ZUBY Dismantles Racism, Border Crisis, BLM, Elon Musk & Israel- Hamas PT 1

Summary

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Impact Theory Podcast with Tom Bilyeu: Zuby Dismantles Racism, Border Crisis, BLM, Elon Musk & Israel–Hamas (Part 1)

Release Date: August 1, 2024
Guests: Tom Bilyeu (host), Zuby (musician, entrepreneur, and commentator)
Episode Theme: Unpacking the narratives, data, and emotions around modern issues including borders, diversity, family, race, culture, victimhood, and the challenge of pursuing truth in a “meme-driven age.”

Episode Overview

This Impact Theory episode with Tom Bilyeu features Zuby for a candid, in-depth conversation on hot-button issues in contemporary Western society. Through challenging each other’s perspectives, they deconstruct the headlines and popular memes around immigration, diversity, systemic injustice, family structure, the rise of victimhood, and the question of what kind of culture should be celebrated. Drawing on personal experience and broad historical and global context, they work to uncover what’s actually real beneath the noise.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Prosperity, Apathy, and Internal Threats

• Main Idea: Modern Western societies are incredibly safe and prosperous, but Zuby warns that the “greatest risk to your life is your own hands” (01:00, 17:51). This abundance has fostered widespread apathy and self-destructive tendencies, particularly among young men.
• Key Insight: The most common cause of death for men under 50 in the UK (and likely the US) is suicide, a shocking product of comfort, excess, and loss of meaning (14:54–17:21).

“You’re living in a society that is so safe and prosperous and comfortable that the greatest risk to your life is your own hands.”
– Zuby (01:00, 17:51)

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2. Borders, Diversity, and American Identity (01:37–06:20)

• Border Crisis: Both agree that open borders are a universally bad idea, historically a bipartisan position (03:02).
• Diversity: Tom quotes Thomas Sowell, challenging the uncritical celebration of diversity. They agree diversity’s benefit is in overcoming challenges inherent in difference, not in diversity for its own sake (01:37–03:24).
• Natural Diversity: Zuby distinguishes between “natural” diversity (merit-based, organic) and enforced quotas which can actually introduce discrimination (04:15–06:20).

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3. Race, Poverty, and Fixing Broken Systems (06:20–14:33)

• Tom presses for solutions to systemic inequality rooted in history (especially for Black Americans).
• Zuby pinpoints the crisis of family structure—specifically, high rates of children born to unmarried parents in Black communities—as a foundational issue correlated with almost every negative outcome (07:32).
• Education as a Priority: Both agree on the criticality of education and call for Americans to raise their standards, refusing to accept underperforming schools (10:09–14:33).

“Why should America have a crap education system compared to other countries in Europe or in Asia or in the Middle East? ... This country has [a] stupidly blessed nation.”
– Zuby (12:56)

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4. Cultural Apathy vs. Optimism (14:33–17:21)

• Tom characterizes American decline as cultural apathy, but Zuby counters that America remains unusually optimistic—though recent years have trended down due to lack of perspective and gratitude (14:33–17:21).
• Zuby emphasizes the importance of perspective gained through travel, warning that a lack of gratitude leads to the “self-destruction” he sees in the US and UK (14:54–17:21).

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5. Celebrating Progress—Not Victimhood (17:51–23:24)

• Context: Despite undeniable atrocities in US/UK history, modern societies have made huge strides on every axis of tolerance and inclusion (22:14–23:24).
• Zuby stresses celebrating progress, not fixating on past injustices.
• “Compared to what?”—Zuby's favorite question to challenge attitudes of perpetual victimhood.

“I think it’s a story of continual progress and triumph over these human sins.”
– Zuby (23:24)

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6. Victim Mentality, Despair, and Deaths of Despair (25:54–35:48)

• Tom rails against “celebrating victimhood,” linking it to negative life outcomes, generational decline, and deaths of despair (32:36).
• Zuby argues most people are still aspirational, but victim mentality is seductive because it provides a “permanent alibi” for lack of success (35:48).

“Anytime I feel even the slightest pang of envy … I can’t remember the last time I was truly envious of someone because I’m just motivated or inspired.”
– Zuby (33:26)

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7. The Locus of Control: Personal vs. Systemic Change

• Zuby admits there are systemic problems but urges listeners to focus on self-improvement and what’s directly controllable (35:48–43:00).
• Both discuss the three “doors” to walk through in life:
  1. Victimhood
  2. Individual self-improvement
  3. Swaying culture
     (43:36–48:50)

“You will literally die a death of despair [if you choose victimhood]. I don’t mean that figuratively, I mean that literally.” – Tom (47:06)

• Zuby’s Stance: Doors 2 and 3 (self-improvement and cultural impact) are not mutually exclusive; you must fill your own cup first to contribute to broader change (48:50–54:39).

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8. The Power of Podcasting and Independent Media (59:09–64:39)

• Both praise the positive effects of podcasting and the “network effect” of independent voices breaking legacy media’s stranglehold.
• Zuby shares anecdotes about meeting fans worldwide and the surprising ways podcasts have global impact—even in language learning (64:33).

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9. Navigating the “Age of Conspiracy” (64:39–68:02)

• Problem: Social media and government collusion (e.g., content censorship), the Twitter Files, and manipulation of narratives (65:20–67:50).
• Tom asks how to discern truth amid conspiracies and cultural energy.

Zuby’s Framework for Truth-Seeking (67:50–76:07)

• Personality: Low neuroticism, calm in crises, logical, solution-oriented, open to being wrong.
• Not wedded to ideology; no “agenda.”
• Faith in God, not afraid of backlash.
• Willingness to wait for facts and admit error.
• Realizes truth can be multi-faceted and not binary (76:07–82:48).

“I don’t have an agenda. I want to know what’s true. I’m not trying to … push some agenda … I just want to know the truth.”
– Zuby (74:25)

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10. Modern Challenges for Young Men, Women, and Families (82:48–101:21)

• Modern gender roles and life paths are less clear than ever. Economic pressures, cultural confusion, and “chronological snobbery” (dismissing past norms as obsolete) create instability for individuals seeking partnership, meaning, or success.
• Advice: Zuby urges young people to be radically self-aware: know if you’re the exception or “the rule,” honestly appraise your desires, and model your life on aspirational examples, not society’s exceptions (90:04–97:29).
• Practicality: You only need to find one compatible partner; don’t be derailed by negative dating culture narratives.
• Cultivate yourself to be a suitable partner rather than blaming the culture or “opposite” sex.

“Self-awareness is knowing when you’re the rule and when you’re the exception.”
– Zuby (92:08)

• Traditions exist for reasons—don’t discard all accumulated wisdom.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On victimhood and personal agency:
  “Victim mentality is so appealing ... because it gives a permanent alibi for absence of success.”
  – Zuby (35:48)

• On gratitude and perspective:
  “When you are not grateful for something … you often tend to undermine and destroy it.”
  – Zuby (14:54)

• On progress and reason for optimism:
  “Most of the good that exists in the world, I would say, is done in private.”
  – Zuby (53:53)

• On tradition and human flourishing:
  “All our ancestors … had certain ways of doing things … because this is what we’ve found works for the vast majority and is … good for our society.”
  – Zuby (97:29)

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Key Segments & Timestamps

| Topic | Speakers | Timestamp | |-------------------------------------------|---------------------|--------------| | Prosperity & Dangers of Comfort | Zuby | 01:00, 17:51 | | Diversity & Borders | Tom, Zuby | 01:37–06:20 | | Family Structure & Poverty | Zuby | 07:32–10:09 | | Education & Raising Standards | Zuby | 10:09–14:33 | | Celebrating Progress, Not Victimhood | Zuby | 17:51–23:24 | | Victim Mentality and Its Allure | Tom, Zuby | 25:54–35:48 | | Doors: Victimhood/Self-improvement/Culture| Tom, Zuby | 43:36–48:50 | | The Role of Media & Conversation | Tom, Zuby | 59:09–64:39 | | Conspiracy & Truth-Discernment | Tom, Zuby | 64:39–76:07 | | Modern Challenges in Gender Roles | Zuby | 82:48–101:21 | | Practical Advice for the Next Generation | Zuby | 90:04–101:21 |

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Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is honest, nuanced, and occasionally confrontational but always aimed at seeking truth and increasing clarity rather than “winning.” Both participants move fluidly between data, philosophy, and personal anecdote.

For Listeners: You’ll leave with tools for thinking more critically about media narratives and memes, advice on agency and responsibility, reflections on culture war topics (race, gender, opportunity), and encouragement to have gratitude for progress without becoming complacent.

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End of Part 1.
To be continued with further explorations on Israel-Hamas, the “age of conspiracy,” more geopolitical insight, and Zuby’s philosophy on filtering truth from noise.

Transcript

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[Zuby]

You're living in a society that is so safe and prosperous and comfortable that the greatest risk to your life is your own hands. There's ingredients and chemicals and weird things that are put in here that are not put in the food in Europe or in Australia, and so on. As soon as someone crosses that line, right, and hits someone, you shoot someone, attack someone. No. Right. And that's where the rule of law is extremely important. There can't be a tolerance of that. There can't be a tolerance of, okay, well, you were justified because he thought the wrong thing.

[Tom]

So the big thing for us in the US is the border. Okay, I'll give you one of my favorite Thomas Sowell quotes. It's really interesting. The first time I heard this, it hit me as so counterintuitive. But I think he's right. If there is any place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the words repeated the most often over the most years without one speck of evidence. Evidence. Diversity should be a prime candidate. Is diversity our strength or anybody's strength anywhere in the world? It has not been our diversity, but our ability to overcome the problems inherent with diversity and to act together as Americans. That has been our strength. So when I look at people streaming over the border, I'm like, hey, hey, we should probably check at a minimum, like, do you believe in the country that exists or are you coming in to remake the country over? Because otherwise we end up in a values war. And I'm not even saying my values are right. I'm just saying that people are going to fight for their values. Now, I have a Value system that forces me to say, well, you want human flourishing and if your value system is suboptimal at delivering human flourishing, you should update your belief system. So I'm super here for that, but I don't think that you get there by just randomly dumping people from all over the world with no filtering mechanism whatsoever and just like, fingers crossed, hope for the best. Best, agreed. Given that I think that Thomas Soul is right, that you actually have to overcome all that diversity.

[Zuby]

Everyone used to know that that was a bad idea. Right? That didn't used to be a quote unquote right wing position. Right? Everyone. Democrat, Republican.

[Tom]

Border or diversity?

[Zuby]

Oh, sorry, the border.

[Tom]

Yeah, yeah. I think people have a. Because diversity feels so good. Like it feels so right. For me anyway, the way I was raised, whatever, the way I'm hardwired, that. That is a heartwarming belief that I love the most.

[Zuby]

I'll tell you what, I think people have a very shallow understanding and usage of div. Diversity these days. I think it's become this. It's become this buzzword which is oftentimes, I mean, when it's used by certain people, certain progressives, for example, they really just mean different skin color, genders and sexualities. But you all think the same way, right? That's really, that's really what they mean. Because as soon as there's someone who's a black or brown conservative, they're not big fans, right. Or when someone steps outside, they're, you know, very quite rigid ideology. It's not a very liberal ideology. They don't, they're not huge fans of freedom of speech even. They don't like that. So I think that I get asked a lot about, you know, the sort of diversity question. The first thing is maybe there's multiple things to say. First thing is that I think that natural diversity is generally good.

[Tom]

What's natural diversity?

[Zuby]

Diversity. That just the human beings is a diverse species. And so if you have a meritocracy and you have fairness and reasonable access and equality of opportunity, you will naturally get diversity. If you run thought of everything, if you run a company or you have a sports event or a music event or anything, and you just are like, we just want the best people, we want the fastest runners, we want the best basketball players, we want the best programmers, we want the best engineers or whatever, there is a natural level because talent is distributed. It's not just like, oh, okay, all the people from this place or of this skin color or of this nationality are just all the best at this thing. And so they all go in there. There's just a natural level of diversity that takes place. You don't need to have quotas or affirmative action or try to force it in this direction or that direction. Talent is distributed. Is it completely equally across all groups? No. And people have different interests and proclivities and backgrounds. You want to make it even more obvious, just look between the two genders. Okay. Males and females. Right. Like, we have different interests. We have. Generally, across as whole populations, we have different strengths and weaknesses. There are certain fields where, okay, if you just take the best people out of the people who are interested in it, you're going to end up with 95% men and 5% women in this. And in this area, you're going to end up with 95% women, 5% men. And so whatever. My personal view is, as long as there is no one's being unfairly discriminated against, then cool, let people do what they want to do. I'm not on the bandwagon of, hey, we need to get everything 50, 50, and make sure everything perfectly reflects the population. Because you can't do that without actual sexist and or racist policies to discriminate against people who are more likely to go into that area. If you want 50% of airline pilots to be female, you will have to unfairly discriminate against men.

[Tom]

Let's say, though, that you're not stupid and so you're not going to try to get everything to equal the population. That is a child's view of how to make this work. But you really do look out at the world. I'll give you the easy one. So you look out of the world and you realize that certain zip coaches have terrible education. And so it's like, okay, that's broken. And because of the history of slavery in the country that you, you started this feeder system of people into a broken system. And I know I'm, I'm making. Because obviously there was a moment where it really looked like blacks are going to escape and black Wall street and all that. Like I'm way, way, way oversimplifying, but nonetheless, a stretch of people, whether white, black, otherwise doesn't matter. They find themselves in poverty. And now they're, they're just in a poverty creation machine.

[Zuby]

Yes.

[Tom]

And that is the, the zip code that they're born into. And so now you're like, I really, I don't. It would be absurd to get equal percentages everywhere. But at the same time, I actually do want to fix the real problem. So how do we do that?

[Zuby]

I think you go to the root of the problem. Okay, something like 72% of black Americans born in this country are born to unmarried parents. That is a problem. Only 28% ish, 25 to 28% being born to married parents. That is a gigantic issue. People don't like to talk about this because it makes people uncomfortable and certain people feel convicted or feel like you're attacking them or something like that. But if you can't talk about a problem openly, you certainly have no chance of fixing it. So that is one of the roots of the issue. The family structure. What are the environments people are growing up in? Is there even a father in the home? Are there fathers in the community? If the answer is mostly no, you can actually just accurately predict everything from education success to long term income to incarceration rates, crime rates, poverty rates, so on and so forth. They're all correlated. You find the, the communities with the highest rates of intact families and fathers in the households, they also look, they, lo and behold, they have the lowest incarceration rates, highest incomes, highest educational attainment, and so on and so forth. So these things are, firstly, you have to be able to like really just be truthful about the issue and get to the core of it and all the, all the different factors. Right? I'm not saying that's the one factor. I'd say it's certainly one of the biggest, if not the biggest, and that's also a multi generational fix. It didn't happen overnight like that. And you can't just fix it like that. And it's not something that you just make a political policy which suddenly improves it. So I think I'm speaking here as a foreigner, but as a foreigner who cares about the USA and does want to see people flourish across the board. And, and I think in that specific situation, I think you need some, you need the long term solution which is, okay, let's look right at the root, let's look right at the root of this and see what's going on here. And let's have a multi decade plan to remedy this. And then you might need to have some type of interim solution. I know that a lot of conservatives here talk about school choice. That's not something I've looked into that much. You certainly need to invest in improving certain schools and communities. If it's just like, okay, this is a poor area and therefore all the schools suck, that shouldn't necessarily be the situation.

[Tom]

Right.

[Zuby]

And it doesn't have to be. That's not an inevitable situation that, oh, this is a poor community. So the schools are just garbage, right? No, I don't think, I don't think Americans should just accept that. I don't think they should just accept and tolerate that. This is the richest country in the world. We've got trillions and trillions and trillions in debt, but also a lot more trillions, but also being sent overseas and going to the military industrial complex and so on. Like, there's so much wasteful spending. That's what this is. What's driving the question, yes, let's redirect this towards our own citizens. I do. I'm not American, but I am America first for Americans, right? That shouldn't be some controversial thing or some things that's viewed as some fringe right wing view or something. It's like, no, these are the citizens, these are, these are the taxpayers. So that money and funding education is a really basic foundational thing. If, if the next generation of Americans coming up is not well educated and a lot of them don't even know how to read and write properly and do basic math, like, that's not. The things ain't looking good in 30, 40, 50 years. If that's the situation across millions and millions of people. And I don't think it's a gigantic ask that, hey, how about we make it so that every American child graduating from 9th grade can read and do math properly? I don't think that's like a crazy utopian, ooh. Like that should be basic in most countries. That's basic. That's like, yeah, of course they can read and they can do math and they have basic understanding of certain things. But I think that. I'll tell you why. I don't think I've ever even said this before, but I think, like, I think in this country and in the UK as well, I think people need to like raise their standards and expectations in a way of what I, I think that just because, you know, I think people get used to things and sometimes people get used to things that they shouldn't. I'll give you a parallel. So my family's originally from Nigeria. In Nigeria for the past several decades, my entire lifetime, you've been dealing with power cuts, blackouts, sometimes multiple times a day, three, four times a day, every single day for the past 40, 50 years, blackouts. And it's been going on for so long that every Nigerian, whether in Nigeria or in the diaspora, is just kind of like, you know, that's just how it is, right? That's Just how it is. And I'm like, you shouldn't tolerate that. Nigeria exports oil to other countries. You know, countries like Ghana haven't had. You know, they've been. They've been free of blackouts for two decades at this point. Why is Nigeria still having blackouts? That's goofy. How are they having petrol shortages in a country with as much oil resources as it does? Like, guys, you know, come on. We shouldn't just be like, oh, well, that's just how it is, right? That's just America. Oh, that's just the American education system. No, no. Why should America have a crap education system compared to other countries in Europe or in Asia or in the Middle East? Why should the US be behind in that? It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. Like, this country has stupidly blessed nation. I mean, ridiculous amounts of resources, so much money, so many entrepreneurs, so much going on, and people just kind of like, accept that. Oh, well, like, you know, our education system's just crap and getting worse. I'm like, no. Or when people kind of give up on the cities when it comes to crime or homelessness and, like, drugs and stuff, and they're just like, well, it's just like that. It's like, no, it shouldn't be. Firstly, it wasn't always like that. It wasn't always that way. And we're moving in the future, not in the past. So it should, at least in theory, be getting better. It should be improving. It shouldn't be like, oh, each year, Los Angeles or San Francisco or California or wherever you are. Oh, it's just like, declining. You're paying more in taxes and it's declining. I think. I don't. I firstly think, like, there just needs to be more. What's the right word I'm looking for? I think there's too much apathy. I think there's an acceptance of the unacceptable. And I think that that should not be the case.

[Tom]

Does it feel accurate if I call that culture? We have a culture of apathy.

[Zuby]

See, I don't think Americans generally have this, though. I think America has one of the most optimistic culture of any country that I've been to, and I've been to over 40.

[Tom]

Moving in the right direction, holding steady, trending down.

[Zuby]

The culture.

[Tom]

Yeah.

[Zuby]

An outsider's view, us as a whole is difficult just because it's so big. It's so big and there's 50 different states. I would say that in some ways. Okay, let's expand the time horizon a little bit, because I think it's easy to get caught up in kind of the last five to 10 years. Let's do 100 years. Let's look from 1924 to 2024. I think pretty much everyone would agree that the country has made massive strides in progress in the past hundred years. Regardless of your skin color or income level or whether you're a man or a woman or you're straight or you're gay or whatever, I think it's very clearly overall trended in a, in a positive direction. I think the world has in general, I think in the last 10 to 15 years, there have been elements of decline and elements of regression as well as elements of progression. I think a lot of it actually stems from an absence of perspective and gratitude. So one reason why I appreciate America so much is because I have a wide global perspective. So I appreciate the USA often in a way that a lot of Americans who have never left it don't. Because this is just kind of like the default and they haven't been to other parts of the world and seen how people live and seeing the opportunities and lack thereof and they're just like, okay, well, you know, this, this is just kind of it. And with an absence of perspective can come an absence of gratitude. And I think that when you are not grateful for something, no matter what it is, it could even be a relationship, you often tend to undermine and destroy it, sometimes without even trying. And when I look at the USA and the way the culture is going right now, I see a lot of elements of self destruction. I think the same is true of the uk. Maybe not to the same extent, but it's similar. I mean, I know for certain in the uk, I don't know if this statistic holds true in the US as well, but it will certainly be close. But if you look at say like men under 50, what's the most common cause of death? Suicide. Yourself. When you really think about that, that's deep.

[Grainger Announcer]

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[Zuby]

So you're living in a society that is so safe and prosperous and comfortable that the greatest risk to your life is your Own hands. That's crazy, right? Like, when you really think of it like that is nuts. Like, that just strikes at the heart of like, okay, there's something really fundamentally wrong here. So we have overcome to a large degree all of the things that have been killing humanity for all of these thousands of wars, war, pestilence, famine, malnutrition, all these things. There's more people dying of eating too much than not having enough to eat. So we're in this weird age of decadence and excess and surplus to a point where on an individual and collective level there's a kind of harakiri, like a kind of suicide that is going on culturally where it's turning, the guns and knives are turning inwards. And I don't know exactly what to make of that, but when I think of cultural decline, that is the attitude and some of those behaviors that I'm referring to. I mean, in the U.S. over 100,000 people died of overdoses last year. 100,000. And that's deaths. So for each of those, I'm sure there's a multiple of people who did overdose, but they didn't die. Right. And then I believe there's another hundred thousand on top of that. That's alcohol. Right. So that's. And then you've got like the actual suicides. And so you've got hundreds of thousands of people just in this country, particularly young and middle aged men who are, for whatever reason, there's a variety of factors here, but they're, they're taking themselves out. And I think that this is also happening on a social and a cultural level. You've got people who are ashamed to see or put up an American flag. Yes, right. Or who want to burn it or who will say, we need to dismantle, destroy, you know, the whole. All of America is a racist, white supremacist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic country and we need to destroy the whole thing. Like with these people, I know they haven't traveled because I'm always like, a question I like to ask is compared to what? I've had interviews where someone will ask me, zubi, do you think the UK is a racist country? Zubi, do you think America is a racist country? Compared to what? Compared to utopia where everyone is zero bigotry and everyone's then, okay, yeah, I mean, yes, there's some racism compared to the rest of the world? No, no. Compared to history? Absolutely not. And I think that that needs to be celebrated more. I think a big, big, big problem we're having in the west is. I think people haven't looked up to see the progress that has been made, the true progress, like the harmony amongst different groups. The fact that this diversity. Sure. The diversity thing is, you know, it's become a bit of a buzzword and people have their different takes on it, but in the true sense, people have become way more tolerant, in the good way, far less violent and hostile towards each other, far less bigoted, far less. Any of these isms and phobias that people worry about, they've declined so sharply. Not so long ago, I mean, this country had segregation. Last year, I went to South Africa twice. I mean, in my lifetime, they ended racial segregation over there. Like, it's not that long. It's just not that long ago. And it's interesting. Have you been to South Africa? No. It's interesting over there because you can still. You can still kind of feel and see the aftershocks of it, I'm sure. Yeah. So it's interesting because you can be in some places, and it almost feels like I'm in, like, Middle England, you know, like everyone's. I think white people there are maybe 15% of the population, but there's some places which are like, you know, it's like totally white. Or you. You go to a bar or something and it's like, oh, it's like, this is like a white bar. You know what I mean?

[Tom]

School of fish, man.

[Zuby]

And then there's other places where it's like, you know, if you were to see a white person, it's like, whoa. Like, what's that. What's that person doing there? So the. The. His. Because the. The desegregation there is more recent. You can also sense that the. It's hard to put into words, but you can kind of see and feel it a little bit more over there compared to other countries. And so I think we need to celebrate those successes more, man. I think the. There's always different ways to look at history and to look at the history of a country. And you could certainly look at America's history or British history, British Empire. Right. And you could certainly paint it as, you know, just all built on racism and white supremacy and slavery and segregation and discrimination and violence and lynchings and brutality and so on. Like, you can. There's a lot of stuff that you can use to paint that story, and someone can choose to do that, and they can choose to be resentful and hold people's ancestors responsible for things that they didn't even do if you want. I don't Think that's very helpful. Or pro social.

[Tom]

What story should we be telling?

[Zuby]

I think it's a story of continual progress and triumph over these human sins. The triumph over slavery, triumph over segregation, triumph over extreme tribalism, triumph over intolerable violence. Triumph over, I mean, even in the last few decades, right. Like we now live in this time where, you know, people are talking about, you know, the LGBT acronym, Keeps on, Keeps on growing. But like a few decades ago, gay bashing really was a thing, right? Like, like, right. Like people there were people who thought, oh, like that person's gay. Like let's beat him up because he's gay. Like, no, like that's so in. That's. It's so intolerable to even kind of think of now. But not so long ago it was normal, dude. At its peak, the KKK had about 4 million members. Whoa. Members, non sympathizers, Right? Like actual white supremacy. And keep in mind, the population was smaller then, right? So like at its peak, at the peak of like white supremacy in America and racism in America, they had its estimate, some people say 3, 3 to 4 million. So I mean, I don't know number wise what that means, but maybe like 1 in 15 or 1 in 20 white guys being a member of the KKK, right? And they were in dad seat, they were in Congress, they were in the police force, they were in all these types of things. So when you're hearing these people, like in this day and age, you know, screaming about white supremacy and this and this and this, again, it's that, man. Like, compared to what? Like how many real, like genuine white supremacists are in the. Are in this country? Like a few thousand. Are there any in like Congress or in like leading police forces or whatever? Like, so there's been huge amounts of progress that have been made and I think if people can appreciate that, I think it's always important to, on an individual level too, right? To celebrate the successes. And you realize there's work to still do, right? There's improvement to still make. We've been talking about that. There's things that can still be better. Some things can be very significantly better. But in striving towards that, let's not be so reckless to just throw away the last 50 or 100 years and pretend that. No, I hear people say crazy things like, oh, like the. All the amount of racism is still the same. It's just more subtle now. Dude, stop. You know what I mean?

[Tom]

Like, you're gonna see what you look for though.

[Zuby]

Yeah.

[Tom]

This is My. My big problem, and I. I think the right question is, what does a healthy society celebrate? Like, when a culture is doing well, what is it that they celebrate? And I actually loved your answer. The catch is that to your point about all the deaths of despair that young people, or young men specifically, the thing they most have to fear is themselves. But the question becomes, okay, why? You actually had a really cool quote. I'm not sure if this is verbatim or if I'm. I'm sort of ballparking this, but you said men need to feel some sense of power and usefulness in order to thrive. And I think that that. That is indicative of what I see as happening in our society. So everybody has already heard this. Men make good times, good times make weak men. Weak men make hard times, hard times make strong men who make good times. And you loop around, and it's one of those. It's becoming trite because it's repeated so often, because it is true. And so one of the most interesting things to look at is rich kids and why they so often implode. Not always, but a lot. And I think a big part of the reason is that there are algorithms running in our brain, evolutionarily placed that nature, I mean, it really is red in tooth and claw. So going out and fighting for your survival was a real daily thing. For anybody who has not seen the show alone, I highly encourage you go watch that. You really get to see, even with, like, some modern tools, how hard it is to stay alive. Like, it is brutal to get the calories. And to know that other things are looking at you is like, oh, your calories. So it was just gruelingly difficult. And then you had to worry about other humans and all this stuff. So anyway, nature had to hardwire you to get a very strong sense of positive emotion from doing hard things. And so when you have a society where the worst of us have air conditioning, refrigeration, a TV in multiple rooms, usually it's like, and those are the worst of us here in America. You end up disconcertingly creating this sense of, like, wait, I didn't earn all the things that I have. And so I start feeling guilty. I want to help others. I see people struggling. I want to make things as easy for them as humanly possible. And because I have that same impulse, I know where it comes from. The problem is that as you start thinking about, I want to buy needles for people that are struggling with drugs. I want them to, you know, look, it's hard to get people Off. And so I want them to have dignity. And so I want to make sure they have clean needles. You know, if they put up a tent somewhere, I want to treat that as private property and that you can't just move them along. And so you get all of these really wonderful impulses that turned into policy, become deranging.

[Zuby]

Yes.

[Tom]

And so now all of a sudden, if you are only judging a policy by how it feels and not by the result that it actually yields, now you've got a problem. And of course, it's even more complicated than that. And you have some people with will to power, and they, hey, I don't want my charity to go away. I actually want it to grow more powerful over time. And I'm not trying to work myself out of a job by making sure there are no homeless people. Exactly.

[Zuby]

Yep.

[Tom]

And so going back to that idea of, okay, you need to judge everything based on the results, but you also need to decide what is it that we celebrate. And if people celebrated hard work, like, oh, yeah, look, life is amazing, but you need to find the thing and do it. It needs to be hard. You need to push yourself. But if I want to piss off the Internet, I would go right now and do the tweet that always winds people up. Hey, everybody, you need to work smart, need to work hard, and you need to work long hours. It is inevitable that I will get a just ton of people in my comments, like, if I'm working hard and smart, why do I need to work long hours? And the reality is, because if you want to build something that really matters, you're going to go up against people that do all three. And that's just reality. And you will lose every time you go up against somebody that's doing all three of those. Now, when it was hard as hell to get into this country and people were coming from all over the world, escaping persecution, coming to the land of opportunity, we celebrated that. Like, we wanted you to build something. We were never Pollyanna. There has always been corruption. I get that. But I'm just saying, it was just in the ether, man, that you celebrated people trying to build things and do things, and we wanted to cheer them on. And now, as somebody who's been here for almost 50 years, I see this slow shift away. Elon Musk captured this. Well. He was like, when did a billionaire become a pejorative?

[Zuby]

Yes.

[Tom]

He was like, this used to be something that people celebrated. Aspiration. Yeah. Like, dude, dude, it it. I had my head down for so long just trying to get Rich not having come from money that by the time I picked my head up, I realized, oh, people think it's gross now. And I was like, wait, what? Like, I've worked so hard to build something that people want so much.

[Zuby]

Yes.

[Tom]

That they would rather have the thing that I've created than the money that it costs them. And I reaped the benefits of that in my own life. But, bro, I was heads down solving problems that people wanted to solve. And it was grueling and there was no promise that it was ever going to work out. And so when you start going, that's not worthy of celebration. It's like, be careful. Because now all of a sudden, what you're incentivizing is, in this case, we have come to celebrate victim mentality. The problem is, check the results. When you get celebrated for being a victim, it doesn't feel good. You're out of alignment with what I will call the evolutionarily placed algorithms running in your brain. And so now you've won one and you feel clout because I'm a bigger victim. And you feel righteous and that you have one over on people. And at the same time, you're doing drugs and you're dying deaths of despair. Because it is just so out of alignment with a human animal that has come up over untold tens of thousands of years, depending on when you clock us as humans, probably hundreds of thousands of years, that it really was gruelingly difficult. And so that had to be neurologically rewarded. And so when you take that person and you celebrate them for, don't worry, you've been hard done by. The system is stacked against you. You shouldn't even try. Like, just let us come in and nanny you and take care of you. And then the nannies feel good about being nannies. And they perpetually want to keep people in that situation. Like, it deranges real fast. And I think people need only ask, what is my North Star? The things you're doing, what outcome are they yielding? Things moving in the wrong direction? They feel good. Yes, they feel good, but they're just. The data is not good.

[Zuby]

Yes.

[Tom]

This generation will be the first generation that lives less time than their parents. We have more homeless, at least in California, than in any time that I know of. More people dying from drug overdoses than any time. I mean, just on and on. Like, there's all these super gnarly metrics

[Zuby]

you've talked about so much there. I have so many thoughts. I think the first thing that's important to say is that those angry, perhaps jealous and envious people and critical people who are leaving, who would leave mean comments on such a thing, they're a minority. And I think it's always important to remember that most people are aspirational. And actually the celebration of success, at least in the usa, is more common than the victim mentality or the billionaires, bad millionaires, bad mentality. I know that there are people who have that and there probably always will be some segment of the population with those views and we can, we'll get into that. But the vast majority of people still want to be successful and they aspire and they are inspired by and motivated by people who achieve it. Right? So you can push all the body positivity and fat acceptance you want, but people still look up to the guy or the gal who's clearly built an impressive physique and who is in good shape. And they still want to watch the Olympics and they still want to watch sports and top tier athletes. And that's how we are. Right? Human beings like heroes, we like aspirational stories. We like people who show us what we are capable of and what our potential is. Yes. Is there a segment of the population that's gets mad at that? They are. That's there. That's their issue. Second thing I'd say with that is a lot of people who are in that latter category, a lot of it is just driven by envy and jealousy. That's the truth of it. And envy and jealousy are sins and those are not emotions that. They're emotions that we all can occasionally feel, but you should transmute that into inspiration and motivation. Anytime I feel even the slightest pang of envy, like it's almost imperceptible for me. I can't remember the last time I was like truly envious of someone because I'm just motivated or inspired. If I see someone out there has done something or has something or has achieved something that I would like for myself in some way, or even if I don't, I just think it's cool. I'm a celebrator, I'm not a hater. I'm like, dude, that's awesome. Like, I love that I'm in the studio. I'm like, dude, the studio is cool. I'd love to have a studio like this in the future. And so that's awesome. And I think this is happening on a bigger scale than ever now just because we have the Internet and social media. So I think the haters are hating harder than ever before. But the people who want to be inspired and motivated. Gosh, it's never been easier to have mentors, even just by clicking the follow button on someone. It's truly incredible. The fact that I'm, you know, yesterday, you know, I obviously had Elon Musk on my podcast last year, but the fact that I can just, like, message him. Like, we were chat. You know, we're chatting yesterday. I'm just like. I'm talking to freaking Elon Musk.

[Tom]

Like, how what?

[Zuby]

Like, this is. This is crazy, right? Like, you can just reach people. Wow. Like, I'm so inspired by this guy. I've been following this person for decades, whatever it is, and you can just. You can reach out to them and spread the knowledge and have conversations, and other people can tune in and listen. So in terms of. I do think that the reason why certain narratives that promote and encourage some form of victim mentality, the reason why they can be so powerful, I think it's multiple reasons. Normally there is some kernel of truth to them. So it normally takes a kernel of truth and then it just expands it and oftentimes creates an oppressor class. Right. So everything you were saying about historical racism and discrimination in the usa, like, that is. That's all true. Okay. But also all the stuff we said about the progress that has been made and the opportunities that exist, regardless of your background and so on, all of that is also true. The idea that the game is rigged against you. I mean, it's true in a way. I mean, there are. Look at the Fed and the money printing, like inflation. Just that alone. Just looking at the money system and inflation and how that disproportionately affects particularly people who are of lower classes and don't have as much income and don't have as much assets. It's much, much harder on them than people who have a lot of assets and real estate and whatever. And so as inflation takes place, the value of their net worth actually is going up as other people are struggling to buy basic groceries. In that sense, you could say, actually, the system, if you. If by that you mean the monetary system. And the way some of these politicians and bureaucrats move. Yeah, actually, that is rigged against kind of everybody to an extent. So there's some truth to it. But I think the reason why a lot of people latch onto it hard is because it gives a permanent alibi. This is why I've thought for a long time of why victim mentality is so appealing. And yes, I think people like having an enemy, but I also think people like having a permanent alibi and excuse for their absence of success. So if I fail or I don't succeed, or even if I behave badly, I could say, oh, this is because the system is biased against me in some way, shape or form. It's not my issue and I don't need to take accountability because it's just the system. There's a narrative for this for people of different skin colors, there's a narrative of it for men, there's a narrative for women, there's a narrative for everybody. So anyone, no matter who you are, where you are, there's a victim narrative that you can use and some people will empathize with and sympathize with because there's that element of truth to it. And I think oftentimes people like to kind of like bond over the bond over how they're victims rather than in how they can achieve success and achieve victory. So with it all, I mean, the point I often make with people, because I get in a lot of these conversations because I get a lot of pushback because I'm very sort of anti victim mentality. And I like to focus on the positive and optimism and the opportunities and the things that. Not just why things are take, okay, I'm a big fitness guy, okay. The obesity rate right now in the US is hovering around 40% on track to hit 50% within about a decade. You know, as it currently goes, you'll get to a point not so long in the future where literally 90% of the population is overweight or obese and only 10% are, you know, of a healthy weight in shape. And is it true that there's a lot of garbage that is in the American food system? Absolutely. And I can say that as someone who travels a lot, right, there's ingredients and chemicals and weird things that are put in here that are not put in the food in Europe or in Australia and so on. Is there just an abundance of cheap calories? Yes. Is. Are certain healthy and nutritious foods getting more expensive? Yes, certainly per calorie compared to, you know, cheaper, less nutritious foods. Is there a lot of advertising and marketing and fast food joints on every corner and all of that? Yes, that is true. There are many things, you know, are people living more sedentary lifestyles than ever before? Yes, there are many things working against people to stay physically healthy. I completely concede all those points. And, but with all of this stuff, Tom, it comes down to like, okay, well, what are you going to do about it? I don't have control over how Much money the bank of England or the Fed decides to print. I don't have influence over the advertising policies or which pharmaceuticals or foods are pushed and what's advertised. I don't have control over all of the other people and all the politicians in the system. At best, we have control over ourselves. And as we all know, that is hard in itself, right? Just controlling yourself and doing the things day to day, hour to hour that you know you're meant to be doing, that is a massive battle. So that's why I tend to focus on that, because it's internal versus external locus of control. I can talk to someone who's rants and raves about all of these different systems and historical issues and things happening right now that are making it harder for the average Joe or Jane to live and to thrive and so on. But it comes down to just, okay, so if I give you all that, what are you going to do? Are you going to just accept that and say, okay, for the next 50, 60, 70 years I'm going to just give up, Right? Or I'm just going to complain about it. I'm just going to tweet about it online and be angry and get mad at the people who managed to win? Or are you going to be like, okay, you know what? I'm in like the top 1% of privileged individuals who have ever walked this earth. Look, if you were born in the USA or the UK or another developed western country, let's say in the past 70, 80 years, just that alone, you are massively privileged. Just having an American, just being an American citizen or being a British citizen, and then if you add on top of that being able bodied, not having some serious physical or mental disability, just that alone, you have a ridiculous number of advantages and quote unquote privileges compared to most people. I mean, to be in the top one. I know that obviously things, you know, cost of living differs in different nations, of course, but I think to be in the top global 1% of income earners, you need to earn around $35,000 a year. So if you earn $35,000 or more per year, you are in the global 1% of income earners. 99% of the world's population earns under $35,000 a year. Most people don't know that, but just, just that alone, even if they know

[Tom]

it though, it's not going to change

[Zuby]

their sense of day to day. It doesn't. But the point is just having that perspective and being able to recognize, okay, I have issues, we have issues. The nation, the state. There are. There are problems. But I think, number one, it's like, okay, it could be way, way, way, way, way worse. And it has been way worse than in the past, and it is way worse in most countries around the world. So let's have a. You can. You can simultaneously have gratitude and also want things to be better. Like, these are not. It's not a. It's not a dichotomy. Like, they're not mutually exclusive.

[Tom]

I think they're. Let me take a swing at this. Think about this, all right? There are three doors before you. Door number one is victimhood. By all means, walk through it. And it has its pluses and minuses. Door number two is the path of individual self improvement. Door number three is swaying culture. Do you see those as three valid doors or. Because what you've been talking about now is where I spent 99.999% of my life and can feel myself going through a transition where I previously. In fact, if you go back far enough seven years ago, I said, and this is going to be very close to a quote. I don't focus on the culture or society. I focus on the individual. I just want to do me, and I'm going to get as good as I can get. Booze, don't block dunks. I can do anything I want. Whether the deck is stacked against me, whether I'm a victim, it's all irrelevant. I can get so good I can't be stopped. And I spent a ton of my life. There's a. Now I'm beginning to realize I can sway culture. And I have an operating system that tells me that ideas matter, that you can influence what ideas people hold. And if they change the ideas that they. If they. The way I really think about it is those ideas are beliefs or values, which is why I started this conversation of values. If you can change what people value and what they believe, then you change their entire frame of reference. Their frame of reference controls their outcome. So then I go, huh, There's a lot of weird shit going on. This moment feels particularly interesting. Now, one of two things is possible. Either we really are in the west, living in a transitional moment, or we're not. And as you approach 50, no matter what, you just start thinking you are. Because, you know, the kids today, right, like, they're just. They see things so differently. You stop feeling like you recognize the world. That began to happen to me in my mid-40s. So it's entirely possible that's an illusion that just happens to Everybody. In their mid-40s to 50s, that the world now is just so different from when you were a kid. You can't help but think, whoa, like you wake up to this sense of maybe I should try to have influence in the world. But I actually think that while that's true, the predominant thing is this really is a transitional moment that is very reminiscent of the 60s and so just perfect storm money printing, which is something hopefully we'll have time to talk about, is playing a huge part in this. The kids futures have been stolen from them. They can feel that. And I'm finally now at a position where I can actually articulate, oh, I know exactly how your future was stolen from you, which is really terrifying. Yes, it's terrifying because it happened in broad daylight, but because people don't understand the way the world works and it takes a very long time. So the whole thesis of my show is you can think of it as an unbiased pursuit of the truth. You can think of it as debating the world's most important ideas. You can think of it as mapping great thinkers minds so that you can use them as your own AI. At the end of the day, I need to understand how the world really works, not so I can cry about it so that I walk through the right of those three doors. Now I hope every word out of my mouth and everything about my life tells people to slam door number one shut. Don't waste your time being a victim. You will, you will literally die a death of despair. I don't mean that figuratively, I mean that literally. Door number two is awesome, but I'm now I have a growing hypothesis that door number two merely prepares you for door number three. Now door number three for most people is probably just the family. But once you understand that, the family. So you've got the dyad, which is the first moment where you're like, oh, my significant other is a life outside of me that I care about. Then you have kids. Full disclosure, anybody who's followed me for a while knows I don't have kids. But I get that this is the first real complete unit of the grander structure that is society. And so doing that well is very wise. But there is also just a scale up from that, which is to really try to influence culture in the hope that at least in your. I'll use country as a stand, in at least your country, you can impact things in a way that will make life better for people. Now all you're really trying to do is sway that frame of reference.

[Zuby]

Yes.

[Tom]

So I'm trying to celebrate things that alter your value system. I'm trying to hold, quote, unquote facts which we could derail on that. But you're trying to sway people's understanding of the facts to be checked against reality. The very first thing that you said here, so that the things they do don't just sound good on paper, they actually work. But if I'm right about all of that, and as soon as I stop talking in nine seconds you'll tell me if I'm right about that, then we have to understand how the world really works. And I believe we now live in the age of conspiracy. And I believe that people doing dumb shit has earned that. All right, I'm going to stop there. I first want to get your read on the three doors.

[Zuby]

Sure thing. Well, I was thinking that, you know, doors two and three are not mutually exclusive. I think you want to walk through both of them. And I think that the further you walk through the second door oftentimes, the more impact you can have when you do walk through the third one because you can't pour water from an empty jug. So if you have not done anything to reach your own potential, then number one, you don't have much to teach and you don't have a lot of resources, if any, to give be that time or money or experience or knowledge. You have to go on. You have to develop yourself individually as a person in order to have any type of positive cultural impact. If you and I had not done any type of self improvement or education or knowledge or achieved any type of success in any field. Well, firstly, why would anyone listen to this podcast? Right? The podcast wouldn't be possible to begin with, but by doing that, you then gain the leverage to help other people in different ways. The way you shift culture can look very different for different people. Right? You don't need to be a wealthy person or materially successful necessarily. There are people who, you know, they earn a very modest living and they're out there, but, you know, they've raised eight kids and they have 30 grandkids and they're a pillar in their community and they're just a good, solid person who people look up to. And they're like, hey, I want to be like that guy. That guy's gonna, you know, he knows his stuff and he can pass on knowledge to his children and his grandchildren and so on. And he's just making that, making that type of impact. And then there can be someone else who's a wealthy philanthropist and they're, you Know, donating to genuine causes that are helping to move the needle, especially in areas where the government or the state is not helping out and they're, hey, I'm going to build a school or I'm going to do this or I'm going to do that. But you can't, you can't do any of that unless you walk through that second door because you have to achieve something first. And also the more you achieve, as I've said before, human beings are aspirations. So the more you achieve in that door, people, other people see it, other people see it and they are, you know, all human beings are, we're all followers to some degree. Some people flip between, you know, if you are a leader, you still flip between leading sometimes and following sometimes. Some people are more in the following role. But we all look for leaders, we all look for individuals who show us, I mean, our parents are the first version of that. In most cases where it's like, okay, what do I model myself after? How do I live my life? So yeah, I think, yeah, doors two and three. Yeah, I'm with you. Close door one shut and keep it shut. And yeah, two and three, as you proceed through your life. I don't even think they're concurrent doors. I think you continue to self improve and to better yourself and improve yourself and fulfill your potential and at the same time you have that community or cultural impact. For some people, like I said, it's going to be in a, you know, for a small minority of people, it's going to be in a massive way. Elon Musk, right? It's going to be a. Whoa, okay. This guy's really, he's trying to make us a multi planetary species, right? Like kind of hard to go, kind of hard to go bigger than that. But it doesn't need to be on that level and it doesn't need to be so public for everyone. Right? Most of the good that exists in the world, I would say is done in private. And it might not get a lot of shine, it might not go viral on social media or make the news or anything like that. But there's just that day to day good. And by the way, this is one of the things that we were talking a lot about the darkness of humanity. And this is one of the things that makes me like a permanent optimist and a genuine lover of human beings. And this is those just unseen, unheard day to day interactions and pleasantries when I come across someone who really thinks like the whole world is falling apart or the country is Falling apart. And you know there's going to be a civil war in six months and you know, everything's zooby, everything's going crazy and this and that. And there's going to be a race war and this and that. And you know, men and women are just hating each other. And Mo's like, firstly get offline, right? Like go, go outside, like go into, go into any city, walk around la, walk around London, walk around New York, walk around Dallas, Miami, whatever. Does this look to you? Like everyone is hating each other and the left and the right are beating each other up and there's a civil war impending and black and white people can't get on. Whatever. Like just look around like people are doing all right. And this, this goes for other countries as well, right? In most nations, maybe, unless you go literally into a war zone, things are generally looking pretty good. And I think it's important to not get. There's something interesting I've noticed over the past few years, which is that I think when people think of dopamine or think of things that are addictive, they tend to think of something that is giving someone like a positive feel. And I think it's often forgotten that you can get that from negativity as well. You can really get addicted to fear narratives and anger narratives and outrage. Way just. Yes, way easier. Yeah, it's very, it's very addictive. And I think people forget that and they get locked into this loop and they don't realize like how much they're enjoying telling themselves this narrative that it's all falling apart and it's all crumbling. And you know, here's the thing though.

[Tom]

I. Because you're right and I love that you're optimistic. And I worry sometimes that people don't understand that my default position is optimism. However, I'll keep coming back to my hypothesis and if I'm wrong, just tell me how.

[Zuby]

Sure, go ahead.

[Tom]

But my hypothesis is this, none of that happens by accident. The very reason that when you go walk around the city you meet incredible people is that people are paranoid that some people are like, hey, I'm worried about a race riot, whatever, which PS 2020 from my balcony, you could literally watch LA burn during the riots. So it actually happened like there was real violence and we have gone backwards in race relations as far as I can tell, from when I was a kid until now. We've moved backwards.

[Zuby]

Yes.

[Tom]

So now I'm like, oh, like this is not a one way arrow where everything just automatically gets better. This is about the battle of ide and the fight for culture, to be frank.

[Zuby]

And it was progressives that did that. People who called themselves progressive that did

[Tom]

that did not come from the right. I will aggressively agree with that. Look, both sides have their delusions, and my whole thing is you need dynamic tension. I've given that speech so many times. But nonetheless, things will move in a bad direction and they will go all the way to hundreds of millions of people dying. And so that. That is. History tells me so. That is not me guessing, just history tells me so. And hey, by the way, everybody there, There are very credible people who are like, europe is already in the middle of World War iii. It just hasn't managed to work its way through the escalation complex yet. It will, and we will very rapidly see that this doesn't stop. It just takes time to work through the system. Now, I'm not deterministic. I. I'm deterministic. I don't think that's the necessary end.

[Zuby]

Yes.

[Tom]

Not to confuse anybody, but it won't happen. Avoiding that won't happen by accident. People are going to have to make the right decisions. Culture will not automatically move in the right direction. People have to make the right decisions. Ray Dalio, who I think is one of the greatest living thinkers, certainly economically, but I think he really, he has succeeded in economics precisely because he understands human psychology. And he really gets this idea that. That everything is about how people treat each other and that these ideas can very rapidly fall off the rails and that you have to find ways to bring people back on. And so what I want to see people do is that to understand and engage with, okay, you need to find love. You need to fill your heart with love. This is what I always tell people. Don't go into a fight to be right. Fill your heart with love. Figure out how you bring people back together, but understand that you really gonna. You really are going to have to fight for these ideas.

[Zuby]

Yes. Well, Tom, this is why I think the work you do is important. This is why I think the work that I do is important. Just by having these conversations and beaming it out to hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, it helps to maintain sanity. The most common thing that people say to me, if I get recognized in public anywhere in the world, whatever city, whatever country, one of the most common things that people say to me is, you help me to stay sane. Thank you for helping me just stay sane. I was going through this period, whether it was the pandemic area or it was just whatever it might be, socio Sociocultural, they're just like, you're just a sane voice that is like a pillar for me because there's so much inflammatory, angry, hostile stuff out there. And sadly, our so called leaders have not been doing a great job of demonstrating how people can disagree civilly, how to articulate an argument, how to empathize with different positions and listen and not result to insults and ad hominem and all of those things. It's falling on, I would just say, like an army of normal, decent people. And that army is growing, particularly through the power of social media and podcasting. We're now all able to. How many. Do you know how many guests you've had on this podcast?

[Tom]

We're closing in on a thousand episodes. Not all of those are unique guests, but call it 800.

[Zuby]

800. Okay, so if you just think of like the network effect of that and you think of all the different podcasters, you've obviously got Joe Rogan out there who's you know, got this giant, what all of these independent, you could call it independent media, all of these voices and then, then you add in, you add in X or Twitter, you add in Instagram, you add in Facebook, all these different platforms. If you look at mainstream media, legacy media, in terms of news media, like it's declining. Even in terms of Hollywood and all these things that have been these legacy institutions for our entire lives and before it, in terms of viewership, in terms of audience, in terms of trust, they're generally declining. And all of these, this long tail of independent media is bubbling up and people trust it more because whether or not you agree with someone, so someone can be listening to this whole conversation, there will be people who generally agree more with you on certain things, people who generally agree more with me on certain things, or, you know, it's just some mix, but we're both acting in good faith. You're not trying to misrepresent me, I'm not trying to misrepresent you. We're trying to understand each other, play through different ideas. And you do this over the course of what, a thousand different conversations which are then heard by millions of people. And, and it's important because you're not just discussing the ideas, but you're also demonstrating the process. I often hear people saying like, oh, it's like impossible to have conversations these days. Or like, how do you know? How do I do? And I'm like, if you act in good faith, no matter how much two people disagree, as long as they are acting in good faith and they're not trying to like, straw man or undermine the other person or, you know, try to stick a nasty label on them or whatever. As long as they're just acting in good faith and genuinely trying to understand each other. Well, number one, if people are talking, they're not fighting. And I always say there's only three ways to solve any conflict. Discussion and diplomacy. Separation, segregation, divorce, or physical violence. Those are only three options. So I'm a huge fan of the first one. As long as people are having conversations and debates and they're discussing ideas and having conversations, then they're not physically at war with each other on any scale. So this is one reason why I'm a massive advocate for freedom of speech, even if sometimes it can make people uncomfortable, because it's like, well, as long as people are talking and they're discussing the ideas and chopping through them, I do believe that the best ideas float to the top. Why do you think that when people are pushing terrible ideas where, whatever side that's coming from, why do they rely on censorship? Good ideas don't need to be protected via censorship. Good ideas, you can be challenged. If something is a good idea, it can stand up to challenge, it can stand up to scrutiny. It's not afraid. People aren't afraid to debate it. You know, when people are on like super dodgy territory or when they're pushing something that is antisocial or genuinely harmful because it's like, okay, we need to, we need to ram this through and censor anybody who takes any type of issue with it. That's when you. That, that should be like a massive warning sign to people. Right? If you look historically, the censors aren't the good guys. The people relying on censorship. Yeah, they're not the good guys. So I'm optimistic because I think that this is just a breakthrough time in humanity. I mean, through the power of this technology. For as much issues and problems as social media has caused to people, which I think people are also starting to wake up to now and starting to get a better understanding of how to manage it more. Despite all of those issues, it's created just, it's fundamentally changed the way we communicate permanently. And I think we're still extremely early in that. I don't know exactly what it looks like, but the world is smaller than it's ever been. I was just in Canada yesterday. I did an event there over the last couple days and it's my first time in Canada in 20 something years. First time going there for career reasons. And you know, on Paper. I know that I have. I knew that I had like, fans and some type of audience in Canada, but just to be there in like, you know, Victoria, British Columbia, which is like a pretty, like, woke part of Canada, and I meet like hundreds of people who are like, you know, want to meet me and hug me and like, demand like, you're this and this and this. And I'm like, gosh, like, I live in Dubai and same, same thing kind of happens there. It's like, it's global. People are listening to this podcast from 100 plus different countries. And that's magic to me. That's almost like magic to me. Like, this has never existed before. The audience that you have is no historic leader. Had a global audience even close to this before, you know, maybe like the Queen of England or something, but this is just totally new. It's amazing. I meet people in different parts of the world who have learned English from listening to podcasts like this. Like, that's how they learned English. Hey, I wanted to understand Jordan Peterson, so I learned English. Like, damn, I've learned. I told Joe, I told Joe Rogan this, that when I, when I. Last time, I was like, joe, I've met multiple people in different parts of the world who learned English by listening to your podcast.

[Tom]

You're gonna speak very different English. You learn from Joe and you learn from Jordan.

[Zuby]

Yeah, but, but, but just like that. Just the fact that that can happen is amazing and that that genie is not going back in the bottle.

[Tom]

I agree with you on all that. Let me ask you a. A sort of wolves howling in the background conversation starter here. The. As I've researched more world history, as I've started looking at events that are happening now, I really do think that we've entered the age of conspiracy. And I say that in, in a very specific way. Covid gave me a thread to pull on because I never thought about living in an age of conspiracy. Just never really made my radar. I assumed the government had my best interest at heart. I thought that inflation. I literally thought this. I thought inflation was just a natural law of nature. Okay, that that just happened to money. I never thought about why. I just thought that that's what happened.

[Zuby]

That's why we need to fix the schools, man.

[Tom]

And for a whole host of other reasons. But yes. And now the more I look at this, the more I realize, oh, wow, like, we're being manipulated left, right and center. And the manipulation, as far as I can tell, is two things, both more in public and therefore ripe to be dismantled. And accelerating because social media doesn't just allow us to reach out to people. Until Elon exposed what was going on with social media via the Twitter files, it also allowed the government to literally just open a pipeline. RFK is talking about this a ton of. And 72 hours after Biden took office, he opened a portal into the major social media companies to give the government access to get blocked what they wanted blocked. That's insane. AI is being trained. I mean, we all saw it like when it got ridiculous with Google Gemini where George Washington is black. Black Nazis, like absolutely crazy. But again, that's manipulation where up it suddenly spills over and you see. But you suddenly realize, whoa, whoa, whoa, like I'm being manipulated it all over the place. Okay, so the reason that you first made my radar and the reason that I wanted to have you on the show is when you start peeling the onion back and you realize all of these things really are true. There really are conspiracies. Not that every conspiracy is true, but there really are conspiracies. There are really people in the government trying to manipulate you. There are really corruptions within the government in the US Everywhere, Everywhere. So you start seeing all this stuff is true. Now you are able to have an open mind and not have your brain fall out, but you're also very able to be early on, very contrarian thinking. So BLM comes out and you're just like, yeah, no, this is a grift hard. I'm just going to tell you right

[Zuby]

away the amount of flack I got from that.

[Tom]

Well, so what I want to understand, though, is what rubric are you using to think through these problems so that you don't get swept away in cultural energy? Because what happens to most people is they get swept away in cultural energy. And therefore, if I'm trying to manipulate people, I need only sway public opinion. This is why they want to censor. Because people are actually very easy to sway at the level of culture if their voice goes unchallenged. So how do you navigate that knowing some people are trying to manipulate me, but there is some way that you use to find what is true without just going, everything's a lie.

[Zuby]

I think it's always hard to answer questions about ourselves because, you know, I only know so much about myself, so I don't know why I do all the things I do and why I believe all the things I do.

[Tom]

Startlingly true answer for all of us.

[Zuby]

Yeah. So I think one part of it is my personality type. So I am extremely low in neuroticism. Neuroticism. I did a big five personality test. I actually did Jordan Peterson's one. And I came out in the one percentile of neuroticism, meaning like 99% of people are more sensitive to negative emotion than me. This includes fear, this includes sadness, depression, worry, all these types of things. So all through my life, when other people panic or get scared or super worried or anxious about something, I always tend to be like, just in terms of my wiring, I'm calm, I'm calm in the storm, I'm calm in the fire. So I don't, I don't know that fight or flight response kind of thing. Maybe for me it's just not as, it doesn't kick in, in the way it other, other people does. And you know, a lot of people, like, they're very easily easy to emotionally hijack, right? You scare them or you upset them or you anger them and they raise their voice, they're angry, they're shouting, they're screaming or you know, they're sad, they're crying, they're. I'm just like, like it can be quite hard to even tell if I'm, I'm always happy. But even if I was sad, people would still think I'm happy because I just don't really change that much. So I think that's, that's a factor. So my emotions are just kept in check and I, on top of that, I just tend to think sort of rationally and logically. I'm also very solutions oriented. So I tend not to be like, oh my gosh, I'm, this is bad, I'm angry. My, my brain immediately tends to go, okay, what's the way through this? What's the best course of action? What's the solution? So that is definitely, I think that's a core part of it. I'm very intellectually curious as well. And I don't tie my identity totally in my beliefs. So you or someone else can challenge my beliefs or question them or someone can even ridicule them. And again, a lot of people have no separation between their beliefs and their ideas and their identity. And I think with that their self esteem and their self worth. Which is why if you challenge or criticize an idea that they have, they take it extremely personally and they very quickly get angry. Sometimes there's people who will, as you said, will get violent over that because to them that you're attacking me, you're not attacking my belief, you're attacking me. And I've somehow managed to disassociate those things to some degree, even for beliefs that are very important and integral to me. I just don't take it that personally. So I think that helps because I can see things kind of more clearly and try to understand from a different side. And I genuinely want to. Another point is that I don't have an agenda. There's a lot of people out there who are like, I see these actual conspiracy theorists on the, on the Internet and they're, you know, trying to work out like, what's my agenda, what's my angle, what's side of mine, who, who am I funded by which, you know, what grift am I pulling or whatever. It's like none. Like, I want to know what's true. I'm not trying to. I'm not, certainly not funded by some organization. I'm not part of some Illuminati or I'm not a Freemason or whatever, whatever people think. And I, I just want to know what's. I just want to know the truth. I'm not trying to. There are people, when something happens, they're immediately thinking, how do I use this to ram down my ideology? I'll tell you a great example. When you always see this happen, any high profile shooting takes place in the usa immediately before the bodies are even warm. You have the hardcore left wing anti gun, gun control. They're not even thinking about the victims or they're just immediately politics. How can we ram down. Let's use this moment. Blm, great example. Ah, this is a flashpoint. Yes, yes. This horrible thing. Yes. Let's immediately use this to ram down our political ideology. Right. And then you can have that on the inverse, depending on what the situation is. So these are not people who like really want to know what's true. They don't, they don't know that. Did George Floyd die because of racism? Did he die because of drugs? Did he die because of police misconduct? They don't care. Right. It was a black man died, white police officer, boom. That's our narrative. Ram it down the people. So these are not honest actors. They're too ideological. They're activists. Right. I'm not like that. I don't have in many of these things, I don't have a dog in the fight because sometimes it's not even my country. I'm not an American, for example. But I just want to know what is true, like what, what's the truth here? What happened? And so I tend to respond slower. Something happens and I'm not like, oh, let Me give my hot take on Twitter right now. It's just like. Like, oh, okay, what's happening here? Let's see this play out, right? Sometimes you even hear. You hear a video snippet or you see something, and it's like, okay, well, what was the full context of it? Some people just hear that snippet, jump on it, react to it, boom. It, like, spread it all over the place now. And then it turns out two days later that actually what was said was quite different to what people understood. So I think some of that is just, again, not. I don't have an agenda, so that certainly helps. And then I will honestly say the last one is. How would I put it? I think it does tie back to what we were talking about initially, which is faith, because faith practically does a few things for me. Number one is that it snuffs out a lot of fear. There's a lot of people who have a lot of fear that I don't have because I tell people, like, I fear God. I don't fear man. So if there's something that, you know, I believe is truthful, but I'm like, oh, it might upset some people, or I might get some backlash or someone might leave a nasty comment or something, I'm like, I don't care, right? If it's like, hey, this is true, or like, it's true and it needs to be said, like there's an importance in saying this thing, then I just put that out there. And as long as I feel like I believe that, yeah, that is something that is. It's good and it's righteous. And again, I'm not. I'm not lying. I'm not pushing some agenda or anything like that. Then, okay, like, there. Then there it goes. So I think that combination of things for me personally. Oh, and I'd say the last thing as well, is perhaps just maybe the last thing is just a level of humility where I understand that I can be wrong, and I'm not afraid to say that. I find a lot of people are afraid of the idea that they even could be wrong, and I'm not. When I do a podcast or even when I tweet, it's very stream of consciousness. I'm thinking through these answers as I'm talking. You ask me a question or we're bouncing ideas, and some of the ideas are better formed than others because some of them I've really thought about and perhaps even articulated before. Whereas other things, like what I'm answering right now, I'm like, that's a good question. I don't really know. Let me think to myself, what do I use to. What are the personality traits or frameworks that I use to try to get to the truth and try to stay calm in the storm? And so, yeah, I think that's a combination. The willingness to say, hey, I can. This is what I think. I could be wrong. I'm willing to update. I'm open to challenge. Which is why I've never. I've been on Twitter for 15 years. I have not once ever blocked off the comments or not allowed people to go like, nope, come at me, right? I'm putting this idea out here. Let's test it, right? People can. Sometimes I put one out there and that's interesting feedback, whatever the case may be. But it's just like, okay, cool, I can learn. And I also want to know not just what I think, but I'm very curious as to what other people think, because we all have different frameworks and we all have different angles and perspectives, and truth is an interesting thing.

[Tom]

What do you mean by that?

[Zuby]

What I mean is that multiple things can be true at once, and things can be true from different angles. And I think oftentimes in conversation and lots of these cultural, political conversations, for whatever reason. Maybe I do have a reason. I think I might know the reason. But people get locked into binaries very often, as in, it's either that one or it's either that one and people act like there's no middle or that two things can't be true at once. And I don't know if this is just like a cognitive flaw that. That people have or something where they struggle to understand that, okay, that can be true. But that can also be true, right? It can be true that the food industry and Big Pharma and the advertising industry are putting profits over people and they're using dodgy advertising and too many chemicals and they're poisoning your food and da, da, da, right? That whole narrative, that can be true. It can also be true that, hey, buddy, you're fat because you don't exercise at all and you're eating way too many calories compared to the amount that you're burning and your lifestyle is the reason why you are so overweight. They can both be true, right? Someone will be like, no, no, it's not that. It's not that person's fault at all. It's just. It's all the food company. It's like, well, how come any American is in shape then? If it were just the Food company. Theoretically, like every single person in the country would be overweight. Like no one would be jacked, no one would be. That's clearly not the case. So yeah, there is personal responsibility in here. There is accountability, right? There are things that you can control. You could say, hey, this thing is getting harder, okay, so someone could say, yay, it's getting harder to buy a property. The prices are outrunning the wages. You know, this is happening. Does that mean that a person should not aspire to ever buy a property? Someone who wants one, who wants to have a home? Should they just say, oh well, well the game is rigged against me and there's inflation and there's this, like that can all be true. But it's also like, well, yeah, but there's things you can do to still win. And coming back, this circles around back to the, the idea of despair. I think one of the reasons for a lot of the despair that's happening in our nations is I think some of it is from an. I think the game is and always has been rigged to some degree and always will be. I think some of the overrigging of it or what, some of the downstream effects of that are one of the reasons for the despair. And then I think on top of it, I think when you put the victim mentality on top of it, that's like a double dose of despair. It's like, yeah, things are getting harder in certain ways. Oh, and also, by the way, there's nothing you can do about it. So why don't you just drink yourself and drug yourself into oblivion? There are other factors, of course. You can talk about this issue from multiple angles. I do think that for men in particular, one of the challenges that people are having in the modern west and perhaps across just developed countries, I wouldn't be surprised if this is also true in maybe places like Japan or South Korea or something. Is I think the, the role of a man and the role of masculinity has never been less clear. So people can say what they like, good or bad about so called gender roles, but for most of human history and still in many parts of the world, it's clear. Okay, so someone might think like that is good or bad, like 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 500 years ago, people weren't saying, okay, you know, what does, you have a young boy, you have a young girl or woman. There wasn't a big debate and confusion around, okay, like what should you do? What should be your general course of life? What should you aspire towards what should you do? It was pretty clear, okay, you're a boy, you're a young man, cool. You do this, you protect, you provide, you learn a skill, you get a job, you earn enough money, you get married, you have kids, you look after them, you raise your family, you're a woman, cool. You learn certain skills, you become a mother, you get married, you become a mother, you have children, you raise those children, you look after the home, you help with various tasks and so on. And so it was very clear. It was just very clear. So some people will take issue with that and say there wasn't enough flexibility. And what about the exceptional people who wanted the. I understand all that, but it was clear. And I think now in one of the first places and in one of probably the first time in human history, it's just not that clear. I think to a lot of young men, if you take like say a man between the guy between 14 and 25, it's just not that clear like what they're meant to do in a way that it used to always be clear. It's like, yeah, you can still do the traditional path, path and strive to become a protector and a provider, learn a skill, get mad. I'd still say, hey, those conservative quote unquote ideas that still generally works. But also it's harder in many ways that are not your fault. Right? You've just inherited this weird economic situation and you're now living in a time where actually even the idea of, hey, you do these things and you'll find a decent wife that's not as, as much of a, as a given. And then there's a whole flip side of this for young women where it's like, well, am I supposed to depend on a man or not? Am I meant to be independent or dependent? Am I meant to. There's this weird thing that's been going on which is causing quite a lot of conflict between the two sexes, which neither really seems to be that happy with. It's like, on paper, there's more choice than ever before on paper. But in a strange, paradoxical way, the impacts of that increased choice that came decades ago has also managed to now constrain and confine people. Because let's say a young man and women want to do the more traditional route again, ooh, now it's really hard to raise. Now it's really hard to just have a single income unless the guy's really, really crushing it it at his work or his business. That's just way harder now than it used to be. It's harder to buy a property. It's harder to do this and that. So there's people who even have that more sort of traditional, conservative mindset and approach towards it. And even for them, it's just like, whoa, this is a lot harder to do than it was.

[Tom]

What do modern people do? Given that they are facing these extra challenges? What do they do?

[Zuby]

It's a great question, man. I know with you and Michael Malice, you had the whole thing of like, you know, the should and the should versus the ought to. It's tricky, you know, because people don't like being told what to do. That seems to be like a great. A great sin. True.

[Tom]

But you have a North Star, right? I do have a North Star. You've been flourishing.

[Zuby]

I do think that most people should still do the normal stuff, the normal route. I think that both men and women, biologically, physiologically, mentally, we have a certain hard wiring where men generally, we still want to be useful, we want to be respected. We like to create additional resources more than we just need as independent solo men so that we can provide and help others. Wife, family, children, maybe community. If we have a certain amount of success, we're still very much wired that way. The vast majority of women in every single country, they still want to become mothers, they still want to get married, they still want to have children, and they still actually, even if you poll working women, the majority of them, even in Western countries, when answering anonymously, if asked, hey, if you had the opportunity to stay home and raise your children, would you take it? Like, if financially you weren't stressed on that front, majority actually say yes. So as much as we supposedly break away from these sort of gender roles and expectations, it's so ingrained in people that it hasn't really changed. We're stuck in this weird place between traditionalism and chivalry versus sort of progressivism and egalitarianism. And I think that causes a lot of confusion. I think especially for young people, it really causes a lot of confusion for them because, say, for a young man, okay, I don't know, you're taking a girl out on a date. The expectations are kind of weird because there's all this feminism and egalitarianism and men and women are just the same and all da, da, da. In. In fact, in terms of unmarried people under the age of 30, in a lot of cities actually, women are now out earning men and women are getting more degrees and so on and so forth, but the woman still expects the man to pay and the man still

[Tom]

thinks hypergamy is still real.

[Zuby]

Yes. And the man still thinks, hey, like I should pay for the date. And then. But like if you had true egalitarianism, that doesn't really necessarily make sense. But like men are still considering the ones who are meant to approach and the ones who are supposed to pursue and the ones who are meant to pay and protect and provide. Even a woman who might call herself a feminist, she still has a lot of these expectations in many cases. And there's this weird, it can be quite a deranging thing for someone to navigate this ping pong back and forth between, wait, I thought it was like this. But then the expectations here, so what do they do? There's a lot of disappointment. Hey, I'm kind of a return to tradition guy. But you know, I think people have to find, people have to find their way. I also think when it comes to, when you ask that, are you asking about like the sort of male, female dynamic or just broadly.

[Tom]

Yeah, I'm super curious. So the way that I approach life is there are very real answers. Now admittedly there are times where I haven't been in a given situation. Like I can't tell you you what to do in a dating app because I've never been on one, but I can tell you how to think through a dating app.

[Zuby]

Sure.

[Tom]

So what I'm looking for, it just goes back to this idea of, okay, I've got this incredibly powerful flesh based AI in front of me. How does he tackle these given problems? So by way of model of what I'm looking for, my response in all of this is, okay, things have gotten harder for you. I, I agree with you. The way I say it is you want to align with your biology. So, dear women, now this is a guy who's married to a woman that does not want kids. But trust me, that was a long conversation about why and how it is that she would be the exception and is she sure?

[Zuby]

And all that stuff. You just said something there that's extremely important, which is to recognize that that is an exception for sure. I think in our societies, what's happened too much recently is things are being built around the exceptions rather than the common case. And so at the sake of allowing the exceptions to flourish and thrive, you've oftentimes crushed the majority, perhaps in ways that you didn't anticipate.

[Tom]

For sure. Oh, very much so. And I think Thomas Sowell is going to make another appearance here. There are no solutions, there's only trade offs.

[Zuby]

Yeah.

[Tom]

And so understanding that, yeah, you want to fight for the people that are being marginalized.

[Zuby]

Yes.

[Tom]

The problem is when you swing all of culture and aim it at protecting the marginalized, you just now trampled on all the people that were like, whoa, I perfectly aligned with the sort of evolutionarily validated way of doing it. But now culture is not aligned to that. So you've got the bulk of people that, when they align with their biology, now feel out of step with culture. And I think we're coming out of that, and we're going to be on the other side of that, and I think it's going to re. Swing a bit more traditional and women are going to be greeted with open arms and celebration. Again, this goes back to what do you celebrate as a culture? My wife was once talking to a woman, and the woman was asking my wife what she did and all these cool accolades, companies, money, success. And my wife was like, oh, what do you do? And she's like, I'm just a mother. And my wife's like, hold on, timeout. You're doing the world's greatest thing. There is nothing more honorable and beautiful than having kids. But society has told you to add just in front of that. She was like, no way. Like, that's so amazing. And so anyway, my wife, even though it's not her past, she understands that the vast majority of humanity falls into that bucket and that we need to celebrate that. And those.

[Zuby]

When.

[Tom]

When I meet parents, nine times out of 10, I thank them for their service. I love that because. And I'm not being tongue in cheek, I really mean it. I have chosen not to have kids. And. And I am somebody who wants to see humanity move forward. And so in many ways, I am. I am accepting the. The kindness of strangers who've chosen a different path. And so, therefore, this is not the movie the Future of Man. I can't remember if that's the title.

[Zuby]

Oh, Children of Men.

[Tom]

Children of Men. Thank you. Children. About a world that has no more kids. And it's just a desolate, horrible place. And I think that it would be horrible. So anyway, I think that people need to understand, yes, you were trying to do something good, but the outcome was terrible. This has become the theme of the episode from my side of the table is that. And how do we accurately assess when things are going awry?

[Zuby]

Yes.

[Tom]

And so if we were to set the table for all the things that have broken or, you know, a top handful for people today, you've said it's harder.

[Zuby]

Yes.

[Tom]

You've already laid One thing on the table, which is the relationship between the sexes has become obsessed with the people that are at the fringes.

[Zuby]

Like I can answer that. Wife, can I answer that one, please? So I'm going to speak to individuals here because I can't really speak to a group. So I'm going to think, I'm going to frame the question as, you know, what would be my general broad advice for a young man or young woman in this society today who's bombarded with all this stuff and who's kind of worried about it? I think the first thing I'd say is become truly self aware. And when I say that, what I mean is for your whole life, you know, you, you're influenced by your, your parents, your family, your community, your culture where, wherever you grew up. And we're all influenced by all these things and all these things. And people also tell us what you, what you should do and what you should want. And so I think it's important for, to, to take a pause and think about what your actual priorities are and be, and be truly honest. Be truly, truly honest about this. If you're a young woman and you're like, you know what, Like I'm not interested in like working a job for decades and this and this. And actually I'd love to like, like get married and have ideally a bunch of kids and just raise that. And like be honest with yourself and recognize that that is firstly, that's like, like that's, that's totally like normal and it's good. And there's nothing like denigrating about because people have really, really been. It's, it's weird because there's this idea of choice. But at the same time, some of the most like normal and traditional choices are like frowned upon or shamed or attacked. There's so many women who feel like, like afraid to kind of say, hey, I kind of just want to be a wife or a mother or like I am just a wife and a mother, you know, just that, just, just. And it's like, wait, why, why is that the case? So I think people need to be honest with that. And I'd say another core part of self awareness, I think I, I once had a tweet where I said this. I said self awareness is knowing when you're the rule and knowing when you're the exception.

[Tom]

That's nice.

[Zuby]

Yeah. So really look at yourself and your personality and your proclivities and the things you want and the things you don't want and recognize. Like in most Things, you're going to be the norm, right? Like most of us don't have such extreme personalities and desires that we're going to be the exception in everything. Most people will be the norm in most things and you might be the exception in a few. So norms. Yeah, you know, lo and behold, whether you're talking about men or women, actually, most men want to protect and provide to some degree. Most men want to be respected in their community and by their, you know, future spouse and their children. So most men actually want to get married and have children. Most women want to get married and have children. Most people want, you know, most men would like to have a career, most women do. Most women want to have a traditional career. I, I don't know. But whatever the thing. But know where you're the norm, know where you're the exception. Okay? So if there's. And then when you're the norm, look at people who you aspire towards who have done the normal thing in this regard and model it, right? So if you're. Oh, actually, yeah, I do want to get married and I do want to have kids. I do want to, like you've got billions of examples around the world of people who, who did those exact things and you can look at people who did it well and people who did, who did it badly and you can, you can learn from them and say, oh, okay, I saw the steps that this person took and I can even speak to these individuals and so on and so cool. In this aspect of life, that's my trajectory, that's my general path. That's typically what I want. And then you look at the other areas and you balance it out and you will have some things where you might be an exception. Okay? So most people, most people aren't going to start, aren't going to start a company, for example. Most people are not entrepreneurs. Being an entrepreneur is an exception. So if you're not, if you're not, there's nothing wrong with not being an entrepreneur, right? So for most people it's going to be like, okay, I need a job of some sort, right? Like I need to be employed because I'm not going to go and start a whole company. And so cool, I'm going to do that and then I'm going to get a job in terms of exactly what that is. Again, you can do more self reflection and education and work out, okay, cool. This is the thing I want to do. It's the thing I'm good at and it's the thing that there's A market demand for. And so you can go into that. So I think with both young men and young women, I think just being truly, truly honest about your desires and your ranking of them, of the things you want to prioritize and understanding, I think on top of that that this is going to change over the course of your life. So consider that if you're 22 years old and you're like, yeah, I never want to have kids, take caution there, right?

[Tom]

Don't get a vasectomy just yet.

[Zuby]

Maybe you'll never change on that. Maybe all through those next decades you'll never change. But to know that for certain at 22, you'd need an extreme level of self awareness and ability to protect, which most people just don't really have to be honest. So recognize cool. You have these things and it's going to change over the course of time and it should. And then, yeah, I think just take steps towards those things. And don't allow the culture, especially if you think the culture is degenerate. Don't allow the culture or society or the media or whatever to like push and shove you totally against your values and your goals just so you can fit in or so that people you don't care about will like you or whatever the case may be. Just, you know, do that. And on top of that, all, you know, enjoy the, enjoy the process. And I think that's really what it is. I'd say one more thing between like men and women in particular is because I see a lot of the dating discourse and stuff like that now, which is a big topic of conversation online at least. And this is gonna sound, it's gonna, it's crazy. This is gonna sound like radical in 2024, but you only need to find one person. You don't need to date the entire world. So for all the men who are like, all the women are, all the women suck, like, it's impossible to find a good woman. The general quality, you don't need to date hundreds of millions of women and they wouldn't let you anyway. And if you're a woman, you don't need to date 100 million guys. Like, it could totally be the case that like 80, 90% of 95% of guys you find totally undate cool. That still means that there's like millions who are dateable and you only need to find like one who you really like and who really likes you and who you're aligned with to cool. Like, you've solved that piece, right? Like, I know you've been Married for over two decades. Right. Right. Yeah. So good for you, by the way, man. I have massive, massive respect for that. And so cool. Like, you've. All right, cool. Sorted that whole thing. You don't need to worry about, like, what those other hundreds of millions or billions of people out there are doing, because it's like, well, cool. Like, I'm good, so. And I'd say as well, on that front, become someone who is worth. You know, a lot of people complain about, like, the. The whole dating culture and relationships and this and that, but, like, become a great version of yourself. Yeah. If you're. If you're. If you're a guy, if you're a young man, become the type of man who you would. I don't know, if you've got a sister, become the type of man you'd want your sister to date. Right. Become the type of man that women, like, actually want to be with. And. Oh, actually, like. Like, man, like that guy's. He's attractive and he's cool and he's got certain capabilities and he's. Competence on women. Same thing, right? Don't just be the. Oh, just, I am who I am. And so every man should just bow down to me and love me. It's like, no, that's delusional, right? Like, physically, mentally, spiritually. What, like, build. You know, get yourself up to a point where you are an attractive proposition. I mean, women, it's even easier, right? Like, become an attractive proposition and then you can literally like, like, pick the. You know, you'll have suitors again, to use an old school term. And you can be like, okay, cool, like, this is the guy that I like and who I'm aligned with. Then cool again. You've now solved that piece. And I think people get locked in this thing of, oh, you need to go on, like, hundreds of thousands of dates and all these different people and this and that, and people are just going out there just very recklessly, recklessly in many cases. And then they're getting jaded throughout the process, and no one is really happy with it. It's funny, Tom. The older I get, the better I understand why certain traditions and ways of doing things exist. The better I understand that all our ancestors from thousands of years ago, the reason they had certain social codes and norms and ways of doing things and traditions, it wasn't just like, hey, we just want to be mean and oppress people and limit all your freedoms. It was just like, hey, okay, we've been around for a few thousands of years. We've tried things a lot of different ways. And this is what we have found works for the vast majority of people and is generally good for our society and nation as a whole. And so that's why we've kind of settled on ways of doing things and why we've given certain instructions through various means. And so I think there's this, to use a C.S. lewis term, chronological snobbery that's kind of happening in our era where we assume that we're so much smarter than all the people who came before us and that we can just throw all that stuff away and just completely reinvent the wheel and just, you know what? Let's just try. Let's just try all of this stuff and everyone just do whatever you want to do. As long as it's legal, just do anything. That's not great advice. And I don't think it's judgmental to say that there are ways of doing things and ways of operating that are better than others. And even the people who choose to really learn it the hard way, they still tend to learn it eventually. And I think I would like to encourage young people in particular to avoid some of those mistakes, if you can. Here's a great thing to do if you're like, I don't know, 20 or 30 or 20, 25, 30. However old you are, is to look at people a few decades older than you and look at the different paths they've taken and decide, okay, where do you want to be? You're 20 years old right now. Look at the people who are 40 or 50 and look at their path and the decisions they made along that time. And find the people who you aspire towards. And also find the opposite. Find the people you're like, oh, my gosh, I don't want my life to look anything like that. And proceed. Proceed accordingly.

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