Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is the conversation with
Jamie Metzel author specializing in
topics of genetic engineering
biotechnology and geopolitics
in the past two years he has been
outspoken about the need to investigate
and keep an open mind about the origins
of covid-19 in particular he has been
keeping an extensive up-to-date
collection of circumstantial evidence in
support of what is colloquially known as
lab leak hypothesis that covid-19 leaked
in 2019 from the Wuhan Institute of
virology
in part I wanted to explore the idea in
response to the thoughtful criticism to
parts of the Francis Collins episode
I'll have more and more difficult
conversations like this with people from
all walks of life and with all kinds of
ideas I promise to do my best to keep an
open mind and yet to ask hard questions
while together searching for the
beautiful and the inspiring in the mind
of the other person
it's a hard line to walk gracefully
especially for someone like me who's a
bit of an awkward introvert with barely
the grasp of the English language
or any language except maybe Python and
C plus plus but I hope you stick around
be patient and empathetic and maybe
learn something new together with me
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in the description and now here's my
conversation with Jamie Metzel
what is the probability in your mind
that covid-19 leaked from a lab in your
write-up I believe you said 85 percent I
know it's just a percentage we can't
really be exact with these kinds of
things but it gives us a sense where
your mind is where your intuition is so
as it stands today what would you say is
that probability I would stand by what
I've been saying since really the middle
of last year it's more likely and not in
my opinion that the pandemic stems from
an accidental lab incident in Wuhan is
it 90 is it 65 percent I mean that's
kind of arbitrary but when I stack up
all of the available evidence and all of
it on both sides is circumstantial it
weighs very significantly toward a lab
incident origin so before we dive into
the specifics at a high level what uh
types of evidence what intuition what
ideas are leading you to uh to have that
kind of estimate is it possible to kind
of condense when you when you look at
the wall of evidence before you
where's your Source the the strongest
source of your intuition yeah and I
would have to say it's just logic and
deductive reasoning so before I make the
case for why I think it's most likely a
lab incident origin let's just say why
it could be and still could be what we
natural origin all of this is a natural
origin in the sense that it's a bat
virus backbone horseshoe bat virus
backbone okay I'm Gonna Keep pausing you
yeah to find stuff so maybe it's useful
to say what do we mean by lab leak what
do we mean by natural origin what do we
mean by virus backbone okay great
questions
um so viruses come from somewhere
viruses have been around for 3.5 billion
years and we they've been around for
such a long time because they are
adaptive and they're growing and they're
always changing and they're morphing and
that's why viruses are I mean they've
been very successful and we are are
victims sometimes we're beneficiaries we
have viral DNA has morphed into our our
genomes but now certainly in the case of
covid-19 we are victims of the success
of viruses and so when we talk about a
backbone so the SARS cov2 virus
um has a it has a history and these
viruses don't come out of whole cloth
there are viruses that that morph and so
we know that at some period maybe 20
years ago or whatever
um the the the virus that is SARS cov2
existed in horseshoe bats it was a
horseshoe bat virus and it evolved
somewhere and there are some people who
say there's no evidence of this but it's
a plausible Theory based on how things
have happened in the past maybe that
virus jumped from the horseshoe bat
through some intermediate species so
it's like let's say there's a bat and
then it infects some other animal let's
say it's a pig or a raccoon dog or a
civet cat they're all Pangolin they're
all sorts of animals that have been
considered and then that virus adapts
into that new host and it changes and
grows and then according to the
quote-unquote Natural Origins hypothesis
it jumps from that animal into humans
and so what you could imagine and some
of the people who are making the case
all of the people actually who are
making the case for a natural origin of
the virus what they're saying is it went
from bat to some intermediate species
and then from that intermediate species
most likely there's some people who say
it went directly Back To Human but
through some intermediate species and
then humans interacted with that species
and then it jumped from that whatever it
is to to humans and that's a very
plausible Theory it's just that there's
no evidence for it and the nature of the
interaction is do most people kind of
suggest that the like What markets so
the interaction with the humans the
animal is in the form of it's either a
live animal that's being sold to be
eaten or uh recently live animal but
newly dead animal being sold that's
certainly one very possible possibility
a possible possibility I don't know if
that's a word but the people who believe
in the wet Market origin that's what
they're saying so they had one of these
animals they were cutting it up let's
say in a market and maybe some of the
blood got into somebody maybe had a cut
on their hand or maybe it was
aerosolized and so somebody breathed it
and then that virus found this new host
and that was the the human host but you
could also have that happen in let's say
a farm so it's happened in the past that
let's say that there are farms and
because of human encroachment into Wild
Spaces we're pushing our our farms and
our Animal Farms further and further
into what used to be the the just
natural habitats and so it's happened in
the past for example that there were
bats roosting over pig pens and the bat
droppings went into the pig pens the
viruses in those droppings infected the
pigs and then the pigs infected the the
humans and and that's why it's a
plausible Theory it's just that there's
basically no evidence for it if it was
the case that SARS cov2 comes from this
type of interaction
um as in most of the at least recent
past outbreaks we'd see evidence of that
viruses are messy they're constantly
undergoing darwinian Evolution and
they're changing and it's not that
they're just ready for Prime Time ready
to infect humans on day one normally you
can trace the viral Evolution prior to
the time when it infects humans but for
SARS cov2 it just showed up on the scene
ready to infect humans and there's no
history that anybody has found so far of
that kind of a viral Evolution with the
first SARS you could track it by the The
genome sequencing that it was
experimenting and uh SARS cov2 was very
very stable and meaning it had already
adapted to humans by the time it
interacted with us fully adapted so with
SARS
there's a rapid Evolution when it like
first kind of hooks onto a human yeah
because it's trying like a virus its
goal is to survive and replicate yeah no
it's true it's like oh we're going to
try this oh that didn't work we'll try
exactly like it like like a startup and
so we don't we don't see that and so
there are some people who say why well
one hypothesis is are you have a totally
isolated group of humans maybe in in
southern China which is more than a
thousand miles away from uh from Wuhan
and maybe they're doing their animal
farming
um right next to these uh where these
areas where there are these horseshoe
bats and maybe in this totally isolated
place that no one's ever heard of
they're not connected to any other place
one person gets infected and it doesn't
spread to anybody else because they're
so isolated they're like I don't know I
mean I can't even imagine that this is
is the case then somebody gets in a car
and drives all night more than A
Thousand Miles through crappy roads to
get to Wuhan doesn't stop for anything
doesn't infect anybody on the way no one
else in that person's village infects
anyone and then that person goes
straight to the the juanan seafood
market according to this in my mind not
very credible Theory and then unloads
his stuff and everybody gets infected
and they're only delivering those
animals to the Wuhan Market which
doesn't even sell very many of these
kinds of animals that are likely
intermediate species and not anywhere
else so that's it's a little bit of a
straw man
um but on top of that the Chinese have
sequenced more than 80 000 animal
samples and there's no evidence of this
type of a viral Evolution that we would
otherwise expect Let's uh
try to at this moment steal man the
argument for the natural origin of the
virus so just uh to clarify
so Wuhan is actually despite what it
might sound like to people is a pretty
big city there's a lot of people that
live in it 11 million so not only is
there the Wuhan Institute of virology
there's other centers that do work on
viruses yes but there's also a giant
number of markets and everything we're
talking about here is pretty close
together so when I kind of look at the
geography of this
I think when you zoom out it's all Wuhan
but when you zoom in there's just a lot
of interesting dynamics that could be
happening and where the cases are
popping up and what's being reported all
that kind of stuff
so I think the people that
argue for the natural origin and there's
a few recent papers that come out
arguing this
it's kind of fascinating to watch this
whole thing but I think what they're
arguing is that there's this Hunan
Market that's one of the major markets
uh the wet markets in Wuhan
that uh there's a bunch of cases that
were reported from there
so if I look at for example the Michael
Warby perspective the hero in science he
argues he wrote this a few days ago the
the predominance of early covet cases
linked to Hunan market and this can't be
dismissed as ascertainment bias which I
think is what people argue that you're
just kind of focusing on this region
because a lot of cases came but there
could be a huge number of other cases
so people who argue against this say
that this is a later stage already right
um
so he says no he says this is this is
the epicenter
and uh this is a clear
uh evidence that uh circumstantial
evidence but evidence nevertheless that
this is where the jump happened to
humans the big explosion maybe not k0 I
don't know if he argues that but with
the early cases so what do you make of
this whole idea Can you steal man it
yeah before yeah and my goal here isn't
to attack people on on the other side
and and if my feeling is if there is
evidence that's presented
um that that should change my view I I
hope that I'll be open-minded enough to
change my view and certainly Michael
Warby is a thoughtful person a
respectful a respected scientist and and
I think this work is is contributive
work but I just don't think
um uh that it it it that it's as
significant as has been reported in in
the press and so what his argument is is
that there is an early cluster in
December of 2019 around the the Juan on
seafood market and even though he
himself argues that the original break
through case the original case the index
case where the first person infected
happened earlier happened in October or
November so not in December his argument
is well what are the odds that you would
have this number this cluster of cases
in the huanan seafood market and if the
origin happened someplace else wouldn't
you expect other other clusters and it's
not an entirely implausible argument but
there are reasons why I think it's uh
that it's this is not nearly as
determinative as has been reported and I
certainly had a lot of I and others had
tweeted a lot about this and that is
first uh the the people who were
infected in this cluster it's not the
earliest known uh virus of the SARS cov2
it began mutating so this is it's not
the original SARS cov2 there so you it
had to have happened someplace else too
the people who were infected in the
market
um weren't infected in the part of the
market where they had these kinds of
animals that are considered to be
candidates
um for as an intermari intermediary
species and third there was a bias
actually I'll have four things uh third
there was a bias in the early assessment
in China of what what they were looking
for they were asked did you have
exposure to the market because I think
in the early days when people were
figuring things out that was one of the
questions that uh that was asked and
fourth and probably most significantly
we have so little information about
those early cases in China and that's
really unfortunate and we'll talk about
this later because the Chinese
government is preventing access to all
of that information which they have
which could easily help us get to the
bottom at least know a ton more about
how this pandemic started and so this is
it it's like grasping at straws
in the dark with gloves on that's right
but to steal man the argument we have
this evidence from this market and yes
the Chinese government has turned off
the lights essentially so we have very
little data to work with but this is the
data we have
so who's to say that this data doesn't
represent a much bigger data set that a
lot of people got infected at this
Market where it even at the parts or
especially at the parts with the the
meat the infected meat was being sold so
that could be true and it probably is
true the question is is this the source
is this the place where this began or
was did this just a place where it was
Amplified and I certainly think that
it's it's extremely likely that the Juan
on seafood market was an at point of
amplification and that's it's just
answering a different question basically
what you're saying is it's very
difficult to use the market as evidence
for anything
because
it's probably not even the starting
point so it's just a good place for it
to continue spreading that's certainly
my view what Michael warby's argument is
um is that well what are the odds of
that that we're seeing this
amplification at this particular in the
market and if we if let's let me put
this way if we had all of the
information if if the Chinese government
hadn't blocked access to all of this
because there's blood bank information
there's all sorts of information uh and
based on a full and complete
understanding we came to believe that
all of the early cases
um were at this Market I think that
would be a stronger argument than what
this is so far but everything leads to
the fact that why is it that the Chinese
government which was frankly after a
slow start the gold standard of doing
viral tracking for SARS one why have
they apparently done so little and
shared so little I think it asks it it
begs a lot of questions
okay so let's uh then talk about the
Chinese government uh let's there's
several governments right so one is the
local government of Wuhan
and not just the Chinese government
let's talk about government
uh no let's talk about human nature
it just keeps zooming out yeah let's
talk about planet Earth yeah no uh so
there's the Wuhan local government
there's the Chinese government uh led by
Xi Jinping
and uh there's governments in general
I'm trying to empathize so my father was
involved with Chernobyl I'm trying to
put myself into the mind of local
officials of people who are like oh shit
there is
there's a potential catastrophic event
happening here and uh it's my ass
because I we there's incompetence all
over the place the human nature is such
that there's incompetence all over the
place and you're always trying to cover
it up and so so given that context
I want to lay out all the possible
incompetence all the possible
malevolence all the possible
geopolitical tensions here
all right where in your sense did the
cover-up start so uh there's this
suspicious
uh fact it seems like that the Wuhan
Institute of virology
at a public database of thousands of uh
sampled bad coronavirus sequences
and that went offline in September 2019.
what was that about
so let me talk about that specific and
then I'll also follow your path zooming
out and it's really important is that a
good start it's a great starting point
yeah yeah so but there's there's a a
bigger story and but let me talk about
about that so the Wuhan Institute of
virology
um and we can go into the whole history
of the Wuhan Institute of virology
either now or later because I think it's
it's very relevant to this story but
let's focus for now on this database
they had a database of 22
000 viral samples and sequence
information about the viruses that they
had had collected some of which the
collection of some of which was
supported through funding from the NIH
not a huge NIH through the Eco Health
Alliance it's a relatively small amount
600 000 but but not nothing
um the goal of this database
um was so that we could understand viral
Evolution so that exactly for this kind
of moment where we had an unknown virus
we could say well is this like anything
that we've seen before and that would
help us both understand what we're
facing and be better able um to to
respond
so this was a an act a password
protected public access database in 2019
um it was in September 2019
um it became inaccessible and then the
whole a few months later the entire
database uh disappeared the Chinese have
said is that because there were all
kinds of computer attacks on this on
this database but why would that happen
in September 2019 before the the
pandemic at least as far as as we know
so so just to clarify yes it went down
to September 2019 just so we'll get the
year straight January 2020 is when the
virus really started getting
um the Press so we're talking about the
December 2019 a lot of early infections
happened September 2019 is when this
database goes down just to clarify
because you said it quickly the Chinese
government said
that uh their database was getting
hacked right
therefore the director of this part of
the Wuhan Institute of virology said
that oh sh oh she was the one that said
it she was the one who said oh yeah boy
I did not even know that part yeah okay
well she's an interesting character
we'll talk about her yeah uh so
so the excuse is that uh that's getting
cyber attacked a lot so we're gonna take
it down without any further explanation
which seems very suspicious and then
this virus starts to emerge in October
November December there's a lot of
argument about that but after sorry to
interrupt like but some people are
saying that the first outbreak could
have happened as early as September I'm
not I think it's more likely it's
October November but for the people who
are saying that the first outbreak uh
the first incident of a of a known
outbreak at least to somebody happened
in September they make the argument well
what if that also happened in
mid-september of of 2019 I'm not
prepared to go there but there are some
people who make that argument but I
think if again if I were to put myself
in the mind of officials whether it's
officials within the Wuhan Institute of
virology or Wuhan local officials
um I think if I notice some major
problem like somebody got sick
some sign of
uh oh shit was screwed up
that's when you kind of uh do this slow
there's like a Homer Simpson meme where
you slowly start backing out and I would
probably start
um hiding stuff cya yeah yeah and then
coming up with really shady excuses it's
like you're in a relationship and your
girlfriend wants to see your phone and
you're like I'm sorry I'm just getting
attacked by the Russians now that's that
courteous I can't yeah I wish I wish I
could I wish I could it's just I'm
unsafe right now so so would it be okay
if I give you my kind of macro view of
the whole information space and and why
I believe this has been so contentious
it's it's it's so here's here's if I had
to give my best guess and I underlined
the word guess
um of of what happened and and your
background your family background with
Chernobyl I think is highly relevant
here
so after the first SARS there was a
recognition that we needed to distribute
knowledge about virology and
epidemiology around the world that
people in China and Africa in Southeast
Asia they are were the front line
workers and they needed to be doing a
lot of the the viral monitoring and
assessment so that we could have an
early alarm system
um and that was why there was a lot of
investment in in all of those places in
building capacity and training people
and helping to build institutional
capacity and the Chinese government they
recognized that they needed to ramp uh
ramp things up and then the World Health
Organization in the world Health
assembly they had their their
International Health regulations that
were designed to create a stronger
infrastructure so that was that was the
goal there were a lot of Investments and
and I know we'll talk later about the
Wuhan Institute of virology and I won't
go into that into that right now so
there was all of this distributed
capacity
and so in the early days there's a
breakout in Wuhan we don't know is it
September October November uh maybe uh
December is when the the local
authorities start to recognize that
something's happening but at some point
in late 2019 uh local officials in Wuhan
understand that something is up and
exactly like in Chernobyl these guys
exist within a hierarchical system and
they are going to be rewarded if good
things happen and they're going to be in
big trouble if bad things happen under
their watch
so their initial instinct is to squash
it uh it's and they my guess is they
think well if we squash this information
we can most likely beat back this
outbreak because lots of outbreaks
happen all the time including of SARS
one where there was a multiple lab
incidents out of out of the lab in in
Beijing and so they start their cover-up
on day one they they start screening
social media they send nasty letters to
to different doctors and others who are
starting to speak up but then it becomes
clear that there's a bigger issue and
then the the national government of
China again this is just hypothesis
the national government gets involved
they say all right this is getting much
bigger they go in and they realize that
we have a big problem on our hands they
relatively quickly know that it's
spreading human to human and so the
right thing for them to do then is what
the South African government is doing
now is to say we have this outbreak we
don't know everything but we know it's
serious
um we need help but that's not the
Instinct of people in in most
governments and certainly not in
authoritarian governments like China
and so the the national government they
have a choice at that point they can do
option one which is what we would hear
called the right thing which is total
transparency they criticize the local
officials for having this cover up and
they say now we're going to be totally
transparent but what does that do in a
system like the former Soviet Union like
China now if local officials say wait a
second I thought my job was to cover
everything up to support this
alternative reality that authoritarian
systems need in order to to survive well
now I'm going to be held accountable for
if I'm not totally transparent like your
whole system
um would would collapse so the the
national government they have that
choice and they their only choice
according to the logic of their system
is to be all in on a cover-up and that's
why they block the World Health
Organization from sending its team to
Wuhan for over three weeks they overtly
Lie To The World Health Organization
about human to human transmission and
then they begin their cover-ups so they
begin very very quickly destroying
samples hiding records they start
imprisoning people for uh asking basic
questions soon after they establish a
gag order preventing Chinese scientists
from writing or saying anything about
pandemic Origins without prior
government approval and what that does
means that there isn't a lot of data
there's not nearly enough data coming
out of China and so lots of responsible
scientists outside of China who are data
driven say well I don't have enough
information to draw conclusions and then
into that vacuum step a relatively small
number of largely virologists but also
others respected scientists and I know
we'll talk about the I think Infamous
Peter daisak who who say well with
without any real foundation in in the
evidence they say we know pretty much
this comes from nature and anyone who's
raising the possibility of a lab
incident origin is a is a conspiracy
theorist so that message
um starts to to percolate and then in
the United States we have Donald Trump
and he's starting to get criticized for
America's failure to respond prepare for
and respond adequately to the outbreak
and so he starts saying well I know
first after praising Xi Jinping he
starts saying well I know that China did
it and the who did and he's kind of
pointing fingers at everybody uh but uh
but himself and then we have a media
here that had shifted from the from the
traditional model of he said she said
journalism so and so said X and so and
so said why and then we'll present both
of those views
but with Donald Trump he would make
outlandish starting positions so he
would say Lex is an Ax Murderer and then
in the early days they would say Lex is
an Ax Murderer you know Lex's friend
says he's not an expert and we'd have a
four-day debate is he or isn't he and
then at day four someone would say why
are we having this debate at all because
the original point is is just is
baseless and so the media just got in
the habit here's what Trump said and
here's why it's wrong it's very
complicated
to figure out what is the role of a
politician what is the role of a leader
in this kind of game of politics but
certainly in um when there's a tragedy
when there's a catastrophic event
what it takes to be a leader is to see
clearly through the fog and to make big
bold decisions and to speak to the truth
of things and even if it's unpopular
truth
to listen to the people to listen to all
sides to the opinions to the
controversial ideas and to see past all
the bullshit all the political bullshit
and just
speak to the people speak to the world
and make bold big decisions that that's
probably what was needed in terms of
leadership and I'm not so willing to
criticize whether it's Joe Biden or
Donald Trump on this I think most people
cannot be great leaders but that's why
when great leaders step up we write
books about them yeah and I and I agree
and and even though I mean I I think of
myself as a progressive person I
certainly was a Critic of a lot of of
what uh president Trump did
but on this particular case even though
he may have said it in an uncouth way
Donald Trump was actually in my view
right I mean when he said hey let's look
at this lab he said I have evidence I
can't tell you I don't think he even had
the evidence but his intuition that this
probably comes from a lab in my view was
a correct intuition and certainly I
started speaking up about pandemic
Origins early in 2019 and my friends my
Democratic friends were brutal with me
saying what are you doing you're
supporting Trump in an election year and
I said just because Donald Trump is
saying something doesn't mean that I
need to oppose it if he's if Donald
Trump says something that I think is
correct well I want to say it's correct
just as if he says something that I
don't like I'm going to speak up about
that good you walk through the fire so
that's a that's you laid out the story
here and uh
I think in many ways it's a human story
it's the story of politics it's a story
story of human nature
but let's talk about the story of the
virus and let's talk about the Wuhan
Institute of virology so maybe this is a
good time to try to talk about his
history about its Origins about what
kind of stuff it works on about
biosafety levels and about
Batwoman yeah
so what what is the honesty of our algae
when did it start yeah so it's a great
question so
um after SARS one which was in the early
2000s 2003 2004
um there was this effort to
um to enhance as I mentioned before
Global capacity including in China so
the Wuhan Institute of virology had been
around for decades before then but there
was an agreement between the French and
the Chinese governments to build a the
largest bsl4 lab so biosafety level four
so in these what are called high
containment Labs there's level four
which is the highest level and people
have seen that and on TV and elsewhere
where you have the the people in the
different in suits and all of these
protections and then there's level three
which is still very serious uh and uh
but not as much as as level four and
then level 2 is just kind of goggles and
and some gloves and maybe that and maybe
a face mask much less so the French and
the Chinese governments
agreed that France would help build the
first and and still the largest bsl4
plus some mobile bsl3 labs and they were
going to do it in Wuhan and Wuhan is
kind of like China's Chicago and I had
actually been it's a different story I'd
been in Wuhan relatively not that long
before the pandemic broke out and that
was why I knew that Wuhan is it's a it's
not some Backwater where there are a
bunch of yokels eating bats for dinner
every night this is a really
sophisticated wealthy highly educated
and and cultured City and so I I knew
that it wasn't like that even the Juan
and seafood market wasn't like some of
these seafood markets that they have in
southern China or in Cambodia where I
lived for uh for two years I mean this
it was a totally open thing I'm gonna
have to talk to you about some of the
including the Wuhan Market just some of
the wild food going on here because
you've traveled that part of the world
yeah well let's not get there yes let's
not get distracted good as I was telling
you Lex before and this is maybe an
advertisement yes um is having now
listened to to a number of your your
podcasts when I'm doing long Ultra
training runs or driving in the
mountains like the really because in the
beginning we have to talk about whatever
it is is the topic but the really good
stuff happens later so so friends if you
listen to the end I you know I I have to
say
as I was telling you before
like when I heard your long podcast with
Jeron Lanier and he talked about his
mother at the very end I mean it was
just beautiful stuffs I don't know
whether I can I can match beautiful
stuff but I'm gonna I'm gonna gonna do
my best you're gonna have to find out
exactly stay tuned um so
um so France had this agreement
um that they were going to help design
and help build uh this bsl4 lab in Wuhan
and um it was going to be with French
standards and there were going to be 50
French experts who were going to work
there and supervise the the work that
happened even after the Wuhan Institute
of virology
um uh in in the new location
um uh started started operating but then
when they started building it uh the the
French contractors the the French
overseers were increasingly appalled
um that they had less and less control
that the Chinese uh contractors were
swapping out new things they it wasn't
built up to French standards so much
um that at the end when it was finally
built uh the the the person who was the
vice chairman of the project and a
leading French industrialist named
maryah refused to sign off and he said
we we can't
um support we have no idea
um what this is whether it's safe or not
and when this this lab opened remember
we were supposed to have 50 French
experts it had one French expert and so
the the French were really disgusted and
actually when the Wuhan Institute of
virology in its new location opened in
in 2018
um two things happened one French
intelligence privately approached U.S
intelligence saying we have a lot of
concerns about the Wuhan Institute of
virology about its safety and we don't
even know who's operating there is it
being used as a dual use facility and
also in 2018 the U.S embassy in Beijing
uh sent some people down to Wuhan to go
and look at well at this laboratory and
they wrote a scathing cable that Josh
Rogan from The Washington Post later got
his his hands on saying
um this is really unsafe they're doing
work on dangerous bat coronaviruses in
conditions where a leak is is possible
and so then you mentioned shujang Li and
I'll connect that to the these
virologists who I was was was talking
about so there's a very credible thesis
that because
these pathogenic outbreaks happen in
other parts of the world having
Partnerships with experts in those parts
in those parts of the world must be a
foundation of our of our efforts we
can't just bring everything home because
we know that that viruses don't care
about borders and boundaries and so if
something happens there it's going to
come here so very correctly and we have
all kinds of Partnerships with experts
in in these labs and shujang Lee was one
of those partners and her closest
relationship was with Peter dazek who's
a British I think now American but the
the president of a thing called Eco
Health Alliance which was getting money
from NIH and basically Eco Health
Alliance was a pass-through organization
and and you know over the years it was
only about six hundred thousand dollars
so almost all of her funding came from
the Chinese government but there's a
little bit that came from the United
States and so she became their kind of
leading expert and the the point of
contact between the Wuhan Institute of
virology and certainly Peter dazick but
also uh also with with others and that
was why in the earliest days of the
outbreak I didn't mention that um I did
mention that there were these
virologists who had this fake certainty
that they knew it came from nature and
it didn't come from a lab and they
called people like me conspiracy
theorists just for raising that that
possibility but when Peter dazek was
organizing that effort in February of
2020 what he said is we need to Rally
behind our Chinese colleagues and that
the basic idea was
um these International collaborations
are under threat and I think it was
because of that because Peter dazek's
basically his his major contribution as
a scientist was just tacking his name on
work that xujang Lee had largely done
um he was defending a lot certainly for
himself and his organization so you
think equal Health Alliance and Peter is
less about money it's more about kind of
um almost like Legacy because you're so
attached to this work it's just not a
human life so I I think so I mean I've
been criticized for being actually I'm
certainly a big critic of Peter daisig
but I've been criticized by some for
being too lenient I mean it's so easy to
say oh somebody they're like an evil
ogre and just trying to do evil and and
cackling in their in their closet or
whatever but I think for most of us even
those of us who do terrible horrible
things the story that we tell ourselves
and we really believe is that we're
doing the thing that we most believe in
I mean I did my PhD dissertation on the
Khmer Rouge in Cambodia they genuinely
saw themselves as idealists they they
thought well we need to make radical
change to build a better future and what
they described as what they felt was
Radical change was was a monstrous
atrocities by us so the criticism here
of Peter is a uh
is that
uh he was uh part of an organization
that was
kind of um
well funding an effort that was an
unsafe implementation of a biosafety
level for laboratory well a few things
so what he thought he was doing
um was and and what he thought he was
doing is itself highly controversial
because there's one there that in 2011
um there were I know you've talked about
this with other guests but in in 2011 uh
there were the first
published papers on this now Infamous
gain of function uh research and and
basically what they did both in in
different labs and certainly in the
United States in in Wisconsin and in in
the Netherlands was they had a bird flu
virus that was that was very dangerous
but not massively uh transmissive and
they they had a gain a function process
through what's called serial passage
which means basically passing advice
like natural selection but forcing
natural selection by just passing a
virus through a different cell cultures
and then selecting for what it is that
you want so relatively easily they took
this deadly but not massively
transmissive virus and turned it into in
a lab a deadly and transmissive virus
and that showed that this is really
dangerous and so there were at that
point there was a huge controversy there
were some people
like Richard ebright and Mark lipsich at
Harvard who were saying that this is
really dangerous we're in the the idea
that we need to create monsters to study
monsters I think maybe even you have
said that in the past it doesn't make
sense because there's an unlimited
number of monsters and so what are we
going to do create an unlimited number
of monsters and if we do that eventually
the monsters are are going to get out
then there was the Peter daisik camp and
he got a lot of fun funding particularly
from the United States who said well and
and certainly Collins and fauci were
supportive of this and they thought well
there's a safe way to go out into the
world to collect the world's most
dangerous viruses and to poke and prod
them
um to figure out how they might mutate
how they might become more dangerous
with the goal of predicting future
pandemics and that certainly never
happened with the goal of creating
vaccines and treatments and that largely
never happened but that was so Peter
daisak kind of epitomized that that
second second approach
um and as as you've talked about in the
past in 2014 there was a funding
moratorium in the United States and then
in 2017 that was lifted it didn't affect
the funding that went to the to the Eco
Health Alliance
um so when this happened in in the
beginning and again coming back to
Peter's motivations
I don't think here's the best case
scenario for for Peter I'm going to give
you if what I imagine he was thinking
and then I'll tell you what I actually
think
so I think here's what he's thinking
um this is most likely a natural origin
outbreak it it just like SARS won and
again in Peter's hypothetical mind just
like SARS one this is most likely a
natural outbreak we need to have an
International Coalition in order to
fight it if we allow these political
attacks to undermine our Chinese
counterparts and the Trust In This
release relationships that we've built
over many years we're really screwed
because they have the most local
knowledge of these outbreaks and even
though and and this guy gets a lot more
complicated even though there are basic
questions that anybody would ask and
that shojang Li herself did ask about
the origins of this pandemic even though
Peter dazak and I'll mention this
describe this in a moment had secret
information that we didn't have that in
my mind massively increases the
possibility of a lab incident origin
I Peter daisak would like to guide the
public conversation in the direction
where I think it should go and in the in
support of the kind of international
collaboration that I think is necessary
that's a strong positive discussion
because
it's true
that there's a lot of political BS and a
lot of uh
kind of just the bickering and lies as
we've talked about and so it's very
convenient to say you know what let's
just ignore all of these quote unquote
lies and my favorite word misinformation
uh and then because the way out from
this serious pandemic is for us to work
together so let's strengthen our
Partnerships and everything else is just
like noise yeah so let's and so then now
I want to do my personal indictment of
Peter dazek because that that's my view
but I wanted to fairly because I think
that that you know we all tell ourselves
stories and and and I and and also when
you're a science Communicator
um you can't in your public
Communications give every doubt that you
have or every Nuance you kind of have to
summarize things and so I think that he
was again in this this benign
interpretation trying to summarize in
the way that he thought the the
conversations should go here's my
indictment of Peter daisak and I I I
it's I feel like uh Brutus here but I I
um I've not come here to praise um uh
Peter daisak because
um while Peter dazek was doing all of
this and making all of these statements
about well we pretty much know it's a
natural origin and then there was this
February 2020 Lancet letter where it
turns out and we only knew this later
that he was highly manipulative so he
was recruiting all of these people he
drafted the the infamous letter calling
people like me uh conspiracy theorists
he then wrote to people like Ralph
Barrick and linfa Wang who are also very
high profile virologists saying well
let's not put our names on it so it
doesn't look like we're doing it even
though they were doing it he didn't
disclose a lot of information that they
had it was a strategic move so just uh
in case people are not familiar Feb year
2020 Lance a letter
was
tldr is a lab leak hypothesis is a
conspiracy theory essentially yes so
like with the authority of science not
saying like it's highly likely saying
it's obvious duh it's uh it's natural
origin everybody else is just uh is
everything else is just misinformation
and look there's a bunch of really smart
people that sign this therefore it's
true yeah not only that so there were
um the people whose 27 people signed
that letter and then after president
Trump cut funding uh to Eco Health
Alliance then he organized 77 Nobel
laureates to to have a public letter
criticizing that but what Peter knew
then that we didn't fully know is that
in March of 2018 Eco Health Alliance in
partnership with the Wuhan Institute of
virology and others had applied for a 14
million dollar Grant um too DARPA which
is kind of like the the VC side of the
Venture Capital side of the of the
defense department they're kind of where
they do kind of Big Ideas uh by the way
as a tiny tangent I've gotten a lot of
funding from DARPA they fund a lot of
excellent robotics research and darp is
incredible and among the things that
they applied for is that we meaning
Wuhan Institute of Urology is going to
go and it's going to collect the most
dangerous bat coronaviruses in southern
China and then we as this as this group
are going to genetically engineer these
viruses to insert a furin cleavage site
so I think when when everyone's now seen
the image of the SARS cov2 virus it has
these little Spike proteins these little
things that that stick out which is why
they call it a coronavirus within that
Spike protein are these if you're on
cleavage sites which basically help with
the virus getting access into our
cells and they're going to genetically
engineer these furion cleavage sites
into these bat coronaviruses the
cervical viruses and then and so then a
year and a half later what do we see we
see a bat Coronavirus
with if you're in cleavage site unlike
anything that we've ever seen before in
that category of SARS like coronaviruses
that well yes I mean it the the DARPA
very correctly didn't support that
application well that's actually let's
like pause on that so for a lot of
people that's like the Smoking Gun yeah
okay let's talk about this 2018
proposal to DARPA so I guess who's
drafted the proposal is it yeah ego
Health but the proposal is to do so Eco
health is technically
uh a U.S funded organization primarily
and then the idea was to do work at
Wuhan Institute of virology with yeah so
it was with equal Health yes so Eco
Health basically that um the one
Institute of biology was going to go and
they were going to collect these viruses
and store them at we wanted to do but
they're also going to do the actual test
recording it's a really important Point
according to their proposal the actual
work was going to be done at the lab of
Ralph Barrick at the University of North
Carolina who's probably the world's
leading expert on uh Corona
coronaviruses and so we know that DARPA
didn't fund that work
um we know I think quite well that Ralph
Barrack's lab in part because it was not
funded by by DARPA they didn't do that
specific work what we don't know is well
what work was done at the Wuhan
Institute of virology because wiv was
part of this proposal they had access to
all of the plans they had done they had
their own capacity and they had already
done a lot of work in genetically engine
genetically altering this exact category
of viruses they had created a chimeric
mixed viruses they had done they had
mastered pretty much all of the steps in
order to achieve this thing that they
applied for funding with ecohealth to do
and so the question is did the Wuhan
Institute of virology go through with
that research anyway and in my mind
there's that's a very very real
possibility it would certainly explain
why they're giving no information and
as you know I've been a member of the
World Health Organization expert
advisory committee on human genome
editing which Dr Tedros created in the
aftermath of the announcement of the
world's first crispr babies and and it
was just basically the exact same story
so ho John Quay Chinese scientist it was
not a first-tier scientist but a
perfectly adequate second-tier scientist
came to the United States learned all of
these capacities went back to China and
said well there's a much more permissive
environment I'm gonna you know be a
world leader I'm going to establish both
myself and China so in every scientific
field we're seeing this this same thing
where you kind of learn a model and then
you do it in China so is it possible
that the Wuhan Institute of virology
with this exact game plan was doing it
anyway do we possible we have no clue
what work was being done at the Wuhan
Institute of virology it seems extremely
likely that at the Wuhan Institute of
virology and this is certainly the U.S
government position there was the work
that was being done in Dr shu's lab but
that wasn't the whole wiv we know at
least a coin in the United States
government that there was the Chinese
military the pla was doing work there
were they doing this kind of work not to
create a bio weapon but in order to
understand these viruses maybe to
develop vaccines and treatments it seems
like a very very logical possibility and
then so we know that the the one instead
of virology had all of the skills we
know that they were part of this
proposal and then you have Peter dazak
who knows all of this that at that time
in February of 2020 we didn't know but
then he comes swinging out of the gate
saying anybody who's raising this
possibility of a of a lab incident
origin is a conspiracy theorist I mean
it really makes him look in my mind very
very bad and yeah not to at least be
somewhat open-minded on this because he
knows all the details he knows that it's
not zero percent I mean there's no way
in his mind could you even argue that so
it's potential because of the bias
because of your focus I mean it could be
the
Anthony fauci masks thing whereas he
knows there's some significant
probability that this is happening but
in order to
preserve good relations with our Chinese
colleagues we want to make sure we tell
a certain kind of narrative so it's not
really lying it's doing the best
possible action at this time to help the
world not that this already happened
yeah but that's how like yeah I I think
it's quite likely that that was the
story that he was telling himself
but it's that that lack of transparency
in my mind is fraudulent
um that the word that we were struggling
to understand something that we didn't
understand and that I just think that
people who possess that kind of
information especially when
um the existence like his the entire
career of Peter daisak is based on U.S
taxpayers there's a debt that comes with
that and that debt is honesty and
transparency and for all of us and our
you talked about your girlfriend
checking your phone for all of us being
honest and and transparent in the most
difficult times is really difficult if
it were easy everybody would do it and
that's I just feel that that uh Peter
was the opposite of transparent and then
went on the offensive and then
um uh had the gall of joining I know we
can talk about this this
um highly compromised joint study
process with the the international
experts and their Chinese government
counterparts and used that as a way of
furthering this
um in my mind fraudulent narrative
um that it almost certainly came from
natural Origins and um and the lab
origin was extremely unlikely just to
stick briefly on the proposal to wrap
that up because I do think
in a in a kind of John Stewart way if
you heard that uh a bit he yeah sort of
kind of like common sense
way the 2018 proposal to DARPA from
equal Health Alliance and wuhanistan
virology
just seems like a bit of a Smoking Gun
to me like that
um so there's this excellent book that
people should read uh called viral the
search for the origin of covid-19 Matt
Ridley and Alina Chan I think Alina is
in MIT should probably look at the broad
yeah at Broad Institute yeah yeah
so she I heard her in an interview
give this analogy of unicorns yeah and
uh where
basically somebody writes a proposal to
add horns to Horses The Proposal is
rejected
and then a couple of years later a year
later a unicorn shows up
and then I was like yeah I is not your
lord yeah it's like it's possible it's
natural origin like we haven't detected
a unicorn yet and this is the first time
we've detected a unicorn or it could be
this massive organization that was
planning is fully equipped has like a
history of being able to do this stuff
as the world experts to do it has the
funding has the motivation to add horns
to horses and now unicorn shows up and
they're saying nope yeah definitely
definitely natural that connects to the
to what you your first question of how
do I get to my 85 percent and here's
here's a summary of that of that answer
and so it's what I said in my 60 Minutes
uh interview a long time ago of all the
Gin joints and all the towns in all the
world the quote from from Casablanca and
so of all the places in the world where
we have an outbreak of a sars-like bat
coronavirus it's not in the area of the
natural habitat of the Horseshoe bats
it's the one city in China with the
first and largest level 4 virology lab
which actually wasn't even using it they
were doing level three and level two for
this work where they had the world's
largest collection of bat coronaviruses
um where they were doing aggressive
experiments designed to make these scary
viruses scarier where they had been part
of an application to insert a fury
cleavage site able to infect human cells
and where when the outbreak happened we
had a virus that was ready ready for
action to infect humans and to this day
better able to infect humans than any
other species including including bats
and then from day one there's this
massive cover-up and then on top of that
in spite of lots of efforts by lots of
people there's basically no evidence for
the natural origin hypothesis everything
that I've described just now is
circumstantial but there's a certain
point of where you add up the
circumstances and you see this seems
pretty pretty likely I mean if we're
getting to a hundred percent we are not
at a hundred percent by any means there
still is a possibility of a natural
origin and if we find that great but
from everything that I know that's how I
get to my 85. and we'll talk about the
why this matters in the political sense
in the human sense in a science in the
realm of science all of those factors
but uh first as Nietzsche said let us
look into the abyss and the games will
play with monsters that is uh
colloquially called gain of function
research
let me ask the kind of political
sounding question which is how people
usually phrase it did Anthony fauci
uh fund gain of function research at the
Wuhan Institute of virology so it
depends I mean I've obviously been very
closely monitoring this I've spoken a
lot about it I've written about it and
it depends on I mean not to quote Bill
Clinton but to quote Bill Clinton it
depends on what the definition of is is
and so if you use a common sense
definition of gain of function and by
gain a function there are lots of things
like Gene therapies that are going to
function but here what we mean is gain a
function for uh pathogens able
potentially able to create human
pandemics but if you use the kind of
Common Sense language and well then he
probably did if you use the technical
language from a 2017 NIH document and
you read that language very narrowly I
think you can make a credible argument
that he that he did not there's a
question though and and Francis Collins
talked about that in his in his
interview with you but then there's a
question that we know from now that we
have the information of the reports
submitted by equal Health Alliance to
the the NIH and some of which were late
or not even delivered that some of this
research was done on MERS Middle Eastern
respiratory syndrome virus and if that
was the case
um there is a I think a colorable
argument that that would be considered
gain of function research even by the
narrow language of that 2017 document
but I but I I definitely think and I've
said this repeatedly that Rand Paul can
be right and Tony fauci can be right and
the question is
um what how are we defining gain a
function and that's why I've always said
the question in my mind isn't was it or
wasn't it gain of function as if that's
like a binary thing if if not grade and
if yes guilty the question is just what
work was being done at the Wuhan
Institute of virology what role if any
did U.S government funding play in
supporting that that work and what
rights do we all have as as as human
beings and as American citizens and
taxpayers to get all of the relevant
information about them so let's try to
kind of
dissect this so who frustrates you more
Rand Paul
or Anthony falchini's discussion or the
discussion itself so for example gain a
function
is a term that's kind of more used
uh just to mean
making uh playing with viruses in the
lab to try to develop more dangerous
viruses
is this uh kind of research
um
a good idea
is it also a good idea for us to talk
about it in public in the political way
that has been talked about is it okay
that
um
us may have funded gain of function
research elsewhere I mean it's kind of
assumed
uh just like with Bill Clinton
there was very little discussion of uh I
think correct me if I'm wrong but you
know whether it's okay for a president
male or female to have extramarital sex
okay or is it okay for a president to
have
uh extramarital sex with people on their
on his staff
or her staff
it was more the discussion of lying I
think it was did you did you lie about
having sex or not and in this gain of
function discussion what frustrates me
personally is there's not a deep
philosophical discussion about whether
we should be doing this kind of research
and what kinds like what are the ethical
lines research on animals at all those
are fascinating questions instead it's a
gotcha thing did you or did you not fund
research and gain a function and did you
fund it's almost like a bio weapon did
you give
money to China to develop this bio
weapon that now attacked the rest of the
world so I mean all all those things are
pretty frustrating but is there um
I think the thing you can untangle about
Anthony fauci and gaining functional
research in the United States and equal
Health Alliance and Wuhan Institute
virology that's kind of um that's
clarifying what were the mistakes made
sure so on gain function there actually
has been a lot of of debate and I
mentioned before in 2011 these first
papers uh there was a big debate uh Mark
lipsich who's formerly at Harvard now
with the the US government working the
president's office
um he led a thing called the Cambridge
group uh that was highly critical of
this work but basically saying we're
we're creating monsters they had the
funding pause in 2014 and they spent
three years putting together a framework
and then they they lifted it in 2017. so
we had a thoughtful conversation
unfortunately it didn't work and I think
that's where where we are now so I
absolutely think
um that there are real issues with the
relationship between the United States
government and Eco Health Alliance and
through that Eco Health Alliance with
the Wuhan Institute of virology and one
issue is just essential transparency
because as I see it it's most likely the
case that we transferred a lot of our
knowledge and plans and things to the
Wuhan Institute of virology and again
I'm sure that shojiang Li is not herself
a monster I'm sure of that even though
I've never met her
but there are just a different set of
pressures on people working in an
authoritarian system than people who are
working in other systems that doesn't
mean it's entirely entirely different
and so I absolutely think that we
shouldn't give one dollar
um to an organization and certainly a
virology Institute where you don't have
full access to to their records to their
databases we don't know what work is is
is happening there and I think that we
need to have
um that kind of full examination and
that's why so I understand what what Dr
fauci is doing is saying Hey What I Hear
Dr fat you think what I hear from you
Rand Paul is you're accusing me of
starting this pandemic and you're using
gain of function as a proxy for that and
we have in when there are Senate
hearings every Senator gets five minutes
and the name of the game is to translate
your five minutes into a clip that's
going to run on the news and so I get
that there is that kind of game gotcha
um but I also think that uh the Dr fauci
and the Nia the National Institute of
allergy and infectious diseases and the
NIH should have been more transparent um
because I I think that
in this day and age where there are a
lot of people poking around and this
whole story of coveted Origins uh we
would not be where we are if it wasn't
for a relatively small number of people
and and I'm I'm part of there are two as
I know two groups one is these internet
sleuths known as drastic and a number of
them are part of a group that I'm part
of called it's it's not our official
name but called the Paris group it's
about two dozen experts
um uh around the world but centered
around some some very high level French
academics so we've all been digging uh
and meeting with each other regularly
since uh since last year and our
governments across the board certainly
China but including the United States
haven't been as transparent as they as
they they need to be so there's
definitely mistakes were made on all
sides and that's why for me from day one
I've been calling for a comprehensive
investigation into this issue that
certainly obviously looks at China but
we have to look at ourselves we did not
get this right so to you
I'm just gonna
put Rand Paul aside here he politician
playing political games it's very
frustrating but it is what it is on all
sides
Anthony fauci you think should have been
more transparent
and um
maybe more eloquent in expressing the
the complexity of all of this the
uncertainty in all of this yeah and and
I get that it's really hard to do that
because let's say you you have one you
speak a paragraph and it's got four
sentences and one of those sentences is
the thing that's going to be turned into
Twitter and let me put it back I'll get
really so
um I'll try not to be emotional about
this but I
I've heard uh Anthony fauci a couple of
times now say that he represents science
I know what he means by that he means in
this political bickering
all that kind of stuff that for a lot of
people he represents science
but words matter and this isn't Just
Clips I mean maybe I'm distinctly aware
of that doing this podcast like yeah I
talked for like hundreds of hours now
maybe over a thousand hours but like
I'm still careful with the words like
I'm trying not to be an asshole and I'm
aware when I'm gonna ask when I'll
apologize for it
uh like if the words I represent science
left my mouth which they very well could
I would sure as hell be apologizing for
it and not enough because I got in
trouble I would just feel bad about
saying something like that and even that
little phrase I represent science
no Dr fauci you do not represent science
I love science the the millions of
scientists that inspired me to get into
it is to fall in love with the
scientific method in the
exploration of ideas through the rigor
of science that Anthony fall she does
not represent he's one I believe great
scientist of millions he does not
represent anybody uh he's just one
scientist and I think the greatness of a
scientist is best exemplified in
humility
because the scientific method basically
says
like you're you're like standing before
the fog the mystery of it all and like
slowly chipping away at the mystery and
the it's it's like it's embarrassing
it's uh humiliating how little you know
that's the experience so the the great
scientists have to have humility to me
and especially in their communication
they have to have humility and I mean I
don't know and some of it is also Wars
matter because
you have to like great leaders have to
have the Poetry of action they have to
be bold and Inspire action across
millions of people
but you also have to
uh through that poetry of words Express
the complexity of the uncertainty you're
operating under be humble in the face of
not being able to predict the future or
understand the past or really know
what's the right thing to do but we have
to do something and through that you
have to
be a great leader that inspires action
and some of that is just words and he
chose words poorly I I mean I so I I'm
all torn about this and then there's
politicians they're taking those words
and magnifying them and playing games
with them and of course that's a
disincentive for the people who do the
the scientific leaders that step into
the Limelight
to say any more words so they kind of
become more conservative with the the
words they use I mean it just becomes a
giant mess but I think the solution
is to ignore all of that and to be
transparent to be honest to be
vulnerable and uh
the the express the full uncertainty of
the what you're operating under to
present all the possible actions and to
be honest about the mistakes they made
in the past I mean there's something
even if you're not directly responsible
for those mistakes taking responsibility
for them is uh as a way to win people
over like I don't think leaders realize
this often in in the modern age in the
internet age they can see through your
bullshit and it's really inspiring when
you take ownership so to do the thought
experiment like in public do a thought
experiment if there was a lab leak and
then lay out all the funding the equal
Health Alliance all the
incredible signs going on at the uh
Wuhan Institute of virology and the NIH
lay out all the possible ethical
problems lay out all the possible
um
mistakes that could have been made and
say like this could have happened and if
this happened here's the best way to
respond to it and to prevent it in the
future and just lay all that complexity
out I mean I wish we would have uh
seen that and I have hope that
this conversation conversations like it
your work
and books on this topic will inspire
young people today when they become in
the Anthony fauci's role
to be much more transparent and much
more humble and all all those kinds of
things that this is just a relic of the
past when there's a person no offense to
me in a suit that has to stand up and
speak
with Clarity and certainty I mean that's
just the relic of the past is uh
it is my hope but do you mind if I ever
agree with a great deal of of what you
said and I and I it's it's really
unfortunate uh that our certainly the
Chinese government as I said before our
government
um wasn't as transparent as I feel they
should have been particularly in the
early days of the pandemic and
particularly with regard to the issue of
pandemic Origins I mean we know that
that Dr fauci was on calls with people
like um Christian Anderson and Scripps
and others in those early days raising
questions is this an engineered virus
there were a lot of of questions and
it's kind of sad I mean as I mentioned
before I've I've been
um one I mean and certainly there were
were others but there weren't a lot of
us of the people who from the earliest
days of the pandemic were raising
questions about hey not so fast
um here and I and I launched my web
website on pandemic origins in April of
last year April 2020 it got a huge
amount of attention and actually my
friend Matt pottinger who is the Deputy
National Security advisor when he was
reaching out to people in the U.S
government and in Allied government
saying hey we should look into this the
what he was sending them was my website
it wasn't some U.S government
information and so by the way people
should still go to the website you keep
getting keep updating it and it's it's
an incredible resource well thank you
thank you jamiemensel.com
um and it's really unfortunate that our
governments and international
institutions for pretty much all of 2020
weren't doing their jobs of really
probing this issue people were hiding
behind this kind of false uh consensus
and and I'm critical of many people even
when I heard Francis Collins uh
interview with you I just felt well he
wasn't as balanced on the issue of of
covet Origins certainly Dr fauci could
have in his conversation with Rand Paul
it wasn't even a conversation but in
some process in the aftermath could have
laid things out a bit better he did say
in Francis Collins did say that we don't
know the origins and that was a shift
um uh and we need to have an
investigation so now
um but having said all of that I do kind
of one I have tremendous respect for Dr
fauci for the work that he's done on HIV
AIDS I mean I have been vaccinated with
the moderna vaccine uh Dr fauci was a
big part of the story of getting us
these vaccines that have saved millions
and millions of of lives and so I I
don't think I mean there's a lot to this
story and then the second thing is it's
really hard to be a public health expert
because you have your mission is public
health and so and you have to if you are
leading with all of your uncertainty
um it's a really hard way to do things
and so like even now like if I go to CVS
and I and I get a Tylenol somebody has
done a calculation of how many people
will die from taking Tylenol and they
say well we can live with that and
that's why we have regulation and so all
of us are doing kind of summaries and
then we have people in public health who
are saying well we've summed it all up
and you should do X you should get your
kids you know vaccinated for measles you
should not drive your car at 100 miles
an hour you you should don't drink
lighter fluid whatever these these
things are and we want them to kind of
give us broad guidelines and yet now our
information world is so fragmented that
if you if you're not being honest about
something that something material
someone's going to find out and it's
going to undermine your credibility and
so I agree with you that that there is a
greater requirement for transparency now
maybe there always has been but there's
an even greater requirement for it now
because
people want to trust that you're
speaking honestly and that you're saying
well here's what I know and this is
based on what I know here are the
conclusions that I draw but if it's just
and and again I I don't I don't think
the words I'm science or whatever it was
are are the right words but if it's just
you know trust me because of who I am I
don't think that that flies anywhere
anymore
can I just ask you about the Francis
Collins interview that I did if you got
a chance to hear that part I think in
the beginning we talk about the loud
leak
um what are your thoughts about his
response basically saying it's worthy of
an investigation but
I mean I don't know how you would
interpret it I see it's funny because I
I heard it in the moment
as
is great for the head of NIH to be
open-minded on this yeah
but then the internet and uh Mr Joe
Rogue and a bunch of friends and
colleagues
told me that yeah well that's
too late and too little yeah so first
let me say I've been on Joe's podcast
twice and I love the guy which doesn't
mean that I agree with everything he
does or says
um and on this issue and I'm normally a
pretty calm and measured guy and when
you're just out running with your
airpods on and you start yelling into
the wind in Central Park nobody else
knows why you're yelling but whether you
had such a moment I had a moment with
Collins and again Francis Collins is
someone I respect enormously I mean I
live a big chunk of My Life
um living in in the world of genetics
and biotech and my book hacking Darwin
is about the future of human genetic
engineering and his work on the Human
Genome Project and so many other things
have been fantastic and I'm a huge fan
of the work of uh of NIH and he was
right to say that the Chinese government
hasn't been forthcoming and we need to
look into it but then you asked him well
how will we know and then his answer was
we need to find the intermediate host
remember I said before and so that made
it clear that he thought well we should
have an investigation but it comes from
nature and we just need to find that
whatever it is that intermediate animal
host in the wild and that'll tell us the
story so here we had the conclusion in
mind
and they're just waiting for the
evidence to support the conclusion that
was my feeling I felt like he was and
that was frustrating in general but he
was tilting and I again I used my your
first question was where do I fall he
was like I'm 85 uh percent or whatever
it is 80 75 90 whatever it is in the
direction of a lab incident it made it
feel that he was 90 10 in the other
direction which is still means that he's
open-minded about the possibility and
that's why in my view every single
person who talks about this issue
meaning the right answer in my view is
we don't know conclusively
um in my then this is my personal view
the circumstantial evidence is strongly
in favor of a lab incident origin but
that could immediately shift with
additional information
we need transparency but we should come
together and absolutely condemning the
outrageous cover-up carried out by the
Chinese government which to this day is
preventing any meaningful investigation
into pandemic Origins we have if you use
the The Economist numbers 15 million
people who are dead as a result of this
pandemic and I believe that the actions
of the Chinese government
are disgracing the memory of these 15
million dead they're insulting the
families and the billions of people
around the world who have suffered from
this totally avoidable uh pandemic and
whatever the origin the fact the
criminal cover-up carried out by the
Chinese government
which continues to this day but most
intensely in in the first months
following the outbreak that's the reason
why we have so many uh so many dead and
certainly as I was saying before I in a
small number of others have been
carrying this flame since early last
year but it's kind of crazy uh that our
governments haven't been uh demanding it
and we can talk about the World Health
Organization uh process which was deeply
compromised in the beginning now it's
become much much uh better but again it
was the pressure of Outsiders who that
played such an important role in
shifting our national and international
institutions and while that's better
than nothing it would have been far
better if our governments and and
international organizations had done the
right thing from the story if I could
just uh make a couple of comments about
uh
Joe Rogan
so uh there's a bunch of people in my
life who have inspired me who have
taught me a lot who I even look up to
the
many of them are alive most of them are
dead
I I want to say that uh so Joe said a
few critical words about the
conversation with Francis Collins most
of it offline with a lot of great
conversations about it uh some he said
publicly
and um
he was also critical to say that
me asking hard questions in an interview
is not my strong suit
and I really want to kind of respond to
that which I did privately as well but
publicly to say that
uh Joe is 100 right on that
but that doesn't mean that always has to
be the case
and that is definitely something I want
to work on because most of the
conversations I have I want to see the
the beautiful ideas in people's minds
but there's some times where you have to
ask the hard questions to bring out the
beautiful ideas
and um it's hard to do
it's a skill and and Joe is very good at
this he says the way he put it in in his
criticisms and he does this in his
conversations which is whoa whoa whoa
stop stop stop stop stop there's a kind
of sense like did you just say what you
said let's let's make sure
we get to the bottom we clarify what you
mean
because sometimes
really
big negative or difficult ideas can be
said as a as a quick aside in a sentence
like it's nothing
but it could be everything and you want
to make sure you catch that and you you
talk about it and not the not as a
gotcha not as a kind of way to
destroying other human being but to
reveal something profound and that's
definitely something I want to work on I
also want to say
that uh as you said you disagree with
Joe on quite a lot of things so for a
long time Joe was somebody that I was
just a fan of listened to he's now a
good friend
and I would say we disagree more than we
agree and I love doing that and uh but
at the same time
I learned from that so it's like a duel
like
nobody in this world can tell me what to
think
but I think everybody has a lesson to
teach me
I think that's a good way to approach it
like I whenever somebody has words of
criticism
I assume they're right and walk around
with that idea
to really sort of empathize with that
idea because there's a lesson there and
oftentimes
my understanding of
of a topic becomes uh is altered
completely or it becomes much more
nuanced and much more a much richer for
the that kind of empathetic process but
definitely I do not allow anybody to
tell me what to think whether it's Joe
Rogan or Theodore Dostoevsky or
Nietzsche or my parents or
um the the like the proverbial
girlfriend which I don't actually have
like all but she's still busting my
balls exactly exactly in my imagination
I have a girlfriend in Canada
yeah that I have to imagine it exactly
uh imagining conversation I still want
to mention that but also I I don't know
if you've gotten a chance to see this
I'd love to also mention this um
Twitter feud between two other
interesting people which is uh Brett
Weinstein and Sam Harris or Sam Harris
and others in general
and uh it kind of breaks my heart that
these two people I listen to that are
very thoughtful about a bunch of issues
let's let's put covet aside because
people are very emotional about this
topic I mean I think they're deeply
thoughtful and intelligent
whether you agree with them or not and I
always learn something from their
conversations and they are legitimately
or have been for long time friends
and it's a little bit heartbreaking to
me
to see that they basically don't talk in
private anymore and there's occasional
Jabs on Twitter
and um
I hope that changes I hope that changes
in general for covid that covet brought
out the the I would say
the most emotional sides of people the
worst in people
and um I think there hasn't been enough
love and empathy and compassion and to
see
two people from whom I've learned a lot
whether it's Eric was time Brett
Weinstein Sam Harris you can criticize
them as much as you want their ideas as
much as you want but if if you're not
sufficiently open-minded
to admit that you have a lot to learn
from their conversations
um I think you're not being honest and
so I I do hope they have those
conversations and I hope we can kind of
I think there's a lot of repairing to be
done post covid of of relationships of
conversations and I think empathy and
love can help a lot there and this is
also just a I I talked to uh Sam
privately but this is also a public call
out to to put a little bit more
uh
love in the world
um yeah and and for these difficult
conversations
to to happen because um
Brett Weinstein
could be very wrong about a bunch of
topics here around covid but he could
also be right and the only way to find
out is to have those conversations
because there's a lot of people
listening to both Sam Harris and Brett
Weinstein and uh if you go into these uh
silos
where you just keep telling each other
the uh
that you're the possesses of Truth and
nobody else is the possessor of Truth
what starts happening is
you both lose track or the capability of
arriving at the truth because nobody's
in the possession of the truth so anyway
there's just a call out that we should
have a little bit more conversation a
little bit more love totally agree and
and both of those guys are guys who I uh
who I respect and as you know uh Brett
and again as I mentioned they're just a
handful of us who were the early people
raising questions about about the
origins
pandemic right he was there also talking
yeah so people have heard him speak
quite a bit about any viral drugs and
all that kind of stuff but he was also
raising concerns about lab leak early on
yeah exactly and so but I completely
agree with you that we don't have to
agree with everybody
but it's great to have healthy
conversations that's how how we grow and
absolutely
um we live in in a world where we're
kind of if we're not careful pushed into
these little information pockets and
certainly on social media I have
different parts of my of my life one is
focusing on issues of
um of coveted Origins and then I have
genetics and biotechnology and then I
have which maybe we'll talk about later
one shared World which is about how do
we build a safer future and when I say
critical things like the Chinese
government we have to demand a full
investigation into pandemic Origins this
is an outrage then it's really popular
when I say let's build a better future
for everyone in peace and love it's like
wow three people liked it and one was
one was my mother and so I just feel
like we need to build we used to have
that connectivity just built in
um because we had these Town squares and
and you couldn't get away from them now
we can get away from them so the I so
engaging with people who are of a
different background is really essential
I mean I'm on Fox News sometimes you
know three four times a week and I
wouldn't in my normal life I'm not
watching that much of um uh Fox News or
even television more more generally but
I just feel like if I just speak to
people who are very similar to me it'll
be comfortable
um but what what have I contributed so I
think we really have to have those those
kinds of of conversations and and
recognize that at the end of the day
most people want to be happy they want
to live in a better world they maybe
have different paths to get there but if
we just break into camps that don't even
connect with each other that's a much
more dangerous world
let's dive back into the difficult pool
yes
just like you said
in the English-speaking World it seems
popular almost easy to to uh demonize
China
the Chinese government I should say
but even China like there's this kind of
gray area that people just fall into
and I'm really uncomfortable with that
perhaps because in my mind in my heart
and my blood or Echoes of the Cold War
and that kind of tension
it it feels like we almost desire
conflict so we see demons when there is
none
so I'm a little like cautious to
demonize but at the same time you have
to be honest so it's like uh it honest
with the demons that are there and
honest when they're not
um this is kind of a geopolitical
therapy session of sorts
so let's keep talking about China a
little bit from different angles so
let's return to um
the director of the center of emerging
infectious disease at the Wuhan
Institute of virology XI jangli
colloquially referred to as Batwoman
so do you think she's lying yes do you
think she's being forced to lie yes I've
known a bunch of virologists
in private and public conversation that
respect her as a human being as a
scientist human being
um sorry as a scientist yeah not a human
being because I think they don't know
the human they know the scientists and
they respect for a lot of the scientists
yeah I respect her I've never met her
and we had one exchange which I'll
mention in a second in a virtual Forum
but I I do respect her I actually I
think that she is somebody who has tried
to do the right thing she was one of the
heroes of tracking down the origins of
of SARS one and that was a major uh
contribution
um but as we we talked about earlier
it's it's a different thing living being
a scientist or really kind of anything
it's different being one of those people
in an authoritarian Society
um than it is being in a different type
of society and so when shujang Lee said
that the reason the uh the wiv database
was taken offline in September 19 was
because of computer hacks I don't think
that's the story I don't think she
thinks that's uh that's the story when I
asked her in March of 2021 March of this
year in a Rutgers online Forum when I
asked her whether the Chinese military
had any engagement with the Wuhan
Institute of virology in any way and she
said absolutely not paraphrasing I think
she was lying do I think that she had
the ability to say well either one yes
but I can't talk about it it or I know
there are a lot of things that are
happening at this institute that I don't
know about and that could be one uh
could she have said
um that the uh the Personnel at the 100
Institute of virology have all had to go
through classification training
um to so that they can know about what
can and and can't be said like she could
have said all those things but she
couldn't say all of those things and so
um and I think that's why so many
at least in my view so many people uh in
the certainly in the Western World got
this story wrong from the beginning
because if you're only prism was the
science and you just assumed this is a
science question to be left to the
scientists shujang Lee is is just like
any scientist working in Switzerland or
Norway the Chinese government isn't
interfering in in any way and we can
trust them that would lead you down One
path uh in my view the reason why I I
progressed as I did is I felt like I had
two keys I had one key as I live in this
in the Science World through my work
with who and my books and and things
like that but I also have another part
of my life in the world of geopolitics
as a an Asia quote-unquote expert and
former National Security Council
official and other things and I felt for
me I needed both keys to open that that
door uh but if I only had the science
key I wouldn't have had the level of
doubt and suspicion that I have but if
my starting point was only doubt and
suspicion well it's coming from China it
must be that the government is guilty
like that wouldn't help either
I wonder what's in her mind
whether it's fear
or habit
because I think
um
a lot of people in the former Soviet
Union sector Noble it's not really fear
it's almost like a momentum it's like um
it's like the reason I I showed up to
this interview wearing clothes as
opposed to being naked
it's like all right
it's like it's just all of us are doing
the right the clothes thing although you
there was a startup years ago called
Naked News did you ever hear about that
they just would read the exact news but
naked no they would after each story
they'd take something off until the end
they were they were I don't think it's a
good idea for a podcast they have an IPO
stay tuned next time I'm with uh Michael
Mouse yeah okay
um
so what do you think I mean because the
reason I asked that question is
how do we kind of take steps to improve
without any kind of revolutionary action
you could say we need to uh Inspire the
Chinese people to elect
uh to to sort of
revolutionize the system from within
um but like who are we to suggest that
because we have our flaws too we should
be working on our flaws as well and so
but at the individual scientists level
what are the small acts of rebellion
that can be done how can we improve this
well I don't know about small acts of of
rebellion but I'll try to answer your
question from a few a few different
perspectives so right now actually as we
speak
um there is a special session of the
World Health assembly going on in the
world Health assembly is the governing
authority over the World Health
Organization where it's represented by
States and territories 194 of them
tragically not including Taiwan because
of of the Chinese government's
assistance but they're now beginning a
process of trying to negotiate a global
pandemic treaty to try to have a better
process for responding to crises exactly
like like we're in but unfortunately for
the exact same reasons that we have
failed I mean we had the a similar
process after the first SARS we set up
what we thought was the best available
system and it has totally failed here
and it's failed here because of the
inherent pathologies of the Chinese
government system we are suffering from
a pandemic that exists because of the
internal pathologies of the Chinese
State and that's why on one hand I
totally get this impulse what we do it
our way they do it their way who's to
say that that one way is better and
certainly right now in the United States
we're at each other's throats we have a
hard time getting anything meaningful
done
um and I'm sure there are people who are
saying well that model looks looks
appealing but just as people could look
to the United States and say well
because the United States has such a
massive reach what we do domestically
has huge implications for the rest of
the world they become stakeholders in
our in our politics and that's why I
think for a lot of years people have
just been looking at U.S politics not
because it's interesting but because the
decisions that we make have big
implications for their lives the same is
true for ours you could say
that the lack of of civil and political
rights in China is the the I mean it's
up to the Chinese not even people
because they have no say but to their uh
their government and they weren't
democratically elected but that they are
recognized as as the government
but
some significant percentage of the 15
million people now dead from covid are
dead because in the earliest days
following the outbreak whatever whatever
the origin the voices of people sounding
the alarm were suppressed that the
Chinese government had an just like in
Chernobyl the Chinese government had a
greater incentive to lie to the
International Community than to tell to
tell the truth and everybody was
incentivized to pretty much do the wrong
thing and so that's I mean that's why I
think one of the big messages of this
pandemic is that all of our Fates are
tied to everybody else's Fates and so
while we we can say and should say well
let's focus on our own communities and
our and our countries we're all
stakeholders in what happens elsewhere
Gasco a weird uh
question
so I'm gonna do a few podcast interviews
with uh interesting people in Russia in
the Russian language because I could
speak Russian
and a lot of those people have
you know are not usually speaking in
these kinds of formats
um
do you think it's possible to interview
XI Jin Li do you think it's possible to
interview somebody like her
or anyone in the Chinese government I
think not
um and I think the reason is because I
think they would one be uncomfortable
being in any environment where really
unknown questions will be uh will be
asked and I actually I was so as you
know on this topic the Chinese as I
mentioned earlier the Chinese government
has a gag order on Chinese scientists
they can't speak without prior
government approval xujing Lee has been
able to speak and she's spoken in a
number of forums I mentioned uh this
Rutgers event what was the nature of
that Forum it was it was it was all of
them were kind of science conversations
um about about the pandemic including
the uh the origins issue
um but I think that she in in her
response to my question it was kind of
this funny thing so they had this event
for uh for organized by Rutgers and I
went on there was an online event on
Zoom
um but I got on there and I just
realized it was very poorly organized
like normally the controls that you
would have about who gets to chat to who
who gets to ask questions none of them
were were set and so I kind of couldn't
believe it I was just sitting at home in
my in my neon green fleece and I just
started sending sending chat messages to
shojang Lee so you could anybody could
anybody could it was insane and so I but
I thought wow this is incredible and so
then it was unclear who got to ask
questions and so I was like posting
questions and then I was sending chats
to the organizers of the event saying I
really have a question
um and first they said well you can
submit your questions and we'll have
um submitted questions and then if we
have time we'll open up so I just I mean
I just thought what the hell I just sent
messages to everybody and then the event
was already done they were 15 minutes
over time and then they say all right we
have time just for one question and it's
uh Jamie Metzel and like I'm sitting
there in my running clothes like I
wasn't I was like multitasking and I
heard my name and so I I went diving
back and I asked this this question
um about did you know
all of the work that was happening at
the Wuhan Institute of uh virology not
just uh your work
um and can you confirm
um that U.S intelligence has said that
the military
um played a role uh it was engaged with
the Wuhan Institute of Urology do you
deny that the Chinese military was
involved in any way with the Wuhan
Institute of virology and as I said
before she said this is you know crazy
absolutely not it got it actually got
that one question got covered in the
media because it was like I think an
essential
question but I just think that since
then to my knowledge she's not been in
any public forums but that's why most
people would be shocked that to date
there has been no comprehensive
International investigation into
pandemic Origins there is no
whistleblower provision so if you're a
my guess is there are at least tens
maybe hundreds of people in China who
have relevant information about the
origins of the pandemic who are
terrified and don't dare share it and
let's just say somebody wanted to get
that information out to send it
somewhere there's no official address
the who doesn't doesn't have that nobody
has that and so I would love him you may
as well ask I don't think it's likely
that they'll be a yes
but it could well be that there are
defectors who will will want to speak so
let me also push back as I do so one I
want to ask if the language barrier is a
thing because I've uh talked so that
I've
understand Russian culture I think or
not understand this is this
uh I don't I don't understand basically
anything in this world but I mean I I
hear the music that uh that is Russian
culture and I enjoy it I don't hear that
music for Chinese culture it's just not
something I've experienced so it's a
beautiful Rich complex culture and uh
from my sense it seems distant to me
like I it like whenever I look
even like we mentioned offline Japan and
so on
I probably don't even understand
Japanese culture I believe I kind of do
because I did martial arts my whole life
but even that it's just so distant
people who've lived in Japan Foreigners
for like 20 years say the exact same
thing yeah it makes you sad it makes you
sad because I can't I will never be able
to fully appreciate the literature
the conversations the the people the
little humor and the subtleties
and those are all essential to
understand even this cold topics of
science because all of that is important
to understand so that's a question for
me if you think language barrier is a
thing but the other the other thing I
just want to kind of comment on is um
the is the criticism of Journalism
that uh somebody like uh XI jang li or
even XI Jiang Pang so just anybody in
China is very skeptical to have really
conversations with anybody in the
western media yeah because it it's like
what are the odds
that they will uh try to bring out the
beautiful ideas in the person and
honestly just this is a harsh criticism
I apologize but I kind of mean it
is
the journalists that have some of these
high profile conversations
often don't do the work they come off as
not very intelligent and I know they're
intelligent people they have not done
the research they have not come up and
like read a bunch of books they have not
even read the Wikipedia article meaning
put in the minimal effort to empathize
to try to understand the culture of the
people all the complexities all the
different ideas in the spaces all do all
the incredible not all but some of the
incredible work that you've done
initially like that you have to do that
work to earn the right to have a deep
real conversation with uh with some of
these folks and it's just disappointing
to me that journalists often don't do
that work yeah so on that just first I
completely agree with you I mean there
is just an incredible beauty in Chinese
culture and I think all cultures but
certainly China has such a deep and Rich
history amazing literature and art and
and just human human beings I mean I'm a
massive critic of the Chinese government
I'm very vociferous about the really
genocide and xinjiang the absolute
effort to destroy a Tibetan culture the
the destruction of democracy in Hong
Kong
um incredibly illegal efforts to seize
basically the entire South China Sea and
I could go on and on and on but Chinese
culture is fantastic and I can't speak
to every technical field but just in
terms of having journalists and I'll
speak to American journalists people
like Peter Hessler who have really
invested the time to live in China to
learn the language learn the culture
Peter himself who's maybe one of our
best journalists covering China from a
soul level he was kicked out of of China
so it's it's very very uh difficult so
yeah it's really and so for me you
talked about about my website on
pandemic origin so when I launched it I
had it I'm not a Chinese speaker but I
had the entire site translated into
Chinese and I have it up on my uh on my
on my website just because I felt like
well if if somebody I mean the the the
great firewall makes it very very
difficult for people in China to access
access that kind of of information but I
figured if somebody gets there and they
want to have it in their own their own
language but it's hard because the
Chinese government is is represented by
these quote-unquote wolf Warriors which
is it's like these basic Ruffians and I
personally was condemned by name
um by the spokesman of the Chinese
foreign Ministry from the podium in
Beijing and so it's it's really hard
because I I absolutely think
um the American people and the Chinese
people I mean maybe all people but we
have so much in common I mean yes China
is an ancient civilization but they kind
of wiped out their own civilization in
the Great Leap Forward and Cultural
Revolution they burned their Scrolls
they smashed their artworks and so it's
a very young Society kind of like
America is a is a young Society so we
have a lot in in common
um and if we just kind of got out of our
own ways we could have a beautiful
relationship but there's a lot of things
that are happening certainly the United
States feels responsible to defend the
post-war International order that that
past Generations helped build and I'm a
certainly a certain believer in that and
China is challenging that and the
Chinese government and and they've
shared that with that view with the
Chinese people feel that they haven't
been adequately respected and now
they're building a massive nuclear
nuclear Arsenal and and all these other
things to try to position themselves in
the world with an articulated goal of
being the lead country in the world and
that puts them at odds with the United
States so there's there are a lot of
real reasons that we need to be honest
about for division but if that's all we
focus about focus on if we don't say
that there's another side of this story
that brings us together we'll put
ourselves on an inevitable Glide path to
a terrible outcome
what do you make of uh Xi Jinping what
uh so two questions so one in general
and two more on lab leak and his meeting
with uh our President Biden uh in
discussion of uh lab leak yeah so I feel
that Xi Jinping has a very narrow goal
of articulated of establishing China as
the lead country in in the world
um by the 100th anniversary of the the
founding of the of the modern Chinese
State and it's ruthless and it's
strategic there's a great book called
The Long game by Rush Doshi who's
actually now working in the in the White
House about this goal and and are pretty
clearly articulated goal to subvert this
the post-war International order and and
in China's interest in every maybe every
leader wants to organize the world
around their interests but I feel that
his vision of what that entails
um is not one that I think is shareable
for the rest of the world I mean the
strength of the United States with all
of our flaws is particularly in that
that post-war period we we put forward a
model that was desirable to a lot of
people certainly it was desirable to
people in Western Europe and then
Eastern Europe and Japan and Korea
um doesn't mean it's perfect the United
States is is deeply flawed as
articulated to date I don't think
um most people and countries and would
like to live in a sino-centric world
um and so I certainly as I mentioned
before I'm a huge critic of what Xi
Jinping is doing the incredible
brutality in xinjiang in Tibet and um
and and elsewhere yeah the censorship
one
is it gives me a lot of trouble
on the science realm and just in
journalism and just the world that
prevents us from having conversations
with each other
do you know about the the Winnie the
Pooh thing yes I mean it's ridiculous
it's so so to me that's such a good
illustration of
a censorship being petty
but censorship has to be Petty because
the goal of censorship maybe you
experienced in the Soviet Union is to
get into your head like if it's just
censorship like you you say down with
the state and like you can't say that
but you can say all the other things up
to that point eventually people will
feel empowered to say down with the
state and so I think the goal of this
kind of authoritarian censorship is to
turn you into the sensor and so the the
self-censorship because they almost have
to have you think well if I'm going to
make any criticism
um maybe they're going to come and get
me so it's it's safer to not do I mean
I've traveled through North Korea pretty
extensively and I've seen that in its
ultimate form but well that's what
they're trying to do in China too yeah
so it's for people who are not familiar
such a clear illustration of just the
pettiness of censorship and leaders the
corrupting nature of power but uh
there's a meme of Xi Jinping with I
guess uh Barack Obama
and uh the meme is that he looks like
Winnie the Pooh in that picture
and that was
uh the presidency champagne looks like
Winnie the Pooh and I guess that became
because that got censored or like
mentions of Winnie the Pooh got censored
all across China Winnie the Pooh became
the unknowing revolutionary hero that
represents freedom of speech and and so
on but it's just such a absurd because
because we spent all so much time in
this conversation talk about the
censorship that's a little bit more
understandable to me which is like we
messed up
and it wasn't
maybe it's almost understandable errors
that happen
in the progress of science I mean you
could always uh
argue that uh there's a lot of mistakes
along the way and the censorship along
the way caused the big mistake you can
argue that same way for the Chernobyl
but those are sort of understandable and
difficult topics and Winnie the Pooh but
in your message it shows both sides of
the story I mean one how Petty
authoritarian censors have to be and
that's why the messaging from the
Chinese government is so consistent no
matter who you are you have to be
careful what you say and that's why it's
the story of uh feng shui the tennis
player she dared raised her voice in an
individual way Jack ma the richest man
in China had a minor criticism of the
Chinese government uh he had you know
basically disappeared from the public
eye Fon bing bing who's like one of the
the leading Chinese movie stars
um she was seen as not loyal enough and
she just vanished and so the message is
no matter who you are no matter what
level if you don't mind everything you
say and you could lose everything I'm
pretty hopeful optimistic about a lot of
things and so for me
if the Chinese government stays
with his current structure I think
what I hope they start fixing is the the
freedom of speech but they can't I mean
the thing is if they open up freedom of
speech really in a meaningful way they
can't maintain their current form of of
government and it's it's connected as I
was saying before to the origins of the
pandemic and if my hypothesis was right
that was the big choice that they that
the the national government had do we
really investigate the origins of the
pandemic do we deliver a message that
transparency is required public
transparency is required from local
officials if they do that the entire
system collapse pretty much everybody in
China has a relative who has died as a
result of the actions of the Communist
Party particularly in the Great Leap
Forward it's nearly 50 million people
died as a result of Mao's disastrous
policies and yet why is Mao's picture
still on Tiananmen Square and it's on
the money me because maintaining that
fiction is the foundation of the
legitimacy of the Chinese state if
people were allowed just say what you
want do you really think Mao was such a
great guy even though your own relatives
are dead as a as a result do you really
buy even on this
um this uh this story that China did
nothing wrong even though in the
earliest days of the pandemic
um these two at least Chinese scientists
themselves courageously
um issued a a pre-print paper that was
later almost certainly forcibly
retracted saying well this looks like
this comes from one of the Wuhan Labs
that we're studying like if you if you
opened up that window I think that the
the Chinese government would would not
be able to continue in its current forms
and that's why they crack down at
Tiananmen Square that's why with Feng
Shui the tennis player if they had let
her accuse somebody from the Communist
Party of sexual assault and they said
okay now people
you can use social media and you can
have your metoo moment and let us know
who in the Chinese Communist party May
or your boss in a business has assaulted
you just like in every society I'm sure
there's tons of women who've been
sexually assaulted manipulated abused by
by men and so I I certainly hope that
there can be that kind of opening
um but if I were an authoritarian
dictator that's the thing I would be
most afraid of yeah dictator perhaps but
uh I think you can gradually increase
the freedom of speech so I think you can
maintain control over the freedom of
press first so control the Press more
but let the the lower levels sort of
open up YouTube Right open up like where
individual citizens can make content I
mean there's a lot of benefits to that
and then uh you know from an
authoritarian perspective you can just
say that's misinformation that's uh
conspiracy theories all those kinds of
things but at least I think if you open
up that freedom of speech at the level
of the individual citizen
that's good for entrepreneurship for the
development of ideas of exchange of
ideas all that kind of stuff I just
think that increased the GDP of the
country yeah but I think there's a lot
of benefits I feel like you can still
play we're playing some like dark
thoughts here but I I feel like you
could still play The Game of Thrones
still maintain power while giving
freedom to the citizenry like I think
just like with North Korea is a good
example of where cracking down too much
can completely destroy your country I
think there there's some balance you can
strike in your evil mind and still
maintain authoritarian control over the
country obviously
I'm uh it's not obvious but I'm a big
supporter of freedom of speech I mean it
seems to work really well I don't know
what the failure case is for freedom of
speech are
probably we're experiencing them with
Twitter and like where the nature of
Truth is being completely kind of uh
flipped upside down but it seems like on
the whole ability to uh
uh defeat lies with more in not through
censorship but through uh more
conversations more information is is the
right way to go can I tell you a little
story true stories about North Korea so
a number of years ago I was invited to
be part of a small six-person delegation
advising the government of North Korea
on how to establish special economic
zones because other countries have used
these these secs as a way of of building
their economies and when I was invited I
thought well maybe there's an opening
and I certainly believe in in that so we
flew to China across the border uh into
North Korea and then we were met by our
our partners from the North Korean
development organization and then we
zigzagged the country for almost two
weeks visiting all these sites for
um where they were intended to create
these special economic zones and in each
site they had their their local
officials and they had a a map and they
showed us where everything that was
going to be built and the other people
who were like really technical experts
on how to set up a special economic zone
they were asking questions well like
should you put the entrance over here or
shouldn't you put it over there and what
if there's flooding and I kept asking
just these basic questions like what do
you think you're going to do here why do
you think you can be competitive do you
know anything about who you're competing
against are you empowering your workers
to innovate because everybody else is
going to be so at the end of the trip
they flew us to Pyongyang and they put
us in this it looked kind of like the
United Nations they probably had 500
people there and I was and I gave a
speech to them I obviously it was in
English and it was translated and I and
I figure you know they I've come all
this way I'm just going to be honest if
they arrest me for being honest that
that's on them and I said you know I'm
here because I believe we can never give
up hope that we always have to try to
connect I'm also here because I think
that
um you can North Korea connecting to the
world economy is an important first uh
First Step but having visited all of
your special economic zone sites and
having met with all of your or many of
your officials I don't think your plan
has any chance of succeeding because
you're you're trying to sell into a
global market but you need to have
Market information
um that and I gave examples of GE and
other their others that the Innovation
can't only happen at one place and if
you want Innovation to happen
um from the people who are doing this
you have to empower them they have to
have access they have to have voice I
mean nobody
um uh I mean they they the people after
they kind of had to condemn me because
what I was saying was was challenging so
I certainly agree with you and then just
one side story of them that night
um and it was just kind of bizarre
because North Korea is it's so
desperately poor but they were trying to
impress us and so we had these I mean
embarrassingly uh Sumptuous Banquets and
so for our final dinner that night it
really it looked like something from
Beauty and the Beast in the I mean it
was like China and waiters and tuxedos
and they had this beautiful dinner and
then afterwards because we'd now spent
two weeks with these our North Korean
Partners they brought out this karaoke
machine and then our North Korean
counterparts they sang songs to us in in
Korean
and so I said well we want to
reciprocate do you have any English
songs on your karaoke machine it's North
Korea obviously they they didn't but
there was I said well I have an idea and
so there was one of the women who'd been
part of the North Korean delegation
um she was able just to to play the
piano just like you could hum a tune and
she could play it on the piano and so I
um I said all right here's this tune
which I whispered in her ear when I give
you the signal just play this tune over
and over and so I got the these I mean
there were the six of us and maybe 20
North Koreans and I we are all in the
circle Sarah everybody hold hands and
then put your right just try put your
right foot in front of your left and
then left foot in front of the right
going sideways and I said all right hit
it and she played a North Korean version
of Hava Nagila and I think it was the
first and only Hora that they've ever
done in in North Korea I survived was
this reported or no it was not oh no
yeah that huge if they had free YouTube
yeah
let's return to the beginning and it
just
patient zero
it's kind of uh always incredible to
think that there's one human at which it
all started
who do you think was patient zero
do you think it was uh
somebody that worked at uh Wuhan
Institute
of virology
do you think it was um
there was a leak of some other kind that
uh led to the infection like what do we
know because there's this December 8th
slash December 16th case
of
um maybe you can describe what that is
and then there's like uh what
uh
what's his name uh Michael willby has
has a has a nice timeline I'm sure you
have a timeline but here's a nice
timeline that puts the average at like
November or something
um like 18th and November 16th that's
the average estimate for uh when the
patient zero got infected when the first
human infection happened yeah so the
just two points one is
it may be that there's infecty zero and
patient zero like it could be that the
first person infected was asymptomatic
because we know there's a lot of people
who are asymptomatic and then there's
the question of well who is patient zero
meaning the first person to present
themselves in some kind of health
facility where that diagnosis could be
made so can we actually look on that
definition yeah so is that to you a good
definition of patient zero what okay
there's a bunch of stuff here because
this virus is weird uh so one is who
gets infected one who is
infectious or the first person infect
others yeah so so I think who shows up
to hospital yeah so I think that's why
that's why I'm calling the first person
to show up to a hospital who's diagnosed
with covid-19 I'm calling that person
patient zero
um there's also the there's somewhere
the first person to be infected and that
person maybe never showed up in a
hospital because maybe they were
symptomatic and and never get sick so
got sick so let me start with what I'm
calling infect t zero here are some
options I talked before about you know
some person who was a villager in some
remote Village it's it's almost
impossible to imagine but possible to
imagine because strange things happen
um and that person you know somehow gets
to Wuhan by the way just the steel man
that argument there's not an argument
it's a statement but strange things
happen yeah all the time no I agree it
doesn't mean that logic doesn't apply
and probabilities don't apply but we
also I mean in general principle
everyone if we were honest should be
agnostic about everything like I think
I'm Jamie but is there a 0.01 chance or
001 chance that I'm not but could be I
mean there's a large number of people
arguing about the meaning of the word I
in that eyes Jamie so exactly what is
conscious exactly exactly so we I mean
we could spend another three hours going
into that one so one possibility is
there's some remote villager another
possibility is there's some somehow
bizarrely uh there are these infected
animals that come from Southern China
most likely they all maybe there's only
one of them that's infected which how
could that possibly be
um and it's only sent to Wuhan it's not
sent anywhere else uh to any of the
markets there or whatever and then maybe
somebody in the market is infected
that's one remote possibility but a
possibility another is that researchers
from the Wuhan Institute of virology go
down to Southern China we didn't we
haven't talked about it yet but in 2012
um there were six miners were sent into
a copper mine in southern China and
Yunnan Province all of them got very
sick with what now appear like covid-19
like symptoms half of them died
um blood samples
um from them uh were taken to the Wuhan
Institute of virology and elsewhere and
then after that
um there the there were multiple uh site
visits to that mine collecting viral
samples that were brought to the Wuhan
Institute of virology including included
among those samples were was this now
Infamous ratg-13 virus which is among
the genetically closest viruses to SARS
cov2 there were other nine other or
eight other viruses that were collected
from that mine that were presumably very
similar to that and again we have no
access to the information about those
and many of the other most almost all of
the other viruses so could it be that
one of the people who was sent from the
one is to the virology or the Wuhan
Center for Centers for Disease Control
they went down there to collect and they
got infected asymptomatically and
brought it back could it be that they
were working on these viruses in the
laboratory and there was an issue with
waste disposal we know that the Wuhan
CDC had a major problem with waste
disposal and just before the pandemic
one they they put out an RFP to fix
their waste disposal and in early 2019
they moved to their new site which was
basically across the street from the
Juan on seafood market
um so could there have been issue of
somebody infected in the lab of waste
disposal could a laboratory animal their
experiences in China actually China just
recently passed a law saying it's
illegal to sell laboratory animals in
the market because there were scientists
or once scientist who was selling
laboratory animals in the market and
people would just come and and buy
they'd say so there's so many there are
so many
scenarios but if I again connect it to
my 85 number I think in the whole
category of
laboratory related incidents whether
it's collection waste something
connected to the lab I think that's
um that's the most likely but there are
other credible people
um who would say they think it's not the
most likely and I I welcome their views
and and we need to have this
conversation so in your write-up
um but what's the URL because I always
find it by doing Jamie Marshall uh lab
leak yeah that's probably the idea no no
but if you just go to jamymymetzel.com
j-a-m-i-e-m-e-t-z-l.com then there's
just a thing it's covered Origins
or you could just Google Jamie Metzel
oblique uh um Google's search engine is
such a powerful thing you mentioned in
that write up that you don't think this
could be just me misreading it or it was
just slightly miswritten but you don't
think that the virus is from that 2012
mind which is fascinating could be the
backbone for SARS cov2 so what I mean
just the specific virus which I
mentioned ratg 13 and there's a whole
history of that because it had a
different name and it looked and and
should jang li provided wrong
information about when it had been
sequenced I mean there was a whole issue
connected uh to that uh but the genetic
difference even though it's um it's 96.2
percent similar to the SARS cov2 virus
that's actually a significant difference
even though that and and a
virus called banal 52 that was collected
in Laos are the two most similar there
still are are differences so I'm not
saying ritg 13 is the backbone
um but is there I believe there is a
possibility that other viruses that were
collected either are in that mine in in
Yunnan in southern China or in Laos or
Cambodia because that was with the Eco
Health Alliance
um proposals and documents their plan
was to collect viruses in Laos and and
Cambodian elsewhere and bring them to
the Wuhan Institute of virology so that
there are people as a matter of fact
just when I was sitting here before this
message I got before this interview I
got a message uh from somebody who was
saying well Peter dazak is telling
everybody uh that the that the viral
sample the banal 52 from Laos proves
that there's not a lab incident origin
of the pandemic and it's actually
doesn't prove that at all because these
viruses were being collected in places
like uh Laos and and Cambodia and being
brought to the Wuhan Institute of
virology so those are like early early
uh like the the prequel so these are
they're not sufficiently similar to be a
to serve as a backbone but they kind of
tell a story that they could have been
brought to the lab through uh through
several processes including genetic
modification or throughout the Natural
Evolution processes accelerated
Evolution they could have arrived as
something that has the the the spike
protein and the cleavage
the fern cleavage side and all that kind
of stuff so what I'm saying is the the
essential point is if we had access if
we knew everything that was being every
virus it was being held at the the Wuhan
Institute of virology and the Wuhan CDC
we had full access we had full access to
everybody's lab notes and we did just
the kind of forensic investigation that
has been so desperately required since
day one we'd be able to say why what
what did you have because if we knew if
it if it should come out that the Wuhan
Institute of virology had in its
repository I prior to the outbreak
either SARS cov2 or a reasonable
precursor to it that would prove the lab
incident hypothesis in my mind that's
almost certainly why they are preventing
any kind of meaningful meaningful
investigation so my hypothesis is not
that our that what ritg-13 says is
because as I mentioned earlier the the
genetics of virus are are constantly
recombinating
um so that what that means is if you
have you don't have very many total
outlier viruses in a bat Community
because these viruses are always mixing
and matching with each other and so if
you have rotg 13 which is relatively
similar to SARS cov2 there's a pretty
decent likelihood there was other stuff
that was collected at this this mine
called Mojang mine in Yunnan Province
maybe in Laos and Cambodia and that's
why we need to we need to have that
information
do you think somebody knows who patient
zero is within China so do you think
that is well there's two there's two
things one is I think some somebody and
people probably know and then two it's
been incredibly curious that the best
virus Chasers in the world are in China
and they are in Wuhan and when I mean we
can talk about this this deeply
compromised now vastly improved World
Health Organization process
um but when they went there uh the
Chinese the local and National Chinese
authorities say oh we haven't done we
haven't tested the samples in our blood
center we haven't done any of this
tracing and these these deeply
compromised people who were part of the
the international
um part of the joint study uh tour
um when they came out with their they
had their visit earlier this year and
came out with their report they had in
my mind just an absurd
um uh letter to the editor in in nature
saying well if we don't hurry back we're
not going to know what happened assuming
that the people in China are like
bumpkins who on their own aren't don't
know how to trace the origin of a virus
and the opposite is is the case so I
think there are people in China who at
least know a lot they know a lot more uh
than they're saying uh and at the best
case scenario is the Chinese government
wants to prevent any investigation
including by them the worst case
scenario is that there are people who
already know and that's why again my
point from day one has been we need a
comprehensive International
investigation in Wuhan with full access
to all relevant records samples and
Personnel when this again deeply flood
can I give you a little history of this
uh who process okay
who are the that's funny
um that's I'm sorry who's on first who's
on first I'm just so funny with the
jokes yeah look at me go uh who are the
who so what's what is this organization
what is this purpose what role did it
play in the pandemic uh it certainly was
demonized in the realm of politics
um
this is an institution
That was supposed to save us from this
pandemic a lot of people believe it
failed has it failed why did it fail and
you said it's improving how is it
improving great all right I hope you
don't mind I'm gonna have to talk for a
little bit of extra I love this oh I
love this good good good
so the who is an absolutely essential
organization created in 1948 in that
wonderful period after the second world
war when the United States and Allied
countries asked the big bold questions
how do we build a safer world for
everyone and so that's the The Who if we
although there are many critics of the
who if we didn't have it we would need
to invent it because the whole nature of
these uh big public health issues and
certainly for uh pandemics but all sorts
of things is that they are transnational
in nature and so we cannot just build
moats we cannot build walls we are all
connected to us so that's the the idea
um there's a political process because
the United Nations and the who is part
of it
um is it there it exists within a
political context and so the the current
director general of the World Health
Organization who was just uh re-elected
for his second five-year term is Dr
Tedros ardenome Gabriel who is from
Ethiopia to grahan from Ethiopia and in
in full disclosure I have a lot of
respect for uh for Tedros Tedros got his
job uh he was not America's candidate he
was not Britain's candidate our
candidate was a guy named David nabaro
who I also know and have tremendous
respect for
China led the process of putting Tedros
in this in this position in this
position and in the earliest days of the
pandemic Tedros in my view even though I
have tremendous respect for him I think
he made a mistake the who doesn't have
its own independent surveillance Network
it's not organized to have it and the
states have not allowed it so it's
dependent on member states for providing
it information
and because it's a poorly funded
organization dependent on its bosses who
are these governments it's not its
natural instinct isn't to condemn its
bosses it's to say well let's quietly
work with with everybody having said
that the Chinese government knowingly
lied to Tedros and Tedros in repeating
uh the position of the Chinese
government which incidentally I'll say
Donald Trump also did the exact same
thing I mean Donald Trump had a private
conversation with Xi Jinping and then
repeated
um she what she had told him both of
them were wrong
um Dr Tedros I think when it took when
Chinese government was lying knowingly
lying saying there's no human to human
transmission uh Dr tedro said that and
even though within the World Health
Organization there was there were
private critiques saying China is now
doing exactly what it did in SARS one
it's not providing access it's not
providing information Tedros is Instinct
because of his background because of his
uh his role
and wrongly
um was uh to have a more collaborative
relationship with China particularly by
making assertions based on the
information that was just don't call
people Liars they're not going to be
happy with you they're not going to have
you and the job of the who isn't to
condemn States it's to do the best
possible job of addressing problems and
I think that the culture was well let's
let's do the most that we can if we
totally alienate China on day one yes
we're in even worse shape than if we
call them out for for not exactly sure
by the way that
maybe you can also steal men that
argument like it's it's not completely
obvious that that's a terrible decision
like if uh you or and I were in that
role we would make that decision it's
complicated because like you want China
and your side to help solve this so I
would have made a different decision
which is why I never would have been
selected as the Director General there's
a selection criteria that everybody kind
of needs to support you and so but let
me let me just this is just the
beginning can you also just uh elaborate
or kind of restate what were the
inaccuracies that you you quickly
mentioned so human to human transmission
what were the things that was so the the
most important
um where there were a few things
um one
um China didn't report the outbreak two
they had the sequenced Genome of the
Stars cov2 virus and they didn't share
it for two critical weeks and um and
when they did share it it was
inadvertent I mean there was a very very
courageous scientist who essentially
leaked it and was later punished for
leaking it even though the Chinese
government is now saying we were so
great by by releasing it's really
confusing really so I I'm I'm so
clueless about this as most things
because I thought
because there's a celebration of isn't
this amazing that we got
the the sequence like like that's
amazing and then the scientific
Community across the world
stepped up and were able to do a lot of
stuff really quickly with that sharing
because I thought the Chinese government
shared no no they did so they sat on it
for two weeks when they shared it
against their will it was incredible
moderna 48 hours later after getting the
the information getting the sequence
genome they had the formulation for
what's now the moderna covid-19 vaccine
but that's two critical weeks in those
uh that or those early days they blocked
the World Health Organization from
sending its experts to Wuhan for more
than three weeks I said they lied about
human to human transmission during that
time they were aggressively enacting
their cover-up destroying records hiding
uh samples
imprisoning uh people who were asking uh
tough questions they soon after
established their uh their gag order
they fought internally in the World
Health Organization to prevent and the
Declaration of a global emergency so
China definitely I mean I couldn't be
stronger in my critique of of China
particularly what it did in those early
days but it really it's what it's doing
even to today is is outrageous so that
was
so then there was the question of well
how do we examine what actually happened
and the Prime Minister of Australia then
and now Scott Morrison was incredibly
courageous and he said we need a full
investigation and because of that the
Chinese government attacked him
personally and and imposed trade
sanctions on Australia to try to not
just to punish Australia but to deliver
a message to every other country if you
ask questions we're going to punish you
ruthlessly and and that certainly was
the message that was that was delivered
um the Australians brought that idea of
a full investigation to the World Health
assembly in May of 2020 as I mentioned
before the wha is the governing
Authority above of States above
um the World Health Organization
and so but instead of passing a
resolution calling for a full
investigation what ended up ironically
and tragically passing with Chinese
support
was a mandate to have essentially a
chinese-controlled joint study where
half of the team a little more than half
of the team was Chinese experts
government Affiliated Chinese experts
and half were independent International
experts where but organized by the The
Who and then it took six months to
negotiate the terms of reference and
again while China was doing all this
cover-up They delayed and delayed and
delayed and by the terms of reference
that were negotiated China had veto
power over who got to be a member of the
International
Group and
um the that group was not entitled to
access to Raw data the Chinese side
would give them conclusions based on
their own analysis this of the raw data
which was totally outrageous
so then and I was a big eye and and
others now A friend of mine although
we've never met in person Gil de Manoff
in New Zealand he did a great job of
chronicling just the letter by letter of
the terms of uh of reference
so then it took now it's it's the
January of this year January 2021 this
deeply flawed deeply compromised uh
International
group is sent to Wuhan this is so what's
the connection between this group in the
joint study so the joint study it had
the Chinese side and the international
side so the these International experts
then part of their examination was going
for one month to Wuhan and the nature of
the flaws of this International Group
has it's it's okay really important
point and I'm sorry I was I wasn't clear
on that they were rather the Mandate of
what they were doing was not to
investigate the origins of the pandemic
it was to have a joint study into the
zoonotic origins of the virus which
means which was interpreted to mean the
natural Origins hypothesis
for a single hypothesis not so that they
weren't empowered to to examine the lab
incident origin they were there to look
at the natural origin how to shop for
some meat it's a market yeah
that was so then they were there for a
month yeah of the makeup up of the team
um guess who was so the United States
government proposed three experts for
this team people who had a lot of
background this was the Trump
Administration people who had a lot of
background including in investigating
lab incidents none of those people were
accepted the one American who was
accepted Peter Peter dasek who had this
funding relationship for many years with
the Wuhan Institute of virology whose
entire basically professional reputation
was based on his collaboration with
shojang Lee who had written the February
2020 Lancet letter saying it comes from
natural origin and anybody who's
suggesting otherwise is a conspiracy
theorist and who at least according to
me had been at very very least the
opposite of transparent and at most
engaged in a massive disinformation
campaign he is the one American who's
who's on this so they go there they have
one month in Wuhan
two weeks of it are spent in quarantine
um just in their hotel rooms so then
they have two weeks but really it's just
10 working days
one of the earliest and so then they're
kind of we've all seen the pictures
they're traveling around Wuhan in in
little buses
um one of the first visits they they
have is to this Museum exhibition on the
it's a basically a propaganda exhibition
on the success Xi Jinping and the
success in fighting covet and they said
well we had to show respect to our
Chinese host I think what the Chinese
hosts were saying is let's just I'm just
going to rub your noses and this you're
gonna go where we tell you you're going
to hear um what what we want you to what
we want you to hear so they have that
little short time they spend you know a
few hours they weren't in control of
where the bus goes no I mean they made
recommendations
um many of their recommendations were
accepted but they like when they went to
the Wuhan Institute of virology and some
of them of them did they had a they
weren't able to do any kind of audit
when they had asked for access to Raw
data they weren't provided uh they
weren't provided that they were it was a
it was as I said in my 60 Minutes
interview it was a chaperoned study tour
it was not even remotely close to an
investigation and the thing they were
looking at wasn't the origins of the
pandemic it was the single hypothesis of
a quote-unquote natural uh natural
Origins
then I mean it was really so shocking
for me on February 9 of this year in
Wuhan the Chinese government sets up a
joint press event where it's the Chinese
side and the international side
and during that press event a guy named
Peter Ben and Barack and it's a little
confusing he was basically the head of
this delegation
and he works for the who even though
this was an independent uh committee it
was organized by The Who
so Peter Ben imbaric gets up there and
and says we think it's most likely it
comes from nature then he says we think
it's possible it comes through frozen
food which is absolutely outrageous I
mean it's basically Preposterous Elena
Chan calls this Popsicle Origins
um but it's it's really really unlikely
and but then most significantly
um he says that we've all agreed
uh that a lab incident origin is quote
unquote extremely unlikely and shouldn't
be investigated we later learned that
the re the way they came up with that
determination was by a show of hands
vote of the the international experts
and the Chinese experts and the Chinese
of experts had to do their vote in front
of the Chinese government officials who
were constantly there so even if
whatever they thought there was no
possibility that someone raises their
hands oh yeah I think it's a it's a lab
origin so that was outrageous thing
number one outrageous thing number two
which I mean I which and I'll come back
to my response in in February outrageous
thing number two is months later Peter
Ben and Barak does an interview on
Danish television and he says actually I
was lying about extremely unlikely
because the Chinese side they didn't
want any mention of a lab incident
origin anywhere in including in the
report that later uh that later came out
and so the deal we made even though he
himself thought that at least some
manifestation of a lab incident origin
was likely
um and that there should be an
investigation particularly he said well
that's kind of weird that the Wuhan CDC
moved just across from the Juan on
seafood market just before the beginning
of the pen of the pandemic but he said
as a horse trading deal with the Chinese
authorities it shouldn't be it should uh
that he he agreed to say it was
extremely unlikely and shouldn't be
investigated
so I I was in actually in Colorado
staying with my parents and I stayed up
late watching this
um uh this press event and I was
appalled because I knew after two weeks
there was no way they could possibly
come to that conclusion so I immediately
sent a private message to Tedros The Who
director General
essentially saying there's no way they
had enough access to come to this
conclusion
if the who doesn't distance and distance
itself from this the who itself is going
to be in danger because it's going to be
basically institutional capture by the
Chinese this was repeating the Chinese
government's propaganda points and and
tedro sent me a really again why I have
so much respect for Tetris send me a
private note saying don't worry we are
determined to do to do the right thing
and so I got that private message and
again I really like Ted Rose but I
thought well what are you going to do
three days later
um Tedros makes a public statement
and he says
um I've I've heard this thing I don't
think that this is a final answer we
need to have a full investigation uh
into this process he then released two
more statements
um saying we need to have a full uh we
need to have a full investigation with
access to Raw data and we need a full
audit of the of the Wuhan labs so and
that that part was was really really
great but then this saga continues
because so I was part of a group as I
mentioned before this Paris group
um it was about you know two dozen or so
experts and we'd been meeting since 2020
um having regular meetings and we just
present papers present data debate to
try to really get to the bottom of
things and it was all private so I went
to this group and I said look this this
playing field is now skewed these guys
they've put out this thing labins didn't
origin extremely unlikely it's in every
newspaper in the world we can't just be
our own little private group talking uh
to each other so I led the political
process of drafting what became four
open letters that many of us signed
um most of us signed
um that saying all right here's why this
investigation not in this study group
and the report are not credible here's
what's wrong here's a TR here's what a
full investigation would look like
here's a treasure map of all the
resources where people can look and we
demand a comprehensive investigation so
those
um four open letters were in pretty much
every newspaper in the world and it
played a really significant role along
with some other things there was later
there was a letter a short letter in
science
Making basically similar points in a
much more condensed way there were some
Prof higher profile articles by Nicholas
Wade and and
um and Nick Baker and others and those
collectively shifted the the
conversation and then really
impressively
um The Who and with Ted Rose's
leadership did something that was really
incredible and that is earlier this year
uh they meaning the leadership of the
who not the World Health assembly but
the leadership of the of the of the who
announced the establishment of what's
called Sago the scientific Advisory
Group on the origins of Novel pathogens
and basically what they did was overrule
their own governing board and say we're
going to create our own entity and so it
basically dissolved that International
deeply flawed International joint study
group and all and a lot of those people
they
um have become very critical like the
Chinese of of Tedros so then they had an
open call for nominations to be part of
Sago and so a lot of people
um put in their uh their uh nominations
they selected 26 people but our group we
had a meeting and we were unhappy with
that list of 26. it it still felt it
felt skewed toward the natural origin
hypothesis so again I drafted and we
worked on together an open letter which
we submitted to the who
saying we think this list it's a step in
the right direction but it's not good
enough and we we call on these three
people to be removed and we have these
three people who we think should be
added incredibly and I was in in private
touch with the who after announcing the
26 people the who said we're reopening
the process so send in more and so then
they added two more people one of whom
is an expert in the audit auditing of
lab incidents and then one of the of the
so they added those two and then when
they just released the list of people
who are part of Sago this one woman a
highly respected Dutch virologist named
Marion coopmans who had been part of
that deeply flawed and compromised
international study group who had called
who has consistently called a lab
incident origin quote unquote a debunked
conspiracy theory as of now her name is
not on the list we haven't seen any
announcements so I summary and I'm sorry
to go on for so long and to be so
animated about this I genuinely feel
that the who
is trying to do the right thing but they
exist within a political context and
they're they're kind of it's like you
know they're they're pushing at the
edges but there's only so far that they
can can go and that's why we definitely
need to have full accountability for the
who we need to expand the mandate to who
but we need to recognize that states
have a big role and China is an
incredibly influential State that's
doing everything possible to prevent the
kind of full investigation into pandemic
Origins that so desperately required
well it sounds like the leadership made
all the difference in the who so like
the way to change the momentum of large
institutions is through the leadership
if leadership and and empowerment as I
mentioned the World Health assembly is
meeting now and I think that it
shouldn't be that we require super
humans and there are some people who are
big critics of of who the the leader
um of the who in SARS one
um was definitely more aggressive she
had a different set of of powers at that
time
um but it can't be entirely I mean we
should we definitely need strong-willed
aggressive independent people in these
kinds of of roles we also need a more
empowered who like when the Chinese
government in in the earliest days of
the pandemic
um said we're just not going to allow
you to send a team to collect your own
information and we're not and and we're
not going to allow you to to have any
kind of independent surveillance there
was very little that the who could do
because of the limitations of its
mandate and we can't just say we're
going to have a who then only
compromises Chinese sovereignty if we
want to have a powerful who we should
say you have emergency teams when you
when the the director General says an
emergency team needs to go somewhere if
they aren't allowed to go there that day
you could say there's an immediate
referral to the security Council there
needs to be something but we have all
these demands rightfully so of the who
which doesn't have the authorities The
Who itself only controls 20 percent of
its own budget so the governments are
saying we're going to give you money to
do this or or or that so we need a
stronger who
to prevent to protect us but we also
have to build that so looking a little
bit into the future
let's first step into the past sort of
the philosophical question about
um
China
if you were to put yourself in the shoes
of the Chinese government
if they were to be more transparent
how should they be more transparent
because like it's easy to say we want we
want to see this but from a perspective
of government and not just the Chinese
government but a government on Whose
Geographic territory
uh say it's a lab leak a lab leak
occurred that has resulted in trillions
of dollars of loss uh countless of lives
just just all kinds of damage to the
world
if they were to admit
or show data that could serve as
evidence for a lab leak that's something
that people uh could like in the worst
case start wars over
or uh in the most likely case just
constantly bring that up at every turn
making you like uh powerless in
negotiations it's like whenever you want
to do something in a geopolitical sense
the United States will bring up oh
remember that time you cost us trillions
of dollars because of your fuck up yeah
so how what is the incentive for the
Chinese government to transfer to be
transparent and if it is to be
transparent how should it do it so like
there's a bunch of people like the
reason I'm talking to you
uh as opposed to a bunch of other folks
because you are kind-hearted and
thoughtful and open-minded and really
respected there's a bunch of people that
are talking about lab League they're a
little bit less interested
in uh building a better world and more
interested in pointing out the emperor
has no clothes they want step one which
is saying like
a basically tearing tearing down the
bullshitters they don't want to uh do
the further steps of building and so as
a Chinese government I would be nervous
about being transparent with anybody
that just wants to tear our power
centers our power structures down anyway
that's a long way to ask like
how how should the Chinese government be
transparent now and in the future
so maybe I'll break that down into a few
sub questions the first is what should
in an Ideal World what should the
Chinese government do and and that's
pretty straightforward they should be
totally transparent the South African
government now there's an outbreak of
this uh Omicron variant and the the
South African government has done what
we would want a government to do is say
hey there's an outbreak we don't have
all of the information we need help we
want to alert the world and in some ways
they're being punished for it through
these travel bans but it's a separate
topic but I actually think short-term
travel bans actually are not a terrible
idea
um they should have in on day one if
they uh they should have allowed uh who
experts in they should have shared
information uh they should have allowed
a full and comprehensive investigation
um with uh International Partnerships to
understand uh what went wrong they
should have shared their raw data they
should have allowed their scientists to
speak and write publicly because nobody
knows more about this stuff certainly in
the early days than their scientists do
so it's relatively easy to say
um what they what they should do it's a
hard question to say well what would
happen let's just say
um let's just say tomorrow we prove for
certain that this pandemic stems from an
both from an accidental lab incident and
then from what I've consistently called
a criminal cover-up because if the
cover-up has done in many ways as much
or more damage than than and the
incident Mo what happens you could
easily imagine Xi Jinping has had two
terms as as the the leader of of China
and he can now have unlimited turns
they've changed the rules for that but
he's got a lot of enemies I mean there
are a lot of people who are waiting in
line to to step up so it is there a
chance that Xi Jinping could be deposed
if it was proven that this comes from a
lab is it I think there's a real
possibility
um would uh people in the United States
Congress for example demand reparations
from China so we've had four and a half
a trillion dollars of stimulus all of
the economic losses and we owe a lot of
money to China from our our debt I'm
quite certain that members of Congress
would say you know we're just going to
wipe that out it would destroy the
Global Financial system but I think they
would be extremely likely would other
countries like India that have lost
millions of uh of people and had
terrible economic damages would they
demand reparations so I I think from a
Chinese perspective starting from now it
would have major geopolitical
implications and and go back to to
Chernobyl like there was a reason why
the Soviet Union went to such length to
cover things up and when it came out I
mean there are different theories but
certainly uh Chernobyl played some role
in the end of communist power in in the
Soviet Union so the the Chinese are very
very aware of that but but the
difference of course with Chernobyl the
damage to the rest of the world was not
a nearly as significant exactly with
covid so you you say that the cover-up
is a crime but
everything you just described the
response of the rest of the world
is uh
I could say unfair
if it's a so okay if we say the best
possible version of the story you know
lab leaks happen they shouldn't happen
right but they they happen and how is
that on the Chinese government
I mean what was a good example well the
Union Carbide Union Carbide there was
this American company operating in India
they had this Lake all these people were
were killed the company admitted
responsibility I was working in in the
white house when the United States
government in my view which I know to be
the case but other people in China think
differently a bombed the Chinese Embassy
in Belgrade and so the United States
government allowed a full investigation
then we paid reparations to the family
the families and so to your question if
I were let's just say I were the Chinese
government not I mean in kind of an
idealized version of the Chinese
government
and let's just say that they had come to
the conclusion that it was a lab
incident and let's just say they knew
that even if they continued to cover it
up eventually this information would
would come out I mean maybe there was a
whistleblower maybe they knew of some
evidence that we didn't know about or
something what would I do starting right
now
um what I would do is I would
um hold a press conference and and we
would say and I would say we had this
terrible accident the reason why we were
doing this research in Wuhan and
elsewhere is that we had SARS one and we
felt a responsibility to do everything
possible to prevent now that kind of
terrible thing happening again for our
country and for the world that was why
we collaborated with France with the
United States in building up those those
capacities
we know that nothing is is perfect but
we're a sovereign country and we have
our own system and so we had to adapt
our systems
um so that they they made sense
um internally when this outbreak began
we didn't know how it started and that
was why
um we wanted to look into things when
the process of investigating became so
political it gave us pause and we were
worried that our enemies were trying to
use this investigation in order to
undermine us having said that now that
we've Dig Dug deeper we have recognized
because we have access to additional
information that we didn't have then
that this pandemic started from an
accidental lab incident and we feel
really terribly about that and we know
that we were very aggressive in covering
up information in the beginning but the
reason we were doing that is because we
thoroughly we fully believed that it
came from a natural origin now that we
see otherwise we feel terribly therefore
we're doing a few different things one
is we are committing ourselves to
establishing a stronger who a new
pandemic treaty that addresses the major
challenges that we face and allows the
World Health Organization to pierce the
veil of absolute sovereignty because we
know that when these pandemics happen
they affect everybody we are also so
pudding and you can pick your number but
let's start with five trillion US
Dollars some massive amount into a fund
that we will be Distributing to the
victims of covid-19 and their uh and
China would do that this is a fantasy
speech but I disagree with your I mean
okay
so you think China has a responsibility
so it's not the like just a lab leak
like if China on day one had said
we have this outbreak we don't know
where it came from we want to have a
full investigation we call on
International responsible International
Partners to join us in that process and
we're going to do everything in our
power to share the relevant information
because however this started we're all
victims that's a totally different story
than punishing Australia preventing the
who blocking any investigation
condemning people who are trying to look
and so so cover up for a couple weeks
you can understand maybe because there's
so much uncertainty you're like oh let's
hide all the Winnie the Pooh pictures
yeah while we figure this out but the
moment you really figure out what
happened
you you always as a joker says always
find like a like blame the Jews kind of
situation a little bit just a little bit
like all right it's not us yeah
I'm just kidding but uh be proactive
proactive and saying but the joke about
that is uh there's a big problem uh
because a lot of people have to leave
the Jewish socialist conspiracy to make
it for the Jewish capitalist conspiracy
meeting I love it
so I would uh say not 5 trillion but
some large amount and I would really
focus on the future it was just every
time we talk about the lab League
the unfortunate thing is I feel like
people don't focus enough about the
future to me the lab leak is important
because we want to construct the kind of
uh framework of thinking and a global
conversation that minimizes uh the
Damage Done by Future lab leaks which
will almost certainly happen and so to
me though any lab league is about the
future
I would launch a giant investment in
saying we're going to create the testing
infrastructure like all of this kind of
infrastructure Investments that help
minimize the damage of a lab leak here
in the rest of the world so the
challenge with that is one it's hard to
imagine a fully in accountable future
system to prevent these kinds of
terrible pandemics
that's built upon obfuscation and
cover-up regarding the origins of this
worst pandemic in a century so it's just
like that that Foundation isn't strong
enough
second
um China across the fields of science is
looking to LeapFrog the rest of the
world so China has current plans to
build BSL for labs in every of its
Province yeah they're scaling up they're
scaling up everything and with the plan
on leading and that's why again I was
saying before I think there's a lot of
similarity between this story at least
as I see it at least the most probable
case and these other areas where China
gets knowledge and then tries to
LeapFrog it's the same with with AI and
autonomous Killer Robots it's the same
with human genome editing with animal
experimentations with so many basically
all areas of advanced science
um so the the question is would China
stop in that process and then third
um and there's it's a little bit of a
historical background but
defending national sovereignty is one of
the core principles of certainly of the
then of the Chinese State and the
historical issue is for those of us who
come from the West I mean one of the
lessons of the post-war planners was
that absolute National sovereignty was
actually a major feeder into the first
and second world wars that we had all
these conflicting States and therefore
the logic of the post-war system is we
need to in some ways pool sovereignty
that's like the uh the EU and have
transnational organizations like the UN
organizations and the Britain Woods
organizations for most Asian States and
and also even for some African the
people who are kind of on the colonized
side of History sovereignty was the
thing that was denied them that was the
thing that they want the European power
is denied and so the idea of giving up
sovereignty was that the absolute
opposite and so that's why China is and
again I mentioned this Rush Doshi book
it's not that China is trying to destroy
strengthen this rules-based
International order which is based on
the the principle that well there are
certain things that we share and how do
we build a governance system to protect
those things what it seems to be doing
is trying to advance its own sovereignty
and so I think I agree with you but I
don't I don't think that just we can
just go forward without some
accountability for the so the cover-up
was a big problem it's like I I often I
find myself Playing devil's advocate
because I'm trying to sort of empathize
and then I forget that
like two or three people listen to this
thing and then they're like look Lex is
the pain the Chinese government with
their cover-up no I'm not you know I'm
just trying to
understand I mean it's the same reason
how I'm reading mineconf now it's like
you have to you have to really
understand the minds of people as if
I too could have done that you know you
have to understand that we're all the
same to some degree and uh that kind of
empathy is required to figure out
solutions for the future
it's just in empathizing with the
Chinese government in this whole
situation
I'm I'm still not sure I I understand
how to minimize the chance of a cover-up
in the future
whether for China or the United States
if the virus started in the United
States I'm not exactly sure we would be
with all the emphasis we put on freedom
of speech with with all the emphasis we
put on
um freedom of the press and uh access to
the press the sort of all aspects of
government I'm not sure the US
government wouldn't do the similar kind
of cover-up let me let me put it this
way so we're in Texas now doing this
interview imagine there's a kind of
horseshoe bat that we'll call the Texas
horseshoe bat
and the Texas a lot of bats in Austin
but it's true the whole thing it's true
it's true and so let's just say that the
Texas horseshoe bats only exist in Texas
but in Montana
um we have a thing they it's called the
Montana Institute of virology and at the
Montana Institute of virology they have
the world's largest collection of Texas
horseshoe bats including horseshoe bats
that are associated
um with a previous Global pandemic
called the Texas horseshoe at pandemic
and let's just say that people in
Montana in the same town where this
Montana Institute of virology is start
getting a version of this Texas
horseshoe bat syndrome that is
genetically
relatively similar to the outbreak in
Texas there are no horseshoe bats there
and the government says it's your same
point Alina's point about the unicorns
like nothing to see here just move along
you know I
and Brett Weinstein and Josh Rogan and
and I mean when they say oh I guess I
mean I just think that no no but the
point is the government going to say it
so
uh Joe Rogan is a comedian Brett
Weinstein is a podcaster uh the point is
what we want is not just those folks to
have the freedom to speak that's
important but you want the government to
have the transparent like like I don't
think Joe Rogan is enough to hold the
government accountable I I think they're
going to do their thing anyway but I but
I I think that's our system and that was
the genius of the the founding fathers
that the government probably is going to
have a lot of instincts to do the wrong
thing that was the experience in in our
in in England before and so that's why
we have free speech to hold the
government accountable I mean I'm a kind
of broadly a gun control person but the
people who say well we need to have
broad gun rights
um as somebody who's now in Texas yeah
offended but their argument is look we
don't we don't fully trust the
government if the government just like
we you know fought against the the
British if if the government's wrong we
want to at least have some some
Authority so that's our system is to
have that kind of voice and that that is
the public voice actually balances
because every government as you
correctly said every government has the
same instincts and and that's why we
have and it's it's imperfect here but
kind of these ideas of separation of
powers of inalienable rights so that we
can have it's almost like a vast Market
where we can have balance so you think
if a lab leak occurred in the United
States
what probability would you put some kind
of public report
led by Rand Paul
uh would come out saying this was a lab
leak you have good confidence decent
comment and the reason I said I
mentioned that I'm a I might think of
myself I'm sure I'm not anymore because
as I get older but as a progressive
person I'm a Democrat and I worked in in
Democratic administrations worked for
President Clinton on the National
Security Council
um but my kind of best friend in the
United States Senate who I talked to all
the time is a senator from Kansas named
Roger Marshall and uh Roger I mean if
you just lined up our positions on all
sorts of things we're radically
different
um but we we have a great relationship
we we talk all the time and we and we
share a commitment to saying well let's
ask the tough questions about how this
started and again if we had like what is
the United States government yeah it's
the executive branch but there's also
Congress and Congress you talk about
Rand Paul and and as a former executive
branch worker when I was on the National
Security Council and I guess Technically
when I was at the at the state
department all of this stuff all of this
process it just seems like a pain in the
ass it's like these you know efforts
they're just attacking us we tried to do
this thing with we had all the best
intentions and now they're holding
hearings and they're trying to box Us in
and whatever but that's our process and
it there's like a form of accountability
as chaotic as crazy as as it is and so
it makes it really difficult I mean we
have other problems of just chaos and
everybody doing their own thing but it
makes it difficult to have the kind of
systematic cover-up and again
all of that is predicated on my
hypothesis not fully proven although I
think likely that this is a lab incident
origin of this of this pandemic well I
mean we're having like several layers of
conversation but I think
whether lab leak hypothesis is true or
not
it does seem that the likelihood of a
cover-up
if it leaked from a lab is high well
that's the more important conversation
to be having uh well you could argue a
lot of things but to me arguably that's
the more important conversation is about
what is the likelihood of a cover-up 100
like in my mind there is a legitimate
debate about the origins of the pandemic
there are people who I respect who I
don't necessarily agree with people like
Stuart Neal who's a virologist in the UK
who's been very open-minded engaged in
in productive debate about the origin
and and you know where I where I stand
there is is and can be no debate about
whether or not there has been a cover-up
there has been a cover-up there is in my
mind no credible argument that there
hasn't been a cover-up and and I mean we
can just see it in the regulations in
the lack of access there's an incredible
woman named Zhang Zhang who is a Chinese
we have to call her a citizen journalist
because everything is controlled by the
state but in the early days of the
pandemic she went to Wuhan started
taking videos and posting them she was
imprisoned for picking quarrels which is
kind of a catch-all and now she's
engaged in a hunger strike and she's
near death and so there's no question
that there has been a cover-up and
there's no question in my mind that that
cover-up is responsible for a
significant percentage of the total
deaths due to covet 19.
in a pivot
can I talk to you about sex
let's roll okay so you're the author of
uh book hacking Darwin
yeah so humans have used
um
sex allegedly as as I've read about to
uh to mix genetic
um
information
to produce Offspring and sort of through
that kind of process
um adapt to their environment Lex you
mentioned earlier about you're asking
tough questions and people pushing you
to ask tough questions this is is it
okay if I just so um you said have done
this as I've read about as I've read
about on the internet yeah all I'm
saying as a person sitting with you to
people who would uh be open-minded in
experimenting of as I've read about to
reality what I would say is Lex Friedman
is handsome
charming he's I'm gonna open it
really a great guy I'm sorry to
interrupt that I appreciate that thank
you so I was reading about this last
night I was going to Tweet it but then
I'm like this is going to be
misinterpreted but uh it it's this is
why I like podcasts because I can I
could I could say stuff like this
um
is kind of incredible to me
that the average human male
produces like 500 billion plus sperm
cells in their lifetime
like each one of those are genetically
unique
[Music]
like they can produce like unique humans
each one of the 500 billion there's like
a hundred billion people who's ever
lived 100 maybe like 110 whatever
whatever the number is so it's like five
times the number of people who ever
lived is
produced by each male
of genetic information so those are all
possible trajectories of lives that
could have lived like those are all
little people that could have been and
like all the possible stories all the
Hitlers and Einsteins that could have
been created and all that I mean I I
don't know this kind of
you're painting this possible future and
we get to see only one little string of
that I mean that I suppose the magic of
that is also captured by the
uh in specific physics or having like
multiple dimensions in the uh
the many worlds hypothesis quantum
mechanics that the the interpretation
that were basically just at every Point
there's an infinite
uh offspring of universes that that are
created but I don't know that's just
like a magic of um
this game of genetics that we're playing
and the winning sperm is not the fastest
the winning sperm is basically the
luckiest has the right timing so it's
not
um I was also gotten into this whole uh
I started reading papers about like
is there something to be said about who
wins the race right genetically so it's
fascinating because there's studies and
in animals and so on to dance to that
question because it's interesting
because like because I'm a winner right
I want I want to race yes and so you
want to know like what what does that
say about me in this uh
in this fascinating genetic race against
I think what is it 200 200 million
others I think so one uh you know pool
of uh sperm cells is uh is about
something like 200 million it could be
yes so but that Millions yeah I thought
it was much much lower than that so like
that
those are all
brothers and sisters of mine and I beat
them all out yeah I won and so it's
interesting to to know
um
there's a temptation to say I'm somehow
better than them right
and now that goes into the next stage
of something you're or deeply thinking
about
which is
um
if we have more control now over the the
winning genetic code that becomes
Offspring if we have first not even
control just information
and then control
what do you think that world looks like
from a biological perspective and from
an ethical perspective when we start
getting more information and more
control
yeah great great question so first on
the sperm there can be up to about 1.2
billion sperm cells in a male
ejaculation so as I mentioned in hacking
Darwin male sperm it's kind of a dime a
dozen with all the all the guys in all
in all the world just doing whatever
they do with it
um and it's an open question
um how competitive I mean there is an
element of luck and there is an element
of competition
and it's an open question how much that
competition
impacts the the outcome or whether it's
just luck but my guess is there's some
combination of of fitness and luck but
you're absolutely right that all of
those other sperm cells in in the
ejaculation if that's how the union of
spermine egg is is happening all of them
represent a different future and it's
there's a wonderful full book called
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and he
even talks about a city as something
like this where everybody you have your
life
but then you have all these alternate
lives and every time you make any
decision you're kind of and so but in
this Invisible Cities there's a little
string that goes toward that alternate
life and then the city becomes this
weaving of all the strings of people's
real lives and the alternate lives that
they could have taken had they made any
other any other different steps so that
part it's like a a deep philosophical
question it's not just for us it's for
all of it's It's baked into
evolutionary biology is this what are
the different strategies for different
species to achieve Fitness and there's
some of the different corals or other
fish where they just kind of release the
eggs into the water and there's there's
all different kinds of of ways and then
you're right in my book
um hacking Darwin and into the full
titles hacking Darwin genetic
engineering and the future of humanity
um I I kind of go deep into exploring
the big picture implications of the
future of human reproduction
um we are already
participating in a revolutionary
transformation not just because of the
Diagnostics that we have things like
ultrasound
um but because now an increasing number
of us are being born through in vitro
fertilization which means the eggs are
extracted from the mother they're
fertilized by the father's sperm in
vitro in a lab and then re-implanted in
the mother
on top of that there's a somewhat newer
but still now you know older technology
called pre-implantation genetic testing
and so as everyone knows from high
school biology you have the the
fertilized egg and then it goes one cell
to two cells to four to eight and
whatever and after around five days in
this PGT process a few cells are
extracted so let's say you have 10
fertilized eggs early stage embryos a
few cells are extracted from each and
those cells if they would the ones that
are attracted would end up becoming the
placenta but every one of our cells has
other than a few has our full genome and
so then you sequence those cells and
with pre-implantation genetic testing
now what you can do is you can screen
out deadly uh single gel a single gene
mutation disorders things that could be
deadly or life ruining and so people use
it to determine which of those 10
um early stage embryos to implant in a
mother as we shift towards a much
greater understanding of genetics and
that is part of our just the broader
genetics Revolution
um but within that in our transition
from personalized to Precision
Healthcare more and more of us are going
to have our whole genome sequenced
because it's going to be the foundation
of getting personalized health care
we're going to have already Millions but
very soon billions of people who've had
their whole genome sequenced and then
we'll have big databases of people's
genetic genotypic information and life
or phenotypic information and using
coming into your area are tools of
machine learning and data analytics
we're going to be able to increasingly
understand patterns of genetic
expression even though we're all so
predict how that genetic information
will get expressed correct yeah never
perfectly perhaps but more and more
always more and more and so with that
information we aren't going to just be
in the even now
um we aren't going to just be selecting
based on which of these 10 early stage
embryos is carrying a deadly genetic
disorder
but we can we'll be able to know
everything that can be partly or
entirely predicted by genetics and
there's a lot of our Humanity that that
fits into that category and um certainly
simple traits like height and eye color
and and things like that I mean height
is not at all simple but it's it's in if
you have good nutrition it's it's
entirely or mostly genetic but even
personality traits and personality
Styles there are a lot of things that we
see just as the experience the beauty of
life that are partly have a genetic
foundation and so whatever part of these
traits are definable and influenced by
genetics we're going to have greater and
greater predictability within a range
and so selecting those embryos will be
informed by that kind of of knowledge
and that's why in hacking Darwin I talk
about embryo selection as being a key
driver of the future of human evolution
then on top of that there is in 2012
yamanaka a Japanese amazing Japanese
scientists won the Nobel Prize for
developing a process for creating what
are called induced pluripotent stem
cells IPS cells and what IPS cells are
is you can induce an adult cell to go
back in evolutionary time and become a
stem cell and a stem cell is like when
we're when you're when we're a
fertilized egg like our entire blueprint
is in that one cell and that cell can be
anything but then it starts to spend our
cells start to specialize and that's why
we have skin cells and blood cells and
all the different types of things so
with the yamanaka process
we can induce an adult adult cell to
become a stem cell so the relevance to
this story is what you it can do and it
works now in animal models and as far as
I know it hasn't yet been done in humans
but it works pretty well in animal
models you take any adult cell but skin
cells are probably the easiest
you induce this skin cell into a stem
cell and if you just take a little skin
graft it would have millions of of cells
you induce those skin cells into stem
cells then you induce those stem cells
into egg precursor cells then you induce
those egg precursor cells into eggs egg
cells then because we have this massive
over abundance of male sperm it's then
you could fertilize let's call it ten
thousand of the mother's egg so you have
10 000 eggs which are fertilized sounds
like a party yeah then you have an
automated process
um for what I what I mentioned before in
pre-implantation genetic testing you
grow them all for five days you extract
a few cells from each you test them and
that's I had a piece in the New York
Times a couple of years ago imagining
what it would be like to go to a
fertility clinic in the year 2050 and
the choice is is involved yeah well no
no there are but the choice is not do
you want a kid who does or doesn't have
let's call it um Tay Sachs
um it's a whole range of possibilities
including very intimate
um uh traits like height IQ personality
style it doesn't mean you can predict
everything but it means there will be
increasing predictability so if you're
if you're choosing from 10 000 eggs
fertilized eggs early stage embryos
that's a lot of choice
um and on top of that then we have the
new technology of human genome editing
many people have heard of crispr but
what I say is if you think of human
genome editing as a pie human I'm sorry
Human Genome engineering as a pi genome
editing is a slice and crispr is just a
sliver of that slice it's just one of
our tools for genome editing and then
things are getting better and better
better then you can go in and change
let's say I mean again it starts simple
a small number of genes let's say you've
selected from among the one of ten or
the one of ten thousand but there are a
number of changes that you would like to
make to achieve some kind of outcome and
biology is incredibly complex and it's
not that one gene does one thing one
gene does probably a lot of things
simultaneously which is why the decision
about changing one gene if it's causing
deathly harm is easier than when we
think about the complexity of of biology
whether the machine learning gets better
and better predicting the full
complexity biology so exactly as one
gets better than your editing uh your
ability to uh reliably edit such that
the conclusions are predictable gets
better and better so those are two are
coupled together
exactly and then so that's why and and
people would say well that I mean I I
wrote about that in my my two science
fiction novels Genesis Code and Eternal
Sonata years ago especially with Genesis
Code I wrote about that and and as a
Sci-Fi and and I had actually testified
before Congress but now 15 years ago
saying here's what the future
looks like
um but even I and and in my first
edition of hacking Darwin
um uh when it was it was already in
production uh and then in November 2018
this scientist who John Quay announced
uh in Hong Kong
um that the world's first two
and later three crispr babies had been
born which he had genetically altered in
and misguided in my view and and
dangerous view a dangerous goal
um of making it so they would have
increased resistance to uh to HIV
and so I called my publisher
and I said I've got good news and bad
news I'll start with the bad news is
that the world's first crispr babies
have been born and so we need to pull my
book out of production because you can't
have a book on the future of human
genetic engineering and have it not
mentioned the first crispr babies that
have been born but the good news is in
the book I had predicted that it's going
to happen and it's going to happen in
China and here's why and all we need to
do is add a few more sentences and now
that was the hardback and then I updated
it more in the paperback saying and it
happened and it was announced on on this
diff yeah
well then let's fast forward
given your predictions are slowly
becoming reality
let's talk about some philosophy and
ethics I suppose
so I can I'm not being too
self-deprecating here
and saying if
um my parents had the choice
uh I I would be probably less likely to
come out the winner uh we're all weird
and I'm certainly a very
um distinctly weird specimen of the
human species I can give the full long
list of flaws and we can be very poetic
of saying like those are features and so
on
but they're not
if you look at the menu
again for for these uh women who are
listening apropos of your thing they're
all kind of charming individualities yes
it's beautiful that's one yes thank you
but anyway but on on the full sort of
individual let's say IQ alone right that
um
what do we what do we do
about
a world where
um IQ could be selected in a menu when
you're having children
foreign
what concerns you about that world what
excites you about that world
are there certain metrics
that excite you more than others
IQ has been a a source of
um
I don't know
I'm not sure IQ as a measure flawed as
it is
has been used to celebrate the successes
of the human species nearly as much as
has been used to divide people to say
negative things about people
um
to make negative claims about people and
in that same way it seems like when
there's a selection a genetic selection
based on IQ you can start now having
classes of citizenry and like further
divide you know the rich get richer you
know it'll be very rich people they'll
be able to do kind of uh fine selection
of IQ and then
um
they they will start forming these
classes of super intelligent people and
those super intelligent people in their
minds would of course be the right
people to be making Global authoritarian
decisions about everybody else all the
usual aspects of human nature but now
magnified with with the the new tools of
Technology anyway all that to say is
what's exciting to you
of what's concerning to you it's a it's
a great question and just stepping into
the the IQ we'll call it a quagmire for
now it raises a lot of big issues
um which are are complicated
um maybe you've listened to Sam Harris's
uh interview with Charles Murray and
then that that spawned a kind of a whole
industry of of
debate so first just the background of
of IQ and it's it's from the early 20th
century and there was the idea that we
can measure people's general
intelligence and and there are so many
different kinds of intelligence this was
measuring a specific thing so it's my
feeling is that IQ doesn't is not a
perfect measure of intelligence but it's
a perfect measure of IQ like it's
measuring what it's what it's measuring
but that thing is correlates to a lot of
of things which are rewarded in our
society so the the every study of IQ has
shown that people with higher IQs they
make more money they live longer they
have more stable relationships I mean
that that could be something in the in
the testing but as Sam Harris has has
talked about a lot you could line up all
of the all of these kind of IQ and IQ
like tests correlate with each other so
the people who score high on one score
high on all of them and and people think
that IQ tests are like
um a you know a thing like you know the
Earl of Dorchester is coming for dinner
does he have two forks or Three Forks or
something like that it's it's not that a
lot of them are are things that that I
think a lot of us would recognize are
relevant just like how much stuff can
you memorize if you see some shapes how
can you position them and and things
like that and so IQ I mean it really hit
its stride in certainly in the second
world war when we were just our
governments were processing a lot of
people and trying to figure out who to
put in what in what in what job so
that's the starting point let me start
first with the negatives
um that our societies that when we talk
about diversity in Dar darwinian terms
it's not like diversity is from
darwinian terms oh wouldn't it be nice
if we have you know some moths of
different colors because it'll be really
fun to have different colored moths
diversity is the sole survival strategy
of our species and of every species and
it's and and it's impossible to predict
um which what diversity is going to be
rewarded and I've said this before if
you went down and you had if you spoke
T-Rex and you spoke to the dinosaurs and
said hey you can select your kids
um what criteria do you want and they
say oh yeah yeah sharp teeth cruel
things Roar whatever it is that makes
you a great T-Rex
um but the answer from from an
evolutionary perspective from an earth
perspective was always much better to be
like a cockroach or an alligator or some
little nothing or a little shrew
um because the dinosaurs are going to
get wiped out when the asteroid hits and
so there's no better or worse in
evolution there's just better or worse
suited for a given environment and when
that environment changes the best suited
person from the old system could be the
worst suited person for the new one so
if we start selecting for the things
that we value the most including things
like IQ but even disease resistance I
mean this is well known but if you um
people who are recessive carrier of of
sickle cell disease have increased
resistance to malaria which is the
biggest reason why that that trait has
hasn't just disappeared given how deadly
sickle cell disease is
the biology is incredibly complex we
understand such a tiny percentage of it
that we need to have in your words just
a level of of humility there are huge
Equity issues as you've articulated
let's just say that it I mean it is the
case that in our society IQ and IQ like
traits are highly rewarded there isn't
an equity issue but it works in both
ways because my guess is let's just say
that we had a society where we were
doing genome sequencing of everybody who
was born and we had some predictive
model to predict IQ and we had decided
as a society that IQ was going to be
what we were going to select for we were
going to put the highest IQ people in
these these different roles I guarantee
you the people in that in those roles
would not be the people who are legacy
admissions to Harvard they would very
likely be people who are born in slums
um people who are born with no
opportunity or in refugee camps who have
are just wasting away because we've
we've we've thrown them away
and so it's it's an easy
like it's it's the idea of just being
able to look under the hood of our
humanity is really scary for
everybody and it should be I mean I'm
also an Ashkenazi Jew my father was born
in Austria my father and grandparents
came here as refugees after the war most
of that side of the family was killed so
I get what it means to be on the other I
mean you said you're reading Mein Kampf
on the other side of the story when
someone said well here's what's good and
you're not good and therefore you're so
I I totally get that
having said that
um I do believe that we're moving toward
a new way of procreating
and we're going to have to decide what
are the values that we would like to uh
to realize through that process is it
Randomness which is what we currently
have now which is not totally random
because we have a sort of mating through
colleges and and other things
like you go to Harvard yeah or whatever
and your wife also goes to Harvard it's
like it's this location based uh meeting
well it's not location it's selection
it's like there are selections that are
made about who gets to a certain place
and when like it's like Harvard
admissions is a filter so so we're going
to have to decide what are the values
that we want to realize through this
process because diversity has it's just
baked into our biology we're the first
species ever that has the opportunity to
make choices about things that were
otherwise baked into our biology and
there's a real danger that if we make
bad choices even with good intentions it
could even drive us toward Extinction
and certainly undermine our our humanity
and that's why I always say and like I
said I'm deeply involved with who and
other things that these aren't
conversations about science there are
conversations science brings us to the
conversation but the conversation is
about values and ethics as you described
that world is wide open it's not even uh
a subtly different world that world is
fundamentally different from anything we
understand about life on Earth
because
um natural selection this random process
is so fundamental how we think about
life
being able to program I mean it has the
chance to
I mean it'll probably make my question
about the ethical concerns around IQ
based selection
um just meaningless because it'll change
the nature of identity
like it's possible it will dissolve
identity
because we take so much pride in all the
different characteristics that make us
who we are
whenever you have some control over
those characteristics those
characteristics start losing meaning
and what may start gaining meaning is
the ideas inside our heads for example
versus like the the details of like is
it a Commodore 64 is it a PC is it a Mac
it's going to be less important than the
software that runs on it so we can more
and more be operating in the digital
space and the identity could be
something that borrows multiple bodies
like it the the legacy of our ideas may
become more important than the details
of our physical embodiment like it I
mean I'm saying perhaps ridiculous
sounding things but they the point is it
will bring up so many new ethical
concerns that are narrow-minded thinking
about the current ethical concerns will
not apply so it's uh but it's important
to think about all this kind of stuff
like actively
what are the right conversations to be
having now because it feels like it's um
it's an ongoing conversation then
continually evolves like with an NIH
involved like do you do experiments
with animals do you build these brain
organoids do you still like through that
process you describe but the stem cells
like do you experiment with a bunch of
organisms to see how genetic uh material
what uh what form that actually takes
how to minimize the chance of cancer and
all those kinds of things what are the
negative consequences of that what are
the positive consequences yeah it's a
fascinating world it's a really
fascinating world yeah and then but
those conversations are just so
essential like we have to be talking
about ethics and then that raises the
question of who is the we and coming
back to to your conversation about
science communication maybe there was a
time earlier when these conversations
needed to be were were held among a
small number of experts who made
decisions on behalf of every everybody
else but what we're talking about here
is really the future of our species and
I think that conversation is too
important to be left just to experts and
and government officials so I mentioned
them that I'm a member we just ended our
our work after two years of the World
Health Organization expert advisory
committee on human genome editing and my
big push in that process
was to have education engagement and
empowerment of the broad public to bring
not just bring people into the
conversation with the tools to be able
to engage but also into the
decision-making process and that's it's
a real shift and there are countries
that are doing it better than others I
mean Denmark is obviously a much smaller
country than the United States but they
have a really well developed
infrastructure for public engagement
around really complicated scientific
issues and I I just think that we have
to like it's great that we have Twitter
and all these other things we need
structured conversations that where we
can really bring people together and and
listen to each other which feels like
it's it's harder than than ever
um but even now in this process where
all these people are shouting at each
other at least there are a bunch of
people who are in the the conversation
so it's we have a foundation but we just
really need to do
more work and again and again and again
it's about
ethics and values because we're at an
age and this has become a cliche of
exponential technological change and so
the rate of change is faster going
forward than it has been in the past so
in our minds we under appreciate how
quickly things are changing and um and
will change and if we're not careful if
we don't know who we are and what our
values are we're going to get lost and
we don't have to know technology we have
to know who we are I mean our values are
hard won over thousands of years no
matter how new the technology is we
shouldn't and can't jettison our our
values because that is the our primary
navigational tool
absurd question because we were
saying that uh
sexual rep reproduction is not the best
way to define The Offspring you think
there'll be a day when humans stop
having sex
I don't think we'll stop having sex
because it's so enjoyable
um but we may significantly stop having
sex for reproduction even today most
human sex is not for making babies it's
for other things whether it's pleasure
or love or pair bonding or or whatever
intimacy intimacy I mean some people do
it for intimacy some people do it for
for pleasure with strangers I feel like
the people that do it for pleasure I
feel like there will be better ways to
achieve that same
chemical pleasure right you know there's
just so many different kinds of people
there I mean they're I just saw this on
I just saw this on television but there
are people who put on those big bunny
outfits and go and have sex with other
people I mean they're just like an
unlimited number of different kinds of
people and I think they're called so I
remember hearing about this I think Dan
Savage is a podcast
um I think they're called furries first
like furry yeah exactly so they're just
I love people yeah but it's you know
that's like the thing it's like whenever
you hear these words like humans yeah
what would I think of next
um so but I do think that and I write
about this in in hacking Darwin that as
uh people come to believe that having uh
that making children through the
application of science is safer and more
beneficial than having children through
sex
um we'll start to see a a shift over
time toward reproduction through through
science we'll still have sex for all
this the the same great reasons that we
that we do it now it's just reproduction
less and less through the act of sex
man it's such a fascinating future
because as somebody I value flaws
I think uh it's the uh
Goodwill Hunting that's the good stuff
the flaws the the weird quirks of humans
that's what makes us who we are the the
weird the weirdest the beautiful and I
yeah
there's a fear of optimization that I
you should have it I mean it's very
healthy I mean and I think that's the
same word that's the danger of all of
this selection is that we make
selections just based on social norms
that are so deeply internal
that they feel like their Eternal truths
and so we we talked about selecting for
IQ what about selecting for a kind heart
like there are lots of people you talked
about Hitler and Minecon pillar has
certainly had a high IQ I guess is
higher than average IQ
um if we just select I mean that's why I
was saying before diversity is baked
into our biology but the the key lesson
and I've said this many times before the
key lesson of this moment in our history
is that after nearly four billion years
of evolution are one species suddenly
has the unique and increasing ability to
read write and hack the code of life
and so as we apply these god-like powers
that we've now assumed for ourselves
um we better be pretty careful uh
because it's so easy to make mistakes uh
particularly mistakes that are Guided by
our best intentions
to jump briefly back onto lab league and
I swear there's a reason for that
um
what did you think about the Jon Stewart
this moment I forget what it was maybe a
few months ago in the summer I think of
2021 where he went on Colbert Report or
Not The Colbert Report sorry the you
know Stephen Colbert's whatever his show
is uh but again Jon Stewart reminded us
how valuable his wit and Brilliance
within the humor was for our culture and
so he uh did this whole bit that
highlighted the common sense nature
about what was the metaphor he used
about the Hershey factory in
Pennsylvania so what'd you think about
that whole bit I loved it and so not to
be overly self-referential but it's hard
not to be overly self-referential when
you're doing a whatever however long we
are five hour interview about yourself
which it reminds like when you had Brett
Weinstein on he said I have no ego but
these 57 people have screwed me over
here
so it's hard so yeah no so you know I am
a person I will confess I it's enjoyable
some people feel different I kind of
like talking about all this stuff and
and talking period
um so for me in the earliest I remember
those early days of when the pandemic
started I was just sitting down it was
late January or early February 2020 and
I just was laying out all of the
evidence just as I that I could collect
trying to say make sense of where does
this come from and it just it was just
logic I mean I it was all the things
that Jon Stewart said which in some you
know overly wordy form were all at that
time on my website like what are the
odds of having this this outbreak of a
bad coronavirus of more than a thousand
miles away from where these bats have
their natural habitat where they have
the the largest collection of these bad
coronaviruses in the world and they're
doing all these very aggressive research
projects to make them more aggressive
and then you have the outbreak of a
virus that's that's primed for a human
to human transmission
um it was just logic was my first step
and I you know kept Gathering Gathering
the the information
but Jon Stewart distilled that in a way
that just everybody got and I think that
like I loved it and I just think that
there's a way of reaching people it's
the reason why I write science fiction
in addition to thinking and writing
about the science is that we kind of
have to reach people where they are and
and I just thought it was just there was
a lot of depth I thought and I mean
maybe that's
too self-serving but like in the
analysis but he he captured that into
the in in into those things about it's
like the the whatever the chewy the
outbreak of chewy goodness near the
Hershey factory I wonder where that came
from yeah this the humor this metaphor
also the like sticking with the joke
when the audience is uh
um in the audience that Stephen Colbert
he was like resisting it
he was very uncomfortable with it maybe
that was part of the bit I'm not sure
but it didn't look like it so Stephen in
that moment kind of represents the
discomfort of the scientific Community I
think it's kind of interesting that
whole dynamic and I think that was a
pivotal moment
that just like highlights the value of
Comedy the value of um
like when Joe Rogan says I'm just a
comedian
I mean that's such a funny thing to say
it's like saying I'm just a podcaster or
I'm just a writer I'm just a you know
that ability in so few words to express
what everybody else is thinking
um it's so refreshing
and I wish the scientific communicators
would do that too
a little humor a little humor I mean
that's why I love uh Elon Musk very much
so like the way he communicates is like
us it's it's so refreshing for for a CEO
of our major company several major
companies to just have a sense of humor
and say ridiculous shit every once in a
while that's so there's something to
that like it shakes up the whole
conversation to where it gives you
freedom to like think publicly if you're
always trying to say the proper thing
you lose the freedom to think to uh to
reason out to be authentic and genuine
when you say when you allow yourself the
freedom to regularly say stupid shit
have fun make fun of yourself
I think you give yourself freedom to
really be a great scientist with it
again honestly I I I think science and
stuff a lot to learn from comedians well
for sure I think we all do about just
distilling and communicating in ways
that people can hear like a lot of us
say things and people just can't hear
them yes either because of the way we're
saying them or or where they are but and
and like I said before I I'm a big fan
of Joe Rogan I've been on his show twice
and whatever but when Francis Collins
was in his conversation with you he said
um which I think makes sense is that
when somebody has that kind of platform
and people rightly or wrongly who follow
them and look to them for guidance
I do think
um that there is some responsibility for
people in those roles
to make whatever judgment
um that they make and to share that and
as I mentioned to you when we are off
mic uh Sanjay Gupta is a very close
friend of mine we've been friends for
many years and I and I fully supported
uh Sanjay's instinct to go on the on The
Joe Rogan show I thought it was yeah it
was great at the end of that whole
conversation
Joe said well I'm just a comedian what
do I know and I just felt that
um yes Joe Rogan is a comedian I
wouldn't say just a comedian among among
other things but I also felt that he had
a responsibility for just saying
whatever he believed even if he believed
or believed as I think is the case that
Ivermectin should be studied more which
I certainly agree
um and that you know healthy people
shouldn't get vaccinated healthy young
people which I don't agree I just felt
at the end of that conversation to say
well I'm just a comedian what do I know
I feel like it it it it didn't fully
integrate the power that a person like
Joe Rogan has to set the agenda so I
think the reason he says I'm just a
comedian is the same reason I say I'm an
idiot which I truly believe I can
explain exactly what I mean by that but
like it's it's it's more for him or in
this case for me
to just keep yourself humble and you
know because I think it's a slippery
slope when you think you have
responsibility to then
think you actually have an authority
because a lot of people listen to you
you think you have an authority to
actually like speak to those people and
you have the enough authority to know
what the hell you're talking about and I
think there's just a humility to just
kind of making fun of yourself that's
extremely valuable and saying I'm just a
comedian
um I think is a reminder to himself that
uh you know
he's often full of shit so are all of us
and so that's a really powerful way for
himself to keep himself humble
I mean I I think that's really useful to
in some kind of way for people in
general to
um yeah make fun of themselves a little
bit in whatever way that means and
saying I'm just a comedian is just one
way to do that now that that coupled
that with the responsibility of doing
the research and really having your open
mind and all those kinds of stuff
um I think that's something Joe does
really well on a lot of topics but he
can't do that and everything and so that
it's it's up to the people to decide how
well he does it on on certain topics and
and not others
um but how do you think uh Sanjay did in
that conversation so I know I'm going to
get myself into trouble here
um because Sanjay is a very close friend
Joe my personal interaction with him has
been our two interviews but it's like my
interview with now sit down with
somebody for four hours it's it's a lot
and and great and then and then private
uh communication so I am personally more
sympathetic now to the arguments that
Sanjay was making or trying uh trying to
make I believe that the threat of the
virus is greater than the threat of the
vaccine that doesn't mean that we can
guarantee 100 safety
um for the vaccine but these are really
well tolerated vaccine and we know for
all the reasons we've been talking about
this is a really scary virus and
particularly the MRNA vaccines what
they're basically doing is getting your
body to replicate a tiny little piece of
the virus the spike protein and then
your body responds to that and so that's
a much less much less of an insult to
your body than being infected by the
virus so I'm I'm more sympathetic to the
people who say well everybody should get
vaccinated but people who've already
been infected we should study whether
they need to be vaccinated or not having
said all of that I felt that
that Joe Rogan won the debate I mean it
was and the reason that I felt that he
won the debate was there if they were
kind of had they had two different
categories of arguments so Sanjay
what he was trying to do which I totally
respect was was saying there's so much
animosity between the on these different
sides let's lower the temperature let's
let's model that we can have a
respectful dialogue with each other we
can actually listen and Sanjay again
I've known him for many years he's a
very empathic humble just a all-around
wonderful human being and I really love
him and so he was making cases that were
based on kind of averages studies and
things like that and Joe was saying well
I know a guy whose sister's cousin had
this experience and I'm sure that it's
all true in the sense that we have
millions of people who are getting
vaccinated and and different things and
what Sanjay should have said was I I
know that's anecdote here's another
anecdote of like when Francis Collins
was with you and he talked about the
World Wrestling guy who was like six six
and a big muscly guy and then he got
kovid and he was anti-vaccine and then
he got coveted and almost died and he
said I'm gonna by the way yeah I don't
know if you know this part no oh this is
funny Joe's gonna listen to this is he's
gonna be laughing does Joe listen like
to the four hours of this in addition to
the three hours of his interviews every
day no not every day but he listens to a
lot of these and we talk about it and we
argue about it hi Joe
we love you Joe but he uh so that
particular case I don't know why Francis
said what he said there but that's not
accurate oh really so the wrestler
never he didn't almost die he was no big
deal at all for him and he said that to
him I think
I'm not sure I think something got mixed
up in francis's memory he there was
another case he must have been like
because I don't imagine he would bring
that case up and just like make it up
you know because like why but he that
was not at all like that was a pretty
public case to get an interview with him
that uh that wrestler he was just fine
so that anecdotal case I mean Francis
should not have done that so if I have
any so I have a bunch of criticism of
how that went
people who criticize that interview
I feel like don't give enough
respect to the full range of things that
Francis Collins has done in his career
here is an incredible scientist and I
also think a really good human being
but uh yes that conversation was flawed
in many ways and one of them was why
when you're trying to present some kind
of critical
like criticized Joe Rogan
why bring up an adult events at all and
if you do bring up anecdotal evidence
which is not scientific if you're
scientist you should not be using
anecdotal evidence if you do bring it up
why bring up one that's not
that's first not true and you know it's
not true
so I know to pretend so you don't know
it's not your book so yes that would
have been find another case exactly uh
where exactly so the basic thing in it
coming back to Sanjay and and Joe's uh
conversation was that Sanjay was trying
to use statistical evidence and Joe was
using anecdotal evidence and so I think
that for Sanjay and there are all kinds
of of things where there are debates
where the often the person who's better
at debating wins the debate regardless
of the topic
um so I think what what Sanjay could
have done and Sanjay is such a smart a
smart guy
um is to say why well that's that's an
anecdote here's another anecdote and
there are lots of different anecdotes
and there certainly are people who have
taken the vaccine and have had problems
that could reasonably be traced to the
vaccines and there certainly are lots of
people I would argue more people who've
not had the vaccine but who've gotten
coveted and have either died or our
hospitals are now full of people who
weren't vaccinated in many ways um I
mean our emergency rooms are full of
undaccinated people here in the United
States so I think what Sanjay could have
done but there was a conflict between
um wanting to kind of win the debate and
wanting to take the temperature down and
what he could have done is to say well
here's an anecdote I have a counter
anecdote and we can go on all day but
here's what the statistics show and I
think that was the the things I think
it's it's a healthy conversation we
can't I mean there are a lot of people
who are afraid of the vaccine there are
a lot of people who don't trust the
scientific establishment and lots of
them have good reason it's not just
people think of like Trump Republicans
there are lots of of people in the
African-American Community
who've had a historical terrible
experience variants with the Tuskegee
and and all sorts of things so they they
don't trust the messages that were being
delivered I live in in New York City and
they had a we had a piece in the New
York Times where in the in the earliest
days of the vaccines there were this big
movement let's make sure that the
poorest people in the city have first
access to the vaccines because they're
the ones they have higher density in
their homes they're relying on public
transport so there's this whole liberal
effortless and then in the black
community in New York according to the
New York Times there was very low
acceptance of the vaccines and they
interviewed people in that article and
they said well if the white people want
us to have it first there must be
something wrong with it they must be
doing something right and so we have to
listen to each other the like I would
never
I mean I I have a disrespect for
everybody and if somebody is cautious
about the vaccine for themselves or or
for their children we have to listen to
that at the same time
public health is about creating public
health and there's no doubt I think Joe
was absolutely right that older people
obese people are at greater risk for
being harmed or killed by the by
covid-19 than young healthy people but
by everybody getting vaccinated we
reduce the risk to everybody else and so
I feel like like with everything there's
the individual benefit argument and then
there's the community argument and I
absolutely think about expressing that
clearly that there's a difference
between the individual health and
freedoms and uh the community health and
freedoms and exp steel Manning each side
of this this is one of the problems that
people don't do enough of is be able to
so how do you just steal men an argument
you describe that argument in the best
possible way
you have to first understand that
argument let's go to the
non-controversial thing like Flat Earth
like most people most colleagues of mine
at MIT
don't even read about right like the the
full argument that the flat earthers
make
I feel is disingenuous for people in the
physics community
to roll their eyes at flat earthers if
they haven't read their arguments you
should you should feel bad that you
didn't read their arguments and like
like the it's the rolling of the eyes
that's a big problem you haven't read it
your intuition says that these are a
bunch of crazy people okay but you don't
get you you haven't earned the right to
roll your eyes you've earned your right
to maybe not read it
but then don't have an opinion don't
roll your eyes don't do any of that
dismissive stuff and the same thing in
this the the scientific Community around
covet and so on there's often this kind
of saying oh God that's conspiracy
theories that's misinformation without
actually looking into what they're
saying if you haven't looked into what
they're saying then don't talk about it
like if you're a scientific leader and
the communicator you need to look into
it it's not that much effort I totally
agree and I think that humility it's a
it's a constant theme of your podcast
and I love that and so after the the uh
conversation debate whatever it was
between Sanjay and Joe I reached out on
Twitter to someone I've never met in
person but I'm in in touch privately to
a guy named Daniel Griffin who's a a
professor at uh at Columbia medical
school and just so smart there he's uh
he gives regular updates on covid-19 on
a thing called twiv this weekend
critic of twiv for its its coverage of
academic Origins yes um but on this
issue and just having regular updates
Daniel is great and so I said you know
to him I said why don't we
um have a an honest process to get the
people who are raising concerns about
the vaccines in their own words to raise
what are their concerns not and then
um let's do our best job of saying well
here are these concerns and then here is
um our evidence making a counter claim
and here are links to if you want to
look at the studies upon which these
claims are made here here they are and
Daniel who's incredibly busy I mean he
he reads every I mean it seems every
paper that comes out every week and it's
unbelievable
um so but he sent me a link to the CDC q
a page
um on on the CDC website and it wasn't
that it was people who were I mean it
was written by people like me who were
convinced in the benefit of these um of
these vaccines so the questions were
framed they were kind of like they
weren't really the framing of the people
with the concerns they were framing of
people who were just kind of imagining
something else I mean you always talk
about kind of humility and active
listening
I know you don't mean and it doesn't
mean that we don't stand for something
like I I certainly am a strong proponent
of vaccines and masks and and all of
those things
um but if we don't hear other people we
don't let if we don't let them hear
their voice in the conversation if it's
just saying well you may think this and
here's why it's wrong
the argument may be right it'll just
never break through by the way my
interpretation of Joe and Sanjay I
listened to that conversation without
looking at Twitter or the internet and I
thought that was a great conversation
and I thought Sanji actually really
succeeded at bringing the temperature
down to me the goal was bringing the
temperature down I didn't even think of
it as a debate I was like oh cool this
isn't going to be some weird it's like
two friendly people talking and then I
look at the internet and then the
internet says Joe Rogan slams such like
like I said as if it was a heated debate
that Joe won and it's like all right
it's really the temperature being
brought down
real conversation with your two humans
that wasn't really a debate it was just
a conversation yeah and that was a
success yeah and I definitely think it
was a success but I also felt
um that
um
that a a takeaway and again this isn't
because this is something that I don't
agree with even though I have great as
I've said respect for Joe I think a
reasonable person listening to that
conversation would come away with the
conclusion that
um all in all these vaccines are a good
thing
um but if you're young and healthy
um You probably don't need it and I just
felt that
um that there was a stronger case to be
made even though Sanjay made it it
wasn't that Sanjay didn't make it it was
just that in the flow of that
conversation I felt that the case for
the vaccines and the vaccines both as an
individual Choice and then certainly
again as I as I said before I think that
well people can be afraid of the
vaccines the virus itself is much
scarier and we're just we're seeing it
now in in real time now with these
variations and variants I just felt that
that was kind of the the rough takeaway
from that conversation
um and I felt that that Sanjay again
whom I love I felt could have made his
case a little bit cheaper uh so the way
the thing he succeeded is he didn't come
off as uh like uh
a science expert looking down at
everybody talking down to everybody
so he succeeded in that yeah which is
very respectful but I also think sort of
making the case for taking the vaccine
where you when you're a young healthy
person when you're sitting across from
Joe Rogan
is like a high difficulty on the video
game level for sure so it's not a
it's difficult to do yeah it's difficult
to do and also it's difficult to do
because it's not like
it's not a simple
as like look at the data there's a lot
of data to go through here yeah and
there's also a lot of non-data stuff
like the fact that first of all uh
questioning the sources of the data the
quality of the data because it's also
disappointing about covet is that the
quality of the data is not great but
also questioning
all the motivations of the different
parties involved whether it's major
organizations that develop the vaccine
whether it's major institutions like NIH
or nyad that that are sort of
communicating to us about the vaccine
whether it's the CDC and the who whether
it's the Biden or the Trump
Administration whether it's China and
all those kinds of things you have to
that's part of the conversation here I
mean vaccination is not just a public
health tool it's also a tool for a
government to gain more control over the
populace
like there's a lot of Truth to that too
things that have a lot of benefit
can also be used as a trojan horse to
increase bureaucracy and control but
those that has to be on the table for a
conversation yeah I I think it has to be
on the conversation but
um I mean your parents and when they
were in the Soviet Union and here in the
United States and actually it was a big
collaboration between US and Soviet
Union when the polio vaccine came out
but there were people all around the
world who had a different life
trajectory no longer living in fear and
all these people who were paralyzed or
killed from polio smallpox has been
eradicated it was one of the the great
successes in human history and while it
for sure is true that you could imagine
some kind of fraudulent
vaccination effort but here I genuinely
think I mean whatever the number 15
million 16 million is the economist
number of dead from uh covet 19. many
many more people would be dead but for
these vaccines and so I get that any
activity that needs to be coordinated by
a central government has the potential
to increase bureaucracy and increase
control
but there are certain things that
Central governments do like the
development particularly these mRNA
vaccines which it's it's purely a a U.S
government Victory I mean it was a huge
DARPA funding and then ni the National
Institute for allergy and infectious
disease NIH funding I mean this was a
public-private partnership throughout
and that we got a a working vaccine in
11 months was a miracle so it's not
purely a victory
again you have to be open-minded I mean
I'm I'm with you here playing a bit of
Devil's Advocate but the people who
discuss any viral drugs that got them
acting and other Alternatives would say
that the extreme focus on the vaccine
distracted us from considering other
possibilities and saying that this is
purely a success
is distracting from the story that there
could have been other Solutions so yes
it's a huge success that the vaccine was
developed so quickly
and surprisingly way more effective than
it was hoped for
but there could have been other
Solutions and they're completely
distracted from us from that in fact it
distracted us from looking into a bunch
of things like the lab leak and that so
it's not a pure Victory and fair enough
and there's a lot of people that
criticize the overreach of government
and all of this that one of the things
that makes the United States great
is the individualism and the hesitancy
to ideas of mandates
even if the mandates on mass will have a
positive even strongly positive result
the Americans many Americans will still
say no
because in the long Arc of History
saying no in that moment will actually
lead to a better country and a better
world so that's a messed up aspect of
America but it's also a beautiful part
we're skeptical even about good things
I I agree and and certainly
um we should all be cautious about
government overreach absolutely and it
happens in all kinds of scenarios with
incarceration with a thousand things and
we also should be afraid of government
underreach that if there is a problem
that could be solved by governments and
that's why we have governments in the
first place is that they're just certain
things that individuals can't do on
their own and that's why we we pool our
resources and we in some ways sacrifice
our rights for this common thing and
that's why we don't have hopefully
people murderers marauding or people
driving 200 miles down the street that
we we have a process for arriving at a
set of of common rules and so while I
fully agree that we need to respect and
we need to listen
um we need to find that right balance
and you've raised the magic I word
Ivermectin
um and so in Ivermectin like my view has
always been
um Ivermectin could be effective it
could not be effective let's study it
through a full process and when you had
Francis Collins with you even while he
was making up stories about this um this
wrestler
um he was saying exactly but he was he
was saying that they're going to do a
full randomized highest level trial of
ivermectin and if Ivermectin works then
that's another tool in our in our
toolbox and I think we we should and and
I think that in that Sanjay was
absolutely correct to concede the point
to Joe
um that it was disingenuous for people
including people on CNN to say that
Ivermectin is is um is for livestock and
so I like I definitely think that we
have to
like we have to have some kind of
process that allows us to come together
and I totally agree that the great
strength of America is that we Empower
individuals it's the history of our
Frontier mentality in our country so we
I 100 agree that we have to allow that
even if sometimes it creates messy
processes and uncomfortable feelings and
all those sorts of things
you are an ultra marathon runner yes
what what uh
what are you running from no uh what is
the right it's the funny thing is so I'm
an ultra marathoner and I've done 13
Iron Mans and people say oh my God
that's amazing 13 Iron Man's and what I
always say no one Iron Man is impressive
13 Iron Man answers there's something
effing wrong with you we just need to
figure out what it is yeah there's
there's some demons trying to work
through I mean well you're doing the
work though most people just kind of let
the demons sit in the Attic no
um what have you learned about yourself
about your mind about your body about
life from
you know taking taking your body to the
limit in that kind of way to running
those kinds of distances well it's it's
a great question and I know that you are
also kind of exploring the limits of the
physical and so for me and doing the
Iron Mans and the ultra marathons it's
always the same kind of lesson
um which is just when you think you have
nothing left you actually have a ton
left there are a lot of resources that
are there
if you call on them and the ability to
call on them has to be cultivated it
really and so for me especially in the
the Iron Man and Iron Man in many ways
is is harder than the the ultra
marathons because it'll be it I mean
it's 140 miles I'll be at a hundred and
mile 120
um having done the swim and then the
bike and I'll be whatever
six miles into the run and I'll think I
feel like shit I have nothing left how
am I possibly gonna run 20 miles more
but there's there's always more and I
and I think that for me these extreme
sports
are my process of exploring
what is what's possible and I feel like
it applies in so many different areas of
life where you're kind of pushing and it
feels like the the limit and and you
know one of my a friend of mine who I
just have so much respect for who
actually be a great guest if you haven't
already interviewed him interviewed him
is Charlie Engel and Charlie he was a
drug addict he was in prison his life
was total shit
and somehow and I can't remember the
full story he just started running
around the prison yard and if it's like
Forrest Gump and he just kept running
and running and then he got out of
prison and he kept running and he
started doing Ultra marathons started
inspiring all these other people now
he's written all these books as a matter
of fact we just
spoke a few months ago uh that he's uh
he's planning on running
um from the Dead Sea to somehow to the
top of Mount Everest from the lowest
point to the highest point on Earth and
and I said well why why are you stopping
there why don't you get whatever Cameron
and go down to the lowest part of the
ocean go to the lowest part of the ocean
and then talk to to Elon Mar uh Elon
Musk or Jeff Bezos and go to the kind of
the highest place in the stratosphere
you can get but it's it's this thing of
possibility and I just feel like so many
of us and and myself included we get
stuck in a sense of what we think is our
range and if we're not careful that can
become our range and and that's why for
me in all of life it's all about like
we've been talking about challenging the
limits challenging assumptions
challenging ourselves and and hopefully
you know we do it in a way that kind of
doesn't hurt anybody I you know when I'm
at the Iron Man they have all these
little kids and they'll have these
little shirts and it'll say like my dad
is a hero and have the little Iron Man
logo and and I want to say it's like no
your your dad is actually a narcissistic
dick who goes on Eight Mile bike rides
every Sunday rather than spend time with
you and so we shouldn't hurt anybody
um but I for me I I and I also I just
find it very enjoyable and I hope I'm
not disclosing uh too much about our
Commerce station before we went live
where you're doing so many different
things with running and your and your
Martial Arts and I encouraged you to do
um Ultra marathons in because there's so
many great ones in Texas it's actually
surprisingly a very enjoyable way to
spend a day like how how would you
recommend so yeah for people who might
not know I I've never actually even run
a marathon around uh 22 miles in one
time at most I did the
4x4 by 48 challenge with David Goggins
where you run four miles every four
hours is it different as less to do with
the distance and more to do with the
sleep deprivation what advice would you
give to a first time ultra marathon or
like me trying to run 50 or more miles
or for um
anybody else interested in this kind of
exploration of their range what I always
tell is the same advice is register pick
your timeline of when you think it you
can be ready make it depending on where
you are now make it six months make a
year and then register for the race and
then once you're registered just work
back from there what's it what's it
going to take but one of the things for
people who are just getting going you
really do need to make sure that your
body is ready for it and so particularly
and particularly as we get older
strengthening is really important so
I'll do a plug for my brother Jordan
Metzel he's a doctor at hospital for
special surgery but his whole thing is
functional strength and it then so and
people know about and you can actually
even go to his website um that you just
Google Jordan Metzel iron strength but
it's all about like burpees and just
building your muscular strength so that
you don't get injured as you as you
increase and then just increase your
mileage with you know in some steady way
make sure sure that you you take rest
days and listen to your body because
people like you who are just very kind
of Mind Over Matter like there's you
were telling me before about you have an
injury but you kind of run a little bit
differently and and you know we need to
listen to our bodies because our bodies
are are communicating
um but I think if he's kind of little by
little magic is is possible and and what
I will say is some I also do I've done
lots and lots of marathons and I always
tell people that the ultra marathons at
least the ones that I do and I shouldn't
misrepresent myself I mean there are
people who do 500 Mile races the ones
that I do are 50k Mountain Trail runs
which is is 32 miles so it's I do the
kind of the easier side of um uh of
Ultras but it's actually much easier
than a marathon because you know some of
the mountain ones some sometimes it's so
steep
um that you can't uh you you have to
walk it because walking is faster than
than running and every you know four or
five miles in the supported races you
stop and eat blintzes and boiled
potatoes it's actually quite enjoyable
but as I started to tell you when we
before we we went live
um so I've done for lots of years these
50k Mountain Trail runs and I was going
to Taiwan a number of years ago go for
something else and I thought wouldn't it
be fun to to do an ultra marathon in
Taiwan I looked and that you know the
weekend after my visit there was a
marathon it was called the I mean ultra
marathon it was called the Taiwan beast
and I figured oh beasts what are they
talking about it's 50k Mountain Trail
and I've done a million of them and then
I went to register and then as part of
registration they said you need to have
all of this equipment and it was all
this like Wilderness Survival equipment
and I was thinking God these Taiwanese
but what a bunch of ways it's dramatic
you have to carry give me a break 50k
Mount drone so I get there and the race
starts at like 4 30 in the morning in
the middle of nowhere and you have to
wear headlamps and everyone's carrying
all this stuff and you kind of go
running out in into the into the rain
forest
it was the hardest thing I've ever done
it took 19 hours there were maybe 15
Cliff faces like a real cliff and
somebody had dangled like a little piece
of string and so you had to hold on to
the string with one hand while it was in
the pouring rain climb up these Cliffs
there were maybe 20 River Crossings but
not just like a little stream like a
torrential River there were some things
where it was so steep
um that everyone was just climbing up
and then you'd slide all the way down
and climb up and there were people I met
on the way out there who are saying oh
yeah I did the Sahara 500 kilometer race
and and those people were just sprawled
out a lot of them didn't finish
um so that was the hardest thing I've
ever so what how do you get through
something like that you just one step at
a time was there do you remember is
there uh yeah these are dark moments or
is it kind of all spread out you know
suddenly it wasn't really
dark moments the biggest there was one
thing where I'd been running so long I
thought well I must almost be done and
then I found out I had like 15 miles
more
um but you know I guess with all of
these things it's the it's the messages
that we tell ourselves and so for me
it's like the message I always tell
myself is
you know quitting isn't an option I mean
once in a while you've got to have to
quit if like listen to the universe if
whatever you're gonna kill yourself or
something but for me it was just you
know whatever it takes there's no way
I'm stopping and if I have to go up this
muddy Hill 20 times because I keep
sliding I'm sure there's there's a way
it's probably a personality flaw
what is your love for chocolate come
from oh it's a great question and in my
both of my Joe Rogan interviews that's
the first question that he asked I'm
glad that we could we've gotten to that
so one I've always loved chocolate and
as and I I call it like a secret but now
that I keep telling if you keep telling
the same secret it's actually no longer
a secret that I have a a secret which is
not secret because I'm telling you on a
podcast
um life as a chocolate Shaman and so
when I give
Keynotes at Tech conference I say I'm
happy to give a keynote
um but I want to lead a sacred cacao
ceremony in the night I'm actually
believe it or not the official chocolate
Shaman of what used to be called
exponential medicine which is part of
Singularity University now my friend
Daniel Kraft who runs it it's going to
be called Next Med
and so but I'll have to go back as I was
going
um to Berlin a lot of years ago and I've
always loved chocolate but I was going
to Berlin to give a keynote
um at a at a big conference called TOA
Tech uh Tech open air and so when I got
there
um the first night I was supposed to
give a talk but there had been some mix
up they'd forgotten to reserve the room
and so the talk got canceled and in the
brochure they had all these different
events around Berlin that you could go
to and one of them was a cacao ceremony
and so I went there and actually met
some somebody Viviana who is still a
friend by me going in there and there
was this cacaoism and there are these
kind of hippie dudes and then everybody
got the cacao and then they said all
right as they talked a little bit about
the process and then they said all right
everyone just stand and kind of we're
gonna spin around in a circle for 45
minutes and so I spun around in the
circle for like 10 10 minutes but then I
had to leave because I had to go to
something else and so that I thought
that was that but then I saw Viviana the
next day and I said how did the cacao
money go and she showed me these
pictures
of all these people mostly naked like it
turned into chaos and and it was like on
so let me get this straight people drank
chocolate then they spun around in a
circle and something else happened and
anyway so then two days later I was
invited to another cacao ceremony which
was also actually part of this TOA and
that was kind of more structured and it
was more sane because it was part of
this thing and and at the end of that I
had this I thought one how the greatest
thing ever a sacred cacao ceremony like
you drink chocolate milk and and
everybody's free and I love that idea
because I I've you know I've never done
drugs I don't drink but just part of it
is because I think whatever like I was
saying with the ultra running
um all of the possibilities are within
us if we can get out of our own our own
way and then I thought well you know I
think I can do a better job than what
what I experienced in Berlin so I came
back and I thought I'm going to get
accredited as a a cow Shaman and this
will shock you because I know if you're
going to be like a rabbi or a priest or
something there's some process but
shockingly there's no official process
chocolate Shaman and so I thought all
right well you know I'm just going to
train myself and when I'm ready I'm
going to declare my chocolate Shamanism
so I started studying different things
and when I was ready I just said now I'm
a chocolate Shaman self-declared
self-declared and so but I do these
ceremonies and I've I've done them at
Tech conferences I did one in in Soho
House in New York I've done it at a
place Rancho La Puerta in Mexico and
every time it's the same thing because
it just if people are given a license to
be free just it doesn't matter and what
I always say is you're here for a sacred
cacao ceremony but the truth is there's
no such thing as sacred cacao and
there's no sacred mountains and there's
no sacred people and there's no sacred
plans because nothing is sacred if we
don't attribute a scribe sacredness to
it but if we recognize that everything
is sacred then we'll live different
lives and for the purpose of this
ceremony we're just going to say all
right we're going to focus on this cacao
which actually has been used
ceremonially for 5 000 years it has all
these wonderful properties
um but is this people who get that
license and then they're just free and
people are dancing and it's the goal to
celebrate
life in general is it to celebrate the
senses like taste is it to celebrate
yourself each other what is their um I
think the core is gratitude and just
appreciation and all the experiences in
life yeah just of being alive of just
living in this sacred world where we
have all these things that we don't even
pay any attention to
um my friend AJ Jacobs he had a
wonderful book that I I use the spirit
of it in the ceremonies and not the
exactly but he was in a a restaurant in
New York coffee shop and his child said
hey where does the coffee come from and
he's I mean he's like a wonderful big
thinker and he started really answering
that question well here's where the
beans come from but how did the beans
get here and who painted the yellow line
on the street so the truck didn't crash
and who made the cup and he spent a year
making a full spreadsheet of all of the
people who in One Way or Another played
some role in that one cup of coffee and
he traveled all around the world
thanking them like it's like thank you
for painting the yellow line on the road
yeah and so for me with the cacao part
of when I do these ceremonies is just to
say like you're drinking this cacao but
there's a person who planted the seed
there's a person who watered the plant
there's a person and and I just think
that level of awareness and it's true
with anything like you have in front of
you a stuffed Hedgehog so somebody made
that I love it it's great but like if
you if we just said all right where does
this stuffed Hedgehog come from we would
have a full story of globalization of
the interconnection of people all around
the world doing all sorts of things of
human imagination it's beyond our
capacity and our daily we go insane if
every day like we're speaking into a
microphone well you know what are the
hundreds of years of technology that
make this possible but it's just once in
a while we just focus on one thing and
say this thing is sacred and because I'm
recognizing that and I'm having an
appreciation for the world around me it
just kind of makes my life feel more
sacred it makes me recognize my
connection to others so that's that's
the gist of it yeah it's funny I often
look at
foreign
things in this world and moments and
just uh I mean awe
of
the full
universe that brought that to be
um in a similar way as you're saying but
I don't as often think about exactly
what you're saying which is the number
of people behind every little thing we
get to enjoy I mean yeah this Hedgehog
this microphone
is it like directly like thousands of
people involved million and then
indirectly is millions like
uh yeah
and they're all like this microphone
that there's like artists essentially
like people who made it their life's
work all the cross like from the
factories to the manufacturer there's
families
that the production of this microphone
and this Hedgehog are fed because of the
skill of this human that helped
contribute to that that development yeah
it's um and like Isaac Newton and John
Von Newman are in this are in this
microphone they're standing on the
shoulders of the giant so we're standing
on their shoulders yeah and uh somebody
will be standing on ours yeah
you mentioned uh one shared world yeah
what is it well thanks for asking and by
the way what I will say is the people
who are listening this is so incredible
and I'm so thrilled to have this kind of
long conversation person who's listening
past the five hour mark thanks mom
um the uh I salute you yeah somebody was
like sleeping for the first four hours
it just was like now's the good stuff
I've been saving it um but and I have to
say that
so much of our Lives is is forced into
these short bursts that I'm just so
appreciative to have the chance to have
this this conversation so thank you
people would say five hours is short so
you know let's let's go um and um yeah
that's a that's what uh my girlfriend uh
says that like if if I was like
um captured and tortured and they were
gonna interrogate me it's like at the
end they'd say all right enough we're
sick of this guy we quit let him go I
love it um so background on on one
shared world I mentioned I'm on a
faculty for Singularity University in
the earliest days of the pandemic I was
invited to give a talk on whether the
tools of the genetics and biotech
revolutions were a match for the uh the
outbreak and my view was then as now
that the answer to that question is yes
but I woke up that morning and I felt
that that wasn't the most important talk
that I could give there was something
else that was more pressing for me and
that was the the realization they were
asking the question well why weren't we
prepared for this pandemic because we
could have been we weren't
um and why can't and because of that why
can't we respond adequately uh to this
this outbreak
um and then there was the thing well if
we even if we respond somehow
miraculously overcome this pandemic it's
a peric victory if we have if we don't
prepare ourselves to respond to the
broader category of pandemics
particularly as we enter the age of
synthetic biology but if somehow
miraculously we solve that problem
but we don't solve the problem of
climate change well kind of who cares we
didn't have a pandemic but we wiped
everybody out from climate change and
let's just say
um you get where this is going that we
organize ourselves and we solve climate
change and then we have a nuclear war
because everybody's particularly China
now but U.S the former Soviet Union are
building all these nuclear weapons who
cares that we solved climate change
because we're all gone anyway and the
The Meta category bringing all those
things together was this mismatch
between the increasingly Global and
shared nature of the biggest challenges
that we face and our inability to solve
that entire category of problems and
there's a a historical issue which is
that prior to the 30 years war in the
17th century we had all these different
kinds of sovereignty and religious and
and different kinds of organizational
principles and everybody got in this war
and in this the series of treaties that
together are called the Peace of
Westphalia the the framework for the
modern What We Now understand is the
modern nation state was late and then
through colonialism and other means that
idea of a state is what it is today
spread throughout the the world
then through particularly the late 19th
and early 20th century we realized how
unstable that system was because you
always had these jockeying jocking
between sovereign states and some were
rising and some were falling and you
ended up in in war and that was the
genius of the generations who came
together in 1945 in San Francisco and
the planning had even started before
then who said well we can't just have
that world we need to have an overlay
and we talked about the UN and the who
of systems where are which transcend our
national sovereignties they don't they
don't get rid of them but they transcend
them so we can solve this category of
problems but we're now reaching a point
where our reach as humans even
individually but collectively is so
great that there's a mismatch between as
I said the nature of the problems and
the the ability to solve those uh those
problems and unless we can address that
broader Global Collective action problem
we're going to extinct ourselves and and
we see these different what I call
verticals whether it's climate change or
trying to prevent nuclear weapons
proliferation or anything else but none
of those can succeed and frankly it
doesn't even matter if one succeeds
because all of them have the potential
to lead to extinction level events
so anyways I gave that talk and and that
talk went viral I stayed up all night
the next night and I drafted I think it
was like an insanity but I think a lot
of us were manic in those early days of
the pandemics wanting to do something
and so I stayed up all night and I
drafted what I called a declaration of
global interdependence and I posted that
on my website my Jamie russell.com and
still there and that went viral
um and so then I called a meeting just
on the people on my personal email list
and so we had people from 25 countries
there were all of these people who were
having the same thing there's something
wrong in the world and they wanted to be
part of of a process of fixing it
and so it was a crazy 35 days where we
broke into eight different working
groups we had an amazing team that
helped re-draft what became the
Declaration of interdependence which is
now in in 20 languages we laid out a
work plan we founded this organization
called one shared world the URL is
oneshared.world and it's just been this
incredible journey we now have people
who are participating in one way or
another from 120 different countries we
have our public events exploring these
issues get millions of viewers we have
world leaders who are participating so
the vision the the the vision is to work
on some of these big problems arbitrary
number of problems that present
themselves in the world that face all of
human civilization and to be able to
work together well that is but there's a
there's a macro a meta problem which is
the global Collective action problem and
so the idea is even if we if we just
focus on the verticals on the
manifestations of the global Collective
action problem
um there will be an infinite number of
those things so while we work on those
things like climate change pandemics wmd
and other things we also have to ask the
bigger questions of why can't we solve
this category of problems and the idea
is at least from my observation is
um that whenever big decisions are being
made are national leaders and corporate
leaders are doing exactly what we've
hired them to do they're maximizing for
National interest even or corporate
interest even at the expense of
everybody and so it's not that we want
to get rid of States states are
essential in our world system it's not
we want to undermine the UN which is
also essential but massively
underperforming what we want to do is to
create an empowered Global constituency
of people who are demanding that their
leaders at all levels just do a better
job job of balancing broader and
narrower interests I see so this is more
like a
uh make it more symmetric in terms of
power it's uh holding uh accountable the
the Nations the leaders the problem is
nations are powerful we talked about
China quite a bit
how do you have an organizations of of
citizens of Earth
they can solve the the this Collective
problem that holds China accountable
it's difficult because U.N you could say
a lot of things but to call it effective
is hard yeah you know the internet
almost is a kind of
representation of um
a collective force that holds Nations
accountable you know Twitter not to give
Twitter too much credit but social
networks broadly speaking
so you have hope that this is possible
to build such organ such collections of
humans that resist China not necessarily
resist China but human I mean our
cultures change over time I mean the
idea of the modern nation state would
would not have made sense to people in
the 13th or 14th century the idea that
became the United Nations I mean it had
its its earliest days in in the
philosophies of Kant it took a long time
for these ideas
um to be to be realized
um and so the idea and and you know
we're we're far from successful I mean
we've had little minor successes which
we're very proud of we got the G20
leaders to incorporate the language that
we provided on addressing the needs of
the world's most vulnerable populations
into the um final Summit communicate
from the G20 Summit in Riyadh this year
we're just on the verge of having our
language pat on the same issue ensuring
everyone on Earth has access to Safe
Water basic sanitation and hygiene and
essential pandemic protection by 2030
passed as part of a resolution in the
United Nations General Assembly and it's
we're primarily I mean it's young people
all around the world and when I told
them that in the beginning of this year
this is our goal we're going to get the
UN General Assembly to pass a resolution
with our language in it I mean first I
think they all thought it was insane but
they were too young and inexperienced to
know how insane it was but now these
these young people are just so excited
that it's actually happening so what
we're trying to do is is really to
create a movement which we don't feel
that we need to do from scratch because
there are a lot of movements like right
now we just had the Glasgow G20 I mean
I'm sorry the Glasgow climate change cup
26 and then Greta thundberg who has a
huge following and who's an amazing
young woman but I was kind of
disappointed in what she said afterwards
it became like a meme on Twitter which
was blah blah blah
and basically it was like blah blah blah
these old people are just screwing
around and it's it's a waste of time and
and definitely the critique is merited
but young people have never been more
empowered educated connected than they
are now and so that's what what we we've
had a process with uh with uh one shared
World
um where we partnered with the model
United Model United Nations the Aga Khan
foundation the India sanitation
Coalition and what we did is say all
right we have this goal Water Sanitation
hygiene and pandemic protection for
everyone on Earth by 2030.
and we had debates and consultations
using the model un framework All Around
the World in multiple languages
languages and we said come up with a
plan for how this could be achieved and
these brilliant young people in every
country not every country most countries
um they all contributed then we had a
plan then I recruited friends of mine
like my friend Hans Carell in Sweden
who's the former Chief counsel of the
the whole United Nations and asked him
and others to work with these young
people and representative to turn that
into what looks exactly like a UN
resolution it's just written by a bunch
of kids all around the world we then
sent that to every permanent
representative every government
represented at the UN and that was why
working with the German and Spanish
governments why the language
essentialized from that document is
about to pass the UN and that doesn't
mean that just passing a U.N General
Assembly resolution changes anything but
we think that there's a model of
engaging people just like you're talking
about these people who are are outside
of the traditional power structures
and who want to have a voice
but I think we need to give a little bit
of structure because just going I'm a
big fan of global citizen but just going
to a global citizen concert and waving
your iPhone back and forth and tweeting
about it isn't enough to drive the kind
of change that's required we need to
come together even in untraditional ways
and articulate the change we want and
build popular movements to make that
happen and popular means scale and then
movements at scale that actually uh like
where at the individual level do
something and that's uh that's then
magnified with the scale to actually
have a significant impact I mean uh
at its best you hear a lot of folks talk
about the various cryptocurrencies as as
possibly helping you have young people
get involved in challenging the power
structures by challenging the monetary
system and there's uh you know some of
it is um
number go up people get excited when
they're they can make a little bit of
money
but that's actually almost like um entry
point because then you almost feel
empowered and because of that you start
to think about some of these
philosophical ideas that I as a young
person have the power to change the
world all of these senior folks in the
position of power they were like first
of all they were once young and
Powerless like me
and uh I could be part of the Next
Generation that makes a change well the
things I see that are wrong with the
world I can make I can make it better
and it's very true that the overly
powerful nations of the world could be a
relic of the past
that's a that could be a a 20th century
and before idea that was tried
to create a lot of benefit
but we also saw the problems with that
kind of world extreme nationalism
we see the benefits and the problems of
the Cold War
arguably Cold War got us to the Moon
um but there could be other a lot of
other different mechanisms that inspired
competition especially friendly
competition between nations versus
adversarial competition that resulted in
the response to covid for example with
China and the United States and Russia
and the secrecy the censorship
um yeah and all the things that are
basically against the the spirit of
science
and resulted in the loss of trillions of
dollars in the cost of countless lives
what gives you hope about the future
Jamie well one of the things you
mentioned
um cryptocurrency and then as you know
better than most there's cryptocurrency
and then underneath the cryptocurrency
there's the blockchain and the
distributed Ledger and then like we
talked about there are all these young
people who were able to connect with
each other
um to organize in in new ways and I work
with these young people every single day
through one shared World primarily but
also other things and there's so much
optimism there's so much hope
um that I just have a lot of faith that
we're going to figure something out I'm
an optimist by nature and that doesn't
mean that we need we need to be blind to
the dangers there are very very real
dangers but just given half the chance
people want to be good people want to do
the right thing and I do believe that
there's a role I mean there's a role for
the at least near term for governments
but there's always a role for leadership
and I'm I guess like a gramsian in in
the sense that that I I think that we
need to create Frameworks and and
structures that allow leaders to emerge
and we need to build Norms so that the
leaders who emerge our leaders who call
on us Inspire our best instincts and not
drive us toward our our worst but I
really see a lot of Hope and I mean you
say this all the time
in your in your podcast and you may even
be more optimistic to me because you
look at the darkest moments of human
history and see hope but we're kind of a
crazy wonderful species I mean yes we
figured out ways to slaughter each other
at scale but we've come up with these
wonderful philosophies about love and
and all of those things and and yeah
maybe the bonobos have some love in in
their cultures but this we're kind of a
wonderful magical species and if we just
can create enough of an infrastructure
it doesn't need to be and shouldn't be
controlling just enough of an
infrastructure so that people are
stakeholders feel like they're
stakeholders in contributing to a
positive story I just really feel the
the sky is the is the limit so if
there's somebody who's young right now
or somebody in high school somebody in
college listening to you you've done a
lot of incredible things
you're respected by
a lot of the elites irrespected by the
people so you're both able to sort of
vote you know uh speak to all groups
walk through the fire like you like you
mentioned with this lab leak
what advice would you give
um to young kids today that are inspired
by your story well thank you I mean I
think there's one there's lots of I'm
honored if anybody is inspired
um but it's the same thing as I said
with the science that it's all about
values the core of everything is knowing
who you are and so yes I mean there's
the broader thing of you follow your
passions
um a creative mind and an inquisitive
mind is the core of everything because
the knowledge base is constantly sharing
so learning how how to learn
but at the core of everything is
investing in knowing who you are and
what you stand for because that's that's
the way that's the uh the path to
Leading a meaningful life to
contributing to not feeling alienated
from your life as you get older and just
like like you live
um it's an ongoing process and we all
make mistakes and we all kind of travel
down wrong paths and just have some love
for yourself and recognize that just at
every like I was saying with the Iron
Man
um just when you think there's no
possibility that you can go on there's a
100 percent possibility that you can go
on and just when you think that nothing
better will happen to you there's a 100
percent chance that something better
will happen to you you just gotta keep
going
Jamie this I've been a a fan of yours
I've I think first heard you're on uh
Joe Rogan Experience but been following
your work your bold Fearless work with
the speaking about the lab leak and
everything you represent from your
Brilliance to your kindness and the fact
that you spend your valuable time with
me today and now I officially made you
miss your flight and the fact that you
said that whether you're being nice or
not I don't know that you would be okay
with that means the world to me and I'm
really honored that you will spend your
time with me today well really it's been
such a great pleasure and and thank you
for creating a forum to have these kinds
of of long conversations so I I really
enjoyed it and and thank you and if
anybody has now listened for uh what's
it been five and a half hours yep thank
you for listening five-hour Club
thank you Jamie thanks awesome
thanks for listening to this
conversation with Jamie Metzel to
support this podcast please check out
our sponsors in the description
and now let me leave you some words from
Richard Feynman about science and
religion which I think also applies to
science and geopolitics because I
believe scientists have the
responsibility to think broadly about
the world so that they may understand a
bigger impact of their inventions
the quote goes like this
in this age of specialization men who
thoroughly know one field are often
incompetent to discuss another the old
problems such as the relation of Science
and religion are still with us and I
believe present as difficult dilemmas as
ever but they are not often publicly
discussed because of the limitations of
specialization
thank you for listening and hope to see
you next time