Michael Malice: Christmas Special | Lex Fridman Podcast #347

1. 0:00 – 1:06

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Michael Malice. This is a special holiday episode, and it is made extra special because it's announcing the release of Michael's new book called The White Pill: A Tale of Good and Evil. Michael and I disagree on a lot of ideas and politics and philosophy, and we have a lot of fun disagreeing. But there's no question that he has a deep love for humanity and puts his heart and soul into his work, especially into this heart-wrenching, deeply personal book. So I ask that you support him by buying it at whitepillbook.com. That should, hopefully, forward to the Amazon page. As always, we're each dressed up in a ridiculous outfit, without coordinating, for the chaos that makes life so damn interesting. This episode is full of humor, darkness, and love, which is the best way to celebrate the holidays. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Michael Malice.

2. 1:06 – 4:00

   Santa and the White Pill

   1. LFLex Fridman1:06

      We probably should have coordinated this better, shouldn't we?

   2. MMMichael Malice1:10

      Yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:11

      I think so. Have you, since this is a Christmas special, a holiday special, have you been a good or a bad boy, Michael, this year?

   4. MMMichael Malice1:21

      Well, that's interesting. One of the people in the book, Granville Hicks, his autobiography starts with, "I was a good boy." Uh, and he wasn't a very good boy. Um-

   5. LFLex Fridman1:30

      On a scale of one to 10.

   6. MMMichael Malice1:33

      I'm trying to think of what bad things I've done. Oh, okay, there's that, okay, wait. (laughs) That's not, that was-

   7. LFLex Fridman1:38

      No, no.

   8. MMMichael Malice1:38

      ... (laughs) that was not a good-

   9. LFLex Fridman1:39

      That- that's all right.

   10. MMMichael Malice1:40

       I would say nine. I-

   11. LFLex Fridman1:42

       Nine?

   12. MMMichael Malice1:42

       Yeah. I try to do the right thing.

   13. LFLex Fridman1:45

       Okay.

   14. MMMichael Malice1:45

       What about you? You're either, it's a, is it gonna be a one or a zero?

   15. LFLex Fridman1:48

       Yeah, no, I'm extremely self-critical. I push to zero.

   16. MMMichael Malice1:51

       Okay.

   17. LFLex Fridman1:52

       I reach for the zero.

   18. MMMichael Malice1:54

       Well, mission accomplished.

   19. LFLex Fridman1:55

       So this- this episode is announcing the release of The White Pill, a book you wrote.

   20. MMMichael Malice2:02

       Yeah.

   21. LFLex Fridman2:02

       Which is, um, I've gotten the honor, the privilege, the pleasure of being one of the first people to read it.

   22. MMMichael Malice2:08

       You're the fir- so, I'm really, I don't know if nervous is the word, but you are the first person who has read it that I am speaking to about it.

   23. LFLex Fridman2:16

       My first, my last, my everything.

   24. MMMichael Malice2:18

       Yes.

   25. LFLex Fridman2:19

       You say that to all the girls, but I'll- I'll take it.

   26. MMMichael Malice2:21

       All the gir- all the fembots.

   27. LFLex Fridman2:22

       All the fembots. But yeah, it was a truly incredible book. It's basically a story of evil in the 20th century, and throughout it, you reveal a thread that gives us hope. And that's the idea of the white pill. So there's the- the blue pill and the red pill. There's the black pill, which is a kinda deeply cynical, um, maybe apathetic, just giving up on the world, given that you see behind the curtain, and y- given that you don't like what you see, given that there's so much suffering in the world, you give up. That's the black pill. And the white pill, I suppose, is even though you acknowledge that there's evil in the world, you don't give up.

   28. MMMichael Malice3:00

       Yes.

   29. LFLex Fridman3:00

       So if you're listening to this, and you're a fan of this podcast...

   30. MMMichael Malice3:04

       You go to whitepillbook.com, it'll go to it.
3. 4:00 – 19:18

   Marxism and Anarchism

   1. LFLex Fridman4:00

      let me ask you, uh, let's start at, uh, at the beginning. At the end of the 19th century, as you write, the terms socialist, communist, and anarchist were used somewhat loosely and interchangeably because the prophesied Marxist society was one in which the state had famously withered away. There was a great disagreement about what a socialist system would look like in practice, but two things were clear. First, that socialism was both inevitable and scientific, the way of the future, and second, that the capitalist ruling class were not going down without a fight. So what are the key points of disagreement between the socialists, the anarchists, the communists along that, uh, at that time? At the begin- at the end of the 19th century, at the beginning of the 20th century, the possibility of the century laid before us that eventually led to the First and the Second World War.

   2. MMMichael Malice4:49

      The idea when the Industrial Revolution came, and Marx was very much a product of Industrial Revolution era thinking, was, okay, now that we have technology, now that we have science, we can scientifically manage society. Uh, we saw this very much with Woodrow Wilson and this kind of idea of progressivism that, uh, you know, we could use technology and kind of not capitalism in their view, unfettered capitalism was wasteful, you're making too much stuff, you have surpluses, you have, uh, shortages. If we produce just exactly what we need, and you have these people, engineers, they're engineering society, then, you know, everyone will be happy and you won't have to have any suffering or waste. So socialism at that time was used as a broad umbrella. It's not used in the term that it means today of, uh, um, necessarily state socialism. It just meant the idea of a s- having society s- scientifically run. So you had a huge argument through different wings, you even had it from the beginning with, uh, Marx versus Bakunin, 'cause Marx was for obviously state socialism, uh, the absolute state running everything, although even with Marx, uh, and- and Engels, it was a means to an end. After man is remade in his very nature, then the state withers away and everyone's equal and then you have this kind of heaven on earth situation. Bakunin, you know, was the opposite. He regarded the state as inherently immoral, um, and wanted to have kind of like workers collectives and things like that and ultra-localized control.

   3. LFLex Fridman6:14

      So the end was always stateless. It's just that some people viewed the state as-... a, a convenient effective intermediate state-

   4. MMMichael Malice6:20

      Well, I think, at least Marx and Bakunin-

   5. LFLex Fridman6:22

      ... to intermediates process?

   6. MMMichael Malice6:22

      ... there were plenty of others who just regarded it, you know, have the work, have state own it, have the workers, you know, control the production via the state. Uh-

   7. LFLex Fridman6:30

      By the way, how does my hat look?

   8. MMMichael Malice6:32

      It looks great, festive.

   9. LFLex Fridman6:33

      Good. Is-

   10. MMMichael Malice6:33

       Yeah, yeah.

   11. LFLex Fridman6:33

       Is this good?

   12. MMMichael Malice6:34

       Yeah, yeah.

   13. LFLex Fridman6:34

       This, is this side better than the other side?

   14. MMMichael Malice6:36

       I think you want it on this side so people can see you.

   15. LFLex Fridman6:38

       Oh, no, no, no. I want to c-

   16. MMMichael Malice6:40

       (laughs)

   17. LFLex Fridman6:40

       You, you know, like, um, when you have, like, hair over your eye?

   18. MMMichael Malice6:43

       Peekaboo hair, it's called.

   19. LFLex Fridman6:44

       Peekaboo hair.

   20. MMMichael Malice6:44

       Veronica Lake, I think was her name.

   21. LFLex Fridman6:45

       And then I just glance flirtatiously toward the camera sometimes.

   22. MMMichael Malice6:49

       (laughs) .

   23. LFLex Fridman6:49

       I gotta, um, stay don't go anywhere.

   24. MMMichael Malice6:51

       Sure.

   25. LFLex Fridman6:53

       I gotta put on gloves.

   26. MMMichael Malice6:55

       Oh. (laughs) No glove, no love.

   27. LFLex Fridman7:00

       The bad, the bad aspect of white gloves is, um, the blood stains them.

   28. MMMichael Malice7:06

       (laughs) .

   29. LFLex Fridman7:07

       So you have to get new ones every time. And now I glance flirtatiously after that statement. (laughs) I'm sorry. Okay, Bakunin and Marx. Go ahead. Um-

   30. MMMichael Malice7:16

       So, so there were, there were, there were other socialists who did not regard, uh, this kind of end times where the state would do their way at all. Um, and there were, you know, various strains in between where, you know, you'd have some capitalism and some socialism. Uh, you know, the concept of a safety net, uh, came out of socialist thinking. The Labor Party, uh, came out of the Fabian Socialists in Great Britain. Uh, their, their logo was a wolf in sheep's clothing, and then when that was too on the nose, they changed it to a tortoise, meaning we're gonna get to socialism slowly, uh, in the sense of either, uh, gradualism or boiling a frog. And also, the, the big part of this thinking at the time, this is again the late 19th century, is the idea that there's gonna be a worldwide worker's revolution. It wasn't going to be that, you know, in one country, you know, it was gonna happen and then all the other countries be capitalist. The idea was, all right, uh, like the workers in Germany have more in common with the workers in America than the workers in Germany have with the capitalists in Germany. So the idea is, all right, like th- the working class all over the world at one point, they're gonna be like, "We're being exploited. Uh, it's getting worse and worse for us. We can't feed our families. Uh, we're getting injured and so on and so forth, and there's no compensation for this. We're just gonna overthrow our chains and we're gonna run everything ourselves. Um, we're the ones running it already anyway." Um, and, you know, the, this was a-
4. 19:18 – 23:28

   The case for socialism

   1. MMMichael Malice19:18

   2. LFLex Fridman19:18

      Since we have a little bit of momentum, can you steel man the case for socialism at that time and even today? I don't know if it's... I don't know if there's a rhyme and a similarity to those... to socialism as implemented at that time and what could possibly be implemented today, but maybe you can dance between the two.

   3. MMMichael Malice19:39

      The steel man argument for socialism is if you have everything up to private industry, you do not have a guarantee that someone won't fall between the cracks.

   4. LFLex Fridman19:51

      Right.

   5. MMMichael Malice19:51

      And the other concern is, in any other context, if someone is, let's suppose, mentally ill, right? Th- through no fault of their own and they... or someone's handicapped, you know, they can't feed themselves or mentally disabled or something like that, if you have everything up to charity, some... If this... You see this with like endangered species, right? The species that are cute, it's easy to raise money for them and protect them. Some weird kind of frog somewhere that no one cares about, you can't f- raise money for it. There's... People's interests are to what they find interesting. So if someone is someone who's like not socially appealing in some way, whatever capacity, they're gonna fall between the cracks and they're screwed. Under socialism, if you have a government taking care of everything, no one is left behind. You are guaranteed that the lowest of the low and the worst of the worst are still going to make sure that they're not starving in the street or, uh, just left behind. So, that is a big moral case to be made for having the state running everything. In terms of economics, it's a lot harder. Um, but the argument there would be, it's why it's- it's not fair, a term which in my view does not actually have a good meaning, but it's not fair that because you were born a Rockefeller and I was born in Poland, that you never have to worry about food for the rest of your life, whereas I have to worry about, you know, g- paying for a doctor for my kid. Like you just, you w- you won this lottery when you're born and now I have to be screwed and have to respect all your property. Why? So, um, that is another strong argument to be made for socialism. And the other argument is, if you have a media apparatus that is operated under profit-seeking principles, it is going to feed into people's worst qualities, most basic animal-like qualities and sensationalist qualities, and will be used as a mechanism for capitalist control. Whereas, if the government, which represents all of thus, all of us, is running things, then everyone will have a right to have their voice heard and won't be manipulated. That's the argument.

   6. LFLex Fridman22:03

      What about the reaching towards the stateless version? Sort of, um, because you espouse the ideas of, uh, anarchism, it kind of has the same conclusion-

   7. MMMichael Malice22:15

      Mm-hmm.

   8. LFLex Fridman22:15

      ... which is reaching towards the removal of the state to where we, I guess, have, uh, some distributed reallocation of resources that are "fair."

   9. MMMichael Malice22:24

      But the thing is, the- the Marxist vision of the state withering away and, uh, becoming anarchism, it's really kind of like, um, the underpants gnomes because it's like st-

   10. LFLex Fridman22:34

       Tell me more.

   11. MMMichael Malice22:35

       I- I will. Step one-

   12. LFLex Fridman22:37

       Hmm.

   13. MMMichael Malice22:37

       ... you have Marxists-

   14. LFLex Fridman22:38

       Tell me slowly.

   15. MMMichael Malice22:40

       (laughs)

   16. LFLex Fridman22:40

       I'm sorry.

   17. MMMichael Malice22:41

       You have full communism, the state's running everything, including e- education. Step two, question mark. Step three, anarchism. So their idea was that a- after enough time, the nature of man himself was going to change-

   18. LFLex Fridman22:56

       Changed.

   19. MMMichael Malice22:56

       ... and then the government would be superfluous because we would all be, uh, equal, and we would all naturally or socially, whatever term they would use, want to act the part that we would need to do. And in fact, Reagan had a great joke about this, where there were two g- where, uh, there were two commissars, I think, in Moscow, and one of them, they're walking around, they're going, "Is this it? Uh, is this full... Have we done it? Have we reached full communism?" The other goes, "Oh no, it's gonna get a hell of a lot worse." So, you know, that's kind of the- the counter

5. 23:28 – 31:50

   Human nature and ideology

   1. MMMichael Malice23:28

      argument to that.

   2. LFLex Fridman23:29

      Do you think culture, society can change the nature of man?

   3. MMMichael Malice23:34

      No.

   4. LFLex Fridman23:35

      So, no matter... Y- you don't think this idea that, uh, for example, America has been founded on, that all men are created equal, that that idea can't permeate the culture and- and thereby change how we see each other, how we think of the basic worth of a human being, and thereby-

   5. MMMichael Malice23:54

      That's not gonna be-

   6. LFLex Fridman23:54

      ... change our nature. No?

   7. MMMichael Malice23:55

      Doesn't change our n- That's epigenetic. I don't- I don't think the- that changes the nature of man. I think, for example, if I say someone, at which I agree with, that someone is innocent until proven guilty, they're not literally innocent. They're regarded in a legal context as innocent, but that person is or is not a murderer, a thief, or so on and so forth. So we can legally and ethically regard everyone as equal, but as Thomas Sowell pointed out, a human being isn't even equal to himself over the course of a day. Twins who are genetic clones are not equal to one another. So it is a...... important thing legally, and it's a good yardstick, but it's not literally true.

   8. LFLex Fridman24:34

      But don't you think that law becomes ethics? So we, um, we- we- that like idea of justice starts to like... We start to internalize it, that we just... The way we behave, the way we think about the world, the way-

   9. MMMichael Malice24:47

      No, I- I- I think it's a complete red herring because no one is-

   10. LFLex Fridman24:53

       No, you're a red herring.

   11. MMMichael Malice24:54

       Okay. (laughs)

   12. LFLex Fridman24:56

       (laughs) See what I did there?

   13. MMMichael Malice24:57

       Selodka. Um, because someone is... People are still going to always prefer their family to strangers, or their in-group to out-group. So, in terms of you're gonna have equality, that means it's gonna not matter to you whether someone is your mom or someone is, you know, someone down the street. And I don't see how that will ever become the case.

   14. LFLex Fridman25:18

       Do you think it would be possible, if you were an intellectual, uh, like you are at the beginning of the 20th century, would you be able to predict the rest of the 20th century?

   15. MMMichael Malice25:29

       No. I- I don't think, at all. I think there were so many, um, out of nowhere turns that no one would have seen their- them coming. For ex- as an example, um, Lenin seizing power and making the Bolshevik Revolution a reality was regarded as utopian and insane. Uh, the fact that he pulled it off is close to miraculous, and it was, quite literally, unprecedented. Um, the fact that... So that's a very big one.

   16. LFLex Fridman25:58

       Which aspect of it- Sorry to interrupt. Which aspect was hard to predict? That a singular figure with just some ideas would be able to take so much power?

   17. MMMichael Malice26:06

       And- and- and maintain that power and remake that society so drastically so quickly, despite such opposition.

   18. LFLex Fridman26:12

       Oh, so not just a set of temporary protests by hooligans that lead to, um, turmoil in the short term, but then stabilizes, but literally changes the entirety of the society?

   19. MMMichael Malice26:23

       Yeah. Ludendorff, who was the German general, he's like, "All right. We gotta get the- the Russians out of World War I." He's the one who's like, "All right. Let's get this lunatic Lenin, who already tried- tried and failed to have a revolution in Russia, let's send him back there, and he's just gonna cause problems for everybody and it's gonna be great 'cause it's gonna weaken Russia and then our, uh, Eastern Front isn't gonna have to be a problem." And then to his surprise, and everyone else's, including, you know, anarchists and communists worldwide, uh, they pulled off this, you know, October Revolution. And then for a while, it's like, all right. I mean... I mean, I think... My understanding is even people at the time, in St Petersburg and in Moscow, were like, "Wh- What does this even mean?" Right? Like, no one took it seriously. And then, very quickly, you had the Cheka and- and the secret police and all these other kind of implementations of the, you know, the communist state. And people were like, "Oh. They're not messing around." But they're like, "All right. This is- this is not gonna last for- for long." And, you know, the USA, uh, the US and A, we didn't even recognize the Soviet Union's legitimacy for a very long time. There were no diplomatic relations. And after a certain point, it's like, wh- who's the... If you don't recognize Lenin and- and Stalin's government, who's the government of the- of Russia or the Soviet Union? Is it the tsar? Like, you have to recognize it. It's just- They're not going anywhere. So that was something that was not, I think, very, uh, um, uh, predictable. The Great Depression, uh, in retrospect, there were certain things that were predictable, but it was not at all the case that it needed to last as long as it did in the States, as FDR made it do. So there's all sorts of things. I mean, if they, uh, um, uh, fought Germany's remilitarization, you know, World War- World War II could have been prevented. If you didn't have the Treaty of Versailles, would you have the hyperinflation, would you have Hitler? These are all, I think, choose your own adventure moments where things could have gone in other directions.

   20. LFLex Fridman28:11

       I think it's-

   21. MMMichael Malice28:11

       I don't- I don't believe this kind of idea, this- this is a very Marxist idea, that like, uh, history is inevitable, and once you start with certain premises, the contradictions kind of unfold. I- I think that's ridiculous.

   22. LFLex Fridman28:23

       I feel like there's power in the Santa Claus outfit.

   23. MMMichael Malice28:26

       Yeah?

   24. LFLex Fridman28:27

       I mean, it- it's a fundamentally communist idea, right?

   25. MMMichael Malice28:31

       How?

   26. LFLex Fridman28:31

       Santa Claus. Arbitrary redistribution of wealth.

   27. MMMichael Malice28:34

       It's not redistribution.

   28. LFLex Fridman28:35

       Well, at least I decide who's good and bad.

   29. MMMichael Malice28:38

       Yeah.

   30. LFLex Fridman28:38

       Only I, only I know this. And I mean, I am somehow getting funding from someone, right?
6. 31:50 – 47:35

   Cynicism

   1. LFLex Fridman31:50

      rope. Okay. You write in the book, "Cynics like to lie and call themselves realists. Hoping for positive outcomes can thus be dismissed as being naive or utopian." Can you elaborate on this point? Just like you said right now, I mean, w- w-... (sighs) it, it seems like a, I don't know if it's a fundamental characteristic of our society today or just societies throughout history, but there is a cynicism. You write, "In the Soviet Union, it was really just a deep cynicism."

   2. MMMichael Malice32:20

      Oh, that was good at the end, yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman32:22

      Um, and, but there is a cynicism today as well, at least in like public discourse.

   4. MMMichael Malice32:27

      Yes.

   5. LFLex Fridman32:28

      Why does it happen? And how can we fight it?

   6. MMMichael Malice32:31

      Um, I think it is easy to be like, "Eh, everything sucks." Uh, you know, I had a, my friend Lux, um, she was a, uh, a blogger and she was an author. She had this great line 'cause, you know, we worked in media, and she's like, "If you're ever at a party and someone starts talking about a new app or website and you don't know anything about it, just say, 'Oh, I was on that for a while. It sucked.'" (laughs)

   7. LFLex Fridman32:56

      (laughs)

   8. MMMichael Malice32:56

      And that's all you need to say. (laughs) I'm like, "Lux, that's a great line." But I, I think it is, and especially, I'm sure you had to, you experienced this as well with your family, I certainly did with mine, there is this idea, especially in Russian culture, but in American culture to some extent as well, where if you have aspira- aspirations, I remember there was this show called Russian Dolls. It was... Oh, I just got it, like the Matryoshka. Okay, I just got it. That's the name, okay. The show was called Russian Dolls. It was about Brighton Beach, which is the Russian Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. It was supposed to be their version of Jersey Shore. It was, uh, on Lifetime, and it had no ratings. (laughs) And I remember the last four episodes, they had to burn them, so they just ran it through like 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM one day. And there was this one scene where the, one of the girls, I forget her name, probably Natalia, and she had been in college and she had been wondering what she wanted to major in, right? And I, this story was so perfect, I'm sure I've told it before, and she took an aptitude test and she went with her mom to get like mani-pedis or something, and she goes, "Mom, you know I've had like 80 majors. I didn't know what I wanted to do." And she goes, "I took this aptitude test. It really made sense to me. I am gonna go to law school. I wanna be a lawyer. This is something I enjoy." And the first thing out of her mom's mouth is, "How are you gonna pay for it?" And the girl, and I really related 'cause if you didn't have this Russian upbringing, you watched it, you would think her reaction was completely insane. She just lost it, just screaming. She's like, "People pay for law school all the time. I'll figure out a way." Why is your first reaction to look for a problem? Why is your first response to be like, "Oh, wait, are you sure you've thought this through?" I have been struggling with one problem for years, what I wanted to do for a living-

   9. LFLex Fridman34:35

      Yeah.

   10. MMMichael Malice34:35

       ... and now, like as soon as I solve this one big problem of identity, your first reaction is like, "Let's find a new problem." Why is that your ap- instead of-

   11. LFLex Fridman34:43

       Yeah.

   12. MMMichael Malice34:43

       ... let's figure out how we're gonna pay for it? And that kind of approach is so, uh, deadly, and it, it gnaws at you. And I always, I don't like giving people advice because, uh, who the hell am I? And also, if I don't know the context of the problem, I'm not informed enough to give advice. But this is a piece of advice that I do feel comfortable giving. If you are someone who has around you people who as soon as you have any accomplishment or any hope, that their first reaction is to be like, "Well, what about this?" You have to get rid of them, or sit them down, maybe give them a chance, because that is something that is such, so demoralizing and it drains you. And it's like, you know the example I've used all the time, all the time, all the time. I say, "If you wanna be an author, right, you can go to any bookstore and look at all the shitty, shitty books, like The White Pill, and you could say to yourself, 'I could be this shitty author.'" You don't have to be Hemingway.

   13. LFLex Fridman35:41

       So people should buy your book just to know-

   14. MMMichael Malice35:44

       What shitty wri-

   15. LFLex Fridman35:44

       ... that it doesn't take much.

   16. MMMichael Malice35:46

       (laughs) What sh- (laughs)

   17. LFLex Fridman35:46

       It really does not take much.

   18. MMMichael Malice35:47

       What shitty writing is all about. (laughs)

   19. LFLex Fridman35:50

       (laughs)

   20. MMMichael Malice35:50

       And boring.

   21. LFLex Fridman35:51

       Yeah. You could just pick a random, random period in history and just write a bunch of crap about it-

   22. MMMichael Malice35:56

       Yes.

   23. LFLex Fridman35:57

       ... and, and put a pretty stamp on the cover and then just go.

   24. MMMichael Malice35:59

       It was pretty, yeah.

   25. LFLex Fridman36:01

       Yeah.

   26. MMMichael Malice36:01

       But I mean, like la- like for you, right?

   27. LFLex Fridman36:03

       Yeah.

   28. MMMichael Malice36:03

       Like not, you don't, I don't mean you, Lux, but-

   29. LFLex Fridman36:05

       I was raised by the wolves.

   30. MMMichael Malice36:07

       (laughs) The w- the Wolfbots. There's lots of standup comedians who aren't Jerry Seinfeld.
7. 47:35 – 52:16

   Twitter

   1. MMMichael Malice47:35

   2. LFLex Fridman47:35

      Speaking of which, do you ever regret your behavior on Twitter?

   3. MMMichael Malice47:40

      There were a couple of times, but very rarely.

   4. LFLex Fridman47:44

      Can you describe the big strategy before we dive back into the October Revolution?

   5. MMMichael Malice47:49

      Uh, my strategy-

   6. LFLex Fridman47:51

      Do you have a strategy, or is it... Does it come from the heart, or does it come from the brain?

   7. MMMichael Malice47:57

      It comes from I want to have fun. So that's literally what it comes down to. It's like this is-

   8. LFLex Fridman48:03

      Girls just wanna have fun.

   9. MMMichael Malice48:05

      Are you drunk? What is i-

   10. LFLex Fridman48:07

       (laughs)

   11. MMMichael Malice48:07

       What are you dr- what is in there?

   12. LFLex Fridman48:09

       (laughs) I'm very cheeky. I'm, I have the holiday spirit, even though it's not the holidays.

   13. MMMichael Malice48:14

       Oh, that's eggnog in there.

   14. LFLex Fridman48:15

       I'm delirious. I did not sleep much last night. I've been, uh, which is I think the second time we talked or the third time. The second time, I d- I stayed up almost all night.

   15. MMMichael Malice48:24

       Oh, I know. I keep track of when you come and go.

   16. LFLex Fridman48:26

       Yeah.

   17. MMMichael Malice48:26

       So my-

   18. LFLex Fridman48:27

       Okay.

   19. MMMichael Malice48:27

       ... door camera points at your garage, so I know when you're leaving or coming home.

   20. LFLex Fridman48:32

       My camera points at your bedroom from the inside.

   21. MMMichael Malice48:35

       So you can see when he's frankly-

   22. LFLex Fridman48:36

       But I shouldn't have told you that now. Yeah. (laughs)

   23. MMMichael Malice48:38

       There, uh, let me ask you this 'cause this is something that's been bothering me.

   24. LFLex Fridman48:40

       Yes.

   25. MMMichael Malice48:41

       There was a chair that you threw out.

   26. LFLex Fridman48:42

       Yep.

   27. MMMichael Malice48:43

       ... and I-

   28. LFLex Fridman48:43

       It's broken.

   29. MMMichael Malice48:44

       ... and I was looking at my camera, and I'm like, "Let me see when he threw this out." And then one time, you went to the garbage, and you adjusted it to make it stick out of the garbage even more. What were you doing there?

   30. LFLex Fridman48:53

       Uh, what was I... Oh, to- to- to- to make sure that people know there's a chair in there.
8. 52:16 – 55:26

   October Revolution

   1. MMMichael Malice52:16

   2. LFLex Fridman52:16

      Uh, let's return to the October Revolution-

   3. MMMichael Malice52:19

      Yeah.

   4. LFLex Fridman52:19

      ... and Lenin. (sighs) What was the October Revolution? What, uh, who was Lenin? What are some interesting aspects of this- this human being and also this moment in history that stand out to you that are important to understand?

   5. MMMichael Malice52:32

      I think the interesting thing about Lenin is he was a zealot, and he was a visionary, and he really kinda meant it. And t- I- I'm skipping ahead a little bit, but Lenin also was someone who was strategic. So at a certain point when they were trying to advance, uh, communism throughout the Soviet Union and the costs were outweighing the benefits, he did a strategic retreat. He da- did the new economic policy. You had a rise of kind of these small capitalists coming back. You could hire people again. And for the hardcore people in the Soviet Union, the hardcore communists, this was a huge betrayal. It's a step back. He didn't do it because he was some kind of crypto capitalist. He did it because he's like, "All right. We know where we gotta get to, but we have to go at a certain pace, and we have to adjust as we go along." So to have someone who is that much of an ideologue and that much of a visionary but still to have s- any element of pragmatism to him is, I think, a very rare, uh, uh, combination.

   6. LFLex Fridman53:37

      And that pragmatism, do you think that's ultimately where things go wrong, sort of, um, that's where you sacrifice the ideas?

   7. MMMichael Malice53:45

      Pragmatism is g- in this case was good because by taking a step back, you know, he kind of al- gave himself some breathing room to allow the revolution to continue, to win the civil war. There was a big moment where Germany, it is... It's just there's lots of, like, little funny anecdotes that I learned while researching this book. So, you know, they were, uh, Germany and Russia, they were negotiating, uh, s- sta- a ceasefire-

   8. LFLex Fridman54:09

      Mm-hmm.

   9. MMMichael Malice54:10

      ... 'cause they wanted, Germany wanted Russia out of the war. And basically, Germany was like, "All right. You, w- we'll let you leave, but you have to sign this treaty and basically hand over all this land that we're currently occupying."

   10. LFLex Fridman54:20

       Mm-hmm.

   11. MMMichael Malice54:20

       It was, uh, i- just parts of Ukraine, parts of Poland. And Lenin tells Trotsky to stall. He's, "Just- just run the clock," because he was of the belief that now that they've taken power in Russia, you're gonna have a worldwide workers' revolution. So he's like, "Just- just stall them." And he stalled, he stalled, and a certain point, Germany's like, "All right. You're signing this tomorrow, or we're invading." And Trotsky basically said, "Yeah, so we're leaving the war, but we're not signing anything." And the Germans are like, "W- what?" And he's like, "Yeah, well, that's what we're doing, so hey." Um, and basically, it, eventually he had to sign the treaty and cede huge parts of land and a lot of money, and this was a very, uh, precarious moment for him to maintain control of Russia. And people were telling him, like, "Y- you've lost huge amounts of territory. You know, you- you've blown it. You should be in jail." And he's like, "Watch your mouth because if you look for the future, it'll be clear which one of us is more likely to be the one ending up in jail," and he was absolutely right.

   12. LFLex Fridman55:20

       Uh, this was Trotsky or Lenin saying?

   13. MMMichael Malice55:21

       This is Lenin saying this to Carl Raddick.

   14. LFLex Fridman55:23

       Ah. So who are these figures

9. 55:26 – 59:51

   Trotsky, Lenin, and Stalin

   1. LFLex Fridman55:26

      here? Who's Trotsky, who's Lenin, who's Stalin? What are some interesting aspects of all of this? What are, sort of just to linger on it, the personalities, the ideas that were important?

   2. MMMichael Malice55:37

      Well, Trotsky came late to Bolshevism. He was really the brains, in many ways, of the October Revolution. He was an amazing strategist. He n- never forgot that he was an amazing strategist. Had a very high opinion of himself.

   3. LFLex Fridman55:50

      And by the way, the October Revolution 1917, that's like a key moment, um... Of course, the, the Russian Revolution lasted a long time, but this was a key moment of, uh, what? A, a phaseshift towards success of the Bolsheviks.

   4. MMMichael Malice56:07

      Well, that was the moment. That was like, all right, we are the government now.

   5. LFLex Fridman56:10

      Yeah.

   6. MMMichael Malice56:10

      And now we have to make... It's uh, you know, like Thomas Jefferson said, ev- I think it was Thomas Jefferson or, no, it was Ben Franklin, uh, "A republic, if you can keep it." It's like, all right. We've made our own kind of government, if we can keep it, 'cause that was the big question. You had an international blockade, you had the White Armies, the czar's forces who want to restore czarism, or at least the, the parliament from, uh, right before Lenin took over. So this was a big kind of, no one's... Was... You know, it's in some ways, it was like the 2016 election. It's like, all right, we voted in Trump. What, what's this gonna look like? Like, no one, no one had any idea of what a Trump presidency was gonna look like. All we knew was this guy's on Twitter running his mouth, he's insulting people and he- he's had all these views. Some are over here, some are over there.

   7. LFLex Fridman56:50

      And the funny thing is, the Russians hacked both elections.

   8. MMMichael Malice56:53

      (laughs) That's true. True.

   9. LFLex Fridman56:56

      See.

   10. MMMichael Malice56:57

       It, it was Putin and the Kremlin. So Trotsky was, you know, Lenin's right-hand man, um, and he was, you know, enormous... And to this day, he remains this kind of figure who is supposedly a less authoritarian, anti-Stalinist version of communism that people can, um, endorse. Uh, and Stalin, of course, was Lenin's successor. At first, there was a triumvirate running Russia as Lenin was recuperating from strokes. Then very quickly, well, not very quickly, but gradually, and then suddenly Stalin, uh, became an absolute dictator, and he had a series of, uh, of purges and so on and so forth, which solidified his control over the country.

   11. LFLex Fridman57:41

       And, of course for Stalin, Trotsky later, but throughout, as you write, seemed to almost take on a supernatural character wherein everything that went wrong in the USSR was due not just to his views, but to his direct orders from abroad. And, uh, of course, George Orwell brilliantly, in probably my favorite book of his, which is Animal Farm, and also 1984, portrayed Trotsky as, uh, uh, as Snowball in Animal Farm, and Emmanuel Goldstein in, um, 1984, as this embodiment of this evil that we always have to be fighting, and you need that in order to hold, hold on to power. You always have to have that enemy.

   12. MMMichael Malice58:26

       Right. So that, I mean, that's something I talk about, uh, in, in The White Pill as well. When things start going wrong, they always had to have scapegoats.

   13. LFLex Fridman58:33

       Yeah.

   14. MMMichael Malice58:33

       Right? And there's this Russian anecdote. You know what the Russians like to do is, you can't say things out loud, but if you make jokes, you can say unspeakable truths. And there's this one anecdote where there's a Russian leader and things are going bad, and he looks in his dr- drawer and there were two letters from his predecessor. And he opens the first letter in a panic, and the letter says, r- you know, for advice, and the letter says, "Blame everything on me." So he goes out there and he's like, "Oh, my predecessor sucked. He was terrible, blah, blah, it's his fault." And everyone's like, "Okay." And then there's a calamity again, and he's like, "Oh, crap." So he goes back at his desk and he reads the second one and it says, "Sit down and write two letters." So th- when things start going wrong, as they constantly did throughout the history of the Soviet Union, uh, o- or any, you know, totalitarian, authoritarian country, it's someone has to be to blame. Since we know that our ideology is true and scientifically true, if it's not working in reality, given the perfection of the ideology, someone must be intentionally undermining it and causing the disconnect between thought and reality, and in the Soviet Union, there were th- it was the Kulaks at one point, then it was the wreckers, uh, the doctors. It was just different... The cap- There was always someone to... And Trotsky, uh, was called a fascist and was accused of plotting with Hitler and, and all this other

10. 59:51 – 1:23:38

    Communism

    1. MMMichael Malice59:51

       stuff.

    2. LFLex Fridman59:51

       And you also write, "The problem with communism is that eventually you run out of possible scapeboat"...

    3. MMMichael Malice59:58

       Scapegoats.

    4. LFLex Fridman59:59

       Scapeboats. You run out of boats.

    5. MMMichael Malice1:00:01

       (laughs) You do run out of boats.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:00:02

       Who's gonna carry them? Uh, eventually you run out of possible scapegoats... (laughs) It's, uh... It's, it's my second language, this English thing. (sighs) I'm a failed podcaster. I'm a failure. Uh, "eventually you run out of possible scapegoats for failure, at which point acknowledging or even noticing that something was wrong itself becomes a form of treason."

    7. MMMichael Malice1:00:28

       Yeah. So I saw that in North Korea, right? Wherever you went in North Korea, something was wrong. So if you have four buttons for the elevator, one will be mismatched, every wall had a crack, every floor had a stain, uh, th- the bathroom would be rusted through when you wanted to flush the urinal, but if you are someone who points this out, you're a troublemaker and you're... Oh, you're criti- oh, you're saying something's wrong? You're criticizing the, the operation? You're crit- you're... First of all, you're th- you're threatening the person who's in charge, 'cause now they're incompetent and now that's a big red flag for them. But second, if you're just going around saying, "This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong," even if it's objectively true, you're a troublemaker and you're a counterrevolutionary. So at a certain point, everyone just has to put on blinders and pretend that everything is fine. A- a- one example I use in the book, an extreme example, was there was a photography professor and he pointed out to his class, and he was an older man, that before the revolution, the quality of pho- photographic paper was better, and he was, I think, executed, uh, for this heresy. So yeah, you have to pretend... There was... I just f- I'm reading a book right now about the Chinese, um, uh, Cultural Revolution, and there was an academic, uh, I, I forget his name, Hu Shi, I think, and he points out that in these countries...Not only do you not have freedom of speech, you don't have freedom of silence. You can't just sit there quietly. You have to say how great things are and how much you're enjoying it and how wonderful they are, uh, instead of just keeping quiet 'cause if you keep quiet, that's suspicious.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:01:53

       Yeah, those, um...

    9. MMMichael Malice1:01:56

       They're always singing those songs about how happy they are and how great everything is. And if everyone else is singing, who are you to s- not sing?

    10. LFLex Fridman1:02:05

        Yeah, those, uh, pictures, especially when, uh, you know, when it's Stalin giving speeches and everyone is applauding, any- any dictator, and you do- y- y- you don't want to be the- the first person that stops applauding.

    11. MMMichael Malice1:02:17

        Stalin had to have a button, is my understanding, at a certain point, to tell people to stop applauding 'cause they're- I- like you said, if you're the first one to stop clapping, people are gonna notice and, "Why'd you stop clapping? You don't like Stalin?"

    12. LFLex Fridman1:02:27

        But just imagine being one of those people clapping.

    13. MMMichael Malice1:02:30

        Well, th- th- that's the thing. They- they always had a sword over their head and they ha- but they all had a lot of blood on their hands too. It's- it's- it's- it's a- it's a very, very precarious life.

    14. LFLex Fridman1:02:40

        But there's also, I mean, 1984 does a good job of this, um... What is that, like, two minutes of hate or something like this?

    15. MMMichael Malice1:02:47

        Yes.

    16. LFLex Fridman1:02:47

        You, like, lose yourself in the- in the- in the- in the- in the hysteria of it, in the hysteria. So there's some level of which, at first, it's, uh, you're sacrificing your basic individualistic ability to think, but then you get lost in this kinda wave of emotion, and you give into it. You allow yourself- it's like a mix of fear and then anger and then you direct that anger tor- towards, uh, like Snowball or Trotsky or whoever the- and, like, I d- what is that?

    17. MMMichael Malice1:03:16

        But you're also losing yourself in the crowd.

    18. LFLex Fridman1:03:18

        Yeah, you're losing-

    19. MMMichael Malice1:03:19

        Right? 'Cause you're like, "It's not just I'm angry. Everyone I know, we're all angry together." So you really are becoming a part of something bigger than yourself and having this kinda communal, very primal emotional experience. It's like the opposite of Thanks- of Christmas, right? Christmas, we're all together. Everyone's sharing their joy, everyone's sharing their love. This is the opposi- literally the opposite. Like, everyone's together sharing their hate and anger and rage, but you're all kind of having a mind meld.

    20. LFLex Fridman1:03:44

        But I wonder what it's like to be an independent thinker in those- in those moments. Like, allow yourself to think.

    21. MMMichael Malice1:03:50

        Well, we- n- we know. W- 'cause there were a lot of them and they were all punished enormously.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:03:56

        So they can be noticed? You can notice them?

    23. MMMichael Malice1:03:58

        Oh, yeah. You even notice it in Ameri- America's a free country, but when- when people start asking too many questions, it's like, "Wh- where are you going with this?" You know?

    24. LFLex Fridman1:04:05

        Yeah.

    25. MMMichael Malice1:04:05

        Like if- if you're in an office even, in a- in a corporate setting, uh, you're- you're a troublemaker. You're just, you know, you're making problems for everyone. Why can't you be normal? Why can't you be just like everybody else? So people do not like having to be made to think, and they certainly despise having to be made to justify themselves, um, because that's a threat to their status and to their power. And this applies in totalitarianism or applies to, you know, Dunder Mifflin.

    26. LFLex Fridman1:04:34

        I still can't believe you're wearing lipstick.

    27. MMMichael Malice1:04:37

        I'm not.

    28. LFLex Fridman1:04:38

        Uh, goes to show, you can put lipstick on a pig. (laughs)

    29. MMMichael Malice1:04:46

        Just like a snowball. (laughs) I think you've just been on a bender. That's what I think.

    30. LFLex Fridman1:04:55

        It's been rough. It's been rough. It's been rough. I- I feel kinda... I feel like I can be myself in this outfit. Like, I- I honestly feel like I could just go around in this outfit and, um, just be weird 'cause everyone will accept you if you're wearing a Santa outfit. Like, you can say anything in a Santa outfit, right?

Episode duration: 3:40:52