#165 – Josh Barnett: Philosophy of Violence, Power, and the Martial Arts

[0] The following is a conversation with Josh Barnett, one of the greatest fighters and submission wrestlers in history, with an epic 25 -year career that includes being the UFC heavyweight champion and countless other accolades.

[1] He also happens to be one of the most intelligent and brutally honest human beings in all of martial arts, and especially so about his appreciation of and fascination with violence.

[2] Quick mention of our sponsors, which feels ridiculous.

[3] to say after that introduction.

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[6] As a side note, let me say that I've been a fan of Josh Barnett for a long time.

[7] This conversation was indeed a long time coming and I'm sure we'll talk many times again.

[8] For what it's worth, I'm a student of combat sports and admire when they're done at the highest level either through masterful execution of skill or relentless dominance of pure guts.

[9] For context, I'm a black belt and jiu -jitsu and have competed in wrestling, submission grappling, jiu -jitsu, judo, and even catch wrestling, which is a variant of submission grappling that Josh is one of the great practitioners, scholars, and teachers of.

[10] I could probably talk for hours about what I've learned from my time on the mat, but if I were to say one thing, it is that the mat is honest.

[11] You can't run away from yourself when you step on the mat.

[12] It reveals your fears, the lies you might tell yourself, all the delusions you might have, or at least I had, that there's anything in this world that can be achieved except through blood, sweat, and tears.

[13] That honesty, taken to the highest levels, as is the case with Josh, creates the most special of human beings, and definitely someone who is fascinating to talk to.

[14] If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.

[15] As usual, I do a few minutes of ads now, none in the middle.

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[17] It really is the best way to support this podcast.

[18] This episode is brought to you by Monk Pack keto granola bars that contain just one gram of sugar, two grounds of nut carbs, and there are only 140 calories.

[19] I've been on all kinds of diets my whole life.

[20] I did maybe in college, or it was like a powerlifting phase where I would eat like four or five, maybe six meals a day.

[21] You know, protein and veggies, just small meals.

[22] That was like the, what I would call, like the bro diet.

[23] And then I think when I started training jiu -jitsu, especially hard, I discovered fasting.

[24] And that was a game changer.

[25] I think I realized that I have to become more and more scholar of my own body as opposed to sort of consuming the nutrition science that's out there.

[26] So you have to use kind of the basic knowledge of nutrition science that people are talking about, all the different debates.

[27] You have to consume that as like a base starting point, but ultimately you have to become a scholar of your own body.

[28] And at least for me, throughout that, the number one priority is to not stress too much about it.

[29] So anyway, that's to give you a little bit of context of where I'm coming from with all this diet stuff.

[30] Okay, back to whatever I'm supposed to say in this ad read.

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[37] To do low -carb diets correctly, the number one thing you have to get right, in my opinion, is electrolytes, specifically sodium, potassium, magnesium.

[38] That's where these guys come in.

[39] They take care of it.

[40] I don't have to think about it.

[41] And it's kind of fascinating, so both in the fasting and the keto in general, how much of a difference electrolytes and like sodium, potassium magnesium can make?

[42] You can really feel shitty.

[43] That's like the keto flu that they talk about.

[44] You feel terrible.

[45] And almost in a matter of minutes.

[46] If you consume salt with water, you just feel much better.

[47] I'm sure other people had this experience, especially if you do long distance running, that kind of thing.

[48] Electrolites are magic.

[49] They can make the difference between sadness and happiness.

[50] Okay, Olympians use it, tech people use it.

[51] I swear about this stuff.

[52] Try it at drink element .com slash Lex.

[53] That's drink l mn t .com slash lex this episode is sponsored by a sleep and it's pod pro mattress it controls temperature with an app is packed with sensors and can cool down to as low as 55 degrees on each side of the beds separately you can also heat up to some ridiculous temperature but i don't know why you would want to do that i got to be honest about power naps they have been amazing recently i've been basically doing this thing where I sleep for like six hours and then do a nap for maybe 30 minutes to an hour.

[54] There's no signs to it.

[55] I just enjoy it.

[56] Like a big warm blanket with a cool bed.

[57] That's like the definition of heaven.

[58] I also like that whole idea of making the things we rely on smarter and smarter, like a smart bed, which is what this is with a bunch of sensors.

[59] It's almost like taken broadly.

[60] It's actually kind of expanding the compute surface of our lives.

[61] And so basically everything around us becomes a computer and it integrates.

[62] There's, of course, privacy, surveillance, all those kinds of questions there.

[63] But we can't run away from them.

[64] We have to face them.

[65] Just because things are difficult doesn't mean we should like do the ostrich thing and hide from them.

[66] It's coming.

[67] Let's embrace it.

[68] But let's be serious adults slash serious engineers about it.

[69] 8Sleep has a pod pro cover so you can just add it to your mattress without having to buy theirs.

[70] but theirs is pretty nice, I gotta tell you.

[71] It can track a bunch of metrics like heart rate variability, but the cooling alone is honestly worth the money.

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[75] Rev, in general, is a company that does captioning and transcription of audio by humans and by artificial intelligence.

[76] I've been hanging out on Clubhouse on occasion recently, and it's kind of interesting to think of this kind of technology being used in all kinds of contexts, like during meetings, for example, like Zoom meetings, but at Clubhouse, to be able to take a conversation, see, this is where, like, privacy comes into play with consent of the speakers, which, of course, journalists often ignore this kind of notion of consent, and transcribe the conversations so they can be, consumed and analyzed and thought about more broadly.

[77] One way to deal with cancel culture is to run away from it.

[78] The other way is to run into it and deal with our ridiculousness, with our hypocrisy, with all the mess of human nature.

[79] So I'm a big fan of technologies that allow us to go through the fire as opposed to run away from the fire.

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[83] You can tell English is my second language, although I can't speak Russian that well either.

[84] I'm hopelessly lost in this problem of human communication.

[85] So again, that's Rev .a .ai slash Lex to tap into the world's most accurate speech AI.

[86] And now here's my conversation with Josh Barnett.

[87] Who were the philosophers and philosophical ideas that influence you the most?

[88] Are we just jumping right in?

[89] We're right in into the deepest.

[90] No foreplay on camera.

[91] All right.

[92] I had an interesting philosophical journey.

[93] At least I think it's interesting.

[94] And that was, I think as far as organized philosophy or maybe authentic is not the right word, but like, yeah, we'll say organized.

[95] I would say that Nietzsche is probably one of the people with the most influence on me. But I also feel like, to a degree, your personality will oftentimes dictate what philosophers that you can vibe with.

[96] So what ideas from Nietzsche?

[97] Was it the UberMaj?

[98] Definitely the UberMensch is huge to me because I see it as an extension of basically the religious concepts of God and higher ideals, but just put into a different, a secular context.

[99] And the idea also that the Ubermensch is a striving and overcoming, you know, something that you're always working towards that very few will ever, it's not like the concept that you can just make them.

[100] It doesn't happen that way.

[101] And it's not based simply upon if you were, say, put through a genetic program and turned into a super soldier, like that wouldn't make it.

[102] You know, that's like the very surface level and incorrect understanding what UberMensch is.

[103] The UberMensch is the idea of this kind of human that transcends all the weaker, lower aspects of humans, which we're full of.

[104] But I also think that there's an element in Nietzsche's writing that suggests that it's not something you can even be in all the time like it's even a temporary state because it's not something that we're capable of maintaining it's something to strive for like a morality uh an image ideal a set of principles that we can connect to that doesn't rely on otherworldly kind of uh out there things Yeah, and with Nietzsche, I feel like the concept of the Ubermensch is something built on authenticity as well.

[105] Heidegger was like Dozine, right?

[106] So when you are authentic and Heidegger being a follower of Nietzsche's and highly influenced by him with, I think that the UberMensch is an example of authenticity in that.

[107] It isn't about trying to be anything that you cannot be or to go against who you.

[108] are, but to actually understand that, accept that, and then work with what you can work with and create from your lump of clay that is you.

[109] Because I can't become certain, there's certain things that are just not going to happen for me because it's not in my proclivity.

[110] I mean, I'm never going to be, you know, five foot tall and 120 pounds.

[111] I mean, that again, I guess.

[112] But I know, but as you get more in tune with who you are, as you start learning more about what unique things, or at least what that combination that makes you, that gestalt part of yourself, what those things are and how you can use them, then, you know, you can work towards being that, taking what that is and seeing if you can get to that point.

[113] Now, the likelihood is, no, maybe, probably never.

[114] I mean, but we can never achieve godhood yet, you know, religion is a constant, you know, striving and a look at a higher ideal concept, even if it's multiple gods or one god.

[115] It's still essentially all built around this concept.

[116] Like I like the idea of Catholic's original sin.

[117] If you think of sin, not as evil, but as, you know, missing the mark, the archer's term where it derives or even like in Spanish, you know, without.

[118] So as being, if you accept that you are imperfect, if you, except that you need to constantly strive even against yourself because you will figure out the best ways at which to submarine your own capabilities, submarine your own dreams and wishes and whatever.

[119] You will ruin them more than anything else.

[120] And you will tell yourself that you ruined them on purpose for a good reason or you'll say that you'll figure out a way to put it on everything else but yourself.

[121] And so the idea of thinking of, well, as I'm starting off on this whole thing, I got a lot of work to do.

[122] And that's just the way it is.

[123] is.

[124] And I got to figure out what areas those are going to be.

[125] And so, you know, I thought, oh, yeah, if I think of original sin actually can be, that can be kind of a clever idea.

[126] But it's also just accepting that we're all uniquely strange and unequal in our own ways.

[127] But we have to figure out how that fits in.

[128] The word authenticity kind of connects to all of that.

[129] So striving to be your authentic self means figuring out exactly the shape of the flaws, the, the character of your little demons that you get to play with and around them finding a path to whatever the hell, ideal versions of yourself you can carve and pretending like that such a thing is even possible.

[130] The other idea about Nietzsche is on his idea of morality.

[131] He presents the argument that morality is a human illusion and that, you know, there's not such a thing as good and evil and these are all kind of constructs.

[132] Do you think there's such a thing as good and evil that's connected to some objective reality?

[133] I think that there are some, I actually do believe that there are some universals.

[134] I'm not Kantian in any way, but I do think that there are some universals.

[135] And the thing that actually brought me to even the concept of that was Jung.

[136] So, you know, Jung's concept of the collective unconsciousness, and then taking that thought and then applying it to looking through history.

[137] And the most varied history you can find.

[138] So I would say probably religion is your earliest one that you can get for written history or written examples of human behavior and psychology at its at the furthest that we can look into it with, you know, from man's hand to whatever the medium is, cuneiform or whatever.

[139] But as you do that and then let's say going from Mesopotamia to India to, you know, Europe to and just going from all these.

[140] places, as disparate as they may seem, as many different cultures and ethnicities and religions and how the religions will vary quite a bit from monotheist to polytheist and so on and so forth.

[141] But then just seeing how there's all the through lines.

[142] And of course, Campbell, he did this much earlier than me thinking about it.

[143] But I think that by looking at things that way and starting to find the threads instead of always just looking at everything as being its own compartmentalized concept is if it only applies to this time, this people, like getting overly pomo about it is just a really idiotic postmodern.

[144] So you think that there is a, just like Joseph Campbell, there's a thread that connects all of these stories, narratives that we constructed for ourselves as we evolve, and that thread is grounded in some kind of absolute ideas of maybe on the morality side, which is the trickiest one of good and evil.

[145] somewhat yeah I think that a lot of this stuff is just derived from a biological perspective I feel like these things are innate within us do you think our innately humans are good like we no I don't I feel like I also feel like there's the issue of scale too like um like Nassim Taleb likes to talk about how he views his the way he interacts with with groups in terms of scale you know what is this thing about like at a at the familial level I'm a I'm a I'm a communist and then at the civic level i'm a i'm a republican or something and at this other level i'm then it goes on at the widest level he's a libertarian or something of that nature you know like fundamentally human interaction changes on scale on scale and scale and also uh from uh you know subjective to the environment around them so and i don't even mean environment just in the sake of physical environment uh nature right like nature is constantly trying to murder you well it's not really trying it's just nature's being nature the universe is the universe and uh at times it takes you out it's just not with any particular uh compunction or prejudice it's just oops you know sorry there's no more dodos my bad but don't you think the particular flavor of the complexity that is the human mind was created like let me make an argument for that all people are fundamentally good okay is there's an evolutionary advantage to being the striving to cooperate to add more love to the world of like compassion empathy all that kind of stuff and that the very thing that created the human mind was this evolutionary advantage whatever the forces behind this evolutionary advantage and scale yes so when we're dealing with a small tribe sure yeah when you meet enough other tribe maybe there's other factors that are going to end to that let's say you scale up and so your 150 has exceeded their 150 and like you start to get to a certain point where um you can't really be close enough to someone down the line of some of that next like that 150s 150 150 and they just now all of a sudden become some some guy whatever and it was When it comes to some guy, once it starts hitting scale, I don't know that it's capable.

[146] People can be as magnanimous to a stranger as to the known.

[147] If they orient themselves to be secure enough, because it does come to security, insecurity, in one way or the other, either brought on by the unknown, brought on by an actual threat, brought on by even their own, as we would use the word insecurity in that.

[148] their own insecurity within their own capabilities, their own belief in themselves, all these things can change things from being compassionate and what have you to at least at the very least, maybe not evil, but self -interest -driven to the point of negative results for those that aren't.

[149] You know what I mean?

[150] Right.

[151] But another way to frame that is maybe it's less about scale and more about the amount of resources available.

[152] So if we're over overflowing with resources in terms of security and safety, all the things you've mentioned.

[153] If we have more than enough resources, then the way we treat a stranger, the way we position ourselves towards that stranger, might be in a way that allows us to be our real human selves, as opposed to sort of our animal self.

[154] And therefore, it's mostly about how clever can we the sentence of Abes be in coming up with all, cool kinds of technologies and ways to officially use the resources we have such that we're not constrained.

[155] And my hope is that we can, that human innovation will outpace the growth of our, the number of people that are starving for resources.

[156] Yes.

[157] I think that there's a lot of rationality behind this argument.

[158] And, you know, in some ways, I agree.

[159] And a lot of, and a lot of ways, I see it as missing the point of how this experiment has been playing out across time.

[160] When you look at what, for one, it's like define resources.

[161] You know, what is a, what is a resource of as humans would, would define it, right?

[162] Or wealth even.

[163] And so you can say, well, you know, an iPhone's a resource.

[164] The internet's a resource.

[165] Water obviously is a resource.

[166] But if we weigh them, what is more important to human beings?

[167] Water, internet, or iPhones.

[168] It's water, right?

[169] So if we look at resources, if we start with what do human beings need to live?

[170] I mean, actually live.

[171] Not live here in this bullshit fantasy creation, extension of our own ingenuity and, you know, a prison of our own creation and also a paradise of our own creation.

[172] But this is not how human beings normally live.

[173] this is all built upon stuff on on this is built on concept on idea and some and and some of it's built on just well this is the paradigm so this is what you do human beings need food they need water to survive they need shelter from the elements and they need certain skills to perpetuate these things and be able to pass them down so that they can so that these things don't become you don't end up in this this gap where you have to relearn things because if it's lost, then that time before you can get it back again is going to be dark ages of sorts, you know, or it's going to be highly detrimental to your group because not knowing how to fish, not knowing how to hunt, not knowing how to even clean and cook the game once you have it could be lethal.

[174] That's fascinating to think of that as a basic resource.

[175] The knowledge to attain the very low -level things of water.

[176] Right.

[177] And we'll figure it out.

[178] We did it once before and we've done it over and over and over again.

[179] It's just costly.

[180] Yes, it has costs for sure.

[181] But when you think of how you look at the, well, we'll just deal with the first world of the West.

[182] You look at the, the path line, the pathway of Western civilization and its growth.

[183] And then you look at how technology injected into it over time.

[184] time, you know, how it magnifies things or pushes things at orders of magnitude faster.

[185] And then the Internet comes along and even faster, you know.

[186] So you're watching Industrial Revolution to, what is it, the capacitor, and then so on, it goes further and further.

[187] And as the Internet and technology, especially on the electronic side of things, start increasing in capability, it massively outpaces even our necessity.

[188] for it at times.

[189] It becomes, you know, plant obsolescence happens quicker and over and over and over again.

[190] And wealth increases, increases, increases, increases in terms of the things that we're able to acquire, right?

[191] I mean, I've seen homeless people with smartphones, you know, so we're living in the most wealth -laden, luxury -laden age of all of humanity yet.

[192] What happens when we see calamity or or people go on hard time, what are they, the things that they value, you know, what, what do people go to an argument about the cost of things that are luxury items generally and not necessity items?

[193] You know, we get into fights about, you know, things that are at the end of the day, not necessities to us.

[194] You know, people are so concerned about Netflix and the internet.

[195] And personally, I'm very concerned about the internet because I look at it as my own little personal library of Alexandria in my pocket.

[196] That's what I love about it.

[197] And the ability to have a tool as effective as it is, even though I'm in a constant battle to not let that tool become a vice or to become something that actually brings me to a lower state.

[198] But are we willing, the question is over the, are we willing to murder each other over Netflix versus murder each other over water?

[199] We're willing to murder each other over water.

[200] That's a given.

[201] Right, but that's our animalistic selves of that.

[202] Well, it's also a necessity for, it's animalistic, but it's also either you do it or you don't, right?

[203] Like, unless somebody's willing to share that water or if that water is of such a limited capability or such a limited amount, then you will have to murder to have that water.

[204] Netflix, the argument is the higher, we get up to this hierarchy of what we consider in Los Angeles resources.

[205] yes we were less willing to be to commit violence we're less willing to commit violence that oh I would say over Netflix but we are willing to commit violence over Netflix over everything associated with Netflix over televisions over sneakers over you know I mean when we look at a good I mean the majority of the stuff that came with the riots I mean it was use car dealerships targets I mean and then you look and it's like well okay what are people, what are they got to, what are they so hell -bent to get out of this whole thing?

[206] And I'm even talking about the ideological elements or anything like that.

[207] Just like, okay, something's going on, boom, looting, whatever.

[208] Yeah.

[209] You know, what are you going to loot?

[210] Yeah.

[211] You know, you'll have AOC say, oh, people needing bread.

[212] Like, I didn't see a single loaf of bread.

[213] You know, I saw televisions and shoes.

[214] It's poetry, Josh.

[215] You know, but to me, it is poetry in a sense because you get to see who we, how we, how we actually are operating you know what are where what is becoming first principles to most people but wait wait but you could also argue though those riots were more like the madness of crowds which is like it's definitely a lot more than just that I'm just saying that given a chance it's like okay boom the the lights are off the grid is down we've we've hacked into the whole system turned into an 80s movie and you have the ability to go get a hold of whatever it is that you think is most important and what do we do and I say we as in you know including all of us we grab a TV we we attack it we we we break into a sneaker store on Melrose we do it's just like uh we still giant cause statues or the value of that is completely market driven like it's just a piece of polypropylene or whatever butel and you know it's cool you know i'm a big fan of art uh but uh it's like you know i can't eat that and at the of the day, man, you're sitting there with your, like, what'd you do today, honey?

[216] What'd you get?

[217] You know, man, we were able to, you know, oh, I got this, I got this designer art statue.

[218] Are you going to go, well, you can't really sell it on the, on like the art markets where people were really going to pay for it.

[219] So are you going to become an underground art dealer with your one piece of cause art?

[220] One interesting thing, so before I forget it, you mentioned the Library of Alexandria and your phone.

[221] Well, your phone, but also just thinking of your, little world that you're creating for yourself on the internet that's a really powerful way to actually phrase it one of the things that you've been on joe rogan several times although everybody always comes to me and go oh that was so great he didn't know you you're on you've on joe rogan i go this is like my fifth time dude i've been a fan of yours for a long time from uh from other avenues this is a long time coming actually everybody you have no idea like how many times through uh messaging and missing each other over the years this is ridiculous this is a long time coming you don't realize how special this is for us this is well i'm also starstruck we'll talk about this but you symbolize something very important to me through my journey through wrestling through jihitsu through judo through just street fighting through just combat there's uh you're the in some sense the devil on my shoulder of like of violence in a good in the in the in uh devil gets a bad rap he does he does get a bad rap i realize you know sitting in case and and ice down at that low -ass level, you know.

[222] But, you know, the angel's side is more like the athletic, the sport, the science, the technical, the chest side of things.

[223] But on the library, Alexander, let me ask, because you were on Joe Rogan, it does make me really sad, and I realize that I'm just probably being romantic, that his, most of his library of interviews that were on YouTube have now been taking down because he went to Spotify.

[224] And that was the first, I'm probably an idiot, but it was the first time I realized that this knowledge that we've been building up on the internet doesn't necessarily last forever.

[225] No, it doesn't, unless you preserve it.

[226] I mean, it's like all things.

[227] If you do not preserve them, if you do not make efforts, you know, so many of my, it just really brings to minor off the top my head, all my, so many friends of mine that are Jewish, you know, they're, they're basically secular.

[228] But yet through even the secular aspect of just keeping the traditions alive, it's like, well, you could always pick a book and read about it, clearly, it's called the Torah.

[229] But if you don't put these things into action, if you don't make them a part of your consciousness, or maybe even on subconsciousness just through through a repetition, they will die.

[230] They will become simply something that exists somewhere until you find it again.

[231] And Carl Gottch used to say something.

[232] He would say that I don't invent moves.

[233] I just rediscover them.

[234] But yet, Gotch and Billy Robinson also would understand that you, if someone's not carrying the torch, it'll go out.

[235] Now, that doesn't mean fire can't be rekindled.

[236] It just means that that torch no longer is lighting the way on this knowledge.

[237] And so it's important to be an individual, even on an individual level, to be a repository for aspects of knowledge.

[238] You mentioned gotch, you consider yourself a catch wrestler.

[239] So I've mentioned you offline that I, competed in a couple of catch wrestling tournaments.

[240] Can we go Wikipedia level at the very basic?

[241] You're the exactly right person to ask what is catch wrestling and what are its defining principles?

[242] I would say the easiest way for us to talk about and give an overview of what catch is, in the simplest terms, is think of collegiate wrestling with submissions.

[243] That is essentially what catch is.

[244] And it's not surprising because collegiate wrestling is actually derived from catch as catch can.

[245] It's just that over time, certain aspects were removed from the competition structure so that they became null elements, things that were discarded.

[246] But it's funny that you can take high -level amateur collegiate types and you can show them a move and then add a little bit to it and go, oh, well, hey, that was just like.

[247] like what we already do here, but except, oh, I didn't know you could take it all the way to this point or, you know, things of that nature, especially even when it comes to professional wrestling, like teaching people like, no, that, I know you're just using this for, in a show, but this is actually a real move, and here's how it really feels.

[248] And so collegiate wrestling and wrestling in general for people who are not aware is basically two people start on their feet and they have to score, they're trying to take each other down and they have to they score points along the way.

[249] You can end matches by pinning them, for example, on their back.

[250] I think one way to describe wrestling is it's very much about figuring out ways to establish control and leverage in these kind of tie -ups, or there's different styles where you can do more from a distance to where it's more about the timing and all that kind of stuff.

[251] Ultimately, it's an art of like both, upper body and lower body, and you could choose the different puzzles that you solve there.

[252] You could be attacking the head, the arms, you can be attacking the legs.

[253] There's also part of collegiate wrestling that's on the ground that has more what's called like a referee's position or whatever.

[254] Right, the referees position where you're on your hands and knees, basically.

[255] And so...

[256] Do you understand what that's supposed to simulate?

[257] Why is that one of the standard positions?

[258] It's one of the standard positions because, one, it's one of the easiest ways to actually get up.

[259] but two it's because you cannot be on your back if you're on your back you're getting pinned and back exposure or being pinned is pretty much the universal wrestling thing one taking the guy from their feet to the floor and two pinning them as you go from like was it uh cornish wrestling Turkish oil wrestling, Mongolian, sumo, Indian, well, they'll call it Pelwani.

[260] It's also called Kushti, Jiu -Jitsu, judo.

[261] So many of them is, like, there's a Ysambo, even if it doesn't end the match, it's still, like, one of the most important aspects of the competition itself across every style.

[262] And this is the word submission, like catch wrestling, or.

[263] submission wrestling or jiu -jitsu feels different, which it seems like for most wrestling, for a lot of wrestling, the dominance is the goal, as opposed to submission, which I guess those are two are related, but dominating the position.

[264] So that's what pinning is.

[265] It's almost like breaking your opponent, like breaking through all of their defenses to where they're completely defenses and you could do anything with them that you want maybe that's what could be a definition of dominance i don't know and then i mean it sounds very much like uh chain to a radiator yeah yeah yeah there's a threat that connects all right there's uh but submission feels different i mean it is actually different when you think about it across the landscape i don't think radically different but still slightly different in that um if you think of wrestling as being derived from from from combat right so well it is combat sports but more more lethal combat getting somebody off their feet and onto their back is about a lethal a place for the person on bottom to be in general i mean i don't come at me with your talks about your fucking wormguards and blah blah blah and whatever spider barram yeah okay get out of here with that this is we're not talking about you in this highly regimented sporting environment we're talking about general general, you know, all the body hair, none of the waxing human beings.

[266] So getting someone on their back, okay.

[267] As you're trying to get up, you're getting hit with a rock or stabbed or what have you set on fire.

[268] Who knows?

[269] Generally, these conflicts are not just isolated to one -on -one.

[270] If it's four -on -two, your buddy that was with you back -to -back, now he's on his back.

[271] What do you think?

[272] And now it's going to be one on one, while three go on one.

[273] So, and then you go, you elevate this to, to armored combat, right?

[274] And it's boom, put them on the ground.

[275] Oh, crap, it's hard to get up.

[276] Well, while you're struggling to get up, stab.

[277] You know, that's where Jiu -Jitsu's concepts come from with all their leveraging and off -balancing is, oh, man, if I end up in this situation in tight close quarters combat, yes, we could fight it out with swords and knives and what have you.

[278] But it's way easier if the first thing I can do is foot sweep you on your back.

[279] And then pull my knife and just go, stick.

[280] Is there a thread that connects all of these different arts from, not just arts, but from the very base violence of war, just like you said, that there's no rules to the very regimented IBJF.

[281] I do.

[282] Jiu -Jitsu tournaments and just, you've kind of laid out some of it, but can you go all the way to the...

[283] So when you start off with absolute skills in the sense of absolute offense and defense, in the taking or preserving of life, right, full on at its purest form of self -defense and self -preservation, okay?

[284] And then you extrapolate part of that in that all animals train in violence.

[285] All play usually degenerates into some sort of soft violence.

[286] So be it cats when they're kittens and puppies and everything learns how to kill, how to fight.

[287] fight.

[288] Um, not that, you know, just that, that dumb alpha meme stuff where the idea is that, oh, by being alpha, that means you run around like basically just being a bully and a shithead.

[289] And it's no, actually alpha wolves spend very little time fighting because if you were actually alpha, you don't get into fights.

[290] There's no need to.

[291] Um, and if you are probably getting into any large amount of fights, it's probably because you're being a shitty at being an alpha.

[292] and now people are tired of you being in charge.

[293] And yet in the animal world, and it would be the same for human beings at that base beginning level of violence, there's a big risk.

[294] So I know that we live in this place with health care or you might be in a place with nationalized health, whatever, right?

[295] There's band -aids, there's penicillin, there's all that kind of stuff.

[296] but that's not the normal way of things you know yeah there's a channel that just hurts me every time i i used to follow and i had to unfollow it because it was too painful for me as a human being called nature's metal ah yes instagram it was uh sobering and then it was like this is too sobering it's very sobering so in there the risk is at its highest level there the damage you take mm -hmm the winner walks away way hurt.

[297] Getting lamed when you need every aspect of your physical and athletic faculties to survive because it isn't going to be the, this isn't the first and it's definitely not going to be the last, especially if you're the slowest one.

[298] You know, it's a, was it, was it, uh, is a lyric from a clutch song.

[299] Uh, don't go for the fat ones, just go for the slow ones.

[300] oh man but that the universal truth of the way nature works you said it's not cruel it's not cruel it's just the way it is yeah i mean watch uh animals get into fights on on any of these sort of documentary stuff you'll see an intense short and then dispersal like you'll see as soon as one feels like uh things have switched just enough to boom the bear or whatever it is takes off it's like i'm not i'm done with this because if you can get out of there with just some scars and what have you.

[301] Okay.

[302] You lose an eye.

[303] Nah, it's not as good.

[304] Uh, you really get hurt bad and get infected.

[305] You're done.

[306] Yeah.

[307] You know, so it, there's a serious risk to be, um, that can come with these sort of things.

[308] Yet, I believe that we are inherently born for at least aspects of and use of violence.

[309] And so at the end of the day, we need these things not just to, not just survive each other but they're they're a part of being able to hunt and other things but uh so violence is a part of human nature violence is it is a is again it's an absolute it is in every person it is a part of every interaction it is a part of every every law everything and I'm not by the way I'm not an an app so don't even don't don't don't hit your wagon to me on that one and cap is an arcic capitalist yes not an not an cap but they have nice book book shops yeah they do I mean I mean, I'm not, I'm not going to, you know, sit here and shit talk and caps.

[310] Although I also used to get into the conversations with, with an ANCOM, anarcho -communist, a good friend of mine.

[311] And he would, he would bring up this stuff.

[312] And I'm like, yeah, cool, man. I'm down with anarchy.

[313] You ain't going to like it.

[314] What do you mean?

[315] I go, because I'm going to take all here.

[316] I'm going to gather all kinds of people together.

[317] I'm going to get the strongest together.

[318] I'm going to take your shit.

[319] Okay.

[320] Can I actually on that topic, I've a friend of mine now, a fellow Russian, Ukrainian, Michael Malice.

[321] Oh, yeah, I'm familiar with Michael Malice.

[322] I watched a little bit of your guys' conversation.

[323] So this is really good to ask you because...

[324] I like how he's in the white suit and you're in the white and black.

[325] But he lives in New York City.

[326] He has espouses ideas of anarchism.

[327] And his idea, and this is different than sort of the Ayn Rand set of ideas, that there's a line between sort of capitalism that's backed by the state and just pure anarchism.

[328] And his idea that violence won't take over in an anarchism is one that feels to me not grounded in reality.

[329] I agree.

[330] I may be wrong.

[331] So is there some...

[332] So the idea with pure capitalism is that...

[333] You mean laissez -faire, completely deregulated.

[334] Yeah, well, what it will agree.

[335] It'll end up in, one, it'll end up in, if you're anti -globalist, it's going to be that.

[336] It's going to be globalist 100 % because it has no...

[337] Pure capitalism has no consideration for...

[338] Has no consideration for your native users or of any sort.

[339] Yeah, that doesn't...

[340] But the idea of governments is that the land, the little piece of land, geographically you're born on, means you're going to stick to whatever founding documents created that little land.

[341] So anarchism is against that.

[342] And the argument is you should be able to choose which ideas you live with.

[343] And the concern there is nobody, this geographical little land, the governments that organize on that land will not, do not need to protect you from the violence.

[344] And my sense is there does need to be an army.

[345] There does need to be police that help, however the form that police takes.

[346] But there needs to be a more centralized, not completely centralized, but more centralized safety net to protect you from the violence.

[347] Scale again, right?

[348] So if you want to have your anarchist utopia, well, what you want to call it, You're anarchist creation here.

[349] At certain scale, I'm sure it's doable, you know, but as it scales, as the scale increases, it's completely untenable and a state will emerge.

[350] A state will always emerge.

[351] Because even people always think of states as like people rubbing their hands and smoking cigars and back rooms and just out of nowhere coming on and just like, oh, we're going to create this big centralized thing and just so we can tell everybody what to do.

[352] We can be in charge.

[353] I mean, I know that there are people like that that exists, that they would like to do things of that nature and that they see the use of power as something to be used more for their personal gains over first, which, again, self -interest and human beings.

[354] But eventually, people want, they want something to go like, okay, who's taking care of this and who's taken care of?

[355] of that and how do we create some sort of some sort of protocol for this like okay well when it's not Bob when is it Susie when is it whatever I mean like how do we you know it's got to get done if we want this thing to become bigger if we want our all of our plumbing to work right if we want it's just I'm sorry a state's going to happen a state is also when you think about it is supposed to have consideration to tribe right so if people think that we're not tribes well you're not you're not really thinking very deeply we're all tribes of a sort and uh everybody likes to use the word tribalism in this idea of of this uh antagonistic concept but and while sure tribalism can be antagonistic tribalism can also be a positive thing or i could just say it just seems to be a natural thing people they create their their groups of one sort or another and so when you have well when you think about where when nation states really started to become a thing.

[356] And I don't mean even the more modern -looking variants that we could think back of and say the 19th century or something like that.

[357] Even older than that.

[358] I mean, do you think the Assyrians didn't have a state of some sort?

[359] Of course they did.

[360] How do you increase your empire if you don't actually have a place to start from?

[361] It must be a ruler.

[362] So you're saying like naturally, when you start talking, thinking about scale of humans, naturally states emerge and can we try to make an argument for anarchism which is okay okay so anarchy in a sense is an opposition to the unhelpful unproductive inefficient bureaucracies that eventually the states lead to yes and that's what we can see I mean I would say less Anarchy, let more study James Burnham, you know, or, well, anybody that wants to talk about the managerial problem and the managerial.

[363] So you have a sense, I hope, maybe let's think, like, what is the path forward with the inefficient state?

[364] Is it revolution or is it to work within the system to constantly improve it?

[365] Man, I don't know that one.

[366] In my general sense, and maybe this is the Nietzschean part of me, is that, yeah, it would take, maybe not even just, maybe not even defining it specifically as revolution.

[367] Maybe it would just take just total calamity to get people to stop being shitty, to not stop being a lesser version of themselves, to stop thinking more about things from the paradigm that we exist in now, where we're giving so much value to stuff that isn't really all.

[368] that valuable, you know, where we're so concerned about likes, and I don't just mean like whether we get them or not, but that, oh, man, maybe we should take this off of our platform because this is too destabilizing to people.

[369] And it's like, because once you exceed Dunbar's number, I think it's actually without having the right faculties, which would need to be developed because this is dealing with, this is dealing with tech that brings things, ways of approaching being that we are not naturally programmed to be able to handle appropriately.

[370] So, and I think it's even more detrimental to women than men, because I think women have a more natural proclivity towards group association and more group oriented thinking and patterning.

[371] and now and with also coupled with seemingly more sensitivity towards towards human states so i feel like women like the classic idea is like oh you know women are psychic you know i have a six sense and what have you and i think that's just a uh a way of simplifying what i think is that may be more in tune with picking up on the unsaid.

[372] Like they might be better at seeing physical cues, inflection and tone, like different.

[373] Like they may be far more sensitive to these things, which to me would make sense because dealing with children that can't communicate.

[374] So generally more empathetic in all the full forms of.

[375] Right.

[376] Now, okay.

[377] Now, whether it be a woman or a man, but especially with even the social, push on this concept of empathy, which of course it gets to the point where it loses any meaning anymore, like people use the word empathy absolutely incorrectly all the time, and they don't even understand what you're really asking of people.

[378] But let's just take it as we're using empathy in the correct sense, and you're taking on the emotional content of the thing itself.

[379] Now you open that up to thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands of people all across the world, that you will never meet that you will never know that you're not even getting an actual true representation most of the time of who these people are you're you're meeting persona and some of these personas are even deliberately created to elicit a response inauthentically are you referring to bots or uh could be bots or actual people bots are one thing but i mean there are literal people out there that will create something, create GoFundMe's for tragedies that never didn't really, or events that didn't happen or any number of things.

[380] Okay.

[381] I mean, burn their own house down and then say, you know, we were attacked.

[382] And then it comes down, oh, you did it to yourself because you wanted money and empathy and this, that.

[383] And you wanted all this, this emotional wealth, let's say, this emotional coin as well as actual, if possible.

[384] You wanted to leverage it in some way.

[385] that's not the majority of people but i would say a good amount of folks are thinking well if i post this photo um and i put this little blurb in there i bet i can get this much cachet out of it in this sense and i'm not even and this isn't just a reference to like butt picks and stuff like that because clearly obviously people understand that that uh our inborn sexual nature is easy to manipulate i mean that's pretty pretty obvious but you're you're saying this kind of new medium of communication on social media is uh is is is unnatural and it preys on us and so as you you want this you know you look at you look at an anarchist kind of mindset right and so he's just like there's no there there is no overarching state to to create any kind of uh structure right and And so if you have that unfettered capitalism aspect with it, and before I say anything particularly damning about unfettered capitalism, I'm a massive capitalist because I view capitalism essentially as what it boils down to is these arguments with people too.

[386] They start giving me all these extra definitions about capitalism.

[387] I'm like, no, no, this is obviously some sort of theory you're taking from other shit, but that doesn't describe capitalism.

[388] capitalism is the ability for us to create whatever we want or create our thoughts ideas physical things and trade them freely amongst each other in ways that we find acceptable right you know i'm not even using the word fair because i might think it's fair to me you might think well i mean that was actually i think he what he thought was unfair to him and it's more fair to me and then someone a third observer goes oh man you should have You should not have paid that for that.

[389] You should have paid this.

[390] And it's like, well, you know what?

[391] It works for me without.

[392] Sufficiently acceptable.

[393] You both agree to the transaction.

[394] Correct.

[395] And, you know, but also at the root of that is freedom, right?

[396] And as far as I can tell, I've been banging this around in my head, it's like for every one unit of freedom, you need two units of accountability.

[397] And if you don't have that, what you end up with is, human self -interest we're not even going to get into evil human self -interest sabotaging other things even not in a sense to be malicious okay so in terms of uh let's put this as mathematically speaking i love this so anarchism is more like two units of freedom and one unit of accountability or maybe zero units of accountability possibly i mean the anarchists tend to think like no everyone will be accountable it's like yeah fuck they will when have you seen this happen in real life, you know?

[398] I mean, people aren't even accountable in their revolutions at the time.

[399] So, uh, you aren't looking at the way people really are.

[400] It's like, Marx is like, yeah, the people are like this.

[401] They're like that.

[402] Look at how capitalism does it.

[403] I mean, he, of course, assigns a lot of really ridiculous economic principles and practice, uh, but also assumes that everybody, you know, who makes any profit from anything is somehow stealing it and you know really assigns a negative moral aspect to him and then it's like oh yeah but then eventually communism will happen to everyone no one will act that way anymore and you're like whoa hold on you just said that people are all are you saying it's all due to capitalism or it's is it innate it's just it's a fundamental misunderstanding of and it's like hey look at you you're like a notorious like anti -semitic angry like uh just absolutely curmudgeon of a human being who seems to be really not all that fun to be around.

[404] Marks?

[405] Yeah.

[406] And then it's just like.

[407] So you have to think like if there was one billion Marxes in the world, how would they behave?

[408] It would be absolute.

[409] They would aid each other so bad.

[410] And, you know, this isn't for me to even poison the well on Marx is like, oh, his personality sucks.

[411] It's like there's lots of people whose personality sucks.

[412] That doesn't mean they can't make.

[413] I don't know that it's never.

[414] You know what somebody argues.

[415] He's just a, he's a loner.

[416] I mean, I don't know that his personality sucked at all.

[417] Let me walk that back and that he was human.

[418] Say his personality sucked.

[419] He was sometimes contradictory, irrational.

[420] Sometimes he was quite sexist despite the emails I've gotten.

[421] That told me that there's people was written to me that Nietzsche has been unfairly labeled as sexist in his discussion about.

[422] women.

[423] I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of documents where he's just like, he's just a bitter guy.

[424] I will agree with you.

[425] And Marx is as bitter as they come to.

[426] But, you know, a bitterness in and of itself doesn't make, like, why I hate Marxism comes from, you know, the whole, the entirety of the thing.

[427] But the dismissal of human nature.

[428] But I'm not going to say, that Marxism or practical, man, you can find any forbidden book and it could have something good in it.

[429] As colonel is a good idea.

[430] Yeah, and like at the end of the day, you know, Marx is a human being.

[431] He's got a nice beard.

[432] He does.

[433] He had a hell of a beard.

[434] He had a decent portrait.

[435] I mean, he looks like the kind of guy like, I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley, but thankfully, I don't think he was much of a fighter.

[436] But in any case, I mean, not the anarchists or they're more hot for like, max sterner people like to think that nietzsche borrowed a lot from sterner and my argument is one you don't have any real evidence for that and two bullshit you know i mean anybody could i i the fact that they have some overlapping thoughts doesn't make it uh lifted not to mention go read a lot more philosophy and see how there's so many different things oh this guy said it in uh 1722 well And then this guy says that again in 1922.

[437] Does that mean he read the other guy's stuff?

[438] Not necessarily.

[439] I mean, he's working from the same type of human physiological construct as anybody else.

[440] Of course it's possible that this guy could think the same thing.

[441] We think a lot of the same things, to be perfectly honest.

[442] I mean, reading the Haga Curry, going back to philosophy books, this was really impactful on me as a younger adult because here's a book written in the 19th century about someone who lived through the 19th and 18th century at times as a samurai now a monk and his objections to society at the time the same objections one was having to society as I was reading it like the same human behaviors the same impetus for action that he found a problem like well that's the same that's the same shit now like we're not and this is the thing and this is the thing and And then I'm reading more religion.

[443] I go, oh, we're no different than anyone who wrote the Torah or older.

[444] We are the same thing with the same problems, with the same psychological issues, the same human behaviors.

[445] Like, these things are not different.

[446] Yeah.

[447] And we haven't changed.

[448] Growing set of tools, though, to kill each other with or to communicate together and all the kind of stuff.

[449] But underlying it is a human nature.

[450] Well, we're also trying to understand that human nature.

[451] I think we've, just like you said, learning how to fish acquired more and more knowledge.

[452] about that human nature, but it's been a very slow journey.

[453] It's slower than people realize.

[454] Yes.

[455] In terms of understanding human nature.

[456] Let me ask in terms of egoism, you'd be curious to get your sense about Ayn Rand and her whole idea of virtue of selfishness.

[457] Sure.

[458] Because you mentioned that everybody has a kernel of truth.

[459] There's potential for a kernel of truth to be discovered, in anything.

[460] For example, I've been recently reading Mind Kampf.

[461] You know what?

[462] That's the thing.

[463] Even there's something in, there's probably things in mind conf that are not the surface level read.

[464] If you get all hung up on, on all, probably all his crap about, you know, his anger, anger at Jews and this and that, all this crap.

[465] It's like, okay, yeah, that's right on the surface.

[466] Try to get below that.

[467] Try to see, he you know how is he how is he creating the jews as a cope somehow like how is he using why are they his his scapegoat and i mean scapegoat in the so rennie gerard's uh concept of the scapegoat i mean in that sense whereas uh you know hitler uses it wants to make the the jews the scapegoat for world war one yeah i mean for me the starting point similar with han rand is uh like man conf is not a good place to search not just because hitler's evil but it's just not full of ideas no it is not it has its significance due to a lot of historically speaking but the starting point for me with hitler is like to acknowledge that he's human and to at least consider the possibility that any one of us could have been hitler so like that not that's a Peterson kind of concept also um jonathan height has a thing about uh the difference between hate and discussed mechanisms and things like that and so he He goes into the looking at Hitler and his, through his diary entries and journals and stuff like that to look and see it more as the discuss mechanism, then also try and see, like, if there's any evolutionary biological attachment to this, whatever.

[468] I mean, you're right.

[469] He is a human being.

[470] Any of us, we're all human beings.

[471] It's not that it's probably jarring for people to think, but we're, we're all I guess supposed potentially capable of just being in and all these evil people in the world think they're doing it for the sake of good yeah which makes them the most dangerous and there's some there's differences in levels of insane I think hila was way more insane than Stalin I think Stalin legitimately thought he was being doing good I would say that's probably true Stalin was just outright brutal.

[472] He had his five -year plan, he had all those other things.

[473] He just had a much lower value for human life.

[474] And so he was willing to make decisions about what he actually, as a good executive, which he was of managing different bureaucracies and so on, he was willing to make decisions that resulted in mass human suffering, where Hitler was, it seems like to me, much moodyer.

[475] So allowed emotions and moves to make decisions.

[476] I think we also have to consider the different trajectories and where and when they were making their decisions.

[477] And I mean, not by time specifically, but Hitler engaged into this conflict across multiple continents.

[478] And then that, everything that comes with basically fighting the whole world, Stalin had his conflict and then he really mostly compartmentalized the rest of it so he was dealing with his own internal instead of dealing with the internal and the external so if Stalin was put under a World War scenario I don't know maybe he would have eventually lost his marbles too yeah I'm not sure that you're right the hunger for power was more internalized for Stalin he wanted to control the land that already existed as opposed to wanting to colonize other land.

[479] He was as nationalistic as Hitler, but, uh, and was as capable and willing for, uh, violent conflict as Hitler for the aims of the state.

[480] Yeah.

[481] But he, he, he centered and internalized prior to then externalizing and moving outwards, whereas even maybe prior to him, there was an interest to continually push communism in an aggressive sense following on the momentum from the the 1918 revolution and that the halting of that through various aspects i guess in germany part of that was the national socialist like they they came up and then they were the other ones to fight the communists and so you had the two totalitarians going after it but then in the rest of the world that was not dealing with totalitarian aspects it was just it wasn't going to stick especially in the west and other places but Stalin seemed just you know casually thinking it seemed like Stalin decided to go all right well we're not going to go just start launching right into more conflicts here we're going to these dudes are going down so that's cool for us because they hate us and we hate them um but now we're going to we're going to focus internally and then we're going to work on growing at a slower rate in picking our battles a bit more specifically.

[482] And of course there's, you know, you can get to the, even this is after Stalin, but yeah, you got the Besmanov type stuff talking about subversion in cultural aspects.

[483] Yeah, I mean, there's this fascinating dynamics to propaganda throughout the whole period.

[484] That's, that's a whole other colonel, yeah.

[485] Do you think Hitler could have been stopped?

[486] One of the things is kind of fascinating to look at is how many nations, both journalists and nations wanted, almost crave to take Hitler at his word that he wanted peace until it was too late.

[487] They almost wanted to be, delude themselves.

[488] I mean, the same is true with the Stalin, people want to take Stalin as word for.

[489] Are they still delude themselves?

[490] Yeah.

[491] We will dilute ourselves over any number of things until even after the fact where the history just says, hey, fuck face.

[492] You know, you cannot supplement your pseudo -reality.

[493] onto actual reality here, but yet we deal with people in pseudo realities constantly.

[494] I mean, we will always find a way to change reality to suit our needs.

[495] Well, the nature of truth now, there's now multiple actual truth.

[496] It's kind of fascinating.

[497] There's multiple versions of history that people are telling.

[498] You know, the version of the Great Patriotic War in Russia, the World War II in Russia, is very different today under Putin than the version.

[499] that we're learning in the United States and then different than the version in Europe.

[500] In the United States, the hero of the war is the United States.

[501] In Europe, there's a much more sad and solemn story of suffering and so on.

[502] Sure.

[503] In Russia, it's the great patriotic war.

[504] It was a unifier of a sense.

[505] And it, I mean, yeah, I mean, you can't argue that war and conflict, that and or I just even reducing that to stressors agitation suffering doesn't create human motivation you know we started this off you brought up Frankl I'm like yeah Frankl's dope answers for meaning maslow's great and and I talked to you about how I started to think like man do the ability for human beings to to live and or potentially flourish in the worst environments you can think of is pretty incredible in and of itself and that it's a crazy thought to think that without Frankl and Maslow ending up in concentration camps, do they write some of the most important books on philosophy in the 20th century?

[506] And that's insane on a lot of different levels.

[507] Suffering is a creative force.

[508] I mean, do you think we'll always have war?

[509] Yes, we will always have war.

[510] in some form or another, we need, quote -unquote, air quotes, for those just listening, war to survive.

[511] We need war to flourish.

[512] We need at least.

[513] Can you explain the air quotes of around the war?

[514] Well, because take, take the...

[515] Do you see wars as violence?

[516] No, wars are not violence.

[517] So like, so when we're talking about...

[518] No, air quotes because while, you know what, us getting on the mat or just getting on these hardwood floors and wrestling around is not literal war, it's war.

[519] of a sorts.

[520] You know, it is a diluted form of war.

[521] American football is a diluted form of war.

[522] All this, these are diluted forms of war.

[523] Tennis is a deluded form of war.

[524] And I think one of the best explanations I ever got from this, and another person very impactful on my life and outlook and thinking about things, Cormac McCarthy.

[525] And so in Blood Meridian, there's this fantastic speech about war given by the judge, which there's a ton of fantastic speeches on things given by the judge.

[526] Yeah, all that exists in creation without my knowledge does so without my consent.

[527] Okay, that's pretty heavy.

[528] That's hard.

[529] Wait, can you break that up?

[530] Can you say that again?

[531] All things that exist in creation, all things that exist without my knowledge, do so without my consent.

[532] What does that mean to?

[533] Well, I think, from the judge's perspective, it's like, well, I didn't consent to that bird or that dog or this big.

[534] building or all this, like all of this, you know, I didn't create it.

[535] So it's done so without my consent.

[536] And if it's up to my consent, well, I'll design it how I want to.

[537] Another similar look into how the judges in that book is he would study everything everywhere he went.

[538] And so he's collected this group of near -do -wells from all over to go on these hunts against certain tribes in the southwest and getting paid by the U .S. government and the Mexican government.

[539] So he's on these Indian hunts, and yet they're going to all these different places, and they would stay the night in a cave somewhere, and he would find cave panties, he would write them all down, or he would find old pieces.

[540] There's an example of him, the narrator, explaining how watching the judge and how he drawing, everything, he's got this notebook just full.

[541] of things, drawings and writings, and how he found like a piece of armor from a conquistador or something way back in the day, a Spanish armor.

[542] And he draws it into his book and then crushes it.

[543] And so that, so the reason we'll always have war in the society is because there's these struggle amongst people that want to be the designers.

[544] There's, there's that, but it's, I'm just saying that he's got this whole quote on war.

[545] Like war is about, is, is, is, is, is, is, play.

[546] War is a game.

[547] And the difference is that what's at stake.

[548] So all things are a game of some sort.

[549] And you're putting up for it or what you're willing to put up for it determines whether or not you're going to participate or not.

[550] And, you know, all aspects of any game is war.

[551] And it's just what is at stake?

[552] You know, if it's your life, it's a different story.

[553] If it's just a coin, that's another thing.

[554] A nice way to put it is humans play.

[555] a game in this kind of pursuit of creating, whatever the hell the reason is that we keep creating cool and cooler things, that it seems to be the result of a game that would naturally play, it wouldn't naturally crave.

[556] I don't know.

[557] I mean, that's been the struggle of philosophy, is to understand what is the underlying force of all that?

[558] Is it the will to power?

[559] I think will to power is a really great way of describing it.

[560] Do you want to be the winner of the game?

[561] No, not just, I don't look at Wilt's Power as being the winner of the game.

[562] Well, I mean, if we're going to get philosophical, yes, you want to be the winner of the game.

[563] What does winning the game define how you win?

[564] Everybody's going to define that win differently.

[565] You know, you could define the win in the most base level like, oh, I got all the things.

[566] Well, if you got all those things without the needing component of fulfillment, then you're going to be a very unhappy person with a whole lot of things.

[567] But there's a self -referential aspect to where, to me, the winner of the winner, the game is defined by the people playing the game.

[568] So if I'm playing a game, I want to win in the sense that most of the other people who are playing the game will say, yeah, that guy won.

[569] By our collective definition of one, if I just come up, listen, I'm sort of, if I come up with my...

[570] That's a lot of weight on the external on you.

[571] Right, but that's how games seem to work.

[572] Somewhat.

[573] So I'm already a winner in my life by defining my own definition.

[574] I'm basically the best person in the world at doing me. At being Lex.

[575] Yeah.

[576] So like, and then I'm really happy with that.

[577] That's the source of happiness.

[578] Games are also iterated, right?

[579] So you start off with your game and then your game with your immediates and then the game further than that, the game further than that.

[580] And then the game today and the game tomorrow and the game next week.

[581] And so it never ends.

[582] And if you try to keep thinking about it that way, no wonder.

[583] people go crazy.

[584] But we don't want to think about things that way.

[585] We don't want to think about being towards death.

[586] We don't want to think about whether or not I'm going anywhere after this other than in the ground or what have you.

[587] Like we, you know, all of these games are a sense of some distraction.

[588] This is where we brought up.

[589] But I mean, it's violence is that we need to let this out.

[590] And so it is of our kids need a wrestle and play, just like animals need to wrestle and play.

[591] we need to have forms of competition.

[592] We need to have ways to test ourselves, to create when, what is it?

[593] When at peace, a man of war makes war with himself.

[594] And so we need to be able to competently go at war with ourselves and go at war with our neighbor and go at war with our neighbor's neighbor in a way that is repeatable at the very least.

[595] So one way of saying that there will always be war, I mean, that's my hopeful view is that, most of the war conducted in the future will be, like you said, the man must go to war with himself.

[596] That would be great.

[597] That's what, to me, love is, is like focusing on yourself and your own improvement, on your own creativity, and towards others feeling, sort of emphasizing cooperative behavior and compassion and empathy.

[598] It would be great.

[599] But I mean, you can have, well, I'll put it to you this way.

[600] If you have, a whole community of Randians and a whole community of Ancoms and they could all like I don't know a toast of London on Netflix and they love Netflix and they love the internet and they love picking apart Moncomf with you they love like they like all these things even the esoteric that they can get on with but at the fundamental root they cannot help but go to war because they are literally oil and water.

[601] No, but they would, the very labels they assigned to themselves would need to dissipate.

[602] Well, then you would have to stop being whatever it is that you took on as your ideological or religious point, right?

[603] Yeah, I mean, there's some days I'm an Ancom, some days I'm an encapsons, whatever the, an archic capital it depends on the hour the minute of the day you constantly changing moods and embracing that flow the change of opinions of ideas as there's some days like i'm actually cognizant of the fact because you've been not getting my sleep and after i get some sleep i see i'm so much more optimistic about the world the less and less sleep i get the more sad and cynical i get i can see that up and down i don't even let my well okay I try not to let.

[604] In most days, it's never a problem.

[605] Any sort of, like, what are the kids call it now, black -pilled way of thinking, be my over, the umbrella, which I hang under.

[606] So we actually, to drag us back, can we talk about Carl Gotts and Kat Trasley?

[607] Because I do want to make sure I touch it.

[608] I mean, what, who were?

[609] Carl Gatch is...

[610] Is he the greatest catch wrestler?

[611] I don't know if he was the greatest catch wrestler ever.

[612] I don't...

[613] I mean, he's one of them for a myriad of...

[614] Carl Gotch, Billy Robinson.

[615] Gatch and Robinson's trainer, Billy Riley.

[616] So who are these figures and what do they bring to?

[617] Mitsuo Maeda.

[618] He's one of the greatest catch wrestlers ever because he's responsible for Brazilian jiu -jitsu, along with Gostal Gracie.

[619] Okay.

[620] There's a bunch of things I'd like to say here, but one of the things that catch wrestling seem to espouse as a principle is that of violence.

[621] I just, the tournaments I competed at, the unfortunate thing, and we'll probably hopefully talk about it a little bit, they were disorganized and the level of competition was pretty low, where people really sucked.

[622] Pretty typical.

[623] Is that typical?

[624] Okay.

[625] Well, it's, I mean, think about local run -of -the -mill, Jiu -Jitsu tournament versus IBJF created, you know, a vast difference.

[626] So I, you know, but there is a, to me as a human being, like intellectually, philosophically, it was more interesting to go to catch wrestling tournament.

[627] It seemed more real and honest because of the way they communicate about violence and aggression.

[628] It is often more honest.

[629] I think that as...

[630] Who is that from?

[631] Is that originated from gosh?

[632] Is that Bill Robertson said by man. originates from all wrestling in that even Wade Chalice not a not a classically considered catch wrestler yet the reason why he has the world record for most amount of world champions pinned or the record for pins in the NCAA is because well of course the idea is to put you on your back and pin you but there's no way you're going to let me do that so how do I make it so that you want me to pin you well it's by you put them in excruciating pain yeah so at the end of the day you're both there you both want to win neither one wants to allow anything to the other yeah so how do i how do i get you to lose to me well i make it so unbearable for you that you decide losing is better than staying so those the two those two are so fascinating because so coming from russia i don't know if that's where I got it or if it's just my own predisposition, is I always love the, there's two ways to get you to want to pin yourself.

[633] One is to making it so painful not to pin yourself that you pin yourself or whatever.

[634] And the other is, it's sort of like Bruce Lee Water Flows.

[635] Make it so easy to pin yourself.

[636] So it's technique, it's like the elegance, the ease of movement.

[637] This is the Sitya Vosier -Sitiev.

[638] uh like the just the elegance the efficiency they're practicing ballet watching those guys you know these incredible satia brothers are massive and uh so those are the two paths i'll also caveat a little bit that like uh if you're if you're approaching this from a a russian perspective russians are quite truthful about things uh especially when it comes to something like combat they just this is how it is yeah this is how it's going to be it's honest yes and honesty is what i really like about catch wrestling because I find that we given any opportunity for us to be dishonest for any number of reasons we're gonna especially if it's a dishonesty towards a positive right like oh well you know it's all technique and it's all this and it's the gentle art and blah bro I have rolled with ADCC world champions you know some of the best you have ever heard of there ain't a lot of gentleness when it comes to like oh yeah they wanted to sweep you and you said no And then you did said no again.

[639] And then you said no and attacked their leg.

[640] It ceases to be all that gentle.

[641] Because at the end of the day, these dudes are strong as hell.

[642] They're flexible.

[643] I mean, the difference between the athleticism and the ability to actually win is a pretty wide gap.

[644] The athleticism shows up, but then there's all that other extra.

[645] And part of that is meanness and pain and getting what you need.

[646] out of it.

[647] But see, there is a philosophical difference in the way it's thought because I think some of it is just they just in denial.

[648] Like, oh, people will, they like to people like to espouse a lot of things as theory and then it's like, okay, let me watch.

[649] When they're, oh, you're not doing anything about what you said right now.

[650] In fact, you're doing the opposite.

[651] You're literally hurting that guy because your shit ain't working in the way that you'd like it to.

[652] So you're having to use strength.

[653] You're having to, one of my favorites like, oh, you're using too much strength.

[654] And it's like, well, hold on.

[655] Do we want people not to use strength at this point to understand more of mechanics?

[656] Or are you trying to tell people if they use strength at all that they're somehow bad at what they do?

[657] Because, you know, it's not my fault.

[658] You're not stronger than me. See, I'm speaking to something else that's...

[659] I tend to think what it comes down to is like, strength is fine until you beat me with it.

[660] Then it sucks.

[661] Okay, so strength is another thing.

[662] I'm thinking about more like anger.

[663] Oh, sure.

[664] Okay, so like, a lot of angry guys in Jiu -Jitsu.

[665] I know that.

[666] Really?

[667] Mm -hmm.

[668] Okay, okay, but let's talk about, let's talk about the highest level of competitions.

[669] There's a book called Wrestling Tough.

[670] Yeah.

[671] It's a really good book.

[672] I've encountered in my life, a few, especially in wrestling, people who really try to find a way to use anger, to get really angry at their opponent.

[673] Not like stupid anger, but just like.

[674] Intense, pointed.

[675] uh anger uh distilled into something uh that you can use fuel and like i remember the story i don't know where i read it might be wrestling tough where a person was imagining that their opponent just raped their mother raped their uh girlfriend or something like that to to create this like method acting thing in their head to be like to to snap them out of this polite interaction of usual like athletic convention and like you know that's a design of necessity so my anecdote for this was i was sitting with uh backstage before a fight not my fight and i'm working with this guy and this is this is a world champion guy uh and he's competed at the highest levels uh and he he looks at me and he goes hmm you know you ever get nervous I looked at it and I went no I don't and he just looks at me he's like fuck man I'm so you know how do you do it man or you know I wish it could be like you and I said you know what that doesn't mean that what I'm doing is better it's just what is necessary for me it's the way I am and I told him so this anecdote goes into another anecdote this is a family guy episode I guess So, where some, another famous high -level guy told me about this experience with a world champion boxer in Japan.

[676] And this guy would get insanely nervous and worked up and anxious before his matches.

[677] And he hated it and hated it and hated it.

[678] And so he wanted to get rid of that feeling.

[679] So he went to a hypnotist for a bunch of sessions and managed to.

[680] And he goes in and next fight.

[681] He's cool as a cucumber and doesn't perform and loses.

[682] And so what I said, going back to anecdote one, was, you know, whatever is necessary for you to get yourself in the best state of being right now to compete, whatever that may be, it could be absolute stress and fear, it could be anger, it could be calmness, it could be whatever.

[683] But there is a, but there is a, there's a state at which you.

[684] need to be in to do your best and use the individual you have to find that can you comment on Tyson Mike Tyson oh yeah that thing so first so he uh there's two things I want to so he's a in terms of fear there's a clip there I think from a documentary where he talks about he is like fully afraid as he walks up to the ring and as he gets closer and closer and close he gets more confident until he gets in and he's a god or something like that that coupled with his statement on Joe Rogan that he gets aroused at the possibility of true, like of hurting somebody in the ring.

[685] So like he gets aroused at the violence.

[686] Yeah.

[687] I like it because it's coupled to your basically statement that we need to find our own unique way of existing at our top level of performance.

[688] And that perhaps is Mike Tyson, But do you think there's something more deeply universal to the Mike Tyson speaking to the fact that he's aroused at the possibility of violence?

[689] Yeah, I do, actually.

[690] Although I don't think that it always equates to arousal for people.

[691] In fact, I would say in general, it doesn't.

[692] I can say I've never had a boner in the ring.

[693] In fact, of anything, you know, old combat cock is like, we're not hanging around.

[694] We're leaving.

[695] We're going up.

[696] We're taking off.

[697] We don't want anything to do with this.

[698] You have fun.

[699] Come back to us when you have something warmer, softer, smells better.

[700] But the power, the feeling of aliveness, yeah, I could see it.

[701] You know, back to even the concept of the Ubermensch.

[702] I feel like the states, the highest states of being I've ever been in were in the midst of conflict.

[703] I felt like that was the times.

[704] Those are the moments in my life where I felt like I was at the highest level of being as a human in existence.

[705] But yet even being in that state was not, it was not.

[706] something that you could interact with people that weren't in that state with you, like they wouldn't get it.

[707] You would almost seem, and to be that way all the time, either A, might drive you mad, or B, is you're not, you're something that's untenable to the rest of society.

[708] Like, you can't function with everybody else.

[709] It will not work.

[710] It's just like you said with the Uber Man, it's just like it's perhaps that ideal is not something you can hold for long.

[711] That's the very nature of it is.

[712] Yeah, well, there was an example in Lesboke Zarathustra about a snake being down the person's throat and biting it and then having this maniacal laughter erupting and you know to me it was at least I read it as yeah okay there's this insane moment that isn't forever but that it is life and death and it is and the overcoming it is the thing that all of a sudden gives you that tapping into your, your highest state, right?

[713] This is, you know, man is a chasm, a tightrope between man and Ubermensch.

[714] Well, I don't want to leave your thought about, we'll call those things flourishes to the aspect of Tyson's interpretation or his expression of his feelings in combat.

[715] And so I gave this anecdote to the guy and I just, you know, at my first anecdote, to that athlete I was working with, and I said, you know, this isn't, there isn't a superior way in this sense.

[716] There is the way that works for you.

[717] That may be something you can implement to other people if you find that person, because we all have different personalities.

[718] And to me, that's a, that is, that's an absolute.

[719] I don't want to, nobody, don't come at me with all your other fucking social sciences crap.

[720] No, we have distinct personalities.

[721] That, that, that personality, that, that, who you really are, and this, you know, again, Heidegger, Dazine, like being authentic, If you're authentic with who you are, goods and bads, you will know how to create what that is.

[722] And for me, violence and fighting and conflict was something that always felt normal to me. And I don't mean normal in like I grew up in a war zone or an abusive household or something like that.

[723] I just meant that I was a kid who was very joyful and inquisitive and spent a lot of time around older people, of all things.

[724] And also, while I don't think I have much capability toward engineering, my mom said that one of the first things as like a little baby, when she put me in my sister's old crib, instead of my sister who just milled about and was fine with it all, the first thing I did was I completely deconstructed it.

[725] I didn't break it.

[726] I figured out how to pull it apart.

[727] Curiosity about the world.

[728] And yet that wasn't in conflict with the idea of violence?

[729] No, not at all.

[730] And so being a very joyful and nice kid, but, you know, kids are kids.

[731] And if kids can find that you respond maybe more easily to agitation, they will agitate you.

[732] And if you should stand out in some way by being taller or bigger or something or caring, especially, they will agitate you.

[733] They don't really fully understand it either.

[734] And so I don't hold anything against like any of the kids that used to pick on me or whatever, especially at the youngest age.

[735] It's like, man, they don't know shit either.

[736] so um but once that line was pushed for me it was oh well i was i was being cool now you're being uncool yeah well then that gives me license for everything and so boom we would just go at it or kids that would try to initiate a fight and i'm like okay and being in that moment of just going going to town with someone else it just felt like this is i belong here yeah it was it was never a problem for me like the in fact if anything the over what I had to understand was well not only did I learn the hard way that it doesn't matter at the end of the day it doesn't really matter what anybody else does if your response in violence even to their violence if you're the winner is often going to be penalized severely you know society state apparatus they don't want any of that they want to be the only arbiter of violence in the world always.

[737] But I learned a very difficult lesson with that and it was really impactful in a negative way on me. But also I had to learn on an individual sense to you need to manage violence too because, hey, if someone attacks you or starts a fight with you and you go at it, okay, beating them up is one thing, you know, trying to grab a handful of broken glass from the street and throw it in their face maybe that's a bit much at seven so you need to learn what what level is necessary and you need to learn what comes with with all what's the responsibility of when you enact violence i mean you take on something when you you have a responsibility for that this is the extension of your actions um so uh but as i got older and especially as i found sports and then combat sports and now this was a place for me to flourish and to the point where I was more myself in that space than I was outside of it until time enough where I could learn to get this back together again and I never say that I that I'll merge the two or anything like that no all what happened my my my um my journey uh from adolescence on to uh to manhood a huge portion of it besides the normal finding yourself whatever whatever actually what it was re getting back to who i always was getting back to that curious kid the kind kid Getting back to the guy that I should have been allowed to become instead of what happened under the pressures of other things, yeah.

[738] And the attempt for society and certain people within, you know, managerial positions to compress what that was into something that they found more suitable.

[739] Yeah, but those pressures allow you to discover this little world, forbidden world in many ways of violence that you could explore.

[740] through sport you can explore it in uh it's more socially acceptable to explore it to sport for sure and even but even then there's like uh at times it's socially unacceptable so i beat sem shilt i'm he cut my right eyebrow i cut him and busted his nose and he's bleeding all over me as i have an arm bar on top i'm getting you know it's raining blood quote some slayer from a lacerated sem shilt bleeding in his horror creating my structures now i shall rain in blood but uh i win the fight arm bar nasty one i get on my feet and the first thing i do is i wipe all the blood off onto my hands and i lick it and i do my thing and all the M .A journalist freaked out.

[741] Dana Wise like, man, I don't know about that.

[742] You know, we don't want him doing, everybody had this huge problem.

[743] And then some folks would even contend, oh, you know, look, you're trying to do, like, no, no, no, this isn't planned.

[744] I don't think of these things.

[745] This is how I really feel.

[746] This is who I really am.

[747] And, you know, it was even kind of comical after the fact, you know, and BJ Penn was on the very card with me, watching him at some point in his career all of a sudden win fights and then do this licking the glove thing and everyone thinks it's the coolest thing ever and i'm like hey fuck faces i did this in 2002 or one 2001 and bj pan actually back then was like dude you're a badass you're a killer you know where did that come from because that seems like a deeply human moment i could say i could just be you know goofy about it and call it orgeastic to know are we back to mike tyson yeah but Tyson but uh no no no it's It isn't, it's beyond that.

[748] Is it a celebration of human nature?

[749] I've made some pretty decent orgasms in my life at this point of 43, so, but no, none have ever compared to that.

[750] Like I said, it is a feeling of highest being to me and I, it's your Uber Manch moment.

[751] This is, this is where I feel like the restrictions of general existence in society are gone.

[752] And I get to fully live in a state that feels more meaningful of, the most meaning, you know, I think of it as life and death.

[753] And it's just, it is the way I'm built.

[754] And I don't have, I've never had any problem applying violence.

[755] Like it doesn't, I, I don't know where it comes from or how you would define it or whatever if you want to stick me under in a, in a psychologist chair.

[756] But like I don't, there's a part of me that can just, like, no, if I'm going to apply, I can apply violence to any level and be okay with it.

[757] And it doesn't, I don't lose sleep it doesn't bother me it's not a problem it's it was me learning how to fully understand violence humans and the broader perspective that allowed me to think about things and like well what am i what what do i really want to accomplish with my actions in the world just on a whole you know not compartmentalizing uh my sporting career even when i get in the ring i i don't have any mercy generally and if i do it's because i make a uh a really deliberate attempt to be in a state where i can have mercy if i just go in there to fight with everything i got there is zero the natural state there's nothing there's nothing that will hold me back other than the referee and that's that you know i i know i agreed to to be allowed to do and not to do but but within that no and i expect it to be done to me but in terms of values in terms of seeing what to me violence is uh is just yet another canvas that humans can uh paint beautifully on clearly i mean uh we have venerated the violent uh there are communists that venerate the violent on their behalf there are national socialists that venerate the violent there and then if you remove it from an ideological perspective We venerate the violent when they're a hero.

[758] We venerate the violent in our religion.

[759] Well, I mean, I guess some people venerate the violence of Yahweh and Saddam and Gomorrah, right?

[760] So, or do we say Jehovah?

[761] I don't know.

[762] Is there, you've already mentioned one, but is there a fight where you've achieved the highest of heights for your own personal being, just when you look within yourself that you're the person?

[763] proudest of, or maybe was your most beautiful creation?

[764] Is this something that stands out?

[765] Yeah, there are a few, actually.

[766] Fighting Semi -Shilt and a rematch.

[767] Well, the first one was pretty good, too.

[768] But the rematch was, I was suffering, I had suffered earlier, prior, the week prior to food poisoning.

[769] And so while my abs are looking all right, I, in the ring, didn't have the power that I expected to.

[770] And I was struggling in ways in some of the grappling for the submission stuff that I hadn't accounted for.

[771] Just exhaustion or mental exhaustion?

[772] No, I mean like just physical.

[773] I wasn't back up to 100 % in terms of this power output.

[774] And semi was, well, he's always seven foot tall.

[775] But this time he was, the first time I fought him, he was 260 or 27 or 260 something, something like that.

[776] This time he was like 290.

[777] and so he was a significantly bigger cat and he was he's a big dude and i just remember being up against the ropes with him changing levels trying to take him down and he's fighting he's hip and i just thought in my head there's no fucking way i'm going to lose this fight there's no way you are not going to beat me it's not going to happen and i armbard him the other arm even though the fact he's like i really wanted to get you for that wanted to get that match back Then you fucking got my other arm, Dick.

[778] I'm like, dude, I still love you, though.

[779] But the whole time you're like, so this has to do the dichotomy of you're feeling your worst.

[780] And having to overcome.

[781] You're like literally mentally telling yourself, there's no way.

[782] There's no fucking way I'm going to lose this fight.

[783] And then there's even my last bare knuckle match and getting in the ring and fighting bare knuckle boxing for the first time and just thinking, just being in a great state and just looking so forward to seeing I mean I called someone and I was talking to them the night before and I said yeah well I want you know I video called you because this face might not look like this when I see you next and they're just like oh uh okay that's not just like empty trash talk that's no that's like a clarity of mind and the seriousness about I go I might die I'm most pretty high a chance of being deformed some way so But fuck it, I don't really care.

[784] Do you think about, are you accepting your own death?

[785] Yes, 100%.

[786] Yeah, I, in fact, and that's, in a strange way, that's partially what makes it so elevated in terms of my sense of feeling by being able to have death at my side, it feels good.

[787] And to be there and to think that this could be the one.

[788] Like, why not?

[789] you know uh i'm not a religious person at all even though i very much have to seem seems to seem to bang on the drum about the usefulness or understanding the usefulness of religion for people um but you know if if if if if if if if if if i got to do something then yeah put me in valhalla man i don't want to be anywhere else nothing else seems like a good place for me to be i want to i want to fight all day long and feast all night you know sounds great i saw you uh throw your hat into the ring of fader emily nanker yes he got covid i guess i hope he i hope he overcomes it and comes out just as good if not better epic would that did i understand correctly that that might be his last fight yes that's my understanding and it would be epic as hell and it would be epic as hell because the person that i want to give my most to is a person that i respect especially at this this long uh this long this this this this long this this this twilight years it's like two warriors and and and that's the thing about even this going in there with the aspect of being with death and all that is that when that person is in there there my brother with me in this and that so when you give me your best even if i even if i win dominant fashion but if you show up and you're as authentic and being here as i am then then i love you and i'm glad for you to be here and we're in this together and and at this point you know your loss or my loss or whatever is no less deserving of veneration than the win like we're here in this and so to be in the ring with feodor and to venerate him in win or defeat to be in there with with someone uh like that is to me it's so rare so it's incredible how the ultimate violence is coupled with with like love or respect.

[790] And it's like, it's weird how this is, how the competition in his violent form is also a veneration of just human connection.

[791] It's also the removal.

[792] I feel like it's the purest, one of the purest ways, purest, most honest places a person can exist.

[793] VAT line and fight club, you don't know really who you are until you've been in a fight.

[794] I mean, I believe that.

[795] and I've seen so many examples of people trying to portray themselves as one thing and then in the ring you see who they really are or even when they're trying to portray themselves as one thing and they're winning the crowd at times will see who they really are and still hate them you know it's like but I said all the good things bro don't work that way yeah but speaking of fado if we take you out of the picture who are the greatest mixed martial arts fighters of all time uh i i feel you out of the picture as a cop out to some degree i feel like we need a little bit more time you know so to to to see how this unfolds because you got to compare a lot of things and i did i did i think i'm like centuries i did an interview i don't know about centuries but that would help if we can keep accurate records and and not allow uh too much uh bias to to fall to too much propaganda the victor still i Yeah, but I made an argument.

[796] I was in an, I get a, it was, it was a interview with an MMA outlet of some sort, and I can't recall who it was, but, oh, it was an argument about will the winner of King Velasquez versus Steep Emiochick be the greatest MMA heavyweight of all time?

[797] And I said, fucking no way.

[798] Oh no, it was Cormier in Miochik.

[799] That's what it was.

[800] I said, absolutely not, not even close.

[801] And I said, these guys need a bit more time to see how things go.

[802] And also how things go for some of their opponents.

[803] And, like, there's more factors than just this one fight.

[804] It really is.

[805] And I go, and when you want to weigh these people, even if, let's say, we'll bring Alistair over him into the end of the equation, okay, you judge him on what you know now, what he's done for you lately, okay?

[806] Right.

[807] Which is a very myopic way of doing it.

[808] what has he done over his career k1 champion uh he was a champion in uh uh dream um he strike force blah blah blah his overall record the entirety of all the different opponents he's fought and i just sit back and i go okay he's not the ufc champ but his accolades his merits in some ways actually stand up higher than Cormier's and Miochik is.

[809] So what about the moments, do you give much value to the special moments, like the highest heights you rise to, not in terms of records or the strikes landed, but just creating a magical moment in a fight.

[810] It doesn't have to be even a championship fight, but just, you know, Connor McGregor is an example of somebody who creates a narrative.

[811] if it gets a story, it's a drama, and a special magic happens, even if it's like not with a need to be.

[812] Myth is greater than reality, and that is always the case.

[813] But do you...

[814] And so I understand that so very much, and it takes an asshole like me to poo -poo on your myth.

[815] They at least get you, at the end of the day, you're not going to abandon your myth, but perhaps temper it with the facts and logic.

[816] So you're not a fan of myth.

[817] No, I'm an absolute, massive fan of myth.

[818] But you know, I prefer facts and logic.

[819] It's like when I, no, I mean, I like saying facts and logic because people, I also, I am not a materialist in that sense.

[820] I don't think that materialism can solve for everything.

[821] It's not enough.

[822] It's not robust enough.

[823] I'm sorry.

[824] If facts and logic and or reason, as the Enlightenment scholars all thought, including Marx, was enough for people, then we wouldn't have any religions.

[825] We wouldn't have any, like there would be no, we wouldn't have narratives and myths and all this kind of stuff, it would not, it just, I'm sorry, there's no, there's nothing about history that supports the idea that rationality will overcome all.

[826] There's something about Ben Shapiro's facts, don't care about your feelings, is that feels to be missing, feels to be missing something fundamental about human nature.

[827] It's not clear to me exactly what is missing.

[828] To give old, oh, oh, Ben, a fair shake.

[829] And, you know, I don't know Ben Shapiro, I don't really listen to Ben Shapiro, not against Ben Shapiro.

[830] I'm not here to say anything particularly bad about him.

[831] Although I will say at one time, Tom Ardold was seemingly trying to pick an actual fight with Ben Shapiro.

[832] In the ring.

[833] Somewhere, yeah.

[834] And I just, and I actually responded.

[835] And I tried to get him to clarify, say, hey, are you saying that you want to fight Ben Shapiro that you're looking to actually?

[836] Because I was waiting for him to say something.

[837] And I'd be like, okay, well, it's one thing.

[838] to want to get into a fight with someone's another thing to go pick on a little tiny you know guy like ben who's much smaller than you and doesn't train or whatever but you know if it's not me i can find someone your size and you can go fight him you know don't be a basically don't be a bully piece of shit yeah you know which by the way tom arnold you are a mental midget you are never going to be able to compete even with ben Shapiro in an argument on any level about anything oh intellectual argument yeah intellectual argument you can script maybe Maybe you can scream louder than him, but whatever.

[839] But nevertheless, in the discussion of greatness in fighting.

[840] I think you need to look at some of the numbers.

[841] You need to look at some of the numbers.

[842] And there's the magic.

[843] There is some context also in that where did Alistair over him fight?

[844] Oh, we fought in pride where you could soccer kick people and stomp their head and this and that.

[845] And so the game environment is actually different too.

[846] There's more uncertainty.

[847] There's more chaos and pride.

[848] There's more.

[849] back a little further and go like, what about the guys that used to, like, Dan Severn fought bare knuckle, head butts, the whole nine.

[850] You beat Dan Seven, right?

[851] I did beat Dan Severn.

[852] That was killing an idol, so to speak.

[853] Although I didn't really kill him because I still love him.

[854] You know, he's still an eye.

[855] I mean, he's still responsible for inspiration along this whole pathway.

[856] You know, it's meeting your God and then putting a knife in it, I guess.

[857] Realizing they're human and then bringing them.

[858] down to your level exactly but also there's a there's a huge misconception there and that is that i could bring maybe i could bring dan severan down to my level but i couldn't bring his mustache down to my level oh it is it is of mythic proportions and uh greater than yours great your facial hair is great your facial hair is is is creating its own legacy but it is not dan severn mustache level or now don't fry mustache so don't fry mustache dan severn mustache you know now you have like like Shia versus Sunni.

[859] Like, that's...

[860] You think there'll be Carl Mark's, like, painting of Josh Barnett one day with the beard?

[861] And is that basically what you're trying?

[862] I hope so.

[863] I'll, I will actually comb my hair, unlike Marks.

[864] But, uh...

[865] Chaos is, uh, has a charm to it.

[866] It does.

[867] It does.

[868] I mean, uh, we all thought Doc Brown and back to the future was, was quite charming.

[869] So you have to throw that into the calculation where they fought.

[870] Yes.

[871] This is the interesting things.

[872] that they fought under, you know, some guy like Iger Vof Chanchin won a 32 -man tournament or something like that.

[873] I go, okay, Steppe and Daniel Cormier are awesome.

[874] And they may, they will, for sure, be revered as, when they're, as for their careers, 100%.

[875] Can you say that they're particularly even better overall than eager of Chanchin?

[876] Maybe one of them could have beat them, maybe maybe one of them wouldn't have you know maybe maybe eager would have fucking got them with the knuckles right away well maybe if they fought them in pride they wouldn't have won maybe if they fought them bare knuckle they wouldn't won i don't know and there's something about the cat like do you put hoise gracey in the top 10 you know there's something about uh top 10 of all time in terms of competitors uh it's capable um i don't know i'd have to think about that maybe not but i I put voice Bracey as like pyramid level.

[877] Like, wow, dude, what an amazing man. Yeah, he's so important.

[878] Absolutely incredibly important.

[879] But there's something about stepping into, like fighting another human being under all the uncertainty that the early UFC's had.

[880] I mean, you don't know what is going to happen.

[881] And coupled that with not much money.

[882] Yep.

[883] All of it.

[884] Yes.

[885] So the purity of it, too.

[886] There's something about money.

[887] I mean, I guess the shit for that in Capost world, but that ruins the purity of the violence.

[888] Yeah, people, given the opportunity for, yeah, yeah, well, the bigger things get the more, I love the fact that fighting has opened up to such a degree that the career business side of it, because I absolutely distinctly separate the two, the business side of it has opened up to give me far more possibilities, open way more doors for me. than I ever intended it to, whereas the athlete side of things has, if anything, just gotten substantially worse, I would say.

[889] And some of this is due to all the nature of all games will be learned, will be gamed without even the rules being broken.

[890] And once that's figured out, you need to make an adjustment.

[891] no adjustments have been made so the game just appears to be the same game over and over and over and over and over again on ESPN plus on whatever on whatever on whatever it doesn't really matter which night you watch it's the same game constantly and that's not because the the athletes are worse or better it's because they have had that game structure long enough that they figured out what do you do to be to be the most successful at it?

[892] What is the highest percentage way of approaching it, essentially, even if you're not thinking of percentages?

[893] If we take a step back, it's really fascinating to think about the early UFCs.

[894] Did you fight Dan 7 in the UFC?

[895] I thought I'm in Super Brawl.

[896] So that was in the early, early days.

[897] You're undefeated.

[898] 2000.

[899] What were those early days, let's say, of mixed martial arts like?

[900] Let me tell you the day of high adventure.

[901] dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun yeah it is it was so much fun and it made you feel absolutely like you were a part of a novel a comic book i mean i i would love to transcribe my experiences as what i consider a second generation m m m a athlete except i'm way too sensitive to anybody's personal anythings that are not even to you know i'm not a gossipy person i really do believe that like small people talk about others big people talk about ideas so um but there's just some stories that just can't you can't tell without telling the whole story and there are so many amazing stories that could be told people being at their best people being at their worst yeah the whole, the whole, is there something you could speak to the chaos of the time?

[902] Oh, 100 % like, okay, so we at AMC got connected to somebody that was thrown at event in Nampa, Idaho, and we all piled into this.

[903] And Matt Hume's Subaru wagon and we jammed out and we left Kirkland and we headed over to Idaho only to find out that there was nothing.

[904] really put in place.

[905] It was absolute disrepair and chaos.

[906] They didn't have a rain.

[907] They didn't have this.

[908] It was such a bullshit adventure.

[909] But we were like, well, you know, there's hardly anywhere to fight.

[910] It's tough to find these opportunities.

[911] So, okay, well, how about this?

[912] Whoever is here to fight and is willing, all right, well, since there's no venue, there's no this, whatever, we all got gloves we got mouthpieces we'll just go to the park so all they'll still get paid yeah and so folks were kind of like I don't know about that the guy I was gonna fight was he finally figured they they finally he finally gets information on who I actually am and I was undefeated at the time and I think I had fought Super Bowl 13 already won that tournament and so he's like yeah I had no clue I'm so glad we didn't fight you would have murdered me this is you know what a setup and eventually matt had to had a strong arm the guy and get our money that we were supposed to all get and drive back and because he his whole position was well there ain't no fucking way we drove all the way out here for free this is all in you you fucked this up not my problem but what is my problem is the lack of cash in my account so fix it you know Or me fighting my first organized fight against an AMC guy on 11 days notice through a connection to an old wrestling coach I had.

[913] And I just gathered up with all my old martial arts instructor that I had worked with.

[914] And we grappled in his apartment.

[915] We did tie pads in the park.

[916] I ran a couple miles every day And then all right, boom, show it up Won my fight by front joke in two minutes And then Matt goes, okay, well, hey, you did really great We'd like you to come back and fight again in the summer What do you think?

[917] Okay, go back off to university And then I think, hmm, well, that fight didn't go exactly As how I wanted to So I got to find a way to get more experience I would literally fight people in the university the rec center on the old wrestling mats as they didn't know I had a wrestling team I would find anyone doing martial arts anyone talking about getting into street fights anyone whatever and just basically go oh you ever watch UFC yeah yeah stuff's cool what do you what do you think oh man I'm super into it man that's badass rad so would you would you want to fight I mean it was way easier picking fights and then it was you know getting a girlfriend So I just, you know, path to least resistance.

[918] I think it might be useful for us to get some advice from you.

[919] Yeah.

[920] All right.

[921] Because you've accomplished for the journey of a martial artist first.

[922] If you've accomplished some of the greatest accolades there is in the sport, if somebody who's starting out now or like early on in their journey, what advice would you give on how to become a martial artist, catch wrestler and fighter Well, I mean Really what it comes down to is do it because you love it Do it for that reason and that reason alone Most people that get into this And attempt to make any sort of professional inroads with it You are not going to be the world champion You probably will never even fight for a belt And you're probably not going to net make money at this So don't do it for the world.

[923] those reasons.

[924] Do it for the reason of the passion.

[925] Do it for the reason to be the absolute best that you can be, whatever that ends up being.

[926] You might at best only be mediocre, but you won't even be mediocre if you don't do it like you really mean it.

[927] So.

[928] The passion, look, where is the kernel of the passion, would you say?

[929] Is it in the learning process itself, the improvement?

[930] I think it really depends on the person, right?

[931] I mean, there's some people that really love the fact of they feel like they're growing.

[932] right so built power you know you're growing growing stronger growing better um you know uh the idea of eliminating weakness so uh to which uh i'll quickly define weaknesses as is like things that weaken you not like being physically weak sure you could call that weakness but maybe you're not meant to be a super strong guy but choosing to be weak is is really a different story other than just like we're all deficient in some way or another.

[933] So that's neither here nor there.

[934] It's a matter of what you decide to do with it.

[935] And that's an infantry strength and weakness, at least the way I look at it.

[936] Like strength is choosing regardless of the difficulty to make improvements, to strength is even choosing to acknowledge that you do lack and accept it and then make a decision what to do with it.

[937] Yeah, but there's also, there's a bunch of stuff that just like you said, it's what you're drawn to.

[938] There's an honesty to just grappling that it seems more real than anything else you can do.

[939] Sure.

[940] And that's where the passion of love can come.

[941] Yeah, I mean, it's being in an environment, hopefully, that is as true as possible, would be a starter.

[942] So it's hard to be a bullshit person when you're literally trying to tear each other's arms off.

[943] Yeah.

[944] You know, you really sort of see who somebody is.

[945] I also feel like you really get to see somebody who, there are a couple instances where, where you really see who people are on the mats and in the bedroom.

[946] So even the aspect of self -betterment, growth along a path.

[947] I mean, hell, that's part of the device of capture for martial arts as a business.

[948] Give you a belt.

[949] Put a stripe on your belt.

[950] Each of these iterations cost 20 bucks.

[951] But there's a benefit to that.

[952] that too.

[953] I really enjoyed the progression of belts.

[954] Sure.

[955] You know, a bit of it is OCD or whatever, but you're enjoying recognition of your growth when you feel, when you're made to feel, when I think genuinely you do earn it.

[956] Yeah, I agree.

[957] I agree.

[958] It makes complete sense to me. It just, it's, anything that is, has a goodness and its purity can also have a detriment in its perversion.

[959] And there's a value to competition.

[960] I've gotten some shit in the past for saying this.

[961] I've gotten the most value in giving everything I have to try to win and lose.

[962] So, like, I've gotten, I remember most of the matches I've lost, and I think that's what I've gotten the most from the sport is losing.

[963] Think about it.

[964] I mean, if you really think about it, um, What makes you want to actually, in detail, go over what happened?

[965] Oh, it's the time when you didn't get what you wanted.

[966] It's a time when you gave it everything you had and you came up short or failed miserably.

[967] Okay, so.

[968] Especially if you're embarrassed in some way.

[969] Right.

[970] And so that's usually the only time people, again, calamity is the impetus for them to actually turn around and go, who the fuck am I?

[971] What am I doing and why am I doing it?

[972] Yeah.

[973] Instead of naturally going, hmm, okay, well, I won.

[974] Why?

[975] What was it to cause?

[976] And so I think part of my success is that when I win, I'm brutal.

[977] When I lose, I'm brutal.

[978] And there is no in between.

[979] So I remember losing the rematch against Nogera.

[980] And I still feel like it was a bullshit call.

[981] Like I feel like I won that fight.

[982] but my opinion is that and this even came up so one of the coaches in the back was like oh you did gray you know don't feel bad you know blah blah blah blah blah and I go no fuck that I didn't finish him I allowed the referees to make a judge a decision that I think is incorrect and bad but that came because I didn't take him out you know fuck that no no he won he's going to get more money he's going to get more recognition blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah I accept all this and it's not okay and I need to if I when I get a chance to fight him again I got to figure out how to wait to like take this guy out I don't want to say forever I'm not trying to put him six feet under ground well when I fight yes I am but yeah but that the but the point being I need to find a way to like this is definitive you don't get to say shit about it because I'm the only one who can stand right now that's the way it's got to be anything less than that is not good enough.

[983] And even if I achieve that, then I got to figure out, okay, it's not a given.

[984] How did I get to this point?

[985] How did I make that happen?

[986] Was it simply because of his own mistakes?

[987] Or was it because of my successful action?

[988] So it's always self -critical.

[989] Always, constantly.

[990] You love movies.

[991] I read this somewhere.

[992] Yeah.

[993] You mentioned Blade Runner is a favorite.

[994] number one of all time the final cut that's my go -to so you would say uh blade runner is the greatest movie of all time it's one of the greatest movies of all time what's what's in the top my what's in the top five uh blade runner final cut this is the original blade runner and i used to own on tape the original dhs cut yeah and uh and i had the director's cut on DVD why blade runner by the way what As a kid, I just thought it was so cool.

[995] It was something about it really spoke to me. The whole cyberpunk landscapes and this guy chasing down rogue, Android's replicants and all this.

[996] Is it just the entire cyberpunk universe or is it just robots as well?

[997] No, it's, I mean, the cyberpunk universe is part of it.

[998] On the surface, I have always tended towards dark subject matter, like things that are of the dark, sort of.

[999] to speak, are things that I've always been gravitated towards.

[1000] I think maybe part of it is that the things that are darker are more accepting and more up front with death.

[1001] And perhaps I think that maybe that is what was...

[1002] Yeah, somehow more honest, perhaps.

[1003] And there's also the aspect of rebelliousness usually.

[1004] Like there was never one to want to just do what some.

[1005] somebody told me to do, you know, I'm not sitting around trying to always be such a radical individual that I can't take orders.

[1006] No, in fact, I'm more than willing to take orders from somebody that I feel is competent and has merit and reason behind what they're doing and makes, like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm 100 % for it.

[1007] Not only can I take orders, I will help you achieve whatever it is if I think it's worthwhile, even at my own experience.

[1008] but to get to that point is a rarity like it's just not not a given and so you can even imagine like being a grade school teacher and this kid doesn't respect you and he doesn't really think you're that smart they don't really appreciate that but um so cyberpunk is number one what else is that kind of number one it's a it's an environment I love but at the same time Conan the Barbarian by John Millius is one of my favorite films of all time and you know that's such a pure film in a way like the motivations are pure they're very easy to follow but not lacking in depth you know it's not it's not just explosions and and teal and orange it's uh it's it's it's more on the human condition and i love it and it's shot incredibly well it's got incredible soundtrack yeah i fucking love it but with blade runner also in a deeper sense you know again, the human condition, you know, you start seeing like, what is what is being?

[1009] What is being human?

[1010] You know, how does this relate to if you can make it and you can tell it what to do at what point is it like you should or you shouldn't?

[1011] You know, why do you get to determine what's alive and what's not?

[1012] What's a life that should be allowed to live and what isn't?

[1013] And what would be the strain of being Roy Batty and seeing all these incredible moments that with his passing will no longer exist, especially if he hasn't had a chance to put that flame into another torch, so to speak.

[1014] If he hasn't written them down, if he hasn't passed them down to somebody else, gone like tears in the rain.

[1015] Like tears in the rain, that scene is incredible.

[1016] I mean, but it's funny because those two universes are very different going to the barbarian and cyberpunk.

[1017] Because it makes me curious about what else might be in the list the top well let me think and it's a pretty do you like like the godfather type of no no i mean i'm sure the god i've never actually even watched the whole godfather no but also like was it casino good fellas good fellow is a good movie but no that's not in my top it's it's a good flick uh but it doesn't really do it for me uh i if people really want to get into this a little more i did make a hundred a list of a hundred a hundred of my favorite movies on my facebook fan page nice but uh do you remember like oh yeah like blazing saddles is on there rid of the lost arc um uh vahala rising by nicholas from winding refin a maniac by William Lustig it's a 1980 gnarly video nasty horror movie about a serial killer who murders women and scalps them and it's gnarly as hell and very brutal and very bleak and very I mean it's the kind of thing that like a lot of people would have a real hard time watching but one again I like things that are dark but two I thought the performances were fantastic in this film and they really got out I think what the underlying thing was and it was you know it was a guy who was basically just like run amok by the overbearing mother Jungian archetype and it she was she imparted her insanity into him and he but yet there is this aspect you could see of him of him wanting to try and actually be able to be in the world and have love and have a feminine companionship to go with with his masculine aspect but he had no way of understanding how to really make that happen and he had no way of understanding how to really make that happen and he had a complete negative connotation to the feminine.

[1018] So his struggle with, and there's a little part in the movie where he somehow comes across this model or something, and they actually, he starts to feel like maybe he might be able to actually have a relationship with somebody and it goes somewhere.

[1019] But yeah, even the Elijah Wood remake, I felt, was really well done and captured most of the essence of what the movie was about.

[1020] But I still feel like the original by William Lustig is the best.

[1021] What's the greatest love movie of all time?

[1022] It is a love movie of all time.

[1023] So like something more loves on, I mean, I suppose love underlies most of these movies, and especially like the dark.

[1024] I mean, hell, Takache Miquet's films are all about family of all things.

[1025] As bonkers as those movies are.

[1026] They, the general theme is family almost entirely in all of his films uh yeah there's there's very i mean even you can argue later on it yeah it's it's everywhere love film of all time uh that's intro i mean is excalibur a film about love uh what's excalibur about king arthur his caliber is about uh arthur and becoming king of the brittans and his love of his his country and his love of guinevere but eventually yeah it becomes more of about um the the necessity for the king to love to to to hold hold excalibur to stay to to realize that while if you're the king you can love your wife and you can love your best friend and they may fuck each other behind your back and as they fall in love to but at the end of the day you're responsible your your love has to be to the to the country and everyone else first and not your own personal uh wants which you know made it made a much more interesting story when you have uh Carmen Berena and and or whether oh oh what is that one it's it's a German opera but uh you know and horses and slowmo and sword fights and an epic death scene between uh Arthur and his his son okay now I definitely have to watch it and I haven't watched it embarrassed it's uh it is John Borman's second film in Hollywood, his first one being point blank with Lee Marvin, which is also one of the upper echelon movies on my list, derived from a book called The Outfit by, uh, what is his name?

[1027] Uh, I forget, but Darwin Cook, the comics illustrator, he did, Donald Westlake wrote, so Darwin Cook does an amazing comic book send up of Darwin Cook's novels, and they are fucking incredible.

[1028] So anyways, but the point blank with Lee Marvin, you know, it's a man driven by purpose, revenge, but also by like really pure motivations.

[1029] He wants his money.

[1030] He was betrayed and he wants his cash because this is what he agreed to do the thing for.

[1031] And this is, which also is part of the reason why I like No Country for Old Men so much, which I felt was a great, great movie, even better book but uh i remember talking to my friend and i go you know anton chigger is the most pure human being in that whole book well that guy's the villain i go is he evil he's the one he lies to no one he does everything he says he will do he always follows his word and on the rare occasion he allows fate to make a decision as he figures like well whatever all let us to hear will will lead us one way or the other and And if we're at this crossroads, how is there any better or worse way than to do it over a coin flip?

[1032] And so that whole scene where the guy is going, well, what am I putting up?

[1033] And he goes, everything, you've been putting it up every day of your life.

[1034] And that's true.

[1035] Everything we do is a decision, as a calling, is a choice.

[1036] And then it bummed me out that they reduced the last interaction between Chigger and what's his face is life.

[1037] And he finally finds her.

[1038] And she's like, you don't have to do this.

[1039] And he's like, yes, I do.

[1040] This is the way it is.

[1041] You can think that your life could have turned out any sort of ways.

[1042] You could have done this.

[1043] You could have done that.

[1044] But the reality is, this is the way your life is.

[1045] And it's the way it was always going to be.

[1046] You know, the fact that I'm here is the end of it.

[1047] And that's that.

[1048] Yeah, it's funny.

[1049] If you're honest, this is what dark movies reveal, that the villains are the purest of humans and can teach us the most, like, profound lessons and that's that's certainly an example of it what do you think the big ridiculous last philosophical question what do you think is the the meaning of this whole thing we've got going on of life and existence on earth from your individual perspective but the entirety of the human species life the universe and everything yeah don't we could just leave it at that you knew exactly where I was gone.

[1050] I love it.

[1051] Josh, I love you very much.

[1052] You've been a huge inspiration.

[1053] I have a friend who she said, do you know Lex Friedman?

[1054] Have you gone on Lex's contact?

[1055] And I go, yes, I know, I know Lex Friedman is.

[1056] I've sadly been way too long in contact without making it happen for too long.

[1057] And and yes, I will 100 %, I even cut a shirt at the beginning of the pandemic to make my own little mask at one point due to the Lex process.

[1058] Yeah.

[1059] And, uh, I like, I can't really hear you, like, but I'm demonstrating.

[1060] Just let's see it through.

[1061] But this has been a blast.

[1062] And next time, I'll come back.

[1063] Next time, let's drink some of the Warbringer whiskey.

[1064] I will bring some Warmaster.

[1065] I wasn't sure if you were, if you imbibed at all in spirits.

[1066] 100%.

[1067] It felt a little weird to do it early on in the morning, especially because I'm flying out.

[1068] I mean, I've had some wonderful morning whiskey at times.

[1069] It, now that you've mentioned it, it doesn't at all.

[1070] So next time, let's make sure what Joe Morgan calls the adult beverages.

[1071] Let's make sure we indulge.

[1072] I have zero reservations for doing such a thing.

[1073] I'm into it.

[1074] Josh, thanks for talking today.

[1075] My pleasure.

[1076] Thanks for listening to this conversation with Josh Barnett.

[1077] And thank you to our sponsors.

[1078] Monk pack, low -carb snacks, element, electrolyte drink, eight sleep, self -cooling mattress, and Rev Transcription and Capturing Service.

[1079] Click the sponsor links to get a discount and to support this podcast.

[1080] And now let me leave you with some words from Sun Tzu in the Art of War.

[1081] The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

[1082] Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.