Episode 119: New Right vs Libertarianism w/Logan Chipkin
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Blue: Hello out there this week on the theory of anything podcast. We had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Logan Chipkin Logan is I think first a writer He has co -written two books first the sovereign child about raising children without coercion and Second Lords of the cosmos which tells the story of progress through the lens of good philosophy He is also the president of the conjecture Institute Which is a brand -new organization dedicated to promoting the worldview of Karl Popper and David Deutsch Many many cool people are involved in that here. We discuss libertarianism and consider What is the core difference between? liberalism conservatism and libertarianism Why are so many libertarians into conspiracy theories? And how are we to think about Popperian arguments against utopianism applied to libertarians? Does it make sense for an anarcho -capitalist to be hawkish on military intervention in places like Ukraine and Why have mainstream conservatives strayed so far from making intellectual arguments for their positions as they may have in the days of Milton Friedman? I loved this conversation that delves into a fascinating intellectual tradition, and I hope someone else out there gets something out of it, too
[00:01:40] Red: Welcome to three of anything podcast. Hey Peter. Hello Bruce. How are you today? Good and Logan Chipkin? Hey, how are you doing, Logan?
[00:01:50] Green: Hey, Bruce and Peter. Thanks for having me. I’m doing well
[00:01:53] Red: Alright, well, we are we’re stoked to have Logan on today. So Logan’s a longtime friend of mine we’ve been talking on and off for for years now and I I love talking with Logan. He’s just a really fun guy to talk with so at one point I said Hey, we ought to have you on the show and you and I will hold one of our conversations like on the show and we’ll talk about politics We don’t normally talk about politics, you know, maybe more economics. I don’t know We don’t normally talk about that on this show But I thought that might be a fun diversion for a little while Logan is president of Conjecture Institute and actually Logan, what do you introduce yourself and tell us about Conjecture Institute?
[00:02:33] Green: Yeah, thanks Bruce. Conjecture Institute is a non -profit Institute that David Kedme, Aaron Stuple, and I co -founded officially basically January of 2025 I mean legally a little bit earlier because we were setting up the infrastructure in the background But we really came out publicly roughly January of 2025 Which coincided with the release of our first product, which was The Sovereign Child our first book as well primary author primary author was Aaron Stuple and then junior author was me and that did very well and then we hit the ground running and we recruited fellows and we’ve released other Books in the meantime or at least one other book and other products as well and original research And our mission is to spread and apply humanity’s deepest ideas most of which Are those ideas espoused and developed by David Deutsch and Karl Popper and It’s been going great. I honestly it’s going better than I even would have expected and You can think of Conjecture Institute in terms of what we do You can think of it as three branches and these are not explicit on the website This is one of these 2026 projects. We want to do is make this explicit We have Conjecture Press. So that’s our book publishing arm. I had already mentioned we published two books this year We have Conjecture University. So this is original research and courses. So the courses I’m in the process of developing one now and then I’ll have other fellows basically build out modules of their subject matter that they’re passionate about and
[00:04:08] Green: Also the original research of course because many of our fellows are just physicists Mathematicians that sort of thing and they publish original research, which we’re very proud of and we highlight when it comes out So that’s Conjecture University and then Conjecture Studios again You this isn’t obvious, but you could think of Arjun Kamani’s documentary as part of Conjecture Studios So his entire documentary can be found on his YouTube channel. We have another fellow Dimitri Valin Who has so far has made two short animated science fiction type stories? But he has a lot of other things in the pipeline He’s written other scripts longer scripts and he’s making maybe making a video game and also we’re in the prop part of Conjecture Studios will be Animated physics explainer videos and one of those we’re in the process of creating right now to explain the BMV experiment The Bose -Marletto -Vedral experiment, which is one way of testing whether or not gravity has quantum mechanical properties so that would be Conjecture Studios and also of course our podcast which is up to up until now a hundred percent hosted by Brett Hall who’s our official ambassador and he’s been hosting Our fellows he hosted me for an intro episode Although funnily enough that it it’s kind of outdated by now.
[00:05:24] Green: We recorded that several months ago But anyway, and he also interviewed our one of our first advisor David Deutsch, of course and either he or I will interview our other two advisors sometime down the line Daniel Hannon the historian and politician and Judea Pearl the scientist and philosopher and there’s a chance that Next year he or I will start interviewing other people who just interesting thinkers for the podcast But anyway, so that’s all part of Conjecture Studios as well So you can think of Conjecture Studios as our media arm slash our quote -unquote Disney arm of animated things And so yeah, those are our three main branches and and I gave you our mission statement So if I left anything out, I probably did but feel free to ask me anything else Well,
[00:06:13] Blue: I Read the sovereign child excellent Lords of the cosmos. I’ve got in my hand. I’ve been looking at it But then I realized that there’s the Netflix and chill version of it, too So it’s like you’ve got a choice You can watch the watch the documentary very informative well -produced documentary or Read the book. Do I have that right? They’re both kind of the same that
[00:06:38] Green: most you have that Mostly right so the book has additional material. That’s not in the documentary. Okay, I’m that additional material by the way I think you guys would would find it very interesting and frankly that could be expanded into its own right as a book because we added What would a history of the universe look like from a knowledge -centered perspective and we kind of go through some of the bottlenecks from the big bang until now So we do kind of the typical so there’s a whole field called big history Maybe you’re familiar with it, but I would venture to guess that most of them are not paparons And don’t really see the actual role of knowledge in the cosmic scheme of things So we go through many of the traditional big history what I call bottlenecks such as the big bang The birth of the first stars and this sort of thing and then of course you get a biogenesis and then multicellularity and sex and this sort of thing but then also We get to hit we get to humanity and we talk about The origins of money the origins of private property the origins of science the origins of democracy All these sort of things so that’s and again, it’s kind of um, it doesn’t make the book So much bigger than the documentary that you were describing Peter, but it just kind of gives a taste of oh, this is what? History lesson would look like if people took a knowledge -centered view of history of the cosmos and then we We take it to the future. So what is what are the future knowledge -centered bottlenecks that humanity will pass? So
[00:08:04] Green: we go through taking children, you know a world in which taking children seriously is pervasive Immortality artificial general intelligence and arco capitalism and there might be one other that I’m not quite remembering and also I should say just one other thing when we go through the history. We do maybe not deep dive but one notch less than a deep dive into the origins of kind of the the origins of some of our pre -enlightenment ideas that the Greek philosophers had developed so if you’re into that sort of thing Then you’ll definitely enjoy that section of the book as well and also the and the enlightenment So we go through basically what are the contributions? Not just scientifically, but epistemologically societally from someone like Socrates Aristotle Plato and then of course in the enlightenment Galileo Copernicus and so forth. Oh And I should say we also cut just a couple other bottlenecks we talked about we talked about the universal computer We talked about the birth of thermodynamics and then one of the future And also that one of the future bottlenecks is the universal constructor. Yeah, I knew I was forgetting one. Okay, I’ll stop there
[00:09:08] Blue: Well, that’s so cool And I love that you mentioned big history because like I said I watched or the the great courses lecture on that I can’t remember the guy’s name who came up with the concept You know, it’s it’s like history from the largest possible lens and I kept thinking about a Thousand times while I while I watched his course that I wish this guy would read some David Deutsch Jeez, he needs he really really needs to get hip to David Deutsch It’s like but it’s out. I guess that’s kind of what you’ve done here. It’s taken the same kind of concept Wow, very cool Logan.
[00:09:47] Green: Thank you and Peter After you read the book, let me know what you think and let me know if you think that it would be a good idea to zoom in on the Big history as it were and big. I don’t know. What would you call it big future ology or something? Let me know if you think that would be worthwhile to expand into a book because I’m keeping my eye open on future conjecture Institute projects Okay, I love it
[00:10:08] Red: Thank you for that introduction Logan very cool stuff I was Logan was and I were talking on the phone I don’t a couple weeks ago or something and he was explaining all this to me I’m like, whoa, this is like so real like I had no idea and just the cool stuff that you guys are doing It’s just amazing. So congratulations on getting this started and can you get up to speed so quickly by the way, Judeo Pearl He’s huge like when I when I took my master’s degree in Artificial intelligence like they’re they’re quoting him constantly like he’s just huge in machine learning So I that’s I would love to hear your interview with him when you get him on so All right, let me go ahead and kind of ask some opening questions here So Logan and I were talking and we were actually let me give a little bit of background here So I was long time ago years and years and years ago. I was Introduced to libertarians. So I had a friend at work. He was a very staunch libertarian We would talk about politics all the time. He was like super into conspiracy theories, right? And and a more or less normal guy He was he was an MBA type and he would you put him out there and he did great for it set Trying to run projects and things like that But he always was always kind of delving into these conspiracy theories and we would talk about those and I At the time I really and this was a long time ago now And I used to think to myself. Wow those libertarians.
[00:11:37] Red: They’re they’re kind of crazy, you know And and I’m glad that we conservatives I consider myself a conservative that you know, we’re really sane by comparison and Over time I’ve come to realize I just don’t feel that way anymore like just in terms of the way things have gone I I don’t even know I still identify as a as a Republican I’m a Republican and I identify as a conservative and when people ask I say I’m a conservative But like I wonder how many Conservatives today would still consider me a conservative even though I haven’t changed any in terms of my stances or my beliefs just the what conservative even means seems like it’s changed significantly over time, especially in the last I know decade and a half or decade or whatever and When I’m talking with Logan who I think you at least identify as a libertarian Logan just seems so sane by comparison, right? Which is so that we like I call him up on the phone and we talk politics and Economics and things like that precisely because it’s a moment of sanity where I can actually talk to somebody normal And and we can talk about stuff. We can disagree. We can agree. It’s no big deal And so I that was why I finally said Logan. We should just have you on the show We should have one of our conversations. We should just talk about whatever we think is fun. So Logan maybe Before I ask you my first question just wanted to give you a chance to react to anything I just said so far even if you disagree with it
[00:13:05] Green: Yes, I was thinking when you were saying You said something like other conservatives might not consider you conservative anymore and I was thinking yeah, probably if you and I explained our views on current political issues they would call us boomer cons or cucks or Zionist which is a slur rhinos, right? So this is all of course none of these are arguments and this gets to one of the very interesting things but so from a memetic perspective The new right or the dissident right whatever you want to call it if you go on Twitter It’s pretty fascinating. They have an entire arsenal of Basically strategies to avoid engaging with the argument It’s kind of it’s kind of funny sometimes and it changes because they become stale and then they get called out on it And they switch so the latest one and I’m not quite addressing what you’re saying, but So they’ll say they’ll say something totally wild and insane from our perspective to be fair And then they say this is the moderate position as if that’s an argument like oh, okay You’re the moderate so I guess we just have to do what you want because you’ve defined yourself as the moderate and also of course Whether something is moderate or extreme. This is theory laden and is subject to it’s cultural dependent like my example I always say is How many slaves should there be in the world everyone says all Westerners say zero okay zero is an extreme number not even one That’s that’s an extremist position, but that’s not it’s not a valid criticism.
[00:14:31] Green: It doesn’t make any sense Like assuming that moderation in all things is good is is not It’s not supported by any sound explanation and unless there’s a particular case in which it is and so be it So that’s one of their many strategies, but they have a lot of these I can’t think of another one off the top of my head But oh so another one for example, so to take kind of a current event. There was that Florida young Republicans group chat and by young they mean 30 to 40 years old and People are saying no we shouldn’t throw them under the bus because it’s it’s accepting the lefts Framing and I disagree that it’s accepting the lefts framing to advocate for decency.
[00:15:08] Green: That’s insane So I think some people have gotten themselves into a very tribal mindset And by the way, I’m a fan of tribalism Sometimes it’s fine, but to say to blindly be anti -left I think is a problem and then there’s also the fact that their economics are totally well ironically They’ve become economic leftists Bruce you and I have talked about this private And that’s what I mean so in other words They think our problem with them is that they are like what they would call the real right and you and I are Squishes or whatever and I’m like no we are the you and I Bruce We’re the real right -wingers at least economically domestically as it were the real conservatives the real conservatorians libertarians They’re the ones who either don’t care about economic issues or they’re like yeah fine We should have socialized medicine and all this stuff as long as we have fewer Transgender five -year -olds and the borders are closed and like to me that’s not enough like so they’re they’re really and Richard Hanani is good on this. There is an anti -intellectualism that has evolved on the right such that I Feel bad for people like Ben Shapiro and Vivek Rama Swami who like seemed to know economics and Like right -wingers just don’t care like they’re vaguely. Yeah, they’re vaguely anti -communist like if you really push them They would say no, I’m not a communist and then you ask them their positions and it’s like I don’t think they could explain to you Why socialism is bad
[00:16:31] Red: Right, right. Okay That thank you for saying all that let me actually kind of talk through that with you a bit So I’m I’m older than you Logan So I don’t know that you were around or thinking about politics much back in say the George HW Bush era or something like that, right? And so I’m thinking way back to that era where there was a fairly definitive set of ideas that conservatives stood for and a lot of them were moral ideas, but a lot of them were economic ideas and I can recall so like during like the Clinton era I had this attitude which is embarrassing to me now, but I had this attitude where you had Bill Clinton who He was accused of a lot of really awful things and there was like some print We won’t get into any of that because I don’t want to get that political But he was accused of quite a few things and there was quite a bit of evidence that he had done some really pretty questionable things morally speaking and I remember thinking man, I can’t even imagine Republicans ever and He feminists would get behind him even though he was doing some fairly sexist things stuff like that, right? And I remember thinking man, I can’t even imagine Republicans acting like this right now. I had a certain attitude towards the left I was definitely more like today.
[00:17:55] Red: I definitely have concerns with the left We can talk about that if you want Logan But like a lot of times good stuff comes out of the left and I have a very different attitude towards it today than I did back then and I can’t even conceive like the types of things that I thought conservatives stood for I really thought this is what we as conservatives believe in and this is what defines us as conservatives and Almost all I wouldn’t say all of them But almost all of them have been abandoned at this point in a way and so quickly and in a way that just surprises me like really kind of shocks me to my core and Maybe even causes an identity crisis for me, right? So help me out here Logan, you know, how do what do I do? You know, I asked Jonathan Roush this on our one of our previous episodes And he gave me advice on this but like how do you try to engage people that are Part of this new right and how do you try to bring some sense to the common? I really want to like I really badly don’t want to just name -call and stuff like that I hate the fact that like I have a family member who I think has Trump deranged Derangement syndrome, right? Like he’s going so far the other way that it’s almost crazy, right? I don’t want to do that and I don’t want to like and I’ve got no problem with people on either side I want to talk with them. I want to try to have sane conversations with them and it just it seems so hard to me today What do I do Logan?
[00:19:21] Red: Help me out here
[00:19:23] Green: Yeah, so first of all What you were saying about Bill Clinton and character and this sort of things I will say and this is probably a point of difference between us I personally don’t really care about any politicians character unless it’s so egregious that it’s you know It could have in other words. I care about policy. I care about institutions. I care about in so far as someone’s politicians character is Lacking it degrades our institutions and our norms then sure I care, but I don’t really care like I Whether it’s left or right. I don’t care about salacious stories or this politicians a sleaze ball or whatever I don’t really care so that that could be just be a difference between us as for what do we do I think we do all that we can do which is basically Stay in the pocket and make as coherent of an argument as you can I mean, I think that’s always I think in the face of both bad arguments and non arguments I think the key is to stay classy and make sound arguments because don’t forget You know, it’s different when it’s one -on -one, but whenever there’s an audience. I think the audience notices this sort of thing So if you’re making an argument for let’s just say Free immigration not not totally open borders Let’s say but you’re you’re just making an argument that immigration is a good thing and they’re just going nuts on you I think people notice that by the way another thing is just to point out When reasoning is bad on its own term. So what do I mean by this in particular with immigration? For example, and I think we might have talked about this privately
[00:20:48] Green: When it comes to economics any argument that relies only on one side of the ledger is necessarily flawed for example people will say Immigration suppresses Native wages of workers because you increase the supply of labor and so all else being equal Wages will go down. Okay. So that is true, but that’s only one side of the equation if labor costs go down for a company That means their profits are increasing Which means they have more capital that they can deploy elsewhere and create more goods and services for the people and also the goods and services They were providing in the first place in so far as they have a higher profit margin They can offer them to the rest of America at lower prices So it’s incomplete to say immigration lowers the wages of workers because you would also have to you would have to say immigration lowers the wages of workers and lowers the Caught the price of goods and services that all other Americans Consume so it’s not that simple. So that would just be an example of Again Deploying economic reasoning in the face of incomplete economic reasoning. So that’s one thing you can do Yeah,
[00:21:52] Blue: and then in term.
[00:21:54] Green: Yes So I think that’s one thing and again and I think when it comes to these non -argumentative kind of mimetic strategies that I’d mentioned earlier I think exposing them is very important and frankly, you don’t see a lot of that again with with the exception of They’re a handful really and I’ve begun to follow them on X that are exposing why these are not arguments I think is very important. So to give a more philosophical example You might have seen a lot of this they say classical liberalism brought us here and here’s of course an apocalyptic health scape This is another Rhetorical device that they employs they catastrophize everything because of course what what’s the only thing that can save us from catastrophe is basically a strong man a big government, but again economics tells us that that doesn’t make any sense, but also Epistemologically you’re saying classical liberalism brought us here. Therefore classical liberal liberalism is bad Okay, well first of all as you know Bruce our government hasn’t been like classically liberal if by that you Include small government in a very long time since the early 20th century Also, I notice this a lot when people are basically they have an agenda They have certain policies they want to push and therefore they will arbitrarily choose whatever historical starting point They want to criticize that so I could I could just as well say if Constantly if monarchy brought us here of what use was monarchy, you know what I mean So it’s right without a good explanation for why a particular political philosophy led to where we are Without a good explanation for that then you’re just cherry -picking to suit a net narrative Right.
[00:23:24] Green: Also, I’ll just say one last thing and then I’ll shut up this idea of catastrophizing and this is where This is another strategy. It’s just this used to be only a left -wing thing where you would like show them graphs from human Dot human progress dot org because you know, they basically think like the world hasn’t improved in the last 300 years or whatever I’m straw manning. I understand but it’s the same thing now on the right They’re like oh our cities are falling apart everyone’s gay now It’s like I don’t know man Just look up some charts of like real wages and you know all these other stats that shows things really are improving and once you accept That things are improving then you can ask, okay Well, why are they improving if if improvement has slowed down, okay? Let’s think about that, but it’s it’s totally arbitrary and again. It doesn’t make any sense to say, okay Improvement has slowed down. So let’s increase the amount of in this case political coercion in society that doesn’t make any sense
[00:24:08] Blue: All right. I was just saying something so similar last night on Facebook I just feel like my my third eye is open on this the the left and the right are just operating under Almost like superficially different strains of doomerism here I mean they they’ve these these negative narratives about like like I just feel like I’m inundated with them on on all Sides whenever I I delve into politics these days, which is Rarely if I can help it. I’m not like I’m less political at 48 than I’ve ever been I just do not like engaging with This stuff very much if I can help it. I just feel like it’s psychologically unhealthy For me, but you know, it’s all it’s all about, you know, the the world is getting worse and worse But you know the reality the white -pilled reality is that as I’m sure you you agree with I suspect you agree with Logan is that Across every dimension of human life There’s incremental progress all around us and the the evidence is is so strong You know, I wouldn’t take if you paid me a million dollars to go back 10 or 20 years before podcasts and audiobooks and phones and all this stuff I wouldn’t take it let alone a hundred or a thousand years ago
[00:25:44] Green: Well, I was just gonna say So first of all Peter, you know, we’ve been criticizing a lot of the right and I understand that’s more or less What we’re here to talk about but let’s not be careful. We should never slip into political relativism I really don’t like first of all, it’s not true but second of all I don’t like it as a rhetorical strategy and I’m not accusing you of this But I think a lot of people do it. It’s kind of cowardice. It’s like oh, everyone’s equally bad You know just logically this is possible, but just you know be on the lookout for that It might not necessarily be true as for what you were saying Peter about everything falling apart and then I’ll I’ll stop talking Jack Pasobak who’s basically one of these new right political pundits. I remember he tweeted He’s like this is what they took from us and it’s it’s a picture of a white picket fence family Like I don’t know they look all happy It’s the 50s or whatever and then I remember it might have been David Harsanyi Who’s really good or someone like that another basically a Right -winger who is pro -growth kind of like a libertarian right -winger Just showed some stats of like okay This is how poor you would have been 50 years ago, and it’s like this is this is the issue.
[00:26:43] Blue: Yeah I mean this this 50s conservatism thing. It’s just a it’s basically just a one sliver of time Maybe where where people lived like this and it’s you know, it’s a I mean that’s why I I mean It’s a noble goal. I think I think there’s some central truth that this is the I I Key to psychological Happiness and prosperity, you know, you get married you have kids you take care of your kids. These are all good principles But you know, it’s just it’s not it’s it’s such a simplistic view of how people have lived Throughout history. I’m already talking way more than I thought I would but no, this is good. And by the way by the way the
[00:27:30] Green: Right so as you say there are kernels of truth in what they say and if they want for example, let’s say they are lamenting the loss of The the family tradition the family culture in America. Okay. Well conservatives used to rightly say in my view that the welfare state crowds out private Charity and raises the returns on being a single mother effectively and that’s true or at least I agree with that But they they don’t really make economic arguments anymore It’s just it’s all very feels and and sometimes some new right people basically say we should co -opt the welfare state for our own means We should subsidize people to having families. So basically we’re picking one pocket to pay the like this is kind This is what Mises would talk about when you talk about one socialist program begets another one I would add the caveat that in the absence of economic knowledge because basically, okay, you have a welfare state it degrades the The ability for Americans to form families or it degrades Americans forming families and so instead of saying, okay Well, let’s privatize the welfare state which by the way Bill Clinton reformed the welfare state to a nice degree He did he was more of yeah, and George Bush with his compassionate conservatism Which I hate that framing because it concedes the whole game, but I digress So instead of saying let’s shrink the welfare state They just say oh, let’s take it over and subsidize people instead of or subsidize like the right way for people to form A family rather than just get getting rid of the whole thing entirely. There’s a nice conversation where people had that argument Patrick DeNene, I
[00:28:58] Green: think he’s a he’s one of these New there are these like I don’t want to I don’t know what to call them They’re Theocrats, but they’re not really and they’re kind of larping but there are these kind of the NatCon big government Christians and Chris Rufo was actually pushing back and he basically said he’s like look you want to Have a right -wing welfare state, but I just don’t think it works So I respect Chris Rufo for saying that by the way I should say Chris Rufo has been heroic also on pushing against the Conspiracism on the right and the anti -semitism on the right or what David Deutschwood called the pattern So he’s been great on that stuff others have been cowardly and silent. It’s been very disappointing
[00:29:33] Red: Well, you’re moving so fast and there’s so many things I want to ask you about so I want to Earmark several things you said and then come back to them. Can I first ask both of you and actually let’s have Peter start Why does Catastrophizing and and putting things in terms of emotional terms of what we’ve been talking about for the last little while here Why is it so effective and and why has it crowded out? At least for the moment crowded out better arguments at least to a degree that it makes me uncomfortable
[00:30:04] Blue: Well, that’s a great question. I mean in some I guess that in some ways it makes people feel good that they’re living in momentous times maybe this has gone back to, you know, the Bible and revelation or way before that people have always felt like They live in a really important time when when The the earth is becoming inhospitable or we’re on the verge of fascism It kind of taps into also to Valid very valid concerns about our children. I mean, we’re really worried so many of these this catastrophizing involves you know, I our children’s psychological health about I’m thinking phones and social media and games would be the main One right now that seems to sort of unite the right and the left They they both seem to think that that these things are terrible. It’s just like crazy Libertarian slash Adjacent people like us who think that maybe it’s not so bad and maybe even good, but I Anyway, that’s my two cents. Let’s hear Logan though
[00:31:29] Green: Yeah, it’s a very interesting question because from my vantage point catastrophizing is not as interesting as Whatever the opposite of catastrophizing. Well, so the opposite of so catastrophizing is very homogenizing It’s saying, you know, everything’s falling apart and the solution generally is just coercion. So to me, that’s super boring It’s the same thing when we talk about taking children seriously. It’s oh here all these potential Catastrophic scenarios. So we need rules to impose on our children to guarantee safety now One of the counter arguments is and this goes to libertarianism too is that There never is a guarantee that’s there’s no guarantee So when people argue for the welfare state very often The implication is that this can guarantee the alleviation alleviation of poverty and when it comes to kids Oh, we can guarantee that they won’t, you know, I don’t want to say it out loud But like so that’s something horrible happened but the uncomfortable truth is that there are no such guarantees in both cases even though we’ve an entire culture and Laws around kids not doing drugs kids still do drugs and overdose Even though we’ve had a massive welfare state for decades. We still have poverty In fact, the reduction of poverty slowed down since the welfare state, but that’s another story So I think but so people think that the truth is less interesting but I think that’s only because they discount the role of reasons and knowledge and uncertainty and unknowability once you grok that those things are real and play an indelible role in The events of society things are actually much more exciting You know, it’s much more exciting to talk about okay There’s a problem here.
[00:33:03] Green: What if we marketize that as in like turn it over to the free market? And now there’s all sorts of possibilities because entrepreneurs can come in and try to solve the problem and then The statist will say well either catastrophize or say that’ll never happen Or like if I described uber to you before uber was invented Okay, so here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna get on your phone Which is already a black rectangle that you use your fingerprints to open and you press a few buttons and a black car Is going to show up and the windows won’t even well the windows might I don’t remember But whatever a stranger in a black car is gonna show up to your front door in like 10 minutes And you’re gonna get in and not only will he or she drive you to your destination But they will often have a free water bottle, which is itself not poisoned That’s the excitement of and the unknowability of what the free market produces But no, but instead they’ll say no, but we already have taxis and they work and it’s fine So this applies everywhere. This applies to environmental catastrophe environmentalist catastrophizing as well No,
[00:34:02] Blue: I 100 % agree optimism is just it’s so much more interesting and Realistic, you know if I can just say one more thing about that before you go Bruce is that you know, I am I Know this makes me a bad guy to probably many of our listeners. I’m a teacher I see hundreds of Geometry students hundreds or a hundred more than a hundred geometry students every day And I just want to say these kids are nice There’s there’s no issue here they’re there there if anything they’re nicer and friendlier and enjoying their lives more and they read books and Yeah, they look at their phones a little bit too much like all of us do but it’s like Disagree, but
[00:34:53] Green: okay.
[00:34:53] Blue: Okay. Oh, no. No, I can I can take it. I can take it. Um, I mean, I I’m open to this idea that the phones are actually good for us as well, but I The there I assume that’s what you were disagreeing about but yeah, the kids he disagrees
[00:35:13] Red: that kids are nice The
[00:35:14] Blue: kids are not as nice.
[00:35:16] Red: He’s not he’s he’s telling you they’re mean they’re mean Peter.
[00:35:19] Blue: Okay. Okay. Anyway, my two cents there Bruce
[00:35:23] Red: Well, okay, so both of you gave kind of a similar answer here But let me let me push a little bit further with you. Okay, so yes I agree that optimism is is both more realistic and more interesting than catastrophizing and So we say, oh, you know People but why why do people prefer catastrophizing when Optimism is both more realistic and more interesting like like really answered the question, right?
[00:35:53] Green: I it’s because I think it’s just a matter of they don’t how do I say this about sounding arrogant? It’s just an error. They think it’s they think catastrophism is true and optimism is false Yeah,
[00:36:04] Blue: it seems more sophisticated. So
[00:36:07] Red: how does that air happen then right like I know this Funny question, right? But like why is it that so many people have this idea that things are getting worse and that? Okay, so this is good.
[00:36:19] Green: This is good Yes, so first of all as you both well know error is the standard state not knowledge So that’s first of all, but secondly, I think to your point. There are I think institutions in society that For example the news right that I think Steven Pinker probably makes I think he’s the one who’s made this up Argument a lot of it so happens that a lot of the good news in society is not a discreet event So, you know, no news outlet is saying oh Poverty has diminished by a hundred thousand a hundred thousand people have been lifted out of absolute poverty today worldwide news But a plane crash or a political riot or a murder or like that murder of that woman on the the bus in Maryland Was it or the train, you know, that gets a lot of attention Whereas in reality you need to step back and just ask you have to be more statistically minded about these things But even so in other words The absence of crime is not a news story, but crime is a news story. So that’s an unfortunate asymmetry Again, this is cultural. I mean this could change It could literally be the case that when people I don’t know what people watch for new like What’s the average thing that people watch for news CNN whatever it could be that one day? They do report on the charts that human progress.org puts out and they get more viewers.
[00:37:32] Green: Don’t forget the news Customer is king in the market as I hope we all agree on and so they’re catering if they say if it bleeds it leads But if they’re saying that that’s because consumers are the consumers are saying that so we have to change the base The short answer to your question Bruce is we have to change the culture for people to be more excited by Good news than bad news and then teach them like these little I don’t know if they’re logical fallacies or just kind of errors And thinking of for example, as I said a trend versus a discreet event Both are historically significant Significant with respect to society, but only one sort of captures the attention of the mind right now, but that can change
[00:38:11] Blue: It’s a good side to Catastrophizing too though because you know on the podcast we’ve kind of talked about maybe there’s some advantages to dogmatism Even though it has a negative Connotation maybe it’s kind of the same with catastrophizing. I mean is it is it is it a good thing that people Catastrophize about say the fentanyl crisis or or crime or something I mean there must be a good side to this as well Wouldn’t you say
[00:38:36] Red: question good question? Logan if I’m this
[00:38:39] Green: might be a terminological thing. I mean if if a If something really is a crisis then treating it as such. I don’t think it’s catastrophizing So for example with the fentanyl issue It definitely seems to be a real issue. I don’t know how severe it is or in other words I’m not arguing for blindly saying nothing is a severe issue I’m basically arguing for sobriety No pun intended. By the way with the fentanyl thing. This is a nice example of a difference between libertarians and conservatives because You know Maga is celebrating Trump. I think he bombed fentanyl suppliers or whatever But to me you can’t bomb your way out of a demand problem. I’d rather see a legalized market in drugs And then everything’s above board and if something just like with alcohol now versus alcohol during the prohibition era Transporting alcohol is much safer now as is consuming it because you don’t have to do it in a black market way Although not for children and maybe that’s why they overdose more than adults because they have to rush it Anyway, no, I think from my vantage point catastrophizing that is to say uncritically Hyperbalizing I think is always bad. Why would that ever be good? Okay,
[00:39:48] Red: so um, I’m gonna actually argue differently than than Logan This is probably another example of how we differ because he’s more libertarian and I’m more conservative By the way, just for the record you’re a socialist. Yeah for the record Logan people most people consider me a libertarian So I don’t self -identify that way, but I don’t like reject the label either Are you familiar with the term conservatarian? Uh, no, what’s a conservatarian
[00:40:13] Green: conservatarian are basically those are my people. They’re they’re conservatives. They vote republicans They’re like Reaganites. They like small. They’re serious about I’m a Reagan
[00:40:22] Red: republican. Yeah
[00:40:23] Green: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:40:25] Red: Yeah Okay, so I’m gonna answer that differently than than Logan did though. Um So yes, I think there must be some value in catastrophizing So I think that there there are two senses in which it could be and and I do mean that in the bad way Right, like I do mean making a bigger deal out of it than it actually is Okay, because if it’s just making a deal out of it to exactly what it is then I agree Maybe we shouldn’t be calling it catastrophizing I think the the there’s two things one is We’ve talked on this show about how people will run ahead of the critical discussion They have beliefs that run ahead of the critical discussion for better or for worse, right often for worse um in an open society There is an advantage to letting some people do that, right? Where where they’re they raise an alarm You get a bunch of alarms that maybe weren’t correct alarms, but like some of them turn out to be correct and turns out that they were Seeing something that was going to become a bigger problem down the road So there is actually some advantage to the fact that we allow people to catastrophize and that some people do run ahead of Where the critical discussion is make a big deal and then get us maybe ready for a problem That wasn’t seen yet or that was coming that that and then the ones that are kind of bad They all kind of filter out through they don’t make it through the paparian filter. They kind of disappear That would be part of my answer.
[00:41:48] Red: That’d be the the better part of the answer I think the not as good maybe part of the answer Is that I think that um The reason why people do this Is because there is some sort of emotional something to get out of it, right? I’ve called this meaning memes in the past and You know people do need to find ways to find meaning in their life You of course I wish that they would find better ways and then do it more like Logan and they’d try to get excited about Progress things like that, but like not everybody that’s not everybody’s gonna do that, right? And so you are gonna have some people who are are going to be Catastrophizing. Oh no the end of the world because of x or whatever and there’s a this element of They’re choosing to do that because that is the way they find meaning in their life, right? And if we have a function, I’m gonna argue that if we have a functioning Open society which which you know, we do right? at least in america As long as that continues to function That the bad side of that Tends to not make it too far through the paparian filter whereas the good side Tends to make it through, right?
[00:42:54] Red: They they bring up issues I’ve I’ve kind of joked about this, but it’s the idea that you’ve got people on the left We haven’t talked on the left yet So maybe we can talk about that we got people on the left and they’re almost always Catastrophizing something right and and oh no this oh no that And I used to really have a problem with that as a conservative and and I’ve as I’ve become more Paparian I’ve kind of chilled out on that quite a bit as I’ve started to realize That a lot of the good stuff that has come as progress Came from this that same group on the left that was constantly sounding alarms and A lot of their alarms didn’t make it through the filter Some of them were just good enough that conservatives picked it up and they’d say, you know what? That’s kind of a legitimate issue. Let’s let’s work on solving that issue, right? And then ultimately the issue gets solved by some sort of alliance between The left and the right, right? This is the way open society is supposed to work anyhow And it gets implemented in a way that’s that’s works for both sides And I do think that is the way the open society works and because of that there is I can’t say there’s no value in catastrophizing This still goes back to the fact that I wish it didn’t happen the way it did like I wish we could learn to Bring these issues up without like Turning it into such a oh my gosh end of the world and just being so dishonest intellectually dishonest about it, right?
[00:44:16] Red: But like I I do feel like the open society is this error correction mechanism That does make it so it never really becomes as bad as it first appears as the catastrophizing takes place and most of the good gets through. Okay, that would be my answer I’m
[00:44:29] Blue: reminded of roger screwton’s definition of conservatism where he says it’s basically liberalism with breaks Do you agree with that bruce?
[00:44:39] Red: Yes, I do
[00:44:40] Green: okay I don’t agree with that and I don’t agree with either of bruce’s reasons for why catastrophism might be good Yay, disagreement.
[00:44:48] Red: Yes, absolutely
[00:44:51] Green: Yes, so um to the roger screwton point I think it just doesn’t make sense when you look at um the various policy positions Again, you have you have to kind of forget about the fact that the right wing is labeled conservative You have to not mix that label political label up with the generic meaning of the word conservative Sometimes there’s overlap. Sometimes there’s not there’s not and then same thing with progressive So just because someone calls themselves progressive Politically as a as a label does not mean that all of their positions Cause society to make progress. So this is just kind of conflating. It’s like a linguistic Sophistry. Um, okay, so that’s one thing.
[00:45:26] Red: I agree.
[00:45:30] Green: Yeah They often even though they’re wild and they’re manic and they say a bunch of stuff Sometimes they hit on something that’s correct and therefore that’s valuable and in an open society We should allow for this this sort of thing. Of course, we should allow for it But I think you’re basically crediting diversity of thought You’re um, you’re crediting catastrophism rather Then what you should be crediting which is simply diversity of thought So there’s no so catastrophism is just white noise added to the mix So I agree with you people who are constantly Pointing out various problems in society. That’s very useful But to add the catastrophism just makes it more difficult to Discover the the real error because then still someone has to creatively and soberly come and realize Okay, well, let’s say climate change That’s actually not a catastrophe But here solutions to mitigate climate change or increase climate mastery as alex epstein describes it So I just think um You’re crediting the wrong element of what’s happening there and then your first reason as to why it’s good I don’t remember what your first reason was but I remember I disagreed with it
[00:46:29] Red: Um that some people do find meaning from it
[00:46:32] Green: Oh, yes, uh, I think that’s uh, uh, yeah, I think that’s infantilizing I think uh, people find meaning from strapping bombs on their chest and blowing up gay nightclubs and churches and And synagogues and this sort of thing, but I don’t care. It’s wrong
[00:46:47] Red: All right fair enough. Um So let me ask you about immigration since you already brought that up and I don’t want to I don’t want to lose it here Isn’t there some truth to the rights concerned with immigration?
[00:47:02] Green: Um So I we already talked about the economics of it So there I think there’s not truth unless you’re willing to say all native -born americans are entitled to A a job because this also connects to the whole tariff discussion Because they’re saying like job loss and stuff. Okay, so if you want to shield america from the world in terms of labor competition and just company competition with respect to foreign companies if that’s really your position Then it makes sense But you would have to implement such a I don’t want to say totalitarian But such a massive and also our stand all of our standards of living would drop dramatically if we completely shielded america from the rest of the world So
[00:47:41] Red: never mind completely shield america or never mind like sure sure But surely there’s some concerns with let’s say that you just simply said, you know what we’re not gonna enforce borders at all Taking taking the extreme other other open
[00:47:55] Blue: borders.
[00:47:55] Red: Yeah.
[00:47:56] Blue: Yes.
[00:47:56] Green: There are libertarians who advocate for that You wouldn’t
[00:47:59] Blue: be one of them or do you what do you think there?
[00:48:02] Green: Uh, no, I would I would um, adopt a gradualist position I would say in favor of more immigration, but still subject to um, you know criminal like check for criminality and and um, What are they called diseases and that sort of thing? But certainly I’d be for a more liberalized immigration system than what we have now and then Yeah, I agree that there there could be so the cultural angle is the one I’m most sympathetic to but even there Again, I go back to mesas’s One socialist policy begets another first I would I would totally Drop the any anti freedom of association laws. I would totally abolish overnight Well subject to the political process, of course Because in other words if native born americans are saying they’re losing their culture Okay, but other people within your culture disagree and would welcome the immigrants So better if we could basically have a bunch of Subcultural experiments in which some people let immigrants in some people don’t and then there’s of course every variant in between those two extremes But you’re not allowed to discriminate now on many grounds And so I would legalize all forms of discrimination But having said that I would not open the borders entirely today But I would liberalize a little bit more a little bit more a little bit more and if there are any severe issues then okay Maybe we address that Um, but I don’t think I think the idea that we I think america does a pretty good job especially it seems like relative to europe of Integrating people and I should say the cultural taboo against immigration is very very bad. Um, I I listen to Nome Dwarmen’s podcast.
[00:49:35] Green: It’s called live either from the comedy seller or at the comedy seller You guys would really like it Um And he does talk about how there seems to be he works with a lot of I don’t know if they’re legal immigrants Or whatever or just um legal immigrants from other countries and he does talk about how They don’t seem as patriotic about america as the immigrants of 30 50 years ago. And that’s an issue Um, but there I don’t think the issue. I mean in a sense, it’s not the immigrants fault It’s the rest of americans fault for not um standing up with a spine and being um right wing Um, uh, what’s the word anyway, right wing kind of patriots about america like no, this is america These are our values america is awesome. The west is awesome um private property free speech the scientific method institutions These things are wonderful. Um, but they come here and um, I you know, I’m generalizing but you know leftists are I think terrified of of basically saying like no your culture is inferior. That’s why you came here in the first place So that’s an issue, but that’s a domestic issue and I think one of the issues with the new right is there does seem to be an unwillingness Like you can’t really say anything bad about america or americans without them kind of freaking out Um, which in a way, I understand as a defense mechanism against, you know, the left Like the left wing historians are atrocious for the most part. I mean just Constantly highlighting the evils of america that does take you to a dark place Especially because as tomasoul would tell it like you always have to compare.
[00:51:01] Green: Okay america did this america did that But what about compared to the rest of the world? Um so, yeah, I think the long and short of it is legalized discrimination liberalized immigration gradually and Work to change the domestic culture such that Integration is very important and valuable and that shielding yourself off from integration is a bad thing
[00:51:21] Blue: I love what what david doge said on our podcast. He said in relation to Immigration he was making a larger point about humans. I think but he said two hands one mouth So the idea is that most people in a free society are Create more prosperity than they Use up or whatever whatever the opposite is And you know, I think about that when I I go to home depot I’m a crazy person who goes to home depot 6 30 in the morning sometimes and even in seattle, which is like less than Five or ten percent hispanic I think you see you see almost all people who seem to be immigrants There what does that tell you they’re at home depot 6 30 in the morning. They’re working hard. They’re probably creating Way more prosperity than they’re using up So, you know, I don’t think that we should Everything you just said resonates with me is as true. I think that that immigration is by far a net positive from an economic perspective Of course, like I think you you you also recognized there are potential downsides culturally or Related to, you know, terrorism or crime or disease or whatever seems
[00:52:48] Blue: to be the main one that life seen david doge Tweet about is that immigration by itself is good But there is the problem of multiculturalism culturalism, which he doesn’t always define But like I gather that what he’s trying to say is that if you just open the borders and you let Every single jihadist in or whatever you would be creating a problem for yourself culturally and there is When we talk about culture, I mean, I’m sure for the new right that might be, you know Christian nationalism or something but Classical liberalism is culture, right?
[00:53:19] Red: I mean, like you don’t want to lose classical liberalism to immigration You would want to be careful to not have immigration take place in a way where you actually lost the institutions and the beliefs that allowed for The open society to work in the first place. That’s what I gather david doge is saying. Maybe I’m misunderstanding logan
[00:53:39] Blue: It’s so different in europe too. It seems to me. Yeah
[00:53:43] Red: Maybe respond to that logan. I mean, I kind of gathered that was what you were saying a moment ago But like maybe clarify if I’ve got that wrong
[00:53:52] Green: Well, I certainly don’t speak for david doge or anyone else, but yeah, I would say the cultural element is important but again We’ve it’s kind of amazing america is an amazing story of integrating all these different waves of immigrants And by the way american muslims, I think for the most part are western Ditto his hispanics are already largely western and they come to america and they largely become more western But again, if we’re talking about incremental Sociopolitical solutions that can ameliorate these issues. I again like in terms of changing laws and policies Let people discriminate freely and also another thing is people get worried about ghettos forming I think this is more in europe but even in america, you know ghettos of immigrants and this sort of thing And sometimes that’s not a problem. Sometimes it is But often they form these ghettos because of let’s say subsidized in other words A lot of it comes down to just public policy like subsidized housing and welfare So like you’ll hear a lot of criticisms of immigrants. They say, oh, they’re taking up public resources like roads and schools And housing and it’s like, yeah, these are all government programs So I’d be fine with privatizing that and letting the owners choose To let the immigrants consume trade for them or not Yeah, so and don’t forget to again, I go back to statistics America has 350 million people. So if you’re if you’re Unfortunately centrally planning immigration, which is what a federal government has to do Yeah, letting in 10,000 100,000 500,000 Muslims, let’s say
[00:55:20] Green: Ideally again, you screen each individual but even that If your culture is confident that will not rock the boat at all And even if it’s not that confident people still this is the amazing thing about the west Even the despite the fact that millions of westerners hate their own society Even if they don’t admit it by implication of what they say they do people still come to the west and everyone adopts our institutions It’s amazing
[00:55:43] Blue: All right, so it’s like there’s a discrepancy between what they say and how they act And uh,
[00:55:49] Green: yes, I sometimes uh, well never mind. I won’t say that but yes there’s often a discrepancy between what people say and how they act by the way this actually this has come up with immigration because I think they’ve either done questionnaires or this has happened in practice where people say Yeah, I don’t want illegal immigration or I don’t want immigration. They’re competing with jobs and then Ice agents come to the town and they want to kick out these immigrants And either the people are up in arms because it’s like no, this is Javier. This is my friend. He’s fine Or the companies are like listen if you get rid of our labor our prices will go up. So in other words When the costs are privatized People are much more reluctant to let a public policy be implemented and this generalizes
[00:56:27] Red: Okay, let’s talk about tariffs. We kind of brought it up and I actually wanted to make sure that we recovered tariffs. So, um What are Right now the the right is really pushing tariffs at the moment. That’s something that I’ve Not seen happen before. It’s kind of a new thing for me um, I I should probably mention here that um, I was friends with a lot of uh, Anarcho capitalists libertarians that were um LDS and they were actually pro tariffs back then uh back in the day, which It kind of surprised me Um, so there there may be a diversity of opinions even amongst anarcho capitalists on this but maybe share your opinions on tariffs
[00:57:11] Green: Yes, in general I oppose tariffs because they reduce free trade and free trade Is a mutually beneficial interaction between people. Uh, I would be in favor of targeted tariffs for National security purposes, but even then before we implement the tariff I would really want to look at our domestic policy. So for example, let’s say Um, right now we’re dependent on china to produce something and we’re only dependent on china And we recognize that that’s dangerous because china is a geopolitical enemy. By the way, um Large swaths of libertarians deny the fact that there are enemies of the west elsewhere. So but I digress No,
[00:57:49] Red: no, no digress first talk about that for a second because it does seem like it’s relevant what we’re talking about here
[00:57:55] Green: Uh, yeah, well, it’s relevant for other aspects of foreign policy as well. But yeah, basically There are so there are libertarians who take as axiomatic that foreign intervention is not only Wrong, but like literally the worst things governments do So, um, they work their way back They take that axiom as a fixed moral principle of reality And then they basically spin whatever narrative they want with whatever facts they want And this gets to what we were talking about earlier about good explanations of history So they’ll you can always arbitrarily pick it because there’s an infinite number of factoids So you can take whatever factoids you want and make it look like a narrative that justifies non intervention And as a rhetorical flourish it overwhelms your Opponent because it’s like, oh, you know all these factoids you must be right But we’re not really after factoids. We’re after good explanations So they’ve done this with china. They’ve done this with israel gaza They’ve done this with ukraine russia. So but then Because they take this as an axiom they end up endorsing moral relativism or They imply that some people have agency and some people don’t or they have double standards when it comes to well This is the same as what I just said. They they’ll have double double standards. So for example They’ll say putin was provoked by nato Um, and they say this because they take as axiomatic that nato shouldn’t exist that america shouldn’t be involved in nato So putin was provoked But then when it comes to israel gaza israel was not provoked on october 7th there that was just uh Understandable backlash to being oppressed. So they just pick and choose to whatever fits the axiom of non -intervention
[00:59:38] Red: right
[00:59:39] Green: and and also because they judge um They judge the morality of an action by how much Violence and private property violations are caused. They tend to side with the weaker side Even if the weaker side is totally more evil. So because israel killed more people than um hamas did Then israel’s the bad guy for example
[01:00:04] Red: Okay, so getting Applying this back to tariffs then. All right. You were you were saying Understandably then you might be in favor of targeted tariffs Against an actual geopolitical enemy like china But in general you were saying you’re against tariffs
[01:00:19] Green: In general i’m against them and even in the case of china I would first want to look at okay if we’re so dependent on china to acquire whatever Are we imposing burdensome regulations domestically that makes it difficult that raises the barrier to entry for Entrepreneurs to create them domestically if so then okay Have some tariffs but in parallel get rid of those regulations to to liberalize entrepreneurs to lower the cost of entrepreneurs To create those goods and services. So in other words even then I would look for are there ways of shrinking government to free up Entrepreneurs to do what they do best But no in general as a matter of principle i’m definitely in favor of free trade And again, this is one of these new right talking points where they are explicitly against free trade And again, it’s for the reasons peter and I um, we were discussing Again, they they’ll talk about uh, you know outsourcing and this is bad because these are jobs for americans But you know as we know as pro -growth Optimists there’s an infinite number of jobs Um, and if you don’t get that you will take a lot of these basically fixed pie positions Oh, no, there’s a fixed number of jobs and they belong to americans So it’s very now that I think about it. It’s more interconnected Or the the tariff position of the new right is more Is downstream for many of the same bad ideas as the immigration position is yes And again when you argue against them You know very often they’ll they’ll just kind of insult you and you’re not american You don’t care about america in my case. They’ll call me a jew, which is always fun. Um, yeah
[01:01:43] Red: so, um The tariff thing caught me a little off guard that I mean, I guess I guess it’s been known for a while that that like President trump believed in tariffs and that he did see those as a positive thing um Let me try to play the other side though just for a second What about the fact that other countries in the world were applying tariffs to us? This is one of the arguments that you hear from the new right That other countries were applying tariffs to us. We weren’t applying tariffs to them So we were at a disadvantage to them and at a minimum it makes sense to apply tariffs equivalent to what they’re doing for us Maybe for the sake of even trying to get them to pull their tariffs down respond to that argument
[01:02:27] Green: Yes, so if that’s the strategy in other words that strategy implies the free trade is better than um, not free trade of uh, frictionized trade so That’s i’m sympathetic to that if it’s a negotiating tactic But again the problem with the new right and I recommend listening to batia angar sargon. She’s um representative of the new She’s basically a socialist. I mean she literally said she’s a magolefty Um, it doesn’t make any sense. So if that’s the argument fine, but if also the argument is we need to bring jobs back to America So we need the tariffs. These are contradictory. So it becomes like you’re hitting a moving target All right, um, so what you just said bruce implies that the goal is free trade
[01:03:08] Red: So yes, I mean that But tariffs might be okay as retaliatory tactic is you’re saying I’m fine with negotiations. Sure. You know, this isn’t actually the answer. I expected you to give Let me actually tell you Um, what I was kind of wondering about So, obviously the way I put that was kind of somewhat of a tactic Like I don’t really believe the new right believes the argument I just gave that may be the argument Well,
[01:03:34] Unknown: I think
[01:03:34] Red: they believe whatever
[01:03:35] Green: argument suits their conclusion, but go ahead. Sorry, right
[01:03:37] Red: So so I’m trying to put there trying to put the best argument I can forward from what they say but um At some level like let’s say you had like Trump mentioned as examples. Oh such such country. They had a 20 tariff on us and we had, you know, no tariff on them So now we’re going to raise our tariff to to match theirs. That’s only fair. Okay
[01:03:59] Green: That doesn’t make any sense.
[01:04:00] Red: Okay. That’s what I want you to respond to there. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:04:03] Green: No, no so more tariffs Reduces the growth of wealth relative to the universe in which there were fewer tariffs So tariffs are um, they’re a drag on economic growth. No matter what there’s no getting around that
[01:04:17] Blue: Okay
[01:04:18] Green: So yes, like I’d also in other words if instead of negotiating if instead of deploying tariffs as a negotiating tool Trump instead said, yeah, all these countries are raising tariffs on us, but Um, we still like trade and we want growth. So we’re going to lower all of our tariffs everywhere Um, again, maybe accepting china and other adversaries I’d be I’d probably I’d be definitely be happier with that than using them as a negotiating tactic for sure Yes, uh, shooting just because another country is shooting itself on the foot Doesn’t mean we should shoot ourselves in the foot to make things fair. That doesn’t make any sense
[01:04:49] Red: Okay, let’s talk about conspiratorious conspiracism. All right, so I used to think of the libertarians as they’re the conspirator. They’re the conspiracy conspiracy theory type people, right? There’s a huge huge element of conspiracy theory on both to be fair on both left and right And again, that’s something that’s new that I don’t know if it’s completely new There’s probably always been there, but you just never heard about it would probably be more accurate statement But um, you know, maybe talk with me about that What’s what’s going on with the sudden rise of all sorts of conspiracy theories just all over the place
[01:05:29] Green: Yes, I think this is connected with what we were talking about with catastrophism It’s very similar and I think many of
[01:05:34] Unknown: the
[01:05:34] Green: arguments are basically the same. Um, there is something anti creative about um About adopting a conspiratorial worldview Um, you know, carl popper wrote about the conspiracy theory of ignorance Which is basically I’ll just say it in my own words And tucker carlson is very guilty of this if you ever look at his timestamps on his, um, episodes on twitter Basically it comes down to okay anytime. There’s a problem That problem is unnatural and was caused by a cabal of whether it’s big pharma or apac or He doesn’t really credit maybe leftist or rhinos or neocons It’s always a cabal and if we just got rid of the cabal then the error would go away Now this is a recipe for total political stasis or worse because that’s not in fact the truth the truth is We live in an open society Where millions of people have different views on on how we can make progress on how we can solve problems And to get what you want You have to persuade them. So one of the new rights phrases is the only way out is through Um, which for them basically means like I don’t know we have to be tough and have big government Like oh you you really got the left with that one boys You’re just gonna be socialists to own the left like come on But um, no the only way out is through I agree with the slogan But to me the only way out is through means you there’s no way of getting around the fact that you have to persuade people Now I agree with you that conspiracism is not primarily a right -wing issue
[01:06:59] Green: It permeates the left Leftism in general I mean when you mark system for sure when you talk about so they’ll say you see this if you ever watch the young turks They’re steeped in conspiracism in the sense that they think and they might not word it this way But this is the implication if only we got money out of politics if only the donors We don’t like stop donating to politicians if only The rich capitalist network stopped brainwashing the people then they’d all side with us because our policies are so obvious They’re so obviously better for the working man that sort of thing. So they think the truth is manifest. I mean, of course Yes, they think the truth is manifest exactly Yeah, these are just very
[01:07:37] Blue: very popular conspiracy theories in a sense They’re
[01:07:40] Green: so popular that they’re barely even noticed like you can say this anywhere in america and no one would blink Like people just yeah, sure. That’s true. Of course Um There are exceptions. Ben Shapiro has been very good on this. Um, I can’t think of many others but um in libertarian circles so For this is connected with what we were talking about with foreign policy And this could be an entire episode unto itself by the way conspiracism But um, they have to adopt a conspiratorial worldview when it comes to foreign policy to again justify their axiom So they’ll say things like every war is based on a lie And again, the reason this is anti it discounts human creativity because in reality Various parties and I mean parties in the little p -sense have reasons for going to war Um, and they interpret every error as a lie basically And of course, I’m not saying governments never lie. Oh gosh, then I really wouldn’t be a libertarian would I but They they implement this conspiratorial worldview in the implication is again If only we got these evil politicians out of the way They would never be war and then on the right um, again, Tucker Carlson is a prime example
[01:08:48] Green: Um, they say things like okay, so on the right wing they say things like the government hates you They say this very often the government hates you the left hates you Um, this sort of thing and that the only reason uh politicians implement their policies is because they hate you They hate white americans They hate christians and they just want to like torture them with policies whereas in reality again They’re discounting the reasons the vast majority of politicians think that they’re doing the right thing When they implement a policy again. Am I saying there are no back deals and there are no guilty politicians? Of course not but people implement the minimum wage because they think it helps people people advocate for the welfare state because they think it helps people people advocate for Anti -discrimination laws because they think it helps people It’s not because they hate you and they want to see your um livelihood destroyed or your way of life destroyed um, and this is a problem because again if you want to resuscitate 1950s america okay, there are And again like the the select parts of that of whatever family values we’ve already talked about this They’re a select It’s not a matter of getting rid of the politicians who hate you and putting in the ones who love you You can’t love your way to better policies. Um, it’s it’s all a matter of creativity So basically conspiracism discounts the role of creativity Um, and it also implies that other people are super creative. Um, yeah, I think I’m missing a few things But I’ll just stop there and let you respond.
[01:10:03] Red: Okay well, um Let me ask you about so you’re familiar with the the term horseshoe theory Of course So it seems like I mean like if I were to Take my younger self from I don’t know back in the 90s or something maybe even the 2000s And I were to show myself um Public and party today I’m not sure I would have seen that much difference between it and what I called leftism at the time Um, can you maybe comment on that?
[01:10:40] Green: Yes, and by the way, I remember What I forgot to say about conspiracism it has to do with And I think Bruce you’ll like this It has to do with the fact that we have a coherent suite of explanations that explain how our culture works How institutions work how property works how the growth of wealth and knowledge work and so conspiracies conspiracy theories Um, they they think they can just throw an alternative explanation in the air like that whereas in reality It spoils all of our other good explanations. So it’s not like, um, yeah, so that’s a whole we can talk about more about that But to get to your question, um Yes, so in many ways look in many ways trump is a 90s democrat. So again economically, they’re totally left -wing absolutely um in terms of Wasn’t
[01:11:25] Red: he a democrat in the 90s? Just just
[01:11:27] Green: I think he probably was yeah. Yeah.
[01:11:29] Red: Go on
[01:11:29] Green: He he look he I was talking to a friend of mine. Um during the early days of doge And he was so excited and I said Yeah, I’m not that excited. They already promised that they weren’t going to touch the entitlement Um, the entitlement state the welfare state social security all that stuff if you’re not touching that Then you’re not really shrinking government. I mean, um, you can so Yeah, trump is basically a 90s democrat I will say he is better and again We have to distinguish between trump and the maga movement and this will really this distinction Will really matter when trump is out of power because that’s going to be fascinating And by the way, I think things can turn around quickly and you could get someone who’s pretty good Um, you can get basically a reaganite. I could totally see that happening coming out after the trump movement Your mark that I’m going to ask you about
[01:12:13] Red: I’m going to ask you about that in a second But go go on.
[01:12:16] Green: Yes. So, um, what was I saying, right? So trump is He’s totally better than kamala harris on let’s say deregulating on energy on artificial intelligence Although I forget the details But um, didn’t the trump administration pass a law forbidding any state from itself regulating artificial intelligence So there I don’t know how I feel because I’m a big states rights guy But anyway, he’s better on that stuff Um, and he’s also better at least on israel gaza and it seems like he’s coming around on russia ukraine will see So, um, I don’t know if 90s democrats were in favor of deregulation You do have the abundance democrats now. They’re an interesting lot and I don’t know what’s going to happen with that But that could be very interesting on the left side um And I think trump is definitely not sympathetic to Communism and then I know leftists say no, but kamala harris isn’t either. Yeah, I I probably agree, but I don’t know if she had the um testicular fortitude. I think to quote gad said to um Reject the socialists on her left Whereas trump like again, this is the important difference. Trump has no time for the nazis or the Or the pretend nazis on the right. He has no interest in that stuff so, um Yeah, I think he’s basically like a centrist democrat who is pro growth in certain important area like energy is one of the most important areas economically because economically speaking It’s a capital good. It’s a universal capital good. That is to say It’s a required prerequisite in the in any process that transforms raw materials into any Consumer good or service. So that’s very important and kamala harris.
[01:13:50] Green: I think would have been bad on energy So that alone makes trump preferable Um, but yeah, he he won’t touch the entitlement state and he loves it And I think he he loves price controls too. He’s pulling on nixon. Didn’t he do price controls on drugs? So he’s horrible on that stuff. Um, so yeah, it’s a mixed bag and And things could be worse but things could be a lot better.
[01:14:08] Red: You mentioned ukraine. Talk about ukraine
[01:14:12] Green: Oh, yeah, well, this is um, so the isolationism again, uh, by the way isolationism non interventionism to me They’re synonymous people might disagree um, but this is the argument that um, nato Caused putin to invade ukraine nato provoked him And um, it’s a lot of you know, it’s interesting how you can paint the narrative without being explicit So again, and which is very cowardly. So I’m sure if you go through trump. I mean, uh, tuckers show and his tweets and stuff He’ll criticize the lentski left and right. He called him a rat one taste that he was rat like which I don’t know Is anti -asymmetric or not. I’m not I’m not totally sure whatever So he has all this criticism in the world for the lentski, which again all these individual criticisms might be true It might be true that ukraine is corrupt Um, you know, all these other things like they they did shut down elections. Although I I recently learned that That like it’s part of their constitution or whatever it is that yeah during war They don’t hold elections, which is seems reasonable to me But anyway, but then but then when it comes to putin um softball interview He loves the grocery stores in russia and again, it’s like, okay I’m sure there’s a not in other words all of these things might be um true in isolation But together they paint the narrative and I think so this again gets the kind of the I think I said this earlier There’s a lack of intellectualism or there’s a loss of intellectualism on the new right You know Totally agreement. Totally.
[01:15:35] Green: So but but when it comes to putin It’s like putin’s playing them for a fiddle because putin will get up there and say stuff like Oh, yeah, I’m a christian We need a christian empire and we don’t like gay people and stuff and then the new rights like yeah, that’s based whatever It’s like, yeah, I don’t know. That’s very um our superficial artificial He’s playing you like a fiddle just like by the way the soviet union used to play a left like a fiddle Because didn’t one of the soviet union leaders he would talk about the plight of black people in in, you know Mid 20th century in america. It’s like, yeah, okay. That’s true, brother, but like look at your you know this is obviously a manipulation game And um, so yeah a lot of the right and look to be fair sort of to the right I think there’s a awareness of getting in getting involved with um Foreign nations after what happened during the bush and obama years. So I get that but again, you know when you people talk about Foreign aid and this sort of thing And when you look at the budget, it’s really not that much like I was talking to someone recently and he was like look I’m a libertarian. I just want he kept talking about he doesn’t want his tax dollars going overseas and I was like look Um pound for pound like you’re not it’s not that much money.
[01:16:40] Green: It’s really not like If I understand wanting to shrink the budget and shrink the government But again, uh, you need to go after the entitlements not foreign aid um, and I think um one argument that I’ve heard that I agree with is it’s cheaper to basically um Raise the cost of Putin’s aggression now than it would be later. Um, just yeah And then and then people who say so then some libertarians, they’ll say Um, Putin would again they they they work their way backwards from their axiom. They said that Putin will stop at Ukraine I was like, so I’m just supposed to take your word for it. I this is um But it’s not naivete. It’s not naivete. It’s something else. It’s it’s working your back way backwards from a conclusion Now it is weird that the left Basically things have changed now, but the left was pro -ukrain anti -israel broadly speaking and the right was pro -israel anti -ukrain Um And yeah, I don’t really have anything. I think Well,
[01:17:34] Red: I’m kind of surprised that’s even the case right like Being a conservative this entire time and publican, you know, we we were very concerned about russia as, uh Geopolitical power. I mean there’s the whole thing where romney mentioned Mentioned russia as a geopolitical enemy and obama said that the 90s are calling. They want their Foreign foreign policy back or something like that.
[01:18:00] Blue: Yes.
[01:18:00] Red: Um, I mean like there’s always been this concern on the right up until recently There’s always been this concern on the right about russia. I mean People have asked me. What do you think of the whole russia -ukrain thing? I’m like, I don’t even follow politics I don’t know, but whatever’s going on with russia. I’m against them on principle. So I’m okay with any war With russia, you know or something like that. I’m joking around but um It it’s surprising to me that the right has had at least for a while there We had such a big shift. You’re right that it’s starting to shift back the other way But such a big shift, you know pro russia and against ukraine By the way, if I can just say one other thing I would I’m fine with a political argument Of uh, whether or not to send russia foreign aid whether or not Ukraine is worth defending from america like, okay You know, those are fine arguments But again when you when your conclusion is axiomatized and you saw this with jd advance You ended up relativizing Saying like there’s killing on I don’t want to quote exactly because it’s been a while and I might miss remember But you end up relativizing like in other words At the very least I would like our politicians to have moral clarity As the saying goes and say, you know russia’s the bad guy and ukraine is not the bad guy in this in this particular conflict And I think if I’m remembering correctly Um, jd advance wasn’t really willing to do that.
[01:19:16] Green: It’s like for example, and then for example, I remember jd advance yelled at No, he said
[01:19:20] Red: yeah, he said I’ve got no interest in what’s going on in ukraine. That that is true
[01:19:24] Green: Right and then he yelled at zelensky when zelensky was in the oval again things have evolved since then Um, but I think that is uh an excellent case of how when you hold this axiom of like no intervention or whatever You end up kind of relativizing between two sides in a conflict and that is extremely dangerous This goes back to what I said to peter. Maybe slightly too harshly about don’t don’t even relativize between right and left in america I just think uh, yeah, so I’ll stop there.
[01:19:48] Blue: Okay I do have a question that uh, it might be changing this channel too much bruce Do you want to keep going with this foreign policy stuff? No, no go for it okay I’m i’m curious about this this I get I get the feeling logon. You’re pretty Influenced by austrian economics and and mesis and hayek. Is that fair to say?
[01:20:11] Unknown: Yes.
[01:20:11] Green: Yes,
[01:20:12] Blue: okay so one of the things I get from their ideas is that economics and maybe politics by extension should be more based on philosophical principles rather than like um You know, oh this study says this and if you have to look at this meta study or whatever I kind of asked david deutch a similar question related to coercion and and and children and he he seemed to Empathically agree that he’s talking about philosophical principles not um meta studies And and so I think that probably that the same kind of thing applies to economics through the lens of um of of austrian economics um I’m but I’m also curious about how this popperian idea of incrementalism relates to this form of libertarianism like I Have no problem believing something like a mesian Society, I don’t know if that makes sense, but something like that would be Is something that society is moving to in a future knowledge state but You know, if we went back to a Tribal society and said, okay, we’re gonna we’re gonna implement free speech and Democracy or whatever in this this tribal state. It’s not really that clear to me that people wouldn’t just like Start killing each other or something. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong But I you know, I what what makes sense to me is something more like incrementalist Libertarianism In line with with the this popperian ideal um What do you think about that? Would you would you call yourself an incrementalist and how do you rectify that with with austrian economics?
[01:22:18] Green: Yeah, so economics just like physics is not a moral theory So it doesn’t make sense. For example, if I explain thermodynamics to you and you say are you saying we should Revolutionarily build a car overnight or a spaceship like don’t we have to you know build the parts first and all this stuff It’s the same thing. So it’s important not to conflate economics with politics. I will say as for as for um libertarianism, so Yeah, there are a lot of revolutionary libertarians. So libertarians. There’s a whole Talk about the different kinds of libertarians a little bit here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do it Wait, it’s bothering me though. I’m forgetting the word for when you Outline the various types of a thing. It’s not lexicography. That’s something else. It’s uh, not genealogy because that’s his that’s chronological But what’s the word when you uh delineate a genius? No, anyway, whatever it’ll it’ll come back to me after the podcast I’m sure okay, so you have um revolutionary libertarians who Want to abolish the government as soon as possible. So the famous um question that murray rothbard who’s one of the founders of um American libertarianism and maybe libertarianism worldwide He wrote an essay called do you hate the state in which he criticizes david freedman actually for not hating the state And then he he has a question. He says if there was a button Um that you could press tomorrow that would abolish the disappear the government. Would you press it?
[01:23:38] Green: And I think where murray rothbard said yes, I would so that’s the revolutionary um libertarian there’s also very relatedly would be the Non -aggression principle libertarians would say that it’s always this gets back to the foreign policy with israel versus hamas They say it’s always immoral to violate private property rights And you could maybe generalize that to say it’s always immoral to coerce So that’s another flavor then you have the left right divide between libertarians And this is very interesting because this gets to what I was talking about with tucker carlson of how I can agree with you on a b and c but um You are you are expressing them in a uniquely in a creative way Um, I’m not I’m not absorbing what you’re saying mechanically. Uh, you’re saying it in a creative way such that Um, you’re painting a certain narrative that I don’t agree with so for example um a left so, uh, yeah one way to think of the left right distinction on libertarians is simply um, what issues do you emphasize and this by the way gets to The fact that even if I agree with a hundred percent of your policy anyone’s policy positions If you’re emphasized and I but but there’s an order of importance to political problems Like there’s there are better and worse ways to order political problems in other words There are some left libertarians who okay, you find them on twitter you talk to them.
[01:24:53] Green: You’re like, oh, this is great You’re a libertarian i’m a libertarian and then you talk to them and they’re like, yeah I’m for abortion and and prostitution and open borders And drug legalization and they never talk about price controls or private money Or foreign policy or if they do talk about foreign policy, they’re anti -war hippies So that would be a one strand of left libertarianism and I totally am not about that at all um, both aesthetically and even politically it doesn’t like yes, I’m also for drug legalization and legalization of prostitution But I think making school optional for example is way more important and privatizing the money Although that that’s a very hairy thing and that should not be done overnight is way more important for example and they would either disagree or they would like They would say they agree, but they never talk about those things. So that would be a left libertarian And then you have um one strand of right libertarians That’s kind of the flip side of that and you could say these are the acolytes of um a han sarban hapa and a lot of the people who Are in the orbit of the mesis institute. They are basically um paleo libertarians. They’re called and I’m um Not a paleo libertarian because they’re conspiratorial often and they’re isolationist on foreign policy But in other ways I agree with them and they’re also hawkish on immigration, which I am not But they are culturally Right -wing they value hierarchy they’re fine with They hate forced integration laws. They hate the welfare state They emphasize sort of the cultural decay as caused by public programs Yes
[01:26:28] Green: What else and then so there then there are also um anarcho syndicalists, which gnome chomsky I think is one basically they’re people who Uh in my view, they just can’t swallow the fact that when you leave people alone They’ll like have private property, but they’re basically anarcho communists So they want a communist society but without a government, which I don’t really understand And then you have um anarcho capitalists like me who emphasize that um Private property society Is a is a free society and it has various advantages over a status society and when I say status society I just mean one in which um, there’s at least one institution that acquires its revenue uh coercively and I think logically it must be the case that That’s just that institution must be the one um producing the laws and I think there’s at least one other Oh, so then you have what are called um, by the way So probably everyone in this call is basically a classical liberal. So a lot of libertarians will say okay Classical liberalism minor and minarchism minarchism just means you want what’s called a night watchman state So you want the government to implement laws produce the laws and enforce the laws and that’s basically it may be border enforcement And then you have um anarchists like me and then you have classical liberals who might be okay with a little bit more um, and then you have people so yeah, I think that’s That is um everything I think I’m forgetting a few but oh so then you have um border terrians who basically are
[01:27:57] Green: Libertarian on most things but hawkish on immigration and then you have order terrians which in a way I’m an order terrian but not in the way that they are so order terrians say Yes, I’m a libertarian. I want a stateless society But we have to Abolish the government in a certain order that is better than other orders. So going back to what I was saying earlier I agree with that But where they would say I’m not a libertarian at all is that it’s I don’t think the answer everyone always Is to reduce the size of government for example Let’s just say um, let’s say Municipality implemented the abolish the police policy or something like that um Now one option I would love in fact I was saying at the time like okay, you hate the police But what about private security guards? How does that sound? But okay, let’s say that’s not a political politics is the art of the possible So let’s say and also, you know, it takes time to implement new institutions. So let’s say instead Um, we could just reimplement cops or something. I’d be I’d be for that Again depending on the context, but I could see myself being for that And some libertarians would say I’m absolutely not a libertarian because I’m advocating for the growth of government So I think um, that’s the landscape as far as I can see it. I’m sure I forgot some groups, but there you go
[01:29:02] Blue: Do you think some libertarians are utopianists
[01:29:05] Green: too? Is that pretty common? Uh, very common. Um, it’s hard to say how common, you know, again, I don’t know how much twitter reflects real life I think I think a lot of people So for example, like the national review crowd the dispatch crowd the commentary crowd They are sort of uh, they float between conservative and libertarian, but none of them are utopian. They’re all institutionalists. They’re all incrementalists They take institutions seriously So for example, they’re they’re libertarians who say like laws are not legitimate and stuff like that And so they kind of take themselves out of any conversation about debates outside between originalism and what’s the opposite of originalism Um, uh activist judicial activism is sort of thing So but there are a lot of utopians for sure Um, and that’s very bad. And the hope is that basically they don’t get into power But I think the problem is what what I find fascinating is And this is another amazing thing about the west is that even utopians find themselves conforming to our institutions when push comes to shove because Uh, they know that it’s a total deal breaker for much of the rest of the country if they don’t So for example, they’re libertarians who would argue and by the way, so okay, peter You’re definitely gonna like the new stuff and lords of the cosmos. That’s not in the documentary because we talk about a lot of this um They’re libertarians who would say who would prefer. Oh if we could get a libertarian President or entire government filled with libertarians and then never have them vote voted out of office.
[01:30:35] Green: That would be amazing But they would never actually follow through with that because they know it would be a disaster and the reason it’s a disaster Is because we have so much Not only institutional knowledge, but respect for the institutions in america and this is despite all the manic conspiracism So in other words, in a way, it’s amazing that america has made the progress that has politically Um, I hope I answered your question. There was something. Oh, there was one other by the way Libertarians fii and there are another strand of left libertarianism Is basically adopting the cultural left’s entire value structure And just saying like oh, yeah, but if we adopt implement if we implement libertarianism We’ll get all that so and it’s almost comical like there are websites that I won’t name because I might get them wrong And I don’t want to slander someone But they’ll say like yeah, we’re libertarians and we love gay people and we love muslims And uh, you know, we’re for the appra like they talk like you would think they’re leftist And then they’re just like no, but we want a mutual trade. Um, they’re called mutualist sometimes And and that sort of thing. So that that’s funny. So you might see that in the wild So I hope you’re less confused now now that I said that then you would have been otherwise
[01:31:42] Red: What is the connection between libertarianism and conspiracism? Obviously, we just talked about how that there’s a big connection with The right wing at this point between that but back in the day it seemed like A very large percentage of the libertarians self -proclaimed libertarians. I came across were conspiracy theorists Like like what what is going on there and why does that happen?
[01:32:06] Unknown: Yes?
[01:32:06] Green: Yes, so in one sense, this is not a fundamental phenomenon and it’s more of a sociological phenomenon That is to say anyone can subscribe to any set of policy positions and not be a conspiracy theorist Um now having said that I think what happens with so first of all So I think there are two things one is the foreign policy angle that we already discussed namely Um to keep their axiom of non -intervention secure They have to become conspiracy theorists In other words like, you know, israel can’t possibly be actually defending itself It must be evil whatever and nato can’t possibly be a defensive pact The government must be lying us into war this sort of thing. The other thing Is again it goes to people’s reasons, you know, you become a libertarian and I think some people and you learn economics and you see problems Uh that are partially government -caused or problems that are frozen in place because the government you see them everywhere And you get yourself and then the idea is become as you were saying earlier You know, they become manifest to you after a while after you internalize them And you forget that not everyone shares your worldview and you just come to think all all of these problems are caused by power Hungry politicians intentionally and so that that’s how that’s how I think conspiracism Slips into the bloodstream of libertarian thought and then of course you find yourself and this is a whole strategy discussion, but You find yourself hating the government and basically allying with anyone who hates the government But that is not a viable path
[01:33:28] Green: Again, the only way out is through you have to explain these ideas You can’t just say the government is evil and corrupt because if you haven’t explained why let’s say socialism can’t work or this sort of thing Then the people who are listening to you are just going to switch on a dime again You saw this with andrew schultz the comedian So he had uh, Dave smith the libertarian on and they’re talking about why trump is whatever they were talking about I don’t quite remember but it was libertarian stuff But Dave smith he’s he’s a conspiratorial libertarian So he’s not actually explaining like why price controls call shortages why tariffs are economically inefficient All these sorts of things why welfare crowds out Private charity. No, he’s just saying like politicians are corrupt and everyone’s a liar blah blah blah Okay, and andrew schultz is maybe sympathetic And then a couple months ago andrew schultz is like oh this mom donny guy in new york is the only one To talk in america first because he hasn’t learned anything This is one of the problems is conspiracism and it’s funny because people get a moral a moralistic sense of righteousness By talking about conspiracies conspiracy theories because they’re like no, I see the truth and everyone else doesn’t whatever Um, but ironically they’re leaving people impotent at best at best You’re impotent because it’s not true and you haven’t learned anything about how our institutions work and how they might be improved
[01:34:32] Red: That was a good answer for for what it’s worth The thing that I found strange like one of my first, um libertarian friends Where he strongly identified as libertarian and he would expouse it to anyone who was willing to listen he um for example He was convinced that Uh, 9 11 had actually been perpetuated by the u.s. Government and that the evidence that came forward with That bid laden had in fact been behind it. He said that was obviously green screened I mean like we’re not talking small conspiracy theories, right? Like we’re talking out there Conspiracy theories from a guy who’s you know an MBA type business type intelligent guy Normal seeming in any of any other way. It was a very strange thing and people got used to him They would say tell us the conspiracy theories and he’d get up there and hit drama on the board for us He was very proud of him and I also noticed that his conspiracy theories He tended to contradict himself a lot He was kind of just enamored with whatever the conspiracy theory of the day was And he might have a totally different one that’s in contradiction to the original one You know a couple days later, right?
[01:35:40] Blue: I almost forgot about this, but now that you mention it like Going back 20 years ago practically every Conspiracy theory or every libertarian that I personally knew was also a 9 11 Conspiracy type.
[01:35:53] Red: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean it was it was huge back in the day I Logan might have been the first conspiracy That’s not true. Some of my Mormon libertarian friends are very sane But Logan was one of the few that I came across that I started to talk with them and I’d say You know what like I can actually get along with this version of libertarianism, right? Like even I I don’t agree with everything that he says obviously But and I still identify as a conservative But it just doesn’t seem so crazy sounding as the original versions that I encountered over and over and over again Back in the day.
[01:36:27] Green: Well, so this is a nice example. So think about what the world is like if that Conspiracy that um Osama bin Laden was not behind 9 11, but instead our government was well that that’s rather convenient for the libertarian Who thinks the u.s. Government is the greatest enemy to human freedom in his own life, isn’t it? So it’s rather convenient. Um, by the way, so this connects to my my last point about conspiracism that I had originally forgotten Is again, and this is very um, deutching I think is um, okay, but for that to be true Then so many of our other explanations about Individual politicians about our institutions about how the west works about how islamic societies work or islamo fascist societies Then all of these explanations you’ve rendered them all problematic And it’s not enough to just do that in a vacuum. You now have to say okay Even though all those explanations are problematic I can actually explain those as well in light of this new conspiracy theory that I’ve adopted So um, the burden of proof is on them to solve all those problems. I mean, this is true. Also when it comes to um history um There’s a kind of um, well, I won’t say that but yeah, so when you when you um conjecture a new Theory of history it has to cohere or it should cohere with the rest of what’s become background knowledge of how Again how historical cultures and institutions and and all those things have worked So you can’t just um conjecture a conspiracy theory out of the blue just like in science. You can’t just say Um, okay evolution applies to everything except um mammals or whatever.
[01:37:56] Green: It’s like, okay Well, first of all, that’s easy to vary but also like this this causes problems with the rest of our knowledge that the burden Of is on you to solve
[01:38:04] Red: Agree, I’d call that burden of explanation by the way.
[01:38:06] Green: Nice. Nice.
[01:38:07] Red: So, okay. Let me try to summarize then The reason why So at least back in the day so many and maybe even still today so many libertarians Kind of got drawn to conspiracy theories was because it what there was a certain convenience In the fact that it then aligned They weren’t maybe so worried about the explanation finding good explanations They they none of them were doichi and crit rats or something like that It’s really just a matter of hey It’s very convenient if I can say that 9 11 was actually caused by our government Wow, that really aligns with my idea that governments are bad something along those lines Is that kind of the argument that you’re you’re making here? so I would be
[01:38:49] Green: uh A little bit more precise. It would say wow We don’t have to go to war. Um, but also let me be a little fair because Mind reading is never the best. I think the real reason why they’re conspiracy theorists like the more fundamental reason is that They forget the fact that people Sincerely disagree with them. I think that’s what that’s what it would be that they sincerely disagree with them And in other words, no libertarian thinks if I was in government, I wouldn’t be evil. I wouldn’t be power hungry I’m a libertarian. I would help free the people but the thing is other politicians with different worldviews and other constituents Think the same thing about them. They think they’re doing what’s best for the west and the world or whatever So that’s the fundamental thing is like they think the people who disagree with them are Secretly evil and just pretending to be to have the public’s best interest in mind
[01:39:37] Red: So actually a form of the truth has manifest error is what you’re saying
[01:39:41] Blue: I want to be respectful of logan’s time.
[01:39:43] Red: Absolutely.
[01:39:44] Blue: He’s the president
[01:39:44] Red: of conjecture institute We’ve got we’ve got a president. I mean think think about This this last two hours. We’ve probably slowed the conjecture institute down considerably And have made the world the worst place. So, you know, I only so much we can do
[01:40:01] Blue: No, logan, I’ve loved listening to what you say. I and I um, I like I I don’t remember if this was during the Podcaster before but we talked about the 75 percent rule I how that kind of makes a good a good conversation when you’re like I that’s like a happy place where you kind of agree with most of What someone says but then there’s interesting areas of non agreement and I feel like we’re we’re uh, I think you might have bumped me up to 80 percent now So I think I might be with might be with the 80 percent. So I’ve really enjoyed your your perspective
[01:40:42] Red: Yeah, I appreciate that.
[01:40:43] Green: Um, it’s been a pleasure speaking to you both peter’s been good meeting you I got to say you guys are my favorite communists that I’ve ever spoken to no joke Okay
[01:40:53] Blue: Now that’s funny Yeah, I’m a communist who’s who’s read 20 thomas soul books, but yeah, and logan
[01:41:01] Red: you you are by far my favorite utopian just just saying
[01:41:05] Green: To shay to shay all out. That’s fair. That’s totally fair above board. Um, yeah, no, I appreciate it. Um, yeah, peter Let’s uh, keep talking. I know you said you’re not on twitter or something like that, but um, I’m on facebook I don’t really use facebook like publicly or anything, but yeah, let me know and um, I’ll send you guys I don’t know if you guys want. I don’t know how you guys do the links and stuff But for people who are interested in any of the things we’ve been talking about at least in terms of people who are kind of looking for A quote -unquote sane outlet of right wing thought I’d be more than happy to share you share links with you guys Absolutely. Yeah commentary. Okay. Cool. Sounds good Bruce. Just text me
[01:41:40] Red: You know what list a few right here and then I will that will give me a good excuse to put all of them into the show notes So just listen to some of the ones that you think are good right wing sort By the way, I love the dispatch. It’s the only new source. I’ll listen to because Yeah, that’s bruce’s try right
[01:41:55] Blue: there Commentary and dispatch and all that commentary
[01:41:58] Green: and dispatch are amazing By the way, I think we might disagree bruce about uh, david french who seems like a nice guy I don’t I actually so we didn’t talk about this, but in the never trump world Um, there are people who I think opportunistically became never trump Just like there are people who opportunistically became new writers new right wingers like the new right And then there are people who just became democrats, which makes no if you really understand like economics I don’t know that that makes no sense to me and then they’re like the jono golberg type So I think are very honorable and the commentary people who are willing to call balls and strikes. Anyway, we didn’t even talk about that That’s that’s for another conversation. Those
[01:42:33] Red: are all great examples. Yeah.
[01:42:34] Green: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so we probably disagree
[01:42:37] Red: somewhat over david french I I actually do like yeah, yeah, in general. I think I’ve liked everybody on the dispatch Uh, jono golberg’s awesome. I would totally agree that jono
[01:42:46] Green: golberg’s the best Um, yeah, so I would say the dispatch podcast commentary magazine podcast Um, national review I think the podcast is called the editors because I think they might have multiple podcasts, but the editors is really good Um, and uh, yeah, I don’t really listen to the ben Shapiro show that often anymore, but I would definitely recommend that Um, yeah, and whenever something bubbles
[01:43:06] Blue: up in israel, that’s when I tune into ben Shapiro personally. Yes He’s good on that
[01:43:12] Green: He’s good. You’re on brook is good. So you’re on brook will give you he’s he’s very good. His podcast is good He’s more he’s obviously an objectivist So he’s not quite the same as a reaganite, um, conservative, but he’s really good Um, and now in terms of if you want to learn about the history of the right wing over the last 100 years I really would recommend Um, a book called the right by matthew continuity and um, he is on the commentary podcast a lot actually and he’s actually When he talks he strikes me as slightly more trump sympathetic than the rest, but he’s he’s good. Um, and then other American political history books Well, I would I should say daniel hannon who’s actually conjecture institutes third advisor His book I always forget the title because I think there’s a british title an american title But it’s something like how the west invented freedom or how we invented freedom. That’s a really good book It’s very if you want to understand institutions peter You’d already mentioned tomasoul. So I won’t do that and I won’t mention economics books because then we’d be here all day but also, um Tom woods’s book the politically incorrect guide to american history now He’s more of a roth bardean libertarian. So you want to watch out for some of that? But that’s a very good book and then joseph ellis He’s a historian.
[01:44:18] Green: He has really good books on um, like the founding era of america And I always forget because there’s founding brothers and then there’s another book with another title And I think if I recall they’re both good But one of them was so weird because it came out Maybe not during the first trump administration and at the end of each chapter He would just have these weird like trump derangement syndrome passages And I just found that unprofessional like dude. I love your stuff. You’re good on history. Why are you like I don’t like that But that’s that would be like american history type stuff that I would recommend and and the podcast on From sane conservatives that I recommend and if people want other resources on other topics Uh, I’m happy to you know reach out to me. I’m on twitter my email all that stuff And peter actually in lords of the cosmos. You’ll see we have a bunch of reading recommendations as well
[01:45:05] Blue: Speaking of books, I’m I’m so curious if you read that book the white pill by michael malis
[01:45:11] Green: I have not. Um, I was just talking to a friend about that book. I have not read it because From what I’ve seen him on interviews about it. Um, I don’t know how much I would I struggle with books that go into super Um crucial detail on historical events I like to kind of learn like the broad strokes and what’s what was happening during that time Not like stories of people being tortured by communists and stuff But it seems I mean it
[01:45:33] Blue: seems good. He also goes into that this whole Rothbard history Of of libertarianism and then you know, he talks about iron revan And I mean it was a whole history of this this intellectual tradition that I was really Ignorant of I mean he’s kind of a weird guy. Don’t get me wrong. He’s a self -proclaimed anarchist and all that I’m not so actually how much I agree with him on some things But he he’s extremely good writer too I think you’d find it very entertaining and you know, the white pill is is optimism the optimism pill too, which I’m I think we’re probably all in favor of that too
[01:46:16] Green: And let me you remind thank you for saying that peter because you reminded me of a book that I I can’t believe I didn’t recommend another history book radicals for capitalism by brian doherty That is basically a history if I recall correctly of american libertarianism. It’s a very interesting It’s a very interesting history.
[01:46:32] Red: Do you like freedman’s machinery of freedom?
[01:46:36] Green: Love it. Love it.
[01:46:37] Red: Oh, oh good. I love that book too
[01:46:40] Blue: And we’re talking about david freedman, right?
[01:46:42] Unknown: Yes.
[01:46:42] Blue: Yes
[01:46:44] Red: Sam cypress told me to read law’s order, which was also very excellent
[01:46:48] Green: I have not read that one yet. Um, I still need to Yes, so Honestly, it makes me so sad to even talk about david freedman or milton freedman Because again, it reminds me of how how far the right wing has fallen. Yeah, they’re not interested in even those arguments It’s wild.
[01:47:03] Red: So I was on the increments podcast and they Had me on as a conservative and and there’s just nobody like it’s really hard for me to find Anybody who’s like me anymore, right? It’s strange because There used to be tons of people like me around me, right? And they’re just kind of they maybe there still are but like they just don’t speak up anymore, right? It’s just it’s just it’s very weird and I live in utah, which is obviously a red state It went for trump not no surprise there, but it’s probably one of the most antitrump states That’s a red state that there is there. There’s a great deal of sanity in utah compared to a lot of places And even here it’s weird. It’s just strange. Oh, that was the thing I was going to ask you about Maybe this is a final question for you logan You you brought up the fact that it could change And yes, you know what?
[01:47:55] Unknown: I
[01:47:55] Red: agree with you and so I feel like that’s probably where we should end on is just a discussion about change one of the things so we had Jonathan Rauch on the show and I admitted that I was very concerned about trump that I feel like he does have some authoritarian impulses I think the institutions will keep him from Being able to do anything much with those he’s going to try as much as he can It bothers me that he even tries like to me. That’s very very bad But then when I asked about how scared should I be Jonathan Rauch basically told me I’m not scared enough, right? And there’s a part of me that you know, I could be wrong Let me admit that Jonathan Rauch maybe studies this better than I do more than I do who knows, right? But when it comes right down to it, it seems to me that we have this moment in time where there’s a great deal of insanity with the right But I don’t see it as there’s it’s not like there’s some clear cut Momentum in a single direction The the only thing that’s really holding This is just me feel for you to disagree the only that’s really holding it together at the moment The coalition together at the moment is trump himself Okay, and basically people have kind of aligned themselves around trump. He’s not going to be there forever. He’s not, right?
[01:49:13] Red: I mean And once he’s gone There’s gonna need to be I I don’t see how the right and again I could be wrong and if I am then we’ll see right But it’s really hard for me to believe that the right is going to stay insane forever And I’m I’m still expecting that they’ll eventually be a reemergence of more conservatives like me and by right Am I wrong? How scared should I be Logan?
[01:49:38] Green: Well, I don’t want to tell you how scared you should be I will say I’m not scared at all I’m irritated and that this might just be a dispositional difference between us um, and this connects to We didn’t talk about the culture and ecosystem of podcasts, but This is very important. Um, and there’s an interesting epistemological lesson here, which is basically podcasts are, you know, they’ll their shtick is um, you know, we’re not like the old legacy media We won’t lie to you but meanwhile They could have learned a thing or two from let’s say the tradition of fact -checking and gatekeeping in a good way Of like let’s say just quality control that the old media the legacy media implements And there’s none of that in the podcast sphere and I think it’s melting people’s brains,
[01:50:22] Red: right?
[01:50:23] Green: Um, look, I think things can change. I think Um, you it’s not I don’t think it’s a given that JD Vance is going to take the mantle. I agree Yeah, and I think uh, there’s been a there was a recent controversy. I don’t know when this podcast goes goes live But about um, oh we talked about this a little earlier But the point is so for the right -wingers saying they’re not going to throw the Republicans under the bus who are saying um, a bunch of stuff and whatever they were joking, but it was still like stupid Um, yeah, I understand that and they think like to win. We have to not Know enemies to the right as the frank phrase goes Um, but you’re ignoring the fact that there are millions of swing voters And so it’s not a given that you are adding more than you’re subtracting by uh, kind of acting like vial lunatics And uh, I could totally see um Look political winds shift very quickly. Look how quickly we went from obama to trump No one saw trump coming right and I could I could see an articulate Reaganite coming to the fold and uh taking up the mantle. I mean we’ll see So yeah, I’m I’m um, it’s totally plausible. You look use the good news is You still have republicans who are basically raganites. They’re just often. They’re either quiet or on the local level They really are raganites and richard nania talks about this.
[01:51:35] Green: How um, you know Red states are they still have smaller governments than blue states despite everything that’s happening at the national level And it’s because look, they’re still part of the republican party that is for small government Even though it’s more distant than it used to be, you know Republicanism was always a I mean in the during the cold war is a three -legged stool The libertarians were only one third of the stool and right now we’re on the outs and um, you kind of have these um Basically national conservatives on the rise, um, but things could definitely change I think Fundamentally you and this goes back to the very beginning What we need is someone making the arguments like Milton Friedman used to do no one’s making the arguments
[01:52:13] Red: Yeah, it’s weird that nobody’s making the argument. It’s very strange It I come from that conservative intellectual tradition where you really tried to explain things, right? And I just don’t see it anymore. It’s I feel so isolated so much of the time and I appreciate what you’re saying Logan that I really And I haven’t given up hope, but I really shouldn’t give up hope It could very easily shift back towards the kind of conservatism that I believe in
[01:52:42] Blue: Lucky we’ve got Logan here and uh, Logan, would you accept the term anarcho -reganite?
[01:52:50] Green: That’s funny. Yeah, I mean I can’t I don’t see myself Disagreeing with that term. I mean that definitely applies. Okay Well sounds like a title for that episode
[01:53:00] Red: Logan, I really appreciate the conversations I’ve had with you Like I’ve said, I feel like I’m having sane conversations when I’m talking with Logan Which is you know hard to come by these days Which is why I really felt like I needed to have him on the show and just have a conversation And again, I feel like we’ve had just really interesting things for us to discuss and that you’ve said here And I appreciate a lot of those sources you just listed I’m gonna like go look a lot of those up and maybe add them to my media diet. So I appreciate you very much, Logan. Thanks
[01:53:29] Green: Thanks, Bruce. I appreciate that a lot. Yeah, it’s always fun talking to you Peter was good meeting you and Bruce as you know, you know, if you ever want other resources Just text me anytime and I’ll let you know. All right.
[01:53:38] Blue: Awesome Thank you, Bruce. Thank you, Logan Hello again If you’ve made it this far, please consider giving us a nice rating or whatever platform you use Or even making a financial contribution through the link provided in the show notes As you probably know, we are a podcast loosely tied together by the Popper Deutsch theory of knowledge We believe David Deutsch’s four strands tie everything together So we discuss science, knowledge, computation, politics, art, and especially the search for artificial general intelligence Also, please consider connecting with Bruce on x at B. Nielsen 01 Also, please consider joining the Facebook group the mini worlds of David Deutsch Where Bruce and I first started connecting. Thank you
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