🧭 Analysis of this transcript → Pro-China Narrative Techniques - Eric Hovagim Analysis
Technique-level breakdown: asymmetric comparison (China’s best vs. America’s worst), the “go touch grass” visibility fallacy, the unfalsifiability seal, motive-delegitimization (NED/USAID/CIA), surveillance minimized via incompetence framing, the explicit punching-up standard, the Yakub endorsement, and the Castro allusion — plus the seven points where he’s genuinely correct, and the network context (Code Pink → Singham).
Content
Eric Hovagim is an American content creator and political commentator who moved to China after growing increasingly disillusioned with the state of America.
He has worked in politics in Arizona and New York City, producing videos connected to Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 NYC mayoral campaign, and now produces content for political commentator Hasan Piker.
In this episode, we talk about why Eric came to China, what he hopes to learn here, and why the American Dream feels broken to him. We get into China’s development model, forgotten American towns, political disillusionment, socialism, policing, surveillance, societal fear, AI, and whether living in China can change how Americans understand both China and America.
It’s a serious conversation with plenty of absurd detours, including Hyperloop regret, airport police stories, AI slop, American capitalism, and a brief moment where we may have offended all French people
The Honest Drink #190 - Eric Hovagim: The New American Dream
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Hosted by two American-raised friends living in China, The Honest Drink blends humor-infused candor with deep, topical explorations of current events, culture, society, self-help, and the madness of modern behavior. Join us as we pour the drinks and our guests pour out the truth.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro
01:19 Why Eric moved to China
07:00 Rethinking the China narrative
08:57 Small Chinese cities vs America
11:46 Forgotten American towns
15:21 The Hyperloop problem
18:14 Did Eric leave America?
19:55 Who is more dangerous than Trump?
27:52 Young Americans losing faith
36:46 Living in China changes you
42:21 Eric’s China wake-up calls
49:50 Surveillance and safety in China
01:05:49 Talking positively about China
01:09:02 AI and trust collapse
01:20:54 Socialism and the American Dream
Transcript
Intro
0:00 · The next day, the police came to our door in the hotel we were staying at. I was like, “Oh my god, we’re going to prison.” “Oh, okay. Easy, bro. You have the face surveillance technology. Use the use the fucking fingerprint scanner or whatever you got going on in this shit.” Yeah, no problem. And we sit there and we literally go through it like frame by frame. He’s like, “Which camera do you think it was? Do you think it was one over here?” I’m like, “I thought you were supposed to know this.
0:23 · I thought this is a surveillance state.
0:25 · Believe in the social credit score?” No, not before coming here. But I now that I’m here, I’m like, I wish they had it.
0:30 · Like you want, dude. Those those people on e- scooters running down the sidewalk almost driving me over. I’m like, they want them to be penalized. They need it. [laughter] So now only you got like cashy like shit like whatever whatever those like poly market shit, you know, like shit of the world companies.
0:45 · What’s more dystopian than that?
0:47 · They see videos every day on Twitter of little kids being bombed and they’re thinking, “What the fuck are we doing?
0:53 · What if we just didn’t fucking bomb them? And what if we just reduce my fucking rent? I think it’s become much more permissible, [music] at least in America, to describe yourself as a socialist defense contracting company like Lockheed.
1:05 · Friend of the show, Rathon.
1:07 · Friend of the show. [laughter] Sponsor of the show. We offended a lot of people on this, by the way.
1:10 · Let’s go.
1:13 · [music] [music] I mean, look, you you seem to be in a very Chinese time in your life.
Why Eric moved to China
1:22 · [laughter] I don’t What are you What are you talking about?
1:25 · Yeah. Where is this going?
1:26 · I want to see my Chinese rings that I’m wearing. [laughter] I mean, you’re all get up. The fact that you moved here, right?
1:32 · Um, yeah. So, you’re in early Chinese time in your life, I guess. Why, I guess, is the question. Like, why did you move from the United States to China? Um, what was it that you were seeing happening back home? Why why this move, I guess?
1:46 · Yeah, I think uh it’s a couple reasons. The the easy answer is my girlfriend wanted to come to China and uh study at Fudon University, get a master’s degree at Fudon, learn more about international public policy from the Chinese perspective. And I think that’s like the very easy like, oh well, my girlfriend dragged me here. But I think the real answer at least in in my my heart was
2:08 · living in the United States, you every 2 to four years are in this constant battle of okay, which annoying centrist Democrat do we have to support against the guy who wants to do unlimited genocide on the world? And like the centrist Democrat’s like, I only want 99% of genocide on on the rest of the world. And it’s like you have to do this silly little dance back and forth and then every so often it’ll be like a glimmer of hope and it’ll be like, you know, maybe you’ll have a Zoron mom Donnie come into action and and give people a glimmer of hope.
2:36 · But even then Zoron gets into office and as a consequence of the systems that are in place. He still has to keep on the billionaire Zionist police commissioner Jessica Tish or else the entire police force is going to turn their backs on him like what happened with David Dinkens, like what happened with Bill Delasio. And it feels so frustrating, so claustrophobic.
2:59 · And at the same time, I go back to my my home state of Arizona. I go to a movie theater and I hear a loud bang outside and I’m afraid that there’s like a mass shooter in the theater as well. Like there are so many like little material issues that just feel unsolved and that you cannot trust your neighbor.
3:13 · Politically there’s no meaningful progress even though every so often like a good Democrat gets into power and starts to push back against the establishment. And I before working in politics like this, I was working at a think tank called New Consensus that was writing climate policy. It was doing it wrote the Green New Deal and it was trying to write the successor to the Green New Deal called the mission for America.
3:35 · And it was laser focused on figuring out what sort of industrial policy America could implement so that it could be a leader not just in in generic manufacturing but manufacturing like the highest quality goods, the semiconductors, the solar panels, the wind turbines, the hydrogen fuel cells, like the highest level of manufacturing we have in this current day. And during that time, the folks running the think tank were really laser focused on studying the production model of the South Korean dictator Park Chungi.
4:06 · And you know, he he had his issues. Um he and I’m not I will never defend him because he had a lot of issues, but he did a really good job getting the sort of like effectively the oligarchs together, the capitalist class of South Korea and saying, “Listen, right now you’re a billionaire as a consequence of doing speculative trading. You are are trading on like rice futures or something.
4:32 · I’m either going to throw you in prison or you can start making toasters. you can start making like I don’t know radios, something a little bit higher than just speculative assets, speculative trading. And they were like, okay, well, I don’t want to go to prison. I guess I have to do that. And they started doing this over and over again until they got higher and higher and higher up the supply chain and eventually started making some of at the time the highest quality goods in the world with the Samsungs, the LGs, the Hyundai’s. They started making these really high quality products.
5:01 · At the think tank, we studied this model relentlessly.
5:07 · However, once you dig down a little bit into it, you realize a lot of the capital that was invested into these companies was simply from the United States. And the US wanted to make sure that South Korea could develop as a counterpart to rival the North, which they just split up during the Korean War. And so they injected literally like billions, tens of billions of dollars into this effectively a breakaway state to ensure these industries popped off, that they did the this this manufacturing miracle. And I thought this was really cool. This was neat, but like you can’t always do that.
5:38 · So it it really it inspired my curiosity to look beyond the the four walls of uh the South Korean state and look a little bit west to what China had done and try to learn more about how China went from I mean a lot of like rural villages, an incredible amount of poverty and through the miracles of the the revolution through of course a horrible civil war and eventually into like the reform and opening up era. how it managed to play
6:05 · within the confines of this really violent system the United States had implemented into the global order of the world and figure out how they could gain that and make sure that they could not only like access like global capital markets but also make their own residents so much richer. And we like to say it’s like a miracle that they pulled 800 million people out of poverty and hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty. But like you know it was planned. That was all 100% planned.
6:31 · That that took decades and decades of of coordination between all of these these various entities. And I wanted to come here to learn more about that in person.
6:42 · I would love, you know, to go to the factories and see the fields, see the farm workers, see what it takes to produce the world’s best electric vehicles, to understand how they went from producing basically no cars to like almost all of the cars in the world in like a decade, which is insane. It is insane. Yeah. And that that really drew my ass in here. I was like, “Oh my god, they’re doing something right. I got to figure out what’s going on.”
Rethinking the China narrative
7:04 · So hopefully I can glean a little bit of wisdom, learn a little bit from the Chinese development model and bring at least some bits and pieces back to America and hopefully civilize those goddamn Yankees a little bit, you know, like figure out a little bit of manufacturing prowess from that.
7:20 · Yeah.
7:20 · I think you [clears throat] kind of made a really interesting point that I think is getting a little bit more popular these days, which is you’re pushing back a little bit on the the narrative of China, which is of course skewed in a negative way in in mainstream media and you have the your normie who thinks of China as this uh communist country with uh you know censorship and and lack of freedom and control.
7:48 · Yeah.
7:48 · But you got the flip side being like, well, they’re doing something right. Right. So if you if you even if you accept that, yeah, you have to look at the other side. It’s like, well, it’s not like they’re just, you know, head down walking around the streets like and crying every day and, you know, with like sandals and no shoes kind of thing. Like [laughter] it’s not like that. It’s walk around.
8:09 · Just just walk around, right? Something is going right.
8:12 · It’s not perfect. There’s a lot of negative sides to this as well that we can probably talk about even more living here for so long. But but that’s everywhere. There’s no perfect there is no um harmonious place in the world. There’s not one, you know, that’s just perfect.
8:26 · So yeah, I think that that’s the narrative that I I I I see getting more traction these days, which is being like, okay, yeah, yeah, you you you might believe the whole the negative side of it, but there’s going to be a flip side. So let’s look at the flip side and just see what it is. My favorite new thing is like people are like, “Oh no, China’s not even communist anymore. It’s like state capitalist.”
8:45 · It’s like, “Okay, then implement that in the United States.” If you love capitalism [laughter] so much, but do that in the US then, bro. Let’s do that. Let’s run that up. That’s a pretty cool way of developing things. No, I think I think that’s the easiest way of like dispelling myths.
Small Chinese cities vs America
8:57 · It’s literally just like go outside, go touch some grass here in China, go see the fruits of the labor of the last like hundred years of of Chinese development or the last 5,000 years of Chinese development, you know? That is so cool.
9:08 · We always talk about that a lot on the show actually cuz um you know we we have a lot of people come on the show that’s from abroad or the states and they come they say the same thing. There’s always like whoa this is mindblowing but then you also see a lot of content a lot of content creators that say the same thing. So it’s not like it’s news to anybody that is watching or or or or just experiencing this type of content. It’s not news. It’s not like a surprise.
9:31 · But I think the one thing that it sounds like where you you you plan on doing is okay let’s what’s the next step after that? Yes. you get to the first tier cities of Shanghai or Senzen or even Tongqing uh second tier where you it’s the wow, you know, it’s like amazing, right? But then kind of go next level, go to third, fourth tier, go a little bit deeper in, find out what’s behind the curtain and see what it’s like. It’s going to be different, but how different? What’s the negative? What’s the positive that you’ll have to dig in, but you know, that’s I think that’s something that’s interesting that that that’s worth talking about 100%.
10:02 · No, recently I was in I went to what was it? Zigong, uh where they make all the lanterns. I I thought it was going to be a sleepy little village. And then I I went there and it was like I I don’t know how many millions of people. That That’s not my new running joke.
10:17 · Like, oh, I’m excited to go to this like tier 4 Chinese city. It’s going to be a sleepy little village of 8 million people. Like, what the hell? [laughter] There’s so many people here. This is crazy. And then you show up and it’s like it’s not just like a village. It’s they’ll have like an a little ancient town like next to like the river or something. It’s very beautiful. It’s preserved. It’s gorgeous. And then they’ll have like Oh yeah. And then here’s like the downtown area and it looks newer than Shanghai. It looks newer than Chongqing. It’s like oh my god.
10:43 · Well, because it probably is newer to recently. It’s unbelievable. It’s so cool though when you go to like these otherwise rural areas. And like if you do that in the United States, for example, every summer in uh throughout middle school, high school, my parents and I would take a road trip from from Phoenix, Arizona, which is where I was raised, up to this tiny little town in the southwest corner of Wyoming called Keer. And it’s right next to another town called Diamondville. Then there’s Cokeville right next to tiny little town. It’s literally like 2,000 people in it. And it’s the fossil fish capital of the world.
11:15 · And it’s like it’s genuinely it would be like a I don’t know tier seven Chinese city or something. I don’t know. But if you go there and you see the level of development in what were otherwise very wealthy towns, like this is literally the town where JC Penney started. Like it is a multinational corporation now, a big clothing manufacturer, a big a big distributor, a big logistics company now. And it it used to be one of the biggest producers of coal in the world.
11:40 · It was this bustling coal town. And it’s been completely forgotten. All of our friends who lived there lived in either single or double wide trailers.
Forgotten American towns
11:49 · literally like in trailer parks. They lived in in effectively what we would see as abject poverty. And they made okay money all things considered because selling buying and selling fossils or like digging fossils and selling them was like a fairly lucrative business for them. But even with a little bit of money in these tiny little towns, they were completely forgotten, not just by the federal government, but also by the state government, too.
12:11 · They had just completely left them to rot. and seeing that decay firsthand feels so jarring to me when I go to these smaller Chinese cities of a million people or whatever and be like, “Oh my god, no, there’s like stuff going on. There’s cranes.
12:25 · There’s cranes building entire like skyscrapers and stuff in this like this sleepy village.” That’s wild to me. I can’t and it is to use the word you said, it is jarring because these a lot of these towns in the United States are just being absolutely gutted, right? And there is no intention to revitalize or rebuild these places. there’s there’s no appetite for that.
12:45 · Why do you think that’s the case?
12:47 · I don’t know. I don’t know.
12:49 · Like I’ve said this before. Um I don’t view America as a democracy. I think it’s an oligarchy right now. I think that I think that is more descriptive of the actual system.
12:59 · Yeah.
12:59 · And so I think there’s no incentive.
13:02 · There’s no financial incentive for these people to build infrastructure in these places unless unless maybe they’re building a new data AI data center there now. And then now the poor money and and all the residents there are like rising up and be like we didn’t vote for this. It’s making our electricity bills all this higher.
13:20 · So it’s like unless that’s the case I don’t think there’s any incentive for any of these powerful people to actually pour money into these places.
13:27 · Yeah. Incentive that’s the word.
13:28 · There’s no capital incentive for them to go in and invest in the material conditions of the people. It makes a lot of sense to have your labor force concentrated in small pockets of the country. I am usually the the tier one, tier two cities of the United States, the New Yorks, the Los Angeles’s, the San Francisco, the big towns where they can concentrate a labor force.
13:47 · And then uh as we’ve seen during co I think it it they found a lot of the the capital owners the the company owners found it increasingly more uh profitable more easy to have these labor forces in newer
14:03 · developing markets but still urban city centers such as like Austin, Texas, Denver, Colorado, parts of Florida as well. um where they were able to buy out very cheap offices, get people to relocate and pay them still decent salaries while making a ridiculous ungodly amount of money and they didn’t have to pay their workers as much anymore. And I think that that really incentivizes development in these higher tier cities if if you want to call them that.
14:30 · Um but in in sort of forgotten like smaller towns, the villages of America in like Appalachia for example, if there are no natural resources to extract, what’s the point of the the capitalists going in and and sort of investing any money in that? And actually before I got into any of the the political stuff, I think a radicalizing thing for me was towards the end of college, I founded a startup and I I raised some capital and one of the most jarring things for me was meeting with venture capitalists in the United States.
15:02 · And seeing firsthand that they were not interested in a meaningful long-term vision for the United States.
15:11 · They were simply interested in whatever could net them the highest investment or the return on investment as soon as possible. Which makes sense, right? Like that’s like that’s what they’re supposed to do. That is like the name of the game. Supposed to throw in 100 bucks and pull out a 100 million. Like you invested in Palunteer on day one sort of thing. You made your bag, you get out, you go live your life on Miami Beach or whatever. Like that’s what they’re supposed to do, which is all well and good, but there is no scenario in which that leads to like EV development.
The Hyperloop problem
15:38 · There’s no scenario in which that leads to semiconductors becoming smaller and more affordable. There’s no scenario in which that leads to meaningful long-term technological process with the exception of using state funded programs to bolster the the existing tech apparatus such as even like the the components in our cell phones, the components that that led to the internet.
15:58 · Like these were all governmentmandated programs that ended up being used by uh private individuals, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, oftentimes for bad to then have the treats that we know today, like the cell phone. And if there’s no financial incentive for immediate gain, of course, they’re not going to invest in smaller regional towns.
16:20 · Hence, we see the failed high-speed rail project from LA to what? San Francisco.
16:24 · Bro, you know what’s really sad?
16:26 · Actually, in college, this is really embarrassing. viewers, please feel free to make fun of me. Um, I in college I was part of the Hyperloop team.
16:34 · Oh, were you?
16:35 · Where in I was I was an engineer, so I was God, bro, this is I I feel I feel pain even bringing this up, but I was part of the the Hyperloop team at my university and we were so bought into that thing. We were like, we’re going to go San Francisco to Los Angeles 27 minutes or whatever like that, 700 mph.
16:53 · We’re going to vacuum out the air from a tube. we’re gonna shoot that train down that thing and it’s gonna get there so quickly. And [snorts] we realized probably about a year in I was like this isn’t this isn’t viable. We’re not this is such a waste of energy. Let’s just build the train because it takes so much energy to suck out all of the air from the tube in the first place and then and then keep it out.
17:15 · And not only keep it out, but then once you deal with building things in a vacuum, you realize that nothing makes any sense. Because if you vacuum out the air, there’s no place for any of the heat to go. So if you have batteries, if you have electrical components, if you have uh any sort of air air conditioning units, anything of that nature, you run into really really hard problems with heat dissipation. If you’re talking about like thermal expansion of tracks, often times it relies on the natural dissipation of the heat into the air. If there’s no air, the heat has no place to go. Same thing with batteries.
17:45 · Same thing with anything electrical that can produce any amount of heat. So once you start sucking out the air, you run into so many problems that you wouldn’t have otherwise had if you just had air as a medium to release and dissipate that heat. That was a huge problem that we faced. And it was fun. Like we would go to Hawthorne, California. I never ended up going, but the the team ended up going to Hawthorne, California. They shot things down tubes. It was a good time. It was fun to like mess around and do like cool little engineering projects. But we realized very quickly it’s like you can’t scale this.
Did Eric leave America?
18:14 · This isn’t unless unless you give it to like a team of like Chinese superstar engineers. I’m sorry. A couple of like dipshit 20-year-olds from UC Berkeley are not going to solve this problem. Like this is not it.
18:25 · Wait. So, but you said about a year end the engineers started realizing this wasn’t really viable.
18:31 · Yeah.
18:31 · Um what happened after that? Was that like was there like any sort of decision made? Like how did they reconcile that?
18:37 · No, bro. This was this was literally just for like our resumes. This was not like a serious this was a a college club program that we had. This was not a meaningful like we’re going to make a billion dollars from this. This was like let’s do this for fun so we have like a little bit of real world engineering experience before we go off into Rathon and hopefully build the more like the most efficient missiles we possibly can for spreading democracy. And that I mean it was it was simply to do that.
19:00 · So, we kept going and we kept doing it for I think I was on the team for probably two years before I think they ended up pulling funding and then it changed into I think it was like electric formula 1 or something. But by that point, I was working on my startup and I I was busy uh uh rubbing shoulders with all the the most brilliant venture capitalists I’d ever met. [laughter] Oh god.
19:24 · No. Okay. Well, talking about like so, so you move here, you kind of see you’re not so happy with what’s going on back home. You move here cuz ultimately you’re not moving here just to escape. You’re moving here ultimately to try to learn something to bring back home.
19:39 · Maybe. I mean, I think if I’m being honest, I do think there’s a real world scenario in which the United States does actively fall apart and they enact very meaningful legislation to ban like any meaningful socialist or communist groups. I mean, even in this past week, literally like two or three days ago, I believe they uh they just put forth a new piece of legislation that designated uh anti-fascism as a terrorist ideology.
Who is more dangerous than Trump?
20:06 · Like these are these are the the directions. Anything that associates with like any sort of like Islamic movements or anti-fascist movements are now designated as terrorist groups in the United States, which right now, you know, we’re seeing that. It’s like, okay, man. Yeah, sure. you’re going to use that maybe sparingly, but if there is someone with any meaningful willpower to go in, like maybe I’m sorry, I know we said we weren’t going to make fun of Palanteer, but maybe like if Peter Teal gets his way, then maybe JD Vance gets into power and or even worse, I think Tucker Carlson has a real shot.
20:36 · Like any of these real like white nationalists get into power. I do think there’s a very real scenario in which the United States simply stops being a tenable place for anyone on the left, anyone who’s not like a perfect like model like white like civilian to go and and live in this country. And I am genuinely very afraid of that. So if if that happens, I’m going to go back there. I’m going to join them. I’m going to join the likes of Peter Teal and and bring about the rightwing.
21:06 · No, I [laughter] I don’t know if I would go back. I don’t know if I could I I could actually go back to even like New York City with Zor Mandani in power.
21:14 · Well, um, so you you brought up Peter Teal. Is there somebody I don’t know because this is a very American frame in the sense that you you put the blame onto someone versus the system?
21:27 · I think Americans don’t like to think about their own systemic flaws because that calls into a lot of uncomfortable questions about the system they live in.
21:36 · the idea of is this really a democracy blah blah blah it is is a whole rabbit hole just reality in general yeah reality in general right and a lot of people don’t want to question the matrix that they’re in right it’s very uncomfortable and I understand that so instead what they do is usually they point to the easiest person to point to which is the president at the time because we know after four maybe eight
21:57 · years that person hopefully will be [laughter] a different person right and so it’s so much easier to point out oh that’s a bad guy there’s a face So in that frame though, is there someone in your mind that poses the most danger? I think most people would point to uh Trump, right?
22:18 · Everything’s Trump. Everything’s Trump.
22:20 · Understanding maybe from your perspective of how you believe the system is and how you view it, is there someone that is more dangerous than Trump? Um, I think, you know, I I’ve had this conversation a lot with like my my liberal friends who and and my parents as well where they they say that exact same thing where it’s like, “Oh man, we only have to get past the next two and a half years and then [clears throat] hopefully the Democrats will take over in the midterm and then maybe they’ll take over after that.”
22:43 · It’s like amnesia they have every four years.
22:45 · Yes.
22:45 · Every four years. And it’s like, “Oh my god, bro.” No. I’m of the opinion there has never been a good president in US history. And if you look at every single president throughout American history, every single one has been by and large, like up until fairly recently in favor of slavery, in favor of like Zionist colonial states.
23:04 · They’ve been in favor of keeping this massive underclass of people who they can exploit as cheap labor. oftentimes that took the form of uh offering like easy temporary protected status to get immigrants to come in so they could exploit their labor, offering loopholes for like undocumented people to come in and exploiting their labor. And more recently, I think we’ve seen this sort of manifestate manifest in Donald Trump being just overt about it.
23:28 · But even under the most progressive progressive presidents of modern American history, whether it’s Barack Obama or even Jimmy Carter, I mean, bro, Jimmy Carter quadrupled funding to the state of Israel. Like, he is not it. When he got out of office, he was very much so like, listen, Israel is a an apartheid state.
23:52 · We really need to curb their influence in the region. What they’re doing is horrible. But it’s like, bro, when you were in power, you [laughter] gave them a pretty big check. Like I don’t know if if when you were in power I wish you would had the same train of thought. You know that’s kind of an insane thing to do in retrospect where you’re going around building homes in the impoverished areas of the country that you could have used your pen to fix while you were in power. Same thing with Obama. Think people think like oh wow his biggest scandal was the tan suit.
24:18 · It’s like okay tell that to the doctors without borders he bombed in the Kundus hospital. Bro he’s the only Nobel laureate to have bombed another Nobel laureate.
24:27 · Weren’t there like the most drone attacks? He authorized the most drone attacks of any US president.
24:31 · Yes.
24:31 · So, it’s like we have to evaluate this like earnestly and honestly and and realize like whether they’re blue or red, the system that the United States has put into power is simply it does not give room to people to offer meaningful long-standing change. You might get a little bit of incremental change here and there and then Republicans get in and they not only squish that but then they roll back like civil rights protections and stuff and it’s like what the fuck are we doing? It doesn’t have to be like this.
25:00 · I think in terms of people who I’m most afraid of right now in the United States. I think I’m most afraid of Peter Teal, a guy who was literally raised in a Nazi colony in Namibia. A guy who the the town Wait, is that true? Yes. How do you How do you know that though?
25:15 · You can look it up. in I think it’s Swakupmund I think is the name of I might be mispronouncing it but up until fairly recently this was a town well after World War II where they would greet each other by saying hail Hitler like this is a town where you go around you go they cuz Germany had colonized Namibia it was a German colony they still often times speak German there’s a lot of German expats who escaped World War II World War II and you can imagine the kind who live in Namibia and one of
25:43 · these towns I mean there’s a number of these towns But one of the towns was effectively like this little Nazi colony that Peter Teal was raised in. You go to the the antique shops there. You can look on Trip Adviser right now and you can see, you know, there’s Nazi memorabilia in these towns in these in these little antique shops in these towns in the middle of Namibia where Peter Tal was raised, where he gathered where he gained consciousness. Like this is the framework in which these psychopaths are operating.
26:06 · And that to me is terrifying. as someone who is is proud of one of the only cool accomplishments of the United States, which is aiding in the defeat of the Nazis in World War II, like it sucks to see that we’re now propping up those same Nazi descendants who are profiting literally billions or trillions of dollars from these these very institutions that we thought were going to be eradicating Nazism around the world. I thought that was something we could all get behind.
26:32 · So Peter Tal I’m terrified of as well as the propagandists who try to sell his vision to the world without people even knowing like Tucker Carlson. I was also extremely critical of Charlie Kirk.
26:46 · Well, wasn’t there speaking of Charlie Kirk, wasn’t didn’t like uh I saw some headline. I don’t know how true it is, but like they were saying they they found that the weapon didn’t match the bullet.
26:55 · Bro, that is my Listen, at this point I I’m not a big conspiracy guy. I will entertain any conspiracy about Charlie Kirk because the FBI put out so many conflicting statements within like 48 hours. They’re like, “Well, there was a gun. There wasn’t a gun there. He broke apart the rifle. It didn’t match it.”
27:10 · It’s like, “What the fuck? What is going on?”
27:12 · That’s That’s the thing. Like, I I think the word conspiracy theory now, at least in America, holds no weight anymore.
27:17 · Zero. zero weight anymore because there’s been so much like damage to actual real information versus misinformation that nobody literally nobody not even the president knows like what the fuck is going on anymore. No one can decipher what is true versus what is untrue. It’s only about what camp do you fall in, what camp do you fall in that most align with your already, you know, already held beliefs, right? And that’s all it is.
27:41 · The other day after the the Trump assassination attempt at the the White House correspondent dinner, my parents called me. My dad is like 71 years old. He’s blue no matter who. He will vote Democrat no matter what at this point.
Young Americans losing faith
27:52 · Um he loves like Rachel Matto and like uh uh like CNN sort of thing. He called me. He’s like, “Eric, it was a false flag.” I was like, “Dad, [laughter] you’ve never said this before. What are you?” He’s like, “No, I know. I know it was a false flag. Sounds like Alec Jones.”
28:04 · I’m like, “Dad, when do you turn [laughter] to Alex Jones? What’s going on?” No, but like my parents were convinced instantly they texted me false flag. It’s like, “Oh my god, something is changing.” where even like the the boomers who otherwise would be like, “No, come on. We don’t entertain.” Now it’s like, “No, yeah, it’s all fake.
28:20 · They made it up.” I would love I I really wish we had some like monumental event like the moonlanding or something right now so that 80% of society in the United States could just be like, “No, it’s fake.” No, Hollywood said, “No, I don’t believe the UFO files just got released.”
28:36 · What the fuck is that about? [laughter] It’s that’s been going on for years.
28:39 · It’s like little like things like like what I’d be interested what you think about that. Do you think that’s just a scop? [laughter] What? What is that?
28:46 · Why is the government and the FBI like in the Pentagon releasing UFO [laughter] files?
28:51 · No, it’s important, bro. They said, you know, they were Jeffrey Epstein was trafficking the kids to the aliens. No one else. That was it. It was just the aliens that were coming down. We shouldn’t prosecute anyone here on Earth. It was No, I I think it’s 100% a distraction from like actual crazy shit that’s going on. [laughter] And my favorite thing too, the Democratic leader right now, Chuck Schumer, is talking about this like it’s a very serious thing. Being like, “Guys, they just released the Alien Files. This is awesome.” It’s like, “Chuck, bro, we’re in a war.
29:21 · We’re spending a billion dollars a day bombing little kids in Iran. Can we please focus on that for 5 seconds of this?” Maybe that’s why they’re releasing these things, right?
29:30 · It’s insane. No one’s even been charged on the Epstein files. Where who are they trafficking kids to? Why is Gain Maxwell in prison? Were they trafficking into each other? Like, what? what the fuck’s going on? So, okay. So, kind of I think the core of what we’re talking about and the kind of this like absurdity and this frustration with this absurdity in your opinion having been living in the States, does this reflect the younger generation and their sentiment?
29:55 · Like, do your thoughts and opinions and your perspectives reflect at all maybe a larger population of people there or do you think maybe you’re just an outlier?
30:04 · Like what do you what would be your commentary on the younger generation back in the states?
30:08 · 100%. But the issue is right now 100% you’re an outlier.
30:12 · No no 100% like the the vibe is shifting.
30:15 · The main issue right now is whether or not you can trust the institutions in place. And the the biggest litmus test for that is whether or not politicians support the state of Israel. The problem is no young people support Israel anymore. It’s like fucking I don’t know 20% or something. It’s nothing. It’s going down. No one. If you say Israel, it’s like, “Oh my god, you’re a villain.”
30:35 · And the problem is the establishment Democrats have been so poor at reacting to this that it has been entirely captured by folks who uh I I think I’m aligned with folks who say like Israel is an ethnostate. It’s committing genocide. It has committed genocide not just in Palestine, but in states all around the world. It needs to not only uh be sanctioned, it needs to be punished. There needs to be war crime trials.
31:01 · If we had a Nurburn trial right now, uh, Benjamin Netanyahu, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump would all be, frankly, they’d probably be hanged at the gallows if we’re being realistic, because that’s what they did in the Nuremberg trials.
31:13 · And this is not just an ethnic cleansing, but an outright genocide of like multiple populations. Israel wants to do the Greater Israel project. They want to expand into Syria, Iraq. They want to go down even into Saudi Arabia, into Egypt, into Jordan. They want to expand their territory as now they’re openly stating they want to do. Like this is a project that’s been in the works for decades. Ever since its inception in 1948, ever since the UN vote in 1947, ever since Theodore Herzel wrote about this shit, like they have been trying to expand into this region as much as possible.
31:45 · And young people see this and they see their own material conditions worsening. They see their rent going up. They see egg prices going up. They see videos every day on Twitter of little kids being bombed and they’re thinking, “What the fuck are we doing? I paid for that bomb and then I’m [clears throat] paying for the food that’s going to the people being bombed.
32:04 · What if we just didn’t fucking bomb them and what if we just reduce my fucking rent? How does this make any sense? They pose no risk to me as a person 8,000 m away. That’s insane.” And I I think that’s very divisive for some people because if you know history, if you understand the material conditions that led to this point in time, you’re going to be like, “Israel is the problem. We have to stop Israel. We have to stop this idea that there can be a settler colony just genociding, obliterating populations, expanding belligerently in the region.”
32:33 · But if you don’t know much about history, probably the biggest event you do know about is the Holocaust. You probably know about Hitler. You probably don’t know anything that happened with Japanese imperialism. You probably barely know anything about even Mousolini aside from knowing the name Mussolini, [snorts] but you do know about Hitler.
32:50 · But that’s where the waters get muddied because you do have some people kind of spouting some pretty anti-semitic things, of course.
32:57 · But and but that’s also like the conflation of a criticism on the state of Israel or the government of Israel and conflating that with being like, yeah, the people. If you’re critical of the Chinese government and the state of China, does that mean you’re racist against all Chinese people? Of course not. you know, and so there is people who conflate the two or there are journalists who try to force you to conflate the two to kind of twist that narrative, but at the same time, there are real issues with that.
33:23 · I mean, I I have a lot of my closest friends back in uh America growing up were were Jewish people. I mean, I couldn’t tell you how many bar mitzvah and bach mitzvah I’ve been to growing up. Yeah.
33:36 · Oh, they were the best. The best. And so I feel for them because I can only imagine like if this wasn’t if the context wasn’t about Israel but let’s say it was about China which it has been before I kind of Israel I think kind of took the yeah the front stage.
33:52 · I was feeling very kind of like self-conscious about that and like unnerving and frustrated with that in terms of people conflating like Chinese people with you know their criticisms of China which I have on its face I have problems with a lot of those criticisms just to begin with but even if I thought those criticisms were fair I would still feel really uncomfortable because I know how the mob can get right
34:15 · and mob mentality and all that stuff and so I don’t know I it’s a delicate issue but at the same time it’s like kind of so obvious like what’s going on and there are more and more outspoken people like yourself and I think I I would push back a little against the the analogy to to Chinese criticism because I think a lot of that is and I think you were saying this too isn’t necessarily fair. I think the criticism of the Chinese government often times comes from a place of American propaganda, whether it’s the NAD, the U, USAD, the CIA itself.
34:44 · The CIA now releases a monthly video in Mandarin saying like, “Come defect to the CIA. We love it’s like Jesus Christ.” Um, and I I’ll say I think this is maybe the hardest part for Americans to understand because the second you start reckoning with the idea of the state of Israel’s existence, you have to start reckoning with the existence of the United States itself where it has a fairly similar founding story.
35:15 · Obviously, it’s not the same, but it has this group of folks who came who came across this body of water. They sealed in from some ships. They landed on some far far away land. There was an indigenous population and they said, “Well, we kind of we kind of want this land ours.
35:33 · We read about this a while ago. We kind of want this.” And the people there were like, “Okay, yeah, welcome. Come hang out. Just, you know, be chill. Be normal. Don’t be dickheads.
35:43 · Just if your vibes are chillird, just don’t fucking be weird. And that’s okay.” And they’re like, “We’re going to be a little weird. We want We’re [laughter] going to be a little also we have guns. It’s like god fucking damn it, bro.
35:55 · We’re going to be really weird. This deserves to be a film right now. Like this type of [laughter] language like at that time just guys talking in like 21st century like Jen Jenz slaying bro your vibes are mad chalk.
36:07 · That movie about the caveman year one with Michael Sarah Jack. I love that movie. Yeah. And that’s I mean that’s effectly it’s a very there’s a lot of parallels between those stories. And if you start reckoning with one, you got to start reckoning with the other. The only difference was the United States was successful. They were 100% successful in destroying the indigenous population, eradicating almost 99% of that indigenous population, stealing the land, taking over large swats of the land that did not belong to them or any of the colonial occupiers at the time.
36:37 · And if you reckon with that, if you reckon with Israel, you’re going to have to start reckoning with like why the fuck is it called New York? This wasn’t ever like a piece of like the Netherlands or like it it was through the the colonized history, but the people there, the indigenous folks, they didn’t look like a 6’2 Dutchman. Like what the fuck’s going on? That’s crazy.
Living in China changes you
36:56 · No, it’s amazing when you when you put it that way. It’s just because time so much time has passed that everything has become normalized and and like we were alluding to before the reality that we know of right now is easily destroyed if you start really putting the pieces together.
37:16 · Yeah.
37:17 · Right.
37:17 · and start questioning and asking questions and and digging deeper because the biggest difference between now and let’s say 15 uh 10 to 15 plus years before was this the dissemination of information and and with that comes a lot of power and and control. So, just like what you’re feeling right now, you’re saying is that, you know, you’re putting you’re asking questions. You’re putting two two together. You’re going to to see things to find out the truth or whatever, but not everybody has that access.
37:44 · And if anything, the majority of the people will never have that access or even want to have that access and they’ll just take things at face value, right, in terms of social media and and and what they’re fed. I think I think that I think that that speaks to the importance of like why it it’s so valuable to make approachable, easy to digest content around what the fuck’s actually happening in the world. You know, it’s not necessarily just covering like current events, talking about the news all the time, but I think it’s important to try to decipher like, okay, why are we here?
38:16 · Why are we sitting at this table? Why is China rich now? Why is China doing so much better than it is or that than it was 50 years ago, 100 years ago? What are the material steps to getting to where we are right now? And also, I think one thing I’ve I’ve been not maybe not shocked by, but very pleasantly surprised by is the talking with folks here with any political power, they are very inclined to um
38:42 · approach history from a very understanding perspective. understand what went right, what went wrong and what try to figure out what’s going on like right and wrong right now as well and how we can correct that so that tomorrow is better than today. And that that is as an American dude. I’m like what? You want to not only fix the potholes, but you want to like you want to learn from the past. You want you want to you want to study the coconut tree that you fell out of. That’s crazy, bro.
39:10 · You know, it’s crazy. I want to say something. Let’s see if Justin’s going to laugh at this. Uh, I’m actually really curious because you’ve been here what how long now?
39:16 · Uh, about eight months. So, I’m basically Chinese already.
39:18 · Yeah. [laughter] So, eight months in the grand scheme of things, it’s still not that long. It’s not long at all. You’re still fresh arrival.
39:25 · And I I’m so curious to fast forward another year or two and to talk to you and really ask you, Yeah. Uh do you see or maybe you even see it now? Do you see how one’s perspective is totally manipulated from an American system and when you come over here where it’s a totally different system, right? It’s a totally different culture. Everything’s different and you kind of have to challenge a lot of things that you know.
39:52 · Yeah.
39:52 · And you already already do because you’re much more progressive than the common person, I would say. But even then, like when we moved here, I I was consider I considered myself an ultra liberal when I first moved here. But I my eyes freaking opened up.
40:07 · Have you become more sympathetic to what’s going on here?
40:09 · No, I’ve become if anything, I’ve become more centrist. [laughter] You know what I’m saying? It’s just It’s crazy.
40:15 · Yeah, it’s serious. I’m not even joking.
40:17 · Um and and the funny thing is is like we don’t watch Chinese news. We don’t we don’t really buy the Kool-Aid here either because just in general, we don’t want to buy the Kool-Aid. But just through living and conversations and exploring the country and you know you kind of get the lay of the land from our lived experience.
40:33 · Lived experience.
40:34 · I think you guys need to start drinking the Kool-Aid a little bit. [laughter] It’s awesome.
40:39 · He’s going to start brainwashing us.
40:40 · Start turning you guys more than we have at this point. Man, [laughter] he’s like you guys have you guys have Chinese in your life.
40:47 · I’m going to make you guys Jesus Christ, bro. I’m the most I’m I’m the most annoying fucking white guy [laughter] who goes to China. You’re like telling everybody to be Chinese.
40:57 · Let me Let me lecture you about your own culture. [laughter] I’m so sorry.
41:03 · That’s crazy. I’m just I’m missing the Adidas jacket though. [laughter] I should be wearing it over this.
41:07 · We’ll superimpose a logo.
41:09 · Yeah. Photoshop it on [laughter] top.
41:10 · That’s crazy.
41:11 · No, but seriously though, I I Have you Have you seen that at all? Anything like that at all yet?
41:15 · Yeah.
41:15 · I think I I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve had a bunch of friends come visit who are like they’re they’re very politically inclined in the United States, but I don’t think they’re like they’re not reading the little red book and being like, “Yo, this this is awesome.” They’re just like, “I want things to be cheaper. Like, I want my wages to go up uh in accordance with like inflation, you know? I want my rent to come down a little bit. I want us to build some more housing. I want things to get a little bit better. I want trains to get nicer.” yada yada yada.
41:44 · And so they come here and they see that they see the subways. They see the mag lev train, the fastest in the world.
41:50 · They see the the bridges, the boats, the planes, the automobiles, the EVs. They walk around on the streets. They’re like, “Why is it so quiet? What’s going what’s going on here?” And it’s like [laughter] there’s EVs everywhere, you know? It’s crazy. And they see that. And for them, just like you said, literally just going outside, seeing the material reality of what’s around them just breaks something in their brains because a lot of them are from New York, a lot of them are from California, and they come here and they’re like, “Wow, I don’t have to own a car.
Eric’s China wake-up calls
42:21 · I don’t have to like pay $8,000 a month for like health care insurance, for health insurance. I I don’t have to uh pay an extra 20 or 40% for a tip on everything I I buy. food is affordable. Uh people seem like they’re living fairly dignified lives.
42:39 · Like things are, you know, things aren’t perfect, but it seems like they’re getting better. Like there’s construction going on. There’s cranes building new big buildings. And that’s so jarring to see as an American cuz you see progress happening in real time. And it goes to show like the state can do things.
42:56 · The state is able to actually affect meaningful change. whether or not you love every part of it doesn’t really matter that much because materially people’s lives have just gotten so much better in the last like 40 years and that’s so cool for people to see in person. So I don’t even have to be like yo here’s this book read read all about like this this big theoretical thing you just be like look around man here’s a photo from 30 years ago and look at this now it’s completely different. Yeah, it’s it’s interesting. We used to I used to always say this one thing. Um I moved here a while ago.
43:28 · It’s been uh what like 18 19 years. It’s been a long time.
43:34 · And uh we used to always say Shanghai or just China, but living in Shanghai, I always say Shanghai. Um the hardware, right, the infrastructure, in other words, um was developing at a an alarming rate. literally the next day you go out your you leave your home and it’s a different uh corner that crazy and then you can get a taste of it now but multiply that by 10 time I can imagine and um so that’s one it was like the the the hardware was getting upgraded but
44:03 · the software takes a little bit longer I yes yes I agree and and we felt very I felt very strong about it we’ve talked about this before the software meaning like society culture cultural norms behavior people’s exposure to things yeah because don’t forget uh there’s a very uh dark history uh you know that’s pretty recent and so yeah with that the software is
44:26 · going to take some time to to upgrade but now I feel like the software has been upgrading still still going you know it takes time it takes generations right but if you compare yeah 2016 or even 2006 night and day night and day where even where even me and you how we were like trying to catch up with like the young generation If now we’re trying to catch up to them, you know, [laughter] we’re like trying to catch up to them. They’re more much more progressive than even we are.
44:53 · It’s interesting. It’s it’s it’s actually really interesting and that’s that’s an interesting conversation.
44:56 · Maybe we can kind of like uh talk about a little bit because you you’re still pretty newbie here and uh you know, we’ve been here for a while, but it’d be interesting to to hear those type of perspective differences. And first of all, so you you you said you’ve been here for eight uh for eight months and you’re already uh feeling out that that change and stuff like that, but what’s the biggest thing that that kind of, you know, hit you in the face kind of?
45:17 · I actually made a list.
45:19 · I made I made a list and actually we I recently wrote about this in a book for Code Pink called China’s Not Our Enemy.
45:26 · And they they asked specifically they’re like, “What is like what have been the biggest like like wakeup calls for you?”
45:33 · And um it was something to the effect of like first and foremost, not everything is a scam. In the United States, it feels like you get a telemarketing call every day trying to give you a new loan that will ultimately lead to you losing your home. Like my grandma received this all the time. She would receive calls about a reverse mortgage. She was like 87 or something. You know, she started getting these calls. They’re like, “Oh, hey Rosemary. Uh you want to have $800,000 right now or whatever?” Like whatever nonsense. some sort of terrible term loan.
46:03 · And it ended up that they were trying to like take away her home, just predate on old people, like trying to take advantage of them. And here it feels like there is this constant like uh maybe not a buffer per se, but there’s this this idea that not everything around you is trying to scam you out of every single dollar that you have or every single uh R&B that you have in in your bank account.
46:31 · And that’s like a kind of refreshing feeling because it it kind of instills this degree of trust in the people who live around you. In my own case, I don’t I barely speak Chinese. I barely speak anything. And I’ve been shocked that even a lot of old heads who are in their 60s or 70s have come up to me and some of them actually speak perfect English, which is shocking to me. And are so welcoming from even my old head neighbors, my my uncle neighbors who who see me and like, “Welcome to our neighborhood.
47:01 · I know you’re from America. I know America and China have had a tumultuous relationship, but still welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for seeing our culture and hopefully trying to enjoy it a little bit. And that’s been that’s been super cool for me.
47:17 · Would you not get that back in, let’s say, New York, Arizona, like I guess I can give you anecdotal evidence in Arizona.
47:26 · None of I lived in the suburbs. No one knew the neighbors. Maybe 20 years ago, people knew each other. But in this current day and time, like my parents don’t know their neighbors in suburban Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s really sad because everyone’s just in their own little homes. They all sit on Next Door every day. You guys know Next Door? What is that?
47:45 · It’s like a website where like based on your zip code, you can like talk about like what’s going on in your neighborhoods. And so everyone’s like, I saw someone on a bike the other day and they had dark skin. I think we might be getting robbed soon. It’s like what the fuck? Like it’s this terrible website where you can kind of just like talk about how scared you are to live in your home. which is crazy cuz Scottdale’s like a very low crime area, but my parents are like fairly reclusive. In New York, my only neighbors who I talked with were like my schizophrenic downstairs neighbor who would be like, I think they’re putting something in the drinking water and it’s turning us all gay. It’s like, okay, Alex Jones again, what’s going on?
48:16 · You know, but it wasn’t there was no sense of warmth between anyone who I talked with whereas here interesting. It completely anecdotally, I don’t know if this is your experience as well, but people here have been very warm and friendly to me. It’s like, hey, if you need anything, let me know, you know.
48:32 · Yeah.
48:32 · Yeah, I I think it speaks to just the overall level of perceived danger in different societies, right? I think in America, and you would know better than I do, it’s been a long time since I lived in America, so I’m I’m I could be speaking out of school here, but my feeling is that there is a heightened sense of feeling of threat
48:55 · and danger just in society in general, just in in America in general, whether it’s gun violence, whether it’s any sort of other types of I don’t think even just only physical, but even uh uh just political 100% political divide like you don’t know where the you don’t want to step on any toes sometimes. you don’t know where the red line is.
49:14 · So it’s like from like intellectual level but also physical there’s this heightened level of like feeling of danger almost where here it’s not like that doesn’t exist at all but it’s it’s it’s so much different. It’s so much lower and I’m speaking as a as a as a man here. I I don’t never felt any sort of like danger for like fear of my life.
49:34 · Yeah.
49:34 · And even if there is any type of political uh or any other that it’s a bit more divisive uh you know conversation between people that from my experience has never been like I will kill you because you know of what you think.
49:48 · Yeah.
49:48 · No conversation. It’s just conversation. Well because people here don’t identify the stakes are different. Yeah. The stakes are different and obviously there are barriers and hurdles to being very politically active in China like for the obvious reasons right. But by and large, people do not identify with their political beliefs here. It’s not like this is my identity. This is what I’ll live. Neither are there.
Surveillance and safety in China
50:11 · No, there are people who have strongly held political beliefs, but it’s another thing entirely to identify as like this is who I am.
50:18 · Yeah.
50:18 · Like I’m a Democrat or a Republican sort of thing. Of course, there are exceptions, but by and large, the majority of people, at least in my view, do not like buy into it and like are totally consumed every day by their political beliefs. And I think I think that’s a stark difference in America, which I feel, and again, I’m looking at America through a prism. I feel like people do identify like wholly like their whole identity their ego almost is is tied to the belief that they are in the right in terms of their political ideals.
50:50 · Yeah, 100%. I agree with that.
50:52 · And and so like I think going back to this level of danger, I think a lower level of danger makes you naturally just a more open society in terms of welcoming other people cuz you’re not in fear as much, right? So why wouldn’t you be friendly to your neighbor? I think in America, I was always terrified of getting into like a road rage incident because at least in Arizona, everyone has guns.
51:13 · Yeah.
51:13 · Every like [snorts] every night you see the news, cops killed another person. Cops killed fucking four people today cuz they’re going around, you know, there’s like, oh, there’s a suspect with a gun. Okay, well, we have to shoot and kill them.
51:26 · You get into a road ra road rage incident with someone, they whip out a lock and all of a sudden it’s like, okay, you know what? Maybe maybe you cutting me off wasn’t that big of a deal. Maybe those truck nuts, you know, they they really are intimidating. That I feel like is such a stark difference to hear where I see people argue. I see folks get into heated arguments all the time. They’re always, “Oh, what’s up?”
51:48 · You know, like all this, but it [clears throat] doesn’t feel like there’s a fear that someone’s about to whip out like an AR-15 or something [laughter] like that like do some crazy shit. And that’s so jarring. Like I’ve heard fights before here, but I’m not like afraid of them if that makes sense.
52:06 · The cuffs. You get some fist of cuffs.
52:07 · Oh, yeah. I’ve seen a little bit of like, you know, hand play here and there and uh you know, I’m like, okay, that’s that’s fine.
52:12 · Yeah, we do the old school way here.
52:13 · Yeah, do that. You know, but [laughter] no more, please. You know, and I feel like that is it it makes you feel like maybe like maybe this is corny, but it makes you feel like a little bit more human where you can have meaningful disagreements with people. Even if it gets really heated, no one’s going to like kill you. Like there is something to be said about that where you don’t constantly have to fear for your life and I do appreciate that and I’m sure people do have considerable differences of opinions here but at the end of the day I think people generally want prosperity for their country and that’s like a cool thing that I can get behind.
52:46 · I think in general just to push back a little bit I think in general the um it also still goes with economic situation for where you’re living. So, in Shanghai, you’re really not going to see too much of that. But if you start going a little bit further down to a little more rural areas, you might find uh killing crime or or something like that or fights that get a little bit overboard.
53:08 · I can imagine.
53:09 · Um these kind of stories come out and but I mean no firsthand experience of course, but uh yeah, they they do exist.
53:16 · Do you think that’s getting better though? Like do you think do you think because those cities are now getting richer, those fights are becoming less and less?
53:22 · That I don’t know. I would not be able to give a proper answer to that but I could give an answer of because of the infrastructure development and you know which is another thing I’ll be curious to hear your opinion on which is all the cameras everywhere and that’s uh not just in first year cities that you go to any other city and you’re going to see that um I mean that’s been I would say the biggest deterrent of of [snorts] crime.
53:44 · Yeah.
53:44 · And yeah, you sacrifice your quote unquote privacy by walking around town and you can get tracked. But um at the end of the day, it just depends on how you how you view it, right?
53:55 · I think I have I have two sort of goofy anecdotal experiences with the camera system here. Uh in what was it? I think December of 2025, last year, a couple months after I moved here, I was still under the impression that there was this big surveillance apparatus around us and that we were constantly, you know, there’s face tracking and there was this very sophisticated mechanism to determine where everyone is at all times.
54:21 · Like there’s a machine like did you believe in the social credit score? No, not before coming here, but I now that I’m here, I’m like I wish they had it. Like [laughter] like you want dude, those those people on escooters running down the sidewalk almost driving me over. I’m like penalized.
54:37 · They need it. [laughter] No, but [snorts] I I had flown back into PVG airport, Budong airport in Shanghai. And um as I was going to my DD, I I’d been flying the entire day. I was exhausted. And I I get [clears throat] to the spot where you call a DD and someone comes up to me. like, “Hey, do you want to do you want to ride home?” I was like, “Fuck.”
54:58 · All right. I here’s my DD. If you can match the price, let’s do it. And he’s like, “Okay, let’s do it.” So, we start going down to his car. And as I’m about to put my bags into the trunk of his car, a police officer walks over and he’s like, “Hey, do you know this guy?” I’m like, “No, he’s a taxi driver, I assume.” He’s like, “No, no, no, no. Come with me.
55:16 · Come with me.” [clears throat] And he’s like, “This guy’s a known scammer. He’s going to take you home. He’s going to drop you off in front of your place, but he’s going to say, “All right, now you owe me 10 times what I had told you at the airport, and he’s going to try to scam you out of this money that the original negotiated price that you had come up with.”
55:32 · I’m like, “Ah, fuck, man. All right, that’s fine. I’ll just like catch a I’ll catch a DD.”
55:37 · And he’s like, “Uh, actually, come with me. Can you cooperate with the investigation?” Mind you, it’s 1:00 a.m. at this point. I am exhausted. I literally been flying for probably 12 hours that day. I’m like, “Dude,” and I I had a flight at PVG at like 8:00 a.m. the next day. I’m like, “Dude, I really just kind of want to go home, man. I’m really tired.” But he’s like, “No, please cooperate.” I’m like, “Ah, fuck.”
55:58 · Okay. [snorts] So, I go to the police station inside Puong airport. And it’s this team. As an American, I’m terrified of police. I am. Every cop in America walks around with a gun at their hip. Every interaction I’ve had with a police officer in in America has been negative.
56:14 · There’s not been a single positive interaction in which they’ve been like, “I want to genuinely help you.” It’s like, “I have a gun. If you misspeak, I’m going to shoot you.” And it’s like, “Okay.” So, I go to this police station.
56:24 · There’s like, I don’t know, probably 10 cops and maybe six of them huddled around this little screen. and they’re like, “Okay, we need to find the right frame of him coming up to you in the security footage uh so we can use it in this case against him because there have been probably six or seven different cases against him at this point in time.”
56:44 · I’m like, “Oh, okay. Easy, bro. You have the face surveillance technology. Use the use the fucking fingerprint scanner or whatever you got going on in this shit.” Yeah, no problem. And we sit there and we literally go through it like frame by frame. And he’s like, “Which camera do you think it was? Do you think it was one over here?” I’m like, “I thought you were supposed to know this. I [laughter] thought this is a surveillance state, bro.
57:04 · I thought you had the master AI telling you.”
57:06 · Yeah.
57:06 · I thought there was some like Palenter, Chinese Palunteer going through and like determining where everyone is. What’s going on here? And he’s like, “Oh, no. We have to figure out what camera it is.” I was like, “Oh my god.” Okay. So, I think it’s this camera. And after like 30 minutes, we found the right camera. And then about another 30 minutes later, we found the right interaction. But we literally scrubbed through front to back, front, back to front.
57:27 · And I wanted to like whip out like old like computer science algorithms I had learned in college to like try to do like uh you know in like computer science there’s like algorithms to like determine how to sort sort data or like find specific numbers. You like start with the first half if it’s there.
57:43 · No, you go to the second half. And I wanted to try to explain these algorithms to them so they could sort through these frames more efficiently. And I was like, bro, this is taking so long. Mind you, now it’s like 2:30 a.m.
57:54 · and I’m like, I have to be back here at this very point in like six hour. No, like four hours. Like, I don’t even know if it’s worthwhile going home at this point. Can we please use whatever advanced surveillance technology you’re hiding from me to [laughter] just find these people already? But no, they were very kind. They ended up offering me like a sausage on a stick and they gave me like leuchy juice and everything.
58:16 · They were very sweet, but we had to manually scrub through hours of footage to find this guy who tried to scam me out of this DD. And I had to issue a police report. And same thing actually, when I issued the police report, they gave it to me and it was all in Chinese so I could translate it. And they were like, “Hey, if there’s anything wrong with this, let us know.”
58:33 · And I translated it. And like there were some there were some issues with it.
58:37 · They was saying like he came up and he wouldn’t let Eric leave without like getting in his car. And I was like, “Oh man, maybe they’re like trying to frame this guy for something. Maybe that’s not good. And so [snorts] I said to the guy, I’m like, “Hey, like I he didn’t do this part. I don’t want him to get into like more trouble than he needs to. I’m sure he’s just trying to pay the bills, you know, like it sucks that he has to resort to this, but I don’t want him to like, you know, serve time in prison for like that’s crazy.” And they’re like, “Oh, okay. That’s fine. What actually happened? Just tell us.” And so I revised everything and they just wrote it up on the spot and I signed it and it was totally fine.
59:08 · I I was shocked to hear that there was like there didn’t seem to be the corruption that I had grown accustomed to in the United States.
59:17 · And that was a very jarring experience.
59:19 · And it made me wish that there was indeed this sort of mythical surveillance technology that was actually monitoring everyone at all times. So I could have just saved that hour or two sitting in that police station. But there was that. And then there was one very recent, very brief thing where we were in Chongqing and our friend’s visiting from from the United States and she had received cash from her ex uh e ex-boyfriend’s grandmother who’s this little old 80s something year old Chinese lady in like Flushing, Queens.
59:46 · And she used this cash to buy jewelry from I think it’s like blackhead jewelry, something a very mainstream jewelry brand here. And the next day the police came to our door in the hotel we were staying at and they’re like, “Hey, your friend used fake banknotes. These are fraudulent. These are like scam banknotes. These were not real. And I was like, “Oh my god, we’re going to prison.” Oh, so you pay cash with it?
1:00:09 · She paid cash because she’s like a tourist. She She had received cash from like this [clears throat] grandma, you know, like the the old heads in the US. I guess they still have some like actual physical cash and she used it to buy this jewelry.
1:00:20 · So the cops came to the door and were like, “Hey, she bought with like fraudulent cash.” And I was like, “We’re literally we’re going to prison. We’re never getting out of Chongqing. I’m gonna die in this prison here. This is horrible.” And they’re like, “Can you just like pay them?” And I was like, “Yeah, sure. No problem. So, I scan their WeChat code. They’re like, “If you want to leave a voice message, you can send them a voice message.” And they held up the phone. I was like, “I’m so sorry. Like, I had no idea. It’s my friend. She’s visiting. I feel so bad.
1:00:41 · If there’s anything I do to make up for it, please let me know. I feel terrible for like potentially trying to scam you, obviously unintentionally.” And they were like, “Okay, she’s here.” And they left. I was like, “Oh my god, now what are is there going to be like a SWAT team that [laughter] comes on and like throws us into prison? What’s going on here?” And that was it. She she was already on a train at that point, so she wasn’t even in the hotel. And we told her like, “Andrea, there’s like there’s police here for you.” She’s like, “Oh my god, I’m gonna die in a Chinese prison.”
1:01:11 · And she got to Non Chong where she was going and she reported it to the police.
1:01:14 · She’s like, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” And they’re like, “So why are you telling me that?
1:01:17 · Why are you telling me? It’s fine. You paid your debt. That’s it. Go away.” You know, like [laughter] it was this is them knowing you obviously knowing you’re American and all that stuff.
1:01:25 · So they essentially had used some sort of they showed us the surveillance footage on their phone like, “Hey, this is your friend.” and we’re like, “Yeah, that’s her.” And they found our hotel room because we had to register our passports with the hotel and it worked out fine. And so I think there is this like for sure there is surveillance. I think from everything I have personally seen, it’s been used for good. I’m you know I I don’t know if there are instances in which maybe it’s been used for not great things, but from everything that I have personally experienced, it has made my life materially better.
1:01:54 · And I do appreciate that because you know the shop owner got their money. we didn’t end up accidentally scamming them and the the taxi driver was able to have like a fair dignified case against him when he was trying to scam people of course and that so far has been a a fairly net positive in my life but I don’t have you guys had anything similar have you had to deal with any sort of crazy surveillance stories or camera stories uh no not in
1:02:20 · terms of surveillance I mean I had my runs runin with police I was very scared in the moment cuz it was like especially my first runins I was like oh I was like scared but it was like literally nothing happened. And that just shows like there is this no matter how progressive or
1:02:37 · open-minded or traveled we feel we are and this speaks to like how strong the propaganda is in America I guess like even us who are like even you like there is still this like this stain of propaganda that we still haven’t washed off and that influences us in the way we think especially in in times of fear right cuz then all the worst thoughts flow into mind right and times when I’ve felt felt afraid all
1:03:04 · like the worst thoughts of American or Western narrative about China start rushing in immediate. It’s so it it’s fascinating and almost ridiculous how fast those those thoughts rush into my mind even though I’ve been living here for like 17 years and I have the
1:03:22 · perspective of China that I have and it’s like once I’m in like a fearful state all the worst thoughts like oh this is authoritarian totalitarian I’m going to get arrested I’m going to be disappeared [laughter] right it’s like this like like all the worst thoughts and then like literally right after like nothing happened yeah it’s been like nothing but helpful and I’m And then I feel like an idiot again. [laughter] Fuck, man. I’m no better than I was when I first left America, right? And I don’t know. I think it just shows how deeply we have been propagandized that any moment of fear, all those things are still right there.
1:03:55 · Where were you guys before moving here?
1:03:57 · California.
1:03:58 · I was in New York. You were in New York.
1:04:00 · Yeah.
1:04:00 · I grew up in New Jersey, then I was in New York, and then I went to LA, and then I went back to New York, and I came here.
1:04:05 · I see. I see. Okay. So, I guess the NYPD, you know, they’re not they’re not a great squad of folks.
1:04:11 · I’m like living in America genuinely intimidated by police officers.
1:04:15 · Even if I’m doing nothing wrong and I’m just driving and there’s a police car behind me, I am like tense. I’m like, “Okay, fuck. What am I doing? Oh, my headlights on like right. God forget I pulled over, which I have been many times.” But like I getatically tense. I don’t I don’t feel tense around. I want to add something to this which might be an interesting point of view.
1:04:37 · Uh I don’t know if you noticed this um but keep your eyes open next time when you see a police officer talking to a Chinese citizen uh for any type of misdemeanor or anything like that.
1:04:47 · They’re basically yelling at the police.
1:04:49 · The Chinese aunties the Chinese are finger their finger in the police offic. And the police are just like no. Come on. Just come on. [laughter] So every time I see this in my mind I’m thinking in America that granny granny would be on the ground face ground on the pavement [laughter] knee behind her neck.
1:05:11 · Yeah. Cuz you’re escalating it, right?
1:05:12 · So yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
1:05:13 · Stop resisting. Yeah. Stop resisting.
1:05:15 · Exactly.
1:05:16 · It’s so meanwhile.
1:05:18 · Yeah. Yeah, same thing. And when at first I had the exact same feeling as Justin whenever I got stopped by for some stupid little thing, I’ll be like, “Oh my god, so tense.” But then now I’m just like not tense at all. I’m just like I’ll even sometime give a little Are you serious? You really really [laughter] you know? He’s like, “Come on, man. I was just sorry. I got to fucking do this.”
1:05:35 · Yeah.
1:05:35 · So it’s it’s interesting. And even at when you when we had gotten into fights uh and get thrown into the police station, you know, we’d be like pretty tense. And usually the the end result is is is sort of like, look guys, you guys got to work it out first. Like don’t give us any more trouble. Please work it out.
Talking positively about China
1:05:53 · Yeah. Figure it out. You know, pay usually just some sort of like financial fine.
1:05:56 · Yeah. Pay some of money. We think we’re going to get locked up. It’s like just you’re stupid. Just Yeah. You’re a fucking moron.
1:06:02 · So it’s a very different relationship.
1:06:04 · Here we are recording a podcast still.
1:06:06 · [laughter] Yeah. And and then uh to go back with the cameras, I lost my bag last year. Uh I forgot it on a bike. And you know, I was doing something. It was like an hour later or something. I’m like, “Oh my god, I forgot my bike. My my bag.” And I went back and it was gone obviously. And so I went to the police station and then they’re like, “Um, so we saw they pulled up the video.” They didn’t show me, but they pulled up the video. Like we got the video, we saw the bag. We saw the person who took it. Uh, we’re looking into it and we’ll call you back. I kept like waiting. I called back like, “Yeah, yeah, we couldn’t really track it.”
1:06:36 · You know, like really? You have so many cameras. You couldn’t really track it.
1:06:41 · It’s like, “Yeah, it’s just uh I don’t know. which is maybe when the cameras are down or something like he didn’t have a correct answer. He had an accident other people but they lost a guy but basically they lost a guy and um and I was thinking like dude your whole camera system like you what’s the point of all this then but how much of that is again like the western narrative of like Chinese society is like some sort of black mirror dystopian like everyone’s like face scan thing like they have like the the score and all the information you want every single person I mean yes this
1:07:11 · is not to say like they they have a lot of information on who we are and everything but the the idea a of like real time tracking across the entire society. I think the American perspective of like of a monitoring is the idea of like there’s an actively some person like sitting in front of like a screen or like hundreds of people sitting in front of you. Yeah. Staring at you, watching you live as you as you take a shit on the toilet. Yeah. As you live your life, right? No, all of it is like reactive.
1:07:39 · If there is a crime committed or reported, then they have to go back through all that footage to try to find something. And sometimes they’re successful, sometimes they’re not.
1:07:47 · See, it’s interesting though. I I have an inverse story sort of. I had a friend who uh had gotten on a highspeed rail. It was it was when I was in Zagong. Uh we went to uh I think after that we went to like Ebin, which is like where Wuang is from, the the Baiju.
1:08:02 · Oh, bro, that’s some good ass bou fuck.
1:08:04 · During that train trip, the lady had forgotten her bag on the train. And so it just kept going and literally within I think it was like an hour and a half, someone they had called the train station and been like, “Hey, I left my bag on the train.” They used whatever like uh cameras to find out where the bag was. They got it. They put it into some like I think it was like a DD delivery guy or something.
1:08:24 · He drove it like a town over and within like an hour and a half, she had the bag with her computer, multiple cameras, literally like tens of thousands of dollars worth of like not only like physical equipment, but also like footage she had shot from like different countries and stuff on hard drives and whatnot, like worth a fuck ton of money to her. All returned within under two hours.
1:08:46 · So, they were able to use whatever sort of like video footage to actually return her bag in that instance. And I hear that I’m like, “Oh, that’s awesome.” But then I hear this, I’m like, “Ah, maybe they need a little bit, [laughter] you know?”
1:08:56 · Well, it’s a hit and miss sometimes, right? I guess depending on maybe hit or miss the circumstances. But like, but honestly, where else in the world does this happen?
AI and trust collapse
1:09:05 · Nowhere.
1:09:05 · Like I’m not I’m an honest question. I’m not assuming rhetorical like where else does this happen?
1:09:09 · I don’t I you think maybe Japan like do they like you know are they you think what what is this? You mean like his example of like having all this stuff?
1:09:16 · I’m going to tell you a very personal story in Japan in a in a Japanese airport. Narita.
1:09:23 · Um, I took a shit and my wallet fell out and I didn’t realize and I went off and I remember it was like, like I said, 45 minutes, an hour later, I couldn’t find my wallet and I was like, “Oh, fuck. I’m in the airport.
1:09:36 · That shit’s gone.” Yeah.
1:09:37 · Right. In the bathroom, right?
1:09:39 · And uh yeah, so I went back to like the the the bathroom. It was gone. And then I didn’t know what else to do. So I just went to like a like a customer service like center kind of thing. I just went there. I’m like, “Yo, I lost my my wallet and stuff like that.” He’s like, “What would it look like?” And I described it. He’s like, “Was it this?”
1:09:55 · I’m like, “Oh shit, it was and not $1 missing.”
1:09:59 · Yeah, that’s incredible.
1:10:01 · But but that even that’s awesome. But even that’s still a little bit different because that’s the lost and found. You were still in the same general.
1:10:07 · It was like a customer service area like a customer. You were still in the location, right? What he’s talking about is they drove and back.
1:10:15 · But even still, there’s like a degree of trust. No one was enticed by the wonderful bet toilets they had sitting on the warm little seat with the little water hitting their butthole and looking down like oh wait there’s a wallet here for no cameras nothing you can easily take it nice but well I mean Japan maybe there are cameras in the bathroom sometimes in Japan it’s a big business over there someone offered to buy your underwear [laughter] but I do feel like if that happened in New York or something like that would be gone bro it would be no you would never see that shit [laughter] No, there’s no shot.
1:10:47 · New York is a different place.
1:10:50 · As we’re saying all this, and I think maybe what you were hinting at before, how he was also is like, well, if we’re talking about surveillance, we’re talking about the police here, you know, we’re talking about like positive interactions we’ve had. This is of course not to say that police here have never abused their power, [laughter] harass or any injustices. I disagree.
1:11:12 · Revisionist reactionary. [laughter] But but see this is like and and I was actually talking to Daniel about this, but I feel like whenever I we talk like positively about China, there’s like I I feel like condemn it. At the same time, [laughter] there’s this exactly there’s this social need for us because I know and I’m very aware of people that just want to hear you be critical of the country and so when you speak positively, they just can’t take it. Imagine if you had to do that about literally any other country on the planet.
1:11:44 · Like imagine when dumbass Americans were like, “Man, I really I I rode the high-speed train in Japan and man that uh that train was really cool. It was really fast.” You’re like, “Okay, but have you heard about the nonjing massacre?” It’s like, “Well, bro, like come on. I just want to talk about the train, dude.” Like, like, don’t get me wrong, I am very critical of Japan. I like maybe that’s not a great example.
1:12:02 · But even then with the United States, maybe you could make the inverse thing where it’s like, okay, well, it’s like anytime you talk about like a negative of the United States, it’s like we just bombed a girl school in Iran. It’s like, okay, yeah, but also we have like iPhones, you know, it’s like that would even be more fair than being like, yeah, but China had some bad problems. Um, yeah, you might have nice things now, but at what cost?
1:12:21 · Yeah, but at what cost? Exactly.
1:12:23 · Exactly. I think this goes back to where we’re where we were talking about how the idea of a conspiracy theory is a lot more diluted uh to many people especially the young people today.
1:12:35 · Do you know who coined the term conspiracy theory to begin with?
1:12:37 · Who?
1:12:38 · The CIA.
1:12:39 · Oh, really?
1:12:39 · Yeah. It’s well documented. They were the first ones to coin the term you cause confusion. You cause uh Yeah, it’s a smart move.
1:12:47 · You know, they cooked with that to be fair. They That was a pretty good one. They they I I got to give it to them. Like I hate that. They’re good. They know what they do in their branding department.
1:12:55 · Fuck. They’re real good [laughter] at what they do.
1:12:59 · But yeah, it’s just I don’t know. It just makes me think about how flimsy of a of a structure the governmental system or even the political and the legal system that the United States or probably most countries in the world I would say probably I mean without any truth in that but at least in the American system uh the more information that gets available and leaked out quote
1:13:24 · unquote the more you realize how flimsy everything is right it’s just it’s just such a weird thing to wake up to because we used to just live in a very bubble world. You know, we just live in, you know, you you have your Sunday paper, you know, back in the day, you know, read the Sunday paper, the headlines. Oh, that’s what’s that’s what’s happening in Europe. Okay.
1:13:43 · And then you got like, you know, you flip the page, it’s like, oh, this kid got the the the award in high school. That’s nice, you know, and then you go over here, it’s like, oh, the stock the stock looks good. Okay, good. Making some money. I can buy my eighth house, you know.
1:13:55 · And then you flip another page like, oh, the word puzzle.
1:13:57 · You got Calvin Hobs. Okay, that’s a nice comic. H the world looks seems okay right now. Oh, we got a little war going on. Oh, okay.
1:14:04 · That’s far away.
1:14:06 · It’s just you kind of lived in this little bubble and that’s the way they wanted it, right? But now that the information is so open, it’s just so hard to control. There’s no there’s no doubt in my mind with AI coming out and stuff like that that they’re going to utilize that.
1:14:22 · It’s going to be so much more fucked. I think the the bigger issue with AI right now is the video and and photo manipulation capabilities.
1:14:33 · We’re already living in in a world where you don’t you can’t trust what you see, right? And it’s it AI video and and photos and audio. It’s it’s pretty good. It’s not 100% yet.
1:14:43 · Like you can still catch it.
1:14:44 · You can still catch it. You can still catch it.
1:14:46 · It’s getting to the point though that like what happens when you can’t catch it?
1:14:49 · It’s getting close.
1:14:50 · There’s a lot of thing where I’m like I work in the video field. I’ve done AI work for clients and stuff like that. And they make you do AI stuff.
1:14:57 · Yeah.
1:14:57 · What do they do?
1:14:58 · So, so this is a different conversation, but it’s um I’ve had a recent conversation about uh AI use in videos uh commercially. Yeah.
1:15:07 · Uh from the west and China. I had a client uh from Europe in Germany and I was doing a commercial for them, a watch brand. And so we were talking about AI, right? And I was like, “So, so what’s it like over there?” So because AI is getting crazy over here in China.
1:15:22 · So, what’s that over there? They’re like, “Nah, yeah, we don’t really like to use it.” And, you know, it’s it’s it’s still a bit of a taboo, you know, and and I mean, it’s there. You got you got the slop, you know. I’m like, “Yeah, lot of slop.” Yeah, a lot of slop. Lot of slop.
1:15:36 · Like, you know, we don’t really want to use it and stuff like that. Maybe for like some VFX, but not like all AI video. No way. You know, [snorts] and I’m like, “Yeah, I get it. I get it.” You know, um they’re like, “How about you in China?” I’m like, “No, it’s the opposite here.” Um people are pretty welcoming of it. Um if anything, they’re like, “Wow, that was really well done.
1:15:52 · And you don’t get as much like push back, which is mind-blowing to me because as somebody who works in the field and and talking with other people that are creators and knowing that the job market is changing because of it, the budgets are getting slashed and the demand is getting higher. Uh it blows my mind that there’s not push back. Why do you think that is? Well, first of all, I think there’s a different there’s different levels to this. growing up in America, you know, I went to film school.
1:16:21 · So people around they’re all passionate about film and even non-filmmakers can understand the idea of passion with film and and you know and the the art of it. Um I would say the majority of the public here they don’t have as much of that type of relationship. It’s more about I need to survive so I needed to make money. Okay.
1:16:43 · And if I need if I’m so for example it’s very interesting for people outside the industry the a gaffer which is like a electrician or the person who controls the lights okay the gaffer and then the light lightning team a lot of them come from literally
1:16:58 · certain areas in China so you got like the the the situ crowd you got the crowd you got different crowd and they own like they there’s like a whole bunch of them own the equipment and like all the team members and they just come from these little provinces like little little little areas almost like gangs, right?
1:17:15 · Yes. [laughter] Like like they control that like and they’re part of the cartels. Yeah. Literally think Africa. [laughter] Everyone thinks it’s the Jews is actually this is one.
1:17:26 · So it’s very interesting and but what I’m trying to get at is uh cuz if you talk to some of like the the grips and stuff like that, you have some conversation, you’re not going to get to the level of being like what’s your favorite film or what you know what are some films you really like? They probably like I don’t know. I just do my job. Wow. You know, but meanwhile in the States or something like that, you talk to a grip, they’re maybe they want to be a gaffer, they want to be a DP, and so they’re they’re kind of like, yeah, I love this film. So, it’s a very different relationship to to film making.
1:17:55 · So, now I’m not now I’m not saying everyone’s like that. Of course, you’re going to have anomalies, but the general I would say the general consensus is that now the main roles like the DP or the director or something like that. Yeah.
1:18:06 · Yeah. They’re still they’re so passionate and stuff like that. You can have those kind of conversations, but not all of them. And so it’s interesting. So based off of that, when you have that type of relationship, you’re only thinking monetarily of is it going to solve the problem? Now, if [clears throat] the problem is from a brand perspective, I need to create a commercial to send to the public and the public already looks at commercials like it’s a commercial. It’s not a piece of art.
1:18:32 · It doesn’t matter to me. It’s just a commercial that they don’t care. So they’re just like whatever. It’s a commercial.
1:18:37 · No one cares. It’s just commercials are the devil anyway. So it doesn’t matter. But then you have you have push back in the in the west when McDonald’s or Coca-Cola came out and fully AI generated commercial. They hated that. There was a huge push back, you know? So now only you got like Cashy and like shit like whatever whatever those like uh poly market shit, you know, like those kind of fucking Oh yeah.
1:18:59 · shit of the world companies.
1:19:01 · What’s more dystopian than that? like being able to bet on everyday life and reality. Oh, it’s awesome. No, it’s horrible.
1:19:08 · [laughter] I love it. Anyway, use my promo code sign up Eric H. Check. No, [laughter] it’s crazy. It is great. It’s uh it’s really destroying America. If if you want America to fall apart, you’ll root every day for Poly Market, the Kashi, the every every betting app, the FanDuels, the DraftKings, you want those to do well cuz I think they’re ripping.
1:19:30 · But okay, I have a little bit of a contrarian view without knowing too much about all that.
1:19:35 · People who are critical of like polyark and cashy and and this this idea of like being able to bet on like you know everyday stuff.
1:19:44 · Why would you be critical of that but you’re not critical of like the stock market? Like you could stock market is basically gambling and you’re gambling against on on corporations and you’re giving corporations money and they’re profiting from your 100% agree. I 1 million% agree. Thank you. Look at that. Awesome.
1:20:00 · And so why is it all of a sudden a bad thing once these corporations can’t profit from your betting?
1:20:06 · Yes.
1:20:06 · But it’s okay when they can.
1:20:08 · I agree.
1:20:09 · Okay.
1:20:09 · Yeah.
1:20:09 · No, that’s awesome. We should ban the American stock market, too. The New York Stock Exchange should be abolished.
1:20:16 · We should destroy the American stock market. I think I think it is 100% speculative. I don’t believe any like average Joe person is like investing serious amounts of money into the stock market with the real knowledge that like someone who wants a a a long-term benefit to the entire world or the United States even has. I think it’s very much so I want short-sighted gains.
1:20:40 · I want to invest in the GameStop. I want it to go up 100x. I want to invest in the shitcoins. I want those to go up a millionx. I want to invest in the next Bitcoin. You know, like they’re not doing it because they see some sort of long-term vision for some worldchanging product that is being invented in the United States. They’re doing it for the exact same reasons. They are betting on things on Khi or Poly Market or whatever. And they want that short-term little monetary gain. They want the little dopamine hit. They want to be able to brag to their friends like, “Yeah, bro. I got into GME like 3 years before you.”
Socialism and the American Dream
1:21:11 · You know, there’s something to be said about that, but I don’t think it’s good for society. No. I was see I was coming at it from a different angle in terms of like like maybe not extreme as you like I wouldn’t be like wanting to ban the stock market but I’m saying like at least what I’ve heard is that most people who are critical of like poly market and stuff like that are it’s more for a moral reason you’re betting on like tragic events around the world if they happen or not right things with real life consequences and I and I totally get that argument but betting on
1:21:42 · a company especially a big one I I mean, there are what thousands and thousands of people that work under that company whose livelihoods depend on the ups and downs in that company. You’re hedging your bets on whether that company is going to survive or go down or profit or not profit, the ups and downs, right?
1:21:58 · Those employees, go ahead and lay off some staff, you know.
1:22:00 · Exactly.
1:22:00 · And so those those bets also have real life consequences and the people that directly work for those companies, not even to mention the things that are downstream effects of what that company does. So if it’s a big let’s say a defense contracting company like Lockheed Rathon friend of the show
1:22:18 · [laughter] sponsor of the show um if it’s them I mean what like the consequences of what they do around the world and you’re betting on that like why is that more morally just than betting on you know uh if you know the Iran war starts on this date versus not like I mean you know things like that like I just I I see it hypocritical to be like critical of one and not the other. That’s all I’m saying.
1:22:41 · I think I think I mean this is an important conversation to be had because I think this has been a criticism that people have had in the past. But I think the what someone will say is there is regulation to try to prevent that insider trading that has occurred over like the past few centuries. But the thing is, people have all of the trust people have had in government has been eroded because we’ve seen Nancy Pelosy’s stock portfolio go from a measly little, I don’t know, 10 million to now hundreds of millions of dollars, outperforming index funds by five or 10x.
1:23:10 · Well, like outperforming like the most famed investors like Warren Buffett or whatever. Like what the fuck are we doing?
1:23:16 · Like you’re the best investor in the world that the world has ever seen and you happen to also deal in policy that affects these companies. But that but that’s the thing. That’s that’s the disillusionment. Part of the [clears throat] disillusionment is like like there’s all the rules apply but don’t apply to people in Congress, don’t apply to people in government who actually have a material effect on the outcome of these things.
1:23:36 · So I think and the valuation of these things.
1:23:37 · Yes.
1:23:37 · So but I think I think like the American populace is at a point now where you have some folks who like okay we want to enforce these laws for everyone. Of course we don’t want to be in this class of people who exploit each other. And then there’s this other class, this other group of people who think, yeah, I mean, this is just the system’s always going to be this way. I want to be a part of that. I want to take advantage of this insider vision [clears throat] that I have. So, if I’m a product manager at OpenAI, I want to bet on when the next model is going to come out because I know when it’s going to come out.
1:24:06 · Of course, if I work in the Department of War at the United States government, I know when we’re launching these strikes on Venezuela, on Cuba, on Iran, on whoever. I’m going to use that insider information because like listen, Donald Trump Jr.’s on the board of advisers of Poly Market. I’m not going to get in trouble.
1:24:24 · Nancy Pelosi hasn’t been getting in trouble. Why the fuck would I, some random like product manager at Rathon get in trouble for this new weapon sale we just did when I know that we’re about to use these weapons on whatever country? So I think it’s it’s whether or not people in oftenimes the working class want to have this aspiration which is in many ways I think the American dream of joining the capitalist class,
1:24:49 · joining the owners, the oligarchs, the folks who own all of the means of production and they want to ascend to that level so they can exploit everyone else and be in this sort of like higher level class and and reap the rewards of these violent systems that we’ve put in place.
1:25:05 · And then of course there’s that other group of people the other contingency of folks who I think are probably against poly market probably against Kelie probably against oftentimes the stock market like myself at least the American stock market and say I don’t know I think it’s a much better society in which we just enforce all of these laws equally independent of whether or not you are a member of Congress or someone who’s just a an average like construction worker or something.
1:25:30 · That’s a crazy it’s a crazy concept. that people should all be held accountable to the same legal system that we put in place to hold us to a certain standard. Like that feels so simple, but as an American, it seems so outlandish. It seems so crazy. Yeah. I think that’s one of the I don’t know how to say it. Like maybe the biggest lies I think is that people in America have been conditioned to believe that the fight is left versus right and it’s not. No, it’s up versus down.
1:26:03 · Mhm.
1:26:03 · The fight has always been up versus down. And they’re the ones that want you to believe that the fight No, it’s not up versus down. It’s not the upper class versus you. It’s not the oligarchs versus everyone else. It’s No, it’s left versus right. You guys squabble about that.
1:26:17 · Yeah.
1:26:18 · While both sides, no matter left or right, are profiting from that.
1:26:21 · Yeah.
1:26:21 · And ultimately have the same goal. Some just disguise it better than the other.
1:26:25 · 100%.
1:26:25 · Well, that’s the poly market. The left and right.
1:26:27 · Hell yeah.
1:26:27 · Which side you going? Yeah. [laughter] No. Well, it’s crazy though. It’s like, bro, [clears throat] my landlord is not a Guatemalan immigrant who came here seeking refuge from like the Mayan genocide. Bro, my my landlord is some faceless, nameless corporation staffed by like three billionaires. Like, what the fuck are we doing? You know, like why are we trying to fun somewhere?
1:26:46 · Like, who gives a shit? And you can say that to anyone on the left or the right.
1:26:49 · If you get down to the nitty-gritty of it, it’s like, bro, the guy who raised your rent is not some dude from like trying to escape some terrible violent condition in like Latin America. The guy who raised your rent is some dickhead at the top of some board of CEOs who was like, “Well, actually, I think if we got all of these other landlords together, we can milk a little bit more.
1:27:09 · Raise it a little bit more.” What are they going to do? They live without a house. Fuck no. They’re not going to do that. Come on. So, okay. So, we’re we’re kind of talking about this idea of like runaway hyper capitalism in America, which is how I see it. Speaking to what we’re talking about in terms of the younger generation in society, they’re they’re kind of feeling the cracks in that. Yeah.
1:27:29 · idea. And they’re unfortunately paying the price for that.
1:27:34 · We’ve been dancing around this, but like I haven’t directly asked you like what what would you identify yourself as then um politically if you had to choose a label? I guess if we if we had to throw you into a bucket, right?
1:27:45 · Yeah.
1:27:45 · I I think it’s thankfully as a consequence of some of the new developments in the United States, I think it’s become much more permissible, at least in America, to describe yourself as a socialist. I think in recent time it’s been okay to say you’re a democratic socialist. Even very normal folks are well which is what Zoron which is what Zoron said. Yeah. Um I would say I’m a socialist. I would say I’m a socialist. I think I’m I am very interested in the the the various communist nations around the world that have uplifted so many people out of poverty.
1:28:16 · I would like to learn from them as much as I possibly can and um you know communize the United States of America brother. you know, but no, like genuinely I would like to learn as much as I can and and try to bring some of those lessons back to back to home, back to mom donastan um and and see if we can enact some meaningful change. I don’t know if it has to be incremental or if frankly the entire thing needs to be turned on its head and there needs to be a whole new system. But I think that’s a debate that um many people around the world outside of the United States have been having for a considerable amount of time.
1:28:48 · And I think recently I’ve been very sympathetic to the the movements that have successfully turned entire systems on their heads. So I’ve I’ve grown very sympathetic to the the systems that I’ve seen abroad such in place such as in places like China or even Vietnam.
1:29:04 · Vietnam say I went to Vietnam last month. I went to Lao last month and oh my god Vietnam is an exciting place right now.
1:29:12 · A lot of people moving there.
1:29:13 · Yeah. Yeah.
1:29:14 · They say Vietnam is now what Shanghai was like 10 years ago. A lot of people like that excitement level. Yeah.
1:29:20 · Too many tourists though. So many French people. Oh my god.
1:29:22 · Oh, that’s a no no then.
1:29:24 · Oh, that’s a no no then.
1:29:25 · So many [laughter] French dude. I Oh, I ran into I ran into on our previous podcast we were ripping on Italian people. We’re talking Italian people don’t know how to make pizza. Now we’re [laughter] like French people.
1:29:37 · Italian people. You know, honestly, before coming to China, I hated all Europeans. [laughter] After coming to China, I hate all Europeans more except Italians. I met a lot of Italians here. They’ve been very nice. French. Oh my god, bro.
1:29:51 · They’re so stuck up. [laughter] THEY’RE ALL OH GOD, DUDE. They’re like, “Ah, this Chinese, they need a little sophistication. We are going to the French concession. We will have the esgo. We have the snails. They have the snails.” But that was a betail. Shut the fuck up, Paris. Go back to more of that.
1:30:14 · Unshowered little bitch place. It’s disgusting. I The French people piss me off so much. They’re so arrogant. The thing is too, Europeans are very arrogant and they think that they are brilliant. Americans, I have to give it to us. We are very dumb. We’re maybe the dumbest country, the the dumbest developed country out there, but like we know we’re stupid. Like we know that we’re fucking morons. And like we’re kind of okay with you guys.
1:30:45 · [laughter] I’m okay. Like if if a Chinese person came up to me was like, “You’re an idiot. You don’t know anything about China.” I’d be like, “Yeah, you’re right. Fuck it. [laughter] I’m an idiot. I’m okay with that.” If they said it to a French person, they’d be like, “I cannot believe you are so unsophisticated.” It’s like, “MY GOD, BRO.”
1:31:01 · There’s something here that that’s deeper here. There’s [laughter] a deeper deeper There’s a deeper core anger here. Your hate for French people run.
1:31:09 · No, they haven’t reckoned with anything.
1:31:10 · [clears throat] They emptied out Africa. All the streets of Paris are paved with the blood of tens of millions of Africans who they enslaved and they have not reckoned with any of it and their food still sucks in my opinion. It’s like, bro, same with Britain, too.
1:31:23 · Britain, it’s like if you’re going to go around and colonize the entire world literally for the spice trade to get more spices. Why the fuck does your food suck so badly, bro?
1:31:34 · One of the biggest mysteries of human existence.
1:31:37 · It’s crazy. The only good thing they’ve ever produced, the only good thing Britain has ever produced is chicken tikka masala. I would die on that hill.
1:31:44 · Invented in England, thank God, by a wonderful immigrant invented. Invented in England by a wonderful immigrant who finally brought a little bit of culture and civilization, societ societal benefits to the British people. Oh my god. They’ve now produced a single other good thing. It’s I didn’t know that. I didn’t know chicken tikka masala was invented in England. Yes. Yeah.
1:32:04 · So it’s not even native to India then. That dish. Wow. Like General Charles chicken.
1:32:08 · Yeah, we we was talking about like Chinese American food.
1:32:11 · Wait, actually I want to bring up something orange chicken. [laughter] Am I off base on this? So So we were just By the way, we just lost all our European listeners.
1:32:19 · Sorry. Sorry. [laughter] My bad.
1:32:21 · I’ll come back a little bit on that. So um so yeah, we just went off on French, Italian, or whoever. But but we’re we’re obviously joking to a certain extent.
1:32:30 · You guys are joking about this.
1:32:31 · [laughter] And but what what I find interesting is what if we change those countries to China and we we’re joking like fucking Chinese people and just going off.
1:32:42 · Mhm.
1:32:43 · Push back would come out. Or if you say African countries or something like that, push back will come out because it’s much more sensitive to talk about it. Why is that?
1:32:51 · Well, because they haven’t been the privileged. Yes. Yes. And European countries and Western countries by and large have throughout at least modern history have been the privileged colonizers.
1:33:03 · And so it’s fair game to punch up but you shouldn’t be punching down I guess.
1:33:08 · Have you heard of the term Yakubian ape?
1:33:11 · Nope. I heard this. So in the idea like there’s a the Nation of Islam which is this definitely like it’s a radical bunch of folks. I I don’t really believe in anything they have to say. They are very crazy in many ways and they’re kind of a cult. Um, it’s like a black nationalist cult in the United States, but they have some interesting ideas and one of which is this idea of Yakub where the entire world leading up until recent history was black, brown, and then there was this evil scientist who’s this black dude with this massive forehead like looks like Megamind almost.
1:33:42 · And he was this evil doctor, this evil scientist who invented white people to punish the rest of the people on Earth. And he sent down all of these white people to inhabit all of these regions to colonize, to plunder. And I kind of ascribe to that. And I’m like, you know, they kind of had a fair point. A lot of the white folks in Europe did a lot of really bad things throughout history.
1:34:06 · I mean, I think the reason why we attribute is that we allow this sort of slander of dumbass French people is because they did so much damage to Africa, to to Indochina, to the rest of the world.
1:34:23 · But even the parts in the Middle East you’re talking about like Israel and Palestine. I mean, those lines were drawn by like was it the French or the British? The Brits. The French as well. They were all fucking getting together and being like, “Oh, we’re this white occupier. We can draw these lines.” knowing nothing about like the cultural history. They just drew lines arbitrarily and people are still fighting in those lands today.
1:34:41 · Like India and Pakistan is such a crazy divide like they should not have this tension. It was completely manufactured by the dumbass fucking British Empire who came in and split people up who had otherwise lived in a fairly borderless world for their entire existence until these dumbass fucking British came in and were like, “Well, actually, we’re going to split you up and now, yeah, Kashmir, good luck with that. I hope you guys figure it out. Bye. See you.” And it’s like now your food still sucks, dude. It’s like that’s the important thing about really understanding history. Like when you know these things, a lot of the dots start connecting.
1:35:12 · And and I can also say from our French friends here that whenever we rag on them, they love it.
1:35:17 · They’re like, “Yeah, yeah, we did it.”
1:35:19 · [laughter] They know, huh?
1:35:21 · Especially Especially British people, I say, like at least the British people I’ve met here, they’re very aware of like the atrocities that the empire has committed in the past. Yeah.
1:35:30 · Um, I appreciate that, but it’s like I don’t know. This is okay to your point, this is actually very anecdotal. I just This is just my personal observation. Europeans, especially Europeans that have lived here for a while, they are much more prone to lecturing you.
1:35:46 · Yeah.
1:35:47 · Where Americans don’t really lecture.
1:35:49 · They They have their opinions, but they kind of keep it to themselves or, you know, whatever.
1:35:53 · Europeans will lecture more. I feel they love a good lecture. Oh, [laughter] they love They’re all doing TED talks to everyone. all the time. It’s like, Jesus Christ, bro. Yeah, the Brits come and do that shit.
1:36:02 · 8 months. 8 months. He’s already feeling that. [laughter] They do it everywhere, though. They fucking Oh my god, dude. It’s not just China. They go around the entire fucking world. Even people the like diplomats in Kenya say this all the time or in Yeah, in Kenya specifically, but all throughout Africa, they’re always like, “Listen, man. The Chinese come to our country, they leave, we have a hospital.
1:36:24 · The Brits come to our country, they leave, we have a lecture left with us.”
1:36:28 · It’s like, bro, what the fuck?
1:36:29 · [laughter] We They They don’t come and bring infrastructure. They come and give us a fucking lecture about how to govern ourselves, dude. It’s nuts. It’s like, I wish you would had that same thought in mind when you were out here colonizing us a 100 years ago, sometimes even more recently. Americans were dumb, but we know that we’re dumb. You know, that’s so funny.
1:36:46 · But, [laughter] uh, that’s so funny.
1:36:47 · Going back to you for a second, obviously, you have strong opinions. Um, you’re you seem to be very politically active in your work both with Zoron and everything else and the content that you do. Does activist fit for you as like you’re kind of a political activist?
1:37:03 · Sure. I think whatever whatever title best like uh I guess like allows allows some of the ideas I say to enter into the hearts and minds of the people. If it’s activist, if it’s content creator, if it’s dumbass influencer who has to eat noodles and talk about the industrial development of rural China, I will do whatever the fuck it takes because I I I my only goal is to produce
1:37:25 · content that is interesting enough for people to watch to make them to keep their attention while also teaching them something about the material history of why things are the way they are, why some countries are rich, why some countries are poor, and how we can effectively move forward to make sure that, you know, the tide lifts all of our boats together without having to go out and bomb the boats in the Pacific Ocean who the Donald Trump says are drug trafficking or some nonsense like that.
1:37:51 · You know, that is the only thing I care about. So, activist, whatever title, I I I don’t really give a shit. I call myself a political commentator.
1:37:58 · Sometimes I call myself a video creator, but whatever whatever gets into the hearts and minds of folks. Is there a side of you that’s like telling yourself, “Well, look, look, I got to check myself sometimes.” Because I’m sure there are plenty of people who will hear you watch your videos or even hear this podcast or hear you speak on any other number of other interviews that you’ve done and be like, “Well, this guy is a radicalist.” Yeah. He’s a completely radicalized stressed because you are so Yeah. Because you are so far outside of that status quo norm and you are very outspoken about that and and you don’t you’re very unapologetic about that.
1:38:29 · Is there a part of you that’s like, “Okay, well, look, I’m a human being. We’re all human beings.” And like all human beings, we’re also very susceptible of drinking our own Kool-Aid from time to time. And we can get in this echo chamber and this rabbit hole of our own thoughts and we can go off the deep end.
1:38:49 · Is there that part of you that’s like, I have to kind of check that from time to time?
1:38:53 · No. I think the way I view things in my own personal life, and I I’m very lucky in that I’m able to say like, listen, as long as I’m able to just like have enough money to put food on the table, to have a roof over my head, I’m happy to do whatever the fuck it takes and say whatever the fuck I think is is useful in this moment in order to try to get to the hearts and the minds of the people because I think that history will absolve me. I think history will absolve people saying the same things that I’m saying right now.
1:39:21 · Because in 5 years, in 10 years from now, when things in the United States are most likely considerably worse than they are right now, people will be looking back and saying, “Man, there’s been a few people who have been saying this was going to happen the entire time and that there is actually a better world possible, but I don’t really know what that is.” What did they say about what we could be doing right now? Is it too late to start implementing that?
1:39:44 · And I think it will give the folks who are saying this exact same message credibility as things start to unravel, as things start to become more concrete, the contradictions start to sharpen around them, where rent starts to just increase at rates that it’s completely unsustainable, where um whatever form of automation starts getting rid of people’s work, even if it’s not that fucking good. Like people are going to see that.
1:40:06 · And in the same way that like you can change people’s hearts and minds by taking them to China and being like look at the material world around you, the same thing’s going to happen in the United States and the West and in Europe, dumbass Europe, and they think they’re like they’re not susceptible to any, but they are. It’s going to happen in Europe as well, where the material conditions will get to the point where they simply cannot ignore what is going on.
1:40:27 · And in that moment, people in America, in Europe, wherever in the developed world will look back and say, there’s been some people saying this is going to happen this entire time. They’ve been echoing this message about trying to create a better future not just for this rich oligarchic oligarchic class but like the actual people myself who goes to work 10 hours
1:40:53 · a day 8 10 12 hours a day making money for someone who I’ve never even met in person and I think as that starts to happen this message will resonate deeper and deeper with people and so even at the potential expense of alien alienating people right now. I do believe history will absolve some of the things that I’m saying. I hopefully all, but I’m sure I’m wrong about some things and I hopefully won’t be too arrogant to admit that in the future when I realize that I’m wrong about some things.
1:41:21 · But I think that is the the struggle that I I would like to think I’m going through right now. If that makes sense.
1:41:27 · It’s your faith in and that you’re on the right side of history right now.
1:41:31 · Conviction.
1:41:31 · Yeah.
1:41:32 · Yeah.
1:41:32 · And and I think my goal is to look at history, especially postw World War II history, and figure out why things are the way they are in this new world order. Figure out what countries have done well, what countries have done poorly, and try to explain that in terms that respect the material history, and also respect where people are in their own political journeys, their historical journeys, and try to figure out the best way of communicating that to people.
1:41:56 · And I know 100% sometimes I’ll probably use terms that are too too stupid or too broad, too ridiculous, too fucking pedantic, and maybe speak down to folks, maybe speak up to folks. But the idea of making these videos time and time again, trying to refine the craft video after video is trying to get to a point where I can communicate to as broad of an audience as is possible to like receive the message, if that makes sense. And I know a lot of people are really frustrated, at least in the United States.
1:42:26 · They’re very frustrated with the state of affairs.
1:42:29 · And like I was saying, there’s this creeping nihilism that’s seeping into their bones. I think that’s really scary cuz a lot of people want to do some cool shit. They want things to get better, but they haven’t seen that ever. And so if we shine a little light on some of the specs of history that have demonstrated that things actually can improve and sprinkle it with a little bit of revolutionary optimism, then I think, you know, we can actually get to them little by little.
1:42:54 · Is there anything about your impression of China or your experience in China so far that you don’t like?
1:42:59 · Yeah, of course. There are, of course, little quality of life elements that I’m like, you know, it’s always just like silly little things like people driving down the sidewalks on scooters and, you know, honking at me. It’s like, bro, this is a sidewalk. You’re not supposed to be driving your scooter here. That’s a little frustrating. Um, there’s there’s got to be some other things, too.
1:43:20 · I think maybe also the literal software of some platforms. I, as silly as it is, as an American, I’m very used to doing things on my computer. I this is like a really dumb like little thing, but it’s like a big quality of life things at at times where uh like if I’m trying to fill out a form, nine times out of 10 the whatever site is optimized for like WeChat or Alip Pay and like little things like that kind of piss me off or I’m like a fuck, I have to go to my my phone to do this rather than just being able to do it on my computer like I’m used to or even u everything is optimized for Windows and not Mac.
1:43:52 · Yeah, it’s just like like little silly things like that where I’m like I’m genuinely very surprised that it feels like hardware wise like like like genuine hardware like phones and stuff are so advanced. Cars are so advanced, but it feels like like actually like the software on them sometimes is not as polished as it is in America. And I think this is also a very interesting example of of what capitalist development looks like, which is like software, all things considered, is relatively cheap to develop.
1:44:23 · If you fuck up some software, if you mess it up, if there’s a lot of bugs, you can polish it fairly quickly. It’s a fairly low capital uh industry. Like you don’t have to have that much money to create pretty decent software. And as a consequence of that basically every company and why combinator now in the United States is some variant of a software firm. Now it’s all AI but you know historically over the past few decades it’s some form of software that has tried to polish various industries over over the decades.
1:44:51 · Whereas if you have more centralized planning you have the ability to dump large amounts of money into hardware development that take a lot of time to refine because if you fucking car changes are huge and costly. Yeah.
1:45:07 · wheels fall off, people die. You [clears throat] know, if you have a bug that breaks an app, it’s like, okay, you lose 100 bucks, who gives a shit. Even if you lose 100,000 bucks, like, it’s fine. It’s a shitty It’s a shitty bug, but you’re not killing people. It’s a big difference. And America, as a consequence of this rapid immediate gains sort of capitalist ecosystem that they’ve cultivated, has rapidly iterated on so much software that has made many of our online experiences very polished, very refined.
1:45:33 · And so for little things like that, I’m like, man, I do kind of like some American apps better than some of the Chinese apps. With that said, and maybe I’m doing the opposite of always having to condemn, you know, like maybe there’s like some bad things inside. I’m doing the opposite. With that said, I have faith in China as a concept, as a culture, as a state, and even just the companies in China to make sure that over time that’s going to get better.
1:45:58 · And I think that’s exciting. We’ve seen that with Alip Pay and WeChat. We’ve seen that with other apps that have come out. Even the recent AI like apps in China, they’re getting better. They’re rivaling American apps. They’re getting better than American apps like this.
1:46:08 · They look different.
1:46:08 · That’s kind of cool. So, it’s an exciting time to be here. I feel like I’m coming at the exact right time cuz I get all the treats, too, which is Have you noticed I don’t know if you noticed, but this is a big uh cultural difference. Uh speaking of software, email, nobody emails here.
1:46:24 · That’s true.
1:46:25 · No email.
1:46:26 · I hadn’t thought about that until right now.
1:46:28 · No email. What’s up with that?
1:46:29 · No email. I think China or Chinese people tend to adapt to technology much quicker.
1:46:35 · It’s the same way why infrastructure has grown so quickly here because the jump from dirt roads to you know wonderful 5G and you know it’s much easier to update than old uh existing infrastructure.
1:46:50 · Yeah.
1:46:51 · So I think those kind of ideas [snorts] are what makes somebody just use text messaging because they grew up on Q and which is uh something that is very [clears throat] was very big here um which is just like AOL or MSN you know messaging um but with much more functionality which is much very much like WeChat and so why go into email then?
1:47:13 · So, I’m I’m just making that assumption because QQ had this mailing function as part of it and people used it, but they probably just felt like why like it’s unnecessary and I think it just went directly to Well, I I remember there was an inflection point in which WeChat rolled out a lot more functionality very early on, more so than WhatsApp. And I remember there was a period I don’t know what WhatsApp is like now. I’m not on WhatsApp.
1:47:42 · I’m sure it’s better, but like there I remember there was a time when I was on both and there were so many more things like cutting edge things that at that time that you could do on WeChat that just wasn’t available on WhatsApp.
1:47:56 · And I remember talking to my friends in America who was on WhatsApp and they’re like, “Oh yeah, WhatsApp.” I’m like, “Why you use WhatsApp?”
1:48:01 · And they’re like, “Yeah, well it’s just the thing to use.” And I would tell them about WeChat and then like I would tell them all the functions you can do and they almost like didn’t believe me. [laughter] Yeah. At that point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:48:13 · There was a certain point in time that they almost didn’t believe me like it doesn’t do that. What fantasy world are you talking about that it could do that you know and and and it was like things that we would take for granted here like functionality we take for granted here.
1:48:26 · I remember when we chat was making a big push abroad as well and it just totally failed in America and Europe.
1:48:32 · No one outside of China.
1:48:33 · It basically I always got the same response when I spoke to my American friends back in the day about like yo you should you know use we chat we could do video chat. It’s really good, you know, it’s really strong.
1:48:42 · And um and we can conference people in.
1:48:44 · Yeah. Conference people in. And they’re like conference people in. Yeah. And um and and they were like, “No, I don’t want the government watching me.”
1:48:51 · Yeah.
1:48:51 · I’m like, “Okay.”
1:48:53 · Yeah.
1:48:53 · I mean, what do you say at that point, right? [laughter] It’s just it’s just the same thing as like, you know, we talk about in the beginning, very beginning of this conversation, we talked about like the biggest the best thing you can do is actually just travel and come here and see for [clears throat] yourself and make up your own mind.
1:49:05 · But then there’s so many people that like I would never travel to an authoritarian politician. I love the democracy of America.
1:49:12 · We see we see how the propaganda is working in terms of, you know, preventing people from seeing from themselves. But anyway, yeah, being a dead horse. [laughter] Um, Eric, once again, man, thank you so much. This was a lovely conversation.
1:49:25 · Thank you for had a great time.
1:49:27 · Yeah, we we went hard on this one.
1:49:28 · Making fun of the French a little bit. [laughter] We we we offended a lot of people on this, by the way.
1:49:33 · Let’s go.
1:49:35 · And that’s the point.
1:49:36 · Yes.
1:49:36 · Hey, as long as we get those hate comments, that drives up engagement. That’s all that matters. Leave your favorite or sorry, your least favorite French person down in the comments below.
1:49:44 · Least favorite.
1:49:45 · Um, if people want to find you, where’s where’s the best place to find you?
1:49:49 · They can find me on on YouTube, on Twitter, Eric Hovigam. It’s just my name. [music] Um, I primarily post on YouTube with my main content. I also post on Tik Tok sometimes.
1:49:59 · Cool.
1:49:59 · All right. Uh, one last. Cheers.
1:50:01 · Cheers, fellas. Cheers, guys.
1:50:05 · Eric, thank you for being here. Incredible talking to you.
1:50:08 · Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
1:50:10 · I’m Justin. And I’m Howie, not a French guy.
1:50:14 · And I’m Eric Hovian, also not a French guy. [laughter] All right, guys. Be good. Be well.
1:50:20 · Peace.
1:50:24 · [music] [singing] [singing] [music]