Latest / SpaceTomatoes / The War That Didn't Happen Herman Forwood on Twilight of Democracy and the Empathy Cliff S3-EP14

Transcript

The War That Didn't Happen Herman Forwood on Twilight of Democracy and the Empathy Cliff S3-EP14 · SpaceTomatoes

• 0:00
  And the other part is actually, which is funny, in it, America kind of annexes Greenland.
• 0:10
  Again, I wrote it in Twitter.
• 0:14
  I wrote it way before.
• 0:16
  Are you working with The Simpsons out there doing stuff?
• 0:19
  Totally.
• 0:19
  Is it like life imitating art or what?
• 0:23
  Totally.
• 0:23
  so and well so i tell you like how actually i arrived at greenland because i thought oh it
• 0:29
  would be cool if actually
• 0:53
  All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Space Tomatoes podcast. Today we are joined by Herman Forwood, an author, podcaster, and student of history who explores current events through the lens of history. Welcome to the show, Herman.
• 1:11
  Thanks for having me.
• 1:12
  Awesome. So you, on the authorship piece, you have an interesting set of books, at least one of them for sure that, you know, I kind of dug into a little bit, which is, what is it, Twilight of Democracy?
• 1:28
  and it kind of poses some questions that are interesting ones and can you walk us through a
• 1:37
  little bit about what what brought you to decide to write that and and what gave you the idea to
• 1:44
  kind of pose that type of a question what is that question yeah yeah yeah it was a journey for sure
• 1:51
  and when actually some of my readers and friends are reading it now everybody's like oh why don't
• 1:57
  you write this? And I'm like, well, I started in like 2022 and wrote most of it 2023, 2024.
• 2:07
  So a lot of it actually came from, I wanted to explore the idea of, you know, we always talk
• 2:13
  about things and we say, oh, that's just politics, or we just say things, nobody means that. And I'm
• 2:19
  like, okay, what if we take a lot of the ideas we have today and somehow accept it and take it a
• 2:28
  couple steps further and see what really happens to the world, not just to us, not to our neighborhood
• 2:34
  or neighbors, but just what happens to the world. And so I went through just an exercise of, okay,
• 2:42
  how do I do that? Should I take the present tense? Should I, you know, explore the past? And then,
• 2:48
  you know, being a student of history, I'm like, okay, I know history very well, especially
• 2:53
  mid-century history. I'm like, okay, so what can I do? And I always, you know, was fascinated
• 3:00
  by these stories of what ifs, and not a lot of the butterfly effect, what ifs, but like,
• 3:07
  you know, major event, what ifs. So I, so I'm like, okay, let's just explore that. That's a
• 3:13
  very good thought experiment. And I'm like, okay, what if we, you know, we didn't experience
• 3:21
  World War II, we didn't experience just such disaster for the whole world, not just, you know,
• 3:28
  one region or like one country, but like, it impacted the whole world, you know, millions of
• 3:33
  innocent people died, Holocaust happened, all of that. I'm like, what if none of that happened?
• 3:38
  would we be in a better world would we be more empathetic less empathetic and you know just
• 3:45
  observing that we don't we don't have you know our empathy is going away empathy you know we have a
• 3:50
  lot for our neighbors or our neighborhood or our city but as when it goes you know 20 30 miles away
• 3:57
  it's just like the empathy just you know cliffs so i'm like okay so what would happen to the world
• 4:03
  you know, would we have a Marshall Plan to rescue Europe? You know, would Europeans be so nice to
• 4:08
  each other after the World War II ended and all of that? So I'm just going to, I'm like, okay,
• 4:13
  let's reimagine the whole world. And so that was like really the genesis of writing the book. It
• 4:21
  was just really a thought experiment and the whole historical fantasy and what happens to the world
• 4:26
  really came out of that. Just, you know, and a lot of it is like, I'm exploring it at a personal
• 4:33
  level that the protagonist and his family, you know, beyond that, you know, strange relationship,
• 4:39
  him and his brother, they're on the both sides of the aisle. So they have like, you know,
• 4:44
  very strange discussions. Then the countries, then the continents, then the blocks, you know.
• 4:50
  And so I'm exploring, I had to reimagine the whole world, like what would happen to Soviet
• 4:55
  Union, to Europe, to Commonwealth, to America, North America, South America. So I just like
• 5:03
  reimagined the whole world Like I had to like really is like does that make sense Because I wanted to make sense I wanted to be you know imaginable acceptable So I really spent a lot of time really re the world that way
• 5:19
  That's, I think it's an interesting take, you know, it harkens to that one, you know, thought,
• 5:26
  social thought experiment that a lot of people have, right? If you could go back in time and kill
• 5:32
  hitler when he was a baby right right and and you know i've you know that one for me is is one that
• 5:41
  i i pretty much have a solidified thought process on that and it goes something like this the world
• 5:47
  would not have been better if goebbels was the guy instead of hitler correct goebbels was there
• 5:53
  right so yeah no so so this is actually very i'm so glad you brought it up so i didn't want to do
• 5:59
  kill baby Hitler because that was has been done and you know Hitler no this and so I am get rid
• 6:06
  of Hitler in 1939 so he was in power for six years already Kristen Laugh happened already
• 6:12
  Jewish people were rounded up Poland was invaded Austria was annexed you know all of that happened
• 6:21
  so my idea was like no no they got so close to it and they averted so how would the world
• 6:29
  react like we were about to go into another giant war and last minute we were saved but we saw it
• 6:37
  coming um so i didn't want to do that and and also i said i set the time 1950 so i didn't do it now
• 6:45
  or like 60s or 70s i wanted to be everything very fresh because the reason all of it happened was
• 6:51
  like okay we are already forgetting 9-11 why a lot and i mean gen z does not even remember anything
• 6:57
  right? A lot of younger millennials don't even, you know, recall so much of it. So I just wanted
• 7:04
  to be fresh and say, okay, this atrocity happened. Would you still do it? Would you still get close?
• 7:10
  No, not do it. Would the world be a better place or is just going to be some other weird version of
• 7:17
  it? So all of it was intentional. I did try to do it 60s and 70s and I'm like, no, no, no, no.
• 7:24
  I need to bring it back a lot closer to actually it happening or about to happen.
• 7:31
  So very good point that you brought it up.
• 7:34
  So yeah, I wanted to clarify that.
• 7:37
  Yeah, no, that is really interesting stuff, I think.
• 7:41
  Definitely.
• 7:42
  And when you think about things like that, right, and if you move forward in history,
• 7:47
  you just see this, you see, okay, it's not the same.
• 7:52
  It may be not at the same escalation, etc.
• 7:55
  And maybe part of that is just being able to recognize the patterns that are evolving a little bit better than we were back then.
• 8:03
  You know, faster access to information, things of that nature.
• 8:06
  But you look through history and these events just continue to unfold and continue and continue.
• 8:13
  So if you did remove one and everything was hunky dory and everyone was happy and peaceful, I mean, it's just just a decade and we're in Vietnam War and then Korea. And, you know, so it's like, I don't know, you know, it's an interesting thought experiment because would that have changed going forward? Or would it just made kind of the fairy dust sprinkled over things for a period of time before we just the machine started moving again?
• 8:41
  Yeah. So at the end, actually, that was the purpose of this book and my thought experiment. Really, it was not to re-examine something from 90 years ago, 80 years ago. It was more for us to rethink what happened more recently or is happening now.
• 9:02
  and really
• 9:04
  so
• 9:05
  I'm going to come back to this
• 9:07
  the whole point is for us to
• 9:09
  think about things because I don't
• 9:13
  believe people
• 9:14
  spend enough time
• 9:15
  thinking about
• 9:18
  what's happening
• 9:18
  it's not their fault
• 9:21
  a lot of people are surviving
• 9:24
  they have two jobs
• 9:25
  it's all legitimate
• 9:27
  I'm not trying to
• 9:28
  put them down
• 9:30
  They have reasons to do that. But my goal as a writer is to just get the attention of people who can spare some time to think about things, to think about it.
• 9:47
  So going back to your point, ultimately the goal of this book was, again, not to re-examine what happened in the middle of last century, but it's what's happening more recently.
• 9:59
  So to your point about Vietnam War, like winning the hearts and minds, right?
• 10:04
  That was the biggest thing.
• 10:06
  That was a turning point in Vietnam War that people realized that is like, oh, my God, a lot of people are suffering.
• 10:12
  It's not just, you know, anti-communism movement.
• 10:17
  And for the longest time through 60s and 70s and part of the 80s people kind of remember that but we forgot it very quickly Then it comes the first desert storm and let go get Saddam And a lot of people suffered
• 10:39
  Then go the second, then 9-11 happens. Okay, let's go kick some ass. We are very angry. Some people
• 10:46
  did us, you know, huge harm. Okay, let's go get him. Messed up the whole region. Hundreds of
• 10:54
  thousands of people died, both in Afghanistan and second desert storm, right? Okay, to your point,
• 11:00
  that was 2003, right? Second desert storm happened 2003, not too long ago, relatively speaking.
• 11:07
  but we forgot now we are in Iran again nobody talks about what's happening to to the Iranians
• 11:18
  90 million people are suffering not a single mainstream media is talking about it so we are
• 11:27
  back to to your point where Vietnam was not of course the same scale to your point it doesn't
• 11:34
  repeat itself, but there are a ton of lessons to be learned, but we don't seem to learn those lessons.
• 11:40
  Yeah. I think a lot of people don't really think about it because maybe
• 11:43
  there's, they feel like they're, I mean, my, my personal opinion, I don't think there's much I
• 11:49
  can do about it personally. It's just going to play out however it's going to play out. And I
• 11:53
  really don't have much saying it either way, whether I like it or not. Absolutely. I mean,
• 11:57
  a lot of people, I guarantee you feel that way. I mean, but Vietnam war, you had less of a voice.
• 12:03
  There was no social media. You couldn't, you know, get your friends to be on your side.
• 12:08
  It was a lot worse. So people took it to the streets, you know, Hayton, Ashbury, Berkeley,
• 12:13
  you know, you name it. People just came out swinging. But yes, absolutely. I think a lot
• 12:20
  of people feel disgusted. But to your point, it's like there's nothing I can do. There's nothing I
• 12:24
  can do. I feel a lot more passionate about it. And I don't feel like there's anything I can do.
• 12:29
  If you have like two jobs and you're living a real life, of course, you're going to feel less empowered. I totally agree with that.
• 12:38
  Yeah, it's hard to make time to get out and protest in mass, you know, especially if you're talking about doing something like that. You know, it takes planning, preparations. People need to actually band together and then commit to, you know, days of action.
• 12:55
  and it's difficult, you know, and I think you see at least, you know, in my limited view,
• 13:02
  you do see a lot of outcry on social media. But, you know, from my perspective, that has
• 13:11
  like single digit percent of the of the actual impact that physical protests on mass really have,
• 13:21
  because you can't deny that you can't say these are all bots there they are human beings sitting
• 13:27
  in you know the square at washington you know trying to let the leadership know we don't want
• 13:33
  this this is this is enough um and i think people people see social media as their best platform for
• 13:40
  for their voice for things like this when really it's it's probably one of the worst ways you'd
• 13:47
  probably get better results having people mass mail, like physical letters into the body's politic.
• 13:57
  Correct.
• 13:57
  How about your favorite thing, Havoc? Get out and vote.
• 14:00
  That's how you make a difference, right?
• 14:02
  Which people are not going to do.
• 14:05
  Well, you know, and that's another thing.
• 14:07
  We've had this, you know, we've talked about this a number of times, but people are disenfranchised.
• 14:12
  The representatives don't represent.
• 14:14
  you get sold one you know set of you know campaign promises and then they all disappear the second
• 14:22
  they're in and so people are large you know large numbers of of people especially the young people
• 14:29
  are like there's no point why would i do that yeah you know and that's that's a pretty scary thing
• 14:35
  and the feedback loop is like oh your vote doesn't matter so it's kind of like it's a self
• 14:40
  fulfilling prophecy a lot of it, right? I mean, subliminally, a lot of folks get that message that
• 14:47
  your vote doesn't really matter. You know, the politics is going to do what they're doing. You
• 14:52
  know, you're a little guy. So it's kind of like, oh, you see, everybody's talking about it. So
• 14:56
  might as well. Well, I mean, it's even to the point now where, you know, I mean, at this point,
• 15:02
  it's like that wouldn't matter at all.
• 15:05
  Someone,
• 15:06
  an individual took unilateral action.
• 15:11
  That's it.
• 15:12
  It literally is that simple.
• 15:14
  There's no,
• 15:15
  there's Congress hasn't done anything about this one way.
• 15:19
  Good or bad.
• 15:20
  You know,
• 15:20
  they did it like a,
• 15:21
  a vote that was mainly just,
• 15:24
  you know,
• 15:24
  a paper vote.
• 15:25
  I mean,
• 15:26
  it's a feel good.
• 15:26
  Hey,
• 15:27
  we don't,
• 15:27
  we don't want you doing this,
• 15:28
  but we don't have any way of stopping you because we're not going to,
• 15:32
  you know bring you know bring back the War Powers Act Correct So yeah And to Alex earlier point you know bring back the war powers act correct so yeah and and to alex earlier point um you know i mean social media people just post stuff and all of that i don know how much of it
• 15:47
  is genuine i think a lot of it is also like feel good oh like i said something i'm like you're not
• 15:53
  gonna do anything about gaza you're not gonna do anything about iran it's just like you want to tell
• 15:58
  your friends, you're compassionate. And but are you are you gonna, are you gonna write to anybody?
• 16:04
  No, that's writing to my politician. Just emailing something is a lot harder. Like I'm just going to
• 16:09
  post something people say, you're such a good guy or good gal. And then I'm just going to use it for
• 16:14
  talking point in our next, you know, wine party. I feel I feel a lot of that kind of disingenuine,
• 16:21
  kind of like posting in action. So I'm not saying that I am Mother Teresa. And I, you know, I do a
• 16:27
  lot, but I just see a lot of that as well. I don't post any of that because I'm like, okay, either I
• 16:33
  got to do something and post about it. I'm not going to post about it and not do anything about
• 16:37
  it. I write to my politicians, to your point, more than anybody I know. So I like bang under the doors.
• 16:44
  I call them and all of that. I don't go right on social media and I'm like, oh, I did that because
• 16:48
  I'm such a good guy. But you know, we live in where we live, right? Social media stars.
• 16:54
  yeah so i i know for me i i'm i'm really like not the political guy at all like i'm just
• 17:02
  i don't know i just i've never been my thing and and i've just kind of always thought about it as
• 17:08
  who's ever in there who's ever on the ticket running for whatever they just seem kind of like
• 17:12
  two sides of the same coin that are maybe wearing different color ties and they're they're going to
• 17:19
  do whatever they're going to do to push the machine that's pushing them to do whatever it
• 17:23
  is that's going to happen anyway. And I mean, that's just kind of how I feel about it.
• 17:27
  Yeah. They're just doing it. It's a different flavor of the same thing. And, you know, in a way,
• 17:32
  that's why I'm like, I need to just be more, write more because I cannot, I'm not a big
• 17:38
  influencer with millions of followers to really influence people. I'm like, I can just do it at
• 17:43
  a micro dose. I started writing essays about these issues, you know, it get like, you know,
• 17:48
  dozens or so readers. So he keeps climbing up. I'm like, okay, I'm, you know, talking to at least,
• 17:55
  you know, hundreds of people through my essays. I'm like, okay, I need to do more. So that's why
• 18:01
  I started writing, you know, fiction and to just like, okay, let's examine these things. And I'm
• 18:07
  like, okay, now tens of thousands of people are reading my book. I'm like, okay, so I'm making,
• 18:12
  because I always thought the thoughts need to be,
• 18:18
  or experiments need to be a lot more in depth.
• 18:21
  We can just like tweet, you know,
• 18:23
  whatever characters is now 280.
• 18:26
  But no, we need to talk about things
• 18:29
  a little bit more in depth.
• 18:30
  And I know it's a reverse of what the society is going
• 18:33
  with tech talk mentality and all of that.
• 18:37
  But I'm like, no, we need to examine these things.
• 18:40
  Um, so I really, in my first book, I didn't do a whole lot of it because my goal was to write a,
• 18:46
  a thriller book that was never done before. So I spent a lot of my time there, but I started in it.
• 18:52
  I'm like, Oh, let's, you know, talk about a little bit about religion and actual coverup and all of
• 18:58
  that. So I'm like, Oh, I like that. Then my second book, I'm like, let's go crazy. My third book that,
• 19:04
  which is basically in pre-order right now. I'm like, let's examine some social concepts that
• 19:13
  everybody seemed to like and, you know, kind of normal. So I'm like, let's take those a couple
• 19:20
  steps further. And I'm like, is that what we really want? Or is it just another ridiculous
• 19:27
  concept that we've gotten used to and we just live with um so i'm really enjoying this kind of
• 19:34
  like thought experiment in an in-depth way not just you know 280 characters yeah i think that
• 19:42
  is important as well yeah like we don't we have not we're considering maybe doing it again
• 19:50
  we did for a little while is doing shorts on youtube uh and i don't know you know for me it's
• 19:57
  the long form content is where you know the magic happens the shorts are just little sound bites out
• 20:03
  of a much longer deeper more involved conversation and i think you know there is a lot of you know
• 20:12
  i guess personally my own experience you know i used to be able to send like a 20 minute youtube
• 20:18
  to someone and they'd be like oh let me check that out nowadays you send a 20 minute they're
• 20:22
  like dude i don't have time for all that 30 seconds exactly like if it's over 90 seconds
• 20:29
  you lost me i'm gone if you're less than 40 years old you're not going to watch more than a minute
• 20:34
  at the most and even that's even that's pressing it yeah oh yeah but so what do you what do you
• 20:40
  think is this has always been striking to me, right? Um, you know, and I get the cheering for sides, right? I get
• 20:50
  that. We all have this, you know, sense of tribalistic pride for existing. Just because
• 20:57
  I was born on this physical, you know, this, you know, geographic location, then obviously I'm,
• 21:05
  you know, proud, yada, yada. And, you know, so we all have that. But one thing that's always
• 21:11
  been striking to me is there, it's just seems like so many people are just completely apathetic
• 21:17
  to the to the idea that tens of thousands of innocent people are just dying they just disappear
• 21:25
  and it's like how does one actually sit there and go yeah that's a good thing and that to me i've
• 21:35
  never really understood right that's that's not like i mean just imagine an entire football stadium
• 21:41
  and being eradicated at once, just gone, in the course of five minutes.
• 21:49
  People would lose their minds, but for some reason when it's Gaza or it's Tehran, it's fine.
• 21:58
  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit of a Thanos in all of us, right?
• 22:02
  It's just kind of we don't care or we think it's, you know, maybe it's not that bad.
• 22:08
  But, I mean, distance definitely makes that happen.
• 22:14
  Even, you know, people are not as empathetic to another city or state, you know.
• 22:19
  I mean, California, everybody loves to hate California.
• 22:22
  I'm like, why?
• 22:23
  Like, what has California done to you?
• 22:25
  Like, we're all living our lives, right?
• 22:28
  Well, I used to live there and I could tell you why.
• 22:31
  But that's a different story.
• 22:33
  Well, again, I mean, I don't hate anybody who lives in Alabama.
• 22:38
  like you know they don't impact my life at all i don't think about these things as much but like
• 22:43
  i love california i love california it's a it has a lot of issues but i'm like hating where you live
• 22:49
  like but i mean but i don't i didn't like i didn't like the there there were again we go back to the
• 22:59
  body politic right at the end of the day you know the cost kept going up and you know life wasn't
• 23:06
  becoming the American dream seemed to just be like the carrot on the stick,
• 23:11
  you know, and I'm the donkey and I, I'm trying to get the carrot,
• 23:14
  but every time I get close to the carrot, the carrot just moved.
• 23:17
  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's everywhere in America.
• 23:21
  It's not just California.
• 23:23
  No, you know,
• 23:25
  maybe there are richer people here that they make us feel worse about
• 23:29
  ourselves. I mean, yeah, maybe income in parity is worse for whatever reason it
• 23:34
  is. I guess the point I was trying to get at is just like the, you know, the empathy comes with
• 23:41
  the distance. And at the same time, it's very easy to just vilify people. And when you once you get
• 23:48
  used to vilifying others, you're just okay, different religion, different skin tone,
• 23:53
  different language is just like when you just get used to vilifying and not respecting. So it's very
• 24:00
  easy not to feel anything about people in gaza or you know whatever it is it's also not really a
• 24:09
  new thing either right so california actually did something like this i think they were the first
• 24:15
  to do it in world war ii and it was called the japanese internment cap camps and they weren't
• 24:22
  they weren't distant they were your neighbors they were your friends but that was vilifying
• 24:28
  vilifying yeah vilifying a certain group the chinese internment camp you know in the bay
• 24:33
  area they have had that yeah exactly yeah yeah and so it's it's just one of those things we we
• 24:39
  seem to just we we throw away our empathy and our sympathy for um you know in some cases entire
• 24:48
  you know classes of people uh when we feel like you know maybe that i don't know we were told
• 24:57
  there's a boogeyman under the bed. Yeah, it's very easy, right? I mean, every culture has done it.
• 25:04
  They continue to do it. So, I mean, it goes back to your question. I mean, it's actually not very
• 25:09
  difficult. And, you know, in my books, I try to really dive into that. Actually, it's funny you
• 25:16
  ask that question, because what is empathy? Empathy for whom? Why? When? All of that. So,
• 25:24
  So empathy is actually the core premise of, especially my second book.
• 25:31
  No, I think it runs through most of my books.
• 25:34
  Because at the end, that's what is the most important thing in our lives,
• 25:40
  just how much we care about each other.
• 25:42
  We lift each other so we all live in a better society.
• 25:47
  So empathy is definitely that.
• 25:49
  What that means to people, does it mean like throwing money at the problem
• 25:53
  or giving them money or actually educating
• 25:56
  or just helping whatever that means The core premise of Jesus Christ you know every government is supposed to do that for its people So what that empathy means is really
• 26:10
  I try to examine that because at the end, that's what matters. And we forget what empathy is.
• 26:17
  Everybody says, oh, I'm a good Christian, but screw those guys. I'm like, well, I don't know,
• 26:21
  Are you a good Christian if you hate just another skin tone people?
• 26:28
  Those are the things we really need to keep talking about,
• 26:31
  otherwise it just becomes background noise.
• 26:34
  Well, you know, Jesus did say, you know, feed the poor
• 26:39
  and help the hungry and the homeless and things like that,
• 26:43
  except if they're these people, didn't he, I think?
• 26:48
  No? I don't think so.
• 26:50
  you you've got a good point there sorry alex i didn't mean to interrupt no i just i think there's
• 26:55
  just a certain percentage of people that just don't care at all they you know like even beyond
• 27:01
  the politics like there could be a hurricane blow through florida and you know there's people on the
• 27:05
  internet well you shouldn't have lived there you knew it was going to happen like it's your fault
• 27:10
  that that happened and then you know the other portion of the people are like it's just out of
• 27:15
  sight out of mind if it doesn't affect them personally they just don't care either way
• 27:19
  I will admit to a small amount of that. In North Carolina, we have this chain of barrier islands that's called the Outer Banks. They are all sandbars. And I kid you not, they are sandbars. They're there. The wave action creates these barrier islands, kind of protects the inlets and stuff. And people decided to build houses on them.
• 27:44
  I've seen them. And they get wiped out all the time.
• 27:47
  And the roads and bridges and all this stuff gets wiped out. And then they come to the rest of North Carolina and go, we need to raise taxes. And I'm like, oh, no, no, like, no, what are you living on a sandbar for?
• 28:01
  so i do now that being said i think it's a big difference between florida right because in this
• 28:08
  case it's literally a sandbar that if you watched it over the course of you know any appreciable
• 28:13
  amount of time they have to continuously have barges out there pumping sand to rebuild the
• 28:19
  areas of the islands they're naturally eroding so it's it's not even like it would be stable on
• 28:25
  its own like it's just the worst place you can build a house worse than those cliffs on the side
• 28:31
  of California there on like the Pacific Coast Highway.
• 28:34
  That one's great.
• 28:35
  If you go to the beach in Laguna Beach and you look up over the cliffs, you'll see fences
• 28:42
  that are literally jutting off like 10 feet, 8 feet off the edge of the cliff.
• 28:47
  That fence went all the way and closed and there was room at the end of the cliff.
• 28:51
  You know what I mean?
• 28:53
  But they've got that view and it's worth a lot of money.
• 28:57
  Exactly.
• 28:58
  Yeah.
• 28:58
  And my insurance premium will pay for that to, you know, cover their loss.
• 29:04
  Yeah.
• 29:04
  So, I mean, to your point, it's like very easy to go from having like somebody is just so needy and they cannot, you know, take care of themselves to just, you know, you can go zero to, you know, 100 miles in like a second.
• 29:21
  So, yeah.
• 29:23
  So, and that happens all the time.
• 29:24
  And we don't know a lot of times when to stop ourselves.
• 29:28
  Um, so, you know, I actually always take a, um, you know, stab at those personalities in my book,
• 29:36
  you know, always, you know, I don't know if you guys know Megan Kelly, um, you know, she used to
• 29:41
  be on Fox and now she's doing her own thing. Uh, I mean, she always claims that she's such a good
• 29:46
  Christian and, you know, she, this and that, but she's just so mean to everybody. I'm like,
• 29:52
  you know i'm not a religious person but like i don't think any like you want so i mean say you're
• 30:00
  not a good christian don't say anything but and you be mean i mean i'm fine with that but don't
• 30:06
  say you're just such a good christian and at the same time being just so mean to everybody
• 30:11
  i mean i'm being mean because you know i i part of it is funny sometimes you know i'm not mean
• 30:17
  100% of the time, but that's her job, just to be mean with everybody. It's not a bit anymore.
• 30:26
  Right. Yeah, it's no longer just a TV personality.
• 30:29
  Correct. Yeah. So, yeah, I hope I answered your question about, you know, empathy, because it is
• 30:37
  so complex. And again, it goes back a little bit to what we were just discussing, that
• 30:42
  people just, it doesn't affect them. So they're like, they have their own lives to live.
• 30:50
  And so it's very hard for them to have this kind of empathy for others when they're just like,
• 30:55
  you know, they're drowning themselves. So definitely to your point, Alex is, is, is a
• 31:01
  valid point. And I do examine those things, but I think a lot of it, what I really dive into is the
• 31:07
  wealthy and the powerful and people in governments that I often think about and I use them in my books that why are you so apathetic So because they are the power We don have a lot of power You and I feel sorry for
• 31:25
  somebody who just got flooded or not. Yes, we can feel bad, you know, prayers and all of that. But
• 31:31
  those people have the power and they just don't want to do anything like killing, stopping the
• 31:37
  killing in Gaza or Iran or, you know, Sudan or whatever. We have no power, but those guys do.
• 31:45
  So why aren't you doing anything? Don't you have empathy? You made billions because of us and the
• 31:52
  world and all of that. So just do a little bit. So, you know, fewer people die or suffer. So to
• 31:58
  me, they are more at fault or responsible than, you know, us regular people.
• 32:03
  so you you lived in the middle east for for some time yes yeah um all my basically up to high school
• 32:12
  years yes what do you think what what are some of the things that that you know people that you know
• 32:20
  after living here just get completely wrong uh people i am here get wrong about that region
• 32:30
  things that work here don't work everywhere
• 32:36
  oh yeah
• 32:38
  I think that's the
• 32:39
  I mean I remember 2003
• 32:42
  when
• 32:43
  was it 2003
• 32:45
  it was a little bit earlier that
• 32:47
  George W. Bush
• 32:49
  was saying that
• 32:52
  oh all you need in
• 32:53
  Palestine is free
• 32:56
  election and
• 32:58
  everything will be solved
• 32:59
  and then they elected Hamas and there's like well not that I'm like you literally said all you need
• 33:08
  is free election and it was a free and fair election and people voted for Hamas for whatever
• 33:15
  reason you know because they had the money they were like you know giving people money and then
• 33:20
  getting support you know I'm not saying that they were legit but people did vote for him
• 33:26
  It's the same here
• 33:28
  Yes
• 33:30
  In a different way
• 33:32
  Of course very different
• 33:34
  But you know
• 33:34
  I guess the point
• 33:37
  It was like a little bit before that
• 33:40
  That he thought a free election
• 33:42
  Western style
• 33:44
  Is the solution to Palestine
• 33:46
  To get fixed and it got worse
• 33:48
  And we're living with that
• 33:50
  Consequence right now
• 33:52
  26-7 years later
• 33:55
  so that's
• 33:58
  to answer your question
• 33:59
  and I'm not saying that free election
• 34:02
  is bad, democracy is bad
• 34:04
  but everything
• 34:06
  is an evolution, like any country
• 34:08
  this country
• 34:09
  was built on the first amendment
• 34:12
  the first
• 34:12
  journalists after the declaration
• 34:16
  ended up in jail
• 34:17
  Jefferson had to come and free
• 34:20
  them from the jail
• 34:21
  to write good stuff about
• 34:23
  you know, the Republic again. So, I mean, so that was the, you know, a form of democracy back then.
• 34:30
  So every country needs to go through their process, but it's not just like, oh, we are doing everything perfectly here.
• 34:38
  Just adopt that. I'm like, not that simple.
• 34:42
  Yeah, we actually had a gentleman, Rick Hoppe, on a number of episodes ago.
• 34:49
  And one of the things that we keyed in on is we're so keen, at least in statement, right? I'm not going to talk about our actions because they don't match, but in statement, we're so keen on, well, they need freedom, right?
• 35:06
  And here's the problem with that is what we see as freedom, you can't just boilerplate template that onto someone else.
• 35:16
  You know, especially in some of these countries where you do have, you know, there's quite a good deal of religion involved in government.
• 35:26
  So what we see as freedom, they see as, you know, sin and, you know, just not good.
• 35:34
  and what you know we like to say but no you need to do it this way and what we seem to lack is
• 35:40
  the ability to go back and say what does freedom look like to you yeah let us help you get there
• 35:48
  right instead of no you need this this is freedom yeah i'm so let's go back to history
• 35:57
  Lessons learned, right?
• 35:59
  And going back to Iran, you know, in 1979, I mean, Shah's regime was not a real democracy,
• 36:09
  but it was a lot closer to democracy than today.
• 36:13
  Their own version, you know, good or bad was in it.
• 36:17
  People did want a more structured and religious country Khomeini came back he was a populist People free and fair election 99 of people voted for the Islamic Republic And they rejected somebody who was trying to
• 36:45
  go towards more like a Western style democracy, whatever version of Shahs.
• 36:50
  So they did do that.
• 36:52
  So people are wrong, right?
• 36:57
  So what is that?
• 36:58
  So that's why it's just so complex.
• 36:59
  Just analyzing that whole mess should give a lot of people some sort of a pause that,
• 37:06
  you know, not everything, just carbon copy and send it over.
• 37:10
  I mean, look at the democracy of Northern Europeans.
• 37:13
  So do we say, oh, we don't want to have any relationships with the Nordic countries because
• 37:18
  they love social democracy. Norway has all the money in the world. They're not a burden on us.
• 37:26
  They have a lot of the oil. They're investing it, capitalist style, and giving it to people.
• 37:32
  So we say, okay, Norway, we don't want to have any relationship because they're socialist.
• 37:38
  So who is the judge here to say what version of democracy is good or bad? Again, I'm trying to be
• 37:46
  a little bit provocative here.
• 37:49
  I'm not saying Islamic Republic of Iran
• 37:51
  is as legitimate as Norway,
• 37:54
  but there is like degrees of it.
• 37:55
  Maybe Norwegians look at us
• 37:57
  and just look at how corrupt they are.
• 37:59
  So who's right or who's wrong?
• 38:01
  Okay, who has more military power is right?
• 38:04
  It's just so complex.
• 38:05
  And again, my job is not to say
• 38:07
  what is right or wrong.
• 38:08
  My job is like through my essays,
• 38:11
  books, podcasts,
• 38:12
  I just want to make, you know,
• 38:14
  few thousand people who listen
• 38:15
  and read them to like, huh, let me next time, you know, when I go to some town hall, you know,
• 38:22
  questioning this politician, let me ask a couple of these questions. Maybe that snowballs. I mean,
• 38:26
  that's the best I can do. And, you know, but that's the journey for me to really get that going.
• 38:35
  Yeah, I tend to steer more towards the empathy side of things, right? Is, you know, look,
• 38:41
  if you asked all three of us what we wanted to have for lunch, there'd be three different answers.
• 38:47
  If you asked all three of us what our idea and concept would be for government, probably three
• 38:53
  completely separate answers. And if you asked all three of us what our idea and version of freedom
• 38:58
  is, probably three completely separate answers. Now you go to a different country that is,
• 39:05
  they're different they're culturally different they're in in the case of iran they're you know
• 39:11
  their civilization makes us look like the the child in the kiddie pool you know like oh we've
• 39:17
  got it all figured out you haven't even spent like one biftieth of the time on as a country
• 39:23
  on this planet as we have um and you know they they are you know they're largely a religious
• 39:31
  population, right? And that's not to say that they're all one, right? Because there are,
• 39:36
  you know, people of all walks of life that live there, believe it or not. You know, I think a lot
• 39:41
  of people associate, you know, Iran with, you know, kind of the, the, you know, outer regions
• 39:47
  of like Afghanistan or something. And it's, it's not, I mean, the country's, you know, beautiful
• 39:52
  and it's, it's, you know, got great cities and, you know, there's some of the most educated
• 39:58
  population in the world you know and and those are all beautiful things so you know maybe it's
• 40:05
  time we stop looking at things like we need to impose freedom on you but rather like well let
• 40:11
  me understand what is your concept of freedom if you voted 99.7 percent for religious fundamentalist
• 40:18
  leaders then maybe that's ingrained in your culture and what you want and that to you is part of
• 40:23
  freedom. Yeah. Right. And to your I think you brought up a very good point about like, you know,
• 40:29
  we are not going to agree on, you know, what to eat for lunch. It's like, OK, so what common ground
• 40:34
  do we have? Do we all like bread? So and cheese. So maybe we can just get pizza, even though that
• 40:43
  was not your first choice. So we need to find the pizza with these. And for some countries we have,
• 40:50
  I mean, the amount of disagreement with Saudi Arabia, Iran, I mean, from a religious standpoint, it's like, I mean, those countries are not very different now, you know, and then, but we are in bed with the Saudis.
• 41:03
  So is that bad?
• 41:05
  Good?
• 41:06
  Ugly?
• 41:07
  You know, again, it's just so complex.
• 41:11
  But the problem is, I still remember, again, 2003, just leading up to the Iraq war.
• 41:17
  I said, oh, we're just going to go liberate Iraq.
• 41:20
  And I'm like, you know, the minority Sunnis are in charge.
• 41:25
  You go liberate Iraq, then Shiites are going to be in charge and they're in bed with the
• 41:30
  Iranians.
• 41:31
  So you're cool with that?
• 41:35
  And I'm like, and it's not like we don't have smart people in the government, the leaders
• 41:39
  I'm like, I'm not listening to you because you're not telling me what I like to hear.
• 41:44
  Invade Iraq.
• 41:45
  Shiites took over.
• 41:47
  Sunnis were fighting for their life.
• 41:49
  They went to Fallujah.
• 41:53
  Nobody could invade Fallujah because they were just like, this is it.
• 41:58
  The Shiites are going to kill us.
• 42:00
  So we are making this a fort and we're just going to stay here as long as we can.
• 42:04
  Dragged on.
• 42:05
  Thousands of Americans died.
• 42:07
  I'm like, you could have asked, you could have accepted somebody telling you that majority of Iraqis are Shiites.
• 42:16
  So it's going to be a big mess. Nope, we are going in there. We're going to kick some ass.
• 42:21
  We're just angry about 9-11. We're just going to feel good, kind of like a social media typing approach to feeling good.
• 42:30
  And what a mess at $1.3 trillion later, all this debt from just Iraq war and Afghan war.
• 42:39
  I'm like, great.
• 42:41
  We got a lot out of it.
• 42:44
  Yeah.
• 42:45
  Well, you look at that.
• 42:46
  It's amazing.
• 42:47
  Yeah.
• 42:48
  Again, for some reason, we always go after this concept that if we eradicate this leadership, then things will be better.
• 42:55
  It's like Saddam.
• 42:57
  Okay.
• 42:57
  It didn't get better.
• 42:58
  You know, Gaddafi.
• 42:59
  Gaddafi it didn't get better you know and and you you could just keep going down the list and it's
• 43:04
  like exactly it didn't get better guys it's not working maybe a strategic shift here yeah it's
• 43:13
  it's just so weird to me I don't I well the problem is like when you talk and to come countries
• 43:20
  instead of like go bully them you're like well you're a weak leader I want somebody who yells
• 43:26
  and kick some ass. If you're just a talker, why do we have this military then? I think that's the
• 43:33
  big part of the problem. And you cannot win that. Because again, if you're going about living your
• 43:38
  life, Alex, I think the point you brought up is on point. You just, you don't have time to care
• 43:44
  for whatever reason it is. It just doesn't affect you. It doesn't, you know, any of that. So he's
• 43:50
  like, okay, so this guy is yelling and he's going to protect me. And this guy wants to talk. Maybe I
• 43:54
  vote for the guy who's yelling because he just sounds strong um i think we you know to
• 44:01
  oversimplification is another just like a big big problem that we have to deal with
• 44:07
  and it just you know keep keep affecting us yeah it's interesting you know your your book uh
• 44:15
  twilight of democracy the the front cover uh alex and i just recently had a conversation about a show
• 44:24
  we've seen and i'm sure you've heard of it maybe you've seen it or some of it uh it's called the
• 44:30
  man in the high castle absolutely i love that yeah and it kind of explores that kind of what if i
• 44:39
  guess that you know has been asked by probably everyone right and and it's it's interesting that
• 44:47
  the outcome isn't necessarily what you might have thought it would be correct yeah i mean a man in
• 44:54
  The High Castle and Plot Against America were definitely in the back of my head when I was
• 44:58
  writing this book. But at the same time, I'm like, I'm going nowhere near that. Because they
• 45:04
  explored something very differently, right? I mean, Man in the High Castle was written in the 50s. So
• 45:09
  everything was super fresh. I was born in the 70s, grew up in the 80s. So the impact of World War II
• 45:15
  was very different on me. And I learned the history very differently than that. So definitely,
• 45:21
  I just wanted to explore a different aspect of it.
• 45:24
  I think like in Man in the High Castle and Plot Against America,
• 45:30
  really empathy was not the centerpiece of their books.
• 45:35
  Mine became actually the centerpiece.
• 45:38
  I did not start with that thought process at all.
• 45:43
  It's just, but I just found it not avoidable.
• 45:50
  I had to, it was there.
• 45:53
  I mean, when you talk about human stories, empathy comes up first.
• 45:56
  What happens to people?
• 45:58
  How much do you care?
• 46:00
  And I don't know if you guys ever read it, but it's kind of, you read it, it's like, huh, I never thought these people would be empathetic and these people won't be.
• 46:08
  But, you know, if, again, if a tragedy didn't happen, why not?
• 46:13
  And, you know, the point that we talked about, about our frenemies in this book, Japan basically is left alone, right? So they basically own Southeast Asia and they're a superpower. So how does the world deal with them?
• 46:32
  So they have to slip a lot of, and all the atrocities already happened.
• 46:36
  The Nanking rape, you know, all the Korean Peninsula atrocities happened and everybody's
• 46:42
  like, all right, you know, we got to deal with them.
• 46:45
  They have a lot of resources we need to deal with.
• 46:47
  So you know I bringing that kind of you know sweeping under the rug kind of mentality into play and really examining it Here a little piece of trivia
• 46:58
  You probably know this.
• 46:59
  I wonder if LX does.
• 47:01
  So after 9-11, what country had the largest mass gathering of people in support of America and decrying the act of 9-11?
• 47:14
  was it egypt no you're real close though okay we have fairly close it was a it was iran over
• 47:27
  1.1 million people came to the streets and most people don't know that i had no idea yeah
• 47:35
  also the the largest funeral ceremony ever ever in global history uh just recently took place
• 47:44
  which was also in Iran.
• 47:48
  Well, and of course surrounding.
• 47:52
  So this is actually a really good point you brought up
• 47:55
  because that's another thing that the mainstream media
• 47:57
  really doesn't talk about is when they talk about,
• 48:03
  oh, like, you know, the conflict between this country
• 48:05
  and that country and all of that,
• 48:07
  it's just, they're just the governments.
• 48:10
  People do not hate anybody.
• 48:12
  Like, you know, okay, China is an adversary.
• 48:17
  Kids, you know, go through so much trouble to come here to go to college.
• 48:23
  They don't hate America.
• 48:24
  Everybody wants to come here.
• 48:27
  I mean, we know that, to live here, to go to school here, all of that,
• 48:31
  from all these countries that are like enemy.
• 48:34
  So it's just like these poor people are put in between
• 48:38
  because the governments have some beef.
• 48:40
  venezuelans i mean they so much of them are in um immigrated to florida they love america every
• 48:49
  ethnic group right they all came here for a reason and it's like so it's not so but who do you uh
• 48:56
  punish with economic sanction the people because the government gets around it who do you you don't
• 49:02
  let to come here people government officials still come here to you know do whatever they want to do
• 49:07
  It's just you keep punishing the poor people.
• 49:11
  And again, nobody covers that.
• 49:13
  It's just brown.
• 49:15
  It's just, it doesn't affect me.
• 49:17
  So this is, again, going back to empathy.
• 49:20
  And everybody knows that.
• 49:21
  But it's just like, okay, it just feels good.
• 49:23
  It's like, let's not let the Iranian soccer team stay an extra night
• 49:28
  and go back to Tijuana and then lose to, I forgot who they lost the last game.
• 49:35
  anyway, they were actually pretty close. I mean, all of that is like, why? Why are you punishing
• 49:43
  the soccer team? I mean, to just humiliate the government and these poor kids. I mean, again,
• 49:52
  living here, maybe you guys don't, I think it's the equivalent of playing in the Super Bowl,
• 49:57
  right? Every kid is born, a boy is like, I'm going to play in the World Cup, right? And you're just
• 50:04
  crushing them and every family member you just crush all of that so who are you punishing
• 50:10
  and then people start to really actually hate the U.S. government right now who is hurting
• 50:18
  in Iran just not getting any imports who is hurting the government fat fat cats they're still
• 50:29
  living large people just i mean you saw that and so when the revolution happened in 1979
• 50:36
  every dollar was 70 reals right now is 2.4 million reals wow
• 50:45
  and it's gone up uh i think three or four x in the past two years alone so who is suffering
• 50:56
  Nobody covers it.
• 50:57
  When was the last time you saw it on CNN, Fox News, whatever, NPR, whatever outlet you listen to?
• 51:05
  No one.
• 51:06
  Maybe, you know, 10 seconds, move on.
• 51:09
  Oh, the global oil market is in turmoil because I'm like, okay, that's all you care about.
• 51:15
  But 90 million people are suffering.
• 51:18
  Nobody cares.
• 51:19
  Where are they getting their insulin?
• 51:21
  Where are they getting their hospital supply?
• 51:29
  Nobody talks about it.
• 51:30
  Nobody's on the ground covering that.
• 51:32
  It's like, eh.
• 51:33
  It's just nobody's interested in it.
• 51:35
  Where is that 30-second soundbite I want?
• 51:39
  So that's the part that I'm just so disappointed.
• 51:43
  I have written to all of these media companies, you know, from CNN, Los Angeles.
• 51:49
  I mean, you name it.
• 51:50
  And I'm like, but they don't care because they want clicks, right?
• 51:54
  It's just they're a business.
• 51:55
  They're not.
• 51:58
  So yeah it just very frustrating A lot of that comes down to advertisers right They will money funding and stop stop giving you money for ads If you go and talk about the counter side of things a lot
• 52:13
  of the time, you know, so, and it is sad. And I do think we need more empathy, especially for
• 52:19
  other human beings. I don't care what, you know, color, how tall, how round, how wide, how,
• 52:26
  whatever you are if you're a human being you are deserving of my empathy that's that's well you
• 52:32
  know and the bar is so low the bar is not like oh i want a place to live no it's just don't kill me
• 52:39
  yeah i mean the bar i mean this is i don't even know if it's empathy this is just like so basic
• 52:45
  that people are like yeah no my grandparents had a word for that it was called common decency
• 52:53
  common decency yeah it's that's it's just so much to me empathy is like okay i want to bring
• 52:59
  your standard of living up right to but to me this is like just don't kill me let me have my
• 53:07
  tylenol right this is not that's why it's i have a hard time calling it empathy because it's just
• 53:13
  the bar is so low yeah getting hungry alex what yeah
• 53:24
  the pizza i think pizza is the common ground i missed i missed i so i don't eat i don't eat
• 53:33
  bread i haven't eaten bread in a while but i miss i miss pizza i i go you know i'm i'm i'm
• 53:39
  in the same boat. I have pizza once a month and, uh, it's a glorious day.
• 53:51
  Yeah. Well, it's once a year for LX. He comes to, comes to my house for that event.
• 53:56
  And, uh, we kind of, you know, we don't throw the rules out, but we cheat a little bit.
• 54:02
  Kind of throw the rules out a little bit.
• 54:04
  No, not entirely. Like we're going to make that, uh, we're going to make that cauliflower
• 54:09
  au gratin this year. Okay. So no rule throwing out on that one. Yeah. So yeah. Interesting.
• 54:18
  So what was your favorite, what was your favorite part of the book to write? And what was the most
• 54:25
  challenging part for you? Um, for Twilight of Democracy or Secrets and Murders?
• 54:32
  well we let's talk a twilight of uh of democracy for right now i didn't really dig into the other
• 54:39
  one but yeah sure yeah yeah yeah um so for twilight oh um so i struggle with this a lot
• 54:48
  so i start with the hardest um so it happens in 1950 and uh i i just thought
• 55:00
  But so it's a little bit of a story of the second chance too, right?
• 55:05
  Because again, this World War II didn't happen.
• 55:10
  You know, tens of millions of people had second chance to live a better life, the whole continent, the whole world.
• 55:17
  So I thought, okay, one person that gets a second chance is Anne Frank.
• 55:25
  should I include her in this story or not and I had sleepless nights I was like and my worry was
• 55:36
  like okay just I don't want to be presumptuous I just don't want to be portrayed that oh you're
• 55:42
  just throwing like some big name in there and to just you know you know you know the whole thing
• 55:48
  So I asked my Gen Z son, who has read her diary and, you know, knows very well about her and all of that.
• 55:57
  So I said, you know, I'm here.
• 56:00
  I need to, I'm about to introduce her character.
• 56:03
  So what do you think?
• 56:04
  And he's like, do it, you know.
• 56:07
  And he was like maybe 12 or 13 back then.
• 56:12
  So I'm like, I guess I'll do it.
• 56:16
  So, and I really, you know, didn't just mention her.
• 56:23
  I just, you know, because from her writing, it's just like she was so brilliant at such a young age.
• 56:30
  I'm like, I imagined her to be like an exceptional person at the age of 21 or 2 would have been, 23 in 1950.
• 56:42
  And so I really struggled with that.
• 56:44
  And that was really the hardest part to make a decision.
• 56:51
  The other, I guess, two parts that I struggled with, one was just reimagining the world that is believable.
• 57:05
  I didn't want it to be, I want to, actually the first version, the first edition I wrote, I wrote it like a history book.
• 57:12
  And it read like a history book it didn have a lot of you know show don tell because I just viewed it as a like a historical document to be just more believable
• 57:26
  Second edition, I just made it a lot more, you know, show, don't tell and more, you know, from POV.
• 57:34
  um so so that's that's so the making it believable and not just you know thrown together was like the
• 57:42
  hardest thing so like and I have all these notes that okay what happens to India what happens to
• 57:47
  Soviet Union what happens to Stalin Africa Middle East I just went like basically country by country
• 57:56
  what happens to Japan what happens to Asia what happens to China you know Mao is not going to be
• 58:03
  power because the Japanese are in charge. And so that part was really, really hard. I think I spent
• 58:12
  over a month to really, and as I wrote it, I made the world a little bit more believable.
• 58:18
  So that was another really, really hard part for me to do. And the other part is like, of course,
• 58:24
  what happens to America? And I just didn't want it to be so cliche. I just, not to bash on
• 58:30
  um, plot against America, but the plot against America was, took a little bit of a simplistic way
• 58:35
  of, um, you know, going about, uh, World War II not happening. Um, I just want it to be a lot more,
• 58:43
  again, believable. It's kind of like how superhero, uh, movies and comic books were like,
• 58:51
  you know, superheroes were just like invincible. And now the modern ones, they all have problem
• 58:55
  and they have family and it's a lot more believable.
• 58:58
  So I just wanted to take that kind of approach
• 59:00
  that is a lot more believable and relatable.
• 59:03
  And of course, it impacted the protagonist
• 59:06
  and his struggles and all of that.
• 59:09
  So I think that was,
• 59:10
  and that's why it took me over a year to write it.
• 59:15
  And what was, oh, go ahead, Alex.
• 59:17
  Oh, I was just going to ask, in the books,
• 59:19
  how did you address the application of technology
• 59:22
  that came about from World War II,
• 59:24
  being that if we hadn't been at it, were we advanced or delayed?
• 59:29
  Or how did you do that?
• 59:31
  Yeah, so I totally addressed it.
• 59:33
  So one of the things is the biggest impact, I don't give the rest of it away,
• 59:38
  but on the Soviet side, because war didn't happen.
• 59:41
  So they didn't steal a lot of the Nazi scientists.
• 59:45
  So Soviet Union never became Soviet Union that we know today.
• 59:50
  But, you know, not for other countries.
• 59:54
  Especially a lot of them stayed in Germany.
• 59:56
  So what would happen to Europe?
• 59:58
  What would happen to America?
• 1:00:00
  Who has more money?
• 1:00:02
  So I thought it through big time.
• 1:00:08
  I figured you did.
• 1:00:09
  Yeah.
• 1:00:10
  And the other part is actually, which is funny, in it, America kind of annexes Greenland.
• 1:00:20
  Again, I wrote it in 2020.
• 1:00:24
  I wrote it way before.
• 1:00:26
  Are you working with the Simpsons on there?
• 1:00:29
  Is it like life imitating art or what?
• 1:00:33
  Totally.
• 1:00:35
  So, and well, so I tell you like how actually I arrived at Greenland because I thought, oh, it would be cool if actually U.S. invades part of Siberia because, oh, Alaska is already part of America.
• 1:00:48
  So kind of like keep going.
• 1:00:49
  But I kept staring at the map and I'm like, it would be very hard to just like put a wall there.
• 1:00:56
  Like how much of Siberia, maybe just southern part of Siberia.
• 1:01:01
  I'm like, I just going to take Greenland.
• 1:01:05
  And I want a conflict between Europe and U.S. anyway.
• 1:01:09
  So I have actually Greenland and Faroe Islands basically annexed by the U.S.
• 1:01:17
  So I did it not being lazy, but just like visually, it was so much easier to annex than part of Siberia or any other part of the world.
• 1:01:28
  So that's basically I went that route.
• 1:01:31
  Something about history states that fighting the Russians in the winter part of life and from Siberia is you're going to have a very bad time.
• 1:01:43
  Yes.
• 1:01:44
  Very bad.
• 1:01:44
  Yes.
• 1:01:45
  Yes. So actually, so if you ever read the book, that's why actually I weakened Soviet Union so much and Stalin is basically bedridden. So I was actually setting up the book to be, and then, so that's why most of it, yeah, I weakened Soviet Union because, oh, they didn't get the Nazi scientists, but I was weakening it so it's easier.
• 1:02:10
  So we don't run into the Napoleon and World War Two problem with with Russia.
• 1:02:14
  Definitely, I was going that route, but I was like, oh, it's just like, it's so big.
• 1:02:19
  Like you cannot build a wall and you cannot keep him out.
• 1:02:22
  So I was thinking, oh, maybe they have these Nazi science and Nazi technology.
• 1:02:29
  that puts some Star Wars-style barrier.
• 1:02:34
  And I was like, that's just not unbelievable.
• 1:02:36
  I'm like, oh, Greenland.
• 1:02:40
  Okay, so here's the next question.
• 1:02:43
  Maybe it's too much of a giveaway, but did we still build the bomb?
• 1:02:51
  As a human race, not necessarily us.
• 1:02:54
  We built a bomb, but not the first bomb.
• 1:02:59
  So basically a lot of things in my book don't happen and a lot of things skip a generation.
• 1:03:08
  Because I thought, again, it would be...
• 1:03:10
  And that would make sense, right?
• 1:03:12
  Yeah.
• 1:03:13
  And actually that...
• 1:03:15
  And it's not a bomb.
• 1:03:16
  Let's call it a weapon.
• 1:03:17
  And actually that's the centerpiece of the story.
• 1:03:23
  Oh, okay.
• 1:03:24
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:25
  All right.
• 1:03:25
  Well, I'm going to have to grab this book.
• 1:03:26
  Yeah, it's a weapon.
• 1:03:27
  Let's put it that way.
• 1:03:29
  all right well that that's pretty cool that's pretty cool and yeah i mean you know interestingly
• 1:03:38
  enough you know i mean we also benefited from that right i mean a large absolutely amount of
• 1:03:45
  of nasa came from you know what was it operation paperclip correct we we you know forklifted these
• 1:03:52
  scientists and said well you work for us now so uh yeah that's that's pretty cool
• 1:03:59
  that's really cool that's see i don't know how i would get i mean that just seems like so much to
• 1:04:06
  go through inside of a year even yes you know it sounds like a multi-year body of work to try and
• 1:04:13
  come up with all of that yeah for me i mean i yeah i i kept all my notes you know but once the world
• 1:04:22
  was in my head. I mean, I was up writing until two, three in the morning. Actually, I was not
• 1:04:31
  reading, I was not writing in bed. Of course, I moved like downstairs and I was just like, you
• 1:04:35
  know, typing away. So, and that's why it was, it became very much like a historical piece because
• 1:04:41
  in my head, I, because I read so much nonfiction and the history books. So in my head, it was just
• 1:04:48
  like it translated into that. Yeah, it was a lot of work. But at the same time, I took like, you
• 1:04:53
  know, a couple hour long walks and, you know, brainstorming and doing a lot of voice notes and
• 1:04:59
  all of that. Once my brain goes, I go really fast. I mean, even like my day job is the same.
• 1:05:05
  Once my brain is working, I just like produce very fast. So yeah, and I'm getting better at it.
• 1:05:14
  Like for my upcoming book, I just got so much more efficient.
• 1:05:18
  And I'm writing actually my fourth book right now.
• 1:05:20
  And I'm like so much better, right?
• 1:05:23
  It's just like one, two, three, four, just like you keep getting better at your process.
• 1:05:27
  So definitely, yeah.
• 1:05:29
  So it was a lot of work, a lot of creativity.
• 1:05:32
  Yeah.
• 1:05:33
  How often did you have to go back and correct things because you changed something?
• 1:05:38
  Like, oh, I need to do this here in Japan.
• 1:05:41
  And then, oh, crud, that changes China and Russia.
• 1:05:45
  And, oh, man.
• 1:05:46
  No, no.
• 1:05:47
  So that was actually not a whole lot, actually, because the world was already made up in my mind or sketched out.
• 1:05:55
  So actually, it was funny, like, because I had to, like, explain in some passage what happens to certain countries.
• 1:06:01
  I'm like, oh, that's what I decided on Italy.
• 1:06:04
  Let's say Italy and Spain are, like, misnomer.
• 1:06:07
  So I started writing it, and I just wrote it.
• 1:06:09
  So that part was not actually very difficult. Editing, going back, you're like, yeah, it just doesn't make sense. So that part to just make it smooth and not be too informative and professorial was like the hardest part to make it into an actual story that is like you can turn the page, not just like, okay, what happened to Japan?
• 1:06:36
  uh okay what happened to china that was my biggest struggle not actually putting my plan in place
• 1:06:43
  because my plan was like very well thought out um like i have a lot of notes that you know exactly
• 1:06:50
  what happens to certain countries and why it happened and what caused it and all of that
• 1:06:55
  i had to come up with like categories of countries um so so that part yeah i i got it right but just
• 1:07:03
  like making it make sense was like the hardest part.
• 1:07:08
  Yeah, that seems like it would be very difficult.
• 1:07:11
  I tried to write a book once about 35 years ago and I gotten three pages done Well you know so my first book took 16 years I started writing it when my son was born and I just could not come up with like chase scene and you know a page turner and I just
• 1:07:33
  let it sit and and you know you're up when you know your kid is up and all of that all the good
• 1:07:40
  stuff. So that was, I started like very creative, come up with a core story, but just finishing it.
• 1:07:45
  Yeah. That's why it took me so long. But once I finished them, I'm like, okay, I can do it again.
• 1:07:50
  And it was over a year, um, Twilight of Democracy. It was, it was a year and maybe three months.
• 1:07:57
  Um, and then this, uh, the third one took me like, like close to a year,
• 1:08:03
  like less than a year because I just got so much more efficient.
• 1:08:05
  awesome and so you've got another fourth one coming fourth one i'm reading i'm writing it
• 1:08:13
  right i'm on the fourth chapter but my third one and murders and secrets the idea is um this is
• 1:08:20
  again because i moved to the deep suburbs from city living all my life and uh you know i just
• 1:08:27
  observed how hoa living is which i not know concept of you know it's the board and you cannot
• 1:08:33
  know, do certain things. And, you know, and again, I like HOA living because living in the middle of
• 1:08:38
  the city, you know, you live between a blue house and a pink house and nobody takes care of anything.
• 1:08:43
  And now everything is like manicured. And I'm like, oh, okay, that doesn't look that bad. So
• 1:08:47
  it's not like I hate living in HOAs, but I just felt the community, I think it was back a little
• 1:08:53
  bit about your empathy conversation. And, you know, cul-de-sac people feel a little bit, you know,
• 1:08:59
  you know different the gated community people feel different they have their own they don't
• 1:09:04
  want to mix with others so there was a little bit of like that you know funny feel that i'm like huh
• 1:09:10
  so i put that in the back of my head and then we don't care if you were in the hospital for a week
• 1:09:15
  with a heart attack you better have that lawn mowed exactly you're getting more letters two
• 1:09:19
  and a half inches you're getting a fine no no empathy for you the last hoa i lived in and that
• 1:09:28
  will be the last one I ever live in. Uh, I, you know, we moved in and it was, you know, it was
• 1:09:34
  new, um, and, uh, new construction. So moved in and, you know, there's the flower beds, it's a
• 1:09:41
  little, little front patio. So it wasn't, you know, anything special or anything. It was a nice little
• 1:09:45
  place. And to put flowers in the flower beds, I had to go to all of my neighbors in my little area,
• 1:09:53
  like 12 people and i had to show them a plan what flowers what plants what colors they were going to
• 1:10:02
  be and i had to get them to sign all of them and then only after that could i then submit it to the
• 1:10:10
  board yeah to have them approve if those actually match the color schemes and are acceptable flowers
• 1:10:17
  And that's when I went, nope, never know this again.
• 1:10:21
  Not a chance.
• 1:10:22
  Yeah.
• 1:10:23
  So all that good stuff.
• 1:10:24
  So you see how it kind of like scarred me.
• 1:10:27
  Well, I mean, as soon as we bought the house, I got a notice that it's like, oh, there's a stain in the front of the house.
• 1:10:33
  And I'm like, I'm not moving in for another three months.
• 1:10:36
  I'm in like a different part of the state.
• 1:10:38
  So, yeah, speaking of empathy.
• 1:10:41
  So anyway, so I felt, you know, all of this.
• 1:10:43
  And then I don't know if you guys ever followed the whole school voucher system that has been going on since the 90s that, oh, here's the voucher, you know, take the money and then take your kid to any school you want.
• 1:10:55
  And then who's left behind?
• 1:10:56
  Again, empathy, you know, money is taken away from inner city schools, you know, who suffers, all the people, you know.
• 1:11:03
  And then, you know, the whole conversation of our walls, you know, dividing people, you know, makes the society better, safer, all of that.
• 1:11:13
  I'm like, okay, so I have all of these elements.
• 1:11:18
  Let's take all of that and, you know, put them to work.
• 1:11:23
  Take them a couple steps further.
• 1:11:25
  It's like, what if there were HOAs and walls everywhere, not just parts of the country?
• 1:11:31
  And only people who cannot afford it, who are not in a protected wall are people who are just poor.
• 1:11:38
  So basically, we put all the poor people in one area.
• 1:11:40
  We don't call them inner city or whatever pejorative term, but that's where they end up.
• 1:11:47
  And then everybody else who has a job, basically, you can live in some sort of a gated community based on your IQ, based on your religion, based on your status in life, whatever.
• 1:12:01
  I explored some of it, but I didn't name them all.
• 1:12:04
  And I like will it be a better society I mean you like the concept of it Everybody kind of wants that kind of separation
• 1:12:15
  But would it be a better society?
• 1:12:17
  Very much like Twilight of Democracy, would it be a better world?
• 1:12:21
  And not just tweak one thing, but no, the whole society is built based on this separation.
• 1:12:31
  And so I'm like, okay, I have the concept.
• 1:12:35
  I'm like, okay, so how do I examine this?
• 1:12:38
  Because again, I didn't want it to be just some social experiment.
• 1:12:41
  And I'm like, okay, a murder.
• 1:12:42
  Because a murder, the truth needs to come out.
• 1:12:46
  The ugly underbelly, all the relationships, everything comes out.
• 1:12:50
  So it became a murder mystery that way.
• 1:12:52
  Not that I chose to write a murder mystery.
• 1:12:55
  It's just like I thought that's the best way to tell a story.
• 1:12:58
  And again, not as complex as Twilight of Democracy,
• 1:13:01
  but I had to construct this world, put rules in, timeline in, and all of that.
• 1:13:08
  So that part of it was not as difficult.
• 1:13:11
  The difficult part was doing the murder mystery because it's just so hard.
• 1:13:17
  I think it was the hardest book I wrote because of the murder mystery.
• 1:13:20
  In Twilight, I knew the history.
• 1:13:23
  I loved the history part.
• 1:13:25
  So even though it was a lot of work,
• 1:13:26
  it came to me a little bit easier because of my background.
• 1:13:29
  But this one was like, I've never written a murder mystery.
• 1:13:32
  So that to just making it a page turner made it very, very hard.
• 1:13:37
  Yeah.
• 1:13:37
  And that's something you can actually view, not entirely, but for the most part, not as much in San Diego, I think, because there is actually a definitive city.
• 1:13:47
  And the suburbs are not quite as dense, I think, because San Diego County is a lot bigger.
• 1:13:55
  San Diego City is a lot bigger.
• 1:13:57
  But if you go up to Orange County, that's exactly what you've got.
• 1:14:00
  I mean, in my last HOA, you literally had like this city was a community and like you had.
• 1:14:08
  I think Irvine is like that.
• 1:14:10
  Yes.
• 1:14:10
  Yes.
• 1:14:11
  And you've got like, you've got the, you know, condo people that live, you know, in this area.
• 1:14:16
  That's right.
• 1:14:17
  And then you've got the starter home people over here.
• 1:14:20
  And then over here, you've got the nicer, but still kind of median homes, you know.
• 1:14:25
  And then you've got the gated community. It's inside the community, but it's gated off from the rest of the community. And that's where the nice homes are. And it was like, you were talking about this. I'm like, wow, that actually exists right now.
• 1:14:41
  Yeah. So again, I took that. I think I had Orange County in mind. That's exactly. Because Bay Area is not like that at all. But Orange County is definitely the mecca of HOAs and gated communities. Yeah. And a lot of affluent, right? It has all the elements of my book. And actually, in my book, I don't say where it is, but you can guess where it is.
• 1:15:06
  Well, I saw it in my head. I'm like, I lived there.
• 1:15:09
  Exactly.
• 1:15:11
  That's right.
• 1:15:12
  And you come out of that community and you go by and there's the other community there and the next one.
• 1:15:17
  I even made it a little bit crazier.
• 1:15:20
  I said, even if you live in a gated community, I call them premium communities.
• 1:15:25
  Because most actually HOAs in my world have gates.
• 1:15:29
  So gate is not a big deal anymore.
• 1:15:32
  So I call it premium communities.
• 1:15:33
  They have their own roads.
• 1:15:35
  Premium roads.
• 1:15:36
  so it's just like
• 1:15:38
  take it because we have
• 1:15:40
  toll roads in Orange County
• 1:15:42
  right so I'm like okay how about there is another
• 1:15:44
  road it's just for premium community people
• 1:15:46
  just like let's see how
• 1:15:48
  you know it pans out
• 1:15:49
  that is awesome
• 1:15:53
  I like it
• 1:15:54
  I do
• 1:15:55
  well I think this is probably a really
• 1:15:58
  great place to wrap up and I
• 1:16:00
  really appreciate your time this has been
• 1:16:02
  great I think personally
• 1:16:04
  I'd love to have you back on at some point
• 1:16:06
  Maybe when the next book comes out, we'll have you on and talk about that.
• 1:16:12
  One thing we like to do for all of our guests is give them an opportunity to give back, right?
• 1:16:18
  And what we frame that as is a question.
• 1:16:21
  And the question is, throughout our lives, there's a figure that has a massive and lasting impact on our lives.
• 1:16:27
  This could be a sixth grade science teacher, a historical figure, an author.
• 1:16:32
  It could be mom.
• 1:16:33
  and we like to give our guests the opportunity to shout out that person and kind of give back
• 1:16:37
  yeah it's such a good question um um funny enough actually my son just went off to college
• 1:16:48
  so i gave him this kind of advice um that um my college roommate one of my college roommates um was a really smart brilliant guy And he spoke multiple languages He was a fantastic student
• 1:17:08
  He was fun.
• 1:17:09
  He was not fun in like a party way, but he was,
• 1:17:13
  I guess I really enjoyed his intellect.
• 1:17:18
  So he really influenced me in a very positive way.
• 1:17:22
  I don't think I would be sitting here if it was not because of him.
• 1:17:25
  Um, he made me a good student. He made me care about studying and, um, university. Um, and, uh,
• 1:17:35
  um, so I really, uh, I think, I think I give him a lot of credit for a person who I am. So I told
• 1:17:43
  my son is like, yeah, you never know who you are going to meet. And I gave him also, uh, Thomas
• 1:17:48
  Jefferson's examples. I forgot exactly, um, the person, I don't think he was his roommate, but
• 1:17:53
  is a person who introduced him to Newton and French Enlightenment
• 1:18:00
  and William and Mary when he was attending there.
• 1:18:05
  And I'm like, ah, very similar to my experience.
• 1:18:08
  So I gave him that advice that is like you never know who you're going to meet.
• 1:18:12
  You just need to find the smartest, you know, or have other qualities.
• 1:18:18
  Just like learn from them and grow.
• 1:18:20
  So, yeah, I think I give him a lot of credit for my growth.
• 1:18:26
  Can you give us his name or probably not?
• 1:18:28
  Yeah, Thomas.
• 1:18:29
  His name was Thomas.
• 1:18:31
  And he was Swiss.
• 1:18:33
  Awesome.
• 1:18:34
  Oh, he is Swiss.
• 1:18:34
  I mean, he's still around.
• 1:18:35
  He doesn't live in the U.S. anymore, but yeah.
• 1:18:38
  Well, we've got a large international following apparently.
• 1:18:41
  So, I don't know.
• 1:18:42
  He might hear this.
• 1:18:44
  Well, thank you again for giving us some of your time.
• 1:18:48
  I really do appreciate it.
• 1:18:49
  It's one of our most precious commodities.
• 1:18:52
  You said you got a book.
• 1:18:53
  Where can people find you?
• 1:18:55
  What else are you working on?
• 1:18:57
  And what do you got next after the next book?
• 1:19:00
  Oh, thanks.
• 1:19:02
  Yeah, so everything about me and my work is, you don't see the website.
• 1:19:09
  It's cut off a little bit.
• 1:19:11
  It's hermanforward.com.
• 1:19:14
  and so it's the link to my current books my book that is is called secrets and murders that is an
• 1:19:21
  on pre-order um and all my podcasts and essays everything is from this book so yeah my pre-order
• 1:19:31
  is going on right now and we are expecting maybe spring of 2027 for it to come out
• 1:19:38
  and yeah I'm working on another mystery book and in it I'm examining more relationships
• 1:19:49
  between different cultures mostly in like between Spain England and the U.S. you know the
• 1:19:58
  kind of attention that is going on at the personal level has nothing to do with politics
• 1:20:03
  zero. So I'm exploring a lot of that, a lot of interpersonal relationship between siblings,
• 1:20:10
  parents, kids. I'm just diving deep into that. So yeah, I think I'm taking a little bit of a break
• 1:20:18
  from just this different, it's a different what if to just really explore interpersonal
• 1:20:24
  relationships in this book. And I'm really enjoying it because I'm just, I'm like, keep
• 1:20:29
  writing and I just, things come out and all of that. So yeah. So that's again,
• 1:20:34
  hermanforward.com, everything about me and my work is on the website.
• 1:20:41
  Awesome. Well, thank you again for giving us some of your time. I really appreciate it. And thank
• 1:20:45
  you for giving us some of your time. You know where you can find us? We're everywhere podcasts
• 1:20:51
  play. We're also on YouTube, Spotify, always, that's podcast. Oh, and we just set up a Instagram
• 1:20:58
  account and you can also find us on
• 1:21:00
  Nostr. If you don't know what that is
• 1:21:02
  it's N-O-S-T-R
• 1:21:04
  Go look it up.
• 1:21:06
  Cool stuff or don't.
• 1:21:08
  If you liked us, give us thumbs up.
• 1:21:10
  If you didn't, go ahead and give us thumbs
• 1:21:12
  down. Leave a comment. Tell us we suck.
• 1:21:15
  We'll respond in kind.
• 1:21:17
  And remember
• 1:21:18
  wherever you are
• 1:21:20
  whenever you're watching this
• 1:21:22
  have an amazing day.
• 1:21:25
  Thanks Herman. See you everybody.
• 1:21:27
  Thanks for having me.
• 1:21:28
  Music