[00:00:00] Luke Storey: I'm Luke Storey. For the past 22 years, I've been relentlessly committed to my deepest passion, designing the ultimate lifestyle based on the most powerful principles of spirituality, health, psychology . The Life Stylist podcast is a show dedicated to sharing my discoveries and the experts behind them with you. Zuby, we made it, dude.

[00:00:27] Zuby: We're here, man. Happy to be here.

[00:00:28] Luke Storey: I'm so stoked that you came through Texas.

[00:00:30] Zuby: Yeah, me too, man.

[00:00:32] Luke Storey: Yeah, I saw that you were speaking at the event the other night with JP Sears and a couple of other folks, and I was like, oh, man, I got to hit him up, because I don't really reach out to people that live super far away, typically, because you just get a different vibe in person. And so, I was like, oh, he's here, man, so thanks for agreeing to do the show.

[00:00:49] Zuby: No doubt, man. Happy to be here. I appreciate the invite.

[00:00:51] Luke Storey: So, tell me what it's been like to be in the US.

[00:00:56] Zuby: Amazing. Amazing. I keep using the term and it's not a term I usually use, I have been saying it's a love fest. Every city I've been to, all the events I've done, people I've met, it's just been love. Hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of people. Last time I was in the States was two years ago, September to November 2019. And in that two years, the sheer amount of growth and number of people who know me and are following, and even just simply aware who I am has gone up exponentially.

[00:01:34] Every single city, it's just been love from the event on Friday to—I mean, when I first came into the States, I flew into Houston, spoke at the Young Americas Foundation Annual Student Conference to several hundred people in Houston, which was incredible. Then, I went to Orlando and did a similar event for young Americans for Liberty. Also amazing. I've done meet ups in a couple of different cities.

[00:02:00] Just the other day, went on the Joe Rogan podcast, done a bunch of other big podcasts, et cetera. And honestly, it's just been love everywhere. It's just been love everywhere. I've met so many great people, so many people who really appreciate what I'm putting out there, from my music, to my tweets, to my podcast, to my general message, to my book. It's just amazing, man. It's amazing. I feel really, really welcomed. I feel very happy. I feel very loved. There's a lot of opportunities and I also just feel free.

[00:02:28] I feel free. The past year-and-a-half has been very, very weird, especially in a lot of places. And Texas and Florida actually are two of the sanest places in the entire world over this thing, and even right now. And coming from the UK and from other European countries, yeah, it's just good to just see people being normal again, and not seeing masks everywhere, and people doing this weird distancing thing, and elbow-bumping nonsense, and just living in fear 24/7, it's just nice to just be back and see people being normal.

[00:03:04] Luke Storey: It's interesting, because—and I agree and welcome.

[00:03:08] Zuby: Thank you.

[00:03:09] Luke Storey: It's interesting because there's a large portion. Well, I don't know how large they are, actually, maybe they're just louder, but there's a subset of people in this country that look at people in Florida and Texas as some sort of viral vectors, super spreaders, and that we're all crazy.

[00:03:28] Zuby: They're sitting there waiting for everyone here to die and seemingly being disappointed that that refuses to happen.

[00:03:34] Luke Storey: We're still here, many of us, but it's just really interesting right now how you have the same objective reality happening, yet there are groups of people, and we're going to talk about how to hopefully unite these groups of people, you talked a lot about that the other night, which I thought was so powerful. You have these groups of people that just see things in such an opposite perspective, it's crazy.

[00:03:59] I mean, it's astonishing to me that human beings in one country, which, of course, is diverse in culture and thought, but generally, we're all kind of Americans, you know what I mean? And you have people that, like every once in a while, I kind of get out of my echo chamber. I'm not like a big Twitter user. I have like minus zero followers there, but that's why I kind of get my news and see what's going on.

[00:04:23] And sometimes, I'll sort of go to the other side just to see what people that aren't in my sphere or people that I agree with are saying, and I'm like, oh, my God, like we are so far apart in terms of our perspective on things like that, and I'm in a bubble here, and I only really experience it, sometimes, when I go to downtown Austin or areas that are, I guess, not classically liberal, but what is now referred to as liberal. And I'm just like, whoa, we're living in a different universe. It's insane.

[00:04:57] Zuby: Yeah. And that point you make there is so fascinating, because you used the term liberal, right? And firstly, it's a shame that this thing has become as politicized and tribal as it has become, but also, what's interesting, beyond the USA, on a global level, on a national level, and on a state-by-state level here, is that the people who tend to call themselves liberal have had the most illiberal approach to this, in many cases. 

[00:05:27] They've actually essentially become ultra, hyper-conservatives, which is really fascinating, even on a country level, right? If you look at the New Zealands, Australia, Canada, countries that are considered liberal and progressive, et cetera, and all of a sudden, they've got the most extreme border policies. They've got the most extreme lockdowns, most authoritarian mandates, telling people what to do, telling people this, that. They've gone full-blown authoritarian if you compare the Texas's, and Floridas, and Georgias, and South Dakotas to the Californias and the New Yorks, et cetera. It's mind-blowing, because people use that term liberal, but the term liberal stems from liberty.

[00:06:04] It's freedom, right? So, in a normal world, when words actually meant something, you would have been shocked to see that people who call themselves liberal are, in many cases, not all cases, but in many cases, are advocating for the least liberal approach to this thing, which it doesn't surprise me in a way, because I think the word has become very unmoored from its original definition to the point that classical liberal actually means something very different to what people understand as liberal now. But it's a weird one, but you're totally right, people are inhabiting entirely different realities, essentially.

[00:06:47] We're all dealing with the same threats. I mean, at this point, I think the actual threat is very, very low. But this whole, it's the same virus, like on a global level, on a national level, on a state-to-state level, and you've got places that are literally 100% just totally normal, like just 2019, 2018 normal. And you've got other places, which have—if you look at Australia, it's essentially a police state now.

[00:07:16] It's a prison colony. It's an authoritarian regime. You can't come. You can't go. You can't go outside. You can't go, what? Like three kilometers from your house or whatever it is? You can't see friends, can't see family, can't organize, can't even protest. Arresting homeless people for not being at home, shooting dogs because the dogs could encourage people to break the restrictions. I mean, that's a totalitarian regime. That might sound weird to say that about Australia, but that's what we have.

[00:07:44] Countries have fallen into essentially dictatorships, right? Prime ministers, and mayors, and governors, and presidents are not supposed to have such a level of power that they can literally just say pretty much anything at this point, it seems. And it goes with that, the whole point of having liberal democracies is that there are certain rights, and freedoms, and civil liberties that you don't just run over by declaring an emergency. And then, all of a sudden, you can do absolutely anything that power needs to come back and check.

[00:08:18] Luke Storey: And then, from that point, moving forward, these people that have jostled their way into positions of authority can essentially declare a state of emergency about anything, right? It's like, now, it's terrorism, now, it's a virus, now, it's this. It's like the thing I find so interesting about what's going on, I try to stay out of the fear of it, and just know that the spirit of love, and the spirit of humankind, and those of us that have some sort of spiritual connection are going to overcome and that we're in a transition of consciousness, and it's just like this portal that we're going through.

[00:08:56] But what's really trippy about this thing to me is that it's the first time in history where you don't have a single dictator that's in control of a certain geographic place, right? There's not a Lenin, a Mao, a Hitler that you can point to, and go like, he's a baddie, right? It's this sort of shadowy conglomerate that are all in lockstep together with using all of the same tactics of propaganda, fear, manipulation, their kind of morphing of cultural Marxism, and all the things. But it's really weird, because there's not like a single person in one country, right? And this goes, totally, to support all of the so-called conspiracy theorists.

[00:09:47] I mean, dude, I was listening to Alex Jones 20 years ago, because it was kind of entertaining, and David Icke, who I've interviewed, and it was entertaining and there was enough truth in there that I was like, wow, kind of my red pill was 9/11, because it was really obvious to me at a certain point that the official story that we've been told had like major flaws in it. I don't know what happened, I wasn't there, and I didn't orchestrate it, but it's definitely fishy.

[00:10:12] And so, I started listening to these people, and they're talking about forced vaccines, and FEMA camps, and the collapse of the dollar, and worldwide pedophilia rings, and all this kind of stuff, and it was like, there was sort of a morbid curiosity in it, but I think I was so kind of hopeful that humans couldn't be that degenerate, that it all sounded really extreme. And now, you're looking at a place like Australia, and it's like, oh, shit, these guys were right about a lot of stuff.

[00:10:45] And I wish they were not. I wish they were crazy. I mean, the reptilians haven't like shapeshifted yet. But I mean, outside of that, that's kind of the limit, where I was like, oh, I don't know, that's a little too far out, even for me, and I'm super far out. But like anything short of shapeshifting Hillary Clintons is like pretty much on the table now and activated.

[00:11:07] And that's what I find kind of so, in one hand, kind of terrifying, but also, it's like all of this deception and corruption that was hidden and would just emerge as like a single authoritarian dictator is now just all coming to the surface. And I think that's actually the thing that gives me hope, because you have a moderate, rational people that aren't necessarily politically motivated, like I've never been, going like, wait, what?

[00:11:37] We're seeing all this conflicting data on this whole thing, and it's like, you have normal people that are like, nah, man. So, what's your take on this sort of shadowy conglomerate, like what's going on with this faceless monster, that you have a Trudeau, you have a Boris, whatever, like you have kind of faces, a Biden, but I don't really sense that these people actually have a lot of power than the signing of paper, and then people go, that's legislation, we're doing this now?

[00:12:08] Zuby: Yeah. It's clear that there's a government above the government that people typically think of when the word government, et cetera. And I don't think the top level is the national level. I mean, we already know that. We know that there are various governing bodies. Of course, in Europe, you have the EU, right? The EU sits above the national governments in many ways. That was part of the whole motivation for Brexit, right?

[00:12:36] People didn't want to have unelected officials in Brussels determining laws for people in the UK, everything from immigration policy to work policies, et cetera. So, there are various global organizations. Not everything is shadowy. We know, from a so-called health perspective, there's, of course, the WHO. Yeah. Of course, there's the EU. They have things like the whole, you've got things like NATO, you have like Davos.

[00:13:08] Luke Storey: World Economic Forum.

[00:13:10] Zuby: Yes, of course, World Economic Forum. So, there are these groups and organizations that aren't necessarily shadowy. I mean, they're out there, they're official, they're public. And then, beyond that, I don't know, right? Anything, it would be conjecture, but when they're all using the same terminology, whether that's build back better or the new normal, or whatever it is-

[00:13:31] Luke Storey: You ever noticed that these phrases they use in the propaganda, they're always three words. I don't know what it is, but there's got to be some psychological-

[00:13:39] Zuby: There's even a rhythm to them, build back better, like one syllable, one syllable, two syllables.

[00:13:43] Luke Storey: You should use that for your next album. You'll find three catchy words.

[00:13:48] Zuby: Yeah, I mean, it's funny-

[00:13:50] Luke Storey: But I know, there's six feet apart, stay at home, safer at home, it's like every little slogan that's come out-

[00:13:56] Zuby: Very simple. Yeah, and it's the same thing in every country. I mean, I've traveled to six different countries during the past 18 months, and it's remarkably similar, even when it's in a different language, it's the same programming and it's the same nonsense. It's the same policies that don't make sense, or walk into a restaurant, put a mask on, and then like walk four feet to your table, and take it off, and eat, like that's a global rule, that makes no sense anywhere, but that's like the global policy.

[00:14:25] Luke Storey: I mean, to be fair, it does make perfect sense that a virus can't get in you if you're sitting down.

[00:14:29] Zuby: Of course, just like after 9:00 PM, becomes ravenous, and you've got to have a curfew. But this is the thing, right? And the problem is, I think something you said is interesting. about your sort of awakening moment. And I think that, like you said, most people are good people. Most people are decent. I do believe that, right? I know that some people may be like, no, that's not true. I'm like, no, most people are decent, right? Whether or not you want to use the word good, debatable, but most people are decent. They're not waking up every day trying to make the world a worse place, right? Most people do mean well. And as a result of that, I think it's very, very difficult to understand the concept of evil or malice, right?

[00:15:17] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:15:17] Zuby: There's always the assumption. We, as human beings, tend to project, so if you're a decent and good person who means well, you typically assume that everybody else means well. And so, it can be extraordinarily difficult to understand or even accept that there could be a possibility that there are people who don't, right? Whether you're talking about a criminal, it's extraordinarily difficult to understand the mindset of like a murderer, or like a rapist, like someone who like does evil, a mass shooter, et cetera, a serial killer.

[00:15:55] You can't understand the psychology, because the motive doesn't make sense to you, because you're trying to project that decency, that human decency onto them. So, you're there trying to work out like, what? And I'm like, it's just evil, right? It could just be evil, right? And now, people are trying to find all these other reasons, and it's like, no, it's just evil. Like you can't understand it, because you're not like that, right?

[00:16:19] You're not like that. So, you're not going to get like a clear, rational explanation as to why it's like that. And again, I think that most people in politics or the media, who are really running this whole circus, I do think that most people, again, are decent. I know lots of people in politics, I know lots of people in the media, but there are people who don't, right? There are people who are psychopathic, or evil, or have bad motivations, and that has a real impact, right?

[00:16:55] I mean, I don't know, after these past 18 months, I mean, you can give benefit of the doubt for a while, but if after this 18 months, someone is still in the phase of all of this going on is simply to protect people from a virus, and to keep us safe, and to stop, like how can you still believe that, right? At some point, you have to just look at what's going on and see some of the absurdities, and also see some of the cruelty in it, right?

[00:17:23] See some of the cruelty and the lack of, people are talking about compassion, and empathy, and caring about people, it's like, dude, expand your lens a little bit. We've been acting as if COVID is the only disease that exists, only thing that can kill people, et cetera. Like what about the effects of these policies? What's this done to people's physical health, mental health? What's happened to suicide rates and depression rates?

[00:17:45] What's going on with people's wellbeing financially? How many businesses across the USA, across the world have been shut down permanently? And what are the effects on that on employees, on business owners, et cetera, on the inflation? How many people are going to die? How many people, I saw something saying over 200 million people have been plunged into poverty over the past year-and-a-half on a global level, right?

[00:18:09] All of this to apparently combat a virus that has a 99% plus survival rate in the vast, vast, vast majority of the population, in many cases, well over 99.9%, if you're talking about young and healthy people. And this doesn't make sense, and also, the policies, to this day, there's no solid evidence that lockdowns have helped to reduce deaths, right? There's no solid evidence that masks work in terms of actually stopping the spread of a virus. And there's not a lot of logical thinking going on, right? Like you can't spread a virus you don't have.

[00:18:48] So, even if you had a mask, like a properly well-sealed mask that actually could help stop virus particles, it would only make sense to wear them if you are sick. And actually, if you're sick, you shouldn't really be out and about anyway. So, this notion that if I don't have COVID and you don't have COVID, like us sitting here wearing masks is totally asinine, right? If you're healthy, if you're not sick, then wearing a mask is asinine. It doesn't even make sense. And then, the mask people are wearing, for the most part, they're not wearing them properly, and they're not even wearing properly sealed masks to begin with.

[00:19:22] Luke Storey: They're wearing like funk-filled bandanas.

[00:19:25] Zuby: Dude, it's just a charade. It's just performance art. It's theater. And people have become so attached to these-

[00:19:30] Luke Storey: Performance art, that's good.

[00:19:31] Zuby: Yeah, it's a huge game of charade. This is the biggest emperor-has-no-clothes situation on a national and a global scale ever, and those who pointed out are going to be called all types of names. Personally, I don't care about that. I've dealt with that for many, many years, and I'm like, whatever. But if you just look at it logically and rationally, and detach the emotion, then I mean, there's no limit to the absurdity. 

[00:19:57] So, we can give like dozens, and dozens, and dozens of things that don't make sense, and that haven't made sense, and that are contradictory, that are nonsensical, that don't make any—or very non-scientific, and this is the thing. And I'd love to not even, it's such a weird issue, because firstly, we're pretty much through it, in terms of the actual threat, in terms of the actual pandemic threat.

[00:20:27] At this point now in August 2021, it's very, very low, right? Everyone who wants to have their injections has gotten them, which largely, with vulnerable people, the death numbers and the hospitalization numbers are very low, especially compared to other things. When I left the UK, COVID was the 26th cause of death back in July, 26th, but what's getting 90% of the media attention, right?

[00:20:54] You're talking like two or three deaths a day, you've got places, where there are literally zero deaths a day and people are still like, more lockdowns, more masks, I'm like, dude, you're never going to get out of the cycle, right? If you take somewhere like Australia and New Zealand, and again, it blows my mind that millions of people there actually support their policies they're doing. They're in a perpetual cycle. If you lock down every time you get a case, then you can't go back to normal, right?

[00:21:19] That never ends. It literally never ends, because they haven't been letting people out or in the country, right? So, like what's the exit plan here? Right? You're going to just never let people out or in again, because this disease is going to be endemic just like cold and flu. So, if the logic is, okay, we just shut down every single time there's the case, then it's like, okay, you're still going to be there in the year 2050, having these rolling lockdowns going on forever. And as we've seen, even in countries with high vaccination rates, people can still catch it, people can still-

[00:21:51] Luke Storey: Yeah, look at Israel. I mean, those guys are in real bad shape.

[00:21:54] Zuby: Yeah, exactly. So, it's just like, well, this will never end. And my point all throughout has been, my point has been very, very simple. It's been the same thing everyone claimed they believed in, in 2019, right? It's just, look, we all assume risk every day. There's a risk to everything, risk to absolutely everything. Every time you get in a car, honestly, you're taking a bigger risk statistically than—there's no young, healthy person who really is like freaking out every time they get in a car, but that would make more logical sense than freaking out for yourself over this particular virus if we're talking statistics, right?

[00:22:33] Luke Storey: Yeah. 

[00:22:34] Zuby: But people don't think like that. If you're looking at children, the flu literally kills more children than COVID does. God, this thing barely affects kids.

[00:22:41] Luke Storey: Well, one good thing about this whole thing is that we've totally eradicated the flu and common cold.

[00:22:47] Zuby: Nonsense.

[00:22:49] Luke Storey: I was looking at some scientific graph the other day, and it's like flu cases [making sounds] I'm like, oh, that's interesting. And I actually posted that on Twitter a while ago to my two followers. And then, someone like, I guess, rebutted that, and we're like, that's because of masks, and I'm just like, oh, my God.

[00:23:07] Zuby: It's amazing.

[00:23:08] Luke Storey: So, I'm always interested in the human psyche and motivation, and even the conversation we're having is a little out of context for stuff that I normally talk about. I talk about spirituality, and meditation, and health, and all the things. But because I think early on, I realized this was veering into health that I was able to kind of find my voice with it and kind of break form in terms of the content I cover. I've never talked about politics or anything like that, because I've never been interested in it.

[00:23:38] It's kind of just same agenda, different faiths, whatever, just mind your own business, and try to live your life. But going back to the piece you were talking about earlier, I wonder, and I've always wondered what it is about a certain personality type that so willingly surrenders their autonomy, and common sense, and intellectual discernment to authority, right? And going back to that, the dichotomy of these kind of two disparate groups of people to just see things in their reality so differently, right? And someone who is encouraging what they're doing to the poor people in Australia, like, no, it's for their own good.

[00:24:22] Like I wonder what it is about some of us, like likeminded people, you and I have a very similar kind of point of view on so many things, where we're just sort of like, I'm going to stay healthy, take care of myself, do my best to contribute positive energy into the world, to contribute more than I take. I'm sure we're imperfect at it, and I'm speaking for you, too, but I mean, no one's like that virtuous, right?

[00:24:46] But it's like, this is my life, right? Like God gave me this body and this consciousness, and I really believe in karma. And there are long periods in my life where I did a lot of messed up stuff, and I've been repenting and making up for it. Hopefully, I'm in the credit side of that equation now at this point in my life, but I've just kind of always been someone who just doesn't blindly believe anything, I'm told.

[00:25:15] And I'm certainly not interested in surrendering the free will that the creator gave me to some ambiguous power, but yet people, some people seem to be more susceptible to fear, and I wonder what it is about some of us humans that just so quickly and so willingly go, okay, I give up, take care of me, daddy, and just give their rights and their sovereignty over to the powers that be, these different government and medical agencies.

[00:25:46] Zuby: I think there are a lot of factors to it, a lot of factors. And something you said which struck me is you mentioned God and the creator a couple of times. And I think there's certainly a religious element to it in multiple ways. And this is not to say that all atheists or non-believers thinking in any given way, but certainly, if you believe in God, whatever concept someone has of that, then that becomes the highest authority. In the absence of that, it's not rare for that highest authority to become either the self or the state. This is a pattern you've mentioned before.

[00:26:32] Luke Storey: Nailed it, bro.

[00:26:33] Zuby: Before, you mentioned Hitler, you mentioned Mao, you mentioned Stalin, right? Those guys were very anti-religion intentionally, because they didn't want competition, right? It's very hard to get people to worship the state if they worship God, if they have a strong religious belief. So, that is certainly an element. And I think that there are a lot of religious elements of what's been happening with what I call the COVID cults, right?

[00:27:03] It's not people keep saying science, science, science, and trust the experts, but it's not actually scientific, right? It's dogma. It's dogma. They get mad when you ask questions. They get mad when you point out the logical flaws and fallacies, et cetera. So, I think that's a part. Similarly linked to it and I have been thinking about this a lot is I don't know if you do this, but I imagine you're someone who's quite in touch with the concept of your own mortality.

[00:27:31] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:27:31] Zuby: Yeah?

[00:27:31] Luke Storey: I mean, I think about it every day.

[00:27:33] Zuby: I'm very in touch with my own mortality, right?

[00:27:35] Luke Storey: I think that's a very mentally healthy practice.

[00:27:38] Zuby: Yes, so do I. And I think that not everybody is and I think they've been confronted with it for the first time. Not because this virus is particularly deadly, but I think it's forced people to think about death and mortality, and that's really, really freaked a lot of people out. And I think, also, again, that maybe links to the first part, which is that if one simply believes that life is just this moment we have here on Earth, then absolutely everything that can potentially extend, or preserve, or protect it, perhaps, they feel must be done, and they're willing to use the power of the state to do that.

[00:28:22] So, I think that's a factor, then I think some of it on a less sort of religious or spiritual level, it comes down to personality traits. Again, I've noticed that people who are lower in neuroticism, I think we've really found out like the neuroticism split here in personality, right? If you're low in neuroticism, then you're less susceptible to negative emotion, whether that's fear, or anger, or whatever it is.

[00:28:48] And some people are just, I'm very low in neuroticism, so it's really hard to like freak me out about anything, but some people are very high in neuroticism, so they get more anxious. They're more susceptible to fear. It doesn't matter if it's Trump, or it's climate change, or it's Brexit, or it's this, or the world is—they're just easier to scare. And so, that certainly affect, and I think fear is also addictive. We always think of addictive emotions being things like, I don't know, joy, or happiness, or pleasure, but people can really get addicted to fear as well.

[00:29:18] And we've got millions of people now who are really caught in this loop of fear, right? You show them information or data showing them that they don't need to be as afraid as they are, you even give them certain stats, and they will get angry at you, and they'll shift the goalpost, right? If you tell them the deaths are low, they'll tell you that the cases are high. If you tell them that less people are dying, they'll start talking about long-term effects, like, well, it's not just about deaths, it's about long COVID and long-term effects, right?

[00:29:47] Which again, all these stuff, they never cared about before, because they were never told to. I mean, long-term effects from a virus have always existed, whether you're talking flu or cold, et cetera. If you give them information on—they want to remain scared, right? Everything in the narrative wants them to keep them scared, and I think people have also made it their identity and has become very tribal.

[00:30:09] It's become this thing, where, almost to show you're a good person, you're supposed to be terrified of COVID. You're supposed to wear your mask forever, get your shots, scream at everyone else to get their shots, like the more fear you display now in this weird tribe or cult, as I call it, that's like virtue points to you. The more afraid you are, if you are not scared, people get mad at me for not being afraid, right? Like they'll get mad at you.

[00:30:36] And it's like, Why are you not as afraid as I am? Like they want you to be afraid and to be a part of it. So, I think people have really wrapped their identity in this thing. It's gone on for so long. I think the isolation has also helped with this, because when people are isolated, they do go a little bit loopy, right? I mean, if you want to really, really punish your prisoner, they're already in prison.

[00:30:59] You put them in solitary confinement, human beings are social creatures. We're meant to be out. We're meant to be seeing each other's faces. We're meant to be talking. We're meant to be touching, hugging. All of these policies have been so antisocial. And I think very few people have spoken about just how much of an effect that has. I often hear people say things like, well, even if masks like aren't that effective, like what's the downside? And I'm like, what's the downside to everyone covering their face all the time?

[00:31:28] Like you can't think of how that's not good for a society, right? We have a high trust society, communication, us communicating right now, the fact that I can see your face, and you can see mine, and we can see each other's expressions, it's a core part of communication. You've got children now who are struggling to learn to speak properly, toddlers, because they haven't been seeing people's mouths for such a long period of time. You're having all the students having their socialization stunted. There are so many things to it, I mean, beyond the fact people are just-

[00:32:05] Luke Storey: Hearing-impaired people. Like I'm not going to disrespect truly hearing-impaired people, but I'm fairly hard of hearing, especially in one ear, probably about 40% out, and when this started happening, I realized, like I don't understand anyone, and it came to my awareness that I read lips, right? And just microexpressions and I communicate for a living, like we're doing, and I was like, oh, shit, what about people that are actually deaf?

[00:32:34] Zuby: And people don't think about that.

[00:32:35] Luke Storey: That is so brutal. And I've actually communicated with a couple of deaf people during this, and I'm just like, I mean, I'm not wearing a mask, people that came to work on the house and things like that, one guy in particular, and I was like, you can take your mask off. He's like, oh, thank you, and I didn't have mine on, and he can understand me. But, oh, man.

[00:32:55] Zuby: And just the socialization, man, hanging out with your friends, seeing your family, shaking people's hands, hugging, talking, just all of that stuff, it's very hard to quantify. And I think, again, we live in the era of people want everything to be like data, and empirical, and science, science, science, right? And it's like, yeah, there is science behind this, but it's hard to quantify the socialization that that social aspect is very hard to quantify. You can't sort of count it in the same way you can with some other facts and figures.

[00:33:32] Luke Storey: Yeah, it's a subjective quality of life sense that you have as an individual.

[00:33:36] Zuby: Exactly. But it's very, very real. Anyone who's been isolated for even a couple of days, you know it's weird, like you start going weird. And some people have been like that, essentially forced for months, year-plus on end in some cases. There are places that have essentially been locked down for a year now, essentially for a year. So, we're out here being normal, but there are people, who, literally, for over a year, like they've been in that lockdown mode, masks, and sanitizing, and not seeing people, not really talking to neighbors, not just not talking to people, but being fearful of each other, right?

[00:34:19] People have been trained, no, everyone around you is a threat. Everyone's a threat. Your family is a threat. Don't talk to your family, they're a threat. Don't talk to your neighbor, they're a threat. Absolutely don't talk to strangers. In fact, if you see them on the street, maybe walk to the other side. What is that doing to people's psyche, right? The social fabric to me is so important. It's so important.

[00:34:38] When you start seeing people, viewing each other just as a threat, that's dangerous. And it leads to where we are now, where you've now got people talking about the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, as if they're like these two disparate groups, and one of them is scary, and deadly, and dangerous, and spreading disease, and the other is good, and clean, and healthy, and whatever, and people are literally advocating for policies for, oh, this group should not be allowed in restaurants, and cinemas, and gyms.

[00:35:08] Maybe they shouldn't even be allowed in grocery stores. We shouldn't allow them on planes or trains either. When in history has that kind of segregation ever been a good idea? We've had viruses forever, forever. Our entire lives, viruses have been around and no one ever floated this concept of, oh, not even if you have the virus, just if you haven't taken a specific shot against it, which, by the way, is therapeutic and doesn't necessarily stop you from giving it to other people, then you're supposed to, we should just cast you out of society.

[00:35:40] I mean, it's bonkers, but it's been a totalitarian tiptoe. It's been very, very, very slow and gradual, boiling that flag frog slowly, and that's how we've ended up at this point now. And again, it's weird, because some people are fully locked into that, whereas other people are just like, oh, like normal, life is just normal. And my concern is really about where that could go if it's pushed too far. That's my concern.

[00:36:08] Luke Storey: I mean, what I find really interesting about that tiptoe is how many people are completely out of touch with not so distant history. I mean, it's 2021, 1930s Germany was just a little while ago. I mean, like this is not something we're looking at in ancient history, in ancient Egypt or Sumerian even. I mean, we're talking about like my grandparents who are all now deceased, but they were alive, right?

[00:36:41] Actually, both of my parents were born in 194, at the end of World War II. And it's like, I don't know if it's purposefully left out of school or what, but I was a horrible student, hated school, dropped out of high school. I mean, I don't know anything about history, really, compared to an educated adult, and I even know like, okay, this is the way this has gone historically.

[00:37:05] I mean, all of the touch points of like how this incrementally starts to roll out, it always ends up the same way, right? Again, going back to that, like an identifiable dictator, it's like they have a different flavor, right? They're super left or they're super right, but ultimately, like the destination at which they arrive is everyone gets fucked and a lot of people die. One hundred million people, conservatively, have died at the hands of their government in the last 100 years.

[00:37:38] Zuby: And a lot of people deny that.

[00:37:40] Luke Storey: I'm 50. That's twice my lifetime. You know what I mean? And not to be doom and gloom, I mean, we're going to turn it around, guys, we'll give you some hope, but I'm just over here, sometimes, going like, wake up, like, what, sounding the alarm.

[00:37:55] Zuby: I think there's a lot of this can't happen here mentality, and people are still having it. I think even tons of people in—I mean, I tweeted the other day something about Australia, and someone literally said that Australians have just as much freedom as Americans.

[00:38:14] Luke Storey: Then, I have a Second Amendment.

[00:38:16] Zuby: I was like, bro, you can't go outside, bro, right? Like what are you even talking? Like there's this level of denial and cognitive dissonance, and people always like to think, that can't happen here. People assume that history is just in the past. People forget that we are living through the history of the future. Okay. So, I can assure you that if you went back to Germany in 1900, one of them would have fathomed the what could have happened in the 1930s and 40s was going to happen. Of course not, right? In the year 1900, no one was like, okay, over this next century, 100 million people are going to get slaughtered by their governments in the name of various political ideology.

[00:38:54] Like no, they were like, no, look at how advanced we are compared to those people back in 1850, and 1800, and 1700, et cetera, right? So, we're here in 2021 thinking we're all advanced and smart, and we've got all these cool gadgets, and whatever, it's like, dude, we're the same stupid people we've always been, we're no smarter than our ancestors. We have better stuff. We have better access to information. And that is the key, that access to information, but it's pointless if you can't analyze it and take lessons from it. The point of learning history is not just to know what happened in history, it's to understand the psychology behind it. 

[00:39:28] Luke Storey: The patterns.

[00:39:29] Zuby: Yeah, the patterns and to prevent certain things happening again. You know what, for thousands and thousands of years, human beings thought it was a good, fine, and moral idea to enslave each other, to have human beings as your slaves who just work for you, and you can beat them, you can kill them, you can rape them, you can do what you want. If they try to run away, you can like do whatever, you just own them.

[00:39:52] Thousands of years, way beyond when people think of slavery, they always think of the USA, it was a global phenomenon, thousands and thousands of years, people thought it was fine, and now, we look back at that, and we're like, okay, we learned that lesson, like that's terrible. No one's out here trying to like, yeah, let's bring that one back, right? You know what I mean?

[00:40:08] Luke Storey: I've yet to meet a proponent of slavery.

[00:40:10] Zuby: Exactly, right? It doesn't matter where they are on the political spectrum, no one's trying to bring that back. And that's good, right? That's a lesson learned. We learned over time. You know what, like treating people differently based on their immutable characteristics, that's wrong, right? Racism is wrong. Like we shouldn't be like, oh, that person has that skin color or they're from that place, let's physically hurt them, or let's treat them as a lesson.

[00:40:36] Again, like great lesson learned. Took a freaking long time to learn it, but great, there we are. And so, these are lessons learned from history. So, that's the way that we are sort of better than our ancestors and that we can take the lessons, we can study them and take those lessons, and be like, okay, let's keep the good stuff, right? Let's maintain the good stuff and let's jettison the bad stuff.

[00:40:59] And I think there's that danger of getting to a level of so much comfort and arrogance of just thinking like, oh, well, we're just so far evolved and all that stuff that happened in the past, that can't happen again. Like it's impossible, whatever. It's like, dude, I mean, it's happening right now in other places around the world, right? There's like two million plus people in freaking concentration camps right now in China.

[00:41:22] North Korea exists, which is a giant concentration camp, like there's a whole freaking Holocaust going on there right now. The Rwandan genocide was, what, less than 20 years ago, right? There's crazy stuff that is still happening and still happens. And it's a very sobering and quite a dark thought to think that, oh, crap, like the stuff that happened in history could happen again. And I understand why people don't want to think that way, because it also sounds very alarmist, but that's why I'm kind of like, look, like let's nip it in the bud. Let's nip it in the bud, because if you let that go and you just keep letting it play out, because we're not fundamentally different from our ancestors, those same things could happen.

[00:42:08] I mean, we've seen a lot of that same mentality when you're seeing things like people, and it's fringe people saying this, but some of them have blue check marks on Twitter, when you're seeing people saying things like, oh, you know what, if you don't get vaccinated and you get COVID, you should be denied health care, right? That's dark, or when you're saying, I've seen people saying things, oh, I hope the unvaccinated people like hurry up and die, so the rest of us can go back to normal life and stuff like that, right? And that's dark.

[00:42:40] Like any time you're in the position where you're wishing harm or death upon another peaceful human being, you're in a dark place, right? You're in a very, very dark place. Whether that's because you disagree with their politics, or you disagree with their religion, or you don't like them, doesn't matter how much you don't like or you disagree with someone, like if you're wishing death upon them or you're hoping they get hurt, then you're not in a good place.

[00:43:06] And I think that with the narratives that are being put out there, especially because people are now being trained to view each other as a threat, that is dangerous, because if you view somebody as a threat, what can you do to a threat, right? It makes sense, we try to eliminate threats from our lives, right? And so, if someone can be trained to think that another human being, rationally or irrationally, is a threat to their very existence, which I'm sure you've seen that, right? You go on certain conversations, like, whoa, like these people are really-

[00:43:41] Luke Storey: You should see me walk through the airport with no mask. I've never worn a mask in the airport.

[00:43:46] Zuby: Good man.

[00:43:47] Luke Storey: I mean, going through the TSA, they wouldn't let me through.

[00:43:50] Zuby: Yeah, I had that as well.

[00:43:51] Luke Storey: Cool. Don't wear it. You're not coming in. I'm like, alright, so I put on my fake ass little mask for a second, but yeah, I walk through. I mean, it depends what city, though, too, but yeah, walking through the airport, and you see, it's like Moses parting the Red Sea, people are just like, whoa, they move out of my way. It's just so strange.

[00:44:08] Zuby: Yeah, it's weird. And people also need to be aware that a small minority can really control things. I mean, that's what's happening, right? As we said, most people are sane and reasonable, and regardless of someone's position on whether it's masks, or vaccines, or whatever, most people aren't like they are saying, oh, we need to lock these people up, or this person should be hurt, or whatever.

[00:44:33] Most people aren't like that. But if even 10% of people are, then that's dangerous. That's dangerous, right? Because it only takes a small minority who are very aggressive and vocal, and I don't know, determined, say, to cause huge shifts in society. We've seen this many, many times. Sometimes, it's very good. Sometimes, it's not. Sometimes, it's nonsensical, because most people also are conflict-averse. It's a big thing.

[00:45:09] Most people are conflict-averse. So, most people don't really want to get in the fight. I'm not particularly conflict-averse, so I don't mind having little daily battles, verbal spars, whatever, in the name of trying to get people to think, and to, I don't know, put rational thought out there, but most people would rather just not deal with it. Like you said before, you didn't consider yourself political before, right? And that's fine.

[00:45:41] Most people are not hyper political. But what's another thing that's happened is this past 18 months has forced people to think about how politics affects them. I mean, you can't shove it in people's faces anymore any harder than this than, by saying, oh, what? You live in California. Okay. You can't go outside. In fact, we're going to shut down your business.

[00:46:00] You have to do this. You have to wear that. Like even if you didn't care about politics at all prior to 2020, you're suddenly seeing like, oh, wow, it does affect my life. Joe Rogan said a similar thing, right? He was like, just the comedy cult directly impacts you, slaps you in the face like that, and you're like, wow, okay, it does matter who the government is.

[00:46:19] Luke Storey: I sent a group text to all my friends in California, I was like, vote yes, Gavin Newsom recall. I'm like, I'm not the guy that's suggesting how you vote or that you even do typically, but I'm like, I don't even live in California anymore, and I'm like, oh, that's my home state, I just love that state and the people there so much. I was like, man, you got to get this guy out.

[00:46:38] Zuby: Yeah, it has an effect. That's the thing. And maybe during peacetime, you don't really notice it so much, but then when a crisis hit, what hits, whether it's real or it's fabricated, then you suddenly see the difference. So, you can look on a state-by-state level, country-by-country level. I mean, there are some places in the world, where, man, I would not want to be in right now. I would really, really not want to be in, and I feel genuine sympathy for people who are stuck in certain situations.

[00:47:10] And another thing that—something else that's happened is like, people haven't really thought about the impacts of—a lot of people have, but many people haven't thought enough about the impact of the policies. So, throughout a lot of these conversations, when you're talking to people, especially people who are more like neurotic and worried about, say, the virus itself, they often don't think about the impact of the policies.

[00:47:41] They speak as if the lockdowns, and mask mandates, and business closures, et cetera, distance learnings for kids, taking people out of work, they act as if these don't have real and serious ramifications, right? And that's the thing. I think you have to understand that, firstly, everything in politics is always a trade-off, right? And people aren't really thinking about that. That's when you get people saying things like, oh, well, if it saves one life, it's worth it.

[00:48:14] I'm like, what? Imagine if you set policies like that in general, firstly, let's reduce the speed limit to 30 miles per hour on the highway. Alright, that will save way more lives than any of these lockdowns, or mandates, like undeniably, that will save plenty of lives, but you understand that, okay, but that has other consequences. If you reduce the speed limit to 30 miles per hour, what's the impact on the economy?

[00:48:38] What is the impact on people's lives? What's the impact on the environment? Like there's a lot of things, I can't even predict them all, that would fall out from doing that. Firstly, probably no one would get to work on time. And so, that will have a massive impact on the economy. And if you impact the economy negatively, that actually leads to more poverty, which can lead to more deaths, et cetera.

[00:48:57] But if you just have this myopic focus of like, okay, we've just got to get this one number down and do whatever needs to be done to do it, screw people's civil liberties. You've already heard that, Arnold, screw your freedom. Whoa. Like since when has it been so cool to just flippantly throw away freedom? People used to fight for freedom. Now, they're fighting to give it up and to have it taken away from people.

[00:49:19] So, I hope at this point, and I do see this happening, which makes me more optimistic, is more people can just look up and think reasonably, because when people are caught up in emotion and fear, it shuts down critical thought, it shuts down critical thought. You really saw this. Remember when everyone was buying toilet paper? The heck was that, right? How was that rational or reasonable, right? Toilet paper, of all the things you're stockpiling, there's, oh, buy all the toilet paper, like what?

[00:49:53] Luke Storey: I remember thinking, if you don't have any food, you're not going to make any poop to have your wipe. You need food to need toilet paper. You know what I mean?

[00:50:01] Zuby: But it was a global phenomenon. Toilet paper gone in the UK, gone in-

[00:50:04] Luke Storey: You guys had it, too?

[00:50:05] Zuby: Yeah, right?

[00:50:06] Luke Storey: Oh, funny.

[00:50:07] Zuby: This is the thing, right?

[00:50:07] Luke Storey: I thought it was just like a Walmart consciousness kind of thing.

[00:50:10] Zuby: Oh, no, no, no. This is the thing. So, this shows, and people have conveniently forgotten about this, I have a long memory. So, this shows how irrational people are, right? But I think at this point now, more and more people can look up. And even if they were initially worried, or panicking, or whatever, then they can look at it at this stage 18, 19 months later, and be like, okay, we're in a different situation now. We have all of these trillions of data points from around the world.

[00:50:38] There are vaccines available to people who want them. And most of the vulnerable people have taken them. There are other treatments available. We were at a whole different stage. The world now is new. We're not in the same position we were in, in February 2020. So, let's stop pretending that we are, like people gave the Delta variant, Lambda variant, like are you going to go through the whole alphabet and keep coming up with new variants? It's like, look, guys, the disease is going to be endemic.

[00:51:08] Luke Storey: We've just got to get to Omega, and then everything will be back to normal.

[00:51:11] Zuby: And then, you go back to the beginning, then you'd start having like Alpha, Phi, Kappa, concatenating them like sororities and fraternities.

[00:51:20] Luke Storey: What do you think is at the root of your like resilient and positive attitude? When I hear you speak, I watch your interviews and stuff, and I'm like, my presumption is that you must have had great parents. I do. You seem like just a very balanced, healthy, emotionally and mentally healthy person. Were your parents both present, and in your life, and had their act together?

[00:51:47] Zuby: They still are. They still are, thank God. Yeah. No, I've got a wonderful family, amazing parents, amazing siblings. And also, I know my purpose. I very much know my purpose in the world. My goal is to have a positive impact through my words and my works on millions and millions of people through my music, my writing, my speaking, podcast, interviews like this. Any talent and ability that I have, to me, it's my ethical duty to maximize that, and then to maximize my reach with it.

[00:52:24] And always, that's just like a permanent fire burning in me. Every single thing I do, I mean, that's literally the filter I run things through. It's like, okay, I get an opportunity and offer, someone would email, whatever, I'm like, alright, does this move that needle closer to that goal? Yes, it does, right? Okay. You want to have this conversation? Cool. Alright. We're going to reach I don't know how many thousands of people with this. Hopefully, someone can take something from this, and it impacts them in some positive way, and it makes some shifts.

[00:52:54] So, that's what drives me. That's really, really what drives me. And it keeps me motivated, it keeps me fighting. People are like, oh, man, how do you deal with the negativity? I'm like, dude, it's whatever, like it's just a little blip on that road, and the amount of love is 100 times any negativity that I receive. And it also matters more, because the people who tend to criticize me, or call names, or whatever, they don't know me. They're not familiar with my work. They don't really know what I'm about. They just see one tweet, and they're like, oh, I don't like that one tweet, so I'm going to attack this guy. It's like, whatever. It doesn't matter.

[00:53:28] Luke Storey: You know what I notice about a lot of the very critical kind of trolling types online, and I don't know them personally, but I'll take a peek at their public profile, it seems that, often, the people that are most critical of others are people that are not building or haven't built anything themselves, right?

[00:53:49] Zuby: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:49] Luke Storey: And because there's someone like you that has a certain public profile, because you're grinding, and you're putting in work, and you're building a platform, and creating a voice for yourself that you become a target for people, who, maybe on one level, jealous, because don't have within their constitution or their character to build something. I noticed this a lot, because I mean, there are people that are kind of building platforms even on just trolling people. There's one that's I think it's a podcast and like a social media, it's called conspirituality.

[00:54:25] And their thing is they do these like really brutal takedowns of people that are in the health and wellness space, and people that are into spirituality, but also don't want to wear a mask or something, for example. And I look at something like that, I'm like, you're building on top of platforms other people have built, like you're kind of piggybacking on someone who's already doing something in the world just to tear them down because you don't agree with their perspective. And not to say that whistleblowers and things like that don't have a place, but I often find that I have a lack of respect or the ability to take anyone seriously that hasn't really done something for themselves.

[00:55:11] Zuby: No, take criticism from people you take advice from.

[00:55:14] Luke Storey: Yeah, there you go. Exactly.

[00:55:15] Zuby: Simple as that. I don't care what Joey118697 on Twitter with three followers-

[00:55:23] Luke Storey: Yeah, it's probably like a fake-

[00:55:26] Zuby: But it just doesn't matter, right? And I also just accept that, look, not everyone's going to like me. Like I do things a certain way. I have certain beliefs. I do a lot of things. And I've accepted this for a long time. I make music, right? There's no musician who everybody likes, right? Kind of the greatest musician out there to play their song, someone's like, oh, that's trash. Other person is like, man, this is like the greatest band ever, right? That's just how it is.

[00:55:55] So, people have different tastes, and then, of course, there's the envy and jealousy aspect, which magnifies as you become more successful, and it's easier to attempt to tear somebody down than it is to build something for yourself. But as you said, people who are builders are not haters, right? They're not haters. You'll never find someone who is successful, and content, and happy in life who spends all their time going around YouTubes thumbs-downing videos, and writing mean comments, and trolling people on Twitter.

[00:56:23] Luke Storey: I mean, you don't have time. Even if my personality had that bend, I don't have time to—I can't even like go on my own YouTube channel and respond to comments, let alone troll other people. It's crazy.

[00:56:35] Zuby: Look, I think most men are either busy building or destroying. It's kind of what guys do from boyhood to adulthood. Men are normally building or destroying. And I think that's why, as a man in particular, also as a woman, it's important to build and to create something, because if you don't, you may inadvertently find you are—I mean, the energy's got to go somewhere.

[00:57:01] And I think as human beings, as men in particular, we got testosterone, like we're warriors, we have a level of aggression, and ambition, and whatever, and that can be channeled in such a healthy and positive way to building a business, or building a family, or building a project, creating something, building a community, or wrecking one, because if you look throughout history, that's generally what guys do, build and destroy, build and destroy, conquer, take over, win, fight, lose, battle, it's why we like sports, right? 

[00:57:32] It's a simulation of a war, right? It's like, cool, like it's another battle. It's just what happens, build, destroy, build, score a goal, destroy, like tackle, block. And I think that's how we're wired, and I think when people are not building something that's a net positive for themselves and others, then there's a tendency. It's kind of hard to be neutral, I think, similar like with your body, right?

[00:58:00] If you stop exercising and you just eat, it's not that you stay the same. You regress, you go backwards. It's hard to just stay neutral, or even to stay neutral, you have to push forward. To maintain your strength, you've got to keep working out. To maintain your fitness, you've got to keep running. You've got to keep training. If you don't, it's not that, okay, you just stop there. It's, no, you go backwards. So, I think you've always got to be having your foot down on that gas to some degree.

[00:58:33] Otherwise, everything goes backwards. If you have a relationship and you're not constantly building, if you just leave it, and you're like, okay, I'm not going to talk to that person again for 10 years or interact, like you don't come back, and, oh, it's just the same. It's like, no, everything progresses. So, you always have to be moving forward. I don't think there's really much of a neutral in life in that sense, like it's either you're moving forward or you're regressing.

[00:59:00] Luke Storey: Very true. What would you say to people that are starting to wake up and to discern that things are not as they appear, that we are being manipulated and there is coercion? Those people that have high empathy, right? Good people that you spoke to earlier that maybe last year couldn't imagine that there were people that were power hungry and greedy enough to actually harm humanity on such a large scale, and they're starting to go away.

[00:59:31] Even to me, I'm no conspiracy theorist, but this doesn't add up, but they're afraid to speak out, because of the condemnation or even the censorship they might face. I've gone through this, even myself. I mean, it didn't last long, but in the very beginning, I was kind of like watching people get de-platformed, and I was like, I'm just going to talk about meditation over here and just kind of lay back in the gut, like I don't want to make any waves and lose my ability to earn a living.

[00:59:57] And then, the worse it's got, I mean, I haven't focused on it exclusively, but I'm at a point now, like I just don't give a fuck. I mean, I started a Telegram channel. I'm on there all day, just bomb, and bomb, and I'm like, sometimes, the thought will come like, dude, someone's going to see this, and then you won't get a book deal, or you're going to lose opportunities, or be judged, or whatever.

[01:00:18] Zuby: But for every one of those, you'll get another opportunity.

[01:00:21] Luke Storey: Well, that's the thing. When I finally—not finally, but very soon into this, when I made a decision that I'm willing to sacrifice any of what I perceived to be valuable, because my heart, I can't be disingenuous and pretend like I don't have a point of view on this. I have a point of view, and I'm going to speak about it as intelligently and in an informed way as I can, and I'm not like just so brazen that I just get all of my shit deleted.

[01:00:49] I have my way of kind of peppering in information, hopefully low key, but still enough to impact people, but I'm so glad that I did that. And now, I'm even going even harder, because I feel like the stakes are so high right now. But anyway, enough about me. Back to the question, I know a lot of people when I started to speak out would DM me, and even some prominent people in my field and were like, damn, bro, you got balls, I wish I could do that, and I'm like, you can do that, like you can do that.

[01:01:22] Zuby: And I can guarantee you, by you doing it, you've encouraged other people to do the same.

[01:01:25] Luke Storey: I hope so.

[01:01:26] Zuby: Absolutely. Guaranteed. That's part of why it's so important, because it emboldens other people. People don't want to be the first one to break the line or to stand out, et cetera. So, by other people doing so, it kind of gives them the permission and the inspiration to do that little bit. And like I said, I often tell people, look, not everyone has to do what I do or do what you do, not everyone needs to be in it that much, but if everyone can just be 10, 20% more courageous and bold, and willing to speak up if you see something that's going wrong, say something.

[01:02:03] You don't need to go to some level where you're really, really freaking out about, oh, I'm going to get de-platformed or whatever, right? But just if everyone collectively did that, because everyone, most people at this point, know that something janky is going on, right? They are not really on board with this, oh, like vaccine passports, like show your papers to go, I don't know about that one. Even someone who's had both shots and not a lot of people think you should be like forced or coerced to do that.

[01:02:33] Most people are not in favor of segregating people in this way, like most people are not in favor of it, but they won't speak up enough. So, if all those quiet people, those people DMing, saying, like, man, I wish I could like, if you speak up in your workplace, online, wherever it is, just do your little bit, even in conversations with friends, just break that thing, you'll often find, by you saying something, other people would be like, yeah, actually, I agree with you, like you're right, because it's the winning argument.

[01:03:02] It's a better argument, and it makes sense, and it's logical, et cetera. But I think the first thing people have to do, though, is, firstly, understand that it's okay to accept that you were wrong on something, or that you were naive, or that your opinion has changed, or whatever. People now think that you have to form one opinion and it can never now change, right? It's immutable. Even new data, new arguments, new facts, no, I'm sticking with the original thing, right? And so many people do that. I think it's to save face, maybe because of the ego or they're worried that someone's going to call them a flip flopper or whatever it is, but that's what intelligent people do.

[01:03:42] If you believe all the same things that you did 10 years ago, even or even one year ago, then you're not growing, you're not learning. So, there's an element of humility of just being like, you know what, like I was wrong on that thing. And it's hard to do. Like we all like being right. Nobody wants to be wrong. People don't want to really change their mind. So, that's the first thing, just having that level of humility to be willing to do that.

[01:04:06] And then, like you said, I mean, I don't know if you're aware of that you sort of subtly said this, is you can kind of start small, right? Start small.. Just say, even if it's in private conversations, right? You're talking with your friends, you're talking with your family, like, you know what, like have you seen this thing, or share an article, or here's another perspective on this. What do you think? Just open that conversation up to get people thinking. And then, as time goes on, firstly, you'll find that your fear is not as valid as you think it is. People think, oh, my gosh, you say one thing on Instagram or Twitter, and you get de-plat.

[01:04:41] It's like, dude, the level of fear is, I have big problems with censorship, and de-platforming, and stuff like that, that's another conversation, but the level of fear people have around it is overblown, just like the level of fear people have with COVID is overblown, right? Yes, there is a concern, but it's not as simple as, people were the same with Trump and Brexit, they're like, oh, my gosh, like I voted for Trump, if somebody finds out, then I could lose my job.

[01:05:08] It's like, you think you're going to lose your job because you voted for Trump? Like where are you working? Like just that would—I mean, that's an overblown—I mean, if you're working somewhere that would literally fire you because you voted for one of two major candidates, then you should go find another workplace, because that's deeply intolerant. But in 99% of cases, that's in someone's head.

[01:05:31] That's not reality. Like they think people will have their—most likely, there will be another couple of people, who are like, oh, yeah, so did I, or there will also be people like, oh, okay, I don't like him, but why? Like what's the reason? Like most people aren't that unreasonable. You get these crazy people on Twitter and YouTube or whatever, but most people are decently respectful and empathetic.

[01:05:54] Even if they disagree with you, they're not going to want to just like kick you to the curb, or cast you out, or whatever. I mean, I encourage conversation. I encourage conversation, challenge, questioning of something. Like you said, if something doesn't make sense or something that you see which you think is wrong, then say something, say something. You don't need to make it your life mission.

[01:06:16] You don't need to be out there every single day, building a whole platform or whatever off of this, but if we can all just be a little bit more bold and a little bit more courageous, then I think society in general will move in a much better direction. Again, I think because we've been so pampered for the past several decades, I mean, if you live in the modern western world, like no wonder we're reacting like this to a virus so deadly that the population grew last year. I mean, it's like, think back to previous pandemics, right?

[01:06:50] Luke Storey: That's good.

[01:06:50] Zuby: Think back to previous pandemics, like you were talking about like 30, 40, 50, 60% death rates from certain diseases, bubonic plague, Spanish flu, it's men, women, children, left, right, and center dying, everyone's losing family members, but that created strong people. If you look at World War I, World War II, how many young men died fighting for people? And when you think of World War I, World War II, I mean, some of these guys are 18, 19, 20, 21, going out, fighting in war, landing on D-Day, like machine guns firing, and they're like running out there, and now, people are, uh-huh, 99.9% survivor rate, where's my mask?

[01:07:30] Let me wear my blanket. I'm like, dude, guys, like where's that courage? This isn't saying like, be reckless, and go out, and try to get sick or make other people sick, no, but it's just like instead of trying to nerf the world all the time, try to make yourself more resilient. And coming back to what we primarily do and what we talk about, it's part of why we're big on health in general, right?

[01:07:52] Health in general strengthened. There's been such little communication about how do you make yourself stronger, right? Not just for this particular disease, but for all of them. What are the biggest killers, man? Heart disease, and various types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, many of which are largely linked to obesity, in which you can do something about.

[01:08:14] Luke Storey: And not to mention the one that is not always the third, but has been the third and is usually in the top five, which is medical malpractice.

[01:08:22] Zuby: Medical malpractice, yeah.

[01:08:24] Luke Storey: No one likes to talk about that.

[01:08:25] Zuby: No one wants to talk about that, yeah, but strengthen yourself, boost your immune system, exercise, drink water, get enough sleep, actually socialize, and enjoy your life, go outside, get some sunlight, take some vitamin D if you need it, take some zinc if you need it. Just pretty basic things that will protect you to some degree against all of these ailments. Health is, like I said on the Rogan podcast, health is holistic. It's not just, wear a mask, and take a jab, and shut up. It's like-

[01:08:53] Luke Storey: Well, I think that's, to me, one of the biggest red flags about the message of, we're doing this for your safety, right? And with the whole push for the shots, and being motivated by free donuts, and I mean, after your talk the other night, actually, I went across the street, totally coincidentally, to get some bomb-ass donuts. I was on a gluten spree. And right when I sat down, there was a radio ad that was like, go get your vaccine now, get your vaccine now and get a free H-E-B gift card.

[01:09:24] I'm just like, okay, cool. Like for people that want to do that and you want to get your groceries for free, that's great, but like why isn't the government sending vitamin C tablets or, as you would say, vitamin C tablets, like why isn't everyone getting—I saw maybe a tweet the other day, it was like maybe a Cernovich going like, how about give everyone a Peloton bike? It's like, if they really cared, then why wouldn't there be emphasis on general health and teaching people how to avoid obesity, and eat organic, and just basic stuff that isn't even fringe health?

[01:09:57] Just take care of your vessel and you'll be more resilient to everything. And I think the fact that there's just none of that, not only is there none of that, there's also such opposition to people like me in the, I guess you could say, alternative health space, where people are getting de-platformed, and vilified, and called anti-vaxxers, and crazy, and snake oil salesman, and all this, because we're just going like, yeah, the body does actually have an immune system, it's like, why is that controversial?

[01:10:27] Zuby: No, this is the thing, but it speaks to a deeper point in our society, which is this comes with that level of comfort, like I was saying before, which is this push for the path of least resistance in everything. Getting in shape is hard. Eating right, it's a challenge, it takes some discipline. Going to the gym, whether you're trying to build your muscle, or build your endurance, or just change your physique, it's difficult, right?

[01:10:53] It's hard to strengthen yourself. Just like what we're saying before, it's hard to build something, it's a lot easier to tear down. It's easy to wear them, like people like the mask thing, because it's easy, makes them feel like they're doing—even if it's totally useless, and then to this day, there's no strong, solid evidence that it's made any difference in terms of the mask mandates, it's easy, and it provides a visual virtue signal that you're doing your part, right?

[01:11:21] I can guarantee you, by you and I just simply being healthy, being our usual healthy selves, that has done more to protect us and stop the hospitals from being overwhelmed, like that's done more than people running around in masks. It's done more than lockdown. But we can't really like virtue signal off that. I can't be like, look at me, like I don't even use the NHS, man. I pay into the NHS, I haven't even used the thing for I don't know how long, because I'm in great shape, right?

[01:11:48] But that doesn't get me any virtue points in this era. But if I just wore a mask, put it in my profile picture, hey, look at me, wearing my mask everywhere, all of a sudden, even though I'm not sick, all of a sudden, I'm suddenly like a great person, #wearamask, #taketheshot, whatever, and now, I'm a wonderful person. But if I talk about actually strengthening you, boosting your immune system naturally, or lifting weights, or nutrition, all the stuff I've been promoting, by the way, for more than a decade, then, oh, I've even had people be like, oh, you're fat-shaming?

[01:12:18] I'm like, bro, we're talking about a virus where 80% of the hospitalizations are people who are overweight and obese, and you're worried about me fat-shaming, right? And that's another thing that people don't want to talk about, right? The obesity impact, right? Because the truth is even with this particular virus that everyone's obsessed with is to a large part, it's kind of like a finisher disease, right? It's not a disease that will, in many cases, take someone who's like young, and healthy, and in good shape, and has decades and decades of life ahead of them, and just like kill them in the way that, I don't know, some types of cancer, for example, could or Ebola could.

[01:12:56] It's not like that. If you look at it, in every single country, the vast majority of people dying are people who are elderly with comorbidities, right? So, this is a virus, where you're old and/or you've got some serious health issues, then, yeah, it's far from a death sentence, but it's a concern. It makes sense to take precaution, et cetera. And those are the people who resources, as I've been saying for more than a year, should particularly go towards, but there are things you can do.

[01:13:27] So, I mean, if I were very overweight and I saw, oh, my gosh, like 80% of the people being hospitalized from this are overweight, okay, I'm going to lose some weight, right? And God bless, and shout out, and congratulations to everyone who does it, because there are people who have done that, my own parents included, in fact, who were in their 60s and their 70s, right? So, wonderful. My mom had diabetes, reversed it, reversed it last year. She had been diabetic for five years, took care of her diet, exercise, totally reversed it. It's now in remission, doesn't take any more medicine since then.

[01:14:01] And that's what happens when you take the power into your hands. Again, this doesn't mean that like you still can't—if you want to get the shot, you can get the shot if you think it makes sense for you, whatever other medicine you like, I'm open. I think anyone who wants to—my thing is just like the freedom, right? My problem is with the coercion, the bullying, the shaming, the division of society, the segregation, that's the stuff I have a problem with.

[01:14:27] I'm not even in the camp—I know there are people who think like the injections themselves or vaccines, I don't really call them vaccines, because they're not really traditional ones in the most part, but I know there are people who think like, okay, like there's something particularly sinister about them or something, like I don't know about that, and I'm not in that camp. I'm just simply like, look, just like every other medicine or every other medical procedure, it should be up to the individual. People can do their own risk analysis, weigh up their pros and cons, do the research, I'm for informed consent, and I'm for people being allowed to make their choices, and live their lives as they see fit.

[01:15:07] Luke Storey: Imagine if someone came to you, and said, you have to take chemotherapy, or if someone even came to you, and said, you have to drink this whole bottle of cough syrup every day. You know what I mean?

[01:15:18] Zuby: Even going to take an aspirin, I'll be like, no, I don't need an aspirin.

[01:15:21] Luke Storey: Yeah, I don't really have a headache. No, you have to take this aspirin. I mean, to me, that's also at the core of this thing is just—and that's why I'm like, yo, you got to wake up, people. This is no joke. When it gets to that point, hey, okay, make like an experimental gene therapy available for people who want it, cool, but when you're starting to cut off basic life services for people and segregate them, like we got a serious, serious problem.

[01:15:51] Zuby: Exactly. And I would fight for—if the scenario were reversed, and I don't know, companies, or governments, or whatever were trying to say that if you are vaccinated, then you're not allowed in this restaurant or you're not allowed, like I'd be fighting the same fight. I'd be like, no, that's wrong, that's discriminatory, people should be allowed to make those choices, and you shouldn't be treating them differently.

[01:16:18] Like to me, it's the same thing, right? The vaccine is almost like not the point, it's the general principle and concept. And there's nothing more invasive than injecting something into your body, right? And if the government can force you to do that, or attempt to, or coerce you, then I mean, you're a slave, you don't own yourself, right? If the government can force you to inject something into your body, they can make you do anything, like they can really make you do anything.

[01:16:54] Who's to say, I mean, what's the next hysteria that they want to push? Climate crisis, climate emergency, whatever, they could be like, okay, and this has happened before, China used to have a flipping one child policy. The government told people how many children you can have. What if they start having, and saying, oh, we're to reduce the climate, people need to have less kids, like, here, everyone needs to take this.

[01:17:13] Luke Storey: Or a family can only have one car.

[01:17:15] Zuby: Yeah, exactly, right? But even a car, that's not as invasive. Like that's authoritarian, but like your body—I remember being a kid, I remember when I was a kid, I learned in school about China's one child policy and I didn't have like the sort of political framework or historical knowledge to any extent that I have now, but I remember just in my gut being like, what?

[01:17:38] Like the government like tells people how many children they have, and I remember asking my teacher, and being like, well, what if someone has another? And I think the teacher was, I can't remember what they came up with, maybe said something like, well, they get rid of it. And I was like, well, do you mean like what? They're like-right? I'm just like, I was a kid. I was like, what?

[01:18:00] Luke Storey: I remember thinking the same thing.

[01:18:01] Zuby: Yeah. And I was just like, I just remember it striking me, and I was like, that—and I remember, because it was spoken about kind of like neutral, it wasn't spoken about like, oh, this is a bad thing, it was just like, yeah, well, this is the population graph, and if people keep having children, then this, and I'm like, just fundamentally at my core, I was like, that's wrong. Like the government shouldn't be able to do that. Like no one should be able to like dictate how many children somebody has.

[01:18:34] Like now, looking at it as I'm older, it's like it strikes me even harder and I can articulate better why it does, but I remember even as a kid, just being like, man, that's nuts, but that's the thing. But this is the thing, I'm very much like, I based a lot of things just off principle. And it's like a government has a certain role, the state has a certain role, and the role isn't—this is a huge overstep.

[01:18:59] It's a huge overstep. If you're trying to coerce people or force people to do this just to live, and go back to their normal life, and get their freedoms back, then you could do that for anything. You could literally do anything. I mean, then there's no limiting principle anymore. It's just like, okay, well, yeah, the population is getting too high. Okay. Well, you know what? We're going to start sterilizing people. Like what would be the argument against that?

[01:19:27] If someone works, say, cool with these mandatory vaccines and name of the greater good, or whatever, however they believe it is, what would then be their argument? Say that the population does really start booming or whatever, and it's like, oh, what would be the argument against for sterilization? Like what would be their line of argument? They don't have one anymore. They don't have one anymore. It's just like, well, it's for the greater good, I guess, stop being selfish. Why do you want to have so many kids? Don't be selfish. Just take the shot.

[01:19:57] Luke Storey: They make another three word slogan. Just have one.

[01:20:03] Zuby: Right.

[01:20:04] Luke Storey: I already have the marketing campaign starting to form.

[01:20:06] Zuby: I have seen that one, by the way. I have seen that one, or you've got the whole like child-free movement, et cetera. So, antinatalism is a real thing that already exists, and they've said for a decade since the 1970s, even in the USA, that the greatest threat to the world is overpopulation. There's people who truly believe that. Bill Gates himself, I think, believes that, right? And so, that's gnarly, because you have to think of what that means, right? Like what does that-

[01:20:35] Luke Storey: Who decides who goes, right?

[01:20:36] Zuby: Yeah, exactly.

[01:20:36] Luke Storey: And who decides who can procreate? I mean, that's serious God complex. That is like you were stepping on the toes of God. Like I don't envy the karma that one has for stepping into that role. That's diabolical.

[01:20:53] Zuby: It's diabolical. Exactly. And that's where people need to be careful. People need to really be careful with this. And again, we have examples from history of how this stuff for sterilizations have been a thing in the past, or people being forced abortions, or whatever it is. And it's dark. We're talking about human beings, we're talking about human lives, we're talking about individuals, and their rights, and their liberty, et cetera. And if there's one thing that you own, it's your body, right? It's like, okay, like I choose to-

[01:21:27] Luke Storey: That's all you can really own, honestly.

[01:21:30] Zuby: Yeah. It's like, okay, if I don't even own that and someone can just control, and then people make these ridiculous arguments by like saying like, oh, well, what about seatbelts or drunk driving? I'm like, it's so disingenuous, right? Because people know like it's a massively false equivalence. By the way, I don't think it should be mandatory to wear a seatbelt. But again, people do their risk calculation. I don't actually think most people wear seatbelts, because it's mandatory. I think it's because you know if you crash your car, go against 60, 70 miles per hour, like that's a different risk calculation to just living your life normally when there's like a bad flu going around.

[01:22:18] Luke Storey: That's funny, because I remember when I was a kid in the 70s, it was very common for people to not wear seatbelts and also no helmets on motorcycles. Like I remember riding around with my grandma, like I didn't put a seatbelt on in the old Oldsmobile. The old hooptie, she had, you just get in, you climb around, you're just playing around in there.

[01:22:36] But then, as I got older, the law was instated or had been probably by the time I started driving. I remember being like, oh, man, I don't want to wear my stupid seatbelt, and then with a little bit of age and hopefully some wisdom, I mean, I would never drive anywhere without my seatbelt on now, but not because it's a law, but as you said, because I'm not an idiot, I don't want to fly through the freaking windshield.

[01:22:54] Zuby: I think the best thing you can do is give people information, right? Give people information. This is another thing that they've sort of skipped over with this thing, which makes people more skeptical about this whole vaccine roll out, right? It's like they skipped over the let's properly inform people openly and honestly stage. It went very quickly to, okay, let's offer it, okay, now, like, okay, we're going to have like weird incentives, whether it's giving away cheeseburgers, or hotdogs, or doing million-dollar lotteries, or all this weird stuff, which, again, to people who are already kind of like, ah, that makes us go like, whoa, okay, like, that's really weird. And then, when it moves to, okay, now, we're just moving straight to coercion, right? No jab, no job, no restaurant access, like we're going to threaten you. It's like, wait, what about just like giving people clear, honest information, and then letting them make their own rational decision?

[01:23:56] Luke Storey: Like some ingredients on the insert that comes with every other pharmaceutical medication? I saw a nurse the other day opened up one of the packets, and it's blank. It's just nothing. There's no information on there. And you're expected and coerced to just take some mystery thing into your arm.

[01:24:12] Zuby: Yeah. I mean, I've read the—in the UK anyway, I can't remember which, I think it was the Pfizer one, I think there was the leaflet, and I read through all the stuff, and it's just like, yeah, just give people that information, give people real stats. Okay. Look, if you're 70 years old and you get COVID, this is the estimated probability you'll be hospitalized or you'll die, whatever, the vaccine, we've tested it and we think it brings it down to this level, whatever. 

[01:24:43] If you are 25 years old, honestly, if you're 25, you don't like probability, you shouldn't be worried about this thing, right? Like you shouldn't be worried. Let alone if you're 15, they're trying to jab like 10-year-olds now. I mean, like their survival rates already like 99.999%, and what, you're trying to raise it to 99.999% or potentially—I mean, we don't know the long-term effects.

[01:25:13] That's just a fact. We don't know. We don't know. And that's why it should be a choice. Like if I were 80 years old, and I had diabetes, and I was overweight, I'd be like, yo, give me that shot, right? But I'm 34, 35 actually now, I'm in great shape, and I've already had COVID, so there's literally no logical reason, there's no scientific reason, no medical reason why someone like myself, it would make sense to take that.

[01:25:40] It doesn't make sense, doesn't mean I shouldn't be allowed to if I wanted to, but there's no logical reason, right? And people aren't even thinking about this. They're just acting like one size fits all. Everyone's the same, 15-year-old is the same risk as an 85-year-old. Whether you've had it or you haven't had it, like it doesn't matter, like just everyone should take the shot.

[01:25:57] And I'm like, that just reeks of, okay, this is a power grab, this is a money grab, you do not have our best interests in mind. And that makes people more resistant, more skeptical, et cetera. If I were in charge, if were like on the, I don't know, if I were like some person in public policy and my goal was to like promote the vaccine, shall we say, or encourage people to get it, my approach would have been totally, totally, totally different to this thing just as a communicator, right?

[01:26:28] Like it's just been threats and incentives, right? Not just like, look, here's what we're dealing with here, here's what's offered, here are the different options, here's on the table, here's some data for you, these are the risks also, like be honest about the risks, right? People are acting as if there's no side effects. Everyone knows people who've had vaccine have side effects. We all do, whether they talk about it-

[01:26:53] Luke Storey: You should see my Telegram, bro.

[01:26:54] Zuby: Dude, whether people talk about it openly or not, and it's like, be open about that. 

[01:26:59] Luke Storey: Or, the other medications that have proven to be effective, and then suppressed. That's another thing, where I'm like, oh, it's for our safety? Then, why are you silencing all these doctors, and scientists, and nurses from around the world that are like, hey, I've been treating X amount of patients, and they're doing great using this cheap, safe-

[01:27:16] Zuby: And if we say the word, we can't put this on YouTube.

[01:27:18] Luke Storey: Yeah, I know. I just got a YouTube video deleted today. I felt so proud.

[01:27:23] Zuby: It's insane. And my family background is originally from Nigeria, and which continent has barely been impacted by this thing? Africa. Well, there's a continent of over a billion people, generally with much poorer health care and infrastructure than the entire West, and we're going to just act like it doesn't exist, rather than taking some lessons from there, and going, oh, the whole continent of Africa has had less deaths from this disease than England. Okay. What can we learn from that? No, we just don't talk about it. What else can we talk about?

[01:27:54] Luke Storey: There was a president's from a couple-

[01:27:56] Zuby: Oh, gosh, like the Tanzanian president, et cetera.

[01:27:58] Luke Storey: Yeah, I think there were two others, too. I remember thinking, where's Black Lives Matter on this? Like Black presidents getting like suicided, because they're not opting into the shot program, I'm like, where is the outrage here? It's like-

[01:28:13] Zuby: Definitely sketch. What else don't we talk about? We can't talk about China.

[01:28:16] Luke Storey: Yeah. Well, you'd be racist. That would be-

[01:28:19] Zuby: We can't talk about where the whole thing started, the whole thing started. They were rolling out vaccines in spring last year. What freaking vaccine was that? How did they have a vaccine? Like what, you're saying, you got only 4,000 deaths in this whole thing from a 1.3 billion population epicenter of the disease, 4,000 deaths, does that sound right? Oh, wait, so you're telling me the USA has had 600,000 deaths, China had 4,000? Bro, like there's so much janky stuff going on, right? And if we had real journalists and more of them, they'd be the ones having these conversations. They wouldn't be-

[01:28:53] Luke Storey: It's up to knuckleheads like us.

[01:28:54] Zuby: It's up to the Jim Burrows, and the conspiracy theorists, and like the yoga chicks, and whatever. And it's like, they're so obvious.

[01:29:03] Luke Storey: The green juicers had to come in and like really put the hammer down to get the truth out there. I want to ask you about, you've talked about virtue signaling. And to me, this is another fascinating social phenomenon, and I started to see these social justice warriors kind of emerge a few years ago that really like hit their peak when Trump got into office. It was just everyone's outrage, and it's like a sort of a competition for the biggest, the most virtuous person, and the biggest victim, and who can be the most outraged as kind of a form of virtue signaling?

[01:29:43] And you talked about the mask and I see people posting photos of them getting the shots, or they get a tattoo of the Pfizer Band-Aid on their arm. And God bless, whatever, like I'm like, you do what you want, but do you think that people that are really hell bent on showing and proving their virtue publicly that underneath that is, perhaps, a sense that they're less than worthy and that they actually lack intrinsic value as a person? And they're using these expressions of hoping to get public approval and accolades to kind of fill that void of not feeling worthy themselves? Have you ever looked into kind of what's behind that behavior?

[01:30:34] Zuby: I think that's a part of it. I think a lot of people care more about looking good than doing good. And this is not a new thing.

[01:30:42] Luke Storey: It's a lot harder to do good.

[01:30:43] Zuby: Yeah. But also, doing good tends to be quite subtle. You don't necessarily get accolades for it all the time if you just, day-by-day, do small acts of good, or charity, or whatever. I mean, it's interesting. I mean, if you go back to even in—I mean, when I think of virtue signaling, I mean, it goes back to biblical times, right? The Bible talks about virtue signaling, about the person who goes, and very boastfully gives money in a very ostentatious way, and they're showing off how much money they're donating and giving to the church or whatever, and then there's the person who, even if they give less money, but they just quietly do that little bit, then what do they say? He who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

[01:31:27] Luke Storey: That's good. Is that in the Bible?

[01:31:28] Zuby: That's in the Bible.

[01:31:28] Luke Storey: That's dope. Wow. That's a great principle.

[01:31:30] Zuby: So, it's not a new thing. I mean, it's why Jesus had beef with some of the Pharisees, et cetera, because they were talking the talk, and outwardly seeming to be the most pious and holy people in whatever, but then behind the scenes, they were behaving in this dodgy way. It's also why both people within and outside of the church have issue with, I don't know, say like the whole like Catholic piece, sex scandal thing, right?

[01:31:59] It's particularly bad not just because it's a sex scandal, but because it's freaking priests. Like you're the guys, you're supposed to be the moral and spiritual leaders of a church and of a community, and for millions of people, and then for them to do that, it's that much worse, or when you get these guys who are profiteering off of it, and just making all this money, preaching prosperity, gospel, and donate, we need to get more offerings so that I can buy a private jet.

[01:32:29] All that kind of stuff, like nothing undermines religion more than people like that, that's for sure. But virtue signaling is not a new thing. I think it's always existed, I think, with social media and there's a new way to do it. There's a new way to do it, like you can very publicly just put in the right hashtags or put in a couple of emojis in your bio, put in your pronouns, wear a mask in your profile picture, and all of a sudden, and I think people also do it not just because maybe they feel something intrinsically, but also, people feel it gives them the right to be an A-hole, right? As long as you have the right hashtags in your bio, and you put up your BLM black fist, and you put your pronouns, and whatever, then suddenly, you can be really, really vicious to people, and really, actually unkind to people, but you're still a good person, because-

[01:33:19] Luke Storey: Right, because your motives are to help, so you can tear someone down.

[01:33:24] Zuby: You can at least pretend that they are, man. Like the worst people I come across consistently are people with virtue signaling stuff in their bio. They've got the pronouns, they've got the rainbow flag, they've got the hashtag, BLM, whatever. And then, as soon as they come across somebody who differs from them politically or who they disagree, like they will be vicious, right? They'll be the most intolerant, aggressive, insulting people out there.

[01:33:51] And they think that, oh, well, that's fine, because I'm sticking it to those Trumpers or I'm doing it to those anti-vax idiots or whatever. And again, that's dark. If you're a virtuous person, you don't need to signal it in these ways, you just do what you do, you get on with life, you don't need to boast about every single thing or hide behind these. Like I don't know, like, at June. June is what? I think it's ridiculous that there's a whole month for pride, right? But June is Pride Month. Okay.

[01:34:24] What happens to every corporation now? They put up their rainbow flags and whatever, and people, they're like, oh, look at how much we care about gay people, or this time last year, BLM stuff, George Floyd died, and all of a sudden, oh, look, look how much we care about Black people, like BLM, blah, blah, blah, and it's like, dude, just be a mensch, just be a decent person. Like I don't care if someone is Black, White, straight, gay, I don't need to go out there, the same with these male feminist types, I respect, what? You should respect women, like you should respect people. You shouldn't be like just be normal.

[01:34:58] Luke Storey: It's kind of like, yeah, well, like I'm thinking of the male feminist, I always get the sense that they're actually like a creep or something. You know what I mean? It's like you don't have to walk around going, hey, I'm not a rapist. You know what I mean?

[01:35:09] Zuby: It's overcompensating. That's the thing, right? I'm more suspicious of the guy who's like got BLM in his bio, and he's anti-racist, and going on about how much they care about Black people and people of color, I'm like, I'm suspicious of that guy, right? Just like the guy who's like, oh, like super homophobic, and always like, hmm, maybe he's like, right? You know what I mean? It's like, dude, just be normal, man.

[01:35:34] Just treat people normally like whatever, and you don't need to make this huge song and dance about it. If you do, it actually makes me think like, hmm, what are you trying to—are you trying to hide something? Like why are you being so, like I've never in my life felt that I need to whack up, drape myself in rainbow flags and hashtag, like to show that I'm not homophobic?

[01:35:58] It's like, whatever, man, I just treat people fairly, I treat people equally, and that's it. I don't need to run around, running around telling people, I'm an anti-racist, like everyone, most people, like most people are anti-racist, like people aren't out there, we're not in the 1920, maybe in the 1920s, where racism was like a really common thing, you needed to like explicitly say something about that, but if you're-

[01:36:26] Luke Storey: Right, like if the vast majority of your sect or your population is one way and they're evil racist, then you might be more inclined to be like, hey, I'm not with that. Like if you're a town in Kentucky and 1890 was run by the KKK or whatever, you might be on like the down low like, yeah, I'm not. But if that's not really the prevalent thought, then you kind of just roll.

[01:36:50] You mentioned something interesting about, it kind of goes back to what we're talking about at the beginning, the inversion of what we call conservative or liberal, right? They've just totally flipped where a guy like, I mean, I'm a straight up hippie dog, and if you looked at like my value system on paper, I would be considered probably a right wing extremist. And I'm just like, I sit around and meditate, I take plant medicines, like I'm pretty out there, but because I'm not down with tyranny and I believe in the freedom of the human spirit, I would be classified as that.

[01:37:25] But anyway, it's like I've definitely noticed that people that are in the social justice camp that have this guise of being the most for the underdog ultimately are the most like vile and abusive and just kind of, and I'm not saying this is true of all those people, it's a gross generalization, but they're like actually much less tolerant. It's like you look at groups like Antifa or something like that, and their message, I think, is like anti-fascism, yet they're going to like religious gatherings, and beating the shit out of old ladies, and people of color, and like there's just no rhyme or reason to it. And even though I don't really get into the realms of politics or even social issues much, it's not really my lane, but I remember when the George Floyd thing happened, and it's like there was this guilt of association on my Instagram just because I didn't get the memo that you're supposed to post a black square or whatever.

[01:38:40] Zuby: Oh, I had a few White liberal women unfollow me on Twitter, because—oh, sorry, unfollowed me on Instagram, because I didn't post the black square.

[01:38:47] Luke Storey: First off, I didn't know about it, be like if I was going to give a commentary on that, it would be from my heart, out of love, for my fellow-

[01:38:56] Zuby: Post a black square, you bigot.

[01:38:58] Luke Storey: ... humans. And yeah, I wouldn't say I got a lot of pushback, but I got some DMs and like comments like, why aren't you saying anything? You have a platform, like you owe it to Black people. And I'm like, that actually sounds really racist.

[01:39:10] Zuby: In a year, all those people, they've moved on to the next thing.

[01:39:13] Luke Storey: I mean, do you need me to like go to bat for you? You're a grown ass man. Like you're out there-

[01:39:17] Zuby: Please don't. Just be normal, man. That's all I ask. That's all I ask for people, like just be normal. Just don't treat me differently, certainly, based on my skin color in like a special way, nor a bad way. 

[01:39:29] Luke Storey: I mean, as a Black guy, do you find that inherently racist that-

[01:39:35] Zuby: I find it freaking annoying. I don't necessarily find it racist, per se. I find it freaking annoying, right? It's just like just be normal. I assume that people are not racist, right? Like I don't need someone to suddenly like, oh, a Black man died in Minnesota, and now, all of a sudden, like all these corporations, even in England, now feel the need to message me to tell me that they like Black people. It's like, well, I sort of assumed, I've been buying my groceries from you for 20 years, I sort of assumed it was okay for me to shop here.

[01:40:09] Luke Storey: You're like, oh, now, you tell me? Wow.

[01:40:13] Zuby: No, I don't like it at all and I think it's very infantilizing as well. And it doesn't do anything. It doesn't help anything. If you actually wanted to help people, like if you actually wanted to have like a real Black Lives Matter movement, which one could argue is actually quite necessary, certainly in the USA, then you wouldn't just be Black Lives Matter if they're killed in dubious circumstances by a White cop, which is basically what BLM is, right?

[01:40:39] It ignores the 99.9% of Black deaths in America, and it just looks at that one specific thing, which is, by the way, not even close to the top 10 things that are killing Black people in this country, but it just totally, totally focuses on that. Forget the fact that more non-Black people, forget the fact that more White people are killed by police every year than Black people in the USA.

[01:40:59] I mean, look, if you want to have a movement against police brutality, like go and do that, and make it that, but if you're going to have a movement, I think, called Black Lives Matter, then like look at the top 10 things that are killing Black people and let's tackle that. Let's talk about that. Let's open that. But then, people don't even want to have that conversation.

[01:41:17] And that's why I'm just like, look, it's a nice name, but I'm not down with this, because it's disingenuous and it's not actually helping people like, what good? No one's really been able to answer this question for me, because I can tell you what bad's come of it, but no one's really been able to tell me like what good has come out of the Black Lives Matter movement in the last five to six years?

[01:41:38] Like what tangible positive changes have happened that have made life better for Black people in the USA or abroad? I can tell you ways it's made it worse, but what good has come from it? You made some White liberals on Twitter and Instagram feel good, because they put it in their bio, like that's it. It hasn't helped any Black person. In fact, more Black people, what happened after George Floyd was killed, the riots and the protests?

[01:42:01] I mean, how many more Black people were killed in the summer of 2020 during those riots? Over 10 of them. I think about 15 or so were directly killed, murdered. How many people lost their businesses or had their job, like their livelihoods wrecked? Right? And no one cares. So, one Black guy die, so cool, let's kill another 15. let's destroy another hundred people's business.

[01:42:25] Well done, guys. Well done. But you put the black square on Instagram, so you feel good. That's why it pisses me off. And I don't use that term often, but it pisses me off, because I'm like, not only is this not doing any good, you're actually—and people don't care about the destruction, right? Because again, they care more about looking good than doing good. They haven't done anything good.

[01:42:47] You didn't create anything. You haven't actually done anything, really, in any of it, right? It hasn't done anything good. And you've also created, you furthered racial tension as well, right? What do people do? Like then they jump on and they start with the whole like all White people are racist crap and whatever. And it's just like, dude, you're just raising the temperature rather than bringing it down, and people throw their little agendas in, and they just start trying to make it about this and that.

[01:43:19] Remember when they started with the whole Black Trans Lives Matter? It's like, what are you even doing? Right? Did you see that? Right? It's like, well, Black Lives Matter is not enough, Black Trans Lives Matter, like what? Like now, you're having a march for—it's so asinine. It's like people have their thing in their agenda, and then, oh, like, let's hijack this thing and turn it into a trans thing, right?

[01:43:43] And you're just like, what? Like what's going on? And then, you have the Asian Lives Matter thing, and that one's also different, because I don't even know. Those won't even sort of clash, because a lot of the Asian people who are getting like harmed or attacked like in big cities in the USA last year and beginning of this year, those acts were often committed by Black people, which people don't like to talk about, but they're still there, trying to blame it on White supremacy, and I'm just like, you people are fricking clowns.

[01:44:10] Luke Storey: See, this is why I like you. I don't want to interview you, and I don't usually go to where we're going today, so this is—even I'm like, I don't know, should we be doing this? Which is good, I know we're on target, but the shit you're talking about, man, a lot of people are thinking this. A lot of people are just normal people, dude. Like you walk in the room, okay, I'm not blind, I know that you're a Black guy, and that it's quite possible and likely that your life has had some different shape or form and experience than mine, because of the way people identify, right?

[01:44:43] But I don't look at you that way as a person, right? I mean, I'm not dumb. I'm not naive to think there isn't racism or something like that, but what is really infuriating is the media and these movements that are coming from God knows where that are pushing people into identity politics and all these micro identifications, right? It's like when I look at myself in the mirror, I see Luke, the soul behind my eyes, and I try to be as disidentified by the body as I can. I mean, I'm not perfect at it, right? I got to lose a couple of pounds here, hairline is thinning, right?

[01:45:24] So, I'm identified with the body, and somewhat, I guess my personality, ego, intellect, but really, like my goal is to go within to what I really am as a spirit. And so, when I relate to other people, yeah, I see the surface, because there might be relevant information that helps me relate and communicate with them, but I'm seeing that that's a living being behind that, right? And the more in touch I am with who and what I really am, the more easily I'm able to be in touch with who and what you really are, which is truly inclusive and truly tolerant, and hopefully empathetic, and compassionate, and unconditionally loving.

[01:46:01] When I start to get caught up in my packet, that doesn't sound right, when I get caught up on my baggage, nothing gets done, but when I start looking at things so superficially and get caught up in anyone's like sort of the minutia of their sexual preferences, or the color of their hair, or how they like to dress, or the music they listen to, or what country they're from, or what language they speak, it's like it's all a distraction. None of those things are actually the human being. And there's some bizarre agenda, I guess they call it cultural Marxism.

[01:46:38] I mean, there's kind of a history of this, but it seems like the agenda is to get people micro-segregated into so many subgroups of ego-identification that there's just rampant division. It's like not enough to just have like Latino, Asian, Black, White. You have all of these subgroups of sexuality that we didn't create. Like I don't think that way. I never created that. I don't have a bunch of categories to put myself in. So, my question always like, who the fuck is doing this? Where does this come from?

[01:47:13] Because I don't think human beings are inventing it themselves, like these young kids that have all of these emojis and pronouns, I'm like, where are they actually getting all of this and what's the agenda behind it? And the only thing I can boil it down to at a wild guess is that there is some sort of force that is desiring for people to become further disidentified from who they really are, because within the true self is where the power lies. Like that's where your fire is, man, of just being a living, breathing man or woman, right? Like you're a sovereign being created by God.

[01:47:50] Zuby: You inadvertently just answered your own question.

[01:47:52] Luke Storey: Maybe I did. Sometimes, I think I'm asking a question, and then I'm just on a-

[01:47:56] Zuby: Well, you said that that's where your power lies, and it's a power play. It's a power play, so the concepts primarily stem from academia, and then it flows into politics and aspects of the media, but it's a power play. It's simple divide and conquer. It's nothing new, right? Identity politics, you can pit people in groups, Black versus White, men versus women, straight versus gay, vaccinated versus unvaccinated, mask versus no mask, red team versus blue team, liberal versus conservative, Democrat versus Republican, any time you can pit people against each other like that, it makes people more fragmented and easier to control, because they stay fighting each other instead of fighting any sort of actual power structure.

[01:48:43] Luke Storey: Right, because there is actually an intrinsic outside threat, and we'll ignore that threat, because I'm like caught up, because you have a great t-shirt on.

[01:48:51] Zuby: Yeah, and I didn't respect your pronouns. So, that's what it goes to. And what's interesting is that whole thing you were talking about before is if you push it to its natural conclusion, you actually end up back where people have already—where our society has already learned this, and thus based things correctly and legally off of it, which is that the individual is the ultimate minority, right? 

[01:49:22] So, if you go through, okay, Zuby, he's black, he's male, he's Nigerian, and British, and heterosexual, and he's this, and he's that, and he's from this class, like ultimately, you just get down to Zuby is an individual. Zuby is an individual, right? You can't just say, oh, he's black and that other guy is Black, so they share a similar story, or way of thinking, or character. No, right?

[01:49:48] That's actually where racism originally stemmed from, stemmed from the notion that, okay, you can just make this whole assumption about this group of people based off of a caricature, or a stereotype, or whatever, Black people are like X. And so, therefore we can treat people different. People do it now, right? That's why, now, it's kind of hip to be, under the guise of anti-racism, there's a lot of anti-White racism now, right? You can now say things about White people, White men, in particular, where if you were to say it about any other demographic, man, you'd lose your Twitter account in two seconds, right?

[01:50:29] Luke Storey: That really hurts my feelings, too.

[01:50:30] Zuby: Yeah, but this is the thing, right? So, people are just inverting it, and this is what I mean by people sort of hiding behind their labels and their politics to be jerks, right? So, suddenly, because you're an anti-racist and you have BLM in your bio, you can just go to town on White people now, right? You can just say whatever the heck, you can say the most egregious, disgusting stuff, which if you said about Jewish people, Black people, Asian people, anybody else, everyone would be like, nah, man, like heck no, right?

[01:51:01] You'd sound like a complete psycho. And this is the thing, right? I'm very much an equalist, man. I'm just down to treating people equally, viewing people as individuals. Like you said, I don't care, straight, gay, White, Black, male, female, Brown, Arab, atheist, theist, I treat people as individuals, and that's the best you can do. And that's how people should be treated under the law, which we finally worked out, which is great, and it's generally how people should be treated, judge people by the content of the character, not the color. I think there was a famous guy who said that.

[01:51:33] Luke Storey: Yeah, right. It's funny. I noticed when people started using that Martin Luther King quote then, because it just says it all, right? I mean, like just irrefutable, right? And then, all this kind of anti-Martin Luther King stuff started coming around. Oh, he was a misogynist, a womanizer, and I was like, oh, that's convenient. The guy that just squelched the whole idiocy of judging people based on externals, they're going to—I mean, I don't know what his personal life was like, but I thought the timing of that was kind of funny. I'm like, really, you're going to like take that? But it's like I also see the same thing with a lot of Black conservatives, like someone like Candace Owens or something. I mean, it's like-

[01:52:18] Zuby: It's open season on us.

[01:52:19] Luke Storey: Like you're not allowed to like step out of line and have your own point of view.

[01:52:26] Zuby: And that is racist. And that is racist.

[01:52:27] Luke Storey: That's super weird.

[01:52:28] Zuby: That is racist.

[01:52:29] Luke Storey: That's super weird.

[01:52:30] Zuby: In fact, that's the most common form of racism I see in modern society.

[01:52:33] Luke Storey: Really?

[01:52:33] Zuby: Oh, gosh, yeah. And I've been dealing with that for—people are finally starting to see it. It's been like that for decades. It's been like that for decades. It's just that people, now, maybe with the advent of social media, if they're in certain circles, they can now see it, right? They can see that some of these—because the whole concept of racism is often in the mainstream, and I think this is partly brilliant branding, but it's considered like a right wing phenomenon, right? Somehow, like racism, there's always been this notion that the left or liberals are like tolerant, and anti-racism or whatever, and those conservatives and right wingers, like they just-

[01:53:13] Luke Storey: That's what I always thought until the last couple of years happens.

[01:53:16] Zuby: And maybe it was true in the 1950s, right? But like the proper demarcations of liberal and conservative, but any time from, I don't know, man, and certainly, the '90s onwards, like it's nonsense. It's absolute nonsense. I can honestly say, like I don't deal with any sort of like racism that actually like affects my life in any sort of tangible way. But in terms of like comments that I get that are racist, 90% of it comes from the left side of the political, vast majority of it, because they disagree with my politics. And if you disagree with the politics, then suddenly-

[01:53:59] Luke Storey: Open season.

[01:54:00] Zuby: Then, it's open season, right? And it's quite a it's quite a remarkable phenomenon that people should be more aware of. People really should be more aware of, and it's even worse here in the USA, because in the US, it's literally assumed that if you're Black, you're a Democrat, right? It's almost like embedded in the thing, right? Like it's just like, oh, yeah, Black Americans vote Democrat, and there's truth to it, it's like 90% or something like that, right? But it's just assumed.

[01:54:34] And so, someone who steps out of that, whether they're an independent, or they're libertarian, or they're Republican, or whatever, the way that those people can be treated both by other Black people and by people of all different colors, et cetera, can be like very, very, very vicious. Like very vicious, lots of name-calling, like outright racism, stuff that just would not typically fly suddenly becomes okay. And I would think that's something people should be aware of and perhaps should talk about more. And that's not me like playing any sort of victim or saying, I'm persecuted or whatever. It's just saying, like, look, this is an observation.

[01:55:10] And something I said on Rogan, which I'll repeat here, which is that I think what really, when people's character really, really shows is actually how they treat people who they disagree with. That's what, really, I think shows somebody's character, and kindness, and how real, and tolerant, and inclusive, and open to diversity, et cetera, they actually are, because it's very easy to, okay, someone, this person agrees with me on 99% of things, like it's easy to be tolerant of that person, right?

[01:55:45] Because they agree with you and you kind of back each other up. But when you come across someone who, strongly, you disagree with, strongly on one issue, or multiple things, or whatever, if you suddenly think it's okay to, like I said before, wish harm, or death upon that person, or to just be really nasty and insulting, or what, then you've revealed your true character. You've revealed your true character.

[01:56:10] Because tolerance isn't just tolerating people who agree with you, it's about the divergence. It's about people who don't agree with you and being able to go, you know what? I disagree. I can even strongly really, really, really disagree with that person on that thing, but I wish you all the best. I'm going to treat you like a human. I'm not going to denigrate you, or like hope that something bad happens to you, or maybe I hope you change your mind, right? That often happens.

[01:56:38] Maybe I hope you change your mind and you come more around to my way of thinking, but I'm not going to like bully you into it, or threaten you into it, or try to hope all of that. So, I think that's really revealing. And I think with social media, it's interesting, because that really gets revealed. You can really see how people treat people they disagree with, right? And you actually see, even a lot of celebrities or something, you see there are some nasty people out there, man, like they were really, really nasty. And again, they'll be doing it under the guise of, oh, I'm virtuous and compassion, because I put he/him in my profile.

[01:57:17] Luke Storey: My hate is coming from a place of compassion.

[01:57:19] Zuby: Exactly. Yeah. 

[01:57:20] Luke Storey: Therefore, it's valid.

[01:57:21] Zuby: Yeah. And I'm just like, man, well, to me, that's always the giveaway, because that goes beyond the surface level, and it's like, okay, have someone disagree with this person, and let's see, can you disagree, and have a quality conversation, and be civil, and be respectful, or is it suddenly like, oh, the attacks come out, and the denigration, and the slander, and trying to misrepresent the person or call them whatever name or whatever slur, all of that. So, yeah.

[01:57:57] Luke Storey: A couple of days ago, I saw a headline from the Los Angeles Times about this guy, Larry Elder, I don't know if you're familiar with Larry Elder.

[01:58:03] Zuby: Yeah, I know Larry.

[01:58:04] Luke Storey: He's running for governor. 

[01:58:05] Zuby: Black face of White supremacy.

[01:58:07] Luke Storey: Yeah, the Black face of White supremacy. I'm like, can a guy get a break? Like honestly, man, like that guy is pretty damn wholesome. I mean, I've watched a lot of his stuff. He makes a lot of sense to me. I don't find anything extreme about him, definitely have never had any indication that he has any ill will toward his own people.

[01:58:29] Zuby: It's the perfect example of what I was just talking about.

[01:58:32] Luke Storey: That's craziness, man.

[01:58:33] Zuby: Yeah. And it's also saying. Get back in line, Black man.

[01:58:38] Luke Storey: Right.

[01:58:39] Zuby: You're not allowed to think that way. You're thinking like a White person. You're not allowed to have your own views, how dare you step out of line? And whoever wrote that headline, they're freaking racist, they probably don't even know it. They're thinking they're fighting against racism, but if you're they're calling a Black man the Black face of White supremacy, you've lost me, man. Like you've literally—man, like there are so many layers to that, and I'm sure, perhaps, the person who wrote it doesn't even realize what they're projecting there.

[01:59:11] Luke Storey: Yeah. Well, God, we've covered a lot of shit today that I had no idea we're going to dig into. Thank you for humoring me and going in all of these divergent directions here.

[01:59:24] Zuby: It's all good, man.

[01:59:25] Luke Storey: I want to perhaps leave people, I don't feel like we've been to doomsday about things, but we're also talking about some real shit, and some of it is maybe uncomfortable to look at for some people. So, being where we are in the world right now as a species of humans, what would you say is the way forward? Like there are so many things beyond our control, what can we do to have a positive impact, and to bring people together, and erase some of the division that I think is largely being hoisted upon us, right?

[02:00:01] It's not like it's happening because of us, maybe human nature, but the media narratives and all of these things that are causing this division. I heard you talk about this the other night and it really spoke to me is that we need to, and it's kind of related to what you just said, we need to really embrace those people we disagree with, because I think fundamentally, all of humanity is for humanity, regardless of what our particular positions are and a medication or public policy and things like that. So, how can we find our voice, and be a force for good in the world, and close that gap that we're finding between us?

[02:00:35] Zuby: Yeah. Well, I think everything helps with working on yourself, right? Becoming physically, mentally stronger, building yourself up spiritually, emotionally, et cetera. Because once you do that, you just become a much more powerful force in general and you become someone people respect, people listen to, and you become more of an authority, and you also are in a stronger position. And when you're in a strong position, you're less likely to, by definition, operate from a position of weakness, right?

[02:01:04] Oftentimes, people promoting authoritarianism, you've probably seen this, it tends to be weak people. Weak people lean towards authoritarianism, telling people what to do, and trying to use this force of the state, something more powerful than them to get other people to do it, right? They themselves can't force me to do jack, right? But then, they'll try to use, if they can't bully you directly, they'll do it in that roundabout manner.

[02:01:26] So, make yourself stronger. And then, beyond that is I think being aware of the divide and conquer narrative protects you a lot from it. If you are aware that, okay, this is what the powers that be do, they're going to try to turn friend against friend, neighbor against neighbor, family against family. They're going to try to create these rift along racial lines or along like medical lines now, political lines, religious lines, like they have different ways to do it, right?

[02:01:58] Take the wedge, find the gap, and drive it in there. So, if you're aware and cognizant of that, then it protects you a lot, because you can kind of see what's coming, and when they're doing it, you can be like, look, I'm not going to fall for that, right? When they're there on the TV saying like, there's a pandemic of the unvaccinated or unvaccinated people this, you're aware that, okay, firstly, turn the TV off.

[02:02:19] But if you're going to watch it, be aware that they're trying to sell you a particular narrative, just like they sold people on the, everyone who voted Brexit is racist, everyone who voted Trump is racist, blah, blah, blah. Like they're trying to drive that wedge, because it creates more power from them. And then, just to not not fall for it, don't fall for it, right? Don't lose friends, because you have a disagreement on something. Like talk to people, show true empathy, show true empathy and true compassion. If you find someone who you don't agree with or you don't understand their perspective, you don't know why they—you just don't understand their position, listen to them and talk to them.

[02:03:00] Even if you think they're like crazy or whatever, like hear out their perspective, which can be hard, it can be hard. You don't have to grit your teeth, and be like [making sounds] right? But hear out their perspective, and then once you do, then you can bring your own, and even if you end up disagreeing, you will at least create that empathy. Because at the moment, a lot of false binaries are being created, right?

[02:03:24] So, a great example of a false binary that's very relevant is they're trying to create it, make it seem like everybody is either pro-vax or anti-vax, right? So, all of a sudden, people who never in our lives had been called anti-vax before, you're suddenly being anti-vax, anti-vaxxer, anti-vaxxer, right? Anti-vaxxer actually means somebody who is like totally against vaccines, period, right?

[02:03:48] Just like an ethical vegan is against me. Like no vaccines, I don't want them, right? Someone who doesn't want a particular vaccine out of the hundreds available is not an anti-vaxxer, or someone who simply thinks people should be free to choose whether or not they take it, that's not an anti-vaxxer, but they're trying to make it either you're pro, and thus you're even in favor of it being mandatory, or you're anti, right? And that's a totally false dichotomy.

[02:04:11] Luke Storey: It's a great distinction, yeah.

[02:04:12] Zuby: It's a totally false dichotomy that's been created, just like they tried to do this thing with the anti-racist thing. If you look into the anti-racism philosophy, the notion is that everyone is either anti-racist or racist. It's a false dichotomy. So, if you're not on board with Robin D'Angelo and Ibram Kendi, and being actively anti-racist, not just not racists, then you are complicit in a racist system and are therefore racist, right? That's the philosophy behind it. So, everyone is either an anti-racist or racist, as if there's no huge middle ground here of just not being racist.

[02:04:46] Luke Storey: That's very unproductive.

[02:04:47] Zuby: Exactly. And so, yeah. So, what did they say? Was it Maysles who said tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance? And that's what's happening, right? So, nuance is being deliberately removed, and once that happens, people fall into these factions and it just becomes this us versus them thing. And people also make assumptions about people's views, which are wholly incorrect, right? Every day, I get people on social media who literally project things that, apparently, they think I believe, that I don't believe.

[02:05:22] I've never said, I've never claimed, et cetera, but all of a sudden, they've kind of thrown me in that box. And so, it's just that. So, there's a lot of nuance to all of this, and it can be difficult to do online, but certainly, in the real world, when you talk to people, and you can see them face to face, and have a more nuanced, longer conversation, then it helps to do that. And it creates empathy, because then at least, you can understand the other side. You can understand other people's positions. People have different experiences as well.

[02:05:55] There might be somebody who knows, I don't know, say, somebody's dad died of COVID, right? There's a good chance that that person will be more afraid of the virus itself than somebody who doesn't know anybody who's died of it. Maybe they don't even know anyone who's caught it, or if they did, it was like a mild cold or whatever. So, that's anecdotal, but it still has an impact, just like somebody who—people, we are emotional creatures, too, so understand that. And there's a balance between, I'm very much like a facts guy.

[02:06:30] Like give me the facts, facts, facts, right? Fax and data. But I do understand that someone's personal experience or the experience of someone close to them can also skew their perspective to the point where the facts kind of land a little bit flat on them. So, again, if both people can be compassionate and empathetic, then you can help people to navigate that, and I think that's where you get that. You get that unity, you get the proper compassion, and it's not just like a fight all the time.

[02:07:01] Luke Storey: Yeah, agree to disagree. Sometimes, like that's your common ground. It's like, oh, this is great, we share something, we don't agree. You don't agree with me, I don't agree with you. We have that in common. Cool. That might be the only thing we agree on, but it's pretty simple.

[02:07:16] Zuby: It's being an adult as well. Like literally, there's no two people in the world who agree on absolutely everything. There just aren't. Like if you get into the nitty gritty, like you'll have people who you generally agree with. If you go into super detail, like we all have disagreements, man. So, it's just part of life. It's part of being an adult. We all have to live in the same society, and function, and not kill each other, so let's do it.

[02:07:39] Luke Storey: Yeah, man. Last question for you. Who have been three teachers or teachings that have influenced your life and your work that you could share with us?

[02:07:46] Zuby: My dad, my mom, and Jesus Christ.

[02:07:48] Luke Storey: Wow. You were the fastest out of all my guests. Usually, people are like, oh, man, what? Oh, that's a tough one. They get all befuddled. That's good. Tell us about your new album.

[02:07:58] Zuby: Word of Zuby. So, it's out now. It is my sixth album, my ninth release in total. It's my most personal and provocative work to date. Honestly, it touches on more sociopolitical and cultural issues than any of my previous albums, but it's also very positive, and inspirational, and motivational. I'm not just like preaching and beating people over the head with super strong messaging. It's a very enjoyable album. The beats are really dope. Got producers on there from all over the world. Got some great collaborations with both British and American artists. And go, listen to it. I'm very, very proud of this album.

[02:08:36] Luke Storey: Yeah, I'm going to be honest with you, and anyone that knows me knows this, I don't like rap music. There was a period like in the beginning of the '90s when N.W.A. came out, and I got Straight Outta Compton on vinyl, and I loved the album, man. I was super into it, but that's like the only rap I've ever really listened to. I mean, I don't still, but there was a moment there, but I listened to your album, because I follow your work, and I was like, oh, what's this guy up to? And it's really good, dude. It's really good. So, I want to encourage people to-

[02:09:05] Zuby: Yeah, please give it a shot. Even if you're someone who doesn't typically listen to rap, give it a shot, because a lot of people don't like rap, partly because of the messaging.

[02:09:13] Luke Storey: Well, that's kind of been my thing. I'm just like, dude, I don't need more negativity in my head, I'm trying to like detox negativity, right? I mean, it's just like, I don't listen to like thrash metal or like Satanic-

[02:09:25] Zuby: Death Metal.

[02:09:26] Luke Storey: Death metal, it's just not my energy, and that's kind of the thing. Like I don't mind a beat and like someone rapping, it's just like the content of the lyrics. I think that's why when I listen to yours, I was like, oh, this is actually dope. Basically, I mean, I only heard a couple of tracks, but it's like the conversation we just had that rhymes and is going to flow. You know what I mean?

[02:09:44] Zuby: Yeah.

[02:09:44] Luke Storey: And I was like, cool, like I can get behind this.

[02:09:48] Zuby: Last year, someone said that my music is like, I think they were trying to diss me. It wasn't a fan, but they said like, they said that one of my songs sounds like a stream of tweets or something like that, and I think they said it as a diss, but I was like, man, my tweets are dope, like you're actually pretty accurate. That's kind of how I rap. It's actually why I like Twitter, because it's kind of like rapping, but without rhyming.

[02:10:09] Luke Storey: Yeah, it is. It is, man. Well, thank you so much for coming on.

[02:10:12] Zuby: You're welcome.

[02:10:13] Luke Storey: So, you got a podcast, too, give us your website, social media, all that stuff for people who want to follow you.

[02:10:17] Zuby: Yeah, sure. You can follow me on all social media, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube @ZubyMusic, that's Z-U-B-Y music. And if you go to zubymusic.com, you'll find links to everything on there. My music, my merchandise, my podcast, zubymusic.com, you'll find it all there.

[02:10:33] Luke Storey: Cool. Very prolific, man. You got the book. You got all these things. Thanks, man. Thanks for coming through Texas. Welcome. Welcome to the States. Enjoy your trip. And it's been a real pleasure to hang out with you today.

[02:10:56] Zuby: It's a pleasure, Luke. Appreciate it.

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