Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
michael malus his fifth time on this the
lex friedman podcast to support it
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description and now here's my new year's
eve 2021 conversation with the one and
only mr michael
mallis
dostoevsky wrote in the idiot my favor
of his books
through the main character prince
mishkin that beauty will save the world
these words seemingly naive and
ultimately at least to me profound what
do they mean to you
beauty will save the world naive really
i don't think they seem naive at all
well uh sheldon jensen actually for his
1970 nobel prize
speech talked about this line a lot
and he thought for most of his life that
was a silly line there was just words
thrown out there because
with all the suffering that's in the
world what has beauty has actually ever
done oh my god i hate this so much
i i fucking trash about soldiers yeah i
am okay um
and this is perfectly sets up this theme
you know why i said let's do this
episode start the new year on a positive
note give people hope give people joy
uh you and i both have friends who are
models
right
and it's a silly profession to some
extent of course
but
you are actually a model you are my
friend yeah that's right that's true i
haven't had a remodel i was trying to be
subtle
but for those people who actually you
know deserve to be models
um when you look at someone who is a
model
and in some of their photos
and these these people look perfect now
in real life they're not perfect they
have flaws they'll be the first to admit
it so on and so forth but when you look
at beauty
it is almost impossible
to maintain a sense of cynicism and
hopelessness
because if there's even one moment when
some uh element of perfection has been
actualized if there's one moment where a
beauty has been realized and captured
you can't say well it's never gonna
happen again
so i think beauty
it means hope i think
i hate
that cynical idea of like um
i i get i i appreciate soulja nissan's
broader point in that a lot of times
people there's something called the
deepity where people throw words
together to sound profound and if you
take it apart like this is just complete
gibberish i don't think this is an
example of that i think beauty inspires
and it more importantly it proves to you
this is something that can actually
happen on this earth plato right the
platonic theory of forms like this world
is imperfect but these perfect forms
exist in another dimension and that's
where our concepts come from you know he
was an early uh person trying to figure
out where our concepts come from and
epistemology and so on and so forth um
but that is something that is real in
here
so i completely disagree with his
analysis of that and i don't know if
it'll save the world but it's certainly
a prerequisite and what's the point of
fighting
for your values if you don't want to
make the world a more beautiful place
well it's also how you define beauty
because beauty could be just aesthetic
beauty it could be art of course art
could be
could encompass a lot a lot more than
just literature and paintings it can
encompass
the full
life the full dance of life
but then beauty could be something
just uh
deeper like
whatever that aw you feel
when you pause
and hear the music
just
hear
and like look up at the stars like for
some reason when i see rockets go up for
me it's like science what is that
the awe that we're able to accomplish
that as humans you know that's funny
because you know there's lots of
different schools of thought like these
people versus these people and and you
know maybe vegans versus uh
steakhouse people i think in terms of
the sciences and i guess you and i would
be on opposite sides here
you have the
astronomy people versus the zoology
people
like the the big question is would you
rather
spend
10 minutes on the moon or would you
rather spend 10 minutes in the deep sea
and for me it's clearly the deep sea
the zoology that's down there there's
something i would encourage people to
look up
called deep staria which is a jellyfish
then the scientists what's amazing when
you watch these deep-sea dives
on youtube is that the scientists are
they're they're nature dorks like
everybody else they're they went into
this field and there's none of this
maybe soulja nation-style cynicism of
when they see an amazing animal
in its natural environment you know
exhibiting these crazy behaviors they
lose it they're on the mic like oh my
god like it's so exciting to watch so
uh i i'm not a rocket person but i'm
definitely a zoology so animals and
plants in the sea
and also it's so mathematical there's so
many so many forms there's there's this
um
there's this plant called areospermum
titan up soybeas
i don't know how to pronounce it because
they're always in latin you never hear
them pronounced you said sperm aerial
sperm yeah because it's a woolly seed is
the is the genus
um the leaf it's just always puts out
one leaf
but the leaf is covered in little
magnifying glasses uh lenses to make it
maximize the sunlight so it looks like
this little crystal seashell it's tiny
it's like two centimeters but
it's just this amazing thing that that
grows out of the
sands in south africa
just a defense old jensen for a second
so
if i may read a couple of his lines from
the speech sure so he said uh one day
that's how he introduces it one day
dostoevsky threw out the enigmatic
remark beauty will save the world
what sort of a statement is that for a
long time i considered it mere words how
could that be possible when in
bloodthirsty history did beauty
ever save anyone from anything
and then later he goes on to argue with
himself in the speech as a older wiser
man now
but perhaps that ancient trinity of
truth goodness and beauty is not simply
an empty faded formula as we thought in
the days of our self-confident
materialistic youth
if the tops of these three trees
converge as the scholars maintained but
the two blatant to direct stems of truth
and goodness are crushed
cut down not allow through then perhaps
the fantastic unpredictable unexpected
stems of beauty will push through and
soar to that very same place and in so
doing will fulfill the work of all three
in that case the stavsky's remark beauty
will save the world was not a careless
phrase but a prophecy
uh which of yours which of these three
things are your favorites truth goodness
or beauty
what did he call truth and goodness
the blatant to direct stems of truth and
goodness
um
versus the
fantastic unpredictable unexpected stems
of beauty which is how i see your
twitter account i don't think that i
think there's a certain directive beauty
if you had my twitter account that's for
sure uh it's certainly no goodness um
or truth yeah yeah
it's twitter there's no truth to be
found
uh i would
i will answer the question i will of
course point out that having this kind
of
you know distinction between the three
things is i think kind of synthetic i
think they very heavily overlap if not
if i could probably make the argument
they're synonymous
um in fact i do believe that they're
largely synonymous um
goodness that's such an interesting word
goodness um uh which of those three is
my favorite
uh
i think truth
is overrated in the sense that if
something is a
good story
the story doesn't have to be true or
real in order to motivate you and and
move you
um a lot of times
we can delude ourselves about somebody
uh
and that might actually serve a purpose
to some extent you know if you have
someone who's
maybe a family member and you kind of
ignore bad things that they do
there might be reasons for that
um
of the three which is most important
i think
i would say probably goodness
i would say of the three the most
important is goodness because
if you don't appreciate goodness then
beauty is
just empty it's just
it's just a picture or
it's nice um bad people appreciate
beauty
uh you know bad people are often you
know seductive or or have a beauty about
them and in terms of action
i think it takes a lot of skill and work
to create beauty or to create truth or
to express truth and express beauty but
i think goodness is a
it's like um the easiest default state
of being just being good to others
yeah like you know like
there'll be things where
these videos where like one dog is
drowning and like another dog jumps in
and saves it from the
pool like that to me is
just really amazing stuff uh and it's
very moving
um so just to me goodness means
integrity
and it means kindness
um
and yeah i think of the three that's the
knife would be the one i pick
yeah yeah and i think people are
interrupting i think people also have
this idea which is inculcated to them
especially by corporate america that as
you get older
it's okay to do the wrong thing
sometimes blah blah blah i don't buy
that and so i think goodness gets rarer
and rarer um and and i think people know
better and they tell themselves lies
yeah
but
once you get allow yourself the chance
to just
be good i think it makes for a better
life yeah it's like it's not that much
work like it's not like going to the gym
and working out that's a lot of work and
it's great afterwards but like goodness
is easy once you get into the habit of
it i suppose working out the same way
there's a lot of stuff if you make it a
habit
you're going to get the rewards of it
and it's going to be easy the rewards of
goodness i think are uh more immediate
than the rewards of working out
as opposed to the hard drugs yeah if uh
you mentioned this quote on one of your
uh live streams i think if you save one
life you save the world yeah
that's such a cool line i think i
remember reading about paul farmer i
think his name is he's a doctor that
really
i mean um doctors in general they kind
of don't care about
like what they're doing as a broad
policy across
hundreds of thousands of millions of
people they just care about the human in
front of them which is so interesting
they don't care it's gonna cost like in
this case to save one child it will cost
him hundreds of thousands of dollars
they don't care about that they can't
they know very well
that what their actions cannot be scaled
but they can't help but help the child
in front of them and it's so interesting
that's such an interesting way to live
and that's the way i kind of think when
i try to do something positive
is
will this help one person
and i just kind of imagine a specific
person depending on the thing
that that would help with like what i'm
trying to create something whether it's
a piece of hardware or or a video or
anything like that or educational
material lecture that kind of stuff
i don't know what what do you think
about this quote like what is it
profound or just just poetic i think
it's more profound than it sounds at
first uh the example i think of is
michelle bachman she was a former
congresswoman from minnesota she clearly
had crazy eyes something weird is going
on with the husband
but she adopted like like 20 kids terry
schappert's another friend of mine he's
like a either navy seal or marines i
whatever is terry i apologize i'm not
trying to be funny and he adopts like
elder dogs so
going back to bachmann it's like yeah
you can say she's crazy you can make fun
of her politics all you want and all
that stuff's legitimate
but if you save a kid
give them a home and you save them from
the foster system
um and you put a roof over their heads
and make them feel loved and appreciated
it's really hard for me
to sit here and call you
like a totally bad person
i think that kind of thing is nick
cersei's another one he adopted a kid
and i said you're i think you're a hero
like if you there's some you know
one of the things that's very hard for
me i'm writing as you know i talk about
this endlessly this book the white pill
but writing about when people do hurtful
things to children
it really is hard to watch and it's hard
to because when you're an author you
have to kind of empathize with the
character you have to where's this
character coming from explain their
point of view and that's the one that's
the hardest for me to wrap my head
around like cruelty to children yeah or
or
and yeah sadism to children it's just
like this is a
this is something even animals know not
to do you know what i mean like dogs
right when you see them around kids
they're very
protective like if the kid pokes their
eyes out the dog doesn't do anything
so it's like if you can't even get to
that level uh what kind of person are
you so i think that quote
um
is a profound one and it's an important
one uh it also means
we're not all called upon to be superman
right you only have a very finite
ability to move the needle
but at the same time
if you have actually you know saved the
life
you can go to meet your maker you you
did your part you know you left the
world a little bit better than you found
it and that's all you could ask anybody
also i think from a policy perspective
it seems we just do better when we focus
on doing a small thing
helping uh helping one person because it
feels like when you start talking about
communism and all those kinds of things
when you start to believe you could do
good by a lot of people that's where
your mind somehow
stops being able to do good by a lot of
people that's when you start to think
about utopias and somehow utopia's ghost
feeds power into the brain to where it
deludes you completely and then you
start
it's okay to crack a few eggs to make an
omelet kind of reasoning and you run
into trouble it seems like it's much
better
even when you have the power and the
money and so on to achieve scale to
focus on one and then
or locally yeah locally yeah right
because then suppose you have the
feedback exactly right so if you have
some kind of program you know in austin
or brooklyn or something like that and
you're you can you can watch oh this is
working this isn't working then you
could port it out to other places but
top-down helping is you know
at the very least it's going to be
inefficient and also i think it's a lot
more useful when you're helping people
when it's a one-on-one
relationship because then it's less i
don't know embarrassing but certainly
less something to receive help and you
also feel if it's one thing if you get a
check from the government you know food
stamps it's nothing if someone's like
hey i'm gonna buy you groceries until
you get back on your feet you have this
kind of motivation i think for most
people to be like you know what this
person believed in me i'm gonna
make it worth their while that they
believed in me yes i didn't believe in
me
yeah i had when i was giving lectures at
mit there was one uh was scarce shitless
and uh i mean everybody you know how
students are and all that kind of stuff
they're kind of bored yeah and they
don't they don't understand that you're
human too they're yeah
or this is it could be just me but they
don't understand you're trying to pass
this human i know uh but there's one one
uh gentleman in the audience and he went
to all the lectures uh all the gentlemen
he was a faculty at mit and he just
without very kind of nonchalant just
said uh after the lectures he would kind
of nod at me and say he did great
and uh before like one time he said in a
non-creepy way i know this is gonna come
off as creepy he said uh
you look great today
like he said that you know um i don't in
the way so he's like 60 70 or whatever
like
he
in this i don't know it's in a wise sage
way because i was wearing a suit and tie
like i look like you know when you dress
up like a young kid
yeah
yeah so he was just like all right
yeah you were uh you're all dressed up
you look great yeah you got this i don't
know that has a lasting impact that kind
of pat on the back but i agree with you
um
cruelty towards other adults
is somehow understandable
because it's uh a world full of conflict
but cruelty towards children
doesn't
it doesn't quite
i can't i can't understand it
i can't understand how you could
act in a way that directly causes
suffering to a child in front of you
yeah that is like the the i don't think
i've ever talked to you this might be a
good time to ask you about this
what do you make what lessons do you
draw about human civilization from
jeffrey epstein
from just laying out
everybody thinks about different things
when you talk to eric weinstein he
thinks about
intelligence and like who like jeffrey
epstein is a front for something else
that's what he he thinks about
i think about the weakness of grown
men in the face of uh charismatic evil
which is like for me directly as mit i
didn't know i actually was i guess i was
at my team when jeff epstein was just at
the very end he must have been there
um
i didn't know any of this but it really
bothers me that nobody was able to see
through this man because he's obviously
what is also obvious to me is that he
was very charismatic like
i mean i i tried to think about
human nature from this perspective is um
directly like we said help one life
would i know
a jeffrey epstein if he was in my life
would i would i know evil when i saw
evil even if it's sitting across from
you
even
i mean you
so
exactly the evil left thank you the the
thing
[Laughter]
well it's a necronomicon well the thing
i and
i'm sure we'll talk about it maybe not
it doesn't really matter we we see
things you and i michael very
differently about a lot of things
politically and so on the reason i like
you a lot the reason i like
uh the people i do in my life is there's
a
there's a warmth there's a kindness
there's a humanity underneath it all i
don't really care what you believe i
don't care like
i don't care what your twitter says you
you know it's easy to mistake your
twitter to indicate that there's not a
deeply human
love for humanity in there and that's
why i'm detecting that
i think i would be able to detect
jeffrey epstein protect i'm just
imagining the t-1000
detected
yes
uh i imagine i hope i would be able to
not uh detect that
epstein uh lacks that completely even if
he's charismatic and the in the humor he
has
even if he is uh charismatic in the
expression of curiosity for science
which he did he was curious about like
uh
not just like boring
uh minutiae of science he was interested
about the big questions in science which
i could see that become exciting to
scientists like oh wow here's a person
who's thinking big that's always
exciting to when somebody goes into a
room
and thinks about like how do we solve
intelligence how do we travel faster
than the speed of light that's exciting
to people especially people with money
because it's like all right so we might
be able to actually do big things here
uh but you could see through the
bullshit the the dead the deadness in
the eyes i don't know uh so i think
about that because i feel like i have
the responsibility for me as an
individual to detect evil
so
i do you know who michael alleg is
okay this is going to be a whole long
this is going to be on next clips but
this is a whole long story so there was
a scene in new york in the 90s called
the club kids
and they would go out to different
nightclubs at night they would all dress
in really kind of crazy
um costumes
and but the costumes were all like like
goofy and like just thinking like an
angel this was dressed like a nurse it
was there's a juvenile aspect to it
they're all taking you know ketamine and
ecstasy to all hours this is kind of
rape culture was coming up in there and
the head of it and in fact there's um
a clip on youtube i think it was the
jane whitney show of the club kids and
gigi allen gigi allen is a
you know kind of punk rock performer
hard rock performer who
passed away and the audience and gigi
allen was very
uh aggressive and like a crazy person my
friend once saw him
in a concert and he
took a dump on stage
smeared it all over his face grabbed the
girl from the audience and gave her a
big kiss and as she walked by him she
just went like this like excuse me like
went to the bathroom so the audience is
screaming at gg allen because he's very
visibly over the top whereas you got a
bunch of these kids dressed in these
silly costumes you guys just having fun
well the head of the club kids michael
alleg ended up killing someone
there was a kid called angel menendez
who hung around with them he would
always have angel wings and boots uh one
time they're at michael's condo
with um another with a drug dealer named
freeze they got into a fight some angel
got hit in the head with a hammer they
kill him
what are we gonna do with the body uh
they put it on ice in the bathtub they
had a party so everyone's going the
bathroom while angel's body's there
michael got they're like all right we
got to take care of this michael got
extremely high in heroin
had like uh sil cutlery from macy's saw
the body in pieces put in a box
they took him in the cab the cab driver
helped them throw the body into the
river and then michael starts walking
around manhattan wearing angel's boots
and would tell people i killed angel now
because he was a super effeminate
over the top like he would pee in
people's beer kind of guy everyone's
like oh god michael like like you and
your stupid pranks
uh but it was true
and he got caught um and he got sent to
jail
so i was in a store in manhattan in soho
and it was one of those stores we have
like all sorts of things for sale
and i saw a painting and it said malice
and i'm like wait what and it was m aleg
it was a michael alec painting he had
painted while in jail so my mom bought
it for me for my birthday i remember a
birthday that was and i started writing
him in prison he was going to write a
memoir called eligula which is clever
and then i actually went to visit him
like i want to see what this person is
like because on the on one hand he's
king of new york nightlife this goofy
person and it's also kind of ironic that
gigi allen is like maybe he's gross he's
not killing anybody he's probably an
accountant off the stage and michael
actually killed someone and then bragged
about it tongue-in-cheek
so
but meeting him
he passed away last december um on
christmas actually this uh christmas uh
uh 20.
um he was clearly a sociopath
and i'd never met a sociopath before now
a lot of times we'll read these like
you'll take a buzzfeed quiz like are you
a sociopath but it's like oh
my feelings weren't hurt when i was mean
to someone
it's not a thin line
between like
me and you and him it's a thick thick
line because when you're talking to
someone like that at least in this
specific case he was being very friendly
he wasn't and it's not like he was going
to kill anyone or is a threat to me
but
there's that sense like something's
really off here and he was talking to me
about how after he had
killed angel
he would just talk about it because
he felt so much guilt he just wanted to
get caught it's like no no you what he
was describing wasn't guilt he was
describing just he didn't like the um
the knife over his head
like waiting to get caught i'm like you
don't even know what guilt is so it was
kind of like oh wow
so
as for jeffrey but the thing is michael
aleg is it was in a very low social
position
and the thing is when someone is
powerful
very high status
and they do something
we are as kind of hierarchical animals
we kind of defer to their
norms yeah so if you're at a party
with let's suppose uh or either of us
and it's like a jeffrey epstein party
and everyone at the party is doing some
sort of weird drug we've never heard of
we wouldn't really feel comfortable
judging them because like their norms
kind of become the norm for that space
um
the lesson for me about jeffrey epstein
uh it's the sev there's a lot of them
because i think this the to me the the
biggest moment was the amy rohrbach
situation amy rohrbach was caught on a
hot mic
saying that they had all the goods on
him they had all the names and that
buckingham palace called them they
killed the story because they weren't
going to get a megan mark interview out
of it so that
the willingness of
those in power to
do the wrong thing for this flimsiest
pretext which i think was a big
important lesson
also the fact that
no one at abc
had any consequences for this in fact
the only person who got in trouble for
all this was someone who used to work at
abc went to i believe cbs and they got
fired from cbs because apparently they
had access to footage at one point even
though they weren't the ones who had
leaked it
um
so whistleblowers are like the only for
example the case in um
uh uh eric garner the guy who was
selling lucy cigarettes in new york city
uh who was arrested he had a heart
attack or whatever it was on the way to
jail he died the only person so the cops
had a situation there the only person
who got in trouble because of that was
the guy filming it like he went to jail
so i think there is if there's a lesson
in terms of
we look at julian assange right there's
a huge
amount of power exercised by elites to
make sure that what is done on the cover
of darkness remains in the cover of
darkness and also kevin mccarthy who was
currently the house minority leader
leader of the republicans he wrote a
letter to abc news like you had this guy
maybe you couldn't call in the
authorities but you could have leaked it
to somebody why hasn't anything come
forward nothing happened as a result of
this we also have to keep in mind that
the longest serving republican speaker
of the house in history dennis hastert
went to jail because of things related
to pedophilia and things like that so
as russians and this is something i
think you and i have mentioned before
uh americans are very naive often
decreasingly so about the nature of evil
they think an evil person is someone
who's like getting kickbacks
um or you know like the cuomo's are
colluding something like that i would
hardly even call that evil um
no no this is
the sort of things that are so depraved
that you would never think about it in a
million years in your own home you don't
think in these terms and and i think
they get off
on doing things that if the average
person heard about it the average person
would be shocked because that gives them
this sense of weird above them we're
different from them
the rules don't apply to us there's a
lot to say here so one is the norm thing
you said at a party it's really
interesting
for an nrcas to say that
well no it's this no well i know i know
so i'm not sorry this that came off as
criticism i meant it as harsh criticism
[Laughter]
no i i think about that a lot like um
as uh the you know i found myself in
situations where i'm invited
uh to
these kinds of parties where people have
nice things
and i find it deeply uncomfortable for
that reason
i i don't want to be sort of an activist
that goes in and ruins a party that's
that's a i think that's uh
that's not the courageous act
neither is it courageous when everyone's
doing some weird drug that you mentioned
to join in i think
courageous is more
being remaining yourself sticking to
your principles calmly in that room
where everybody is doing the drug and
just don't do the drug yeah sure don't
make a scene about it but also don't
don't do it and i think
that little act of courage over time is
the way you resist jeffrey epstein that
exactly the thing you said
is is probably the situation where
charisma works so one charismatic person
gets the little crowd going and the
crowd is everybody sort of uh
establishes a norm at the little crowd
and yes there could be some dynamics
that allow that norm to be established
like you said like rich and powerful
people might
enjoy
being rich and powerful and better than
everybody else kind of
kind of thing but
like i
especially for scientists i i thought
they should have integrity and courage
enough to
to see through that not again as an
activist like so you can tweet about it
how courageous you are but just
literally see there's something off here
there's something off here and i'm not
going to participate i'm going to defend
these scientists because
something off first of all you're always
defending academia it's disgusting it's
my favorite thing i think that first of
all this is going to sound like a joke
and it's not i bet you
of those mit scientists are on the
spectrum
so everyone they're going to meet is
going to be a little off right so i'm
sure part of their brains like okay this
person is weird this is just them being
on the spectrum like the lights but
spectrum i couldn't even finish the joke
okay guys
number two is
off
we
we tend to
there's this poem i forget who wrote it
it was like nick cave or something and
it was describing um like
i think it was gerbils hair normal
height normal weight normal what do you
expect horns right so
when you meet someone you think
something's off
there's going to be a bell curve of what
that could be right it could be that
they're twitchy
or maybe they're completely asocial and
then you have jeffrey epstein over here
you're going to need a lot of evidence
to be like oh i feel something off there
for this guy's the head of an
international you know sex trafficking
ring so
yeah you might be like okay but at the
same time if their extended relationship
is this guy is interested in my work
he's going to fund my work and i don't
have to give him anything in return he's
clearly intelligent he's appreciating it
and being a scientist is a thankless job
uh i i know what it's like as an author
when i was writing dear reader the north
korea book my friends are sick of
hearing all these north korean anecdotes
because at a certain point it's like
okay we get it just saved for the book
and you know you've got to be in that
lab you're looking at the springtails
whatever it is you're looking at no one
knows what a springtail is i just
disagree with you so the that'd be
interesting to draw the distinction
between science and writing because the
scientific process itself is fun as fuck
it's you're solving little puzzles sure
so like in itself
it's fun so like it's rewarding like the
reason you go into
uh science is you can continue really
without a boss to continue having fun
and solving puzzles that's that's
literally so like
uh unless you become cynical and tired
of the whole thing so the the people the
administration or when you're running a
large lab and you what you get sick of
is the emails and the meetings and all
that kind of stuff the actual act of
being in the lab is still fun as fuck
if you allow it to be writing i feel
like
is there's more priority to publishing
like would you enjoy it the tree falling
in the forest would you still enjoy
any of the books you've written if they
never got published
not to the same extent not even close
right right i think that the thing about
science
it's almost like you get a peek into the
mysterious yeah but this is okay let me
this is where i'm coming from
since moving to austin i've bought 150
over 150 plants look are you doing the
the politician thing
let me let me be clear
all right
it's not
oh you you are running in 2024 this is
very interesting
i bought 150 succulents from my house
they're they're thriving here in austin
as they wouldn't have in brooklyn you
have a great video about it people yeah
one of those plants i have is the photo
i took on my instagram there's no other
photos on the internet none of my
friends care
or they care like ostensibly but like
that's cool like i have a better plant
collection in my house than like almost
any botanical succulent collection than
any would santa garden in america other
than probably the huntington and no one
cares this is what ego looks like by the
way
i i can prove it to you no i know but
you don't have to rub it in well they
have a big budget i don't so if i can
put it together they should be able to
right so i can only imagine that a
scientist who studied
you know
those spiders that look like ants
like at a certain like
oh and this species does this with the
gender dimorphism their friends are only
going to care so much so if you meet
someone who has a lot of money who now
cares about aunt spiders it's going to
be exciting it will be very exciting but
i i just wanted to push back on the
i think the act itself should be the
biggest reward i think you're always
safe we're talking about goodness being
a safe default i think it's a good
default
for for plants and for writing it for
science
is to just enjoying the act even if
nobody cares okay this is where this
okay now i'm even now i'm wondering why
i'm pushing back so hard and i realized
what it was
because
i've made this point several times and
i'm glad i can make it again
there's this window of time that
happened in my life and i know it
happens to a lot of people
when you're in you're like 24 to 27 28
right so 21 to 24 like you still have
your friends from college so on and so
forth right but then it's kind of like a
poker game and you know every so often
people cash out they're like i'm out i'm
out they get married they get a job they
move
and if you are someone who is a young
ambitious creative
that window is a very rough one because
you're doing the right thing right and
you're not being you know drug addict
you're not being a philanderer not that
those things are wrong but just like
you're playing by the rules you're
creating your stuff what you want to be
known for
contribution you want to make for the
world and no one cares and it gets very
lonely
and there's this
very emotional disconnect about how is
it that
i'm creating and i'm working hard and
i'm making something happen and it's
just radio silence so that
i don't think it's that easy when you're
you're the scientist not me
when you don't have any kind of external
validation humans only have so much
fuel
nothing worth having is easy michael by
the way yesterday talked on the phone
with a person he said he was deeply
moved the first time you mentioned
this uh age group of 24 to 27 he's like
he he's 26 he said
and uh he feels the full responsibility
of that and the excitement so he left
his like um corporate typey job to
pursue something that he's really
passionate about and that that that was
like you were an inspiration to him
which i i was deeply saddened by that i
also inspired michael alex
the
the the amount of mass murder um those
that were inspired by you will
eventually uh lead to is is uh truly
horrifying
what were we talking about so jeffrey
absolutely oh one thing i wanted to ask
you so
let's put scientists aside what about
like
uh world leaders uh bill clinton
your favorite person
why would he fly with jeffrey epstein
why would he
interact with that guy
i mean
don't you think that
that's kind of the deal
that i'm the president
and i get big and powerful people flying
around their jets and that's the
symbiotic relationship
yeah but don't you also have a good bs
detector like the
don't you have a good detector for
people who just want to be in your
presence
like i already
understand that there's people like this
out there like there's people that kind
of
want to use me for stuff
and
you mean tim dylan tim dillon
um
uh i love that guy you guys met we
haven't met yet here we have met oh yeah
wow we met before in new york but we had
not since i've moved here yeah so
you should be able to detect that though
there's those people and there's the
people that have kindness in their heart
even if they can benefit from the
interaction with you but they have like
they're good human beings i feel like
you want to
you run into a lot of trouble if you
surround yourself or have any people
that are manipulative but i think you
like that bad example because like let's
look at clinton and let's look at obama
right
so obama even though their politics are
very close i'd say in many ways obama is
apparent we don't know i don't know
either of them but to me it seems very
apparent that he's very similar behind
closed doors as he did from the camera
yeah he's he's barack to me oh yeah yeah
he's good yeah
clinton seems very clearly
to be much more of a performer he's in
front of the cameras he puts on a roll
but behind the cameras he very much has
a temper he's known for that he's much
more of a letch
um
perfect
oh lech with an e l e t c h yeah oh cool
yeah letch is that like uh that's a cool
term so i can use that in the internet
like you're a ledge yeah you could use
an internet you're a dirty watch well
it's a dirty's implied um oh so it's
okay yeah so being redundant yeah um but
it just feels like it needs an adjective
to give it more power anyway i'm sorry
so uh clinton is a letch right so
you can see how
there's people who want to meet you know
the surface bill clinton and i'm sure
that guts old for him because he has to
be on
but then there's the good old boys where
he could be a pervert and this guy's
like yeah i know what it's like and then
he feels like he's himself but i'm also
we're all speculating i mean i don't
know what bill clinton is like what was
in it for him he certainly had could
afford private jets if he wanted to uh
there's no shortage of people who want
to fly around the world to give speeches
you know at you know can he satisfy the
lech within
uh in without hanging out with the
jeffrey epstein's of the world like
can't he get i mean this is the monica
lewinsky question to me i'm i'm confused
by all of this can't he get
uh women in a legitimate way of like
not not using his power not hanging out
with these
shady
rich people but just like
having a
normal mistress like jfk had well jake
had a lot i know i understand that but
in the normal way or i don't i don't
know enough about you i i i don't
understand
the clinton psychology
first of all the fact that you're
hooking up with someone who's close to
your daughter's age to me i think was is
inherently disturbing but she's an adult
so okay that's not that that
you know beyond the pale
but
also the idea that oh if i don't
physically fornicate with you it's not
cheating
like that whatever you tell yourself or
like if i don't ejaculate it's not
cheating like
these rules then maybe it leads to some
kind of slippery slope like you start
not having the rules of
who you fool i mean if you told your
wife like listen
it wasn't cheating she only you know
performed on me
you're going to say this with a straight
face like do you at a certain point when
something is so brazen you wonder if the
person even has to believe it because
who are you fooling
but like we started this this
conversation with them there is a line
between
young women older than 18 and
young teen like 12 13 kids have you
ever when's the last oh because you're
it's different for you because you're at
mit i was hanging out with uh uh blair
white uh and she had a couple of fans
with her of hers and they were like 22
23 and they were like children to me
yeah like i'm like
to me as someone who is in his late 60s
to look at these people
as adults like
they look completely like kids
so
that now of course there's exceptions
like i've interacted with a young 20 20
year olds
that are like
you're way more mature than i'll ever be
like the wisdom that comes out of them
is quite fascinating visually
the the energy and the way they look
they looked so young to me and the the
way they carried themselves it was the
the idea that my
instinct was
let's tuck you in and read you a bedtime
story and not let me like touch you or
something it was just like
like it was just wouldn't enter my head
so
there's but the thing is
is it possible that in order to want to
be the president you have to be a crazy
person
that you have some kind of weird
view on power it could be a power thing
too
yeah like like you can get away with
stuff like if i was clinton's age
nothing about monica lewinsky to me
would be
attractive and also i would just feel
bad for her because i know she's going
to catch feelings
and it's kind of like feeling yeah it's
true
it's just like why would i do this to
this kid for what just because i want to
get some like momentary pleasure
come on
beauty is in the eye of the beholder i'm
sure she looked uh gorgeous to him in
the moment
well let me ask uh we started talking
about beauty uh who are you wearing
[Laughter]
so as a model under you usually have
don't have a shirt on when you're
modeling
so it's nice to see you uh dressed up
today
um
[Laughter]
nice and warm this is because so for
those who don't know if russians don't
celebrate christmas obviously with the
soviet union christmas was illegal no
thanksgiving basically no major
holidays where everyone gets together
this is the one holiday yeah it's not a
call and instead of i remember as a kid
instead of santa claus we have dead
marrows who's the same thing basically
it's like android and iphone is it's
like a cheap version of christmas he's
got this girl with him she's like snow
white or whatever and
russian kids they go to sleep on
december 31st and they wake up january
they have a present under their pillow
um and i remember as a kid this happened
once
and it just blew my mind you know what i
mean it's just like i went to bed my
dad's like oh you know you're going to
have denmark is going to bring you your
present if you've been a good kid i'm
like i think i was a good kid
like but you don't even remember a year
of your life when you're four uh you
remember like you remember those moments
yeah and then i woke up and there was a
present in my pillow and i'm i was it
just blew my mind and
that building is still there 1461 sure
parkway in brooklyn so
um
and it it's just all so funny like uh
what i really like about kids you know
being an uncle now is kid logic
because there have very little bit of
data but they're using logic to make
sense of it and sometimes it gives them
to the completely wrong conclusions for
the completely right reasons
i remember
you know i
my bedroom as a kid was right off the
kitchen and i'd be scared in the dark a
little bit so they'd leave the light on
the kitchen while i went to sleep
and
at the same time my parents had told me
you don't leave the lights on the house
it costs money waste electricity right
so i would be worried because i'm like
oh my god my parents leave the lights on
the kitchen all night
and now it's costing them so much money
not realizing that you know five minutes
after i'm out obviously they're turning
the lights off but like in my kid logic
this was a concern of mine
yeah and memories work that same way i
have a collection of memories that are
stitched together logically somehow but
they they also don't really make sense
there's a there's a few defining things
so i grew up in in russia and
experienced a lot of
new years in russia there's a there's a
a lot of incredible things about that
tradition that just warms my heart
so one as a kid you mentioned these kind
of
stories that's the one night of the year
that kids are allowed to be adults
in the following way like you in in in
kid logic
you're allowed to stay up all night oh
yeah okay that was uh as late as you
want which actually ends up being you're
not used to it
you crash but no you get to
uh you know two three four at night you
stay up and when you get to witness
it's almost like alice in wonderland
goes into this world
you get to witness what is the adult
world really like now obviously it's not
an actual adult world
merriment like like laughing fighting
arguing but also
like in in our case like singing and
uh
like yeah arguing like philosophical
stuff but also like um
if i may
how would i describe it
this is also probably a little bit
russian culture but like flirtation in
all of its forms
meaning like men and women just being
like because they dress up yeah yeah
it's like it's uh it's joy it's like you
get to show off like
dresses whatever you got you show it off
this is fun and then um
men too just
like friends laughing and like arguing
just showing off the best they got with
delicious food obviously that there's a
thanksgiving element there yeah
where there's just so many just you
bring out all the traditional stuff
uh the the avs salad just everything
just
the full thing with the desserts and
obviously the vodka a lot of vodka and
at the time so this is the soviet union
like the biggest stuff and this is so
sad that these are the things i remember
is like
uh coca-cola oh yeah like american like
that
uh i'll probably kill somebody for dr
pepper
it's so fascinating that um
you take it for granted sort of the
results of capitalist
society with the material things that
are created
but that was the ultimate
happiness is to experience this new
thing sugar
i don't know um you know there's like
there's scarcity there's like communist
czech republic
so basically they try to rip off coke
yeah and it's just like
it's like they just threw whatever they
could together
and it was a very poor knockoff as you
can imagine i forget what it's called
and all the czech people right now are
getting very angry at me because i can't
think of it but they have it now
and the slogan is good or weird
so it's like this so they kind of
reclaimed this kind of hipster soda yeah
oh that's awesome it's almost like a
parody right yeah but i think the
thing i really remember is the
camaraderie
like the
love for each other
and neighbors too
like um
like you and i are neighbors now we
don't see each other that often
i hope that changes but a lot of it is
also me i'm just a deep introvert
you're also the hardest working person i
know yeah so it's time but you know
like it's not like i'll go in the middle
of the night at like 4 a.m and go to
7-eleven just sit there
sipping a slurpee for an hour thinking
about life so it's not like i'm
always working
yeah i don't know what i mean is like
you get to meet your neighbors and you
get to experience their
uh their highs and their lows and you
get to bitch about life about government
about corruption about the unfairness of
life together
well it's also i think what people don't
appreciate as americans is it's very
rare and russia to have a safe space
yeah so you know that
that january 1st no one's going to
snitch on you you know they're not going
to be informants probably so you can
vent and and you know that's the thing
with people in totalitarian countries
you have to have the public facing
persona and then behind closed doors is
very different it all comes out and i
also remember the arguments and i've
i've been uh going on um
clubhouse recently into russian rooms
well just to practice russian
and uh they it's so beautiful to watch i
mean clubhouse is a very specific
collection of russian people maybe it's
a little bit political
but and they're a little bit older
and it's interesting to watch how much
they love to argue
yeah and so like it will be literally
um
it's you could think of it as a
nonlinear dynamical system okay from an
engineering perspective
it
whenever any positive topic comes up
it's you could you could feel the
skepticism and then wait a minute this
is not good and they'll start like uh
perturbing it
until you're like
uh they'll find some way to say like
come on now that is the dumbest thing
i've ever heard and then it goes back
into argument it's so fun to watch
because
uh in one sense you could see it as
negative
in another you could see it as free to
express yourself because
it feels like you can solve a lot of
problems by allowing yourself to just uh
be emotional and
both both emotional and say hard truth
and all those kinds of things without
like um
without patting yourself on the back
about it uh but also
it just sort of those russian rooms
make me realize how constrained american
speech is
how careful people are in the way they
express it even the michael mouses in
the world you're you're constantly being
like nuanced
there they just say crazy shit oh yeah
and then they correct themselves and
make fun of themselves and they
completely shift opinions a minute later
and it's it's chaos yeah and is i mean
it's it's beautiful so i i love that
that culture is it's funny given
the current regime in russia like how
that's coupled with
how people are talking and
um yeah i don't know and i have those
memories of childhood of of friends that
i had of just having that true freedom
of
talking and somehow that leads to uh
deep bonds together
when the life when you're poor when life
is
has a lot of elements that are unfair
when the government is corrupt there's
sort of it's just um especially in the
soviet union there's uncertainty about
the future all of it you just get closer
together like penguins huddling together
in the cold like that much of the
penguins movie
that i don't know uh the the friends
i've gotten there
like
i get
emotional every time i kind of
think about those friends because it was
so close that friendship was so fucking
but i just really hate the the russian
cynicism i know you do and i actually
disagree with you about it
you see it as cynicism
i see it as um
waves on top of the water like surface
cynicism and the depths as i see the
beauty of the russian soul so we like
yes that cynicism can negatively affect
a lot of people like you i think you've
talked about like as a parent like
being cynical about the world and then
you have
dire negative consequences on your
children they become cynical they don't
ever take big risks to take on both
things and i have those arguments
um because the cynicism is exhausting
it's destructive yes and anti
creative but so in in their perspective
is this is what the russian folks would
say well yes that's our role like
being cynical is being reasonable about
the world it's not it's completely
unreasonable it's a complete lie i know
but their argument is yes but
we're we're giving you this force and
it's your job to resist against it
so it's a test i love the idea that if
you're going to be creative and
innovative you don't have enough up
against you yeah exactly this is exactly
oh i don't know it's not hard enough
already that i want to be an author now
you got to be like well what let me just
put some fire an