Michael Malice - Connecting The Dots Of Chaos | Modern Wisdom Podcast 277

1. 0:00 – 0:54

   Intro

   1. MMMichael Malice0:00

      This is something that I stress a lot with people who are followers of mine. They're like, "Look at all these people who are mindless." And I'm like, "How are these mindless people a threat to you? They're like trees." Are you like, "Well, we can't win because there's all these trees"? It's like, what does that have to do with anything? Like any population, an enormous percentage of it is going to be with people who really are, in a very fundamental way, mindless, who have no kind of inner voice, who are opposed or incapable of thinking critically. The average man does not want to be free, he simply wants to be safe. (wind blowing) (laughs) What, what do you mean?

   2. CWChris Williamson0:34

      You've been trying to copy me.

   3. MMMichael Malice0:35

      What, what you ... Yeah, 'cause ... Not copy you, but, like, you, you say words in a unique way.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:42

      Russia.

   5. MMMichael Malice0:43

      Um, Russia, yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson0:44

      (laughs) It's the word, Russia. That's it.

   7. MMMichael Malice0:47

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson0:49

      Man, it is what it is. How are you today? You good?

   9. MMMichael Malice0:52

      I'm very good.

   10. CWChris Williamson0:53

       Yeah, man.

2. 0:54 – 4:11

   Michael’s Political Principles

   1. CWChris Williamson0:54

      I'm excited to have you here. I want to try and get a proper understanding of your political position. We're going away to Russia later this year-

   2. MMMichael Malice1:02

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson1:03

      ... later this year, and I feel like I need, I need to kind of really get my, get my teeth stuck into what you believe. So what are the principles of your political position?

   4. MMMichael Malice1:14

      Um, well, one of the principles is that you don't need to get into what I believe, because I think it's a very, um, insidious concept that we have to be friends with people who agree with us or, or to discuss politics at all. There's this concept that, you know, politics have to permeate every aspect of every person's life, and, you know, they have to constantly be discussed, and that's something I'm completely opposed to. I think it's, it's really a horrible idea. Uh, and it's tribalism, which I'm not entirely opposed to, at, at its worst. Uh, if, you know, if someone is, uh ... If you're having an emergency at home, you know, you don't quickly run a scan. "Oh, well, I want to call this person, but they voted the wrong way," or something like that. So, uh, my political views, and, and you're referring to anarchism, it's simply being against politics as a mechanism of resolving disputes. And, you know, everything just follows as a consequence of that. Um, it's ... I, I mean, I ... We can unpack it, but that's basically it in a nutshell.

   5. CWChris Williamson2:18

      Is that a typical perspective on anarchism?

   6. MMMichael Malice2:23

      Uh, I don't know if there is a typical perspective. There's different schools of anarchism. There's like a ... I think it's, there's an anarchist lapel pins, um, website, and they have the, the, the standard flag of anarchism is the black flag, but there's black and red, black and gold, black and pink, black and blue. Uh, so all the different schools of anarchism, so ... And they disagree very heavily, uh, but it's going to be a Venn diagram.

   7. CWChris Williamson2:49

      Yeah, I understand. I mean, the main reason ... I wasn't necessarily trying to agree, but I'm curious. I'm interested. I don't see many people saying that they're anarchists in 2021. So what, what, why do you find it compelling? What's interesting about it?

   8. MMMichael Malice3:04

      Well, I think it closely explains the, what we're seeing in politics. I think it's an effective predictor of future, uh, social-political behavior. Um, I think it's the only worldview that allows someone to have a clean conscience with what they advocate, uh, politically. And I, I think that's just basically what it, uh, comes down to. I also want to point out that anyone who has a radical philosophy, you know, is going to come off as either a moron or a lunatic. You know, if you told me that you had a friend who's quite tall, and I said, "How tall?" and you said, you know, he's 6'10" or whatever, 2.1 meters, it's like, okay, that's pretty tall. But if you said that they're, you know, 10 meters tall or they're purple tall, it's nonsensical, right? So, at a certain point, once an ideology is so divorced from what is presented as, you know, part of the normal realm of discourse, uh, people will automatically, you know, preemptively dismiss it, although that's decreasingly the case.

3. 4:11 – 9:28

   Transitioning into Anarchy

   1. MMMichael Malice4:11

   2. CWChris Williamson4:11

      How do you transition from a situation where we are now to one where there's ever anarchy at large?You, by definition, you can't have an anarchist party.

   3. MMMichael Malice4:22

      Well, sure, you can. They have had them in the past. I mean, they could just be there to kind of, uh, gin up the works and, and, you know, cause ... Uh, anarchism just means voluntary association. Now, anarchists are opposed to political activity, but you can certainly say, like, "Look, uh, you know, I'm opposed to war, but I'm go- ... This is a case where it's a self-defense situation." So there's the argument to be made for that with things like voting. Um, I'm sorry, what was the start of the question?

   4. CWChris Williamson4:49

      (laughs) Trying to work out how you transition.

   5. MMMichael Malice4:52

      Oh, how you get there. Yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson4:53

      Yeah.

   7. MMMichael Malice4:53

      So anarchism isn't a location, it's a relationship. And the vast, um, proportion of our lives, especially in the West, are anarchist. Uh, you and I have an anarchist relationship. There's no position, possibility we're calling the police. Uh, if there was some kind of even ... We were somewhere together and we got violent, we're still not calling the state. Uh, if we were at a bar, you know, I'd get kicked out or you'd get kicked out. So this claim that all kind of, um, peace and prosperity is a function of the state is really, from the anarchist perspective, akin to saying, "Well, if it wasn't for all these exorcists, we'd all be possessed." Uh, the norm between human beings is, uh, peace. Uh, not on a large scale, 'cause that's a function of governments. Governments give war. Um, but we generally tend to be more peaceful than not, for the simple reason, not 'cause people are h- are basically good, but because violence is expensive. Because once there's violence in a situation, then other people who aren't at all associated ... You see this at bar fights. Like people jump in to try to quash it, because people understand very easily that these things tend to escalate, and then it becomes very expensive to everyone, it's asymmetrical. Let's put a stop to it, you know, right quick. Um, so how do you get there? Well, there's certain mechanisms. It's delegitimizing the state. It's encouraging, um, aggression, not, not violent aggression, but just-... interpersonal aggression and hostility towards agents of the state. It's casting, um, aspersions upon democracy and democratic process, and it's not a numbers game. So, uh, you know, a lot of people think, "Well, you're never getting a majority to agree with you." But you're only, your win condition of having a majority is based on democracy. Other systems do not base their win condition on having a majority of people agree with me, and, and they, once every four years, go into a ballot box and flick a switch.

   8. CWChris Williamson6:39

      It seems like at a small level, at an interpersonal level, individual, me and you, we do have quite a, an anarchist relationship.

   9. MMMichael Malice6:48

      Right.

   10. CWChris Williamson6:48

       But as you say, when you scale that up, is it, is it realistic that you can allow an entire 330 million person country to exist like that?

   11. MMMichael Malice6:58

       Well, you wouldn't need, it's not a c- it wouldn't be a country at that point, but let me give you an, an example of how this is already a status quo. Um, every country is in a state of anarchy towards every other country, right? So if a Canadian kills a, an American in Mexico, I don't know what happens, you don't know what happens, but we know that there's a process put in place. So if security was private, where it would be a function of your cellphone instead of your geography, you know, if I attacked you on the p- I have one security firm, you have another one, and we're at someone else's domicile, what would the situation be? We don't know, but we know it would be resolved in advance without the consumer having to work it out for the simple reason that if I'm on one phone company and you're on another, it works out and we have no idea what happened behind the scenes. If their goal is to provide security and, you know, generate profit at, at that, they're going to make it as easy for the users as possible, as opposed to governments who generate funding and generate revenue as a function of creating problems and creating stress and having that as an excuse to raise taxes and, uh, seize more assets from the populous.

   12. CWChris Williamson8:04

       Does anarchism need capitalism in order to facilitate that then?

   13. MMMichael Malice8:11

       No. Um, the original anarchists, uh, were violently anti-capitalist, um, and they viewed capitalism, you know, in a sense, more similar to what we would call nowadays corporatism. Uh, and their analysis of this is spot on. Uh, 2020 we saw the systemic destruction of medium and small businesses that was cheered on by corporate America, both with riots and looting here in the States and also the COVID lockdowns. It did wonders for companies like Amazon or Walmart. Uh, all the little stores here in New York that I'm a fan of, they went out of business because they couldn't sustain it. So what, uh, the original anarchist people, like Emma Goldman and, and, uh, even before her, Bakunin, and, and people like that, Kropotkin, what they were concerned about is this collusion between large business and the state. And in that regard, they are spot on that this is the worst of all, uh, um, well not the worst of all worlds, but it's, it's pretty darn bad.

   14. CWChris Williamson9:02

       And by getting rid of the state, you can get rid of that collusion?

   15. MMMichael Malice9:07

       Right. Because you're, you're not going to have a monopoly without the government forcing everyone to be a, uh, um, subscriber to that product. You have the, uh, what governments do in every industry is create barriers to entry for smaller companies because those offer competition to the large dinosaurs that have effectively seized large parts of the market in the

4. 9:28 – 13:43

   Are Antifa Anarchists?

   1. MMMichael Malice9:28

      past.

   2. CWChris Williamson9:29

      I had Andy Ngo on the show last week, and he was talking about-

   3. MMMichael Malice9:32

      You had who, I'm sorry?

   4. CWChris Williamson9:33

      Andy Ngo.

   5. MMMichael Malice9:34

      Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson9:35

      Uh, and he said that ANTIFA identify as anarcho-communists and revolutionary Marxists. How close or far is this from the purity of a normal anarchist?

   7. MMMichael Malice9:47

      Um, it's closer than, it's pretty f- darn close. A lot of, you know, ancaps, anarcho-capitalists think ANTIFA doesn't have a right to call themselves anarchists, and, and they certainly do. The early anarchists were very, especially in the UK, uh, the term in the UK, it was synonymous with terrorist. Uh, this is why the Sex Pistols song, you know, um, ah, Anarchy in the UK was so shocking, because there, he's, s- Johnny Rotten is explicitly saying, "I want to destroy passersby." It was this, and they were also called nihilists at the time. This was an ideology where we're going to have violent revolution, we're going to, you know, blow up businesses or, or businesspeople and assassinate. So there is this very long history, for better or for worse, um, with the black flag, uh, that, um, ANTIFA is, uh, regards itself in some regards as, in some senses and, as an heir to.

   8. CWChris Williamson10:34

      Does that not make it difficult to try and get people on board with, though, if the thin end of the wedge, like the front end of the funnel is rioting and looting and violence and black flags and black bloc? Like, that doesn't seem like a very fun world for me to step into.

   9. MMMichael Malice10:52

      I am disturbed by how much of a recruiting tool that has now become, um, in America, because the degree to which people have become comfortable with violence towards state actors and, uh, people who they regard as opposed to them is happening at a s- astronomical pace. Uh, when the Capitol was stormed couple of weeks ago, uh, the ri- the protestors or rioters, whatever you want to call them, they put up a gallows in front of Capitol Hill, and I think there is an enormous sense, especially with these lockdowns, an enormous sense of people becoming comfortable with the idea of doing very bad things. And I'm extremely concerned about this, uh, because violence follows its own logic. Uh, it's not the kind of thing where y- you know, if you just shoot the king, everything resolves itself. Once you start going down that road, you h- no one has any idea where it's gonna end up other than what you are guaranteed of is more oppression, more violence, innocent people being hurt, uh, and it's, it's really something o- of enormous concern to me, uh, in the beginning of 2021. Yeah, because there is this attempt by the corporate media here to kind of sweep it under the rug, and when you have a population that's become comfortable with the idea of violence and they're kind of ignored, A, they're going to be able to do it and no one's going to see it coming, and B, they're going to be encouraged to do it because now they feel that they've been made invisible with nothing to lose.

   10. CWChris Williamson12:21

       Didn't you say at the very beginning, though, that...... being averse to state actors was part of the anarchists' agenda?

   11. MMMichael Malice12:30

       Yeah, but averse doesn't mean like shooting people in the head. It means contempt, it means do not regard the cops as heroes, uh, I was on Tim Pool not that long ago with Alex Jones, and, uh, one of my favorite Britishisms is, uh, they call the cops the filth. Uh, in fact, one of, this is actually a funny story, I was on the BBC radio, like, this would've been 15 years ago, and I always thought, and maybe I'm wrong, that the British are a lot more culturally liberal than the States, that we're all more fuddy-duddies here, maybe this was a misconception, and the interviewer said, "Oh, Michael, you know, in this b- this blog you have, you guys take a lot of shots at the cops." And I said, "Well, it's like my dad..." I was, I was an immigrant from the Soviet Union, Russia, I said-

   12. CWChris Williamson13:18

       (laughs)

   13. MMMichael Malice13:18

       ... "My dad always told me..." And I said this innocently, you know, 'cause I thought, "This is Europe, they're going to have the same perspective as the Ru- as the Russian perspective." I s- my dad always told me, "Wherever you go, wherever you end up in the world, the stupidest people are alwa- always the cops." The guy audibly gasped and he said, "Michael, this is a family show." And changed the subject, and I was very surprised to see that, um, uh, having been the case. But that's the kind of thing I'm talking

5. 13:43 – 23:41

   Reacting to the Capitol Riots

   1. MMMichael Malice13:43

      about.

   2. CWChris Williamson13:43

      So, Carl Benjamin says this, and I totally agree with him, that the British are very procedural.

   3. MMMichael Malice13:50

      Okay.

   4. CWChris Williamson13:50

      Like if you look at the, uh, there was those scenes at the Capitol Hill riots where the rioters had broken into the Capitol, but as they were walking through one of the main halls or atriums, had stayed inside of the ropes.

   5. MMMichael Malice14:02

      Yes.

   6. CWChris Williamson14:02

      Um, that is so British. That is precisely the sort of thing that a British person would do. Uh, you know, they'd, they'd, uh, make sure... I saw a guy the other day who was outside of a butcher's shop, this was before lockdown, and he was, he had gloves on, mask on, smoking. Gloves on, mask on, smoking-

   7. MMMichael Malice14:23

      (laughs) Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson14:23

      ... outside of it. Very procedural in the way that we go about things, and, um, perhaps that's contributed to it a little bit, because obviously, the police are basically the enforcement of the procedure.

   9. MMMichael Malice14:34

      Right.

   10. CWChris Williamson14:35

       What about... So, you, you mentioned about the Capitol Hill and, and the other riots that we've seen over the last year. Do you look on that and see it as a misuse of your particular political ideology?

   11. MMMichael Malice14:49

       Oh, no. I think whenever you have politicians hiding in fear, uh, as the way they had the rest of us hiding in fear f- in their own, locked in their own homes for a year, uh, the imagery there cannot ever be unseen. Uh, everyone's gonna stand there and tell you how strong the regime is and how powerful it is, and when you have 20 people who can just walk into the Capitol, including a guy from Burning Man, I think literally he was a Burning Man person, this demonstrates that, for better or for worse, uh, this is not a system that is going to be able to protect you. And that is the big selling point of the state, it's that, "You give up your choices and we're gonna keep you safe." Uh, Big Brother is watching, I know they have that, those signs un-ironically in London, and it's like, well, they're, they're lying to you, so if they can't even keep these, you know, D-list barbarians out from their, you know, sacred temple, they're not going to be able to protect you, and this is gonna cause a lot of people to recalibrate or, o- uh, uh, their view of the state and, uh, the state authorities.

   12. CWChris Williamson15:51

       So, you see people break into the Capitol Building or t- take downtown, uh, Portland or create another Capitol Hill autonomous zone, how do you stop people from losing so much faith in society as a whole that they become nihilistic? Even if they don't necessarily subscribe to the anarchist movement, could just think, "Oh, god, like, I had all of my faith in the state and now what have I got left to support me?"

   13. MMMichael Malice16:20

       Well, that's the goal, is to have them to lose all faith in the state. Now, if there's people whose entire sense of identity was faith in the state and now they feel lost, I can't help you, you're not one of my people. Uh, I think both of those positions are untenable and, and kind of sad. Um, but I think once you, you know, it's like everyone leaving home, it's like once you realize that this is all a sham, this is enormously liberating, because now you're either free to, or in a negative sense, are forced to confront your own destiny and confront your own choices. Um, this is one of the things that drove people crazy about, you know, uh, the- these masks, they're being told, "This is giving you a sense, if you follow orders, you're gonna be safe." It doesn't matter what the efficacy is, what matters is, "I get to be obedient and in turn I'm being guaranteed that my life isn't in danger." It- it's, it's nonsensical, um, but that's where we are.

   14. CWChris Williamson17:16

       Is there a valley of despair that newly indoctrinated anarchists tend to slip into? There must be a point at which you go, "Right, okay, all of the old rules are gone and none of the new rules and the new, um, freedoms, liberties that must come along with being an anarchist have, uh, they haven't arrived yet."

   15. MMMichael Malice17:36

       Well, yeah, but that's not exclusive to anarchism, that's the, the, the danger of cynicism, right? Once you realize, you know, you've been lied to all your life and it... Not mistakes, systemically lied to, there's the danger of getting into this stupid Catcher in the Rye mindset, everyone's a phony, this all sucks, I'm gonna listen to, you know, The Cure, uh, write in my diary with fingerless gloves. So, my goal is to kind of speak to those people and be like, y- like slap 'em upside the head metaphorically, and be like, "You're being silly. Uh, this is teenage, you know, nonsense, and now is your opportunity to be an adult and make your mark on the world, or just find your bliss."

   16. CWChris Williamson18:17

       Given that the Capitol Hill riots have been probably, i- it managed to beat even the election and COVID in terms of news coverage over a short period of time, what do you think people should have taken away from that?

   17. MMMichael Malice18:33

       ... that there is ... That Trump was the ... They thought Trump was the river, but he was the dam. They thought Trump was the source of all this kind of, um, uh, um, all the things that they hated. And that once you get, like he's in, I've used this metaphor before, he's like the head vampire. Once you get rid of the head vampire, all the other vampires dissolve and you can return to what you perceive as normal. There's not going to be a return. Um, you, uh, the enemy class will never have this absolute power that they had before, or even anywhere near it. Uh, increasingly people are becoming not just hostile to them, but how do you have a con- conversation with someone who doesn't just distrust you, but is completely uninterested in anything you have to say? I don't see how you can put that Humpty Dumpty back together again. And I think that is going to be ... So their only metric is silence the opposition, right? If, because basically if you have two options and then I get rid of one, by default, everyone's going to go to me. Well, it's very hard to silence an entire population in a world where there's technology, an entire internet based on allowing people the opportunity to speak and present their points of view. I don't see how it's done. And it's also, and the left historically has understood this, when you drive a population underground and th- they have nothing to lose, this is going to radicalize them and blow up in very dangerous ways. So I have thought for a long time what I would do if I were, you know, the corporate press to try to reintegrate this populist society, and they're basically doing the complete opposite of what I would advise. And I'm not surprised because if they're capable of learning, they wouldn't be the enemy class.

   18. CWChris Williamson20:19

       What would you advise? Let's say that Michael Malice gets put in charge of the media. How do you bring-

   19. MMMichael Malice20:24

       Sure.

   20. CWChris Williamson20:24

       ... the, the disaffected groups back in?

   21. MMMichael Malice20:27

       I would have some sort of ... It would be tough because since I have for decades been, you know, f- advocating for war, lying to a population, just brazenly, shamelessly go through their children, it's going to be really hard to get them back on board. But I would do things like, I would take some sort of marginal figures and put them in some kind of ceremonial position and pretend, okay, we're going to make an effort to reintegrate. Um, I would, uh, stop trying to ... I, I would have these places where people could have these discussions, but try to build as many moats around them as possible instead of trying to silence them completely. Let them talk to each other, but try to have that talking not reach the mainstream consensus. That's going to be hard. Um, and I would try, stop trying to do things like if you're sitting there talking about calls for vengeance and people can hear you, this is really going to give them an incentive to strike first, right? Because then that becomes self-defense. So all of Twitter was all about, we have to persecute these people. We have to drive Josh Hawley from the Senate, Ted Cruz from the Senate. We have to make sure this never happens again. It's like Trump's numbers went up from, in, in terms of the voting share from, to 2016. So you really have a problem if for four years of going after someone who is not particularly a, a good person or a nice person, and he had more people voting for him the second time around, strategically, whatever approach you had did not work. Because it did, even though he did lose the election, it did not decrease the number of people who were comfortable going in that ballot box and for whatever reason, flicking that switch on his behalf.

   22. CWChris Williamson22:10

       Is that not the maddest thing that the media, the legacy media, the left, everybody threw everything that they had at that election? Kitchen sink went, the cat went, the baby and the bath water, and only just scraped through a Democratic victory.

   23. MMMichael Malice22:28

       Yeah. And they lost, uh, a huge, a significant number of seats in the House. Uh, Joe Biden is ... The last time this, the incoming president didn't have the Senate, he has it 51 to 50, but you know, this is marginal, was Richard Nixon. So that is not a governing consensus in the House. It's something like 219 to 212. Uh, these are, I mean, and because it's, you know, here in the States, each party is basically coalitions of different groups, 219 Democrats is not as cohesive and coherent as people think. Because you're going to have different wings and they're going to have different perspectives. And it's going to be very, very hard to get that majority through, especially in the Senate where one person and you're done. And every senator, of course, represents different states and has different egos. So it is, um, amazing and the, the articles were already written. If there had been any metric other than losing, of course, where Trump kind of went down, Trumpism has been repudiated. The American people have come to their senses. They were just champing at the bit. And yes, Biden won and they tried to put that over, but it fell completely on deaf ears. And again, I don't know what they can do to get people listening to them, um, again.

6. 23:41 – 26:00

   Increasing Political Division

   1. CWChris Williamson23:41

      Naval Ravikant on Rogan said this quote, and he didn't cite where it's from, but it's the best thing that I've heard around this. And he said, "The left won the culture war, now they're just driving around shooting the survivors."

   2. MMMichael Malice23:53

      Yeah. Uh, I don't know that they won the culture war. They created culture historically.

   3. CWChris Williamson23:59

      Yeah.

   4. MMMichael Malice23:59

      Uh-

   5. CWChris Williamson23:59

      The right just didn't bother getting involved.

   6. MMMichael Malice24:02

      Right. And the thing is, there's an enormous asymmetry between right and left because when there's left wing, like cultural violence, it's riding. But when you have right wing cultural violence, it gets really ugly really, really fast because they're not playing, they're playing for keeps and it's, it's quick and it's very brutal. So I am desperately hoping it doesn't reach that point, and I don't see any mechanisms of it slowing down.

   7. CWChris Williamson24:29

      That's precisely what I've said for the last few months, this tit for tat mechanism.... I do a thing to you, you do it back to me-

   8. MMMichael Malice24:36

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson24:36

      ... a little bit more. I do it back to you a little bit more, and it just escalates. And what, what have you got left? You, there's only two ways that things happen. It can either be dictatorial, top-down, or it can be emergent, bottom-up.

   10. MMMichael Malice24:47

       Right.

   11. CWChris Williamson24:47

       The culture is not slowing down. We've got frictionless communication-

   12. MMMichael Malice24:50

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson24:50

       ... which permit everyone to go from brain to fingertip or mouth to internet world with basically absolutely no restrictions at all. That, on its own, accounts for an awful lot of why we're seeing more vitriol online. That we're not built to have our thoughts be broadcast to the entire world. Like you shouldn't do it. Think about 200 years ago. You'd get a quill out and a piece of paper and maybe like a pigeon or a raven or something like that, and you would send it to the local battlements. Like if you're gonna say something, you better make sure that it actually is meaningful. You can't just like toilet tweet something that ends up going viral and getting you in loads of trouble.

   14. MMMichael Malice25:31

       Yeah. Uh, is this about when you guys burned down the White House?

   15. CWChris Williamson25:33

       (laughs)

   16. MMMichael Malice25:33

       'Cause we have forgotten about that.

   17. CWChris Williamson25:37

       I didn't know that Russia had a, had a White House.

   18. MMMichael Malice25:41

       (laughs)

   19. CWChris Williamson25:42

       (laughs)

   20. MMMichael Malice25:42

       Yeah, it's the Crystal Palace, I think.

   21. CWChris Williamson25:43

       Yeah. Um, yeah, it is. That new £1 billion palace, man. I want to get onto that. Obviously, I had a, a guy called John Sweeney who was the BBC's correspondent for Panorama out in Russia for quite a while, and, um, he was telling me about this Alexei Navalny thing. Before that,

7. 26:00 – 35:28

   The Anarchy of Wall Street Bets

   1. CWChris Williamson26:00

      what do you think about this whole chaos of GameStop and WallStreetBets, and then today we found out about the market trying to shut the traders down? Is this a digital form of anarchy?

   2. MMMichael Malice26:11

      Uh, I don't know if it's anarchy per se, but it's certainly, um ... Anytime people's pompous posturing and their BS ... I've been following it closely because I know once I sit down for and follow this story through from everyone who's been forwarding to me, like my pants are going to be ruined because I'm just, it's gonna be downright pornographic. Like everyone's like, "You don't understand. This is what you've been predicting and calling for." So I'm, I need to sit down where I have nice, uh, pants and it's going to be-

   3. CWChris Williamson26:39

      The ones with the separate ball, ball and ...

   4. MMMichael Malice26:41

      Yeah. Sheath underwear.

   5. CWChris Williamson26:43

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   6. MMMichael Malice26:44

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson26:44

      Link in bio.

   8. MMMichael Malice26:44

      Because this is, this is ... Everyone's like, "You, this is exactly what you like." Um, whenever pomposity and pretention, which is a form of deceit, is undermined, especially in a populist way or just by, in a clever way, this is something I absolutely adore. Uh, I don't think this is all exclusive to, you know, anarchism per se. Um, but it's wonderful. Um, so I, I ... And, and what else is very useful is it's a lot ... I think we're a lot closer to Brave New World than 1984. It's a lot easier to manipulate a population through pleasure than through force and through oppression. If you just give them a little bit of cheese and you give them a job, it's going to be very hard to get them to be riled up, and you can just milk them all day long. Um, so whenever, if you're going to win a war, a- as I intend to or I hope to, it's of enormous utility when they take the gloves off and they have to demonstrate that underneath they are perfectly happy to use brute force or whatever, just be unsophisticated. Like, "Okay, we're just gonna shut it down." And then it becomes a lot easier to demonstrate that these people don't give a damn about you. Uh, they're out looking for their own best interests, which is their per- prerogative. But this pretense, this corporate BS that, "We're all in this together," and blah, blah, blah, blah, is just complete sociopathy and nonsense. And a lot of people will never appreciate this, and that's fine, but you don't want them on your team anyway. A lot of people who can be won over, they're gonna see things like this and they're gonna be like, "Okay, like I'm starting to get it. Like this is just a complete facade."

   9. CWChris Williamson28:22

      I'm trying to work out what the particular quirk is in, with my makeup. I think it is partly being British and enjoying the procedure. I'm also moderately orderly. Like I'm an orderly guy. My bedroom tends to be tidy and I put things away in rows in the cupboard and stuff like that. Um, and for me, I enjoy watching people like Alex Jones. I enjoy learning about alternative worldviews, and I enjoy questioning or at least indulging myself in thought experiments around what is the state's ulterior motives and stuff like that. But it does feel usually a little bit like watching a pantomime. You're like, "Yeah, yeah, like that looks good." But I know that the p- the guys will go backstage and take their clothes off and it'll all just be normal, like the way that I know the world to be once it's kind of all finished.

   10. MMMichael Malice29:11

       Yes.

   11. CWChris Williamson29:11

       But increasingly there are things happening, and this is such a stark example. You see the market move, which is quantifiable, which makes it really interesting because you can actually see what's happening. It's not just a sentiment, right? It's not just how people feel.

   12. MMMichael Malice29:26

       Right.

   13. CWChris Williamson29:26

       It's quantifiable metrics there in front of you. And you see this market move and then these different structures of power start to come in. So Robinhood decide that they're going to stop trading and then other platforms say that they're going to stop trading. And then there's questions about circuit breakers being put into the market so that they can stop the price moving at all. You're seeing people, 50% of Robinhood clients hold some GameStop stock. So by stopping that trading, not allowing anyone else to buy, you're just sending the price in one direction. Like it ... And then the, the most interesting thing about it all is that when you have a distributed network of people who have far too much time on their hands and are smarter than they are kind of moronic, like they all call themselves like a proud community of autists.

   14. MMMichael Malice30:17

       Right.

   15. CWChris Williamson30:17

       But like, you don't want to fuck with those people. They know, they're not gonna forget anything. They, they know-

   16. MMMichael Malice30:21

       Well-

   17. CWChris Williamson30:22

       Th- th- they know what they're talking about. They just can't look you in the eye whilst they say it.

   18. MMMichael Malice30:26

       I, whilst-

   19. CWChris Williamson30:27

       (laughs)

   20. MMMichael Malice30:27

       ... I had a chapter about this in my last book about Gamergate, because part of the evangelical left is the idea that these prince- political principles have to be a- implemented in every aspect of your life, including sci-fi and fantasy and movies. See, even places you go to escape the Earth, you know, these edicts have to be followed through. One of the examples I used, which, you know, you want to talk about autism, I got it right here, was on Star Trek, they finally had a, they finally, uh, that's the word they used, had a black Vulcan. And if you want to go full autistic, the idea that human races evolved in parallel on other planets is absolutely deranged.

   21. CWChris Williamson31:01

       (laughs)

   22. MMMichael Malice31:03

       But, right? If you're gonna, if you're gonna look at it from that perspective, from their perspective, no, you have to have diversity, even though if it makes no sense. There was a video game that took place in the Middle Ages of, of, of Europe, and they were complaining there wasn't enough diversity there as well. So, it becomes completely, you know, very top down and, uh, um, uh, um, nonsensical. So, this, when, y- you know, the corporate journalists came for this community, like you were saying, this is an entire population with too much time on their hands, who also spend their time trying to figure out how the, the enemy, in this case, in the video games, the enemy works, and what weapons do I need to do to conquer this enemy. They don't look at it in term... It, so it becomes a game to them. It's like, "Okay, let's do A/B testing, let's try different tactics." And it's decentralized, so you have an army of these people. It's like Al-Qaeda, right? There's no, you can't kill the one guy and everything falls away. They're used to this. They've been training for it their entire lives, right?

   23. CWChris Williamson32:02

       (laughs)

   24. MMMichael Malice32:02

       They have. This is all they do.

   25. CWChris Williamson32:03

       This is our moment.

   26. MMMichael Malice32:04

       Right. But no, I mean, literally, they're spending hours trying to accomplish these goals that have been set for them with adversaries in the way. So, it's a beautiful, um ... You know, one of the things you and I talk about, you know, uh, personally is kind of this whole generation who, they are getting more attention, but they're kind of being told that they don't exist, are these kind of alienated young males, right? So, in some cases, it goes in a very, very bad direction. You know, you kind of have this white nationalism, this sense of, oh, your life is bad because there's too many minorities. And now this racial identity means you can look at what your grandfather supposedly did and now you're a great person. But this is another example. You could be at your desktop, your, what do they call them? Like, war- war station. And you can cause systemic carnage against some really nasty people and have lulls at the same time. Isn't that great? So, I- I am a big fan of, uh, uh, I don't know about the specifics of this case, to be honest, but I'm a big fan of this ethos.

   27. CWChris Williamson33:10

       It is, uh, I think the first time that you heard about it was me telling you, perhaps, or may- maybe Trey, our mutual-

   28. MMMichael Malice33:15

       It was you, yeah, yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson33:16

       ... our mutual buddy is also a big, uh, WallStreetBets follower. But I spoke about it last year. I'd seen some mad shit that they'd done last year. These guys, what is it they're called? Like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal, they call themselves. And, uh-

   30. MMMichael Malice33:29

       Cool.
8. 35:28 – 39:09

   Impact of Undermined Elites

   1. CWChris Williamson35:28

      It feels to me like there's a common thread and I haven't worked out what it is, but a common thread through a lot of what we're seeing at the moment. I spoke to John Sweeney, who, like I said, is the Russia correspondent, or used to be, ex, for Panorama BBC. And, um, he was talking about Alexei Navalny, who's just gone back to his home country and was immediately ... (laughs)

   2. MMMichael Malice35:48

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson35:49

      I can't keep saying Russia because you make me laugh. Um, went back to his home country, was immediately, uh, arrested upon arrival. The, we've had the Capitol Hill, we've had the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, we've had Portland riots, we've had this that we're seeing happening with WallStreetBets. The iterative speed of the devolving of-

   4. MMMichael Malice36:11

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson36:11

      ... what used to be these structures, is this one common thread? Is there something going on?

   6. MMMichael Malice36:18

      Oh.

   7. CWChris Williamson36:18

      And what is it?

   8. MMMichael Malice36:20

      You, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, that's a very good insight, because states are not...... quick actors. A lot of times with these COVID, for example, let's suppose, you know, e- every aspect of emergency is exactly, exactly as it's presented, you have governors issuing these edicts. But even in that case, this is a very dynamic system where the virus, you know, the, one state's going to go down, it's going to be another state. It's very, very hard, and no one will deny this, for any kind of government to act or react to a dynamic situation. Compare that to Twitter, uh, someone on Twitter or someone on, on Reddit-

   9. CWChris Williamson36:56

      Reddit, yeah.

   10. MMMichael Malice36:56

       ... or something like that. Yeah, where you have all these people, it's decentralized, everyone can be on top of it, and the information spreads more quickly. Whereas with the state, you have to have, you know, Fauci, and then this has to go out, and then you'd have to go over the press release and check the wording. It's never going to be, and it can't really be, because it has to be official and by the book and you're talking about the whole government, the whole country, it really has to be, you know, a very proper process, as opposed to this kind of free process, which I'm more of a fan of. And that's an enormous asymmetry. You know, by the time something reaches Biden's desk, these guys will be moving on to... I mean, think about how many, um, hoops something has to jump through before it reaches Boris Johnson's attention. There's an entire process in place. He's got his cabinet, you know, and all, all his assistants to make sure the only things that reach his attention are things that require the PM's direct attention. At the same time, they're not necessarily going to have the foresight like you did to be like, "Wait a minute, this is something that's up and coming," 'cause to them, they're not spending time on Reddit. They don't know the internet. So this is going to be completely hit them upside the head out of nowhere. And by the time they're like, "Let's sit down and figure out how to react," it's two weeks later and they've already moved on. This is, uh, this is another reason I'm so enormously optimistic about the future of the West.

   11. CWChris Williamson38:17

       Is it a function of frictionless communication? Is it something inherent to do with the population growth being where it is? Is it the fact that everyone's got access to information and knowledge so that there aren't these gated communities of understanding anymore? Have you got any sense of why people... this, uh, common, uh, common thread appears to be occurring?

   12. MMMichael Malice38:38

       I think it's, a lot of it's also the enormous disconnect between how people in power are presented as moral, superior, um, people who should be listened to and obeyed, as opposed to reality. And when you have this enormous disconnect and it gives people the opportunity to A, undermine it, and B, enjoy themselves and feel empowered that they're doing something about it, this is a very dangerous combo for, uh, the elites.

9. 39:09 – 46:45

   Meaning in an Anarchist Society

   1. MMMichael Malice39:09

   2. CWChris Williamson39:09

      How do you avoid... That's something I just thought of. How do you avoid normlessness and meaninglessness within, uh, an anarchistic society? Because if you're stripping back a lot of the previous institutions that people would have relied on to find their sense of self, and both me and you are big proponents of personal sovereignty and upward agency and-

   3. MMMichael Malice39:31

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson39:31

      ... all that sort of stuff. But it, you know, we have to concede that that isn't for everybody. Some people require those bigger structures to hold themselves together. How would you propose supporting those people?

   5. MMMichael Malice39:42

      Oh, I don't support them. I don't care about them. They're ballast. They're, they don't really-

   6. CWChris Williamson39:46

      (laughs) Fucking ballast.

   7. MMMichael Malice39:49

      They are.

   8. CWChris Williamson39:50

      Breeders.

   9. MMMichael Malice39:50

      They have no ideas. They bring... Yeah, they bring nothing to the... Well, that's a pejorative. They're, they bring nothing to the table, um, and, you know, if they were in, uh, maybe Iran, they'd be radical jihadis. And, and if they're in Britain, they're this, in America, they're this. They don't really think critically, and that's fine, but in terms of what can be done for them, I mean, I don't really know. I can't empathize with, with them. The... Whatever system works out, like, they will just ob- obey whatever is the rules of the game, and they will, they will be able to kind of follow suit, and they'll watch the sitcoms and, and, you know, and live this kind of docile cow-like life. Um, but I don't spend much time, uh, uh, thinking about them. This is something that I stress a lot with, you know, people who are followers of mine. They're like, "Look at all these people who are mindless." And I'm like, "How are these mindless people a threat to you?" Like they're, they're, they have no... They're just, they're like trees. Like if... Are you like, "Well, we can't win because there's all these trees"? It's like, what does that have to do with anything? Like any population, an enormous percent- an enormous percentage of it is going to be with people who really are, in a very fundamental way, mindless, who have no kind of inner voice, who are opposed or incapable. This is the big argument. Are they opposed or incapable of thinking critically? And our, you know, H.L. Mencken, the great American kind of cynic from the early 20th century said, has this great quote about, "The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe." And I think you're seeing that a lot more in Britain, sadly, than in the States nowadays, how they really want to be told what to do and kind of like just follow suit. And I know you're, you know, an entrepreneur and, and kind of really trying to become much more self-actualized, and you've talked to me about this, how this is something that you find, uh... It's not only frustrating to be surrounded by it, but it's also maddening in the sense of like, how are you like this? Like we are so blessed with so many opportunities and you just want to watch, you know, uh, Celebrity Big Brother or whatnot, and, and just, you know, have a pint and then go to bed.

   10. CWChris Williamson41:52

       It is-

   11. MMMichael Malice41:52

       Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's their highest, that's their highest aspiration. I, I love trashy TV. I love having a drink or whatever, but there, there's a time and a place for both.

   12. CWChris Williamson42:03

       My tragedy, the tragedy that I see is people doing that every decade for-

   13. MMMichael Malice42:09

       Right.

   14. CWChris Williamson42:09

       ... three or four in a row. That to me is, is a life wasted, um-

   15. MMMichael Malice42:13

       Yes.

   16. CWChris Williamson42:13

       And it's their life to waste, but it still doesn't mean necessarily that I need to be an advocate or supportive in any way of it. I wonder whether it's a particularly British phenomenon.I can't speak for other people, other nations. Maybe some of the people can let us know in the comments from where they're from and, and how they find their culture with regards to this total lack of personal sovereignty and upward mobility. And, and ability to do anything sort of, uh, laterally as well, to think, like, "Okay, here is the path that I'm on. Let's just see what happens if I take a big left turn." Like, "Let's just see."

   17. MMMichael Malice42:48

       Yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson42:48

       "Maybe, maybe it totally wrecks everything, but maybe it's actually not that bad." And, um, I've had this idea for a while that it's because we're water locked, because we're quite a small nation, because the weather's quite bad. The ... E- even if you look at some-

   19. MMMichael Malice43:01

       These are excuses.

   20. CWChris Williamson43:02

       No, so this is me, this is me saying what are the things that feed into the British culture more so.

   21. MMMichael Malice43:06

       I know, but these are ... Right, but you know what I mean? Like, we'll always, you'll always find a reason not to achieve or not to hope or not to think critically. There's no shortage, ever.

   22. CWChris Williamson43:16

       Do you see this-

   23. MMMichael Malice43:17

       Can you imagine, like, someone saying, like, the reason I don't want to aspire to, you know, run my own, like, toffee shop is because of the weather?

   24. CWChris Williamson43:25

       I get that, but-

   25. MMMichael Malice43:26

       It's like-

   26. CWChris Williamson43:26

       ... uh, we're, we're mimetic creatures, right? Mimetic desire-

   27. MMMichael Malice43:28

       Sure.

   28. CWChris Williamson43:28

       ... is a big thing. And I feel like in a place that had more ... uh, that was more cosmopolitan, for instance, is one thing. If you had a bigger country with more international visitors, you may have more people coming and going that would actually be able to broaden your mindset. If you had slightly better weather, people would be able to do more things outside of just ... Like at the moment, it's dark at 8:00 AM and 4:30 PM, and it's raining all day, every day. There isn't a massive amount of stuff that you can do. If you could, perhaps that would broaden your perspective. Maybe I don't just need to go pub, Netflix, work, pub, Netflix, work.

   29. MMMichael Malice44:07

       Yeah, uh, you're not gonna tell me London's not international enough. I mean, this, this is ... It, it, it's really ... And there's so ... I love British culture. And in fact, I've been to the UK once, and I did not have a good time. And I interviewed Ahri up. She was from the band The Slits, old school punk band, Johnny Rotten's, um, stepdaughter. And she said, "Yeah." I'm not gonna do her accent. She had this Jamaican accent. She passed away not that long ago. And she said, "Yeah, we all hated London. We couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there," her words. And she's like, "No wonder you didn't have a good time." And to me, the, the, the best thing about, uh, Britain is how it, you know, you know ... Obviously, the British Empire, I'm sure, is something that's very mixed, uh, emotional people, uh, uh, resonance with people from England. But the idea that you had all these countries from all over the world under the sway of the Queen or whoever the King was at the time, and you imported elements to it, to Britain, and it made this kind of cosmopolitan culture. Like tea time, you know, coming from Japan, and, and s- I mean, music and the British Museum, are you kidding me? It's just, it's just, uh, um, an amazing miracle of civilization. So, I, I, I don't buy into that at all.

   30. CWChris Williamson45:22

       I think it-
10. 46:45 – 59:35

    Media & Culture Without Trump

    1. MMMichael Malice46:45

    2. CWChris Williamson46:45

       Moving forwards, what are the main changes that you think people should expect, uh, especially in the American media and culture without Trump in office anymore? Obviously, we had this knife edge that it was, could it go one way, could it go another? And four more years, we could have probably had a good understanding of what to expect, just more of the same. But now that he's no longer there, what do you reckon is gonna happen?

    3. MMMichael Malice47:07

       It's, it is going to be so demented this year that people have no idea, uh, what's coming. It's been, what, two weeks into the Biden administration, and we're already seeing, like, they're talking about putting on second masks, and th- you know, what we're just seeing with GameStop and so on and so forth. Um, the thing with chaos, and chaos and anarchy are not synonymous but I'm a fan of both, is you never know, you know, where it's gonna be coming. One of my favorite moments of the Trump, um, presidency was there was some dispute between him and the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and there was an entire busload of Democratic congressmen, and they were gonna take a plane to visit an American base, I think maybe in Iraq or something. And Trump, as Commander in Chief, pulled the authorization for the military plane, so they had to bring the bus back to the Capitol, and they all had to get off the bus, like their school trip's been canceled. And we're just sitting there, peeing our pants as all these congressmen just didn't know what ... 'Cause they had to, they had to get off the bus and that had to be on video, and it was just kind of complete humiliation. No one could have predicted that. So, I think without Trump, without this centralized figure, we are going to see things, like you were talking about this WallStreetBets stuff, so many more, um, uh, attempts and successful executions of things that are no one saw coming and are going to be hilarious, and that will demonstrate how much of the-... um, claim to elite control is completely fraudulent, that these people are not better, that they're not particularly smarter. They're certainly not more moral. Uh, and the more that's exposed, the more hopeful bec- people become for the future. Because it's one thing to say, "Look, you're going to be ruled by a bunch of thieves." Fine. You know, maybe you need that. Maybe you need those thieves in charge to make sure, like ... I'd rather have the thieves than the murderers, right? But let's be honest that you are thieves, and that, I think, is- would be a good starting point to go forward. And I think that's increasingly happening.

    4. CWChris Williamson49:06

       What's the difference between a Trump administration and a Biden administration? Why does a Biden administration garner more chaos than a Trump one? I would have thought the Trump one would have been more chaotic.

    5. MMMichael Malice49:18

       Because with Trump, um, people who would have disdain for the system, a large part of them felt represented. They felt, okay, we have someone who thinks like I do. We have someone who hates the things I hate. He's speaking for me. I have a voice. Now they feel like, okay, no one's speaking for me. I have no commitment to this system. I have no investment here. I'm being told I'm a white supremacist insurrectionist on a daily basis. So, okay, if that's how you regard ... If I'm a Nazi, if you regard me as a Nazi, if you're going to read me out of the human race, then we can't really go forward having a conversation. I don't want to a- sit down and have a conversation with a Nazi. Well, I did for my book, but not certainly in a collegial kind of way like, "Oh, you know, where your, where your kids going to school? Oh, nice seeing you," so on and so forth. So I, I think it's going to be much more, uh, systemic breaking down, and we're seeing in Europe. So if you follow European elections, it's becoming harder and harder for different countries to form governing coalitions. Um, Belgium was the great example where there's two halves of Belgium, if I'm getting this country right. One was socialist, the other, now the white nationalists were in charge because they speak different languages. You're not going to be able to sit down and work with each other. We had this in Thuringia in Germany where they had a negative coalition, meaning the far left and the AFD, the nationalists, had enough seats that between them no one could make a majority and they didn't know what to do. So ... And now in Italy what's happening is for a long time you had, um, Berlusconi's party, right? He was the center right party, uh, before his Italia, uh, you know, they were the right-wing ones. And then as there was ... After he kind of fell away, you had Matteo Salvini, the League, "You guys are Nazis. You guys are Nazis. You guys are Nazis." They got into government. Well, what happened then is now that they're being called the Nazis, they're losing some support, but the neo-fascists are gaining support. So when you are forcing people to pay the costs of having views that are extreme, at a certain point, they're gonna be like, "You know what? I am gonna check these people out because that's what you're calling me and they're the ones who want to talk to me and you don't." This is a very dangerous game these people are playing. Um, and they are so up their own ass and are so not used to thinking strategically that all they n- know how to do is just repeat what they've said before. And I, all I could do is caution and be like, "You are doing a very dangerous thing," and I'm saying this as an anarchist who does not believe in politics.

    6. CWChris Williamson51:44

       That feels like w- an element of the thread that we were talking about earlier on, that you have such a rapid pace emerging-

    7. MMMichael Malice51:51

       Yes.

    8. CWChris Williamson51:51

       ... on the bottom, and you have such a big lumbering Goliath up at the top.

    9. MMMichael Malice51:56

       Yeah, that's exactly it, and this huge disconnect. And this Goliath is complete ... If there's like ... I'm a big, uh, zoology person, and the thing that brings down giraffes are ticks. Because a giraffe, the surface area of a giraffe is enormous. That means you could have so many ticks on it, draining it of blood, giving it disease. It's going to be a lot easier for that than for, let's suppose, a lion, where if the giraffe kicks it in the head once, it's dead. So this is, uh, uh, uh, I think they're completely oblivious. Uh, they're tell- always tell themselves, in these words, that they're on the right side of history. You know, if, if someone comes up to me with a knife telling them I'm on the right side of history is really (laughs) going to be a very weak tool. And i- if it is a war, just saying, "I'm the good guys," is really not going to gain you anything.

    10. CWChris Williamson52:42

        So that's what's happening emergently. That's what sort of the, the population is feeling. What about top-down? What do you see in terms of administrative changes or I guess top-down cultural changes?

    11. MMMichael Malice52:53

        I'm shocked by how quickly they've come to realize that, wait a minute, we didn't win. Because they thought, very sincerely, we got rid of Trump, everything could go back to normal, unity. And then it took couple of weeks and they're like, holy crap, none of these Trump people, who, or who they describe as Trump people, like you know, they would call Glenn, Glenn Greenwald a Trump person. None of these people missed a beat. Uh, they're not going home. They're not going anywhere. Uh, they've become even more radicalized. Uh, they've become even more contemptuous of us. What do we do? Well, they're, and, they're not really ... They are just ... I think at this point they're still confused and they're going to become a lot more confused or they're going to start implementing smart strategies, which I wouldn't bet on, uh, if they want to ... if they know what's good for them. And I don't say that as a threat. I'm saying, I'm saying this is someone who's very afraid.

    12. CWChris Williamson53:43

        Are you seeing this with the amount of executive orders that Biden's put in, for instance, that it's just a hammer blow? It's using-

    13. MMMichael Malice53:50

        I'm seeing ... Here's another example. Like, uh, for three years we heard that, uh, the 2016 el- election was, you know, undermined by Russia, uh, and there was, Trump was impeached over this and, and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, there's a conspiracy and there was collusion between Trump and Putin. Within a week of this past election, every corporate media outlet was saying, "This has been the most secure election in history." It is not possible to make that statement with that quickly. You haven't invested ... It might be true, but you couldn't, in a week, you know, do all the investigations, see all the mistakes, see whatever was fixed. And how was it that President Trump and all these Republican governors oversaw it going from Russia to now it's completely secure? This is a, a clearly ... And to dis- to c- to dispute this in any way is grounds from getting you removed from social media and so you should be silenced and now you believe in insurrection and civil war and all this other stuff. This is not the approach of an elite that feels secure and in control. This is someone ... If y- if someone ... If you and me are having an argument in your house, I'll say my piece, you'll say your piece-... it- you know, maybe our voices will get raised. If I'm shoving you out of the house and locking the door, I don't feel safe, and that's what they are trying to do. The problem is, they don't really own the house anymore. Like, they do not have a monopoly over the mechanisms of, um, conversation. And that, when you have an edifice built on deception, being able to speak even critically is an enormous existential threat to it.

    14. CWChris Williamson55:25

        Are we seeing ... Again, this is another one of those threads that appears to be tying together. The same way as executive orders, the same way as restrictions with regards to f- to speech, the same way as the press restricting people's movements, the same way as Robin Hood restricting people's trades.

    15. MMMichael Malice55:43

        Yeah.

    16. CWChris Williamson55:43

        Is this the last vestiges of the old guard trying to hold onto their version of power or how they used to be able to deploy power? And it seems like if they were to go about it in a more smart way, this is the 1984 element of A Brave New World, the fact that there is only so far that you can try to cajole and coerce and, and tempt people into things until you need to get the hammer out and hit them over the head.

    17. MMMichael Malice56:09

        Yeah.

    18. CWChris Williamson56:10

        And-

    19. MMMichael Malice56:10

        But-

    20. CWChris Williamson56:10

        ... we're seeing a lot more hammers appear, and that, as you said, is when it's really, really obvious that someone's decided, okay, gloves are off, rules are broken, I need to, I need to press the fucking ejector seat button.

    21. MMMichael Malice56:23

        And it's also very expensive in the sense of if you and I have a fight, whatever, "Hey, sorry man, I was really upset." "No, no, it's cool." If you punch me in the face or I punch you in the face, you can never undo that. And that's also shown me several things. One, you're a person who's capable of violence against me or vice versa, and you're someone who is, can do that again in the future. This is not ... It goes very hard to reverse that and to try to have some kind of relationship that's at all based on respect or working together. It's like, all right, you did this to me once. Also, now, there's an enormous pressure, I have to make sure I'm not in that position again, because, "I'm sorry, it was a mistake," it's like, you know what, if I get punched a second time, at some point, it's going to be part of my fault that I trusted you. So this is when they have to use this cudgel, like you pointed out, or this hammer, this is enormously expensive on the, for them in terms of future relationships, because that is something that can't be unseen or undone. You can't unring that bell.

    22. CWChris Williamson57:21

        And it's not just necessarily the person who gets the cudgel out.

    23. MMMichael Malice57:25

        Right.

    24. CWChris Williamson57:26

        It's everybody else within that domain, and perhaps this is why we're seeing such a proliferation of Telegram and Discord and Signal. You know, I've, I saw-

    25. MMMichael Malice57:37

        Well-

    26. CWChris Williamson57:37

        I can't remember who it is.

    27. MMMichael Malice57:38

        Let me give you a great example of this. Hold on. Look, so one of the big things I've been working on this past year was, uh, turning people against the police. And I have never seen any population switch its views on a fundamental issue as quickly as, in America at least, conservatives have turned on the police. For a very long time, eh, eh, you could not talk to them about it. The police are what keeps us from being, you know, in a state of anarchy, ha ha, a state of complete violence, everyone would be killing each other, and then all you had to do was a little bit of footage. There was Canada, where they broke into someone's house because they were having, like, Thanksgiving dinner, whatever it was, and pulled an old man out of the house. And when you see that video, it's like, okay, I can never pretend, some people still can, that, okay, they're keeping us safe, they're just like you and me, good apples. You look at that and you're like, I don't know ... You don't have to know anything about politics to know something somewhere has taken a very drastic turn when old people who are not, you know, gun runners or drug dealers or running a brothel are being violently pulled out of their homes by the police. This is not ... Like, you're l- It's like you're doing accounting and all of a sudden you have, like, a million dollar deficit. It's like, okay, somewhere the math went way wrong.

    28. CWChris Williamson58:52

        The trust is getting eroded away quite quickly and it can never be rebuilt, and it would appear that that's happening across all different institutions. That-

    29. MMMichael Malice59:00

        Yeah.

    30. CWChris Williamson59:00

        ... the legacy media posts something which erodes a little bit of trust in the government, and then the government put a policy in that people don't like. That means that they're a little bit less sure about when the police come round. And you're seeing this with just generally the way that people respond to police, uh, talking about mask mandates. Like, if you see someone, they're, they're angry, but they're not angry at the policemen or even at the police as a whole. Like, they know that it's not their legislation, but they just see the man, they see whoever is person in charge as this top-down dictatorship, dictatorial bureaucratic organization that's trying to get them

11. 59:35 – 1:02:44

    Michael’s Views on New York

    1. CWChris Williamson59:35

       to do shit. One thing that I've been really interested in over the last year of watching you, you're a passionate New Yorker and you've lived there forever and you never considered living anywhere else when we first started speaking.

    2. MMMichael Malice59:48

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson59:48

       Has that changed over the last year?

    4. MMMichael Malice59:50

       Yeah, as, as, as you and I have discussed, and, and it's, uh, what has b- I, the governor, uh, and the mayor have done more damage to New York than Al-Qaeda has. I, I say this non-ironically. Um, what I loved about New York, I've lived here since I was two, I don't need even n- need to tell people. People know why New York's great, and I'm sure everyone has a story about why New York sucks, but the, the things that make New York great, everyone knows what I'm gonna say. That's been devastated. Not only that, my social network, my, all my friends, you know, what keeps me sane, they've all moved out. I'm, I'm like, I'm like one of the few ones left standing. So, um, it's not that I'm leaving New York, it's that the New York I love and fell in love with is gone. Um, it causes me pain physically to see what they've done to this city, uh, and all the cool spots I went to. Um, so I don't know where I would go. What I'm going to start doing, uh, being fortunate to have the kind of career I do, is I'm gonna be spending, like, a week every month in a different city and trying it out. Um, I'm hearing good things. I can't believe this is something I'd ever considered. Aga- If a year ago you told me this, I'd be like, "Okay, whatever there." Um, like Miami, I'm hear- hearing good things about that. I'm gonna be in Austin for a week, uh, next week, or in a week from n- next week. LA, of course, to do work, but, uh, we shall see. If Europe opens up...I had a supporter who tossed me a grand who goes, "This will be enough to live in Europe for a month." So, I'm sure you and I could spend a week at some cool Eastern European place and, and really have a fun time with it. The Russia stuff is going to be much more emotional and personal, biographical, you know. It's going to be a very different resonance. But, you know, one of these, like, Balkan places, it's, I think we would just lose our minds and have fun. Do you not agree?

    5. CWChris Williamson1:01:36

       Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, travel's such a big part of my life, and it-

    6. MMMichael Malice1:01:40

       Yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:01:41

       I'm able to take a fair bit of discomfort. Like, I, I pride myself on being able to kind of get my head down and, and crack on. It's that Puritan work ethic again. But even for me, the last few months have started to really drag on. Dark night, cold weather, gyms shut. Um, like, completely shut and unable-

    8. MMMichael Malice1:02:02

       (laughs)

    9. CWChris Williamson1:02:02

       ... to go outside. Unable to train. At least over the last year when the gyms were shut, we could go out into the garden and-

    10. MMMichael Malice1:02:08

        Yeah.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:02:08

        ... just get a workout in with slightly shitter equipment. Whereas now, it's like, there's nothing. Um, so-

    12. MMMichael Malice1:02:14

        I'm starting my cut today, so I'm gonna catch up with you soon.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:02:16

        I heard.

    14. MMMichael Malice1:02:17

        (laughs)

    15. CWChris Williamson1:02:17

        I saw, I saw online. What are your calories? What are you cutting at?

    16. MMMichael Malice1:02:21

        Uh, we only dropped 500, um, so it's down to 200 protein and let me see. I'm pulling up the document. I have the documents. It's going to be 2900, uh, calories per day for now.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:02:35

        That's still good, though. You're gonna feel fine at that.

    18. MMMichael Malice1:02:38

        Oh, yeah, yeah. It's, I mean, when we r- I have to get to that kind of, we'll see what happens. It's gonna be a process.

12. 1:02:44 – 1:08:39

    How to Become a Better Troll

    1. MMMichael Malice1:02:44

    2. CWChris Williamson1:02:45

       I've been watching over the last year and trying to get the best tips that I can from you on trolling, just passively. I haven't tried-

    3. MMMichael Malice1:02:52

       Trolling? (laughs)

    4. CWChris Williamson1:02:52

       Yeah, yeah. Because-

    5. MMMichael Malice1:02:54

       Trolling Russia?

    6. CWChris Williamson1:02:55

       Come on. (laughs)

    7. MMMichael Malice1:02:58

       Don't tell us we can't pronounce trolling.

    8. CWChris Williamson1:03:00

       (laughs) I don't know where that accent is supposed to be.

    9. MMMichael Malice1:03:02

       I think that's, like, it's Geordie mixed with Scottish. I don't know.

    10. CWChris Williamson1:03:05

        Yeah. Okay, fine. Anyway, that thing, that thing-

    11. MMMichael Malice1:03:07

        You can subtitle it.

    12. CWChris Williamson1:03:08

        That thing that you do when you quote tweet people and you say stuff, "I've been-"

    13. MMMichael Malice1:03:12

        That's not trolling, I mean, to be pedantic.

    14. CWChris Williamson1:03:15

        Okay, well, why don't you give me your definition of it? And then also, what are your principles behind it? How can I become a better troll?

    15. MMMichael Malice1:03:23

        I think it'd be very hard for you to become a troll, um, for many, many different reasons. Um, but for me, trolling is using someone's flaws in order to turn them into an unwitting performer, uh, for the benefit of a third party. So, here's an exam- a great example. I have this in my books, and you write, Mountain Dew, you know, corporate, they make soda. They're like, "Hey, um, what should the next flavor of Mountain Dew be? Like, vote in the poll." And 4chan said, "Okay, we can do this." And they got the number one answer to be Hitler did nothing wrong. Okay?

    16. CWChris Williamson1:04:02

        (laughs)

    17. MMMichael Malice1:04:03

        And they're not doing this as Nazis, because now Mountain Dew has to either acknowledge it or they have to do something about it. And they polled the poll, of course, and they go, "Okay, it looks like the internet won this round." You know? So, trolling is, like, we're talking about the video games earlier, it's an exploit. Uh, it especially works very well when people are low-quality people presenting themselves as high quality. So, that disconnect between the pretention and the product is an enormous opportunity to get them to, um, make an ass of themselves. Uh, your boy Piers Morgan I think is really prime for trolling. I think, doesn't everyone in the UK kind of low-key hate him?

    18. CWChris Williamson1:04:44

        I think so, yeah. He, he continually trends, obviously, 'cause he's on breakfast TV every single morning, and they have a really clever way. ITV have a really smart way where they'll take clips from the show and then distribute them really quickly on Twitter and such like. Like, they trend, they must trend at least once a week or a couple of times a week sometimes, and even for, like, just, they got some lads on that were part of a meme the other day, and that made that trend. And then he does proper stuff where he goes off the rails or he goes on an illegal holiday and stuff like that. So, yeah, Piers is-

    19. MMMichael Malice1:05:19

        Well, he's also a bit of a heel, isn't he? Doesn't he lean into this kind of persona?

    20. CWChris Williamson1:05:22

        I think he likes the bad guy persona a little bit.

    21. MMMichael Malice1:05:25

        Yeah.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:05:25

        But the weird thing is, it's, that's not necessarily what people tune into breakfast TV for. At least traditionally, it wasn't. It was, you know, a fluffy way to enjoy your-

    23. MMMichael Malice1:05:35

        Yes, of course.

    24. CWChris Williamson1:05:36

        ... toast and a coffee on a morning time. You don't want to see Piers waggling his finger in someone's face and shouting about it.

    25. MMMichael Malice1:05:44

        I grew up on Roger Hargreaves' books, the Mr. Men books. So, my impression of British culture is based entirely on those books. And my understanding was it's hard-boiled eggs. No, soft-boiled eggs that you all have for breakfast-

    26. CWChris Williamson1:05:55

        (laughs)

    27. MMMichael Malice1:05:55

        ... and you have them in the egg holder.

    28. CWChris Williamson1:05:56

        I don't even know what a soft-boiled egg is. Is that what you put dippy soldiers in?

    29. MMMichael Malice1:06:00

        Dippy sold- I don't know what that is.

    30. CWChris Williamson1:06:02

        Like, little strips of toast you-
13. 1:08:39 – 1:09:57

    Michael’s New Book

    1. CWChris Williamson1:08:39

       yeah.

    2. MMMichael Malice1:08:39

       (laughs)

    3. CWChris Williamson1:08:39

       Uh, final thing, man. You mentioned on Twitter that you'd learned something from me the other day. What was that?

    4. MMMichael Malice1:08:45

       Oh, this is a whole long conversation, but basically-

    5. CWChris Williamson1:08:47

       Cool, but we can save it, we can save it for another time.

    6. MMMichael Malice1:08:50

       Yeah, or I'll ... I'm gonna ... I may even talk about it on a certain other show in a, in a few weeks, but I'll, uh, we can, yeah. It's a whole long conversation.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:08:55

       We'll come back, we'll come back to that. That's a nice open-

    8. MMMichael Malice1:08:57

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:08:57

       ... loop for the next one. Uh, talk to me about the book. When can people expect that? Is it gonna be this year?

    10. MMMichael Malice1:09:03

        I ... Yes. I am half ... I hope so. I'm halfway done, so even if I do just a page a day, it'll be done first draft in three months. So I think it's very realistic it'll be out this year. The White Pill: it's about the victory of good over evil.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:09:18

        I'm so excited, man.

    12. MMMichael Malice1:09:19

        It's great.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:09:20

        Uh, it is such a pleasure to have you here. Um, it's, uh ... I'm excited for Russia. I'm excited-

    14. MMMichael Malice1:09:27

        (laughs)

    15. CWChris Williamson1:09:27

        ... to see what you do over the next couple of weeks and then the forthcoming book release. Man, everyone that is listening, if you want to go and check out more of Michael's stuff, it'll be linked in the show notes below, or leave a comment and let us know what you think. Dude, thank you.

    16. MMMichael Malice1:09:39

        Thank you for being a friend.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:09:44

        Outfits. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Outfits.

Episode duration: 1:09:57