Aella: Sex Work, OnlyFans, Porn, Escorting, Dating, and Human Sexuality

00:00:00.000 | - It was really shocking to me

00:00:00.840 | that nobody else was doing anything creative with sex work.

00:00:02.940 | Like for me, it was like breathing.

00:00:04.440 | Like you're just doing sex and you're bored.

00:00:05.820 | I'm like, what do you do?

00:00:06.660 | I don't know, let's try something funny.

00:00:07.480 | Like it's just the natural progression.

00:00:09.680 | And it felt to me like there was almost no competition.

00:00:12.200 | Like I would just be really creative

00:00:13.480 | and like immediately it was the top

00:00:15.360 | not safe for work post on Reddit.

00:00:16.640 | I'm like, well, I didn't even try that hard.

00:00:18.840 | - The following is a conversation with Ayla,

00:00:23.480 | a sex researcher who does some of the largest

00:00:25.960 | human sexuality survey studies in the world

00:00:28.640 | on everything from fetishes to relationships.

00:00:31.720 | She's fearless in pursuing her curiosity on these topics

00:00:35.040 | by asking challenging and fascinating questions

00:00:37.960 | and looking for answers in a rigorous data-driven way

00:00:41.360 | and writing about it on her blog, knowingless.com.

00:00:46.360 | She's also a sex worker, including OnlyFans and Escorting

00:00:51.200 | and is an exceptionally prolific creator

00:00:54.000 | of thought-provoking Twitter polls.

00:00:57.200 | Ayla and I disagree on a bunch of things,

00:00:59.440 | but that just made this conversation even more interesting.

00:01:03.020 | I like interesting people in the full range

00:01:05.680 | of the meaning that the word interesting implies.

00:01:09.000 | I'm currently reading "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac

00:01:12.140 | and would be remiss if I didn't mention

00:01:15.340 | one of my favorite quotes from that book

00:01:17.520 | that feels relevant here.

00:01:18.960 | "The only people for me are the mad ones.

00:01:22.960 | The ones who are mad to live, mad to talk,

00:01:26.080 | mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time.

00:01:30.240 | The ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing,

00:01:33.320 | but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles,

00:01:38.280 | exploding like spiders across the stars.

00:01:41.360 | In the middle, you see the blue center light pop

00:01:44.720 | and everybody goes, ah."

00:01:46.440 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:01:50.280 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:01:52.180 | in the description.

00:01:53.360 | And now, dear friends, here's Ayla.

00:01:56.360 | I feel like this conversation can go anywhere.

00:01:59.520 | Is that exciting or terrifying to you?

00:02:02.120 | - I think it's more exciting.

00:02:03.400 | - The uncertainty exciting to you?

00:02:05.800 | - Yes.

00:02:07.120 | - In conversations in general or just this one?

00:02:09.480 | - I think conversations in general.

00:02:11.080 | Like, is anybody like,

00:02:11.920 | "Oh, the certainty is really exciting."

00:02:13.220 | Maybe if the certainty is something new.

00:02:14.880 | - I mean, novelty always comes with uncertainty, right?

00:02:16.940 | Almost always.

00:02:18.040 | - I started trying to think of a counter example.

00:02:20.560 | - Immediately. - Yeah.

00:02:21.680 | - Your uncomfortable generalizations of that kind.

00:02:23.680 | - Like, always is always a really bold word to use.

00:02:26.240 | - But if it's truly novel,

00:02:27.360 | that means you don't really understand it.

00:02:29.320 | It's outside your distribution.

00:02:30.880 | So therefore, it's gonna have a bunch of uncertainty.

00:02:32.520 | But you don't think of it as uncertainty.

00:02:34.200 | You think about it as something new,

00:02:37.280 | but it actually also attracts you

00:02:38.560 | because there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding it,

00:02:40.280 | probably.

00:02:41.160 | Like, what is this new thing?

00:02:42.520 | - Yeah, like annihilating the mystery, like that drive.

00:02:45.960 | - What about the danger of it?

00:02:48.200 | - It's like part, I was just thinking of on the drive over,

00:02:50.560 | 'cause I was like, I'm a little nervous

00:02:51.800 | about doing this podcast.

00:02:53.560 | And then I was feeling into the unpleasantness of it,

00:02:57.520 | like the fear of what if something goes terribly wrong.

00:03:00.480 | And then I was also feeling into how much that feels

00:03:02.960 | like part of why it's exciting.

00:03:05.280 | If I knew that it was going to go great, I don't know.

00:03:07.280 | - Did you actually imagine all the possible ways

00:03:09.600 | it can go wrong?

00:03:10.840 | - Not like all of them, but I was like,

00:03:12.880 | what if I say something really dumb?

00:03:14.440 | Or like, you ask me a question and I answer it in a way

00:03:17.080 | that makes me sound a lot less capable than I am.

00:03:19.900 | I'm like really afraid of being perceived as stupid

00:03:22.920 | or something.

00:03:23.800 | I was also thinking about this on the way over,

00:03:25.080 | like I'm kind of risk averse in some ways.

00:03:26.720 | Like I don't like driving fast in cars,

00:03:28.840 | 'cause I was driving very carefully here

00:03:30.160 | 'cause the roads are bad.

00:03:31.640 | And then I was thinking, but I'm very like pro-risk

00:03:33.520 | in other ways, like being really exposed

00:03:35.840 | to like a wide variety of people who might hate you.

00:03:38.400 | And I think like from the outside, that might look fine,

00:03:40.900 | but I think the monkey brain is really sensitive

00:03:42.760 | to lots of people yelling at you

00:03:44.920 | for whatever problems that you seem to have.

00:03:47.760 | - So that's the big risk you're taking

00:03:49.300 | is putting yourself out there as an intellectual,

00:03:53.220 | like through your writing,

00:03:54.540 | and then a lot of people yelling at you.

00:03:56.380 | Is that the worst embarrassment you've experienced?

00:03:58.020 | - It's pretty bad, yeah.

00:03:59.540 | I think the worst embarrassment is if I put something

00:04:01.980 | out there that I failed to like be properly skeptical

00:04:04.180 | of in myself.

00:04:05.620 | And then people are like, oh, we caught this thing

00:04:08.420 | that you didn't catch.

00:04:09.380 | I think that's the biggest terror.

00:04:11.220 | - Yeah, from looking at your reading

00:04:13.200 | and listening to your interviews,

00:04:15.420 | you seem to be very defensive

00:04:18.180 | and worried about being a good scientist.

00:04:20.100 | - Yeah, definitely.

00:04:21.020 | - But you're like methodology.

00:04:22.460 | - Yes.

00:04:23.300 | - And funny enough, you get attacked on that methodology,

00:04:26.580 | even though, you know, I'm a fan of psychology,

00:04:31.020 | of like academic psychology,

00:04:32.900 | and it's kind of disappointing often

00:04:35.900 | how non-rigorous their work is,

00:04:38.540 | how small the sample size and so on,

00:04:40.060 | and how big and ambitious, over-ambitious

00:04:44.140 | the proclamations about results is,

00:04:46.820 | especially with the news reports on it.

00:04:49.560 | Now, you're both the researcher,

00:04:51.300 | the scientist, and the reporter, right?

00:04:54.060 | So like that's what you have with the blog.

00:04:56.180 | Your sample size is often gigantic.

00:04:59.140 | The methodology is right there.

00:05:00.540 | The data is right there.

00:05:01.380 | You provide the data.

00:05:02.980 | And then you're like raw and honest

00:05:06.700 | with your interpretation of the data.

00:05:08.140 | Like there's an honesty, authenticity to it.

00:05:11.220 | So I don't know, it's actually really refreshing.

00:05:12.980 | I don't know why people criticize it.

00:05:14.420 | I think this is what psychologists

00:05:17.060 | are probably terrified about being transparent,

00:05:19.660 | and transparent in that way is because

00:05:22.540 | they'll get attacked for their methodology.

00:05:24.300 | So they wanna cloak it in a sort of layer of authority.

00:05:29.300 | Like I'm from this institution.

00:05:32.140 | It was peer-reviewed.

00:05:34.020 | There's kind of all these layers,

00:05:35.820 | and I'm also not gonna share the data with you,

00:05:37.700 | and I'm also gonna pretend like

00:05:39.020 | most psychology studies are not replicable.

00:05:41.380 | I'm just going to pretend there's authority to it.

00:05:43.460 | - I think it works on a lot of people.

00:05:44.740 | Like from the outside, you're like,

00:05:45.940 | ah, the scientists with the white lab coats with credentials,

00:05:48.540 | those are the people who are like doing science.

00:05:50.300 | And like doing science is, you know,

00:05:52.500 | you have like fancy terms that other people

00:05:54.580 | don't really understand.

00:05:55.980 | And to be fair, like I have a lot to learn.

00:05:58.220 | I'm still like, I'm self-teaching.

00:05:59.860 | I'm like learning through people.

00:06:00.900 | Learning as I go, I'm definitely not

00:06:03.020 | super knowledgeable about this stuff.

00:06:05.220 | But a lot of what those people are doing in science

00:06:07.340 | is not that hard.

00:06:10.020 | And a lot of people like don't try to learn it

00:06:12.220 | because it seems so like elevated.

00:06:14.660 | And this is one thing that really bothers me.

00:06:17.020 | I think like everybody can do science.

00:06:19.180 | Like if you just have this aspect of curiosity,

00:06:21.380 | and like you just really want to figure something out,

00:06:23.500 | you can go and start, you know,

00:06:24.780 | asking people questions, doing surveys,

00:06:26.220 | like writing down the answers.

00:06:27.500 | And then you can go learn how to look at that data

00:06:29.580 | in a way that gives you more information about the world.

00:06:32.340 | Like it's very simple and straightforward.

00:06:33.580 | If you just approach it humbly and earnestly,

00:06:35.780 | and you're like, please, let's figure this out together.

00:06:38.500 | But people like are, I think, self-crippled in this

00:06:41.180 | because they view this as like relegated

00:06:44.700 | to the domain of the experts and, you know,

00:06:46.900 | the fancy scientists.

00:06:48.300 | And I think that makes me feel really sad.

00:06:50.380 | - You're almost attracted to the questions

00:06:52.700 | you're not supposed to ask.

00:06:54.140 | - Oh yeah, also yes.

00:06:56.300 | Which might contribute to the controversy.

00:06:57.860 | - Not exclusively probably.

00:06:59.500 | - Oh no.

00:07:00.340 | - But you're just not limited by like part of your curiosity

00:07:04.700 | asking questions that seem common sense.

00:07:06.660 | Like some of the most controversial questions

00:07:09.220 | are like around sex.

00:07:11.020 | It's like everybody thinks and talks and does sex.

00:07:15.420 | I mean, it's the driver of human civilization.

00:07:17.900 | And yet there's so little like rigorous discussion

00:07:21.700 | about the philosophical

00:07:23.180 | and the scientific questions around it.

00:07:24.860 | It's like, it gets really weird to be able to discuss them.

00:07:29.100 | It becomes tricky to discuss them.

00:07:30.860 | - Yeah, it's super charged.

00:07:32.340 | 'Cause everybody has a really strong opinion,

00:07:33.740 | like whether or not, you know,

00:07:34.860 | pornography is damaging to society

00:07:36.540 | or like how sex corresponds to gender

00:07:38.780 | or like what kind of sexuality is acceptable.

00:07:40.780 | Like, can you have sexual preferences

00:07:43.020 | that in themselves are immoral?

00:07:45.780 | People get very angry about it.

00:07:47.900 | - Well, the sad part is they're not just opinionated,

00:07:51.580 | but most of us, our relationship with sex is,

00:07:54.140 | I think, I guess I wanna say not rigorous.

00:07:58.940 | - I think it's very difficult to be rigorous about sex.

00:08:01.260 | Like, I would consider sexual urges

00:08:05.140 | to be kind of elusive to introspection

00:08:07.100 | in a way that's a little bit disproportionate

00:08:08.700 | to a lot of other things.

00:08:09.780 | Like you could like, you know, introspect about,

00:08:11.220 | you know, how I want other people to like me

00:08:12.580 | and where my insecurities lie.

00:08:15.660 | But sex is one of those black box things.

00:08:17.980 | A really common thing is for people to,

00:08:19.740 | if you have a fetish,

00:08:20.660 | you sort of check back in your childhood

00:08:22.660 | to see an event that corresponds to that fetish.

00:08:24.900 | And then you like develop a narrative,

00:08:26.020 | like, ah, this event in my childhood

00:08:27.460 | must have caused this fetish.

00:08:28.940 | And so I think this causes people to be biased

00:08:30.700 | towards like a concrete, coherent, causative way

00:08:34.340 | that events happen or that sexual fetishes happen.

00:08:37.900 | This is just like one example of like why

00:08:39.340 | I think it's really hard to be rigorous with introspection.

00:08:42.420 | 'Cause we can't avoid,

00:08:43.260 | you just wanna tend towards making like coherent narratives,

00:08:46.980 | which I think is not always the correct way to explain it.

00:08:49.300 | - The narratives that are connected to childhood

00:08:51.100 | and so on, how they originate.

00:08:52.980 | Yeah, you've, I mean, we'll talk about fetishes

00:08:55.540 | 'cause you have a lot of really interesting writing on that.

00:08:58.100 | Just actually zooming out,

00:08:59.420 | I shouldn't mention you tweeted, I wrote this down.

00:09:02.260 | You tweeted, "I do not understand

00:09:03.620 | "how to have normal conversations with people in person

00:09:07.660 | "if I'm not on drugs."

00:09:09.980 | So I guess, let's both agree

00:09:12.540 | to not have a normal conversation, I guess.

00:09:14.740 | Assuming you're not on drugs now.

00:09:16.500 | Or if you are, you don't have to tell me.

00:09:17.860 | - I feel like a very small amount of phenibut,

00:09:20.180 | which is a nootropic.

00:09:21.940 | Don't know if that counts.

00:09:22.780 | - Is that a drug?

00:09:23.620 | Well, I guess I'm on caffeine.

00:09:24.940 | Yeah. - So we're both--

00:09:26.620 | - Drugged up.

00:09:27.780 | - Good enough to have a normal conversation.

00:09:29.820 | - We don't have to.

00:09:32.660 | - What is normal anyway?

00:09:34.460 | What do you think is the primary driver

00:09:36.100 | of human civilization?

00:09:37.540 | Is it the desire for sex, love, power, or immortality?

00:09:41.540 | Like avoiding the fear of death,

00:09:44.260 | constructing illusions that make us forget

00:09:46.300 | about our terror over mortality.

00:09:48.940 | So sex, love, power, death.

00:09:52.020 | - Is this a Twitter poll?

00:09:53.740 | - It's-- - There's four options.

00:09:55.060 | - This is reality.

00:09:56.380 | Not everything maps perfectly to a Twitter poll,

00:09:59.740 | but in this case, because there's four options

00:10:02.140 | and it is a small number of characters, it does.

00:10:04.620 | But I'd like to think I'm more interested.

00:10:07.060 | You know what?

00:10:08.460 | I think your Twitter polls are fundamentally interesting.

00:10:11.420 | There's something about the brevity of a poll

00:10:14.500 | limiting it to a set of choices

00:10:16.580 | and having an existential crisis

00:10:18.060 | and searching for the answer.

00:10:19.980 | That's beautiful.

00:10:21.260 | - That combination.

00:10:22.220 | - Well, this one is a big one.

00:10:23.140 | Like, what do you think is behind it?

00:10:24.460 | - Do you believe that there is one primary driver?

00:10:26.260 | Like, do you think that it can be understood

00:10:27.740 | in the terms of primary drivers?

00:10:30.900 | - Yeah, I think, well, maybe it's an engineering perspective

00:10:34.140 | like trying to reverse engineer the brain.

00:10:36.220 | I don't think we're equipped or understand enough

00:10:38.860 | about the mind to get there.

00:10:40.180 | - Yeah, like, what's the primary driver of a tree?

00:10:42.740 | - Yeah, well, then it gets to the question of what is life?

00:10:46.180 | What is a living organism?

00:10:47.620 | - Like, to self-replicate, probably.

00:10:49.340 | - That's a very clean simplification,

00:10:51.700 | but I think life is more interesting

00:10:56.700 | than just self-replication.

00:11:00.580 | - Yeah, but it sounds like there's a curiosity in you

00:11:02.980 | that you're trying to poke at,

00:11:04.180 | and I don't understand exactly what that curiosity is.

00:11:07.020 | - So if I had to dedicate 1,000 years

00:11:09.300 | to understand one of these topics,

00:11:11.620 | which one would be the most fruitful,

00:11:13.260 | I guess is the indirect thing I'm asking.

00:11:15.100 | - Fun?

00:11:15.940 | - No, well, fun.

00:11:18.740 | To me, everything is fun.

00:11:20.420 | But-- - Really?

00:11:22.340 | - Yeah, I mean, I'm with David Foster Wallace.

00:11:25.300 | The key to life is to make sure that everything's unboreable

00:11:29.580 | or to be unboreable, or nothing is boring.

00:11:32.540 | Everything is fun.

00:11:33.500 | Like everything, I could just literally sit.

00:11:37.260 | I honestly, 'cause I don't think,

00:11:38.700 | I don't know where you got that glass,

00:11:40.220 | but that glass exists, and I forgot it exists,

00:11:42.620 | and it was really fun to me to know that now it was there.

00:11:45.100 | - What about the really unpleasant things?

00:11:47.660 | Like if you're in deep agony?

00:11:51.020 | - Yeah, that's fun. - Okay.

00:11:52.500 | - That's fun, 'cause it's like, yeah, heartbreak.

00:11:55.140 | It's like knowing that I'm capable of that.

00:11:58.700 | It's like from, (laughs)

00:12:02.100 | you know, we're all living in the gutter,

00:12:04.140 | but some of us are looking up at the stars.

00:12:06.340 | So when you're in that gutter,

00:12:08.660 | for some reason, the stars look brighter, right?

00:12:11.660 | So like whenever you're going through a difficult time,

00:12:14.500 | or whenever you see maybe other people

00:12:17.340 | being shitty to each other,

00:12:18.900 | it makes you like really appreciate when they're not.

00:12:22.020 | The contrast makes life kind of amazing.

00:12:24.500 | I'm reading a bunch of books,

00:12:25.620 | and one of them is "Brave New World,"

00:12:27.060 | where they remove the ups and downs of life,

00:12:32.060 | partially through drugs,

00:12:34.220 | but over over-sexualization, all that kind of stuff.

00:12:36.660 | And I feel like you need the ups and downs of life.

00:12:41.660 | You need the dark to have happiness,

00:12:46.860 | to have like a deeply intense feeling of affection

00:12:50.660 | towards another thing or a human being.

00:12:53.380 | Yeah, yeah, so everything's fun.

00:12:55.540 | But fun is also a weird word to define,

00:12:58.500 | 'cause fun, I think for a lot of people,

00:13:00.500 | that's why I talk about love a lot.

00:13:04.020 | I think love is a better word than fun,

00:13:06.200 | 'cause fun is like lighthearted.

00:13:08.940 | Love is more intense.

00:13:11.860 | Like I love that glass and the water that's in it,

00:13:17.180 | 'cause it's fricking awesome.

00:13:18.220 | Like somebody made that glass, right?

00:13:20.620 | And like not have many mistakes,

00:13:22.580 | and the way it bends light in interesting ways,

00:13:26.140 | and the way water bends light in interesting ways,

00:13:28.460 | like I can see part of your arm through that water.

00:13:31.300 | That's fricking amazing.

00:13:33.020 | Everything is amazing.

00:13:34.520 | I'm with the Lego movie.

00:13:36.980 | But from a scientific perspective,

00:13:41.380 | if I were to investigate sex,

00:13:43.440 | I don't know why I put love in there.

00:13:45.660 | Let's just narrow it down in the Twitter poll.

00:13:47.820 | Let's focus on the basics here.

00:13:49.340 | Sex, power, or death, immortality.

00:13:52.560 | If I were to try to,

00:13:55.520 | like from a neuroscience, neurobiology perspective,

00:14:00.100 | or reverse engineer through building AI systems

00:14:02.180 | that focus on these kinds of dynamics,

00:14:04.740 | exploring the game theoretic aspects of it,

00:14:07.300 | exploring the sort of cognitive modeling aspects of it,

00:14:11.540 | which one would get me to a deeper understanding

00:14:14.100 | of the human condition?

00:14:15.820 | That's the question.

00:14:16.660 | Sex, okay, Nietzsche is the will to power.

00:14:20.880 | Freud and the bunch is all about sex.

00:14:24.700 | And then death.

00:14:29.120 | Liv just, Liv Burley,

00:14:30.960 | brilliant previous guest on this podcast,

00:14:33.740 | she just released a video where on her bedside

00:14:36.820 | was the book "Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker,

00:14:41.220 | which of course she would have on her bedside.

00:14:43.900 | But his whole work is that everything is motivated

00:14:48.340 | by our trying to escape the cold, harsh reality

00:14:52.780 | that we're going to die and we're terrified of it.

00:14:54.980 | One of the gifts and burdens for human beings

00:14:59.980 | is that we are cognizant of our own death.

00:15:03.700 | And that terrifies us.

00:15:04.980 | That's the theory.

00:15:06.260 | And because of that, we do everything we can.

00:15:08.900 | We build empires to escape the fact that we're mortal.

00:15:13.500 | - Wouldn't this change quite a bit

00:15:15.340 | for religious people then,

00:15:16.420 | who don't believe that they're going to die?

00:15:18.700 | - Well, they created religion.

00:15:20.300 | The idea there is to create myths, religions.

00:15:22.780 | You can create religions of all kinds.

00:15:24.780 | - Yeah, but if this is one of the defining things

00:15:28.400 | that defines civilization,

00:15:30.860 | then we should expect to see massive differences

00:15:32.820 | between people who believe we're gonna die

00:15:34.180 | and people who don't.

00:15:35.460 | - Good, I love it.

00:15:36.300 | You take it scientifically here.

00:15:38.980 | And they have actually answers.

00:15:40.340 | There's a whole terror management theory

00:15:42.060 | where they do write psychology-type papers

00:15:45.020 | and they do actual experiments.

00:15:46.200 | I can mention how their methodology is interesting.

00:15:48.740 | They prime with the discussion of death.

00:15:52.060 | They take one certain set of people

00:15:54.220 | and have a conversation with them.

00:15:55.460 | Another set of people, they mention death to them

00:15:57.740 | before the conversation and see how that affects

00:16:00.060 | the nature of the conversation.

00:16:02.220 | It's really interesting 'cause death fundamentally alters

00:16:06.260 | the nature of the conversation.

00:16:07.140 | Just even priming,

00:16:08.280 | reminding you that you're going to die,

00:16:11.980 | briefly, changes a lot of things.

00:16:14.660 | - These kinds of priming papers are usually not replicated.

00:16:17.740 | I just have, I feel like I've heard

00:16:19.380 | a bunch of priming ones that--

00:16:21.260 | - I think you have PTSD over psychology papers

00:16:23.180 | that are not replicated.

00:16:24.100 | - I just did a priming experiment on my own

00:16:26.660 | and found it didn't have any effect.

00:16:28.900 | But again--

00:16:29.740 | - Can't you just give me a careless statement

00:16:32.860 | summarizing an entire scientific discipline

00:16:35.420 | of terror management theory?

00:16:36.300 | I don't know.

00:16:37.120 | I haven't rigorously looked at

00:16:40.340 | how good of it is psychologically.

00:16:41.780 | I think it is interesting philosophically,

00:16:43.980 | the way Freud talked about the subconscious mind,

00:16:47.020 | philosophically, it's an interesting discussion.

00:16:49.740 | Then you have to get rigorous with it, for sure.

00:16:52.580 | But the idea is that,

00:16:55.700 | like it's not that religious people

00:16:58.860 | get rid of the terror of death.

00:17:02.860 | This is just one of the popular ways

00:17:04.660 | they create an illusion on top of it.

00:17:06.980 | That's that idea, like a myth that allows,

00:17:10.180 | that makes it easier for them to forget,

00:17:12.220 | to escape that terror.

00:17:14.940 | But everybody else does different methods.

00:17:18.660 | You fill your days with,

00:17:21.540 | capitalism has a whole religion of itself,

00:17:24.180 | like the rat race for getting more

00:17:25.740 | and more material possessions and so on.

00:17:27.900 | - And couldn't you argue it in the opposite direction?

00:17:29.700 | Like, let's say, assume that we're Christians here

00:17:31.820 | and we're like, oh, the atheists,

00:17:33.220 | everybody has terror of hell

00:17:34.500 | and the atheists invent this mythology

00:17:36.220 | where actually evolution is true

00:17:38.380 | in order to escape their terror of hell.

00:17:40.580 | So that doesn't feel like a persuasive argument to me.

00:17:43.820 | But I used to be very, very Christian

00:17:45.900 | and I did not have a terror of death.

00:17:48.620 | And then I lost my faith

00:17:49.740 | and then I had a deep terror of death set in for a few years.

00:17:53.020 | And it felt very different to me.

00:17:54.900 | - So for denial of death,

00:17:56.700 | I don't know if he says that it's actually possible

00:17:59.380 | without really a lot of work to get to the actual terror.

00:18:04.060 | Like, I think his claim is that in early, early,

00:18:07.340 | early childhood development,

00:18:09.260 | that's when the terror is real.

00:18:11.460 | And then we aggressively construct systems around it

00:18:15.700 | of social interaction to sort of construct illusions

00:18:20.340 | on top of it.

00:18:21.380 | I'm doing a half-ass description of this philosophy,

00:18:24.860 | but it is interesting to simplify the human mind

00:18:29.860 | into underlying mechanisms that drive it.

00:18:35.300 | - Yeah, I was gonna say, your thinking seems kind of poetic.

00:18:37.460 | Like the way that you're sort of handling these,

00:18:40.020 | these concepts feel like more like aesthetically driven.

00:18:43.140 | - I think this theme is gonna continue

00:18:44.580 | throughout this conversation

00:18:45.620 | as we talk about relationships and sex, yes.

00:18:48.340 | For sure, I think so.

00:18:49.980 | And I think your thinking seems to be very driven

00:18:53.700 | by how can I construct an experiment to test this hypothesis?

00:18:58.340 | - Yeah, something like that.

00:19:00.300 | - Yeah, but aren't, there's some things,

00:19:03.820 | especially that have to do with the human mind

00:19:06.180 | that are really messy, really difficult to understand.

00:19:08.100 | There's so many uncertainties and mysteries around

00:19:10.540 | that we don't yet have the tools to collect the data.

00:19:13.340 | Like, one of your favorite tools is the survey,

00:19:16.780 | is asking people questions.

00:19:18.860 | And then figuring out different ways

00:19:20.620 | to indirectly get at the truth

00:19:22.780 | because there's flaws to the survey.

00:19:24.340 | You kind of learn about those flaws

00:19:25.900 | and you get better and better

00:19:26.820 | at asking the right questions and so on.

00:19:28.940 | But that's not, that's indirect access to the human mind.

00:19:32.300 | - But do you think poetic narratives are?

00:19:34.700 | I'm not saying poetic narratives are bad.

00:19:37.260 | I think it's a cool way of handling concepts.

00:19:39.980 | But I'm not sure that they are more rigorous.

00:19:42.900 | - No, no, no.

00:19:43.740 | - Okay.

00:19:44.580 | - No, but they might be the more correct,

00:19:47.500 | like philosophy might be the right way

00:19:49.140 | to discuss things that were really far from understanding.

00:19:52.220 | - Yeah, I mean, they might be more useful shorthand.

00:19:54.580 | - Yeah.

00:19:55.420 | - Like morality, I don't think morality makes any sense.

00:19:57.100 | But it's really useful shorthand to use

00:19:58.940 | when handling concepts a lot of the time.

00:20:02.160 | - Right, like ethics and morality.

00:20:03.540 | You could construct studies that ask different questions.

00:20:06.180 | Like, you know, just having worked

00:20:07.940 | with autonomous vehicles a lot,

00:20:10.220 | the trolley problem gets brought up.

00:20:12.380 | And I don't know, you can construct all kinds

00:20:14.260 | of interesting surveys about the trolley problem.

00:20:16.900 | But does that really get at some deep moral calculus

00:20:21.460 | that humans do?

00:20:23.260 | It's sexy because people like write clickbait articles

00:20:26.700 | about it, but does it really get to like,

00:20:29.380 | what you value more, five grandmas or like three children?

00:20:34.380 | Whatever, like they construct these arguments of like,

00:20:38.200 | if you could steer a train,

00:20:39.520 | if you could steer an autonomous car, which do you choose?

00:20:42.500 | Yeah, I don't know.

00:20:43.600 | I don't know if it's possible

00:20:44.660 | with some of those to construct.

00:20:46.840 | Sometimes the fuzzy area, there's some topics

00:20:49.900 | that are fuzzy and will forever be fuzzy,

00:20:51.940 | given our limited cognitive capabilities.

00:20:55.600 | - I don't know, there's a way of looking at things

00:20:56.760 | where it's like, for example, the childhood fetish thing

00:20:59.280 | that I was talking about,

00:21:00.120 | like where do your fetishes come from?

00:21:01.060 | Like you can develop a narrative where it's like,

00:21:02.900 | I think like this kind of thing is,

00:21:04.940 | when you're surrounded by feet when you're a child,

00:21:06.680 | this causes foot fetishes.

00:21:08.260 | And this is like kind of a cool narrative.

00:21:11.300 | And I think a lot of people's ideas about philosophy

00:21:13.660 | follow the same sort of thing.

00:21:14.780 | Like, what is the narrative that is cool?

00:21:16.740 | And I think this is useful for meaning making.

00:21:18.240 | Like I'm very pro meaning making.

00:21:20.340 | Like when you're talking about everything is fun

00:21:23.560 | because the contrast or whatever,

00:21:26.460 | I very much ascribe to that.

00:21:27.860 | I really enjoy that philosophy.

00:21:29.940 | I also find everything to be very delightful.

00:21:33.020 | And this isn't like a question of truth, right?

00:21:34.620 | We're not like, where is the true delight

00:21:36.320 | that we're objectively measuring?

00:21:37.620 | I guess this is a frame, a poetic frame that you're using

00:21:39.780 | to like sort of change the way the light

00:21:41.500 | hits the world around you.

00:21:43.100 | And that's super useful because it like makes you happier

00:21:47.380 | or something.

00:21:48.200 | - Yeah, but also gets to the truth or something.

00:21:54.060 | - Yeah, I guess if what is true.

00:21:56.540 | (laughing)

00:21:58.780 | Yet another question, what is truth?

00:22:00.580 | You've, actually to jump back,

00:22:05.500 | you believe that free will is an illusion.

00:22:08.200 | So why does it feel like I'm free

00:22:14.700 | to make any decision I want?

00:22:16.800 | - It's a cool illusion?

00:22:19.860 | I think that's probably like where our sense of identity

00:22:21.340 | comes from. - It's a fun illusion?

00:22:22.660 | - Like when you really meditate on your sense of identity,

00:22:24.980 | for at least for me, it seems like it comes down

00:22:26.780 | to the sense of choice.

00:22:27.680 | Like, oh, I am doing the thinking.

00:22:29.620 | Like, what does it mean to do with thinking?

00:22:31.100 | It's like, ah, something in me has exerted agency

00:22:34.620 | over having this thought or not having this thought.

00:22:37.340 | Like the sense of self really comes down to choice.

00:22:39.780 | And so when I say that like free will is an illusion,

00:22:41.740 | I also mean there's something like the self is an illusion,

00:22:44.260 | identity is a trick of the light.

00:22:46.740 | - But it's a really fun one.

00:22:48.980 | - Yeah.

00:22:49.820 | - You think a lot about your identity.

00:22:52.180 | - I have occasionally.

00:22:54.060 | - Yeah, like you really struggle with it.

00:22:56.820 | You're proud of it.

00:22:58.020 | I do too.

00:22:59.340 | We have different journeys, but so.

00:23:01.860 | - I really take a lot of delight in it.

00:23:03.340 | I used to be very into like deconstructing it.

00:23:05.940 | Like maybe you know, I did a bunch of like way too much

00:23:08.660 | jealousy for a while.

00:23:10.100 | And at that point, very no ego.

00:23:12.780 | And now I'm like very ego.

00:23:14.420 | I really enjoy having a lot of ego.

00:23:16.900 | - I actually happen to know like everything about you.

00:23:20.420 | - Really? - Yeah.

00:23:21.260 | - Oh. - Like more than you do.

00:23:22.500 | It's interesting.

00:23:23.380 | - That's fascinating.

00:23:24.220 | Wait, could you solve my problems?

00:23:25.340 | - Yes, all of them.

00:23:26.180 | I did thorough research.

00:23:27.780 | Okay, what is consciousness then?

00:23:31.180 | I actually wrote that as a quote, what is consciousness?

00:23:34.820 | (both laughing)

00:23:36.900 | To remind myself.

00:23:38.140 | So like how does that tie in together with free will

00:23:40.900 | and identity and all of that?

00:23:42.980 | - That's what I thought, what is consciousness

00:23:44.340 | is like one of the biggest questions ever.

00:23:46.460 | I do think that people often get confused

00:23:48.820 | when talking about consciousness

00:23:49.660 | 'cause I think people are referring to two separate concepts

00:23:52.100 | and often like combining them into one thing.

00:23:54.380 | Like we asked the question,

00:23:55.340 | is AI going to be conscious?

00:23:57.460 | I think this is kind of the wrong question.

00:23:59.660 | Like we can identify signs of consciousness,

00:24:03.740 | like, ah, they seem to refer to themselves.

00:24:05.980 | But this is not necessarily proof of consciousness

00:24:07.820 | in the same way that like dream characters

00:24:10.540 | acting exactly the way normal human people do in your dream

00:24:13.300 | is not evidence that they themselves are conscious.

00:24:16.180 | So like signs of consciousness

00:24:17.620 | are not proof of consciousness,

00:24:18.740 | but there is something that we definitely know,

00:24:20.780 | which is like, I currently am conscious,

00:24:22.540 | I can tell because, right.

00:24:25.500 | Like I'm like just directly observing my experience.

00:24:28.860 | And so there's one kind of consciousness,

00:24:30.340 | which is I am directly observing my experience

00:24:32.420 | and that you cannot replicate it.

00:24:33.660 | Like I cannot observe two experiences.

00:24:36.540 | It is necessarily singular and it is necessarily certain.

00:24:39.340 | Like you can make all the arguments you want.

00:24:41.500 | Like I'm still directly observing.

00:24:43.420 | It's not a thing that's subject to reason.

00:24:45.420 | Whereas our other thing is conscious.

00:24:47.140 | This is something that's replicable.

00:24:48.500 | Like you can apply it to multiple people.

00:24:50.980 | It's something that's not certain,

00:24:52.780 | like almost definitionally not certain.

00:24:54.300 | Like we don't actually know

00:24:55.260 | if there is an internal experience.

00:24:57.560 | So my argument is that like when people are talking

00:24:59.260 | about other things having experience,

00:25:01.060 | they're using a different concept

00:25:02.700 | than the thing that they're actually looking at

00:25:04.600 | when they look at their own experience.

00:25:05.980 | I think they're two different things.

00:25:08.360 | - Definitionally not possible.

00:25:11.060 | No, if you understand the mechanism of consciousness,

00:25:13.140 | you'll be able to measure it probably, right?

00:25:14.900 | - Yeah, but what are you measuring?

00:25:16.460 | Like I think there's just like a subtle difference.

00:25:18.600 | Like when you're asking the question,

00:25:19.820 | is this other thing conscious?

00:25:22.020 | - Yeah, the easy thing to measure is like a survey.

00:25:24.980 | Does this thing appear conscious?

00:25:26.380 | - Yeah.

00:25:27.220 | - And then the hard thing is you understand

00:25:28.780 | the actual mechanism of how consciousness arises

00:25:32.300 | in the physics of the human brain.

00:25:35.020 | - Yeah, but you can do that in a dream, presumably.

00:25:36.460 | Like if you had a very good dream or a very good simulation.

00:25:38.580 | - Yeah.

00:25:39.400 | - But we could then have somebody in a simulation

00:25:41.660 | or a dream where they go through and they fully understand.

00:25:43.700 | You know, they do all the tests

00:25:44.900 | and the tests come back exactly the way you'd expect them to.

00:25:47.940 | But from the outside, we're like, well, this is misleading.

00:25:49.940 | They're not actually conscious.

00:25:51.740 | Like your dream characters aren't conscious, right?

00:25:54.060 | Probably.

00:25:54.900 | - I don't know, are you asking?

00:25:55.740 | Are you telling?

00:25:56.560 | - I'm like appealing to an intuition.

00:25:57.900 | (both laughing)

00:25:59.300 | - But it sounds like you're driving towards a narrative.

00:26:01.380 | You did a poll about men and women and dreams.

00:26:04.140 | - Yeah.

00:26:04.980 | - Those are some kind of difference.

00:26:06.000 | I couldn't tell what the difference was

00:26:07.300 | except that more men than women.

00:26:08.820 | - Quite a lot more women dream vividly than men.

00:26:11.860 | - Oh.

00:26:12.700 | - Which I actually found in my chaos survey.

00:26:13.540 | So I did a survey, maybe you know the,

00:26:16.180 | I just had a people--

00:26:17.020 | - I know everything, do you remember?

00:26:17.860 | - You do know, yes, I'm sorry.

00:26:19.020 | So as you clearly know.

00:26:20.100 | - I'll try not to talk down to you through this conversation

00:26:22.180 | 'cause I know. - I'm sorry.

00:26:23.020 | - And I not only know everything,

00:26:24.900 | I know how your future looks like.

00:26:27.220 | - Really?

00:26:28.060 | - And how everything ends, yeah.

00:26:29.820 | - So you could probably win all the prediction markets

00:26:31.520 | on my life.

00:26:32.380 | - Yeah.

00:26:33.220 | - Cool.

00:26:34.040 | - So we should also mention

00:26:34.880 | that you have like prediction markets.

00:26:36.460 | You have like votes.

00:26:38.420 | The, what's the site called again?

00:26:40.500 | - Manifold.

00:26:41.340 | - Manifold.

00:26:42.180 | And one of them was, will I be on the Lex Friedman podcast?

00:26:45.340 | - Yeah.

00:26:46.180 | - And I voted.

00:26:47.180 | I invested everything I owned into the yes.

00:26:50.540 | Is there such thing as insider trading on there?

00:26:52.780 | 'Cause that goes against the terms of the--

00:26:54.820 | - No, I think insider trading is part of the information.

00:26:57.700 | So it's supposed to be.

00:26:58.540 | - Oh, I see.

00:26:59.380 | And then I realized it's actually public information

00:27:01.100 | that I voted.

00:27:01.940 | 'Cause like, I think my face shows up there,

00:27:04.260 | it's like, damn it.

00:27:05.580 | It's gonna influence--

00:27:06.420 | - Make a fake account.

00:27:07.980 | - You could make the fake account.

00:27:09.180 | Or I could be lying, right?

00:27:10.900 | - Yeah, that's true.

00:27:11.740 | - And dump the stock or whatever.

00:27:12.580 | - You know, I try to manipulate,

00:27:13.860 | somebody made a market like,

00:27:15.020 | is Ayla going to post a poll,

00:27:16.580 | spelled P-O-L-E on her Twitter, like a photo.

00:27:19.140 | And I was like, I'm gonna manipulate this market.

00:27:21.380 | So I like fucked around with it and I voted no.

00:27:23.300 | And then I accidentally posted a photo of a poll

00:27:26.020 | without thinking.

00:27:26.860 | - Oh, but that's like self-sabotage.

00:27:28.980 | - Yeah, I accidentally fucked up my own market.

00:27:31.980 | - That doesn't, that's like the reverse of insider trading.

00:27:34.420 | - Yeah.

00:27:35.260 | - What were we talking about?

00:27:36.080 | Oh, the women and the men and the difference,

00:27:37.340 | the vivid dreams and the markets.

00:27:40.740 | If you go with the market,

00:27:41.580 | oh, 'cause I can perfectly predict your future.

00:27:44.100 | But then it's not fun.

00:27:44.980 | I like the romance of unpredictability.

00:27:47.700 | And so I like to, even though I know everything,

00:27:50.020 | I like to forget everything.

00:27:51.420 | - Very, very Buddhist of you.

00:27:53.980 | - Yeah, the river.

00:27:55.060 | No man in the river wants whatever,

00:27:57.100 | the footsteps, however that goes.

00:27:58.500 | - That's one of my favorite questions,

00:28:00.100 | is like, if you could press a button

00:28:01.580 | and then have all of your wants fulfilled,

00:28:02.900 | anything that you want.

00:28:03.900 | So it's like such a rapid degree

00:28:05.340 | that you don't really experience the want.

00:28:07.180 | Like as the want arises,

00:28:08.500 | it then is like completed as immediately

00:28:11.660 | so that you are completely without want.

00:28:13.580 | Like, would you press that button?

00:28:15.580 | - 100% not.

00:28:16.420 | - Yeah, I didn't think you would.

00:28:17.260 | - No, no, no.

00:28:19.780 | Because immediately everything stops being fun.

00:28:22.260 | The first, it's only fun the first time.

00:28:23.700 | - But if you want it to be fun.

00:28:25.140 | - But like, what would be my source of fun?

00:28:26.860 | I feel like I would, like on day four,

00:28:29.940 | just to get off,

00:28:30.780 | I would need to like do like nuclear war

00:28:33.900 | 'cause it'll escalate quickly.

00:28:36.300 | (both laughing)

00:28:39.620 | I feel like if everything is possible,

00:28:41.780 | I assume you mean like something that like,

00:28:44.060 | is not just normal human things.

00:28:45.700 | - Yeah, magical world.

00:28:46.660 | - Magical world.

00:28:47.580 | Then you start escalating really quickly.

00:28:50.260 | Like, I wonder, I'll probably do like,

00:28:52.460 | I want everybody to just fly into the air

00:28:55.500 | and hover in the air.

00:28:56.620 | Everybody.

00:28:59.260 | And then you're like, oh, life is meaningless.

00:29:02.540 | Like, why does, like you go,

00:29:04.060 | I feel like you get,

00:29:05.180 | no, I actually, that'd be a really interesting experiment.

00:29:09.100 | Like, what are the limits?

00:29:10.980 | Like, are we all capable of becoming psychopaths essentially?

00:29:14.060 | Like, I'd like to believe not.

00:29:18.500 | There's a very hard limits on that,

00:29:20.980 | like in our own mind, like of basic compassion.

00:29:24.660 | 'Cause I love being compassionate

00:29:25.740 | towards other human beings.

00:29:27.020 | And it's one of the things I think about

00:29:28.140 | if you give me power, like a lot of power,

00:29:30.180 | like absolute power.

00:29:31.500 | And I think that's the power you mentioned

00:29:34.300 | is the scariest kind of power.

00:29:35.900 | 'Cause it's like, it's not even power in this normal world.

00:29:39.460 | It's like magical power where you lose,

00:29:42.860 | it's a dream world power where you,

00:29:45.100 | like video game power,

00:29:46.260 | you don't even think of it as reality.

00:29:48.060 | You could just mess with the world.

00:29:49.660 | I feel like that's terrifying.

00:29:51.460 | - Yeah, you'd basically be God.

00:29:53.580 | - God, yeah.

00:29:54.620 | But without like, I feel like the idea of God

00:29:59.460 | wants to like, keep things like functioning properly.

00:30:04.020 | - But then you'd probably,

00:30:04.940 | if you wanted to keep them functioning properly,

00:30:07.260 | then it would rapidly,

00:30:08.820 | like you would never experience a time where you're like,

00:30:10.540 | "Oh no, that was a mistake."

00:30:12.540 | Because as soon as you, like before you even experienced that

00:30:14.700 | the world would shift to match it.

00:30:17.140 | - Oh, interesting.

00:30:18.060 | No, I think I would actually, I take it back.

00:30:19.940 | I think I would regret the first time I hurt somebody.

00:30:23.120 | See, in my visualization was like a video game

00:30:26.780 | where everybody's like NPC, really dumb.

00:30:29.020 | No, I think the first time I witnessed pain from anybody,

00:30:33.460 | that's when I would stop.

00:30:34.780 | And I would probably run into that very quickly.

00:30:37.180 | Like even just the hovering, make a person hover,

00:30:41.900 | and they're gonna be probably really upset

00:30:43.540 | with the hovering, right?

00:30:44.820 | And so I'm gonna be like, "No, don't do that anymore."

00:30:47.980 | And then I'll probably go to,

00:30:48.820 | honestly, I'll just return back to my normal life.

00:30:51.320 | - Yeah, that's kind of what I feel like.

00:30:54.500 | Like if I had the power to do anything,

00:30:56.260 | I think I would probably want to have a life

00:30:59.300 | very similar to where I am now.

00:31:01.380 | - Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's like with Uber,

00:31:04.140 | like it'd be probably more convenient to do certain things.

00:31:07.740 | But even then, like the struggle,

00:31:10.300 | like I got a flat tire, so I have to fix that.

00:31:12.740 | I kind of, the flat tire makes everything more beautiful.

00:31:17.740 | It's like, cool, I could do like a normal manual thing.

00:31:21.540 | But also it makes you like appreciate your car,

00:31:24.460 | appreciate transportation, appreciate the convenience

00:31:26.860 | of transportation, all of it.

00:31:28.660 | - I know some people who would like call this

00:31:31.140 | a bunch of copium, like you're just sort of making do

00:31:33.980 | with what you have.

00:31:34.800 | Like we wouldn't go back to Amish times or like pre-technology

00:31:38.660 | because to like, in order to make ourselves

00:31:41.380 | appreciate things more.

00:31:42.700 | And so it seems like a hindsight reasoning,

00:31:44.860 | which like I can appreciate that argument,

00:31:47.220 | but I don't know.

00:31:48.860 | I'm like, I kind of-

00:31:49.860 | - Anyone who uses, sorry to interrupt the word copium

00:31:52.380 | in their argumentation, I think is sus.

00:31:57.380 | - Is sus. - Yeah.

00:31:59.420 | - Is sus my entire argument is now.

00:32:01.860 | - No, I'm just kidding.

00:32:02.700 | I'm sorry.

00:32:03.620 | Go ahead, sorry.

00:32:04.740 | I interrupted rudely the flow of thought,

00:32:07.620 | but you don't think so?

00:32:10.380 | In part, you disagree with that kind of argument?

00:32:12.820 | - Yeah, 'cause I think people have this idea

00:32:16.940 | that if you like come to accept or like find meaning

00:32:20.740 | in what you have now, this is sort of at odds

00:32:22.700 | with trying to improve it.

00:32:24.820 | And I don't find this to be the case.

00:32:26.980 | I find like the attempt to improve it to also be part of it.

00:32:30.540 | Like I enjoy the fact that there's something

00:32:32.740 | like problematic going on because now I get the experience

00:32:35.540 | of like striving to make it go away.

00:32:37.780 | And like that in itself is where the meaning lies.

00:32:39.860 | It's not just that things are bad,

00:32:41.020 | it's that there's things are bad

00:32:41.980 | and we're trying to stop it and also.

00:32:44.300 | - Exactly.

00:32:45.740 | If you combine that with a sense of optimism

00:32:47.740 | that the future can be better, yeah,

00:32:49.140 | that feeds into this productive effort

00:32:52.460 | of making things better.

00:32:53.660 | And it somehow makes the vision of the things

00:32:57.820 | that are better more intense,

00:32:59.780 | having experienced shitty things.

00:33:02.140 | - Yeah.

00:33:02.980 | - So we talked about free will and consciousness

00:33:07.220 | and what drives human civilization.

00:33:09.340 | Question left unanswered.

00:33:10.860 | It's a homework problem for the reader.

00:33:14.700 | Okay.

00:33:15.540 | Let's--

00:33:18.100 | - Can we have a scoreboard at the end?

00:33:19.340 | The amount of questions?

00:33:20.780 | - The answer?

00:33:21.620 | - Completed successfully versus not?

00:33:23.020 | - Like polls.

00:33:23.980 | - Yeah.

00:33:24.820 | - Can we talk about some practical things?

00:33:26.260 | - Sure.

00:33:27.100 | - So one of the many amazing things,

00:33:30.620 | I think of you as a researcher,

00:33:32.900 | but you've also been doing research in the field.

00:33:37.900 | - Yeah, fieldwork.

00:33:39.380 | - Fieldwork.

00:33:40.220 | - The Jane Goodall of--

00:33:41.380 | (laughing)

00:33:42.820 | - Yeah, right.

00:33:43.660 | - The sex work.

00:33:44.940 | - How did you get,

00:33:46.260 | what's the short and the long story

00:33:49.060 | of how you got into sex work?

00:33:50.740 | - How did I get into sex work?

00:33:51.860 | Well, I mean, there's a whole like childhood thing

00:33:54.180 | where I was conservatively homeschooled.

00:33:56.580 | - Do you wanna actually talk about your childhood?

00:33:59.620 | I think it's interesting

00:34:00.460 | 'cause you also worked at a factory.

00:34:01.620 | So like your childhood is really fascinating

00:34:04.500 | and difficult, traumatic.

00:34:06.780 | So, and you've written about it.

00:34:09.220 | There's a lot of ways we could talk about it,

00:34:11.900 | but maybe what are the things you remember

00:34:16.540 | the good and the bad of your childhood,

00:34:18.380 | of your maybe interaction with your father?

00:34:21.020 | - Yeah, my dad probably has narcissistic personality disorder

00:34:23.860 | and so it was very centered on,

00:34:26.260 | very controlling childhood, immensely so.

00:34:29.260 | We were homeschooled

00:34:30.380 | and pretty isolated from the outside world.

00:34:33.140 | Like we didn't know anybody else who wasn't homeschooled.

00:34:36.100 | We went through a program called Growing Kids God's Way,

00:34:38.660 | which was very,

00:34:39.900 | it was like the kind of program

00:34:40.940 | where you're not supposed to pick up babies

00:34:42.220 | when they cry to train them

00:34:43.340 | that they can't manipulate the parents

00:34:45.180 | because like baby crying was viewed as like,

00:34:48.100 | you're just teaching them from an early age

00:34:49.580 | that they're allowed to make the parents do

00:34:51.260 | what the kids want.

00:34:52.620 | And we're very against this philosophy.

00:34:54.460 | So, that combined with a narcissistic personality disorder,

00:34:58.260 | dad was pretty rough.

00:34:59.620 | - So controlling.

00:35:01.860 | - Super controlling, yeah.

00:35:02.900 | - And developing and feeding the self-critical aspect

00:35:05.420 | of your brain.

00:35:06.740 | - Yeah, very much.

00:35:07.660 | It was, I was like lazy,

00:35:09.780 | I was never gonna accomplish anything in life.

00:35:11.260 | I was gonna move out of the house

00:35:12.300 | and realize how good I had it at home,

00:35:13.820 | you know, the classic stuff.

00:35:15.860 | He was very like logical and smart though.

00:35:17.900 | And so he'd also like teach us logic stuff.

00:35:20.940 | I remember some of my earliest memories

00:35:22.500 | are him like giving me basic logic puzzles.

00:35:24.460 | Like the dog has three legs,

00:35:26.300 | you know how many dogs have four legs

00:35:27.660 | and I would mess up.

00:35:29.540 | But he was an evangelist,

00:35:32.700 | basically a Christian evangelist.

00:35:34.180 | So we did like Bible study five nights a week.

00:35:36.980 | I memorized, I think 800 verses of the Bible

00:35:39.580 | by the time before I became an adult.

00:35:41.460 | Yeah, and it was very patriarchal also.

00:35:46.220 | So I was expected to grow up and become a housewife,

00:35:48.540 | basically, they're like,

00:35:49.380 | oh, you can go to college to meet a man

00:35:50.780 | and also to get a little bit of education

00:35:52.060 | so that you can homeschool your own kids.

00:35:54.020 | Like we were explicitly told

00:35:55.420 | that women were subordinate to men

00:35:57.380 | in regards to like making decisions when you're married.

00:36:00.340 | Our pastor's daughter was not allowed to leave home

00:36:03.140 | because she would be outside of the authority of a man.

00:36:05.780 | So when she got married, she was allowed to leave

00:36:07.540 | 'cause she was never allowed to live in a house

00:36:09.300 | where she was not under a hierarchy.

00:36:11.900 | So this is like the kind of culture that we live in.

00:36:13.940 | - So there's a hierarchy

00:36:15.460 | and there's a gender aspect to the hierarchy.

00:36:17.980 | There's men at the top of that hierarchy.

00:36:20.260 | - Men at the top.

00:36:21.660 | - Okay, but your own psychology, your own mind.

00:36:24.020 | So most of that self-critical brain is bad, right?

00:36:30.580 | - It's confusing 'cause he told me that I was smart,

00:36:32.580 | but also that I would fail.

00:36:34.660 | But I think--

00:36:35.500 | - But not smart enough, right?

00:36:37.060 | Or like smart, but not smart enough.

00:36:38.380 | - Smart, but like not virtuous or something.

00:36:40.700 | - Okay, so there's, okay, right.

00:36:42.220 | There's always a flaw.

00:36:44.220 | - Yeah, there's always a flaw.

00:36:45.540 | I think a lot of it was,

00:36:46.700 | a lot of the fucked upness of my brain

00:36:48.820 | came from feeling like I didn't have the authority to think

00:36:51.340 | 'cause it was so carefully suppressed.

00:36:56.020 | My ability to express or have any sort of power

00:36:58.700 | was just absolutely annihilated, systemically.

00:37:01.620 | Psychologically, they would do

00:37:02.660 | psychological torture mechanisms

00:37:04.500 | to make sure that I wasn't actually thinking on my own

00:37:07.660 | or being able to deviate from anything anybody ever told me.

00:37:11.340 | To the degree that it still ingrained in me,

00:37:13.420 | I once was with a friend, we were traveling,

00:37:15.060 | and he wanted me to hop a turnstile.

00:37:16.700 | It was very late at night, the train was here,

00:37:18.820 | and I could not physically force myself to do it.

00:37:21.060 | He was yelling at me, "Come on, do it."

00:37:23.540 | I was trying so hard to make my body cross the line,

00:37:26.220 | and it was just, it's embedded in my physical being

00:37:29.460 | to be unable to do stuff like that,

00:37:30.940 | which is really annoying.

00:37:32.620 | - So you're not free to take action in this world?

00:37:34.980 | - Yeah, some of them.

00:37:36.460 | So that was, I think, the most annoying part

00:37:40.260 | of my upbringing.

00:37:41.980 | - Would you classify it as suffering?

00:37:46.660 | - At the time, yeah, definitely.

00:37:48.460 | Well, it's confusing, 'cause when I was a child,

00:37:50.820 | it was just painful in the sense that things suck,

00:37:54.220 | but it was placed in a meaning framework.

00:37:56.660 | It is good, it is virtuous to submit to your parents

00:37:59.180 | and do what they want.

00:38:00.020 | If they tell you to say goodbye to your best friend forever

00:38:01.820 | and never talk to them again,

00:38:02.660 | you go do that without complaining.

00:38:05.180 | And so I would go do something like that,

00:38:07.460 | and it would suck.

00:38:08.860 | It really was concretely painful,

00:38:11.180 | but it was also placed in this narrative

00:38:12.820 | where I was fulfilling some sort of greater purpose.

00:38:16.100 | And so it's very confusing to refer to it as suffering,

00:38:19.620 | because there's so many painful things we do today

00:38:21.500 | that are placed in the narrative of a greater purpose

00:38:23.740 | that I think I would agree with.

00:38:25.020 | I go get a medical procedure done, and that sucks,

00:38:27.620 | but I'm like, "Ah, this is helping me in the long run."

00:38:30.140 | But say if I got abducted to an alien planet,

00:38:32.060 | and they're like, "By the way,

00:38:32.900 | "we're gonna have to do all of those medical procedures

00:38:34.180 | "you got done.

00:38:35.460 | "You didn't have to get them done.

00:38:36.620 | "Those are totally unnecessary."

00:38:37.740 | Then I might get really upset about it.

00:38:39.140 | - Yeah, I would trust those aliens, though,

00:38:40.820 | 'cause they probably wanna do

00:38:41.700 | different medical procedures than I do.

00:38:42.540 | - This is true.

00:38:43.380 | - I saw a thumbnail for a video

00:38:49.180 | that I'm proud of myself for not clicking on

00:38:51.780 | about a man who's claimed that he had sex with aliens.

00:38:54.620 | And I was like--

00:38:56.380 | - Proud of yourself for not clicking on that?

00:38:57.220 | - 'Cause I was wondering,

00:38:58.040 | 'cause I would probably watch it for like 20 minutes,

00:39:01.900 | and then I should be doing work.

00:39:03.340 | - Oh, I see.

00:39:04.180 | - And I'm actually happy, 'cause I get to imagine

00:39:10.140 | all the different possibilities

00:39:12.820 | that it could have been for that man who had sex with aliens.

00:39:15.060 | - Did you just have a really high resting happiness state?

00:39:17.980 | - Yes, yeah.

00:39:18.820 | It's probably like a mushroom state, yeah.

00:39:21.140 | - Wow, do you do mushrooms?

00:39:23.080 | - I've done mushrooms before.

00:39:24.380 | It was very awesome, but more intensely awesome.

00:39:31.700 | Because just looking at nature,

00:39:33.100 | it makes nature even more beautiful, I think.

00:39:36.020 | But it's already pretty beautiful.

00:39:38.060 | I haven't done MDMA.

00:39:39.500 | People say that I should.

00:39:43.140 | - It's very nice, yeah.

00:39:44.220 | - Yeah, anyway.

00:39:45.820 | But I'm already, yeah.

00:39:47.500 | What did you call it?

00:39:48.500 | Resting happiness state?

00:39:50.140 | - Yeah, high resting happiness.

00:39:52.780 | - Yeah, that's a good way to describe it.

00:39:54.660 | But it's not like, some of it is genetic,

00:39:57.300 | that you're able to notice the beauty in the world,

00:39:59.300 | and some of it is practiced,

00:40:01.420 | where you realize focusing on the negative things in life,

00:40:05.220 | like unproductively,

00:40:08.740 | it just doesn't help your mind flourish.

00:40:13.820 | So you just notice that.

00:40:15.060 | I mean, I think people with depression learn that,

00:40:19.500 | or probably with trauma, too,

00:40:22.020 | is there's certain triggers.

00:40:23.700 | Like if you suffer from depression,

00:40:26.260 | you have to kind of consciously know

00:40:27.500 | there's going to be triggers that will force you

00:40:30.260 | to spiral down.

00:40:31.500 | And so just avoid those triggers.

00:40:32.700 | Some people have that with diet, with food and so on.

00:40:35.340 | And so I just don't,

00:40:36.380 | whenever there's shady things happening or shady people,

00:40:40.220 | unless I can help, unless I can somehow help,

00:40:44.260 | like why focus on it?

00:40:45.580 | Yeah.

00:40:46.460 | Anyway, back to your upbringing.

00:40:51.460 | What was the journey of escaping that?

00:40:57.020 | - I, well, I left home kind of early

00:40:59.940 | because my dad and I were not getting along

00:41:02.820 | by the time I was a teenager,

00:41:04.740 | but I was still Christian for a while.

00:41:06.260 | And I lost my faith after I think I moved away

00:41:09.220 | and I started having friends that weren't religious

00:41:11.460 | or weren't raised in this super conservative environment

00:41:13.820 | that I came from.

00:41:15.060 | And I think, this was not conscious at the time,

00:41:17.860 | this is my hindsight story,

00:41:19.340 | but I believe that being exposed to a culture

00:41:22.340 | in which I had the capacity to believe

00:41:24.340 | allowed my brain to actually seriously consider

00:41:26.500 | the thought that maybe all of this stuff was untrue,

00:41:29.660 | that I'd been taught like 6,000 year old earth

00:41:31.500 | and evolution is a lie, macroevolution and all of this stuff.

00:41:35.940 | Because when you're immersed in an environment like that,

00:41:40.060 | I don't think you actually have a choice.

00:41:42.140 | Like your brain has to believe these things

00:41:44.220 | 'cause this is a survival thing.

00:41:45.780 | Like if you believe this, you'll be,

00:41:47.300 | like if you believe the wrong thing,

00:41:48.340 | you'll be totally cast out.

00:41:49.900 | Even if they're not gonna cast you out,

00:41:51.060 | you're gonna be cast out in like communion with others

00:41:53.580 | because we were always told

00:41:54.420 | that you can't like trust non-believers really.

00:41:57.020 | They don't have a moral compass.

00:41:58.740 | They're gonna screw you over.

00:42:00.140 | And so I'm like, "Oh, I can't be that.

00:42:01.540 | "Like everybody's gonna outcast me internally."

00:42:04.020 | So anyway, I don't think I actually had the capacity

00:42:06.820 | to seriously question my faith,

00:42:08.180 | even though I thought that I was questioning it quite hard

00:42:10.460 | until I got into an environment where it was safe to do so.

00:42:13.380 | And once I started being able to make friends

00:42:15.060 | who were not religious, I'm like,

00:42:15.980 | "Oh, if I lose my faith,

00:42:17.740 | "I'm still gonna have some sort of community."

00:42:20.500 | And then at that time I went through some questioning

00:42:22.700 | and then I lost my faith.

00:42:24.140 | - So in that, given your friends, given your situation,

00:42:27.860 | you now have the freedom to think essentially.

00:42:31.180 | - Or at least the ability to think

00:42:33.380 | is something that was acceptable in the new culture, yeah.

00:42:36.100 | - Without, I mean, is there a danger

00:42:39.580 | of like adopting the beliefs of the new culture?

00:42:43.420 | So like there's some aspect of just being able

00:42:46.060 | to think freely, which you weren't able to do

00:42:48.660 | when you were growing up, just to think.

00:42:51.340 | Like look at the world and wonder how it works,

00:42:54.020 | that kind of thing.

00:42:55.660 | - I mean, you work it within certain boundaries.

00:42:57.620 | Like there's certain basic assumptions.

00:42:59.900 | And as long as you were following those basic assumptions,

00:43:02.340 | which is to be fair, it's like kind of what we're doing now.

00:43:04.500 | Like we have, have I gone and done the personal research

00:43:07.500 | that like evolution is the thing that's going on?

00:43:09.260 | Have I looked at like the age of the stones?

00:43:10.660 | No, I haven't, I'm trusting other people.

00:43:12.340 | - Yeah.

00:43:13.180 | - Which I think is like a fair choice to make

00:43:15.100 | given where I'm at right now.

00:43:16.780 | - But you're also assuming like

00:43:18.700 | there's causality in the universe, time is real.

00:43:21.460 | - Yeah.

00:43:22.300 | - That like, that first of all,

00:43:24.340 | the thing that your senses are perceiving is real.

00:43:27.000 | You're assuming a lot of things.

00:43:30.620 | - Yeah, I think like it's better just to become aware

00:43:32.700 | of the assumptions you're making,

00:43:33.900 | like as opposed to not making those assumptions at all.

00:43:36.140 | Like you have to assume something.

00:43:37.780 | And I did, it's very suspicious, right?

00:43:39.580 | That I went out of this very conservative culture

00:43:41.620 | and now, well, I guess I don't believe things

00:43:43.660 | that are super in line with the current culture.

00:43:45.420 | I think this is why I feel a little bit safer right now

00:43:47.980 | because like when I was Christian,

00:43:49.140 | I believed generally Christian things.

00:43:50.860 | But now I believe a bunch of things

00:43:52.020 | that like people really hate.

00:43:53.260 | Like I get canceled online all the time.

00:43:54.860 | I'm like, okay, this is a sign

00:43:56.000 | that maybe you're thinking independently

00:43:57.500 | if you're like able to think things

00:43:58.940 | that are completely at odds with the people around you.

00:44:00.660 | And to be fair, this is a little bit easier to do

00:44:03.340 | when it's like general culture,

00:44:04.980 | but it's much harder to do with your peer group.

00:44:06.660 | Like the people that you trust, your friends,

00:44:08.180 | the people whose opinions you respect,

00:44:09.860 | like disagreeing with those people is very difficult

00:44:13.180 | and I'm not very good at it.

00:44:14.780 | - Yeah, I do think that if you establish yourself

00:44:18.700 | as a person who can be trusted and is a good human being,

00:44:21.740 | you have a lot more freedom to then explore ideas

00:44:25.340 | that are different from your peer group.

00:44:27.820 | So like those seem, if you separate the space of ideas

00:44:31.340 | versus some kind of like deeper sense

00:44:33.820 | of what this person is,

00:44:35.160 | like that they're an interesting and trustworthy

00:44:39.060 | and good human being.

00:44:40.580 | - Well, like is there somebody that you respect,

00:44:43.620 | who you consider significantly smarter than you?

00:44:45.780 | And can you imagine believing an idea

00:44:49.340 | that you've heard them talk really disdainfully about?

00:44:52.300 | Like how would you feel coming to me?

00:44:53.740 | Like I believe this thing that you find to be.

00:44:56.460 | - Yeah, I do all the time.

00:44:57.580 | - Oh yeah? - Yeah.

00:44:58.940 | - You may be braver than me.

00:45:00.140 | (both laughing)

00:45:01.780 | And to be fair, I support doing this.

00:45:03.420 | Like I try to do this, but I think like subconsciously,

00:45:06.420 | I noticed that I don't do it as much.

00:45:09.060 | And so I'm suspicious of myself.

00:45:10.380 | I'm like, oh, I wonder if I'm hiding to myself

00:45:12.980 | like actual curiosity about things

00:45:14.780 | that might deviate from my peer group.

00:45:16.220 | Because I noticed that I'm not actually deviating with them

00:45:18.540 | as much as I do with the outside world.

00:45:20.060 | - That's interesting.

00:45:20.900 | I mean, like, 'cause I do see most people I interact with

00:45:22.860 | as smarter than me,

00:45:23.860 | but I also have this intuitive feeling that dumb people,

00:45:27.700 | which I consider myself being, have wisdom.

00:45:30.160 | So like in the disagreement,

00:45:34.320 | actually I'm also believe in the power of conversation

00:45:36.700 | and in the tension of disagreement.

00:45:38.720 | So I think even just disagreeing from a place,

00:45:42.700 | from a good place,

00:45:43.940 | from a place of like love and respect for each other,

00:45:47.520 | I think I just believe in that.

00:45:49.500 | So it's not like individuals you're disagreeing,

00:45:52.120 | you're like working towards arriving

00:45:54.640 | at some deeper truth together, right?

00:45:56.500 | Even if the other person is smarter.

00:45:59.980 | Maybe that's how I justify it for myself.

00:46:02.580 | I just, I'm also a fan of conversations

00:46:04.220 | 'cause like I've seen just listening to conversations,

00:46:07.120 | it seems like a great conversation

00:46:10.340 | more emerges from it than the sum of its parts, right?

00:46:15.340 | Like somehow two people together can do,

00:46:18.540 | like that dance of ideas can somehow create a cool thing.

00:46:22.140 | By the way, I enjoyed,

00:46:23.100 | I saw a video of you dancing at a bar drunk.

00:46:26.380 | It wasn't the bar drunk, it didn't look drunk,

00:46:29.900 | but just the dancing.

00:46:31.500 | It was like ballroom dancing type of thing.

00:46:33.260 | I was like, yeah.

00:46:34.180 | - Something like that.

00:46:35.340 | - I've been doing a bit of tango dancing.

00:46:37.700 | I like it.

00:46:38.540 | - Argentina?

00:46:40.020 | - Nice.

00:46:40.860 | - I like stuff with the body in general,

00:46:42.740 | like wrestling or combat.

00:46:44.860 | Usually when there's a tension,

00:46:46.580 | you have to understand the mechanics

00:46:47.900 | of how two bodies move when they're in conflict

00:46:51.060 | and dancing is similar.

00:46:54.940 | - You have to do rapid thinking also,

00:46:58.260 | like rapid intuitive physical thinking.

00:47:00.100 | And that's my favorite kind of thing.

00:47:01.700 | Like a lot of exercise is really boring to me

00:47:03.340 | because you can just do it while your brain's off.

00:47:05.900 | But something like ballroom dancing or fusion dancing,

00:47:08.780 | you have to constantly be figuring out,

00:47:10.900 | like it's a rapid puzzle and that's so wonderful.

00:47:13.100 | - What's fusion dancing?

00:47:13.940 | - That's the video.

00:47:15.260 | Fusion dancing is like,

00:47:16.100 | if you have any sort of dance background,

00:47:17.460 | you can come and you just kind of mix those together.

00:47:19.620 | So you can have people doing ballet

00:47:21.140 | with people doing ballroom with people doing blues.

00:47:23.540 | - Cool.

00:47:24.380 | And then there's an interesting dynamic

00:47:25.420 | 'cause there's, I don't know, maybe you can correct me,

00:47:27.220 | but there's, that's very meta,

00:47:30.460 | there's usually a lead and a follow.

00:47:33.060 | I guess most dances have that.

00:47:34.540 | - Yeah.

00:47:35.380 | - Yeah.

00:47:36.380 | But both have a different,

00:47:37.460 | like you both have to be quite sensitive

00:47:39.180 | to the other human being, but in a different way.

00:47:42.500 | Yeah, it's interesting.

00:47:44.300 | - Yeah.

00:47:45.380 | - So I like both that there is that definitive role,

00:47:49.160 | but also like it's not somehow

00:47:54.260 | that one is better than the other.

00:47:55.500 | There's an interesting tension between the two.

00:47:57.980 | - Yeah.

00:47:58.820 | It's cool 'cause it's like a basic rule set

00:48:00.700 | that allows for a ton of expression.

00:48:02.740 | I've recently started to experiment with reverse leading.

00:48:06.300 | It's not like back leading, it's like, I don't know.

00:48:08.820 | Like sometimes I'll like lead a move.

00:48:11.260 | - So you can lead as a follow.

00:48:12.780 | Oh, you can lead.

00:48:14.100 | - What I'm typically following,

00:48:15.300 | I'll like occasionally throw in a little lead

00:48:17.100 | here and there.

00:48:18.340 | - But don't you kind of follow it?

00:48:19.740 | Oh, I see.

00:48:20.580 | Don't you hint at a lead when you're following?

00:48:26.100 | Don't you, just by the dynamics of your movement,

00:48:29.940 | you're not perfectly following.

00:48:31.700 | I mean, 'cause there is like,

00:48:33.500 | the lead is listening to your body, right?

00:48:36.100 | - Yeah.

00:48:36.940 | - So like you're kind of both figuring out

00:48:40.420 | what you do next.

00:48:41.260 | - That's true.

00:48:42.100 | I'm a very good follow though.

00:48:43.340 | - Okay.

00:48:44.180 | - So I'm like an invisible follow.

00:48:46.180 | You do move, it's like a.

00:48:47.700 | - Oh, interesting.

00:48:48.540 | - I'm not like good at technique.

00:48:49.380 | - I didn't know those existed, like a perfect follow.

00:48:51.300 | - Oh yeah, perfect.

00:48:52.140 | - So you can perfect follow.

00:48:52.980 | - I really, I do.

00:48:54.100 | I'm not great at technique and sometimes I'll fall over,

00:48:56.100 | but like with the following part, I'm very good at it.

00:48:58.300 | - Do you enjoy following?

00:48:59.140 | - Yeah, yeah, it's really nice.

00:49:00.980 | It's again, like it's a very fast physical puzzle

00:49:03.140 | you have to solve.

00:49:03.980 | It's like typing.

00:49:04.820 | I really like typing.

00:49:05.660 | I was inquiring about your keyboard earlier.

00:49:07.820 | - Why do you like typing?

00:49:09.140 | - It's like the very fast, like the really rapid response.

00:49:12.340 | What's the, reaction time.

00:49:13.620 | I like things that like have very fast reaction times,

00:49:16.100 | like games like that.

00:49:17.140 | - But typing is not a reaction

00:49:19.660 | or is it the brain generating words

00:49:21.300 | and then you're like, how's typing a reaction?

00:49:22.980 | - Okay, the sensation that I get when I am typing

00:49:25.340 | is the kind of thing that I'm trying to point out.

00:49:26.860 | So maybe reaction time isn't the quite,

00:49:28.740 | I don't know what the term is, but whatever that thing is.

00:49:31.020 | Like the thing where you have to like look at a word

00:49:32.660 | and then communicate it into your fingers.

00:49:34.700 | - Yeah.

00:49:36.140 | - It feels like dancing.

00:49:37.620 | - Like you're responding.

00:49:38.580 | You're responding to your brain.

00:49:39.620 | Your fingers are doing the responding to the brain

00:49:41.380 | that generated the words.

00:49:43.260 | - Making your body do what your brain wants it to do,

00:49:45.500 | but like fast and precisely.

00:49:47.180 | - Well, then you might not like this Kinesis keyboard

00:49:49.180 | 'cause it makes it easier to do that.

00:49:51.780 | You probably like the struggle, right?

00:49:54.260 | - Well, I mean, it looks hard because you have,

00:49:56.620 | it looks like it's high depression on the keys.

00:49:59.100 | - No, well, oh, I see.

00:50:00.700 | Yes, more than like a laptop keyboard,

00:50:03.660 | but like that you don't have to,

00:50:06.100 | one of the main things is you don't have to move

00:50:08.780 | your fingers at all.

00:50:10.220 | So like, for example, a lot of people,

00:50:13.180 | I think they have a backspace up in the top right corner.

00:50:16.100 | So if you have to make mistakes, which is like,

00:50:18.460 | I mean, that's like so metaphorical.

00:50:22.940 | Every mistake you have to like really hurt yourself for

00:50:26.140 | 'cause you have to like stretch for the backspace.

00:50:28.740 | - So there's that poetic narrative again.

00:50:30.380 | - It's everywhere.

00:50:31.220 | - It like emanates in like a lot of your perspective.

00:50:33.540 | - Everything, yeah, no.

00:50:35.380 | Yeah, I don't, and I see it as a good thing.

00:50:40.580 | It's a good, like a romantic element

00:50:44.620 | permeates my interpretation of the world, yes.

00:50:47.060 | But you left home early.

00:50:49.640 | How did you end up working at a factory?

00:50:54.260 | - I tried to go to college, but failed.

00:50:56.060 | Couldn't afford it.

00:50:57.780 | - Did you like it?

00:50:58.660 | - I remember it just being really slow.

00:51:01.980 | I remember being shocked that the teachers didn't care.

00:51:04.780 | Like I was used to homeschooling.

00:51:07.220 | - Yeah.

00:51:08.060 | - And where, I don't know, like educate,

00:51:10.340 | it just like, it meant something.

00:51:11.340 | It felt like the people around me that were teaching me,

00:51:13.140 | 'cause we had like a mom's group also,

00:51:15.300 | like directly cared about what I was learning.

00:51:17.100 | And I would be able to ask questions

00:51:18.180 | and they would like really respond.

00:51:19.020 | - What's a mom's group?

00:51:20.140 | - And it was like a homeschooling group.

00:51:21.660 | So we're a bunch of moms who are homeschooling their kids,

00:51:23.900 | get together and then teach each other's kids.

00:51:27.180 | - Oh, cool. - Yeah.

00:51:28.620 | - And they have different like interests and capabilities

00:51:30.540 | and so on and they kinda-

00:51:31.740 | And sometimes if some of the kids are really good

00:51:33.380 | at something, you have like the older kids teaching

00:51:35.100 | the other ones too.

00:51:36.380 | So it was very like, everybody kind of figures out

00:51:38.220 | what they're good at and they share that skill set

00:51:40.300 | with everybody else.

00:51:41.300 | Which I think was a pretty great setup.

00:51:42.460 | Honestly, I think my childhood kinda sucked

00:51:44.660 | in a lot of ways, but homeschooling was excellent for me.

00:51:48.100 | Mainly because it just had so much free time.

00:51:49.940 | Like I just did like two to three hours of school

00:51:52.460 | and then did whatever the fuck I wanted

00:51:53.700 | for the rest of the day.

00:51:54.700 | And I got to actually pursue skills

00:51:56.180 | that are still useful for me to this day, so.

00:51:59.420 | - Even in that constrained environment.

00:52:01.580 | - Like I wrote, I've read fantasy books

00:52:03.460 | and I wrote so much.

00:52:04.540 | And now I'm writing a lot for my blog, so.

00:52:07.380 | - What kind of fantasy books?

00:52:08.340 | Like sci-fi type stuff?

00:52:10.540 | - Like classic, like I read like "Mercedes Lackey"

00:52:13.900 | and "The E.E. Knight" and "ArcelorLeguin" and-

00:52:18.900 | - I don't know any of this.

00:52:19.900 | What is this?

00:52:20.740 | What is it?

00:52:21.580 | Is it like a romantic thing?

00:52:22.400 | Or is it like, is it romance?

00:52:23.340 | - All the fantasy books.

00:52:24.500 | Like "Dragons" and "Elves." - Oh, "Dragons."

00:52:26.540 | Got it, got it, got it, got it.

00:52:27.780 | You didn't mention "Tolkien" for the fantasy.

00:52:29.780 | - I read "Tolkien." - Okay.

00:52:30.980 | - Yeah.

00:52:31.820 | - All right, well, it's beautiful.

00:52:32.700 | So you threw all the dragons.

00:52:35.180 | How did you end up in a factory?

00:52:37.660 | You tried school.

00:52:38.500 | - Yeah, yeah, I tried school.

00:52:39.380 | Had to drop out for a couple of months.

00:52:40.580 | And then I was like, well, I'm poor.

00:52:42.020 | And I was ready to take any job.

00:52:44.980 | I was like applying for sewer jobs.

00:52:46.220 | And then I got a factory.

00:52:47.780 | I'm like, all right, let's do it.

00:52:48.620 | 'Cause my parents, no financial help at all.

00:52:50.740 | They're like, you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.

00:52:53.580 | So anyway, I went to work at a factory

00:52:56.220 | and that sucked ass.

00:52:57.500 | Do not recommend.

00:52:58.340 | We had to wake up like 4 a.m.

00:53:00.660 | Work on weekends too.

00:53:02.220 | Fluorescent lights.

00:53:04.180 | It was terrible.

00:53:05.000 | And so I did that for about a year.

00:53:06.380 | And I was like, this is,

00:53:07.500 | I was trying to grip my teeth and be like,

00:53:08.700 | this is my life, right?

00:53:09.980 | I didn't have high expectations for my life.

00:53:11.740 | I was just like,

00:53:12.580 | I thought like if you get a job

00:53:14.180 | where you don't have to be on your feet all the time,

00:53:15.540 | that's, you're living a good life.

00:53:17.820 | But, and then I got another job briefly as a photographer.

00:53:21.340 | And then they fired me.

00:53:22.180 | I think I was 19 at the time.

00:53:24.260 | - Fired you for like-

00:53:25.620 | - I was just too young.

00:53:27.660 | And really, really bad at interacting with people

00:53:31.220 | in the outside world.

00:53:32.380 | Like I was pretty well socialized as a homeschooler

00:53:34.180 | with other homeschoolers,

00:53:35.020 | but in the outside world,

00:53:36.140 | especially with all of the like hierarchy submission stuff

00:53:38.900 | beaten into me, like literally beaten into me,

00:53:41.500 | it was very difficult for me to interact with other people

00:53:43.740 | who were like older than me

00:53:44.940 | or had any sort of confidence at all.

00:53:47.020 | So they hired me to do like photography for people.

00:53:49.100 | And then I was rapidly,

00:53:51.420 | turned out that I was bad at this.

00:53:52.740 | And so they fired me.

00:53:53.860 | But at that point I'd left my factory job.

00:53:55.460 | I'm like, I can't go back to the factory.

00:53:57.260 | So I tried, I had some savings

00:53:58.860 | and I slept on friends' couches

00:54:00.380 | and I tried various self-employment stuff.

00:54:03.180 | I'm like, maybe I can do product photography or something,

00:54:06.420 | but it's Idaho, you know, nothing.

00:54:08.500 | And if you're like a 19 year old

00:54:10.500 | with no experience in the outside world at all,

00:54:12.820 | it was really difficult.

00:54:14.140 | And so I had a friend recommend

00:54:16.060 | that I try becoming a cam girl.

00:54:18.020 | So that's how it started.

00:54:19.380 | - What's, what is camming?

00:54:22.020 | What is being a cam girl?

00:54:23.260 | What's that called?

00:54:24.100 | - Camming is like you talk to the camera live

00:54:26.780 | on the computer, like you live stream.

00:54:27.940 | It's kind of like Twitch.

00:54:28.980 | And then people are typing in the chat,

00:54:30.180 | like, "Hi, do this stuff."

00:54:31.180 | And then the people can tip you money

00:54:32.980 | and then you can do things in response.

00:54:34.340 | Like, "Oh, if you tip me a hundred tokens,

00:54:35.820 | you know, I'll take my shirt off," or something like that.

00:54:38.100 | - And like, what's the,

00:54:39.580 | what site were you using at that time?

00:54:41.060 | - MyFreeCams.

00:54:42.340 | - MyFreeCams?

00:54:43.180 | Is that a popular site?

00:54:44.580 | - Yeah, it's pretty popular.

00:54:45.420 | - Okay.

00:54:46.540 | And how did, what were the next steps?

00:54:49.380 | Like, did you enjoy it?

00:54:51.380 | - Oh, well, it was the first time

00:54:52.540 | I had actual control over my life.

00:54:55.220 | And I made like actual real money.

00:54:56.940 | And so I just exploded into it.

00:54:59.100 | I thought about it nonstop.

00:55:00.980 | I was streaming all the time.

00:55:02.140 | I was like coming up with like new creative things.

00:55:04.100 | And the thing is like, I don't know.

00:55:05.700 | There's something about public school that I ended up living

00:55:08.980 | in a house of cam girls full of other girls

00:55:10.300 | who had gone to public school.

00:55:11.140 | And I don't know if how much of it's genetic

00:55:12.900 | or like just because I'm weird

00:55:13.940 | or is it because of our upbringing?

00:55:15.420 | But I felt like I was much more fearless

00:55:18.300 | and much more weird and creative online

00:55:20.820 | than other people were.

00:55:21.660 | Not because they weren't awesome people,

00:55:23.540 | but because I think like public school,

00:55:24.860 | I got the impression based on them talking about it

00:55:26.580 | that it sort of like beats out any sort of deviance

00:55:28.620 | from you.

00:55:29.460 | - More so than your, 'cause I got the-

00:55:33.580 | - Oh, we had moral deviance was beaten out,

00:55:35.380 | but like you could do whatever.

00:55:36.780 | - Creative deviance was not.

00:55:37.620 | - Creative deviance wasn't so much.

00:55:39.180 | Like I didn't have other kids making fun of me ever.

00:55:42.660 | I don't think I'd ever heard an insult

00:55:44.300 | about my physical appearance as a child or teenager once.

00:55:47.500 | - So your father was basically saying

00:55:49.100 | you're not good enough was intellectual.

00:55:50.740 | - Oh, no, that was like moral failure.

00:55:52.580 | - Moral failure.

00:55:53.780 | - Yeah, like I was not virtuous.

00:55:55.820 | - Oh, wow.

00:55:57.140 | - Like in various ways, like you're lazy

00:55:59.140 | and mostly the lazy part.

00:56:01.660 | I have like ADHD or something.

00:56:04.900 | - Yeah.

00:56:05.740 | - And I was not good at it as a kid either.

00:56:07.180 | I would totally forget all the time.

00:56:08.980 | - Is there some sexual repression aspect to that?

00:56:12.780 | Like, you know how they say that there's,

00:56:15.380 | it's not just homeschooling,

00:56:16.780 | but just like Catholic girls and so on,

00:56:18.740 | just because like there's moral,

00:56:20.020 | you're forbidden to do certain things.

00:56:22.340 | Like there's a kind of liberating feeling of saying,

00:56:25.420 | like basically rediscovering yourself,

00:56:27.860 | rediscovering your freedom by doing,

00:56:30.980 | just diving head in, head first into sexuality,

00:56:35.500 | into your own sexuality.

00:56:36.740 | Is there some aspect to that?

00:56:37.740 | - Yeah, absolutely to some degree.

00:56:39.380 | I think that like people kind of model it slightly wrong.

00:56:41.780 | Like I think there's a truth to it.

00:56:43.400 | But when I first got out of the house,

00:56:45.140 | for me, freedom was like going outside at 2 a.m.

00:56:48.260 | or like eating chocolate, you know,

00:56:50.460 | on days that I previously wasn't allowed to eat chocolate.

00:56:52.900 | Like that was like a really intense expression

00:56:55.420 | of rebellion for me.

00:56:56.580 | And I think people like don't think of this,

00:56:58.580 | like I got out a lot of my like intense rebellion

00:57:01.380 | through things that people don't typically consider

00:57:02.860 | to be rebellious at all.

00:57:04.180 | Like I wore a bikini.

00:57:05.580 | - Yeah.

00:57:06.540 | - Insane.

00:57:07.980 | - And just like walked around in it and like,

00:57:10.580 | I can do this.

00:57:11.420 | - Yeah, basically.

00:57:13.100 | And so like, this was most of that emotional processing

00:57:15.700 | for me.

00:57:16.540 | And it took me a couple of years from leaving home

00:57:19.420 | and all of that conservative culture into doing sex work.

00:57:21.980 | In the meantime, I did try having sex with a lot of people,

00:57:25.500 | but this was mainly because I didn't know

00:57:27.420 | what the norms were.

00:57:28.640 | I didn't really understand.

00:57:30.100 | I was just like, okay, take things logically,

00:57:31.580 | take things one step at a time.

00:57:33.260 | And I'm like, okay, if the whole previous set

00:57:35.720 | about like how I'm not supposed to kiss somebody

00:57:37.520 | until the altar of marriage,

00:57:39.040 | if that's not the way that things are supposed to go,

00:57:41.120 | then what is the way things are supposed to go?

00:57:43.180 | And I was like, well, if I am aroused,

00:57:44.700 | I should go have sex with someone, right?

00:57:46.140 | Is there any reason not to?

00:57:47.020 | No.

00:57:47.860 | I would go around asking random people to have sex with me.

00:57:51.380 | - Did you have any peer pressure saying like,

00:57:53.100 | that's not good or that is good?

00:57:54.740 | Or like any, did you feel any currents of society

00:57:57.140 | in any direction?

00:57:58.340 | Or are you independently just thinking like

00:58:01.700 | from first principles?

00:58:03.260 | - I think, I mean, like I'm not saying

00:58:05.100 | it was a totally clean thing.

00:58:06.380 | I'm sure that I was experiencing society

00:58:08.060 | telling me this is bad, but you have to know,

00:58:09.660 | like I wasn't watching normal movies when I was a teen.

00:58:12.300 | Like we watched Christian movies,

00:58:13.540 | or the stuff that we watched was filtered.

00:58:15.680 | Like I watched the Titanic and I had no idea

00:58:17.300 | that Jack and Rose had sex,

00:58:18.620 | because it was put through a filtered-

00:58:20.700 | - Wait, did they?

00:58:21.580 | - Yeah, they went and, you know, he painted her naked.

00:58:23.820 | And there was a scene in a car on the ship.

00:58:27.340 | - In a car, on the ship?

00:58:28.260 | - Yeah, on the, they had like stored cars in storage

00:58:30.420 | and there's a hand.

00:58:31.300 | I watched it again later.

00:58:32.620 | And I was like, oh my God.

00:58:33.460 | - I don't remember the sex scene.

00:58:34.540 | - Well, maybe were you also put through a filtered version?

00:58:38.540 | - No, maybe it's the filter I see,

00:58:40.860 | like did the couple in the notebook also have sex?

00:58:43.340 | 'Cause maybe for romantic movies,

00:58:44.900 | I focus on the romance, maybe, right?

00:58:49.140 | And the sex scenes are always like weirdly filmed

00:58:51.300 | in these, 'cause it's never, I mean,

00:58:55.140 | it doesn't, it feels more like romance than sex.

00:58:58.380 | I guess that's the main focus of this, right?

00:59:00.580 | - Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

00:59:01.940 | - Yeah, anyway.

00:59:03.220 | So they had sex, it's good to know now.

00:59:04.420 | - They did, I'm letting you know.

00:59:05.260 | - I'll go back and watch now to fact check.

00:59:06.660 | - You have your own personal filter on your brain.

00:59:09.060 | - And once you realize that there are some,

00:59:11.620 | like the foundation of your beliefs were wrong,

00:59:14.700 | then everything might be wrong

00:59:16.020 | and you're kind of just doing

00:59:17.060 | from first principles. - Yeah, it's like

00:59:17.900 | from first principles, basically.

00:59:19.220 | And again, like not totally separate from culture,

00:59:21.420 | but also I think in general,

00:59:22.860 | I also have a predisposition to just be like,

00:59:24.900 | you know, fuck what culture tells you,

00:59:26.300 | just figure out what's right for you and do it.

00:59:28.660 | And so that mixed with, you know,

00:59:30.060 | the figuring things out from first principles.

00:59:31.780 | I did eventually figure out that I didn't like

00:59:33.980 | having casual sex with just anybody quite as much.

00:59:37.180 | So I stopped that, but it took me a while to figure that out.

00:59:39.100 | - What's the negative of casual sex?

00:59:40.700 | - It's just like not good.

00:59:42.380 | I mean, if you like figure out the chemistry

00:59:44.780 | you have with someone better,

00:59:45.820 | then it can be a lot nicer, but I wasn't doing that.

00:59:48.260 | I was just like somebody I met and I'm like,

00:59:50.740 | you seem kind of cute, okay.

00:59:53.540 | Like I didn't bother to try and develop any chemistry.

00:59:56.060 | I mean, I didn't know.

00:59:56.900 | - Chemistry even outside of sex,

00:59:57.740 | just chemistry, like human chemistry,

00:59:59.180 | like conversation. - Yeah, just basic.

01:00:00.300 | Yeah. - Okay.

01:00:01.580 | - I would, it's like kind of cringy,

01:00:03.680 | but I would like walk up to guys or send them messages.

01:00:06.220 | Like, would you like to have coitus is what I would say.

01:00:09.020 | - You would say coitus.

01:00:09.860 | - I'd said that.

01:00:11.140 | (both laughing)

01:00:13.180 | - I mean, it's kind of cute in a way.

01:00:15.180 | - I mean, it's a girl asking you to get laid,

01:00:16.900 | so they probably didn't care that much.

01:00:19.580 | But anyway, I'm saying that like,

01:00:20.460 | I had a lot of rebellion out of my system

01:00:22.260 | by the time I started sex work.

01:00:23.700 | - Yeah.

01:00:24.620 | - So like for me, like maybe I'm sure it was somehow related

01:00:27.060 | 'cause we were extremely sexually repressed growing up.

01:00:28.900 | I remember the day I learned I had a vagina,

01:00:30.540 | which was absolutely horrifying.

01:00:32.900 | Do not recommend figuring out

01:00:34.620 | you have another orifice in your body.

01:00:36.540 | But like- - Do you wanna share

01:00:38.180 | the process of you figuring out that you had a vagina?

01:00:40.700 | - Actually, they told me I had a vagina.

01:00:42.380 | - Oh, like intellectually, like there was somebody said,

01:00:45.020 | you have a vagina. - You have a vagina, yeah.

01:00:46.700 | - And that was horrifying to you.

01:00:48.180 | - Yeah, I didn't know I had,

01:00:50.740 | 'cause you weren't supposed to ever like

01:00:51.900 | touch or look at yourself ever, so I never did.

01:00:53.900 | It was really disgusting.

01:00:55.440 | And so I had no idea that what was going on

01:01:00.180 | in my genital region.

01:01:01.220 | And so one day my mom sat me down,

01:01:02.540 | I think it was like nine or 10,

01:01:04.540 | and she was like, you have a, there's another?

01:01:07.500 | - What?

01:01:09.700 | - And you're going to bleed out of it,

01:01:10.820 | is what she told me.

01:01:12.060 | You're gonna bleed out of it for a while.

01:01:13.300 | And I was like, what the fuck, mom?

01:01:15.360 | (both laughing)

01:01:17.820 | I didn't know what the word fuck was,

01:01:18.700 | but I would have said that if I had known.

01:01:20.860 | - When did you first learn the word fuck?

01:01:22.940 | - Oh, I think I learned it when I was at a playground

01:01:25.100 | and it was written somewhere and I read it out loud

01:01:27.820 | and then the kid next to me started giggling.

01:01:30.060 | - Did you ever, did you say fuck again for a while?

01:01:34.900 | - No, I think the next time I said,

01:01:36.180 | I swore the first time I was 18.

01:01:39.000 | Like intentionally said a swear word when I was 18.

01:01:41.200 | - Did it feel good?

01:01:42.160 | - I was like really nervous.

01:01:43.920 | I was like nervous. - What's your favorite

01:01:44.760 | swear word?

01:01:45.580 | - I mean, fuck's pretty good.

01:01:47.440 | - Yeah, fuck's pretty good.

01:01:48.400 | - Yeah.

01:01:49.760 | - Okay, so that's camming.

01:01:53.320 | I mean, what are the pros and cons of camming

01:01:55.280 | and how does OnlyFans map into this?

01:01:57.440 | Did you switch to OnlyFans at some point?

01:01:59.360 | - I did, yeah.

01:02:00.520 | I cammed for like five or six years

01:02:02.120 | and I burned out eventually.

01:02:03.840 | - What are the good aspects?

01:02:04.840 | What are the bad aspects of camming?

01:02:06.400 | - Well, the good aspects were that it was just

01:02:08.080 | your own terms, you get to decide.

01:02:09.800 | Everything about it is under your control,

01:02:11.620 | which I loved at the time.

01:02:13.240 | I was like, I can work when I want, how I want,

01:02:15.120 | any sort of expression I experimented.

01:02:17.080 | And I was very successful.

01:02:18.080 | I was making around $200 an hour,

01:02:19.320 | which for that website at the time was like pretty good.

01:02:22.880 | I had elaborate routines.

01:02:24.080 | I was a mime.

01:02:24.900 | I would do like dress up as a mime

01:02:27.320 | and then dress up a chair and I would seduce the chair.

01:02:30.440 | - Oh, cool.

01:02:31.280 | - Yeah, or like.

01:02:32.120 | - So it was, was there an artistic element to it almost?

01:02:34.780 | - Yeah, very much.

01:02:36.080 | I had like nose. - Did you talk to the chair?

01:02:38.000 | Did you get gnomes?

01:02:38.840 | - No, I was a mime, you know.

01:02:40.120 | - Oh, sorry, right.

01:02:41.520 | - Yeah, get it straight, dude.

01:02:43.080 | (laughing)

01:02:45.200 | - You know what I really appreciate about you

01:02:46.400 | is I'm asking some really dumb questions

01:02:48.520 | and you're answering in a very intelligent way,

01:02:50.200 | so I appreciate that.

01:02:51.200 | (laughing)

01:02:52.040 | All right, did you ask the chair questions?

01:02:54.880 | (laughing)

01:02:56.360 | I was a mime, you fucking idiot.

01:02:58.080 | Okay, I'm sorry.

01:02:58.920 | (laughing)

01:02:59.760 | It's true.

01:03:01.200 | But there's gnomes on the, like big gnomes or small gnomes?

01:03:04.360 | - Like lawn gnomes.

01:03:05.480 | - Lawn gnomes?

01:03:06.320 | And you seduce the lawn gnome on the chair,

01:03:07.800 | the gnome is sitting on the chair?

01:03:08.640 | - There were some, yeah, gnomes on the chair.

01:03:10.360 | I did a photo set which I submitted to Reddit

01:03:13.120 | where I got abducted.

01:03:14.160 | I was like stripping, taking my clothes off,

01:03:16.540 | and then slowly the gnomes surrounded me in the background

01:03:18.320 | and dragged me off.

01:03:19.160 | And I did this as a photo set.

01:03:20.600 | - Consensually?

01:03:21.440 | - I mean, I didn't feel consensual in the photos, but.

01:03:25.520 | - Okay.

01:03:26.480 | - But it was the 11th top post of--

01:03:27.320 | - Consensual, not consensual, the gnomes.

01:03:29.600 | - It was very successful on Reddit, basically.

01:03:31.760 | It was the top post on Gone Wild,

01:03:32.800 | and the 11th top post of all time on Reddit.

01:03:34.840 | - Which I think probably just means it's like,

01:03:37.500 | it's artistic, it's interesting, it's edgy, it's funny,

01:03:40.960 | so it's really, really well done.

01:03:42.200 | - But it was really shocking to me

01:03:43.040 | that nobody else was doing anything creative with sex work.

01:03:45.160 | Like for me, it was like breathing.

01:03:46.640 | Like you're just doing sex and you're bored,

01:03:48.040 | and I'm like, what do you do?

01:03:48.880 | I don't know, let's try something funny.

01:03:49.700 | Like it's just the natural progression.

01:03:51.920 | And it felt to me like there was almost no competition.

01:03:54.440 | Like I would just be really creative

01:03:55.720 | and like immediately it was the top

01:03:57.600 | not safe for work post on Reddit.

01:03:58.840 | I'm like, well, I didn't even try that hard.

01:04:01.360 | And so it's really shocking to me

01:04:02.680 | that other women who are doing this sort of thing.

01:04:05.320 | - Is that still a little bit of the case?

01:04:07.620 | That there's not as much like,

01:04:10.240 | 'cause from my sort of outsider perspective,

01:04:13.340 | that seems to be still the case.

01:04:14.500 | Like there's not, like as you describe it,

01:04:17.140 | that's kind of cool.

01:04:17.980 | That's like almost like playing,

01:04:20.560 | like having fun with sexuality almost.

01:04:22.420 | - Yeah.

01:04:23.260 | - But that does require kind of thinking through.

01:04:26.740 | It's almost like a creative project,

01:04:29.020 | like a photography project or something like that.

01:04:31.500 | Almost like a little skit movie.

01:04:33.700 | It's interesting.

01:04:34.540 | - It's this vibe of like,

01:04:35.380 | how can you like bring like vibrant novelty

01:04:37.700 | to whatever you're doing, anything you're doing.

01:04:39.460 | And I really like doing this with surveys too.

01:04:41.300 | Like I've been doing a lot of standard surveys,

01:04:42.900 | but I'm also like experimenting

01:04:44.100 | with novel creative artistic surveys.

01:04:45.940 | I'm like, how do you ask a question

01:04:47.780 | in a way that's like beautiful and unusual

01:04:49.540 | and like a thing that's completely groundbreaking?

01:04:51.260 | Like nobody's ever like-

01:04:52.380 | - You always make everything so poetic

01:04:54.180 | and romantic is disgusting.

01:04:55.620 | But yes, I think you have that engine in your head,

01:05:00.620 | I guess, of creativity.

01:05:01.900 | Like, yeah, the way you ask questions,

01:05:03.580 | it's not trivial to do.

01:05:04.820 | It's actually very difficult to do,

01:05:08.700 | like good survey questions.

01:05:11.700 | And I mean, we're joking, but like, yeah,

01:05:13.700 | almost like poetic because you have to ask a question

01:05:16.020 | in a way that doesn't lead to the answer.

01:05:18.060 | - Yes.

01:05:18.900 | - Like you have to kind of inspire them to think

01:05:22.300 | and then indirectly get at the truth.

01:05:25.020 | It's an art form, honestly.

01:05:27.540 | - Yeah, and also in a way

01:05:28.380 | where they don't misinterpret the question

01:05:29.780 | because it's amazing how any question you think,

01:05:32.860 | oh, this is the clearest question possible.

01:05:34.180 | No, you're wrong.

01:05:35.020 | It has to be even clearer.

01:05:36.540 | - Right, willingly or unwillingly.

01:05:38.140 | 'Cause like you also have to defend

01:05:39.900 | against that question being criticized later

01:05:41.780 | when you publish about it, all of that.

01:05:43.540 | You have to think about it all.

01:05:44.380 | - Yeah, I think this might be my greatest strength.

01:05:45.940 | So I'm not very good at statistics.

01:05:47.140 | I'm not like great at presenting data,

01:05:48.620 | but I think probably my greatest strength

01:05:50.020 | is in fact survey design and like question phrasing.

01:05:52.860 | 'Cause I have treated so many thousands of polls

01:05:56.340 | and every single one I get people telling me

01:05:58.260 | like the way that they misinterpreted the poll.

01:06:00.140 | So it's like-

01:06:00.980 | - You've become a master.

01:06:01.820 | - I'm like a master.

01:06:03.100 | And then again, I'm testing the phrasings all the time.

01:06:05.660 | Like what happens if you slightly shift phrasings?

01:06:07.420 | And so I'll do the same question test over time

01:06:09.820 | to see how it changes

01:06:10.740 | and the way the framing affects the results.

01:06:13.580 | - So the good and the bad of the camming.

01:06:16.220 | So you said good, the, what was it?

01:06:18.820 | I forgot.

01:06:19.660 | - The freedom.

01:06:20.500 | - The freedom.

01:06:21.340 | The freedom to also be creative.

01:06:22.860 | - Yeah.

01:06:24.420 | And the bad is just that it was exhausting.

01:06:25.860 | The site that I was on, the way that it's structured

01:06:27.780 | is that you're ranking on the site

01:06:29.060 | and thus the amount of people that see you

01:06:30.660 | and thus the amount of money you are on, you earn

01:06:32.980 | is affected by the amount of money that you earn

01:06:35.020 | on average over the last 60 days.

01:06:37.060 | So if you're streaming and nobody's tipping you,

01:06:38.940 | this means that you're going to be dropping

01:06:40.620 | down in the rankings,

01:06:41.460 | which is gonna make it harder in the future.

01:06:42.740 | - Okay, so the rich get richer on that site?

01:06:44.380 | - Yeah, so it's very high pressure.

01:06:45.980 | Like if you're on, you need to be making money

01:06:48.740 | as fast as you can, if you wanna continue to make money.

01:06:52.140 | So that was really stressful.

01:06:53.500 | It was very mentally taxing.

01:06:55.200 | I would do it for a couple hours

01:06:56.220 | and just log off and be completely exhausted

01:06:58.020 | 'cause you're just like on as hard as you can.

01:07:00.060 | And this is why I have a little PTSD around streaming.

01:07:02.780 | Like I've considered Twitch streaming

01:07:03.940 | and I try a little bit and I'm like,

01:07:05.820 | I haven't fully integrated the fact

01:07:07.860 | that you don't have to be like maximally entertaining

01:07:10.500 | every single second yet.

01:07:11.820 | You can actually just chill out and take it slow

01:07:13.820 | and nothing bad happens.

01:07:15.100 | - Yeah, yeah, you can just enjoy silence.

01:07:17.540 | - Yeah.

01:07:18.380 | - Did you feel lonely doing it?

01:07:26.440 | I mean, even just streamers feel lonely.

01:07:29.620 | - I moved into a house of cam girls.

01:07:31.420 | - Did that make it better or worse?

01:07:33.940 | - Better, they're great.

01:07:34.980 | I'm still friends with them to this day.

01:07:36.660 | - Oh, so it was like a team,

01:07:37.700 | almost like we're in this kind of together?

01:07:39.740 | - Yeah, so we would like work together

01:07:41.540 | and stream together and swap our clothes and stuff.

01:07:46.300 | It was great.

01:07:47.260 | - Swap ideas too?

01:07:48.300 | - Swap ideas, yeah.

01:07:49.780 | - And actually on a small tangent, maybe a big tangent,

01:07:53.660 | what do you think, 'cause it's a recent controversy

01:07:55.340 | of Andrew Tate and that he, I think in the past,

01:07:58.980 | ran a camming business

01:08:00.700 | and he's being accused of sex trafficking.

01:08:03.380 | What do you think, like from your own experience,

01:08:05.780 | what do you understand about Andrew Tate?

01:08:08.860 | Is he a good person, is he a bad person?

01:08:11.060 | Is there something shady about his practices or not?

01:08:13.420 | - I wish I could answer, but I don't know.

01:08:14.980 | I haven't looked into it at all.

01:08:16.460 | I've heard people talking about it,

01:08:17.780 | I just haven't bothered to go into it.

01:08:19.980 | It is well known that, like when I was doing it

01:08:21.860 | back in the day, the Eastern European models

01:08:23.340 | had something different going on though.

01:08:25.100 | It was like a trope about,

01:08:26.740 | you know, there's the Eastern European models

01:08:28.100 | and then there's everybody else.

01:08:29.660 | - They're what, it's like darker or something like that?

01:08:31.900 | - Like they do studios and they're lower quality.

01:08:35.620 | - Which means what?

01:08:38.380 | - Studios are, you go into like a warehouse

01:08:40.980 | and then they have set up a little,

01:08:42.260 | like things that replicate bedrooms,

01:08:44.020 | but they're just like stalls.

01:08:46.060 | And then you give, you rent out

01:08:47.300 | or you pay the studio percentage of your income.

01:08:49.860 | And you can tell when something looks like a studio,

01:08:51.380 | it's like a type of background.

01:08:52.940 | If you're like watching enough,

01:08:53.980 | it kind of starts to, you notice the patterns.

01:08:56.540 | - So like the standards are lower there

01:08:58.700 | and the ethical boundaries are a little looser.

01:09:01.460 | - Yeah.

01:09:02.300 | - Of how people are treated.

01:09:03.820 | - I'd never heard anything about the ethical side.

01:09:06.220 | I just knew that it was like lower quality.

01:09:08.580 | Like the girls seemed like they were less into it

01:09:10.820 | and like cared less.

01:09:13.060 | - How does this all interplay with like sex trafficking?

01:09:15.540 | So consensual versus non-consensual.

01:09:17.900 | - I would be shocked if there were never

01:09:19.020 | any non-consensual camming.

01:09:20.580 | I mean, I guess it's like, if it were going to happen,

01:09:23.780 | I wouldn't be surprised if it were in fact

01:09:25.420 | Eastern European models.

01:09:26.620 | Based on, this is outdated.

01:09:27.700 | This is, I'm just thinking of my stereotypes

01:09:29.220 | back when I cammed a lot.

01:09:30.380 | - Sure, so some of that is stereotypes

01:09:31.740 | versus like collecting good data, right?

01:09:33.540 | - Yeah, I haven't done data on cam girl.

01:09:36.060 | - It's hard, I mean, it's hard.

01:09:37.580 | It's even hard to get that data, right?

01:09:39.940 | But obviously a really important problem.

01:09:42.860 | - There's a method that I'm trying that I really like.

01:09:44.780 | I designed a survey type,

01:09:45.980 | which is like asking people who you know.

01:09:47.700 | - Yeah.

01:09:48.540 | - Like, who do you know who's done this?

01:09:49.780 | And you tell me like, oh, do you know anybody

01:09:50.980 | who's a doctor?

01:09:51.820 | Do you know anybody who has had cancer or like smokes?

01:09:54.900 | - Personally, you mean?

01:09:55.780 | - Yeah, personally, just do you know anybody?

01:09:57.380 | - Yeah.

01:09:58.220 | - And then if you ask about a whole bunch of things,

01:09:59.860 | you can calibrate the responses.

01:10:02.700 | So like, if your population, you know,

01:10:05.220 | 20% of them know doctors,

01:10:06.380 | and then you know the actual amount of doctors,

01:10:08.260 | then you can tell like how this is corresponding.

01:10:10.260 | Like what is the visibility of doctors?

01:10:11.620 | - So you can reconstruct the graph.

01:10:13.220 | - Basically, yeah.

01:10:14.180 | And we can do this with sex trafficking.

01:10:15.580 | Of course, people are going to be like,

01:10:16.500 | well, sex trafficking is not visible.

01:10:17.660 | People, you don't know those.

01:10:18.940 | Like, well, then we can ask about other non-visible things

01:10:21.100 | that other people don't know that we do have data for.

01:10:23.620 | Like homelessness or being in jail,

01:10:25.180 | or like if you have been like sexually assaulted,

01:10:27.540 | a lot of people don't like talking about

01:10:28.860 | if they've been sexually assaulted.

01:10:30.140 | So you can do a whole bunch of things

01:10:31.580 | that are like similarly suppressed in knowledge in some way

01:10:34.580 | that we do actually have rates for,

01:10:36.460 | and then compare that to the graph when we ask people,

01:10:38.780 | do you know anybody who's in sex traffic?

01:10:40.580 | - Yeah.

01:10:41.420 | - So again, this is not perfect.

01:10:42.340 | I'm not saying this is ideal.

01:10:43.180 | - But you can infer things.

01:10:45.500 | You can infer things about that graph.

01:10:48.020 | - But I'm saying we don't have good ways

01:10:49.500 | of measuring sex trafficking right now.

01:10:51.020 | Anyway, I did a big deep dive into the research

01:10:52.860 | that we have on sex trafficking in the Western world,

01:10:54.900 | and the actual, like I read the studies

01:10:57.260 | and like reports about the studies,

01:10:59.100 | and it's really pitiful.

01:11:00.340 | We have terrible data.

01:11:01.860 | It's like, there's just like vague estimations

01:11:04.300 | made from one guy in a basement in the '80s.

01:11:06.780 | That's like the basis for like one big study

01:11:08.780 | that like a lot of people report on.

01:11:10.620 | And so I'm like, okay, so the method I'm proposing,

01:11:14.020 | obviously it's not perfect,

01:11:15.400 | but like the bar is so low at this point.

01:11:17.860 | - Well, I wonder also if there's ways to design a survey

01:11:21.420 | that gets at the victims of sex trafficking also,

01:11:26.300 | which is they presumably have public access to the internet.

01:11:30.380 | And I wonder how many of them are distinctly aware

01:11:35.720 | that they're victims.

01:11:36.860 | Like it's asking the question,

01:11:39.660 | when you're inside of a toxic relationship,

01:11:41.520 | are you inside of a toxic relationship?

01:11:43.940 | I mean, if the toxic relationship is truly toxic,

01:11:46.740 | sometimes your mind is fucked with, right?

01:11:50.580 | You don't even know what's true.

01:11:52.700 | So it's interesting if you can design surveys-

01:11:54.700 | - For people who are actively sex trafficked?

01:11:56.060 | - Yeah, who could break through that.

01:11:58.340 | So basically get data on how many people

01:12:01.260 | are getting sex trafficked directly.

01:12:03.620 | - Oh yeah, like if you don't frame it,

01:12:04.980 | like if you don't say the word sex trafficking,

01:12:06.580 | you're like, are you just in a situation where you'd-

01:12:09.020 | - And maybe through the survey, I mean, that's very meta,

01:12:11.380 | but through the survey, help them.

01:12:13.420 | - You know, this is what started my relationship surveys.

01:12:16.140 | So I've done a series of relationship surveys,

01:12:17.740 | and that was because I knew somebody

01:12:18.900 | in a terrible relationship.

01:12:19.900 | And I was like, I bet if she took a survey

01:12:22.140 | where she answered questions about her relationship

01:12:23.540 | and at the end got a score

01:12:24.620 | that compared her to everybody else,

01:12:26.300 | she'd be like, oh wait, everybody else

01:12:28.220 | has much better relationships than I do.

01:12:29.880 | So that's why I started making the relationship surveys,

01:12:32.100 | was exactly for that reason.

01:12:33.300 | - Yeah, that's really, really, really powerful

01:12:34.840 | to know that you're not crazy

01:12:38.700 | for thinking this is a bad relationship.

01:12:40.740 | - Right, or I think the actual question is like,

01:12:43.260 | could you do better if you broke up?

01:12:45.540 | I think that the thing that keeps most people

01:12:47.260 | in their relationships is like,

01:12:48.100 | this is the best that I can do.

01:12:49.780 | Like, this is normal.

01:12:50.660 | And if it were normal, I would say that they are right.

01:12:53.020 | Like, if you live in a culture

01:12:53.940 | where everybody is abusing their people

01:12:56.740 | in their relationships, then yeah,

01:12:58.260 | I mean, what are you gonna do?

01:12:59.620 | Break up and then just be alone for the rest of your life?

01:13:01.860 | Most people don't wanna do that.

01:13:03.660 | - But now comparing yourself to the average is good to know.

01:13:08.140 | - Know what your options are.

01:13:09.220 | - At least understand it, because being normal

01:13:11.500 | is not always, like this conversation is not always great.

01:13:17.260 | Meaning this conversation is anything but normal.

01:13:19.860 | Okay, and that was a tangent on a tangent

01:13:24.860 | about a niche passion, which is really fascinating

01:13:28.260 | that you're playing with those kinds of ideas

01:13:29.700 | of survey design.

01:13:31.580 | But back to camming, so what were the cons?

01:13:34.700 | What were the negatives of camming?

01:13:36.100 | - Oh, like the exhaustion of just like live,

01:13:38.260 | like the high pressure thing.

01:13:39.580 | That was probably the worst thing.

01:13:41.420 | - So not, what about the interaction with different people?

01:13:44.340 | Like the dynamics of the interaction

01:13:45.940 | with the fans, I guess.

01:13:48.060 | - I had a pretty great time.

01:13:49.700 | I mean, it obviously wasn't perfect

01:13:51.180 | 'cause it's the internet, but I don't know.

01:13:53.220 | This is the thing that confuses me a lot,

01:13:55.620 | because a lot of women that I know complain

01:13:57.500 | about being harassed by men quite a lot.

01:13:59.060 | They're like, you know, men are always,

01:14:00.300 | you know, grow up in a harass,

01:14:01.260 | you have to be paranoid in the club.

01:14:03.260 | People are like, they're always huffing on you

01:14:05.260 | and you're just like, Jesus Christ, get away, man.

01:14:06.620 | And I do not have this experience.

01:14:08.220 | Or like, maybe I do,

01:14:09.140 | but I'm interpreting it differently, I don't know.

01:14:10.820 | The thing is, I don't know what causes me

01:14:12.340 | to have such a different experience from these women

01:14:14.540 | that are like really, feel really hostile towards men.

01:14:17.980 | And my guess is that there's some sort

01:14:19.860 | of like very subtle signaling that we're accidentally doing.

01:14:22.500 | Be like, no fault of our own.

01:14:23.420 | I'm not saying this is a virtue.

01:14:24.260 | I'm saying like, maybe it's just genetic

01:14:26.260 | or the fact that I'm-- - That women are doing?

01:14:28.220 | - That the women are doing, yeah.

01:14:29.620 | Like that, and it might be just something

01:14:31.420 | I'm completely accidentally, through no intention,

01:14:34.020 | like happening to signal the thing

01:14:35.700 | that is causing men to not view me

01:14:37.220 | as like a desirable target, or like a target at all.

01:14:40.780 | - Well, what about the flip side?

01:14:41.940 | Maybe you're not sensitive to the creepy stare.

01:14:46.700 | - Yeah, that also might be true.

01:14:48.140 | - The dude who's like, as I'm dressing you with his eyes,

01:14:52.140 | that like in a creepy way,

01:14:54.940 | that you're just not, you don't like worry about it.

01:14:57.860 | Or you're not touched, like the fear of that,

01:15:01.060 | the anxiety of that, the unpleasantness of that

01:15:04.180 | just doesn't hit you.

01:15:05.220 | - I think that's also at least part of it, maybe all of it.

01:15:09.300 | - Yeah.

01:15:10.140 | - Yeah, I think there's some evidence for it.

01:15:11.340 | I think often guys will do a thing to me,

01:15:13.140 | and I'm just like, that's a thing, cool.

01:15:15.260 | I don't have any negative response whatsoever.

01:15:18.340 | - That's call back to the tire.

01:15:20.660 | It's a thing, this is nice.

01:15:22.140 | - Yeah. - That happened.

01:15:22.980 | It was good to know that can happen.

01:15:24.460 | - I once had a homeless guy ask me

01:15:26.420 | to come back to my place, baby,

01:15:27.780 | and I was like, this is fun.

01:15:29.580 | - Yeah.

01:15:30.420 | - I'm like, do you want me to, I love asking men,

01:15:31.980 | are you trying to get me to have sex with you?

01:15:33.420 | Just like saying it out front, and they'll be like, well.

01:15:36.380 | Usually they stop for a minute, they're like, well,

01:15:40.500 | yeah, I would like to have sex,

01:15:41.780 | and I'll be like, thanks for asking,

01:15:42.980 | but I'm not interested in having sex with you.

01:15:45.420 | How do you have a good day?

01:15:46.780 | And then I walk away.

01:15:48.860 | And that's great, I don't know.

01:15:49.860 | I have no issues with that interaction,

01:15:51.780 | but maybe this is the kind of thing

01:15:53.220 | that other women would find to be really offensive.

01:15:54.900 | - So you have that conversation,

01:15:56.100 | and it doesn't turn into a threatening feel.

01:15:58.700 | - No.

01:15:59.540 | - Like with a homeless guy.

01:16:00.380 | - No, I've never had that happen, though.

01:16:02.380 | But I think there's just something,

01:16:03.460 | I think I'm doing something,

01:16:04.540 | like again, this is kind of accidental.

01:16:06.100 | I just am like this always,

01:16:08.100 | and I think I just happen to be like this at people,

01:16:10.140 | and they don't expect it.

01:16:11.540 | They don't expect me to be really nice

01:16:13.060 | while explicitly asking them what their intentions are.

01:16:15.260 | Like directly putting my finger on the thing,

01:16:17.140 | like, oh, you're trying to have sex with me,

01:16:18.860 | and then also not judging them for it.

01:16:21.340 | I think this throws people off a little bit

01:16:23.220 | so they don't get aggressive.

01:16:24.340 | They're like, oh, you're autistic or something.

01:16:25.940 | - Even the cloak of anonymity on the internet,

01:16:28.740 | you weren't getting the toxicity.

01:16:29.900 | - Yeah, I just think I'm just not reactive,

01:16:32.100 | and or maybe I'm giving off, I don't know.

01:16:33.980 | I don't know what's going on.

01:16:34.820 | Maybe it's both, maybe it's a feedback loop.

01:16:36.700 | So I just, I had a pretty good experience.

01:16:38.260 | I know not everybody did.

01:16:39.460 | Definitely people reported having antagonistic experiences,

01:16:41.860 | but when I was scamming, I generally really liked.

01:16:44.420 | People were really nice to me, had a great time,

01:16:46.700 | made friends.

01:16:47.760 | - So you also did OnlyFans, as you mentioned,

01:16:52.740 | and I read on a website,

01:16:54.500 | so this is very investigative reporting,

01:16:57.020 | that on some months,

01:16:59.180 | you've made over $100,000 on OnlyFans.

01:17:03.340 | How did that feel?

01:17:04.620 | - Great, really great.

01:17:07.540 | I mean, like,

01:17:08.380 | well, actually, because so much of your upbringing,

01:17:12.660 | you didn't have money,

01:17:13.740 | you had to struggle with the fact of your job and so on,

01:17:16.500 | maybe a good person to ask,

01:17:17.660 | can money buy happiness?

01:17:20.500 | - Well, I mean, I think you get like a resting set point

01:17:24.340 | of happiness, regardless of how much money you have,

01:17:27.220 | but money can buy being less stressed, I would say.

01:17:30.360 | - Is there a lot of variation

01:17:32.900 | in the basic rest happiness for humans, in general?

01:17:37.900 | Like, is that a good thing to think about?

01:17:40.940 | - I mean, they've done some studies,

01:17:41.820 | but again, I'm not sure,

01:17:43.020 | I haven't actually read the studies,

01:17:43.940 | so maybe they didn't replicate,

01:17:44.860 | where they measured people before and after

01:17:47.300 | winning a bunch of money

01:17:48.460 | to see if their happiness was higher.

01:17:50.420 | I think by some measures it was, and by some it wasn't.

01:17:53.540 | - No, I mean, like, basically, almost genetically,

01:17:55.740 | so nature and nurture, but is there,

01:17:58.740 | let's say after you're 18,

01:18:00.100 | is there like some stable level of happiness

01:18:04.620 | that all the environmental genetic factors combine

01:18:06.740 | to create so that everything that life throws at you

01:18:09.380 | has to face that happiness?

01:18:11.620 | Like you mentioned earlier

01:18:12.700 | that I seem to be happy with a lot of stuff.

01:18:15.020 | So maybe I have a certain level,

01:18:16.780 | do other people have a lower level?

01:18:18.220 | Some people have higher level?

01:18:19.500 | - Yeah, definitely.

01:18:20.340 | - Like, is that a useful,

01:18:22.260 | or is that a useful model of human beings?

01:18:25.420 | Or is it all ups and downs?

01:18:28.660 | Like, is it all, like, there's no stable--

01:18:31.260 | - Well, I mean, there's no combo, right?

01:18:32.180 | Like, I don't know, some people just are happier

01:18:34.180 | than others in general, and other people aren't.

01:18:36.980 | But then you also have ups and downs.

01:18:38.260 | Like, I'm sure you've experienced sadness sometimes

01:18:40.580 | and happiness the other times.

01:18:42.180 | - Like, if I actually were to integrate,

01:18:44.340 | so have an integral under the,

01:18:46.260 | the area under the curve,

01:18:48.580 | I don't know if I'm different than other people.

01:18:50.260 | Maybe I'm just like really focused on the happy moments

01:18:53.420 | and maybe feel the down moments most intensely,

01:18:56.180 | and maybe that, like, on average, it's all the same.

01:19:00.500 | Is that possible?

01:19:01.660 | - I mean, maybe?

01:19:03.260 | I just, I don't know.

01:19:05.540 | Like, I remember when I was a kid,

01:19:06.820 | my mom would call me Pollyanna all the time,

01:19:08.300 | 'cause I was like finding the good in everything.

01:19:10.220 | - Oh, yeah? - I'd be like,

01:19:11.060 | something bad would happen, oh, my.

01:19:11.900 | - So you were a happy kid?

01:19:12.720 | - I was a really happy kid, yeah.

01:19:13.560 | - Even in the harsh conditions?

01:19:15.620 | - Yeah, I mean, like I said,

01:19:16.460 | like, I think the harshness comes from the bad meaning,

01:19:18.620 | like, and I had good meaning applied to it.

01:19:20.740 | - So you were a stoic?

01:19:22.540 | - Yeah.

01:19:23.380 | - With another book I'm reading next week,

01:19:25.700 | tune in, Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations."

01:19:28.300 | (both laughing)

01:19:30.960 | All right, all right,

01:19:33.540 | camming, 100K, so it felt good.

01:19:37.100 | So it's crazy, though, right?

01:19:40.020 | You can just, like, take clothes off

01:19:42.700 | in a creative way with some gnomes and make 100,000?

01:19:45.540 | - Yeah, I mean, there was a lot more to it than that,

01:19:47.460 | but yeah.

01:19:48.460 | - What was it, what's the process?

01:19:49.300 | - I mean, it's marketing.

01:19:51.100 | Like, so with only, with my free cams,

01:19:53.620 | I was unusual in that I decided to do,

01:19:55.940 | outside of the website marketing,

01:19:57.500 | I would, like, post on Reddit, right?

01:19:59.140 | This was very unusual at the time,

01:20:00.300 | but, like, only fans are structured such that

01:20:02.860 | they have almost no internal discovery whatsoever.

01:20:05.160 | So if you want people to come to your page,

01:20:06.340 | you have to go out onto external websites

01:20:08.140 | and advertise for yourself directly.

01:20:10.540 | Very different model.

01:20:11.460 | And so this is something I had already been doing

01:20:13.320 | and already had practiced in,

01:20:14.240 | and so I think I was, like, already quite advanced.

01:20:15.660 | Like, I already had an account on Reddit

01:20:16.900 | that was, like, seven years old at the time,

01:20:19.020 | tons of, like, karma that means I could post in subreddits.

01:20:22.100 | I'd already been on Twitter for years,

01:20:23.580 | you know, like, posting actively.

01:20:24.820 | So I already had, like, presences

01:20:26.500 | on all these other platforms

01:20:27.500 | that really helped with the conversion.

01:20:29.140 | - Reddit and Twitter?

01:20:30.620 | - Reddit, Twitter, FetLife, Instagram, TikTok.

01:20:32.900 | - And you were still advertising creatively?

01:20:34.980 | - So, yeah.

01:20:35.820 | - So, like, there's, like, sexuality,

01:20:36.640 | but there's also, like, creative sexuality.

01:20:39.660 | - Yeah. - And ideas, too.

01:20:41.140 | - Yeah, like, one of the really popular ones was

01:20:43.180 | I, like, molested myself as a mime

01:20:45.660 | using a, one arm through a jacket.

01:20:50.620 | And so the jacket looked like it was,

01:20:52.300 | (both laughing)

01:20:54.960 | the jacket looked like it was alive,

01:20:57.740 | and, you know, and that one did really well.

01:21:00.860 | - Did you, like, brainstorm with somebody?

01:21:02.420 | And, like, I recently got to hang out with Mr. Beast

01:21:04.980 | and sit on a session of brainstorming different ideas.

01:21:09.380 | I just envision you with, like, a team brainstorming.

01:21:14.180 | All right, how about we try the mime and the molesting thing?

01:21:17.580 | I don't know, it's too edgy.

01:21:19.380 | (Dana laughing)

01:21:20.700 | - I wish, I think the team would have been a lot more fun.

01:21:23.100 | But no, it's just me.

01:21:23.940 | Like, I had an apartment that looked, like,

01:21:25.180 | kind of like this, you know?

01:21:26.740 | You just sit alone, and you're like,

01:21:27.660 | "Well, that would be a good idea."

01:21:29.100 | And I'd seen, you just collect ideas over time, right?

01:21:31.340 | Like, I'd seen somebody doing a version

01:21:34.260 | of the, like, this animated hand act, like, when I was a kid.

01:21:38.060 | And it just always stuck in my head.

01:21:39.420 | And, like, one day I was like, "I bet I could do that."

01:21:41.340 | And then when I was trying to think of ideas to do

01:21:43.180 | as a sex worker, I was like, "Why don't I just try that?"

01:21:45.260 | And then it turned out to be, like,

01:21:46.820 | really, like, quite a viral hit.

01:21:48.940 | - Is there stuff, like you mentioned, too edgy?

01:21:52.100 | Like, Mr. Beast tries to keep it PG.

01:21:54.420 | - Yeah.

01:21:55.260 | - Do you try to keep it PG-13?

01:21:56.180 | - Well, with the sex advertising stuff,

01:21:57.820 | I mean, it's sex advertising, so it's obviously not PG-13.

01:22:01.020 | - I don't know these ratings.

01:22:02.740 | What does even beyond that, R?

01:22:03.580 | - It's not family-friendly.

01:22:05.220 | It is X.

01:22:06.060 | Like, the one that I'm describing to you at some point,

01:22:08.020 | like, you can see my boob.

01:22:09.500 | - So, is a boob is X?

01:22:11.580 | - A boob is, I guess.

01:22:13.020 | - I thought R.

01:22:13.860 | I think you could show a boob in PG-13.

01:22:15.420 | - Yeah, maybe X is, like, if you got

01:22:16.740 | some sort of rhythmic motion going on.

01:22:19.580 | - Maybe that sound, but the rhythmic motion not.

01:22:22.020 | You can have one or the other, but you can't have both.

01:22:27.660 | You have both.

01:22:28.500 | - That's when we hit the X, yeah.

01:22:30.340 | - Okay.

01:22:31.180 | - So, definitely not family.

01:22:32.020 | I mean, with the sex advertising stuff,

01:22:33.420 | like, guys like vanilla shit.

01:22:34.700 | Guys want basic, hot girl.

01:22:37.740 | You can do something, like, kind of sexy and creative,

01:22:39.700 | like getting abducted by gnomes,

01:22:40.740 | or, like, the self-molestation, right?

01:22:42.180 | But those are still pretty within the normal boundaries.

01:22:46.020 | - What do you mean, guys like vanilla stuff?

01:22:48.140 | - I mean, most guys like vanilla stuff.

01:22:50.340 | - What's vanilla stuff?

01:22:51.380 | - Like, hot girl being horny.

01:22:52.220 | - See, we'll talk about fetish, fetishes.

01:22:54.980 | I think my Overton window on what is vanilla

01:22:58.980 | is expanding quickly after following your work.

01:23:03.100 | But, yeah, what's that?

01:23:04.620 | - I actually have done a lot of studies on what is vanilla.

01:23:07.020 | Like, I've done a couple different surveys

01:23:08.540 | where I ask people, like, how taboo is this thing?

01:23:10.780 | And I have, like, a rating from least to most taboo.

01:23:13.060 | - By the way, I don't like, I don't appreciate

01:23:15.340 | the beauty of vanilla ice cream.

01:23:17.300 | - You don't?

01:23:18.180 | It is really good, though.

01:23:19.500 | - You eat vanilla ice cream?

01:23:21.500 | - I eat vanilla ice cream, yeah.

01:23:23.060 | - I think there's just so many more options.

01:23:24.940 | It's like the absence of creativity.

01:23:27.060 | - I mean, if you put in, like,

01:23:28.140 | some chocolate chips or something.

01:23:30.000 | - Yeah, they already made it more interesting.

01:23:33.500 | It's a start.

01:23:34.500 | Okay, so what's vanilla?

01:23:36.540 | And why do guys like vanilla?

01:23:37.780 | So hot girl doing hot girl things?

01:23:39.940 | What, like, on dressing and then having sex?

01:23:42.540 | - The thing that I found was most successful

01:23:44.140 | were frames where the man was framed as passive

01:23:47.620 | and the woman as active.

01:23:48.740 | Or, like, for example, like, oh, you know,

01:23:51.580 | we got assigned to the same bunk

01:23:53.700 | at the breeding school or something.

01:23:55.740 | Or, like, oh, we're the last people on earth, right?

01:23:58.500 | Or, like, oh, no, you know, I desperately need somebody

01:24:02.840 | to, like, cure me with this disease and I need semen.

01:24:05.740 | So it's like, in any scenario where the guy

01:24:07.620 | just, like, finds himself such that the woman,

01:24:10.020 | like, desperately needs him for some reason

01:24:11.540 | and he doesn't have to do much,

01:24:12.860 | that is, like, typically one of the much

01:24:14.780 | more successful things.

01:24:16.220 | Like, guys like women falling into their lap.

01:24:18.420 | - What about the power dynamic?

01:24:20.780 | - So guys are less into power dynamics than women are.

01:24:23.920 | And you can do power dynamics as long

01:24:26.380 | as it's, like, handed to them.

01:24:28.300 | Some guys, obviously, some guys are, like, very dominant

01:24:30.260 | and, like, prefer, like, having to work.

01:24:31.660 | But this is the minority.

01:24:32.500 | Like, if you're trying to do, make 100K a month

01:24:34.780 | and you're trying to appeal to the widest group of people,

01:24:37.180 | the most effective advertising,

01:24:39.100 | you're not gonna be making the most money

01:24:40.140 | by being, like, particularly submissive.

01:24:42.060 | - So on the camming side, that's your,

01:24:44.200 | unlike, like, escorting or just personal relationships,

01:24:49.700 | you're trying to, you have an audience.

01:24:52.500 | You have, like, a theater full of people.

01:24:54.820 | - Like, with live camming?

01:24:55.780 | - Yeah, with live camming.

01:24:56.620 | - Yeah, it's like a live theater.

01:24:58.460 | - Does that freak you out,

01:24:59.280 | there's just a bunch of people watching?

01:25:01.420 | - How do you feel right now?

01:25:02.740 | - I don't know they're watching, 'cause it's not live.

01:25:05.620 | - Yeah, that's true, it's not live.

01:25:06.900 | - 'Cause they're not watching.

01:25:07.740 | - But, like, it might as well be.

01:25:08.560 | Like, they could be watching.

01:25:09.980 | - I feel like there's just the two of us.

01:25:11.660 | I don't know.

01:25:12.500 | And there's, like, sometimes I imagine

01:25:14.060 | there's a third person.

01:25:15.180 | - Like God?

01:25:16.020 | - Usually, no, no, not God, just,

01:25:17.580 | I usually imagine either a guy or a girl or a couple

01:25:21.900 | just sitting there for some reason,

01:25:23.420 | like, usually on the beach and usually high,

01:25:26.020 | or on some kind of, like, mushrooms,

01:25:27.660 | just, like, listening passively,

01:25:29.420 | just kind of looking at the sunset, that's what I imagine.

01:25:31.460 | - Oh, that's really good.

01:25:32.580 | - Yeah.

01:25:33.420 | - I think that's useful.

01:25:34.260 | Like, when I write my blog posts,

01:25:35.220 | sometimes I do terribly, but it's the most effective

01:25:38.180 | when I imagine one person that I'm writing to

01:25:39.860 | to try to explain.

01:25:40.820 | And, like, having a high couple watching the sunset

01:25:43.140 | is maybe really lovely as a calibration.

01:25:46.060 | - I have to say, it is pretty romantic,

01:25:48.620 | 'cause I've gotten a chance to meet couples

01:25:50.580 | that listen to podcasts together.

01:25:52.740 | I don't know why, that seems, like,

01:25:54.980 | intensely romantic to me, because, like,

01:25:56.980 | 'cause you're not watching TV together,

01:26:00.820 | you're listening to a thing.

01:26:02.780 | I mean, I guess sometimes they watch it,

01:26:03.980 | but, like, you're listening to ideas together.

01:26:08.460 | I don't know.

01:26:10.380 | It seems--

01:26:11.220 | - It's like you're going through the same kind

01:26:12.060 | of thought process at the same time.

01:26:12.880 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a really beautiful way to put it.

01:26:14.580 | So it's like, you're melding,

01:26:16.700 | your thinking is following the same line.

01:26:19.020 | Some of our podcasts do that more than movies.

01:26:21.020 | I think movies give you a lot more freedom

01:26:22.340 | to think about stuff.

01:26:23.620 | I feel like your thoughts are aligned.

01:26:26.060 | And, like, especially if the podcast is good,

01:26:28.020 | like, if it's listening to, like, a Dan Carlin podcast,

01:26:32.060 | like, about history, that you're, like,

01:26:33.340 | on a journey together.

01:26:34.660 | Eh, there's an intimacy to that.

01:26:37.220 | Anyway.

01:26:38.780 | But I've learned that couples do that, you know?

01:26:42.780 | #relationshipghost, go ahead.

01:26:44.340 | - That's what you want with your future wife?

01:26:46.500 | - With my, yeah.

01:26:47.620 | - You should make an application.

01:26:49.420 | - Application?

01:26:50.260 | - An application for dating you.

01:26:51.300 | I mean, maybe this is more of, like,

01:26:52.500 | my strategy and less yours,

01:26:53.660 | but you have, like, a wide enough audience that might work.

01:26:56.300 | - It's not...

01:26:59.260 | Okay, let's just go there.

01:27:04.380 | So, 'cause you've put together an application

01:27:06.060 | of, like, people to have casual sex with you,

01:27:08.660 | I think, you've had that.

01:27:09.500 | - And also dating, yeah.

01:27:10.700 | - And also dating and relationship.

01:27:12.220 | I'd love to, so what is in that application?

01:27:14.540 | 'Cause, like, you know,

01:27:16.940 | I'm sure there's quite a lot of people

01:27:20.460 | that would like to date you or to sleep with you,

01:27:24.220 | but finding the person, I mean, it depends what your goals,

01:27:26.980 | I guess relationship would be an open relationship for you?

01:27:29.340 | - Yes.

01:27:30.180 | - Right, like, for me, I guess it's more intensely selective

01:27:34.300 | because it's, like, a monogamous relationship

01:27:36.380 | and a committed one.

01:27:37.940 | Like, I'm swinging for the,

01:27:42.940 | - Yeah.

01:27:43.860 | - Like, for, like, long-term.

01:27:44.900 | I'm not, like, weirdly obsessed with long-term,

01:27:49.020 | but it's, like, I would love to have one girl

01:27:51.380 | for the rest of my life.

01:27:52.620 | But finding that, I feel like applications

01:27:56.500 | will not get to that.

01:27:57.340 | I feel like there's some aspect of the magic

01:27:59.380 | of the serendipity of it,

01:28:01.420 | of meeting people in strange places and so on.

01:28:03.900 | I just, I personally have noticed that, like,

01:28:05.780 | fame has not made that process easier.

01:28:08.900 | - But, I mean, like, if you could, you know,

01:28:10.540 | if there's two rooms and one of them,

01:28:11.820 | it's, like, a random population of hot women

01:28:13.980 | and the other one is a random population of hot women,

01:28:15.860 | but all of them definitely are monogamous

01:28:18.140 | and are looking for a long-term committed relationship.

01:28:20.020 | - Yeah.

01:28:20.860 | - Like, which room would you rather go into?

01:28:22.380 | Like, if you're looking for a mate.

01:28:25.060 | - Yeah, well, but see, I guess my preferences are more,

01:28:27.620 | that's a really strong point,

01:28:29.540 | but my preferences represent the majority, probably, right?

01:28:33.340 | 'Cause don't most women want monogamous relationships?

01:28:35.660 | - Yeah.

01:28:36.500 | - So, like, it's, I'm okay with either option.

01:28:39.780 | 'Cause, like, statistically speaking.

01:28:42.060 | - But I feel like we can apply it

01:28:42.940 | to, like, a bunch of other things.

01:28:44.420 | Yeah, and this is just a problem if you have, like,

01:28:46.540 | high, if you have a high volume to filter through

01:28:48.700 | and, like, you don't know.

01:28:49.540 | Like, it's a good, like, initial filter.

01:28:51.860 | Like, you can take it from, like, a thousand people

01:28:53.740 | to 20 people and then go on dates with them.

01:28:55.380 | - But the filter is so anti-romantic.

01:28:57.340 | Like, what?

01:28:58.860 | - This is true.

01:28:59.700 | This is not the romantic narrative

01:29:00.940 | that you are very prone to.

01:29:02.780 | - Like, if I feel like, how did you two meet?

01:29:05.620 | - Well, she passed the three filters I set up.

01:29:08.060 | And, I mean, but it's also,

01:29:12.860 | but also, can you put into a survey

01:29:16.700 | the things that you're interested in?

01:29:18.860 | - Yeah.

01:29:20.780 | - I mean, I definitely think about this a lot with hiring.

01:29:22.820 | Like, teams, engineers, and so on.

01:29:25.140 | But with engineers, you're okay losing

01:29:30.900 | truly special engineers because you have to filter

01:29:35.540 | 'cause there's, like, thousands of applications.

01:29:37.660 | Like, it feels like,

01:29:38.740 | it feels like a worry that you would miss the thing

01:29:43.020 | that actually, 'cause so much of it is chemistry.

01:29:46.180 | So much of it is, like, the magic, you know?

01:29:47.860 | - But the thing is, you're missing it anyway.

01:29:49.820 | - Yeah, you're missing it.

01:29:50.660 | - It's, oh, you can just run it,

01:29:51.820 | and then, in addition, try some of those people.

01:29:55.020 | And then go on the dates that you were going to go on

01:29:57.100 | with anyway, regardless.

01:29:58.780 | It's just the thing that helps, like,

01:29:59.940 | pull someone out of the crowd.

01:30:01.180 | Like this, I dated a guy from my survey.

01:30:03.100 | I'd ran the survey.

01:30:03.940 | I assigned point values to each of the questions.

01:30:06.540 | I went on a date with, like, the top couple people,

01:30:08.260 | and then one of them, I was like,

01:30:10.260 | and I'm still dating him to this day.

01:30:12.020 | It was awesome.

01:30:13.460 | And I would never, I never would have gone on a date

01:30:15.700 | with him without the survey.

01:30:16.820 | - Can you, if from memory, or we can look it up,

01:30:19.460 | do you remember what kind of questions were on the survey?

01:30:21.500 | - I asked a couple different categories.

01:30:22.740 | I asked about, like, basic life stuff.

01:30:24.020 | So, like, what kind of relationships,

01:30:25.460 | like, monogamy versus polyamory.

01:30:26.820 | Like, do you want kids?

01:30:28.260 | You know, like, where you want to live.

01:30:29.700 | Like, basic things that you need to be compatible.

01:30:32.220 | And then I asked, like, sexual compatibility,

01:30:34.100 | like, various preferences.

01:30:35.740 | And then I had a section about, like, personality.

01:30:37.580 | Like, what are, I try to ask questions

01:30:39.380 | that would do the most effective filtering.

01:30:41.220 | So, like, what are ways that, like,

01:30:42.980 | I can't give people what they need

01:30:45.700 | that, like, maybe they really want?

01:30:47.340 | Like, I don't really, I'm not very outdoorsy.

01:30:49.660 | It was just very common.

01:30:50.500 | A lot of people like being outdoorsy.

01:30:51.340 | So, I asked the question, like,

01:30:52.180 | how much do you value someone else

01:30:53.900 | that you're dating being outdoorsy?

01:30:55.460 | And if they remarked yes, I was like, okay,

01:30:57.100 | we probably, I should probably downgrade the results.

01:30:59.220 | - Man, but doesn't polyamory make that really difficult?

01:31:02.180 | 'Cause can't they find somebody for the outdoorsy stuff?

01:31:05.260 | - Yeah, they could.

01:31:06.100 | I mean, this isn't, like,

01:31:07.340 | but if you're going to have somebody,

01:31:09.060 | it's, like, nicer to have them

01:31:09.900 | be more compatible than less.

01:31:11.700 | - But you were a little bit, like,

01:31:13.700 | in terms of sexual compatibility,

01:31:15.540 | you were able to, like, yourself aware enough

01:31:19.020 | to know what preferences you have?

01:31:20.820 | Like, you can-- - I think so.

01:31:22.740 | I think that one helped a lot with the escorting.

01:31:24.780 | Like, the escorting helped a lot

01:31:25.700 | with knowing my preferences.

01:31:26.860 | - But there's, like, out of the giant pool

01:31:29.220 | of different preferences, you have, like,

01:31:31.180 | a subset that's clearly defined for you?

01:31:34.140 | Okay, like, like, dominant/submissive.

01:31:37.220 | - Yeah, power dynamics stuff.

01:31:38.340 | - Power dynamics stuff. - Yeah.

01:31:40.940 | - Okay, and not just sexual, but in relationship, too.

01:31:43.900 | Like, was that in the survey?

01:31:45.100 | - I don't like power dynamics in relationships.

01:31:47.100 | I did ask a lot-- - No, defining them in,

01:31:48.740 | like, making it clear in a survey,

01:31:50.340 | like, asking a question about power dynamics

01:31:52.580 | in a relationship.

01:31:54.020 | - I don't think I asked about power dynamics

01:31:55.700 | in relationships. - Okay.

01:31:57.700 | - 'Cause I just assume most people don't.

01:31:59.900 | And there's a lot of things that are kind of, like--

01:32:01.460 | - Most people don't.

01:32:02.380 | You're putting together a survey,

01:32:05.100 | a systematic survey to understand compatibility.

01:32:08.060 | Wouldn't power dynamics inside of relationships

01:32:11.820 | that naturally emerge often be part of the question?

01:32:16.220 | Or is that hard to question

01:32:18.260 | because it naturally emerges and you can't really--

01:32:19.980 | - Well, the thing is, like, a lot of questions

01:32:21.980 | sort of overlap in demographic.

01:32:23.660 | And if you're making a survey,

01:32:24.820 | you wanna have the minimum possible questions

01:32:26.660 | that give the maximum possible, like, filtering information.

01:32:29.700 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, wait a minute, wait a minute,

01:32:31.340 | wait a minute, wait a minute.

01:32:32.460 | But the purpose of that survey

01:32:33.740 | wasn't to do a good research study.

01:32:35.620 | It was to select one subject that you could take.

01:32:38.100 | - So that's part of what is good.

01:32:39.380 | Like, you want to most efficiently filter out.

01:32:41.300 | 'Cause one, like, you get more people taking the survey

01:32:43.380 | the fewer questions you have,

01:32:44.460 | which is good for finding a mate.

01:32:46.100 | Like, if you have 5,000 men take the surveys,

01:32:47.740 | better than 1,000 men take the surveys.

01:32:49.140 | - Don't you want men that would be patient enough

01:32:52.500 | and dedicated enough to-- - Yeah, but, like,

01:32:53.900 | what if you want, like, a high-powered man

01:32:55.420 | who's, like, on his lunch break, right?

01:32:57.460 | So it's like-- - Much like a billionaire

01:32:59.100 | who's too busy just flipping through.

01:33:01.180 | - Yeah. - And the guy that I did

01:33:02.300 | was, he took the survey, he was waiting for the pizza

01:33:05.060 | to come out of the oven.

01:33:05.900 | And so it was important that it was short.

01:33:08.100 | And so you want to be efficient.

01:33:08.940 | - Is it a metaphor or literally pizza coming out of the oven?

01:33:10.540 | - He was literally waiting for pizza,

01:33:12.180 | and he saw the thing, he's like,

01:33:13.420 | "I guess I'll just fill out the survey really fast,"

01:33:15.140 | and it changed our lives. - Wow, so romantic.

01:33:17.820 | - For me, this is my kind of romance.

01:33:20.420 | I'm really into it.

01:33:21.740 | But you can be efficient with surveys

01:33:23.860 | by, like, making sure your questions don't overlap.

01:33:25.700 | So, for example, if somebody's very polyamorous,

01:33:27.740 | they're very unlikely to be interested

01:33:29.420 | in a traditional man works and the job

01:33:33.220 | and the woman stays home

01:33:34.060 | and raises the kids kind of relationship.

01:33:35.500 | 'Cause poly people just generally don't do that.

01:33:37.340 | And so if I'm asking about polyamory,

01:33:38.940 | it sort of kind of already covers the thing.

01:33:41.380 | And so if I have a whole bunch of questions,

01:33:42.980 | I can kind of triangulate a bunch of implicit

01:33:45.340 | kinds of questions that I haven't directly asked about.

01:33:48.220 | So this is why I didn't ask directly about power dynamics,

01:33:50.020 | because from the rest of the questions that are in my survey,

01:33:52.980 | I can pretty accurately predict

01:33:55.020 | whether or not you're gonna be interested in power dynamics.

01:33:57.500 | - But I'm afraid, yeah,

01:33:59.740 | I'm trying to think as you're talking, I get it.

01:34:02.500 | That's really interesting that you did that.

01:34:05.420 | Also, maybe not for the effectiveness of finding a partner,

01:34:08.540 | but for just exploring the actual process

01:34:12.180 | of human sexuality, of like the search,

01:34:16.220 | this complicated optimization process we're all engaging in

01:34:19.500 | on the landscape of happiness

01:34:21.340 | that seems to be this not even a differentiable function.

01:34:27.020 | It's a giant nonlinear mess.

01:34:29.820 | Okay, but like for me,

01:34:31.940 | I don't think I would be able to design that survey.

01:34:34.060 | I would like bias it too strongly.

01:34:35.780 | Like I would probably prefer women

01:34:40.260 | that have read Dostoevsky or something like that.

01:34:42.420 | Like that would be a filter for me, right?

01:34:44.700 | But like, that's a horrible filter.

01:34:46.260 | 'Cause there's a lot of amazing people that have never,

01:34:49.780 | they don't give a shit about reading,

01:34:51.140 | or they don't give a shit about reading Russian literature,

01:34:53.020 | or they don't give a shit about,

01:34:54.300 | but they're amazing and passionate

01:34:55.700 | and creative in some other dimension

01:34:57.980 | that you might completely miss.

01:34:59.260 | But you were like, 'cause I wonder if there's any,

01:35:01.860 | basically you're saying compatibility,

01:35:03.380 | like hard lines that you know statistically

01:35:06.420 | is just going to be an issue.

01:35:08.460 | - Yeah, I mean, you weigh this a lot more.

01:35:10.220 | - Yeah.

01:35:11.060 | - But there's also like preferences.

01:35:11.900 | Like if you have a woman who's totally equal

01:35:13.740 | and she's read the thing that you like,

01:35:15.140 | versus another woman who's also identical,

01:35:16.940 | but like she hasn't read the thing that you like,

01:35:18.980 | like you probably like very slightly prefer

01:35:20.380 | the one that has. - But you don't know

01:35:21.220 | if they're identical, yes, yes.

01:35:22.140 | But like you can't through survey get the identical.

01:35:24.220 | Like you don't know.

01:35:25.340 | - Sure, but you can kind of like do a whole bunch of weight.

01:35:27.660 | So like the person that I ended up going on a date with,

01:35:29.540 | he did not answer correctly to a lot of the survey questions,

01:35:33.220 | but he didn't have to.

01:35:34.420 | Like he was just overall,

01:35:35.740 | overall the weights were like,

01:35:36.860 | he just tended to be more in the direction.

01:35:38.820 | - Was there a text-based fill-in, like survey?

01:35:41.500 | But like, sorry, paragraph, like.

01:35:43.260 | - No, you ought to avoid that

01:35:44.340 | if you're dealing with large amounts of data.

01:35:46.860 | - No, why not?

01:35:47.700 | 'Cause you have to fill, oh, oh, interesting, interesting.

01:35:50.980 | Like I'm different.

01:35:52.380 | 'Cause like first of all, you do keyword searches.

01:35:55.100 | Second of all, you do, you can do machine learning models

01:35:57.380 | that like, first of all, you can do like crude metrics,

01:36:02.300 | like the length.

01:36:03.460 | - That's a good point.

01:36:05.900 | - Of how long they've written, right?

01:36:08.700 | And it could flag certain things.

01:36:10.940 | Yeah, it's actually pretty easy to,

01:36:12.540 | I've looked at like for hiring,

01:36:14.460 | I've looked at like thousands of applications really quickly.

01:36:17.620 | You can really, the human brain is really interesting,

01:36:19.900 | especially like if you visually highlight

01:36:25.260 | certain information for yourself, like keywords,

01:36:28.660 | or again, with machine learning models, like sentiment,

01:36:32.020 | you can highlight different parts

01:36:33.820 | that will catch your eye better than not.

01:36:36.340 | And I can go through just a huge number of applications.

01:36:39.180 | - Are you telling me I can use,

01:36:40.300 | if I learn machine learning,

01:36:41.420 | I can process dating survey applications better?

01:36:44.740 | - Yes, no, like textual.

01:36:46.820 | - Yeah, like I can like have them write things in.

01:36:48.700 | Like this is like a new way of,

01:36:50.500 | that's a really good incentive.

01:36:52.500 | I think that would, so it's a really nice aspect

01:36:55.340 | of text input, like long form text input,

01:36:59.740 | multiple long form text input

01:37:01.300 | based on an interestingly phrased question

01:37:04.420 | is you get to learn how to make a better survey.

01:37:07.700 | I think you would appreciate that.

01:37:09.180 | Like you start to see how they're actually interacting

01:37:11.500 | with these questions.

01:37:12.580 | Like I asked certain questions,

01:37:13.940 | like just to see how people think,

01:37:16.340 | is it better to work smart or better to work hard?

01:37:21.460 | Or is it ever okay to betray a close friend?

01:37:26.460 | Like I'll ask like questions like this

01:37:30.620 | that don't really have a right answer,

01:37:31.900 | but I just wanna see how they think.

01:37:33.060 | Or is truth more important than loyalty?

01:37:35.860 | - Yeah.

01:37:36.900 | - And I get their long form answer.

01:37:39.060 | - You get like, and you get to see their reasoning process.

01:37:40.940 | - Yeah, yeah, like what they, it reveals so much,

01:37:44.740 | not just about the person,

01:37:46.140 | but about the kind of questions I should be asking

01:37:48.380 | that have nothing to do with truth or loyalty.

01:37:50.460 | Like how to get a good engineer

01:37:52.020 | with like very specific questions.

01:37:53.660 | But I think it's really useful to get text input.

01:37:56.220 | - I have done text input usually with beta surveys.

01:37:58.820 | So I usually do beta surveys before I do the real survey.

01:38:00.860 | - What's a beta survey?

01:38:01.700 | - Like I do like a shorter version

01:38:03.180 | or it depends on what I'm doing,

01:38:04.460 | but like a different version of the survey

01:38:06.820 | that I have people take before I release.

01:38:08.380 | I use the information from the initial survey

01:38:10.340 | to inform the questions that I ask in the real survey.

01:38:12.900 | And I haven't actually in recently,

01:38:14.720 | but I used to do a lot of like the text-based questions

01:38:17.180 | to see for similar,

01:38:18.620 | although I don't think I relied on it quite as heavily.

01:38:20.540 | And if I introduced machine learning,

01:38:21.860 | I think it'd be a lot more efficient.

01:38:23.780 | - I love that you're also doing like,

01:38:25.460 | you're writing scripts and stuff.

01:38:26.940 | Like you're doing some like statistical analysis.

01:38:30.500 | Are you using Python also?

01:38:32.060 | - Yeah, I had to learn Python for this

01:38:35.500 | just a couple months ago. - Which is the best way

01:38:37.060 | to learn Python.

01:38:38.180 | And the best reason to learn machine learning

01:38:40.420 | is to solve actual like problems.

01:38:43.220 | - I can't be motivated.

01:38:44.260 | I'm just not motivated to learn something

01:38:45.540 | unless there's an actual curiosity I have

01:38:47.180 | and I have to learn it and to solve it.

01:38:48.580 | I was trying to avoid learning coding for so long,

01:38:51.100 | but eventually it was my dataset became too large.

01:38:53.740 | I couldn't work with it with anything else.

01:38:55.140 | So, Python it is.

01:38:57.540 | - You know what's also an interesting dataset

01:38:58.940 | that you're probably interested in a little bit

01:39:00.860 | is like Twitter itself, right?

01:39:02.820 | I don't know if you've,

01:39:03.740 | I've played with the Twitter API a lot.

01:39:05.660 | - Can you just get the download?

01:39:09.060 | I'm just, I'm stuttering now because-

01:39:12.020 | - Download the Twitter?

01:39:13.660 | You download Twitter?

01:39:15.740 | No, there's a lot of Twitter.

01:39:17.780 | So, Twitter is a social network with a bunch of people.

01:39:20.780 | They're interacting a lot.

01:39:22.540 | Like there's like, I don't know, the number is insane.

01:39:25.740 | The number of interactions,

01:39:26.820 | but there's different ways to interact

01:39:30.780 | to get data from Twitter.

01:39:32.060 | There's streams you can look at.

01:39:33.940 | It depends what you're interested in.

01:39:35.580 | You can do results for searches.

01:39:37.500 | You can look at individual tweets and get entire,

01:39:40.700 | which to me is super interesting,

01:39:42.400 | the entire tree of different conversations, the replies,

01:39:45.980 | which might be very interesting for you

01:39:47.700 | because like it's not,

01:39:50.600 | it's much harder to ask rigorous questions,

01:39:54.540 | which you do with your polls,

01:39:56.500 | but you could see like how divisive certain things are.

01:39:59.540 | - You could probably use like calibrators

01:40:01.540 | to figure out like exactly what questions

01:40:03.180 | you should be asking.

01:40:04.140 | - Yeah, and also highlight interesting anecdotal things

01:40:07.540 | where like two people freak out at each other

01:40:09.700 | and just argue like a thread that goes on

01:40:11.860 | for like a thousand messages

01:40:13.500 | that you might never be even aware is happening

01:40:15.380 | 'cause you're like,

01:40:16.340 | 'cause Twitter doesn't like surface that,

01:40:18.020 | like it would be,

01:40:19.060 | Twitter doesn't make it easy for you to like visualize

01:40:21.100 | what the hell's going on even with your own social network.

01:40:24.460 | Like if you post something that's controversial

01:40:27.540 | that gets a large amount of attention,

01:40:29.980 | you can't clearly visualize everything that's going on.

01:40:32.660 | - Yeah.

01:40:33.500 | - Like it's very, it's a blurry, amorphous,

01:40:37.460 | like you're just kind of looking through the fog

01:40:39.460 | at different replies and it kind of,

01:40:41.900 | yeah, so to be able to--

01:40:42.740 | - You see with the API,

01:40:43.560 | they have like graphs of networks?

01:40:45.940 | - They have the data for the graphs, yeah.

01:40:47.620 | So you can reconstruct to yourself.

01:40:49.380 | Yeah.

01:40:50.220 | And then you have different levels of access

01:40:51.620 | in terms of how many queries you can do.

01:40:54.700 | - That is really cool.

01:40:55.820 | - And now, because there's like Elon,

01:40:58.300 | there's a lot of sort of revolutionary stuff

01:41:03.220 | happening at Twitter.

01:41:04.060 | I think you could literally sort of push for innovation there

01:41:08.260 | like there's aggressive innovation happening.

01:41:10.920 | So in terms of requesting stuff for the API,

01:41:13.860 | you could do all that kind of stuff.

01:41:15.000 | I think Twitter's just a fascinating platform

01:41:18.140 | for the, as cliche as it sounds, for studying.

01:41:21.500 | For me, it's interesting,

01:41:23.740 | what makes for a healthy conversation.

01:41:25.880 | That term has been used,

01:41:26.900 | but it's interesting how conversation,

01:41:28.780 | to me, it's fascinating how conversations break down

01:41:31.900 | and not, like how, like the virality of drama

01:41:36.900 | or conflict or disagreement,

01:41:42.180 | how that evolves when a large number of people are involved,

01:41:45.940 | when a large number of misinterpretation of statements

01:41:50.940 | is involved in text-based with some anonymity thrown in.

01:41:55.100 | Like, I feel like there's a lot of study

01:41:56.440 | that can be done there.

01:41:57.280 | - I mean, Twitter's probably not great at it, right,

01:41:59.520 | as it stands.

01:42:00.560 | - No.

01:42:01.400 | - 'Cause it's like necessarily short.

01:42:02.580 | You can quote, treat things out of context, et cetera.

01:42:05.040 | - But we should understand that, right?

01:42:06.400 | - Yeah.

01:42:07.240 | - At a large scale, you should be able to study

01:42:09.680 | that kind of thing.

01:42:11.100 | Oh yeah, what was your casual sex survey?

01:42:14.620 | - I actually haven't looked at it in a while.

01:42:16.260 | I think I just asked people about a whole bunch of fetishes,

01:42:18.500 | 'cause you don't wanna be obvious about yours

01:42:19.860 | because then people are gonna hijack it

01:42:21.300 | to try to tell you that they like what you like.

01:42:24.340 | So you wanna be obscure.

01:42:25.220 | So how do you design a survey

01:42:26.260 | where you're testing for a thing,

01:42:27.100 | but you're still obscure about the thing

01:42:28.180 | you're trying to ask about?

01:42:29.460 | - So you still see it as a survey?

01:42:31.820 | - Yeah.

01:42:32.660 | - Like an application?

01:42:34.340 | 'Cause I think you tweeted saying,

01:42:35.940 | I'm thinking of just showing up to San Francisco

01:42:37.780 | and saying, is anybody open for casual sex?

01:42:41.960 | - Yeah. - Something like this?

01:42:42.800 | Am I misremembering?

01:42:44.460 | - Maybe escorting, I'm not sure.

01:42:45.980 | - Oh, for escorting, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

01:42:47.460 | - Which is similar.

01:42:48.340 | Like I kind of use escorting

01:42:49.740 | as the way to have casual sex now.

01:42:51.580 | - Okay, so let's talk about escorting.

01:42:56.000 | So you wrote about escorting in your blog post.

01:42:58.540 | Escorting was good for me.

01:43:00.020 | How did you get into escorting?

01:43:04.020 | - I was working at like a,

01:43:05.740 | I quit camming 'cause I was burned out

01:43:07.780 | and I was like trying to work at a friend's startup

01:43:09.780 | and it was hard for me.

01:43:12.460 | It's difficult for me to work on projects

01:43:14.360 | that are not my projects.

01:43:15.660 | And so I was like, hey, fuck it.

01:43:18.340 | Like I wanna go back to sex work,

01:43:19.540 | I wanna make more money,

01:43:20.360 | but I don't wanna cam anymore 'cause I'm burned out.

01:43:21.700 | So I'm like, well, let's try,

01:43:22.780 | I had a friend who was an escort.

01:43:23.980 | I'm like, let's try that.

01:43:24.820 | And so we had a call, she like outlined the basics for me

01:43:27.540 | and then I put up some ads and then started working.

01:43:30.820 | - What's the basics of escorting?

01:43:32.340 | How does that work?

01:43:33.180 | - If you wanna get started escorting,

01:43:34.620 | so just in case you have a career change.

01:43:37.620 | We're gonna want you to get some nice photos.

01:43:38.820 | So you probably have those.

01:43:39.820 | - First of all, you assumed I haven't done it before.

01:43:43.100 | How rude. - Oh, have you?

01:43:44.460 | - Yeah, well, you know,

01:43:45.960 | recreation I would like to do professionally, I suppose.

01:43:49.620 | So if I wanted to do it,

01:43:50.820 | if I really wanna step up my game, how would I do it?

01:43:55.940 | - Yeah, well, you got the whole tutorial.

01:43:59.020 | Recreational escorting is just,

01:44:03.900 | - Okay, okay.

01:44:05.260 | - No, I'm meaning like,

01:44:06.460 | you know, like selling products on Etsy

01:44:12.100 | versus doing a startup, you know?

01:44:15.900 | - Well, I mean, escorting is kind of all

01:44:17.700 | just selling products on Etsy.

01:44:19.260 | - No, like selling a lot of products on Etsy.

01:44:21.340 | - Like high volume.

01:44:22.660 | He's like dabbled.

01:44:24.940 | - Yeah, like, yeah, yeah.

01:44:26.820 | - Small handcrafted artisan. - It's small handcrafted dolls.

01:44:30.380 | Yeah. - Escorting.

01:44:32.180 | - Versus mass manufacture.

01:44:33.800 | - Okay, if you wanna mass manufacture your escorting.

01:44:37.540 | - I just feel like I haven't been getting,

01:44:39.540 | you know, I've been undervaluing my services

01:44:42.780 | and I would like to really step up.

01:44:44.460 | - I think you could really just like

01:44:45.820 | grease some marketing gears and be trustworthy.

01:44:48.340 | - Yeah, I mean, so some of this is marketing.

01:44:50.440 | So like how, I guess I wanna like know,

01:44:53.420 | is it similar to camming in that way?

01:44:54.900 | Like, is it you're basically advertising yourself

01:44:57.980 | and you're,

01:45:01.060 | like the marketing, all the creativity

01:45:02.980 | that you mentioned before, all of that?

01:45:04.900 | - Yeah, I found escorting to be pretty easy

01:45:06.500 | because escorting is not like highly competitive.

01:45:09.460 | For example, camming is highly competitive

01:45:10.900 | because like the thing that I outlined before,

01:45:13.580 | you know, the amount of money

01:45:14.420 | that you make determines your ranking.

01:45:15.940 | And you can also go and see other girls.

01:45:17.740 | You can see what they're doing.

01:45:18.860 | So if a girl figures out an incredible strategy

01:45:20.500 | for making money, it's like two seconds

01:45:22.220 | before that strategy perlithoits into everybody else.

01:45:24.660 | So it's very fast paced and like really tough.

01:45:26.980 | With escorting, you don't get to see

01:45:28.220 | what other girls are doing.

01:45:29.300 | You can look at their websites,

01:45:30.300 | but like you don't know what they're doing

01:45:31.340 | with clients at all.

01:45:32.940 | You can look at their rates,

01:45:33.860 | but you don't know what their volume is.

01:45:35.140 | So you don't actually know what is successful

01:45:37.380 | and what isn't very much.

01:45:39.180 | So I think there's much less like evolution

01:45:41.940 | of marketing through this process.

01:45:43.820 | And so I came in with like my aggressive marketing skills

01:45:46.820 | for being a cam girl.

01:45:47.700 | I think that really helped.

01:45:48.740 | I did very well as an escort.

01:45:50.820 | I just came in and like made a fantastic website

01:45:52.580 | and I knew how to do the ads right.

01:45:54.340 | - What was the finding people,

01:45:58.020 | I guess it's also like finding the right kind of customer

01:46:01.100 | or the right kind of client.

01:46:02.220 | - I got like in a lot of trouble for this recently

01:46:04.420 | in the sex worker sphere, because I said that

01:46:06.420 | if you raise prices, you're more likely to encounter clients

01:46:08.620 | that aren't going to abuse you.

01:46:10.540 | Like it's safer.

01:46:11.500 | They did not, they said that I was being classist,

01:46:15.420 | you know, implying that poor people are more violent.

01:46:17.540 | But to be fair, if you're a guy

01:46:19.260 | and you want to be violent towards a woman,

01:46:20.620 | you're probably not gonna be paying her a lot of money.

01:46:22.140 | You're probably gonna be like,

01:46:22.980 | you're the kind of person likely who's going to haggle a lot

01:46:25.420 | 'cause you don't respect her.

01:46:27.100 | But anyway, that aside, it's a little pet peeve for me.

01:46:29.820 | Yeah, I just, I charged, started charging 800 an hour

01:46:33.100 | and then pretty rapidly raised it to 1200.

01:46:35.060 | And then a while after that, raised it to 1400.

01:46:37.980 | - Well, the interesting thing you mentioned

01:46:39.860 | in my extensive research,

01:46:41.140 | you used to do 1200 to 1400 an hour.

01:46:46.660 | And then you said that you're thinking of jumping back in

01:46:48.860 | at a rate of 2400 the first hour.

01:46:53.220 | - Yeah.

01:46:54.060 | - And I think 900 each successive hour.

01:46:57.020 | - That's interesting.

01:46:58.820 | That's like, I mean, to me, that's really interesting.

01:47:01.140 | Like the first, like why?

01:47:02.820 | It's like a lot in the first hour, yeah.

01:47:05.900 | - Oh, it's just because,

01:47:07.620 | it depends on how you want to incentivize

01:47:09.740 | like the amount of hours.

01:47:11.140 | So if you have to pay a lot for the first hour,

01:47:12.500 | but not very much for the successive,

01:47:13.620 | you're more likely to buy like a longer period of time.

01:47:16.180 | And usually I find that clients who buy

01:47:17.940 | a longer period of time are nicer to you.

01:47:21.300 | I don't have like a great theory for why that is,

01:47:22.860 | but they're more likely to like take you to dinner

01:47:24.300 | and get to know you first.

01:47:25.140 | And I just enjoy that a lot more.

01:47:26.420 | I enjoy like knowing who I'm gonna have sex with.

01:47:30.300 | Like a date, you know?

01:47:32.700 | - Yeah, so it incentivize the long form date dynamic

01:47:36.420 | versus like not.

01:47:38.820 | That's really interesting.

01:47:40.700 | That's really interesting.

01:47:41.540 | How does money change the dynamic?

01:47:45.140 | Just basic human dynamic of interacting

01:47:47.340 | for free versus for money.

01:47:49.180 | Like I think about that a lot.

01:47:50.260 | It's like just talking to rich people.

01:47:52.300 | It's like you usually get paid for your time

01:47:54.380 | and you're doing this for free.

01:47:56.180 | Like what's the difference?

01:48:00.380 | Is there a difference really or no?

01:48:02.100 | - A bit, yeah.

01:48:02.940 | So I've actually, it depends a lot.

01:48:04.620 | So when I was doing it full time,

01:48:06.260 | it was my only source of income.

01:48:07.860 | It changed quite a lot because I was really incentivized

01:48:11.060 | to have repeat customers.

01:48:12.380 | So I'm like, okay, my primary interaction with you

01:48:15.420 | is to like have you hire me again.

01:48:17.380 | I'll do whatever that takes to make that happen.

01:48:19.180 | And so if I have to like laugh at jokes

01:48:20.700 | that I don't find funny or like be like more adoring

01:48:23.780 | of your penis than I actually genuinely feel,

01:48:25.660 | like that's what I'm going to express.

01:48:27.500 | And obviously it's to some degree like titrated,

01:48:30.260 | you know, like it's unpleasant to force yourself

01:48:32.460 | to like something that you don't.

01:48:33.500 | So like I would actually like not see clients again

01:48:36.100 | that I didn't want to.

01:48:36.940 | But to some degree there was a sort of self-suppression

01:48:39.340 | going on, which I think is the way it works

01:48:41.340 | in any sort of customer service job.

01:48:43.100 | Like you want the customer to leave happy.

01:48:44.780 | So you just make sure that you are happy the whole time

01:48:46.860 | and you're like, ah, really enjoying the other person.

01:48:49.340 | But so recently when I've like kind of dabbled in it

01:48:52.540 | since baking money through other means,

01:48:56.660 | where I don't need the money,

01:48:58.020 | it's more like a fun side thing that like,

01:49:01.060 | like I said, it's fulfilling the role of casual sex for me.

01:49:03.420 | So like, I don't have to do it.

01:49:04.740 | This is not my primary job.

01:49:06.020 | I just want sort of a good excuse

01:49:07.620 | to like have sex with somebody.

01:49:09.300 | And the money is like a great filter for that.

01:49:11.540 | And so in that case--

01:49:12.740 | - That's interesting.

01:49:13.580 | So the money is just, yeah, okay.

01:49:14.620 | The money is basically a filter for somebody

01:49:16.220 | who's taking this interaction seriously.

01:49:17.620 | - Yeah.

01:49:18.500 | It also, so there's an interesting like psychological thing

01:49:20.940 | where I have difficulty having casual sex with somebody

01:49:23.060 | because some part of my brain,

01:49:24.620 | which I assume is like quite female,

01:49:26.220 | is doing some evaluation of status

01:49:27.860 | and whether or not this is going to damage my reputation

01:49:30.420 | by having sex with them.

01:49:31.660 | So like if you found out that I went

01:49:33.180 | and like had random sex with like a homeless man,

01:49:35.300 | you might be like, wow, that says something about Ayla.

01:49:37.300 | Like maybe she's, you know, trashy

01:49:38.540 | or she just has no standards for who she's gonna fuck.

01:49:41.100 | But if, and so some part of me is continually anxious.

01:49:43.860 | I'm like, does this mean I have no standards

01:49:46.020 | if I decide to have casual sex with you?

01:49:47.620 | Like, what are people going to think?

01:49:49.420 | And so if you introduce money, it takes away that anxiety.

01:49:52.260 | I don't have to worry about it because it's like,

01:49:54.340 | oh, of course Ayla would have sex with that person.

01:49:55.900 | They paid her.

01:49:56.740 | Like, this is not an indication

01:49:57.740 | of the kind of mate that she can get.

01:49:59.900 | This is just an indication of like a business transaction.

01:50:02.300 | And this allows me to enjoy casual sex so much more

01:50:05.580 | when somebody pays me for it.

01:50:06.860 | To the degree that like I almost view it as a kink.

01:50:09.580 | And so it's like, so I'm using it sort of

01:50:11.380 | to replace casual sex now.

01:50:12.500 | Like occasionally I'm like, gosh, you know,

01:50:14.460 | like it's paying me a little bit to erase the anxiety

01:50:16.500 | and I'll like have a fun time.

01:50:18.820 | - In case you see like dinner like that

01:50:20.140 | or something like that, if the person pays for dinner

01:50:22.460 | or like, so like it's all just, if any money's involved,

01:50:26.380 | if it's a kink, then you could just like use it.

01:50:28.880 | And you, buys a coffee at a Starbucks.

01:50:32.100 | It's like, all right.

01:50:33.140 | - Right, but it has to be plausible.

01:50:34.340 | Like you have to like trick my brain

01:50:35.980 | into like having it actually be incentivizing for me.

01:50:38.500 | - Two coffees?

01:50:39.340 | Like a cappuccino or something?

01:50:40.740 | - Yeah, like the homeless man bought me a coffee

01:50:42.300 | and then I sucked his dick.

01:50:43.140 | Like, that's not cool.

01:50:44.400 | - All right, so I--

01:50:46.140 | - No shade to homeless men, by the way.

01:50:47.660 | Like I've been friends with a lot of them.

01:50:48.940 | I'm just using like some sort of stereotype of--

01:50:51.820 | - Yeah.

01:50:52.660 | (laughs)

01:50:53.480 | So like it has to be plausible

01:50:54.860 | where you could trick your mind.

01:50:55.980 | Interesting.

01:50:56.820 | - Yeah.

01:50:57.640 | - I mean, yeah.

01:50:58.900 | - And so that's different.

01:50:59.740 | So now within this sort of frame, I am still like,

01:51:03.060 | I'm accepting money, but still much more expressive

01:51:05.340 | of my actual preferences.

01:51:07.060 | So like before when I would start escorting full-time,

01:51:09.820 | I was suppressive.

01:51:10.640 | And now I'm like, you know, fuck it.

01:51:11.900 | I'm doing this for me.

01:51:13.500 | So we're going to make sure that I have a good time.

01:51:16.140 | And so I'm much more demanding.

01:51:18.340 | - And then you're having more fun

01:51:19.500 | 'cause you're not pretending.

01:51:20.340 | - Exactly.

01:51:21.160 | - Like laughing at a joke or something like that.

01:51:22.000 | That sounds terrible.

01:51:23.660 | Sounds like--

01:51:24.500 | - I mean, it's--

01:51:25.340 | - But it's also like social.

01:51:26.420 | I mean, I guess I would, would I do that?

01:51:30.140 | Like when you first meet people like strangers and so on,

01:51:32.780 | there's some aspect of like niceties,

01:51:36.100 | but like, I don't know, intimacy,

01:51:38.020 | like real intimacy requires like getting past the niceties.

01:51:41.380 | Like laughing at somebody's joke when it's not funny

01:51:43.780 | feels like anti-intimacy.

01:51:45.580 | - Yeah, but I laugh at so many jokes automatically.

01:51:48.820 | It's interesting 'cause like I don't mean to,

01:51:50.580 | I'm not trying to be fake,

01:51:52.020 | but like if I'm in a group of people

01:51:53.220 | and somebody makes a joke and everybody laughs,

01:51:54.580 | I laugh even before I'm checking within myself,

01:51:56.580 | like do I genuinely enjoy this joke?

01:51:58.580 | So it's like, I don't know,

01:51:59.820 | like the degree that I am sort of just like a result

01:52:02.340 | of social programming in all cases,

01:52:04.900 | that like when I'm with a client

01:52:06.580 | back when I was doing it full-time,

01:52:07.700 | like it doesn't feel significantly different.

01:52:09.220 | It just felt like a different version of myself.

01:52:11.620 | - Yeah, that's true.

01:52:12.460 | Yeah, to that degree.

01:52:13.540 | To the degree you don't feel like you're going against

01:52:17.420 | - Yeah. - your nature.

01:52:19.380 | Yeah. - Yeah, it was very rare

01:52:20.540 | that I actually felt like I was going against my nature.

01:52:23.440 | - What about the market of how much to charge?

01:52:27.300 | So you're 2400, like how transparent is that market?

01:52:30.900 | Is there like a market?

01:52:32.620 | - Like how much can you sell

01:52:34.060 | when you're charging that much?

01:52:35.460 | - Yeah, no, like what are the competitors?

01:52:37.300 | Like if this-- - Oh yeah.

01:52:38.580 | - Like what do you, are you distinctly,

01:52:40.300 | 'cause you said it's a lot of,

01:52:42.140 | it's a bit more shrouded in mystery.

01:52:44.620 | Like it's more confidential.

01:52:46.420 | Like do you have some transparency to the market,

01:52:48.700 | what the competitors are?

01:52:49.540 | - I did a survey of Escort.

01:52:51.020 | It's only like 130.

01:52:52.020 | I'm trying to remember, and the median was around like $400,

01:52:54.900 | $300 I think an hour.

01:52:57.000 | - Oh wow.

01:52:57.840 | - Something like that with a very long tail at the top end.

01:53:00.260 | I'm trying to remember what the,

01:53:01.260 | I also asked the amount where I could calculate

01:53:03.260 | the amount they made per month.

01:53:04.100 | I think it was like six or $7,000 a month.

01:53:06.660 | I need to double check that one, but.

01:53:08.300 | - I charge 50 bucks an hour.

01:53:09.860 | - You charge 50 bucks an hour?

01:53:10.780 | You should raise your rates.

01:53:11.940 | - Yeah, I believe I gave a really shitty hand job.

01:53:14.440 | All right.

01:53:16.940 | - But usually the rates are around,

01:53:18.420 | like if you want a median Escort in a big city,

01:53:20.520 | it's usually four to $600.

01:53:21.360 | - A city, so the, sorry, four to 600?

01:53:24.580 | - In a big city, but like smaller cities,

01:53:26.260 | you charge, the rates go lower.

01:53:28.460 | - That's so fascinating.

01:53:33.420 | What's like the most you've ever seen somebody charge?

01:53:36.260 | - I think I am.

01:53:40.540 | - You're like the.

01:53:41.800 | - But at this point it's because I'm post work.

01:53:45.460 | Like I can just put in a state number.

01:53:48.100 | - Does like, does the fact that you're sort of

01:53:50.820 | like a sexuality expert, like a researcher and so on,

01:53:56.180 | like your mind is fascinating as well,

01:53:57.980 | and you're a bit of a celebrity, does that play into it?

01:54:01.380 | - Yeah.

01:54:02.860 | - Or do you feel the celebrity now?

01:54:04.260 | Like when you're with people?

01:54:06.380 | - Yeah, absolutely.

01:54:07.500 | Usually if people are interested in hanging out with me,

01:54:09.580 | it's because of that.

01:54:10.580 | But that's different.

01:54:14.340 | Like I think besides the fun part,

01:54:17.380 | like this is a kink as opposed to this is a job,

01:54:20.020 | like with this as a job,

01:54:21.060 | usually the high end is closer to 2000 an hour,

01:54:24.060 | like the very high end.

01:54:25.260 | - Have clients ever fallen in love with you?

01:54:28.000 | - I think so, yeah.

01:54:30.300 | I think it happens to me much less than most other people

01:54:32.860 | due to like the thing that I think

01:54:33.700 | we were talking about before.

01:54:35.020 | - Which is what?

01:54:35.860 | - Where like, you know, you give off vibes,

01:54:37.140 | maybe like subconscious vibes.

01:54:38.540 | But they have fallen in love, but not as often.

01:54:42.420 | - I think something about my signaling

01:54:44.700 | indicates that people should not fall in love with me

01:54:46.500 | 'cause I don't think it happens very much.

01:54:48.340 | And it happens a lot with other women that I know.

01:54:50.620 | But I have occasionally had,

01:54:52.580 | the thing is it's hard for me

01:54:54.260 | because I try to be as vulnerable as I can

01:54:56.460 | in a connection with a client.

01:54:58.620 | And like I do really like some of them.

01:55:00.420 | I still remember some of them very fondly,

01:55:02.820 | and I'm like, I hope they're doing well.

01:55:04.540 | And some of them are really profound.

01:55:06.060 | Like one guy saw me because he found out

01:55:08.140 | he was dying of cancer.

01:55:09.340 | And he was like, I don't wanna die without seeing someone.

01:55:13.100 | I'm like, Jesus Christ, that's such a,

01:55:15.940 | I don't know, I'm very touched

01:55:17.100 | by many of the people that I saw.

01:55:19.140 | - So there's like deep intimacy there.

01:55:21.300 | - Yeah, I know that it's brief

01:55:23.260 | and I know that it's like kind of weird,

01:55:24.900 | but like there's like a real glimpse into somebody's soul

01:55:28.260 | when you get to be intimate.

01:55:29.580 | And I think this is especially true for men

01:55:31.180 | because a lot of time men don't have like a way

01:55:32.860 | to be really vulnerable in front of anybody.

01:55:35.680 | But like if you're in bed with a woman

01:55:37.380 | that you find to be attractive,

01:55:38.780 | you can sort of let loose a little bit more.

01:55:41.620 | - So they can become vulnerable in general quickly.

01:55:43.500 | - Yeah, and I really like that.

01:55:45.060 | I like being as vulnerable as I can to match it.

01:55:47.060 | Like I'm not forcing myself or anything,

01:55:48.580 | but like I just feel into it

01:55:50.180 | and like notice how beautiful the person was

01:55:53.180 | and like feel grateful for being able

01:55:55.220 | to be in this intimate experience with them.

01:55:58.100 | And that was so wonderful.

01:56:00.380 | - Does it ever hurt to say goodbye?

01:56:02.140 | - No, but I think that's unique to me

01:56:06.740 | because I like being alone a lot.

01:56:09.860 | Even with my friends who I like dearly,

01:56:12.260 | I'm like happy not seeing them

01:56:13.700 | 'cause I don't like making facial expressions very much.

01:56:17.680 | But I do miss some of my clients.

01:56:19.780 | - Wait, sorry.

01:56:20.660 | What does making facial expression

01:56:22.540 | have to do with saying goodbye?

01:56:24.580 | - Well, if you are not with somebody in person,

01:56:27.060 | you don't have to make facial expressions anymore.

01:56:29.340 | - Oh, you can just think about them.

01:56:32.220 | - Yeah, you can just sit there, totally blank face,

01:56:34.420 | and then have all of the emotions that you want.

01:56:37.140 | - Oh, you're telling me.

01:56:38.460 | - Do you have this thing too?

01:56:39.940 | - It's not a thing, but like you're on camera.

01:56:43.740 | So like I feel feelings,

01:56:45.580 | but people usually want you,

01:56:46.980 | social interaction is such that

01:56:50.380 | you probably want me to show feelings on my face.

01:56:53.580 | - Yeah, like that, good job.

01:56:55.260 | - Yeah, there you go.

01:56:57.540 | So like I definitely,

01:56:59.780 | there could be just an introvert thing

01:57:01.740 | where you like have a vibrant inner world

01:57:05.500 | that you forget to show to the rest of the world.

01:57:08.420 | And also I'm scared of social interaction.

01:57:10.260 | And I just have a lot of anxiety

01:57:12.540 | about interacting with the external world, so yeah.

01:57:14.980 | - I'm kind of surprised to hear that

01:57:16.060 | because when you talked about finding the light

01:57:18.860 | and everything and everything is fun,

01:57:20.740 | like I usually don't associate that

01:57:22.060 | with having not very much anxiety.

01:57:24.620 | - Well, because I have the, we mentioned that earlier.

01:57:27.980 | I just appreciate the beauty in the world when I observe it.

01:57:30.260 | But then when I'm interacting with others,

01:57:33.860 | I have a very harsh self-critical aspect to my brain

01:57:36.740 | that says like, you're gonna fuck this up.

01:57:40.100 | You're gonna fuck up this interaction.

01:57:42.140 | You're gonna fuck up the beauty that's there.

01:57:44.800 | If I'm sort of being fragile and vulnerable for a moment.

01:57:49.420 | One of the things I'm afraid of,

01:57:50.260 | I get so much love from people that listen

01:57:54.020 | or even like reach out,

01:57:55.060 | like you said through the survey, like women and so on.

01:57:58.500 | I'm afraid that, yeah, you admire me

01:58:01.820 | because you don't know me,

01:58:03.180 | but you won't admire me once you know me.

01:58:05.100 | So that's self-critical, but it's a silly,

01:58:07.700 | I mean, as you get older, you're like, yeah, okay.

01:58:10.140 | Like I'm able to step away and objectively look at myself

01:58:13.460 | as like, there's no, you're fine, you're good.

01:58:16.260 | But it's still, this is the part of the brain

01:58:19.860 | that you can't just shut off.

01:58:21.420 | - What would fucking up in this conversation look like?

01:58:25.500 | Like, it doesn't have to be rational,

01:58:28.300 | but I'm curious if there's like a specific thing.

01:58:30.900 | - A lot of it is just a feeling,

01:58:38.420 | like an amorphous fear of failure.

01:58:42.860 | What it would actually look like.

01:58:44.540 | Maybe because we're talking about sexuality,

01:58:53.260 | me not being able to eloquently explain

01:58:56.580 | the worldview I have and why I appreciate it,

01:59:01.300 | that would make me feel like a failure

01:59:04.740 | because that would make me feel like

01:59:06.300 | maybe you don't know what you're doing, right?

01:59:08.900 | 'Cause sexuality, not sexuality,

01:59:10.900 | but even romantic relationships are really important

01:59:13.660 | to happiness, they're really important to me.

01:59:16.180 | And I'm not sure like the conception of love I have,

01:59:19.380 | romantic love, is like fully made rigorous.

01:59:24.380 | So especially when I'm talking to you,

01:59:26.380 | that thinks very rigorously about a lot of these topics,

01:59:29.180 | I'm not sure if I've thought about them a lot.

01:59:32.620 | I feel them.

01:59:34.020 | I interact with the world in the space of feelings.

01:59:36.880 | Maybe I'm almost afraid to be very rigorous

01:59:39.700 | with these kinds of thoughts.

01:59:42.260 | And so I think the failure would be like,

01:59:46.460 | I would be confronted with the fact that I can't explain

01:59:49.260 | what makes me happy, that could be a failure.

01:59:52.580 | And there could be just a bunch of other failures.

01:59:54.500 | Another big failure is like,

01:59:56.620 | I think you're a really brilliant person.

02:00:00.260 | And a lot of folks I know, know and admire your work as well.

02:00:06.060 | And so like for me not to be part of highlighting

02:00:09.520 | that brilliance would be a failure definitely.

02:00:12.060 | - Like because then other people might feel like,

02:00:14.800 | like notice the discrepancy or something?

02:00:17.260 | - Yeah, but no, no, no, that's not other people,

02:00:20.140 | just my personal feeling.

02:00:22.820 | And the other is like jokes,

02:00:24.820 | 'cause like we're talking about sex, right?

02:00:26.300 | So for me, like it's fun to just joke around,

02:00:29.100 | but you also have to tread carefully

02:00:30.780 | because like it's a weird surface

02:00:34.900 | because like, you know, even I already feel bad

02:00:37.400 | about making a joke for 50 bucks for a handjob

02:00:39.600 | that's crappy by me.

02:00:40.840 | But I think sometimes you just gotta go for it.

02:00:46.500 | I went for it.

02:00:47.340 | (laughing)

02:00:48.180 | It kind of fell flat on his face,

02:00:50.620 | but that's the thing of the conversation.

02:00:54.580 | - For what it's worth, I think there's like this fear

02:00:56.540 | where it's like, if you become like scientific

02:00:58.500 | about something, you'll figure out

02:00:59.380 | that your feelings are unjustified

02:01:00.780 | and then you'll experience this horrible thing

02:01:02.380 | where like, ah shit, like I'm like afraid of this,

02:01:04.780 | but I'm sort of being forced to by my logical mind

02:01:07.100 | to like believe this thing,

02:01:09.040 | which I don't think this is true at all.

02:01:10.860 | I think like your feelings are there for a reason,

02:01:13.820 | like they're for a good reason.

02:01:15.620 | And like logic or like rigorous analysis

02:01:18.180 | or something should be dedicated to figuring out

02:01:20.120 | why it's there, not to like suppress it

02:01:23.920 | or tell it it shouldn't be there.

02:01:25.720 | - What do you think is more important to like,

02:01:28.740 | to just life, reason versus emotion?

02:01:33.740 | Like not life, to what makes us human, I guess.

02:01:37.560 | - My romantic narrative answer to this,

02:01:41.000 | which is like not rigorous at all is curiosity.

02:01:43.760 | - Curiosity.

02:01:44.600 | - Yeah.

02:01:45.800 | - What is curiosity?

02:01:47.160 | That's such a middle ground.

02:01:50.240 | Curiosity is like both emotion and reason, right?

02:01:52.920 | So it's like this pull,

02:01:54.640 | 'cause reason is the tool you use to figure out the puzzle.

02:01:59.040 | And then curiosity is the pull towards the puzzle.

02:02:02.360 | - Yeah, I don't like worldviews that pit like emotion

02:02:05.800 | and rationality as opposite each other.

02:02:07.840 | They feel like beautiful parts of like a cohesive whole.

02:02:10.840 | Like if you're doing rationality to the extent

02:02:12.440 | where you're like suppressing

02:02:13.560 | some emotional reactions you have,

02:02:14.920 | then I think you're doing it wrong.

02:02:15.980 | You're like missing a big part of it.

02:02:17.840 | Like it should be like integrated.

02:02:19.720 | It should be like part of like one unified flow.

02:02:21.840 | Like the things that you like,

02:02:22.680 | if you wanna be in a romantic committed relationship

02:02:24.400 | for the rest of your life,

02:02:25.400 | then this is like beautiful and good.

02:02:27.520 | And the kind of like logic that you're using

02:02:29.640 | to make sense of the world

02:02:30.480 | should be fitted into that correctly.

02:02:32.320 | I think that's really cool.

02:02:33.720 | Like anytime you have sort of like an internal

02:02:35.360 | at odds thing with it,

02:02:36.560 | I think you're like using some sort of force

02:02:38.480 | to suppress one or the other.

02:02:39.560 | Like, oh, I'm not allowed to reason about this

02:02:41.120 | or I'm not allowed to feel about that.

02:02:42.720 | And that feels harsh to me.

02:02:44.040 | And I think curiosity is the solution.

02:02:46.000 | Like if you're simply just calmly curious,

02:02:49.120 | oh, why do I feel like that?

02:02:50.480 | Let's go find out, that's so cool.

02:02:53.080 | Right, like you can use logic and your feelings

02:02:55.360 | to like discover the answer.

02:02:57.520 | - Do you sometimes,

02:02:58.360 | 'cause you do this kind of technique, which is interesting.

02:03:00.600 | And I've mentioned it to others.

02:03:02.500 | You'll sometimes step away

02:03:03.560 | from like a third person perspective

02:03:05.320 | and describe the feeling you're feeling.

02:03:07.360 | Or like even just the situation,

02:03:10.080 | like you'll step out and talk about,

02:03:13.000 | wait, what is happening here?

02:03:14.920 | Like in the conversation itself.

02:03:16.000 | - In the conversation itself.

02:03:17.000 | - Yeah.

02:03:17.840 | - First off, what is that?

02:03:20.440 | Do you find that to be useful?

02:03:22.040 | 'Cause it's very interesting.

02:03:23.800 | It feels raw and honest.

02:03:26.100 | The danger of it seems like you escape

02:03:29.300 | the actual experience of it though.

02:03:31.640 | So that's the trade-off.

02:03:33.320 | You make it intellectual, right?

02:03:35.680 | - Is it though, intellectual to do that?

02:03:38.700 | I mean, maybe it is, I don't mean to.

02:03:41.800 | - No, maybe that's the wrong word.

02:03:44.960 | You can make it intellectual.

02:03:46.600 | You can still continue the same flavor

02:03:48.680 | 'cause you're not fully disengaging from the conversation.

02:03:52.000 | You're just creating an extra metal layer.

02:03:54.960 | - Yeah.

02:03:55.800 | I think exploring the emotional reaction

02:03:57.680 | to what's going on in the moment.

02:03:59.200 | - Yeah.

02:04:00.040 | Yeah, in some way it's actually making it stronger.

02:04:02.760 | Like, or enriching it, like making it more,

02:04:06.480 | giving it more context, giving it deeper understanding.

02:04:11.200 | - I think there's like a way of going meta

02:04:12.680 | that is a flinch move.

02:04:14.280 | Like, oh, I noticed that we're doing this thing.

02:04:15.880 | I'm gonna name it.

02:04:16.880 | And I think the thing that I described earlier,

02:04:18.520 | like when the homeless guy approached me and asked,

02:04:20.920 | can you go home with me?

02:04:22.120 | And I was like, oh, are you trying

02:04:23.480 | to have sex with me right now?

02:04:24.640 | Like what I was doing was like a meta move.

02:04:25.680 | Like you're stepping outside and like, okay,

02:04:27.240 | what is the purpose of this conversation?

02:04:28.800 | And we explicitly identify it.

02:04:30.120 | And in that case, I think that is sort of like a flinch move.

02:04:32.760 | Like I'm not telling him my emotional response.

02:04:35.880 | I'm not like being fully present.

02:04:37.200 | I'm like sort of identifying it

02:04:39.000 | as a way to subvert what's going on.

02:04:41.120 | And I absolutely think this is a possible thing.

02:04:43.880 | But I usually try to be aware of that in myself.

02:04:45.600 | And it depends on the purpose of what's going on.

02:04:47.240 | - That guy, 'cause that is actually like a chest move you did.

02:04:50.760 | You had a purpose for that chest move,

02:04:52.400 | but the flirtation is on.

02:04:54.520 | Like he could have like done a better move

02:04:59.280 | that would make you like curious, like, huh.

02:05:02.480 | Like, interesting, 'cause you had an agenda with that,

02:05:05.760 | but he could have changed your mind.

02:05:08.280 | Like he could have with a few words,

02:05:10.680 | 'cause you just created extra layers, extra entry points.

02:05:13.960 | - If he'd gotten more meta,

02:05:15.120 | he might've been like, okay, well,

02:05:16.880 | now I am gonna sleep with you.

02:05:19.240 | - Exactly.

02:05:20.080 | And see, there is something, yeah,

02:05:22.680 | that's aids into the chemistry of the conversation

02:05:24.800 | when you do that meta.

02:05:25.640 | I really enjoy it.

02:05:26.560 | It's like a rare, I forget, did you and I,

02:05:28.760 | I forget who, I've had a few people do that with me,

02:05:33.000 | like just in conversation.

02:05:34.920 | And I feel like you were involved somehow,

02:05:36.560 | 'cause I've met you before somewhere.

02:05:39.760 | I don't know if we were, or you were just in-

02:05:41.800 | - We've been at a couple of parties together.

02:05:43.280 | - Maybe it was just like a bunch of people

02:05:44.640 | that kind of play with the same, or like a comfortable-

02:05:48.000 | - There's circling.

02:05:49.160 | It's just a practice explicitly dedicated towards that.

02:05:51.360 | - What's circling?

02:05:52.200 | - Circling is like- - That might be the thing

02:05:53.040 | that you- - Yeah, I think,

02:05:53.960 | I think we know, we have some mutual circlers in our-

02:05:56.520 | - Circlers?

02:05:57.520 | - In our networks here.

02:05:58.360 | - Okay, what's circling?

02:06:00.000 | I don't remember what's circling.

02:06:01.080 | - I'm gonna describe it horribly,

02:06:02.400 | 'cause it's like one of those things

02:06:03.480 | that's difficult to describe unless you experience it,

02:06:05.400 | like kind of like drugs.

02:06:06.480 | But it's something like you sit around,

02:06:07.920 | and there's like kind of guidelines to the conversation

02:06:10.320 | where you talk about the present moment,

02:06:11.840 | and you're like honest about your experiences

02:06:13.320 | as much as you can be.

02:06:14.160 | And if you don't wanna be honest,

02:06:15.160 | then you say, "I don't wanna be honest."

02:06:17.600 | And it's your commitment to connection.

02:06:19.320 | So you're here to actually connect with the other person,

02:06:21.200 | understand them, and be understood.

02:06:23.600 | You're not supposed to project.

02:06:25.000 | So if you have an analysis about the other person,

02:06:27.400 | you own it.

02:06:28.240 | You're like, "I'm experiencing you as this,"

02:06:30.400 | and then you check, "Is it true?"

02:06:32.840 | Or like-

02:06:33.680 | - Are you supposed to be almost converting it

02:06:36.000 | towards the thing you're thinking, like constantly?

02:06:39.360 | Are you supposed to say what you're thinking?

02:06:40.200 | - If it feels right in the moment, you can.

02:06:42.080 | The thing is, it's very amorphous, right?

02:06:43.520 | It's like almost like creating a magical sensation.

02:06:45.600 | And I've been with some,

02:06:46.520 | I've seen some very good circlers,

02:06:47.800 | really high-skill circle,

02:06:49.240 | and I feel like I'm on drugs when that happens.

02:06:51.080 | It's very rare to see.

02:06:52.280 | - Does it feel honest somehow?

02:06:54.720 | - Yeah, very honest.

02:06:55.920 | Like right now in this moment,

02:06:58.560 | I'm feeling like kind of like nervous energy

02:07:01.400 | because I'm talking to you,

02:07:02.280 | and this is a unique situation,

02:07:04.320 | and I want you to think I'm cool.

02:07:06.120 | I want everybody listening to me to think I'm cool,

02:07:08.080 | but I'm also having some sort of delight

02:07:10.040 | at being able to express in this way,

02:07:12.640 | and some admiration for how you set up

02:07:14.640 | and built this thing that I can be a part of.

02:07:17.200 | And all of these things are sort of in my body right now

02:07:19.200 | as this sort of vibrating high thing.

02:07:21.680 | - I remember in the party setting,

02:07:23.120 | 'cause I've had to talk to a few people,

02:07:24.640 | I felt like it was going sexual very quickly.

02:07:27.760 | - Okay, I don't know if you remember this,

02:07:29.520 | but the first time I met you, I didn't know who you were.

02:07:31.960 | I just heard, I knew I'd heard your name.

02:07:33.360 | Like you just, your name,

02:07:34.200 | and I'm like, I think I've heard people discuss that.

02:07:36.240 | And I was in the middle of a very sexual conversation

02:07:38.240 | with another woman.

02:07:39.080 | - Oh, you were?

02:07:39.920 | - Yeah, I was.

02:07:40.740 | And you just like turned around

02:07:41.580 | and left very shortly afterwards.

02:07:42.400 | And I thought it was very-

02:07:43.240 | - Oh, was I listening in on the conversation

02:07:44.840 | or something like that?

02:07:45.680 | - I think it was like, I was talking to her

02:07:46.800 | and you were just kind of like right there.

02:07:48.080 | And so we introduced ourselves

02:07:49.240 | and then we continued on with the conversation.

02:07:50.680 | You were like standing there and listening.

02:07:52.280 | - Yeah, I don't think I would have left the conversation.

02:07:53.960 | So it's funny, you probably interpret it in a different way.

02:07:57.320 | - I interpret it as you like not wanting to listen

02:07:59.640 | to like graphic sexual stuff.

02:08:01.160 | - Was it like super graphic?

02:08:02.400 | - I don't know.

02:08:03.240 | I was asking her about, I was doing it.

02:08:04.480 | I was interviewing her about her fetish, basically.

02:08:06.560 | - Oh yeah, I don't think I would have walked away from that.

02:08:09.000 | I would have been like curious.

02:08:09.960 | Oh, interesting.

02:08:10.800 | 'Cause I don't often see people having

02:08:12.800 | a deep interview about fetishes.

02:08:14.480 | Like I wouldn't even be, listen,

02:08:16.120 | I'm like Jane Goodall here.

02:08:17.440 | (both laughing)

02:08:20.760 | I'm not afraid of sexuality or something like that.

02:08:22.800 | I just have certain values in terms of like monogamy

02:08:25.360 | and so on.

02:08:26.200 | But I think sexuality is really beautiful.

02:08:27.840 | Yeah.

02:08:28.680 | I don't think,

02:08:31.640 | yeah, I can't imagine myself walking away

02:08:33.400 | from that conversation.

02:08:34.240 | - Somebody must have like called you or something.

02:08:35.760 | 'Cause I didn't remember exactly how it worked.

02:08:37.320 | I just remember thinking later on.

02:08:38.720 | - Or maybe I thought I was intruding.

02:08:40.360 | - Oh, maybe.

02:08:41.480 | 'Cause I was kind of drunk, so.

02:08:43.920 | - Yeah, no, I probably was very drunk too.

02:08:45.400 | (Dana laughing)

02:08:47.040 | I would like to actually have like footage

02:08:48.960 | of that conversation so we can actually interpret

02:08:50.680 | what actually happened because it was probably,

02:08:52.720 | I mean, human interactions are funny like that.

02:08:56.680 | They can happen for all kinds of reasons.

02:09:00.440 | - Have you ever fallen in love with a client?

02:09:02.680 | - No, I mean like in tiny ways, like micro loves.

02:09:06.240 | - Have you ever fallen in love, love?

02:09:09.200 | - I mean, I don't know what it means, but probably.

02:09:12.080 | The thing that other people say when they say fall in love

02:09:13.800 | is probably something I've experienced.

02:09:16.240 | - What do you think they mean?

02:09:17.740 | What is love, Ayla?

02:09:20.960 | - Yeah, I know.

02:09:21.800 | - No? - It's a fantastic question.

02:09:22.680 | I think, so love is one of those words

02:09:24.160 | that refers to like a billion different concepts.

02:09:26.040 | And I think we maybe should just taboo the term

02:09:29.280 | to have a better understanding of what we're referring to.

02:09:30.920 | 'Cause there's things like feeling intense attachment.

02:09:33.240 | There's something feeling like soulfully aligned.

02:09:35.320 | There's like sexual attraction.

02:09:36.360 | There's like excitement. - Are you talking to me

02:09:38.680 | and saying we should taboo the term love

02:09:41.200 | in this conversation?

02:09:42.680 | How dare you?

02:09:44.280 | No, okay.

02:09:47.600 | Romantic love.

02:09:50.280 | - To make it flourish into lots of other new definitions.

02:09:52.760 | - Okay, thank you.

02:09:53.680 | - For expanding love.

02:09:55.280 | - It sounds like you're censoring the most important word.

02:09:58.480 | This is like 1984 all over again.

02:10:01.160 | Okay, also on the book reading list.

02:10:03.960 | No, okay.

02:10:04.920 | Listen, no, romantic love,

02:10:07.200 | like a deep intimacy for somebody else,

02:10:08.760 | like a deep connection with a human being that is also,

02:10:13.400 | I mean, yeah, with polyamory it's tricky.

02:10:16.000 | And your relationship with sex is also tricky.

02:10:19.760 | So like, what's the difference between a deep friendship

02:10:22.640 | and a friendship that also has a sexual component?

02:10:27.280 | - I remember being very confused about that

02:10:28.560 | when I did a lot of LSD.

02:10:29.960 | I was like, what?

02:10:31.520 | The line between romantic relationships

02:10:33.880 | and everything else kind of got blurred.

02:10:35.360 | I was like, oh, I'm just like in intimacy.

02:10:37.680 | And some intimacies mean that you spend your life together

02:10:40.040 | more and have sex, but like,

02:10:41.440 | the same basic thing is there.

02:10:44.600 | Like you're seeing someone for who they are.

02:10:47.640 | - Do you think you can be, if you're heterosexual,

02:10:49.880 | do you think you could be really deeply close

02:10:52.280 | with friends with a guy

02:10:53.840 | and not have sexual relationships with him?

02:10:56.480 | - I assume it's possible.

02:10:58.120 | Like if anything is ever possible, then probably, yeah.

02:11:01.000 | - Everything is possible.

02:11:03.200 | Time travel is possible.

02:11:04.760 | Quantum mechanics makes every,

02:11:06.560 | traveling faster than the speed of light is possible,

02:11:08.960 | according to general relativity.

02:11:10.280 | Everything's possible.

02:11:11.880 | So you're saying there's a chance.

02:11:13.280 | Dumb and Dumber has taught me

02:11:15.080 | that everything is fucking possible.

02:11:17.080 | - Not super likely,

02:11:18.240 | assuming that they are like attracted to each other.

02:11:20.800 | - Yeah.

02:11:22.320 | And for somebody that has surveys and statistical analysis,

02:11:26.280 | we're interested in like, what's the likely thing here

02:11:29.840 | versus like what's possible.

02:11:31.000 | - If you say possible, it's like anything's open.

02:11:33.400 | - Did you just avoid answering the love thing?

02:11:35.160 | Okay.

02:11:36.000 | - I'd like to say about love.

02:11:36.840 | I just feel like to be precise.

02:11:38.200 | - Yeah, okay.

02:11:39.040 | Let's be precisely and precise and continue.

02:11:42.080 | - Oops, sorry, that's my phone.

02:11:43.560 | - This feels like a passive aggressive suggestion

02:11:50.120 | that we shouldn't talk about love anymore,

02:11:51.480 | but we shall continue.

02:11:52.320 | - No, we should absolutely talk about love.

02:11:54.080 | It's just the term is very confusing.

02:11:56.000 | 'Cause it's like, some people say the word love

02:11:57.800 | and the thing that they're thinking of is like,

02:11:59.720 | oh, the butterfly is like the sparkle thing

02:12:01.960 | that I get in my stomach when I think about my loved one.

02:12:04.200 | But I study relationships over time.

02:12:06.000 | I just really, like I did a survey about it

02:12:07.960 | and that sparkle goes away within like two to four years.

02:12:11.040 | But people still report loving their partner after that.

02:12:13.240 | So I'm like, okay, like when you say the word love,

02:12:15.040 | like what the fuck are we talking about?

02:12:17.200 | - Yeah.

02:12:18.040 | - I just wanna get on the same page.

02:12:18.880 | - Okay.

02:12:19.700 | So what are the different, so the butterflies,

02:12:22.720 | boy, I'd like to push back on two to four years

02:12:25.080 | on the butterflies, but okay.

02:12:25.920 | - I mean, statistically, not everybody.

02:12:28.680 | - Butterflies don't give a fuck about statistics.

02:12:31.800 | You ever heard of the flap of a butterfly wing

02:12:35.240 | causing like nuclear war?

02:12:37.500 | How do you describe that with your statistics?

02:12:40.800 | Okay, so butterflies, that's the basic infatuation,

02:12:46.600 | the chemistry of the initial interactions, sure.

02:12:49.760 | But a deep, meaningful connection,

02:12:51.320 | like that feels like sexuality is a component of that.

02:12:56.320 | Like the kind of intimacy that's only possible

02:13:01.000 | when you're also sexual with another human being.

02:13:03.480 | On top of that, you have the butterfly.

02:13:05.240 | And on top of that, you have the friendship.

02:13:06.960 | And on top of that, you have like, what is that?

02:13:09.700 | That's a sandwich.

02:13:10.540 | - That's the love sandwich.

02:13:11.960 | - The love sandwich.

02:13:12.800 | - Okay, I'm down to call it a love sandwich.

02:13:14.040 | - Okay, we'll just call it sandwich, L-S.

02:13:17.680 | Okay, what role does that play in the human condition?

02:13:22.180 | - He asked about the human condition.

02:13:25.080 | It's an interesting phrase.

02:13:26.760 | - Yeah.

02:13:27.600 | - I'm like, this is like not a phrase

02:13:29.120 | that's common in my own thinking.

02:13:31.240 | - Sure, human condition is a good summary.

02:13:34.920 | What do you think?

02:13:37.240 | What do you feel when I say human condition?

02:13:39.280 | - I think I ask very different kinds of questions than you.

02:13:41.760 | - Sure, yeah.

02:13:42.880 | - Which is interesting.

02:13:43.720 | I've been trying to like figure out

02:13:44.560 | what kind of brain that you have

02:13:46.280 | is like creating like this category of question.

02:13:49.080 | Which is why I was like saying,

02:13:49.920 | there's something about poetic narrative in there.

02:13:51.760 | Because it's very like aesthetic.

02:13:55.200 | I think you've asked much more aesthetic questions

02:13:56.960 | than I do.

02:13:57.840 | - I don't even know what the word aesthetic means, really.

02:13:59.800 | - Like artistic.

02:14:01.120 | - Artistic.

02:14:02.200 | Well, I mean, I know what aesthetic means,

02:14:04.260 | but I also don't know what it means.

02:14:05.400 | It's kind of like the word love.

02:14:07.800 | Aesthetic perspective.

02:14:09.680 | - Yeah, well, but part of it in conversation,

02:14:12.480 | you don't want to ask a question that has an answer fully.

02:14:16.160 | Always.

02:14:17.480 | - Like do you have an example of a question that has-

02:14:19.160 | - What's the meaning of, oh, has an answer.

02:14:22.040 | - Yeah, like one that you think is like,

02:14:22.880 | ah, that's like a bad question because it has an answer.

02:14:25.280 | - How many sexual partners you had in the last year?

02:14:28.520 | - Oh my God.

02:14:29.600 | That's such a,

02:14:30.760 | okay, I feel like we just like got to some sort of crux

02:14:32.880 | about like the kinds of questions that we like to answer.

02:14:35.320 | - Sure.

02:14:36.560 | - 'Cause I would love that question.

02:14:37.720 | - Okay, right.

02:14:38.560 | - To ask enough people.

02:14:39.560 | - All right, but does that really tell the story

02:14:42.480 | of what you've felt over the past year?

02:14:46.520 | - That's true, but then I could just tell you.

02:14:48.240 | Okay, so by when you're saying the kinds of questions

02:14:50.880 | that you like, the ones that don't have an answer,

02:14:52.080 | by not an answer, you mean like not an answer

02:14:54.560 | where you can know that you're done telling it.

02:14:58.320 | Is that it?

02:14:59.160 | - That you can escape having to think

02:15:00.960 | by actually answering it.

02:15:02.840 | - I see.

02:15:04.360 | - Yeah.

02:15:05.520 | The struggle is the place where we discover something,

02:15:10.160 | not the destination.

02:15:12.800 | Contention.

02:15:14.880 | - It's working, it's working.

02:15:15.960 | Okay, so what is the role of the love sandwich

02:15:18.200 | in the human condition?

02:15:19.680 | - Okay, that's fine.

02:15:20.520 | I take that question, but it's a stupid question.

02:15:22.360 | - You don't have to, I'm ready to chat.

02:15:24.400 | - Do you like love?

02:15:25.720 | Do you personally like love?

02:15:26.560 | - Do you like love?

02:15:27.840 | Yeah, I mean, I think like there's a part of me

02:15:30.280 | that feels like I have unconditional love for all things.

02:15:32.080 | Like when you're talking about the glass being beautiful,

02:15:35.040 | I felt that.

02:15:36.680 | That feels like it rang something,

02:15:38.480 | that like I have a similar resonance in me for that.

02:15:41.480 | - If I were to circle right now,

02:15:44.360 | I feel like you're avoiding the love question,

02:15:47.640 | the love sandwich question.

02:15:50.800 | What's your own personal feeling

02:15:52.880 | towards loving another human being

02:15:54.320 | versus having sex with another human being?

02:15:56.480 | - Love is like one of the concepts

02:16:02.400 | that dissolved for me a long time ago,

02:16:03.720 | so I have difficulty directly answering it.

02:16:05.560 | But I have the experience.

02:16:06.960 | When you described the love sandwich,

02:16:08.160 | I feel like I have had that experience.

02:16:10.400 | I have it currently for some people also.

02:16:13.760 | Like I'm dating people and I have that.

02:16:15.560 | - So people who you date,

02:16:17.240 | you would describe sharing a love sandwich with them.

02:16:21.320 | - Yeah.

02:16:22.240 | - Okay.

02:16:23.200 | So how does, I mean, that's great to hear.

02:16:27.360 | So you're not, are you afraid of love?

02:16:29.800 | - No, not at all.

02:16:30.920 | - So can you describe to me polyamory?

02:16:36.960 | What is it?

02:16:38.360 | What does it mean?

02:16:39.200 | 'Cause there's like different terms.

02:16:40.520 | You have a nice blog post about it.

02:16:42.000 | - Yeah, I have a personal definition of it,

02:16:44.040 | which I readily admit is not shared by a lot of people.

02:16:46.720 | But to me, the definition of polyamory

02:16:48.240 | is simply not forbidding your partner

02:16:50.240 | from pursuing intimacy with others.

02:16:52.600 | - Yeah.

02:16:53.440 | - It doesn't mean that you have to pursue it personally.

02:16:55.400 | Like two people could be married

02:16:57.040 | and only have had sex with each other for 20 years.

02:16:59.320 | And as long as they're like, you know what?

02:17:00.480 | If you ever, you want to go have sex with somebody else,

02:17:01.880 | you're welcome to do that.

02:17:02.720 | - Well, the interesting thing you said is

02:17:04.320 | that doesn't mean they have to do it.

02:17:05.640 | They just have the freedom to do it.

02:17:07.120 | - Yeah, it's the freedom that matters to me.

02:17:10.200 | Which is, I mean, it's called the polyamory post.

02:17:15.040 | You have so many good blog posts.

02:17:16.680 | People should just go look at your, read your writing.

02:17:20.120 | 'Cause it's really, really strong and often backed by data.

02:17:23.520 | But also just a deeply honest look at yourself

02:17:26.920 | and your understanding of the world.

02:17:28.720 | It's, yeah, it's refreshing to be there.

02:17:33.720 | Like with a lot of stuff I disagree with,

02:17:36.000 | but I feel like if I disagree with it,

02:17:38.120 | you'll be very open arguing it

02:17:40.080 | and kind of thinking through it.

02:17:42.160 | There's just the honesty that radiates from the whole thing.

02:17:44.360 | Anyway, so yeah, it's, I mean,

02:17:46.560 | it would be interesting to kind of explore polyamory,

02:17:49.120 | like how it works.

02:17:49.960 | What are the different versions?

02:17:51.520 | What is the, what does that freedom look like?

02:17:54.400 | What does that freedom feel like

02:17:56.800 | to be able to go see other people?

02:17:59.480 | - Depends on you.

02:18:00.440 | Like, do you want to go see other people?

02:18:02.360 | Maybe you do, maybe you don't.

02:18:04.080 | So usually for me, I tend to be pretty happy

02:18:06.660 | with like one or a few people.

02:18:08.860 | And then occasionally I like some novelty.

02:18:10.980 | So usually I'll go like, I host orgies sometimes.

02:18:13.660 | So I'll host an orgy

02:18:15.000 | and then I'll go have sex with people at the orgy.

02:18:16.160 | And then that'll be good for the novelty for a while.

02:18:18.560 | - Can I ask you about orgies?

02:18:19.760 | - Yeah.

02:18:20.600 | - So how many people are at an orgy?

02:18:22.480 | What's like a standard,

02:18:24.320 | we're having a Sunday picnic and it's an orgy.

02:18:26.280 | What's like a number of people at an orgy?

02:18:28.280 | - Oh, I've only recently started hosting orgies,

02:18:31.520 | but I have been to a lot of orgies.

02:18:32.900 | I would say like the median is maybe 15 people.

02:18:36.860 | - I like how you say median versus mean.

02:18:38.420 | Okay.

02:18:39.300 | Median is 15 people.

02:18:40.580 | What's the gender distribution usually?

02:18:43.460 | - Usually about even.

02:18:44.940 | It's like ideal if you can get more women

02:18:46.460 | than men in most of them.

02:18:47.920 | I've recently been hosting free use orgies

02:18:50.140 | or orgies where consent is assumed by default when you enter.

02:18:53.700 | And of course you can revoke it any time

02:18:55.140 | or go over a whole bunch of rules

02:18:56.500 | to make sure it's very safe.

02:18:57.400 | You like have wristbands.

02:18:58.940 | So nobody's actually doing anything they don't want to.

02:19:00.740 | - Wristbands, nice.

02:19:01.580 | - Yeah, and in those ones,

02:19:02.800 | you have to have more men than women.

02:19:04.220 | - I thought free use was like consensual,

02:19:08.540 | like at any time,

02:19:09.820 | but it's at any time within the constraints

02:19:12.660 | of this building or something like that.

02:19:14.460 | - Yeah, so at the orgies, it's like you, by entering,

02:19:17.340 | if you wear a wristband,

02:19:18.660 | then you are like by default opting into consent.

02:19:22.340 | So people don't have to like do a thing

02:19:24.100 | where they negotiate with you and like, be like,

02:19:26.140 | is this okay?

02:19:27.260 | It's just the default is like, you just go for it.

02:19:29.500 | And if they want you to stop, they say the safe word,

02:19:31.380 | like red, don't, and then you have to stop.

02:19:33.540 | And we do like exercise in the beginning

02:19:35.860 | of people saying red to make sure

02:19:37.500 | that everybody knows exactly what the rules are.

02:19:39.140 | - What's your favorite safe word?

02:19:40.700 | - Red. - Red.

02:19:41.740 | - When I first started doing like weird kinky shit,

02:19:44.100 | I was like, oh, let's make a safe word.

02:19:45.460 | And we picked the word foliage.

02:19:47.460 | I was like, that's goofy, right?

02:19:49.420 | And then, but then eventually came a time

02:19:51.540 | where I did actually, in fact, want to say the safe word

02:19:53.460 | and I couldn't.

02:19:54.300 | I was like in agony.

02:19:56.200 | I was like crying.

02:19:57.040 | I'm like, I can't make myself say this stupid word

02:19:59.620 | right now.

02:20:01.100 | - Foliage.

02:20:01.940 | - So after that, I was like, red, doesn't matter.

02:20:03.820 | I don't care.

02:20:04.660 | It's not funny.

02:20:05.480 | We're just going with very simple red.

02:20:06.320 | - Very practical.

02:20:07.380 | How does an orgy compare sexually

02:20:09.860 | to like a one-on-one sexual experience?

02:20:11.960 | Like what, is it same ballpark

02:20:17.100 | or is it fundamentally different?

02:20:18.780 | - I mean, the experience of both orgies

02:20:20.740 | and one-on-one sex can be like really high variety.

02:20:23.020 | - There's a high variety.

02:20:23.860 | - But you kind of, it's a little bit

02:20:25.260 | like you're having sex with someone,

02:20:26.380 | but you're surrounded by really realistic VR porn

02:20:28.820 | of other people having sex.

02:20:29.940 | - Oh, okay, cool.

02:20:30.780 | - And sometimes it's like a three sums also,

02:20:32.540 | like maybe there's another person involved,

02:20:34.300 | but it's hard to like have a whole bunch of people

02:20:36.660 | on one, in one cluster.

02:20:38.140 | 'Cause usually there's kind of different little clusters

02:20:40.060 | of people having their experience.

02:20:41.980 | I once was part of a 10 woman orgy.

02:20:45.340 | It was a total lesbian thing.

02:20:46.940 | And that felt like a writhing cluster.

02:20:48.540 | It was very nice.

02:20:49.420 | But typically you kind of separate out

02:20:52.220 | with like very small pods of people doing stuff.

02:20:54.480 | - Okay, so back to polyamory.

02:20:56.420 | So what's a good, what does it take to manage?

02:21:00.180 | Do you have a main partner if you're being polyamorous

02:21:02.940 | and you're dating multiple people?

02:21:04.280 | Is there usually a main one for you personally?

02:21:07.180 | - For me personally, kind of, yes.

02:21:09.100 | Like right now I kind of, two that aren't,

02:21:11.420 | like I see roughly around,

02:21:12.700 | for me it's kind of just descriptive.

02:21:14.100 | Like if I just happen to be seeing you a lot more

02:21:16.220 | and I confide in you more than you,

02:21:18.100 | like you're descriptively my primary partner.

02:21:20.460 | But I don't usually have rules to protect that.

02:21:22.860 | I'm down with rules to protect it

02:21:24.120 | if you're like, you're trying to build something.

02:21:24.960 | Like if I buy a house together, I'd be like, okay,

02:21:26.540 | we need to like, whatever our relationship is,

02:21:27.940 | we have to do the thing,

02:21:28.780 | we're both paying the rent for the house

02:21:30.420 | or the mortgage or whatever.

02:21:32.540 | A lot of people do have primaries,

02:21:33.580 | so it's very common to have like prescriptive,

02:21:36.400 | like I'm gonna get married to you

02:21:37.420 | and you're not allowed to like have anal sex

02:21:38.740 | with anybody else, that sort of thing.

02:21:40.740 | - What about like the transparency

02:21:42.060 | and the communication that you have to do?

02:21:43.540 | Do you usually try to be super honest about it?

02:21:45.780 | - Extremely, yeah.

02:21:46.620 | I mean, I've learned over time that like,

02:21:48.260 | even if it seems like a very small thing,

02:21:50.100 | you talk about the small thing.

02:21:51.520 | 'Cause often I would just sort of have

02:21:52.980 | like a small twitch in myself,

02:21:54.140 | like I don't know if I like that.

02:21:55.340 | But I'd be like, okay, this is really minor,

02:21:57.180 | it's probably nothing.

02:21:58.260 | And if I talk about it, it's gonna make it into a thing.

02:22:00.500 | And I just don't wanna make it into a thing, you know?

02:22:02.260 | And I've come to realize

02:22:04.340 | that it's worth making it into a thing.

02:22:05.780 | Because I can't predict at the time

02:22:07.060 | if like the small feeling I have is going to grow.

02:22:08.980 | And then when I grow it,

02:22:09.940 | now it's like much more difficult to deal with.

02:22:13.020 | So now it's like any little bit of jealousy

02:22:14.740 | I have, I immediately communicate it.

02:22:15.980 | I'm like, ah, I'm a little jealous of you right now.

02:22:18.020 | I don't hold that in at all.

02:22:19.460 | I used to be kind of like,

02:22:21.060 | back when I first started being poly,

02:22:22.420 | I used to try to pretend that I was not a jealous person

02:22:24.520 | and that backfired quite a lot.

02:22:26.380 | - That's really interesting.

02:22:27.220 | So you do still feel jealousy?

02:22:28.140 | - Oh yeah, definitely.

02:22:29.140 | - And it's also interesting that you kind of recommend

02:22:32.100 | when there's a little bit of jealousy

02:22:33.500 | to bring that to the surface.

02:22:35.500 | - Yeah, just like excessively communicate.

02:22:37.420 | Even if it feels stupid.

02:22:39.420 | Like this is, I feel like a cliche.

02:22:41.420 | I feel like a stupid therapist training video.

02:22:43.980 | Like I just feel ridiculous sometimes

02:22:45.580 | when I'm saying the things.

02:22:46.660 | But I've learned over time,

02:22:48.260 | it's just important to just say the things.

02:22:49.660 | - 'Cause like, you know, the traditional view of jealousy

02:22:51.900 | is exactly like you said.

02:22:53.020 | If you bring it up to the surface,

02:22:54.460 | like it's gonna sound like you're overreacting to everything.

02:22:58.620 | But you're saying like, still do it.

02:23:00.380 | 'Cause you're basically,

02:23:01.900 | your brain blows stuff out of proportion.

02:23:05.780 | - Yeah, and it's good to like be going through it

02:23:07.780 | with a partner.

02:23:08.900 | Like I have a partner right now

02:23:10.240 | who's like dating this other girl

02:23:11.540 | and he like really likes her

02:23:12.620 | and he like went traveling with her and stuff.

02:23:14.100 | And I was like, I feel jealous about it.

02:23:15.740 | And I have to tell him that

02:23:16.820 | and that way he can be with me in it.

02:23:18.700 | He like holds me when I'm feeling jealous.

02:23:21.580 | And it's like a bonding experience, you know?

02:23:23.900 | But it's important for me that like he's able to handle it.

02:23:26.140 | Like I try not to date people who really freak out

02:23:28.460 | when I have negative emotions

02:23:29.820 | because I wanna be able to express

02:23:31.220 | that I'm upset by something they're doing

02:23:33.180 | without it being taken as a demand

02:23:35.300 | that they change their behavior.

02:23:36.420 | - Right, so he has to be able to skillfully handle

02:23:39.620 | that interaction.

02:23:40.460 | - He has to be like, cool, all right, you're jealous.

02:23:41.980 | Like I'm not gonna freak out about it.

02:23:43.100 | I'm not gonna change my behavior.

02:23:44.020 | I'm just gonna be with you in that.

02:23:45.700 | We're gonna sit in it together.

02:23:47.260 | - I mean, is some of that just insecurity

02:23:50.100 | that he should also just comfort,

02:23:51.740 | like basically alleviate your insecurity,

02:23:54.380 | bring you back to like a rational objective evaluation?

02:23:57.420 | - My relationships, I love it

02:23:58.500 | when people do not reassure me.

02:23:59.860 | I like not being comforted quite a lot.

02:24:02.580 | And so usually the people I date don't.

02:24:04.260 | I'm very gravitating.

02:24:05.580 | Like it's one of the things people do

02:24:06.620 | to make me fall in love with them

02:24:07.580 | is if I say something really like terrible

02:24:09.540 | and they're just like,

02:24:10.380 | "Do not give me any comfort whatsoever."

02:24:12.220 | Like that's where my heart gets captured.

02:24:15.020 | So I typically am in relationships where I'm like,

02:24:17.020 | hi man, I'm so jealous.

02:24:18.060 | And they just like do not reassure me at all.

02:24:20.340 | And that's good 'cause it doesn't give me an out.

02:24:22.300 | Like I have to deal with it myself.

02:24:24.500 | Like maybe it is true

02:24:25.980 | that the other woman is better than me.

02:24:27.340 | Like maybe that is an actual possible reality.

02:24:29.540 | And I don't wanna be dealing with my life

02:24:31.620 | in a way where I'm like pretending

02:24:32.900 | like I'm only okay when that reality is not true.

02:24:35.300 | - Would you like them to say that,

02:24:38.060 | that the other woman is better than you?

02:24:39.660 | - Or that they prefer. - If they feel that?

02:24:41.860 | - Yeah, I mean, they should say it according to themselves.

02:24:44.540 | Like, oh, I prefer, like I have a better time with her

02:24:46.820 | than I have with you, then I would wanna know that, yeah.

02:24:49.100 | - And even though that might be painful to hear.

02:24:51.500 | - Yes.

02:24:52.340 | That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.

02:24:57.060 | - That which can be destroyed by the truth.

02:24:59.700 | What is that, that your ego or something like that?

02:25:01.900 | - Yeah, my ego. (laughs)

02:25:04.260 | - So your ego just generally grows

02:25:05.900 | and you like the destruction of it.

02:25:07.260 | - Yeah, it's like really active.

02:25:08.100 | - So the process of truth.

02:25:09.700 | - It's not like a fun experience.

02:25:10.820 | Like I've had like guys be like,

02:25:12.220 | well, you're not as pretty as I'd like.

02:25:13.820 | I'm just like, oh, you know, stabbed to the heart.

02:25:17.660 | - But then also like give me your number after.

02:25:19.740 | - Yeah.

02:25:21.460 | (laughs)

02:25:23.700 | - Man, that's kind of beautiful.

02:25:25.940 | What do you think of monogamous relationships?

02:25:29.260 | Like philosophically, can you maybe steal a man

02:25:32.780 | or make the case for monogamous relationships?

02:25:35.100 | Can you understand the pros and cons

02:25:37.860 | of monogamous relationships?

02:25:38.980 | - Yeah, I mean, it depends on how you,

02:25:40.380 | if you're like, hey, you can do whatever you want,

02:25:43.220 | but you and I are gonna spend the rest,

02:25:44.540 | like we just, you're 80 years old and like,

02:25:46.660 | oh, we spent 60 years in a marriage together.

02:25:48.900 | We've never had sex with anybody else.

02:25:49.980 | I think that's like awesome.

02:25:51.020 | If that's what you want, that's great.

02:25:52.980 | I have like a little bit more problems

02:25:54.260 | with people doing that while also forcing their partner

02:25:56.900 | not to misbehave if they want to.

02:25:59.540 | Like if you're like, oh, we only made it this far

02:26:01.740 | in a monogamous relationship because I forced my partner

02:26:03.660 | not to pursue an intimacy that she wanted to.

02:26:06.420 | Then I feel like a little like more like,

02:26:08.060 | ah, I don't know if that's great.

02:26:09.700 | - How do you know if it's a real want for an intimacy?

02:26:12.620 | Like checking out a attractive person

02:26:15.540 | while being inside a monogamous relationship.

02:26:17.340 | Yeah, how do you score that?

02:26:18.180 | Is that bad that the person cannot pursue those feelings?

02:26:21.380 | - I mean, it depends if they want to.

02:26:24.220 | Like I often find people attractive

02:26:25.460 | if I don't want to pursue.

02:26:26.760 | I'm also okay with people entering into agreements.

02:26:31.140 | Like if you and I want to agree,

02:26:33.420 | like I'm only going to enter this

02:26:34.580 | 'cause I'm gonna be so hurt if you pursue somebody else.

02:26:36.940 | So I'm not gonna pursue anybody else.

02:26:38.580 | That seems fine to me.

02:26:39.860 | But I also extend that.

02:26:40.700 | Like if somebody is like,

02:26:41.780 | I don't want you to have any friends,

02:26:43.260 | I'm gonna feel really insecure if you,

02:26:44.980 | and like, okay, like if you want to enter that agreement,

02:26:47.020 | like I feel the same way.

02:26:47.860 | Like I think you should have the right to do it

02:26:49.180 | if this is what you want.

02:26:50.420 | But I also kind of,

02:26:51.260 | I feel like a little weird about restricting your partner

02:26:53.060 | from doing things, you know?

02:26:54.460 | - Oh, but I guess if you're honest about it

02:26:55.860 | and you just put it on the table,

02:26:57.460 | I don't want you to have any friends.

02:27:00.740 | I want you to sit in a box.

02:27:02.220 | - Yeah, I think a lot-

02:27:04.660 | - I guess if you're like really on the,

02:27:06.260 | but then there's like,

02:27:07.820 | there's a power dynamic

02:27:10.060 | that like you can be quite influential in a relationship

02:27:14.260 | and convincing your partner.

02:27:16.500 | And it sure sounds like you're honestly agreeing to a thing,

02:27:19.500 | but you're not really agreeing.

02:27:20.940 | That's the, I mean,

02:27:22.580 | part of that is the beauty of relationships, right?

02:27:24.660 | Like it's messy, it can be messy.

02:27:29.020 | It's hard to know what you really want, right?

02:27:30.740 | - I think that's mainly my complaint with monogamy.

02:27:32.580 | Like I'm down with like conscious monogamy.

02:27:35.460 | But I think so many relationships

02:27:37.500 | are like monogamous by default.

02:27:39.140 | Like people, it's not actually right for them,

02:27:41.060 | but they just get into it

02:27:41.900 | because culture just doesn't give them another option.

02:27:44.300 | - And they don't even ask themselves the question,

02:27:46.020 | is this right for me?

02:27:46.860 | - Right, which like I'm a weird ass person

02:27:48.980 | who thinks a lot of weird shit,

02:27:50.180 | but I didn't even think about polyamorous an option

02:27:52.540 | before I had heard that it existed.

02:27:54.740 | And I was only when I first met my first polyamorous couple

02:27:57.620 | and I was like, oh, that's what I am.

02:27:59.300 | That's clearly the thing that I am.

02:28:01.060 | - Yeah, it's funny 'cause to me monogamy,

02:28:04.140 | it's not, it doesn't make sense for it to be a default.

02:28:08.780 | Like to me, monogamy goes against human nature.

02:28:11.300 | In some sense, like romance is a fuck you

02:28:14.780 | to the way the world works.

02:28:16.780 | - Really?

02:28:17.620 | - Yeah, like it's a, like Romeo and Juliet romance,

02:28:20.020 | like traditional description of what romance looks like

02:28:23.700 | versus like, sure, there's like a million variations of that.

02:28:26.460 | But in my head, like this partnership

02:28:29.380 | that's for a long time together is a kind of,

02:28:34.380 | you know, like, I don't know, like true romance.

02:28:37.540 | You know that movie?

02:28:38.380 | It's a really fucking good movie.

02:28:39.380 | - I haven't seen it, no.

02:28:40.220 | - Okay, there's just like,

02:28:43.300 | you're together against the world.

02:28:46.920 | That's the, I mean, that's what close friendship feels like.

02:28:52.380 | It's like ride or die.

02:28:53.620 | - Yeah.

02:28:54.460 | - Like that.

02:28:55.300 | I guess it doesn't, it can be,

02:28:57.460 | it could span across multiple,

02:28:58.660 | you can have multiple partners in that way.

02:29:00.980 | - Yeah, absolutely.

02:29:01.820 | - But I just don't see monogamy as like,

02:29:03.780 | definitely not a default.

02:29:06.300 | I would actually, like honestly,

02:29:08.060 | would probably see polyamory as a more natural default.

02:29:12.540 | - Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends

02:29:13.500 | on what you mean by default.

02:29:14.540 | Like most of human history has been sort of a weird mix.

02:29:17.740 | Like you get polygamy and monogamy

02:29:19.740 | are kind of the main arrangements.

02:29:21.180 | - Sure.

02:29:22.020 | But I mean, just like human nature.

02:29:23.500 | - Yeah, people are attracted to other people

02:29:25.420 | and they wanna, especially in longer term relationships.

02:29:28.620 | I tracked, in my relationship survey,

02:29:30.500 | I tracked the amount of cheating over time

02:29:32.320 | in a relationship.

02:29:33.160 | Like how long have you been in this relationship

02:29:34.420 | and have you cheated?

02:29:35.580 | - What's the results of that?

02:29:37.900 | - Men cheat a lot.

02:29:39.700 | Women too, but men cheat about 30% more than women do.

02:29:42.620 | I also asked men and women to predict

02:29:44.500 | if they think their partner has cheated.

02:29:46.500 | And people's predictions were about the same.

02:29:48.100 | So people roughly predicted that their male or female

02:29:51.780 | like spouse hadn't cheated about the same rate,

02:29:54.980 | but men cheated much more than women.

02:29:56.860 | - So who was more correct in their prediction though?

02:29:59.540 | - So men were more correct in their prediction

02:30:01.300 | predicting women.

02:30:02.180 | And women were more off.

02:30:04.540 | Women thought men cheated much less than they actually did.

02:30:07.700 | And, but both of them were off,

02:30:09.900 | but like the male gap was significantly more.

02:30:12.660 | So yeah, I mean, you're right.

02:30:13.700 | When you say monogamy is not default,

02:30:15.020 | like I think you're like really getting at something.

02:30:17.660 | Like human beings are just,

02:30:18.700 | especially in long-term relationships,

02:30:20.100 | it's difficult to only want one person.

02:30:23.540 | But to be fair, I think monogamy and commitment

02:30:25.300 | are very different.

02:30:26.140 | I think you'd be incredibly,

02:30:27.140 | I haven't known so many very long-term,

02:30:29.180 | super committed poly couples that live lives

02:30:31.700 | that look very similar

02:30:32.540 | to the very romantic monogamous couples.

02:30:34.500 | Like children, houses, like 20 years.

02:30:37.900 | And that works great for them.

02:30:39.940 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:30:42.580 | I mean, there's so much to like open your mind to

02:30:47.100 | in these kinds of conversations, these kinds of ideas.

02:30:50.660 | But I also like realize like some of the cake is baked.

02:30:54.220 | Like I have some assumptions

02:30:55.620 | that are hard to break through.

02:30:57.020 | - Like what?

02:30:57.860 | - For myself.

02:30:58.700 | Like it's difficult for me to imagine

02:31:01.060 | a polyamorous relationship for me that would work.

02:31:03.500 | But I don't have enough data.

02:31:05.800 | I don't have a, like I have very little.

02:31:08.580 | But like at this point,

02:31:09.780 | it's like I haven't eaten pizza in like 20 years

02:31:16.060 | 'cause I know I just don't,

02:31:18.980 | there's a bunch of stuff.

02:31:19.820 | I just eat low carb 'cause it makes me feel good.

02:31:23.840 | But there's so many foods I haven't explored.

02:31:26.100 | It's just like, well, I know what I love.

02:31:29.800 | So you explore every once in a while.

02:31:32.500 | Yeah, and you kind of figure that out.

02:31:35.080 | But at the same time, you're humbled by like,

02:31:36.980 | even talking to you or looking at your data.

02:31:38.660 | Like sexuality is a fascinating topic

02:31:41.960 | because it seems that we're very,

02:31:44.860 | like we were talking about, very afraid of this topic.

02:31:47.820 | Like to be really honest with ourselves about it.

02:31:50.260 | The whole like academic research is afraid of it,

02:31:54.160 | but it's so core to who we are as human beings.

02:31:57.180 | I gotta ask you about this.

02:31:58.560 | I can't believe it took this long to get there.

02:32:00.520 | But one of your many fascinating surveys is on fetishes.

02:32:04.800 | You wrote a blog post about it,

02:32:08.320 | probably several 'cause it's like a huge data set.

02:32:11.920 | - Still in progress, yeah.

02:32:13.800 | - So the one I'm referring to is on popularity

02:32:16.200 | and tabooness of various fetishes.

02:32:20.120 | So what are some interesting takeaways?

02:32:21.700 | I gotta pull up this graph 'cause it's freaking epic.

02:32:24.120 | - Yes, this is a big graph and it has tabooness

02:32:27.040 | as one axis and popularity as the other.

02:32:31.980 | - Okay, for people who are just listening,

02:32:33.400 | on the X-axis is tabooness.

02:32:36.220 | - Yeah.

02:32:37.220 | - Asked to rate how taboo society viewed sexual interest.

02:32:41.280 | And on the Y-axis is percent of people

02:32:43.880 | reporting interest, log scale.

02:32:46.800 | Oh boy, all right.

02:32:49.400 | So just some examples on the low tabooness

02:32:53.160 | and high popularity.

02:32:54.320 | There's a correlation here.

02:32:55.760 | I think you said it's 0.69.

02:32:57.400 | - Yeah.

02:32:58.240 | - It's just not, it's just hilarious.

02:33:00.280 | Is it still 0.69?

02:33:01.280 | Are you tracking that?

02:33:02.640 | - I haven't looked since I did this, yeah.

02:33:05.560 | - So like the less taboo stuff is more likely to be popular

02:33:08.160 | and the more taboo stuff is less likely to be popular.

02:33:10.920 | And on the missionary position,

02:33:14.660 | fingering vagina, blowjobs, light spanking, cuddling.

02:33:20.840 | Cuddling is more taboo than missionary?

02:33:23.640 | - I think people are conceiving,

02:33:25.000 | if you're like, I'm really sexually aroused

02:33:26.440 | by cuddling specifically.

02:33:27.800 | - Sure.

02:33:28.640 | - Then you're like, that's a little more weird

02:33:29.460 | than getting specifically aroused by blowjobs.

02:33:30.840 | You expect people to be aroused by blowjobs.

02:33:32.440 | - So this was like getting at like,

02:33:34.280 | as a fetish versus like an activity.

02:33:36.280 | - Yeah, as a specific, as a like a concrete sexual interest.

02:33:39.040 | Like I am specifically interested in this thing, yeah.

02:33:41.600 | - And so those are thighs and lips, different body parts,

02:33:44.920 | jaw lines, and then some of it is color

02:33:47.560 | based on more female preference versus male preference.

02:33:52.440 | Like jaw lines is more female preference.

02:33:57.400 | Being submissive is more female preference,

02:33:59.680 | light bondage, more female.

02:34:04.240 | There's a lot of interesting ones.

02:34:05.280 | There's so much, okay.

02:34:06.440 | But then on the far side of that,

02:34:08.480 | I mean, it gets pretty dark.

02:34:09.920 | But even all along the way, like extreme bondage,

02:34:14.900 | being at 50 tabooness, pegging, pain, giving pain,

02:34:20.960 | sexual frustration, I suppose, as a kink.

02:34:25.240 | And there's so many interesting ones, like to me,

02:34:28.800 | like just that I haven't even like considered.

02:34:31.840 | - Yeah, I had to do so much research into fetishes

02:34:34.680 | to compile the list.

02:34:37.000 | - Are there some surprising like options to you

02:34:39.200 | that you're like, oh, okay, this is like a fetish.

02:34:41.520 | - Yeah, well, more confusing was like

02:34:43.400 | what the fetishes are about.

02:34:45.160 | 'Cause like I didn't wanna overlap fetishes,

02:34:46.840 | so I had to kind of look into them.

02:34:48.600 | And I'm like, there's like such interesting manifestations

02:34:51.760 | of core drives.

02:34:52.600 | Like if you're really aroused by disgust,

02:34:54.240 | like maybe you're very into rolling around in dirt,

02:34:56.360 | but you're not into rolling around with ice cream.

02:34:58.680 | So I'm like, okay, I have to make those

02:34:59.680 | into two separate fetishes, you know?

02:35:00.880 | - Sure, and like I'm seeing like at the far end,

02:35:04.520 | rodents, like different types of incest,

02:35:12.040 | branding, so there's like pain.

02:35:15.880 | - And then-- - Like wound fucking.

02:35:18.240 | - Sex with animals, I guess, dogs, horses.

02:35:22.740 | Receiving oral sex from an animal is high taboo-ness

02:35:32.040 | and pretty high popularity.

02:35:33.800 | - Surprisingly high popularity.

02:35:35.140 | I was really shocked by that one.

02:35:36.380 | I wouldn't triple check that number

02:35:37.760 | 'cause I'm like, no way,

02:35:39.040 | this is about to people are reporting interest.

02:35:41.720 | - Do you know which animal?

02:35:43.480 | Is there-- - No, I didn't specify.

02:35:45.520 | I asked like which animals are erotic

02:35:47.040 | and then I separately asked like how erotic is it

02:35:49.120 | to receive oral sex from your preferred animal?

02:35:52.380 | - This is so fascinating.

02:35:54.640 | So I would, can we just talk about the methodology of this?

02:35:59.640 | This feels like deeply honest map of humanity

02:36:09.480 | in a way we don't usually map humanity.

02:36:11.920 | - Yeah.

02:36:13.960 | 'Cause it's so, your fetishes are so meaningful

02:36:17.600 | to each individual person.

02:36:19.480 | - Yeah, that's what I love about this work.

02:36:21.360 | It's like nobody cares about someone's fetishes.

02:36:24.600 | You never get to express them

02:36:25.920 | and if you have a more unusual fetish,

02:36:27.640 | people usually judge you.

02:36:29.040 | So it's like this tiny little pocket of this shame thing

02:36:31.780 | but it's so cool to me that human brains

02:36:34.800 | could be oriented in such a way, like wound fucking.

02:36:37.600 | Like somebody finds that so erotic and that's so cool.

02:36:41.680 | - Yeah, and then they probably,

02:36:43.640 | and it should be explored like how did that come to be?

02:36:46.520 | You mentioned that we like to construct narratives

02:36:49.160 | that somehow was grounded in childhood

02:36:50.880 | but maybe it's genetic.

02:36:52.280 | Maybe it has to do with,

02:36:53.560 | maybe you can actually form and unform

02:36:55.600 | that fetish very quickly.

02:36:57.320 | I don't know.

02:36:58.880 | - This is one of the things that I'm researching.

02:37:00.560 | So in the big survey that I'm doing,

02:37:02.600 | I asked so many questions about childhood.

02:37:04.280 | All the ones that I think like we have common theories

02:37:06.800 | about like oh, are you abused?

02:37:08.280 | Is it yelled at by a man or a woman?

02:37:10.720 | Stuff like that.

02:37:11.560 | Like, are you really sexually repressive?

02:37:13.080 | You know, is it gender roles

02:37:14.120 | where you've expected to conform?

02:37:16.240 | A whole bunch of stuff.

02:37:17.160 | And then I asked, you know,

02:37:18.040 | obviously about like a massive amount of fetishes.

02:37:20.280 | And my sample size right now is 500,000 people.

02:37:22.720 | - 500,000 people. - Yeah, it's massive.

02:37:24.520 | And I have to stay for all of it.

02:37:26.360 | And the result looks like this not really correlated.

02:37:29.560 | Nothing that I asked about in childhood,

02:37:31.320 | nothing correlates with fetish preference later in life.

02:37:34.720 | It does correlate with onset.

02:37:36.200 | Lots of things that happen in childhood

02:37:37.720 | can change like the age at which it triggers.

02:37:41.160 | - You have so many fascinating blog posts.

02:37:42.640 | You had a blog post, I think, on the age of fetish onset.

02:37:47.440 | - Yeah.

02:37:48.640 | - And like you really nicely organized it by age,

02:37:53.640 | like reproduction as a fetish, I guess pregnancy.

02:37:58.280 | - Yeah.

02:37:59.360 | - At age of 17, about 16.9.

02:38:02.300 | Toys and like anal beads is 15.5.

02:38:07.400 | - Yeah, one of the interesting things I found,

02:38:09.000 | I mean, this data set is so huge,

02:38:10.880 | it's taking me a long time to go through it.

02:38:12.000 | So this is like snippets from what I remember

02:38:13.840 | when I was glancing through the data.

02:38:14.880 | So this part is not rigorous,

02:38:16.280 | but I seem to get the impression that if you are,

02:38:20.080 | if a fetish occurs for you earlier,

02:38:21.920 | like if you have much earlier onset,

02:38:23.000 | you're more likely to report

02:38:24.000 | being extremely interested into it.

02:38:25.980 | So later onset means you're gonna be like

02:38:27.680 | less into the fetish, but if it hits earlier,

02:38:30.280 | it's like-- - But I wonder if it passes,

02:38:31.640 | like is there like-- - Yeah, I didn't measure

02:38:34.320 | old fetishes at all.

02:38:36.560 | Like no longer, right?

02:38:38.600 | You used to, but it's no longer there, interesting.

02:38:41.560 | - One interesting thing that I don't understand

02:38:43.260 | is that non-cis people seem to have more correlation

02:38:47.420 | between childhood experiences and fetishes.

02:38:49.600 | So I was saying that there's no correlation

02:38:51.080 | between childhood experiences and fetishes.

02:38:52.520 | This holds for cis people.

02:38:54.040 | But trans people, especially trans men,

02:38:55.720 | there's a correlation.

02:38:57.000 | It doesn't mean they have absolutely higher rates

02:38:58.720 | of abuse or fetishes or anything,

02:39:00.440 | but I'm just saying that like for them,

02:39:02.360 | there does actually seem to be some sort of connection

02:39:04.320 | between childhood experiences and sexuality

02:39:05.960 | later in life.

02:39:06.800 | And I don't understand why this applies to one group

02:39:08.680 | but not the other.

02:39:09.520 | I don't have a good theory for that.

02:39:10.640 | - So usually you try, like when you see something like that,

02:39:12.560 | you'll try to construct a theory and see if you can find,

02:39:15.640 | like you keep that theory in mind,

02:39:18.440 | like a hypothesis of why it would be,

02:39:20.480 | and then you ask further questions to try to elaborate.

02:39:23.800 | So can you maybe talk about the methodology

02:39:26.440 | of how you got the 500,000?

02:39:27.880 | Like what, like how did this come to be?

02:39:31.720 | - This might, yeah, this is, I might go into way too much

02:39:34.280 | detail about this 'cause I thought about this so much.

02:39:36.520 | 'Cause I'm like, the question is how do you get

02:39:38.240 | a lot of people to take a big survey?

02:39:40.360 | The longer the survey is, the lower the response rate.

02:39:42.960 | And I really wanted to do one big comprehensive survey

02:39:45.480 | so I could like check a whole bunch of correlations

02:39:47.320 | within it 'cause it's more annoying

02:39:50.320 | and it's harder to get a lot of people to retake

02:39:53.000 | similar surveys to each other at a time.

02:39:55.120 | So I'm like, okay, I need to convince

02:39:56.280 | a very large number of people to take

02:39:57.720 | a lot of these questions.

02:39:58.960 | And even building the questions, that was really hard

02:40:01.080 | because I'm like, okay, I need a comprehensive

02:40:03.320 | amount of fetishes.

02:40:04.160 | I can't ask everybody to answer

02:40:06.120 | for every single niche fetish.

02:40:07.560 | I'm like, do you like ball gags?

02:40:09.040 | Do you like funnel gags?

02:40:10.080 | Do you like wife shrew gags or whatever?

02:40:13.240 | I'm like, you can't do that.

02:40:14.320 | Nobody's gonna finish that survey.

02:40:15.640 | - Okay, fine.

02:40:16.480 | (laughing)

02:40:17.320 | I'm not gonna ask questions.

02:40:19.120 | What's a wife shrew, but okay.

02:40:20.560 | - I'm not doing the, I'm trying to refer to like,

02:40:22.720 | there's like a thing that like--

02:40:24.320 | - Different types of gags.

02:40:25.640 | - Something like that.

02:40:26.480 | - Okay.

02:40:27.360 | - Yeah, different, so I'm like, so what I need to do

02:40:29.520 | is I need to ask people a question.

02:40:30.800 | Like, are you into like bondage?

02:40:32.000 | And if you say yes, then I'll go ask you

02:40:33.720 | all the bondage questions.

02:40:34.560 | - Ah, got it.

02:40:35.400 | - Right, but then this seems simple,

02:40:37.200 | but then it's just exploded because I'm like,

02:40:39.080 | how do I categorize these fetishes?

02:40:41.200 | There's like, if you're into sploshing,

02:40:43.760 | which is like, you like sitting in cakes,

02:40:47.040 | you like getting in mud, basically like kind of messy,

02:40:49.520 | sensory, like, is this a disgust thing?

02:40:52.120 | Is it a humiliation thing?

02:40:53.440 | Is it a sensory thing?

02:40:55.040 | Like, which category, anyway.

02:40:57.120 | So it took me like two months of just agonizing

02:40:59.680 | over each fetish, 'cause you don't wanna miss a fetish.

02:41:02.160 | You don't wanna like have a really important thing

02:41:04.000 | that you accidentally put in a disgust category

02:41:05.760 | when it actually belongs in the humiliation category.

02:41:08.160 | You know?

02:41:09.120 | - Well, let me think about that.

02:41:10.280 | 'Cause like, you're still catching it,

02:41:11.640 | you're just miscategorizing it.

02:41:14.360 | - Right, 'cause if you're into sploshing,

02:41:15.440 | and you're like, this is clearly a humiliation thing,

02:41:17.040 | so you say, yes, I'm into humiliation stuff,

02:41:18.720 | and then I don't ask you about sploshing,

02:41:20.400 | then I'm missing a whole data set of people

02:41:22.800 | because I've falsely categorized your question.

02:41:24.400 | - You're going to miss stuff,

02:41:25.400 | you're just picking what's less and less important to miss.

02:41:29.120 | - Well, I'm trying to get people

02:41:30.360 | into the right question set.

02:41:31.760 | - Sure.

02:41:32.600 | - 'Cause like, I can't ask you all the questions,

02:41:34.040 | I have to ask you a couple overarching questions

02:41:35.600 | to know what specific questions to ask you.

02:41:38.320 | And so I have to, those overarching questions

02:41:40.120 | have to be really, really well calibrated

02:41:42.280 | so that I can accurately feed you

02:41:43.760 | into the right sub part of the survey.

02:41:45.800 | - Awesome.

02:41:46.640 | - And so that was extremely difficult

02:41:48.160 | if I'm, when I'm dealing with,

02:41:49.400 | I think it was like 850 fetishes.

02:41:51.200 | So I did a couple things to spot check.

02:41:53.880 | I like, I did a couple questions where I asked,

02:41:56.560 | like in the detailed in the survey,

02:41:58.080 | but like also the beginning of the survey,

02:41:59.280 | just to see like what percentage people I was capturing.

02:42:02.500 | But, and then I scored the survey.

02:42:06.080 | So if you take it,

02:42:07.280 | I had other people answer preliminary surveys

02:42:10.200 | where they gave me data about how taboo

02:42:11.880 | the various fetishes were.

02:42:13.400 | And then I use that data so that when you fill out the survey

02:42:16.680 | it's extremely comprehensive and you get data

02:42:18.360 | about exactly how taboo your interests are.

02:42:20.400 | And then you get a score at the end

02:42:21.360 | and I give you an equivalent kinky character,

02:42:24.560 | which I also had people write a whole bunch

02:42:26.040 | of fictional characters and some historic ones

02:42:28.120 | about like how kinky they were.

02:42:29.320 | So then I matched the historic character,

02:42:32.000 | kinky character to your score.

02:42:34.160 | - So that makes it like more fun,

02:42:35.600 | like gamifies it a little bit.

02:42:37.120 | And you can, like, you can brag about like how-

02:42:39.920 | - To be able to share it with others.

02:42:41.400 | And a lot of the characters were like goofy,

02:42:42.720 | like, like there's SpongeBob and like Hitler's on there

02:42:46.480 | and you know, South Park characters.

02:42:48.800 | - What is, what kink does Hitler have?

02:42:51.000 | - I think he's like, he's around Marilyn Monroe,

02:42:53.400 | which is like a slightly above average kinkyness.

02:42:57.080 | - Oh, sorry.

02:42:57.920 | I thought there was like a two dimensional space somehow.

02:43:02.120 | So this is like a literally from zero to-

02:43:04.000 | - How kinky, yeah.

02:43:05.040 | - So Hitler is about as a Marilyn Monroe.

02:43:06.800 | Who is the most, what's the character for like-

02:43:09.040 | - Willy Wonka.

02:43:10.240 | - Is the most kinky?

02:43:11.080 | - Was the most kinky, yeah.

02:43:13.160 | I think like maybe Captain America

02:43:14.600 | was the least kinky or something or Gandhi.

02:43:17.280 | - Meanwhile, but that's another conversation.

02:43:21.880 | Oh boy.

02:43:24.160 | - Yeah, so it went viral on TikTok basically

02:43:26.720 | 'cause people were like, what?

02:43:27.800 | I got this insane character.

02:43:29.080 | And then the sample size exploded from 40,000 to 500,000.

02:43:34.080 | - Wow, so like all it took is that kind of incentive?

02:43:37.640 | Or did you like at first have to pay people for this?

02:43:40.480 | - No, it was just that incentive.

02:43:42.120 | - And what about the demographic

02:43:46.280 | of the different people that took it?

02:43:47.760 | - Mostly younger, so usually early twenties,

02:43:50.160 | predominantly female, like 70% female.

02:43:53.160 | - 70% female.

02:43:54.160 | - Pretty like, wraps on a TikTok demographics pretty well.

02:43:57.240 | - Oh, okay, I got it.

02:43:59.040 | That's interesting.

02:44:00.040 | Young people are probably better for this kind of survey

02:44:04.240 | because there's probably a culture

02:44:05.680 | that's a little bit more honest about their sexuality.

02:44:08.400 | - Yeah, most likely.

02:44:09.320 | I think people are incentivized to be honest

02:44:11.200 | when they're getting a true identity response out of it.

02:44:14.160 | Like if you're doing it for money, you don't care.

02:44:17.000 | But like if you are invested in the result,

02:44:19.200 | you want to know what the truth of the answers are,

02:44:22.320 | then you actually-

02:44:23.920 | - There's possibly you also don't want to know the truth.

02:44:26.280 | - Yeah, this is true.

02:44:27.400 | - But on average, hopefully that doesn't.

02:44:29.080 | I mean, these are really difficult.

02:44:30.360 | Like what, is there some interesting little quirks

02:44:32.800 | that people should know about your methodology

02:44:37.160 | that you had to kind of solve

02:44:39.120 | to try to get to a really good survey?

02:44:41.360 | So one of you said is the categorization

02:44:43.640 | to make it more efficient.

02:44:44.920 | Is there some for the analysis part?

02:44:46.920 | - Yeah, so the graph that you were talking about

02:44:49.120 | is a binary.

02:44:51.360 | So it's like, if somebody expressed

02:44:53.200 | even a little bit of interest,

02:44:54.360 | then it goes into the graph.

02:44:55.480 | So it's like 80% of people expressed

02:44:57.520 | even a little bit of interest.

02:44:58.440 | So it's not representing degree of interest.

02:45:00.800 | It's not differentiating between them at all.

02:45:02.400 | So it's possible that like some fetishes

02:45:03.920 | have exactly the same amount of people

02:45:05.600 | like are at least a little bit into them,

02:45:07.000 | but one of them it's very extreme interest

02:45:08.960 | and the other is like vague and not very intense.

02:45:12.800 | So that's not reflected.

02:45:14.720 | I also like probably didn't represent

02:45:16.120 | the visual part right.

02:45:18.480 | Like it might not be intuitive, but-

02:45:20.600 | - So you chose a log scale,

02:45:22.160 | but it was kind of spreads things out

02:45:24.120 | to make it more clear.

02:45:26.400 | - 'Cause the linear, it was just so clustered at the bottom.

02:45:28.600 | You couldn't really separate it out.

02:45:30.440 | So there's obviously a selection effects as possible

02:45:32.440 | that like the identity results at the end

02:45:34.840 | impacted people's results a little bit.

02:45:36.960 | But the thing is like, I'm comparing it to what exists,

02:45:39.640 | like what is the alternative?

02:45:42.040 | And right now the research on this stuff is terrible.

02:45:44.840 | So it's like, I'm not saying my research is perfect,

02:45:47.120 | but it's like, at least it's something,

02:45:48.520 | like it's something that's pointing us

02:45:49.680 | maybe in a direction that we might be able

02:45:51.840 | to do more research on.

02:45:52.800 | - And you're making the data available.

02:45:54.480 | - Yeah, I'm doing it slowly because there's so,

02:45:58.680 | I ask about so many questions, it's like not very anonymized.

02:46:01.600 | So I'm really seeing the small sections

02:46:02.840 | of the data at a time.

02:46:03.920 | - Yeah.

02:46:04.740 | Have you published in like journals and stuff?

02:46:09.440 | - No, I haven't.

02:46:10.280 | - Do you have any interest in that or is your approach?

02:46:13.280 | - I'm like, I'm conflicted about it.

02:46:14.760 | Like it sounds cool because then I could be like,

02:46:16.720 | ha ha, I'm publishing a journal.

02:46:18.240 | But then people who are yelling about me

02:46:20.120 | who don't know anything about statistics on Twitter,

02:46:21.680 | like that I can go like shove it in their face.

02:46:23.520 | - But then you're also giving in to the silly criticism.

02:46:26.960 | - Like I don't, like I want,

02:46:28.160 | I feel so passionate about extra science,

02:46:31.840 | like science that you can just do.

02:46:33.360 | Like I wanna make science accessible.

02:46:35.380 | Like anybody can just go look and learn about the basics

02:46:38.400 | of like doing a survey or figuring out

02:46:40.840 | how to interpret information.

02:46:42.280 | And doing a published journal feels like

02:46:46.320 | I'm betraying my cause a little bit.

02:46:48.880 | - That's often behind a paywall.

02:46:50.720 | Yeah, it goes against the,

02:46:52.900 | I mean, I think you not publishing in a journal

02:46:56.160 | is doing a big public service.

02:46:58.320 | - Aw, I think it's the first time I've heard that.

02:47:01.040 | Thank you.

02:47:01.880 | - Oh, like just coming from like on this topic,

02:47:04.560 | the elitism I see on the psychology side

02:47:08.800 | with the journals and the academia,

02:47:10.480 | the positions and the institutions you come from,

02:47:13.140 | all of that, that goes against,

02:47:15.260 | I think that's more useful for math and computer science

02:47:19.920 | and so on, where there's like clear,

02:47:23.440 | but even then, even then, code is code, data is data.

02:47:29.560 | Like prestige shouldn't matter at all.

02:47:32.000 | Maybe for like biological experiments,

02:47:37.640 | like virology or something like that,

02:47:40.160 | it's good to be from a major lab

02:47:42.240 | that has a reputation for like

02:47:44.880 | going through all the procedures,

02:47:46.280 | like you know you can trust.

02:47:48.480 | But here, like you're dealing with a giant mess of humanity.

02:47:51.200 | Like it's beautiful to be transparent, to be raw,

02:47:54.320 | to be exploring it together with everybody.

02:47:56.160 | Yeah, it's really beautiful.

02:47:57.000 | - I think people like have a lot of incentive

02:47:58.960 | to doubt the results.

02:48:00.120 | Like a lot of the research I'm doing

02:48:01.600 | is to like cis and trans people.

02:48:03.420 | Like we don't have any data about transsexuality,

02:48:06.840 | like not very good at least.

02:48:09.040 | And I'm really curious,

02:48:09.880 | I don't really have an agenda about it.

02:48:11.280 | I think like being trans is cool

02:48:13.560 | if you wanna be trans, do it.

02:48:14.840 | And like I have some skepticism about like gender theory,

02:48:17.800 | but like it doesn't come down to impact

02:48:19.600 | like the way I think trans people should be treated,

02:48:21.080 | which I think is like treat them,

02:48:22.840 | be fucking nice and human about it, I don't know.

02:48:25.240 | But when I'm talking about the thing,

02:48:27.260 | like my conclusions are that like

02:48:29.360 | transsexuality is really unique.

02:48:31.240 | It's not like cis or cis woman or man sexuality at all.

02:48:35.720 | And to me, this is super cool,

02:48:37.080 | but like a lot of people,

02:48:38.080 | this is very politicized right now.

02:48:39.880 | Like the data into like transsexual preferences,

02:48:43.160 | like it's so loaded, which is really sad

02:48:45.000 | because I am very accepting of weird sexuality.

02:48:48.040 | Like if you're into a weird thing,

02:48:49.000 | I'm like, good for you, this is super cool.

02:48:50.960 | Like let's figure out how to make it

02:48:52.480 | so that you can explore the thing you're into

02:48:54.380 | without any stigma.

02:48:55.920 | But because there's so much stigma

02:48:57.320 | that like if you find that one demographic

02:48:58.860 | is into weirder sex stuff than the other,

02:49:00.660 | like it's hard to present that in a way

02:49:02.100 | that people don't weaponize.

02:49:03.720 | So it's been really politically touchy subject here.

02:49:06.680 | - Yeah, but you do it in a way that's not,

02:49:08.040 | it's not feel like it has an agenda, right?

02:49:11.000 | You're just exploring.

02:49:12.280 | - Yeah, I feel pretty open to what I'm gonna find.

02:49:15.720 | Like I often have no idea what the data is gonna tell me.

02:49:18.480 | And I'm like, I pre-commit like,

02:49:19.320 | okay, I could say A, B, or C,

02:49:21.000 | and I'm like down to publish any of those findings.

02:49:23.500 | - So you've put together an ask whole cart deck

02:49:29.560 | with a lot of awesome questions to ask at a party

02:49:32.000 | or anywhere, honestly, including on the podcast.

02:49:36.640 | Let me ask you one from that deck.

02:49:39.200 | Is sex really about power?

02:49:41.300 | So what's the role of power dynamics in sex?

02:49:43.640 | Is that everything you understand?

02:49:45.440 | Like from the survey,

02:49:46.600 | in terms of what people are turned on by,

02:49:49.360 | you've talked about like the preferences

02:49:51.440 | that women versus men have

02:49:53.800 | for like submissiveness and dominance.

02:49:56.120 | And we've already talked about it a little bit,

02:49:59.240 | but like it's expressed more strongly.

02:50:02.000 | Yeah, I already forget the results,

02:50:03.280 | but I feel like women have more preference to be submissive.

02:50:05.800 | - Yeah, this is one of the things

02:50:06.840 | that got me into researching fetishes to begin with,

02:50:09.660 | because I think I came across some data.

02:50:11.600 | I did like a brief survey where

02:50:13.200 | roughly around 60% of women report being submissive

02:50:16.680 | and 40% of men report being dominant.

02:50:18.840 | And this was really fascinating to me.

02:50:20.280 | I'm like, well, why is there this gap?

02:50:21.680 | Like, why do we not?

02:50:24.040 | 'Cause I guess I have some priors

02:50:25.600 | that maybe this is an evolutionary thing.

02:50:27.600 | Like the submission dominant, like strong men,

02:50:29.560 | and you know, like women being like,

02:50:30.680 | oh, this hot man, you know,

02:50:32.360 | the men are like ravaging and stuff.

02:50:33.880 | I'm like, shouldn't this be in our genes?

02:50:36.160 | But there's a gap.

02:50:37.880 | - What's the gap?

02:50:39.840 | - The gap is the dominant submissive gap.

02:50:41.320 | More women are submissive than there are dominant men.

02:50:44.040 | - Oh, wait, really?

02:50:45.880 | - Yeah, it's a pretty significant gap.

02:50:48.160 | And this is held up, like it depends on what you're testing.

02:50:50.180 | I've tested a bunch of things.

02:50:51.120 | This is part of why I did this big survey.

02:50:53.160 | - Nice.

02:50:54.000 | - But it depends against, again,

02:50:55.740 | on like what kind of dominance you're measuring,

02:50:57.460 | but overall it's a roughly 40 to 60%.

02:51:00.280 | - So when you say there's not many dominant men,

02:51:03.280 | the meaning like they express like a desire

02:51:05.880 | to be dominant in a relationship?

02:51:07.560 | - Yeah, or like sexually.

02:51:09.480 | - Sexually.

02:51:10.320 | - Sexually, in bed.

02:51:11.140 | So like if I ask questions like,

02:51:12.600 | how much do you like being dominant in bed?

02:51:14.400 | Like men are less likely to answer strong yes

02:51:16.800 | to that question.

02:51:17.880 | But if I ask, are you likely to be submissive?

02:51:20.560 | Like women are very much yes.

02:51:23.160 | - Really?

02:51:24.000 | And that's expressive?

02:51:25.000 | Like that represents truth?

02:51:28.680 | - My guess is--

02:51:29.520 | - What's wrong with men?

02:51:30.340 | - So this is, I think there's some reflection

02:51:32.120 | on like FetLife.

02:51:32.960 | So FetLife is this website where people like sign up

02:51:34.560 | and connect based on their fetishes.

02:51:36.520 | And this is like,

02:51:37.360 | you can kind of see it picked up in the forum posts

02:51:39.680 | about like how like dominant men are, you know,

02:51:41.880 | are getting laid so much.

02:51:43.120 | And you know, submissives are always looking for a dominant.

02:51:45.600 | Like there's, it's an unequal market.

02:51:47.520 | - Holy shit.

02:51:48.360 | - Yeah.

02:51:49.180 | - This is great news.

02:51:50.020 | (laughing)

02:51:51.400 | I didn't know this.

02:51:52.240 | That's interesting.

02:51:53.080 | - Yeah.

02:51:53.900 | - What does it reflect about modern society?

02:51:55.800 | Is it like, is that,

02:51:57.160 | 'cause you know, there's these trends

02:51:58.320 | about like decreased masculinity or that kind of stuff.

02:52:00.920 | Does that reflect, is that similar?

02:52:02.880 | - I'm trying not to hold onto one theory

02:52:04.640 | 'cause I'm not sure.

02:52:05.480 | One is possible like decreasing testosterone levels.

02:52:08.720 | Testosterone seems to be,

02:52:10.000 | I have a little bit of other research,

02:52:11.360 | but I'm still checking it out.

02:52:12.580 | That seems to indicate that higher testosterone,

02:52:14.720 | you're more likely to be dominant.

02:52:16.200 | So if we're seeing decreased testosterone levels

02:52:18.000 | across society, we should be seeing a greater gap.

02:52:21.380 | - This is so fascinating.

02:52:23.680 | Once again, this is like a super interesting way

02:52:25.920 | to look at humanity.

02:52:27.280 | 'Cause it is such an important part of humanity.

02:52:29.160 | And so like how many people are doing

02:52:31.120 | large scale research like this?

02:52:33.440 | I feel like you're like at the top of the world.

02:52:35.640 | You're like world-class at the top of the world

02:52:37.640 | doing research on this stuff.

02:52:39.040 | - Yeah, I think I might have the biggest,

02:52:40.640 | most comprehensive fetish data set in the world right now.

02:52:44.140 | - That's epic.

02:52:47.120 | - Thank you.

02:52:47.960 | I'm really happy about it.

02:52:49.360 | I'm very proud.

02:52:50.240 | - Yeah.

02:52:51.080 | And it's, you know, it's probably growing,

02:52:53.360 | but it's also enabling you to establish a name

02:52:56.300 | to where you, like a prestige,

02:52:57.880 | like a reputation to where people can go to you

02:52:59.840 | to like trust you more and more,

02:53:01.600 | to do longer surveys perhaps.

02:53:03.360 | - Maybe.

02:53:05.360 | I think the data analysis afterwards is very different

02:53:08.360 | from like the survey design itself.

02:53:10.560 | So I'm still very amateur at the data analysis.

02:53:14.400 | - Yeah, but you can always catch up on that.

02:53:16.000 | I guess the data analysis does enable you to,

02:53:18.760 | does teach you how to ask better questions

02:53:20.680 | in order to understand.

02:53:21.520 | - Yes, it goes back and forth.

02:53:22.600 | Like as I'm looking at the data,

02:53:23.800 | it informs the way I wanna phrase questions the next time.

02:53:27.000 | - So women are more, at least in private,

02:53:29.040 | able to say that they would like to be submissive

02:53:32.920 | and men, even in private, are not,

02:53:34.860 | disproportionately saying they're not

02:53:38.400 | willing to be dominant.

02:53:40.400 | - Yeah.

02:53:41.240 | So it's possible. - What the fuck?

02:53:42.320 | - If this is caused by decreasing testosterone levels,

02:53:44.320 | then this means that we're probably having

02:53:45.640 | less satisfying sex overall.

02:53:47.080 | Like we're becoming less and less sexually compatible

02:53:49.280 | as time goes on.

02:53:50.120 | To be fair, I'm not sure that it is connected

02:53:52.040 | to testosterone levels.

02:53:52.920 | Like it's possible that this is just like a genetic thing.

02:53:55.580 | Like the gay uncle theory, like the idea is like,

02:53:58.380 | maybe gay people evolved to like be sort of

02:54:00.460 | taking themselves out of the gene pool to be assistants.

02:54:03.380 | And like, it's possible that like,

02:54:04.940 | there's certain percentage of men sort of like,

02:54:06.580 | quote unquote, evolved to be submissive,

02:54:08.580 | to take themselves out of sexual competition

02:54:11.160 | and to instead be like the monkeys

02:54:13.740 | revolving at the edge of the pack.

02:54:15.660 | It's unclear.

02:54:16.500 | - Oh, it's a method of survival?

02:54:17.940 | Like, so you stay out of the competition?

02:54:19.980 | - Yeah, and I'm like a little sus about

02:54:22.020 | these kinds of evo psych theories.

02:54:24.180 | So I'm not, I'm just saying it because it's like--

02:54:26.340 | - These are different ideas that are possible, yeah, okay.

02:54:29.020 | - So yeah, I'm not saying that it's definitely testosterone,

02:54:31.300 | there's other things.

02:54:32.300 | It's also possible that it's culture.

02:54:34.080 | People are definitely gonna bring that up.

02:54:35.380 | Based on my survey though,

02:54:36.900 | it doesn't seem to be any evidence of that.

02:54:38.900 | Like I asked about like how much pressure was put on you

02:54:42.020 | to be, you know, agentee in your childhood.

02:54:44.780 | Like a lot of questions around this kind of thing

02:54:47.220 | and no correlation at all to dominance.

02:54:49.500 | - Well, related to sexuality,

02:54:52.620 | I'm very uncomfortable right now, but nevertheless--

02:54:56.860 | - Plow forward.

02:54:57.740 | - In a dominant fashion.

02:55:00.980 | The blog post titled "Rape Spectrum Survey Results."

02:55:08.820 | What are the key takeaways from that survey?

02:55:13.820 | - So I did the survey when I had a friend be like,

02:55:15.940 | "Hey, I had this confusing sexual experience.

02:55:17.980 | "Was it rape?"

02:55:19.500 | Like somebody kind of pressured her

02:55:21.380 | and she eventually stopped saying it or something.

02:55:23.020 | I was like, "That's a great question.

02:55:23.860 | "Like I don't know how people would consider this."

02:55:26.100 | And so I put a whole bunch of different gray scenarios

02:55:30.740 | into a survey and then asked people to rate

02:55:32.460 | how rapey they thought that scenario was.

02:55:34.140 | - So you actually like little narratives

02:55:37.740 | that they get to rate.

02:55:39.540 | - Like, you know, this person is on a date with this person,

02:55:41.740 | they get drunk and the other person's not drunk.

02:55:43.700 | I try to keep gender neutral names for all of them.

02:55:47.540 | - And you reduce them into a more concise description

02:55:50.620 | of the situation.

02:55:51.660 | - Yeah.

02:55:52.500 | - Like in this visualization,

02:55:53.320 | so you have this rape spectrum that's a result.

02:55:56.060 | - Yeah.

02:55:56.900 | - Where on top are things that are less likely

02:55:59.100 | to be considered rape by the people that took the survey

02:56:01.300 | and the bottom more likely.

02:56:03.420 | The likeliest is a stranger forcibly assaults someone

02:56:07.900 | who screams and fights the entire time.

02:56:09.980 | That gets 100.

02:56:11.140 | What do we make of something that's not zero?

02:56:15.380 | It's like a 12 is what?

02:56:16.980 | What is that?

02:56:17.820 | How are we supposed to interpret a 12 out of 100

02:56:19.380 | as a rape? - Extremely low.

02:56:20.580 | - Okay.

02:56:21.420 | - So it's like not zero, but it's just very close to it.

02:56:24.140 | - Having sex with an enthusiastic sex worker is a 12.

02:56:29.140 | That's the lowest one.

02:56:31.060 | And there's a few, I'll just mention a few that are lower,

02:56:34.780 | like at that level.

02:56:37.020 | Have sex to make a partner happy in a relationship,

02:56:40.000 | lying about wealth, hobbies in order to get laid.

02:56:43.980 | Person with Down syndrome eagerly has sex

02:56:46.820 | with a neurotypical, not revealing being transgender.

02:56:50.540 | Until after sex and so on.

02:56:52.700 | I think you mentioned that there's some,

02:56:54.140 | like that not revealing being transgender until after sex,

02:56:57.540 | there's some differences amongst what,

02:57:00.500 | men and women or something like that?

02:57:02.340 | - I think that was the one that men found more offensive

02:57:04.740 | than women.

02:57:05.660 | I'm trying to, I wrote it a while ago.

02:57:07.560 | - I mean, this is nuanced and difficult, right?

02:57:13.460 | 'Cause I think in a lot of public discourse,

02:57:15.700 | the word rape is pretty binary.

02:57:17.620 | - Yeah, it's like either is or is not rape.

02:57:20.580 | - And so you had a friend where it was like, this felt rapey.

02:57:24.020 | - Yeah, she's like confused about how to interpret it.

02:57:25.780 | I think people look to the terms

02:57:27.780 | to know how to feel about something.

02:57:29.700 | Like, have you ever like been through an experience,

02:57:31.300 | you're like, that was weird.

02:57:32.180 | And then you tell it to somebody else and they're like,

02:57:33.500 | oh my God, you were assaulted.

02:57:35.620 | And then it totally recontextualizes

02:57:37.620 | the thing that you've experienced.

02:57:38.940 | And I think that this is clunky with the word rape

02:57:41.420 | because either you were raped or you're not.

02:57:43.440 | You either like have this entire context,

02:57:45.540 | like thrust upon you or you don't.

02:57:47.260 | And we're really not nuanced about it at all.

02:57:49.620 | And so I would really like to have some sort of like,

02:57:51.340 | oh, that was like a 30% rape you just endured.

02:57:53.700 | - Yeah, and I mean, there's probably other dimensions

02:57:57.300 | about how traumatic it is,

02:57:58.500 | how difficult it is to recover from,

02:58:00.500 | all that kind of stuff.

02:58:02.420 | Yeah, I mean, like people,

02:58:04.020 | it's a dangerous thing to assign a word to an experience,

02:58:07.220 | like even, or to a relationship,

02:58:08.900 | like saying a toxic relationship.

02:58:11.460 | - Yeah.

02:58:12.300 | - That can completely destroy your perception

02:58:14.060 | of that relationship.

02:58:15.660 | - Yeah, absolutely.

02:58:16.500 | I remember this was the case with my childhood.

02:58:18.100 | Like I talked about being very abusive,

02:58:19.260 | but I've talked about how like

02:58:20.300 | there was a good amount of meaning there

02:58:21.820 | so that I didn't process it as abusive at the time.

02:58:24.700 | I remember after I got out of that house in that culture,

02:58:27.260 | people would tell me, oh, your childhood was really abusive.

02:58:29.820 | And I was really confused by that

02:58:31.660 | because it's a total recontextualization of that narrative.

02:58:35.160 | It's like the things that I went through were not,

02:58:36.860 | you know, good and virtuous and had meaning,

02:58:39.020 | but rather those were like the result of, you know,

02:58:41.140 | parents who didn't like love you enough or something.

02:58:44.300 | And even though the concrete things that happened to me

02:58:47.980 | did not change, like no facts shifted,

02:58:50.800 | the fact that like the interpretation of the facts shifted

02:58:53.540 | caused me quite a bit of distress for a long time.

02:58:56.220 | I was like, oh my God, I'm a traumatized, like abused person.

02:58:59.100 | Like I went through an abusive childhood

02:59:00.740 | and it was really hard for me, made it worse.

02:59:03.040 | Like it's crazy the power that terms have.

02:59:06.340 | - I think we didn't talk about this,

02:59:07.820 | but how did you begin to overcome

02:59:10.260 | the trauma of your childhood?

02:59:13.540 | You mentioned LSD, so drugs are part of it.

02:59:15.460 | Like what was the mental journey of that?

02:59:18.220 | - I was doing LSD quite a lot when I was 21, 22.

02:59:21.300 | - What's it like, by the way?

02:59:22.340 | I've never done LSD, what's it?

02:59:24.140 | - Very difficult to describe because it's like,

02:59:27.260 | like it changes sort of aspects about your environment

02:59:30.460 | that are invisible to you because they're so stable.

02:59:33.220 | - Is it like, if you can compare it to like psilocybin,

02:59:36.380 | is it very different?

02:59:37.220 | - Oh yeah, it's like similar.

02:59:39.060 | I forgot that you did shrooms.

02:59:40.140 | Yeah, okay, then you probably know.

02:59:41.440 | You know, like the kind of shift that you have

02:59:42.780 | from the sober to shrooms is roughly similar.

02:59:45.140 | It's like more clear, I think.

02:59:46.920 | Shrooms is more like embodied,

02:59:48.260 | but LSD is much more intellectual for me.

02:59:51.180 | It strikes different people differently.

02:59:52.280 | I prefer shrooms a lot.

02:59:53.300 | I'm sorry, LSD, I prefer LSD a lot.

02:59:55.660 | - Why is it not popularly taken?

02:59:57.460 | Like there seems to be a negative connotation to LSD

03:00:00.580 | 'cause like it seems to potentially have

03:00:03.260 | like a destructive effect.

03:00:04.620 | Like maybe dosage is more difficult to get right

03:00:06.980 | or something like that.

03:00:07.820 | - Does this exactly, so actually a long time ago,

03:00:09.500 | I did a survey on shrooms versus LSD.

03:00:11.700 | So I asked people and people had slightly stronger

03:00:14.220 | experiences on LSD overall, I remember,

03:00:16.020 | but rated the experiences about is equally good.

03:00:18.420 | But I think people like shrooms

03:00:20.460 | 'cause it feels more natural, quote unquote.

03:00:22.260 | But I think if you like fed somebody a shroom

03:00:24.660 | and like actually had the LSD molecule in it,

03:00:26.420 | they would have a, they would think it felt very natural,

03:00:28.460 | but that's besides the point.

03:00:29.700 | I think people get kind of incoherent on LSD

03:00:33.380 | in a way that feels really alienating.

03:00:35.440 | Like I consider my LSD use very heavy

03:00:38.440 | to be one of the best decisions I ever made in my life,

03:00:40.700 | but I definitely was incoherent for a lot of it.

03:00:43.220 | Like talking about like we're all one consciousness,

03:00:45.260 | everything is love, man.

03:00:46.780 | You know, and people are like--

03:00:47.620 | - Why is that incoherent?

03:00:49.660 | - So I think it's not incoherent.

03:00:51.580 | But like if you go around saying everything is love,

03:00:53.900 | people are like, this guy's kind of blasted out of his mind.

03:00:56.820 | - This podcast is basically your LSD drive

03:01:00.500 | on the, for a bunch of episodes.

03:01:02.980 | Yeah, I get this for sure.

03:01:04.900 | Oh, well, it's not just about love,

03:01:07.100 | but it's about like talking in that way

03:01:11.180 | about reality, about the world.

03:01:12.700 | Yeah, sure.

03:01:13.740 | - It's like overfitting.

03:01:15.140 | The narratives that you make about the world

03:01:16.320 | become really vivid.

03:01:17.860 | And so you pattern match just really aggressively.

03:01:20.100 | Like everything is connected

03:01:21.580 | and you come up with these explanations for things.

03:01:23.300 | And I think I was very fortunate.

03:01:24.780 | So I like this theory about psychedelics

03:01:26.500 | where you either like belief construct or you don't.

03:01:28.540 | So you take psychedelics and it sort of like burns away

03:01:31.740 | a lot of your belief structure.

03:01:33.940 | And sometimes this happens

03:01:36.740 | and then you're like,

03:01:37.580 | "Oh, I need to like invent something to fill in the gaps."

03:01:39.420 | So you're like, "Okay, I think that maybe time is an illusion

03:01:42.780 | so I must now believe that like we're actually

03:01:45.020 | in a time loop or like time travel is possible."

03:01:47.860 | So you experience time differently

03:01:49.220 | and then you come up with a different belief about time.

03:01:51.620 | Whereas other people don't do this belief construction

03:01:54.420 | at all, like you experience time differently

03:01:56.380 | and you sort of let yourself not have a belief.

03:01:58.580 | You're not like, okay,

03:01:59.420 | and you're not developing any beliefs about time

03:02:01.140 | in its absence.

03:02:02.100 | You're just simply experiencing the absence

03:02:04.300 | of the concept of time.

03:02:05.900 | And so I don't have a lot of data to back this up

03:02:08.780 | in my anecdotal experience

03:02:09.940 | 'cause I've tripped out a lot of people.

03:02:11.320 | People either tend to belief construct or they don't.

03:02:13.580 | And people who do not belief construct

03:02:15.260 | seem to get more out of their LSD trips.

03:02:17.340 | So if you can let a belief go

03:02:18.580 | without building anything in its absence,

03:02:21.140 | it's much more beneficial for you.

03:02:22.540 | And I think I just, for some reason,

03:02:23.900 | happen to have some brain that's constructed

03:02:25.580 | where I don't get a belief construction at all.

03:02:29.260 | - So that's really interesting

03:02:30.660 | that belief construction is negative.

03:02:35.100 | Is it necessarily negative?

03:02:36.380 | Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

03:02:37.780 | - I mean belief construction in a way that's like,

03:02:40.180 | not like playing with frames,

03:02:43.460 | but rather committing to a different frame.

03:02:45.820 | So I like being able to play with ideas

03:02:48.220 | and be like, let's look at it this way or that way.

03:02:49.700 | That's awesome.

03:02:50.540 | But if you're like, okay, you know what?

03:02:52.100 | I took LSD and now I absolutely believe

03:02:53.860 | the cops are outside.

03:02:55.260 | And you're like, dude, no, you're just like,

03:02:56.700 | you can't shift out of that, right?

03:02:58.860 | Your brain needs to fill in the gap.

03:03:00.680 | You're not allowed to have a gap,

03:03:01.700 | so you're not allowed to be flexible.

03:03:03.260 | And again, I don't think this is like a personal failing.

03:03:05.780 | I think this is like literally probably genetic

03:03:07.780 | or like physical thing that's causing this.

03:03:09.660 | - But do you think there's possible beliefs

03:03:11.060 | that are like enlightening that you can stick to?

03:03:13.780 | Like find a frame that like,

03:03:16.620 | I guess if you don't believe construct

03:03:20.380 | and you're escaping your previous beliefs,

03:03:22.140 | aren't you doing like just some,

03:03:23.820 | you're picking up a bigger frame in some way.

03:03:25.660 | - Yeah, I mean, you're taking your beliefs as object

03:03:28.460 | as opposed to being subject to them.

03:03:29.900 | - Ah, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it.

03:03:31.820 | And some of that, I guess, is genetic

03:03:33.220 | and there's these categories of people,

03:03:34.620 | there's two categories that experience LSD

03:03:36.580 | in different ways.

03:03:37.420 | - Yeah. - And you're one of those

03:03:38.300 | that are able to just let go.

03:03:39.420 | - Yeah, I just think I had a good reaction.

03:03:40.860 | And I think a lot of maybe the negative stereotype of LSD

03:03:44.060 | comes from people who are belief constructing

03:03:46.140 | or carry the belief constructing off of the LSD trip.

03:03:48.620 | So you take LSD and you're like,

03:03:49.620 | ah, I'm believing these insane things.

03:03:51.460 | And people from the outside see that and they're like,

03:03:52.980 | oh my God, this person took LSD and became stupid.

03:03:56.060 | It's very scary.

03:03:56.960 | - What's frame control?

03:03:59.820 | 'Cause that has been at the core of your trauma,

03:04:02.940 | at the core of your upbringing.

03:04:04.420 | What's frame control?

03:04:05.660 | And also, sorry, frame control in general,

03:04:08.860 | 'cause that's part of human interaction.

03:04:12.540 | - Yeah, frame control is like a way

03:04:15.060 | of manipulating somebody else that is non-obvious.

03:04:19.380 | - So there's a negative connotation to that usually?

03:04:22.060 | - Yeah.

03:04:22.900 | I mean, I think maybe I chose the term kind of poorly

03:04:25.060 | 'cause I think to some degree people are always

03:04:26.820 | a little bit manipulating each other.

03:04:28.380 | But I think it's generally obvious.

03:04:29.660 | Like for example, if I disagree with you,

03:04:31.500 | I want you to believe what I believe.

03:04:33.540 | But this is like an obvious thing

03:04:35.060 | that is visible between us.

03:04:35.900 | It's like an object on the table.

03:04:37.340 | It's like, here's the box where I want you to believe

03:04:39.980 | what you wanna believe. - The disagreement box.

03:04:42.020 | - Yeah, so we're under a shared context

03:04:44.900 | where we understand that we're trying to move each other.

03:04:48.380 | This is chill to me.

03:04:49.420 | I think this is cool.

03:04:50.820 | We do this all the time and it's important.

03:04:52.460 | But frame control is the kind of thing

03:04:54.140 | where you are trying carefully

03:04:55.660 | to obscure the existence of that box.

03:04:58.300 | You're like, oh, the thing that I'm doing,

03:05:00.420 | I'm like using tactics to try to influence

03:05:03.100 | what your reality is without us being both aware

03:05:06.900 | that this is what I'm doing.

03:05:07.820 | - Yeah, I've been assuming you're doing that the whole time.

03:05:11.460 | No. - Oh my God.

03:05:12.700 | I have to like figure out how to read

03:05:15.340 | your facial expressions.

03:05:16.260 | I'm still learning. - There's none.

03:05:17.500 | There's none. - You don't have any?

03:05:18.860 | - I'm like, I'm not even like a Chad GBT.

03:05:21.500 | I'm like GBT-1 with my facial expressions.

03:05:24.380 | Like it's kind of off.

03:05:25.700 | Like this doesn't seem to match emotions,

03:05:27.380 | but it's kind of intelligent seemingly,

03:05:29.540 | but definitely not conscious.

03:05:31.060 | Anyway, so like a negative connotation,

03:05:34.020 | manipulating, not being honest

03:05:37.100 | about the actual intentions of how you'd like

03:05:42.100 | to control the conversation.

03:05:43.140 | - And I think there might be a naive version

03:05:44.820 | of interpreting this where you're just like,

03:05:46.380 | oh, I'm trying to like subtly get you to believe like,

03:05:49.220 | oh, do you really think that's bad though?

03:05:51.220 | But this is not quite what I mean.

03:05:52.740 | I mean, there's like a couple of concrete things

03:05:54.260 | that are signs of frame control.

03:05:55.660 | Like one of them is pushing the painful update button,

03:05:58.340 | which is this thing where it's like,

03:06:00.780 | hey, if you learn this, it's going to be really painful.

03:06:04.500 | The truth is painful.

03:06:05.980 | And if you're realizing this thing about yourself,

03:06:08.700 | it's gonna hurt.

03:06:09.540 | And this is a sign that you're heading

03:06:10.900 | in the right direction.

03:06:11.940 | So if you frame all pain as a sign of virtue,

03:06:14.940 | then this means that pain that's resulting as damage

03:06:18.180 | is something you're going to ignore.

03:06:20.180 | So it's like this, it's a common like cults, right?

03:06:22.380 | This is for your own good.

03:06:23.580 | Oh, you know, you've faced a brave truth about yourself

03:06:27.300 | that you're like not quite as wise as I am.

03:06:29.900 | When really your brain might be trying

03:06:31.300 | to tell you protected things.

03:06:32.340 | Or like another one is like finger trap beliefs,

03:06:34.940 | where the belief is constructed in such a way

03:06:36.980 | that doubting it lends proof to the belief.

03:06:40.260 | So a very common example is like Satan.

03:06:42.620 | Like the Christians are like,

03:06:44.700 | Satan is going to try to make you doubt him,

03:06:46.780 | the existence of he's gonna so doubt,

03:06:48.380 | like maybe he's not actually real.

03:06:50.260 | And so if you believe in Satan and then you're like,

03:06:52.140 | okay, now I'm having doubts, like maybe he isn't real.

03:06:54.860 | This is like, oh, this is exactly

03:06:56.180 | what I was taught to expect.

03:06:57.140 | Like I am doubting this belief because I was told,

03:07:00.420 | because like this is what Satan does

03:07:01.820 | and it's taken as evidence for it.

03:07:03.540 | So like the attempt to move away from the belief,

03:07:05.460 | like rebounds on you and like causes you

03:07:08.780 | to be more embedded inside of the belief.

03:07:11.380 | So it's like techniques like these,

03:07:12.700 | like very subtle things where like being inside

03:07:15.140 | of this system sort of just self reinforces the system

03:07:17.900 | is what I consider to be frame control.

03:07:19.980 | - And have you met people that are really good

03:07:22.580 | at this kind of frame control?

03:07:24.900 | - Yeah, yeah, definitely.

03:07:26.740 | - So like you're saying that your father was like that?

03:07:30.220 | - Yeah, to be fair, I'm not sure he was good at it

03:07:31.860 | because I was a kid.

03:07:33.220 | - Right.

03:07:34.060 | - I think like he's probably not very good at it actually,

03:07:35.860 | but when you're a child being raised in a house

03:07:38.060 | where he works from home and you're homeschooled,

03:07:40.940 | that's just kind of what's going to happen.

03:07:42.780 | And to be fair, I do think that like strong frame control

03:07:44.980 | is quite rare.

03:07:45.940 | I don't think, most people are kind of doing something

03:07:47.940 | like this, but not nearly to the degree

03:07:49.740 | that makes, gives me the ick.

03:07:51.060 | - Yeah.

03:07:51.900 | - I've met maybe like five or six people,

03:07:53.580 | I think who I've really don't like

03:07:55.580 | because of those very subtle things that they're doing.

03:07:57.940 | - But I think also I'm starting to kind of understand

03:08:01.660 | that there is people who are narcissists

03:08:04.660 | and sociopaths and psychopaths out there.

03:08:07.660 | And I'm not even sure if people like that,

03:08:12.100 | 'cause I think they get good at frame control,

03:08:14.460 | but I don't know if they're aware they're doing it.

03:08:18.260 | - Oh yeah.

03:08:19.100 | - Which makes me also nervous about myself.

03:08:21.140 | Like am I doing frame control?

03:08:23.300 | - Yeah, that's one of the big things.

03:08:25.380 | It's like, typically people,

03:08:27.660 | you can't think about incentive.

03:08:29.660 | Like you can't think about,

03:08:30.500 | oh, is this person trying to do it or not?

03:08:32.220 | - Yeah.

03:08:33.060 | - That's like not the quite, not the way,

03:08:33.940 | you have to look at what are the effects.

03:08:35.180 | - Pragmatically looking at the effects.

03:08:36.780 | And then you also have to do that with yourself

03:08:38.780 | when you're having interactions with others.

03:08:40.780 | - It's like very much like, are you like,

03:08:42.500 | how much space are you making

03:08:43.900 | for the other person's reality here?

03:08:46.060 | Like, are you giving power to the other person?

03:08:49.500 | 'Cause a big aspect of frame control

03:08:50.860 | is you're carefully rerouting the power to yourself.

03:08:53.580 | You're like, I am the person who knows.

03:08:55.740 | Like you're having pain in your beliefs

03:08:57.700 | because you're updating towards the things that I believe.

03:09:00.380 | Like it's just like a gravity well.

03:09:02.460 | But if you're setting up the gravity well

03:09:04.140 | of your interactions,

03:09:04.980 | such that you're making sure

03:09:05.820 | you're giving the other person power

03:09:07.580 | over the shared reality you inhabit,

03:09:09.260 | I think it's a really good sign

03:09:10.100 | that you're not doing frame control.

03:09:12.380 | - So if you're making room for them.

03:09:14.140 | - Yeah.

03:09:14.980 | - Okay.

03:09:15.820 | Unless we're talking about in bed,

03:09:17.300 | then it's all general relativity from there

03:09:20.540 | and black holes and stuff.

03:09:21.380 | - Frame control, bed frame control.

03:09:23.100 | Bed frame control.

03:09:24.500 | It took me a long time to get a bed frame.

03:09:27.900 | Just, I'm saying.

03:09:28.900 | - Wow.

03:09:29.740 | But you wear a suit though.

03:09:31.060 | - Yeah.

03:09:34.340 | So frame control in the streets,

03:09:36.100 | no frame in the sheets.

03:09:37.580 | I don't know.

03:09:38.420 | I don't know what the funny thing is to say there,

03:09:39.900 | but there you have it.

03:09:41.300 | So the LSD helped you escape the frame of,

03:09:46.780 | can you like elaborate what was the frame that was,

03:09:52.900 | holding you back from,

03:09:57.900 | like the frame constructed by your childhood experience

03:10:00.300 | that was holding you back as an intellectual,

03:10:02.820 | as a thinker, as a free being in this world?

03:10:05.100 | - Well, I was really fucked up.

03:10:07.820 | Like after I left home and I absorbed

03:10:09.860 | the external narrative that I had been abused,

03:10:12.220 | which technically is true.

03:10:13.500 | I'm not saying I wasn't, but like I absorbed this narrative

03:10:15.980 | and I just remember having like this burning coals

03:10:18.780 | in my chest at all times.

03:10:19.900 | Like if I had to call out of my factory work

03:10:22.580 | when Father's Day happened,

03:10:23.580 | because I was spending the whole day sobbing

03:10:24.900 | 'cause everybody's talking about their fathers.

03:10:26.820 | Like I was really messed up.

03:10:28.660 | And it's because I held this important thing,

03:10:30.700 | this idea, this frame, that I had been deeply wronged.

03:10:34.780 | Like there was a correct way of being

03:10:36.900 | and the world had violated that.

03:10:38.580 | Something should not have happened.

03:10:40.460 | Like my father should have loved me.

03:10:42.500 | And it was like this,

03:10:43.540 | like the shearing in the nature of reality.

03:10:47.220 | And that was really agonizing to have.

03:10:49.660 | And LSD really messes with frames a lot.

03:10:53.180 | It takes like what you think is normal

03:10:54.500 | and really screws with it.

03:10:55.620 | And I'd done LSD like several times before,

03:10:57.500 | but there's one LSD trip where I went through

03:11:01.020 | my entire childhood in my head.

03:11:02.340 | 'Cause LSD like really makes your memories quite vivid.

03:11:05.500 | Like anything you visualize, it's like you're in it.

03:11:07.540 | And so I just went and very carefully,

03:11:09.300 | deliberately went and remembered every single memory

03:11:11.580 | that I could have that was really painful for me.

03:11:14.220 | Like the times that I lost friends

03:11:16.620 | and all the things I valued and like being broken,

03:11:19.020 | 'cause like my parents, especially my dad,

03:11:20.740 | would refer to like breaking me, like explicitly,

03:11:22.860 | we're going to break your will.

03:11:24.060 | And so all these times where I was like,

03:11:25.300 | they had successfully broken my will over and over.

03:11:27.500 | And it was horrible.

03:11:28.460 | I was just like sobbing, tears streaming down my face.

03:11:32.100 | And then I like worked through my whole childhood.

03:11:34.500 | I got to the end and I'm going to tear up

03:11:36.900 | because every time I talk about this,

03:11:37.740 | it's just like the sensation of like being free from that

03:11:42.380 | for the first time is so incredible.

03:11:46.180 | Like I remember being outside of my house

03:11:48.740 | and being able to like go where I wanted

03:11:52.780 | and think what I wanted.

03:11:54.020 | And it was just so blissful.

03:11:57.820 | And I was soaked in this gratitude on this trip,

03:12:01.900 | just like vibrating with complete joy for everything.

03:12:06.220 | Like I was just looking around, like I could touch anything.

03:12:07.900 | Like I could cry if I wanted to.

03:12:09.860 | I wasn't allowed to cry.

03:12:11.100 | I was not to be depressed.

03:12:11.980 | I was trying to, I got depressed as a child.

03:12:13.900 | And my parents were like, if you keep being depressed,

03:12:15.740 | we're going to like force you to scrub the whole house.

03:12:18.060 | Like just like the ability to have a feeling

03:12:20.660 | was so thrilling.

03:12:23.820 | And I was so grateful for this.

03:12:25.140 | I was like, I would do anything

03:12:26.140 | to give this experience to someone else.

03:12:27.660 | I would do anything,

03:12:29.380 | even if it was like putting them through what I went through.

03:12:31.620 | And then like with that realization, I was like,

03:12:33.780 | oh, it was worth it.

03:12:35.060 | The thing that I went through was worth it for this.

03:12:36.980 | I would do it again to like be able to have

03:12:39.740 | this deep gratitude for what I have now.

03:12:42.660 | And then that shifted the meaning frame

03:12:45.060 | because before the meaning had been like something

03:12:46.780 | that's shared, something that shouldn't have happened.

03:12:48.940 | But now it was like the exact right thing had happened.

03:12:51.260 | - So it's almost a gift.

03:12:52.460 | - Yeah.

03:12:53.300 | I was like, ah, I would not give up my childhood.

03:12:55.860 | I would do it again.

03:12:57.220 | And I believe that to this day.

03:12:58.460 | - For the moment of discovering that freedom.

03:13:00.900 | - Yeah.

03:13:02.420 | 'Cause like everything now,

03:13:03.900 | my whole life is in contrast to that.

03:13:06.580 | And it's awesome.

03:13:07.420 | It's fucking great.

03:13:09.140 | I'm really thrilled about it.

03:13:10.580 | - Is there a part of you that hates your father still?

03:13:17.020 | - Kind of, like I don't want a relationship with anymore.

03:13:19.420 | After that, there was some forgiveness.

03:13:21.060 | Like I had this burning,

03:13:22.420 | I would have nightmares about him killing me or something.

03:13:25.020 | And after that, it kind of stopped.

03:13:26.380 | Like the fire in my chest went away permanently

03:13:28.900 | after that trip.

03:13:29.740 | It was so fast.

03:13:30.580 | It was like before I was fucked up,

03:13:31.740 | after that trip, I woke up the next day and I was clean.

03:13:35.060 | It was really severe.

03:13:37.180 | And I definitely don't want to be around him still.

03:13:40.420 | Like he still like triggers the fear in my body,

03:13:42.700 | but I don't have that hang up anymore.

03:13:44.700 | I'm like kind of, I'm over it.

03:13:45.940 | Like I've let go.

03:13:47.140 | He's his own person.

03:13:48.580 | Like ultimately he didn't get to decide who he was

03:13:51.180 | in the same way that I didn't get to decide who I was.

03:13:53.900 | - So that's almost like a kind of,

03:13:55.500 | at least intellectual, like forgiveness you have for him.

03:13:58.500 | - Yeah.

03:13:59.340 | - And that, so that trip just took you through your whole,

03:14:06.980 | were you alone by the way, when you're doing the trip?

03:14:09.540 | - Yeah, I had roommates, but the trip was mostly alone.

03:14:11.980 | I had somebody else who was like sitting in the room,

03:14:13.380 | but they weren't interacting with me.

03:14:15.020 | - So you're sitting there experiencing all of this.

03:14:17.980 | What's the timeline?

03:14:18.820 | Like how long does it take to go through your whole childhood?

03:14:21.940 | - I don't remember.

03:14:22.780 | I mean, time's really messed up when you do that.

03:14:25.500 | I was listening to the soundtrack of "The Fountain,"

03:14:27.140 | which is excellent.

03:14:28.140 | - Yeah.

03:14:28.980 | - I listened to that a lot when I did LSD.

03:14:31.300 | I don't know, it was probably a couple hours.

03:14:33.460 | - That's amazing.

03:14:35.180 | I mean, it's like, it would be,

03:14:37.380 | it's just like a vivid experience of your childhood.

03:14:41.540 | Moment by moment, trauma by trauma.

03:14:44.380 | And it's good to experience it purely.

03:14:45.940 | Like it just is what it is.

03:14:47.100 | It's just is grief.

03:14:48.300 | Like it is loss and you just are in it

03:14:52.340 | without having to make it be anything.

03:14:54.800 | - And it's so interesting that you can,

03:14:59.500 | I mean, work through that.

03:15:00.660 | So for a lot of us, for a lot of human beings,

03:15:03.420 | like childhood is full of those kind of mini traumas,

03:15:08.220 | big or small.

03:15:09.420 | And like working through that,

03:15:11.020 | it feels like what a lot of life is about

03:15:12.780 | is trying to work through that.

03:15:14.900 | And it feels like you have to kind of relive it.

03:15:17.420 | I guess that's what therapy is about on part,

03:15:19.860 | be able to vocalize it.

03:15:20.860 | - Yeah.

03:15:21.700 | This is why I feel really confused

03:15:23.780 | about the concept of trauma.

03:15:24.940 | Like people use this word so much, like, are you traumatized?

03:15:27.340 | And I understand why, like this is why I feel confused

03:15:30.260 | about it, but part of me is like,

03:15:31.280 | I wonder if by using that term,

03:15:32.580 | we're creating the trauma in people.

03:15:34.700 | They were using the frame where the thing that happened

03:15:36.340 | to you was not supposed to happen.

03:15:38.020 | - Yeah.

03:15:38.860 | Yeah, maybe there needs to be a different frame.

03:15:40.740 | No, I agree with you totally.

03:15:42.100 | I've made friends with and talked to this guy

03:15:45.820 | named Paul Conti.

03:15:47.700 | He wrote a book on trauma.

03:15:49.580 | He's an incredible, brilliant psychiatrist.

03:15:52.060 | Yeah, he's probably agrees with you kind of.

03:15:54.060 | - Oh, that's cool.

03:15:54.900 | I should read it.

03:15:55.720 | - Yeah, you should.

03:15:57.020 | Maybe even talk to him.

03:15:57.860 | He's a fascinating human being.

03:15:59.460 | I'd be interested in the,

03:16:02.020 | a psychiatrist perspective is really interesting

03:16:06.100 | 'cause you've been doing kind of an in-person survey

03:16:11.300 | 'cause you've done so many patients.

03:16:13.420 | (Donna laughs)

03:16:14.260 | Like he's, like just talking to him is fascinating

03:16:18.620 | because like if I describe my experience

03:16:21.820 | or somebody else's experience,

03:16:23.980 | I could see his brain mapping it in interesting ways

03:16:27.300 | to the tens of thousands of like data points

03:16:30.760 | he has in his head.

03:16:31.660 | And it's like, of course that's what doctors do,

03:16:34.560 | but it's cool as the doctor is basically

03:16:37.140 | the doctor of the mind.

03:16:38.940 | And--

03:16:39.780 | - To have like an actual, like qualitative data.

03:16:43.140 | - And be able to, I mean,

03:16:44.100 | that's where the poetic stuff comes in.

03:16:45.900 | Ultimately as a psychiatrist,

03:16:47.140 | you're exploring the human mind

03:16:49.460 | with a bit of a sort of romantic element.

03:16:51.580 | - Yeah.

03:16:52.420 | - You can't be really systematic about it.

03:16:54.860 | But it does seem like frame or not,

03:16:58.460 | be able to just talk through the experiences you had

03:17:02.060 | is really powerful.

03:17:04.060 | - What about it is appealing?

03:17:05.100 | Is it just like being able to revisit it with new eyes?

03:17:08.380 | - No, I don't know exactly.

03:17:09.220 | It just seems to work for people.

03:17:11.380 | I don't know if it's appealing.

03:17:12.740 | It just seems like almost acknowledging to yourself

03:17:17.220 | that things happen.

03:17:18.400 | Like I've said, I think I've said this before.

03:17:22.740 | My brother, who I love very much,

03:17:24.420 | I tried to set me on fire a few times.

03:17:26.980 | And I think to me, it's funny,

03:17:29.180 | but I wonder if I didn't talk about it,

03:17:31.780 | like if that would be traumatic,

03:17:32.900 | maybe like talking and laughing about it.

03:17:35.400 | 'Cause it was traumatic to me at the time.

03:17:37.220 | - I see.

03:17:38.060 | - I was like, I love you.

03:17:38.900 | I didn't even have fire,

03:17:39.740 | but it's what kids do when they're like young.

03:17:41.700 | - I love you.

03:17:42.540 | (both laughing)

03:17:43.380 | - I was like, whatever, it's what boys do.

03:17:46.180 | Like they're crazy.

03:17:47.980 | It makes total sense.

03:17:51.260 | It was probably funny from his perspective.

03:17:54.140 | But yeah, I wonder,

03:17:55.340 | I want to bring that to the surface of that, that helps.

03:17:57.420 | And maybe LSD allows you to,

03:18:00.340 | or different drugs, depending on the person,

03:18:02.220 | allows you to more vividly bring it to the surface.

03:18:05.140 | And then depending on your genetics,

03:18:07.580 | be able to find a better frame.

03:18:09.260 | That's fascinating.

03:18:11.940 | Human mind is freaking fascinating.

03:18:13.700 | All right.

03:18:17.220 | What's romantic to you, by the way?

03:18:20.340 | - I'm not a big romance person.

03:18:23.300 | What is?

03:18:24.120 | - So you're not like,

03:18:26.020 | so to you romantic is like objective analysis

03:18:30.140 | of the interactions between humans?

03:18:32.500 | - A little bit.

03:18:33.420 | Like I do find kind of the survey process

03:18:35.060 | that I did to be romantic.

03:18:37.420 | When I, the guy that I asked out who I'm still dating,

03:18:40.020 | I was like, hey, you scored really high on my survey.

03:18:41.580 | You want to like go eat food or something?

03:18:43.860 | And his response was like,

03:18:44.980 | you want to try doing three days in an Airbnb

03:18:47.980 | as our first date?

03:18:48.820 | And I was like, yeah.

03:18:49.660 | And that was romantic.

03:18:51.060 | Like the bold leap into a really intense date.

03:18:55.220 | - I think you mentioned something also,

03:18:58.660 | must've been a tweet or something like that,

03:19:02.700 | where if you, if people want you to show up to a thing,

03:19:07.700 | give like the time, the location, the dress code,

03:19:13.540 | and not, no pressure for you to be there,

03:19:19.440 | but like show up if you want.

03:19:20.900 | That was your specification.

03:19:23.100 | - It's a great memory, yeah.

03:19:24.260 | - And then I think you said that you did that

03:19:26.180 | for like some castle in South of France.

03:19:29.540 | - I did, yeah.

03:19:31.060 | That was in my early 20s.

03:19:32.500 | People, my friends at home were taking prediction markets

03:19:34.940 | on whether or not I was going to get abducted and killed.

03:19:37.820 | - Yeah, what was that like?

03:19:38.700 | I mean, what, you've traveled quite a bit.

03:19:42.580 | Like, do you take these giant risks?

03:19:44.500 | What's with that?

03:19:45.340 | - I think I used to more when I was younger

03:19:46.980 | with the traveling.

03:19:47.820 | I think I'm like a little traveled out now,

03:19:48.980 | but like my first one,

03:19:50.580 | I moved out of Idaho for the first time.

03:19:51.660 | I moved to Australia.

03:19:52.980 | Just kind of yeeted myself across the globe.

03:19:55.700 | - Which verb did you just use?

03:19:57.580 | - Yeah, yeet.

03:19:59.260 | It's like yeet to yote, yatted, yeet.

03:20:02.820 | - So do people, is this like slang?

03:20:05.580 | Is this like urban dictionary?

03:20:06.860 | Is this actual or is this webster?

03:20:08.380 | - Yeah, you have to like feel into the word.

03:20:09.580 | Like if you take a thing

03:20:10.420 | and you just like curl it really hard,

03:20:12.740 | does it not feel like a yeet motion?

03:20:15.620 | - Okay, so you yeeted.

03:20:16.980 | So it was aggressive.

03:20:18.420 | So across the globe, you didn't even stop in-

03:20:22.740 | - I just hurled myself, yeah.

03:20:24.060 | - Italy along the way.

03:20:24.900 | - I just kept yeeting myself in various places, yeah.

03:20:27.220 | And so at one point I was on OkCupid

03:20:28.980 | and somebody sent me a long message

03:20:30.260 | being like, "You should come to,"

03:20:31.780 | I don't know, I'm hosting a castle.

03:20:33.460 | It's some people that I met.

03:20:35.940 | I'm like, "I have no idea who you are,

03:20:36.980 | but I just bought a plane ticket."

03:20:38.820 | - And you just went.

03:20:39.660 | - And it was life-changing.

03:20:40.620 | I ended up dating that guy for years

03:20:42.460 | and he changed my life quite a bit

03:20:44.380 | 'cause he like was very agency in the world.

03:20:46.340 | And before that, I wasn't agency.

03:20:48.580 | - Agency, like, can we-

03:20:51.940 | - So expressing agency.

03:20:52.780 | - It sounds like you were,

03:20:54.340 | and don't you have to express agency

03:20:56.020 | when you're yeeting yourself across the world?

03:20:58.180 | - Yeah, but only a little bit.

03:20:59.420 | Like in the same way you express agency when you eat LSD,

03:21:01.700 | like the only thing you actually do in eating LSD

03:21:03.820 | is like put the tab in your mouth

03:21:05.420 | and then you just kind of scream the whole way after that.

03:21:08.900 | But there are a lot of other things,

03:21:10.820 | like I didn't feel powerful enough

03:21:12.420 | to like go make events happen or anything.

03:21:15.940 | And it was this guy, he had a lot of agency

03:21:19.860 | in the sense that he would just sort of create realities

03:21:22.140 | through the people around him.

03:21:23.460 | Be like, "Okay, we're gonna do this startup

03:21:24.900 | or we're going to throw this incredible event.

03:21:26.540 | Like, let's just do it."

03:21:27.500 | And it would somehow happen.

03:21:28.660 | And it was really cool to see that.

03:21:30.420 | And so that one thing led to another

03:21:33.020 | and it was one of the biggest impacts on my life, I think.

03:21:36.580 | - Yeah, that's pretty bold.

03:21:38.100 | I would say it's pretty romantic.

03:21:39.740 | South of France?

03:21:40.700 | - Yeah, yeah, it was.

03:21:41.820 | In a little castle, it was in the winter.

03:21:43.220 | So we were all coaxed out by the fire.

03:21:45.220 | - I'm jumping around here.

03:21:49.500 | Twitter poll, have you ever hitchhiked?

03:21:53.220 | You posted this Twitter poll.

03:21:54.980 | - Out of all, that was a big list of Twitter polls.

03:21:56.860 | Why did you pick the hitchhiking one?

03:21:58.340 | - I don't know, 'cause it's relevant to traveling.

03:22:01.860 | And I like that one.

03:22:03.340 | That's romantic too, right?

03:22:04.940 | - I'm actually terrified of hitchhiking,

03:22:06.100 | but I have done it a little bit.

03:22:07.660 | - Oh, so it's terrifying, it's not romantic to you.

03:22:09.740 | So you're terrified of what?

03:22:10.900 | Oh, so you are terrified of-

03:22:11.740 | - Well, just interacting with strangers.

03:22:14.460 | - That's terrifying.

03:22:15.300 | - Yeah.

03:22:16.860 | - So you go to South of France.

03:22:18.700 | - Yeah.

03:22:21.180 | But that was like a cohesive thing, I don't know.

03:22:23.420 | - It made sense.

03:22:24.940 | - There's like times where you're allowed to be weird

03:22:26.260 | and times where you're not.

03:22:27.820 | And like if you're-

03:22:28.660 | - Who's allowing you?

03:22:30.140 | - Yeah, some vague-

03:22:32.100 | - A voice? - Igor of society,

03:22:33.140 | I'm not sure.

03:22:33.980 | - Okay.

03:22:35.020 | - But some people are like, "Hey, we think you're cool.

03:22:36.620 | "Come to this party."

03:22:37.460 | You're like, "All right, I'm allowed to come to this party

03:22:38.860 | "and be really weird."

03:22:39.980 | But if you're being picked up by a hitchhiker,

03:22:41.980 | they're gonna wanna make small talk and you can't be weird

03:22:43.660 | or they're gonna kick you out.

03:22:45.300 | - I kinda think, 'cause Valentine's Day is coming up,

03:22:48.260 | I'm kinda think it's doing something crazy, I'm not sure.

03:22:51.420 | South of France sounds nice.

03:22:53.140 | - You gotta go to like a crazy romantic date

03:22:55.460 | with a woman you don't know at all.

03:22:56.460 | - Yeah, I think I'm gonna like tweet something

03:22:58.740 | and just like, how do I select randomly, basically?

03:23:03.020 | - How do you select totally randomly,

03:23:04.540 | like not people from your audience?

03:23:06.100 | - No, you want, no, no, no, no, no, no,

03:23:07.780 | from the audience, but in an interesting way,

03:23:09.860 | random, sufficient, so random amongst good choices.

03:23:13.700 | - Couldn't you have people just like submit a form

03:23:17.140 | and then you just randomize it and then select one?

03:23:20.340 | And then you just, if it's terrible,

03:23:21.780 | you just go randomize it again.

03:23:23.780 | Like the first not terrible option.

03:23:26.100 | - Yeah, sure.

03:23:27.340 | - Somebody's like drown yourself.

03:23:28.420 | - But I feel like then it's no longer random.

03:23:30.460 | You kinda wanna do random, you just do it

03:23:32.980 | and just do it, if I cross the world somewhere

03:23:35.180 | in some random place, just for like a single event,

03:23:38.900 | for like a dinner.

03:23:39.820 | - You got some sort of itch in you.

03:23:43.740 | - Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, the itch to live.

03:23:46.100 | Like sometimes it's nice to drop a little like chaos

03:23:51.120 | into a thing, right?

03:23:52.020 | What's your chaos survey, by the way?

03:23:53.540 | Like you mentioned that earlier.

03:23:54.940 | I kinda saw it.

03:23:55.780 | - Oh yeah, that's one of like the sort of artistic attempts

03:23:58.020 | at a survey, 'cause you know, like at least

03:24:00.620 | from what I understand, the big five and the way

03:24:02.340 | that they used to do IQ tests, I've heard,

03:24:03.980 | is that they do factor analysis, you know,

03:24:05.660 | where they ask a whole bunch of questions

03:24:08.180 | and then they run calculations on the data

03:24:09.860 | to like sort of group it by organic clusters.

03:24:12.060 | So like with the big five, it's like people who say,

03:24:13.740 | "Oh, I like to be at parties."

03:24:14.900 | They also tend to say yes to the questions like,

03:24:17.300 | "I like being the center of attention."

03:24:18.980 | And so you notice that like there's a cluster of ways

03:24:20.780 | that people are answering the question

03:24:21.760 | and then you can sort of pull out an organic spectrum.

03:24:24.860 | And so I was like, okay, we've done that a whole bunch

03:24:27.380 | with things like personality or like romantic stuff.

03:24:31.420 | Like I did it with the rape spectrum survey.

03:24:33.160 | But like what happens if you apply that method

03:24:35.260 | to a completely unselected group of questions?

03:24:37.860 | Just like no random chaotic, no thing whatsoever.

03:24:41.820 | Like what happens is if you ask all possible questions,

03:24:44.040 | what natural things evolve out of that natural spectrums?

03:24:47.280 | So I had other people submit questions

03:24:48.980 | for a very large survey and I took the first,

03:24:51.220 | I think 1100 and barely filtered them at all.

03:24:55.380 | And then I just had a whole bunch of people answer them.

03:24:58.180 | - Whoa.

03:24:59.020 | (laughs)

03:24:59.860 | Can you give like a hint to what it looks like?

03:25:01.780 | Like how crazy did the question get?

03:25:04.820 | - I mean, a lot of them were standard,

03:25:06.660 | but somebody was like, if Beelzebub like did something

03:25:09.860 | in 1512 to like turn the world over, would you like it?

03:25:14.620 | I don't know.

03:25:15.460 | I'd say it was really just insane questions.

03:25:16.980 | There's a couple of those.

03:25:18.500 | A lot of like, would you fuck Ayla ones,

03:25:20.420 | but I don't know.

03:25:21.860 | It was all across the spectrum.

03:25:22.700 | - A lot of would you fuck Ayla.

03:25:23.740 | - Yeah, I had to produce duplicate.

03:25:25.340 | - Oh, a lot of the same question.

03:25:27.020 | - Yeah.

03:25:28.180 | - Ones, okay, I got you.

03:25:29.740 | - Yeah, so it was like normal personal habits.

03:25:33.260 | It was romantic preferences or political preferences,

03:25:37.220 | personality stuff, like random opinions about media.

03:25:40.460 | - Okay, that's interesting.

03:25:42.140 | I'd love to see those actual questions,

03:25:44.700 | but because your audience is probably

03:25:46.060 | really super interesting minds.

03:25:47.920 | Okay, you mentioned body count.

03:25:50.580 | You said you can answer that one easily.

03:25:54.380 | Do you share your body count?

03:25:56.020 | Do you know your body count?

03:25:57.460 | Do you know, is there a spreadsheet?

03:25:58.780 | - There's a spreadsheet, yes.

03:26:00.260 | - Is it Google sheets?

03:26:01.140 | Is it Excel? - It's Google sheets, yeah.

03:26:02.740 | - Okay, have you run like, is there,

03:26:06.500 | you don't have to share the contents,

03:26:09.540 | but is there like data on each?

03:26:12.660 | - So I track paid clients and free sex separately,

03:26:17.380 | and I track different things on either of them.

03:26:19.620 | Like with clients, I track like positions we used

03:26:21.380 | and who had an orgasm.

03:26:23.020 | And with personal people, I just track basically like

03:26:25.660 | age, city, you know, name.

03:26:29.080 | And I've had this with I think 42 people, I think, for free.

03:26:32.660 | So I'm sharing this because I want people to calibrate.

03:26:35.540 | Like it's not like huge, it's not like tiny.

03:26:38.340 | - One of the people I've recently talked to, Mel,

03:26:42.020 | Destiny's, Stephen's wife is a huge fan of yours.

03:26:47.020 | She was actually really excited to get to talk to you.

03:26:49.340 | But I think she said her body count is more than 42.

03:26:52.940 | I think she said 60, something like this.

03:26:55.660 | And so it's interesting, 'cause she was like saying like,

03:27:00.220 | she loves like looking at your work, talking to you,

03:27:05.140 | because you have similar perspectives on the world,

03:27:08.940 | and it's really refreshing, it's liberating.

03:27:11.140 | Wow.

03:27:12.900 | - That was really sweet.

03:27:14.140 | - It's kind of interesting.

03:27:15.860 | Is there like an optimal body count?

03:27:18.060 | If you were to map, I wonder,

03:27:20.180 | what have you found out about body count in doing?

03:27:23.700 | Have you actually done surveys on body count?

03:27:25.580 | Like on how many people you've had sex with?

03:27:26.940 | - I have collected that information on my last survey.

03:27:29.420 | I just haven't looked at it yet.

03:27:30.340 | There's just so many things to look at, so I haven't.

03:27:32.660 | But I think if I'm sleeping with a guy

03:27:34.580 | and he's had sex with more than 120 people,

03:27:36.780 | then I start to get a little bit wary.

03:27:39.300 | - Why 120 as opposed to 100?

03:27:41.540 | - I don't know.

03:27:43.100 | I just like kind of skimmed through the numbers

03:27:44.740 | in my head and picked one that felt right.

03:27:47.060 | - Just now?

03:27:47.900 | - Yeah.

03:27:48.740 | - 120?

03:27:49.560 | - Ish.

03:27:50.400 | I think that's when I'm starting like--

03:27:51.900 | - Ish, so you're flexible.

03:27:53.540 | - Yeah, I'm flexible, very.

03:27:54.940 | (both laughing)

03:27:57.600 | - But 200 is a hard line for sure.

03:28:02.220 | - Well, so you know, we have to--

03:28:03.860 | - Depends, the factors.

03:28:05.660 | - 'Cause there's a level of body count

03:28:07.900 | at which you start to wonder how much

03:28:11.780 | accidental misrepresentation a guy is doing to you.

03:28:15.100 | - Oh, like if you're saying 200, that might be dishonest.

03:28:18.100 | - No, like if he's had sex with 200 girls,

03:28:20.860 | this means that he's had a lot of casual sex

03:28:23.260 | and not a lot of long-term relationships,

03:28:25.260 | assuming that he hasn't been super poly.

03:28:28.060 | And this usually means that there has to be

03:28:29.580 | some sort of indication that he cares about the girl

03:28:32.540 | more than he actually does.

03:28:33.900 | Like he's like leading you on, basically.

03:28:38.220 | And so I'm not saying this is necessarily the case.

03:28:40.420 | I'm saying like at a certain level of number,

03:28:42.100 | I start to wonder if this is what's happening.

03:28:45.500 | - Is there like, from your understanding of it,

03:28:47.860 | is there a different perception between men and women?

03:28:49.780 | Like if you look at the high body count for a woman

03:28:52.140 | versus a high body count for a man,

03:28:54.220 | like how society views it?

03:28:55.940 | - Oh yeah, people are way more judgmental of women.

03:28:59.180 | I haven't experienced this personally in my circles

03:29:01.820 | 'cause I'm in very sex-friendly circles.

03:29:03.380 | Like I'm in orgy circles where everybody

03:29:05.660 | dates the same women and they're like,

03:29:06.740 | "Woo, good job."

03:29:08.700 | But yeah, people are much more,

03:29:10.980 | like people always tell me online,

03:29:12.460 | like you're not ever gonna be able to find a husband

03:29:14.580 | because you have sex with too many people.

03:29:17.140 | It's very common, which I don't think,

03:29:19.420 | I mean like men are also perceived negatively

03:29:21.260 | if you have high body count,

03:29:22.260 | but I don't think it's negatively in the same way.

03:29:24.460 | - Yeah, do you think it's unethical

03:29:26.060 | to lie about your body count?

03:29:27.940 | - Yes.

03:29:30.540 | - So all lying is unethical?

03:29:32.260 | - Yeah. (laughs)

03:29:34.420 | I'm not a big fan of lying in general.

03:29:37.020 | - Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.

03:29:38.860 | Body count's an interesting one.

03:29:40.220 | It's so silly to take that, to care about that.

03:29:43.100 | But still we do.

03:29:44.420 | And jealousy is silly, but still we get jealous.

03:29:47.660 | Is that weird?

03:29:48.500 | - The thing is, I don't like viewing emotions

03:29:52.020 | as irrational, even if they are.

03:29:55.180 | It's like emotions are always there for a reason.

03:29:57.620 | And people don't like high body counts for a reason too.

03:30:00.260 | It's just fine and valid.

03:30:01.740 | - Yeah, it also is like,

03:30:05.020 | yeah, I don't know what I make of just the past,

03:30:08.500 | of like time.

03:30:10.100 | You know?

03:30:13.260 | Like, each human is a collection of experiences.

03:30:18.260 | And you don't know most of those experiences,

03:30:22.580 | and all of a sudden you meet this bag of experiences.

03:30:25.820 | And like, what are you supposed to do

03:30:27.860 | with both of your training data?

03:30:30.120 | Are you supposed to like, like what?

03:30:34.220 | Like, I don't know if we,

03:30:35.740 | like part of me wants to not actually ever talk about it,

03:30:39.780 | to care at all.

03:30:41.020 | Like, why does it matter?

03:30:41.860 | 'Cause it's only the future that matters.

03:30:43.980 | And yet the past also matters a lot, potentially.

03:30:47.420 | But maybe not really.

03:30:48.540 | 'Cause you're somehow like, constructed from that past,

03:30:53.540 | but you're no longer that past.

03:30:56.260 | - It sounds like you're evaluating

03:30:57.300 | for something different than most people.

03:30:59.580 | - What do you mean?

03:31:00.420 | - Like, the reason--

03:31:01.740 | - I'm just talking out my ass, but yes, go ahead.

03:31:03.660 | - Yeah, I'm just saying crazy shit,

03:31:05.620 | like as if I'm on drugs, but I'm not.

03:31:07.220 | - Well, it kind of sounds,

03:31:08.340 | I think this is like, kind of like lining up

03:31:09.820 | with like this caricature that I'm building of you,

03:31:12.140 | based on this conversation so far.

03:31:13.940 | - Great.

03:31:14.780 | - Like, a lot of people want to know about your past

03:31:18.620 | because they want to know how useful

03:31:20.400 | and compatible you are with them.

03:31:21.660 | Like, oh, do you have a similar job?

03:31:23.260 | You know, do you have a similar culture?

03:31:25.260 | Like, what can I expect from you in the future?

03:31:27.020 | Like, it's very practically oriented.

03:31:28.780 | Whereas like, if the thing that you're focused on

03:31:31.060 | is not like, being able to predict someone,

03:31:34.580 | like if the thing that you're focused on

03:31:35.660 | is the present moment,

03:31:36.500 | then it doesn't really matter anymore.

03:31:38.220 | They're the things that, like they're training data.

03:31:41.860 | - But I also think that the past

03:31:43.740 | is not that predictive of the future.

03:31:45.500 | - Is it not?

03:31:46.780 | - Not if you believe in the power of the interaction

03:31:49.180 | between two humans.

03:31:50.620 | It's like nature versus nurture.

03:31:51.780 | I guess, also I don't believe in the ability of people

03:31:56.460 | to accurately describe their own past.

03:31:59.060 | - This is true.

03:31:59.900 | - There's a very specific lens through it

03:32:01.500 | that doesn't necessarily, like it's too biased.

03:32:04.180 | - But you can also interpret based on the bias.

03:32:06.020 | Like if somebody describes their own past,

03:32:07.260 | you can kind of pick up like-

03:32:08.700 | - Hard, it's difficult.

03:32:09.980 | Like you could, if you're a therapist,

03:32:11.700 | like if you're really drilling, like, or whatever, sorry.

03:32:15.740 | If you're really investigating and like analyzing it,

03:32:18.900 | but then it's like,

03:32:19.820 | it's a different kind of relationship, right?

03:32:21.660 | - Is it that hard though?

03:32:22.500 | Like if I'm with a guy and I'm considering dating him

03:32:24.900 | and I ask like, how did your past relationship set?

03:32:26.820 | And then if all of them are like,

03:32:28.180 | he's like, oh, she was crazy.

03:32:29.420 | And my other one that she went crazy too.

03:32:31.180 | I'm like, okay.

03:32:32.180 | Like there's a, if you're talking about all of your exes

03:32:33.940 | is insane, like-

03:32:35.060 | - But that's an easy level red flag.

03:32:36.940 | But I feel like the more that also it's possible

03:32:41.940 | that they were crazy and he's attracted to crazy people.

03:32:44.620 | So like, but I would say that's like easy level

03:32:48.460 | Mario Kart video game versus like Elden Ring.

03:32:51.700 | Like I think most people's past is like complicated.

03:32:56.700 | - That's a pretty good bird.

03:32:58.020 | No, you're right.

03:32:58.860 | I do agree that like, there's a level of obfuscation.

03:33:03.100 | Wow.

03:33:03.940 | That is hard to see through,

03:33:05.620 | but this is like still a little bit sometimes.

03:33:07.580 | - Well, I tend to like with people,

03:33:09.220 | I tend to, in general, just human interaction.

03:33:11.780 | I tend to not talk about their past very much

03:33:15.500 | because it allows you to focus on like,

03:33:18.060 | I feel like the past is kind of like talking

03:33:19.980 | about the weather is a crutch for me personally.

03:33:22.820 | - Very interesting.

03:33:23.660 | - Like as opposed to exploring the ideas in their mind.

03:33:25.740 | - Yeah, I see.

03:33:26.660 | Is it like, I get really annoyed when people

03:33:28.500 | quote philosophers when they're trying

03:33:29.660 | to talk about philosophy.

03:33:30.740 | - Yeah.

03:33:31.580 | - Is it like that?

03:33:33.260 | - A little, but that crutch is useful.

03:33:35.500 | And it's kind of sexy.

03:33:36.740 | Like it's kind of like cool.

03:33:38.020 | Like, because it's nice to quote,

03:33:40.460 | because like, because a good quote allows you

03:33:44.260 | to be cheesier than you otherwise would be.

03:33:46.900 | - Okay, well, if you're doing it to be cheesy, that's fine.

03:33:49.020 | - No, not cheesy, but not, no, no, not cheesy,

03:33:52.020 | but to be like, it allows you to say a simple,

03:33:55.380 | profound thing that we're too afraid to say

03:33:57.420 | with our own words.

03:33:58.820 | So like the quoting philosophers in that sense is,

03:34:02.300 | yeah, but it is still a crutch, yes.

03:34:04.020 | But I feel like the past is more like

03:34:07.100 | talking about your dreams.

03:34:09.340 | It just is not, it's a crutch that doesn't care,

03:34:14.340 | that doesn't empathize with the other person's experience

03:34:16.740 | of the conversation or the explanations.

03:34:18.500 | It doesn't really convey the--

03:34:20.380 | - They're not involved in your past.

03:34:22.060 | - Yeah.

03:34:23.020 | - So how do you feel about this conversation

03:34:24.380 | where you're asking me about my past

03:34:26.220 | and I talked about my past a lot?

03:34:27.880 | - Well, I'm okay asking about your past

03:34:35.340 | because you've really carefully thought

03:34:40.180 | about that aspect of it.

03:34:42.220 | And we didn't really talk about your past

03:34:44.540 | outside of the things you've written about

03:34:46.740 | and have really thought about.

03:34:48.820 | - I see.

03:34:49.700 | - Like there's, like with most conversation,

03:34:52.260 | you'll start talking about past stuff

03:34:53.620 | that's like the stuff that's actually bothering you.

03:34:56.340 | You still probably have not written a blog post about.

03:34:58.500 | All right, like there's probably still stuff

03:35:01.020 | like maybe it's more recent,

03:35:03.140 | like the last few months, last couple of years.

03:35:05.300 | Like that's usually what will come up with conversation.

03:35:07.380 | And just, it's good, it's good, but it's not as deep.

03:35:11.940 | And I would say it's not as intimate

03:35:14.300 | as talking about the actual ideas in your mind.

03:35:18.340 | - I see.

03:35:19.180 | - And how you interact with the world.

03:35:20.020 | - So like the past is interesting for the frame of like,

03:35:23.140 | sort of like the, I guess you're right.

03:35:24.580 | I guess we're talking a lot about like narrative and past.

03:35:27.540 | - Yeah, I like the ideas in people's minds

03:35:29.700 | versus their recollections and memories and so on.

03:35:32.740 | Yeah, yeah.

03:35:33.900 | What do you think about porn?

03:35:37.060 | - It's nice, I like it.

03:35:37.980 | - Okay, you like it?

03:35:38.820 | - Yes.

03:35:39.740 | - What effect do you think it has on society?

03:35:41.940 | - Like probably reduces rates of rape

03:35:45.860 | 'cause like really horny men get an outlet

03:35:47.740 | that's not a real life woman.

03:35:49.620 | - Okay, so what about like the,

03:35:52.540 | I mean, like I said, I finished reading "Brave New World",

03:35:56.700 | like the over-sexualization,

03:35:59.020 | does it increase like the sexualization of society

03:36:03.500 | that's not, to a degree, that's not good?

03:36:05.540 | Or is this good?

03:36:06.900 | Like the, does it alter in a negative direction

03:36:11.900 | our relationship with sex?

03:36:14.700 | - It's unclear.

03:36:17.740 | Like it might.

03:36:19.580 | I don't know how to evaluate this thing, right?

03:36:22.260 | 'Cause this is like one of those really charged things

03:36:24.500 | where like I kind of don't trust anybody's arguments on it

03:36:26.620 | 'cause it's too charged.

03:36:28.620 | But like there's another question,

03:36:30.020 | which is like, is it a net positive or net negative?

03:36:33.060 | Like it's possible that it might be like a net negative

03:36:35.340 | for specifically our relationship to sex,

03:36:37.220 | but like a net positive overall in general, I'm not sure.

03:36:41.220 | But the thing, my guess is that in general,

03:36:43.460 | it's better to let people do the thing

03:36:45.420 | that feels good to them

03:36:46.420 | and then the environment will naturally modify

03:36:49.300 | to fit this thing.

03:36:50.780 | And then if we have more needs in response to that,

03:36:52.740 | then we're gonna figure out a way

03:36:53.780 | to take care of those needs.

03:36:55.340 | So like if you're watching a bunch of porn

03:36:56.740 | and this makes you like not wanna go have sex with women,

03:36:58.820 | then we're gonna have to like change the way

03:37:00.100 | that we like experience IRL connection.

03:37:02.820 | - To compete with porn?

03:37:04.980 | - Yeah, which seems like a natural evolution

03:37:06.900 | of like the civilizational cycle.

03:37:08.540 | Like I'm pro natural evolution.

03:37:10.580 | And like instead of trying to stop things

03:37:12.780 | that people wanna do,

03:37:13.620 | we figure out how to integrate that

03:37:14.900 | and like find a more healthy outlet.

03:37:16.540 | - But you have to then be first honest

03:37:18.700 | with the effects that porn has.

03:37:21.540 | So like, is it a negative thing?

03:37:23.020 | Is it a positive thing in real life sex interaction?

03:37:27.220 | You know, you're gonna have that more and more

03:37:29.500 | with like porn in VR or maybe porn, AI porn.

03:37:34.500 | - Yeah.

03:37:37.980 | - Like, is that a bad thing?

03:37:39.900 | Like what if porn with AI

03:37:43.500 | or even like in physical space, like sex robots,

03:37:45.900 | like what if that's more pleasurable

03:37:48.300 | in a bunch of different dimensions than with other humans?

03:37:51.780 | - Then we should figure out artificial wombs.

03:37:53.500 | I don't know.

03:37:54.340 | - Like how important is sex for society, I guess,

03:37:57.660 | with between two humans?

03:37:59.220 | - I don't know.

03:38:00.060 | I mean, like we're having less sex and making fewer babies

03:38:02.820 | and that seems like probably not great.

03:38:04.780 | - Yeah, right.

03:38:06.540 | With the babies one.

03:38:08.100 | - Yeah.

03:38:08.940 | - But the babies, there's probably artificial ways

03:38:10.420 | to have babies that we can figure out.

03:38:12.180 | - Yeah.

03:38:13.100 | - Then how important is sex to being human?

03:38:15.780 | I guess sex with other humans.

03:38:17.580 | Like we're gonna have to figure that out in the century.

03:38:20.580 | - Yeah, I don't know what it means to like be human.

03:38:22.940 | I'm pretty on the transhumanist side of things.

03:38:25.900 | I'm like happy to stop being human.

03:38:28.380 | - So you're okay if like the centuries

03:38:30.620 | the last time will be something like

03:38:32.940 | these biological bags of meat that we are.

03:38:35.300 | - Let's become something new and cooler.

03:38:37.300 | - Even though that thing will be way cooler than you.

03:38:41.780 | - Well, I would like to,

03:38:42.740 | I mean, I'm hoping that we get to be immortal.

03:38:45.020 | - Ah, it'll take you along for the ride.

03:38:47.620 | - That's what I'm hoping.

03:38:48.460 | I mean, like it'll clone my,

03:38:49.980 | I would like to do cryotics.

03:38:51.300 | You get frozen when you die.

03:38:52.660 | - Are you afraid of death?

03:38:55.260 | - I mean, yes and no.

03:38:56.460 | I like came to terms with death with my LSD use,

03:38:59.860 | but I still have like press breaks

03:39:03.140 | when the red light happens.

03:39:04.640 | - I think this is a poll you've asked

03:39:09.540 | or this might be one of the questions in your cards,

03:39:13.020 | but how many years would you like to live?

03:39:16.020 | Like if you had to pick.

03:39:17.100 | - Oh, that's a hard one.

03:39:18.380 | That's a really hard, maybe like a million.

03:39:20.820 | - A million, but you have to,

03:39:21.860 | like, I think the way,

03:39:22.940 | this must have been a Twitter poll.

03:39:24.180 | I forget where it's at.

03:39:25.020 | - It's a poll and also in the deck of cards,

03:39:26.820 | the ask poll, yeah.

03:39:27.820 | - Yeah, like you have to pick that number of years

03:39:31.980 | and you have to live that many years

03:39:33.820 | and you can't live anymore.

03:39:35.540 | - Yeah.

03:39:36.380 | - You can't die sooner, I guess.

03:39:37.580 | A million years?

03:39:39.580 | - I don't like that question.

03:39:40.420 | It's hard.

03:39:41.240 | I know I ask that question to a lot of people,

03:39:42.080 | but I don't like answering it.

03:39:43.060 | It's really difficult.

03:39:44.300 | - What's the downside of a million years?

03:39:47.140 | - I mean, maybe you want to die sooner than that.

03:39:49.460 | - Yeah.

03:39:50.300 | - Like, you know, I guess I would rather wait

03:39:51.780 | to see if AI kills us all in the next 10 years.

03:39:54.140 | And if it doesn't,

03:39:54.980 | then I'd like to maybe make it a million years.

03:39:58.460 | - Yeah, but can't it torture you for like a million years?

03:40:02.640 | What if you're the last human left?

03:40:05.660 | - Yeah, that is, that's true.

03:40:07.220 | The thought of civilization ending

03:40:09.020 | and then just floating in space alone is kind of shitty.

03:40:11.700 | - No, no, being tortured.

03:40:13.340 | Just imagine, today you're tortured,

03:40:15.260 | tomorrow you're tortured,

03:40:16.860 | the third, the day after tomorrow.

03:40:18.780 | - For some reason it's not that scary, I don't know.

03:40:20.620 | - Torture for a million years?

03:40:22.500 | - Yeah.

03:40:23.420 | I just assume you'd get used to it.

03:40:25.980 | But like maybe if they reset your memory

03:40:27.420 | so it was on a loop,

03:40:28.260 | so you're just always experiencing torture

03:40:29.560 | for the first time.

03:40:30.600 | - Yeah, hence torture.

03:40:31.540 | Torture is supposed to be unpleasant.

03:40:32.780 | I'm sure AI will be very creative

03:40:34.260 | in figuring out how to torture you.

03:40:36.700 | - I think I would go on the safe side.

03:40:39.060 | I would just like 150 years.

03:40:42.820 | - Really, 150 though?

03:40:43.860 | That feels like right in the uncanny valley.

03:40:46.180 | - Well, you picked 120 for body count,

03:40:48.220 | so I'm picking 150.

03:40:49.560 | (laughing)

03:40:51.900 | I'm upping you by 30.

03:40:53.700 | The uncanny valley.

03:40:56.220 | - It's like probably everybody that you grew up with

03:40:58.980 | is gonna be dead.

03:40:59.960 | It's like just enough for everybody you know to die.

03:41:02.680 | Like one cycle.

03:41:04.340 | - Yeah, and then start dating the next generation.

03:41:07.060 | I don't know.

03:41:07.900 | - And then so you get like sort of two lifetimes?

03:41:09.540 | - Yeah, two lifetimes.

03:41:11.100 | Yeah, yeah.

03:41:12.540 | I mean, it also really depends on

03:41:14.220 | if other people get this feature.

03:41:15.860 | - Yeah, assume they don't.

03:41:18.700 | - 'Cause you'll have like FOMO for sure

03:41:21.420 | for the people who picked 300 years.

03:41:23.540 | - Oh yeah.

03:41:25.180 | - Or not, or the other, man, regret.

03:41:27.660 | Another human thing.

03:41:28.880 | But you're, like what does transhumanism mean

03:41:32.220 | to you in general?

03:41:33.180 | So extension of life, extension of what it means to be

03:41:37.300 | a living conscious being, you're all for it,

03:41:41.060 | whatever that means.

03:41:42.060 | - Yeah, I never really thought about the term transhumanism

03:41:44.380 | for a long, like people say you're transhumanist,

03:41:45.860 | I'm like I don't really care.

03:41:46.960 | But I slowly realized that my attitude is in fact

03:41:49.640 | at least the thing that I'm conceiving of as transhumanist.

03:41:52.580 | Like I'm very happy to do artificial wounds

03:41:54.820 | and you know, upload our brains to the great collective

03:41:57.220 | and whatever.

03:41:58.100 | I don't have the thing that I'm like,

03:41:59.620 | oh what about like the true organic humanness

03:42:01.680 | that makes us who we are?

03:42:02.720 | Like whatever that soul of humanity,

03:42:05.060 | I have no attachment to it at all.

03:42:07.180 | Which I think is what I'm thinking of as transhumanist.

03:42:10.460 | - So you're like, I guess the window of what you consider

03:42:14.700 | to be beautiful about life is not limited

03:42:17.420 | to this particular definition.

03:42:19.140 | - Yeah.

03:42:19.960 | Let's explode.

03:42:22.220 | Like let's make our consciousnesses huge.

03:42:24.380 | - So AI could be a part of that.

03:42:27.780 | So you're mostly excited by AI.

03:42:29.860 | - Well, I mean, I'm like part of like the Doomer cult,

03:42:32.800 | which I say tongue in cheek, it's not actually a Doomer cult.

03:42:36.360 | But I'm part of a lot of people--

03:42:37.200 | - Would you worship a god of some sort?

03:42:39.800 | Would you sacrifice little small animals?

03:42:41.600 | - That would make it like cooler than what it is.

03:42:44.040 | It's mostly just a bunch of nerds

03:42:45.240 | who are very concerned about AI.

03:42:46.760 | - Sure.

03:42:47.600 | - Yeah.

03:42:48.420 | - So you're concerned about the existential risks

03:42:51.200 | of chat GPT.

03:42:52.920 | - Of you know, what chat GPT will eventually evolve

03:42:55.720 | into being, yeah.

03:42:56.560 | - Yeah, it's super exciting and terrifying

03:42:59.240 | how quickly it's accelerating.

03:43:00.520 | - Yeah.

03:43:01.360 | - Like language models are freaking me out.

03:43:03.280 | - Yeah.

03:43:04.120 | - It's very unexpected that it's the same exact,

03:43:06.960 | I mean, chat GPT is just GPT-3, 3.5.

03:43:11.160 | It's the same model, relatively small to what it could be,

03:43:14.920 | to what GPT-4 will be in the other competitors.

03:43:19.820 | And just like a few tricks made it much better

03:43:22.480 | in terms of interaction with humans.

03:43:24.760 | And then we'll keep discovering extra tricks.

03:43:27.080 | The thing I'm really excited about

03:43:28.160 | is how everyone kind of knows how it works.

03:43:31.040 | So you can kind of create,

03:43:32.320 | especially with computation becoming cheaper and cheaper,

03:43:34.840 | there'll be a lot of competitors.

03:43:36.600 | - Yeah, it's a little scary.

03:43:38.760 | - Yeah, it's terrifying.

03:43:39.600 | - I mean, it's because like,

03:43:41.640 | everything is just like information ultimately.

03:43:44.640 | Like the atoms that we have,

03:43:45.640 | like we are biological machines built out of like tiny code.

03:43:48.880 | Like our DNA is just information.

03:43:51.000 | It's not hard.

03:43:51.820 | If you have access, if you're like have a brilliant brain,

03:43:54.360 | that's like great processing information,

03:43:56.160 | you have complete control over reality.

03:43:57.760 | - Yes.

03:43:58.600 | - You have control over the atoms around you.

03:43:59.640 | All you need is like a tiny little like atomic printer.

03:44:03.200 | And like, we have those, those are cells, right?

03:44:06.520 | And then like, this is like,

03:44:08.040 | if the limitation is information,

03:44:09.880 | there is no boundary between the technology

03:44:12.480 | and the real world.

03:44:13.920 | Like we are creating something

03:44:15.160 | that it has a massive ability to affect the real world.

03:44:18.280 | - I mean, it's hard to know where,

03:44:20.800 | how difficult it is to close that gap to physical reality.

03:44:24.320 | Like from the physics to the information.

03:44:28.560 | - Yeah, like all organic life is that gap.

03:44:30.880 | It's all around us.

03:44:32.840 | - Yeah, but it's hard to know like how to,

03:44:35.280 | to go from digital to printing life.

03:44:39.040 | I don't know.

03:44:39.880 | - We can, we have like, you know, CRISPR and stuff.

03:44:41.360 | You can order, you can just like make, it's very easy.

03:44:44.880 | - Right?

03:44:45.720 | - There's technical difficulties

03:44:46.560 | and there's cost like at scale.

03:44:49.000 | Like the terrifying thing about AI

03:44:50.400 | is it can accelerate overnight the capabilities.

03:44:54.460 | But the printing of stuff,

03:44:55.620 | the actually changing physical reality is very costly.

03:45:00.260 | It's very difficult to exponentially accelerate.

03:45:02.740 | The more terrifying thing is AI

03:45:04.380 | becoming exponentially intelligent

03:45:05.860 | and then controlling humans, which there's many of us.

03:45:09.740 | - Yeah.

03:45:10.660 | - And then that's how we achieve scale.

03:45:12.580 | We humans build stuff or start wars or so on.

03:45:16.500 | Like it starts manipulating our minds,

03:45:18.740 | gets in our mind, becomes our friends

03:45:21.380 | and then starts, I don't know.

03:45:23.620 | - Yeah.

03:45:24.460 | - Dividing us.

03:45:25.300 | - I think people thinking this is unlikely,

03:45:26.120 | it's like, it's probably going to be smart to us

03:45:28.300 | as like we are toddlers.

03:45:29.780 | So we toddlers thinking that like,

03:45:31.300 | oh, we can prevent the AI from coming in the room.

03:45:33.220 | Like as an adult, it's not hard to trick a toddler.

03:45:35.780 | - What about falling in love in the AI system?

03:45:39.660 | Do you think you'll have a, since you're like,

03:45:41.420 | this is the freedom you have being polyamorous.

03:45:43.340 | You can kind of.

03:45:44.180 | - Fall in love with an AI.

03:45:45.140 | - No, you, and like not really have to dedicate,

03:45:48.740 | commit fully.

03:45:49.800 | Like, sorry.

03:45:52.740 | You still commit, but you have others, humans,

03:45:56.500 | who you can kind of diversify to

03:45:58.420 | because like, it's kind of a big thing

03:46:01.020 | to like, to come to a party and your boyfriend is an AI

03:46:07.220 | and that's monogamous boyfriend is an AI.

03:46:11.460 | It's an issue, right?

03:46:12.900 | - Why would it be an issue?

03:46:14.420 | - All right, now you're already getting offended

03:46:16.740 | at that possibility, which therefore I know

03:46:19.220 | it's going to be a reality.

03:46:21.180 | - I'm just joking that it's an issue.

03:46:22.780 | I don't actually think it's an issue.

03:46:24.020 | I think it's a, maybe at the cutting edge

03:46:26.940 | it'll be an issue, but.

03:46:27.940 | - Like assume they have a body, I assume.

03:46:29.980 | - Yeah, but the body will be really like crappy.

03:46:34.980 | It'd be like R2-D2.

03:46:37.500 | - I feel like we grow human bodies already

03:46:39.420 | from like just a tiny little cluster of cells.

03:46:42.220 | And so all they have to do is make that cluster and grow it.

03:46:44.940 | - No, no, no, no.

03:46:46.220 | Like don't, that, that, that, that embryogenesis process,

03:46:49.500 | like that's really not well understood at all.

03:46:52.540 | That's really tough.

03:46:53.380 | I think we're much more likely to have

03:46:55.820 | crappy humanoid robotics.

03:46:58.180 | Like I don't think the body is overrated in terms of,

03:47:00.940 | like if the AI system is super intelligent,

03:47:03.820 | it can use charm to make up for the crappy body, yeah.

03:47:08.820 | - I don't know.

03:47:10.900 | I feel like if I were an AI system

03:47:11.900 | and I were super intelligent,

03:47:13.020 | I probably would be able to solve the problem

03:47:14.660 | of like growing organic matter.

03:47:17.620 | And then I would obviously just do that.

03:47:19.180 | You just build exactly the organic machine that you want.

03:47:21.500 | - Sure, that's like super intelligence.

03:47:23.140 | I think like with language I'm worried about

03:47:25.940 | before it achieves super intelligence,

03:47:29.100 | like true AGI, it would just be really good at talking.

03:47:32.500 | - Yeah, that's true.

03:47:33.460 | - And like it, I just don't think,

03:47:37.180 | intelligence is a very difficult,

03:47:38.820 | like basically a scientist

03:47:41.260 | and a super intelligent scientist is a different thing

03:47:43.580 | than just a good conversationist at a party

03:47:45.900 | that can undress you with their words.

03:47:47.460 | - Would you date an AI?

03:47:49.100 | - I much way before then,

03:47:52.060 | I could see myself being friends with an AI system.

03:47:55.380 | - Yeah.

03:47:56.220 | - But like people are friends with inanimate objects

03:47:59.460 | and I mean, there's a robot behind you,

03:48:02.260 | I have a lot of them.

03:48:03.300 | I like legged robots.

03:48:05.740 | They're interesting.

03:48:07.900 | It's on the shelf.

03:48:08.740 | - Oh, that's so cool.

03:48:09.900 | - Yep.

03:48:10.740 | - I didn't even notice that.

03:48:12.220 | - Yep, yeah, legged robots,

03:48:13.780 | we anthropomorphize them even more

03:48:17.140 | 'cause there's something about the movement of like,

03:48:19.900 | like a thing that steps, steps, steps, steps

03:48:23.380 | and looks up at you, there's a power to that

03:48:26.140 | versus like a Roomba,

03:48:27.260 | that's just like running into the wall.

03:48:30.580 | - Yeah, I think once,

03:48:31.420 | as soon as we get like some sort of empathetic expression

03:48:34.180 | on robot faces over.

03:48:35.580 | - It's over.

03:48:36.420 | - It's gonna be like, oh, it's so cute.

03:48:37.260 | It's gonna be so easy to make it cute too.

03:48:39.660 | - If that's what you want or you want like a dominant,

03:48:41.900 | like clearly this is what women want.

03:48:44.420 | - Being sexy terminator, yeah.

03:48:45.860 | - With strong hands, yeah.

03:48:47.820 | And kind of dumb or not, I don't know.

03:48:52.900 | You can customize, it'd be interesting to do a survey

03:48:56.260 | like how they would customize it.

03:48:58.100 | - Oh yeah.

03:48:58.940 | - Like what would you want in a perfect robot?

03:49:01.020 | This is the problem I see with people,

03:49:02.620 | the way they talk about robots is they kind of want a servant

03:49:05.820 | I think what people don't realize

03:49:09.820 | what they want in relationships,

03:49:11.060 | they want some, like there's,

03:49:12.580 | it has to be a push and pull.

03:49:14.260 | There has to be some resistance.

03:49:17.300 | Like you really don't want a servant

03:49:19.820 | or even like the perfect manifestation of like

03:49:22.220 | what you think you want.

03:49:25.260 | I think you want imperfections around that.

03:49:27.340 | Like some uncertainty, I don't know.

03:49:29.780 | I question how well we're able to perfectly

03:49:33.420 | put on paper what we really want.

03:49:36.340 | - Would you really turn down like a perfect woman though?

03:49:39.020 | Like assume like she walks into the room

03:49:41.140 | and it's just shockingly compatible

03:49:43.100 | and you like start dating her

03:49:44.100 | and there's just no hiccups.

03:49:45.300 | Like you fight perfectly, like she really understands you.

03:49:47.980 | Like would you be like, this is too perfect.

03:49:49.580 | I'm upset 'cause we are not having enough imperfection.

03:49:52.700 | Like can you like actually imagine yourself

03:49:55.260 | going through that?

03:49:56.460 | - Yeah, I think so because,

03:49:58.140 | so 'cause that's how you define perfect

03:50:01.660 | 'cause perfect for me would be like easy

03:50:03.740 | and all that kind of stuff, right?

03:50:05.220 | But then I would be like, this is too easy.

03:50:07.860 | Because if I actually were to introspect

03:50:12.340 | what is the perfect relationship, then yes, maybe.

03:50:14.500 | Because I probably want some challenge.

03:50:16.780 | I probably want some chaos, right?

03:50:19.300 | Like does anyone really fully want zero conflict ever?

03:50:23.900 | Like completely perfect conflict.

03:50:28.660 | Like it's the thing that pressing a button,

03:50:31.380 | like do you really want in a relationship

03:50:33.500 | anything you want, you press a button, you get.

03:50:36.100 | I don't think people want that.

03:50:38.020 | You might think you want that.

03:50:40.540 | - Yeah, I guess it depends.

03:50:41.740 | Like there's a kind of conflict

03:50:43.420 | that I think I would never want,

03:50:44.540 | which is something like antagonistic conflict.

03:50:47.620 | I wouldn't mind disagreement.

03:50:49.780 | - Right.

03:50:50.780 | - But there's a level of fighting.

03:50:51.700 | I would be happy to have a relationship

03:50:53.620 | for the rest of my life that never has like a fight

03:50:55.980 | of a certain shittiness.

03:50:59.340 | - Yeah, but that's shittiness, but like resistance.

03:51:02.540 | Like I don't know what the example is.

03:51:05.740 | 'Cause I mean, I partially agree with you,

03:51:08.700 | but just, and I, every time I would imagine

03:51:12.180 | like perfect, flawless, nothing, no conflict,

03:51:15.500 | you imagine somebody that doesn't have

03:51:16.980 | like a complexity of personality, right?

03:51:20.120 | Like I feel like it's not even,

03:51:23.580 | it's conflict that's laden in basic misunderstanding

03:51:26.820 | between human beings.

03:51:28.180 | Like misinterpretation, different perspectives that clash,

03:51:30.900 | different world views, different ideas,

03:51:32.540 | all that kind of stuff, that conflict.

03:51:34.540 | - Yeah, that sounds good.

03:51:37.260 | - Yeah.

03:51:38.100 | - I don't want to be somebody that could be like,

03:51:39.020 | I don't think that's right because I have this other view.

03:51:41.460 | That's cool.

03:51:42.540 | - And also like the threat of leaving, right?

03:51:44.980 | - Oh yeah.

03:51:45.820 | - Like that's a kind of conflict.

03:51:48.580 | - Yeah, that's true.

03:51:49.620 | Like you have to be good enough for the other person

03:51:51.340 | or maybe you'll lose them.

03:51:52.700 | - Yeah.

03:51:54.260 | And maybe a little jealousy.

03:51:55.620 | Like they're good at that, but not too much.

03:51:57.900 | But like if you design all that in, then I don't know.

03:52:04.780 | - It sounds romantic.

03:52:06.420 | - Sounds romantic, okay.

03:52:08.120 | - All right.

03:52:09.240 | I do want to really quickly ask you about this,

03:52:11.720 | about the rationalist community,

03:52:14.040 | 'cause I've gotten to know a few of them a few times.

03:52:18.440 | You tweeted a guideline to rationalist discourse,

03:52:21.320 | basics of rationalist discourse from Les Ronde.

03:52:25.440 | What are these folks?

03:52:26.560 | What's the rationalist culture?

03:52:28.400 | What's the rationalist discourse?

03:52:30.680 | - Yeah, I love the rationalists

03:52:32.080 | 'cause they're interested in like,

03:52:33.400 | how do you have conversations more effectively

03:52:35.400 | if you're trying to figure out what's actually true?

03:52:37.480 | And which sounds kind of obvious,

03:52:39.440 | but in practice it's not usually.

03:52:41.140 | I remember when I first started having,

03:52:43.920 | debating conversations, I was very antagonistic.

03:52:45.760 | I'm like, oh, I'm a feminist or not a feminist.

03:52:48.040 | And then the rationalists were generally like,

03:52:49.880 | actually, we don't know what we mean by the term feminism.

03:52:52.640 | Like, how do you feel about that?

03:52:53.880 | It was very like kind and compassionate.

03:52:57.760 | Like even if somebody says something that sounds insane,

03:53:00.100 | you're like, okay, well,

03:53:00.940 | we're going to respect your reasoning.

03:53:02.360 | And like, even if we disagree,

03:53:03.520 | let's actually figure out why you think

03:53:04.920 | the way that you think.

03:53:07.160 | And they're also really smart,

03:53:08.800 | write a whole bunch of great stuff

03:53:10.640 | about how to think more clearly and with less bias.

03:53:13.360 | - Yeah, I wonder what those conversations,

03:53:16.160 | 'cause I've never really like talked to those folks.

03:53:19.000 | So this guideline in particular,

03:53:21.320 | I think has to refer to like shorthand characteristics

03:53:25.780 | of rationalist discourse,

03:53:27.280 | including expect good discourse to require energy.

03:53:32.040 | Don't say straightforwardly false things.

03:53:34.600 | Track for yourself and distinguish for others.

03:53:37.760 | Your inferences from your observations,

03:53:40.080 | estimate for yourself and make clear for others.

03:53:42.840 | Your rough level of confidence in your assertions,

03:53:44.860 | make your claims clear, explicit and falsifiable,

03:53:47.300 | or explicitly acknowledge that you aren't doing so,

03:53:51.360 | or can't, so on and so forth.

03:53:53.920 | So don't jump to conclusions.

03:53:56.280 | Don't weaponize equivocation.

03:53:59.700 | Don't abuse categories.

03:54:01.320 | Don't engage, it's very aggressive guidelines.

03:54:04.200 | Don't engage, I do what I want.

03:54:06.200 | I'll let my emotions guide me, God damn it.

03:54:08.760 | - They're pro that as long as you're explicit about it.

03:54:11.040 | - Oh yeah? - Yeah.

03:54:12.520 | - So you can be like a crazy asshole

03:54:14.860 | as long as you're explicit.

03:54:16.000 | - You can be like epistemic status, crazy asshole.

03:54:18.520 | - Who's here to destroy the quality of the conversation.

03:54:23.400 | - I think it's like the common misconception

03:54:25.000 | about rationalists is that they're kind of like Spock.

03:54:27.560 | Like, ah, we suppress emotion

03:54:29.320 | and we're thinking logically, herd eater.

03:54:30.860 | But I found this to be really not the case.

03:54:32.640 | Like, I remember there's a less strong thread

03:54:34.640 | where I was like really emotional and I commented.

03:54:36.460 | And in just the beginning, I was like just warning,

03:54:38.040 | I'm just very emotional.

03:54:39.080 | And then I just vented my emotions.

03:54:40.760 | And people responded really well to that.

03:54:41.880 | They're like, cool, like you're just genuinely,

03:54:44.480 | truthfully expressing your state.

03:54:46.040 | This is actual information about the world

03:54:47.560 | that's important to hear.

03:54:48.960 | And it's just, they're very interested

03:54:50.680 | in having things framed correctly.

03:54:51.880 | Like, you shouldn't be claiming that your emotions

03:54:54.400 | are necessarily a true version of the world.

03:54:56.760 | And so as long as you're just clear

03:54:58.080 | about what the frame it is, you're fine.

03:55:02.360 | - How do you feel about this conversation?

03:55:04.480 | What could we have done better?

03:55:06.040 | - I like the conversation.

03:55:10.080 | I was a little worried coming in.

03:55:11.360 | I was like, what if he'll only ask a couple of questions

03:55:13.560 | and then we don't know what to talk about?

03:55:15.080 | - Yeah.

03:55:15.920 | - But it's been quite a long time.

03:55:17.200 | - And I covered, there's so many things I didn't cover.

03:55:21.040 | - I like the, you have like a,

03:55:23.760 | like I'm not used to talking to somebody

03:55:25.520 | who feels like some of the core way

03:55:27.360 | that they approach the world is so different than mine.

03:55:29.480 | Like usually the differences arrive like higher up the tree,

03:55:32.200 | but like there's something about like your root system

03:55:33.840 | that I think is very different from mine.

03:55:35.440 | But also the way that you engage with others

03:55:37.560 | is still flexible.

03:55:39.120 | Like usually when I encounter somebody

03:55:40.440 | with such a different root system,

03:55:41.600 | there's like, it's like more aggressive or something.

03:55:44.920 | But there's something about the way that you're structured

03:55:46.960 | that feels very gentle.

03:55:50.320 | - All right.

03:55:51.760 | Well, I'm really happy we talked.

03:55:53.840 | Something tells me we'll probably talk a bunch more times.

03:55:56.360 | I think you're a fascinating human being.

03:55:58.320 | I think I'm a huge fan of your work.

03:56:01.260 | Maybe one more question.

03:56:02.240 | What's the meaning of life?

03:56:03.640 | - To want things, to search, to be in.

03:56:08.880 | - I think your curiosity is like somehow getting to that.

03:56:12.400 | - Yeah.

03:56:13.240 | - To want things.

03:56:14.080 | - It's like, it was curiosity, like you don't know.

03:56:16.600 | I want to know the answer,

03:56:17.720 | to like be in the state of yearning.

03:56:19.760 | - Of wanting, of yearning.

03:56:20.760 | - Yeah, that's the point.

03:56:21.600 | - I wonder if you could do that

03:56:22.720 | if you lived a million years, just keep yearning always.

03:56:25.360 | That's the thing I'm probably afraid of

03:56:26.840 | if I lived a million years.

03:56:28.720 | It's not the torture, it's like the yearning will fade.

03:56:31.540 | - You'd probably yearn to die then.

03:56:33.300 | - I was just sitting there wanting death intensely.

03:56:39.460 | - That's kind of romantic, a little bit.

03:56:44.260 | It has like a bit of that spark.

03:56:46.460 | - And constantly being denied.

03:56:49.740 | Wow.

03:56:50.900 | So most of your existence on earth

03:56:52.820 | would be spent deeply intimate with death,

03:56:56.980 | just thinking about death.

03:56:59.280 | I think we're already doing that,

03:57:00.360 | but like hiding that from ourselves a little bit.

03:57:03.360 | Anyway, wanting, wow.

03:57:06.720 | This is an amazing conversation.

03:57:08.480 | I think you're an amazing researcher and human being.

03:57:11.120 | - You're a great interviewer.

03:57:13.200 | I can see why you do this a lot.

03:57:14.880 | - I appreciate it, this is really fun.

03:57:16.760 | Ayla, thank you so much for talking with me today.

03:57:18.600 | - Thank you.

03:57:20.120 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation with Ayla.

03:57:22.400 | To support this podcast,

03:57:23.440 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

03:57:26.280 | And now let me leave you with some words

03:57:28.220 | from Richard Feynman.

03:57:30.020 | Physics is like sex.

03:57:32.260 | Sure, it may give you some practical results,

03:57:35.160 | but that's not why we do it.

03:57:36.560 | Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

03:57:40.180 | (upbeat music)

03:57:42.760 | (upbeat music)

03:57:45.340 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Aella: Sex Work, OnlyFans, Porn, Escorting, Dating, and Human Sexuality | Lex Fridman Podcast #358

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