 Good day, May 40 here. So my friend Ricardo had an interesting tweet today. He said, I've come back around on Richard. Not sure I ever really left. Truly the greatest pundit of his generation. So Ricardo famously had to leave the house when he wanted to go interview Richard Spencer because it created that much conflict. So I get this assessment. I mean, Richard Spencer is an entertaining, compelling figure. Like people like Richard Spencer, people like JF Garapy, people like Dennis Prager, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Jordan Peterson, they have a certain gravitas. They have a certain presence that just does, you know, compels your attention. They change the molecules of the air around you where they walk into the same room as you. But so many things to analyze in this statement. So number one, what type of person comes up with a list or a designation of the greatest pundit of his generation, right? Only someone with a way above average level of interest in politics. So let's say you're a pundit who fundamentally believed that we had skies of blue, trees of green. We had dogs wagging their tails. That overall politics for 99% of people, 99% of the time is not important. Okay, but a pundit with that fundamental worldview who looked around and said, what a beautiful world we live in. What a beautiful country we live in. What a beautiful community I live in. I am so grateful to live in Los Angeles or Charlottesville or New York City or Chicago or Seattle or some small town in Florida. I am so grateful for the opportunities that I have as an American. I am so grateful for my government and for the way he did an above average job dealing with COVID. But that person is not going to attract a rabbit following because the type of person who has a rabid interest in politics like I do and like Ricardo does, wants to hear something exciting, wants to hear descriptions of reality that he himself cannot see. That's the motivation for the pundit is to paint pictures that you cannot see on your own. The prime motivation, the best way of understanding punditry is to understand that the primary incentive that the pundit faces is to increase his own importance. And the primary way of increasing your own importance is one, to do something that many people can do, which is to tell people what they want to hear. But really the best way, the most effective way for increasing your status as a pundit is to paint pictures of things that ordinary people can't see. So you go like Dennis Prager and you say, we're living in 1930s Germany. We're living in Russia just right before or right after the communist takeover that we're living through a civil war, right? Pundits are known for their hyperbolic pronunciations. When you listen to Richard Spencer, you'll get a lot of hyperbolic pronunciations about things that you just don't see in reality. And it's so compelling, it's so fun to listen to Richard Spencer because he is painting often these detailed, compelling, tension-grabbing descriptions of the world around you that you just don't recognize that you don't see. But if you listen to Richard Spencer, then you get to see the unseen, right? He is taken on, the pundit has taken on the role that used to go to clergy, that they would paint, they would make real for you unseen words. It used to be unseen words of the spirit, unseen words of God, unseen words of religion, unseen words of demons and angels, right? That's what the charismatic preacher used to give. Now the pundit is giving you unseen words that you don't see that there's a civil war going on around you that you are living under communist tyranny. All right, yeah, Richard Spencer blocked me years ago. So a great deal of people who watch this show believe that they live under communist tyranny in the United States of America. About the freest, most prosperous, most powerful nation the world has ever seen. And yet they choose to believe that they are living under communist tyranny. It's just unbelievable. And a pundit who can tap into that yearning to explain why someone just goes from serial failure to serial failure, hey, it's not your fault. It's the system, it's America. America's a communist tyranny right now. That's why you're having these troubles, right? There's an enormous audience for that. But it's mainly the success goes to those who can paint pictures of secularized forms of demons and angels and conflicts, metaphysical, physical, psychological, spiritual, philosophical, religious like Richard is devoting himself to starting a new religion. And so that's exciting. That's compelling. Now, this type of pundit, the type of person who's going to appeal to someone who is looking to anoint the greatest pundit of his generation cannot be someone who says, what a beautiful world we live in here in the United States. So what unparalleled prosperity, opportunity and safety is afforded to us in the first world today. Thank God for the vaccines. Thank God for public health. Thank God for our medical and scientific establishment. Thank God for our police and military, right? What a beautiful blue sky I'm looking at right now. Look at those trees of green. Think about that fluffy, happy, friendly dog that I was playing with earlier today, right? There is no way to rise in status and develop a strong following as a pundit with this idea that what a beautiful world we live in. We're so lucky to live in the United States or Australia or France or Germany for all our problems right now. So that's the key to successful punditry. Paint things that people cannot see. Now, how do you paint things that people cannot see? By telling them things that don't exist. That's the easiest, most effective way of painting things that people cannot see. You tell people a bunch of things that do not exist. So to be a winning pundit, to be a successful pundit even to reach the level of a JFK ROP, all right? Or a Dennis Prager or a Ben Shapiro or Richard Spencer, you cannot optimize for truth. You cannot make truth your primary objective. To the best of my knowledge, I make truth my primary objective on this show within the confines that I'm not gonna blow up my life, right? But I'm willing to make a lot of sacrifices to optimize truth. So if you're gonna optimize truth, you will be in all likelihood denied status. Yes, I keep telling you, Richard Spencer blocked me many, many years ago, something like 2018. But if you optimize for truth, you're gonna be blocked from status. You're gonna be blocked from prestige. You're gonna be blocked from many sources of income. You're gonna be blocked from most forms of success. You're going to be blocked from friendly appearances in the mainstream media. You're gonna be blocked from developing a cult following. There will be a lot of sacrifices you'll have to make if you choose to optimize for truth. I choose to optimize for truth. I cannot provide you an exciting show like Richard Spencer does because I optimize for truth. Richard Spencer optimizes for grabbing the maximum of attention, right? That is the number one value for Richard Spencer to use his abilities to secure the maximum of attention for Richard Spencer. And he's graded it. He comes from a theatrical background and he has a compelling theatrical manner. And you will get people like my good friend Ricardo understandably pronouncing him the greatest pundit of his generation because he is so theatrical. Now, there is a downside to being excessively theatrical like Richard Spencer. And that is truth is not a particularly high value. You cannot maximize for theatricality and attention seeking like Richard Spencer does and still put a high priority on truth, right? You can't reach Ben Shapiro, J.F. Guarupi, Dennis Prager levels if you optimize primarily for truth. You have to give up a lot to optimize for truth because a lot of truth is boring, right? So you cannot produce as exciting a worldview as exciting a product as those who do not optimize for truth. Truth is frequently seemingly contradictory. Truth is complicated often and nuanced. Truth is frequently highly sophisticated. Truth will inevitably be unpopular much of the time, right? You will offend people. You will become isolated if you optimize for truth. There is a tremendous price to be paid for optimizing truth, right? If you wanna succeed as a live streamer in terms of success at making a living, you will have a lot easier time if you maximize for excitement. If you maximize for spectacle, Richard Spencer has constructed his public life to maximize the spectacle, to maximize for constructing essentially an ongoing theatrical performance that is highly tuned to grabbing and sustaining your attention. Now, the only way you can do that is at the price of telling the truth. I'll give you a very boring truth. We get to decide how much violent crime that we have in this country or any country but how much we decide to punish it, right? If we lock up violent criminals for a long time, we will slash our violent crime rates. Now, for Richard Spencer, this is an exceedingly boring perspective, right? So reducing tens of thousands of murders a year is just boring, it is not compelling. And so Richard Spencer sees absolutely no value in the Republican Party, even though the Republicans consistently, more than Democrats want to punish and carry out punishment against violent criminals. But for Richard Spencer, that is not exciting enough to grab and compel and sustain your attention and your donations and your subscriptions, right? It's such an elementary truth. We get to decide our crime rates by how much we punish people who do violent crime, right? We can essentially choose how much murder we put up with in our society by choosing how much punishment we dole out to people who commit murder. Such a boring routine Republican perspective that Richard Spencer just finds boring. It's not theatrical. It's not, hey, hi guys. Let me tell you about Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and let me apply that to Lady Gaga and Kanye West and this great movie I saw last night. And it's not theatrical, right? It's just downbeat. The GOP is increasingly the part of gangster worship. Republicans consistently are more supportive of punishing violent criminals than Democrats. That's just indisputably true, right? Point out to me, prominent Democrats who more than the average Republican want to punish violent criminals. Just start reeling off the names. Give me the names of prominent Democrats who more than an average Republican want to punish violent criminals and the greatest, the most appropriate punishment for murderers is to execute them. So who are the leading Democrats who are loudly, proudly, publicly and effectively proclaiming the need for increased use of capital punishment? You can't name any, right? Because for all the Republican weaknesses and no matter how boring the Republicans are, right, Republicans are far more supportive of capital punishment than Democratic politicians, far more. They are far more in favor of long prison terms for violent criminals than Democratic politicians. But that's boring. That's not exciting and theatrical. You can't work that into a compelling Richard Spencer monologue. So we all have egos, and we all seek to maximize our importance. And I'm seeking to maximize my importance right now by proclaiming that I optimize for truth while these other people, they optimize for theatrical performances, right? So Scotty Pippen, remember he was second banana to Michael Jordan on the Chicago Bulls? And when Michael took a break from playing basketball to enter the minor leagues and play baseball, the Chicago Bulls had a very difficult time of it. And in a crucial game, in the crucial last second time out, right, where the Bulls absolutely needed, I think something like a three-point shot. This is recounted in the last dance, the excellent 10-part Netflix documentary. The Chicago Bulls coach drew up a play where this European player would get to take the last shot. Scotty Pippen was so offended, he was so miffed that he wouldn't even take the court, because he wasn't going to be given the ball. Now, this European guy took the ball, sunk the basket, won the game, got the Bulls into the playoffs. That didn't matter to Scotty Pippen. He still stands by what he does. He's a classic me-first kind of guy, and pundits overwhelmingly a me-first kind of guys. If their success, their income, their status and prestige, and their access to attractive young women's vulnerable nether regions comes at the cost of confusing you, comes at the cost of diminishing the quality of your life, comes at the cost of conducting effective campaign of epistemic sabotage, that doesn't matter to them, because they are putting a priority on their own self-importance. So what was the great insight by Richard Spencer that caused Ricardo to wax lyrical about the greatest pundit of our generation? It was Richard saying that Donald Trump should come back and be Speaker of the House. Now, Donald Trump would be an absolutely terrible Speaker of the House. Donald Trump is not at all suited for the position of Speaker of the House. But if you're theatrical, this is the type of thing that you come out with. Well, then Donald Trump should just come out and become Speaker of the House of Representatives. That's the path forward for Republicans, right? That's a flaming theatrical, attention-grabbing, exciting, interesting, compelling presentation that is completely removed from truth reality. It's just a horrible idea. But hey, it's theatrical. It means more attention for me. And heck, I'm the greatest pundit of my generation. And I've got more theatrical hot tags coming up. And I get to have these theatrical hot tags that will just so compel your attention because I do not optimize for truth and I do not optimize for decency. I do not optimize for goodness. I do not optimize for what's in the best interest of the United States of America or for my particular people. I optimize for me, getting attention for me, for the theatrical expression of my id. That's what I optimize for. So I mean, this applies just as much to Orthodox rabbis as it does to NBA players and plumbers and pundits and livestreamers and attorneys. So after World War II, Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, perhaps the greatest rabbi in Europe who survived the Holocaust, he was invited to come to Yeshiva University, the Flagship Modern Orthodox University in New York City. And he did not wanna come to YU and he didn't wanna come to Skokie Yeshiva in Chicago. Why? Because he would not get to be number one there. So Joseph Bear Solovechik was number one at YU and Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg had an ego that would not permit him to be number two. And he would not go to Skokie because he would have been number two there. So instead he stayed in a small town in Switzerland because his ego would not permit him to be number two. And Rabbi Solovechik, Joseph Bear Solovechik, his ego would not have permitted him to be number two to anyone he could not have handled it. Rupert, throw 40 the damn ball. Yes. So, you know, we all tend to maximize for our own importance and I'm trying to do that right now. I think I'm being explicit. I'm trying to maximize my own importance by saying that I optimize for truth. Well, these other people maximize for theatrical presentations. I mean, what do you want from a pundit? But overwhelmingly people do not primarily want truth from a pundit. Overwhelmingly, they wanna feel something. They wanna feel good and they wanna feel excited. They will love a pundit who can just present the greatest hits, right? So just like top 40, how does top 40 talk radio, top 40 music radio succeed by playing the hits? The latest greatest hits over and over and over again. So too in talk radio, that's the formula. You play the greatest hits, talk radio is dominated by the right wing. So you play the greatest hits of conservative thought over and over and over again. In every possible situation, you have the six to 10 stock perspectives that you just keep offering over and over and over again. You just keep playing the hits. The other alternative, if you don't wanna play the hits and Richard Spencer considers himself rightly too good for that is you come up with unseen and usually worlds that aren't even there, right? That you then paint and describe for people. So just like in an earlier time, preachers and clergy would lay out, tales of demons and angels and heaven and hell and all sorts of unseen worlds where spiritual forces are doing battle or your secular gurus who now take on this role. All right, like Richard Spencer, he is doing the secular equivalent. He's taking you into this unseen spiritual world where great spiritual forces are doing battle and he's telling you what's really going on. Well, not claiming that either I by your name was above such motivations. What evidence do you have that they were primary? Well, just learn about them. Yaheel Jacob Weinberg was invited to why you, he was invited to Skokie Yeshiva after World War II and why did he stay in Europe? Why did he move to a small town in Switzerland? Because he at least got to be number one in that small town. Okay, playing the hits, right? That's a surefire way to being more successful as a pundit talk show host. Essentially act as a cover band for the best right wing tropes. Just repeat them over and over again. That's what most of right wing talk radio is for. Having a conscience will not serve you if you wanna become a champion live streamer, champion pundit champion talk show host because if you wanna be a great live streamer, pundit talk show host, your primary obligation is to put on a great theatrical spectacle which can only be done at the cost of truth. But you want to optimize for truth then all sorts of things you'll have to pay for it. You'll lose many of your sources of income. You'll lose many opportunities for income. You're very likely lose your other jobs. You'll lose the possibility of gaining other jobs. You'll lose status, you'll lose prestige. You'll lose access to attractive young women. You'll lose your social standing. You'll become alienated from the people who you most wanna get close to. You may be a convert to Orthodox Judaism and you may want a lot of Shubbers invites and holiday invites. Well, if you optimize for truth, you're not gonna get a lot of invites because no insular group an Orthodox Jews are an insular group that primarily optimizes for truth. You do not get to build a high intensity community optimizing for truth. You build a high intensity community by optimizing a particular hero system, a particular narrative that involves a great deal of how your group is oppressed and that your group is shining the light for the rest of the world. The people that you will love the most will not love you back much of the time if you optimize for truth. You wanna succeed with people need to optimize for agreeableness. You want to optimize for making them feel good. You wanna be liked then optimize for making other people feel good. Bring a smile to other people's face. Give them that feeling of great, happy uplifted when they think of you, see you talk to you. That will make you liked. That will make you liked in person. That will make you liked as a public speaker. That will make you liked as a live streamer and a pundit and a parasocial personality is if you give people good feelings, if you help them to feel better, right? If you, you know, unlock their happiness and joy and excitement. But you're not gonna be able to do that nearly as effectively if you optimize for truth. What is teeth and appearance are amazing. Is it possible that Rabbi Yehiel Jakob Weinberg might have preferred the climate, the scenery and other connections to Switzerland? No, it was primarily ego. I mean, read the Mark Shapiro biography of Yehiel Jakob Weinberg. I'm not criticizing him for it. I mean, everyone has an ego, I certainly do. I mean, telling the truth is just not exciting, right? It's not gonna electrify your audience. You're not gonna just charge up the mountain to high status income and access to young women's bodies by telling the truth, right? It's akin to, let's say you optimize your family, right? You make your family your number one priority, right? You're not gonna be in all likelihood as exciting a public personality if your number one value is your family. Let's say you optimize for being faithful to your wife, right? There's a lot of excitement that you're gonna have to give up. Like I just can't picture Richard Spencer ever remaining faithful to a woman because he would have to stop being Richard Spencer if he was gonna be faithful to his woman. Let's say Richard Spencer optimized, he made his family his number one priority. He would be nothing like the Richard Spencer we see right now. Let's say Richard Spencer made his community for the well-being of his people, his number one priority. He would have to cease being Richard Spencer. The Richard Spencer we see and have enjoyed over the past few years is nothing like a Richard Spencer who makes his number one priority, the well-being of his people or of his family or of his community, right? If you choose to be monogamous, right? There's a whole lot of things that you're gonna give up. There's a whole lot of excitement that you have to give up. You're gonna have to make a lot of dull, dreary choices. You're gonna have to turn away from pleasure and excitement and thrill seeking. And if you wanna make your family your number one priority or if you wanna make truth your number one priority. So we get to choose what we optimize for and we get to choose what type of people we listen to and we get to choose. Are we choosing to listen to people primarily because they are exciting because they are telling us what we wanna hear, right? Because they are painting unseen worlds that are just so thrilling.