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Some Future Day evaluates technology at the intersection of culture & law.Â
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Join Marc Beckman and his esteemed guests for insider knowledge surrounding how you can use new technologies to positively impact your life, career, and family. Marc Beckman is Senior Fellow of Emerging Technologies and an Adjunct Professor at NYU, CEO of DMA United, and a member of the New York State Bar Association’s Task Force on Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets.   Â
Marc Beckman: [00:01:00] Tucker,
it's great to see you
today. Thank you for joining me on Some Future Day. How are you?
Tucker Max: Good, man. Thanks for having me, Marc.
Marc Beckman: Good, good. [00:02:00] So, Tucker, I want to start with your background a little bit, but, you know, your background is so eclectic, so is it, is it fair to say, from a starting point, that you are a very successful, critically acclaimed author?
Can we start with that?
Tucker Max: Very successful. I'm not sure how critically acclaimed I am,
Marc Beckman: Well, they covered it, it's acclaimed, right?
Tucker Max: successful It's acclaimed. But how many books, like, combine, like, how many actual physical books have you sold, um, to date? Like, your books, like, Tucker Mac's books?
the ones where I was the primary author, I think about four ish million. If you add in a couple of the ones I've ghostwritten for celebs, then we're well over five, maybe close to six now. Yeah,
Marc Beckman: I mean, those numbers are astronomical. How many books does the average, you know, let's say it's a New York Times best selling
author in 2024, like how many books do they need to sell to hit that number one slot
today on average?
Tucker Max: [00:03:00] probably 7, 500 to
10, 000 in a week. Usually we'll get them number one.
Marc Beckman: 500 books gets them to number one and yet you've sold in your career over 5 million books? Yeah, I mean, that's pretty reMarcable. What an accomplishment. and then you moved on to build a publishing house, um, which you, which
you sold recently, and some of your authors there really had great success.
We'll get into it in a second, but how many books do you think you, you were responsible for selling combined your personal with the world? Books that you wrote and you ghost, you have ghostwritten plus whatever fell under your publishing arm.
Tucker Max: Well, so, um, I got a, I mean, I got a major Trump card to play cause I, we worked with David Goggins and we did his books and so he's well over seven or 8 million now. So and then if you combine, you know, there's a few others that we had that were decent that might total about a half a million ish So if you [00:04:00] put all of mine plus all of his we're over 10 million and maybe 12 ish
Marc Beckman: That's incredible. Some of the other
authors that you worked with were, um,
Beyond Goggins, I think you did Tiffany Haddish's book, right, recently, and were you, were you working with Jordan Peterson?
Tucker Max: yeah, we did we did So he had a book come out. It's been pulled off the shelves not because of anything we did But, uh, he had some copyright issues with the art and the artists that he hired to do the art. But he did a book of, um, essentially fairy tales for kids that he wrote, uh, and we, we published that and it did actually really well in its first, uh, month or so.
And then the original copyright holders of the art had some issues and they weren't able to work that out. So, but yeah, we work with Jordan. I know him real well and Michaela also, yeah.
Marc Beckman: So I'm curious, like, when we started, you know, the conversation, we were talking about,
like, the definition of success and successful as it relates to books, like, if we just hone in on book
[00:05:00] sales, specifically, if we say that's the definition of a successful book for the sake of this conversation, How, how do you get to 5 million units?
How do, how does an author today, um, sell book volume if we're living in a society where it feels like most people don't want to consume long form content, written
Tucker Max: Yeah, um, it's a great question. So, uh, I've had this question my whole life, and anyone who sells a lot of copies of a book will get the same question. And I'm gonna tell you the real answer, Marc, um, that most people who sold a lot of copies don't want to admit this is the real answer, but it is. I don't want to say luck, because it's not pure luck, but what it is, is You have to have the right message at the right time, right?
That also gets noticed in the right way, I should say. And if, when you have that triangle, then that's when you get massive breakout hits, you know, like, [00:06:00] uh, if my books had come out today, I think they still would have been successful, but in no way, shape, or form, I think what they have had the cultural impact or the sales numbers, that they did today, uh, that they did when they came out.
Because what I was saying when I came out was Very fresh, uh, very unique. And it hit a large audience in a way that nothing had ever interacted with them before. Right. And so, and you look at almost every major, especially nonfiction bookseller. Fiction is a little different. But, uh, for non fiction, man, it is so hard to orchestrate and to construct because so much of it relies on proper timing, and timing in a way that is very hard to do.
To sort of master and read. Fiction's a little different. You can take some extremely skilled fiction writers, like James Patterson has done this. He has built an entire company [00:07:00] that, um, essentially manufactures very high selling fiction. He's kind of figured out his pattern and his style that works with a certain audience.
And now he sells, you know, anywhere from 30 to a hundred million books a year based on just replicating that style. Nonfiction is very different, right? No one's ever been able to replicate that in nonfiction at any sort of scale at all.
Marc Beckman: So the numbers that Goggins
created with you are pretty, pretty massive, right? Are you saying 7 million units for David Goggins?
Tucker Max: Yeah, something I think more maybe now, because he has two books out now, yeah.
Marc Beckman: So what was it about,
um, culture, zeitgeist and his personal story that aligned, why was that such a success?
Tucker Max: So anything I'm going to tell you is my best hypothesis, right, because it's one of those things where, you know, like, it's like esports, you know, you see all the commentators on ESPN or whatever talking about why some team won the game. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, right, and it's no different.
But [00:08:00] now that being said, I was in the middle of it and I saw it. What I think David, David was very popular before his book came out, but his book really crystallized what he was saying. And I think David is essentially the, complete antithesis of a lot of toxic things in our culture. there is a lot of toxic femininity in our culture, a lot of toxic victimization, a lot of attitudes that people have that are very either anti man or anti responsibility.
And David is the ultimate embodiment of that. of the response to those, those sort of toxic lines of thinking. And, uh, like in a way that you could never make up. I mean, the dude was a Navy SEAL. He set the world record for pull ups. He like ran, he ran ultra marathons, like, uh, in a way that no human can do.
Like he, he embodies the toughest man alive. And he has a [00:09:00] mental framework that he uses that is the opposite of sort of victimization. Right? And so people who are looking for For that, he embodied that in a way, I don't want to say masculinity, he embodies responsibility and toughness and a hardcore attitude that I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone in media embody and then be able to tell the story of that.
He doesn't just have a great mindset, he can tell you what his mindset is in a way that makes sense to you and then feels like you can apply to yourself, you know?
Marc Beckman: Yeah, I got it. That's interesting. So if you take the concept of success beyond publishing, I mean, I look at you honestly, like a, just a very successful person in general. Um, so how would you define personal success and then what would you suggest people do to
achieve [00:10:00] personal success?
Tucker Max: Yeah, that's a really good question. I get that a lot, um, and my answer has changed a lot. And in fact, the last 18 months, especially, it's really, I said this for a long time, but I didn't really live it until the last 18 months. Um, when I've come to, I'm 48 now, and when I've come, I've had a lot of different forms of success.
And most of them, quite honestly, are hollow and I don't want to say meaningless, but they're, they're, they're not as, uh, uh, nurturing or, um, uh, valuable as I thought they would be. You know, like, when you're a poor, broke, nobody, young guy, you think, I thought that fame and women and money would solve all my problems.
And listen, fame was kind of cool in certain ways, and women are great, and money is also, you know, it's always better to have money than [00:11:00] not have money, but um, it made me only like 10 percent happier, like it didn't solve all my problems, which is a mind blowing thing to a young, young dude, at least it was to me.
And then I kind of just kept going up the scale, well I started this company, well maybe it's more money, well maybe it's more fame, well maybe it's this accomplishment, and I eventually realized it was nothing extra. Right. Um, and it took me until I was about 36, 37 to figure that out, that there was nothing out there in the world that was going to make me feel better.
then I had to realize I had to kind of start the inward journey. And then I realized, oh man, a lot of things. And um, the main, what I've kind of come to is I've realized that first off, I get to define for myself what success means. Most people, I don't think. Ever actually stop and ask themselves, what do I what, what does success mean to me?
What do I actually want? Because when you, like people will say, you know, money, cars, uh, family, like they'll [00:12:00] name things. But if you actually ask people questions, and I was no different. You actually ask them, why do you want that? What do you want out of that? What you realize is that most people don't have an answer.
They don't know why. And I think I was very similar too. I'm not saying, you know, most people and I'm perfect. No, no, no. I was, I was like most people in this regard. And so it wasn't until my mid thirties, I started actually unpacking why I wanted what I thought I wanted. Right. And the honest answer is mainly because I've been told by society or media or my parents or whoever.
That, um, that's the thing I should want, right? And I never actually stopped to ask myself what I actually wanted. And I didn't, a lot of times I have the experience to even know. And then as I got into my mid to late thirties, I realized it dawned on me through a lot of experiences that the only thing that really matters are the relationships I have with the people I love and care about and, and the work I do that benefits them.
And now [00:13:00] in my mid thirties, I thought that meant building wealth, building companies, things like that. I've come to realize that that stuff, it's not bad, it's just not really the ultimate expression of, of, of, of, of what, yeah, of success, for me. Um, and I think it, what my, what I've found is, it's, what I have now, what I've built now is at least a far better expression of success for me.
I live on, you know, a ranch in Dripping Springs, which is like an hour outside of Austin, and I spend pretty much all my time with my children and my wife. Like, I don't just love my family. I actually like them, and I like spending time with them, and I like helping my children grow and have experiences and learn, and that's very fulfilling and nurturing to me.
And then we also, you know, we have land, and it's not just like we have land and we're on it. We're not a consumer of the land. Like, I've really come to understand in the last three years here what it means to be a steward of land, right, to build the soil, to raise [00:14:00] animals, to create a system that is nurturing and productive for everything alive on this soil, right, or on this ranch.
And like, that's been really, really rewarding. And so now, man, success for me, the way I would say it is living my life my way, but it's really hard to actually understand what you, what your way is. And sometimes you kind of have to go through the whole cycle of, Oh, I'm going to do all these other things and realize they don't work before I get to the thing that does for me.
Um, and uh, uh, that's how I, my specific definition of success is doing those things. Um, now, at the same time, Marc, uh, I, I know you pretty well. You live a, a, a different life, and I think you, you probably feel just as successful as I do. And there's nothing wrong with, that's not like one life is right and one life is wrong.
I can see, I know many people who are very happy and very [00:15:00] content and very satisfied and live a very different life than I do. So it's not about, you know, everyone should be on land with a bunch of kids doing what I do. No, that doesn't fit everybody. That doesn't fit everybody. That doesn't fit everybody.
But, um, uh, this is my expression of it, and I got there by really asking myself over years and more than a decade, what do I want, why do I want this, and why is this success to me? This is where
Marc Beckman: I think it's interesting,
Tucker, like the audience could be looking at you saying, well, isn't it easy
for this guy, he's made a fortune, he's sold five million books, he's sold a book company,
like, it's easy for him
to say this now, but I know so many people who are wealthy
and completely devoid of
life, of passion, of love. right?
Of love. I know so many people like this, and I think that You're a rich person because of what you said about your children and your wife. Like you, you like being with them and I can really truly relate to that too. And I don't think it's so much about, um, the environment that you're living in, whether it's, [00:16:00] um, you know, in a, uh, rural environment like where you live versus Uh, an urban environment where I live, um, maybe to a certain extent, we'll get into this concept of interconnectivity in a minute, but, um, you know, I think it's really interesting, uh, that you, that you landed ultimately on this point of, like, love the ones you're with, and that's, that's kind of it.
I hate to be quoting Crosby, Stills, and Nash. I was also thinking about John Lennon, um, while you were talking about, like, life is what happens when I'm busy doing other things and, or making other plans. And I, I think it's like. Time moves quickly, but it allows for you to center at some point. If you could force yourself, if you could have enough discipline to look internally to say, why is it that I want these things?
Then it can allow for that individual to find true love of life and the people that she or he is with, right? It's an interesting way to look at success. I, I, I really, um, I admire that. going back into the publishing side of things, I think it's [00:17:00] interesting. You're, you're Very, very, um, focused, I know, when it comes to writing.
Um, you know, for example, I was thinking like, Caitlin Clarke is in the news right now a lot from the WNBA, and I was wondering, like, do you think someone like Caitlin Clarke should write a book? And then if so, like, what would be the focus for her? How would you focus her attention towards Um, messaging and, and, um, you know, what writing tips would you give her in general?
Tucker Max: Yeah, um, Caitlin Clark could absolutely write a book. Um, the, the question for her would be why does she, why does she want to do it? What does she want to get from it? Right? Um, uh, like you can make a good tactical argument both ways for her. I could see a young rookie in any sports league being very, uh, averse to writing any sort of memoir type, uh, story because they're, they're just beginning on their [00:18:00] professional career.
Right. And so,
Marc Beckman: below a hundred years old.
Tucker Max: right. Well, it's not about age. It's where you are relative to the hierarchy that you've decided to join. Right. And so she's decided to join the WNBA. So, um, I could, like, the, without knowing her and knowing what her goals are from the outside, the best book for her probably is something that is a, uh, sort of a personal growth self help, inspirational type book, either for young girls or young female athletes.
Thanks. Um, because, uh, that, she absolutely has, uh, an immense amount of expertise and authority on. And, um, uh, she could, that kind of book, I think, would probably resonate. I mean, she's just She's basically the most successful female college basketball [00:19:00] player of all time, right? At least by the stats. And so for her to write a book, it doesn't have to be about basketball, although she could definitely do a basketball book, although if I would probably do a, like a video course or whatever, something that's higher dollar.
And it's more geared toward female basketball player athletes if you want to do that. The book could be more either young women or young women athletes or a little bit of both. And how do you succeed in your chosen sport or activity as a young woman in today's world? She's got to be one of the top experts right now for that.
So if you want to talk about like, why did nonfiction books succeed? Right message, right time. Right. So like, I don't know her at all. I haven't really seen a lot of in depth interviews with her, but if she came out and gave a very, I would bet if she. Came out and gave a message that was very wholesome, very responsibility driven, very, [00:20:00] uh, female empowering, but not in a way where it's like anti men or anti society, but was about taking real responsibility for yourself, for what you want, and doing the work to get there.
Um, I bet that book, that message would really resonate right now, definitely with her audience and maybe with a broader audience. Like if you're looking for what's the right message right now that's going to hit, I mean I can tell you because you always want to look at the edges first, right? The edges right now, the easiest place to see them for young people is TikTok and to a lesser degree Instagram.
And the messages that are really resonating, I see resonating with a lot of women, not all. But a lot are sort of what, uh, what's referred to as like a trad wife message, you know, tons of young girls who are super into almost a return to old school conservative values, but with a twist. Not a submissive, [00:21:00] patriarchal way, but, uh, uh, in a way where it's like, I'm choosing to have a high responsibility life that, uh, that puts, you know, I'm choosing to stake out a certain space.
and own this space and not try to be a super mom or not try to be everything to everybody. Either I'm going to be great in my career or I'm going to be great as a wife and mother or whatever it is. But it's a high responsibility, high agency message, right? And uh, uh, if she were to embody, she already embodies that.
If she were to message that along with the embodiment, that book could do really well.
Marc Beckman: Tucker, is that Tradwife concept
what the Kansas City Chiefs, uh, kicker got destroyed,
Tucker Max: Yeah, sort of, sort of.
Marc Beckman: that graduation speech he gave?
Tucker Max: It's a weird thing, Marc, because you see that message coming from two different sides and it's not the same message, but it looks the same. On one side, I think you have sort of old school, American 50s, [00:22:00] patriarchal sort of fundamentalism that's trying to revive itself in a certain way, um, and that, that message is out there and it's coming through a lot of those channels.
But then, it's like next to it, there's a different message, it's sort of parallel but it's not the same. It's like my wife is, I see my wife going through this now, in no way, shape or form. My wife, in so many ways, was a modern woman and realized she didn't like a lot of the aspects of, uh, the ideas behind modern feminism and that she wanted to have a certain lifestyle, right?
But she wanted, she also didn't want to be controlled, she didn't want to be dominated, she didn't want me. You know, she doesn't want a family structure where I'm the boss and she's just a servant. Like, nor do I want that. And so I think there's the trad wife concept is not about women being submissive and it's not about women, [00:23:00] um, uh, uh, you know, uh, uh, being subjugated to men.
I think that's the way a certain media wants to spin it. What did I see it, and I see this in a lot, if you actually watch the videos of a lot of those, those young girls who were, uh, uh, uh, drawn to it, what they want is the option to um instead of having to have a career be the only valid form of self expression they want motherhood, wifehood, homesteading, things like that to be a valid social expression of uh of their their life right and and i think you absolutely can do that in a way that is empowering and productive and nurturing and incredible like i'm I'm all behind that.
I love that. I think that the kicker was trying to express that. I think he just had too many maybe threads of the, um, uh, the [00:24:00] sort of patriarchal view. But although I'm not sure, because I actually listened to about 15 minutes of that speech, and I'm like, oh, like, it seems like he's being pilloried by the people who hate any sort of Yeah, anyone who's picked a certain path in any field, right, if they, if they see that path as definitive of who they are, then anyone who's picking a different path, a lot of those people will see it as a rejection of themselves.
So it seemed like a lot of the critique of that kicker's speech was not a critique of what he said, but it was a critique, this is all media, it was a critique of what they thought. Imagine T Set, right? Like I went through this when I was writing and doing all my stuff and my stuff was really big and popular and I had three books in the New York Times bestseller list.
I would say 90 percent of the media critique of me or analysis of me was not at all of me. It was their image of me. I mean, like, this was the biggest shock for me when I got to be, uh, uh, famous was like, no, almost no one [00:25:00] interacts with who you actually are or what you're actually saying. They interact with their image of it.
And then, and it's like, that was so hard for me to understand, and to, uh, even process. Like, cause there'd be like these op eds in the Washington Post about me, I'm like, who the hell are they talking about? Like, this has nothing, what are they, this has nothing to do with me. And I think Harrison got caught in that vortex a little bit.
I think he was trying to thread the needle and really trying to, to kind of make, I think a valid point. Uh, uh, and, and, and a lot of the, if you actually watch this speech. And then you look at the reaction, at least 80 percent of the reaction is not at all to what he said.
Marc Beckman: Weren't they cheering in the beginning? I think the audience
was cheering in the beginning.
Tucker Max: the end, too.
Like, like, most, I mean, it was a sympathetic audience, for
Marc Beckman: So from your perspective, then, has feminism,
kind of like the, pendulum of feminism, uh, taken on a swing that's so extreme,
um, that, um, the [00:26:00] image, I'm going back to your concept of like reality versus the image or perception, so is the image of
what feminism should be today hurting what a lot of women in America actually want to be?
Tucker Max: I mean, just go look at TikTok and go look. Yes, you can see the women, young women saying this. Yeah. That's what the trad wife meme is about, right? Is it, I mean, I saw this in my wife and her friends. I'm always 10 years younger than me too, or 9 years younger than me, so it's like, she, she she She I've seen her work through this over the last 10 years.
Uh, uh, she felt like she always wanted kids, always wanted to be a wife and mother, but she, there was a big part of her that felt like if she wasn't very successful in her career, and an entrepreneur even, that somehow she wasn't valid. And that shit didn't come from me. Like, I'm not the one telling it. In no way, [00:27:00] shape, or form was I saying this shit.
I was like, baby, if you want to be a badass CEO and run a company, awesome, go do it. If you want to stay at home and be a stay at home mom and be the matriarch of this family, and that's your, Your job. I'd love that too. Like I make enough money. You can do either one, right? And so she for many years went through this process where she was an awesome mother and then she was building her business.
She's a, you know, a nurse practitioner. She owns her own medical practice and it was breaking her because she was trying to be two different things at once, right? And you can be either one. They're great. What I see is not women necessarily rejecting careers, or rejecting business, or rejecting the, what feminism in its original core arose from was the desire for some women to have alternate paths in life.
Totally valid. Makes complete sense. And I feel like the [00:28:00] pendulum swung so far. That there were a lot of women who were saying the only path now is, is, uh, business or success like in a sort of a male or corporate or consumerist definition of success. And what a lot of the young women are reacting against now is that.
So, in a way, it's sort of like the pendulum swung so far, it became, it went back to where it was, except say, it used to be, you can only be a stay at home mom, and now it's swung to you can only, that's the only way to be a valid woman, and now the only way to be a valid woman is a career woman. And I think properly, most women are like, no, like, uh, I get to choose and I get to be valid either way because it's my life and my choice, which I could not obviously agree with more.
Like that's, that makes total sense. Like I know tons of women who chose no children, career, and that can work, right? And I know, uh, tons of women who chose the other path and that can work. It's not [00:29:00] about right or wrong. It's what makes sense for you. Um, and it's like, it feels like on both sides that it's like, like, oh, the other side's not good or the other side's wrong.
No, that just doesn't make sense.
Marc Beckman: all of it. It could be all of it. Tucker, it's interesting because when you hover around these
concepts of superior content in a book, um, aligning that with the zeitgeist, what's
relevant in society and culture, and then also take it a little further and consider,
um, the messaging surrounding the
book.
Because what you're talking about when you talk about perception and image, it's, uh, connects directly to messaging. So, the copywriting that goes into the promotion, whether it's a book or an object of desire, whatever it might be, is different than that of what's in a book. And um, I'm curious, like from your perspective, how is, how can um, an entity, a Marceting entity, change the perception or create a demand and a desire for, let's say, [00:30:00] a book Um, in a way that might be different than, um, what's actually written in the book.
I mean, so many times I come across objects where I'm like, wow, the, the promise totally didn't meet the, the product, the product fall short. And you know, I've seen this time and time again, especially with celebrity Marceting. So how do you, how do you wrap together or distinguish, um, powerful Marceting copywriting versus a book that really is compelling?
Tucker Max: If we're talking about books specifically, because it's not the same thing, books in this regard, books are a little different than, than most other products. Um, I'm going to tell you, Marc, I don't think there's any way long term to sell a book that doesn't deliver, right? Because here's the way books work.
Here's the way books work in terms of Marcet. a small group of people. And they're not connected. It's not like a backroom conspiracy thing. But there's a small group of people that [00:31:00] read prolifically. That, uh, like the whales of reading. Uh, you know, like, like in the industry, there's a power law, right?
And so, uh, those people, and they're not, it's not, it used to be they were all New York City book critics like 40 years ago. That's all gone. So they're all over the world now. They're all over America. They're, you know, black, white, uh, Hispanic, old, young, whatever. Uh, they're, they're, they're all over the place and in all demographics.
But there's a small group of people that read essentially everything that comes out. And I mean that, you know, not literally, but that group covers everything. And, um, if, if that group, or a section of that group, because it's not in any way, shape, or form a homogenous group, other than, the only thing that unites them is they all read a lot.
Some of them only read romance novels, some of them read only non fiction, etc. But the, the heavy readers, the, you can call them tastemakers, they don't see themselves as tastemakers, so it's not like fashion, [00:32:00] um, if those people love a book, the book almost always is going to at least do well. Right? Um, and so the thing with books, and the reason why is because almost no one, most people buy like five books a year, right?
Like that group of people buy, you know, the average person in that group buys 500 books a year. The average person buys, uh, of book buyers, right, because there's, you know, 40 percent of people who don't, who buy zero books, but of people who buy books, they might buy, like, I think the average number is like three and a half or three and a half to five, depending on various factors.
And so, like, they're not going to buy a book until they've heard about it a bunch. And generally speaking, great books that do really well, do well because they hit that early set of readers, and then it's all word of mouth from them. Now you can orchestrate that sort of, by like if, if um, you know, you can write a book that, to a [00:33:00] specific group of people, uh, you know, let's say midwestern older female knitters.
Uh, maybe, there's probably a lot of book readers in there, but if you, you can like write a book for them that hits them and it'll spread really well in their group, um, and so you don't have to go to the book readers, you can go to, to groups. But um, generally speaking, the point is all books sell because of word of mouth.
Like any, any appreciable number of sales is always, always, always because of word of mouth. Always, and you cannot fake word of mouth, you cannot, you can orchestrate the seeding of word of mouth, but if the book doesn't deliver, it dies. It dies every time. We've all seen the celebrity whose book was everywhere the week it came out and then no one ever talked about it again, right, that's only, like you said, that's only happened a million times, um, and then we've all seen the David Goggins type books, and it's funny because David's book was everywhere the first week he came out.
But it [00:34:00] delivered, and so then it was to the moon.
Marc Beckman: is champion, it's like anything else. So it's kind of sad then, there must be amazing
books out there that are just, they don't get that word of mouth
buzz that you're talking about, and they're never
successful. Like, if you could
highlight, you know, one or two that come to mind where, you know, they really were compelling stories and, and must read,
but must, you know, books that must be read, but they never really took off.
They just flopped because they didn't, you know, capture that, that word of
Tucker Max: I'm gonna say something that's a little unfair. And I'm probably not literally true, but I'm more true than I'm untrue. If the book is good, it eventually finds its audience. That's just the truth, man. Um, I mean, like, okay, if you take literature, for example, Um, if you're a big believer in, sort of, uh, you know, literary fiction, and there's a difference and all that, okay, fine.
When Mopey Dick came out, it was panned. It wasn't until about 40 years later when a whole new set of critics discovered it and thought it [00:35:00] was amazing, called the iconic novel of the 19th century, that it took off. Um, uh, uh, Great Gatsby, uh, sold almost nothing, um, uh, when, when F. Scott Fitzgerald died. Uh, again, there was a set of critics about 30 years after he died or something who rediscovered that.
That book was almost out of print. And I think it was out of print. It might've been out of print and rediscovered it. And now it's considered a classic, right? I don't actually think Great Gatsby is that good. I don't know why people like it so much. I'm convinced a huge part of why people like it is because they're told they should like it.
That's true with a lot of books. I'll give you a really good example. In fact, Catcher in the Rye, iconic, considered one of the iconic novels of the 20th century. There is a novel that is, it has done well. It's well known. But, um, uh, it is nowhere near as well known as Catcher in the Rye. So, like, uh, that I think is way better, that is on the exact same themes, exact same [00:36:00] message, and it's ten times better.
It's called The Neon Bible by a guy named John Kennedy Toole. Who wrote Confederacy Dents, which is one of the iconic novels of the 20th century. He only wrote two books, uh, and he killed himself 'cause neither of his books got popular right away. And it was very sad and depressing. And then basically his mom took his un, he wouldn't, couldn't get published.
His mom took his books to this guy named Walker Percy, who's a famous novelist, and he read it and was like, blown away how good it was. Made sure they got published. And, and then they, they, they've done well. Uh, for sure. But, um, that's an example of a book that I'm telling you, Marc, even if you read it, you'd be shocked at.
It's not long. It's probably
Marc Beckman: it's funny because obviously I read The Catcher in the Rye, but I've never even heard
of the Neon Bible. I will certainly pick it
Tucker Max: Yeah, it's, Neon Bible is one of those books where you have to be, you have to be one of the big, the, you know, the 500 books a year readers to know about it, right? It's never caught out of there, but I think most books that are good eventually find their [00:37:00] audience.
Marc Beckman: So Tucker, going back to like your earlier comment about homesteading, um, I know that
you, you have moved your family out of the city and, and you've built and, and effectively grow a homestead. You're growing your family and you're growing your business. The land, effectively. Um, you know, to a certain extent, like, when I think about homesteading, I think about, like, maybe the traditional definition of it, you know, like, off the grid.
Um, I forget the girl's name, uh, Daryl Hannah. Remember Daryl Hannah when we were younger? You might be too young for this, but, like, Daryl Hannah kind of, like, went off the grid. I think she might have been even living with, like, Neil Young for a minute, um, but she was off the grid. And for you, um So, you don't really, uh, see it as a need to be off the grid.
In fact, you see technology as a gateway into the rest of the world so you can live and grow on, grow your family and grow the land and everything on the land from the homestead, right? So, [00:38:00] do you see any hypocrisy in, um, or any challenges in how technology is, you know, really a gateway to somebody that might want to kind of live in a traditional homestead scenario?
Tucker Max: There are definitely, the hypocrisy to me are the purists, the people who think, If you're not producing everything that you consume on your land by yourself, then you're somehow not a valid homesteader. Like, get out of here. Like, that's nonsense. I can't stand those people. They're the purest gatekeepers, right?
Uh, in any form. Like, I went through that in literature. When my books came out, people were like, This isn't, you know, draped in literary pretension, so it's not valid. It's like, screw you. You're just wrong. You just don't like me because I'm more popular than you. And same thing with, like, the purest homesteaders.
I can't stand them. And there aren't many, but they definitely exist. No, I mean, like, listen, I'm, I'm shooting this on, you can, that's my actual, you know, homestead behind me. That's not a, uh, you know, right, a scene or whatever. And like, um, [00:39:00] No, man, like, I have high speed internet, like, we're hooked up to the power grid, obviously, because why would we not be?
The power grid in Texas works. Why would we, I don't, it doesn't make, no, I have backup power. Of course, like I have backup systems. we don't have water out here, like any sort of municipal water. So, you know, we have a well, and then we also have rainwater capture. Um, and I, like, I don't homestead to sell my stuff.
Some people in order to afford to be on land, they have to run their homestead as a productive. You know, sort of a cash making venture. That's fine. I don't have to do that. So I don't, right? Like we have a herd of sheep. It's a 46. Um, and like, you know, we eat the sheep, but I don't sell, I mean, I sell some to a friend or something, but it's not like.
I'm not trying to create a sheep farm, right?
Marc Beckman: is it, Tucker? So, like, when you, like, when you talk about that you eat the sheep, like, you raise the sheep and then you kill the sheep, and then, like, how does
that work? Like, Like, walk me through it
Tucker Max: don't eat them when they're alive, Marc. That's horrible. like, I have to kill them. I mean, like I don't [00:40:00] want to torture the poor sheep.
Yeah. No, we do it all here. We do a lot of it. I shouldn't
Marc Beckman: So it's you. It's really you, right? You and your wife are really leading the way, right?
Tucker Max: If you go to my Instagram page or hers, you will see what the only thing I really post pictures about. If you want to know what someone cares about, look at the, if they're active on social media, what they post about on social media is what they care about, right? So if they're always posting videos of themselves, they're self absorbed.
That's just, I don't know if you mean that negatively. It's just what it is, right? Uh, my Instagram is, Me and my kids doing stuff mostly on the homestead. So we just raised meat chickens last year. We processed a hundred plus, which means like literally raised them from, we, we didn't hatch the chicks here.
We got the chicks from a hatchery. So they showed up on their second day of life and then we took them all the way through, killed them on the ranch, process them, right? You know, you put them in the water, you boil it a little bit to get the, you put them in the feather picker, take all that off. You [00:41:00] know, you cut the guts out.
So, you know, put them in the ice bath, wrap them up in the plastic, you know, seal that, goes in the freezer, right? So the only chicken we eat is chicken that was raised here, died here, processed here. Like, it never leaves the ranch,
Marc Beckman: did you learn how to do that on YouTube? Where'd you learn how
to do that?
Tucker Max: yeah,
Marc Beckman: Did you really?
Tucker Max: Oh, I watched the Joel Salatin videos on processing chickens.
Dude, it's not hard. It's hard. It's only hard if you don't know how to do it, right? Like, if I had to figure out how to process a chicken on my own, that would have been, uh, I could have done it, but that, would have been a lot of trial and error and a huge pain in the ass. No, um, uh, it, was, it's all YouTube, pretty
Marc Beckman: It's, you know, it's really
interesting to me because, um, you know, we're talking about like the homestead and technology and, and, um, you mentioned or you hinted towards, interconnectivity
before, um, has the,
has working on the
land and working with these animals, um, given you a certain level of
spirituality that you didn't have before living in, you know, in this, in this type of [00:42:00] setting?
Tucker Max: 100%, man. This is gonna sound This would have sounded kooky to me five or six years ago where I am now, but I'm just going to tell you kind of the truth of it. Um, I, I did a lot of therapy, you know, talk therapy, psychedelic medicine, tons of stuff before I got on the land. So I was already, um, much more connected with myself and with the universe.
I'd had, you know, sort of some deeply meaningful, uh, experiences feeling the oneness of all things in the universe. But that was, I don't want to say it was abstract, because it wasn't. It was a real experience and real feelings. But I still lived in a city, right? And I lived in Austin. And cities are by their nature disconnected, right?
Like you're not very connected to everything else around you. You're connected to the thing you work on. And the place you are in that sort of system, but it's a high as a system. It's very complex and most parts are disconnected from each [00:43:00] other, at least that you can experience as a human, right? When you get on land in rural areas. You are forced to recognize and see the connection, right? Cause like, I don't have an HOA here. I don't have municipal water. I don't have city services. I don't have other people doing most of my stuff for me. So yes, I, we are on, you know, uh, the Texas grid and there is a trash guy that comes. So I'm not like, you know, it's not off grid, like I talked about, but like when you're dealing with the land and the animals, And the plants yourself, it forces you to see them in a way you don't, at least I didn't in the city and connect with them in a way.
And it's not just a, you know, you take some LSD and you feel all the oneness of things. That's great. And that's amazing. And that was an incredibly incredible, uh, amazing experience for me. But in a weird way, it's actually more connecting. Like, when I'm done with this podcast, I'm [00:44:00] gonna go outside and, oh, I, we, I put in a new orchard this year, three new orchards.
I'm a water one of the orthards and then I'm gonna like rotate the sheep and I like I'm very actually connected on a minute to minute day to day basis. My hands are in the dirt. I am doing these things and you it forces you to connect with them just on a base level to understand this system. Like I've got to watch the sheep.
And see, okay, is there enough forage in this field for them now? How, you know, how are they reacting? Is the soil good? Is this, is that just on that level? But then also once you start to do that, if you open yourself emotionally to the experience, what I've found, man, is that. is um, I don't know any other way to say this.
I know this is going to sound kooky. I've never felt closer to God or the experience of God. And if you don't like that word, use source or the oneness of all things, because I think they're essentially the same thing, or they're describing [00:45:00] effectively the same thing. I've never felt that more than out here.
And I didn't feel it right away. It took me time to both get used to the different rhythms of nature, but to connect and to
Marc Beckman: what is that feeling? Like when you say
you're close to God, you feel close to God, what is
that
Tucker Max: It is, it is, it is the same feeling. The first time I've ever had it in my life was when I did a psychedelic medicine session that was MDMA combined with LSD. And when I took those, I had this deep feeling. that everything is an energetic system and that I am just a part of that system and all things are connected, right?
That it's a very very common experience on psychedelics whether you take them medicinally in a guided sense or you just take them recreationally is the feeling of oneness of all things, right? It is not really fundamentally different from what people would call a religious ecstatic experience and I think it's what most people feel when they [00:46:00] feel they say they have a like a very religious person will say When they have a relationship with God, or they're talking to God, I think that is generally the same experience, or at least the same category of experience.
And when I'm out on the land and dealing with things, if I'm, if I let go, it's sort of a meditation, right? I don't like sitting meditation. I try to be meditative in what I do, especially with the land and the animals and things like that. And there are moments Marc where I'll have that deep sort of, don't know, it's such a beautiful, first off, it's beyond words.
So I'm trying to use words to describe something that is way beyond words. It's
Marc Beckman: like this heightened, um, self awareness
and interconnectivity with all things like
Tucker Max: not a subtle word. It's the opposite of self awareness. It's, it's the awareness of, of all [00:47:00] other things around and the proper placing of self in that, that, that we are, all things are connected. And all things are one in a sense, like one part of one system. Like I am not the sheep literally, but we are all the eddies of energy in one, in a larger system and feeling that connection, you know, with different types of energies and different eddies or whatever, but you know, like in a stream.
You can have a particle of hydrogen and oxygen that's, it's its own thing, but it's, you're in a stream of, you know, trillions of, of particles of HGO of water. It's not a fundamentally different thing. It's the same thing. And that feeling, I don't know how else to describe it, man. I know it sounds kooky and it is, it, it is a sort of thing that like, um, until you experience, I don't think you can, I couldn't under, I could only understand it intellectually as like a weird thing that people talk about that I didn't get.
[00:48:00] Until I taught therapy, psychedelic medicine, and then I got on land, and I felt it on the medicine. I
Marc Beckman: it. I know. It's funny. Like when I go, when I go to the
mountains, I, I spend a lot of time up in the mountains. When I go, I often say to my wife or my friends, I feel like a
layer has like fallen off of me. I don't know how to explain it. It's like a metaphysical layer that like. After
a certain period of time, it just kind of falls off of me and I'm connected with my environment in different ways.
And it's not just. It's physical. It's also like sound and smell. It's all of it. Um, you know, obviously I'm speaking to you from New York City, so, um, you know, it could be easy to get there. Tucker, you know, it's interesting. Like, we keep talking about like these parallel universes today or these parallel concepts.
So, The concept of interconnectivity, um, and, and, uh, doors, doors of perception, gateways, also, uh, line up with technology. Like today, artificial intelligence is built on this concept of neural [00:49:00] networks, which is in a way emulating nature, um, interconnectivity through Wi Fi through, um, other types of technology bring us together.
So would you say that the, um, idea of technological interconnectivity is as good or, um, maybe it's bad as, as the, the concept of oneness that you're describing right now?
Tucker Max: Yeah, you know, I'm not sure,
Marc Beckman: you see what I'm trying? Do you see the point I'm trying to
Tucker Max: I do. That's, it's a very heavy, very deep, very big question,
Marc Beckman: taking you deep here today,
Tucker Max: Yeah, right. Man, I, I am not a pro tech or an anti tech guy. I, I, I'm not, there's very few things that I'm staunchly for or against. Uh, most things I think, have a proper context, right? Um, so, uh, the question to me is not, um, you know, is, is the techno technological interconnectedness good or bad?
The question to me is, how is it [00:50:00] being used? And I'm not gonna say this is the ultimate value in the universe, but the ultimate value that I can connect with and understand is enhancing human life. Right? And it, it, it, and it's, I mean, I know you can, we can drill down on that. Like that's,
Marc Beckman: Right. Because, because here's the thing Tucker. Yeah, I mean, I mean, here's the
thing, it's like, when you talk about
enhancing life and you look at nature
versus technology, um, maybe nature is richer and more fulfilling for you
individually, whereas
technology is providing, is creating, I've heard you use these specific
words, it's creating a time where we're living in quote unquote intense chaos.
Like, is, is the intense chaos coming because of technology? If the interconnectivity, uh, that, that mimics humankind in technology wasn't there, would we have this intense chaos?
Tucker Max: I'm not a believer in [00:51:00] blaming things outside of myself, right? I don't believe, like, I don't believe guns kill people. I believe people can use guns to, and do use guns to kill people. I don't believe knives kill people. People use knives to kill people. And there's no No more difference with technology, right?
Like, like, to blame something outside a human is to, in a sense, deny free will, um, and is to deny agency. And so, like, I, I stand rast staunchly on the other side of people, like, Sam Harris, right? Who's exposed himself as who he is over the last couple years. And, uh, uh, no, I like anyone who tells you it's technology's fault is, is denying humanity to me.
Like that there, it is not technology's fault. Do some technologies make certain things easier? Yeah, yeah, of course. Like, like, don't be, don't be [00:52:00] pedantic, right? But at the end of the day, somebody has to make a decision to use something in a way, whatever way that is, right? And that is where I focus, and that is what I think the thing is.
It
Marc Beckman: I, I get it, but, but what about the connection
between, let's take it a little
further, like, But for technologies, cause you, you hinted
towards this before, like we're living in a time, you didn't say it exactly like this, but we're living in a time where
like, we basically believe everything we hear
and see in, you know, vis a vis technology, and that, um, actually has a profound impact at a mass level on culture and society, right?
And maybe it's even establishing to a certain extent, you hinted toward the, towards this new cultural norms. Um, so, you know, what, what, You know, why does it, why does it feel like we're living in this chaos? Do you think it's because of technology? And do you think that these New cultural standards are being established like in a [00:53:00] false type of way or in a way that they shouldn't be established because of the messages coming through technology.
Like, but for technology's ability to deliver all this into our home, into our hand, into our, our, you know, into our kitchens, would people be the way they are today?
Tucker Max: okay, Marc, look backwards. To answer your question. So, like, before technology, right, and define technology however you want, right, because, you know, there have been major, we have very clear historical documentation of very recent technologies. Major technological cycle, right? So we know how technological cycles play out.
The pattern is there. Was there, was there ever a technological cycle that we, that there's any evidence of that we can find or see that led to chaos where there was none before? [00:54:00] No, like it's, you can't, people killed each other for as long as there have been people. People were jealous of each other and envious and all the toxic, horrific traits that people can have, uh, long before there was any, the technology was bones or the technology was a, you know, a broken rock, uh, to make a sharp edge, which is a technology, right?
Like, so, why is it now, somehow, like, oh, it wasn't chaotic before, you were around in the 70s in New York, bro, like,
Marc Beckman: I know I, I experienced it. I mean, it was a war zone, honestly, but the, but I
guess the question is like, So, with us being devoid of journalistic standards, of journalistic
integrity, um, today,
Tucker Max: don't think it ever existed, though. People are like, oh, don't you remember Walter Cronkite? He pretended to be a certain way, and maybe he even [00:55:00] believed he was that way, but like, You remember the church commission hearings? The CIA was horrible and evil and murdering all kinds of people then. There might be small periods of heightened virtue and ethical standards where larger groups of people behave in a way that is more virtuous, however you want to define that, sure.
Those, that's not the norm for human history and society. Could humans evolve beyond that? Sure. I would love that. That'd be awesome. I know the only thing I can do though, man, I can't save the world. I can't evolve humanity. I can't do any of that. No one can. But I can do my own work and I can help my wife.
I can support my wife as she does her, does her work and I can help my children learn their stuff. And I can share my learnings and experiences with the world and even people I [00:56:00] don't know can benefit from my knowledge and wisdom as I benefited from the knowledge and wisdom of other people, right? Um, that's all I can do, man, you know, and I don't believe We're definitely in a chaotic period relative to our lives, right?
I think though you and I were born in a certain country at a certain time where things were incredibly abundant and, and, and wealthy and peaceful relative to just the span of the last 5, 000 years even. Like we kind of came in a really great world. And, and things are going to be harder for a little while, okay, that's fine,
Marc Beckman: so, do you think it's transitory now? I know that
you have mentioned that you feel
Tucker Max: is transitory,
Marc Beckman: this
is like,
Tucker Max: everything is transitory.
Marc Beckman: are we in the fall of the American
empire though? From like a macro level, like, you know, like
Tucker Max: Unequivocally. Without a doubt, we are in the fall of the American Empire. Um, uh, [00:57:00] and Empire, not the American Republic. It's different. Just like the Romans had a Republic phase and an Empire phase, I think we have been in the American Empire phase for a while. I don't think anyone really recognizes it but i think when historians look back i don't know the date that they'll put probably sometime between the end of the civil war and the end of WWII and it might have been that whole period it might have been a you know multi decade period but the american empire for sure was in full force post WWII the world has been ruled by america uh it might be a velvet glove but there's an iron fist inside of it and we the world has been ruled in effect by america for the last 70 years That shit's over.
It's, it is crumbling. It is not over yet. There's still a lot of things to play out. But yeah, I mean that's, that's for sure the phase we're in.
Marc Beckman: Tucker, I think these are your
words, um, and it kind of hovers around this concept. I believe you wrote, [00:58:00] everything I thought was important was either not important or a literal illusion created to entrap me in a world
someone else had made for their benefit. What many call the matrix, though I don't believe there is one matrix, there are many.
Those are your words, right? So, so, is this kind of like what you're talking about? And, and can you elaborate a little bit more when you talk about, um, being entrapped? Like who is it that's entrapping you?
Tucker Max: I'll give you a great, let's go back to the very beginning of the conversation. Defining success. If I think success is Um, what the boomers generally as a generation think success is, which is consumerism. I have a McMansion in a fancy suburb that, uh, with a bunch of expensive cars and I have the cool gadgets, then I'm a success. interests am I actually serving? Who [00:59:00] benefits from that, actually? Not me.
Marc Beckman: The capitalistic, The capitalistic,
system.
Tucker Max: Mmm, I wouldn't call it the capitalistic system, uh, uh, I understand why you say that, uh, uh, uh, but that's not, I would, I, the people who benefit from that are the people who own the industries that I am spending my life energy on supporting. So, Ford or Chevy, whatever, Ferrari, whichever one I have. You know, uh, uh, uh, the, the, whoever built the
Marc Beckman: But you're just looking at that, that C suite executive level, the founder level. What about all of the employees, all of the people
Tucker Max: it goes deeper. It's not just Ford, right? It's, it's, uh, what is, what is the entire system that supports Consumerism, right? It really kind of goes at the highest levels. It's, it's almost all the [01:00:00] institutions in America in some way, shape, or form are support consumerism because they benefit, right?
Like, like why look at our healthcare system. Like there's nothing about it that's caring or healthy. It is literally designed to convince, to make, If you plug in the food system to make you sick, then convince you you need the things they sell to get better, and then you are hooked on those things, and then you must use those and pay them.
You are essentially using, not just your money, your life force, your time, is going to them, right? Whereas, look at where I live and how I live. I don't, I don't. Man, I guess I might have a couple of medicines, like I got Advil or something. Other than that, none of the life force and time of me or my family goes to pharma, right?
Like, it doesn't, none of it goes to any of the major food corporations, because we either raise our food ourselves or we buy it from our neighbors. [01:01:00] Right, and so like, if you want to talk about a matrix, before you even get deeper than that, just look at where do you spend your money, where do you spend your time, and who is benefiting from the efforts of your labor and your attention, right?
That's it. If you just, just go there, then it's obvious, like, who wins if you watch MSNBC? Not you.
Marc Beckman: but certainly with, um, let's
say commerce driven ecosystems, value are, values
are built throughout society. So, for example, with wealth
comes access to, you you used the word abundance earlier, access to an abundance of food. If you walk into an American superMarcet, we have more food On our shelves than any place else on the planet, more options, more, and like, yeah, I understand your point with regards to looking at
Tucker Max: on, you want me to [01:02:00] help?
Marc Beckman: It's a healthcare industry, but we are saving lives and we do have solutions to medically oriented issues better than perhaps every place else on the planet. And it's because the strongest economy on the planet has been American for all of these years.
Tucker Max: Mmm, no, the most productive, as measured by GDP, has definitely been American, for sure. Uh, productive, and economically, and beneficial are different things. Hold on, I want to go back to the, I'll show you, I'm going to show you where you're in the matrix, right? Um, so, uh, uh, you said food abundance, you started on food abundance.
So, you can actually look this up, like, if we had time, like, I, I don't want to, like, slow down, but, like, you can, I'll send it to you afterwards if you want.
Marc Beckman: show,
Tucker Max: been good studies done and good data found on what, like, a 12th century English peasant ate. [01:03:00] And most of, like, you look at, uh, uh, not what they ate was not only healthier, but they ate, they had access to, to more, uh, calorically dense foods and, and, uh, more micronutrient dense foods. So in terms of actually being healthy, like, uh, bro, if you've lined up, I'm not even picking, I'm picking 12th century England just because we have good data, not because they were super healthy necessarily, right? But if you blind up a hundred 12th century English peasants and put them all together, a hundred randomly chosen Americans and put any physical test of anything, they're going to be healthier on almost every major or almost every measure.
Marc Beckman: So assuming
that's correct, are you saying that's a result of
both commerce and technology?
Tucker Max: I am saying they lived in a different matrix. They lived in an aristocratic sort of [01:04:00] monarchic matrix. I'm not saying that's a better matrix. I'm saying that matrix was way more food and most matrices are way more actually healthy, physically healthy for people, right? The one that we're in might be better in terms of entertainment and it might be better in terms of Access to tons of novel experiences, definitely.
Like, like just what you have on your phone is access to more stuff than existed in the entire world in the 12th century, right? In terms of entertainment or whatever. So it's not about better or worse, it's about what's, what's different about, about it, right? Um, and so, no man, like I'm not a believer that, that at its core, America is better at everything.
It's just, we got a few problems. Maybe, maybe not, man. Like that's not. That's not obviously true to me, you know, but what matters though is this is the matrix that I live in, I was born into it, I didn't recognize it for a [01:05:00] long time, I slowly kind of woke up to it, and now what I'm trying to do, I'm not even trying to bring it down or break it, because like it's not my job to convince you you're in a matrix or to break the matrix for you, that's your job, right, and maybe you don't want to, like maybe you want to take the blue pill, that's okay, I'm cool with it.
What I'm trying to do is build my own matrix within this matrix. That protects me and my family and gets us the success that we define for ourselves, right? It gets us the life that we really want, not the life that we're told we're supposed to have, because that's never going to be the best one for us, right?
I, what I'm ultimately trying to do is be sovereign, right? Sovereignty means that you are fully responsible for yourself. You, uh, uh, are, are enslaved. to no one, right? You might have [01:06:00] relationships with others. You might deal with them on a, on a, on some sort of basis, trade with them. Commerce is great. I love commerce.
That's trading. I give a sheep to my neighbor. They give me raw milk from their cow. That's commerce. Commerce in no way, shape or form is bad. Um, but consumerism is not commerce. Consumerism is telling you that your success is defined by how much stuff you have and that what stuff specifically is important. That is a form of mental slavery. You can buy into it. You can decide you want it. Okay.
Marc Beckman: see it. I see what you're talking about. I mean, there are so many people, including, by the way,
you keep talking about social media and TikTok, like children are now, um, seeing certain, let's
say materialistic, shiny objects in social
media, and it's getting them into this type of slave
Tucker Max: we were, we were in a matrix too. Don't you remember? Saturday morning cartoons
Marc Beckman: Of course.
Tucker Max: did. If you were like me, you would watch [01:07:00] the, the cartoon and then the, the GI Joe commercial came on. You wanted the battle. Come on, man. Like, it's not fundamentally
Marc Beckman: So, so is consumerism then what's getting us into this like late stage of the American
empire in your mind? Like, I know that, I know that we're
like, you're breaking out of the matrix. You're going to bring me along with you, I hope.
And are we, well, come on, don't leave me back. And then is it, is consumerism one of the, critical linchpins in getting us to, uh, the end of the American empire?
Tucker Max: Uh, no. See, I'm not sure those things are, are. So the Amer, when I talk about the American Empire, I, one of the great tricks that that, that most governmental matrixes. on people is that they attach your personal identity to their existence, So like think about like, right, like, [01:08:00] oh, I'm an American, right? Okay, like I love the idea of America I love, you know, tons of Americans that I know I love the idea of America is laid out by the founders most of it at least And, and, and all the ideals, but like, why do I actually care about the federal government?
Why do I actually care about a, what is in effect a faceless, unanswerable bureaucracy? Like, why, why would I in any way associate, uh, any outcome that I care about or my, any part of my identity with them? That doesn't make any sense, man, but that's what they do, right? Like,
Marc Beckman: More so than ever before, Tucker. Like, I, I think like we've all of a sudden put so much on the executive branch of
government, like the presidential election, um, you know, the reality is that the executive branch of government doesn't really impact everybody's life on a local level,
right? In every way it can, like we used to have a lot more.
to [01:09:00] say about our local leaders, our state leaders, our, our, and then go up the, up to the federal level. But it seems today like we've really shifted and whether it's you living on a homestead or me living in New York City, um, you know, is President Biden or any president, anybody sitting in that office, really the, the appropriate person to dictate what type of education our children should have?
it doesn't make sense to me. It's such a, you know, such a massive country, right?
Tucker Max: No, I 100 percent agree. A huge part of breaking out of your, out of any matrix is realizing, taking real responsibility and accountability for yourself. and your family and your community and understanding like okay like we're going to deal with ourselves and we're going to and it doesn't have to be like a rebellion or some nonsense like i'm not talking about anything like that like that's i don't in a lot of ways i don't care what the feds do it doesn't matter right like i mean the big argument for a federal [01:10:00] government when america was started was essentially national defense, right?
Because at the time that was a serious problem. We're pretty, I mean, if you want to make that argument, okay, fine. Like whatever. I can see that argument. So a Fed that are limited to national defense. Okay, whatever, but that's what, I mean, like, think, if you think about it like a reality show, right? Most people, people who are smart, people who get it in a lot of ways, oh, I don't watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians, that's just a ridiculous reality show.
They're watching MSNBC like it's fundamentally different, it's not! It's not at all! Like, you are 100 percent of the national political drama. Is, for the most part, a show put on to distract and guide sheep to slaughter. And and and Is
Marc Beckman: are their
Tucker Max: all [01:11:00] I got?
Marc Beckman: And we're the sheep, right? That's the point. So, so is, so is America lost then, Tucker? Or do we have,
like, these Um,
Tucker Max: What do you mean by America? What do you mean by America? That's the key thing. Individual communities in America are not lost at all. I actually think when this chaos is over, I think America is going to get to a very different place politically. I'm not exactly sure where it's going to end up. Who knows?
No one knows. But I think we have an opportunity to actually have a golden age for American people. Right? Like, imagine if, like, imagine if all this stupid regulations and nonsense was, was not here or even if it was here, no one was actually enforcing it. And like, my community was just a ton of people who all have similar values, who are all basically aligned.
Uh, [01:12:00] everyone produces some stuff. We all trade with each other. Like, I don't want to have cows for raw milk, but my neighbor, like, four ranches down does. Great. I'll, I'll produce 60 sheep a year and then they get four of them and I get some raw milk or whatever. And like, not a commune or nonsense like that, a community of people, which is what America was for its entire history, at least, you know, as European settler history, like we're not talking about pre that, but like, that's what it was.
And we can easily go back. There's a reason that the American populace was radically against World War I and radically against World War II. And that for both wars, the government had to either stage or lie, uh, about, um, uh, the provocations that got us into war. Because it's not, they're not our wars. They're not. They don't involve any of the people here. The Europeans can fight their own wars against each other, right? And that's what localism is, and [01:13:00] that's what I think America used to be, and we have been sucked into as a culture, the American culture. I have not. I'm out now, or at least I see the matrix now.
And a lot of people do, but most people don't. You're sucked into essentially a drama that your iden, your, your, your life and your identity and your success is somehow tied to the federal government is defined by it, and what happens with national politics that, no, that's fucking nonsense. Think about someone on Twitter who has like.
A Ukrainian flag in their bio. I mean, if they're Ukrainian, okay, I get it, right? If they're not, what the hell are you even talking about? Like, that has nothing to do with you. You have real problems in your house, in your community, yet somehow, the thing that you've put in your identity signature is the flag of a nation That is on the other side of the world that you have no connection to.
Why? Because you're,
Marc Beckman: Tucker, though, why?
Tucker Max: because their identity is [01:14:00] doing what they're told by their people on their screen.
Marc Beckman: Okay,
Tucker Max: People on their screen tell them that good people like the Ukraine.
Marc Beckman: so when you talk about, when you talk
about localism, and then you talk about war, it seems like we're barreling towards more and more war than we've been in, you know, in, in
in the past decade or more. Like all of a sudden,
Tucker Max: Hold on, but notice
Marc Beckman: ups in Europe, flare ups in the Middle East, and you wouldn't be surprised.
Tucker, if I told you that, like, China invaded Taiwan tomorrow, would you be surprised?
Tucker Max: No, of course
Marc Beckman: Why? Why is that happening? Why are we so concerned about all of these foreign Marcets all of a sudden?
Tucker Max: notice you say we, like that the programming is so deeply embedded that it We as like we America federal government like it's all we like I always ask people who do you mean by we? Because I'm not fighting in any war off of this
Marc Beckman: see your point. I see your point. I see it.
But what, but why has
[01:15:00] this mindset shifted? Like why, what is this Like
um, desire to create, to get America more
involved in the international community, specifically as it
relates to war? Why is that happening? is that Is that, a different type of consumerism?
Tucker Max: Yeah graft. I think for the most part. I mean like the the American the current American ruling family has taken at least tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, engraft through energy companies in the Ukraine, which we know about, right? And they now want, they're now sending billions over there and want to start a war there.
I mean, bro, come on, wake the fuck up. Like this is, if I told you this was a movie plot, you'd be like, Tucker, this is, This is too direct and too, like, it's not good enough. This wouldn't be a good James Bond
Marc Beckman: will, will the upcoming presidential election save us [01:16:00] then?
Tucker Max: You're not,
Marc Beckman: It's just as
Tucker Max: I want you to, I want you to name me the time, the country that voted itself out of any form of socialism or tyranny or whatever, like, name the country that voted itself out of it,
Marc Beckman: Never.
Tucker Max: okay?
Marc Beckman: There you go.
Tucker Max: I mean, you can vote harder if you want. Listen, is it possible that one team is a better choice than
the other team at a certain moment in time? Sure. Absolutely. Right. That is possible. But that's like saying, Hey, Tucker, you got to eat off one of these two toilets. one's clean and one's dirty.
It's like, even if I pick the clean toilet, I'm still eating off the toilet, man. Like, it's not, that's a false choice in a sense.
Marc Beckman: it's also
like, you give me this vision of,
um, you know, the train has left the station and there's so much
inertia, it's not going back, right? So when you
talk about this concept of [01:17:00] community that I
think starts with individual freedom, individual liberty.
And then a community built from the
individual into like minded mentality, uh, shared core values, etc.
It seems like we're way beyond that concept too, and we probably can't get back to
Tucker Max: my community.
Marc Beckman: You're not, but generally speaking, do you think we could go back into that, into the, into the value of a local level community oriented society?
Tucker Max: You can decide to do that and make that pick. No, there are places in America where if you live there, probably you're not gonna have it there. New York is probably one of those places. Like, unless I, I mean, I don't know. There probably is a, there is a dominant core belief in power in New York.
Probably not the one you want to align with. But like, that's the choice. No, I, we're not going backwards. We're not going back to the period of high trust, uh, uh, [01:18:00] unified sort of polity in America. That's over. I don't know what's coming or how it's going to split or what that split will look like. could be really bad.
It could be not that bad. It could be a million things. I don't know, man. And there's no way to predict it, I think. Like, you know, it's sort of like, you know, when the, when you throw up a game board and the pieces go everywhere, you don't know where they're going to land or how they're going to come back together.
Marc Beckman: Yeah, I agree. I think we're definitely living in
a post trust, post truth world. I don't think it's just
the media. I think it's hit our, um, economic systems too, the banking sector, for
example, and you know, frankly speaking, Tucker, this is where technology
does play a good role, where, you know, we can now hold on to and maybe, um, create more value in, um, shared currencies that are digital, like cryptocurrency, where we don't have to rely on Um, perhaps the [01:19:00] bureaucracies of the federal government impacting the value of your hard work and in change the U.
S. fiat currency, the dollar. Um, you know, it's an interesting thing to look at, um, when you start to think in terms of autonomy, sovereign, being sovereign, as you mentioned, having local community and full control over everything, including currency assets, digital assets.
Tucker Max: I mean, I hope, I hope that plays out. Here's the thing though, man. I've known a lot of power hungry sociopaths and psychopaths, and I've never known one who gave up their power without a fight. And I love Bitcoin, I love crypto, uh, um, I understand the arguments behind it very, very well. Um, but the thing that the Bitcoin guys have never been able to answer is what happens When the dudes with guns show up, blah blah blah, you can't ban math.
I'm like, bro, [01:20:00] that Bitcoin is on a server somewhere and, uh, there are people who run the exchanges and you don't have to get them all to make it effectively worthless. And they, they, they think that because they're right and they are right. If you look at logically, rationally, the arguments, I get it. I get the sound money arguments.
They're right. They think that being right means you win. No, it doesn't. Unfortunately, the good guys don't always win. Um, the dudes with guns win. Now, if there's two groups of dudes with guns, okay, great. Now, now we've got, uh, whatever. But, um, if you don't have an answer, For the meat on meat issue, it's not gonna work, man.
It's not gonna work. Uh, uh, it, it, there's no magic paper that's gonna save us. There's no magic digital currency that's gonna save us. outside of [01:21:00] us and our actions and our decisions, if you want to take it as an us, which I don't. Uh, but if you're gonna use that terminology, nothing outside of us is gonna save us.
Marc Beckman: And you think now is the time to prepare,
Tucker Max: Oh, the time to prepare was three years ago. Now is like, if you haven't done anything to now, then starting now would be better than starting in a year. But, uh, I think for sure World War III is assumed, is coming, in some form. Like, I don't think it's going to be like World War II, I don't think it's going to be a literal global war.
But I would be shocked if there was not at least a serious European theater war. Um, uh, and I'll tell you why. When, when countries get into crazy, crazy debt, what's the one guaranteed way they have to get out of the debt?
Marc Beckman: Make bullets.
Tucker Max: War. War.
Marc Beckman: Make bullets.
Tucker Max: war.
Marc Beckman: consumerism again,
Tucker Max: I mean, sort of, but like, [01:22:00] uh, uh, the European, uh, the EU is bankrupt.
The European, the entire banking system is done. Um, uh, and I don't think they have a way out. And so
Marc Beckman: think we're in the beginning of it now?
Tucker Max: Yeah, oh yeah, dude. I mean, how many more banks have to fail? Like, I mean, is But we don't even talk about it, Tucker. So many banks have failed over the past 24 months, but we don't even
Marc Beckman: talk about it.
Tucker Max: I know because no one in media, first of all, most people in media are stupid, but they also take orders from people who are smart, right? And whether it's indirect orders or whatever, of course they're not gonna talk about it. Why would they talk about it? It doesn't feed their narrative, Marc. It doesn't help keep control over you for you to know the truth.
The only way you can control someone is to lie to them.
Marc Beckman: Tucker, you've given me so much of your
time, but I can't let you go yet.
Because every guest that comes on Some Future Day participates
with me, and I'm hoping you are willing to as well, where I use the, you might actually be [01:23:00] the only guest I have that, that
understands the Some Future Day reference.
It's a James Joyce reference, actually. Did you know that? I love it. I literally, like, of course, like it. So, uh, what I do is I, I start a sentence with, um, the word Some Future Day, and then I let my guests finish it. Are you game? Some Future Day.
Tucker Max: Of course. Yeah, obviously.
Marc Beckman: All right, um, originally I was going to ask you which, which book you'd like to see published that has never been published, but I'm not going there.
We can't end, um, this, this last part of our conversation with that. So, in some future day, individual liberty will become,
in some future day, individual liberty will become.
Tucker Max: yeah, no, this is all, this is tough. Um, I hate to do this, but I kind of have to. I don't have any other answer. Um, so, I'm going to give you a [01:24:00] long answer. Actually, let me tell you the answer and I'm going to explain why. I'm In some future day, individual liberty will be understood as the stepping stone to change.
To true freedom, which is SOP, right? Like, I think there's a reason that the media talks about democracy, which America has never been and does not have, except maybe on a local level. Uh, it was designed as a republic, a representative republic for a reason. Um, and like people are like, what are you talking about?
I'm like, you don't vote for president. Like, yeah, we do. I'm like, no, go read the constitution. You vote for people who vote for the president. And which might actually end up being very substantive in this election. And there may actually be a lot of people who have to get a hard lesson in true constitutional law.
Um, but I think the way our government has trapped people in matrix, the modern matrix is because they talk about. Liberty and freedom [01:25:00] are not actually, that's not how you get to do what you want. The way you do what you want is you are sovereign. Sovereign means that you are not ruled by anyone.
Sovereign means that you are, to get there, you've got to take full responsibility for your life. Being sovereign is very, very hard, right? Whereas having freedom within someone else's Kingdom, someone else's sovereignty is much easier because someone else is the sovereign, right? And so, listen, I like freedom and liberty more than not, but I'm not trying to have freedom, and I'm not trying to have liberty.
I am trying to build sovereignty, which to me transcends those things, right? That is where I am making my own decisions. And I answer only to myself and to those with whom I have made agreements, you know, with like my family, et cetera. I don't [01:26:00] answer to a Lord or a King or president or a governor, right?
And I think America was built. To be the land of sovereign people. And it was in many parts for a long time. And it has not been for a long time. So, um, that's my goal and that's where I'm trying to get to. And if other people want to, they've been great, man, come along and Liberty's a great step on that path, but it's not to me, it's not to me, the, the place I'm trying to go.
Marc Beckman: That's awesome. I want to give you a hug.
Tucker Max: Thank
Marc Beckman: It's such a pleasure talking to you as always. I mean, who else can I
speak with and hit spirituality, LSD, God, sovereignty, World War III,
the industry of publishing. I mean, you're the best, Tucker. I really appreciate your time today. Truly.
Tucker Max: you, man. I appreciate it as always. It's great talking to you, Marc. [01:27:00] [01:28:00]