspects of your life?

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And I'm living proof you can do both.

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It's not an either or choice.

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I've got kids that I love spending time with my kids.

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It doesn't mean I don't work.

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And also when you think about, you know, I love my

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kids and I spend a lot of time with my kids.

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They're very important to me.

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But I want them to grow up

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to be independent, purposeful people who are

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not living the lives of Pampered Aristocrats.

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I'm not working so they can live

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the lives of Pampered Aristocrats who will

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spend their time on meaningless trivia.

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I want them to also find work

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that they will find meaningful and enjoyable.

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And when you think about it, work

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is the substance of human life.

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If you just sort of back up at the highest

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level and look at what is human life all about?

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Human life requires the creation.

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Everything we eat, everything we have, the clothes we

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wear, the houses we live in, all the tools

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we use to travel or to learn.

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All of those things have to be created.

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They have to be produced.

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And all of human history is a process of

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people working hard to discover and create and build

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and figure out how to produce all of these

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things and produce them constantly making progress, producing more

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of them, producing better things, making life easier, making

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it, increasing the range of our action, increasing where

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human beings can live from the tundra, crossing continents

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and going over mountains and surviving in the tundra

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that's all of human history has been.

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That process that is the essence of human

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life is you're out there in nature trying

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to figure out how you can produce and

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create the things that are necessary for life.

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And this is a vast, open ended process, too, because

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you start with the caveman and you get all the

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way up to modern society with medical care and skyscrapers.

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And I was going to say ocean liners that's

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even out of date supersonic airplanes and all that

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we have or about to have today.

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And then, of course, you can project beyond that.

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We talked about the Star Trek future

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and then now we have this.

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We can go and we can have replicators and work

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drive and we can explore strange new worlds and seek

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out new life and new civilizations, et cetera.

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So it's this process that is the essence

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of human life from the very beginning of

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human life and is so open ended.

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It's been the process of human life

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over essentially 100,000 years, and we can

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project it going into the future.

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So there's so much to be done into, to be created,

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and that is the central activity of human life now.

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It doesn't mean there are other things that we do.

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I'm a great fan of two biggest

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hobbies are my kids and music.

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I'm an amateur pianist.

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I like to play classical music, so it's

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hugely valuable and hugely important to me.

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The central thing is that the activity of life

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is to build and create and come up with

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new ideas and make new things, and everything else

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is given value and made possible by the fact

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that you were doing that one central thing. Great. Yes.

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And also there's a philosophical issue here too, because

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we talk about the needs of human life.

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There's the needs of food, clothing and shelter.

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There are the immediate physical needs, sure.

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But because we reach those, we provide for

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those needs by means of using this incredibly

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complex consciousness that we have, this conceptual consciousness,

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it's incredibly complex and advanced.

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The needs of that consciousness also create a whole other

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set of needs, a whole other set of psychological needs

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that are really basically, these are the things that you

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need because you've got this really complex brain.

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And this really complex brain has requirements of

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its own that you have to feed, things

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you need to do to feed it.

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And that's why we need companionship and romantic

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love, and that's why we need it's part

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of the reason we need family life.

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I mean, family life comes from the fact that we're

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not like animals where you care for the kids for

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six months and then off they go, a child reaching

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the humans have this because of our big brains, we

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have this immense period of growth and development that's required

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18 years plus with higher education.

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So because of our complex brains, it gives us

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a whole set of new complex needs, requirements of

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our consciousness, like art and family and love.

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But these are all still tied to the fact that

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we have this complex brain so we can go out

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and solve problems and build things and do things.

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And it's tied back to the fact that the

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fundamental reason why we have this complex brain that

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creates these complex psychological needs is because of the

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need for productive work, the need for creating things.

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Agreed.

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Let me give a couple of examples of that.

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I mean, today's culture you have

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Elon Musk and Sir Richard Branson.

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They're bypassing NASA, if you will. Okay.

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We'll get space shuttle up for 50,000,000,001 flight.

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Elon Musk has for 50 million.

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He's got three dozen Rockets going almost all the time.

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Yeah.

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I'm currently waiting very impatiently for Starlink.

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They have the chip shortage at them.

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I'm on their waiting list for the

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satellite Internet from Starlink, which is good.

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I'm waiting very impatiently for it because all

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the other options are not so great.

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Yes, I can't wait to see that

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here in Connecticut or wherever I live.

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Hopefully it will be nationwide soon

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enough to probably be worldwide, though.

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Yeah, it's there.

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It's just they can't produce the dishes fast enough.

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But that's a great example of the practical result of being

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able to launch dozens of satellites all the time is you

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could put up a bunch of these small Internet Internet satellites

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that cover the whole globe and deliver high speed broadband to

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everyone without having to have to have a land connection, which

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Unfortunately, I'm too far out in the 6th to be able

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to get at my house.

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So I'm really hoping that this comes soon.

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But this is the sort of thing that this

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tremendous productive it's the open edgedness of this, that

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there's always something new that you can create that

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goes beyond what we have before.

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And with this option in the future, you could work

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wherever you want in a way, the gig economy.

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Could you comment on that recent attack

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on the freelancers and the gig economy?

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But you could sit wherever you want and work for

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whoever you want, but now you should be labeled in

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the Union and in a certain class of work.

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How has that played out?

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All right, I know all about the gig

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economy because I've been a freelancer in one

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form or another for a very long time.

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And I just was saying the other day

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to someone that I think I overreacted it.

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I said, I've been working on the

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Internet since before there was an Internet.

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I am literally as old as the Internet.

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The Internet started in okay.

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But what I can say is I was working on

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the Internet since before there was a World Wide Web.

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So the World Wide Web, the

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Hypertext links and all of that.

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Before that, there was AOL America Online or

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there was email and things like that.

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They were used in that chat

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groups and things like that.

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But the World Wide Web, I put on my

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best Jimmy Stewart voice and say, well, why, when

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I was a kid, the Internet didn't have pictures.

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All we had was text.

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So the modern Internet of the HTML and the

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visual interfaces and all that, that was 1995.

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I've been working on the Internet since before that.

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So I know all about the gig economy.

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And it is literally true.

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I live outside of in the middle of nowhere in

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central Virginia, and I'm able to do that because 30

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years ago in my line of work, I would have

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had to be in New York or DC.

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You have just no choice.

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You have to live in one of those two

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cities because that's where the media companies are, and

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that's where you go into the office.

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And I don't go into the office.

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I haven't gone into the office in 20 years.

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So the Internet has actually made it possible

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for people to work freelance, to work part

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time or to work for a company remotely.

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A tremendous amount of flexibility and freedom that

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people have, which I very much appreciate.

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And now there's an attack on Freelancing.

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Now, this started with in California, they

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did a bill called Ad Five. Right? Bill five.

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And they passed this.

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And it was supposed to target Uber.

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And the idea of, oh, well, Uber is exploiting

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its workers, and to protect those workers, we're going

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to put them out of a job.

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It's a typical sort of left wing thinking. Right.

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And so they pass this law basically saying if anybody works

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for you for in a certain capacity or for too many

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hours, etc, you have to hire them as an employee.

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They can't be a freelancer.

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And the amazing thing is they wrote this thing to

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target Uber, and they seem to have had no clue

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what the effect they have on anybody else.

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And suddenly there were and I knew some of

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these people, there were freelance writers in California who

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all their work dried up because there was this

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limit that you could do like 35 pieces of

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articles a year for somebody.

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And if you did more than 35 articles a year, then

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you had to be an employee, they had to pay you

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more, and they had these benefits and all those other things.

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And now 35 articles is actually a lot I

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don't know that I have anybody for whom I

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write more than 35 articles right now, but that's

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for my articles are big, longer articles had a

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whole bunch of people who are freelancers, who are

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doing small articles like summaries of you work for

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a court reporter publication, and you did little summaries

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of court cases, little one or 200 word summaries.

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And there were people doing hundreds of those a

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year, and suddenly they were out of work.

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Out of work because it didn't comply with AP Five.

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And you had waiters think of

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a typical Hollywood type of situation. Right.

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The aspiring actor.

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Well, what does an aspiring actor work?

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What does that mean?

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It means you wait and you like, and if you're

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an aspiring actor, you want the flexibility of being like

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working for a caterer where you can say, well, I'll

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work this job, but I can't do that job because

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I have to interview for a part.

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I have to audition for a part.

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So musicians and actors like the flexibility of being

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able to work in a job like working for

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a caterer, doing it freelance because it gave them

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the flexibility in their schedule that they needed.

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And then suddenly they found they couldn't do it because

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if you were doing too many of these freelance work

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for these people, you would get shut out.

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And really what this was all

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about was protecting the unions.

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It was hurting people.

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And so they did this at 85 in California.

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It was a disaster.

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They had to come back later and try to fix

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it and put they didn't get rid of the idea.

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They didn't decide this is a bad law.

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We should just get rid of it.

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They did what they usually do, which is, oh,

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well, we'll create some exceptions for the people who

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are yelling at us the most and for the

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people who are freelance writers, they're sympathetic enough for

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the College educated, Liberal, College educated, left wing progressive.

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The freelance writers are

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sympathetic enough constituency.

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We'll create a car vault for them and loosen the

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regulations on them, but we'll keep them for everybody else.

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Well, now what they've done is they got something

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called the Pro Act, and it's something like protecting

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the right to organize URL that is now being

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pushed through on the federal level that is going

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to do all the things that AB Five did.

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It's going to do it on the federal level.

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And it's like they just do not learn at

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all from the experience they had with 85 or

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rather, maybe it's not that they didn't learn.

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It's that this is what they wanted.

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They wanted people to be in more control, to be

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working in a more controlled way, a more regulated way,

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a way that would be under the under the hand

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of the government, rather than being this sort of independent

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gig worker who's deciding their own hours and deciding their

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own line of work and doesn't have to go through

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anybody else to set it up.

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And I think that's really what it is.

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It's a war on the independence of

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work, thinking people can't be ruled.

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Let's take a nosedive here.

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I've noticed this, too, and it kind of scares me.

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Tucker Carlson, endorsing the

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agenda of Elizabeth Warren.

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You would think that those two

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would be a bitter enemies.

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Well, what's been happening is it's

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part of a wider thing.

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And Tucker Carlson is the

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most prominent is very prominent.

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It's a top rated show. Oh, yes.

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I don't want to do a great term.

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They've come up with now called nut picking.

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You can always find a crazy person

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out there who's saying something really insane.

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And there's this tendency of reporters to say,

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oh, there's some right wing, some Republican legislator

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in Ohio, some backbench guy in the Ohio

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state legislator says something really crazy, and that

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represents the views of all Republicans and could

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do it on the other side, too.

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I just saw something similar to that from

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the right about or left some guy.

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Exactly to the backwater Democrat, or can you

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believe this College Professor at podon University said

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this outrageous thing, and therefore that represents everything

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that the Democrats stand for. Right.

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I don't want to do nut picking, but with

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Tucker Carlson halfway to show on Fox, hugely influential,

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and he is at the leading edge of influence

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of this sort of nationalist conservative outlook.

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And very much he's trying to take the

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right and turn the right against free markets.

Speaker:

And that's why he sort of actually had this thing

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a couple of years ago where he took a speech

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by Elizabeth Warren and said, this sounds great.

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This sounds like Trump at his best, that we're

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not delivering everybody over to this corporate agenda.

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Now, the anti corporate attitude on the right is coming

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from the fact that a couple of big corporations like

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Google and Twitter and some of the Facebook, the big

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media companies are hostile or semi hostile.

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They're supporting woke political ideas.

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So therefore, the attitude here is if somebody's

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not on board with us politically, and therefore

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we should be attacking them and taking away

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their rights and taking away their freedom.

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So if big corporations aren't and this has been

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a problem, this is not a new problem.

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It's been a problem.

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I think Iran Ran said to install Patterson ones like

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in the 30s or 40s, we're going to have to

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save capitalism from the capitalist because you had these big

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corporations that were sort of cow towing and trying to

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Curry favor by signing up for a big government agenda.

Speaker:

It's just nothing due.

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It's not like this just happened. Right.

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But the nationalist mindset is basically, if you aren't supporting

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me politically, if you aren't supporting our side to politically

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keep us in power, then therefore we will use the

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power of the state to punish you.

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And so they've taken that in this sort of

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anti capitalist direction of we need to start punishing

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corporations because they're not paying wages high enough.

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You could support a family.

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Actually their complaints, they're not paying wages high enough

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that you can support a family on one income

Speaker:

because this is the traditionalist thing, right? Yes.

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True.

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Women belong at home, and therefore we should force companies to

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pay men more so the women can stay at home.

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I call the TV Land economics. Right.

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They've watched too many 50s sitcoms or whatever.

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Yeah, they used to TV Land used to be a cable TV

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show that had all these sitcoms from the 50s and Leave It

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to Beaver and Father Knows Best and that sort of thing.

Speaker:

And that Leave It to Beaver thing of the father

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who works in some sort of vague kind of job,

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who's the breadwinner who goes to work and the mom

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who stays home and vacuums and pearls. Pearls.

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That's right.

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Juke Cleaver was very good.

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She was very pretty.

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This was vacuuming of pearls.

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It's kind of this joke like,

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oh, who would ever do that?

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But you have to also realize that the vacuum

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cleaner was like your new technology at the time.

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I did some research for an article on that.

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I looked up adoption of these various different

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household appliances and Leave It to Beaver was

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made just at the point where widespread adoption

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is a vacuum cleaner was becoming like an

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over 50% of households kind of thing.

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And when you think about it,

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you could vacuum and Pearl.

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That was the great thing about a

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vacuum cleaner is all this backbreaking work

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of dusting and cleaning and sleeping.

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It was a lot easier when you had a vacuum cleaner.

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You didn't have to break a sweat so you

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could do it in a house dress and pearls.

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So vacuum incidental, it's kind of a

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joke, but it's not incidental to this.

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It was a result of

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this incredible labor saving devices.

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Now, those labor saving devices would also, shortly thereafter, make

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it a lot easier for women to go back into

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the workforce and to take jobs and have the double

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income families, especially as the kids get older.

Speaker:

But it's this weird thing where the Conservatives, the traditionalists

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have this thing of wanting to wind back the clock

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to progress is all well and good up to this

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certain point, at which point everything should stop and we

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should permanently stay in that situation.

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But I think it really comes from

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the fact that this is this sort

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of Tucker Carlson nationalist conservative thing.

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What it's really being driven by is the fact

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that this is the thing I keep returning to.

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I think it's hugely important that

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people haven't quite figured it out.

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I haven't quite taken it on board is that

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over the last 30 years, basically religious belief has

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collapsed and America is rapidly becoming a secular nation.

Speaker:

Now, I don't think it's not majority secular yet,

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but I think the poll came out just recently

Speaker:

that the number of people who are either atheists

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or have no specific religious belief, that's now more

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of the population than evangelical Christians, not by a

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large margin yet, but still.

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Yeah, 30 years ago.

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I remember that when I was a kid and I

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first decided I'm an atheist, it made you a freak.

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You were totally an unprecedented phenomenon

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in the Midwest in 1984.

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It was not a widely held viewpoint,

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and so it's become much more common.

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We are now getting more to the point

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where it's like one third of the country

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is basically secular and non religious.

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A third of the country is vaguely

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religious, but not that into it.

Speaker:

And there's only a third left

Speaker:

who really have strong religious belief.

Speaker:

And that's a huge change from just a few decades ago.

Speaker:

And I think that's what's happening is that the

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religious right types are freaking out because of that.

Speaker:

They realize they're losing the culture, they're losing the

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dominant position they had in the culture, and they

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could 30 years ago in the Reagan year.

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Of course, they could say, oh, we're

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the moral majority, we're the silent majority

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who have these religious places.

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They're under attack by these elites and universities, but

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we have the majority of people behind us, and

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now they're realizing they can't really say that anymore.

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And I think they're in panic mode.

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And so what they become fascinated with is how

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can we use government and the power of government

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to arrest the slide of religious belief, to shore

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up religious belief by giving it government support?

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And that's what's pushing a lot of the nationalists is

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this idea that we tried having this alliance with you

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free marketers of libertarian types, and it didn't work.

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Religious belief collapsed.

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So therefore, we need to now have the government coming

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in and putting a thumb on the scales and supporting

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our traditional views and supporting our religious views.

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Right.

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They're playing the victim card as well then, too. Yeah.

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Well, also, I think too, they're indulging in a very

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destructive fantasy, because if the problem is that the majority

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is no longer shares your religious views, how do you

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think that giving power to government is going to be

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used to promote your religious views? Right.

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Because you can't get a majority of people behind

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you tearing down these limits on government and giving

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the government more power over the realm of ideas.

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You're really just creating more power that's going to

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end up in the hands of the other side. Yes.

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So it's really great that you're creating all

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these new powers that can be used by

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Bernie Sanders and whoever comes after him.

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And Bernie is a little too old right now.

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All this power that we used by President Caesio

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Cortez ten years from now, I think she comes

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eligible in 2004 to run for President.

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Just to keep that in mind that you said 2004.

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You mean 2024.

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I think she actually becomes eligible

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to run for President that year. Yeah.

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Just in case you ever wanted to not go to

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sleep, just keep that in half late one night.

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Something will prevent you from going to sleep.

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Just roll that thought around in your head. Yeah.

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Now I've lost some altruders.

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Yeah.

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Maybe we could go ahead and point out a

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great piece that Rob you have done here on

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how do you pronounce that Australian publication?

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Yes.

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Could you tell background how you did that when somebody

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was writing a piece on rent and then you okay.

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So the great thing about this, I

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just sort of broke into Quillette.

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I've been occasionally sending the pitches over the years,

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and I think I didn't get in contact with

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the right person and didn't hear back.

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And then I finally got somebody there who started

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publishing some pieces by me, and I did one

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late last year on a different topic.

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And then not long after that, they

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had a piece that came out.

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And I've seen worst pieces on Iron,

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but not a lot of worst pieces.

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It was kind of a sloppy sort of random thoughts

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about Iron Rand kind of thing that was highly inaccurate.

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And I thought I said, well, I've got this

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contact now, Colette, I'd like to pitch on something.

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I said, you know, I could do a

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rebuttal of this piece, but the piece is

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not really good enough to deserve revoke.

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The guy was really fascinated with the

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article was about supposedly Iron Rand.

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It was very light on the actual content of our

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ideas and very heavy on biographical details, most of which

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were taken from these sort of disreputable sources with axe

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grind in order to make her kind of look bad.

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I thought, well, that's not

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really why bother answering that?

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So I said, you know what, I've had a

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piece I've wanted to send for a while on

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basically Iran Rand's answer to our age of wokeness.

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What is her answer?

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What is the thing that she

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offers as an alternative to that?

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So I said, tell you what, I'm

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just going to pitched that to them. And they took it.

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And I think a week or so, a couple

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of weeks after that other piece was published, they

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had mine in which I basically talked about.

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The piece I did in Discourse is kind of a

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follow up to that one about the piece about work

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is it was a follow up to that one because

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I pointed out that the problem with our woke age

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is that people are finding meaning and value in their

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lives in the wrong places because they don't have someone

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showing them the meaning and value of productive work, of

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creating and building and coming up with new ideas.

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And specifically, I referred to a somewhat influential study

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that was done a few years back, about ten

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years ago, there was a couple of sociologists who

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sort of broke things down as they asked.

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They classified different societies based on this question

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of what is it that gives meaning and

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value in your life and what gives you

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social status in a certain kind of society?

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They say, well, hundreds of years ago the predominant

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thing was you had an honor society where it

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was your honor, your reputation, your social status and

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position that gave meaning and value to your life.

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And that's why you had a culture of dueling, right?

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Because if somebody insulted you, that was an attack

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on your honor, your honor had you defended at

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all costs, then you had a culture of dignity.

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And so think of like Frederick Douglas or

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Martin Luther King, where you could be attacked

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in prison, enslaved, you could be treated unjustly.

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But that didn't fundamentally affect your

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internal sense of your own value.

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And in fact, it might even increase your value

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in your status in the eyes of others because

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you maintain your own internal sense of dignity.

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And then that's been replaced by a culture of victimhood

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where it gives meaning and value to your life.

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And what gives you status in the eyes of others is your

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ability to claim to be marginalized or to be a victim.

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And that's what the sort of woke culture is.

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Everybody has to find some way.

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Someone is talking about how I saw something

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else recently about somebody talking about advising kids

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on their essays for your applications to universities.

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And to get into the elite universities,

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your essay has to be all about

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your victimhood, the hardships you suffered.

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And these are mostly upper middle class, welloff,

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kids who have had pretty easy lives and

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talk about the Hoops they go through to

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develop this narrative of being marginalized and being

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a victim and having all the hardships they've

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gone through because that's what being asked for.

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And so in response to that, I said what I'm

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Rand offers is the idea of a culture of achievement

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where your work and your achievement is what gives meaning

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and value to your life and status in a society.

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I think that's radical because it goes against

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it really is like an alternative to both

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sides in our current culture war. That's true.

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It is radical, right.

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You have the woke kids who are so

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in need of victimhood, they have to search

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for microaggressions, which are by definition insignificant.

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Right.

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If it's micro, micro means small.

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If it's a microaggression, really, it

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is by definition not important.

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But you have to inflate it out of

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importance because victimhood is what gives you value.

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But at the same time, I think you've gotten

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that same victim mentality on the right that, oh,

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we're victims of the elites in Washington, DC.

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You're victims of the cultural elite.

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We're being punished on Facebook.

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And Meanwhile, the top ten most shared stories

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on Facebook, they were from Ben Shapiro and

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guys like that, conservative sources, right? True.

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We're being persecuted by Google.

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We're being persecuted by this and persecuted by that and

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also creating this thing where meaning of value comes to

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your life, from owning the lips and from being a

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culture warrior who's constantly in online battles against the other

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side and how trivial and unimportant all of that is

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compared to the idea that you could be going out

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there building the future.

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You could be going out there trying to figure

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out how to create Warp drive or take something

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more realistic, how to create a flying car, or

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how to create autonomous self driving.

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We're still working on self driving cars.

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They're not quite here.

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I think that's when they just started in San

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Francisco, self driving cabs just recently, but they're still

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not really quite there for prime time Europe.

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They are already with trucks.

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Self driving trucks. Oh, really?

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Over long distances.

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Yeah, I know that trucks were actually one of the

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things we considered one of the first applications for it,

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because driving on the highway is a lot simpler than

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driving on the streets of the city.

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There's a lot fewer things you have to keep track of.

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That's true. Yeah, that makes sense.

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And actually the big thing, by the way, I want to

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give you a heads up on so coming from an agricultural

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state, John Deere is now selling a self driving tractor.

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Oh, my goodness. Good deal.

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They went all in on this and pursued the technology.

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And now that's coming out.

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And of course, a self driving tractor is

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actually the easiest form of autonomous vehicle because

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you're in the middle of a field.

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There's a lot less stuff in a cornfield.

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There's a lot less to keep track of than

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even you don't have to worry about other drivers.

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You don't have to worry about

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pedestrians for the most part.

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So I think it's going to be one of the

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first places we see widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles.

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Is the farmer looking on his smartphone to

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see, how are my tractors doing today?

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Yeah, exactly. Wow.

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I just harvested a whole bunch of corn

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while back in the barn doing something else,

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and the tractor is out doing it.

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That's going to be a huge productivity boost,

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and it's going to be one of the

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way that the future really arrives, that the

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autonomous vehicle future really arrives here.

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But that's the sort of thing we should be building

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and the sort of thing we should be doing.

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And all this time spent fighting the culture war, I

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mean, a lot of people are getting the message from

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either the left or the right that going on social

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media and fighting the symbolic battles of the culture war.

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That's where the action really is.

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That's what really gives meaning

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and value to your life.

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And of course, it does.

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It's actually in the wider scene of

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things not very significant at all.

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That's true, Robert. That's true.

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I guess the overall lesson is, no matter

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how bleak it looks, there are intellectual and

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cultural currents that are not only fighting that

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bleakness, but surpassing it with incredible achievements.

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And the lesson I like to keep in mind, especially

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for objectivity when you feel in despair, is to realize

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that the vast majority of people are actually living by

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our value, the values we espouse on a daily basis.

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The vast majority of people are actually out

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there, and they're working, and they, for the

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most part, finding value in their work.

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And they want to grow.

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They want to prosper the woke people.

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And the culture warriors are this tiny fringe really, of

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like 8% of the population, but they're 90% of the

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traffic on Twitter, but they're only actually 8% of the

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population in reality, in the real world.

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So the thing I always see as the hopeful

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message for objectiveness is that what we're simply doing

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is advocating an explicit form, the implicit way that

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most people are living their lives.

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Most of the time we just need to convince to

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bring that message to them in a way that convinces

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them that this is how I'm actually living.

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This is how this is.

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This is what is responsible for all the

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good things that are happening in my life.

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And I could make things go even better if I

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knew that explicitly and we're more consistent in it.

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One of the reasons we created this podcast. Exactly.

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Yeah.

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Robert, it's been great having you.

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I really appreciate your time.

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It's always a pleasure, I guess.

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Martin, are we downloaded in 50 countries now?

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What's some of our stats?

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So, Robert, you have a worldwide audience.

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Let them know where your web presence is. Yes.

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That's one of the first rules for the gig economy.

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That's right.

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Always engaged in self promotion because nobody else

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is going to promote you for you.

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Nobody else is going to promote you. All right.

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So the main thing is I switched my newsletter

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over to substance so it's Krishinskyletter substant comb.

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I started a substant in 2004.

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It was just like 13 years before substac existed.

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Finally now they've created a platform that

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works better than whatever I cobbled together.

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So I've gone over there.

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So transistulator substant.com.

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You can also find my columns at discoursemagazine

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which I think is discoursemagazine.com by the burkata

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center of free market think tank and I've

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been writing a lot for them recently. Very good, Robert.

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Thanks for Manning the foxhole with us today.

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Enjoyed it. Thank you, Smith. Take care.

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About the Podcast

The Secular Foxhole
Separation of Religion and State
As a freethinker, are you looking through binoculars out at the world in the safety of a foxhole? Get fuel for your soul and intellectual ammunition by listening to The Secular Foxhole podcast, in order to fight for the separation of religion and state.

Blair chose this name (The Secular Foxhole) to dispute the myth that there are no atheists in foxholes, but also as a place to share ideas and defend Free Speech. The co-hosts both advocate the separation of Church and State, but also Economics and State. In short, Liberalism, Individualism, and Capitalism.
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About your hosts

Blair Schofield

Profile picture for Blair Schofield
I'm a 'lapsed' blogger who turned his blog into a podcast. Now the task is to keep both up to date! My co-host Martin Lindeskog and I have already celebrated our one year anniversary, with the podcast.

Martin Lindeskog

Profile picture for Martin Lindeskog
Creator, ✍🏻 Tea Book Sketches. Indie Biz Philosopher ⚛️ & New Media 📲 Advisor, TeaParty.Media. Blogger since 2002 and podcaster🎙since 2006. First podcast: EGO NetCast. Latest podcast: High Five for Hemp. Support 💲My Work and 🗽 Freedom of Expression: https://bio.link/lyceum