Robert Greene on Looksmaxxing, Seduction & Power

Robert Greene on Looksmaxxing, Seduction & Power

Author Name:Botez Sisters Podcast

Youtube Channel Url:https://www.youtube.com/@BotezSisters

Youtube Video URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nwuZoKOfLE

# Robert Greene – Looksmaxxing, Seduction & Power: ముఖ్యమైన విషయాలు

## సెడక్షన్ అంటే ఏమిటి?

సెడక్షన్ అనేది బలవంతం కాదు – ఇది **మనోవిజ్ఞానం** (psychology). మిగతావారి డిఫెన్సెస్ తగ్గించడం, వారు మీకు open అయ్యేలా చేయడం అనేది timeless game. Tools మారతాయి (texting, social media), కానీ game అదే ఉంటుంది.

## Coquette పాత్ర & Toxic Attraction

చాలామంది toxic పార్ట్‌నర్ల వైపు ఎందుకు ఆకర్షితులవుతారంటే:

- **Love bombing చేసి తర్వాత disappear అవడం** – hot and cold behavior ఒక శక్తివంతమైన సెడక్షన్ టెక్నిక్

- **Self-esteem కనెక్షన్** – ఎవరైనా మిమ్మల్ని మరీ ఈజీగా want చేస్తే వారు "లూజర్" అనిపిస్తుంది, కానీ hard to get వ్యక్తి interesting గా అనిపిస్తారు

- **చిన్నప్పటి patterns** – distant parent వున్న పిల్లలు పెద్దయ్యాక కూడా ఆ "approval కోసం పోరాటం" ని relationships లో repeat చేస్తారు

## Influencers & Creator Seduction

Robert Greene ప్రకారం content creators కి ముఖ్యమైన warnings:

- **Audience మీకు boss** – మీకు millions of followers ఉన్నా మీరు control లో లేరు, మీ audience control లో ఉంది

- **Predictable అవ్వడం = boring అవ్వడం** – ఒకే style లో continue చేస్తే people secretly మీపై superiority feel చేస్తారు

- **"Clown route" trap** – desperate గా extreme stunts చేయడం వల్ల audience పోతుంది, గుర్తింపు పోతుంది

- **PT Barnum strategy** – always game ని change చేయడం, variety ఉండటం attention court చేస్తుంది

> **Law 6**: Attention at all costs – కానీ smart గా, desperate గా కాదు

> **Law 26**: Recreate yourself – image మార్చడం ద్వారా audience expand అవుతుంది

## Love & Commitment భయం

Robert Greene చెప్పిన key insight:

- Dating apps "infinite options" illusion కల్పిస్తాయి కానీ ఇది **vulnerability నుండి పారిపోవడానికి excuse** మాత్రమే

- నిజంగా "fall in love" చేయడం అంటే defenses వదలడం – చాలామంది ఆ pain కి భయపడతారు

- Deep connection కోసం **పూర్తిగా fall అవ్వడం** అవసరం, లేకపోతే sublime experience రాదు

## Looksmaxxing Movement గురించి

Robert Greene దీన్ని sociological shift గా చూస్తున్నారు:

- Traditionally పురుషులు looks కంటే **wealth, wit, personality** పై focus చేసేవారు

- ఇప్పుడు men insecure feel అవుతున్నారు ఎందుకంటే traditional male advantages (breadwinner role) fritter away అవుతున్నాయి

- Women academically, professionally advance అవడం వల్ల **"masculinity అంటే ఏమిటి?"** అనే confusion create అయింది

- Looksmaxxing ని Robert Greene traditionally **feminine obsession** గా చూస్తున్నారు – ఇప్పుడు దాన్ని "ultra masculine" అని call చేయడం paradoxical అని అన్నారు

## Relationship లో Sublime అనుభవం

Robert Greene కొత్త book "The Sublime" లో చెప్పే key idea: భయం లేకుండా **పూర్తిగా fall in love అవ్వడం** వల్ల రెండు మనుషుల మధ్య boundaries dissolve అవుతాయి – అది transcendental experience అవుతుంది. Gen Z, Millennials economic instability వల్ల risk-averse అయ్యారు, కానీ deeper meaning కోసం hunger మాత్రం ఎప్పటికీ పోదు.

Transcript:
(00:00) Have you heard of clavvicular? >> Yes, I have. In fact, I used to do that. I used to hit myself. Can you see the my jawline? >> I am so curious what you think of the looks maxing movement. >> This was traditionally something that would for women, right? Obsession over their look and plastic surgery. It was never something that men were ever supposed to dabble in that rire of femininity.
(00:22) But now it's considered more manly. >> It's trying to fulfill a greater purpose because people have lost meaning in their life. You might think as an influencer with so many followers that you're in control of the game, but actually your audience is in control of the game. >> No, I feel no control of the game. Play chess monkey.
(00:38) We experienced that for years. >> And what was the kind of toxic man that you were falling for? >> Showering you in love, make you feel very wanted, and then disappear. >> Andrea had so many boys interested in her, and the only ones she'd be interested in were the ones who didn't want her back. I don't know if you had a parent, a mother or father who was a little bit distant or a little bit cold.
(00:58) Is that possible? >> Our dad, he would put both of our chest rating on a graph at the different ages just to keep us competing. >> I always felt like I was never impressing him with my chess results. >> Today, we're joined by legendary author Robert Green. You might know him from 48 Laws of Power or The Art of Seduction or one of your other best-selling seven books.
(01:24) Today, we're going to sit with him and talk about some of the classics like Seduction and Power, but also what he's currently working on, The Sublime, Connecting to Something Bigger than Yourself. Robert, thank you so much for being here. >> Thank you for having me, Alexandra. My pleasure. Happy to be here. >> And Robert just asked, why did you want me on your show? Yeah.
(01:44) >> And first, I'll like to share my story how I first got introduced to your books. And I will say that I argued with your assistant a few times why I couldn't start reading The Art of the Sublime, but hopefully soon I can get that copy. But my introduction, >> what were you arguing about? >> I kept asking, "Why can't I just get a copy? I want to read.
(02:03) I know it's not out yet. I know you've been working on it for six years." >> He said he couldn't do that. >> Yeah. >> He doesn't He has He doesn't have a copy of it. >> Well, we listened to the podcast where you're talking about it instead. We've been collecting tidbits, but I'm waiting. >> I'll get you I'll get you an advanced copy.
(02:16) >> Yes, I would love that. >> The galleys, you know, like in like a couple months, the uncorrected proofs. >> That's exactly what I what's we'll add some random notes in there. >> Uh-huh. Why you Why are you interested in it? >> So, to set the landscape, I was 20. We just moved to LA, you know, living with my big sister.
(02:37) And I noticed something that everyone can probably relate to. all the types of men that I was attracted to had one pattern. They're all a little bit toxic. And then I listened to your book, The Art of Seduction, and I noticed, huh, everyone does that hot and cold. And I guess I have a type. And I was really grateful for your book.
(02:54) I relisted a couple times, and I'll say it took me a couple years to learn my lesson, but it genuinely helped me find a better partner. So, I just wanted to thank you from my love life. And then from there, we got into his other books. But that was the start. Well, I want to I want to dive a little deeper into this. So, I'm going to be interviewing you for a moment, please.
(03:11) Um, so what was the pattern? What was the kind of toxic man you were falling for? Because it was something about you. >> Yes. >> That was attracted to these types. >> Well, it was Here we go. And let me say, now I've got the best boyfriend. We got one year. Finally found a good man. But the first couple years were really rough.
(03:30) It would always be the ones who would be super showering you in love, make you feel very wanted, and then disappear and then ghost you for a week, but then they say, "Oh, no, that's not true. I did really want to see you. I just forgot to message you all week when I was in town." And I think it was always the hard to get ones that I could never get my fingers on that I wanted the most.
(03:51) And in retrospect, knowing they're always the worst. As the sister, Andrea had so many boys interested in her, and the only ones she'd be interested in were the ones who didn't want her back. >> Yeah. >> What do you think that says about her? >> Well, it's very very common dynamic. There's a little bit of of of self-esteem involved.
(04:10) If somebody really really wants you, um, it's, you know, a man like that, it seems like maybe he's a bit of a loser. Maybe he's he has no strength. he has no will. He's just kind of a a dish rag. Whereas the man who seems kind of interested but then goes hot and cold. It kind of becomes like an interesting game for you.
(04:35) You want to maybe sort of be the one that can kind of rope him in kind of thing. But it's the coette that we're talking about. That's the that's the type of seducer. >> I know I'm very u uh attracted to to coets. been the story and and you know a lot of misery involved. >> The thing is it it kind of traces to your childhood to your early childhood.
(04:57) >> I don't know if you had a parent a mother or father who was a little bit distant or a little bit cold. Is that possible? >> It wasn't cold but I always felt like I was never impressing him with my chest results. So it was more >> Oh your father. >> Yes. Yes. We we were we had a very competitive um childhood and so our dad always took us to tournaments >> and I had some good performances but I think specifically with chess there was that hate love relationship throughout the childhood.
(05:30) >> Uhhuh. >> This is my therapy session now. >> Yeah. Our our dad he would put both of our chess rating on a graph at the different ages just to keep us competing within >> together. >> Starting at what age? Well, >> 13 12. >> We started at six. >> Yeah, we started playing. >> The graph started maybe actually the graph might have been our entire life.
(05:52) >> Wow. >> It was on the fridge. >> Well, I mean, if somebody um is too easy, then you sometimes unconsciously you think something might be wrong with them, right? >> And it it has to do with sort of your self-esteem. Maybe you don't feel you're worthy of somebody like that. >> Absolutely.
(06:13) and you might be attracted to someone who's going to slightly hurt you. I know that sounds terrible. >> No, I I think at the beginning it was definitely a confidence thing. You know, you just got to LA and your validation, well, my validation came from other people, which I think in a couple years once I matured, my partner was someone who definitely showed a lot of interest from the beginning and so did I and that was very compatible.
(06:35) But I think it was more just the the cycle where you're 20 and you like to play the games and then I think you learn your lesson eventually. Um so I thought maybe it was more just an emotional intelligence type of thing for myself. But >> that you were read you you did read them is kind of you didn't see that they were like that.
(06:53) What do you mean emotional intelligence? >> Oh I think it was more of a habit that I had to grow out of that. I just think it was just like a stage >> in growing up. That's how I would judge it. But I guess there's also probably a lot of adults who are still stuck in that cycle. So I don't know if it's necessarily a maturity thing. >> And now you you you've learned your lesson.
(07:11) >> Do you think do you think these men were consciously using that strategy on you? >> I definitely think those type of men were the that's probably their power play and for sure they use it on a lot of women. So I think I don't know if they knew subconsciously what they were doing, but I also think it's probably more common in the lay scene and in the creator scene that we were in.
(07:32) >> Yeah. But there's also lots of plenty good ones and that's why I'm glad I have my partner. >> It's interesting cuz I always felt very opposite from that. I hate hot cold. I'm very much a realist which I know you are also from your books where I would assume that if somebody is being cold in any way that just means they're not interested in me.
(07:52) And for some reason if somebody shows they're slightly not interested I lose interest for them but maybe too much where like I need somebody to be very obsessed with me for me to be romantically into them. Uh-huh. But what about a man who um shows a lot of interest and then pulls back? Because that's the game and that's what that's what hooks you.
(08:12) So the man in her case, he doesn't come start off being cold >> probably. He starts off kind of lovebombing you. >> Exactly. And they disappear. >> Nope. Any pulling back is not okay with me. I know there's one archetype who gives you a lot of attention and makes you feel very special. Yeah, >> I need that 100% of the time. >> Well, that could be the rake.
(08:33) That could be the man who gives you that, but then he disappears after he leaves you after 3 or 4 months. >> Well, let's hope not, Robert. >> Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. >> And you shared that you were also attracted to the coettes in your lifeline. And obviously, you have an amazing partner. I know she even helps you edit your books, I think.
(08:52) >> Yeah. Yeah. And she's she's a filmmaker. So, >> that's so cool. Obviously, you found your partner, but how did you grow out of that habit or does it ever change? Is that always kind of part of you? >> Well, I don't know how deeply we want to go into this, but I had a lot of pain from some of these relationships and I'm I'm not uh when I when I met her, I was still in my 30s. My I was 36, 37.
(09:16) I didn't have my head together. So, um I could I could fall victim to a woman without really realizing it and then it would be too late. I was kind of naive. I still am to a degree because I'm slightly the romantic type, right? What I've learned over the years is that there has to be a kind of a deeper connection between two people.
(09:37) It can't just be physical. And that's not to say that I I don't I'm physically attracted to her. She's very beautiful. We had such similar interests um you know in in literature, in arts, in politics, etc. We we were like two pieces of puzzle that fit so perfectly together and so um it was probably mostly luck.
(10:00) I kind of I was very attracted to her and I knew she was really interesting person but she could have been toxic as well as it was just kind of the luck of the draw kind of thing. >> I relate to that. That's how very much I felt like when I found my partner. >> How long have you been together? >> One we just passed one year. >> One year. Okay.
(10:16) >> Yes. >> Yeah. I already call him my brother-in-law. I really I'm so excited. He's such a wonderful addition to the family. >> Oh, >> I'm going to keep saying that until they're actually married. >> Ah, that's very nice. >> Yeah, >> that's a great story. >> So, I have a in my Sublime book, I have a chapter called the love sublime.
(10:34) >> Oh, >> and that's actually what I'm editing right now. And so, um, the idea is that people today are so, I feel like a problem that a lot of younger people have, and I don't mean to preach here, but they're afraid of of pain. >> They're afraid of being hurt. And so, they want to be invulnerable. And so, at the slightest problem in a relationship, they're just going to give up and swipe and find somebody else.
(11:04) And in this chapter, I'm talking about the metaphor we use is falling in love. And I I like that sort of metaphor of falling. And people will kind of fall a little bit and then they oh no, no, no. I don't want to get hurt. So onto somebody else. But this what I'm writing in here is if you just keep falling and falling and falling and falling and falling falling and you lose all that defensiveness that we all have something in you know rather magical and transcendental can happen where you you kind of you can anticipate others
(11:35) thoughts where you feel like the boundaries between two people are dissolving and that's when it becomes sublime and it reaches that kind of level. I know that part of it is that people are afraid of falling in love, but do you think another part of it is that people just feel like they have so many more option nowadays from dating apps and social media where it's not just that they're afraid, but that they're too scared to commit? >> Well, how about afraid and too scared? What's the difference? >> They're afraid to commit because they
(12:06) think they can find something better versus they're afraid to commit because they think it's going to hurt. Uh-huh. I'm wondering if unconsciously there might be the same thing going on, right? So, um, yeah, I mean, you first of all, uh, there's nothing wrong if you don't want to commit. I'm not judging that. That that's perfectly fine.
(12:26) And believe me, when I was in my 20s, I was like that myself. But most a lot of people, you're looking for something that's kind of deeper than just, you know, every 3 months. that can get kind of boring after a while and it can become very unsatisfying. So deep down if you don't want that, if you're avoiding that, then I'm saying unconsciously you are afraid of commitment.
(12:51) You're not scared of that there's somebody better. It's just that you you you're worried that you're you're you're going to be hurt. If you if you let yourself fall like that, if you give up your def if you become vulnerable, then you're opening yourself to a lot of pain. And so I'm just seeing a lot of and and I'm not judging because people of the generation Z um even the millennials, you've gone through incredibly difficult times that I never had to deal with, you know, with the economy, with the pandemic.
(13:22) And so being a little risk adverse is very understandable. But I think it comes from a level of fear more than I have all of these options because at some point maybe you don't want to have like endless swiping. Maybe you do want to have some kind of commitment. You're rolling your eyes. Please argue with me. >> I'm taking it in.
(13:44) I think the two are connected, but I so often hear girlfriends who go on dates and when it doesn't work out, it goes back to, oh, this person is just afraid of commitment. And I have seen these people, you know, date like 50 women's and still not find a girlfriend, which kind of does suggest that they probably would have found the person by then, at least if you believe in the secretary problem.
(14:10) So, I hear you and I think there's some truth there, but I think it's a mix. >> A mix of what? >> Um, >> that it's not the same thing still. That having more optionality available to you than ever before does sort of change your values and what you desire. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And even things like marriage that used to be valued much more highly by society before these institutions seem to be decaying. Yeah.
(14:40) >> So I think it's a bigger paradigm shift than just fear. >> Now you know you might think you have more possibilities but back in the day before Tinder and the whole thing I had as many options as anybody else. I could go to a bar. I could meet people. You know I was pretty bold. I I was a rake right? It wasn't that diff.
(14:59) It's not like I didn't have options there. There are always hundreds and thousands of women out there. Okay. So, maybe it's a lot easier now. And that kind of changes your psychology. >> But the desire is still there for something deeper. Right underneath all of that, there's something deeper that you want. >> And if you're not feeling that, if you're avoiding that desire, then I think it's fe it comes from fear.
(15:24) It's fear of being vulnerable. Because if you're you're saying this paradigm shift with with with you know flipping through that well you're still a human being right >> and you're still afraid of something deeper happening to you. I don't know why we're disagreeing on that. >> I agree that the deeper meaning is there and that people are looking for this.
(15:48) >> I mean look men and women are different. So we can we can go there that the appeal of of the variety is is going to appeal more to men because more men are traditionally more promiscuous. >> Right? >> So there is that difference there. But a point is reached if you're a man and you've been swiping and you've had hundreds of women where you get tired of it and you want something else and you're 34 35 years old.
(16:13) >> Okay. I think that's part of how I'm thinking through it. Okay. So, I've also heard this thing that men don't settle when they find the right person. They settle when they've when they're ready and they want a wife and a family and they're ready for that next stage. >> So, why does the fear suddenly change after they've dated enough people and they start wanting a family rather than, let's say, in their 20s or early 30s? >> Well, you're in a different stage of life.
(16:43) But I I'm thinking that even nowadays that's changed a little bit where we're not seeing as many people in long-term relationships as long as many commitments >> or marriage rates are falling and so um there so I'm still saying that that there's still that fear of commitment but even for the men who who've finally decided you know you want a family you want something else maybe you get tired of it you >> you know and maybe not for all the the best reasons in the world Maybe there's financial reasons as well.
(17:14) Or maybe it's mostly the desire for settling down. I know that's what happened to me. >> I got kind of bored with it and I did want to settle down at some point. And also I found that life very chaotic and um I like kind of order. You know, I'm a Taurus and I like things to be kind of orderly so I can do my work. I know that's but so having a long-term relationship is kind of helping me that whereas in my 20s I didn't feel that way so much.
(17:44) >> So then would you say that you overcame? >> Well, you're go ahead. >> I love watching too much. No, no, please keep going. >> No, you're very you're very rational and very interesting. Go ahead. >> Okay. I think it's not that I disagree with you that fear isn't a part of the equation.
(18:01) It's more that I think there's other factors that are also involved like what you're saying now when you finally met your wife and decided to settle. Maybe part of that fear had changed but also your desires and what you wanted had changed. So that helped with deciding to pick a partner. >> What were these desires? >> Desires that you had maybe dated enough women in your 20s.
(18:23) You were ready for the next stage of your life. you saw so many people and realized that was not what actually was giving meaning to your life and that a real partner would. >> Yeah. >> And that's the same as overcoming fear to you. >> No. Um I mean I'm just saying that people nowadays because of the chaotic circumstances of the world and of their lives >> and even with all of those options of swiping, >> it's too much.
(18:51) It's like overloading your brain, >> right? And so it gives you this this sense of instability. And so it's almost easier to be doing that than to actually give the commitment because you're opening yourself up to some kind of hurt and to some pain. And people I think are trying to avoid that very much. They're trying to avoid being vulnerable and being open to pain.
(19:15) And this is an easy excuse for them. So people often talk about the internet is changing people's brains. And I don't believe that. I think it's just simply playing into the weaknesses in human nature that are already there. And so the fear of commitment that men have probably had for ages has always been there. And this just makes it easier to to kind of justify, oh, I've got all of these different options.
(19:40) I don't think I I checkmated you here on this, but that's all right. >> I I think we've at least reached a stalemate where I feel satisfied with that explanation. For the record, I feel like you guys are very much on the same page just talking about different sides of the same coin. >> I mean, I I might be missing something and you might be right and I could be wrong.
(20:00) I'm very open to that possibility, you know. I'm not always I don't have all the answers even though I wrote The Art of Seduction, but I'm not I'm not in my 20s. I'm considerably more than that, older than that. So, I don't really know the psychology particularly of young men. um from the inside. I'm looking at it from the outside, but I do have the ability to kind of put myself in other people's shoes.
(20:28) And I wasn't doing this, >> but as I said, I was a rake in my 20s. So, I kind of understand the psychology of avoiding commitment. >> So, Artist Seduction was written 25 years ago, and since then, social media has flourished and people are spending more and more of their time online. I was curious if you thought the way people seduce online is differently than the way they do in person.
(20:51) >> I'm sure it is. I mean, I don't know because I've never really done that before, but um I know that uh early on in the in the beginnings with email and etc in in the virtual world that there is this kind of there's the flirtation can be very extreme with with texting and such. And so that dynamic of creating some mystery and creating a spark and kind of intriguing the other person is still psychology.
(21:24) >> So seduction is psychology, right? >> It's not it's not force. You're not bullying somebody into a relationship. You have to make them kind of interested in you, right? You have to play you have to let get their defenses down. You have to get them to open up to you in some way.
(21:42) So the tools for that are are different. It's like the difference between, you know, technology from 200 years ago for things now, but the game is the same. It's the psychology of lowering people's defenses, making them open to you, making them less resistant. So, using uh I mean, w with these with the swiping, there's no seduction involved, right? >> It's mostly just I guess I don't really know what it is.
(22:08) So, that isn't really seduction. But when it comes to seduction, that's a timeless game. And it and I, you know, I talk in the art of seduction about language and writing and how writing can be seductive, right? And there's a kind of way of communicating that's a little bit open-ended and insinuating ideas. You can do that in email, in texting, whatever.
(22:30) It's still the same game. And let's say beyond the surface of one-on-one texting, Alex and I were having this discussion about how and I haven't come to my conclusion about how creators modern day are in a way seducing their audience because they have to employ a lot of these strategies. Do you have any takes on that as well as a public facing let's say internet persona? I don't know how much you're following creators nowadays, but that they're using the same strategies as you would in the art of seduction.
(23:01) >> Well, like what for instance? >> So, for example, in the art of seduction, you talk about how, you know, public figures or rulers, they also have their seduction types. And nowadays, you can sometimes see that with people online, like the siren can be people who are primarily leaning into their sexuality and their looks, and that's how they're gaining a following.
(23:22) Or you could have people like the ideal who yeah are more cookie cutter. Yeah. >> I think it's a question of do creators seduce their audience and if those archetypes also map on to them when they're not just seducing from one to one but one to many. >> Yes. I mean um some of the types like the charmer or the star or even the ideal lover or even the dandy.
(23:48) They're they're definitely um can be used to seduce the public. They're for social seductions. The problem with like creators and influencers and the internet and all of that. >> A loaded topic. Here we go. This is great. >> I love that one take. >> It's hard to keep it going. >> Yes. >> Right.
(24:11) Um people tire of you, right? >> Yeah. >> Um and and they want something new. And so you have an image. Let's say you you're the siren type and it's it's a woman and she's kind of projecting all of this sexual energy. It's exciting. She'll get an audience. >> She's getting a little bit older. Somebody younger different the different look comes about.
(24:30) Suddenly like a magnet. Everyone goes to this other person. So um I've had a few people celebrities um people in the music business who've asked me about this game. If if so because a lot of the art of seduction and and the 48 laws of power is about absence. It's about creating mystery. It's about disappearing. It's about stepping back.
(24:53) So people know know exactly who you are and they will ask me, "Well, Robert, you know, I have like 20 million followers on Instagram and I can't step back. If I step back, people will forget me. But at the same time, they're losing interest in me. What do I do?" And I tell them, well, you have to play the game.
(25:12) You have to step back a little bit. You have to create some mystery. You can't be so consistent where people know exactly who you are and they start getting bored with you. You have to mix things up. And I give examples of a lot of people, pop stars, etc., who know how to constantly play with their image and change it sometimes and recreate themsel and reveal other parts of their personalities. Right.
(25:33) I'd have to go more deeply into your online presence, but I imagine for you two who are very smart, Stanford grad with a do with a sister who's who's >> who can beat her in chess graduate degree. >> Very rarely, I did tell him what he um >> you know, you can be smart about this. You can be strategic and not just feel like I just go on doing this forever because people will end up tiring of of you.
(26:02) This is actually very similar to an article one of my friends wrote. He used to manage Mr. Beast, the most subscribed YouTube account. >> Who is this person? >> His name is Reed. He's the CEO of Night Media. >> Of what? >> Of night media. They're an agency. >> Somebody who contacted me. >> Oh, >> somebody talked about how they Oh, anyway, Mr. Beast.
(26:19) >> Reed Doucher. >> I don't think that's how you pronounce it. >> I pronounced his last name wrong. Reed. Well, >> it's spelled >> it's spelled like that. >> I don't think it's pronounced. >> I'm so sorry, Reed, if you're watching this, but um >> D O U C H E R >> something like that. It's German. >> Oh, darling study languages.
(26:44) >> Forgive me if you're watching this, but he wrote a good article on this on how some of the biggest streamers in the world or biggest creators would actually benefit from taking time away from the spotlight. And he's echoing completely what you said where everybody feels like they can't cuz they'll lose attention.
(27:00) Now you do see some examples of people like Kaiat was one of the most watched live streamers of all time and he recently stepped away. He's working on something new on fashion. He's not showing people look into what he's doing and it's a perfect example >> and then people will you know they may forget him a little bit but then when he comes back he's got like this core audience and he's he's up to something new.
(27:25) Well, what's he up to? He's intrigued. He's playing on human psychology. We're fast. If people are too in our faces, >> they become predictable and familiar. And secretly, we grow bored with them and secretly we feel kind of superior to them because they're predictable, right? And they're going to lose interest in you.
(27:44) But if you can mix it up, if you can keep it on your side, because you might think as a influencer with so many followers that you're in control of the game, but actually your audience is in control. no control of the game. >> Yeah. You're you're constantly at their mercy, right? They're identifi they're thinking of you in a certain way and you have to kind of um live up to what they think about you.
(28:08) You need to switch it around. You need to put the power back on your side where you're putting them on their heels. Like I don't really know Alexand Alexandra and and Andrea. >> You got it. Crushing it. >> I don't. >> He asked if we're twins. Well, you you you do look like twins. >> No, I I I agree with you, Robert. >> No, no debating for me on that one.
(28:29) >> In fact, I thought you were the younger one. No, I'm just kidding. >> No, that's usually how it goes. >> No, no, I don't take insult. Don't worry. I'm not offending. >> Okay. But you have to control your own image. That is the essence of this game. Does your audience are they controlling your image? You You're like a circus dog that must perform for them.
(28:48) Always the same act. >> Play chess monkey. We experienced that for years. Chess monkey. >> Yeah. As in whenever we do something different from chess at the start, everybody would come and chat and say, "Play chess. Play chess." So, we joke that we're chess monkeys. >> Oh, I see. >> And on the absence thing, cuz I'm more curious if it's just a cause and effect.
(29:08) For example, in our case, you have to go through stages of reinventing yourself. We play chess for so many years and we still love chess and we still do these type of events when there is a good occasion but we don't want to play chess online every day and to kind of rediscover what other things you feel like you can put your art and your work into the world you have to take time away but mainly just for like brainstorm purposes rediscovering yourself doing a bit of soularching I don't know necessarily if the absence is like a
(29:38) required part of the formula I see it more as just an aftermath of kind of going through the rebirth process. >> Well, no, you you make a really good point. I think it's pretty much the same thing. It's more like are you smart and you're strategic or are you just simply doing what what people expect of you? Are you repeating the same thing over and over? So, you don't have to necessarily step back in time, but you have to step back physically in your mind.
(30:05) >> You have to go, what is our next move? How can we keep people intrigued? How can we keep them a little bit off balance with what we do? Okay, so they they think that we're chess monkeys, that we just play chess. We're going to throw them a curveball. Now we're going to start doing something very different.
(30:20) I don't know what that would be. Please don't ask me. >> I techno DJ in Berlin. I think it's quite different. I play techno shows in Berlin, so that was my curveball. >> Okay, there you go. >> It's quite different. >> Yeah, it's not necessarily like you have to disappear for a month. I understand that.
(30:37) Some people that does work and I've advised some people who've asked me for help that that's what they should do. Sometimes you can't do that. But you have to step back yourself and not be so reacting to what other people are giving and not always trying to please other people. Sometimes I look at some of these people on online Instagram and they strike me as clowns that have to get more and more desperate to keep their audience interested.
(30:59) They have to do things that are more and more extreme. And I don't think that feels very good inside of you. feel kind of weak, like you're captive to your audience, you know? >> That actually reminds me of one of the laws of power, which is about making sure to capture attention, similar to the gist of any press is good press.
(31:19) >> Yeah. >> What was the exact phrase? >> Attention at all costs. >> Attention at all costs. Law number six. And this is something that maps out perfectly to social media, right? You sort of have to keep oneupping yourselves with these ideas. How do you balance courting attention at all costs with still, you know, maintaining your reputation and not going into this clown route? >> Well, uh, you know, the clown route, you start getting more and more desperate and people sort of feel it and then they start losing. I see that all the time.
(31:51) You know, I I'm I'm very sensitive in watching this because I don't ever myself want to turn into a clown. So stepping back and mixing up your game and becoming a DJ, a techno DJ, whatever you called it in Berlin is courting attention is courting attention at a higher level. So if you're con, this is what my thought that I've lost.
(32:13) If you're constantly hitting the same game, hitting the same buttons, doing what I call a clown root act, people will start tiring of you. You won't court as much attention, right? You have a limited audience unless you're Taylor Swift and it can be like in the billions. There's only so many people who are going to be interested in the Botees Sisters, right? It's not limitless, >> right? So, what's going to happen is they're going to start falling furthering away less and less and less and less and less. If you change it up,
(32:45) if you do something a little bit different, you can expand your audience. You can court more attention. So one of the other laws I think it's 26 is recreate yourself. >> Mhm. >> By changing up your image and I'm not saying wildly you don't become something completely different but by changing up your image you actually will court more attention.
(33:08) Right? Having constant this one note of of being a certain type of person and being very good at it people will tire of you. Right? So the the icon of courting attention of all cost is PT Barnum. Right? You know about the story about PT Barnum, right? >> I'm not familiar. >> He was this guy in the 19th century who was considered the greatest showman that ever lived.
(33:32) And he had a museum in New York with of all these oddities like really weird like a half man, half woman, you know, kind of like a freak show in a circus. But he had also these taxiderermy animals that were actually he created but they were like monsters. just freaks and oddities in this museum and people loved it and they would go and see it.
(33:54) He was the one that coined the phrase no public there publicity is bad publicity, >> right? >> And but he was always changing his game because he knew how quickly people got bored. He would do most extreme things but always different and and and variety to get get attention, right? He had this one thing which I thought, you know, the story I use in the book where um he had the museum in in New York and he would hire the worst group of of musicians he could find to set on the street and play their music and it'd be so bad people would
(34:31) rush into his museum just to escape it. >> Right. >> That's hilarious. He was always thinking on that level. How can I >> just somehow trick people into coming in and seeing my my collection? Okay. And so if you're strategic, if you're wise, if you're mixing up your game, you will end up cing much more attention.
(34:51) But if you're always one note, people will tire of you. >> So speaking of people who do these crazy stunts, I'm curious. Have you heard of clavvicular? >> Yes, I have. >> Is that why you gave In >> fact, I used to do that. I used to hit myself. Can you see the my jawline? >> It looks like you're looks maxing. This is great.
(35:11) >> Um, >> far from it. >> I am >> so curious what you think of the looks maxing movement cuz in a way it's super realistic. People are saying the more attractive you are, the better your life becomes. >> He's being more vulnerable in a sense because he's being open. I don't know if that counts as vulnerability.
(35:31) I'm curious. Robert, >> do you do you see him as someone who's kind of vulnerable? I mean, I don't >> I not vulnerable, but I'd say honest like he especially in his interviews admits to everything and explains that in his case it felt like it was just a product of society and he gets higher um results the more he does this.
(35:48) So, I think he's at least not trying to deceive people and like in his opinion he's sharing this because it thinks he's helping other men. Well, it's a little a bit odd sociologically um since I'm, as I said, I'm a little bit older. Um that this was traditionally something that would for women, right? >> Mhm. >> Obsession over their looks, >> and plastic surgery and what can I do and how could I get bigger breasts and what can blah blah blah.
(36:16) >> And it was never something that men were ever supposed to to to dabble in that rire of of femininity >> of you're not masculine, you're not a man. But now it's considered more manly. That this is kind of being ultra masculine to me seems very paradoxical because it feels more kind of like a feminine obsession.
(36:39) Like traditionally a man put all of that his energy into his work and if he made a lot of money, women would would be attracted to him in droves. Women weren't necessarily obsessed with a man's looks, >> right? if we're more into his intelligence, his wit and his and his his pocketbook to be honest with you, right? So, the strategy for a man was to maximize those things to have a good personality and to make a lot of money.
(37:10) And so, this seems like something has shifted in male psychology. And I know young men are now going through some radical shifts as they no longer feel like they're in the top of the food chain. Like men used to feel secure like, you know, I was the bread winner. I, you know, it's a level of superiority there, right? And men have always used their sense of superiority to women as a form of self-esteem.
(37:35) >> And it kind of fritters away now with women, you know, going to Stanford and becoming uh getting a PhD in international re relations. and just take it. >> Well, you know, women are doing better in universities than men are. >> They're not necessarily making as much money because things are still unequal. But it's frittering away at male psychology.
(37:58) It's making men feel insecure about who they are. And so, what is masculinity is going through a a terrible time right now. Like, what is what does it mean to be masculine? Is it the kind of Andrew Tate toxic form of masculinity? What is it? And in that insecurity, in that feeling of I don't know what it really is to be masculine, there's this kind of shift into like thinking like these these sort of more feminine forms of like maximizing your looks.
(38:30) And obviously on things like Instagram, your appearance and your looks get you a lot of followers, get you a lot of money, can be make you very successful. So I I can see where the logic comes from. And I can see how it kind of evolved that way. I don't know, and you'd be better able to answer this. I just don't know if that's changed how women look at men.
(38:53) If women are now more interested in the max looking or if they find it kind of repulsive, something I can't tell, but back in the day, a woman would find that very repulsive, right? That a man was so obsessed with his looks. >> What's your opinion on clvicular? Well, first, do you find it repulsive or attractive if a man is really into his look? Good >> question.
(39:16) Well, it was interesting when you described the paradox because and I'm looking on it on the more optimistic side because obviously there are a lot of cons that come from this and if it's coming out of insecurity and you're putting your health at risk and you're not prioritizing the right things. But in a different sense, women for so long have had to focus on their looks and do all these surgeries and like the pressure's always been there to not only have looks but also to have character and personality and perform and have talent that in some sense I'm like well
(39:47) if now also men having the same pressure on their looks maybe in some sense levels the playing field on looks so that we're being able to focus more on what actually matters which is the personality. ity now that looks for both women and men have the same standards. That was just one thought that popped in my head.
(40:07) I know realistically it's not really converting exactly like that, but maybe in the long run it would like obviously there's different stages of looks maxing. Going to the gym and caring for your health and caring how you dress I think is a great principle. obviously when people get down to the nitty-gritty and are now taking hours from being a real human being to do it, but on the surface level it was my take.
(40:34) I have a different take on looks maxing. And it was interesting because as you were giving your answer, I realized that I had completely missed the boat of looks maxing being this new thing because it's males doing it for the first time. Cuz I had thought of looks maxing as just a movement for both men and women even though clavvicular is a male and he's the face of it.
(40:57) And I sort of see this trend where both genders are becoming more similar to each other. Of course, you have guys who are looks maxing, but you also have boss babes, girl bosses, girls who are making videos about how to make as much money as possible and be independent. So when I was looking at looks maxing, what stood out to me was that the pursuit of beauty just for beauty in itself, not for necessarily attracting a mate, seems to me like it's it's trying to fulfill a greater purpose because people have lost meaning in
(41:35) their life. And if your goal is I want to become more attractive, it gives you a purpose to go towards. Wasn't the purpose to track women? >> No, actually Clavvicular talks about that because I know he was >> Didn't he say something about you know what what what women are? Anyway, I'm sorry. You know better than that.
(41:52) >> No, no, continue with what you're saying. >> I thought um he was saying that he wasn't able to attract women when he was younger >> because of of his looks and that this was this was sort of a way to to attract more attention. Am I wrong? >> Okay, maybe I missed that. And I might be wrong cuz you know more about him than I do.
(42:11) >> Well, perhaps he started with that, but what stood out to me is that he was taking something to become stronger that actually messes with his fertility and his chances of being able to pass on his genes, which is traditionally what you're trying to attract a mate for. And of course, he does bring all these women on his stream and things like that, but he has talked about it as just the pursuit of beauty for beauty in itself.
(42:35) that just seems kind of empty for to me after a while. >> I'm sorry if it's just me personally and I can only react as a as a person, >> but we're more than that. We're more, you know, it it it was the pressure on women for that I felt kind of had a very negative effect on on their psychology for hundreds and hundreds of years.
(42:58) So, it's no different with men. Mhm. >> It's still kind of an empty sort of now, you know, I I I love glamorous women and I I you know, I can see like icons like Marilyn Monroe, etc., but she was actually an incredibly talented person who was actually a very brilliant actress and was very smart and there was something kind of spiritual, I hate to say it, in her persona that was was so attractive. Mhm.
(43:25) >> There's a kind of emptiness and one-dimensionality to this. So, he's more like a performance artist than anything else, right? >> And that's his way of getting attention. And it's like my body is like an art form. And I have a friend um who's like that who who who does that kind of thing.
(43:45) He's constantly working on his looks. He's getting plastic surgery, etc. He's older. Um, but it just seems like and for him it's definitely performance art because he is an artist. But that's what this is. But it has to be part of an idea. If it's just about your looks, if it's just about the physicality of it, there's something very empty about that.
(44:08) Now, if there's something higher, if he's trying to prove a point, if he's trying to create this new kind of human being, if it's allied with a philosophy about I'm like a Frankenstein and I'm going to create some new kind of look that people, you know, for the future or I'm just playing with my body. If I could see some intelligence behind it and maybe there is because I don't I just read a few articles about him.
(44:32) Maybe he's more intelligent than I think. >> Maybe the intelligence is like self-help where do this your life will be better. But at least from what I've seen from people doing looks maxing trends on social websites, that's the main point of it. >> What? >> That your life will be better if you're more attractive. >> Right. >> And you're saying that there's much more to than that.
(44:52) That's not >> better in what way? >> People will treat you better. You're more likely to get hired at a job, etc. >> If you like punch yourself in the face and you create this like insane jawline and everything, >> same angular face. Yeah. you'll get more jobs and stuff and there's data to go behind. >> Don't shoot the messenger.
(45:09) You're giving me a look. I'm just translating. I I I don't >> I mean, if you don't >> if if you just have a good-looking face and you get hired, but you're stupid and you have no ideas and you're just empty. Um, what good will it do in the long run? You're not going to get you're not going to advance very far.
(45:25) And how long can Kicular when he's in his 40s and 50s keep doing this? >> I mean, he's doing things that are not good for his health. Yeah, >> for the purpose of looking good. Now, I think that's one of the issues I have with looks maxing. It's when people are actually doing dangerous things that might hurt their health, which is more important.
(45:43) >> Well, you know, this I don't that be that's sort of interesting to me. And maybe if that were aligned with the philosophy like I'm young, I don't care. I don't want to live until I'm 40, 50. I want to live hard right now and I want to have that's already I can see like an idea there because it's not just about, >> you know, it's like I'm willing to take some risk. I'm being dangerous.
(46:03) I'm living hard and fast and young. The James Dean kind of thing. Yeah, that all right. That intrigues me a little bit. >> Mhm. Okay. Just to play devil's advocate, if I may. What about looks maxing for women? Is that more important >> in terms of having a better life? >> Well, I I mean, I did a a a video about this.
(46:29) Um, I think it's it's um it's changing and I think um for women, you know, I mean, men are always going to judge women on looks. >> Mhm. >> You know, men and women have we're I'm afraid we're biologically different and our brains are wired differently. And I talked about in seduction. >> I don't know. I'm not a neuroscientist, but I believe that these things are kind of slightly hardwired into us.
(46:53) And men traditionally are in interested in looks. That's the first thing they're they're drawn to, right? Not necessarily a woman's brilliance or her chess mastery or whatever. They look at at the looks. They look at the physicality. They can't help it, right? And it has to do with deep biological things going on.
(47:13) Women have a different set of values, right? They want a little bit more stability and they're looking at a man's intelligence. They're looking at things that are not so obvious, his character, whether he's dependable, whether, you know, he's got some can bring you some stability, where he can have a good job, etc.
(47:36) So, for women, it's kind of a trap because, you know, you can't you can't change men's brains like that. But maybe there will be a shift going on in the next decades or so where um a woman where a man can be attracted to a woman for for other qualities besides their looks. I know for me uh they they call them sapioexual. >> Yes. >> Right.
(48:04) I know I had that weakness when I was very young because I was in elementary school and I was always attracted to girls who wore glasses. >> And that was sort of like the opposite of what you're supposed to be, >> right? >> I didn't know why until later on I figured out because it's a sign that they were sort of smarter. They were had read so many books that their eyes fell apart kind of thing.
(48:25) So I can't remember what your original question was. >> My original question was if looks maxing is important for women. I wouldn't say looks maxing. I would say just being very uh attentive to your appearance because men are if what you want is attention from men. If you want a relationship, it is important. You can't disregard that.
(48:46) But in the art of seduction, I say it's not looks massing. It's not you think it's about how big your breasts are, how big your butt is. But men also are are not just so primitive that that's the only thing that's it can also be in how you dress and how you carry yourself. The female voice is incredibly seductive, right? And it has to do with a certain kind of pitch to it and a certain annunciation and way.
(49:17) So being attentive to your voice, to your gestures, to your body language, to how you dress, to how you present yourself, to how you smell. Men are very attentive to smell, just as women are. Okay? So it's not just about looks maxing. It's about creating a seductive appearance, creating a fantasy about yourself. Cleopatra evidently because we don't have any photographs of her obviously was not the most attractive woman in the world.
(49:45) The little that we do have are are from coins of her profile and she had a bit of a nose. >> Um and in the reports from in literature of the time they would talk that she was incredibly seductive but no one ever would say that she was this incredibly beautiful woman. She just mastered, she was the first great seductress in history probably.
(50:10) She mastered male psychology and she knew how to create this theatrical presence that drove men crazy. And it's not just looks maxing. That's that's kind of the the superficiality of our times where like the art of seduction is about wearing a a tight dress and and kind of thing. It's not. It's more than that. Since we went back to the art of seduction, one thing that I thought would be interesting to ask and when I first heard this concept, it was in my favorite book.
(50:38) It's called The Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. And she talks about heard of it. >> You haven't read it? >> No, but I've heard of it. >> Okay. She talks about um seducing yourself for your own creative pursuits. So specifically, let's say when you're not very motivated that day and let's say you're a writer or you're creating music and you dress for yourself or you you put on a bit of perfume for yourself so that the art of creativity is like similar to like you tapping in with a lover and that way that's kind of how you tap into the big magic. I don't know
(51:11) if you've I don't think in the art of seduction there's too much about seduction in yourself or maybe there is. I don't know if you have any tips about like on a daily life maybe more on a personal level that doesn't have to do with male female relationships tapping into that art of seduction if that makes sense.
(51:28) >> Well, yes. I mean, uh, the sublime is about that and like kind of letting the world seduce you, but um I know I I work at home. I I don't have a job. I I sit at my computer and I'm alone a lot. I know that I like to to wear a decent nice shirt and not just sit I never sit there in my shorts and try and write because I don't doesn't feel right.
(51:52) Something doesn't feel >> professional. It doesn't make me feel good. So, you know, I'm not wearing a tie or a suit, but I like to feel like I'm, you know, I have a certain image of myself. I talked in the book mastery um because I have a chapter on creativity about um certain things that kind of get you in the mood for being creative.
(52:15) >> And um one thing I had in there was like I had examples of all of these writers and famous people who had like some very strange thing that they would smell or touch that would make them creative. >> Interesting. And it got me interested and I think the brain and the body we we tend to divide them.
(52:35) We live so much in our heads in our culture nowadays. People are so left brain oriented that they don't realize that the body and the mind are one. There's no separation from that. Right? The separation is only in our heads. We are animals. We still are attracted to smells, to sense, to looks, to sounds, to the sensual world, right? And so what I was talking about in in mastery was so the there's a famous German writer Ga from the 19th century late 18th century he had it no actually it was his friend Schiller who had a drawer full of rotten apples I believe
(53:13) it was rotten apples and the smell of it would make him so incredibly creative. He just was addicted to having these rotten apples in his drawer and the scent of it. And so when I wrote Mastery I tried that on myself. I tried having a couple of rotten apples in my drawer and I could see I could see where they could it could trigger something like that.
(53:32) >> Wow. >> So yeah, you need to like seduce yourself but through your senses, right? Because and that will make you more creative and not not so totally in your head and using your whole body and bringing your whole persona into into the act of creation. Am I answering your question? >> That was beautiful.
(53:52) I wanted you to just give us an explanation. That was great. I think it's a good time for you to maybe help define sublime so we can go into since it's very much about being in the present. >> There's several ways to discuss it. I mean the the metaphor that I've said in in many podcasts so I have to repeat myself here. >> That's okay.
(54:10) >> It's all right. Is we live within certain conventions in our lives but we're not aware of it. So if you think for example of people in the 17th century and Louis the 14th, they're wearing powdered wigs. They wear these clothes. He would wear high heels. They dressed differently. They spoke differently. Everything was formal.
(54:33) We could see through the lens of 300 years ago how conventional their world was and how weird it was. It's so different. We can't see that in our own present time. We can't realize that we're as conventional as Louis the 14th in his time. It's just different conventions. We look differently, but it's still everybody.
(54:55) We're an animal that's constantly imitating other people. We're part of a zeitgeist. We're part of a cultural moment that we can't get out of. And in any kind of culture, any kind of moment, there's a level of restriction. This is how you're supposed to behave. You know, now it's all social media. This is how you're supposed to present yourself.
(55:15) this is how you're supposed to think. And it creates patterns. And we all follow these patterns and we're not conscious of it. But it starts to feel constricted. It starts to feel like this is this all there is to my life. And you don't realize it, but you're you're feeling bored. You're feeling restless. You're feeling like there's got to be something else.
(55:37) We live in a in a universe of limitless dimensions and we're discovering all these weird things about the the universe. Our our minds, our consciousness have immense powers that other animals have other powers but they don't have it. It's insane to think about these things, but to live in these small little rabbit holes on in on the internet on social media to me is really really depressing.
(56:02) And I feel like a lot of people are literally going insane right now because of the restriction, the limited nature of their consciousness. And so the sublime, that limited nature is a circle. That circle can be a little bit larger or it could be small, but it's always a limit factor. The sublime is anything outside of that limit.
(56:25) things that you don't normally think about, patterns of behavior that you normally wouldn't do, emotions that you don't normally feel. When you go outside that circle, it creates this physical, the sublime is a physical sensation before it's a mental sensation. You have a chill. You have goosebumps. Your heart beats faster. Your eyes dilate.
(56:46) You almost feel like you want to cry. Something kind of beautiful that's happening, but you don't have the words for it. Creates this physical sensation. And then your mind starts opening up. It's an opening up process to the vastness to the actual powers of human consciousness and how limitless it is and how absolutely beautiful the world can be.
(57:09) Now I had meant to write the book 20 years ago but I got um detourred by book I did with 50 Cent >> and then mastery and then human nature. And then eight years ago, I had a stroke and I came this close to dying. You know, I was driving my car, my wife was with with me, and if she hadn't called 911 and they hadn't come right away, I'd either be dead right now or I'd have severe brain damage, which for me would be as good as being dead, right? And so suddenly, you know, the world looks a lot different now to me.
(57:44) Just the fact that I'm alive now. I I slip back. I forget that. But I keep returning to it constantly. And but you're going to die. Everybody's going to die. No one gets out of here alive. As Jim Morrison said, okay, so we're all facing the same thing. And that moment of death wakens you up to like, whoa, I haven't been seeing these things.
(58:03) I haven't been seeing the world through this lens. So that's what this book is about. One thing that really stood out to me as I was looking at your works, both everything you've done in the past and as you're going into Sublime is that it almost maps onto Maslo's hierarchy of needs. >> Like, you know, you start with security and safety and laws of power kinds of >> applies to that.
(58:27) Then you have love and belonging. So, you have seduction and then you have esteem and self-actualization, which is the 50th law, and mastery. And then lazlo actually ended up adding another level which was selfactual was transcendence which is connecting to something bigger to yourself which to me really connects to the idea of sublime.
(58:47) One thing I was thinking about as we were going into this podcast is so many people get stuck in some of the lower levels and while it's not linear you could be working on multiple things at the same time if you don't have job security or you're unable to eat that's going to take up more of your mind space.
(59:03) How do you connect this for the normal person who's living their day-to-day life and explain why it's important to get in touch with sublime? >> That's a great question. Well, the title of the book is the law of the sublime. And what is the law? I talk about a lot in this book about our anc early early ancestors, right? And if you because I'm obsessed with that.
(59:25) And if you think about it, um, before we even invented language, humans became conscious as we know it now, >> maybe 30, 40, 50,000 years ago. It's not like a a moment, >> you know, of course, it was like an evolution. But at a certain point, we start becoming conscious and animals have their own consciousness.
(59:50) But there, an animal doesn't look up at the sky and go, "Wow, look at that. What's going on? stars. How amazing as far as I know >> because that's not that's not completely true. We do know chimpanzees have a degree of awe, but it's not the same thing as a human. >> So these ancestors, they're looking around. They look at the sky. Whoa.
(1:00:07) They're looking at all the things around in the world. They're looking at these enormous animals that are prowling about. They're going, "Who created this? How did this happen?" They see plants constantly coming out of the ground. Things that we take for granted. Consciousness erupts, right? And so they're so insanely inspired by that that they create all of these rituals. They create art.
(1:00:32) They create cave paintings. They create dances. They create rituals. And yet they lived in a world where survival was incredibly harsh. A lot harsher than anything we've ever had to deal with. But the need to feel that there's something more than just eating and killing animals and sitting around a fire is deeply embedded in human nature because of the nature of our consciousness which is limitless.
(1:00:58) So to only be concerned with your daily sustenance is important. I you you know but look for me when I first wanted to write the book I was going to have all of these adventures. I was going to go to the Amazon. I was going to go swim with dolphins. I was going to do all this and I was going to have sublime and write about it.
(1:01:20) And when it came time to writing the book, I could barely walk out the front door. I was trapped in my office. And I had to decide that the sublime is in everything around me. Just looking out the window, just looking at my cats in the house, right? Just looking at the world as it is was insane. You don't need money to do that. You don't you could be flipping burgers at McDonald's and you can still look at people's faces and go how strange it is.
(1:01:45) How strange it is I'm working at this job. How weird it is to be alive to you can still walk outside the sky is still above you. You can still suddenly become people don't realize and I explain in the first chapter of the book how odd it is to even have a sun, a star where it's exactly at the right distance so that life could evolve.
(1:02:08) You don't have to have money. You don't have to have security to be able to appreciate all of those things. In fact, opening yourself up to that may make it easier to live your life, to make more money, to be more creative, to to be more open to things, right? >> Why? >> Why? >> Yeah. Why would it make your life easier in that way? I actually have my own answer to this, but I'm curious what yours is.
(1:02:31) >> Well, your answer is probably more interesting than mine, but >> I doubt that, but I'd love to hear it. >> We're physical creatures. We have consciousness and a mind, but we also have a body. And we're living so closed and constricted that when you open yourself up to these things. And so each of the chapters is a different aspect of the one was love.
(1:02:51) There's another one having to deal with animals, what I call the interspecies sublime and how we connect to animal consciousness. Another one's about the brain. Another one's about our childhood. You know, on and on and on. When you connect to these different kind of facets, it kind of opens you up mentally, physically, it makes your mind spin and you go, makes you more creative, right? And and that could have that could have a a reverberating effect on your work, on your life.
(1:03:20) But if you see yourself as only this kind of creature that needs to have a job, that needs to get a this amount of money, then that mind of yours just get kind of closes into that's who you are. But you are you're greater than that. And for thousands of years, excuse me, um we've been religious people. We had religious beliefs, right, who were very powerful that anchored us.
(1:03:48) Now they're gone for whatever reason, but the poorest people on the planet had a were the ones who were the most religious of all. Why? Because they needed it. And it doesn't that doesn't change. So hierarchy of needs is this is a the law is this is a need of yours. And if you deny it, what you're going to have is you're going to have symptoms.
(1:04:14) You're going to have loneliness. You're going to have boredom. You're going to feel lonely. you're going to feel like you have no purpose in life, etc. And you know, even if you're even if you're poor, this is going to affect you. You're going to have these symptoms. So, this is a need of yours. You know, it used to be supplied by religion.
(1:04:36) And if you go to a country like Mexico or or third world countries where people are dirt poor, they're often the most spiritual of all. >> You know, the slaves in America. I did a story about Harriet Tubman, a slave and hers. They were incredibly religious, incredibly spiritual. Why? It's not wasn't putting food on their table, but they needed it.
(1:04:56) It was part of the law that I'm talking about. So, you you had another interpretation. >> No, I a better one. >> No, I think that's really beautiful and I love that a lot. >> For me, it's very much in my own personal life. I see the sublime as a way to strangle my own ego and remind myself that there's more out there.
(1:05:15) Yeah. >> Because when I get too much in the ego, it's like who am I? What is this story I'm telling myself? What do I want? Those things seem so important that they give me anxiety. But then you can do activities like >> go in nature and get that feeling of something breathtaking >> or think about space. >> You're expressing it beautifully.
(1:05:34) I mean I I I should have said that but that's that's even better than what I was saying. That's very much true. That's very much. >> Very nice of you. I really like the way you said it. >> No, but I'm I'm not being insincere. It's very true. And that is a lot of what the book is about is you're trapped inside yourself and trapped inside your ego.
(1:05:50) >> And the need to transcend yourself. And people feel that you're part of something larger is part of this need that I'm talking about. >> And this is a little related to what I said before, but this is what I found interesting about what you're working on now. Because what you worked on before is very much answering the questions of the ego. Like I want to seduce people.
(1:06:10) I want to be powerful. I want to do these things. And now you're finally doing things that take it down. And for me, what I find fascinating is you mentioned how the ego can be both a strength and a weakness. So it feels like it's completing that because you have to both have an ego to live in this world, but you also have to take it down to not let it take control of you.
(1:06:29) >> Well, you make another good point. Um, so you know, we're social animals and we do have to make a living and we do have to live with other people. So if you only were living with the sublime, you would probably die of starvation at some point, right? And the social world can be very difficult.
(1:06:48) People are very tricky. A lot of people can be very manipulative. Okay. So the 48 laws of power wasn't written for you to go out and screw people. >> Mhm. >> I mean, some people have used it for that. And I, you know, I don't endorse that at all. Mostly, it's a manual about how to protect yourself from the [ __ ] who are all around you.
(1:07:08) And you need a degree of security in your life. It's not security that comes necessarily from money, although it's important. It's a degree of security that comes from I can control my social life. I can to some degree I can influence my children, my spouse, my colleagues, my boss. I'm not helpless in this world.
(1:07:28) If you feel completely helpless, I think it is very hard to connect to the sublime. So yes, I've evolved or but I I'm still the person who wrote the 48 Laws of Power. It's still me. Still very much I'm not denying it at all. It's a very important book because people suffer so much >> from social activity from people who who blindside them with power games and all kinds of nasty things.
(1:07:57) And nobody tells us how to deal with that in this world. No teacher, no parent, nobody says people are going to screw you when you get out of college. Here's how you have to protect yourself. I mean, some parents might, but very few. No teachers do. They don't teach it in the university. So, uh, you you can't open yourself up to the world if people are constantly attacking you and you have no power, you have no control.
(1:08:22) So, there is a slight connection between the two books. >> Okay. I have one question that I really want to ask about the ego cuz it's somewhat connected. It's related to the question of does absolute power corrupt absolutely and my curiosity was is there any example of somebody who had power who is also able to strangle their ego or maintain a good relationship with the sublime? >> Yeah.
(1:08:48) I mean, you know, you you pick out an example and people will go, "Well, well, that's that's so rare. I mean, you know, how many other people out there are like that?" But um I I make the quote I believe in power that you know the cliche is absolute power corrupts absolutely then there's a quote from Malcolm X actually in seduction that the lack of powerlessness is what corrupts even more so when people feel like they have no control over their lives they become passive aggressive they play all kinds of weird negative games on people because it's human nature we can't we
(1:09:20) can't deal with life unless we have some degree of control. So, we're going to try to get it in some way and we're going to play negative games. So, you know, you take somebody like an icon of power would be Abraham Lincoln. >> Mhm. >> Right. Probably to me our greatest president.
(1:09:38) And he was somebody who had an incredible feel for the power game, but he was and he could play hard ball. He could do things that were definitely uh a little bit underhand not underhanded but he understood how the game was played right and he became president in in perhaps the most and he was a weird person Abraham Lincoln he was very poetic he had a Edgar Allen he was very manic depressive he would go through these deep bouts of depression and he was somebody who I think was very sensitive to things like the sublime and he makes quotes about things about that
(1:10:13) But at the same time, he had to deal with the greatest crisis that we ever had in American history. He was a brilliant, brilliant strategist. You know, that's the thing. You know, I was thinking about today masculinity is all about, you know, being tough and Pete Hegth and we're going to obliterate them. We're going to kill them.
(1:10:36) Actually, real masculinity, if you want it, is being strategic, is thinking ahead. is playing chess. Not to say that you're being masculine when you play chess cuz you can play does uh so disregard that part. But it's the ability to think ahead is traditionally a very masculine virtue, >> right? And so Abraham Lincoln, he was one of these people who had a kind of a softness, a vulnerable side to him, but he was a brilliant strategist.
(1:11:06) And he saw further ahead than anyone else that you could win the civil war, but you could create such bitterness in the south that you would never be able to recover. So you have to win this war in a way where you can bring them back into the union. That was his one goal and he was stayed true to it and he ended up becoming a our greatest president.
(1:11:28) Someone like that can be very very powerful, very strategic, very brilliant but also have a soul. >> I think what you're asking me is can you still have a soul >> and be powerful? You can lose it for sure and many more examples of people losing it. >> But there are example of people who have retained their soul while being strategic and being good at the power game.
(1:11:52) What do you think separates the people who can keep it versus the ones who can't? >> I don't have all the answers. There could be a genetic component for all we know. >> Yeah. >> But beyond that, I would have to say it's the strength of your ego. So, in the loss of human nature, I have a chapter on narcissism, right? And I think narcissism is something that's slightly misunderstood.
(1:12:14) We all are self-absorbed. Every single one of us, we all are narcissists. I'm a narcissist. Both of you are narcissists. Okay. But to the degree that you can love yourself strongly enough and feel secure about yourself, you can then love other people. You can be empathetic towards them because you're not always worried what other people are thinking about you. You're not so insecure.
(1:12:36) You're not always worried about are you pleasing people? Are they are you saying the right things? You feel secure. If you feel secure, then you go out and feel love and feel empathy and help other people. It's the types who in their early childhood never felt secure, never had that kind of self-esteem. Their ego wasn't about to develop in a strong manner.
(1:13:01) They either had a parent who was too suffocating or a parent who abandoned them or was abusive. And so as they get older, the only way they could get that love and attention is by acting out and being all very dramatic and doing kind of negative and playing all of these games. And we can see that I hate to say I don't mean to bring politics in that in our president right now who's a raging narcissist.
(1:13:24) I call it a deep narcissist and they can't raise themsel up high enough to think about other people to think about what other people need and not what they need. So to answer your question, the types that have that kind of strong anchor, who don't feel so weak and jiggly inside can raise up to that level. Now an interesting example would be Winston Churchill who had a very abusive childhood. Okay.
(1:13:53) And and it's a very common trait for powerful people to have something very much lacking in their childhood. And power becomes a way of kind of uh you know compensating for that. And he he was very weak and he and and he had a lot of problems and he was constantly depressed. He called them his black periods or his blue periods.
(1:14:13) you go deeply into depression and then World War II comes out and suddenly he transforms himself and all those negative qualities change and he becomes this great leader who's able to to to take lead England in its worst moment. What was the switch there? I don't know. I I don't have the answer. But I think he had a soul. He had a sensitivity.
(1:14:35) He wasn't just all about power. He was somebody who painted, who was interested in poetry. As a kid, I always had a a conflicting relationship with religion. And this year, I'd say it's the closest I've ever been to my faith. And not saying that you have to be religious to practice gratitude.
(1:14:52) Many people can just be spiritual and meditate. But for me, very much like what brought me closer to God was just the practice of having more gratitude in my life and thanking these moments. And I was just curious to ask you um are you a religious person and what is your relationship with God? >> I was I'm born Jewish and I was went to Hebrew school and I was bar mitzvah and I learned Hebrew and everything but I never connected to the religion.
(1:15:21) It just seemed so empty to me. It just seemed like a bunch of formulas that you would go and recite. And here I was growing up in California and and hippies and all these weird things going on. just had no connection to my daily life. But I've also I think a deeply someone who's very much has spiritual needs.
(1:15:42) And so I found it when I was growing up in other things. I took drugs. I have to admit I went through a very heavy drug phase, but not drugs to just kill myself, but drugs to open my mind. LSD, mushrooms, peyote, the whole gamut, right? And that kind of fed my spiritual needs, opened myself up to something greater than just day-to-day life.
(1:16:08) And um and so I sort of I find my way like I think most people do to things that attract them. You found it to the religion probably of your of your aunt your ancestors, your parents etc. Right. and my partner actually we started praying together and that's why I was like oh it's actually just practicing gratitude is very similar to so >> it's not it's not Catholicism or anything like that >> we grew up really well I say we grew up pretty religious Greek Orthodox church orthodox >> but I always felt very separate until
(1:16:40) religion God was presented to me as just the habit of like being in the moment and being thankful for every day >> yeah so I've always been drawn to like as the ancient world and the ancient rel relationship to to to God and to and to nature. So I always found it in nature itself and animals and just the world at large.
(1:17:06) And then I've always since college I've been obsessed with with Zen Buddhism for various reasons. It has a deep attraction to how my mind works. I don't want to go into the why, but that's that's the nature of it. And about and I've always been reading about it. been 16 years ago I religiously every day I meditate for 40 minutes in the morning and I I practice that very seriously and um so that's sort of how I feed that thing and um but you know you can find it in in in many different ways organized religion I don't necessarily poo poo it or or or look down on it but
(1:17:45) it can feel kind of dead sometimes where it's not it's not about you and your relationship to the universe, your relationship to God. It's not about a personal experience. It's about some authority telling you that this is what you must say, what you must repeat, what you must believe. It doesn't feel personal and intimate anymore.
(1:18:05) A lot of organized religion to me. Now, there are charismatic forms of Christianity that are different. I understand that. And there are forms of Islam that are different. But to me, organized religion, there was always an element of it. It it doesn't have a personal connection. And I need everything to feel kind of personal to me, like it's my experience.
(1:18:28) It's not someone telling me what I'm experiencing. It's me experiencing it myself. >> And I'm curious just as someone who tries to be more disciplined with their own meditation, but obviously falling in and out of it. There's many forms of meditation. Sometimes when I'm starting it's just trying to just setting a timer for 10 minutes and be silent.
(1:18:49) Some of my friends have mantra meditation where they have one mantra that they use for for years and they do a training for that. Um what is your type of meditation like? How do you start your process? Is there anything you can share? >> Well um you know you don't want to reveal too much about it because it's kind of personal but but it's all right.
(1:19:07) Um it's >> I'm only sure what >> more it's more about emptying your mind. So the idea is that um there's a a concept in in Buddhism and Zen of enlightenment kenho or whatever in you know in in in Japanese. And so what is enlightenment? Enlightenment is this feeling this opening up to what the world is really like.
(1:19:33) And you know I can't describe it because it doesn't exist in words. That's the whole point of Zen Buddhism. You have to get outside of language. But we don't realize that we live in a constructed reality. I hate to sound like I'm something from the matrix, but the matrix >> I love that. >> Yeah, we're very into that. >> But the matrix is actually quite right.
(1:19:50) We live in a constructed world, an artificial world. It's simulated. It's a world that people have fed us and programming us. And it's a world that has to just do with things that are human, with language, with symbols, abstractions. And so this meditation is a way to get you outside of the realm of words and to experience life directly and immediately as it is.
(1:20:15) Right? So a lot of it is in the beginning in your first years, you're trying to quiet the mind so you're not always bubbling with a million different thoughts. And still to this day, I still have that problem. Right? But it's quieting that down, creating kind of a silence in the brain. And you have no idea how beautiful that could. Well, maybe you do.
(1:20:36) If you can quiet your mind, if you can shut up all that chatter yesterday, my physicality, as you can see, is limited. But I I bought a years ago, I bought a recumbent bike just after my stroke cuz I'm a exercise freak. I live in Griffith Park and the hills are pretty intense up there, right? And so I take this recumbent bike and it's much harder to ride than a normal bike because you're you're lying down and you have no power and I go up these hills where there are no cars or no people >> and I was in the middle of it and I love
(1:21:07) it cuz it's so beautiful and it's quiet and I go, "All right, I'm turning off my mind. I'm no more thinking and I'm just going to hear the sounds around me, right? And the bird songs and the traffic and the helicopters." It was like bliss and for I was only able to be in it for like 10 minutes but just getting outside and shutting all that inner chatter is blissful and so a lot of the meditation is just that and there's a name for that particular branch of Zambuism called Shikantasa which is just 40 minutes of no thinking.
(1:21:41) You have no idea how difficult that is. >> It is really difficult as someone who's tried. Yeah, >> I struggle with 10 minutes. And that's also the reason I bought a bunch of bikes. I wanted to tell Alex I bought a bunch of bikes so I could go to the nature, but we just go on our walks because unfortunately it's kind of hard to bike out of our spot in LA.
(1:21:59) But I didn't mean to cut you. >> Where do you live? >> Like in the middle of a busy city where if you bike there's no bike lanes. >> Do you have a car where you can load your bikes on? >> The Tesla doesn't have a bike rack, but now our friend has one and I bought I bought a tandem bike for my sister and I and bikes years ago.
(1:22:15) You have a tandem bike. >> Someone stole it. But I accidentally bought like two, three bikes. So that's actually been my fantasy for so so many years since we lived in LA to go bike peaceful and to just I I like walks, but something about biking just felt more in the moment. So maybe I can convince her. >> Biking is better in some ways.
(1:22:32) I wish I could. Yeah, >> but biking has its other thrills, too. >> Yeah. And you don't have to go to Griffith Park. You can put your Tesla and go to Santa Barbara. Go to Ohhigh. I love biking in Ohhigh. I could give you some roots. I've been biking all over this area for for years now. >> Yeah.
(1:22:50) Actually, we'll get those from you after. Okay. >> And my second question that I was curious because I liked how you described the sublime as something that has to happen within you and it can't be passive happening to you. >> Yes, very true. >> And you had a critique spec spec specifically, sorry, I struggle struggle sometimes with English.
(1:23:08) You had a criticism spec specifically of the Marvel movies and you were saying going to the movies. >> You you read that somewhere. You heard that >> you in your one of your podcasts. Okay. >> Well, maybe you can. No. >> So, it was practically like um going to the movies and maybe obviously another example is video games.
(1:23:25) >> It's people get a false sense of sublime. But I was curious and specifically also when you were saying, you know, art evolved as a religious thing where art initially was spiritual in a way to communicate with the gods. >> Do you think that that still applies to all art nowadays? For example, we watch Project Hail Mary and I felt after like really in a moment of sublime, it started my interest in the universe and wanting to go into space and music is another example.
(1:23:55) So, I was curious how you would say that fake sublime, does it really not apply to these forms of art in modern? >> I call it false sublime. Um, you know, uh, you bring up uh something interesting because to me, uh, those Marvelike movies, I didn't see Project Hail Mary, which I hear is very interesting.
(1:24:16) Those Marvel movies don't affect me. They they feel like I'm being played, like they're manipulating me, like they know all the little things and the sounds and the images that's going to make me have a a reaction, right? And I like to be in control. So, the sublime has to come from within. It can't be external stimulation.
(1:24:39) That external stimulation could be video games. It could be porn. It could be, you know, any kind of addiction. It can be taking drugs. It could be alcohol. You you need I call it false sublime because it is sublime. You want to be taken outside yourself but you're looking for it from outside sources but it has to come from within.
(1:24:58) It can't be passive. Your imagination has to be triggered. Has to become active. So you bring up an interesting point because this movie which may not have the same effect on me it might triggered your imagination. It made you think about things. So in that sense it wouldn't be the false sublime. The movie still might have had elements of of manipulation and the Hollywood gimmickry, but on you it had this effect.
(1:25:24) So, I wouldn't call it the false sublime. It all depends on what it does to you inside. Does it alter your conscious? Does it make you think about things? Does it open you up to different experiences? That's what separates the faults from from the real sublime. It has to come from within. Is that your question? Yeah, that that's what I was curious cuz for me I get in that state a lot more like you about art and music.
(1:25:51) Um yeah >> yeah definitely music music is the most sublime of all the art forms you know as I say the sublime is a physical thing first and foremost >> and music has the most physical effect upon us of all the art forms right there something we can't control and going back thousands of years it's been speculated and I believe very firmly that human language evolved out of music and evolved out of singing right out of chanting And you know and and like how birds sing. Okay.
(1:26:25) And so singing is part of nature. It's not just humans. And so music is the most sublime of all because it affects us physically and then it make it can make us think but it has that powerful powerful effect. in the ancient world or sometimes even now there's kind of the primitive type of music with the a certain drum beat that's like translike that's meditative that just affects our blood then there's other kinds of music that are more sort of spiritual and affect the mind more deeply but are still very physical and I I use them I have a chapter on on art
(1:27:00) the art the aesthetic sublime and I talk about movies and musicals and drama And I have a story of of a a Russian composer who's one of my favorite comp perhaps my favorite composer. And um he created the most sublime music of all because he was very mystical and he wanted to kind of create music that was like the music of the universe, music of the cosmos. He was also nuts.
(1:27:28) Okay, he was completely insane. But he his music is so weird and it's so weirdly spiritual and it's so different. But his isn't that kind of primitive sound. It's more kind of just strange. It's like, you know, and so, you know, in in I have a chapter on animals and the inter species sublime and it's I don't know why I'm breaking this up, but um so spiders have a very different much different brain.
(1:27:57) Spiders >> love spiders. So, >> I really wanted to get a tarantula and part of my fascination is they're such an alien mind. I want to understand them. >> Please do. He loves the spiders. So, please go. >> I remember I was in elementary school. We had a girl name I can still remember her name Pearl and we went to the Los Angeles Zoo and this woman took out a tarantula and everyone was going and this girl Pearl, you know, cuz girls can be a lot braver than men, some boys sometimes.
(1:28:26) She put the tarantula in her hand and the woman taught her that if you have your hand out like that, the tarantula can't bite. >> Nobody wanted to do it, but this woman did. this girl did and I never forgot any still remember her name. >> Adorable. Wow. >> Anyway, spiders live in a world of sound, right? >> They don't they don't they're almost blind, right? And then I don't really know if they have a sense of smell.
(1:28:50) I don't think so. It's all vibrations. >> I didn't know that. >> And so on a on their spiderweb, they can feel everything going on. They can pound it. They can play it like drums to create. And so these scientists created music for spiders >> that would appeal to spiders because they could hear the recordings that spiders would emit because spiders create a kind of a music.
(1:29:16) And I thought, whoa, what an interesting idea. Spider music. And they've done that for monkeys and they've done that for birds where they create music where the animals react in a certain way. So there's something about music that's different from any >> that has to be evidence of the animals having their own consciousness.
(1:29:33) Like that's the most human thing like that example that you could give for such a small bug like a spider. >> Yeah. >> Robert, thank you for being here. We have a few final rapid fire questions for you. >> I usually don't do so well at these, but I'll try my hardest. >> Who had more power, Julius Caesar or Napoleon? >> Wow, it's a good question.
(1:29:57) Um, they're both very comparable and they were and Napoleon was very interested in Caesar. In some ways, I would say Julius Caesar. Napoleon was the more brilliant war strategist, but Caesar had a sense of something larger than that. And um, he was also a brilliant strategist. And who knows what would have happened if he hadn't been assassinated.
(1:30:25) I just personally find him very interesting because he was he was somewhat of an artist when it came to power and he was very he was very sensitive. He was very much into theater and he always thought of his gestures as being very theatrical and he always played to an audience. So in some ways he's very kind of contemporary.
(1:30:44) He would have been brilliant on the internet, >> right? Um, >> he was always thinking about how his hair looked and the way his toga was and the colors that he wore and his words were always like something out of a theater out of a piece of drama. You know, the dye is cast ya. I'm not going to go into the Latin, but um, ala yakus est. Sorry.
(1:31:09) Um, it's because I studied Latin and I felt embarrassed that I couldn't remember this. Um, so he was very theatrical and he had a he had a sense of humor and he was just a very interesting human being. I don't know if he was more powerful, but Napoleon was somebody who who had a weak spot and and he he kind of lost control.
(1:31:30) The last 10 years of his life were very tragic, very difficult. Caesar never had that kind of downfall. He just simply was assassinated. Mhm. >> I mean, he was seduced by Cleopatra, but I like I'm just more attracted to to Caesar in that sense. >> That's fair. >> But it's a great question. >> Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great? >> Oh, Caesar or Alexander the Great? Um well, you know, in one sense, Alexander the Great conquered like what was considered the entire world at the time.
(1:32:05) >> Mhm. >> And he was his boldness was incredible and his courage was incredible. Caesar was also very courageous. But there's something uh I would say more powerful about Alexander the Great. And he too died at a very early age. So we don't know what would have happened to him. But if you want to talk about impact on the world stage, Alexander the Great had an incredible impact.
(1:32:32) He influenced Egypt. You know, his a his line was was what >> Cleopatra was descended from, >> right? >> But the whole idea of creating this unified empire uh I mean there were other obviously there's a Persian Empire etc. but like all of the empires, you know, into one and his boldness and his creativity and some of the greatest battles that he fought against incredible odds.
(1:33:00) >> I mean, uh I'm I'm also very much attracted to the to the myth of Alexander the Great. The further you go back in time, the more misty it becomes and the more interesting it becomes, at least for someone like me. >> So, who would be your pick? >> Alexander. And and last one on this, >> Alexandra. >> Yes. Alexander the Great or Elon Musk.
(1:33:22) >> God, obviously Alexander the Great. Um, you know, I don't deny uh his his level. He's a marketing genius and he's also, you know, a tech genius, but he's a mark I'm talking about Elon Musk, not Alexander the Great. Um he's obviously, you know, very brilliant, but it's of a different level and it's it's a little bit soulless.
(1:33:50) And the people like Caesar and Alexander don't strike me that way. Right. I mean, do you know who Alexander the Great's tutor was? I'm sure you do. >> Oh, wait. I do. Was it It was one of the ancient Greek philosophers. >> Aristotle. >> Aristotle. Right. So his tutor was Aristotle.
(1:34:12) Now I don't think Elon Musk quite had a tutor. I mean he went to Stanford I believe >> pen I think he dropped out like the first day at Stanford. >> Oh okay. So he didn't have an Aristotle. So already there he's got that mark against him. But Alexander the Great was obsessed with literature, poetry, >> his place in history.
(1:34:33) He had a soul of huge immen. He was sublime in so many ways. He wasn't perfect. He had some some definite moral deficiencies, but he's much more expan much more sublime than Elon Musk. So, I would definitely vote for Alexander the Great. >> Okay, fair. Who alive today do you think is shaping the world the most? >> It's hard to say.
(1:34:57) I think unfortunately, I mean, Donald Trump would be on there in in in a negative way. I mean, I don't mean to bring politics in this, but I he's not my he's not my cup of tea. AI is shaping the world today is going to like revolutionize this world. A lot of it possibly very negative. Some of it good. I don't deny.
(1:35:21) But the people who are developing AI are the true lords of our future. Whether you want to call it Sam Alman, whether you want to call it Amodo Dario Amoday of of Anthropic >> or any of the others, there's probably people in China who are even more brilliant at it because the Chinese are much more clever than we are.
(1:35:40) They know the Chinese have a a knowledge of economy and scale. That goes back to people like Sunsu and strategy where you just can't waste money and waste manpower. You have to economize. You have to make things lean and and you know like that. And because they're a dictatorship, they can do that. But they're creating AI on a much easier scale where you don't need these immense data centers, right, and all this energy. They're more clever about it.
(1:36:08) But these are the lords of our future. And they're the ones that are going to be determining our so much of how we think. You know, young people are now being nursed, suckled on AI. It's altering their thought patterns. It's altering the future of humanity. These people have a powers that nobody in the past ever had, right? And they're definitely the lords of our future.
(1:36:34) For better or for worse. >> I didn't get to ask you which seducer type you think we fell into. We took a quiz. >> I would say Andrea's kind of the natural. >> Um, >> is that the one I got? I'm trying to >> You got the ideal. >> I am. Oh, well I don't know you well enough. >> It was just a five minute internet quiz.
(1:36:54) >> Oh, >> so you might know better. >> I think I would. >> The first answer I got was the crab and then I realized >> the crab. There is no crab. >> I know. She sent me a link and I thought I said I don't think this is Robert's D. >> No, no, she clicked a different link. >> That's astrology. >> I don't know.
(1:37:09) It started with a link on your test, but it took me to a crab. >> Okay. Yeah, I would say you're the natural. You're not You're certainly not the coette and you're not >> certainly not. >> You could be the charmer, but yeah, I would say you're the natural. >> What are the traits of the natural? >> It's kind of a slight innocence.
(1:37:28) It's like the child is still alive. >> There's something still childlike about you that kind of uh is very appealing. >> Like Aubrey Heburn. >> Yeah. >> Well, I'll take it. And my sister, what would you guess her? You know, my first answer, which might be the wrong one, was you might be the dandy. >> Remind me the dandy.
(1:37:50) >> That's the one who kind of mixed which gender they look like. >> Oh, look. She has energy. >> No, that makes a lot of I mean, Alex does have masculine. >> Well, well, it's not >> better. >> It's not like you're transgender or anything. >> Of course. It's like Marina Dietrich >> in the 30s.
(1:38:10) Men were going wild over and she did a famous scene in a movie where she dressed in a tuxedo and it was so transgressive people going crazy over her. >> But it's a woman or a a man has a touch of the feminine to him and and the woman has a touch of the masculine and it's not like they're gay, although they can be.
(1:38:31) It's just that it's very very appealing to men and women to sense that slight. It's not It's more like you're 80% female and 20% masculine or 80% masculine and 20% female. That touch of the feminine or the masculine makes you very intriguing and is can be very very sexually attractive to people. >> That was a pretty good read. >> Yeah, that's really interesting.
(1:38:54) >> That's quite well done. It's almost like you drew wrote a book about it. Almost like you're an expert on this. >> Yeah. >> Much better than the crab. >> It's funny cuz on the quiz we both got the same answer. >> You got a crab, too. >> Yeah. >> Um I think we both got the ideal. >> Yeah. >> The ideal lover. >> But it was honestly a 5minute internet quiz that wasn't deep enough.
(1:39:16) >> Yeah. >> The ideal lover is >> uh somebody who just is extremely romantic and knows how to create fantasies for other people. Isn't it also somebody who mirrors and >> is very empathetic? >> Yes, that's definitely an element. Although all of these types have that kind of >> uh psychology, the charmer has that as well.
(1:39:39) >> Yeah, >> they're butchering your quiz. >> They did butcher it. >> Yeah. No, the ideal lover is he's appealing to your ideal. >> So, the word is literally there. you know, he know he senses or she the ideal that you want in the other person and you become that that person for them. >> So, it has a little bit of uh where you're somebody who's an almost an actor.
(1:40:04) You can shift your appearance to the person. You become the ideal of the person that you're dealing with. >> That makes sense. I think it chose that because a lot of the questions were about what do you want and a lot I think we both probably clicked emotional connection on everything. So, it probably took emotions to be the ideal level. Sounds like a pretty lame quiz.
(1:40:20) >> We need to find a better quiz. >> Robert, thank you so much for chatting with us today. We really appreciate it. >> My pleasure. Alexandra and Andrea, >> thanks for coming on. >> I still remember you at the end of the day. >> You did amazing. Thank you so much.