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Language: en
culture is software we know it's
continually failing us we should not
have a significant number of Americans
alleging the election was stolen there
was a pretty gnarly one-two punch
between covet and Trump that I really
think caused a sense-making apparatus to
fall apart in some way yeah my question
is can we stop the rise of evil or is
that already a fallacy and if we can
then how well I mean I think your first
point is that we didn't have a anything
like a consensus around what was going
on I mean people were siled into various
Echo Chambers and just not converging on
an assessment of just what the facts are
about anything I don't consider myself
the best judge of how this happened
because there you know there were people
who were sufficiently far from me on the
in the information landscape so that I
just I just cease to understand how they
could be thinking and doing what they
they were thinking and doing I mean I
just I you know I'm not seeing their
social media feed I'm seeing some
fragments of what they're they're
finding persuasive but
it's just amazing to me that there are
I don't know what it is 30 40 of
American society still thinks that Trump
was not only fine there's no just better
than fine they're just impeccable on
some level ethically and
that January 6 was a non-event and that
there was really nothing at stake there
it's all just been it's you know you
know insanely it was it was a
combination of nothing happened but
everything that did happen was you know
antifa or you know Trump trumped up by
the CIA or something it was just it was
not violent but the violence was was uh
you know from some other source I mean
this is not a coherent view but you
literally have something like 100
million people who think that
it was just no factor I mean there was
there's nothing the only thing bad that
happened is that the election got stolen
from the the rightful president which
was Trump I don't know how you are
paying attention to anything like a
valid source of information and and
still believe and you still believe that
right and they're and they're people who
believe that or pretend to believe it
enough that they're
and I do think they're people who are
just being fundamentally dishonest with
their audiences so you have and I think
it's amazing how it comes it can come
down to a couple of dozen personalities
that that really are close to the the
the lever that moves public opinion here
so you have someone like Tucker Carlson
who we know on the basis of the Dominion
lawsuit behind closed doors was talking
about Trump as a demonic Force he
couldn't wait for him to to disappear
from the public conversation uh he hated
him with passion and those are basically
verbatim quotes uh of his text messages
within you know behind the scenes at Fox
that got you know entered into evidence
in the Dominion case and yet his public
facing message is all you know Trump
supporting conspiracy theorizing all the
time for years he was the most watched
person on Fox and and you know pretty
soon he'll be the most watched person
you know whatever he he finally hangs
his hat but you know his Twitter videos
get apparently tens of millions of views
and so he's got this enormous audience
that seemingly doesn't care about his
hypocrisy right which is amazing to me I
don't know how you maintain an audience
with this kind of loss of face the the
mainstream media was not shy in
advertising his the discrepancy between
what he was saying behind closed doors
and what he was saying on his show right
so either either you have 100 million
people who just simply never watch any
mainstream media product or read it you
know and that's quite possible
but the basic problem before anything
you know before
we think about antithetical ethical
commitments or political commitments or
you know people who disagree about evil
really at bottom we just can't even
Converge on on a discussion of facts I
mean people just can't agree about what
is happening or much less why or what
should happen the thing that we have to
start with one to set the table is is
that what people are doing that they
really do all have their own good
intentions they all think that they have
spotted the evil but they're just
spotting it from different sides if
that's true then people's behavior at
least makes sense I understand how it's
self-motivated now it's never going to
be that pure I'm sure there are also
some people that are just grabbing for
power but if if the the public response
is okay I see from where I'm sitting
from my side that the other side is evil
and and I need to really react
accordingly then then it starts to make
sense now if that's what's going on then
it becomes okay well now we need the
sense making apparatus by which we
figure out what is evil what is the
right response and the first step in
that is going to be I think to identify
what's true that we need some anchor in
the storm that we're going to say okay
this is the foundation and we're going
to build up from here there has to be a
mechanism by which we start to figure
all this out and so I'll lay out my
rough thesis as a way just to sort of
guide the conversation so I think that
there's something about the modern world
largely as it's married to technology
that creates this inability to get
people to share a narrative which allows
us then to approach any issue from the
same perspective of what we're trying to
achieve so you've got velocity of
information so information is just
coming out of so fast and furious I've
heard you talk about Alex Jones in that
context yeah of like hey this guy just
talks as fast as he can throwing out so
many points at you each one just makes
you look uneducated if you're like I
didn't know what that was and you're
like you find out it doesn't even exist
and so that is social media just the
rate at which information can come at
you is so fast the business model of
social media is that whatever grabs
attention is going to be monetized so
then people very quickly realize the
more salacious the more sort of grand
and aggressive the more likely it is to
get attention so now it's coming at you
hyper negative and Hyper fast when you
combine that with this sense of
everything has to roll up into a
headline so all of these ideas are
incredibly nuanced the problem is to get
them to propagate on social media they
have to be a headline it has to be
something that's memorable it has to be
something that's easily digestible and
it has to be something that's repeatable
and when you repeat it that the other
person's like oh that's sick you got it
just right and now they want to go tell
somebody else and So for anybody that's
being bombarded with all this
information as a way to wrap their heads
around it they just pick a team and then
the team just tells them yeah these are
all your positions so now all you have
to memorize are the headlines for for
your group and I actually am deeply
empathetic to that because holding on to
the Nuance of a complicated situation is
already very difficult
when you are able to roll that up into a
headline it becomes something that you
can hold on to far more easily but then
the truth of the on the ground
interaction points all get lost and so I
as I was watching all of this unfold
then it became the those 12 people that
you're talking about and certainly I
will put you as one of them it began to
be unclear like okay wait what what what
is the foundation that you're building
on that you level up from this and so
what I want to get through in the
beginning here is what is that
foundation so in a world where the sense
making apparatus is dealing with
velocity of information misinformation
power grabs corruption but you can
actually hide a lot of that
through velocity of headline um rolling
up a complex topic into an over
simplification where do we get the
Bedrock now I'm I am aware of the not
debate maybe it was a debate that you
and Jordan did about what is truth and
and I know that you can devolve into
madness but like if you were to give a
simple explanation of how you ground
yourself when you think through these
things what does that look like first of
all
not being tribal right so not being not
caring really about I mean I care about
Source I care about sources of
information as a proxy for just not
having to figure out everything from
from you know the Bedrock every time
right so yeah being an expert yeah so I
think I think it you can default to
expertise most of the time all the while
knowing that expertise can fail it's
just a sanity sparing and certainly time
sparing practice to say okay most of
what is printed in the New York Times
has to be to a first approximation
mostly true otherwise the New York Times
is no longer the New York Times now I
think there there have been moments
where and certainly on specific topics
where it's been valid to worry that the
New York Times is no longer the New York
Times right there I think it's sort of
systematically getting certain topics
wrong or shading the truth for you know
as an expression of obvious political
bias so there's there there are moments
where all of our institutions have if
not you know frankly failed us showed a
capacity to fail us you know at times
and
um and what that did to much of the
country is just
torpedo any trust in institutions right
so the the the trust in the the
mainstream media is at its all-time low
I would imagine
um certainly the last time I looked at a
poll on that topic that seemed to be the
case but so it is with government
messaging on virtually any Topic in
particular Public Health our scientific
institutions our universities uh and all
of this is understandable in
that in the last you know six years post
Trump and post covid we had this almost
perfect storm politically where there
really did seem to be a capture of the
mainstream institutions by a very
intolerant and really at bottom ill
liberal political ideology I mean it's
supposedly liberal it's far left but
it's you know in in terms of its style
of thought it was um
you know we were
edging toward you know Chinese show
trials I mean it was really it was just
you know the kinds of and the truth is
you didn't need that many specific cases
to feel like okay you've seen enough
the you there's no reason to listen to
these people ever again right I mean if
you're if you're somebody who's just
poised to throw the baby out with a bath
water it's just you just need to hear
you know one case of someone being you
know defenestrated at the New York Times
for
um is not surviving one specific
blasphemy test and that's you know then
then there's just no then the New York
Times is no better than the epoch times
or Breitbart or anything else that is in
in the business of of you know putting
things in font and and shipping them and
um it's all journalism right you know uh
so
so for me it was it was you had to
recognize that though our institutions
are challenged there is still such a
thing as expertise there is still such a
thing as institutional knowledge there's
a need for institutions
that we can trust certainly when you're
in the middle of a pandemic we need a a
CDC and an FDA that we can actually
trust right so the fact that we felt
that we couldn't quite trust them
is an enormous problem and it's it's the
the thing we need to shore up is the
trustworthiness of indispensable
institutions it's not that we need to
tear everything down to the studs such
that there are no institutions no one
thinks in terms of Institutions it's all
just podcasts and sub-stack newsletters
as far as the eye can see and we're just
going to all do our own research right
um and I think do it it's not to say
that doing your own research is never
valid and it's never even important I
mean there's certainly cases where
one person can
pull at a thread long enough that
something really important unravels and
we're all you know wiser for it
um or that you know one individual given
a specific problem in their lives you
know let's say a medical problem they do
their own research and they discover the
remedy for the thing that was ailing
their family member or whatever and you
know the doctors didn't do it and the
CDC didn't do it and the FDA was wrong
and they found the thing that helped
okay great generally speaking
doing it when times are good doing your
own research is just frankly a waste of
time and when things really matter
is very likely a dangerous waste of time
right it's like you don't you don't get
on an airplane
and decide you know well I'm you know
I'm not so sure I trust the pilot or the
guy you know the guys who repair the
engines I'm going to do some of my own
research here you know like you know let
me in the cockpit I want to you know I
want to interrogate some of those dials
and switches it's like that's
that's not a situation where anyone
would tolerate
this sort of
contrarian anti-establishment I'm going
to innovate you know just break stuff
and and see what happens
um
and that the problem is in many respects
we are at 30 000 feet together all of us
all the time and we're having to we're
having to figure out what is real and
what to do and we do need experts that
actually
warrant our trust because they are in
fact experts right so when you know
they're just specific cases like
what's really happening in Ukraine and
why and what should we do about it right
what should we should we be sending them
arms is Putin line about you know the
last thing he said was true on the
ground
um when our state department has a press
conference
and tells us what's going on we need a
state department that we trust to inform
us right we and and when the New York
Times has some point of view on what's
happening there we need a New York Times
that is sourcing information in a way
that is that is valid we just we can't
have everyone
trying to get to ground truth based on
their own private efforts to come up
with what we should all think about
Ukraine or what we should all think
about mRNA vaccines or whatever it is
but people do feel that and I certainly
felt that at the beginning of this so as
I hear you say so remember my my initial
question is what's your foundation and
the foundation felt like you wanted to
be experts but you understand how much
they've eroded their credibility so my
question because I don't disagree with
you if I was at 30 000 feet I don't want
people going in and trying to mess with
the pilot but I think that the analogy
might not quite be right for what we
went through we what it felt like and
I'll just speak for myself but I think I
represent a lot of people what it felt
like was oh I'm realizing that the pilot
is lying to me now I'm willing to be
generous and say the pilot is lying to
me because they're trying to Stamp Out
evil and they really believe that that
to trick the American public into taking
a vaccine whatever
is the right answer and that they are
doing it with a big heart and that they
really just want to help people get
where they're going but like when they
said you know masks don't work it was
just like come on like that doesn't make
any sense and then they flip and they're
like no of course actually Mass do work
and we're just lying to you because we
needed to get them into the medical
professionals hands so it's like just
slowly slowly they start eroding and you
suddenly realize everybody has an agenda
now that I get it but where it starts to
be a problem for me is when if if we
understand that experts have an agenda
and and I'll even
um I had Peter attia on my show who's a
medical expert amazing and if if he
tells me to do something I basically
just do it like he's unbelievable and he
in his new book he talks about how you
actually can be fat and healthy and when
he said that my first impulse was Peter
you can't tell people that because even
if it's true it's in such a like Edge
case narrow percentage and the vast
majority of the bell curve are all
people who are fat and unhealthy and if
you give them that out they're going to
take it they're never going to make any
changes and they're going to die and
they're going to raise their kids worse
and their kids are going to have shorter
life expectancy and I really had an
emotional response of like you can't
tell people that even if it's true but
in that moment I realized oh this is the
very thing crazy yeah so I'm like you
you can't so I was like well if it's
true it's true and the consequences are
going to be what the consequences are
going to be so then I start going okay
then if I can't just more myself around
um
experts are going to know and they're
going to be able to say because I don't
think three years ago Peter would have
written this book I don't think he had
the insights into it so even somebody's
brightest him over time is changing so
experts don't really know what's right
and what's wrong especially not in a hot
and heavy situation like that on top of
that there are inevitably going to be
things that I think should be said
somebody else thinks shouldn't be said
or vice versa and so now you get to okay
well if we can all agree we're only
going to say what's true like even that
I think is a task but let's say that we
all agree that we're only going to say
what's true now this gets really
complicated and I will put forth that
what I think is quote unquote true is
based on
perspective interpretation and
reinforcement so there's physics which
we don't even understand fully and then
there's everything else and because
a a gigantic part of everyday truth and
I don't know if that will help us get to
a sort of in the weeds working
definition
but everyday truth seems to be
predicated on that you have to take into
the into account the person's
perspective so how do they see the world
blue red right uh you have to take into
account their interpretation so looking
at data some people are going to say no
it doesn't show that it shows this and
you can get people that look at the data
and just violently disagree on what it
shows uh and then you've got the
reinforcement so if they put out a tweet
saying their version of the truth and
they get a wall of reinforcement
um then they're just one that feels good
they're going to see it more and more
and more and more and more and so just
the sheer repetition of it all yeah um
any of those pieces feel wrong
well I think the thing you pointed to
there in your conversation with Peter is
important to focus on because people
have
a very hard time
just keeping track of everything that's
said right and and keeping things in
proportion right and so I think your
intuition that is dangerous to be
precisely true on that point
because most people most of the time
will draw the wrong message that is the
style of thinking as You observe that
our Public Health officials were too
encumbered by right like they were they
were aware that they were messaging into
a very dirty information
landscape right it's just polluted with
conspiracy thinking and Frank lies and
we had a president who was you know by
turns minimizing everything and lying
about it I mean just telling pointless
lies like you know there's we have 15
cases and it's going to go away you know
immediately right and
so the end there was just this basic
fact it was quite inconvenient in the
case of a pandemic that it's just moving
Target where we're
we're finding that we don't actually
don't understand what we thought we
understood yesterday right so the
message is changing it's not it's not
that we have a completely clear message
that is still difficult to parse and we
have to be careful we have to talk to
people like children or at least in a
kind of paternalistic way and say okay
listen most fat people are not healthy
it's generally not healthy to be fat
virtually every fat person would be
healthier if they were less fat but it's
still possible to be healthy if you're
fat and there are people who are skinny
who are not healthy and it gets
confusing so
but you can't really go wrong
with this basic message that you want to
be thin and fit and you want to do the
things you want to be on your way to
being thin and fit at minimum you want
to be active you want to be eating well
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the truth was getting overturned by
further Revelations I mean the truth
with respect to the disease the
epidemiology of it uh how contagious it
was how dangerous it was we were getting
new variants or literally the disease
itself was changing
um what we understood about vaccines was
changing
uh you know initially in the beginning
there was every reason to believe at
least it was every reason to hope that
the vaccines would block transmission
and therefore not getting vaccinated was
a decision not just with respect to your
own health but the health of the people
around you later on that began to
unravel and it was clear okay that
doesn't really block transmission all
that much maybe a little bit but not
really so therefore it's a personal
decision and it's not you know a
decision that you're making for others
you're not a bad citizen there therefore
if you don't get vaccinated
um
we were messaging into an environment
where there's so much misinformation
around specifically things like vaccines
right there's literally like an
anti-vaccine cult that was
had been what has been working in the
background of our culture for decades
and this was their moment to really kind
of seize the reins of of you know social
the social media conversation at least
um
so it was understandable that our Public
Health officials and you know doctors
generally felt like okay we got to keep
this really simple this has got to be
idiot proof get faxed
covet is dangerous wear a mask you know
don't wear a mask when you're stealing
the masks from people who don't get who
are you know our first line responders
who need the PPE but once we had enough
wear a mask
um
and
the problem was
when that began to unravel there was so
there were there were there were so many
clear moments of dishonesty
that
where anyone who was going to have their
trust broken with with mainstream
institutions just they broke up right
there and they and they they seemingly
broke up permanently right it was just
okay
you're gonna tell me that that uh
I have to get vaccinated because it
stops transmission and now you're now
I'm hearing that it no longer stops
transmission
okay I'm done right and
and then they had the the other problem
is that now we have an an information
landscape where basically everything
survives there is not the the normal
darwinian contest between sources of
information where if if something gets
sufficiently discredited you know you
never hear from it again you can the
internet is big enough
and friction free enough such that you
can be
a complete lunatic who everyone knows is
a complete lunatic and yet you create an
ecosystem that enough people love and
you can you can figure out how to
monetize it you can have an audience of
a million people forever it seems right
and you're literally literally you could
be saying that that you know the the
I mean you know the craziest case of
something like Q Anon where it's like
the actual claim that people are bonding
over is that the world is being run by
child raping cannibals and among those
cannibals are people like Michelle Obama
and Tom Hanks and I mean it's just I
always know yeah you know I mean so it's
like okay
we're really saying that these people
are cannibals and and pedophiles
um
and we're gonna spend a lot of time
having this conversation amongst
ourselves we don't care if the rest of
the world thinks we're crazy because in
this space
this is just our playground this is our
information playground there's nothing
we we're not bumping into any hard
objects here because
we have as much real as we have as much
information real estate as we can as we
want to carve out for ourselves I mean
that didn't used to be it used to be
that
if you wanted to publish books or
publish print newspapers or magazines
you needed enough contact with the
normal
kind of reinforcement of of you know
just mainstream consensus that that you
would survive you know financially it's
like there's something about the
internet that has just made the cost of
spreading information go to zero and
um
when you're I mean when you're dealing
in bits and and no longer dealing in
atoms it's um everything survives and
persists in some basic sense so yeah I
think it's important to really
understand what that mechanism is so
it's what I'll call velocity of
information if you have a better name
for it I'm all for it but there's
something about uh packaging an idea up
in an environment where there's so much
information all you can digest is the
headline when something is hyper
transmittable that it just has you know
whether it's clever it Rhymes it
whatever that has just that little bit
of extra juice on it it's something
that's funny
um memified that it's it's really going
to burn through culture yeah now for me
where this all begins to become deeply
problematic is that it it isn't so much
that just the internet is forever it's
that
Socrates hated democracy because he
didn't think people were smart enough to
parse through the information
and he thought Matt you shouldn't be
able to vote in this thing if you're not
educated on this thing and the reality
is most people aren't going to be
educated and therefore democracy is is
really not going to survive so I take a
totally different approach to this which
is I think that
that if you create an environment where
everybody gets to vote in a world that
has the velocity of information that we
have information is free to send
um it's easy to package it up roll up
into headlines there's no doubt that a
lot of misinformation is going to get
out there and people just don't even
know where to check where to turn to
know like who's who what's what
that will have very negative
consequences but the only flip side of
that that I see is top-down
authoritarian control where it's like I
decide whoever I is the government
Twitter Youtube whoever they decide
what's real information and what's not
because what people are trying to get
back to is what you were talking about
before where information velocity was
slow that you had to go to a print piece
of newspaper they even put extra checks
where it was like it had to be vetted by
three sources or whatever and I'm not
saying yellow journalism didn't exist of
course it did but there were
self-imposed constraints there was a
business model that let even though
self-imposed constraints really be
financially viable it was just harder to
do harder to get out there and so by
reducing it there were only so many
narratives that you were going to be
able to get out so even if New York you
know back in the 20s or whatever had 50
newspapers just in New York City that's
still only New York City you're not
dealing with a global readership right
so you have just this natural constraint
now once nature isn't giving you the
constraint anymore
the second you want that constraint from
the top down you now step into what I
call the trifecta of evil and the
trifecta of evil is is three books that
I read they technically have nothing to
do with each other but just completely
explain how all of this goes awry and
has made me absolutely terrified of
top-down authoritarian control far more
than I am afraid of the absolute chaos
of a thousand Alex Jones so uh the three
books are the gulag archipelago by
Alexander soljenitson uh Mao the unknown
story and then the rise and fall of the
Third Reich and those three books tell
you just how wrong things go when people
are told shut up your opinion doesn't
matter and this person knows better and
you're just gonna get in line and the
great thing about the mail book is that
I I hadn't realized how evil Mao was I
mean like I I thought he was like a
junior level of evil compared to Stalin
and Hitler it's just like but you read
book and it's just I'm in the details
are just so sadistic and successful yeah
unbelievable I literally had no idea
when I started reading that book the
fourth if I were going to do an
honorable mention uh to give Stalin some
more love would be red famine yeah that
book is is shocking shocking uh have you
read it no but I've uh
I've read a lot about Stalin yeah I
don't know if I can recommend it there's
this one part where a woman telling a
tale a woman comes up and looks through
another woman's this is in the Ukraine
starving 1921 or whatever and uh she
looks through the window and catches her
neighbor eating her seven-year-old
daughter right you're just like yeah I
just I can't imagine so that that scares
me a lot more than
um
we're all having a hard time figuring
out what is true now I have a pitch for
how I think we figure out what is true
that is certainly going to be flawed but
the the first thing I want to to either
agree debate whatever is
do you agree that this is sort of the
sequencing of events that we have this
wall of information that's coming in too
fast it's all rolled up into headlines
there's no Nuance most people probably
aren't smart enough to deal with the
Nuance anyway and now Temptation one is
to just go oh dear Elites pre-masticate
all of this for us and tell us what to
do we tried that they have agendas even
if they're really being sincere and
trying to be good they have agendas and
that just feels absolutely shitty feels
like you're being manipulated it breaks
all your trust can't do that the other
one is you know just absolute top down
do what the [ __ ] you're told shut up and
and this is it
both of those strike me as horrendous
and that leaves the third option which
is Free Speech which has become
contentious somehow so as a child of the
80s to me that's like the greatest thing
ever I'm all for free speech I love what
Elon is doing on Twitter I think it's
amazing
um but at the same time I know that's
not widely shared I'm not even sure
where you fall down yeah no I can push
back on some of that well so a couple of
distinctions one is that it's not just
that everything gets boiled down to
headlines right I mean that is a problem
sometimes the headline doesn't even
Faithfully represent what's actually in
the article um
and so many people only read the
headlines they never even read the
article right so it's there's that
problem that problem's been with us for
a while
there's the algorithmic boosting of
outrage and misinformation
preferentially which is which is the the
problem and also on social media and
the distinction so so I would make one
distinction which is and this is you
know many people have made this like
freedom of speech and freedom of reach
are different things right so you you
should be free to post whatever you want
to post but it is a it is a choice on
the side of the the social media company
to preferentially boost or dampen
whatever they want to boost or dampen
right so it's to change the character of
the conversation and they have to make
just decisions there whether to make no
decision is itself a decision right so
you if you're going to make a completely
flat people will have one experience if
you're going to if you're going to tweak
it algorithmically people have a
different experience and that is a
business choice that they are
incentivized to make
um largely because they have a terrible
business model I mean it's the gaming of
attention is is a is a bad business
model I would argue so the fact that
it's an ad based attention economy has a
lot to do with what we with the kind of
the original sin of of social media I
think is the business model
um
and if these were all subscription
businesses I think we could have a
different you know we could have a
different landscape there with respect
to social media but still there would be
a moderation burden and it's a very it's
something that it seems like they're
never going to get right even
I mean except for the the in the
presence of something like omniscient AI
that we could trust I don't see how you
your your effort to moderate what
hundreds of millions of people say to
one another or even some cases billions
of people
um
that's always going to produce
casualties it's always going to produce
somebody who was just a completely valid
academic who just took a a an edge case
position and got flagged as a you know a
Nazi or whatever and you know that they
there has to be some process of appeal
Etc
the other distinction I would make is
that
there's a big difference between
governments silencing speech and and
actually punishing people for you know
errant speech and companies private
companies or even publicly held
companies deciding that they want to be
associated with or not associated with
certain kinds of speech right so
because and so when I look at this from
through a free speech lens from a you
know a U.S Centric you know first
amendment
um lens
and we should acknowledge that most of
the world doesn't have the protection of
the First Amendment and they're worse
off for it and so if you're living in
the UK and you're perceiving this debate
you're looking at it as someone who
feel stifled by the reality that you
don't have a first first amendment to
default back to and that's you know
I I I've been slow to appreciate just
how different that is politically and
ethically for people
um so speaking from the the U.S context
I think we have it right that the
government should not make any kind of
speech illegal with you know a few
exceptions like inciting violence
um
so I think you should be free to be a
Nazi and say you're Nazi things and you
should be free to reap the reputational
costs of that right people now know
you're a Nazi they don't want to do
business with you they vilify you and uh
on their forums
um but
the question is should a platform like
Twitter or any other platform
be legally required to associate with
Nazis right can they have in their terms
of service a no-nazis policy and I think
they should they I think my free speech
concern
now is aimed at the owners and employees
of those platforms right so I'm thinking
about the person who starts a social
media company
the truth is what we're going to do this
we're going to you know this is an
experiment because my you know as you
might imagine my faith that you can
actually produce a social media platform
that works is is pretty low but for
waking up my meditation app we are we're
going to launch a a basically a forum of
some kind
and
that will you know very quickly have
tens of thousands and even some hundreds
of thousands of people in it uh
presumably
should I be able to have a no Nazis
policy right now I'm not expecting any
Nazis I mean first of all this is a
subscription business so there's already
a gatekeeping function that is that is
helpful there I think
um ensuring a kind of good faith and and
quality
um but they're you know anyone who needs
free access to waking up also gets it so
there's a lot of free users of it so
it's not not a perfect uh
uh paywall
um
I think
when I start a a platform like first of
all I should be able to just do
zero it out overnight like if it's not
working if I don't like the way this is
working I should be able to just send
everyone emails saying sorry you know
you guys broke this place I don't like
the conversation this is over right
um that's actually something I told Jack
Dorsey when he was still running Twitter
that he should just delete it and he'd
win the Nobel Peace Prize and he would
deserve it
um so I think you should be able to you
should be free to delete your your
social media account if you you in fact
own it
um and you should be free to decide okay
these are the standards of Conduct in
this space uh like it's you know this is
true if you open a restaurant or if you
open a movie theater if you open any
public space
it doesn't change if it's merely digital
you should be able to set the terms of
service and if it's a no Nazi space well
then Nazis are not welcome here right so
you if you demonstrate that you're a
Nazi we kick you out of our platform
um now I so I'll grant you that any
company should be able to do what they
want to do if Hooters wants to hire only
attractive women by all means let them
hire only attractive women if someone
wants to do a female only company I I
don't have a beef with it I don't even
have a beef if Harvard only wants to uh
you know if Harvard wants to make it
near impossible for an Asian student to
get in as long as they are clear and
transparent and don't take government
money I'm all for it right I don't care
but the transparency matters to me but
my real question is like as we think
about actually solving the problem and
so I'm asking this largely in the
connotation of 2024 is coming we're
going to be running into this again I
really think the right way to set the
table is you've got people on the left
and people on the right who both think
that the other side is evil they both
think that they have recognized uh the
the problem reincarnate and uh
if we don't establish a new sense making
mechanism for a world in which the
velocity of information is this fast AI
is coming so deep fakes are going to be
a real thing like we we need a method
that we can all rely upon in order to
think through these problems well and so
like where I come down on Free Speech
isn't whether a private company should
be able to limit the reach of somebody
that's a Nazi or say I don't want Nazis
on my platform that's fine there is a
real consequence to that though which is
then it just bifurcates and you get the
right and the left because that's really
what's being argued about as far as I
can tell there's I have not seen any of
what I would call real nazi-like stuff
it's normally just Behavior people don't
like it it's coming from the opposite
side of the aisle so when I say okay
what is the right way to deal with this
my answer is
I think everybody needs to distrust
themselves a little so they should not
assume that they are right everybody
should be willing to put their ideas
forward on how they think through the
problem so rather than only listening to
experts it's like hey I'm an expert or
I'm not but this is how I think about
the problem this is how I've ended up
with this conclusion I've looked at this
or I've studied that whatever but this
is how I come to this conclusion and
then to want the Collision of ideas and
the second people are more worried about
bad ideas being out there they're either
saying I completely give up to this
velocity of information problem so we
have to just choke it and we have to
make sure that there's there's only the
authorized information
or you accept the the consequences of
letting the ideas battle it out in the
public Consciousness and as far as I can
tell the second you say the people
aren't smart enough to battle these
ideas out the system of information
distribution is so broken that it's it's
unsafe maybe isn't the perfect word but
you'll never get a good outcome by doing
that you can't have democracy like it it
is literally only in the face of the
ability for people to say what they
believe is true and to battle out those
ideas that we have any hope of people
really understanding as close to these
sort of unsculptured
um way of presenting an idea that we're
going to get and look there are going to
be people that won't be able to navigate
that mess and so I'm certainly not
saying that this is perfect but when I
step back and look at the reality of the
landscape that we're in algorithmically
controlled all of that everybody has a
voice in Social
et cetera et cetera I don't see a way
around it
well so we don't have a pure democracy
right it's not like you just get online
and vote and it's you know one person
one vote and then we decide whether we
go to war with Russia based on uh you
know the tally we have we pick
representatives and
there I think it's important that we
have Representatives who are not
blown around like weather veins by just
whatever's happening on Twitter that day
right so yes they need to care about
what their constituents want but
it I think it's good that there's a
looseness of fit between what you know
500 people in the government do
and what and the cacophony on social
media right that may may be to some
degree informing
their I their impression of what their
constituents want right so we need
serious people uh in serious roles of
responsibility and
insofar as we we're losing that and
there's definitely signs that we are
losing that I mean we've got you know at
least one person in Congress who when
our state is on fire she she speculates
that maybe it's you know Jewish space
lasers starting those fires right this
is yeah yeah Marjorie Taylor green uh
has heard that that there were some
space lasers put up there by by Jews I
think I think it was Rothschild funding
um they could start fires and we might
want to look into that right
um so insofar as that is happening that
we're getting
people so anti-establishment that they
are effectively lunatics uh in positions
of real power I think that's that's a
maybe that maybe that problem has always
been with us to some degree but at least
I am perceiving it
um certainly post-trump as uh uniquely
worth worrying about at this moment that
like but populism is tending to promote
candidates that
um are almost by definition have fewer
institutional commitments uh with all
the good and all the bad that that
entails right so but there's a lot
that's good that if you care about
you know the last hundred years of
scientific knowledge right and your your
statements about
let's say something like climate change
is is going to be constrained by a basic
awareness of you know what most climate
scientists most of the time think about
climate change that's your one kind of
Representative if you're somebody who's
just gonna
Free Will based on what they heard Alex
Jones say or yeah I mean like literally
Trump gave his first interview I think
to Alex Jones right like there's there's
a there's a difference of um
the center of narrative gravity there in
populism that I think we need to worry
about but
and there's obviously right wing and
left wing variants of populism uh both
are are problematic
um but
this is we we have to recognize that
there are asymmetries like you say like
so what you seem to be recommending is
that we basically talk to everyone give
everyone a fair hearing it's only when
you just bring sunlight to everything
that people are going to be able to make
up their minds and they're not and
they're gonna you know they're still the
left and right are still going to
demonize one another but we're going to
approach something like maximum
understanding if we just talk about
everything so why not have RFK Jr on
your podcast right now Rogan brings them
on the podcast and just you know RFK
tell me tell me give me the world as you
see it you know tell me uh you know who
killed your father who killed your uncle
um what do you think about these
vaccines do vaccines cause autism and
just let him go for four hours
um
the downside with that is that even in
the presence of somebody who is a
subject matter expert who's there to
provide some kind of guard rails to that
conversation there is an asymmetry
between
the time and effort it takes to make a
mess and the time and effort it takes to
clean it up right and whether it's even
possible to clean it up given the
resources available right so if somebody
is if someone's just going to make up
lies in front of you even if you're an
expert in the in that area
you
there's only so much you can do because
like you're not you they're they're
playing with a completely different you
know kind of information physics right
they're just going to make something up
so if if you you might be a a climate
change expert or a vaccine expert and if
you have a somebody who's a pure
conspiracy theorist on those topics
you know in my experience you're you're
sitting with someone who is is very
often unscrupulous enough to just make
stuff up right or to be so
delusional in there in the way they have
interacted with even valid information
in the past
that that the word salad they're going
to produce is you know effectively just
a tissue of lies and yet there may be no
way to actually
interact with it in an honest way
in real time on Rogan's podcast or
anywhere else such as so as to properly
debunk it so you can't just take let's
take RFK Jr as an example
do we think that he is wrong and
well-intentioned or do we think he is
Sinister
why well wrong and well-intentioned can
cover for a lot of of a dangerous error
right I mean you can you can really make
a mess being wrong and well-intentioned
I think with him
he's so
he's got so much sun cost he's taught me
first of all there's so many people like
there there is a just a
a character illogical you know
psychological you know phenotype that
just
is addicted to
the
the contrary intake on more or less
everything right so it's just like and
it's not an accident you see p you the
the people who are all in on you know
the JFK conspiracy right like you know
no way it was a single shooter no way
Oswald was a patsy whatever it is right
those people by and large tend to just
jump on all the other conspiracies
whether it's you know the moon landing
or 9 11 truth or it's like they and you
have someone like RFK Jr where it's
it seems I don't know the man but I've
you know I've been paying attention of
late
it seems like there's there's almost no
conspiracy that he doesn't have a an
appetite for right so like when someone
says well what about Bill Gates
injecting you know transponders into us
with the vaccine
he's got time for that right he doesn't
say oh no that's I mean you really you
really think Bill Gates is doing that
that's just isn't that obviously
[ __ ] no no he's like well you know
this is something we really have to look
into it's like I you know I don't have
Verbatim what he said on that but it was
he is way too open-minded on on points
like that right and so it is with
everything and now
it's it's deeply inconvenient for
someone like me at A Moment Like This to
have to recognize some of these
conspiracies turn out to be true right
and some always looked plausible from
the very beginning so like the the the
origins of kovid coming from the the
Wuhan Institute of virology right like
is it a lab leak or is it the wet Market
well
it always looked plausible that it could
be a lab leak right that was always a a
valid thesis worth worrying about and
investigating and it was never racist to
speculate that that might have been the
case right so the fact that our medical
establishment tried to Tamp that down in
a completely bad faith way and maybe for
reasons that are if you if you dig
deeper into fauci and into you know the
other players maybe they really are
there's some deeply invidious things to
discover about people's conflict of
interest and you know and you know
research we funded and now we don't want
to admit we funded or whatever it was
um I mean there was that moment in
Congress where fauci and and Rand Paul
were kind of debating the meaning of
gain of function research and fauci
looked like you know to to many people's
perception and I actually shared it at
the time he looked like he was just
doing this sort of talmudic hair
splitting on what game the phrase gain
function meant whereas Rand Paul was
saying can't just be honest with the
American people like you know that if
you're if you are changing the function
of the Dynamics of a virus such that it
spreads more among humans that scan a
function you know by whatever By Any
Other Name
um
so maybe there's something sinister
beneath all of that right so here's one
conspiracy among all these other
conspiracies that
P that people people were branded as
conspiracy theorists for entertaining
and yet it was always plausible to be
worried about that but this by the way
is exactly the thing that I'm worried
about so
uh it becomes very easy to shut people
down to say oh that's just conspiracy
um and to start having the
apps get involved so YouTube marking it
is like Oh you talked about Ivermectin
this I'm shutting this episode down like
just so many things coming at you at
once trying to say this is outside the
Overton window and so my my whole thesis
is is very simple that the in a world
where there's too much information
coming in the answer cannot be to choke
it off to try to limit the amount of
information because you will get that
wrong it is manipulative by its very
nature the closest thing you're going to
get is to let ideas battle out there are
going to be consequences I want to be
very clear there we probably when it
comes to things like this you were
better off when you had trusted but
hyper limited media sources that could
at least get everyone to walk towards
the exits in a calm and orderly fashion
so I I'm not denying that but but that
world is over and so now you really only
have two options that I can see you
either top down clamp down or and I'll
lead people back to my Trifecta of evil
or you go there are going to be
consequence