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Language: en
the following is a conversation with Sam
Harris his second time in the podcast as
I said two years ago when I first met
and spoke with Sam he's one of the most
influential pioneering thinkers of our
time as the host of The Making Sense
podcast creator of the waking up app and
the author of many seminal books on
human nature and the human mind
including the end of Faith the moral
landscape lying Free Will and waking up
in this conversation besides our mutual
fascination with AGI and free will we do
also go deep into controversial
challenging topics of Donald Trump
Hunter Biden January 6th vaccines lab
leak Kanye West and several key figures
at the center of public discourse
including Joe Rogan and Elon Musk both
of whom have been friends of Sam and
have become friends of mine somehow in
an amazing life trajectory that I do not
deserve in any way and in fact believe
is probably a figment of my
imagination and if it's all right please
allow me to say a few words about this
personal aspect of the conversation of
discussing Joe Elon and others what's
been weighing heavy on my heart since
the beginning of the pandemic now 3
years ago is that many people I Look to
for wisdom in public discourse stopped
talking to each other as often with
respect humility and love when the world
needed those kinds of conversations the
most My Hope Is that they start talking
again they start being friends again
they start noticing the humanity that
connects them that is much deeper than
the disagreements that divide them so
let me take this moment to say with
humility and honesty why I look up to
and inspired by Joe Elon and Sam I think
Joe Rogan is important to the world as a
voice of compassionate curiosity and
open-mindedness to ideas both radical
and mainstream sometimes with humor
sometimes with brutal honesty always
pushing for more kindness in the
world I think Elon Musk is important to
the world as an engineer leader
entrepreneur and human being who takes
on the hardest problems that face
humanity and refuses to accept the
constraints of conventional thinking
that made the solutions to these
problems seem
impossible I think Sam Harris is
important to the world as a Fearless
Voice who fights for the pursuit of
Truth against growing forces of echo
Chambers and audience capture taking
unpopular perspectives and defending
them with rigor and
resilience I both celebrate and
criticize all three privately and they
criticize me usually more effectively
from which I always learn a lot and
always appreciate most importantly there
is respect and love for each other as
human beings the very thing that I think
the world needs most now in a time of
division and Chaos I will continue to
try to menend divisions to try to
understand not toide to turn the other
cheek if needed to return hate With
Love sometimes people criticize me for
being naive cheesy simplistic all of
that I know I agree but I really am
speaking from the heart and I'm trying
this world is too fucking beautiful not
to try in whatever way I know how I love
you
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description and now dear friends here's
Sam
Harris what is more effective at making
a net positive impact on the world
empathy or reason it depends on what you
mean by empathy there are two at least
two kinds of empathy there's the the
cognitive form which is you know I would
argue even a species of of reason it's
it's just understanding another person's
point of view you know you understand
why they're suffering or why they're
happy or what you know just you have a
theory of mind about another human being
that is is accurate and so you can you
can navigate uh in relationship to them
more effectively um and then there's
another layer entirely not incompatible
with that but just distinct which is
what people often mean by empathy which
is
more a kind of emotional contagion right
like you feel depressed and I begin to
feel depressed along with you because
you know it's just it's contagious right
I I you know we're so close and I'm I'm
so concerned about you and your problems
become my problems and it bleeds through
right now I think both of those
capacities are very important but um the
emotional contagion
piece uh and this is not really my
thesis this is something I I have more
or less learned from from Paul Bloom um
the psychologist uh who wrote a book on
this topic titled against empathy um the
emotional social contagion piece is a
bad guide rather often for ethical
behavior and E ethical intuitions oh boy
and I I'll give you the clear example of
this which
is uh we
find stories with a single identifiable
protagonist who we can effortlessly
empathize with far more compelling than
data right so if I tell you you know
this is the classic case of of the
little girl who who falls down a well
right you know this is some Somebody's
Daughter you see the parents uh
distraught on television uh you hear her
Cries From the Bottom of the well the
whole country stops I mean this there
was an example of this you know 20 25
years ago I think where it was just wall
to- wall on CNN this is just the perfect
use of CNN it was you know 72 hours
whatever it was of continuous coverage
of just extracting this girl from a well
so we effortlessly pay attention to that
we care about it we will donate money
toward it I mean it's just it Marshals
100% of our compassion and altruistic
impulse um whereas if you hear that
there's a genocide raging in some
country you've never been to and never
attended to go to and the number don't
make a dent and the and we we find the
story boring right we'll change the
channel in the face of a genocide right
it doesn't matter and it literally
perversely it could be 500,000 little
girls have fallen down wells in that
country and we still don't care right so
um it's uh you know many of us have come
to believe that this is a bug rather
than a feature of our moral psychology
and so the empathy plays an unhelpful
role there so ultimately I think when
we're making big decisions about what we
should do and how to mitigate human
suffering and and what's worth Val
valuing and how we should protect those
values um I think reason is the better
tool but it's not that I would want to
dispense with any part of empathy either
well there's a lot of changes to go on
there but briefly to mention you've
recently talked about effective altruism
on your podcast I think you mentioned
some interesting statement I'm going to
horribly misquote you but that you'd
rather live in a world like it doesn't
really make sense but you'd rather live
in a world where you care about maybe
your daughter and son more than a 100
people that live across the world
something like this like where the
calculus is not always perfect but
somehow it makes sense to live in a
world where it's irrational in this way
and yet empathetic in the way you've
been discussing right I'm not sure what
the right answer is there or even
whether there is one right answer that
could be multiple you know Peaks on on
this part of the moral landscape but so
the the opposition is between an ethic
that's articulated by you someone like
the Dal Lama right you really any
exponent of of um you know classic
Buddhism would say that so the ultimate
enlightened ethic is true dispassion
with respect to friends and strangers
right so that you would the you know the
the mind of the Buddha would be truly
dispassionate you would love and and
care about all people
equally um and by that light it seems
some kind of ethical failing or at least
you know failure of of to fully
actualize compassion in the limit or you
know enlightened wisdom in the limit um
to care more or even and much more about
your kids than the kids of other people
or and and to prioritize your your
energy in that way right so you spend
all this time trying to figure out how
to keep your kids healthy and happy and
you'll attend to their minutest concerns
and however superficial and and again
there's a genocide raging in Sudan or
wherever and it it takes up less than 1%
of your bandwidth I'm not sure it would
be a better world if everyone was
running the the doy Lama program there I
think some prioritization of of one's
nearest and dearest uh
ethically might be optimal because we
we'll all be doing that and we'll all be
doing that in a circumstance where we
have certain norms and and laws and and
other structures that Force us to be
dispassionate where that matters right
so like when I go to when my daughter
gets sick and I have to take her to to a
hospital you know I really want her to
get attention right and I'm worried
about her more than I'm worried about
everyone else in the lobby but the truth
is I actually don't want a totally
corrupt hospital I don't want a hospital
that treats my daughter better than
anyone else in the lobby because she's
my daughter and I've you know bribed the
guy at the door or whatever you know the
guy's a fan of my podcast or whatever
the thing is you don't want starkly
corrupt unfair
situations and when you're when you sort
of get pressed down the hierarchy of
masso's needs you know individually and
and and
societally a bunch of th bunch of those
very variables change and they change
for the worse understandably but yeah
when things are when everyone's corrupt
and it's you're you're in a in a state
of of collective emergency you know
you've got a Lifeboat problem you're
scrambling to get into the Lifeboat yeah
then then fairness and norms and and um
the you know the the other vestages of
civilization begin to get stripped off
we can't reason from those emergencies
to normal life I mean in normal life we
want Justice we want fairness we want
we're all better off for it even when
the spotlight of our concern is focused
on the people we know the people who are
friends the people who are family people
we we we have good reason to care about
we still by default want a system that
protects the the interest of strangers
too and and we know that generally
speaking just in game theoretic terms
we're all going to tend to be better off
in a fair system than a corrupt one one
of the failure modes of empathy
is our susceptibility to anotal data
just a good story will get us to not
think clearly but what about empathy in
the context of just discussing ideas
with other people and then there's a
large number of people like in this
country you know red and blue half the
population believes certain things on
immigration or on the response to the
pandemic or any kind of controversial
issue even if if the election was fairly
executed having an empathy for their
world view trying to understand where
they're coming from not just in the
explicit statement of their idea but the
entirety of like the roots from which
their idea stems that kind of empathy
while you're discussing ideas what is in
your Pursuit Of Truth having empathy for
the perspective of a large number of
other people
versus Raw mathematical reason I think
it's important but I just it only takes
you so far right it doesn't it doesn't
get you to truth right it's not truth is
not a it's not decided by you know
Democratic principles and um certain
people believe things for understandable
reasons but those reasons are
nonetheless bad reasons right they don't
scale they don't generalize they're not
reasons anyone should adopt for eles or
or respect you know
epistemologically and yet their their
circumstances understandable and it's
something you can care about right and
so yeah like I mean just take I think
there's many examples of this you might
be thinking of but I mean one one that
comes to mind is I've been super
critical of trump obviously and um I've
been super critical of certain people
for endorsing him or not criticizing him
when he
really made it you know patently obvious
who he was you know if if there had been
any doubt initially there was no doubt
when we have a sitting president who's
not not um agreeing to a a peaceful
transfer of power right so
um I'm I'm critical of all of that and
yet the fact that many millions of
Americans didn't see what was wrong with
Trump or bought into
the um didn't see through his con right
I mean they bought into the idea that he
was a a brilliant businessman who could
might just be able to change things
because he's so unconventional and so
you know his heart is in the right place
you know he's really a man of the people
even though he's a you know goldplated
everything in his life um they bought
the myth somehow uh of you know largely
because they had seen him on television
for almost a decade and a half uh
pretending to this genius businessman
who could get things done um it's
understandable to me that many very
frustrated people who have not had their
hopes and dreams
actualized uh who have been the victims
of globalism and and um many other you
know current trends uh it's
understandable that they
would be confused and and and not see
the liability of electing a grossly
incompetent morbidly narcissistic person
into the into the the presidency um so I
don't so which is to say that I don't
blame there are many many millions of
people who I don't necessarily blame for
the Trump phenomenon I but I can
nonetheless bemoon the phenomenon as as
indicative of you know very bad uh State
of Affairs in our society right so it's
it's there's two levels to it I mean one
is I think you have to call a spade a
spade when you're talking about how
things actually work and what things are
are likely to happen or not but then you
can recognize that people are have very
different life experiences and and yeah
I I think empathy and you know probably
the better word for what I would hope to
embody there is compassion right like
really you
know to really wish people well you know
and really wish you know strangers well
effortlessly wish them well I me to
realize that you there is no opposition
between in the at bottom there's no real
opposition between selfishness and
selflessness because why selfishness
really takes into account other people's
happiness I mean you what you know which
do you do you want to live in a society
where you have everything but most other
people have nothing uh or do you want to
live in a society where you're
surrounded by happy creative
self-actualized people who are having
their hopes and dreams realized I think
it's obvious that the the the second
Society is much better however much you
can guard your good
luck but what about having empathy for
certain principles that people believe
for
example the the push back the other
perspective on this because you said
bought the myth of trump as a great
businessman there could be a lot of
people that are supporters of trump who
could say that Sam Harris bought the
myth that we have this government
of the People by the people that
actually represents the people as
opposed to a bunch of Elites who are
running a giant bureaucracy that is
corrupt that is feeding themselves and
they're actually not representing the
people and then here's this Chaos Agent
Trump who speaks off the top of his head
yeah he's flawed in all this number of
ways he's a more comedian than he is a
presidential type of figure and he's
actually creating the kind of chaos
that's going to shake up this
bureaucracy
shake up the elites that are so
uncomfortable because they don't want
the world to know about the game that
got running on everybody else so that's
that's the kind of perspective that they
would take and say yeah there's these
flaws that Trump has but this is
necessary I agree with the first part so
I haven't bought the myth that it's uh
you know a truly representative
democracy in the way that we would might
idealize um and
and you know on some level I mean this
is a different conversation but some
level I'm not even sure how much I think
it should be right like I I'm not
sure uh we want in the end everyone's
opinion given equal weight about you
know just what we should do about
anything and I include myself in that I
mean there are many topics around which
I don't deserve to have a strong opinion
because I don't know what I'm talking
about right or what I would be talking
about if I had a strong opinion so uh
um and I think we'll probably get to
that to some of those topics because
I've declined to have certain
conversations on my podcast just because
I think I'm the wrong person to have
that conversation right be and and it's
um and I think it's important to see
those bright lines in in one's life and
in in the moment politically uh and
ethically um so yeah I think um so leave
aside the the the viability of democracy
uh I'm I'm under No Illusion
that all of our
institutions are you know worth
preserving precisely as they have been
up until the moment this great orange
wrecking ball came swinging through our
lives but I just It Was a Very Bad Bet
to elect someone who is grossly
incompetent and um wor worse than
incompetent um genuinely malevolent in
his selfishness right I and this is
something we know based on literally
Decades of him being in the public eye
right he's not as he's not a public
servant in any normal sense of that
term and he couldn't possibly give an
honest or sane answer to the question
the question you asked me about empathy
and reason and and like how should we
you know what should guide us
um I genuinely think he is missing some
necessary moral and and psychological
tools right and and this this is I can
feel compassion for him as a human being
because I think having those things is
incredibly important and genuinely
loving other people is incredibly
important and and knowing what all
that's about is is is that's really the
good stuff in life and I I um I think
he's missing a lot of that but I think
we we don't want to promote people to to
the highest positions of power in our
society who are far outliers
in in
pathological terms right we want them to
be far outliers in in if if in the best
case in wisdom and compassion and some
of the things you've some of the topics
you've brought up I mean we want someone
to be deeply informed we want someone to
be um uh unusually curious unusually
alert to how they may be wrong or
getting things wrong consequentially um
he's none of those things and if in so
far as we're going to get normal
mediocrities in that role which I think
you know is often the best we could
expect let's get normal mediocrities in
that role not uh you know once in a
generation uh narcissists and
um uh frauds I mean it's like the me
just take honesty as a single variable
right I think you want yes it's possible
that most politicians lie at least some
of the time I don't think that's a good
thing um I think people should be gen
you know generally honest um even to a
fault um yes there are certain
circumstances where lying I think is
necessary it's kind of on a Continuum of
self-defense and and violence so it's
like if you're going to you know if the
Nazis come to your door and ask you if
you've got an Frank in the attic I think
it's okay to lie to them um but uh you
know Trump there's I I arguably there's
never been a person in that anyone could
name in in human history who's lied with
with that kind of velocity um I mean
it's just it was he was a just a
blizzard of Lies Great and Small you
know to to pointless and and to and
effective but it it's
just
it it says
something uh fairly alarming about our
society that a person of that character
got promoted and so uh yes I have
compassion and concern for for half of
the society who didn't see it that way
and that's going to sound elitist and
and uh and smug or something for anyone
who's who's on that side listening to me
but um it's genuine I mean I'm I I
understand that like like I barely have
the I'm like one of the luckiest people
in the world and I barely have the
bandwidth to pay attention to half the
things I should pay attention to in
order to have an opinion about half the
things we're going to talk about right
so how much less bandwidth is somebody
who's working two jobs or you know a
single mom who's who's you know raising
you
know multiple kids you know even a
single kid it's just it's unimaginable
to me that people have the bandwidth to
to Really track this stuff and so then
they jump on social media and they they
see they get inundated by misinformation
and they see what their favorite
influencer just said um and now they're
worried about vaccines and they're it's
just it's we're living in an environment
where our our the information space
become so corre corupted uh and we've
built machines to to further corrupt it
you know we've built a business model
for the internet that it further
corrupts it uh so it's it is just um
it's chaos in informational terms and I
don't fault people for being confused
and impatient and uh at the at their
wit's end and um yes Trump was a an
enormous fuck you to The Establishment
and that and that's that was
understandable for many reasons to me
Sam Harris the great Sam Harris is
somebody I've looked up to for a long
time as a beacon of voice of reason and
there's this meme on the internet and I
would love you to steal me on the case
for it and against that Trump broke Sam
Harris's brain that there's something is
disproportionately to the actual impact
that Trump had on our society he
had um an impact on the div on the
ability of balanced calm rational Minds
to see the world clearly to think
clearly you being one of the beacons of
that is there is there a degree to which
he broke your
brain uh Otherwise Known As Trump
derangement syndrome medical medical
condition yeah I think Trump derangement
syndrome is a is a very clever meme
because it it just uh throws the you
know the problem back on the person
who's criticizing Trump but in truth the
the true Trump derangement syndrome was
not to have seen how dangerous and
divisive it would be to promote someone
like Trump to that position of power and
to not and in the in the final moment
not to see how uh untenable it was to
still support someone who you know a
sitting president who was not committing
to a peaceful transfer of power I mean
that was if if if that wasn't a bright
line for you you have been deranged by
something uh because that was you know
the that was one minute to midnight for
our democracy as as far as I I'm
concerned and I think it really was but
for the the Integrity of uh a few people
that we didn't suffer some real
constitutional crisis and and real
emergency you know after January 6 I
mean if if Mike Pence had caved in and
decided to not certify the election
right uh if literally you can count on
two hands the number of people who held
things together at that moment and so it
was so it wasn't for want of trying on
Trump's part that we we um didn't
succumb to some you know real truly
Uncharted uh uh catastrophe with our
democracy so the fact that that didn't
happen is not a sign that those of us
who were worried it was so close to
happening were exaggerating the problem
I mean it's like you know you almost got
run over by a car but you didn't and so
you know you're the fact that you're
adrenalized and you're thinking you know
but boy that was dangerous I probably
shouldn't you know you know wander in
the middle of the street uh with my eyes
closed um you weren't wrong to feel that
you really had a problem right um and
came very close to something truly uh
terrible so I think that's where we were
and I think we shouldn't do that again
right so the fact that he's he's still
he's coming back around as potentially a
viable candidate you know I'm not
spending much time thinking about it
frankly because it's you know I'm I'm
waiting for the moment where it it it
requires some thought um I mean they it
did it took
up uh I I don't know how many podcasts I
devoted to the topic it wasn't that I
mean wasn't that many in the end you
know against the the number of podcasts
I I devoted to other topics but there
are people who look at Trump and just
find him funny
entertaining not especially threatening
it's like not a you know just it's just
good fun to see somebody who's like
who's just not taking anything seriously
and it's just just putting a you know a
stick in the wheel of of business as
usual again and again and again and
again
um and they don't really see anything
much at stake right it doesn't really it
doesn't really matter if we don't
support NATO doesn't really matter if he
says he trusts Putin more than our
intelligence Services uh Ian none of
this is it doesn't matter if he's on the
one hand saying that he
loves uh the leader of North Korea and
on the other threatening threatens to to
you know bomb them back to the Stone Age
right on Twitter it's all it all can be
taken in the spirit of kind of reality
television like this is just this is the
part of the movie that's just fun to
watch right
and I understand that I can even inhabit
that space for a few minutes at a time
but there's a deeper concern that we're
in the process of entertaining ourselves
to death right that we're just not
taking things seriously and this is it's
a problem I've had with several other
people we might name who just who just
appear to me to be goofing around at
scale and they lack a kind of moral
seriousness I mean they're touching big
problems where lives hang in the balance
but they're just in around and I think
there are really important problems that
we have to get our head straight around
and we need you know it's not to say
that that institutions don't become
corrupt I think they do and I think and
I'm quite worried that you know both
about the the the loss of trust in our
institutions and the the fact that trust
has eroded for good reason right that
they have become less trustworthy I I I
you know they become infected by you
know political ideologies that are not
truth tracking I me I I worry about all
of that um but I just think the we need
institutions we need to rebuild them we
need we need experts who are real
experts we need to Value expertise over
you know amateurish speculation and
conspiracy thinking and just you know
and bullshit the kind of amateur
speculation we're doing on this very
podcast I'm usually alert to the moments
where I'm just guessing or where I
actually feel like I'm talking from
within my wheelhouse and I try to
Telegraph that a fair amount with people
um so yeah I mean but it's it's not it's
different like I mean you you can invite
someone onto your podcast who's an
expert about something that you're you
you're not an expert about and then you
you in the process of getting more
informed yourself your your audience is
getting more informed so you're asking
smart questions and you might be pushing
back at the margins but you know that
when push comes to shove on that topic
you really don't have a basis to have a
a strong opinion and if you were going
to form a a a a a strong opinion that
was this counter to the expert you have
in front of you is going to be by
deference to some other expert who
you've brought in or who you've heard
about or who's work you've you've read
or whatever but there there's a paradox
to how we value Authority in science
that most people don't understand and I
think we should at some point unravel
that because it's it's the
basis for a lot of public confusion and
and frankly it's a basis for a lot of
you know criticism I've received on
these topics where it's you know people
think that I'm
a you know I I'm against Free Speech or
I'm an establishment shill or it's it's
like I just think I'm a cred
credentialist I just think people with
phds from I IV league universities
should you know run everything
it's not true but there's a ton of conf
there's a lot to cut through to get to
Daylight there because people are um
very confused about how we value
Authority in the service of rationality
generally you've talked about it but
it's it's just interesting the intensity
of feeling you have you've you've had
this famous phrase about Hunter Biden
and children in the basement can you
just revisit this case so let me let me
give another perspective on the
situation of January 6th and Trump in
general it's possible that January 6th
and things of that nature revealed that
our democracy is actually pretty fragile
and that Trump is not a mevolent and
Ultra competent malevolent figure but is
simply a
jokester and he just by creating the
chaos revealed that it's all pretty
fragile because you're a student of
history and there's a lot of people like
lennin Hitler who are exceptionally
competent at controlling power at being
Executives and taking that power
controlling the generals controlling all
the figures involved and certainly not
tweeting but working in the shadows
behind the scenes to gain power and they
did so extremely confidently and that is
how they were able to gain power the the
push back with Trump he was doing none
of that he was creating he's very good
good at creating
drama sometimes for humor's sake
sometimes for drama's sake and simply
reveal that our democracy is fragile and
so he's not this uh once in a generation
horrible figure once in a generation
narcissist no I I don't think he's he's
a a truly scary
Sinister you know Putin like or you know
hit much less hitler-like figure not at
all I he's not ideological he doesn't
care about any Beyond himself so it's
not
um no no he's much less scary than any
really scary you know totalitarian right
I mean and he's he's more Brave in new
world than 1984 this is what you know
Eric Weinstein never stops um badgering
me about but you know he's still wrong
Eric um you know I I can you know my
analogy for Trump was that he an evil
Chanty Garder I don't know if you
remember that the the um the the book or
the film being there uh with with Peter
sers um but you know Peter sers is this
Gardener who really doesn't know
anything um but he gets recognized as
this wise man and gets promoted to
immense power in Washington because he's
speaking in these kind of in in a
semblance of wisdom he's got these very
simple aphorisms what seem to be
aphorisms he's just talk all he cares
about his gardening he's just talking
about his garden all the time but you
know he'll say something but yeah you
know in the spring you know the new
shoots will will Bloom and people read
into that some kind of Genius you know
Insight politically and so he gets
promoted and so that's that's the joke
of the film for me Trump has always been
someone like an evil chony Garder he's
he's it's not to say he's totally in yes
he has a certain kind of Genius he's got
a genius for creating a spectacle around
himself right he's got a genius for
getting the the eye of the media always
coming back to him um
but it it's only it's a kind of it's a
kind of you know self-promotion that
only works if you actually are truly
Shameless and don't care about having a
reputation for anything that that that I
or you would want to have a reputation
for right it's like it's pure the pure
pornography of attention right he and he
just wants more of it um I think the
truly depressing and genuinely scary
thing was
that we have a country that at least
half of the country given
how broken our society is in many ways
we have a country that didn't see
anything wrong with that bringing
someone who's who obviously doesn't know
what he should know to be president and
who's obviously not a good person right
obviously doesn't care about people
can't even pretend to care about people
really right in a credible way um and so
I mean this if there's a silver line
into this it it's it's along the lines
you just sketched it shows us how
vulnerable our system is to a truly
brilliant and Sinister figure right I
mean like I I think we are um we really
dodged a bullet yes someone far more
competent and conniving and ideological
could have exploited our system in a way
that Trump didn't and and that's um yeah
so if if we plug those holes eventually
um that would be a good thing and he
would have done a good thing for our
society right I mean one of the things
we
realized and I think nobody knew I I
certainly didn't know it and I didn't
hear anyone talk about it is how much
our system relies on Norms rather than
laws yeah civility almost yeah it's just
like it's it's quite possible that he
never did anything illegal you know
truly truly illegal I may I think he
probably did a few illegal things but
like illegal such that he really should
be thrown in jail for it you know um at
least that remains to be
seen so all of the chaos all of the you
know all of the diminishment of our
stature in the world all of the Just the
the opportunity costs of spending years
focused on
nonsense um all of that was just Norm
violations all that was just that was
just all a matter of not saying the
thing you should say but that doesn't
mean they're insignificant right it's
not that it's like it's not illegal for
a sitting president to
say no I'm not going to commit to a
peaceful transfer of power right we'll
wait and see whether I win if I
win it's it was the election was was was
valid if I lose it was fraudulent right
but aren't
those humorous perturbations to our
system of Civility such that we know
what the limits are and now we start to
think that and have these kinds of
discussions but that wasn't a humorous
perturbation because he did everything
he could granted he's wasn't very
competent but he did everything he could
to try to steal the election I mean the
irony is he claimed to have an election
stolen from him all the while doing
everything he could to steal it
declaring it fraudulent in advance
trying to get the votes to to to to not
be counted as the evening wore on
knowing that they were going to be
disproportionately Democrat Democrat
votes um because of the the you because
of the position he took on mailin
ballots I mean all of it was fairly
calculated um the whole circus of of of
you know the clown car that crashed into
you know Four Seasons Landscaping right
and and you got Rudy Giuliani with his
hair dye and you got Sydney Powell and
all all these grossly incompetent people
lying
as freely as they could breathe about
election fraud right and all these
things are getting thrown out by you
know Republican largely Republican
election officials and Republican judges
um it wasn't wasn't for want of trying
that he didn't maintain his power in
this country he really tried to steal
the presidency he just was not competent
and the people around him weren't
competent so that's a good thing and
it's worth not letting that happen again
but he wasn't competent so he didn't do
everything he could well no he did
everything he could he didn't do
everything that could have been done by
someone more
competent right but the the tools you
have as a president you could do a lot
of things you can declare emergencies
especially during covid you could
postpone the election you can create
military conflict that you know any kind
of reason to postpone the election
there's there's a lot of but he tried to
do things and he would have to have done
those things through other people and
they're people who refuse to do those
things they're people who said they
would quit they they would quit publicly
right I mean this you you start again
there are multiple books written
about the last hours of of this
presidency and the details are shocking
in what he tried to do and tried to get
others to do and it's awful right I mean
it's it's just awful that we were that
close to
something
um to to a true unraveling of our
political process I it's the the only
time in our lifetime that anything like
this has happened and um it deeply
embarrassing right for you know on the
world stage it's just like we we looked
like a Banana Republic there for a while
and we're the lone superpower it's a b
it's it's not good right and so we
shouldn't like there's no there's no the
the people who thought well we just need
to shake things up and this is a great
in great way to shake things up and
having people you know storm our capital
and you smear shit on the walls that's
just more shaking things up right it's
all just for the lulls um there's a
nihilism and cynicism to all of that
which again in certain people it's
understandable you know frankly it's not
understandable if you've got a billion
dollars and you're you you know have a
compound in Meno Park or whatever it's
like there are people who are
cheerleading this stuff who shouldn't be
cheerleading this stuff and who know
that they can get on their Gulf Stream
and fly to their compound New Zealand if
everything goes to shit right so there
there's a cynicism to all of that that I
think we should be deeply critical of
but what I'm trying to understand is not
and analyze is not the behavior of this
particular human being but the effect it
had in part on the division between
people it's to me the degree the meme of
Sam Harris's brain being broken by Trump
represents you're like the person I
would look to to bridge the division
well I don't think there
is something profitably to be said to
someone who's
truly captivated by the the the
personality Cult of trumpism right like
there's nothing that I'm going to say to
there's no conversation I'm gonna have
with Candace Owens say about Trump
that's going to converge on something
reasonable right you don't think so no I
mean I've tried I haven't tried with
Candace I've tried with you know many
people who are in that particular orbit
I mean I I've I've had conversations
with people
who won't admit that there's anything
wrong with Trump anything so I'd like to
push for the empathy versus reason
because when you operate in the space of
Reason yes but I think there's a lot of
power in you showing in you Sam Harris
showing that you're willing to see the
good qualities of trump publicly showing
that I think that's the way to win over
few of them he has fewer good qualities
than any virtually anyone I can name
right so he he's funny he I I'll grant
you that he's funny he's he's a he's a
good Entertainer there's others look at
just policies and actual impacts he had
i' I've admitted that no no so like so
I've admitted that many of his policies
I agree with many many of hisl I mean
so probably more often than not I at
least on balance I agreed I I agreed
with his policy that you know we should
take China seriously as an adversary
right we're and um I think I mean again
you have to there's a a lot of fine
print to a lot of this because the way
he talks about these things and and many
of his motives that are obvious are
things that I um don't support but we
take immigration I think there's it's
obvious that we should have control of
our borders right like I I don't see the
argument for not having control of our
borders we should let in who we want to
let in and we should keep out who we
want to keep out and we should have a
sane immigration policy so um I don't I
didn't necessarily think it was a
priority to build the wall but I didn't
I never criticize the impulse to build
the wall because if you know tens of
thousands hundreds of thousands of
people are coming across that border and
we are not in a position to know who's
coming that seems untenable to me so um
and I can recognize that many people in
our
society are on balance the victims of
immigration be and and there is a in in
in many cases a zero some contest
between the interests of actual citizens
and the interests of immigrants right so
I think we should have a we should have
control of our borders we should have a
sane and compassionate immigration
policy we should have we should let in
refugees right so I you know Trump on
refugees was terrible um but no like I
would say 80% of the policy concerns
people uh celebrate ated in him are
concerns that I either share entirely or
certainly sympathize with right so like
that's not that's not the issue the
issue is a thread to democracy in some
fundament way the issue is largely what
you said it was it's not so much the
person it's the effect on everything he
touches right he just he has this this
superpower
of deranging and destabilizing
uh almost everything he touches and
suing the and compromising the Integrity
of almost anyone who comes into his
orbit I mean so you looked at these
people who served you know as his chief
of staff or you know in various cabinet
positions people who had real
reputations you know for for probity and
and level-headedness uh you know whether
you share their politics or not I mean
these were real people these were not
you know some of them were goofballs but
um uh
you know many people who who just got
totally trashed by proximity to him and
then Trashed by him when they finally
parted company with him
um yeah I mean there just people bent
over backwards to accommodate his Norm
violations and it it was um it was bad
for them and it was bad for our our our
system um
and but that but none of that discounts
the fact that we have um a system that
really needs a proper house cleaning yes
there are bad incentives and um
entrenched interests and I'm not a fan
of the concept of of the deep State uh
but because it you know it's been so
propagandized but yes there's there's
something like that you know that is uh
not
um flexible enough to re to respond
intelligently to the needs of the moment
right so there's a lot of rethinking of
government and of institutions in
general that I
think we should do but we need smart
well-informed well-intentioned people to
do that job and the well-intentioned
part is is hugely important right it's
just give me someone who is not the
most selfish person anyone has ever
heard about in their lifetime right and
what we got with Trump was that like the
literally the one most selfish person I
think anyone could name I mean and you
and again you there's so much known
about this man that's the thing it's
like it predates his presidency we knew
this guy 30 years
ago and and this and this is what to
come back to the those inflammatory
comments about Hunter Biden's laptop the
reason why I can say with confidence
that I don't care what was on his his
laptop is that there is and and that
includes any evidence of corruption on
on the part of his father right now
there's been precious little of that
that's actually emerged so it's like
there is no as far as I can tell there's
not a big story associated with that
laptop as much as people bang on about a
few emails but even if there were just
obvious corruption right like Joe Biden
was at this meeting and he took you know
this amount of money from this Shady guy
uh for bad reasons right
given how visible the lives of these two
men have been right I me given how much
we know about Joe Biden and how much we
know about Donald Trump and how they
have lived in public for almost as long
as I've been alive both of them the the
the the scale of corruption can't
possibly balance out between the two of
them right we I if if you show me that
Joe Biden has the secret life where he's
driving a Bugatti and he's living like
Andrew Tate right and he's do he's doing
all these things I didn't know about
okay then I'm going to start getting a
sense that all right maybe this guy is
way more corrupt than I realized maybe
there is some deal in Ukraine or with
China that it's just like this guy's not
who he seems he's not the public servant
he's been pretending to be he's been on
the take for decades and decades and
he's just he's as dirty as can be's he's
all mobbed up and it's a nightmare um
and he can't be trusted right that's
possible if you show me that his life is
not at all what it seems but on the
assumption that I having looked at this
guy for literally decades right and H
and knowing that every journalist has
looked at him for decades just how many
Affairs is he having just how much you
know uh how many drugs is he doing how
many houses does he have where you know
what what what is what are the obvious
conflicts of interest you know you hold
that against what we know about Trump
right and I mean the Litany of
indiscretions you can put on Trump's
side that that testify to his cor
personal corruption to testify the fact
that he has no ethical Compass there's
simply no comparison right so that's why
I don't care about what's on the laptop
when now if you tell me Trump is no
longer running for president in 2024 and
we can put trumpism behind us and now
you're saying listen there's a lot of
stuff on that laptop that makes Joe
Biden look like a total asshole okay I'm
all ears right I mean it was a forc in
2020 it was a forc choice between a
sitting president who wouldn't commit to
a peaceful transfer of power and a guy
who's obviously too old to be president
who has a crack addicted son who who had
you know who lost his laptop and I just
knew that I was going to take Biden in
spite of whatever Litany of horror was
going to come tumbling out of that
laptop and that might involve sort of so
that actual quote is Hunter Biden
literally could have had the corpses of
children in the basement there's a dark
humor to it right which is I think you
speak to I would not have cared there's
nothing it's Hunter Biden it's not Joe
Biden whatever the scope of Joe Biden's
corruption is it is infinately compared
to the corruption we know Trump was
involved in it's like a firefly to the
sun is what you're speaking to but let
me make the case that you're really
focused on the surface stuff that it's
possible to have coruption that
masquerades in the thing we mentioned
which is civility you can me you can
spend hundreds of billions of dollars or
trillions towards the War uh in the
Middle East for example something that
you've changed your mind on in terms of
the negative impact it has on the world
and that you know the military
industrial complex it's everybody's very
nice everybody's very civil there very
upfront here's how we're spending the
money yeah sometimes somehow disappears
in different plac but that's the way you
know war is complicated and it's
everyone is very polite there's no uh
Coke and strippers or whatever is on the
laptop um it's very nice and polite in
the meanwhile hundreds of thousands of
civilians die uh hate it just an
incredible amount of hate is created
because people lose their family members
all that kind of stuff but there's no
strippers and coke on on a laptop so
yeah but but it's not just superficial
it is when you when someone only wants
wealth and power and fame and that is
their their objective function right
they're like a a robot that is
calibrated just to those variables right
uh and they don't care about the risks
we run on any other front they don't
care about I
mean environmental risk pandemic risk
nuclear proliferation risk none of it
right they just they're just tracking
Fame and money and and whatever can can
personally uh redown to their
self-interest along those lines and
they're not informed about the other
risk we're running really I mean in
Trump you you had a president who was
repeatedly asking his generals why
couldn't we use our nuclear weapons why
can't we have more of them why do I have
fewer nuclear weapons than JFK right as
though that were a sign of of of
anything other than progress right um
and this is the guy who's got the the
the button right I mean he got
somebody's following him around with a
bag waiting to take his order to to
launch right um that is
a it's just it's a it's a a risk we
should never run one thing Trump has
going for him I think is that he he
doesn't drink or do drugs right although
there's you know people allege that he
does speed but um you know let's take
him at his word he's he's uh not
deranging him himself with with
Pharmaceuticals at least but um apart
from diet coke
uh but there's nothing wrong just for
the record let me push back on that
there's nothing wrong with yeah very
large amount I occasionally have some
myself there's no medical there's no
scientific evidence that I observed the
negatives of you know all those studies
about aspartame and all that this um no
I don't know I like I I hope I hope
you're right um yeah I mean everything
you said about the military industrial
complex is true right and and it's been
we've been worrying about that on both
sides of the aisle for a very long time
I mean that's just that phrase came from
from
Eisenhower
um it's
uh I mean so much of what ails us is a
story of bad incentives right and bad
incentives are so powerful that they
corrupt even good people right how much
more they corrupt bad people right like
so it's like you want at minimum you
want reasonably good people at least
non-pathological people in a in the
system trying to navigate against the
grain of bad incentives and better still
all of us can get together and and try
to diagnose those incentives and change
them right and and and we will really
succeed when we have a system of
incentives
where the the good incentives are so
strong that even bad people are
effortlessly behaving as though they're
good people because they're so
successfully incentivized to behave that
way right that's you and so so it's
almost the inversion of our current
situation so yes and you say I changed
my mind about the War uh I not quite I
mean I I was never a supporter of the
war in Iraq I was always worried that it
was a a distraction from the war in
Afghanistan was a supporter of the war
in Afghanistan and I will admit in
hindsight that looks like
a you know at best a highly ambiguous
and painful exercise you know Pro more
likely a Fool's errand right I like that
would you know it did not turn out well
it's it's it wasn't for want of trying I
I don't you know I have not done a deep
dive on on all of the failures there and
maybe all of these failures are failures
in principle I mean maybe it's just
maybe that's not the kind of thing that
can be done well by anybody whatever our
intentions um but yeah the the move to
Iraq always seemed questionable to me
and um when we knew the problem the
immediate problem at that moment you
know al- Qaeda uh uh was in Afghanistan
and you know and then bounc into
Pakistan um anyway all you know so yes
but my my my sense of the possibility of
nation building my sense of of um you
know in so in so far as the the the
neocon um Spirit of of uh you know
responsibility and idealism that you
know America was the kind of nation that
should be functioning in this way as as
the world's cop and we got we have to
get in there and and untangle some of
these knots by force um uh rather often
because you know if we don't do it over
there we're going to have to do it over
here kind of thing um yeah some of that
has definitely changed for me in my
thinking there obviously cultural
reasons why it failed in Afghanistan and
and if you can't change the
culture um it's
uh you're not going to force a change at
gunpoint in the culture or certainly
seems that that's not going to happen
and it took us you know over 20 years to
apparently to realize that that's one of
the things you realize with the war is
there's not going to be a strong signal
that things are not working you can just
keep pouring money into a thing a
military effort well also there there
are signs of it working too you have all
the stories of girls now going to school
right you know the girls are getting
battery acid thrown in their faces by
religious maniacs and then we come in
there and we stop that and now girls are
getting educated and there's a and
that's all good and our intentions are
good there and I we're on the right side
of history there good girls should be
going to school you know Malala ysep s
should have the Nobel Prize and she
shouldn't have been shot in the face by
by the Taliban right
um we know what the right answers are
there the question is what do you do
when there are enough in this particular
case religious Maniacs who are willing
to die and let their children die in
defense of crazy ideas and moral Norms
that belong in the 7th Century um and
it's a problem we couldn't solve and we
couldn't solve it even though we spent
you know trillions of dollars to solve
it just reminded me of um the thing that
you and and Jack dorsy uh jokingly had
for a while the discussion about banning
Donald Trump from Twitter um but does
any of it bother you now that Twitter
files came out that mean this has to do
with sort of the hunter laptop Hunter
Biden laptop story does it bother you
that there could be a collection of
people that make decisions about who de
B and not and
that that could be susceptible to bias
and to ideological influence well I I I
think it always will be or you in the
absence of perfect AI it always will be
and this becomes relevant with AI as
well yeah because some censorship on AI
happening and it's an interesting
question there as well I don't think
Twitter is important as people think it
is right and and I I used to think it
was more important when I was on it and
now that I'm off of it I think it's it's
uh I mean first let me say it's just an
unambiguously good thing in my
experience to to leas your Twitter
account right it's like it it is just
even the good parts of Twitter that I
miss were bad in the aggregate in in the
the degree to which it was fragmenting
my attention the degree to which my life
was getting doled out to me in periods
between moments where I checked Twitter
right and had my attention diverted and
I was you know I was not a a crazy
Twitter addict I mean I was a I was
probably a pretty normal user I mean I
was not someone who was tweeting
multiple times a day or even every day
right I me I would I probably I think I
probably
averaged something like one tweet a day
I think I averaged but in reality it was
like there'd be like four tweets one day
and then I wouldn't tweet for you the
better part of a week and but I was
looking
a lot because it was my newsfeed I was
just following you know 200 very smart
people and I just wanted to see what
they were paying attention to and I they
would recommend articles and I would
read those articles and and then when I
would read an article that then I would
that I would thought I should signal
boost I would tweet and so all of that
seemed good and like that's all
separable from all of the odious
bullshit that came back at me in
response to this largely in response of
this Hunter Biden thing
um but even the good stuff has a
downside and and it and it comes at just
this point of your phone is this
Perpetual stimulus
of um which is intrinsically fragmenting
of time and attention and now my phone
is is much less of a presence in my life
and it's it's not that I don't check
slack or check email I me you know I use
it to work but
um my sense of just the world is and my
sense of my place in the world the sense
of where I exist as a person has changed
a lot by deleting my Twitter account I
mean I had a and it's just it's um and
and the things that I think I mean we
all know this phenomenon we say of
someone that person's too online right
like what does it mean to be too
online um and where do you draw the that
that boundary you know where how do you
know what constitutes being to online
well in some sense just being I think
being on on social media at all is to be
too online I mean given what it does to
given the kinds of information it it um
signal boosts and given the um given the
impulse it Kindles in each of us to
reach out to our audience in at in
specific Mo moments and in specific ways
right it's like there there are lots of
moments now where I have an opinion
about something but there's nothing for
me to do with that opinion right like
there's no Twitter right so like there
are lots of things that I would have
tweeted in the last
months that are not the kind of thing
I'm going to do a podcast about I'm not
going to roll out 10 minutes on that
topic on my podcast I'm not going to
take the time to really think about it
but had I been on Twitter I would have
reacted to this thing in the news or
this thing that some somebody did right
what do you do with that thought now I
just let go of it like chocolate cream
is the most delicious thing ever it's
usually not that sort of thing but it's
it's just but then you look at the kinds
of problems people create for themselves
you look at the life deranging and
reputation destroying things that people
do and and I look at the things that
that have the analogous things that have
happened to me I mean the things that
have really bent my life around
professionally over the past you know
decade so much of it is Twitter I mean
honestly in my case
Almost 100% of it was Twitter the
controversies I would get into the
things I I would think I would have to
respond to in a p like I would release a
podcast on a certain topic I would see
some blowback on
Twitter you know it would give me the
sense that there was some signal that I
really had to respond to now that I'm
off Twitter I I recognize that most of
that was
just it was totally specious right it
was it was not something I had to
respond to but yet I would then do a
cycle of podcast responding to that
thing that like taking my foot out of my
mouth or taking someone else's foot out
of my mouth and it became this this
self-perpetuating
uh cycle
which I mean it's you know if you're
having fun great I mean if if it's if
it's if it's generative of useful
information and and engagement
professionally and and psychologically
great but and and there you know there
was some of that on Twitter I mean there
were people who I connected withc
because I just you know one one of us
dm'd the other on Twitter and it was
hard to see how that was going to happen
otherwise
but it was um largely just a machine for
manufacturing unnecessary controversy do
you think it's possible to avoid the
drug of that so now that you've achieved
the Zen state is it possible for
somebody like you to use it in a way
that doesn't pull you into the world wh
pool and so anytime there's attacks you
just I mean that's how I tried to use it
yeah but it's it's not the way I wanted
to use it it's not the way it it it
promises itself as as a you wanted to
have debate I wanted to actually
communicate with people I want I wanted
to hear from the person
because again it's it's like being in
Afghanistan right it's like there there
there are the the Potted cases where
it's obviously good right it's like in
Afghanistan the girl who's getting
education that is just here that's why
we're here that's that's Obviously good
I have those moments on Twitter where
it's okay I'm hearing from a smart
person who's detected an error I made in
my podcast or in a book or they've just
got some great idea about something that
I should spend time on and I would never
have heard from this person in any other
format and now I'm actually in dialogue
with them and it's fantastic that's the
promise of it to actually talk to people
and so I I kept getting lured back into
that um no the the way the sane or you
know sanity preserving way of of using
it is
is just as a marketing channel you just
put your stuff out there and you don't
look at what's coming back at you um and
that's you know for you know I'm on
other social media platforms that I
don't even touch I mean my team put
posts stuff on Facebook and on Instagram
I never even see what's on there so you
don't think it's possible to see
something and not let it affect your
mind no that's definitely possible but
the question is and I did that for vast
stretches of time right and but
then the the promise of the
platform is dialogue and feedback right
so like so why am I if I know for
whatever reason I'm going to see like 99
to1 awful feedback you know bad faith
feedback malicious feedback some of it's
probably even Bots and I'm not even
aware of who's a person who's a bot
right but I'm just going to stare into
this fun house mirror of acrimony and
dishonesty um that is going to I mean
the the reason why I got off is not
because I couldn't recalibrate and and
and find equinity again with all the the
the nastiness that was coming back at me
and not that I couldn't ignore it for
vast rhes of time
but I could see that I kept coming back
to it hoping that it would be something
that I could use a real tool for
communication and I was
noticing that it was insidiously
changing the way I felt about people
both people I know and people I don't
know right like people I you know mutual
friends of ours who are behaving in
certain ways on Twitter which just
seemed insane to me uh and then I that
became a signal I felt like I had to
take into account somehow right you're
seeing people at their worst both
friends and
strangers um and I I felt that it was as
much as I could sort of try to
recalibrate for it
I felt that I was losing touch with what
was real information because people are
performing people are faking people are
not who themselves or you seeing people
at their worst and so I felt like all
right what's what's being advertise to
me here on a not just a daily basis you
know a hourly basis or you know
increment sometimes of you know multiple
times an hour I me I probably check
Twitter you know
at minimum 10 times a day and maybe I
was checking it a hundred times a day on
some days right where I things were
really active and I was really engaged
with something
um what was being delivered into my
brain there was a was f s subtly false
information about
how
dishonest
and
um you know just generally unethical
totally normal people are capable of
being right it was like it it was it is
a fun house mirror it was it I was
seeing the most grotesque versions of
people who I know right people who I
know I could sit down at dinner with and
they would never behave this way and yet
they were they were coming at me on
Twitter you I mean was essentially
turning Ordinary People into sociopaths
right and like people are
just um you know it's there analogies
that many of us have made it's like it's
like one analogy is road rage right like
people behave in the confines of a car
in ways that they never would if they
didn't have this metal box around them
you know moving at speed and it's it's
you know all of that becomes quite
hilarious and and um you know obviously
dysfunctional when they actually have to
stop at the light next to the person
they just flipped off and they realized
they didn't real they didn't understand
that the person coming out of that car
next to them with cauliflower ear is
someone who they never would have you
know rolled their eyes at in public
because they would have taken one look
at this person realized this this is the
last person you want to fight with
that's one of the heartbreaking things
is to see see people who I know who I
admire who I know our friends be
everything from snarky to downright yeah
um mean um derisive towards each other
it doesn't make any sense like this this
the only place where I've seen people I
really admire who have had a calm head
about most things like really be shitty
to other people it's probably the only
place I've seen that and I I don't I T I
choose to maybe believe that that's not
really them there's something about the
system um like if you go paintballing if
you Jordan Peterson and uh who you're
going to shoot your friends yeah yeah
you're going to shoot your friends but
you kind of accept that that's kind of
what you're doing in this little game
that you're playing but it's sometimes
hard to remind yourself of that well and
I I think I was guilty of that
definitely
um you know I I don't think there's
nothing I I don't think I ever did
anything that I really feel bad about
but yeah it was always pushing me to the
edge of snideness somehow and um it's
just not healthy it's not it's not uh so
so the so the reason why I deleted my
Twitter account in the end was that it
was obviously making me a worse person
and and so so and yeah is there some way
to be on there where it's not making you
a worse person I'm sure there is but
it's given the nature of the platform
and given what was coming back at me on
it the way to do that is just to
basically use it as a one-way channel of
of communication just just just
marketing you know it's like here here's
what I what I'm paying attention to look
at it if you want to and just you just
push it out and then you don't you don't
look at what's coming back at you I put
out a call for questions on Twitter and
then actually quite surprisingly there's
a lot of good I mean they're they're
like even if they're critical they're
like being thoughtful which is nice I
used it that way too and that was what
kept me hooked but then there's also uh
touch balls 69 root a question ask I
can't I can't imagine this is part of it
one way to solve this is you know we got
to get rid of anonymity for this it's
like let me ask the question ask Sam why
he sucks was the question yeah that's
that's good well one reason why I sucked
was Twitter that was uh and I I've since
solved that problem so touch touch
ball 69 touch ball 69 should be happy
that I I I suck a little bit less now
that I'm off Twitter don't have to hear
from touch balls 69 on the regular the
fact that you have to um see that it
probably can have a negative effect just
even a moderation just to see that there
is like for me the negative effect is um
slight slly losing faith in the
underlying kindness of humanity yeah
that was for me yeah you can also just
reason your way out of it saying that
this is anonymity and this is kind of
fun and this kind of just the the shit
show of Twitter it's okay but it does
mentally affect you a little bit like I
don't read too much into that kind of
comment it's like it's just that's
just uh trolling and it's you know I I
get what's I I get I understand the fun
the person is having on the other side
of that it's like do you though I do
well I do I don't I mean I don't behave
that way but I do and for all I know
that person could be you know 16 years
old right so it's it's like it could be
also an ALT account for Elon I don't
know well yeah right yeah yeah um no I'm
pretty sure Elon would just tweet that
you know under his own name at this
point um oh man you love each other okay
so the do you think so speaking of which
now that Elon has taken over Twitter
uh is there something that he could do
to make this platform better this
Twitter and just social media in general
but because of the aggressive nature of
his Innovation that he's pushing is
there any way to make Twitter a pleasant
place for Sam
Harris uh maybe like in the next five
years I I don't know I think I'm
agnostic as to whether or not he or
anyone could make a social media
platform that really was healthy so you
were just observing yourself we week by
week seeing the effect has on your mind
and on how much you're actually learning
and growing as a person and it was
negative yeah and I also seeing the
negativity in other people's lives I
mean it's obviously I mean he's not he's
not going to admit it but I think it's
obviously negative for Elon right it's
just not it's uh that was one of the
things that you know you know when I was
looking into the fun house mirror I was
also seeing the fun house mirror on his
side of Twitter and it was just even
more exaggerated it's like well we when
I when I was asking myself why is he
spending his time this way I then
reflected on why why you know why was I
spending my time this way to a lesser
degree right and at lesser scale and at
lesser risk frankly right and so um and
it was just
so it's not just Twitter I mean it's
this isn't part an internet phenomenon
it's like the the whole Hunter Biden
mess that you you um explored
explored that was based I mean it was on
I was on somebody's podcast but that was
based on a clip taken from that podcast
which was highly misleading as to the
the the general shape of my remarks on
that podcast even you know I had to then
do my own podcast uh untangling all of
that and admitting that even in even in
the full context I was not speaking
especially well and didn't say exactly
what I thought in a way that was would
have been recognizable to anyone you
know even someone with not functioning
by a a spirit of Charity but but the
clip was quite distinct from the podcast
itself the reality is is that we're
living in an environment now where
people are so lazy and there's they they
their attention is so
fragmented that they they only have time
for Clips 99% of people will see a clip
and will assume there's no relevant
context I need to understand what
happened in that clip right and
and obviously the people who make those
clips know that right and they're doing
it qu doing it quite maliciously and in
this case the person who made that clip
and subsequent clips of other podcasts
was quite maliciously trying to engineer
you know some reputational emulation for
me um and being signal boosted by Elon
and other prominent people who can't
take the time to watch anything other
than a clip even when it's their friend
or someone who's ostensibly their friend
in that clip right so it's a total
failure an understandable failure of
Ethics that everyone is so short on time
and they're so fucking lazy that they're
just and and and we now have these
contexts in which we react so quickly to
things right like Twitter is inviting an
instantaneous reaction to this clip um
that it's um it's just too tempting to
just say something and not know what
you're even commenting on and most most
of the people who saw that clip don't
understand what I what I actually think
about any of these issues and the irony
is people are going to find clips from
this conversation that are just as
misleading and they're going to export
those and then people are going to be
dunking on those clips and you know
we're all living and dying by clips now
and it's
um it's dysfunctional see I think it's
possible to create a platform I I think
we will keep living on Clips but you
know when I saw that clip of you talking
about children and so on just knowing
that you have a sense of humor you we
just went to a dark place in terms of
humor right so like I didn't even bother
and then I knew that the way Clips work
is that people will use it for virality
sake but the giving giving a person
benefit of the doubt that's not even the
right term it's not like I was it really
like interpreting
it in the context of your past the truth
is you even need like I even
give Trump the benefit of the doubt when
I see a clip of trump so because there
are famous clips of trump that are very
misleading as to what he was saying in
context and I've been honest about that
like the whole you know there were good
people on both sides Scandal around the
his remarks after
Charlottesville like the clip that got
exported and got promoted by everyone
you know left of center from Biden on
down you know the New York Times CNN
there's nobody that I'm aware of who has
honestly you know apologized for what
they did with that clip that he did not
say what he seemed to be saying In that
clip about the the Nazis at
Charlottesville right and I have always
been very clear about that uh so it's
just you know I I even even people who I
think should be marginal ized and people
who
um who should be defenestrated because
they really are terrible people who are
doing dangerous things and for bad
reasons I think we should be honest
about what they actually meant in
context right and and this this goes to
anyone else we might talk about you know
who who's more where the where the case
is much more confusing but yeah
so
everyone's it's just so D and then
I'm sure we're going to get to AI but
you know the prospect of being able to
manufacture Clips with AI and deep fakes
and that where it's going to be hard for
most people most of the time to even
figure out that whether they're in the
presence of something
real um you know forget about being
divorced from Context there was no
context uh I mean that is that's an a
misinformation apocalypse that is we are
right on the cusp of and you know it's
that's terrifying well it could be just
a new world like where Alice going to
Wonderland where humor is the only thing
we have and it will save us maybe in the
end Trump's approach to social media was
the right one after all nothing is true
and everything is
absurd but we can't live that way people
function on the basis of what they
assume is true right they think you know
people have functioned well to do
anything it's like I mean you have to
you have to know what you think is going
to happen or you have to at least give a
probablistic
waiting over the future otherwise you're
you're going to be incapacitated by
you're not going like people want
certain things and they have to have a
rational plan to get those desires
gratified and they don't want to die
they don't want their kids to die you
tell them that there's a comet hurling
toward Earth and they should get outside
and look up right they're going to do it
and if it turns out it's misinformation
you know it's it's uh it's going to
matter because it comes down to like
what medicines do you give your children
right like we're going to be
manufacturing fake Journal articles I
mean this is I'm sure someone's using
chat GPT for for this you know as we
speak and if it's not credible if it's
not persuasive now to most people I mean
honestly I don't think we're going
to just I'll be amazed if it's a year
before we we can actually create Journal
articles that would take you know a a
PhD to debunk uh that are completely
fake um and there are people who are
celebrating this kind
of
um you know coming cataclysm but I I
just it's just there're the people
who don't have anything to lose who are
celebrating it or just are so confused
that they just don't even know what's at
stake and then there are the people who
have the few people who we could count
on a few hands who have managed to
insulate them or at least imagine
they've insulate insulated themselves
from the downside here enough that
they're not implicated in the great
unraveling we are witnessing or could
could witness the shaking up of what is
true uh so actually that returns us to
experts do you think experts can save us
is there such thing as expertise and
experts on something how do you know if
you've achieved it I think it's it's
important to acknowledge upfront that
this there's something paradoxical about
how we relate to to to Authority
especially within
science um and I don't think that
Paradox is going away and it just it
doesn't have to be confusing it's just
and it's not it's not truly a paradox
it's just like there are different
moments in time
so it is true to
say
that within science or within any within
rationality generally I mean just when
whenever you're making having a
fact-based discussion about
anything it is true to say that the
truth or falsity of a statement does not
even slightly depend on the credentials
of the person making the statement right
so it doesn't matter if you're a Nobel
laurate you can be wrong right the thing
you could the last sentence you spoke
could be total bullshit right and it's
also possible for someone who's deeply
uninformed to be right about something
or or be right for the wrong reasons
right or someone just gets lucky or
someone or or and there they're middling
cases where you have like a a backyard
astronomer who's got no credentials but
he just loves astronomy and he's got a
telescope and it's he spent a lot of
time looking at the night sky and he
discovers a comet that no one else has
seen you know not even the professional
expert astronomers um I got to think
that happens less and less now but but
some version of that keeps happening and
it and it may always keep happening in
every area of expertise right
um
so it's true that truth is orthogonal to
the reputational concerns we have among
Apes who are talking about the truth um
but it is also true that most of the
time real experts are much more reliable
than frauds or people who are not
experts right you know so and expertise
really is a thing right and when you
know when you're flying an airplane in a
in a storm you don't want just randos
coming into the cockpit saying listen
I've got a new idea about how to you
know how we should tweak these controls
right you want someone who's a trained
pilot and and and that training gave
them something right it gave them a set
of competences and intuitions and they
they know what all those dials and
switches do right and I don't right I
shouldn't be flying that plane
um so when things really
matter you know and putting this at
30,000 ft in a storm sharpens this
up we want real experts to be in charge
right and we are at 30,000 ft a lot of
the time on a lot of issues right and
whether they're public health issues
whether it's issue whether it's a a
geopolitical emergency like Ukraine I
mean the climate
change I mean just pick your pick your
topic um
there are real problems and the clock is
rather often ticking and their Solutions
are not obvious right and and so
expertise is a thing and deferring to
experts much of the time makes a lot of
sense it's at minimum it it
prevents you spectacular errors of
incompetence and and
uh just uh you know fool hard iness but
even in in the case of some where where
you're talking about someone I mean
people like ourselves who are like we're
well educated we we're not the the worst
possible candidates for you know the
Dunning Krueger effect when we're going
into a new area where we're not experts
we're fairly alert to the possibility
that we don't you know it's not as
simple as things seem at first and we
don't you know we don't know how our
tools translate to this new area we can
be fairly circumspect but we're also
because we're well
educated we we can we're and pretty
quick studies we can learn a lot of
things pretty fast and we can begin to
play a language game that sounds fairly
expert right
and in that
case the the invitation to do your own
research right is in when when times are
good I view as an invitation to waste
your time pointlessly right when times
are good
now the truth is times are not all that
good right and we have
the the ongoing public display of
failures of expertise we have experts
who are obviously corrupted by bad
incentives we've got e experts who you
know perversely won't admit they were
wrong when they in fact you know are
demonstrated to be wrong we've got
institutions that have been captured by
uh political ideology that's not truth
tracking and this this this whole woke
um uh encroachment into really every
place you know whether it's universities
or science Jour journals or government
or I mean it's just like that is that
has been genuinely
deranging um so there's a lot going on
that where where experts and and the
Very concept of expertise has seemed to
discredit itself but the reality is that
there is a massive difference when
anything matters when there is anything
to know about anything there is a
massive difference most of the time
between someone who has really done the
work work to understand that domain and
someone who hasn't
and if I get sick or someone close to me
gets
sick you know I I I have a PhD in
Neuroscience right so I can read a
medical journal article and understand a
lot of it right and I you know so I'm
I'm just fairly conversent with you know
medical
terminology um and I understand its
methods and I I'm alert to the
difference because I've you know because
in Neuroscience I've spent hours and
hours in journal Club you know
diagnosing you know the different
analyzing the difference between good
and bad
studies I I'm alert to the difference
between good and bad studies in in
medical journals right and I understand
that bad studies can get published and
you know Etc uh and and and experiments
can be poorly designed I'm alert to all
of those things but when I get sick or
when someone close to me gets sick I
don't pretend to be a doctor right I
don't I've got no clinical experience I
don't go down the rabbit hole on Google
for days at a stretch trying to become a
doctor much less a specialist in the
domain of problem that has been visited
upon me or my family right so if someone
close to me gets cancer I don't pretend
to be an oncologist I don't goe start I
don't start
reading you know in journals of
oncology and try to really get up to
speed as an oncologist because it's it's
not
it's one it's a b one it's a bad and
potenti and very likely
misleading use of my time right and and
it's if I decide if I had if I had a lot
of Runway if I decided okay it's really
important for me to know everything I
can at this point I want to I know
someone's going to get cancer I may not
go back to school and become an
oncologist but what I want to do is I
want to know everything I can know about
cancer right so I'm G to take the next
four years and spend most of my time on
cancer okay I could do that right I
still think that's a waste of my time uh
I still think at the end of even at the
end of those four years I'm not going to
be the best person to to form intuitions
about what to do in the face of the next
cancer that that I have to confront um
I'm still going to want a better
oncologist than I've become to tell me
what he or she would do if they were in
my shoes or in the shoes of you know my
family member I'm going to you know what
I'm what I'm not Advocate I'm not
advocating a a blind trust and Authority
like if you get
cancer and you're talking to one
oncologist and they're recommending some
course of treatment by all means get a
second opinion get a third opinion right
but it matters that those opinions are
coming from real experts and not from
you
know Robert Kennedy Jr you know who's
telling you that you know you got it
because you got a you a vaccine right
it's like it's it's just it it there's
we're swimming in a sea of
misinformation where you've got people
who are moving the opinions of millions
of others who who should not have an
opinion on these topics like there
there's no there is no scenario in which
you should be getting your opinion about
vaccine safety or or climate change or
uh the war in Ukraine or anything else
that we might want to talk about from
Candace Owens it's just like it like
like she she's not a relevant expert on
any of those topics and what's more she
doesn't seem to care right and and she's
living in a culture that has that has
Amplified that not caring into a
business model and an effective business
model right so it's just it's um and
that something very trumping about all
that like that's that's the pro the
problem is is the culture it's not the
these specific
individuals um so so the paradox here is
that expertise is a real
thing and we defer to it a lot as a as a
labor saving device and just as and just
based on the the the the reality that
it's very hard to be a polymath right
and specialization is a thing right and
so there are people who specialize in a
very narrow topic they know more about
that topic than the next guy no matter
how smart that that guy or gal is
uh and and that those differences matter
but it's also true that when you're
talking about
facts
sometimes the the the best experts are
wrong the scientific consensus is wrong
you get a a seea change in the thinking
of a whole field because one person
who's an outlier for whatever reason
decides okay I'm uh you know I'm going
to prove this point and they prove it
right so somebody like uh the Doctor Who
uh believe that that stomach ulcers were
not due to stress but were due to to um
hpylori infections right so he just
drank a vial of hpylori bacteria and and
proed that and quickly got an ulcer and
convinced the field that that at minimum
H pylori was involved in in that process
okay so yes everyone was wrong that
doesn't disprove the reality of
expertise it doesn't disprove the
utility of relying on Experts most of
the time especially in an emergency
especially when the clock is ticking
especially when you you know you you're
in this particular cockpit and you only
have one chance to land this plane right
you want the real pilot uh at the
controls but there's just a few things
to say
go so one you mentioned this example
with cancer and doing your own research
there there's several things that are
different about our particular time in
history one doing your own research has
become more more effective because you
can read the internet made information a
lot more accessible so you can read a
lot of different metaanalyses you can
read blog posts that describe to you
exactly the flaws in the different
papers they make up the Meta Meta
analyses they and and you can read a lot
of those blog posts that are conflicting
with each other and you can take that
information in in in a short amount of
time you can start to
make um good faith interpretations for
example I don't know I don't want to
overstate things but um if you suffer
from depression for
example then there you could go to an
expert and a doctor that prescribes you
some medication yeah but you could also
challenge some of those ideas and seeing
like what are the different medications
what are the different side effects what
are the different solutions to
depression all that kind of stuff and I
think depression is just a really
difficult problem that's
very um I don't want to Again State
incorrect things but I think it's
um there's a lot of variability of what
depression really means so it being
introspective about the type of
depression you have and the different
possible solutions you have just doing
your own research as a first step before
approaching a doctor or as you have
multiple opinions could be very
beneficial in that case now that's
depression that's something that's been
studied for a very long time with a new
pandemic that's affecting
everybody it's uh you know with the
airplane I would equate to like 911 or
something like a new emergency just
happened and everybody every expert in
the world is publishing on it and
talking about it so doing your own
research there could be exceptionally
effective in asking questions and then
there's a difference between experts
virologists and it's actually a good
question who is exactly the expert in a
pandemic yeah but there's the ACT
experts doing the research and
Publishing stuff and then there's the
communicators of that expertise and the
question is uh if the communicators are
flawed to to a degree we doing your own
research is actually the more effective
way to figure out policies and solutions
because you're not competing with the
experts you're competing with the
communicators of expertise that could be
wh CDC in the case of the pandemic or
politicians or political type of science
figures like Anthony foui there's a
question
there of the effectiveness of doing your
research your own research in that
context and the
competing forces there incentives that
you've mentioned is you can be become
quite popular by being contrarian by
saying everybody's lying to you all the
authorities are lying to you all the
institutions lying to you so those are
the waters you're swimming in but I
think doing your own research in that
kind of context could be quite effective
let me be clear I'm not saying you
shouldn't do any research right I'm not
saying that you shouldn't be informed
about an issue I'm not saying you
shouldn't read articles on on whatever
the topic is and yeah yes if I got
cancer or someone close to me got cancer
I I probably would read more about
cancer than I've read thus far about
cancer and I've read some
um so I'm not I'm not making a virtue of
ignorance
and a blind obedience to Authority and I
and again I recognize that that
authorities can discredit themselves or
they can be wrong uh they can be wrong
even when they had when there's no
discredit they just there's a lot we
don't understand about the the nature of
the world
um but still this this vast Gulf between
truly informed opinion and bullshit
exists it always exists
and um and conspiracy thinking
is rather often you know most of the
time a species of bullshit but it's not
always wrong right there are real
conspiracies and there there really
are just
awful Corruptions of you know but born
of bad incentives within our you know
our scientific processes within
institutions and again we mentioned a a
lot of these things in passing but you
know what what woke political ideology
did to Scientific communication during
the pandemic was awful and it was really
corrosive of public trust especially on
the on the right um for understandable
reasons you it was just it was crazy
some of the things that were being said
and still is and these cases are all
different so like you take depression we
just don't know enough about depression
for you know anyone to be that confident
about anything right and there are many
different modalities in which to
interact with it as a problem right so
there's yes Pharmaceuticals have
whatever promise they have but there's
there's certainly reason to be concerned
that they don't work well for everybody
and and uh I mean that's it's obvious
they don't work well for everybody but
though they do work for some people
um but again depression is a
multifactorial problem and they're
they're different levels at which to to
influence it and there you know things
like meditation there things like you
just life changes and and uh you know
one of the perverse things about
depression is that when you're depressed
all of the things that would be good for
you to do are precisely the things you
don't want to do you don't have any
energy to socialize you don't want to
get things done you don't want to
exercise you don't and um all of those
things if you got those up and running
they do make you feel better you know in
the aggregate but um the reality is that
there you know there are clinical level
depressions that are so bad that it's
just we just don't have good tools for
them and it's not enough to tell there's
no life change someone's going to going
to embrace that is going to be an
obvious remedy for that
um the p i mean pandemics are are
obviously a complicated problem but I I
would consider it much simpler than
depression in terms of you know what's
on the menu to be chosen among you the
various choices just less multifactorial
the logic by which you would make those
choices yeah so it's like we have a
virus we have a new virus it's some
version of bad you know it's human
transmissible we're still catching up
we're catching up to every aspect of we
don't know how it spreads we don't know
how how effective masks are well a
certain point we knew it was respiratory
but we KN and whether it's spread by
fomites like all we were confused about
a lot of things and we're still confused
it's been a moving Target this whole
time and it's been changing this whole
time and our responses to it have been
you know we we ramped up the vaccines as
quickly as we as we could but you know
too quick for some not is not quick
enough for others we could have done
human challenge trials and got them out
more quickly with with with better data
um and I think that's something we
should probably look at in the future
because you know that you to my eye that
would make ethical sense to do to do
challenge trials um
but and and so much of my concern about
Co I mean many people are confused about
my concern about Co my my concern about
Co has for much of the time not been
narrowly focused on Co itself and how
dangerous I perceive Co to be as a as a
illness um it has been for the longest
time even more a concern about our
ability to respond to a truly scary
pathogen next time like what I I for you
know outside those initial months you
know give me the the first six months to
be quite worried about covid and and the
unraveling of society but and the supply
of toilet paper you want to secure a
steady supply of toilet paper uh but
beyond that that initial
period when we had a sense of what we
were dealing with and we had every hope
that the vaccines are actually going to
work and we're getting and we knew we
were getting those vaccines in short
order right beyond that and and we had
and and we knew just how dangerous the
illness was and how dangerous it wasn't
um for years now I've just been worrying
about this as a failed dress rehearsal
for something much worse right I think
what we prove to ourselves at this
moment in history is that we have built
informational tools that we do not know
how to use to and we have made ourselves
we we've basically enrolled all of human
society into a psychological experiment
that
is deranging us and making it
virtually impossible to solve
coordination problems that we absolutely
have to solve next time when things are
worse do you understand who's at fault
for the way this
unraveled the way we didn't seem to have
uh the distrust in institutions in the
institution of science that grew like
seemingly exponentially or or got
revealed to this process who who's a
fault
here and what's to fix so much blame to
go around but so much of it is not a
matter of bad people conspiring to do
bad things it's a matter
of uh incompetence and misaligned
incentives and just just ordinary you
know just plain vanilla dysfunction but
my problem was that people like you
people like Brett Weinstein people like
that I look to for reasonable difficult
conversations on difficult topics have a
little bit lost their mind became
emotional dogmatic in style of
conversation perhaps not in the depth of
actual ideas but there I you know I
tweet something of that nature not about
you but just it feels like the
pandemic made people really more
emotional than before and then Kimble
musk responded I think something I think
you probably would agree with maybe not
I think it was the combo of trump and
the pandemic Trump triggered the
far-left to be way more active than they
could have been without him and then the
pandemic handed big government Nanny
State lefties a huge platform on a
silver platter a one two punch and here
we are I would agree with some of that I
I'm not sure how much to read into the
nanny State uh concept but but yet like
basically got people on the far left
really activated yeah and then gave
control to I don't know if you say Nanny
state but just control the
government that when executed poorly has
created a complete distrust in
government my fear is that there was
going to be that complete distrust
anyway given the nature of the
information space given the level of
conspiracy thinking given the gaming of
of the these tools by an antiva cult I
mean there really is an antiva cult that
that just ramped up its its energy
during this moment um but it's a small
one it's not to say that everything
every concern about vaccines is a
species of it was born of misinformation
or born of this cult but there is a cult
that is just you know and you know and
the core of trumpism is a cult I mean
kinon is a cult um and so there's a lot
of lying and there's a lot of
confusion uh you know there there
are it's almost impossible to exaggerate
how confused some people are and how and
how fully their their lives are
organized around that confusion there
are people who think that the world's
being run by pedophile cannibals and
that you know Tom Hanks and Oprah
Winfrey and Michelle Obama are among
those cannibals I mean like
they're adjacent to the pure crazy
there's the semi crazy and adjacent to
the semi crazy there's the grifting
opportunist asshole and and the the the
the layers of of of bad faith are you
know hard to fully uh diagnose but the
problem
is all of this is getting signal boosted
by a a an outrage machine that is
preferentially spreading misinformation
it has a business model that is is
guaranteeing that is is preferentially
sharing misinformation can actually just
in a small tangent yeah how do you
defend yourself against the claim that
you're a pedophilic
annibal it's difficult here's the case I
would make because I don't think you can
use reason I think you have to use
empathy you have to understand what like
part of it I mean I I find it very
difficult to believe that anyone
believes these things I mean I think
that there's and there's I'm sure
there's some number of people who are
just pretending to believe these things
because it's just again this is sort of
like the forchan ification of everything
it's just it's just a just it's just
Pepe the Frog right like none of this is
what it seems they're not
signaling an alliance with white
supremacy or neo-nazism but they're not
not doing it like they just don't
fucking care it's just cynicism
overflowing its banks right it's just
fun to to to wind up the normies right
like look at all the normies who don't
understand that a green frog is just a
green frog even when it isn't just a
green frog right it's like that just
it's just gumming up everyone's
cognitive bandwidth with bullshit right
I get that that's fun if you're a
teenager and you just want to vandalize
our our new sphere uh but at a certain
point you we have to recognize that real
questions of human welfare are in play
right there's like they're really there
this there are Wars getting fought or
not fought and there's a pandemic raging
and there's medicine to take or not take
but I mean to come back to this issue of
Co I don't think my I don't think I got
so out of balance around Co I I think
people are quite confused about what I
was concerned about I mean like I there
was a yes there was a period where I was
crazy because anyone who was taking
taking it seriously was crazy because
they had no idea what was going on and
so it's like yes I was wiping down
packages with with alcohol wipes right
because people thought it was Triss
transmissible by touch right that so and
then when we realized that was no longer
the case I stopped doing that but so
there there again it was it was a moving
Target and a lot of things we did in
hindsight around masking and school
closures looks fairly dysfunctional
right but necessary I think the
criticism that people
would uh would say about your U talking
about Co and maybe you can correct me
but you were skeptic or you were against
skepticism of the safety and E efficacy
of the vaccine so people who get nervous
about the vaccine but don't fall into
the usual antia Camp which I think there
was a significant yeah enough number oh
yeah they're asking they're getting
nervous I mean I especially after the
war in Afghanistan and Iraq I too was
nervous about anything where a lot of
money could be
made and you start you just see how the
people who are greedy who come they come
to the surface all of a sudden and a lot
of them that run institutions are
actually really good human beings I know
a lot of them but it's hard to know how
those two combine together when there's
hundreds of billions trillions of
dollars to be made
and so that
skepticism I guess you the sense was
that you weren't open enough to the
skepticism I understand that people have
that sense I'll tell you how I thought
about it and think about it one again it
was a moving Target so there was a point
in the timeline where it was totally
rational to expect that the
vaccines were were both working but both
they were they were reasonably safe and
that and that co co was reasonably
dangerous and that the tradeoff for
basically everyone was it was rational
to get vaccinated given how many given
the level of testing and how many people
had been vaccinated before you given
what we were seeing with covid right um
that that was a forced choice you're
either going to you're eventually going
to get covid and the question is do you
want to be vaccinated when you do right
there was a period where that forced
choice where it it was just obviously
reasonable to get vaccinated in
especially because there was every
reason to expect that while it wasn't a
perfectly sterilizing vaccine it was
going to knock down transmission a lot
and that matters and so it wasn't just a
personal choice you were actually being
a good citizen when you decided to run
whatever risk you you were going to run
to get vaccinated because there are
people in our society who can't actually
can't get vaccinated I I know people who
can't take any vaccines they so they're
so allergic to I mean they they in their
own person seem to justify all of the
fears of the antia cult I mean it's like
they're the kind of person who Robert
Kennedy Jr can point to and say see
vaccines we'll fucking kill you right
because because of the the experience
and and we're still they I know people
who have kids who fit that description
right
so um we should all feel a civic
responsibility to be vaccinated against
egregiously awful and transm
transmissible diseases for which we have
relatively safe vaccines to keep those
sorts of people safe and there was a
period of time when it was thought that
the vaccine could stop transmission yes
and so again all of this is has begun to
shift um I don't think it has shifted as
much as Brett Weinstein thinks it's
shifted but yes there are safety
concerns around the MRNA
vaccines especially for young men right
as as far as I know that's the that's
the purview of the of of actual height
concern um but
also there's there's now there a lot of
natural immunity out there a lot
basically everyone who was was going to
get vaccinated has gotten vaccinated the
virus has evolved to the point in in
this context where it seems less uh
dangerous you know again I don't I I I'm
going more on on the seemings than on on
Research that I've done at at this point
but I'm certainly less worried about
getting Co I've had it once I've been
vaccinated I've like it's like so you
ask me now how do I feel about getting
the next
booster I don't know that I'm going to
get the next booster right so so I I was
somebody who was waiting in line at 4 in
the morning you know hoping to get get a
some overflow vaccine when it was first
available and I that was at that point
given what we knew or given what I
thought I knew based on the best sources
I could consult and based on you know
based on anecdotes that were too Vivid
to ignore you know both data and and
personal experience um it was totally
rational for me to to want to get that
vaccine as as soon as I could and now I
think it's totally rational for me to to
do a a a different kind of cost benefit
analysis and wonder listen do I really
need to get a booster right you know
like how many of the how many of these
boosters am I going to get for the rest
of my life really um and how safe is
the MRNA vaccine for a man of my age
right and do I need to be worried about
myocarditis for you know all of that is
completely rational to talk about now my
concern is that at every point along the
way I was the wrong person and and Brett
Weinstein was the wrong person and
there's many other people I could add to
this list to have strong opinions about
any of this stuff I just disagree with
that I I think yes in Theory I agree
100% but I feel like experts failed at
communicating not at doing they did I I
and I just feel like you and Brett
Weinstein actually have the tools with
the internet given the engine you have
in your brain of thinking for months at
a time deeply about the problems that
face our world that you actually have
the tools to do pretty good thinking
here it's the problem I have with
experts but there would be difference to
experts and pseudo experts behind all of
that well the papers you would stand on
the shoulders of giants but you can surf
those shoulders better than the Giants
themselves but I knew we were going to
disagree about the like I I I saw his
podcast where he brought on these
experts who had many of them had the
right credentials but for variety of
reasons they didn't pass the smell test
for me one larger problem and this goes
back to the the problem of of how we
rely on Authority in science is that you
can always find a PhD or an MD
to to Champion any crackpot idea right
you you could I mean it is amazing but
you could find phds and MDS who would
sit up there in front of Congress and
say that they thought smoking was not
addictive you know or that it was not
harmful to there was no direct link
between smoking and lung cancer you can
always find those people and you can and
so but you know some of the people Brett
found were people who had obvious tells
to my point of view to my eye I mean and
I saw them on some of the same people
were on Rogan's podcast right
and um and it's hard because if a person
does have the right credentials and
they're not and they're not saying
something floridly mistaken and we're
talking about something where it's
they're genuine unknowns right like how
how much do we know about the safety of
these vaccines right it's it's at that
point not a whole hell of a lot I mean
we have no long-term data on mRNA
vaccines but to confidently say that
millions of people are going to die
because of these vaccines and to
confidently say that ior mechon is a
Panacea right ior mechon is the thing
that prevents covid right there was no
good reason to say either of those
things at that moment and that's and and
so given that that's where Brett was I
felt like there was there was just no
there was nothing to debate we we're
both the wrong people to get be getting
into the Weeds on this we're both going
to defer to our chosen experts his
experts look like crackpots to me and um
or at least the ones who were most
vociferous on those most those edgiest
points that seem most and your experts
seem like what is the term Mas hysteria
I forgot the term well no but it's like
it's like with you know climate science
I mean this this old it's received as a
Canard for for in half of our society
now but the claim that 97% of climate
scientists agree that human cause
climate change is a thing right so do
you go with the 97% most of the time or
do you go with the 3% most of the time
it's obvious you go with the 97% most of
the time for anything that matters it's
not to say that the 3% are always wrong
again the there are things get
overturned and yes as you say I've spent
much more time worrying about this on my
podcast than I've spent worrying about
Co our institutions have lost trust for
good reason right and
and it's it it's an open question
whether we can actually get things done
with this level of
transparency and and pseudo transparency
given our information ecosystems like
can we fight a war really fight a war
that we may have to fight like the next
Nazis can we fight that war when
everyone with an iPhone is showing just
how awful it is that that little girls
get blown up when we drop our bombs
right like could we could we as a
society do what we might have to do to
to get actually get necessary things
done when we're living in this this
panopticon of just you know everyone's a
journalist right everyone's a scientist
Everyone's an expert everyone's got
direct contact with the facts or or some
or semblance of the facts I don't know I
think yes and I think voices like yours
are exceptionally important and I think
there's certain signals you send in your
ability to steal me on the other side in
your empathy essentially so that's the
fight that's the mechanism by which you
resist
uh the do the dogmatism of these this
binary thinking and then if you become a
trusted person that's able to consider
the other side then people would listen
to you as as the aggregator as the
communicator of expertise because the
virologists haven't been able to be good
communicators I still to this day don't
really
know what is the what am I supposed to
think about the um safety and efficacy
of the vaccines today as it stands today
what are we supposed to think what are
we supposed to think about testing what
are we supposed to think about the
effectiveness of masks or lockdowns
where's the great communicators on this
topic that consider all the other
conspiracy theories all the other all
the communication that's out there and
actually aggregating it together and be
able to say this is actually what's most
likely the truth and also some of that
has to do with humility epistemic
humility knowing that you can't really
know for sure just like with depression
you can't really know for sure yeah
where is the I'm not seeing those
Communications being effectively done
even still today well I the jury is
still out on some of it and again it's a
moving Target and and some of it I mean
it's complicated some of it's a
self-fulfilling uh Dynamic where like so
like lockdowns in theory lockdowns a
lockdown would work if we could only do
it but we can't really do it and there's
a lot of people who won't do it because
they're convinced that it's this is the
totalitarian boot you know on finally on
the neck of of of of the good people who
um uh are always having their interests
you know traduced by the elites right so
like this is
if you have enough people who think the
lockdown for any reason in the face of
any conceivable illness right is just
code for the new world order coming to
fuck you over and take your guns right
okay you have a society that is now
immune to reason right because there
there absolutely certain pathogens that
we should lock down for next time right
and and and it was completely rational
in the beginning of this thing to lock
down given what to attempt to lock down
we never really lock down to attempt
some semblance of lockdown just to quote
bend the curve to spare our health care
System given what we were seeing
happening in Italy right like that
moment was was not hard to navigate at
least in in my view it was obvious at
the time in retrospect my views on that
haven't changed except for the fact that
I recognize maybe it's it's just
impossible given the nature of people's
response to that kind of Demand right we
live in a society that's just not going
to lock down unless the pandemic is much
more deadly right so that's a point I
made which you know was maliciously
clipped out from some other podcast
where someone's trying to make it look
like I want to see children die look
there's a Pity more children didn't die
from covid right um this is uh it
actually the same person who who uh
that's the other thing that got so um
poisoned here it's like that person this
psychopath or effective psychopath who's
creating these clips of me on podcast
this second clip of me uh seeming to say
that I wish more children died during Co
which but it was it was so I was so it
was so clear in context what I was
saying that even the clip betrayed the
context so it didn't actually work this
psycho and again I don't know whether he
actually is a psychopath but he's
behaving like one because of the
incentives of Twitter this is somebody
who Brett signal boosted as a as a very
reliable source of information right he
he kept retweeting this guy at me
against me right and this guy at one
glance I knew how unreliable this guy
was right but I think
I I'm not at all set one thing I think I
did wrong one thing that I do regret one
thing I have not sorted out for myself
is how to navigate the the professional
and personal pressure
that
gets applied at this moment where you
have a friend or an acquaintance or
someone you
know who's behaving badly in public or
or or Behaving Badly behaving in a way
that you think is bad in public and they
have a public platform where they're
influencing a lot of people and you have
your own public platform where you're
constantly getting asked to comment on
what this this friend or or acquaintance
or colleague is
doing I haven't known what I think is
ethically right about the choices that
seem forced on us at moments like this
so like i' I've criticized you in public
about your your interview with Kanye now
in the case in in that case I reached
out to you in private first and told you
exactly what I thought and then when I
was going to get asked in public or when
I was touching that topic on my uh
podcast I more or less said the same
thing that I said to you in private
right now that was how I navig at that
moment um I did the same thing with with
Elon um at least on at the beginning
um you know this we have we have
maintained Good Vibes that which is
which is not what I say El I don't think
I I I disagree with you because Good
Vibes in the moment there's a deep core
of Good Vibes that persist through time
between you and Elon and I would argue
probably between some of the other folks
you mentioned I I think with Brett I
failed to reach out in
private uh to the degree that I should
have and we never really had we we had
tried to set up a conversation in
private that that never happened but um
there was some communication
but it would have been much better for
me to have made more of an effort in
private than I did before it spilled out
into public and I would say that's true
with other people as well what kind of
interaction in private you think you
should have with Brett because my case
would be beforehand and now
still the case I would like and this
part of the criticism you sent my way
maybe it's useful to go to that
direction actually let's go to that
direction because I think I disagree
with your criticism as you stated
publicly but this is talking about your
of your the thing you criticize me for
is actually the right thing to do with
Brett okay you you said Lex could have
spoken with Kanye in such a way as to
produced a useful document he didn't do
that because he has a fairly naive
philosophy about the power of
love let's see if you can maintain that
philosophy in the presence criticism go
he no it's beautiful he seemed to think
that if he just got through the
Minefield to the end of the conversation
where the two of them still were feeling
good about one another and they can hug
it out that would be by definition a
success so let me make the case for this
Power of Love philosophy right and first
of all I I love you Sam you're still an
inspiration and somebody I deeply admire
okay back at you uh the to me in the
case of
Kanye it's not only that you get through
the conversation and have hugs it's that
the display that you're willing to do
that has power so even if it doesn't end
in hugging the actual the turning the
other cheek the act of turning the other
cheek itself communicates both to Kanye
later and to the rest of the world that
we
should have empathy and compassion
towards each other there is power to
that I that maybe that is naive but I
believe in the power of that so it's not
that I'm trying to convince Kanye that
some of his ideas are wrong but I'm
trying to illustrate that just the act
of listening and truly trying to
understand the human being
that is opens people's minds to actually
questioning their own beliefs more it
takes them out of the dogmatism
deescalate the kind of uh dogmatism that
I've been seeing so in that sense I
would say the Power of Love is is is the
philosophy you might apply to Brett
because the right conversation you have
in private is not about Hey listen
you're you know the the experts you're
talking to they seem credential but
they're not actually as credential as
they illustrating they're not grounding
their findings in actual metaanalyses
and papers and so on like making a
strong case like what are you doing this
is going to get a lot of people in
trouble but instead just saying like
being a friend in the dumbest of ways
being
like respectful sending love their way
and just having a conversation outside
of all of this out like basically so
showing that like
removing the emotional attachment to
this debate even though you are very
emotionally attached because in the case
of covid specifically there's a very
large number of lives at stake but
removing all of that and remembering
that you have a
friendship yeah well so the I think
these are highly non-analogous cases
right so your conversation with
Kanye misfired from my point of view for
a very different reason it was it was it
has to do with Kan I so Kanye I don't I
don't know I've I've never met Kanye so
obviously I don't know him um
but I think he's either obviously in the
midst of a mental health crisis or he's
a colossal asshole or both I mean the
ACT those aren't mutually exclusive so
one of three possibil he's either
mentally ill he's an asshole or he's a
he's mentally ill and an asshole I think
all three of those possibilities are
possible for the both of us as well no I
would argue none of those are are are
likely for either of us but um possible
not to say we don't have our moments
but so so the reason not to talk to
Kanye so you I think you should have had
the conversation you had with him in
private that's great and there's no I've
got no uh criticism of what you said had
it been in private in public I just
thought you're not doing him a favor if
he's mentally ill right he's in the
middle of a a a manic episode or or you
know I'm not a clinician but I've you
I've heard it said of him that he is
bipolar um you're not doing him a favor
sticking a mic in front of him and
letting him go off on the Jews or
anything else right um we know what he
thought about the Jews we know that
there's not much illumination going to
that's going to come from him on that
topic and if it is a symptom of his
mental illness that he thinks these
things well then it's you're not doing
him a favor making that even more public
um if he's just an asshole and he's just
an anti-semite an ordinary you know
Garden variety anti-semite well then
there's also not much to say unless
you're really going to dig in and kick
the shit out of him in public and I'm
I'm saying you can do that with love I
that's the other thing here is that I
don't agree that compassion and love
always have this patient
uh embracing
acquiescent face right they don't always
feel good to the recipient right there
is a sword of wisdom that you can wield
compassionately in moments like that
where someone's full of shit and you
just make it absolutely clear to them
and to your audience that they're full
of shit and it's no there's no hatred
being communicated in fact you could
just like listen I'm going to do
everyone a favor right now and you know
just take your foot out of your mouth
and and
um and the truth is you know I wouldn't
I just wouldn't have aired the
conversation like I just don't think it
was a document that had to get out there
right I I I get that many PE this is not
a signal you're likely to get from your
audience right I get that many people in
your audience thought oh my God that's
awesome you you're talking to Kanye and
you're doing it in Lex style where it's
just love and you're not treating him
like a pariah and you know you're you're
holding this tension between he's this
creative genius who work we love and yet
he's having this moment that's so
painful and you what a tight RPP walk
and I get that maybe 90% of your
audience saw it that way they're still
wrong and I and I I still think that was
unbalanced not a good thing to put out
into the world you don't think it opens
up the mind and heart of people that
listen to that just have it does it's
it's let if it's opening up in the wrong
direction where just gale force nonsense
is coming in right I think we should
have an open mind and an open heart but
there's some clear things here that that
we have to keep in view one is the
mental illness component is its own
thing yeah I don't pretend to understand
what's going on with him so but in so
far as that's the reason he's saying
what he's saying do not put this guy on
camera and let sorry on that point real
quick I had a bunch of conversation with
him offline and I didn't get a sense of
mental illness that's why I chose to sit
down okay and I didn't get it I mean
mental illness is such
um but when he shows up a gimp put on
Alex Jones's podcast I mean either
that's more you know genius performance
in his world or it's he he's unraveling
further I wouldn't put that under mental
illness I we have to I think there's
another conversation to be had about how
we treat
artists right because they're they're
weirdos they're very I mean we you know
taking taking words from Kanye as if he
he's Christopher Hitchens or something
like that like very eloquent
researched you know written many books
on history on politics and geopolitics
on psychology Kanye didn't do any of
that he's an artist just spouting off
and so it's a different style of
conversation and a different way to
treat the wars that are coming out let's
leave the mental illness aside so if if
we're gonna say that there's no reason
to think he's mentally ill and this is
just him being creative and Brilliant
and opinionated
well then that falls into the asshole
bucket for me it's like then then he's
someone and honestly the most offensive
thing about him in that interview from
my point of view is not the
anti-Semitism which you know we can talk
about because I think there there are
problems just letting him uh uh spread
those memes as well but the most
offensive thing is just how delusionally
egocentric he is or was coming off in
that interview and and in others like he
he has an estimation of himself
as this Omnibus genius to to rival not
only to rival Shakespeare to exceed
Shakespeare right I me he's like he's he
is the greatest mind that has ever
walked Among Us and he's more or less
explicit on that point and yet he
manages to talk for hours without saying
anything actually interesting or
insightful or or factually Illuminating
right so it's complete delusion of a
very trumpian sort it's like it's like
you know when Trump says he's a genius
who understands everything it's but
nobody takes him seriously
if one wonders whether Trump takes
himself seriously Kanye seems to believe
he seems to believe his own press he
actually thinks he's he's you know just
a Colossus and um he may be a great
musician you know I'm not you know I
I've it's certainly not my wheelhouse to
compare him to any other musicians but
um one thing that's patently obvious in
from your conversation is he's not who
he thinks he is intellectually or
ethically or in any other relevant way
and so when you couple that to the
anti-Semitism he was spreading which I
was genuinely noxious and ill-considered
and um has potential KnockOn effects in
the black community I mean there there's
a there's an ambient level of
anti-Semitism in the black community
that is worth worrying about and talking
about anyway there's a bunch of guys you
know playing The Knockout game in
Brooklyn just punching Orthodox Jews in
the face
and I think letting Kanye he his
anti-Semitism that publicly only raises
the the likelihood of that rather than
diminishes it I don't know so let me say
just a couple things so one my belief at
the time was it doesn't it decreases it
showing empathy while pushing back
decreases the likelihood of that it does
might it might on the surface look like
it's increasing it but that's simply
because the anti-Semitism or the hatred
in general is brought to the surface and
that people talk talk about it but I
should also say that you're one of the
only people that wrote to me privately
criticizing me and um like out of the
people I really respect and admire and
that was really valuable that like I had
to painful cuz I had to think through it
for a while I'm still it still haunts me
because the other kind of criticism I
got a lot of people basically
said thinks towards me uh based on who I
am that they hate me just you mean
anti-semitic things or anti-semitic
things I just hate the word anti-semitic
it's uh it's like racist well but here's
the reality so I'm someone so I'm Jewish
you know although obviously not
religious um I have never taken you know
I've I've been a student of the
Holocaust obviously I I know a lot about
that and and there's reason
to to be a student of the Holocaust uh
but in my lifetime and in my experience
have never taken anti-Semitism very
seriously I have not worried about it I
have not um made a thing of it I've done
exactly one podcast on it you had Barry
Weiss on my podcast um when her book
came
out uh
but it really is a thing and it's uh
it's something we have to keep an eye on
societally because it it it's a it's a
unique kind of hatred right it's a it's
it's Unique in that it seems it's it's
knit together with it's not just
ordinary racism it's it's knit together
with lots of conspiracy theories that
never seem to die
out um it's it can by turns equally
animate the left and the right
politically I mean what's so perverse
about anti-Semitism like look in the
American context with the far right you
know with white supremacists Jews aren't
considered white so they they hate us in
the same spirit in which they hate black
people or or brown people or anyone who
not not white but on the left Jews are
considered extra white I mean we we're
the extra beneficiaries of white
privilege right and in the black
community that is often the case right
we're a minority that has thrived and so
and and it see seems to stand as a
Counterpoint to all of the problems of
of that other minorities suffer in
particular you know African-Americans in
the American context um and yeah Asians
are now getting a little bit of this you
know like the the the model minority uh
uh issue but Jews have had this going on
for centuries and and Millennia and it
never seems to go away and this again
this is something that I've never
focused on but th this has been at a
slow boil for as long as we've been
alive and there's no guarantee it can't
suddenly become much much uglier than we
have any reason to to expect it to
become even in in our society and so um
there's there's kind of a special
concern at moments like that where you
have an immensely influential person in
a community who already has a checkered
history with respect to their own
beliefs about the Jews and conspiracies
and all the rest uh and he's just
messaging uh you know not especially
fully opposed by you and anyone else
who's who's given him the microphone at
that moment to the world and that so
that that you know made my Spidey Sense
tingled yeah it's complicated it's the
stakes are very high and as somebody
that's been obviously family and also
reading a lot about World War II and
just this whole period it was a very
difficult conversation but I I I believe
in the power especially uh given who I
am
of um not always but sometimes often
turning the other cheek oh yeah and
again things change
when when they're for public consumption
you know when you're it's it's like I
mean the the cut for me that you know
has just the use case I keep stumbling
upon is the kinds of things that I will
say on a podcast like this or if I'm
giving a public
lecture versus the kinds of things I
will say at dinner with strangers or
with friends like like if you're in an
elevator like if I'm in an elevator with
strangers I do not Fe and I hear someone
say something stupid I don't feel a an
intellectual
responsibility to turn around in a in a
in the in the confines of that space
with them and say listen that thing you
just said about X Y or Z is completely
false and here's why right but if
somebody says it in front of me on some
public dis where I'm actually talking
about ideas that's when you know there's
a different responsibility that comes
online the question is how you say it
how you say it or even whether you say
anything in in those I mean there there
moments there they're definitely moments
to privilege
civility or just to pick your battles I
mean some sometimes it's just not worth
it to get into it with somebody out out
in in real life I just believe in the
power of empathy both in the in the
elevator MH and when a bunch of people
are
listening that when they see you willing
to consider the another human being's
perspective it just gives more power to
your to your words after well yeah but
until it doesn't like if because you can
you can you can extend charity too far
right you could like it can be
absolutely obvious what someone's
motives really are and they're they're
you know dissembling about that right
and so then you're taking at face value
their representations begins to look
like you're just being duped and you're
not you're not actually doing the work
of of of putting pressure on a bad actor
you know so it's it's and again the
whole the mental illness component here
makes makes it very difficult to think
about what you should or shouldn't have
said to Kanye so I think the topic of
platforming is is pretty interesting um
like what's your view on uh platforming
controversial people let's let let's
start with the uh the old would you
interview Hitler on your podcast and how
would you talk to him oh and followup
question would you interview him in
1935 uh
41 and then like 45 well I think we have
an uncanny valley problem with respect
to this issue
of whether or not to speak to bad people
right so if if a person's sufficiently
bad right if they're all the way out of
the the valley then you can talk to them
and it's just it's totally unpr
problematic to talk to them because you
don't have to spend any time signaling
to your audience that you don't agree
with them and if you're interviewing
Hitler you don't have to say listen I
just got to say before we start I don't
agree with the whole you know gen side
thing and you know I just think you're
killing you know killing mental patients
and vans and all that all that was all
bad it's a bad look Adolf so you just it
can go without saying that you don't
agree with this person and you're not
platforming them to signal boost their
their views you're just trying to if
they're sufficiently evil you can go
into it very much as an anthropologist
would uh just you just want to
understand the nature of evil right you
just want to understand this phenomenon
like how is this person who they are
right um and that strikes me as a
intellectually interesting
and and morally necessary thing to do
right so yes you I think you always
interview Hitler wait wait wait wait
wait wait wait wait wait wait well when
he when you know once he's Hitler but
when do you know it once he's
legitimately but when do you know it is
genocide really happening
no if if you're on the cusp of it where
it's just he's someone who's gaining
power and you don't want to you don't
want to help facilitate that um then
there's a question of whether you can
you can undermine him in while pushing
back against him in that interview right
so there are people I wouldn't talk to
just because I don't want to give them
oxygen and I don't think that in the in
the context of my interviewing them I'm
going to be able to to take the wind out
of their sales at all right so it's it's
like for whatever either because in as
metric Advantage because I just know
that they can do something that within
the span of an hour that I can't that I
can't correct for you know is it's like
they can they can light many small fires
and it just takes too much time to put
them out that's more like on the topic
of vaccines for example having a debate
on the advocacy of vaccines yeah okay
it's not that I don't think sunlight is
usually the best disinfectant I think it
is you know even these asymmetries aside
I mean there are there it is true that a
a person can always make a mess faster
than you can clean it up right but still
there are debates worth having even
given that limitation um and they're the
right people to have those specific
debates and there's so there certain
topics where you know I'll debate
someone just because I'm the right
person for the job and it doesn't matter
how messy they're going to be I it's
just it's just worth it because I I can
make my points land at least to to the
right part of the audience so some of it
is just your own skill and competence
and also interest in preparing correctly
well yeah yeah in the nature of the
subject matter and and uh but yeah but
there are other people who just by
default I would say there's no reason to
give this guy a platform and there there
are also people who are so confabulatory
that they're making such a mess with
every
sentence uh that you in so far as you're
even trying to interact with what
they're saying you're going You're by
definition going to fail and you're
going to seem to fail to an an unin a
sufficiently large uninformed audience
where it's going to be a net negative
for for the for the cause of truth no
matter how good you are so like for
instance I
think talking to Alex Jones on any topic
for any reason is probably a bad idea
because I just think he's he's just
neurologically wired to just utter a
string of sentences he'll get 20
sentences out Each of which has to be
Each of which is you know contains more
lies than the last
and there's just there's not time enough
in the world to run down and certainly
not time enough in the span of a
conversation to run down each of those
leads to to bedrock so as to falsify it
and mean they'll just make shit up just
or and or make shit up and then then
then weave it in with with you know half
truths and and and micr truths that give
some SE semblance of credibility to
somebody out there I mean apparently
millions of people out
there um and there's just no way to to
untangle that in real time with him I
have noticed that you have an allergic
reaction
to confabular
terization yeah confabulation
confabulation that if somebody says
something a little micro untruth it
really stops your brain here I'm not
talking about micro untruth I'm just
talking about making up things out of
whole cloth just like is if someone says
something like well what about and then
then the thing they
put at the end of that sentence is just
a set of pseudo facts right that you
can't possibly authenticate or not in
the span of that conversation they will
you know whether it's about UFOs or
anything else
right they will seem to make you look
like an ignoramus when in fact
everything they're saying is species
right whether they know it or not I mean
there's some people who are just crazy
there's some people who are who are just
bullshitting and they're not even
tracking whether it's true it just feels
good and then some people are
consciously lying about things but don't
you think there just a kind of jazz
Masterpiece of untruth that you should
be able to just wave off by saying like
well none of that is backed up by any
evidence and just almost like take it to
the humor Place well but the thing is is
me the place I'm familiar with doing
this and not doing this is is um on
specific conspiracies like 911 truth
right like the 911 so I because of my
because of what 911 did to
my uh intellectual life I mean it really
just you know it it sent me down a path
for the better part of a decade like I
became a Critic of
religion when know I don't know if I was
ever going to be a Critic of religion
right like but that like it happened to
be in my wheelhouse cuz I spent so much
time
studying religion uh on my own and I was
um also very interested in in the the
underlying spiritual concerns of every
religion and so I was I was
um you know I
devoted full more more than a full
decade of my life to just you know what
is what is real here what is possible
what is what is the nature of of
subjective reality and how does it
relate to reality at large and is there
anything to you know who was someone
like Jesus or Buddha and are the are
these people frauds or are they are they
are this just are these just myths or or
or is there really a Continuum of of
insight to be had here that is
interesting so I spent a lot of time on
that question through my 20 the full
decade of my 20s and that was launched
in part by 9911 truther no but then when
911 happened I had spent all this time
you know reading religious books
understanding empathically understanding
the motivations of religious people
people right knowing just how fully
certain people believe what they say
they believe right so I took religious
convictions very
seriously and then people started flying
planes into our buildings and I so I
knew that there was something to be said
about allegedly the the core doctrines
of Islam yeah exactly so so I went down
so that was that became my wheelhouse
for a time um you know terrorism and and
jihadism and related topics and so the
9/11 truth conspiracy thing kept you
know uh getting aimed at me and the
question was well do I do I want to
debate these people right like Alex
Jones perhaps yeah yeah so Alex Jones I
think was an early Pryor of it although
I don't think I knew who he was at that
point
um and so and privately I had some very
long debates with people who you know
one person in my family went way down
that rabbit hole and I just you know
every six months or so I'd literally the
2-hour email you know that that would
try to try to deprogram him you know
however ineffectually and uh so I went
back and forth for years on that topic
with with in private with people but I
could see the structure of the
conspiracy I could see the nature of of
of of of of
how of how impossible it was
to to play whacka mole sufficiently well
so as to so as to convince anyone of
anything who was who was not
seeing the the problematic structure of
that way of thinking I mean it's it's
not actually a thesis it's a it's a
proliferation of
anomalies that don't you can't actually
connect all the dots that are being
pointed to they they don't connect in a
coherent way there's they're
incompatible thesis that are not and and
their incompatibility is not being
acknowledged um but they're they're
running this algorithm of things are
things are never what they seem there's
always Mal conspirators doing things
perfectly we see all we see evidence of
human incompetence everywhere else no
one can tie their shoes you know
expertly anywhere else but over here
people are perfectly competent they're
perfectly concealing thing like the
thousands of people are collaborating
you know inexplicably I mean
incentivized by what who knows they're
they're collaborating to murder
thousands of their neighbors and no one
is breathing a peep about it no one's
getting caught on a on camera no one's
you no one's breath the word of it to a
journalist um
and
so I've I've dealt with that style of
thinking and i' I know what it's like to
be in the weeds of a conversation like
that and and the person will say okay
well but what do you make of the fact
that um all those f16s were flown 800
miles out to sea on the morning of 9/11
doing an exercise that hadn't even been
scheduled for that day but it was and
now all of these I dimly recall some
thesis of that kind but I'm just making
these things up now right so like that
that detail hadn't even been scheduled
for that day it just inexplicably run
that day like so what how long would it
take to track that down right the idea
that this is anomalous like that there
was a f
F16 uh exercise
run on it and it wasn't even supposed to
be run that day right yeah someone like
Alex Jones their speech pattern is to
pack as much of that stuff in as
possible at the highest velocity that a
person can speak and unless you're
knocking down each one of those things
to that audience you appear to just be
uninformed you appear to just not be you
don't wa he didn't know about the f-16s
yeah um sure he he doesn't know about
project Mockingbird you haven't heard
about project Mockingbird I just made up
project Mockingbird I don't know what is
but that's the kind of thing that comes
out tumbling out in in a conversation
like that that's the kind of thing
frankly I was worried about in the covid
conversation because not that someone
like Brett would do it consciously but
someone like Brett is swimming in a sea
of misinformation on social living on
Twitter getting people sending the blog
post and the study from from uh you know
the Philippines that showed that in this
cohort I and did X right
and and not like to actually run
anything to ground right you have to
actually do the work uh journalistically
and
scientifically and run it to ground
right so for many for some of these
questions you actually have to be a
statistician to say
okay they they Ed the wrong statistics
in this experiment right
now yes we could take all the time to do
that or we could at every stage along
the way in a in in a context where we we
have experts we can trust go with 90
with what 97% of the experts are saying
about X about the safety of mRNA about
the transmissibility of Co about whether
to wear masks or not wear masks and I
completely agree that that broke
down uh
unacceptably in the over the last few
years and that but
I think that's largely a social media
and blogs and and the efforts of
podcasters and substack
writers were not just a response to that
it was a I think it was a it was a
symptom of that and a and a cause of
that right and I think we're we're
living in a an environment
where people we basically we have
trained ourselves not to be able to
agree about about facts on any topic no
matter how urgent right what's what's
flying in our Sky you know what is you
know what is what's happening in Ukraine
is is Putin just densifying Ukraine I
mean like they people who we
respect who are spending time down that
particular Rabbit Hole like this is this
is you know maybe there are a lot of
Nazis in Ukraine and that's the real
problem right maybe Putin's
maybe Putin's not the bad actor here
right how much time do I have to
spend empathizing with Putin to the
point of thinking well maybe Putin's got
a point and it's it's like what about
the polonium and the nerve agents and
the killing of journalists and the you
know naali and like does that count well
no list I'm not paying so much attention
to that because I'm following all these
interesting people on Twitter and they
they're give me some Pro Putin material
here and there is a there are some Nazis
in Ukraine it's not like there are no
Nazis in Ukraine how am I going to wait
these things I think people are being
driven Crazy by Twitter yeah but you're
you're kind of speaking to conspiracy
theories that pollute everything and
then you but every every example you
gave is kind of a bad faith style of
conversation but but it's not
necessarily knowingly bad faith by I
mean the people the people who are who
are worried about Ukrainian Ukrainian
Nazis to my I mean there some of the
same people they're the same people who
are worried
about ior mechon got suppressed like
Iver mechon is really a Panacea but it
got suppressed for because no one could
make billions on it
um it's it's the same it's literally
this it's in many cases the same people
and the
same efforts to to unearth those you're
saying it's very difficult to have
conversations with those kinds of people
what
about uh conversation with Trump himself
would you do a podcast with
Trump no I don't think so I I don't
think I'd be learning anything about him
it's like with with with Hitler and I'm
not comparing Trump to Hitler but Clips
guy here's your chance you got this one
with certain world historical figures
um I I would just feel like okay this is
an opportunity to learn something that
I'm not going to learn I I think Trump
is among the most superficial people
we've ever laid eyes on like he is he is
in public view right and I'm sure I'm
sure there's some distance between who
he is in private and who he is in public
but it's not going to be the kind of
distance that's going to blow my mind um
and I think
uh so I think the liability of so for
instance I think Joe Rogan
was very wise not to have Trump on his
podcast I think all he would have been
doing is is he would have put himself in
a situation where he couldn't adequately
contain the damage Trump was doing and
he was just going to make Trump seem
cool to a whole new you know potentially
new cohort of his massive audience right
um they would have they would have had a
lot of laughs Trump's funny I
mean the entertainment value of things
is
so uh
influential I mean there was that one
debate where Trump uh you know got a
massive laugh on the you know his line
you know only Rosie odonnell right the
truth is we we're living in a political
system where if you can get a big laugh
during a political debate you win it
doesn't matter who you are that's the
level of of you know it doesn't matter
how uninformed you are it doesn't matter
that half the debate was about what the
hell we should do about about um you
know a threat of nuclear war or anything
else um it's we're monkeys right and we
like to laugh well cuz you brought up
Joe he's somebody like you I look up to
uh I've learned a lot from him because I
think who he is privately as a human
being also his he's kind of the voice of
curiosity to me he inspired me that so
unending open-minded
curiosity um much like you are the voice
of
reason uh they recently had a podcast
Joe had recently a podcast with Jordan
Peterson and uh brought you up saying
they still have a hope for you mhm yeah
any chance that any chance you talk to
Joe again and reinvigorate your
friendship yeah well I reached out to
him privately when I saw that did you
use the power of love Joe knows I I love
him and consider him a friend right so
there's no there's no issue there um he
also knows I'll I'll be happy to do his
podcast uh when we get that together you
know so there's no I I've got no policy
of not talking to Joe or not doing his
podcast
um I mean I think we're we got a little
sideways along these same lines where
you know we've talked about Brett and
Elon and other people um it was never to
that degree with Joe because
um Joe's in a very different Lane right
he's and consciously so I mean Joe is a
standup comic who interviews who just is
interested in in everything interviews
the widest conceivable variety of people
and just lets his interests collide with
their expertise or you know lack of
expertise I mean he's he's again it's a
super wide variety of people um he'll
talk about anything and he can always
pull the rip cord saying you know I
don't know what the fuck I'm saying I'm
a comic I'm stoned we're we just drank
too much right like like it's very
entertaining it's all in you know to my
eye it's it's all in good faith I think
Joe is an extraordinarily ethical good
person also doesn't use Twitter doesn't
really use Twitter yeah yeah no the The
crucial difference though is that
because
he
is an Entertainer first I mean I'm I'm
not saying he's not smart and he doesn't
understand things he he I mean what
what's conf potentially confusing is
he's very smart and he he's also very
informed he's his full-time job is talk
you know when he's not doing standup or
doing color commentary for the UFC
his full-time job is talking to lots of
very smart people at Great length so
he's he's created a you know the Joe
Rogan University for himself and he's
he's gotten a lot of information uh
crammed into his head so it's not that
he's uninformed but he can always when
he feels that he's uninformed or when it
turns out he was wrong about something
he can always pull the rip cord and say
I I'm just a comic we were stoned it was
fun you know don't don't take medical
advice from me I play a doctor on the
internet right
um I can't quite do that right you can't
quite do that we're in different lanes
and I'm not saying you you and I are in
exactly the same Lane but for much of
Joe's audience I'm just this
establishment shill who's just banging
on about you know the universities and
medical journals and and it um it's not
true but that would be the perception
and as a Counterpoint to a lot of what's
being said on Joe's podcast or or uh you
know certainly Brett's podcast on these
topics I can see how they they would
form that opinion
but in reality if you listen to me long
enough you hear
that I've said as much against the woke
nonsense as anyone even any lunatic on
the right who's can only keep that
bright sh that bright shining object in
view right um so there's nothing that
Candace Owens has said about wokeness
that I haven't said about wokeness as
far in so far as she's speaking
rationally about wokeness um but
we have to be able to keep multiple
things in view right if you if you could
only look at the problem of wokeness and
you couldn't acknowledge the problem of
trump and trumpism and kinon and and the
explosion of irrationality that was
happening on the right and bigotry that
was happening on the right um You just
could you you were just disregarding
half of the landscape and many people
took half of the problem in the in
recent years the last 5 years is a story
of many people taking half of the
problem and monetizing that half of the
problem and and getting captured by an
an audience that only wanted that half
of the problem talked about in that way
and um this this is the larger issue of
of um audience capture which you know is
very I'm sure it's it's an ancient
problem but um it's a very helpful
phrase that I think comes to as courtesy
of our mutual friend Eric Weinstein um
and
and audience captures a thing and I
believe I've witnessed many you know
casualties of it and if there's anything
I've been on guard against in my life
you know professionally it's been that
and and when I noticed that I had a lot
of people in my audience who didn't like
my criticizing
Trump I really leaned into it and when I
noticed that a lot of the other cohort
in my audience didn't didn't like me
criticizing the farle and wokeness they
thought I was you know exaggerating that
problem I leaned into it because I
thought those parts of my audience were
were absolutely wrong and I didn't care
about whether I was going to lose those
parts of my audience um there PE there
are people who have created you know
knowingly or not they're people who've
created different incentives for
themselves because of how they they've
monetized their podcast and because of
the kind of signal they've responded to
In Their audience um and I and I worry
about you know you know Brett would
consider this a totally
invidious uh ad hominum thing to say but
I really do worry that that's happened
to Brett I think I think I I cannot
explain how you do a 100 with all the
things in the in the universe to be
interested in and of all the things he's
competent to speak intelligently about I
don't know how you do a 100 podcasts in
a row on on Co right it's just it makes
no sense you think um in part audience
capture can explain that I absolutely
think you can yeah what
about do you like for example do you
feel pressure to not admit that you made
a mistake on Co or made a mistake on
Trump I'm not saying you feel that way
but do you feel this pressure so you've
attack audience capture within your
within the way you do stuff so you don't
feel as much pressure from the audience
but within your own ego I mean again the
people who think I'm wrong about any of
these topics are going to think okay
you're just not admitting that you're
wrong but then now we're having a
dispute about specific facts
um there are there are things that I
believed about Co or worried might very
might be true about Co two years ago
that I no longer believe or I'm not so
worried about now and and vice versa I
mean like things have flipped certain
things have flipped upside down um
the question is was I wrong so here's a
here's a cartoon version of it but this
is something I said probably 18 months
ago and it's still true you know when I
saw what Brett was doing on Co you
know let's call it two years
ago I I I said even if he's right even
if he turn if it turns out that Ivor
mechon is a Panacea and the MRNA
vaccines kill millions of people right
he still wrong right now his reasoning
is still flawed right now his facts
still suck right now right and his and
his confidence is is unjustified now
that was true then that will always be
true then right and and and so and not
much has changed for me to to revisit
any of my time points along the way
again I will totally concede that if I
had teenage boys and their do and their
schools were demanding that they be
vaccinated with the MRNA
vaccine I would I would be powerfully
annoyed right like I would I wouldn't
know what I was going to do and I would
be I would be doing more research about
uh about myocarditis and I'd be
badgering our doctors and I would be
worried that we have a medical system
and a pharmaceutical system and a Health
Care system and a public health system
that's not incentivized to to look at
any of this in A fine grain way and they
just want one uh blanket admonition to
the entire population just get just take
the shot you
idiots uh I view that largely as a
result a panicked response to the
misinformation explosion that happened
and the and the public the populist
resistance animated by misinformation
that just made it impossible to get
anyone to to cooperate right so it's
just part of it is again a pendulum
swing in the wrong direction
somewhat analogous to the woke response
to Trump and the trumpist response to
woke right so there a lot of people have
just gotten pushed around for bad
reasons or but understandable reasons um
but
yes it's there are there are caveats to
my things have changed about my view of
of covid but the question is if you roll
back the clock 18 months was I wrong to
want to
platform uh Eric toppel you know a a
very well-respected cardiologist on this
topic uh or you know Nicholas ctoas to
to talk about the network effects of you
know the you whether we should close
schools right he's written a book on
covid he's you know Network effects or
his wheelhouse as a both as an MD and as
a a sociologist
um there was a lot that we believed we
knew about the efficacy of of closing
schools during pandemics right during
the you know during the the Spanish Flu
pandemic and others right but there's a
lot we didn't know about Co we didn't
know we didn't know
how uh negligible the effects would be
on kids compared to older people we
didn't know like my my problem I really
enjoyed your conversation with ar Topo
but also didn't so he is one of the
great communicators in many ways on
Twitter like distillation of the current
data but but he I hope I'm not
overstating it but there is a bit of an
arrogance from him that I think could be
explained by him being exhausted by
being constantly attacked by conspiracy
theor like antivaxers
yeah to me the same thing happens with
people that start uh drifting to being
right-wing is they get attacked so much
by the left they become almost
irrational and arrogant in their beliefs
and I I felt your conversation with ER
too did not sufficiently empathize with
people that have skepticism but also did
not sufficiently communicate uncertainty
we have so like many of the decisions
you made many of the things you were
talking about were kind of saying
there's a lot of uncertainty but this is
the best thing we could do now well it
was a forced choice you're going to get
covid do you want to be vaccinated when
you get it right that was
always in my view an easy choice and
it's up until you you start breaking
apart the cohorts and you start saying
okay wait a minute there is this my
carditis issue in in young men let's
talk about
that when that before that story emerged
it was just it was just clear
that this
is if it's not if it's not knocking down
transmission as much as we had hoped it
is still mitigating severe illness and
death uh
and I I I still believe that it is the
the current view of the of most people
competent to analyze the data that we
lost something like 300,000 people
unnecessarily in the US because of
because of vaccine hesitancy but I think
there's a way to communicate with
humility about the uncertainty of things
that would increase the vaccination rate
I do believe that it
is rational and stimes
effective to to Signal impatience with
certain bad ideas right and certain
conspiracy theories and certain forms of
misinformation you think so because it's
just I just think it makes you look a
douchebag most times well I mean certain
people are persuadable certain people
are not not persuadable but it's um no
because there's not enough it's it's the
opportunity cost not everything can be
given a patient hearing it's like you
can't have a f physics conference and
then let people in to just trumpet their
pet theories about you the grand unified
vision of physics um when they're
obviously crazy or they're obviously
half crazy or they're just not you know
the the people like you begin to you
begin to get a sense for this when it is
your wheelhouse but there are people
who kind of declare their
their irrelevance to the conversation
fairly quickly without knowing that they
have done it right and uh and the truth
is I think I'm one of those people on
the topic of covid right like I it's
like it's not it's never that I felt
listen I know exactly what's going on
here I know these mRNA vaccines are safe
I know exact I know I know exactly how
to run a lockdown I no this is this is a
situation where you want the actual
Pilots to fly plane right we needed
experts who we could trust and in so far
as our experts got captured by by all
manner of thing I me some of them got
captured by Trump some of them were made
to look ridiculous just standing next to
Trump while he was bloviating about you
know whatever that you know that it's
just going to go away there's just 15
people you know there's 15 people in a
cruise ship and it's just going to go
away there's going to be no problem or
it's like when he said he you know many
of these doctors think I understand this
better than them they're just amazed at
how I understand this and you've got
doctors real doctors the heads of the
CDC and and NIH standing around just
ashen-faced while he's talking you know
um all of this was deeply corrupting of
the Public Communication of Science and
B and then again I've banged on about
the depredations of wokeness the woke
thing was a disaster right still is a
disaster but that it doesn't
mean that I mean but the thing is
there's a big difference between me and
Brett in this case I didn't do 100
podcasts on Co I did like two podcasts
on Co the measure of my concern about
covid can be measured in how many
podcasts I did on it right it's like
once we had a sense of how to live with
Co I was just living with Co right like
okay get vaxxed or don't get vaxed wear
a mask or don't wear a mask travel or
don't travel like you got a few things
to decide but my kids were stuck at home
on iPads you know for too long long I
didn't agree with that you know it was
obviously not functional like I
criticized that on the margins but there
was not much to do about it but the the
thing I didn't do is make this my life
and just browbeat people with one
message or
another we need a public health regime
where we can trust what the competent
people are saying to us about you know
what medicines are safe to take and in
the absence of that craziness is going
to even in the presence of that
craziness is going to proliferate given
the tools we've built but in the absence
of that it it's going to proliferate for
understandable reasons and that's going
to it's it's not going to be good next
time when when something orders of
magnitude more dangerous hits us and and
that's I spend a you know in so far as I
think about this issue I think much more
about next time than this
time before this covid thing you and
Brad had some good conversations I would
say say we're friends what's your what
do you admire most about Brett outside
of all the criticism we've had about
this Co
topic well I I think Brett is very smart
and he's a very um ethical person who
wants good things for the world I mean I
have no reason to doubt that uh so the
fact that we're on you know we're
crosswise on this issue is not does not
mean that I think he's a bad person I
mean the thing that worried me about
what he was doing and this was true of
Joe and this was true of Elon this is
true of many other people is that once
you're messaging at scale to a vast
audience you incur a certain kind of
responsibility not to to get people
killed and I do I did worry
that yeah people were people were making
decisions on the basis of the
information that was getting shared
there and that that's why I
was I think fairly circumspect I just
said okay give me the
the center the Fairway expert opinion at
this time point and at this time point
and at this time point and then I'm out
right I don't have any more to say about
this I'm not an expert on covid I'm not
an expert on the safety of mRNA
vaccines
um if something if something changes so
as to become newsworthy then maybe I'll
do a podcast so I just did a podcast on
the lab leag la le I was never skeptical
of the lab leak hypothesis Brett was
very early on saying this is this is a
lab leak right um at a point where my
only position was who cares if it's a
lab leak right like this there's the
thing we have to get straight is what do
we do given the nature of this pandemic
but also we should say that you've
actually stated that it is a possibility
oh yeah you just said it should doesn't
doesn't quite matter I mean it the time
to figure that out now I've actually I
have had my my podcast guest on this
topic changed my view of this because
that you know one of the guests uh Alena
Chan made the point that no actually the
the best time to figure out the origin
of this is immediately right because in
the EV you lose touch with the evidence
and I hadn't really been thinking about
that like I didn't if you come back
after a year um you know there certain
facts you might not be able to get in
hand but I've always felt that it didn't
matter for two reasons one is we had the
Genome of the virus and and we could
design we very quickly design
immediately designing vaccines against
that genome and that's what we had to do
and then we had to figure out how to
vaccinate and to and to mitigate and to
develop treatments and all that so the
origin story didn't
matter generically speaking either or
origin story was politically
inflammatory and made the Chinese look
bad right and the Chinese response to
this looked bad whatever the origin
story right they're not cooperating
they're letting they they're stopping
their domestic flights but letting their
international flights go I mean it's
just they were bad actors and they
should be treated as such regardless of
the origin right and and you know I
would argue that the wet Market origin
is even more politically invidious than
the lab League origin I mean why do you
think because for lab leak to my eye the
lab leak could happen to anyone right
we're all running all these Advanced
countries are running these dangerous
Labs that's a practice that we should be
worried about you know uh in general we
know lab leaks are a problem there have
been multiple lab leaks of even worse
things but that haven't gotten out of
hand in this way but you know worse
pathogens
um we're we're wise to be worried about
this and on some level it could happen
to anyone right the wet Market makes
them look like barbarians living in
another Century like you got to clean up
those wet markets like what are you what
are you doing putting a bat on top of a
Pengalin on top of a duck it's like get
your shit together so like if anything
the wet Market makes them look worse in
my view now I'm sure there's I'm sure
that what they actually did to conceal a
lab leak if it was a lab League all of
that's going to look odious um do you
think we ever get to the bottom of that
I mean one of the big negative
um I would say failures of Anthony
fouchi and so on is to be transparent
and clear and just a good communicator
about G and function research the
dangers of that the Su like the you know
why it's a useful way of research but
it's also dangerous right you know just
being transparent about that as opposed
to just coming off really shady of
course the conspiracy theorists and the
the politicians are not helping but this
just created a giant mess yeah no I
would agree that so so that exchange
with fouchy and Rand Paul that went
viral yeah I would agree that fouchy
looked like he was taking refuge in kind
of very lawyered language and
not giving a straightforward account of
what we do and why we do it and so yeah
I think it it looked Shady it played
shady and it probably was shady I mean I
don't I don't know how personally
entangled he is with any of this but
yeah the the gain of function research
is something
that I think we're wise to be worried
about and in so far as I judge myself
adequate to have an opinion on
this I think it should be banned right
like I I probably a podcast I'll do you
know if you or somebody else doesn't do
it in the meantime um you know I would
like a virologist on to defend it
against a virologist who who who would
uh criticize it forget about just the
gain of function
research I don't even understand virus
hunting at this point it's like I don't
know I don't even know why you need to
go into a cave to find this next VI
virus that could be circulating among
bats that may jump zoonotically to
us why do that when we can make when we
when we can sequence in a day and and
make vaccines in in a weekend I mean
like like what what kind of start do you
think you're getting that's a surprising
new thing how quickly you can develop a
vaccine exactly that's
uh yeah that's that's really interesting
but the shadiness around lab leak I
think the point I didn't make about
Brett's style of engaging this issue is
people are using the fact that he was
early on lab leak to suggest that he was
right about ior mechon and about
mRNA vaccines and all the rest like no
that
that's none of that connects and it was
possible to be falsely confident like
you shouldn't have been confident about
lab no one should have been confident
about lab leak early even if it turns
out to be labl right it was always
plausible it was never definite it still
isn't definite zoonotic is is is also
quite plausible it certainly was super
plausible then um both are politically
uncomfortable uh both were both at the
time were inflammatory to be banging on
about when we were trying to secure some
kind of cooperation from the Chinese
right so there's a time for these things
and
and and it's possible to be right by
accident right that's the
is it Ma your your reasoning the style
of reasoning matters whe whether you're
right or not you know it's like because
your style of reasoning is dictating
what you're going to do on the next
topic sure but this is a this
multivarious situation here it's it's
really difficult to know what's right on
covid given all the uncertainty all the
chaos especially when you step outside
the pure biology virology of it and you
start get into
policy it's really yeah it's just
trade-offs yeah like transmissibility of
the virus sure vac just
knowing if 65% of the population gets
vaccinated what effect would that have
just even knowing those things just
modeling all those things um given all
the other incentives I mean
fizer I don't know what you had the CEO
of fiser on your podcast did you leave
that conversation feeling like this is a
person who is
consciously
uh reaping windfall profits on a
dangerous uh
vaccine uh and putting everyone at
intolerable risk or do you think this
person did you think this person is was
making a good faith attempt to save
lives uh and had
no no bad no no uh taint of bad
incentives or something between uh the
the thing I sensed and I felt in part it
was a failure on my
part but I I sensed that I was talking
to a
politician so it's not thinking of there
was malevolence there or benevolence
there was um he just had a job he put on
a suit and I was talking to a suit Not a
Human Being now he said that his son was
a big fan of the podcast which is why he
wanted to do it so I thought I'll be
talking to a human being and I asked
challenging questions what I thought the
internet thinks otherwise every single
question in that
interview was a challenging one mhm but
it wasn't grilling which is what people
seem to want to do with pharmaceutical
companies there's a deep distrust of
pharmaceutical companies what's the
alternative I mean I I totally get right
that windfall profits at a time of of
you know Public Health Emergency looks
bad it's a bad it is a bad look right
but what do how do we
reward and return Capital to to to Risk
Takers who are who will spend a billion
dollars to design a new drug for a
disease that maybe only harms you know a
single digigit percentage of the
population it's like what what do we
want to encourage and and who do we want
to get rich I mean so like the person
who cures cancer do we want that person
to get rich or not we want the we want
the person who uh gave us the iPhone to
get rich but we don't want the person
who who cures cancer to get rich what
what are we trying I think it's a very
gray area so what we want is the person
who declares that they have a cure for
cancer to have authenticity and
transparency there like I think we're
good now as a population smelling
bullshit and there is something about
the the fiser CEO for example just CEO
of pharmaceutical companies in general
just because they're so lowered up so
much marketing PR people that they are
you just smell bullshit you're not
talking a real human that they just it
just feels like none of it is
transparent to us as a public so like
this
whole uh talking point that fizer is
only interested in helping people just
doesn't ring true even though it very
well could be true it's the same thing
with Bill Gates who seems to be at scale
helping a huge amount of people in the
world and yet there's something about
the way he delivers that message where
people like these seem suspicious what's
happening underneath this right there's
certain kinds of communication styles
that seem to uh be
more uh serve as better Catalyst for
conspiracy theories and and I'm not sure
what what that is because I don't think
there's an alternative for
capitalism in delivering drugs that help
people but also at the same time there
seems to need to be more transparency
and plus like regulation that actually
makes sense versus it seems
like uh pharmaceutical companies are
susceptible to
corruption yeah I worry about all that
but I I also do think that most of the
people going into the fields and most of
the people going into government they
want to do good doing it for good
they're non Psychopaths trying to get
good things done and trying trying to
solve hard problems and they they're not
trying to get rich I mean many of the
people are it's
like
they're bad incentives something again
I've uttered that phrase 30 times uh on
this podcast but it's it's just almost
everywhere it
explains normal people create getting
terrible harm right it's not that there
are that many bad people you know
and uh yes it makes it makes the truly
bad people that much more remarkable and
worth paying attention to but the bad
incentives and and the bad and the and
the the um the power of bad ideas do do
much more harm because I mean that's
what that what that's what gets good
people running in the wrong direction or
or um doing things that that are that
are clearly creating unnecessary
suffering you've had and I hope still
have a friendship with Elon Musk
especially over the topic of AI you have
a lot of interesting ideas that you both
share concerns you both share uh well
let me first ask what do you admire most
about
Elon um well you
know I had a lot of fun with Elon I I
like Elon a lot I mean Elon I I knew as
a friend I I like a lot and
um uh you know OB you know it's it's not
going to surprise any I mean he's he's
done and he's continuing to do amazing
things and I think he's
um
uh you know I think many of his
aspirations are realized the world would
be a much better place I think it's it's
just it's amazing to see what he's built
and what he's attempted to build and
what he may yet build and so with Tesla
with SpaceX with yeah I'm I'm a fan of
almost all of that I mean there are
there are wrinkles to to a lot of that
you know or some of that um all humans
are full of wrinkles there's something
very trumping about how he's acting on
Twitter I mean Twitter I think Twitter's
he doesn't he thinks Twitter is great he
bought the place because he thinks it's
so great I think Twitter's driving him
crazy right I think he's I think he's
needlessly complicating his life and
harming his reputation and creating a
lot of noise and and harming a lot of
other people people I mean so like he
the thing that I objected to with him on
Twitter is not that he bought it and
made changes to it I mean that was
not again I I remain agnostic as to
whether or not he can improve the
platform um it was how he was personally
behaving on Twitter not just toward me
but toward the world I think when
you you know forward an article about
Nancy Pelosi's husband being attacked
not as he was by some lunatic but
that it's just some gay gay trist gai
right that's not what it seems and you
link to a a website that previously
claimed that Hillary Clinton was dead
and that a body double was campaigning
in her place that thing was exploding in
trumpistan as a conspiracy theory right
and it was having its effect and it
matters that he was signal boosting it
in front of 130 million people and so it
is with saying that you're you know
you're
your former employee y yel Roth is a
pedophile right I mean like that has
real consequences it appeared to be
complete bullshit and now you this guy's
getting inundated with death threats
right and Elon it's all that's totally
predictable right and he's so he's
behaving quite recklessly and there's a
long list of things like like that that
he's done on Twitter it's not ethical
it's not good for him it's not good for
the world it's not serious it's just
it's it's it's it's a very adolescent
relationship to real problems in our
society and so my my problem with how
he's behaved is that he's he's purported
to touch real issues by turns like okay
do I give the satellites to Ukraine or
not do I do I minimize their use of them
or not is this should I publicly worry
about World War II or not right he's
doing this shit on Twitter right and uh
at the same moment he's doing these
other very uh impulsive ill-considered
things and he's not showing any
willingness to really clean up the mess
he makes um he brings Kanye on knowing
he's an anti-semite who's got mental
health problems and then kicks him off
for a swat sticker which I probably
wouldn't have kicked him off for a swat
sticker like that's that's even like can
you really kick people off for SWAT
stickers is that something that you you
get banned for I mean that are you a
free speech absolutist if you can't let
a swat sticker show up I'm not even sure
that's enforce enforcable terms of
service right there's there way there
moments to use swas stickers that are
not conveying hate and not raising the
risk of violence clip that yeah any but
so much of what he's doing given that
he's again scale matters he's doing this
in front of 130 million people that's
very different than a million people and
that's very different than 100,000
people and so when I went off the tracks
with Elon he was doing this about Co and
um again this was a situation where I
tried to
privately mitigate a friend's
behavior and it didn't work out very
well did you try to correct him sort of
highlighting things he might be wrong on
yeah or did you use the Lex Power of
Love method I should I should write like
a pamphlet for Sam Harris to no but it
it was it was totally coming from a
place of love because I was concerned
about his reputation I was concerned
about what he I mean there was a twofold
concern I could see what was happening
with the tweet I mean he he had this
original tweet that was uh I think it
was Panic o panic over covid is dumb or
something like that right this is way
this is in March this is early March uh
2020 oh super early days super early so
when nobody knew anything but we knew we
saw what was happening in Italy right it
was totally kicking off um God that was
a wild time that's one the toilet paper
it was totally wild but that became the
most influential tweet on Twitter for
that week I mean it had more engagement
than any other tweet more than any crazy
thing Trump was tweeting I mean it was
went
off again it was just a a nuclear bomb
of of um information and I could see
that people were responding to it like
wait a minute okay here's this genius
technologist who must have inside
information about everything right
surely he knows something that is not on
the surface about this pandemic and
they're reading they were reading into
it a lot of information that I knew
wasn't there right and I and at at the
time I didn't even I didn't think he had
any reason to be suggesting that I think
he was just firing off a tweet
right so I reached out to him in private
and I mean because it was a
private text conversation um I I won't
talk about the details but I'm just
saying in that's a case you know among
the the many cases of friends who have
public platforms and who did something
that I thought was dangerous and
ill-considered this was a case where I I
reached out in private and tried to to
um help genuinely help because it was
just I I thought it was harmful in in
every sense because it was being
misinterpreted and it's was like okay
you can say that panic over anything is
dumb fine but this was not the how this
was Landing this was like non-issue
conspiracy Co there's going to be no Co
in the US
it's going to pet her out it's just
going to become a cold I mean that
that's how this was getting received
whereas at that moment it was absolutely
obvious how big a deal this was going to
be or that it was going to at minimum
going to be a big deal I don't know if
it was obvious but it was it was obvious
that it was a a significant probability
that it could be a big I remember in Mar
it was unclear like how big cuz there's
still stories of it like it's probably
going to like the big concern the
hospitals might overfilled but it's
going to die out in like two months or
something yeah we didn't know but it was
there was no way we weren't going to
have tens of thousands of deaths at a
minimum at that point and and it was
there was every it was totally rational
to be worried about hundreds of
thousands and when Nicholas Christus
came on my podcast very early you know
he predicted quite confidently that we
would have about a million people dead
in the US right and that didn't seem you
know it was you know I think
appropriately hedged but I mean it was
still it was just like okay it's just
going to you just look at the we just
kind of riding this exponential and
we're
and it's going to be you know it'd be
very surprising not to have that order
of magnitude and not something much much
less um
and so anyway I mean to again to to
close the the story on
Elon um I could see how this was being
received and uh I tried to get him to
walk that back and then
we we had a fairly long and detailed uh
exchange on this issue and that so that
intervention didn't work and it was not
done you know I was not an asshole I was
not I was just concerned you know for
him for the world for and you know
um and then there are other
relationships
where I didn't take the again that's an
example where taking the time didn't
work right privately um there are other
Rel relationships where I thought okay
this is just going to be more trouble
than it's worth and I said I just just
ignored it you know and there's a lot of
that and and I Frank again I'm not
comfortable with how this is all netted
out because I I I don't know if you know
I'm not you know frankly I'm not
comfortable with how much time in this
conversation we've spent talking about
these specific people like what good is
it for me
to talk about Elon or Brad or any I
think there's a lot of good because
those friendships listen as a fan these
are the conversations I I
I um loved love as a fan and it feels
like Co has robbed the world of these
conversations because you were
exchanging back and forth on Twitter but
that's not what I mean by conversations
like long form discussions like a debate
about covid like a normal debate there's
no but there's no there is no Elon and I
shouldn't be debating Co you should be
here's the thing with humility like
basically saying we don't really know
like the Rogan method we don't we're
just a bunch of idiots like one is an
engineer you're a neuroscientist but
like it just kind of okay here's the
evidence and be like normal people
that's what everybody was doing the
whole world was like trying to figure
out what the hell what yeah but the
issue was that at that so at the moment
I had this collision with
Elon certain things were not debatable
right it was just it was absolutely
clear where this was going it wasn't
clear how far it was going to go or how
quickly we would mitigate it but it was
absolutely clear that it was going to be
an issue right the the the train had
come off the tracks in Italy we knew we
weren't going to seal our
borders there were already people you
know who there already cases known to
many of us personally in the US at that
point um
and he was operating by a very different
logic that I couldn't engage with sure
but that logic
represents uh a part of the population
and there's a lot of interesting topics
that have a lot of uncertainty around
them like the effectiveness of masks
like uh yeah but no but where things
broke down was not at the point of oh
there's a lot to talk about a lot to
debate this is all very interesting and
who knows what's what it broke down very
early at this is you
know we there's nothing to talk about
here like it like like either there's a
water bottle on the table or there isn't
right
like well technically there's only 1/4
of a water bottle yeah so what what
defines a water bottle is it the water
inside the water bottle or is it the
water bottle what I'm giving you as an
example of is worth a conversation this
is difficult because this is we had an
exchange in private and I want to I want
to honor not not uh
exposing the details of it but
um you know the details convinced me
that there was not a follow-up
conversation on that topic on this topic
that said I hope and I hope to be part
of helping that happen that the
friendship was rekindled because one of
the topics I care a lot about artificial
intelligence you're you've had great
public and private conversations about
this topic and Elon was very formative
my taking that issue seriously I mean he
he and I went to that initial uh
conference in Puerto Rico together and
it was only because he was going and I
found out about it through him and I
just wrote his coales to it you know
that I that I got to dropped in that
side of the pool uh to hear about these
concerns at that point it would be
interesting to hear how's your concerned
concern evolved with the coming out of
Chad GPT and these uh new large language
models that are fine-tuned with
reinforcement learning and seemingly to
be able to do some incredible humanlike
things there's two questions one how is
your concern in terms of AGI and super
intelligence evolved and how impressed
are you with chbt as a as a student of
the human mind and mind in
general well my concern about AGI is
unchanged so I I did a I've spoken about
it a bunch on my podcast but you know I
did a TED Talk in 2016 which was the the
kind of summary of what that conference
and and you know various conversations I
had after that did to my my brain on on
this topic um basically that once
superintelligence is achieved there's a
takeoff it becomes exponentially smarter
and in a matter of time they're just
we're ants and they're Gods well yeah
unless we find some way
of permanently
tethering a a self a a super intelligent
super intelligent self-improving AI to
our value system and I you know I I
don't believe anyone has figured out how
to do that or whether that's even
possible in principle I mean I know
people like steuart Russell who I just
had on my podcast um are oh really
haven't Have You released it yet I
haven't released it yet yeah great he's
been on previous podcast but we just
recorded this week cuz you haven't done
an a podcast in a while so it's great
great he's a good person to talk about
alignment with yeah so steuart I mean
steuart is has been you know probably
more than anyone my Guru on this topic I
mean like just reading his book and and
doing I think I've done two podcasts
with him at this point I think it's
called the control problem or something
like that his is uh his book is human
compatible human compatible yeah he
talks about the control problem and yeah
so I just think the idea that we can
Define a value function in advance that
permanently tethers a a self-improving
superintelligent AI
to our values as we continue
to discover them refine them extrapolate
them um in an open-ended
way I think that's a tall order and
there I think there are many more ways
there must be many more ways of
Designing super intelligence that is not
aligned in that way and it's not ever
approximating our values in that way so
I mean steuart's idea to put it in a a
very simple way is that he thinks you
don't want to specify the value function
up front you you don't want to imagine
you could ever write the code in such a
way as to admit of no
loophole you want
to make the AI uncertain as to what
human values are and perpetually
uncertain and always trying to am at
that uncertainty by by hueing more and
more closely to what our professed
values are so like just it's always
interested in us saying oh no no that's
not what we want that's not what we
intend stop doing that like no matter
how smart it gets all it wants to do is
more perfectly approximate human values
I think there are a lot of problems with
that you know at a high level I'm not a
computer scientist so I'm sure there are
many problems at a low level that I
don't understand or like how to force a
human into the loop always no matter
there's that and like what humans get a
vote and just just what is you know what
what do humans value and what is the
difference between what we say we value
and our revealed preferences which I
mean if you just if you were a
superintelligent AI that could look at
Humanity now I think you could be
forgiven for concluding that what we've
value is driving ourselves crazy with
Twitter and living perpetually on the
brink of nucle war and you know just
watching you know hot girls in yoga
pants on Tik Tok again and again and
again it's like and you're saying that
is not this is this is all revealed
preference and it's what is an AI to
make of that like and what should it
optimize like so and part of this is
also Stuart's observation that one of
the Insidious things about like the
YouTube algorithm is it's not that it
just caters to our preferences it
actually
begins to change Us in ways so as to
make us more predictable like it finds
ways to make us a better reporter of our
of our preferences uh and to trim our
preferences down so that it can can uh
further train to that signal so the main
concern is that most of the people in
the field seem not to be taking
intelligence seriously like as as they
design more and more intelligent
machines and as they profess to want to
design true
AGI they're
not again they're they're not spending
the time that steuart is spending trying
to figure out how to do this safely
above all they're just assuming that
these these problems are going to solve
themselves as we as we make that final
stride into the end zone or they're
saying
very you know polyan things like you
know an AI would never form a motive to
harm human like why would it ever form a
motive to to to be malicious toward
Humanity right unless we put that motive
in there right and that's that's not the
concern the concern is that in the
presence of of vast disparities and
competence and in certainly in a
condition where these the machines are
improving themselves they're improving
their own code they could be developing
goal instrumental goals
that are antithetical to our well-being
without any without any intent to harm
us right it's analogous to what we do
to every other species on Earth I mean
you and I don't consciously form the
intention to harm insects on a daily
basis but there are many things we could
intend to do that would in fact harm
insects because you know you decide to
repave your driveway or whatever
whatever you're doing like you're not
you're just not taking the the the
interest of insects into account because
they're so far beneath you in terms of
your cognitive
Horizons and the so that the real
challenge here is
that if you believe that intelligence
you know scales up on a Continuum to
toward Heights that we can only dimly
imagine and I think there's every reason
to believe that there's no reason to
believe that we're near the summit of
intelligence um and you can def you know
Define maybe maybe there
maybe there's some forms of intelligence
for which this is not true but for for
many relevant forms you know like the
top hundred things we care about
cognitively I think there's every reason
to believe that many of those things
most of those things are a lot like
chess or go where once the machines get
better than we are they're going to stay
better than we are although they're I
don't know if you caught the recent
thing with go or where this actually
came out of Stewart's lab yeah yeah yeah
one one time a human Bea machine yeah
they found a hack for that but anyway in
the
ultimately it's there's going to be no
looking back and then the question
is what what do we do in Rel in
relationship to these systems that are
more competent than we are in every
relevant respect because it will be a
relationship it's not like the PE the
people who think we're just going to
figure this all
out you know without thinking about it
in advance it's just going to the the
solutions are just going to find
themselves
um seem not to be taking the prospect of
really creating autonomous super
intelligence seriously like like what
does that mean it it's every bit as
independent and ungovernable
ultimately as us having created I mean
just imagine if we created a race of
people that were 10 times smarter than
all of us like how would we live with
those people they're 10 times smarter
than us right like they begin to talk
about things we don't understand they
begin to want things we don't understand
they begin to view us as obstacles to
them to their solving those problems or
gratifying those desires um we become
the chickens or the monkeys in their
presence
and I I think
that it's butt for some amazing solution
of the sort that steuart is is imagining
that we could somehow anchor reward
function permanently no matter how
intelligent scales I think um it's it's
really worth worrying about this I I do
I do buy the the you know the Sci-Fi uh
notion that this is an existential risk
if we don't do it well I worry that we
don't notice it I'm I'm deeply impressed
with chat GPT and I'm worried that it
will become super intelligent these
language models will become super
intelligent because they're basic
basically trained in the collective
intelligence of the human species and
then it will start controlling our
Behavior if they're integrated into our
algorithms the recommender systems and
then we just won't
notice that there's a super intelligent
system that's controlling our Behavior
well I think that's true even before far
before super intelligence even before
general intelligence I me I think just
the narrow
intelligence of these algorithms and of
what something like you know chat GPT
can can
do
[Music]
um I mean it's just far short of it
developing its own goals and that is
that are cross purposes with ours just
the just the unintended consequences of
of using it in the ways we are going to
be incentivized to use it and and you
know the money to be made from scaling
this thing and what it does to to our
information space and our sense of of
just being able to get to ground truth
of of on any facts it's
um yeah it's it's super scary and it was
it's do you think it's a giant leap in
terms of the development towards AGI CH
GPT or we still um is this just an imp
impressive little toolbox so like when
when do you think the singularity is
coming or or is it to you it doesn't
matter eventually I have no intuitions
on that front apart from the fact that
if we continue to make progress it will
come right so it's just you just have to
assume we continue to make progress
there's only two assumptions you you you
have to assume substrate Independence so
there's there's no reason why this can't
be done in silico it's just it's it's
just we can build arbitrarily
intelligent machines there's nothing
magical about having having this done in
in the wet wear of our own brains I
think that is true and I think that's
you know scientifically parsimonious to
think that that's true um and then you
just have to assume we're going to keep
making progress doesn't have to be any
special rate of progress doesn't have to
be Mo's law it can just be we just keep
going at a certain point we're going to
be in relationship to
Minds leaving Consciousness
Consciousness aside I I I don't I don't
have any reason to believe that they'll
necessarily be conscious by virtue of
being super intelligent and that's its
own interesting ethical question
but uh leaving conscious
aside they're going to be more they're
going to be more competent than we are
and then that's like you know the the
aliens have landed you know that's
literally that's an
encounter with again leaving aside the
possibility that that something like
Stuart's path is is is um actually
available to us uh but it it is hard to
picture if what we mean by intelligence
All Things Considered and it's truly
General um if that scales
and you know begins to build upon itself
how you
maintain that perfect slavish devotion
Until the End of Time the in those
systems the tether to humans yeah I
think uh my gut says that that tether is
not there's a lot of ways to do it so
it's not this increasingly impossible
problem right so so I have no you know
you know as you know I'm not a computer
scientist I have no intuitions about
just algorithmically how you would
approach that and what's what's possible
my main intuition is is um maybe deeply
flawed but the main intuition is based
on the fact that most of the learning is
currently happening on human knowledge
so even Chad GPT is just trained on
human data right I I don't see where the
takeoff happens where you completely go
above human wisdom the current
impressive aspect of chbt is that's
using collective intelligence of all of
us from what what I glean from again
from people who know much more about
this than I do I I think we have reason
to be skeptical that these Tech
techniques of you know deep learning are
actually going to be sufficient to push
us into AGI right so it's just not
they're not they're not generalizing in
the way they need to they're not
certainly not learning like human
children and so they they they're
they're brittle in strange ways
they're they're um it's not to say that
the the human path is the only path you
know and you know and maybe there's we
we might learn better lessons by
ignoring the way brain work but um we
know that they don't generalize and
use abstraction the way we do and so um
although the they have strange holes in
their competence but the size of the
holes is shrinking every time and that's
so the intuition starts to slowly fall
apart you know the intuition is like
surely can't be this simple to achieve
super intelligence yeah but it's
becoming simpler and simpler so I don't
know I don't the progress is quite
incredible I've been extremely impressed
with Chad GPT and the new models and
there's a lot of financial incentive to
make progress in this regard so
it's we're going to be living through
some very interesting times
uh in raising a question that I'm going
to be talking to you A lot of people
brought up this topic probably because
Eric Weinstein talked to Joe Rogan
recently and said that he and you were
contacted by folks about UFOs mhm uh can
you clarify the nature of this contact
can can you that you were contacted
about I've got very little to say on
this I he has much more to say I think
he I think he went down this Rabbit Hole
further than than I did um which which
wouldn't surprise anyone um he's got
much more of a taste for this sort of
thing than I do but I think we're
contacted by the same person it wasn't
clear to me who this person was or how
this person got that my cell phone
number um didn't
seem uh it didn't seem like we were
getting punked I mean the person seemed
credible to me and they were talking to
you about the release of different
videos on your phone yeah and this this
is when there's a flurry of activity
around this so there was like a there
was a big New Yorker article on on uh
UFOs and there was there was
uh rumors of Congressional hearings I
think coming
and and then the the the videos that
were being debunked or not um
and so this person contacted both of us
I think around the same time and I think
he might have contacted Rogan or other
Eric is just the only person I've spoken
to about it I think um who I know was
contacted
and the
um what happened is the person kept you
know writing a check that he didn't cash
like he he kept saying okay next week
I'm going to you know I understand this
is sounding spooky and you know you have
no reason to really trust me but uh next
week I'm going to I'm going to put you
on a zoom call with people who you will
recognize and they're going to be you
know former heads of the CIA and you
know people people who just you're going
to within 5 Seconds of being on the zoom
call you'll you'll know this is not a
hoax I said great just let me know just
send me the zoom link right and I went
that happened maybe three times you know
there was just one phone conversation
and then it was just texts you know
there just a bunch of texts and I think
uh Eric spent more time with this person
and I'm not I haven't spoken to about I
know he spoke about it publicly but
um so I I you know it's not that my
bullshit detector ever really went off
in a big way it's just the thing never
happened and I so I lost interest so you
you made a comment which is interesting
that you ran the which I really
appreciate that you ran the thought
experiment of saying okay maybe we do
have alien spacecraft or just a thought
experiment that aliens did visit yeah
and then this very kind of nihilistic
sad thought that it wouldn't matter it
wouldn't affect your life can can you
can you explain that well no I I was I
think many people noticed this I mean
this was a sign of how crazy the news
cycle was at that point right like we
had Co and we had Trump and I forget
when this the UFO thing was really
kicking off but um it just seemed like
no one had the bandwidth to even be
interested in this it's like I I was
amazed to notice in
myself that I wasn't more interested in
figuring out what was going on it's like
and I I considered okay wait a
minute this is if this is true this is
the biggest story in anyone's lifetime I
mean contact with alien
intelligence is by definition the
biggest story in anyone's Lifetime and
in human history
um why isn't this just totally
captivating and Not only was it not
totally captivating it was just barely
rising to the level of my being able to
pay attention to it and I I view that I
mean one as a um to some degree a an
understandable defense mechanism against
the the the the bogus claims that that
have been made about this kind of thing
in the past
um you know the general sense is
probably bullshit or it probably has
some explanation that is you know purely
terrestrial and not surprising and there
was there's there is somebody who what's
his name is it Mick West I forget is it
a YouTuber yeah he debunk stuff yeah he
don't I mean you know I I have since
seen some of those videos now now this
is going back still at least a year but
some of those videos seem like fairly
credible debunkings of some of the the
optical evidence um and I'm surprised we
didn't haven't seen more of that like
there was a a fairly credulous 60
Minutes piece that came out around that
time looking at some of that video and
it was the very video that he was
debunking on YouTube and you know his
his video only had like 50,000 views on
it or whatever um but again it seemed
like a fairly credible debunking I
haven't seen debunkings of his
debunkings but uh I think there is but
he's basically saying that there is
there is possible explanations for it
right and usually in these kinds of
context if there's a possible
explanation even if it seems
unlikely is going to be more likely than
an alien civilization visiting us yeah
see extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence principle which I
I think is generally true well with
aliens I think generally I think there
should be some humility about what they
would look like when they show up I tend
to think they're already here the
amazing thing about this AI conversation
though is that we're talking about a
circumstance where we would be designing
the aliens yeah and they would and
there's every reason to believe that
eventually this is going to happen like
I so I'm not at all skeptical about the
the coming reality of the aliens and
we're going to build them now here's the
thing does this apply to when super
intelligence shows up will this be
trending on Twitter for a day and then
would go on to complain about something
SAR once again said his podcast next day
you you tend to trend on Twitter even
though you're not on Twitter which is
great yeah uh I don't I haven't noticed
I I did I did notice when I was on but
um you have this concern
about uh AGI basically same kind of
thing that we would just look the other
way is there something about this time
where even like World War II which has
been throwing around very casually
concerning inly so even that the new
cycle wipes that away yeah well I I
think we have
this this General problem that we can't
make certain information even you know
unequivocally certain
information
emotionally Salient like like we we we
respond quite readily to certain things
I as we talked about we we respond to
the the little girl who fell down a well
I mean that just that gets 100% of our
emotional resources uh but the abstract
probability that of nuclear war right
even a high probability even just even
an intolerable probability even if we
put it
at 30% right you know like it's just
like that's that's a Russian roulette
with a you know gun with three chambers
and you know it's aimed at the heads not
only your head but your kids's head and
everyone's kids head and it's just 24
hours a day and
um I mean I think people who who this
pre Ukraine I think the people who have
made it their business
to you know professionally to think
about the risk of nuclear war and to
mitigate it you know people like Graham
Allison or William Perry
or I I think they were putting like the
the ongoing risk I mean just the risk
that we're going to have
a proper nuclear war at some point in
the you know the Next
Generation people were putting it at you
know something like 50% right that we're
living with this Sword of Damocles over
our heads now you might wonder whether
anyone can have reliable intuitions
about the probability of that kind of
thing
but the status quo is truly alarming I
mean we've got you know we've got icbms
on leave aside smaller exchanges and you
know tactical nukes and how that could
how we could have a World War you know
based on you know incremental changes
we've
got the biggest bombs aimed at the
biggest cities in both
directions and it's old technology right
and it's you know and it's vulnerable to
some lunatic deciding to launch or or
misreading you know bad data and we know
we've been saved from nuclear
war um I think at least twice
by you know Soviet submarine commanders
deciding I'm not going to pass this up
to change Chain of Command right like
this
is um this is almost certainly an error
is and it turns out it was an error it's
like like and we we need people to I
mean in that particular case like he saw
I think it was five
what seemed like five missiles launched
from the US to Russia and he reasoned if
the if America was going to engage in a
first strike they'd launch more than
five missiles right so this this has to
be fictional and then he waited long
enough to decide that it was fictional
but the probability of of a nuclear war
Happening by mistake or some other
species of inadvertence you know
misunderstanding uh technical Mal
function that's intolerable forget about
the the intentional use of it by by
people who are you know Driven Crazy by
some ideology uh and more and more
Technologies are enable a kind of scale
of Destruction and misinformation plays
into this picture in a way that is
especially scary I mean once you can get
a deep fake
of you know the any current president of
the United States claiming to have
launched a first strike you know and
just you know send that everywhere but
that can change the nature of Truth and
then we that might change
the um the engine we have for
skepticism sharpen it the more you have
and we might have ai and and digital
watermarks that help us maybe we'll not
trust any information that hasn't come
through uh specific channels right I
mean so like in in my
world it's like I I no longer feel the
the need
to you know respond to anything other
than what I put out in in my channels of
information it's like there's there's so
much there so many people who have
clipped stuff of me that shows the
opposite of what I was actually saying
in context I mean the people have like
re-edited my podcast audio to to make it
seem like I said the opposite of what I
was saying it's like unless I put it out
you know can't be sure that I actually
said it you know I mean it's it's just
uh but I don't know what it's like to
live like that for all forms of
information and uh I mean Strangely I
think it may require
a a greater siloing of information in
the end you know it's like it it it it's
uh we're living through this sort of
wild west period where everyone's got a
newsletter and everyone's got a Blog and
everyone's got an opinion
but once you can fake everything there
might be a greater value for expertise
yeah for experts but a more rigorous
system for identifying who the experts
are yeah or just or just knowing that
you know it's going to be an arms race
to authenticate information so it's like
if if you can never trust a photograph
yeah unless it has been vetted by Getty
Images because only Getty Images has the
resources to to authenticate the problem
of that photograph and and a test that
hasn't been meddled with by AI um and
again I don't even know if that's
technically possible I maybe whatever
the
tools available for this will be you
know commodified and and the the cost
will be driven to zero so quickly that
everyone will be able to do it you know
it could be like encryption but and it
would be proven and tested most
effectively first of course as always in
porn yeah which is where most of human
innovation technology happens first um
well I have to ask because Ron Howard
the director asked this on Twitter uh
since we're talking about the threat of
nuclear war and otherwise he asked I'd
be interested in both your expectations
for Human Society if when we move Beyond
Mars will those societies be industrial
based how will it be governed how will
criminal infractions be dealt with uh
when you read or watch Sci-Fi what comes
closest to sounding logical do you think
about our Society beyond Earth if we
colonize Mars if we colonize space yeah
well I think I have a
pretty uhoh humbling picture of that I
mean so CU we're still going to be the
Apes that we are so when you when you
imagine colonizing Mars you have to
imagine a first fist fight on Mars you
have to imagine a first murder on Mars
also infidelity yeah somebody
extramarital Affairs on Mars right so
it's it's going to get uh really homely
and boring really fast I think you know
it's like only the space suits or what
the other uh exigencies of of just
living in that atmosphere or lack
thereof uh will limit how badly we can
behave on Mars but do you think most of
the interaction will be still in meat
Space versus digital do you think
there'll be do you think we're like
living through a a transformation of a
Kind where we're going to be doing more
and more interaction in in digital space
like everything we've been complaining
about Twitter is it possible that
Twitter is just the early days of a
broken system that's actually uh giving
birth to a better working system that's
ultimately
digital I think we're going
to experience a pendulum swing back into
the real world I I think many of us are
experiencing that now anyway just just
wanting
to have face-to-face encounters and
spend less time on our phone and less
time online I I think you know maybe
everyone isn't going in that direction
but I do notice it myself and I noticed
I mean once I got off Twitter then I
noticed the people who were never on
Twitter right and and and the people who
were never basic I me I know I have a
lot of friends who are never on Twitter
yeah they and they actually never
understood what I was doing on Twitter
it's like like they just like it wasn't
that they were seeing it and then
reacting to it they just didn't know
it's like
it's like being on it's like I'm not on
Reddit either but I don't spend any time
thinking about not being on Reddit right
it's like I just I'm just not on Reddit
um so you think the pursuit of human
happiness is better achieved more
effectively achieved outside of Twitter
World well I I think all we have is our
attention in the end and we we just have
to notice what these various tools are
doing to it and it's just it became very
clear to me that it was an unrewarding
use of my attention now it's not to say
there isn't some digital platform that's
conceivable that would be useful but um
and rewarding
but yeah I mean we we just have you know
our life is doled out to us in moments
and we we have and we're continually
solving this riddle of what is going to
suffice to make this moment engage aging
and meaningful and aligned with who I
want to be now and how I want the future
to to look right where're I that we have
this tension between being in the
present and becoming in the future and
um you know it's a seeming Paradox again
it's not really a paradox but it can see
like I do think the ground Truth for
personal
well-being is to find a mode of being
where
you can pay
attention to the present moment and this
is you know meditation by another name
you can pay attention to the present
moment with sufficient you know gravity
that you recognize that that just
Consciousness itself in the present
moment no matter what's happening is
already a circumstance of freedom and
and contentment and and Tranquility like
you can be happy now before anything
happens
like before this next desire gets
gratified before this next problem gets
solved there's there's this kind of
ground truth that that you're free that
Consciousness is free and open and
unencumbered by really any problem until
you get lost in thought about all the
problems that may yet be real for you so
the ability to catch and observe
Consciousness that in itself as a source
of Happiness without being lost in
thought and and so what what this hap
this happens haphazardly for people who
don't meditate because they find
something in their life that's so
captivating it's so pleasurable it's so
uh thrilling it can even be scary but it
can be even being scared is captivated
like it gets it's it gets their
attention right whatever it is if like
you know Sebastian younger you know was
wrote a great book about people's
experience in war here you know it's
like like it can strangely it can be the
best experience anyone's ever had
because everything it's like only the
moment matters right like the the bullet
is whizzing by your head you're not
thinking about your your 401k or that
thing that you didn't say last week to
the person you shouldn't have been
talking about you're not thinking about
Twitter it's like you're just fully
immersed in the present moment um
meditation is the only way I mean that
word can mean many things to many people
but what I mean by meditation is simply
the discovery that there is a a a way to
engage the present moment directly
regardless of what's Happening you don't
need to be in a war you don't need to be
having sex you don't need to be on drugs
you don't need to be surfing you don't
nothing there doesn't have to be a peak
experience it can be completely ordinary
but you can recognize that in some basic
sense there's only this and and
everything else is something you're
thinking you're thinking about the past
you're thinking about the future and
thoughts themselves have no substance
right it's it's it's fundamentally
mysterious that any thought ever really
commanders your sense of who you are and
and makes you anxious or afraid or or
angry or whatever it is um and the more
you discover that the half-life of all
these negative emotions that blow all of
us around get much much shorter right
and you can you can literally just you
know the the anger that would have kept
you angry for hours or days lasts you
know 4 seconds seconds because you just
the moment it arises you recognize it
and you can get off you can decide at
minimum you can decide whether it's
useful to to stay angry at that moment
and you know obviously it usually isn't
and the illusion of Free Will is one of
those thoughts yeah it's all just
happening right like even the Mindful
and meditative response to this is just
happening happening it's just like even
the moments where you recognize or not
recognize it's just happening it's not
that
there this does open up a degree freedom
for a person but it's not a freedom that
gives any motivation to the notion of
free will it's just a
new way of being in the world is there a
difference between intellectually
knowing Free Will is an illusion and
really experiencing it yeah yeah what's
the what's the longest you've been able
to experience the uh escape the illusion
of Free Will well it's always I I it's
always obvious to me when I pay
attention I when I whenever I'm mindful
the the term of jargon you know in the
Buddhist and and increasingly you know
outside the Buddhist context is is
mindfulness right but there sort of
different levels of mindfulness and
there's there's different
um degrees of insight into this but yes
so I what I'm calling evidence of lack
of Free Will and lack of you know lack
of the self I two sides of the same coin
there's a sense of
being a subject in the middle of
experience to whom all experience refers
mhm the sense of I the sense of
me and that's almost everybody's
starting point when they they start to
meditate and that's almost always the
place people live most of their lives
from I do think that gets interrupted in
ways that get unrecognized I think
people are constantly losing the sense
of eye they're losing the sense of
subject object distance but they're not
recognizing it and and meditation is the
mode in which you can recognize you can
you can both consciously precipitate it
you can look for the self and fail to
find it and then recognize its absence
and that's the just the flip side of the
coin of free will I mean the the the
feeling of having free will is what it
feels like to feel like a self who's
thinking his thoughts and doing his
actions and intending his intentions
and the Man in the middle of the boat
who's
rowing um that's the start that's the
false starting point when you find that
there's no one in the middle of the boat
right or in fact there's no boat there's
just the river there's just the flow of
experience and there's no Center to it
and there's no place from which you
would control it again even when you're
doing thing this does not negate the
difference between voluntary and
involuntary Behavior it's like I can
voluntarily reach for this but when I'm
paying attention I'm aware that
everything is just happening like just
the intention to move is just arising
right and I'm in no position to know why
it didn't AR arise a moment before or a
moment later or a moment or or you know
50% stronger or weaker or you know so is
to be ineffective or to be doubly
effective where I lurched for it versus
I move slow I mean not I'm I'm
not I can never run the counterfactuals
I can never all of this opens the door
to
a an even more disconcerting picture
along the same lines which is subsumes
this conversation about Free Will and
it's the question of
whether anything is ever possible like
what if this is a question I I haven't
thought a lot of about it but it's been
a few years I've been kicking this
question around
um so me what if only the actual is
possible what what if there was what if
we see we live with this feeling of
possibility we live with the sense
that let me take so you know I have two
daughters I could have had a third child
right so what does it mean to say that I
could have had a third child or do you
don't have kids I don't think no so not
that I know of yes the possibility might
be there so what do we mean when we say
you could have had a child or
you might you you might have a child in
the future like what what what is the
space in real what's the relationship
between possibility and actuality and
reality is there a reality in
which non-actual things are nonetheless
real and so there we have other
categories of like
non concrete things we have things that
don't have spatial temporal Dimension
but they're nonetheless they they
nonetheless exist so like you know the
integers right so
numbers there's a there's a reality
there's an abstract reality to numbers
and this is it's philosophically
interesting to think about these things
so they're not like in some sense
they're they're they're real and they're
dis they're not merely invented by us
they're discovered because they have
structure that we can't impose upon them
right it's not like they're not
fictional characters like you know I
mean Hamlet and and Superman also exist
in some sense but they exist at the
level of of our own fiction and and
abstraction but it's like they're true
they're true and false statements you
can make about Hamlet there are true and
false statements you can make about
Superman because our fictions the
fictional worlds we've created have a
certain kind of structure but again this
is all abstract it's like it's all
abstractable from any of its concrete
instantiations it's not just in the
comic books and just in the movies it's
in our you know ongoing ideas about
these characters but natural numbers or
or um the integers
don't function quite that way I mean
they're similar but they also have a
structure that's purely a matter of
Discovery it's not you can't just make
up whether numbers are prime you know if
you give me two integers you know of a
certain size to let's you mention two
enormous integers if I were to say okay
well between those two integers they're
EX L 11 prime numbers right that's a
very specific Claim about which I can be
right or wrong whether or not anyone
knows I'm right or like that's just
there's a domain of facts there but
these are abstra it's an abstract
reality that relates in some way that's
philosophically interesting you know
metaphysically interesting to what we
call real reality you know the spatial
temporal order the physics of things but
possibility at least in my view occup
occupies a different space and this is
something again I my thoughts on this
are pretty inco and I I I think I need
to talk to a philosopher of physics and
or physicist about how this may interact
with with things like the many worlds
interpretation of Quant that's an
interesting right right exactly
so I wonder if discoveries in physics
like further proof or more concrete
proof than many world's interpretation
of quantum mechanics has some validity
right if that completely starts to
change things
but even that that's just
more actuality so if if I took that
seriously ah sure that's that's a case
of and and Truth is that happens even
even if the many worlds interpretation
isn't true but we just imagine we have a
physically infinite Universe the
implication of infinity is such that
things will begin to repeat themselves
you know the farther you go in space
right so you know if you just head out
in One Direction eventually going to
meet two people just like us having a
conversation just like this and you're
going to meet them an infinite number of
times in every you know infinite V
variety of permutation slightly
different from this conversation right
so I mean Infinity is just so big that
our intuitions of probability completely
break down but what I'm suggesting
is maybe probability isn't a thing right
maybe there's only actuality if there's
maybe there's only what happens and at
every point along the way our notion of
what could have happened or what might
have happened is just that it's just a
thought about what could have happened
or might there's no so it's a
fundamentally different thing if you can
imagine a thing that doesn't make it
real so they because that's that's where
that possibility exists it's in your
imagination right yeah and and
possibility itself is a kind of spooky
idea because it it too has a sort of
structure right so like if I if I'm
going to say
you
know you could have had a daughter right
last
year
um so we're saying that's that's
possible but not
actual right that is a claim of there
are things that are true and not true
about that daughter right like it has a
kind of structure it's like I feel like
there's a lot of fog around
that the possibility it feels like
almost like a useful narrative but what
does it mean so like what does it mean
if if we say you know I just did that
but I it's conceivable that I wouldn't
have done that right like it's possible
that I I just through this cap but I
might not have done that so you're
taking it very temporarily close to the
original like what what appear as a
decision whenever we're saying
something's possible but not actual
right like this thing just happened but
it's conce it's possible that it
wouldn't have happened or it would have
happened
differently in what does that
possibility consist like where is that
what it for that to be real for the
possibility to be
real what are we what claim are we
making about the universe well isn't
that an extension of the idea that Free
Will is an illusion that all we have is
exuality that the possibility is an
illus yeah I'm just extending it Beyond
Human Action uh like it's this goes to
the physics of things this is just
everything like we we we're always
telling ourselves a story yeah that
includes possibility possibility is
really compelling for some
reason well yeah well because it's it's
I mean so this yeah I mean this could
sound just academic but it every
backward looking regret or
disappointment and every forward-looking
worry is completely dependent on this
notion of possibility like every regret
is based on the sense that something
else I could have done something else
something else could have happened
every disposition to worry about the
future is based on the feeling that
there's this range of possibilities it
could go either way
and you know I I know whe whether or not
there's such a thing as possibility you
know I'm convinced that worry is almost
never uh psychologically
appropriate because the reality is in
any given moment either you can do
something to solve the problem you're
worried about or not so if you can do
something just do it you know and if you
can't your worrying is just causing you
to suffer twice over right you're G to
you know you're GNA you're going to get
the medical procedure next week anyway
how much time between now and next week
do you want to spend worrying about it
right it's it's going to it's the worry
the worry doesn't accomplish anything
how much do physicists think about
possibility well they think about it in
terms of probability
more often but probability just
describes and again this is a place
where I might be out of my depth and
need to talk to somebody to to uh debunk
this but the do therapy with a physicist
yeah um but probability it seems just
describes a pattern of actuality that
we've observed right I mean we have
there are certain things we observe and
those are the actual things that have
happened and we have this additional
story about probability I mean we have
the frequency with which things happen
have happened in the
past
um you know I can flip a Fair coin and
know I know in the abstract that I have
a belief that in the limit that those
flips those tosses should Converge on
50% heads and 50% Tails I know I have a
story as to why it's not going to be
exactly 50% within any arbitrary time
frame
um but in real reality all we ever have
are the observed
tosses right and then we have an
additional story that oh it came up
heads but it could have come up
Tales why do we think
that about that last
toss and and and what are we claiming is
true about the physics of
things if we say it could have been
otherwise I think we're claiming that
probability is
true that it just it it allows us to
have a nice model about the world gives
us hope about the world yeah it seems
that possibility has to be somewhere to
be effective it's a it's a little bit
like what's what's happening with the
laws of there's something metaphysically
interesting about the laws of nature too
because the laws of nature so the laws
of nature impose their their work on the
world right we see their
evidence but they're not reducible to
any specific set of instances
right so there's some structure there
but the structure isn't just a matter of
the actual things we have the actual
billiard balls that are banging into
each other all of that actuality can be
explained by what actual things are
actually doing but then we have this
notion that in addition to that we have
the laws of nature that are making
that're explaining this act but it but
how are the laws of nature an additional
thing in addition to just the actual
things that are actually effect causely
and if if they're if they are an
additional thing and how are they
effective if they're not among the
actual things that are just actually
banging around yeah and so to some I see
for that Poss possibil has to be hiding
somewhere for the laws of nature to be
possible like yeah for anything to be
possible it has to be it has to have
closet somewhere I'm sure it's where all
the possibility goes it has to be
attached to something so and you don't
think many worlds is
that many worlds is still exists well
because we're in this strand of that
Multiverse yeah right so it's still
still you have just the local instance
of what is actual yeah and then if it
proliferates elsewhere where you can't
be affected by it world you can't really
connect with the other yeah yeah and so
many worlds are just a statement
of basically everything that can happen
happens
somewhere right that's you know and
that's I mean maybe that's not entirely
kosher formulation of it but it it seems
pretty close so so but there's whatever
happens right in fact there's you know
relativistically there's
a there's a you know the Einstein's
original notion of a block Universe
seems to suggest this and I it's been a
while since I've been in a conversation
with a physicist where I've gotten a
chance to ask about the standing of this
concept in physics currently I don't I
don't hear it discussed much but the
idea of a block universe is that you
know
SpaceTime exists as an totality and our
sense that we are traveling through
SpaceTime where there's a a real
difference between the past in the
future that that's an illusion of just
our you
know you know weird the weird weird
slice we're taking of of this larger
object but on some
level it's like you know you're reading
a novel The last page of the novel
exists just as much as the first
page when you're in the middle of it and
they're just you know if that's if we're
living in anything like that then
there's no such thing as possibility I I
would it would seem that's just what is
actual
so as a matter of our experience moment
to
moment I think it's totally compatible
with that being true that there is only
what is actual
and that sounds to the the naive ear
that sounds like it would be depressing
and disempowering and confining but is
anything but it's actually it's a
circumstance of pure Discovery like you
have no idea what's going to happen next
right you don't know who you're going to
be tomorrow you're only by tendency
seeming to resemble yourself from
yesterday and there's there's way more
freedom and all of that than than It's
seems true to many people and
yet the basic Insight is that you're
not you're not in the real freedom is is
the recognition that you're not in
control of anything everything is just
happening including your thoughts and
intentions and moves so life is a is a
process of continuous Discovery you're
part of the universe yeah you are you
are just this I mean it's it's the
miracle that the the universe is
illuminated to itself as itself where
you sit and you're and you're
continually discovering what your life
is and then you're you have this layer
at which you're telling yourself a story
that you already know what your life is
and you know exactly you know who you
should be and what's you know what's
about to happen or you're struggling to
form a confident opinion about all of
that and yet there is this this
fundamental mystery to everything even
the most familiar experience we're all
NPCs in in the most marvelous video
game maybe although my my game my sense
of gaming is does not run as deep to
know what I'm committing to there a non
it's a non-playing character you're more
yeah non oh wow yes you're more you're
more of a Mario Kart guy I went back I
was an original video gamer but it's
been a long time since I I me I was I
was there for pong I remember when I saw
the first pong in a restaurant in uh I
think it was like Benny hanas or
something they had a pong and table and
that was is amazing that an amazing
moment when you you Sam Harris might
live from pong to the invention and
deployment of a super intelligent system
yeah well that that happened fast if it
happens anytime in my lifetime from from
pong to
AGI uh what kind of things do you do
purely for fun that others might
consider a waste of
time purely for
fun cuz meditation doesn't count cuz
most people would say that's not a waste
of time is there something like
pong that's a deeply embarrassing thing
you would never admit
I don't think well I mean once or twice
a year I will play a round of golf which
many people would find embarrassing uh
they might even find my play
embarrassing but uh it's fun do you find
it embarrassing no I mean I love golf
just takes way too much time so I can
only squander a certain amount of time
on it I I do love it it's it's a lot of
fun well you have no control over your
actual performance you're you're ever
discovering I I do I do have have
control over my mediocre performance but
it's uh I don't have enough control as
to make it really good
but happily I don't I I'm in the perfect
spot because I don't invest enough time
in it to care how I play so I just have
fun when I play well I I hope there'll
be a day where you play around on golf
with the former president Donald Trump
and I would uh love to I would bet on
him if we played golf I'm sure he's a
better
golfer amidst the chaos of human
civilization in modern times as we've
talked about what gives you hope about
this world in the coming year in the
coming decade in the coming hundred
years maybe a thousand years what's the
source of Hope for
you well it comes back to a few of the
things we've talked about I think I'm
I'm hopeful that I know that most people
are good and are
mostly converging on the same core
values right it's like we're we're not
surrounded by Psychopaths
and I um the the thing that
finally convinced me to to get off
Twitter was how different life was
seeming through the lens of Twitter it's
like I I just got the sense that there's
there way more Psychopaths or effective
Psychopaths than I realized and then I
thought okay that's this isn't real this
is this is either a a strange context in
which actually decent people are
behaving like Psychopaths uh or it's um
you know it's a bot army or something
that I don't have to take seriously so
yeah I just think
most
people if we can get the if we can get
the incentives
right I think there's no reason why we
can't really Thrive collectively like
there's enough wealth to go around
there's enough you know there's
no there's no effective limit you know I
mean again within the limits of what's
physically possible but we're we're
nowhere near the
limit on abundance you know on this
forget about going to Mars on this the
one Rock right it's like we we could
make this place incredibly beautiful uh
and stable if we
just did enough work
[Music]
to solve some you know you know rather
uh long-standing
political problems the problem of
incentives so to you the the basic
characteristics of human nature are such
that we'll be okay if the incentives are
okay we we'll do we we'll do pretty good
I'm worried about the asymmetries that
you know it's easier to break things
than to fix them it's easier to to
um light a fire than to put it out
and uh I do worry that you know as
technology gets more and more powerful
it becomes easier for the minority who
wants to screw things up to effectively
screw things up for everybody right so
it's it's easier it's like it
a thousand years ago it was simply
impossible for one person to derange the
lives of millions much less
billions now that's getting to be
possible so on the assumption that we're
always going to have a sufficient number
of crazy individuals or
or
U malevolent individuals it's it's uh
that a we have to figure out that
asymmetry somehow and so there's some
cautious exploration of emergent
technology that we need to get our our
head screw on straight about so like so
gain of function research like just how
much do we want to
democratize uh you know all the relevant
Technologies there you know do we want
really you really want to give everyone
the ability to order nucleotides in the
mail and and uh give them the blueprints
for viruses online because of you know
you're a free speech absolutist and you
think all PDFs need to be uh you know
exportable everywhere
um I'm so I'm much more so this is where
yeah so there are limits
to I'm not many people are confused
about my take on Free Speech because
I've come down on on on the unpopular
side of some of these questions but it's
been my overriding concern is that in in
many cases I'm worried about the free
speech
of the individual businesses or
individual platforms or individual you
know media people to decide that they
don't want to be associated with certain
things right so like if if you own
Twitter I think you should be able to
kick off the Nazi you don't want to be
associated with because it's your
platform you own it right that's your
free speech right that's the side of my
free speech concern for Twitter right
it's not that every Nazi has the right
to to be to algorithmic speech on
Twitter I think if you own Twitter you
should be you or the you know whether
it's just Elon or you know in the world
where it wasn't Elon just just the the
people who own Twitter the the and the
board and the shareholders and the
employees these these people need to can
should be free to decide what they want
to promote or not they're public I view
them as Publishers more you know more
than as as Platforms in the end and um
that has other implications but I do
worry about this problem of
misinformation and algorithmically and
otherwise you know supercharged
misinformation and
I
think I do think we have a we're at a
bottleneck now I mean I I guess it's
could be the hubris of every present
generation to think that their moment is
especially important but I do think with
the emergence of these
Technologies where some kind of
bottleneck where we really have to
figure out how to get this right and if
we do get this right if we figure out
how to not drive ourselves Crazy by
giving people access to all the all
possible information and misinformation
at all
times I think yeah we could there's no
limit to how happily we could
collaborate with billions of creative
fulfilled people you know it's just and
trillions of uh robots some of them sex
robots but that's another topic robots
that have are running the right
algorithm whatever that algorithm is
whatever you need in your life to make
you happy so um um I was the first time
we talked as one of the huge honors of
my life I've been a fan of yours for a
long time the few times you were
respectful but critical to me means the
world and thank you so much for helping
um helping me and caring enough and
caring enough about the world and for
everything you do uh but I should say
that uh the the few of us that try to
put love in the world on Twitter miss
you on Twitter but enjoy
yourselves don't don't break anything
kids have a good party without me uh
very happy to do this thanks thanks for
the invitation thank you great to see
you again thanks for listening to this
conversation with Sam Harris to support
this podcast please check out our
sponsors in the description and now let
me leave you with some words from Martin
Luther King Jr love is the only Force
capable of transforming an enemy into a
friend thank you for listening i' hope
to see you next time