E63: Insurrection indictments, human rights in the US and abroad, groundbreaking MS study and more

Jason Calacanis 0:00 ... cl- (laughs) look at Freeburg. He's like, "This is so awkward. I can't wait." He's got-

David Sacks 0:05 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 0:05 You literally brought popcorn, didn't you?

David Sacks 0:06 I'm just watching the show.

Jason Calacanis 0:07 You fucker. You brought popcorn. (laughs) He's like, "I wanna see round three."

David Sacks 0:11 I have nothing to say today. I'm just gonna sit here and watch.

Jason Calacanis 0:13 I, I brought popcorn.

David Sacks 0:14 Got my, uh, chili roasted pistachio nuts. I'm gonna sit back and enjoy-

Jason Calacanis 0:20 Besties on the town.

David Sacks 0:20 ... the J-CAL sacks.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:22 I'm going all in. Let your winners ride. Rain Man, David Sachs. I'm going all in.

David Sacks 0:31 NSN.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:31 We opened sources to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.

Jason Calacanis 0:34 Love you, bestie.

David Sacks 0:35 Nice.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:35 Queen of Quinoa. I'm going all in.

Jason Calacanis 0:39 Are we really gonna do this as the top story? (laughs) I mean, this is the third time we've tried (laughs) to do this story. Do we give the background sax or no?

David Sacks 0:47 We wouldn't have had to do it over and over again if you didn't act so hysterical. Here we go.

Jason Calacanis 0:51 The first one you killed.

David Sacks 0:53 No, you killed it.

Jason Calacanis 0:54 No, the first one you killed.

David Sacks 0:55 Oh, no, the first one... Yeah, because it wasn't even on the docket, and it wasn't, it wasn't even newsworthy.

Jason Calacanis 1:00 Okay, and the second one I killed.

David Sacks 1:02 Because you came across like a stark-raving lunatic.

Jason Calacanis 1:05 I spiked it the second time because I was so infuriated by your cavalier attitude towards it.

David Sacks 1:11 What are you worried about my attitude for? Why don't you just focus on making your own good points?

Jason Calacanis 1:15 (laughs)

David Sacks 1:15 Oh, yes.

Jason Calacanis 1:15 Here's the thing. I was so correct, I was so correct-

David Sacks 1:21 Let him, let him go, Chamath. Let him go.

Jason Calacanis 1:23 ... you guys got popcorn?

David Sacks 1:24 Let's hear this idiot try to-

Jason Calacanis 1:25 (laughs)

David Sacks 1:25 ... blame his own hysteria on me.

Jason Calacanis 1:28 You said that January 6th was overblown, and of course-

David Sacks 1:32 No, I said it was a disgrace. I said it was an embarrassment. It was an embarrassment to the country. I said it was wrong. But you wanna inflate it. You're in- you're engaging in, in classic Washington threat inflation.

Jason Calacanis 1:44 Nope.

David Sacks 1:45 And, um, and there's two problems with that. One is, you're gonna take your eye off the ball of, of the real issues facing the country, like inflation, the economy, and economic anxiety, like COVID, like crime, like schools. I mean, these are the issues that Americans care about, not, you know, a riot that happened over a year ago. And if you and the Democrats keep talking about this and focus on it on MSNBC to the exclusion of the issues that really matter, uh, I'll see you in November because you're gonna get slaughtered in this midterm election. It's gonna be a landslide. But the other problem with it is, with this threat inflation, is that it justifies the expansion of surveillance powers and prosecutorial powers by the Justice Department, by the, you know, b- by, by the, by the Justice Department and other branches of our government who want to basically go after, you know, this, this so-called domestic terrorism. That will lead to an infringement on civil liberties, just like the expansion of those agencies did after 9/11, and so I think we should all be, like, concerned about it. Now, look, are these Oath Keepers a bunch of idiots? Yeah, there were 11 Oath Keepers at that rally. They broke into the Capitol.

Jason Calacanis 2:52 Wait a minute, wait a minute. You're saying-

David Sacks 2:52 The Lord knows they should be prosecuted. Wait a minute, wait a minute. You're saying an old fat guy with an eyepatch-

Jason Calacanis 2:59 (laughs)

David Sacks 3:00 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 3:00 (laughs)

David Sacks 3:00 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 3:00 ... and a hat that says-

David Sacks 3:01 Exactly.

Jason Calacanis 3:01 ... Oath Keeper lifetime member is not credible to you?

David Sacks 3:04 Exactly. I mean, look.

Jason Calacanis 3:05 (laughs)

David Sacks 3:05 This is... Th- These guys are... Uh, they're, they're not unlike the Antifa, ri- you know, uh, people in Portland who are trying to burn down buildings or, uh, or Chesa Boudin's parents who were domestic terrorists. I mean, yeah, this is a small number of knuckleheads who broke into the Capitol. They should be prosecuted. They're, they're guilty of, of saying, this leader is saying intemperate things. But was this gonna be a coup to take over the Capitol? I don't, I don't think so.

Jason Calacanis 3:33 Okay, let, let me kill the story.

David Sacks 3:34 And if you wanna focus on that to the exclusion of the real issues facing the country, like I said, this landslide in November, this red wave's gonna be even bigger.

Jason Calacanis 3:41 Just to your point about my focus, uh, every week here on the number one tech podcast in the world and on the number six tech podcast in the world, This Week In Startups, I focus on all of those issues. But let's read, uh, 'cause we can chew gum and walk at the same time. Let's read what happened on Thursday. The FBI arrested 11 members of the Oath Keepers on sedition charges, and the House Committee subpoenaed Facebook, Google, Reddit, and Twitter after insufficient responses to the January 6th riots or insurrection, whichever term you prefer. The leader, uh, of the Oath Keepers, which is an organization that claims over 30,000 members primarily in the military and police-

David Sacks 4:19 Okay, well, hold on a second. If this was their big moment to stage a coup and take over the government, why were only 11 of the 30,000 there?

Jason Calacanis 4:25 The 11 were indicted, David. Uh, there were-

David Sacks 4:28 How many were there?

Jason Calacanis 4:29 Well, we don't know yet, but, uh-

David Sacks 4:30 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 4:30 ... last week you said, uh, last week-

David Sacks 4:32 They, they-

Jason Calacanis 4:32 ... you said there was no coordinated attack, and now we have proof that there was.

David Sacks 4:36 No, no, no, that's not what I said. The, you don't-

Jason Calacanis 4:37 Okay.

David Sacks 4:37 Look, you, you, you can't veto the segment from last week and then try to claim that I said certain things.

Jason Calacanis 4:43 All right, well, let me just finish. Can I get through the story, or-

David Sacks 4:45 Sure.

Jason Calacanis 4:45 ... are you gonna keep interrupting?

David Sacks 4:46 My God, okay.

Jason Calacanis 4:47 Quote from the indictment-

David Sacks 4:48 Y- You're, you're-

Jason Calacanis 4:48 ... we'll add.

David Sacks 4:48 ... complaining about interruption, okay.

Jason Calacanis 4:50 That's another interruption.

David Sacks 4:51 That's the phone call you gotta cut all that.

Jason Calacanis 4:51 May, may I finish it without, before interruption, or would you like to just keep monologuing?

David Sacks 4:55 What are you reading? Why don't you just give us-

Jason Calacanis 4:57 Well, remember every week-

David Sacks 4:57 ... the link so that-

Jason Calacanis 4:58 ... I, I TF the story?

David Sacks 4:58 ... the audience can just go, get the actual story?

Jason Calacanis 5:00 Yeah, that, yeah, that's what I'm trying to do, but you keep interrupting. So here we go. While certain Oath Keeper members and affiliates inside Washington DC breached the Capitol grounds and buildings, others remained stationed just outside the city in QRF teams. These are quick response teams, uh, that had weapons, and they transported firearms into Washington DC. And these, and these in-support, uh, operations were aimed at using force to stop the law, full transfer of presidential power according to our Department of Justice, which is, uh, majority Republican, obviously, law enforcement skews-

David Sacks 5:30 No, it's not.

Jason Calacanis 5:30 ... Republican.

David Sacks 5:31 Are you kidding me?

Jason Calacanis 5:31 Yes, it is.

David Sacks 5:32 Has a jinn killed me? Does that ring a bell?

Jason Calacanis 5:32 A portion of the Oath Keepers communication occurred on Signal.

David Sacks 5:35 You think, you think the FBI is pro-Republican?

Jason Calacanis 5:35 Signal. Are you gonna keep interrupting me? Oh my God, can I just read two sentences, Dave?

David Sacks 5:39 Get a taste of your own medicine, pal.

Jason Calacanis 5:40 Okay, fine. Signal is an encrypted chat app that's not supposed to have any backdoors, but obviously there is some planned. Here are some of Rhodes' comments. "We w- aren't getting through this without a civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, and spirit. It will be a bloody and desperate fight. We're going to have to fight. This cannot be avoided."

David Sacks 5:58 If we wanna make the January 6th stuff relevant, first of all, let me just say I, I see that primarily as a media story. What happened, happened. Obviously, it was a disgrace, an embarrassment, a black eye for the country. I'm not-... supporting or defending anyone. I thi- tend to think these Oath Keepers, um, it was not like a super organized concerted effort to take over the government. It- it's somewhere i- it's basically a bunch of loudmouths who, you know, engaged in a riot. Maybe there was more planning and preparation. Fine. The court case will bear it out, and if they can prove that it was what you said it was, great, let them go to jail. I have no desire to defend them. But I also think that in the grand scheme of things, this whole thing's been blown completely out of proportion. I mean, if you watch MSNBC, it's all January 6th all the time. And, you know, if Democrats are gonna focus on this issue for the next 10 months, and you know who Roger Stone was photographed on a sidewalk with, which was the big story the other day, this red wave in November is gonna be an even bigger wave. I'm just telling you right now. Because it's not what the average voter in the country cares about.

David Friedberg 6:57 I think you're right about that. I think you're right about that.

Jason Calacanis 6:59 I'll agree with that. I think, you know, MSNBC is focused on this and Fox is focused on fake voter fraud, and, uh, w- we've been pretty clear here that none of us agree with either of the extremes of media coverage. I do think this is an issue worth resolving quickly.

David Sacks 7:14 Wait, wait, which fake quote voter fraud are you talking about? The- the guy who, who's obsessed right now with voter fraud is Biden. He just gave a speech, a very intemperate speech saying that if you don't support his new voting rights acts, that you're on the side of Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis.

David Friedberg 7:28 There was some political calculus there. He had to do that because he was also trying to basically bolster the ability to get this, you know, filibuster thing passed in the Senate. So he, he basically had to play a relatively weak hand and, and, you know, again, unfo- what happened again legislatively is that his own party said, "No, enough." In this case, it was Kyrsten Sinema who basically said, "No, none of this is moving forward."

David Sacks 7:49 Right. Well, Sinema and Manchin won't support amending the filibuster, so this thing was DOA. We, we said it was DOA wh- when the Build Back Better bill collapsed. We said they were gonna try and pivot to voting rights to change the subject, even though it was DOA. But there is something that Biden could do or could have done, uh, that I think would be a bipartisan reform, which is to reform the Electoral Count Act. I mean, what happened in November, if you're concerned about Trump and, you know, the subversion of... the potential to subvert the election and the way he tried to influence Pence to stop the counting of the electors, if you're concerned about all of that, there is a fix for that, which is the Electoral Count Act of 1887. It's completely antiquated. Obviously, it's been around for over 100 years. There is bipartisan support for fixing that. The Wall Street Journal editorial page has come out for months saying-

Jason Calacanis 8:35 Explain what that is to the audience.

David Sacks 8:36 Well, it's just a, it's just a, it's a law that, that governs how these electors in the electoral college get counted up and certified so that, you know, the election gets certified. So David Brooks had that piece that, that Tamara shared in the New York Times, which is... The problem we have right now is not in the actual voting, it's in the... I- if you're worried about what happened in this past November, it's in the certification, not the voting. And, you know, what Brooks was writing about is there's a lot of social science saying that, you know, a lot of these rules that Democrats and Republicans are really focused on around the convenience of the election don't really influence the number of people who vote. People who vote want... people who wanna vote, vote, people who don't, don't. You know, we're getting hung up on the wrong thing, which is, you know, these voter ID laws. What really matters is the certification of the electoral college. And you could fi- Biden could find, I think, there's a number of Republicans who would support a clarification of that law and updating of it, so that what potentially could have happened in, you know, uh, in January, if Pence had gone along with this plan to basically reject the accounting of the electors. I mean, everyone understood that that-

Jason Calacanis 9:45 What, what do you think of-

David Sacks 9:45 ... that was just ceremonial, right? That was not-

Jason Calacanis 9:47 Well, yeah, what do you think of that plan? What did you think of Trump's plan?

David Sacks 9:50 I think that Trump had a right to air his grievances in court. But once the court threw out his claims and rejected them, and once the Supreme Court denied certiorari, it was over. It was over. The Supreme Court has the final word in our democracy about legal matters. And so, no, Pence never had the authority or the ability under the Electoral Count Act to reject the counting of the electors. That whole process is ceremonial. But, but the mere fact that this is an even- even an issue suggests that we should fix it. We should go back and fix the Electoral Count Act of 1887. So... And look, you could, Biden could have gotten 60 votes for that, you know? I think that was very doable.

David Friedberg 10:31 He, he can get, he can get votes for that. He can also get votes to, um, stop, uh, the insider trading of members of, uh, Congress. He could get that-

David Sacks 10:39 Right.

David Friedberg 10:39 ... done too.

David Sacks 10:40 So why, why isn't he focused... uh, why isn't he focused on things where he can actually get a bipartisan majority? His one big legislative success as president has been the infrastructure bill where he got a bunch of Republican support.

Jason Calacanis 10:50 Which is a pretty big win, yeah.

David Sacks 10:52 Those are the types of issues he should be focused on. And instead, he's giving these, you know, speeches, uh, saying that anyone who disagrees with the progressive agenda on voting rights is basically-

Jason Calacanis 11:01 Did you guys hear his speech?

David Sacks 11:02 ... George Wallace or Bull Connor.

Jason Calacanis 11:03 Did you guys hear his speech the other day on CNBC about COVID? I mean, he was so incoherent, it was kind of scary. It feels like he's in cognitive... the cognitive decline is... you know, I voted for the guy. Anything to get Trump out of office, I thought that was an existential risk, but man, he is cognitively declining quickly.

David Friedberg 11:21 I mean, I think the craziest thing about COVID was this Rachel Walensky interview. I mean, like, h- why does it take two years into a pandemic to tell us what we kind of anecdotally knew, but if we had known upfront or sooner, we would have completely-

Jason Calacanis 11:34 They could explain this.

David Friedberg 11:34 Rachel Walensky does an interview, she's the head of the CDC, and she said, "Well, it turns out that 75% of all the deaths, uh, because of COVID were people that suffered from at least four comorbidities."

Jason Calacanis 11:46 Four.

David Friedberg 11:46 At least four, not three, not two-

Jason Calacanis 11:48 I saw that and I was falling out of my chair.

David Friedberg 11:49 ... not one. Four.

David Sacks 11:49 Yeah. It wasn't all, it was... I think it was a subset defined by... it might have been, like, vaccinated deaths or something like that. It was, it was one study, but yes, that was basically the conclusion. Absolutely. There's significant comorbidities among people who died.

David Friedberg 12:02 And so if we, if we had known that, don't you think... I mean, Friedberg, you, you tell me, but wouldn't we have just changed our response to just mask and just kind of like start living our normal lives, and people with four comorbidities or people at a certain age-

Jason Calacanis 12:13 Stay home.

David Friedberg 12:13 ... or immunocompromised should have stayed home?... and we would be in a very different situation, so, you know, m- I mean, I, I understand, Jason, that Biden didn't ... The last few speeches have been a little tight, you know what I mean? I think, look, the Quinipac col- poll, and Nick, you can post it. I mean, look, his ratings are just-

Jason Calacanis 12:31 Plummeting.

David Friedberg 12:32 Plummeting.

Jason Calacanis 12:33 I mean, it's down to Trump levels, right?

David Friedberg 12:34 Every week. And so he is definitely searching for a handful of wins. I don't think he's strategically found the right ones. He could have done something on certifying the Electoral College. He could certainly do something right now on insider trading laws for, uh, members of Congress, but instead we're focusing on all these random things. But anyway, sorry.

David Sacks 12:56 He can't get the insider trading thing past Pelosi. But, but, but, but yeah, I think it is something that would get a huge bipartisan majority.

David Friedberg 13:03 Look, she's going to lose anyways, so he might as well just throw it under the bus.

David Sacks 13:06 (laughs) You're right.

David Friedberg 13:08 This is about his political salvation over hers. By the way, you guys saw this. I m- I mentioned this in the group chat. Someone floated the trial balloon of dumping Kamala Harris and replacing her with Liz Cheney. This is how bad things have gotten for the Democrats. They're-

Jason Calacanis 13:20 Well, I mean, we were having a-

David Friedberg 13:21 They're trying to... They floated a trial balloon of, of Biden/Cheney in '24.

Jason Calacanis 13:26 Oh, a crossover ticket. I ... We talked about this on the, uh, uh, for a couple years in private in poker. I thought a ... I think a crossover ticket is what the country needs to kind of get back to center, and I know it's a crazy concept and it's a 1% chance, but I, I kinda like the crossover. But things have gotten so bad for the Democrats now that ... And I, I sort of said Sachs floated this, um, or pre-floated it. We had a little debate on the Twitter. But Sach- I don't know if you remember, two or three episodes ago, Sachs said, "Hey, listen. There's gonna be a new appreciation for Clinton." And not 10 days later, The Wall Street Journal and a bunch of people are floating Hillary coming back to run. Um, so I think you-

David Sacks 14:01 Well, I said Bill Clinton. I didn't mention Hillary.

Jason Calacanis 14:03 I know that.

David Sacks 14:04 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 14:04 But I think you p- either you are in your star chamber and doing a pre-float on all ends so then the backups in the ... can then, you know, p- pump Hillary as that, or it's just people are listening to you and you're that influential.

David Sacks 14:17 No, what, what I'm, what I'm proposing is that Biden engage in Clintonian, uh, by which I mean Bill Clintonian, uh, triangulation, which is he does not have the votes in Congress to enact a progressive agenda. He should be looking for bipartisan wins. He did it with the infrastructure bill. He could do it with this insider trading thing. He could do it on the Electoral Count Act. These are things that would be, you know, progress.

Jason Calacanis 14:40 Yeah. China policy.

David Friedberg 14:41 And importantly, momentum. Momentum going into 20- 2024.

Jason Calacanis 14:45 A- and maybe good for Americans. Like, I mean, h- his China policy, the fact that he came out with a statement on the Uighurs, I thought was very strong. You know, it's one of the stronger things he did, but it's not coming up in the polls. And I think that whole Republicans interested in getting Hillary to run again is a setup.

David Friedberg 14:59 N- nobody cares about ... No, no, let's be honest. Nobody cares about what's happening to the Uighurs, okay? You, you bring it up 'cause you really care-

Jason Calacanis 15:04 What?

David Friedberg 15:04 And I think it's nice that you care.

Jason Calacanis 15:05 What do you mean nobody cares?

David Friedberg 15:06 The rest of us don't care. I'm just telling you a very hard-

Jason Calacanis 15:09 You don't really care? Wait, you're saying you personally don't care?

David Friedberg 15:10 I'm telling you a very ... I'm telling you a very hard, ugly truth, okay? Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line, okay?

Jason Calacanis 15:16 And that's, that's-

David Friedberg 15:17 Of all the things that I care about, it is below my line.

Jason Calacanis 15:20 Disappointing.

David Sacks 15:20 Well, we ... I think people, if you, if you explain to them what's happening to the Uighurs in China, they care, but it's not top of mind for them.

David Friedberg 15:26 That's not scary.

David Sacks 15:27 What's top of mind right now is they go to the grocery store and, and the shelves are empty.

David Friedberg 15:30 Sure. That I care about.

David Sacks 15:32 Yeah.

David Friedberg 15:32 Yeah. I, I, I care about the fact that our economy could turn on a dime if China invades Taiwan. I care about that. I care about climate change. You know, I care about a bunch of ... I care about America's crippling and, you know, decrepit in- healthcare infrastructure. But if you're asking me do I care about a segment of a class of people in another country? Not until we can take care of ourselves will I prioritize them over us. And I think a lot of people believe that, and I'm sorry if that's a hard truth to hear, but every time I, I say that I care about the Uighurs, I'm really just lying if I don't really care. And so I'd rather not lie to you and tell you the truth. It's not a priority for me.

Jason Calacanis 16:07 And my response to that is I think it's a sad state of affairs when human rights as a concept globally, you know, falls beneath, you know, tactical and strategic issues that we have to have. We need to have a high watermark-

David Friedberg 16:19 That's another luxury belief. That's another luxury belief.

Jason Calacanis 16:22 But I don't believe believing in the, the Human Declaration of Human Rights that Eleanor Roosevelt created with the United Nations-

David Friedberg 16:27 It's a luxury belief.

Jason Calacanis 16:27 I don't think it's a luxury belief to believe that all humans should have a basic set of human rights.

David Friedberg 16:30 I think it's a luxury belief.

Jason Calacanis 16:32 That is a basic right far from -

David Friedberg 16:32 And the reason I think it's a luxury belief is we don't do enough domestically to actually express that view in real tangible ways, so until we actually clean up our own house, the idea that we step outside of our borders with, you know, with, with us sort of like morally virtue signaling about somebody else's human rights track record is deplorable. Look at the number of Black and brown men that are inc-

Jason Calacanis 16:54 Far from deplorable. Far from deplorable.

David Friedberg 16:54 Look at the number of Black and brown men that are incarcerated for, for absolutely ridiculous crimes. I don't know if you saw this past week, but there was a person that was released from jail because he couldn't even be protected in jail because in some of these cells, they run these fight clubs inside of Rikers Island that are basically tacitly endorsed by the corrections officers that don't do anything.

Jason Calacanis 17:14 And the difference-

David Friedberg 17:15 So hold on, Jason. So if you wanna talk about the human rights of people, I think we have a responsibility to take care of our own backyard first. First. And then we can go and basically morally tell other people how they should be running their own countries.

Jason Calacanis 17:32 The difference is, Chamath, saying what you just said in China or Saudi Arabia would put you in jail and get you 100 lashes and you would be tortured for a decade. We here in the United States are far from perfect. We still have the death penalty, which is against the United Declaration of Human Rights, which we signed, which Eleanor Roosevelt created in the UN and we propagated as Americans around the world. We started that, Chamath. And we can have these discussions about being better in this country and the what-aboutism that you're proposing is so, um, disproportional to the equivalent of the Holocaust going on. We're talking about a million Uighurs in concentration camps right now. To talk about what we have here that we need to fix and compare it to that or to Saudi Arabia whipping bloggers and throwing gay people off roofs for being gay-... the, these two things are not morally comparable. They are very far, and we need to have open discussions and talk about human rights all the time, because if we do not talk about it all the time, then your position, which is, "I don't have time for that, I wanna solve my problems," then gives the green light to dictators everywhere that nobody's watching.

David Friedberg 18:39 That's not true.

Jason Calacanis 18:39 We need to have vigilance. And that, that's what I find, and I, I think we need to work on your position.

David Friedberg 18:42 Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a second. Th- that, that's not what I said, and that's not true.

Jason Calacanis 18:46 You said you can't get up for it.

David Friedberg 18:47 Yeah. So, t- tell me how-

Jason Calacanis 18:49 That's a problem.

David Friedberg 18:49 Are you s- are you saying that, that the situation with the Uyghurs, uh, is the same as the Holocaust?

Jason Calacanis 18:54 People who are Jewish are making that comparison. You never make a Holocaust comparison-

David Friedberg 18:58 No, no, no. I'm asking, I'm asking you, practically speaking-

Jason Calacanis 18:59 I think it is comparable. There are up- upwards of a million people in a concentration camp right now. This is getting to numbers that are actually comparable. It is actually a valid comparison.

David Friedberg 19:08 You're saying there are a million people in a concentration camp?

Jason Calacanis 19:12 Th- that is the numbers that human rights organizations are saying, between 300,000 and a million people are incarcerated right now, being tortured, raped, and then doing forced sterilization, reeducation, and when they're released, are being tracked in ghettos.

David Friedberg 19:26 And so, are you saying the entire world-

Jason Calacanis 19:27 Jewish people are bringing this up-

David Friedberg 19:28 Hold on. Are you saying the entire-

Jason Calacanis 19:30 ... as a comparison.

David Friedberg 19:30 You're saying the entire world has basically decided that that doesn't matter?

Jason Calacanis 19:34 You just said you can't get up for it. I'm talking about you specifically, Chamath Palihapitiya.

David Friedberg 19:37 But who is getting up, uh, well, who is getting up for it?

Jason Calacanis 19:39 I am very up on it. I talk about it all the time, every week.

David Friedberg 19:42 Okay. What about the US government? What are they doing about it?

Jason Calacanis 19:44 They, Biden just said, "We are going to do a ban, and we are going to, uh, sanction companies that do business in that region."

David Friedberg 19:52 So Apple and Ch- and, uh, Tesla?

Jason Calacanis 19:54 I think there will be increased pressure on all companies that are engaging in China over human rights.

David Sacks 19:59 Well, it's g- it's goods that are sourced from those areas, right?

Jason Calacanis 20:02 Correct, yes.

David Sacks 20:03 It's not doing business there-

Jason Calacanis 20:05 And I think that's a first step.

David Sacks 20:05 It's, it's, it's if your supply chain comes from that area, then -

Jason Calacanis 20:08 Correct, and it's a fir- it's a first step.

David Friedberg 20:09 So kind of like, "We won't, we won't buy Nazi goods, but we're, we'll sell our iPhones into Nazi Germany?"

David Sacks 20:14 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 20:15 Well, if you wanna have a discussion about this, you know, it's how do we disengage from China? We've had this discussion here. How c- what amount of time will it take to disengage from countries that have brutal dictatorships that are committing human rights atrocities?

David Friedberg 20:28 But again, my, look, look, I, I, I think I'm spending a lot of time and money actually trying to fortify America's supply chain. You guys know about some of the things that I'm doing.

Jason Calacanis 20:37 Absolutely. It's fantastic.

David Friedberg 20:38 I'm not, I'm not doing that from a moral perspective. I'm doing that from a practical capitalist perspective. I think the jobs are better served for Americans, and I think that we should have the ability to build our own businesses, just like China has the right to do for themselves, without the risk of these things being undercut by policies that we don't understand, which is effectively what you do when you outsource your supply chain to countries where you're not 100% aligned with them.

Jason Calacanis 21:01 Yeah, and they're dictatorships.

David Friedberg 21:03 So I, again, I'm not, I, I, I'm not even sure that, that it i- uh, China is a dictatorship the way that you want to call it that. Again, I think that-

Jason Calacanis 21:11 A communist country, that's in the name.

David Friedberg 21:13 Look, you have to understand, Jason, that there are a set of checks and balances here on China that, you know, at the end of the day, I don't think that I have the moral absolutism to judge China. And I would say that when NATO is silent, the United Nations is silent, all of Western Europe is silent, and America is effectively silent, that this issue may be small data points being extrapolated in a way to create a narrative that maybe not be true. And if it is true, Jason, there is a responsibility for those body politics to do something, because that is the early warning signal that the rest of the world uses to say, "Okay, hold on, let me re- reprioritize my list of things."

Jason Calacanis 21:48 So, so your view-

David Friedberg 21:49 So I guess what I'm saying is I am not gonna be an armchair journalist on this topic, nor am I gonna be the armchair human rights advocate for the world, because I just don't know. I can focus on the things that I know about, build the things that I know about, and if something really does get red light status, then other parties will do something. And again, I just wanna be clear. NATO is silent, United Nations is silent, America is silent. A press release doesn't change the actual technical posture on these topics.

Jason Calacanis 22:16 Okay. If that, if your position is that human rights matters to you, if government, large government organizations, uh, or politicians, uh, give you the green light to care about it, that's fine. I care about it intrinsically every day.

David Friedberg 22:28 Great. I'm fine with you doing that.

David Sacks 22:29 I thought there was a segue there, talking about the Ray Dalio thing that Friedberg cares about. Uh, I mean, this is, I mean, this debate that you're having between kind of realism and idealism in foreign policy is sort of what Dalio tackles. Right, Friedberg?

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:43 Look, I mean, it sounds to me like there's, um, let's just say, a red herring. There always needs to be, as Chamath points out, a narrative on framing our enemy when, you know, you're running out of land. I mean, you guys saw this, uh, was it a journal article or New York Times article that came out today that US intelligence revealed that Putin had actually, uh, put some actors into the Eastern Ukraine, uh, to set up for, uh, a reason to have a response, and therefore, an excuse to invade the Ukraine. So he was trying to create a bit of a fireworks show to give him an excuse. We always need a narrative that we can sell to, uh, our, uh, you know, our, our, our citizens. And so, you know, there, there's not gonna be a lot of, you know, patting on the back of China right now. As we've talked about, there is this, you know, overarching, multi-hundred-year economic cycle, you know, call it geopolitical cycle, that the United States and China are about to clash on. And in order for them to clash effectively, we need to get the narrative right, which is to paint them as the bad guy and to make things evil. And look, I mean, you, you may take your ethical framework and say that they are bad, and you may be able to take other parts of your ethical framework and, looking objectively, call some countries that you consider good bad as well, depending on what story you wanna tell yourself and what story you wanna be told. And I think that's what's going on and will continue to go on for a long period of time. And this, this Uyghur thing, as, as Chamath pointed out, how do you measure, on an absolute basis, human rights? I don't think that there's a way to do so, whether it's one person getting tortured publicly in a street or 100,000 people being suppressed economically and not being able to, to get jobs. It's hard to say what is appropriate, what is not, what is...... evil, what is not. At the end of the day, we, we create narratives, and that narrative allows the bigger picture to kind of play itself out. And I think that's what's going on, largely. And I don't think we're gonna hear a lot of good news about China for the next decade from any politician in the United States or anyone that wants to defend our political and economic interests globally, which are certainly being challenged by China right now. So, I don't know. That's my diatribe about Dadaliio. Uh, look, Daedalio obviously does a great job of kind of simplifying and eloquently stating what's going on. Um, but I think this is one of many, many manifestations of it.

Jason Calacanis 25:05 You need only read what the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The Guardian, The New York Times... You know, th- this is not up for question.

Chamath Palihapitiya 25:13 Why do you think you're so wound up about this and you're not wound up about what's going on in Somalia?

Jason Calacanis 25:18 Oh, no, I-

Chamath Palihapitiya 25:18 Or you're not wound up about what's going on in Saudi Arabia?

Jason Calacanis 25:21 Hold on, I am-

Chamath Palihapitiya 25:21 Or you're not, or you're not wound up about-

Jason Calacanis 25:23 I, I have to... Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Chamath Palihapitiya 25:23 ... what's going on in eastern Ukraine.

Jason Calacanis 25:26 Hold on a second. There are human rights violations all over the world. I comment on, on them and I have commented on them for decades, since I worked at Amnesty National- Amnesty International, which is actually where I started my career. I've been passionate about this since the age of 18 or 19, when I worked at Amnesty International. You said that you cannot, uh, grade these things, right? Uh, you just said, like, it's hard to compare these things, and this is a problem. Like, you can actually do that. There are human rights violations, like freedom of speech, which, you know, is a great aspiration, but we would say torture, murder, systematic rape, and sterilization are more intense and horrific than just freedom of speech. So, if you look at Hong Kong, when they shut down Apple News, that's one level of human rights, right? People have lost their ability for free speech.

Chamath Palihapitiya 26:10 But you're, you're... Again, you're telling stories-

Jason Calacanis 26:12 But when hundreds of... These are not stories, these are facts. Apple News was shut down.

Chamath Palihapitiya 26:16 You're telling a fact about-

Jason Calacanis 26:18 It's a fact.

Chamath Palihapitiya 26:18 ... a particular, a particular set of experiences that are particularly harming a set of people.

Jason Calacanis 26:23 Yes.

Chamath Palihapitiya 26:23 Let me give you another fact. In the United States, where we have a population of, let's be generous and say 400 million people, 2.3 million-

Jason Calacanis 26:31 340 million.

Chamath Palihapitiya 26:32 340 million Americans, 2.3 million of whom are incarcerated.

Jason Calacanis 26:37 Absolutely.

Chamath Palihapitiya 26:37 In China, with a population of 1.4 billion, 1.7 million Chinese are incarcerated.

Jason Calacanis 26:44 Absolutely something we have to deal with.

Chamath Palihapitiya 26:45 Where is human rights being violated on an absolute basis? It's a very difficult conversation to use facts and figures, because at the end of the day, there's a lot of data that can be pointed the other way. And so it all comes down to narrative. And that narrative always has an objective, which is, what are you trying to get people to believe and what are you trying to get them to get behind and get to do?

Jason Calacanis 27:04 Yes.

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:05 And what are you trying to justify?

Jason Calacanis 27:07 Yes.

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:07 And the actions-

David Sacks 27:08 Well, um, for sure, they don't have a drug problem over there because they killed all the drug dealers. Now put 'em up against a wall and shot 'em. So, you know... (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 27:13 They just send their fentanyl here.

David Sacks 27:15 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 27:15 Exactly.

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:15 That's fair, that's fair enough. But I'm just saying, like, look, a- a- and, and it's a, it's a very good point, which is you can actually take the data and you can slice it and tell different stories around it. But at the end of the day, it's very hard to say there's good and there's evil, that we have to go and attack. And, and that is what is going-

Jason Calacanis 27:29 Oh, I never said attack. I never said attack. I didn't say invade China over this, and I didn't say invade Saudi Arabia. I think we should talk about it-

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:35 Increase the temperature, raise the temperature, right? Make-

Jason Calacanis 27:37 No, I did not say that either. If you wanna know what I think should happen, you can ask me.

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:40 Put political pressure on them. Right?

Jason Calacanis 27:42 I think when people are involved in torture, murder, rape, and sterilizing people, that there should be economic and disengagement that occurs as a first step. And that, that is why when people in our circles, in venture capital, take money from somebody who murdered a journalist, Mohammed bin Salim, uh, MBS from, uh, Saudi Arabia, we should disengage from a country like that. I believe that that is what we should do. And I believe people like us-

Chamath Palihapitiya 28:10 Okay, so-

Jason Calacanis 28:10 ... I believe people like us, who are capital allocators and creators and who are influencers, should be talking about human rights all the time. And we should be familiar with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and we should read what's in it, and we should aspire to hit those notes in our country-

David Friedberg 28:25 In our-

Jason Calacanis 28:25 ... and everywhere else. And this me-too-ism, I'm sorry, this, you know, equivalency problem that you guys keep bringing up, that is a trap. That is an intellectual trap. Because there is no equivalency from putting a m- detaining a million people, putting hundreds of thousands of them and torturing them, to what's happening in the United States where we wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and where we can have conversations about it. If you tried to have the conversation we are having here-

David Friedberg 28:51 And I disagree with you.

Jason Calacanis 28:52 ... we would all be tortured in S- Saudi Arabia. We would all be tortured and detained inside of China.

David Friedberg 28:58 I just think that there's a very dangerous thing that you're doing, which is you are ranking, and which is essentially assigning some sort of, let's just call it economic value, to those things that you just, just described: torture, rape, forced sterilization. But I think then you're ignoring, how do you actually economically rank systemic racism in the United States? What happens in our inner school system, inner city school system? What happens to Black and brown men? What happens to the families of those people? What happens to how the lobbies basically break down the healthcare system? I- All I'm saying is, Jason, if you take your argument to the extreme, you start to get into all these areas of gray where it's impossible to assign economic realities to those things so that you can actually rank and rate. That's why I do think that-

Jason Calacanis 29:46 Economic?

David Friedberg 29:46 Yeah, because what you're implicitly-

Jason Calacanis 29:47 What do you mean by economic? We- we're talking about basic-

David Friedberg 29:48 You're numerically ranking these things.

Jason Calacanis 29:49 ... existence. No, no, no. I didn't, I never used the numerically. I'm just saying-

David Friedberg 29:52 Jason-

Jason Calacanis 29:52 ... one is proportionally different.

David Friedberg 29:53 Sure.

Jason Calacanis 29:54 I'm not putting economic. I never used the term anything. Proportions.

David Friedberg 29:56 If those really bad things happened 10 times, and these kinda bad things happened 10 hund- 10,000 times, which one's worse?

Jason Calacanis 30:03 I think if you asked anybody who was in a Uyghur prison being sterilized, tortured, and raped-

David Friedberg 30:08 No, but I'm asking you which one's worse.

Jason Calacanis 30:08 ... if they would rather be... Yes. I mean, you could, you could actually-

David Friedberg 30:11 If 10-

Jason Calacanis 30:11 ... do this test.

David Friedberg 30:12 Jason, I'm asking you a question. If 10 people, 10 Uyghurs were raped or force sterilized-

Jason Calacanis 30:17 Yes.

David Friedberg 30:17 ... versus 10 million Black men falsely incarcerated, which one is worse?

Jason Calacanis 30:21 Yeah. Y- e- This is not the way to do the calculus. You can do it on an individual basis. You can look at an individual inside of a prison being tortured and an individual living in the United States. Every single person who is inside of that torture chamber...... being raped, being sterilized, would say, "I would absolutely love to come to America." That's why everybody wants to come to this country and live in a free democracy where they can speak freely, they can practice whatever religion they want, and not be tortured. And what you're doing, by adding up all the tiny pain and suffering that we have here in America and then, you know, trying to conflate that, with these horrific acts, you have to look at exactly how horrific these are on an individual basis. Just like we did with George Floyd. We see George Floyd happen. That is something that is absolutely worth being outraged about at a higher level, right? You have to stop for a second and say, "Oh my God, this has to be resolved." We can do these two things at the same time. We can refine our education system here-

David Friedberg 31:15 No, George Floyd, George Floyd actually-

Jason Calacanis 31:18 ... while stopping the Uighurs being sterilized and murdered.

David Friedberg 31:19 I think George Floyd proves my point, because there has been innumerable number of Black men that have been murdered with nary a thing that's ever happened in the United States. But it happened in an exact moment where the sum of all of these other things that happened before had just compounded to a point where the whole thing spilled over and enough-

Jason Calacanis 31:37 Yeah, I, I agree with that.

David Friedberg 31:37 ... people decided to basically say the sum total of this damage-

Jason Calacanis 31:41 Yeah.

David Friedberg 31:41 ... now is the equivalent of a very meaningful human rights violation.

Jason Calacanis 31:45 You can, you can work on both of these things at the same time, is my point. And, and this, and this ... You're basically giving a pass by s- by kind of conflating these two things, in my mind. You can work on both as issues. You could wanna stop abhorrent torture and murder and rape while wanting to make our justice system better, while wanting to make our education system better. You don't have to pick one, Chamath.

David Friedberg 32:06 I think you do, actually.

Jason Calacanis 32:07 No, you do not. We could absolutely create-

David Friedberg 32:10 There's nothing I can do about the Uighurs in China. Zero.

Jason Calacanis 32:12 Absolutely there is. You could not capital allocate to regions or to companies that are engaging-

David Friedberg 32:16 But I, I don't, I don't have any Xing Chinese startups asking me for money.

Jason Calacanis 32:19 Okay, perfect, and if you do see one, you could do that and you could also speak up about it.

David Friedberg 32:22 I can't because they can't get outta China. What are you talking about?

Jason Calacanis 32:25 Do you take money from-

David Friedberg 32:26 These things don't exist.

Jason Calacanis 32:26 ... Saudi Arabia?

David Friedberg 32:27 No. I, it's my own capital.

Jason Calacanis 32:28 Okay, great. So you made a mor- And did you make a moral decision about that?

David Friedberg 32:31 No.

Jason Calacanis 32:32 Okay. If you did get offered a billion dollars, would you take it from them?

David Friedberg 32:34 And by the way, to be honest, there's a bunch of my companies that have been supported by folks who have taken money from them. And-

Jason Calacanis 32:40 I know. That's a problem.

David Friedberg 32:41 When I look w- Well, what's the bigger problem? Is it that the solution that these guys are, that they're designing for mental health or diabetes or, you know, housing or whatever it is the startup does when they take money from SoftBank or whomever, all of a sudden they should be canceled and not be able to do that?

Jason Calacanis 32:57 I didn't say canceled, just take the money from somebody different. Nobody said canceled.

David Friedberg 33:00 Where?

Jason Calacanis 33:01 I, I don't know. Coatue? Pick another firm. Goldman? I don't know who doesn't take Saudi money.

David Friedberg 33:05 So should the U- should the United States create a program where whenever you get a s- w- you ever get a term sheet from SoftBank or anybody with money from-

Jason Calacanis 33:11 Didn't say that.

David Friedberg 33:12 ... PIF, you should just be able to go and redeem it for some- somebody else's money?

Jason Calacanis 33:15 N- I never said that either. I think each individual, a capital allocator like yourself, and a CEO should make what they believe is a morally right decision.

David Friedberg 33:22 Well, they voted, and they don't care about this issue.

Jason Calacanis 33:25 (laughs)

David Friedberg 33:25 They're voting with their dollars every day.

Jason Calacanis 33:26 Okay, and I'm advocating that people should care about human rights and they should care about who they make money for. I know I'm a lone voice. I know I'm a lone voice, but I believe you should care about who you're making money for.

David Friedberg 33:35 No, no, no. I'm not saying ... Jason, I'm just saying something very subtle. I'm not saying that what you believe is wrong. In fact, I think it's beautiful and wholeheartedly right. What I'm saying is, when everybody else tries to nod their head and agree with you in the moment, they're just morally virtue signaling in a luxury of belief that they themselves don't exhibit, they don't make any changes towards, and it's l- largely because they don't believe that this is an issue. And I'm just putting it on the table as, it just is true based on everybody's behavior. Maybe other than you.

Jason Calacanis 34:03 I agree with you.

David Friedberg 34:04 But everybody else is voting-

Jason Calacanis 34:06 And I would like to change everybody's behavior.

David Friedberg 34:07 And I think you can offer your opinion and maybe you will change some people's minds.

Jason Calacanis 34:10 Yeah. I, I'm sure there are some people listening here, and I know there are some founders who would not take money from SoftBank and would not take money from Saudi Arabia. And I know there are some capital allocators who will not take money from dictatorships.

David Friedberg 34:20 I think that you're, you're also forgetting that there, there has been, as, as, as it seems, again, from very, very far away looking in, a lot of things that they have been able to do that is really constructive. You know, they've actually created some pretty decent ties to Israel. Um, they've actually started to create a path to normalize, normalize relations in the Middle East. You know, they've organized against what could be the real threat there, which is, you know, a, a, a, a nuclear empowered Iran. So just to put things in perspective, Jason, it's kind of like you have to look at the totality of the situation. Again, in the United States today, if you just looked at that one simple thing, you can cherry-pick all kinds of reasons why many other companies shouldn't expect- shouldn't accept American capital, 'cause, you know, we don't really exactly have our shit together either.

Jason Calacanis 35:06 Proportion of these issues is the issue.

David Sacks 35:07 I think, I think it, what, what Chamath is saying is the world, the world is complicated. I mean, we had ... So under the, the previous president, they said there could never be, uh, like a peace in the Middle East or a, a, a deal between Israel and, and Arab powers, and there was the Doha agreement where you had three Arab states signing peace treaties with Israel, and Saudi Arabia allowing flights between Saudi Arabian and Israel for the first time. And that's all because of MBS. And there was an article in the Wall Street Journal talking about how King Salman actually was holding MBS back on this, because, you know, he's p- p- part of the previous generation who was backing the Palestinians. And MBS just wants to move forward and actually get a deal done with Israel, and if the Palestinians won't make it, then he's willing to move forward without them. And this is not me saying. This is the Wall Street Journal.

David Friedberg 35:54 Yeah.

David Sacks 35:54 We need to dig up that piece. So all I'm saying, look, what happened with that journalist was absolutely wrong, but clearly, like, foreign relations is very complicated, especially in the Middle East. And it's not clear that, like, net-net-

David Friedberg 36:09 Saudi Arabia probably just did the one wrong thing, which is that every country engages in extrajudicial killings. They just got caught. Right? 'Cause I don't think it's fair to say that-

Jason Calacanis 36:18 Well, they also tortured ... They also killed a journalist.

David Friedberg 36:20 I think that Americans have done that, okay? We've done that as well. It's been well-

Jason Calacanis 36:23 A journalist?

David Friedberg 36:25 Absolutely. I don't think-

Jason Calacanis 36:25 No, no, no.

David Friedberg 36:26 ... you actually have any idea the extent of what we have done during the course of these wars-

Jason Calacanis 36:30 You're-

David Friedberg 36:30 ... in all of these countries. I don't think you know.

Jason Calacanis 36:33 Well, nobody-

David Friedberg 36:33 I don't think I know.

Jason Calacanis 36:34 Yeah. So by saying-

David Friedberg 36:35 And I think... And I think that the tip of the spear-

Jason Calacanis 36:36 ... nobody knows if we chopped up a journalist who criticized the president.

David Friedberg 36:39 Well, do you know who was in Al-Graib, Al- Abu Ghraib? Do you really know? Do you know if all the other-

Jason Calacanis 36:44 Abu Ghraib, one of the worst, one of the worst things we ever did, and one of the things we need to aspire to do better to.

David Sacks 36:48 Jason, we've gone blood-

Jason Calacanis 36:50 Blood pals.

David Sacks 36:50 ... near around the Middle East for 20 years now. In Afghanistan-

Jason Calacanis 36:53 Imagine the stuff we've done.

David Sacks 36:54 Hold on. We supported warlords in Afghanistan, who we were allies with, who were raping young boys. I mean, this was like a giant, uh, series of articles in the New York Times.

Jason Calacanis 37:03 Oliver North-

David Sacks 37:04 In Libya. And-

Jason Calacanis 37:04 Iran-Contra. I mean, we've been doing this since the '80s.

David Sacks 37:06 But even more recently, in Libya, we, we basically got rid of, uh, Gaddafi and plunged that whole country into civil war and it's never recovered from it. So look, I, I actually... Jason, I, I'm somewhere in between. I actually agree with your idealism. I'm... My mind is still blown that you actually work for Amnesty International. But I just think that the world is more complicated than that, and sometimes we have to make choices. And, and the, the thing that concerns me is that that idealism that you're citing has become a prelude and a pretext for war in the... over the last 20 years. And we keep-

Jason Calacanis 37:38 And to be clear, I'm not advocating we go to war.

David Sacks 37:39 We keep blundering around the globe, getting into these conflicts; Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan.

Jason Calacanis 37:45 You know I'm... You know I'm anti-war.

David Sacks 37:45 What good has that done us?

Jason Calacanis 37:47 Yeah, I... You know I'm anti-war. You know I'm anti-war. You, you know I'm not advocating for invading places. I'm advocating that we speak up when we see Saudi Arabia take a blogger, uh, Raif Badawi, who is being-

David Sacks 37:59 Everybody did. I mean, that was universally condemned. But, but the question is, at the end of the day-

Jason Calacanis 38:03 ... who is being caned for writing blog posts. And we need-

David Sacks 38:06 What's our alternative in Saudi Arabia? Who, who's our alternative there? We don't get to pick and choose who the leaders of these countries are, Jason.

Jason Calacanis 38:13 That doesn't mean... That doesn't... I'm talking specifically about entrepreneurs, capital allocators. That doesn't mean we need to engage in business and building their chip stack.

David Friedberg 38:20 If you want the sternly-worded press release, you just got it from Biden to hopefully it, it's... it piques, it, it satisfies, it quenches your thirst, because the only other solution-

Jason Calacanis 38:30 Oh, I want to see us talking about it. Actually, if you want to know what I want, I wanna see the three of you speak up for human rights. That's what I would like to see.

David Friedberg 38:35 I think that human rights in the United States is way more important to me than human rights anywhere else in the globe.

Jason Calacanis 38:41 Okay.

David Friedberg 38:41 And I think that we have an abysmal track record of taking care of colored men and women in this country.

Jason Calacanis 38:48 I, and I don't disagree.

David Friedberg 38:49 And so I have zero patience and tolerance for white men blathering on about shit that happens outside your own backyard. Fix your own inside backyard-

Jason Calacanis 38:58 I have talked relentlessly-

David Friedberg 38:59 ... because you guys... Hold on.

Jason Calacanis 39:00 ... about human rights here as well.

David Friedberg 39:00 Hold on. Because you guys are the ones that are-

Jason Calacanis 39:02 And you do not get to diminish me for being white.

David Friedberg 39:03 No, I understand, but I'm saying that you are uniquely in a position of power-

Jason Calacanis 39:06 If you're speaking about me.

David Friedberg 39:07 ... in a way that the rest of us are not. And so when you guys clean up the inside, then we can go and fix the outside.

Jason Calacanis 39:13 Yeah. I, I believe we could do both. I, uh, I believe we can do the same thing at the same time. We could speak about human rights here, we could speak about it in Saudi Arabia, we could speak about it in China, and we could talk about the same thing. We could talk about all the human right issues from freedom of speech-

David Friedberg 39:28 But you don't.

Jason Calacanis 39:28 ... to murder. I do, I do constantly. Look at my Twitter feed.

David Friedberg 39:31 Oh, really? Well, if you care so much about journalists, why haven't you spoken up in favor of Snowden and Assange the way that Glenn Greenwald has?

Jason Calacanis 39:35 Of Julian Assange?

David Friedberg 39:36 Assange and Snowden. Read Glenn Greenwald's reporting on these-

Jason Calacanis 39:39 Yeah.

David Friedberg 39:39 ... these, these topics.

Jason Calacanis 39:39 I, I think that we need to get to the bottom of both of those. I, I... In, in either case, we don't know-

David Friedberg 39:43 Get to the bottom of it?

Jason Calacanis 39:43 ... the full information.

David Friedberg 39:44 You've acted with complete certainty on Twitter saying that these guys are traitors and should be locked up in US prisons.

Jason Calacanis 39:50 Oh, no, no. I, I, I think we don't know. I don't think we know who they're working for and-

David Friedberg 39:54 Well, why haven't you ti- spent the time to learn?

Jason Calacanis 39:56 No... Well, I mean, it, it is a black box in that case. We don't know, in both of those cases, what the backstory is. I do think, I do have a nuanced position on that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:03 But you know about what's going on?

Jason Calacanis 40:04 If you're asking-

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:05 You know about what's going on with the Uighurs because you read-

Jason Calacanis 40:07 Absolutely.

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:07 ... a New York Times article?

Jason Calacanis 40:08 Uh, it's, it's, it, it... We have people-

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:09 So what did you read in New York Times article about Snowden and-

Jason Calacanis 40:11 No, no, no. We have had people-

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:12 ... Julian Assange?

Jason Calacanis 40:13 ... who have... We have... We have people who have defected and been on 60 Minutes, who were in those prisons.

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:19 You believe what you wanna believe.

Jason Calacanis 40:21 No, you, you literally can believe somebody who escaped from the prison. You can believe them, yes. With... When it comes to Julian Assange, I, I, I don't know what to believe exactly, because he released all those data dumps and he didn't do it properly like a journalist where he vetted the information. With Snowden, I'm more inclined to think that he was a good actor, and I think it's a very nuanced position. So if you wanna try to paint me as, like, not knowing everything about every, uh, human rights violation in the world, every nuanced position of a leaker, that's correct. I don't know everything about everybody, but I do know-

David Friedberg 40:52 I'm gonna take that position. I don't know anything about any of these things, which is why I choose to focus on the things that I can control. And I wanna believe that I wanna improve my own backyard.

Jason Calacanis 41:02 Which I think is absolutely great, and I think you can add an end there, which is you should be talking about human rights in Hong Kong, should be talking about in Saudi Arabia, and should be talking about in China.

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:11 Not my problem.

Jason Calacanis 41:11 Okay. Uh, not my problem is the problem right now.

David Friedberg 41:14 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:14 Not my problem.

Jason Calacanis 41:15 I believe that's part of the problem right now. You said it... You, you said it perfectly, Chamath. People don't care about human rights anymore. There's a large group of people, I agree with you, who do not care about human rights the way we did-

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:23 No, no, I did-

Jason Calacanis 41:24 ... previously.

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:24 I think they care about the local version-

Jason Calacanis 41:27 Okay.

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:27 ... of human rights.

Jason Calacanis 41:28 Fine, yeah. And I think you need to care about all of them and talk about all of them at the same time.

David Friedberg 41:32 The international adventurism around human rights, I don't support in the least, and I do feel-

Jason Calacanis 41:36 I, I, I talk about all of them.

David Friedberg 41:36 ... that a lot of this stuff is like the tip of the spear of people who then get morally absolute and say, "We have to fix this, and the only solution is to invade these countries." And instead, I would just rather them... If they really care about it, let them stand up and do what they need to do. I think we need to fix our own backyard.

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:53 I mean, look, not to kind of bolster Chamath's point, but there is a blind eye turned to that which we don't wanna believe or that narrative which we don't wanna sell, and then we point towards the narrative that we do. And we see this all the time, where the focal point of where should we be addressing human rights issues is where we have economic and geopolitical interest. No one seems to be solving the problem in Somalia, no one's getting on stage talking about the issues that people are facing in countries outside of where we have deep-rooted trade partnerships and serious economic interests. And so, you know, like, we can tell ourselves all day long that we need to be... kind of be absolutists and absolutely take care of the world, because we're the-... the, the beacon for human rights, but the challenge is, we end up being forced to choose where we wanna spend our time and our resources, and our resources go to where those resources flow back to us. And that's often where we have a geopolitical and economic interest.

Jason Calacanis 42:47 Now, Jason, just to-

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:48 And, and, I'm sorry, I'll say, I'll say one more thing, like, just 'cause it's important, J-Cal, 'cause you, you called us all out. I, I, I am an absolute human rightist, in the sense that I believe every human on Earth should have a right to do whatever they want within their own sphere of influence, provided their sphere of influence does not intersect with the sphere of influence of others. End of story. And I don't see that happening anywhere on Earth. And this ends up being a trade-off. You always end up trading off your sphere of influence for that of the greater good or someone else because power allocates and power aggregates to specific places, often to government, sometimes to organize societal decisions that we say we gotta trade off our individual rights and freedoms for that of the greater collective. And it is that judgment and it is that gray area where all of these issues that we individually choose to address and spend our time on arise. And so I have, um, you know, j- just to point out, like, a very absolute point of view on this, but to me, the challenge is, how do you make a discernment, how do you make a determination that imprisonment of brown and Black people in the United States versus the treatment of people by, um, uh, militia in Somalia versus the treatment of the Uighurs in China versus, you know, and, and you go on and on and on. It's a very difficult moral judgment.

Jason Calacanis 44:05 Or you could just say they're all wrong.

Chamath Palihapitiya 44:07 They are all wrong.

David Friedberg 44:08 They are all wrong.

Jason Calacanis 44:09 Right?

David Friedberg 44:09 But I don't care about the other two.

Jason Calacanis 44:11 And we're gonna work on all of them and we're gonna talk ... Well-

David Friedberg 44:12 See, but you work on all of them, you work on none of them.

Chamath Palihapitiya 44:14 And I would rather see innovation enable more people to have access to more free speech, to have more resources, to have more of an ability to climb and have the freedom to do the things they wanna do with their life. I think that innovation and technology can bring all of these old school ways of thinking and behaving out of the medi- medieval ages and the Dark Ages. And so, that's where I choose to spend my time. You know, how can we unleash people's freedom? We gotta make things more available. We gotta make things more accessible.

David Friedberg 44:42 I would just wanna make two points and then maybe we can move on on this topic. Point number one is, when you're an immigrant, part of what you're doing is you're actually voting against the place that you leave to embrace the place that you come to. And Jason, you know, of all the four of us on this pod, you're the only natural-born American, right? You, you started here, you've lived your entire life here, and that's an incredible blessing that you were given. And the three of us weren't. And, you know, in my case, I had to go through an even more circuitous path. I didn't even come to the United States first. I had to go through Canada. But implicitly, you know, when I look at the places that I left and specifically, you know, when I look about, when I look at Sri Lanka, who, you know, has a very checkered human rights record, in fact, terrible in some ways, and the way that they ended the war against the Tamils, atrocious. I have to make a decision, right? I have to make a decision about, is this something that I'm gonna wade into or not? And what I've realized through my own life's journey is, these are not my battles. And in many ways, I abdicated my responsibility to vote on that issue when I left. And instead, I stay here and I focus on the things that I can control here, and I think that I do have a responsibility to fix the issues of the country that adopted me. And so that's where some of my framework comes from. Separately, I do wanna give all three of us a shout-out because I do think that there is an enormous human rights issue that I do think we did bring up and in the last few weeks has become a real groundswell. And it started on the, you know, year-end recap pod where we talked about what's happened to our kids. And I just wanna call out that in the last few weeks, the amount of press attention that this issue has gotten, which I do think is a human-rights-level issue, which is the cognitive impairment of our children, has really come front and center. And, uh, I think that it's really, really incredible. All the way to, like, even Nature now publishing these, you know, and I, and maybe the timing is just coincidental, but these big longitudinal studies that really show that, you know, we have, uh, driven a level of retardation in our children. We have held them back from, uh, a level of learning and development that we now have thrown our arms up in the air. We don't know what the real long-term impact is. That, I think, is a human-rights-level issue. And domestically in the United States, I think we're in a position to fix it if we decide to take care of it. So, you know, again, I don't mean to offend you when I say that in my prioritization list, it's below the line, but there are different human rights issues that I care about. And I think-

Jason Calacanis 47:13 And, and to, just to be clear, I don't, you know, when you said I called everybody out here, I, I'm trying to have a productive discussion, Freeberg. I'm not trying to put anyone on the spot.

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:20 I don't get offended. I'm not offended.

Jason Calacanis 47:22 Although, although I'm trying to have a productive discourse-

David Friedberg 47:23 I'm not offended. I don't get offended at anything.

Jason Calacanis 47:24 ... as the moderator here.

David Friedberg 47:25 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 47:25 Okay, okay. I, but I wanna make it clear that I'm, I'm not trying to call out besties here. I'm trying to have a productive dialogue about human rights.

David Sacks 47:30 Would you take money from Prince Alwaleed? He's like one of the largest investors in the world.

Jason Calacanis 47:34 Yeah, no, I wouldn't.

David Sacks 47:34 You know, like 5% of Sneakers?

Jason Calacanis 47:35 I would not. He's a Saudi investor. Yeah, he's a Hou- he's a Saudi investor and the money comes from Saudi-

David Sacks 47:38 So if they're just a citizen of, of Saudi Arabia, you wouldn't take money from them?

Jason Calacanis 47:40 If the money comes from a dictatorship, from an authoritarian country, I would 100% not take it.

David Friedberg 47:45 Well, no, Jason, he was locked up, he was locked up at the Ritz and he was-

Jason Calacanis 47:48 But, yeah, I, I-

David Friedberg 47:48 ... forced to give a bunch of his money, so it wasn't clear-

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:50 And doesn't he mostly live out of the country anyway? I mean, like-

Jason Calacanis 47:52 It, again, if his money, uh, uh, if you're asking me, uh, uh, let's put aside a specific person, I'll just tell you my, my philosophy.

David Sacks 47:58 Well, he's a citizen or a former citizen of that country.

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:01 He was born there, J-Cal.

Jason Calacanis 48:02 Yeah, I, I agree. Let me just tell you. I, clearly, I would never take money from an authoritarian regime. Saudis-

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:09 Would you take money from a Chinese billionaire?

Jason Calacanis 48:12 No, I would not take it from a Chinese ... No, I would not take it from a Chinese ... If I, if I, no-

David Sacks 48:16 Well, they're not an authoritarian regime. They, they-

Jason Calacanis 48:18 The Chinese are not-

David Sacks 48:19 ... made their money ... No, no, no, no, no.

Jason Calacanis 48:19 ... an authoritarian regime.

David Sacks 48:20 We're talking about a Chinese billionaire.

Jason Calacanis 48:22 If the Chinese billionaire was outspoken about human r- I, I would tell you ... It's a great thought question-

David Sacks 48:26 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 48:26 ... and I'm just riffing here. It's a great thought experiment. If a Chinese billionaire had left China and was-

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:33 Would you take Chamath's money?

Jason Calacanis 48:35 ... in favor of human rights-

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:35 'Cause Chamath has violated your human rights at the poker table many times.

David Sacks 48:38 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 48:38 That, that's true. That's true. He has, he has turned number two seven going all in-

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:43 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 48:43 ... when I have two pair and I'm like, "I guess he's got a set."

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:45 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 48:46 He just absolutely tortures me.

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:48 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 48:48 So, but no, I would not, I would ... If, if the person was a reformer, I-... yes, I would consider it. I would consider it.

David Friedberg 48:55 Jason, but Jason, I guess what you're saying is like, you ... and this is your decision to make.

Jason Calacanis 48:59 My decision, yes.

David Friedberg 49:00 It's, it's important for you that you understand what people's personal belief systems are when you take money from them?

Jason Calacanis 49:08 No. Human rights is important to me.

David Friedberg 49:10 Right, but I'm saying like, their personal belief system, like, you know, you, you-

Jason Calacanis 49:13 I was more specific.

David Friedberg 49:13 ... would care less if they were an illicit drug user, right? For somebody else ... So for example, I'll give you an example. So, I did take money from a Chinese billionaire when I, when I first started social capital.

Jason Calacanis 49:22 All right, remember it.

David Friedberg 49:23 I'm not gonna say who it is.

Jason Calacanis 49:24 Nope. No need.

David Friedberg 49:25 But there was a, uh, a morality clause, and there were certain things that were incredibly important to this person, and they were very easy for me to reflect because they were nothing that I cared about. But, you know, they explicitly didn't want certain kinds of investments in, uh-

Jason Calacanis 49:40 Whether it's gambling, cannabis, sex, porn.

David Friedberg 49:43 Well, for me it w- yeah, the list was gambling, alcohol, can- anyway, my point is, you're fine signing up to those moral judgements from an investor.

Jason Calacanis 49:53 Am I?

David Friedberg 49:54 But not necessarily, you know, silence on ... I'm, I'm asking you the question.

Jason Calacanis 49:57 Okay.

David Friedberg 49:57 You would be fine signing up for those moral obliga- for moral delineation of what you can and can't do, even if it's not against what you believe, but you have a different issue when it comes to silence on these other topics?

Jason Calacanis 50:07 Yeah, I would ... here's, here's how I'll, I'll answer the question. I ... if I'm taking other people's money to invest it and they don't want to invest in the adult ... I don't have a problem with, uh, cannabis as an example. I don't have a problem with wagering and gambling. But if I'm building a fund to invest in businesses, those are ... that, that's not an important issue for me, and I don't know that's a great venture investment, and I can also invest outside of it my own money. So, it's a more nuanced issue there. Like, I, I have invested in wagering apps, and I'm thinking about creating a syndicate specifically for gambling and, and wagering. And yes, there are LPs who I currently have in my previous fund, the active fund, that do not ... I do not invest in wagering because of that. So, yes. And they ... it's because they just want clarity, in some cases, on not getting sued for investing in a, in a, in um, wagering companies where we don't have a federal mandate yet. So, you know, I think comparing h- it's a, it's ... these are great thought experiments-

David Friedberg 50:57 You know, my-

Jason Calacanis 50:58 ... and important discussions to have.

David Friedberg 50:59 I was, I was fine signing up-

Jason Calacanis 50:59 But human rights transcends everything for me.

David Friedberg 51:01 I was fine signing up for no alcohol because my father was an alcoholic. And so-

Jason Calacanis 51:05 Yeah.

David Friedberg 51:05 ... it was, it was more reliant.

Jason Calacanis 51:06 It was aligned.

David Friedberg 51:07 And there was a certain investor who, at one point, tried to be an LP, very well-known person, who, uh, was convicted of domestic abuse, and I didn't take that money because I was ... I had been the victim of domestic abuse as my, as m- as my mom.

Jason Calacanis 51:26 Yep.

David Friedberg 51:27 And so that was a moral issue for me. The point I'm trying to make to you, Jason, is that it's very nuanced. Everybody can be on-

Jason Calacanis 51:33 Yes.

David Friedberg 51:33 ... a bunch of different sides of this thing, and I f- tend to think the most consistent reliable thing is that these are very local beliefs, that when they touch you, you have a point of view on them, and I, and I think that, you know, it's much more practical ... and maybe this is just being too practical ... to see a world where people wanna fix their own backyard first, and the ... and I think a lot of why you may be disappointed that a lot of people don't have a stronger view on things like China is people are a little exhausted with having moral views about things that are so far away when things in their own backyard are so broken.

Jason Calacanis 52:10 Yeah. A- and I, and I can understand that exhaustion. And to be clear, I just feel like human rights is such an obvious and easy one to get behind for all humans. And that really was-

David Friedberg 52:19 From your perspective.

Jason Calacanis 52:21 ... what ... and that's what the Universal Declaration Fr- of Human Rights was about, was we were hoping that all countries in the United Nations, or Eleanor Roosevelt was, that we could all just agree that torture was immoral. And when the United States waterboarded people-

David Friedberg 52:32 But the United States can't even agree-

Jason Calacanis 52:33 ... and Bush came up with some-

David Friedberg 52:34 ... whether the death penalty is immoral. So, I mean-

Jason Calacanis 52:36 Right, and you know what? That's something that, you know, is our great failing, and we need to work on. Yeah.

David Friedberg 52:39 So, we're, we're riddled with hypocrisy.

Jason Calacanis 52:41 The Declaration of Human Rights here is, is an ideal. It's a goal. It's something to strive towards. And each country has places where they succeed and fail, and you can actually measure it. And we do measure it, actually. We do measure which countries have the worst record on human rights violations and which ones have the best. And the United States is in the top-

David Friedberg 52:57 I think these quantifiable scores are crazy.

Jason Calacanis 53:00 No, no. They're not. You can literally ta- look at how many women are raped in prison in one country versus another-

David Friedberg 53:04 I understand.

Jason Calacanis 53:05 ... how many people are tortured.

David Friedberg 53:05 But my point is, when you put a score to that or count it, you're not counting a bunch of other things that are really bad as well.

Jason Calacanis 53:11 Y- the scoring system could be refined. Sure. I will give you that. And I think e- uh, this is ... the debate we had today, which was an unexpected debate, and I, I didn't think we would go this deep here, I think it's such an important debate for us to have as humans and as a civilization, because we are getting in the weeds on so many other issues, whether it's inflation or, you know, uh, innovation or politics, that human rights, I feel, is something we should all be able to agree on, that all people should be able to appreciate freely.

Chamath Palihapitiya 53:37 It's the definition that's ... J-Cal, everyone says yes. The definition and the prioritization is where all the noise sits.

Jason Calacanis 53:45 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 53:46 That's, that's everything.

Jason Calacanis 53:47 And how do we deal with violators?

Chamath Palihapitiya 53:48 There's no one on Earth that's gonna say, "I don't believe in human rights."

Jason Calacanis 53:51 Well, no, no. Communist do. The communists have.

David Friedberg 53:52 Right. E- e- we all agree with the ideals. Everyone agrees, everyone agrees with the ideals.

Jason Calacanis 53:56 Not the communists.

David Friedberg 53:56 The question is how you implement them.

Chamath Palihapitiya 53:58 Implementation, prioritization, definitions.

David Friedberg 54:00 Exactly. Like for, for example, I think-

Jason Calacanis 54:01 Maybe in the West we do.

David Friedberg 54:02 I think it's, I think it's a legitimate position for you to say that you're not gonna take money from dictators. But to then say that any family office from any individual who was born in that country, you're not gonna take their money either?

Jason Calacanis 54:15 I would have to think about it. I didn't say that. I said I would have to think about it.

David Friedberg 54:16 Unless, unless they, unless they, they're willing to risk their lives by denouncing their own government, which they said you like?

Jason Calacanis 54:22 Well, I don't know that they have to do it. I don't know they have to do it publicly. I mean, if I talk to this hypothetical Chinese or Saudi person and they said, "I don't agree with this. I'm working against. I'm a reformer." I, I guess I would have to consider it because-

David Friedberg 54:32 No, no, no. But, but what if they said nothing?

Jason Calacanis 54:34 ... you would want to make money for the reformer.

David Friedberg 54:35 But Jason, what if they said, "I don't have a point of view."

Jason Calacanis 54:37 Then I would go with people who, um-

David Friedberg 54:39 Would you morally disqualify them? You would disqualify them-

Jason Calacanis 54:42 Well-

David Friedberg 54:42 ... on moral grounds?

Jason Calacanis 54:44 I, if they-

David Friedberg 54:44 That's not the way to make allies, J-Cal, which is important.

Jason Calacanis 54:47 Well, d- uh ... you're not letting me answer.

David Friedberg 54:48 So, so look, look. I think-

Jason Calacanis 54:48 Hold on, you ... hold on, I need to answer it if you c- both are gonna ask me this question and accuse me of, you know, this-I would have to make a nuanced decision on an individual basis. I would not make a blanket decision. That's my position on this hypothetical situation where somebody is a Saudi citizen, has a family office, I would have to make a very nuanced decision like you did, Chamath, where you didn't take the domestic abusers and you did take the person who-

David Friedberg 55:09 Well, that was an American-

Jason Calacanis 55:10 ... yeah, okay.

David Friedberg 55:10 ... but I took the Chinese one.

Jason Calacanis 55:11 Okay. Yeah. But it's the same thing. It's a human rights violation. It's, it's a horrible thing that occurred, and you had to make a nuanced decision. And, uh, you know, I... That's what I'm hoping to promote here, is that we have a dialogue about human rights again. Because when I was growing up in the '80s, this was something that the world was getting consensus on and the West had consensus on. And I think the West is very weak now. And the fact that the NBA, that, you know, Apple, whatever, companies, I don't want to call out individuals because it's not productive, uh, especially if it gets reaggregated and, you know, I happen to know some of them, it, it's, it's something that the West has to contend with, of what is our strategy here with human rights violators? Do we engage them? Do we, uh, admonish them or, or somewhere in between? Do we disengage, engage or, you know, make our feelings heard and try to shape their behavior to bend towards human rights? And I, it's a very complicated, nuanced discussion. I'm glad we had it here today.

David Sacks 56:06 The time period you're talking about where we supposedly had consensus on this during, you, you said the 1980s, during the Cold War-

Jason Calacanis 56:12 I was talking about in America. Yeah.

David Sacks 56:13 Okay.

Jason Calacanis 56:13 I was talking about in America.

David Sacks 56:13 Well-

Jason Calacanis 56:14 We, we talked about it a lot in America, is my point.

David Sacks 56:17 Yeah. Well, I think, actually, I think Ronald Reagan did a really good job with this. He denounced the-

Jason Calacanis 56:23 Incredible.

David Sacks 56:23 ... the evil empire, but said that we should be a shining city on a hill. And we did-

Jason Calacanis 56:27 Yes.

David Sacks 56:27 We actually avoided a bunch of unnecessary foreign wars.

Jason Calacanis 56:31 100%.

David Sacks 56:32 So, look, I think the best way for us to lead on this issue is just to be an example, and we're not doing a very good job of that. I mean-

Jason Calacanis 56:39 100% agree.

David Sacks 56:39 ... your ideals are great, but the world doesn't neatly line up with those ideals and presents us with choices that don't fit those ideals. I mean, during the Cold War, we had a choice b- to support either communist regimes or, in a lot of cases, authoritarian regimes. And we chose the lesser of two evils. I think today, we have choices between, do we want to support Islamic fundamentalist regimes, or do we want to support authoritarian regimes who are resisting it? I mean, those are the types of tough choices the world actually presents to us, and I think that's what makes it hard to, to sort of, to, to stick to these ideals-

David Friedberg 57:10 My enemy's enemy is my friend.

Jason Calacanis 57:12 It's a complicated-

David Sacks 57:13 Right.

Jason Calacanis 57:13 ... chess board. And you're better at chess than me, Saxo, I will give you that. And I think it's great that we had this discussion. I really do appreciate that you guys were willing to talk about this for so long. It's an important discussion because if we don't stand for human rights and basic human rights, what do we stand for? You know? And, and I agree that domestic is important. This is just a simple-

David Friedberg 57:29 I stand for, I stand for me.

Jason Calacanis 57:31 Yeah, we know that.

David Friedberg 57:32 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 57:32 We know that. Tell us about the sweater.

David Sacks 57:33 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 57:34 Tell us about the sweater. No candle

Jason Calacanis 57:36 today?

David Friedberg 57:36 Oh, no. This is just a simple-

David Sacks 57:37 You know, J Cal, if you're concerned-

David Friedberg 57:38 Oh, yeah.

David Sacks 57:38 ... about the rise of authoritarianism, which actually, this was my, one of my big trends in the prediction episodes, uh, o- what-

Jason Calacanis 57:43 I am concerned. Yeah, democracy is stalled.

David Sacks 57:44 Yeah, which was the most negative trend. But then I think you should be concerned about this, like, rising tide we have here of censorship and the surveillance state-

Jason Calacanis 57:51 100% care about it. Yes. I'm in agreement.

David Sacks 57:53 And our federal law enforcement agencies demanding more and more powers-

Jason Calacanis 57:56 And lockdowns.

David Sacks 57:57 ... and lockdowns, the infringement of civil liberties.

Jason Calacanis 57:59 I'm in agreement on those. I'm in agreement on those.

David Sacks 58:00 Instead of blowing this whole, like, January 6th thing out of proportion, you should be concerned about their attempts to exploit and use that to demand more powers to surveil-

Jason Calacanis 58:09 I, I do not believe in sur-

David Sacks 58:11 ... and prosecute American citizens.

Jason Calacanis 58:11 I do, I do not believe in surveillance. What I, and, and I think you can hold-

David Sacks 58:14 But you should understand that the hysteria created around that event is gonna be used... is gonna be exploited-

Jason Calacanis 58:19 Possibly.

David Sacks 58:19 ... to demand these powers.

Jason Calacanis 58:21 But, yeah. I, uh, politicians are exploiting this on all sides of the aisle. I agree with you. The right and the left. The right is diminishing it, the left is exacerbating it. The truth in the middle is, I think, we are in agreement, Sax. The overwhelming majority of people who went to the Capitol that day were dipshits who just wanted to protest and they cared about Trump and they went there for the party of it all. And then there was a small cohort who intended harm and who are deranged and who could potentially be dangerous in the way Chamath framed it, lone wolfs or small packs of wolves, like the Oklahoma City bombers, who murdered a large number of people. Um, and so we have to be-

David Sacks 58:53 So we'll put it-

Jason Calacanis 58:53 ... very careful in, in prosecuting one group one way and one the other way. And that's exactly what the Department of Justice has, has done in that case. 700 people got pled deals or very minor sentences. And then these folks are gonna have the book thrown at them, and rightfully so, because they could have murdered Pence or they could have murdered Pelosi, just like that woman got murdered. I'm sorry, the woman s- tragically got stopped and shot and died. Like, that could have been a much different day. If dozens of people had died and those cops had not shown restraint, we could be sitting here having a much different discussion about the Oath Keepers. If the Oath Keepers had done what the Oklahoma City bombers succeeded in doing, this would be a much different discussion.

David Sacks 59:32 Right. They didn't, which is why it is a different discussion.

Jason Calacanis 59:34 Well, thank God for our police and, and, uh, and for how brave they were in not u- unloading their pistols when (laughs) any reasonable person who was being beaten by that crowd and crushed would have taken their gun out and started firing. They didn't. Thank God those police did not start firing.

David Sacks 59:49 Okay, good. Look, I, I think the one thing we can agree on is we don't want something like that to happen again. And there's two things-

Jason Calacanis 59:53 100%.

David Sacks 59:53 Two simple things that would prevent it. One is reform of the, the Electoral Count Act, like we talked about. That's what Biden should be going for, not making these speeches about Bull Connor and George Wallace. He could actually get that done. And the other thing is, if the Capitol Police had just been a little bit more prepared and had barricades and screens and better security, that also couldn't have... it couldn't happen again. That's all we have to do to solve that problem-

Jason Calacanis 1:00:14 Well, no.

David Sacks 1:00:14 ... of January 6th.

Jason Calacanis 1:00:14 The third thing we have to do is arrest these Oath Keepers and put them in jail-

David Sacks 1:00:17 That's happened.

Jason Calacanis 1:00:17 For what they did.

David Sacks 1:00:18 That's happened.

Jason Calacanis 1:00:18 Yeah. Well, it's... No. They've been indicted. (laughs) You tell me if they're gonna go to jail or not.

David Sacks 1:00:23 They'll convict them of something.

Jason Calacanis 1:00:24 Yeah. Well, and rightfully so, it seems. They, hopefully they get there day in court.

David Friedberg 1:00:28 Maybe we can transition. I want to talk about the other side of the coin on inflation, 'cause I think that we have hammered the point for a long time now that, you know, the government was really-

Jason Calacanis 1:00:41 Slow.

David Friedberg 1:00:42 ... sort of, like, off-piste by printing-

Jason Calacanis 1:00:45 Incompetent.

David Friedberg 1:00:45 ... trillions and trillions of dollars and, and injecting it into the economy, and what it's really created has been, um, this massive bout of inflation, which then could cause an ultimate recession because the Fed has to react. All of those things, I think, are well-documented.... I just wanted to put on the record the... a little element of the counterfactual, which I think is really important. And this is an article in the Wall Street Journal, and Nick, you can post this if you can, please. But I'm just gonna read this, so I'm just gonna look down. "The first two rounds of stimulus payments lifted 11.7 million people in America out of poverty, according to the Census Bureau. Americans built up $2.7 trillion in extra savings, and some expect that, combined with rising wages, to brive up- to provide them with lasting stability despite the return to more normal spending patterns and rising inflation." So, I just wanna make sure that all of us h- have heard that, because that's an incredible thing to be able to say, that 11.7 million Americans in poverty are no longer in poverty because of the stimulus. Which, I think, when you look at the right way of framing what some of these progressives want to do, I think a lot of the good intentions comes from things like this. And I just think it's important to acknowledge that that did happen, and that's something that we should really be proud of. And especially if those folks can actually stay in the lower middle and then move up to the middle class, that's an incredible outcome. And, you know, we- we all supported that, I think, genuinely, and I think that that's good.

Jason Calacanis 1:02:11 We knew it was scary and we needed to put something into the economy to keep it from crashing, and i- it's very hard to know wha- what the right amount was, right, Chamath? Like, how do you know what the right a- amount of stimulus is in a pandemic that happens every 100 years? Uh, and thank God, it feels like Omicron is, you know, leading us out of this. Okay.

David Friedberg 1:02:28 Yeah. There's some great examples, by the way, in this article, if you guys... if people wanna take the time to read it, of some examples of people that have really done an incredible job in, um, in, like, completely changing their financial picture, which I think is amazing.

Jason Calacanis 1:02:40 Well, I mean, a lot of com- a lot of people went into freelance. A lot of these young people realized... I don't know if you saw this headline, a million less people, uh, started college this year and enrolled. And I think what's happening is so many people who were going into college realized, "I don't know if I should go into debt. I figured out a way to make money at home. I'm more financially literate. I'm gonna make a better decision about college and not go 100K into debt."

David Friedberg 1:03:00 Well, to be very specific-

Jason Calacanis 1:03:01 I think it's made people very resilient-

David Friedberg 1:03:02 I think-

Jason Calacanis 1:03:02 ... and they're being better... making better judgments about their own lives 'cause they've been forced to.

David Friedberg 1:03:06 To be specific, I think you mean boys, because the other thing that's happening is in colleges now, it's becoming very tilted, uh, female versus male.

Jason Calacanis 1:03:15 Especially graduate degrees.

David Friedberg 1:03:17 In some colleges, in some colleges, it's, you know, two thirds female, one third male.

Jason Calacanis 1:03:19 Yeah, 65-77 male.

David Friedberg 1:03:20 So, we are actually creating this weird longitudinal pattern here, where, uh, an- an entire gender is going to be very miseducated relative to another one. And in fact, it's... it'll be the exact opposite of what it was like in probably the '50s or '60s-

Jason Calacanis 1:03:35 Yeah.

David Friedberg 1:03:35 ... where you had these large swaths of men that are educated, women who typically stayed home or were undereducated relative to their ability. Here now, it's the exact opposite, where-

Jason Calacanis 1:03:44 Slingshot.

David Friedberg 1:03:44 ... women are getting undergrads and graduate degrees and boys are learning how to play video games and smoke pot.

Jason Calacanis 1:03:50 Incels. A very strange time. I mean, that's what happens when you...

David Friedberg 1:03:53 David, what is that like?

Jason Calacanis 1:03:55 Yeah, being an incel?

David Friedberg 1:03:57 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:03:57 (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:03:57 Tell us. You were a pioneer in being an incel.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:03:59 We made it through the show so... It was so civil.

Jason Calacanis 1:04:01 Let's get the Friedberg ratio up.

David Friedberg 1:04:03 Let's talk about an exciting scientific paper and the implications of it.

Jason Calacanis 1:04:07 Let's go to science boy.

David Friedberg 1:04:08 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:04:09 Tell us about this new study from Harvard that revealed Epstein-Barr virus could be associated with MS.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:04:14 I'll do a zoom out, then a zoom in.

Jason Calacanis 1:04:15 Yes, please.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:04:16 So, please bear with me for a moment. Uh, so, uh, you know, there are over 80 what are called autoimmune diseases. These are diseases where your body, your immune system attacks your own tissue and causes real problems. One in 20 people worldwide suffer from some sort of autoimmune condition. So, Crohn's disease, lupus which affects, you know, your whole system, uh, rheumatoid arthritis where your joints get inflamed, Sjogren's syndrome where your eyes and your mouth get- get messed up, and- and multiple sclerosis, which we'll talk about here in a second. But these are all diseases that have a similar ideology, which is that your immune system attacks some tissue in your body. It- it dysfunctions and it attacks it. And there's always been this big question about kind of what causes autoimmune conditions and what causes immune system dysregulation like this. And there's all sorts of different theories and studies and papers, many of which have been, you know, well, well-documented. Genetic risk factors, environmental