• 7 months ago
Philosopher and novelist Stefan Molyneux takes apart Dune, Star Wars, the Terminator, and all other sorts of nonsense!

Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!

Get my new series on the Truth About the French Revolution, access to the audiobook for my new book 'Peaceful Parenting,' StefBOT-AI, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and more!

See you soon!

https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
Transcript
00:00 Why is sci-fi such hot garbage? Such as Star Wars, Dune, Three-Body Problems, Star Trek, etc.
00:05 I've always loved the idea of the genre, but it rarely lives up to the hype.
00:09 Artists are propagandists, and therefore they're usually susceptible to propaganda.
00:15 Artists are very easy to program, so that you can program others.
00:18 And artists don't understand the free market.
00:22 Artists don't understand the free market.
00:25 It's been a long time since somebody came from the free market, or the remnants of it, to the art world.
00:30 Artists are generally in socialist, artistic paradise situations,
00:35 or they require so much money that they have to surrender their integrity.
00:41 Now, Star Wars isn't even science fiction. Star Wars is magic with robots.
00:46 It's King Arthur with... I mean, even half the characters are covered in metal,
00:51 whether they're C-3PO or Boba Fett or whatever, right? It's just Arthurian crap.
00:56 I mean, it's got swords, it's got magic, it's got a princess stolen by an evil warlord.
01:01 I mean, it is... Star Wars is not science fiction. It's just magic.
01:12 It's just D&D on a desert planet. I mean, it's not... And so is Dune, right?
01:19 Dune is the most hilarious non-sequitur known to filmmaking.
01:23 I mean, it's ridiculously bad, the first Dune.
01:27 Honestly, it's like, not only is it incredibly slow, I get it.
01:31 The desert is the writer's depression, and he was very depressioned.
01:37 He was very depressed, and the desert is just his depression, right?
01:42 But this is a science fiction universe with interstellar travel,
01:52 and when there's an attack, there's literally a rain of giant missiles that come down.
02:00 But people fight with swords. People fight with swords.
02:11 Oh my gosh. Oh, hey, I wrote my own science fiction book, right?
02:15 You can call it The Future, right? You can... Let me get it for you.
02:20 Let me get it for you. Let me get it for you.
02:25 Because it's really good. It really is a great... great book.
02:32 I will get it for you.
02:39 And if you're listening, rss.com/podcast/thefuture. You should...
02:48 Well, and Dune is also, you know, you have words of command,
02:54 and it's all magic mind control, and it's all just anti-scientific garbage.
03:00 And they have... there's a corporation that has a big giant spice factory
03:07 that's on these sands where these sand dune things come and eat.
03:11 And apparently the sand dune things don't eat anyone or anything.
03:14 They eat tiny krill or whatever, like humpback whales,
03:17 but apparently they're drawn to rhythmic sounds because Lord knows that's what...
03:20 Krill set up a 60-cell drum fest, you know? Krill, these tiny little sand creatures,
03:26 because the only thing you ever see on Dune is a tiny worm,
03:29 which wouldn't sustain a 300-meter-long giant worm for, you know, a billionth of a second.
03:33 So apparently these giant worms, they don't hunt anything big,
03:38 but they're drawn to very loud thumping sounds, which would make absolutely no sense.
03:43 And apparently they could just swallow entire refineries, and they're totally fine.
03:46 Doesn't do any harm to them. You know, like swallowing a license plate can kill a shark,
03:51 but they can swallow... like, it's just too ridiculous.
03:54 And you have this corporation that has this giant spice refinery thing,
03:58 and there are constant attacks from sandworms to eat them.
04:03 These things cost billions of dollars. There's 20 people on board.
04:08 And so they have this balloon that comes out and lifts them up out of the sandworms' way,
04:13 and apparently they don't even check whether they work or not.
04:18 So, can you imagine? You're a corporation, or, you know, some sort of money-making entity,
04:23 and they say, "Oh, well, this stuff was left over, and it was bad," and so on.
04:27 And you're like, "But you would check it before it goes out."
04:29 And so the big gas balloon thing comes and tries to pick up the giant refinery from the sand,
04:36 where there's 20 people, and it doesn't work, and they have no backup plan.
04:41 They don't send two out because they know that the stuff's all broken.
04:44 They just send one out, and one of the clips that goes on the refinery breaks,
04:48 and then everyone's going to die, and it's all going to get swallowed by sandworms.
04:55 Oh, my God, it's just so absolutely terrible.
04:59 The explanation is that the energy shields make most ballistic weapons useless.
05:03 However, slow-moving swords can go through the shields.
05:08 That doesn't make any sense, because they have technology that can disable the shields.
05:13 So just disable the shields and nuke everyone.
05:19 LOL, I thought that as well about the hole in the refinery and the lack of working parts.
05:23 Yes, we have a multi-billion-dollar rescue operation with highly trained personnel
05:29 for the most valuable substance in the known universe,
05:32 this drug/interstellar fuel called the spice.
05:36 It's the most valuable substance. We desperately need it.
05:41 Oh, it broke.
05:43 We're going to lose everyone.
05:46 It broke.
05:48 Oh, dear.
05:50 Can you imagine?
05:53 It's the most valuable--the unobtainium of the universe,
05:56 the most valuable thing in the entire universe.
05:58 We're just going to send one half-broken rickety machine out
06:01 to save this massively expensive, massively profitable refinery.
06:07 Oh, it broke. Oh, no, everyone got eaten.
06:14 I mean, these are the people you're supposed to be rooting for.
06:17 They couldn't run a fucking 7-Eleven, let alone the most expensive refinery
06:20 of spice planted in the known universe.
06:25 Oh, my gosh. Have you read C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy? No, no, I haven't.
06:31 Oh, no, like, I was just looking at that.
06:33 I'm like, this is a fucking retarded author who's never worked a day in his life
06:38 and has certainly never worked with any machinery
06:40 and has never talked to anyone who's worked with any machinery, right?
06:46 Like, oh, my God.
06:48 I can't even tell you just how completely insane all of that is.
06:56 I don't know.
07:00 I don't know. There are no words.
07:04 This is just somebody who's never worked an honest day's labor in his life
07:08 trying to imagine how machinery and markets work.
07:12 Like, it's embarrassing.
07:14 It's really, really embarrassing.
07:16 While I admire the filmmaking, the story is stupid.
07:20 Just because it's stupid doesn't mean it wasn't entertaining.
07:23 Okay, I'm happy to hear.
07:25 Who did you like in Dune? Let's get it on, man.
07:27 Maybe I'm wrong about this.
07:29 Who do you like in Dune?
07:31 The petty, pouty, whiny kid?
07:33 Do you like him? Right?
07:36 How about the father who doesn't protect his family?
07:38 Do you like him?
07:40 The fat, oily guy in the well water. Do you like him?
07:44 How about the mother who just stares and cries all the time?
07:48 Do you like her? Like, who do you like?
07:50 Who are you rooting for?
07:52 I mean, this is about as—it's on the moral level of Game of Thrones.
07:55 Tolkien hated Dune, supposedly.
07:57 The sandworms?
07:59 Even they don't make any sense.
08:01 They make no sense.
08:03 What do they eat?
08:05 What do they eat?
08:07 I mean, you've got to put some basic—
08:11 you've got to put some basic biology—
08:13 "Oh, there are these giant worms."
08:15 It's like, okay, I get it.
08:17 You've got suppressed sexual impulses, and you're depressed.
08:19 Because, I mean, Franz Herbert or whatever his name was,
08:22 the guy's wife was dying of cancer for ten years.
08:24 I mean, he had a pretty shitty time of it, and I sympathize with that.
08:28 But there's no humanity, there's no humor, there's no people.
08:32 There's no people.
08:34 Nobody has any humor, nobody has any loyalty, nobody has any joy.
08:37 Nobody has to go to the bathroom, nobody dances, nobody—
08:40 there's no people.
08:42 It's all just grim, stupid, metronome, political crap.
08:47 I only like the desert princess because she is indifferent in the first one.
08:51 Oh, really? You had a character without a lot of emotional strength or base or humanity?
08:55 Wow, never heard that before in science fiction.
09:01 "Oh, yes, and all the bad guys are white and bald."
09:05 Hmm. Hmm.
09:07 All the white guys are bad and—are white and bald.
09:11 Because that's just it. Oh, no.
09:13 Did we have somebody born with hair?
09:15 We'll have to kick them out of the hairless bad guy thing.
09:19 Oh, my God.
09:25 "Dune characters are NPCs."
09:27 No, NPCs. I mean, have you seen Astarian in Baldur's Gate 3?
09:31 Oh, it's so predictable.
09:34 Oh, God, it's so boring. It's so predictable.
09:36 So, you know, the Asian—sorry, spoilers, blah, blah, blah—
09:39 but the Asian guy who betrays the family.
09:41 Well, first of all, everybody knows this is a world built on betrayal, right?
09:45 The Dune world is—everyone's built on betrayal, right?
09:48 Everything's built on betrayal.
09:50 So, of course, they're not going to have one doctor who can take down the whole place, right?
09:56 Everything's built on betrayal.
09:58 Everyone's compromised.
09:59 Everyone's going to have their wives stolen and sold off for parts.
10:03 And so you're going to have massive amounts of redundancies,
10:05 and there's no way one doctor is going to be able to destroy the entire clan
10:09 because his wife gets kidnapped because this kidnapping shit's happening all the time.
10:13 Oh, my God.
10:17 So, the doctor—oh, it's so boring and predictable.
10:22 Maybe it wasn't in the '60s, though. I think it was even then.
10:24 But you've got to mix it up, right?
10:26 So, the doctor who betrayed—well, I just want to get my wife back because I love her so much.
10:30 Yeah, because people who are court doctors to evil warlords,
10:34 yeah, they're totally in love with their wives.
10:37 It's like, "I said that I was—I would—you would join your wife."
10:42 And you just know, yeah, he's going to kill the guy.
10:45 Because everyone who betrays their leaders gets killed by the other side.
10:51 And it's like, you know, that doesn't work in life.
10:54 Like, that doesn't work in life.
10:56 Didn't like Game of Thrones?
10:57 Game of Thrones was like having a medieval priest throw up in my mouth repeatedly for about an hour.
11:02 Game of Thrones was absolutely appallingly nihilistic and vile and horrible in every conceivable way.
11:09 So, you can't get people to betray others if you always kill them, right?
11:23 Do you understand?
11:24 Yeah, of course he's not getting his wife back.
11:27 Why? Because they're—
11:29 "Ah, you know what I'm going to do?
11:31 I'm going to set up characters, the Harkonnen, who are unbelievably, mindlessly, NPC, black hole, void evil.
11:39 But then I'm going to trust them to give my wife back to me so we can live in life and love."
11:44 Yeah, sure. Absolutely.
11:49 You know, like, even the Mafia keep their deals, right?
11:52 I mean, the entire political system runs on hidden donations and favors and handshakes, but it runs. It works.
11:59 Right? It's the argument I made in Everyday Anarchy, that we know we don't need the state to enforce contracts
12:04 because the state runs on contracts called corruption which can never be enforced.
12:08 Right?
12:10 So, it's like, "Well, they're the most evil people in the known universe.
12:13 They've betrayed everyone they've ever done a deal with, but I'll do a deal with them."
12:20 Oh my god. It was just terrible.
12:23 Did the fucking writer or director—have they ever met an actual human being?
12:28 At all? Or is it just, like, complete, empty, stupid science fiction stereotypes?
12:33 "I'm an evil guy, so I'm bald, and I talk like this."
12:40 And it's like, you know evil guys don't do that, right?
12:43 Like, evil guys don't do that.
12:45 I mean, I wrote an entire evil guy for my novel The Future, who's incredibly charismatic and witty.
12:49 And engaging.
12:51 Right?
12:52 Like, you know the evil guys, they don't fucking look like orcs.
12:57 They're not flying around bald and gravel-voiced and depressed.
13:01 Right? Who are the evil guys?
13:03 The most dangerous ones are the ones who are friendly and charismatic and engaging and funny.
13:08 And, like, come on.
13:10 You're literally teaching people to not know what evil is.
13:16 What?
13:17 Oh my god.
13:22 It's—oh god.
13:29 I mean, I sat through it. I'll maybe do a proper review or something, but—
13:33 Oh my god.
13:35 Oh, what was the other one?
13:38 Oh, there was another one in there.
13:42 Oh yes, the Fremen.
13:44 Oh boy.
13:46 There's some fine writing.
13:48 You know, they're both free.
13:50 And they're men.
13:52 I could call them Freemen, but that might be a bit too obvious, so I'll call them Fremen.
13:59 I could call these group the bad guys, but I'm gonna call them the bad-da-da guys.
14:08 We have the good-da-da guys and the bad-da-da guys.
14:11 And we have the people who are really free. I'm gonna call them the Fremen.
14:15 Yes, that's some fine fucking writing.
14:22 The bad guys are—and the good guys are the Fre-men.
14:26 Free? Fremen.
14:28 Oh, and by the way, the Fremen who live in the desert have giant manufacturing plants that can produce complex machinery called the Thumpers.
14:37 Isn't that amazing?
14:38 I remember, obviously, when the British first engaged with the Bedouin, I remember that.
14:43 And the Bedouin had time travel and hovercraft.
14:46 Oh!
14:50 Oh my gosh.
14:52 Oh, that's hilarious.
14:54 They're the Fremen.
14:56 You know, we really need a beautiful lady.
15:02 What should we call her?
15:03 Beautiful lady.
15:05 Beautiful.
15:07 Can we make her have a big butt?
15:08 Well, it says that right there.
15:09 Beautiful.
15:11 Beautiful.
15:12 Beautiful lady.
15:13 We got free men.
15:15 What should we call them?
15:16 Fremen.
15:17 Oh my god.
15:20 Oh, but the lore is incredible.
15:22 It's like—this is like watching somebody not write a novel but smear shit on the wall and call it a Picasso.
15:30 Well, actually, shit on the wall is obviously an improvement to Picasso.
15:35 But it's like somebody wiping boogers on the glass and saying, "I'm Rembrandt."
15:43 It's just absolutely terrible.
15:46 Oh my gosh.
15:49 Oh yeah.
15:51 Oh yeah, the guy too.
15:53 Timothy Chalamet.
15:55 Why is it that this started with the Star Wars and that spiky-haired Hayden Christensen.
16:02 Acting is just fucking pouting.
16:05 That's all it is.
16:06 Just being vaguely pissed off and pouting the entire time.
16:09 That's just it.
16:10 That's it.
16:11 And then mysterious maturity shows up, right?
16:13 So at the beginning, the kid is engaged in some bullshit combat with the older guy.
16:19 The older guy.
16:20 Such a cliche.
16:21 So just older guy.
16:22 And the older guy is trying to toughen up the young guy.
16:24 But the young guy is like, "Well, I just don't feel it today."
16:27 And the older guy is like, "You don't have to feel it.
16:29 Combat comes to you and you least expect it."
16:32 I mean, so the fight scenes are all so predictable and so boring.
16:36 And they don't make any sense.
16:38 None of it makes any sense.
16:39 Again, you have ways of disabling the shields.
16:45 EMPs would disable the shields.
16:46 They're electrically powered.
16:48 So it's just because they want cool knife fights and it's got nothing to do with anything real.
16:57 In Star Wars, you have weapons that can destroy entire planets.
17:01 But no, laser swords are the way to go.
17:06 It's like somebody with some giant space laser.
17:11 "No, no, no. I have a butter knife.
17:13 We're evening it out."
17:17 Oh, God.
17:18 It's painful.
17:19 I mean, it's almost literally painful.
17:22 So anyway, so the whiny, complaining kid, which is like the young thing, right?
17:35 The whiny, complaining kid, he's with the Fremen.
17:40 And the Fremen want to fight him so that he'll join them, which makes no sense either.
17:46 Why would you want to fight?
17:48 I guess he's the--
17:49 Oh, the one.
17:50 Oh, God.
17:51 Oh, please.
17:52 Oh, no, if I see another movie.
17:55 He is the one.
18:00 He is the one.
18:02 He is Neo, which is just an anagram for the one.
18:06 Oh, God almighty.
18:07 I just--
18:09 I'm kind of a whiny, annoying, nasal teenager, but apparently I'm also--
18:12 The one.
18:15 The one.
18:19 Sure, yeah, absolutely.
18:20 How do we know he's the one?
18:22 The one is whiny and very skinny and has no facial and/or body hair of any kind.
18:30 He also has very poofy hair.
18:34 He is a dandelion of slender, nipply skinniness with mystery powers that he must master because
18:43 he is the one.
18:45 Oh, my God.
18:46 Have you had an original thought since 5000 BC?
18:52 No.
18:53 Absolutely not.
18:56 Anyway, so he is fighting a guy, the black guy.
19:02 He's fighting a Furman.
19:06 He's fighting a Furman on their own turf in their own environment, and they're using their
19:15 own weapons, right?
19:19 So, I mean, yeah, they've given him some training, right?
19:22 Okay, fine.
19:23 They've given him-- He's had some training.
19:25 Kid's never been in a real fight, right?
19:28 The kid has never been in a real fight.
19:31 Now, the Furman, the black guy, looked to be about 40 or 45, right?
19:35 And so he's been living out there in the desert, and he's been fighting to survive for a quarter
19:40 century, which seems to be about 10 years longer than the kid's even been alive, right?
19:45 So the kid's never been in a real fight before, that we can see.
19:48 He's had some training or whatever, right?
19:50 But the trainer's gone easy on him, and now he's with a guy who's got 20 to 25 years experience
19:56 with actual fighting, and he wins.
20:02 Sure, absolutely.
20:03 He wins.
20:04 Yeah, of course, because that's just the way shit works, right?
20:07 If I've had no practical experience in fighting, but I've had some training, and I go up against
20:12 a guy who's been literally fighting for his life for 20 to 25 years, I'm gonna win.
20:24 Well, it's true that I am going up against a grandmaster chess champion who's been winning
20:30 in the most brutal competitions of chess for 25 years, but I've taken some chess training.
20:34 I'm sure I'll win.
20:36 You see, there's a chess grandmaster who beat Bill Gates in like 14 seconds.
20:43 No, he wasn't practicing with Aquaman, it was the other guy, right?
20:47 And it's just like, what the fuck reality are people living in here that anybody believes
20:54 this even remotely, even a tiny, tiny bit?
20:58 What insane reality is the writer living in?
21:03 I mean, this is a writer who's never been in a fistfight.
21:07 God!
21:08 Okay, if you think this is true, fine, go take some fucking jujitsu and then go get
21:15 into a street fight with a guy who's been fighting on the streets for 20 years.
21:19 I'm not saying you would do that, but imagine that shit, right?
21:23 No, he is the one.
21:27 And it's like, it's always the same way, too.
21:29 He cannot master his powers until, until he is in the greatest possible stress and about to die.
21:35 Yeah, because that's the way shit works.
21:37 You can't master anything until you're about to be pushed out a giant fucking plane.
21:41 Yeah, then you're totally, you can relax into it, you can master it, you can do it.
21:45 When the stress is the highest, the things that you're bad at suddenly become fantastic.
21:50 You become fantastically good at them.
21:52 Oh my god.
22:00 Oh, God, it's horrifyingly terrible.
22:06 It's horrifyingly terrible.
22:12 And also, also, also, the Harkonnen and whatever they are, right?
22:19 They are the most brutal fighters in the known universe, but don't worry.
22:23 Jason half-shaped eyebrow, Mamoa Aquaman can take on 10 of them at a time and still somewhat win.
22:29 Also, these most brutal fighters in the known universe, the personification of inhumane and unjust evil doing,
22:38 they disable an opponent and don't even check to see if he's dead.
22:46 They're not evil.
22:47 They're such competent fighters.
22:52 They disable a guy and then go about their business and turn their backs to him, and then he rises up and kills some more of them.
23:00 Because, you know, that's what really competent people do when they're trying to kill someone,
23:04 is they just kind of knock him out and then just go about their business.
23:15 Sure, absolutely.
23:19 They are the most competent fighters in the universe, but they don't kill a guy they've disabled.
23:26 They just let him kill more of them.
23:28 And it's like, oh, fuck off.
23:30 Like, please.
23:31 Like, oh my god, this is just beyond terrible.
23:35 But we have the fight scene of slow death and bitingness.
23:40 And it's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
23:42 Come on.
23:43 Come on.
23:45 I mean, the first thing you do if you disable someone is you shoot them through the head.
23:50 Yeah, I've seen police gun down a man in a hail of gunfire and then handcuff the corpse.
23:54 Of course.
23:56 So it's just, it's ridiculously terrible.
24:01 It's beyond awful.
24:03 Like, I literally was, people, the people I was watching the movie with could barely hear it over my endless groans.
24:15 Just terrible.
24:17 Like, the dad literally says, all the machinery we have is terrible.
24:22 So, yeah, let's just send out one thing to rescue one of the most expensive things that we own,
24:27 producing the most valuable spice, valuable product in the known universe.
24:34 Oh, god.
24:36 Honestly, I was just, the pain, the pain was just unbearable of how, look, I don't mind the suspension of disbelief,
24:47 but I'm not in for the suspension of sanity.
24:50 Right?
24:51 There's no logic to any of it, and they don't even pretend to have any science at all.
25:02 They are the most brutal killers in the universe, but they're not gonna kill their prisoners.
25:09 They're gonna just throw them out of a plane.
25:11 Now, they don't gag them, even though apparently this spoken command thing,
25:18 this "I'll make you do shit by saying it in a growly voice, donate to freedomain.com/donate."
25:26 So, if they would have heard about these powers, they'd be pretty hard to hide, right?
25:32 And so they're just chatting away.
25:37 Why don't they just open the door and throw them out?
25:39 Because they say, well, we want to be able to tell the truth if they say, did you kill them, right?
25:44 Which is also retarded.
25:46 If apparently it was bad for them to kill their prisoners, right,
25:48 if they were to get in trouble for killing their prisoners, right, they would say,
25:52 did you kill your prisoners or cause them to die?
25:56 Or cause them to have a reasonable chance of dying, right?
25:59 That's a--
26:00 No, we're gonna fool them because we just pushed them out of the plane into a desert that would kill them.
26:06 We didn't kill them, we just pushed them out of the plane.
26:08 Can you imagine that?
26:10 You push some guy out of a plane, he falls to his death, and you're charged for murder,
26:13 and you say, no, I didn't kill them, I just pushed them out of the plane.
26:15 And people are like, okay, let's go.
26:18 Oh, God.
26:20 It was like a brain worm that was eating up reality.
26:27 We won't get in trouble because we just pushed them out of the plane, and we didn't kill them.
26:34 Oh, and also, they're the most ferocious killers in the known universe,
26:39 and we're gonna put in charge of the prisoners that we need to get them to kill a deaf guy.
26:44 That way, he can't hear what they're saying, and can't hear them if they sneak up on him,
26:50 and he can't hear them plotting because he's a deaf guy, because that's what we do.
26:55 You know, your most high-value prisoners, you put in charge--
26:58 you put them under the care, custody, and control of a guy who's pretty severely disabled
27:03 when it comes to soldiering because he can't hear anything.
27:08 Can you imagine some guy stabs a woman to death, and he's like, "You killed him."
27:13 "No, no, the knife did."
27:20 They're the most fearsome killers in the known universe, and they're deaf and retarded.
27:26 No, no, no.
27:29 You gotta work harder as a writer.
27:32 You gotta work harder as a writer.
27:36 And I get it.
27:39 "Iraqis" sounds like Iraq, and it's the desert, and the spice is the oil,
27:43 and, "Oh, it's so deep, man. It's so deep."
27:46 Because, you know, like, you can sniff gasoline, so it's kind of like a psychoactive substance,
27:52 and also, like, oil powers airplanes, which is like the spice being both a drug
27:57 and powering interstellar-- right?
28:03 Oh, my God.
28:06 Yeah, these people could bend space and time, but they couldn't get that guy a hearing aid.
28:10 Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's all just--
28:13 And, of course, there's no market anywhere. It's like Star Wars.
28:17 I guess Star Wars has Mos Eisley or whatever, right?
28:19 Star Trek. There's no trade, there's no free market, there's no capitalism.
28:23 So where the fuck does all of this technology come from?
28:26 Well, it's basically the Mongols.
28:30 Yeah, because the Mongols had really advanced technology.
28:33 I mean, they could barely figure out anything beyond the bow. Why?
28:36 Because it's a centrally planned bullshit non-economy.
28:39 Remember all of that wonderful stuff that came out of the Soviet Union and Cuba
28:43 and other communist countries.
28:46 "Well, no, but the Soviet Union just stole all of their stuff.
28:49 You've got to read this book, 'East Minus West Equals Zero.'
28:51 You've got to read-- They just stole everything."
28:54 Like the Rosenbergs were put to death for selling atomic secrets.
29:03 No, I just said to the Soviets, "It's just appalling.
29:07 It's just appalling."
29:13 It's somebody who doesn't understand science, doesn't understand biology,
29:16 he does not understand the economics, he doesn't understand combat,
29:20 he just doesn't understand anything.
29:23 And it's dangerous shit too.
29:25 I'm opposed to this at a fundamental level.
29:28 It's dangerous shit.
29:29 First of all, the idea that you can take on really experienced fighters
29:33 when you've just done some training and not get anything other than killed
29:37 is ridiculous.
29:40 It's really, really, "Hey, man, I've taken some jujitsu.
29:43 I can take on a trained street fighter."
29:46 I mean, oh God, the pain.
29:50 And also it's a way of, "Well, you can't create your own destiny.
29:53 Why?
29:54 Why?
29:55 Why can't you create your own destiny?"
29:56 Because destiny chooses you because you're the one.
30:01 And if you think that this is not dangerous--
30:03 Do you remember Oprah talking about Barack Obama?
30:06 What did she say?
30:07 "He is the one."
30:10 And that has a resonance.
30:12 People are programmed to bow down before the one so that culture can designate
30:17 someone as the one and you feel yourself automatically bowing down before them.
30:26 Oh my God.
30:31 This is crazy.
30:35 And the only place--
30:36 It's all military industrial fetish worship because the only place
30:40 where there's a market is like some pathetic quasi-Middle Eastern bazaar
30:44 where people are hawking shit for coins.
30:50 Go to a Tesla factory, right?
30:51 And that's technology.
30:53 Nothing like that exists.
30:54 And that technology and that factory only exists because of the free market.
30:58 So what you're doing is you're taking the products of the free market
31:01 and drafting it onto some Mongol bullshit where you have--
31:05 The movie was all about just looking cool.
31:08 It's got about as much substance as a supermodel's fucking belly.
31:14 Because you know we're going to have rains of fire fly down
31:18 and then there's a guy in oil and then he flies a little bit
31:21 and then we're going to have sword fights.
31:23 And it's just about looking cool with absolutely no reality.
31:26 And this cool shit, I can't stand it.
31:28 I did a whole show I hate cool some years ago.
31:31 I hate this shit.
31:33 I just hate it.
31:34 I just hate it.
31:36 It's cool, man. It just looks cool.
31:39 That is programming you.
31:43 It's programming you.
31:47 I mean, didn't they want to kill off this kid?
31:51 So they would just send down--
31:53 Like they have as many rockets as they want.
31:55 They would just send all the rockets in a 20-square-mile radius
31:58 and they would kill them.
32:01 And they don't even explain this.
32:03 Like at least in Alien 2, right,
32:05 the guy says, "Why don't we just get up and nuke it from orbit?"
32:08 What science fiction have you felt was acceptable?
32:11 I mean, I haven't read--
32:15 I haven't read science fiction in forever.
32:18 But I will remind you, it's free.
32:20 You should check out my work of science fiction.
32:23 And it's really good.
32:26 It's called The Future.
32:28 I will give it to you again.
32:29 rss.com/podcast/thefuture
32:33 Fantastic sci-fi.
32:36 Oh, no, it's just--
32:44 Firefly?
32:48 Well, Firefly was just--
32:49 I mean, it was entertaining, and Nathan Fillion's a fine actor,
32:52 and they were all relatively engaging in that,
32:54 and the characters were good.
32:56 But, I mean, space western.
32:58 You know, it was a western, but in space.
33:02 It's--
33:03 None of it really--
33:04 And it's always like in the outer planets, the wild west, you know,
33:07 where the hand of the government doesn't reach and all that kind of stuff.
33:11 Asimov, I never got into him.
33:13 I read a couple of his short stories,
33:14 but I tried reading Foundation like three times,
33:16 and I just--
33:17 I mean, he puts me to sleep.
33:19 I just--
33:20 And then once I found out about his son,
33:22 I was like, "I'm never touching this shit again."
33:24 Like, this is a completely corrupt bloodline.
33:26 Just monstrous.
33:27 You can go and look up what happened with Isaac Asimov's son
33:31 and what he was arrested for,
33:33 and by the by, who was in charge of that prosecution.
33:36 And, no, Isaac Asimov was just a--
33:41 I mean, in my opinion, one of the worst parents who's lived in the modern world
33:45 when you look at what occurred with his son.
33:48 So, yeah, I just--
33:49 I can't get past that stuff, and I don't have any desire to.
33:52 All right.
33:53 Any other last questions?
33:54 Or--
33:55 Yeah, second Alien movie was very good.
33:56 Yeah, because it tried to have some logic in it, right?
33:58 [silence]
34:08 Oh, and the idea that you can swim through sand?
34:11 [laughs]
34:12 [silence]
34:14 You can't swim through sand.
34:17 I mean, the worms don't even have any--
34:20 Doctor Who?
34:21 No.
34:22 Doctor Who was like time travel and weird shit, right?
34:25 So, I mean, whales go--
34:27 like, the closest analogy would be whales, right?
34:29 So, whales go through water with flippers, right?
34:32 What do the sand worms do?
34:34 They have little--
34:35 I guess they have little scales, maybe?
34:36 Like, what was the meaning of the hand in the box?
34:40 [silence]
34:44 When New History--
34:45 Episode History of Philosophers, I don't know.
34:47 What was the meaning of the hand in the box?
34:49 Oh, it was just stupid drama, right?
34:51 It was just stupid drama.
34:52 [silence]
34:54 It was just stupid drama.
34:56 [silence]
35:01 I mean, it's the same thing that goes on in Fight Club with the acid, right?
35:06 [reading text on screen]
35:21 Have you ever seen a sand viper?
35:23 Do they--
35:25 Do they swim under the ocean?
35:28 Maybe.
35:29 I mean, do they--
35:30 Sorry, do they swim under the sand?
35:31 Is that right?
35:33 Sand viper, let's see.
35:35 [silence]
35:38 Lives in the deserts.
35:40 All right, what does it say here?
35:44 I mean, I assume that they pretty much live on the surface, don't they?
35:48 [silence]
35:50 A sand viper's burrow into the sand and strike directly from their hiding place.
35:53 Yeah, you can dig into the sand.
35:55 I accept that.
35:56 Come on, man.
35:57 But you don't swim through the sand for miles, right?
36:00 [silence]
36:02 So, yes, I get that they go into the sand.
36:05 So do wolf spiders and other things, right?
36:08 Gophers dig into the sand.
36:10 I get you can go--
36:11 But do they swim through the sand?
36:14 No, of course not, right?
36:15 They just burrow into the sand and wait there.
36:18 How about the new 2000s Battlestar Galactica James Edward Olmos good show or no?
36:22 I actually find that was quite good.
36:24 I watched it many years ago.
36:25 But I didn't watch all of it, but I thought that was pretty good.
36:29 I thought that was pretty good.
36:30 Again, I don't know what it is with science fiction writers in the military-industrial complex.
36:35 It's like this nerd worship of the warrior.
36:38 [silence]
36:40 It's like, well, humanity's in grave danger.
36:46 But what saves them is the military.
36:50 The government military is our savior.
36:53 Yeah, right, government military.
36:55 Yeah, that hasn't gotten hundreds of millions of people killed over the last couple of centuries.
36:59 Yeah, totally.
37:01 So there is just--
37:02 It's all--
37:03 Nothing can flourish if it doesn't praise the military-industrial complex, right?
37:07 [silence]
37:10 So I assume that the writers were beaten up by the aggressive guys,
37:17 and the last quarter was dumb and the ending was stupid and ruined any rewatch.
37:22 Yeah.
37:23 You know, in general, I like shows where the stories are more self-contained.
37:26 When the story arc goes over a whole season, I usually find them kind of ridiculous.
37:29 That's the nip-tuck problem.
37:31 And burnout is a little bit as well, so.
37:33 [silence]
37:35 40K is military-oriented,
37:37 but it also highlights the absolute horrors of the military-industrial complex.
37:41 But you can't have a military-industrial complex
37:43 unless it's preying off the jugular of the free market.
37:45 So I bet you it's all about just--
37:47 [silence]
37:49 It's all just about magic technology that shows up without a free market to deliver it.
37:54 I don't know.
37:56 And it's cool.
37:58 Warhammer is like the guys in the big giant suits, right?
38:01 Anyway, I don't know.
38:03 I mean, I write fiction because--
38:05 [silence]
38:09 I write fiction because I think the fiction that's out there
38:12 blows into galactic chunks.
38:16 Right?
38:17 So I very much wanted to write a science fiction novel
38:23 because I just got sick of science fiction.
38:26 So--
38:28 And I went truly--
38:31 I mean, what was great about science fiction is you can go truly wild in your imagination.
38:35 And so I did.
38:37 I mean, certainly my most imaginative work is The World of the Future.
38:40 And it also has a free market, and it explains how we got to paradise.
38:46 So anyway, I mean, whether you like it or not, I hope you do,
38:49 but you should definitely check it out.
38:51 So I have--
38:52 "Oh, you do better!"
38:53 It's like, well, I really have aimed to do that, right?
38:55 I mean, you don't have to do better to criticize stuff that's shit,
38:58 but I like to think that I have, so.
39:02 All right.
39:03 Well, listen, guys, thank you so much for dropping by.
39:05 If you have any last tips, freedomand.com/donate.
39:08 If you're listening to this later,
39:10 2001 Space Ozzities by Stanley Kubrick.
39:13 Good, bad, trash, or not?
39:15 I mean, it's trash.
39:16 Yeah, it's trash.
39:18 I mean, even they didn't know what the hell they were doing.
39:20 It's a vaguely science-y start that just turns into pure LSD,
39:26 mystical bullshit.
39:30 I mean, I remember watching that in the theater, and it's like,
39:34 "Oh, this is interesting. It's kind of science-y.
39:36 Oh, that's cool. They can walk on the ceiling.
39:38 Oh, that's interesting."
39:39 And then it's just like--
39:41 And the bit with Hal on the spaceship?
39:43 Yeah, it's very interesting and well-acted by Keir Dullea
39:45 and all of that, and then they don't know how to end it.
39:50 And so it just becomes a completely bizarre drug trip
39:58 that is meaningless and chaotic and insane.
40:02 2001, the movie, is insane.
40:06 And not like insanely great or insanely good or wild.
40:09 It's a mental institution masquerading as science fiction.
40:12 I knocked over my glass.
40:17 I'm very old.
40:18 I'm a space baby.
40:19 The fuck?
40:21 Terminator?
40:23 I mean, time travel is obviously complete nonsense,
40:26 but it's an interesting action movie.
40:28 Terminator 2 was fun and all of that.
40:31 My next book I'm going to read is going to be the future.
40:33 I've had it loaded on my Kindle for a while.
40:35 Yeah, you should. You should.
40:36 I mean, that's science fiction with a real purpose
40:39 and a very, very creative plot,
40:43 very creative scenario and plot.