Ep 75 | Is It Too Late to Escape Techno-Slavery? I Michael Cernovich

Summary

Zero Hour with James Poulos – Episode 75: Is It Too Late to Escape Techno-Slavery? Featuring Michael Cernovich

Release Date: December 2, 2024

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Introduction

In Episode 75 of Zero Hour with James Poulos, host James Poulos engages in a deep and thought-provoking conversation with Michael Cernovich, a renowned journalist, author, and filmmaker. The episode, titled "Is It Too Late to Escape Techno-Slavery?", delves into the pervasive influence of technology on modern society, the decline of spiritual and philosophical grounding, and the struggle to find meaning in an increasingly chaotic world.

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1. The Concept of Time and End Times

Timestamp: [00:43 - 02:25]

Poulos and Cernovich begin by exploring the notion of time, particularly the idea of "end times." Cernovich shares his perspective on the perpetual nature of end times, suggesting that "the end times are always here" and challenging the Western linear perception of time.

Notable Quote:

Michael Cernovich (02:00): "I think that every, you know, in the Bible, the end times are here, right? The end times are always here."

This discussion sets the stage for their exploration of how society perceives progress and decline, influenced by linear thinking rooted in the Enlightenment.

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2. Influence of the Enlightenment and Linear Progress

Timestamp: [02:25 - 05:10]

The conversation shifts to the legacy of the Enlightenment, emphasizing its impact on the Western mindset. Poulos and Cernovich critique the Enlightenment’s promotion of linear, incremental progress and its consequences on societal stability.

Notable Quote:

James Polis (02:54): "It's been interesting to see the legacy of the Enlightenment where time is linear, it's incremental, it's uniform, it's unidirectional."

Cernovich argues that this belief in continuous progress has led to an unsustainable path, resulting in societal crises and a sense of impending doom.

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3. Decline of Spirituality and Rise of Secular Fatalism

Timestamp: [06:32 - 16:40]

A significant portion of the episode discusses the erosion of spiritual values and the rise of secular fatalism. Cernovich laments the Western society's rejection of ancient virtues and the decline of religious frameworks that once provided moral guidance.

Notable Quotes:

Michael Cernovich (14:36): "It isn’t like they said, I don’t believe in God and I don’t want to submit to God anymore. It’s more that they submitted to their base, lower impulses."

Michael Cernovich (16:40): "People always like, you're funny now. I don't think I'm fundy. I just. I don't think this is a normal, normal thing."

Cernovich critiques the abandonment of Greco-Roman philosophical ideals, emphasizing how modern society has become enslaved to base desires, leading to cultural decay.

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4. The Struggle Between Heart and Mind

Timestamp: [23:18 - 26:29]

The dialogue delves into the dichotomy between living in the heart versus the mind. Cernovich reflects on the challenges men face in embracing emotional vulnerability without being perceived as weak.

Notable Quote:

Michael Cernovich (24:51): "But I almost feel like you have to be in the mind enough to earn the right to go into the heart and do that."

This section highlights the internal conflict between emotional authenticity and societal expectations of masculinity.

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5. Modern Society’s Disconnection from Traditional Values

Timestamp: [28:05 - 35:23]

Poulos and Cernovich discuss the loss of traditional male roles and virtues, exacerbated by modern societal changes. They explore how historical roles provided men with purpose and structure, which are now largely absent.

Notable Quote:

Michael Cernovich (32:14): "You’d be hungover, fine. So when you even look at it from that perspective... there's no way to go where going to go."

Cernovich emphasizes the consequences of this disconnection, including increased vulnerability to societal manipulation and loss of purpose.

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6. The Role of Technology and Techno-Slavery

Timestamp: [35:23 - 44:57]

A core theme of the episode is the pervasive influence of technology and the concept of "techno-slavery." Cernovich critiques the blind faith in technological advancements and warns against the potential loss of human autonomy.

Notable Quotes:

James Polis (36:05): "So, yeah, simulated collective consciousness."

Michael Cernovich (43:08): "They think they can just unplug your consciousness but they really can't."

The discussion underscores the frightening possibility of a future where technology not only augments but potentially controls human consciousness and existence.

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7. The Importance of Virtue and Ancient Philosophy

Timestamp: [16:40 - 22:42]

Cernovich advocates for a return to ancient philosophical ideals, particularly those of Aristotle and Greco-Roman virtues. He argues that modern society’s neglect of these principles has led to moral and ethical decline.

Notable Quote:

Michael Cernovich (16:40): "I always tell young guys, always like, what you reading? I would just read the Nicomachean Ethics for the sole purpose of thinking about what a good life looks like."

This segment emphasizes the necessity of integrating ancient virtues into contemporary life to restore moral integrity and personal fulfillment.

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8. The Influence of Media and Free Speech in Current Culture

Timestamp: [48:26 - 52:39]

The conversation addresses the role of media and the concept of free speech in shaping modern culture. Cernovich critiques how media manipulation and the demands of constant engagement undermine genuine discourse and societal well-being.

Notable Quote:

Michael Cernovich (52:16): "I read more Twitter than I write by far, by an order of magnitude."

James Polis (51:37): "The biggest pot addict in the world could find you and read your stuff..."

They discuss how the inundation of information and the obligation to constantly engage can lead to superficial interactions and exacerbate societal fragmentation.

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9. Filmmaking Projects and the Quest for Meaning

Timestamp: [55:57 - End]

Towards the end of the episode, Cernovich shares insights into his current filmmaking projects, particularly a film titled "Meaning," which seeks to explore the essence of human existence and the search for purpose.

Notable Quote:

Michael Cernovich (56:07): "We are calling it Meaning because I like one word titles. Hoaxed, Silenced, Meaning."

The project aims to delve into the human condition, the separation from spiritual origins, and the quest to reconcile modern existence with ancient truths.

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Conclusion

In this episode of Zero Hour, James Poulos and Michael Cernovich engage in a profound discussion about the existential crises facing modern society. From the relentless march of technology and the erosion of spiritual and philosophical values to the struggle for personal meaning and societal stability, the conversation offers a critical perspective on the challenges of the contemporary world. Through advocating for a return to ancient virtues and a more mindful engagement with technology, Cernovich provides a roadmap for navigating the complexities of today's techno-centric landscape.

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Notable Quotes Compilation:

• Michael Cernovich (02:00): "I think that every, you know, in the Bible, the end times are here, right? The end times are always here."
• James Polis (02:54): "It's been interesting to see the legacy of the Enlightenment where time is linear, it's incremental, it's uniform, it's unidirectional."
• Michael Cernovich (14:36): "It isn’t like they said, I don’t believe in God and I don’t want to submit to God anymore. It’s more that they submitted to their base, lower impulses."
• Michael Cernovich (24:51): "But I almost feel like you have to be in the mind enough to earn the right to go into the heart and do that."
• Michael Cernovich (43:08): "They think they can just unplug your consciousness but they really can't."
• Michael Cernovich (52:16): "I read more Twitter than I write by far, by an order of magnitude."
• Michael Cernovich (56:07): "We are calling it Meaning because I like one word titles. Hoaxed, Silenced, Meaning."

These quotes encapsulate the episode's exploration of time perception, the decline of philosophical and spiritual frameworks, the critical view of technological advancements, and the search for authentic meaning in a fragmented world.

Transcript

[James Polis]

This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with Lifelock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Is California so over? What about the rest of America? What about the world? Master of all media, Mike Cernovich is here. I'm James Polis. Welcome to Zero Hour. Yes, Michael Cernovich is a journalist, author and filmmaker. His recent movie hoaxed an expose into fake news. Sat at the top of independent film charts for weeks upon weeks. Mike, welcome, welcome.

[Mike Cernovich]

I like the bumper music. Is that new or has that been on there for a while?

[James Polis]

It's always been on there. Yeah. Custom work.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah, it loads. Like a Black mirror episode or something.

[James Polis]

Well, this is zero hours, so we're always talking about how it's late than you think.

[Mike Cernovich]

Sort of dystopian. Yeah, I like it.

[James Polis]

Yeah, A little, little mild. It's like soft. Soft dystopian. Soft core dystopian. That is the brand.

[Mike Cernovich]

It's fancy.

[James Polis]

How late do you think it is really?

[Mike Cernovich]

I don't know. I go back and forth. I write your book. I go back and forth and on timelines. And I think that every, you know, in the Bible, the end times are here, right?

[James Polis]

Always.

[Mike Cernovich]

The end times are always here. I sort of believe that the end times are always here. But because of how we in particular the Western mind code time, we always seem to think we're at the end. As if time ends, it runs in a straight arrow, then it ends and then it's sort of over. Whereas I think it's never really ending. It's never over. It's always over, but never over.

[James Polis]

Yeah. It's been interesting to see the legacy of the Enlightenment where time is, is linear, it's incremental, it's uniform, it's unidirectional. And that was supposed to be like, you know, sort of unlocking this great source of scientific genius and precision and sort of mastery over the natural world. And, you know, here we are kind of at the approaching the end of that rope in some ways and it's making people crazy.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah, they're. The belief is always, and I think it's probably neurophysiological too, is if you look at story structure and narrative structure, the Human mind. We like stories with a beginning and end in arc. There's that. I think Kurt Vonnegut does that. Great chalkboard talk on story, which is. If people have never watched it, I think they should all watch that. So you got your story arc. And that's sort of how we're raised. On story. Wired for Story is the book title is called by another author. Great book on storytelling and neurology. And so we tend to think, oh, we're in this historical epoch, things are about to end, and then it never really ends. Things get really bad and last a lot longer in a bad state than we think. And then it gets better.

[James Polis]

Yeah. Or there's a rebirth.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah. Even if. I don't even know if it's this. I've moved away from pendulum swing theory because I forget who. Maybe it was mystery Grover, somebody who, you know, they're talking about the Bolshevik revolution and then Stalin takes over and then Russia. There was never a pendulum swing. It was just really horrible. For decades, Right. Of outright bloodshed, the Tsar being massacred. And then people, oh, wait, now we're gonna go into. You know. And that was from World War I. And then all of a sudden you're in World War II after all these purges and infighting. And then World War II is a horror film. And for the Soviets, at least in the Soviet occupied territory, it just somehow kept getting worse to the point where it was a point of despair. And then eventually the Soviet Union collapses. Russia collapses. But then you have all this human trafficking and people selling their kids. There was no pendulum swing. It isn't like there was a right wing revolution. Right. There was no swing of the pendulum. It was just really awful. And that I don't like to. I think it was mischief. But anyway, I didn't make that up, but I read that and I thought, you know, that makes so much sense where a lot of times we, especially on the right, have a sort of fatalism because we think, oh, well, maybe we'll lose, but then we'll come back in. No, no, maybe we lose and that's it. And it just gets worse. And it keeps me.

[James Polis]

Like the movies where the hero is dark, Night of the Soul and then Act 3 and you sort of like tie it all together at the end.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah. So what if there's no pendulum and it just keeps getting worse? And it can keep getting worse.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

And that's where I am now. Where. No, it's going to keep getting worse. Like with the hurricanes. They just gave our money to Mayorkas. And FEMA just gave our money to Nonprofit money laundering NGOs trafficked people all over the border as legal immigrants. Billion plus burned. And now we need that money and it isn't there. So people are dying.

[James Polis]

They got an app. They can just instantly zap you with their cyborg power and turn you into an instant citizen. It's incredible.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah. So they're. It's strange. I've moved away from pendulum thinking. I don't know if you call it pendulum theory, but I've moved away from that entirely as a mental model, which has made me more resolute and I think stubborn in a lot of ways. Because there is no pendulum. There's only us.

[James Polis]

Well, there's a lot of resistance even, especially now in some ways, to this very ancient Christian teaching that this is a race to be run. It is a marathon or longer, and those who endure to the end will be saved. But the end is, you know, it's sort of outside space and time as far as we're concerned. It's not up to us when the end is going to come. And it's something that we just have to wait for and suffer through.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah. There's always, at least in the Protestant, especially evangelical, Shreya's a Protestantism, this obsession with who's the Antichrist. What character is the Antichrist? And as I went back and read more of the earlier Orthodox church fathers and some of the more Orthodox modern people, they said a lot of things which. Which makes more sense when you understand that it was Eastern religion. I know any of this stuff. Right. I just grew up very proud. And Catholics worship idols. That's sort of how we. I remember as a kid there's a Catholic church across from my elementary school. So I'd walk to school and kind of shuffle past the Catholic Church because all I knew is they worship idols in there. And that's very. What. I know what that meant. I didn't know what that meant. I just knew that was very nervous, sounded bad. I need to stay away from the witches and warlocks over there. And then as you get older, you start to maybe, you know, you quit reading because, you know, it's kind of for whatever reason. And then you start to reread it maybe with a different perspective. And what the church fathers see, what people now say that the Antichrist has already been here. Antichrist is already here. The idea that somebody gets shot in the head like the Left behind movies or when I was a kid, that was a Thief in a Night. The maybe it's A midlife crisis thing, or not a crisis, but a midlife reconceptualizing your life point where you listen to the old. The dad Christian rock stuff that he listened to or the movies. And then I was like, oh, Thief of the Night. That was that movie I watched as a kid that traumatized me, where the kid's holding the balloon because the rapture happened and now some kid is gonna get eaten alive by demons or whatever. And you realize, no, like, the evil's already been here. It's always been here. The end times have always. Have always been here. And it's maybe idolatry or elevating ourselves a bit higher than we should be. To think that we understand that. No, now the end times are really here and it's really going to end. And it's just another phase.

[James Polis]

We are the main characters.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, we.

[James Polis]

Of history.

[Mike Cernovich]

Because you have to think that way or you die, kind of. Yeah, yeah, you have. It's. It's the inherent tension of if you don't think you're significant, you won't do anything. And if you think you're too significant, you build an idol of yourself and then you're sort of in this MC Escher diagram where you're trying not to be too significant, because if then you're too significant, you end up on the other end of it.

[James Polis]

Yeah, well, there's also this resistance to. The monasteries have been approaching this problem in a powerful way for a long time, where it's like, oh, what do you do all day? Just kind of sit around? It's like, well, no, we're praying for the salvation of the world, for starters. Just learning that thankless physical toil is a part of spiritual athleticism. And maybe that stuff is kind of alien to Americans in some way. But what I am seeing right now is more and more people sort of turning to that kind of frame of reference where it's like, well, I don't want to become the master of the world, but I don't want to be a slave to the world. So, you know, what do I do?

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah, there's definitely revivalism occurring, although it is returning to the more of the Eastern traditions. Because, like, for example, I didn't know there were Christian monks. Right. I knew from TV or whatever that the Catholics, of course, the idol worshipers, they had monks, friars, and they all drank alcohol. Right. That was sort of what you thought of as a monk. I didn't know that they were monasteries, because we all in the Western world, anywhere America, you sort of have a different conception of religion. And then the Eastern religions are, okay, the Buddhists are over there meditating all day. And they have monks. And that makes sense that they have monks because it's a different religious strain. And then you don't realize. No, they've been Christian monks. Their meditation is an active prayer with Christ. And they have vespers and they have. They're getting up. I remember I read their schedules and I said, yeah, I would never want to be a monk. You get woke up at what, 11:15pm, 4:15am it's a full day. I was like, you know what? That definitely wouldn't. That would definitely would not be for me living around a bunch of other monks, which I imagine be even worse.

[James Polis]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

Nothing about that appealed to me. But I didn't even know there was such a thing. Right? I didn't even know there was such a thing.

[James Polis]

It's work. It's a full day of work and spiritual work, physical work. But in America, you know, we've got this tradition of like, I'm gonna just go wander off into the wilderness. You know, it's tempting to follow that instinct when you see the empire collapsing, you know, and you see. You look around yourself and you go, I gotta get out of here. But if everyone goes off into the woods, you know, like, the Ted Kaczynski option is not gonna work for us. Even without the bombs.

[Mike Cernovich]

It's fundamentally secular fatalism. Right? Yeah. I've been having this discussion with people for a number, so. Because if you run in certain circles, everybody's talking about where you're going to go, what bunker? Every talk start, right? And sadly, at one point, I maybe fell into that zeitgeist a little bit. Not the bunkers, because they. I always said, guys, if you have a bunker, your security just kill you take your bunker, right? There's this delusion that people operate under where they don't understand that if we. If we live in a state where you need to be in a bunker, you're not in control anymore. Yeah, right there. Like, you think your securities. Maybe they will if they like you. I'm not saying they wouldn't. But you should be. If we. If we reach that. That level, you have a lot other things that went wrong. Enough of the social contracts went wrong. And even if you, like, somehow left, like, where are you going to go? And because I knew a guy, for example, is going to move to Tel Aviv, and then this is before October 7th, he goes, man, I'm not going to say where he lives. I don't want to out him, but he's like, man, I was about to, because Tel Aviv was giving people 10 year tax, tax things and everything, really attracting people. He goes, yeah, I'm just thinking about staying in the state that I live in now. I feel like it's just safer here than it is anywhere else. So that class of people who are all paranoid about leaving, a lot of them now are like California maximalists now realizing because I reached the conclusion like one, there's nowhere to go, right. Especially as technology, surveillance technology improves, especially as drone technology improves. There's no way to go where going to go. Then what are you going to do? You're going to hide out? But in the logical Western rational mind, we believe that we go somewhere and then time stops. Right? Oh, I'm. And this is the macro and the micro. The micro. Is this how people ruin their lives? That, oh, if I just hide from the problem, it'll go away. Right. We've all been in that situation. Oh, I had bills. And I want to deal with this today. Right. Or I want to deal with this problem with my family. And then your family dies. I don't want to deal with this problem with my friend. Then your friend dies. Right? Because you feel like there's this stopping point and you're pausing the television, time stops and then you're still existing somehow outside of that and you know, you never really are. So it's the same thing as if you flee. It's not like you can leave the country and go somewhere and then time stops and now you're in like a Tolkien Elven magical realm where the, the bad guys. Who are the bad guys? Sauron and them.

[James Polis]

Yeah, the shire will never burn. We'll be just over the hill.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah. You ended a parallel universe where everything's good and you're just goofing off all day.

[James Polis]

Well, this is part of the religious thing. That has been a struggle in America too, where it's like, I don't want spiritual authority. I don't want people telling me what to do. I'll just go into my conscience and sort of worship in the way that I want and that's gonna be okay. And well, I mean, you know, the story is not over for sure, but you look around and sort of see what shape Americans are in spiritually and it's rough. And that which doesn't seem to have worked very well. And now we've got machines that are so powerful that they can, you know, seems like they can almost simulate the Soul. And people are desperate for spiritual authority and where are they going to turn? You know, Sergey Brin, Bill Gates.

[Mike Cernovich]

Well, especially too in America. They even skipped the Rome. I see it more as a failure of false philosophy as much as religion. Because it's not like they said, I don't believe in God and I don't want to submit to God anymore. It's more that they submitted to their base, lower impulses, right? They didn't have maybe a Greco Roman idea of like virtue. So if you go back and you read Aristotle, the Nicomachean, I always tell young guys, always like, what you reading? I would just read the Nicomachean Ethics for the sole purpose of thinking about what a good life looks like, thinking about what virtue is. And virtue of course, is lived. And we skip that whole part of it. So it isn't just that we rejected God as a culture. Okay, I don't want to submit to God. Great, but then you submit to your cause. I'm rational, I'm smart and everything. No, but then you submit to weed, pornography, sports, gambling. It isn't like anybody, obviously. I want everybody to like, save their souls or whatever. But weirdly, I would have less of a problem if people said, you know what? I reject God. This is mumbo jumbo. What kind of idiot believes in God? This is stupid. And then they created some great life and they lived virtue. I would say, okay, maybe you'll end up. Maybe you'll end up with the right place at the end. But that's not what happened. Right? People instead became slaves to the base desires. But that's a rejection of early Greco Roman thought, right? That's the rejection of the idea that you want your mind as much as possible to control your passions. And of course, Hume said maybe that's not even possible. But we completely lost any idea that there's a tension between the master and the slave and that the mind, the higher. The higher side of you should be the master, the lower part of you should be the slave. And which just became this like, disgusting culture. Right? Even to the point where you know things that shouldn't be normal, like watching pornography should not be a normal thing. Right? Should not be a normal thing. And it's totally normal. And if you're against porn, you're some kind of prude. Fundy, right?

[James Polis]

You're bad.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah, I'm funding. Yeah. People always like, you're funny now. I don't think I'm fundy. I just. I don't think this is a normal, normal thing. Like I don't think waking up, wake and bake and then bump it around a little bit, stammering into a job, driving and then betting on sports games all day and playing fantasy football all day.

[James Polis]

Totally numbed, totally just trying to replace your given existence with something that's been fabricated.

[Mike Cernovich]

So this is like a rejection of Roman. Which is why it triggers me. People like, oh, men think about the Roman Empire all day. It's like, no, they don't. Because if they thought about it, they would think, I'm going to disgusting pig. You know, if. Because if you look at how the Romans lived and their idea of virtue and masculinity and gravitas, we don't have any real gravitas at all. And even I feel that most days we have no sense of. We have no lived experience of Greco Roman virtue. But we're obsessed with the Roman Empire. I don't really see that. And then we rejected God, but become some weird, sluggish creature. There was a meme I saw. It was great. Speaking of lack of gravitas, here's me looking at memes all day, right? And one of them is some like, Reddit figure says, what kind of idiot believes in God? I'm not a slave to God. And then it shows pornhub weed, you know, fantasy sports, NFL logo. And you realize that's what happened. Where. I'm not going to say it would be okay to reject God, but I might have a different perception of society, of people said, no, I rejected God because I really want to live this life that I have, and I really want to get the most out of this life where instead it's more like, I'm about my cattle.

[James Polis]

Yeah, weak choices. But it's tough to, you know, the philosophy speaks to the. Speaks to the mind and sort of flatters the mind. It's. Oh, you know, if you get the brain part right, you get everything right. And it's just so difficult, you know, to sit down and crack open your Aristotle or whatever and then develop this kind of creed around it. I mean, I'm not saying don't read Senec, but I'm saying, like, this stuff, you know, it doesn't really touch the heart. It doesn't really speak to the heart. And if you're not having that kind of change of heart, then it's. It's just, I think, very difficult to withstand kind of the pressures of, you know, just everyday life or especially this. This weird sort of virtual world that we've created. It's tough not to get sucked into that.

[Mike Cernovich]

I don't. I see. I don't think so. I think that if most men had done some of the reading and tried to live according to the ancient ideals, they would still be missing the heart or the nose. They would still be missing an essential part of the human experience and what it means to be part of God. You're still separate from God if you're not in your heart. But they're not even doing the mind stuff, right? They're not doing anything. That's sort of my greater criticism of secular society in general. So the good news for us is secular culture is such a failure that now people are like religiously curious again. And it's only because empirically all you have to do is look around and you think, oh man, like Noel Uri. How. Say his name. You know, I read his book, but I don't even know his name, how to say his name. But you look at these people.

[James Polis]

Yuval Harari.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah, yeah. Just bug men, right?

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

And ironically I read something, one of these orthodox books, the Virtue was the Ethics of Virtue, something like that was a big huge book and has a bunch of essays on Orthodox Christian thinking. And it said something like, and you can fill in the gaps before I butcher it, but there's like a full Christian has like a Roman mind, a Jewish heart, or maybe it's a Greek mind, a Roman body and a Jewish heart. But there's some understanding that, you know, there's mult, there's like multiple components to it. And I think, at least in the world I lived in, like Western self development, everything is just very mind based. Here's a blueprint on how you live your life. Right. And because frankly, like before I ever got into this heart of this weird Christian stuff or whatever, the. Because I grew up that way before I, you know, re explored it. The, like, I was happy with my life. I was like, you know what? I got life pretty like figured out. You know, here's the way to live. And if you live this way, it's pretty rational. Like I could take most men, assuming they don't have like a real, a real mental health problem. You know, everybody's got mental health issues, but like a real one, right? You're not schizophrenic or something. I could take most men and be like, oh no, like, here's why you're a loser. You know, like, this is when you get up, this is how you spend your money. You don't even track anything. You don't weigh your food. Like you don't do anything.

[James Polis]

Yeah, basic stuff. Jordan Peterson stuff. Or at least Jordan one point.

[Mike Cernovich]

Well, I was before Jordan and I, you know, so there. But you could give people a blueprint only in the mind, and their lives would improve monumentally. Yeah, right. Now, my delusion was thinking that that was the only thing that existed was the mind. Right? Yeah, that was my delusion.

[James Polis]

Well, and I know you were before Jordan Peterson, but, you know, how did he kind of finally break through? It was with, you know, here's basic rules. Clean your room, do the thing. And it does. It doesn't motivate guys, but it only.

[Mike Cernovich]

Gets you so far. Well, it's too glib. And there aren't enough of the operating rules. Yeah, right. Because you have to do a lot. Like, I was thinking about this the other day, especially get older. It's like, you know, I'm closing on a 50. I know you're in your mid-40s. It's like, man, ouch. It's like, dude, this sucks. Like, you have to eat this much protein three or four times just to not deteriorate. I'm not even talking like a guy in his 20s. If he lived like I lived, he'd be jacked. I'm just saying just so my whole thing doesn't begin collapsing. You gotta log your calories, make sure you got your protein for the day. Log it. You have to do a certain amount of cardio hours. You gotta keep track of all this stuff.

[James Polis]

Lift or get stiff.

[Mike Cernovich]

And you have to lift hard to not really make gains. At least if you're natty, you're like, wow, that was hard. And you know what? I'm making no gains. Some. Unless they're going back on trt, which I will.

[James Polis]

When will you do that?

[Mike Cernovich]

We have four kids, so I can go be infertile again. So, yeah, I'm going to go back to being infertile. But there's also. The aspect of the reason I haven't gone back on yet is testosterone makes you more pride and more lust. And I don't know that I need either more of those in my life. So spiritually, I kind of have to.

[James Polis]

Figure out how to do that, especially at that point.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah. Because biologically there are real limitations that happen with aging. I think it's sort of silly to just not do things because, oh, that's cheating or whatever, you know, because we all hate Big Pharma now. We all hate drugs now. But there. But there's a point where, like, I gotta, you know, I don't want to Reenter the world of the idolatry of the self. And, you know, I don't want to have more impure thoughts already, you know, than we all struggle with. So. But anyway, that's a long way of saying if you're a man, especially because, you know, women have their own rules. But. And I try not to, like, speak to women. That's one thing I kind of agree with some of the left on is for men to like, hold court and be like, oh, here's the rules for the women, you know, it's like, it's a little harder for them in a lot of ways.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

But for men, you're like, no, there are a lot of rules, a lot of rules that you have to do. But if you do follow them, you end up with at least better where you are. And then you can get into the heart and all that. Because I almost feel like. And I could be wrong. You're welcome to disagree. Other people would. I almost feel like you have to earn the right to live in the heart. Right. Because if you just live in the heart, you're just kind of like a weak man. You're kind of like crybaby, you know? And that's when they say, like, oh, man, can't cry me. I'm like, I feel bad that I don't cry more, you know, I feel bad that I'm so afraid of feeling emotion that I shut it out. I close off. I feel bad.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

But I almost feel like you have to be in the mind enough to earn the right to go into the heart and do that. Well, it's all.

[James Polis]

It's all connected. And people want to always break off one piece and turn that piece into an idol instead of dealing with the fact that it's all a whole.

[Mike Cernovich]

It's a whole, but they're there. I mean, it's a different sense though, right?

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

Like your eyes and ears are connected. Sight and sound are connected, but sight is still sight.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

Hearing, still hearing. Heart is still its own form of wisdom. But again, in the Western thinking, especially the Western hyper masculine thinking, we completely, completely right away. The heart, right. Like a man who's in the heart. You say, that guy's a pussy, right? You just, you just. That's the language. Sorry to be crude, but that's the language I would have used a number of years ago. It's the way I thought things like a number of years ago. Like, oh, this guy cries. What a fucking pussy. Oh, this guy's got trauma. Like, who is this? You know what Is it what is this guy gonna, you know, go into a bathhouse or something? Like who? You know, and then once you're in there, you realize, oh, no, I was the one who was deceived, right? I was the one not. Not living in there. Because in a way, mind doesn't want you into heart. Because heart is a little more chaotic.

[James Polis]

A little more unpredictable, harder to understand. Subtle things take place in the heart.

[Mike Cernovich]

More painful than mind. In mind, you can, you know, rationalize away a lot of pain and suffering. You can dismiss it, you can reframe it. There's all these little tricks you can do. Whereas heart just open, right? It just open. And then you feel a pain maybe that the mind isn't comfortable with or the mind loses its orientation. Then you feel, oh, am I going crazy? A little bit, right?

[James Polis]

Yeah. Suddenly that rational foundation isn't there anymore. If that's not the foundation, then what is?

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah. So then it's always say, no, don't go into heart. That's what we people do. Everybody has their own issues. Those are just mine. I'm sure other people, maybe they're in too much in heart. And obviously my experience is at the norm, but I think in general, having dealt with a lot of men, is that most men. Because it is kind of directionally true that if you're too much into heart, you are going to be kind of rejected by women and looked sort of weir.

[James Polis]

Especially in a world where all the things for men to do. You talk about ancient Rome. These guys were farmers, they were laborers, they were warriors, they were military men, they were political officials, bureaucrats. There were things for men to do. And then, of course, fathers, members of a nobility. In many cases. All these things have mostly been zapped away for men. If you go into the military, you're killing brown people or whatever. If you go into the priesthood, you're. You're molesting children. If you go into business, you're greedy. You can just run all the way down the line of all the vocations that were historically and traditionally from the beginning, things for men to do, things to keep men grounded and integrated into society. And those are. Now, they're not quite being banned out and out, but they are being taken away. We are being terraformed in a direction where those things don't exist. And under those circumstances, yeah, a guy who tries to go hide, you know, in his heart and cry about it, you know, looks and feels and will see himself as being terribly weak.

[Mike Cernovich]

We say that, but that goes back to the earlier thing we talked about with time, though, was that was always that way, though, like the Greeks, you know, you sit down, you know, Day one, Intro to Western philosophy. Right. I think they all start with. They start with Heraclides and how you can't swim in the same river twice because neither the man nor the water is the same. Right. But in that intro to Western philosophy, they were worried about the meaning of life way back then. So it isn't like we as the human species had the meaning of life figured out, the meaning of being a man figured out, and then somehow we forgot it during the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages. And now we're all sort of lost. I feel like if we went back somehow and we could talk to these people there, they would have a lot of the. The same struggles, although they'd be in a much more sort of primitive state.

[James Polis]

Yeah, I don't think that those people, if they were teleported to 2024, would be all that lost at all. I think they would kind of. They'd catch on pretty fast, I think.

[Mike Cernovich]

Or if we went back, we would find out they have the same human problems that we have now, the same spiritual. So that's why a lot of this goes back to the alienation, I think, that most people feel from the divine, which is probably what causes sort of most of these problems. So you go back and read some of these parables or stories or Bible stories, and, you know, you start with Adam and Eve. And even if you don't believe that it's a true story, the metaphorically it puts into words something we all feel, which is that this. This is not base level reality. Right. That we're alienated from something. We were somewhere and then we were kicked out, or we were somewhere and then you can get cosmological about it. Maybe we're an alien species already in America. Maybe we're already multiplanetary and that's why we're here. There's a lot of different ways to look at it, but there's something about embodied, being embodied that is a very foreign experience and feels, quote, unquote, unnatural. At least in humans. And in all of written literature that's been the tension. And then people disagree on, well, what's the right path? And people can argue about that all day.

[James Polis]

Well, you look at that sort of Rogan verse where it's like, how do you deal with this? And, well, you can deal with it with the psychedelics. You can deal with it by thinking about aliens all day. This universe of ways of trying to. You Know, evade that tension or explain it away. It's a powerful attractor. And I listen to some of these guys and it's like, men will literally do an eight hour podcast about aliens instead of going to church.

[Mike Cernovich]

But why is that, though?

[James Polis]

Yeah, why is that? I mean, is it pride? Is it fear? Is it all the above?

[Mike Cernovich]

It's all the above, right? Yeah. I don't want to go be around all these strange people. They're probably looking at me, right? I'm too good for these people. These people, they're a Catholic guy again. Because I watch Instagram reels all day. It was a good. He tells the line, he goes, you know what? He's a priest. And he goes, you know, guy comes up to me and says, you know what? I stopped going to church. And I said, why? He goes, I couldn't be in church. All the hypocrites. And the priest said, we always have room for one more. Right. And that's why people. Oh, they're. I'm so much better than they are. That's the mind. Whatever. The. That's why I've become more over the years, more pro Christian, less as a. Oh, I read an apologetic, and this is obviously clearly true. And more, anytime you try to go to church, there's some kind of weird resistance that doesn't come up if you're going to go to the bar. So imagine I'm like, hey, James. Well, you would say, no, obviously, but, you know, secular James. Right, Right. You know, And I'm like, hey, James, what are you doing? Oh, I don't know. What do you want to do? I don't know. Like, let's just go drinking and try to meet women and fornicate and I got some cocaine. You're like, sounds like a good night. Right?

[James Polis]

Right.

[Mike Cernovich]

What if I said, hey, James, what are you doing? Like, I don't know. I was like, why don't we get up and go to church tomorrow, man? What happened to Mike? That guy's.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

What's wrong with him? Yeah, no, I'm tired. I need to sleep.

[James Polis]

Ready. And skip the gym already this week? Yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

Suddenly you want to go to the gym. Exactly.

[James Polis]

Right.

[Mike Cernovich]

You'd be hungover. Fine. You'll skip the gym. Hungover, fine. So when you even look at it from that perspective, which is how I look, because I look at things more mystically now and much less of, like, when people want to argue about this, I'm like, I don't. I don't care, dude. You know, I was where you were, and I know where you are, and I'm fine with that. And I'm not going to argue with you. This pastor proved the ex. You know, everybody's obsessed with that, which is again, like the Western mind. Oh, this former journalist was an atheist and he invested Christianity and he concluded that it's true. So I don't need that validation. All I need to do is think about, you know, what? You. When you try to do something like that, a million obstacles come up. But when you try to sin, a million wins. Push. Push you in that direction. Oh, oh, yeah. No, that's, that's the. Oh, yeah, you got energy. Oh, you feel excited now. You feel hyped up. Let's go to Vegas, right? Let's, let's do all this stuff. So you have to really reach the conclusion that there are spiritual forces moving us in certain directions and that the primary movers are moving us in a direction that ultimately leads to ruin. We know where sin leads to, right? We know it leads to ruin.

[James Polis]

And it's not hard to understand, it's hard to accept, and it's hard to do. And so when I see, you know, God love them, the tech bros out there who are just adamant that like, no, like, this is really it, you guys. We are going to escape our humanity. We are going to transcend, going to be a new age. We're going to leave all this nonsense behind. Some of the smartest people are the easiest to deceive. And just the absolute spiritual resistance to accepting the implications of that. How long can it go on?

[Mike Cernovich]

Well, not only that, but they're ignorant of consciousness and how it emerges from a physical property, right? They're techno gnostics, right? They think that you can somehow take your consciousness, that it exists and the soul. You know, like you read Descartes guys, right? They think they're so advanced, but if you have a classical philosophy education, it's kind of. It's like a freshman in college. Oh yeah, I'm just going to pull my little consciousness out of the seat of the soul. Like Descartes. That was, you know, right here in the middle of the brain. You realize you're thinking in like the 1600s, right? You're not, you're not actually advanced, right? You're early post Christ Gnostics with a mind body dualism of dehar. And you think that you can just unplug your consciousness and put it into a cyborg and you think that's smart, but you're, you haven't done the reading, right? There's, there's always a. You can always kind of tell who's done the reading and who hasn't. And you look at these people talk like, oh, wow, you haven't read any. Godela Schach was this big, huge popular book that everybody pretended to read. Like, oh, you guys never read that?

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

Oh, you have it on your bookshelf, but you didn't actually read it. Because if you read Danette and Chalmers and all these guys, you understand that, first of all, we don't necessarily know what consciousness is, but it certainly emerges as a product of all these physiological things occurring in our body that's just undoubted. So you go, wow, you guys haven't read anything. And you're like a little freshman in college debating nature versus nurture, and you think you're so smart that you can just unplug your consciousness, but you really. You really can't. Now, they are creating a new consciousness, which. With algorithms and artificial intelligence.

[James Polis]

So, yeah, simulated collective consciousness.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah, no, they're. I mean, they're creating.

[James Polis]

Well, and this is why I'm sort of like, you know, do they really believe this or is this all sort of, you know, whether. Whether intentionally or just kind of.

[Mike Cernovich]

That's my point. They don't know what the point is. They don't. Like I give an example. So when I was living, and I'm still living in. When I was really lost, I didn't think I was lost. I thought like, I mean, what does the guy do? Like, he takes steroids, he goes to the gym, he looks at himself in the mirror, right? He gets jacked, he makes money, he fornic. That's a real man, you know, And I was quite confident in that. And now you look back like, what a deceit. Like, what in the world, man? The devil really had his hooks in you. And maybe I look back on myself now and from a different. And be like, wow, you were even more deceived in 20, 24 than you were in 20, you know, 2004. But the. So with these guys, I don't think they even know what they think, because when I. When I listen to them on these podcasts, I'm like, well, you guys, you're not talking about anything that anybody, anybody who's done the reading has done. So they don't, like, they don't know that they're Gnostics, which of course you are, because you, you know, the Gnostics, of course, believe that we're sort of trapped in these bodies and this is sort of a prison planet. And Our souls are the highest part of us and this body is sort of dirty. And doesn't it suck that we're trapped in this? Doesn't it suck that we're trapped in this body? Oh, that sounds like a tech, bro. Sounds like Sam Altman. Sam Altman is a gnostic, but he, but he doesn't realize he's 2,000 years too late. You're not new. To hate your body and think your body is gross is not some sort of new thing.

[James Polis]

If you like what we do around here and you want a great way to let other people know what you're watching and listening to, you're going to love all the Blaze Media merchandise available at shopblaze media.com everything from the Blaze Heritage and Blaze Media collections to agua donkeys and our Trump Vance 2024 merch. We have jackets, T shirts, mugs, flags and a whole lot more. There's so much you're gonna love. Go to shopblazemedia.com today. Check out all the cool stuff available from Blaze Media and be sure you use the promo code blaze10 to get 10% off your entire order. That's shopblaze media.com promo code blaze for 10% off. Do it today. I don't always talk about movies because people are kind of becoming cynical or disconnected from cinema and in part for good reason, in part because we came up with an even more sort of all consuming form of communication. But there was a film called the Substance that came out very recently. It's being interpreted as sort of feminist body horror in the tradition of Cronenberg and David lynch and, and it is all those things. But it seems to me to be so much more and to speak directly to this issue which is, you know, we do, we live in a, in a culture, we live in a society or a cult, a cult at scale where, where liberation or freedom or identity comes from your ability to destroy yourself. And you can't sort of create a new you, a Neo person until and unless you sort of declare spiritual war on who you've been given to be. How can that possibly end? Well, you know, it doesn't end well. It leads to monsters. The quote from, I think Tesla, you know, you will live to see man made horrors beyond your comprehension. My joke, you know, I don't know how long it was months at least before the substance came out was you will live to be manmade horrors beyond your comprehension. And this is something that we are using technology to do to ourselves and to others. And we're doing it for Increasingly explicit spiritual reasons.

[Mike Cernovich]

I think you're too polemical, you know, because I started reading your book when it first came out, bought it for. I always buy people's books to support them. And I was like, you know, I'll finish this book on the airplane. Like, man, you're just, I think you're too polemical on tech where there, there's a lot of advantages to it too, of course. And that's why it's so.

[James Polis]

Yeah, tempting.

[Mike Cernovich]

So I don't, I think I'm maybe less afraid of tech than I'm less afraid of tech, at least personally than I am for that. Maybe others. Maybe fear is the wrong word. But I look at like this there, I remember in like, as a political example, Trump doesn't win 2016 without Twitter. He absolutely does not. And conservatives forever had talked about the biased media, the liberal. This has always been true and it's always been a real problem. And it's one reason the culture, the country's decayed so much because the media has to gather. America is a right wing culture that's changing now. And it might be changing forever, but at least until 10 years ago it was a right wing country. So right wing that the media had to lie to prop up these other people as moderates or centrists so that they could be. So that they could deceive the people and that the people would vote for them. Or like Kamala Harris, for example, she's running as a Republican who just likes abortion, right? Oh, I'm good for jobs. I have a gun. If a guy intruder breaks in my house, I'm going to shoot this guy guy. She's got these weird right wing talking points, surviving fantasies. Oh, but we gotta have abortion. Otherwise, you know, me, I'm just, I'm good right wing. And if we didn't have these technological tools, we would, we would already have been decimated. The Soviet Union was a hellhole without technology. If you look at Genghis Khan was the worst, probably that was probably the worst moment in humanity. If you, in terms of like death and everything you would see like maybe Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, Holocaust, Armenian genocide is up there. You look at the worst things that have happened. This was all pre tech. Unless you define a certain kind of archery as from the Mongols. Technology. And then we get into a definitional discussion of like what is technology but the worst parts of humanity and humanity at its worst was all, was all pre tech, right? Bolshevik Revolution, pre tech. Stalin, pre tech. Cambodian genocide, pre tech.

[James Polis]

With tech being Defined as what, like, digital?

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the direction we're headed.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

So like, you, like Elon Musk, like a lot of people who are smarter than me, I have a certain apprehension about the direction AI is headed towards us. But then I go, you know, they probably. Probably when the first radio came out, people are probably saying that was demons talking to them through the radio. Right. Probably what you believe. So then I wonder, is it because this technology is unique to where we are in time that we're not really any different than the people who would say, oh, how's that radio talk to you? What is that? And maybe that's all AI is, but.

[James Polis]

Well, I think it's, you know, it's. It's these waves of attempts to create a tool that we can use to leverage ourselves out of our human identity.

[Mike Cernovich]

Those are.

[James Polis]

That's going on for a long time.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah. Those are weirdos, though. I. I don't like Sam Altman hates being a human and wishes he didn't live in a body and wants to upload himself into a Warhammer machine. People like that, I think we should dismiss as kooks. Not. Not just laughable people who have no understanding of early Christian thought. Basic mind. Mind, body dualism, let alone the. Daniel Hofstetter later thinking of consciousness as recursion. They don't know anything. I. I think they. The mistake we make is that these people are actually stupid. They don't really. They don't really. They're not learned people. And. And I say that not with any kind of arrogance, but just with the point of, like, I can listen to them and know that they haven't given any thought to any of this stuff.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

So he's just a nihilist who hates his body and he hates humanity as a result. That's where people like him are a threat is because they. But the. The materialist Sophias were the same thing. They had that same aesthetic of they hated the body, they hated themselves, and therefore they wanted to kill and hurt as many people as possible. So that's one side of discussion. These guys, they're going to upload their consciousness to a cyber.

[James Polis]

Okay, well, that's part of the thing, though, is it's not just, I'm going to go do this and the rest of humanity can figure itself out. It is like, this is going to be a new mode of governance. We're going to be in charge, and this is going to be compulsory. You know, you are going to have to jack in and you are going to have to Live this kind of virtual existence in this kind of vivarium that we've created for you and we're going to do it and you can't stop us and it's going to be paradise. That is part of what's going on.

[Mike Cernovich]

We had to live that way with the communist China before pre tech, you had to live that way with us. It's not that we have to, it's whether we're going to submit. And the question that a lot of people are having, myself included, is there a red line or are we just going to cower and go along with it?

[James Polis]

Yeah, it's very easy, it's very easy to sort of passively give in because ultimately, well, maybe I don't personally want to leave my human body, but maybe I do just kind of want to be lazy and be fed and get the dopamine hit. Escape from God, escape from God's commandments, escape from any kind of responsibility. That's why not. Gnosticism is so powerful not because everyone wants to destroy their physical form and ascend into some sort of collective blob, but because they want to escape responsibility and they don't want to be confronted with how difficult it is to satisfy God's commandments and how much work it takes.

[Mike Cernovich]

Well, they want to live like, I mean they want to live like cattle, but that's. There's always been a large segment of people that are completely happy with the feed sack. But I don't spend a lot of time thinking about those people. My worldview and where I spend my most time thinking is I have the elitist view of humanity which is that you have counter fighting elites and that the elites ultimately have to elevate their people to a certain given point. So whether people want to live with a feed sack on their face, a lot of people do. They want to like they want to play fantasy sports all day and they want to gamble and they want to watch pornography and they want. But I don't spend a lot of time thinking about this. I spend a lot of of time thinking about my role in this war that is ongoing spiritual and I hope it doesn't get physical. But to some degree it is a war because they try to kill Trump, they're trying to kill Elon through the law, they're throwing people in prison over trumped up charges. So in a way it has gotten physical and hot one sided. But us, the Christian side is more like man, we don't want to retaliate. You know, that's of course the weakness That a lot of Nietzsche's criticisms on Christianity are kind of apt for today's ruling is where there's like nativity where with Christians trying to get Christians like, no, no, they want it. Like they really want to kill you. No, no, they don't. No, no, they like they're killing people in North Carolina. They're not letting, they're denying rescue crews, they took all your money and they're giving it to people who come from completely different cultures. And they like, they want to kill you, right? Or like you tell the Tsar, no, no, they want to, they want to kill you. What are you doing? Why are you dealing with the Bolsheviks? What are you, what are you doing? You're going to go on house arrest. No, no you're not. They're going, they're going to kill you. So there's this naitivity within Christianity that I don't see as much into Orthodox tradition, which is probably why unfortunately a lot of people are because I don't claim to be Orthodox Christian first of all. So I want to make that clear. But the, but there, there's one of the draws I think that people, that people have to it is that there's, there's less of a negativity to it. Whereas in the Protestant especially, once you get down to like Lutheran and you know, these other traditions, if you want to call them that, we're just really guru stuff. Right. It's like, why even like why you, you should probably just go to a self help seminar at this point, you know.

[James Polis]

And, and what do you do? And many do, you know, you look at retention rates and it's, it's tough.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah. You're like, what if, like what is this? You know, go, go to a seminar, dude. This, this is, this is sort of silly. But so there, there are a lot of people want to plug it. But I think the way they'll get people like you, the way they get people like me in a way like they already had is like, I'll be on TRT pretty soon. And like I've been on peptides so you know, I had some tendonitis so I was on BPC157. I was like TB500. So then you go from a peptide. Helps your secretagogue, so it helps your body. It tells your body, hey, secrete more growth hormone or secrete more anti inflammatory bodies, telling your body what to do. But then you're like, well why don't I go with the stem cells now? Well that's still from my body. But why don't I get the nanotech stem cells, right? And then eventually, like, you're becoming a cyborg between holding your phone, VR goggles, injecting yourself.

[James Polis]

Yeah. You got a feedback for every molecule, every orifice.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah. So I don't, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about how they're going because they already got the cattle. They already got the cattle. Okay. You go walk around and it's heartbreaking to just see people and you're just like, you're living in, like in a prison. You are. The Gnostics maybe are right about you. Like, you're living in just an embodied prison where your body is achy and inflamed and can barely move. It doesn't breathe right. You can't even breathe through your nose. Like, man, I feel, you know, your heart breaks for these people. But I, you know, I think more about people like us and how they're going to get us because we're harder to trap, but then we're easier to trap because, you know, you trap us through our Luciferian pride. And hey, get the technology, get the peptides. Get the good peptides. Oh, well, why wouldn't you want, like a bionic arm? Obviously you would. Oh, and then there are people with real handicaps that, you know, you lose your. If I lose my vision, I'm doing neural link. I don't know what to say. You know, so maybe the devil has caused a car crash or something.

[James Polis]

I don't know. Maybe if it happens, you actually go blind, you'll feel differently.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah, yeah, but I'm saying that if there's a solution. Yeah, you don't know obviously, until it happens. But I think, I think that's where. Especially with the people, kind of people who listen, hopefully they're not that trapped by the world that they're thinking there. We need to think more strategically and how they're going to get us right versus the people who they've already gotten. Sad to say, they've already gotten them. Man, it's depressing. It's depressing. When I post against we Culture, people who read me attack people who read me. You're reading me. How did you find me? And you're shocked that I'm opposed to weed culture. Oh, my God. Then you think, how lost is the world if the kind of people who would be drawn to read me in the first place, attacking. Attacking. Maybe not the way to put it, but I think I'm like, how the hell did you find me? And you're a weed Head. You're smoking weed all day, wake and bake, smoking in the afternoon, on lunch, going home, watching a game, getting high before bed. Well, then you realize, oh, people downstream of that must be really lost.

[James Polis]

Well, this is like part of the psychosis because, you know, obviously free speech is important and not having free speech would be bad, and we're seeing the consequences of a lot of that. But such a big part of the sales pitch about how to escape the trap that you're describing is we need free speech. We need global town square. The more people lift up their voices, the more free that we're going to be. And what you end up with is a culture where silence is seen as evil and where maybe the biggest pot addict in the world could find you and read your stuff, go, oh, Cerno. Yeah, okay. And then hear some criticism from you and could just, like, not say anything.

[Mike Cernovich]

Right.

[James Polis]

Not engage. But such a big part of the trap is, no, you must engage. You have to respond. You have to be critical. You must be a critic. You must be an analyst. You must pick things apart, debunk them, you know, fact check them. That culture, which is just being so powerfully reinforced by the idea that free speech is what will save us, that culture is such a huge part of.

[Mike Cernovich]

The problem is replying. A culture, I think, though, that's always. We call those blowhards. Everybody, you know, pre Internet. I just remember being a kid, and you would just like the. Tim Walsh triggers me psychologically, because he was. They picked him because they thought that white men would say, he's one of us, not realizing he's the archetypal blowhard coach that we all hated. And he had some weird position of authority over us that was unearned, that he never would have earned in a real high. Of course, he was a teacher, you know, in a hierarchical structure among men, he would never have earned it. Put him in a room with 10 men, right? This guy's not running things. And of course they picked him. So when people say he triggers you, it's like he does. But it doesn't hurt my feelings for you to tell me that, because he. You guys thought that he's somebody that we would look up to because you're so in the DEI world. But he is someone that we would loathe.

[James Polis]

It's almost like a house slave thing. Yeah, it's like the Longhouse slave.

[Mike Cernovich]

Right, right, exactly. We loathe them for that reason, but they've always been the Tim Walls type. And that's kind of what the reply Guy is, yeah, they've, they've always existed, but now they have access. Or the bigger thing or the annoying person is they feel like they have to say something just to say it. I read stuff all the time. I know. I read more Twitter than I write by far, by an order of magnitude.

[James Polis]

It's hard not to.

[Mike Cernovich]

I almost never apply to anybody because I don't need to just say something about it, right? Or maybe I'll quote, retweet somebody with a little emoji or something, but just to draw a little more attention to it. But I don't feel the need to reword. Or what they'll do is they'll read your tweet and then they'll reword it. But then, but then we're getting into ego. And then the heart would say, maybe you reach them in a way and they feel connected. Maybe that guy's lonely. You know, I have this weird, this is what I hate about living in the heart. Like, this is what I hate about it is in the mind. It's easy to say, what a fucking dork. Sorry, I shouldn't. What a dork. You know, that's the mind. But then on the other hand, you're like, what if that guy's really lonely? He read something that resonated with him, he feels a connection and his way of connecting is replying to you. And now you're judging this person. And then the heart goes, what a terrible person you are, Mike Sarvich. What is wrong with you? You, you know, and then you're like, oh, man. You know, so that's.

[James Polis]

Then you get a little voice of pride being like, he needs you. You're the one. He could be you who changes his life.

[Mike Cernovich]

So that's not, that's not my sin. My sin is more judgment than, yeah, then guru ism, right? So I'm, I'm more like, I'm too judgmental to be a guru because if you wanted me as a guru, I think there was something inherently wrong with you. So it's probably like a self hate component, you know, and all that. Milo. But the heart would say what a blessing it is, right? And maybe that person was lonely and now that person's a little less lonely for a moment. And then you're judging that person. Why are you judging that person? And so that's why I think a lot of men don't want to live in heart, because then you kind of feel that weight, like, oh, wow, you know, there's a heaviness maybe that is inside there Whereas if you live in mine, it's very easy to just dismiss everybody. In Cast Stones.

[James Polis]

You're doing a couple films now in development or in some stage of production.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah, two. Yeah.

[James Polis]

Okay. How are these films helping you to kind of break out of the traps that we're talking about?

[Mike Cernovich]

Well, the one film I'm not. That one's still kind of a confidential project and it'll make sense why it's confidential when it comes out. But the big one is the douchiest thing in the world is I'm making a film on the meaning of life. Right. I just feel like shooting myself in the head.

[James Polis]

10 hour film.

[Mike Cernovich]

My God, you're just like, what a douche. You know, with some most la. Even though I don't live in LA or like it that you could ever come think of, but.

[James Polis]

Well, you're really underselling it, so.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah, yeah. No, because if it's just like, what are you doing with. I'm making a movie about the meaning of life. But we're doing a movie. The guys with Hoax did. They've done some work with Blaze and also. So we're calling it Meaning because I like one word titles. Hoaxed, Silenced, Meaning. And we are looking at the meaning of life or what it means to be human. But from the premise and creatively, we're in a little. We're meeting. Not. When you make movies, you have creative differences. Sometimes.

[James Polis]

Yeah. You gotta do it.

[Mike Cernovich]

So they want to do more of the circle of life, whereas I want to do it more from the angle of. Let's start from the position that the Garden of Eden is literally true. God kicked us out. We're over here. And meaning is sort of this delta between us. Right. This is where we're supposed to be. This is where we are. We're alienated. And then meaning is everything sort of in between.

[James Polis]

Yeah. Knowing what you don't got.

[Mike Cernovich]

Yeah. Or knowing you're separate. Right. And how do we get separate? What does it mean to be separate? And. And. But that's a hard movie to do. It's a hard project. So we're talking to Jonathan. I'll butcher his last name. Pregu or Peugeot? Peugeot. Yeah, same terrible thing.

[James Polis]

He's coming on the show.

[Mike Cernovich]

Oh, great guest. Perfect. Yeah. Talk about symbolism. Like, what's the Garden of Eden mean and everything. And we're talking. We're talking to other people from different religious experiences. We got an ayahuasca discussion like, what if the. The vine is the forbidden fruit? You know, Because I thought about that a lot, too, is where. Because if you drink the tea, you're like, oh, man. That really. I. Enter the forbidden world, right?

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Mike Cernovich]

You're not supposed to be there. Or maybe you are supposed to be there, but we've been deluded. Whatever. People can argue about that today, but that's the big one. I think that's the big sort of signature project.

[James Polis]

All right, that's it. Until next time around. I'm James Pullis, this is Zero Hour, and may God have mercy on us.