#441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism

**Lex Fridman** (0:00)
The following is a conversation with Cenk Uygur, a progressive political commentator and host of The Young Turks. As I've said before, I will speak with everyone, including on the left and the right of the political spectrum, always in good faith with empathy, rigor, and backbone. Sometimes I fail, sometimes I say stupid, inaccurate, in eloquent things, and I frequently change my mind as I'm learning and thinking about the world. For all this, I often get attacked, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. But just know that I'm aware when I fall short, and I will keep trying to do better. I love you all. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got Salie for eSIM when you're traveling, Policy Genius for insurance, AG1 for health, Masterclass for learning, Element for electrolytes, and NetSuite for your business. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to get in touch with me for a variety of reasons, to give feedback, submit questions for AMA, and so on, go to lexfriedman.com/contact.
And now on to the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by Salie, a brand new eSIM service offering several affordable data plans in over 150 countries. I've had a bunch of experience when I was traveling where it was a legitimate pain in the ass to get a SIM card or an eSIM working. And being abroad in the foreign land, far away from home, all these signs and ways of life you don't understand all around you, all that combined with the fact that you don't have access to this little tablet of wisdom, which is the smartphone. It can be a real pain in the ass. So a great eSIM that works, easy to set up, is worth its weight in gold. That said, when I was in the Amazon, it was also nice to have no reception whatsoever, to be completely disconnected from the world. At first it was painful, but after going rapidly through all the stages of grief, I was able to discover freedom. I was able to, let's say, quiet the mind to a degree that I'm not usually able to in the busyness of urban life. And the smartphone certainly is a thing that creates that turmoil in the mind. It can always look and something in there can just perturbed the mind and now it's off to the races. So not having a smartphone to do that is a really nice catalyst for peace. Anyway, when you are traveling, you should have a smartphone and it should work and it should be easy. Go to salee.com/lex and choose the one gigabyte salee data plant to get it for free. That's salee.com/lex to get one free gig of salee. This episode is also brought to you by Policy Genius, a marketplace for insurance, all kinds, life, auto, home, disability and so on. Really nice tools for comparisons. Having talked to Peter Levels, I realized how awesome it is to create a website that compares stuff, whether it's hotels, neighborhoods and whatever else. It's nice. Some of it is an interface challenge, some of it is a data challenge, all of that. When a company, when a service does it well, it just makes life easier. You can compare stuff, you can choose the thing that's right for you. I know how powerful it is because most people do it poorly. And it's a real pain in the ass. Like with hotels, booking hotels, I just saw, I need to check out a little bit better that Peter threw up, hotel list. That looks really exciting. You'd be able to compare all different kinds of hotels. Anyway, Policy Genius does that for insurances. You know, insurance is a fascinating thing because basically life is full of risks. Much of progress in a human life occurs when you take risks. You can use insurance to kind of muffle the pain felt when, after taking the risk, the negative consequences of your experience. So it's really interesting just looking at the landscape of human experience and seeing how insurance muffles the lows. It can create a floor, a protection against the lows, especially the real lows. And it works, of course, because a lot of people don't experience those lows and therefore they're funding the people that do. It's a fascinating system. And I'm glad we figured out a way how to take risks together in the society and help each other out financially for the people who feel the pain of it. So with Policy Genius, you can find life insurance policies that start at just $292 per year for $1 million of coverage. Head to policygenius.com/lex or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com/lex.