What is this about? Money, trade, microchips. What does that have to do with you? Give me Digger Gibson's number. Agency's looking for a reason to let the Chinese kill Tom vision. Yes, that is from a relaxed movie Spy Game with Robert Redford and Brad Pitt. It's from a 2001 movie. The action in the film take place at 1991. And I think I talked about it before. It's very pleasant zone out movie where the old manly worldwide CIA type Robert Redford. He's trying to save an agent of his from a Chinese prison outside Shanghai, I think, and it's the kind of new corporate faggot CIA types who are trying to burn him. In other words, to disavow him and to let the Chinese execute Brad Pitt's character as a common criminal, because to claim him would cause scandal that could then interfere

with the free trade negotiations with China, to open up China to free trade so-called. It seemed topical given tariff discussions these weeks and so on. I've mentioned this movie before because it's contrast between a more authentic, likable older American type and film shows his triumph over a kind of personality that today you'd I think kind of wrongly called woke, but it's pre-woke actually. It's the kind of people staffing the CIA, you know, the office language, the lactation rooms, not really knowing anything about the world and so on. It's the CA Kabul station chief soccer mom who got herself and everyone else blown up. That, I'm sure she was saying all the right things and talking like the people in this movie, the bad people in this

movie or the, what I didn't mention before was that this change in American institutional Character is shown in spy game to be one with America's entering the dysbiotic Is this what is this a word dysbiotic? What's opposite of symbiotic? but the dysbiotic trade and economic relationship that was established with China in the early 1990s in other words it's shown in this movie as Also the moment America sold its soul and when it replaced manly patriotism with craven careerism with PC and what you now call woke cowardice credentialism that type of sniveling you know as opposed to competence etc and it's all the more effective in this movie I mean because the character played by Robert Redford is obviously also liberal of the of the

old type probably you can see how he behaved and so he votes Democrat you you'd think at this time in this movie. And I myself, you know me from talking so long about Hilar du Berriere's criticisms of the CIA during the Cold War, from its inception in the 1950s through the 70s, I wrote article series on their bundling, their disasters in Africa during the Cold War, which was probably done by men like what Robert Redford plays in this movie. I probably wouldn't have liked Redford. I mean, his ideas about the world and so on, his activity around the third world, but the liberal of that kind is not yet the repulsive office creature that triumphed, actually triumphed already by the early 1990s. And I think this movie accurately illustrates what Camille Paglia was saying about woke

or political correctness in the early 90s. I think this movie shows what she said was true. It wasn't even so much about ideology, it was very much an office flower language, look up flower language. It's a kind of Chinese court eunuch language, disingenuous, overly polite, very nice, meant not to cause offense to anyone, but that not causing offense is something to facilitate backstabbing. In short, it's the linguistic expression of this craven personality type. I think Paglia wrongly identifies this with WASP because you know she's doing the Ellis Island thing, but she's right in the sense that it's a personality type denuded of brash ethnic energy. In other words, someone with affect like a Bronx Jew, a stereotypical Bronx Jew, or a

Brooklyn Italian of the old type, like Joe Pesci or what he depicts in movies. Someone like that would not do well in this polite office world. They would have to carefully edit out their ethnic mannerisms to fit into this world. In any case, maybe this movie overstates it, but it's without a doubt that by 1991-92, the end of the Cold War, the beginning of America's dysfunctional economic relationship with China, which is clearly a mistake. Not only that, but also maybe NAFTA, GATT, the other so-called free trade agreements of that time that deindustrialized America, turned it into a fake consumer-driven economy, which is really actually vendor-financed debt consumption, because most people aren't even spending their own funny bill dollars.

That's what America does, prints dollars, gets products from other countries, sends its dollars. Why are other countries accepting dollars in exchange for real goods? Well, that's a longer discussion, but it's not even in the case of many individuals, and I guess the middle class maybe as a whole in the United States, they're buying these things on credit card. It's debt consumption financed by the vendor. It's the basis of what many now know as the fake economy. I think even actually many of people on Trump's side on the tariffs now are making this mistake where they think it is a strength somehow to have a consumer-driven society. But anyway, the rise of this is shown in this movie as happened at the same time or even

maybe because one causes the other, this fake economy and this new personality, the triumph of this new personality. And I'm sure such people were around already in the 1980s, especially by the end. But this kind of mannequin, sniveling, intrigue-based office rat, again, really became dominant in academia, government and most institutions, eventually also in finance. This happened during the 90s. It's what I've called the upper middle class faggot type, if you go back to my episode on the Gossip Girl series. I know by contrast an older American type would be a gentleman I know in Japan, he's a good friend, he's very much the old manly liberal type that Redford plays in this movie Spy Game. It's a kind of man that's somewhat forgotten now in many discussions, he collects Napoleonic

era antiques, he reads all of us online and he worked in, I don't want to say exactly, I don't want to be indiscreet or give identifying details, but in his use he worked in government, something related to tariffs, and then he became a very successful investor. I would not even call him right-wing as such, but more of the ancient American liberal fascist type, you know, collect 1789 to 1812 memorabilia, quite tasteful, you know, enough to maybe have his own gallery, and they are American patriots. I and some of such people became for Trump, some didn't, I don't know why they wouldn't, but some became for Trump, they tend to be a man very skeptical of American involvement in the Middle East, for example.

But aside from this, I wouldn't say that they align with populists on many other things. So anyway, look, by all this, and this talk about a spy movie spy game and the eclipsing of a more noble American institutional type by a more rat-like, you know, you see this in Peter Stroke, if you remember this, the FBI agent who was involved in trying to sabotage Trump's first administration, his mannerisms, the way he behaved in front of Congress and preened with these extremely effeminate, aggressive facial expressions. That's the type that gets trounced in this movie to great satisfaction. But again, what I mean to say all by all this is the change in American society and economy since the early 1990s is unfortunate and profound. It's not just economic, it's sociocultural.

And I'm not saying it's caused by China trade as such, but they were contemporaneous, likely both caused by a deeper third thing, a deeper sickness. I would very much like to see all of this reversed. But I have strong skepticism over Trump's methods that were revealed in these last two weeks or so and which a friend is hopefully soon publishing an article on because I think many who have the same intentions as Trump in the administration and among his supporters do not see the depth of the problem, don't see what it would actually take to re-industrialize America and also don't sense the immense danger looming over the West, by which I mean America plus Western Europe, principally. You could also include Japan and the Anglosphere.

But this, a friend say, and I speak to others and they agree that what's at stake ultimately here isn't just the Trump's administration fate, which would become a complete failure if these tariffs lead to a bad economic situation that doesn't completely reverse resolve by September or October of next year, let's say. And that's a tremendous risk to take. But it's not just that which looms, but that following a very severe recession or probably depression caused by these sudden and rash economic changes, it would be China that would step into number one role and then enact a century of humiliation on America and the West in revenge for its own perceived past humiliations at the hands of whites. I believe this is the danger being played with here, and I will let this friend make

the case for it. He has more facts, more argument, he know also, I think important for people on Trump's side who believe these things to calmly, rationally explain their case with many facts, so I wait for that to happen. I'm not economy guy, I'm not finance, I don't pretend to know what I don't know, so I will not comment on this in any great detail as so many others, both online and various articles I see who obviously don't know anything about finance either. And they have no past record of successful prognostications, no past showing understanding of any of these matters, but now they are expressing themselves with great assertion on both sides. And they were telling you, for example, those on the opposing side who are against Trump

have of course been wrong for decades, but that's no guarantee that they're wrong now. And then those who are very much for the Trump administration's measures in the last two weeks were saying that the U.S. is China over a barrel and so on. And yet just today, Besant from administration, Besant say that the situation is unsustainable and these measures will have to be walked back somehow in an understanding reached with China. So I don't know. I actually had no interest in economic matters at all until I saw Peter Schiff destroy people in debates after the 2008 financial crisis. This appealed to my love of disputation. I said, nobody can out-argue this guy. And he was one of the few finance guys who correctly predicted not only the 2007-2008

financial crisis, but also the reasons why in detail. If you see his speeches to whatever it was, the realtors convention, I think in Las Vegas, I think from 2006 or 2004, he predicts exactly the way the coming crisis would unfold. So I thought that's great. But then in the years since, I've seen Peter Schiff himself be wrong again and again. And so it makes me very skeptical about economic talk in general, you know, the fact is, 2% of economists, only 2% correctly saw the 2008 crisis coming. So now you think about that, if that were the case in any other field, physics, chemistry, biology you'd say, if only 2% of your predicted experiments, whatever, at the very least then what you can conclude is this is not a science, at best economics is an art.

And as I have no special interest in it, my conclusion from all this is that although America has very serious economic problems, to attempt to solve them, I mean look, you you de-industrialized whatever, you turn previously prosperous provinces, regions of your country into wasteland. The heartland of America turned into kind of post-Soviet, if you go to parts of New England, western Massachusetts, the upper Midwest, rusting, it's called the rust belt because it looked like rusting factories of Soviet Union. Obviously that's a mistake and you've replaced it with what, a fake, all due respect to my silicon valley friends, a technology boom based on dick pic apps isn't enough to make up for that loss so obviously it's a mistake but how to reverse it I don't think you can

do in two weeks or even two years and it's an awfully big risk to take again as I said to all the people who are so sure that America being the consumer center of the world gave it upper hand in these negotiations now, you have the sense say that it will have to walk it back. I'm afraid, I'm afraid of what will happen. I'm not afraid to say I'm afraid because, you know, all talk of ancient tyrants and such aside, Trump is not a king, he's not an ancient tyrant. And just from common sense, I don't think it's worth the risk. I don't see also common sense how these tariffs, in their present form at least, would have any chance of re-industrializing the United States. And I gave a few reasons why on X, on Twitter, I gave very simple cocoa example. These are blanket tariffs, right?

But United States can't grow cocoa or coffee or many other such things or not in any significant amount to remotely meet demand. So all these tariffs do is they make these products more expensive and for what purpose or what would be achieved from that. In fact, taking just the cocoa thing, they would wipe out or put American chocolate manufacturers, for example, at a great disadvantage because now not only that cocoa costs go way up, but probably paper where they have to import wrappers or such many other things you can imagine. Every single component, their cost goes up. So I like the factoid that Switzerland is the number one exporter of coffee products, okay? But coffee does not grow there. They do it because they're very smart, they import it and turn it into a creative high

quality goods that people then all over the world want to buy. Now imagine putting tariffs and saying, no, we should grow cocoa and coffee here in Zurich and in the Alps. So in fact, you can imagine case where a foreign manufactured chocolate bar would be cheaper under these tariffs than an American one, even with the tariffs, I mean, because the cost of the American one just went up on every component you have to import. So they say bad chocolate doesn't matter, we can do without chocolate, but you see the same reasoning applies to drones. Under these tariffs, a Chinese-made drone would always be more expensive than an American-manufactured one. So again, unless the plan was to change them eventually, I don't see how.

The kind of manufacturing you want in the United States is not to make iron pipes or whatever maybe, although let's say steel production and certain other basic raw materials do need local sourcing for national security reasons in a powerful world empire like United States. But you'd want to make, yes, pharmaceuticals, medicines, but fundamentally you'd want higher quality goods, yes, like medicines or things like ASML look up this company from Holland which produces, it's a unique product, very high value manufacturing that is nevertheless not niche. It's used at the highest level of semiconductor chip production and so on. That's what you'd want. But if Holland put up these kinds of tariffs, that company ASML would go out of business.

It would have to pay extra for every component it imports to manufacture this. So now you can say, well, America is a continental sized nation. It can have a whole supply chain at home. It doesn't need to import anything. Yes, but even assuming you could onshore the entire supply chain, which I think isn't feasible, not even China does or wants that. China actually wants to move to this kind of high value manufacturing also, by the way. But even this aside, let's say you could do that. America does not have the supply chain at home right now. So by the time you set up all the factories to build the subcomponents at home, the higher value manufacturing companies would go out of business. You see what I mean? You'd have a depression either way, which then seriously limit your options.

There's also the fact that because of regulations, as well as social cultural governance reasons, for now it's, for example, illegal to build a lot of these supposed factories in America. So I made this point about regulation also. It's just, why don't you get rid of that first? You raise tariffs, you say, must be built at home, but you can't build these factories for now in the United States, in states, for example, like California, which is what you maybe want to, but in many other states, too, you just can't. So it's okay to say Mr. Trump has to work within confines of what is given to him. He is not actually a Caesar. Let him be a Gracchus, let him be a Marius. But anyway, leave aside also the fact that these tariffs were announced and then the

administration exempted laptops and phones and other finished products. So basically now they're doing in their present form the opposite of what you'd want. They're just making American manufactured products more expensive because the inputs are tariffed, whereas the finished products from abroad is exempted. So I'm sorry, I don't see how this can ever work unless they're radically changed somehow, but I'm also not seeing absurd argument made by those who are sympathetic to tariffs, which as such I am also, I'm not against tariffs, I repeat to you, I would like to see America do something quite drastic but smart that might take a while to challenge Chinese dominance of world manufacturing. But some people who are sympathetic to these particular tariffs, they use absurd arguments,

which I hope are not the views of people in this government. But it looks to me like a lot of the influencers are gearing up to tell people to suck it up, to make do with less. They're saying to people, you don't need a new laptop or phone, you don't need the best this or that, just make do, do it for the country. And they somehow think that berating people this way, in much the same way that Democrats did about the price of milk or eggs or so on, by the way, during the last election. They think this will somehow work to convince those voters in the midterms. I don't know what's going on in blank heads. I mean, I suspect that some of this is also the kind of wholesome cottage people are doing this.

The people who tell you to move to the countryside, grow mushrooms and marry a fat bitch and pray, go to church all day. And they're gearing up, these types are gearing up to tell people, yeah, you should not be eating chocolate or mangoes because it's degenerate, you know, so whatever and they have these kind of religious tinged austerity talking points about the virtues of sucking it up and they have it kind of up their sleeves and they think this will convince people, which is just insanity, you know, but I've been warning you for a while about these idiots at compact magazine, the American one, not the German one, and the whole Catholic integralist in the American conservative intellectual movement in Washington, DC, who are pushing

this kind of so-called multiracial socialism with Catholic characteristics. It was a joke before. It will be a very sad joke when they lead this or the next administration to a historic disaster with this kind of, again, I hope not, I don't think these are the views of people in the administration, but it's certainly some of the rhetoric that's being prepared. You know, you're a demonic free trade liberal if you want to mango smoothie, comrade, you don't need that. You need prayer and a fat wife and I don't know anyway. The Pope is dead. I don't have much to say about that. I called him Pope faggot in the past. I think he was a very bad man. He was obviously not primarily a religious man. He was a liberation theologist, communist activist from Latin America, very unfortunate

type holdover from the Cold War, tried to push mass immigration on America and the civilized nations and used religious reasoning to support his political and actually self-interested beliefs. Isn't it amazing how all the people, the kind of people I'm talking about, Robert P. George and Ross Dowsett and this kind of Catholic conservative movement intellectual, They didn't have very much to say about the suspension of law during Wuhan flu, let alone for the January 6th protesters and the many other times, by the way, when various American administrations suspended law, suspended due process. I think Obama drone-striked an American citizen, yes, a citizen in name only. I think he was a Yemenite who also had American citizenship, but he was not committing terrorism

as far as I know, he was just talking on the internet and he was drone-striked by a bongo without trial. None of these people had anything to say about it, including their analog, their outgrowth, extreme court justice, also this kind of Catholic conservative intellectual. But now they're all wringing their hands because Trump is deporting El Salvadoran gangbangers MS-13, who are of course the dull-eyed, violent slaves of the Holy Father, and so of course then immediately the whole Catholic brain trust goes into action. How dare Trump remove their co-religionists. It's all very self-interested and quite disgusting, I think. But I told you what would happen on this Caribbean rhythms many episodes ago. What is happening is that the Pope will use El Salvadoran gangbangers in his war against

butch dyke lesbians of Kamala. And I think I predicted it for 2024 or 2025. But if I'm telling you if this continues, you will get that in in 28 you will get the Kamala or AOC character. Because yes, if there's recession or depression going into 2026 elections, I'm afraid there is no way around dystopia. I just quickly sketched out for you now. Again, not worth the risk, I think, this economic policy, mostly because I don't believe it's easy to predict economic outcomes one way or another. And I don't want to endanger the number one task, which is to kick out the products of the global south, to be polite, the beige products of the global south. That should be number one task of the Trump administration, why people voted for him. Kick them out.

And of course, delete the social base and the funding of the left. That is great too. But this other thing, I don't know, again, too risky and unclear what the benefit is. But anyway, yes, all the ultramontanist faction of the American conservatism, ultramontanism, look up what this means. Again, Robert P. George, Russ Dost, this whole thing, the Holy Father. But you see, Trump interfering with central dead-eyed robot slaves of the Holy Father and Stephen Miller being the reincarnation of Lewis Charles Levin, look him up, 19th century know-nothing who started anti-Catholic riots in New York City, unfortunately ended his life in a mental asylum. But anyway, Stephen Miller very possibly, reincarnation of this man, Lewis Charles Levin,

a wonderful demagogue, just crushing journalists with a chainsaw and camera, blood everywhere. But yes, so look in response to this supposed 9-0 extreme court ruling that a red carpet must be ruled out, and Trump must wash the feet of MS-13 gangbangers with neck tattoos like Pope Faggot does for South Sudanese whatever, Trump ignored that, which is very good. And I just thought of this solution, by the way, that Trump should set up a committee to interpret judicial rulings, which after all are emitted in text. And there are, as you know, very serious matters of problems of textual interpretation. The most advanced scholarship of textual interpretation points out the difficulty or even the impossibility

of finding the authors meaning higher esteemed Derrida and such scholars put them on this committee to read very slowly and very carefully each judicial decision to discover its mysteries. The Constitution was then set up by very wise founders to slow down the rage and the rashness of judges who are often emotional people, volatile people who react without reflection to current events. So it's important to put the decisions through a process so that the judicial process of discussion, the judiciary through debate, rational debate can discover what it thinks the law actually says, cool down from passion. Judges act too often on, and this process can be quite slow, in any case must be, but That's out of respect for the judiciary. It must be done with great care.

Quite aside, as I say, is the fact that then the textual emissions of the courts have to be studied and interpreted by a body of extreme scholars in the White House. It could even be called, look, it could be called racist to either immediately agree or disagree with a judicial text emission of extreme court justice Jumanji Brown. It's like if you're in Japan and you compliment your boss. taken to be a great offense because it implies you're qualified or in a position to judge his behavior. And in the same way, you can't just agree or disagree with Jumanji Brown. Every word of Jumanji Brown should be studied by esteemed Derridaian-Straussian scholars for no less than 11 months, possibly for over four years, to discover their mysteries and such.

And then I thought, what if this principle is extended not just to judicial rulings, but also to the whole of government. Imagine the president taking an extended vacation for reflection and being found in a cheap hotel in Buenos Aires, or okay, not cheap, but be a comfortable luxury cabin in Brittany in France, while every piece of information coming into the Oval Office is carefully considered by various bodies of esteemed hermeneutic scholars. Would you like this form of government? I don't think anybody has ever thought of this. What would you call this regime? Yes, I will be right back. The crucial detail I forgot to mention about my prophecy regarding Battle of Rome, the Antichrist Battle of our time, is that the pope, supposed to be Pope Sarah, I forgot

I had a talk this long ago on this Caribbean rhythms, that it would be the best black pope, the African pope, who would lead Tran Daragua and MS-13 and other Mexican gangbanger cartel members, neck tattoos and so forth, that he would lead them against the lesbian, butch-dyke and transgender paratrooper legions of the United Secular Antichrist West. Yes, you see, this was my vision. And it's very interesting actually, online e-Catholics and American conservative, again intellectual tradcast movement in Washington, D.C., they love this black pope. It touches so many buttons for them, you know. But my friends who are real traditionalist Catholics, who are my friends from before I was even online, European tradcasts and such, some are sedevacantists, some are not.

Many are SSPX, you can look at what this means. But they don't like Cardinal Serra, I don't know where he's from, is he Ivory Coast, is he Nigeria, I don't know. They like Cardinal Erdo from Hungary, so this is quite a difference. Why not stomp for Cardinal Erdo? But look, IMF just come out with prediction that there will not be a recession in the United States this year, I hope they're right, but I don't know if they should have said so in public. I am because it might encourage Trump administration to go forward with this very drastic policy and I am worried, I must repeat for you, one other matter looming with these very fast economic changes is introduce great uncertainty to business owners. So I thought part of the point was to get them to hire American workers and pay them

good wages but when they don't know what will happen tomorrow and some are saying Trump is crazy, we don't know what will happen next, we're going to hoard money, they're not going to take risks and expand, found new businesses or hire new workers, they will sit on money or even transfer money outside of the United States which is what unfortunately you're seeing capital flight, the price of gold go up and so forth and so I don't know, I don't know that anyone has ever tried to do such a thing, shock therapy to close down an economy. Now shock therapy to open up an economy usually doesn't work either and certainly not for large countries. It wrecked the post-Soviet Russia and now Millet is doing that in Argentina and he seems to have had some success.

If you remember, I am not opposed to drastic economic changes if the situation truly is drastic. In Argentina, it was before Belay, it was catastrophic, it almost could not be worse. And now, after some time of Belay, it's quite amazing what he has achieved in a short time. We'll see how it ends. It's not over until it ends well. But in his case, it sort of seems to be working. In many other cases, though, as I say, it has not. And to close down an economy and re-industrialize, I mean, to close it down from international trade and so on and have it lead to this effect of re-industrialization, I don't know that this works. Yes, it's a financialized, fake economy. That part is true. And yet, you have to work with what you have and leverage your position.

The fact that America's number one in control of financial markets is something, for example, that other nations like China, they wish they could have that position. It's what allows American citizens to lead a better quality of life than they would have without. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a fake economy, yes, but to try to fix that overnight, by By which I mean not even two weeks, two months, but maybe even two years is too short of a time. I don't know that this can work. And please, some of you do not try to lecture me about Bronze Age this and yes, I'm very much aware. My book is named Bronze Age Mindset. That doesn't mean it's named Bronze Age Roleplay. And it certainly doesn't mean I would advise any world leader, and especially Trump who

is in charge of such important projects such as ridding the United States of precisely let's call it global south refuse like the MS-13 members and so on and to have Lewis Charles Levin aka reborn Stephen Miller lead this project of migration reform and to put that in danger of gambling with economy, when you don't know what will happen with this, yes, it concerned me. Now, on another matter, since my book named Bronze Age Mindset, I should point out that almost every review that attack my book focuses almost exclusively on the title Bronze Age Mindset. kind of, do I need to say, joke title that was a riff on Mr. Cernovich's book, Gorilla Mindset, and the whole mindset talk of that time, it's meant to in levity.

It's not actually what the book is about, as those of you who've read it know, and so I don't know. I don't know. There is a nice Danish girl. She's a conservative Christian. She recently reviewed my book, and I am glad to know, I know through intermediaries that she's told friends that my book is once in a generation, or she puts it maybe twice in a generation, a very rare thing. It's a wonderful thing to hear from someone who doesn't agree with me, who's maybe critical of it. But I just mean to say by that, I am in another league than all the mamzer journalists and left to it to attack me. The pretense that they're in any kind of dialogue with me is absurd. So yes, please morons, continue to pay attention to the title of my book and to say that I

have to applaud the war in Ukraine or any baseless risk-taking because you think it is aesthetically something that a Bronze Age pirate would do. quite what the book is about and yes we will see what happens we will see with economy I don't want talk this anymore my main point is I don't know economy you don't know economy either awfully big risk with unclear benefits to take but I was watching third season avoid Lotus greatly enjoying I don't know why some complain about nothing is happening on this season of White Lotus. If you haven't seen the first two seasons, I strongly recommend you watch as one of the few parodies on the mores and the character types of the American elite whose characters in this third season are actually deconstructed with, you know, it's interesting for all the

huffing and puffing of deconstructivist and postmodernist thought. Racism has a long tradition of the deconstruction of the self and of identity in the context, the much more profound context of man's role in the world and man's spirit, much more profound than just man versus society, which is all that myopic, let's say, Foucault Derrida types. That's all they see, social power, status, and so on. They do not have any feel for man's place in the cosmos. But in this series, this Buddhist deconstruction of the self, of course, is only shown in a popular accessible comedic form to be easily digested. Nevertheless, I think it's great, just a satire parody of the pretensions of, it's not quite class analysis, which would be shallow, it's better.

Mike White, if he's indeed the one who writes this show, is doing very good satire of the ways of speaking and feeling that are current among so-called elites. I like this. So anyway, while watching, this takes place in a luxury resort in Thai Island, southern Thailand. But there are a couple of episodes later on where one of the characters goes on a revenge, a kind of revenge trip. This character is played by the same actor who plays Shane, you know, from The Shield. He's the best character in this series, the third season of White Lotus. He plays a kind of grizzled 50-year-old alcoholic decadent expat, type you commonly find in various tropical locations some are very charming some are very learned men and he go to Bangkok on a revenge trip to kill a man

he thinks murdered his father and while in Bangkok he stays at the Mandarin Oriental which it was funny for me to watch because I think he stays maybe even in the same suite that I stayed when I was there and I wanted to give friends say they like my reviews of foods and of restaurants and luxury hotels and I want to go more in depth now I'll review for you the original Mandarin Orientals there is one in Hong Kong and one in Bangkok this is how the chain was first formed these two joined forces and created international chain and I stayed in both in fact I got sweet in both and I want to give you review why well you may remember on Caribbean rhythms I've had frequent complaints about the prices of hotels in the United States

which I consider a complete scam. It used to be, even years ago, outside of very scummy cities like, I don't know, scummy city, New Haven on the highway, you couldn't find motel for less than $90. And now I think it's quite a bit more than this. Even in the middle of nowhere and if you go, whatever, highway Texas, Midwest, any part, New England, you will not find less than $100 a night and it's the lowest possible quality hotel with maybe bedbugs and thin walls where you can hear people cooking curry and whatever and whereas I've stayed in the past for $30 in the center of Madrid in a perfectly acceptable hotel not a hostel okay hotel small room but private bathroom and everything daily clean I stayed in a cheap hotel also across from the Notre Dame years ago for $60 a night I stayed in

downtown Tokyo in a business district again quite some years ago perfectly acceptable hotel room tiny but everything you need super clean $60 a night in Tokyo by the way there's chain called APA APA it's owned by a fascist and has a Japanese fascist literature in the drawers in the same way that some Some hotels have Mormon or Bible literature in America. It's a great chain. I highly recommend if you want to stay in Tokyo, you can stay anywhere from $60, $70 I think now that the dollar is devalued. You can still sometimes find $70, $75 a night in Ueno, part of Tokyo, $120 per night in the more central districts. Yes, it's small, but it's great. It has everything you need and often you'll have even decent cyberpunk city view.

And I stay in nicer places in Tokyo, okay, I don't want to stay where, and I stay longer, but I've had many friends come and go and Appa is perfectly good. There's no reason why the same thing shouldn't exist in the United States. Imagine getting a hotel downtown New York for $100, why not? Well, it's because of regulations. I don't want to get more into this economic talk, but I was told these scam hotel prices in the United States are because of regulations. And well, anyway, I used to find actually, I still find the idea of paying more than $100 a night for a hotel to be absurd. On the other hand, because at times I was in a manic mood, I felt that, well, if I have to pay over $100, it doesn't matter if it's $300 or $900 you see.

So same reasoning that for a woman, if you decide to have premarital sex sores, it doesn't matter if it's three or if it's 100 or your body count, it's the same thing. So it's interesting, in White Lotus, there's a scene where these kind of three womens, they must be in their 40s in the series, I can't tell. Maybe they're in their 30s, I don't know. These three women on a trip in Thailand that end up in a pool with three young handsome Russians but two of them don't end up having sex with you know and and the third an actress she has to in her in her mind secretly fuck the Russian guy she likes him but she has him later out of view he has to sneak into a room and the other two don't you know so it's such a bizarre thing because when you

look at the span of history the tremendous measures that had to be taken taken to keep women chased in marriage, threats of divine punishment, hellfire, ingrained guilt that they assume inside upon themselves. In some cultures, murder allowed to the man if he found her and her lover in the act. And in any case, total social death, life of poverty, isolation, if she got found out. And yet people still cheated because the sexual impulse is or is supposed to be so strong. You read the book Speech Court by Lysias, I think it's his first court speech, an ancient Greek orator, and it's a man who kills his wife's lover. He finds them in the act. In other words, you have to understand that ancient Greek upper-class women sequestered and yet they still did this.

And now, with none of these restraints, and actually despite the imaginings of traditionalists who want to pretend you live in a flesh pot, but you get situations like the one quite accurately that I told you about that's depicted in this White Lotus series, where women and men are engaging in pre-sex behaviour and putting themselves in situations where to any other age, it would just be naturally assumed that of course fucking took place. And yet they don't. And do you know why they don't? And the answer to that, the reasons are not good, okay? They're not virtuous reasons. A kind of stolid dead conservatism of manners has in fact descended on the world. It's not the 1960s anymore. And I think this series

white lotus, despite my quite funny desire to depict perversions, I think he's quite the realist in the sense he accurately shows that even on vacation, where people are away, you know, there are so many weird obstacles to sex sores, to sexual intercourse, whereas in the age of sexual revolution, and maybe even as recently as 1990s, this was not the case. So this is why you see very pretty girls in various cities now with extreme, weak looking herb-like boyfriends, and I've always wondered how this could be, they meet through social circles only, and they pair with them for stability or other such base motives, they want to feel safe for that, they want to show they have, and there's not cheating taking place as some imagine, but I'm telling you this is not healthy development, it's not

like people are returning to religion and they're becoming paterfamilias and virtuous mothers of families, it's just their desires are withering. So anyway, yes, look, so once you go over a certain price, in my opinion, it's just as ridiculous to pay $250 as it is to pay $850 for a hotel room. And in fact, by the way, you can get a perfectly nice room at both the original Mandarin Orientals for about $400 to $500 a night, which from what I hear, I have not been in the United States. That's about an average hotel, right, in any big city. A suite will usually be about twice that. Now why am I reviewing hotel? I'll tell you, I get indignant on behalf of others who I feel might be getting scammed at times. in enough famous hotels now both in Europe and well and in Asia and in South America

that I feel I must alert people to and I've heard some very untoward things from United States about five star hotels by the way and what a scam they are you know first of all the prices in Europe and United States are much higher than in Asia for a much smaller room and much lower quality of service I'll get to that in a moment but the West I mean is hardly an oligarchy. It's not a plutocracy. It's actually the opposite. It's dominated by the spirit of pro-social, you know, Nordic, not Nordic, but Nordic socialism, where ingrained egalitarianism means that they must throw in your face that spending money on luxuries is immoral. It's questionable and they actually do very passive aggressive things, try to

give you a shabby experience, they throw it in your face. And this is also, aside from the fact of diversity where I heard that historic hotels in Chicago, for example Palmer House I think or others, are staffed almost exclusively by standoffish, dull-eyed, incompetent shiboons. And I'm sorry to repeat myself, I heard similar things from two people also about the Mandarin Oriental in Miami, just, you know, gross incompetence, lost bags and such and then a brother, a brother come up to you and say, I'm going to make it good for you, you know what I'm saying, this kind of thing you know and I'm thinking okay I haven't had that experience abroad exactly although I almost did in Paris at the five-star hotel there there was a guy who could have been I don't know from the home a

yeah from Benin he looked like he had come working out of a meat packing plant and he was yeah I'm yeah he was the butler okay okay sure and I will attack that hotel in another review episode okay but yes what I'm saying is though not every five-star or luxury hotel is worth staying in I've had some scam experiences even abroad I again I hear United States is usually bad and this is what I mean okay because it's not big deal for me but I imagine people let's say it's their one trip of the year or even of a lifetime let's say honeymoon or such, and they look at reviews which are often deceptive. So crowdsourced reviews are deceptive because often people who pay a lot of money don't want after that to admit that they paid for something they didn't enjoy, they think it

makes them look stupid. At other times, I think hotel owners, restaurant owners outsource a thousand reviews to a bot farm in Bangladesh, which is, by the way, the rule in Google reviews in Paris. Never trust them for restaurants in Paris, for example. You need the Michelin guide in Paris, there is no way around that. You can get an app, a free app on your phone, or at least a word of a friend with good taste. But anyway, yes, and then there are luxury site reviews like Condé Nast or such, and they've given me some terrible advice. I've stayed on some real five, scam five stars based on Condé Nast, both in South America and Europe. I don't know if it's they're getting paid or just they go to a city that nobody else has gone to and they need to say one place is good or something.

But you know, this is why I get indignant. I don't want others to get taken advantage of scans. So this is why I like sometimes do luxury hotel review and such. It is beneficence. You see, I care about, yes. So the Mandarin Oriental Group anyway is now worldwide. I think the chain varies somewhat in quality from country to country, as does, by the way, the Sofitel chain. I will explain that some other time. While the difference between Sofitel in Europe versus, let's say, South America or even Portugal, which I guess is Europe, but yeah, the Sofitels in, for example, Paris, can be worse than Howard Johnson. don't want to get into that now but anyway the original two Mandarin oriental I tell you were Bangkok and Hong Kong and they formed international

group and between the two I'd say the one in Hong Kong is far better I would strong recommend this if you can you stay there on your first trip to Hong Kong and the one in Bangkok which is shown in white Lotus and is made to look more glamorous there than it is in real life. I think it has some problems. Let me start with this one. The views from the room at the one in Bangkok that is great. You probably will have view of the Chao Phraya river. It's a real thoroughfare river, a lot of traffic boats. So entertaining you see all times day or night you see taxi boats barges and such. I always think the ships will hit each other, but they get around each other. I like to imagine gunfights on these ships, jumping like Van Damme in a Hong Kong movie,

but I think there are movies on this river too in Bangkok too with fights and such, shooting James Bond guns. And in fact, in Bangkok, I recommend you make use of the water for transport as often as you comfortably can because traffic is dreadful. That would be the number one drawback to living in Bangkok for any long time, I think. It takes a minimum 40 minutes to get anywhere. Traffic all day long, very frustrating to wait in car. Now if you get a street at this hotel, the room itself will be pleasant, homey in the suite. All are individually decorated and such. They're each named after artists who stayed there and will have nice porch Terrace, you can sit look out on the river and smoke pensively like the character does in White Lotus But the rest of that's the only good part of it

The rest of this hotel isn't as nice either for example in decoration the hallways Which is such an important part of a hotel to set the mood, but here they are too brightly lit and they're colored sometimes the bright white and blue and such if I remember right and the main lobby is shown in this city's white Lotus as a lot more glamorous than you will experience it in real life which I don't mean to say is not glamorous it's grand and beautiful arrangements and so on but both this and the bar are shown in movie nicer than you will feel them in real life I suppose also what really drag down experience is that unlike the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, the one in Bangkok will have a group of American gorilla-style women on their lifetime trip.

So you know, it's Tanisha's bowler dream trip to Thailand. By the way, if you have noticed in this episode that my delivery and my talking is somewhat choppy. You know, I've been on airplane and too much coffee, too much nicotine, and this is why I talk in this maybe spur like choppy way. Please excuse me. I will slit my throat to make penance. But listen, so you have, you can get individual rooms. It's not cheap, but by American hotel standards, it's Thailand. So much cheaper. So then Tanisha and her friends go out, you know, they have government jobs or something in United States. So yes, ladies, Let's, let's splurge on Bangkok." But when you have people like this, it drags the mood down considerably, you see, and also

makes the staff distrustful of foreigners because they're used to very pushy, demanding people who, I am not exaggerating, there was one chimping at the concierge, I don't remember over what, but she was truly chimping. So it puts the staff on edge because they're used to Leshanda chewing their ear off about something stupid. So unlike at other five-star hotel in Asia, actually at this one I've had to somewhat fight concierge for very small favors like late checkout or whatever. You know, if you stay like two weeks in a hotel like this, they should give you that without a second thought or even I don't, I want to be good reviewer for you, but my mind instinctively edits out unpleasant past experiences. So I don't remember all the details, but I do remember this, that it seemed that the

staff was on edge at this hotel by comparison to somewhere like Hong Kong that doesn't have same clientele. And there were attractive people too. I don't mean to say you will have a uniformly bad time here. It's a good hotel. It's just not, I think you can stay better in Bangkok. If you stay in Bangkok, I would more recommend something like the Siam Kenpinski. You look at this one, it's popular with Arabs of the type who wear the trash bag and such. I don't know how, but I've seen a couple of them. I don't like that mood either when you see people like that, but the Zion Kempinski is a better hotel in Bangkok. I review it another time. Anyway, the food isn't great at Mandarin Oriental Bangkok. You get in your room, you can order Thai dish or this room service.

They'll be okay, but any Thai restaurant on the street in Bangkok will be just as good. I ate at their signature whatever restaurants. One is called La Normandie. It's a French place, it has two Michelin star, the other is a Thai restaurant with one star and both were just okay. Neither of them was memorable in any way aside from the beautiful views of the river at night. At La Normandie you have a nice view of the boats, but you also have that in your room. But I certainly wouldn't recommend the restaurants at this hotel if I think the Michelin star scam is real outside of France. See that's the thing, if Michelin is useful in France and in some European countries, but completely useless in places like Thailand and Japan, then I think they are taking money under the table or who knows.

The breakfast spread, on the other hand, is quite bad at this hotel. It's badly thought out because it's like on an open terrace by the river, and as you can imagine it, that can get quite hot, tropical sun, and so a huge buffet can feel insulubrious, certain things festering by the river in that, you know, the same sun that feeds the vines and the insects of the jungle. It shouldn't be beating on the foods that way. So come to think of it, as I tell you this, there is another buffet restaurant for lunch that's indoors and better, large spread and some tasty dishes, but nothing you couldn't get at normal place in Bangkok. So what bothered me the most, though, was this decor of the hallways. They were too bright and no magic atmosphere.

And then there's the nature of the service, which I now I need to tell you now a word about service. What means good service? I think Chantel and such and I was told not to use the word That certain word that refers to Congo aid on this show and I won't out of politeness But you know in this situation There is such a thing as Congo aid style service at certain restaurants and hotels Which is designed to make the clients feel like kings and I find that very unpleasant. I hate overbearing service. Okay And it's strange right because Because such places, if they actually attract this clientele, they become on edge and yet also overbearing. Do not go to Peter Luger's Steakhouse in Tokyo, it's got the same thing, they'll ride you,

the waiters will ride you because their usual patrons want to feel like gangster kangs or this. And if that's what you go to, to a nice hotel, you can go to hell, you know. But this is what Bangkok Mandarin Oriental unfortunately is like when it comes to service, The staff will constantly pester you in servile overbearing way where I had to tell the floor manager, please just tone it down. Don't ask me such things anymore. I don't want anything. I just want to go to my room. Don't ask me this tomorrow. So you know, there are some worn out implements also on the outdoor portions of this hotel, the pathways that lead to the river. This hotel provides you with free boating to various places. Okay, that's nice.

And I have to concede that the harshness of a tropical environment will lead to wear and tear very fast on metal. But nevertheless, they have to think that through. And I don't remember exact, but I remember the awnings and overhangs and such on the outdoor portions leading to the boat. It was not charming. It looked like some sections look like worn out railing pipes that would lead to public bathroom or they some parts looked warm. For such hotel, everything should be perfect, you see. I'm being too maybe strict, it's still good hotel, but as I tell you, could be a lot better. It almost is, in other words, everything almost is perfect at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, which you stay on your first visit there if you can for a few reasons.

First of all, the location of the Mandarin, this one I'm saying the one in Hong Kong now, the location is the best. As soon as you step out door, you're in the thick of things. It's dense city, Hong Kong, New York feel like you see movies about Hong Kong, martial art, police movie, so it's super convenient for that. As opposed to let's say a few, there are other very nice hotels in Hong Kong, for example Upper House, this would be the other signature Hong Kong hotel, I also stayed there. Edward Luttwak thinks it's the best hotel in town and their other branch, whatever it's called in Beijing, Peking is the only good hotel in Peking. I did one of my interviews with Mr. Lutvak from this place. I mean, I was there and we did it on the phone. He insisted

on seeing me in my bathrobe in the hotel on video. Okay. Anyway, I'll review the upper house another time. It's amazing. But its location, it's a kind of hill on top of a kind of mall complex this happens sometimes in in cities you go downstairs and there's like a mall Plaza courtyard so then there's another walk if you want to descend into full city environment so it's either you have to take a cab or you walk 10 minutes or so then you're in full city is one child a district of Hong Kong I like I'll give you full Hong Kong travel guide another time but anyways a Mandarin Oriental is not like that when you're out the door you're already in the center of the center of town with Jet Li or is it Jackie Chan is this the name he does the police Hong Kong and furthermore there is a brief

walk from Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong only very brief walk to the famous Star Ferry where you can cross into Kowloon across the water there a movie I like Like the mustache, a very crucial scene later in this movie where a man on the run ends up taking the Star Ferry back and forth for a whole day. So anyway, the location is perfect. Second is the history. The original Mandarin Oriental, there's another newer one called the Landmark Oriental. I would like to say that the next time is supposed to be a favorite of various fashion designers when they come to town. But if you stay at original on Connaught Road, it's a Hong Kong historical institution. This is kind of place where fathers would take their sons to the barber shop for their

first shave and mother's daughter for I don't know what and many such thing. And then the hotel itself, unlike its founding sister hotel in Bangkok, is actually supremely charming and well done. The hallways, okay? Feel free to take look Google image or such. It has elegant lighting. The hallways are dark, mysterious, enchanting. I had suite here as well. Everything decorated in their original trademark, you know, fusion trad to, fusion trad Chinese to 1960s retro style. It's great. And I mean, even the regular rooms, which are tasteful, mystery, decorate Chinese fuck temple, and you can get for much better price than you would in United States for much worse hotel. But from the time you come in, It's enchanting experience. Oh, so brunch. They do nice small things.

Leave you very high-grade poo air tea in the room. Well, look, all five-star hotels are supposed to do things like that. But sometimes they will just leave you random whatever, whereas here is intended to forward, curate, an enchanting oriental opium den type feel, which it work. And as for the service, excellent because it's geared people who just want things taken care of with they're not made to feel you know like you're waited on and one of best things for example check-in five star in Asia you never have to worry about anything let's say you get airport transfer which since you're paying this much you might as well ask them to take you from hotel but they will alert hotels sometime ahead of arrival they come get your luggage and so on from car and even if you just come on taxi they

will also generally do that and then for checking you get taken straight into your room. Checking is done in your room or in other places they take you to lounge and give you a nice drink tea or such while they do you know they don't make you wait. This changes a lot. I have billionaire friends now and in Europe they are made to wait in line. Hotel check-in counters sometimes for quite some like any other schmuck they wait for a long time because again European nerdic pro-social passive aggression and there is no way to pay really to get around that they you talk about humiliation rituals but I really do think they make people do that on on purpose in in Europe for example so yeah you know fine do that but then how dare you charge people these prices and still

do something like that this is the injustice of it and yet in Asia you get what you pay for in many many other ways in Europe you'll have to call front desk and ask for so much as a razor you know if you didn't bring your own razor to shave and sometimes even at nicest places they they can't find they have to find a toothbrush or there's no in Asia that would be unheard of it would be a scandal even four-star hotels will have everything you need in terms of shaving kit, toothbrush and such. Not to speak of concierge, gladly finding you, Filipina prostate and so forth. I do think a long time ago at a hotel I stayed in in Hong Kong, a less nice hotel, I think the front desk worker was Chinese intelligence and he asked me very detailed questions. He was asking about

the way I was walking and if I was drunk or on drugs and this I don't know what this listen I need more coffees with caramel thing and I'll be right back you enjoy his musics in the meanwhile I have my mulatto aid here Pedro put on the musics for our guests Pedro take very nice care of the musics I I wish I had Filipina here to do foot massage welcome back to special neurotic edition of Caribbean rhythms excuse my haltering voice on this episode but yes Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong will, anything you might need generally they'll get done. This what I mean by good service, you know, that you don't need to worry about any eventuality and I think in Europe at a real good hotel, I'll review another time, hotel Sinner in

Paris where I was supposed to meet a lady friend of mine of poor morals but I cancelled with her. She was going to fly in from Spain because I was not feeling well and I remember it was close to 8 p.m. when pharmacies in Paris usually close and I asked them can you get me a thermometer and they said oh are you okay yes we like to help you and they they do this I just call front desk and I mean to say you don't need to worry about any necessities with good service of this kind and they don't bother you like you you go to random Barcelona wannabe five-star and when they say it's five-star in name only and they ring your doorbell when you clearly have do not disturb sign on and you know it's a you you ugandan you know saying sir do you

want the chocolate fuck off you you and illusion where it's not and illusion is ugandan can't i'll kick you i'll kick you in your cunt the okay do you want a chocolate i want you i want i'm plastered drunk in your hotel i'm trying to pass out you come stupid chocolate so you have to understand i have no place of residence i travel with some big luggage it include everything i own It's not much, but it's in two luggage. It's a huge stress to have to pack. I think I need to find a cold storage locker somewhere like Bhutan. I've heard the free port area of Singapore is one of the safest places in the world, by the way, to leave something and have it be undisturbed. But, so, because I travel with everything like this, hotel streamlining of all necessities is much appreciated.

But, yes, I can't repeat enough that Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong has some of the most pleasant hallways of any hotel I've been in. It makes for an exciting, dark, Shanghai brothel mood, like in the movie I mentioned, Flowers of Shanghai. I recommend you watch this. If you have an art-ho girlfriend, you will impress her. But by now, I've been to some nice hotels I'll review later. Probably the best ones I've stayed in are the – well, I will not say them right now. I will not say, but I stayed at Raffles in Singapore and an Indian friend of mine in Singapore, he is an important man and such, and we had talk after and he did not like that I stayed at the Raffles because I think he's mad at the English and does not like

the presence of colonial architecture in that part of the world, but I am joking. But just a quick aside about luxury as such and luxury brands today. It's part of the austere reactionary general opinion as well as communist opinion actually that luxury is bad. And Schopenhauer has a good aside about this somewhere. He says a lot of people complain that so much effort is taken to grow asparagus or whatever other luxury goods on that land could be put to much more efficient use. And then he points out though that it's the same tendency toward luxury that frees up labor and frees up desire away from necessities and toward luxuries that also allows the arts and philosophy to flourish and the life of the mind, including the high arts are essentially a luxury of mankind.

This show I'm doing for you, I'm not saying it's high art at all, I'm just a buffoon on have you clown show here, but it's a kind of luxury entertainment product, I think artisanal unique radio show podcast. So anyway, I think Schopenhauer is right, I'm not one to attack luxury as such. I think the drive to luxury eventually leads to all nicer things. That said, something has gone off with the major fashion luxury houses in the last decade or two. For example, the big ones that you have surely heard of by now, Gucci and Louis Vuitton and so on, they have movies about them now. Maybe you saw recent videos out of China showing they are essentially now mass-produced in So you have this unfortunate development of mass industry luxury

which greatly lowers the value of these brands, tarnishes them, makes them a bug man accessory. They sold themselves out. Now they have committed actually a kind of suicide. Maybe it was a worth it suicide to them. I mean this is how European fashion luxury brands have become mega billion dollar value worldwide industry. Which isn't to say actually that their quality lowered thereby. I can't speak to that. Especially when it comes to clothes, I have no interest whatsoever in recognizing brands or what this or that style is. I don't know what they are, but I have friends with a glance can tell, oh, that woman is not wearing real Prada shoes, the seeming or whatever is off. So they've maintained their standards, but even so they've become tarnished in the eyes

of connoisseurs, because now the people who actually good taste don't want to be associated with a mass-produced product that's the accessory, essentially, yes, of Shibuun Taniqua's splurged day out. Maybe it's not Taniqua, it's, well, what is a Chinese name? Those are the moneyed taniquas of the world. You may ask, how is it possible for something so expensive no longer to be exclusive? But the thing is, there is a lot of money worldwide to go around now. And as one of my favorite prosthees told me laughing, she can always tell a Chinese congoid, see I can't use the word, can I say Chinese nigger? Can I say that on this show? But it's a Chinese guy because he's dressed like an ad, Gucci visor, this brand sunglasses and that, everything tastelessly brand name.

And I went on a rant some episodes ago about how the price of average Cohiba cigar has gone up from $20 to $70 per cigar, which is absurd. I would not smoke them anymore and it's because these Chinese shibun people buy them in box packages and want to be seen on Instagram with Kohiba in hand and popping champagne and such. So basically these brands are going through a Tommy Hilfigerization process where it doesn't really matter so much the quality, they're just becoming associated with plebeian excess. Whereas these companies should have instead nurtured their own creativity, remained small, innovated in interesting ways. I don't think they are tastemakers anymore, anymore than something like Pepsi or Balenciaga, right, which some friends consider the only innovative

remaining big fashion house. But no, it did not start, daily wire peasant hysteria aside, Balenciaga didn't start as a bal-worshipping child sacrifice brand or whatever gets told on conspiracy podcasts now, it was the personal shop of a Basque fashion designer, Cristobal Balenciaga, designed specialty dresses for Spanish aristocrats. Anyway, they are no longer like that. They could have remained, so now people with taste, that's what they want. That's what they're looking for. So I agree with them in the sense you should always be skeptical of, you know, luxury now in that sense has become bug man. So that said, these These hotels I just mentioned, however, for example, the Raffles, they will not let you down. It's not a brand, right? It's not a worldwide brand.

But I do think they're absurdly priced to stay in for an overnight room, but something like the Raffles or what I'm reviewing on this show, the Mandarin Oriental, will give you a memorable experience. And this Hong Kong branch, I think, is such, aside from the mood, the ambiance, the comfort of the room, that it doesn't have the best views in Hong Kong. You get that at upper house hotel, especially if you get harbour view room. But the views here are still very nice, a very cyberpunk, deep city view. And the food at the Hong Kong Mandarin Oriental, unlike at the Bangkok one, the food is very good. Manhwa is Michelin-starred Cantonese kind of high-class dim sum place on the top floor and in this case it's a rare occasion where it deserves its Michelin rating in Asia.

It's great views, city-scape on the top floor and the food actually is very good. The only downside is the famous bar which I think figured in books and movies and such. I think it's called Captain's Bar on the ground floor, okay? And the crowds there, like on a Wednesday night or a Friday night was somewhat grim. Grim, normal fags, fads, and I did not enjoy seeing that. But the bar on the top floor, I don't know its name, but there's some kind of cocktail bar on top floor, and that's where attractive local Chinese younger people go. They take their girlfriends there and such, and that's quite nice. I'll do full Hong Kong review episode another time, and maybe I'll do video even for you. My upcoming Bourdain style, Bourdain Celine travel inquisition, would you enjoy that?

But Hong Kong, everyone knows, has seriously declined in the last 10 or 15 years. The Chai Kams have destroyed it, and the nightlife now is quite limited, very, I think is a bit dreadful nightlife. Everyone knows famous nightlife district in Hong Kong, Lan Kwai Fong, its iconic status among partying expats, has legacy status in literary and movie production. I'm sure it was great maybe in the 1970s or 80s. Now it loud, obnoxious of cheapest college frat vibe you can imagine and not in good way. Supreme trashy loud What you call it's not Lena Del Rey because I like her but this kind of random top 40 music loud And there's not anywhere much better either to go at night than Hong Kong Hong Kong's that I know of

Yeah, some people I don't know I do the horror bars in one chai are horrible stay away from them Dubai Now has attracted all the top-class whores Yes, I don't like to call them whores I actually treat all women with respect and Dubai has taken over the function of Hong Kong though. It used to have an international finance hub and a partying for expats hub. Now it's gone to Dubai and the 1960s James Bond elegance that Hong Kong might have had, it's gone and you can't find that in Dubai anyway. But yes, these are matters for maybe a video episode to show you these different cities. One great thing about staying in a very nice hotel, aside from having everything and every need you can think of is taken care of, is the sound insulation, which as a frequent

traveler, it's kind of hell on my life. You know, I'm being followed around not only by construction noise, but in many nice European cities because the buildings are older, you can hear from other apartments. This problem with Airbnb in Europe, by the way, I stayed long ago in a nice apartment in Madrid. I could hear people in the next apartment over snoring. I complained before about this. You could hear people snoring now all the time. 10, 15 years ago, you were more likely to hear the sounds of sex oars through the walls and the moans of women in pleasure. But that's all gone now. going on but yes I like to read in nice bars you know I like I want to go Captain Bar Hong Kong and read but it's it's a not amenable to that but it's very

pleasant to go to a nice bar not too busy you can drink even if you want but you can just have coffee you take then breaks from you look up from your book you look at people it's a great pleasure in life a nice book and you have a drink sometimes you glance up, you see things, you overhear things and bar at Mandarin Oriental I remember I was reading Nietzsche's essay on the use and abuse of history for life. I was rereading this. I want to end this episode on this important, I think you will notice this episode somewhat shorter but I keep telling you from time to time I want to go back to shorter and more frequent episodes because I think two hour plus episode on sometimes serious themes might be daunting for some friends to listen to, but this is supposed to be concise, fun entertainment

show maybe. Did you like Simon Mann from last episode? I have some interesting guests coming up, but maybe those guest shows can be longer. Look, this essay, which I only briefly discuss now on the use of history for life, published 1874, Nietzsche was I think about 30 years old at the time. It's been very influential essay since then. It's a criticism of 19th century historicism, or what he calls the historical sense, especially that German philosophy and culture prided itself on at the time. And he tells them, this is not culture. It's not even possibly the basis for any culture. You do not have a culture, you just have learning about other cultures who, however themselves, did not have a historical sense. The Greeks lived ahistorically.

So by extension, this essay is a kind of criticism also of Hegelianism, of Marxism and other 20th century historicist movements that came out of this German 19th century sensibility. It's an important essay, maybe again I talk it another time in an essay, but the reason I bring up now because I see that for some time, especially among dissident so-called dissident writers, podcasters, commentators, other people you may have encountered who you falsely consider part of my sphere or such it's there's no such thing as my sphere but it's they place an undue emphasis on historical analysis historical investigations and supposed uncoverings of special historical knowledge they are introducing to YouTube now I have historical shows of

my own my men of power series I love it others you know ask me when is your next man of power episode those are historical episodes many other things also that I just do sometimes out of idle curiosity and to satisfy my boredom. But if you expect too much I'm saying out of historical claims, if for you questions of central importance in life depend on the resolution of this or that historical matter, I think that's fundamentally what I disagree with, what I'd like to discourage this attitude. Here's what Nietzsche has to say about the use of a certain kind of history he calls antiquarian history, especially so beloved by conservatives and reactionaries. I'm quoting him now, how could history better serve living than by the fact that it thus

links the less favored races and populations to their home region and home traditions, keeps them settled there and prevents them from roaming around in foreign places looking for something better and in search of that fighting competitive wars. Yes, do you like this quotation? What is it you hope to achieve exactly in your historical researches? At its best, what I just said now, that's what history is. Even in its best cases, as Nietzsche explains in this essay, history can't be a science. It's a kind of instructive aid for life and not even often for a very, you know, it's a kind of very modest, but it's a highly edited version of the past that has some purpose for a community or nation, maybe in the same way that reason or prudence has a practical use in the life of an individual.

But this is actually something that Schopenhauer says about history. Schopenhauer famously, an ahistorical man, he criticizes history in the Hegelian sense, and he makes the great point, repeated in slightly different form by Nietzsche in this essay, that unlike the other sciences, where the more abstract concepts derived from the information are the most important matters, and the particulars aren't especially important, But right in physics and math, it's the general laws and concepts derived that are the really important thing. But in history, it's the opposite. The more general concepts are either empty or they're truisms. And the only thing that really matters are the particular events, the particular figures, which in any case are often highly disputable.

So it's not a science in any sense of that word. And for an elucidation of human nature, I think poetry is far more valuable. In its essence, history only ever really serves this or that purpose of this or that group, you know. It's always a kind of highly motivated reasoning. And I'm saying even Schopenhauer, who is a critic of history in that metaphysical Hegelian sense, he gives history some use. He says it plays in the life of nations, roughly the same role that practical prudence plays in the life of an individual. But not much more than that. Nietzsche puts it better in the quotation I just read. It's kind of a thing for modest nations to rest content in their own traditions and be happy with what they have at home. In my Men of Power episodes, that is different.

I try to use examples of greatness of the past to spur friends on to similar acts today. But in the wrong hands, even that type of history, which Nietzsche calls monumental history, which of course is not a science either, but in the wrong hands, that can turn quite bad. For example, a narrow, cramped people of no culture or little culture, a people who does not want to create culture, can use examples of past greatness to make the case that there can be no greatness in our own time, to discourage the innovative and daring people from even trying, and in the end, as Nietzsche puts it, to have the dead bury the living. My only brief point here is that the historical obsessions of critics of our time are misplaced. History has very limited, as I say,

at most an ancillary use, it's a sidekick. But if you don't know what you're using it for, if you don't have, it's, I don't know, I don't see the point. It can never be the main course though, and the great work that remains for our time, let's say, is spiritual insight, you can call it psychological insight, into the motivations and characters of people now, what motivates them now. History can be an aid to that, but it must be the main task, the uncovering of their characters as they exist now, and the closely associated task of overturning all moral notions that are entertained today, which I think are all tawdry, they're broken, they're garish, health-figureized versions of better things that used to exist, things that have been transferred to our time

through a kind of big snood, aggressive plebeian filter, and that are now the garish luxury brand clothes vain and self-interested people. So even in that sense, though, history only, you know, when people do genealogical history of this or that modern thing they don't like, okay, so you traced its origin to some medieval thinkers, so what? Fundamentally, you have to talk about why it bad now. And this why, by the way, I criticize all present day forms of public religion. I know what they are. That being said, I will end this episode on the hopeful, one of the most hopeful and energizing things that Nietzsche ever wrote, which I've mentioned before, I repeat, I'm sorry now, but I repeat it as a spur to friends on what is still possible in our own time, what it

takes the faith in yourselves as artists. I read now, it is appropriate now to understand that only the man who builds the future has a right to judge the past. In order to look ahead, set yourselves an important goal and at the same time control that voluptuous analytical drive with which you now lay waste the present and render almost impossible all tranquility, all peaceful growth and maturing. Draw around yourself the fence of a large and extensive hope, an optimistic striving, creating yourself a picture to which the future is to correspond and forget the myth that you are epigones. That means that you come at the end of time, that you have enough to plan and to invent when you ponder that future life.

But in considering history, do not ask that she show you the how and the with what. If however, you live your life in the history of great men, then you learn from her the supreme command to become mature and to flee away from that paralyzing and restricting upbringing of the age, which sees advantages for itself in not allowing you to become mature in order to rule and exploit you, the immature. And when you ask after biographies, then do not ask for those with the refrain, Mr. So-and-so and his age, but for those whose title page must read, a fighter against his age. Fill your souls with Plutarch, man of power series. Fill your souls with Plutarch and dare to believe in yourselves when you have faith in his heroes.

With a hundred people raised in such an un-modern way, that is, with people who have become mature and familiar with the heroic, one could permanently silence the entire noisy pseudo-culture of this age. And on this hopeful note, I end this brief episode and say stay tuned for Energise episode of Powers to come soon. Until soon and next time, Bap out!