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Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness | Lex Fridman Podcast #134


Chapters

0:0 Introduction
2:16 Eddie Van Halen
9:56 Leonard Cohen
17:52 Battle between ego and humility
23:8 Darkness and beauty
29:50 Jimi Hendrix
32:38 Good Will Hunting
36:46 Revolutionary minds
48:19 Next Elon Musk should come from MIT
52:44 Love with save the world
58:0 Are we headed toward a civil war?
69:34 Joe Rogan
83:21 Our political leaders
88:41 Younger people should have more power
99:0 The Portal
123:50 Money
125:56 Roger Penrose
133:36 Jeffrey Epstein
152:14 We need to get off this planet
155:11 An update on Geometric Unity
161:3 Gratitude

Whisper Transcript | Transcript Only Page

00:00:00.000 | The following is a conversation with Eric Weinstein,
00:00:02.960 | the third time we've spoken on this podcast.
00:00:05.600 | He is the wise turtle, master oogway to my Kung Fu Panda,
00:00:10.320 | one of my favorite people to talk to in this world.
00:00:13.160 | A complicated and fascinating mind
00:00:15.480 | that I'm grateful to have the chance to accompany
00:00:17.920 | in exploring this world through conversation
00:00:20.560 | on this podcast and on his, the latter called "The Portal."
00:00:25.560 | Quick mention of each sponsor,
00:00:28.240 | followed by some thoughts related to the episode.
00:00:31.240 | First is Grammarly, a service I use in my writing
00:00:35.200 | to check spelling, grammar, sentence structure
00:00:37.720 | and readability.
00:00:39.160 | Second is Sun Basket, a meal delivery service I use
00:00:43.320 | to add healthy variety into my culinary life.
00:00:46.520 | Third is SEMrush, the most advanced SEO optimization tool
00:00:51.760 | I've ever come across.
00:00:53.400 | I don't like looking at numbers, but somebody should.
00:00:56.640 | It helps you make good decisions.
00:00:58.840 | And finally, ExpressVPN, the VPN I've used for many years
00:01:03.160 | to protect my privacy on the internet.
00:01:05.640 | Please check out these sponsors in the description
00:01:07.920 | to get a discount and to support this podcast.
00:01:11.640 | As a side note, let me say that wherever this life takes me,
00:01:15.800 | I'm drawn to the possibility of having many more
00:01:17.880 | conversations with Eric through the years.
00:01:21.240 | I think we have just the right kind
00:01:24.080 | of contrasting worldviews and a deep respect
00:01:28.200 | and appreciation of each other's life stories
00:01:31.000 | that creates for this magical experience
00:01:34.800 | in the realm of conversation that feels like
00:01:37.640 | we're always looking for something
00:01:40.440 | that we never quite find,
00:01:43.600 | but are always better for having tried.
00:01:45.840 | I'm not sure how or why the universe has connected Eric
00:01:50.440 | and me, but it did.
00:01:52.520 | And I would be a fool not to trust his judgment
00:01:56.240 | and enjoy the journey.
00:01:58.560 | If somehow you like this podcast,
00:02:01.440 | please subscribe on YouTube,
00:02:03.000 | review it with Five Stars on Apple Podcast,
00:02:05.440 | follow on Spotify, support on Patreon,
00:02:08.120 | or connect with me on Twitter @LexFriedman.
00:02:11.280 | And now here's my conversation with Eric Weinstein.
00:02:15.320 | Who's the greatest musician of all time, would you say?
00:02:19.520 | - We were just off camera talking about Eddie Van Halen.
00:02:21.920 | He unfortunately passed away.
00:02:24.120 | - Who's the greatest musician of all time?
00:02:26.080 | - Yeah.
00:02:27.400 | - Jonathan Richman.
00:02:28.880 | - Who's that?
00:02:30.560 | - It's a weird question,
00:02:31.560 | so I'm gonna give you a weird answer.
00:02:32.720 | It's not because-- - Thank you.
00:02:33.680 | - Okay, Jonathan Richman, the reason I'm picking on him
00:02:36.120 | is that he had a quote.
00:02:37.920 | He was the front man of a group called the Modern Lovers.
00:02:41.540 | And his quote was something like,
00:02:43.440 | "We have to be prepared to play music.
00:02:46.680 | When our instruments are broken,
00:02:48.480 | the electricity's out and it's raining,"
00:02:50.240 | something like that.
00:02:51.240 | And I thought that that quote was very interesting
00:02:53.880 | because what it said was,
00:02:55.440 | "You have to be able to strip this thing down
00:02:57.640 | farther and farther back
00:02:58.800 | to get to something that is intrinsically musical."
00:03:01.120 | So we were having a conversation just now about virtuosity.
00:03:05.720 | We're talking about Eddie Van Halen and his recent passing.
00:03:08.000 | And that affected me emotionally.
00:03:09.680 | I don't know whether it affected you.
00:03:10.600 | I was never a Van Halen, the group fan,
00:03:13.640 | but I revered Eddie Van Halen's capacity for innovation.
00:03:18.640 | I saw him like Rodney Mullin, the skateboarder.
00:03:23.600 | I had dreamed of having the two of them on the same podcast
00:03:26.400 | just to talk about what it's like
00:03:27.840 | to totally discontinuously innovate.
00:03:30.760 | - And you posted a video of Spanish Fly, I think,
00:03:33.400 | and saying, "I didn't know the guitar
00:03:35.000 | could make those kinds of sounds.
00:03:36.160 | Like, what is this voodoo magic?"
00:03:37.360 | - What is it?
00:03:38.560 | Well, this is the thing, right?
00:03:39.480 | The arpeggios that he did on a single string are so fast,
00:03:43.640 | and the attacks from the hammer-ons,
00:03:47.000 | when they go at light speed, as he did,
00:03:50.560 | particularly, and the reason I chose that
00:03:52.080 | was that I wanted to strip out the electronics,
00:03:55.320 | because part of the claim will be
00:03:56.680 | is that he's a rock musician,
00:03:58.000 | and a lot of the innovations had to do with things
00:03:59.960 | peculiar to sort of the electrified setup.
00:04:03.160 | You know, his use of the whammy bar, for example,
00:04:05.840 | or the Frankenstrat that he built from different pieces.
00:04:10.120 | All of those aspects, in my opinion,
00:04:15.720 | are just dwarfed by his innovation and his musicianship,
00:04:19.760 | and that's why I chose Spanish Fly,
00:04:21.640 | because everyone, of course,
00:04:22.680 | will go to something like "Eruption"
00:04:24.160 | or "Running with the Devil,"
00:04:25.080 | which is the first things that they heard
00:04:27.920 | that let them know that there was a new force
00:04:29.560 | erupting out of Southern California
00:04:31.320 | that was Eddie Van Halen.
00:04:33.320 | I'm in love with the story of it.
00:04:36.680 | - You're often so poetic about music.
00:04:40.360 | Like, it clearly touches your soul
00:04:41.960 | on some kind of, on many levels.
00:04:44.000 | What is that?
00:04:45.520 | Is it deeper than just rocking out
00:04:47.840 | with the, in your convertible Corvette '69?
00:04:52.120 | I imagine Eric Weinstein's just driving down
00:04:54.640 | the California highways, blasting some kind of music.
00:04:58.480 | Is it just like being able to be carefree
00:05:02.040 | for moments of time,
00:05:03.240 | or is there something more fundamental
00:05:05.380 | that connects the theory of everything,
00:05:09.000 | and physics, and life, and all of that?
00:05:11.760 | - How often do you have the chance, for example,
00:05:13.980 | to hear mathematics performed, as you do in Bach?
00:05:17.560 | Right, like something with that kind of precision
00:05:19.880 | and elegance that can't really be grasped,
00:05:22.560 | where, you know, to go back to Leonard Cohen's famous line,
00:05:27.560 | the baffled king composing, right?
00:05:31.480 | - That's such a good song.
00:05:32.320 | - It's such a good song, but it's also like,
00:05:34.240 | individual verses of that song are insanely important.
00:05:38.140 | The baffled king is how we often make music.
00:05:43.360 | We don't really understand what did we just do
00:05:46.640 | that broke that person's heart sitting on the couch, right?
00:05:50.200 | And so, it's a very strange thing
00:05:52.200 | that you should be able to have.
00:05:54.040 | Think of it like you're a computer.
00:05:55.440 | You've got this weird open music port,
00:05:57.840 | you know, port 37.8, you know?
00:06:00.680 | Like, it's not even supposed to be there,
00:06:03.080 | and suddenly somebody starts playing a guitar,
00:06:05.240 | and they're making you feel things.
00:06:07.520 | Or, you know, like in particular,
00:06:09.240 | particular instruments like the violin,
00:06:11.400 | it's so difficult, it's so unforgiving,
00:06:15.200 | and when it gives up its secrets,
00:06:16.960 | it just, you know, it wraps its fingers around your heart
00:06:20.400 | and won't let go.
00:06:22.020 | Sometimes I talk about head, heart, and loins.
00:06:25.000 | When something can grab your head, heart, and your loins
00:06:27.600 | at the same moment and integrate them,
00:06:30.660 | there are very few opportunities to live like that.
00:06:34.600 | And if you think about Eddie Van Halen,
00:06:36.560 | you know, as far as your head, the musical innovations,
00:06:42.040 | and the fact that he was drawing directly
00:06:44.000 | from the classical canon, you know,
00:06:47.280 | really speaks to the idea that maybe rock
00:06:49.640 | is what somebody like Jimi Hendrix saw it as being,
00:06:53.920 | you know, an infinitely extensible medium.
00:06:56.720 | In terms of heart, I always notice the smile on his face.
00:07:01.680 | It's painful to look at an Eddie Van Halen solo now.
00:07:05.440 | Like, sometimes you'll see the cigarette
00:07:06.960 | dripping off the side of his mouth,
00:07:08.800 | and you're like, that's gonna fucking kill you,
00:07:11.000 | and I'm not even worried about it for you,
00:07:12.400 | I'm worried about it for me.
00:07:13.800 | You're gonna rob, I don't even need to hear you
00:07:15.760 | play another note, I just like knowing
00:07:17.760 | that you're in the world, that there is somebody
00:07:20.160 | that everyone looks to, that nobody,
00:07:22.080 | I've never heard a guitarist say, eh, I don't know,
00:07:25.680 | I think he was okay.
00:07:26.880 | Like, I've just never heard it.
00:07:28.360 | You can hate him, but you still think he was a genius.
00:07:31.560 | There are very few people like that in the world.
00:07:34.840 | And then loins, those leaps, that guy was incredibly
00:07:39.200 | good looking, you know, skin-tight pants,
00:07:41.320 | super athleticism, he completely owned the sexuality,
00:07:45.080 | the male sexuality of the stage, both being
00:07:48.760 | the completely dominant, you know,
00:07:50.360 | sort of mythical alpha male, I hate that expression,
00:07:52.960 | but there you are, but also this kind
00:07:55.400 | of little boy with this mischievous smirk,
00:07:58.480 | and you know, the sense that it all came together,
00:08:01.800 | how could you not eat that up?
00:08:04.080 | - You could just imagine the millions
00:08:05.960 | of like young teenage boys who are just like
00:08:08.240 | playing air guitar in their room,
00:08:11.160 | just, yeah, basically dreaming of being that kind of god,
00:08:15.280 | the most perfect example of what a human being can be.
00:08:20.400 | Yeah, it's fascinating to think.
00:08:22.120 | - It is, and then, you know, as in many of the cases
00:08:25.640 | with these bands, you get these multiple talents
00:08:28.800 | in the same outfit, and I think that the original
00:08:32.680 | configuration with David Lee Roth,
00:08:34.440 | I mean, David Lee Roth is such a hot mess at all times.
00:08:38.160 | - I would love you to talk to David Lee Roth.
00:08:41.600 | Like, if the, that dance would be just gorgeous.
00:08:46.600 | - I don't know.
00:08:48.040 | - Can you handle, can you ride that?
00:08:49.720 | - Probably not.
00:08:50.560 | - Yeah.
00:08:51.400 | - Probably not, because I think he's very,
00:08:54.280 | I get the feeling that he's very smart
00:08:57.240 | and very dysregulated, and I don't know that I could,
00:09:01.320 | like--
00:09:03.160 | - Like bring him down to earth for a moment.
00:09:04.880 | - Well, I can also get pretty dysregulated, you know?
00:09:07.320 | - Yeah, yeah.
00:09:08.160 | - And so, I don't know, I don't know whether,
00:09:09.640 | it could be magic, it could be a shit show,
00:09:11.680 | I don't know what you thought of his appearance on "Rogan,"
00:09:14.040 | that was an interesting one.
00:09:15.680 | - I loved it, but Joe, and Joe does this sometimes,
00:09:19.160 | sometimes he just sits back and listens,
00:09:21.760 | and he just lets the music play, which works really well.
00:09:26.600 | I think you have a chance to kinda jump into the chaos.
00:09:30.720 | - I care to.
00:09:31.560 | - And then you'll just start, and the places you'll go,
00:09:34.840 | you may not even talk about music for hours.
00:09:37.520 | It might just go to this, 'cause he, I think,
00:09:39.400 | lives in Japan, there's a weird, he's--
00:09:41.520 | - He's been in EMT after he was a rock star,
00:09:45.000 | he chose to be kind of like, I don't know.
00:09:48.080 | You know, it like--
00:09:49.680 | - There's depth to that man
00:09:50.920 | that hasn't been explored by him either,
00:09:54.000 | so that'll be an exciting conversation.
00:09:56.320 | Can we go back to Leonard Cohen?
00:09:58.160 | - Yeah.
00:09:59.000 | - Can we just, the things I feel when I listen to "Hallelujah"
00:10:03.440 | by Leonard Cohen, or anything by him, really,
00:10:05.800 | but that one--
00:10:06.680 | - You really wanna get into it?
00:10:08.880 | - Let's go, what does that song mean to you?
00:10:12.780 | Is it love?
00:10:15.840 | - Oh, boy.
00:10:17.160 | Well, first of all, it's mystery.
00:10:19.920 | Like, it starts off about mystery.
00:10:22.560 | So what are you doing?
00:10:24.200 | You're doing this alternation between the two chords,
00:10:28.720 | so three notes at the same time,
00:10:30.440 | one is called the tonic, or you have the major
00:10:35.440 | and the relative minor, and he's alternating between them.
00:10:38.400 | There's only one note of difference
00:10:39.840 | between those two chords.
00:10:41.160 | One of them would be feeling sad,
00:10:42.720 | one of them would be more joyous, typically described.
00:10:46.800 | And so by altering one note, it's the minimal amount
00:10:49.480 | to take you back and forth between joy and happiness
00:10:53.080 | as that's encoded in us.
00:10:54.840 | So he starts off with, I heard there was a scene,
00:10:57.240 | David played the "Please, Lord,"
00:10:58.360 | but you don't really care for music, do ya?
00:11:00.520 | That's really interesting,
00:11:03.760 | because he's using this technique called bathos, right?
00:11:06.640 | So the alternation between the sublime
00:11:10.280 | and kind of the guttural or ridiculous or the mundane, right?
00:11:13.480 | So he's like--
00:11:15.360 | - But there's a bitterness to it, too.
00:11:17.000 | Is it just play?
00:11:18.280 | - Well, the way I hear it, again,
00:11:19.960 | great song allows for different interpretations.
00:11:21.960 | You happen to be asking me, so I'm gonna impart some stuff
00:11:24.440 | that probably isn't in the song, but why it speaks to me,
00:11:26.680 | and that's what makes it great.
00:11:29.000 | The way I hear it is he doesn't believe the audience.
00:11:31.320 | You don't really care for music, do ya?
00:11:32.760 | Then what are you doing listening to this,
00:11:34.240 | you stupid idiots, you know?
00:11:36.400 | Of course you care for music.
00:11:37.480 | You're too cool to care, so I see through you and screw you.
00:11:41.520 | That's the energy I get.
00:11:45.160 | Then he does this weird thing.
00:11:46.480 | It goes like this is where he should put the description
00:11:50.040 | of where he is in the chord progression,
00:11:51.680 | which is the tonic, right?
00:11:53.320 | It goes like this, and then he hits the fourth
00:11:55.600 | and the fifth, which are the two other major elements,
00:11:58.760 | the subdominant and the dominant in functional harmony.
00:12:02.040 | So he's describing the chord progression
00:12:04.720 | in real time in the lyrics.
00:12:07.080 | There's two ways this can come about in other songs.
00:12:10.240 | We had this example of every time we say goodbye.
00:12:14.600 | Do you know this song?
00:12:15.880 | ♪ Every time we say goodbye ♪
00:12:17.640 | No, I think it was Cole Porter, maybe,
00:12:20.520 | or Gershwin, maybe Porter, I don't know.
00:12:22.760 | ♪ I cry a little ♪
00:12:24.240 | ♪ There is no love song finer ♪
00:12:27.120 | ♪ But how strange the change from major to minor ♪
00:12:32.120 | Right, like it's a beautiful use of that.
00:12:34.840 | Then there's times when it's duplicitous.
00:12:37.400 | So for example, you'll have,
00:12:39.160 | I guess my favorite examples of this
00:12:42.680 | are Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire."
00:12:45.320 | ♪ I fell into a burning ring of fire ♪
00:12:48.360 | Then what does he do with the lyrics in the tune?
00:12:50.840 | ♪ I went down, down, down ♪
00:12:55.640 | He goes up, right?
00:12:56.960 | And so the idea is like, oh, okay, that was a head fake.
00:12:59.880 | Right, and another one of these
00:13:01.480 | is Nina Simone's "Feeling Good."
00:13:04.840 | Well, okay, so what do you get?
00:13:07.400 | ♪ Birds flying high ♪
00:13:10.720 | ♪ You know how I feel ♪
00:13:13.800 | ♪ And sun up in the sky ♪
00:13:16.160 | ♪ You know how I feel ♪
00:13:18.800 | That woman's voice, she doesn't give a damn,
00:13:21.800 | and yet she's just--
00:13:22.640 | - And I feel it, but then what's the,
00:13:23.960 | ♪ Da-dum, da-dum ♪
00:13:26.360 | It's like heavy stripping music.
00:13:28.280 | You're not in a good place.
00:13:30.680 | You're probably in some strip club
00:13:33.240 | with some last of your money. - Some shady.
00:13:34.560 | - You're drinking lousy beer, some bad situation.
00:13:39.240 | And she's feeling good?
00:13:40.480 | No, it's funereal.
00:13:41.720 | It's oppressive, right?
00:13:43.600 | - I never thought of that song that way, wow.
00:13:46.720 | - Well, you think of it as joyous?
00:13:48.320 | - Yeah. - No, no, no.
00:13:49.320 | If you think about it, contrast it with Ray Charles,
00:13:51.960 | for example, you know, do you know "Lonely Avenue"?
00:13:55.360 | ♪ Well, my room has got two windows ♪
00:14:00.080 | ♪ But the sunshine never comes through ♪
00:14:02.840 | It's really depressed.
00:14:04.360 | It's the same sort of vibe as Nina,
00:14:08.040 | but she's claiming that she's in great shape.
00:14:09.840 | So she's like a good case of the unreliable narrator.
00:14:13.400 | Leonard Cohen, to me, is talking
00:14:14.760 | about the unreliable audience that's too cool
00:14:16.920 | to be with the performer on stage.
00:14:18.840 | There are things that go with the music,
00:14:20.120 | like the Cole Porter stuff,
00:14:21.280 | that go against, like the Johnny Cash.
00:14:23.560 | I think these are the games that musicians play
00:14:26.280 | that the rest of us only sort of notice subliminally, okay?
00:14:31.200 | Fourth, the fifth.
00:14:32.040 | Then he, when he, he should say something
00:14:34.880 | about the relative minor or the,
00:14:36.920 | he's giving you the secret, the baffled king.
00:14:39.680 | In other words, he doesn't know why it works.
00:14:42.280 | Did Pachelbel know why Pachelbel's Canon would work?
00:14:45.920 | It was a discovery.
00:14:47.080 | That's the whole thing.
00:14:48.120 | Like some music is discovered and some music is invented.
00:14:52.680 | And he's talking about a musical discovery.
00:14:56.240 | He's talking about the Pythagorean power
00:14:59.040 | of the wave equation and then superimpose,
00:15:01.960 | like there's two genius intellectual concepts behind music.
00:15:05.880 | One of which is the wave equation.
00:15:07.880 | Usually we solve it for a one-dimensional medium
00:15:09.960 | because we're talking about strings or air columns.
00:15:11.920 | Occasionally you're talking about things like handpans
00:15:15.600 | or steel drums or metallophones or gamelans, whatever.
00:15:19.200 | And those have a wave equation too that's much more chaotic.
00:15:23.760 | The other equation is this crazy thing
00:15:25.720 | that two to the 19/12 is almost exactly equal to three,
00:15:29.760 | which is what gave us even temperament.
00:15:31.920 | And so the tension between those two things is in fact
00:15:35.760 | one of these most beautiful stories.
00:15:37.760 | Inside of that system,
00:15:39.240 | that formula of the baffled king is a discovery.
00:15:43.320 | He's not really composing it.
00:15:46.080 | The reason he's baffled,
00:15:47.760 | imagine that you took like a little brush
00:15:50.640 | and you started brushing off a pyramid under the sands.
00:15:55.360 | You might think that you created the pyramid
00:15:57.600 | by your brushing, but in fact somebody else did it.
00:16:00.240 | That's why you're baffled, right?
00:16:02.840 | - That's beautifully put, you're right.
00:16:04.840 | As creating one of the greatest songs of all time
00:16:07.960 | and as he's doing it, he's baffled.
00:16:10.120 | And it's matter of he's within the song.
00:16:13.280 | - And he, Leonard, is baffled is my contention.
00:16:15.680 | But he knows enough to know that he's baffled.
00:16:18.080 | And so the idea is that he is composing.
00:16:20.920 | He has the audacity to compose as David.
00:16:25.920 | He's echoing David at a minimum.
00:16:29.560 | And then in a later song,
00:16:31.680 | which I really wish we would discuss
00:16:33.000 | that's totally dystopic and you will not like it at all,
00:16:36.520 | is "The Future," which contains this line
00:16:39.960 | that I think I used in my episode
00:16:42.000 | with Roger Penrose on the portal.
00:16:44.520 | Note the subtle plug.
00:16:45.960 | - The portal, the portal, the portal.
00:16:47.480 | - He says, "I'm the little Jew that wrote the Bible."
00:16:51.960 | So there is this way in which Leonard Cohen, I think,
00:16:54.440 | is constantly coming to the idea
00:16:56.480 | of being a biblical-like scribe.
00:16:59.960 | And I think this is one of the great things
00:17:01.520 | that you see Dylan doing this with all along the Watchtower.
00:17:04.480 | You saw Warren Zeevon, who we should talk much more about,
00:17:07.920 | doing this with a song called "I Was in the House
00:17:10.200 | When the House Burned Down."
00:17:11.200 | Do you know this?
00:17:12.400 | - No, this is embarrassing.
00:17:13.800 | - Sweetheart, this is a great day to be alive.
00:17:16.520 | Warren Zeevon is one of the most important songwriters
00:17:19.400 | of our time.
00:17:20.240 | And he's been largely forgotten by this generation.
00:17:24.920 | But Bob Dylan would sing one of his songs in tribute.
00:17:29.880 | I've heard Bob Dylan, you know,
00:17:33.040 | very small number of songwriters really move him.
00:17:35.240 | Woody Guthrie, Gordon Lightfoot, and Warren Zeevon.
00:17:40.240 | By the way, Bob Dylan, if you're out there,
00:17:43.060 | appear on either one of our podcasts.
00:17:45.320 | We need to get your voice into a new medium for a new group.
00:17:48.620 | - Definitely.
00:17:49.460 | - This is a time for Bob Dylan, my friend.
00:17:51.560 | Honestly, you've been doing an amazing job in this space.
00:17:55.720 | One of the reasons I'm super excited
00:17:56.960 | to do this podcast again is that
00:18:00.120 | I've learned some things about what I don't do well.
00:18:03.240 | And I also have sort of struggled with the question,
00:18:07.240 | should I do those things better?
00:18:08.720 | Because what if it's, you know,
00:18:10.480 | I always use the same example of the fitted sheet.
00:18:12.560 | When you're trying to put a queen-size fitted sheet
00:18:14.780 | on a king-size mattress, he's like,
00:18:16.280 | "Okay, I got that corner squared away."
00:18:17.760 | And then you get another corner that pops off
00:18:19.400 | and then you go back around.
00:18:21.320 | I wonder whether I can improve my style
00:18:23.440 | in the ways in which, you know,
00:18:26.840 | I think it's just a recognition of a difference.
00:18:28.900 | You do a better job of getting to the soul
00:18:32.120 | of a really top intellectual guest
00:18:35.480 | and making them accessible and presenting them as themselves
00:18:40.480 | for a huge number of people.
00:18:42.320 | And I'd give my eye tooth to be able to do that.
00:18:45.280 | - Do you ever think about this?
00:18:47.000 | Like, 'cause I think about
00:18:49.160 | what is the greatest conversation I'll ever have?
00:18:52.560 | You know, like, in a sense, the portal,
00:18:55.680 | not to reduce it to anything,
00:18:57.720 | but there will be the greatest conversation.
00:19:00.860 | You may have already had it, but it's very possible.
00:19:03.720 | If enough people like me can keep twisting your arm
00:19:07.300 | to keep doing the portal, please,
00:19:09.180 | that is, there'll be an amazing conversation.
00:19:12.100 | And one of the questions that I ask myself is like,
00:19:16.060 | who is the person that I'm especially equipped,
00:19:20.460 | for some reason, I'm convinced on Putin.
00:19:23.080 | There's something in my head that says,
00:19:25.220 | I can do this man better than anyone else in this world.
00:19:30.080 | I got this thought in my head about it, I don't know why.
00:19:32.880 | And I'm convinced, but I think the universe
00:19:34.580 | works in that way.
00:19:35.420 | Like, if it tells you, it's gonna happen.
00:19:38.160 | - The way I would say it is that almost everybody
00:19:40.620 | who becomes a Supreme Court justice
00:19:43.320 | believes at a very early age
00:19:44.980 | they're going to become a Supreme Court justice.
00:19:46.540 | Many people believe at an early age
00:19:48.060 | that they can do it, don't get there.
00:19:49.860 | But of those who get there,
00:19:51.020 | almost all of them had this sort of,
00:19:53.740 | well, I call it pathological self-confidence.
00:19:56.900 | And I do think you have pathological self-confidence,
00:20:01.000 | and you also have humility.
00:20:02.500 | And most people would hear those as a contradiction.
00:20:05.580 | I think that you would not be able to get away
00:20:07.420 | with what you do if you didn't have the humility.
00:20:11.840 | And so I think the great danger
00:20:14.420 | is that your equation becomes unbalanced,
00:20:17.060 | that you either lose the humility,
00:20:18.700 | or you lose the humility overwhelms the ego
00:20:22.780 | and the drive, because right now
00:20:24.740 | you've got a Mexican standoff in your mind,
00:20:26.740 | and the rest of us are just benefiting.
00:20:28.540 | - That's beautifully put.
00:20:29.680 | - My Mexican standoffs aren't as stable as yours.
00:20:32.180 | (laughing)
00:20:33.340 | It's all reservoir dogs all the time.
00:20:35.380 | - Yeah.
00:20:36.220 | - But actually, the person who that describes is Peter Thiel.
00:20:39.820 | Peter Thiel thinks more, people always say,
00:20:42.260 | what does Peter think about X, Y, and Z, P, and Q?
00:20:44.260 | It's like, well, do you want communist Peter?
00:20:46.220 | Do you want hyper-capitalist Peter?
00:20:47.060 | - There's multiple minds in there.
00:20:48.780 | - Oh my God, right, on everything.
00:20:50.620 | That's why he's successful,
00:20:51.580 | is that he's got all these minds fighting each other.
00:20:53.740 | And so when people say, Peter is this, or Peter is that,
00:20:56.140 | I just laugh, because nobody who knows him
00:20:59.980 | would describe him as having thoughts
00:21:02.500 | at the level that people are claiming.
00:21:04.540 | And I do think that, in my case,
00:21:07.180 | there's also pathological epistemic humility.
00:21:14.820 | Like, just, I know how little I can do in one life.
00:21:20.620 | I know how many things I've screwed up.
00:21:22.740 | I know how many things I've got wrong.
00:21:25.220 | And on the other hand, I know that if not,
00:21:28.420 | it's like Hillel's questions,
00:21:30.140 | if I'm not for myself, who will be for me?
00:21:32.380 | And if I'm only for myself, what am I, if not now, when?
00:21:35.220 | At some level, there's a question about,
00:21:38.940 | if I don't decide that someone is capable
00:21:43.180 | and that that somebody is me,
00:21:45.220 | and if I apply that to everyone else on the planet,
00:21:49.140 | then nobody's gonna do anything.
00:21:50.500 | And so I do think that one of the things
00:21:52.620 | that people like you and I get is,
00:21:54.780 | who are you to say that?
00:21:56.100 | F that, man.
00:21:58.940 | Just sign me up for some Dunning-Kruger.
00:22:02.360 | - Yeah, but it's multiple minds, like you said.
00:22:06.940 | Like, this morning, I was feeling so good and confident
00:22:09.980 | about, I could think no wrong.
00:22:12.300 | And I remember last night clearly thinking
00:22:14.300 | that I'm the dumbest human who's ever lived,
00:22:16.780 | and nothing I've ever said is worth anything.
00:22:19.740 | What the fuck am I doing with my life?
00:22:22.580 | Why am I scared?
00:22:23.740 | I was terrified of this conversation.
00:22:26.340 | Who the hell am I? - This conversation?
00:22:28.020 | - 'Cause I'm an idiot.
00:22:29.180 | - Lex.
00:22:32.100 | - But no, no, no, but this morning,
00:22:35.140 | I was the baddest motherfucker who's ever walked this Earth.
00:22:39.420 | So I was very conscious.
00:22:41.780 | I think it was the coffee, I'm not sure, maybe some sleep.
00:22:44.340 | - This sounds very Russian,
00:22:45.500 | and it involves multiple beverages,
00:22:47.140 | some of them being alcoholic, others containing caffeine.
00:22:49.980 | - There's, in fact, I can't share the story behind it,
00:22:53.660 | but there is a bottle of vodka in the fridge.
00:22:56.220 | - Okay. (laughing)
00:22:57.700 | - So, I mean, I should've--
00:22:58.540 | - I should've hit you for coffee,
00:23:00.180 | 'cause this is a morning show here.
00:23:02.620 | - So I put out a call that we get a chance
00:23:05.060 | to have this conversation,
00:23:06.180 | and people ask these wonderful questions.
00:23:08.540 | A few people asked about depression and suicide.
00:23:16.060 | This is a Russian program, so we'll have to go there.
00:23:19.500 | And I think about Leonard Cohen,
00:23:21.020 | and one of the things that always kind of broke my heart
00:23:26.020 | and kind of suffocated the hope I have for just,
00:23:31.580 | I don't know, for love in a person's life,
00:23:36.820 | is to hear how much depression
00:23:39.460 | was a part of Leonard Cohen's life,
00:23:41.620 | and how much he suffered.
00:23:44.500 | I guess one way, I'm not sure where we can go
00:23:47.260 | with this question, but do you think about the places
00:23:50.620 | that the mind can go, like these dark places?
00:23:54.300 | - Yeah.
00:23:55.460 | - Is there something, like, where the only escape out
00:24:00.140 | is suicide, for example, that's the darkest version of it?
00:24:02.980 | - That, I really think suicide is a big place,
00:24:07.460 | and suicidal ideation and self-harm,
00:24:09.940 | and we don't talk a lot about it.
00:24:14.220 | It's a similar problem to trying to talk about trans.
00:24:17.300 | These are umbrella categories,
00:24:19.260 | and if the commonality is that somebody harms themselves,
00:24:23.380 | but we don't know whether that's coming
00:24:25.660 | because of a problem in brain chemistry,
00:24:28.000 | because of an event in their life,
00:24:30.040 | whether evolutionary programming for suicide
00:24:34.500 | is weirdly normal, whether or not
00:24:37.580 | it might have a religious motivation.
00:24:39.780 | There's too many different forms of self-harm,
00:24:43.620 | and something like the 10th largest killer, thereabouts.
00:24:47.280 | And I think that you can look at it from different angles.
00:24:52.820 | I'm old enough to have had Pete Seeger come to my college
00:24:58.620 | when I was at university, and to watch his good humor
00:25:03.620 | in the face of all adversity.
00:25:06.440 | I think of Odetta, I used to go to Odetta concerts,
00:25:10.860 | and I don't know if you know who she is.
00:25:13.580 | Okay, this is gonna be one of the better days of your life.
00:25:15.580 | Check out Odetta when we're done with the interview.
00:25:18.220 | She was a civil rights figure,
00:25:21.220 | but also just had a profound voice, and great musicianship.
00:25:26.220 | These people were in the struggle,
00:25:29.340 | and they saw lots of bad things happen,
00:25:32.880 | and they kept their humor about them.
00:25:34.680 | The thing is that you can take on the Weltschmerz,
00:25:41.780 | the pain of the planet, or you can try to do something else,
00:25:46.580 | which is to be a happy warrior,
00:25:48.300 | even if the odds are terrible,
00:25:51.540 | and the cost of failure is catastrophic.
00:25:55.220 | - So even when surrounded by darkness.
00:25:58.440 | But the thing is with Leonard Cohen,
00:26:00.420 | is he created such beautiful music,
00:26:02.760 | and yet it's like Anthony Bourdain, the same.
00:26:07.300 | And yet they go to this dark place,
00:26:11.460 | and it could be, it's easy to say it's just biochemistry.
00:26:15.440 | - No, there's a linkage between
00:26:18.120 | this highly generative creative side,
00:26:21.860 | and in some cases, dark depression.
00:26:25.620 | In other cases, not.
00:26:26.900 | So you can't say that it's tied,
00:26:29.440 | that genius and madness are always co-traveling,
00:26:32.220 | or that beauty and pain are one and the same.
00:26:35.600 | What you can say is that there's a cluster of people
00:26:38.420 | that tell you that for that cluster,
00:26:40.280 | there is a relationship between the darkness and the beauty.
00:26:43.700 | And I do think that in part,
00:26:45.500 | it's squaring circles that can't be squared.
00:26:47.980 | We were just talking before about the inability
00:26:54.820 | to serve two perfect systems,
00:26:56.600 | the perfect system of the wave equation,
00:26:58.860 | and the perfect system of even temperament.
00:27:01.280 | They're both perfect, they're not compatible.
00:27:03.660 | And once you realize that there is perfection
00:27:07.980 | and an inability to make contact with perfection,
00:27:11.100 | I think you recognize that
00:27:16.540 | there is no solution to this world.
00:27:21.540 | - Yeah, that's weird with the poets and musicians.
00:27:26.920 | You wanna say this is a particular thing that you do,
00:27:29.860 | but then there's Spanish Fly by Van Halen.
00:27:32.100 | And then you realize, oh.
00:27:34.900 | - Well, what do you get out of Spanish Fly by Van Halen?
00:27:37.940 | I think it's very singular because of the fact
00:27:40.660 | that it's purely acoustic.
00:27:42.300 | - For some reason, I couldn't imagine Eddie Van Halen
00:27:46.580 | separate from the band in front of thousands of people
00:27:50.100 | just screaming and rocking out with lights everywhere.
00:27:53.480 | And Spanish Fly made me think like,
00:27:55.900 | it made me imagine him sitting alone
00:27:57.740 | in a couch in a room.
00:27:58.580 | - I think that's who he was, I really do.
00:28:00.660 | Believe me, I get it.
00:28:03.340 | He was a rock star, he was a rock god.
00:28:04.660 | Got it, got it, got it, got it.
00:28:07.280 | And I'm almost positive that you can't get
00:28:10.120 | to where he got to without being a complete introvert.
00:28:13.420 | - Yeah, it made me imagine that there's some
00:28:16.060 | half-naked supermodel walking around
00:28:20.020 | hoping that they can do their thing together.
00:28:24.500 | And Eddie's completely disinterested.
00:28:26.260 | He'd be with the guitar.
00:28:27.100 | - He'd be with the guitar, right?
00:28:28.900 | Because honestly, at some level, in one case,
00:28:33.380 | maybe you're conquesting, maybe you're pursuing
00:28:35.940 | love and romance, in the other case,
00:28:37.800 | you're talking about a relationship to the order,
00:28:41.860 | the creator, the almighty, whatever it is
00:28:43.500 | you wanna call that substrate that is reality.
00:28:46.780 | And do I believe that Eddie Van Halen
00:28:51.240 | and Jimi Hendrix and Paganini and Heifetz
00:28:53.900 | jacked into the true essence of the world?
00:28:56.520 | Yeah, they did.
00:28:57.740 | I don't think it's as good as differential geometry.
00:29:00.700 | I'm sorry.
00:29:01.540 | I do think it's amazing for other reasons
00:29:05.840 | and thank God because it's very difficult
00:29:08.020 | to communicate differential geometry at scale.
00:29:10.340 | But the thing about eruption, for example,
00:29:13.180 | what level do you wanna come in to eruption?
00:29:15.360 | Do you want just the sheer majesty and pageantry?
00:29:18.260 | Do you want the theatrics?
00:29:20.060 | Like you could put him on wires
00:29:21.900 | and set his pants on fire or whatever.
00:29:25.060 | It'd be totally in keeping with it.
00:29:27.500 | On the other hand, you wanna talk something
00:29:28.660 | completely precise that shows off the virtuosity
00:29:33.660 | of what's possible with a Stratocaster.
00:29:36.400 | Everything works.
00:29:38.160 | Multi-axis.
00:29:39.000 | - But there's a precision to it
00:29:40.480 | which is very different than Hendrix.
00:29:44.040 | There's a messiness to Hendrix that to me,
00:29:46.040 | somebody who has OCD has always been a struggle.
00:29:49.360 | - How does Hendrix affect you?
00:29:50.620 | I mean, let's have the Jimi Hendrix conversation.
00:29:52.580 | I don't know that we can do anything to it
00:29:53.840 | that hasn't already been done to it.
00:29:56.120 | Maybe that's not true.
00:29:56.960 | Maybe the idea is that every generation
00:29:58.960 | has to have its Hendrix conversation
00:30:01.260 | and this is a long form pocket.
00:30:02.100 | - It's Jimi Hendrix experience.
00:30:03.600 | - Yeah.
00:30:04.920 | - So funny.
00:30:05.760 | I hear he sold it from Joe Rogan.
00:30:07.280 | - Yeah.
00:30:08.120 | There's so many details.
00:30:11.560 | One, it hurt my soul on so many levels
00:30:16.560 | that you can put a thumb over the guitar
00:30:20.160 | to play a note, to hold the note.
00:30:23.520 | And it doesn't, because I wanted to be the Russian virtuoso
00:30:27.760 | that sits with his classical guitar in perfect form,
00:30:31.000 | plays really fast with the fingers
00:30:32.760 | and then you want the thumb to be perfectly relaxed
00:30:36.280 | and supported.
00:30:37.120 | - So that's the Russian conservatory student.
00:30:39.040 | - Conservatory, yeah.
00:30:40.680 | - Then there's the Russian wild man.
00:30:43.360 | - Which one is that?
00:30:44.200 | - Well, they're different Russian archetypes, right?
00:30:47.600 | So the completely idiosyncratic Russian
00:30:50.480 | is very different in a weird way from the,
00:30:53.600 | you know, I can do this backwards in any key,
00:30:57.040 | in my sleep and in any time signature
00:31:00.360 | that you, you know, just snap your fingers.
00:31:03.080 | We've discussed my piano tuner in previous episodes.
00:31:08.080 | - No, no, that was offline conversation.
00:31:10.520 | You told me the story.
00:31:11.680 | - I should tell you the story.
00:31:13.160 | - You should retell the story.
00:31:14.480 | - There I was in darkest Manhattan
00:31:16.880 | with the world's shittiest, it wasn't even an upright,
00:31:20.000 | it was a spinet piano.
00:31:21.800 | A friend had given it to me.
00:31:23.600 | The piano fell out of tune and I would have to tune it.
00:31:27.520 | And the only tuner I knew was this Russian guy
00:31:29.960 | and I hated dealing with him.
00:31:31.480 | There was something about his attitude
00:31:32.800 | that just really rubbed me the wrong way.
00:31:35.120 | So anyway, my wife says, "Tune that thing."
00:31:37.320 | So we get the piano tuner to come and he's tuning this.
00:31:40.560 | He's like, "Are you sure you wanna tune this piece of shit?"
00:31:43.960 | You know, okay, fine.
00:31:45.400 | So he's like, "Okay, it's your money."
00:31:47.240 | The phone rings and I have the phone ringer set
00:31:51.840 | on a landline to Paganini Caprice 24.
00:31:55.400 | And immediately as the phone rings,
00:31:58.440 | he figures out what key the phone ringer is
00:32:02.000 | and which is not the key that like Liszt composed
00:32:05.520 | the variations on Caprice 24.
00:32:09.480 | And he starts going into theme and variations
00:32:11.480 | on Caprice 24 at some level I've never heard before,
00:32:14.840 | just jaw dropping it.
00:32:17.120 | And like the phone stops ringing
00:32:18.960 | and we have this awkward silence.
00:32:20.600 | I said, "I didn't know you were such a great piano player."
00:32:23.480 | And then he says one of these things
00:32:24.960 | that in Russian accented English,
00:32:27.400 | hurts in a way you can't imagine.
00:32:29.000 | He said, "No, you are the piano player.
00:32:31.880 | "I am merely the piano tuner."
00:32:34.000 | (laughing)
00:32:34.840 | I was just like, oh man, through the heart.
00:32:38.480 | - You know, it's kind of reminiscent.
00:32:40.080 | I'd love to hear actually your opinion on this.
00:32:41.560 | It's reminiscent of the Goodwill hunting story.
00:32:44.160 | What do you think about that?
00:32:45.760 | - That movie?
00:32:46.600 | - That movie.
00:32:47.440 | - What about it?
00:32:48.260 | - It's MIT.
00:32:49.100 | - Yeah, I guess when I think of that film,
00:32:51.600 | I think about Matt Damon as a young guy,
00:32:56.220 | risking everything, giving up Harvard.
00:33:00.120 | I think probably the most accomplished group of people
00:33:02.800 | in the world are people who choose
00:33:04.160 | to give up Harvard voluntarily.
00:33:05.880 | - Beautiful. - Right?
00:33:08.400 | - That's true.
00:33:09.220 | - Bigger than Harvard.
00:33:10.060 | - That's very true.
00:33:10.900 | - Ives was one of these people, Bill Gates, of course.
00:33:14.660 | And then oddly--
00:33:19.320 | - Zuckerberg.
00:33:20.280 | - What?
00:33:21.100 | Zuckerberg.
00:33:21.940 | But then Steve Jobs gave up a Reed.
00:33:24.560 | And Reed is like the weirdest, craziest college
00:33:26.860 | in the world.
00:33:27.700 | People should pay much more attention to Reed.
00:33:29.200 | And I'm sorry it's going through a hard time at the moment,
00:33:31.800 | but what it was before the current craziness
00:33:33.900 | is really an interesting story.
00:33:36.040 | Irregardless, as we say in the 617 area code,
00:33:38.860 | I think that a lot of my reaction is to the real story
00:33:45.060 | of Matt Damon having this vision
00:33:47.220 | and being the young guy to pull it off.
00:33:49.900 | And I also think about Robin Williams
00:33:52.500 | trying to explore heart through this lens of acting.
00:33:57.500 | And as you and I, you've hung out with comedians,
00:34:03.060 | they know that they already screwed up a bunch of people.
00:34:07.660 | They do.
00:34:08.500 | They're proud about it.
00:34:10.220 | They really are.
00:34:11.800 | The idea that Robin Williams, who I saw many years ago
00:34:14.360 | when I was in LA in the comedy clubs around here,
00:34:18.000 | he was a straight up crazy, disregulated genius
00:34:21.900 | in tremendous pain.
00:34:23.500 | And his desire to do it earnestly through acting
00:34:28.900 | rather than constantly by just sniping,
00:34:32.580 | you know, or being a clown,
00:34:34.940 | or showing us how fast his mind worked relative to ours.
00:34:39.100 | I was really moved by that.
00:34:42.340 | I thought that he brought some authenticity
00:34:45.780 | and took a huge risk for a comedian to be that real.
00:34:49.580 | And again, like you said, it doesn't always have to be,
00:34:52.420 | but in that case, the madness and the genius were neighbors.
00:34:56.340 | - That one couldn't have been any other way.
00:34:58.580 | - Yeah.
00:34:59.420 | - No, because his mind,
00:35:01.260 | the thing about seeing him in a comedy club
00:35:04.100 | was that he would react to random stimulus
00:35:07.220 | in the environment.
00:35:08.900 | You know, it could be a heckler.
00:35:09.740 | Sometimes you almost got the feeling
00:35:10.860 | that he wanted a heckler
00:35:11.940 | because it gave him something to play against, right?
00:35:16.820 | He was infinitely, instantly inventive.
00:35:19.860 | - But I actually, to me, the best Robin Williams
00:35:24.300 | is as he got closer and closer to the end of his life,
00:35:27.960 | because there was a sadness
00:35:30.260 | and he's almost fighting the sadness
00:35:33.500 | with this improvisational,
00:35:36.220 | like the weapons he has is this wit and humor
00:35:40.320 | and this dancing that he does with language.
00:35:42.820 | But, and then sometimes when you just fall silent,
00:35:46.140 | you can see the sadness.
00:35:48.300 | And I don't know, there's something so beautiful about that.
00:35:51.580 | It's like this bird with a broken wing
00:35:53.180 | that's like trying to fly, you know,
00:35:55.420 | and it's getting older and older.
00:35:57.060 | I mean, those, he would have made
00:36:01.700 | a one hell of a podcast guest, I'll tell you that.
00:36:04.620 | That's a sad.
00:36:05.860 | - Yeah, I have some sadness that I really do think
00:36:07.980 | that part of what we call podcasting
00:36:11.020 | is actually just getting to know a soul
00:36:13.500 | over and over again.
00:36:14.740 | Like maybe the idea is that this is talking
00:36:19.140 | about depression and sadness and heavy feelings
00:36:24.140 | is not an American specialty.
00:36:27.080 | Seeing that in context with the beauty of life
00:36:31.340 | is a Russian specialty.
00:36:33.060 | Like it is very much.
00:36:34.960 | - Sounds like a diner menu.
00:36:37.980 | - What? - Yeah.
00:36:38.820 | - You want the Russian specialty?
00:36:39.980 | (laughing)
00:36:43.660 | - A big scoop of ice cream with tons of depression.
00:36:46.700 | I do think that we're in a really terrifying
00:36:49.380 | and depressing time.
00:36:51.580 | And I think that part of it is that we don't know
00:36:54.620 | if something huge is about to get started.
00:36:57.380 | And we don't even know what this is.
00:36:59.300 | I mean, we just sit here in this weird world
00:37:01.940 | that is falling into some new state.
00:37:04.500 | And we're not even super curious.
00:37:06.380 | It's like, what the hell just happened?
00:37:08.740 | Everybody's got an answer.
00:37:09.940 | And I'm positive that all of those answers are wrong.
00:37:13.120 | - Let's try to at least sneak up on the good answer.
00:37:17.460 | - So the central core of the answer is that the US
00:37:20.860 | seemed to be the greatest thing in the world
00:37:24.180 | in large measure because we hadn't noticed
00:37:26.560 | that we were getting a benefit from having no plan,
00:37:30.720 | not having to make a plan for low growth.
00:37:33.300 | As long as we had growth, we were in great shape.
00:37:38.060 | Let's imagine that there was this,
00:37:40.120 | you could run an experiment.
00:37:42.860 | You have a billion copies of earth
00:37:44.580 | and you start the initial condition slightly different.
00:37:47.340 | On some giant number of planets,
00:37:50.820 | a lot of the things that were discovered
00:37:54.680 | from the 1800s through the end of the 20th century
00:37:58.860 | are discovered in a period of time
00:38:01.540 | because a lot of that just has to do with
00:38:03.980 | once you crack the puzzle of getting better instruments,
00:38:06.900 | you can see more.
00:38:08.140 | And the more you can see,
00:38:09.180 | the more you can make use of what you can see.
00:38:11.140 | And it turns out there was lots of stuff to do
00:38:13.900 | with like germs or electron orbitals
00:38:18.900 | or spectrum, electromagnetic spectrum.
00:38:22.980 | And so we got to do all of those things.
00:38:25.420 | And the US roughly corresponded
00:38:27.380 | for a good chunk of its history with this bonanza.
00:38:30.540 | And so of course we look like an amazing genius country.
00:38:34.220 | We have no plan.
00:38:35.860 | Imagine that you could sell a car.
00:38:37.460 | You don't have to put in seat belts.
00:38:38.740 | You don't have to put in airbags.
00:38:40.740 | You don't have to put in rear view mirrors
00:38:42.500 | or sensors or a rear view mirror.
00:38:44.620 | You could save a lot of money on a car
00:38:46.720 | by not putting in all of the stuff
00:38:48.980 | to keep things from going wrong.
00:38:50.580 | And I think that's what we had.
00:38:53.260 | We had a machine that as long as growth was insanely good,
00:38:57.700 | we plowed it back, the riches and spoils and treasure
00:39:01.380 | back into the system and made more genius stuff.
00:39:04.820 | And we carried along a good chunk of humanity,
00:39:07.100 | hundreds of millions of people.
00:39:09.340 | We did not have a plan for what happens
00:39:11.500 | when the growth goes below the stall speed of our society.
00:39:15.300 | - How confident should we be that the growth has slowed
00:39:19.460 | in a way that is permanent rather than--
00:39:23.540 | - It's not permanent.
00:39:24.540 | - Slap in the face where--
00:39:26.380 | - It's not the right concept.
00:39:27.820 | Right concept is, I try to use the same words
00:39:31.660 | over and over again in case people see mold
00:39:33.380 | because then the perseveration actually gets somewhere.
00:39:35.820 | So I use this analogy of the orchard
00:39:38.040 | because everyone talks about low-hanging fruit.
00:39:40.580 | They know the concept of low-hanging fruit,
00:39:43.540 | but they don't think in terms of orchards.
00:39:47.260 | So they say things like,
00:39:48.700 | "You think we've picked all the low-hanging fruit,
00:39:50.660 | "but I believe in the infinite inventiveness
00:39:52.740 | "of the human mind."
00:39:53.980 | - Yeah.
00:39:54.820 | - It's like, okay, that doesn't even work as an analogy.
00:39:58.660 | What if the idea is we only picked
00:40:00.100 | all the low-hanging fruit here
00:40:01.780 | and then we're having this stupid argument
00:40:03.340 | about low-hanging fruit and we're not going
00:40:05.100 | and looking for new orchards?
00:40:06.900 | We're not planting new orchards,
00:40:08.120 | we're not looking for forests.
00:40:09.820 | We're just sitting here arguing about low-hanging fruit.
00:40:11.880 | So my claim is there's probably a lot more
00:40:13.420 | low-hanging fruit and it's not here.
00:40:15.700 | - It's in other orchards.
00:40:16.740 | - It's in other orchards.
00:40:17.580 | One of those turned out to be the digital orchard.
00:40:20.060 | The digital orchard has not been as stagnant
00:40:22.780 | as lots of these other, like the chemical orchard.
00:40:28.440 | - I have faith that there's a small percentage
00:40:33.540 | of the population, but not zero,
00:40:36.460 | that's looking for those other orchards.
00:40:38.300 | Like I'm excited about one of those orchards,
00:40:40.460 | which is, I believe there'll be robots in everybody's homes
00:40:43.860 | and that will unlock some totally new thing.
00:40:48.100 | Totally new set of technologies, ideas,
00:40:51.820 | the way we live life, the productivity, everything.
00:40:56.500 | It'll change everything.
00:40:57.620 | So I'm excited about that orchard.
00:40:59.220 | So I'm roaming that orchard and wondering
00:41:02.620 | how the hell you kind of bring back
00:41:05.580 | like the ant that finds a new source of food.
00:41:08.540 | I'm trying to find an apple I can bring back
00:41:10.380 | to the rest of the--
00:41:11.580 | - Great, so you're in an explorer idiom.
00:41:16.100 | - And you have faith that there's enough of those.
00:41:18.300 | - I don't think there are very many of us.
00:41:20.140 | I mean, I'm one of them too.
00:41:22.100 | - How many does it take?
00:41:23.220 | It takes one ant.
00:41:24.120 | - It takes one ant.
00:41:26.420 | What are you talking about?
00:41:27.660 | - How many elons does it take to screw in a light bulb?
00:41:31.780 | - Okay, let's imagine that we went,
00:41:35.220 | imagine some ant goes and finds a new source of food.
00:41:38.260 | And then it comes back to the colony and it says,
00:41:42.300 | "Hey, I think I found a new source of food."
00:41:44.700 | And the initial reaction is,
00:41:46.820 | "You're not authorized to find new food."
00:41:49.780 | - What?
00:41:51.220 | - Why would you try to go find new food?
00:41:52.740 | - We're gonna remove you from Twitter.
00:41:54.220 | - Yeah, and by the way, I think the fact
00:41:56.180 | that you think you're allowed to go find new food
00:41:57.620 | shows how privileged you are as an ant.
00:41:59.440 | Get out of the colony.
00:42:00.500 | Kill him, kill him!
00:42:01.940 | Well, that's probably not a great model
00:42:04.780 | for finding new orchards.
00:42:06.460 | And I think that what we find is that
00:42:09.020 | where there's a system that allows somebody to ascend
00:42:11.900 | without a lot of gatekeeping, you can have that.
00:42:15.580 | But I saw this happen in hedge funds.
00:42:17.580 | Hedge funds for a while hoovered up a lot of talent
00:42:22.580 | because they were places that had funding and had freedom.
00:42:26.380 | And in general, really smart people want to be free
00:42:32.020 | and they don't want to think a lot about
00:42:34.020 | how they're gonna feed themselves.
00:42:37.300 | They want to get lost in their minds.
00:42:39.980 | So you can either give them productive places to play,
00:42:42.840 | dangerous places to play.
00:42:44.460 | They're either gonna break into computers
00:42:47.420 | or find vaccines for you or build bombs or build companies.
00:42:52.420 | And we're not providing for the people who have to disrupt
00:42:58.140 | and have to innovate and trying to channel that effort.
00:43:01.520 | We're so focused on this other thing,
00:43:04.020 | which is like fairness and safety.
00:43:06.160 | And fairness and safety, by the way, are really important.
00:43:08.300 | I don't want to denigrate them.
00:43:10.200 | But the singular focus on fairness and safety
00:43:12.900 | without in the same breath being focused on growth
00:43:17.700 | and discovery and creation is gonna doom us
00:43:21.340 | because what we're talking about is we're always talking
00:43:23.620 | about divvying up the pie that is
00:43:25.620 | as opposed to the pie that will be.
00:43:28.500 | Imagine that you spent all your time
00:43:29.920 | trying to divvy up the 13th century pie
00:43:32.580 | and you destroyed your ability to get to the 20th century.
00:43:36.380 | You'd be an idiot.
00:43:38.140 | - But one place I think I disagree with you is
00:43:42.460 | I don't think you need that many people
00:43:45.060 | to empower the geniuses, the innovators,
00:43:47.340 | the people who refuse to spend most of their days
00:43:50.860 | in meetings about fairness.
00:43:52.260 | - This is good.
00:43:53.780 | Let's have a disagreement.
00:43:54.840 | - I think podcasting, whatever you call that medium,
00:43:58.000 | is just one little example of a tool
00:44:01.420 | that you can give power to.
00:44:03.520 | Like you and your podcast can have the next Elon Musk
00:44:09.100 | and make him a star.
00:44:09.940 | - Now I see where you're going.
00:44:11.180 | Okay.
00:44:12.020 | There have been a series of places
00:44:14.100 | for people to play and be free.
00:44:17.320 | And we've lost them successively.
00:44:19.940 | - What's a good place you remember?
00:44:21.460 | 'Cause I disagree with you there too.
00:44:23.220 | I think they're still there.
00:44:24.580 | You can still play.
00:44:25.660 | - You interviewed Noam Chomsky.
00:44:28.200 | - Yes.
00:44:29.200 | - Okay.
00:44:30.040 | Noam Chomsky comes from an era--
00:44:32.200 | - Where you can play?
00:44:33.160 | - Where you could play.
00:44:34.240 | - At MIT.
00:44:35.080 | - At MIT.
00:44:36.200 | - And you can't play.
00:44:37.040 | This is where I disagree with you.
00:44:38.320 | - We've already had this.
00:44:40.080 | Go check the Clips channel, the Lex Friedman podcast.
00:44:43.760 | - I think I wasn't brave enough at that time
00:44:46.720 | and I'm not really brave enough now.
00:44:48.880 | - Come on.
00:44:49.720 | Where's the vodka?
00:44:50.620 | - It's a feeling and people are gonna tear me apart.
00:44:54.680 | - Oh, what are you, you speak from emotion and facts?
00:44:58.260 | - Wait, wait, wait, wait.
00:44:59.420 | - The feeling--
00:45:00.260 | - Which podcast is this?
00:45:01.080 | It's yours.
00:45:01.920 | - Yes.
00:45:02.760 | - Okay, tell the people who are currently editing your brain
00:45:05.920 | 'cause I saw that move right now.
00:45:08.240 | That they should go find another podcast.
00:45:10.820 | Right?
00:45:11.660 | Let's get rid of some of your audience right now.
00:45:13.920 | - Please go find another podcast
00:45:16.500 | if you're editing my brain.
00:45:17.660 | Nevertheless, all the self-doubt,
00:45:19.620 | they're sitting in that brain.
00:45:20.900 | - Oh my God, I can't stand to watch this.
00:45:22.500 | But all right.
00:45:23.340 | But what is this self-doubt loop that you're in?
00:45:25.640 | - The thing is, when I walk the halls of MIT,
00:45:30.640 | there's bureaucracy, there's administrators
00:45:34.500 | that never have done anything interesting
00:45:36.040 | in their entire lives.
00:45:37.520 | There's meetings, there's--
00:45:39.280 | - All the usual crap.
00:45:40.120 | - All the usual crap.
00:45:41.240 | But there's, in the eyes of individuals,
00:45:45.800 | there's this glow of excitement
00:45:48.520 | that has nothing to do with career.
00:45:49.760 | - I understand this.
00:45:51.200 | - And it's still a playground.
00:45:52.880 | There's little pockets of playgrounds
00:45:55.740 | from which genius can emerge still.
00:45:58.120 | And they're unaffected by diversity meetings
00:46:01.360 | or fairness meetings or blah, blah, blah.
00:46:04.580 | - I love to hear that.
00:46:05.540 | - Yeah?
00:46:06.380 | You don't think so?
00:46:07.200 | - I don't believe it.
00:46:08.840 | 'Cause I've watched the change, Lex.
00:46:10.260 | I've watched people,
00:46:11.340 | we're all editing ourselves all the time.
00:46:13.620 | I remember my old mind, I liked it better.
00:46:16.180 | All of this relentless focus on critical race theory
00:46:21.060 | and critical theory, post-modernism,
00:46:24.220 | fairness, social justice,
00:46:26.180 | it's making many of us into worse people.
00:46:29.740 | - You think that's, do you think the Matt Damon's
00:46:32.740 | of the character is paying attention to any of that?
00:46:35.780 | You think that has an effect?
00:46:36.620 | - Have you seen what happened to Matt Damon himself?
00:46:39.340 | Matt Damon has tried to say various things
00:46:41.120 | at various times that seem to be relatively innocuous.
00:46:44.140 | He can't speak.
00:46:45.540 | - Okay, well let's not mix up.
00:46:48.420 | Matt Damon's just an actor.
00:46:50.300 | - No, no, no, no, he was just a Harvard student
00:46:52.580 | who came up with his own genius screenplay,
00:46:55.340 | acted and made it happen.
00:46:56.980 | No, we're somewhere else.
00:46:59.340 | - You don't think you can build the rocket company
00:47:01.820 | out of MIT still?
00:47:03.420 | - I think that there are things that you can still do.
00:47:06.500 | - But we're losing them.
00:47:07.380 | - We lose them.
00:47:08.820 | We keep losing them.
00:47:10.780 | - I would say the biggest problem,
00:47:12.420 | here, let me just say what I think the solution would be
00:47:16.100 | is to fire anybody who's not,
00:47:21.100 | like faculty, especially young faculty
00:47:23.660 | should have way more power
00:47:25.140 | and administration should have much less power.
00:47:27.820 | Because right now the administration,
00:47:30.240 | which used some of whom used to be faculty,
00:47:33.940 | but they've lost the fire, the spark that gave them,
00:47:37.080 | they've lost the memories of the playground.
00:47:39.900 | And so the people that admire and love the playground,
00:47:43.380 | like you could see it in their behavior,
00:47:44.800 | should have way more power.
00:47:46.820 | And so we should create a systems that give them power.
00:47:49.940 | - But you're very idealistic.
00:47:52.500 | And you're very, you've got a huge heart.
00:47:54.540 | It's a weird time, 'cause I don't wanna dissuade you
00:47:58.660 | from believing beautiful things,
00:48:01.060 | because I see how potent you are.
00:48:04.260 | You do all these things, jiu-jitsu, guitar,
00:48:06.860 | podcasting, programming computers, et cetera, et cetera.
00:48:13.900 | I don't think you're right.
00:48:14.920 | I think we're in a really deeply screwed up place
00:48:17.520 | where even the tiny number of,
00:48:19.800 | let me give you an alternate version of this dystopia.
00:48:23.600 | I do think that there are people who are capable
00:48:25.600 | and there's still places to play and cause things to happen
00:48:28.360 | that progress the story forward.
00:48:30.600 | But if you look at the fire that some of the people are in
00:48:33.720 | who fit that profile,
00:48:35.800 | like how much crap has Elon Musk taken?
00:48:38.480 | Quite considerable, right?
00:48:42.880 | - And not much admiration from the-
00:48:46.340 | - Craig Venter, Jim Watson.
00:48:50.260 | These are very difficult people.
00:48:53.700 | Steve Jobs is a very difficult guy.
00:48:56.800 | - It is a bit heartbreaking to me.
00:49:01.500 | I mean, everybody is different generations.
00:49:03.700 | I just, my mind is a little focused on Elon Musk
00:49:05.900 | because he's the modern person.
00:49:08.380 | - Well, you know him.
00:49:09.420 | I mean, he's a person to you.
00:49:11.980 | - It hurts my heart to see how few faculty
00:49:16.440 | and people with Nobel prizes and so on admire Elon.
00:49:21.440 | Like how little, he gets a lot of fans
00:49:26.860 | from like people that buy his products and young minds.
00:49:30.300 | - Yeah. - Just excited.
00:49:31.660 | But like, why don't we as, why doesn't MIT say that
00:49:36.100 | somebody amongst us will be the next Elon Musk
00:49:41.480 | and we want to encourage them?
00:49:43.580 | Like say that, say that in meetings, say that.
00:49:46.700 | Like that's success.
00:49:48.780 | - No kidding. - For us as MIT.
00:49:51.140 | And they, instead there's this jealousy.
00:49:54.140 | It's like, did you hear what Elon Musk tweeted?
00:49:56.980 | Did you, like how responsible is what he's doing?
00:50:00.460 | How, like just saying all these things
00:50:04.040 | that are just dripping with jealousy and basically-
00:50:09.040 | - I want what he's got.
00:50:10.300 | - That's the thing, right?
00:50:11.620 | Here's the weird thing.
00:50:14.780 | Rivalry has a different signature.
00:50:17.260 | You see, when you know that you're never gonna make it,
00:50:21.720 | that's the position you take.
00:50:25.100 | What is it in "Kung Fu Panda," which you've watched now?
00:50:29.940 | - Yes. - Yes.
00:50:31.080 | What does Tai Lung say when he's looking
00:50:35.380 | for the dragon warrior and the Furious Five
00:50:37.760 | come to defeat him on the bridge?
00:50:40.680 | One of them gives up Po's name accidentally
00:50:44.800 | and Tai Lung hears it.
00:50:46.200 | Po, so that is his name.
00:50:48.520 | Finally, a worthy opponent.
00:50:50.520 | Our battle will be legendary, right?
00:50:53.440 | He's excited.
00:50:54.800 | Why is that?
00:50:56.360 | Well, you learn about this in boxing.
00:50:58.080 | Sometimes you'll see a division or an MMA,
00:51:01.560 | which is lousy with talent.
00:51:04.000 | Just you can't swing a cat
00:51:05.360 | without hitting an amazing, amazing athlete.
00:51:09.160 | Sometimes you'll have a division,
00:51:10.320 | which at that particular moment has one star
00:51:12.800 | and no real competition in that weight class or something.
00:51:16.600 | That person is in bad shape
00:51:18.600 | because you can't build a legend without the other.
00:51:23.500 | When you think of Muhammad Ali,
00:51:26.500 | what are the names that you immediately think of?
00:51:29.000 | - You have to phrase your,
00:51:31.360 | you have to think of the other heavyweights.
00:51:33.240 | Liston. - Right.
00:51:35.880 | So those opponents are in part
00:51:40.880 | what made Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali.
00:51:43.880 | And that's why the Mayweather-McGregor revelation
00:51:48.880 | that, okay, this guy has got his opponent's picture
00:51:54.040 | in his house.
00:51:54.880 | How weird is that?
00:51:55.940 | Well, because without the opponent,
00:51:58.320 | you may not be able to get there.
00:51:59.660 | Now, I am not a huge fan of the wrong kinds of rivalries.
00:52:05.660 | - Do you have examples in mind?
00:52:08.300 | - Well, there are rivalries
00:52:09.580 | where people take each other's credit
00:52:11.500 | and screw each other over.
00:52:12.860 | And then there are other rivalries like the R&A Thai Club,
00:52:17.480 | where these guys were so in love with what they were doing
00:52:20.780 | that they couldn't wait to share everything.
00:52:22.460 | And Nobel Prizes were so abundant
00:52:25.860 | that most people got Nobel Prizes
00:52:28.000 | just for being a member of the R&A Thai Club
00:52:30.100 | and doing cool stuff.
00:52:31.060 | And yeah, that's the golden kind of sweet spot.
00:52:36.060 | Most of these people can't do what Elon's doing
00:52:41.980 | because they can't break rules,
00:52:43.220 | they can't take the pressure.
00:52:44.820 | I'll tell you what really concerns me
00:52:46.220 | about your perspective.
00:52:47.380 | I think that there are a lot of genius ideas
00:52:51.100 | inside of people who don't have the stomach
00:52:53.820 | for conflict and derision.
00:52:56.500 | And I think a lot of those people are female.
00:53:00.100 | And I think that until we come up with a world
00:53:02.900 | in which we can swat down the trolls,
00:53:05.620 | where we can actually cause the trolls
00:53:08.780 | not to ruin everything.
00:53:10.620 | And I don't necessarily mean by shutting them up,
00:53:12.780 | I don't necessarily mean by being brutal to them,
00:53:15.900 | but somehow separating off people who are working
00:53:18.820 | and people who are trolling.
00:53:20.220 | I think that we're losing a huge amount of human genius
00:53:24.220 | in part because women in particular
00:53:29.220 | are not necessarily going to push an idea
00:53:32.340 | if it results in 10 years of being derided.
00:53:35.500 | Very few men are willing to do that either.
00:53:39.980 | But there are some of us who are so dumb
00:53:42.420 | that we will pig-headedly stick to an idea for 10 years
00:53:45.700 | even if the world collapses.
00:53:47.540 | I don't think that there are as many women
00:53:49.820 | who are going to make that calculation
00:53:51.820 | even if they know the idea is correct.
00:53:53.780 | - And one of the things that I believe technology
00:53:56.220 | can help us fight the trolls,
00:53:57.860 | of all definitions of troll,
00:53:59.900 | I believe that a better Twitter can be built.
00:54:02.860 | - Interesting, I do not.
00:54:04.420 | I don't believe that a Twitter successor can be built
00:54:07.940 | that solves most of the problems.
00:54:10.140 | I think you can always improve what we have,
00:54:12.660 | but I don't think that converges in something
00:54:14.780 | that really works because I think ultimately
00:54:16.740 | the problem isn't Twitter, the problem is us.
00:54:19.060 | For example, I've recently made
00:54:21.460 | a very disturbing realization,
00:54:25.780 | which is academics and trolls
00:54:28.180 | have very many similar behaviors.
00:54:30.300 | - Absolutely.
00:54:31.740 | - It's largely a trolling community.
00:54:34.180 | - I tend to believe that the trolls are not,
00:54:38.540 | it's like the Peter Thiel mini-mind idea.
00:54:42.140 | Which in all of the trolls,
00:54:45.100 | there's the possibility of goodness.
00:54:47.820 | And all you have to do, not all you have to do,
00:54:50.260 | what you have to do is create technology
00:54:52.500 | that incentivizes them to embrace,
00:54:56.660 | to discover, to embrace, to practice
00:55:01.700 | the better angels of their nature.
00:55:04.220 | And I believe that, people actually want to do that.
00:55:09.220 | The trolls is a short-term dopamine rush
00:55:15.020 | of childish toxicity that all of us want to overcome.
00:55:20.140 | I believe that deep within, we want to overcome that.
00:55:23.420 | - I try to keep myself from believing what you believe.
00:55:27.540 | - Because you'll be disappointed if it's not true.
00:55:31.020 | - Because it's dangerous, because a lot of these people
00:55:33.220 | are implacable foes and there aren't many of them,
00:55:36.020 | but when you meet somebody who's like,
00:55:38.060 | yeah, I just like screwing people up.
00:55:39.980 | I'm here for the pain.
00:55:41.080 | - I just believe even in them, there's a good--
00:55:44.660 | - There's a wonderful book that I'm gonna recommend to you
00:55:47.620 | where I hope this comes from.
00:55:49.180 | Maybe I've got the source wrong,
00:55:50.660 | but in any event, it's a great book
00:55:52.460 | called Maximum City about Bombay.
00:55:55.560 | And I believe the conceit is that the author
00:56:00.500 | leaves Bombay as a kid and comes back as an adult
00:56:04.260 | and he realizes he has to rediscover the city
00:56:06.620 | because he can't live in the city he left.
00:56:09.420 | So he gets in contact with all of the weird areas
00:56:12.820 | of the city and one of them is the underworld.
00:56:15.460 | He hangs out with the police, but in the underworld,
00:56:17.700 | he's talking to contract killers.
00:56:19.940 | And he says, you know, it's really weird.
00:56:22.620 | Everybody pleads for their life right before I kill them.
00:56:26.480 | And they always say this thing about I've got two kids
00:56:30.960 | at home.
00:56:31.800 | He says, never say that to a contract killer
00:56:34.660 | because we have terrible relationships with our parents.
00:56:37.740 | Doesn't it derise you?
00:56:39.020 | (laughing)
00:56:40.260 | And I was just thinking, oh, wow.
00:56:41.620 | So there's a minus sign in front of that statement.
00:56:44.100 | You're sitting there saying, you know,
00:56:45.420 | I've got a three-year-old.
00:56:46.460 | It's like, okay, well, I'm gonna take this POS
00:56:50.020 | out of that kid's life.
00:56:51.500 | Maybe he'll have a chance.
00:56:53.220 | You don't know how people are wired.
00:56:55.020 | And as much as I hate to say it,
00:56:58.700 | there are people whose wiring is so disturbing
00:57:01.500 | and so different from yours that you will never guess
00:57:04.900 | why you can't reach them or how much pleasure
00:57:08.360 | they may have gotten because they may have gone
00:57:09.980 | over a point of no return.
00:57:11.960 | - Nevertheless, you are just a smart guy
00:57:15.900 | who is using his intuition to make a hypothesis.
00:57:19.100 | You do not know this for sure.
00:57:20.580 | - Nope.
00:57:21.700 | - And I am, you know, whatever the hell I am
00:57:26.180 | that has a different hypothesis that even
00:57:31.140 | in the darkest human beings that seem to be
00:57:34.820 | only full of evil, there's a good person there
00:57:38.140 | that could be discovered.
00:57:39.380 | - Lex, one of the reasons I love doing your show
00:57:42.780 | is that you have these beliefs even as a Russian.
00:57:46.380 | (Lex laughing)
00:57:48.220 | - The Russian special.
00:57:49.460 | - As you know, the Russian, there is a weirdness
00:57:52.640 | which is a total cynicism and total idealism
00:57:55.780 | locked together, right?
00:57:56.960 | That's very much a part of the Russian character.
00:57:59.360 | - The reason I kept bothering you,
00:58:02.460 | kept bothering you to have this conversation
00:58:04.180 | is I'm really worried about the next couple of months.
00:58:09.180 | - No kidding.
00:58:10.820 | - And if there's anybody in this world
00:58:13.980 | that could help alleviate my worry
00:58:18.460 | by at least walking along with me
00:58:22.220 | through this worry of mine, it's you.
00:58:26.160 | Do you think we're headed towards some kind of civil war,
00:58:29.360 | some kind of division that explodes
00:58:32.620 | beyond just stuff on Twitter,
00:58:35.100 | but something that's really destructive
00:58:39.260 | to the fabric of our society?
00:58:42.180 | - Well, I believe we're in a revolution, as you know.
00:58:45.580 | I've called it the no-name revolution
00:58:47.140 | or N-squared revolution.
00:58:48.540 | I've been talking about it for years.
00:58:50.380 | I don't think, I think waiting for this
00:58:54.940 | to be called a civil war is not smart.
00:58:57.420 | - Only history will call it such, fine.
00:59:00.980 | - I think that the problem is
00:59:02.180 | is that you're encountering things that you've never seen,
00:59:04.400 | trying to fit them into things that you already know.
00:59:07.020 | - Right.
00:59:08.660 | - But history repeats itself.
00:59:10.740 | - Yes, ish.
00:59:12.140 | - You don't see lessons from history--
00:59:15.740 | - I do. - We see today.
00:59:17.340 | - But I don't see it repeating itself.
00:59:19.180 | - What about violence?
00:59:20.500 | - The famous quote is that it rhymes.
00:59:22.140 | - It rhymes.
00:59:23.380 | I mean, the thing I guess I'm speaking to is violence.
00:59:27.140 | - We're in there.
00:59:29.780 | The abstraction of violence.
00:59:31.900 | Imagine you were coding up violence as an abstract class.
00:59:38.220 | - Thank you for speaking to the audience.
00:59:40.620 | - Trying to lose these people.
00:59:42.180 | Come with me.
00:59:43.020 | - Go on.
00:59:45.700 | - No, no, no.
00:59:47.340 | I've dealt with your audience,
00:59:48.660 | and your audience contains the smartest people around.
00:59:51.740 | I guarantee you if I say some stuff,
00:59:54.220 | first of all, any wrong thing that I'll say,
00:59:55.780 | they're gonna detail, so that'll be a little bit of catnip
00:59:58.300 | to bring in the smart people.
01:00:00.380 | But they'll also digest it for each other.
01:00:02.140 | It's one of the great lessons of long-form podcasting.
01:00:04.500 | If you don't waste all your time explaining things,
01:00:07.620 | that's the job of the audience to do amongst themselves,
01:00:11.260 | they're happy doing the work,
01:00:12.700 | and those who aren't, they leave.
01:00:14.460 | Isn't that great?
01:00:15.280 | They'll leave.
01:00:16.120 | The people who don't wanna struggle will leave.
01:00:18.540 | You can get rid of them.
01:00:20.220 | I think that the point is you would want to say
01:00:23.900 | violence is defined relative to a context.
01:00:28.100 | So let's call it meta-violence,
01:00:29.780 | so that we don't get into the problem
01:00:32.100 | when we already have a term for physical violence.
01:00:34.660 | So we have meta-violence and physical violence.
01:00:37.500 | I would say that physical violence
01:00:38.780 | is subclassed from meta-violence.
01:00:40.660 | Meta-violence is the disruption of a system.
01:00:43.380 | For example, if a cell dies,
01:00:49.220 | it can die through apoptosis or necrosis.
01:00:52.340 | Apoptosis is controlled, programmed cell death.
01:00:55.460 | Necrosis is just like, okay, this didn't work.
01:00:59.980 | That was a violent disruption of the system.
01:01:02.220 | - And this meta-class is presumed in the documentation,
01:01:05.740 | is it all negative?
01:01:07.660 | - No, what are you talking about?
01:01:09.700 | This is part of the problem in the madness of our age,
01:01:14.340 | which is if you open up a drawer in your cabinet,
01:01:19.340 | in your kitchen, and you see knives, spoons, and forks,
01:01:26.020 | do you have a sense that the spoons are good utensils
01:01:28.640 | and the knives or forks are bad utensils
01:01:30.600 | because they're mean?
01:01:32.140 | I mean, if you start thinking in these terms,
01:01:36.040 | that knife is there to do violence.
01:01:38.180 | That's violence you want done.
01:01:40.740 | When I cut a mango, I'm doing violence to the mango.
01:01:45.700 | The mango expects that I will do violence to it
01:01:48.780 | because otherwise I won't be able to get the meat
01:01:51.460 | and it won't get its seed spread somewhere else.
01:01:56.460 | So in part, violence is absolutely part of our story.
01:02:00.700 | - Okay, so there's this meta-violence class.
01:02:04.300 | - Yeah.
01:02:05.140 | - So the meta-violence class is already,
01:02:08.620 | it's a multiple inheritance pattern.
01:02:10.040 | Whatever's going on right now inherits from meta-violence.
01:02:13.480 | - No, but there's certain subclasses
01:02:16.040 | that allow evil to emerge.
01:02:21.040 | So what I'm specifically worried about is that--
01:02:25.200 | - What's on your mind, Lex?
01:02:26.440 | What's really going on?
01:02:27.380 | - Okay.
01:02:28.220 | I worry that amidst the chaos of the world,
01:02:34.560 | of these protests or the chaos that could be created
01:02:39.560 | by the feeling that the election does not represent
01:02:45.260 | the voice of the people,
01:02:48.140 | like saying that whoever gets, quote unquote,
01:02:50.980 | wins the election according to some kind of reporting
01:02:54.620 | of the numbers that come out,
01:02:56.540 | that's not going to represent what people actually,
01:03:01.220 | people actually want to be the leader.
01:03:02.860 | Like something in that narrative will create
01:03:05.180 | so much division that people will resort
01:03:09.060 | to literal violence, like protests that really,
01:03:12.400 | that the United States loses its united aspect.
01:03:17.700 | And because of that, because of that chaos and tension,
01:03:21.840 | evil people, evil forces, that my definition of evil is,
01:03:26.840 | you know, just cruel human beings use that moment
01:03:31.620 | to attain power, the kind of power that ultimately
01:03:36.220 | goes against the ideal of the United States.
01:03:39.220 | That could be Donald Trump,
01:03:40.780 | that could be another human being, it doesn't really matter.
01:03:43.820 | My worry is that love doesn't win out in this.
01:03:47.780 | The unity doesn't win out in this.
01:03:49.980 | And I feel like you and I have responsibility.
01:03:54.980 | - No kidding. - It's small.
01:03:57.980 | - Yeah, I know.
01:03:58.940 | - And so how do we let love win in this moment
01:04:03.820 | of potential chaos? - We're gonna have to fight for it.
01:04:07.500 | You're gonna have to become a fighter.
01:04:09.860 | You're gonna have to throw some serious punches
01:04:12.340 | if that's what you want.
01:04:13.820 | - You have to be Muhammad Ali here
01:04:15.300 | because the moment you start criticizing anything,
01:04:19.540 | people, you have to be a masterful communicator because--
01:04:23.380 | - That's why you're here.
01:04:26.180 | Look, Lex, in part, your decency is allowing you
01:04:31.180 | to do things that you couldn't otherwise do.
01:04:35.180 | I saw that you had Michael Malice on your podcast.
01:04:38.460 | - Yeah.
01:04:39.580 | - Now Michael Malice is, I think of somebody who at his best
01:04:44.500 | is extremely shrewd and insightful, yes?
01:04:47.380 | He's also got this trolling game,
01:04:51.340 | which he's quite open about and you talk to him about it,
01:04:53.620 | which I can't stand.
01:04:55.860 | And this is the idea, oh, grandpa doesn't get the internet.
01:04:58.220 | Well, I'm grandpa, I don't get the internet.
01:05:00.100 | I don't love the trolling.
01:05:01.980 | There are trolls of the past who were incredibly good.
01:05:06.980 | I don't see any of the modern trolls
01:05:10.020 | as being that kind of genius level,
01:05:12.060 | trolling the people who deserve it
01:05:14.620 | in the way that they deserve it.
01:05:16.580 | Right now what I see is that anything that stands up
01:05:19.180 | gets cut down.
01:05:20.860 | It's like anything earnest.
01:05:22.220 | You have to turn it into cynicism and a meme.
01:05:26.020 | It's this idea that the people who believe
01:05:28.500 | that the world is chaos and has no point
01:05:30.860 | are constantly trying to let you know,
01:05:33.380 | don't try to use the internet for meaning,
01:05:35.780 | for decency, for goodness,
01:05:37.740 | because we are going to find out
01:05:39.220 | that that's all sanctimonious hypocrisy
01:05:41.900 | and we will make you suffer.
01:05:44.540 | So I do think that there's a lot of sanctimonious hypocrisy
01:05:47.940 | in the world, some of it mine, some of it yours,
01:05:50.940 | but we all have it.
01:05:52.260 | And the trolls somewhat remove that,
01:05:55.420 | but it's not a judicious, kind, constructive,
01:05:57.820 | compassionate, caring version most of the time.
01:06:00.420 | And a lot of those trolls,
01:06:01.780 | and I have this feeling about Michael Malice,
01:06:03.700 | I don't know whether it's right,
01:06:05.660 | that there's somebody who deeply cares and loves beneath it
01:06:09.020 | and that that's motivating some of the trolling behavior.
01:06:11.900 | And you and I don't seem to be doing that.
01:06:13.740 | I don't see you as almost ever trolling.
01:06:16.620 | - Yeah, you and I, I'm very much against trolling.
01:06:19.820 | - I'm very much against trolling.
01:06:21.540 | It doesn't mean that it's selective.
01:06:23.980 | No, it's not even true.
01:06:25.660 | Everything we say, we say, "I'm for it, I'm against it."
01:06:30.140 | This isn't my native language.
01:06:33.060 | I speak nuance, I don't speak this internet shit.
01:06:35.500 | And the more I have to communicate
01:06:39.820 | through internet shit, right?
01:06:41.420 | I almost never take a tweet seriously
01:06:44.380 | if it contains the letters LMAO, LOL, RTFL, FOL.
01:06:51.160 | - There's an interesting effect where people say stuff
01:06:54.400 | and then finish with LOL.
01:06:56.360 | You put it beautifully that it indicates to me
01:06:59.720 | that this is a person,
01:07:00.840 | we've talked about why I wear this stupid suit.
01:07:03.320 | It's like, this is to fight the LOL at the end of sentences.
01:07:07.960 | Stand up for the words you're saying.
01:07:11.960 | Don't finish stuff with LOL,
01:07:14.700 | removing completely the responsibility
01:07:16.640 | of the content of the sentence that preceded it.
01:07:19.480 | - Yeah, also, choosing the outfit that worked both
01:07:22.600 | for Men in Black and the Blues Brothers,
01:07:24.520 | not a terrible choice.
01:07:26.720 | Okay, but getting back, look, Lex,
01:07:29.000 | we're not in a position to do this.
01:07:31.100 | You need to be seated in a different chair.
01:07:34.580 | Your chair is the wrong chair.
01:07:37.120 | You're in the wrong chair.
01:07:39.080 | It's been so long.
01:07:40.580 | I wanna talk about you and Joe Biden.
01:07:46.720 | Joe Biden was a 29-year-old guy
01:07:49.400 | with nothing particular going on so far as I can tell.
01:07:52.820 | I know people as impressive at age 29 as Joe Biden,
01:07:59.460 | 12 rows back, 3D, doesn't matter, huge number of people.
01:08:05.840 | None of them my age can get to where he got to.
01:08:09.360 | Like, we're all morons.
01:08:10.600 | Anytime somebody takes out,
01:08:14.840 | like if you found Eddie Van Halen in a guitar shop,
01:08:17.600 | you'd be angry.
01:08:19.960 | What is this guy doing repairing guitars?
01:08:23.940 | Then somebody would say, "Maybe he loves to repair guitars."
01:08:29.160 | - Yeah, I mean, what is your Russian piano tuner doing?
01:08:32.280 | - What is my Russian piano,
01:08:33.640 | that was the whole point of that story,
01:08:35.640 | which is what is it that happened in that life
01:08:40.560 | that converted somebody?
01:08:41.720 | And I find this, for example, with Russian doctors
01:08:44.840 | who are technicians in offices now.
01:08:47.620 | There's a huge amount of talent in the world
01:08:52.400 | that's not sitting in its proper seat.
01:08:54.840 | And quite honestly, I've gotten to the point
01:08:59.520 | where my feeling is we've got to take the seats.
01:09:01.920 | - Right.
01:09:05.800 | - Maybe we don't sit in them.
01:09:06.840 | Maybe the idea is that we take the seats
01:09:08.480 | and we put some smart Gen Z person in the seat
01:09:11.360 | and say, "Look, no chanting.
01:09:14.560 | "I don't wanna hear you say, 'No justice, no peace.'"
01:09:17.400 | If there aren't verbs, if it rhymes, it's wrong.
01:09:21.880 | Like I used to have this thing,
01:09:23.440 | if it rhymes, things that rhyme are more true.
01:09:26.320 | But in general, if something starts out one, two, three,
01:09:29.920 | four, I don't wanna hear what the rest of your sentence is.
01:09:32.120 | - Yeah.
01:09:32.960 | But I feel like the responsibility that you carry,
01:09:38.240 | that I carry, this is where Joe Rogan
01:09:42.400 | generally removes himself from being,
01:09:44.680 | I'm just a comedian.
01:09:45.960 | This idea of I'm just a comedian.
01:09:47.840 | - We all do that.
01:09:49.360 | - But at this moment in history,
01:09:52.520 | like history literally can pivot
01:09:55.240 | on the words of a tattooed,
01:09:57.720 | ripped 50-year-old comedian.
01:10:04.280 | And I think the same is true with you.
01:10:07.240 | - Okay, well, I'm interested and I care.
01:10:10.400 | Speaking of lyrics, there are many here among us
01:10:14.500 | who feel that life has been a joke.
01:10:17.040 | That's not us.
01:10:18.440 | The hour is getting late.
01:10:19.400 | That's not us.
01:10:20.800 | In the song, the joker and the thief
01:10:23.320 | are on opposite sides of Jesus
01:10:24.800 | having this conversation over Jesus.
01:10:26.640 | You and I, we've been through that.
01:10:28.960 | That's not our fate.
01:10:30.000 | That's somebody else's fate
01:10:31.120 | to throw spitballs at the internet.
01:10:33.480 | That's not your fate.
01:10:34.640 | You're an earnest guy.
01:10:35.860 | You're filled with love.
01:10:36.840 | You're getting the most amazing podcast guests.
01:10:39.320 | Broadcasting-- - But you can win over
01:10:40.160 | the internet.
01:10:41.000 | This is the point I'm trying to make.
01:10:42.240 | That you're saying I'm just a grandpa.
01:10:44.840 | I don't get internet.
01:10:45.680 | - No, no, I'm telling you you're gonna get bigger
01:10:47.280 | and then you're gonna get cut down.
01:10:49.280 | You're gonna keep ascending for a while, Lex.
01:10:52.080 | - And then you're saying naturally there's--
01:10:53.760 | - I'm telling you, I watch the same process.
01:10:55.760 | People get up to a certain level
01:10:57.940 | and one of the things that's going on,
01:10:59.240 | in my opinion, with Joe Rogan
01:11:01.440 | is that when Joe Rogan starts to talk
01:11:03.960 | about his misgivings about Joe Biden
01:11:06.800 | in a way that you find at any bar in America
01:11:09.800 | about cognitive decline in a 77-year-old
01:11:13.520 | who's about to be 78, I believe in November,
01:11:16.460 | we have never had anything remotely as insane
01:11:20.320 | as a 78-year-old person slated to win the White House.
01:11:25.320 | - And you're saying when that idea
01:11:28.320 | is being communicated,
01:11:29.920 | there's something about the disc concept
01:11:32.040 | that you talk about the system naturally starts to--
01:11:33.760 | - Some bad thing happens to Joe
01:11:35.400 | or one of Joe's close associates.
01:11:37.400 | The ability to destroy people who become inconvenient
01:11:42.840 | has been documented.
01:11:44.200 | This is what we have done in the past.
01:11:47.200 | Whether we are doing it now, we don't know
01:11:49.120 | because we are not doing this Church Committee II.
01:11:52.960 | In order to know whether or not
01:11:54.520 | you are currently destroying American citizens
01:11:57.040 | as we did in the past and as we have documented
01:11:59.360 | and as we found out in 1976,
01:12:03.280 | the federal government destroyed Americans
01:12:05.560 | who had political beliefs
01:12:07.440 | that the government didn't want to continue.
01:12:11.400 | And I don't know whether you are grasping that.
01:12:14.900 | One interpretation of why Jon Stewart
01:12:17.960 | and why Joe Rogan and why Bill Maher,
01:12:21.440 | all these people to some extent hide behind,
01:12:23.880 | it's a joke.
01:12:24.800 | It's because they're trying to find a protected class.
01:12:29.200 | Is there someplace I can stand and speak the truth
01:12:32.680 | which does not result in my being garbage collected?
01:12:35.620 | - Interesting.
01:12:37.360 | I guess you're right.
01:12:38.380 | My intuition is you can stand.
01:12:40.460 | As you gain more power, you can stand behind your--
01:12:46.920 | - There's a fight over Joe Rogan right now.
01:12:49.600 | I mean, I've talked about it for a few years now.
01:12:52.740 | People did not understand how big that program was.
01:12:55.560 | People didn't understand long-form podcasting.
01:12:57.520 | I was derided by people who I think of as being very shrewd
01:13:02.720 | for believing in these podcasts as a major force.
01:13:07.360 | And most of the people who derided me have said,
01:13:09.200 | wow, did I not get things?
01:13:11.440 | It's like if you started to propose,
01:13:13.320 | you wanted to do The Sopranos
01:13:17.440 | in the era of 30-minute sitcoms.
01:13:20.520 | You don't get it, man.
01:13:22.840 | The American people,
01:13:23.680 | they're not interested in these long plot storylines.
01:13:25.920 | That's your weird thing?
01:13:27.180 | Nobody cares, dude.
01:13:28.880 | Everybody just wants short, fast, memorable.
01:13:31.880 | And like, okay, so if you do that,
01:13:33.960 | you totally miss the opportunity.
01:13:35.440 | And the savvy people used to say,
01:13:38.160 | kid, let me tell you, nobody ever lost a dime
01:13:40.160 | underestimating the intelligence of the American people.
01:13:43.000 | Well, that was totally wrong
01:13:44.200 | 'cause they didn't calculate opportunity costs.
01:13:46.880 | I have been talking about the problem of Joe
01:13:49.480 | for a long time.
01:13:50.600 | The problem is is that when the system wakes up,
01:13:54.000 | they're gonna wanna control it.
01:13:55.560 | - And they have different,
01:13:57.400 | they come up with new different mechanisms of doing that.
01:13:59.920 | I guess one interesting one is cancel culture.
01:14:03.220 | - Well, look at the number of people around Joe
01:14:05.640 | who they've come after
01:14:06.560 | since they realized that Joe was really big.
01:14:09.480 | Joey Diaz, Brian Callan, Chris D'Elia.
01:14:14.480 | Now, I'm not saying that those are all related,
01:14:22.960 | but I do notice that there are at least correlations
01:14:27.960 | between when Joe says something
01:14:30.000 | when something bad happens in Joe's universe.
01:14:33.320 | It's easier for me to believe that that's happening
01:14:36.320 | when it's happening around Joe himself.
01:14:39.520 | - Yeah.
01:14:40.360 | - But I'm worried about my friend.
01:14:42.540 | - Yeah.
01:14:44.560 | - And I don't necessarily wanna push him
01:14:46.680 | towards being more if he doesn't want it
01:14:48.840 | because I don't think, I don't wanna conscript people.
01:14:51.800 | He's got a great life, he's got a great situation,
01:14:53.920 | he's done a huge service.
01:14:56.240 | Thank God, do you know,
01:14:57.440 | how much do I owe Joe just for what he's done for you
01:15:01.800 | to say nothing of what he's done for me
01:15:03.440 | or for Brett or for Sam or any of these people?
01:15:06.720 | And I'd like to think that we all try to give back,
01:15:10.680 | but I'm worried about Joe.
01:15:12.920 | He's not worried.
01:15:15.120 | - One of the inspiring things about Joe is,
01:15:18.640 | I mean, he's in this war alone
01:15:21.560 | and the way he fights the war is by just enjoying life.
01:15:25.800 | - Well, that's his thing.
01:15:26.640 | As long as he stays close to things that he loves
01:15:29.120 | and being, you know, one of the things,
01:15:30.680 | he's honest about his drug use.
01:15:32.760 | He loves to hunt.
01:15:34.760 | So he's just, he does a certain amount
01:15:36.440 | of like semi-vice signaling up front.
01:15:39.480 | And then you just also know him.
01:15:41.520 | This is why every time they try to take him down,
01:15:43.640 | you use the N word, you know?
01:15:45.840 | It's like, unfortunately, everybody knows who Joe is
01:15:50.840 | and yes, he doesn't act as if he went
01:15:55.160 | to a fancy finishing school, right?
01:15:58.400 | That's not his energy.
01:16:00.120 | The fact that you've got some super smart guy
01:16:02.240 | who always pretends to be a meathead,
01:16:04.200 | just like, you know, hey, I'm a comedian,
01:16:06.640 | like all these defenses and disguises.
01:16:08.640 | Okay, you've got this super smart guy
01:16:11.000 | who he's admitted to most of the things
01:16:14.400 | that you can take him down for
01:16:17.000 | and because everybody's been effectively
01:16:18.960 | in his den or his basement.
01:16:20.680 | Think about that studio as his basement.
01:16:23.040 | People have hung out with Joe so many hours
01:16:24.960 | that you can't tell them something about Joe
01:16:26.840 | where they're gonna say, wow, I'm gonna believe
01:16:28.040 | the New York Times and not the hundreds of hours
01:16:30.680 | I've spent on the Joe Rogan experience.
01:16:32.080 | - But the cool thing is that, this is what inspires me,
01:16:35.240 | is that the way he's waging war against the system,
01:16:37.960 | it's just by being a good person
01:16:40.640 | and talking enough hours in a week
01:16:44.640 | where that message like bleeds throughout the words
01:16:48.720 | and the gaps between.
01:16:49.960 | And that's so inspiring to me
01:16:51.880 | that the good people can win by just being good.
01:16:55.000 | - And he's kind and he's tough and he also,
01:16:59.160 | he's no pushover.
01:17:00.360 | - No.
01:17:02.080 | - I always worry a little bit when I sit down in my chair.
01:17:05.400 | - You still get scared that he'll call you
01:17:07.520 | on some kind of bullshit that you weren't even aware of?
01:17:09.680 | - No, the first time I was on the show,
01:17:12.160 | the energy wasn't great between us
01:17:14.440 | and it was in a sober October situation.
01:17:16.520 | So I think I hadn't understood that
01:17:18.120 | and maybe our egos got a little bit off.
01:17:20.200 | I don't know, I mean, I was having fun
01:17:25.480 | but maybe it was just too complicated life forms
01:17:28.680 | getting to know each other.
01:17:29.600 | The first one was probably,
01:17:32.720 | yeah, it made me a little nervous for the future.
01:17:37.640 | But then Joe and I become friends,
01:17:40.520 | although sometimes we have miscommunications.
01:17:42.480 | Like on Yom Kippur, I texted him and I said,
01:17:46.000 | "Joe, I wanna apologize for ways I've let you down
01:17:50.120 | as a friend and haven't been there for you
01:17:51.920 | and appreciate everything you've done for me."
01:17:54.760 | Like I get this text back,
01:17:56.400 | what the fuck is your problem?
01:17:57.960 | (laughing)
01:17:59.000 | You're great, dude.
01:18:00.000 | I don't know what bad place you're in, but cheer up.
01:18:02.360 | It's like, Joe, don't you have any Jews in your life?
01:18:05.560 | Apologize for what they've done.
01:18:07.640 | He was just like, dude, have you lost your mind?
01:18:09.640 | What the hell's gotten into you?
01:18:12.840 | - Yeah, what do you think about the Spotify thing?
01:18:17.720 | - What about it?
01:18:18.560 | Ask me a question.
01:18:19.400 | - He's now, as opposed to being just a comedian
01:18:23.160 | with a podcast, he now is just a comedian with a podcast
01:18:26.880 | who stepped in the middle of the center of cancel culture,
01:18:31.400 | which is like, I know Spotify is in Sweden,
01:18:33.880 | but they represent Silicon Valley.
01:18:37.120 | They represent the very kind of structures
01:18:40.900 | they contain and represent the kind of structures
01:18:43.680 | that threaten to destroy the Elons of the world.
01:18:47.180 | And he just like stepped, like with his Alex Jones
01:18:52.560 | and his Joey Diaz, just strolled right into the middle of it.
01:18:57.560 | - I think it's awesome.
01:18:58.920 | I love it.
01:18:59.920 | - But do you think he's strong enough to, I don't know.
01:19:04.440 | I mean, I don't even know the right way to ask this,
01:19:06.400 | but is he strong enough to persevere?
01:19:08.960 | - It's a bit interesting.
01:19:10.040 | It's like when a lion decides, wow,
01:19:13.080 | that honey badger looks tasty.
01:19:14.520 | I'm gonna swallow it whole, see what happens.
01:19:17.280 | - 'Cause I talked to him offline.
01:19:18.880 | He really seems to be willing to give away the 100 million,
01:19:22.320 | which gives him so much power.
01:19:24.080 | - Oh, I don't.
01:19:27.040 | - It's a powerful thing to be able to say,
01:19:29.400 | I don't, yeah, to the honey badger.
01:19:32.440 | He just strolls in, but he's willing to walk away
01:19:35.480 | from anything in this world.
01:19:36.320 | - Well, he's gonna walk out the other side of the lion.
01:19:38.640 | I don't think he's gonna go out the way he came in.
01:19:40.800 | - Yeah.
01:19:41.640 | - Well, you know what it is?
01:19:42.600 | It's Tommy Lee Jones entering the bug.
01:19:44.780 | - This is like a giant alien, he just walks into it?
01:19:48.600 | - He gets swallowed by the bug
01:19:49.800 | and he blasts out from the inside.
01:19:52.060 | I have it as Tommy Lee Jones.
01:19:53.720 | - Yeah, but anyway, Joe Rogan to you.
01:19:55.720 | - Yeah, is that my feeling is that Spotify
01:19:58.080 | doesn't understand what they're messing with.
01:19:59.640 | I could be wrong, but I'm not.
01:20:02.000 | - No, you're right.
01:20:02.840 | - I'm right.
01:20:03.680 | (laughing)
01:20:05.080 | Because Joe doesn't need anything, man.
01:20:07.100 | I mean, this is the weird thing about it.
01:20:08.800 | It's like, I'm sure that he loves all his toys, whatever,
01:20:10.880 | blah, blah, blah, he's a rich guy.
01:20:12.740 | Yes, he's got FU money.
01:20:14.200 | He had FU money a long time ago.
01:20:16.720 | And you're not, you know, the other thing about,
01:20:21.260 | it's a bit weird being friends with a dude like that.
01:20:23.720 | It just is, 'cause like, you call him up,
01:20:26.240 | or he'll call you up and he's like,
01:20:28.040 | what's going on in your life?
01:20:28.880 | And you're like, I don't know, kind of depressed,
01:20:31.080 | trying to get some math done, what are you up?
01:20:33.520 | Oh, dude, I can cheer you up, I just came off
01:20:35.480 | of a 29,000 person stadium.
01:20:38.620 | It's like, oh, cool, how'd you do that?
01:20:40.880 | Oh, I don't know, I just announced it on Instagram
01:20:42.560 | a few days ago and it filled up.
01:20:44.600 | Just like, oh, damn.
01:20:46.940 | - Yeah.
01:20:48.600 | - I mean, that thing is powerful.
01:20:49.420 | - So much love in that guy.
01:20:50.260 | - That thing is so powerful.
01:20:51.100 | - Yeah, so there you go.
01:20:52.040 | I mean, you could be that too.
01:20:54.400 | - The instant Joe takes an interest in politics
01:20:57.460 | and saving the world.
01:20:58.300 | - You might destroy all of that.
01:20:59.800 | - It's going bye-bye, I promise you.
01:21:02.200 | - I just disagree with you.
01:21:04.040 | I mean, 'cause you have to do it,
01:21:05.960 | like you've said this many times before.
01:21:07.800 | - I'll bet you, I'll bet you a bottle of Stoli
01:21:11.760 | that you can get, if you get Joe Rogan
01:21:14.860 | to get highly politically active and call out the system
01:21:17.640 | for all the bullshit that it is in a very pointed
01:21:19.960 | and determined fashion, and he doesn't get destroyed,
01:21:24.760 | I'll give you the vodka.
01:21:26.360 | - The vodka?
01:21:27.200 | - Yeah.
01:21:28.020 | - That sounds like a pretty damn good deal.
01:21:29.440 | So, but you've said this, I mean--
01:21:32.360 | - No living heroes, my friend.
01:21:33.960 | No living heroes.
01:21:36.520 | No living heroes.
01:21:39.360 | - It's just difficult, you just have to be good at it.
01:21:42.400 | I mean, if you just say generic political things--
01:21:45.040 | - No, no.
01:21:45.880 | - You're going to be taken down, but if you're--
01:21:48.280 | - The more heroic you are, the more beautiful you are,
01:21:52.620 | the more you will be made to suffer.
01:21:54.880 | If they cannot get you on reputation,
01:21:56.640 | if Jesus himself came down, I don't know if I ever read,
01:22:00.580 | I probably have never read to you the hit piece
01:22:02.700 | I did on Jesus.
01:22:04.640 | You don't know about this?
01:22:05.480 | - No, I do not know about this.
01:22:06.320 | - I did hit pieces on all of the best people in the world.
01:22:09.900 | - Wow.
01:22:11.060 | - So whoever it was who cured cancer,
01:22:14.160 | discovered new particles, whatever it is,
01:22:16.900 | I did a hit piece against them to prove
01:22:18.640 | that I can do it to anybody around anything at any time.
01:22:22.720 | - Except Eddie Van Halen is who we're talking about.
01:22:24.880 | - Well, Eddie Van Halen is now dead,
01:22:26.620 | but if this was a situation, you know,
01:22:30.120 | hot for teacher, canceled.
01:22:33.120 | - Disrespectful.
01:22:35.080 | - Absolutely.
01:22:36.300 | Also, you know, packaging female objectification
01:22:43.480 | for young men, clearly Eddie Van Halen
01:22:46.040 | is one of the worst people alive.
01:22:47.680 | - But the skill, the incredible inspiration
01:22:52.680 | that is just radiating from his music
01:22:55.760 | inspires so many millions that they will fight
01:22:58.100 | those canceled pieces, they will fight those.
01:23:00.080 | - This is your thing.
01:23:01.280 | You have this idea that there's a war between good and evil
01:23:03.640 | and the good has already been designated the winner.
01:23:07.000 | And it's not true.
01:23:08.400 | But your belief that it's true.
01:23:11.560 | - Take it till you make it, no?
01:23:13.100 | I mean, you gotta--
01:23:14.800 | - It's motivating both of us.
01:23:16.600 | Like I also believe that we're gonna win
01:23:18.520 | because if I don't, then I can't get out of bed
01:23:20.240 | and it's pretty heavy at the moment.
01:23:22.140 | - Do you think 2021 can make us feel good
01:23:27.140 | about the trajectory of society?
01:23:31.140 | So like where we emerge from this year feeling good.
01:23:36.060 | Like there's a smile on Eric Kwanza's face
01:23:38.540 | and the next time we talk,
01:23:40.380 | we'll be doing some kind of duet on guitar
01:23:42.820 | and not having this worried look on our faces.
01:23:45.980 | - No.
01:23:48.460 | - Okay, but you've also promised
01:23:51.500 | you're going to somehow end this in a positive.
01:23:53.860 | A positive, so okay.
01:23:55.700 | So how do you turn the no around?
01:23:57.660 | What's the U-turn from the no?
01:23:59.380 | - Until we get some actually decent people
01:24:03.100 | in the right chairs who are not constantly thinking
01:24:06.260 | about their next paycheck, I don't see a solution.
01:24:09.400 | Let me just say what the prerequisites for a solution are
01:24:13.300 | and to let you know why I don't think it's coming.
01:24:15.800 | First of all, both of these political parties,
01:24:21.420 | the leadership of them is disgusting and has to go.
01:24:24.620 | They're tearing us apart.
01:24:26.660 | They lack the will to be Americans.
01:24:28.940 | They don't understand the subtlety of the project.
01:24:32.220 | They're simply the people who figured out
01:24:34.100 | how to inhabit the seats
01:24:35.620 | and that is their great achievement.
01:24:37.660 | I believe that in order to solve this,
01:24:43.820 | you need people who can integrate,
01:24:45.340 | who are not partisan at the level
01:24:47.540 | of the partisan warriors that we're seeing.
01:24:50.100 | People who believe in dividing the pies of the future
01:24:52.600 | rather than the present pie as our main task as Americans
01:24:56.380 | because we are built around growth.
01:24:58.040 | I'm sorry to say it.
01:24:59.100 | You need an ability to have subtle conversations
01:25:06.180 | and you need the ability to exclude.
01:25:08.020 | And at the moment, everyone knows inclusion is good,
01:25:13.320 | which it isn't.
01:25:14.540 | It's like saying, well, water is good.
01:25:16.220 | If I say water is good, everybody will agree with me.
01:25:18.820 | It's not.
01:25:20.020 | People drown.
01:25:20.860 | People need to get dehydrated.
01:25:24.620 | It can be life-saving or life-ending.
01:25:26.780 | It isn't good or bad.
01:25:28.460 | Inclusion is not good or bad.
01:25:30.340 | Inclusion is just inclusion.
01:25:31.740 | Exclusion is part of inclusion.
01:25:33.660 | We've taught people that they can reason through the world
01:25:37.780 | as sub-cocker Spaniels.
01:25:43.960 | They just bark things at each other.
01:25:45.900 | I'm for safety.
01:25:48.540 | I'm for inclusion.
01:25:49.780 | I'm for growth.
01:25:51.140 | Oh, really?
01:25:52.540 | Do you guys use verbs?
01:25:54.180 | Dependent clauses?
01:25:55.660 | Are there compound complex sentences?
01:25:57.340 | Where are we in this sea of nonsense?
01:26:01.040 | You have to be able to build a place
01:26:03.980 | where you have smart, talented people
01:26:06.460 | who represent a diverse group of correct opinions.
01:26:10.740 | You need to get rid of almost all of the people
01:26:13.260 | who have opinions that are antithetical
01:26:15.260 | to what we're trying to accomplish.
01:26:17.700 | You need to give them insulation,
01:26:19.660 | which we're terrified because we don't trust anybody,
01:26:21.860 | so everything has to be transparent.
01:26:23.340 | If you're going to the bathroom,
01:26:24.340 | I want those walls to be plexiglass
01:26:25.860 | so I can see what you're doing.
01:26:27.060 | It's like, that's too much transparency.
01:26:29.340 | We have too much and not enough at the same time.
01:26:32.500 | And then, in essence, you need to ensure
01:26:36.700 | that people aren't worried about feeding their family
01:26:39.260 | every four seconds for being real.
01:26:41.180 | None of that is happening.
01:26:43.580 | And our billionaires, our billionaires are pathetic.
01:26:47.300 | What is the point of billionaires
01:26:49.000 | if you're not going to do billionaire-type cool stuff
01:26:52.020 | like saying, F you, and I'm going to throw
01:26:56.340 | three billion dollars at the project
01:26:58.660 | of restoring the national conversation?
01:27:02.780 | I don't grasp this.
01:27:06.780 | What is the point of creating obscene wealth
01:27:09.100 | if we don't have anyone smart enough
01:27:10.540 | and caring enough to use it?
01:27:12.900 | - So I agree with that last part for sure.
01:27:16.140 | Let me slightly push back on the idea
01:27:20.480 | that the leaders themselves are broken.
01:27:22.840 | I feel like, this goes to the Joe Rogan,
01:27:27.100 | Joe Biden and Trump having a debate on that program.
01:27:31.920 | I feel like Joe Biden has a lot of really interesting ideas
01:27:36.920 | that he's almost forgot how to communicate.
01:27:40.640 | He's been fake for so long within the system.
01:27:44.100 | - Hillary was fake for too long.
01:27:45.480 | I'm sure she had real ideas at the beginning
01:27:47.440 | that she still was campaigning on decades later.
01:27:50.560 | - But if the system, if the platforms
01:27:54.120 | empowered you to search, to be honest, to be real,
01:27:56.720 | to search for those ideas within yourself
01:27:59.520 | like long-form conversations do,
01:28:02.560 | then even the Donald Trump and Joe Biden leaders
01:28:05.840 | we have now would take this country to a better place
01:28:10.600 | that would unite people.
01:28:12.800 | So we can keep the current Congress,
01:28:15.440 | we just need to create better platforms.
01:28:17.680 | This is going to the intuition
01:28:19.040 | that there's good in Donald Trump.
01:28:21.360 | There's depth and complexity and intelligence.
01:28:24.400 | And the same with Joe Biden.
01:28:26.200 | - There's good in Joe Biden.
01:28:28.040 | - And it's just, we're not incentivizing.
01:28:30.260 | I mean, there's several things I think are broken.
01:28:34.960 | One of them is Twitter, the other is journalism.
01:28:38.040 | It's just the platforms of us communicating with each other.
01:28:41.440 | - One of the reasons that I try to come up
01:28:43.200 | with unifying explanations is that,
01:28:45.760 | if you look at the number of wildfires in California,
01:28:49.600 | let's say, that we've just seen,
01:28:51.880 | if you treat them all as spontaneous, uncorrelated instances,
01:28:56.400 | it feels like, oh my God, it's just whack-a-mole.
01:28:58.600 | Every time I send a fire truck here,
01:29:00.580 | there's a fire over there.
01:29:02.080 | So you want to come up with something like a central theory,
01:29:06.040 | which is why do I suddenly have a problem
01:29:07.840 | when I hadn't had a problem before?
01:29:09.960 | So I look for these unifying explanations.
01:29:12.560 | And I found one the other day that really speaks to me.
01:29:15.480 | I mean, people are very frustrated
01:29:18.200 | because they've been trained to think about this
01:29:20.160 | incorrectly, in my opinion.
01:29:21.960 | But here's the graph that you need to look at.
01:29:25.160 | On the X-axis is time by year.
01:29:29.560 | And on the Y-axis is something like average age of a human.
01:29:35.640 | The title of the graph is
01:29:38.480 | Any Desirable Situation Involving Institutions.
01:29:42.380 | So that could be CEO.
01:29:46.140 | It could be tenured professor.
01:29:48.600 | It could be who's getting grants.
01:29:53.500 | It could be the age at which people win Nobel Prizes.
01:29:57.380 | University presidents, all these things go up.
01:30:04.260 | In other words, for a long period of time,
01:30:08.440 | the average age of the person in a desirable situation
01:30:12.420 | has been increasing something like nine months for every 12.
01:30:16.380 | Those graphs have to go down at some point.
01:30:22.060 | The specter of-- - It's brilliantly put.
01:30:24.300 | - Of having five people all born in the 1940s
01:30:28.180 | as the final entrance in the presidential context.
01:30:33.180 | That makes no sense.
01:30:36.300 | Think about how bizarre a thing
01:30:38.540 | that nobody's even really talking about.
01:30:40.440 | The last five people were all ancient
01:30:44.600 | by presidential standards.
01:30:47.060 | Not one, not two, but five.
01:30:49.620 | We are talking about a contest between somebody
01:30:54.040 | who is the oldest of the baby boomers,
01:30:56.540 | the very beginning of the baby boom, summer of '46 birthday,
01:31:01.200 | fighting somebody who is in the silent generation.
01:31:05.060 | The silent generation guy at a town hall in Florida
01:31:08.800 | gets this question from a Gen Z guy saying,
01:31:11.480 | what's going on with my future?
01:31:14.080 | Joe Biden has the audacity to say,
01:31:18.200 | I'm a transitional president.
01:31:20.000 | You guys are the highly educated one.
01:31:21.960 | When has any generation in history
01:31:25.180 | needed a transitional 78-year-old person to take office?
01:31:29.400 | It's bizarre, it's preposterous.
01:31:31.340 | That graph is the graph we can't talk about.
01:31:35.180 | That graph is the graph of our destruction.
01:31:38.340 | Because it has the, you can make a one-line argument,
01:31:44.580 | which is, sounds like ageism,
01:31:46.820 | which isn't a very good argument.
01:31:50.380 | No, but what it does is it muddles the conversation.
01:31:54.600 | And you always have to ask yourself the question,
01:31:56.680 | if this conversation becomes muddled,
01:31:58.700 | who wins as a result of the muddling?
01:32:01.480 | - Well, it's a battle, but let's just win it.
01:32:04.160 | Let's win the battle.
01:32:05.440 | You give-- - Are you running?
01:32:07.440 | - For sure, I'll run.
01:32:09.360 | I was born in Russia, can't run.
01:32:11.160 | So, but we Russians can hack elections,
01:32:13.880 | so we'll figure it out.
01:32:15.640 | This is me officially announcing my run for president.
01:32:17.640 | - I was born in St. Petersburg, Florida.
01:32:20.520 | (laughing)
01:32:23.120 | - Yeah.
01:32:23.960 | - Lex, what is it that you really wanna ask?
01:32:25.840 | - I think, I wanna put some responsibility on the portal.
01:32:30.040 | - On the portal. - The portal.
01:32:32.740 | That the portal gives power to the people in that graph.
01:32:37.740 | 'Cause you put it quite brilliantly
01:32:41.140 | that the people that move the world,
01:32:44.700 | their age has been going up.
01:32:46.220 | And not move the world, but put in the position
01:32:49.780 | where they get the chance to affect the world.
01:32:52.160 | These new platforms, I think Twitter falls in them,
01:32:57.780 | give power to the younger people.
01:33:00.260 | It doesn't have to be about age necessarily,
01:33:01.980 | but the younger thinking people.
01:33:04.140 | So, that's a promising thing.
01:33:06.740 | And you are like, you're like Gandalf.
01:33:09.220 | You get to pick your Frodo's, or whatever.
01:33:11.920 | I'm not very good with the analogy,
01:33:14.180 | but the whole point is for you as Gandalf--
01:33:16.220 | - I don't know that I make that much sense.
01:33:18.120 | Gandalf makes sense.
01:33:20.060 | I don't know if people know how to fit me
01:33:22.360 | into this ecosystem.
01:33:24.080 | I think there's something in my presentation
01:33:26.460 | that people find very confusing.
01:33:27.700 | - No, figure it out.
01:33:28.540 | I disagree with you, but you need to look at the mirror
01:33:30.900 | and think like, what is it?
01:33:32.940 | Maybe you need a mustache, I don't know.
01:33:36.940 | (laughing)
01:33:38.480 | But there's something about figuring out
01:33:41.920 | how to be a charismatic communicator in this.
01:33:43.780 | And that's the responsibility.
01:33:45.260 | You said like finishing sentences with the LOL
01:33:48.660 | is painful for your soul.
01:33:50.100 | - Yeah, that's just how somebody lets me know
01:33:52.180 | I don't have to take their opinion seriously.
01:33:54.580 | - Yeah, it's still the language,
01:33:56.820 | the way that people are communicating.
01:33:58.380 | And you're swimming that wave.
01:33:59.500 | You have a big platform.
01:34:01.540 | I have a growing platform.
01:34:02.700 | It feels like this is the place to give power.
01:34:05.300 | - I agree, but we're gonna get swatted down.
01:34:07.480 | - I just don't think so.
01:34:08.560 | - You're wrong.
01:34:09.400 | - Why are you afraid of the big, like this is--
01:34:11.260 | - 'Cause I've studied it.
01:34:13.140 | Because I've studied, let me ask you a question, Lex.
01:34:17.200 | I believe that every society is supposed to have
01:34:21.860 | a collection of what I call break glass
01:34:25.540 | in case of emergency people.
01:34:27.160 | - Yeah.
01:34:29.580 | - These are people who are universally loved
01:34:31.580 | and trusted by your society.
01:34:33.100 | For example, David Attenborough,
01:34:35.540 | the great British naturalist and presenter,
01:34:39.300 | recently came on Instagram.
01:34:40.700 | He's worried about the planet.
01:34:42.160 | And I said, look, there are very few of these people left.
01:34:46.580 | Let's pay attention, find out what he has to say.
01:34:48.420 | Maybe he's gonna be an ass.
01:34:49.700 | Maybe he's gonna be an idiot.
01:34:50.540 | Maybe he's gonna say wrong things.
01:34:51.540 | Don't know.
01:34:52.660 | Tell me about your top 10 universal American heroes.
01:34:56.420 | - This is not a rhetorical question.
01:34:58.900 | - No.
01:35:00.460 | Give me five.
01:35:02.020 | Everybody looks to that person and says,
01:35:03.900 | yep, the best of us.
01:35:05.640 | - Well, not divisive.
01:35:07.820 | Well, everybody's an interesting concept.
01:35:11.500 | I mean, Elon Musk is very divisive, right?
01:35:15.100 | - I'm talking about overwhelmingly people
01:35:16.940 | would follow that person if that person gave
01:35:20.580 | a rousing, intelligent speech that said,
01:35:24.380 | we must act now because we're in dire straits.
01:35:27.380 | - I think a lot of people fall in that category.
01:35:30.020 | For me, it would be in the tech world,
01:35:33.940 | in the engineering world.
01:35:34.780 | - No, no, no, no.
01:35:35.620 | Tell me names.
01:35:36.440 | - Elon Musk.
01:35:37.280 | - Elon Musk.
01:35:38.120 | - The Rock.
01:35:42.040 | I'm thinking like, who is the most eloquent actor?
01:35:45.860 | So like, you think celebrities.
01:35:47.300 | So people with platforms.
01:35:48.140 | - I didn't say celebrities.
01:35:48.980 | - No, but-- - You have to be well known.
01:35:50.140 | - I believe like, yeah, so this goes to Joe Rogan.
01:35:55.140 | - First two did not really impress me
01:36:02.140 | as being what I said, but okay.
01:36:03.880 | Elon several years ago would have.
01:36:08.260 | - Can you try to--
01:36:10.340 | - Joe Rogan--
01:36:11.180 | - Why do they fail?
01:36:12.340 | Why is Elon--
01:36:13.420 | - Lots of people treat Joe Rogan as if he's
01:36:16.060 | some sort of right-wing racist because
01:36:18.060 | they've never watched his program.
01:36:19.680 | They don't know who his friends are.
01:36:20.700 | I don't know.
01:36:22.060 | - Oh, but when I thought you said everybody,
01:36:24.860 | I thought you meant a large enough people
01:36:29.220 | where a huge change can happen,
01:36:31.160 | not actually literally everybody.
01:36:33.620 | Because I think--
01:36:34.460 | - I mean people who've pulled off,
01:36:35.700 | like people who've pulled off something
01:36:38.580 | where everybody's convinced that that person just deeply,
01:36:41.760 | I mean, I think I've told you this story before,
01:36:47.060 | but the one time I've seen the power of a figure like this,
01:36:52.060 | I mean, very few times I've been in a large crowd
01:36:56.360 | and I've seen people just moved where they would do
01:36:59.320 | almost anything good, bad, and different
01:37:01.120 | because they were primed.
01:37:03.000 | One was a Rolling Stones concert.
01:37:07.440 | The other one was Nelson Mandela coming to Boston.
01:37:10.880 | And man, you've never seen anything like this.
01:37:14.760 | You check out the photos from the banks
01:37:16.320 | of the Charles River when Nelson Mandela came.
01:37:19.080 | There are people that you need in your dark hours
01:37:24.760 | and we can't agree on who they are.
01:37:26.120 | And as soon as they emerge, we tar them with shit.
01:37:29.400 | We get out the shit brush.
01:37:31.420 | - Yeah, I just disagree with you.
01:37:32.560 | So I think--
01:37:33.960 | - What do we disagree about here?
01:37:35.720 | - I think it doesn't matter who it is.
01:37:37.560 | I think really good speeches are needed.
01:37:40.600 | And I think a lot--
01:37:41.440 | - Great, who's gonna give them?
01:37:42.620 | I saw Killer Mike try to give a good speech.
01:37:44.360 | - Yeah, he did.
01:37:45.200 | - In Atlanta, right?
01:37:47.000 | - Yeah, he did.
01:37:47.840 | - That was something.
01:37:49.360 | Very impressed.
01:37:51.040 | Even Killer Mike immediately gets into this, sell out!
01:37:54.860 | - Yeah, but he didn't take up the responsibility,
01:38:01.200 | I would say--
01:38:02.160 | - He didn't.
01:38:03.000 | - Of going bigger.
01:38:05.860 | So he was speaking to the community.
01:38:07.760 | - He was doing what he--
01:38:08.960 | - On this particular moment, he's exceptional at it.
01:38:11.280 | And he was speaking to this particular moment.
01:38:13.680 | He didn't take it a step farther,
01:38:16.240 | which is like giving the same speech,
01:38:21.240 | but bigger than race.
01:38:23.200 | Bigger than this particular moment,
01:38:25.880 | but more about the American project.
01:38:29.400 | - You know the guy who landed the plane in the Hudson?
01:38:31.640 | - Yes, yeah, there you go.
01:38:33.160 | That's a good example.
01:38:34.480 | - That guy, until we screw him up,
01:38:37.340 | is the kind of thing that I'm talking about.
01:38:40.240 | - Yeah, exactly.
01:38:41.080 | I mean, Jocko, maybe.
01:38:42.700 | - That's another--
01:38:43.560 | - Jocko's pretty good.
01:38:44.640 | Jocko is pretty good.
01:38:47.740 | Can't really tell, is he a Democrat, is he a Republican?
01:38:49.880 | I don't know.
01:38:50.720 | He's an American, that's for damn sure.
01:38:52.080 | - Yeah, and I think there's a lot of folks--
01:38:54.160 | - And then, no, I think Jocko, there aren't.
01:38:57.400 | That's one of the reasons why Jocko's so important.
01:38:59.400 | - That's so important, yeah.
01:39:00.740 | Your podcast, The Portal, is something,
01:39:04.480 | in my little universe,
01:39:06.840 | is something a lot of people really love.
01:39:09.880 | And it moves them.
01:39:11.240 | They draw a lot of meaning from it.
01:39:14.020 | And also, especially in difficult times.
01:39:16.880 | It gives them a comfort of,
01:39:22.760 | through this kind of, it's not just nuance.
01:39:26.000 | There's like, even when you're talking about chaos,
01:39:28.940 | there's love underneath all of it.
01:39:31.780 | And I think people draw a lot of meaning from it,
01:39:33.800 | which is why they are wondering why you haven't been doing
01:39:38.800 | that many podcasts, or you haven't done it in maybe
01:39:43.800 | a month and a half or two months,
01:39:46.220 | in this most difficult of times.
01:39:49.380 | Is there a good reason?
01:39:50.960 | - Yeah, there are lots of good reasons.
01:39:55.060 | So the first one is kind of weird,
01:39:58.620 | which is everybody assumes that everyone wants to be famous.
01:40:01.620 | And if you say, I don't wanna be famous,
01:40:05.880 | it's like, oh, you're just saying that
01:40:06.960 | because you want everyone to think you're famous.
01:40:09.120 | You're not that famous!
01:40:09.960 | You know, okay.
01:40:10.800 | I don't love being as well-known as I've become.
01:40:16.820 | There's lots of things that are fun about it.
01:40:21.440 | It's wonderful that you can go to any city in the world,
01:40:24.440 | and there are Portal listeners there.
01:40:26.240 | All I need to do is put out a tweet,
01:40:28.840 | and 20 people show up for a drink.
01:40:30.800 | - And they're amazing people.
01:40:31.800 | - And they're almost, I mean, you can see my live Q&As
01:40:36.280 | on my Instagram page.
01:40:37.480 | If you go to Eric R. Weinstein,
01:40:38.840 | I just pick somebody randomly,
01:40:40.480 | and I was really worried about it at first.
01:40:43.080 | And maybe I should be worried about it,
01:40:45.600 | but in general, people all over the world
01:40:47.920 | are just so positive.
01:40:49.180 | - And thoughtful, and deep, and they have a story.
01:40:53.600 | - 'Cause they're self-selected, right?
01:40:55.640 | But I don't like the fame.
01:40:58.120 | - The thing we just described comes with the fame.
01:41:00.240 | It's a beautiful thing.
01:41:01.400 | You're worried that it's getting--
01:41:03.720 | - It's ephemeral.
01:41:05.680 | Look, Lex, it'll turn on you in a heartbeat.
01:41:09.240 | - Yeah.
01:41:10.120 | - It'll turn on you in a heartbeat.
01:41:11.760 | And the other problem is I don't like my audience
01:41:15.480 | being my audience.
01:41:16.960 | I wanna get closer to them.
01:41:18.080 | I wanna talk to them.
01:41:18.960 | I wanna find out what is this doing in your life?
01:41:21.040 | My house fills up with art that people send me.
01:41:24.720 | The latest thing is an effects pedal,
01:41:27.380 | called something like, I don't know,
01:41:28.220 | it's a Bowtie Overdrive from a guy in Mexico.
01:41:31.720 | (laughing)
01:41:32.760 | Right? - Yeah.
01:41:34.000 | - You play electric, by the way,
01:41:35.120 | in a tiny little tangent?
01:41:36.960 | You play electric?
01:41:37.920 | - I have a Stratocaster.
01:41:39.840 | But it doesn't have a strap,
01:41:41.000 | and I don't know what to do with it,
01:41:42.040 | and I have a bad amp.
01:41:43.000 | So you should hook me up with--
01:41:45.840 | - We'll find it a home, maybe.
01:41:48.280 | - Okay.
01:41:49.280 | - You're starting to sense that this is too much?
01:41:52.200 | - No, I wanna be here.
01:41:54.680 | I wanna do the work.
01:41:55.960 | Very simply.
01:41:57.840 | I don't have an ability to fully explain myself.
01:42:03.720 | I don't wanna claim that I don't love the fact that,
01:42:06.680 | how much love do we get for these programs?
01:42:09.240 | Generically, people are incredibly generous.
01:42:14.160 | People have begged me, set up a Patreon account.
01:42:19.040 | And I haven't been able to do it.
01:42:22.000 | I should do it.
01:42:23.040 | I've said to everybody, it's a business,
01:42:24.360 | it's a business, it's a business.
01:42:26.440 | But they're so used to being defrauded
01:42:28.960 | when somebody starts thinking about monetary incentives.
01:42:31.400 | My goal was to say, I'm gonna keep talking to you about,
01:42:34.520 | you wanna know why I started doing ads on my show?
01:42:36.760 | Was because I wanted people to think from the get-go,
01:42:40.480 | this is a business,
01:42:41.440 | this is what I sound like when I'm selling.
01:42:43.600 | But you know, like you see, I've lost weight.
01:42:47.800 | A lot of that is due to Athletic Greens.
01:42:51.080 | - Athletic Greens.
01:42:52.000 | Code, what's the--
01:42:56.720 | - I don't know what my promo code is for Athletic Greens.
01:42:59.760 | - Probably athleticgreens.com/portal.
01:43:01.840 | But it doesn't matter. - It's a slash portal.
01:43:03.560 | - But Fitbit, who doesn't advertise,
01:43:05.880 | has also been instrumental,
01:43:07.720 | as well as a guy named Steven Cates,
01:43:10.000 | who was a fan from the show,
01:43:12.360 | found me on the street and just said,
01:43:13.520 | "I'm a trainer, I wanna help train you."
01:43:15.120 | And it's got me on a good path.
01:43:18.320 | So that's one paid advertiser
01:43:20.840 | and two people that I'm calling out
01:43:22.920 | just because two outfits,
01:43:25.480 | Steven Cates and Fitbit, that have changed my life.
01:43:28.720 | I wanted people to say,
01:43:30.200 | you don't have to be afraid of advertising.
01:43:31.960 | If I do it in this way, this is powering your show.
01:43:36.240 | But the whole issue of money is weird
01:43:38.960 | because people have these crazy feelings like,
01:43:40.960 | "Oh wow, I knew he was a shill.
01:43:43.160 | He's a grifter."
01:43:44.960 | I didn't love that.
01:43:46.920 | I didn't love the issue.
01:43:48.080 | So I didn't set up a Patreon.
01:43:50.420 | The security issues for talking and being me are significant.
01:43:56.180 | And I don't have the kind of money to hire around the clock.
01:44:00.980 | I mean, I desperately want to get to a level of wealth
01:44:05.020 | where I don't have to think about money.
01:44:07.180 | I don't think it's, you know,
01:44:08.220 | some people want money because they need it for status.
01:44:12.300 | I think I can handle status if I want it doing this.
01:44:15.380 | I don't want the status necessarily.
01:44:18.420 | And I don't want, I'd want the status,
01:44:21.380 | but I don't want the fame that goes with it.
01:44:23.580 | I want the money.
01:44:25.540 | I don't want to be seen as this is about money
01:44:28.460 | 'cause it's about a substance.
01:44:30.020 | All of those things, that's part of,
01:44:34.860 | I haven't solved these issues.
01:44:36.740 | I've been feeling bad because people say,
01:44:39.340 | "Where's the portal?
01:44:40.260 | We're desperate.
01:44:41.100 | These are difficult times.
01:44:41.920 | We have an election coming up."
01:44:43.260 | And it's just like, do you think for a moment
01:44:46.340 | that I want to explain that I actually got
01:44:48.220 | really uncomfortable being as well-known as I was?
01:44:50.500 | And then what is it that I want?
01:44:51.660 | Because I want to be better known
01:44:53.520 | and less well-known at the same time.
01:44:55.460 | There's nothing the audience can do.
01:44:56.980 | I don't want the audience to be the audience.
01:44:58.420 | That doesn't make sense to people.
01:44:59.780 | I want it to be a business,
01:45:01.420 | but I don't think people need to fear a business
01:45:03.360 | if the business is open about being a business.
01:45:06.060 | That, and then that's all to the side.
01:45:09.120 | What you're seeing now in front of the election
01:45:11.460 | is an incredibly meta-violent period
01:45:15.580 | in our online existence.
01:45:17.200 | And I believe that anybody who attempts to say
01:45:22.260 | these two parties are completely screwed
01:45:25.100 | at the moment the leadership of these parties
01:45:27.220 | is unsalvageable, unworkable,
01:45:29.400 | everyone hears that from inside the two-party system.
01:45:33.300 | Oh, I get it.
01:45:35.020 | He's trying to subtract votes off of Biden.
01:45:36.860 | Oh, I get it.
01:45:37.680 | He's trying to scuttle Trump.
01:45:39.360 | Oh, I get it.
01:45:40.300 | This is a play for his show
01:45:41.580 | because he's trying to plug in to discuss.
01:45:44.200 | There's a Bill Hicks routine on marketing.
01:45:46.780 | Have you ever seen this?
01:45:48.500 | Brilliant.
01:45:49.320 | I recommend it to everyone,
01:45:50.780 | where he comes out on stage and he says,
01:45:53.460 | "Are there any people in marketing and sales in the audience?"
01:45:56.260 | Woo, yeah.
01:45:57.100 | It's like, okay, great.
01:45:59.300 | Can you do us all a favor and die?
01:46:01.380 | And like everybody laughs.
01:46:02.660 | He's like, no, I'm not laughing.
01:46:04.240 | I'm being serious.
01:46:05.260 | So he talks about how marketing is horrible.
01:46:07.400 | So you're like, where's this act going?
01:46:09.400 | Then he gets to the point of it.
01:46:11.260 | It's like, oh, I know how you marketing people think.
01:46:13.860 | Bill's going after that resentment dollar.
01:46:17.620 | That's a good dollar.
01:46:18.660 | Let's get that resentment anti-marketing dollar.
01:46:20.980 | It's like, no, that's not what I'm saying.
01:46:21.900 | I really hate marketers.
01:46:23.260 | Oh, that's good.
01:46:24.080 | It's the authenticity dollar.
01:46:25.340 | (laughing)
01:46:26.540 | You can't escape this kind of negative marketing thought.
01:46:31.540 | And I guess that gets to the issue
01:46:34.620 | that I don't want to be destroyed
01:46:38.400 | in advance of this election.
01:46:40.060 | I don't think it's a good use
01:46:43.020 | of my relationship to my audience
01:46:45.060 | to be broadcasting how completely ridiculous
01:46:48.980 | Donald Trump and Joe Biden are as candidates
01:46:51.540 | for the President of the United States, full stop.
01:46:54.180 | None of this makes any sense.
01:46:55.680 | These moderators of these pseudo debates
01:46:58.460 | were in the wrong format with the wrong people.
01:47:01.560 | No part of this makes a whit of sense.
01:47:04.480 | - Can I try to push back several claims?
01:47:08.860 | One is I don't believe the systems as they stand now
01:47:13.860 | can destroy their equine Stein voice, the voice.
01:47:20.540 | - You're a child.
01:47:22.020 | I'm sorry to say that.
01:47:23.420 | - But, well, let me, well, it's also possible.
01:47:26.340 | - Let's fight.
01:47:27.180 | - It's entirely possible that you're the child, okay?
01:47:31.060 | Because a child would say,
01:47:32.660 | you would call other people a child.
01:47:34.460 | - Yeah, get in the first blow.
01:47:35.860 | (laughing)
01:47:37.820 | It's a big reveal to tell.
01:47:39.180 | - Because the only power they have
01:47:43.180 | is to attack you psychologically.
01:47:44.900 | - No.
01:47:45.900 | - Well, I believe that the army of people
01:47:50.100 | that love you is much more powerful than mainstream media,
01:47:55.100 | than people that you might hear say ridiculous things
01:48:00.140 | that you just said, which is try to reduce you,
01:48:02.380 | like the marketing, thinking.
01:48:06.980 | I just believe there's an army,
01:48:09.260 | maybe there's a better term,
01:48:10.820 | of people that see you for who you are and are hungry.
01:48:15.520 | - I'm not disputing those things.
01:48:18.220 | That's not what I'm saying.
01:48:19.540 | I would venture to say, as your therapist,
01:48:22.740 | that you're actually,
01:48:25.140 | the battle is all in your mind,
01:48:30.140 | that you have found these demons in the system,
01:48:34.260 | and they're just a tiny minority,
01:48:38.180 | and it's all in your mind.
01:48:39.420 | They cannot actually remove,
01:48:43.100 | they're not strong enough to remove the voice
01:48:47.060 | of Eric Weinstein, to silence the voice.
01:48:49.060 | - I love this.
01:48:50.520 | This is some of the best fiction writing I've ever heard.
01:48:55.840 | Let me tell you, I have relatives
01:48:59.060 | who've known me my entire life,
01:49:01.540 | where one article in the New York Times,
01:49:03.740 | they will believe that over me.
01:49:05.860 | - My contention is that it has no power
01:49:09.780 | except to affect your psychology.
01:49:11.380 | - You're not hearing me. - What you have to do
01:49:12.300 | is the Rogan thing, which is laugh.
01:49:14.020 | - You're not hearing me.
01:49:14.860 | - Just laugh.
01:49:16.020 | - I am laughing.
01:49:16.940 | - I know, but more.
01:49:18.140 | I'm telling you something.
01:49:20.180 | - Yes.
01:49:21.220 | - The way this works is through ruin.
01:49:23.920 | Ruin can come to anyone.
01:49:27.540 | There's no one who cannot be ruined.
01:49:29.700 | Every single person is signed up right now
01:49:34.460 | to be ruined by the system.
01:49:36.860 | - Don't you understand that you have more power
01:49:39.900 | than the system?
01:49:41.340 | You can ruin the system.
01:49:43.500 | Your Twitter account, the podcast,
01:49:45.940 | that's what I'm telling you about the army.
01:49:47.900 | - I agree that my Twitter account, my podcast,
01:49:50.100 | but what we've seen, for example,
01:49:52.300 | you saw what happened to Brett's articles of Unity Project?
01:49:55.600 | - Yes.
01:49:56.440 | - Okay, what happened?
01:49:57.260 | - You mean on the Twitter side?
01:49:59.220 | - On the Twitter side, what happened?
01:50:01.060 | What happened?
01:50:03.560 | - Well, actually, it's not a good answer.
01:50:04.380 | - Say the words, say the words.
01:50:05.500 | - It was blocked or removed from Twitter.
01:50:07.780 | - Suspended, account suspended.
01:50:09.580 | Okay, I have a direct line to Jack.
01:50:15.260 | Okay, so I'm talking to the CEO
01:50:17.900 | who I am crazy enough to still believe in.
01:50:21.660 | - Good, I do too.
01:50:22.640 | - I believe it.
01:50:23.480 | Somehow, there's a very strange thing
01:50:25.400 | going on with Jack Dorsey.
01:50:27.300 | I cannot possibly reconcile the actions
01:50:30.260 | with the person I've, that is a next level mind in there.
01:50:35.260 | I don't know it well enough to say
01:50:38.620 | that it's all next level.
01:50:39.920 | I'm not claiming he doesn't have any blind spots.
01:50:41.980 | Every smart person I know has blind spots.
01:50:43.940 | I don't know what he's up against, blah, blah, blah.
01:50:46.720 | There's no way that the Jack Dorsey that I've talked to
01:50:50.020 | and the Jack Dorsey that interacted over articles of unity
01:50:53.620 | can be the same person.
01:50:55.540 | He is constrained by that company in some way
01:50:58.020 | that doesn't make sense to me.
01:50:59.460 | Either that or he's the most duplicitous person on earth
01:51:01.700 | and I'm not believing it.
01:51:02.700 | I just don't buy it, okay?
01:51:04.140 | Something horrible is happening.
01:51:07.480 | My claim is I can remove you functionally
01:51:13.740 | from the chess board in a tiny number of moves.
01:51:17.420 | No matter who you are, no matter how virtuous
01:51:19.600 | or how much of a bastard you've been your entire life,
01:51:22.580 | it doesn't take more than three or four moves
01:51:25.100 | to basically neuter you as a force.
01:51:27.960 | - Yeah, and I disagree that if that's possible,
01:51:31.040 | that means I'm not very good at chess.
01:51:33.000 | Like, Unity 2020 was removed from Twitter
01:51:36.200 | because it's not good enough.
01:51:38.280 | Not within the system.
01:51:40.260 | The army of people that feel the brilliance of the idea
01:51:45.220 | was too small.
01:51:46.820 | - But fear, uncertainty, and doubt is the name of the game,
01:51:49.980 | the coin of the realm.
01:51:51.140 | - Psychology, though, it's not real power.
01:51:53.780 | It just affects the mind.
01:51:55.260 | - Okay, I have a reading assignment for you.
01:51:57.420 | Because you're Russian, you'll really enjoy this.
01:51:59.860 | As part of the great American tobacco settlement,
01:52:04.060 | the Tobacco Institute had to disgorge its archives
01:52:07.740 | of all of its strategies, all of its skullduggery,
01:52:11.080 | and put it on the web for all time
01:52:13.200 | so that we could all understand
01:52:14.640 | how the tobacco companies got together
01:52:17.560 | and destroyed people, right?
01:52:20.040 | You see, tobacco destroys people.
01:52:22.600 | You can see, Scientology destroys people.
01:52:26.240 | There are various vindictive organizations
01:52:31.000 | that will not tolerate reality in opposition to them.
01:52:36.920 | - Let's take him down.
01:52:38.520 | - Okay.
01:52:39.360 | - That's what I'm trying to tell you.
01:52:40.440 | - Okay, no.
01:52:41.480 | - So why aren't you doing the podcast, The Return,
01:52:43.880 | because that's one of the weapons of war.
01:52:47.040 | - Well, first of all, if you're at war,
01:52:52.200 | I don't want to discuss strategy on a podcast, right?
01:52:57.200 | - But you're misunderstanding.
01:52:58.720 | - What did Montgomery say about Rommel?
01:53:00.880 | Wasn't his line, "I read your book, you beautiful bastard"?
01:53:06.160 | It's like, why are you using the tactics
01:53:07.560 | that you already explained?
01:53:09.600 | Okay, so one of the things I'm doing
01:53:11.400 | is I'm not having a strategic conversation
01:53:13.680 | with you and several hundred thousand of our closest friends.
01:53:17.420 | I pulled back because this is not the battle
01:53:25.320 | that I know what I'm doing.
01:53:28.600 | I do not feel passionately enough
01:53:30.680 | about defeating Donald Trump to elect Joe Biden,
01:53:33.640 | even if that's the way I'm gonna ultimately vote, right?
01:53:38.160 | I don't believe in the Biden Democratic Party.
01:53:42.600 | I don't believe in the Trump Republican Party.
01:53:45.380 | So yes, it's an incredibly consequential election,
01:53:48.520 | but to me, it's like the Crips and the Bloods
01:53:51.540 | and the Latin Kings fighting over the right
01:53:54.200 | to extort a business and the business trying to figure out
01:53:57.760 | who it wants to do the extorting.
01:54:00.520 | - But don't you think, listen,
01:54:02.360 | there's very few people that are as good
01:54:03.880 | with the English language as you.
01:54:05.800 | Don't you think it's possible to draw a line
01:54:08.960 | that doesn't, in between,
01:54:11.920 | that finds how we find our common humanity
01:54:16.500 | that ensures a better 2021 without having to say,
01:54:20.880 | like, Donald Trump is evil or Joe Biden is incompetent
01:54:24.960 | or any of that, just somehow draw a beautiful line.
01:54:28.000 | - I am seeing people in so much pain.
01:54:30.600 | This election is chewing up the integrity
01:54:33.400 | of everyone who comments on it, Lex.
01:54:35.980 | - Maybe they're not good enough.
01:54:38.360 | - They're not good enough.
01:54:39.200 | No, but that, okay.
01:54:41.160 | Do you believe in me?
01:54:42.880 | - Yes. - You do?
01:54:44.080 | - Yes. - All right,
01:54:44.920 | listen to me very carefully.
01:54:46.760 | My spider sense, my intuition that has allowed me
01:54:50.520 | to survive in this space,
01:54:51.800 | I've been mouthing off since the '80s,
01:54:54.500 | tells me this is a super dangerous time
01:54:59.480 | for smart people to be spending the dry powder
01:55:03.280 | because the election doesn't make sense.
01:55:05.800 | Doesn't mean that I don't have a sense
01:55:08.360 | that one outcome would be better than the other, probably,
01:55:11.400 | but the variance on that,
01:55:12.880 | I'm not even positive that I'm right.
01:55:14.740 | These two options are so completely inappropriate
01:55:20.000 | to the world of 2020.
01:55:21.220 | What we need is so diametrically opposed
01:55:25.000 | to more boomers and more silent generation people
01:55:28.840 | trying to sort out a highly technical world
01:55:32.040 | being mediated through social media.
01:55:34.480 | We need more exclusion.
01:55:37.760 | We need more actual elites.
01:55:39.920 | The people we've called the elites are not the elite.
01:55:42.400 | They need to go.
01:55:44.040 | - Yeah, we need excellence, competence.
01:55:45.880 | - We need people who can be trusted behind closed doors,
01:55:49.020 | and we need to close the doors
01:55:50.600 | so we can't see what those people are doing.
01:55:52.800 | Here's the thing.
01:55:55.800 | Imagine that you had a bunch of people
01:55:57.180 | who'd all seen action in combat,
01:56:00.700 | had all volunteered to be part of the armed services,
01:56:03.560 | had all come from backgrounds where they didn't need to.
01:56:06.120 | So you were convinced that these people
01:56:08.000 | had put their lives on the line for their country,
01:56:10.760 | not for a payday.
01:56:12.320 | Imagine you had 10 of these people
01:56:14.320 | with technical backgrounds,
01:56:15.880 | men, women, black, white, Muslim, Jew, doesn't matter.
01:56:18.720 | I would trust those people, and I'd close the door.
01:56:27.480 | I don't wanna know what they talked about.
01:56:29.280 | I don't want transparency into all of their negotiations.
01:56:33.500 | I wanna know that they're patriotic,
01:56:35.220 | that they see something in the world
01:56:36.800 | bigger than themselves and their family fortunes.
01:56:39.200 | I wanna know that they're courageous.
01:56:42.480 | I wanna know that they've got all of our well-being,
01:56:45.520 | and I'm willing to roll the dice,
01:56:46.900 | and if they screw us over, I'd rather go down like that.
01:56:50.320 | - Okay, so I disagree with you there,
01:56:52.120 | 'cause there's a difference between those and Jocko,
01:56:55.000 | because you're not speaking to people with credentials.
01:57:00.000 | - No, I'm talking about self-credentialed people.
01:57:01.980 | - Self-credentialed.
01:57:02.820 | - I view Jocko as self-credentialed.
01:57:04.540 | - But the biggest, the powerful thing about Jocko
01:57:06.820 | is he's not only self-credentialed,
01:57:08.380 | but he's been real with people.
01:57:11.780 | The magical thing about Jocko isn't his book,
01:57:15.320 | isn't his life story,
01:57:16.620 | is he's been talking on a podcast for a long,
01:57:19.580 | there's something real that happens.
01:57:21.900 | - Okay, so if you took--
01:57:23.900 | - Everybody, yeah.
01:57:24.740 | - If you took Dan Crenshaw and Tulsi Gabbard,
01:57:27.700 | and you took Jocko Willing and maybe Jesse Ventura,
01:57:30.620 | you can take--
01:57:33.340 | - I see where you're going with this.
01:57:34.540 | - What, you can take Bernie Sanders, who's a lone voice,
01:57:38.820 | you take all of these people who've really just risked,
01:57:43.120 | like why do we trust, why is Katharine Hepburn
01:57:46.300 | the best that Hollywood ever produced?
01:57:48.900 | 'Cause she told Hollywood to go fuck itself.
01:57:52.740 | Hard.
01:57:54.260 | They gave her four Academy Awards,
01:57:56.460 | and she said, "Love you, sweeties,
01:57:58.180 | "I'm gonna use them as the doorstops
01:57:59.580 | "for the bathrooms in my house."
01:58:01.540 | - See, that's skill.
01:58:02.540 | - That's what you were talking about.
01:58:05.820 | Be Katharine Hepburn.
01:58:07.120 | Audrey Hepburn is pretty amazing,
01:58:09.820 | but Katharine Hepburn is next level, right?
01:58:12.220 | That's what you're trying to say to me.
01:58:15.020 | Okay, I'm trying to figure it out, Lex.
01:58:16.860 | I don't have the answer yet.
01:58:18.700 | What I do know is that this election is chewing people up,
01:58:22.100 | and I mean two separate things.
01:58:23.540 | One, that parties don't have enough integrity,
01:58:25.940 | that if you comment either for or against,
01:58:28.980 | there's a short sequence where you make a comment
01:58:32.300 | that's nuanced, you get referenced to something, right?
01:58:36.900 | Like, you know, take this thing about, you know,
01:58:38.900 | fine people on both sides.
01:58:40.560 | That is non-resolved after N years,
01:58:44.420 | whether the context should be reported or not.
01:58:49.020 | We are in some situation in which Democrats and Republicans
01:58:53.060 | are primed to fight each other the way introducing two ants
01:58:56.720 | from two different ant colonies always produces a battle.
01:58:59.700 | - Yeah. - Okay?
01:59:01.200 | I don't want to be in that fray
01:59:04.260 | because those people are gonna kill each other
01:59:06.580 | mindlessly like robots.
01:59:08.840 | And until the election is concluded,
01:59:10.880 | like, do I think this is dire?
01:59:14.600 | Could it be make or break?
01:59:15.420 | Absolutely.
01:59:16.260 | I'm not saying that.
01:59:17.100 | Do I know which way this goes?
01:59:18.180 | I can make an excellent argument
01:59:19.660 | that we need to elect Joe Biden right now.
01:59:22.380 | We've got a situation which can only be cured
01:59:25.020 | by voting for Joe Biden.
01:59:26.900 | I can make another argument that we could have a situation
01:59:29.420 | that can only be cured by defeating Joe Biden right now
01:59:33.500 | and all of the things
01:59:34.780 | that the modern Democratic Party represents.
01:59:37.300 | - Yeah.
01:59:38.860 | - I don't have, you know, it's not the lady and the tiger.
01:59:43.860 | We're choosing between the tiger and the tiger.
01:59:45.900 | It's the Sumatran tiger versus the Siberian tiger.
01:59:49.100 | Right, I'm trying to think, well, which tiger can I,
01:59:51.180 | do I have a better chance against?
01:59:52.880 | The key problem for us politically
01:59:56.220 | is that we have to divorce the concept of the center
02:00:00.460 | and moderation from kleptocracy.
02:00:02.940 | Every time we try to say something like,
02:00:05.980 | we need more moderate solutions,
02:00:07.780 | we need more pluralistic solutions,
02:00:09.860 | people will say, wow, you just want to hand us
02:00:12.320 | right back into the swamp, don't you?
02:00:14.420 | Those swamp people, 'cause the moderates
02:00:16.380 | and the swamp people are the same people.
02:00:18.420 | Right, so then we have these two crazy wings.
02:00:23.140 | We can't have crazy right-wing people.
02:00:25.340 | I don't want any tiki torch BS.
02:00:27.820 | We can't have crazy left-wing, don't attack my courthouse.
02:00:30.820 | Really don't attack my courthouse.
02:00:33.400 | And we can't have moderates.
02:00:35.420 | It's like, okay, how do we install our children
02:00:37.220 | and rape, pillage, and get these speaking fees
02:00:39.840 | when we're out of office and become, you know,
02:00:42.300 | cozy with the things when we're supposed
02:00:44.980 | to be regulating them and then become their lobbyists
02:00:48.900 | immediately when we leave office, all of this stuff.
02:00:51.680 | We need an entirely different system.
02:00:53.900 | And I can't talk about that at the moment.
02:00:56.220 | When I talk, people say, oh, wow,
02:00:59.140 | so you're gonna sit this one out 'cause you're a pussy,
02:01:01.060 | 'cause you're a coward?
02:01:02.540 | Great to know, Eric, we thought better of you.
02:01:04.260 | Bye, click.
02:01:05.180 | I don't know what to do.
02:01:07.380 | - But are you thinking of what to do?
02:01:10.240 | - Yeah.
02:01:12.080 | - You better believe it.
02:01:13.780 | Look, Brett had this idea of Unity 2020,
02:01:16.940 | and I told him it was a wrong idea.
02:01:18.700 | I didn't tell him that Unity 2024 was a wrong idea.
02:01:23.180 | I didn't tell him that Unity 2028 is a wrong idea.
02:01:25.740 | And if I were to make the case that he was right
02:01:27.880 | and I was wrong, 'cause he's now shuttered the thing, right?
02:01:30.840 | I would say that the case to be made that he was correct
02:01:35.100 | was is that by doing this in 2020,
02:01:37.140 | we found out what we were up against.
02:01:39.400 | It's good to know that Twitter can turn this off
02:01:41.900 | at the drop of a hat.
02:01:43.620 | Great to know.
02:01:45.060 | It's good to know, as we learned,
02:01:46.860 | that you cannot have meetings of presidential candidates
02:01:51.860 | in a primary that are not approved of by the party.
02:01:57.860 | Right, like they've got this thing figured out,
02:02:01.220 | so we don't have any way in.
02:02:03.260 | And now, Unity 2024 makes sense
02:02:07.180 | because Unity 2020 was tried, okay?
02:02:10.520 | I don't know that we get to 2024 under all circumstances.
02:02:14.640 | In some, we do, in some, we don't.
02:02:16.680 | - But there's a game theoretic thing
02:02:18.440 | that I'm not sure you're accounting for,
02:02:20.200 | but you probably are, but let me just make an argument.
02:02:22.960 | Is Jack Dorsey very likely listens to your podcasts?
02:02:29.560 | And this is the power of these words.
02:02:34.280 | - Something deep went wrong.
02:02:37.160 | - But we can change it with the power of words.
02:02:41.520 | - Something went wrong at Twitter.
02:02:44.000 | - They have so much division on their platform.
02:02:46.120 | - That's what I'm trying to say.
02:02:47.080 | They've gotten--
02:02:48.000 | - It's not wrong, they just don't know,
02:02:49.320 | they're understaffed.
02:02:50.680 | - No, they have an insoluble problem.
02:02:53.520 | - Difficult to solve.
02:02:54.400 | - They have an insoluble problem.
02:02:56.320 | - This is where you and I disagree.
02:02:57.960 | - Because, well, all right.
02:02:58.800 | - Or I'd like to create a competitor.
02:03:00.520 | - No, so then, you know, give it to me.
02:03:03.560 | Create the competitor.
02:03:04.440 | Show me that you actually understood this,
02:03:06.500 | because my guess is that most of the things
02:03:08.640 | that you'll think about, I mean,
02:03:10.360 | I can tell you things I've talked to Jack about,
02:03:12.560 | which I know would make Twitter much better.
02:03:14.760 | However, I think that this problem
02:03:19.540 | of instantaneous communication across the planet,
02:03:22.520 | and you subtract off all sorts of context
02:03:24.760 | and mutual self-knowledge, the problem is us.
02:03:28.240 | It's not the platforms.
02:03:29.780 | You're thinking about a technological solution,
02:03:32.320 | and I'm saying the problem is
02:03:34.160 | is that we are ultimately the product.
02:03:36.080 | - And I just disagree with that,
02:03:38.200 | and there's a lot of, probably could save that for tomorrow.
02:03:40.720 | - I look forward to spending summers in your villa
02:03:44.080 | when you debut this product,
02:03:47.100 | and I would love to angel invest in it.
02:03:49.040 | - By the way, in terms of money,
02:03:52.120 | I'll never have a villa.
02:03:55.080 | - Yeah?
02:03:56.000 | - No, I will always give away everything, Alan.
02:03:58.320 | - Don't do that.
02:03:59.680 | - No, sorry, invest into things like you mentioned,
02:04:03.760 | awesome things.
02:04:04.720 | - Yeah, yeah, invest, fine,
02:04:06.920 | but a little bit of avuncular advice.
02:04:10.180 | Don't pledge to be the person
02:04:15.680 | who disgorges themselves of security.
02:04:20.120 | Money is freedom.
02:04:21.800 | That's what it is.
02:04:22.800 | It's a big, honking pile of freedom, okay?
02:04:26.440 | You can choose to use it as the freedom to imprison you
02:04:29.320 | if you don't, you know,
02:04:30.160 | so you can use it as freedom to make yourself
02:04:32.040 | a prisoner of your money,
02:04:33.640 | but generally speaking, Lex,
02:04:35.800 | money is freedom, and your voice is important.
02:04:39.640 | At least retain the amount of money, security you need
02:04:43.120 | to follow Joe's advice.
02:04:46.120 | What is the point of FU money if you don't say FU?
02:04:50.040 | The number of people who have FU money who don't say FU
02:04:53.500 | indicates the number of people
02:04:55.160 | who chose the freedom of their wealth to create a prison.
02:04:59.000 | - Yeah.
02:04:59.840 | - They built a prison with the freedom they had,
02:05:01.160 | and they walked into it, locked the door.
02:05:04.080 | - I think it's too difficult not to create,
02:05:06.640 | the reason I wanna give away the money
02:05:08.120 | is 'cause I just know my own psychology,
02:05:09.760 | and you create prisons.
02:05:11.080 | Our human mind just creates those prisons.
02:05:14.080 | The FU money is enough for basic shelter and basic food.
02:05:19.080 | That's the optimal FU money.
02:05:22.960 | - You don't have kids yet.
02:05:23.800 | - This is a, okay, this is the problem.
02:05:25.800 | This is why I'm, so this is me, single Lex,
02:05:28.960 | speaking, but kids change it.
02:05:31.880 | - Future Lex, I'm talking to future Lex.
02:05:34.600 | Single present Lex, please don't listen.
02:05:38.060 | Don't be an ass.
02:05:39.560 | You're gonna need some money,
02:05:41.160 | and don't make these pledges to say on a podcast.
02:05:45.360 | I wanna save you from yourself.
02:05:46.880 | You need money to do many of the beautiful things
02:05:50.360 | that we're counting on you to do.
02:05:51.780 | Don't F it up.
02:05:52.760 | - Can I talk to you about Roger Penrose?
02:05:58.760 | - Sure.
02:05:59.600 | - You've talked to Roger on the portal,
02:06:02.520 | but also in between the lines and offline,
02:06:05.560 | just everything you've said about Roger Penrose.
02:06:08.760 | For people who don't know,
02:06:09.640 | he just recently, a few days ago, won the 2020,
02:06:14.520 | shared the 2020 Nobel Prize for physics.
02:06:18.120 | But it's clear to me that he had
02:06:21.280 | like a deep personal impact on you,
02:06:23.920 | a connection with you,
02:06:25.100 | in terms of both your love of mathematics,
02:06:28.560 | just the way you see the world.
02:06:30.640 | This is the Eddie Van Halen conversation.
02:06:32.640 | This is clearly somebody who's profound in your worldview.
02:06:35.960 | Can you talk about Roger?
02:06:37.940 | Can you talk about what it means
02:06:40.320 | that he won this highest of prizes?
02:06:42.560 | Just in general, let's celebrate the man.
02:06:44.320 | - Yeah, okay.
02:06:45.640 | So first of all, there are two other people
02:06:47.040 | who won this prize.
02:06:48.000 | I'm sorry, I just didn't happen to know
02:06:49.520 | who they were before they won.
02:06:51.020 | Roger is a very,
02:06:56.560 | it is not Roger in particular,
02:06:59.320 | but the class from which Roger comes that is so important.
02:07:04.320 | So I would put Roger in the class
02:07:06.640 | of Feynman, Einstein, Dirac, Yang.
02:07:11.400 | - Put Witten in there?
02:07:15.680 | - Yeah. - Or no?
02:07:16.520 | - I mean, Witten's a special case,
02:07:19.560 | but Witten is weirdly the reverse
02:07:23.320 | of the Roger Penrose story, right?
02:07:25.080 | Because Witten is the first physicist
02:07:27.120 | to win a mathematical fields medal,
02:07:29.240 | the highest honor in mathematics.
02:07:31.720 | Penrose is in some sense a mathematician
02:07:34.040 | who's now won the Nobel Prize.
02:07:36.040 | So it's a perfect sort of a couplet.
02:07:37.840 | Roger's class means everything to me.
02:07:45.240 | That's the highest achievement of the human mind.
02:07:48.640 | I'd probably throw Bach in
02:07:51.000 | with Feynman and Dirac and company, right?
02:07:53.900 | (Roger laughs)
02:07:56.060 | I think that he was so inventive.
02:07:59.340 | It was very frustrating to watch this career.
02:08:01.820 | It was a little bit frustrating to watch Feynman's career.
02:08:04.740 | Feynman was so good,
02:08:10.260 | and had he been born at a slightly different time,
02:08:13.940 | I believe his claim on physics would be far greater.
02:08:21.500 | I feel like Penrose in some sense
02:08:23.500 | came up a very difficult path
02:08:25.100 | because you see, Einstein effectively solved
02:08:27.420 | most of the most important problems
02:08:29.180 | in general relativity right at the beginning.
02:08:31.980 | As a result, the children of Einstein are impoverished
02:08:35.220 | because there wasn't as much to pick off of the trees
02:08:38.620 | and sell at the market,
02:08:39.620 | whereas Bohr and Planck didn't do nearly as good of a job
02:08:43.700 | with quantum theory,
02:08:44.580 | so there's lots to do in quantum theory.
02:08:47.300 | I think that Roger affected me personally
02:08:51.220 | by a diagram that I saw in a paper of Herman Gluck
02:08:56.220 | at the University of Pennsylvania.
02:08:59.100 | It was the first picture I'd ever seen
02:09:00.740 | of the Hopf vibration sketched,
02:09:03.340 | and weirdly, I brought that to the Rogan program
02:09:06.900 | in order to sort of convey the wonder.
02:09:10.340 | It was recapitulating my own journey.
02:09:12.340 | I think I probably saw that at age 16 or something,
02:09:17.420 | and it just flipped my mind.
02:09:19.880 | Roger's incredibly visual, he's incredibly geometric,
02:09:23.600 | he's incredibly sui generis, he just does his own thing.
02:09:28.600 | He's got lots of bets.
02:09:30.840 | None of them had really come through the way you would hope,
02:09:35.340 | and I think they stretched the rules, to be blunt about it.
02:09:38.880 | - To give him the prize. - Yeah, I do.
02:09:41.040 | - You said this thing on Twitter which is beautiful,
02:09:43.640 | that every once in a while comes a human being
02:09:46.280 | that gives value to the prize
02:09:50.400 | versus the prize giving value to the human.
02:09:52.640 | - Two different kinds of prizes.
02:09:54.040 | The reason that we care about the Nobel Prize
02:09:56.920 | isn't because of Alfred Nobel.
02:09:59.240 | It's because it came along at the right time to reward
02:10:02.960 | Einstein, Dirac, Schrodinger, Feynman.
02:10:09.560 | Most of the people who should have won, won.
02:10:14.800 | Most of the awards are not good
02:10:18.320 | in the sense that they don't really follow.
02:10:20.480 | The prize is used to rewrite history, that's its problem.
02:10:25.680 | So you should have a love-hate relationship with it
02:10:28.720 | because on the one hand it does focus the world
02:10:31.240 | on what really matters, and on the other hand
02:10:33.300 | it distorts what really matters,
02:10:34.840 | and both of those functions take place simultaneously.
02:10:38.040 | In this case, I think that they violated
02:10:40.000 | their own rules slightly.
02:10:41.760 | So it wasn't really clearly a case of a prediction
02:10:46.000 | and a discovery in the typical fashion,
02:10:48.840 | but we better give this award to somebody
02:10:52.520 | of that highest caliber to make sure that the prize
02:10:56.600 | is fully funded with prestige going forward.
02:10:59.800 | That's sort of my weird speculative guess
02:11:02.680 | as to what happened.
02:11:04.240 | And so Roger's getting on in years,
02:11:06.120 | and the person should be alive,
02:11:08.080 | so I think they bent the rules,
02:11:11.000 | and I think they couldn't have bent it for a better person,
02:11:13.320 | and I hope they will not bend the rules out of weakness
02:11:16.640 | but out of strength in the future.
02:11:19.080 | Would be great to get Madame Wu and Emmy Noether
02:11:23.880 | a posthumous prize along with Doug Prasher,
02:11:27.320 | George Sudarshan, and George Zweig,
02:11:32.020 | as well as Ernst Stuckelberg, Nobel Prizes.
02:11:35.000 | There have been some terrible omissions.
02:11:37.960 | The first two being females who revolutionized
02:11:42.880 | our view of the world.
02:11:44.880 | And I take a very dim view of people pushing for prizes
02:11:49.880 | for people from ethnic groups or genders or whatever
02:11:52.840 | in order to make it plural and inclusive
02:11:55.240 | if it's not following the work,
02:11:57.160 | and I feel very clear that in a few cases
02:11:59.500 | we know there was a real problem with the Nobel Committee
02:12:01.760 | because we have stunning accomplishments.
02:12:06.160 | And to try to get through a day as a physicist
02:12:08.080 | without Noether's theorem,
02:12:10.280 | and try to imagine the universe
02:12:12.180 | without Madame Wu's discovery that left and right
02:12:14.600 | don't appear to be symmetric.
02:12:16.560 | I mean, these are terrible omissions,
02:12:18.640 | and they're a huge blot on science
02:12:21.660 | for not being more inclusive when it matters.
02:12:25.520 | - Yeah, so just like you said,
02:12:26.640 | the Nobel Prize is plagued by omissions as much as--
02:12:30.200 | - And distortions and dilutions.
02:12:31.580 | For example, Dirac and Schrodinger were, I believe,
02:12:33.960 | given the prize in the same year.
02:12:35.880 | There's no reason that those two people
02:12:37.560 | needed to dilute each other.
02:12:39.360 | The same thing with, you know, Dyson was an omission.
02:12:43.640 | Tomonaga probably got included in part
02:12:46.120 | because we had an opportunity to show
02:12:48.580 | that something had happened on both sides of the Pacific
02:12:51.080 | after the war.
02:12:52.140 | But I don't think we needed to dilute Weinberg
02:12:57.300 | or Feynman or Schwinger.
02:12:59.520 | It just makes me, it makes me somewhat sick.
02:13:01.840 | All of these people are such important giants,
02:13:04.480 | and it has to do with the field, I think,
02:13:06.800 | not wanting to create luminaries and superstars
02:13:10.880 | who could have defended the field from budget cuts
02:13:13.480 | and worldly pressure.
02:13:14.940 | So I think it's really important
02:13:16.720 | that we have absolute superstars
02:13:19.280 | because we produce superstars.
02:13:20.760 | We acknowledge them, we don't dilute them,
02:13:22.860 | and that we bend the rules to make sure
02:13:26.000 | that the prize stays funded with the prestige
02:13:29.000 | that comes from giving it to the Roger Penrose's,
02:13:32.880 | and Albert Einstein's, and Paul Dirac's of the war.
02:13:35.440 | - Can we talk a little bit about evil?
02:13:39.680 | - Sure.
02:13:40.520 | - I haven't actually talked to you about this topic,
02:13:45.320 | and it's been sitting on my mind
02:13:48.040 | mostly because everybody at MIT is quiet about it,
02:13:52.380 | which is Jeffrey Epstein.
02:13:55.420 | I didn't get a chance to experience what MIT was like
02:14:01.180 | at the time when Jeffrey Epstein was part of this,
02:14:04.400 | but I'd love to try to understand
02:14:08.600 | how evil was allowed to flourish
02:14:14.200 | in the place that I love.
02:14:16.760 | Whether you think,
02:14:20.020 | maybe let me ask the question this way.
02:14:24.200 | Was it the man evil, or was the system evil?
02:14:30.000 | Or is evil too strong a word?
02:14:31.840 | Because what I see is the presence
02:14:38.640 | of this particular human being
02:14:41.560 | in the eyes of many destroyed
02:14:46.120 | the reputations of many really strong scientists,
02:14:50.600 | and also weakened the ability,
02:14:53.640 | like weakened the institution of MIT
02:14:58.200 | by making everybody quiet,
02:15:02.520 | like almost making them unable to say
02:15:04.640 | anything interesting or difficult.
02:15:06.500 | - Yeah.
02:15:09.480 | - And what is that?
02:15:11.400 | And what am I supposed to?
02:15:12.760 | - We don't know.
02:15:15.200 | - Why is everyone quiet about Jeffrey?
02:15:16.520 | What I wanna scream-- - We don't know.
02:15:20.000 | Obviously, I wanna scream about it too, right?
02:15:22.400 | And I probably have said too much about Jeffrey Epstein.
02:15:27.680 | Look, something horrible happened.
02:15:29.560 | I don't know what it is, but something horrible happened.
02:15:33.280 | And at the one thing that, okay, let's just do this.
02:15:39.200 | The first thing I need to do is I need to get rid
02:15:41.880 | of this woke crap about power differentials, okay?
02:15:46.880 | In general, you can talk about,
02:15:51.400 | hypergamy and power differentials
02:15:53.760 | are Russell conjugates of the same concept.
02:15:56.840 | Just the way particular proportions and symmetries
02:16:00.160 | are mathematically provable to be attractive
02:16:02.880 | in females to males.
02:16:06.020 | Male attractiveness is largely determined
02:16:10.480 | by male competence and ability to amass power and success
02:16:15.280 | and all these sorts of things.
02:16:16.840 | The relationship between consenting adults
02:16:23.100 | is quite frankly not something I wanna sort out.
02:16:26.680 | The relationship between the sexuality of adults
02:16:31.180 | and minors and particularly,
02:16:35.180 | there's the 17, 18 issue.
02:16:40.440 | That's very different than 12, 13.
02:16:44.220 | We're talking about really sick depravity
02:16:50.220 | with respect to what it appears
02:16:52.280 | that Jeffrey Epstein was involved in at some level.
02:16:56.280 | I believe this story is super complicated in part
02:16:59.680 | because I think one thing that Jeffrey Epstein was doing
02:17:02.760 | was providing money, encouragement
02:17:06.720 | and support to scientists.
02:17:09.640 | Another thing he was doing, I believe,
02:17:11.360 | was giving tax advice to very rich people.
02:17:15.840 | I believe another thing he was doing
02:17:17.800 | was hooking very wealthy people up
02:17:22.800 | with young adult females.
02:17:26.040 | Another thing he was doing, I think,
02:17:28.960 | was doing stuff with children that will curl your toes.
02:17:33.120 | So there's an entire spectrum of different stuff
02:17:39.680 | and at the moment, nobody can pull apart
02:17:42.160 | or de-conflate anything because the woke thing
02:17:46.120 | comes over it and says,
02:17:48.120 | I think it's disgusting that a 43-year-old billionaire
02:17:53.280 | would be partying with a 23-year-old.
02:17:55.640 | Okay, I don't wanna adjudicate that.
02:18:00.200 | I'm worried about 12 and 14-year-olds
02:18:02.440 | that we're not talking about.
02:18:03.600 | - But I mostly--
02:18:05.040 | - I don't think MIT was deep into pedophilia.
02:18:08.440 | My guess is that that did not happen.
02:18:10.600 | I don't think that the scientists were the targets
02:18:15.600 | of the really sick depraved stuff.
02:18:18.120 | It's my guess.
02:18:19.880 | My guess is that what you're looking at
02:18:21.920 | was a government construct.
02:18:23.560 | It may have been our government,
02:18:26.280 | it may have been a joint government project,
02:18:27.880 | it may have been somebody else's government, I don't know.
02:18:31.360 | I believe that in part,
02:18:32.840 | we don't really understand Robert Maxwell.
02:18:37.020 | - Sorry, who's Robert Maxwell?
02:18:39.480 | - Ghislaine Maxwell's father was very active
02:18:43.080 | in scientific publishing.
02:18:44.760 | I don't know where peer review came from.
02:18:46.540 | I would love to run down the relationship
02:18:48.440 | between peer review and Robert Maxwell.
02:18:50.320 | I would love to run down the missing fortune
02:18:52.760 | of Robert Maxwell and the mysterious fortune
02:18:56.160 | of Jeffrey Epstein because I don't think Jeffrey Epstein
02:18:58.680 | ever ran a hedge fund.
02:19:00.720 | I don't think he was a money advisor
02:19:02.360 | the way people claimed.
02:19:04.160 | - So there's two things I wanna talk about.
02:19:06.120 | So one is the shallow conversations
02:19:10.080 | of woke identity politics that you're referring to
02:19:13.560 | seems to be removing everyone's ability,
02:19:17.320 | no, everyone's willingness--
02:19:18.160 | - It's one of the things, one of the things.
02:19:19.760 | - To talk about like, what the hell is this person
02:19:23.360 | and how is he allowed?
02:19:24.640 | Most importantly, to how do we prevent it in the future?
02:19:29.640 | And from the individual perspective,
02:19:31.420 | the question for me is the same question I ask
02:19:34.800 | about 1930s Nazi Germany.
02:19:36.600 | I've been reading way too much probably,
02:19:38.680 | or not enough about that period currently,
02:19:41.140 | is if I was in Germany at that time,
02:19:44.640 | what is the heroic action to take?
02:19:47.160 | When I think about MIT with Jeffrey Epstein,
02:19:49.600 | what is the heroic action to take?
02:19:51.560 | We're not talking about virtue signaling action.
02:19:53.400 | - You wouldn't know what,
02:19:54.640 | I would not know what you're up against, Lex.
02:19:56.800 | You're not hearing me.
02:19:57.900 | The problem here is, what was Jeffrey Epstein?
02:20:02.560 | - Well, that question might be the heroic action to take.
02:20:05.800 | - That's all I'm trying to say.
02:20:06.760 | I'm just trying to get my first question.
02:20:08.320 | You have to map the silence with Jeffrey Epstein.
02:20:10.880 | What you're describing is a map of the silence at MIT.
02:20:15.640 | - Yeah.
02:20:17.160 | - Well, is there a map of the silence
02:20:19.440 | in Washington State around Jeffrey Epstein?
02:20:23.200 | The Bay Area, New York City?
02:20:25.140 | The amount of silence around Jeffrey Epstein
02:20:28.440 | should be telling you everything.
02:20:30.080 | The number of dogs that don't bark
02:20:34.000 | is like nothing we've ever seen.
02:20:36.320 | - You're exactly correct,
02:20:38.040 | but I want to know what is it telling us?
02:20:40.120 | Because what it's telling me
02:20:42.120 | is not some kind of conspiracy,
02:20:44.440 | but more a disappointing weakness.
02:20:49.440 | - Not some kind of conspiracy?
02:20:51.120 | - It's not some kind of conspiracy, but--
02:20:52.960 | - You've got to be kidding.
02:20:55.040 | You're so afraid of saying the word conspiracy
02:20:56.960 | that you don't think it's a conspiracy?
02:20:58.880 | - I personally, I just think it's people
02:21:00.960 | who I thought were my heroes just being weak.
02:21:04.520 | - No.
02:21:05.980 | Be of good cheer, sir.
02:21:07.140 | - A cheer?
02:21:09.080 | - Be of good cheer.
02:21:10.200 | - Of good cheer?
02:21:11.040 | - Yeah.
02:21:11.880 | - You think that there's a conspiracy?
02:21:12.880 | - I think there is a conspiracy.
02:21:14.480 | - That'd be a very impressive one.
02:21:18.360 | That's the scale of it.
02:21:20.280 | I tend to believe that large scale
02:21:23.560 | can only be an emergent phenomena.
02:21:25.440 | - Really?
02:21:26.800 | I find this so fascinating.
02:21:28.200 | - Yeah.
02:21:29.040 | - 'Cause I always see you as like a logic,
02:21:31.240 | logic and love drive your soul.
02:21:35.120 | You're very logical, you're relentless,
02:21:37.560 | you've got a lot of love in your heart.
02:21:38.920 | I believe that if you would review the video,
02:21:41.160 | where is it from, Dubai or Abu Dhabi
02:21:43.680 | of the mysterious hit on the hotel guest?
02:21:47.520 | You ever seen this thing?
02:21:48.360 | - No.
02:21:49.200 | What happened?
02:21:50.020 | - It's the assassination in 2010, 10 years ago
02:21:53.760 | of Mahmoud Al-Mabuh, something like that,
02:21:57.440 | in Dubai where I believe 26 separate individuals
02:22:02.440 | on multiple teams are shown converging,
02:22:07.440 | coming in from all over the world on false passports,
02:22:10.920 | pretending to be tennis players
02:22:14.040 | or business people or vacationers.
02:22:17.440 | And all of these teams have different functions
02:22:21.880 | and they murder this guy in his hotel room.
02:22:27.080 | And the Dubai, I guess, chief of police
02:22:29.960 | or security officer was so angry
02:22:34.600 | that he put together this amazing video
02:22:36.680 | that says we can completely detail what you did.
02:22:39.720 | We caught you on closed circuit TV.
02:22:41.720 | We don't know exactly who you are
02:22:44.280 | 'cause your disguises and your false passports.
02:22:46.800 | But yeah, 26 people converged to kill one.
02:22:50.020 | No, I don't believe you.
02:22:53.600 | I don't believe after COINTELPRO and Operation Paperclip
02:22:58.000 | and Operation Mockingbird,
02:23:01.000 | I don't know whether I should even bring up Rex84,
02:23:07.040 | to not believe in conspiracies is an idiocy.
02:23:10.700 | - So you have a sense that evil can be as competent
02:23:16.560 | or more competent than--
02:23:18.000 | - First of all, when evil wants to operate at scale,
02:23:20.720 | it needs to make sure that people
02:23:22.440 | don't try to figure out evil.
02:23:24.900 | When evil operates at scale, from first principles,
02:23:29.120 | you have to realize that evil must not want it investigated.
02:23:33.520 | - That's correct.
02:23:35.080 | - The most efficient way
02:23:36.640 | to keep yourself from being investigated,
02:23:40.080 | if you are an evil institutional player
02:23:42.640 | and needs to do this repeatedly,
02:23:44.560 | is to invest in a world in which no one can afford
02:23:47.760 | to say the word conspiracy.
02:23:49.880 | You'll notice that there is a special radioactivity
02:23:52.720 | around the word conspiracy.
02:23:54.440 | We have provable conspiracies.
02:23:56.100 | We have admitted to conspiracies.
02:23:57.720 | You have been invited to conspiracies.
02:23:59.920 | There is no shortage.
02:24:00.760 | Conspiracies are everywhere.
02:24:02.700 | Some of them are mundane.
02:24:04.100 | Some of them are like price-fixing cartels,
02:24:06.440 | or trade groups, or generally speaking, conspiracies.
02:24:10.240 | So the first thing you have to realize
02:24:13.280 | is that all of us are under a,
02:24:16.200 | in a mimetic complex where you can be taken
02:24:20.320 | off the chessboard by saying conspiracy theorists.
02:24:22.920 | Good done.
02:24:23.760 | It's like a one-line proof.
02:24:24.960 | We don't have to listen to Alex.
02:24:26.040 | He said he was a conspiracy theorist on this show.
02:24:28.960 | Okay, that is partially distorting our conversation.
02:24:32.560 | If you want to ask me about Jeffrey Epstein,
02:24:34.500 | you have to agree with me that that is a logical description
02:24:37.900 | of what you would have to have
02:24:39.300 | if you wanted to commit conspiracies,
02:24:40.980 | is that you have to make sure that people
02:24:42.660 | are dissuaded from investigating this.
02:24:44.980 | Okay.
02:24:46.220 | - But it's a fascinatingly difficult idea then,
02:24:51.060 | because the world with conspiracy theories
02:24:53.420 | and the world without conspiracy theories,
02:24:56.100 | to the shallow glance, looks the same.
02:24:58.820 | - Well, my point, there is responsible conspiracy theorizing
02:25:03.820 | where you look at the history of unearthed conspiracies,
02:25:08.560 | and just like you would with any other topic,
02:25:10.560 | just think about how different the rules in your mind are
02:25:13.600 | for conspiracy theorizing versus X theorizing
02:25:16.760 | where X can be anything, right?
02:25:20.080 | It's like if I say to you,
02:25:21.400 | I can say the statement that average weight
02:25:27.720 | is not the same between widely separated populations.
02:25:30.720 | You'd say, yeah.
02:25:33.100 | I'd say average height is not the same
02:25:34.600 | between widely separated populations.
02:25:36.560 | You'd say, yeah.
02:25:38.680 | Then I say, in fact, no continuous variable
02:25:42.360 | that shows variation should be expected
02:25:44.840 | to be identical between widely separated.
02:25:46.800 | Of course, Eric, like IQ.
02:25:49.040 | Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, right?
02:25:52.280 | So we have a violent reaction to specific topics.
02:25:56.760 | So the first thing I wanna do is just to notice
02:25:59.760 | that conspiracy has that built into everyone's mind.
02:26:04.080 | - That's really important to state, yeah.
02:26:07.200 | It's very interesting that,
02:26:09.520 | and as a prerequisite, as you're saying,
02:26:13.000 | that would be the first step if you wanted to
02:26:15.200 | pull off a conspiracy in a competent way.
02:26:19.360 | You would have to first convince the world of that.
02:26:21.800 | - I just watched the film 1971
02:26:24.360 | about my favorite conspiracy of all time.
02:26:26.640 | I highly recommend it.
02:26:27.920 | - 1971?
02:26:29.240 | - Well, the film is entitled 1971,
02:26:32.480 | and it's about the Citizens Committee
02:26:34.040 | to investigate the FBI,
02:26:36.320 | which was run by a student of Murray Gelman, a physicist,
02:26:41.240 | and broke into FBI offices in Pennsylvania
02:26:44.640 | to steal files which allowed freedom of information requests
02:26:48.080 | that discovered a huge conspiracy.
02:26:50.000 | It was a conspiracy that unearthed a conspiracy
02:26:53.160 | inside the federal government,
02:26:54.680 | a double conspiracy story,
02:26:56.320 | which launched multiple conspiracies.
02:27:00.680 | I think that the problem with modern Americans
02:27:03.000 | is that they are so timid that they don't even learn
02:27:06.320 | about the history of conspiracies
02:27:08.200 | that we have absolutely proven.
02:27:10.800 | So with that done, Jeff Epstein, in my opinion,
02:27:15.280 | represented somebody's construction.
02:27:17.680 | I don't think that-- - Kind of scary to think about.
02:27:20.920 | - Yeah.
02:27:21.760 | Well, what part of the story isn't scary?
02:27:24.960 | I, in part, did something
02:27:26.680 | which I imagine may get me destroyed
02:27:28.960 | because I was more worried about being destroyed
02:27:31.920 | by somebody else I had a conversation with
02:27:34.800 | around Jeff Epstein, right?
02:27:37.600 | So I'm just trying to let it be known
02:27:40.560 | that I don't know anything more than I've already said.
02:27:43.040 | Now, your friends at MIT,
02:27:46.040 | their problem is that Jeff Epstein showed up
02:27:50.360 | as the only person capable
02:27:52.240 | of continuing US scientific tradition.
02:27:55.640 | You see, the US scientific tradition
02:28:00.560 | is a little bit like the Russian.
02:28:03.480 | It's combative, okay?
02:28:07.480 | And we're a free society and we act like a free society.
02:28:12.340 | We're a rich society and we research
02:28:14.280 | like we're a rich society.
02:28:15.640 | That is historically.
02:28:16.680 | And then came the 1970s.
02:28:19.160 | And William Proxmire and the Golden Fleece Awards
02:28:21.960 | and the idea that we're paying too much
02:28:24.400 | and these are welfare queens and lab coats
02:28:26.400 | and blah, blah, blah, blah.
02:28:27.960 | We need more transparency, more oversight.
02:28:31.120 | Everything went to hell.
02:28:32.360 | And the national culture of US science was lost.
02:28:37.400 | The thing that produced all this prosperity
02:28:39.520 | and security and power was lost.
02:28:43.320 | And then Jeff Epstein shows up.
02:28:46.120 | And a tiny number of funders, maybe Fred Kavli,
02:28:49.840 | maybe Yuri Milner, maybe who else would be in this category?
02:28:56.800 | Peter Thiel to an extent.
02:29:01.240 | Howard Hughes would be the largest of these things
02:29:05.160 | which has different grant structures than the NIH,
02:29:08.120 | gave people a modicum of risk-taking ability.
02:29:11.880 | Okay, well, when Jeff Epstein showed up,
02:29:15.260 | everybody wanted to take risk in science.
02:29:20.000 | And suddenly a charismatic billionaire says,
02:29:22.720 | hey, I can make that work for you.
02:29:24.200 | Here's $100,000, go research something crazy.
02:29:27.180 | Well, that money was supposed to be provided
02:29:31.520 | by the federal government under the terms
02:29:34.760 | of the endless frontier compact
02:29:36.600 | between the federal government and the universities.
02:29:39.000 | And the federal government and the taxpayers welched.
02:29:42.040 | Okay?
02:29:43.760 | - So that's one place to lay the blame for Jeff Epstein
02:29:46.580 | as at the failure of the federal government--
02:29:50.660 | - To honor its commitment.
02:29:53.380 | - Yeah.
02:29:54.220 | - Right?
02:29:55.300 | So the universities became psychopathic.
02:29:57.940 | It's not like everybody doesn't remember
02:29:59.620 | what we're supposed to be doing to be moral.
02:30:02.380 | But the point was there wasn't enough money to be moral.
02:30:04.940 | So it was time to eye each other as a source of protein,
02:30:09.520 | as I like to say.
02:30:11.020 | And in that process, Jeffrey Epstein said,
02:30:14.260 | hey, come to my world.
02:30:16.660 | We can do it like we used to do.
02:30:19.420 | So in part, my point is that almost none
02:30:25.560 | of your colleagues at MIT have that kind
02:30:28.900 | of religious commitment to science,
02:30:30.960 | that they're willing to go down with ship science.
02:30:33.460 | The Galileo Galilei thing became very important to science
02:30:39.740 | because occasionally you just have to say,
02:30:42.740 | look, this isn't about me and you.
02:30:45.980 | There isn't enough money in the world
02:30:48.180 | to buy the kind of legacy I want to leave to this planet.
02:30:51.180 | This is one of the great things about science.
02:30:55.420 | You know, potentially it's worth dying for.
02:30:57.500 | - Yeah, I'm glad you said it.
02:31:01.660 | Science is one of the things at its best
02:31:05.380 | that's worth dying for.
02:31:08.180 | I mean, I'm not eager to martyr myself,
02:31:10.880 | but I've certainly risked my health, my fortune.
02:31:15.800 | You know, I've destroyed myself economically over science.
02:31:20.820 | And my need to oppose these sons of bitches
02:31:25.820 | in chaired professorships who are destroying our system
02:31:30.860 | along with everyone else.
02:31:34.340 | - Let me bring in Grandmaster Uguay into this.
02:31:39.340 | - Uguay. - Uguay.
02:31:40.740 | - Master Uguay.
02:31:41.660 | - I think he's a grandmaster.
02:31:44.620 | - Oh, that would make him a chess-playing turtle.
02:31:46.860 | - So I read some Wikipedia.
02:31:48.300 | - Uh-oh.
02:31:49.140 | - A she-fu's a master.
02:31:52.340 | There's apparently only one grandmaster, and that's Uguay.
02:31:55.420 | Anyway.
02:31:57.340 | - Is the phrase grandmaster ever uttered in the script?
02:31:59.340 | - I don't think so. - I don't think so.
02:32:00.660 | - But there's a story.
02:32:01.860 | - Oh, there's off-script canon?
02:32:05.460 | I'm gonna call Glenn Burger right now
02:32:07.140 | and find out if any of this is true.
02:32:09.140 | - All right, you're not supposed to call out
02:32:11.060 | my journalistic integrity.
02:32:12.600 | But-- - Master Uguay.
02:32:15.580 | - Master Uguay.
02:32:17.180 | He says a couple things I'd like to bring up with you.
02:32:20.660 | So one, as part of a longer quote,
02:32:23.460 | recommends that you should find a battle worth fighting.
02:32:31.780 | We've talked about several battles just now.
02:32:34.440 | What is the battle worth fighting for, for Erik Weinstein,
02:32:39.860 | in the next few months, in the next year?
02:32:43.620 | - There's only one.
02:32:44.580 | Well, it's the Moses, it's the Moses thing.
02:32:51.620 | It's time to go, it's time to leave.
02:32:54.820 | This place is over.
02:32:55.800 | - To get off the planet.
02:32:57.000 | - Yeah, I freak people out when I say that,
02:33:00.380 | but look at your world.
02:33:03.420 | You just got introduced to the problem of a virus.
02:33:07.220 | Wait 'til it's fusion devices,
02:33:08.940 | and you understand what it means
02:33:10.140 | to have one interconnected planet
02:33:12.020 | with no uncorrelated experiments happening anywhere else.
02:33:17.020 | - So do you see the foray, your work in physics,
02:33:23.380 | and maybe the echoes of it in ship Elon?
02:33:28.020 | Everybody who has a possible plan
02:33:31.380 | to avoid what is coming if we don't have one
02:33:34.740 | should work on the plan that he, she thinks best, right?
02:33:39.740 | So Elon wants to do rockets.
02:33:43.660 | People misinterpret me.
02:33:45.100 | Meta Erik says, "I don't think that's a smart plan."
02:33:49.280 | Regular Erik says, "All people who have hope should work."
02:33:56.420 | - Everybody who has hope should do that thing.
02:33:59.140 | - Yeah, that-- - At least it's Mars, man.
02:34:01.820 | At least it's the moon and Mars and maybe Titan and whatever,
02:34:04.980 | and I don't think it'll work,
02:34:06.060 | and it doesn't make sense, and it looks silly.
02:34:08.020 | - But that's exactly the kind of fight worth fighting.
02:34:09.900 | - But it's the kind of, it's for the same reason
02:34:12.180 | that I went on Brett's Unity 2020 thing
02:34:14.500 | when I didn't think it had a hope in hell,
02:34:16.020 | and people were making fun of it.
02:34:17.700 | It's just like, we gotta do things
02:34:19.180 | that make us feel dumb and silly and childish
02:34:22.700 | that possibly have a hope of working, okay?
02:34:25.380 | So everybody should do something.
02:34:27.140 | My version of this, I am the most hopeful about
02:34:29.660 | because I wouldn't have chosen to do it
02:34:31.700 | if I thought that Daniel Schmachtenberger's wisdom project
02:34:35.280 | was a better hope, I'd do that.
02:34:37.860 | It's more down to earth in a certain way.
02:34:41.980 | I just think that it's more probable.
02:34:44.180 | Look, we got from powered flight
02:34:46.580 | with the Wright brothers in wind tunnels
02:34:49.060 | to sending back images from the surface of Titan
02:34:51.740 | via Huygens-Cassini in less than a century, okay?
02:34:56.420 | What we can do if we can change the laws of physics
02:34:59.700 | is something we can't even conceive of.
02:35:02.980 | It may be that it buys us nothing,
02:35:05.160 | and at least we will know why we died on this planet.
02:35:10.600 | - As a small aside, I think this is not the right time
02:35:16.580 | to take the full journey, but I feel like you'll guide me,
02:35:20.180 | like Master Hui did, and I'm the Kung Fu Panda at some point.
02:35:24.620 | - They only have one conversation.
02:35:26.380 | We're on our like, what?
02:35:28.740 | - We didn't, well, we're Jews and they weren't,
02:35:33.060 | so we talk too much,
02:35:34.900 | but the guide doesn't have to be with words.
02:35:37.860 | - You don't think Poe is Jewish?
02:35:39.460 | - It's debatable, we'll have to go back to the Wikipedia.
02:35:43.500 | - Yeah, okay.
02:35:46.740 | Is there that you would guide me through
02:35:49.700 | some more intuition about the source code,
02:35:55.500 | the source code of our universe?
02:35:57.940 | Can you comment on where, since we last spoke,
02:36:00.780 | where your thinking has been,
02:36:02.660 | has roamed around geometric unity,
02:36:05.000 | around that work in physics, in this fight?
02:36:08.380 | - Yeah, I'm trying to figure out
02:36:09.940 | when to release it and how.
02:36:13.180 | I mean, I've released the video,
02:36:15.380 | and the video, quite honestly,
02:36:18.020 | I think it has a very bizarre reaction.
02:36:19.920 | I think one of the things that I've learned from the video,
02:36:22.380 | 'cause the video is coming up on half a million views
02:36:25.580 | on YouTube alone, to say nothing of the audio,
02:36:30.580 | but yeah, it produced a very strange reaction.
02:36:34.620 | One of the things I don't think that I properly understood
02:36:37.380 | is that most physicists don't talk
02:36:41.500 | in this geometric language.
02:36:43.380 | I thought that more of the physics world
02:36:48.380 | probably had converted over into manifolds, bundles,
02:36:52.900 | differential forms, connections,
02:36:54.300 | curvature tensors, et cetera.
02:36:55.920 | And I saw a lot of the comments would say things like,
02:37:00.340 | I have a PhD in theoretical physics,
02:37:02.340 | and I'm not even familiar with all of these concepts.
02:37:04.860 | And I think that was probably a distortion
02:37:08.580 | coming from living in Cambridge, Massachusetts
02:37:12.100 | for almost 20 years.
02:37:13.260 | - So what's the solution to that?
02:37:16.340 | - Well, I mean, I can translate it into,
02:37:18.620 | I can make this make as much sense as anybody needs to.
02:37:21.260 | My problem is, my calculation is that
02:37:26.260 | as long as the boomers are still in charge,
02:37:30.980 | the same people have these perverse incentives on them,
02:37:34.180 | where they've invested in these programs that didn't work,
02:37:36.780 | so they're extremely hostile
02:37:38.580 | and kind of difficult to deal with.
02:37:41.780 | The fact that I'm not a physicist
02:37:43.540 | has its own set of issues,
02:37:46.180 | which is that effectively it's like the hermit kingdom.
02:37:48.480 | They don't get any visitors,
02:37:49.980 | and they don't necessarily want somebody
02:37:53.780 | rolling up and saying, I know how to do physics.
02:37:56.940 | So I'm always very clear, I'm not a physicist.
02:37:59.420 | That said, if I wait too long,
02:38:04.020 | I don't know that theoretical physics
02:38:05.660 | is really gonna exist after the boomers
02:38:07.660 | because everyone in you,
02:38:09.620 | I think you had Wolfram on your program.
02:38:12.260 | I don't remember whether he said this to you
02:38:13.740 | or Brian Keating,
02:38:14.980 | but he said something like, everybody got discouraged.
02:38:17.660 | It was too hard.
02:38:18.660 | We can't do that, guys.
02:38:21.940 | We cannot do that.
02:38:23.060 | There's something about the renormalization revolution
02:38:25.700 | that enervated the physics community
02:38:27.580 | because it taught them,
02:38:29.340 | just because you can see in this energy regime
02:38:31.300 | doesn't mean you can extrapolate somewhere else
02:38:33.340 | unless you understand how coupling constants run
02:38:36.680 | and what kind of UV fixed points exist, blah, blah, blah.
02:38:41.280 | Somehow that discouraged people from guessing,
02:38:43.840 | from believing everything became an effective theory.
02:38:46.960 | The beauty of the effective theory
02:38:48.600 | wasn't taken to be really the beauty of the universe,
02:38:51.560 | just the beauty of an energy level.
02:38:53.320 | So I think that renormalization
02:38:56.040 | was one of the most important revolutions
02:38:58.280 | that ever happened in science,
02:38:59.760 | and also its interpretation by the physics community
02:39:03.240 | was catastrophic.
02:39:04.860 | Well, the story I'm telling myself
02:39:06.240 | is that in part I'm waiting for them to get weaker,
02:39:09.020 | but on the other hand,
02:39:10.960 | I don't know that we have any time left.
02:39:13.080 | - Are you also thinking about ways of,
02:39:16.180 | the podcast medium is revolutionary for public,
02:39:22.480 | for discourse, for what,
02:39:23.920 | I mean, I don't even know the right words for it.
02:39:25.880 | Are you thinking of revolutionary ideas
02:39:27.800 | for re-energizing the physics community?
02:39:30.640 | So basically for communicating geometry.
02:39:32.640 | - Look, I have a fantasy, okay?
02:39:36.920 | My fantasy is that all of these things
02:39:38.400 | are the same problem.
02:39:39.960 | And it goes back to this thing that I read about
02:39:42.080 | in Feynman's books about Tartaglia.
02:39:46.920 | They asked him this question,
02:39:48.080 | like what's the greatest thing that ever happened in math?
02:39:50.440 | And he says, "Tartaglia's solution of the cubic."
02:39:53.560 | It's just like the weirdest answer.
02:39:55.800 | So you're like, okay, I'll bite.
02:39:58.040 | Why is it Tartaglia's solution of the cubic?
02:40:00.360 | And he said, "Because it was the first time
02:40:02.240 | "a modern person had done something profound
02:40:04.280 | "that the ancients had failed to do."
02:40:06.180 | I was like, oh, I get it.
02:40:09.360 | It's the thing that opens up new psychology
02:40:11.780 | that says maybe things are possible again.
02:40:14.220 | - It's the new orchard.
02:40:16.840 | - New orchard.
02:40:17.660 | New farmers, new people who can find fruit
02:40:22.120 | that they can pick.
02:40:23.620 | And once you have one person do that,
02:40:25.780 | very often you get many.
02:40:26.860 | Like one of the things that we were talking about
02:40:28.080 | with Eddie Van Halen,
02:40:29.600 | the reason that he created a revolution
02:40:31.840 | and somebody like Roy Buchanan did not,
02:40:34.800 | is that you could follow Eddie Van Halen.
02:40:36.940 | You couldn't pioneer it.
02:40:38.360 | And maybe you couldn't play as well and as cleanly
02:40:40.360 | and as fast and as inventively,
02:40:42.260 | but you could follow.
02:40:44.440 | Once you understand that there is a tapping principle,
02:40:47.040 | it was just the beginning
02:40:48.140 | of something called percussive guitar.
02:40:50.080 | My belief is that once we start innovating in the present,
02:40:56.180 | everything will come
02:41:00.040 | because everything that around us is screwed up.
02:41:02.500 | - On that, let me, with one last question,
02:41:06.480 | bring back Master Oogway.
02:41:08.220 | Probably the most famous quote of his, right?
02:41:12.440 | With yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery,
02:41:15.520 | but today is a gift.
02:41:16.740 | That is why it is called the present.
02:41:20.640 | - It's very beautiful.
02:41:21.480 | Although I would have gone with,
02:41:23.680 | quit, don't quit, noodles, don't noodles.
02:41:27.480 | I feel like people need to know way too much context
02:41:30.480 | to make sense.
02:41:32.600 | It's your audience.
02:41:34.720 | To hell with context.
02:41:35.720 | Yep, they'll figure it out.
02:41:37.520 | Well, let me ask, what are you grateful for today?
02:41:41.720 | What is your present?
02:41:43.080 | We've talked about a lot of dark things,
02:41:46.040 | but what brings you joy to your heart
02:41:50.440 | that I can't believe I'm lucky enough to have this?
02:41:55.600 | - You know, Nyla and Zev, my wife, Pia,
02:41:59.520 | the fact that we've got our health,
02:42:02.960 | all the little things, saying grace after meals.
02:42:07.960 | You're coming over for Friday night Shabbat dinner,
02:42:10.400 | so we'll bench together and say grace.
02:42:13.560 | It's important to just,
02:42:16.600 | like this bottle of water in front of me,
02:42:18.720 | I made a point of just thinking
02:42:24.320 | how wonderful it is that there's a quenching bottle
02:42:26.520 | that happens to be placed in front of me
02:42:28.080 | because somebody cared.
02:42:29.640 | So that small thing made a difference to me.
02:42:32.420 | I still have strength for the fight so far.
02:42:40.880 | I think that's something I'm grateful for.
02:42:43.120 | I can't believe that I'm not more beaten down
02:42:45.800 | after all of this nonsense.
02:42:47.980 | I have the most interesting set of friends.
02:42:54.280 | I really do.
02:42:55.120 | I mean, I'm not that rich by monetary standards,
02:42:59.880 | but if there were friend billionaires,
02:43:01.720 | Forbes would be all over my ass.
02:43:03.320 | I just can't believe who I can talk to,
02:43:09.280 | you know, at the drop of a hat.
02:43:11.180 | And I'm really grateful.
02:43:22.520 | I think this is the end of something profound,
02:43:25.680 | and it's the beginning of whatever is next.
02:43:28.800 | And whatever's next could be terminal.
02:43:30.600 | Whatever's next could be amazing.
02:43:32.560 | Whatever's next could be a return to the horrors
02:43:36.120 | of the early 20th century that doesn't manage
02:43:38.320 | to go totally catastrophic,
02:43:39.980 | but takes hundreds of millions of lives in the process.
02:43:43.940 | I'm grateful to having half of my life
02:43:47.420 | in the rear view mirror.
02:43:48.620 | Maybe it took place in a bubble,
02:43:52.080 | and maybe it was unsustainable.
02:43:54.480 | But it was nice to be able to move around the world
02:43:58.320 | without a mask.
02:44:00.160 | It was nice to be able to see a little bit of the world,
02:44:03.040 | even if it was from a cot in a hostel in some country.
02:44:07.560 | - To fall in love.
02:44:10.340 | - Absolutely.
02:44:12.560 | I mean-- - It was a good life.
02:44:14.120 | - Find the last Indian Jewish girl left.
02:44:17.340 | (laughing)
02:44:18.640 | Who knew?
02:44:19.480 | You're a lucky guy.
02:44:21.840 | - Well, let me just say--
02:44:23.560 | - Actually, there's something I wanted to just say
02:44:25.100 | before you get to that.
02:44:26.880 | I forgot to say something.
02:44:28.720 | Falling in love with an intellectual collaborator
02:44:32.000 | is a special thing that not everybody gets a chance to do.
02:44:36.200 | I think when I met Pia, I fell deeply in love with her,
02:44:39.840 | all her normal characteristics.
02:44:42.680 | She and I had an antagonistic relationship
02:44:45.800 | around geometry and economics.
02:44:50.520 | And then, weirdly, just like in a buddy picture
02:44:53.800 | where in the first half of the film, they hate each other,
02:44:56.800 | the two feel like we're fighting
02:44:58.280 | with each other, cats and dogs.
02:44:59.560 | And finally, the sexual tension clearly was so thick
02:45:03.280 | you could cut it with a knife.
02:45:04.720 | And we came up with geometric marginalism,
02:45:07.080 | which is this other theory, not geometric unity,
02:45:09.880 | which allowed me to inhabit space
02:45:13.880 | with somebody who I already knew intimately
02:45:18.120 | and had fallen in love with,
02:45:20.160 | and to see the quality and beauty of their mind
02:45:22.800 | and to play and to dance.
02:45:23.860 | It's sort of the intellectual version of the tango.
02:45:26.540 | One of the most romantic periods of my life
02:45:30.360 | that doesn't fall into most people's experience.
02:45:33.680 | That was a chance to see something totally unexpected.
02:45:37.000 | Haven't really had it since
02:45:38.300 | because she doesn't wanna revisit the material,
02:45:41.000 | but something I'm super grateful for
02:45:42.800 | that's very particular and unique.
02:45:44.560 | - But to flip the tables on you
02:45:47.360 | for hundreds of thousands, I think millions of people,
02:45:51.920 | I can speak, me and them are really grateful.
02:45:57.520 | One, that you exist, and two, sorry for your podcast.
02:46:02.520 | And I do hope your voice in some form continues
02:46:08.880 | to reverberate, I think,
02:46:12.880 | in the, at least in the 2021s and beyond.
02:46:16.640 | Even if it takes a brief pause.
02:46:19.840 | - We're pausing at the moment.
02:46:21.600 | We've recorded some for future episodes
02:46:25.000 | and I'm recording for you.
02:46:26.440 | I really appreciate that.
02:46:27.600 | I mean, it's, earnestness trades at a discount at the moment
02:46:32.600 | because it's easy to make fun of it.
02:46:34.480 | And one of the things I like best about you
02:46:36.040 | is that you and I are both fairly earnest.
02:46:38.440 | We may joke and jab, but honestly,
02:46:41.800 | there's a project here and a world to win, as they say.
02:46:44.940 | The thing that I want my and your listeners to know
02:46:49.940 | is that I'm not stepping away from the podcast
02:46:54.160 | because I don't appreciate that people really want more.
02:46:58.800 | It's not, you know,
02:47:01.000 | this is hugely financially costly to me.
02:47:03.440 | I want to make sure you guys are getting
02:47:07.320 | the best that I can do.
02:47:09.720 | And destroying myself right in front of an election,
02:47:14.600 | I think Lex is incorrect.
02:47:16.080 | I think that the forces that are trying to make sure
02:47:19.220 | that there aren't any planes in the sky
02:47:20.880 | that aren't either colored red or colored blue
02:47:23.640 | is a big danger given how angry I am at the system.
02:47:29.000 | And I don't want to be removed from the chessboard
02:47:30.960 | because if nobody's going to talk about Jeff Epstein,
02:47:32.960 | there need to be people.
02:47:33.880 | If nobody's going to talk about various things
02:47:36.040 | that we've talked about on these programs,
02:47:38.160 | I want to make sure that I'm there.
02:47:39.840 | Do I think that this is potentially
02:47:41.200 | an existential election?
02:47:43.160 | Am I positive that I know that my way to bed
02:47:44.840 | is the right way out?
02:47:45.860 | No, I'm not.
02:47:47.460 | I don't know, people.
02:47:48.460 | I just don't know.
02:47:49.540 | And where we are right now seems so dumb
02:47:52.440 | and so catastrophic in terms of how it is
02:47:55.400 | chewing up smart people that I decided,
02:47:59.940 | it's really not about cowardice
02:48:01.380 | because it's hard for me to restrain myself.
02:48:04.320 | I have so many reactions every day.
02:48:06.280 | This is really about trying to plan for all of our futures
02:48:10.580 | to make sure that I'm around.
02:48:12.360 | I had a huge concern that what happened
02:48:14.340 | to Brett's articles of unity was going to happen to Brett.
02:48:17.480 | It's going to happen to the YouTube channels.
02:48:19.420 | I want to make sure that we don't have all of our eggs
02:48:21.480 | in one basket.
02:48:22.760 | So if something goes wrong over there,
02:48:25.040 | that's the whole idea of the intellectual dark web,
02:48:27.000 | which is at some level a loose confederation.
02:48:30.960 | It can become a strong confederation
02:48:32.780 | if somebody wants to back it and make it work.
02:48:35.160 | It can dissolve so that there really isn't anything.
02:48:38.820 | The thing is to be hard to kill
02:48:42.280 | because ultimately when the hit pieces come,
02:48:46.040 | they don't come for what it is
02:48:47.440 | that they're angry at you about.
02:48:48.640 | They come for where they can get you.
02:48:51.440 | And so it's very important that right in front
02:48:53.360 | of an election, yeah, I think that the desire
02:48:58.360 | of the old system to defend itself
02:49:01.720 | through reputational destruction
02:49:03.840 | is one of the most pernicious aspects of the new America.
02:49:07.180 | And we have to fight the ability to destroy reputations
02:49:11.200 | as a means of institutions keeping individuals
02:49:14.540 | with podcasts and the ability to reach millions
02:49:16.880 | like through Substack out of their domain.
02:49:20.360 | I don't surrender this domain to them.
02:49:22.360 | They have plenty of weaponry with which to fight us.
02:49:25.760 | And I believe that they could remove you or me
02:49:27.920 | in an instant.
02:49:28.760 | By the end of today, if they wanted us off the chessboard,
02:49:31.600 | we would be off the chessboard.
02:49:33.040 | I know that's not your perspective.
02:49:34.900 | My goal is to stay here as long as possible
02:49:38.160 | to make sure that you have enough
02:49:40.240 | of a counterbalancing set of ideas
02:49:42.520 | and to let and help other podcasters start.
02:49:46.280 | And my hope is that that works.
02:49:50.100 | But long heroism, short martyrdom
02:49:54.120 | is a good motto for anyone.
02:49:56.480 | And I try to remember the short martyrdom part of that.
02:49:59.480 | - First of all, beautifully put.
02:50:02.840 | Second of all, a way to end a conversation
02:50:05.160 | and a disagreement, which is how you hook them
02:50:08.440 | for the next conversation to be continued.
02:50:11.160 | - When Lex says.
02:50:12.400 | - Eric, it's a huge honor.
02:50:15.280 | Thank you once again.
02:50:16.960 | - Lex, really appreciate every time we get together.
02:50:18.960 | Thanks, buddy.
02:50:20.480 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation
02:50:21.920 | with Eric Weinstein.
02:50:23.160 | And thank you to our sponsors.
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02:50:34.400 | to add healthy variety into my culinary life.
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02:50:41.760 | I've ever come across.
02:50:43.440 | I don't like looking at numbers, but someone should.
02:50:46.360 | It helps you make good decisions.
02:50:48.540 | And finally, ExpressVPN, the VPN I've used for many years
02:50:52.880 | to protect my privacy on the internet.
02:50:55.840 | Please check out these sponsors in the description
02:50:57.820 | to get a discount and to support this podcast.
02:51:01.560 | If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
02:51:03.720 | review it with Five Stars on Apple Podcast,
02:51:05.960 | follow on Spotify, support on Patreon,
02:51:08.680 | or connect with me on Twitter @LexFriedman.
02:51:12.080 | And now, let me leave you with some words
02:51:14.600 | from Leonard Cohen in a song titled "Hallelujah".
02:51:19.320 | Well, maybe there's a God above,
02:51:21.780 | but all I've ever learned from love
02:51:24.120 | was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.
02:51:26.800 | And it's not a cry that you hear at night.
02:51:30.480 | It's not somebody who's seen the light.
02:51:32.880 | It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.
02:51:36.120 | Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
02:51:40.960 | (upbeat music)
02:51:43.540 | (upbeat music)
02:51:46.120 | [BLANK_AUDIO]