The guest
Michael Malice: Anarchist author, podcaster, and provocateur known for books like Dear Reader, The New Right, The Anarchist Handbook, and The White Pill. A frequent Lex Fridman guest making his fifth appearance.
What this episode covers
This New Year's special is a loose, friendly conversation framed around Dostoevsky's line that beauty will save the world. Lex and Michael discuss goodness versus truth and beauty, the nature of evil through Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and a sociopath club-kid killer Malice once met, and the value of helping one person at a time. The back half turns personal and optimistic: Malice's move from New York to Austin, his writing process for The White Pill, his admiration for Camus, and his case for a peaceful national divorce. Along the way they swap stories about Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, fasting, drinking, and David Goggins.
Recommended on this episode
BookRecommendedISBN verified
A Hunger Artist
Franz Kafka
“one of my probably favorite short stories”
“a hunger artist one of my probably favorite short stories is that kind of a short story it's a pretty long short story of kafka's”— Lex Fridman
The guest's own work
BookBy the guest
The White Pill
Michael Malice
“writing as you know i talk about this endlessly this book the white pill but writing about when people do hurtful things to children”— Michael Malice
BookBy the guestISBN verified
Dear Reader
Michael Malice
“i know what it's like as an author when i was writing dear reader the north korea book my friends are sick of hearing all these north korean anecdotes”— Michael Malice
BookBy the guestISBN verified
The Anarchist Handbook
Michael Malice
“when i dropped anarchist handbook in may and it was the top non-fiction book on amazon for like most of the day”— Michael Malice
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
BookReferenced
The Idiot
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“dostoevsky wrote in the idiot my favor of his books through the main character prince mishkin that beauty will save the world”— Lex Fridman
BookReferencedISBN verified
The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom
James Burnham
“in terms of resist you often bring up the book uh machiavellians by james burnham and uh so as i was looking through”— Lex Fridman
BookReferencedISBN verified
What I Saw at the Revolution
Peggy Noonan
“the first like real good writing advice i remember getting was this book by peggy noonan called what i sought the revolution and she was ronald reagan's speechwriter”— Michael Malice
BookReferencedISBN verified
Animal Farm
George Orwell
“to me it's like saying animal farm doesn't need to be read because it's an obvious story”— Michael Malice
BookReferenced
Notes from Underground
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“no uh notes from underground so obviously this desk has a huge amount of plot in in most of his work”— Michael Malice
MediaReferenced
Her
Spike Jonze
“the movie her yes of course so there's that one scene it's when um what is it joaquin who's the lead character”— Michael Malice
BookReferenced
Six-Word Memoirs
Smith Magazine
“there's this book called six word memoirs right where all these different personalities are awesome”— Michael Malice
BookReferencedISBN verified
On the Road
Jack Kerouac
“you ready kerouac any of this stuff i have on the road i read and i read a biography of him”— Lex Fridman
BookReferencedISBN verified
The Virtue of Nationalism
Yoram Hazony
“joram hazoni i don't know if you know who that is the nationalist guy yeah he wrote a book called the virtue of nashville”— Michael Malice
ProductReferenced
GoBots Scooter
Tonka
“tonka robots that turn into vehicles so when you there when i was a kid you had transformers but for us poor people you had gobots”— Michael Malice
MediaReferenced
Leon: The Professional
Luc Besson
“you ever seen leon like the professional that uh with natalie portman that movie it's like i have a pull-up thing”— Lex Fridman
Big reveals from this episode
- Malice argues goodness is the most important of truth, goodness, and beauty because it is the easiest default state of being.
- Malice recounts meeting Michael Alig, the club-kid promoter who killed Angel Melendez, calling him the first true sociopath he ever met.
- Malice names the Amy Robach hot-mic moment as the biggest lesson of the Epstein saga about elites killing stories.
- Lex reveals he gave away his MIT salary and let his bank account go to zero before taking the leap to move.
- Malice calls Camus's The Plague unreadable, sparking a sharp disagreement with Lex who defends it.
- Lex describes a wild 40-hour-fasted, whiskey-fueled day with Rogan, Goggins, and Whitney Cummings in Vegas.
- Malice says he does not regard elections as legitimate, viewing the process itself as compromised.
- Both push back on the inability to say one genuinely nice thing about political opponents like Biden or Trump.
Worth remembering
- Malice would rather spend ten minutes in the deep sea than on the moon, citing the jellyfish Deepstaria.
- Malice says the rewards of goodness are more immediate than the rewards of working out.
- Lex argues the act of science is fun in itself, while Malice admits he would not enjoy writing books no one read.
- Russians did not celebrate Christmas under the Soviet Union; New Year's with Ded Moroz was the one big holiday.
- As a Soviet kid, Lex remembers Coca-Cola and Dr Pepper as the ultimate taste of capitalist happiness.
- Malice notes great creative scenes like 1920s Paris were really just about fifty people in a ten-block radius.
- For The Anarchist Handbook audiobook, Malice had different people voice the 23 chapters by their different authors.
- Malice's writing advice: dump a garbage first draft without editing, because editing a slog beats creating one.
- Malice collects autographs, prizing a Pareto autograph over buying a modern computer.
- Malice suggests a national divorce might make more sense as five regions than two, given distinct cultures.
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