Dave Smith: Israel, Hamas, Ukraine, Russia, Conspiracies & Antisemitism | Lex Fridman Podcast #464

1. 0:00 – 1:26

   Episode highlight

   1. DSDave Smith0:00

      All the people who sold the war in Iraq, they lied us into war after a war, they've bankrupted the country, damn near destroyed the dollar, and like, no one loses their job. No one even gets in trouble over any of this. If you make everybody monsters and they're not human beings, well you can't do diplomacy with monsters. You can't make a dea- you can't negotiate with monsters, but you can with humans. Maybe there are times where you're not, you shouldn't negotiate, or you can't negotiate with humans, but it's better if you can. And, and, we could use a lot more of that thinking. Donald Trump has put a lot of political capital chips into the middle of the table that I can end this war. You know? And he's gonna look very, very bad if he can't. So he's very highly incentivized to get this thing done as quick as possible. You're fighting in a way that produces more of the thing that you're fighting, and so the first step is to stop doing that. Like your cu- your cure is making the patient more sick. So stop doing that, and then let- let's see if maybe we could heal. Where are the tapes? Why is everyone talking about the flight logs and the files? Where are the tapes? This guy was clearly taping people to blackmail them. Like why does anything need to be redacted for national security? Like I'm sorry, you're telling me there's a pedophile ring and we can't tell you everything about it for national security? Why would that be related to national security?

2. 1:26 – 1:45

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman1:26

      The following is a conversation with Dave Smith, an outspoken, and at times controversial anti-war Libertarian, comedian, and podcast host. This is a Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Dave Smith.

3. 1:45 – 3:00

   Libertarianism

   1. LFLex Fridman1:45

      You are a long time Libertarian. Uh, perhaps an anarcho-capitalist?

   2. DSDave Smith1:51

      Yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:51

      We can talk about that. Can you, uh, explain the different variants, flavors of, uh, Libertarianism, and where you stand among those variants?

   4. DSDave Smith2:00

      Yeah, so there's, almost like anything, like with left wing schools of thought or right wing schools of thought, there's many different camps and different thinkers, and so within the kind of broader theme of Libertarianism, there was a lot of influence from, uh, people like Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell. Pe- those were, I think, some of the more mainstream figures. And then there's kind of like the Ron Paul brand of Libertarianism, which is kind of distinct from that other camp where they're much more of an emphasis on foreign policy. All of them kind of fall into the, um, radical minarchist points of view. And then there's Rothbardian, anarcho-capitalist. Then there's also like a David Friedman, who's an anarcho-capitalist, but from a completely different perspective than Murray Rothbard. I would probably be most, um, most closely like with the Rothbard school, which is very similar to Ron Paul, um, but even maybe a little bit further in that, you know, the very little bit of government that Ron Paul might

4. 3:00 – 6:13

   Ron Paul

   1. DSDave Smith3:00

      support.

   2. LFLex Fridman3:00

      You've been a big fan of Ron Paul. Can you explain what you admire about him?

   3. DSDave Smith3:04

      A big fan is an understatement. I think Ron Paul is like the greatest living American hero. Um, I've, I, I revere him on the level of, of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson or George Washington. Number one, I mean, all of the major issues that he w- he was correct i- in his understanding of them, his diagnosis of what caused these problems, and his solutions. And in hindsight, there's just like a million different examples of where almost everybody today would agree, even though his ideas were very controversial at the time, be like, "Oh my God, if we had just listened to Ron Paul about that, we'd be so much better off." But I think there's something almost deeper than that about why so, why Ron Paul inspires so much love from so many people is... Okay, so number one, the guy, he was a champion of these views for decades when there was no payoff for it at all, where he was just kind of alone in the woods being... You know, they used to call him Dr. No because, well, he was a medical doctor, and then he was, he would be the lone no vote in Congress like all the time. Like on the, on the bills that the entire Congress, bipartisan agreement, everything is, and there's one vote a- against it, you know? Um, and that he would be that guy. He clearly kept doing what he was doing simply because he believed it was right, not because there was any benefit for him. In fact, he dealt with a lot of headaches for the views that he had. And then he was just a, a genuine person of integrity. You know, he's the only, uh, congressman who I've ever heard this about, and, and like DC insiders, people on the Hill will say this, he was the only congressman of my lifetime who the lobbyists simply stopped visiting. He was the only one who they just stopped going to his office 'cause they were just like, "There's just no getting through to this guy." He was just not playing politics like that, and he was... You know, y- you imagine what it must have been like from like the lobbyist's perspective when they first tried to go there, you know, and they'd be like, "All right, listen. We really need you to, you know, vote yes on this or that." And he was like, "The Constitution doesn't authorize th- us to do that." And they're like, "What?" Like, who, who in this town even talks like that, you know? And so there was just, he's also just... I've, I've met him, uh, many times at this point, and he has just genuinely... He's like one of those guys who's just from like an older, better generation. Just he's the sweetest guy, but he's like, uh, but he's not a pushover. Like he was a tough guy in, in his day and he was an athlete and he was in the Air Force and is married to the same woman for I think over 60 years at this point, has like a big, beautiful family. He was a country doctor. He was a baby doctor who delivered thousands of babies. Like he's just, it is... He's like this kind of classic American figure. And, um, you know, I just think, uh, you know, at the risk of, of falling into like hero worship or something like that-... I do think he's a, I think he's a genuinely great man, and I think great men are to be revered.

   4. LFLex Fridman6:10

      Yeah. As you said, there's integrity there.

5. 6:13 – 13:06

   Military–industrial complex

   1. LFLex Fridman6:13

      Can you speak to the ideas that Ron Paul represents? Like you said, some of the things he's been right about. Maybe can you speak about the economics, the Fed, and maybe war, and being anti-military intervention?

   2. DSDave Smith6:23

      Well, I think it comes, it all came from kind of the same central thesis, which is that the highest political value ought to be liberty. Um, and, and that, you know, the government, by its very nature, is an instrument of force and tyranny. And that therefore, the more government you have, the less liberty you have. Um, I think he also was... He was way ahead of his time in, in like really calling out the corruption in DC, and I think that's one of the things that's kind of... That's- that it's a common through line between the Federal Reserve and, um, government spending, and of course, this crazy war industry that our country has. Um, there... So there's- there's a- a lot of components to that, but essentially, Ron Paul was talking about draining the swamp way before it was like this dominant m- m- mass message. And I think la- Ron Paul, in many ways, laid down... He laid the groundwork in his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, for... Not- not saying that he leads to Donald Trump, but he laid the groundwork for Donald Trump to be able to get up at the South Carolina Republican primary debate, and look at Jeb Bush and say, "Your brother lied us into war." And, you know what I mean? And then, and to have the Republicans agree with him. You know, the sa- these were a lot of the same people who had voted for George W. Bush twice and supported the war, and even mocked their liberal, you know, fellow countrymen for not being on board with it. And, and a lot of that was the work that Ron Paul did and people waking up to, um, the- how- how messed up all these wars were. And I think that, at least from... There- there were a couple major things for me, okay, at the time. So I was like a, I was a young man when I first found Ron Paul. I was- it was in, uh, 2007, was when I first saw him and then started obsessively reading all of his books. And so I, I was young. I- um, born in '83. So what would that make me? '23, '24, uh, when I first found him. So I was a young guy. And at least for me at the time, the- there were like kinda two categories in my, you know, naive mind where, okay, there were like the liberals who supported big government at home but were skeptical about, you know, big government abroad or they're skeptical about wars. And then there were the conservatives who said that they supported small government, limited government at home, but were always on the side of whatever the next war is. And at least for me and I think for a lot of people of my generation, Ron Paul was the first guy who came along and said like, "No, I'm for limited government here and abroad." And it was kinda like a portal where you could like access a different perspective on the world. And then once you saw that, you were like, "Wait, that's actually what makes sense." It make- it- it doesn't make sense to like... What are- what is it exactly that like, um, all the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and- and even like Milton Friedman and guys like that and Thomas Sowell and the... It's like you want a constitutionally limited world empire? Like that's what you guys stand for? 'Cause that doesn't, that doesn't fit together at all. And so why is it that we took- we- we're taking this as a given? And then, of course, the more you, you look into it, you realize that like, okay, they're... Those two things do make sense together. And then also that kind of like, the, in the initial wave of like the original progressives, you know, uh, look, people like Woodrow Wilson or FDR, these were people who were pushing big government at home and big government abroad. And that actually made much more sense as a cohesive worldview, and to oppose that would be the Ron Paul worldview. And then the other thing for me, and this was actually, this was my introduction to Ron Paul, and this too to me was like kind of a portal in a way. It was, it was a way, at least in my naive, not fully functioned brain, or fully developed brain at 24 years old or whatever, um, it was a way for me to kind of get like, like I tapped into something that was outside the empire. Yeah. (laughs) And I had, um, I had heard a lot. You know, I was already against George W. Bush and I didn't like the war. I could- I- I had already figured out, you know, I think this- I think this war in Iraq is bullshit and I think that we were lied into it. And so I kinda got that... And then there were, there were liberals and, and left-wingers who I knew. I grew up in New York City, so I was very familiar with the left-wing perspective. And who were critical of, of George W. Bush and, and for fighting the war and, and you know, signing the Patriot Act into law and things like that. But I had never really heard anybody break it down the way Ron Paul did when he was, when he basically was like, "Look, there's a reason why these terrorists hate us, and it's not what they're telling you. They don't hate us for our freedom." It's not as if... I remember the way Pat Buchanan put it, which I always loved, was he goes, th- uh, uh he said, "Dick Cheney makes it sound like Osama bin Laden stumbled on, like in the deserts of Afghanistan, he stumbled onto a copy of our Bill of Rights somewhere," and he was like, "Rah, my God, they're free to... Look at this speedy trial. Are you kidding me?" Like this is... D- like, "What is going on here? They can own guns and their women can wear miniskirts?" And that- r- and that just made people so angry that they were ready to, you know, like suicide bomb themselves or... And like that makes no sense at all. And then Ron Paul was just like, "No, look, here's the thing. If we think we can just go around the world killing people, propping up dictatorships, putting our military bases in the, the Muslims' holy land, and not engender hatred from that, then we do that at our own peril." And I thought that was... It was such an interesting kind of... You know, it had always been... I- I'm an '80s and '90s kid, and to me, it was always kind of a given that like America's number one....we're the force for good in the world, and we're, it was like an interesting introduction to the idea that there are people outside of that who are dominated by that, who don't care for it very much. And like, that- that's what 9/11 was actually about. And for me, you know, I was living in New York City, I was 18, I think, when 9/11 happened, and that was like the moment of my childhood. It was a huge thing to live through. I mean, we were attacked. This seemed like something that could only happen in a history book, that didn't happen to America in the '90s. 2001 was basically the '90s. Um, and, uh, and it was just like, "Oh." Finally it clicked. It was like, "That makes sense." It's the first time I had ever heard, like, an explanation and an understanding of this whole thing that we're involved in now, from 9/11 to the terror wars, that actually just made perfect sense.

   3. LFLex Fridman13:04

      Yeah. We should also say that

6. 13:06 – 25:25

   War on Terror

   1. LFLex Fridman13:06

      there's some degree of truth that the battle is not just militaristic, it's also cultural, and that many of those parts of the world don't want other people's values forced onto them.

   2. DSDave Smith13:20

      Right. But the way that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and every right-wing host in America, and Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly, and like everybody, what they were saying is that they hate that we're free.

   3. LFLex Fridman13:32

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DSDave Smith13:33

      Whereas it was much closer to saying, like, they don't like us imposing on them.

   5. LFLex Fridman13:39

      Yeah.

   6. DSDave Smith13:39

      Even like all the hardcore Neocons, Bret Stephens, from The New York Times, he wrote this piece on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, so, uh, 2023, to cheerlead the war in Iraq. And he goes through the whole piece, and there's not one mention of the million people who died in the war. You know, it, he literally just goes, the piece is just measure life under Saddam Hussein versus life r- under the Shiite parliamentary system that they have now. Which one's better? And I, he's arguing this one's better, therefore it was worth it. But there's like no mention, it's like, okay, but what about the 20-plus million people who were displaced? What about the million people who were killed? What about, uh, all the millions of people who were injured? What about the tens of thousands of our soldiers who have blown their brains out in the aftermath of the thing? Like, it's like so, so many times, and this is true in, with government policy in general, people talk about, like, the end result that they want. But you're like, yeah, but what about the process by which you get there, and how much hatred... You know, could you, I mean like, I, you know, it's not that hard for me to like put myself in, in other people's shoes. And like, I have two little kids, and a wife, and if anybody were to ever try to argue to me that they have to be the eggs that get broken to make some bigger omelet, like it's, it's okay, like, you know, we're ultimately gonna impose something on your society that's better than what you have right there. It sure does suck that your wife and kids gotta be the one who get taken out. I mean, I'm, as I'm just saying this to myself, and this is not real, this is just a thought experiment I'm making up, I'm already pretty close to being a terrorist.

   7. LFLex Fridman15:13

      Mm-hmm.

   8. DSDave Smith15:13

      Like my next thought is kind of like, "Well, okay-

   9. LFLex Fridman15:16

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DSDave Smith15:16

       ... well, I hope you're gonna like it when you watch your family die in front of you," you know? Now I'm not, hopefully even if that happened to me, I wouldn't go kill that guy's family. Like, maybe I'd just go after him or something. But I could understand, and I think most people who have kids could understand, go- going to a level of like the l- the most evil, dark place you could imagine, if something ever, anyone ever threatened or, or actually did something to your kids.

   11. LFLex Fridman15:43

       Yeah, we'll have to remember the thing that's difficult to measure, that you just mentioned, which is the hate that's created by every bomb that's dropped.

   12. DSDave Smith15:50

       It was, uh, General McChrystal who, you know, was the general running Af- the war in Afghanistan. He wasn't like, th- he wasn't Ron Paul, you know what I mean? Like, he was a, a, "Sir, yes sir, how do we fight and win this war?" general. And he's the one who coined the term insurgent math, that 10 minus 2 equals 20. You know? It's like the more you, the more you keep... I was just reading, I was rereading about this the other day, um, because of the, uh, you know, Trump's been bombing, uh, the Houthis in Yemen, and you know, it was like when, when we first, I think it was in, in, at least in 2009 is when Obama really stepped up the drone campaign, well, the then secret drone bombing campaign. And their, Yemen was one of the major theaters. And even back then, when it really was just a w- it was a war on terrorism, like the main targets were always Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and their presence in Yemen, even then, like so before the Saudis invaded, so like from 2009 through 2015, AQAP just kept growing. It was doing all these targeted bombing campaigns, or they call them targeted, 96% of the people are innocent who get killed, but they call them targeted drone bombings. And they, and- and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula just kept getting bigger and bigger. Because, you know, it's like, yeah, every time you go in there it's like, okay, you took out one target, and then you took out three little girls, and you know, uh, uh, a few, and every one of those little girls had brothers and uncles and fathers, and you know? And- and all of them just signed up to join the fight now, 'cause you know? And- and I f- Ron Paul was the first one who really made this click for me. But it's, in a way, and I'm not like, I'm not a leftist, I'm not an egalitarian, I'm not a cultural relativist. I'm not saying that all cultures are the same or that we all look at the world the same way. There's enormous differences between all of us. And I personally think some are better than others. But there are things that unite all of us. And in a weird way it's, I- I remember one time I was arguing with a Democrat guy on a S.E. Cupp show, I used to be a contributor on- on her show. And we were arguing and it was after, it was after a terrorist attack here in New York, a fairly minor one, it was like a guy like, uh, I think he hit someone with his car and then jumped out with a gun, and then the cops lit him up and killed him. Um, this is like back in 2017, I think. And he- he claimed to be ISIS-inspired. I don't- I don't remember if there was like a direct connection or not. But they were...... at the time, they were like, "Doesn't this mean we gotta step up the war in Iraq or in Syria, where ISIS's stronghold is?" And I remember the guy saying to me, he goes, uh, you know, I went off on how these wars have been disasters. And he goes, "Yeah, yeah, but Dave, what you're saying here is we're supposed to do nothing? Like, this just happened, and now we're supposed to do nothing?" And so like, even though this guy had a suit and tie on, and we're in a cable news studio, and we're in a First World country, we're in the United States of America, and we're having a... The basic thing that he's saying is like, "What are you saying? You're saying we're not gonna go kill some motherfuckers?" You know, like, I mean, he's, he was just putting it as, like, do something. But what something? Something is dropping bombs on human beings, you know? When like, yeah, some innocent people are gonna die, but, okay, that, but it's the same thing. It's the same... After 9/11, we're like, "We gotta go fucking invade some countries right now." That's the same impulse. It's like, they killed some of our people. You think we're not gonna show them who the real killers are? You think there's a chance that you could come here and k-... And that is like the most human instinct ever. It's like, uh, some other tribe just came in here and killed some people in our tribe, so what do you wanna do about that? Well, I don't know, it's not gonna take me too long to figure out we're gonna go kill a bunch of people in their tribe. And I do think that like, that is, I think that's the major motivating factor for both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict. I think that's the major motivator for both sides of the War on Terror conflict, and it's like, that's, it's, in a way, when you look at it like that, there's something, even though it's so dark and tragic, there's something almost beautiful about it, where you're like, "Oh, we're all caught in this same cycle."

   13. LFLex Fridman19:51

       Yeah, it's deeply human, the, the warring between tribes, but you know, especially in the recent years, but more and more through human history, there's almost like a third party, which is this military-industrial complex, which is making money-

   14. DSDave Smith20:05

       Yeah.

   15. LFLex Fridman20:05

       ... from the two tribes. So if you just have two tribes, one... I've been reading a lot about Genghis Khan. If, uh, this is why Genghis Khan banned this, it was very common in, uh, in Mongolia, before Genghis Khan, to steal people's wives. Like, "You're my wife now."

   16. DSDave Smith20:21

       Right.

   17. LFLex Fridman20:22

       And he, he realized that that creates a lot (laughs) of conflict.

   18. DSDave Smith20:25

       Yeah, I'm sure it does.

   19. LFLex Fridman20:27

       That seems natural and human, that kind of conflict, but when, whenever you s-... A third party rolls in and starts making money on the whole thing, and then driving that forward, then the escalation of the conflict comes with this whole machine that makes de-escalation really difficult.

   20. DSDave Smith20:43

       Yeah. The military-industrial complex in America, it's so big, and it's so sophisticated, and it's so, so it's not just that there's, you know, um, you know, there's this, there's the intelligence agencies. There's the weapons manufacturers. Then there's the, like, people in the media who are either directly or indirectly just parroting, you know what I mean, all of their talking points, and so it's not just that you can kind of like, like you make money when there's a conflict, but you have this entire apparatus to like create the conflict and then create the public sentiment for that. And, and we're... And it's interesting, we're, we're in an interesting place 'cause we're kind of in this like new frontier of now where shows like this can happen, and, and there's a lot of them, and a lot of them are humongous, like yours. Um, but for so long, it, this just didn't exist, and it was just like, oh, like, for so long, it was the case that like, The New York Times and NBC and CBS and ABC and The Washington Post and The Associated Press, I guess, they could just move the nation. I mean, if they wanted to be like, "Hey," there is the, the idea that, forget even like after 9/11, the idea that in 1990, 1991, that there was any organic movement from the American people going, "You know, we really gotta see about this Saddam Hussein guy. You know, uh, the, uh, dictator in Iraq is having a slant drilling dispute with the, uh, Emir of Kuwait."

   21. LFLex Fridman22:20

       Mm-hmm.

   22. DSDave Smith22:21

       "We really gotta do something about that." Like, that is not something that organically came from any... That, that was not like a, a few soccer moms hanging out, you know, watching their kids' game, being like, "I really do think, I think in a, in a couple years, we're gonna have to send these boys over to Iraq, to get..." Like, that's not... They just, from the top down, were able to create this feeling that like, "Hey, there's a new Adolf Hitler on the rise over here in Iraq. We gotta go see about this. There are these poor people in Kuwait. We have to do that." You know, like there's... They were able to create this desire for war, um, that was... It's- it's really incredible when you think about it, because there's, for, I think for the most part in human history, you would have had to have some type of plausible threat, some type of plausible reality, to convince people that we actually have to go to war, um, i- i- in, in order to deal with this. Whereas like, you know, the United S-... The idea that in 1991, the United States of America would feel threatened by Iraq was just ridiculous. And yet they were able to do it.

   23. LFLex Fridman23:26

       Well, so, so to push back a little bit, throughout human history, there was also a thing, you look at the Roman Empire, where just the cultural values were different, where military conquest was seen as a good thing. So like, we just almost assume in the United States, there would... War has been framed in the defensive sense, like, where offensive war, we're not doing that anymore.

   24. DSDave Smith23:49

       You make a fair point. It's certainly true that, throughout human history, there's been, um, there's been like overt, um, empire building and wars of conquest and things like that, but I guess I'm just saying, at least even there, you would have some type of sell of like why we're gonna go take these resources and why that will be good for us. Whereas the idea that they're, like, Kuwait just needed to be defended by the Americans seems so-... it seems so hard to convince anybody, and yet they were able to do it. If you read, like, Neocon writing in the '90s, it was very interesting, um, because they would, they would tell the truth a lot more. Uh, and they were... Essentially, I think, there was, the Soviet Union had just collapsed. It was what, what Charles Krauthammer dubbed the unipolar moment. There was, like, a lot of... Uh, there was excitement, there was a feeling of invincibility, um, and also, the Neocons weren't in power. Uh, a- after '92, really. I mean, they had a little... They were in the George H.W. Bush administration. But after '92, they really weren't. So, they're just writing at these think tanks, and it just didn't seem as... You know, like, they weren't as guarded. There weren't, like, these accusations of, "You're a war criminal," or something like that. But what he said, uh, what Jonah Goldberg agreed with, was that every, uh... I think the statement was, "Every 10 years or so, America's gotta find a puny little country and put 'em up against the wall just to let the rest of the world know that we mean business." And that was actually their mentality.

   25. LFLex Fridman25:22

       I'm sure there's people that agree with that. I happen to disagree

7. 25:25 – 33:13

   China and Taiwan

   1. LFLex Fridman25:25

      with that. But the, the drums of war are beating a little bit over Taiwan and China-

   2. DSDave Smith25:30

      More than a little bit, yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman25:31

      ... but there, I can't even see a justification for just war. What is the long-term benefit to society if you do military intervention?

   4. DSDave Smith25:39

      I, well, I also think this, and I've, I've been saying this for a while, but I do think there is this, like, um... There, there's, like, this empire mentality that Americans have gotta shake off. Like, as if it's even a question of whether we should allow it or not. Like, are we in a position to allow or not allow that? Why do we ha-... It's, it's almost like if you were, um... You know, like, I, I don't... I hope China doesn't invade Taiwan. I hope Taiwan remains as free as possible. I hope China becomes free. I root for freedom and prosperity for everyone, you know? But I also root for, like, everybody to have a healthy marriage. But if you were, like, if you were talking to me and you were like, "Hey, the guy down the street is cheating on his wife. Like, I don't think we can allow this." I'd immediately be like, "That's really not my place." And then, on top of that, I also have no pow- I have no authority over what they do in their marriage. Like, I have to be concerned with my marriage. And the idea that, like, imagine if there were the political will to, uh, invade Mexico. Like, if DC decided, "We're taking Mexico City." Like, "That's, w- that's gonna be part of America now, and we're taking it by force." And then China was like, "Uh, we're not sure if we can allow this." I think, immediately, most Americans would be like, "Allow?" Like, "How the fuck do you think you're gonna stop us from taking Mexico City? What are you gonna do, China? You're gonna send your navy ships over here to fight us, uh, uh, o- off the coast of Mexico? Good luck with that." And, and, at, at least from my understanding, in almost all the war games that they've run, if we did militarily... Even if it doesn't come to nuclear weapons being used, in which case, the, the whole world gets blown up, but even if we go to militarily try to stop China from invading Taiwan, and no one, everyone agrees to not use nukes and we just fight a conventional war, we lose that war every time.

   5. LFLex Fridman27:35

      I think what you said applies to a lot of the wars we've been involved in. But China and Taiwan is a little bit different because, because of TSMC.

   6. DSDave Smith27:43

      Right.

   7. LFLex Fridman27:43

      Because there's an economic dependence.

   8. DSDave Smith27:45

      If that was the concern, then the response would be we need some type of Manhattan Project, and I'm not supporting a government project here, but there would be, we need some type of Manhattan Project to say, "We're going to make these things here." We can't... And look, I, I was running that experiment before saying, like, "What if we all pinky promised not to use nuclear weapons?" Or something like that. But that's not the reality of the situation. The more reality... Look, even in, in Ukraine, everybody, the biggest hawks, the biggest pushers of this policy, and Joe Biden and, uh, uh, uh, his policy to fund Ukraine, no one's suggesting we send in the 82nd Airborne.

   9. LFLex Fridman28:18

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DSDave Smith28:19

       No- which is really the only thing that w- could repel the Russians right now and restore, you know, Ukrainian... The, the o- original sovereignty of the Ukrainian borders. But no one's suggesting we send in the 82nd Airborne, 'cause we all know. Well, we can't have a direct war with Russia. That's the end of the world. And same thing with China. So, you know, I'm not saying microchips or whatever aren't important, but w- there's... We can find other ways to b- The- the Taiwan is not magical. Like, we can produce these things in other places, no?

   11. LFLex Fridman28:48

       So, you have the humility to say that you don't really know much about the situation. It sounds ridiculous to say, but there is something magical about, not Taiwan, but TSMC. It's incredibly difficult to manage the supply chain and manufacture at such a low cost that they are. And to add to that, China has been signaling about the One-China Policy, but you're absolutely right that you shouldn't be doing the, the Washington thing of beating the drums of war. That's like-

   12. DSDave Smith29:13

       Yeah.

   13. LFLex Fridman29:13

       ... the, completely the counterproductive thing. There should, you should, uh, actually try to find partnerships with China, build friendships and cooperation. Like, India's doing a good job of this. Like, build friendships, it's the 21st century.

   14. DSDave Smith29:26

       Yeah.

   15. LFLex Fridman29:26

       Conflict, this Cold War thinking is going to be destructive to the economy, destructive to humanity, to the flourishing of the individual nations of the world. There's, there's just nothing positive, except making money for the military-industrial complex.

   16. DSDave Smith29:39

       Well, yeah, and- and it was totally destructive during the original Cold War, too. Um, and almost led to nuclear war on a couple of different occasions. But look, I would just say, and I's- I really... I'm no defender of the Chinese regime. I hate communism and, or fascism, whatever they are, some hybrid mix of, of the two.

   17. LFLex Fridman29:57

       They're paying you, aren't they?

   18. DSDave Smith29:58

       They- (laughs) yeah, no, fuck them, I don't ca-... By the way, I just get... A lot of people speculate online, but I am not, I'm not getting any of these checks, man, and I'd really-

   19. LFLex Fridman30:05

       Yeah.

   20. DSDave Smith30:05

       ... like them to start coming in.

   21. LFLex Fridman30:06

       Yeah.

   22. DSDave Smith30:07

       Um, but there's... Like, even when it's, like, China... You say China's asserting the One-China Policy, but the One-China Policy is the policy of the United States of America, and has been for 50 years now, right? So it's not... I think what's happening there a lot of times is that essentially, even though officially the One-China Policy is the policy of the United States of America, all of these American politicians, um, and, and, uh, you know, different figureheads, uh, across powerful centers in America are, are saying-... that China doesn't have the right to go into Taiwan, and then China's in the position of being like, "Well, hey, wait a minute. No, that's not actually the policy. We maintain this One China Policy, but we allow them to kinda do what they wanna do." And, you know, the c- the most obvious example of this was when Joe Biden actually said, like, "Oh, we wouldn't allow that, and we would militarily intervene if they went into China." And then, and this was so bizarre, then the White House, whoever that was, came out to correct the President of the United States and say, "No, the policy of the White House is the One China Policy," which, l- look, I mean, a- again, I think the whole point of this is that the reason why whoever the hell was able to overrule Joe Biden and his administration, I, I don't know who that is, um, but the whole point is that if you say... And, and this is why there is some wisdom in America accepting the One China Policy, is that if you tell China that we recognize, uh, uh, uh, Taiwan's independence and that they're not a part of China, that might be the type of thing that would make China invade and say, "No, we're not accepting that." And so at least right now it's like, kinda like, okay, here's, th- look, this is the reality. It's something that you kind of run up against with the war in Ukraine a lot, and, and with the situation in China and Taiwan, is that there are, um, there are constraints placed on us by reality. It's not all just how would you like the world to be, how would you like it to work. Obviously, I think we would all like that bigger countries don't invade smaller countries, and bigger countries don't bully smaller countries around. That is not the way of the world. We are a big country that is the biggest bully in the world, so we're in no position to let... But what we're kind of in the position is just like you're like, "Hey, we'd sure love if you don't do that." You know, you can do it, and you can get away with it, but we would sure love it if you don't, and so the goal would be to do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen. And when Vladimir Putin starts talking about, like, "Hey, if you keep pushing the idea of Ukraine joining your military alliance, I'm going to invade that country," the goal there, the, or the move there would be to be like, "Okay, we'll stop talking about that. Is there something else that we can agree on?" You know, like, is there, is there a way that we, you, we, you will promise you won't do anything to them, and w- okay, and we'll promise we won't bring them in our military? Like, that's the goal. You don't just go, like, "No, fuck you, we're doing it anyway," over and over and over again until they

8. 33:13 – 40:22

   Just war theory

   1. DSDave Smith33:13

      do the thing.

   2. LFLex Fridman33:14

      I think we got to this discussion from the military industrial complex and military intervention and Ron Paul before that. If you could, like, rewind a little bit, uh, is there any amount, according to you and according to various flavors of libertarianism, is there any amount of military intervention that's justified, that's okay?

   3. DSDave Smith33:35

      Um, well, I, I would say, o- so at least to me, in, in terms of, like, pure libertarian theory or just in, in terms of, like, what I think is right or wrong, like, there is such thing as a just war. Um, the most obvious, uh, example of that would be, like, you're invaded by a military and fighting them off. Um, so in, in that sense also, like, even if you wanna, if you wanna kind of isolate from everything else, uh, from, you know, all of the awful US policy toward Russia post, uh, Soviet Union to all of the, you know, NATO expansion and color-coded revolutions and all of these things, if you wanna... You know, if Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine, I do think the Ukrainians have a right to fight and, and protect their, their land. Like, there, the, there's an aggressive, there's an aggressor there, and you have a right to defend yourself. Uh, so certainly in that sense, I think, um, the American Revolution was a just war. Uh, I think there are, you know, there, there can be just wars. I- in terms of pure libertarian theory, I think I would say that, look, you d- you don't, you never have a right to kill innocent people. There, that's never morally okay. Now, there could be a scenario, just, like this is true in life in general, right? Like, there's lots of things that you don't have the right to do, but you could come up with some scenario where you might be in a position where you have to do it because there were all of these extenuating circumstances, you know, like, for, you know, you could think of something where, like, you remember the, uh, the Saw movies where they used to, you know, th- these crazy, like, horror scenarios, but it's like, um, okay, so there's a person, you know, a, a evil bad guy has buried a key inside this person, and you have to kill that person in order to get the key in order to unlock these 20 people to let them out of a cage. Now, look, you still don't have a right to kill people. It's horrible and wrong, and what you did there was still evil, but if you were taken to trial over it, you could probably explain to a judge and a jury, be like, "I know, but the situation I was in was either these 20 people were gonna die or this one person was gonna die, and under that situation, I chose to save the 20." So like, in other words, by perfect theory, no, you never have the right to kill innocent people. There could be a scenario where you were like, "Look, we had to take this military action, and some innocent people did die, and it's so tragic and awful that we had to do this, but we are certain that many more people would have died had we not done this." Now, in that case, I would look at that as like, um... Number one, it's much like killing the one person to save the 20, it's still wrong. It's still an immoral thing that you were forced into doing. It's not justified. I would say that the overwhelming onus should have to be on you to demonstrate that you absolutely needed to do that. I mean, that's how I feel about all these, these wars. You know, it's not like, um... You know, I think that, like, let's just say, like, if you could make World War II, like-... you could reduce it down to the simplest caricature of what World War II is, and say there's no Joseph Stalin, we're not even partnering with him. Like, there was a good guy in Russia who we were partnering with. And there's, and, and the British Empire had never done anything wrong, they were just nothing but good guys. And of course, FDR was nothing but a good guy, and Hitler was even worse than the real Hitler, you know what I mean? And in order to stop them, we had to go on this bombing campaign, and we only got Nazis. We only killed the bad guys, and we were able to take out the Third Reich, but one eight-year-old girl died, and you did this thing that stopped the whole world from falling into subjugation. So, I think almost everybody would agree, Jesus, man, you have to do that, okay? This is, um, you have to do that 'cause the whole world's gonna be subjugated, there's nothing but good guys here, the Nazis are so evil and there's one... I still would say that every single time World War II came up, we should all just be somber, and we should all just think about that little eight-year-old girl who died, and what a horrible thing it is that we had to do that, you know? And so, the like, when there are these campaigns where like, you know, like in, where tens of millions of people are killed, the fact that anybody's ever like spiking the football or this kind of like rah, rah, "We were the good ones," and then also when you add in all those other complicated factors like that this wasn't the scenario at all, um, but I do... So, so I guess essentially I'd say, no, you don't ever have a right to kill innocent people. It's never self-defense to be killing innocent people. I mean, short of like, you know, some type of scenario where like, you know, if you're holding a baby and coming at me shooting and I shoot back at you and ki- okay, I was acting in self-defense and it happened to kill a baby. But I'm, I'm talking about like what, the scenarios where you're dropping bombs on cities, um, it's never justified, and the overwhelming onus should be on you to demonstrate that you absolutely have to do it, and that that should be the standard. 'Cause there's so many other standards that I see thrown out that I just think are, make no moral sense at all. You know, the, where people will argue about like, uh, in Gaza, they'll argue about, um, the civilian to combatant ratio, which I, like that, to me, doesn't really... That's not what counts, that's not the measure that's important. Um, and also no one knows what the numbers are. They all just kind of like pretend to. Uh, and then the other thing will be, um, that people who s- as someone just recently argued with me about, they'll say like, uh, "Well, Hamas has to go." That's the starting point. "Hamas has to go." And I'm like, "No, I don't think you get to say that," 'cause the, the truth is that... Look, you can make an argument that Hamas has to go, sure. You could make an argument that the Likudniks have to go. You can make an argument that Kim Jong-un has to go, or that Xi has to go, or that Putin has to go, or that Zelenskyy has to go, or certainly I would make an argument that Joe Biden had to go. But just because a government has to go, that doesn't mean you could just go kill all their people.

   4. LFLex Fridman39:33

      Yeah, that should not be the starting point, like the assumption, the axiom of the discussion, yeah.

   5. DSDave Smith39:38

      The, the question is, is it, is there no other option than doing it this way?

   6. LFLex Fridman39:44

      Mm-hmm.

   7. DSDave Smith39:45

      It's like, okay, like October 7th happened. We can all agree this was like a, a horrific tragedy, um, and a, you know, an indefensible act of terrorism. Like, okay. Can... Is it guaranteed that another one of those is gonna happen tomorrow? Or was this the biggest security failure in, in, you know, Israeli history? Okay, well, if it's the biggest security failure, let's just say not even going down the inside job rabbit hole or anything like that, but just saying it's a giant security failure, okay, then put a bunch more men at that fence, first of all. And now you gotta talk about how can you achieve your goal while inflicting the minimum amount of devastation on innocent people.

9. 40:22 – 57:49

   Israel and Gaza

   1. DSDave Smith40:22

   2. LFLex Fridman40:22

      Let's talk about it...

   3. DSDave Smith40:24

      Sure.

   4. LFLex Fridman40:24

      ... since you brought it up. October 7th, so what exactly do you think about the October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel?

   5. DSDave Smith40:32

      Um, well, I mean, like what I just said, that it, it was, uh, horrible and, you know, uh, it's always by the same logic that I'm giving you now. It's always, it, it's always evil to target innocent civilians. I don't believe, uh, you know, civilians can be held responsible for the, uh, the crimes of their government. Um, this was, by the way, the Osama bin Laden logic, which I think would also be the logic of like Bill Clinton or George W. Bush or Barack Obama, but Osama bin Laden very explicitly said when he was asked like, "Well, are you just gonna target like US military sites or are you targeting US civilians?" It was an interview in the '90s before 9/11. Um, and he goes, "No. Civilians are fair game too, because you guys have regular elections and you guys vote for your government, and therefore you're responsible for the crimes that they commit." Now, I think that's the logic of a fanatic like (laughs) Osama bin Laden, and that's not the logic that any of us should, uh, follow. It doe- it doesn't make any sense, and it's not true that people are responsible for the crimes of their government. Um, I think that that same argument is used quite a bit by people on the pro-Israeli side when they say like, "Oh, they, they had an election in 2005 and Hamas won a plurality. Therefore, 20 years later, they have no rights." I think that's insane. So okay, so Hamas had no right to go after, um, civilians. Uh, it's, you know, it's horrible and you see, you know, the, um, these, you know, teenagers being killed and the people, the, um, you know, you see the images of people, uh, who were, who were held hostage for all this time. So it's like your heart breaks for those people. It's truly tragic. Um, I, I do think that it was in many ways an indictment o- of so many different things, you know, like October 7th happening was an indictment of, um, the entire occupation/siege of, of Gaza and the West Bank, you know, for that matter. Um, it was, I, I think, um...... should have probably forever destroyed the legacy of Benjamin Netanyahu, um, who is, you know, I- I mean, this isn't like George W. Bush, you know, was... I mean, he was on the job for almost a year when 9/11 happened, but he was still kinda new, you know? Like, it was still kind of in his first year of being president. Benjamin Netanyahu was the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history and had explicitly been like, "I'm the tough right-winger who's gonna be tough on these Palestinians, who's gonna, like, move away from the idea of coming to a s- two-state solution, because this is what we need to keep us safe." Like, the justification is like, "I'm gonna be hard on these motherfuckers 'cause that's, 'cause I know what it takes to keep us safe." And that culminates in the, the worst massacre in, in Israeli history. Um, and then, I mean, the other big one is that, I mean, and it's not like a... I wouldn't even say an open secret at this point. It's just out in the open. Uh, he had this strategy of propping up Hamas for years. And so he had this strategy of propping up Hamas, um, for a myriad of reasons, um, but a major part of it was that, "Look, man, as long as there's terrorists in power there, there's never gonna be any pressure on us to give the Palestinians a state, because look. What, are you telling me I gotta negotiate with them?"

   6. LFLex Fridman44:02

      He was allowing Qatar money to float.

   7. DSDave Smith44:05

      Insisting that Qatar money float to them. When the Qatar money dried up, sent the Mossad in to insist that it gets back to 'em. Hundreds of millions of dollars, briefcases in cash. And he said, in his own words, that the reason for doing this was to keep... To... His words were, "Prop up Hamas, bolster Hamas to keep them in power so that the West Bank and the, and the-

   8. LFLex Fridman44:28

      Yeah. Two world divided-

   9. DSDave Smith44:28

      ... Gazans were divided-

   10. LFLex Fridman44:30

       Divided, yeah.

   11. DSDave Smith44:30

       ... and that the international community, as well as the liberal Jewish community in Israel, wouldn't be able to put pressure on them to make a deal.

   12. LFLex Fridman44:37

       But what are the options? So if he doesn't allow the money in, it also looks really bad for him. Because if he's not allowing the money in, that means he's not allowing the, quote-unquote, "aid" in to help the Palestinians.

   13. DSDave Smith44:51

       Yeah, but like, so I mean, the, the dynamic here, right, is from 2007 to today, Israel's had a full blockade around the country. They won't let potatoes in. They won't let sugar in. They won't... They, they, th- th- and the, the justification is because they're dual use, you know? They c- they can be used to make rockets a- as well as they can be used to, you know, feed starving children. So, we can't let that in because it's dual use. But cash to Hamas? (laughs) Does that not have dual usage? Like, is there, is there nothing else that they c- So yeah, it's like, yes, when you have a full blockade around the country, you take on certain responsibilities. And I think this is, you know, this is the, the essence of really the, the whole struggle here, which is very tough, I think, for the pro-Israel side to grapple with. But the bottom line is that Israel hasn't occupied Palestine for like a few months after a war, or even a couple of years after a war while they're figuring out what we're gonna do with them. It's been over 60 years. This is the, the... We're talking about a, a one-week-long war, or a day short of a week-long war, in 1967. Israel's had control of them ever since. And much like in the same way that, like, if you kidnap someone and you lock them in your basement and you don't feed them, you murdered that person. So, in other words, uh, um, stated differently, you're not allowed to kidnap people and lock them in your basement. But once you do, you take on a responsibility to feed those people. You know what I mean? Like, you can't... You're not allowed to keep someone and not feed them. That is a worse charge than just keeping them. And so yeah, anyway, I guess my point is, the solution to that, if, if you go like, "Well, I'm a bad guy if I, uh, fund Hamas, I'm a bad guy if I don't let the aid in," was to let the reputable international aid organizations bring aid in to the people of Gaza. Don't have, uh... Don't, don't pressure the Qataris to send in briefcases full of cash. Allow internationally recognized, reputable human rights organizations who are lining up trying to do it. Stop turning them away and let them in. And, and, and this is just... It's so long past due. I mean, like it's, it's just... L- I'm not like defending, uh, Arab terrorism. It's, uh, I think it's really, it's, it's a tragedy that the Arabs embraced terrorism. Uh, I don't think it's unique to them, and in fact, you know, I think it was the, um, the Zionist militias who introduced terrorism to that part of the world. But there was also like, there... Look, terrorism persists because it works. And this is true with state terrorism and with non-state terrorism, you know? It's like, there, the, it... Terrorism has often worked for people. The, I think the thing... Like early, I think early Yasser Arafat I know was very influenced by, um, the Algerians, who, you know, successfully kicked the French out, uh, embracing terrorism. And it was almost like the major miscalculation of the, the, those Palestinian-Arabs who did embrace terrorism was that this isn't the French. This isn't the French hanging out in some colony with their home country back home, where maybe a few acts of violence could work enough to, you know, your, the liberal population back home is like, "Oh, I really didn't like the response to that terrorism. We killed so many people. Forget it. This is too much of a headache. Let's get outta here." The Zionist settlers were there to stay. They weren't going anywhere. They weren't (laughs) going back to Eastern Europe, you know what I mean? They weren't go... They were just... That... And so, it's a tragedy that this whole thing went the way it did. But you always, whenever you're talking about like a conflict like this-... the person who has the- or the party who has the power is the one who needs to make concessions. You know? And the- there- it's just indefensible that the status quo of the Palestinian people having no rights, literally no rights, being ruled by a government that they do not get to vote, uh, for or against, um, no right to do commerce with the outside world, no freedom of travel, no freedom of movement, no basic property rights. You could be kicked out of your home at any time. No right to a fair trial, uh, no right to a lawyer, no right to a jury of your peers. I mean, the fact that that has been the status quo since 1967 is just indefensible. And if- and, and then in the context that that has been the status quo, I guess I'm just not ... even though I'm against it, it's kind of like when you're just lecturing about the way in which they resist this, I, I think it's very tough to be on a strong moral footing, you know?

   14. LFLex Fridman49:46

       Yeah, you have to, you have to really empathize with the decades of suffering-

   15. DSDave Smith49:50

       Yeah.

   16. LFLex Fridman49:50

       ... in the region. I suppose my question was grounded in, um, how can the Israeli government, how can the world help the Palestinian people flourish? So, uh, you suggested, uh, allowing reputable aid organizations in, but you know that's kind of almost, uh, patching.

   17. DSDave Smith50:13

       Yeah.

   18. LFLex Fridman50:13

       Just helping humans who are suffering. But that's not how you have a nation flourish. You have to build up the infrastructure. You have to build up a culture of the education system, the, the, you know, democratic processes of electing and regular elections and so that, uh, the people are represented. And you have to form partnerships, friendships, normalization of relations with the Arab world, with Israel. People can travel back and forth, um, and lessen the chokehold, like the security chokehold, you know-

   19. DSDave Smith50:49

       Yeah.

   20. LFLex Fridman50:49

       ... that you could say is justified in a militaristic situation. But why is it a military situation? The question is there, like where do we go from, from here if we ... You know, we'll talk about Netanyahu some more. Um, he is a, you know, he's very criticized inside Israel as well.

   21. DSDave Smith51:10

       Yeah, for sure.

   22. LFLex Fridman51:11

       Maybe less so after October 7th, because the, you know, again i- in the same way you can empathize with the Palestinian people, you can em- empathize with Israelis where October 7th touched just like it did for Americans with 9/11. It touched some kind of primal-

   23. DSDave Smith51:28

       Yeah, 100%.

   24. LFLex Fridman51:29

       ... thing of fear, of like-

   25. DSDave Smith51:31

       Oh yeah, and like same-

   26. LFLex Fridman51:31

       ... holy shit.

   27. DSDave Smith51:32

       The same thing I said before, like I could also very easily go if my ... if one of my kids was like at that rave or something like that and just got gunned down or kidnapped, I- I could understand being like level the whole goddamn place, and I'm sure I would feel that way if that was one of my kids, you know. Um, so yeah. No, that's, that's exactly right. I mean, there's lots of examples in the world of, uh, you know, like France and Germany are right next to each other, and Ireland and England are right next to each other, and they're just totally living in harmony right now. Like there is just no ... The thought of them going to war wh- is like inconceivable right now. Not saying it could never happen in the future, but it seem- it seems pretty hard to imagine. And that being the case would have been very hard to imagine for a very long time. You know, like there ... I mean, there's some serious levels of brutality between those two societies. And even more directly i- involved, uh, you know, Egypt and Israel went to war four times in, in a couple decades. They went to war, and then in the late '70s they made a land for peace deal, and they haven't been to war since. You know? And like I do at least try to hold out that like that is po- ... You know, it's not like Egypt is ... You're not gonna say they don't have a- an issue with radical Islam in Egypt. You know what I mean? Like there's ... that's not the answer. It's just that they made a land for peace deal, and once there wasn't, you know ... Once that wasn't the ... that was solved, it was kind of easier to avoid the war, and I do like to think that there, there could be a solution to the, the Israel-Palestine question. But the ... It's gonna have to ... it's gonna have to involve Israel taking their boot off of the Palestinians' neck. And I know that that's scary, and I understand that there are like legitimate concerns about that. There's, um ... It was like the great, uh, Thomas Jefferson quote about slavery, which was, um, "We, we have the wolf by the tail, and we can neither afford to hold onto him nor risk letting him go." Um, which is like you could see where that would have been like a real concern of people, uh, like right toward the end of slavery or, or you know, whatever, in the early 1800s, say the first half of the 19th century, we'd be like, "Okay, okay, okay, we recognize this is wrong now. But we've had these millions of people enslaved for all these years. If we let them go, they're gonna fucking kill us. And what are you saying? They're citizens now, meaning the Second Amendment applies to them? Meaning that the guy who I enslaved now can get a gun?" You know what's ... And, and so okay, there are the ... But I think in hindsight looking back at it, we would all just go, "Yeah, but you can't enslave people. So like whatever risks come with the next phase of this, unfortunately, you know, like you're going to have to just deal with that and, and move. You have to start with abolishing slavery."

   28. LFLex Fridman54:29

       And it is good to also remember in the hopeful message you sent, like at any day, you can make a deal. I- that's one of the frustrating things I had with ... Uh, I hosted a debate on Israel and it was like it just felt hopeless. And a lot of people I talk to, it feels hopeless. But like I have a lot of ... I, I, I maybe naively see a lot of possibilities of peace there. I see, for example, normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia and Israel and then Saudi Arabia taking some ownership over Gaza, something like that, some interesting, uh-... where a big major player in that region takes ownership and steps as the middleman.

   29. DSDave Smith55:08

       Yeah, I, like, I, I agree with you, and, and you're 100% right that... And even before October 7th, I think many steps had been taken away from, you know, the peace process and the feeling of that. I mean, really, I think since the second intifada, uh, is when, like, the, the appetite for peace, I think in Israel was greatly diminished. Um, there... But to your point, I mean, it's gonna take really painful concessions on all sides in, in order to get there. Um, and I think that the, the... Personally, I think, and I don't know li- if I say this for the, not necessarily, like, the Arab world, um, but at least the nation-states, like, their, their governments, I think are ju- are pretty much there. Like, like Saudi Arabia and UAE and Jordan and Egypt, like if the Israelis... They're almost like, "Look, these are American sock puppets, you know, for the most part," right? And so their, their thing is that, like, okay, 100% of my population is completely opposed to what Israel is doing to Palestine right now, and they just hate that Israel... That the nation was created at all, that all the, the Arabs were kicked out of what is, uh, you know, very important land to them religiously. And, um, and so the governments there are like, "Look, we wanna continue (laughs) to have US tax dollars flooding in here. We'd love to make a deal with Israel, but, like, you gotta stop doing this to the Palestinians, so my own people don't f- uh, you know, rise up against me." So I think as long... If the Israelis were like, "Fine, we'll do a two-state solution," or something like that, I think Saudi Arabia couldn't wait to broker... In fact, they proposed a two-state solution just a few years ago. I mean, they're, they would love to be a part of that and normalize relations. Um, amongst the Palestinians, like, which again, I think this, I think this had been accepted multiple times, at least by their leadership. It's like y- you're gonna have to accept that, like, you lost in '48. You know, you're gonna have to accept that you lost in '47. You're gonna have to accept that the State of Israel does exist, and you're gonna have to accept that, like, the right of return is not going to literally mean that everybody can go back to where they were. And what Israel's gonna have to concede is that it was awfully fucked up that they kicked a lot of people out of their land, and that the whole, um, uh, land for people, for a people without land was never true. That was just a slogan that made, that felt good to avoid what you guys actually did, and the fact that you, it was inexcusable that you guys occupied these people for 60 years, and that has to end immediately.

10. 57:49 – 1:05:42

    Douglas Murray

    1. LFLex Fridman57:49

       I interviewed Douglas Murray recently. He just wrote a book on Israel and Hamas called On Democracies and Death Cults. He makes what I think is a strong pro-Israel case focusing on Hamas as, uh, an evil organization, you know, evil for its corrupt leadership, th- who's essentially stealing money, uh, from the Palestinian people and allocating the money that is there towards terrorist, militaristic operations, versus, like, building up, um, Gaza. Uh, can you steel-man the case for and then against this perspective? Sort of centering... We've been talking about the people, about, uh, centering around Hamas, which is, like, this extremist religious organization, uh, the perspective being, like, they need to be, as you mentioned before, eliminated before any progress can be made.

    2. DSDave Smith58:42

       Um, okay, so if I were... So steel man Douglas Murray's case. Um, I would say, well, I guess the case is right. Look, Hamas is a fanatical death cult, essentially, which I do think is a fair, uh, description of them. There is no question that they have pursued... They have, they have pursued a path that was just devastating to their own people, and there's no question they have not spent the resources they have on... Their priority has not been uplifting their own people. Their priority has been, I, I think essentially antagonizing Israel into this overreaction so that they can turn world opinion against Israel. I think they've been very effective at doing that. Um, and, and okay- again, I think the argument would come back to something like, and the people kinda voted for this in 2005, and the people sure do... We sure do see a lot of people cheering when Hamas is doing some pretty horrific stuff. And so, hey, you got that on one side, and you have a, kind of a, a country that's much more similar to Western societies on the other side.

    3. LFLex Fridman59:56

       If we can just, like, linger on that steel man, what do you, what do you make of the celebrations in, in, uh, Gaza after October 7th?

    4. DSDave Smith1:00:04

       I think it's sickening and incredibly disturbing. Um, I just... I guess the way I look at it, I always... Uh, and maybe there is a degree of, like, naivete to this, or perhaps it's just that I just don't want to allow myself to go down a certain path because I think it leads to such dark outcomes, but I just always, I, I always try to be kind of, like, against the government, for the people, against the powerful, sympathetic to the powerless. Um, I think that... Look, it's, it's sickening when you see big crowds cheering on, you know, people who have been y- you know, the, with these people who have been in captivity for, for, uh, I think, uh, some of 'em for over a year and a half. Um, I also thought when Nikki Haley i- and other Israeli politicians are signing the bombs before they're launched into Gaza, I found that sickening. Um, I think there's all types... I think, like, mission accomplished banners and flying on j- I mean, I think all of the... I think having Bob Hope specials at the end of the Persian Gulf War was sickening. I just think all of it is, like-... horrific. Um, I just, I look at it and I try to say to myself, "Okay, we had one 9/11 in this country, and we all, like collectively, we lost our minds as a society." You know? Um, we were ready to go bomb whoever the hell our politicians told us to bomb and we didn't care how many people it killed. And we killed a lot more than, than, a lot more than Israel or Hamas has killed doing it. Um, and try to, I try to think to myself, "Okay, imagine being trapped in what is a..." You know, w- I, people can call it whatever they want to. I do think Pat Buchanan and these guys were right to call it a concentration camp, where you're trapped in a five mile by 25 mile area where you cannot leave, you are stuck there. You don't have an airport 'cause the Israelis bombed it, you don't have a seaport 'cause they won't allow you. You have no access to trade with the outside world, and you're not suffering through a 9/11, you're suffering through a thousand 9/11s. Your whole life has be- the, these, the people, the, the people in Gaza are, their entire life has been being refugees. You know what I mean? Their entire li- there, there's generations o- of people that have been in this status now. And so, you know, if my society lost its mind after one 9/11, I just have a tough time like judging the people who, who came up in this environment. But there's no question, it is, I mean, it's, you know, profoundly disturbing.

    5. LFLex Fridman1:02:40

       But I wonder how much of the indoctrination is really made, uh, the software of their mind permanently anti-peace.

    6. DSDave Smith1:02:54

       Yeah.

    7. LFLex Fridman1:02:55

       Like, extremify them. And that, you know, it doesn't justify anything, but it's more, uh, concerning for the prospects of peace.

    8. DSDave Smith1:03:04

       Well, well, I'd say, I get your point. I get, it's an interesting question that I don't, I don't know if any of us know exactly the answer to. But I would say that like, um, you know, even after, what was it? 80 years of the Soviet Union, you know, it's like, and there, there were real debates back then about like the new Communist man, and whether the minds had been so warped of people that they would never even want, they would never even care about these things like liberty or national identity or independence. And, and then yet at the end, it was all still there. You know, it was, it was very repressed and it went underground and people weren't allowed to talk about it, but they all still had it. Um, and, uh, in fact, I was just listening the other day to this Murray Rothbard, uh, speech from like the early '90s. And he was talking about how there was something where there was like a, like a, a camera crew interviewed like a Chinese family under a, um, like a real deal Chinese communism, um, I believe it was before Mao Zedong died. And they were like, uh, they were just saying all these cr- this crazy shit to the camera. Like, they were like, "Would you rather, you know, your, your sons are like healthy and live good lives? Or would you rather they suffer but be loyal obedience to the state?" And they were like, "We would rather they be obedient to the state," and blah, blah, blah, and all these things. And Murray Rothbard was saying he saw this interview and he, uh, he, he was talking to his friend, he goes, "Oh my God, this is horrible. Like, it's hopeless. These people's minds have been warped." And then he was talking to his friend who's like a China expert who had been there a lot, and he was like, "No they're not. That's what they say when the cameras are around. Soon as the cameras go, like, they're..." So anyway, I'm just making the point there that like there, there is like... Look, even in the situation with Israel and Gaza, specifically Gaza, not even the West Bank, um, when, you could look at it, when the peace talks were going on, support for Hamas plummeted. When the peace talks fell apart, support for Hamas went way back up. You know, and every time there's a, an aggressive military campaign, support for Hamas goes back up. So, I just think that like y- I'm more hopeful than not that like you could get to a place where like but it, it requires like, you, you have to... Like, if you do understand the Ron Paul point about blowback, the General McChrystal point about insurgent math, that you just realize that it's like you're, you're like, you're, you're fighting in a way that produces more of the thing that you're fighting. And so the first step is to stop doing that. Like your cu- your cure is making the patient more sick. So stop doing that, and then let's see if maybe we could heal.

    9. LFLex Fridman1:05:41

       Now, what about the case

11. 1:05:42 – 1:22:01

    Hamas

    1. LFLex Fridman1:05:42

       against the, the, the Douglas Murray case of the death cults, and that a fundamental part of this process, Hamas needs to be eliminated?

    2. DSDave Smith1:05:50

       Well, I mean, first of all, I would just say that, and I'm not, I'm not saying this as a fan of democracy, um, I'm not like a big believer in democracy. I believe in liberty, and I think, uh, democracy is often, um, uh, not in line with liberty.

    3. LFLex Fridman1:06:08

       The Chinese government paid you to say that as well, or-

    4. DSDave Smith1:06:10

       They, that was, I, that's literally all I had to get out.

    5. LFLex Fridman1:06:13

       (laughs) Exactly. It's a plug.

    6. DSDave Smith1:06:14

       I mean, but, but I get to say the, what I want the rest of the podcast.

    7. LFLex Fridman1:06:15

       Okay, great, great.

    8. DSDave Smith1:06:16

       But just that I had to have. No, I'm, well, I don't, well, no, I mean, my beef with the Chinese government would not be that they don't hold regular elections. My beef with them would be that they silence-

    9. LFLex Fridman1:06:24

       Surveillance, oh yeah.

    10. DSDave Smith1:06:24

        ... speech, that they, that they, pe- people in camps, and things like that, the surveillance, that stuff. Um, I think, look, when you call Israel a democracy, which I guess is right in the title of his book, um, and I, you know, full disclosure, I haven't read the book, but I have, I have listened to some of, of his thoughts on this stuff. I think you run up against a real problem, which is that the creation of the state of Israel, even though he tried to walk away from those comments as Norm Finkelstein called out Benny Morris, uh, for writing in his book 1948, which is a great book. His words were, "The Zionist project always knew it was gonna involve transfer."That was Benny Morris's words. Now, when, when Finkelstein was grilling him on this on your podcast, he kinda said like, "Yeah, but that doesn't mean ethnic cleansing. That could be voluntary transfer. That-" You know what I mean? Like... But the point is, the Zionist settlers, and they all... They spoke about this openly. They all knew they had a major problem, which is like, well, you can't create a Jewish state if it's like 50/50, which is... And, and in all of Israel, it was much less than 50/50. But even in like the, the Israeli portion of the partition recommendation, it was very close to 50/50. Now, you can't really have a Jewish state with a 50/50 voter base, because now you're just kind of in a breeding war for the next generation. And... Or, you know, like... Or like who, who turns out the vote. Any more than we could hope it, it would be the prospect right now of making America an official Republican state or an official Democrat state. Well, how are you gonna do that, man? It's like 50/50 between the two. And so I think what Benny Morris was saying was that they always knew some of these Arabs are gonna have to get moved out of here so that we could have more of something, which ultimately where they got to like an 80/20, which is pretty much what Israel's maintained, uh, the whole time. Now, Benny Morris could quarrel about whether that necessarily meant voluntary, but when it happened, it wasn't voluntary, okay? So like when it actually happened in effect, it involved a massive amount, something- somewhere between 700 and 800,000 Arabs being forcefully evicted out of this area. Now, that's one thing. You know, a lot of nations are started on some things like that. I suppose if you just did that and then you were left with your 80/20 split and you go, "But we have elections from here on out," I guess you could claim it's a democracy. Still seems like kind of gaming the democratic system a little bit. You know what I mean? Like, like, if I just, if I just deported 80% of Democrats and then say, "Look, Republicans win every election," you might be like, yeah, dude, but you didn't exactly get there democratically. You got there through force. But forget that. I'll let that one go and just say I'll call you a democracy if you just kept being a democracy like that moving forward. The real problem is the occupation that starts in 1967. Because what... Look, when you've occupied an area since 1967, you can't even really call it an occupation anymore. It's an annexation. You know, you took these lands. You have control of it. You are what the definition of the government is. And you could call Hamas the government all you want to, but they're not the sovereigns. They're not the final decision-makers. Israel is the final decision-maker. Hamas does not meaningfully in any way decide the biggest questions about Gaza. I'm talking before this war, not, not even... You know, pre-October 7th. And so the problem Israel has in order to call themselves a democracy is that there's somewhere between five and six million people, less now 'cause they've killed a lot of them, but there's somewhere between five and six million people who live under Israeli control who do not have voting rights. And I just... By any other, like, reasonable, commonly held standard of democracy, we would not call that a democracy. I mean, like, I'm not... Again, I'm not even saying this to try to be inflammatory or try to pick on the Israelis. There's things about Israeli society I like. I don't hate the people there. I'm Jewish. I love Jewish people. It's not... But the fact is that's not a democracy. That's an apartheid state. Like, I... And that's just... I'm not even trying to be inflammatory when I say this. It's just literally describing what's in front of you. If we in America right now said Black people no longer get to vote and Black people can only live in these few neighborhoods, we don't get to call ourselves a democracy anymore then. You know, and like I'm not even coming at this from a pro-democracy point of view. I'm just saying, like, if your defense of them is like, "Well, we're a democracy," which seems to be the case so much, well, no, you're really not. You're, you're really not, as long as you got millions of people who have no say in their own government. Like, then, then you're really not a democracy. And so again, so you could frame it as democracy versus death cult, was his language for Hamas. And it's like, all right, you know, it's a little bit difficult to accuse another group of being a death cult when the group you are supporting has killed so many more people than them. Now, I'm not saying that's the only metric. Like, there's other things that are factors too. But the fact is that, like, you have... I, I mean, I don't know to look over the numbers for the whole history of the conflict, but the amount killed by the Israelis on the Palestinian side versus the amount killed by the Palestinians is 20 to 1 in Israel's fa- you know, killing more people. Maybe more than that. I don't ex- You know, I'd have to look at the numbers. But Israel has killed far, far, far more Palestinians than Palestinians have ever killed Israelis. And so it just... It rings a little hollow to me to just call them a death cult. Like, we're the democracy, even though none of... You know, there's millions of people who can't vote over, you know, who rules them. But they're the death cult. I, I mean, look, they kill people in a more primitive, barbaric way, I guess you could say. You know, there's something a little bit cleaner about, like, you know, when it's done by a government, um, and it's collateral damage, and it was done with sophisticated weaponry, you know? Okay. Still innocent people on the end of those bombs.

    11. LFLex Fridman1:12:20

        Absolutely. But there, there is, I think, a powerful ethical difference when, uh... You mentioned about the eight-year-old girl, right? If your... In your stated goals of the war is to do everything you can to avoid the death of that girl versus saying, you know, "We love death more than we love life," and Israelis, democracy or not, are pro-life, for, for life.

    12. DSDave Smith1:12:46

        Yeah. There's a little... I mean, okay, I don't, I don't 100% disagree with you, but I think if I would say, like, the degree to which that matters. You know, like at a murder trial, after somebody's been convicted and before sentencing sometimes, the judge will allow them to give a statement. And, like, if their statement is like, "I'm very sorry for what I did, and I'm so sorry to the family," and this or that or that, like, that might...... be like life without parole rather than the death penalty. You know what I mean? Like, it might make that bit of difference in that. And if you get up there and you're like, "Hey, I'm happy for what I did. Screw the family," well, that, that might make a judge who was gonna give you life without parole give you the death penalty or something like... It's like that type of margin around the edge. Let's say y- like, you're a really bad guy, and I wanna kill you, and you're at home with a, a bunch of women and children, and I know there's women and children there. Like, I know for a fact that if I blow up this building, it's gonna kill all those babies, you know? What I, uh, what I would be charged with is murder in the first degree. And the fact that I went in there and said, like, "Well, listen. Hold on. It's a shame that I had to kill those babies. I really just wanted to kill that one guy. I wa- I wish the babies weren't there." And they'll be like, "Yeah, but you knew they were there, and you did it anyway." You get murder in the first degree. Maybe it would make some little difference tinkering around with the sentencing at the end of it, but it doesn't, like, in kind change what the crime is there. And so, I, I just think at a certain point, when you're... If you're doing something like... You know, look. I'll say, maybe with a little bit of an edge, you know, let's say Barack Obama wants to drone bomb, you know, this place to kill a terrorist and he thinks he can do it without killing any innocent civilians. Does it and then it ends up killing some innocent civilians. That's one thing. But once you've done it over and over and over again and every single time it kills innocent civilians, and then there's a wedding and you order a drone bomb strike on a wedding. Like, no. You murdered those people. That's murder in the first degree. Like, I just don't... And so, yes. Like, you know, like, whether you say out loud, "Oh, it sure is a shame that we gotta kill all these kids," when you're doing it over and over and you know the action you're taking is going to kill more kids, I just don't think it... Like, it's, yeah, it's a little bit different, but really not that much. It's still pretty much i- And then, also, when you mix in with that the fact that, like, you know, if j- I mean, if you go... And I'm not taking an opinion on the word genocide. I don't even like to get into that conversation. I feel like it just derails it anyway. What Israel is doing, whether you think it's a genocide or not, it's certainly not what most people envision when they hear the word genocide. Um, but, you know, if you look at South Africa's case that they promoted at the International Court of Justice, the whole thing is just quotes from Israeli leaders. And so, and I'm just saying, like, by the way, it's not like they're always saying, "Oh, it sure is a shame that we had to kill that eight-year-old girl." They, like, half the time they say that when they're talking to the international community, and then the other half of the time, they seem to basically be saying there's no such thing as an innocent eight-year-old girl. And so I just, I guess I just don't find that argument to be very compelling, especially when the thing has been going on for so long.

    13. LFLex Fridman1:15:58

        There is some disagreement I have with you there. I think the thing you're implying is when, whenever they state it, it's not quite genuine, to some degree not genuine.

    14. DSDave Smith1:16:09

        No, I'm saying it might be. It might be genuine by some people. I'm not saying it's necessarily not. I'm saying that when there's a lot of people who are saying the opposite, it doesn't seem like it's, um, consistently genuine from, from the entire, you know, Israeli leadership class, and that even if it is genuine when some people say it, that that's n- i- that's kind of not enough to get away from the, the fact that it's i- You know, when, when Tucker was on, um, Piers Morgan, he said the thing. He goes, "You know, I don't like my tax dollars being used to intentionally kill children." And a lot of people really objected to that word intentionally, because I think so many of the defenders of Israel fall behind this, like, "No, no, no. That's not intentional. We're just trying to kill Hamas." But again, like I said, we would never accept that standard in, like, a domestic murder case. It's like, no. Like, the, the thing is that if you know there are kids there and you know they're going to die, then that's intent.

    15. LFLex Fridman1:17:03

        I, I, I think I agree with you fundamentally because war is hell, and that's why I'm against war. But there is a difference. So, like, I think you're... We're, like, mixing in a lot of things. I think you're fundamentally against war, and that's why to you it really doesn't, doesn't matter. It is murder. It, it's-

    16. DSDave Smith1:17:25

        Right.

    17. LFLex Fridman1:17:25

        ... just murder. And we shouldn't do murder, and there's a lot of democracies with colorful flags and, that justify murder because they're trying very hard not to kill civilians. And then when you say you look at the reality of the Obama administration, the entirety of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, you're j- you're, you're murdering civilians. Yes, you're trying to kill bad guys, but you're murdering civilians. That said, on a, on a ethical consideration on which kind of ideals, ideologies you can build a society after the war, one that even on the surface level s- states that the value of every life, of every civilian life, is equal and high in value. That's a good society. That's the concern with extremist ideology that, uh, that basically it's very difficult to build a flourishing society on. But then the argument against that is the one you said, which is like, "Yeah. Well, Hamas is really supported now because of the war."

Episode duration: 3:19:00