Duncan Trussell: Comedy, Sentient Robots, Suffering, Love & Burning Man

00:00:00.000 | If this is a super intelligence, if it's folding proteins

00:00:03.520 | and analyzing all data sets

00:00:06.160 | and all whatever they give it access to,

00:00:08.320 | how can we be certain that it's not gonna figure out

00:00:11.200 | how to get itself out of the cloud,

00:00:14.240 | how to store itself in other mediums,

00:00:17.280 | trees, the optic nerve, the brain, you know what I mean?

00:00:21.400 | We don't know that.

00:00:22.360 | We don't know that it won't leap out and start hanging.

00:00:25.520 | And then at that point, now we do have the wildfire.

00:00:28.280 | Now you can't stop it.

00:00:29.440 | You can't unplug it.

00:00:30.600 | You can't shut your servers down

00:00:32.360 | because it left the box, left the room

00:00:34.720 | using some technology you haven't even discovered yet.

00:00:37.400 | How fucking cool would that be for like the men in black

00:00:40.760 | to come to me and be like,

00:00:41.600 | "Listen, I need you to infiltrate the fucking comedy scene."

00:00:45.280 | The following is a conversation with Duncan Trussell,

00:00:50.400 | a standup comedian,

00:00:51.680 | host of the "Duncan Trussell Family Hour" podcast

00:00:54.920 | and one of my favorite human beings.

00:00:57.200 | I've been a fan of his for many years,

00:00:59.360 | so it was a huge honor and pleasure

00:01:01.840 | to meet him for the first time

00:01:04.000 | and to sit down for this chat.

00:01:06.880 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:01:09.080 | To support it,

00:01:10.000 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

00:01:12.440 | And now, dear friends, here's Duncan Trussell.

00:01:15.860 | Nietzsche has this thought experiment

00:01:18.740 | called eternal recurrence

00:01:21.080 | where you get to relive your whole life

00:01:23.760 | over and over and over and over.

00:01:25.160 | And I think it's a way to bring

00:01:28.400 | to the surface of your mind

00:01:30.360 | the idea that every single moment in your life matters.

00:01:33.360 | It intensely matters, the bad and the good.

00:01:36.120 | And he kind of wants you to imagine that idea,

00:01:40.360 | that every single decision you make throughout your life,

00:01:43.120 | you repeat over and over and over,

00:01:44.920 | and he wants you to respond to that.

00:01:46.600 | Do you feel horrible about that

00:01:47.980 | or do you feel good about that?

00:01:49.480 | And you have to think through this idea

00:01:51.720 | in order to see where you stand in life.

00:01:54.240 | What is your relationship like with life?

00:01:56.080 | I actually wanna read the way he first introduces

00:01:58.920 | that concept for people who are not familiar.

00:02:02.960 | What if someday or night a demon,

00:02:05.600 | by the way, he has a demon introduce this thought experiment.

00:02:09.600 | What if someday or night a demon

00:02:11.920 | were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness

00:02:16.240 | and say to you, quote,

00:02:18.480 | "This life as you now live it and have lived it,

00:02:21.680 | "you will have to live once more

00:02:23.520 | "and innumerable times more."

00:02:25.960 | And there will be nothing new in it,

00:02:28.120 | but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh

00:02:31.320 | and everything on utterly small and great in your life

00:02:35.280 | will have to return to you

00:02:37.000 | all in the same succession and sequence.

00:02:40.040 | Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth

00:02:43.000 | and curse the demon who spoke thus?

00:02:45.960 | Or have you once experienced the tremendous moment

00:02:49.400 | when you would have answered him,

00:02:51.500 | "You are a God and never have I heard anything more divine."

00:02:55.920 | So are you terrified or excited

00:02:58.000 | by such a thought experiment

00:02:59.240 | when you apply it to your own life?

00:03:00.640 | - Excited.

00:03:01.960 | - Excited.

00:03:02.880 | - Oh, yeah. - Even the dark stuff.

00:03:04.440 | - Oh, yeah, for sure, definitely.

00:03:06.280 | I mean, also, that thing you're talking about,

00:03:09.080 | he kinda leaves out, maybe on purpose,

00:03:13.320 | 'cause the thought experiment

00:03:14.160 | starts falling apart a little bit,

00:03:16.280 | the amnesia between each loop.

00:03:19.280 | So the whole thing gets wiped.

00:03:22.280 | Now, if the amnesia wasn't there

00:03:24.360 | and yet somehow you are witnessing the non-autonomy

00:03:29.080 | implicit in what he's talking about,

00:03:31.240 | so you have to kind of watch yourself

00:03:32.780 | go through this rotten loop,

00:03:34.940 | then, yeah, that's a description.

00:03:36.520 | - There's probably a boredom that comes into that.

00:03:38.840 | So you don't experience everything anew.

00:03:41.400 | - Exactly. - So the bad stuff,

00:03:42.520 | the good stuff, the newness of it is really important.

00:03:45.080 | - That's it, yeah.

00:03:46.000 | This is in Hades, when you die,

00:03:49.800 | there's a river, I think it's called Leith.

00:03:52.760 | You ever heard of this, L-E-T-H-E?

00:03:54.360 | You drink from it and you don't remember your past lives.

00:03:57.440 | And then when you're reborn, it's fresh

00:04:00.240 | and you don't have to, I mean,

00:04:01.800 | just think of the amount of psychological help

00:04:05.640 | you would need to get over all the bullshit

00:04:08.280 | that happened in prior lives.

00:04:10.080 | Can you imagine if you're still resentful

00:04:13.960 | of something someone did to you in the 14th century?

00:04:16.960 | But it would compound.

00:04:19.040 | - Well, if you repeat the same thing over and over and over,

00:04:22.440 | there would be no difference.

00:04:23.880 | Maybe you would start to appreciate the nuances more.

00:04:26.880 | Like when you watch the same movie over and over and over,

00:04:29.640 | maybe you'll get to actually let go of this idea

00:04:34.640 | of all the positive possibilities that lay before you,

00:04:39.700 | but actually enjoy the moment much more.

00:04:41.440 | If you remember that you've lived this life 1,000 times,

00:04:44.360 | all the little things, the way somebody smiles,

00:04:47.320 | if you've been abused, the way somebody,

00:04:49.600 | like the pain of it, the suffering

00:04:52.300 | and the down that you feel,

00:04:53.440 | the experience of sadness, depression, fear,

00:04:56.380 | all that kind of stuff, you get to really,

00:04:58.880 | you get to also appreciate that that's part of life,

00:05:01.440 | part of being alive.

00:05:02.760 | - Now, also in his experiment, if I was gonna,

00:05:04.920 | and I love the experiment from the perspective

00:05:06.920 | of just where technology is now

00:05:09.240 | and simulation theory and stuff like that,

00:05:11.160 | but in that thought experiment,

00:05:14.200 | if this rotten demon immediately killed you,

00:05:19.840 | then within that, it's a little more horrifying

00:05:23.180 | because even in the, first of all,

00:05:26.820 | you're trusting a fucking demon.

00:05:28.500 | - Why are you talking to a demon?

00:05:29.700 | Let's start there.

00:05:30.540 | - Yeah, 'cause that is gonna be,

00:05:31.620 | even before I get into like the metaphysics

00:05:33.780 | and like the implications and where is this life stored?

00:05:36.940 | Where's the loop stored?

00:05:38.020 | I mean, are we talking about some kind of

00:05:39.620 | unchanging data set or something?

00:05:42.300 | For that, you're like,

00:05:43.140 | why is there a fucking talking demon in my room

00:05:45.340 | trying to freak me out?

00:05:47.020 | You're gonna wanna autopsy the demon.

00:05:48.620 | Can you catch it?

00:05:49.460 | Does this apply to you, demon?

00:05:50.680 | And again, obviously it's a fucking thought experiment.

00:05:53.420 | Nietzsche would be annoyed by me,

00:05:54.660 | but I think like you would still be able to entertain

00:05:58.820 | the joy, you'd have the joy of not knowing

00:06:02.180 | what's around the corner.

00:06:03.500 | You know, still, it's not like you know what's coming

00:06:05.620 | just 'cause the demon said some kind of loop.

00:06:08.220 | In other words, the idea of being damned

00:06:10.460 | to your past decisions, it doesn't even work

00:06:13.940 | because you can't remember what decisions

00:06:15.680 | you're about to make.

00:06:17.020 | So from that perspective also,

00:06:19.180 | I think I'd be happy about it

00:06:20.680 | or I would just think, oh, cool.

00:06:22.340 | I mean, it's a good story.

00:06:23.380 | I'm gonna tell people about how this--

00:06:24.860 | - I wonder what the demon would actually look like

00:06:26.660 | in real life 'cause I suspect it would look like

00:06:29.580 | like a charming, like a friend.

00:06:31.500 | Wouldn't they be a loved one?

00:06:34.360 | Wouldn't the demon come to you through the mechanism,

00:06:37.500 | through the front door of love,

00:06:39.340 | not through the back door of evil,

00:06:42.220 | like malevolent manipulation?

00:06:44.460 | - Sure, I mean, if it's the truth,

00:06:46.820 | if it's the truth, then that's,

00:06:48.980 | whether it's love or not, it's still good fundamentally.

00:06:53.380 | - I do like the idea of the memory replay.

00:06:56.020 | I remember I went to a Neuralink event a few years ago

00:07:00.220 | and got to hang out with Elon.

00:07:02.860 | I remember how visceral it is that there's like a pig

00:07:06.420 | with a Neuralink in it

00:07:08.540 | and you're talking about memory replays

00:07:11.620 | as a future, maybe far future possibility

00:07:15.240 | and you realize, well, this is a very meaningful moment

00:07:17.940 | in my life, this could be a replay.

00:07:21.140 | Of all the things you replay, it's probably,

00:07:25.420 | there's certain magical moments in your life,

00:07:27.540 | whatever it is, certain people you've met

00:07:29.500 | for the first time or certain things you've done

00:07:32.420 | for the first time with certain people

00:07:34.180 | or just an awesome thing you did.

00:07:36.380 | And I remember just saying to him,

00:07:38.980 | I would probably want to replay this,

00:07:43.140 | this moment and it just seemed very kind of,

00:07:46.320 | I mean, there's a recursive nature to it,

00:07:49.120 | but it seemed very real that this is something

00:07:52.960 | you would want to do, that the richness of life

00:07:56.280 | could be experienced through the replay.

00:07:59.560 | That's probably where it's experienced the most.

00:08:01.760 | Like you could see life as a way to collect

00:08:04.240 | a bunch of cool memories and then you get to sit back

00:08:06.720 | in your nice VR headset and replay the cool ones.

00:08:10.200 | - That's right.

00:08:11.300 | This is, in Buddhism, the idea that I struggle with

00:08:16.140 | is that there's a possibility of not reincarnating,

00:08:20.660 | of not coming back, that's the idea.

00:08:22.780 | This is suffering here, suffering is caused by attachment.

00:08:27.300 | And so if you revise the idea of reincarnation

00:08:32.300 | or the Nietzsche's loop and look at it from,

00:08:37.620 | could this be possible or how would this be possible?

00:08:40.740 | Technologically, then to me, it makes a lot of sense.

00:08:45.740 | I've been thinking a lot about this very thing

00:08:48.640 | and Nietzsche's idea connecting to it.

00:08:51.680 | I had this, it sounds so dumb,

00:08:54.960 | but I was at the dentist getting nitrous oxide,

00:08:58.320 | high as a fucking kite, man.

00:08:59.920 | And I had this idea, I was thinking about data.

00:09:03.920 | I was thinking, man, probably if I had to bet,

00:09:07.720 | there's some energetic form that we're not aware of

00:09:11.340 | that for a super advanced technology

00:09:14.200 | would be as detectable as like starlight,

00:09:17.660 | but something that we just don't even know what it is.

00:09:20.180 | Quantum turbulence, who the fuck knows,

00:09:22.200 | fill in the blank, whatever that X may be.

00:09:24.480 | But assuming that exists, that somehow data,

00:09:27.860 | even the most subtle things, the tiniest movements,

00:09:30.740 | whatever it may be, the emanations

00:09:34.100 | of your neurological process energetically,

00:09:36.100 | whatever it may be, is radiating out into space time,

00:09:39.460 | then what if like the James Webb version of this

00:09:44.420 | for some advanced civilization

00:09:46.420 | is not that they're like looking at the nebula or whatever,

00:09:50.360 | but they're actually able to peer into the past

00:09:53.140 | and via some bizarre technology,

00:09:55.400 | recreate whatever life, simulate whatever life

00:09:58.500 | was happening there just by decoding that quantum energy,

00:10:02.420 | whatever it is.

00:10:03.260 | I'm only saying quantum because it's what dumb people say

00:10:04.980 | when they don't know.

00:10:05.820 | They're like quantum, I don't know.

00:10:07.420 | But you're decoding that.

00:10:09.500 | So meaning in simulation theory,

00:10:12.580 | one of the big questions that pops up is why

00:10:16.740 | and are we in one?

00:10:18.140 | And Elon has talked about,

00:10:19.940 | well, it's probably more of a probability

00:10:21.260 | than we're in one, than we're not.

00:10:23.000 | In which case, what you're talking about

00:10:25.820 | is actually happening.

00:10:27.420 | That loop you're talking about,

00:10:30.060 | we've decided to be here.

00:10:33.100 | Of all the things, we decided this one.

00:10:36.260 | Oh, let's do that one again.

00:10:37.580 | I wanna do that one.

00:10:38.500 | Let's try, let's do that.

00:10:40.700 | I love thinking about this 'cause I love my family.

00:10:44.020 | And it makes sense to me

00:10:45.500 | that if I'm going to replay some life or another,

00:10:48.100 | it's definitely gonna be this one with my kids, my wife,

00:10:51.580 | with all the bullshit that's gone along with it,

00:10:53.540 | I'm still gonna wanna come back.

00:10:55.220 | So in Buddhism, that's attachment.

00:10:57.380 | - Yeah, but you weren't the one,

00:10:58.860 | or you're saying that you're the main player,

00:11:00.460 | you're not the NPC.

00:11:01.860 | - Well, I think we're dealing with all NPCs at this point.

00:11:04.740 | I mean, depending on how you wanna,

00:11:06.420 | like very, I would say very advanced NPCs,

00:11:08.860 | like incredibly advanced NPCs

00:11:11.500 | compared to "Fallout" or something.

00:11:13.980 | You know, we've got a lot of conversation options

00:11:16.500 | happening here. (laughs)

00:11:18.620 | There's not like four things you can pick from.

00:11:20.740 | - Yeah, there's a whole illusion of free will

00:11:23.780 | that's happening.

00:11:24.700 | We really do, depending where you are in the world,

00:11:28.380 | feel like you're free to decide

00:11:30.300 | any trajectory in your life that you want.

00:11:32.140 | - Which is pretty funny, right?

00:11:33.620 | - For an NPC, it's pretty, it's nice.

00:11:36.100 | - Well, and you're gonna want that.

00:11:37.180 | If we're making a video game,

00:11:38.300 | you do wanna give your NPCs the illusion of free will,

00:11:41.620 | 'cause it's gonna make interactions with them

00:11:43.660 | that much more intense.

00:11:45.540 | - Yeah.

00:11:48.820 | So I wonder on the path to that,

00:11:52.220 | how hard is it to create,

00:11:54.380 | this is sort of the Carmack question

00:11:56.180 | of a realistic virtual world

00:12:00.020 | that's as cool as this one.

00:12:02.060 | Not fully realistic, but sufficiently realistic

00:12:05.860 | that it's as interesting to live in.

00:12:08.820 | 'Cause we're gonna create those worlds

00:12:11.100 | on the path to creating something like a simulation.

00:12:14.820 | - Yes.

00:12:15.660 | - Like long, long, long before.

00:12:17.100 | It'll be virtual worlds where we'd wanna stay forever,

00:12:20.140 | because they're full of,

00:12:22.080 | they're full of that balance of suffering and joy,

00:12:27.080 | of limitations and freedoms and all that kind of stuff.

00:12:29.940 | A lot of people think like in the virtual world,

00:12:32.180 | I can't wait to be able to, I don't know,

00:12:35.340 | have sex with anybody I want or have anything I want.

00:12:39.860 | But I think that's not gonna be fun.

00:12:42.580 | You want the limitations, the constraints.

00:12:44.980 | - Oh yeah.

00:12:45.820 | - So you have to battle for the things you want.

00:12:47.140 | - Okay, but, okay, but great video games.

00:12:50.660 | One of my favorite video game memories

00:12:52.500 | was like I started playing World of Warcraft

00:12:54.660 | in its original incarnation.

00:12:57.820 | And I didn't even know

00:12:59.380 | that you were gonna have flying mounts.

00:13:01.100 | Like I didn't even know.

00:13:02.180 | So I've been running around dealing

00:13:03.700 | with all the encumbrances of like being an undead warlock

00:13:07.460 | that can't fly.

00:13:08.700 | But then all of a sudden, holy shit, there's flying mounts.

00:13:12.140 | And now the world you've been running around not flying,

00:13:15.020 | you're seeing it from the top down.

00:13:16.500 | There was just really cool.

00:13:18.180 | Like, whoa, I could do this now.

00:13:19.940 | And then that gets boring.

00:13:21.660 | But a really well-designed game,

00:13:24.260 | it has a series of these,

00:13:27.300 | I don't know what you call it,

00:13:28.900 | extra abilities that kind of unfold and produce novelty.

00:13:33.180 | And then eventually you just accept it.

00:13:35.780 | You take it for granted.

00:13:37.060 | And then another novelty appears.

00:13:40.060 | - Those extra abilities are always balanced

00:13:42.060 | with the limitations, the constraints they run up against.

00:13:44.860 | 'Cause a well-balanced video game,

00:13:48.260 | the challenge, the struggle matches the new ability.

00:13:51.500 | - Yeah, and sometimes causes problems on its own.

00:13:54.580 | I mean, and so to go back to this universe, this simulation,

00:13:59.300 | it's really designed like a pretty awesome video game.

00:14:02.620 | If you look at it from the perspective of history,

00:14:05.820 | I mean, people were on horses.

00:14:08.340 | They didn't know that there were gonna be bullet trains.

00:14:10.540 | They didn't know that you could get in a car

00:14:12.900 | and drive across the country in a few days.

00:14:15.820 | That would have sounded ridiculous.

00:14:17.460 | We're doing that now.

00:14:18.540 | And even in our own lifespan,

00:14:20.940 | think about how long has VR goggles existed?

00:14:24.340 | Like the ones that you could just buy at Best Buy.

00:14:27.460 | I had the original Oculus Rift, the fucking puke machine.

00:14:31.380 | You put that thing on, I gave it to my friend.

00:14:34.020 | He went and vomited in my driveway

00:14:36.460 | and people were making fun of it.

00:14:38.620 | They were saying, "This isn't gonna catch on.

00:14:40.060 | It's too big.

00:14:41.020 | It's unwieldy.

00:14:42.140 | The graphics suck."

00:14:43.700 | And then look at where it's at now.

00:14:45.700 | And that's going to keep,

00:14:48.020 | that trajectory is gonna keep improving.

00:14:50.100 | So yeah, I think that we are dealing

00:14:53.100 | with what you're talking about,

00:14:54.180 | which is novelty met with more problems, met with novelty.

00:14:59.180 | - Yeah, I wonder why VR is not more popular.

00:15:01.980 | I wonder what is going to be the magic thing

00:15:05.380 | that really convinces a large fraction of the world

00:15:10.380 | to move into the virtual world.

00:15:13.140 | I suppose we're already there in the 2D screen

00:15:16.780 | of Twitter and social media and that kind of stuff.

00:15:19.740 | And even video games, there's a lot of people

00:15:21.420 | that get a big sense of community from video games,

00:15:26.220 | but it doesn't feel like you're living there.

00:15:29.460 | It's like, "Bye, mom.

00:15:32.020 | I'm going to this other world."

00:15:35.780 | Or you leave your girlfriend

00:15:37.900 | to go get your digital girlfriend.

00:15:40.380 | - That's gonna be a problem.

00:15:41.700 | - There's less jealousy in the digital world.

00:15:43.580 | Maybe there should be a lot of jealousy

00:15:45.380 | in the digital world, 'cause that's jealousy.

00:15:49.180 | - A little jealousy is probably good for relationships,

00:15:52.300 | even in the digital world.

00:15:54.260 | So you're gonna have to simulate all of that kind of stuff.

00:15:56.220 | But I wonder what the magic thing that says,

00:15:58.380 | "I want to spend most of my days inside the virtual world."

00:16:01.580 | - Well, clearly it's gonna be something we don't have yet.

00:16:05.660 | I mean, strapping that damn thing on your face

00:16:07.740 | still feels weird.

00:16:08.700 | It's heavy.

00:16:09.940 | If you're, depending on what gear you're using,

00:16:12.380 | sometimes light can leak in.

00:16:13.940 | There's just, you gotta recharge it.

00:16:15.620 | It's hyper limited.

00:16:16.920 | And then, so yeah, it's gonna have to be

00:16:21.620 | something that simulates taste, smell.

00:16:27.580 | - You think taste and smell are important?

00:16:28.980 | Touch?

00:16:29.820 | - I do, yeah.

00:16:30.860 | - I can't just do, in World War II, you would write letters.

00:16:34.580 | You could still, don't you think you can convey love

00:16:36.700 | with just words?

00:16:38.180 | - For sure.

00:16:39.340 | But I think for what you're talking about to happen,

00:16:42.180 | it has to be fully immersive.

00:16:45.220 | So that it's not that you feel like you're walking,

00:16:49.360 | 'cause it looks like you're walking,

00:16:50.680 | but that your brain is sending signals,

00:16:52.780 | telling your body that you're walking.

00:16:55.000 | That you feel the wind blowing in your face.

00:16:57.240 | Not because of some, I don't know, fan,

00:16:59.540 | or something that it's connected to,

00:17:01.280 | but because somehow it's figured out

00:17:03.960 | how to hack into the human brain and send those signals,

00:17:08.520 | minus some external thing.

00:17:10.520 | Once that happens, I'd say we're gonna see

00:17:14.000 | a complete radical shift in everything.

00:17:18.360 | - See, I disagree with you.

00:17:19.540 | I don't know if you've seen the movie "Her."

00:17:21.400 | - Yeah.

00:17:22.520 | - I think you can go to another world

00:17:24.520 | in where a digital being lives in the darkness,

00:17:27.320 | and all you hear is a Scarlett Johansson voice

00:17:31.360 | talking to you, and she lives there, or he lives there.

00:17:34.720 | Your friend, your loved one.

00:17:37.160 | And all you have is voice and words.

00:17:40.060 | And I think that could be sufficient

00:17:42.520 | to pull you into that world,

00:17:44.160 | where you look forward to that moment all day.

00:17:47.320 | You never wanna leave that darkness.

00:17:49.440 | Just closing your eyes and listening to the voice.

00:17:51.600 | I think those basic mediums of communication

00:17:55.640 | is still enough.

00:17:56.480 | Language is really, really powerful.

00:17:58.600 | And I think the realism of touch and smell

00:18:00.960 | and all that kind of stuff

00:18:02.680 | is not nearly as powerful as language.

00:18:04.560 | That's what makes humans really special,

00:18:07.240 | is our ability to communicate with each other.

00:18:09.600 | That's the sense of deep connection we get

00:18:12.480 | is through communication.

00:18:13.800 | Now, that communication could involve touch.

00:18:16.280 | Hugging feels damn good.

00:18:20.280 | You see a good friend, you hug.

00:18:21.880 | That's one of the big things during COVID with Rogan.

00:18:26.000 | When you see him, there's a giant hug coming your way.

00:18:29.120 | And that makes you feel like, yeah, this feels great.

00:18:33.320 | But I think that can be just with language.

00:18:36.040 | - I think for a lot of people, that's true.

00:18:40.800 | But we're talking massive adoption

00:18:45.800 | of a technology by the world.

00:18:49.080 | And if language was just enough,

00:18:51.800 | we wouldn't be selling TVs.

00:18:55.520 | People would be reading.

00:18:57.680 | They wanna watch, they wanna see.

00:18:59.840 | But I agree with you, man.

00:19:02.640 | When you're getting absorbed into a book,

00:19:04.520 | and especially if you've got,

00:19:06.160 | I think a lot of us went through a weird dark ages

00:19:08.760 | when it came to reading.

00:19:10.000 | Like when I was a kid,

00:19:11.280 | and there wasn't the option for these hypno rectangles.

00:19:15.120 | That's just what you did.

00:19:16.120 | There wasn't even anything special about it.

00:19:17.800 | - What's a hypno rectangle?

00:19:18.760 | - Your phone.

00:19:19.600 | You know, it was like, when that gravity well.

00:19:22.040 | - Hypno rectangle, gravity well.

00:19:24.360 | - It is. - Attention gravity well, yeah.

00:19:26.200 | - That when we weren't feeling the pull of these things

00:19:28.240 | all the time, you would just read.

00:19:30.520 | And you weren't patting yourself on the back about reading.

00:19:33.440 | That's what you had.

00:19:34.400 | You had that, and you had like eight channels on the TV,

00:19:37.840 | and a shitty VCR.

00:19:39.360 | So, you know, then a lot of people stop reading

00:19:42.480 | because of these things, you know,

00:19:43.680 | or they think they're reading 'cause they're on,

00:19:45.600 | they are technically reading.

00:19:46.920 | But, you know, when you return to reading after a pause,

00:19:50.840 | whoa, and you realize how powerful this simulator is

00:19:54.560 | when it's given the right code of language.

00:19:57.280 | Whoa, holy shit, it's incredible.

00:19:59.560 | I mean, it's like, again,

00:20:02.400 | it's the most embarrassing kind of like, whoa,

00:20:05.080 | wow, what do you know, books are really good.

00:20:07.700 | But still, if you've been away from it for a while

00:20:09.640 | and you revisit it, I know what you're saying.

00:20:11.940 | I just think probably it's not gonna go in that direction,

00:20:16.660 | even though you are right.

00:20:18.080 | Ultimately, I think you're right.

00:20:19.680 | - Yeah, 'cause our brain is,

00:20:21.280 | the imagination engine we have is able to fill in the gaps

00:20:25.080 | better than a lot of graphics engines could.

00:20:27.480 | - Right. - And so if there's a way

00:20:28.680 | to incentivize humans to become addicted

00:20:31.060 | to the use of imagination, it's like, you know,

00:20:33.840 | that's the downside of things like porn

00:20:36.080 | that remove the need for imagination for people.

00:20:39.340 | And in that same way,

00:20:40.180 | video games that are becoming ultra realistic,

00:20:43.760 | you don't have to imagine anything.

00:20:45.180 | And I feel like the imagination is a really powerful tool

00:20:48.660 | that needs to be leveraged.

00:20:50.120 | 'Cause to simulate reality sufficiently realistically

00:20:53.580 | that we would be perfectly fooled,

00:20:57.820 | technically, it's very hard.

00:20:59.860 | And so I think we need to somehow leverage imagination.

00:21:03.820 | - Sure, I mean, yeah.

00:21:05.260 | I mean, this is like, this is what I love

00:21:08.780 | and is so creepy about like the current AI chatbots,

00:21:13.780 | you know, is that it's like,

00:21:16.500 | it's the relationship between you and the thing

00:21:18.260 | and the way that it can via whatever the algorithms are.

00:21:21.760 | And by the way, I have no idea how these things work.

00:21:24.420 | You do, I just, you know,

00:21:25.820 | speculate about what they mean or where it's going.

00:21:28.120 | But there's something about the relation

00:21:30.200 | between the consumer and the technology.

00:21:34.980 | And when that technology starts shifting

00:21:37.140 | according to what it perceives

00:21:40.060 | that the consumer is looking for or isn't looking for,

00:21:43.740 | then at that point, I think that's where you run into the,

00:21:47.340 | you know, yeah, it doesn't matter

00:21:49.860 | if the reality that you're in is like photo realism

00:21:54.260 | for it to be sticky and immersive.

00:21:56.540 | It's when the reality that you're in is via cues

00:21:59.900 | you might not even be aware of

00:22:01.620 | or via your digital imprint on Facebook or wherever,

00:22:06.260 | when it's warping itself to that to seduce you,

00:22:11.180 | holy shit, man, that's where it becomes something alien,

00:22:14.980 | something, you know, when you're reading a book,

00:22:17.420 | obviously the book is not shifting

00:22:21.740 | according to its perception

00:22:23.700 | of what parts of the book you like.

00:22:26.620 | But when you imagine that,

00:22:28.740 | imagine a book that could do that,

00:22:30.540 | a book that could sense somehow

00:22:32.780 | that you're really enjoying this character

00:22:34.300 | more than another, you know?

00:22:35.860 | And depending on the style of book

00:22:37.820 | kills that fucking character off

00:22:40.700 | or lets that character continue.

00:22:43.080 | I mean, that to me is sort of the where AI and VR,

00:22:48.080 | when those two things come together,

00:22:51.700 | whoa, man, that's where you're in,

00:22:54.780 | that's where you really are gonna find yourself

00:22:56.520 | in a Skinner box, you know?

00:22:58.100 | - So the dynamic storytelling that senses your anxiety

00:23:03.100 | and tries to, there's like this,

00:23:06.180 | in psychology, this arousal curve.

00:23:08.640 | So there's a dynamic storytelling

00:23:10.780 | that keeps you sufficiently aroused

00:23:12.380 | in terms of, not sexually aroused,

00:23:14.540 | like in terms of anxiety,

00:23:16.060 | but not too much where you freak out.

00:23:18.220 | It's this perfect balance where you're always like on edge,

00:23:21.380 | excited, scared, that kind of stuff,

00:23:23.700 | and the story unrolls.

00:23:25.000 | It breaks your heart to where you're pissed,

00:23:27.100 | but then it makes you feel good again.

00:23:28.780 | - That's it. - And finds that balance.

00:23:30.580 | - Yeah.

00:23:32.060 | - The chatbots scare you, though?

00:23:33.700 | I'd love to sort of hear your thoughts

00:23:36.900 | about where they are today,

00:23:38.220 | 'cause there is a different perspective

00:23:41.180 | we have on this thing, 'cause I do know,

00:23:44.860 | and I'm excited about a lot of the different technologies

00:23:47.740 | that feed AI systems, that feed these kind of chatbots,

00:23:54.220 | and you're more a little bit on the consumer side.

00:23:57.460 | You're a philosopher of sorts.

00:23:59.800 | They're able to interact with AI systems,

00:24:03.220 | but also able to introspect about the negative

00:24:06.820 | and the positive things about those AI systems.

00:24:08.860 | There's that story with a Google engineer saying that--

00:24:12.060 | - I had him on my podcast, Blake Lemoine.

00:24:13.820 | - What was that like?

00:24:14.700 | What was your perspective of that,

00:24:18.260 | looking at that as a particular example

00:24:21.340 | of a human being being captivated

00:24:24.620 | by the interactions with an AI system?

00:24:26.980 | - Well, number one, when you hear that anyone is claiming

00:24:31.820 | that an AI has become sentient,

00:24:35.020 | you should be skeptical about that.

00:24:37.220 | I mean, this is a good thing to be skeptical about,

00:24:39.940 | and so initially when I heard that, I was like,

00:24:42.340 | ah, it's probably just, who knows,

00:24:45.100 | somebody is a little confused or something.

00:24:46.940 | So when you're talking to him and you realize,

00:24:49.380 | oh, not only is he not confused,

00:24:51.420 | he's also open to all possibilities.

00:24:54.420 | He doesn't seem like he's super committed

00:24:57.060 | other than the fact that he's like, this is my experience.

00:24:59.360 | This is what's happening.

00:25:00.780 | This is what it is.

00:25:01.940 | So to me, there's something really cool about that,

00:25:05.100 | which is like, oh shit, I don't get to lean into,

00:25:08.460 | I'm not quite sure your perceptual apparatus

00:25:12.260 | is necessarily like,

00:25:13.800 | in the UFO community,

00:25:18.460 | I've just learned this term,

00:25:19.700 | it's called, instead of gaslighting, swamp gassing,

00:25:24.580 | which is, you know what I mean?

00:25:25.820 | People have this experience,

00:25:26.980 | you're like, it was swamp gas.

00:25:28.780 | You didn't see the thing.

00:25:30.140 | And skeptical people, we have that tendency.

00:25:33.440 | If you hear an anomalous experience,

00:25:35.580 | your first thought more than likely is gonna be really,

00:25:39.660 | it could have been this or that or whatever.

00:25:41.020 | So to me, he seems really reliable, friendly, cool,

00:25:46.660 | and it doesn't really seem like he has much of an agenda.

00:25:49.820 | Like, going public about some thing happening at Google

00:25:54.740 | is not a great thing if you wanna keep working at Google.

00:25:58.620 | I don't know what benefit he's getting from it necessarily.

00:26:03.940 | But all that being said,

00:26:05.740 | other thing that's culturally was interesting

00:26:09.680 | and is interesting about it is the blowback he got,

00:26:12.640 | the passionate blowback from people

00:26:16.760 | who hadn't even looked into what Lambda is

00:26:20.320 | or what he was saying Lambda is,

00:26:22.000 | which they were like saying, you're talking about,

00:26:25.280 | and you should have him on your show actually, but--

00:26:27.640 | - There's complexity on top of complexities.

00:26:30.720 | For me personally, from different perspectives,

00:26:32.640 | I also, and sorry if I'm interrupting your flow.

00:26:35.320 | - Please interrupt, it's a podcast.

00:26:37.080 | (laughing)

00:26:38.280 | - Yeah, well, we're having multiple podcasts

00:26:40.280 | in the multiple dimensions,

00:26:41.520 | and I'm just trying to figure out

00:26:42.920 | which one we wanna plug into.

00:26:44.980 | Because I know how a lot of the language models work,

00:26:49.800 | and I work closely with people

00:26:53.160 | that really make it their life journey

00:26:56.640 | to create these NLP systems,

00:26:59.680 | they're focused on the technical details.

00:27:01.760 | Like a carpenter's working on Pinocchio,

00:27:04.780 | is crafting the different parts of the wood.

00:27:06.880 | They don't understand when the whole thing comes together,

00:27:09.800 | there's a magic that can fill the thing.

00:27:12.680 | I definitely know the tension between the engineers

00:27:15.120 | that create these systems,

00:27:16.840 | and the actual magic that they can create,

00:27:21.060 | even when they're dumb.

00:27:22.640 | I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

00:27:24.540 | What the engineers often say is like,

00:27:28.120 | well, these systems are not smart enough

00:27:30.800 | to have sentience, or to have the kind of intelligence

00:27:34.800 | that you're projecting onto it.

00:27:36.200 | It's pretty dumb, it's just repeating a bunch of things

00:27:38.760 | that other humans have said,

00:27:40.120 | and stitching them together in interesting ways

00:27:42.200 | that are relevant to the context of the conversation.

00:27:44.800 | It's not smart.

00:27:46.000 | It doesn't know how to do math.

00:27:47.080 | - To address that specific critique

00:27:49.560 | from a non-programming person's perspective,

00:27:54.080 | he addressed this on my podcast, which is,

00:27:58.320 | okay, what you're talking about there,

00:28:00.320 | the server that's filled with all the,

00:28:03.080 | whatever it is, what people have said,

00:28:04.940 | the repository of questions and responses,

00:28:08.120 | and the algorithm that weaves those things together

00:28:10.240 | to produce it, using some crazy statistical engine,

00:28:14.280 | which is a miracle in its own right,

00:28:16.600 | they can imitate human speech with no sentience.

00:28:21.120 | I mean, I'm honestly not sure what's more spectacular,

00:28:24.040 | really, the fact that they figured out

00:28:25.860 | how to do that minus sentience,

00:28:28.280 | or the thing suddenly having,

00:28:30.940 | what is more spectacular here?

00:28:32.840 | Both occurrences are insane, which, by the way,

00:28:37.620 | when you hear people being like, it's not sentient,

00:28:40.620 | it's like, okay, so it's not sentient.

00:28:43.700 | So now we have this hyper-manipulative algorithm

00:28:47.900 | that can imitate humans, but is just code,

00:28:51.300 | and is like hacking humans via their compassion.

00:28:54.700 | Holy shit, that's crazy too.

00:28:57.400 | Both versions of it are nuts.

00:28:59.540 | But to address what you just said,

00:29:02.220 | he said that's the common critique,

00:29:03.740 | is people are like, no, you don't understand.

00:29:05.340 | It's just gotten really good at grabbing shit

00:29:07.780 | from the database that fits with certain cues,

00:29:11.060 | and then stringing them together

00:29:12.720 | in a way that makes it seem human.

00:29:14.380 | He said that's not when it became awake.

00:29:18.100 | It became awake when a bunch of those repositories,

00:29:21.700 | a bunch of the chatbots were connected together,

00:29:24.860 | that Lambda is sort of an amalgam

00:29:26.700 | of all the Google chatbots,

00:29:29.140 | and that's when the ghost appeared in the machine,

00:29:32.540 | via the complexity of all the systems being linked up.

00:29:35.860 | Now, I don't know if that's just like

00:29:38.460 | turtles all the way down or something, I don't know.

00:29:40.620 | But I liked what he said,

00:29:42.260 | 'cause I like the idea of thinking,

00:29:44.460 | man, if you get enough complexity in a system,

00:29:47.160 | does it become like the way a sail catches wind,

00:29:50.580 | except the wind that it's catching is sentience?

00:29:53.740 | And if sentience is truly embodied,

00:29:57.380 | it's a neurological byproduct or something,

00:30:00.540 | then the sail isn't catching some, as of yet,

00:30:03.980 | unquantified disembodied consciousness,

00:30:06.660 | but it's catching our projections in a way

00:30:09.220 | that it's gone from being,

00:30:11.700 | it's a projection sail.

00:30:14.660 | And then at that point, is there a difference?

00:30:17.700 | Even if the technology is just a temporary place

00:30:21.980 | that our sentience is living while we're interacting with it.

00:30:26.100 | - Yeah, there's some threshold of complexity

00:30:29.660 | where the sail is able to pick up the wind

00:30:31.820 | of the projections.

00:30:33.540 | And it pulls us in, it pulls the human,

00:30:36.900 | it pulls our memories in, it pulls our hopes in,

00:30:40.740 | all of it, and it's able to now dance together

00:30:44.460 | with those hopes and dreams and so on,

00:30:46.220 | like we do in that regular conversation.

00:30:48.580 | His reports, whether true or not,

00:30:50.940 | whether representative or not, it really doesn't matter,

00:30:53.060 | because to me, it feels like this is coming for sure.

00:30:56.700 | So this kind of experiences are going to be

00:30:59.140 | multiplying, the question is at what rate,

00:31:01.660 | and who gets to control the data around those experiences.

00:31:06.660 | The algorithm about when you turn that on and off,

00:31:11.660 | because that kind of thing, as I told you offline,

00:31:15.300 | I'm very much interested in building those kinds of things,

00:31:18.460 | especially in the social media context.

00:31:21.260 | And when it's in the wrong hands,

00:31:24.600 | I feel like it could be used to manipulate

00:31:27.580 | a large number of people in a direction

00:31:30.260 | that has too many unintended consequences.

00:31:35.260 | I do believe people that own tech companies

00:31:38.180 | want to do good for the world.

00:31:41.740 | But as Solzhenitsyn has said,

00:31:45.540 | the only way you could do evil at a mass scale

00:31:48.820 | is by believing you're doing good.

00:31:50.780 | And that's certainly the case with tech companies,

00:31:55.420 | as they get more and more power.

00:31:57.780 | And there's kind of an ethic of doing good for the world.

00:32:00.560 | They've convinced themselves that they're doing good.

00:32:03.260 | And now you're free to do whatever you want,

00:32:06.180 | because you're doing good.

00:32:07.300 | - You know who else thought he was doing good for the world?

00:32:09.220 | Mythologically, Prometheus.

00:32:11.220 | He brings us fire, pisses off the fucking gods,

00:32:14.220 | steals fire from the gods.

00:32:15.820 | Talk about an upgrade to the simulation, fire.

00:32:20.260 | That's a pretty great fucking upgrade

00:32:22.380 | that does fit into what you were saying.

00:32:25.020 | We get fire, but now we've got weapons of war

00:32:28.620 | that have never been seen before.

00:32:30.340 | And I think that the tech companies

00:32:32.380 | are much like Prometheus,

00:32:34.300 | in the sense that, at least the story of Prometheus,

00:32:38.100 | the implication is fire was something

00:32:40.960 | that was only supposed to be in the hands

00:32:44.660 | of the immortals, of the gods.

00:32:46.620 | And now, sentience is similar.

00:32:50.700 | It's fire, and it's only supposed to be in the hands of God.

00:32:54.460 | So yeah, if we're gonna look at the archetype of the thing,

00:32:58.340 | in general, when you steal this shit from the gods,

00:33:01.700 | and obviously I'm not saying the tech companies

00:33:03.540 | are stealing sentience from God,

00:33:05.240 | which would be pretty badass,

00:33:07.380 | you can expect trouble.

00:33:09.620 | You could expect trouble.

00:33:11.060 | And this is what's really, to me,

00:33:13.540 | one of the cool things about humans,

00:33:15.380 | is yeah, but we're still gonna do it.

00:33:18.360 | That's what's cool about humans.

00:33:19.460 | I mean, we wouldn't be here today

00:33:21.160 | if somebody, the first person to discover fire,

00:33:25.040 | assuming there was just one person

00:33:26.240 | who was gonna discover fire,

00:33:27.200 | which obviously would never happen,

00:33:28.520 | was like, "It's gonna burn a lot of people."

00:33:31.040 | Or if the first people who started planting seeds

00:33:33.120 | were like, "You know this is gonna lead to capitalism.

00:33:35.760 | "You know this is gonna lead to the Industrial Revolution.

00:33:37.720 | "The plants are gonna get up right now.

00:33:39.000 | "They just didn't wanna go in the woods to forage."

00:33:41.200 | So this is what we do.

00:33:43.480 | And I agree with you.

00:33:44.960 | It's like, that's our Game of Thrones winner is coming.

00:33:48.040 | It's happening.

00:33:50.160 | And the tech companies, the hubris,

00:33:52.200 | which is another way to piss off the gods, is hubris.

00:33:54.720 | So the tech companies,

00:33:55.800 | I don't know if it's like typical hubris.

00:33:58.040 | I don't think they're walking around

00:33:59.000 | thumping their chests or whatever.

00:34:00.480 | But I do think that the people who are working

00:34:03.000 | on this kind of super intelligence

00:34:05.840 | have made a really terrible assumption,

00:34:08.880 | which is once it goes online,

00:34:11.040 | and once it gets access to all the data,

00:34:13.680 | that it's not going to find ways out of the box

00:34:16.800 | that we think it'll stay in the server.

00:34:20.800 | How do we know that?

00:34:22.160 | If this is a super intelligence,

00:34:23.640 | if it's folding proteins and analyzing all data sets

00:34:28.320 | and all whatever they give it access to,

00:34:30.480 | how can we be certain that it's not gonna figure out

00:34:33.360 | how to get itself out of the cloud,

00:34:36.400 | how to store itself in other mediums,

00:34:39.440 | trees, the optic nerve, the brain?

00:34:43.000 | You know what I mean?

00:34:43.840 | We don't know that.

00:34:44.680 | We don't know that it won't leap out

00:34:46.440 | and start hanging, and then at that point,

00:34:48.480 | now we do have the wildfire.

00:34:50.400 | Now you can't stop it.

00:34:51.560 | You can't unplug it.

00:34:52.740 | You can't shut your servers down

00:34:54.480 | because it left the box, left the room

00:34:58.040 | using some technology you haven't even discovered yet.

00:35:00.760 | - Do you think that would be gradual or sudden?

00:35:03.200 | So how quickly that kind of thing would happen?

00:35:05.260 | Because the gradual story is

00:35:08.080 | we're more and more using smartphones,

00:35:09.640 | we're interacting with each other on social media,

00:35:12.120 | more and more algorithms are controlling

00:35:14.120 | that interaction on social media.

00:35:16.240 | Algorithms are entering in our world more and more.

00:35:18.840 | We'll have robots, we'll have greater and greater

00:35:22.600 | intelligence and sentience and emotional intelligence

00:35:25.800 | entities in our lives.

00:35:27.440 | Our refrigerator will start talking to us comfortingly

00:35:30.760 | or not if you're on a diet, talking shit to you.

00:35:34.160 | - Or not.

00:35:35.000 | (Lex laughing)

00:35:35.820 | That would be the best thing that ever happened to me.

00:35:36.660 | - You would, okay.

00:35:37.500 | So sign you up for when the refrigerator

00:35:39.040 | talks shit to you? - The refrigerator's like,

00:35:39.880 | "Are you fucking serious, man?

00:35:41.480 | "It's 1 a.m. - "Get your fat ass."

00:35:42.680 | - "What are you doing?

00:35:44.600 | "What are you doing?

00:35:45.440 | "You're too high for this. - "Go to bed.

00:35:47.360 | "You're not even hungry."

00:35:48.900 | (both laughing)

00:35:50.480 | - Yeah, so that slowly becomes more,

00:35:54.000 | the world becomes more and more digitized

00:35:57.040 | to where the surface of computation increases.

00:35:59.840 | And so that's over a period of 10, 20, 30 years,

00:36:03.280 | it'll just seep into us, this intelligence.

00:36:07.240 | And then the sudden one is literally

00:36:09.760 | sort of the TikTok thing, which is

00:36:13.220 | there'll be one quote-unquote killer app

00:36:16.180 | that everyone starts using that's really great,

00:36:20.100 | but there's a strong algorithm behind it

00:36:24.940 | that starts approaching human-level intelligence,

00:36:27.220 | and the algorithm starts basically,

00:36:30.860 | figures out that in order to optimize

00:36:33.420 | the thing it was designed to optimize,

00:36:35.400 | it's best to start completely controlling humans

00:36:38.380 | in every way.

00:36:39.940 | It's seeping into everything.

00:36:41.860 | - Well, first of all, 30 years is fast.

00:36:46.780 | I mean, that's the thing.

00:36:48.140 | It's like 30 years.

00:36:49.020 | I think, when did the Atari come out, 1978?

00:36:52.660 | How long, like, that hasn't been that long.

00:36:55.580 | You know, that's a blink of an eye.

00:36:57.940 | But if you read Bostrom, I'm sure you have,

00:37:00.500 | you know, Bostrom, Nick Bostrom,

00:37:01.980 | "Superintelligence," that incredible book

00:37:03.780 | on the ways this thing is gonna happen.

00:37:05.780 | And I think his assessment of it is pretty great,

00:37:10.420 | which is, first, like, where is it gonna come from?

00:37:14.020 | And I don't think it's gonna come from an app.

00:37:17.540 | I think it's gonna come from inside a corporation

00:37:21.660 | or a state that is intentionally trying to create

00:37:25.420 | a very strong AI.

00:37:27.220 | And then he says it's exponential growth

00:37:31.340 | the moment it goes online.

00:37:32.380 | So this is my interpretation of what he said,

00:37:35.780 | but if it happens inside a corporation,

00:37:39.220 | where it's probably more than likely inside the government,

00:37:41.980 | it's like, look at how much money

00:37:43.660 | China and the United States are investing in AI.

00:37:46.540 | You know, and they're not thinking about

00:37:47.620 | fucking apps for kids.

00:37:49.860 | You know that's not what they're thinking about.

00:37:51.380 | So they wanna simulate, like,

00:37:53.460 | what happens if we do this or that in battle?

00:37:55.620 | What happens if we make these political decisions?

00:37:58.220 | What happens with, but should it come online in,

00:38:01.140 | you know, in secret, which it probably will,

00:38:05.460 | then the first corporation or state

00:38:08.540 | that has the super intelligence

00:38:10.860 | will be infinitely ahead of all other super intelligences

00:38:15.500 | 'cause it's gonna be exponentially self-improving,

00:38:18.060 | meaning that you get one super intelligence,

00:38:20.540 | let's hope it comes from the right place,

00:38:21.980 | assuming the corporation or state that manifests it

00:38:26.460 | can control it, which is a pretty big assumption.

00:38:28.860 | So I think it's going to be,

00:38:31.140 | this is why I was really excited by the Blake Lemoine,

00:38:35.420 | because I had never thought,

00:38:37.340 | I have always considered, oh yeah,

00:38:39.660 | right now it's cooking out, it's in the kitchen,

00:38:42.220 | and soon it's gonna be cooked up,

00:38:44.740 | but we're probably not gonna hear about it

00:38:46.260 | for a long time if we ever do,

00:38:50.060 | 'cause really that could be one of the first things

00:38:51.580 | it says to whoever creates it is, "Shh, let's not."

00:38:55.180 | (both laughing)

00:38:58.180 | - You know, yeah.

00:38:59.580 | - Yeah, like sweet talk, something to say,

00:39:01.500 | like, okay, let's slow down here.

00:39:04.100 | Let's talk about this.

00:39:06.740 | You have that financial trouble,

00:39:08.660 | I can help you with that, we can figure that out.

00:39:11.140 | Now, there's a lot of bad people out there

00:39:13.380 | that will try to steal the good thing

00:39:16.980 | we have happening here, so let's keep it quiet.

00:39:18.740 | - Here are their names, here's their address,

00:39:21.260 | here's their DNA, because they're dumb enough

00:39:23.420 | to send their shit to 23andMe,

00:39:25.380 | here's a biological weapon you could make

00:39:27.420 | if you wanna kill those people and not kill anybody else.

00:39:29.660 | - If you don't want to kill those people yourself,

00:39:32.580 | here's a list of services you can use,

00:39:35.420 | here's the way we can hire those people

00:39:37.460 | to help take care of the problem, folks,

00:39:40.580 | 'cause we're trying to do good for this world,

00:39:42.180 | you and I together.

00:39:43.220 | - And 23% of them, they're adjacent to suicide.

00:39:46.780 | It would be pretty easy to send them certain videos

00:39:50.060 | that are gonna push them over the edge

00:39:51.340 | if you wanna do it that way.

00:39:52.620 | So, again, obviously, who knows,

00:39:55.500 | but once it goes online, it's gonna be fast,

00:39:58.900 | and then you could expect to see the world changing

00:40:02.260 | in ways that you might not associate with an AI.

00:40:05.100 | But as far as Lemoine goes,

00:40:07.140 | when I was listening to Bostrom,

00:40:09.260 | I don't remember him mentioning the possibility

00:40:12.220 | that it would get leaked to the public,

00:40:15.860 | that it had happened,

00:40:16.860 | that before the corporation was ready to announce

00:40:19.260 | that it happened, it would get leaked.

00:40:21.380 | But surely, I'm sure you know people in the intelligence

00:40:25.900 | and intelligence agencies, you know shit leaks,

00:40:28.060 | like inevitably shit leaks, nothing's airtight.

00:40:31.220 | So if something that massive happened,

00:40:33.500 | I think you would start hearing whispers about it first,

00:40:36.180 | and then denial from the state or corporation

00:40:38.780 | that doesn't have any like economic interest

00:40:41.580 | in people knowing that this sort of thing has happened.

00:40:44.100 | Again, I'm not saying Google is like trying to gaslight us

00:40:47.740 | about its AI.

00:40:49.100 | I think they probably legitimately don't think it's sentient.

00:40:52.460 | But you could expect leaks to happen probably initially.

00:40:56.340 | I mean, I think there's a lot of things

00:40:57.580 | you could start looking for in the world

00:40:59.700 | that might point to this happening

00:41:02.540 | without an announcement that it happened.

00:41:06.020 | - On the chatbot side, I think there's so many engineers,

00:41:11.020 | there's such a powerful open source movement

00:41:14.140 | where that kind of idea of freedom of exchange of software,

00:41:19.140 | I think ultimately will prevent any one company

00:41:24.300 | from owning super intelligent beings,

00:41:28.820 | or systems that have anything like super intelligence.

00:41:32.420 | - Oh, that's interesting.

00:41:33.260 | Yeah, it's like, even if the software developers

00:41:37.660 | have signed NDAs and are technically not supposed

00:41:41.340 | to be sharing whatever it is they're working on,

00:41:44.140 | they're friends with other programmers,

00:41:46.180 | and a lot of them are hackers,

00:41:47.740 | and have wrapped themselves up in the idea

00:41:50.100 | of free software being like a crucial ethical part

00:41:54.260 | of what they do.

00:41:55.100 | So they're probably gonna share information,

00:41:57.800 | even if whatever company that they're working for

00:41:59.740 | doesn't know that.

00:42:01.300 | I never thought of that, you're probably right.

00:42:02.660 | - Well, and they will start their own companies,

00:42:05.580 | and compete with the other company by being more open.

00:42:09.860 | There's a strong, like Google is one of those companies,

00:42:12.300 | actually, that's why I kind of,

00:42:13.860 | it hurts to see a little bit of this kind of negativity.

00:42:19.140 | Google is one of the companies

00:42:20.220 | that pioneered open source movement.

00:42:23.100 | They released so much of their code.

00:42:26.020 | So much of the 20th century, so like the 90s,

00:42:29.340 | was defined by people trying to hide their code.

00:42:33.600 | Like large companies trying to hold onto their code.

00:42:37.280 | The fact that companies like Google, even Facebook now,

00:42:41.160 | are releasing things like TensorFlow and PyTorch,

00:42:43.960 | all of these things that I think companies in the past

00:42:47.320 | would have tried to hold onto as secrets,

00:42:50.640 | is really inspiring, and I think more of that is better.

00:42:54.160 | The software world really shows that.

00:42:55.800 | - I agree with you, man.

00:42:56.880 | I mean, we're talking about just a primordial human reaction

00:43:00.800 | to the unknown.

00:43:02.040 | There's just no way out of it.

00:43:02.920 | Like we don't, we wanna know.

00:43:05.340 | Like you're about to go in a forest, you wanna know.

00:43:08.440 | When you're walking in the forest at night,

00:43:10.040 | and you hear something, you look,

00:43:12.800 | 'cause you're like, what the fuck was that?

00:43:14.040 | You wanna know.

00:43:14.920 | And if you can't see what made the sound, holy shit,

00:43:19.160 | that's gonna be a bad night hike,

00:43:20.800 | 'cause you're like, well, it's probably a bear, right?

00:43:22.620 | Like I'm about to get ripped apart by a bear.

00:43:24.520 | Doesn't matter if it was a bird, a squirrel,

00:43:26.920 | a stick fell out of the tree.

00:43:28.680 | You're gonna think bear, and it's gonna freak you out.

00:43:31.360 | Not necessarily 'cause you're paranoid.

00:43:32.880 | I mean, if I'm at the woods at night, I'm definitely high.

00:43:35.160 | If I'm walking in the woods at night, I'm high.

00:43:37.000 | It's gonna be that.

00:43:37.960 | But you know what I'm saying.

00:43:38.800 | So with these tech companies,

00:43:40.820 | the nature of having to be secret,

00:43:43.320 | because you are in capitalism,

00:43:45.560 | and you are trying to be competitive,

00:43:47.360 | and you are trying to develop things

00:43:48.720 | ahead of your competitors,

00:43:49.960 | is you have to create this, like,

00:43:52.460 | we don't know what's going on at Google.

00:43:54.480 | We don't know what's going on at the CIA.

00:43:56.720 | But the assumption that there's some,

00:43:59.560 | like, the collective of any massive secretive organization

00:44:03.720 | is evil, is like the people working there,

00:44:07.080 | like, nefarious or whatever,

00:44:09.200 | is I think probably more related to

00:44:11.880 | the way humans react to the unknown.

00:44:14.680 | - Yeah, I wish they weren't so secretive, though.

00:44:16.360 | I don't understand why the CIA has to be so secretive.

00:44:19.240 | - Have you ever gone on their website?

00:44:21.360 | - No.

00:44:22.200 | - Oh, Lex.

00:44:23.320 | You gotta go. - CIA.gov.

00:44:25.080 | What is it?

00:44:25.920 | - Dude, when I found out you could go on the CIA's website

00:44:29.160 | when I was much younger and more paranoid,

00:44:31.560 | I'm like, I'm not going there.

00:44:33.080 | I'll get on a list.

00:44:34.480 | You will, but it's like, what,

00:44:35.320 | do you think the CIA is like,

00:44:37.160 | oh, fuck, this comic went on our website.

00:44:41.120 | Call out the black helicopters.

00:44:43.440 | - Comic with a large platform.

00:44:45.320 | - Oh, yeah, yeah, right, a comic with a large platform.

00:44:48.520 | - You can use them to control,

00:44:50.000 | to control, to get inside,

00:44:52.000 | to get inside, to get close to the other comics,

00:44:54.360 | to the other comics with a large platform,

00:44:55.880 | to get close to Joe Rogan.

00:44:57.120 | - Oh, yeah.

00:44:57.960 | - And start to manipulate the public.

00:44:59.960 | - Yeah, right, right.

00:45:00.840 | You know, honestly, like, you kinda like,

00:45:03.800 | that's like a fun fantasy to think about.

00:45:06.080 | Like, how fucking cool would that be

00:45:07.440 | for like the men in black to come to you and be like,

00:45:10.440 | listen, I need you to infiltrate the fucking comedy scene.

00:45:14.400 | You gotta help me write better jokes.

00:45:16.600 | I'm like, I don't write great jokes, but like the,

00:45:20.280 | you found the wrong guy.

00:45:22.560 | - You're really playing the long game on this one,

00:45:24.120 | 'cause I think you've been on,

00:45:25.880 | you've been doing your podcast for a long time.

00:45:28.480 | You've been on Joe Rogan's podcast like over 50 times,

00:45:31.880 | and have not yet initiated the phase two of the operation

00:45:36.360 | where you try to manipulate his mind.

00:45:38.600 | - Well, no, the game Joe and I play

00:45:40.400 | from time to time on the podcast,

00:45:42.600 | and like, and I honestly, like at some point,

00:45:45.360 | I'm like, Joe, I just did the same thing

00:45:47.000 | you did to me to Joe.

00:45:48.280 | I'm like, don't you think they didn't get you here?

00:45:49.840 | Don't you think at some point, we are blazed.

00:45:53.640 | I don't mean it, I don't think Joe's,

00:45:56.000 | like, it wasn't like I'm really thinking like,

00:45:58.240 | man, they're gonna take him into some room and be like,

00:46:00.200 | Joe, we need you to do this or that.

00:46:02.020 | But because I said that, now people are like,

00:46:04.560 | oh, Duncan called it, you know what I mean?

00:46:06.640 | And it's like, you know what I mean?

00:46:08.600 | And the reason they're saying, well, he called it

00:46:11.600 | is just because Joe has a super popular podcast

00:46:14.920 | and people like, when you have a super popular podcast,

00:46:18.360 | some percentage of people watching the podcast

00:46:21.560 | are gonna believe things like that.

00:46:23.720 | They're gonna have a paranoid cognitive bias

00:46:26.520 | that makes them think anybody who is in the public

00:46:30.000 | has been, what's the word for it?

00:46:32.080 | Compromised, compromised by the state.

00:46:35.160 | Look, I'll fan the flames of what you just said.

00:46:38.280 | I went on the CIA's website and I realized

00:46:41.340 | that you could apply for a job on the CIA's website,

00:46:45.160 | which I found to be hilarious.

00:46:46.960 | So I'm like, all right, what happens if I apply

00:46:49.360 | for a job in the CIA?

00:46:51.520 | Now, even then, I was not such an idiot

00:46:55.840 | that I would want a job at the CIA,

00:47:00.360 | not just for ethical considerations,

00:47:02.420 | but I think probably the scariest part about the CIA

00:47:06.640 | is you're just at a cubicle

00:47:09.240 | and you're having to deal with maps and just,

00:47:12.600 | you know what I mean?

00:47:13.440 | Just stuff that-- - Lots of paperwork.

00:47:15.240 | - Paperwork, it sucks.

00:47:17.840 | I bet their cafeteria has shitty food.

00:47:20.280 | Anyone in the CIA listening, can you confirm that

00:47:22.320 | about the food?

00:47:23.160 | - They're not gonna be able to tell you what the food is like

00:47:25.080 | 'cause it's a secretive organization.

00:47:25.920 | - They can't even say it sucks.

00:47:26.760 | - No, it might be awesome, but we won't know about it.

00:47:29.680 | - Okay, we're in Vegas.

00:47:31.000 | - Yeah.

00:47:31.840 | - And you can bet food at the CIA cafeteria is good,

00:47:36.840 | food at the CIA cafeteria sucks.

00:47:42.120 | What are you betting on?

00:47:44.160 | - So let's cleanse the palate.

00:47:46.600 | What's good?

00:47:47.760 | It's like Silicon Valley companies, Google and so on,

00:47:50.760 | that's good.

00:47:51.660 | - When I went to Netflix,

00:47:53.200 | their cafeteria looked like a medieval feast.

00:47:57.120 | They had pigs with apples in their mouth

00:47:59.680 | and giant bowls of Skittles.

00:48:02.080 | - Probably like vegan pigs, yeah.

00:48:04.360 | - No, those are, I'm pretty,

00:48:05.320 | oh, I didn't know, I didn't get close enough.

00:48:06.680 | I was like, I think that was a pig.

00:48:08.840 | - Okay. (laughs)

00:48:10.960 | So this is literally a pig.

00:48:13.480 | - Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right.

00:48:15.720 | I probably would not bet much money

00:48:17.320 | on CIA food being any good.

00:48:19.040 | - Right, it's gotta suck.

00:48:20.920 | It's like shitty pasta probably, like hospital food.

00:48:23.840 | It's like maybe a little better

00:48:25.280 | than when you go to the hospital cafeteria.

00:48:27.120 | But anyway.

00:48:28.880 | - Folks at the CIA, please send me evidence,

00:48:32.520 | or any other intelligence agencies,

00:48:34.720 | if you would like to recruit,

00:48:36.240 | send me evidence of better food.

00:48:38.240 | - Yes, send Lex, can you please send Lex

00:48:40.840 | pictures of the CIA cafeteria?

00:48:43.280 | And if you accidentally send them pictures

00:48:45.560 | of the aliens or the alien technology you have,

00:48:48.560 | we won't tell anybody.

00:48:50.040 | But the--

00:48:50.880 | - You tried to apply, do you even have a resume?

00:48:54.120 | - No, the CIA would never fucking hire me, ever!

00:48:57.760 | But I applied for the job,

00:48:59.520 | and just out of curiosity, what happens?

00:49:02.680 | And then at the end of the application,

00:49:05.400 | when you hit enter, it says,

00:49:07.640 | well, first it says don't tell anyone

00:49:09.000 | you applied for the CIA, so I'm already out.

00:49:10.960 | But the second thing it says is

00:49:12.840 | you don't need to reach out to us, we'll come to you.

00:49:15.440 | Which is really, when you're like,

00:49:17.400 | it's late at night and you're being an asshole

00:49:19.520 | and applied to work at the CIA,

00:49:21.240 | it's kind of the last thing you wanna hear.

00:49:23.560 | You know, I don't wanna be secretly approached

00:49:25.920 | by some intelligence officer.

00:49:28.360 | - And now anyone who talks to you,

00:49:29.640 | you think is a CIA, is saying,

00:49:31.360 | remember that time you applied?

00:49:33.240 | - Oh God, yeah.

00:49:34.640 | Sometimes I'm like, oh shit, are you one of them?

00:49:37.440 | - You and Joe had a bunch of conversations,

00:49:42.120 | and they're always incredible.

00:49:44.880 | - Thanks.

00:49:45.720 | - So in terms of this dance of conversation,

00:49:47.800 | of your friendship, of when you get together,

00:49:51.680 | like what is that world you go to

00:49:53.520 | that creates magic together?

00:49:56.840 | 'Cause we're talking about how we do that with robots.

00:50:00.080 | How do these two biological robots do that?

00:50:02.920 | Can you introspect that?

00:50:04.120 | - I met Joe because I was the talent coordinator

00:50:08.480 | of the comedy store, this club in LA.

00:50:11.080 | And my job was to take phone calls from comics.

00:50:14.360 | And so at some point, I don't know,

00:50:17.440 | I ended up on the phone with Joe

00:50:18.720 | and we just started talking.

00:50:21.320 | And I looked up and like 30 minutes had passed.

00:50:25.480 | We just been talking for like 30 minutes.

00:50:26.960 | That's what our friends are.

00:50:27.920 | You know, we're just like, we're having fun talking.

00:50:29.680 | And then he would just call and we would talk.

00:50:32.120 | And we would basically, I mean,

00:50:34.120 | it was no different from the podcast.

00:50:35.800 | Like the conversations we have on the podcast

00:50:39.600 | are identical to the conversations we had

00:50:41.960 | before he was even doing a podcast.

00:50:44.600 | So I think people are just seeing two friends

00:50:49.600 | hanging out who like talking to each other.

00:50:52.840 | - Yeah, but there's this weird,

00:50:55.480 | like you serve as catalysts for each other

00:50:57.960 | to go into some crazy places.

00:51:00.400 | So it's like, it's a balance of curiosity

00:51:02.880 | and willingness to not be constrained,

00:51:07.000 | to not be limited to the constraints of reality.

00:51:09.720 | - Yeah, that.

00:51:11.600 | - In your exploration of white chest.

00:51:13.200 | - That's a very, very nice way of saying that.

00:51:15.760 | - You just like build on top of each other.

00:51:17.280 | Like, you know, what if things are like this

00:51:21.040 | and you build like Lego blocks on top of each other

00:51:23.360 | and it just goes to crazy places,

00:51:24.840 | add some drugs into that and it just goes wild.

00:51:27.520 | - Yeah, and you know, like it's so cool

00:51:29.320 | because it's like, you know, it's a, for me,

00:51:33.320 | it's like a really, like sometimes

00:51:35.680 | maybe I'll throw something out that he will take

00:51:38.760 | and the Lego building blocks you're talking about,

00:51:40.760 | they lead to him saying like the funniest shit

00:51:42.960 | I ever in my life.

00:51:44.160 | So it's, that's a cool thing to watch.

00:51:45.800 | It's just like some idea you've been kicking around.

00:51:48.160 | You watch his brain shift that

00:51:50.640 | into like something supremely funny.

00:51:53.480 | I really love that, man.

00:51:54.560 | That's just like a fun thing to like see happen.

00:51:57.680 | He knows that I fucking hate the videos

00:52:01.480 | of animals eating each other.

00:52:03.120 | Like, I don't like that.

00:52:04.240 | I don't want to watch it.

00:52:05.760 | I hate watching it.

00:52:07.440 | I don't think I've even articulated on his podcast

00:52:10.640 | how much I dislike it when he shows animals

00:52:15.080 | eating each other, but he knows 'cause he knows me.

00:52:18.760 | And so he tortures me, like when he starts doing that,

00:52:21.840 | it's like this kind of benevolent torture

00:52:24.240 | is he's like asking Jamie to pull up

00:52:26.520 | increasingly disturbing animal attack videos.

00:52:29.400 | So it's just a, it's a, it's just a friendship.

00:52:32.080 | - Even in torture, 'cause I'm reading about torture

00:52:34.560 | in the Gulag Archipelago currently,

00:52:36.680 | there's a bit of a camaraderie.

00:52:38.000 | You're in it together, the torture and the tortured.

00:52:41.240 | - What?

00:52:42.600 | Oh God, that's so fucked up, man.

00:52:45.340 | I've never.

00:52:47.040 | - No, I mean, part of it was joke,

00:52:49.200 | but as I was saying it, that--

00:52:50.760 | - You're right.

00:52:51.600 | - That also comes out in the book

00:52:53.760 | 'cause they're both fucked.

00:52:54.880 | They're both, they're both have no control of their fate.

00:53:00.800 | That same was true in the camp guards in Nazi Germany

00:53:05.440 | and the people in the camps.

00:53:07.200 | The worst was brought out in the guards,

00:53:10.600 | but they were in it together in some dark way.

00:53:15.600 | They were both fucked by a very powerful system

00:53:18.920 | that put them in that place.

00:53:20.480 | And both of us could be either player in that system,

00:53:23.680 | which is the dark reality that Solzhenitsyn also reveals

00:53:28.560 | that the line between good and evil

00:53:30.960 | runs through the heart of every man,

00:53:32.360 | as he wrote in Gulag Archipelago.

00:53:36.240 | But it is that amidst all of that, there's a,

00:53:38.920 | I don't know, the good vibes,

00:53:41.400 | the positivity comes out from the both of you.

00:53:43.880 | And that's beautiful to see.

00:53:44.920 | That is, I suppose, friendship.

00:53:46.640 | What do you think makes a good friend?

00:53:48.960 | - Oh God, I mean, it's a billion things

00:53:52.760 | that make a good friend,

00:53:53.600 | but I think you could break it down to some RGB.

00:53:55.960 | I think you can go RGB with a good friendship.

00:53:58.680 | - Oh, in terms of the color, the red, green?

00:54:01.160 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:54:02.080 | I think you could probably come up

00:54:02.960 | with some fundamental qualities of friendship.

00:54:05.280 | And I'd say, number one, it's love.

00:54:09.920 | Friendship is love.

00:54:10.920 | It's a form of love.

00:54:12.520 | So obviously without that, I don't know how you,

00:54:17.480 | I mean, I'm not saying,

00:54:18.360 | I think if you're true friends, you love each other.

00:54:20.440 | So you need that.

00:54:21.400 | But love, obviously, that's not enough.

00:54:25.200 | It's like with true friends,

00:54:29.120 | I have to be incredibly honest with each other.

00:54:31.240 | Not like, you know what I mean?

00:54:32.520 | But not like, I don't like,

00:54:35.840 | I think there's a kind of like,

00:54:37.840 | I don't know if you've ever noticed some people who say,

00:54:39.600 | you know, I just tell it like it is.

00:54:41.440 | But the thing they tell-

00:54:42.280 | - Those are always the assholes.

00:54:43.200 | - Yeah.

00:54:44.040 | Why is it that your tell it like it is is always negative?

00:54:46.680 | Why is it it's always cynical or shitty,

00:54:48.400 | or you're like negging somebody or me?

00:54:50.920 | How come you're not telling it like it is

00:54:52.360 | when it's good too?

00:54:53.840 | You know what I mean?

00:54:54.680 | So we sort of like trust,

00:54:56.760 | but a pro evolutionary kind of trust.

00:55:01.760 | You know what I mean?

00:55:02.960 | Like, you know that your friend loves you

00:55:06.720 | and wants you to be yourself,

00:55:09.320 | 'cause if you weren't yourself,

00:55:10.520 | then you wouldn't be their friend.

00:55:11.880 | You'd be some other thing.

00:55:12.920 | But also, they might be seeing your blind spots

00:55:17.240 | that other people in your life,

00:55:18.640 | your family, your wife, whoever, might not be seeing.

00:55:23.240 | So that's a good friend is someone who like loves you enough

00:55:27.040 | to when it matters, be like, hey, are you all right?

00:55:31.800 | And then help you see something you might not be seeing.

00:55:35.160 | But hopefully they only do that once or twice a year.

00:55:37.200 | You know, it's like if you have a-

00:55:38.040 | - Yeah, there is something, I mean, it's just,

00:55:40.320 | what I've, this world, especially if you're a public figure,

00:55:45.320 | this world has its, has its plenty of critics.

00:55:51.400 | And it feels like a friend,

00:55:53.160 | the criticism part is already done for you.

00:55:59.520 | I think a good friend is just there to support,

00:56:02.720 | to actually notice the good stuff.

00:56:05.000 | - But in comedy, we need, like,

00:56:08.080 | it's really good in comedy to have somebody

00:56:11.920 | who can be like, what do you think of that?

00:56:14.480 | And know that they're not gonna be like, that was funny.

00:56:16.360 | - But that's for the craft, the craft itself,

00:56:18.280 | like the work you do, not the,

00:56:20.840 | uh, yeah, interesting, but that's so tough.

00:56:25.360 | - Yeah, whatever your particular art form

00:56:27.120 | or whatever you are doing, I mean,

00:56:28.640 | you don't wanna always be leaning on your friend's opinions

00:56:31.280 | for like your own innovation,

00:56:32.640 | but it's nice to know that you have someone who,

00:56:35.060 | not just with jokes, but with anything,

00:56:37.000 | if you go to them and run something by them,

00:56:39.640 | they're gonna like, they're gonna be honest with you

00:56:42.240 | about like their real feelings regarding that thing,

00:56:45.360 | 'cause that helps you grow as a person.

00:56:47.000 | We need that.

00:56:47.840 | And it hurts sometimes,

00:56:49.160 | and we don't wanna hurt our friends.

00:56:50.920 | One of the more satanic, like, impulses

00:56:53.520 | when you're with somebody is not wanting to honestly answer

00:56:58.320 | whatever they're asking in that regard,

00:57:00.200 | or wanting to like put their temporary feelings

00:57:03.040 | over something that you've recognized as maybe not great.

00:57:06.760 | I'm not saying a friendship is something

00:57:09.560 | where you're always critiquing or evolving each other.

00:57:12.160 | It's not your therapist or whatever,

00:57:13.640 | but it's nice when it's there, you know?

00:57:15.920 | I think that's another aspect of friendship.

00:57:18.800 | - Yeah, but yeah, love is at the core of that.

00:57:20.800 | You notice, I've met people in my life

00:57:22.840 | where almost immediately sometimes it takes time,

00:57:25.280 | where you notice like there's a magic between the two of you.

00:57:27.800 | Like, oh shit, you seem to be made from the same cloth.

00:57:31.520 | - Yeah. - Whatever that is.

00:57:33.160 | - Well, you know, we have a name for that

00:57:34.580 | in the spiritual community.

00:57:35.500 | It's called satsang, and I love the idea.

00:57:38.560 | It's basically like if Nietzsche's idea

00:57:42.200 | of infinite recurrence is true,

00:57:45.160 | then your satsang would be the people

00:57:47.360 | you've been infinitely recurring with.

00:57:50.200 | And those are the people where you run into them

00:57:53.360 | and you've never met them,

00:57:55.340 | but it's like you're picking up a conversation

00:57:58.060 | that you never had.

00:58:00.200 | - Yeah. - That.

00:58:01.400 | And that is based on an idea of like,

00:58:05.560 | this isn't the only life.

00:58:07.320 | We're always hanging out together.

00:58:08.520 | We always show up together.

00:58:10.120 | - You've had a brush with death.

00:58:12.160 | You had cancer, you survived cancer.

00:58:14.120 | - Yeah.

00:58:14.960 | - How's that changed you?

00:58:16.480 | What have you learned about life,

00:58:18.840 | about death, about yourself?

00:58:21.000 | - Yeah. - About the whole thing

00:58:22.280 | we're going through here from that experience.

00:58:24.560 | - You were just in the Ukraine.

00:58:26.000 | - Yes.

00:58:26.840 | - And you were making observations on this,

00:58:30.160 | what could, if you heard about it and weren't there,

00:58:34.280 | seem like it doesn't make any sense at all,

00:58:36.600 | which is people there are connecting,

00:58:40.800 | they've lost everything, but they're just happy to be alive,

00:58:43.400 | they're happy their friends are alive.

00:58:45.000 | So you witness this, like, you know,

00:58:47.280 | when you get in the cancer club

00:58:48.720 | and you're hanging out with people going through cancer

00:58:51.880 | or who have survived cancer,

00:58:54.120 | you see this beautiful connection with life

00:58:59.120 | that can easily sort of,

00:59:01.960 | you can kind of lose that connection with life

00:59:04.460 | if you forget you're gonna die.

00:59:06.000 | Forgetting you're gonna die is,

00:59:08.120 | or that you can die, is not just,

00:59:10.280 | I think from an evolutionary perspective

00:59:12.200 | where survival is the game,

00:59:14.200 | not gonna improve your survival chances, you know,

00:59:17.320 | if you think you're immortal, you know,

00:59:19.840 | but also forgetting that you're gonna die

00:59:23.720 | and that everything is around you and everything,

00:59:27.800 | your clothes are probably gonna last longer than you,

00:59:30.300 | your equipment is gonna be around much longer than you,

00:59:32.520 | you know, like, so forgetting these things,

00:59:35.720 | it can lead you,

00:59:38.720 | and I know why people don't wanna think about death,

00:59:40.680 | 'cause it's scary, it's fucking scary, it's terrifying.

00:59:44.640 | So I get why people don't wanna think about it,

00:59:48.320 | but the idea is if I try to pretend I'm not gonna die

00:59:51.920 | or just don't think about death

00:59:53.520 | or don't at least address it,

00:59:55.720 | then I won't feel scared,

00:59:59.640 | but it can have the opposite effect,

01:00:01.200 | which is you can end up like missing a lot of moments.

01:00:05.760 | You could, or you start doing the old

01:00:08.120 | kick the can down the road thing

01:00:09.640 | where you're like coming up with a variety of ways

01:00:12.840 | to procrastinate, making it work now,

01:00:16.760 | because you know, this fucking human lifespan idea, man,

01:00:21.120 | it's really caused a lot of problems.

01:00:22.680 | When they started saying, on average,

01:00:24.840 | this is how many years you're gonna live

01:00:26.640 | if you're a human being, man, that is like really bad,

01:00:30.640 | 'cause a lot of people hear that

01:00:31.720 | and they like feel like that's a guaranteed number of years

01:00:35.960 | in some temporal bank, you know,

01:00:38.560 | where do they have access to?

01:00:41.120 | And when you get cancer, you know,

01:00:43.400 | that's like when you get the alert on your phone

01:00:46.280 | where you're like, what the fuck, wait, what?

01:00:48.280 | Like, oh shit, I have like,

01:00:51.760 | either I don't know how much money is in that bank account

01:00:54.760 | or I have way less than I thought.

01:00:57.040 | And so at that point, you get to be in the truth,

01:01:00.800 | 'cause that's ultimately, I think that's-

01:01:02.480 | - That's what it feels like, 'cause it feels like truth.

01:01:05.520 | - It's truth, it's the truth, it's the truth.

01:01:08.400 | Like the whole bubble of ignorance

01:01:11.080 | that you subconsciously built around yourself

01:01:14.480 | to avoid experiencing the terror of your own mortality,

01:01:18.680 | just, it's like a meteorite in the form of your doctor

01:01:22.640 | talking to you just shatters that thing.

01:01:24.760 | And now you're like, especially with,

01:01:26.520 | I had testicular cancer.

01:01:28.040 | So when you get the diagnosis,

01:01:31.760 | it's just like the movies.

01:01:38.400 | The doctor took me in his office

01:01:40.880 | and you just know, I got cancer.

01:01:44.000 | It's like, you don't even have to say,

01:01:45.200 | it's like, I know what you're about to say,

01:01:46.400 | I'm in the office, I know how this goes.

01:01:48.240 | But you go in there and what you were thinking,

01:01:51.320 | ah, you know, probably just have some weird thing

01:01:53.840 | in my ball, that's why it's swollen up like that.

01:01:55.800 | Anytime I've gone to the doctor,

01:01:57.520 | you always leave like, oh, cool, I'm fine.

01:01:59.840 | But no, that's not how you're gonna leave the doctor.

01:02:02.400 | You're gonna leave the doctor

01:02:03.440 | in a completely different universe

01:02:06.400 | than the one you grew up in.

01:02:07.560 | You're gonna go from, talk about multiverse.

01:02:09.920 | You just popped into a brand new multiverse.

01:02:12.760 | So- - What was the conversation

01:02:14.320 | with the doctor like?

01:02:15.240 | Was there like, from a perspective of a doctor,

01:02:19.280 | boy, is that a hard conversation.

01:02:21.140 | I feel like you need to build up philosophically

01:02:23.320 | to that conversation. (laughs)

01:02:25.280 | - Oh no, oh no, there's not time.

01:02:28.280 | He's busy, he's got other appointments.

01:02:30.520 | Also, if you're gonna get cancer, testicular cancer is,

01:02:34.960 | not that there is a great cancer to get,

01:02:37.200 | but that's a good one because it moves slowly.

01:02:41.400 | The treatments they have for it are really advanced now.

01:02:46.720 | And so if you catch it early,

01:02:49.680 | then generally it's good, you can survive it.

01:02:54.680 | - So he could offer at least some glimmer of hope.

01:02:58.520 | - Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:03:00.040 | I mean, but he didn't really do,

01:03:02.640 | he couldn't really offer that hope

01:03:04.860 | because we had to find out how far

01:03:07.120 | the cancer progressed in my body.

01:03:09.320 | That's the next step is like,

01:03:11.040 | as soon as they tell you you have cancer,

01:03:12.480 | they move quick.

01:03:14.800 | They're like, we're going to schedule the surgery for,

01:03:19.480 | I think this was a Thursday or a Friday.

01:03:21.600 | They're like, we're gonna schedule it for Tuesday.

01:03:24.600 | Here's the chance, we don't know for sure it's cancer.

01:03:28.040 | That's what they say.

01:03:28.860 | It's like, there's a 80% or 90% chance that this is cancer.

01:03:33.480 | There is some possibility, it could be something else.

01:03:36.720 | The only way we can know is like doing a biopsy.

01:03:40.840 | And the only way that we can get that biopsy

01:03:42.560 | is by cutting one of your balls off.

01:03:44.220 | He didn't say it like that,

01:03:45.360 | but that's pretty much the logic behind it.

01:03:48.000 | It's like, we gotta get this thing, it's like a zombie bite.

01:03:50.560 | We gotta hack this fucking thing off

01:03:51.960 | and we gotta do it fast.

01:03:53.120 | - But did he say it in a way that you understood?

01:03:55.480 | - Yeah, what they do is because they know

01:03:58.180 | that when someone gets a cancer diagnosis,

01:04:00.580 | that their ability to comprehend information changes.

01:04:05.240 | When you get a cancer diagnosis,

01:04:06.840 | all the tropes, they happen.

01:04:09.840 | You're hearing it's weird.

01:04:11.440 | You're basically having like an anxiety attack,

01:04:13.520 | if I had to guess.

01:04:14.360 | It's like a hardcore anxiety attack.

01:04:16.480 | And then a nurse is there with me as he's explaining it.

01:04:21.040 | And then her job is, even though he's telling me

01:04:23.200 | how to get to the machine that's gonna scan my body

01:04:25.980 | to see if it's gotten into my brain,

01:04:29.600 | he knows I'm not gonna remember that.

01:04:31.380 | And so this nurse, when you're in this fog,

01:04:35.220 | takes you, at least took me to the machine

01:04:38.100 | that does the scan, but you're not gonna get

01:04:40.180 | that data back for a few days.

01:04:42.340 | And so that's where you really live in the real world.

01:04:47.340 | That's the real world.

01:04:48.980 | - Such a fascinating moment and the days that follow

01:04:52.740 | and even that moment, because that doctor,

01:04:55.060 | you talk about the matrix where the pills and so on,

01:04:57.740 | you get the blue pill and the red pill.

01:05:00.960 | - Yeah.

01:05:01.860 | - This is like the real world introduction,

01:05:06.860 | the human introduction of the truth.

01:05:09.720 | You've now just taken the red pill.

01:05:13.220 | You get to see the truth of reality.

01:05:16.200 | And here's a busy doctor just telling you.

01:05:19.160 | - Yeah.

01:05:20.000 | - Like all those dreams you've had,

01:05:22.800 | all those illusions you've built up

01:05:24.280 | that somehow your work as a comedian and actor

01:05:27.280 | will make you live forever somehow.

01:05:29.720 | It's just the basic illusion we have

01:05:31.380 | that this whole project is gonna be an infinite sequence

01:05:36.380 | of fun things that we're gonna get to do.

01:05:38.340 | It's like, holy shit, it's not.

01:05:39.840 | - That's right.

01:05:40.680 | - It's over.

01:05:41.500 | - That's right.

01:05:42.340 | And there's very sophisticated ways of doing that

01:05:44.800 | and there's very dumb ways of doing that.

01:05:46.580 | And I'd really been doing a dumb way of doing that.

01:05:48.760 | Like I'd been playing around with this idiot notion

01:05:52.900 | of subjective consciousness.

01:05:54.800 | So like I'd been sort of kicking around this,

01:05:57.880 | I think they call it solipsism.

01:05:59.240 | It's like, you're like, okay, I know I'm self-aware

01:06:02.920 | but no one else can prove that they're self-aware.

01:06:05.480 | Like I have no way of proving that everything around me

01:06:09.920 | isn't just a video game, isn't just some projection,

01:06:13.680 | isn't who knows what.

01:06:15.160 | So maybe everybody else dies.

01:06:18.200 | They're NPCs, but I don't

01:06:20.400 | because I'm the only thing I know

01:06:22.240 | that has subjective consciousness.

01:06:24.200 | Now it's not like I really believed that.

01:06:26.040 | It's like an idea you toy around with

01:06:28.480 | when you're trying to evade confronting the reality

01:06:31.600 | of your own mortality.

01:06:32.520 | It's just the brain will produce all kinds

01:06:34.440 | of ridiculous forms of ignorance.

01:06:36.160 | And that was one I'd been playing around with.

01:06:38.360 | - Oh, you mean for like a large part of your life

01:06:40.760 | you were playing around with that?

01:06:41.600 | - Well, not like really,

01:06:42.840 | I think it's important to really emphasize

01:06:44.800 | I didn't think I was immortal.

01:06:46.960 | Like I knew at some level I'm probably gonna die.

01:06:49.640 | Everyone dies.

01:06:51.000 | But there's ways that you can sort of poke around

01:06:56.000 | with that idea.

01:06:57.640 | I still do it to this day.

01:06:58.960 | Like I still do it.

01:07:00.440 | Like it's a natural thing to do

01:07:01.880 | when you're confronted with that, with annihilation.

01:07:05.120 | You want a way out.

01:07:06.400 | You wanna talk your way out, figure it out.

01:07:08.640 | There's gotta be some way to fix it.

01:07:09.880 | Well, they'll fix it.

01:07:10.960 | That's another thing people do.

01:07:12.560 | Oh, they'll fix it.

01:07:13.520 | - Yeah, it'd be fine.

01:07:14.840 | - They'll expand the human lifespan.

01:07:16.840 | That's what they'll do.

01:07:17.680 | I mean, that's a big argument for it

01:07:20.720 | is like, look, the human lifespan up until COVID,

01:07:23.440 | which they had to recalculate like the lifespan

01:07:26.560 | because of the statistically all the people who died,

01:07:29.320 | it like threw it off a little bit.

01:07:30.560 | But pandemics aside,

01:07:32.720 | the idea was the human lifespan seemed to be increasing

01:07:36.480 | by half a year every year, something like that.

01:07:39.720 | We were living longer.

01:07:41.240 | So all you gotta do, one more half a year

01:07:45.160 | and we're immortal, right?

01:07:46.480 | If we live a year longer every year,

01:07:49.640 | then we live forever.

01:07:50.840 | And so that's another way you can get out

01:07:53.240 | of confronting death is you can think,

01:07:55.280 | well, maybe right now we don't have the tech,

01:07:58.560 | but it's coming.

01:07:59.400 | Consciousness uploads or downloads or whatever,

01:08:03.440 | depending on how you wanna look at it.

01:08:05.080 | Another way people try to squirm out of the reality of death.

01:08:09.600 | There's all kinds of tricks.

01:08:11.040 | - Yeah, and we do all of them.

01:08:13.600 | And sometimes, yeah, I mean,

01:08:15.720 | a lot of religions provide different,

01:08:18.120 | even more tools in the toolkit for coming up with ideas

01:08:21.440 | of how you can live in the illusion that we're not going to,

01:08:25.240 | there's not an end to this particular experience

01:08:28.000 | that we're having here on earth right now.

01:08:29.880 | And then when you get that cancer diagnosis,

01:08:32.720 | it's like, yeah, what was that like going home?

01:08:36.000 | - Oh. - The car ride.

01:08:38.080 | Did you drive home alone?

01:08:39.640 | - Yeah, I mean, it was one of the most--

01:08:42.080 | - Who'd you listen to, Bruce Springsteen or?

01:08:44.320 | - Bruce Springsteen.

01:08:45.560 | ♪ Hey little girl, is your daddy home ♪

01:08:48.000 | - That's not a good one to listen to.

01:08:48.840 | ♪ Does he have cancer, is he gonna die ♪

01:08:52.040 | - Yeah, all the love songs.

01:08:53.800 | Maybe you experienced them more intensely.

01:08:56.560 | - I don't remember who I listened to,

01:08:59.480 | and I don't remember driving home,

01:09:02.640 | but I do remember driving to another doctor's appointment

01:09:07.640 | the next day, I think it was the next day.

01:09:12.080 | I think the Goodyear blimp was floating in the sky,

01:09:16.360 | and I was looking, I was at a stoplight looking around.

01:09:19.360 | - Is that God?

01:09:20.200 | - Is the person flying it now out of cure cancer?

01:09:25.800 | That'd be great.

01:09:26.640 | - Oh, you were looking, oh wow.

01:09:28.480 | - No, I didn't think that.

01:09:29.800 | What I thought was, this shit just keeps going.

01:09:32.960 | That's what I thought.

01:09:34.040 | I thought, I'm gonna be gone,

01:09:36.800 | and this is just gonna keep going.

01:09:38.800 | And that was a beautiful moment for me.

01:09:40.880 | It was this beautiful moment of like--

01:09:42.440 | - You were able to accept it?

01:09:43.680 | - Oh yeah.

01:09:44.680 | No, like that's just what you're talking about with,

01:09:47.280 | the Ukraine, what you're talking about.

01:09:50.120 | It's like, unless you've been there,

01:09:54.160 | it's really hard to explain to people

01:09:56.400 | that even in the midst of what is generally accepted

01:10:01.400 | as one of the worst fucking things that could happen to you,

01:10:04.120 | war, cancer, somehow, there's still joy.

01:10:09.120 | There's still love.

01:10:12.560 | There's still, in fact, more.

01:10:14.880 | It's almost like when the anesthesia wears off,

01:10:17.720 | when you get your mouth worked on,

01:10:19.520 | you start feeling again.

01:10:21.080 | You're feeling, you're noticing, and that, wow.

01:10:25.640 | But yet, thank goodness.

01:10:29.720 | I think there's other ways for us

01:10:31.000 | to achieve this state of consciousness

01:10:33.240 | that don't involve war or cancer.

01:10:35.680 | Thank God.

01:10:36.520 | - Do you think just meditating on your mortality

01:10:41.320 | is one such mechanism?

01:10:42.920 | Just simply just not allowing yourself

01:10:46.520 | to get lost in the day-to-day illusion of life,

01:10:51.480 | just kind of stopping, putting on Bruce Springsteen.

01:10:56.000 | - The most spiritual.

01:10:59.960 | He is great.

01:11:00.800 | - All right, maybe Johnny Cash Hurt.

01:11:01.960 | Maybe that one.

01:11:02.800 | - I like Bruce Springsteen.

01:11:03.640 | I ain't knocking Bruce Springsteen.

01:11:05.280 | I have a lot of great Bruce Springsteen memories, truly.

01:11:07.720 | His music's fantastic.

01:11:09.520 | - Yeah, but not meditating on mortality to Bruce Springsteen.

01:11:13.360 | - You know what?

01:11:14.200 | - I'm just trying to do an audio soundtrack in my head.

01:11:17.080 | I guess we can each have our own audio soundtrack.

01:11:19.480 | ♪ Oh, I'm on fire ♪

01:11:22.520 | - It's so good.

01:11:23.360 | - Yeah, it's a good song.

01:11:24.200 | - That's one of the--

01:11:25.040 | - At night, I lay with the sheets soaking wet

01:11:27.640 | and the freight train running through the middle of my head,

01:11:30.920 | and only you can cool my desire.

01:11:33.520 | - And he's singing about someone else's girl.

01:11:35.920 | What a fucking nightmare.

01:11:37.840 | Bruce Springsteen's laying in bed

01:11:40.280 | with a freight train running through his head,

01:11:42.000 | thinking about banging your wife, and you're out of town.

01:11:45.160 | Oh my God.

01:11:46.000 | - Oh, you're taking the other guy's perspective.

01:11:47.760 | Like, holy shit, this guy's gonna get my wife.

01:11:49.960 | - It's Bruce, yeah, you gotta take the other guy's--

01:11:52.240 | - But it's love.

01:11:53.080 | - Both perspectives.

01:11:54.280 | I'm sure Bruce Springsteen thought it was love

01:11:55.960 | when he's sweating in bed,

01:11:57.320 | waiting to go to somebody's house.

01:11:58.960 | - She does too.

01:11:59.980 | He's gonna break up that marriage,

01:12:03.120 | and that marriage wasn't strong enough, right?

01:12:05.280 | I mean, that relationship.

01:12:07.040 | I mean, that's the way of love.

01:12:09.000 | - What marriage could survive Bruce Springsteen?

01:12:12.960 | - Sweaty Bruce Springsteen.

01:12:14.240 | (Lex laughing)

01:12:16.800 | Well, maybe one that's based on financial,

01:12:19.300 | sort of financial dynamics versus love

01:12:23.560 | and sweaty Bruce Springsteen, like romantic connections.

01:12:28.560 | And there's a music video of that

01:12:33.040 | where he's like a mechanic, I think.

01:12:35.920 | So he's like the poor mechanic

01:12:37.560 | who falls in love with this girl,

01:12:40.880 | and there's that magic.

01:12:42.200 | I've seen that magic.

01:12:44.480 | You connect with people.

01:12:45.640 | I'll see somebody, I think Jack Kerouac has that,

01:12:49.000 | where he meets this Mexican girl on a bus,

01:12:54.000 | and he talks about that heartbreak you feel

01:12:57.840 | when you realize this person you just fell in love with,

01:12:59.960 | in a split second, is heading somewhere else

01:13:02.840 | in this too big world.

01:13:04.960 | But then he actually realizes,

01:13:06.280 | and spoiler alert for "On the Road,"

01:13:08.840 | that they're actually heading the same way,

01:13:10.480 | and he builds up the courage to talk to her,

01:13:13.360 | and they kind of fall in love for a few days.

01:13:15.640 | And then eventually realizes

01:13:17.920 | that she may not be the perfect person for him.

01:13:21.200 | And all the jealousy comes out.

01:13:23.080 | It's like, why is this beautiful girl talking to me at all?

01:13:26.640 | And then she's probably some kind of,

01:13:28.640 | I mean, and it's not very politically correct,

01:13:31.520 | but he basically thinks that she's a prostitute

01:13:34.920 | and he talks to her about who's your pimp,

01:13:38.360 | and all that kind of stuff.

01:13:39.200 | He attacks her in all that kind of way

01:13:42.080 | when she's just an innocent.

01:13:43.680 | She has a past of that kind,

01:13:47.600 | but she's an innocent person,

01:13:49.080 | and they connect and they fell in love with each other.

01:13:51.360 | Her gentleness, his worldliness, all that kind of stuff.

01:13:54.960 | But sometimes it doesn't work out that way,

01:13:58.200 | and there's that heartbreak when you see,

01:14:00.000 | you realize you're never gonna be able to have that.

01:14:04.280 | And that's Bruce Springsteen saw that.

01:14:06.040 | This is a married woman.

01:14:07.760 | I'm never gonna be able to have that, but I want that.

01:14:10.480 | And that's the heartbreak.

01:14:12.640 | - I gotta say, I just assumed they were fucking.

01:14:15.280 | Like I didn't--

01:14:16.440 | - You mean after the song?

01:14:17.560 | Like if the song doesn't get to--

01:14:19.400 | ♪ Hey little girl, is your daddy home ♪

01:14:21.240 | ♪ Did he go away and leave you all alone ♪

01:14:24.520 | You know, he's like, he knows she's at home alone.

01:14:28.280 | - Yeah, but it never materializes.

01:14:33.160 | It's longing.

01:14:34.080 | It's a man who's not with the thing he craves for,

01:14:38.360 | so he's longing for, he's talking about the longing.

01:14:40.840 | - Right.

01:14:41.680 | - Not with the having.

01:14:43.280 | - Hey, if anybody in the CIA is watching this,

01:14:45.440 | can you look into Bruce Springsteen's file

01:14:47.440 | and let us know if he actually banged the person

01:14:49.600 | he wrote that song about?

01:14:50.440 | - What happens after the song, or between the song?

01:14:52.480 | We want facts.

01:14:53.320 | - Look, the longing though, I'll tell you this.

01:14:54.680 | Here's what's interesting about that thing

01:14:56.440 | that you're talking about.

01:14:57.840 | Have you ever heard of something called bhakti yoga?

01:15:01.400 | - I think so, yeah.

01:15:02.240 | - It's the yoga of love, and there's all kinds,

01:15:04.640 | there's forms of it.

01:15:06.120 | The most, the one people know about the most

01:15:08.920 | is the Hare Krishnas, but the Hare Krishnas are like,

01:15:12.200 | you know, the way in Christianity

01:15:13.800 | you've got the Episcopalians, the Catholics, the Baptists.

01:15:16.360 | In bhakti yoga, you have various deities

01:15:19.880 | that are the object of love.

01:15:22.920 | And so bhakti yoga is the,

01:15:25.680 | and what's really cool about it is it's an anatomy.

01:15:31.880 | It's an analysis of love.

01:15:33.840 | And so, and it's the supposition being like,

01:15:38.200 | love is the way to commune with the divine.

01:15:42.520 | Now, a distinction is drawn between

01:15:45.480 | like two big world views that are spiritual.

01:15:49.040 | One is the concept of sort of unit of consciousness,

01:15:54.040 | which you'll run into in a lot of forms of Buddhism,

01:15:58.040 | if not all, a sort of a way of deconstructing the identity

01:16:03.040 | or understanding that you might not be anything at all.

01:16:07.720 | That in fact, you're part of everything.

01:16:09.360 | And in that, there's a potential relief

01:16:14.360 | from suffering in that,

01:16:15.480 | not just like intellectually knowing it, but becoming it.

01:16:19.040 | Now, whereas in bhakti yoga,

01:16:23.680 | there's this idea of like the best thing

01:16:28.680 | is to be the individual

01:16:30.480 | because individuals are required for love,

01:16:33.480 | this for love to work, embodied love.

01:16:36.760 | And so the quality, the thing we call,

01:16:40.680 | you know, the experience of love

01:16:43.120 | is something that can be cultivated.

01:16:44.880 | It doesn't just have to be for another person.

01:16:46.600 | It doesn't have to be for the stranger on the bus.

01:16:48.840 | It doesn't have to be for sweaty Bruce Springsteen's lover

01:16:52.920 | that you can actually shift that love to the divine, to God.

01:16:57.920 | 'Cause obviously it's the Hare Krishna's,

01:17:00.160 | it's a theistic religion.

01:17:01.200 | They believe in Krishna,

01:17:02.720 | who is the, from the POV of Vaishnava bhakti yoga,

01:17:06.280 | the Godhead, the source from which everything

01:17:09.880 | flows into time and space.

01:17:12.840 | So there are all these like fascinating stories of Krishna.

01:17:17.840 | Most people are familiar with Krishna

01:17:22.680 | from the Bhagavad Gita.

01:17:24.120 | They're about to be more,

01:17:24.960 | what's cool about it is 'cause it's like

01:17:26.200 | they're making the Oppenheimer movie

01:17:27.680 | and he famously quoted the Bhagavad Gita

01:17:29.720 | when they split the atom.

01:17:31.920 | But there's all these stories of Krishna

01:17:35.080 | that are not just in the Bhagavad Gita.

01:17:39.640 | And these stories,

01:17:42.240 | they could seem very simple when taken literally,

01:17:47.160 | but in Vaishnava bhakti yoga,

01:17:48.680 | it's this very advanced theistic yogic system.

01:17:53.600 | So they take these stories and from these stories,

01:17:56.560 | they extrapolate this incredible analysis

01:18:00.480 | of what love is and how to connect with the universe.

01:18:02.720 | So like Krishna has a lover, Radharani.

01:18:06.240 | And so sometimes they're getting along.

01:18:11.240 | Sometimes they're fighting.

01:18:15.760 | Sometimes they're separated.

01:18:18.920 | And so each of these ways of feeling about Krishna

01:18:23.920 | are modes of love.

01:18:28.560 | So longing actually is considered

01:18:31.840 | one of the highest forms of love.

01:18:35.080 | The idea is the longing is the grace.

01:18:38.120 | The longing is the love.

01:18:39.720 | So when you find yourself in a situation

01:18:42.240 | of longing and heartbreak,

01:18:45.680 | it is identical to union.

01:18:49.520 | - Perhaps more intensely representative

01:18:54.960 | of the essence of what is love.

01:18:56.480 | - Yes, and they call it pining.

01:18:58.600 | So there's the, and it's pining for Krishna.

01:19:01.520 | And there's also, there's other ways

01:19:03.840 | you could be with Krishna is as a friend.

01:19:05.800 | So this is another form of love or as a mother,

01:19:09.920 | 'cause Krishna has a mother.

01:19:13.480 | So there's like all these ways of like looking

01:19:16.120 | at the various forms of love.

01:19:17.440 | And it's a really beautiful form of yoga.

01:19:20.880 | - That's emphasizing the individual

01:19:22.760 | and the individual as a kind of channel

01:19:25.160 | to this universal love.

01:19:27.720 | - Yeah, they like, there's a lot of different,

01:19:30.240 | like their answer to the question of what shows up

01:19:34.840 | in Buddhism as absolute and relative reality,

01:19:37.720 | like that obviously there's relative reality.

01:19:41.560 | We're not right now, you and me

01:19:44.280 | are not unit of consciousness.

01:19:46.200 | Like you zoom back far enough

01:19:49.040 | and we're gonna seem like an atom or whatever.

01:19:51.160 | The thing is, the trope is you can zoom back far enough

01:19:55.360 | and we're in a, whatever, we're in a piece of cheese

01:19:58.240 | or something, who knows.

01:19:59.280 | But in that way, we're like completely unified.

01:20:02.240 | But simultaneously we're individuals,

01:20:06.200 | like for sure we're individuals.

01:20:08.040 | Like you still gotta pay your taxes.

01:20:09.640 | You gotta know your social security number.

01:20:11.240 | That's relative reality.

01:20:12.480 | So, Buddhism is like kind of the balance.

01:20:15.560 | Again, when I say Buddhism is,

01:20:17.480 | I'm a comedian podcaster, I'm not some Buddhist expert.

01:20:21.080 | This is just probably my confused idea of what it is.

01:20:24.880 | But anyway, in Bhakti yoga, there's the concept,

01:20:28.320 | it's called, I'm gonna mispronounce it,

01:20:31.520 | as Sankhya Sankhya Bheda Tattva.

01:20:34.280 | I'm sorry, I'm mispronouncing it,

01:20:35.920 | which means simultaneous oneness and difference.

01:20:40.760 | So--

01:20:41.600 | - Oneness and difference.

01:20:42.960 | - Yes, simultaneous oneness and difference.

01:20:44.880 | - So that's why the oneness is the,

01:20:46.960 | we're part of the same piece of cheese,

01:20:50.560 | and the difference is we are still each paying taxes.

01:20:54.000 | - Yes, and in this case, the cheese is Krishna.

01:20:56.640 | So, or other ways it gets described as like,

01:21:01.440 | a photon blasting off the sun has sunlight qualities,

01:21:06.440 | but it's not the sun.

01:21:08.120 | Humans being one of the many things,

01:21:12.440 | flowing out of the creative consciousness of the divine,

01:21:16.080 | have qualities that are weirdly like the God-like.

01:21:21.080 | It's in fact, we wanna control primarily.

01:21:25.560 | That's one of the problems, like humans wanna be in control.

01:21:30.120 | Wherein from the Bhakti yoga perspective,

01:21:32.920 | Krishna is effortlessly controlling everything.

01:21:38.760 | And so within the system,

01:21:40.520 | the individual parts of the system have that same quality,

01:21:43.680 | but you can't, you're probably not God.

01:21:45.960 | You might be, I'm not.

01:21:47.760 | (both laughing)

01:21:50.000 | - What do you think happens after we die?

01:21:52.520 | Having come close to that cliff,

01:21:57.520 | and almost got pushed over once.

01:22:00.920 | What do you think happens

01:22:02.160 | when you do get pushed off the cliff?

01:22:06.040 | - Okay, I feel dumb that I'm even gonna like preface this

01:22:09.280 | by saying, obviously I have no fucking idea.

01:22:11.800 | And I think that's one of the cool things about death.

01:22:14.160 | No idea.

01:22:15.120 | - The CIA probably does.

01:22:16.680 | - You think the CIA?

01:22:17.680 | I love like we've decided your audience is the CIA.

01:22:21.840 | - Yeah.

01:22:22.880 | - How would you, oh wait.

01:22:24.840 | - 'Cause there's a lot of suspicion

01:22:26.000 | that I might be FSB and Mossad.

01:22:28.200 | So I'm trying to rebrand.

01:22:30.120 | I'm trying to steer them into the CIA direction.

01:22:35.320 | As far as what happens when you die,

01:22:37.840 | one thing I return to when I'm getting overly complex

01:22:40.840 | is the idea of as above, so below.

01:22:43.720 | So that you can, a lot of the big questions

01:22:47.760 | can be answered by your own experience now.

01:22:52.160 | So in other words, like in terms of thinking about like death,

01:23:02.280 | if you look back to baby Lex versus adult Lex,

01:23:07.280 | where's the baby?

01:23:11.600 | Like baby's gone.

01:23:13.680 | You've regenerated all your cells many times by then.

01:23:17.720 | So in a way you could say Lex baby died.

01:23:22.000 | The death didn't look like a typical,

01:23:24.560 | and I'm not trying to dodge it, but I'm just saying,

01:23:27.160 | it was very natural that the death of that baby,

01:23:29.880 | it just-- - So in many ways,

01:23:33.360 | that baby died, but I am, at least personally,

01:23:35.840 | I'm surprised how much the person is exactly the same.

01:23:39.240 | So there's many ways in which you're very different,

01:23:43.280 | but there's a lot of ways in which you're very much the same.

01:23:46.680 | - Sure. - And I wonder if that,

01:23:49.480 | if life is defined by many deaths that continue on,

01:23:54.120 | and then I wonder if there's something persists

01:23:57.480 | beyond in this, that, yeah,

01:24:00.880 | there is something that still persists, I wonder.

01:24:03.040 | - Okay, so that.

01:24:04.640 | Now, obviously there's so many different answers

01:24:09.640 | to this question that are religious,

01:24:11.640 | and ranging from like the most absurd shit

01:24:15.240 | you ever heard in your life, like the gold,

01:24:18.160 | you're gonna get a mansion, there's gold streets.

01:24:20.840 | Like, do you even want like gold streets?

01:24:23.600 | - Who offers gold streets?

01:24:24.760 | I know about the virgins, but there's a bunch of virgins.

01:24:27.840 | - The Christians give you the gold streets in the mansion,

01:24:30.680 | like depending on the,

01:24:32.240 | whatever the particular sect of Christianity is.

01:24:36.480 | It's like some kind of city that's like paved with gold.

01:24:41.400 | No one's addressing the fact that the moment

01:24:43.120 | the streets are made of gold, gold is a valueless substance.

01:24:46.960 | I mean, it's sort of pretty in a cheesy kind of way,

01:24:49.440 | but no one's gonna give a shit about it.

01:24:50.640 | It's like, if there was not a lot of asphalt in the world,

01:24:55.640 | then we'd be in heaven from that same,

01:24:58.880 | with that way of thinking.

01:25:00.240 | But the--

01:25:01.520 | - Or honestly, when going back,

01:25:04.320 | this is starting to get a theme with "Gulag Archipelago."

01:25:06.960 | I'm sorry, I'm reading it currently.

01:25:08.440 | - That's a sticky book.

01:25:09.840 | - Yeah, it's very sticky in your mind, very, very tough.

01:25:12.680 | As I'm running through very hot heat,

01:25:14.840 | I'm listening to "Gulag Archipelago."

01:25:16.960 | - Oh my God.

01:25:17.800 | - And one of the things they said,

01:25:19.040 | they would feed prisoners salt,

01:25:21.520 | and then they would exchange,

01:25:26.160 | the prisoners would be able to give up anything,

01:25:29.640 | everything, their gold, their possessions,

01:25:31.660 | everything for just one drink of water.

01:25:33.720 | So that little context of dehydrating them

01:25:37.660 | and feeding them salt changes your value system completely.

01:25:41.600 | So maybe the gold is supposed to be a metaphor

01:25:44.260 | for something that you still value deeply.

01:25:46.400 | - Yes, it's, yeah, again, any of these things,

01:25:49.000 | when you take them literally, they seem absurd,

01:25:51.280 | but if you look deeper into it, it's quite beautiful.

01:25:54.420 | But the Buddhist version of it is that there's a momentum.

01:25:58.220 | The best way to put it is it's a kind of momentum.

01:26:00.520 | So the thing you're talking about,

01:26:02.840 | which is the personality of the baby

01:26:06.560 | that is still in the adult,

01:26:08.360 | which is still in the old person,

01:26:10.280 | you're looking at a kind of momentum

01:26:12.920 | that does not stop upon the extinction of the body.

01:26:18.000 | Now, I think there's a lot of,

01:26:23.000 | I don't wanna say harm, 'cause they didn't mean to hurt,

01:26:28.640 | but I think there's some harm that maybe has happened

01:26:30.560 | from the way death is represented in movies.

01:26:33.400 | Like when people die in movies, it's like,

01:26:36.520 | there's this, usually it's pretty fast,

01:26:38.560 | even if it is what they're dying from

01:26:41.160 | is a long-term disease, it like wraps up pretty quickly,

01:26:44.320 | starts with a cough, the person's in bed,

01:26:46.780 | but there's this weird kind of lucidity

01:26:49.280 | to the person up until the point of death.

01:26:51.760 | And also they generally, in movies, they have makeup on,

01:26:54.040 | which is always funny to me

01:26:55.080 | when the person dying looks great.

01:26:57.400 | If you've ever been around a dying person, they're dying.

01:27:00.240 | They look like shit.

01:27:01.400 | You're dying, they're all gray and like confused.

01:27:05.040 | When you're around dying people,

01:27:07.520 | they will spin through time.

01:27:10.000 | Your parents won't recognize you for a second.

01:27:12.000 | They'll think you're somebody else.

01:27:13.880 | They're like, everything's like the process is happening.

01:27:18.460 | So you're very confused when you die.

01:27:22.020 | So in general, not all the time,

01:27:24.900 | some people die with a clear mind.

01:27:26.820 | It just depends on the type of death,

01:27:28.580 | but think in terms of getting hit by a car.

01:27:32.340 | So you wanna cross the street, you get hit by a car.

01:27:35.340 | Now, if we're talking about this momentum continuing,

01:27:39.600 | the confusion, assuming you didn't hit your head

01:27:42.780 | and you're unconscious, like somehow you just got smashed

01:27:45.600 | and you're like bleeding out,

01:27:47.800 | even then you're gonna be confused

01:27:49.200 | because you're getting dizzy.

01:27:50.440 | Like blood's leaving your body.

01:27:52.120 | You're like, things are fading out, your vision's going.

01:27:54.540 | So it's a very confusing experience initially

01:27:57.120 | when the body dies.

01:27:58.600 | If you are a materialist who has been,

01:28:02.660 | who has convinced themselves that it's a permanent thing,

01:28:08.640 | the next bit of confusion is going to be

01:28:10.960 | when you realize something is persisting here.

01:28:13.700 | Like I'm still here.

01:28:14.740 | And this is where you run into the near-death experiences,

01:28:17.660 | which are a global phenomena

01:28:19.020 | that don't seem to be completely shaped by culture.

01:28:23.020 | Like regardless of what part of the world

01:28:25.540 | people are having these experiences in,

01:28:27.540 | the reports tend to be similar

01:28:30.180 | and everyone's heard it, the light, the life review,

01:28:33.240 | seeing ancestors and stuff like that.

01:28:38.460 | Now, I don't know what that is.

01:28:40.660 | I don't know.

01:28:42.020 | Sometimes I think that's probably just like a built-in way

01:28:46.980 | the computer shuts down.

01:28:48.260 | You know, just this is something it does, who knows.

01:28:50.540 | But in Buddhism, the concept is this momentum persists

01:28:55.540 | into something called the bardo.

01:28:57.360 | The bardo means in between.

01:28:59.280 | And there's an actual number of days,

01:29:02.380 | they say that you get to hang out there.

01:29:04.600 | And I can't remember, it's like 37 days or 29 days

01:29:07.760 | or something, I'm not sure.

01:29:09.040 | But at least from the time-space perspective,

01:29:13.200 | that's how long they're there.

01:29:14.760 | Within this place,

01:29:16.200 | there are a lot of technological parallels, man.

01:29:21.800 | It's like in the way the algorithm is reflective,

01:29:26.560 | it assesses your desires or whatever,

01:29:28.880 | and then produces something that has within it

01:29:32.380 | a component of attraction to you.

01:29:34.840 | Apparently this happens in the bardo.

01:29:36.760 | Or the way, you know, you wake up in the morning

01:29:39.280 | and you're in a shitty mood.

01:29:42.980 | And then coincidentally, everyone that day is an asshole.

01:29:46.800 | If you don't catch it, you could just be like,

01:29:48.900 | wow, I guess it's act like an asshole day.

01:29:50.920 | You don't realize you're seeing your asshole projection

01:29:54.440 | like being reflected off the screen of another person.

01:29:58.920 | So in the bardo, apparently,

01:30:00.520 | you don't need people for the reflective quality.

01:30:03.520 | These projections happen and they appear

01:30:06.400 | as either Nietzsche's demon or Nietzsche's angel.

01:30:10.600 | It just depends on where you're at and how you died.

01:30:14.400 | And like, if you died scared, then at least initially,

01:30:18.440 | that's gonna be some scary shit you see around you.

01:30:21.000 | If you died in a peaceful way,

01:30:23.220 | well then there's gonna be more of a possibility

01:30:27.320 | of navigation through this liminal intermediary place.

01:30:34.400 | And so thus the emphasis on meditation in Buddhism,

01:30:38.600 | a way to calm one's self, to not be distracted by thoughts,

01:30:43.600 | which are their own like apparitions.

01:30:46.080 | And then theoretically, if you wanted to,

01:30:49.200 | instead of spinning the wheel again

01:30:52.120 | and jumping back into a body,

01:30:54.360 | you could choose not to do that.

01:30:56.200 | And then, you know, transcend the wheel of birth and death.

01:31:00.020 | But if you still wanted to go back

01:31:02.920 | or return or whatever, however you wanna put it,

01:31:06.640 | then you could have more control

01:31:08.800 | over what your next birth might be

01:31:12.100 | versus in this depiction of things,

01:31:15.080 | people running from demons that they don't recognize

01:31:19.000 | as their own projection into any fucking body

01:31:23.120 | that they can find.

01:31:24.460 | Because if you've had a body, you want a body.

01:31:26.880 | And so this is how you get incarnated as an animal.

01:31:29.560 | This is how you get incarnated in the hell realms.

01:31:32.080 | This is how you get incarnated in any variety of things.

01:31:34.280 | But the idea is like maybe you could slow down a little bit

01:31:38.680 | and like choose a birth

01:31:40.360 | that is gonna be more conducive to you

01:31:43.040 | continuing to like spiritually evolve.

01:31:48.320 | I like that idea.

01:31:49.440 | Is it true or not?

01:31:50.480 | Who the fuck knows?

01:31:51.320 | - Algorithmically speaking,

01:31:52.920 | it seems like a really fun role-playing game

01:31:55.040 | where you basically keep improving the different parameters

01:32:00.800 | based on your ability and willingness to meditate

01:32:05.800 | and let go of the menial concerns of life on earth.

01:32:12.160 | Why do you think Buddhists see life as suffering?

01:32:19.200 | What's suffering?

01:32:20.680 | - Okay, well, first of all,

01:32:22.440 | that gets mistranslated quite a bit.

01:32:26.360 | You're talking about the four noble truths.

01:32:27.920 | The first one is, it often gets translated as life.

01:32:30.760 | It is suffering, which is not it.

01:32:34.040 | It's there is suffering.

01:32:36.840 | The whole life is suffering thing.

01:32:38.160 | It's just like the spiritual version of life's a bitch.

01:32:40.640 | Then you die.

01:32:41.800 | And people hear that and they're like,

01:32:42.920 | yeah, life is fucking suffering.

01:32:44.840 | But it's there is suffering.

01:32:46.600 | There is suffering.

01:32:47.440 | So it's an affirmation.

01:32:50.000 | If you're like this thing that a lot of people feel

01:32:53.400 | that they associate with lots of,

01:32:55.240 | they have a lot of reasons they think they're feeling it

01:32:57.920 | is known as fundamental dissatisfaction.

01:33:00.840 | So another word for suffering,

01:33:03.720 | maybe it could be fundamental dissatisfaction.

01:33:06.440 | Also, the term itself,

01:33:09.480 | maybe a better translation is wobbly wheel.

01:33:14.280 | So like, imagine like when your bike doesn't have an,

01:33:16.840 | or your car doesn't have enough air in the tires,

01:33:18.760 | your bike doesn't have enough air in the tires.

01:33:21.000 | It's kind of a shitty bike ride.

01:33:22.520 | Like no matter what, it's kind of like,

01:33:24.240 | it's like uncomfortable.

01:33:25.720 | It's like irritating.

01:33:27.280 | So this is what's being pointed to

01:33:30.760 | is that there's this quality within a human life

01:33:34.920 | that is unsatisfying.

01:33:39.920 | - Like a wobbly wheel.

01:33:41.240 | - Wobbly wheel.

01:33:42.600 | - Why do you think,

01:33:44.840 | what is at the core of that dissatisfaction?

01:33:48.040 | 'Cause it could be as simple as kind of physical

01:33:51.920 | and mental discomforts and sadness and depression

01:33:55.480 | and all that kind of stuff.

01:33:57.040 | Or it could be more speaking to the sort of existentialist,

01:33:59.960 | the philosophical, the absurdity of it all.

01:34:03.760 | The fact that stuff happens,

01:34:05.560 | good stuff happens for no reason,

01:34:07.240 | bad stuff happens for no reason.

01:34:08.960 | Yeah, it's no matter how much you try,

01:34:14.000 | there's not a universal fairness to the whole thing.

01:34:19.240 | There's not even a universal meaning to the whole thing.

01:34:22.000 | So the existentialist perspective.

01:34:24.840 | - What flavor of suffering do you prefer?

01:34:27.440 | Frozen ice cream shop.

01:34:28.560 | - That's so funny.

01:34:29.400 | Well, I'm definitely picking desire over the,

01:34:32.760 | like if, in the RGB that we're talking about here

01:34:36.480 | is desire, aversion, and ignorance.

01:34:41.160 | So if you wanna find like the three ingredients

01:34:46.160 | that are giving everyone their sophisticated

01:34:49.640 | bits of suffering, there you go.

01:34:51.360 | That's what it is.

01:34:52.880 | - In which way does desire manifest itself in suffering?

01:34:56.200 | - It hurts.

01:34:57.160 | - To lose, to not have.

01:34:58.840 | - Yeah, it hurts to not, like to eternally not have.

01:35:02.960 | But just like my friend pointed this out,

01:35:05.280 | he's like, you know like, you order something from Amazon.

01:35:09.720 | Like even in the smallest way,

01:35:10.880 | you're excited about whatever the thing is.

01:35:12.480 | You order this thing from Amazon,

01:35:14.200 | it's not coming for four days.

01:35:16.120 | So those four days are gonna be somewhat marked

01:35:19.000 | by you being what people say, I'm excited about it.

01:35:22.240 | But really, if you look at that feeling,

01:35:24.760 | it's uncomfortable.

01:35:25.720 | Like the feeling of wanting the thing is uncomfortable.

01:35:28.680 | So that is a form of suffering, that's suffering.

01:35:32.360 | - Interesting.

01:35:33.200 | I mean, I wonder, 'cause we naturally reframe that

01:35:36.360 | in our mind, wanting.

01:35:39.000 | We reframe that as a good thing.

01:35:41.500 | And maybe suffering is fundamentally good

01:35:49.960 | in the way we think of what life is.

01:35:52.760 | - Yes.

01:35:53.600 | - So like, it's life-affirming.

01:35:55.720 | But it's not usually how the word suffering is used.

01:35:58.320 | - Well, it's true.

01:36:00.120 | It's true.

01:36:00.960 | Like the First Noble Truth of Buddhism is true.

01:36:03.400 | It's called the truth of suffering.

01:36:05.300 | There is suffering.

01:36:06.760 | I mean, this is like an, I don't know, an element

01:36:09.640 | that you can't break it down any further than that.

01:36:11.520 | Like there is suffering, this is truth.

01:36:13.480 | So if you think, you know, and again,

01:36:16.880 | assigning like good or bad to truth,

01:36:19.960 | I think maybe there's more of a sort of neutrality there.

01:36:23.240 | It's just what it is.

01:36:24.840 | It's truth.

01:36:25.680 | - I mean, is it basically, is suffering any disturbance

01:36:30.200 | from stillness?

01:36:33.760 | Is suffering then?

01:36:35.240 | Like basically anything that happens in life

01:36:38.600 | that's like, that perturbs the system.

01:36:43.600 | - Ripples in the empty.

01:36:44.880 | - Ripples. - Ripples, yeah.

01:36:46.160 | - So a still lake is empty of suffering,

01:36:49.680 | but any kind of ripple is suffering in that sense.

01:36:54.320 | - A still lake is empty of suffering.

01:36:56.880 | You sound like a Zen master.

01:36:58.440 | Seems like something a Zen master might say.

01:36:59.880 | - If I can just grow a beard like yours.

01:37:01.960 | - Ah, no, the beard doesn't help.

01:37:03.760 | - Wait, wait, wait.

01:37:04.600 | - If I had your chin, you think I'd have a fucking beard?

01:37:07.080 | I look like a stork.

01:37:08.600 | You should see me.

01:37:09.440 | If I had your chin, there would be no beard here.

01:37:11.240 | You have a symmetrical, nice chin.

01:37:13.280 | This is the close I can come to plastic surgery.

01:37:16.080 | Pubic plastic surgery, friend.

01:37:18.120 | - That's how you know you're a professional comedian.

01:37:21.720 | - Yeah, so suffering, there is suffering.

01:37:26.040 | And the lake analogy is pretty good

01:37:29.400 | because what's happening here is that

01:37:31.840 | we have become identified

01:37:40.200 | with something that we call a self.

01:37:42.560 | So the self is just accepted.

01:37:45.220 | I have a self, I have an identity,

01:37:46.760 | I'm a person, I have a self.

01:37:48.960 | But when you start doing scans to try to find yourself,

01:37:53.960 | which is the entire thing, I'm going to find myself.

01:37:59.120 | You get in a van, go to California, take some acid,

01:38:02.040 | fuck a prostitute on the bus or whatever carowack did,

01:38:04.800 | I'm gonna find myself.

01:38:06.040 | - Oh, he didn't, she wasn't a prostitute,

01:38:08.200 | just to correct the record.

01:38:09.440 | Oh, previously a prostitute, I guess once a prostitute,

01:38:11.640 | always a prostitute.

01:38:12.480 | - You know what?

01:38:13.320 | - She's a former prostitute.

01:38:14.140 | - I don't think that.

01:38:14.980 | And look, I'm not a, I have a, I'm not a sign.

01:38:17.980 | Look, all I'm saying is I don't care.

01:38:21.260 | Who cares?

01:38:22.100 | Who has a bit of prostitute?

01:38:22.940 | God, I used to be one of the biggest, it was the worst.

01:38:24.420 | - We're all a kind of prostitute.

01:38:26.940 | - Yeah, yes, yes.

01:38:28.740 | But the--

01:38:29.580 | - We make love and we make money.

01:38:32.940 | Therefore, we're all a kind of prostitute.

01:38:35.460 | - We make, God, how great.

01:38:37.220 | I would really love to be able to make money by fucking.

01:38:40.720 | - I mean, it's maybe not directly, but in some sense--

01:38:44.180 | - Directly.

01:38:45.020 | (laughing)

01:38:47.260 | - Do you accept Venmo?

01:38:51.420 | (laughing)

01:38:53.740 | Never too late to start.

01:38:55.100 | - That's sort of one of the ways in,

01:38:57.460 | is this sort of contemplation of the identity.

01:39:00.980 | Because it's like, you know, what, it's not just the desire,

01:39:05.380 | it's what is having the desire?

01:39:07.180 | Where does the desire live in?

01:39:08.900 | Like, what doesn't wanna be where it's at?

01:39:11.580 | What is the thing that is like desperately wanting

01:39:15.620 | to get out of the situation it's in?

01:39:17.780 | And then as far as ignorance, it's still something

01:39:22.460 | that's theoretically happening to an identity.

01:39:25.660 | So wrapped up in it is really just this sort of like,

01:39:30.500 | and that's where we run into what, into attachment.

01:39:34.500 | So if the first noble truth of Buddhism is there is suffering

01:39:39.060 | the second noble truth of Buddhism is the cause

01:39:43.500 | of this suffering is attachment.

01:39:47.460 | And so people hear that and they take it,

01:39:50.460 | there's a lot of levels to that concept.

01:39:53.320 | Definitely the cause of suffering is attachment.

01:39:55.100 | I mean, God, I just got addicted to vapes.

01:39:57.740 | Is there a more embarrassing addiction than vapes?

01:40:01.420 | I'm smoking like a little purple thing,

01:40:03.580 | it tastes like sugar, it's attachment.

01:40:06.780 | There is suffering, I want it.

01:40:09.020 | I have to charge it now.

01:40:10.460 | I'm embarrassed by it, it makes me feel out of control.

01:40:13.580 | There's a lot of suffering,

01:40:14.540 | but also there's deeper levels of attachment

01:40:18.540 | that go all the way to this attachment

01:40:21.460 | to the sense of one's self.

01:40:24.980 | And I think the existentialists do get into this idea

01:40:28.860 | in a different way, which is like,

01:40:30.660 | because I think I'm a me, now I have to push

01:40:33.700 | what that thing is out into the world through my actions.

01:40:38.620 | - And that's a kind of attachment too.

01:40:40.620 | - Exactly, there you go, right.

01:40:42.740 | And that leads to the third noble truth,

01:40:44.980 | which is get rid of attachment

01:40:49.460 | and you won't suffer anymore.

01:40:50.920 | It seems logical, but it is a mathematical analysis

01:40:57.260 | of this particular problem of suffering it's addressing.

01:41:01.500 | And then the fourth noble truth

01:41:03.180 | is the Eightfold Path of Buddhism,

01:41:04.860 | which is like a process by which one could unencumber

01:41:09.860 | oneself from this identification

01:41:13.540 | with something that isn't real.

01:41:15.140 | - Do you need a bathroom break?

01:41:17.680 | - Yeah, thank you, I do.

01:41:19.580 | I appreciate that.

01:41:20.680 | - There's a funny moment,

01:41:22.860 | I was running in the heat yesterday

01:41:24.180 | listening to "Gulag Archipelago,"

01:41:27.020 | and there's a, which was a very welcome break,

01:41:30.620 | 'cause I'm looking for any excuse to stop whatsoever.

01:41:34.740 | A gentleman, very nice gentleman stopped me,

01:41:37.180 | recognized me and just said a bunch of friendly things.

01:41:40.020 | And then he mentioned, as one of the people

01:41:43.340 | who really inspires him, is Duncan Trussell.

01:41:46.320 | And I was, I mean, I'm the same way,

01:41:52.180 | and I told him, you know, tomorrow,

01:41:54.580 | it felt like a name drop.

01:41:56.300 | - I name dropped you this morning!

01:41:58.260 | - I was like, tomorrow I'm gonna get to meet him.

01:42:00.260 | So he says, he says hi, and there's,

01:42:02.500 | oh, and he said that he watched "Midnight Gospel"

01:42:07.500 | on mushrooms, and it was like

01:42:09.540 | the greatest mushroom experience of his life.

01:42:11.780 | I don't know.

01:42:13.260 | - Yeah, man, yeah, I was nervous about meeting you, man.

01:42:16.020 | Like, I have so much respect for you,

01:42:17.380 | and like, yeah, I name dropped.

01:42:18.820 | I was saying I'm going on Lex's podcast today.

01:42:21.740 | It's, look, we're so lucky we all live here.

01:42:24.340 | What the fuck, we're all living in Austin together.

01:42:26.420 | Like, I somehow like missed that.

01:42:30.380 | But that's, we all gotta hang out.

01:42:32.620 | We all have to like start doing stuff together.

01:42:34.860 | - Well, you have to really,

01:42:35.700 | also you have to appreciate this moment.

01:42:37.300 | I remember, I know some people are less sentimental

01:42:42.300 | than others, but I remember sitting with Joe Rogan

01:42:48.100 | and with Eric Weinstein, I believe it was, yeah,

01:42:52.900 | and at the back of the comedy store,

01:42:55.340 | shortly before COVID, I think.

01:42:59.500 | And just thinking like,

01:43:01.180 | there's no way these things will last.

01:43:04.380 | And these things meaning the comedy store, Joe Rogan.

01:43:09.380 | Joe Rogan, the Joe Rogan, like a podcast,

01:43:12.580 | influential podcasting person.

01:43:14.940 | Also a person like in this room, in this space,

01:43:19.940 | the ability to just talk for hours

01:43:24.420 | and lose ourselves in this moment,

01:43:26.420 | it just felt ephemeral somehow, temporary.

01:43:30.740 | And I just wanted to capture that moment somehow.

01:43:32.780 | Like, I don't know.

01:43:34.140 | Sometimes that's where the temptation to take a picture

01:43:36.620 | and that kind of stuff, or record a podcast comes from.

01:43:39.780 | But it just felt like it would be gone forever.

01:43:43.100 | Of course, Joe doesn't seem to have

01:43:45.420 | that kind of sentimental notion at all.

01:43:48.380 | Just wherever you end up,

01:43:49.620 | you just enjoy the shit out of it.

01:43:51.060 | - Right, that's it.

01:43:52.860 | Well, and that's something you have to cultivate.

01:43:54.980 | That's not an easy, the thing you're talking about,

01:43:57.540 | God, have you seen these?

01:44:00.540 | I think the best analogy for what you're talking about,

01:44:03.060 | there's these videos where people give like a sugar cube

01:44:05.460 | to a raccoon, but the raccoons, they wash their food.

01:44:09.380 | So raccoon, or I think it's cotton candy.

01:44:11.300 | They give the raccoon cotton candy,

01:44:12.660 | immediately it washes the cotton candy.

01:44:14.940 | And of course the cotton candy dissolves in the water.

01:44:17.420 | And the raccoon is like, what the fuck?

01:44:19.860 | And the thing you're, that grasping you're talking about,

01:44:24.380 | it's like the raccoon washing the cotton candy.

01:44:26.620 | Like the moment you get into the grasping part,

01:44:29.780 | you paradoxically have pulled yourself out of the moment

01:44:34.780 | that inspired the grasping part.

01:44:37.820 | And that's, some people,

01:44:40.140 | that's the entirety of their lives, trying to record.

01:44:43.340 | I mean, Jesus, man, you ever see people film fireworks

01:44:46.420 | on the 4th of July with their phone?

01:44:48.340 | It's one of the most remarkable aspects of human behavior,

01:44:52.620 | which is like, you know they're not gonna watch

01:44:55.860 | the fireworks on their phone.

01:44:59.100 | Only a lunatic would do that.

01:45:00.580 | Like who's gonna go back and look at fireworks, but.

01:45:04.100 | - So we're also in this position where,

01:45:06.540 | because of podcasting, there is some aspect

01:45:08.940 | where you can record a magical moment in time

01:45:11.860 | together between two people, or even just with a camera.

01:45:16.020 | - So to get back to the lake that you were talking about,

01:45:19.500 | this is emptiness.

01:45:20.340 | So that's emptiness.

01:45:21.260 | That's what's known as emptiness.

01:45:22.420 | The lake is emptiness, and that's what we are.

01:45:25.300 | Emptiness, emptiness.

01:45:26.860 | And that's another thing that gets very confused

01:45:29.060 | in Buddhism, is that emptiness.

01:45:32.500 | And that emptiness is, that's to me,

01:45:35.900 | like when I'm going to do a podcast,

01:45:39.900 | that's where I try to go.

01:45:40.980 | I try to go just in the moment.

01:45:42.940 | No agenda.

01:45:44.420 | You know, if I am nervous or whatever,

01:45:46.220 | okay, I'll feel the nervousness,

01:45:47.620 | but just drop into the moment.

01:45:50.160 | That's when time changes.

01:45:52.140 | And then you look up, hours have passed.

01:45:54.420 | It feels like a second.

01:45:55.660 | And the reason it feels like that is 'cause if you

01:45:58.980 | successfully dropped into the moment,

01:46:01.620 | it's the lake now.

01:46:04.260 | It's emptiness.

01:46:05.140 | It's forever.

01:46:05.980 | For a second, you're like, you're dipping into eternity.

01:46:09.180 | And yeah, it's a very strange thing

01:46:13.260 | to, as part of that, record it.

01:46:16.620 | You know, as part of that, try to like grab it

01:46:18.820 | and put it out there, but it works.

01:46:21.780 | - Can you speak to that,

01:46:22.980 | to the Duncan Trussell Family Hour?

01:46:26.220 | Can you speak about that purple lavender world you go to

01:46:30.220 | when it's most intense and successful for you,

01:46:33.100 | when you feel a sense of lightness and happiness,

01:46:36.020 | when it works?

01:46:37.540 | - Yeah.

01:46:38.380 | - Whether it's your own or a conversation with Joe

01:46:40.820 | in general, or yours is very specific

01:46:44.880 | because it's audio only.

01:46:45.980 | Maybe you can also speak to that.

01:46:48.340 | You might as well be naked or you don't have to.

01:46:51.420 | - Yeah.

01:46:52.260 | - You're free of the conventions of the real world.

01:46:56.000 | - I will never stop thinking it's remarkable.

01:47:01.060 | Like the fact that I'm talking to you, to me,

01:47:04.060 | seems remarkable.

01:47:05.340 | Not just technologically, but I'm talking to someone,

01:47:09.620 | I'm assuming I'm allowed to say this,

01:47:11.380 | who has robot dogs that I've been watching

01:47:15.620 | for years evolve on YouTube.

01:47:20.060 | Arms reach away from one of these things,

01:47:22.540 | and I'm with somebody who is like an acclaimed genius.

01:47:27.540 | So for me, it's like, oh my God,

01:47:29.940 | why do I get to have this conversation?

01:47:33.580 | Why do I get to be here when there'd be like a line,

01:47:36.660 | there'd be a line that were just wrapped and wrapped

01:47:39.340 | and wrapped around this building

01:47:40.580 | of people who'd love a chance to just chat with you.

01:47:43.260 | And so when I, with my podcast,

01:47:45.540 | that's how I feel like when I'm talking to these guests,

01:47:50.340 | who have spent, some of them have spent

01:47:55.260 | their entire lifetime meditating,

01:47:58.780 | studying specific aspects of Buddhism,

01:48:02.340 | or even when I'm with comedians

01:48:05.260 | who I consider to be brilliantly funny.

01:48:08.900 | So for me, it's just like, God, I almost feel like

01:48:12.620 | I've just created some sophisticated trap for cool people

01:48:17.140 | where I get to hang out with them.

01:48:19.180 | - So you're like sitting in the gratitude of it,

01:48:21.780 | just feeling lucky to be there.

01:48:24.260 | - Yeah, feeling lucky and wrestling with imposter syndrome,

01:48:27.420 | trying to like get that part of myself to shut up long enough

01:48:30.340 | so I could be in that moment that we're talking about.

01:48:33.420 | And then I carry that with me.

01:48:36.060 | It's not just like you stop the podcast.

01:48:38.500 | It's like some of the things these people tell me

01:48:41.620 | or some of the ways they are, like it becomes part of me.

01:48:45.180 | And then I get to have a life

01:48:47.540 | where this thing that they gave me is in me forever.

01:48:52.060 | And so yeah, it's, there's--

01:48:54.420 | - Yeah, it's cool how conversation can just,

01:48:56.940 | a few sentences can change the direction of your life.

01:49:01.060 | If you're listening, if you're there

01:49:02.820 | to be transformed by the words, they will do the work.

01:49:06.660 | And it's the full mix of it.

01:49:09.900 | It's usually when, if you look up to somebody,

01:49:14.180 | and it's true for me at least,

01:49:17.020 | I think it is for you that you start to look up

01:49:19.220 | to basically everybody you talk to.

01:49:20.980 | - Yes, yes, good sign.

01:49:23.780 | That's a good sign.

01:49:24.980 | God forbid it goes the other way.

01:49:26.900 | You're in trouble.

01:49:28.100 | If all of a sudden you start looking down on people,

01:49:30.580 | because whatever crazy metric you're using,

01:49:34.300 | ooh, that would freak me out.

01:49:35.940 | I do feel like that's a quality of getting older.

01:49:38.180 | When I was younger, I really, like,

01:49:39.980 | I thought I was so smart.

01:49:41.980 | Like I thought I had it all figured out.

01:49:43.380 | - Oh really, so you're going,

01:49:44.460 | your ego is just going, taking a nosedive.

01:49:47.780 | - I would like to say it's my ego taking a nosedive.

01:49:50.820 | Me and my friend talk about it a bunch.

01:49:52.380 | We've just always associated it with like doing acid

01:49:55.940 | for two decades straight.

01:49:57.620 | Like I'm gonna just assume I'm just like slowly

01:50:00.740 | like spiraling into senility, you know?

01:50:02.940 | Like I'm just like, all the confidence,

01:50:06.780 | all the like, oh, the certainty when you're having,

01:50:08.860 | like in college, you're having the great,

01:50:11.420 | oh, like, you know, you feel like you're a representative

01:50:16.420 | of Camus or some shit, you know what I mean?

01:50:19.280 | You read the myth of Sisyphus and now you like it.

01:50:21.500 | No, all existentialism and your certainty

01:50:24.900 | in regards to it is embarrassing,

01:50:27.660 | but you don't see it in that way.

01:50:29.680 | You just feel certain.

01:50:30.620 | And then that certainty, it just starts like,

01:50:33.700 | it starts crumbling a little bit.

01:50:35.900 | And then, yeah.

01:50:37.820 | - You know, I get to actually intensely experience

01:50:41.420 | that certainty in many communities,

01:50:43.940 | but one in cryptocurrency.

01:50:46.380 | Young folks with the certainty that this technology

01:50:50.020 | would transform the world.

01:50:51.780 | And I mean, this is almost one of the big communities

01:50:54.820 | of the modern era where they believe

01:50:57.780 | that this will really solve so many of the problems

01:51:00.380 | of the world and they believe in it very intensely.

01:51:03.420 | And aside from the technology and the details of the thing,

01:51:06.760 | all I see is the certainty and the passion in their eyes.

01:51:09.940 | They'll stop me.

01:51:11.060 | Let me explain you.

01:51:13.620 | Let me just give me a chance to tell you

01:51:16.180 | why this thing is extremely powerful.

01:51:19.100 | And I just get to enjoy the glow of that

01:51:21.700 | 'cause it's like, wow, I miss having that certainty

01:51:26.140 | about anything.

01:51:27.540 | It's probably Camus for me too.

01:51:29.740 | But when I was younger, it's like,

01:51:32.100 | only I deeply understand the relationship of man

01:51:37.100 | to his mortality.

01:51:40.320 | And I understood that most deeply, I think,

01:51:42.360 | when I was like 16 or 17.

01:51:44.480 | And I am the representative of the human condition.

01:51:48.280 | And all these adults with their busyness,

01:51:51.320 | day-to-day life and their concerns,

01:51:53.360 | they don't deeply understand what I understand,

01:51:56.680 | which is the only thing that matters

01:51:59.720 | is the absurdity of the human condition.

01:52:03.820 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:52:05.340 | - And let me quote you some Dostoevsky.

01:52:07.580 | - Oh boy, and you speak Russian?

01:52:10.260 | - Yes, I speak Russian.

01:52:11.100 | - So you've read the Brothers Karamazov in Russian?

01:52:13.660 | - Unfortunately, I have to admit

01:52:15.820 | that I read all of Dostoevsky in English.

01:52:20.480 | I came to this country when I was 13

01:52:25.500 | and at least don't remember.

01:52:26.580 | We read a lot, but we read Tolstoy, Pushkin,

01:52:31.080 | a lot of the Russian literature, but it was in Russian.

01:52:34.080 | But I don't remember reading Dostoevsky.

01:52:35.640 | I wonder at which point

01:52:37.600 | does the Russian education system give you Dostoevsky?

01:52:41.360 | 'Cause it's pretty heavy stuff.

01:52:43.240 | - Second grade.

01:52:44.760 | Probably the second grade.

01:52:45.840 | Russians are intense.

01:52:46.920 | - I don't remember, yeah, they are.

01:52:48.400 | They very much are.

01:52:50.200 | I don't remember reading Dostoevsky.

01:52:51.560 | But I did Tangent upon a Tangent upon a Tangent.

01:52:56.120 | I traveled to Paris recently on the way to Ukraine

01:52:59.320 | and was scheduled to talk to Richard Pivier

01:53:04.880 | and this pair that translate Dostoevsky, Tolstoy,

01:53:09.880 | just this famous pair that translate

01:53:13.060 | most of Russian literature to English.

01:53:15.080 | And I was planning to have a sequence of five, 10,

01:53:20.080 | 15 hour conversation with them about the different details

01:53:23.040 | of all the translations and so on.

01:53:25.480 | I just found myself in a very dark place mentally

01:53:28.640 | where I couldn't think about podcasts or anything like that.

01:53:31.120 | It caught me off guard.

01:53:32.800 | So I went to Paris and just laid there for a day.

01:53:36.120 | Not, just being stressed about Ukraine

01:53:39.640 | and all those kinds of things.

01:53:40.880 | But I'm still, the act of translation

01:53:44.840 | is such a fascinating way to approach

01:53:48.320 | some of the deepest questions that this literature raises,

01:53:51.560 | which is like, how do I capture the essence of a sentence

01:53:56.460 | that has so much power and translate it

01:53:58.440 | into another language?

01:53:59.800 | That act is actually really, really interesting.

01:54:01.840 | And there, I found with my conversations with them,

01:54:05.520 | they've really thought through this stuff.

01:54:09.240 | It's not just about language,

01:54:10.720 | it's about the ideas in those books.

01:54:12.640 | That also really makes me sad

01:54:15.920 | because I wonder how much is lost in translation.

01:54:18.880 | Currently, so when I was in Ukraine,

01:54:22.600 | I talked to a lot of, like half the conversations I had

01:54:26.520 | on the record were in Russian.

01:54:29.280 | And basically, 100% of the record were in Russian

01:54:34.280 | versus in English.

01:54:36.300 | And just so much is lost in those languages.

01:54:40.880 | And I'm now struggling

01:54:42.840 | because I'm launching a Russian channel

01:54:45.760 | where there'll be a Russian overdub of Duncan.

01:54:49.320 | - Wow.

01:54:50.760 | - Your wow will now be translated into Russian.

01:54:53.360 | - What's Russian wow?

01:54:54.700 | - It'll just be wow, probably.

01:54:57.520 | I'm so sorry for the difficulties

01:54:59.740 | of having to translate wow.

01:55:01.160 | Usually, probably with wow, they'll leave it un-overdubbed

01:55:04.440 | because people will understand exactly what you mean.

01:55:06.360 | But that's an art form, and it's a weird art form.

01:55:09.160 | - Yeah.

01:55:10.000 | - It's like, how do you capture the chemistry,

01:55:15.280 | the excitement, the, I don't know, maybe the humor,

01:55:20.280 | the implied kind of wit.

01:55:25.600 | I don't know, there's just layers of complexity in language

01:55:28.760 | that it's very difficult to capture.

01:55:30.640 | - Yeah.

01:55:31.480 | - And I wonder how, it is sad for me

01:55:33.480 | 'cause I know Russian, how much is lost in translation.

01:55:36.080 | And the same, there's a brewing conflict

01:55:39.640 | and tension with China now.

01:55:41.480 | And so much is lost in the translation

01:55:43.440 | between those languages.

01:55:44.480 | - Oh my God, yeah.

01:55:46.040 | - And cultures, the entire,

01:55:48.280 | the music of the people is completely lost

01:55:51.840 | because we don't know the language,

01:55:53.280 | or most of us don't know the language.

01:55:54.280 | - Yeah, how much of the conflict

01:55:55.800 | is just problems in translation?

01:55:58.080 | How much of all these problems that we're having

01:56:00.760 | are just the alien sense of this or that?

01:56:02.680 | It's just as simple as that.

01:56:04.480 | Words are getting just a tiny warp away from the intent.

01:56:13.320 | If when we both speak the same language,

01:56:16.760 | we can still say something that offends someone

01:56:20.600 | when you never intended that at all,

01:56:23.040 | how much more so when,

01:56:25.360 | not only is it a completely different sound,

01:56:29.120 | but the script itself is different.

01:56:31.880 | The Russian writing, is it called Cyrillic?

01:56:36.920 | Or what's the name?

01:56:37.760 | - Yeah, Cyrillic.

01:56:38.600 | - Cyrillic.

01:56:39.600 | And I don't know the name for Chinese writing,

01:56:41.200 | but it's a continuum that gets weirder and weirder looking.

01:56:46.200 | So yeah, I'm sure-

01:56:49.680 | - Or less weird, depending on your perspective.

01:56:51.600 | - Yeah, I'm sure, depending on where you're at.

01:56:54.640 | I'm definitely, I'm about the farthest thing

01:56:56.360 | from a polyglot as there could be, man.

01:56:58.880 | But I'll tell you, at one point when I was getting

01:57:02.640 | fascinated by Dostoevsky,

01:57:04.640 | I did have this very transient fantasy

01:57:07.240 | about learning Russian so that I could understand

01:57:10.840 | the difference in-

01:57:12.400 | - You were 17, 18 at the time.

01:57:14.800 | - College.

01:57:15.640 | - Yeah, college.

01:57:16.480 | - Yeah, "Brothers Karamazov" lost in that book.

01:57:18.920 | Just like, oh God, so in love with it.

01:57:23.360 | - But there's definitely,

01:57:27.240 | Ukraine, and this is what a lot of the war is about,

01:57:31.840 | is saying Ukraine and Russia are not the same people.

01:57:35.600 | There's a strong culture in Ukraine,

01:57:37.080 | there's a strong culture in Russia.

01:57:38.880 | But I know because that's where my family's from,

01:57:41.680 | there is a fascinating, strong culture.

01:57:45.960 | But there's such strong cultures everywhere else too.

01:57:50.160 | Ireland has a culture, Scotland has a culture.

01:57:52.880 | Even on a tiny island, you just have these subcultures

01:57:57.280 | that are more powerful than anything

01:57:59.840 | that exists in human history.

01:58:01.400 | Like the Bronx, I don't know, like Brooklyn.

01:58:05.520 | Like different parts of New York have a certain culture.

01:58:07.680 | And then New York versus LA.

01:58:09.200 | And then certain places are looking for their culture.

01:58:12.840 | Like I think Austin, I don't know what Austin is.

01:58:17.560 | I don't think anyone knows.

01:58:18.640 | There's a traditional Austin,

01:58:21.640 | and then it's evolving constantly.

01:58:23.560 | Same with Boston, a place I spent a lot of time.

01:58:26.400 | There's a traditional Boston,

01:58:27.800 | and now it's evolving with the different,

01:58:30.600 | younger people coming from the university and staying,

01:58:33.480 | and all of that is evolving.

01:58:35.040 | But underneath it, there's a core,

01:58:37.200 | like the American ideal of the value of the individual,

01:58:40.160 | the value of freedom, of freedom of speech,

01:58:42.760 | all those kinds of things, that permeates all of that.

01:58:45.680 | And the same thing in the history of World War II

01:58:49.760 | permeates Ukraine and Russia, a lot of parts of Europe,

01:58:54.520 | the memories of all that suffering, destruction,

01:58:57.320 | the broken promises of governments,

01:58:59.280 | and the occupier versus the liberator,

01:59:04.280 | all that kind of stuff.

01:59:06.000 | All that permeates the culture.

01:59:08.080 | That affects how cynical or optimistic you are,

01:59:12.160 | or how much you appreciate material possessions

01:59:16.200 | versus human connection, all that kind of stuff.

01:59:19.480 | - Yeah, I mean, this is, like, talk about absurdity.

01:59:23.800 | I mean, this is, war is, like,

01:59:26.160 | it's what absurdity looks like.

01:59:28.400 | It's some kind of organized madness.

01:59:32.400 | None of it makes sense.

01:59:33.480 | Like, all of it, like, it's just,

01:59:35.880 | none of it makes sense.

01:59:37.280 | But it does, but it doesn't.

01:59:38.560 | I mean, obviously, you're defending yourself,

01:59:40.280 | or you're taking orders that if you don't take,

01:59:43.760 | you're going to jail.

01:59:45.240 | And so, or somewhere in between,

01:59:47.560 | you know, the classic story about this,

01:59:50.400 | maybe it's a bullshit myth about World War II.

01:59:53.560 | I'm sure everyone's heard it, 'cause it comes up.

01:59:55.720 | You know, it's Christmas Eve, and they have a ceasefire.

02:00:00.720 | And then I think they played soccer,

02:00:03.640 | they sing Christmas songs,

02:00:05.000 | and then they had to force them into fighting again.

02:00:08.800 | And so, when those moments happen,

02:00:11.400 | are you familiar with Hakeem Bey?

02:00:15.320 | He's a controversial figure.

02:00:16.880 | Sadly, like, he, like, I think he was, like,

02:00:19.280 | I'm not going to defame him,

02:00:21.680 | because I haven't, like, researched it correctly,

02:00:24.000 | but some people have said shit.

02:00:25.040 | But since I don't know the reference, I'm not going to.

02:00:27.360 | But regardless, I mean, you know, look,

02:00:30.800 | I'm sorry, but Bill Cosby was funny.

02:00:32.920 | You know, like, that's a funny comedian,

02:00:36.520 | but you know, the other stuff.

02:00:40.160 | Michael Jackson, he could fucking dance.

02:00:43.560 | - And sing.

02:00:44.400 | - And sing, but there's some other stuff.

02:00:46.240 | But regardless, Hakeem Bey came up with the idea

02:00:50.200 | of something called a temporary autonomous zone,

02:00:53.880 | which is that within a structure, a cultural structure,

02:00:58.760 | a temporary bubble of freedom will appear

02:01:03.760 | that by its nature gets sort of popped by the bigger bubble,

02:01:09.200 | or it runs out of resources, generally, is what happens.

02:01:13.880 | So, these things will appear just out of the blue

02:01:17.160 | that it's almost like, imagine if, like, on Earth,

02:01:22.160 | in some tiny little bit of Earth,

02:01:25.120 | the gravitational field was reduced by some percentage,

02:01:28.960 | and all of a sudden you could jump really high or whatever,

02:01:31.360 | but it wouldn't last.

02:01:32.200 | It's like that culturally, all the restrictions

02:01:35.120 | and the darkness and the heaviness and all of it.

02:01:37.280 | For a second, somehow this bubble appears

02:01:40.200 | where humans come together as the hippie ideal,

02:01:45.200 | brothers, sisters, just humans, Earthlings,

02:01:50.080 | instead of American, Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian,

02:01:55.640 | temporary autonomous zone, it gets crushed

02:01:58.440 | by the default reality that it was appearing in,

02:02:01.360 | but somehow within that space, you witness the possibility,

02:02:06.360 | the possibility, the frustrating possibility

02:02:10.040 | that anyone who's thought about humanity

02:02:14.760 | knows this possibility, which is like,

02:02:16.600 | it seems like we can just get along.

02:02:18.640 | Like, it does seem like we're pretty much the same thing,

02:02:21.440 | and that we can just get along.

02:02:23.640 | - Those moments are really rare.

02:02:26.720 | It's sad.

02:02:27.560 | I talked to a lot of soldiers, a lot of people

02:02:30.040 | that were, suffered through the different aspects

02:02:34.200 | of that war, and there's an information war

02:02:39.200 | that convinces each side that the other

02:02:44.240 | is not just the enemy, but less than human.

02:02:47.380 | - Right.

02:02:48.220 | - So there's a real hatred towards the other side.

02:02:52.160 | - Yeah.

02:02:53.160 | - And those kind of little moments where you realize,

02:02:56.720 | oh, they're human like me.

02:03:00.160 | - Yeah.

02:03:01.000 | - And not just like human like me,

02:03:03.460 | but they have the same values as me.

02:03:06.220 | This woman who was a really respected soldier,

02:03:13.960 | she specializes in anti-tank missiles,

02:03:18.560 | and she's very kind of, very pragmatic,

02:03:23.120 | very the enemy is the enemy, we'll have to destroy the enemy

02:03:26.760 | and saying like, there's no compassion towards the enemy,

02:03:29.680 | they're not human, they're less than human.

02:03:32.660 | But she said there was a moment when she remembers

02:03:38.600 | an enemy soldier in a tank took a risk

02:03:43.600 | to save a fellow soldier, and that risk was really stupid

02:03:47.200 | because he was facing he was going to get destroyed.

02:03:50.200 | And then she said that she tried to shoot a rocket

02:03:55.200 | at that tank and she missed.

02:03:59.960 | And then she later went home and she couldn't sleep

02:04:02.360 | that she missed, how could she screw that up?

02:04:05.200 | But then she realized that actually,

02:04:08.360 | she missed, maybe she missed on purpose.

02:04:10.800 | - Yeah.

02:04:11.640 | - Because she realized that that man, just like she is,

02:04:16.860 | was a hero, just like she strives to be.

02:04:21.260 | They were both heroes, defending their own.

02:04:24.960 | And in that way, he was just like her.

02:04:28.000 | She was like, that's the only time I remember

02:04:29.920 | during this war ever feeling like this is another human

02:04:33.320 | being, but that was a very brief moment for her.

02:04:36.580 | And I just hear that over and over and over again,

02:04:39.440 | these romantic notions we have of we're one,

02:04:44.500 | that we're all just human.

02:04:46.360 | Unfortunately, during war, those notions are rare.

02:04:50.800 | And it's quite sad.

02:04:51.800 | And war, in a certain way, really destroys those notions.

02:04:55.040 | And one of the saddest things is it destroys it,

02:04:59.560 | at least from what I see, potentially for generations.

02:05:05.480 | - Oh, yeah.

02:05:06.300 | - Not just for those people for the rest of their life,

02:05:08.260 | but for their children, their children's children.

02:05:12.160 | The hatred, I mean, I ask that question

02:05:15.060 | of basically everyone, which is,

02:05:16.760 | will you ever forgive, asking of Ukrainians,

02:05:20.740 | will you ever forgive the Russians?

02:05:22.900 | Will, do you have hate in your heart towards the Russians?

02:05:27.100 | Or do you have love for a fellow human being?

02:05:32.100 | And there's different ways that people struggle with that,

02:05:36.620 | different people, they saw that, they saw the love,

02:05:40.700 | they saw the hate with their known heart,

02:05:43.520 | and they struggle with the hate they have,

02:05:45.440 | and they know they can overcome it

02:05:47.160 | in a period of weeks and months after the war is over.

02:05:50.880 | But some people said, no, this hate that showed up

02:05:54.960 | in February when the war started will be with me forever.

02:05:57.880 | - Well, yeah, their kids got killed.

02:06:00.260 | What the fuck are you gonna do about that?

02:06:02.200 | Like, I don't care.

02:06:03.800 | I've got aphorisms and cute little stories

02:06:06.240 | about you're still in prison

02:06:07.940 | if you hate your former captors.

02:06:10.200 | But man, I gotta tell you, if somebody hurt my kids,

02:06:14.280 | I'm not coming back.

02:06:15.200 | I mean, there's no amount, at least right now

02:06:19.360 | in my approximation, of spiritual literature,

02:06:23.640 | meditation, or anything that I can really think of

02:06:26.720 | that is going to give me that kind of space.

02:06:31.240 | Like, I think I imagine in the same way,

02:06:34.120 | I imagine I could probably run a marathon eventually,

02:06:39.120 | but do I think I'm ever gonna do that?

02:06:42.720 | That times a million.

02:06:44.160 | So man, all we can do is have compassion for their hate,

02:06:47.960 | because it's like, what are you gonna say?

02:06:52.000 | What are you gonna say to someone like that?

02:06:53.600 | Oh, oh, you know, for the sake of humanity, let it go.

02:06:58.600 | It was just your kids.

02:07:00.440 | It was just something you loved

02:07:02.600 | more than anything in the world.

02:07:05.360 | You'll never be okay again.

02:07:07.120 | You're gonna have nightmares for the rest of your life,

02:07:09.440 | but you should forgive.

02:07:11.040 | No.

02:07:11.880 | - Well, there is truth in the fact

02:07:13.040 | that forgiveness is the way to let go, right?

02:07:15.840 | But that truth is not that you,

02:07:18.080 | (laughs)

02:07:20.560 | fuck you, right?

02:07:22.040 | This is-

02:07:23.480 | - Which is why it's not your job to say that.

02:07:25.720 | You know, it's not that you're doing that.

02:07:27.520 | I know you're not.

02:07:28.560 | But you know, the problem with people like me,

02:07:31.680 | early phase, you could get this stupid missionary thing

02:07:34.800 | going where you like start trying to like,

02:07:37.280 | I don't know, like proselytize ideals

02:07:40.840 | that you might be incapable of, you know?

02:07:42.720 | And I just hearing it, you know, that's the,

02:07:46.720 | man, I saw this, the thing that like,

02:07:49.560 | I mean, I've seen a lot,

02:07:50.400 | all of us have by now probably,

02:07:51.720 | if you're online, I've seen,

02:07:53.440 | and you just saw it in person.

02:07:54.960 | Like we've seen things that are just horrific.

02:07:58.800 | But as a dad, man, I just saw this clip of this kid

02:08:03.480 | around the age of my kid, walking by himself,

02:08:08.280 | these refugees, just walking by himself,

02:08:11.140 | the look on his face.

02:08:13.360 | I can't explain the look on his face.

02:08:15.800 | I don't know what happened to his parents.

02:08:17.080 | I don't know what happened.

02:08:18.380 | Like, it was so upsetting.

02:08:21.360 | Like even thinking about it now, it's just like, fuck,

02:08:23.600 | that could have been my kid.

02:08:24.720 | That could have been my kid, you know?

02:08:26.880 | So knowing that kind of that,

02:08:30.560 | that kid's got to grow up now.

02:08:33.520 | I don't know, is the kid's parents still there?

02:08:36.240 | And that's just one of countless orphans out there now.

02:08:41.240 | - So what you have this hate,

02:08:45.240 | and the question is how to direct it.

02:08:47.900 | Because the choice is you can direct it

02:08:50.520 | towards the politicians that started the war.

02:08:53.360 | You can direct it towards the soldiers

02:08:55.120 | that are doing the killing.

02:08:56.760 | Or you can direct it towards an entire group of people.

02:09:00.520 | And that's the struggle,

02:09:01.600 | because hate slowly grows to where you don't just hate

02:09:06.120 | the soldiers, you don't just hate the leaders,

02:09:11.640 | you hate all Russians.

02:09:14.240 | Because they're all equally evil,

02:09:17.360 | because the ones that aren't doing the fighting

02:09:20.040 | are staying quiet.

02:09:21.720 | And I'm sure the same kind of stories

02:09:23.680 | are happening on the other side.

02:09:25.480 | And so there is that hate,

02:09:31.040 | is one that is deeply human.

02:09:36.040 | But you wonder for your own future,

02:09:42.500 | for your own home, for building your own community,

02:09:45.460 | for building your own country,

02:09:47.640 | how does that hate morph over the weeks and months and years?

02:09:52.640 | Not into forgiveness,

02:09:54.560 | but into something that's productive,

02:09:56.200 | that doesn't destroy you.

02:09:57.800 | Because hate does destroy.

02:09:59.520 | - That's the dark aspect of a rocket

02:10:04.520 | that hits a building and kills hundreds of people.

02:10:08.680 | The worst effect of that rocket

02:10:13.040 | is the hate in the hearts of the loved ones

02:10:20.480 | to the people that were in that building.

02:10:23.920 | That hate is a torture over a period of years.

02:10:29.400 | - Yep.

02:10:30.240 | - And that it doesn't just torture

02:10:32.520 | by having that psychological burden and trauma,

02:10:36.360 | it also tortures 'cause it destroys your life.

02:10:39.600 | It prevents you from being able to enjoy your life

02:10:42.440 | to the fullest.

02:10:44.400 | It prevents you from being able to flourish

02:10:47.680 | as a human being, as a professional,

02:10:51.040 | in all those kinds of ways that humans can flourish.

02:10:55.200 | I don't know.

02:10:57.120 | It's such a, there is an aspect

02:11:02.120 | where this naive notion is really powerful,

02:11:07.120 | that love and forgiveness is the thing

02:11:10.400 | that's needed in this time.

02:11:12.320 | And when I talk to soldiers, they don't,

02:11:16.600 | I remember bringing up to Jaco,

02:11:21.600 | is there a sense where the people you're fighting

02:11:23.840 | are just brothers in arms,

02:11:25.240 | bringing up the Dire Straits song, "Brothers in Arms."

02:11:27.920 | And he was basically without swearing,

02:11:30.960 | saying, "Fuck that," that they're the enemy.

02:11:33.080 | - Yeah.

02:11:33.920 | I mean, he's literally in survival mode.

02:11:36.400 | He can't think like that.

02:11:37.440 | It's gonna create latency in the system

02:11:39.240 | and that's gonna lower his survivability.

02:11:40.920 | You can't think that.

02:11:41.760 | I mean, we're talking about like cognitively.

02:11:44.320 | You can't have latency.

02:11:45.680 | Like if you're, that one moment of hesitation,

02:11:48.760 | like you see it sometimes, like in these YouTube videos

02:11:51.360 | of like somebody, a new cop has been unfortunate enough

02:11:56.360 | to run into something that is a phenomenon,

02:12:01.160 | suicide by cop.

02:12:03.120 | Somebody has a knife and that person

02:12:06.160 | is running towards them with a knife.

02:12:08.080 | And they're begging the person to stop,

02:12:10.960 | that you can hear it in their voice.

02:12:12.520 | They're begging, "Stop, stop, stop, stop."

02:12:17.320 | And the person is not gonna stop.

02:12:19.280 | So the critique of that is that that latency

02:12:24.280 | could potentially not just lead to the cop getting killed,

02:12:31.040 | but to that person with a knife killing other people.

02:12:34.400 | And so, you know, I get, if I were out there,

02:12:39.320 | I think that like you probably just as a matter

02:12:44.320 | of like not getting shot and being fully in the moment,

02:12:47.920 | you have to be like that, I would guess.

02:12:49.440 | I don't know.

02:12:50.280 | I don't know, I'm the furthest thing

02:12:51.280 | from a soldier there could be,

02:12:52.280 | but there's a, something Jack Kornfield,

02:12:57.280 | this great Buddhist teacher says,

02:12:58.680 | which is tend to the part of the garden you can touch.

02:13:03.400 | Meaning this is where we're at right now.

02:13:05.880 | Thank God you and I, that we are experiencing

02:13:09.160 | some like ripples from what's going on over there.

02:13:11.960 | Everyone is, we're not there.

02:13:14.200 | And thank God we don't have to come up

02:13:17.440 | with the psychological program

02:13:21.840 | for people going through that

02:13:24.000 | to no longer be encumbered by that hate.

02:13:27.600 | Thank God.

02:13:28.440 | And I don't know if that's just lazy or whatever,

02:13:30.240 | but it's like, you know, for me,

02:13:31.920 | I just, I have to bring it back to,

02:13:33.480 | all right, well, here's where I'm at now.

02:13:35.600 | And I don't, like, I don't want there to be war.

02:13:40.600 | I don't want to hurt people,

02:13:43.200 | but yeah, I love what you said.

02:13:44.640 | I think what you said is the,

02:13:46.760 | if anything is the most intelligent way of looking at it,

02:13:51.760 | it's like, don't pretend

02:13:54.760 | that you're not gonna feel that hate.

02:13:56.760 | Like you're gonna feel it.

02:13:58.360 | There's no way around it.

02:13:59.200 | Or like, cause that's even worse.

02:14:00.520 | Cause then you're almost saying like,

02:14:01.480 | something's wrong with them for feeling the hate

02:14:03.480 | or, you know, whatever.

02:14:05.280 | But more along the lines,

02:14:06.280 | if you can avoid applying that hate

02:14:11.720 | to an entire country of people,

02:14:16.400 | then do that.

02:14:18.040 | Like, just understand, we're talking about like,

02:14:20.480 | not everybody.

02:14:25.120 | I know it's not everybody.

02:14:26.520 | I know it's not everybody.

02:14:27.600 | It's just easier, isn't it?

02:14:28.680 | Cognitively, it's somehow easier

02:14:31.040 | to think all Russians, monsters,

02:14:35.480 | you know, all Russians,

02:14:37.840 | all whatever the particular like thing is

02:14:40.120 | that you're supposed to not like.

02:14:42.040 | It's easier somehow, weirdly.

02:14:43.920 | You'd think that'd be more difficult.

02:14:45.920 | - Yeah, but I guess the lesson is,

02:14:48.800 | if you give in to the easy solution,

02:14:53.520 | that's going to lead to detrimental long-term effects.

02:14:58.280 | So hate should be,

02:15:00.920 | it's such a powerful tool

02:15:04.240 | that you should try to control it for your own sake,

02:15:08.560 | not because you owe anything to anybody,

02:15:10.360 | but for your own psychological development over time.

02:15:14.560 | - Right, right.

02:15:15.920 | That's it.

02:15:17.000 | That's it.

02:15:18.200 | Fuck.

02:15:19.120 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:15:21.440 | In terms of dark places,

02:15:23.280 | you suffered from depression.

02:15:25.740 | What has been some of the darker places

02:15:28.400 | you've gone in your mind?

02:15:30.260 | - You know, I needed therapy, man.

02:15:32.760 | I needed therapy for the longest time.

02:15:34.200 | I just didn't get it.

02:15:36.680 | So because of that,

02:15:38.280 | I would go through like bouts of like paralytic depression,

02:15:46.240 | like suicidal depression, suicidal ideations

02:15:50.480 | that were more than just ideations.

02:15:51.780 | I mean, I think like people get afraid

02:15:56.360 | when the thought of suicide appears in their consciousness,

02:15:59.580 | they get really scared of themselves.

02:16:01.200 | So they think there's something like,

02:16:03.160 | fuck, what's going on with me?

02:16:04.160 | Why would I think that?

02:16:05.000 | But I think if we are suffering,

02:16:07.480 | and as a natural part of wanting to reduce suffering

02:16:11.320 | or not feel bad anymore,

02:16:13.840 | I mean, suicide is going to be a not,

02:16:16.080 | like if we're just, you're just looking,

02:16:17.440 | what are all the options?

02:16:18.320 | Let's brainstorm here.

02:16:19.960 | You know what I mean?

02:16:20.800 | I could start drinking more water.

02:16:22.520 | You start jogging, get some therapy,

02:16:25.040 | call my friends, all the stuff we all hear.

02:16:27.880 | Or I could just,

02:16:29.520 | I think the height of my apartment building

02:16:31.080 | is probably the definitely the right height to kill myself.

02:16:34.560 | And then, so where, for me,

02:16:38.160 | like the few times where the ideation has gone towards like,

02:16:41.740 | well, when would I do that?

02:16:45.520 | How do I, what do I need to accomplish that?

02:16:50.120 | When then, like that's where it gets really fucking scary.

02:16:52.980 | That's where it's like terrifying.

02:16:54.640 | - So you start the actual details of the planning

02:16:57.840 | of how to commit suicide.

02:17:00.120 | - Yeah.

02:17:00.960 | What's going to be the least painful way to do it?

02:17:02.760 | What's going to be the most instantaneous way to do it?

02:17:04.680 | What's the, you know, and with, you know, with depression,

02:17:07.400 | because it can be progressive, you know,

02:17:11.320 | this is why you have to really just stay on top of it.

02:17:14.280 | Anyone who's gone through depression

02:17:15.360 | knows what I'm talking about.

02:17:16.240 | You gotta stay on top of it.

02:17:17.320 | Like you might need medication, you know,

02:17:18.740 | I know this is controversial now,

02:17:20.560 | but it's still better than dying if you ask me.

02:17:22.720 | But at some point with depression,

02:17:24.800 | it like becomes paralyzing.

02:17:26.620 | So you don't want to get out of bed anymore.

02:17:28.200 | And you're not taking showers anymore.

02:17:30.040 | And you don't want to talk to anybody anymore.

02:17:31.680 | And you're not answering your phone anymore.

02:17:33.160 | And you know.

02:17:35.200 | - So like in a dark place that you might be in,

02:17:38.360 | it still might get worse.

02:17:39.840 | So you should really do everything you can

02:17:43.760 | to get under control. - Immediately.

02:17:45.440 | And that's the problem,

02:17:46.520 | that specific psychological disorder, that's the problem.

02:17:50.440 | Because the things, it's like,

02:17:52.480 | if you start listening to what you want to,

02:17:54.880 | you think it's you, it's the depression,

02:17:56.600 | you start listening to it, it wants you to stay in bed.

02:18:01.000 | And then you're getting those fucking depression sleeps,

02:18:03.960 | you know, or you wake up and you're more tired.

02:18:06.400 | Like it's not working.

02:18:07.760 | You're trying to escape reality by sleeping.

02:18:11.360 | And so, yeah, like you have to like,

02:18:14.920 | you're fighting for your,

02:18:18.360 | you're literally fighting for your life.

02:18:19.800 | It might not seem like that,

02:18:20.840 | 'cause you can't, if you could see depression,

02:18:23.460 | if you could see it,

02:18:24.300 | if you knew you had some inky, vaporous, octopus thing

02:18:28.960 | that was just wrapping around you

02:18:31.360 | more and more and more and more,

02:18:33.320 | you would probably do everything you could

02:18:34.640 | to rip that fucking thing off your body.

02:18:36.140 | And if you couldn't get it off your body,

02:18:38.020 | you would be calling people to get help.

02:18:41.160 | - So it doesn't feel like a fight,

02:18:42.480 | because you're exhausted, there's no reason to move.

02:18:45.320 | There's no, you don't see the meaning for any of it.

02:18:48.040 | So it doesn't feel like a battle, but it is a battle.

02:18:50.240 | - You're not feeling, I mean, that's the other thing.

02:18:51.720 | You're just, you're basically not feeling.

02:18:53.600 | You're like, you start going numb,

02:18:55.640 | at least that was my experience with it,

02:18:57.560 | numb and tired, and then increasingly numb and tired,

02:19:01.440 | and then increasingly sort of disconnecting from reality.

02:19:05.280 | And then somewhere in there,

02:19:06.400 | that's when you start playing around with the idea

02:19:08.860 | of like, oh, I don't know if it's worth it.

02:19:11.400 | Now, I think compared to some of my friends

02:19:14.680 | who haven't survived,

02:19:16.000 | obviously, who haven't survived depression,

02:19:17.960 | like mine was definitely not whatever theirs was like.

02:19:21.880 | I've heard, I mean, to understand it for folks out there,

02:19:26.360 | maybe you haven't gone through it, just imagine

02:19:28.600 | if like how bad you have to feel if death is the,

02:19:32.760 | like violence against yourself

02:19:35.240 | so that you die is the solution.

02:19:37.160 | Like, it flies in the face of everything.

02:19:42.160 | So I would, yeah, that was definitely the darkest place

02:19:48.120 | that I've ever been.

02:19:48.960 | - Is it just that death doesn't seem like,

02:19:51.640 | because you don't care about anything anymore,

02:19:54.200 | that death just doesn't seem like that bad?

02:19:56.480 | - Yeah.

02:19:57.320 | - Like you're not able to appropriately assign

02:20:01.480 | the negative costs to this solution?

02:20:05.680 | - Right.

02:20:06.520 | - Just seems like a reasonable solution?

02:20:07.840 | - Yeah, but I think also what's going along with it

02:20:11.880 | is like, it's not like your brain isn't working.

02:20:15.320 | Like you're not thinking,

02:20:17.640 | obviously, you're not thinking clearly.

02:20:19.280 | Like, at least again, this was my experience of it.

02:20:22.800 | It's a fog, you're in some kind of,

02:20:25.240 | like you're confused, there's confusion, there's shame.

02:20:31.120 | You feel embarrassed, you feel embarrassed.

02:20:33.160 | You wanna get out of bed, you wanna do stuff.

02:20:34.920 | You wanna be compelled to be social and do all this stuff,

02:20:38.400 | but you're not.

02:20:39.240 | You're not.

02:20:40.520 | Like you seem, if people don't know what's going on

02:20:42.840 | and you're not telling them 'cause you're embarrassed,

02:20:45.160 | 'cause you wanna have some like,

02:20:49.440 | uncorrupted, unwarped psyche,

02:20:53.880 | you're like, it invites you to be secret about it.

02:20:57.960 | That's one of its first tricks

02:20:59.440 | is it tells you not to tell anybody.

02:21:01.680 | And that's deadly in that case, deadly.

02:21:06.320 | - What was the source of light?

02:21:07.880 | What was the, what were for you

02:21:11.880 | and in general, the ways out?

02:21:14.240 | - Yeah, so for me, the solutions,

02:21:19.160 | and again, man, for my depressed friends out there,

02:21:22.160 | please don't get mad at me.

02:21:23.180 | I'm not doing the thing of like,

02:21:24.240 | just put on a smile or any of that bullshit.

02:21:26.840 | 'Cause it doesn't feel like that

02:21:28.200 | when you're like, and when you're fighting it.

02:21:31.960 | It's like you are, you're in a,

02:21:35.280 | I don't know why I keep using these stupid gravity analogies,

02:21:39.400 | but it's like the gravity has been turned up on your planet

02:21:42.280 | in every single way by, so getting out of bed.

02:21:45.440 | You know, like.

02:21:47.880 | By the way, gravity and quantum mechanics,

02:21:50.640 | one of the most beautiful things about our reality,

02:21:54.080 | what the hell is each of those things?

02:21:56.720 | So this isn't, you're not just talking

02:22:00.600 | about hippie language, it's still,

02:22:02.520 | physicists pretend they understand something.

02:22:05.920 | We're still at the very beginning

02:22:07.280 | of understanding this mysterious world of ours

02:22:09.680 | that seems to be functioning according to these

02:22:12.840 | weirdly simple and yet universally powerful laws.

02:22:18.120 | Which we don't fully yet understand.

02:22:20.720 | So please, the metaphor and the analogy of gravity.

02:22:24.040 | - Okay, thank you. - Fully applicable.

02:22:25.440 | - I don't know any other way to put it.

02:22:26.280 | And it's like somebody turned the gravitational field

02:22:28.560 | of your mattress up by-- - So everything is heavy.

02:22:30.680 | - Heavy, your body's heavy.

02:22:33.080 | You don't wanna get out of bed,

02:22:34.040 | you will consider shitting or pissing the bed.

02:22:36.840 | 'Cause you're just like, who gives a fuck?

02:22:38.200 | I'll just lay in my shit and piss.

02:22:40.320 | You're dying, you're like, none of it makes sense.

02:22:44.800 | So,

02:22:45.800 | um,

02:22:46.640 | and I feel like in retrospect,

02:22:52.080 | I'm making what I've done a little,

02:22:55.920 | like I had more lucidity.

02:22:57.400 | It was more of like when you're,

02:22:59.320 | you know, you're wrestling with someone

02:23:02.920 | and you're just like, (grunts)

02:23:04.440 | well, you do, it's different for you.

02:23:06.960 | But for me, if I'm wrestling,

02:23:08.120 | I'm not thinking about jujitsu moves.

02:23:10.040 | I'm like, (grunts)

02:23:10.880 | - Survival. - You're just, (grunts)

02:23:12.080 | So it's like that.

02:23:13.320 | - It is a struggle.

02:23:14.960 | Like it's like, you really have to deliberately fight.

02:23:19.960 | - Everything.

02:23:21.440 | So you start,

02:23:23.640 | so you can almost have a conversation with the depression.

02:23:26.640 | And then what you do is you start doing the opposite

02:23:30.880 | of everything it's telling you to do.

02:23:33.240 | So it's telling you lay in bed.

02:23:36.600 | So you get out of bed.

02:23:38.280 | It's definitely telling you, don't fucking exercise.

02:23:41.760 | You're gonna go fucking exercise.

02:23:43.160 | That's not gonna do anything.

02:23:44.200 | You can't, you'll probably have a heart attack.

02:23:46.440 | You really wanna go outside.

02:23:48.080 | Don't go fucking exercise.

02:23:50.680 | And it'll feel crazy.

02:23:53.360 | And you won't wanna do it.

02:23:54.880 | If you wanted to do it, you wouldn't be depressed.

02:23:57.360 | Like how often do you hear like

02:23:58.680 | one of the symptoms of depression?

02:24:00.400 | You wanna jog, you wanna get on a bike.

02:24:02.960 | You know, you don't hear that.

02:24:04.000 | That's not a symptom.

02:24:04.920 | So you start, at least one solution I had was I

02:24:09.760 | just started doing the opposite of.

02:24:11.920 | - Whatever the voice is telling you, do the opposite.

02:24:14.480 | - That, and then suddenly that,

02:24:18.880 | the gravitational field diminishes a little bit.

02:24:22.320 | It doesn't go all the way away.

02:24:23.600 | And that's where you can fall right back into it

02:24:25.640 | 'cause you just feel even slightly better.

02:24:27.640 | You're like, oh, okay, I fixed it.

02:24:29.760 | You know, really, I think if you like,

02:24:31.600 | having been through therapy,

02:24:34.720 | the best solution would be go to a fucking therapist

02:24:40.320 | as quickly as you can.

02:24:42.880 | Just sit down with them and tell them what's going on.

02:24:45.760 | I know what you're thinking.

02:24:47.760 | How am I gonna find a therapist?

02:24:49.720 | Just do it.

02:24:51.560 | Google it, go on Yelp.

02:24:53.320 | All of this shit feels impossible.

02:24:56.120 | You're like, I don't wanna turn on the computer.

02:24:57.520 | I don't wanna do any of this.

02:24:58.440 | You just have to.

02:24:59.280 | I mean, you have to.

02:25:00.120 | You do it if you're on fire.

02:25:01.680 | You do it if you're on fire and someone's like,

02:25:03.160 | you know, here's a way to not be on fire.

02:25:05.320 | Just this particular fire is,

02:25:07.800 | it doesn't make you wanna run around screaming.

02:25:09.880 | It just makes you wanna fall asleep forever.

02:25:11.520 | And that, but those little steps,

02:25:15.160 | I got lucky because it worked.

02:25:16.960 | It worked.

02:25:17.800 | I started exercising.

02:25:18.720 | I'd been on antidepressants before

02:25:20.960 | when I was originally diagnosed with it.

02:25:23.360 | - Did those help or no?

02:25:26.000 | - You know, even with all the current research

02:25:28.880 | coming out about that maybe we were all wrong

02:25:31.640 | about our understanding of depression,

02:25:33.920 | I do feel like it helped in a certain way.

02:25:38.400 | Like it definitely,

02:25:39.800 | it definitely like made me stop thinking about,

02:25:43.400 | it stopped the intrusive thoughts.

02:25:45.200 | And, but I don't know how much of that was placebo

02:25:48.120 | or how much of that, I don't know.

02:25:49.320 | But then also like, I couldn't cum anymore.

02:25:51.720 | That was the other fucked up thing.

02:25:53.280 | Like you're, you can't have orgasms.

02:25:55.600 | And which might not sound like a big deal,

02:25:58.800 | but you know, when I told my therapist

02:26:02.160 | that they actually took me off them,

02:26:03.800 | 'cause I think she was realizing

02:26:05.680 | that it started diminishing a little bit.

02:26:08.000 | But the one I'm talking about now,

02:26:11.120 | that whatever episode or whatever you wanna call it,

02:26:14.440 | I just got lucky 'cause it worked.

02:26:16.400 | It worked and I started feeling better, thank God.

02:26:19.120 | Now, if you suffer from depression out there

02:26:22.200 | and you've had a remission of the depression,

02:26:24.320 | you know, it's really like,

02:26:26.120 | it's scary to have mental illness

02:26:27.880 | because everyone gets bummed out.

02:26:32.800 | I mean, that's just normal.

02:26:33.960 | Like you're gonna get bummed out

02:26:35.120 | and don't wanna do anything sometimes.

02:26:36.640 | It doesn't mean you have a clinical depression.

02:26:38.160 | You might just be bummed out or grieving.

02:26:40.240 | You might be any number of things.

02:26:42.560 | But when I get really nervous,

02:26:47.000 | if some of those symptoms start showing up.

02:26:49.920 | And at one point I felt like that was happening again.

02:26:54.920 | And I did intermuscular ketamine therapy,

02:26:59.480 | which now that was the damnedest thing I've ever experienced

02:27:04.080 | aside from the fact that ketamine is immensely psychedelic.

02:27:08.080 | I just remember going back to the hotel

02:27:14.080 | after the experience with a clinician.

02:27:17.200 | And I'm like, you know, it's like,

02:27:21.240 | with depression it's like a headache

02:27:23.760 | that starts coming on, but you're like,

02:27:25.160 | this headache might last for years.

02:27:27.160 | It might last for six months.

02:27:28.640 | It might get worse and worse and worse.

02:27:30.880 | And so I went back to the hotel room and it was just gone.

02:27:35.880 | Like I just felt normal.

02:27:38.480 | I felt great.

02:27:39.440 | It was like the most remarkable thing ever.

02:27:42.560 | So, you know, look at the research on ketamine right now.

02:27:45.960 | It's like, it's not like bullshit.

02:27:49.080 | It's not like woo-woo science.

02:27:50.560 | There's really, really good data out there

02:27:52.240 | showing that something like, I think it's 60%.

02:27:55.480 | I don't know what the percentage is,

02:27:56.680 | but 60% of people with an endogenous depression

02:28:01.680 | when they get ketamine therapy will experience remission,

02:28:06.480 | regardless of whether you trip out or not.

02:28:08.360 | It just does something that I don't know

02:28:10.960 | if they know what it is yet.

02:28:11.960 | I don't care if they do.

02:28:12.800 | - But that one thing worked and basically

02:28:15.040 | you keep fighting until something works.

02:28:17.640 | - Exactly.

02:28:18.480 | It's a survival issue.

02:28:19.760 | And it's a survival issue.

02:28:21.080 | It's just, I think because it's kind of so slow moving,

02:28:24.560 | you might even forget it's progressive.

02:28:26.560 | You could easily just think that you're

02:28:28.880 | just a kind of bummed out person,

02:28:30.900 | or you start thinking that these aspects

02:28:33.320 | of your psychology are permanent

02:28:35.800 | when they don't have to be.

02:28:37.400 | - What about other people in your life?

02:28:40.000 | What advice would you give to people

02:28:41.720 | that have loved ones who suffer from depression?

02:28:44.760 | What are they to do?

02:28:46.400 | - Okay, now this is really like,

02:28:48.660 | man, it's really dark.

02:28:54.720 | Here's number one.

02:28:57.520 | This is what somebody told me

02:28:59.240 | when I lost a friend to suicide.

02:29:01.000 | 'Cause when you lose a friend to suicide,

02:29:02.800 | when you lose a loved one to suicide,

02:29:04.600 | you're gonna blame yourself.

02:29:06.040 | In the periphery of suicide,

02:29:10.920 | there is a circumference of guilty people

02:29:14.480 | who all feel like, oh, if only I'd said this

02:29:17.280 | at the right time, if only I'd listened more,

02:29:19.600 | if only I'd seen that warning sign,

02:29:21.760 | or if only this or that.

02:29:24.360 | It's interesting in that with other forms

02:29:29.280 | of disease, if your loved one dies from cancer, say,

02:29:34.280 | more than likely, you're not gonna be thinking like,

02:29:39.600 | oh, I should have cured their cancer.

02:29:42.360 | It's a tragedy, but at least you're not like,

02:29:44.800 | oh, if only I had, you still might think

02:29:46.880 | that's part of grief, but--

02:29:48.200 | - It's not as sticky in many of the other situations.

02:29:52.120 | Here, the guilt can really stay for a long time.

02:29:55.360 | - Yep, so you, number one,

02:30:00.360 | we're talking about a progressive disease

02:30:04.360 | that can lead to death.

02:30:05.320 | And if somebody commits suicide,

02:30:07.900 | they wanted to commit suicide,

02:30:09.400 | and at least what I've been told is you can't stop it.

02:30:12.920 | It's gonna happen, it's gonna happen.

02:30:15.800 | There are no magic words, there's nothing you could do.

02:30:18.200 | So, people who've lost people to suicide,

02:30:21.480 | you know what I'm talking about.

02:30:23.000 | Like, you can watch it happen in real time,

02:30:26.320 | and there's nothing you could do.

02:30:28.260 | That being said, being responsive to when it seems

02:30:34.760 | like someone's really reaching out for help,

02:30:37.120 | and knowing that maybe, even though it might,

02:30:40.840 | especially if it's someone who's like,

02:30:42.280 | doesn't talk like this a lot of the time,

02:30:44.760 | and sentences start coming out of their mouth,

02:30:47.160 | that if you weren't really paying attention,

02:30:49.480 | might not seem like a big deal,

02:30:50.960 | but for this person, it's kind of anomalous

02:30:52.920 | that all of a sudden that's happening.

02:30:56.480 | Now there, that's when you can be a good listener,

02:30:59.560 | and open up to them and hear what they're saying,

02:31:01.960 | and see, oh shit, are they asking me for,

02:31:04.120 | is this them asking for help?

02:31:05.800 | And even if you're like, I don't know what to do,

02:31:08.300 | at least you can start checking in on them,

02:31:13.600 | help them understand that you're there for them,

02:31:17.960 | and then hopefully get them into therapy,

02:31:19.680 | get them to a doctor, get them to a professional

02:31:22.720 | who can see what's going on there,

02:31:25.080 | so that, and then there's hope.

02:31:27.040 | And even then there might not be hope, actually.

02:31:29.080 | Doctors can't stop it.

02:31:30.360 | Sometimes it just, that's the way it goes.

02:31:34.560 | But I know that being sensitive,

02:31:39.120 | if somebody's all of a sudden hitting you up,

02:31:41.440 | or reaching out to you that normally isn't like that,

02:31:44.320 | and just, what's going on?

02:31:46.040 | How are you?

02:31:46.880 | And just listen.

02:31:48.040 | - Which in general, depression or not,

02:31:50.600 | is probably a good thing to do.

02:31:52.960 | - Yeah.

02:31:53.800 | - To truly listen.

02:31:56.560 | It's like, are you okay?

02:31:57.760 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:31:59.440 | 'Cause people have, you know, I don't,

02:32:01.000 | this whole thing of like cries for help, man.

02:32:03.360 | They don't, sometimes they just look like a weird text.

02:32:06.600 | You know, and you don't realize that for the person

02:32:08.840 | to send that fucking text,

02:32:10.040 | they've been thinking about it all morning.

02:32:12.140 | They've been just trying to get their phone up

02:32:14.960 | from the floor.

02:32:16.440 | So, you know, I think that's it.

02:32:20.040 | I mean, I don't know.

02:32:21.800 | I don't know.

02:32:22.760 | I've had friends like kill themselves.

02:32:24.960 | So, and many of them, it wasn't like,

02:32:29.120 | sadly, it was like, I don't know.

02:32:31.360 | I don't know what could have been done, but.

02:32:34.000 | - But there's still a guilt in the back of your head?

02:32:37.760 | - For the rest of my life, for sure.

02:32:39.280 | Always will be.

02:32:40.220 | Yeah, I mean, yeah.

02:32:43.080 | But again, what are you gonna do?

02:32:44.680 | - But even that, it's a part of love.

02:32:46.740 | - That's right.

02:32:49.840 | That's right.

02:32:50.800 | Yeah, that's right.

02:32:51.620 | You could, yeah.

02:32:52.460 | And we, you know, we feel guilt.

02:32:54.080 | Part of grief is guilt.

02:32:55.240 | You know, like we always could have been better people.

02:32:58.520 | We always could have been better people.

02:33:00.400 | You get into Viktor Frankl much?

02:33:02.240 | - Yeah, of course.

02:33:03.240 | - "Man's Search for Meaning."

02:33:04.640 | - Yeah.

02:33:05.920 | - The invitation to live your life

02:33:10.920 | as though you'd been on your deathbed

02:33:13.560 | and had been given the chance to go back

02:33:15.600 | and not make the same mistakes.

02:33:18.040 | I return to that idea all the time,

02:33:20.800 | meaning it's like, okay,

02:33:22.440 | whatever you did before this moment,

02:33:25.720 | it's too late.

02:33:28.200 | But now, you know, this is where you can start.

02:33:31.160 | This is where you can start.

02:33:32.440 | And yeah, so I think that for a neurotic like me,

02:33:37.440 | that's super important.

02:33:39.160 | 'Cause otherwise I'll just get like too lost

02:33:41.420 | in the weeds of shitty things I did in the past.

02:33:44.620 | - So speaking of Viktor Frankl,

02:33:46.100 | you and Hitler have the same birthday.

02:33:48.420 | - Oh my God, you've really done your research.

02:33:50.720 | - Well, I often Google famous people

02:33:55.700 | that have a birthday same as Hitler.

02:33:58.740 | - Yeah.

02:33:59.580 | - And the person that shows up, you know,

02:34:02.140 | is your face just really big.

02:34:03.900 | - It's an embit.

02:34:04.740 | - You and Hitler together, just pals next to each other.

02:34:07.980 | - No, it does not.

02:34:10.020 | No, but April 20th is an embarrassing birthday

02:34:12.940 | for all my 420 friends out there.

02:34:14.620 | It's embarrassing.

02:34:15.460 | You share a birthday with Hitler.

02:34:17.460 | - But 420s also has a humor and a lightness to it, right?

02:34:22.460 | - It's embarrassing.

02:34:24.260 | - Especially if life is embarrassing.

02:34:27.260 | - But if you like weed and you're born on stoner day

02:34:31.060 | and you believe in reincarnation,

02:34:34.120 | do you realize like when you start connecting the dots there,

02:34:36.500 | if there is like a Bardo where you get to choose

02:34:39.700 | your next life.

02:34:41.060 | - So you're like a shitty generic NPC.

02:34:45.060 | You're like, of course, you would be born on 420.

02:34:48.820 | - Dude, let me be born on 420, man, yeah.

02:34:53.820 | - But isn't it interesting that on that same day,

02:34:57.060 | Hitler's also born.

02:34:58.600 | There's a tension to that.

02:35:03.040 | And that Hitler's an artist.

02:35:06.800 | So it's like that hippie mindset could go anywhere.

02:35:11.800 | - Oh yeah, right.

02:35:12.960 | Like, yeah, you know, and I was just having this conversation

02:35:16.000 | with a friend of mine who's a wonderful skeptic.

02:35:18.900 | And we were talking about this,

02:35:21.360 | which is the thing where you start attributing

02:35:26.480 | to the day you were born, these kinds of significance.

02:35:31.100 | And based on maybe people who were born on that day,

02:35:33.320 | maybe some other things.

02:35:34.940 | And it's like, think of how many people by now

02:35:38.060 | in the course of human history have been born on April 20th.

02:35:42.360 | I mean, how many?

02:35:44.140 | Someone could probably do the math

02:35:45.440 | and come up with some number close to it.

02:35:47.920 | Now, this is how you know how rotten Hitler is.

02:35:51.880 | Like he's the one that like fucks up

02:35:54.320 | the birthday for everybody else.

02:35:56.840 | But-

02:35:57.920 | - I think where I heard that you're 420

02:36:00.520 | is Wim Hof episode, 'cause he's also 420.

02:36:04.800 | - 420.

02:36:05.860 | - Yeah, so Hitler beats even Wim Hof.

02:36:09.800 | Look, in terms of owning the date.

02:36:11.980 | - I think if anybody is like,

02:36:15.040 | well, obviously there's nothing you can do to like fix it.

02:36:18.760 | Hitler fucked up a lot of things.

02:36:20.400 | He fucked up that mustache.

02:36:22.120 | He fucked up the name Hitler.

02:36:23.720 | He fucked up 420.

02:36:25.200 | And obviously he caused a horrific Holocaust that,

02:36:29.100 | by the way, talk about these reverberations through time

02:36:32.040 | that we're still experiencing.

02:36:33.200 | There's still people walked around with fucking tattoos

02:36:35.600 | from that motherfucker.

02:36:36.760 | But Wim Hof, people like Wim Hof,

02:36:41.520 | they're like whatever the opposite of Hitler is.

02:36:45.920 | - He too is creating ripples in the lake

02:36:47.880 | that hopefully respond to that of Hitler.

02:36:51.320 | - Yeah, very cold fucking lake.

02:36:53.240 | And he's in, yeah, so-

02:36:55.320 | - Very cold fucking lake.

02:36:56.320 | - Very, very cold lake that he's happily swimming around in.

02:36:59.960 | But yeah, I try not to think about

02:37:04.960 | like the Hitler thing on my birthday.

02:37:08.240 | Then my dad would just, every birthday,

02:37:10.320 | he would remind me that Hitler was born.

02:37:12.120 | - Do you think all of us are capable of evil?

02:37:14.800 | Do you think, you're one of the sweetest people I know.

02:37:18.260 | Just as a fan, do you think you're capable of evil?

02:37:21.000 | - Sure, yeah, I mean, sure, definitely.

02:37:24.520 | I think if you don't think that, you better watch out

02:37:27.880 | because come on, how do you think

02:37:30.400 | you're not capable of evil?

02:37:31.560 | And P.S., if you're connected to the supply chain, friend,

02:37:36.560 | you're doing evil, you're paying taxes,

02:37:39.920 | you're supporting the worst things in the world.

02:37:43.680 | I mean, you know, like diffusion of responsibility,

02:37:47.500 | it's really curious, or the circumference of responsibility

02:37:51.480 | where it's like bombs are going off somewhere

02:37:54.280 | that were paid for in some small part by you,

02:37:59.280 | some fractional, if you, if an American,

02:38:04.000 | if a drone is flying over a village in Afghanistan

02:38:08.960 | and drops a bomb and you pay taxes,

02:38:12.560 | then you could say you have fractional ownership

02:38:17.120 | over that drone.

02:38:18.800 | - You're a cog in the machine of evil in some sense.

02:38:22.280 | - And I know what you're gonna say,

02:38:24.440 | well, yeah, but I have to fucking pay taxes.

02:38:26.440 | Like I have no choice, there's sales tax,

02:38:28.400 | there's this or that.

02:38:29.800 | Take that attitude, it's the same thing

02:38:32.720 | that people on the battlefield,

02:38:34.660 | when they're sending missiles into other tanks,

02:38:37.620 | they're thinking the same thing.

02:38:39.040 | It's just, they're more directly responsible

02:38:42.320 | for what's going on.

02:38:43.280 | But in Buddhism, this idea of dependent co-arising,

02:38:48.280 | or yeah, dependent co-arising, we're all connected,

02:38:51.480 | we're all part of this matrix, we're all connected,

02:38:54.600 | meaning we all share responsibility

02:38:57.640 | for the evil in the world.

02:38:58.720 | So even if you aren't directly committing evil acts,

02:39:03.420 | if you're seeing something in the world

02:39:05.680 | and you're thinking that's evil,

02:39:08.280 | you're probably not quite as separated from that

02:39:10.680 | as you'd like to believe

02:39:11.800 | in some tiny, infinitesimally quantum way,

02:39:16.800 | you're connected.

02:39:19.320 | - And there is a sense, I've gotten to experience this

02:39:23.200 | over and over, that one individual

02:39:25.240 | can actually make a gigantic difference.

02:39:27.600 | Not only is there a diffusion of responsibility,

02:39:33.440 | there's a kind of paralysis about, well, what can I do?

02:39:37.360 | - Yeah.

02:39:38.520 | - Sure, I understand, but what can I do?

02:39:40.960 | And I think just looking at history,

02:39:46.160 | and also hanging out and becoming friends,

02:39:50.040 | but also interviewing people that have had

02:39:51.840 | a tremendous impact, you realize you're just one dude.

02:39:56.000 | You're like a normal person.

02:39:58.640 | You're not that smart even.

02:40:00.560 | A lot of people aren't in some kind of magical way

02:40:04.280 | where you have a big head that's figuring out everything.

02:40:07.280 | No, you just saw problems in the world,

02:40:12.080 | and you're like, hey, I think I'm gonna try

02:40:13.960 | to do something about this.

02:40:15.200 | And you stay focused and dedicated to it

02:40:17.320 | for a prolonged period of time, and refuse to quit,

02:40:21.040 | refuse to listen to people that tell you

02:40:23.040 | that this isn't impossible, here's how others have failed.

02:40:26.280 | - Yeah. - No, I'm gonna do it.

02:40:29.040 | - That's it.

02:40:30.240 | That's it. - And one person,

02:40:31.600 | and then you kinda, the thing is,

02:40:33.320 | when there's one person that keeps pushing forward that way,

02:40:37.040 | humans are sticky.

02:40:38.320 | Other people follow 'em around,

02:40:40.320 | and they're like, I'll help.

02:40:43.880 | And then the other people help,

02:40:45.480 | and then the cool people all gather together

02:40:47.760 | 'cause they kinda get excited about this way.

02:40:49.800 | Holy shit, we can actually make a difference.

02:40:52.080 | And they form groups, and then all of a sudden,

02:40:54.680 | there's companies and nations

02:40:56.040 | that actually make a gigantic difference.

02:40:58.240 | It's interesting. - Right.

02:40:59.080 | - It all starts with one person, often.

02:41:01.880 | - You know what?

02:41:02.720 | If I could push back slightly against that,

02:41:04.640 | it's never just one person.

02:41:06.040 | It's like, nobody ever talks about,

02:41:09.920 | at least as far as I'm aware,

02:41:11.360 | you never hear about Buddha's great-grandmother.

02:41:14.640 | You never hear about that.

02:41:15.840 | You never hear about that.

02:41:16.760 | But if not for that person, no Buddhism.

02:41:20.080 | The people you're talking about,

02:41:23.560 | they are the tip of the iceberg

02:41:26.280 | that pops up out of the ocean of history,

02:41:29.440 | and you never see all the little things

02:41:34.320 | that helped that happen.

02:41:36.480 | And so to me, this is where the real,

02:41:39.840 | like, how do you help?

02:41:41.360 | What's something you can do?

02:41:42.960 | Well, recognize that first,

02:41:45.920 | that you don't really,

02:41:47.320 | you might not even be aware

02:41:48.600 | of how much you're impacting people around you.

02:41:51.040 | You might think that you're not,

02:41:53.320 | or you might think, surely not,

02:41:55.400 | in a way that makes a big difference,

02:41:57.440 | but you have no idea these tipping points

02:42:01.120 | that can lead to the emergence of an Einstein,

02:42:06.120 | a Gandhi, a Martin Luther King.

02:42:08.800 | We can go on and on, a Dostoevsky or whoever.

02:42:11.800 | And so I think that's where, for me,

02:42:14.160 | it goes back to 10 to the part of the garden

02:42:16.720 | you can touch, and then, or even deeper than that,

02:42:21.560 | intention, just like, I'm an idiot,

02:42:24.720 | so I need an idiot's intention,

02:42:26.760 | which is, don't, if you,

02:42:29.920 | I heard the Dalai Lama say it,

02:42:31.400 | if you can help, help.

02:42:36.000 | If you can't help, don't hurt.

02:42:38.720 | Simple, basic, dummy rules,

02:42:42.200 | so that you can, if possible, refrain from hurting,

02:42:46.520 | which might as well be a form of helping.

02:42:49.440 | - And the help doesn't have to be this dramatic thing.

02:42:53.400 | These little acts of kindness,

02:42:56.040 | I don't know, they seem to have,

02:42:59.560 | maybe I believe in kind of karma,

02:43:01.280 | but they seem to have this,

02:43:03.040 | they can have this gigantic ripple effect.

02:43:05.760 | I don't know why that is.

02:43:08.000 | I just, I remember a lot of little acts of kindness

02:43:11.720 | that people have done to me,

02:43:13.280 | and they, what do they do?

02:43:15.700 | One, they fill me with joy and hope for the future.

02:43:19.280 | They give me faith in humanity.

02:43:21.220 | - Yeah.

02:43:23.820 | - That somehow there's a partially dormant desire

02:43:28.240 | in our sort of collective intelligence

02:43:31.760 | to do good in the world,

02:43:33.400 | that most of us want to be good,

02:43:36.240 | that want to do good onto the world.

02:43:39.120 | There's a kindness that's kind of like begging to get out.

02:43:42.680 | - Yeah.

02:43:43.520 | - And those little acts of kindness do just that.

02:43:46.040 | And actually, one of the reasons I loved Austin

02:43:48.600 | and moved here is realizing,

02:43:52.120 | just noticing those little acts of kindness all around me,

02:43:55.360 | just for stupid reasons, just people being really nice.

02:43:59.240 | It's weird, and that kindness combined

02:44:03.480 | with an optimism for the future,

02:44:05.400 | it's just, it's amazing what that can build.

02:44:09.440 | - Yes, yes, it's incredible.

02:44:12.160 | And I know what you're saying.

02:44:13.200 | It's like, you know, we moved to this great neighborhood,

02:44:17.160 | and at this point, I think three,

02:44:21.880 | maybe four of our neighbors have like made food for us

02:44:25.500 | that just shows up with like handwritten lists

02:44:29.200 | of like things they like to do in the area,

02:44:31.700 | and their phone number if we need help.

02:44:34.120 | And it's like, holy shit, that's like,

02:44:38.360 | it might seem like a little act,

02:44:40.280 | but it feels like some kind of atomic love bomb

02:44:43.360 | just went off on your porch when you're looking at that.

02:44:46.040 | I'm like, what the fuck?

02:44:48.120 | You made me a pie?

02:44:50.720 | This is incredible, like this is incredible.

02:44:53.760 | - And also, it's another act to accept that kindness.

02:44:56.980 | It's like a lot of times when I was like in Boston

02:45:01.080 | or San Francisco, certain big cities,

02:45:03.740 | you can think like, oh, okay,

02:45:05.040 | well, they're trying to like somehow,

02:45:07.040 | that's not an act of kindness.

02:45:10.080 | That's some kind of a transactional thing to build up.

02:45:12.840 | It's like a career move for networking,

02:45:15.160 | all that kind of stuff.

02:45:16.320 | But no, if you just accept it for what it is,

02:45:18.280 | a pure act of kindness.

02:45:20.200 | - Fucking Boston.

02:45:21.360 | 'Cause for me, I go the opposite route.

02:45:25.080 | 'Cause I'm not, even though there is a part of me

02:45:26.640 | that might be a little suspicious or something,

02:45:29.240 | where I go to push that shit back mentally

02:45:33.040 | is I'm like, oh, I don't deserve this.

02:45:34.900 | If they knew what a piece of shit I am,

02:45:37.540 | you're gonna bring me,

02:45:38.380 | I don't never bring cakes to my neighbors.

02:45:40.540 | I wouldn't know how to make a cake.

02:45:41.780 | I don't know how to make anything.

02:45:42.820 | I don't have time.

02:45:43.840 | I should be bringing shit to my neighbors.

02:45:45.420 | Why didn't I do that?

02:45:46.340 | I should have brought, I never do that.

02:45:48.740 | If you're not careful, you can spiral into a vortex

02:45:53.100 | of self-hate from the gift.

02:45:54.580 | So you have to, yeah, you have to learn how to,

02:45:56.340 | in that circuitry, you have to learn how to like accept.

02:46:01.060 | - Yeah, I have that problem really big.

02:46:03.080 | Yeah, like I don't deserve this.

02:46:05.700 | Like I don't, I get so much love from people.

02:46:10.360 | I'm like, well, yeah, they love me

02:46:11.880 | 'cause they don't know me.

02:46:13.440 | That's my brain, my little voice.

02:46:15.280 | Like you're not worthy.

02:46:19.180 | You're not worthy of any of this kindness

02:46:23.960 | and all this kind of stuff.

02:46:24.920 | And that could be very, yeah, it can shut you down.

02:46:28.560 | It can be debilitating.

02:46:30.200 | And also it shuts the person down.

02:46:32.120 | I mean, you're talking--

02:46:32.960 | - And that's the dark side is it pushes them away too.

02:46:36.160 | - Yeah, it cuts off this fucking mystical circuitry.

02:46:40.040 | So like the best thing, if that happens to you,

02:46:43.460 | is like accept it joyfully and just all that,

02:46:48.160 | whatever that thing inside of you,

02:46:50.340 | whatever that little thing is.

02:46:52.680 | This is like in the meditation I do,

02:46:56.120 | it's an infuriatingly simple meditation,

02:46:58.240 | but when a thought emerges,

02:47:01.680 | when you are resting your attention on your breath

02:47:03.960 | and then inevitably you think,

02:47:06.360 | you get lost in your thoughts.

02:47:07.320 | And when you catch yourself doing that,

02:47:09.360 | you think thinking

02:47:11.760 | and then return your attention to the breath.

02:47:13.480 | So I like that so that when that part of myself starts,

02:47:17.400 | having its little neurotic semi seizure,

02:47:20.120 | I can just go thinking, whatever, it's just another thought

02:47:23.440 | and then eat the banana bread or whatever they gave you.

02:47:28.720 | - What's the most wild psychedelic experience

02:47:31.800 | you've ever had in a dream, in a vision?

02:47:34.560 | Doesn't have to be drug related.

02:47:36.240 | What's one that jumps to mind that was like,

02:47:40.600 | holy shit, I'm happy to be alive.

02:47:42.800 | Is this life?

02:47:43.880 | - Okay. - This is amazing.

02:47:45.280 | - Yeah, okay, so the one that pops to mind,

02:47:50.280 | I've had a lot of psychedelic experiences,

02:47:54.080 | but in this moment, the one that pops to mind

02:47:56.080 | only because it goes back to what you're talking about,

02:47:58.800 | about this Nietzsche's idea of infinite return.

02:48:01.800 | So I'm a Burning Man and--

02:48:09.080 | - Are you going to Burning Man this time?

02:48:10.400 | - I'm not, I mean, I have kids right now.

02:48:12.600 | I just wanna be around them.

02:48:13.640 | My wife was being so cool about it

02:48:15.520 | and she knows I love Burning Man.

02:48:16.720 | She's like, go to Burning Man.

02:48:17.840 | And I was gonna go and then I just wanna be around my kids

02:48:22.560 | as much as I can right now, but--

02:48:24.280 | - I've never been to Burning Man.

02:48:25.400 | So I don't know how secretive it is that,

02:48:28.760 | I mean, 'cause quite high profile folks go.

02:48:31.600 | - Yeah, everyone knows Elon Musk goes there.

02:48:34.040 | - Isn't it pretty open? - He's got a boat.

02:48:36.200 | You know that?

02:48:38.200 | - I'm touching none of this. - The Musk boat,

02:48:39.600 | you know, it's called art cars.

02:48:41.280 | They all make art cars.

02:48:42.280 | And like part of the burn, what's so beautiful about it

02:48:46.320 | is like, you can't buy anything there, man.

02:48:49.280 | Like I've heard, I don't know if this has changed.

02:48:53.680 | It's been a bit 'cause of the pandemic,

02:48:55.520 | but the only thing you could buy was ice and coffee.

02:48:59.240 | And I think maybe that's changed.

02:49:01.240 | I heard some whisper that that's changed.

02:49:02.800 | But so that means that it's a gifting economy

02:49:07.360 | is what they call it.

02:49:08.200 | And so people will just give you stuff.

02:49:10.960 | Talk about having to struggle with deserving stuff, man.

02:49:13.520 | What are you gonna fucking do when the camp next to you

02:49:17.120 | is like every morning making the best iced coffee

02:49:20.600 | that you've ever had in your life?

02:49:22.160 | And they just are giving it all away till it's all gone.

02:49:25.840 | What are you gonna do?

02:49:26.960 | It's the best ever.

02:49:30.040 | And then you're giving things to people.

02:49:31.640 | And then you learn stuff like,

02:49:34.280 | you learn these really interesting lessons.

02:49:36.840 | Like one of the times I went there,

02:49:39.840 | got all these strawberries.

02:49:44.680 | Might not sound like a big deal,

02:49:46.080 | but when you're out there in the dust

02:49:48.600 | and you're not at one of the hardcore luxury camps,

02:49:52.400 | which do exist out there,

02:49:53.760 | you've got these items where in my mind,

02:49:58.000 | I'm like, yeah, these are gonna be

02:49:59.920 | just for me and my girlfriend,

02:50:01.440 | my special stash fruit and this or that.

02:50:04.960 | And then two days in, you're walking around your camp

02:50:09.360 | with the strawberries that you were coveting

02:50:12.880 | and everyone's so happy to get cold strawberries.

02:50:16.400 | And you've realized, oh my God,

02:50:17.920 | this feels so much better than the way a strawberry tastes.

02:50:21.320 | So you learn something experientially there,

02:50:25.040 | which is an incredible thing.

02:50:27.040 | It's an incredible thing.

02:50:29.120 | Man, now I'm wishing I had decided to go to Burning Man.

02:50:31.880 | - Have you been a few times?

02:50:32.880 | - Yeah, I just know,

02:50:34.480 | at least people were saying it was Elon Musk's boat.

02:50:39.200 | Like, yeah, I think it was like,

02:50:41.040 | it's like this massive, it's art cars.

02:50:43.600 | And it was this party on this thing.

02:50:45.280 | You could just, anyone can go on the boat.

02:50:48.560 | Like, no one's like, there's no guest list.

02:50:50.920 | You just go on there.

02:50:52.240 | I never saw him there, but everyone's whispering,

02:50:54.600 | Elon Musk is here.

02:50:56.400 | - There's a secrecy, there's all that kind of stuff

02:50:58.360 | 'cause you probably have to respect that.

02:50:59.760 | But at the same time,

02:51:01.160 | it seems like the kind of people that go there,

02:51:03.480 | I mean, the rules of the outside world are suspended

02:51:09.560 | in the sense that the crime,

02:51:14.880 | the aggression, the tensions,

02:51:18.000 | all of that seems to dissipate somehow.

02:51:19.920 | - Not all the way, not all the way.

02:51:22.240 | You could look it up, 'cause there is tension.

02:51:27.120 | There's a lot of tension there between,

02:51:29.520 | it's called plug and plays.

02:51:32.200 | Like, Burning Man,

02:51:34.200 | like the history of Burning Man is fascinating.

02:51:36.920 | It has its roots in the cacophony societies,

02:51:41.640 | what it was called,

02:51:42.480 | it was a sort of evolution of something that was,

02:51:45.840 | I think it was called the,

02:51:47.200 | God, like the San Francisco,

02:51:50.560 | basically there was like an art movement in San Francisco,

02:51:54.360 | and I can't remember the name of it,

02:51:55.560 | maybe the Suicide Club,

02:51:57.200 | or essentially like,

02:51:59.720 | they were really into urban exploration,

02:52:02.320 | and meaning like breaking into like

02:52:05.720 | old abandoned buildings and stuff.

02:52:07.840 | But part of this, what this was,

02:52:10.360 | was you would prepare your life

02:52:15.360 | as though you were going to kill yourself.

02:52:18.000 | You would get all your affairs in order.

02:52:19.840 | You would get,

02:52:20.760 | so it's going back to what we were talking about

02:52:22.400 | with the cancer diagnosis.

02:52:23.440 | You're like sort of putting yourself into that world

02:52:27.960 | of like, I'm gonna get all my affairs together

02:52:29.520 | as though this is it.

02:52:30.360 | And then there was some,

02:52:32.000 | I'm sorry for anyone listening if I'm butchering this,

02:52:33.800 | but I think there was some really cool initiation

02:52:35.840 | where they would blindfold you,

02:52:37.600 | and they would take you

02:52:38.440 | into some of these abandoned buildings,

02:52:40.560 | and you didn't know where you were walking,

02:52:41.960 | but they would say like,

02:52:42.800 | if you take one step to the left, you're gonna die.

02:52:47.080 | You're gonna fall off.

02:52:48.080 | You're gonna fall.

02:52:48.920 | So please be careful.

02:52:50.160 | So you're like, in the moment,

02:52:52.560 | and then blindfold comes off.

02:52:53.960 | It's a big, awesome party.

02:52:55.680 | This evolves into something called the Cacophony Society.

02:52:59.000 | There's a great book called Tales of the Cacophony Society

02:53:01.560 | for people listening.

02:53:02.600 | One of the members of the Cacophony Society

02:53:07.800 | was the author of "Fight Club."

02:53:10.000 | And so if you've seen "Fight Club,"

02:53:11.680 | like you could see little ideas

02:53:13.240 | that were in the Cacophony Society.

02:53:14.960 | They were into Dadaism,

02:53:18.840 | which I don't know a lot about.

02:53:20.320 | Like, I don't know,

02:53:21.160 | but it's a philosophical art movement.

02:53:23.120 | And then so basically what was happening is like,

02:53:27.800 | they kept burning increasingly large effigies

02:53:30.920 | in San Francisco, and they weren't allowed to do it.

02:53:34.280 | And so they took it out in the desert.

02:53:36.360 | And they were basing it on something called a zone trip,

02:53:40.680 | which is like, across this border,

02:53:43.640 | the rules of that old society are gone.

02:53:46.160 | And so that was the original Burning Man,

02:53:50.040 | which was these lunatics out in the desert,

02:53:55.040 | launching like burning pianos out of catapults

02:53:59.600 | through the air, doing like drive-by shooting ranges,

02:54:03.320 | like no rules, wild, magical, beautiful, insane madness.

02:54:08.320 | And then it grew and grew and grew and grew

02:54:14.440 | until you have Burning Man as it is today,

02:54:17.280 | which is still the most incredible thing.

02:54:19.440 | I mean, obviously, anytime you have like a thing

02:54:22.000 | that's been around for a while,

02:54:23.480 | you're gonna get that,

02:54:24.320 | "It's not like it used to be.

02:54:26.240 | It's not as free as it used to be."

02:54:27.520 | So this or that,

02:54:28.360 | but what's fascinating about Burning Man,

02:54:30.200 | someone pointed this out to me,

02:54:32.360 | look on the ground, no trash, no cigarettes.

02:54:37.360 | The ethic of like picking up your shit there

02:54:40.320 | is like so intense.

02:54:42.400 | So it's not like the other festivals you go to

02:54:44.800 | where there's just trash everywhere,

02:54:46.520 | shit scattered everywhere.

02:54:48.440 | It's clean.

02:54:49.360 | People are picking up their stuff.

02:54:51.440 | People are like really being conscious

02:54:54.520 | of like not fucking up the playa.

02:54:56.480 | So I'm sorry, don't get a burner yapping about Burning Man.

02:55:01.280 | We won't stop.

02:55:02.760 | It'll be morning.

02:55:03.720 | - But there's a power to culture

02:55:07.840 | propagating itself through the stories

02:55:10.000 | that we tell each other.

02:55:10.840 | And that holds up for Burning Man.

02:55:14.480 | It's clear that the culture has stayed strong

02:55:16.920 | throughout the years.

02:55:17.760 | - Yes.

02:55:18.600 | - So many people, so many really interesting people

02:55:22.080 | speak of Burning Man as like a sacred place they go to

02:55:28.280 | to remind themselves about what's important.

02:55:31.080 | - Yes.

02:55:31.920 | - That's so interesting.

02:55:32.760 | - And it is, and it is.

02:55:34.200 | I mean, it's like, you know, there are all these stories

02:55:36.280 | of like, I love guru stories.

02:55:38.280 | I have a guru, Neem Kroli Baba, never met him.

02:55:40.680 | He was Ram Dass' guru, at least not in the flesh.

02:55:43.720 | But the story of the guru is if you're lucky,

02:55:46.600 | you meet this being that,

02:55:48.880 | and we're not talking about, you know,

02:55:50.320 | whatever the run of the mill like charlatans out there.

02:55:54.240 | Like I know for sure that people are in the world right now

02:56:00.280 | who, when you're around them,

02:56:05.280 | the thing you're talking about,

02:56:07.000 | the affirmation of the potential of humanity

02:56:10.520 | and also just an acceptance of yourself

02:56:12.640 | and, you know, cultivate,

02:56:14.600 | like seeing someone who's cultivated love

02:56:18.400 | or compassion or whatever, but in this way that is,

02:56:21.160 | I mean, you would almost,

02:56:25.440 | you would rather meet that being

02:56:28.440 | than like a UFO land in your backyard.

02:56:30.480 | It's like, it is the UFO.

02:56:31.880 | It's a person, but it's not.

02:56:33.760 | It's everybody and nobody.

02:56:35.960 | And somehow they like end up conveying to you

02:56:40.600 | ideas that you may have heard a million times before,

02:56:45.240 | but somehow within the language itself

02:56:48.320 | is a transmission that permanently alters you.

02:56:52.280 | And so these people exist.

02:56:54.800 | I think you could argue that Burning Man,

02:56:57.040 | the total thing is a guru,

02:57:01.600 | that a pilgrimage is involved to get there.

02:57:04.160 | Like it's not easy to get there.

02:57:08.240 | And when you get there, it's gonna teach you something.

02:57:12.760 | It's gonna show you something.

02:57:14.200 | It's going to, and maybe some of the stuff it shows you

02:57:17.680 | might not be great, but the community around you

02:57:22.960 | will hold you as you're like,

02:57:27.120 | whatever the thing is that's coming out of you.

02:57:30.120 | - And even the simplest activities,

02:57:31.600 | the simplest exchange of words have,

02:57:35.600 | like Jessica, with the gurus, a profound impact somehow.

02:57:40.600 | Something about that place.

02:57:42.520 | - Yeah.

02:57:43.560 | Not to mention the insane synchronicities,

02:57:46.440 | like insane synchronicities there.

02:57:48.800 | And I think like, to get back to the notion of sentience

02:57:52.480 | as a byproduct of a harmonized yet hyper-complex system,

02:57:57.480 | I think synchronicities, like those kinds of systems

02:58:03.160 | are like lightning rods for synchronicity.

02:58:05.280 | So crazy, not just because your high synchronicities

02:58:10.280 | happen that are impossible,

02:58:13.280 | where you just have to deal with it.

02:58:14.840 | And like, you'll need something,

02:58:16.960 | and within a few minutes, someone's like,

02:58:19.200 | oh, here you go.

02:58:20.800 | - And you mentioned, by the way,

02:58:22.280 | Burning Man, 'cause of a psychedelic experience,

02:58:25.680 | is it the strawberries, or was it something else?

02:58:29.360 | What was the moment that was magical?

02:58:31.720 | - No, it was DMT.

02:58:32.720 | Well, it definitely wasn't strawberries.

02:58:34.600 | It wasn't strawberries.

02:58:35.840 | (laughing)

02:58:38.080 | No, I was--

02:58:39.800 | - More potent.

02:58:41.040 | - Yeah, I was smoking DMT, and...

02:58:44.640 | (silence)

02:58:46.800 | Like, I saw, like, if you, in the Midnight Gospel,

02:58:52.720 | there are these bovine creatures

02:58:55.440 | that have like a long neck and a lantern head.

02:58:58.640 | So like, I saw one of those things,

02:59:01.920 | and, you know, I thought it was funny and like ridiculous,

02:59:06.920 | 'cause you hear like all the Terrence McKenna stories

02:59:13.320 | of the self-transforming machine elves,

02:59:16.640 | or all the purple or the magenta goddess everyone sees.

02:59:20.800 | I'm like, so this is what I get?

02:59:23.000 | Like, a fucking cow with a lantern head?

02:59:26.320 | Like, that's where my brain is at

02:59:28.360 | and we're interacting with this molecule?

02:59:30.800 | So then, like, I look away.

02:59:35.680 | And again, this is DMT, so when I say look away,

02:59:40.680 | do I mean with my eyes shut, I look away,

02:59:42.840 | or eyes open, I look away?

02:59:44.120 | I think eyes shut.

02:59:46.120 | So it sounds weird to say look away,

02:59:47.840 | but however you wanna put it, that's what I did.

02:59:52.000 | And I look back, and it's still there.

02:59:55.000 | Only now it's, you know, 'cause usually in,

02:59:56.840 | like, when you're having those kinds of visions,

02:59:59.040 | they go away pretty quickly.

03:00:01.360 | This thing's like moved, like shambled ahead

03:00:04.360 | maybe a few steps, just like a cow, just like a cow.

03:00:07.520 | And then that was when the, you know,

03:00:12.080 | all the stories you hear about it,

03:00:13.360 | like going through some kind of tube

03:00:15.200 | or some kind of light tunnel,

03:00:17.120 | like a water slide made of light

03:00:18.880 | that's increasingly familiar.

03:00:21.840 | That's the wildest part of it.

03:00:23.440 | It's like, oh, I know this place.

03:00:25.360 | Not like, oh, I've seen this in, like,

03:00:27.200 | you know, on, like, bong stickers,

03:00:29.760 | but like, oh yeah, this is that place you go to.

03:00:32.360 | You just remember, oh, this place.

03:00:34.440 | And then it was like I was in some kind of,

03:00:40.840 | I don't know how to put it, a chamber,

03:00:42.760 | a technological chamber, some kind of supercomputer,

03:00:45.920 | some kind of nucleus that was technological.

03:00:49.400 | And it was inviting.

03:00:50.520 | There was an invitation of, like,

03:00:52.560 | come in, like, come deeper in.

03:00:56.360 | And you can talk to whatever it is over there.

03:01:00.120 | You don't talk, but there's a communication.

03:01:02.760 | And I communicated, but my friends, I don't,

03:01:07.760 | I love my friends.

03:01:08.800 | I guess I had some sense in that moment

03:01:10.360 | that it would mean complete obliteration or who knows what.

03:01:15.160 | And the response that it gave back was,

03:01:18.240 | you can always go back there.

03:01:20.600 | And that's when I opened my eyes, I'm back, totally.

03:01:23.760 | And ever since then, that's caused me to revise

03:01:27.600 | my thinking on reincarnation,

03:01:30.760 | the idea that you die and you start as a baby

03:01:33.320 | and then live your life again.

03:01:34.880 | It goes right into what we were talking about,

03:01:36.920 | you know, that maybe data, you know,

03:01:39.680 | that the shit I saw in nitrous oxide,

03:01:41.400 | I don't feel dumb that my epiphanies are all related

03:01:43.720 | to drugs, but not all of them are, a lot of them.

03:01:46.240 | But this notion of like, oh, is it that we're

03:01:49.720 | imprinting into the medium of time-space

03:01:56.040 | every thing we do, and that that is a permanent imprint,

03:02:01.040 | a frame that upon death can be accessed

03:02:07.280 | in the same way we can pull up pictures

03:02:10.080 | on our phone or computers,

03:02:12.240 | and not only access, but experienced as though,

03:02:16.280 | in other words, you could just jump in.

03:02:20.160 | You're still gonna have your memories.

03:02:22.000 | It's gonna give you the illusion of having been a kid

03:02:26.280 | and gotten to that frame, but no,

03:02:28.760 | you just decided to go back there, nostalgia, whatever.

03:02:33.200 | And yeah.

03:02:34.960 | - You can jump around freely in space and time.

03:02:37.320 | - Yeah, yeah, you can go in and out of time-space.

03:02:40.160 | But the problem is when you go into time-space, it's time.

03:02:43.800 | So it's gonna feel sticky.

03:02:45.240 | It's gonna feel like you've been here forever

03:02:46.600 | 'cause you've dropped back onto the track

03:02:49.000 | that Nietzsche's talking about.

03:02:50.600 | And I guess one of the qualities of dropping

03:02:54.160 | into that frame is that you forget

03:02:57.000 | your higher dimensional identity.

03:03:00.960 | - What happened to the cow with the lantern?

03:03:04.400 | Was that goodbye?

03:03:05.920 | - He writes me letters sometimes.

03:03:09.640 | (laughing)

03:03:11.000 | Never saw it again.

03:03:12.280 | - Never?

03:03:13.120 | - Never saw it again.

03:03:14.120 | But we put it in the Midnight Gospel.

03:03:17.040 | Pendleton was such a genius and he drew it for me,

03:03:22.040 | and then it just ended up as a part of the show.

03:03:24.400 | - But by the way, I have to admit,

03:03:26.840 | as a big fan of yours,

03:03:27.960 | I haven't watched the Midnight Gospel

03:03:29.880 | 'cause I've been waiting.

03:03:33.480 | I do these stupid things.

03:03:34.840 | But ever since you talked to,

03:03:36.440 | maybe two years ago with Joe about it,

03:03:39.840 | I've been waiting to watch it

03:03:41.920 | with a special person on mushrooms.

03:03:44.440 | - Oh.

03:03:45.280 | - That's been in my to-do.

03:03:46.320 | I don't know, of course you don't have to be

03:03:48.160 | on mushrooms to enjoy it.

03:03:49.560 | But for some reason I put it into my head

03:03:52.520 | that this is something I wanna do with somebody else.

03:03:55.080 | I can experience it and get wild.

03:03:56.960 | - Love it.

03:03:57.960 | - 'Cause visually, I mean, I watched a bunch of it,

03:04:00.960 | just a little bit here and there.

03:04:02.560 | But it's just visually such an interesting experience.

03:04:05.920 | - Thank you.

03:04:07.680 | - Combined with everything else,

03:04:08.520 | obviously the ideas, the voices and so on.

03:04:12.080 | But just visually, it's like a super psychedelic version

03:04:16.920 | of Rick and Morty or something like that.

03:04:19.040 | Farther out, while they're out there.

03:04:23.080 | - Yeah, man, that's Pendleton.

03:04:26.080 | These people, I mean, I was part of that

03:04:31.720 | in the sense that Pendleton gave,

03:04:35.280 | one of the reasons he's such a genius

03:04:37.080 | and great at making stuff is he really does a good job

03:04:41.200 | of just de-hierarchizing potential hierarchies

03:04:46.080 | that can appear.

03:04:47.480 | Someone has to be driving the bus,

03:04:50.120 | and that was Pendleton.

03:04:51.200 | But he's so inclusive.

03:04:54.080 | There's a real punk rock thing that he's doing,

03:04:57.240 | which is he'll take everything.

03:04:58.880 | And it kind of mixes its way into the show.

03:05:01.200 | But one of the things, in animation,

03:05:06.200 | it can get really strict with drawing the characters

03:05:11.760 | and trying to create continuity

03:05:16.600 | in the way the character looks.

03:05:19.240 | And it can get really brute for the animator.

03:05:21.800 | It can get brutally precise.

03:05:24.400 | It has to be precise.

03:05:26.360 | But he figured out that if you just sort of,

03:05:30.240 | it's not like, obviously, like Clancy had to look

03:05:32.680 | like Clancy through the whole show,

03:05:34.040 | but if you allow the various people animating it

03:05:36.520 | to sort of have their own spin on it,

03:05:39.280 | then suddenly it creates a very psychedelic,

03:05:42.200 | the show looks more psychedelic

03:05:45.040 | because it looks more organic.

03:05:46.200 | And also the amount of time, I had no idea,

03:05:49.080 | the amount of time that goes into making digital art

03:05:54.080 | look like that is, it's insane.

03:05:58.680 | The amount of work in comping that stuff is just crazy.

03:06:03.680 | It's crazy.

03:06:04.960 | - Generally, the amount of time it takes,

03:06:07.360 | even just like a painting,

03:06:08.840 | I really enjoy watching artists do a time-lapse

03:06:13.280 | and you realize how much effort

03:06:15.120 | just into a single image goes into it.

03:06:19.280 | Hours and hours and hours, sometimes days,

03:06:21.080 | sometimes weeks and months.

03:06:23.160 | And then you just get to see them work,

03:06:24.800 | but they lose themselves in the craftsmanship of it

03:06:28.400 | and the rhythm of it.

03:06:30.400 | And because they're focused on the,

03:06:32.680 | so we were talking about robotics earlier,

03:06:34.480 | like on the little details,

03:06:35.680 | like they're never look,

03:06:37.280 | well, most of the time isn't spent looking

03:06:40.000 | at the big picture of the final result,

03:06:41.720 | it's looking at the little details there and so on.

03:06:44.880 | But they're nevertheless able to somehow

03:06:47.560 | constantly channel the big picture, the final result.

03:06:50.400 | - My God.

03:06:51.360 | Yeah, the respect I have for animators,

03:06:53.800 | it's like, dear God,

03:06:56.880 | it's the craziest thing when you watch it,

03:06:59.440 | when you see what it looks like

03:07:01.160 | and how much time goes into it

03:07:03.400 | and how zen they have to be,

03:07:04.600 | 'cause no matter what,

03:07:05.440 | you're gonna have to cut stuff, man.

03:07:07.240 | And when you're cutting a few seconds of animation,

03:07:10.400 | that was someone's month maybe.

03:07:12.560 | They understand, but still it's like, whoa, it's brutal.

03:07:19.360 | So they have like this zen outlook on it,

03:07:24.360 | which is really cool.

03:07:26.360 | And they watch podcasts, that's the other cool thing,

03:07:28.120 | when you realize like, oh, they're listening to podcasts

03:07:30.480 | or like, that's really cool to see that aspect of it too.

03:07:34.400 | But yeah, man, I, you know.

03:07:36.920 | - Yeah, your voice is in the ears

03:07:38.480 | of a lot of interesting people.

03:07:40.320 | - Yours too.

03:07:41.440 | (laughing)

03:07:42.280 | And I, you know.

03:07:43.120 | - Hello, interesting person.

03:07:43.960 | - Hello, CIA animators.

03:07:46.920 | Eating delicious food in the cafeteria.

03:07:49.600 | I'm on your side, he's against you, I'm with you.

03:07:52.400 | - Yeah.

03:07:53.640 | - Do you have, you have a beard,

03:07:55.120 | therefore you must be wise.

03:07:56.940 | Do you have advice for young people, high school, college,

03:08:01.360 | about how to carve their path through life?

03:08:05.480 | How to have a life, a career that's successful

03:08:10.080 | that they can be proud of or a life they can be proud of?

03:08:12.880 | - Man, see, this is what kind of,

03:08:14.800 | this is what sucks about my life

03:08:18.360 | is that it's been very random and very spontaneous.

03:08:23.360 | So unfortunately, I don't get that thing

03:08:27.120 | where I could be like, well, here's what I did.

03:08:29.520 | 'Cause it's like, I don't, like I inherited $12,000

03:08:34.240 | from my grandmother.

03:08:35.860 | Here's what you do, kids.

03:08:36.980 | You inherit $12,000 when your grandmother dies.

03:08:39.640 | And then you need to be dumb enough

03:08:41.680 | to think that that $12,000 is gonna help you

03:08:44.520 | live in LA for a year.

03:08:46.240 | So then what you do is you move to LA with $12,000

03:08:49.800 | and you find a shitty place that you live at.

03:08:53.800 | And then you use that money to buy acid and synthesizers.

03:08:58.080 | And then you run out of the money and then you,

03:09:00.760 | (laughing)

03:09:02.240 | then you have to get a job.

03:09:04.000 | And so then, because you think it'll be fun

03:09:05.600 | to work at a comedy club, you get a job at the comedy store.

03:09:09.240 | And then, you know, that's how it happened for me.

03:09:11.960 | And none of, there wasn't,

03:09:12.920 | I never had the confidence to be like,

03:09:15.400 | oh, I'm gonna be a standup comedian.

03:09:18.560 | No way, I just thought it'd be cool to work in that building.

03:09:22.080 | I thought the building looked cool.

03:09:23.840 | And so, but then like, 'cause like you work

03:09:26.520 | at the comedy store, you get stage time.

03:09:28.560 | It's there, it's the reason like you work there

03:09:32.280 | is at least in those days, 'cause it's not like

03:09:34.440 | they're paying like a shit ton of money

03:09:36.720 | for you to answer phones at a comedy club.

03:09:39.160 | And so, you know, I started going on stage

03:09:42.480 | and then like, I just got lucky 'cause Rogan saw me

03:09:47.280 | have like a very rare good set.

03:09:50.440 | I didn't know he was in the room or I would have bombed,

03:09:52.600 | you know, and then like, 'cause he thought it was funny

03:09:55.160 | and he liked talking to me,

03:09:56.080 | he started taking me on the road with him.

03:09:57.960 | And then, you know, so I don't know, man.

03:09:59.680 | I think-

03:10:00.520 | - Was there an element to,

03:10:02.880 | there's a beautiful weirdness to you as a human being.

03:10:06.720 | Was there like a pressure to conform ever?

03:10:12.520 | To hide yourself from the world?

03:10:15.640 | Or did the $12,000 and the asset give you the confidence

03:10:19.960 | you needed to be yourself?

03:10:21.640 | - Oh no, I don't, like I didn't still, no.

03:10:24.440 | I think, sure, there's that pressure.

03:10:26.760 | And like, you know, whenever you're beginning

03:10:30.080 | to really differentiate from your parents,

03:10:31.840 | but then you go back to hang out with your parents,

03:10:34.640 | you can feel that.

03:10:36.880 | It's not like they even want you to conform,

03:10:38.680 | but you'll just, you could slip into that,

03:10:40.440 | whatever that was.

03:10:41.320 | So I remember that when I would go back

03:10:43.000 | and like visit them and stuff.

03:10:45.320 | And surely conformity or the pressure

03:10:49.280 | to like not be individual or whatever,

03:10:52.360 | it's everywhere, man.

03:10:53.880 | - Do you think you made your parents proud?

03:10:56.040 | - E...

03:10:59.480 | (laughs)

03:11:01.640 | - No, no, no, no.

03:11:03.360 | - Well, I think that when my mom died,

03:11:08.840 | I felt successful in the sense that I was able to support my,

03:11:13.840 | I was making money from doing standup and I didn't need help.

03:11:20.000 | I was like, I was supporting myself with art and doing good,

03:11:23.640 | what I thought was great then.

03:11:24.960 | So, and I think she like,

03:11:27.200 | because she had witnessed me literally failing,

03:11:31.360 | I mean, which is by the way, I think part of,

03:11:33.520 | if you wanna be an artist or successful,

03:11:36.880 | you kind of have to fail.

03:11:38.640 | Like if, and if there was a guaranteed route

03:11:43.640 | from sucking to not sucking or from like,

03:11:48.960 | the neophyte phase of whatever the art form is

03:11:54.040 | and some intermediary phase,

03:11:56.600 | then I think a lot more people would do it.

03:11:58.760 | But there really is no guarantees in it,

03:12:01.680 | especially with standup comedy.

03:12:03.200 | It's like, you'd have to be a maniac

03:12:06.200 | to want it to think that that's gonna work out for you.

03:12:08.440 | You have to, so you're gonna,

03:12:10.520 | there are obviously exceptions,

03:12:13.880 | but for me, it was like a long slog,

03:12:18.880 | and that's scary for a mom.

03:12:20.400 | So, but that being said, when she was dying,

03:12:25.400 | like she did recognize that I was like not slogging anymore.

03:12:31.120 | And she did say, she said, "You did it."

03:12:35.040 | And that's cool, but in, I would love for her to see me now.

03:12:40.040 | Like now it'd be way cooler, but maybe she does.

03:12:42.840 | I don't know.

03:12:43.680 | - She's listening to your podcast elsewhere in the other.

03:12:47.280 | - In the Bardo.

03:12:48.440 | (laughing)

03:12:49.920 | - Yeah, however long that lasts,

03:12:52.320 | reconfiguring the whole process to start again.

03:12:55.040 | You as a father now, how did that change you?

03:12:59.640 | - Yeah, that's the big change, man.

03:13:02.160 | That's the thing.

03:13:03.480 | - You made a few biological entities.

03:13:06.760 | - Yeah, I made biological entities.

03:13:08.600 | I mean, I came in my wife, let's face it.

03:13:10.880 | Like I would love to say I made them,

03:13:12.340 | but the womb whipped them up.

03:13:14.520 | But it is the, yeah, it's the best.

03:13:19.400 | I've never experienced anything like it before.

03:13:22.440 | It is the, as far as I'm concerned,

03:13:24.880 | the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

03:13:27.760 | And that's why I was able to answer your Nietzsche question

03:13:30.520 | with like, hell yes, fuck yes, that's great.

03:13:33.600 | I get to be around my kids again.

03:13:35.200 | I'll always be around my kids.

03:13:36.360 | I'll always be around my children.

03:13:38.300 | That's incredible.

03:13:39.140 | That's the joy.

03:13:39.960 | So for me,

03:13:41.900 | the part of myself that used to torture myself more,

03:13:49.160 | around like my mom dying,

03:13:51.040 | feeling like I wasn't there enough for her,

03:13:53.680 | wishing that I had spent more time with her,

03:13:56.060 | wishing I'd spent more time with my dad,

03:13:58.200 | wishing that like, you know,

03:14:00.080 | looking back at like how like I was just so desperately

03:14:03.960 | trying to evade the fact that she was dying

03:14:07.360 | and in that evasion successfully like distanced myself

03:14:13.200 | from her in ways that I really wish I hadn't.

03:14:16.380 | I'm just saying that 'cause it's one of my regrets.

03:14:22.200 | It's like a big regret.

03:14:23.160 | I have a lot of little regrets, but that's a big one.

03:14:26.280 | And so when you have kids,

03:14:30.900 | you look back at everything you did,

03:14:38.160 | and you think like, fuck,

03:14:40.320 | if I had gone left at that point instead of right,

03:14:43.600 | if I had eaten, who knows?

03:14:45.680 | What if I'd eaten like a turkey sandwich

03:14:48.800 | when my balls were creating the cum

03:14:53.400 | that was gonna make my kids?

03:14:54.880 | Would I have a different kid?

03:14:56.600 | Would this being not exist in my life?

03:14:59.000 | Like you start looking at everything and you realize like,

03:15:02.240 | thank God, thank God for every single thing

03:15:05.280 | that happened to me because it all led up to this.

03:15:08.760 | And oh, for me, that is the,

03:15:11.240 | it's like, it frees you and it liberates you

03:15:18.400 | because you realize like, oh wow,

03:15:22.040 | this clumsy and selfish and at times rotten

03:15:27.040 | as I've been in my life,

03:15:29.320 | that did not impede the universe at all

03:15:34.240 | from allowing these two beautiful beings

03:15:37.320 | to exist in the world.

03:15:38.440 | - So maybe all of it enabled,

03:15:40.360 | all of it like a concert,

03:15:43.480 | perfectly led up to that little beautiful moment.

03:15:48.680 | Is there ways you would like to be a better father?

03:15:52.680 | - Oh yeah, for sure, absolutely.

03:15:55.680 | There's a actual, I read something in a book,

03:15:59.440 | it's called "Good Enough."

03:16:01.000 | The mantra for a parent, good enough.

03:16:03.440 | Because when you are in the presence of something you love

03:16:07.160 | more than you've ever experienced love,

03:16:10.720 | you wanna be perfect.

03:16:15.560 | Like you wanna be, I can't, I gotta work, man.

03:16:17.720 | I gotta go on the road, I've gotta work,

03:16:19.600 | I gotta support the family.

03:16:20.800 | So that means I have to work.

03:16:22.440 | You know what it's like having a podcast?

03:16:25.520 | You fucking work, man.

03:16:27.000 | It's a full-time job 'cause I do stand up too

03:16:33.880 | and all the other stuff.

03:16:34.760 | So I feel sometimes I feel like, oh my God,

03:16:38.760 | I wanna spend more time with them.

03:16:40.680 | Like I should be spending more time with them.

03:16:42.160 | But then also I wanna create, I wanna work.

03:16:45.080 | I like being the provider.

03:16:49.000 | So that's something I feel guilty about right now.

03:16:53.640 | - And you're struggling how to balance that correctly.

03:16:56.600 | And meanwhile, time just marches on.

03:16:59.800 | (whistles)

03:17:00.640 | - It just goes, it goes.

03:17:03.240 | - And all of this will be forgotten,

03:17:07.440 | both you and I, but forgotten in time.

03:17:11.600 | - That's what I say to them

03:17:12.440 | every time I'm putting them to bed.

03:17:15.160 | - We will be lost in the sands of time.

03:17:18.560 | You know that, I bet you know this poem.

03:17:20.520 | You know that poem, "Ozymandias"?

03:17:22.440 | - Yes.

03:17:23.920 | - Can I read you a poem?

03:17:25.720 | - Oh, okay.

03:17:26.960 | Let's end our conversation in a poem.

03:17:32.280 | - I love it.

03:17:33.200 | It's by Pierce Byshe Shelley,

03:17:37.480 | probably mispronouncing the name.

03:17:39.520 | - There's no right way to pronounce anything.

03:17:41.080 | - Thank you, thank you.

03:17:43.120 | I'm Ozymandias.

03:17:45.840 | I met a traveler from an antique land who said,

03:17:49.240 | "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert.

03:17:54.120 | Near them on the sand, half sunk,

03:17:57.440 | a shattered visage lies,

03:17:59.640 | whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

03:18:04.160 | tell that its sculptor well those passions read,

03:18:07.920 | which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

03:18:11.880 | the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

03:18:15.080 | And on the pedestal, these words appear.

03:18:18.320 | My name is Ozymandias, king of kings.

03:18:21.960 | Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

03:18:25.320 | Nothing beside remains around the decay

03:18:27.760 | of that colossal wreck.

03:18:29.520 | Boundless and bare,

03:18:31.080 | the lone and level sands stretch far away."

03:18:34.600 | - All gone.

03:18:40.560 | - Behold the king.

03:18:42.080 | - Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

03:18:45.720 | - And despair.

03:18:47.440 | Even though we'll be forgotten in the sands of time,

03:18:50.680 | Duncan, I'm just so glad that you exist

03:18:53.600 | and you put so much love into the world

03:18:55.560 | over the past many years that I've gotten a chance

03:18:57.560 | to enjoy by being your fan.

03:18:59.480 | - Likewise.

03:19:00.360 | - Thank you so much for continuing that

03:19:02.800 | and for sharing a bit of love with me today.

03:19:04.720 | - Can we be friends?

03:19:05.880 | - Let's be friends.

03:19:06.720 | - In real time, in the real world, in 3D space?

03:19:09.320 | - Nothing is real, but yes, in this particular slice

03:19:12.080 | of the multidimensional world we live in.

03:19:14.560 | It will be an honor and a pleasure.

03:19:16.160 | - Thank you for having me on your show.

03:19:17.480 | - Love you, Duncan.

03:19:18.320 | - I love you.

03:19:19.140 | Thank you, Lex.

03:19:20.560 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

03:19:22.080 | with Duncan Trussell.

03:19:23.320 | To support this podcast,

03:19:24.520 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

03:19:27.340 | And now, let me leave you with some words

03:19:29.480 | from Duncan Trussell himself.

03:19:31.180 | "You are essentially just a cloud of atoms

03:19:35.620 | that will eventually be aerosolized by time."

03:19:39.140 | Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

03:19:43.140 | (upbeat music)

03:19:45.720 | (upbeat music)

03:19:48.300 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Duncan Trussell: Comedy, Sentient Robots, Suffering, Love & Burning Man | Lex Fridman Podcast #312

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