Silicon Valley’s midlife crisis (with Taylor Lorenz)
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Hey, this is grand the producer panel has ago. I just want to give you a heads up that tomorrow we're gonna be dropped in a bonus so I keep them on the feed. We hope IT, you know, helps in this fun, fun time.

Were in uh, along with this awesome episode with taller ones that you're about to listen to you sincerely thank you for listening. Tell a friend uh and yeah, we will see you tomorrow right back here in your feet. Have a go on. Can you run us through like girl quick, like the wax tech health start up pitches you've .

ever heard so many, right? I mean, they want to create these like nano robots that go into your body and clean up yours cells in your disease. Um there is a lot of um hormonal types of things.

Of course these are the same people that are against trans people taking you know man taking hormones to you, optimize their body totally. That's fine. Like to make you taller things like that. Um there's just a lot based remic youth and vitality like regeneration, a lot of service regenerative organs and regenerative you know we generate in your hair stuff like that.

Let's not throw the baby. I want to Better tell me more about that one because I.

I'm going to be controversial for a second. I believe we have some urgent issues that I wish. Just sessions ly and look on god, the amount of money, but instead silicon value is throw ridiculous amounts of money into other shit meanly.

Just a bunch of chaos that doesn't help anybody. Social media of the last decade hasn't been great. The metaverse is the thing that billionaires really want to happen, but it's not gonna happen.

And they also obsessed a cyp down nfs and all the other things we have even talked about AI. But these initiatives, they're largely out of touch with most Normal people. And I have a series as to why. And to help me break down this theory, this week is our wonderful guest, tailor, rends high Taylor. welcome.

Thanks for having me.

Are you ready to hear my theory about why silicon body is gone off the rails?

absolutely.

About ten men are having a profound midlife crisis, and they're taking IT out on the rest of us. That's my theory. What do you think?

One hundred percent? One hundred percent. agree. Mark dyson, most notably Peter till, I mean name a famous lichty ley man that's not having a my life crisis well .

actually we're going to name a few today and how they're definitely trying to fight for immortality um but first let me tee up the show here. Welcome to panic world.

My name is ran brother is a show about the various which hance moral panics and viral freakouts the bubble up out of the weird, most confusing corners of the internet and today we will be talking about the men who obsessed with um well starting their own countries and living forever the men en who have the year of our next president and possible future dictator and the men who really want to use that proximity to shape the next government's agenda. Unfortunately, these are the people who, as the onion phrased IT suck at being a person and see a huge potential. N ai, this is part one of a series will probably working on for quite a while, and we're going to call this first one tech. People are fucking and weird as wait.

My favorite thing recently, two was the health. The the guy who went viral on twitter because he wanted to forever change his oral microbiome so that you would never have to get cavities again sort of training your to release Ethanol or sort of alcohol like your survival would become alcohol and you would ever get cavities and many people that know about the dentistry world or lake, okay, so that would actually probably give you throat cancer. Um so maybe don't do bad.

There was a guy years ago, you remember like the guy in twitter who like tried to make uh his stomach into a bruy like he tried to like yes and then he got he got really sick and he was constant drunk and he he had to go to hospital, I think because he was like, interesting, like easter something yeah. And .

again, these people will do nothing to mitigate disease, nothing to mitigate disease on a societal level. And less weird body hacking things to try to yeah I I think .

my favorite is truly like I just I think it's so insane is the man who like break their legs to become.

oh, I obsessed. I'm on a whole instagram, can I and they ended the thing is, ryan, they become like two inches taller.

two through a year physical therapy to become two to three inches taller, but their arms to stay .

the same length, so they just look insane, very abNormally long, like feels or caves or whatever you call those that bone. It's very sure it's painful and it's sad, right? We should, we should accept short man and short kings. We love you .

don't do a short man. Don't need to do this to themselves. But of course is like these are the same guys. They be like, unlike a women, a plastic surgery, but going to go smash the bones of my leggs so I could get slightly taller.

The jw line .

in plans. Erg, so Taylor, how how prevalent would you say the middle crisis, crisis in silicon valley is right now, based on your experience talking to some of these people?

Very prevalent, very prevalent. I think they're all struggling. I think they're starting to feel their own mortality. That's why you're seeing all of them getting into longa vy shed and you know siding off teenager's bloods are injecting themselves with H G H there.

I think starting to realize that they might not be totally invincible and their time might be limited on this earth and they're just going to influx t pain on the rest of us because of that, like they're all just completely losing their minds. I think when the pandemics started also accelerated a lot of these. That's a good break down.

So what you're saying, it's unreasonable to take steroid to work at an email job. You think that that's like a crazy thing to .

do just jacking myself up before sitting, uh, you know, at my house central road before .

we get to sort of like how this my life crisis is manifesting. Now we want to sort to start the beginning. And so we're going to talk about kind of like how these things are sort of bubble up starting around twenty, twenty.

You actually kind of got IT, right? So in A I researcher, doctor timid Gabriel was fired from google um after he expressed concerns about ethics inside the company. Do you know about this story if you heard this?

Yeah definitely I remember this happening.

So do do you think there are ethical concerns inside of google? You think that that's that's pride real great.

Yeah I think they're my theism. Ethical concerns with, you know one of the biggest multi billion dollar tech glories enduring into A I there might be some ethical concerns there. Unfortunately.

Gabriel did not sort of stick to like the the things you probably should care about ethically when IT comes to companies like google and has since kind of created a banner term for this very like size I movement, like very popular until icon valley. Do you know about the the accredited test grill?

Heard no, actually no. Okay.

so it's answer, trans humanism, EXO, pianism, singular italian ism, cos cosme ism, rationalism, effective altera ism and long term ism.

Okay, i'm familiar with all of those, jonas, but did not realize there is an acronym to speak to this. So many .

easily pronounceable isms in that acronym. And for listeners who don't know those words, congrats, you are more mentally healthy than Taylor and I and we're onna. Get to what they mean in just a minute. But Taylor, do you sort of describe to the same idea that like these guys, that sort of the banner that these .

guys are obsessed undeniably yeah I I mean they've yeah so kind. Valley always had a weird tendencies. I mean I went to like the tran's humanism festival and slow on valley back and like twenty thirteen were putting microchips in their hands to open their garages doors um but it's gotten I mean it's gotten to all especially I think, tied to the rise of crypto in some of these other technologies. I did really kick off in twenty twenty.

the washing spectator in may twenty twenty three little little bit about this. And they set up this way, which was trans humanism proposes that human should augment themselves by combining biological and synthetic technologies as a way of evolving our species. Extropy ism, which is one that I did not know the word for, is a the idea of expanding the human lifespan, perhaps infinitely singular taran ism suggests the technology of the advances to a point where he begins to design itself, thus accelerating x potentially, and leading to the singularity, where the irreversible explosion of intelligence and technological advancement and these guys like they think that's like all real impossible and like gonna happen, right?

Yeah no, they think it's it's so funny because they think it's going to happen in our lifetime when we can even get add tech to work correctly. It's out there. I mean, I think you have to be a bit of an idealist to work in silicon valley and to have these big ideas.

I'm not against a lot of these big ideas. Generally they could be used for good, but the way that these terrible tech people are pursuing them is not the second. And benefits in any sort of utopia.

Ah uh so so I don't know like who from this world you you've met I could you sort to talk about what their their vibes are like in person?

The drives are terrifying. I've been around some of the VS and and people and Peter till in person. Um it's funny because IT was before I became sort of like a villain to them, so I doubt that they remember me. But yes, you cannot criticize them at all. Um or their investments or their investments.

I think when I marched clubhouse by saying like hey, you guys could use a few more user safety features, they started setting up these rooms, which mark Anderson was a member of, multiple rooms where they were talking about killing me, hanging me, IT was killed around. And other journalists that need to be hung their children, I mean, u an banned me for reporting critically on him, exposing his lies like they are the most thin skins weirdos. Mark and reason went on this news letter with this far right weirdo and where they were debating my orgasms, like they're just, there are total fucking creeps. There are total fucking creeps. And it's hilarious that I live, you know, so rent free in their heads, but I think I think that they just have pales in their heads that are just filled with like grievances against people.

I think that's right. I think that they they believe that they are heroes that are ushering this new future. And if you point out that like their shit is done in, they suck, like they get really mad .

if you just ask them a question .

or you just ask them basic details.

basic details yeah I mean, as the washington .

and spectator in this piece points out, there is an authoritarian bent to all .

of this like like eugenic very fully ug ic. Like, let's be real. It's about calling the weak the species and building like a super race of humans. Yeah.

based on, like the lamest men in the world, the new republic of connected these dots, two and a piece from this year where they wrote california fever is what they called IT. A line, especially ally with a cultish disobey movement to build so called network states, private zones where tech zillionaires can abandon democratic society to live on the rule of their own private micro governments, which is a very interesting sort of like projection I think of like their own insecurity about their horrible bodies like that sort of my theory is like they they can control their bodies so they want to control like everything yeah.

ultimate male eating disorder mentality.

exactly. You're not waking about five in the morning to just like eat ground beef and pedals. It's it's interesting that you sort of have mentioned like the basis of this in tech toppan ism or like techno optimism.

A historian has been studying this name. Queen slobodan wrote that despite silicon valleys talk of technical optimism, abundance. many tech plutocrats are plagued by a creeping sense of paranoid about the future fearing the possibility of civilizational collapse are driven by megaman ia and the desire to have a zero percent tax rate some tech elites seek a retreat into a spoke fortas societies um this was something that i heard a tune about when i went to pick coin my hammy right after the pandemic like lockdown lifted and they were obsessed with building like completely self sufficient like suburban fs powered by bitcoin like that was like their big pitch and they were going going to take these to subsidy in africa and like create like a nation stayed there.

do you ever watch the documentary started of an.

arcole co.

oh you have to watch IT this documentary is amazing because IT documents how these big pointings basically all move to ocotal co and try to create alcopop o into this like a fit coin state multiple there there's multiple john gold there's a one gold there's a wanted golt we've all named themselves after iran characters multiple people end up dead it's it's just a perfect sort of like unintentional comedy almost of of how these sort of network states and up playing out.

yeah it's like it's very fast thing that they're talked about almost in the same breath as biohacking and trans humanism because like i think it's the same impulse right and it's very fascinating that they're talked about and almost the same breath is biohacking and trans humanism and i think it's the same impulse and today i merely wanted to focus on three guys who i believe are a fending off their midlife crisis in similarly toxic ways peter till ella musk and brian johnson so let's start with everyone's favorite middle aged teenager and sentient jar of man with.

ABS brian johnson are with johnson.

uh uh last year in a time magazine piece and by shirley te alter they wrote brian johnson forty six as a center millionaire which does not mean millionaire with a hundred hands tech entrepreneur who has spent most of the last three years in pursuit of a singer goal don't die he's spent more than four million dollars developing a life extension system called blueprint in which he outsources every decision involving his body to a team of doctors that system includes oh my god downing one hundred and eleven pills a day just like me in college wearing a baseball cap that shoots a red light into his scalp collecting his own store samples sleeping with a tiny japan attached to his penis to monitor is nighttime erections and johnson thinks any act that accelerates aging like eating a cookie or getting less than eight hours of a sleep is an act of violence.

except not really because he doesn't take any steps to mitigate disease at in the slightest and IT has embraced full anti vx er mentality of getting infection is good let's this is a man that got hot lost forty person of his long capacity and has taken absolutely zero steps to prevent themselves from getting go IT or any other disease over over again IT is so it's just so perfect because it's just like these men could take pretty basic steps to mitigate pretty major diseases like they have the level of privilege were like they really don't have to get sick that off and and like they could live along in a healthy life but instead they are repeatedly exposing themselves of that change taking no precaution and then trying to like biohacking their way out of IT it's like a dude just open the window and gets some fresh air like.

come you know or you you don't have to mask if you're wearing a tiny JPEG on your panis.

it's measure in your.

direction you're totally fine a little background on johnson for our listen who might not be familiar with him he's from utah he's an x moran and there is always a.

morman route i know.

that always a morman route um he founded a payment processing and company called brain three in two thousand and seven which was uh which that company acquired venomous and then that was all sold to paypal and paypal is going to be a big character in our episode today because the office is essentially that the guys we're talking about like all of these like we don't like banks we want to make our own bank is also a country guys like that's what this is johnson uh received three hundred million dollars when h IT was also the paypal and a IT was overwhelming apparently to be that rich he says he gained fifty pounds became depressed and then he divorce his wife who had cancer decided that he was going to live forever not her but he's going to fix IT for himself which i just think is the most telling detail here.

i did like this literally this is like a ChatGPT could write this profile of this man and also just is i think he's like has a weird relationship with his son too right like IT the sun like the blood.

is slid or a lot of together which like that's cool like i wish me and my dad like no.

and by the way i cannot imagine i like no hate but i feel like i'd read IT somewhat maybe i'm confusing him with peter.

till the finite lad exchange and just a little big so johnson this is from the time article again his goal was to make his forty six year old organs look and act like eighteen year old organs and johnson says the data compile by his doctor suggests that blueprint uh which is like the the name for this project so far given him the bones of a thirty old in the heart of a thirty seven year old.

White. Also, his measurements, as many have pointed out, are based on like nonsense, like there's no like one true way to like measure your biological age in any sort of reliable way and that you can sort of measure certain metrics that are associated with aging. But his whole thing up like I have thirty year old bones and thirty five year old heart or whatever. It's like it's just it's very dubious.

I'm also getting an update from our producer grant that yeah, you are correct. Brand Jackson was getting blood from his son to make him Younger, but apparently stopped doing IT because he didn't see any impact. So I guess this son's blood just wasn't couldn't ough hey, IT happens. Fathers and sons have a .

complicated relationship.

Yeah yeah, very cool. Um according to this time piece, johns's house was described as an apple store in the jungle and the the journalist was given a special chocolate that he said tasted like a foot and a drink that tasted like Sandy geter ate.

What is the point of living when you're living like this? I don't understand you.

Yeah that's that's the thing that I really can't run my head around is like why would you want to live forever if your life is this horrible? What's the point? Um here I want to play a little game with you, with our audience to can you do your best to describe the before and after photos of brian Johnson and I just put in the chat for you. Take a look at these.

Okay, this looks like one of those this looks like one of those um like twitter threats of like what what do they say? Like what extra gen did for me or something? Yeah I like he he he looks he he he just I don't wanna a call the glow up, but he like, he looks totally Normal before before picture is completely Normal.

He just looks like a Normal guy. I have your picture like his skin. He first while he's just rest in kind of weird clothing, but I don't even think he looks Younger, like he looks yeah I don't know he this is very strange. He looks like honestly like a character, like an extra on the matrix.

Yes, that's not as he looks like he just jacked out of the matrix and now you like you're seeing to real him and he's like wearing like you know like future fetish year kind of stuff like that's what IT looks like. I got one more photo and for you free to describe for the one of .

funny thing is like I don't even know if he's into the like natural fibers thing, but like there's this whole like health movement around like natural fibers and like, you know, the plastic in your clothes is killing you instead but these like futuristic health freak are all like in the most like synthetic get ups ever like it's just it's so funny like where their different lines are drawn okay. What's sorry you .

said yeah so yeah just describe like the general color of this man skin.

Oh, guys. It's it's blue yeah it's it's blue. He's I mean, he looks like he's actually been drained of blood and he sort of holding the blood bio that has been like removed from him.

He looks very pale. I feel like he had some sort of wasting disease like a Victorian child. I want his LED levels test IT.

He he looks like a wax statue of himself. Yes, that's melt. Kind of like he looks melted.

Time comes for us all. And whatever this mean is doing is extending his life in potentially such marginal ways, you know, and every time, also, you every time like this, like seven arian people are interviewed, you know, there are always like, I A chocolate bar day and take a class of whisky. You know, like so much of long longevity is like, I think just like not being stressed. And this seems like a very stressful lifestyle.

There is a woman in southern italy alive right now who will live twice as long as this guy and SHE will do IT by drinking red wine every day and .

like smoking a pack of cigarettes. And just like having .

a great time, it'll have live like well, my husband died, so i'm a lot less stressed than I used to be. So now i'm one hundred. Um I do want to to be clear because he's gone on the record saying the several times that he does not color his hair but he has a great hair reversal concoction that's the quote that he uses so uses some kind .

of concoction that isn't here is the concoction hair die.

The concoction .

has a series of dies and IT so obviously .

we both think that this man looks like he's bend dead for several years and washed ashore some know I on a beach somewhere, but I did want to bring in a professional voice here. So, uh, doctor near bar seal, the director of the institute for aging research at the Albert einst college of mediation in york city, said he looked sick. He was pale.

I don't know what he did with his face. Doctor bar zi, adding that he was alarmed by Johnson's lack of fat, which plays an important role in the body, and the doctor said all these. Ms, we all kind of agreed that he didn't look so great.

dog.

You know but you know you can you can come uh you can deny the results which is that Johnson says that he gets the erections, the erection rate of an eighteen year old when he sleeps um which is how he's been measuring his health did you know about this?

So like male I mean, it's just like it's like male ego way to measure your health and vitality because I think about like.

oh, i'm getting another correction from a producer grant uh, that just just this year brian Johnson posted on twitter that his nights directions are now Better than in twenty old. That's great man. That's congrats on the gunning.

Is his sperm aging and reverse too? Like who cares if you're getting hard if you're shooting you know six year old farm like just these people? I I don't know. It's slip down.

It's not just about bonus. It's about ideology and sort of like making them all fit together. And obviously, like the whole deal with him is is an obsession with immortality ality. And that bleeds over to like his beliefs about technology too. He believes that artificial intelligence is quote, the most significant event in this part of the galaxy well, god.

in this part of .

the healthy okay ah so sure um and he really does believe that the entire world will be optimized by algorithms and he wants an algorithm for his body is once again this idea of like i'm going to my own body and then i'm going to the rest of the planet in the same way IT is an authoritarian idea.

I really yeah it's about control and optimization and maximizing, you know, every inch of your body and like every moral food you eat and just sounds 这样。

he, this is one last piece from the time piece, which is very good. So he reads, whether we're talking about falling in love or having sex or going to the baseball game, you're talking about biochemical states in the body. And he says, uh, we should be willing to divorce ourselves from all human custom, everything, all philosophy, all ethics, all morals, all happiness, which is what cold leaders say, I think before, like they forced you to commit mass suicide. But .

literally, this is so authority, an and dark and crazy. And none of these things is so interesting how these men just view themselves through the lens of individuals. M, and like, it's like, nowhere is he talking about the potential for humanity and no, you know, protecting people that are vulnerable or disabled or sec or whatever. It's like.

yeah it's all about him. You and I i've talked about this before sort of the idea like um like the very sexist idea of writing off like when women are influencers and you know it's like totally regarded as real as but these guys are doing the exact same thing. For instance, uh, brand Johnson, uh, was using all of this to sell olive oil. You could buy a seventy five dollar bottle of olive oil. And IT, of course, sold out because he's literally just a wilderness grifter or like that .

the whole thing that is what this is and if a woman was doing this, by the way, they would institutionalize her. I didn't art like .

they would bring back the .

abandon maybe like um and they would be like she's obsessed with age in her youth and she's so desperate to preserve her youth and meanwhile yeah these manner just trying like you know age rank their liver stator whatever.

Johnson is not alone in this sort of idea of like an obsession with the body, an obsession with creating your own nation state and just a true love of gifting. And we're going to be talking in just a second about possible the the biggest one of these guys, the most important one of these guys, his name is Peter till. He's a docker killer.

He's A J D vanes. A puppy master. He loves a building countries on oil riggs in middle of ocean. He's possibly literally a empire. And we're going to be very careful about what we say about him because tel is very litigious. So we're going to stick to the facts and we're going to do all that when we go back from the break.

Hey, guys, I have a hot new podcast for you. Check out at that. Your resume is a brand you show for multitude to interviews, online creators, but how their jobs work and how they got there.

Here, the personal stories behind seismic events, indigenous media, and learn what concrete steps we can take to build a sustainable media landscape. Who's to buy longer pod casters and business owners eric and AManda attach your resume proves that the best credential for deciding the future of media is actually making stuff. Guess on the first season include David roth, a prolific poster and the corner of defector media.

A Q, A huge best known for her work on panic world, a fantastic podcast, and judge gunmen, a man who shares my love for dark and donate. And he's also a comedian who is pretty good to new episodes every thursday until they run out episodes and have to go make more subscribe to attach your resume in your podcast APP of choice now. K, A question for you. When did Peter till like a pear on your radar? When did you sort of like when when was like the first time you remember encountering him?

I met him at the press club in washington, D. C. When I was covering as and talk that he was giving, and I think I can force before after the election that was either twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen.

And I kind of knew who he was at that point because he had played a bigger and bigger role in politics. I mean, I would say he came into my world more, and like the early twenty early to met twenty times. Obviously, his spat with cocker and then sort of his political activities just put him on my radar.

So for listeners who are not familiar with this guy, here's a Sparky te. He graduated from stanford um even though he spends like all of his adult life complaining higher education, he coauthor a book called the diversity myth. If you ever seen this book or anything about IT.

I ve seen IT and certainly .

not read IT. You know it's it's exactly what you think IT is. He uses part of the book to defend the use of homophone slr.

Um he isn't out gay man but like that hasn't stopped him from being an absolutely massive reactionary and his main focus is not really a cultural credit at the beginning of his career. It's finance. So he starts working at paypal in the late nineties with a program in with a programming in max levin.

And the two sound pretty cool to hang out with. There's a quote for a two thousand live in new york for future. I'm addicted to hanging out with smart people, levchin said, and I found myself craving more time with Peter will developing the first prototype for paypal election and seal tried to stump each other with increasingly difficult math puzzles.

How many digits is the number one where one hundred and twenty five thousand, one hundred half, two hundred and ten? IT was a bit like a weird courting process, nerds trying to orel each other. Election said, that sounds great.

I would love to kicked out of the friend group so fast.

I think that would be a good thing. Here is how David zac S. A, another paypal guy and a guy who was most recently embarrassed at the R, N, C, described Peter till when he was Younger.

He would demolish your arguments in five minutes. Sax said he was like playing chess. He was a libertarian, but he would ask questions like, should there even be a market for nuclear weapons? He would drill down and find the weakness in your argument.

He does like to win. Wow, an argumentative libertarian. I've never heard of such.

Yeah, it's he sounds insurable by being yes.

he does. And when he was at paypal, he met a couple other important people in our story today. Elan mask being one of them.

They create the payment program. They sell to ebay for one point five million dollars. Peter til walks away with fifty five million. And in two thousand and four, he invest in facebook in two thousand and twelve and facebook because public, he makes a lot, lot of money. By twenty sixteen, he's estimated be over three billion dollars. And he's basically spent most of that money investing in like global extremism, which brings, and I sort of trying to underline global democracy, which brings us the sea studying. So you already mentioned this before, sort of walk us through like the basics of like the sea setting movement.

Yeah sea setting is um essentially this movement of a lot of crypto libertarian types, people that want to go off and create these um essentially little nation states on the sea, like I think they envision them as you like, platforms like almost up in the middle of areas where there's currently know boundaries, like I I think the laws are different at sea. So you're not maybe found by things like U S. Government forcing you to pay taxes and so that they've sort of endeavor to um yeah to sort of colonized the sea yes.

they want to go to international waters where there are no laws technically and they can do IT ever they want in two thousand and eight, Peter til gave half million dollars to the sea setting institute. Uh, with the hopes of using these platforms in the ocean to just like not pay tax, like live, they're not pay taxes. IT kind didn't go anywhere. Um in two thousand nine though, he pended S A saying, I no longer believe that economic freedom and democracy are compatible, which is, I think, a real tell .

about what this is. Yeah, yeah.

Have you heard of the terms like dark enlightenment or like .

neo reactionary? M, yes, yes. Just in the context of these people and their sort of ideologies yeah.

it's very similar to like stuff this Steve band and is talked about this idea, like if you can use technology to smash the federal government, replace IT with like your own set up, you can live like a king, that sort of the idea so some more here um from Peter tels that a letter which is since one thousand nine hundred and twenty the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries in the extension of the franchise to women two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians have rendered the notion of a capital democracy into an oxymoron. So yeah, he's literally just saying, like because of women like we we can have a democracy.

He saying the quiet part of d .

yeah um he doesn't want what women to vote, can you you sort of touched on IT and I want to circle back to sort of like Peter teals invisible hand over silone value over the last fifteen years. Like how would you say he's kind of shaped the progress of that whole culture?

I think Peter till has really I ideologically LED the way insert like radicalizing his colleagues in silicon valley. I think he was sort of, I mean, he was one of the original, 嗯， he was sort of of one of the original, like silicon vali extremists. And then he ended up kind of building this universe around himself. Obviously you mention like the paypal stuff, there is the paper of mafia I V C on mosque was also part of that group but it's really just this group of really rich men that got rich back in the late ninety eighty thousands and have become increasingly um politically extreme on the right. But they're more extreme than conservative like it's a very self interested ideology like if the conservative movement was enacted completely, but I didn't benefit them directly enough, they would abandoned IT like yes, politics are solely based rounds of their own personal net game .

yeah it's literally just like we don't want to pay taxes and we don't want to like have to deal with anyone's laws .

that we don't want any criticism .

not forget that and I won't be clear like this podcast, we're not criticizing you. Peter, if you're listening.

I love this span behavior.

Please do not assume me um and in the and in the the effort to be fair to be a til we did some research he did not received boy blood. That was a that was a missile lennie's report. In fact, he's got on the record with the year time saying I want to publicly tell you that i'm not a empire on the record, I am not an empire always great .

when you ve got to say that, yes.

you know you're a really good spot ideologically when you have to repeatedly tell you your times that you're not drinking people's blood. He is, I think, mainly best thought of sort of like the mysterious benefactor of like lots of stuff but he's also tied into the same kind of of transmission m weird health stuff.

Is brian Johnson right? Like he's obsessed with resorting the Willy mamas and he spent seven million dollars on like harpe's vaccine experiments um yeah he I mean, how would you sort of how would you sort of connect this idea like like ideological selfishness with like a distrust of medicine, like a desire to overhaul this stuff? Like how does that sort of connect for you?

They don't really believe in modern medicine. They think that they can optimize themselves out of cancer like this goes back to am surprised you here the here and invested in vaccines only because this crowd has gotten super anti backs um really in the past couple years um if you listen to their podcast c all in podcast a David tax, like they've really moved pretty far to the right on that stuff.

Um but it's this idea of like health as a commodity and they think that they can sort of like purchase or invest their way to good health. And it's a very it's a very broken view of health too because it's about consumption. It's about like eating the right things or doing the right like yeah red light treatment or whatever its its individuals and it's not about like recognizing that public health is important, our society is interconnected. Disease mitigation from a public health perspective is important. Like they think they can sort of like opt out of all of that because are rich and to some extent can, but not completely because they still have to live in society in the world and think I just be completely isolated.

Do you think that is into like this desire for like health? I mean, I think health started culture is largely based on like the lack of like good health insurance in america. But I but do you think it's also tied to this idea of like someone's gonna make the start up that helps people to like fully remove himself from the the global um there's .

just such a ideal of health supremacy and and this idea that they are like the master race, right they've evolved past us. They don't have to deal with these silly little diseases. And ultimately it's so funny because IT shows their falaise like when these people, like these people gonna get the flu or coit or whatever or um H I V or at anything like they can get any sort of disease that anybody else can get.

They're not subject to, you know, to the same level of risk as all of us. But you can't bio hack your way out of certain diseases like cancer in some ways, right? Like there's only a certain amount treatment, but they but they believe that that money will absorb them, that they will, that they will get treatment, that they won't have to die and they cannot accept that they they have to believe that enough money and investment that they can opt out of that and they can't. That's dirty in the silver ous.

But to try, I also I also think there's like a fear of relevance. Yeah we're like because they do want to be removed, but they obviously wanted like control how we are. yes. yeah.

And so like with Peter title, really interesting really like you know, he's investing in facebook and he's got this huge sort of imprint on, you know, we can talk about how bad face because is all day, but he changed the entire world, like IT changed everything. But now I sort of look at these guys like tea, and I think like, oh, you invented the world once. You no longer understand IT and IT really freak you out. And so you're spending all your time .

trying to change IT again. Yes, that's why there so obsessed with like online culture. And I think why you gotten really online that has couple years like I think that they are starting to feel their irrelevance. And that's why you have you on treating means that are the worst things you ve ever seen because it's like it's that desperate attempt at cultural relevance of the type of cultural relevance that, Frankly, only Young people have you know like people that you can't have that when you're a billion are.

I'm so glad you brought up ellam because right after the break, that's who we're going to be talking about next.

This summer, a lone gunmen on a rooftop reminded us that american presidents have long been the targets of assassins. Nearly fifty years ago, president Jerry ford face two attempts on his life. In less than three weeks.

a one fired a shot.

Preform became stunning ly close to being red caliber pistol at the president. These are the only two times we know of that. A woman has tried to assassinate A U.

S. president. And the two assassins had never met. One was a protege of infamous called leader Charles manson, SHE twenty six year old.

the net Alice from nickname. Quickly, I always felt like the land that was kind of his right hands woman.

The other, a middle aged housewife working undercover for the F. B. I in the violent revolutionary underground, identified by police as Sarah gene Moore, sera gene, could interview these areas that other people couldn't a spy. Basically the story of one strange and violent summer this season on rip current.

listen to recurrent on the eyes, heart radio, APP, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to to your favorite shows. Obviously is a lot of truth from but what would you say was the most epic t an musk moment for you? What's one that you just come back to?

Let's see. I mean when he wiped um twenty billion dollars of twitter's baLance, 是 and all the banks are fucked now because of IT。 Um so many great so many great moments but .

yeah I like when he wore the cowboy had backwards at the border like .

he went down yeah and .

it's clearly no one told him that it's just backwards. I really enjoyed that one, lets you know, we all kind of have A A decent idea of like what ell's been up to over the last twenty twenty years. But let's do a quick little time line.

So his first explanation pay out by all counts. He wasn't much of an ideology. He just was like a rich south african guy um he donated two thousand dollars to both bush and Carry in two thousand and four um he donated a hill and obama two thousand uh in two thousand and fifteen.

He said that trump would be embarrassing if he was nominated, and he kind of didn't do much for twenty sixteen intel. Twenty seventeen is when he started calling republicans, but he's still outspoken about climate change in two thousand and sixteen. Now also, I think there's like a very important moment for elon must. Do you remember the elon musk hot tub simulation quote at the recovery conference?

no.

So a reporter in the crowd like asks elon musk about like simulation theory. And he talks about like how he and his brother would like sit in a hot tub like debate if we live in a simulation.

Yes I do actually remember that I forgot and IT .

gov a yeah and like my dad was setting me like videos about ah and I think like I think that the moment where you must realized like IT was powerful to be viral like I don't think he totally clock IT because before that he's like in iron men he's like a traditional celebrity and then after twenty sixteen he's like on .

the mean man I think but I yet right but I also think the cave remember when he wanted to rescue the children from the cave and kind of ended up interfering and destroying IT like I also think that was a radicalization moment because he got so kind of angry that people could know more about things than him or the like and he was being sort of dismissed and marked and demand and I I don't know these people's egos are so fragile I can't member what year that .

was yeah don't worry because um we've got IT so in two thousand and eighteen he meets and stating crimes this is also when he goes on the gan podcast this is the era I think whether starts the click in and we start to see the creation of the current elon us. That we all know and love, this is when he smoke sweet on the podcast and everyone, oh my god, that's so epic this is where he started being a lot more vocal about politics.

This also seems to be around the time he he starts to radicalize around trans issues because of his daughter coming out of trans. And by twenty, twenty, he is reading about taking the red pill and sending the pro suck because he doesn't know what those are. And this is also where crimes is publicly complained that he's sending her like far right shit and saying this is where you eat like is this from four hundred or something? You're actually starting to sound like someone from the far right. And I think that this also kind of lends up with him having a middle .

crisis to be very yeah one hundred percent.

He's like dating. He's got like an elf wife and he's like going on like eg podcast and he's like sending people like racist memes.

I don't know, no one has been more desperate for relevance than you on my like. No one has like craving validation. He wants to be seen as cool.

Yes, like it's not enough to be the richest, most powerful percent. Like he he wants this like cool, like hip, like i'm with the factor that he'll never have because he's billionaire and is a fashion. Yes.

he's also similarly to deal and Johnson in a way both obsessed with trans humanism and creating his own nation state. Except he's wanting to build in the ocean. He wants to go to mars, but it's the exactly impulse.

I think he he's said that by twenty twenty four SpaceX would be landing on mars um which was then moved to twenty twenty six. And now you saying we'll have a colony there by twenty fifty, I I think i'm sure I think we'll get IT you know I think we'll do IT this. This is a quote from him that I find very inspiring.

Terraforming will be too slow to be relevant in our lifetime. However, we can establish a human base there in our lifetime. They are being mars, at least the future space ferrings civilization. Discovering our ruins will be impressed. Humans got that far.

okay? No, they won't. Everyone's going to a die of climate change and forget that. Like I don't see this happening like times forming. Well.

that is a fantastic point because like he is clearly like he understands that climate change is real, like deep in his heart, he knows that that's real. He's not like pretending he doesn't care because like IT is not politically useful form but instead of like working on that, he wants to becoming multiple aneta society as he keeps saying. Because like for him once again, it's not about like hoping the rest of us, it's totally selfish one hundred .

percent because it's all motivated by selfish as it's all like us. A superior people will run aftermath and new poors can write here on.

no, we can crew of debt getting to mars than work as slaves. That that seems to you .

one of his plan.

Did you ever like for that? Was there a moment would you like you regarded you on mosques like, at least like a smart guy? Like, did you did that work on you?

Yeah, well, I just sort of regarded him as, I think I was like, pretty neutral on him. But I remember when he offered doubt the people in the case.

This was twenty eighteen, when a thai youth soccer team were trapped in caves over two weeks.

And IT was so quickly became clear that he is not go many act to, I know what he's trying about that I was like.

all this man is an idiot yeah the cave thing for me was also like what is like because up into that point I just started knew him as like kind of like the same as like.

um was that guy's .

name the grass high into?

Yes, like those types of people were really like, oh, there are science, they know about rockets like.

yes, he science man.

internet science man, and you really knows nothing about science by the and .

this sort of selfish impulse to take us to space instead of fixing the planet we live on. Now, you know, dub tels quite nicely with his other weird obsession, which is breeding women that work for him. Uh, so how much so so can you sort of described like the pattern of behavior that that seems to be happening with yet musin his various female employees over the last decade?

He wants to reproduce. He said that, you know, women in his companies that are seeking sperm for I, B, F, he will be, he will father their children so that they can have, you know, biologically spor children and and have you sees has many, many kids. He is spoken constantly about the need for people to have lots of kids um and he has definitely sm sort of we're breeding fetish IT which is linked to, as you go, deniability.

I mean, if you want elon musk superior genetics in your family tree, a man who looks like he's made of man just like an absolute uber mench like with zero social skills .

and yeah yeah and he also ties into like some .

race theory stuff that he's become a little more vocal about over the years. And twenty four this year, the earlier this year, he treated the problem with great replacement theory is that IT fails to address the foundational issue of low birth rates. Record low birthrates are leading to population collapse in europe and even faster population collapse in most of asia.

Immigration is low in asia, so there is no replacement going on. The countries are simply shrinking away. If this doesn't turn around, then any countries on earth with low birthrates will become empty of people and falling to ruin, like there remains we see of many long dead civilizations. IT is obviously that that he's talking about .

like White people birthrates. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Because he doesn't speak this way about the global south or africa or india or anything like it's it's an obsession with yeah just reproducing.

I mean, just it's wait to primacy thrown through. Also, he doesn't wanna do anything to make women's lives easier that they can give birth, right? Like he's not interested in advocating for paid maternity maturity.

We use great. He doesn't even give these benefits to some of his own workers. So he doesn't actually care about bringing children into the world and Fostering healthy children's lives. It's just it's it's authoritarians. M right.

Um and the switch but like the we can argue all day, if you really like felt this way ten years ago, he was hiding internet. But like the switch has been pretty drastic from like this twenty eighteen year that we're kind of time stamp this on. So I want to show you two old ellam tweet that are are very interesting and I want you to read them for for the audience here. So I just sent you want to the chat OK this this is from june twenty eighteen from mr.

musk. Oh, wow, I can fully be posted this. So back in twenty eight team, he post, don't buy our car if that's a problem. People should be free to live their lives where their heart takes them. Rainbow eo g so he's basically saying, like if your homophobic don't buy IT .

us yeah now it's like buy a cyber truck and you can run over trans .

people with IT yes.

here's another tweet for mister musket in twenty eighteen. This is from same months actually oh wow.

So he's quote in a test a tweet that has very proud to have scored a hundred out of one hundred for the fourth year in a row in L, G, B, T, Q equality. Thanks everyone. That has up for making L, G, B, T, Q inclusion an important part of our culture.

It's it's just so crazy to think about because by twenty twenty one he is tweet things like trace root woke mind virus and like that. IT is a fascinating, I think you are theory at the top of the ever that this is tied to go. IT is absolutely crucial. Like it's I mean that like I don't think it's talked about enough that these guys we're just alone with themselves for a year. And like when is saying.

Also, the state, let's not forget, elan fought viciously to keep his factories open. If I strike the back and be worth dying of covered in twenty twenty. He, this is like when asked all these people, like, what do you mean I have to close down my production and potentially lose a couple dollars because we're in the midst of deadly global pandemic like that was this was such a like a front to hemi.

I think that IT and so many of these other businesses too, like they were so angry that they couldn't basically, again, that they had to deal with something that was affecting everyone in the world, because in their mind, they should be excluded from things like this, like a global pandemic disease and that, and I think they spent too much time online. This is also one club house was peaking. What's up? Forget you on was very active on the market reason they were all like glue.

And I think like I did become like this echo chAmber. And when we talk about the malays, we all feel about like the internet. Now I do think a large chunk of the blame goes to these guys for just like not letting you wanna stay and control, but they have no idea what any real person wants or cares about anymore. So we just cycle through these like hype boom bus things that don't go on anywhere.

Yeah, we're just they also just try to like manufacture their own thing. It's like they can control the internet. So what if cyp tos the new internet and we can control that?

What if N F, T or the new internet and we can control that? What if you know A I is the future and good because that's very convenient because we actually own A I and we can control that. You know it's like this desperation um for control that's exactly IT.

We are battle against the desperation and it's pathetic and IT can definitely make the world suck even more. And to understand exactly how badly can suck if they really pull off, what they want to pull off, we need to talk about the patient zero. We are guy, the guy who is the most vocal about making the world the worst place. Do you know any about curtis irving?

Of course.

So can you give our audience primer on curtis irvin?

Yeah um correct me if i'm wrong. I think he started as a blogger writer. Basically he is sort of like academia at j son.

To like people think of him is like to Spark to sort of a knowledge man um and he is a great promise bigger fascist basically um but he's informed a lot of thinking around these so I like they read his stuff, they follow his teaching. You do they really looked to him to kind of shape their ideology and is interesting. I think Peter till has taken Marvin and mainstreamed his beliefs in a way that your vin couldn't have on his own.

Yeah I think the the main sort attended what your vin was blogger about under the name .

macias mulbah was was was .

yeah um was was ever turned to monarch like that he really believed that you could create monarchic systems using technology um and so like even like let's say no we don't know if elon mosques reading his stuff but he fits into the blue print that .

he created one hundred percent he's right, one hundred per i'm .

just saying this podcast is not big enough to have a legal team yet so we have to say what we do and what we do not know. I cannot prove that you mass has been reading urban I assume so too um but he fits into the pattern of just like I am a wealthy man what if we smash democracy replaced with tech we own and then I can control my severe eating disorder and make IT everybody has this problem that's .

and ultimately workings workings of their food know like all of these work, take these workers and poor people there are serves, we are the kings. We will rule the world. We will control everything. We will amaze unless power and wealth and influence and fuck democracy. IT was exactly the .

stuff that I was hearing, a big miami, which was like, you could become the king of your like, like arizona suburb. You like you could replace money with bitcoin, and you and all the public services could run on the block chain, and you could own them all, and then people would work for you and you could pay them in your own currency. Like this was, like, outlined to people in the audience.

This is like a good idea. And I just remember him. What fuck you talking about?

It's insane. It's also just like IT inherently like these visions for the future are built on subjecting other people. There's no equality.

There's no like this could lift us all up. It's like, no, this could lift us up that we can express of their people. Yes, like you said. So like we can like rule our little suburb or whatever we can mass power and well at the expense of others.

And it's based on like a really existent al panic I think about like their own mortality, their own relevance. Like IT is classic I need to buy a boat because i'm fifty years old shit. But like instead it's like i'm going to smash the government replace IT with like my AI chat pot. Truly.

all of these man would be happier if they got a lake house and went out on boat and throw their phones in the water on esty IT just shut the fuck up. Like but but they're not in IT. They're not.

And and I think also just thought them more. They march towards death, the more that they can, you know they're going to I think they're going to lose their minds even more because they have to grap with that. Like I mean, it's just it's an inevitability. And I think these tag men, I mean, even going back to see the jobs, right, like they think that they can opt out of death and they can.

I have never bend wealthy, so I can't say what that would do to me a psychologically, but I have to assume that I if I made like fifty billion dollars, whatever, I would just chill like I think I would just.

I would be deniability. You couldn't catch me on the internet. No, for any.

No way. No, that's the internet of pv p zone for people who don't make enough money like that, I would just be hang and i'd be chilling and I probably die from some sort of like, elaborate like concoction of drugs and food and and alcohol just like I go not I be a good time pleasure, man. That's what I would be if I I had too much money. Yeah, I would not be to be trying to become an eighteen year old boy. That is a crazy thing to do in my opinion.

Yeah, it's it's danged, but it's, it's, it's because they are very fragile. I mean, you don't get to be a billionaire out some screws loose like you have to be any good meaning that you have to be fragile in a way. And I I don't know not all billionaires. I'm sure there's some ones that aren't completely ratio zed in the same way. Of course these men are, but I think the way that these men came up in tag instead of the the backlash that they have experiences, just they're down the radical zone path the way that so many people, honestly less money, have gone down before and yeah if they would log off. But there is the ego.

it's. ego. obviously guys goofballs um but they are very powerful and are very influential and i know from from where you're sitting like what if they actually done to the world like how different are things now because of these guys.

significantly different i think things um i mean our entire political system has been reoriented in large part due to their influence the way that they've influenced policies um norms are in in attack world um mainstreamed of really regressive belief systems these people are having a very measurable very detrimental impact on our world they're doing a lot of harm i mean so much of the anti auto b d q hate the masochistic heat campaigns like the antique movement like IT has been pushed by these figures so they they have an enormous amount power and influence.

i do i think that's right and i think that like even the the prolonging use of their kind of incited platforms is like making the world more reactionary more conservative less pleasant and the internet kind of less.

fun one hundred percent agree.

here's a simple question for you assuming we survive the next four years how do we stop this from happening again what lesson and should we learn from.

turning these guys and the lex if we need to stop the founder worship this is like something i believe so strongly and i read about my book but like the reason these men have the power and influence that we do is because they were put on pedestals by the media and by the public and we don't scrutiny these men enough and even with the tack ash and everything of really since twenty sixteen of people in them maybe technology is not all good like we still focus on these great men you know the story of tesla or twitter is told through the lens of elan musk right and not the workers not the people that have been fucked over that we exploit you know temps and users right we tell these stories through through this this big men and i think that that's really really really harmful increase sive i think that entire genre of tech journalism needs to go and you know IT works because look at how angry i think that's a great note to.

end on bullying works and for own sanity maybe as our only defense dering the next regime we need to make fun of them all the time you know and like let them know that while they may want to control the world the rest of us will die enjoying pizza and hang out with their friends and being loved by those around us and not arguing about the free market or solving sadoc s to buy hero winter whatever is taylor thank you for coming on the show if people can if people want to follow you where can i do that what's.

the best place to go please subscribe to my sub stack publication call the user mag where i write about a lot of the stuff its user mag dot and also on youtube and you can listen to my podcast power user on all platforms.

so you got a dock go you are on that sick.

yeah oh really i i wanted the dog com but i was going to be nine hundred dollars and i wanted to spend twelve.

dollars i could not get garbage doc m is owned a waste e removal APP.

What do you have?

Garbage that .

email oh, that's funny. That's good. I should have done that so people .

not forget that it's an email. Thank you very much. You're coming on. This is fantastic. Um and I look for the bumping into you at the boy blood bank next .

transfusion ll see you in there.

Panic world is garbage day production. It's written, produced by grand ervin, hosted by myself with research from the always fantastic and a huge thanks to gabbi cash for designing the incredibly draining art for this show and a huge thank you to catch reject k our lovely video at. And if you like to sponsor episode, you can reach out to multitude our wonderful partners, multitude the productions slash ads. We have a patron, which you can find a patron outcomes flash panic world. And i'd like to end this episode with an important minder, log off and touch grass, but you still can.