Carl Benjamin - Making Sense Of 2021's Madness | Modern Wisdom Podcast 280

1. 0:00 – 0:24

   Intro

   1. CBCarl Benjamin0:00

      I don't agree that there's a race war going on. I don't agree that there's a gender war going on. I don't agree that straight people are waging war against gay people and trying to keep them down. Uh, that's just not my experience of life. But the only gender or race war or, like, sexuality war that I see is being waged by the left, you know? So I think the left have done this quite self-consciously in many ways. (wind blowing)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:22

      Man, I've just been on Twitter. Is it

2. 0:24 – 6:18

   Lotus Eaters & Safe Spaces

   1. CWChris Williamson0:24

      possible to browse any trends on there without it being hijacked by K-pop and Bollywood posts?

   2. CBCarl Benjamin0:30

      I, I don't know why you'd ask me. I'm not on Twitter. (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson0:32

      Yeah. I know. But you use it, right? You look at the trending site.

   4. CBCarl Benjamin0:36

      I have to, yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson0:37

      Yeah.

   6. CBCarl Benjamin0:37

      Um, to be honest with you, I'm always glad when I log into Twitter and it's some K-pop nonsense that's trending-

   7. CWChris Williamson0:43

      (laughs)

   8. CBCarl Benjamin0:43

      ... instead of Jews, Nazis, or Holocaust 'cause these terms trend on Twitter all the time and it just makes me think, "God, this is an absolute hell site." You know? I, I use like, you know, Twitter alternatives and never do these terms ever trend. And so it's like, right, okay, that's very interesting and very revealing about the mindset of the people who use various platforms, isn't it?

   9. CWChris Williamson1:05

      Uh, another year, another studio, another YouTube channel. How's everything going with-

   10. CBCarl Benjamin1:08

       Yes.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:08

       ... the Lotus Eaters stuff?

   12. CBCarl Benjamin1:10

       Uh, it's going really, really well, uh, really well. Um, everything's up and running. Everything is self-sufficient. Uh, we have lots of subscribers, uh, which essentially means sort of patrons that pay for everything. And we work very hard providing them with premium content, articles from academics, book club reviews that we do, and, uh, and, and the sort of podcast that we can't put on YouTube because we're talking about subjects that are essentially verboten in some ways. Uh, and so it's, it's been a sort of real lease of life as well, to be able to have some freedom to talk about things in a way that the editors at Silicon Valley don't approve.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:45

       Man, that's so good. What's the name from?

   14. CBCarl Benjamin1:48

       The name is from the Odyssey. Uh, the, the Island of the Lotus Eaters is the first island that Odysseus and his crew arrive at. And the, the reason I like it, and I've always found it, like, it's always been sat in my mind because in every other island and in every other event that the crew, uh, and Odysseus go th- through, um, there's danger. There's some kind of deep danger that underlies. Either it's a very obvious brutal one, like the men getting eaten by the cyclopses or they get changed into animals by Cersei or whoever. And so there's, there's an ill will, an evil will that underpins all of the other islands. But on the Island of the Lotus Eaters there doesn't appear to be. We only get like a few paragraphs in the Odyssey and so a lot has been extrapolate- uh, extrapolated from that that doesn't really exist in the text, like, you know. But the, the thing it seems to represent in my view is a paradigm shift. And so the, the, the crew he sends out to the island to meet the island, uh, the, the, the islanders, um, they just don't want to return to the ships. They just decide that they like the place they're in and that's where they want to stay. And Odysseus has to get other crewmen to go and drag them back to the ships, which is kind of bad news for them really 'cause everyone dies on Odysseus's journey-

   15. CWChris Williamson3:00

       (laughs)

   16. CBCarl Benjamin3:00

       ... apart from Odysseus. Uh, so Odysseus is the only one of them who makes it back to Ithaca alive. And so you can't help but think, man, it probably would've been better for the crew members if they'd just stayed where they were, you know? (laughs)

   17. CWChris Williamson3:11

       Mm-hmm.

   18. CBCarl Benjamin3:11

       They would've been okay. And-

   19. CWChris Williamson3:12

       So Lotus Eaters, Lotus Eaters is your safe space?

   20. CBCarl Benjamin3:15

       Yeah, actually. That's, uh, that's kind of the way I've been looking at it. Like, um, because, because we've got, um, a bit of a buffer from the, uh, vulnerability of social media deplatforming, you know, which is obviously the Sword of Damocles that hangs above all our heads these days if we speak about anything that's slightly unorthodox. Um, the, the f- the, the, you know, the worry is there 'cause obviously you don't want to get deplatformed. That'd be bad. Your, you know, your reach would be severely diminished and things like this. But the, the way that the business has been set up has been very, I mean, I guess I'd say conservative, but I suppose a better word would be prudent, uh, so that if we got deplatformed off of all the Silicon Valley platforms we would still be employed to do something by the people who support and subscribe to us. So yeah, it, it, it in many ways is kind of like, um, kind of like a safe space where people who are afraid of being persecuted. (laughs)

   21. CWChris Williamson4:08

       Is that what we're gonna see more of, do you think, creators using the existing channels as like the front end of the funnel and then trying to get people off that and onto an owned platform as quickly as possible? I see a lot of people talking about building up newsletters and mailing lists now for that same reason.

   22. CBCarl Benjamin4:22

       It seem- it seems to be inevitable, doesn't it? It seems to be there's no particular choice, um, because if Silicon Valley is subject to nothing but its own arbitrary whims and their arbitrary whims are if you misgender someone we're gonna delete your Twitter account, we're going to, if you say the wrong thing about COVID or the US election or something like that, we're going to delete your YouTube account (coughs) , it becomes obvious that it's necessary for people to take steps to protect themselves. And, uh, I mean, uh, like I, I've, I've, I got banned from Twitter for swear words, uh, insults against, uh, I was arguing with Nazis in 2017.

   23. CWChris Williamson4:59

       Mm-hmm.

   24. CBCarl Benjamin4:59

       And, uh, I got banned because I was, uh, too offensive to the Nazis. Which fair enough, you know, that's not part of like the deplatforming, uh, operation. Um, and so I don't regard my ban from Twitter as part of like the political deplatforming. Although, maybe there was a political aspect to it because I'm not a leftist. You know, if I was a leftist, maybe I'd been given some grace or something. But I don't know so I won't assume. But, um, and so I, I haven't actually been deplatformed from anything really. I'm still on Facebook, I'm still on YouTube, still on, you know, all of the other Silicon Valley platforms. Um, but if they can deplatform the current sitting president in a, in a, in only a few days and just mercilessly delete all of his accounts, um, I don't think anyone should take any risks. Uh, even though, like I said, I don't think I'm that risky or extreme or anything like that. I mean, you know, I'm a Democrat or I'm, I'm for democracy, I'm for incrementalism, like, you know, an evolutionary sort of political perspective. I'm not a revolutionary. I don't want to burn things down. I don't want civil wars. I don't want any of these things. And so I don't think I'm very spicy politically. I think I'm, I'm kind of a-... liberal centrist in many ways, you know-

   25. CWChris Williamson6:04

       Chicken passanda.

   26. CBCarl Benjamin6:04

       ... in most ways. Yeah, basic- yeah, yeah, and that's actually the, the, the curry I choose when I'm out in India as well.

   27. CWChris Williamson6:09

       (laughs) That's a good one.

   28. CBCarl Benjamin6:10

       'Cause I'm, I'm, I'm quite milktooth. But, um, but I do oppose political correctness, and that can get you in trouble. So you've gotta make your preparations as best

3. 6:18 – 17:41

   Steven Crowder Suing Facebook

   1. CBCarl Benjamin6:18

      as you can make them, I think.

   2. CWChris Williamson6:19

      Did you see that Steven Crowder is suing Facebook? Have you seen this?

   3. CBCarl Benjamin6:23

      I heard about it, but I haven't looked into it. Uh, could you tell me again about it?

   4. CWChris Williamson6:25

      Yeah, yeah. So he's got that, what is it called? Asian Lawyer John or something.

   5. CBCarl Benjamin6:30

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson6:31

      Um, unfair competition-

   7. CBCarl Benjamin6:32

      Half-Asian, I believe.

   8. CWChris Williamson6:33

      Yeah, Half-Asian Lawyer John.

   9. CBCarl Benjamin6:34

      Yep.

   10. CWChris Williamson6:34

       I've just mis-raced him there.

   11. CBCarl Benjamin6:36

       Uh, oh, dear.

   12. CWChris Williamson6:37

       Unfair competition, fraud, false advertising, and antitrust. So apparently, they removed Crowder's ElectionStream, which was the biggest independent election stream ever.

   13. CBCarl Benjamin6:45

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson6:45

       And he's saying that they've been throttling his reach even though Facebook told the press and Congress that they don't do that anymore.

   15. CBCarl Benjamin6:51

       Hmm.

   16. CWChris Williamson6:51

       That's big, man.

   17. CBCarl Benjamin6:52

       Well, that is huge, yeah. And, uh, if, if anyone's in a position to actually leverage, uh, Facebook and social media in this way, it's Crowder. And I, I, I saw his, uh, comeback video, uh, which was excellent, really, really high-quality production for a guy who runs a YouTube channel with his team. I was like, "Wow, that's actually amazing." Um, but yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm glad that, um, sort of counterweights like Steven Crowder exist. Uh, I don't agree with everything he says, obviously. But then who agrees with e- everything anyone says? I don't even agree with anything I say. You know (laughs) , so, so I'll go look back a year or two b- in the past and be like, "I was an idiot. You know, I didn't understand that at all. What was I doing?" Uh, but, uh, but I'm glad that the, the sort of plurality of opinions in the marketplace still sustains people like Steven Crowder, you know, 'cause I think that's necessary and healthy.

   18. CWChris Williamson7:37

       Does anyone believe that tech platforms are impartial anymore?

   19. CBCarl Benjamin7:41

       I don't see how you could. I don't, I don't think they make any pretense to impartiality anymore either, especially when the partiality is baked into the terms and conditions, uh, Twitter being the best example of you can't misgender someone. It's like, sorry, there is only one ideology probably in all of human history that has made a big deal about gender identity and, uh, you know, gender expression in the way that the, the left is now. We all know what ideology this is, intersectionality. And it's very obvious that this is, uh, therefore an intersectional domain if you can actually lose your account. I mean, like, I've, I've had friends who have been suspended for calling people "dude," which I consider to be a fairly gender-neutral, uh, you know, in- an informal gender-neutral way of referring to a person. And it, it's, it's also, um, sort of part of a, uh, how to describe it? Like, uh, a sort of informal social pattern, uh, of behavior where y- if you call someone dude, you realize that you, you're setting the context for the interaction. It's like, you know, if I say, "Hey, mate," you know, I don't expect you to call me sir or be formal or say, you know, "Mr. This" or whatever, and you, you realize that we're having a, a friendly conversation that has goodwill behind it, you know? It, it implies a kind of goodwill when I enter into the conversation. And so, like, i- i- in, in, in, in my world, in the, in the social spheres I exist in, um, calling someone dude isn't me saying you're a man. Whereas in the sort of, I guess, San Francisco, Californian left-wing view of things, actually, "Oh, my goodness, you've just misgendered. This is a high crime against Twitter's terms of service. You must be banned."

   20. CWChris Williamson9:15

       Is it not just the, the, it's always the worst possible implication? Like, the worst possible way that I can take the interpretation?

   21. CBCarl Benjamin9:21

       Interpretation, yeah.

   22. CWChris Williamson9:21

       Interpretation, sorry.

   23. CBCarl Benjamin9:23

       There, there, there, there definitely is an element of that. Um, but I, I also think there's a kind of dogmatic view of certain words, like, um, the F-word, right, that we can't say anymore. Uh, now, I, I, I grew up watching South Park. And from watching South Park, I actually had not connected really that word to homosexuality. I connected that word to a kind of, um, insufferable, childish behavior, which is not, in my opinion, limited to people who are gay. And so I didn't consider it to be a particularly bad word. But it's now been, I guess, w- reclaimed by the LGBT lobby, the sort of activist lobby, and stigmatized, so now that word is actually a, a very bad word. That's the equivalent of, like, the N-word and things like this. It's, oh, God, now we've, we've actually w- you know, from a word being actually relatively benign and, you know, not trivial, has become something again you can get banned or suspended for, from these platforms. It's like, wow, that's, that's interesting. Weaponizing words that had otherwise lost their power I would've thought was the opposite of the direction that the progressives would want to go in. But I suppose it does give them a useful tool with which to sort of browbeat and ha- harry the, uh, the wrong thinkers. So, yeah.

   24. CWChris Williamson10:37

       I've been trying to think about why social media always seems to throttle people like Steven Crowder, like right instead of left. And I get it, that, like, in the eyes of big corporations-

   25. CBCarl Benjamin10:46

       Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson10:46

       ... that the left wing's associated with compassion and virtue and the right's associated with intolerance and bigotry, uh, even if-

   27. CBCarl Benjamin10:53

       Yeah.

   28. CWChris Williamson10:53

       ... that may sometimes seem like it's actually being flipped on its head.

   29. CBCarl Benjamin10:56

       Yes.

   30. CWChris Williamson10:56

       But I can't work out if that explains it all. Like, is there an element that because conservatives, especially in America, they tend to play quite fast and loose with claims in a way which is more easily disputed. So the crazier claims of the left seem to be more esoteric and unfalsifiable, whereas the crazier claims of the right seem to be at least rooted in reality, even if they're unhinged.
4. 17:41 – 20:48

   Decolonising Mars

   1. CWChris Williamson17:41

      only in a world where we've managed to, whatever it is, reduce global poverty by 80% (laughs) 20 years sooner than the World Health Organization said that we were going to, would this be a thing that we can do.

   2. CBCarl Benjamin17:53

      Yes.

   3. CWChris Williamson17:54

      Oddly, a very luxurious position to be in, to be able to talk about that kind of nuance when it's just to do with language. Previously, we'd have just been happy with a meal. And that's not for me to say that we don't want society to continue to progress and iterate and further and further refine the level at which we consider human flourishing. But man, like, there's a lot of big things that-... needs to be done, and I don't feel like arguing over the finer definitions of words or, or one of them. You know, like, let's, you know, colonize the solar system and then m- we get round to it then. Um, there was a thing I-

   4. CBCarl Benjamin18:27

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson18:27

      ... it, it was, it was last year, uh, talking about how Mars needed to be decolonized. So, they were con-

   6. CBCarl Benjamin18:34

      But we haven't even colonized it yet (laughs) .

   7. CWChris Williamson18:37

      And that right there is the, is the punchline, that, um, they were concerned, there was a particular group, decolonizingmars.org, I think, or decolonizemars.org, they were concerned-

   8. CBCarl Benjamin18:48

      I haven't looked it up.

   9. CWChris Williamson18:49

      ... that colonial, colonial structures were going to be moved into new worlds, um, and it was obviously hilarious that we're talking about decolonizing a plan- a planet that we haven't even colonized yet.

   10. CBCarl Benjamin19:00

       Th- th- there was an article a few years ago, um, during Gamergate, from The Guardian, where they were speculating that Gamergate would arrive on Mars if we didn't do something about this-

   11. CWChris Williamson19:10

       (laughs)

   12. CBCarl Benjamin19:10

       ... uh, unchecked rampant populism. And, uh, uh, Elon Musk seems to be leading the charge on that, actually. So, you know, god- godspeed. Um, yeah, no, the, the, it's ridiculous, isn't it? Um, the, the, but the thing is, the, and I- I like the way you frame it, right? 'Cause you, you've got, like, look, there is a big wide solar system out there. A, I mean, we've got enough on the Earth that we haven't yet essentially conquered for mankind. Uh, but we've got this massive solar system out there, and all semantic games occupy the sort of realm of the intellectual, right? So, nothing physical changes with these semantic games. And so literally, as you say, we, we are just hit this wall, we've stopped. Now we're playing these semantic games on a level that doesn't really change the, the material reality we're on. You know, 'cause you can say anything you like, but at the end of the day, unless you take some action, unless something is accomplished, then we've traveled zero feet, you know, we've traveled zero distance.

   13. CWChris Williamson20:04

       None.

   14. CBCarl Benjamin20:04

       Uh, and yeah, and, and-

   15. CWChris Williamson20:05

       Are you familiar with, uh, Robin Hanson's Great Filter hypothesis? Do you know what this is?

   16. CBCarl Benjamin20:10

       I am not.

   17. CWChris Williamson20:11

       Okay, so, um, Robin Hanson is a very clever philosopher. He's postulated that the reason we don't see aliens, the f- the answer to the Fermi paradox is potentially that there is a great filter, a barrier that all civilizations need to get over before they can colonize galaxies. And-

   18. CBCarl Benjamin20:27

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson20:27

       ... it could be the, uh, beginning of life. It could be the presence of liquid water, it could be the move-

   20. CBCarl Benjamin20:32

       It could be feminism (laughs) .

   21. CWChris Williamson20:33

       It could be playing semantic fucking games if the reason that we don't become a galaxy colonizing civilization is 'cause we were playing semantic games. We didn't deserve to.

   22. CBCarl Benjamin20:43

       Yes, that's correct (laughs) . If, if feminists are preventing us from exploring the galaxy,

5. 20:48 – 30:12

   Carl’s Thoughts on Wall Street Bets

   1. CBCarl Benjamin20:48

      ah, we deserve it.

   2. CWChris Williamson20:49

      Yeah.

   3. CBCarl Benjamin20:49

      We deserve it.

   4. CWChris Williamson20:50

      Uh, what's your opinion on the madness of WallStreetBets and Wall Street at the moment?

   5. CBCarl Benjamin20:55

      Uh, it's, it's the same, the same kind of, um, phenomena as Gamergate, uh, where you have the, the, the vast collection of small people looking up at the giant institution and saying, "Well, why them and not me?" And then when they start making any kind of motions, the giant institution moves to protect its interests, which means breaking the rules and acting arbitrarily, uh, acting in a way that nobody really expected them to act. Um, like Robinhood ceasing the s- the buying of, uh, GME shares. Like, that's, I mean, that was just done purely to protect Robinhood as a company. It wasn't even to protect Wall Street, um, because they had this vulnerability because everything has limits, I suppose. But there's obviously, I think that there's probably, um, shenanigans going on behind the scenes at this point because I think they've realized, oh my god, this has actually, this has cost Wall Street in total something like $70 billion dollars. And that's massive, you know, for a bunch of idiots on Reddit who have just spent a few hundred bucks buying a couple of cheapo shares that are not really worth anything anyway. Uh, but it's, it's the will that's behind it that's important, isn't it? It's the oppositional will. And I think that essentially what the, I guess, w- I will generally characterize as the elite in any sphere of life, right? It could be politics, which is why we get Donald Trump. It could be Gamergate in video games, which is why Gamergate occurred. It could be, uh, in trading and stocks, which is why it's, you know, WallStreetBets and the GameStonks revolt. Um, and it, it, I've seen many people in other different, uh, walks of life in minor ways finding themselves diametrically opposed to the elite class. And the elite class essentially have to come to the table and admit that they have accrued more than is justifiable in some terms and in some ways. And this is not always money or anything like that. This is the, what, what, what we're talking about really is just the sort of abstract and almost indefinable, uh, or unquantifiable, uh, concept of power and influence. Um, the, the little guys feel that they don't have the influence they deserve, and that's probably true. And the big guys feel that the influence that they have accrued is being attacked and being taken from them, which is also true. Uh, but the question is, is there a justified rebalancing that can take place? And I think a consensual conversation about how these things could be made more fair is definitely preferable to the kind of civic war that we're going to see happening between groups of people within the same industries. And so far, this has not been handled well. So far, it has been a kind of social war, uh, between the various factions. And they don't end well. It costs everyone lots of money. It's lots of stress. People lose things, and it, it, it rarely turns out well, and it just bodes towards, uh, it- it's kind of a downward spiral, where these things, if they're not resolved to-... the general satisfaction, just continue to increase the pressure, so the next time the event is bigger and bigger. And this is why, like, G- GameGate I would say was probably about 50,000 people at its height, uh, which is actually really small for the video game industry. But, uh, when you, when you, you know, scaling this up to the WallStreetBets thing, you can tell that there's a lot of the same people who supported GameGate and various other sort of populist uprisings, like Trump, uh, who also support WallStreetBets, even though they're not the same people doing it and they're not interested in that sphere of life. Um, but the, the, you can see the pressure's ramping up and, like, the WallStreetBets thing has been huge. Uh, their subreddit was something like two, 2.8 million when it started, and now it's over six million, so it's like you can see the, the, just the graph shoot up in the number of people who are interested in this thing and who want to take part in pushing back against what they view, I think rightly, as a kind of ignorant, detached, and self-interested elite class. It's not new. All throughout history this has happened. It's been a common thing, and this is just the 21st century iteration of this. And so here we are.

   6. CWChris Williamson25:09

      But the difference is now that you've got the ability to coordinate so effectively.

   7. CBCarl Benjamin25:13

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CWChris Williamson25:14

      The proletariat can now gather en masse-

   9. CBCarl Benjamin25:17

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson25:17

       ... and they can do things instantly. And there's, no matter how big the hedge fund is, we've seen here power in numbers on the internet timed correctly with a little bit of manipulation of algorithms and s- enough understanding of what's going on and a lot of caffeine, like, you combine those things together and it's, and a subreddit... Like, do you think this is the sort of thing that's gonna end up with legislation being put in long term? Because this can continue to happen, this level of coordination.

   11. CBCarl Benjamin25:44

       It's, it's not even that it can continue to happen, it's that it's almost impossible to stop.

   12. CWChris Williamson25:48

       Correct.

   13. CBCarl Benjamin25:48

       Um, especially when you don't know that it's gonna happen. Like, the WallStreetBets thing, I'd never heard of WallStreetBets until about a week ago-

   14. CWChris Williamson25:54

       Oh, dude, dude.

   15. CBCarl Benjamin25:54

       ... you know, when this all-

   16. CWChris Williamson25:55

       I've been, I've been following them for around about a year. They are phenom-

   17. CBCarl Benjamin25:58

       Oh, yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson25:58

       They are phenomenal. They're so good.

   19. CBCarl Benjamin26:00

       Yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson26:00

       But that being said, I, I remember looking at it when it had 700K or so on the-

   21. CBCarl Benjamin26:06

       Yeah.

   22. CWChris Williamson26:06

       ... on the subreddit, and they were watching people lose their life savings on Apple. Like, one person had a legend. If you wanna go back and look at the best stuff, s- YouTube search dankest trades of WallStreetBets-

   23. CBCarl Benjamin26:18

       Right.

   24. CWChris Williamson26:18

       ... and they did a quarterly roundup of, like, the most mad shit. So these guys have been doing it for a very long time, but yeah, the-

   25. CBCarl Benjamin26:24

       Mm-hmm.

   26. CWChris Williamson26:24

       ... the legislation.

   27. CBCarl Benjamin26:26

       Oh, yeah. No, no. I, I, I, I, I understand they've been doing it for a while and whatnot, but it's just, um, when it becomes injected into the popular consciousness through this kind of event, you know, then it suddenly, uh, becomes a much bigger thing. I, I imagine that they probably will try to create some sort of legislation against this. But, uh, but the problem is, like, okay, you legislate against that thing, but the emotion and the impetus behind it hasn't gone away. It's like i- im- you, you know, if, if you've got a, a, a hose that you're piping water through at high pressure and the, uh, the hose springs a leak and you put your finger down on it, okay, but the pressure hasn't gone away, you're just artificially preventing that pressure from exhibiting at this point. And so, poof, it bursts up again somewhere else, and you gotta put another finger down, another finger, and until the entire thing'll split open because you've just got too many, uh, too many points on it that you're holding down. 'Cause the, the thing that is containing the pressure isn't suitable to contain the pressure, which is why you're getting these problems in the first place. And so what this requires is reform. You know, there's a demand for reform when these things happen, because it shows that there's a problem with the system, and every system that's built by mankind is gonna be f- flawed in some way. And over time, the problems that are created by those flaws build up until they're unacceptable and the system has to change. This is just the, the nature of human planning. Um, and it would, I think, be wiser for those people who currently benefit from the system to accept that that is a, an, an im- immutable reality of things that men build and roll with the punches rather than, uh, become authoritarian and start clamping down and, you know, legislate, "Ugh, ugh, we have to protect ourselves." 'Cause then, uh, I mean, it's not even, it's not even just that A, this isn't gonna work in the long run. It'll work in the short run, but it was not gonna l- work in the long run, and it might end up quite nastily in the long run. But, um, it's, it's not just that. It's, it shows that you aren't really, um, accountable and it shows that you aren't really interested in a good faith, uh, society. And that's the basis of civil society rather than, rather than any kind of, like, um, o- ancient or monarchical or oppressive society. What we have in the West is what we call a civil society, and that's a consensual society, a society into which we all enter and agree on a certain set of rules so we won't have designs on our neighbors and our neighbors won't have designs on us, and we'll be able to operate freely and consensually through voluntary interactions and inter- and transactions governed by fair laws, and we can all just get on with our lives. And that sounds really appealing, doesn't it? Uh, but as soon as you get an elite class that's like, "Actually no, you can't do these things that we can do. We've got rules that you don't have," then it becomes, right, so we've got an o- you know, an evil, an ill will that underpins this thing. And then it becomes uncomfortable because b- then people have got designs on what you have 'cause they don't think you have it fairly, 'cause you don't have it fairly. You got it by having a rule for you and a rule for them, and never the twain should meet, and so it's, it, it creates instability in the system. And when it gets to this point where you've just got a, an open public revolt that's just essentially burning money to hurt Wall Street, okay, you've gone, you've gone wrong. You've gone wrong. Something has been messed up. You need to come to the table, uh, you know, get, get the WallStreetBets guys to just elect, you know, representatives. Tell them, "Look, elect, like, five people that you guys can trust, you know, and then send them to our headquarters. We'll sit down. We'll live stream the debate and we'll live stream the, the negotiations so everyone can see. It's totally transparent and we'll, we'll, what do you want, what do we want, and we'll try and come to a compromise." And that way people could feel like they won. Both sides could feel like they won something. You know, the Wall Street guys would feel that they, they're not about... Like, they've got armed guards at the, the bull outside Wall Street now. It's like, look, look, if you need armed guards-

   28. CWChris Williamson29:59

       (laughs)

   29. CBCarl Benjamin29:59

       ... for just, you know, a private institution-

   30. CWChris Williamson30:01

       It's not working. It's not working.
6. 30:12 – 34:11

   The Power of the Individual

   1. CWChris Williamson30:12

      I had, um, I had Michael Malice on the show, uh, this week.

   2. CBCarl Benjamin30:14

      Oh, he's good, isn't he? Yeah, he's good.

   3. CWChris Williamson30:15

      He's phenomenal, yeah. And I asked him about anarchy and kinda how it works and what it means, and, uh-

   4. CBCarl Benjamin30:22

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson30:22

      ... fuck me if it doesn't explain a lot.... like, he was talking about when you see the powers that be take the gloves off, that's when you realize, actually they don't care about you. They'll give you the semblance of a piece of cheese for every time that you do a little trick-

   6. CBCarl Benjamin30:37

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson30:37

      ... up until the point at which you, you find a way around the, the cheese game and you manage to get the whole wheel, and then they'll come in with a hammer and hit you over the head. And-

   8. CBCarl Benjamin30:45

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson30:46

      ... as you said just there, it's not a long term viable strategy.

   10. CBCarl Benjamin30:50

       No.

   11. CWChris Williamson30:50

       If you decide to scale this over time, trust gets erased. You can, in one event, erase decades of trust with the people-

   12. CBCarl Benjamin30:59

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson30:59

       ... or with an industry, or with a community, or whatever. And, um, yeah, man, I...

   14. CBCarl Benjamin31:05

       And that- that's, that's bad. That's the- that's where, uh, a stable society starts becoming unstable. I mean, I'm not, I'm not an anarchist, but I can accept that that is a legitimate anarchist critique of a state and, you know, large scale systems. And it is a legitimate anarchist critique. Um, and so it needs to be, it needs to be spoken about. And one of, one of Michael Malice's strong points, I've, I've only watched a few, uh, live streams of him, like Tim Pool and Joe Rogan and things like this, um, but one of the things that he's really good at is identifying the will that underpins actions. You know, he's, he- and you- I- it took me a while to notice that why his critiques were so incisive, and it's because he's addressing this will that becomes self-evident when you actually look at the actors that are taking actions. You realize, yeah, this, you know, you don't do these things from a position of good faith, you know, you don't do that. And, uh, and he's really good at identifying that, I think.

   15. CWChris Williamson31:54

       That's why I love people that are bothered about the individual. Michael's very, very concerned about personal sovereignty and individual agency and upward mobility and stuff like that. But he has the broader spectre- spectrum understanding. So he can see the big picture, he can see that paradigm, but he's concerned with individual motivations. And when you realize that all that big stuff are aggregates of individual stuff, and you can get right to the root of it, you get, you get some, some really good insights. There's, uh, something I've been thinking about. Do you think-

   16. CBCarl Benjamin32:23

       But- but before we, before we go on to that-

   17. CWChris Williamson32:24

       Yeah, yeah.

   18. CBCarl Benjamin32:25

       ... I just wanna, uh, that you're absolutely right there. And I just wanna re- reinforce that by, by pointing out this is why the communist critiques of capitalism always fail, right? And this is why the, the modern communist critiques are especially bad, because they always approach it with, "Businesses are purely about making money." And that might be true if you were to abstract the concept of a business into a realm that is not connected to people. And in this abstract realm, you just look at the interests of the institution itself. But then you realize, well, as you say, you know, everything is actually individual action. And so when you look at the individuals involved, you realize they have ethical motivations, they have moral goals. They are not just these, like, soulless corporate lunatics. And we can see this in Silicon Valley, you know, they've, they've adopted a kind of ideology that gives them license to actually persecute some other kinds of ideological enemies that they've assigned. And so now it's really not about making money, you know, you could- you... Like Wa- um, YouTube with the ad-pocalypse and all of these other problems, like YouTube and the advertisers, if they were just concerned about money when the Wall Street Journal's like, "Oh my God, PewDiePie said, uh, a naughty word or made a joke about Nazis or something." They'd just shrug and go, "So what? So what? Our sales are up. Why do we care?" You know, but they didn't. They all reacted, "Oh no, that's terrible." Shut things down. And, you know, adv- advertisers pull out and it's like these are not business interests, you know, YouTube lost like, I don't know, 50, 70 billion, something like that. They lost billions of billions of dollars doing this. So if it was just purely about business interests, there's no way that would've been the case. And yet here we are and you can, you know, see like Susan Wojcicki, uh, you know, and listen to her in interviews, Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, they do have moral interests. And so it is wrong for the leftists to just, you know, separate those and say, "Right, never the twain meet." 'Cause it's not true.

7. 34:11 – 42:03

   Is JK Rowling Too Big to be Cancelled?

   1. CBCarl Benjamin34:11

      It's exactly your point.

   2. CWChris Williamson34:12

      Do you think that there's a common thread between the survival of Jordan Peterson when the, the Penguin Random House staff threatened to walk out over his new book, and then the Politico staff rebelled against Ben Shapiro writing their playbook, and then JK Rowling's book caused the uproar with Hachette last year? Is that lesson to learn that if you're big enough, you're immune from being canceled?

   3. CBCarl Benjamin34:32

      Um, yes. 'Cause while, while, um, while these businesses are not purely based on economic motivations, they still have economic motivations. Uh, and JK Rowling I think is the best example because she controls the rights to the Harry Potter franchise. She controls, uh, the sort of, um, the way that the franchise is represented. She controls the, uh, the es- the essential decision making capacity. And so the buck stops with her, and she makes the money from it. Um, which means she can't actually be canceled if anyone else wants to make any money off Harry Potter.

   4. CWChris Williamson35:02

      Oh, shit. So has that-

   5. CBCarl Benjamin35:03

      And-

   6. CWChris Williamson35:03

      ... she constructed her business to be like, "Universal Studios gotta come to me when they want to do a new theme park-"

   7. CBCarl Benjamin35:09

      Yes.

   8. CWChris Williamson35:09

      "... and the merchandising, and-"

   9. CBCarl Benjamin35:11

      Yes. And she, she gets to be able to sign off on, uh, the sort of, um, tenor and tone of the thing as well.

   10. CWChris Williamson35:16

       Holy shit.

   11. CBCarl Benjamin35:16

       You know, like does it fit with the mythos-

   12. CWChris Williamson35:19

       Holy shit.

   13. CBCarl Benjamin35:19

       ... uh, which gives her phenomenal power over the Harry Potter franchise, as I understand it. If I'm wrong, someone in the comments correct me. But I looked into this recently because I did a bit of a thing, uh, a few segments on them trying to cancel her. And they can't cancel her because if they cancel her, nobody gets any Harry Potter. And, I mean, probably billions of people want Harry Potter, you know, at le- hundreds of millions at the very least. Uh, you know, she's- she's probably, like, the most successful British author ever. So there's- there's just no canceling her because she holds this point of leverage and industries die if they don't get what she's providing. And so the- the- the activists on Twitter have been whining impotently, and, uh, it's been very amusing to watch, to be honest. And JK Rowling, for anyone who doesn't know, her high crime refers back to what we were talking about with the definition of woman. She made the argument that woman is adult human female, and if you get rid of that, you get rid of women's rights activism, which is not wrong. And this makes her a horrible TERF.

   14. CWChris Williamson36:18

       Do you not think that it's mad? You've got... JK Rowling was very much in the zeitgeist at the time, though. You know, she's current and doing stuff. Jordan Peterson had been in rehab for 18 months-Like, and-

   15. CBCarl Benjamin36:29

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson36:29

       ... and people had just taken this heritage of him. Again-

   17. CBCarl Benjamin36:33

       Mm-hmm.

   18. CWChris Williamson36:33

       ... Shapiro, like Ben, Ben does his thing. Like he's-

   19. CBCarl Benjamin36:36

       Yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson36:36

       ... out there talking about stuff. Jordan had been in Russia, tied to a bed, trying to, trying to sweat drugs out of his system.

   21. CBCarl Benjamin36:46

       Yeah. The... I think, um, well, J.K. Rowling is just the most obvious and easy example to pin down, right? Because you can see exactly the linchpin. When J.K. Rowling gives up the right to make editorial decisions about Harry Potter franchise, she's canceled, right? Um, but, uh, it's, it's not so easy with people like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro because their, their, um, their staying power is based on something a bit more, um, int- in- intangible. Uh, it's- it's respect, and influence, and sort of gravitas, uh-

   22. CWChris Williamson37:18

       And that can be manipulated with the right disinformation campaign.

   23. CBCarl Benjamin37:21

       Absolutely. Which I think is why The Times recently, uh, put out a lie about him being diagnosed with schizophrenia, an attempt to discredit him as an intellectual, as in his mind is somehow, you know, insecure and not, not... he's not sane or something like this. This wasn't true. Jon- Uh, Jordan Peterson released the full interview with The Times, I listened to it. He didn't say that he'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia. But ne-

   24. CWChris Williamson37:44

       I haven't see- I haven't seen that yet. What- what's the, what's the- the headline there?

   25. CBCarl Benjamin37:47

       Well, you- you can actually, you can actually go to lotus-eaters.com and we've got an article, uh, refuting-

   26. CWChris Williamson37:51

       Ah.

   27. CBCarl Benjamin37:52

       ... this on there. Because, um, yeah, it's just not true. The- The- The- The Times has claimed that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, he hasn't been. Uh, I don't know why that they're claiming this. But I can only assume that they're making up this outright lie in order to damage his public prestige as an intellectual, in order to discredit him within conservative circles, and wider, th- the wider sort of normie public, in order to essentially just get rid of him, because he doesn't agree with certain things, does he?

   28. CWChris Williamson38:17

       Fuck man, that makes me feel so uncomfortable, you know? Like that guy's-

   29. CBCarl Benjamin38:20

       Yeah, it's gross.

   30. CWChris Williamson38:20

       ... been through hell over the last-
8. 42:03 – 50:33

   Carl’s Views on Trump

   1. CBCarl Benjamin42:03

      we? (laughs)

   2. CWChris Williamson42:03

      We're fucked as a world. Do you think, uh-

   3. CBCarl Benjamin42:05

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson42:05

      ... Trump is gonna go away now? Or is there any chance that he's gonna run in 2024? What's your ideas around this?

   5. CBCarl Benjamin42:12

      I have no idea. And I don't, I don't dare make any predictions because all predictions are aging very badly at the moment. Uh, I mean, is... can you think of a single person who has made a good prediction in the last five years? Like I can't think of one.

   6. CWChris Williamson42:25

      No, man, I mean, uh, Morgan Housel who's a financial expert tweeted at the start-

   7. CBCarl Benjamin42:29

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CWChris Williamson42:29

      ... of last year saying about how much time people had spent analyzing the 2010 until 2019 decade of trading and extrapolating out all of the different charts for the coronavirus to come in and just totally sideswipe everything-

   9. CBCarl Benjamin42:44

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson42:44

       ... that they'd done.

   11. CBCarl Benjamin42:45

       Yeah, that's the thing. Like, uh, the, the political environment is very unstable at the moment, uh, so I, I daren't predict. But I wouldn't be surprised if, in 2024, he runs again. Uh, I expect that he will, and I think he would be a, a powerful force if he did. Um, less powerful now that he's been deplatformed from every Silicon Valley platform, um, and that's what the Silicon Valley cartel know, they know that this has reach and influence and power. Um, so really if I were Donald Trump and I were thinking about it, I would choose an alternative social media network and make that the network that I used. Uh, And then you can get probably hundreds of millions of people to at least look at it occasionally, uh, if not join it and actively participate. But I mean, the, the social media alternatives, Parler was doing fantastically well until they got deplatformed. Uh, and Gab is also doing fantastically well, and they can't be deplatformed 'cause as I, as I understand it, Gab are responsible for their own infrastructure, although I've been told that's not entirely correct. So I'm, I'm not sure about the details really. But, uh, but basically Andrew Torba who runs Gab has been deplatformed in the same way that Parler was, and so he is, uh, protected against that. They can't do that twice. Uh, and so Trump should choose a platform that Silicon Valley can't deplatform and get to work. He's got a few years if he wants to do it, he's, he can do this. You know, he's got the money, he's got the time, he's got, uh, the political capital to do it as well. Especially as the MAGA, the MAGA base, um, generally don't feel that this was legitimate. They think that this was a stolen election, whether you agree with them or not. Um, so if Trump, uh, starts getting back into the action, uh, I think that he'll do very well. The thing is, it'll, it also might be a wise, um, political move to actually let the situation breathe for a while, right? Because what Joe Biden is doing at the moment makes him, by his own standards, kind of look like a dictator. Uh, he was the one criticizing excessive use of executive orders, and then 30 of them plus in his first week, and it's like, "Okay, what are you doing?" You know? And the radical, radical changes, you know, bringing s- uh, critical race theory training, uh, all, you know, all of the changes to the military, the transgenderism and things like this. And it's like, okay, the- these are, these are sweeping changes that Biden is making, and they're not good changes. They're not, they're not changes that the general public actually endorses. You know, how many, how many of the general public want frontline female soldiers? Probably not that many of them. (laughs) You know, it's, it's very much the sort of progressive wing of their party that's driving the agenda, and Biden's just leaping, you know, both feet in, you know, he just doesn't seem to care about any, any objections now. And so it's like, right, okay, let him govern badly, you know, let, l-

   12. CWChris Williamson45:27

       Give him enough, give him enough rope.

   13. CBCarl Benjamin45:30

       Exactly, give him enough rope. So if, if, if Tr- I, I mean, if Trump waits like six months or a year before getting, like, fully engaged back into politics, uh, then he might find himself with, uh, a, a very weak opposition where they've overextended. You know, they've tried to impeach him, which I don't think is gonna work, 'cause I don't think they're gonna get the votes. And so that will be a waste of their own political capital, it'll give people like AOC time to sort of march around on the fields of victory and be really insufferable, and put a lot of people's backs up just by the way that they operate, and I think that's happening. Um, and it'll ... th- the Republicans have kind of been routed after the Capitol riots, uh, and so they... give them time to sort of regroup, allow Biden to ruin things, and then come back in a big storm and hopefully, uh, take it. But, uh, but again, not a prediction, just a kind of fantasy of what I think could happen.

   14. CWChris Williamson46:19

       Dude-

   15. CBCarl Benjamin46:20

       So, yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson46:20

       ... one thing that Malice said which really, really struck a chord with me is, people thought that Trump was the river when in fact he was the dam.

   17. CBCarl Benjamin46:30

       Mm.

   18. CWChris Williamson46:30

       A lot of right-leaning Americans felt like they were being represented by Trump, and look what-

   19. CBCarl Benjamin46:38

       Mm-hmm.

   20. CWChris Williamson46:38

       ... happens when you take away that dam. They no longer have anybody that's speaking for them. They-

   21. CBCarl Benjamin46:43

       Yeah.

   22. CWChris Williamson46:43

       ... no longer have anyone that they feel is representing them, so fuck it, insurrection.

   23. CBCarl Benjamin46:49

       I th- uh, there, there is definitely a strong undercurrent of the republic is over in a lot of the Republican circles now, um, which is not good. You know, it's not good at all. (laughs)

   24. CWChris Williamson47:00

       And the, and the most powerful country with the most nukes in the world.

   25. CBCarl Benjamin47:04

       Yeah, I'm, I'm not too worried about that, um, but what it is, is if, if America becomes consumed with its own internal disputes, then people like China and Russia are always watching from the margins and seeking t- I mean, China's already been violating Taiwanese airspace and things like this, right? Okay, this has not taken long. Uh, Joe Biden is not gonna have a firm hand with China like Trump did, uh, and it, uh, that will not be to the benefit of the United States. Um, and you, I think you, I think you're really right about the dam thing. Trump, Trump really seemed to have been holding back a lot of, uh, initiatives that really seem to have a negative intention towards the average American person, uh, in favor of fringe activist groups who have been making their voices very well heard but don't represent a very sizable constituency, even necessarily of the minorities they claim to represent. Uh, like for example, feminists, like, very few women are actually feminists, like, less than 10% of women self-identify as a feminist. Uh, and whereas 80% of women will say, "Well yeah, I think there should be equality between men and women," so the overwhelming majority agree with the basic feminist premise, but they won't identify as feminists 'cause they don't want to join the activist group because they can see that this is the, you know, the man-hating lunatics, right? And so, uh, the, Biden is catering to these fringe internet activists with everything, and so, like, let it, you know, let it go. It'll, it'll be insufferable, but, um, you'll, when, when, when this has gone on for enough time, I...... hopefully someone from the Republicans who is capable and competent and decent will come along. Uh, I've noticed that they're really going hard on a senator called Josh Hawley at the moment because he wanted to represent his constituents' concerns about the lack of apparent transparency and their belief in the invalidity of the election and the electoral process. And he is being treated as if he led some sort of armed insurrection into the Capitol, which he didn't. He was in there giving his testimony when the event occurred. So, the fact that they're treating him as if he was leading it is very interesting to me, and he hasn't backed down on this either. He got deplatformed from his book and he hasn't backed down. And so I'm- I'm thinking someone like him is probably if... 'Cause, you know, Trump- Trump's gonna be in his late 70s by 2024, and as vital as Trump is, as energetic as Trump is, that is old, you know, and it is a very stressful job and et cetera. Uh, but Josh Hawley looks like he's in his 40s, um, th- the right kind of age to start pushing forward with this kind of... If- if... I mean, he might not be that way inclined. He might be a Wall Street guy, you know, he might have been bought off, he might not be a populist in any way. But that's not the impression I've got from him, actually. He seems to be interested in representing the sort of rural working class and the rural interests, um, and someone like that is definitely necessary for the American political system if it wants to survive, I think. I think if one side is just not represented, and one of the things you notice about the Democrats is they are going hard on their Republican opponents. They are- they are ess- trying to extirpate them as much as possible, and that's the exact wrong maneuver to take if you think you're a legitimate winner. You don't want to punish the opposition for losing, you know, that's not what a democratic system's meant to be. But instead, they're acting like they didn't win. You know, they're acting like they've done something wrong, they're acting like they've got guilty consciences. And, uh, and yeah, I don't- I don't think it's sustainable. I think they'll overreach.

9. 50:33 – 1:02:19

   Is the American Republic Dying?

   1. CBCarl Benjamin50:33

   2. CWChris Williamson50:33

      One of the things I've noticed is a change in the attitude towards American national pride.

   3. CBCarl Benjamin50:37

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson50:37

      But I can't tell if this is actually happening at a cultural level 'cause all my information around gets filtered through their media, obviously.

   5. CBCarl Benjamin50:43

      Yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson50:43

      But it definitely seems to be a lot less about like the Star-Spangled Banner and pledging allegiance than it used to be. Is someone killing American national pride?

   7. CBCarl Benjamin50:51

      Oh, absolutely. It's the left, and it's been a coordinated effort for at least the last two decades. And honestly, I- I remember back in about 2001, in fact, that I was kind of a part of it without knowing it. Um, when- when the Twin Towers had been, uh, blown up, uh, or crashed planes into, collapsed, um, there was this distinct feeling that this was unacceptable American nationalism when George Bush was there on the ruins with an American flag and people chanting, "USA," right? There was a- there was a distinct feeling, uh, on the left that this was scary and this was going to lead to fascism. This was going to be... And don't get me wrong, I don't approve of any of the consequences of 9/11 (laughs) or 9/11 itself. Uh, I didn't support the invasion of Europe- of Iraq or anything like that, um, and there- there were obviously terrible consequences from that. But, um, but I think this has been... That was the flashpoint that started the left on a- a sort of conscious attempt to undermine American patriotism. And, uh, and I think that that has been successful. I think that much of the left now openly admit that they hate America, they think it's an imperialist, white supremacist power, and that capitalism is inherently, uh, a racist structure that's designed to oppress people. And the communists who have been pushing this view of the world have been very, very successful in planting the seeds in the left and destroying the patriotic left, the sort of, you know, the sort of working class left who actually like America and just want the rich to give them a bit of the pie. Uh, th- those people have been totally marginalized, and now it's whites versus Blacks or, you know, straights versus gays and all this. So now it doesn't really reflect actually what's happening because I don't agree that there's a race war going on, I don't agree that there's a gender war going on. You know, I don't agree that straight people are waging war against gay people and trying to keep them down. That's just not my experience of life. And maybe I'm talking from a position of privilege being a straight white man. Uh, but the only- the only gender or race war or like sexuality war that I see is being waged by the left, you know? So I think, uh, I think the left have done this quite self-consciously in many ways.

   8. CWChris Williamson52:58

      I think in the UK, we're already used to kind of British national pride being seen as- seen as the realm of racists and working-

   9. CBCarl Benjamin53:05

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson53:05

       ... class thugs, right? Like hanging a flag up is the sort of thing-

   11. CBCarl Benjamin53:07

       Yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson53:07

       ... that the community watch ring the council about and you get people-

   13. CBCarl Benjamin53:10

       Oh, absolutely. Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson53:11

       ... you get people round to your house. I wonder if America will end up like that. I fear not. I don't think that they will. I think that it's too strong, that patriotism. It's been very, very, very ingrained-

   15. CBCarl Benjamin53:21

       Mm-hmm.

   16. CWChris Williamson53:21

       ... but the left do definitely seem like they're making a good job of trying to deconstruct that.

   17. CBCarl Benjamin53:26

       Yeah, I mean, th- they're very good at playing the long game. So in- in 2001, it didn't look like there was any possibility of demolishing American patriotism, but here we are going, "Well, God, are the Americans even gonna be patriotic next year?" You know? So it, and it's only been 20 years, so it doesn't take that long. It doesn't take that long in the grand scheme of things. Uh, and you're right, obviously over here, it's gross how unpatriotic we're allowed to be. This is why I've got the flag behind me. I'm not naturally a flag-flying guy. Like this, you know, it's not something that I would naturally do, but in the current circumstances, given the current context, oh yeah, we're having a British flag, you know? (laughs) And, uh, and if we get told off for that, an English flag goes up as well, if that's what they want, you know? I'm not- I'm- I'm not backing down on this, you know? (laughs) I- I bought an English flag a while ago for the first time ever and I was like, "Okay, what do I do with it now?" (laughs)

   18. CWChris Williamson54:11

       (laughs)

   19. CBCarl Benjamin54:11

       Like, you know, do I go and fly this outside of my house? Is that gonna be imposing on the neighbors? I don't know. But, uh, but I bought it just so I had it because I'm sick of the genuinely anti-patriotic feeling that the left is pumping out, and it's because they're essentially communist now, socialist or communist, which is essentially a synonym. Um, and they- they view, uh, national pride as a form of false consciousness! They- they view national pride as a barrier to communism, which it is, uh, which is why we should support and uphold it, which is why you should get a flag.

   20. CWChris Williamson54:41

       (laughs) Yeah, fair point. It's- it is bizarre, like you go through... You go to gyms, go to a CrossFit gym in- in America and you'll see hanging from the ceiling there'll be...... US Marine, Navy Corps.

   21. CBCarl Benjamin54:54

       Mm-hmm.

   22. CWChris Williamson54:55

       There'll be the reds, white, and blue, Star Spangled Banner, and there'll be, like, some other stuff as well. And you just think like there's such a, at least this was three years ago, might have changed now.

   23. CBCarl Benjamin55:04

       Yeah.

   24. CWChris Williamson55:05

       Um, it just felt like there's such a cohesive, I was, I actually got quite jealous. I had like-

   25. CBCarl Benjamin55:09

       Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson55:10

       ... um, country jealousy in a way, where I was like, "Man, I've never..." Have you ever heard anyone say, "I am proud to be a British citizen." Like, "I'm proud to be British." You know? Like, saying the sentence, "I'm proud to be British," sounds like it's something that comes out of that Muslim Ray Gangz, uh, video from a few years ago.

   27. CBCarl Benjamin55:29

       Two- two- two- two places, right? Uh, none of th- neither of them in Britain.

   28. CWChris Williamson55:34

       (laughs)

   29. CBCarl Benjamin55:34

       Uh, the first one, the fi- the first one was-

   30. CWChris Williamson55:36

       It's not Hong Kong, is it?
10. 1:02:19 – 1:03:26

    Where to Find Carl

    1. CWChris Williamson1:02:19

       on again.

    2. CBCarl Benjamin1:02:19

       Yeah. My pleasure.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:02:19

       If people want to check out more of your stuff, where should they go?

    4. CBCarl Benjamin1:02:22

       Go to looseseeds.com.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:02:23

       Perfect. Man-

    6. CBCarl Benjamin1:02:24

       Got lots of stuff there.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:02:25

       ... Karl, thank you. And, uh, dude, keep up the gym work. Such an-

    8. CBCarl Benjamin1:02:29

       Thank you, yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:02:29

       Such a pleasure watching the- the weight loss journey over the last year.

    10. CBCarl Benjamin1:02:33

        Thank you. Yeah, I've been- I- I- I- very quickly, I- I basically ... one of the reasons I set up the office, right, and it- it's an inc- entirely selfish reason, is because I wanted it to be about half an hour away from my house. So, I've got- I've got a bike and I'm just every day riding half an hour and back, to- to work and back. And yeah, I'm- I'm feeling great, you know. I'm- I'm much more fit than I've ever been. I've- we've got a- a weight spa so I've been doing pull-ups and stuff. And yeah, so, um, I'm quite pleased with how things are going, for- for a man in his 40s I'm feeling pretty good about things.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:02:59

        It is snowing outside, mate. So if you're gonna-

    12. CBCarl Benjamin1:03:01

        Oh, is it? Oh, maybe in Newcastle. (laughs)

    13. CWChris Williamson1:03:03

        It might... Oh, yeah, it's always snowing here in Winterfell, isn't it?

    14. CBCarl Benjamin1:03:05

        Yeah, yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:03:05

        Anyway, man, safe journey home.

    16. CBCarl Benjamin1:03:07

        Thanks a lot.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:03:07

        Thank you very much for coming on.

    18. CBCarl Benjamin1:03:09

        Cheers, man. Bye.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:03:11

        No offense. Yeah. Oh, what. Yeah. No offense.

Episode duration: 1:03:26