Ukraine, Zelensky, Kyiv discussed on The Rich Roll Podcast
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But before we do that, can we just talk a minute about the kind of meta simulation theory quality to all of this as well? Starting with zelensky. I mean, it's unbelievable. This guy. Comedian, actor. He was on Dancing with the Stars. I mean, he's certainly a showman. But the meta nature of his career trajectory is fascinating in that he's this guy who created the sitcom that he starred in, where he's a high school teacher who goes on a political rant that's filmed by one of the students. That goes viral and he ends up president. That's the narrative. It's like the west wing meets V for something like that. This is the show, which was really popular. Interestingly, he, you know, his first language is Russian. And I think there's something about the kind of integration between Ukraine and Russia that makes this even more complicated because every millions of people in Ukraine have relatives and friends and et cetera that live in Russia and vice versa. That makes this tricky. But then for him to become the president and for vitali Klitschko, the multiple world heavyweight champion boxer to be mayor of Kyiv. The fact that Louis C.K. was meant to be playing a show in Kyiv, like the second night of the invasion, it turns out he was never in Kiva, I guess. No, he didn't make it. But all of this makes it very strange. He's not, he shouldn't be on that list. He's not one of those guys. Let's go. Let's go is going to put on a gun at some point. He's going to go full Rambo, I think, at some point. And the juxtaposition of seeing those images of Putin where he's sitting at the end of a super long table or at the end of one big kind of atrium and his advisers are literally 50 feet away from him. Versus zelensky, who's in a T-shirt and he's literally doing selfie videos speaking directly to not just his people, but to the world in this unedited kind of unfiltered way. And standing his ground and saying, this is what we're doing. I mean, is so fascinating and potent. He is. He's saying it. He's dropping one liners like, I don't need a ride. I need weapons or to be or not to be that is the question. And for us, let me answer to parliament in England. It is to be a great line. And I'd like to say also he is Jewish and that matters because the lie that Putin was telling everybody was that Ukraine had been taken over by Nazis. I mean, this is all stuff I'm sure a lot of your listeners already know. But if you don't, if you're not following it, not everyone's following it as closely. So that's a lie that they used and excuse they used to sell this invasion. We sold the Iraq invasion with the weapons of mass destruction there. Nazis have taken over Ukraine. When in reality, zelensky is the offspring of a sole survivor from a family that was murdered in the Holocaust from Ukraine. He's the descendant of a sole survivor. And he's now president and he's wearing this mantle. And also it matters because that's why I was Joe. We were joking last week that I was going to share this business idea of called dial a Jew. If you or your friends come across somebody who is trying to use the Nazi argument or say something about Nazis and the service of some college you first have them we'll walk you through what you're talking points, making sure you got it. And so the reason that I was going to make that joke, although maybe some people think it's in poor taste, I was going to make the joke in relation to some of these vaccine requirement people that are using the Nazi comparison or the Holocaust comparison. But it matters because when you use it even in a comparison, the vaccine thing, which is absurd, it then makes it easier to use it in another way that's absurd. And to use it in this way is the most absurd we've seen yet. But it definitely is the most preposterous. It's the most preposterous, but it didn't start there. The reason he's able to do that is because it's been used too many times before. It's been used in situations even on the left using it to paint Trump as a Hitler character when he's not. So it's like it's used on both sides too often. And then you create this situation where the Jewish president of Ukraine, the sole survivor is called the lead Nazi. Right. The idea that we must unseat this Nazi regime in Ukraine. And this is a just infiltration of this country. Begs the larger conversation around, is it even possible to have an iron curtain of information in 2022, which is what he's trying to achieve. There was a great episode of the daily today. Did you listen to I did not one today? No. So it's all about the disinformation propaganda war. And it's told through the story of a guy in Ukraine who hadn't heard from his dad who lives in Russia, like they were like, I don't know, 7, ten days into the conflict. His dad hasn't called. He's like, why wouldn't my dad call me to see if I'm okay? So he calls up his dad. And he's like, dad, you know, just so you know, here's what's going on. We're getting bombed and all this stuff in his dad just says, no, no, no, no. Let me tell you what's going on. And he just parroted the propaganda lie about unseating the Nazis, right? Right. And his dad being an older guy. He did his own research, right? He bought into the propaganda lie. And it's fascinating. The extent to which you can win hearts and minds with state controlled media. But how does that play out in a social media infused global community? So we've seen Russia shut down Facebook, shut down Twitter. I believe I read the other day that today, Monday, they're going to shut down Instagram as well, which 80 million people young people in Russia use for communicating. I'd read a story that I can't verify and I don't have the article in front of me right now, but that FSB agents were going to the homes of tech executives from Google and places like that to either intimidate them or imprison them. So the war against an open journalistic ecosystem is very much for real. But if you're in your 20s and you're getting your hands on VPNs or you know people that live in the west, like this, you can't keep it out on some level. For a period of time..