America's Greatest Threat (It's Not What You Think)

“Trust in our institutions in The United States is at an all time low that is across the board. Trust in the media is at an all time low. Trust in church is at an all time low. Trust in the scientific establishment is at an all time low. Trust in government is at an all time low. And, of course, trust in academia is at an all time low. And because of our lack of trust in institutions, Americans also mistrust one another.”

“Instead, we start engaging in what the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre called emotivism. This belief that everybody except for you is motivated by something nefarious. And so instead of having a political conversation, what you do is you just attribute a motive to the person's policy.”

“Our truth making institutions used to be rooted in truth, and now they're rooted in power. I've said before on my show that a lot of our institutions are being worn around kind of like a Hannibal Lecter skin suit. They're still only animate because they're being worn around by something foreign.”

“Whenever people say that capitalism is what's responsible for the soul sickness in Americans, and you hear this from I I've seen this in in, you know, places like Compact Magazine, for example. When when you see this sort of argument, understand that trying to solve a sole problem with economics is like trying to it's like trying to change a baby diaper with a hammer. It is the wrong tool.”

“The the place where you can do and it's appropriate to do the most legislation is the place where you need the least and vice versa. So in your local community, in your HOA, there are a lot of informal things that don't need to be codified because you know all of your neighbors and you know your family members, but that would also be the place where theoretically a lot of rules could theoretically apply because there's a lot of agreement. As you abstract up the chain, there should be fewer rules because there's less agreement. And instead, we seem to do the reverse.”

“About a year later, Tucker was on my show, and he was talking about self driving cars. And I asked him whether he would outlaw self driving cars. He'd made the case to do so. And I said, why on what grounds? On what governmental grounds would we outlaw self driving cars? And Tucker said, I would do so on the basis of safety. And I said, Tucker, that makes no sense. You can watch this. It's on tape. I said, Tucker, that makes no sense. Self driving cars will be significantly safer than human driven cars. And he said, you asked me why, on what grounds I would ban them, not what's true.”

“What it does mean is that if you make more right decisions than wrong in The United States, you have a better chance than anywhere on Earth at any time in human history of succeeding than anyone. And so if you're failing, the first place you should be looking is in the mirror, not out the window.”

“Specificity is a friend to unity. Vagueness is a friend to chaos. Right? When you're vague, it allows people to take it any way that you want, and it allows them to put themselves on your side or on the other side, and it creates artificial divisions. And and and that creates also, by the way, permission structures for violence. I think one of the reasons we've seen this massive uptick in violence in The United States on a political level is because we're creating these gigantic permission structures.”

“I'm very much with Jonathan Haidt. I think that social media should be banned for people under the age of 16. I think that, I have, again, I have four kids going on five. I think that those four kids going on on five, I'm not gonna give them access to anything remotely like social media until they hit 18. The the I see zero good to it. Like zero. Not like there's some good and there's some bad, zero good.”

“What makes you an expert in the public commentary of space in politics is you read two books on a thing. Because most Americans have read zero books on a thing. Right? And the ones who are fairly informed have read one book on a thing. So if you've read two books on a thing, this makes you, like, so much more knowledgeable than the vast majority of the population.”