Tucker Max is an American author and public speaker, came on to talk about his DOOMER OPTIMISM!
Have you read or write an article that was somewhat controversial, people leave nasty comments? Or worse even, they try to get you kicked off the group that you were part of for a long time, or you founded the group? This happened to my friend, Tucker Max.
In this episode, I am joined Tucker Max, an American author, and public speaker, to talk about one of his articles, Doomer Optimism.
How I heard about this article is that I saw two people on the Facebook group were arguing insisting on kicking Tucker off the group because of the article!
We also talked about human hierarchy, 2020 lockdowns, and why can't people recognize hypocrisy when there's one!
Listen to this part 1 episode with Tucker Max, and Part 2 will be coming out soon!
My new book Skip The Line is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever you get your new book!
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I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltucher.com/podcast.
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james altucher 0:01
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. Today on the James Altucher show, every time I talk to Tucker Max, my life changes. This is an intense one, he wrote this post that I read, called Doomer optimism, or it was about Doomer optimism which he can explain what that means. And the reason I heard about the article is I saw two people in a Facebook group that I'm a member of, I saw them arguing where one person was insisting that the admin of the group kick Tucker off the group because of this article. And that's happened to me when I've had particularly controversial articles. It's always crazy when you see people explicitly trying to censor someone, group, they remember for years, and that everybody knew him and everything, just because of something he wrote or an opinion he had. So it's part one, and in part two, he also discusses not only the article but what he's going to do about it. Here's Tucker.
How's things going you you're not at scribe media now full time? No, you're writing you're enjoying life? Like what? Like, I'm always curious, like it will get to the Doomer optimism stuff in a second or I mean, maybe this won't even be for the podcast. But I'm always curious with you, because you are a super ambitious person, you're a great writer, you've done great things. And then how do you pull yourself back from ambition to say, You know what, for a while, I'm gonna focus on family and friends and whatever.
Tucker Max 1:43
You know, it's funny, I'm gonna answer your question, let me come to it. circularly a little bit. So psychedelic medicine has gone through a lot of the VC community. And of course, a lot of them are doing it wrong, etc. But this one girl who's like, I don't really even know who she is, I don't even know her name. I can't remember it on Twitter. But she's very pretty. So a lot of people pay attention to her. And I'm not even trying to troll it just there's almost no women in our community. And none of them very few are attractive. And so you know, just how the world works. And so she wrote this long set of posts shitting on all these VC she knew who had done psychedelic medicine, and her point was the negative thing. She points so amazing, was they killed their ambition, right? A bunch of people were like, No, it didn't kill their ambition. It woke them up and showed them how fucked up the whole system that they were in and the game they were playing was right. And so like to answer your question, the way I dealt with ambition is that I have realized over the especially over the last three years, I thought I understood this three years ago, but about three years ago is when I really went deep into I started therapy years ago, but psychedelic medicine added to my therapeutic practice about three years ago, and it really got intense. And that's when I realized, oh, wow, almost everything I'm doing and everything I think about that I want all my frames are totally, they're not mine. He fucked up or not, they're not even mine. And so the way I've dealt with ambition
james altucher 3:25
is define frame, like, give me an example of a frame, okay? That I
Tucker Max 3:29
need to be rich, or that I need to make money, or that I need to be successful or what successful is, right. These are all for another name for a frame is an assumption, right? Or a starting point, or a dogma or a philosophy.
james altucher 3:46
Or I'll give you an example from your life. I remember when we met, you would just come off the filming of I hope they still serve beer in hell, and you are really into the Hollywood thing of like, I hope this movie is success. And you're really disappointed. When that movie, I wouldn't do it.
Tucker Max 4:03
I was way more disappointment. But yes, but so the point is the way I've dealt with ambition is to get to the root of it. Why am I so concerned with my success? And how am I defining success? And once I read I mean, dude, just answering those two questions we could talk about for our dates. But to sum it all distill it down as much as possible. I realized that almost everything I considered, every assumption I had about success was not mine. It was an assumption that I had learned or taken on from the culture. And when I actually impacted I realized almost none of it I actually cared about or agreed with when I really thought about it. And so then when when I stripped everything away, what I was left with of the things that I actually cared about. I only really care about this things, being with the people, I love doing things that matter to them, and building the world that I want to live in. And I mean, when I say a world, I don't mean like, Africa, I don't even mean like New York City. I mean, like building the immediate community that I live, and nothing else matters to me. Now, if other stuff happens, cool, great. Like, I'll take it, like, I'm not against more conventional definitions of success or whatever. But once I really dove into all of my stuff, I realized that's the only thing that mattered to me. And everything else was bullshit.
james altucher 5:42
Let me ask you this, because I agree with a large amount of that. And yet, I'm still driven forward by you know, we were hierarchical beings, you can transcend that. I can you because look at Yes, it's 10 million years of chimpanzees, having hierarchies from alpha to omega. And part of those metrics are either, you know, success, ie, you know, followers, or likes or whatever, or, or money like some way in which we measure the hierarchy. And another thing about money, not wealth, but money is that that's how you build kind of the world that you want to live in. To some extent, not always, but to some extent,
Tucker Max 6:20
yeah, I mean, both of those are, there's deep assumptions. And both of those things are just said that I don't agree with. And I don't think they're true. They're stories. They're true for you, because there's stories you're telling yourself. They're not true in any objective sense. So yeah, Primates are clearly hierarchical beings, our biology is baked in. There's no doubt about that. But the cool hack around that the cool frame that I learned was that I get to decide what my hierarchy is.
james altucher 6:50
Yeah. And I 100% agree with that. Okay. But
Tucker Max 6:53
see, but agreeing with it. And actually putting it to play in your life are different things. Right? Like, most people don't even understand hierarchy, whatever. But even if they do, they accept hierarchies that they're either born into or that they're told are important. I have rejected all of those things. Finally, like, it's funny, you brought up Hollywood, because that's a hierarchy. And I was totally bought in at that point, even when I was in and I thought I wasn't, but I was, of course, and now it's like, no, I don't care.
james altucher 7:27
I think what's made a lot of successful people different is that they're still in a hierarchy, but they choose their own hierarchy. So like, instead of having the most people's friends want to be in the wealth hierarchy. But there's other like, I rejected the wealth hierarchy for a while I went into stand up comedy or anybody who goes into the writing hierarchy is rejecting the wealth hierarchy, the traditional success hierarchy. So I think we've got into untraditional hierarchies, but I can't say I've broken out of them.
Tucker Max 7:54
Dude, you don't even see it. You keep saying you can pick your hierarchy. But then you keep talking about other people's hierarchies. Okay, comedy, comedy has a an established hierarchy that you don't have to fucking buy into. Right? I'm the definition of self righting absolutely has a standard of the accepted hierarchy. I never bought into any of it. I broke it. I beat all of those motherfuckers never once bought into it. Never. Yeah. So yeah, publishing, right. Never once bought into it. Right. Instead, I built my own. Right, that that is the thing with hierarchy is that defining your own is the first step to transcending then really, you can actually transcend it truly you can.
james altucher 8:45
I always felt the way I would always put it and maybe this is not the way I should have been thinking about it. But I would always be interested in diversifying hierarchies. So I had more than one. So if one is not working out, I have others that I'm diversifying into. But you're right, maybe those are maybe they're all standard, though.
Tucker Max 9:04
That's a great strategy if you're just trying to make yourself super miserable. That just happened. No.
james altucher 9:13
I, by the way, I've never seen you laugh so much either. So clearly something goods happening.
Tucker Max 9:18
Well, no, I'm not trying to shit on you, man. It's just thinking, Okay, I'm going to be in a bunch of different hierarchies is a really good way to have to monitor what a bunch of different people think of you. There, that's true. Matter. It's like, oh, God, I can't imagine a way a worse way to make myself miserable or a more effective way, then I need to measure myself by 10 different scales instead of one. Right? No, the step beyond that, if you ever choose to take a James is to decide you're going to create your own hierarchy and then the step beyond that is to let go of all hierarchies.
james altucher 9:54
So let me ask you a question. How do you choose and I look I define the word choose yourself. For I coined it for my book, at least, which you helped with, how do you really start from scratch choosing your own hierarchy? Man, that what hierarchy are you in?
Tucker Max 10:12
It's a great question. The hierarchy I'm in how well, am I living up to the best version of myself possible? Okay. That's how I measure myself. Like literally today. I took my kids to town, we ran some errands, did some fun stuff. And in every moment, I'm not asking myself, am I a good parent? Because now you've how you define good is depending on what hierarchy you're in, I'm asking myself, am I honoring the commitments I've made to my children? And am I am I being the best version of myself possible? That's the only hierarchy I measure myself on the voluntary commitments I've entered into, and my belief about myself.
So when's there been a time when you felt you slipped on your own hierarchy? Because I feel the best way to die in a positive is to look at a negative. All right. All right. I mean, I'd love to sit here and tell you that I'm a perfect parent. Wouldn't that be awesome? I'd love to be. I'm not right. So like, this morning, my, my son, my youngest Deacon. He did something and I got upset. And I yelled at him. And I snapped at him. And he got upset. No, I don't. I made a commitment to my kids not to snap and yell at them. Right. I I screw up all the time. And it's like, it's a difficult thing for me sometimes, like, because they're real good push. kids, my kids are experts in just hitting them. Dude, they're so good at it. I mean, that's, that's the only thing kids get good at the first five years of their life. Like, that's the only thing. Everybody I always viewed that every human being is a scientist. Well, for kids, for babies up to five years old. You're their only laboratory.
They're masters at it. Minor amazing. And but the way I look, I get upset the moment and then I'm like, okay, hold on. Like, I'm being upset. And then obviously, our family, we have a saying Everyone makes mistakes. All you have to do is say you're sorry, and clean it up, right? So apologize or make it right. And then I realize, Hey, listen, the fact that I'm getting angry at them, what's the saying? Triggers are teachers, okay, I'm getting angry at them means that there is work here right now for me to do. Right. And now the other side of it is, I actually was half proud of myself, because there were like four or five things that happened that normally would have set me off, that I was able to take a step back from and not get upset. And then it was like the six thing that like Vishnu or Deacon did, I was like, Alright, that's it. Yeah, they're not gonna
james altucher 13:01
rest until they hit that button. Well, let me ask you this. Because it's really a
Tucker Max 13:06
purpose. It's not him. It's not that's that's what a very codependent or very toxic dynamic. He's, he's two and a half man, he's totally focused on himself. Like, I'm not even a separate being to him, I exist only for to serve him in his own mind, right. So that's why I'm not I'm never upset at him. Like he's fussing because he has a need, he needs to meet and he's learned this is the way he's gonna get it. And so now I've got to deal with that, you know.
james altucher 13:34
So Tucker, I here's another question related to is, when's the last time you did something you didn't really want to do? But you felt like somehow obligated to do it? Because this is related to the ambition thing as well.
Tucker Max 13:47
I mean, are we counting like, I had to pay property tax? No, no,
james altucher 13:53
not stuff like that, which is like, but like, for instance, going to conference that you didn't really feel like speaking at or I mean, not not.
Tucker Max 14:00
It's been a long time.
james altucher 14:03
Alright, good. I would say for for me as well. But then I always sit back and wonder, well, maybe I should have I do this should have thing. Like, I mean, you don't say instead of doing a past year and a half of studying chess, for instance, maybe I should have started new businesses or blah, blah, blah.
Tucker Max 14:22
So one of the let me this actually might be really helpful for you. One of the things I've done specially over the last year is really focused on places in my life where I have shame based thinking or shame based words. Should have is a great one. Should have according to who, right? Oh, no, but every you've said should have. I wish I like in 15 minutes we've been on I bet you've said it at least five times.
james altucher 14:47
I'm sure I should have according to me, like and I do agree that it's a bad word.
Tucker Max 14:52
No, no, it's not a bad word. It's depends how you're using it right shame based.
james altucher 14:57
I am using it poorly.
Tucker Max 15:00
Well see, but look at that. Now you're judging yourself, right? So, judgment and shame based language are amazing indicators of underlying issues to deal with if you're willing to actually look at it, right? Like my mother in law is like this. She's a wonderful, incredible woman in so many ways. But man, she is so fucking hard on herself. And she uses so much shame based language and usually about herself. It used to be about others. And she does, she's in so much psychedelic work and therapy, and, and she doesn't really do it to others that much anymore. It's just all on herself now. And you can see the way she talks about a result. And you're very similar. Like, I can't ever think of times you've ever shamed anyone or judged anyone else, like very rare. That was very, very common. You do it to yourself, though, dude. I mean, you keep that shit on yourself. It's crazy.
james altucher 15:51
Well, I remember how we first contacted each other. I was having it was like, over a decade ago, I was having a quote unquote, Twitter fight with somebody who was bashing one of my books, when she also even admitted she hadn't even read it. She just didn't like the title. And you were and you wrote me out of the blue? I didn't, we had never spoken before you want me to do and said why are you having a Twitter fight with this useless person, and who's not even in the same category and you know, blah, blah, blah. It was a very encouraging letter. And then we got in touch with and got to know each other very well. But you've been reminding me of this for a decade?
Tucker Max 16:28
Well, whenever you decide to actually turn on, look at it, man, you may find it. Dealing with this stuff always sucks at first. It's never fun. But the other side what's through it is usually at least in my experience. What I mean? Well ask yourself, what would your life be like? If you were able to say turn down your shame and self judgment? Let's say 30%? What would your life be like?
james altucher 16:56
I think it's not necessarily shame and self judgment. It's like I wonder why other people will will try to judge I feel bad when other people are inaccurately judging me or shame me. And then of course, I fall into it. It will
Tucker Max 17:12
not bother you if you didn't have that doubt that doubt yourself.
james altucher 17:16
Yeah, no, I agree. And I and I, and I do think that I think was it's an insecurity of mine since childhood that unless I achieve
Tucker Max 17:25
here, these come from my brother.
james altucher 17:28
I'm sure they come from deep. Shame. Yeah. So, Tucker, flip this this in a roundabout way. This brings us into Doomer optimism, which you've read about, I had never heard that term before, actually, until a few weeks ago, and I heard it from you. And one thing I will point out is that rather than you know, I read your article about Doom or optimism. And then I saw on Facebook, something really weird, which is that someone who reposted your article, I got shamed himself for reposting your article. And then I know it's a good article, like I've read. I've written articles where people have then contacted me and told me they were unfriended for reposting my article. So that I know, like why would someone unfriend somebody else for reposting someone else's article? So I said huh, there's an obvious I knew this was interesting because you and I have spoken about these topics and I very much agree with them. But first you define Doom or optimism in the in the very beginning your article
Tucker Max 18:52
the shits gonna hit the fan, but if we all do our work, we're going to be okay.
james altucher 18:56
Yeah. And so what led What led you to, and then by the way, then you start painting this horrific scenario over the next few years and and then you start the optimistic side, which is also how you're how you personally are dealing with it and preparing yourself not prepping yourself or preparing yourself. Hmm, yeah. So what led you up to this? Look, look?
Tucker Max 19:16
It's i When people ask me that I'm always like, Have you been paying attention the last two years? Because all kinds of shit happen.
james altucher 19:26
I agree with you. I was right at doing Instagram lives about these topics in March 2020. But it was because I personally was scared like I didn't like what I was seeing. Not only of course, the pandemic was scary, as you pointed pointed out in the beginning your article, but then suddenly how easily people capitulated to policies that might have been incorrect, but they just capitulated without asking
Tucker Max 19:47
rolled over is the term I would use. I mean, dude, like I still I am watching Australia and cannot believe how quickly and completely a country of supposedly free Free Westerners rolled the fuck over. They have camps for non vaccinate. You're like, no, no, they're quarantine camps, motherfucker, you're not allowed to leave their prison camps. If you leave, they chase you down and arrest you and bring you back. They are prison camps,
james altucher 20:21
too. Is that really true? I have not heard about it. It's wait.
Tucker Max 20:25
It's all it's not all over the meanwhile. Because I mean, go, just go. The Australian Government doesn't even hide it anymore, actually. Oh, yeah. There's all kinds of stuff about it. Yeah. No, I mean, so as far as I know, and as far as anyone, anything I've seen. They're not death camps yet. My guess is she this sounds fucking horrible. And God knows I don't want this to happen. The thing I always say, people, it's so funny to talk to people like this, like, oh, but But no, no, this and that. I'm like, okay, so if they turn into death camps, is that when you're going to wake up and realize what's going on? Like, well, I'm like, okay, so deaf camps are okay for you. Is that that's not that's not crossing long. I always try and figure out with people. What's, what's the line for them? Is it prison? Prison Camps for people with COVID, or unvaccinated are not the line. What if the death camps? Is that is that the law?
james altucher 21:28
It's interesting, because in 2015, a law was not passed, but considered in New York State. It was it's, you could Google it's called a 416. And it basically says the Governor at his or her discretion, could detain someone indefinitely if they view them as a threat to public health. And of course,
Tucker Max 21:47
now we'll just skip up proposed just recently in New York, like a couple months ago,
james altucher 21:52
no, that's the interesting thing. It was 2015. But now it's being brought up again, the same law again. Yeah. And now people are saying, oh, yeah, that might be reasonable. So because of everything that's happened, we're, of course back in 2015, nobody considered unreasonable. And so it's the trend that is is scary to me. So this seems
Tucker Max 22:11
like such an easy solution to me. Why don't we just have a couple of places where people are all in for any form of tyranny as long as it gives them whatever safety they think they're getting from it. And if that's your orientation, cool than California, New York, Illinois, whatever places decide that they're going to be tyrannies for safety or however you want to frame it. Cool, go there, move it. Go. And everyone else who's like, no, no, I want freedom. Yeah, maybe there's risk to cool, but I don't care, then you come to Texas, and Florida and the South or whatever, right? Like we can still be America, we just have different states that are gonna have completely different orientations to life, liberty, and happiness. Great goal. So put your fucking mask on, and go go live in your pod and eat the bugs and do what these sociopaths tell you. As long as you're not fucking trying to tell me what I have to do. I don't actually give a fuck, excuse me, I don't care
james altucher 23:16
I've had I've had this conversation on the podcast was two very smart, educated people. One was a constitutional expert. The other was someone you and I both know very well. One guy pointed out that in the Constitution, it does say life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And I said, Well, isn't the force shutting down of every single business in the country against the fact you can't deprive people of their right to make a living without due process? And he said no, because in the Constitution, life comes first. And that's, you know, I don't I don't really have an argument for that
Tucker Max 23:49
I can make up a bunch of shit to write. It doesn't make it true. That's fucking nonsense, in no way, shape, or form. It's sort of like people who say, my favorite of the misreadings of the Constitution of the people who are like, Oh, well, the Second Amendment only applies to organize militias, the military so people shouldn't have guns, no motherfucker. That's not not only is that not at all the framers intent, but literally the words don't say that literally. They don't. They said, the here's the easiest way to understand the Second Amendment. I'm gonna paraphrase it because a nation needs to have a standing army and that standing army has guns and is dangerous. P individuals not in the army need to have guns as well. That's what it fuckin sets. That's what it means. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not an or a rent. triplex that it's, it's absolutely not. If anything, America and all of its founding principles were antithetical to put Life above freedom. That is the opposite of why America was founded. That is the opposite of the principles that this country stands for. But look, if someone wants to fucking die for climate change, or for COVID I don't fucking care. As long as they don't try and take me with them. I'm good. Go fucking kill yourself. Go live in your fucking pod. Go surrender. I don't care. Just leave me alone.
james altucher 25:30
So like in your in your article, you give a timeline of how you started to feel that the shit was going to hit the fan. And in March 2020. You mentioned you were initially for the lockdowns, I think we were probably both equally scared of where I could leave. I'm more always worried about slippery slopes, because I would look at a furniture store what nobody was ever in a furniture store. Why does it need to close down? For COVID? There was it's not like there's a lot of people crowding. And I use this as an example of furniture serving sizes like people are crowding wall, the wall and the furniture store, like get me that chair. Like I always wondered, why do you include restaurants and furniture stores and you know, weddings all in the same category, that this could be dangerous when you're just shutting everything down. And everyone is like, everyone was shaming everyone else like, in the same time, I would ride my bicycle in Central Park and people would shout out, wear a mask. And you're not, you can't transmit it outdoors and be you're just, it's not like I'm spinning on anybody.
Tucker Max 26:31
People still to this day, just still see him sometimes wearing a mask in their car alone driving, right? Or the ultimate sign of submission. Price.
james altucher 26:44
Or here's the thing, too. I was just in Las Vegas, and you have to wear a mask. But then you go to an action and you have to social distance. There's signs everywhere. But then you see a blackjack table and everyone's drinking so no one's wearing a mask, and they're all sitting right next to each other to the exact spot where you should be doing it is when you aren't doing it. And everybody was just walking around social distancing. And they're all wearing fake masks anyway, like everyone's just wearing these like, right? Yeah. Or, or they're wearing like, yeah, exactly like nothing. So so it does start to get crazy. And and by the way, everyone's got COVID now anyway, so like the everybody I know has only cron at this point. So what started to really trigger things for you.
Tucker Max 27:27
I don't know if there was one event man, honestly, like, I'll admit, like I was fooled in March, like totally. And then by April though, it's like that's there's a playbook for dealing with pandemics. It's existed for a long time. And nothing anyone was doing was by that playbook. Like lockdowns have never been part of the playbook. That's fucking nonsense. They don't work as evidenced by the last two years. By the way, if you think they fucking work, then bless your hearts. Because that point facts obviously don't matter to you. But lockdowns were never part of it. Masks are never part of
james altucher 28:04
the although you can't ever prove a negative, like if you say that to someone, they'll say, Well, it would have been 10 times as many deaths. If we didn't do the lockdown. They
Tucker Max 28:11
can say anything I can say I'm seven feet tall and black. It doesn't fucking make it true man. Like just because someone says something who gives a shit? Fuck them. Like, I don't care. But there has been a playbook that has been used for 100 years for actual pandemics, whether it works or not, who knows? But like if there was one that everyone agreed Your World Health Organization, whatever. This is the and then all of a sudden, literally not before, not right before. But like during like, No, we're not doing this. It doesn't it didn't end up like that, that immediately started some setting up yellow flags. And then the reversal on masks came really quick. And then all kinds of other weird shit happened where I'm like, Okay, this doesn't make sense. If this is actually a serious public health emergency, then nothing that is going on. Makes sense with that. That now looking back if if, if what you have is a small group, or a small set of groups of powerful people whose goal is to cripple or destroy America, then everything makes sense. Now it's like okay, like say like, look at what's happened in the last two years and ask yourself from what perspective does this make sense? That's really the only one now I'm gonna get my like low a lot of what's happened or just low level sociopaths in power who don't want to give up their power right which is a whole different thing. Like I seriously doubt like some New York City Commissioner is in any sort of international plot of anything. No, they're just the type of idiot who goes into government because they want power over people. And now they have they see Oh, pandemic gives me power. I'm never gonna let this go. That's a different situation. But like if you look at like Everything that's happened. None of it makes sense from any other perspective, man, there's no, it's so funny to watch, like, so many people who I used to think of is pretty reasonable illogical for a year and a half trying grapple with what? None of these policies make sense. What about this? What about that? And they refuse to see. Oh, wow, maybe my model for why policymakers or why people in charge are making decisions is wrong. Like people like Eric Weinstein, or Sam Harris, or all these fucking people. Who are who like, it's like, wow, man, I thought you people were smart. You're actually fucking stupid. Like, you can't see a fucking con right in front of you. It's obvious. Maybe it's just because I understand media. Maybe I've been on that side of media for so long. And I've seen behind the curtain for so long. I just know what it looks like. And this is the most I've ever seen of anything. That's an actual fucking just a fraud and a con. I mean, how many examples do you need? How many? I mean, like, like, Okay, if you maybe the whole COVID thing you can alright, I get it. Fine. Like things can happen. You can make arguments, but then all George Floyd thing, man, like I said in the piece, man, that video was so gut wrenching. Dude, I fucking cried watching That's horrible. And then riots started everywhere. Right? And the best part like you can't beat that, that cry on from CNN, where it's like the black reporter standing in front of the fire saying mostly peaceful protests, right? Come on, stop it like they try. The mainstream media tried to sell you that these riots were peaceful protests. Like you're gonna believe me or your lying eyes. So right. Do you want to keep going? Like how many more lies Do you like? There's some that are skilled like borderline like COVID early maybe you could say is borderline you can maybe make a good case. Okay. election I saw everyone talk about the election because it's so fucked up. And there's so many religious dogmatism on the other side with the election stuff. There's so many people were like, Donald like blue they think Donald Trump is some saint I'm like he's a narcissistic fucking asshole. Even if you did like him as a president he then fuck about you. And so it's like for eject the things that are borderline. That 20 Summer 20 riots January 6 insurrection? Keep going? There's some that are just unarguable.
james altucher 32:29
Let me ask you this. Because obviously, right the short like you said, the George Floyd video was horrific. Somebody needed to speak out about about many things there. But at the same time, you would have 20,000 people gather for a protest, and they didn't need to wear masks. They didn't need to social distance. Right. And meanwhile, Uptown restaurant would be shut up with outdoor dining would be shut down in the exact same city, or what got me was in in Seattle, I think it was in Seattle, where they had the, their their own zone. It was the autonomous zone. Yes, yeah. Yeah. And teenagers, there were two teenagers that that died in that zone murdered. And the guy who was like, quote, unquote, in charge of that zone, he's like selling T shirts on on the web right now. Like, what? How come there is no charges? There's no nothing like he wouldn't let police or hospitals. Ambulances come through? Like, I don't understand why. Why there's such obvious hypocrisy and people did not see and I know This eventually leads to the what becomes Doom or optimism. But why didn't people call it out? Then? it frustrated me.
Tucker Max 33:37
So it gets back to what you what you talked about at the earlier very early part of this podcast is hierarchy. Right? The the one of the imbedded parts of hierarchy is identity. Right? Like if I care about the writer hierarchy, it's because I identify as a writer. Right? And so there are so many people in this country, I mean, everywhere. It's not just America, it's just everywhere, but like, whose identity is tied into, well, I'm this type of person, or I'm that type of person or I'm in this group. And I mean, one of the only long standing and replicable results in psychology is that people will ignore facts to preserve their their either sense of self or identity. Right. And so yeah, most people what this last, I thought I understood how brainwashed most people were before two years ago, I was wrong. I was way wrong, man. I had no idea. There are so many people who I thought who James if I'd made a list of the smartest, freest thinking people I knew, like, let's say the top 50 You would have been on that list. You'd have been somewhere right? Probably at least the top half.
james altucher 34:55
I appreciate that.
Tucker Max 34:56
So of that list of 50 right now, I'd say more maybe 20 or so on the list,
james altucher 35:01
what would you see from the 30? That that fell off? What were what did you notice?
Tucker Max 35:05
They are so embedded in the standard, whatever you want to call it, the standard institutional narrative that they will literally ignore facts. nor how often I see, they, they ignore what they see, and believe we lie. So they take a group,
james altucher 35:27
like, like, if you point out basic hypocrisy, they think they will have some rational reason why it's not
Tucker Max 35:33
No, no, no, no, no, they won't. What they'll do is they'll redirect, they'll be like, Well, what about right? And they'll talk about Trump or whatever the fuck, right? They'll they'll redirect, they'll make an argument about something else. They'll come up with some other argument that they'll say, well, but what about the, but you forgot about this or that they? It's really, I've had a couple of people I'm close to I have these conversations, they're not that hard to break what you want, as long as you get them one on one, and you don't get angry. And, like approach them with pure curiosity. And just keep asking questions, what you end up doing, and I've only done this about 1000 fucking times is that you break their minds, like, literally they can't, because all all the facts, or at least the majority of them are, are lined up against their identity. And when you just ask enough questions from the right way, and they realize they can't reconcile, they either get violent, they get angry, they refuse to talk about it, or you break them. Like I mean, I you can ask my Veronica, you know, Veronica, well, she's seen me do this at dinner to people, where it's like, they like they have to, they shut down, they can't keep functioning, and they have to lay start crying. They leave, they do something like that. I'm not talking about angry debate, an angry debate never works. If you yell at them, or scream or throw facts in front of their face, then it actually makes it easy for them to defend. Right, right. So the opposite way, the way you get people is that you just from a place of curiosity and kindness, and softness. Just keep asking. But okay, but how does that work? But why this, you can actually do that with anyone with almost anything, because virtually no one understands why they believe what they believe about hardly anything. Right? And so like, you can do that, like, it's a very easy technique to use, if you just like, there have been times in my life or like, to be honest, I only talk to some person, I don't like them. And I'm like, fuck this, I'm gonna break them. And I just decided I'll do that. And I'm not even independent in last two years. But like, no, do that. Like, just start asking them why do you believe that? So explain that to me. Hold on, but what about this, but what about this? And just keep going? And then generally, they run out of shit.
james altucher 38:05
Because okay, because so let's let's do this. Because I've had these, these conversations many times. And usually my approach is a little different than yours, which is, I give up, meaning I'm not going to keep going and I don't cry or break.
Tucker Max 38:20
See, I either don't start or I finished them. I only do for spec I'll go about
james altucher 38:27
I only go about 10% of the way because I'll think to myself, you know, it's not worth it to me to go all the way with this. But let's play devil's advocate like I'm gonna say, oh, everything was justified with the lockdowns and the vaccines and all this stuff. If you don't
Tucker Max 38:39
believe that we can't roleplay it because you don't believe in it.
james altucher 38:42
All right. All right. So so I'm just curious, because I think the technique of breaking is interesting. It reminds me though, of Peter Burgos. He had I don't know, if you read his book, I'm having difficult conversations, where his thing will be like, Okay, I'm 60% there. Give me the other 40% Like, it sounds interesting what you're saying, Give me the other 40%? Like, what about the fact that 20,000 People were allowed to protest, but you were still shutting down furniture stores of town? Like, you know, and they say, well, they were only protesting there. I don't know what people would say actually, I have no idea. Right? So
Tucker Max 39:16
that's why we can't roleplay because you don't believe any of it because it's bullshit.
james altucher 39:20
But why was this happening? Like why don't people see the hypocrisy like if you point out the hypocrisy, no admit that it's critical,
Tucker Max 39:27
James, because most people when faced with truth or group pick group, they pick status,
james altucher 39:34
but if you say is this is this hypocrisy yes or no? And they say no. When it's so obvious to anybody
Tucker Max 39:40
either. They'll do what's what I'm trying to explain to you man is the stages of when I break them first, they'll deny a lot of times they'll then recognize and say I don't care. I still believe in anywhere. Yeah, I see because when faced with truth, or group me a group slash status Most people pick group and status.
james altucher 40:03
So what they pick also is is faith right so there's this ability to assert something that you don't have any proof of
Tucker Max 40:12
now see hold on that's a little different belief without proof when most people say faith are talking about religion, right? Right. But belief without proof is a different issue. Like I would the technique I was talking about curiosity doesn't actually work well on religious people like it doesn't break religious people because they that most of religion is made I don't necessarily mean God or spirituality but organized religion it's a made up set of beliefs right? And so like, but but at the core of it why it works the mental habit that organized religion figured out 1000s of years ago is faith right that you you believe without proof so that's that's why I always makes me laugh like religious people have arguments I'm like, why even argue you believe without proof anyway, right? So like that? Isn't faith a core tenet? And they'll say yeah, I'm like, well then why why are you talking about facts you don't care about facts right? That's actually when they get angry, which is weird. But But this the the approaching with gentle kind, but tenacious curiosity only works on people who think they're being reasonable and rational and logical, because that is a part of their their their defined self. Right and so that's what you're breaking
james altucher 41:44
Well, it's not all doom and gloom. Stay tuned for part two.