Upside down in a right side up world

[0:22] Michael: Check, check my mic. Check, check. We got this going.

[0:26] Matt: Got it going.

[0:26] Michael: All right.

[0:27] Matt: We are going. I hope the audio is okay.

[0:32] Michael: Yeah, I think so.

[0:33] Matt: You still see maybe angle.

[0:36] Michael: Hello.

[0:37] Matt: That's a little bit better.

[0:39] Michael: Yeah.

[0:40] Matt: Can you tell the difference? No. No. Okay.

[0:44] Michael: All right,

[0:44] Matt: well, we're here. Let's do this. Let's

[0:49] Michael: do

[0:49] Matt: it. Cheers. To the shore. Where do we want to go tonight?

[1:00] Michael: I have no idea. Yeah. I think I've got too many things on mind that are colliding, so.

[1:09] Matt: Got a super collider in your head?

[1:11] Michael: I do have a super collider in my head.

[1:14] Matt: Well, I think we're going to end up talking about AI a little bit.

[1:17] Michael: Yeah.

[1:19] Matt: But maybe we could start with the observation that you just started telling me about before we started recording.

[1:24] Michael: Yeah.

[1:25] Matt: Which is about sort of the interesting inversion and how it maps to a biblical theme.

[1:33] Michael: Yeah. It's so interesting. Like, even as I'm thinking about this, it kind of doesn't interest me in a way, but it's kind of fascinating to see how I was just thinking about in Minneapolis, how or Minnesota, they're releasing criminals that are foreign born just so that ICE can't detain them. And it seems so just weird to me. It almost doesn't make sense. In fact, I think even in me saying this, most people like, that's not true.

[2:05] Matt: Right. Well. And just to make that clear, I think you and I both have the same understanding that there might be a great many things that are happening in Minnesota around ICE and illegal immigrants. But one thing that is certainly happening is that the local police are arresting people for committing crimes, discovering that they're illegal immigrants when they're in jail. And what they're supposed to do is call ice.

[2:31] Michael: Yeah.

[2:32] Matt: But what they're actually doing is just releasing them. So they're criminal on at least two counts.

[2:39] Michael: Yeah.

[2:40] Matt: And they're just releasing them.

[2:41] Michael: Yeah, yeah. This is, it's. It's just. It's just baffling to me because I was kind of. I was reading in the end of Mark right now and just how, you know, know, you know, Jesus is going to be crucified, but not yet, you know, and there, you know, Rome always releases like somebody to, you know, during this, during the festival to pass over and. And Pilate's like, hey, well, I'll release Jesus. He's like, everyone's like, no, release Barabbas, which is like, he's a known like basically killer you know?

[3:20] Matt: Yeah. He was a known murderer.

[3:21] Michael: Known murderer.

[3:22] Matt: And Pilate says, I can find no wrong that Jesus has done.

[3:25] Michael: Yeah. And they ask for the release of somebody who has actually committed a crime.

[3:29] Matt: Yeah.

[3:30] Michael: And I just like, why would people do that? And kind of even leading up to this, you see this idea of sowing lies in order to preserve your power and the old ways and the Pharisees and Sadducees were always sort of attacking Jesus and trying to preserve his. Preserve their own culture and traditions outside of, like, the actual truth. And you see this sort of, like, weird dichotomy of, like, you know, truth being spoken and somebody who's consciously averting it. And then you have, like, kind of the rest of the population who's stuck in between, going, what's real? Is this Jesus really a bad guy or is he not? And I think that's. That they kind of, like, amplify that message, you know,

[4:26] Matt: I mean, it's kind of relieving in a weird way, because it's easy to look around at the culture in our country right now and just feel like, this is crazy. Crazy things are happening. But what you're pointing out to me is that this isn't crazy. It's normal. Absolutely. Human nature. We find ourselves in inversions of the relationship between good and evil.

[4:50] Michael: Yeah. I mean, even finding it myself, like, I mean, I lie to myself to preserve an old way of being that's comfortable to me.

[4:58] Matt: Yeah.

[4:59] Michael: And at some point over my 48 years, you know, I. I've had to come to terms with certain of those lies. And there are certain lies I've tell myself today that either I'm willfully blind to. Or unknowing.

[5:11] Matt: Yeah.

[5:12] Michael: And anytime I come across one of those, my first reaction is to like, no, that's not true. I'm not like that. To

[5:20] Matt: be defensive.

[5:20] Michael: To be defensive, you know, because I'm comfortable and used to the way that I have been or the way I have reacted to things. And so I just. I just find it really fascinating that, you know, we do have this as humans. This I. This. We want to preserve whatever way of thinking that we subscribe to.

[5:44] Matt: Well, whatever way of thinking you subscribe to it, that's your psyche. Right. Like, that's your conception of self. And to give that up is to give up what? Almost everything. It feels like. It feels like that. This also speaks to a topic that we keep coming back to recently, which is that, you know, we sort of like to think that what is good is obvious, that you can look at something and see its value. And I feel like this story is a good representation of the fact that that isn't true. I mean, in the case of Jesus, whether you believe he is who he said he was, just as a character, he's, you know, kind of the representation of what it means to be a good man. And the people in his time couldn't see it. I mean, John opens his book with saying the word became flesh and entered the world, and the world did not recognize him. So we don't recognize good necessarily. It's not obvious.

[6:50] Michael: That's a good point.

[6:51] Matt: And the same thing is happening with all the stories around ICE and illegal immigration. We have two sides that think they're seeing the good. Right. You have the Renee Goods and Alex Prettis thinking they see the good. The good is to stop ice. And you have the whole everyone on the other side of that saying the good is to enforce our laws and our border, otherwise we don't have a country. And both think they're right.

[7:22] Michael: Yeah. It's almost kind of tiresome to me because I feel like we. We're. We're moving into a new era, and I feel like a lot of these things are distractions. Like. Yeah, I feel like it would be better if we thought about these types of things when. When it's. When it's almost obvious, like, okay, you. The reason why you have a nation is because you have borders.

[7:51] Matt: Yeah.

[7:51] Michael: There's no other reason why you don't have a nation.

[7:54] Matt: You

[7:54] Michael: know, you don't have a property. If you don't have a property line, and somehow that property line is enforced. You know, it's like you there. It's just all this seems to be very logical to me.

[8:04] Matt: Yeah.

[8:05] Michael: And like, why are we. Why are we so up in arms about it now? Now we can get the particulars. Like, you know, I should be doing certain things and. And following the law, and. And, you know, I can totally. I think there should always be that checks and balances on our federal officers. And so I'm not arguing that. I'm just. But the foundation is what I'm really. I

[8:30] Matt: want to go

[8:30] Michael: back to

[8:31] Matt: your point about a lot of these issues being distractions. That sounded insightful to me because I immediately had sort of the image of a young child come into my mind. If you're ever trying to get a young child to go. To do something that they don't want to do, they're going to pepper you with all kinds of questions to distract you from getting to the Point of what you're trying to get them to do. Right. Like a good example of that is when a kid's going to bed.

[8:58] Michael: Totally.

[9:00] Matt: You know, they have endless needs, endless questions they want to do. You know, they haven't, they haven't had these all day, but now they have them. And I wonder if there's some version of, you know, I think it's. Mattias Desmet came up with this term mass formation psychosis. He came up with this, I think, around. I don't know if he did it in 2020 or before that, but it's fairly recent. And his point is that when there's a lot of free floating anxiety in the population combined with social isolation, all it takes is for a leader, a very charismatic leader or a very charismatic leading idea to come and say, I have the solution to all of your problems and the mass will form around that central gravity. We saw that. I'm not sure that we necessarily had that sort of charismatic leader in Covid. Trump tried to be, but I don't know how effective he was. I think the charismatic leader was the central idea of safety isolation than vaccines. But I think more broadly we have this general feeling that we are being pulled into a future that we can't predict or understand. We talked about this, I talked last week about how I have this very uneasy feeling about so many of the ways things are developing, whether it's AI or the rift in American politics becoming ever increasingly armed and dangerous. But I wonder if we have this feeling like we're being dragged kicking and screaming into a future that we can't avoid. And so we're trying to distract ourselves with issues that aren't really. I mean, they're important, but they're not necessarily moving us toward the tasks at hand.

[11:03] Michael: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely distracting. I mean, because I think we are facing some real possibilities as far as what is available or going to be available with, you know, a lot of the AI stuff and robotics and energy and, And a lot of it looks really, I think, on my side, like really fantastic. What is possible?

[11:29] Matt: Yeah.

[11:31] Michael: Um, but we, it's like. But we need people nurturing that and paying attention so that we actually move it in the right direction.

[11:40] Matt: Yeah.

[11:41] Michael: And I think that's, you know, I think some of that. Sometimes it's easier just to focus on a problem that, I don't know, makes you angry, you know, or. But you're not really proposing any solutions.

[12:00] Matt: It's easier to be angry than it is to be helpful

[12:06] Michael: because I think that's the hard thing, whenever. I mean, just take the immigration thing, it's like, what are you. There are people, too. It's like, okay, well, yeah, there's people all around the world. Is the United States supposed to take care of all of those people? It's like, okay, well, okay, we can't do that. That's physically impossible. We don't have the resources for that. Like, well, can we let them all in? It's like, so you start go. Going from the extreme, you start coming down. It's like, okay, well, maybe if we did it in a. In a way that is regulated, we could probably do that, you know, bring in so many at certain times. And. And that makes a lot of sense. And so I think the reasonable arguments to start talking about this is. Is. Is kind of out the window is sort of all these immigrants were let into the United States. And, you know, you have to share a certain, I guess, ideological bent when you do enter the United States because, you know, freedom of speech and religion and you need to share some of those ideals. If you don't, then this is not the place for you. Like, you need to allow the person, your neighbor, to worship in the way that they want to worship or, you know, have the speech that they want to have this when they want what that they want to have. And that's. That's part of living in the US and once we start, you know, disallowing that, that's not the US Anymore. You're starting to become something else.

[13:36] Matt: It doesn't seem like the two sides that are fighting over the issue of illegal immigration, they don't. They're not starting with the same premise. No. And so it reminds me of. I think it's either Philip Rieff or Charles Taylor in his conception of three types of cultures. First, culture one, culture two, and culture three. Where the first two. The first one is pagan, but it has a sacred order that's registered into social ethics. Second is religious, also with a sacred order that's registered into social norms. But the third is. Has no sacred order. And he makes the point that because of that, he said type one and type two can talk to each other because they stand on the same premise that there is something sacred and that that ought to be registered into our social practices. But the third cannot talk to either one or two because it doesn't start with the same premise. And he explains why. This is why the abortion debate in America will never end, because it cannot start, because you don't start at the same premise. And so you're not even arguing the same thing. It's like you're both just talking to yourselves. And it seems like a lot of issues are that way. Immigration has become that. It's like, can we agree on a couple of premises? One, we do have a border, and that's a good thing.

[15:15] Michael: Yeah.

[15:18] Matt: Two, we should allow for immigration, but we should not allow people to be coming here illegally. And if we can't agree on that starting point, then, you know, how can we possibly have a conversation about what's going on in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, with ice, or anywhere else for that matter? You know, and you can point to inconsistencies in principles and hypocrisies all you want. You can say, far more people were deported under Obama. ICE killed or shot. 63 people under Obama, 23 of them died under Obama. Those numbers are nothing compared to what's happened under Trump for all. Which is so surprising because, I mean, Trump ran on the issue, got elected with a majority on the issue, and yet he still can't. He can't do as much of what people. The people who elected him to do that thing as Obama did in his two terms.

[16:18] Michael: Yeah.

[16:19] Matt: Which is kind of surprising.

[16:20] Michael: That's surprising. I don't think very people can hear that, honestly. Like, you know, whether you agree with Trump or not, that it's like, well, Obama did this. Yeah. And it's like, you know what? I agree with Obama. I mean, it's like it just makes sense. Like, you know, you can't be here illegally. There should be ways for people to come here legally, and let's make that happen. But. And so it's like, it seems like it's just a. It's like a phenomena of right now. It's like whatever happens, whatever.

[16:53] Matt: You said that. Phenomena,

[16:54] Michael: phenomena. It's just a fun word to say.

[16:56] Matt: Yeah.

[16:56] Michael: It's like whatever he proposes, I'm against. And not only against, I'm vehemently against it.

[17:00] Matt: Yeah.

[17:01] Michael: It's like, well, that was actually the Democratic platform for ever. A

[17:05] Matt: long time

[17:06] Michael: until probably, you know, the 2020 Biden administration. Like, that's, that's the first time a lot of this has changed.

[17:12] Matt: Right.

[17:13] Michael: In fact, it could even be, say, like Republicans were more to open for open borders prior than. Than Democrats were, so. Yeah, but that was when the Democrats were the party, the, the working person, you know, but fascinating.

[17:30] Matt: Yeah. I think I first ran into this in my thinking. I mean, 2020 was such a big year. So many things happen. But whatever my current line of thinking is, I can see A lot of its origins in 2020 because I really started thinking hard about some issues. And one of the things that I started thinking hard about was after George Floyd died and the emotional reaction to that event was so intense and people were demanding to abolish the police, to reform the police, to slash their budgets, all kinds of crazy things. And I just remember I was talking to somebody at that time and I was like, do you know how many black individuals are killed by police unarmed each year? And they didn't know. And I was like, well, if you want to change, it shouldn't, you know, otherwise how can you measure change?

[18:26] Michael: Totally. Yeah.

[18:27] Matt: And the reaction that I got from people was like, they didn't want to look at it. They didn't actually want change. They wanted a place for their emotional release, for the free floating anxiety that they had about the way that the world is. And if you. There's one way to look at that in which that response is actually to. It's sort of like that distraction to not get pulled into the issue at hand because then I'll lose the place for my anxiety to flow out from me, you know. But if you want something to be different genuinely and, and to do something about that, then the only way you can tell whether or not you've done something about it is if you make note of its starting point, if you measure its starting point. Right. So it's like that, that's that same issue, I think, with, with ICE and illegal immigration is like, well, we're not really willing to compare it. Is it good or bad? Well, how would you know? I mean. Well, we could compare it to the way it was at other times and maybe we could observe did this get better or worse? Did this change? Did this number go up or down? But again, people don't seem to want to have that conversation.

[19:36] Michael: Yeah, it's like willful blindness

[19:38] Matt: because they don't want a solution to the problem. They want the problem to continue so that they can continue their emotional release. That's the way it looks to me.

[19:52] Michael: Yeah. I just bothers me is like, I just don't want to, I just don't want to get bogged down in this discussion that we're having right now. I

[20:03] Matt: know

[20:04] Michael: because it's like, I'm like, I'm like, man, there's just so many things are happening right now and, but this is a big deal because there's a lot of things happening around this that is, that are. It's really sad and, and people need to be talking about it. But, you know, I'm more concerned about the future and my kids and. And what kind of jobs they're going to have. And, you know, what is Medici going to look like, you know, five to ten years from now?

[20:32] Matt: Yeah,

[20:34] Michael: I don't know. I mean, you know, like a, like, living situation. What. Are houses going to be affordable or, you know, are we going to be taking trips to the moon for vacation in 20 years? I don't know, but I feel like we need. We need more hope and more. More people projecting into the future rather than just distracted by nonsense.

[21:05] Matt: Yeah,

[21:06] Michael: I think I'm kind of callous in this area a little bit.

[21:09] Matt: How so? Why?

[21:12] Michael: It. It's like when. When. When you can't have a conversation with somebody, and it ends up being, well, well, they have masks. These ICE people have masks, and they shouldn't be masks. I'm like, okay, well, are they doing anything bad? Oh, wait, they're doing their job. Okay. And I would bet $100,000 that some of these people are not doing good jobs.

[21:37] Matt: Well, it's also funny because I think the people complaining that ICE officers are masked were also demanding that everyone be masked just a few years ago. What are the principles at play here? Are masks good or bad? What if those ICE officers have Covid. Should they take their masks off?

[21:55] Michael: Yeah, Well, I mean, anything about the environment, if they would even just take a second, it's like, okay, let's ask the question. Why are they masked? Well, number one, they're being doxed. Like, people are. Like, they find out who they are, and they're going to their houses or when they're out to eat. And so it's actually kind of for their safety that they're masked.

[22:16] Matt: Well, but obviously, the people who are complaining about it don't want them to be safe. They want them to feel unsafe.

[22:20] Michael: Totally. And that's that. And that's the part that I would

[22:23] Matt: support the doxing. They would say the doxing is a good thing,

[22:26] Michael: which I just kind of. I just kind of lose. I lose interest in that. It's like that now you're just not making any sense. Because, you know, if you want to make an argument for why they should not be masked, then it's like, oh, you should know who your accuser is. It's like, no, they're arresting somebody because they're illegal. They've already, in most cases, like, they've already been, like,

[22:47] Matt: well,

[22:49] Michael: determined that they are, you know, either have committed a crime or are not here legally. And again, there's there's edge cases where that's not true. But if. Yeah, yeah, anyways,

[23:01] Matt: I mean, maybe we could try to zoom out a little bit. I mean, we're not going to solve the immigration debate here or the ICE issue. I mean, it is an interesting. I think we bring it up because it's an interesting test case to try to understand the nature of the human soul. Because we see that echoed the same pattern echoed all the way back to Jesus time. And that tells me that there's something about it that's here to stay and we're going to continue to wrestle with the same thing moving forward. It's going to manifest in different ways. I mean, even if the social tensions, at least as far as they're reflected to us through social media, you know, I don't see any of this happening in real life, but I also don't live in Minneapolis.

[23:46] Michael: Yeah,

[23:48] Matt: you know, I. I'm sure that the people who are living there are seeing it in real life, but, you know, the next issue is going to be the next issue, and it's going to be underpinned with the same tendency of the human heart to find itself completely upside down when it comes to its own perception of good and bad. And I think that's just baffling because no one, when they're upside down, feels like they're upside down. The world looks right side up to them. You know, it's only through the perception of somebody who has a different set of values or a different premise, maybe that they can judge someone else to be upside down. And so I would suggest, I am sitting here wondering, like, what is the. What is the antidote? What do we do with ourselves in that kind of environment? And I saw, I think I sent it to you. Somebody was talking about control, and he said, the only control Jesus asks you to have is self control. When it comes to politics, family, community, you're not supposed to control those things. You're supposed to control yourself. So maybe collectively we could hope that we all take the time to bring ourselves into control as much as possible and recognize the fact that we might be upside down in small ways that we can't perceive. And then when someone comes along, especially someone who loves us and says, I think you're upside down on this, we can take that seriously and say, maybe I am. Maybe I need to see it differently. Because that isn't that the only antidote is relationship. The only way that you're going to ever perceive yourself truly is through relationship.

[25:51] Michael: Yeah,

[25:56] Matt: Maybe that's one of the Terrible consequences of the. Of the COVID years is. I don't know if it's true or not, but seems like we have fewer relationships.

[26:08] Michael: Yeah. Our siloed relationships. More

[26:11] Matt: siloed. Yeah. I mean, it's obviously not true for everyone, but maybe it's true for a lot of people, and that's having some bearing on our. On our sort of cultural inflammation. I mean, we all want to live in a sane world, and maybe the recognition is. Well, we don't. Okay. And in a way we never will. It might be better or worse at times, but it's still going to be driven by the same tendencies of the human heart, which is. Which is so often perceived. Persuaded by evil.

[26:58] Michael: Well, I think that's. I mean, it kind of comes back to, like, some of the. The founding principles of. Of Medici is like. It's like, I don't really care what side of the argument anybody falls on. It's like, I just mostly care about, like, are you willing to come to the table and talk about it? And that's something that I feel like I've always tried to really preserve at Medici. It's like, I don't really care what your politics are or what your religion is. It's like, I just want that to be a place where you can come and talk about it. And I think there's, like, very few spaces for that. It's like you have to subscribe to a certain worldview in order to participate in a community. And I think those are really special places where they say, hey, you don't have to subscribe to certain worldview. You just have to be open.

[27:52] Matt: Well, I think there is a worldview you have to subscribe to in order for that to happen. It's just a bigger one that has the ability to encompass more differing worldviews. But it's like you have to. Like you said earlier, you know, you have to agree that freedom of speech is a good thing. Not an easy thing, not a comfortable thing, often an offensive thing, but it's a worthwhile thing. I mean, if you don't have that worldview, then you can't come into Medici and expect that to be a good place, because that is the worldview Medici promotes. It says, we want everyone to come here and talk, regardless of politics, regardless of religion. But the larger worldview that allows that to happen includes the protection of freedom of speech.

[28:42] Michael: Yeah,

[28:43] Matt: I mean, it also includes, I would assume, things like basic human dignity, which maybe can't stand on its own as a worthwhile value to have definitionally because what does that mean? I mean, human dignity might look like something different to a completely different culture, but in this culture, we believe that all. All men are created equal, endowed by their creator with unalienable rights. That means we treat each other as such, and that's what we call dignity. But that is a worldview.

[29:19] Michael: Yeah.

[29:20] Matt: Not everyone shares that worldview.

[29:25] Michael: Yeah, definitely. I like how you say that. It's like, you definitely have to have a bigger worldview to be inclusive. And it seems like a lot of times when people use the word inclusive, they're talking about a very small worldview.

[29:40] Matt: That's interesting. GK Chesterton said that tolerance is the virtue for people who don't believe anything. Which is to say, if you don't have a larger worldview, if you don't believe something, then tolerance is your value. I just tolerate everything.

[30:02] Michael: Yeah. And I don't never really. I never believe people who say that, though,

[30:08] Matt: say that they tolerate everything.

[30:09] Michael: Well, it's like, usually. It's like, I tolerate everything, but it's usually. Except for you. Well,

[30:17] Matt: that's another one of those inversions. I mean, that classic sign in this house, we believe says all those things, and then no human is illegal. And it's like, that's so obviously not true. I mean, are you appealing to. Are you suggesting that there's no such thing as illegality? That all laws are illegitimate and so. No. No one is a criminal?

[30:43] Michael: Yeah.

[30:46] Matt: Do you want to see what that kind of world is like?

[30:48] Michael: Yeah.

[30:49] Matt: Because you also hate your neighbor. You hate your neighbor who voted the other way. You will not talk to your neighbor who voted the other way. So no human is illegal. What about Donald Trump? Is he illegal? Y' all spent a lot of time talking about how he was a felon and a rapist. So should we tolerate him or should we not? I mean, I don't know how he got so convinced that tolerance is a net good and discrimination is a net bad.

[31:21] Michael: Yeah.

[31:22] Matt: Like, no, these are both good and bad things. I mean, tolerating everything means nothing exists in a certain way, you know, and not allowing any discrimination. I guess we've just tied it so strictly to race that that's what we think we're talking about. But should you be discriminate when choosing a sexual partner,

[31:46] Michael: or who you let in your house, who

[31:48] Matt: you let into your home, who you let your babysit your kids? I mean, it would be irresponsible not to be discriminate and to use judgment. Fascinating.

[32:05] Michael: It is. Yeah. Well, I think that's what Makes it really difficult is because people exercise these beliefs every day. But then they. It's like, then they weaponize it against. Against what they don't believe in or what they think is like the. Or can't tolerate. I guess. And that's the hard thing for me to understand is like, no, we need to. You need, you need to be able to talk about this. It's like, okay, like, I think your point earlier was, okay, you want this to change. All right, well, how do you want it to change? Let's work towards that.

[32:48] Matt: How is it now?

[32:50] Michael: Yeah, I understand how it is now. And it's like, okay, well, you don't want it to deport illegal aliens. Okay, so how do we assimilate them into the United States? Can they just do whatever they want, or do they have special rights where they get all the same rights that the citizen does? Who's going to pay for this? It's like, are we okay with paying or

[33:12] Matt: plus more if you get arrested, we just let you go.

[33:15] Michael: Yeah, I think those are. Those are questions that we need to be discussing,

[33:18] Matt: which, again, obviously there is some worldview or some. I want to use the word spirit. There's some spirit that can enter the heart of. Of a man or a woman that would say, yes, you should, like, let the criminals go. I mean, to your point, that's exactly what they said about Barabbas.

[33:39] Michael: Yeah,

[33:40] Matt: we want the criminal.

[33:41] Michael: Yeah,

[33:41] Matt: let the criminal go.

[33:43] Michael: Even though they. They killed a. An innocent of some sort, you know, a child or a person or whatever it might be.

[33:51] Matt: I guess you're not saying because it's unclear. Like, it's not documented in the text

[33:56] Michael: or Barabbas.

[33:57] Matt: Yeah,

[33:58] Michael: no, I'm just saying, like,

[33:59] Matt: oh, like people. Yeah,

[34:01] Michael: yeah.

[34:07] Matt: It's just. It's a fascinating. We can't agree on the way things should be, apparently, or the way that things have been. And it seems to me like that's the somewhat predictable consequence of the tearing down of ideals.

[34:25] Michael: I think that's the. This is the frustrating thing for me with this whole conversation that we're having right now is like, it's like, what do you believe in and what are you going to build for? And I think that's the part that I don't get on a lot of these arguments that we're into. It's more of like, what are you against? And, okay, that's fine. I don't. I don't mind that to some degree, but it's like. But I also want you to give me a vision of the future.

[34:56] Matt: Yeah.

[34:57] Michael: And I feel like that's.

[34:59] Matt: So there was somebody who's. I was talking to about this, the idea that it's not sufficient to be. We were talking about freedom and it's not sufficient to be freedom from, to be free from something. We need to know what we're free for.

[35:15] Michael: Yeah. And so I feel like that's why I get kind of just tired of a lot of these things. It's like, I don't want to argue up against all the things like what you're against. It's like, okay, how do you solve this problem? And

[35:31] Matt: are you for solving this problem?

[35:33] Michael: Are you for solving this problem and put things forward that, and then we can argue about, okay, is that going to work? And I think that's, you know, as a business owner, that's something like, you can't just say, like, what you're against. It's like you have to build something that's going to be tested in space and time,

[35:50] Matt: start a business. And it's just. We sell complaints.

[35:54] Michael: Totally.

[35:54] Matt: You come in, we tell you what we're against, what we're not going to do. Well, why would I come there?

[36:01] Michael: Yeah. I mean, even if, like, you're against the corporate, you know, world and you're wanting to provide a product that's not corporate, and it's like, well, yes, but you kind of have to, like. It's funny because you almost have to use the same tools that you're, that you're against to do the very thing that you want. You know, that's why I always think of communism. So, so hilarious. It's sort of like, it's like, well, actually they're just using the same tools of capitalism. But you're, you're a slave. A

[36:31] Matt: bunch of people aren't allowed to access them.

[36:32] Michael: Yeah, totally. Exactly. Only us, only like an elite few are able to access. I mean.

[36:37] Matt: Right.

[36:38] Michael: And I guess that's

[36:39] Matt: accessing them in order to terminate you.

[36:42] Michael: Yeah,

[36:43] Matt: to exterminate you. I mean, I will say there's, say one thing being an eternal soul stuck in a mortal body, stuck inside a world constrained by time. It's fascinating. So many wild and incomprehensible things happen even within the, the coils of those restraints.

[37:18] Michael: Yeah.

[37:20] Matt: I mean, I'm just so stunned by the way that reality is and how difficult to understand it is. And then even with limited understanding, we, we come to just completely different understandings of the way that things are and the way that they should be. We've ran all these experiments over generations and generations of different ways to do things. And it seems to me like the one that was pretty objectively the best is in is currently under attack by somebody who wants to tear it apart. And a lot of those someones live inside of it. That's another astounding thing.

[38:08] Michael: And it's so astounding. It's like,

[38:10] Matt: how can you want to tear your house down from inside?

[38:13] Michael: Yeah.

[38:14] Matt: Like, you're in there.

[38:17] Michael: Well, I also just know that, like, a lot of these people haven't studied history or have lived in another country or been to a third world country and understand what it's actually like to live in the. In a place that you're describing.

[38:31] Matt: Yeah.

[38:31] Michael: And, like, it just. It just doesn't. It doesn't work. And it's like you're wanting to take us into that place of, you know, sort of lawlessness. It's like, well, if you don't like the law, let's change it. But the thing is, like, we need laws, and we need people to respect the law. And if you don't respect the law, then there's consequences. If you don't have that, then pretty much everything around you crumbles. And then whenever you're yelling because someone's breaking in your house and you have no one to call because you can't trust, you know, you're the authorities to uphold the law. And some people would argue that's the case now, but I would say it's not. You live in a really dangerous place. And so do you want to tear down those walls? Do you want to cut down that fence? It's like, that's why people invest in the United States, is because our laws are upheld for the most part, more than most.

[39:30] Matt: I've been thinking a lot about this recently, and I'm sure that I've said it to you on the podcast somewhat recently, that you don't own anything you can. You can't protect. And we sit here from our current vantage point in this particular time in history, in this location in history, and we think that we own the things that we buy. That's not true. We feel like that's true because we have a stable enough and functioning enough judicial system in Department of Justice and police force that I can buy a bunch of stuff and put it in my house and never think about that being threatened.

[40:10] Michael: Yeah. Or if it is, there's consequences.

[40:13] Matt: Right. I mean, people are incentivized not to break the law. But all you people who wanted to abolish the police, you realize that if you get the way. Get your way. We're reverting to a world in which property is not something that you have to invest your resources into protecting. The structure around you provides that. Because we've outsourced all our violence to the state. If you remove their ability to be violent, then you also elect to live in a world in which you're going to have to be violent so that you can protect what you have.

[40:57] Michael: Yeah, you even see us with our food supply. It's like, you know, we just go to the grocery store. It's like we've even foregone our election to be violent to the animals that we eat. You know, I just.

[41:09] Matt: Well, not forgone, but outsourced. Somebody was telling me recently that. So that line in the Declaration of Independence is the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. That was actually a line apparently from John Locke, who, my understanding was an English, I don't know, philosopher's.

[41:29] Michael: Philosopher, Political philosopher, economic.

[41:32] Matt: His original line was life, liberty and the pursuit of property. And I thought that was really interesting. And my friend said to me, you know, we. We kind of changed that to the pursuit of happiness because it's broader and includes property. But it. The more I thought about it, I was like, there's. There's something so fundamental about property, like, can I own something and can I rely? Can I rely on that thing that I have? Is the accumulation of wealth meaningful? What can I do with it? That's more of a. That's like a difference. And it's more nuanced in this case, but it's like freedom from. Versus freedom for before in the pursuit of happiness. It's like that. Well, that's. Maybe that's freedom from. Freedom from unhappiness, freedom from discomfort, freedom from, you know, difficulties. But the pursuit of property is almost like that. I am now free to pursue something real. Having happiness is. However real you might think it may be, it's certainly fleeting. You can't really hold on to it. You can't. Once you get it, say, well, I'm keeping this. You wake up the next morning and it's just evaporated. But if you live in a society in which you pursue something like property, like you say, I want a home for my family and my children and all the things I have to do to pursue that. Part of it is money. Part of it is I have to add value to my community or to the market. I've got to create something of value, do something of value, and then that value is then stored into the work of either building or acquiring a home, which you then is just a building and you have to make it a home and fill it with things that you then have experiences with that make homes, homes, you know?

[43:35] Michael: Yeah. It comes back to relational again.

[43:36] Matt: Yeah, it's really relational. And the more I thought about it, that that change to pursuit of happiness was just such a hollowing out of a, A much more interesting idea.

[43:47] Michael: Yeah. I used to know the argument around that whole. Because that was like, why

[43:51] Matt: they did

[43:51] Michael: that. Yeah. Back in the day why they did that. But I've, I've, I've lost that, that track. But it was, it was actually a really debated thing, what that last, that last aspect was going to be like property happiness, you know, I mean, I kind of like the happiness part just because, like, it allows you to define it whatever way that you want, in a sense, you know? But I, I, but the property thing kind of gives, like there's a tangible aspect because the thing itself won't bring you happiness, but at least it gives you. There might be a little bit of a security in that, no matter what's going on around you. And I think that's that.

[44:37] Matt: I guess my complaint about it would be, show me a man who can tell you what will make him happy, and I'll show you a man who's never going to be happy. It's something like that. It's, it's like we don't. How do you possibly pursue happiness? We don't know what makes us happy. I was reflecting somewhat recently in my life that if my life went the way I wanted it to go, I wouldn't have any of the blessings that are currently in my life. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't even know what makes me happy. I mean, I do on, like, very tiny timescales, like Wednesday nights. Make me happy. Doing this with you makes me happy so far. I've never been let down once. Jumping in Barton Springs makes me happy. But then when you get into larger time horizons, man, that can go wrong so quickly. You think you want this, that and the other. And there's this great line in this article written by Peter Kreeft. I may be repeating myself here from a past episode. I don't remember what we've talked about and what we haven't. He wrote this article called. Or this essay called Argument from Desire, which is an argument for God, the premise being desire, because we find ourselves in ourselves, desire. And it's really excellent, and I'll put it in the show notes. It's fairly short, but he has a great line where he says he's sort of addressing hedonism in pleasure in general. And he says the problem is that there isn't enough in this entire world to satisfy a single human heart. So we think we know what makes us happy. We fucking don't. The best conceptualization, I think, of what makes us happy is the pursuit of God. And God is not definable. God is the only self justifying, indefinable thing in creation.

[46:57] Michael: Well, maybe that's

[46:58] Matt: outside of creation. Maybe

[46:59] Michael: that's why the pursuit of happiness actually works. There is like, you don't know, but you know what, you, you are free to pursue what that is. And it's like, it's a, it's something that you're. Well,

[47:11] Matt: maybe

[47:11] Michael: towards,

[47:12] Matt: maybe from within the, the context of the, you know, 18th century, that kind of made sense because there was general, the general understanding of the people at that time was a Christian worldview. You know, whether they were adopting it full heartedly or not, or discarding parts of it. Somebody pointed out to me that, you know, I've had a lot of interesting discussions post our, our episode about whether or not the US isn't a Christian country. And somebody, a couple people pointed out to me that apparently Thomas Jefferson took his Bible and cut all the miracles out

[47:56] Michael: totally.

[47:57] Matt: And he was like, now I agree with the Bible.

[48:00] Michael: Yeah,

[48:00] Matt: you know, so obviously it was a, you know,

[48:04] Michael: choose your own adventure

[48:05] Matt: a little bit. But the generalized framework was like, happiness means something like pursuing God, but nowadays happiness looks something more like becoming a God. You know, there is no more sort of narcissistic Luciferian position to take than I am exactly who I say I am and the world must accommodate me. I mean, that is to declare in some way to declare yourself a God and to say there's really nothing to pursue. Right. And you know, that has obvious echoes of the sort of modern day transgenderism movement. But I think it started long before that, you know, with my generation, my sort of generation, the millennials. I'm an elder millennial or technically a cusper or organ trail generation. But it became very popular, coinciding with sort of participation, trophies, the idea that you're great just the way you are. And you hear Peterson address this in some of his talking points or lectures. It's the worst thing that you can say to somebody because we aren't great the way that we are, because all of us have the potential to be better. And anyone forgoing their potential isn't Great. You still have ways to go. We should all be striving upward. We should all be striving to be the most that we can be, the best that we can be. And the moment you say, well, I'm good enough here, where I am, where's the ideal?

[50:02] Michael: Yeah.

[50:05] Matt: Because you. I mean, I guess that's the problem with the ideal, is once you recognize an ideal, you simultaneously recognize that you're not it. And so you've got some things to change about you. You've got some places to go. But I guess if you get rid of the ideal, you. You dispense with that discomforting fact and you can say something like, I am. I am who I am.

[50:33] Michael: Yeah.

[50:34] Matt: You can blaspheme those words that you learned from the Creator. You know, I mean, the story is we ask God who he is, and he says, I am that I am.

[50:47] Michael: Yeah.

[50:48] Matt: And now we're saying, I am that I am in so many different ways.

[50:56] Michael: Yeah. There's definitely, you know, that potential that's inside you. I think that's something that you also negotiate with the world around you. As far as, like, you know, I don't see things as they are, and I think that's something that we have to hold in ourselves. And something that we're negotiating with the world around us and with others is like, I don't see correctly, but here's what I see. And. But then once you kind of make the Declaration, it's like, no, I see it. I see correctly. And, like, that's. I feel like that's kind of like where we. We go south.

[51:34] Matt: That's. That's the promise that the Serpent made to Eve.

[51:39] Michael: Oh, yeah. You will be like, God,

[51:41] Matt: he said, you'll see correctly. You. You will see what he doesn't want you to see.

[51:46] Michael: It's kind of like whenever it says, like, I'm on the right side of history, or, you know, you're on the wrong side of the history, it's sort of like, I see correctly and you don't.

[51:54] Matt: Yeah.

[51:55] Michael: And which is kind of interesting, too, because, like, in some instances, I'm kind of saying the same thing.

[52:00] Matt: Yeah.

[52:00] Michael: You know, I'm saying. Well, I guess I can't go all the way there, because I don't believe that. But. But in a sense, I'm saying is like, hey, you're not seeing correctly. You're caught up in this emotional thing that's just distracting you. It's like, come look at this over here. This is what I'm seeing. And. And so, so, so I guess some. I guess I am saying, in a sense, like, you're not seeing correctly. And that's kind of a judgment in a way. But I feel like. I feel like the way that I say it's like, it's like I say the way that it's like, no, come judge me too.

[52:42] Matt: Yeah. Well, it's an invitation to a duel.

[52:44] Michael: A duel? Yeah, it's an

[52:46] Matt: invitation to a wrestling match.

[52:48] Michael: And it's like, because I'm more interested. It's like, if I am wrong, if I don't see correctly. Let me show me. I want to see this

[52:55] Matt: right.

[52:56] Michael: And, you know, I think. I think that's difficult because you kind of have to have you both and you have to question yourself too. It's like, am I. Am I really being open to the possibility of being wrong?

[53:11] Matt: Yeah,

[53:12] Michael: and I think that's the. I think that's why sometimes I'm very ineffective, is because I am way too open to the possibility of being wrong. Like, that's. That's something that. And. And I don't mean wrong like, in a definitive way, but to be off track, like, to not be moving towards something.

[53:33] Matt: How is that not definitive?

[53:35] Michael: Wait, wait, what was that

[53:36] Matt: you said? You don't mean wrong in a definitive way. You mean being off track. How's not. How's being off track not wrong in a definitive way?

[53:45] Michael: Oh, maybe I don't know where that is. Oh, I don't think I connected. I guess

[53:51] Matt: I just saw you, like, searching your file system in your head, and you're like, I don't know where that is. I don't know where that file is.

[53:57] Michael: Well, I guess more. It's like, you know, like, I know that I'm more wrong than I am right, and that. That makes a lot of sense to me. But when I come across somebody who thinks they're more right than they are wrong, that. That's hard for me to comprehend. And number one is like, I'm like, okay, wait, I'm gonna really listen to this person because they're very confident that they are right.

[54:24] Matt: Right.

[54:25] Michael: And so, you know. You know, I feel like that openness is good, and it's also not good at the same time. It's like, you do need to have those borders, you know? And I think. I think I'm just. I'm overly cautious of putting up borders, that I open myself up to all the possibilities when actually borders are there. The helpful to be able to think about something like, you go to school, it's like, well, you're not going to learn math, history, and science all in the same class. You're going to put some borders up. It's like, okay, hey, in this class, we're going to learn about this. And so sometimes I'm kind of like, well, if I'm in math class, I was like, well, I don't want to be closed off to something from science class. Does that make sense?

[55:08] Matt: Yeah. Just reminded me. I'm trying to remember what two subjects they were, but I think it was when I was in high school. It was like the history teacher and the science teacher collaborated to teach basically on the same timeline. So, like, in science, we were learning. What was science like at the point in history that we were learning? And I remember everyone who had those same two teachers for those two classes was beyond the moon interested.

[55:39] Michael: Oh, yeah.

[55:40] Matt: In both science and history. Because we were like, you see it from that other angle. You see science from the. From the history angle, and you see history from the scientific angle, and all of a sudden, it's just profoundly more interesting.

[55:53] Michael: Yeah.

[55:53] Matt: And I. I thought at that time in my life, I was like, are we making a mistake by even siloing things into subjects? Like, how do you even. How do you even differentiate between science and history, you know?

[56:07] Michael: Well, it's like philosophy used to be the capture, capture all for, like, you know, science, history, all that kind of stuff. Like, it was just philosophy, basically and

[56:16] Matt: alchemy before that.

[56:17] Michael: Huh. Totally. Yeah.

[56:21] Matt: Yeah. I mean, I suppose there are some obvious reasons why you would individuate between the. What's the word for it? Disciplines. But you understand so much more about them when you see the way that they connect. Say we were having this discussion a couple weekends ago, and your. Your wife was here, and there's. I have positions on some things that piss your wife off.

[56:48] Michael: Totally. It's great. I love it.

[56:50] Matt: And I'm not going to lie, I do enjoy spicing up a conversation by bringing them up as often as possible.

[56:57] Michael: It's great. I love to see all that go at it, too.

[56:59] Matt: Yeah. But one of those is there's no such thing as learning styles.

[57:06] Michael: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[57:07] Matt: And Alison really is holding tightly to there being such a thing as the learning style. And I understand why she does, because it's empowering to her to. To. To know something about herself and to be able to organize the world around her in a way that feels safe and reliable. I've sent it to her before. I don't know if she's ever watched it, but there's a great Veritasium episode, which I'm so fond of referencing all the time, the Veritasium, the channel that is. But there's a great episode about learning styles. And all, as far as that episode taught me, is that all of the studies that have been done about learning styles, they can't find any evidence that some people learn better visually versus auditorily versus physically. People definitely learn better when they're learning something in as many ways as possible. So it's like, if you see and hear or see, hear and touch, you're going to learn about that thing way better than if you just see or just hear or just touch.

[58:18] Michael: See. I mean, I, I definitely probably disagree with you on this area because, like, I. I think the answer to your question is yes. And because we, I think we do have propensity to certain ways of information. Like, there's, there's like, like, for me, like, I like to listen to something or take in something and then go away and mull it over.

[58:46] Matt: But the point is that that's just a preference.

[58:51] Michael: Well, maybe it's semantic then.

[58:52] Matt: Because if you.

[58:53] Michael: Because, like, that's, I mean, that's, that's a learning. Maybe a style is a learning preference.

[59:02] Matt: I'd encourage everyone to go watch the episode. I mean, it's interesting. It's like, it sounds so intuitive and so obviously right, because I have the. Myself, you know, like, we have this discussion a lot. Like, I really prefer reading physical books as opposed to things digitally. And it's because I have this experience with a book in my hands that increases my memory of the words. Well, I'm just unknowingly supporting my own point here, but that's because

[59:38] Michael: I have a

[59:39] Matt: tactile experience in addition to a visual experience, where with a digital screen, like a Kindle or an iPad, you don't have that tactile experience. You don't feel the pages moving from left to. Or from right to left. You don't feel the book getting thicker in your left hand and thinner in your right hand. And with a book, I could have read a book five years ago and think of some quote from it that I want to find, and I can find it. And it doesn't take me that long in a digital lane. I mean, I can search it, but I don't know where it is.

[60:16] Michael: Well, see, I think this is what. Because I had this realization, I mentioned this a long time ago to you, but that really kind of checked me on, like, how I learn and how other people learn differently than me was like, there's a friend of mine who doesn't read books, doesn't study anything. But, you know, I was. I was in the. We were at the Puget Sound, and he has a boat, and he was sailing, and we were all sitting. We're going. Or the motor had kind of broken, and so we were. We were moored at this island, and there was these two boats on either side of us, and we were trying to get out, and there was no way to do it without the motor. And so, like, we were just sitting there, and he's like, okay, hey, you got the anchor. You got this, you got that, you got this. And we're like, okay, cool. And so we're just all sitting here at the places that he designated us, and he's just sitting there, and I'm like, what is he doing? And. And he's like, okay, pull the anchor. Okay, you do this, you do that. We just sailed between the boats and the island and came out and. And there was something about, like. Like the things that I valued and how I learn versus the things that he valued and he learns from were different. Now, you can call them preferences or learning styles, but it was such a contrast to me because he was. It was so different from what, like, how I learned things. And so. So I can. I. So I can kind of do. I do kind of buy into. Like, we have different learning preferences or styles that maybe are more natural to you. Could you learn more? Yeah. Or learn different ones? Because I. I really hate participation learning. Like, it just drives me absolutely wild. Like, my brain just turns off.

[62:09] Matt: What do you. What are you talking about?

[62:11] Michael: Well, like, you're in a. Like, you're in a group of. Like a conference or a group of people, and you're the. The instructor goes like, hey, everyone, we're going to do this exercise. We're going

[62:21] Matt: to break into small groups.

[62:22] Michael: Small groups. Oh, God, I fucking hate that. You know, it's like. And other people are like, that excites them. And then they really get a lot from that. Like, for me, I just want to run away.

[62:32] Matt: Yeah, I kind of hate it, too. But I have found it to be very effective when I choose to participate against my own misgivings. So I'll just clarify my point that. That it's actually really Veritasium's point, which is that. So I just googled it. The main types of learning styles are generally considered visual or spatial, auditory or oral. Reading and writing, which would be verbal and kinesthetic, which would be physical. And apparently the studies that have Been done, have not shown any difference in people's ability to learn in one style versus another. But the difference that they did show is that if you combine more than one style,

[63:24] Michael: people

[63:24] Matt: learn better. So a lot of people think of themselves as a certain type of style learner. They don't actually learn better that way than any other way. The only way they learn better is to combine styles.

[63:37] Michael: So I can get behind the combined styles thing. Like, you need more than you need one. More than one touch point. That. That makes a lot of sense to me. But.

[63:44] Matt: Well, it's kind of like that analogy. It's like, if you smell smoke, is there a fire? You don't really know.

[63:55] Michael: Yeah.

[63:57] Matt: If you smell smoke and feel heat, is there a fire? More likely.

[64:02] Michael: More likely,

[64:03] Matt: if you smell smoke and feel heat and see red flames, it might be in your imagination,

[64:12] Michael: but it also might be true.

[64:13] Matt: But if you have a friend next to you who also can confirm all those three senses, you can be pretty sure there's a fire. That's great. It reminds me, oh, what was that movie with Billy Bob Thornton? And I want to say Bruce Willis, where they're like unlikely prison cellmates and they get out and they start running this criminal grift. I can't remember what it is, but Billy Bob Thornton is like a real OCD kind of character. And he always keeps thinking he smells burning and he's like, am I having a stroke? Am I stroking out? I smell burning and it's never real.

[64:58] Michael: Yeah.

[64:59] Matt: Anyway. Well,

[65:03] Michael: yeah,

[65:04] Matt: go ahead.

[65:04] Michael: No,

[65:06] Matt: I think we have probably.

[65:09] Michael: We didn't even get into the craziest stuff you and I were talking about before this.

[65:14] Matt: That's true, but I think we could save it because I am just on the event horizon and you're more into the singularity. So I need a couple more days and just to let everyone know what we're talking about. We're talking about AI and specifically something called OpenClaw, which is this open source software that is an AI agent that you run on your own computer. And I had a lot of misgivings about it. You jumped in, convinced me to jump in. And today specifically, I had my mind pretty blown by this. I have a lot of questions,

[65:57] Michael: totally.

[65:58] Matt: Some of them about the technology and some of them about just conceptions of. Honestly, of God and demons. And I don't know what we're dealing with here. And wondering. All things in their proper place. Right. What is my proper place? What is the proper place for this technology? What is the proper place for a lot of things as we move into this. Future full of entropy and the great unknown. So maybe we could pick it up there next week?

[66:40] Michael: Yeah, that'll be fascinating.

[66:41] Matt: Yeah.

[66:44] Michael: If I say anymore, I'll just go off on stuff.

[66:46] Matt: Well, all

[66:47] Michael: right. It's been good

[66:48] Matt: on the shores. Love you out

[66:49] Michael: there. Thanks for

[66:49] Matt: listening.

[66:50] Michael: We'll see y'. All.

[66:50] Matt: Cheers, y'. All.

[66:51] Michael: It's funny. I just winked at you like. Like, you did. Like, the. Like, it's the audience or something like that. Like, hey, we'll see you guys later. That's funny.

[66:59] Matt: Until next time, this is.

[67:01] Michael: We need to do video again so I can wink at, like.

[67:04] Matt: Yeah, all right.