40 here. We're going out over YouTube. We're going out live over Rumble and Odyssey. We're going out live over Twitter and Facebook. The gang's all here. Wow. So I've just had a fair dinkum day of hard yacka. I was up at 1 a.m. to watch the World Cup. I was up and then got a little sleep. Then about 5 a.m. Australian time, the Cowboys started playing. What a heart-breaking loss in overtime. Unbelievable. 40 to 34 loss to Jacksonville Jaguars. So I had lots of caffeine, put in a hard day of hard yacka. Yacka is originally an aboriginal word, I believe. It's Australian slang for hard work. So I put in eight hours of lifting bags of fertilizer. And now I just want to do a live stream about Alon Musk. I just listened to this article in Bloomberg Business Week. Alon Musk Twitter is a Shakespearean psychodrama set in Silicon Valley. And my main question is, why are all the news stories about Alon Musk and Twitter? Why do they all have the same emotional tone? Did the news media all get together to decide on a shared emotional tone for all articles about Alon Musk? Or is the news media simply reflecting reality? Is that what's going on? They're just giving us the straight truth. And those of us who like Twitter, maybe we just can't handle the truth. Perhaps that's it. I think Twitter's substantially better. Twitter's more free. Twitter's more fun. I'm enjoying the hack out of Alon Musk Twitter. So I want him to keep running the show, or at least bring on someone who shares his wavelength. And by the way, what happened to Kanye West? Kanye West has completely disappeared. I thought Kanye West was going to save the white race. But Kanye West was going to save America. Ever look at Art's Technica? I do. There's a lot of good stuff on there. Reasonable and responsible says Judaism is not primarily a faith. It's primarily a tribal identity. Reasonable and responsible comments. While I would not doubt that one could find any number of various Jewish identifying individuals or groups would affirm the repeated assertion of yours. That remains that Judaism absolutely is a religion. Yeah, it's a tribe that has its own religion. So if you are an outsider and you want to understand Judaism, I think it is more helpful to understand it is a tribe that has its own religion rather than understanding it as a religion. And even many Orthodox rabbis don't like the definition of Judaism or Yiddish kite as a religion. The more religious the Jew, the less likely they are to talk about Judaism. The more likely they are to talk about Yiddish kite, the Jewish way of life, the life of Torah, talking about, thank you for being part of our community of faith. This is not how Jews tend to talk. Orthodox Jews, Haredi Jews, don't talk, thank you for being part of our community of faith. Thank you for being part of our religion. The more religious the Jew, the less likely they are to regard their way of life as a religion. This idea that there's this segment of life that is for religion, that there is a cathedral where you go to worship God, and it's just a slice of life. Judaism, Yiddish kite is the way of life for the Jewish people that is comprehensive from how you tie your shoelaces to how you put on your clothes in the morning to when you make love to your wife, to how you conduct yourself in business. I just find, obviously we're doing, dealing with vast generalizations here, my experience is the more religious the Jew, the less likely they are to talk about Judaism as a religion. Instead, it's a way of life, it's divine commandment. It's a community of faith thing. It's not something that I notice that the most religious Jews identify with. Here in Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Yes, that's the Shabbat, and any definition or conception Judaism that does not have the above creed as its core is analogous to Christianity that does not have some concept of Jesus at its well. Try talking to Orthodox Jews about creed. It is not a topic that Orthodox Jews like to talk about. They don't think about Judaism having a creed. Now you'll find a few Orthodox Jews are happy to talk about a creed, and you'll find a few Orthodox Jews are happy to talk about Jewish beliefs and the Jewish religion and the Jewish faith, but generally speaking, no, it's a way of life. It's the burden of the kingdom of heaven. So looking at reasonable responses, there's very much a particular conception of God that formed the Jewish people. Yes, a particular conception of God did help to form the Jewish people, just as the Jewish people helped to inform a particular pathway and conception of God that both influencing each other. Abraham, the progenitor of the Jewish people, heroically defied the culture of idolatry that he was born into to declare the truth of the one true invisible God and creator of the universe. Thus, in choosing the one true God, that one true God in turn chose Abraham and his descendants to be his cherished people. Right, so this is a familiar part of Jewish apologetics, and this is very much traditional reasoning, but for most people who practice traditional Orthodox Judaism, it's a way of life. It's a burden of the kingdom of heaven that they feel like they've been assigned. They don't think of it primarily in terms of faith or as religion. That's just my experience. So where is Kanye West? What's your theory? What's happened to Kanye West? So my proposal two months ago was that you cannot stay in public life in America and be persistently publicly critical of the Jews. And I said, Kanye West would burn out. He would have to stop criticizing the Jews, and that seems to be indeed what has happened. His life has crashed since criticizing the Jews, not necessarily because criticizing the Jews, his life crashed, but criticizing the Jews seems for Kanye West and for many others to be one symptom of their alcoholism and drug problems. So but Kanye West, Richard Spencer, talk about being alcoholics, and I think that is a useful form of abductive reasoning to understand their trajectory. That's where abductive reasoning is where you choose the simplest, most powerful explanation for what's going on. It's the type of reasoning that's used in detective stories, for example. So I'm enjoying the heck out of what Elon Musk is doing on Twitter, but the news media thinks he's just lost his mind. Richard Spencer says he's just lost his mind. I think we've got more free speech. I think it's fun that a whole bunch of people have come on board and where the heck? Oh, that's it. Here we go. Okay. Psychodrama set in Silicon Valley. Sometimes there are more important things in life than wealth. Sometimes there are more important things in life than your reputation. Sometimes there are more important things in life than your shareholders. So Elon Musk, I think part of him feels like he's saving Western civilization, and I don't think that's completely ridiculous. Elon Musk is ruling his newest acquisition the way he does the rest of his empire, impulsively, vindictively, loudly. It really doesn't need to be this way. Oh, so a lot of people are participating in Twitter. Like, use of Twitter is up. He has Twitter going better than ever with about one third of the stuff that used to be there at Twitter. I think he's on a great trajectory. Written by Kurt Wagner, Sarah Fryer, and Brad Stone for Bloomberg Business Week. Narrated by Michael David Axel. It was day five of Elon Musk's riveting, rambunctious takeover of Twitter. The owner and self-proclaimed chief twit had spent much of the last weekend in October at his new company San Francisco headquarters among people desperate to please him. Employees angling to keep their jobs amid steep layoffs and personal advisors helping him with the turnaround. He arrived in New York at 2 a.m. that Monday with plans to visit Twitter's offices in Chelsea and spend the day courting advertisers, the group most important to the company's survival. Wait, why are advertisers the group most important for the company's survival? I would think users are the people most important for Twitter's survival. I know people like you and me aren't we the most important group for Twitter's survival? In the early afternoon a team from Horizon Media stopped by. Horizon is one of the largest ad agencies in the world, chaperoned brands such as Capital One and Burger King. Also in attendance were two ad execs from Twitter as well as two- God forbid Elon Musk does not bow down to these very important advertising executives. God forbid that he doesn't run Twitter according to the desires of very important ad executives. Do I see parallels between Musk and Trump? Yes, very much. Many parallels. And overall, I think that Trump presidency was a good thing. He is a deeply flawed person, Donald Trump.  Overall, I think he's making the world a better place. Let's have a look at Richard Spencer's Twitter. So what's going on? First of all, Elon Musk is unserious, sociopathic and our next president. All right, very much attention grabbing. But who's more likely to be unserious? Elon Musk about the world's most richest man, about the world's most talked about man right now, perhaps the world's most important man right now, or Richard Spencer. Sociopathic. So who's more likely to be sociopathic? Elon Musk or Richard Spencer. And next president, he was not born in the United States. I don't see how one could claim he's going to be our next president. Who should run Twitter? Richard Spencer versus Andrew Anglin, Jonathan Greenblatt. How about none of the above? And Richard says, this guy's losing his mind in real time. I don't think he's losing his mind. Just because you tweet, those who want power or the ones who at least deserve it, I don't think that's indicating you're losing your mind. Richard Spencer retweets. Musk has no vision. He's like Dave Ribbon in the sense that he has no thoughts on the ideas. Musk has accomplished so much in his life. He is making Twitter so much better. All right, Tesla is about the world's most influential, powerful car company. His base rocket program is being incredibly successful. How on earth do you argue that this guy has no vision? That he's like Dave Ribbon? Richard Spencer says, I for one welcome our new Saudi Arabian digital overlords. Oh yes, if Elon Musk watches the World Cup with Jared Kushner and some Arab shakes, that definitely means that Saudi Arabia is really running things. So Richard says, I think Jared Kushner and others have found the next Trump. So Elon Musk was at the World Cup with Jared Trump. The tide is turning fast for the fouchiest, says Elon Musk. I don't agree with that critique by Elon Musk. It's not the end of the world. All right, let's have a look at this Twitter thread. I'm happy that we've entered the Musk era. It's a full revelation of the complete emptiness of the ride. It's the Musk era, really a full revelation of the emptiness of the ride. I don't see that at all. Fun to witness the sanctimonious skulls apoplectic. Compare the actions of the PayPal mafia, meaning Peter Teal and Elon Musk, to someone like George Soros, who's cultured, superior and deserving of the moniker. Most what? Motu, most influential man of the world. George Soros' plans and bills slowly makes the world bent to his will.  So Elon Musk and Peter Teal are just nothing, because they don't come across as cultured, superior as George Soros. I think there are a lot of things far more important than how you come across. And that is what you accomplish. Peter Teal, Elon Musk, for all their flaws are systematically making the world a better place. David Sachs says, in the zeal to attack Elon Musk as a free speech hypocrite, the corporate media has defended impersonation. The right to post-wastikers are bended in the Jewish flag and online stalking and doxing. By all means, let's keep going with this. Wow. Richard says, you guys really own the lips tonight. Ben, a liberal journalist from Twitter, no less. You must be part of the right wing elite I've heard so much about.  What Trump promised Biden seeks to deliver in his own way. This is a good point. I don't think that Joe Biden is an absolute disaster. In some ways, he's an absolute disaster, but Biden's also done a lot of good things. What Trump promised, Biden seeks to deliver in his own way. Donald Trump pledged to fix U.S. infrastructure as president about to take on China, bulk up American manufacturing, said he'd reduce the budget deficit, make the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. Yet after two years as presidents, Joe Biden is acting on these promises. He jokes that he's created an infrastructure decade after Trump merely managed a near parity infrastructure weeks. His legislative victories are not winning in votes from Trump loyalists or boosting his own approval ratings. They reflect a major pivot in how the government interacts with the economy at a time when many Americans fear a recession and broader national decline. Gone are blanket tax cuts, no more unfettered faith in free trade with non-democracies. Biden White House has committed more than $1.7 trillion to the place that a mix of government-aid focus policies and bureaucratic expertise can deliver long-term growth that lifts up the middle class. This reverses the past administration's view that cutting regulations and taxes boost investments by businesses that flow downward to workers. So Biden is gambling the federal bureaucracy can successfully implement and deliver on his promises after he leaves office. Okay, that is an interesting perspective and not an absurd one. Okay, Richard Spencer tweets, someone has to say that Elon Musk has lied for 27 years about his credentials. Oh no, does not have a BS in physics or any technical field, did not get into a PhD program, dropped out in 1995 and was illegal. Later, investors quietly arranged a diploma but not in science. And I think that's terribly important when you compare the magnitude of the things that Elon Musk has accomplished. He's exaggerated his resume. I don't think that's particularly a big deal. Let's go back to this Bloomberg article. In the early afternoon, a team from Horizon Media stopped by. Horizon is one of the largest ad agencies in the world, chaperoned to brands such as Capital One and Burger King. Also in attendance were two ad execs from Twitter, as well as two major fans of Musk's. Investor and podcaster Jason Callicanus and inexplicably his mother, Mae Musk. Hey, no, no, stop that.  My clients knew that I was going to meet you, goingsburg said. And they all asked, is he going to get Donald Trump back on the platform? Musk had already proclaimed publicly that he didn't believe in permanent Twitter bands. So here was a moment for a careful response, perhaps an explanation of how the company planned to guard against the former president's predilection for misinformation and incitements of violence upon his return. Instead, Musk replied that it was the question he was getting from everyone too and sitting there composed a tweet on his iPhone. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if Trump is coming back on this platform, Twitter would be minting money. He paused, surveyed the room and asked everyone whether he should post it. One of the Twitter ad execs strenuously objected. Musk laughed and posted the tweet anyway, and fired the center later that week. Twitter going on two months into the new Elon era continues to operate entirely at his whim. His antics extend the chaos in the courts, in the media and on Twitter itself, of the seven-month legal battle that resulted in his purchasing the platform for $44 billion. Okay, so what we're talking about here is a different conception of the self. So the author thinks that the one true right conception of the self is that we should pursue a buffered identity, that human beings are basically good, that we should be highly reflexive, that we should take into account every single person who could be affected by what we say and do, that we should be highly self-regulating, in effect that we should conduct ourselves as courtiers at court. That is the liberal left conception of the self. The self is buffered, meaning that what goes on next door doesn't necessarily need to affect me. If you want to go transsexual or you want to go gay, or you want to be into S&M, that doesn't affect me. There aren't currents of evil or goodness in the world, but we're all strategic, autonomous, buffered souls, basically good, and that we should pursue highly reflexive lives, constantly asking what will be the consequences of what I say and do on other people. That's courtier morality. So you live your life at court and you have to constantly modulate and adjust what you say and do to your constantly changing position at court and constantly changing power dynamics and how will this affect other people at court. That's courtier morality, that's liberal left morality, as opposed to traditional aristocratic morality where each man is king of his own castle.  He can do so. He doesn't have to take into account every single variable of who might be affected. Look, you have criticized the recklessness of Biden's response to Ukraine and conflict, any ideas for hoarding his administration accountable? No ideas, and that's not me. That's John Mearshawn. He says it's, he just can't conceive how we can get out of this mess because both sides are now so entrenched. So John Mearshawn can't conceive of how we get out of this mess. Well, actually, this is how Mearshawn concedes that we get out of this mess. That Russia eventually will use a nuclear weapon on Ukraine and then as a result, the Biden administration will be so frightened by the prospect of nuclear war that they will then force Ukraine to accept some sort of negotiated settlement and end to the war. So that is John Mearshawn's prediction of how we get out of the war. So Mearshawn says, short of that, it's too late because both sides have become so deeply invested in this conflict. So courtier morality is like liberal left morality. So highly reflexive, meaning that you consider how everyone sees and interprets and views and experiences and suffers or benefits from everything you say and do. So you're constantly taking a wide view, you're constantly trying to see yourself from an outside perspective, as opposed to the traditional conception of the self, where a man's home is his castle, and a man says what's on his mind or on his heart, and he doesn't have to constantly moderate and mediate and conciliate with everything he says. So the traditional conception of the self is that we have a porous identity, so that what you do affects me, but there are currents of good and evil in the world, human nature is not basically good. And because of that, traditional ways of organizing the self, the family and the community, overwhelmingly tend to be superior to newfangled ways of organizing said groups. Twitter, going on two months into the new Elon era, continues to operate entirely at his whim. His antics extend the chaos in the- Okay, we think that Twitter runs entirely at Elon Musk's whim. But guess what? In the end, Elon Musk is not the boss of Twitter. You know who is the boss of Twitter? The situation, reality, right? Reality bites. So in some circumstances, yeah, a lot of must whims can rule, just like I'm doing a show now, very exciting, 15 live viewers. And I feel like I can say or do anything on my mind. I feel like I'm running the show. But in the final analysis, I'm a guest in this home, all sorts of things could happen. We could immediately shut down this show. So right now I feel like I am the boss of this show and I feel like my whims are running this show. But you know who's really the boss of the show? The situation. The situation could change right now. Someone could walk in this door right in front of me and the show will end just like that. So Elon Musk, right? It looks like his whims are running Twitter. But Elon Musk is also vulnerable to situations. What is going to determine how successful Elon Musk is with Twitter? What's going to determine how successful the Biden administration will be? What's going to determine how successful Donald Trump's attempts are to regain the American presidency? Events, my dear boy, events in some situations and circumstances, the Biden administration will be ill-suited. In other situations and circumstances, Donald Trump will become the next president of the United States. In some situations and circumstances, tens of thousands of people could watch this live stream. In other circumstances and situations, I might never live stream again. We may feel like we have autonomy and that's a good feeling that we have free will and we do usually have considerable room to maneuver and to create our own lives. But there's God in the world. Or if you don't like the word and concept of God, there's reality out there and reality is not going to bend for you or me. So there are constantly events and circumstances and situations that are going to obviate all the best laid plans of my cement. So we don't know what circumstances and situations are operating on Elon Musk right now. It does look like he may need to step down as Twitter CEO. He may need to pay more attention to Tesla. His investors may demand certain changes. So people on the outside think, oh, Joe Biden, president of the United States has ultimate power. Elon Musk, his whim rules. But Joe Biden, he has to deal with changing situations and circumstances that moderate and delineate and reduce his capacity for action. Who's ultimately in charge of Joe Biden? The situation. The situation is the boss and the situation is constantly changing as events constantly change. So in some situations, I am cool, calm and collected. In some situations, I may sound helpful. I may sound sane. I may sound compassionate and understanding and true seeking. Just change the situation. Like when I flew to Gladstone, my bag was lost. I was not a happy camper. Thursday night, last Thursday night. And people close to me thought I'd lose my temper. I didn't lose my temper. I didn't say anything mean to anyone. I was a perfect gentleman. But I was not happy. I was not cool, calm and collected. I came to my residence and I just took a shower and went to bed. I just didn't want to really interact with anyone. I just wanted to cool off in bed because I was discouraged and annoyed and ticked off and frustrated that my bag was missing and I was catastrophizing. And I was not a happy camper. Then before six a.m. the next day, I get a call. They found my bag. They sent a courier over with my bag. I'm in a much happier place after that. So I'm a very different person when my bag with my laptop and my other valuable belongings is missing. A different person in those circumstances. Like if I'm paying for everything with my phone in Australia, right? I'd be about 10% of transactions are done by cash in Australia. But if all my credit cards got frozen, my bank account got frozen, right? I would not be a happy camper. And it may be through no fault of my own. I could be a victim of hacking, right? So no one gets to run their life on an ongoing basis just according to their whims. We all have to conform and comport and struggle and deal with reality, including Elon Musk.  There we go. No. Bloody no. Twitter going on two months into the new Elon era continues to operate entirely at his whim. His antics extend the chaos in the courts, in the media and on Twitter itself of the seven months legal battle that resulted in his purchasing the platform for $44 billion. Okay, question from the chat. Should we fear that all the surveillance instruments in our phones will eventually betray us to the work of powers that be? No, I don't think we should live in fear. On the other hand, as much as possible, we should try to conduct ourselves as though what we're saying and doing is published on the front page of the New York Times. So we shouldn't live in fear. We should try to behave like upstanding respectable citizens who if our words and ideas and actions were presented fairly on the front page of the New York Times that they would garner the minimal amount of opposition and the most amount of support. Now, would I assure you, absolutely no chance that the surveillance instruments in your homes will eventually betray you to the work of powers that be? Yeah, that's possible. That will happen probably on occasion. I don't think that we're entering Nazi or Soviet Union style work totalitarianism. I don't think that's ahead. Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening to see the live stream less troubled with medley calling a meme graphic of Alexa or like reporting on a family's family comments. So yeah, you may not want to have Alexa, right? You may want to take some sensible precautions. Yes, I could leave on a missionary trip to Ethiopia next week, you know, any situation is possible. How do I like iOS 16.2? I don't have any complaints with iOS 16.2. Even in the privacy of our own homes, yeah, generally speaking, even in the privacy of your own home, generally speaking, you should preferably act as though if some unexpected stranger or for some reason, what you're saying and doing is publicized that it will cause you a minimal amount of distress. So don't do illegal drugs. Don't do any type of sexual behavior that would be looked at scans upon by your community. Don't watch pornography.   I'm not saying, you know, obsess over this. I'm saying use that idea of what you're saying and doing, you know, being publicized to the world to help you not to hurt you, not to go crazy about it, not to, you know, become neurotic about it. And, you know, obviously, do I live up to this perfectly? No, I'm sure I'm frequently saying and doing things that I'd be absolutely important to see on the front page of the New York Times. I just find that concept helpful. My sponsors frequently find that concept helpful, right? Every concept is helpful to some people in some situations.  So if I say something that is useful, like use it to the extent it's useful, if it sees being useful, if it starts becoming harmful, then drop it.  Just drop it. So I'm still taking my beef organ capsules every morning. 40 has crazy energy, must be all the beef organ stuff. No, I almost never drink coffee. I almost never consume caffeine because I was up at 1 a.m. watching the World Cup, got very little sleep last night. I had two packets of green tea this morning and a large coffee.  That's what I ordered this morning. So I'm incredibly caffeinated and I'm almost never caffeinated. So caffeinated 40, like I think one recent Sunday, which would have been Saturday American time, I was also caffeinated. So when you don't drink coffee very much and then you have a large cup, man, it still packs a punch. And the L-theanine in green tea, it doubles the length of your caffeine high. So instead of having that crazy caffeine energy for two hours, I find when I have the green tea with the L-theanine, I get that crazy coffee energy for six hours. So I've done a hard day's work and I've probably carried like two tons of fertilizer. And I wanted to come home and live stream about a lot of masks and related issues, talk to you, like doing hard manual labor. I enjoyed it. Like my boss is the best. My boss is very kind, very understanding. I was like listening to a book on Robert Moses almost all day in addition to some 12-step talks. But now I want to come home and indulge myself, talk about my favorite topics with my favorite people. And then eventually there's going to come a knock on that door. And the live stream will have to end. I'll get back to mixing with people, or I may just hit the wall. The energy will run out at some point. I still have not fully processed the Dallas Cowboys loss, like in overtime, but a heartbreaker. Green tea, stronger down under, because you're closer to China. I can tell for you, you're bouncing off the walls. It's so good when you've got something powerful in your bullpen. It's like having a great reliever. You've got a great reliever, a guy who's strongly likely to save the game. You don't pitch him every game or his arm's going to get tired. It's not going to have the same effect. But you have a great reliever in the bullpen. You just use him once a week, then he's going to be very strong. So I would say I typically have a cup of coffee about once every three weeks. And so it just helps me, like knowing I've got that in the bullpen, right? Because then I can have almost no sleep, have a big cup of coffee, and I'm good to go. I don't suffer the defects from that lack of sleep. But if I was doing coffee every day, I would not feel that same benefit. So I need to keep things, I need to feel like I need to keep certain things in the bullpen for an emergency that will get me through the tough times. It's like just vacuumed a line. What is my retention like with audiobooks? Good question, John. And I don't know. I would have to I'd have to leave that to you. So I'm constantly consuming audiobooks. Do you get a sense that I'm retaining anything, that I'm able to integrate some of the things that I learn? I often listen to audiobooks when I'm doing other tasks. So yesterday, everyone was gone. So I finally got some alone time. And what an amazing test cricket match. So typically, most test cricket matches go five days and there's no result. This test cricket match between the two top test cricket teams in the world, number one ranked test cricket team in the world, Australia, number two ranked team South Africa, right? They're playing at the Gabba in Brisbane, right? Typically it goes five days. This was decided in two days. So yesterday was day number two, Australia won. So I just want to capture the winning moments of this great test cricket match. And I also hadn't done my audio exercises. So I don't tend to do those voice exercises from Roger Love when other people are around. But I got to do those voice exercises. At the same time, I was doing my positional strain. Now strain, counter strain, positional release. So I was doing that. And I was doing my audio exercises and watching the test cricket match with the sound down.  So probably retain more if I wasn't doing something else. Like today, I was sometimes helping customers. I was listening to the boss. I was making sure that I was putting the correct price on the fertilizer that I was stacking things correctly. I was watering the plants correctly while listening to this 50 hour audiobook on Robert Moses, great parks commissioner in New York City. So probably don't have the same retention recall or someone who wasn't distracted by other tasks. But I think I get a substantial amount. But who knows, maybe I am deluded. What is my source for audiobooks? I love Audible. I subscribe to Audible. I have so many audiobooks. I think I have in my library, I got 113 titles. Got The Power Broker about Robert Moses by Robert Acaro. I got The Conquering Tide as a trilogy on naval warfare in the Pacific during World War II. Raven Rock by Garrett M. Graff. That's about America's Preparations for the Nuclear War. Foundation by Peter Accroy about the history of England up until the 15th century. Britain at Bay by Alan Outport, the story of Britain in World War II. Verbal Judo, Updated Edition, Confidence Man by Maggie Hegelman about Donald Trump, the 9-11 Commission Report, Masters of the Air about American Air Force during World War II in Europe. The Divider by Peter Baker and Susan Glazer about Donald Trump. Iron Kingdom, A History of the Prussians by Christopher Clark. Pacific Crucible War at Sea in the Pacific. That's the first book of the Ian Toll Trilogy. Top of the Morning by Brian Stilter about Morning TV News. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes. Scientist by Richard Rhodes, Making the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. So Scientist is about E.O. Wilson. Days of Fire by Peter Baker. That's about the relationship between George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. I got Social by Matthew Lieberman, which I haven't read yet. The Passage of Power by Robert Cairo about Linda Mains Johnson, The Extended Mind by Enny Murphy Paul, A Man in Four by Tom Wolf, Reclaiming History, Debunking Nefarious, Stupid Conspiracy Theories about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, The Mirror in the Light, The Trilogy by Hillary Mantell. Aftermath about what happened to Germany after World War II. I got Stephen Kotkin's first two volumes on Stalin. Effective communication skills. It's a teaching company course.  Another teaching company course. Middlemarch by George Elliott. This is that multiple times. All the Pretty Horses. Normal by Cormac McCarthy. The Inclide and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon. That's like 80 hours. Empire of Pain about the Sackler family. The Brain's Way of Healing. So I think, you know, I think I retained some things. All right, so I think my audible subscription costs about $15 a month. The only thing we're missing right now is John Wolf. I just find my retention there with audio books. I just isn't there. Okay, I guess people vary. So yeah, I got 113 titles. I like listening. Many of these. So at night, I just leave an audible book running all night. I don't like to be alone with my thoughts, generally speaking. My mind is like a dangerous neighborhood that generally speaking, I should not enter alone. So I don't want to ruminate because if I wasn't running an audible book at night, I think 40, you really screwed up your life. You're 56. You don't have a family. You don't have significant savings. You know, you don't have this sterling career. You, you know, should pay attention to how success works on YouTube and follow the rules so that you're more successful. Why don't you have a wife?  I'd be kind of berating and flagellating myself. But if I have an audible book running, I get to kind of take a break from, from that part of myself. Then when I get up in the morning and I start doing the right things, the cold shower, you know, the 12 step talks, you know, talking to sponsors, the meditation, right? Then I get my day off to a good start. I'm usually in a positive frame of mind. But at night, when I'm in bed and I can't sleep, and I'm getting annoyed, then my mind typically, typically starts flagellating me. So I find it helpful to leave an audible book running. But I have girlfriends that say, you know, why do you have to keep stimulating yourself all the time? Are there any supplements or prayers to help with retention of audiobooks? So I think one tip is, you know, choose topics that are really interesting to you. So if you listen to an audio book that excites you, I think you'll be much more likely to retain it. Second, talk about the books you're reading with other people who are interested in what you have to say. So I am more incentivized to retain from audiobooks and everything that I experienced and read, because I will share it with you on here. And then you'll critique me and you'll challenge me.  So my ego gets involved. So I want to be as sharp and useful and helpful and decent and true seeking and kind and honorable as possible.  So surely you have people in your life who might be interested in the audiobooks that you're listening to. So I find that helps also. I sometimes write down notes handwriting. So I like to journal. So what I usually do when I start journaling is I write down all the things that I've done right that day or lately, because my mind naturally starts, you know, beating myself down. And then I write about all the things that I'm grateful for. And so I'm in, I'm in Tenom Sands Australia right now. And I first visited here in 1982. It was February 1982. And that was the first time I'd gone to a newsstand and started looking at Playboy and Penthouse.  And I was 16 years of age. And I was just kind of entering this whole new, exciting world of pornography. Then I came back here at age 18 after I graduated high school. I lived here for a year. And I thought I was going to lose my virginity, but that never even came close. But I did a good amount of money. I read a lot of books. And I thought I had this really bright future. And I was like boasting to people about all the things that I had accomplished in my life that I was going to be famous and influential and powerful and rich. And women would be throwing themselves at me. And I just had this grandiose vision of my future. Then I came back here in 1989, like December of 1989, after I'd been ill for, for a year and a half with chronic fatigue syndrome. And my life had just collapsed around me. But I discovered Judaism. I discovered Dennis Prager. I got my parents to send me five Dennis Prager lectures. And I thought, I'm going to start keeping the Sabbath. I started keeping Sabbath, again, in December of 1989. I think, okay, I'm probably going to convert to Judaism. And so I kind of see light at the end of the tunnel. I'm going to remake my life in alignment with God's laws. I'm going to join God's chosen people. I'm going to dedicate myself to the life of Torah and Mitzvahs and good works and align myself with the Hakanah Shabahu, the master of the universe. And so I saw Judaism, religion, ethical monotheism. This is going to be the way out of this mess that I've created for myself. But I was just so weak. I could do so very little in the three months I was here back in 1989. So I'm just kind of journaling about the sharp contrast between my great years, conceptions of myself in 1984 and the total crash, 1989, when my life has just collapsed around me. Then I came back here in year 2000 for two weeks. And this was kind of at the height of my fame. And I thought, I'm going to be this powerful, influential, famous and eventually rich blogger. I'm the new face of journalism. I'm doing something innovative. I'm going to take my talents. I'm going to transfer them outside of blogging on the pornography industry. But I've just seen a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with narcissistic personality disorder. And I knew it was true. I knew it was accurate. I knew that I was in over my head. I knew I needed to get back to therapy. I knew that I had many delusions of grandeur. Then I was back here in 2014 when I was carrying over $50,000 in credit card debt. And I hardly made any videos for about two years because I felt so beaten down and discouraged by life. And with over $50,000 in credit card debt in the three and a half weeks that I was here in 2014, I did not spend $1. Not $1. I was that careful and tight with my money because of this overwhelming weight of credit card debt. Then I came back here a year ago and I'd retired all my credit card debt three years previous. I had money in the bank. But how else am I different now from a year ago? Maybe I'll just keep that private. Okay. Wow. We've got an active chat. Let's see what's going on. Are there any prayers or supplements or meditation to help with retention? So for me as a vegetarian, yeah, B4 and capsules help. Medaphidel. Yeah. Medaphidel definitely helps with retention. Medaphidel, you can just Google it. M-O-D-A-F-I-N-I-L changed my life when I got on this in something like June of 2013. So it makes you want to learn. It's also known as boss's best friend. It also tends to minimize negative emotions. It kind of gives you a happy low key euphoria and gives you confidence and kind of effectively makes you smarter because you just want to learn. You just, you know, have the sensation of curiosity also helps you lose weight because you're so interested in learning that it distracts you from eating. Also, I find a cold shower, regular cold showers kind of wakes me up, makes me more alive and alert and better able to retain what's going on around me, avoiding things that drag me down such as pornography, food that has a negative effect on me, people that have a negative effect on me. So if I minimize that, if I minimize the time that I'm hungry, angry, lonely, and tired, then I'm also better able to retain. I'm better able to retain things in the morning rather than the afternoon and the evening. And the more intense what I'm listening to is for me. Like the more it speaks to me, the more curious I am, the better I'm able to retain. And then the more people that I'm going to speak to about what I'm learning, then the more incentive and the more invested I am in retaining what I'm listening to. Are you stuck with whoever the reader is? Well, often such as with Middlemarch by George Elliott, you can get various versions. Have I ever read Mark Twain's What is Man? And I think I have. Why do I have to keep stimulating myself all the time? Because my mind is a dangerous neighborhood that generally speaking, I should not visit alone. That's why I have sponsors and sponsors and people I call in my various 12-step programs close friends and these shows. Remember Gallery Magazine? Yes, I do. And we involved it. God forbid, God forbid. My father had a good excuse for possessing the Gallery Magazine. I came across at the age of nine. Oh, that can so distort you. I first came. My friend introduced me to photography at age eight. And I'll never forget the power, the intense sensations and how it transfixed me. It frightened me how attracted I was to what I was seeing. It frightened me so much that I didn't look at it again for about until I was 16. So I think I first saw it at about age eight or nine and then I was so frightened by its effect on me. I stayed away from it until age for another seven years, even though many of my friends were indulging in it. But how am I getting medathinal in Australia? Maybe I shouldn't say that. A cold shower is a part of the no-fap lifestyle. They can be, but you don't have to use it for no-fap because we are so frequently like dopamine addicts. We have to reset ourselves, get out of the easy access to dopamine overload. And so exercise, cold showers, turning off electronic devices sometimes, just going for a walk without any stimulation. These are all tips in the great book, Dopamine Nation. You can find wonderful interviews with the psychiatrist, author on YouTube, Dopamine Nation. This topic interests you. Oh, happy Hanukkah. And half-kalation is back. So the whole gang is here. Gleb is here. John, moral outrage, Jim Balden, reasonable and responsible. The gang is back in town. So I think the closest synagogue to me here is about 400 miles away. They found that the mountains were turned on and off by ship's pilot wheels. No, I don't want to get a strike. Let's get back to going on two months into the new Elon era continues to operate entirely at his whim. His antics extend the chaos in the courts, in the media and on Twitter itself of the seven months legal battle that resulted in his purchasing the platform for No, sometimes chaos is a bad thing. Sometimes chaos is not such a bad thing. Sometimes they're more important things than avoiding chaos. So generally speaking, I prefer to minimize chaos in my life. Generally speaking, chaos running late makes me anxious, does not bring out my best, but some people seem to thrive on chaos. So maybe Elon Musk thrives on chaos. $44 billion, much more than it was reasonably worth. He capstoneed the deal on the day it officially closed by ousting almost all of its top executives and limiting the enforcement of its content moderation policies. That was day one back when we were all young and our foreheads less furrowed from squinting in disbelief. So is your forehead furrowed by squinting in disbelief at what Elon Musk is doing with Twitter? I don't know about you, but does my forehead look furrowed? I think if you're watching this show, your forehead is not furrowed by what Elon Musk is doing on Twitter.  You're enjoying the good and the bad. You're enjoying the amortrish, the buffoonish, the silly, the juvenile, the adolescent, along with all the wonderful things that he's doing. I don't know about you, but I'm not judging every tweet or every move that Elon Musk makes. It doesn't hurt my happiness when Elon Musk makes mistakes. He's breaking a lot of things, but overwhelmingly he's doing such good work. I'm not sweating the details. What type of person has a furrowed brow over what Elon Musk is doing with Twitter? I did think right-wing people are experiencing the furrowed brow. Tesla stock is crashing. Tesla stock was crashing before, and there's special insight into what's going on with Tesla stock. One thing I do know that what Elon Musk is doing is bad for his financial bottom line and seems to be bad for Tesla. Just as when Donald Trump ran for president in 2015, that was bad for the finances of his companies and for himself and for his family, but Donald Trump was willing to sacrifice his finances in service of a greater goal. Maybe Elon Musk is willing to sacrifice something greater than his own financial net worth. What do I think about Allison Shablow getting her gig pulled? She is the woman in England who wrote songs about the Holocaust. I don't have an opinion. She was one of the finest musical talents your chat was ever seen. I haven't yet ponied up to subscribe to the Financial Times. When I tell people how I spend probably 150 a month on news subscriptions, they think it's crazy, but I haven't yet ponied up to the Financial Times. Maybe I will. It does seem to be a ton of compelling content on the Financial Times, including that column by Jeanne Garnache about how the primary reason for not using Twitter is that it is low status. That is bold. Since then, Musk has sacked more than half of Twitter's workforce, floated, rescinded, and refloated an idea to verify user accounts for $8 a pop publicly linked to a bogus news story about the violent attack on the husband of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Okay, so many news stories in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, FoxNews.com, NBC News, a bogus, but just this one story. A lot of Musk just gets flagellated again and again and again for that. What about other people who link to mainstream media hysteria over Trump's ties with Russia? How Trump was a Russian agent? Or how Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction? Right, millions of people linked to these stories later get flagellated with linking to bogus news stories. So, some bogus news stories are kosher and other bogus news stories are tref. Alienated more than half of Twitter's advertisers, forcing them to pause spending. Have I read Daniel Goldhagen in the last 10 years? I don't believe I have ever read Daniel Goldhagen. There's nothing about him that compels me to read Daniel Goldhagen. I did listen to one of his speeches. Alison Chablot is Alana Del Rey. E. Michael Jones tweeted a question to Jordan Peterson to ask Jews if they worship God or Malak, the devil. Well, depending on your perspective, some Jews would worship God and some Jews would worship forces of darkness or depends on what you regard as divine, what you regard as coming from the citra acra, the forces of darkness. Right, Jews like Christians are a mixed bunch. Some really believe in God. Some are good people. Right, some are hard-working. And some of them bring their problems with them. Some of them bring drugs. Some of them bring crime. Some of them are rapists. And some I assume are good people. And promised to reinstate not only the former president, but a rogue's gallery of right-wing troublemakers who were previously banned for spreading misinformation and fomenting violence. And he's wrapped it all in overheated indignation about free expression. So how collision says I find Daniel Goldhagen, one of the greatest writers I've ever come across. He's a Harvard scholar. I just find him a loathsome. So I don't care how eloquent he is. There are a lot of things that I value more than glibness. Daniel Goldhagen is a Harvard professor. Why would you reflexively dismiss his books? The same reason that elite book reviewers reflexively dismiss his books, right? Because they're trash. You can be a Harvard professor and just relentlessly turn it out trash. So there's nothing inherent in being a Harvard professor that makes you wise or that inherently instills your work with value. Right. I've read articles about his work. It's playing to the choir. It's so easy to get ahead by playing to your in-groups sense of victimization. So very easy to get ahead in Jewish life by playing to Jews sense of victimization. Easy to get ahead in Black life by playing to Blacks sense of victimization. Easy to get ahead in Mexican American life by playing to Mexican American sense of victimization. These resourceless, like these people who play their in-group sense of victimization. Generally speaking, they don't provide the kind of disinterested scholarship that normally compels my attention. I've never read him. Yeah. I've heard him speak and I've read enough articles about him. You're doing what you know. I hate when other people claim that they know somebody's body of work when they don't. I don't know Kanye West's body of music. I have no interest in Kanye West's rap music. I have no interest in people who are competing in the victimization Olympics like Daniel Goldhagen. I just have no interest. I haven't read the collected works or any works by Al Sharpton, but I'm not interested in the thinking of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. Daniel Goldhagen is the Jewish Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Nobody I respect has published an essay making the case for why one should read Daniel Goldhagen. Even leaking internal documents through a pair of friendly journalists in a release you dubbed the Twitter font. He is a scholar, not a performer, says half-collision.  Okay. A scholar means that you have created innovative work, that you have advanced the world of knowledge. Where has Daniel Goldhagen advanced the world of knowledge? He hasn't done any original research. He hasn't made any important original findings. He is a polemicist who appeals to the lowest parts of our natures. They're appealing to that victimization complex. What is innovative original? Important. Where has he advanced the boundaries of knowledge? He hasn't. Luke is too status obsessed, kind of sat and cringe. Is there anyone who's not status obsessed? What am I talking about? I said very clear what I'm talking about. Name some scholarly accomplishment of Daniel Goldhagen. Where has he unveiled new knowledge about the topics that he talks about? Like, what has Daniel Goldhagen presented that people didn't already know? He's just the L-sharpton of the Jews. He has to do his 120 million in misinformation throughout the U.S. House of Representatives, alienated more than half of Twitter's advertisers, forcing them to pause spending, and promised to reinstate. Okay. Half-collision says hard to argue about someone with such passion about something he's never familiarized himself with. I'll ask you a very simple question. Name one scholarly achievement by Daniel Goldhagen. Just name one. Where has he advanced our understanding, our body of knowledge about the topic? What is innovative and groundbreaking in his scholarship? I'll sit here and wait. Several minutes inside.  Why can't you come up with a single example of how Daniel Goldhagen has extended our understanding of the world? Where he has made contributions to our understanding of the topics that he writes about? You can't. Yes. Nice little Jewish argument to keep us warm on the first night of Hanukkah. Only the former president, but a rogues gallery of right-wing troublemakers who were previously banned for spreading misinformation and fomenting violence. So half-collision says Daniel Goldhagen is a scholar. I asked for an example of his scholarship. Where has he advanced the body of knowledge? Half-collision answers that's a non sequitur. How is that a non sequitur? Name a single scholarly advancement done by Daniel Goldhagen. You can't do it. Why can't you do it? Because he hasn't done anything. He hasn't advanced our understanding of the topics he writes about. He just appeals to the worst in us. And he's wrapped it all in overheated indignation about free expression, even leaking internal documents through a pair of friendly journalists. In a release he dubbed the Twitter files and hyped to his 100. Half-collision says he is a scholar, but a moral reckoning is not a work of history. I'm still waiting for you to name his scholarly accomplishments. Where has he advanced things? You can't do it. You missed the entire point of the book. I'm just asking you to name the scholarly accomplishment. You claim Daniel Goldhagen is a scholar. Name one scholarly accomplishment, Daniel Goldhagen. 20 million followers with a popcorn emoji. This is a battle for the future of civilization, Musk tweeted. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead. So, along Musk viewing this as a battle for the future of civilization, it sounds hyperbolic, sounds overdone, sounds great, yes, it sounds narcissistic. But I think there's enough truth to what he's saying. It's important to have more free speech on Twitter to allow more voices on Twitter. I mean, what he's doing is incredibly important. Makes the Lord a better place. Yeah, where is the subtle interpretation of a canonical text? And Half-Collision says his findings are not political, they are vilified, so there's no money in his findings. Oh, he gets flown around the world and paid tens of thousands of dollars. He has hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees and from selling his box, well over a million dollars. He is making bank because if you can attain elite credentials such as graduating from Harvard and you tell an in-group that they're victims, they've been sorely victimized, that it's just horrible what out-groups have done to your in-groups, there's a tremendous market for that.   There is an enormous appetite for that.  Easy, easy, easy to tell people, to tell an in-group that they are victims, and sometimes people are victims, it's all a matter of what you want to focus on. Everybody, every individual, every group can easily assemble a highly compelling case for why they're victims. Germans can do it, Jews can do it, Blacks can do it, the French can do it, the English can do it, the Japanese can do it. Everybody can come up with a case for why they're victimized, and there is a tremendous appetite in almost all in-groups for having someone with elite credentials tell them how badly they've been victimized. There's no business like Showa business. By occasional bouts of mad, leer-like outbursts whose only impediment to expanding his empire is his own conspicuous character, the visionary behind Tesla and SpaceX should be basking in the adulation of a society grateful for his contributions to low emission transportation and space exploration. Some people want things more than basking in the admiration of a society for his production of vehicles with low emissions and space exploration. Some people have higher goals, higher desires, than basking in the admiration of a society. Strength of the Maccabees in the pursuit of refusing to read something and instead accept his say. There's half the leash and the elites want to circumcise me. I honestly have no idea what Luke is talking about. Yes, it's terribly complicated to name a scholarly achievement by Daniel Goldhagen. I'm burdened by having read the works in question and yet you've read the works in question and you can't name a single scholarly contribution. Luke is comfortable in his passionate ignorance. Yes, asking you a question to name a contribution. When Twitter was first announced along Musk, buying Twitter I assume, I remember the reason people were saying to join was because ex-celebrity was on it. Then I heard rumors they were paying slabs. Yeah. Yet he can't resist the attention that comes from shock tweeting, no matter the maybe he has an agenda other than the liberal left secular humanist agenda. That everyone can see is for the self or a public discourse or a Western civilization in the same way as the writers for Bloomberg. Grammifications for his companies, legal bills and personal reputation. Long time colleagues say he struggles with self reflection and has an inability to take constructive feedback. Oh, so name me someone who doesn't struggle with those things. Do you love constructive feedback? You just like welcome constructive feedback 24-7. Do you struggle with seeing yourself as other people see you, right? Those people struggle with these things. Or tolerate criticism. Perpetually fragile franchise that is Twitter. The result has been something close to disaster. He's engulfed the company in haphazard cost cutting and picked a fight with Apple. Advertisers have fled. Well, sometimes there are important things we need to do in life. And they're painful and they're awkward. And the only way that we can make progress towards these painful, awkward things we need to do is in a haphazard fashion. It is better to make haphazard progress than no progress at all. It's better apparently for a lot of us to make haphazard progress towards reducing cost for Twitter, opening up free expression on Twitter than to do nothing at all. It's better to do important things awkwardly and haphazardly than to not do them at all. Being smooth, looking like you're fully in control is not always the most important thing. I think Joe Biden was right to get us out of Afghanistan. The way he did it was awkward. It didn't make America look good. There was a cool karma collected. It was the right thing to do. It was good that Joe Biden got us out of Afghanistan even if it was awkward and haphazard. They're frequently, when it comes to important things, 10 other things that are far more important than whether or not you're a haphazard. Half Gleeson says that Daniel Goldhagen's prose is precise and sharp. Yes, it is. He is an excellent writer. He's an excellent speaker. He's a very compelling intellectual. All right. I mean, I was at university. There were so many compelling Marxists who wrote and spoke so eloquently. I have found glibness is usually in indirect proportion to profundity. So profundity, you have to put things in context. You have to take into account the historical situation. All right. It's not nearly as smooth as the glib, but the glib are really important and the important are really glib. Oh, no. Elton John. John DeRime. I mean, her work is so moronic. I mean, has she ever produced anything that even reaches an audience with an average IQ of 100? Who cares if these people are no longer on Twitter? Hey. An increase in misinformation, racism, and other hateful content. Okay. What counts as misinformation? What counts as racism and what counts as hateful is entirely subjective. There's no objective understanding of these things. Yet this Bloomberg mainstream media presentation just assumes what is talking about is objective truth that has nothing to do with perspective or situation. These are just completely subjective categories that have zero objective meaning. Tesla's stock has fallen by half since the saga began. It didn't have to be this way. Bloomberg Business Week interviewed dozens of former employees and partners, some of whom were privately impressed with Musk and his sincere interest in grasping the issues facing Twitter before being repelled by his public behavior. They describe a leader fully capable of charm who deeply understands the service he's trying to fix, but is so addicted to its regular injections of ego gratification that he often sets the whole thing aflame. Musk himself, of course, disagrees with that characterization. Okay. So if he is setting the current liberal secular humanist worldview aflame, the only explanation offered by the writer of this piece is that his lower self, his ego, his primitive self, his uncultured self, the self that has not been formed by the left liberal secular humanist mindset is expressing itself, that his id is expressing itself. Oh, how terrible. Let's listen to that again. Who deeply understands the service he's trying to fix, but is so addicted to its regular injections of ego gratification that he often sets the whole thing aflame. Musk himself, sometimes things need to be set aflame. Right.  Right. Sometimes preservation is a worse outcome than destruction. So a lot of Musk is destroying the secular humanist left liberal elite consensus that ran Twitter. He is setting it aflame and I say, lachayim, hurrah. Let's go. Yashakoak. Good on you, mate. Of course, disagrees with that characterization. The proof will be in the pudding. He wrote in an email to Bloomberg Business Week. These are early days. Obviously, Twitter is working fine with far fewer people. We have reduced hate speech and bought troll activity by roughly one third while significantly. Okay. So I don't believe in hate speech. A lot of Musk may not believe in hate speech. You may not believe in gay marriage. You may not believe in the word gay. All right. But we still have to live in reality. And so we have to communicate with people who believe in all sorts of things that we don't believe. So just because we sometimes may use language and moral categories that we don't believe in. All right. It doesn't make us hypocritical or losers or dishonest. All right. On the one hand, we want to say what we believe. But on the other hand, we want to be effective. We want to take into account other people's perceptions.  But I still have to exist in the real world.  Right. I'm going to use language and concepts that I don't believe in to communicate and to make my way in reality. Right. I don't need to say what I truly believe in every situation. Increasing daily users. So Twitter is actually doing better. It's fitting that Musk's official arrival at Twitter's headquarters right before his deal closed started with a joke. He walked into the lobby at Tenfin Market Street in San Francisco carrying a half collision says Luke doesn't like it when Jews examine Christianity. Do I not like it? I mean, if if someone just has a reflexive hatred of Jews or of Christians or of Christianity or the New Testament or the Talmud or the Dallas Cowboys, I don't find reflexive, you know, hatred for certain religious texts or certain religious groups. I don't find that out of fine. Usually, like I'm human being sometimes I engage in it. Sometimes I enjoy engaging it with other people. Generally speaking, I prefer disinterested scholarly pursuit of truth, whether it's by Jews or non-Jews. Being a bathroom sink based on orchestrated so he could tweet to his followers entering Twitter HQ. Let that sink in.  Perhaps by extending your empathy to other people to not just try to see the world as they see the world, but try to sense how they experience the world. You can find Jewish scholars who find great beauty and moral truth and profundity in the New Testament. I think generally speaking, we're better off trying to extend our ability to empathize and to see things from other points of view. So put yourself in the particular time or place of the writers. This was approximately 2000 years ago. Understand the time, the place, the context, who they were, what their audience was, what their mission was, what were the probably underlying facts that they were dealing with. I just find trying to extend my empathy and understand why some people find this text absolutely life-changing and life-affirming and transformational and the ticket to salvation. I would rather extend my empathy rather than just reflexively load the religious texts and attitudes and theologies of upgroups. It was a reference to a meme where people punctuate their truth bombs with images of sinks in doorways. Employees found no reason to laugh. Not only had they spent months watching their new boss disparage the company he was planning to buy, but the company had also already frozen hiring cut down on corporate. Okay, so Hop Galician reminds me of the reaction to Donald Trump. Remember, Donald Trump in 2015 made his announcement that he was running for president and he talked about how Mexican immigrants bring their problems with them. They bring drugs. They bring crime. They're rapists. And the conventional wisdom says Donald Trump called Mexicans rapists. No, he called particular Mexicans rapists. He didn't call all Mexican rapists. So Hop Galician says, how could Jews not hate a book that describes themselves as killers and a synagogue of Satan? That's a couple of verses in the New Testament. There are a dozen, two dozen, three dozen depending on how you view it, very anti-Jewish verses in the New Testament. But there are also other depictions of Jews in the New Testament. So you can take the most heinous texts in the New Testament from a Jewish perspective and you can fixate on that. You can take the most heinous words that somebody says. You can take the most heinous things that someone's done and you can just fixate on the worst individuals, of communities, of religions, of religious texts, or you can try to have perspective. So if you watch the news, you read the news, it's usually about taking one thing somebody said and done and just blowing it up. What you usually don't get in news is a sense of perspective. A lot of masks are said. So I mean ridiculous, amateurish, juvenile things since he's taken over Twitter. But from my perspective, the biggest perspective, Twitter is a much better place because of Elon Musk.  I primarily fixate on how Twitter is overall a better place for Elon Musk taking it over. So one can just focus on the most hateful sections of the New Testament with regard to Jews or one can try to understand it in its historical context how it has been applied down through history and the very complicated Jewish-Christian alliance. So you can find plenty of very hateful texts about Christians within the Jewish tradition. You can find plenty of very hateful texts about Jews within the Christian tradition. Generally speaking, everybody finds religions not their own at best ridiculous and normally they find them downright evil. That's the normal human reaction to any religion not one's own. Ridiculous at best, no likelihood if you speak honestly you find other religions downright evil and disturbing. Employees found no reason to laugh. Not only had they spent months watching their new boss disparage the company he was planning to buy, but the company had also already frozen hiring cut down on corporate spending and travel. Okay, so Elon Musk disparaged the company he was going to buy. And that's not politic. That's not how an elite is supposed to behave. Supposed to walk softly. Supposed to speak calmly and judiciously. But there are different ways of approaching things. There are different ways of shaking things up and improving things. There are calm ways. There are haphazard ways, right? It seems like Trump has Trump Elon Musk has probably really done something good. Okay, let's have a look at the chat. Look, you are embarrassing yourself frankly. I'm sure I am. I am just ignorant of the Gospels and of Gordhagen. So hopefully who do you think has spent more time studying the Gospels? You or me? My dad's a Christian theologian. Every day my childhood from about age 7 or 8 until 11 I had to read 40 pages of dense Christian apologetics. I listened to thousands of hours of Christian sermons. My dad did two PhDs related to Christianity. I was raised immersed in Christianity.  You really think that you spent say 150th the amount of time that I have with the Gospels? Give me a break. We can say there are good parts of the New Testament.  There are objectively good parts and bad parts of the New Testament. It all depends on your subjective perspective. Half-Cletian says we want the hateful awful stuff edited out. You want to edit out the religious texts of Christians. Great. Good luck with that. I know the New Testament it's only shtick. You're giving me her BS now. She herself doesn't believe. She wants it changed or monitored. Good luck with changing the religious texts of other religions. It's not one thing look at the entirety of the depictions of Jews in the New Testament. I don't think it's fair to say that the entirety of depictions of Jews in the New Testament is that they are satanic. That is just one part. Okay. Live in your fantasy. I'm in reality says half-Cletian. Read a moral reckoning. Do you think making the demands of Christians for censorship is more likely to make Christians increase or have favorable opinions of Jews? Daniel Goode Hagen wrote before the Vatican unsealed certain documents. It's a shame. I just want the discussion because if examined no godly person would think this is a God inspired text. I think millions of people would think the New Testament is a God inspired text. I didn't think from an outside perspective that a neutral observer would be more or less likely to find the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament more or less likely to be God inspired. I know the gospel is more than you. Full stop says half-Cletian. Okay. Elon Musk doesn't want to run Twitter. He puts a poll up. Maybe you'll move on to other things. Okay. Let's get back to, yeah. There is an intensity to how Ashkenazi Jews discuss things, which I frequently find rather invigorating, but it's somewhat different from the more judicious measured understated ways that northern Europeans discuss things. Ashkenazi Jews originate from the Middle East. The Middle Easterners have a certain passion and intensity in how they talk about things, even if it's just what they want for breakfast. Employees found no reason to laugh. Not only had they spent months watching their new boss disparage the company he was planning to buy, but the company had also already frozen hiring, cut down on corporate spending and travel and shuttered offices. Staff new layoffs were coming. Now the richest man in the world had shown up. Who really cares whether the staff at Twitter are happy or not? Just in the whole balance of things on the full picture, the wider perspective on the importance of Twitter, I would say employee happiness is not one of my primary concerns. Now, I'm not sure I would enjoy it working for a long mosque. I really don't think that's particularly what's important right now with regard to Twitter. Punching down with a jokey meme. A dismantling. I didn't see any problem with punching down. Punching down is not inherently more right or wrong than punching up. There's not a certain segment of people who should never be criticized and other people who should be relentlessly criticized. We all benefit from accurate criticism. I am better. I am sharper. I am smarter because I argue with half Galician and I listen to what half Galician says, right? I am better off for accurate criticism. You are better off for accurate criticism. I'm better off being challenged. You are better off being challenged. We don't see ourselves. I am coming on this live stream. I'm sharing my delusions about reality.  We think more clearly, more importantly, more comprehensively, more productively, more ethically, more usefully when we reason socially, when we reason together. When I share with you what I'm thinking, you share with you what you're thinking, you challenge my points. I challenge your points. You criticize me. I criticize you. We are all better off for that kind of thinking as opposed to living alone, thinking out thoughts, and just having these internal dialogues. We are incredibly good at fooling ourselves. We're incredibly good, however, at detecting when other people are trying to manipulate us. We did not evolve to be gullible. We evolved to be very good at picking up when other people are trying to manipulate us, but we did evolve to have a grandiose, unrealistic conception of our own capacity for detecting reality and detecting truth. I am much better off for half Galician's challenges. I'm much better off for half Galician, disparaging my thinking. I'm much better off for half Galician's criticisms. We're all better off from a vigorous, challenging, and criticizing, and provoking, and promoting, and dissecting, and analyzing, because when we think socially, when we bounce things up each other, we will be more likely to increasingly approximate reality and increasingly develop more sophisticated top-down models for how the world works and bottom-up models for how we work as individuals compared to what we come up with on our own, which is frequently completely disconnected from reality. Let's have a look at the chat. What is your education level? Okay, half Galician, I think, had a pretty solid Yeshiva education. I've heard a guy complaining about Australian immigration and Africans flying in. Yes, so some Australians really object to all the South African immigrants. South African immigrants are more likely to be entrepreneurial. The native Australians are more likely to make more money, to get ahead. South Africans have moved to Australia have been very productive, and they are very important in the Jewish community. Half Galician is a very smart guy. We're talking a guy who's got the same approximate IQ that I have or higher than I have. He's very well read, very smart guy, very challenging. Whoa, she was widely respected, right? Did you widely respect Vajaya Gadi? No, I didn't. I don't think you respect her either. I think she's widely respected in Elsevier. I think she's widely derided in Elsevier. So this is such an insular, pedantic perspective. This is so highly partisan. And I don't have a problem with it being partisan. I don't have a big problem with it being pedantic. But the writer believes he is conveying objective truth. I understand I'm giving you a partisan approach. I understand I'm giving you a selective approach. I understand that what I'm saying is coming through a filter of my life experience and my situation at this time. The writer is composing this as though he is speaking just objective truth above all partisanship. But he is every bit in the grip of partisanship as I am and as you are. So she was widely respected by whom? I'm sure there are people who respect me in certain areas. I'm sure half Galician respects me in certain things. In certain things, he thinks I'm a bloody bogan. In plenty of things, he thinks I'm totally Meshogana. In other things, he respects me. Certain things, I respect half Galician. In other things, I think he's Meshogana. It's not like I can effectively assess half Galician whether I respect his totality or not. I respect some things about him. I think he's Meshogana crazy on other things. I'm sure he respects some things about me and thinks I'm crazy on other things. This idea that Magyar Gadi is just widely respected, it's so deluded. There are things that Donald Trump has accomplished that are worthy of respect. There are so many things about Donald Trump that are not worthy of respect. Depending on your perspective, you will have more or less respect for Donald Trump and Magyar Gadi. These things are not objective truth. And he is writing this as though oh, it's just objective that this Magyar Gadi is universally widely respected. Baloney. The council was ignominiously escorted out of the office as employees prepared for the company Halloween party. Almost everyone else on Twitter's executive team resigned shortly thereafter and was replaced by a cadre of Musk loyalists whom some employees started referring to as the goons. They included investors such as Callicanus. Did I read the Tablet magazine article on Jews being vulgar? No, I haven't read that but I do like Tablet magazine. So I have not been reading as much as I normally do. I've been spending time with family. I've been spending time with friends. I've been spending time with myself swimming at the beach and going along the bush walks. I've been spending time working. I've been spending time moving tons of fertilizer. I've been spending time watching the cricket, watching the World Cup. I've been spending time trying to do pull-ups. I'm probably reading newspapers about the third as much as I normally do. Former PayPal exec David Sacks and Andreessen Horowitz partner Sriram Christen, Musk's personal lawyer Alex Spiro and business manager Jared Birchall and SpaceX board member Antonio Graciaz who took formal roles at Twitter but some were added to the corporate directory and started advising Musk on everything from product ideas to layoffs. As Sacks met with Twitter's product leads, he floated the idea of putting the entire service behind a paywall in a separate meeting. So is half Galician Orthodox? So half Galician is like many Jews probably doesn't subscribe to the Orthodox code of Jewish belief as perhaps articulated by my monodies but if he goes to synagogue it's going to be an Orthodox synagogue. So life in Orthodox Judaism is not primarily about subscribing to a set of beliefs. It's about a particular way of life and almost nobody in the Orthodox Jewish community observes everything. To varying degrees everyone in the Orthodox Jewish community picks and chooses. There are certain things that you need to abstain from doing publicly if you want to maintain your membership in the community but Orthodox Judaism is primarily a way of life you know where you don't publicly deviate from certain Jewish observance such as keeping the Sabbath, keeping Kosher. In with sales leaders Graciaz hyped his pal Musk. He's here to win. Luke do you have any experience with Kabad? Yes I have been to many Kabad synagogues and I would say that my experience with Kabad is overwhelming and positive. I've had such good experiences with Kabad Jews in general and with Kabad rabbis in particular. Tim says I think Twitter will survive doesn't matter if Elon Musk is CEO. Belief is paramount says reasonable responsible that can not be any commandments without a commander. Abel says Elon Musk will lose and leave it to someone else to bring in the ad money. He said according to a former employee he's a winner he wins everywhere. Musk set up shop on the second floor of Twitter San Francisco. Okay so I can see there is some use in describing certain people as winners and some people as losers but even people we would normally describe as winners such as Michael Jordan they're a bust whilst at their life where they've been losing and Michael Jordan has you know get one away you know well over a million dollars so in reality nobody is always winning. All those people who you regard as winners they're in deep pain about things that they've lost so we all have situations where we have won situations where we've lost life will pummel all of us so now people in truth they're not winners or losers they're winners in certain situations losers in other situations. Go office though to most Twitter employees he may as well have been on Mars. It would be almost two weeks before the rank and file heard from him. There were no emails no all hands meetings no formal announcements from on high that Musk had even taken over. It was a strange way to conduct a courtship though it also spoke to his intended plans. He wasn't there to make friends. On day two Musk asked engineers to print out their most recent code so he and his team could review their work and evaluate whether they were making a meaningful contribution. The directive led to employees milling around the printers with stacks of paper before somebody realized that printing Twitter's entire code base. So just curious on a scale of one to ten how important is the happiness level of Twitter employees to you. So my expense from my perspective now that the caffeine is starting to run out the importance of Twitter employee happiness to me is a one on a scale of one to ten but maybe that's just me maybe it's a prime importance to you that Twitter employees be happy healthy and holy. Mike pose a security issue employees started milling around the shredders instead at the same time Musk brought in dozens of engineers from Tesla to start collecting information on ongoing projects and lay the groundwork for a massive downsizing. Twitter managers were instructed to stack rank their employees with rankings due hours after they were assigned. No one knew for certain how many people would be laid off though at first the numbers seemed reasonable 25 percent to 30 percent for many teams some employee. There's no objective reasonable amount of a percentage of layoffs for Twitter. There's no inherent reason that 20 or 25 percent is more reasonable than 50 percent or 70 percent like this guy speaks as though he is God at Mount Sinai. These who had no desire to work for Musk petitioned their bosses to be included on the list of layoffs and just because you were making a list of your own didn't mean you weren't going to be on somebody else's. Still those few Twitter executives who earned one on one time with Musk early on walked away impressed. The CEO seemed thoughtful and curious. He asked a lot of questions and in many cases said the things people wanted to hear. He promised to consult a special advisory council before making decisions on whether to bring back banned accounts such as Trump's. In those first few days of the new Elon era he managed to restore a little hope. Joel Roth Twitter's head of trust and safety restore a little hope restore a little hope for whom. All right. It depends on the individual right. He's speaking again as though it's just the objective perspective right. Different people will have different levels of hope depending upon their situation and their perspective right. He's talking about the author of this article is talking about restoring hope for other liberal secular left wing elites. He's not talking about restoring hope for trans. Bloody hell I'm trying to run a show here. He was among the optimists because Musk believed that Twitter had overstepped on banning accounts and fighting misinformation and that it was too heavy handed in policing user content. Roth assumed he would be fired immediately. He largely oversaw those policies. Instead Musk started leaning on him privately and publicly retweeting his posts and encouraging people to follow him for updates on Twitter's election plans. It was. Oh my God. Elon Musk was praising and retweeting an employee who he later fired and criticized. That is so shocking. How haphazard. My God. So much chaos. Oh I'm going to follow my brow. What the heck. Come on man. Apple. Come on. I'm trying to. An alliance that surprised everybody. Roth included. By day six the severity of Musk's planned cuts started to crystallize. Chief marketing officer Leslie Berland the last remaining member of Twitter's executive team and the person most closely linked to its employee friendly corporate culture was fired. Word soon leaked that layoffs were going to be much bigger than managers had initially expected. Musk was planning to cut 50 percent of Twitter's more than 7000 employees later that week. Late in the evening on day eight and into the early morning hours of day nine hundreds of employees converged on spaces. The social networks tool for broadcasting live audio taking turns sharing stories about their time at the company and. Oh my God. It sounds like they're experiencing emotional distress. That's so sad. I'm so worried about the happiness level of. The leftists who work at Twitter. So sad. Right. Let's see what Daniel Goldhagen has to say about Hitler's willing executioners. Chin of the open mind has been made possible by grants for. October 30 1996. I'm Richard Heffner your host on the open mind. Some months back we discussed a Harvard University professors totally compelling and quite controversial book entitled Hitler's willing executioners ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. It's subject understanding the actions and mindset of the tens of thousands of ordinary Germans who became genocidal killers. Let me guess here. I'm going to say that Germans like non Germans don't tend to care very much about our groups unless they view our groups as threatening their way of life and what they love and value. If they view our groups as threatening what they hold precious then they can have really negative views of our groups. So how do you think Jewish Israelis feel about the Palestinians? On average Jewish Israelis would like the Palestinians to disappear. Oh my God. How genocidal. We all wish that our most hated enemies I think many of us do wish it would just disappear. How do I think Palestinians think about Jewish Israelis? They wish that they would just disappear. How do you think Russians who are fighting Ukraine feel about Ukrainians? They wish Ukrainians would disappear. How do you think Ukrainians feel about Russians? They wish the Russians would just disappear. It's normal natural and to some degree even healthy to wish that your enemies would just disappear.  It's conclusion that anti-Semitism moved many thousands of ordinary Germans and would have moved millions more had they been appropriately positioned to slaughter Jews. Well guess what in some circumstances you and I would be the equivalent of concentration camp inmates. In other circumstances you and I would be the equivalent of concentration camp guards. It's not like one group that is just only fated to do good, kind, helpful things. In some circumstances we fight. In some circumstances we submit. We're all locked in an iron cage together. And the world is a dangerous place. Different peoples have different interests. Human ones are infinite. Diversity and proximity frequently lead to conflict. There are a substantial number of Jews who have negative feelings about non-Jews.  I think the proportions are approximately equal. Depending on the circumstances, depending upon what's at stake, this can activate people to behave in more or less hateful ways. Initially the Nazis formed a Havara agreement to send Jews to Israel and allow them to take many of their financial assets to Israel. So initially in the 1930s the Nazis cooperated with designists. Then when circumstances changed, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union and situation has changed, circumstances have changed, then the Nazis became bent on exterminating as many Jews as possible. The Nazis took power in 1933. They did not immediately set out on exterminating Jews. Hutus and Tutsis have hated each other for a long time. It took in particular circumstances for one tribal group to start slaughtering another tribal group. Not economic hardship. Not the coercive means of a totalitarian state. Not social psychological pressure. Let me guess. Jewish Germans and non-Jewish Germans had areas where they sought the word differently, where they had different values, where they had clashing interests, and that these clashes of interest at various times became so acute that things turned really nasty. And let me guess. The group that was 99% of Germany had more power and more means to inflict death and destruction on the 1% of the population who was Jewish than the 1% had to inflict on the 90%. So that's what I understand is going on here. Okay, let's get back to this 1996 conversation with Daniel Roth. Not invariable psychological propensities, but ideas about Jews that were pervasive in Germany and had been for decades. So why were there ideas about Jews in Germany that were pervasive and had been for decades? Because Jews have lived in Germany. If Jews never lived in Germany, there would be fewer ideas about Jews and they would have less emotional valence. Great. I sound like an intellectual. Emotional valence is a fancy academic elite word for emotional intensity. So you probably have some views or some reactions to hot and tarts, but these views probably don't have much emotional valence for you because in your day to day life, you don't interact with hot and tarts. If you were constantly interacting with hot and tarts, you would have a different emotional valence to your views and opinions and feelings about hot and tarts because Jews and Jewish Germans and non-Jewish Germans had been living together, sometimes sleeping together, sometimes competing with each other, sometimes pursuing different ends and means, sometimes having different interests that clashed. There came times where there were tensions and so there were Jewish Germans who developed very negative views of non-Jewish Germans and there were non-Jewish Germans who viewed Jews in a negative light and when circumstances became acute, so the conflict of interest is now acute just like when the Hutus and the Tutsis had this long-running mutual dislike of each other, but then circumstances changed, so one group now had the means, the opportunity and the incentive to do violence against the other group, then it happens. When two groups have a vital conflict of interest and one group now has the opportunity to rid itself of its enemy and they have incentives to do so, then really bad things tend to happen.  Half-Galician says, Luke is pretending Christianity is not anti-Judaism. Has he any experienced SDA, Australian and California Christianity? My father was so anti-Jewish, my father said that Jews are not Jews, I mean evangelical Christians are Jews. My father said Judaism was done away with the cross. My father would preach that Jews have suffered leading the Holocaust because they rejected Jesus. I would say I am rather familiar with anti-Judaic sections of Christianity. Parts of Christianity are anti-Jewish. Other parts of Christianity are indifferent to Jews. Other parts of Christianity are phylo-Semitic. Some parts of Islam are anti-Jewish. Some parts of Islam are indifferent to Jews. Other parts of Islam are Jewish friendly. So it depends on what part of Christianity we're talking about and at what circumstance, whether those parts of Christianity or Islam or any other group are going to be anti-Jewish, pro-Jewish or indifferent. Yes, my father had typical views of Jews among Christians who were born and raised prior to World War II. So Nick Fuentes has fairly typical pre-World War II attitudes towards Jews. Christianity has to be anti-Jewish, the whole point of Paul. Yes, there has to be a segment of Christianity, a substantial part of Christianity that's anti-Jewish. Otherwise, why would there be any need for Christianity? Christianity claims to supplant and fulfill Judaism. If we can attain heavily salvation by doing good works, the apostle Paul said, then Christ died in vain. Guess what? Judaism has to have a segment in it that is anti-Christianity. Christianity makes claims that are completely antithetical to Judaism's claims. Think of this as invasive species. Let's take eucalyptus trees, bring eucalyptus trees to California where they're not native, and you start planting eucalyptus trees. Eucalyptus trees emit compounds that do not permit other forms of plant life to live underneath it. It wipes them out. Sometimes eucalyptus trees outcompete native wildlife.  They wipe out other forms of native wildlife. So, different forms of plant life have different interests, sometimes invasive species, you know, outcompete native species. If you're Jewish, you're strongly identifying Jew, it would be weird if you did not have some anti-Christian sentiment. If you're strongly identifying Christian, it would be weird if you did not have some anti-Jewish sentiment, but people are complicated.  Whether you should have gratitude or hostility depends upon circumstance. Since about the 18th century, the fortunes of Christians and religious Jews have generally marched together because their common enemy is increasingly being sexualism. Prior to the 18th century, from about the 4th century to the 18th century, the fortunes of Jews and Christians moved in opposite directions. The stronger Christianity got in a society, the weaker Jews and Judaism got. So, that was the tendency for about 1400 years after the 18th century, then the fortunes of religious Jews and religious Christians increasingly marched together as they had to deal with an increasingly secular world. Systematically and without pity. The perpetrators having consulted their own convictions and So, why would people have no pity for out-groups? Because they have so much love for their in-group. If you love, love, love your in-group, you are much less likely to have pity for out-groups. Right? Why would you hate that which threatens what you most love? Because that's the no more natural healthy reaction. If you love something, you hate that which threatens it. Now, look at the chat. Luke is denying the New Testament the passion. He is generalizing about out-groups and in-groups. Luke is ignoring all history and context. What about Ponskum? Yeah, I don't believe that various forms of Ponskum live happily with each other for very long. As I understand it, I'm not an expert on Ponskum. As I understand it, one form of Ponskum, generally speaking, will drive out other forms of Ponskum. As I understand it, subspecies don't live in harmony with each other for very long. As I understand it, when you have multiple subspecies in one specific location, one subspecies will drive out the other subspecies. This is the way of the world. As I understand it, we seem not to be not lying for legitimate causes of libel, scapegoating, rational hatred, etc. Well, I just want to understand how the world works. I'm not here to castigate haters. I'm just trying to discern and explain reality as I see it. I'm not here to talk about good guys and bad guys. How could clergy countenance the murder of women and children? You mean like Deuteronomy? You have God commanding genocide. You have God carrying out genocide in the Torah. So, God commands genocide.  So, from a Torah perspective, there's a time and a place where God decides to wipe out everybody but one particular family. Mass genocide, other situations, God commands Israelites to carry out genocide, including women and children. That says, I feel gratitude and affinity for the unprecedented kindness toward Jews of the mostly white and Christian family stock demographic in the United States. As I taught the Jews are collectively responsible for Christ's death. Yes, that was one thing I was taught about Jews. But I heard 20 times as much anti-Roman Catholic rhetoric in my upbringing as anti-Jewish rhetoric. I never remember sitting around the dining room table and talking about Jews with my family. You assume I have never read my Greek New Testament. I've not read it in Greek or read in a comparatively little in Greek. I've read the New Testament in translation many, many times. My point is the Christian ideology is homicidally anti-Jewish. All in-group ideologies under certain circumstances are homicidal towards out-groups that threaten the existence of the in-group. This is not something that's unique to Christianity. Yeah, if you look you can find unique things about Christianity and you'll find unique things about Judaism. But we're still dealing fundamentally with an in-group versus out-group dynamic. We're all stuck in an iron cage together. We never know other people's intentions towards us. We can never fully predict how other people will operate than ever. You form any kind of connection with anyone. You are also simultaneously creating the inevitability of feeling betrayed. There's no way that half-Galician and I can form any sort of connection and not then set the groundwork for feeling betrayed by the other person. To connect with people is to create the inevitability of betrayal. To form an in-group identity is inevitably to form negative feelings about out-groups. The stronger your in-group identity the more likely you are to have negative feelings about out-groups. The stronger your Jewish identity the more likely you are to have negative feelings about Christians and Muslims. The stronger your Christian identity the more likely you are to have negative feelings about Jews and Muslims. The stronger your Islamic identity the more likely you are to have negative feelings about Christians and Jews. An objective assessment of history would surely find any number of instances of irrational hostility. Yeah, but I prefer not to take the irrational way out and just oh how could people be so irrational. My prejudice, my preference is to try to understand the rationality behind that which is seemingly irrational. That's what I try to do. It's just the easy way out to just dismiss sentiments that I don't like, that I don't approve of, that I find threatening, that I want to castigate as irrational. I try to understand the rationality behind the seemingly irrational. That's my prejudice. Well, the Torah describes the mass annihilation of peoples as right in certain circumstances. Right? What in group that is threatened for its very survival is not inclined to lash out in a genocidal fashion against those who want to genocide it. Jonah Goldhagen wrote this extraordinary study and when we spoke here there were no reservations about his presentation of ordinary Germans, eliminationist anti-Semitism, as basic to their often zealous actions as Hitler's willing executioners. So Half-Galician says, I love Christians, I love the glorious achievements of Christendom, is Christian theology that I have a problem with as it likely would have killed me had I lived 60 years earlier. It wasn't Christian theology that instigated the Holocaust. It was only a post-Christian Europe that it could have carried out the Holocaust. Ideology in and of itself does not create genocide, its particular circumstances in particular, specifically a profound conflict of interest that turns into an either or situation like either my group survives and the other group is destroyed or my group is destroyed and the other group triumphs.  So genocide wasn't primarily driven by Christian theology. Like Christian theology had been around for 2000 years and it hadn't led to anything like the Holocaust. Now you can argue you know without the anti-Jewish elements of Christianity and Christian theology the Holocaust could not have happened, fine, but you don't need theology. What you need are profound conflicts of interest between groups. That's what leads to conflict. Different groups of different interests. If they are in proximity to each other and the conflicts are profound and life-threatening and survival-threatening then you get very nasty reactions. Luke is ranting but devoid of any understanding.  Okay let's go back to Daniel Goldhagen. But Professor Goldhagen told us that he was soon to face his German readers on their own turf and promised and promised to report back on their reactions and in turn on his own. Indeed from Hamburg, Germany. Such a brave man. I'm sure Daniel Goldhagen has made hundreds of thousands of dollars from Germans and their reactions to his book. Like he is making bank. He has received speaking fees you know in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. I mean Germans are after war or to you know love to flagellate themselves about you know how evil the German nation has been. I mean Germans, many Germans would absolutely laugh up Daniel Goldhagen's critiques. I'm sure he's earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from German self-hatred. In September 1996 Reuters reported Professor Goldhagen as unexpectedly agreeing his hard-hitting work had flaws and on Reuters television he said I skirted over some of this history a little too quickly now that I've had some time to reflect upon the book I think one thing I would devote more attention to and integrate into the analysis is the effect of the first world war in radicalizing German society. Reuters also reported that several of the 400 Germans in the audience said they were disappointed. The Goldhagen who was vehemently defended his book and blasted his German critics in print simply agreed with some key objections when discussing them in person. So let me now ask Professor Goldhagen whether we here need share that disappointment with those Germans. Well the first thing to be said is that the Reuters report was a thorough misrepresentation of what actually happened in Hamburg. The headlines in Germany were Goldhagen defends his book and this Reuters correspondent who when he interviewed me for Reuters television was thoroughly hostile was arguing with me even though he admitted he had only read portions of the book put out a report in which he twisted my words and presented it in some in as I said a thoroughly misleading way in no sense did I that's my general experience with the news media right now I've been interviewed over 50 times usually the journalist has an agenda they just cut and paste you know those segments of my comments that assist their agenda so usually journalists don't you know do that much background work they don't read you know all of your book or your your book so what Daniel Goldhagen is complaining about very very common oh my god I just I find listening to Daniel Goldhagen just a slightly no substantially higher IQ version of listening to Al Sharpton I'm not sure I can I can take much of him let me see if I can go back to this article on Elon Musk I guess the severity of Musk's planned cuts started to crystallize chief marketing officer Leslie Burland the last remaining member of Twitter's executive team and the person most closely linked to its employee friendly corporate culture was fired word soon leaked again tell me you intentionally preoccupied with the well-being and the happiness of Twitter employees not one of my priorities but the news media just assumes that this is like you know the major issue with Elon Musk taking over Twitter Twitter left-wing employees are they happy are they thriving right Twitter employees are overwhelmingly on the left I am overwhelmingly on the right Twitter employees like other members of the left are an out group they are fundamentally hostile to the type of America that I want to live in I don't care that much about their happiness layoffs we're going to be much bigger than managers had initially expected musk was planning to cut 50 percent of Twitter's more than 7 000 employees later and reasonable says would it be anti-social drowsk our host about a past Atlantic article on a completely unrelated topic never anti-social ask away it takes tremendous energy and effort to do a stream like this and there's a chance that you may ask something or say something that sets me off and gives me energy and inspiration to my stream without your commentary without no half-collision without people pushing back without people asking without people critiquing without people criticizing I don't have the strength of the energy to do this you know longer than 10 minutes that week late in the evening on day eight and into the early morning hours of day nine hundreds of employees converged on spaces the social networks tool for broadcasting live audio taking turns sharing stories about their time at the company and grieving for what might come next to musk cutting half of twitter's workforce was an unavoidable business decision regarding twitter's reduction in force unfortunately there is no choice when the company is okay I love this half-collision says I hate Jews but he's not saying this to inflame he's just saying this to be frank just to be open and honest right he's telling me I hate Jews but not trying to insult you not trying to demean you not trying to make this emotional this is not any kind of rant not trying to provoke you I'm just innocently stating that you hate Jews Luke but I don't mean anything impolite I don't mean anything personal about that it's just that you know I'm just saying observing that you hate Jews and that you're ignorant but it's not an insult losing over four million dollars a day he tweeted to many employees the layoffs signified the end of twitter as they knew it the death of a company culture that had for better or worse become a part of the product's identity some employees did you know that twitter's company culture was a key part of twitter's identity yeah I've often found myself laying awake at night now wondering about the well-being the health and the happiness of the twitter's culture just so deeply concerned about the happiness level of people who hate what I believe in and stand for and fight for its jobs were saved woke up the next morning wishing they'd been fired instead the chaos machine chugged along twitter's engineering teams quickly realized they had fired too many people by mistake and some employees were approached about returning in one meeting after the layoffs grassias the space x director was left once again to defend musk who'd become a punching bag for now former employees watching the company in terminal so it's something I virtually never do is defend anyone so like let's say I'm hanging out with half deletion and let's say he trashes jim valve I'm gonna speak up for half deletion why because it's always pointless it's useless I find it's just not worth the energy it's not worth the effort I just think there are more productive ways to spend your energy your time and your words than trying to you know defend people right people have the views of people for you know various reasons you defending them is not gonna make any difference so I just don't see the point of saying words that are just gonna needlessly alienate you from the other people that you're talking with and just make you frustrated and then frustrated all right just gonna kind of set you at odds yeah in general I think it is useless and pointless to defend others well grassias asked employees to show the ceo some empathy this on the other hand I am very lazy and frequently self-centered and I don't like confrontation so it's probably the the more moral and the more honorable thing is for me to have spent more time and energy and effort in my life you know defending others who have been you know unjustly demeaned and I'm just too lazy and too self-centered and too scared of conflict to engage in that hard for him he said Musk woke up on day 12 and tweeted multiple masturbation jokes on day 14 he killed Twitter's famous work from anywhere forever policy in the middle of the night on day 18 despite his crowing about free speech and tweeting that comedy is now legal on Twitter he began firing workers who criticized him on Twitter or in its internal slack Roth resigned on day 15 there were decisions and requests at work okay so I'm doing a live stream I'm playing this I'm playing that I'm picking on steppes of the the chat and guess what I completely misrepresented something that half Galician said he didn't say that I hated Jews like I went off on half Galician for completely bogus reasons absolutely zero factual basis for my rent three minutes ago against half Galician why because I'm in a particular circumstance where I don't get to engage in a tremendous amount of context seeking where I don't get to you know understand the full discussion I completely you know misread something I'm I'm simply like using I'm imputing into the chat all sorts of things that are not there I'm imputing into the commentary of half Galician all sorts of things that are not there I am looking at reality and I'm seeing all sorts of things that are not there I am operating in a delusion I am firing off and being nasty and false and defamatory against half Galician because I'm operating in a particular context all right where I don't you know have the privilege of you know pausing and thinking and seeing things in context so please I hope I know half Galician understands this but you know I hope if you're watching you understand that you know here I am I see something I respond it's not not always the most considerate response sometimes I am responding to things that are just not there they're only there in my mind I am completely delusional I'm you know completely wrong I've completely misread the situation I don't know what I'm talking about right I come on here month of the time I don't know what I'm talking about I haven't carefully paid attention to whatever it is I'm ranting about and then I hope there are some things where I do say something that is of value right top down and at odds sometimes with this notion of we're not going to make big decisions until we have this council until we consult with people he said at a night foundation event other newly former employees were more succinct I said it before and I'll say it again tweeted a fired engineer named Sasha Solomon kiss my ass Elon wow that's powerful all right let's get some dinner going on I take back my book in fact I defended his thesis what I did say is that if I had written the many other books that people were asking me to have written if I'd written an entire book on anti-semitism or if I'd written an entire book on the Nazi revolution then I would have added more things amplified in certain points incorporated other things into the analysis but I adamantly said that evening and many times since then in Germany that none of this including a further discussion the first world war would have changed my argument in any way wishful thinking on the part of the rightest person more than wishful thinking as I said the German media which covered my trip extensively had headlines again and again about how I was defending my thesis and by the way convincing many Germans of my point of view tell us about that convincing many Germans the trip to Germany lasted 12 days and it included many interviews with the media the cornerstones the many cornerstones of the trip were however six public panel discussions which took part before large audiences and which many of which were also televised nationally and regionally and it became clear early in the trip really a few days into the trip after the Hamburg discussion where by the way the audience clapped and they clapped again and again overwhelmingly for the points I made not for the points of my opponents it became clear that many in Germany were being won over to the book to the discussion against the wisdom of the opinion makers in Germany and so the story of the trip became not just is this book right how much of it is new are the conclusions valid but why is a German public accepting the book embracing it and the discussion which the book is produced what's your answer to that question the book I know it's most persuasive no that's no independent of whether independent of whether people agree with my conclusions or not there's certain things the book does which I think people in Germany recognize are necessary the first is that it shifts the focus of attention away from abstract institutions and structures the Nazi party the SS the terror apparatus