 Good day, May 40 here. I got a bit of a problem. I'm a little teeny-weeny bit of a pompous prick and I don't know there's something about people who frustrate me and and annoy me and My instinctive reaction is to start talking ex-cathedra like pompous prickly Oh Have you ever read John Locke? Have you? No, have you even read John Locke? Right, that's my my instinctive reaction. I just Nothing's changed. Like I'm 55 and I'm still behaving the same way as when I was five I can first grade my teacher wrote in my report card Luke is always very willing to share his opinions with the class But he needs to learn to be more considerate of the slower thinker Like I'm getting on my high horse I'm getting aggrieved and and I'm using all my fancy rhetorical abilities to send off like these aggrieved irate emails And taking like a haughty haughty tone With other people that I people that I have to deal with like in general People who annoy you Yeah, you want to put as much distance between yourself and them. All right, that's a good strategy for living But if you need other people's cooperation Being a haughty prick is not a good strategy All right, and my tendency is when I think I'm right and the other person's wrong and it's just like as clear as day It's like Hey Don't you see the British medical journal In this last issue already dealt with your objection, bro. Do you do you even read peer reviews studies, bro? My god I'd just be sending off these haughty like self-righteous Nasty emails and I was wrong. I got my facts wrong I misunderstood the situation so I didn't get it when I need people's cooperation Like why is my default and they're annoying me, right? They're bothering me. They're getting under my skin That doesn't happen that often, right? How often do you Do you see 40? Who's annoyed and upset and someone's get getting under his skin, right? It doesn't happen that often normally I'm a shining example of calm peace love compassion inner peace But sometimes when people annoy me Right normally. Yeah, you want to put as much distance, but then when I need their cooperation And I start speaking ex-cathedra like it's though. I'm speaking for god. This is though My with my every poison word. I am delivering divine karma And I'm such a jerk and I'm so wrong and I and I only do this with people who can't hurt me Like with with people who don't have any power over me Like do I do this with people who throw down the big superchats? No Do I do this with people who put money in my pocket? No, do I do this with people who have obvious power to hurt me? No, do I do this with people who There's no evidence to believe that they can hurt me And they're annoying me or maybe just someone else has annoyed me. So I take it out on some third party like way too much This is this is embarrassing like this is a fundamental character flaw that I have That that somehow a situation changes and I just start becoming haughty and prickly and pompous And it's it's like a character default. I just switch to that when I get frustrated and annoyed And this is not who I want to be. This is not my true self but I just get this agreed self-righteous indignant like Jerky personality, you know, when I have to deal with people I don't want to deal with And I guess, you know, I think, you know Why why does 40 of 40 university have to deal with these schmandrex and schmucks Why do I have to deal with the goyim? Like why can't I live my life with the chosen ones? Like I'm taking out I'm taking out my frustration on people who have no power over me Like and I'm just being a total prick You know, I'm using my rhetorical abilities not to bring people closer to God Not to be a blessing to the world Not to shine light and love Not to display compassion I'm using my brain and my rhetorical abilities to be a prick and I've been doing this since I was five years old Where's the green screen and the big time production? I didn't even want to do this video I just wanted to be a figure of light love. I just wanted to chill before Shamini at Sarah. We've got a big Jewish holiday starting up in a little over an hour I didn't even want to be here. I didn't want to make this video Right. I just wanted to chill I just wanted to do these healthy breathing You know positional release exercises. I just wanted to do some alexander technique All right, I just wanted to be one with a sham before shamini at Sarah Like who does not want to be one with a sham prior to shamini at Sarah? Like I wanted to you know, stretch and get my muscles limber and ready for some rocking on Simchat Torah You know carrying the Torah scrolls You can't just like grab these big heavy Torah scrolls and start dancing with them unless you like limbed up Unless you're in shape unless you're aligned with your higher power But how can I align with my higher power when I've been unfair? unkind When I've been too critical too often and too much And totally wrong, right? It's one thing. It's fine to be critical and right. All right. That's I can live with that It's fine to be pompous and right It's fine to be repeatedly critical and pompous and right I can live with that, but when I am repeatedly pompous And critical too often too much and I'm wrong about what I'm saying All right, that is not how I want to go into shamini at Sarah Do you think I want to go into shamini at Sarah thinking, you know, I'm a big fat jerk? I'm a pompous prick I saw this girl Dolores in something like 1992 and she came and stayed the weekend with me And she got to meet my old man and I asked her like how would you describe the difference between me and my father? And she said he's not as pompous. I don't want to be a pompous dude I just want you and me to live in light and love and comradeship and and compassion I mean, how do I how do I shift gears? Like when people frustrate me and they have no power over me my my default is to be this horny pompous prick Right. I just perform these moral acrobatics Right. I'm not always the kindly giving You know understanding wise compassionate figure that you see on on this youtube channel Right. I I I I perform moral acrobatics right How we avoid ethical ambiguity by thinking in black and white great 2021 book by psychologist Philippe Rochet, I believe he is french published by oxford university. Ooh I love I love the uh the oxford university press. Have I ever taken the m m b ti? Do you mean the the m? Look these personality tests. Let me get pompous there. It's just it's just self-reported nonsense All right, personality psychology. It's an enormous field and it's just relies on people like Self-reporting stuff like just shading in you know, little bullet points on a piece of paper. That's all it is There's no there's no science behind it. There's no verification behind it. All right So personality psychology is is useless. My as Briggs is useless. It's just a money-making scam It doesn't give you any real insight. It doesn't pertain to anything in reality. It's just like self indulgence. Oh, let's talk about me. I'm uh What was I? What I was a Uh I INTJ. I think I'm an INTJ. It's just it's just a circle check. There's no validity There's no profundity. It's just a circle jerk. Right personality psychology is bogus Like be who you are even if it's pompous, but I don't want to be this pompous jerks, particularly when I'm wrong So when I'm dealing with difficult people or annoying difficult situations And these people have no power over me I want to be cooperative. How do I switch gears from pompous horny prick to cooperative? Let's figure this out together. My life will go much easier if I'm able to switch gears into Cooperative rather than horny pompous prick Right. If this isn't me just wanting to be a righteous man This isn't me here wanting to connect with god. This isn't me wanting to be a better person. I just want an easier life I just want things smooth and easier and my life will be easier if If I just take this attitude of Cooperation like get into that cooperative mindset. Where is loponius? I've had a bunch of emails with loponius in the last 24 hours. So I told him I told him that I was streaming And uh, he's been relying on twitter. He just thinks oh, I've you know, 40 is going live He's going to put it on twitter. So loponius has missed all my live streams for the past, you know, two months And then like yes, he approached me once with all the secret shows, bro I just didn't put them on twitter like I do a show almost every day You got it. You got to subscribe to the channel hit the button for those notifications when I go live But people they rely on twitter. They just thought I always put the show on twitter And loponius says show tonight, bro. We need to discuss jasmine st. Clair pure slander, bro Okay, so here I am. I'm ready to discuss jasmine st. Clair. I am in an open giving Uh persona right now. I want to switch from being a pompous prick to having this cooperative Let's let's figure it out together attitude and uh jasmine st. Clair she uh She she had some harsh criticisms for for 40 Oh, and now now it doesn't even Now it doesn't even line up, right? Or does it? Okay, she's talking to holly randall It was right before I got sober, okay, it was not in the best place in my life I'm not exactly proud of it. We all have our dark moments in our life But if you could find that's all the things that he wrote, you know, like sometimes Like you google me because his website was so popular And all of his blog posts about me would come up and so it was a little off-putting for people But yeah, so my husband just didn't he refused to like google me or look me up or learn anything about me from the internet Because he wanted to get to know me as like an authentic person And you know five years later. We're married. We have a kid. So I guess it worked Does someone like finally smash his knuckles? You know, I I he's become The last I heard of him. He was spouting off some kind of pretty xenophobic content on some youtube channel um, and you know, I mean I haven't spoken to him in years, but uh You know kind of really extreme weird shit and and that's the last I heard of him one of those. Yeah One of those yeah, like like lady you could tell you I'm totally I get it like I'm hooked by that whole Mike Lindell thing right now I don't believe in all this news, but I just I'm hooked on craziness sometimes I get Slipped into it somehow. Yeah It's interesting, you know, it's it's you know, what is humans were attracted to drama? Um to excitement and sometimes uh not in the most healthy ways so All right guys, we're gonna take a quick commercial break and we're gonna come back Okay, so In my own mind, I am a monarch All right, you know in my in mind, you know, I am a figure of light All right You know in my own mind I am like awesome and courageous and witty and charming and empathic But now I've obviously been quite a jerk So when when jasmine st. Clair America's most controversial sex symbol when she recalls luc Ford Uh, it it's not a figure of light and love. So I met her with ron jeremy in Like the summer of 1985. We went to the law factory And I always thought I got along great with jasmine st. Clair Like she is quite smart Very smart woman and I thought we got along great Uh, I I wrote about her frequently On my on my blog and she she was always friendly and I've been Charming with me and gave me lots of great quotes but uh You know, sometimes we're friendly and charming to people who we absolutely love So, you know, I can't think of anything heinous that I did to jasmine st. Clair or to holly randall but They obviously didn't have such a wonderful experience with 40 university Yeah, saying some xenophobic stuff that that yeah that pretty Pretty much sums it up She's happily married, but she still talks about you 40. Well, here I am still talking about her. So I met holly randall in something like january 2006, but she was really drunk Uh, and so she doesn't remember then we started dating at the Tampa show in Oh, no, we met at the Tampa show in something like september of 2006 Then we went out for a few weeks Then we broke up And uh, then she told me I think in december 2006 that her therapist said that she was a love addict And I was like, whoa love addict I hadn't hadn't heard that term before so I had to go to the library and read three books on it to become an expert in it And I realized yeah, I'm a love addict too, but I didn't do anything about it so holly was really She was really nice to me. She was really good to me. She threw me a rocking 40th birthday party She paid for everything whenever we went out. She was so nurturing and loving and fun and smart I mean those were those were good times Good times and then we got back together again for about a month or two in February march of 2007 And then then she did something for me so sweet and I think this is profound often when You got to be careful about extending yourself For others because when you extend yourself for others, you're usually going to expect that they'll be grateful Right and when people aren't appropriately grateful after you extend yourself, then you're going to get pissed off So it's like in the bible. So sarah tells Avraham look you want a kid take my maidservant haigar and make a baby with haigar And avraham says oh, okay, if that's your wish and avraham goes make a baby with hagar And then sarah can't handle it. So I think we often try to take on moral obligations that we simply can't handle so It's something like march of 2007 holly did something it was like so incredibly kind and good to me It was it was so loving She she said I want to cook for you and I don't know what to cook for you because your diet's so weird and And I said contact my mother Meaning my stepmother in australia. She'll tell you food. I like to eat So holly contacted my stepmother in australia. My stepmother gave her a lentil stew recipe And then holly went like all over town getting the ingredients for my lentil stew recipe It was like it was such an amazing act of love I mean it was such a kindness. It was such a goodness. I mean I would never do that I mean, I'm thinking the equivalent I had a girlfriend who had the flu And she was up staying at her parents home in malibu and she wanted me to drive up and bring her crackers And I said no I don't want to drive up all the way. You know, I'm not the type of person He's going to drive 20 miles to bring you crackers when you had the flu Right, that's not who I am now on the other hand after our first night I sent this woman flowers like I spent like 50 or 60 dollars and her reaction was You know, it's too early to talk about love I think I'd send her a nice note with the flowers and signed love luke and and her reaction was It's too early to talk about love. So I never sent her flowers again. It's like well forget it I'm never you know, I've never sent any woman flowers again after that like after getting dissed Dissed by hers like no never getting woman flowers again but It moved her so much But her reaction to it was to put me down for it. So it was only It was only like months and months and months and months and months later That I realized how much it moved her that I bought her flowers But it moved her so much the only way she could react to it was to put me down for doing it So holly goes enormous lengths to make me a lentil stew And I tend to get cranky If I can't eat right away So I got over there at like five o'clock and I don't think she was going to be prepared until six o'clock But it's like I have to eat right now So holly says okay, and she serves the stew and it was fine. It wasn't it wasn't great But it was fine, but it was to me. It was just amazing how much love she'd put into the stew So yeah, if I fed you the stew You wouldn't be thrilled, but I was thrilled because she went to so much effort She put so much love into the stew that that I was just moved But because I wasn't sufficiently Enthusied about the stew like we all knew it didn't really turn out so well She threw it all away and I was planning. I wanted to take the stew home Like she'd cook for me so many times. She'd like split pea soups and other soups Just absolutely delicious. Like she was a great cook Like she'll be a wonderful mother like incredibly capable woman like a great entertainer, you know, like her mother sues randall Very giving personality always taking care of people always helping people out And you know, I've got kind of a selfish self-centered personality and Like the givers and the takers like holly was like 100% giver and I was like 100% taker So, you know, I can kind of understand her Not looking back with with unalloyed joy at our time together She did say on one podcast that she she tends to date men who are a reminder of her father and Father was a broke writer until he met Holly's mother sues randall the erotic photographer So Holly tends to date broke writers and so she'd always pay for everything And this would always bother all the guys that she dated But for some reason that didn't bother Luke. She don't yes, you know I feel like my writing is such a gift to the world that it doesn't bother me when The woman pays for everything I I heard something on npr in the 1980s about some character who was gonna be doomed to have women You know pay for his way through life And I heard that in the 1980s and thought wow, that's gonna be me. Well, that is me So Stu Very nice night together Next day. I'm talking to Perhaps my best friend of the time like Kevin Blatt. We were like talking every pretty much every day, you know Now like Kevin Blatt and Holly Randall. They seem to have nothing but contempt for me Uh But uh, you know, I thought we were like, you know good buds and so you often say things, you know to to your friends, you know a level of You know letting down your hair, you know taking your yarmulker off and I told him, you know, how much love and effort Holly put into the stew and how moved I was and and Kevin Blatt's more of a bottom line guy Like I'm more of a romantic Kevin Blatt's more bottom line And so he asked me, well, how did it taste? And I think I said, uh, not so great Or it was okay and and then of course I You know transcribed the conversation and put it on my website lucasback.com And Holly Randall read that and she flipped and that was the end of the luke fort Holly Randall relationship It was over right there like no more Loving times with Holly Randall. That was the end. She just like cut me off. She went into rehab She she got sober from alcohol Uh, I mean it wasn't it wasn't just a clean break. She had some uh, she had some ups and downs with alcohol And uh, but that was it for the luke and holly show though. She did put out a wonderful birthday party I mean, how kind and giving was this woman like Two and a half months after I said that inappropriate thing on my blog about her lanol stew She threw me this wonderful 40th birthday party. Like, you know, we had like 40 people over and I mean gave me lovely gifts. She said like, you know, when do you get for the guy who got nothing? So she got me this lovely thing that makes tea And uh, then she she she went to rehab and eventually she got sober and she got into AA and she worked the 12 steps and then it was something like shovel walt so so June of June of 2008 or 2009 She said she wanted to take me to dinner because I was on her ninth step amends list and so She took me to dinner and she she wanted to make amends for you know, nothing that was too serious like Um, I'm sure I owe her quite a few amends I'm not sure like I did a list of my 100 resentments for for a sponsor and my sponsor demanded 100 resentments So either holly randall nor jasmine st. Clair on my list of 100 resentments But you know holly if I if I did you wrong and it would help if I made amends for for that wrong You know, let me know if there's work that I need to do. I'm not aware of it and and The opposite way around, you know, holly didn't do anything bad to me. It's just we were two love addicts two narcissists in love all right, so So we both get Yeah, we both Had our flaws and our vulnerabilities and and we both, you know pushed each other's buttons blessings to laponius laponius You left the stream back. I think you might enjoy this this video. It's been a long time, bro since since I've seen you so So holly makes her her ninth step Amends to me and it was nothing that was No big deal like it was it was trivial stuff like She'd taken a couple of zen acts and had some wine one evening And then she just like, you know passed out And and I was like freaked out, you know, I didn't know she'd overdosed um, she just like Zonked out on me just like since we passed out on me and I had no idea what was happening. So I freaked out and she was like zonked out and I tried to You know how she's breathing, you know I just tried to lay there and I was like so upset and then I tried to sleep in a spare bedroom And I still like upset and then I just like went home. It's like, oh man. I didn't understand this girl Why didn't she tell me what was going on? I was really ticked and then she called me the next morning She told me the score is like, oh, it was all good. So like very trivial things She didn't have any, you know major ninth step amends, but she she wanted to get completely clean So I was on a list, you know, we had a very nice dinner. We went to Beth arm They had shovel ward services So we go to Beth arm and some members of her pornography website There at Beth arm of the shovel ward services like whoa, what's, you know, holly randall doing here So, you know, here I am. I think it's it's a very very nice evening and then about A month later holly randall writes this column in xbiz magazine And out comes this column even good juice masturbate And she, you know, it talks about me and apparently over our dinner I told her that sometimes when I want to masturbate the image of my rabbi comes to my mind And I feel bad and I can't I can't masturbate because I'm thinking about my my rabbi I didn't know about you. Do you sometimes get in the horn and you want to like rub one out? But you start thinking about your rabbi or your priest or your your your minister and it's like, oh no, I can't I can't jack off and think about my rabbi at the same time. It's just like, you know, just kind of seeing his His pained face like he'd been so good to me like he kind of stuck his neck out for me You know, my rabbi had been, you know, such a mensch for me and I just like picture You know the sadness on his face if he were to contemplate me masturbating and like his His sad face I would just see my rabbi sad face and I couldn't masturbate And apparently I you know shared this with holly she went and wrote a column about she takes me to dinner To make a nine step amends and then she writes the most embarrassing column My god, I hope I hope this is not I hope this is not available through Through google. I believe the column was called even good juice masturbate So luckily it doesn't come up On xbiz, but like here she was you're making a nine step amends, you know, they wanted a big deal like, you know I thought the slate was clean, you know, we're all good. We had a nice night We had a nice dinner that she paid for at a kosher restaurant um Oh, we had dinner one time that yeah, whatever and then I took it to temple for for shovel wall And you know, I thought this is you know, a really nice, you know ending to to everything and Then she she writes this This skating column like even good juice masturbate like he could not You know, he could not make me look like a bigger prick Uh This column's like, you know, here I am like I told you all this stuff like Holly always knew I was a writer and so we would always have kind of Understandings about what was for publication. What was not for publication now? I'm not saying that I 100% abided by it, but there was never any gross violation Like, you know, she would tell me things and it was like understood. This is not for publication And I I wrote about it to a great extent What was my book profiles and sex love and death? profiles in sex love and death Um, I wrote a book on yeah lives on the edge profiles in sex love and death So you can read that book. I I wrote like 100 pages on my relationship with Holly Randall And I ran it all by her. I gave it to her. I delivered it to her. Like is this okay? Tell me what you want me to take out All right, and so I read her by her and she was fine with it. She like signed off on it All right, and then here we are Like I must have said that I couldn't masturbate when I thought of my rabbi sad face looking at me And it ends up in xbiz magazine. I don't want my anecdotes about not Masturbating because I'm thinking about my rabbi sad face. I don't want that anecdote in xbiz magazine In fact, I wouldn't even want it in the new yorker But there it was and it was all done over a ninth step dinner to make amends. It's like This is why my hair turned gray and started falling out. It's like, oh man. Yeah, you you got me good You really got me good and I am not an innocent party like Holly could give you You know 27 ways that I was a ridiculous jerk And so I'm sure I brought this on myself I mean obviously I brought this on myself I'm not an innocent party and and I realized that and that I think even tick me off more like I can't get aggrieved about this I was not some some prince to to Holly Randall You know, I just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk And then you know moved on And and then took took took from other women. So I couldn't even get aggrieved or self-righteous I may not even be able to get haughty and pompous and prickly about it. It's like So that was Pretty much that was the last time I saw Holly He had some brief interactions after that. So it's something like 2010 2011 uh I get I get a voicemail from her. She calls me get a voicemail. It's like, oh, hey Luke I just want to tell you I'm getting married. You know, I'm so excited. This is a great guy And I just want you to know it's like Why are you calling me? You know, we we hadn't seen each other in years. We hadn't talked in in years but Okay, so Holly got married and then I don't know. Did she get divorced? Is this husband number two like barely kept up. I think I think Holly wanted to do a photo shoot of me where I'd wear a suit waiting out into the ocean Uh, so we may have talked about that 10 10 years ago Uh Then I think Maybe 2018 I think I may have sent an email. Hey, would you like to come on my show? We'll you know, we both ended up walking the 12 steps Yeah, maybe if I'd learned to empathize with others Um, I would have been in Better shape. Yeah, so So I think I I emailed her in something like 2018 2017 2016 Hey, would you like to come on my youtube show? We both worked the 12 steps. We can talk about Now our 12 step experiences and she says I think she said something like oh, that sounds interesting Now I'm off to Tahiti for three weeks And that's it. So I haven't haven't had any Haven't had any interaction uh with her since But she keeps slamming me on these various youtube videos Yeah, jasmine says luke is a xenophobe and a weirdo But she never said that to me in all our interactions. She she was always uh, perfectly nice so kelvin mcdonalds so he He says, you know, sometimes like holly says all these really, you know, nice things about you like On an earlier show with angela white as a guest holly says, you know, I'm still quite fond of luke But seems like uh jasmine's influence or kevin blatt seemed was like when holly was talking to kevin blatt is like disdain and disgust and repulsion for luke, uh, but So we all affect each other, right? So holly talks to jasmine and it's like, look, what a horrible experience Talks to angela. Oh, I'm so fond of him. But that's how we all are All right, we're all profoundly affected by By those that we're around So i'm sure you're you're reading all the all the uh latest on outside the beltway.com And uh good article here on the psychology of internet fame by chris haze, I think the ms nbc tv host and holly really did She shook me up like That was back in 2006 2007 right not Haven't haven't been moping around since 2007 but for a few months there. She she's spun me round round right round Right round right round and she enjoyed it like she enjoyed the You know the crazy hole that she held over me because we were both sex and love addicts Right and we enjoy the power that our sex and love charisma holds over people So I have experienced that as well okay so tv The last thing I would say to holly would be thank you Thank you for being in my life Thank you for being kind and warm and generous Thank you for the the laughter and the intimacy and thank you for Introducing me to the concept of love addict Go volunteer feeding Haitians look at the border that will clear your xenophobic soul All right, so we know the tv is a vast wasteland and maybe you know the internet is going to say that we're going to remake the world through these radically democratized global conversations like what we're having right now But that's not exactly how it ends up because I was discussing kovat and Responsive to kovat with a friend and my friend was making his points by sending me pictures of screenshots And some of them there wasn't even a source So I think today in the age of the internet people think mainly in terms of pictures and memes like like they don't want to read You know scientific papers let alone books. It's like oh, you know, I saw this video where doctors said that You know death certificates were changed in this and that way and you know, I saw I got a picture of a tweet here That's that's how people think because they find the pictures and the tweets and the videos That shore up the way they already look at the world but so the internet Yeah, it brought new voices into the national discourse but You know, we had this brief renaissance of long blog arguments But the writing steadily got shorter the images and the video got more plentiful Until the internet gave us a new form of discourse. There was a combination of word and image It gave us meme culture a meme can be clever a meme can be revelatory, but it is not discourse Right, so we've just got all these people going into a party like yelling into a megaphone so imagine you're at a party and Someone there's one person there with a megaphone is yelling like everyone would have to respond to him now The public square is like going to a party where there are seven different people with megaphones They're prattling on So you take away one guy's megaphone. There's still six people with megaphones like everyone now has to shout to be heard Now conversations online have morphed into a game of telephone like everyone's shouting variations of the same snippets of language Phrases slogans. It's like an endless oral hall of mirrors And the effect is so disorienting that after a long period of scrolling through social media You may feel a profound sense of vertigo. It says chris haze Also, the more angry you are the more social media traction you get All right, so the people who scream the loudest get the most attention because they stand out against the backdrop of Pendulating sound that is now the room tone of our collective mental lives Well, that's not my experience the internet because I curate my experience, but I understand that is the experience for a lot of people so Here's chris haze's ultimate point Everyone now has access to their own megaphone But most people are not reaching a vast audience But at any single moment anyone with a smartphone has the ability to share images and thoughts with millions of people around the globe Now this used to be the province of governments and big media but now power once granted just solely for totalitarian governments A 14 year old can release a meme that goes viral right and An industrious 14 year old can find out more about people than a team of kgb agents could have found out 60 years ago so The public presence of our private lives cannot escape this reach so So being internet famous or even appearing online. It's like dancing on the edge of a cliff I know this from all the people I brought on to my show like even a friend brought on to my show. We had great shows but He was dancing on the edge of the cliff and eventually fell off like a lot of people I've interacted with here on youtube they dance on the edge of the cliff and then they've fallen off They've had a very hard fall So someone with a tiny number of followers on social media Can suddenly shoot out like a firework into the internet and they can burn brightly and white heart infamy And you can find the sudden attention thrilling and addictive So you see this a lot of people who live stream they get addicted to the attention and they start Being becoming captured by their audience And then it's too late that you find out. This is Quite deleterious to your well-being So now if anyone says or publishes something that's racist or sexist or inflammatory For most employers, it's not worth the internal strive to try to rehabilitate their reputation people just get fired And for many industries, they are exposed to legal liabilities If their clients if their employees say, you know crazy things on the internet or just inflammatory things You know even true inflammatory things on the internet, you know very likely to get you fired These are things that would not have happened 20 years ago Now random off-color comments between co-workers didn't get you fired nearly as much 20 years ago Now there is a decreased room for for what is private So never before in history have so many of us been under the gaze of so many strangers Now we evolved to live in small groups, you know up to 150. That's why We evolutionarily Adaptively developed fear of public speaking because for tens of thousands of years speaking publicly before a group It had so many dangers to your well-being Now times have changed. We no longer live our lives primarily within a group of just 50 people or so So now there are all these people who we don't know who know us Which can be a little freaky So if we define fame as being known to many people that we don't know Then Then you got a lot more fame online So as each new medium of fame appears The human image it conveys is intensified and the number of individuals celebrated expands That's the point made in the 1987 book the frenzy of renown so the internet Is created an ever larger category of people who might be known by millions the world over So electricity went from a luxury just enjoyed by the elite to something that everybody has Now fame has gone from something that used to just be enjoyed by the elite Now more and more people have access to it So ever since there have been famous people you've had people have been driven crazy by fame But now ordinary people being driven crazy by the taste of fame online and Not everyone can handle it So we all desire recognition and and a good reputation. That's just hardwired into us right But uh now with the internet this basic hard wiring can very easily Lead you astray Right, so you can think about the master and the slave right the master wants recognition from the slaves So people who want fame, you know, they want recognition from people they don't know So for the master he can be satisfied You know by by the recognition of all these people who don't know him So you can also instead of master and slave you can call this star and fan So the star wants recognition from his fans, but fans are strangers. They can never be known by the star The star cannot recognize the fan So therefore the fans recognition of the star will never satisfy the core existential desire of the star Because there's no way to bridge the asymmetry of this relationship So the star seeks recognition and instead gets attention so the star and the fan are prototypes And we get to be stars and fans online So we're conditioned to care about kin And to those who are closest to us But now thanks to the internet we start caring about likes and comments from people on the other side of the globe who will never meet The psychological experience of fame for many people particularly narcissistically inclined It's like a virus invading a cell Like it takes all of the basic mechanisms for human relations and distorts them and puts them to work seeking more and more online fame And the more you pursue fame And the the more empty you're gonna feel inside The more you want recognition You know all you will end up getting is attention and then you become addicted to attention And you live your life in a howling vortex that fame can never feel So famous people as a rule are absolutely obsessed with what strangers say about them and they stew and they rage about it A thousand kind words from strangers will bounce off you while a single heart criticism will or just linger I mean It's it's kind of uncanny like why isn't that uh thousand positive comments Don't don't affect you nearly as much as one one negative comment. So apparently Richard Spencer talked about why he fell out with Keith Woods So Let's see if What we got here We'll play a little bit Okay, come on. Come on Richard. Come on Richard. It's it's hard to answer that I don't want to reduce us just to say skin color, which occurred in the last 10,000 years actually post agriculture and I don't want to Reduce us just to say one particular class or lifestyle, you know, what it means to be white is to have a family on the farm or something No, that's not exactly what it's to be white. You're here versions of that I do think that there is an area in core a genny a Root mentality, but uh, I might have to spend an hour talking about that. So I think I'm going to punt on this one Okay intellectual midget Why do you believe the left will spare you if you were to tap dance enough for them? You'll only be added to the list with the other idiot white liberals who will be saved of the last Yeah, um, I uh, I don't think they're scaring me All of that Biden voting and all these liberal positions I've taken they don't really help do that I still get bashed. So that that's not why I'm doing it. It's not some Little strategy or something like that. I speak genuinely and if I were to playing games It's some we're playing a show game where I'm really talking about what I think and believe in that I don't think anyone would take me seriously. So I'm not playing those games Well, I Was Yeah, I mean keep I really liked a lot of what we were doing with Keith Woods and I thought we had a great rapport Um, Keith wanted to go a different direction. I think this was like a year or so ago He just wanted to kind of do his own thing and have his own show or whatever. That's perfectly fine Um, when Keith started uh attacking my my friend and holly mark brahman that wasn't fine He was playing a lot of weird troll games Um, he and his group and I'm I that's not okay So I don't understand exactly what's going on with Keith and I do I don't know I mean, I posted something the other day. It was just it was someone else There's this kind of leftist of some kind who's making this criticism I do see a lot of different show games with him of not Articulating any position and I think there's also a kind of I don't know I mean mark called a book report nationalism where you You go and you read something and or you watch a video and then you regurgitate it for five minutes And then you're like and this is why nationalism is great and it's just not good enough Um, ideas. I mean we're all rehashing old ideas on some level, but you have to integrate these into a general perspective and um Criticize them. So I don't know. I just who knows maybe he'll snap out of it, but I kind of doubt it He there's a there's a lot to be gained by being a dancing monkey There's a lot to be gained by really trying to appeal to the dissident right and I don't appeal to them Then I fury it most Well fire rider said, um, would you debate Nicholas on whether the america first movement is the old right 2.0? Um, I guess I would Um, but I don't know how you take a different position on that, but sure. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for playing Come on. I'm getting ready for shimini at sarah and sim cartora. I can't can't be distracted by all this nourish kite So here's the here's the climax Of chris hazes essay in the new yorker All right, so the psychologically destabilizing experience of fame is coming for everyone Everyone is losing their minds online Because the combination of mass fame and mass surveillance increasingly channels our most basic impulses toward loving and being loved caring for and being cared for getting the people we know to laugh at our jokes All into the project of impressing strangers A project that by definition cannot set our desires But it feels close enough to real human connection That we cannot but pursue it in ever more compulsive ways So I think that he's overstating his case. I think what he's saying is true and applies to people who Are unstable like stable people are not going to Generally speaking get unstable pursuing fame online but those who Don't normally connect with other people Then they're going to get much more likely compulsively hooked to Pursuing attention online because it's kind of a simulcra of human connection But so no, I don't think everyone is losing their minds online Rather the people who are most likely to lose their life their minds in real life Are also more likely to lose their minds online people who are stable in real life Are going to be fairly stable online So I'm not aware of the internet having many negative consequences for me for many many years To the best of my knowledge. I have not lost any friends From from the internet in years and years and years certainly not the close circle of friends The most important parts of my life. I do not talk about my most important relationships. I do not talk about My most important experiences of community. I do not talk about So that which is sacred in my life I keep sacred and I don't Don't talk about it Online so things that are sacred. You have to protect and put layers upon layers over them You've got you got a beautiful wife. You got a beautiful daughter. You want to protect her You don't want her going you know going out wearing shorts and a t-shirt Bye. Bye