#464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism

**Lex Fridman** (0:00)
The following is a conversation with Dave Smith, an outspoken and at times controversial anti-war libertarian, comedian and podcast host. 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 Call of Duty for Video Game Fun, Tax Network USA for figuring out your tax problems. Notion for collaborating with your mates and integrating AI in the whole process. Shopify for selling stuff online. And BetterHelp for figuring out the problems of your mind. Choose wisely, my friends. If you're watching or listening to this on Spotify, I decided to start putting the same ad reads for me at the beginning as I do on Apple Podcasts and the RSS feed. Since a lot of folks in the survey said that they actually like the random non-sequitur, weird, strange, chaotic things I talk about in these ad reads, then I said that they would be happy to skip when they don't feel like listening. I do make it easy to skip with timestamps on screen and in the description. And I'm not adding ads in the middle. So hopefully this whole thing works for you. Let's see. I do try to make the ad reads interesting and personal, often related to stuff I'm reading or thinking about. But if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I'm grateful for them. Sign up, buy their stuff, whatever it is. I enjoy it. Maybe you will too. Also, if you want to get in touch with me for whatever reason, go to lexfridman.com/contact. And now, on to the full ad reads. Let's go. This episode is brought to you by Call of Duty Warzone Cue Music. And the return of the iconic Vardansk map. It is out now. The wait is over. Vardansk is back. This reminds me of how much I like Schwarzenegger movies. I've been talking back and forth with Robert Rodriguez, who is a legendary filmmaker, in part for the action movies he creates, in part for the improvisational genius that he has. Anyway, talking to him, learning about him, thinking about his work and watching his work reminded me how much I love action films. And I think of Call of Duty, given its realism. As an action movie, I can be a part of, I can be inside of, I can participate in. I can tell the story of the movie with my own actions. You can download Call of Duty Warzone for free and drop into the Vardansk map now, Rated M for Mature. I don't know why I'm doing the movie and I'll say a voice, but let's keep going with it. This episode is brought to you by Tax Network USA, a new sponsor, an awesome sponsor, a full service tax firm focused on solving tax problems for individuals and small businesses. I just did a really, really, really deep dive on theoretical computer science. I shouldn't say with who. One of the most brilliant people I've ever met. Super technical episodes, super long episode. Anyway, P versus NP came out briefly. It's not their thing, but it is a thing I've thought about for many years. Of course, it's the elephant in the room of theoretical computer science. So I took a lot of courses on complexity and always loved the puzzles of algorithms, of data structures, of proving various things about algorithms. I love that field. Anyway, I mention that because when I think about the United States Tax Code, what I think about is complexity. And I wonder, there will be a future when AI will be unleashed on that tax code and will be used to simplify it. There's nothing that brings more joy to me than taking a complicated thing that makes a lot of people's lives super painful. And simplifying it, and therefore, helping those people have less pain in their lives. And I think the US Tax Code is the source of probably more pain in the United States than anything else. Anyway, you want to have really great people to help you deal with that pain, essentially. To relieve you of that pain, to relieve you of that stress. That burden can be the heaviest of burdens. Anything financial related could just break you. So, great professionals that work on taxes are really a gift to the world. Anyway, talk with one of their strategists for free today. Call 1-800-958-1000 or go to tnusa.com/lex.
This episode is also brought to you by Notion, a note taking and team collaboration tool. They have been integrating AI better than basically any company I've seen. Always at the cutting edge. Always thinking how a YAC could be actually used to solve practical problems. Not for a prototype, not for a demo, not for a thing to post on X. Look at the cool thing I did, but actually make you productive at the thing you do at the individual level and at the team collaboration level. This really is the problem. AI should not just be a thing that makes you dream of the possibilities of what's to come. It should be a thing that just makes your life easier every single day. And despite what people think, it's actually not that easy to integrate AI in this kind of way because human intelligence, human ingenuity, the speed at which we're able to figure out a puzzle and know the next hop from the puzzle, the tab, tab, tab, tab, vibe coding thing, but applied to document collaboration, document development, document summarization, all that kind of stuff. That's what Notion is incredible at. You could try Notion AI for free when you go to notion.com/lex, that's all lowercase notion.com/lex, to try the power of Notion AI today. This episode is also brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere with a great looking online store. I've recently returned to Nietzsche. And I wonder, what is the Nietzschean concept that explains the will of the entrepreneur? What is that? Is that trying to reach for power? Is it trying to reach for immortality? Is it trying to find the meaning of existence in the creative act? There is something deeply creative, of course, to the entrepreneurial pursuit. It is fundamentally creative. It feels like pain. It feels like risk. It feels like chasing money. It feels like chasing impact or having a positive influence on people's lives. But when you're in it, I think about Johnny Ive, when you're in it at your best, what you're doing is you're creating. That's probably what Nietzsche would say. It probably is the creative act is the drug, the joy, the will that pulls at the entrepreneurial heart. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/lex. All lowercase go to shopify.com/lex to take your business to the next level today. This episode is also brought to you by Better Help, spelled H-E-L-P, help. Since we mentioned Nietzsche, I must go to maybe another intellect, Cole Young and the Shadow, the archetypes. I wonder how much of our existence is trying to contend with the uniqueness of the person we see in the mirror and the bin society puts us in. There is something about especially the American spirit that resists categorization, the binning process.