Dave Smith (9:47)

Yeah, so there's almost like anything like with left wing schools of thought or right wing schools of thought. There's many different camps and different think. And so within the kind of broader theme of libertarianism, there was a lot of influence from people like Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell. Those were I think, some of the more mainstream figures. And then there's kind of like the Ron Paul brand of libertarianism, which is kind of distinct from that other camp where they're much more of an emphasis on foreign policy. All of them kind of fall into the radical minarchist points of view. And then there's Rothbardian anarcho capitalist. Then there's also like David Friedman, who's an anarcho capitalist, but from a completely different perspective than Murray Rothbard. I would probably be most, I'm most closely like with the Rothbard school, which is very similar to Ron Paul, but even maybe a little bit further in that, you know, the very little bit of government that Ron Paul might support.

Lex Fridman (10:47)

You've been a big fan of Ron Paul. Can you explain what you admire about him?

Dave Smith (10:51)

A big fan is an understatement. I think Ron Paul is like the greatest living American hero. I, I, I revere him on the level of, of the founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson or George Washington, number one. I mean all of the major issues that he, he was correct in his understanding of them, his diagnosis of what caused these problems and his solutions. And in hindsight there's just like a million different examples of where almost everybody today would agree, even though his ideas were very controversial at the time, be like, oh my God, if we had just listened to Ron Paul about that, we'd be so much better off. But I think there's something almost deeper than that about why so why Ron Paul inspires so much love from so many people is okay, so number one, the guy, he was a champion of these views for decades when there was no payoff for it at all, where he was just kind of alone in the woods being, you know, they used to call him Dr. No because, well, he was a medical doctor. And then he was, he would be the lone no vote in Congress, like all the time, like on, on the bills that the entire Congress, bipartisan agreement, everything is, and there's one vote against it, you know, and that he would be that guy. He clearly kept doing what he was doing simp simply because he believed it was right, not because there was any benefit for him. In fact, he dealt with a lot of headaches for the views that he had. And then he was just a genuine person of integrity. You know, he's the only congressman who I've ever heard this about. And like, DC Insiders, people on the Hill will say this, he was the only Congressman of my lifetime who the lobbyists simply stopped visiting. He was the only one who. They just stopped going to his office because they were just like, there's just no getting through to this guy. He was just not playing politics like that. And he was. You know, you imagine what it must have been like from, like, the lobbyist perspective when they first tried to go there, you know, and they'd be like, all right, listen, we really need you to, you know, vote yes on this or that. And he was like, the Constitution doesn't authorize us to do that. And they're like, what? Like, who. Who in this town even talks like that? You know? And so there was just. He's also just. I've. I've met him many times at this point, and he is just genuinely. He's like one of those guys who's just from, like, an older, better generation. Just. He's the sweetest guy, but he's like. But he's not a pushover. Like, he was a tough guy in. In his day, and he was an athlete, and he was in the Air Force and is married to the same woman for, I think, over 60 years at this point. Has, like, a big, beautiful family. He was a country doctor. He was a baby doctor who delivered thousands of babies. Like, he's just. It is. He's like this kind of classic American figure. And, you know, I just think, you know, at the risk of. Of falling into, like, hero worship or something like that, I do think he's. I think he's a genuinely great man, and I think great men are to be revered.

Lex Fridman (13:57)

Yeah. As you said, there's integrity there. Can you speak to the ideas that Ron Paul represents, like you said, some of the things he's been right about? Maybe. Can you speak about the economics, the Fed, and maybe war and being anti military intervention?

Dave Smith (14:10)

Well, I think it comes. It all came from kind of the same central thesis, which is that the highest political value ought to be liberty. And. And that, you know, the government, by its very nature, is an instrument of force and tyranny, and that therefore, the more government you have, the less liberty you have. I think he also was. He was way ahead of his time in. In, like, really calling out the corruption in D.C. and I think that's one of the things that's kind of that it's a common through line between the Federal Reserve and government spending and, of course, this crazy war industry that our country has there. So there's a lot of components to that. But essentially, Ron Paul was talking about draining the swamp way before it was like this dominant mass message. And I think Ron Paul in many ways laid down. He laid the groundwork in his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns for not. Not saying that he leads to Donald Trump, but he laid the groundwork for Donald Trump to be able to get up at the South Carolina Republican primary debate and look at Jeb Bush and say, your brother lied us into war. And you know what I mean? And. And to have the Republicans agree with him. You know, the. These were a lot of the same people who had voted for George W. Bush twice and supported the war and even mocked their liberal, you know, fellow countrymen for not being on board with it. And. And a lot of that was the work that Ron Paul did and people waking up to the. How. How messed up all these wars were. And I think that at least from there, there were a couple major things for me, okay, at the time. So I was like a. I was a young man when I first found Ron Paul. I was in 2007 was when I first saw him, and then started obsessively reading all of his books. And so I was young. I'm born in 83, so that maybe 23, 24 when I first met him. So I was a young guy. And at least for me at the time, there were like, kind of two categories in my, you know, naive mind, where, okay, there were, like, the liberals who supported big government at home but were skeptical about, you know, big government abroad, or they're skeptical about wars. And then there were the conservatives who said that they supported small government, limited government at home, but were always on the side of whatever the next war is. And at least for me, and I think for a lot of people of my generation, Ron Paul was the first guy who came along and said, like, no, I'm for limited government here and abroad. And it was kind of like a portal where you could, like, access a different perspective on the world. And then once you saw that, you were like, wait, that's actually what makes sense. It makes. It doesn't make sense to, like, what are. What is it exactly? That, like all the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and even, like, Milton Friedman and guys like that and Thomas Sowell and the. It's like, you want a constitutionally limited world empire like that's what you guys stand for. Because that doesn't, that doesn't fit together at all. And so why is it that we took, we were taking this as a given. And then of course, the more you, you look into it, you realize that like, okay, they're, those two things do make sense together. And then also that kind of like the, in the initial wave of like the original progressives, you know, look, people like Woodrow Wilson or fdr, these were people who were pushing big government at home and big government abroad. And that actually made much more sense as a cohesive worldview. And to oppose that would be the Ron Paul worldview. And then the other thing for me, and this was actually, this was my introduction to Ron Paul. And this too, to me was like kind of a portal in a way. It was, it was a way, at least in my naive, not fully functioned brain or fully developed brain at 24 years old or whatever. It was a way for me to kind of get like, like I tapped into something that was outside the empire. And I had, I had heard a lot. You know, I was already against George W. Bush and I didn't like the war. I could, I, I had already figured out, you know, I think this, I think this war in Iraq is bullshit. And I think that we were lied into it. And so I kind of got that. And then there were, there were liberals and, and left wingers who I knew. I grew up in New York City, so I was very familiar with the left wing perspective and who are critical of, of George W. Bush and, and for fighting the war and, and, you know, signing the Patriot act into law and things like that. But I had never really heard anybody break it down the way Ron Paul did when he was, when he basically was like, look, there's a reason why these terrorists hate us. And it's not what they're telling you. They don't hate us for our freedom. It's not as if I remember the way Pat Buchanan put it, which I always loved, was he goes, he said, dick Cheney makes it sound like Osama bin Laden stumbled on, like, in the deserts of Afghanistan. He stumbled on to a copy of our Bill of Rights somewhere. And he was like, my God, they're free to look at this speedy trial. Are you kidding me? Like, this is like, what is going on here? They can own guns and their women can wear mini skirts and that. And that just made people so angry that they were ready to, you know, like suicide bomb themselves. Like, that makes no sense at all. And then Ron Paul was just like, no, look, here's the thing. If we think we can just go around the world killing people, propping up dictatorships, putting our military bases in the, the Muslims holy land and not engender hatred from that, then we do that at our own peril. And I thought that was, it was such an interesting kind of, you know, it had always been, I'm an 80s and 90s kid and to me it was always kind of a given that like America's number one, we're the force for good in the world and we're. And it was like an interesting introduction to the idea that there are people outside of that who are dominated by that, who don't care for it very much. And like that that's what 911 was actually about. And for me, you know, I was living in New York city, I was 18, I think when 911 happened. And that was like the moment of my childhood. It was a huge thing to live through. I mean, we were attacked. This seemed like something that could only happen in a history book. That didn't happen to America in the 90s. 2001 was basically the 90s. And, and it was just like, oh, finally it clicked. It was like, that makes sense. Is the first time I had ever heard like an explanation and an understanding of this whole thing that we're involved in now from 911 to the terror wars, that actually just made perfect sense.

Lex Fridman (20:50)

Yeah. We should also say that there's some degree of truth, that the battle is not just militaristic, it's also cultural. And then many of those parts of the world don't want other people's values forced onto them.

Dave Smith (21:07)

Right. But the way that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and every right wing host in America and Sean Hannity and Bill o'reilly and like everybody, what they were saying is that they hate that we're free. Whereas it was much closer to saying like, they don't like us imposing on them, even like all the hardcore neocons. Bret Stephens, the New York Times. He wrote this piece on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, so 2023, to cheerlead the war in Iraq. And he goes through the whole piece and there's not one mention of the million people who died in the war. You know, he literally just goes, the pieces just measure life under Saddam Hussein versus life under the Shiite parliamentary system that they have now, which one's better? And he's arguing, this one's better, therefore it was worth it. But there's like no mention. It's like, okay, but what about the 20 plus million people who were displaced? What about the million people who were killed? What about all the millions of people who are injured? What about the tens of thousands of our soldiers who have blown their brains out in the aftermath of the thing? Like, it's like so, so many times this true with government policy in general. People talk about, like, the end result that they want, but you're like, yeah, but what about the process by which you get there and how much hatred, you know, could you. I mean, like, I, you know, it's not that hard for me to like, put myself in other people's shoes and like, I have two little kids and a wife, and if anybody were to ever try to argue to me that they have to be the eggs that get broken to make some bigger omelet, like, it's okay. Like, you know, we're ultimately going to impose something on your society that's better than what you have right there. It sure does suck that your wife and kids gotta be the one who get taken out. I mean, I'm as. I'm just saying this to myself, and this is not real. This is just a thought experiment I'm making up. I'm already pretty close to being a terrorist. Like, my next thought is kind of like, well, okay, well, I hope you're gonna like it when you watch your family die in front of you. You know, now I'm not. Hopefully. Even if that happened to me, I wouldn't go kill that guy's family. Like, maybe I just go after him or something. But I could understand, and I think most people who have kids could understand go going to a level of like, the, the most evil, dark place you could imagine if something ever, anyone ever threatened or actually did something to your kids.

Lex Fridman (23:29)

Yeah. We have to remember the thing that's difficult to measure that you just mentioned, which is the hate that's created by every bomb that's dropped.

Dave Smith (23:37)

It was General McChrystal who, you know, was the general running the war in Afghanistan. He wasn't. Like, he wasn't Ron Paul. You know what I mean? Like, he was a Sir, yes, sir. How do we fight and win this war, General? And he's the one who coined the term insurgent math. 10 minus 2 equals 20. You know, it's like the more, the more you keep. I was just reading. I was rereading about this the other day because of the, you know, Trump's been bombing the Houthis in Yemen. And, you know, it was like when, when we first. I think it was In. In, at least in 2009 is when Obama really stepped up the drone campaign with the then secret drone bombing campaign. And the Yemen was one of the major theaters. And even back then, when it really was just a. It was a war on terrorism, like, the main targets were always Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and their presence in Yemen, even then, like, so before the Saudis invaded. So, like, from 2009 through 2015, AQAP just kept growing. It was doing all these targeted bombing campaigns, or they call them targeted. 96% of the people are innocent who get killed, but they call them targeted drone bombings. And they. And. And Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula just kept getting bigger and bigger because, you know, it's like, yeah, every time you go in there, it's like, okay, you took out one target, and then you took out three little girls. And, you know, a few. And every one of those little girls had brothers and uncles and fathers and, you know, and. And all of them just signed up to join the fight now because, you know, and I. Ron Paul was the first one who really made this click for me. But it's, in a way, and I'm not like, I'm not a leftist. I'm not an egalitarian. I'm not a cultural relativist. I'm not saying that all cultures are the same or that we all look at the world the same way. There's enormous differences between all of us, and I personally think some are better than others. But there are things that unite all of us. And in a weird way, it's. I remember one time I was arguing with a Democrat guy on a scup show. I used to be a contributor on her show. And we were arguing, and it was after. It was after a terrorist attack here in New York, a fairly minor one. It was like a guy, like, I think he hit someone with his car and then jumped out with a gun, and then the cops lit him up and killed him. This is like, back in 2017, I think, and he. He claimed to be ISIS inspired. I don't. I don't remember if there was like, a direct connection or not, but they were at the time. They were like, doesn't this mean we got to step up the war in Iraq or In Syria, where ISIS's stronghold is? And I remember the guy saying to me, he goes, you know, I went off on how these wars have been disasters. And he goes, yeah, yeah. But, Dave, what you're saying here is we're supposed to do nothing. Like, this just happened, and now we're supposed to do nothing. And so like, even though this guy had a suit and tie on and we're in a cable news studio and we're in a first world country, we're in the United States of America and we're having that. The basic thing that he's saying is like, what do you say? You're saying we're not going to go kill some motherfuckers, you know, like, I mean, he was just putting it as like, do something. But what's something. Something is dropping bombs on human beings, you know, when like, yes, some innocent people are going to die, but okay, that. But it's the same thing. It's the same after 9, 11. We're like, we got to go fucking invade some countries right now. That's the same impulse. It's like they killed some of our people. You think we're not going to show them who the real killers are? You think there's a chance that you could come here and, and that is like the most human instinct ever. It's like some other tribe just came in here and killed some people in our tribe. So what do you want to do about that? Well, I don' not going to take me too long to figure out. We're going to go kill a bunch of people in their tribe. And I do think that like, that is, I think that's the major motivating factor for both sides of the Israel Palestine conflict. I think that's a major motivator for both sides of the war on terror conflict. And it's like that's, it's, in a way, when you look at it like that, there's something, even though it's so dark and tragic, there's something almost beautiful about it where you're like, oh, we're all caught in this same psycho.

Lex Fridman (27:37)

Yeah, it's deeply human, the, the warring between tribes, but, you know, especially in the recent years, but more and more through human history, there's almost like a third party, which is this military industrial complex which is making money from the two tribes. So if you just have two tribes, one. I've been reading a lot about Genghis Khan. If this is why Genghis Khan banned this. It was very common in, in Mongolia before Genghis Khan to steal people's wives. Like, you're my wife now.

Dave Smith (28:08)

Right.

Lex Fridman (28:08)

And he, he realized that that creates a lot of conflict.

Dave Smith (28:12)

Yeah, it sure does.

Lex Fridman (28:13)

That seems natural and human, that kind of conflict. But when, whenever you third party rolls in and starts making money on the whole thing and then driving that forward then the escalation of the conflict comes with this whole machine that makes de escalation really difficult.

Dave Smith (28:30)

Yeah, the military industrial complex in America. It's so big and it's so sophisticated and it's so. So it's not just that there's, you know, you know, there's this, there's the intelligence agencies, there's the weapons manufacturers, then there's the, like people in the media who are either directly or indirectly just parroting, you know what I mean, all of their talking points. And so it's not just that you can kind of like, like you make money when there's a conflict, but entire apparatus to like, create the conflict and then create the public sentiment for that. And then we're. And it's interesting, we're. We're in an interesting place because we're kind of in this like, new frontier of now where shows like this can happen. And, and there's a lot of them, and a lot of them are humongous like yours. But for so long this just didn't exist. And it was just like, oh, like for so long it was the case that like the New York Times and NBC and CBS and ABC and the Washington Post and the Associated Press, I guess they could just move the nation. I mean, if they wanted to be like, hey, there is the idea that. Forget Even like after 9 11, the idea that in 1990, 1991 that there was any organic movement from the American people going, you know, we really got to see about the Saddam Hussein guy. You know, the dictator in Iraq is having a slant drilling dispute with the Amir of Kuwait. We really got to do something about that. Like, that is not something that organically came from any. That was not like a few soccer moms hanging out, you know, watching their kids game, being like, I really do think, I think in a couple years we're going to have to send these boys over to Iraq to get like, that's not. They just from the top down were able to create this feeling that like, hey, there's a new Adolf Hitler on the rise over here in Iraq. We gotta go see about this. There are these poor people in Kuwait. We have to do that. You know, like there's. They were able to create this desire for war that was. It's really incredible when you think about it, because there's for, I think for the most part in human history, you would have had to have some type of plausible threat, some type of plausible reality to convince people that we actually have to go to war in order to deal with this. Whereas like, you know, the United. The idea that in 1991 the United States of America would feel threatened by Iraq was just ridiculous. And yet they were able to do it well.

Lex Fridman (31:13)

So to push back a little bit throughout human history, there was also a thing, you look at the Roman Empire, where just the cultural values were different, where military conquest was seen as a good thing. So like, we just almost assume in the United States war has been framed in the defensive sense, like where offensive war, we're not doing that anymore.

Dave Smith (31:36)

You make a fair point. It's certainly true that throughout human history there's been, there's been like overt empire building and wars of conquest and things like that. But I guess I'm just saying, at least even there you would have some type of sell of like why we're going to go take these resources and why that will be good for us. Whereas the idea that they're like Kuwait just needed to be defended by the Americans seems so, it seems so hard to convince anybody and yet they were able to do it. If you read like neocon writing in the 90s is very interesting because they would, they would tell the truth a lot more. And they were essentially, I think there was. The Soviet Union had just collapsed. It was what, what Charles Krathammer dubbed the unipolar moment. There was like a lot of, there was excitement, there was a feeling of invincibility. And also the neocons weren't in power. And after 92, really, I mean they had a little. They were in the George H.W. bush administration, but after 92 they really weren't. So they're just writing at these think tanks and it just didn't seem as, you know, like they weren't as guarded. There weren't like these accusations of you're a war criminal or something like that. But what he said, what Jonah Goldberg agreed with, was that every, I think the statement was every 10 years or so, America's got to find a puny little country and put them up against the wall just to let the rest of the world know that we mean business. And that was actually their mentality.

Lex Fridman (33:08)

I'm sure there's people that agree with that. I happen to disagree with that. But the, the drums of war are beating a little bit over Taiwan and China.

Dave Smith (33:16)

More than a little bit. Yeah.

Lex Fridman (33:17)

But there, I can't even see a justification of a just war. What is the long term benefit to society if you do military intervention?

Dave Smith (33:25)

Well, I also think this, and I've been saying this for a while But I do think there is this, like. There's, like, this empire mentality that Americans have got to shake off. Like, as if it's even a question of whether we should allow it or not. Like, are we in a position to allow or not allow that? Why do we. It's. It's almost like if you were, you know, like, I. I don't. I hope China doesn't invade Taiwan. I hope Taiwan remains as free as possible. I hope China becomes free. I root for freedom and prosperity for everyone, you know, But I also root for, like, everybody to have a healthy marriage. But if you were like. If you were talking to me and you were like, hey, the guy down the street is cheating on his wife, like, I don't think we can allow this, I'd immediately be like, that's really not my place. And then on top of that, I also have no power. I have no authority over what they do in their marriage. Like, I have to be concerned with my marriage and the idea that, like, imagine if there were the political will to invade Mexico. Like, if DC Decided we're taking Mexico City, like, that's. That's going to be part of America now, and we're taking it by force. And then China was like, we're not sure if we can allow this. I think immediately most Americans would be like, allow. Like, how the fuck do you think you're going to stop us from taking Mexico City? What are you going to do, China? You're going to send your navy ships over here to fight us off the coast of Mexico? Good luck with that. And at least from my understanding, in almost all the war games that they've run, if we did militarily, even if it doesn't come to nuclear weapons being used, in which case the whole world gets blown up. But even if we go to militarily, try to stop China from invading Taiwan and no one, everyone agrees to not use nukes, and we just fight a conventional war. We lose that war every time.

Lex Fridman (35:21)

I think what you said applies to a lot of the wars we've been involved in, but China and Taiwan is a little bit different because. Because of tsmc, right? Because there's an economic dependence.

Dave Smith (35:32)

If that was the concern, then the response would be, we need some type of Manhattan Project. And I'm not supporting a government project here, but there would be. We need some type of Manhattan Project to say, we're going to make these things here. We can't. And look, I was running that experiment before saying, like, what if we all pinky promise not to use nuclear weapons or something like that. But that's not the reality of the situation. The more reality. Look, even in. In Ukraine, everybody, the biggest hawks, the biggest pushers of this policy and Joe Biden and policy to fund Ukraine, no one's suggesting we send in the 82nd Airborne, which is really the only thing that could repel the Russians right now and restore, you know, Ukrainian. The original sovereignty of the Ukrainian borders. But no one's suggesting we send in the 82nd Airborne because we all know, well, we can't have a direct war with Russia. That's the end of the world. And same thing with China. So, you know, I'm not saying microchips or whatever aren't important, but there's. We can find other ways to. Taiwan is not magical. Like, we can produce these things in other places. No.

Lex Fridman (36:35)

So you have the humility to say that you don't really know much about the situation. It sounds ridiculous to say, but there's something magical about not Taiwan, but tsmc. It's incredibly difficult to manage the supply chain and manufacture at such a low cost that they are. And to add to that, China has been signaling about the one China policy. But you're absolutely right that you shouldn't be doing the Washington thing of beating the drums of war. That's like completely the counterproductive thing there should. You should actually try to find partnerships with China, build friendships and cooperation. Like, India is doing a good job of this. Like, build friendships. This is the 21st century conflict. This Cold War thinking is going to be destructive to the economy, destructive to humanity, to the flourishing of the individual nations of the world. There's just nothing positive except making money for the military.

Dave Smith (37:26)

Well, yeah, and it was totally destructive during the original Cold War, too, and almost led to nuclear war on a couple of different occasions. But look, I would just say. And I really. I'm no defender of the Chinese regime. I hate communism and fascism, whatever they are, some hybrid mix of. Of the two.

Lex Fridman (37:43)

They're paying you, aren't they?

Dave Smith (37:45)

Yeah, no, fuck them. I don't care. By the way, I get a lot of people speculate online, but I am not. I'm not getting any of these checks, man. And I'd really like them to start coming in. Yeah, but there's like. Even when it's like China, you say China's asserting the one China policy, but the one China policy is the policy of the United States of America and has been for 50 years now. Right. So it's not, I think, what's happening there a Lot of times is that essentially, even though officially the One China policy is the policy of the United States of America, all of these American politicians and. And, you know, different figureheads across powerful centers in America are. Are saying that China doesn't have the right to go into Taiwan. And then China's in the position of being like, well, hey, wait a minute. No, that's not actually the policy. We maintain this One China policy, but we allow them to kind of do what they want to do. And, you know, the. The most obvious example of this was when Joe Biden actually said like, oh, we wouldn't allow that, and we would militarily intervene if they went into China. And then. And this was so bizarre, then the White House, whoever that was, came out to correct the President of the United States and say, no, the policy of the White House is the One China policy. Which, look, I mean, again, I think the whole point of this is that the reason why whoever the hell was able to overrule Joe Biden and his administration, I. I don't know who that is. Um, but the whole point is that if you say, and this is why there is some wisdom in America accepting the One China policy is that if you tell China that we recognize Taiwan's independence and that they're not a part of China, that might be the type of thing that would make China invade and say, no, we're not accepting that. And so at least right now, it's like, kind of like, okay, here's. Look, this is the reality. It's something that you kind of run up against with the war in Ukraine a lot, and, and with the situation in China and Taiwan is that there are. There are constraints placed on us by reality. It's not all just, how would you like the world to be? How would you like it to work? Obviously, I think we would all like that. Bigger countries don't invade smaller countries, and bigger countries don't bully smaller countries around. That is not the way of the world. We are a big country that is the biggest bully in the world. So we're in no position to let. But what we're kind of in the position is just like, you're like, hey, we'd sure love if you don't do that. You know, you can do it and you can get away with it, but we would sure love it if you don't. And so the goal would be to do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen. When Vladimir Putin starts talking about, like, hey, if you keep pushing the idea of Ukraine joining Your military alliance, I'm going to invade that country. The goal there or the move there would be to be like, okay, we'll stop talking about that. Is there something else that we can agree on? You know, like, is there, is there a way that we. You will promise you won't do anything to them and. Okay, and we'll promise we won't bring them in our military. Like, that's the goal. You don't just go like, no, fuck you, we're doing it anyway over and over and over again until they do the thing.

Lex Fridman (41:00)

I think we got to this discussion from the military industrial complex and military intervention and Ron Paul before that. If you can like rewind a little bit, is there any amount, according to you and according to various flavors of libertarianism, is there any amount of military intervention that's justified, that's okay?

Dave Smith (41:23)

Well, I would say, okay, so at least to me, in terms of pure libertarian theory or just in terms of what I think is right or wrong, there is such thing as a just war. The most obvious example of that would be like you're invaded by a military and fighting them off. So in that sense also, like, even if you want to, if you want to kind of isolate from everything else from, you know, all of the awful US policy toward Russia post Soviet Union to all of the, you know, NATO expansion and color coded revolutions and all of these things, if you want to, you know, Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine, I do think the Ukrainians have a right to fight and protect their land. Like there's an aggressor there and you have a right to defend yourself. So certainly in that sense, I think the American Revolution was a just war. I think there are, you know, there can be just wars. In terms of pure libertarian theory, I think I would say that, look, you, you don't, you never have a right to kill innocent people. That's never morally okay. Now there could be a scenario just like this is true in life in general, right? Like there's lots of things that you don't have the right to do, but you could come up with some scenario where you might be in a position where you have to do it because there were all of these extenuating circumstances, you know, like for, you know, you could think of something where, like you remember the, the Saw movies where they used to, you know, these crazy, like horror scenarios. But it's like, okay, so there's a person, you know, a evil bad guy has buried a key inside this person and you have to kill that person in order to get the key in order to unlock these 20 people, to let them out of a cage. Now look, you still don't have a right to kill people. It's horrible and wrong. And what you did there was still evil. But if you were taken to trial over it, you could probably explain to a judge and a jury, be like, I know, but the situation I was in was either these 20 people were going to die or this one person was going to die. And under that situation, I chose to save the 20. So like, in other words, by perfect theory, no, you never have the right to kill innocent people. There could be a scenario where you were like, look, we had to take this military action and some innocent people did die. And it's so tragic and awful that we had to do this, but we are certain that many more people would have died had we not done this. Now in that case, I would look at that as like number one. It's much like killing the one person to save the 20. It's still wrong. It's still an immoral thing that you were forced into doing. It's not justified. I would say that the overwhelming onus should have to be on you to demonstrate that you absolutely needed to do that. And that's how I feel about all these, these wars. You know, it's not like, you know, I think that like, let's just say like if you could make World War II, like you could reduce it down to the simplest caricature of what World War II is and say there's no Joseph Stalin, we're not even partnering with him. Like there was a good guy in Russia who we were partnering with and there's, and the British Empire had never done anything wrong. They were just nothing but good guys. And of course FDR was nothing but a good guy and Hitler was even worse than the real Hitler, you know what I mean? And in order to stop them, we had to go on this bombing campaign and we only got Nazis, we only killed the bad guys and we were able to take out the Third Reich, but one 8 year old girl died and you did this thing that stopped the whole world from falling into subjugation. So I think almost everybody would agree. Jesus, man. You have to do that, okay? This is, you have to do that because the whole world's going to be subjugated. There's nothing but good guys here. The Nazis are so evil. And there's one, I still would say that every single time World War II came up. We should all just be somber and we should all just think about that. Little eight year old girl who died and what a horrible thing it is that we had to do that, you know, and so like when there are these campaigns where like, you know, where tens of millions of people are killed, the fact that anybody's ever like spiking the football or this kind of like rah rah, we were the good ones. And then also when you add in all those other complicated factors like that this wasn't the scenario at all. But I do so, so I guess essentially I'd say no, you don't ever have a right to kill innocent people. It's never self defense to be killing innocent people. I mean, short of like, you know, some type of scenario where like, you know, if you're holding a baby and coming at me shooting, and I shoot back at you and okay, I was acting in self defense and it happened to kill a baby. But I'm, I'm talking about like what the scenarios where you're dropping bombs on cities, it's never justified and the overwhelming onus should be on you to demonstrate that you absolutely have to do it and that that should be the standard because there's so many other standards that I see thrown out that I just think are, make no moral sense at all. You know, people will argue about like in Gaza, they'll argue about the civilian to combatant ratio, which I like that to me doesn't really, that's not what counts. That's not the measure that's important. And also no one knows what the numbers are. They are all just kind of like pretend to. And then the other thing will be that people who say, as someone just recently argued with me about, they'll say like, well, Hamas has to go. That's the starting point. Hamas has to go. And I'm like, no, I don't think you get to say that. Because the truth is that look, you can make an argument that Hamas has to go. Sure, you can make an argument that the Likudniks have to go. You can make an argument that Kim Jong Un has to go, or that Xi has to go, or that Putin has to go, that Zelensky has to go, or certainly I would make an argument that Joe Biden had to go. But just because a government has to go, that doesn't mean you could just go kill all their people.

Lex Fridman (47:20)

Yeah, that should not be the starting point. Like the assumption, the axiom of the.

Dave Smith (47:24)

Discussion, the, the question is, is it, is there no other option than doing it this way? It's like, okay, like October 7th happened. We can all agree this was like a horrific tragedy and a, you know, an indefensible act of terrorism. Like, okay, can, is it guaranteed that another one of those is going to happen tomorrow? Or was this the biggest security failure in, in, you know, Israeli history? Okay, well, if it's the biggest security failure, let's just say not even going down the inside job rabbit hole or anything like that, but just saying it's a giant security failure. Okay, then put a bunch more men at that fence, first of all. And now you got to talk about how can you achieve your goal while inflicting the minimum amount of devastation on innocent people.

Lex Fridman (48:08)

Now let's talk about it. Since you brought it up October 7th. So what exactly do you think about the October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel?

Dave Smith (48:19)

Well, I mean, like what I just said, that it was horrible. And you know, it's always by the same logic that I'm giving you now, it's always, it's always evil to target innocent civilians. I don't believe, you know, civilians can be held responsible for the crimes of their government. This was, by the way, the Osama bin Laden logic, which I think would also be the logic of like Bill Clinton or George W. Bush or Barack Obama. But Osama bin Laden very explicitly said when he was asked, like, well, are you just going to target like US military sites or are you targeting US civilians? It was an interview in the 90s, before 9, 11, and he goes, no, civilians are fair game too, because you guys have regular elections and you guys vote for your government and therefore you're responsible for the crimes that they commit. Now I think that's the logic of a fanatic like Osama bin Laden. And that's not the logic that any of us should follow. It doesn't make any sense. And it's not true that people are responsible for the crimes of their government. I think that that same argument is used quite a bit by people on the pro Israeli side when they say, like, oh, they, they had an election in 2005 and Hamas won a plurality. Therefore 20 years later, they have no rights. I think that's insane. So, okay, so Hamas had no right to go after civilians. You know, it's horrible. And you see, you know, the, these, you know, teenagers being killed and the people, you know, you see the images of people who were, who are held hostage for all this time. So it's like your heart breaks for those people. It's truly tragic. I do think that it was in many ways an indictment of so many different things, you know, like October 7th happening was an indictment of the entire occupation slash siege of, of Gaza and the West Bank. You know, for that matter, it was, I think should have probably forever destroyed the legacy of Benjamin Netanyahu who is, you know, I mean, this isn't like George W. Bush, you know, was, I mean he was on the job for almost a year when 911 happened, but it was still kind of new, you know, like it was still kind of in his first year of being president. Benjamin Netanyahu was the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history and had explicitly been like, I'm the tough right winger who's going to be tough on these Palestine Palestinians who's going to like move away from the idea of coming to a two state solution because this is what we need to keep us safe. Like the justification is like, I'm going to be hard on these motherfuckers because that's because I know what it takes to keep us safe. And that culminates in the, the worst massacre in Israeli history. And then, I mean, the other big one is that, I mean, and it's not like a, I wouldn't even say an open secret at this point. It's just out in the open that he had this strategy of propping up Hamas for years. And so he had this strategy of propping up Hamas for a myriad of reasons, but a major part of it was that, look, man, as long as there's terrorists in power there, there's never going to be any pressure on us to give the Palestinians a state because look what you're telling me, I got to negotiate with them.

Lex Fridman (51:49)

He was allowing Qatar money to float.

Dave Smith (51:51)

Insisting that Qatar money float to them when the Qatar money dried up, sent the Mossad in to insist that it gets back to him hundreds of millions of dollars. Brief is in cash. And he said in his own words that the reason for doing this was to keep to his words were prop up Hamas, bolster Hamas to keep them in power so that the west bank and the, and the Gaza were divided and that the international community as well as the liberal Jewish community in Israel wouldn't be able to put pressure on them to make a deal.

Lex Fridman (52:24)

But what are the options? So if he doesn't allow the money in, it also looks really bad for him because if he's not allowing the money in, that means he's not allowing the quote unquote, aid in to help the Palestinians.

Dave Smith (52:38)

Yeah, but Lex, I mean the dynamic here, right, is from 2007 to today, Israel's had a full blockade around the country. They won't let potatoes in, they won't let sugar in. And the justification is because they're dual use, you know, they, they can be used to make rockets as well as they can be used to, you know, feed starving children. So we can't let that in because it's dual use. But cash to Hamas, does that not have dual usage? Like is there, is there nothing else that they can. So yeah, it's like yes, when you have a full blockade around the country, you take on certain responsibilities. And I think this is, you know, this is the, the essence of really the, the whole struggle here, which is very tough I think, for the pro Israel side to grapple with. But the bottom line is that Israel hasn't occupied Palestine for like a few months after a war or even a couple of years after a war while they're figuring out what we're going to do with them. It's been over 60 years. The, we're talking about a one week long war or a day short of a week long war in 1967. Israel's had control of them ever since. And much like in the same way that like if you kidnap someone and you lock them in your basement and you don't feed them, you murdered that person. So in other words, stated differently, you're not allowed to kidnap people and lock them in your basement, but once you do, you take on a responsibility to feed those people. You know what I mean? Like, you can't, you're not allowed to keep someone and not feed them. That is a worse charge than just keeping them them. And so, yeah, anyway, I guess my point is the solution to that, if you go like, well, I'm a bad guy if I fund Hamas, I'm a bad guy if I don't let the aid in, was to let the reputable international aid organizations bring aid in to the people of Gaza. Don't have, don't, don't pressure the Qataris to send in briefcases full of cash, allow internationally recognized, reputable human rights organizations who are lining up trying to do it, but stop turning them away and let them in. And, and this is just, it's so long past due. I mean, like, it's, it's just, I'm not like defending Arab terrorism. It's, I think it's really, it's, it's a tragedy that the Arabs embraced terrorism. I don't think it's unique to them. And in fact, you know, I think it was the, the Zionist militias who introduced terrorism to that part of the world. But there Was also like, there, look, terrorism persists because it works. And this is true with state terrorism and with non state terrorism. You know, it's like there it. Terrorism has often worked for people. The, I think the thing like early, I think early Yasser Arafat, I know is very influenced by the Algerians who, you know, successfully kicked the French out embracing terrorism. And it was almost like the major miscalculation of the, the, those Palestinian Arabs who did embrace terrorism was that this isn't the French, this isn't the French hanging out in some colony with their home country back home where maybe a few acts of violence could work enough to, you know, the liberal population back home is like, oh, I really didn't like the response to that terrorism. We killed so many people. Forget it. This is too much of a headache. Let's get out of here. The Zionist settlers were there to stay. They weren't going anywhere. They weren't going back to Eastern Europe. You know what I mean? They weren't. They were just that. And so it's a tragedy that this whole thing went the way it did. But you always, whenever you're talking about like a conflict like this, the person who has the, or the, the party who has the power is the one who needs to make concessions, you know, and the there. It's just indefensible that the status quo of the Palestinian people having no rights, literally no rights being ruled by a government that they do not get to vote for or against, no right to do commerce with the outside world, no freedom of travel, no freedom of movement, no basic property rights can be kicked out of your home at any time, no right to a fair trial, no right to a lawyer, no right to a jury of your peers. I mean, the fact that that has been the status quo since 1967 is just indefensible. And if, and then in the context that that has been the status quo, I guess I'm just not. Even though I'm against it. It's kind of like when you're just lecturing about the way in which they resist this. I think it's very tough to be on a strong moral footing, you know.

Lex Fridman (57:32)

Yeah. You have to really empathize with decades of suffering.

Dave Smith (57:36)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (57:37)

In the region. I suppose my question was grounded in how can the Israeli government, how can the world help the Palestinian people flourish? So you suggested allowing reputable aid organizations in, but, you know, that's kind of almost patching, just helping humans who are suffering. But that's not how you have a nation flourish. You have to Build up the infrastructure. You have to build up a culture of the education system, the democratic processes of electing and regular elections so that the people are represented. And you have to form partnerships, friendships, normalization of relations with the Arab world, with Israel, you can travel back and forth and lessen the chokehold, like the security chokehold, you know, that you could say is justified in a militaristic situation. But why is it a military situation? The question is, they're like, where do we go from here? If we, you know, we'll talk about Netanyahu some more. He is, you know, he's very criticized inside Israel as well.

Dave Smith (58:56)

Yeah, for sure.

Lex Fridman (58:57)

Maybe less so after October 7, because the, you know, again, in the same way you can empathize with the Palestinian people, you can empathize with Israelis. Where October 7th touched. Just like it is for Americans with 9, 11. It touched some kind of primal thing of fear of like.

Dave Smith (59:17)

Oh, yeah, and like the same thing I said before. Like, I could also very easily go if my, if one of my kids was like, at that rave or something like that and just got gunned down or kidnapped by. I could understand being like, level the whole goddamn place. And I'm sure I would feel that way if that was one of my kids, you know, so. Yeah, no, that's. That's exactly right. I mean, there's lots of examples in the world of, you know, like, France and Germany are right next to each other, and Ireland and England are right next to each other, and they're just totally living in harmony right now. Like, there is just. No. The thought of them going to war is, like, inconceivable right now. Not saying it could happen in the future, but it seem. It seems pretty hard to imagine. And that being the case, would have been very hard to imagine for a very long time. You know, like, there. I mean, there's some serious levels of brutality between those two societies. And even more directly, it involved, you know, Egypt and Israel went to war four times in a couple decades. They went to war, and then in the late 70s, they made a land for peace deal, and they haven't been to war since. You know, and like, I do at least try to hold out that, like, that is pot. You know, it's not like Egypt is. You're not going to say they don't have an issue with radical Islam in Egypt. You know what I mean? Like, there's. That's not the answer. It's just that they made a land for peace deal and once there wasn't, you know, Once that wasn't the, that was solved, it was kind of easier to avoid the war. And I do like to think that, that there, there could be a solution to the, the Israel Palestine question. But the, it's going to have to, it's going to have to involve Israel taking their boot off of the Palestinians neck. And I know that that's scary and I understand that there are like legitimate concerns about that. There's was the great Thomas Jefferson quote about slavery, which was, we have the wolf by the tail and we can neither afford to hold on to him nor risk letting them go. Which is like, you could see where that would have been like a real concern of people, like right toward the end of slavery or you know, whatever in the early 1800s, say the first half of the 19th century, where you'd be like, okay, okay, okay, we recognize this is wrong now, but we've had these millions of people enslaved for all these years. If we let them go, they're gonna fucking kill us. And what are you saying? They're citizens now, meaning the second amendment applies to them. Meaning that the guy who I enslaved now can get a gun. You know what? And, and so, okay, there are the. But I think in hindsight, looking back at it, we would all just go, yeah, but you can enslave people. So like whatever risks come with the next phase of this, unfortunately, you know, like, you're going to have to just deal with that and, and move. You have to start with abolishing slavery.

Lex Fridman (62:16)

And it is good to also remember in the hopeful message you sent, like at any day you can make a deal. That's one of the frustrating things I had with. I hosted a debate on Israel. It just felt hopeless. And a lot of people I talked to, it feels hopeless. But like, I have a lot of, I maybe naively see a lot of possibilities of peace there. I see, for example, normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia and Israel and then Saudi Arabia taking some ownership over Gaza, something like that. Some interesting where a big major player in that region takes ownership and steps as the middleman.

Dave Smith (62:54)

Yeah, I agree with you and you're 100% right. That and even before October 7th, I think many steps had been taken away from the peace process and the feeling of that, I mean really, I think since the second intifada is when the appetite for peace, I think in Israel was greatly diminished, um, there. But to your point, I mean, it's gonna take really painful concessions on all sides in, in order to get there. Um, and I think that the, the personally I Think, and I don't know if I say this for the, not necessarily like the Arab world, but at least the nation states, like their governments, I think are, are pretty much there. Like, like Saudi Arabia and UAE and Jordan and Egypt. Like if the Israelis, they're almost like, look, these are American sock puppets, you know, for the most part, right. And so their, their thing is that like, okay, 100% of my population is completely opposed to what Israel's doing to Palestine right now. And they just hate that Israel, that the nation was created at all, that all the Arabs were kicked out of what is, you know, very important land to them religiously. And, and so the governments there are like, look, we want to continue to have US tax dollars flooding in here, we'd love to make a deal with Israel, but like, you gotta stop doing this to the Palestinians. So my own people don't, you know, rise up against me. So I think as long if the Israelis were like, fine, we'll do a two state solution or something like that that I think Saudi Arabia couldn't wait to broker. In fact, they proposed a two state solution just a few years ago. I mean they're, they would love to be a part of that, normalize relations amongst the Palestinians. Like which again, I think this, I think this had been accepted multiple times, at least by their leadership. It's like, yeah, you're going to have to accept that like you lost in 48, you know, you're going to have to accept that you lost in 47. You're going to have to accept that the state of Israel does exist. And you're going to have to accept that like the right of return is not going to literally mean that everybody can go back to where they were. And what Israel's going to have to concede is that it was awfully fucked up that they kicked a lot of people out of their land and that the whole a land for people, for people without land was never true. That was just a slogan that made, that felt good to avoid what you guys actually did. And the fact that it was inexcusable that you guys occupied these people for 60 years. And that has to end immediately.

Lex Fridman (65:34)

Like, I interviewed Douglas Murray recently. He just wrote a book on Israel and Hamas called On Democracies and Death Cults. He makes what I think is a strong pro Israel case focusing on Hamas as a, an evil organization, you know, evil for its corrupt leadership who's essentially stealing money from the Palestinian people and allocating the money that is there towards terrorist militaristic operations. Versus like, building up Gaza. Can you, Steel man, the case for. And then against this perspective sort of centering. We've been talking about the people about centering around Hamas, which is like, this extremist religious organization. The perspective being like, they need to be, as you mentioned before, eliminated before any progress can be made.

Dave Smith (66:28)

Okay, so if I were so, Steel man, in Douglas Murray's case, I would say, well, I guess the case is right. Look, Hamas is a fanatical death cult, essentially, which I do think is a fair description of them. There is no question that they have pursued. They have pursued a path that was just devastating to their own people. And there's no question they have not spent the resources they have on. Their priority has not been uplifting their own people. Their priority has been, I think, essentially antagonizing Israel into this overreaction so that they can turn world opinion against Israel. I think they've been very effective at doing that. And again, I think the argument would come back to something like, and the people kind of voted for this in 2005. And the people sure do. We sure do see a lot of people cheering when Hamas is doing some pretty horrific stuff. And so, hey, you got that on one side, and you have a kind of a country that's much more similar to Western societies on the other side.

Lex Fridman (67:43)

If we can just like, linger on that. Steel man, what do you. What do you make of the celebrations in. In Gaza after October 7th?

Dave Smith (67:50)

I think it's sickening and incredibly disturbing. I just. I guess the way I look at it, I always. And maybe there is a degree of, like, naivete to this, or perhaps it's just that I just don't want to allow myself to go down a certain path because I think it leads to such dark outcomes. But I just always. I always try to be kind of like against the government, for the people, against the powerful, sympathetic to the powerless. I think that that, look, it's. It's sickening. You see big crowds cheering on, you know, people who have been, you know, that with these people who have been in captivity for. For, I think some of them for over a year and a half. I also thought when Nikki Haley and other Israeli politicians are signing the bombs before they're launched into Gaza, I found that sickening. I think there's all types, I think, like, Mission accomplished, polished banners and flying on jet. I mean, I think all of the. I think having Bob Hope specials at the end of the Persian Gulf War was sickening. I just think all of it is, like, horrific. I just I look at it and I try to say to myself, okay, we had one 911 in this country and we all like collectively we lost our minds as a society. You know, we were ready to go bomb whoever the hell our politicians told us to bomb and we didn't care how many people it killed. And we killed a lot more than, a lot more than Israel or Hamas has killed doing it. And try to, I try to think to myself, okay, imagine being trapped in what is, you know, people can call it whatever they want to. I do think Pat Buchanan and these guys were right to call it a concentration camp. You're trapped in a 5 mile by 25 mile area where you cannot leave. You are stuck there. You don't have an airport because the Israelis bombed it. You don't have a seaport because they won't allow you. You have no access to trade with the outside world. And you're not suffering through a 9 11, you're suffering through a thousand 9 11s. Your whole life has been, there's people, the people in Gaza are, their entire life has been being refugees. You know what I mean? Their entire life there's generations of people have been in this status now. And so, you know, if my society lost its mind after 19 11, I just have a tough time like judging the people who, who came up in this environment. But there's no question it is, I mean it's, you know, profoundly disturbing.

Lex Fridman (70:27)

But I wonder how much of the indoctrination is really made the software of their mind permanently anti peace. Yeah, like extremify them and that, you know, it doesn't justify anything but it's more concerning for the prospects of peace.

Dave Smith (70:50)

Well, I'd say I get your point. I get it's an interesting question that I, I don't know if any of us know exactly the answer to, but I would say that like, you know, even after, what was it, 80 years of the Soviet Union, you know, it's like, and there were real debates back then about like the new communist man and whether the minds had been so warped of people that they would never even want, they would never even care about these things like liberty or national identity or independence and, and then, yet at the end it was all still there. You know, it was, it was very repressed and it went underground and people weren't allowed to talk about it, but they all still had it. And in fact I was just listening the other day to this Murray Rothbard speech from like the early 90s and he was talking about how there was Something where there was like a, like a camera crew interviewed, like a Chinese family under like, real deal Chinese communism. I believe it was before Mao Zedong died. And they were like, they were just saying all these cr. This crazy to the camera. Like, they were like, would you rather, you know, your, your sons are like, like healthy and live good lives, or would you rather they suffer but be loyal obedience to the state? And they were like, we would rather they be obedient to the state and blah, blah, blah, and all these things. And Murray Rothbard was saying he saw this interview and he, he, he was talking to his friend. He was, oh, my God, this is horrible. Like, it's hopeless. These people's minds have been warped. And then he was talking to his friend who's like a China expert who had been there a lot, and he was like, no, they're not. That's what they say when the cameras are around. As soon as the cameras go, like, they're so anyway, I'm just making the point there that like, there, there is like, look, even in the situation with Israel and Gaza, specifically Gaza, not even the west bank, when you could look at it. When the peace talks were going on, support for Hamas plummeted. When the peace talks fell apart, support for Hamas went way back up. You know, every time there's an aggressive military campaign, support for Hamas goes back up. So I just think that, like, I'm more hopeful than not that like, you could get to a place where, like, but it, it requires like, you, you have to like, if you do understand the Ron Paul point about blowback, the General McChrystal point about insurgent math, that you just realize that it's like you're, you're, like you're, you're fighting in a way that produces more of the thing that you're fighting. And so the first step is to stop doing that. That, like your, your cure is making the patient more sick. So stop doing that. And then let's see if maybe we could heal.

Lex Fridman (73:27)

What about the case against the, the, the Douglas Murray case of the death cults, and that a fundamental part of this process, Hamas, needs to be eliminated?

Dave Smith (73:37)

Well, I mean, first of all, I would just say that, and I'm not, I'm not saying this as a fan of democracy. I'm not like, a big believer in democracy. I believe in liberty, and I think democracy is often not in line with liberty.

Lex Fridman (73:55)

The Chinese government paid you to say that as well.

Dave Smith (73:57)

They. That was, that's literally all I had to get out. But I get to Say that what I want the rest of the podcast, but just that I had to. No, I'm. Well, I don't. Well, no, I mean, my beef with the Chinese government would not be that they don't hold regular elections. My beef with them would be that they silence speech, that they, that they put people in camps and things like that. The surveillance, that stuff. I think, look, when you call Israel a democracy, which I guess is right in the title of his book, and I, you know, full disclosure, I haven't read the book, but I have, I have listened to some of his thoughts on this stuff. I think you've run up against a real problem, which is that the creation of the state of Israel, even though he tried to walk away from those comments, as Norm Finkelstein called out Benny Morris for writing in his book 1948, which is a great book, his words were the Zionist project always knew it was going to involve transfer. That was Benny Morris's words. Now, when, when Finkelstein was grilling him on this, on your podcast, he kind of said, like, yeah, but that doesn't mean ethnic cleansing. That could be voluntary transfer. That. You know what I mean? Like, but the point is the Zionist settlers and they all, they spoke about this openly. They all knew they had a major problem, which is like, well, you can't create a Jewish state if it's like, like 50, 50, which is. And in all of Israel, it was much less than 5050. But even in like the, the Israeli portion of the partition recommendation, it was very close to 5050. Now you can't really have a Jewish state with a 5050 voter base because now you're just kind of in a breeding war for the next generation and, or, you know, like, or like who, who turns out the vote any more than we could hope it would be. The prospect right now of making America an official Republican state or an official Democrat state. Well, how are you going to do that, man? It's like 50, 50 between the two. And so I think what Benny Morris was saying was that they always knew some of these Arabs are going to have to get moved out of here so that we could have more of something. Which ultimately where they got to like an 80 20, which is pretty much what Israel's maintained the whole time. Now, Benny Morris could quarrel about whether that necessarily meant voluntary, but when it happened, it wasn't voluntary. Okay, so like when it actually happen effect, it involved a massive amount, something somewhere between 700 and 800,000 Arabs being forcefully evicted out of this area. Now that's one thing. You know, a lot of nations are started on some things like that. I suppose if you just did that and then you were left with your 80, 20 split and you go, but we have elections from here on out. I guess you could claim it's a democracy. Still seems like kind of gaming the democratic system a little bit, you know what I mean? Like. Like, if I just. If I just deported 80% of Democrats and then say, look, Republicans win every election, you might be like, yeah, dude, but you didn't exactly get there democratically. You got there through force. But forget that. I'll let that one go and just say, I'll call you a democracy if you just kept being a democracy like that moving forward. The real problem is the occupation that starts in 1967, because what. Look, when you've occupied an area since 1967, you can't even really call it an occupation anymore. It's an annexation. You know, you took these lands, you have control that you are what the definition of the government is. And you could call Hamas the government all you want to, but they're not the sovereigns. They're not the final decision makers. Israel's the final decision maker. Hamas does not meaningfully in any way decide the biggest questions about Gaza. I'm talking before this war, not even, you know, pre October. 7th. 7th. And so the problem Israel has in order to call themselves a democracy is that there's somewhere between 5 and 6 million people less now because they've killed a lot of them. But there's somewhere between 5 and 6 million people who live under Israeli control who do not have voting rights. And I just. By any other, like, reasonable, commonly held standard of democracy, we would not call that a democracy. I mean, like, I'm not. Again, I'm not even saying this to try to be inflammatory or try to pick on the Israelis. There's things about Israeli society I like. I don't hate the people there. I'm Jewish. I love Jewish people. It's not. But the fact is that's not a democracy. That's an apartheid state. Like I. And that's just. I'm not even trying to be inflammatory when I say this. It's just literally describing what's in front of you. If we in America right now said black people no longer get to vote and black people can only live in these few neighborhoods, we don't get to call ourselves a democracy anymore, then, you know, and like, I'm not even coming at this from a pro democracy point of view. I'm just saying, like, if your defense of them is like, well, we're a democracy, which seems to be the case so much. Well, no, you're really not. You're, you're really not. As long as you got millions of people who have no say in their own government, like, then, then you're really not a democracy. And so, so again, so you could frame it as democracy versus death cult was his language for Hamas. And it's like, all right, you know, it's a little bit difficult to accuse another group of being a death cult when the group you are supporting has killed so many more people than them. Now, I'm not saying that's the only metric. Like there's other things that are factors too, but the fact is that like you have, I mean, I don't know to look over the numbers, the, for the whole history of the conflict, but the amount killed by the Israelis on The Palestinian side versus the amount killed by the Palestinians is 20 to 1 in Israel's fa, you know, killing more people, maybe more than that. I don't exact, you know, I'd have to look at the numbers, but Israel's killed far, far more Palestinians than Palestinians have ever killed Israelis. And so it just, it rings a little hollow to me to just call them a death cult, like, we're the democracy, even though none of you know there's millions of people who can't vote over, you know, who rules them. But they are the death cult. I mean, look, they kill people in a more primitive, barbaric way, I guess you could say, you know, there's something a little bit cleaner about like, you know, when it's done by a government and it's collateral damage and it was done with sophisticated weaponry, you know. Okay, still innocent people on the end of those bombs.

Lex Fridman (80:07)

Absolutely. But there, there is, I think, a powerful ethical difference. When you mentioned about the 8 year old girl. Right. If you're in. Your stated goals of the war is to do everything you can to avoid the death of that girl versus saying, you know, we love death more than we love life and Israelis, democracy or not, are pro life for life.

Dave Smith (80:33)

There's a little, I mean, Okay, I don't 100% disagree with you, but I think if I would say, like, the degree to which that matters, you know, like at a murder trial after somebody's been convicted and before sentencing, sometimes the judge will allow them to give a statement. And like, if their statement is like, I'm very sorry for what I did and I'm so sorry to the family and this or that or that, like, that might be like life without parole rather than the death penalty. You know what I mean? Like, it might make that bit of difference in that. And if you get up there and you're like, hey, I'm happy for what I did. Screw the family, blow. That, that might, might make a judge who was going to give you life without parole, give you the death penalty or something. Like, it's like that type of margin around the edge, let's say, like, you're a really bad guy and I want to kill you and you're at home with a bunch of women and children, and I know there's women and children there. Like, I know for a fact that if I blow up this building, it's going to kill all those babies. You know what I, what I would be charged with is murder in the first degree. And the fact that I went in there and said, like, well, listen, hold on, it's a shame that I had to kill those babies. I really just wanted to kill that one guy. I wish the babies weren't there. And they'll be like, yeah, but you knew they were there and you did it anyway. You get murder in the first degree. Maybe it would make some little difference tinkering around with the sentencing at the end of it, but it doesn't, like, in kind change what the crime is there. And so, so I just think at a certain point, if you're doing something like, you know, look, I'll say maybe with a little bit of an edge, you know, let's say Barack Obama wants to drone bomb, you know, this place to kill a terrorist, and he thinks he can do it without killing any innocent civilians, does it, and then it ends up killing some innocent civilians, that's one thing. But once you've done it over and over and over again, and every single time it kills innocent civilians, and then there's a wedding and you order a drone bomb strike on a wedding, getting like, no, you murdered those people. That's murder in the first degree. Like, I just don't. And so, yes, like, you know, like, whether you say out loud, oh, it sure is a shame that we got to kill all these kids, when you're doing it over and over and you know the action you're taking is going to kill more kids, I just don't think it, like, it's. Yeah, it's a little bit different, but really not that much. It's still pretty much. And then also when you mix in with that, that the fact that, like, you know, I Mean, if you go, and I'm not taking an opinion on the word genocide, I don't even like to get into that conversation. I feel like it just derails it anyway, what Israel is doing. Whether you think it's a genocide or not, it's certainly not what most people envision when they hear the word genocide. But you know, if you look at South Africa's case that they promoted at the International Court of Justice, the whole thing is just quotes from Israeli leaders. And so, and I'm just saying, like, by the way, it's not like they're always saying and oh, it sure is a shame that we had to kill that eight year old girl. They're like, half the time they say that when they're talking to the international community and then the other half the time they seem to basically be saying there's no such thing as an innocent eight year old girl. And so I just, I guess I just don't find that argument to be very compelling, especially when the thing has been going on for so long.

Lex Fridman (83:45)

There is some disagreement I have with you there. I think the thing you're implying is when, whenever they state it, it's not, not quite genuine to some degree.

Dave Smith (83:55)

Not saying it might be, it might be genuine by some people. I'm not saying it's necessarily not. I'm saying that when there's a lot of people who are saying the opposite, it doesn't seem like it's consistently genuine from, from the entire, you know, Israeli leadership class. And that even if it is genuine when some people say it, that, that's, that's kind of not enough to get away from the, the fact that it's, you know, when, when Tucker was on Pierce Morgan, he said the thing, he goes, you know, I don't like my tax dollars being used to intentionally kill children. And a lot of people really objected to that word intentionally because I think so many of the defenders of Israel fall behind this. Like, no, no, no, that's not intentional. We're just trying to kill Hamas. But again, like I said, we would never accept that standard in like a domestic murder case. It's like, no, like the, the thing is that if, you know there are kids there and you know they're going to die, then that's intent.

Lex Fridman (84:50)

I think. Think I agree with you fundamentally because war is hell and that's why I'm against war. But there is a difference. So, like, I think you're, we're like mixing in a lot of things. I think you're fundamentally against war. And that's why to you it really doesn't, doesn't matter. It is murder. It's just murder and we shouldn't do murder. And there's a lot of democracies with of colorful flags and that justify murder because they're trying very hard not to kill civilians. And then when you say, you look at the reality of the Obama administration, the entirety of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, you're murdering civilians, yes, you're trying to kill bad guys, but you're murdering civilians. That said, on a ethical consideration, on which kind of ideals, ideologies you can build a society after the war, one that even on the surface level states that the value of every life, of every civilian life is equal and high in value. That's a good society. That's the concern with extremist ideology that basically is very difficult to build a flourishing society on. But then the whole argument against that is the one you said, which is like, yeah, well, Hamas is really supported now because of the war.

Dave Smith (86:19)

Right. But by the way, I don't disagree with the first part of your statement there. I just don't think it's in conflict with what I'm stating. It's like, look, I understand first of all that like, there is a difference between the way you're going to say, prosecute crime domestically within your own country and the way you can, can prosecute crime or whatever, a war between two different countries, right? Like maybe it's, it's not exactly the same. You don't have cops that you can just send in. You can't arrest somebody and put them on trial. It's not the same. So like, fine, you could say, but the point I'm making is more like, I'm just saying how we would think about these things in a domestic setting. We're talking about like morality here. And morality by its very nature is something that rises above, you know, the, it rises above logistics. It rises above like nationalities or governments or borders or any of those things. Like what's right or wrong. Like if it's, if it's wrong to rape somebody in New Jersey, it's also wrong to rape somebody in Central Africa like it does. And so I'm just saying you're committing the same act that we would consider murder in the first degree here. And then just to go one step further, I think particularly like, part of the reasons why people have different attitudes about the way two nations fight, like what, what we think of as war versus what we think as, as like say, like a policing issue, like we would never accept the idea that, like, you know, if, if, if whatever. The same. The logic that's used in wars, used in World War II, even used in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially used in the war in Gaza. If, if, you know, if there was a bad guy, even a guy who had done something like October 7th, you know, which we have school shooters and things like that here. You know, if there was an active duty school shooter and he's in a school shooting people, and we know he's already killed, like five people, blow up the school. He's. Hey, he's using him as human shields. No, it's not our fault. You see, Listen, those deaths, those deaths, Lex, while tragic, were the school shooter's fault because he used all these people as human shields. We would never for a goddamn second. If those were our kids, kids in there, we'd never accept that excuse. What? Yeah, that guy was bad. You still had an obligation to do something else. That was never accepted. Now, that we may look at things differently in the context of a war, but also, by the way, I'm not sure I completely do, but typically speaking, when people think of wars, they're thinking of this government versus this government, this military versus this military. That's not the situation here. You know, so, like, while Israel is saying, hey, they're using human shields, it's also like. And that is true, I think, to some degree. I think the Israelis overplay it a little bit. But there have been, I think, clear instances where Hamas is using human shields, but it's kind of a flip side of a different point. And like, the other point is like, oh, well, why aren't they using their army or their air force or their navy? Oh, right, because they don't have any of those. Oh, that's right. So you're fighting a war against a people that don't have a government because you've denied them their right to have one. And so that's. That's the thing where I do think if you've occupied the place since 1967, you almost now take on an obligation that you kind of have to almost conduct this as a police matter. You know, you're not allowed to just because otherwise. Because now we are getting awfully close to the scenario that we just laid out. We're like, oh, there's a school shooter. Blow up the school.

Lex Fridman (89:48)

It's difficult to have a discussion about ethics when you're talking about war, because really, at the core of it all, war is immoral.

Dave Smith (89:57)

Yeah. I mean, by its very definition, it's Innocent people dying almost always. Right.

Lex Fridman (90:02)

Like, it's difficult to pick, which is the just war. And Even World War II, because of the complexities that you mentioned, is difficult to pick.

Dave Smith (90:11)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (90:11)

Because it's Stalin.

Dave Smith (90:13)

Well, as my, as my buddy Daryl Cooper demonstrated, I think we can have a reasonable civil discussion about these things without anybody blowing their lid. We can all just talk. No, but look, I mean, look, there's so many. World War II is just. It's the third rail like nothing else. I, I really. World War II and the Civil rights movement, I think, are the like, like third rails of American politics. That if you like, if, if you have any type of view, that is not the, the approved, authorized view of how these events went, you're in a lot of trouble. If you wanted to compare Hitler to Stalin's body count at that time, Stalin was already a genocidal maniac, and Hitler had not gone genocidal yet. So there is a weird dynamic there. Now in hindsight, it looks a little bit better because you go, yeah, yeah, but he went so genocidal at the end there, you know, but like, that's a weird decision at the time to ally with, with Joseph Stalin when he had already done the worst things that Joseph Stalin had, or at least a lot of the worst things he had done. I guess there were a lot more in the war as well.

Lex Fridman (91:23)

But it's curious, though, you didn't mention Mao. It's that funding again. Because he did even worse than Stalin. So is that the second?

Dave Smith (91:30)

I'm not sure that that's officially known. Do we actually know that Mao killed anybody? I mean. All right, I'll come, I'll say it. Here we go. I'm going to blow my funding. Bad guy that Mao say Tong do not care for him.

Lex Fridman (91:41)

I think the Chinese government officially says they have like an actual percentage that he was 70% correct.

Dave Smith (91:48)

Is that true? They actually broke it down to that 70%, but the 30% was being the worst mass murderer in human history. That's such a communist best thing to do.

Lex Fridman (91:57)

Yeah, we measured it.

Dave Smith (91:58)

We measured it and perfectly, scientifically figured it out.

Lex Fridman (92:01)

Since you mentioned Daryl Cooper, you're friends with him, can you tell me about him and tell me about the whole saga about where he got attacked after the.

Dave Smith (92:09)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (92:09)

The Talker interview.

Dave Smith (92:10)

Yeah. Yeah. So. Well, Daryl, I was just a big fan and still, I'm really just a big fan of him. I. We've. We chatted like a few times and I interviewed him on, on my podcast and I consider us friends. Martyr Maid podcast is his show and it' just phenomenal. I found out about him from. My guy is Scott Horton, who's a very close friend of mine and I think the best, the best person on war in the country. He's just a genius. He runs the Libertarian Institute and he's also been the editor@antiwar.com for many years now. So he first told me about Daryl and that I. What I knew of Daryl was just that he did a podcast with Jocko and so like they did their show together and I listened to a couple episodes of it and really enjoyed it. And then it was Scott who was like, dude, you gotta check out his podcast, Martyr Made. It's like the best history podcast you got. And I ended up listening to his. The first thing I listened to of his was the Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem. He's done a few things on Twitter where he's kind of like shit posting and stuff like that. But when you listen to his work, like when he lays down like, I'm going to put together this, this thing, I'm going to take years to put together like a long presentation on the history of this conflict or the history of this. He is, has like the utmost responsibility in the way that he tells the story and the way he presents it. I cannot understand how anyone would listen to his work and come away with the feeling that this guy is any type of like Jew hater or Nazi apologist or anything like that. It's. It's just not who he is. What Daryl said on Tucker's show was that he goes, you know, I'll say this to be provocative sometimes to kind of rib my buddy Jocko who's like Anglo Saxon. So this kind of gets to him. He goes, and I'm being a bit hyperbolic when I say this, but I'll. I'll sometimes say that Winston Churchill was the chief villain of World War II. Now he didn't commit the most atrocities. He wasn't like the worst person there, but he was a guy who was hell bent on kind of this thing becoming what it ultimate became. Whereas like it. This might have just been an invasion of Poland. This may not have been this whole cascade of like the worst thing that ever happened in human history. Now the retelling of that is always. People go, he said Churchill was the chief villain of the war, but it's like, no, not exactly. Like he, you know what I mean? What. He, he's making a point. And I think he's, he's putting out right Now a long series on World War II. He just put the prologue to it, which was excellent, by the way. And I really just have, you know, listen, if after it's out, maybe I'll come back and regret saying this, but I don't think I will. I really have, like, trust that Daryl will handle this, like, responsibly. And in fact, I think that he might be. And not because he's, like, involved it like this is his angle or what he's attempting to do, I think just that he's gonna tell the truth, and the truth will take you where it takes you. I think he's actually gonna. To probably serve a function of bringing a lot of those types kind of back to reality and bringing them back to being like. Like he. If you think he's going to be excusing the atrocities of the Nazis in this thing, I just don't. I don't think you're going to be happy with the end product if that's what you are coming into it for.

Lex Fridman (95:34)

Okay. One thing I want to say is I think calling Daryl Nazi a Nazi sympathizer is just wrong and it does a lot of damage. I think he's. He has a lot of value to his podcast. I think we're like, there's several things to sort of make very clear. I think as a really interesting guy, I'm sure I'll talk to him in the future. But I just want to lay on the table that I think what he's saying about Churchill is just dead wrong. I think legitimately that statement, removing the trolling from it is a revisionist history statement that I think is wrong. The invasion of the Soviet Union would have happened no matter what, and possibly which I'm actually learning a lot more. Stalin could have gone the other way as well, that. That was going to be a global war no matter what. Churchill, the role of Churchill, we can debate. And I still don't think he was a main instigator of that expansion. There. There's a lot of historical documentation of that.

Dave Smith (96:29)

Well, look, that's a. That's a fair debate to have, and it'd be interesting to see you two kind of talk about that, or may not even debate it, but just, like, have a conversation about that.

Lex Fridman (96:37)

I think the broader point you're making is a lot of. I mean, there's just a lot of trivialization of the World War II that happens in the west, in the United States especially, and that's used by neocons, by. Oh, yeah, by warmongers. To sort of.

Dave Smith (96:52)

Oh, I constantly. I mean, I've never, I don't think I've done a bunch of like, Israel, Palestine debates. I don't think I've ever done one where World War II wasn't invoked and where that wasn't like the. Well, I mean, let's. Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. So you're going to tell me it's not okay and immediately, just if you just look at it like that. Like, let's say the official narrative is 100% true in World War II. Let's, let's even say every aspect of the official narrative is really true. Like the lesson of World War II is that we should have gone to war sooner, which is essentially right. Like the dominant mainstream narrative that Chamberlain is the failure, that was the problem, the appeasement. Churchill was the solution. If only Chamberlain had been Churchill or if only we had gone to war with Germany and you know, whatever, in 1933, we would have just, it would have been better. Okay, let's say all of that's true. It still doesn't follow from that. That therefore in every situation appeasement is wrong and aggression is good. It doesn't follow from that. That's the only lesson of history. And that now it's just okay to slaughter civilians. Like, it's okay to go to total war against a civilian population because this one time it was necessary. Like, it's. And the idea that Bobby Kennedy said this to me again, somebody who I really do love and admire in many ways, and I'm glad he's the health Secretary, I remember him saying, invoking the Nazis and making a comparison between Hamas and the Nazis, you're like, dude, Hamas doesn't even control Gaza. Really. The Nazis had most of Europe at one point. This is just not an apples to apples conversation. This is not. You can't even compare the two in terms of what type of menace or threat they are to the world. I mean, like, sure, maybe if Hamas had a lot of power, they'd use it in a bad way. But like, that's true with like some homeless guy on the street too. But he doesn't have that power. So, like, what are we talking about here? And so the way I do think that the way the World War II narrative is weaponized has been even if World War II itself was necessary, and just the way that that's been weaponized over the years has led to just like countless catastrophes. And like, you know, and it's always, there's always. It's not just like, you know, I mean, I guess it's just in some ways, there might be something positive about the fact that everybody's always called Hitler if they're bad. You know what I mean? We make Hitler the, you know, the face of what is evil eternally or something. He really does play the role of the devil in our society in a strange way. But there is like, you know, Saddam was the next Hitler and Gaddafi was the next Hitler, and Bashar Al Assad was the next Hitler.

Lex Fridman (99:33)

Trump.

Dave Smith (99:34)

Trump is Hitler. Hamas is Hitler. Except the problem is that, like, none of them are Hitler. None of them are even close. It's just totally different.

Lex Fridman (99:42)

Yeah. And the amount of power is really important. It matters how much destructive power you have within you, the capabilities. But like, every. Every major superpower with nuclear weapons has the potential to be that destructive. It's just unproductive.

Dave Smith (99:56)

And yet the only ones who ever have dropped them are us.

Lex Fridman (99:59)

Yeah.

Dave Smith (100:00)

I was arguing with one guy on a podcast, and he said that. He goes, you can't allow dictators to have nuclear weapons because they might use them. And I was like, but. But we are the only ones who ever used them. And he goes, ah, come on, that's naive. Or something. Like, wait, what? Why shouldn't that be pointed out? And I don't know. I mean, I'd prefer Iran not get nuclear weapons. I. You know, I think we're pushing them to probably want to pursue that. And I also think there's been a lot of propaganda about the nuclear program in. In Iran. I know. At least since the 90s. According to Netanyahu, they've been five years away. Yeah.

Lex Fridman (100:39)

I think there's a lot of warmongering going on about all parts of the world, Iran especially. I do. I have a lot of friends in Iran from Iran. It's one of the most beautiful cultures in the world. Like this just super, super superpower of intellect and culture. And it's really sad and disappointing that the regime is basically suppressing that culture.

Dave Smith (101:00)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (101:00)

You have to always remember, like, there's parts of the world where the. The people are beautiful and we don't get to see it because of the suppression, the lack of freedom.

Dave Smith (101:11)

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Lex Fridman (101:13)

So, all that said, there does seem to be a lot of hatred of Jews on X. Yeah. How much of it do you think is actual hate of Jews? And how much of it is just trolls and grifters and conspiracy nerds just, you know, cosplaying as Nazis?

Dave Smith (101:36)

It's really hard to tell. I mean, I don't know. I don't know how you even figure it out. And, And I think this is one of the problems with. With outrage culture. It's kind of one of the unintended consequences of it, is that now you just have no way of knowing who's saying this just to get a rise out of you, or who really sincerely means it or who's some version of both. Then there's also. It's like, there's so many weird dynamics, because there's no question, like, I see it all the time. I mean, I see a level of, like, Jew hatred on Twitter that I've never seen before in my own replies and other people's things. Like, it's. And that's interesting. Like, first off, you're like, okay, so what's going on here?

Lex Fridman (102:22)

Interesting sociological phenomenon. Yeah, right.

Dave Smith (102:24)

You know, yeah, concerning and troubling and all of that stuff. But then you also see people who will be asking, like, completely legitimate questions or making completely legitimate points that are called anti Semitic. And then that, I think, does not help the dynamic at all, because now you're almost like, oh, there's number one, you just kind of. You make the word meaningless. You take away the disincentive. For anybody else to actually be a Jew hater. I mean, I think there's a lot going on. You know, one of the things is that for young white men in America today, they've lived through the years of. Of real insane, progressive wokeism. And so, you know, which is something like my. Like, I'm 42. It's just a different thing for me. Like, I come from a different culture in a different time. That it just simply was not the case that when I was a teenager or when I was in college or when I was in my early 20s, that the school, the faculty, the politicians, Hollywood, all of them embraced racialism. You know, they all said, we're playing identity politics, and it is okay to dice people up along these racial lines and have that first and foremost in your mind. Mind, you know, and there is this weird feeling over this last year and now with Trump being reelected that, like, we snapped our fingers and wokeism went away or something like that. But these guys still came up in this. In this era. And there was. It was always the case that, like, one of the. The dangerous elements of playing this game was like, hey, you think you're going to play this? And that, like, young, straight white men aren't going to start playing this game too. Why the hell would they not, like, why. Why would they just accept, we'll just sit here, while everybody else is allowed to have a racial identity and a grievance about it. And yet we'll be the one group who, yeah, you could just stomp all over us. We're the bad guys. And that's part of the reason why I always opposed the WOKE insanity. I mean, first and foremost, just because I think it's wrong. I think it's wrong to, like, be shitty to people based on their racial group. And that includes white people, too. But then also you're like, you don't see that this is gonna result in something bad. So there's, there's that. But I mean, I, you know, clearly, and, and it was weird to me is that I, I guess it's because a lot of the people who are the most upset about the anti Semitism also happen to be supporting Israel. Like, there's a big correlation between that. But clearly it's a huge factor in this. Like, it's, it's not a coincidence that all of this rose up while Israel is just conducting this brutal campaign with our weapons in mind. Money. And so I always think with these things, whether it's with Putin or with Al Qaeda or with whoever. And I'm not saying, like, the guy who posts, like, Jew Haiti stuff on Twitter is the same as them. I'm just saying in all of these situations, you always kind of got to separate, like, what are legitimate grievances and what are, like, okay, that's. You're wrong on that and you shouldn't be doing that. You know, like, so it's, it's pretty easy for me to, like, if I listen to, like, the Putin interview with Tucker. I thought his whole 30 minute opening thing was, like, horrible and, and just like, kind of stupid. Especially when you're talking to Tucker Carlson. You know, this is like, for an American audience, you know how much that does not resonate with Americans being like, we have a historic claim over another our entire society is founded on. We think that's bullshit. Like, that's the entire history of our. Is like, nah, it doesn't matter. Sorry. Like, literally read the Declaration of Independence. It just refutes everything Vladimir Putin said in the first 30 minutes. Like, our view of the world is that God wants us to be free and we get to overthrow governments if they're infringing on our rights. Like, that's so that was stupid. But then when he's talking about, like, NATO enlargement and bringing Ukraine into the American military alliance, you're like, okay, he's got a legitimate point there. We would not allow one of our neighbors to be brought into China or Russia's military alliance. And so likewise, when it comes to those guys, I do think that like, like you almost look, it is, it is just true. It is the case that America has fought many wars over the last seven years with Israel playing a very influential role in us fighting those wars. And you know, these were, this was like a scheme that was cooked up by the neoconservatives and the Likudniks in Israel that we would go through this path. But this has been confirmed by four star general Wesley Clark. He literally said, said it was a study paid for by the Israelis, that we were going to topple seven countries in five years. And we didn't get there in five years, but we've been made attempts to topple all of those countries since then. You know, you see Trump's bombing the Houthis because they're pissed off about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. And so they're trying to shut down their straits or whatever. And it's like, so we're just bombing another group on behalf of Israel. And if you really are concerned about the rise of Jew hatred, I would say, like, look, it's much like, you know, sometimes people argue where, you know, the thing I said in the beginning about the terrorists don't hate us for our freedom, they hate us because we're over there. And people would say that's just what Osama bin Laden says. He just says he hates us for our military, but he really just hates us because he's an Islamist and we're free people or whatever. He'd be like, okay, well even if that's what's in his heart, that sure is his recruiting stick. That sure is how he gets other people to blow themselves up. And so even if you want to say which is, which might very well be the case case that some of these people just hate Jews and it wouldn't matter if Israel was at war with Gaza or not. It's like, okay, but that sure is their recruiting shtick. That sure is how they get other people to go look at what these Jews are doing in our foreign policy. So I would, I don't know. There's a lot going on. I do think, I think racialism of all different forms is stupid and wrong. It always just leads to sloppy thinking and bad results. It's always kind of ugly. And then weirdly, it also always ends up hurting the person person. Like, it's not good for you. It's not good for your Soul. So I don't like seeing that stuff. But then I also think, you know, like I was saying before about there's like this hierarchy of outrages that you gotta have in order to think and act. You have to kind of put these together and, you know, I just hear a little bit it's something that I'm, you know, despite being described as a self hating Jew, I am really not. I love Jewish people, I love Jewish culture. I've benefited a lot from it. It's. It's in many ways made me the person I am and I think made. I think it's influenced some of the best parts of me. But there is like a whininess and a hysteria about this stuff that I think is just like not healthy. I think it's not good. I've told many Jewish friends and family this privately, but it's like the way I look at it is like, I'm an American. This has been a wonderful country to be Jewish. Jews are doing exceptionally well in this country. We are 2% of the population or so, and we are thriving by any metric. And if mean stuff on Twitter is our great burden to bear, I don't think we should be talking about it like we're in the middle of Nazi Germany or something like that. So I do think people get hysterical.

Lex Fridman (109:38)

About it in a way that's completely not productive. But to me, I think I think of the Jew hating nerds and trolls on Twitter as just the other side of the woke.

Dave Smith (109:51)

I kind of get that.

Lex Fridman (109:52)

Yeah, it's almost like a response like you were saying. It's just that the, the woke weren't censored and the response to the woke was censored. And now that on X they're less censored or not censored, you just get to see it. And they're both annoying.

Dave Smith (110:09)

I agree with that.

Lex Fridman (110:10)

They don't really help the discussion on Israel. They don't help the discussion on anything. In fact, I one of the reasons I stay away from that discussion of Israel, which I think is nuanced and really complicated in the way that we've been discussing. In order to have an intellectual exploration of ideas, you have to be able to misstep and try ideas for size. And if I'm going to be punished severely by these, I'm okay being criticized by. But when there's like low brain takes that are just lying about me en masse, like he gets a huge amount of engagement just because you're like thinking out loud and reading history and yeah, it's just annoying. And by the way, I'm really interested about World War II, probably in the way that Dan Carlin and Daryl Cooper are interested because it's such an interesting stage on which human nature was explored in all its forms. The geopolitics of it. Everybody on that stage was complicated. There's a lot of. Also there's a lot of fascinating military taxes and strategy and military technology. Plus the nuclear bomb, all of that. That's like a moment in human history. Listen, I love Genghis Khan, Roman Empire, Alexander the Great. Those are all interesting studies of human history, of military tactics, of, of brutality, of human nature, all of that. That's why I want to be able to discuss that. It's fascinating like that humans are able to do that kind of thing. What causes them to do it? What were the dynamics involved? The propaganda on all sides could have, could it been avoided or not. You know, Plus Stalin is part of this picture. Yeah, it's like what the. What like you don't get character this you don't get after the nuclear bomb. You're just not going to get characters like that. You're not going to get a global war of that kind. It might be a different one, maybe a cyber war or maybe a war in space, but we're not going to get this kind of war ever again. That was the last, the biggest and the last global war we're going to get. So I want to be able to like mouth off and explore and yeah, argue with Daryl Cooper, Bob Churchill and say stupid in the process. And Daryl says stupid shit in the process too. And like together they're coming to the. So anyway, the, the trolls on the left and the right just make everything worse and it's annoying.

Dave Smith (112:27)

No, I, I agree with that. And I'm sure like I'm, I'm sure I'm not without my own bias in this because I like. But from my own like self interested perspective, I'm not saying like this is the main reason to be annoyed with them or anything like that. But I, what I personally get is all types of like, like self hating Jew Nazi apologists. All this literally just because I criticize the way Israel's conducting this war. So I think that's like insane. But then I also feel like, and I'm not. Listen, I want to be clear and disclaim this. I'm not saying this is the worst thing about people who are Jew haters on Twitter, but just from a personal perspective, I'm like, guys, you are not helping me, man. Like, it's like, I'll get people in my comments who I think are trying to, like, catch my back, who just don't know I'm Jewish, and they're like, I'll say something critical of Israel, and then someone will argue with me, and they'll be like, oh, look, a Jew came in here to defend Israel. And I'm like, dude, first of all, do you. You're like, literally, you might as well be working for Mossad. You literally make the entire. You make the movement who's criticizing Israel look terrible, dude. Like, you are literally the enemy that they would like to have. And so this, it's. It. There's a very weird dynamic in the Israel, Palestine conflict where all of. There's so many of the loons on both sides who almost seem like they're secretly working for the other side. Like, if you. When you see the, the Palestinian protests and they're chanting Death to America and all this stuff, you're like, what are you, what are you doing? Are you trying to make people more sympathetic to Israel? Because that's if, if Rabbi Shmuley was working for Adolf Hitler or something like that, it would all make perfect sense. You were like, oh, I get it. You sent this guy out to make everyone hate Jewish people. And then, like, it's just. There's just a very. And then with the, with the, the Jew hating post, too, it's just. Yeah, it's. It just feeds right into the, the opposition side of how to caricature. You know, it's like, oh, so their game is they'll smear everybody who's a critic of Israel as, as being a Jew hater. So your answer is to just really be a Jew hater? Like, all right, I don't think that's helping.

Lex Fridman (114:47)

So maybe this is a good time to ask for your advice, because these folks are the reason why I'm hesitant. So I've interviewed several world leaders recently. It's looking likely that I'll interview Vladimir Putin and several other similar level major world leaders. I've previously interviewed Benjamin Netanyahu for an hour. One of the biggest regrets I have about that interview is it was only an hour. I realized that. I mean, I learned a lot, but I think he's a really important historical figure, and I think it's impossible to have an effective conversation with him that's shorter than three hours. So it looks like he's interested now to do round two with me for three or more hours. And I've personally. So this is a bit of A therapy session. But I've personally been leaning against doing it, and I hate that I'm leaning against doing it, because the reason I'm leaning against doing it is because the very people you're talking about, because I just don't want them to on either side, Pro, Israel, pro, it doesn't really matter. But the chanting sheep of Animal Farm, Jew hating or otherwise, just make your life. They follow you around everywhere on online and make it difficult to think. I think whenever I come across these crowds, the Woke left or the. Whatever you call the Jew haters. The woke right. Right, let's call them. They just like, decrease the quality of my thoughts for the rest of the day. I feel dumber. It's like Rogan talks about when he hears a bad comedian. He feels like nothing is funny anymore. This is what I feel like when I read their thoughts. It's like, I can't. I'm gonna go read a book now because I need to, like, recover my brain.

Dave Smith (116:49)

Dangerous kind of poison to let in your mind because then you're like, it's like, hey, I can't be thinking about you when I'm doing what I want to do. Like, I can't be thinking about what your reaction to this is going to be. The way I always thought about it was like, when I get like, you know, hate online, which I'm, you know, always get, it's always just kind of like I look at it like this. Like, I got. I got a great family and a great career year, and I really love what I do. I make really good money at what I do. And I go, I do shows all the time. I get crowds of people who love what I do. I got a lot of people who listen to my podcast who love what I do. And it's like, so if I get all that and then the price that comes along with that is there's some people who talk shit online. It's like, that's a very. That's a very good price to pay for all of this. Like, it's just. And I just like. Like I just kind of made a decision at a certain point that it's like, I'm just going to accept that that's the price of business here. That's what it costs. And then, okay, fine. And then sometimes I try to have fun with it or mock them or whatever to go back. But to me, now, again, I. I could never tell you what to do because this is a. It's a very personal price that you have to pay. And it's a very weird psychological dynamic. I mean, it's just not, it's almost something like that we, we were not evolved to deal with and is very artificial and it's very, you know, like, if you're, if there's a group of like thousands of people who hate your guts and are furious at you, we're almost like hardwired to be like, well, I'm going to be killed now. Like, that's the next thing that happens. You know, you, you're not supposed to get to know what just someone in Arkansas thinks about you right now, you know, but. So that's a very personal, like, decision to make. But I kind of feel like guys like me and you have already made the decision that we're in the arena and we're going to deal with that, that price. And so I just, from my perspective, I'm like, yeah, but how could you turn down getting three hours with Netanyahu? Like, that would just be so interesting. And I'm not even saying, you know, like, I hate the guy, but I'm not saying you should interview him like you hate the guy or I'm not saying you even have to like, like grill, but just if you get three hours with somebody, something interesting is going to be revealed there. There'll be a benefit to that. It'll be interesting to just see him talk that way. There's also something about, as we kind of saw with, with Trump doing the podcasts and even with JD Vance doing some of the podcasts, there is something really interesting about this format, the long form podcast, where it just gets people to let down their guard and reveal themselves a little bit more. Like it is. It's not just the time factor. Like, that's a big one. It's a huge, huge one. But it's like there's something about, like if me and you were just like if you. We were having this conversation right now, but in back of us was like a cable news, you know, background of red and blue and sparks and a ticker at the bottom of the show. And then you just start interviewing someone. It's just a different, different thing. Whereas this, you just kind of like fall into conversation mode. And I'd be interested to see him fall into that Putin too. Like, I just think it's great.

Lex Fridman (120:08)

First of all, thank you for the encouragement. But to push back on the complexity of a little bit, I think everything you said about your life is also true about my life, except family. I want to have a family. You son of a bitch. You bragging on the podcast side, I could have a lot of incredible conversations. Some of my favorite is talking to programmers or video game designers or to you about Netanyahu versus talking to a world leader is a very specific thing and people don't understand that. For example, you and I can mouth off. We can be super supportive of Netanyahu, super critical in a way that you can't do in front of the guy.

Dave Smith (120:49)

Yeah, that's true.

Lex Fridman (120:50)

You, you have. There's a. If you want to reveal something about that person, there's a different skill involved there. In order to reve how they think who they are as a human being, you have to, just like we said with Darrell Cooper, you have to humanize the person to a degree in order to let their mind flourish in front of you in order for them to break, to let down the barriers they've put up. And Benjamin Netanyahu has put up a lot of barriers internally in Israel. He gets attacked insanely. There's a Game of Thrones constantly going on. And this guy has maintained power for a very long time. So he's very good at putting up those barri years. Plus globally gets attacked a lot. So the task there is difficult. And so each one is a puzzle and you have to make a decision. Do you want to take this on as a project which might become a lifelong project because of the consequences? And you don't need to.

Dave Smith (121:48)

There's a calculation there. It's not so self evident that there is a correct and incorrect answer. And I do think that we've probably all had things like certain type of ventures in life where you're like, all right, no, I don't want to do that. But then you have to have a moment and be like, well, why is it you don't want to, oh, is it just because it's going to be a lot of work? Is it just because you're scared of it? Is it just because this. And those typically are not good reasons to not do something like, you know what I mean? And then now there might be. There is a reasonable, I think, point that you made in there where it's like, when it is a different game to interview a world leader, that is a very different thing. Like talking to some comedian about, about his thoughts on all this stuff is a very different thing than talking to a world leader and especially one who's conducting a brutal war as you're talking to them, you know, like, that's a. And I don't know exactly what the way to navigate that is. I agree with you, it's not just to be like hostile and be like, I've got you here for three hours, I'm gonna grill the. It's like, probably not the, the best way to do it. There's probably to like, have a conversation to talk to the guy, probably try to get some, some important questions in, but also give him a chance to breathe and be a person. I just, from my perspective. But again, it's a very personal thing for me. I just do think that I, like, I'm going, I hope you do it because I'd love to see that podcast.

Lex Fridman (123:08)

Okay, well, see, this is why. It's part of the reason I asked you is because I get a Dave Smith endorsement on the, On.

Dave Smith (123:14)

There you go. So that when this completely ruins. Exactly.

Lex Fridman (123:18)

At least there's another guy who thought there's a chance it might be a good idea. Yeah. Because I don't know. I see. That's the cool thing about the things we do. You've been through a lot of battles. You, you walked into a lot of tough debates, and it's like, you don't know. This could be the conversation that like, ends you.

Dave Smith (123:35)

I know. I. Well, I'll say that's. I think that's one of the things that I love about doing debates. And there is something about that where it's. I, I do kind of feel this, like, I'm a little bit of, of like an adrenaline junkie. I mean, not like really, you know, I don't like skydive or do stuff like that, but like up is kind of like, you know, there's always something about that that's like, you're risking a lot by doing it. You're like, you feel alive, you know, like not. And not like the way you do when you first start. But there is something about that and there's something about. Well, first of all, I just kind of. I feel there's kind of two things. Like, number one, I feel like I'm obligated. And I wouldn't say this for you, but I think this is true for me. I think I'm obligated to do like at least several debates a year. Year. And I think that. I think that if I'm gonna go on shows like your show and Rogan's show and, and Tucker's show and, you know, Candace or whoever else, you know, Patrick Bet, David and Tim Pool and I go on these big shows for long form things, and I'm sitting there and I'm being like, okay, it's like this like, and this is. And I think it's like this and that. Then if I'm gonna do that, I kind of have an obligation to, like, test myself against someone being like, no, it's not like that. And then, you know, like, showing that I think I can stand up to these. These kind of challenges. So I feel like I'm kind of obligated. But then I do. Like, there is a feeling to it where you're like, hey, man. Like, this is not my career, is not a joke. Like, I got little kids. This is how I support them, you know? And, like, I am kind of taking my career in my hands every time I go do one of these debates. Like, if I just get smoked and this guy just totally beats me up, and it's like, I don't know. I don't know. How are you. How's anyone gonna look at me again after that? You'd be like, oh, you. You acted like you had such a good point. And then this guy just totally destroyed your point. So. But that then kind of motivates me to be like, okay, I gotta really be on point. I gotta really make sure I've done my homework. I gotta make sure my argument's really tight. I gotta think about this thing from all ends. And then on the other level, it's like, if someone can do that to me, then kind of, that's the way the movie's supposed to end. End. You know, like, if you. If I. If there is some hole in my argument that I'm just not thinking of, and then someone else can point it out to me, and I got no response to it, then I kind of deserve to be humiliated publicly for that. So. All right. I don't know. That's. It's kind of exciting in a way.

Lex Fridman (125:59)

Because the movie ends at some point.

Dave Smith (126:00)

Well, that's true. Unless you and your genius friends can figure out how to, you know, give us eternal life or something.

Lex Fridman (126:06)

I don't think I want to live. I don't think I want to live forever. I think flirting with that idea too much is dangerous. This kind of transhumanism kind of idea, it's not a good way of thinking. Of course, I do want to heal diseases and extend human life, especially high quality of human life.

Dave Smith (126:30)

But, yeah, if we could live. If we could be in much better shape and much healthier and extend life by a few decades, I think that would be great. But I agree with you. I think they're supposed to be an expiration date on it. I think we're Supposed to. We're supposed to. There's something about, like, scarcity being a necessary component in a lot of different fields. You know what I mean? Where it's like the life itself having a finite amount of time on it, I think makes it more precious.

Lex Fridman (127:02)

Yeah. At the individual level. And then at the societal level, it just does seem like death is the way you get new ideas. It's like people kind of solidify their ideas and are unwilling to change their mind. And the only way you get new ideas.

Dave Smith (127:17)

Right. The next generation has to take them over.

Lex Fridman (127:19)

Yeah, you have to keep churning. All right. Speaking of the trolls and Israel, I gotta ask you about this. Let's talk about Jeffrey Epstein. I recently got attacked because of conversation. A couple conversations I had with Tim Dillon, Dylan, three and four years ago. I love Tim Dillon. He's hilarious.

Dave Smith (127:38)

I love Tim, too. I've. No, I've known Tim for many years. Love that guy.

Lex Fridman (127:43)

Yeah. So we. I bring up Jeffrey Epstein often because there's a. There's a fascinating study of evil to me, whichever angle you take on it. And I think they're partially to talk shit. But I showed some skepticism that he's connected to Messiah. So to me, there's three. And I've evolved on that since then, by the way. I'm not actually sure it's Mossad. It could be any intelligence agency. It could be CIA. But I was wondering if you could educate me. I did a little research on this last night. I looked into it a little more, and then I saw that you said he's definitely Mossad.

Dave Smith (128:20)

Well, I don't know if I said. I didn't say he was definitely Mossad. I don't know my exact. I mean, I made one kind of jokey post, as is the case with almost any intelligence operation. It. Look, I don't want to, like, poo poo anybody's hopes here because I guess, like, the JFK files just got released and supposedly the rest of the Epstein files are coming out. And there's a lot of. There's a major yearning right now to get to the end of the movie where we find out everything that happened, you know, and that I. I think it's great that people have that desire, and I hope more and more does come out. I think the truth is that with any intelligence operations, we're probably never going to know all of the details of exactly what happened.

Lex Fridman (129:06)

The funny thing about intelligence agencies, and I've been regularly accused of being CIA, FSB, or Mossad, depending on the group that's attacking me. But I think it's a fascinating topic and it's very difficult to know somebody's intelligence. But if you have any nuance, I want to discuss the nuance, then the, the, the, the comment is going to be that guy for sure is Mossad. Right? If we're talking about Mossad or so on. But yeah, I, that's one of the things I didn't know and I saw the. What is it Alex Acosta said that basically mentioned that Epstein's intelligence. That to me is like, okay, that's a piece of evidence. That's a really valuable piece of evidence that he's intelligence. And that was very, not just intelligent, but Mossad. Because that, before that I thought it might be CIA, because that's. I kind of heard and it's, I.

Dave Smith (129:55)

Think it quite possible that he was working with elements of both. I mean, as I think is, is often the case. I also think that's something that people get a little bit wrong, like when they think like, okay, this guy was CIA or this guy was Mossad. And then there's also, I think there's the possibility that there are rogue elements within those organizations. Like, this is not necessarily coming from the director or what, you know, I don't know. But you look at the guy, the way his, his, his career trajectory tracks is like completely unexplainable outside of being connected to intelligence. Like, it's not just like the one or two people saying that he's intelligence. It's like, dude, the idea that you're just like, you have no experience and you're a teacher at Dalton, which is like this incredibly elite New York City private school. And then all of a sudden you're at Bear Stearns and like within two years you've like made partner and you've made, you're worth hundreds of millions of dollars and nobody knows where you made your money from. This just doesn't happen happen. And then you're just in, you're just inserted into this world with all of the most like highest level political leaders and cultural figures and stuff. But the thing that's amazing about the Jeffrey Epstein story is that it's like the level of evil and the level of corruption that it exposes. No matter what the answer is. Like, no matter what the answer is. It's, you're gonna, you're gonna tell me that there was, was a pedophile ring in our country that involved. I mean, listen, dude, if you had said this shit before it came out, this would have been the wildest conspiracy Theory, but a pedophile ring that involves the most powerful people in the United States of America and in the the world to some degree, touching the royal family, the Clintons, like all these people. And that this was known and covered up and then allowed to continue. I mean, mean, like the, there's a blackmail operation that relies on raping American children. And, and like, if this is, you know, whether it's CIA or Mossad, doesn't make one less, you know, there. It's equally horrible. But then there's like these elements where like you're like, okay, so when it, when he first got arrested and then he was given a slap on the wrist. Slap on the wrist. And then the prosecutor says, well, I was told by intelligence community that he's intelligence and to go easy on him. It's like, oh, okay, okay. And, and you didn't resign and discussed that day, you know what I mean? Like, I don't think that's too much to ask for. You know, there was the, the ABC reporter who said that, that she had the whole story. She's on the hot mic saying she had the whole story, and then the network told her to squash it. It's like, and you stayed working there. Like, that's, I'm sorry, like, I'm not asking for, I'm not saying, like, we're all imperfect and none of us are here heroes. But like, you're in a news network and you uncovered a child raping ring that implicated the most powerful people in our society. And your news network told you we will not run this story because of our relationship with the royal family. And you did not resign in disgust that day and take this story to every single independent, independent, you know, outlet that would maybe publish it. I'm sorry, it's like the thing, it's so damning to the entire apparatus that we did not see, at the very least, see mass resignations over this. Forget even like, at the very least expect that it would have been prosecuted and shut down. And then, you know, still to this day, you know, even, it's like, I think Tucker Carlson just said this recently, but like, and I guess it's a little bit of a weird area when you're filming people raping children. But what. Where are the tapes? Why is everyone talking about the flight logs and the files? Where are the tapes? This guy was clearly taping people to blackmail them. Where are there. I don't know what the legal process of this is, but like, because I think technically it's child porn. So, like, yeah, okay, you can't just, like, distribute it out and let everybody watch it. But isn't there a way that, like, somebody has to sit down and watch it and see who is implicated in this and see who. Like, I just don't. And there seems to be. There's even. I think there's a lot of LARPing with this administration going on right now on this topic. But does anybody really expect that we're actually going to get to the bottom of this? Because I don't. And that in itself just tells you what a sham this whole goddamn system is. One of the things that's so amazing about the Jeffrey Epstein story, right? I mean, you have all of that, and then, of course, the end of it, which is just like, wait a minute. Wait, what? Hold on. He's in, like, the most secure, like, prison, and then he gets. The cameras go out and the correctional officers don't fill out the log and he's found dead. I mean, it's the, like, it's just. But when you look at it in totality, there's just, like, no getting around the huge indictment it is of this entire, like, everything. And I mean, even the fact that even the Trump administration, when Pam Bondi goes, we're going to release all of this information. We've only redacted what needs to be redacted for national security. The meme, like, why does anything need to be redacted for national security? Like, I'm sorry, you're telling me there's a pedophile ring and we can't tell you everything about it for national security? Why would that be related to national security? I mean, there's just. It's like. And. And I do think there's something. And it's very interesting because, you know, like, we talked briefly. Was that on air before? We were talking about. We were talking about. Sam Harris kind of, like, criticized me a little bit for not having the credentials to talk about some of this stuff, which, you know, like, I even said, okay, he's got a point. But it's like, one of the things that, like, guys like Sam Harris will talk about a lot is that, like, look, we need trust in institutions. And this, this is his big thing where he goes, you know, these people like Joe Rogan and Dave Smith are just tearing down the institutions. And while I recognize that's an issue, I also think we need trust in these institutions. Well, it's like, yeah, but what? Yeah, well, if you talk in that tone, then it means you're not being emotional and you're Only being logical and rational, which is like, I actually don't think is appropriate when you're talking about a child rapist ring. But whatever. That's my take on it. But it's like, ok, so where. Where are these institutions I'm supposed to trust, man? You're telling me there's a pedophile ring that is at least in some degree associated with national security? Like what. And how could you possibly have this story? Like, if you did care about trust in institutions, then you should be even louder than me talking about, like, you gotta tell the truth on this story, otherwise we'll never have trust in these institutions.

Lex Fridman (136:28)

I'm the same, actually. I believe in institutions like, I. I think they have out. So this is where you and I probably disagree on the libertarian side. I think it's. I think institutions, if they're run efficiently, can. Right.

Dave Smith (136:41)

Who's the utopian now?

Lex Fridman (136:42)

That's right. I mean, there is a utopian notion to it, for sure, but because it's very possible that bureaucracies always destroy the productivity and the effectiveness of institutions. It's possible.

Dave Smith (136:51)

It's a Lord Atkin kind of power code, corrupt type deal.

Lex Fridman (136:54)

And. And it's. You're absolutely right. If you believe in institutions, you should be. You should want to release everything about Epstein. You should want to be transparent as much as possible. Yeah, I. But the one thing I'm. And it is very suspicious. So I'm more and more becoming convinced that there's some intelligence agency connected to it. But I also want to, like, setting that aside, just comment on one thing where, again, it's super entertaining. But people say about me that I came out of nowhere, and that's proof that I'm intelligence. So, first of all, there is a track record of where I came from, quote, unquote. It's just people are too lazy. And there is something sexy about, like, just saying Mossad. Oh, he's denying it. Fucking Mossad.

Dave Smith (137:43)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (137:44)

By the way, the Mossad thing is a new thing. It used to be FSB And C. IA what do I want to say about that? Oh, yeah. I've been gradually growing in popularity over the past 10 years. I've been doing interviews, lectures, podcasts, and they've been just. It's actually very gradual. And I. I don't know what else.

Dave Smith (138:07)

There's a difference. There's something. And I know I've experienced this too. Right? Like, there's such a difference in perspective. Because, like, if somebody. Like, if somebody just found me and they just found out who I AM and they go, this guy's brand new, and he's doing, like, all these shows, but you're like, yeah, well, I don't know, dude. Not from my perspective. I'm not brand new. Like, dude, I've been doing. I've been doing standup comedy for 19 years, and I've been podcasting for, like, 15 years. And you're like. And then when it, like, starts taking off, everybody's like, oh, this guy just came out of nowhere. And you're like, I mean, all right, I wish. I wish I had been aware that it was all this quick. But look, a lot of this stuff with. With so much of this, too, it's just laziness and people searching for confirmation bias and people searching for a simpler story because that's easier. So if you're. If they believe that Epstein was MO and there's a clip of you where you're like, I don't know about that. Then they go, see, he's Mossad, too. And now that fits perfectly into my little story. I don't know. The truth is that there. It's quite possible that people just aren't convinced. However. However, given enough time, Tim Dillon is always right about everything. So you got it. Eventually you'll have to admit that he got it right.

Lex Fridman (139:16)

And, you know, not to say the cliche, cheesy thing, but it is true that the comedians sometimes say, kind of say the obvious thing that people are a little resistant to say that ends up being. Being true. Now, we just landed some more credibility to Tim Dillon's insanity. Great. Now, I. I do want to comment on the. The. There's the other aspect of me that came out of nowhere. Fine. But I do get to talk to world leaders, which I have to really admit, I don't understand why. So the experience I've had is you basically gain a reputation. Like, I talked to a lot of scientists early on, you gain a reputation like that this is. This is interesting person to talk to, and that travels. And then over time, you just. You get fans. And world leaders are humans, too. Like, they listen to this stuff, and sometimes it's their family that lists.

Dave Smith (140:15)

Yeah. Oftentimes. Right. Like their kids, it seems to be a big one.

Lex Fridman (140:18)

And so. And that. That's just how it happens. And so you sent an email. Hey, you want to talk? And then the. Their team or them directly, in several cases, they just respond. Yeah. And that's it. It's as simple as that. And they're like, they're. They're human beings. And I Think a lot of them as human beings are exhausted by journalists, but shitty journalists, I should say that. And it's hard for them to know which is the good journalist by good. There's the cynical view that they want. They want somebody who's just going to spout propaganda that aligned with their propaganda. No, they just want a good faith person in front of them now, like, and I should also say that there. No single world leader told me which questions to ask. There's no, there's this meme about my conversation with Modi that's like scripted. Nope. There was zero oversight. I have full control.

Dave Smith (141:11)

Well, it's also like, there's, I mean, obviously one of the major dynamics, which is just like one of the most interesting kind of themes in the world, I think right now, but it's particularly true in America is that, that like the corporate media is just shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. And this, whatever this is, which is so weird that we still all call them podcasts because that's just not the right name for them at all. And none of us have had an ipod in quite a long time. And like, I don't know, it's just such a, like the first thing person came up with it. It's a cast on an ipod, it's a podcast, and we all still use that term even. Even though it's. But whatever. These, these shows on the Internet have the audience. And so that's a big factor. Just that it's like, oh, this is where you can go to the audience. And then I would say, and I don't know exactly, like, I have no idea, I should say the motivations inside any individual's heads. But I would say, like, in the case of Vladimir Putin, he is completely blacked out in American media. And to the point that even RT has been blocked out. They never play any of his speeches. They never allow you to hear, like, look, this is what this guy's perspective is. It's a. It's very interesting in the same way that they kind of all flipped out when Osama bin Laden's letter to America went viral on, on Tick Tock. And you know, then all the talks of banning Tick Tock increased and stuff. So for him, say, like, when he did the Tucker interview or if he does an interview with you, well, that's a way for him to do an end around and allow his perspective to be heard, which I personally think is like, obviously a good thing. Like if you're going to go in a war and we're kind of at a war with Russia right now, you should know what is the other guy's perspective is not that you should take it as gospel, but. And then from Netanyahu's perspective, I would imagine, you know, they, Israel has a lot of control in a lot of different areas, but they have been losing the Internet battle very, very badly. And it's a major problem for Israel. I mean, I don't know. I, I still think, I think in a very strange way, everybody seems to be underest, underestimating how grave the implications of all of this are. But Israel, the view of Israel from the world is never going to be the same what it was before. The entire. And the generational divide on it is so stark. Like Everybody, you know, 40N on who very quickly, you know, the time goes by quickly. Pretty soon that's, you know, the, the 40 and over crowd gets aged out pretty quickly and this is just go. It's never going to be the perception of Israel that my parents generation had ever again because of this war. And you know, I'm sure to some degree at least Netanyahu is like, feels like he has to try to get his perspective into that Internet conversation area. And so I think a lot of different people, you know, obviously it was Donald Trump's. It' in a way it's kind of shocking and, and I guess kind of Bobby Kennedy when he was running for president and Vivek Ramaswamy when he was running for president, they kind of were doing some of it even before Donald Trump was. But it is kind of crazy in a way that it took this long for politicians to figure out that it's like, oh, well, I guess we gotta go where the audience is. That's the point of doing shows, right? I mean like, would you rather do a show, you know, like with a million people or with 10 million people? It's like, well, okay, you guys do CNN all the time. Why wouldn't you do Joe Rogan's podcast? It's just a bigger audience and those people get to vote too.

Lex Fridman (144:46)

You reminded me with Netanyahu that one of the goals I have with the podcast is to have the kind of conversation that a historian would find useful 20 years from now, which is tough to do because you're going to get punished for it. Because it's mostly I want to reveal as much information as possible without the signaling, without the. You just want to know who was this person?

Dave Smith (145:11)

Yeah, no, I think, I think that's, that's exactly right. And I think this was kind of what Daryl was saying. I think that the part of the. The awful thing of always using World War II as the next example for the next war is that it's almost like you're never. This is, you know, they hate us for our freedom, or Vladimir Putin's just mad and he wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union. It's like you. They always insist that we can never treat our enemies as people, people, and be like, this is a real person with real grievances. And even they might be a fanatic also. Like, I'm not saying they're not, but it's just like that There. There are these, like, human qualities to it, and it's always like, you know, whatever. Even when they were going before they did the Obama and Hillary Clinton did the regime change war in Libya, it was like all this propaganda. He's buying up Viagra to rape all the women and he's going to go genocide. This guy who had been in power for decades, decades, you know what I mean? Like, it hadn't done that. And it's just like, oh, it's like the way you're supposed to think about war is almost like these people have been possessed by pure evil. They are monsters, and there's no talking to them, there's no dealing with them. It's just simply this. But look, a good example, just this recent conflict with the Houthis, where you have the Houthis in Yemen, which Saudi Arabia invaded in 2015 with the full backing of the United States of America. America, the Houthis maintained power for eight years through that. They maintained power until this, until the Saudis finally gave up. And it was literally like the Saudis were just killing hundreds of thousands of people. And then the Houthis would, like, get like, a drone off at one of their oil refineries or something like that. Eventually they were just doing enough damage that it was like, ah, all right, this isn't worth it anymore. And so they end it. And so anyway, you have this thing, you're like, okay, so if they did, if they went through a total war for eight years, what do you think Trump sending a few Tomahawk missiles over there is gonna stop them from doing this? Okay, but then they didn't do anything. And this is according to all reporting on it, they didn't do anything during the ceasefire. It was only once the ceasefire broke down that they went back to attacking ships again that were coming through. So you just see this thing where you're like, it's not saying right or wrong or who's Good or bad, it's like, look, sometimes there's a diplomatic solution and there's not a military solution. And, like, in this case, you're like, it just shows you, okay, if there was a ceasefire here, these guys will chill out. What do you want to do again? Do you want to go to total war with it? Because, like, okay, we could overthrow the Houthis if the US Invades Yemen. Like, that's kind of what it would take. It's like, does anyone here really have the appetite for another catastrophic war in the Middle east against the poorest country in the Middle East? You know, or we could pursue this diplomatic route, which seemed at least. I mean, I'm just saying, based on the evidence that they weren't attacking ships during the ceasefire, seems like there could be a diplomatic solution here. And so there's just, like, a lot. And, and the problem is, when you don't. Like, if you make everybody monsters and they're not human beings, well, you can't do diplomacy with monsters. You can't make a deal. You can't negotiate with monsters, but you can with humans. And, like, you know, I'm sure there are, you know, like, to our earlier discussion, like, maybe there are times where you're not. You shouldn't negotiate, or you can't negotiate with humans, but it's better if you can. And we could use a lot more of that thinking.

Lex Fridman (148:32)

Can we take that idea and move to the war in Ukraine?

Dave Smith (148:36)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (148:36)

What do you think is the path for peace there?

Dave Smith (148:38)

Well, I think what Trump is pursuing is infinitely preferable to what Biden was doing. What puts Donald Trump. And I don't think everything he's done has been perfect. And I really did not like that minute funeral deal that he was floating out for a while there. And I, I think maybe that might be the best thing that came out of that Oval Office thing, is that maybe that, you know, Donald Trump goes, it's going to be very tough to do business like this. And it's like, yeah, we shouldn't be doing this business deal anyway. But. And, and by the way, I don't think we should do it on a few. Number one, principally, I think it is kind of like bullying Ukraine out of resources. And I don't. From what I understand, they don't even have that many, like, fine minerals, but whatever. But it's also like, well, look, if he's. He was selling it to Zelensky as that's kind of a security guarantee, you know, because, like, hey, if we're in business, then If Putin messes with you, he's messing with us. But from my perspective, like, that's the whole point is you don't want to get into the business of giving out security guarantees. I mean, this is a real. This is why George Washington was against entangling alliances. Like, you give out war guarantees to too many places. You might have to fight a lot more wars than you otherwise would have fought. And also, like, there's simply. We're in this weird position where America postures like, they're so tough, but really, when it comes down to it, we're not going to war in Ukraine. There's no political will here. Like, I'm sorry, try to convince the American people we should send our boys. Like, I understand you're from the region, but, like, for you. Or you have roots from there. But, like, to the average American, the idea of going to war over whether Luhansk is ruled by Kiev or Moscow, Moscow is just. They don't even know what Luhansk is. And if they met someone from there, would probably just assume they were Russian. You know what I mean? Like, they're. And they might be, but whatever. I think the first step to a path to peace is that you have to want to get a path to peace. So I think Trump's doing a good job in that.

Lex Fridman (150:30)

Do you think all three sides want peace? From what you understand, obviously, Trump legitimately, fully, with an urgency, wants peace.

Dave Smith (150:37)

I think, for sure Trump wants peace. I also think Putin wants to wrap the conflict up, and I think that Putin has. Putin has been willing to deal for the entire lead up to the war and pretty much throughout the war. And there's been a lot of solid reporting on this. And, I mean, the sources on it are pretty impeccable. The. The head of NATO, Stoltenberg, I always mess up his name, but he literally said that in late 2020, 21, that Vladimir Putin actually sent a draft agreement to NATO and that his condition for not invading is like, I will not invade, but you have to put it in writing. Like, he sent a draft treaty to them. You have to put in writing that Ukraine will not join NATO. And then Stoltenberg bragged about how he said, no, because we won't let Vladimir Putin dictate to us whether we can expand NATO or not. And then he was bragging. He was like, and look what he got. More NATO expansion, Finland and this and that. So look at that. Didn't even seem to notice. Like, that. Wait a minute. You're admitting that you could have just promised not to bring Ukraine into NATO and saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Seems like it would have been a much better deal. It's going to be a much better deal than what Ukraine will ultimately end up getting. So I do think, I think also the Joe Biden's CIA director, who is a CIA, CIA director whole four years, William Burns, when he was ambassador to Russia, he wrote the nyet means yet. And in the memo. And again, this was dumped by Julian Assange. This wasn't for the public. This was just him writing to Condoleezza Rice to tell the Secretary of State his assessment. And he said that his exact words were a decision Russia does not want to have to make. And this was the decision about whether to invade Ukraine or not. And he was like, they say if you keep pushing for Ukrainian entry into NATO, this could lead to a civil war and even worse. And in that situation, situation, Russia would have to decide whether or not to intervene. A decision Russia does not want to have to make. So essentially, it's like, I think it's pretty clear from all sides that Putin didn't want it to come to this. And, and look, I mean, even after the coup in 2014, he, he took Crimea, but he didn't invade the country. I mean, he sent, he may have sent special forces in, but I mean, not the full scale 2022 invasion. And even for the civil war going, all that, you know, he did, it seemed like he, he. I'm not defending the decision. I'm just saying it seemed like he reluctantly debate, you know, what was it in 2014 or 15 when they had the plebiscites in Crimea and in the Donbass region and they voted to be independent, he didn't take them then. I mean, he could have used that as a pretense for like, hey, they voted to be with us and he didn't. I think he wants to end the war. Zelensky, from everything he's said publicly politically, seems like he still feels like, I mean, I'm just taking him at his word here that it's like, well, no, look like we could end the war, but we got to end the war. It seems like he's moved from his position being like, no, we have to reclaim, reclaim all of our territory. To now his position is kind of like, all right, maybe we don't reclaim all of it, but we got to be given some type of security guarantee in the future. I think the problem with that is just again, like, I don't mean to be cruel about this because, like, it sucks that there's little countries that are next to big countries that kind of get bullied around about them. But there also is a bit of an entitlement to demanding a security guarantee. Like, what exactly do you mean from America? What, that will go to war if you're invaded? Why are, why do we owe that to anybody? Like, that's crazy. I'm sorry. Sorry. You could just sign up to say that we'll go to war if anybody invades anybody. I mean, I hope nobody invades anybody, but that. I, I don't want us to get dragged into that. That's a recipe for always being at war, you know, And I don't think that's right for our country. So essentially, I think Trump and Putin want peace, and if that's the case, I think we'll ultimately get to an end of this war.

Lex Fridman (154:42)

So there's a lot of stuff to say here. Let's actually start at the, at the beginning, at the foundation of this. I think the thing that we left unsettled said that's important to say is that Putin invaded Ukraine in February 24, 2022. And I think he is, at least from my perspective, the person who started the war. You could talk about NATO expansion, you could talk about any other thing that led to it. You could start at the collapse of the Soviet Union. You can go all the way back, as he did, a thousand years. The reality is, and this goes to our deep discussion about the morality of war, no matter the reasons, the guy that pulls the trigger first non accidentally and keeps pulling the trigger, that's the guy who's at fault.

Dave Smith (155:35)

Oh, I agree. I'll say one standard, like, one standard for everybody. The standard that I laid out before is the same one I said. It's. Did you absolutely have to do that? You know, once you start killing people by the hundreds of thousands, it's like, was there any other option? Are you telling me, like, you absolutely had to do this? And I don't think that's right. You know, my, my friend Scott Horton, who I was talking to you about, who. Just totally brilliant guy, even in his book, there's a whole chapter of all the other options of what Vladimir Putin could do. So you're absolutely right. And there's a weird thing where, like, people say, like, if you say that the west provoked this conflict, that is a very different thing than saying that this conflict is that this invasion was justified. And in, in way that, like, you know, if you, if, if you were at a bar and someone goes and spits in another guy's face and then he pulls out a gun and murders him right there. Like, he's not justified in doing that. That, that is not okay. You don't get to murder someone because they spit in your face. Also, if you were talking about, like, why did he murder that guy? Be like, oh, because he walked up and spit in his face. That's why it happened. And that, that is essentially my contention about this war. And it is. I think it's just crystal still clear that that's why it happened. Listen, it may be right or it may be wrong, but if China or Russia ever, like, backed a street putsch to overthrow the democratically elected government in Mexico and then install a pro Chinese or a pro Russian government and then started pumping arms into that conflict and then kept floating out the idea that they were going to bring them into their military, all alliance, DC Would simply not allow that. You cannot do that any more than the Soviet Union could put nukes in Cuba.

Lex Fridman (157:21)

Like, sorry, that should be said that that's really Cold War 20th century neocon thinking. Right? It is the way the world works. But, like, that's. I don't think you should still punish.

Dave Smith (157:32)

I don't think outside of the neoconservatives. Listen, whether you're talking about the neoconservatives or going way before the, any other group that has ever had control of US Foreign policy going back to, to the, the cold warriors, the Truman administration, the Eisenhower administration, I think you could take this back to Thomas Jefferson. If this happened in 1801, there is simply no way that they would allow a foreign great power to come, bring our neighbor, overthrow their government, and then bring our neighbor into their military alliance. I think there's no great power that would ever tolerate.

Lex Fridman (158:11)

First of all, we're in a post nuclear world, right? So, meaning post, there's nuclear weapons. So the threat of somebody being on your border is just not the same kind of threat when you're in nuclear power. Which is why, you know, you look at Finland.

Dave Smith (158:25)

No, I think in some ways it's more, it's more of a threat. In some ways.

Lex Fridman (158:28)

Well, he's not, There's. Putin is not upset about Finland joining NATO nearly as much.

Dave Smith (158:33)

Look, I'm just saying to Vladimir Putin, in his own world words, what his issue always was was the military hardware that comes along with NATO membership. It's not just that you get into NATO, but then you get all that military hardware there. And he made a huge deal about the dual use rocket launchers in Poland, which George W. Bush put there after 9, 11. So I think all of those things are factors. I think Ukraine, the Crimea being their only year long warm water port. I think there's like several, you know, like elements to it. But I do think a huge part of it is that there also the country's been invaded through Ukraine multiple times. And so there's just, yeah, it's, it's. He, I think very reasonably within the grading on a curve of how reasonable governments are, he saw that as a security threat.

Lex Fridman (159:23)

But I, we should make very clear because the way that comes across, the full responsibility of the invasion of Ukraine lays at the hand hands of Vladimir Putin.

Dave Smith (159:33)

Sure, I completely agree with that. Vladimir Putin is. Vladimir Putin launched a war where again I, I don't know exactly what the numbers are. I've read a whole bunch of estimates, some that contradict each other, but the consensus seems to be it's at least in the hundreds of thousands, possibly well north of a million if you're talking about the casualties on both sides. And Vladimir Putin launched a war that led to that and he's responsible for that. That being said, you can also point out that the, you know, really what we're talking about here is the George H.W. bush administration, the Clintons, Bush again, Obama and then Trump and the people who were in charge of the foreign policy in that, in those administrations, the same ones who gave us Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, they were also in charge of our European farm policy policy. And they had the most reckless, far the most reckless policy of all was their NATO policy that they, they drove up to this conflict with Russia with nothing but off ramp after off ramp after off ramp and consciously decided that we're not going to take any of those, we're going to drive it all the way up to this point. And Thomas Friedman for the New York Times interviewed George Kenan in 1998. And this is George Cannon. Was the, the like, like the Cold Warrior. He was, he's, he's credited as founding the containment strategy in the Cold War. And he was talking about the first round of NATO expansion which he and many other foreign policy graybeards opposed. And he was talking and he was like this is the worst thing we could possibly do after the fall of the Soviet Union to now say that we had this alliance in NATO that was an anti Russian military alliance and now that the Soviet Union isn't there and anymore and it's Boris Yeltsin's Russia that now we're going to expand NATO because of that and he literally said in 1998, he goes, the people advocating that we expand Naito are going to continue advocating it and advocating it and advocating it, and then there will be a Russian reaction, and then they'll say, see, that's why we were right to expand NATO. But they'll get this completely wrong.

Lex Fridman (161:44)

When do you think a deal is reached?

Dave Smith (161:46)

I really have no idea what the timeline is going to look. Look like. I'm hoping sooner rather than later. I think, like, I think Donald Trump would love nothing more than to have some type of, like, big spectacle of ending this war, some type of big press conference or some type of, you know what I mean? And so I'm sure, like, if I. My guess would be that's where Trump's mind is, is how to do this in the best way that sells him the best. And, you know, but I, I think that already we're in a position where Donald Trump has put a lot of political capital chips into the middle of the table that I can end this war, you know, and he's going to look very, very bad if he can't. So he's very highly incentivized to get this thing done as quick as possible. And so hopefully that can, that can happen soon. It would be great if it could happen in the next month.

Lex Fridman (162:44)

Yeah. People on both sides, outside of Donald Trump are telling me that it's a, It's a process.

Dave Smith (162:49)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (162:50)

There's kind of implication it's going to. Is going to take a while, which I really hate. I really love, love Donald Trump's urgency.

Dave Smith (162:57)

Well, it's also terrible. There's something really awful, like, per, you know, look, when innocent people dying in war at any time is, Is terrible, but there is something profoundly awful. And I've, I'm old enough now that I've seen this a few times have happen or I've lived through it a few times. I've read about it happening earlier. But it's like, once you've kind of already decided the war's over and people still die. You know what I mean? There's something almost like, sadder about that because it's always like, come on, you already know, you know, like, when there'd be like a big, you know, there'd be like a bombing campaign in, in, in Afghanistan, like, when we all already knew we were a few months away from ending the war, you're like, you got to kill more people, like, on the way out. We already know we're leaving. We already know that because there's something at least in the beginning, they could kind of hide behind this justification, or they could be like, listen, we're going to overthrow the Taliban and we're going to install our new government. They're going to be a democracy. It's going really good. We have to do this in order to do this bigger project. But then by the end, you're like, we're not even pretending anymore that we're doing anything more positive. It's just someone dying in a senseless thing we never should have been in.

Lex Fridman (164:00)

Well, in the spirit of that, that's why I traveled to Moscow and will travel to Moscow again in the near future to likely interview Vladimir Putin and hopefully travel back to Ukraine, which I did, to talk again with Volodymyr Zelensky or with whoever the future president is.

Dave Smith (164:19)

You'll be the only guy who's interviewed both of them, I think.

Lex Fridman (164:23)

Yeah.

Dave Smith (164:23)

During this war. Right.

Lex Fridman (164:24)

And I have to say, the border crossing is getting increasingly more intense.

Dave Smith (164:29)

Like, yeah, I wouldn't. I went to Canada last week and I didn't care for that. So I'm sure, sure.

Lex Fridman (164:33)

Primarily it's the nations of war, as it was in Ukraine. And it's fucking, it's like it's dangerous to do both.

Dave Smith (164:40)

It's also like, I think something that, I think something that's a little bit foreign, no pun intended, to America is, you know, like, we've fought in a lot of wars over the last, say, 25 years, you know, 50 years, whatever, but all of them, including in a way, the, the world wars, even, even in the 20th century, but it's been since 1812 that we fought one on our shores and none of the other ones. I mean, I guess Pearl harbor, but even Pearl harbor, that was a one off. And it was only kind, you know, it was America technically, but it wasn't mainland America, you know. And so we're fighting wars like halfway across the world, but it's a very different thing for two neighboring countries to fight. And even though most of the fighting's been done on the Ukrainian side, not, not all of it, like there have been, you know, I think there still are areas in Russia, like inside Russia's borders where there's action. And so it's just like there's something so much more real about that that's not just like, you know, the wars we're used to are we. We send a military that is a hundred thousand times more sophisticated than anything. It'll be meeting on the ground over to a third world country to go do that. Now as we Found out over the years, there's still a lot of challenges to that. Even when your side has night vision goggles and the other one doesn't, and your side can call in airstrikes and the other one can't, and your side has all this sophisticated training and the other side's practicing on monkey bars. Still very hard to occupy a people and dominate them and defeat an insurgency. But that's very different than, like, two nation states on. Right next to each other on the border. Like, there's just a real feeling of, like, survival in that moment. And I do think that probably I don't understand this as well as you. You do, and probably you don't even understand it as well as maybe like, an older generation of. Of Russians and Ukrainians would. But, like, there's also something about, like, both Russia and Ukraine, in their own ways, got so absolutely fucked over in the 20th century multiple times in a way that Americans just. It is just too foreign to us to even understand anything like that. Like, millions of people starving to death, being invaded, the entire nation collapsing. I mean, the Russian government collapsed twice in 100 years. Right. That's. That's pretty. Like, that's traumatic. And we just simply have never been through anything like that. And so if you. When you have that kind of, like, trauma as a society and then there's a war on your border, I'm sure there's a whole lot of different kind of feelings that we just can't relate to.

Lex Fridman (167:24)

Plus a history in both nations of super sophisticated and expansive intelligence agencies.

Dave Smith (167:30)

Right, right, right. Yeah, that's a very good point. Yeah.

Lex Fridman (167:33)

You host a podcast called Part of the Problem.

Dave Smith (167:37)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (167:38)

What have you learned through that whole process of interviewing some interesting people? And are there topics you cover that make you sweat? Still to this day, it feels like going into the fire.

Dave Smith (167:51)

What I. What I've learned just from the podcast is that there is. There's something. There's an interesting, like, relationship that you build with your audience. And, you know, I. I travel a lot and I do shows a lot. So, like, I'll. I meet people who listen to the show. And I know, like, I've had this experience before. I kind of had this experience with you where, like, me. You know, me and you met once, I think before today. We were. Me, Me and you actually met on a very interesting night. I don't know if you remember, but we were at. Before the Comedy Mothership was built. You came by a Joe Rogan and Friends show at the Vulture.

Lex Fridman (168:32)

Yeah.

Dave Smith (168:33)

And it was the. It was while Joe was going through the shitstorm of cancel Vulture and he was on the phone with Dana White and stuff in the back. It was a wild night.

Lex Fridman (168:41)

What a wild night. Yeah.

Dave Smith (168:43)

Then at the same time, right. Like, even though we just kind of met that one time and then we talked on the phone and now we're doing this show, I kind of. I know you already. Yeah, Like, I already know you. And it's not just that we have friends of friends, but I've just like, seen so much of your stuff that it's like, I know who you are. And then. And then it's weird because people come up to you and they're like that. It's like they know you. And I've had this experience. I had this experience with, with Joe. Like, I. I knew him before I knew him. And so that was kind of like one of the things that I really learned from doing the podcast over the years was like, how much that's actually a relationship. Like, you actually have a relationship with your listeners and, and almost like in the same way. In the same way that, like, you know, you can't, like, lie to people, like, in your life, you also can't lie to your, like, they're a relationship too. Like, you can't lie to your. Your audience. And that. I think that there's like, there's. There's often almost like kind of shortcuts that are presented before you, but there is a payoff to not taking the shortcuts and to like, kind of doing it the way you want to do it.

Lex Fridman (169:42)

What do you think is the number of hours it takes to form a relationship? Relationship? Because I absolutely agree with you. First of all, I should say I'm a huge podcast fan. I've listened to you as a guest and your own show a lot. So, yeah, there's. I think with you, I've already crossed the threshold of ours where, like, I feel like we're friends.

Dave Smith (170:01)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (170:01)

One way. And I guess because you listen to me, it's the other way, which are like separate parallel dimensions.

Dave Smith (170:06)

Very weird. It's very strange in a way. It's very interesting. And it's also. There's something there, which is more your area of expertise than mine, but there's something there where, like, technology. Technology is playing this wild role. Like we could have a two way friendship without actually having to meet each other, all facilitated by the machines that we built. It's very trippy.

Lex Fridman (170:25)

I think it's probably like, I'll say it's like 50 hours, maybe 20, 20 to 50 hour range is when you're.

Dave Smith (170:32)

Like, okay, it's kind of interesting in a way, right? Because like the thing before, like the Joe Rogan experience and what was like kind of the thing that made comedians big. The things before that used to be like Letterman and Leno and Conan, like comedians would get like a seven minute set on there. And even if you do great, like if you're just like, you killed and someone watching is like, I love that comedian. That comedian's amazing. First of all, unless they were like on social media and then went and like, shoot you out, there was no, there was no way to connect. It'd just be like, love that guy. Anyway, back to my life. And then maybe you'll remember him and maybe when he's coming to town, you'd see, oh, that same guy I saw in Conan is going to be at the local comedy club or something. Maybe. But, but then like Rogan became the main thing and now they didn't just see you do seven minutes of standup, they sat and listened to you for three hours. So even, let's just say even off that one one, off the one three hour podcast, you come away knowing a lot more about that person. It's, it's not like just a little taste, you know a lot about it, but there is, I probably would put the threshold at, at 40 to 50 hour. Like if you've consumed 40 to 50 hours of somebody, especially when they're doing what we do on these shows where you're just, you're speaking very, you're speaking in a very unguarded manner. Manner. Even though, like, this is your show and, and you asked like a lot of questions, you don't know exactly where this is going to go. You know, you're, you're then, then you're seeing what I say and then go, huh, okay, well, let me ask something based off that, let me make a point. Based off that we're both kind of like unguarded. And when you consume somebody like that for, for like 40, 50 hours, you do see into their soul. I think there's almost no way, there's no way to avoid that. And, and, and also I would say if they're not letting you see into your, their soul, you'll notice that. And you know that about them. This is a guarded person. This, this was ultimately Kamala Harris's issue, right? And this is why she was probably, you know, correct not to do Rogan. Even though everyone looks back at that and says like, no, no, no, this is this was the big disaster of her campaign. It's like, I don't know, you know, she was so guarded in every single interview that she ever did. She was always constantly not trying to let you see who she really, really was. And if she was going to try that on Rogan, that would have, that would have been so apparent to everybody involved.

Lex Fridman (173:04)

So you've had a lot of intense conversations on Jerry. What do you appreciate most about Joe as a human being, as a conversation partner?

Dave Smith (173:14)

I can't overstate how, how much I love Joe and how much I admire him.

Lex Fridman (173:21)

Not as much as Ron Paul. Just let's be clear. There's like a hierarchy here.

Dave Smith (173:27)

He's. He's close. Holy shit. They're both like, they're both like, you know, there's like very few.

Lex Fridman (173:33)

That means a lot coming.

Dave Smith (173:34)

Well, there's Ron, like Ron Paul and Joe Rogan. I've like, our. Those are like my generals.

Lex Fridman (173:39)

Yeah.

Dave Smith (173:39)

Like, and I'm a soldier and those are my, Those are my guys. Like, if Joe Rogan pointed to some guy and said, you got to go fight that guy right now. Be like, all right, I got to go fight that guy, or what, you know, Ron Paul too. I just think it's both very personally for me, you know, like, Ron Paul like, introduced me to like a set of ideas that like, changed my life. And, and I'm just enormously grateful for that. Joe Rogan was like, I was a huge Joe Rogan fan before the Joe Rogan experience. Like, I'm an old school Joe Rogan head. I used to go on Joe Rogan.net before that, when websites used to end.

Lex Fridman (174:13)

Before Jerry, before, like whatever it is, before everything.

Dave Smith (174:16)

I remember I, I was a fan of his before he confronted Carlos Mencia. And the day he confronted Carlos Mencia, I watched the video on his website and was like, oh, Joe Rogan called him out. Dude, this is the craziest thing ever. And then, and then when I, I was a fan that like when he started the podcast, I remember going, this is going to be big because he's going to be so good at this because he's got so much interesting to say. And I didn't realize it was going to be quite what it became, but I did think like, oh, this is going to be an awesome thing. And then so there's like that. So like, I always really admired him and I was always a huge fan of his. And then he literally, not only did he like change my life, but he changed like all of my friends lives. Like it's like, a very weird situation. Like, he's, like the. He's the Santa Claus of my world. Like, he's literally just. And. And there was some. Something like. I don't know, man. He's just. He's just a very, like, genuine person, and he's really loves. I think he really derives a lot of pleasure out of the fact that he gets to help the people who he sees as, like, the good guys, like, the guys worth helping. I just think that's, like, such an unbelievable thing. You know, I had. The first time Rogan had me on his podcast was, I believe, in 2016, and I had, like, I might have had, like, 5,000 followers or something like that. Like, I was real, completely unknown, and. And, like, it was like, I did nothing for him. It was just the fact that he heard me on Ari's show, and he was like, oh, I like what this guy's got to say. I think this is cool. Like, let's talk about it. And, yeah, I mean, he's just like, you know, like, I. Again, he's just been such a great guy to me in. And. And at every little angle. Like, everything, you know, you open for him. He takes care of you better than anybody else does. You'd work his club. His club pays better than anybody else does. He, you know, like, just. Everything is always, like, it. He's always great to the people who are around him. And, you know, again, like, this is. It's. It's just hard to over, like, you know, again, I have a wife. I have two little kids. Like, he's put me in a situation where I can, like, provide a great life for them. And, like, don't get me wrong, I mean, you know, like, I did something with the opportunity. It's not like he just gave me, you know, like, it's like he gave me the opportunity and I did something with it. But still, I mean, he didn't have to give me that opportunity. And I will always. I will go to my grave being enormously grateful for his friendship and his. His, you know, the platform that he's given me. And also just he is like. And I try not to abuse this, but there's been, like, a few points, like, over the years where I was like, I really needed advice on this, and I've gone to him, and he's been, like, the absolute best at literally every single time I've followed it. A few times. A few times, I didn't follow his advice, and I really regret not following his advice, but he was the Absolute best, like, guy to be like, all right, let's talk about this. Which. And. And last thing I'll say is that it was freaking crazy because I. He's like, you know, got more shit going on than anybody else in the world and is still very interested to take time out to, like, discuss some thing that I'm asking him about, which is a really, really great quality.

Lex Fridman (177:31)

Yeah. Always takes a phone call. Yeah. You're right about the advice. He's. He's. His advice is spot on. And it's. It's often the ones. For me personally, what's needed is, like, he's been through so many fires.

Dave Smith (177:46)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (177:47)

That he's really good at, like, making you feel like, don't worry about it. Just.

Dave Smith (177:51)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (177:51)

Just like, move on. It's the don't read the comments thing. But generally.

Dave Smith (177:55)

Yeah, that's right.

Lex Fridman (177:56)

Yeah. Just like it. And there's. He has a whole. That whole vibe, which kind of looks effortless, but I think when you look at it serious, especially in contrast with journalists, there's a fearlessness there, 100%. Like.

Dave Smith (178:13)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (178:14)

That not giving a. I mean, he says it's like, because of you. Money or any of that. I don't think so.

Dave Smith (178:21)

I think it's more than that. I mean, I'm sure that's a component of it. But there's people who have that. Who still don't have this.

Lex Fridman (178:27)

Most people who have money.

Dave Smith (178:28)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (178:29)

A lot of money. Are actually become more scared.

Dave Smith (178:31)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (178:31)

Because they like the comfort of just like normal life. Because when you're taking risks, you're going to pay for it. Even if you have money, not just financially. Just, like, it's going to. It's going to hurt. It's going to disturb your life. It's going to create turbulence. Yeah. The guy is fearless. And fall follows just his genuine curiosity. It's like an inspiration to me. Friendships aside. Just inspiration of how great of a conversationalist he is. And not. He legitimately didn't give a. If, like, if he talks to any of the presidential candidates or not. If he. He'll just talk to friends, like, just because he wants to. And there's no, like, click baitiness to it. There's no, like, giving a. Above you or like. Yeah.

Dave Smith (179:15)

I mean, during the COVID stuff, man. I mean, he was like, interviewing Dr. McCullough and. Who's the other one? Malone. Dr. Malone. And had Bobby Kennedy. All these people, like, at this time when it was like, so. And. And he's had it with me before, too, like, talking about Ukraine and Israel, like, at the times when it's really white hot, you know what I mean? And like, there's this huge penalty on not going along with the regime's talking talking points. And he's like, like, it's really hard to overstate it. I mean, there was. There used to be nothing like this. It used to be that if. If CNN and Fox News agreed, well, then that was it. That was the line now. And now we got the biggest show in the country will actually allow the other perspective on and allow people to, like, challenge the regime. I think it's been historic.

Lex Fridman (180:01)

I think also there are shows, there are people that just are constant conspiracy theorists, which is fine also. But I sometimes feel that those lack genuineness. They kind of put themselves in a bin where everything, like, you question everything to a point where, like, I don't know, I feel like you're not getting closer to the truth when you question everything.

Dave Smith (180:23)

There is something that some people in the conspiracy world do which is like, they. They speak about something with certainty when they're really not certain about it. And it's like, I'm. It's. It's fine to, like, ask questions, and it's fine to speculate about things, but you also have to, like, you just. It's true in general, in life, you got to be really careful about, like, presuming your conclusion and then working backward from there. And then sometimes when you have one or, like, it's just. It's a matter of being sloppy versus not being sloppy. And like, sometimes people, like, I remember for a long time back in the day, in the. In the 911 truth movement, there was this. One of the huge smoking guns that they would point to was that in the 90s, there was this one document. I'm blanking on the title of it, but it was from pnac, the Project for a New American Century. And this was the think tank or one of the think tanks of the neoconservatives. Like, all the big neoconservatives were involved in pnac, from Dick Cheney to Rumsfeld to Richard Pearl, David Worms are all the big neocons. And there was this one document where they basically, they were like, their project for the New American Century was how we're going to have hegemony for another hundred years now that we won the 20th century, how are we going to win the 21st first century? And they were like, okay, well, here's what we want to do. We want to start multiple wars in the Middle east, and we want to like go like all the plans that they had, NATO expansion in Europe was a big part of it too. And then there was one line where they said it's going to be tough to work up popular support for these multiple wars we want to fight in the Middle east short of another Pearl harbor style event. And the 911 truthers would point to this and go, see, clearly they did it. They did 9 11. They even say in their own words here that they want another Pearl harbor event so they could do this. And it's like, well look, that doesn't actually prove anything. I mean it's, it's, it might just be the case that they were like, oh, we wouldn't get this without a pearl. And then when 911 happened, they went, hey, we got our Pearl harbor style event. And you know, and, and even if you like that story of 911 was an inside job, you know, cause it's kind of sexy and exciting and like, oh my God, what a crazy world we're living in. If that's, that's true. And I'm not even saying it's not true. I'm just saying if you're not sloppy and you're scrupulous, you go, that's not really evidence. It's, it sounds like evidence. It's evidence, you know, but it's not actually a piece of evidence because that doesn't in any way demonstrate that they actually were in on the thing. And there's just a lot of things like that. There's a lot of things I even see like, because it's a very popular conspiracy theory online now that, that Israel did 9 11. And, and I'm like, I'm open, you know, what do you got? What's the evidence? And they'll be like, well, did you see that Larry Silverstein took out a huge insurance policy on the World Trade Center? How did he know? And you're like, how did he know that the number one terrorist target in the world might need a big insurance policy on it? You realize that the same guys attempted to knock those towers down in 1993, right? And so there's just little things like that where like if you're being sloppy and you already really want this conclusion. Conclusion, I see where you could see these things as evidence. But if you're just being a little, if you're critically thinking about them, it's actually, it's not as strong a case as you think it is. And I, I like to, again, I'll speculate every now and get on things, but I Like to take on something where I feel like I can prove this case. Like, I really have enough evidence that I think I can prove this. I think I can prove that the neocons didn't invade Iraq because they were worried about weapons of mass destruction and they actually had this agenda for at least a decade before the war broke out. You know, like there's. There's strong tangible evidence for that. It's just some. Sometimes the. The constant conspiracy guys, not always, but sometimes they just get sloppy when it comes to actually analyzing how strong the case is.

Lex Fridman (184:07)

I mean, there's several psychological effects. I think there's a certain drug to the dogmatic certainty that you were mentioning it. You know, it really annoys me that there's something about human psychology because I usually, when I say stuff, I usually show doubt and show the humility that I might not have the right answer. And I sometimes look at multiple perspectives and that's seen as weakness and lack of intelligence. Often it just sounds like when I even like listen back to people that do that kind of thing. Yeah. That certainty sounds like intelligence to people. Like, if you say something with a lot of certainty, it sounds like this, this is a smart. And I hate that about myself, about human psyche. That that's seems to be the case because then like the. The dumb dogmatists are going to be like the ones that are driving agenda.

Dave Smith (185:09)

It is true. I've noticed that for a long time though. It's almost like in a weird way, it's kind of like a prerequisite for leadership in a way. You kind of have to be certain about things. But then there's a real problem with that, which is that a lot of times you're just bullshitting or you're just. Or you're. Or you're not. Right. You're not correct to be this certain about this. It's at least debatable. And you know, so you always try. And then the thing like, I. I feel like, at least for me is which I try to do. I'm sure I fail at this a ton. But you try to at least go like, you got to almost. You got to work on training your brain and you have to be conscious about it. And so you have to go like, hey, if there's something here that is confirming my bias that I get that, you know, you start getting that little sense of pleasure of like, oh, great, here's another point that proves the thing I want to be true, then you have to like, be 10 times as. As, you know, like, you know, Skeptical about this. You have to really examine this one and be like, okay, am I sure that this one. You know, because sometimes you'll hear people even throw out things where it's like, oh, I know you liked that because it was helping your case. But come on, think about this. This doesn't even make sense. It's like, okay, I want to make this argument. And then everything that would support that just gets sucked in, like a. Like a force of gravity or something. And you're like, yeah, but half of these are bad data points.

Lex Fridman (186:31)

I mean, like, from me, there's something definitely about my brain that is attracted to conspiracy theories. So I'm very well aware that that gravitational pull is there.

Dave Smith (186:43)

Well, it's. It's. If nothing else, it's a crazy story.

Lex Fridman (186:46)

Yeah.

Dave Smith (186:46)

It's like a movie.

Lex Fridman (186:47)

So it's like, oh, that's crazy. Every fucking. Yeah.

Dave Smith (186:50)

You don't need to work on Epstein.

Lex Fridman (186:51)

I don't understand. I don't. That's one of the big mysteries of, like, our modern era is like, how the fuck did this guy get an island, this pedophile, and got like, smart, smart, I think really smart people to, like, hang out with them.

Dave Smith (187:11)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (187:12)

And what the.

Dave Smith (187:13)

And has anybody. I mean, obviously just Lane, however you say her name. Ghislaine Maxwell. Okay. She went. She went to jail. It's like, is anybody else. Has anybody. Has anybody had anywhere been forced to resign? I mean, like, just even, like, say, like, I don't know, like, at the FBI or something, just for not, like, catching the thing sooner? Like, even if you weren't in on it, it's like, no, there's a real problem with the American system in. And it's that. That, like. And I think this just went on for too long before, like, the American people just wouldn't put up with it anymore. And this is why trust in every institution and the corporate media and Congress and all of it is evaporating. Separated. Is that. It's like, is he just saying, of all the people who sold the war in Iraq, no one so much as, like, got kicked out of polite society, you know? Like, I'm not even saying, like, oh, they went to jail for war crimes for life, but was just like, yeah, you can't. We're not looking to you for advice on the next war. Thanks. Go home. Like, none of that. It's like, all these, like, crazy things. Nobody goes down for it. I mean, like, they freaking. They lied us into war after a war. They've bankrupted the country, damn near destroyed the dollar they locked down the country on the basis of pseudoscience, then, then lied through their teeth about what this vaccine would do as they were forcing it on people. And like, no one loses their job. No one even gets in trouble over any of this. And look, in any, in any area of life, whether a business or a relationship or whatever, whatever, you can't, you cannot screw up that catastrophically and face no repercussions for it and think that your business or relationship isn't going to fail as a result of that.

Lex Fridman (189:01)

I think ultimately there's been a lot of wake up calls and I think we're going to build a better society from it, the like, better institution. I, I believe, I hope you're right. My, you know, more transparency, more like authenticity. I think also the Democratic Party has learned the lesson of like, you have to have candidates that do. I, I don't give a. About podcasts, but do podcast like things, meaning reveal themselves as human beings?

Dave Smith (189:25)

I, I think it's one of the best things that happened in this last election. And I'm not saying like I did think they were great, but I'm not saying that like any of the Trump podcasts were perfect or like maybe there, there'd be a better way that they could be done. But I will say that I always, I used to say this for a while while like as of, you know, like the last few years. But I, I'd be like, so it's like, so I'm, I'm me, you know, and for me to do what I do, it's kind of expected that I'll probably like, I don't know, I get like at least like maybe 15, 10 to 15 times a year I'll come do a show like this, like a, a long form show on a big platform where I'm gonna, you know, like my ideas will be poked and prodded and tested and there'll be pushback questions and they'll be there. Sometimes they're more, you know, adversarial, sometimes they're more friendly, but like you're gonna. And then yet our standard for who is the commander in chief was like, you show up to these debates that are like 90 minutes long with these really, really stupid questions and you give a 90 second answer to it or blah. And at least for the first time now it does seem like, oh, the standard is kind of you're going to have to do a long form show where people, you really have to have, you know, and, and that, that I think is long term, a real positive Development. You know, like you, you just kind of know going forward, the Democrats. Right. Which I think is kind of what you were saying. Right. You can't run a Kamala Harris if she can't do a long form interview. You got to run somebody who's able to sit down and express themselves and have real genuine thoughts or at least try to convince people they have real genuine thoughts at least. You know, and it's, that's very different in a way than, you know, I look back at some, like the most talented politicians of my lifetime, which I'd have to say the two were, were Bill Clinton and Barack Obama just like the most talented traditional politicians. Trump's like the anti politician, but like they were like the traditional and just unbelievably. But they never had to do that. It was just a different time. Bill Clinton had to walk up and like, you know, be like, oh, it's a beautiful baby. They go back and then play the sa and then have a couple good answers to a small. I'm from a little town called Hope. You know, like that. That's not the game anymore. Now the game is like, can you sit down and actually, you know, have some ideas in a long form? And I think that's so much better because it's so much more revealing of, you know, kind of like what we were saying before. You reveal a little bit. It's not 50 hours, but in those, in those three hours, you reveal a little bit of your soul.

Lex Fridman (191:58)

Yeah. And I think that process makes you actually a better person. I, I ultimately think, think that Barack Obama is a fascinating human being. And there was a choice made early on to be more, to do like less interviews, be more behind the wall, I think. And that, that's, that's a disservice because I think it's a skill to be an authentic person like that you build.

Dave Smith (192:19)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (192:20)

Like to, to be able to allow yourself to be yourself. Like, it's very possible that Kamala Harris is a fascinating person.

Dave Smith (192:27)

Yeah. We just never got to meet her.

Lex Fridman (192:29)

And I don't know if she has gotten to meet her by, you know, it's a practice thing to like reveal yourself as a tricky thing. I think it's just good for the candidate. I think she, Well, I think she. What she did, you know, I'm a critic. I don't think she's a good candidate, but what she did is pretty freaking incredible. Meaning, like in that. To raise that much money in that short amount of time, I think it was a terrible thing for the Democratic party to do. I think she's a terrible candidate, but still with the tools you got, like use TikTok, use whatever.

Dave Smith (193:04)

I'll say the fact that she came as close as she did to being president is pretty goddamn insane if you ask me. But yeah, the Democrats are a mess. They're a mess. Like I've never seen a political party before. But that in itself is, is I think, a very good thing. And what comes from here is there's a lot of possibilities now. And you know, there's never been like, I don't know who the person is. I don't see anyone out there that I could think of that would fill this role. But there's never been a more ripe time for someone to. Donald Trump, the Democratic Party now, you know, like somebody, what Donald Trump did. People tend to forget this because now like, it's also because the accusation from the Democrats is that, you know, the Republican parties are all a bunch of Trump cultists or something, something like that. But like I'm, I'm old enough to remember 2016 and what actually happened was that Donald Trump came in and just really resonated with the voters and the establishment of the Republican Party hated it. They were openly talking about changing the rules at the Republican National Convention to deny him the nomination in 2016. What they were saying is that they were going to raise the number of delegates required so high that nobody could hit it and then say, hey, since nobody hit it, we select Mitt Romney again and we're going to run Mitt Romney again. Like they were openly, openly conspiring to steal the thing from him. And eventually he just had so much support on the ground that they couldn't do it. Right now someone could totally do that to the Democrats. But the thing is it would have to be somebody outside of the three letter agency control because that's what everyone's rejecting right now. But if you were to actually sit there and go like, and even policies I don't necessarily agree with, but there are a lot of policies that if it was actually like a pro labor working class party, you could, you could, you know, Bernie Sanders showed you a little bit of what's possible. And this was from like an 80 year old socialist who didn't really have the balls to go through with it. At the end of the day, you know, like if somebody younger and a little bit more, more with the current zeitgeist were able to do that, that could happen.

Lex Fridman (195:15)

I mean, I legitimately think that AOC can develop into that camp candidate. She Might not be there yet, but I think she can develop in that. It could be out there. It could be.

Dave Smith (195:23)

I don't know. I don't see AOC being the one to do it, but I, I could be wrong about that. She's got some qualities unlike almost all the other ones you could think of. I just, you know, I don't see, I, I don't see anyone right now who I think could be that person. But I never would have said, I mean, if you had asked me in 2014, who's going to come take over the Republic Republican, I never would have guessed Donald Trump was going to come do what he did. So it might be the person we're seeing who we're not even thinking of, or it might just be some unknown. You know, same with Obama was an unknown. I mean, obviously he had, he had very powerful people behind his presidential run. It's not like he was a true, just like, grassroots guy, but he wasn't anyone we would have been necessarily thinking about. I mean, he gave that big speech at the 2004 DNC, but that was it. That was the thing he was known for, is he gave one great speech at the. Besides that he was a state senator and then a junior senator. No one's thinking he was going to be the next president.

Lex Fridman (196:19)

It could be like a Jon Stewart type character. Of course, I don't think he would ever. I honestly don't think a comedian will ever run, but I never thought Trump would ever run.

Dave Smith (196:26)

So there is, there is something about Jon Stewart that is, he's, and obviously I disagree with him on a lot of stuff, too, but he is an authentic person and there's something about that that gives you a huge advantage, particularly in our current political climate. People are so sick of the phone phoniness. It's like it's, and, and it's. And, and they're right to be. Because you could only, you know, so you can lie to some of the people some of the time like this. You can only lie so much before eventually nobody wants to hear you in that phony voice telling the same phony lies anymore. And at least Jon Stewart is. I will say I think he's, I think Jon Stewart is telling the truth the way he sees it. Like, I don't think he's necessarily right about a lot of things. He is right about a lot of things, but I think he's wrong about a lot of other things. But he, I just get the impression that he believes what he's saying and there's Something powerful about that.

Lex Fridman (197:22)

Especially when he's surrounded by people that disagree with him, he's still willing to say it. Yeah, that takes a certain kind of courage. Yeah. And be funny doing it. But he's not going to run.

Dave Smith (197:33)

No, I don't think so.

Lex Fridman (197:34)

This is annoying. No. Nobody like you have to be fucking crazy to run.

Dave Smith (197:39)

That is one of the real problems, you know, and then, like, people, like, attack Donald Trump for being. Being like a narcissist.

Lex Fridman (197:46)

You have to be, I think.

Dave Smith (197:47)

But who the hell else is going to ever do this?

Lex Fridman (197:49)

Yeah. All right. What gives you hope about this whole thing we got going on? America and human civilization?

Dave Smith (197:59)

Okay, so this is not mine, but this is Gene Epstein, who's like a. Is a really brilliant economist and a great guy. And he told me this once, and I just always loved it. And he. So I call it Ebstein's case. Not that different. Epstein, Gene Epstein. No relation. I want to be clear on that. Okay. This is Gene's. Let's call it Gene's case for radical optimism. And the way he put it was, he goes. He goes, so imagine you were sitting around in 1845, and you're at the height of the slavery, and you were like, hey, in 20 years, slavery is going to be abolished across the West. And if you told that to someone, they'd be like, dude, slavery has existed for all of human history. Slavery is. Look around, it's not going anywhere. You'd have to be out of your mind to think we're 20 years away from abolishing slavery. Slavery. And yet we were. I mean, it's. It's just like the greatest thing in the history of the world and not. And unfortunately, America had to fight a bloody civil war to get there, but many other countries didn't. And they just walked away from what had been the status quo forever, you know, and just stopped doing it. And now, look, you can argue there's slavery by other names and things like that, and like, you know, to some degree paying an income taxes, some degree of slavery, but there's is not chattel slavery in the way that there used to be. And that is like an incredible advance for humanity. And then the other example he would give is, he goes, he was talking about how at the beginning of the Reagan administration, like in 1981, that the neocons. Because when he was trying to have detente with Russia, the neocons were in the press being like, he just guaranteed another hundred years of Soviet dominance, you know, and if someone had just been to, you like, hey, listen, calm down. In 10 years there won't be a Soviet Union. It's just been like, what are you like, okay, nice idea, but you're out of your fucking mind. And yet that was true too. And so there is even when, you know, and you can see some dynamics even in our politics today where like, you know, three years ago I was really concerned about whether they'd shut the whole thing down us. I mean, you know, like when it was during the COVID times and during times where it was like everyone I knew was just getting strikes on all their channels. And if you just even wanted to like, talk about how like there are people being vaccine injured, you'd like lose your YouTube channel, get people getting kicked off Twitter left and right. And I just saw it and I was like, dude, the, the grasp is just getting tighter and tighter and tighter. The regime is not going to allow these alternative voices, you know, in here and they're just getting too big and they're going to shut this whole thing down and I'm going to have to figure out what I'm to do after that. And I was totally wrong. It just, the trend totally went in the other direction and things are now at a point where it's like, I couldn't even imagine it. I never would have envisioned Elon Musk was going to get $44 billion together and buy Twitter. And then he was, you know, it's like. And so I just think that if you kind of like zoom out, I think that the regime has lost their monopoly on propaganda. And this opens up enormous possibilities. Abilities for what? You know, I, I remember so vividly 2002 and, and 2002, you know, 9, 11 happened in late 2001. We invaded Iraq in 2003. But all of 2002 was a massive propaganda campaign, just constantly laying down the blueprints for this war that we knew was George W. Bush was about to launch. And it was, you know, they have weapons of mass destruction. They were in on 9, 11. They're friends with that Al Qaeda, they're going to hand this weapon that they don't have off to the terrorists they're not friends with. And then they're going to nuke Kansas. And, and every right winger, by the way, this is also. Sorry for rambling a little here, but this is also one of the reasons why when, when the Jew haters will say things like, they'll be like, oh, look, all of the Jews Support Israel, or 70% of the Jews vote this way, or the 70% of the Jews support this word. It's like, listen, I don't like blaming or even the. When the, the Palestine haters will say 70% of Gazans support Hamas or whatever. It's like, okay, look, I remember a time in this country, I know I'm going back 20 years, but every right winger in this country was completely convinced that we have to go invade Iraq because he has weapons of mass destruction. And you're some type of leftist homo if you don't agree with that. That was the entire culture in this country. And it was the one thing that the New York Times and Bill O'Reilly and CNN and the Washington Post all agreed on. They were all on board selling this war. You could not do that today. They could not get away with that today. Because if they did, how do you control this entire problem? You tell me, how do you control Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson? You know, how do you get these guys to go, they're not going to go along with it. And in fact, they're almost definitely going to have people on their show who are just tearing it apart. And so I just look at that and I go like, yo, I mean, we're at a place now where we have this world of possibilities that would have seemed impossible just so recently. And so just thinking, like, all of that rambling stew, whatever all that was, that leaves me feeling very, very hopeful for the future.

Lex Fridman (203:25)

Yeah, there's a lot of social and political progress in that rambling stew over the decades and the centuries. For me, probably some of the technological progress is really exciting. Me personally, it just fills me with hope whenever I see the rocket go.

Dave Smith (203:40)

Up to clarify, not the ones going into Gaza, the ones going into outer space.

Lex Fridman (203:47)

I assume you had to clarify the Epstein thing, the Epstein rule. And I have to clarify exactly which rockets. SpaceX and Blue Origin rockets taking humans out to space. And yeah, for us to be among the stars, like, it makes me feel like we're going to make it. Because the bleaker times throughout human history, you think? I mean, there's just a sense. You're right. During COVID there's a sense of like, for many reasons, maybe just a simple psychological human reason, it felt like bleak. Like, fuck, I don't think we as a civilization, if we can't handle this pandemic from a policy perspective, from a human perspective, economic perspective, like, this is like, pandemic, there's going to be other bigger troubles coming our way.

Dave Smith (204:39)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (204:40)

And then now you have this kind of. Again, the rockets are going up. It's like we, you know, first of all, we'll colonize space and other planets and we, like, we're in inventive motherfuckers. We'll figure it out.

Dave Smith (204:53)

Yeah. And then certainly, you know, like, for me, just personally, because this has, like, really touched my life. But. But the innovations in medical technology are just stunts. And my son had a congenital heart defect and open heart surgery when he was three days old. And I mean, this is something that. 20 years ago I would have lost my child. And he's fine, just absolutely fine, because it's just amazing what these surgeons and cardiologists and neonatologists and all of them, what they do now is goddamn magic. And so there was always something about that that would. It was almost like that inoculated me against ever having a sense of like, well, I wish it was a previous time because, like now, sorry, in a previous time, I lose my kid. So I don't get whatever other challenges there are out here. Like, I'll take that trade off where this baby survives and gets a shot at having a life. And there is a lot of that stuff is. Is just kind of easy to take for granted. And it's like, you know, when it touches your life, it's. You don't take it for granted as much, but it's just like now. It really is. It is. There are miracles going on all over the place now that like, everybody in human history did not have access to.

Lex Fridman (206:08)

All right, brother. It's great to finally meet a friend and have a conversation.

Dave Smith (206:12)

Yeah, I really enjoyed this and I.

Lex Fridman (206:14)

Can'T wait to talk to you again, brother.

Dave Smith (206:16)

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Lex Fridman (206:18)

Thanks for listening to this conversation with Dave Smith to support the sports podcast. Please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Ron Paul. Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it's wrong. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.