YouSaid · the spoken record

Dan Carlin

lines on the record: 181
first: 2020-11-03
most recent: 2020-11-03
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“That terrorist doesn't have to be from the Middle East, doesn't have to have some sort of a fundamentalist religious agenda. It could just be somebody really pissed off about the election results. So once again, if we're playing an odds game here, everybody has to behave for this to work right. Only a few people have to misbehave for this thing to go sideways. And remember, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So you don't even have to have those people doing all these things. All they have to do is start.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now we're divided within communities, within families, within gerrymandered voting districts and precincts, right? So you can't disengage. We're stuck with each other. So if there's a civil war now, For lack of a better word, what it might seem like is the late 1960s, early 1970s where you had the bombings. And let's call it domestic terrorism and things like that, because that would seem to be something that, once again, you don't even need a large chunk of the country pulling apart. 10% of people who think... It's the end times can do the damage just like we talked about terrorism before a can of gas and a big lighter. I've lived in a bunch of places and I won't give anybody ideas where a can of gas and a bic lighter would take a thousand houses down before you could blink.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Byproduct of the profit. That's one little example of 50 examples in our society that work in that same fashion. So what that project for New American Century document was saying is that we're naturally inclined towards disunity and without things to occasionally ratchet the unity back up again so that we can start from the baseline again and then pull ourselves apart till the next Pearl Harbor that you'll pull yourself apart, which I think was think that's what the George Friedman book was saying that I disagreed with so much at the time. So in answer to your question about civil wars, we can't have the same kind of civil war because we don't have a geographical division that's as clear-cut as...”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And involvement. And because of the constructs of the format, you don't have a lot of time to get it. So you can't have me giving you like on a podcast an hour and a half or two hours where we build a logical argument and you're with me the whole way. Your audience is changing every 15 minutes. So whatever points you make to create interest and intrigue and engagement have to be knee-jerk right now. They told me once that the audience has to know where you stand on every single issue within five minutes of turning on your show. In other words, you have to be part of a linear set of political beliefs so that if you feel A about subject A, then you must feel D about subject D. And I don't even need to hear your opinion on it because if you feel that way about A, you're going to feel that way about D. This is a system that is designed to pull us apart for profit, but not because they want to pull us apart, right?”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Those kinds of events periodically is naturally geared towards pulling itself apart. And it's those periodic events that act as the countervailing force that otherwise is not there. If that's true, then we are naturally inclined towards pulling ourselves apart. So to have a media environment that makes money off widening those divisions, which we do. I mean, I was in talk radio, and it has those people, the people that used to scream at me because I wouldn't do it. But I mean, we would have these terrible conversations after every broadcast where I'd be in there with the program director and they're yelling at me about heat. Heat was the worthy. Create more heat. Well, what is heat, right? Heat is division, right? And they want the heat not because their political. They're not Republicans or Democrats either. We want listeners and we want engaged.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I think some of the arguments were connected to the differences that we had and the fact that those differences are being exploited. So we talked about media earlier and the lack of truth and everything. We have a media climate that is incentivized to take the wedges in our society and make them wider. And there's no countervailing force to do the opposite or to help, you know, so There was a famous memo from a group called Project for a New American Century and they took it down but the Wayback machine online still has it and it happened before 9-11 spawned all kind of conspiracy theories because it was saying something to the effect of and I'm really paraphrasing here but you know that the United States needs another Pearl Harbor type event because those galvanize a country that without the”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I read a book a while back. I want to say George Friedman the Stratford guy wrote it. It was something called The Next Hundred Years, I think it was called. And I remember thinking. I didn't agree with any of it. And one of the things I think he said in the book was that the United States was going to break up. I'm going from memory here. He might not have said that at all, but something was stuck in my memory about that. And I remember thinking.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“made a lot of angry emails. I did something I haven't done in 30 years. I endorsed a political candidate from one of the two main parties, and there were a lot of disillusioned people because of that.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An environmental activist. I'm not asking you to sacrifice to make it. I'm going to sell you a car, you're going to like better, and by buying it, you'll help the environment. That takes into account our foibles as a species and actually leverages that to work for the greater good. And that's the sort of thing that does turn off my little Doomcaster cynicism thing a little bit because you're actually hitting us where we live, right? You're not, you can take somebody who doesn't even believe the environment's a problem, but they want a Tesla. So they're inadvertently helping anyway. I think that's the genius of the idea.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But if I think, but again, I think the genius of the idea is that it doesn't require us to go head to head with human nature, right? He's actually built human nature into the idea by basically saying, I'm not asking you to be”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“May alleviate some of the need to get off this planet because the planet's being destroyed, right? And we're going to call colonize Mars probably anyway if we live long enough. And I think the Tesla idea, not just Elon's version, but ones that follow from other people, is the best chance of making sure we're around long enough to see Mars colonized. Does that make sense?”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That even though he's pushing the envelope on the space thing, I think somebody else would have done that someday. I'm not sure because of the various things he's mentioned, how difficult it is to start the industries that create vehicles for us would have gone where he's going to lead them if he didn't force them there through consumer demand by making a better car that people wanted anyway. They'll follow, they'll copy, they'll do all those things. And yet who was going to do that? So I hope he doesn't hate me for saying this, but I happen to think the Tesla idea.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the shutdown around the world has done is show us how amazingly quickly the Earth can actually rejuvenate. We're seeing clear skies in places, species come. And you would have thought it would have taken decades for some of this stuff. So what if, to name just one major pollution source, we didn't have the pollution caused by automobiles, right? And if you had said to me, Dan, what do you think the odds of us transitioning away from that were 10 years ago? I would have said, well, people aren't going to do it because it's inefficient. It's this. It's that. Nobody wants to. But what if you created the vehicle that was superior in every way so that if you were just a self-oriented consumer, you'd buy it because you wanted that car? That's the best way to get around that problem of people not wanting to, I think he's identified that. And as he's told me before, you know when the last time a car company was created that actually blah, blah, blah, he's right. And so I happen to feed.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I don't want to put words in Elon's mouth, so you can talk to him if you want to. But in my mind, what he's done is recognize that problem. And instead of building a car that's a piece of crap, but it's good for the environment, so you should drive it, he's trying to create a car that if you're only motivated by your self-interest, you'll buy it anyway. And it will help the environment and help us transition away from one of the main causes of damage. I mean, one of the things this pandemic...”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, and pushing the envelope right faster than the governments at the time were moving. It really is. I mean, there's a lot of people who I think who think Elon is overrated and you have no idea, right? When you go see it, you have no idea. But that's actually not what I'm most impressed with. It's Tesla I'm most impressed with. And the reason why is because in my mind, we just talked about what I think is the greatest threat, the environmental stuff. And I talked about our inability maybe all at the same time to be willing to sacrifice our self-interest in order for the goal.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So here's the thing, and this actually again dovetails to what we were talking about earlier. I actually, first of all, I toured SpaceX. And it is, it's hard to get your mind around because he's doing what it took governments to do before. Okay, so it's incredible that we're watching individual companies and stuff doing this.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right on top of us, and it requires an amount of foresight that while some people would be fine with that, most people are too worried and understandably, I think, too worried. I think with nuclear weapons, I think could we have a nuclear war? We darn right could. But I think that there's enough of inertia where against that because people understand instinctively, if I decide to launch this attack against China and I'm India, we're going to have 50 million dead people tomorrow. Whereas if you say we're going to have a whole planet of dead people in three generations if we don't start now, I think the evolutionary way that we have evolved mitigates maybe against that. In other words, I think I would be pleasantly surprised if we could pull that off. Does that make sense?”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's talk about you brought up evolution several times. Let me play with that for a minute. I think going back to animal times, we are conditioned to deal with overwhelming threats right in front of us. So I have quite a bit of faith in humanity when it comes to impending doom right outside our door. If Krypton's about to explode, I think humanity can rouse themselves to great and would give power to the people who needed it and be willing to make the sacrifices. But that's what makes, I think, the pollution slash climate change slash screwing up your environment threats so particularly insidious. Is it happens slowly, right? It defies fight and flight mechanisms. It defies the natural ability we have to deal with the threat that's”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which may or may not be good. The good version of it we call enlightened self interest, right? The bad version of it we call selfishness. But self-interest to me seems like something more likely to impact the outcome than either love on one side or evil on the other simply a question of what's good for me or what's good for my country or what's good for my point of view or what's good for my business. I mean, if you tell me And maybe I'm a coal miner or maybe I own a coal mine. If you say to me we have to stop using coal because it's hurting the earth. I have a hard time disentangling that greater good question from my right now good feeding my family question, right? So I think maybe it's going to be a much more banal thing than good and evil, much more a question of we're not.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think maybe you divided this into too much of a black and white dichotomy, this love and good on one side and this evil on another. Let me throw something that might be more in the center of that linear balancing act, self-interest.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think there's just as much of a chance though that the leader would emerge and say the Jews are the people who did all this, you know what I'm saying? Is that the idea that they would come up, you have a charismatic leader and he's going to come up with the rights or she is going to come up with the right solution as opposed to totally coming up with the wrong solution. I mean, I guess what I'm saying is you could be right, but a lot of things have to go the right way.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What if you don't get them all at the same time? What if you get a charismatic leader in one country? Or what if you get a charismatic leader in a country that doesn't really matter that much?”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's hard, you get pessimistic hoping for those kinds of shifts unless it's krypton's about to explode. And so I think if you're talking about a gambling man's view of this, that that's got to be the odds on favorite because it requires such a, I mean, and the systems maybe aren't even in place, right? The fact that we would need intergovernmental bodies that are completely discredited now on board and you would have to subvert the national interests of nation states. I mean, the amount of things that have to go right in a short period of time, we don't have 600 years to figure this out, right? So to me, that looks like the most likely just because the things we would have to do to avoid it seem the most unlikely. Does that make sense? Yeah.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Climate for a second, we are destroying the planet because we're not taking care of it and because what it would do to take care of it would require collective sacrifices that would require enough of us to say okay and we can't get enough of us to say okay because too many people have to be on board it's not John F. Kennedy making one decision from one man We have to have 85% of us or something around the world. Not just you can't say we're going to stop doing damage to the world here in the United States if China does it, right? So the amount of people that”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Talk about how the world will end. The fact that one person actually had that in their hands meant that it wasn't a collective decision. It gave, remember I said I trust people on an individual level, but when we get together, we're more like a herd and we devolve down to the lowest common denominator. That was something where the higher ethical ideas of a single human being could come into play and make the decisions that influence the events. But when we have to act collectively, I get a lot more pessimistic. So take what we're doing to the planet. And we talk about it always now in terms of climate change, which I think is far too narrow. Look at, you know, and I always get very frustrated when we talk about these arguments about is it happening? Is it human? Just look at the trash. Forget, forget.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Where we looked at the potential of nuclear war and we stared right in the face of that. To me, I consider that to be, you want to talk about a hopeful moment? That's one of the rare times in our history where I think the odds were overwhelmingly that there would be a nuclear war. And I'm not the super Kennedy worshipper that, you know, I grew up in an era where he was, especially amongst people in the Democratic Party, he was almost worshipped. And I was never that guy. But I will say something. John F. Kennedy by himself probably made decisions that saved 100 million or more lives because everyone around him thought he should be taking the road that would have led to those deaths. And to push back against that is when you look at it now, I mean, again, if you were a betting person, you would have bet against that. And that's rare, right?”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think what governs my view of this thing is the ability for us to focus ourselves collectively, right? And that gives me the choice of looking at this and saying, what are the odds we will do X versus Y, right? So go look at the 62 Cuban Missile Crisis.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You won't have food at baseline level, that would mean that the entire supply chain begins to break down. And then you have desperation. And desperation opens the door to everything.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think history backs that up. I mean, I think you could say with the nuclear weapons it does, but only because they're so recent.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can't have an ISIS in that area because that's a threat to the Assad government who will take care of that for you. And then that helps us by not having an ISIS. I would suggest one, that the game is still on on whether or not these people get nuclear weapons in their hands. I would suggest they don't need them to achieve their goals, really. The crazy thing is if you start thinking like the Joker in Batman, the terrorist ideas, it's funny. I guess I would be a great terrorist because I'm just full of them.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Able to do supposedly. We're pretty good at that stuff, you know, just like the Soviet Union was behind the scenes and underneath the radar. But the idea that the stability created by powerful and strong centralized leadership allowed them, it's almost like outsourcing anti-terror activities, allowed them to, for their own reasons. I mean, you see the same thing in the serious situation with the Assads. I mean,”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really? I mean, what one can of gasoline and a BIC lighter can do in the right place and the right time and over and over and over again can bring down societies. This is the argument behind the importance of the stability that a nation state provides. So when we went in and took out Saddam Hussein, one of the great counter-arguments from some of the people who said this is a really stupid thing to do is that Saddam Hussein was the greatest anti-terror weapon in that region that you could have because they were a threat to him. So he took that and he did it in a way that was much more repressive than we would ever be, right? And this is the old line about why we supported right-wing death squad countries because they were taking out people that would inevitably be a problem for us if they did. And they were able to do it in a way we would never be.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Easy for me to say that, but one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, as the saying goes, and to other people he's not. What Osama bin Laden did, and the people that worked with him, we would call evil genius. The idea of hijacking planes and flying them into the buildings like that, and that he could pull that off. That still boggles my mind. I'm still, it's funny, I'm still stunned by that. You know, the idea, here's the funny part. And I hesitate to talk about this because I don't want to give anyone ideas. But you don't need nuclear weapons to do incredibly grave amounts of danger.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, when you say it's been many decades, many decades, it's like saying in the life of a 150 year old person, we've been doing well for a year. The problem with all these kinds of equations, and it was Bertrand Russell, right? The philosopher who said so. He said it's unreasonable to expect a man to walk on a tightrope for 50 years. I mean, the problem is that this is a long game. And let's remember that up until relatively recently, what would you say, 30 years ago, the nuclear weapons in the world were really tightly controlled. That was one of the real dangers in the fall of the Soviet Union. Remember the worry that all of a sudden you were going to have bankrupt former Soviet republics selling nuclear weapons to terrorists and whatnot. I would suggest, and here's another problem, is that when we call these terrorist evils, it's easy for an American, for example, to say that Osama bin Laden is evil.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Isn't that a wonderful historical, ironic twist that if it weren't so overlaid with tragedy a thousand years from now we'll be seen as something really kind of funny?”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, the big thing with Germany was cultur, right? They were leading figure in culture and philosophy and all these kinds of things, and that they could be overtaken with this wildly wickedly weird conspiracy theory, and that it would actually determine things. I mean, Hitler was taking vast amounts of German resources and using it to wipe out this race when he needed them for all kinds of other things to fight a war of annihilation. So that is the weirdest part of the whole Nazi phenomenon.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Jews. And he surrounded himself with people and theorists. I'm going to use that word really, really sort of loosely, who believe this too. And so you have a cabal of people who are reinforcing this idea that the Jews control the world, that he called it international Jewry, was a huge part of the problem. And because of that, they deserve to be punished. They were an enemy within. All these kinds of things. It's a nutty conspiracy theory that the government of one of the most”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hitler both thought of them as weak and super powerful at the same time, right? And as an outsider people that weakened, I mean, the whole idea of the blood and how that connects to Darwinism and all that sort of stuff is just weird, right? A real outlier, but Einstein, let's just play with Einstein. If there's no anti-Semitism in Germany or none above the normal level, right? The baseline level, does Einstein leave along with all the other?”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Who was the most important And this is a very arguable point, but it's just the first one that pops into my head who was the most important Jewish figure that would have maybe been on the German side had the Germans had a non-antismitic, well, listen, that whole party. But the whole, I should point out that to say Germany or Europe or Russia or any of those things were not anti-Semitic is to do injustice to history, right? Pogroms everywhere, I mean It's standard operating procedure. What you see in the Hitlerian era is an absolute huge spike, right? Because the government has a conspiracy theory that the Jews have, it's funny because”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An integral part of fascism because Mussolini really, I mean, Mussolini did it to please Hitler, but it wasn't an integral part. What's interesting to me is that that's the big anomaly in the whole question because anti-Semitism didn't need to be a part of this at all, right? Hitler had a conspiratorial view of the world. He was a believer that the Jews controlled things, right? The Jews were responsible for both Bolshevism on one side and capitalism on the other. They ruled the banks. I mean, the United States was a jewified country, right? Bolshevism was a jewified sort of a political. In other words, he saw Jews everywhere and he had that line about if the Jews of Europe force another war to Germany, they'll pay the price or whatever. But then you have to believe that they're capable of that. The Holocaust is a weird, weird sidebar to the whole thing. And here's what I've always found interesting. It's a sidebar that we can Germany. Because look at the first World War. Jews fought for Germany, right?”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Another way to look at it the institutional stability of Germany in that time period was not enough to push back. And there are other periods in German history. I mean, at Hitler. Arose in 1913. He doesn't get anywhere because Germany's institutional power is enough to simply Quash that. It's the fact that Germany was unstable anyway that prevented a united front that would have kept radicalism from getting out of hand. Does that make sense?”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or you could have ended up in a situation equally bad in a different direction. I don't know what that means because it's hard to imagine anything could be worse than what actually occurred. But history is funny that way. And Hitler's always, everyone's favorite example of the difference between the great man theory of history and the trends and forces theories of history, right? The times made a Hitler possible and maybe even desirable to some. If you took him out of the equation, Those trends and forces are still in place, right? So, what does that mean? If you take him out and the door is still open, does somebody else walk through it?”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it might be a pretty clear cut case, but it should also be pointed out that there was a lot of sympathy on the part of the Allies for the fact that, you know, the Germans probably should have Germany back. And this is traditional German land. And I mean, they were trying in a funny way, it's almost like. The love and the sense of justice on the Allies' part may have actually stayed their hand in a way that would have prevented much, much, much worse things later. But if the times were such that the message of a Hitler resonated, then simply removing Hitler from the equation would not have removed the context of the times. That means one of two things. Either you could have had another one.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think Listen, there were candidates in the Catholic Center Party and others in the Weimar Republic that maybe could have done things. And it's beyond my understanding of specific German history to talk about it intelligently. But I do think that had the French responded militarily to Hitler's initial moves into that area that he would have been thwarted. And I think he himself believed, if I'm remembering my reading, that this would have led to his downfall. So the potential, see, what I don't like about this is that it almost legitimizes military intervention at a very early stage to prevent worse things from happening”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The most logical, so we had started this conversation brings a wonderful bow tie into the discussion and buttons it up nicely. We had talked about force and counter force earlier. The most obvious and much discussed way that Hitler could have been stopped has nothing to do with Germans when he remilitarized the Rhineland. Everyone talks about what a couple of French divisions would have done had they simply gone in and contested. And this was something Hitler was extremely, I mean, it might have been the most nervous time in his entire career because he was afraid that they would have responded with force and he was in no position to do anything about it if they did. So this is where you get the people who say, you know, and Churchill's one of these people too, where they talk about that, you know, he should have been stopped militarily right at the very beginning when he was weak.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Levels were capable of everything and anything, good, bad, indifferent, but collectively it's different, right? And in the time period that we're talking about here, messages of peace on earth and love your enemies and all these sorts of things were absolutely deluged and overwhelmed and drowned out by the bitterness, the hatred. And let's be honest, the sense that you were continually being abused by your former enemies. There were a lot of people in the Allied side that realized this and said we're setting up the next war. They understood that you can only do certain things to collective human populations for a certain period of time before it is natural for them to want to. And you can see German posters from the region, Nazi propaganda posters that show them breaking off the chains of their enemies. And I mean Germany awake, right? That was the great slogan. So I think.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the war continued in a way. So remember that when Hitler is rising to power, the French are in control of parts of Germany, right? The Ruhr, one of the main industrial heartlands of Germany was occupied by the French. So there's never this point where you're allowed to let the hate dissipate, right? Every time maybe things were calming down, something else would happen to stick the knife in and twist it a little bit more from the average German's perspective, right? The reparations, right? So if you say, okay, well, we're going to get back on our feet. The reparations were crushing. These things prevented the idea of love or brotherhood and all these things from taking hold. And even if there were Germans who felt that way, and there most certainly were, it is hard to overcome the power of everyone else. You know, what I always say when people talk to me about humanity is I believe on an individual.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He came off as a person who was going to restore German greatness at a time when this was a powerful message. But if you don't need German greatness restored, it doesn't resonate, right? So the reason that your love idea and all this stuff, I don't think would have worked in the time period is because that was not a commodity that the average German was in search of then.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Weren't embittered, the times were so terrible, and the options for operating within the system in a non-radical way seemed totally discredited, right? You can work through the Weimar Republic, but they tried and it wasn't working anyway. And then the alternative to the Nazis, who were bully boys in the street, were communist agitators that to the average conservative Germans seem no better. So you have three options if you're an average German person. You can go with the discredited government put in power by your enemies that wasn't working anyway. You could go with the Nazis who seemed like a bunch of super patriots calling for the restoration of German authority, or you could go with the communists. The entire thing seemed like a litany of poor options, right? And in this realm, Hitler was able to triangulate, if you will.”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would suggest that we need to take into account the context of the times that led to Hitler's rise of power and created the conditions where his message resonated. That is not a message that resonates at all times, right? It is impossible to understand the rise of Hitler without dealing with the First World War and the aftermath of the First World War and the inflationary, terrible depression in Germany and all these things. the dissatisfaction with the Weimar Republic's government, which was often seen as something put into, which it was put into place by the victorious powers. Hitler referred to the people that signed those agreements that signed the armistice as the November criminals. And he used that as a phrase which resonated with the population. This was a population that was embittered. And even if they...”
2020-11-03 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #136 – Dan Carlin: Hardcore History · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source