Every week brings another flurry of people being censured fired or pushed to resign
for some purported instance of racism sexism or wrong think.
Harper's Magazine published a controversial letter signed by over 150 people
including Salman Rushdie, JK Rowling and Noam Chomsky,
warning that the free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society,
is daily becoming more constricted.
One of the signatories of the letter was Kmele Foster.
He's the co-founder of Free Think,
a media company that showcases social and technological innovations,
a co-host of the fifth column podcast
and an outspoken libertarian critic of Black Lives Matter, cancel culture,
and political orthodoxy.
In this wide-ranging interview Foster explains why he signed the letter on cancel culture,
why he thinks that racism is not the primary factor for most African-Americans success or failure,
and why libertarians need to be pushing individualism now more than ever.
Camille foster, thanks for talking to the reason interview with nicholas. Thank you have I mentioned i'm nick gillespie. Okay. Thank you
So I wanted to talk with you for a while about a lot of stuff and part of this is um, you are
You are a black man who does not identify as black
Um, and we're going to talk more about that in a minute
But I was thinking I guess it was late last year. I interviewed thomas chatterton williams about his fantastic
Recent book self-portrait in black and white and I was I was happy
although not surprised to see you pop up in the pages of that book is somebody um, you know,
uh chatterton williams is is I think in a bold move that both
Is prescient and kind of ignored in the current moment where he was talking about?
leaving blackness as a category behind and embracing a kind of
Liberal in the classical sense and also kind of a contemporary sense of liberal individualism
and um, you know, and that the only way to get rid of
uh, you know racial strife in a way is to deny it as a building a foundational block of
Our society and and of course you came up in that conversation where he you had an impact on him, um more recently
thomas chatterton williams put together pulled together a bunch of luminaries, like 150 people that included, uh,
everybody from jk rowling to
a man named camille foster to uh, denounce
um what you know a broadly can you know, uh construed uh, cancel culture, uh,
This letter appeared in harper's matt welch has written about it. Uh memorably at reason can you talk uh,
Camille about what what's the point of the letter and why did you sign it? Well,
First thank you again. Nick. It's always a pleasure to chat with you. Um, the this letter, uh came to me
a couple iterations before the one that actually ended up getting released and initially, um, it was a bit more explicit um in
suggesting that this was
You know a dispatch from people who identify as liberals. I I actually identify as a libertarian
So it's a bit of a difference part of your problem. That's why you're talking to me. We're going to talk about
Libertarianism, uh zooms in a little bit, but please continue
um, but
the ultimately
The reason I signed it and my suspicion
Is to the reason all of the other signatories sign it most of whom I do not know personally
Is because I have grown increasingly concerned
About the climate that exists in the united states today. Um, I perhaps have noticed it most
In media, I know a lot of people in newsrooms all over the place
and have heard a lot about the sensorious attitude and atmosphere the sense that there are all kinds of things that
Simply cannot be said anymore. Um
I hesitate to use the word totalitarian in some instances, but I don't really anymore with this. There's a somewhat
totalitarian feeling
About the desire to force people to either conform
To a particular point of view or endorse it it's not enough to to simply disagree quietly
well silence
silence equals consent or violence
right, I mean
Yeah, okay so uh, and you know one of the people who is a co-signatory
Uh was barry weiss of the new york times and we're recording this on. Tuesday. July 14th
Weiss has just who we both know. Um
Has just uh announced her resignation from the new york times opinion page saying that you know the atmosphere there is so toxic and poisonous
Uh that she's she's done. Um
That's what you're talking about, right?
Um is it's I mean, it's not we and and I think we need to be clear here because there's there's an interesting argument
Uh counter argument, uh that i'll get to in a second, but that it's not that you can't say what you want
It's that the minute you say something that kind of goes against
a
A far left really a kind of narrow consideration of what is considered. Uh
an acceptable acceptable viewpoint
You will be attacked on twitter. You will be attacked, uh, you know on the pages of the internet
the infinite pages of the internet for being racist sexist, uh
anti-trans all sorts of things
Right, so it's not
It it's not quite right to say that you can't say these things and the people who are pushing for canceled culture
Say we're you know, we're participating in free speech
all we're doing
we are we are voices that have not been heard before we were locked out in the bad old days of three tv networks and
A couple of radio, you know national radio stations and things like that
And now we have a voice and we are coming for you camille foster barry weiss
uh, you know
salman, rushdie, another signatory of the uh of the letter, uh, you know,
And jk rowling when you say things that we think are reactionary and awful. Um,
why is tell me this then because you know, I i'm on your side and
And matt welch and I have talked a lot about this at in in reason context of you know
That it's not enough to simply say, uh, you know
We believe in free speech and but we also believe that twitter youtube, uh, et cetera
They're private platforms. So they have the right to say, you know, what get get off
I just saw that rush v or you know
Uh the roosh or whatever the the pickup artist guy was bounced from youtube and was crying about it on twitter
I don't have a lot of love for him or his material
But I do believe that it's it's a bad thing when platforms start to narrowly restrict everything. We need a climate of free speech
I guess i'm asking there's a wind-up to say
What is wrong with the argument advanced by some of your critics critics of the letter who say, you know cancel culture?
Is a phantasm it doesn't exist what it's about is holding other people
accountable for their reckless stupid dangerous speech
Yeah, a little bit of housekeeping here because I think some background is necessary. I'm i'm someone who's arrived at a place where I feel
comfortable signing a letter like this somewhat reluctantly, um and and fairly recently actually, uh,
I've long thought that there have always been things that you can't say
Uh in polite society and there have always been consequences to be visited upon people who say those things
What are those things I mean what you know that i'm not trying to ask. Yeah, no in the past
it could be any number of things in the past to simply advocate for racial equality for example was
a dangerous idea to to say that, uh
It is no great peril for people to be involved in interracial relationships. Um was not was a dangerous idea
Yeah, just as a side point, uh, this that floored man
I remember uh going through this when when obama was first running for president, uh when he was born in the
Late 50s early 60s about two percent of americans according to gallup approved of interracial
uh relationships
It only passed the majority in like the mid 80s, right, you know
And now it's in the high 80s 90s and it's you know, it's it's the dominant
You know by far hegemonic that nobody bats an eye
Much less says anything publicly about any kind of interracial
Uh, you know, however you define that relationship, but within our, you know within my lifetime anyway sure, you know
This this is a big change
Yeah, yeah, and and look the fact that there are some headwinds to be fought by people. Who are
Advocating for important but unpopular ideas is not something that I am too concerned with
um, I have however arrived at a place where I am deeply concerned about the scope of things that are becoming dangerous to say
And the degree to which there is an obvious appetite for censorship and speech and thought policing
Not just on the left
But on the left and the right there is no consensus in terms of the kinds of things that each side hates necessarily
But there is a general attitude and a sensibility that says there are some things that are either too dangerous for you to hear
or too dangerous for anyone to be allowed to say what is what's
scope and category of things is
is increasing in a way that makes me very nervous and I think the the
authoritarian potential that exists in a climate like that
Especially in the midst of a pandemic when and I don't think this is crazy to suggest
It is very likely that over the course of the next decade. We'll have
more government not less and it's very likely I think that's the safest bet you could make I mean that's
That'll pay off better than a treasury bill and greater entitlement spending and entitlement programs. So we're talking about a government
That's more powerful and an atmosphere that is already inclined towards censorship
That is an incredibly dangerous combination and the right to speak freely
Is the most fundamental right that we have and when you get sort of official challenges to that, right?
You you probably have to have a culture. That's a bit pliable
and to the extent that we're already seeing things and I
I can tell you nick. I get notes from people and i'd be interested if you do as well
I get notes from people almost every day in every walk of life who are expressing a great deal of concern and consternation
About the degree to which they see things changing. They're encountering speech policing and and really kind of
Cultural programming in context that shocked them and in a in a way that doesn't allow them any opportunity to push back
What are some concern about that?
what are what are some of the uh, you know instances that exemplify this on the left and on the right for you, um, because
Again, you know it is it's technically and and meaningfully true to say that like you you can say whatever you want pretty
Much and if you can't do it on twitter you go to parlor if you can't do it on youtube
You can create your own streaming
Stuff like that, but what you know, what what are you talking about? And also?
I I I want to drill down a little bit you are not making an equivalency
Between what's going on say with donald trump. And what's going on on the left. Are you? No, but I don't
I guess we have to drill down and talk about what specific things the left or donald trump are doing that aren't equivalent. So
You know when you know when you were signing the letter and you're like okay i'm going to sign this
Note from people and you are kind of an outlier because you're a libertarian as opposed to a kind of mainstream liberal
Or or even kind of progressive. I mean somebody like salman rushdie or or jk rowling for instance and barry weiss or you know
They are kind of
You know centrist
You know centrist liberals modern contemporary liberals
you're not that but what did you have in mind when you were like I gotta I gotta sign uh this well first that
That diversity of perspective that you just underscored
Was a principle reason for me to sign the letter. I mean noam chomsky is also a signer
Disagree on virtually everything right?
But what we agree on is the importance of a culture that is generally inclined towards allowing being permissive
And giving folks an opportunity to make mistakes and the specter of there being
genuine formal challenges to speech protections
Um, I know that folks like donald trump and conservatives constantly
bang on about the the prospect of their speech being
Censored on facebook or other social media platforms and the need for laws to fix this problem
Um and in a different sort of fashion, I know that polling has consistently found that younger americans
think it is appropriate to
Uh outlaw certain kinds of speech because it might be offensive to minorities
In both instances, I think these impulses are understandable
in the sense that they're
Discernible, but they're wrong
um, and I I think that again to the extent the culture the cultural things occur first and they are
Perhaps presaging what may happen in in our political um lives then it seems very important
the supreme court reads the newspapers, right and uh, you know,
The supreme court has been phenomenal over the past 10 or 20 years on free speech
Issues, uh, but uh, it's a lagging indicator, right? So if the culture gets very, um kind of repressive suppressive
Restricted kind of constipated one assumes that you know the supreme court
And laws will follow suit. Do you believe that?
conservatives are systematically
um
uh kind of uh
That their audiences are are shriveled up on on platforms like twitter or youtube facebook
Or do you think they're kind of off in cuckoo land with that?
i'd say that places like
Twitter at least in the way that I interact with it and it's important to note that you know our experiences
on these
Platforms are very tailored to us
And I have cultivated a particular kind of experience and it leans left without a doubt
And the voices on the left are the most prominent ones in my twitter ecosystem
I do have a lot of libertarian
Friends and followers, um, and I get a lot of that as well
But the things that are most likely to be amplified are the outrages that are coming from the left
um, so
I it's hard to say, um in any sort of formal sense, but what seems important to me
Is as you mentioned
Conservatives have any number of ways to communicate with the public and the president of the united states certainly doesn't have any trouble
Telling the public what he thinks and leveraging twitter to do just that. Um,
I am
far from concerned uh about any
peril posed by twitter and
facebook generally speaking, um kind of dealing with their platform as they please uh in order to to
Sort of regulate how uh people use utilize that platform there have been some things that make me slightly nervous
I think the instinct to
have twitter and facebook serve as the
The arbiters of what is true and factual?
um
I think is a real problem and has all sorts of
uh dangers that people are probably not aware of I think that the impulse to outsource our critical thinking and our
evaluation the requirement that we evaluate
The truth and accuracy of the things that we encounter is a really bad instinct, and I know that it's hard
To figure out what's true?
That doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it. You're always responsible for that
You can't wait for someone to vlog box plain things to you
Most of the things that are important are going to take a little bit of effort on your part. They're going to be non-obvious
so, uh speaking of vox, uh, one of the other signatories and I guess this gets to uh, you know,
Kind of the climate that we're talking about here, which is short of you know
the uh, the cop showing up at your door and uh forcing you to the camps or anything like that, but
one of the
co-signatories of the letter was matt iglesias of vox
And then a colleague of his uh, who is a uh, uh a trans, uh writer
wrote, um that uh, or tweeted, uh, a part of a letter that uh was that they wrote to um,
to the vox
Bigwigs and matt is one of the iglesias is one of the co-founders of the organization
I don't know what active role he has in the management of it
Saying that um, they did not want iglesias to be fired or reprimanded in any way
But they wanted to make the management know that uh, they felt unsafe as a result of the letter
Um, is that the kind of like is that a bad thing?
um
Or is that a way of applying pressure which is broadly within the realm of using free speech
to kind of nudge and push and work the refs in your direction for
the kind of world and the kind of discourse you want or
you know and I guess in another way what what is wrong with that kind of um,
I you know I g I could call it passive aggressive
I don't know I mean but like where hey, I don't I don't want anything bad to happen to this person
But I want the world to know
That as a result of a guy I work with signing a letter in a different publication
I feel less safe at work
Yeah, well people people ought to have the ability to go to their employers and talk about the fact they feel unsafe
I think what matters here isn't so much that it happens at all. It's the scope of things for which it happens and it's
generally a culture and a climate that suggests that even trying to
Evaluate the quality of these concerns and the substance of these concerns is somehow
Problematic in and of itself and I think that that
Is ridiculous. I think it is. Obviously true that the letter that was written is not at all transphobic
one of the principal complaints that I saw targeted at the signatories is that
Somehow or another because this diverse group of people with very different ideas
All sign this document that they are not only endorsing the contents of the letter which is pretty benign, frankly. And and uh,
deliberately, so, um that they are somehow endorsing all of one another's positions, right, which is just
Absurd have on that rowling. Of course who is now probably more famous for being a turf a trans
Uh, uh a trans exclusionary radical feminist, uh, according to sam. Yes
yeah, then the harry potter books, but also george mccloskey a long-term long-time contributing editor to uh reason magazine who
Has been a contributing editor from the time. She was donald mccloskey
and who in other contexts is is held up as somebody who attacks people who question the um
the the kind of naturalness of of being trans so it's yeah, I mean we get into deep kind of
Waters pretty quickly. Do you think you know, I mean would you say that like the idea that that letter would make anybody feel unsafe?
Is I mean you you have trouble understanding?
the the
the kind of legitimacy not not the fact of that concern but like what's going on in the same way that um black
Uh staffers at the new york times said publishing tom cotton's op-ed
About right, you know bringing the troops in to police the cities for riots that have not really taken place
Or civil unrest that is abated. Um, you know a bunch of new, you know new york times
uh staffers said that black new york times writers are endangered by the publication of that I mean,
Are you right saying like these are not nutso concerns and we should be we should be pushing back against that type of
hyper, uh
exaggerated fear
I I generally yeah, I think it's appropriate to be critical of those concerns to ask people to substantiate their complaints
there's nothing uh
un
inappropriate about that
in fact
I think it is the ultimate sign of respect to say that I will treat you
As I would anyone else and I respect your right to bring these allegations. I would only ask that you substantiate them
What do you mean makes them unsafe in? What way does it make them unsafe in?
What way does this letter make you feel unsafe ultimately?
Employers present people in positions of authority have to make determinations about whether or not they'll respond to some claims
Otherwise you get into this arms race of competing concerns and in a universe where we're discovering an infinite
Number of protected classes of citizens we seem to manufacture these things quite quickly now
The the universe of things that you will not be able to say
Because protected person x has made a claim against you which you're unable to challenge
Um is just going to create a world that is not only not only boring and uninteresting
But actually kind of savage and dangerous. Yeah, but can I from a libertarian perspective, uh, you know, and this is something I I
I you know somewhat disagree with some of my colleagues that reason I don't want to overstate that or misstate it but
isn't that kind of a libertarian world where we have endlessly competing private firms and platforms and
Voluntary organizations, which might be workplaces or commun online communities where you're constantly writing your own line, you know
You're writing your own rules
And if you don't like it, well, fuck it go, you know go out on the prairie and start your own, you know
I mean but is I mean is that actually libertarian to to kind of like turn every work?
Every workplace every meeting place into this horrifying struggle session where it's it's constant purification
And if that is consistent with libertarian ideology, are are we doing something wrong? Because you said yeah that it's a boring
Uh, you know, boring and terrifying world if you can never speak because you're gonna fucking piss somebody off somewhere
right
interestingly, I don't think I arrive here because of my
Libertarian beliefs, uh, the the fundamental libertarian value. Is this belief and a right to speech
but
It is
Libertarianism isn't necessarily a philosophy from which you can derive all of your other values
And it seems to me that a culture that is generally permissive is one in which rights to free
Speech are best protected
so
That is why I place a particular value on that and think other people ought to as well
So I advocate for it, you know in much the same way. I think you own your dog
And if you want to feed him
You know shit dog food that is up to you libertarianism doesn't suggest are you working against product placement taking care of him?
Are you gonna work in a product placement now of like, you know?
How old are you camille if i'm not uh, i'm 39
Now 30 I would have got you are older than I expected. But you missed yeah
i'm, i'm in extraordinary shape you are you are you know what I want to say, perhaps not as useful as you but I
Too am youthful or so?
Called I don't get the letters of people saying I am being hounded out of work for slightly being off of center
I get uh, you know, like you're doing you're looking pretty good considering you're ancient i'm almost 20 years old
Which is a nightmare to think about uh, but I was going to say there was a period in. Um,
In sitcom, I guess the tv history where for whatever reason the networks wouldn't show actual brands and so like on all in the family
Archie bunker would drink cans of uh, yellow can that said beer on it?
Rather than like a budweiser or anything. I don't know what happened
if it was yeah fcc change or the networks realize they could do product placement or something, but
Um, so if you do want to do product placement, this is a privately owned and operated platform
Uh understood podcast so you can go ahead and we'll talk about free think media. Anyway, which yeah, so you'll you'll get to promote
Uh, you'll get to do a little bit of business later
a lot of the um
You know the a lot of the arguments over free speech and what constitutes cancer culture free speech, uh, you know censorship
Um revolve around racial grievances, uh, you know, and this is particularly true
Um in the wake of the pandemic and the george floyd killing, um, and then black lives matter protests and whatnot. Um, you know,
First off. What can I ask you? You you have a kind of idiosyncratic?
And I think complicated and interesting
I'm, not sure I buy into it completely a kind of description of race or of the fictitiousness
Of race. Can you do a summary of where you're coming from? Uh when you think about categories of blackness and whiteness?
I can try and i'd be interested in knowing where you where you depart from me
to begin
biologically and genetically
Race is not a thing
there are
populations geneticists often talk about that
And there are subpopulations etc. Cetera
but the notion of there being
races in the conventional sense the the way that we generally talk about them blackness and whiteness of
Me being half black and half white for example, or asian, whatever the hell that means
um
Yeah
an asian by the way is
The weirdest or not the weirdest thing but I mean just to underscore the the kind of social construction of these identities
You know, it used to mean something in an american context now, you know
which mostly meant people from china are from east asia and now it includes south asians, so
pakistanis and uh and indians
Are asian as well and it's kind of like that's kind of a head scratcher
if you went back to the you know the korean war period or something but
And the notion of blackness isn't much better
I mean the the abundance of genetic and cultural diversity that is subsumed
Under the label of black in in a way we and we toss it around as if it's informative
Um is is mind-boggling so I begin there?
and I begin with an understanding that blackness and whiteness are things that are born out of a historical context and these are
ideas that were designed to
separate and categorize human populations largely for the purpose of subjugation
um, and and this is where
You know chinese and indians
face the same kind of governmental rules essentially it was until relatively recently, uh,
You know after world war ii was technically illegal for these groups to really become citizens as as immigrants to america and legally gain citizenship
So yeah, so, you know as as a person
Comfortably sitting so to speak from the vantage point of 2020
It was a little more comfortable in 2019. If I if I admit it, um, but comfortably sitting from the vantage point of 2020
Um, I can say candidly that i've been able to live a privileged life in which my race has not been an obstacle
in a professional or official sense
With respect to the laws of this land
That I don't think I have any sort of obligation to identify
On the basis of what many might presume about me with respect to my identity on account of my immutable characteristics
And I don't think that it's terribly valuable for most people
Um for me to actually regard them in that way because we are at bottom all individuals
so
race being phony baloney science race having this all of this political and cultural baggage and in a
Contemporary context being largely a matter of like individual choice. The question comes to me camille
What what are you what do you choose to be? How do you self-identify?
I see no reason whatsoever to self-identify on the basis of race and a great many
shortcomings and drawbacks
associated with
Reifying and propagating the notion of racial identity and racial difference as a profound signifier
of great importance about the
Substance or quality or nature of any individual person who are your heroes though in coming to that and do you?
I mean are you saying um
you know, the the cartoon version of that would be that you have a
and listening to you i'm hearing echoes of earlier, uh thoughts by
African-american writers and sas not just thomas chatterton williams who's your contemporary but people like richard wright and to a certain degree?
james, baldwin
Richard wright, uh, you know famously moved to france, uh, the author of native son. Uh,
Because he felt freer uh in a foreign country and was an existentialist to a certain degree. But also I mean
Who who are your heroes because you're making a kind of radical act of of
self-expression and you're kind of saying no no to race, um in a way that race may not be saying no to you but so
First first question who are who are the people who helped you get to you know your articulation of of kind of this
Um, you know breathtaking really, uh individual choice of of self-composition
Well i'd say that james baldwin is certainly one of those people and james can be read in a number of different ways
which is why both um tnc um and myself, uh,
Both sort of hold him up as someone who is incredibly influential and important. Thank you being tana. Hey coats
Correct. You you you don't agree with on very many things would you that's correct. Yeah
Yeah
I would say that um and zora neale hurston is another person. Who's a real
iconoclast and has had some very important things to say about race and race pride and the degree to which these are
Limited ideas, um that are probably harmful to us. Would you say with somebody likes or neil hurston though? Uh,
You know who's best known now mostly rescued by alice walker in many ways another
A black writer who you share very little with I would suspect other than a belief in lizard illuminati
um
Fake news yeah
Zora, neale hurston. Um, she was certainly her
Her life was circumscribed by race. Don't you think in in many prophets? Yeah
She also referred to herself as a as a member of the nicaragua if i'm not mistaken, right? Um, I
I
I concur
that i've sort of taken parts of ideas from different people and
Not because I am so remarkable but i've kind of cobbled together my own philosophy around this and i've been
Delighted to discover that other people
have
come to similar conclusions really brilliant people like barbara fields at columbia university who wrote a brilliant book called racecraft, which
Definitely, uh comes at this from a different political perspective
Um, but reaches many of the same conclusions about the perils of race and the degree to which we manufacture and reinforce notions of race
um every single day, um, and you know,
I think that the general thing if one only takes one thing away from this is
That what people need to bear in mind is the degree to which race?
divides us and obscures the truth and the
The last part of the trifecta is generally ruins everything like there are lots of important conversations that get hopelessly bogged down
in all of the political and cultural
Awfulness that accompanies a conversation about race and that awfulness unfortunately isn't isn't going away in the present moment
Yeah, can I ask though, you know and this is kind of a factor and i'm gonna i'm gonna mess up his quote
But you know, how faulkner
in
One of his later works. Actually. I think it's a requiem for a nun
comes the famous line in the south, you know the past, uh,
The past isn't dead. It's not even past
Is that true about race? I mean because and I guess you know
We were talking about the racial grievances that are really um kind of energizing a lot of the conversations
About cancer culture and whatnot. Um, and you know black lives matter is is is a kind of ascendant broad-based movement
um partly because of the the police killing of george floyd but um, you know,
Can we just how I guess what i'm asking is how do we pay? Um?
Like homage, um and pay the debt of a racially
horrifying society in history
Without necessarily perpetuating it going forward in the name of expiating the the crimes of the past
Um, does that make sense or I I can rephrase that of like, you know
How how do we how do we take account of the way that racism?
You know institutional racism deja rae and de facto racism are absolutely part of american society without then
simultaneously maintaining that
In the name of of getting past it
Yeah, well, I think there's there's something i've said, uh, which maybe i'll get in trouble for saying again here
But you know racism isn't special racism isn't
Racism isn't special
Um, the the fact of the matter is to the extent racism has been a force for evil um in our society
It is often been
Weaponized by the state and by concentrations of power and the fact of the matter
Is that both in the united states and around the world power has been used to disempower?
and take advantage of
and dispossess
various minority populations forever and ever and ever and there is an
infinite laundry list of historical injuries that one could try to adjudicate
And i'm not saying that that's necessarily a bad project
But I do think that there is another project that ought to be considered and it's it's really sort of the the mlk
project this this notion of
um, uh of pursuing a situation in which we actually
Fulfill the promise of guaranteeing equal protection under the law
where we're primarily concerned with that as our most essential value, and we're not
necessarily primarily concerned about you know overturning
The meritocratic ideal that we're seeking
um and
in in favor of trying to redress all past grievances
um, so, you know, I think that there's something important about recognizing the degree to which
The contemporary. Um, uh
Disparities that we live with that we're surrounded with and that we face on a regular basis like have their historical
component
it's
Perhaps more important from my standpoint to recognize that when we actually want to address and remedy these problems
The the answers are generally not race specific
and the answers will likely not require us to do much in the way of
um sort of bringing in race or ext protracted conversations about you know,
several hundred years of oppression if the real problem just to take one example is
public schools that are failing
Many many american children of all backgrounds, even if it's predominantly failing young black students
Then the solution is what exactly can we unblock them?
Can we actually wave a wand and redress all of these historical injuries?
we can't but we can hopefully create a more innovative and dynamic school system that better serves and meets their needs and
I think those conversations actually just become fraught and a lot more difficult when the only thing that we can talk about is systemic racism
and
the
This generally sort of convoluted
conversation around like white supremacy and
Um, you know again historical grievances. I just don't think it's terribly productive
I think it generally fires people up it gets the emotions and the passions flowing
But it isn't obvious to me that it is a pathway to actually fixing these problems and I do think that it threatens that other
Project of you know equal protection under the law, which I think is not just a good goal
It's not just a sufficient goal
It is a remarkable achievement that most people throughout most of history have not had the privilege of enjoying do you think george floyd?
uh, you know and already he is kind of fading as a uh,
You know as the the focus of of of of energizing outrage and things like that
did george floyd um have equal protection under the law or or do black men in general, uh, you know,
We and we can talk about
You know that the crime rate among black men is is elevated in certain ways
Um, but then in others for instance in things like, um, you know, blacks and whites essentially use marijuana
um in in relatively similar numbers
But if you're black you're much more likely to uh be arrested and go to go to prison for using or possessing marijuana
um, so are we, you know, are we in a place where we have achieved equality under the law or
Are we 90 there?
Um, and you know when you when you see a case like george floyd, you know
It's for the since people started counting these numbers of police deaths, um, you know going back to around
2014
2013 we see about a thousand killings by police a year
Blacks are overrepresented but the majority are whites who are killed by police, but you know
Are we are we seeing a is there a radically different?
Law enforcement system for blacks versus whites that we need to attend to in the same way
That school outcomes are are so different
yeah, so to take that example specifically, I mean they're definitely
Disparate impacts uh, and it can be said that in some contexts. It is obviously true that
Black people and members of some other minority communities have worse outcomes than say their white counterparts
Um, but it's also true that this is complicated
And it's complicated by a lot of different factors people live in different places
we're actually talking about specific age groups of black people and specific genders of black people and even
um specific communities of black people when you actually parse
Um, say native born versus caribbean black populations in different parts of brooklyn you get different economic outcomes and different crime
rates and different arrest data, so these things become very very
Complicated once you take the top off and it does seem to me that with policing
police reform in police involved shootings or injuries
the key question here is are about our key questions here are about
transparency and accountability
and policy
And a lot of the conversation around well, is it racism call it racism?
I think that's that's fine. If that's the sort of thing that you're into for me
I arrive at it's complicated
And more to the point like what can we actually do to fix this to the extent? We're fixing it
we're actually fixing it for everyone and I will say about george floyd briefly and
This makes some people uncomfortable and I think it's all the more reason to say it
George floyd's death is an awful and seemingly completely avoidable and unnecessary tragedy
Um, I say that seemingly because this hasn't been adjudicated in the court of the law yet and it's not enough to watch a video
And you know make an appraisal what we want is a justice system that operates
Um for police the same way it operates for us
Like you'll get into court we'll have this out and we will address the facts and you'll be punished accordingly
um, but it should be said that people have died in similar circumstances who are not in fact black and
It's not obvious to me that we know with certainty that if george floyd were something other than black
That he might not have died in an identical fashion. And that seems to me
Incredibly important
Uh and worth keeping in mind the assumption and assertion
That race and racism are the fact motivating factor in these situations
I think can obscure the degree to which this is a real police-involved shooting and police abuses of powers
Are generally real problems that all americans ought to take very seriously
and it also um
I think blunts some of the more hysterical
Um concern that's been expressed in certain sectors by people like benjamin crump
Who's this attorney who always shows up at these events and who's written books recently about the campaign of genocide against black americans?
It's it's absurd it's hysterical
it isn't fact-based and I don't see how it does anything but animate concern, um without giving us a real, uh,
Sort of mooring in facts and reality and I think that that matters
um, the
your your um
Uh kind of antagonism towards black lives matters, can you talk about that because and and there are two
There are two broad kind of things that we might call black lives matters, right?
There's a an official group or a semi-official group. And then there is a larger, um kind of cultural current that says
Uh, that blacks have gotten a raw deal and that until their lives are equal to, you know, treated equally as whites
Um, you know, there's a problem. But where where do I mean do either of those categories of black lives matter?
um
Reach you or are they equally off base for reasons that you've discussed?
Yeah, well, I mean I think for for reasons that we've already gotten into you know
I've got manifold concerns about something like black lives matter, I think
Injecting race into certain conversations where it isn't necessarily illuminating is a problem, I think
Exaggerated over concern about a particular imagined problem, uh is something that we ought to be concerned about
um, and I think generally, you know as a political movement, uh,
What black lives matter represents as a libertarian like there are certain?
Ideals there and values that are antithetical to my own
Increasing. Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about that because uh one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you now was uh,
Joe jurgensen, who is the libertarian party?
presidential nominee, uh tweeted recently
Uh saying, you know, it's not enough to be kind of color blind. Like we need to be we must be
anti-racist in our thinking and you responded
Critically to that what was wrong with her with her sentiments that that you bristled out so much
Well, she she both made that remark about the requirement the obligation that we must be anti-racist
Um, and then she finished that tweet with hashtag black lives matter, um, and it's important to note that in 2020
the the mantra of black lives matter
Exists in a political context and is rated with connotations and much the same thing can be said about the notion of anti-racism
Um when you ask someone what anti-racism is, they may not really know what you're talking about
I imagine the average person thinks so that's a that's a pleasant idea. Of course i'm anti-racist. I don't like racism
But it matters
if you are aware of the program and for someone like ibrahim kendi, um, who wrote how to be an anti-racist or uh,
white fragility which was written by uh
The the
the notion in these books
There's all kinds of fundamental things that one must accept to believe in and to abide by the principles of anti-racism
You must believe that all
racial disparities
are a function of
uh racism and that the notion of racism must be broadened from you know,
The things that someone does that are in fact
um sort of uh
Manifesting, uh their belief that certain races are inferior to others, um to
this nebulous
Cloud of action and inaction and thought and um subconscious
thought uh
Your mere existence your actual essence as a person is your weakness or your blackness and your guilt
um or your um, sort of condition as a
perpetual
Victim are a function of your race, and these are sort of inescapable
Uh inexorable qualities of who we are and I think that's a that's a lot of if I can be frank bullshit. Yeah and
It's possible that joe was unaware of that context and I do know that she she had a subsequent
tweet hours later after a number of people got antimate animated about this, but you know while black lives matter seems
like, uh
You know a fairly benign
statement and perhaps in the minds of many people just a very
Objectively good thing. I care about racial injustice and I want to do something like it
So i'm going to put this black lives matter sign in my window
Um, but there is more to the program than that
And to the extent it it and anti-racism are part of a broader program that is hostile towards free markets and capitalism
That is hostile towards notions of individualism
And the scientific method then these are things we need to be on guard against and it is entirely possible for
libertarians to build coalitions with people they disagree with to focus on specific policy goals
And hopefully to attract people who care about those things
Especially in an environment where democrats are only paying lip service to these issues like qualified immunity
which if you read reason
You know that joe biden has said he does not plan to do anything about qualified immunity, right?
I want to I want joe to appeal to people who care about black lives matter on that basis
I do not however want joe to uh confuse or conflate
Libertarian values with what is you know a hodgepodge of philosophical bad ideas?
by
Commingling the libertarian brand with black lives matter
so
What?
You know you are
You are a rare bird for any number of reasons one of which is that you are a libertarian of african-american descent. Um
you know one of the critiques so are you for
I mean in a very real sense. Yeah. Yeah. No, you know what but not
Sociologically and I and I can point you to the update at 23andme. I had about one percent unexplained of african
North africa, that's a whole another conversation
What they think yeah what you think they're telling you?
Trust me, you know when you when you were talking about looking at?
Subpopulations in brooklyn of of blacks, you know, uh, you know who are either caribbean descent or not?
Uh, my mother's family is italian and the italians do worse than I you are caribbean descent, right? You're west indians. Yeah
jamaica, first generation first generation so and this is this is actually you know
The the original beef when dan hayes your your colleague and co-founder of pre-think media who was working at reason?
Tv at the time he was like employee number three of reason tv. Yeah
He he had met you and he said yeah, I met this fascinating guy who is black, but he doesn't identify as black
He says he's an individual. So I was like wait, let me guess he's from he's a west indian or he's caring
Because i've I had encountered that multiple times and it's kind of an interesting exceptionalism
but it is true that west indians, uh, as a as a sub group of people of americans do
phenomenally well in new york in a way that
Um, you know, if we talk about latinos or hispanics without breaking it down into cubans and puerto ricans and mexicans and dominicans
Or if we talk about whites and we don't talk about italian americans who to this day
At least in the new york area have persistently
Lower educational outcomes, uh than other other ethnic groups
Uh, yeah, I mean this is what you're getting at
Right, like the parsing can go on forever. Right like you can you can literally follow it all the way down, right?
And you should because the unit that ultimately matters is the individual
You're singing my uh tune of uh friedrich hayek who you know has his own problems
But believed in methodological individualism, and you know that in the end when you're talking about social analysis
it's the individual is the fundamental unit of analysis not the group because those are
transitory, um, but
um, so what what I was getting at though is that you are a you know,
You're a black libertarian whether you want you're perceived that way whether or not you identify it. Why has the libertarian movement?
Which you know when I think about it and I came to this
Um, you know, basically through reading reason as a high schooler
And a college student and then as a grad student and finally, you know
I finally got with the program when they hired me and started giving me a paycheck many years ago, but
um
You know, it's it seems to me that like the libertarian program of individualism
of capitalism of getting rid of regulations like occupational licensing
Getting rid of dej. Excuse me, desiree segregation
Things like school choice ending the drug war. Uh, these are the things that should appeal massively
To minority populations. However, you want to define it but the fact of the matter is is there aren't many black libertarians
Um, why do you think that is because part of you know part of what jorgensen?
And I think people who are she was quoting
jonathan blanks who was who had worked in cato who's african-american who had been a reason turn and people like radley balco also,
uh now to washington post former reason staffer who say, you know,
Liberty, the libertarian movement is pretty lilly white and uh, you know, that's a problem
right
You know, why? Why aren't there more? Why aren't there more black libertarians? I guess that's what i'm asking
well first and foremost, um, you know, I think an evaluation of a group that begins with you know an assessment of whether or not
The the phenotypic traits of that group are sufficiently representative
And then makes a determination that you know, oh, there might be a problem here
Um, or there is definitely a problem here. I don't I don't really truck with that
Um, the the reality is that libertarians have uh, generally speaking fairly low purchase across the populace
And that black voters tend to not vote for libertarians, but they also tend to not vote for republicans
Um, they tend to vote for democrats and they've done so pretty consistently for years the the uniformity there and the rigidness of that support
um is
Is an important thing to take into consideration and I don't know that it says much about the specific
challenges associated with libertarianism
um, I will say that I do think that there's a you know,
An attempt to take a bit of a shortcut to try and get to and achieve
Um sort of a massive support amongst black voters by, you know, hopping on the bandwagon
Uh, when it comes to these particular concerns about systemic racism and things like black lives matter
um and
one I don't think the project will work is the is the important thing and look we're trying the experiment now, um
I don't think it will work
I think that you can appeal to people on the basis of individualism
Um, and it certainly worked for me and I think that there is a certain amount of respect and dignity that you are
Awarding to the people you're trying to persuade when you don't presume that the only way to get through to them is by adopting
You know these these mantras that also happen to include all of this racial essentialist claptrap
Do you think any of it? I mean because we're really talking about socio. We're certainly not talking about biology
we're talking more about sociology and
historiography maybe
um, and um, you know,
uh, one of the main figures in a kind of political
Libertarianism and and most of the stuff I think we would agree. We're talking about small libertarians
We're not really I mean the libertarian party is part of that but it's a it's a subgroup of it
But it's barry goldwater, you know barry goldwater. Um,
You know, he laid down with actual
Segregationists in 1964 he had voted for every civil rights law up until he was running for president
and he voted against the civil rights act and he didn't just do that and most people
Who know him as biographer left-wing progressive rick pearlstein will say you know
He was not a racist personally
And in fact in his public policies, uh did a lot to integrate
Uh public schools in uh in arizona when he could and the air national guard
Of arizona and things like that, but he hung out with actual
Segregationists he gave them, you know aid and comfort. Um, isn't that part of the reason and a lot of libertarians you'll talk about
Oh barry goldwater is my idea of a great
Presidential candidate and he's a guy who was fucking hanging out with segregationists. Um, isn't that part of the reason why libertarians?
don't really I mean
You know
they're I mean is that it is is it like so it's just an accident that
you know within historical memory, uh, and then you have people like, uh, you know,
Uh other groups that are still around in the libertarian movement who talk about the confederacy
As something other than one of the most god-awful
Incarnations of human depravity. Um
I I think that that's that's an interesting proposition and i've certainly heard that argument leveled
Um, definitely saw blanks and um, probably radley as well. Uh,
making some pretty loud protestations that it seems very telling
That libertarians are upset about black lives matter being endorsed by the their presidential nominee
well
I don't think it's terribly telling except for what I just outlined which has nothing to do with race
And I would I would posit that
Most americans and most black americans included have no idea who barry goldwater is. I wish it were otherwise
but it is so
And the general notion that people perceive libertarians perceive of libertarians as broadly supporting the confederacy or endorsing
White nationalist sentiment. It's a smear that I encounter frequently. Um
but I would certainly suggest that most americans don't have any experience with either of those strains of
You know
retrograde libertarian
uh heresy, um, I think
That to the extent they've experienced any libertarianism in their lifetime. It's in hearing, you know, someone like um,
Ron paul and not in reading those dodgy letters, right but experiencing him on the on the presidential debates
Stage and hearing him give um, both, you know a credible
Articulation of what the ideas were in that context?
and specifically condemning things like racism and I think libertarians have a very
compelling program both in terms of its potential benefit to society at large and its respect for the individual and people um,
And it's its interest in
Dismantling regulatory regimes that make it hard for small businesses to operate which is something that lots of black people have
And I think it's fair to appeal to people on those terms and to have an expectation that you can make progress identity politics
Is is a thing and libertarians can if they are so inclined to try to play that game
Um, but it's a compromise that i'm not willing to make right
Like joe joe has long odds of making it as president of the united states. Oh, you're breaking my heart
however
The party will be around for a while and our ideas will endure and the degree to which we're interested in diluting them
And corrupting them, um or hitching them to you know, some new fad like I think that matters
and
I'm i'm concerned about that and i'm not you know
I don't want to be a puritan for the sake of puritanism and ride this horse into the ground
But I also think that the ideas are sufficiently important that someone ought to be defending them vigorously
at the margins if need be
and I think that's what the libertarian party does and look we've made progress on important issues that are core to libertarians and
I know that because you've helped me to understand that through your own work. Nick. Um
We we own a lot of social issues
Right before the
Liberals got there first for sure. Yeah for sure, you know, and it's um, and you know, it's it's
I you know, of course ronald reagan could say, you know, there's no limit to what we can do if you know
We don't care who takes credit because he got all the credit
It's like you know and i've always when people say there's no I in teamwork, but there is me
You know, so it's like I don't know but libertarians
It's it's somewhat frustrating particularly in terms of things like criminal justice reform and police reform
We've been here. Yeah been talking about these things
Yeah, and also, you know welfare if I could just go off on one of my hobby horses, you know, welfare reform I can remember
Uh driving my liberal friends insane when I would say, you know
What the state? I I don't I don't know if you might be more hardcore than me
I don't mind the state giving uh, you know
making transfer payments to people who need help
And but I said to my liberal friends like get rid of stuff like section 8 vouchers and health care
medicaid
and food stamps and just give poor people unrestricted cash grants to spend as they see fit and they would be like
You're insane. You're insane. Like how could you do that?
And now we have people talking about a guaranteed minimum income or a ubi and whatnot
Um, so yeah libertarians obviously are always and everywhere. We're clean smelling we're beautiful. We're wonderful and we're so far ahead of the
Curve that we get left behind and we end up arguing against things that we were
In favor of when nobody was in favor of them having said all of that
Let me bring it back. The phrase you're looking for is clean and articulate
That all the time yeah as uh as as paul's grandfather in a hard day's night as well
He's an old man who's very clean
uh the um,
Why do why do blacks vote so?
overwhelmingly and for the democratic party then or is that a meaningful vote to be talking about and if i'm doing my uh history
right here and i'm probably
Misremembering some things but eisenhower and nixon both in the 50s up through the 60 election
I think nixon pulled like 35 percent of the black vote or maybe even a little bit more
reagan cracked, uh in 84
Crack double digits since then, I mean trump actually has done better
than uh than mitt romney or john mccain did
um
And I think george bush as well. But uh, you know over the past 50 years, uh, you know, and certainly since the goldwater years
Where jackie robinson, you know voted for nixon. He campaigned for nixon in 1960
campaigned against him in 68
You know, why do democrats vote for?
Why do blacks vote for democrats so consistently we're in the 90?
You know 90 plus range and does that matter, um in the way that you think about politics or power in society
Um, I don't know how much it matters, uh, in terms of the way, I think about, you know politics and power. Um, I think
One it's it's safe to assume that they generally agree with them on on many things
Um, I think too it's hard for me to deny
what I observe and that
Is that amongst the various?
Racial groups that we have in america, uh, no group seems to be more
determined
uh in its effort to kind of police, um in-group
Uh behavior and norms than blacks
For me personally, I get a lot of you know, uncle tom and house nigga and all sorts of other
Nasty names because I depart from orthodoxy
You're not even in the house, right? You're not you're not wearing a bow tie
I don't want to be I don't want to play for the team. Yeah
You're not wearing a bow tie and campaigning for trump or anything or a republican. No, none of that. Yeah
Yeah, but certainly to do that, you know will get you all sorts of of nasty behavior
So, you know the fact that there's a lot of conformity there
Perhaps a little
A little unsurprising for me. Uh, and I think about folks like michael steele
Um who was the lieutenant governor of maryland before he became an msnbc contributor and I believe rnc chairman at one point in the past
Um, there's an account of him visiting like morgan state university and being pelted with oreos. It's possible that that's somewhat apocryphal
But it isn't hard for me to believe that they were somehow
They were hydrox cookies actually
completely different
Yeah
um, so um
Yeah, and we see that in um
uh chance the rapper a couple of years ago when kanye west was flirting with trumpism and said, you know,
that black should not black should not necessarily vote for democrats and
Chance the rapper a protege of uh, kanye talked about his experiences on twitter, which is where real life happens now
it's kind of strange that we have, you know this empty planet, but we're we're all crowding into twitter, but he said
You know his experience
Of growing up in chicago was that the cops were terrible and the schools were awful and the city fought nobody cared about his neighborhoods
Uh, and that he you know, that kanye was right that you know, you shouldn't vote uh democratic he ended up recanting those sentiments
Um, that's what you're talking about
Although he's recently as recently as yesterday. In fact, uh endorsed this congress
They sent kanye west's campaign. Would you vote would you vote for uh, would you vote for president? Kanye?
I i'll say this. It's a possibility. Um, but I do want to talk to you
Kim, and kanye about this run for president. I think I can be helpful. Um and
to
To the extent we can have a conversation. I not only would they win my support?
I'm i'm confident I could help you garner your addition
I don't even think you could deliver your full, uh family vote
I don't know. I mean i'd be curious. I could it depends on how you're talking about
My family my wife like my wife is going to vote for a ticket. That includes me
Um or even a white house in which i'm likely to serve as chief of staff
I mean, I think that's my minimal requirement, which I think is fairly modest and responsible
so when we talk about uh presidential race because you you have also uh on the fifth column the podcast, uh,
What is that like weekly and you have a patreon account where you're pulling in buku bucks now, so you have sometimes a special?
Not enough never in those. Yeah. No. Okay. Well now you're sounding like your hero donald trump, but like you
you flirt with
Or I mean would you say that you or did you vote for donald trump or would you vote for donald trump?
Do you think donald trump?
Gaining a second term. Would that be preferable to joe biden getting his likely only term I mean, uh,
Joe biden has william henry harrison written all over him
He's going to catch cold, you know at his inauguration or something and died 90 days later. This he is
He's a frail man, but trump versus biden. What do you see as preferable from a uh, a specifically libertarian view?
Yeah, well, you asked a particular question did I vote for donald trump? And the answer to that question is no
Um, would I vote for donald trump? Um, i'll i'll answer in this way
um
I generally don't vote and
To the extent I was to vote for someone there would have to be a pretty damn good reason
And it's hard to imagine that donald trump would be able to muster the sort of miracle
That would be required for me to go out. What would he what would be what would he have to do?
Would he have to again?
Chief of staff i'd probably have to be i'd probably have to be
Involved in a way that I couldn't be fired
In a way that I couldn't be quickly fired. Okay. Um
Because because i'd at least have an opportunity to change things
but yeah, that's probably a no but I will say, you know in terms of the
evaluating the benefits of a trump presidency versus the biden presidency and even my
somewhat notorious reputation for being someone who's willing to
articulate the perspective that donald trump is
Miserable and awful, but he's not all of the worst things that you imagine and in many respects
He like actually possesses qualities that make him about as bad as some of our other recent presidents. Um, would you people
Think that's a defense trump versus obama much of a defense. I mean would would you say I mean
Would you grant that all of the 21st century presidents have been awful so far?
Uh generally in important respects, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so
Um, what what is it about trump that you think he's not so awful and what is it about biden that word issue?
Well it when I say not so awful. It's more so not as bad as you imagine
for example
I don't think he's a covert russian agent and I don't think he is a rabid determined racist who is using appeals
to white nationalists to try and
Sustain his power and I don't believe that racial grievance is what motivates the coalition that put him in office
But again, these are these are somewhat heterodox perspectives, but I think they can be substantiated
but to the specific question of you know
Biden versus trump and what the value proposition is i'm reminded of a conversation I had with yasha monk
Who is the founder of a new publication persuasion and contributed to the atlantic and other?
august publications before that
um, but we were talking specifically about, you know, cancel culture a phrase that i'm I
Don't love I don't think it's it
Catches enough it has too much of a mean girl's feel to it. It's easily caricatured but
The the notion that the left is sort of the force
that is animating that or at least that's created a circumstance where people like yasha feel the need to
Leave where they are and start something new essentially
Generally formalize this new center that seems to be emerging
um
And yasha took great pains to express a specific concern about the threat from the populist, right?
And it just seemed a bit at odds to me to note that
We're concerned about this wave of
of um
Sort of censorship and speech policing from the left
Because they've managed to it seems capture a lot of the elite institutions and to change the atmosphere in a lot of media organizations
But then we still take great pains to talk about what is happening on the right and
You know I get that donald trump is the president of the united states but in a future where the left owns both the culture
and the presidency
That actually seems like something that might give one pause
And I don't have a great answer to that
I don't know. Um what it is. I will say that donald trump of all of his qualities
The worst quality is probably the degree to which he seems to be able to break people's brains
and the degree to which the scrambling of norms like i'd i'd hoped that having someone who was
as sort of palpably awful and kind of grotesque as donald trump in the white house might
Turn people off to like executive power and make them say, you know what? We can't trust governor
That was a wonderful 15 minutes when yeah
He was being sworn in and you saw in the new york times and elsewhere
Like hey, maybe we were went too far in glorifying executive power and privilege under obama
yeah, because now it's in the
the grubby hands of this, uh
You know reality tv show star
um, so that is a real concern one of one of your answers and to kind of move into uh concluding I would love to
Talk with you through the election
continuously so that I don't have to pay attention to it, but
alas something
the memory of real life, uh intervenes, but one of one of your answers
um both with the fifth column as well as
Uh with your the organization you form with dan hayes former reason tv
videographer, uh, uh, uh free think media one of the things you did, uh,
You know when you say like you worry about the left or anybody owning both political power and cultural power. Is that you created?
Platforms to speak. Can you talk a little bit about free think media what it is and where you're at with it now and why?
Why it's important and then I want to uh, you know, probably shoot the shit a little bit about the fifth column
Yeah, well free think
And we just go by free think now
is a media brand that is about
the things that are likely to matter a hundred years from now a century, um several centuries from now the remarkable
innovations and ideas that are likely to change the world for the better and we still believe
That this is a remarkable incredible time to be alive and that there's all sorts of amazing opportunities
And amazing people trying to achieve great things
And we want to highlight that and celebrate innovation and talk about how we fix big problems
I think there is a tendency to to see innovative new approaches and especially
amongst the mainstream media
It's regarded as serious if you are critical and perhaps even a little bit cynical of these new things
Um, but I think what are what are some of what are some of the innovation specific? Uh
You know that you talked about in your website as well as in the videos
Which I think are for me or what are most memorable about yeah
Well, we yeah, we specialize in video and I appreciate that
Um, ai I think is a great example. Um, I think in popular culture, you know,
We're all familiar with the terminator and various other dystopian films about how miserable this innovation is going to be
Um, or how potentially dangerous it is
but I think there's a phenomenal and
super compelling story to be told about all of the promise and possibility associated with ai the possibilities for
medical breakthroughs
for breakthroughs in computing technology and the many many people who are
doing their best to mitigate what many people imagine to be the risks of ai and that's a
Productive way to look at that even the the sort of problematic side of this
Incredible new technology that is coming whether we like it or not. Yeah. Yeah
well that I mean is uh
you know is it might be the ultimate uh point really is that this stuff happens whether we like it or not whether we
Sniff at it or or embrace it
um, why do you think people are so afraid of the future particularly technological innovations and and
Does that fear you know, is it related to uh what you're talking about in the culture of people wanting to kind of strangle?
um, you know different opinions and
And anything that specs of heterodoxy rather than some kind of new orthodoxy
Yeah
That's a that's a hard question I I suspect there are lots of reasons I mean, I I certainly think that with respect to
Computers and artificial intelligence one of the chief concerns there is jobs
And you know the possibility that change is going to disrupt. Um
the the situation that we're comfortable with in ways that we cannot control and do not understand and I think that
Uncertainty alone is perhaps enough to put a rather pessimistic negative gloss
On anything. So this is the idea that oh my god
Self-driving cars it means i'm not going to be a truck driver or my children
Not I mean, you know
when you were saying that I was starting to think like maybe the reason why I tend to be
And maybe maybe overly optimistic or uncritical?
interested in new innovation and whatnot is because
God, I mean my up through my grandparents all of my on the gillespie side
My father's side the guida side irish and italian
These people for thousands of years were yoked to the land because they were peasant farmers and fishermen
And it was only you know mechanized
in dust industry and stuff like that that let them leave, you know fucking farms behind and that and the the
Kind of glamour of that shift which was totally because of mechanization and industrialization
Hasn't worn off yet
Yeah
Um, what um, what about the fifth column? What do you what is success?
Uh, you guys have a wonderful podcast you have a uh, thank you
You know if you were a band it would be uh, you know
You have fans that are like fans of the velvet underground or maybe the grateful dead because you're getting bigger
I mean people who just follow you everywhere even on to patreon a gated community
That kicks people off for things that they do and say that have nothing to do with patreon, but you're willing certainly we're certainly aware
What would success uh, what is success for the fifth column
Well, I mean, I think it is. Uh, it's quite an achievement that folks actually like listening to you know
The three of us and our array of guests and I don't think you've been one yet. I have nothing to do
Well, that's well, you know, I keep hearing that but my invitation I feel like i'm not here likes, uh cinderella
You know i'm too
Busy cleaning the uh cleaning the house
Um, but uh
you know, I think the fact that we've attracted an audience at all is something i'm enormously proud of and honored by um
I think what we attempt to do is both
um
You know exercise our our own demons have a little bit of fun in the process and take a take sharp
Aim at the media and the news cycle and try to help people understand
You know how the sausage gets made why it gets made in a particular way
and
Bring people in who can help us. Uh
contextualize stories or explore the perspective that they were recently talking about and do it in a way that is
um
honest
in some cases forceful
But welcoming and I think like genuinely model
uh, what good discourse look like looks like and that doesn't mean that we don't have sharp criticisms and rebukes for people because we do
And I think that that's totally fair
Um, but it does mean that you know
if you're willing to come and have a conversation with us, like we'll have a beer with you and or or
a gin and tonic or something else even what about a
Non-alcoholic beverage i'm not sure you can have it
You can have an idea. That's fine. But you'll make fun of me for having an audience. No, well
Yes, no one is no one and nothing is safe
so you will you will be made fun of but we also make fun of each other, but I think that there's something
Something really great about being able to cultivate a platform like that where people can know they're going to get you know honest
um unvarnished opinions where we'll you know, take take some risks occasionally in terms of being honest and
forthright especially in a climate that is
become accustomed to punishing people for
Straying from uh, is it a right to use the word reservation? I think it is i'm using it anyway strain from the reservation
um and
You know
Adopting perspectives that are a bit more heterodox or even just asking questions
That are completely legitimate if generally regarded as out of bounds
so
We want to have a healthy innovative
Complicated and funny and spontaneous environment and I think that's one of the things to keep in mind about like speech protections
You know part of what you try to do with speech protections and speech codes is make the whole world safe
and rip all of the spontaneity out of it and
I don't know. It just seems like such an awful barren wasteland
I don't know why you would want to live in a place like that
You need a little bit of jostling from time to time and you need people who are willing to
To traffic in dangerous ideas and to articulate radical perspectives, which may eventually win the day, you know
So much about our current society, the things that we accept is like received wisdom, um notions of equality
That we used to seemingly universally
Celebrate are things that were promoted by radicals
And I don't want to lose those people because I don't think we've protect perfected humanity or society yet
Okay, we're going to leave it there. We have been talking with camille foster
He is the co-founder of free think media and the co-founder of the fifth column podcast
He is the future chief of staff in the second or third kanye west administration
This has been the recent interview with nick. Gillespie, please subscribe
To this podcast at apple google stitcher soundcloud spotify wherever you get your podcast or go to reason.com
Podcasts and check out not just the reason interview, but the reason roundtable in the soho forum debates. Thanks so much for listening
