 It is, and people probably won't understand that here because this is my space's account, Giselle's spaces, so there's no reference to Pride and Prejudice or Elizabeth here. Well, there you go. I'm cultured. I'm cultured. I noticed that. I caught that. So I'm going to call you Elizabeth. Okay, okay. Mr. Darcy, I'll let you speak. So Mr. Darcy. So yeah, you can do anything. You can take this any direction you want. I don't care, but I mean, I will say that, you know, you're interesting because for a while I thought you and I were friendly, but then you also came at me pretty hard with, I don't even remember what, and I know it's all good. It was a dare diary entry. I mean, I've been meaning to actually send in more. I'm completely fine. No, no, I like it. Yeah. Fine. No, I just to finish my thought. I'm totally, I'm just forgiving people context. I'm totally cool with it and I just wanted to share it. I thought it was funny that, you know, a few months I thought you and I were kind of, you know, friendly. I thought, okay, we're vibing. We're friendly. We're like, you know, just Twitter interlocutors talking a little bit in the DMs about philosophy and religion and stuff like that here and there. And then also recently came at me hard with, I don't even remember what it was, but you were like coming at me hard and very critical and very aggressive, but I respect that. So let's do it. Okay. Well, I'm glad you didn't take offense to that. Well, actually, I wouldn't have even cared if you took offense to it. It would have been more interesting if you've got a bit offended, but obviously you, and you interpreted my tweet as being offensive as well, that I came hard on you and this and that. So it wasn't, it wasn't really to annoy you. Actually, it was more just sort of matter of fact analysis of the space and how I felt. Well, I like it actually. In fact, the last time we did a space that I was in with you, there was one guy who was kind of like, you know, blathering on a little bit and you were so brutal. I was very surprised and I was laughing myself to the mic. I was laughing with the mic off. I'm getting feedback. Yeah. There was someone who you like, I was thinking like, man, this guy's really rambling and you like jumping really quickly and really aggressively. The independent Muslim. So in any event, the point is I like that you're aggressive in general. And you know, this is the public sphere. I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to have good conversations with real thinking people about whatever we want. So do you have any friends who you converse with on the level that you want to? Or do you think friendships are just more light hearted? You don't really want to talk to your friends about these things that are all up in your head. You know what? That's funny that that's funny that you ask is this tweet that you've selected as the pretext for the conversation tonight actually was now that you have me thinking about it. It was inspired by my friends and my change of my life, social life lately here. And here's the story that kind of is the background. I just had my 37th birthday. So you know, I'm an old man now. I'm not, I'm not cool anymore. I'm not young. I'm not, I'm not like, you know, the wild and rebellious James Dean character that I like dreamed I was when I was a fucking kid. I'm 37 years old. I have a kid now. And, you know, I had a birthday, a little gathering, a little dinner, just a few of my close family friends, like two nights ago, this was like Saturday night, me, my wife, got a babysitter and like just like three couples that we're close friends with who have kids also. We went out for dinner. And I like felt the need to take LSD before I went to dinner. And it was like a, it was like a fancy, it was a really fancy restaurant. And it was like, I didn't take a lot of LSD, but like two, like one or two hours before dinner, I just impulsively without thinking about it at all. I was like, Oh, it'd be kind of funny if I took like a little bit of LSD, it was just like a micro dose. But I didn't really think about it. And nothing bad happened. It was nothing bad happened at all. And it was fine. It's like whatever. But in retrospect, the next day after I was like, what the fuck's wrong with me? Like I'm, I'm like an old man, like you don't take LSD before you go to like a dinner with like three family friends who all of whom have kids and are like normal, functioning, intelligent, successful people. Like it was just weird. Like I just do things that are weird. And like there's nothing wrong with doing that. But just to focus on the anecdote that you've shared, and you said that these were very sort of normal, successful people. So in what way are they successful? What do they do for a living? Oh, I don't, I don't mean, I don't mean like exceptionally, you know, and plus I know you don't want to dox your friends either. But like what sort of professions roughly are they in that you, you associate with success? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't mean, I don't mean any kind of grand or famous success or anything. But like, you know, I don't know people who like are, you know, researchers at like think tanks and people who, you know, have like, you know, have you ever wanted to become a researcher at a think tank? No, no, no. So there's no like kind of like career comparison or anything like that. But these are just like, you know, like basically solid, good, these are people I go to church with, like these are just good, really nice, good people, good families like Do you go to church high as well? Do you, do you feel the need? No, I've never done that. I've never done that. No, no, I don't think that would be bad to do. Honestly, I don't think that's like sinful, but I don't do that. I've never done that. And so what is, so I was just like an example of like, I don't want to be like that anymore. I just want to be normal. I just want to be normal. Okay. So this was this tweet then was in the context of you, of your kind of drug use. Is that what it was then that you want to change your lifestyle now you want to change what your body ingests? I guess is that what what it is? No, no, no, you're kind of overreading it with there. Like that was just the proximate cause that was like a little pretext that kind of inspired it. But no, no, I don't have any problems with drug use or abuse or anything. And this is not completely about that. It's just that was kind of the a recent little episode that like kind of has me in this mood. Like I just want to be normal now. I've been weird long enough. Well, can I just say something that you sound like you are about to cry? No, I'm not. No, no. Are you sure? You sound pretty emotional. No, no, that's I promise you that that's not true. I mean, I am pretty emotional person. And that's also like weird. Like I want this is what I mean. I just want to be normal and chill, like not emotional. And so no, but in this moment, no, and where do you get your LSD from? And what other drugs do you usually take if you do? Well, the thing is, I only use drugs pretty infrequently and I use them very, very judiciously. So usually I get them from like some random sketchy person, but then I have them forever because I only use them so slowly. So like this LSD I've had in my house for like, I've had it for like three years. I just got it from a buddy like three years ago. And I just microdose like once every in a blue moon. But like I picked the stupidest times to do it and that kind of shit. And I have a kid now. And so it's like, you're really not supposed to ever be on that side. I've seen that in a lot of your recent tweets. It's maybe been a year now that you kind of just keep saying every now and then that, oh, I've got a kid. I've got a kid now. And I've got to do this. I've got a kid. And things change when you have children. Yeah, it's kind of annoying. It's kind of annoying when people talk about their kids and shit. I try not to do that. But the reason I sometimes, I know, well, it's the reason I sometimes pepper that in there is because it just changes everything. It's fucking, it's a mind fuck. Like it's, it's, it's hard. It just changes everything. So I try not to talk about that in detail. Like I don't post pictures of the little, a little guy or anything like that. But it's like the main thing that I think about in terms of like, how it changed it, like how, how, how I should act and why, why not just, why not just behave and stop thinking about how you should behave? Well, no, that's what, that's what's happening as of today with my tweet. That you're absolutely right. That's my point of my tweet. Right. So that was a, now I'm just normal without talking about it. That was an indirect way of saying you need to be less philosophical about things and more just doing things and, and, you know, resorting to action. Yeah. And you know what else it is in all honesty? It's about like, I'm like an amateur stupid self-obsessed, like I'm, I'm self-obsessed. Like it's just basic amateur vanity is what I am. It's like, you know, uh, and most people are, but I'm not blaming other people. Do you consider yourself, do you consider, sorry, I'm going to have to keep intervening because you, you are kind of speaking a lot when you, when you ask the question, which is fine. It gives me a lot of things to think about and ask you questions. But no, no, no, you can carry on, but I will carry on intervening if you know what I mean. You be you. And I will do what I'm already doing. Great. So my question to you is, so you've said that you are sort of self-obsessed and you think about yourself a lot. So do you think that you have a good, we're going to talk about looks and things like that in a bit, but just before physical appearance, let's talk about your personality. Do you, do you like your personality and don't lie? Like that's fine. Like if you want to say, yeah, I really do like myself. That's great. But you know, what is the honest response to this? Um, I would say, um, like, no, like I like in the past, like five to 10 years, like I don't like my personality. Like that's what I'm starting to realize is like, as I get older, I'm just like, I'm getting more, I'm becoming more Christian and I'm becoming more like, Oh, are you becoming more Christian or are you becoming more gay? Because I feel a lot of men are now becoming, no, no, no, no, I genuinely think that homosexuality is really, really on the rise. And I know that, uh, yeah, no, I'm not, I'm not, they talk about how the Islamic world is like really good because they don't really have all of these problems. But no, it's, it's a pervasive thing that homosexuality is on the rise everywhere. Right. All right. No, I'll answer your question. I'm not at all, yeah, I'm not offended. I'm not offended by the question, but I'll answer very honestly and emphatically. Um, yeah. In my case, like I'm, I'm not gay at all. I've never really had a gay bone in my body. I've like, I've like, tried thinking about like, I've been told that many times. How do you know that? How do you know that? Because I've watched you. I even said to you that I am a subscriber to your mailing list. I think I can, I can, I can, I've cancelled all my transcripts. I only have you in my inbox now. Oh, that's very kind. But I can assure, I can assure you that I'm not gay because I periodically think about a naked man to see if it makes me horny. And every time I've ever done this in my life, it's never made me horny for a single second. So that's how I know that I'm not gay. But in all seriousness, and I mean that, I mean that was serious. But the larger point I wanted to make was just that like, I mean to realize how my entire life up until now was obsessed with just like vanity and gaining power and influence. And all of that shit is like, honestly, it's, it's not that bad. I think if you're a young man, it's kind of like it's, it can be fuel and, you know, have a, have a chip on your shoulder and, and to be driven by things like the desire for vanity and money and power and getting chicks and stuff like that. I think, I think it's like, it's not, none of those things are good. None of that is like ethical or justified. But you can get away with it when you're young. And like, as long as you grow out of it, it's okay. But I'm 37. And it's like, I haven't actually grown out of those things. And that's what I'm coming to. That's what I'm talking about here is like, I want to, I'm realizing this. And I really do think this now and feel this that like, there's just a lot of my motives and my actual kind of like, pathetic, self-obsessed, like vein motives, like from youth are still dominant in my psyche. And I hate them. And I think it's actually stupid and wrong. And I, so I know I have not, I don't like myself over the past like, five to 10 years, because, you know, I, I should have gotten those things out of my system, but they're still in it. And that's why I'm like, I just want to be normal. And I'm letting go all of that. And I'm like really trying. Yeah. But do you think that's, that's a cover story? It's a cover up for not getting the fame that maybe you thought you deserved, because you obviously worked very hard. You put like 100% into your other life podcast, your other life emails that you send off. And I remember, you know, you were once sort of doing this indie thinkers thing, and he renames your stuff to other life. And, you know, you've been, you've been working really hard to pump out a lot of content. And, you know, you're one of the few people who actually thinks quite critically still. So, you know, you're trying to build a brand, and you're still trying to be objective and things like that. Whereas most people, if they're in this game, they're really obsessed with kind of having their almost like their own branded worldview, and they won't be able to see beyond that. So do you think it's it's a bit of a kind of feeling of you didn't get to where you wanted? Do you think that is a resentment, not a resentment, but a kind of fact that kind of depresses you? Yeah, no, I think that's an interesting question. That's a very pointed question. So it's good. I thought about that a whole lot, you know, because like one of the reasons why I like don't want to get to put it like, okay, one of the reasons I've been clinging to my kind of useful vanity motivations is because they have gotten me quite far. They've energized me and I kind of fueled myself on those those vain, useful motivations for my entire life. In fact, those are the only motivations I really know in a way. And they've got me quite far. And I've been quite successful. And when I think about, you know, really, really trying to conquer them all and put them put them all behind me, because I do think that they're they're bad and essentially fake and evil. I one of the I grabbed with them the most, but then the reason why I clung to them longer than I should have is because what I tell myself is what you kind of implied in your question. That's exactly it. It's like, oh, Christianity and this kind of humility is actually just like cope. It's cope for people who like are going to give up on life and give up trying. And so it's like, if you're scared of losing or you're scared of failing, or you're scared of meeting your highest ambitions, oh, well, you could just adopt Christianity, be super humble, and you can turn your failure into a success. And of course, that's like the whole. Okay, well, that's the whole Nietzschean just to finish my thought real quick. That's very Nietzsche, you know, you can't finish your thought. I was just going to say another way to think about that is that, you know, humility, it's not necessarily a kind of strategy for people to not achieve what they really want in life. A lot of celebrities use humility to push themselves even more, you know, they have to portray a very kind of humble persona to ultimately get what they want. So and I'm not accusing them of necessarily even being fake. I think they just do that. And they find it to be a winning strategy for their careers. I mean, it's easy to be humble if you've got loads of money. Like, I could do that easily. I could, if I was a millionaire right now, and somebody told me, you just need to be humble. Yeah, of course, I'll be humble. Yeah, well, look, maybe the answer is I don't know. I don't know. Go ahead. That was just another way of thinking about it, but a cynical way of thinking about it. Luke. Yeah, hi, Justin. Luke Ford. I was just curious, what role, does Christianity play in your life practically? Well, I go to church every Sunday, and I would say that it just like in my own life, it like I have found that like the farther I've gone into it, the more like healthy it has made my mind and the better person it has made me like in my personal case, like I just I feel that. So for me, I'm just like continuing to kind of bet on it because it's it feels true to me. And how is your life different? Like, how do you behave differently? I assume perhaps a little more inner peace or talk to me more about how it practically demonstrates itself. I'd love to know. Yeah, sure. I mean, it's kind of what I was saying before is Elizabeth. Like, I spent most of my young adult life like really wanting to be like rich and famous and shit like that. And I mean, not I wouldn't have never said that exactly. But in retrospect, I can be I sense see that like vain, really vain childish motivations were like dominant in my psyche. And to some degree still are. And I'm but now I'm starting to find it. I'm starting to find it actually ugly, like I'm actually repulsed by myself sometimes in a real way. Have you been to a therapist? And do you still have a therapist? Hell no, I don't go to therapist. So do you do because you're talking about your psyche and things that are probably subconscious and these these manners of these behaviors that that were in you when you were younger and these worldviews. But now you change whatever the fact that you've not changed, but you're aware of these things now. So a lot of people, they have to go through therapy to bring those things to the surface. But you can you kind of manage to do therapy for yourself. Is that fair to say? Well, I don't know. I don't know if I give myself so much credit for that. I don't know. I mean, I think therapy is kind of you're introspective enough. You know, I know, yeah, therapy is fake, whatever. But what I'm saying is okay, we don't have to call it therapy. We can just call it introspection. So do you think that you have the power of introspection? You don't need somebody else to help you get there? Well, I guess maybe. But I think God has helped me actually. Like, I mean, I don't know exactly what that means. But I do have a sense that something like that is true because I don't think you can do the I don't think you really do these things for yourself. I think that's kind of like egotistical to say, like, oh, I've like worked on myself in my own head on myself by myself. Like, I actually don't think that that really happens very often. Like, usually, you know, we do sometimes get help. We get help from like forces that we don't fully understand. And I don't like to kind of like speak about that more confidently than makes sense. You know, but it sure seems like something like that, you know, can happen. And I'm going to I'm going to let Luke Ford ask you a few questions. And I'm just going to use myself. So you are the interviewer for the next three, three, four minutes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. Justin, did you have a conversion experience? Or was there something that made Christianity real to you? No, I never really had some like big epic moment. Honestly, I was raised Catholic. And then I kind of like left it after I was confirmed, like many people guess for like, you know, from like 15 years old to 25 years old, probably. And then around when I was around 25, I started kind of drifting back to it. And it's just been kind of steadily increasing since I was about like 25 and 37 now. So it's like, at this point, you know, I'm starting to feel like it's just like more clear to me and more I feel more strongly about it. Now, I think most people should be able to get their primary meaning from their family. But then there are people who are addicted to thinking and theorizing. Perhaps like yourself, certainly I feel that the same way. So I cannot just be content with just, you know, family friends, I need to be with intellectuals or I need to be engaging with ideas. Where do you primarily get your sense of meaning? Is it primarily from family? Or is it primarily from the pursuit of truth? Well, that's an interesting question, because, you know, I do get a lot of meaning for my family, for sure. I would say it's like the, you know, the basic source of everyday life's, you know, meaning and purpose in a way. But if you look at like my life overall, my entire, like my entire kind of drive and force for my entire adult life has been like the pursuit of ideas. And I've given, I've given all of my adult life to, to study and to writing and publishing research in one way or another. That's all I've ever done. That's all I've ever been focused on. But that's a really interesting dimension to analyze in this context. Because, like, this is one of the big epiphanies I've had in recent years, is that, like, you can pursue, you can love ideas and books and writing and speaking and publishing and these like very bookish intellectual things. And your motivation at the, at the bottom of all of it can be nothing more than, you know, money, power and status. And when I look back on myself, I have to be, like really honest, like the overriding motivation for my life has been to like, you know, gain education and, you know, a command of ideas because of the power that it represents. It's been, it's been a pursuit of power. Like, I come from a working class family. So I knew that I always like needed to get a real job that paid, paid real money. Like I have no safety net. I knew from the time I was like 15 years old, like, holy fuck, I got to fucking figure something out where I can actually have real status and money and power because I don't want to be a fucking loser and like fall back to this, like, white trash family that I like am and will always be like that's part of me. But I didn't want to fall back to that. So are you close with your, sorry, sorry to, yeah, I know I'm kind of laughing. Yeah. No, I'm not, I'm not sorry to intervene when it comes to you. I mean, Luke, because I was giving him the interviewer sort of role here. But I have a question about the white trash family. So when Luke asked you, are you, you know, do you find joy in, you know, being with your family? I think you were answering with your current family in mind, like your wife and your child, right? Or did, were you thinking about your parents? Well, yeah, I guess I was thinking about my wife and my child. I love my parents and I have a good family, but yeah. So do you think that your parents are white trash though? I would say that I'm white trash. I would say that I, that's who I am. That's what I come from. That's what, yeah, sure. I don't mean it in a bad way, but it is what it is. No, I know, but you're saying sure, but then you're kind of correcting yourself. Well, because it does, it does down a little. You are white trash, but not your parents. I'm qualifying because it sounds a little harsh. So that's why I'm qualifying, but yes. Yeah, but which one is it? If you, if you had to answer in a brute sort of way, which one is it? You are white trash or your parents are white trash? Why would that be either or? Both can be true. Yeah, that's fine. That's all I wanted to know. Luke, carry on. Yeah, thank you. Justin, I would contend that you cannot be normal because you get so much joy out of abstract thought that any experiences you have with normality will be fleeting. What do you think? Maybe, but I don't know. In a way, this is like why I like this challenge. I mean, it's like a challenge. I feel like being normal is good. Like I think, I don't know. I mean, okay, so you're kind of setting up this, I premise that like, you know, if you're into ideas and you read books and you're smart, you're like kind of special and above all the normies, but I actually, I'm not sure that I think that anymore. Like, you know, like I said, the overwhelming majority of people who study great books and think high flu and ideas are the majority, not all, but the majority of them are doing it for very pedestrian, generic, vain, and therefore ultimately, quite mundane and quotidian purposes and motivations. In other words, for a lot of people, the world of having fancy ideas is literally just another job in the commercial marketplace. And it's actually very generic and it's actually no better or more impressive than someone who works like in any kind of marketplace. And so, I don't know. I'm just in a state right now where I'm feeling like to just I have not. I feel like I've encountered this work somewhere. I think I've encountered it before, but I can't say I'm familiar. So one thing I often say on my show is that one should get one's meaning in life from one's family, extended family, and community. And yet there is this tiny percentage of the population that is so ecstatic from abstract thinking and by no means that I place them above anyone else. It's just a quirk of personality. So I've been talking on my show that you should get a sense of morality and meaning and purpose in life from family and extended family. But then when I talk to people, they come back at me and say, look, when I'm talking to my family and extended family, after an hour or two, I just go crazy and I want to get back to books. And I thought, oh, yeah, I'm kind of the same way. I need to spend time with books every day. I can't meet my normal needs the normal way. I need abstract ideas and the pursuit of abstract truth. And so it's not a thing that by any means I think puts us above anyone else. I just think it's facing the reality of our nature that we cannot be normal due to a quirk in our physiology. I think that's totally fair and correct for many people and totally fine, by the way. I think that's absolutely fine. I'm just adding a little bit of a wrinkle that maybe some people don't like to talk about, which is just that in many cases that desire for the books is a kind of disavowal. It can be a kind of selfish disavowal and a kind of vanity relative to the family. And I'm just admitting, I'm not judging anyone else. I'm admitting to that dynamic being in my own psyche. I am White Trash. It's like who I am. I come from a certain family. And I spent my entire- Are you like Mike Sernovich? You're closer to Mike Sernovich than a Curtis Yavin then? I don't know Mike Sernovich well, but I can speak for myself and just saying that for me, pursuing books and being all fancy and erudite and highly educated and having highfalutin ideas was, for me, it was like my ticket to get away from my poor family and to show the world that I was better than my poor family. And so I'm now starting to realize that actually there's something messed up there and I have to rectify some of that because that's actually not good. We are driven by delusions, delusions of grandeur. We're all the central character, the hero in our own story. So those delusions that you're talking about, everyone's got them. They're just different for some people. I don't think they'll be on stage, you know, as a rock star or the delusion that they'll be, you know, this fantastic mother. I mean, aren't we all driven by delusions, Justin? I mean, aren't you completely normal in that sense that we're all driven by delusions? Yeah, maybe that's the case. And within a certain constraint, yeah, there's nothing wrong with having, you know, delusional dreams or aspirations, but I don't know. I don't want to sound like I'm special or anything like that, but I feel like personally in my case, I have always really, truly wanted like the truth, like I want to be real with myself and other people. And I don't, you know, there's nothing wrong with having, you know, great aspirations. But I don't know. I try to like seek, you know, I don't know. I don't want to cling to fantasies that are vain and childish any longer than I need to. I think in your youth, you know, certain delusions of grandeur can be mobilizing and energizing. But as you get older, if you cling to them, it can be a really ugly look. Well, but aren't there adaptive delusions and maladaptive delusions? Sure. Yeah, that's true. How do you deal with the brutal reality that intellectual labor almost never pays for itself, that it has to be subsidized? How do you deal with that? Well, I mean, not to toot my own horn, but that's one thing I've actually figured out pretty well, and I'm pretty proud of. Like, I've actually built a little business where, you know, I make a decent income. And I do primarily intellectual labor. I still have to hustle a lot. And I still have to like run a business and do all the logistics and stuff required of that, which is not trivial. But, you know, I am essentially reading and writing and teaching full time, independently outside of institutions. And I'm not rich by any means, but, you know, make like, you know, more than, you know, within six figures, let's say, low six figures. Like I'm not rich by any means. But I mean, I live in a nice big city and I have a small family and I'm paying the bills. So, yeah, I think the future of this stuff is very bright and it's still very early. But how do you balance between making a living and actually pursuing truth? Because the type of content that people want is usually BS. For example, if you were to do a show on the case for aliens, or, you know, why vaccines are bad or why the earth is flat, you'll get an enormous audience. But if you actually pursue the truth and say, you know, the evidence is overwhelming that we have no evidence of aliens, you'll get a very small audience. So how do you balance the pursuit of an audience and an income with a pursuit of truth that has integrity? Well, what I have found is that you, I think, can actually get away with if you just speak the truth and you just work humbly on what is real to the best of your ability, you can actually build enough of an audience around simply that. And if you monetize it correctly, and you can build a business around that, that is, you know, what I believe I've done for myself. I mean, maybe sometimes I, you know, can get a little carried away with, you know, provoking people or whatever to have a viral tweet here or there or whatever. I have a pension for that, I understand. But I haven't, my business model is not built on that. Like I've, I've, I'm not that famous at all. Like I'm quite small, I'm quite, I have quite a modest humble operation. And I'm not like really a member of any tribe. I'm not like, you know, throwing red meat to any particular community on a daily basis. You know, and like, I figured it out. So I think if I could figure out many others kind of as well. Yeah, but on the incentives overwhelmingly, you've got to provide something that the establishment and mainstream institutions do not provide. Therefore, your incentives, I would assume are overwhelmingly to be anti-establishment, to be critical of the, the New York times, the mainstream media, you know, the world of the academy, major institutions, because you have to continually provide an anti-establishment message because that's where your audience is. If you were to say that the establishment is usually right and that the mavericks are usually wrong, you would lose your audience. Is that fair? No, I understand perfectly what you're talking about. I mean, trust me, I thought about this every, every way to Sunday for the past many years. Like I definitely take your point and your right to a degree. But what I'm saying is you can simply choose to not go too far off those deep ends. And you, you can just actually cultivate a balanced, genuine, truth seeking orientation, not throw red meat in those directions that you're alluding to. And you're just not going to be as big as you would be otherwise. But you can choose to be, you know, just big enough to pay the bills. And like that's kind of how I see my own position. Like I could lean more into the culture of wars. I could be like one of these like certain types of characters and optimize for more viral stuff. But like honest, the truth is like, I probably would if I could, but I don't have it in me. Like I just, it's not who I am. I've never really been able to like fake it effectively hardcore for long enough. So like, you can just- Can I ask you a question regarding some- Sure. So this is regarding some celebrity sort of intellectuals or people who are in that kind of circuit that you are in. So were you hurt by when the Red Scare duo, they sort of mocked you a little bit in one of their podcasts? Oh yeah. Someone said that to me. No, no, I wasn't hurt at all. And of course not. I mean, it's like a comedy podcast. It's fine. But how do you balance the need for connections with say, powerful people who can advance your career and your income with your desire to tell the truth? So generally speaking, people who do what you do are really good at networking, but that comes at the price of saying the truth. How do you balance those? Well, that's what I'm getting at. I've never been good at networking. I've never cared for it. And I'm not, and I'm not good at it. So I don't, like I have very few, I have almost no powerful relationships like for whatever reason. And I make it, I make it, you know, like I'm making it. So it's really just not about that. I mean, I have some, I have some like collaborator, collaborator relationships and some friendships for sure. But I have like, I've gained nothing from any more powerful person, pretty much ever. Like obviously some people like, you know, Did you not gain anything from Curtis Yavin? Because you hosted an event with him. Yeah, I've never received. And he was so underwhelming. You were excellent in that, in that. Thank you. I've never, but he was so underwhelming. I know this is like such a popular thing people love to talk about. But like, I've never received anything from anyone. Like I have people who pay for my products and courses. And I have some paying subscribers. And like, yeah, some, some of a small number of the people who follow me, like our famous or like whatever. But I don't receive like any, like, I've never received any big grant from Peter Teal. I've never received anything from anyone. Like, and that's one of the reasons why I have such a chip on my, why I have such a chip on my shoulder. Like I'm a fucking self made man. Like you can call me whatever the fuck you want. And people can make fun of me about whatever the fuck they want. But like, I've never received a fucking like anything from anyone. Every single thing I have in my life, I've built it and I've worked for it and people pay me for the value that I give them for something. And yeah, so I'm, you know, I'm not, I'm not perfect, but I'm a free man and I have no dependencies. And yeah, that's, that's all. Who's your favorite podcast guest? The other life podcast? Yeah, who's your who's your who's been your favorite guest thus far? Um, Nick Land is the goat, I think. He's the goat. Okay. Luke, do you want to carry on? Yeah. Have you experienced audience capture and could you describe what that's like? No, I mean, I'm not that, again, I'm not that big. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not big enough to be captured by my audience. Like I'm a middling, like barely scraping by small business owner who has like, you know, a very hum, like moderate allowing on like three platforms. I've never got big on any one platform. I'm not, you know, so it's like, um, and I don't even, like, and my audience that I have, it's not like it was built on some like, particularly tribal thing. Like I could not be audience captured because I frankly, I don't even know what the fuck my audience like wants from me or thinks about me. Like I'm so, I've been so eclectic and kind of, I'm so like bad at the, this like game of like giving your audience what it wants. I'm so bad at that. I don't even know what they want. People follow me for a bunch of different reasons. Well, because you, you treat your project like it's, it's an independence project for you. It's, it's you being you. So. And you know what? Thank you for asking yourself, if you can keep asking yourself the question, well, what do the people who are listening or what do my audience think, then you won't be able to actually produce the content that you do. It's a bad question for you to ask that too. But I appreciate that Elizabeth. Then I like, you know, I think that's, I think that's absolutely right. Like I'm not saying I'm better than anyone at all. In fact, in many ways, I'm worse than people because like I said, I'm like, I'm not super successful, like as a quote unquote creator or like an influencer, whatever the fuck you want to call me in this game. Insofar as this is like a legible industrialized, like commercial game. I'm not heller at all. I'm not like winning that game. I'm like barely scraping by, but as Elizabeth said, like I'm doing, I like to think I'm doing something very different. For me, this is about all I've ever been optimizing is for like my own freedom and, you know, leisure and, and like I'm winning just enough to pay the bills, basically. And I'm, I'm happy with that. Have you experienced the, the e-personality? Have you experienced a different self as you've, you know, emerged online and had, you know, you're more than your share of success? I experienced like, has my personality changed or what do you mean? Have you experienced the e-personality? You go online, you're a different person. Everyone is more spontaneous. When they go online, they will share darker things and they would share face to face. You inevitably get a sense that you're more knowledgeable and wiser and I mean, all sorts of things happen to people and they go online and create an internet identity. Before Justin answers that, I think it would be just interesting for me to offer my analysis here. I've noticed that Justin is very different when he sort of comes into spaces or his kind of online personality, but his, his writing voice is different to his, to his speaking voice and his tweeting voice, if that makes sense. So even though the writing is still an extension of his e-personality, I think that it's even segmented within that e-personality. So I don't know if that helps or but Justin, go ahead. Yeah, maybe. I mean, the short answer to your question is, yeah, like I'm not, I'm not better than, than anyone on that. I do think the e-personality phenomenon is, is real. In my case, like when I left academia four years ago, I basically had this mission of like, okay, I need to figure out how to like get just big enough to like build a big enough audience that I can like pay the bills by doing courses and teaching, you know, the stuff that I study and all that. So like when I left academia, I was pretty like honest, I think with myself and other people, like I was kind of just like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what would stick and what would, you know, I've tried on, I fuck around, like I just say whatever I want. And I like tried on many different voices in the past. I've tried on many different formats and content and different platforms. And like I just spent the past four years basically playing jazz and throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what would work to see, to try to find my place, to try to find my voice in a way that would like win on the internet, at least just enough to like, you know, build a viable business operation. But now after doing that for like four years, the mood that I'm in now that I guess we're talking about is kind of the subtext of the conversation tonight is like, I'm looking back on those four years and I'm just like, yeah, a ton of it, like was totally faked and confused and idiotic because I was just like experimenting, trying to find my way. And I was still young and I still had this like, very kind of like, vein, piss and vinegar that I was fueled by and that's fine for what it was. But like, I don't want to run on that forever. And at a certain point, you have to kind of like accept who you are and decide who you want to be and let the chips fall in there. Yeah, so wouldn't the most normal thing for you to do now, wouldn't be to return to academia? No, that bridge is totally gone. I mean, and I would never count this idea. Justin, you said you went online and said anything you wanted, but there's no way that's true because 99 people out of 100 who did that would absolutely destroy their lives, destroy their relationships, they'd be isolated, broke, it would wreck them. So you must have internalized a great deal of discipline that for you going online and saying what you want, I think you're phrasing something that can no way be true because anyone who does that is going to absolutely destroy their lives. So how did you go online, express yourself with great freedom and yet keep yourself from destroying yourself and the people who are most precious to you? Oh, and what's an example of this free expression that you are talking about? What's an example of utilizing a kind of extreme version of free speech? Well, look, I'm not like, you know, claiming I'm fancier or anything. Like, I mean, you can call me whatever you want that. You're offering this disclaimer that, oh no, I'm not a show-off, I'm very humble, and I'm not better than everybody else. We don't need to hear the disclaimer, just answer directly. Well, no, but yeah, it's not a disclaimer. It's more clarifying that, you know, you can call this stuff whatever you want. Like, I'm not invested in a particular description, but I would say that like, I have like for the past like five or six years, I've kind of like correct. Well, no, what am I saying? Like for my entire adult life, since I was like 18, I've kind of just practiced like what in my own mind I saw as a kind of like anarchistic, cultural, you know, philosophy, like where I mean, I have in fact generally tried to say things in public that most people are not comfortable saying with a certain kind of recklessness. Well, I mean, the reason why I almost got kicked out of academia is because I would like use foul language, even though I was like a professor. So like, that's just, again, I'm not saying it's impressive, but it's just it's an example. Like most professors do not, most professors were not using the word retard casually in like 2016. That was like incredibly uncommon. And that's like what Luke's saying in 2016, if you're a professor and using the word retard on Twitter, that's like incredibly reckless, like damaging to your family and networks and stuff. So that was like part of the question. Has this other life, has this other life platform than actually being a kind of reputation management exercise for you? I don't know. I don't know. You'd have to, you'd have to make that, you'd have to say more. I don't, I don't know. I mean, all I've all I've ever really been guided by is this concept of Peresia. There's this, you know, kind of tradition goes back to Diogenes. Jesus Christ was a representative of it, but also Rousseau and, you know, in a way people like Nietzsche were all kind of in this sub-training tradition known as Peresia, where like, you know, every, in all times and places you need some people who basically just try to say what seems to be real, but in a way that's like a little bit more provocative than is allowed. And they have to get punished for it and they have to like pay the price. And I'm not saying, again, I'm not saying that I'm some sort of like, you know, oppressed genius or something like that. Nothing, nothing so, so fancy. It's actually a humble, it's a fairly humble tradition. But that's how I believe it's like, how did you avoid blowing up your life? Everybody hates people like every normal person has negative feelings about all sorts of groups. And if they express those feelings publicly, it would destroy them and would hurt their family and friends and community. How did you avoid saying the things that will destroy you online? You said you spoke very freely, but even Justin Murphy experiences hatred of groups. How did you avoid expressing hatred of groups online? Well, I guess I don't really hate groups. So maybe that's why I didn't hate expressive. I don't, I don't really feel hatred for, for like particular groups. Maybe that's, I'm just lucky in that regard. I don't know. But I mean, a more positive answer to your question is that like, you could, if you just lean into it hard enough, you can build a brand around it. And that's kind of what I did, I think over the past like few years is like, you know, I, I realized that I was like, I have this tendency to say stuff that gets me in trouble. So I just decided to lean into that and like bet my whole life and career on it. Like that's what I did. And most people aren't willing to make that gamble, I think. And that's, that's why it doesn't work. So it's like, this kind of thing only works if you're really willing to go all in on it. And I, to my credit, I did do that. Well, what about group differences? It's like the most obvious truth in the world that you can't say publicly that say, for example, the gifts of Ashkenazi Jews are not identical to the gifts of people in West Africa. And you can say it publicly. You can say it publicly. Like you, you can. I have no problem saying that. And many people have no problem saying that nowadays. Like back in, back, you know, back when I left academia, it was like much more spicy to say that now it's now it's much less spicy to say that. So my point is like, sure, there are all these like truth statements that are generally prohibited. And if you say them, you will get fired and you will, you know, be seen as a pariah in certain circles. But what I'm telling you, I mean, to answer your question is that there is this other pathway, which is reproducible. And it does work. It is demonstrably an option. And it is demonstrable throughout history. It's not easy, though. It's, it's hard and it's difficult. Not most, most people do not have the heart for it. But there is this option, which is you just choose to say whatever you want. And if you're willing to go all in on it, you can get away with it and you can build a brand or add it and you can make that your life. Here's one example of how I've seen people self-destruct, including professors online. They go online, they get a taste for giving their opinions. And soon they're starting to make proclamations about books and articles that they haven't even read because they've become so confident of their own wisdom and clarity. I assume you've avoided that pitfall. And if so, how did you do it? Well, as I was saying before, in the past four years, like when I was like scrambling to, you know, build a business operation that could sustain a small family, like after leaving academia, I'm not above anything. Like I tried everything in the book. So I made every mistake there was. And I'm certainly guilty, I'm sure, of some, at some point of, you know, a fakingly projecting knowledge I didn't have or, you know, speaking confidently about something that was actually a little rushed. And, you know, maybe I didn't have, I didn't have the knowledge to back it up. I'm sure that in the past four years, I made every mistake in the book for the reasons that I was going over. You know, like it's been very chaotic few years and I've had to really, you know, scramble and hustle hard and try a lot of things. So that's one answer is that like, I'm probably, I've been guilty of that at times as well, I'm probably no better than anyone. But I do like to think that now I'm, you know, taking stock and as a big stock, like that's the kind of shit that, you know, I think the way you avoid doing that is by like being reflective and, you know, making sure that you're not like, you have to just choose, like you would rather be an honest, high integrity person who's like, aligned with God, you would rather that than like have more followers or have more money. Like that is, and that is why Christianity is so real to me is because what it really comes down to is like, everyone has to choose, do you want to optimize for money and power here on earth? Or do you want to optimize for being a deeply, genuinely true person? Like you really do have to choose. And at the end of the day, there are no excuses. There are no life hacks. There are no lessons. There are no, you know, tips and tricks about how to balance this and that and how to, how to make a million dollars, but also be a perfectly true person. Like it really just comes down to the choice of like, which do you value more? You have to choose. Do you love God or do you love money? You cannot avoid that choice. That's like one of the most radical things that I've taken from kind of the Christian philosophy that I just increasingly see as, as absolutely profound and correct and unavoidable. And, you know, because I come from a working class family, like a lot of my life, my most of my adult life, I have actually been obsessed with money and power. And I justified that because I was like running away from something, which it's like legitimate to run away from. But now like, I have a little bit of money. I have a decent audience. I'm not famous fucking at all. I'm like, still very small in like, all ways. But I have a little bit of money. I have a little bit of an audience. I have just enough to like pay the bills. And, you know, I'm 37 years old. So now is the time that I have to choose being truly, truly good and correct and truthful in all things. And the money will just have to figure itself out. Okay, well, can I try and answer? Wait, wait, wait. Can I try and answer Luke Ford's question? How have you managed to balance being very out there and saying what you want with not really getting into trouble? And obviously, you got into trouble in the beginning when, you know, when you were an academic at a UK university. But after that, you've just been kind of flourishing. So I think the reason really is that you do have pretty privilege. You are handsome. If you were ugly, then no one would care about your free speech takes. Well, that's very kind of you, but I haven't updated my picture in a while. I've aged a bit. I should probably, my profile picture is not old. I don't care that somebody has to look like a flipping Greek god or something and look 20 years old for the rest of their life. But, you know, you have a good phase, you're handsome. If you, if you went to the gym every day and you got really sort of bulky, you, you would look so hot. I genuinely think this. Well, thank you. That's very kind. But my point is just that, you know, looks don't stay either, right? Like you can't bank on that either because those decay, right? So that I appreciate it's very kind of you, but it's just not something that you can build your lifestyle on. Like you can't trust that for very long, you know, I'm not saying that you should build your lifestyle on it. It's something that's obviously not obvious to you, but it's obvious to me that your looks have played a role in your, in your, in your ability to say what you want and get away with it. I don't know. I mean, in general, in general, sure, the better you look, the more you can get away to things like that. There's truth to that for sure. And plus, and it's not just about being good looking. It's also, you've got a quite a nice kind face. So if you, if you looked very sort of intimidating, or if you look like, you know, you're not approachable, or if you just look like a bit of a rat with like wonky features and stuff like that, then no one would take you seriously and people, people wouldn't then trust you. I mean, you've admitted to taking drugs in this, in this space, and you probably admitted it many times in other sort of, on other platforms as well. But like the fact that you can even get away with taking drugs is because you look like a nice person. Well, thank you. But I drug your normal. Justin, one more question that come in way that people self-destruct online is to get into feuds. So have you had to battle with yourself to avoid getting into feuds? Have you found yourself falling into feuds? How have you handled the whole feuding thing? Again, I've made every mistake in the book. And in the past four or five years, I feel like, you know, I've just been, I've always been like a pretty crazy guy. I just kind of say whatever I want. And like, that's, that's another, like, that's another example. Like, I have had feuds, actually, I've had, I've had actual feuds. Like, I threaten no Smith. I will, I challenge no Smith to a boxing match a few weeks ago, like in all seriousness. And it's like, yeah. So you are also influenced by Andrew Tate. Is that what's going on? Well, yeah, God knows we're all influenced by who knows what, right? And that's kind of what, but that's what I'm getting at. It's always obscure with you. You just have, you never answer explicitly. Are you, are you not feeling a bit influenced by Andrew Tate? I don't, I don't think that I am. If, no, if anything, I think I honestly, if I'm influenced by Andrew Tate, it's, I look at someone like Andrew Tate. And I realize. This is amazing. Justin is, is threatening people with boxing matches. And, and yet he is still oblivious to the fact that, you know, it's probably Andrew Tate who's influenced me to do this. I mean, this is, Andrew Tate is there for a genius sort of market here. If you think about it, because all the people following him now. Well, I have no problem. Yeah, I'm absolutely no problem. Even Elon Musk is now influenced by him. And the influence is that what I'll give you that for sure. He's a sensation without a doubt. But I, I know, I mean, in my case, like if anything, if he's like, I am not made for that game. Like I'm just not made for that game. And that's like, you know, I'm trying, I'm now trying as I age, I'm trying to find my place because you're saying that you are from a, you're saying that you are from a sort of working class background. And so, you know, now is the time for you to adopt this Tatean manner of thinking to, to work out, to, to be this alpha male sort of character. Do you know what it is? Look, look, characters and things like that can be fluid, right? Like we can be different people at different points in our, in our lifetime. However, in general, I do feel that you fit more of the character profile of, you know, somebody who's who is a bit of an anti-intellectual. And yet you've, you've taken on this more intellectual persona. You've, you've, this is your cover now. Like you have to now always behave this way, even though at, at your core, you're more of a sort of alpha male. I feel this, and you've kind of admitted to this. And you even said that you used academia and learning about philosophy and things like that as a kind of ticket to, to wealth because, you know, otherwise you would have been stuck in, in, in, in your kind of parents town, suburb or whatever. And this has been your ticket out of it. But now, now that you've made money, maybe you could return to your roots. That's kind of what's going on here. Yeah. I think that's perceptive. I appreciate that. In fact, you should have a look at my cover photo on Twitter, this, this particular account, Gazelle Spaces. It's a TS Eliot quote, which is that, we shall not cease from exploration and at the end of all our exploring, we will arrive to where we started and know the place for the very first time. Yeah. And you know what? It's a circle, a full circle. I think that's great. And, you know, something I want to say to Luke while he's here, and there's like a bunch of people online right now who I am starting to admire more who I find them online where like people who don't have a massive audience, they're not that famous, they're not that big, but they're doing really meaningful work and they're doing it consistently and doing it over, over a long span of time. And they have an engaged audience. And in some cases, they have a small, you know, business operation around it that makes a decent amount of money. But like when I come upon people who are just doing really meaningful, authentic work, and they're doing decently well with the numbers and the metrics and the money and stuff like that, but they're not famous. I've never heard of them. And they're not really on track to be like favorite. They're famous. Now, when I, I noticed that more and I admire it more. And for the past few years, I probably will kind of like, you know, a bit, I don't know, like corny and aspirational in my thinking and my mental models, like wanting to be big and wanting to make more money, all that kind of stuff. And now I like actually see that people who are just doing like really honest, interesting original work and are not like chasing all that just seem like genuinely more admirable. I've got a question for you. Someone's DMed me a question, which is that how do you see yourself in the sort of QAnon sphere? Is there a crossover? No, I don't think so. Is that is that even like a still inactive like subculture? I'm not sure, but I got this question and he'd like you to sort of answer it. I mean, I thought it was pretty fascinating. I thought it was fascinating. Like I thought it was pretty fascinating and powerful. And I do like I do kind of I'm attracted to the like mass. What I liked about QAnon was that it was, you know, whatever one might say about it, it was essentially like a knowledge project. It was a decentralized like knowledge puzzle machine. And that's what I think was kind of underrated about it. It was like a it was a group search process. It was a group intelligence process led by these drops that kind of guided the hive mind to go find things and then report back and synthesize it. And it was a pretty interesting and compelling example of what that can look like in a really wild decentralized way. So I did admire that about QAnon. And, you know, I'm kind of inspired by that element of it. Okay. Yeah, I just got a question. To what extent, as someone who's producing content on a regular basis, do you feel like you're monetizing your soul? And if that resonates with you at all, what is that experience like? How do you maneuver with it? Yeah, no, I don't know. I don't have the experience of someone monetizing their soul. That's not my experience. And if anything, you know, for me, it's more like over the past few years, like what I feel like the theme of tonight's discussion, like this tweet that's pinned at the top of it or whatever that I wrote today is like, in the past few years, I am, I do think like I am kind of currently going through a transition or a turning point where I do look back on my kind of experiments over the past few years. And I do realize that like I was a little too wrapped up in things and I was allowing my soul to be a little too much a function of, you know, the media and the internet game and the metrics and all of that. I did kind of like outsource a little bit too much of my soul. I was insufficiently grounded and attentive to the matters, to the true matters of the soul. I was inattentive to those things and I was obsessed with, you know, the internet game and the metrics and the business systems and stuff like that. Were you in particular very fixated on free speech in academia? Was that your sort of baby, if you want to call it that? Like as a theme or a topic? Yeah, yeah. Because maybe you connect into academia and you call yourself a free speech absolutist. And you, the other life, what that really means is that you are trying to be a sort of intellectual or an academic minded person without the university, without, you know, institutional backing. So are you fixated with free speech in academia? Would you say yes or no? Well, it's a perfectly reasonable question. I think in my case, to be frank, I never actually had a problem with that because I think I was always very sensitive to that being like a very likely failure mode. And in fact, you know, when I first left academia and it was like in the news and stuff like that, it was like controversies and stuff, I had a very obvious opportunity to play that up. This is like the same time as like the Brett Weinstein stuff was kicking off. It was around the same time as me when Brett Weinstein first got famous. It was a very similar time, very close in time to when I was having my like dust-ups with academia. So there was a very clear playbook on the table that I could have opted into if I wanted to. And I chose, you know, very explicitly in my mind, and I don't want to do that. Like, I, you know, I could have made my cross-selep. Do you think, yeah, do you think the clamping down of free speech in academia exaggerated? Well, I think it just doesn't matter anymore now because all the intellectual talent is just going to exit and already is, and it's just going to continue, I think. So it's just a, it's a moot point now. So some good advice that I had for people who speak on podcasts and live streams is you should always think of five people when you speak publicly. Think of your mother, think of your biggest enemy, think of your best friend, think of your, think of a lawyer and think of your boss. Are there certain people that you keep in mind when you're speaking publicly, Justin? Oh, that's an interesting question. I strongly disagree with what you just said. That's way too many people. Who can, who on earth can be accountable to all of those different individuals? If you, if you ran all of your public statements through that tribunal of six different people, not only would it take forever, but you would always find someone who could, among those six people who would veto anything you could say. I would say it's much simpler and more efficient and more radical to only, only review your thoughts from the perspective of one, one entity and that's God and that's kind of the genius of God in my opinion is, you know, if I type out a tweet or I type out an essay and it feels a little spicy or it feels a little, you know, some people might not like this or whatever. I just think to myself, you know, would God approve for it? Or another, another way to like phrase that though, and it's saying the same exact thing is just simply to ask yourself, is this really true? Do I really believe that this statement in this way to, in describing it this exact way, do I believe that this is really true? I think as long, that's all you have to ask yourself. And if you really ask yourself that and you answer it, you answer honestly, it's the same exact thing as holding yourself to what God would think and everything else, you know, follows from there. You don't have to think about all those different people in my view. And how do you balance the desire to tell the truth with your desire to have friends, to have community, to have a prosperous and pleasant life? I don't know. Luke, I think a lot of your questions kind of feel to me like you have this kind of mental model where, you know, like, if you're speaking the truth, it's going to be constantly making you a pariah among all these other people. But I think that's not necessarily true. I think if you have this kind of mental model, like this earlier today, actually, like I tweeted, like, you should never think of yourself as a dissident. Because as soon as you start thinking of yourself as a dissident, then you start convincing yourself that the things you think are good and true are in fact, like, secretly bad, you know, and you have these anxieties and you have these like, you know, insecurities. I'm not saying anything critical about you, Luke, but I'm saying in general, like, this is a bad mental phenomena that I think is very common and that I've tried very hard to avoid. And again, you know, I'm not perfect at many things. But this is maybe one thing I feel I have been is actually bad or or or or like, I'm so I'm so like out of touch, I'd like I've sailed so far from like the institutional center that I literally don't even know what is normal anymore. Like, I don't know what is good to think I don't know what's wrong thing and what's good thing I don't know what's allowed anymore. All I know is like, I just only say what what I think is real. And I don't know maybe I do you think Elon Musk is is has a coherent world view? Oh, I think it's coherent enough. I mean, I don't think he's pretty. I admire that. But I don't know very philosophically sophisticated guy. I admire him, but he's evidently not very right. But how do you have a friend? Have you lost a friend from things you've said publicly and didn't that sting? And I mean, you act like this is nothing you just tell the truth if you're good with God. But surely you've had the experience of losing friends and surely that was very painful. Well, sometimes you have an experience where you think you're losing a friend, but the truth is you never lose a real friend. You only lose fake friends. And most people have a lot of fake friends. I mean, I've written about this also like, you know, an adult man really does not need more than like two or three real friends. You know, everyone today convinces themselves that they have like 10 friends, 20 friends, 30 friends, 40 friends. Most of those people in almost every case would drop you like a fly if it was even slightly inconvenient for them. And sure, I've had many situations in my life where people that I thought were friends like, you know, were, you know, clutching their pearls at something that I said and, you know, they kind of disavowed me or whatever. I've had that many times, but I take, I believe very genuinely that like those just were never friends. And maybe that's a little sad to learn that someone you thought was a friend never in fact was. But once you realize that then you didn't really lose anything. And I've always had a few friends. And I think, you know, as an adult man, like, if you have two or three really good friends, consider yourself lucky. And that's all you should need. And, you know, let everyone else drop away. Who cares? But was your experience of losing friends as, as blithe and as painless as you just described? I mean, it sounds like- Oh, no, I've had many. Yeah, no, that's fair. I think your presentation, I mean, it's so painful to lose so painful. I agree. No, it is. No, I've had many very heartbreaking losses of friends. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I've had a few episodes where to this day, yeah, no, I think a little bit. I think about it sometimes and it's sad. And yeah, in some cases, I mean, it can drive some people to utter despair, you know. So I take that very seriously. I'm not being glib about that. But then again, you know, people have been burned at the stake for saying the truth, right? So losing a few friends in the real scheme of things, there are far worse things. And so I take your point. And it is, it can be heartbreaking for sure. But, you know, we got to keep things in perspective. Okay, how do you feel about Elon Musk's transhumanism? And how does that, how does that gel with your Christian faith? Well, I admire the man very much. And I generally think he's pretty cool, like, but I don't, I mean, he's not a philosopher. So you shouldn't judge him according to some like sophisticated. Okay, that was curious Gazelle there talking with independent thinker Justin Murphy. Great conversation. Didn't talk about David Brooks at all. I guess it turned into a decoding Justin Murphy episode. Bye bye.