#465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking
Robert Rodriguez is a legendary filmmaker and creator of Sin City, El Mariachi, Desperado, Spy Kids, Machete, From Dusk Till Dawn, Alita: Battle Angel, The Faculty, and his newest venture Brass Knuckle Films.
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Transcript:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Robert's X: https://x.com/rodriguez
Robert's Instagram: https://instagram.com/rodriguez/
Brass Knuckle Films: https://brassknucklefilms.com/
Rebel without a Crew (book): https://amzn.to/3G7gtQJ
Rebel without a Crew (audiobook): https://amzn.to/3Ri5wyc
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OUTLINE:
(00:00) - Introduction
(10:04) - Explosions and having only one take
(17:39) - Success and failure
(26:28) - Filmmaking on a low budget
(38:41) - El Mariachi
(50:10) - Creativity
(1:12:06) - Limitations
(1:18:22) - Handling criticism
(1:34:32) - Action films
(1:45:53) - Quentin Tarantino
(1:55:52) - Desperado
(1:56:54) - Salma Hayek
(2:01:40) - Danny Trejo
(2:06:55) - Filming in Austin
(2:13:05) - Editing
(2:22:35) - Sound design
(2:27:43) - Deadlines
(2:31:14) - Alita: Battle Angel
(2:39:36) - James Cameron
(2:52:39) - Sin City
(3:06:48) - Manifesting
(3:18:12) - Memories and journaling
(3:27:56) - Mortality
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Dave Smith is a comedian, libertarian, political commentator, and the host of Part of the Problem podcast.
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Transcript:
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Dave's YouTube: https://youtube.com/DSmithcomic
Dave's Instagram: https://instagram.com/theproblemdavesmith
Dave's Website: https://comicdavesmith.com/
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OUTLINE:
(00:00) - Introduction
(00:10) - Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections
(09:32) - Libertarianism
(10:47) - Ron Paul
(13:59) - Military–industrial complex
(20:53) - War on Terror
(33:12) - China and Taiwan
(41:00) - Just war theory
(48:09) - Israel and Gaza
(1:05:35) - Douglas Murray
(1:13:29) - Hamas
(1:29:48) - Hitler and Stalin
(1:32:01) - Darryl Cooper
(1:41:13) - Antisemitism
(1:54:46) - World leaders
(2:07:21) - Jeffrey Epstein
(2:15:24) - Sam Harris
(2:28:07) - Ukraine and Russia
(2:47:32) - Joe Rogan
(3:00:01) - Conspiracy theories
(3:17:52) - Hope
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Douglas Murray is the author of On Democracies and Death Cults, The War on The West, and The Madness of Crowds.
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Transcript:
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OUTLINE:
(00:00) - Introduction
(02:04) - Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections
(09:31) - War in Ukraine
(13:17) - Trump and Zelenskyy
(27:47) - Putin
(48:40) - Peace
(58:31) - Zelenskyy
(1:13:11) - Israel-Palestine
(1:23:57) - Hamas
(1:38:30) - Corruption
(1:41:40) - Gaza
(2:02:18) - Benjamin Netanyahu
(2:19:29) - Hate
(2:43:59) - Iran
(2:54:48) - Interview advice
(3:09:12) - War
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3:16:06
#462 – Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson: Politics, Trump, AOC, Elon & DOGE
Ezra Klein is one of the most influential voices representing the left-wing of American politics. He is a columnist for the NY Times and host of The Ezra Klein Show. Derek Thompson is a writer at The Atlantic and host of the Plain English podcast. Together they have written a new book titled Abundance that lays out a set of ideas for the future of the Democratic party.
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Transcript:
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The New York Times: https://nytimes.com/by/ezra-klein
Derek's X: https://x.com/dkthomp
Plain English (podcast): https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/plain-english-with-derek-thompson
The Atlantic: https://theatlantic.com/author/derek-thompson/
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OUTLINE:
(00:00) - Introduction
(03:17) - Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections
(10:33) - Left-wing vs right-wing politics
(19:54) - Political leaders on the left and the right
(44:29) - Internal political divisions
(47:29) - AOC
(58:50) - Political realignment
(1:10:32) - Supply-side progressivism
(1:17:42) - Wealth redistribution
(1:27:50) - Housing problem
(1:44:09) - Regulation and deregulation
(2:00:43) - DOGE, Elon, and Trump
(2:59:46) - Sam Harris
(3:09:24) - Future of America
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#461 – ThePrimeagen: Programming, AI, ADHD, Productivity, Addiction, and God
ThePrimeagen (aka Michael Paulson) is a programmer who has educated, entertained, and inspired millions of people to build software and have fun doing it.
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ThePrimeagen's X: https://twitter.com/ThePrimeagen
ThePrimeagen's YouTube: https://youtube.com/ThePrimeTimeagen
ThePrimeagen's Twitch: https://twitch.tv/ThePrimeagen
ThePrimeagen's GitHub: https://github.com/theprimeagen
ThePrimeagen's TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@theprimeagen
ThePrimeagen's Coffee: https://www.terminal.shop/
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OUTLINE:
(00:00) - Introduction
(10:27) - Love for programming
(20:00) - Hardest part of programming
(22:16) - Types of programming
(29:54) - Life story
(39:58) - Hardship
(41:29) - High school
(47:15) - Porn addiction
(57:01) - God
(1:12:44) - Perseverance
(1:22:40) - Netflix
(1:35:08) - Groovy
(1:40:13) - Printf() debugging
(1:46:35) - Falcor
(1:56:05) - Breaking production
(1:58:49) - Pieter Levels
(2:03:19) - Netflix, Twitch, and YouTube infrastructure
(2:15:22) - ThePrimeagen origin story
(2:30:37) - Learning programming languages
(2:39:40) - Best programming languages in 2025
(2:44:35) - Python
(2:45:15) - HTML & CSS
(2:46:05) - Bash
(2:46:45) - FFmpeg
(2:53:28) - Performance
(2:56:00) - Rust
(3:00:48) - Epic projects
(3:14:12) - Asserts
(3:23:26) - ADHD
(3:31:34) - Productivity
(3:35:58) - Programming setup
(4:11:28) - Coffee
(4:18:32) - Programming with AI
(5:01:16) - Advice for young programmers
(5:12:48) - Reddit questions
(5:20:20) - God
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Conversations about science, technology, history, philosophy and the nature of intelligence, consciousness, love, and power. Lex is an AI researcher at MIT and beyond.