We've all heard how Adolf Hitler was rejected from art school... today we'll dive into the details, how being a poor non-student in Vienna led him to the back rooms of rebellion - and eventually to the horrors of WWII. Did you know that Pol Pot of Cambodia was similarly rejected by the Paris elite while in college? Also, Stalin was rejected by the Church and kicked out of the seminary. Would history have been the same if these guys had found a more productive outlet in their 20s???
We've all heard how Adolf Hitler was rejected from art school... today we'll dive into the details, how being a poor non-student in Vienna led him to the back rooms of rebellion - and eventually to the horrors of WWII. Did you know that Pol Pot of Cambodia was similarly rejected by the Paris elite while in college? Also, Stalin was rejected by the Church and kicked out of the seminary. Would history have been the same if these guys had found a more productive outlet in their 20s???
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: I switch between different vibes depending on what mood I'm in
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA096.
>> Farz: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do. And we are live. Taylor. Hi. How are you? Good.
>> Taylor: How are you? I laugh every time because I feel like you fundamentally don't understand how podcasts work. If you say we're live every time.
>> Farz: I don't. I assume everybody's listening right now in real time.
>> Taylor: So, so funny. I like your vibe right now. It looks like you're in, like, a arcade. It was a blue light behind you. Do you have a neon sign behind you?
>> Farz: So I have a light here in the office, and it's led. It can switch between different vibes, and it depends on what mood I'm in. And today I'm in a blue mood. So I did blue, but sometimes I'm in a purple mood or a green mood when. When it's raining outside, I'm in, like, a turquoise mood. So, yeah, that's the energy.
Doomed to Fail brings you history's most notorious disasters, failures and interesting stories
Would you like to introduce us?
>> Taylor: Yes. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Doomed to Fail. We bring you history's most notorious disasters, failures, and interesting stories twice a week. And I'm Taylor, joined by Fars.
>> Farz: I'm Fars. I'm joined here. So one thing I will say so the audience knows. I have a notoriously terrible memory. Horrible, horrible memory. I don't. I. I forget everything as soon as it happens and move on to the next thing. And Taylor pointed out in a recent episode about how often I talk about Margin Call, and it wasn't until her husband reached out to me, reached out and was like, dude, you haven't talked about Margin Call in, like, over 100 episodes. I didn't know because Taylor said it, so I assumed it was true. So I just, like, went with it that I keep talking about this. This stupid movie. So thank you, Juan, for. For correcting the record.
>> Taylor: I said. I said fairly that you and you. When I die, you and Juan are gonna lose so many of your memories because I'm the only one who holds them.
>> Farz: But one. There's no way Juan is more forgetful than I am.
>> Taylor: I mean, no. All the time he's like, I just had no idea. Like, I just. Yeah, no, I remember so much on behalf of him.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Sweet.
I'm going to cover three historic figures and the rejection that resulted in disaster
Should we dive in?
>> Taylor: Huh?
>> Farz: Is it me or you? You, Taylor. I got a long one.
>> Taylor: Okay, cool.
>> Farz: So I'm gonna tell several stories. Oh, and I was really going back to the ethos of why we started this podcast, which was things that would occur that were obviously going to lead to massive failures or repercussions, let's say. And what I did was I just recently listened to an episode of. Wow, I forgot the name of the show. Now, things you should know. Sorry, Things you should know and stuff you should know. Stuff you should know. Yeah. Again, Taylor's. The Taylor's. Sorry.
>> Taylor: I hate. I don't know what. I'm cursed. I'm cursed to be this way.
>> Farz: Taylor, the archivist of my brain.
>> Taylor: I was sitting by the historian in high school. No big deal.
>> Farz: Yeah. So I was listening to stuff you should know. They were covering an episode on artwork. Not necessarily anything unique about it other than like major artists and fascinating, amazing stories about major artworks. And somehow they segued into a story about Adolf Hitler and they did like a really top line overview of his history. Very top line. So what I thought of was, wow, there's a lot of really interesting people out there whose rejections in life resulted in horrible ramifications to the world. Hitler being one of them. So I'm going to cover three historic figures and the rejection that resulted in world global or countrywide disaster. And I'm going to actually start with Adolf Hitler. And I'm not going to get into the history of Hitler because, well, I'm not going to get like, the reason we all know him because that's boring. It's been done over and over and over again. That's not really that interesting. What's interesting is his early life and what I think was the impetus of why he became who he became. We all know it has to do with our school rejection, but let's get into the details with the nitty gritty of it.
Futur: We're going to start with Adolf Hitler's childhood
So if you're ready, we'll kick off.
>> Taylor: I'm ready.
>> Farz: Okay. We're going to start with his childhood. He was born in Austria, Austria in 1889 and was one of six children his parents had, with only three of them making it past infancy. In addition, since this was his father's third marriage, he also had two children from his second marriage living with him. So five siblings in total. Overall, big family. Reading about his early life reads kind of like any other teenager. His father was this strict disciplinarian. Shocker.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: And I'm going to actually call him Adolf because I'm covering the pre Hitler Hitler phase.
>> Taylor: But you're calling. You're calling Hitler that. We know Adolf. His not. It's not his dad's name.
>> Farz: His dad's name's Louise. So I'm calling Adolf Hitler. Adolf, because if I say Hitler, everybody's memory is going to go to, like, the Holocaust. And I'm trying to cover, like, the.
>> Taylor: Pre Holocaust era right before we knew what we knew.
>> Farz: Exactly.
>> Taylor: I get it, I get it.
>> Farz: And like, like, okay, here's the part that's kind of like, crazy to say out loud and record myself saying it and have it broadcasted across the world. He seems like a normal guy. Like, he seemed like a totally. His dad was his a****** disciplinarian, and Adolf was just this, like, rebellious kid, basically.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I think that's fair. I think there's plenty of people who. I don't know.
>> Farz: It's just weird because when you think of like, Adolph, Hillary, like, he's a vision of evil. So you're like, oh, he's got to be different than all of us. Like, no, he's. He wasn't. There's a reason why he, like, turned into who he turned into. And that's the part of the rejection that we're going to get into. So he was put into the equivalent of a middle and high school with, like, very strict obedience standards while he was in Germany, while his family was living in Germany, and Adolf was not a fan of it, he was constantly getting in trouble. Constantly. He's basically a kid who's like, let's go smoke a joint under the bleachers. You know, he's one of those guys.
>> Taylor: Mm.
>> Farz: So this will result in pretty regular beatings by his father, who was like, very, very strict. And as Adolf grew older, he found his passion in the arts, which p***** his father off to no end. It reminds me of when you were like, if your daughter was like, turns into a poet in her later life, you'd be really p*****. Like, it's literally that I'd just be.
>> Taylor: Like, annoyed as you might not beat.
>> Farz: Her, but yeah, you'd be, no, I.
>> Taylor: Would definitely not harm her, but I would be like, please stop reading me poems. I'm going to.
>> Farz: Don't need more slam poets in this world.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I wasn't even thinking her being a slam poet, even worse. Yes, I get it, I get it.
>> Farz: So his father, in addition to being a part time farmer, was. He had worked his entire career as a government bureaucrat, so he assumed his son would follow in his footsteps. And, like, people might not like me saying this, but I have a vision in my mind of a bureaucrat in the government, which is they're slow, tedious, boring, Rules. Like, it's just like the opposite of like, anything artistic. Yeah, yeah. The opposite of creativity.
>> Taylor: I think of Hermes in Frick Drama. Remember? He's like, oh, yeah.
>> Farz: Oh my God, Yeah, yeah. Of course he was a Jamaican, but.
>> Taylor: He, like, loves it. And he's like, I love. You know, everything gets stamped 15 million times by like this person or whatever. It's like, you have to love it.
>> Farz: I love the constant. You know what? We brought up Futurama more on our show than we did Margin Call and you have not called that out.
>> Taylor: Well, I know, but it's just. But everyone brings it Futurama.
>> Farz: That's true. It's true.
So Adolf wanted to attend a high school whose focus was more liberal arts
So Adolf wanted to attend a high school whose focus was more liberal arts than straight line education. But his father sent him to a school that's called real school, which I think means real school. Sounds right. And this was like a general studies school that was focused on practical things that would lead to practical careers, essentially. It was the opposite of an artistic school, essentially. And obviously Adolf hated this and deliberately tried to fail out to prove to his father that he was not suited to this kind of work. Three years into attending this high school, his father would pass away. So his mother was the opposite of the father and was pretty caring. So back in the day, his father would subject him to regular beatings, which his mom would try and get in the middle of and try and protect Adolf from his father's wrath. So when the father died, the mom was like, yeah, just drop out and do what you're passionate about. Like, obviously that's the best thing to do for you. Can you hear the barking?
>> Taylor: A little bit. But, like, everyone will do here on the thing.
>> Farz: Okay. He would finish out his schooling elsewhere in Lynn's, which I interpreted as him trying to get away from like a lame part of town. It sounded like he was leaving his hometown, like in Oklahoma to go to Portland or something. He would. Which we. I mean, we did. I mean, actually, no, we didn't. You left New York, la. But still.
>> Taylor: I left like Las Vegas to go to New York.
>> Farz: Oh, there you go. Yeah, great example.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: From there he would move on to Vienna. And do you know anything about Vienna during this time?
>> Taylor: Well, you mentioned. You told me about how Vienna was like a champion of the arts and culture in the time.
>> Farz: Dude, it was like the hub. It was like, yeah, central hub. It was like art, philosophy, politics, authors, composers. It was all based out of Vienna. So it sounded very much like a modern day Paris or New York or something. Is kind of what it sounded like I. I looked this up. So around the time that Hitler. Sorry, Adolf. Young Adolf, moved to Vienna, Sigmund Freud was there, or when Sch. Schrodinger was doing his. His experiments there. Leon Trotsky was writing there. There's a bunch of composers there. Like, it was, like, a really hot spot to be.
>> Taylor: Mm.
>> Farz: And Adolf moved there thinking that, like, well, this is where I'm going to go to get my art career off the ground. His ultimate goal was to get accepted to the Academy of Fine Arts. He would spend his days by the waterfront trying to sell his artwork and the nights trying to kind of perfect his technique so he could get admission to the school. His preferred subject matter for painting was architecture. And typically, he would do this in the medium of watercolors. I've. Have you seen his artwork?
>> Taylor: No, I'm gonna look it up. I was looking at. I'm looking at his dad on. On Wikipedia, and he does look mean. And I'm looking at. I just. His. His. His sister's name is like, Angela.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Like, obviously they pronounce it like Angela, but it's like Angela Hitler. Like, what kind of that name? Just like, I mind.
>> Farz: Isn't it weird?
>> Taylor: So weird.
>> Farz: That's why. That's why I was referring to him as Adolf. I was like, yeah, saying Hitler, all we would think is like, the old Hitler.
>> Taylor: Once you put that in there, you're like, what? His just what? Okay, continue, though. No, let me look up his. Let me look up his artwork. I see.
>> Farz: Yeah. I want you to look at his artwork and then give me your perspective of it so we can discuss it real quick.
>> Taylor: Oh, I think it's nice. I couldn't do it.
>> Farz: It's pretty good, actually.
>> Taylor: Like, I'm not a part like Thomas Kincaid of Germany, you know? It's like, I see, like, a nice house, nice castle.
>> Farz: He did, like, this floral arrangement.
>> Taylor: I'll.
>> Farz: I'll bring it up here, like, literally in the next part of this outline. He, like, he what?
Taylor: He should have been an architect. If anyone of a listener is an architect
I was wondering, actually, Taylor, when I was researching this, was, like, who got accepted that wasn't him. And today, if we look at their artwork, like, it was worth it to have accepted him than that person.
>> Taylor: Yeah. I don't know. No, it's nice. I don't think I've ever really looked at it before.
>> Farz: I'm gonna go into it a little bit more detail. So he obviously, mostly, as you can tell, painted buildings, and that was kind of his issue. So he actually attempted twice admission to the Academy of Fine Arts and The response to his submission was, we don't accept you as an artist. You would be a fine draftsman. You should go work in the architectural trades. That's. That's the response.
>> Taylor: I think it's. If anyone of a listener is an architect, please let me know if you've ever in your life carried around rolls of paper and worked at a big table, because it's so funny that it's high. Picture an architect. Is that true?
>> Farz: Do. That's all they do.
>> Taylor: My sister one time for dad's 60th birthday, she made these signs said, free banana daiquiris. Because you're into a bar, because my dad likes banana daiquiris. But she had them on the. In the airport and someone asked her if she's an architect.
>> Farz: That's funny. That's great.
>> Taylor: She was like, no, I'm carrying this free banana daiquiri signs. But, yeah, he should have been an architect.
Adolf Hitler's first application for admission to Vienna Academy failed in 1907
Continue.
>> Farz: So 1908 was the second submission that failed. So 1906 or seven was the first one. 1908 was the last one. If you look, there's a Wikipedia page of Hitler, Adolf Hitler artwork. And I will say, like, his later stuff was pretty d*** good. He definitely took the feedback that you do too many architecture sketches seriously. And so he has one that's like a floral arrangement that looks really well done. There's a cottage with the Alps behind it. Looks really well. He actually, I thought was, he's better than I would be.
>> Taylor: Exactly, exactly. That's what I say.
>> Farz: So 1907, like I said, the year he submitted his first application for admission is also the year that his mom died. And my association here is like, he was super. Like, his mom was his protector. The mom was the one that protected him for beatings and all that. And the mom was also the financial source for Adolf. Like, she was the one that supported him. He also got benefits from his dad because his dad, again, was a government worker his entire life. So that's the way he supported himself. But when his mom died, he couldn't really support himself very much. And so he ended up landing into this, like, drifter artist lifestyle. And I think that was the inflection point. He's living in a city full of prominent thinkers and philosophers and political commentators, and he's basically homeless, shilling his artwork to make money to eat. And.
>> Taylor: Right. He, like, can't get in to that.
>> Farz: You can't get into that world. And, like, what I equate it to is, like the Hare Krishnas or like other. Other religious people who like they feed off homeless people and like poor people. It's like feed them to come in and hear what their indoctrination was. That's kind of how I interpreted his indoctrination at that time. So he was bouncing around Vienna at the same time that people like a guy named Carl Luger, who was the former mayor of Vienna, was holding meetings espousing the virtues of anti Semitism. There was a lot of anti Semitism going on in Vienna around this time. There was another guy named George Ritter who was also a politician active in spreading anti Semitic philosophy around Vienna. And it was later deemed to be a huge influence on young Adolf Hitler himself. In his book, Mein Kampf mentioned that Vienna is where his hatred of Jews began. So like this was not like someone who was just like born into it. And his parents reinforced. That's not the story of how he became the way he became. So he's a homeless kid who can't afford entertainment other than attending these insane hate meetings. Then World War I kicks off in 1914. The reason why him being admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts would have been world changing is because despite the fact that Austria Hungary had a mandatory draft, university students were exempt or could be granted deferment from the draft. So not only would he have been less exposed to political philosophy because he wouldn't be bouncing around from homeless like lectures and meat to eat a sandwich than he was. But in addition to that, he was very active in World war World War I. Like he was. He was on the Germany side of World War I. Germany had allied with Austria Hungary during World War I. Adolf actually was awarded two medals for injuries that he sustained in World War I in that further entrench him in the psyche of German nationalism. So like a lot of things would have been changed if he could have.
>> Taylor: Just been in college.
>> Farz: He would have just been a college. He would just been a college student in Vienna during World War I. Like it wouldn't turn out the way that it did. And that's, that's kind of my perspective on this is like we could have avoided the worst parts of human history if he just gotten accepted. He would have avoided the draft and he wouldn't have been walking around being indoctrinated with anti Semitism, which like I said he wouldn't. He wasn't ingrained with. He learned that later on in life.
>> Taylor: Like it was in there. Like his parents definitely like it was around. Not saying his parents said it, but like it was around, but it wasn't like his, his identity it was his identity. Yeah, he.
>> Farz: He. He was able to blend German nationalism from his time in World War I because he hated Austria Hungary, despite the fact that he loved Vienna. He hated Austria Hungary because of the Habsburg dynasty. He thought that they were like. Well, there was a lot of multicultural issues that he had with it, but he thought that they dragged Germany down with them during World War I and made turn Germany into a pariah, and then the rest is history, I guess. Yeah, that's the first story.
>> Taylor: Whoa. I'm excited for the other ones.
Next we're going over to Cambodia to discuss Pol Pot
>> Farz: So next we're going over to Cambodia by way of France to discuss Pol Pot.
>> Taylor: Ooh. Okay. I don't know much.
>> Farz: I don't know much, which is crazy. You and everybody else. It's crazy that we don't know.
>> Taylor: I know.
>> Farz: So I'm going to punctuate the crazy part here in about four. Four bullets. So, like, I literally wrote this, my outline. I think people mostly know what he was about, but he's less famous than Hitler, so the tldr of who he is. So he was born in 1925. He was born in Cambodia during a time when Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos were French protectorates. The situation in Cambodia at that time was leading towards independence from France. France was obviously exploiting this region and weren't friendly to indigenous people for obvious reasons. Polpa would eventually lead the Cambodian civil war to break away from France and in the process establish a communist regime that became most famous for what's called the killing fields of Cambodia. By 1975, 24 of the population of Cambodia had been terminated.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God.
>> Farz: It was crazy. What is that? In the US was 25. It's. I can't do that.
>> Taylor: And it's not like they died of measles. They were. They were killed.
>> Farz: Yeah, they were murdered. They were all murdered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there was some starvation, too, because the economics of it were also really horrible. So his motivation was driven by paranoia and a desire to achieve what he called Year zero, which was to erase all traces of modernity and Western influence and start Cambodia anew as an agrarian utopia. Basically, what that meant was that anybody associated with urban life, education, modern professions, anything have to do with foreign influence. This one's bad for me. And you, Taylor? Anybody who wore glasses? Oh, yeah, they were all marked for execution.
>> Taylor: Did you think that people just threw glasses because they discovered they needed them or what? Did he not realize that before that people just couldn't seek?
>> Farz: I don't think it matters when you're mass executing people.
>> Taylor: I guess not. I'd be like, f****** nerd.
>> Farz: F****** glasses.
>> Taylor: Someone takes off his glasses and just like, walks into a wall and they're like, I knew it.
>> Farz: You know what's funny is like, that's actually a part of the story of Pol Pot is somebody faking having an education and then accidentally being like, somebody learning that they understood English. I mean, like, I swear to God, I don't know. I don't understand it. And like, it was. Anyways, yeah, the whole story.
Taylor: Let's talk about Pol Pot's rejection of Marxism
So let's talk about the rejection he. He in endured and where it led to. So let's talk about his early life. So Pol Pot was born to a wealthy family and as such he had a good education. In 1949, he moved to Paris and enrolled in an academy to study radio, electronics. What he made. Yeah, that was the. That was the thing at that time.
>> Taylor: No, I just mean, like, it sounds like he liked modern things for a while.
>> Farz: Yeah, well, so we're going to talk about his rejection of it is being part of the rejection aspect of all this. So by all accounts, he made no attempt to assimilate into French culture, which, while they're in, pretty much stuck to his Cambodian counterparts because there was a group of them that went over there together. One of the guys who went over there was a guy named Lang Sari who was very influenced by Marxist philosophy. Marxism gained a. Actually, Taylor, what do you know about Marxism?
>> Taylor: Oh, God, that's really hard to answer. Isn't, Isn't, is. Isn't it. Communism is the same thing. Similarly.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, I think communism is the end political manifestation of the philosophy of Marxism is how I would define it. So in communism, the ascent, the essential element of it is like a counterpoint to capitalism, thinking that, like, oh, let's just all share, right? In production and the state should be in charge of production. That's essentially where what it boils down to. So this guy, his close, close friend was highly influenced by this philosophy. And Marxism gained a foothold as a political movement in Europe in the 1920s and 30s from World War II until like, literally right before this time, it was on the decline. It had zero political traction in places like France, but it was still kind of being kicked around as like a philosophical exercise. The way I kind of equated this, my own mind was like, when, like, somebody comes over here from Iran and like, they're just like blown away by everything. It's like, wait, there's lights everywhere, women wear bikinis. You know, it's just like overloading. Like, I want to be A part of all of it. Like I want to, I want to indulge in all of it. And that's kind of how I pictured this group where they're coming from a French protectorate and have no autonomy and they learn about this philosophy, we're all equal and they just embrace it. So they ended up establishing these Cambodian students that came over to France. They ended up establishing these little groups they called the Marxist Circle and would use their time together to read and talk about Marx ideas and eventually went on to join the French Communist Party. He was very active in the party, attending events and meetings and recruiting new members. Shortly thereafter, the King of Cambodia decided to dissolve the government and made himself the prime minister. So basically he further adopted Western ideas of democracy over monarchy concepts.
>> Taylor: Right, but it's France still involved about the after that.
>> Farz: So Pol Pot volunteered to go to Cambodia as civil unrest started to increase to decide who, who the French cohort of Cambodians who were there will support which part of the rebel uprising that was happening in the home. On the home trip in Cambodia, by this point the government had dissolved Cambodian conscripts. The French army were revolting and the citizenry was revolting against the governors and businesses in, in the state, in the country. So France at this point was out of the picture. Okay, so this is all part of the Indochina war. So basically Vietnam as well as Cambodia were all revolting against France and they basically gained. Basically France is like, this is more trouble than it's worth. Let's just get out of here. The Viet Minh, so these were Communist Vietnamese. They found allyship with Cambodia and the Communist party and embedded within them. So you have the abdication of the king and the re establishing of him as the prime minister. And the political climate is just kind of ripe for competing political factions to fight for dominance. The Viet Minh worked with members of the Marxist Circle and local supporters to establish the Cambodian Communist Party, also known as the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party. And it sounds like from the beginning the entire point of this was to launch a full on military operation to seize power. Given the fact that they were collaborating with the Viet Minh who were deeply embedded in a. Well, they're about to be deeply embedded in a war with the US government in Vietnam. Okay, so Pol Pot became the party leader in 1963, during which they established secret networks, recruited peasants and farmers and established these jungle bases around the country. It sounds like real guerrilla warfare type stuff. Like by 1967 he felt he had built up enough infrastructure to start launching that guerrilla warfare against the government. By 1970, as the Prime Minister of Cambodia had partnered with the US who has already established a reputation as being imperialist, further damaging the credibility of the prime minister domestically. That gave Pol Pot and the Communist party more of a like to stand on. As a reminder, during this time, the US was actively battling the North Vietnamese and communism. So anything seen as being anti communist in the region, the U.S. was backing. And so it was seen as like an us versus them kind of a thing. By 1975, he took complete control of the government and established the democratic Kompucha and went on to eliminate 1.7 to 2 million Cambodians during just five years of rule. That's again 24% of the population in Cambodia. It was something like 30% of men and 15% of women were being. Were killed.
>> Taylor: Wait, so Pol Pot did that?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Okay, how did he become the leader? He just was like.
>> Farz: So he led a. So he fought the government, the established government. Basically what happened was that the prime minister was out of the country doing something. This is exactly what happened with the Shah of Iran. Actually. He was out of the country. And then he was. His people were embedded within the government and they were just like, oh, yeah, we're gonna take control now. And they essentially control. And they'd already established these little bases around the country and were launching guerrilla warfare tactics against the established government. So, like, they were. It was a war of attrition from what I can. So 1975 would also be the year when Vietnam would invade Cambodia to topple pole boss regime. The reason being because, like, they were like, legitimately terrible. Because what they would do is they would actually had these excursions across the border into Vietnam and attacked Vietnam for no reason. Like, it was. He was leading a gang of psychos, essentially. And so Vietnam was sick of this. They decided to attack, invade. They toppled his regime. And then Pol Pot would essentially live in the jungle for nearly 20 years before being arrested by his old. His own men. And either, depending on the historical account you read dying of a heart attack or committing suicide under threat of being turned over to the U.S. that was how he ended. That was 1985.
>> Taylor: Whoa.
>> Farz: Yeah, it was like, very recent.
Pol Pot was rejected by French students and by Cambodian students
So the question is like, again, going back to the whole point of this episode is like, how was he rejected? So first things first. He sucked in France. So I mentioned that he had a hard time assimilating. He made no attempt. Not only that, but he was kind of also a dumbass. He failed his exams for radio electronics and lost his scholarship to continue studying at the academy, he was generally down upon for being an Asian in France. So that probably sucked. I get what that might must be like. But it all contributed to his attempt to find a place in this world. It's also worth noting that he never understood Marxism. He never actually understood Marxism. He would only read Stalin's writing. He would actually be quoted as saying, I don't actually get any of this. He'd read Stalin's writing and then interpret that as his version of Marxism. But all this is why he ended up in this cohort of Cambodians also studying there, and they were focused on Marxism. He also was rejected by Cambodians. Like I mentioned, like, something you brought up earlier. He came from a wealthy family, right? And he had privilege, but he was talking about this, like, agrarian utopia. And he's like, dude, you're not a farmer. You're like a rich kid. You're studying in France. Like, yeah, but remind me of Teddy Roosevelt, which. Where Teddy Roosevelt was like, kind of the weak, scrawny kid. So he, like, adopted this tough guy Persona and that's what became real. And rural Cambodians, they just couldn't relate to Pol Pot and his background. So part of. Part of that focus of that agrarian utopia that he was focused on was to dress like a farmer and act like a farmer and advocate for farmers. And so it all kind of came together as like, this one person who was like, I don't know. I. I want to say, like, they're trying to find their community, right? Like, we're all trying to find the community we belong to. And some people who are far removed from any community just create their own. In this case, he created his own.
>> Taylor: And there's like a special kind of person that, like, it doesn't just like. It's like most people who can't get along with anyone just retreat into themselves, which you should. They don't end up learn how to be normal, killing millions of people. Yeah, but there's like the. Then there's like, There comes around that special kind of guy who's like, I'm gonna make this everyone's f****** problem.
>> Farz: Yeah, like, just retreating to yourself, like, everyone's problem. It reminds me of, like, when I see these. These male influencers, like the Andrew Chase the World, and you hear, like, other people, it's like, listen, like, the problem, you know, so much of it is like, built around, like, being rejected by women and.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Farz: It's like, I forgot who it was was talking about how. Listen, if you were rejected by women and you feel bad about that. Become the person that a woman would want to be with.
>> Taylor: Right. Don't blame a woman.
>> Farz: Yeah, don't blame the women. Like, don't blame them. That you're a loser.
>> Taylor: Yeah, a thousand percent.
>> Farz: And I don't know how that. How we came off that from Pole Pop, but, like, it seems.
>> Taylor: I see what you're saying, that you're like, some people are just like rejected and then they like, make everybody. Everybody else's problem and then.
>> Farz: Exactly, exactly. It's supposed like, hey, just like retreat for a little bit and then figure out how you can fit into society. And so Pol Pot found this way.
The story that I was referring to when you mentioned earlier, what was it
The story that I was referring to when you mentioned earlier, what was it that you said about the movie the Killing Fields is. Is autobiographical almost. It's about a guy named Diff Pram. I'm going off my memory. I'm not looking the outline right now, and my memory is horrible, as I just mentioned. But it was essentially this one guy who was a journalist in Cambodia during this time and how he was trying to do research along with. I think it was Washington Post or New York Times or something. And he was caught and sent to the Killing Fields. And we only know about the details of it because he was able to kind of escape and explain it to us. And there's a movie about it that came out like 1990s, I think, but it's a. It's a. It's a horrible story. It's a really, really. It's a really tragic story. 24. It's crazy when I think with Death Pram. What he said was that 50 members of his family were killed during the purges and so crazy and. Sorry, that was, that was a part of it. That was recollecting back to your. What you mentioned earlier, which was he was caught listening to an American radio station and like listening to it, and a member of the Kamar Rouge saw him and was like, oh, you're an intellectual. We gotta kill you now. He's like, dude, I swear, I don't understand any of this. Like, it was deals, but he.
>> Taylor: But he did. But he was like, we're talking.
>> Farz: He understood. Yeah, yeah, I think it was. It might have been Voice of America, which was just shut down. I believe so. But I. I last story, and I'm done with this. But the last story is, Is super interesting. And I just referenced him earlier, talking about who this guy was reading and absorbing his knowledge. Joseph Stalin. So do you know, can you guess why, why he felt rejected? He's short from Was he short?
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Was he really?
>> Taylor: Yeah. Let me double. Let me double check this. This gossip that I have.
>> Farz: We can't be held liable here.
>> Taylor: You made me guess. Hold on, hold on. There's. There's a lot on his. Okay, now, how tall was Alan? He's like 5 4.
>> Farz: That's shocking. Really?
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Man of steel. Wow.
>> Taylor: But, like, also, like. And wait, I'm on Reddit now. So this is. This is on Today. I learned on Reddit, but someone said Lennon was 55 and Churchill was 5 6, and then, like, FJR was in his wheelchair, so it was, like, time to shine. For shorties, it would look great if he was, like, 6ft tall.
>> Farz: Wild.
>> Taylor: Well, anyway, that was my guess. Is it art?
>> Farz: No.
>> Taylor: Is it the French?
>> Farz: It's neither of those things. But I will say it is shocking how we look at, like, Adolf Hitler is the worst person in the world, and Joseph Stalin was responsible for, like, 5x the number of deaths.
>> Taylor: It's like, I think also it was not presented to me in school enough how much we were allies with Russia during World War II.
>> Farz: Which is. Which is exactly what I was going to say. Which is the. The. The common refrain is the victor writes the story.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: In World War II, Joseph Stalin was on the victor side. Hitler wasn't.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: If you factually. If you go back and look at, like, their track record, he killed the country of Canada two and a half times over again.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: Like, it is insane how horrible this guy was. So that being said, I'm actually going to skip over the latter part of his life because this podcast, this episode is going on too long anyways, and we all probably know the gist of it, so why do I bring up Joseph Stalin?
When Lenin took over, he associated the Russian Orthodox Church with its connection
So Marxism and religion have always had a rough history. Marx was famous for calling religion the opium of the people.
>> Taylor: Agree to agree.
>> Farz: When Lenin took over, he associated the Russian Orthodox Church with its connection to the czar regime. And he implemented some changes, including nationalizing churches, separating church from state, stripping tax advantages from the church. And that's basically, like, where he stopped. Like, he wasn't going so far as to try to prevent people from practicing a religious affiliation. He had no issues with you being religious? Personally, I'm not gonna.
>> Taylor: I'm looking at pictures of Stalin just to put in our thing. And I will not include the hot picture of Solomon. He's in his 20s, but there's a hot picture of Salem when He's in his 20s.
>> Farz: Thank you for this groundbreaking news. After talking about him killing 30 million.
>> Taylor: People, he could walk into a bar in LA and people would be like, who's that guy?
>> Farz: He's 5 4. Nobody's gonna look at him and say he was that guy.
>> Taylor: Maybe if he's sitting on a stool, then he gets off the stool and.
>> Farz: You'Re like, also joking. If you're 5 4, short king, we love you.
>> Taylor: Exactly. You're totally fine. You can definitely meet someone. It's not a big deal. Keep going.
>> Farz: Women make it a big deal. That's the problem. Like women are the problem here.
>> Taylor: No, we literally just said women aren't the problem. Get over yourself and find it. It's fine, you're fine. It's not women.
>> Farz: I'm saying.
>> Taylor: Women who like short guys.
>> Farz: I did read somewhere that for every hundred thousand dollars a man earns, they are one inch more attractive to a woman. So if you're like 54 and you make it 100 grand, you're like a 5, 5 guy. If you're 54 and you make 800 grand, then you're like a 6 foot guy. So just make yourself better by making more money. I swear to God, Taylor, I'm not making this up.
>> Taylor: No, I'm sure that someone researched that. I'm sure that person researched it was like five, two.
>> Farz: No, I bet he was six two and made 50 grand.
>> Taylor: Okay, anyways, that women's fault. Just make yourself better. Go ahead.
When it came to Stalin and religion, Stalin changed all of this
>> Farz: When it came to Stalin and religion, Stalin changed all of this. And here's the reason why. And again, the reason why the world changed in rejection was so big. Such a big deal here. Stalin was raised deeply religious and was deeply religious himself. He was enrolled in seminary school at 15 years old with the goal of becoming a priest. Five years later, he was expelled from seminary school for a number of reasons. My bullet points here are one, he fell into Marxism, which was inherently anti czar. And that was frowned upon because the czar regime and the Greek, the Russian Orthodox Church were kind of closely tied to each other. He was very anti authoritarian and that was embedded within Marxism as well. And seminary schools are naturally very authoritarian. And he was rebelling against administration and became kind of difficult to deal with. And it just generally sounded like he was a pain in the a** students. Some schools would try to probably correct that behavior. But at this time period that he was at school, the seminary school, they decided to expel him. The official reason on expulsion papers was, quote, failing to appear for examination. That's what the reason was given. It said that after this he was deeply embarrassed, super ashamed. He was socially ostracized by everyone, especially his family, because they wanted him to be a priest. And he blamed the seminary in the church in general for this outcome. In his life he fell deeper into Marxism and became super, super anti religious. So when Lenin died and Stalin took power, he went way deeper than his predecessor did. He order mass executions of tens of thousands of clergy and their followers. That's imams from the mosques or the Muslim side, and rabbis and Catholic priests and all that good stuff. He burned church mosques and synagogues to the ground in Russia. Religious statues and iconography were destroyed. He established the quote, the Godless Five Year Plan to eradicate any vestiges of religion within a five year window from 1932 to 1937, he established the practice of children reporting their parents religious activity. And it wasn't until the early 1980s, until Mikhail Gorbachav and his policies of Glasnot and Paris Royka, that the full frontal assault on religion that shaped, that was shaped by Song's rejection of the seminary school was finally eased up and people could practice their faith without overt fear or persecution. I'm not going to read more than is logical into this, but if your fuel is fired that strongly by something that is that deeply entrenched in people's philosophy of life, it's not that hard to make another leap to let's start Gulags and go to camps. And you're basically replacing what religion does to their lives with yourself. Like you are religion. And that's not good.
>> Taylor: No, it's not good. I do. I would love a godless society, but what do I know?
>> Farz: So, so actually this is actually a really, really fun time period to be having this conversation because there's so much division in the US has spoken sense and I found this really interesting dichotomy of. You have Adolf Hitler on the hard right, you have Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin on the hard left. And this is a really good example of why we should stop being crazy and people should be normal and should be accepting of I just calm the down.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not against that. I'm not against everyone calming down a little bit.
>> Farz: If you're religious, be religious, that's fine.
>> Taylor: If you're not, just don't hurt other people.
>> Farz: If you want to, if you want to get married and have kids, have kids. If you want to be a single cat lady, be a single cat, it's all good. Everybody's fine. There's no rules. Yeah, it's all, it's all good. It's like the Outback Steakhouse.
>> Taylor: You can do whatever you want. You could have a Blooming onion every freaking day if you want. I don't care.
>> Farz: Every day.
>> Taylor: Every day you might die, but, like.
>> Farz: You live your life, trans fats will do it. But.
>> Taylor: Yeah, but whatever, Whatever, who cares?
>> Farz: I thought it was really fascinating because. Because the fact that these people had such unbelievable outsized impacts on the world.
>> Taylor: 100%. Yeah.
>> Farz: And it was like these, these little things that lead to the next, lead to the next. And then all of a sudden you're like, and now we're killing 30 million people in gulags. It's like, crazy.
>> Taylor: How do we get here? Yeah.
So the other stories I was going to cover, that I was like,
>> Farz: So the other stories I was going to cover, that I was like, this is going to be too much time, was Ted Kaczynski.
>> Taylor: Oh, yeah, I know. We've talked about it. I want to do a whole thing.
>> Farz: Which apparently Ted Kaczynski is, like, catching on in red pill media as, like, he was right on things. I haven't read any of his manifesto, nor do I think I will, but I thought it was really, really interesting. The other one was Richard Nixon, which I did not know this. He lost presidential in 60, lost the California gubernatorial in 62. He was bitter and super secretive. And after he lost 62 gubernatorial, he. That's when he told the media, you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore. He came super insular and like, that's part of the whole deleting parts of his, like, recordings. Like, that was kind of the, the. A big piece of it as well. Which is fascinating.
>> Taylor: I was hoping you were gonna say it was like musical theater that rejected Nixon and that made him the way he was.
>> Farz: So, dude, you know what? Taylor, he was born. He was raised a Quaker. I bet. I bet you there's something in there about, like, being raised a Quaker and then moving on to, like, these, like, highly esteemed positions that you lose your community and your faith and whatever. There's probably something in there as well.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: So, yeah, that's my story.
>> Taylor: That's fun. That's fun.
>> Farz: What a different tack today.
>> Taylor: No, I like it. That's super interesting. I feel like you hear the cliche about Hitler in art school, but you're like, I don't know the details.
>> Farz: You know, dude, his art, like, you should look at his art. Like anybody like Wikipedia has, like.
>> Taylor: No, totally, I agree.
>> Farz: More than a dozen of his artworks on there, and you're looking like. So one thing that was fascinating was that the, whatever, The Washington, the D.C. art Museum has the main piece of art that he's known for, which is, like this giant building with ivy going on the side of it with, like, a town square in the middle of it. They have that in their collection. They just won't display it because they don't want it to, like, turn into, like, a thing. Was fascinating because, yeah, it display his art. Like, I don't know if you'll learn something, but, like, hey, don't be a d*** to people. Maybe, like, I don't know.
>> Taylor: Or like, you know, if you don't get into school, you want, like, try another one.
>> Farz: That was not my takeaway from this. My takeaway great architect was like. Was like, dude, you know what? You know what it remind me of, actually, Taylor was something under. Under Bush that I forgot who said it. They're probably on msnbc. But they said something about how every time you do, like, a strike in, like, Afghanistan or Iraq, whatever, yes, you killed several jihadists, but you just created, like, five more people that liked them and wanted to be like them. So totally. That's.
>> Taylor: Yes, everyone take it down, like, two notches.
>> Farz: Just great.
>> Taylor: It'd be great. I think. I think this would be much better. Cool. Thank you. That was super interesting.
>> Farz: Glad you liked it.
Taylor: I started a Patreon for us so we can invest in ads
You seem engaged. Usually make you yawn. And this time I yawned.
>> Taylor: I think more today than I usually do.
>> Farz: But why are you telling that? I'm recording, but I think I'm gonna. Y'all.
>> Taylor: Because you mentioned it. No. I spent a lot of time outside this weekend, so it makes me, you know, I'm outside tired. But a soccer game yesterday we went to our friend's pool. It's summertime.
>> Farz: Fun.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: You know what? You're the second person who said it's summertime. And I keep wanting to correct you all and saying it's spring.
>> Taylor: I know it just turned spring on Thursday. It's been. It's been spring for four days. But I went to a pool party yesterday, and so I feel like it's summer.
>> Farz: Fine. Do you have anything to read us off with after you're done reading?
>> Taylor: Jesus Christ. I do. I started a Patreon for us, and we haven't done this yet, but, like, we don't make any money doing this, and we're not. I mean, it'd be cool if we did, but, like, we're not trying to make a bajillion dollars, but we not.
>> Farz: Only not make money, we spend.
>> Taylor: We actively lose money doing this.
>> Farz: We actively lose money.
>> Taylor: We gain so much in knowledge and friendship, but we Actively lose money. So I started a Patreon just so we can like invest in some ads and things. I think every time I do like a boost on Tick Tock it does help. But I, but they're not cheap. So I started a Patreon. I will put the link in the notes. You can just search doom to fail on Patreon. And there is a way to just donate. Just do like a one time donation and then there's a way to donate $5 a month. I'm calling it the doomed to fail Founders club. And what it will be is $5 a month forever. And shows will have no ads. I know shows right now don't have any ads, but someday when we do have ads, you will be in the no ad zone at your $5 a month. Even though that tier will probably cost more if we become really successful.
>> Farz: If we get 50,000 of you, we can recoup our cost.
>> Taylor: Exactly. So yeah, I'll put it up. It'll be, it's fine. I figured we should have it because, well I, I brought it up because my, I was at softball practice and talking to my co coaches and they were like, you should take donations. Like, you know, they're like, we like the show. You should take donations. And I was like, you're right, I should at least have it as an option. So it's an option.
>> Farz: Now I will, I will also take this moment to shout you out, Taylor. So if the, the sausage baking aspect of this show is such that we do our individual research, we hop on, we record and I edit and upload the episodes which is like something But Taylor does 6,000 more things in terms of re editing shows and cutting them into quick clips and uploading them to Instagram and TikTok. And yeah, it's a lot of work and you do more than I have the capacity or interest. No, it's not capacity. You have less capacity than I do. But still like I, I, I, I'm jealous of the fact that you, you have that drive.
>> Taylor: So thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah, no, thank you. I and a lot of it actually is the headliner app that we pay for that is not cheap. But that helps too. So there's that. But yeah, thank you. So thank you for learning how to edit.
>> Farz: Do you remember what a nightmare that was? The first like month was a nightmare. It took me like 16 hours to edit a 30 minute episode.
>> Taylor: You were like, taylor, if I hear you say one more time I'm going to fly to California Murder.
>> Farz: That was like that was. I actually signed up for this one. AI software, they would. I could just type command find and then it would find it and it was. It didn't work. So anyways, we're good now though. Sweet. Do you have anything else to read us off with?
>> Taylor: That's it. Thank you everyone. Find us on Patreon and all of the Socials at Doomed to Fail pod, please. Appreciate you.
>> Farz: We will join you in a few days. Thanks all.
>> Taylor: Thank you.