Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
Brett Weinstein evolutionary biologist
author co-host of the Dark Horse podcast
and as he says reluctant radical even
though we've never met or spoken before
this we both felt like we've been
friends for a long time I don't agree on
everything with Brett but I'm sure as
hell happy he exists in this weird and
wonderful world of ours
quick mention of our sponsors Jordan
Harbor to show expressvpn magic spoon
and for sigmatic check them out in the
description to support this podcast
as a side note let me say a few words
about covid-19 and about science broadly
I think science is beautiful and
Powerful it is the striving of the human
mind to understand and to solve the
problems of the world
but as an institution it is susceptible
to the flaws of human nature to fear to
Greed power and ego
2020 is the story of all of these that
has both scientific Triumph and tragedy
we needed great leaders and we didn't
get them what we needed is leaders who
communicate in an honest transparent and
authentic way about the uncertainty of
what we know and the large-scale
scientific efforts to reduce that
uncertainty and to develop Solutions
I believe there are several candidates
for solutions that could have all saved
hundreds of billions of dollars and
lessened or eliminated the suffering of
millions of people
let me mention five of the categories of
solutions masks at home testing
anonymized contact tracing antiviral
drugs and vaccines within each of these
categories institutional leaders should
have constantly asked and answered
publicly honestly the following three
questions one what data do we have on
the solution and what studies are we
running to get more and better data two
given the current data and uncertainty
how effective and how safe is the
solution three what is the timeline and
cost involved with mass manufacturing
distribution of the solution
and the service of these questions no
voices should have been silenced no
ideas left off the table open data open
science open on a scientific
communication and debate was the way not
censorship
there are a lot of ideas out there that
are bad wrong dangerous but the moment
we have the hubris to say we know which
ideas those are is the moment we'll lose
our ability to find the truth to find
Solutions the very things that make
science beautiful and Powerful in the
face of all the dangers that threaten
the well-being and the existence of
humans on Earth
this conversation with Brett is less
about the ideas we talk about we agree
on some disagree on others it is much
more about the very freedom to talk to
think to share ideas this freedom is our
only hope Brett should never have been
censored I asked Brad to do this podcast
to show solidarity and to show that I
have hope for Science and for Humanity
this is the Lux Friedman podcast and
here's my conversation with Brett
Weinstein
what to you is beautiful about the study
of biology the science the engineering
the philosophy of it it's a very
interesting question I must say at one
level
it's not a conscious thing I can say a
lot about why as an adult I find biology
compelling but as a kid I was completely
fascinated with animals I loved to watch
them and think about why they did what
they did and that developed into a very
conscious passion as an adult but I
think
uh in the same way that one is drawn to
a person I was drawn to the never-ending
series of near Miracles that exists
across biological nature when you see a
living organism do you see it from an
evolutionary biology perspective of like
this entire thing that moves around in
this world or do you see like from an
engineering perspective that like uh
first principles almost down to the
physics like the little components that
build up hierarchies they have cells if
the first proteins and cells and organs
and all that kind of stuff so you see
low level or do you see high level
well the human mind is a strange thing
and I think it's probably a bit like a
time sharing machine in which I have
different modules we don't know enough
about biology for them to connect right
so they exist in isolation and I'm
always aware that they do connect but I
basically have to step into a module in
order to see The evolutionary dynamics
of the creature and the lineage that it
belongs to I have to step into a
different module to think of that
lineage over a very long time scale a
different module still to understand
what the mechanisms inside would have to
look like to account for what we can see
from the outside and
I think that probably sounds really
complicated but
one of the things about being
involved in a topic like biology and
doing so for one you know really not
even just my adult life for my whole
life is that it becomes second nature
and you know when when we see somebody
do an amazing Parkour routine or
something like that
we think about what they must be doing
in order to accomplish that but of
course what they are doing is tapping
into some kind of zone right they are in
a Zone in which they are in such
command of their center of gravity for
example that they know how to hurl it
around a landscape so that they always
land on their feet
um and I would just say
for anyone who hasn't found a topic on
which they can develop that kind of
facility it is absolutely worthwhile
it's really something that human beings
are capable of doing across a wide range
of topics many things our ancestors
didn't even have access to and that
flexibility of humans that ability to
repurpose our machinery for topics that
are novel means really the world is your
oyster you can you can figure out what
your passion is and then figure out all
of the angles that one would have to
pursue to really deeply understand it
and it is uh it is well worth having at
least one topic like that you mean
embracing the full adaptability of the
both the the body and the mind so like
because I don't know what to attribute
to parkour to like biomechanics of how
our bodies can move
or is it the mind like how much percent
wise is it the entirety
of the hierarchies of biology that we've
been talking about or is it just all
the mind the way to think about
creatures is that every creature is two
things simultaneously a creature is a
machine of sorts right it's not a
machine in in the you know it's it's I
call it an aqueous machine right and
it's run by an aqueous computer right so
it's not identical to our our
technological machines but
every creature is both a machine that
does things in the world sufficient to
accumulate enough resources to continue
surviving to reproduce
it is also a potential so each creature
is potentially
for example the most recent common
ancestor of some future clate of
creatures that will look very different
from it and if a creature is very very
good at being a creature but not very
good in terms of the potential it has
going forward then that lineage will not
last very long into the future because
change will throw at challenges that its
descendants will not be able to meet so
the thing about humans is we are a
generalist platform
and we have the ability to swap out our
software to exist in many many different
niches and I was once watching a an
interview with with this uh British
group of Parkour experts who were being
you know just they were discussing what
it is they do and how it works and what
they essentially said is look you're
tapping into deep monkey stuff
right and I thought yeah that's about
right and you know anybody who
is proficient at something like skiing
or skateboarding you know has the
experience of
flying down the hill on skis for example
bouncing from the top of one Mogul to
the next and if you really pay attention
you will discover that your conscious
mind is actually a spectator it's there
it's involved in the experience but it's
not driving some part of you knows how
to ski and it's not the part of you that
knows how to think and
I would just say that the what accounts
for this flexibility in humans is the
ability to bootstrap a new software
program
and then drive it into the unconscious
layer where it can be applied very
rapidly
and you know I will be shocked if the
exact thing doesn't exist in robotics
you know if you if you programmed a
robot to deal with circumstances that
were novel to it how would you do it it
would have to look something like this
this is a certain kind of magic
you're right well the Consciousness
being an observer when you play guitar
for example or piano for me music
when you get truly lost in it I don't
know what the heck is responsible for
the flow of the music the kind of the
loudness of the music going up and down
the timing the intricate like even the
mistakes all those things that doesn't
seem to be the conscious mind
uh it's it is just observing and yet
it's somehow intricately involved more
like because you mentioned parkour the
dance is like that too when you start
I've been Tango dancing if when you
truly lose yourself in it
then it's just like you're an observer
and how the hell is the body able to do
that and not only that it's the physical
motion is also creating the emotion the
like that damn was good to be alive
feeling
so but then that's also intricately
connected to the full biology stack that
we're operating in I don't know how
difficult it is to replicate that we're
talking offline about Boston Dynamics
robots
um they've recently been they did both
parkour they did flips they've also done
some dancing
and something I think a lot about
because what most people don't realize
because they don't look deep enough as
those robots are hard-coded to do those
things
the the robots didn't figure it out by
themselves and yet the the fundamental
aspect of what it means to be human is
that process of figuring out of making
mistakes and then there's something
about overcoming those challenges and
the mistakes and like figuring out how
to lose yourself in the magic of the
dancing
uh or just movement is what it means to
be human that learning process so that's
what I want to do with the with the uh
almost as a fun side thing with the the
Boston Dynamics robots is to have them
learn and see what they figure out
even if it even if they make mistakes I
want to let
spot make mistakes and and so doing
discover what it means to be alive
discover Beauty because I think that's
the essential aspect of mistakes
Boston Dynamics folks want spot to be
perfect because they don't want spot to
ever make mistakes because it wants to
operate in the factories it wants to be
you know very safe and so on for me if
you construct the environment if you
construct a safe space for robots and
allow them to make mistakes Something
Beautiful might be discovered but that
requires a lot of brain power so spot is
currently very dumb
and I'm going to add it give it a brain
so first make it C currently can't see
meaning computer vision has to
understand this environment has to see
all the humans but then also has to be
able to learn learn about its movement
learn how to use his body to communicate
with others all those kinds of things
the dogs know how to do well humans know
how to do somewhat well I think that's a
beautiful challenge but first you have
to allow the robot to make mistakes well
I think
um your objective is laudable but you're
going to realize that the Boston
Dynamics folks are right the first time
spot poops on your rug
I hear the same thing about kids and so
on yeah but I still want to have kids no
you should it's it's a great experience
um so let me step back into what you
said in a couple of different places one
I have always believed that the missing
element in robotics and artificial
intelligence is a proper development
right it is no accident it is no mere
coincidence that human beings are the
most dominant species on planet Earth
and that we have the longest childhoods
of any creature on Earth by far right
the development is the key to the
flexibility and so uh the capability of
a human at adulthood is the mirror image
it's the flip side of our helplessness
at Birth so I'll be very interested to
see what happens in your uh robot
project if you do not end up Reinventing
childhood for robots which of course is
foreshadowed in 2001 quite brilliantly
but I also want to point out you can you
can see this issue of your conscious
mind becoming a spectator very well if
you compare tennis to table tennis
right if you watch a tennis game
you could imagine that the players are
highly conscious as they play
you cannot imagine that if you've ever
played ping pong decently a volley in
ping pong is so fast that your conscious
mind if it had if your reactions had to
go through your conscious mind you
wouldn't be able to play so you can
detect that your conscious mind while
very much present isn't there and you
can also detect where Consciousness does
usefully intrude if you go up against an
opponent in table tennis that knows a
trick that you don't know how to respond
to you will suddenly detect that
something about your game is not
effective and you will start thinking
about what might be how do you position
yourself so that move that puts the ball
just in that corner of the table or
something like that doesn't catch you
off guard and
this I believe is
we highly conscious folks those of us
who try to think through things very
deliberately and carefully
mistake Consciousness for like the
highest kind of thinking and I really
think that this is an error
Consciousness is an intermediate level
of thinking what it does is it allows
you it's basically like uncompiled code
and it doesn't run very fast it is
capable of being adapted to new
circumstances but once the code is
roughed in right it gets driven into the
unconscious layer and you become highly
effective at whatever it is and that
from that point your conscious mind
basically remains there to detect things
that aren't anticipated by the code
you've already written and so
I don't exactly know how
one would establish this how one would
demonstrate it but it must be the case
that the human mind contains
sandboxes in which things are tested
right maybe you can build a piece of
code and run it in parallel next to your
active code so you can see how it would
have done comparatively but there's got
to be some way of writing new code and
then swapping it in and frankly I think
this has a lot to do with things like
sleep cycles very often you know when I
get good at something I often don't get
better at it while I'm doing it I get
better at it when I'm not doing it
especially if there's time to sleep and
think on it so there's some sort of you
know new program swapping in for old
program phenomenon which
um
you know will be a lot easier to see in
machines it's going to be hard with the
the wet wear I like I mean it is true
because somebody that played I played
tennis for many years
I do still think the highest form of
excellence in tennis is when the
conscious mind is a spectator so it's
the compiled code is the
highest form of Being Human and then
Consciousness is just some like specific
compiler you just have like Borland C
plus plus compiler you could just have
different kind of compilers ultimately
the the thing that by which we measure
the
the power of Life the intelligence of
life is the compiled code and you can
probably do that compilation all kinds
of ways yeah yeah I'm not saying that
tennis is played consciously and table
tennis isn't I'm saying that because
tennis is slowed down by the just the
space on the court you could you could
imagine that it was your conscious mind
playing but when you shrink the court
down that was obvious it becomes obvious
that your conscious mind is just present
rather than knowing where to put the
paddle and weirdly for me
um I would say this probably isn't true
in a podcast situation
but if I have to give a presentation uh
especially if I have not overly prepared
I often find the same phenomenon when
I'm giving the presentation my conscious
mind is there watching some other part
of me present which uh is a little
jarring I have to say
well that means you've you've gotten
good at it not let the conscious mind
get in the way of the flow of words
yeah that's that's the sensation to be
sure and that's the highest form of
podcasting too I mean that's why I have
that that's what it looks like when a
podcast is really in the pocket like
like Joe
Rogan just having fun
and just losing themselves and that's
that's something I aspire to as well
just losing yourself in conversation
somebody that has a lot of anxiety with
people like I'm such an introvert I'm
scared I'm scared before you showed up
I'm scared right now
um there's just anxiety there's just
it's a giant mess uh it's hard to Lose
Yourself it's hard to just
get out of the way of your own mind yeah
actually uh trust is a big component of
that your your conscious mind retains
control if you are very uncertain
um but when you do when you do get into
that zone when you're speaking I realize
it's different for you with English as a
second language although maybe you
present in Russian and and you know and
it happens but do you ever hear yourself
say something and you think oh that's
really good
right like like you didn't come up with
it some other part of you that you don't
exactly know
came up with it I I don't think
I've ever heard myself
in that way because I have a much louder
voice that's constantly yelling in my
head at why the hell did you say that
there's a very self-critical voice
that's much louder so I'm very
um maybe I need to deal with that voice
but it's been like with what is it
called like a megaphone just screaming
so I can't hear it oh no it says good
job you said that thing really nicely so
I'm kind of focused right now on on the
megaphone person in the audience versus
the the positive but that's definitely
something to think about it's been
productive
but
you know the the place where I find
gratitude and beauty and appreciation of
Life is In The Quiet Moments When I
don't talk when I listen to the world
around me when I listen to others
um when I talk I'm extremely
self-critical in my mind uh when I when
I produce anything out into the world
that's that originated with me like any
kind of creation extremely self-critical
it's good for productivity for like
always striving to improve and so on
it might be bad for
for like just appreciating the things
you've created I'm a little bit with
Marvin
Minsky on this where he says the the key
to
um
to a productive life is to hate
everything you've ever done in the past
I didn't know he said that I must say I
resonate with it a bit
and you know I I unfortunately my life
currently has me putting a lot of stuff
into the world and I effectively
watch almost none of it I can't stand it
yeah what what do you make of that I
don't know I just recently I just
yesterday read um metamorphosis by kind
of re-read metamorphosis by Kafka where
he turns into John Bug because of the
stress that the world puts on him
his parents put on him to succeed and
you know I think that's you have to find
the balance
because if you if you allow the
self-critical voice to become too heavy
the burden of the world the pressure
that the world puts on you to be the
best version of yourself and so on to
strive
then
you become a bug and that's a big
problem and then uh and then and then
the World Turns against you
because you're a bug you become some
kind of caricature of yourself uh I
don't know
become the worst version of yourself and
then thereby end up destroying yourself
and then the world moves on that's the
story that's a lovely story
I do think this is one of these places
and frankly you could map this onto all
of modern Human Experience but this is
one of these places where our ancestral
programming does not serve our modern
selves yeah so I used to talk to
students about the question of dwelling
on things you know dwelling on things is
famously understood to be bad
and it can't possibly be that it
wouldn't exist a tendency toward it
wouldn't exist if it was bad
so what is bad is dwelling on things
past the point of utility
and
you know that's obviously easier to say
than the operationalize but if you
realize that your dwelling is the key in
fact to upgrading your program for
future well-being and that there's a
point you know presumably from
diminishing returns if not
counterproductivity there is a point at
which you should stop because that is
what is in your best interest then
knowing that you're looking for that
point is useful right this is the point
at which it is no longer useful for me
to dwell on this error I have made right
that is that's what you're looking for
and it also gives you license right if
some part of you feels like it you know
is punishing you rather than searching
then that also has a point at which it's
no longer valuable and there's some
Liberty in realizing yep even the part
of me that was punishing me knows it's
time to stop
so if we map that on to compile the code
discussion as a computer science person
I find that very compelling you know
there's a
when you compile code you get warnings
sometimes and um usually
if you're a good software engineer
you're going to make sure there's no you
know you treat warnings as errors so you
make sure that the compilation produces
no warnings but a certain point when you
have a large enough system
you just let the warnings go it's fine
like I don't know where that warning
came from but you know
it's just uh ultimately you need to
compile the code and run with it and uh
hope nothing terrible happens well I
think what you will find and believe me
I think what you're what you're talking
about with respect to robots and
learning is going to end up having to go
to a deep developmental State and a
helplessness that evolves into hyper
competence and all of that but um
I live I noticed that I live by
something that I for lack of a better
descriptor called the theory of close
calls
ethereal close calls says that people
typically miscategorize the events in
their life where something almost went
wrong
and you know for example if you I have a
friend who um
I was walking down the street with my
college friends and one of my friends
stepped into the street thinking it was
clear and was nearly hit by a car going
45 miles an hour would have been an
absolute disaster might have killed her
certainly would have permanently injured
her
but she didn't you know car didn't touch
her right now you could walk away from
that and think nothing of it because
well what is there to think nothing
happened or you could think well what is
the difference between what did happen
and my death
the difference is luck I never want that
to be true right I never want the
difference between what did happen and
my death to be luck therefore I should
count this as very close to death
and I should prioritize coding so it
doesn't happen again at a very high
level
so anyway my my basic point is
the
accidents and disasters and Misfortune
describe a distribution that tells you
what's really likely to get you in the
end and so
um personally
you can use them to figure out where the
dangers are so that you can afford to
take great risks because you have a
really good sense of how they're going
to go wrong but I would also point out
civilization has this problem
civilization is now producing these
events that are major disasters but
they're not existential scale yet right
they're very serious errors that we can
see and I would argue that the pattern
is you discover that we are involved in
some industrial process at the point it
has gone wrong right so I'm now always
asking the question
okay in light of the Fukushima triple
meltdown the financial collapse of 2008
the Deepwater Horizon uh blowout
covid-19 and its probable origins in the
Wuhan lab
what processes do I not know the name of
yet that I will Discover at the point
that some gigantic accident has happened
and can we talk about the wisdom or lack
thereof of engaging in that process
before the accident right that's what a
wise civilization would be doing and yet
we don't I I just want to mention
something that happened a couple of days
ago
I don't know if you know who JB Straubel
is is the co-founder of Tesla CTO of
Tesla for many many years his wife just
died
she was riding a bicycle
and in the same
in that same thin line between death and
life that many of us have been in where
you walk into the intersection and
there's this close call
every once in a while
it you get the
the Short Straw
I wonder how much of our own individual
lives and the entirety of the human
civilization rests on this little roll
of the dice
well this is sort of my point about the
close calls is that there's a there's a
level at which we can't control it right
the
gigantic asteroid that comes from deep
space that you don't have time to do
anything about there's not a lot we can
do to hedge that out or at least not
short term
but there are lots of other things you
know obviously
the financial collapse of 2008 didn't
break down the entire world economy it
threatened to but a Herculean effort
managed to pull us back from the brink
the triple meltdown at Fukushima was
awful but every one of the seven fuel
pools held there wasn't a major fire
that made it impossible to manage the
disaster going forward we got lucky
um you know we could say the same thing
about the uh the blowout at the
Deepwater Horizon where a hole in the
ocean floor large enough that we
couldn't have plugged it could have
opened up all of these things could have
been much much worse right and I think
we can say the same thing about covet as
terrible as it is
and I you know we cannot say for sure
that it came from the Wuhan lab but
there's a strong likelihood that it did
and it also could be much much worse so
in each of these cases something is
telling us we have a process that is
unfolding that keeps creating risks
where it is luck that is the difference
between us and some scale of disaster
that is unimaginable and that wisdom you
know you can be highly intelligent and
cause these disasters
to be wise is to stop causing them right
and that would require a process of
restraint
a process that I don't see a lot of
evidence of yet so
I think we have to generate it and
somehow
we you know at the moment we don't have
a political structure that would be
capable of
taking a protective algorithm and
actually deploying it right because it
would have important Economic
Consequences and so it would almost
certainly be shot down
but we can obviously also say you know
we paid a huge price for all of the
disasters that I've mentioned and we
have to factor that into the equation
something can be very productive short
term and very destructive long term and
also the question is how many disasters
we avoided because of the Ingenuity of
humans or just the integrity and
character of humans
that's sort of an open question we may
be more
intelligent than lucky that's the Hope
because the optimistic message here that
you're getting at is
maybe the process that we should be
that maybe we can overcome luck with
Ingenuity meaning
I guess you're suggesting the process is
we should be listing all the ways that
human civilization can destroy itself
assigning likelihood to it
and thinking through how can we avoid
that
and being very honest that with the data
out there about the close calls and
using those close calls to uh to then
create sort of mechanism by which we
minimize the probability of those close
calls and just being honest and
transparent uh with the data that's out
there well I think we need to do a
couple things for it to work
um so I've been an advocate for the idea
that sustainability is actually it's
difficult to operationalize but it is an
objective that we have to meet if we're
to be around long term and I realize
that we also need to have reversibility
of all of our processes because
processes very frequently when they
start do not appear dangerous and then
they when they scale they become very
dangerous so for example if you imagine
and the first internal combustion engine
in a vehicle driving down the street and
you imagine somebody running after them
saying hey if you do enough of that
you're going to alter the atmosphere and
it's going to change the temperature of
the planet it's Preposterous right why
would you stop the person who's invented
this marvelous new Contraption but of
course eventually you do get to the
place where you're doing enough of this
that you do start changing the
temperature of the planet so
if we built the capacity if we basically
said look you can't
involve yourself in any process that you
couldn't reverse if you had to then
progress would be slowed but our safety
would go up dramatically and I think
I think in some sense if we are to be
around long term we have to begin
thinking that way we're just involved in
too many very dangerous processes
so let's talk about one of the things
that if not threatened human
civilization certainly hurt it at a deep
level which is covet 19.
what percent probability would you
currently place
on the hypothesis that covid-19 leaked
from the Wuhan Institute of virology
so I maintain a flow chart of all the
possible explanations and it doesn't
break down exactly that way
the likelihood that it emerged from a
lab is very very high
if it emerged from a lab the likelihood
that the lab was the Wuhan Institute is
very very high
the there are multiple different kinds
of evidence that point to the lab and
there are is literally no evidence that
points to Nature either the evidence
points nowhere or it points to the lab
and the lab could mean any lab but
geographically obviously the labs in
Wuhan are the most likely and the lab
that was most directly involved with
research on viruses that look like covet
that look like SARS cov2 is obviously
the place that one would start
but I would say the likelihood that this
virus came from a lab is well above 95
percent we can talk about the question
of could a virus have been brought into
the lab and escaped from there without
being modified that's also possible but
it doesn't explain any of the anomalies
in the Genome of SARS cov2
could it have been delivered from
another lab could Wuhan be a distraction
in order that we would connect the dots
in the wrong way that's conceivable I
currently have that below one percent on
my flow chart but I have a very dark
thought that somebody would would do
that almost as a a political attack on
China well it depends I don't even think
that's one possibility
sometimes when Eric and I talk about
these issues we will
generate a scenario just to prove that
something could could live in that space
right it's a placeholder for whatever
may actually have happened and so it
doesn't have to have been an attack on
China that's certainly one possibility
but I would point out
if you can predict the future
in some unusual way better than others
you can print money right that's what
markets that allow you to bet for or
against uh virtually any sector allow
you to do so you can imagine
a
simply a moral person or entity
generating a pandemic attempting to
cover their tracks because it would
allow them to bet against things like
you know cruise ships air travel
whatever it is and bet in favor of I
don't know uh
sanitizing gel and whatever else you
would do so am I saying that I think
somebody did that no I really don't
think it happened we've seen zero
evidence that this was intentionally
released
however
were it to have been intentionally
released by somebody who did not know
did not want it known where it had come
from releasing it into Wuhan would be
one way to cover their tracks so we have
to leave the possibility formally open
but acknowledge there's no evidence so
and the probability therefore is low I
tend to believe
maybe this is the optimistic nature that
I have that
people who are competent enough to do
the kind of thing we just described
are not going to do that because it
requires a certain kind of I don't want
to use the word evil but whatever word
you want to use to describe the kind of
uh disregard for human life required to
do that you're just that that that's
just not going to be coupled with
competence I feel like there's a
trade-off chart where confidence on one
axis and evils on the other and the more
evil you become the the the the the
crapper you are doing great engineering
scientific work required to deliver
weapons of different kinds whether it's
bio weapons or nuclear weapons all those
kinds of things that seems to be the
lessons I I take from history but that
doesn't necessarily mean that's what's
going to be happening in the future
but to stick on the lab League idea
because the flowchart is probably huge
here because there's a lot of
fascinating possibilities one question I
want to ask is um what would evidence
for natural Origins look like so
one piece of evidence for natural
Origins is um that it has happened in
the past
that
that viruses have jumped oh they do jump
they so like that's one like that's
possible to have happened you know so
that that's a sort of like a historical
evidence like okay well it's possible
that it hap it's not it's not evidence
of the kind you think it is it's a
justification for a presumption right
right so the presumption upon
discovering a new virus circulating is
certainly that it came from nature right
the problem is the presumption
evaporates in the face of evidence or at
least it logically should and it didn't
in this case it was maintained by people
who privately in their emails
acknowledge that they had grave doubts
about the natural origin of of this
virus is there some other piece of
evidence that we could look for and see
that would say this increases the
probability that it's natural Origins
yeah in fact there is evidence you know
I always worry that somebody is going to
make up some evidence in order to
reverse the flow well let's say I am
it's a lot of incentive for that
actually there's a huge amount of
incentive on the other hand why
didn't the powers that be the powers
that lied to us about weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq why didn't they ever
fake weapons of mass destruction
interact whatever force it is I hope
that force is here too and so whatever
evidence we find is real it's the
confidence thing I'm talking about but
okay go ahead sorry well we can get back
to that but I would say yeah the the the
giant piece of evidence that will shift
the probabilities in the other direction
is the discovery of either a human
population in which the virus circulated
prior to showing up in Wuhan that would
explain where the virus learned all of
the tricks that it knew instantly upon
spreading from Wuhan so that would do it
or an animal population in which an
ancestor epidemic can be found in which
the virus learned this before jumping to
humans but I point out in that second
case
you would certainly expect to see a
great deal of evolution in the early
epidemic which we don't see so there
almost has to be a human population
somewhere else that had the virus
circulating or an ancestor of the virus
that we first saw in Wuhan circulating
and it has to have gotten very
sophisticated in that prior epidemic
before hitting Wuhan in order to explain
the total lack of evolution and
extremely effective virus that emerged
at the end of 2019 so you don't believe
in the magic of evolution to spring up
with all the tricks already there like
everybody who doesn't have the tricks
they die quickly and then you just have
this beautiful virus that comes in with
a spike protein and the and the through
mutation and selection just do like the
ones that succeed
and succeed big are the ones that are
going to just spring into life with the
tricks well no
that's that's called a hopeful monster
and hopeful monsters don't work it's to
the job of becoming a new pandemic virus
is too difficult it involves two very
difficult steps and they both have to
work one is the ability to infect a
person and spread in their tissues uh
sufficient to make an infection and the
other is to jump between individuals at
a sufficient rate that it doesn't go
extinct for one reason or another
those are both very difficult jobs they
require as you describe selection and
the point is selection would leave a
mark we would see evidence that in
animals or humans both right and we see
this evolutionary choice of uh of the
virus Gathering the tricks up yeah you
would see the virus you would see the
clumsy virus get better and better and
yes I am a full believer in the power of
that process in fact I believe it uh
what I know from studying the process is
that it is much more powerful than most
people imagine that what we teach in the
evolution 101 textbook is too clumsy a
process to do what we see it doing and
that actually people should increase
their expectation of the rapidity with
which that process can produce
um because jaw-dropping adaptations
that said we just don't see evidence
that it happened here which doesn't mean
it doesn't exist but it means
in spite of immense pressure to find it
somewhere there's been no hint which
probably means it took place inside of a
laboratory so inside the laboratory gain
a function research on viruses
and I believe most of that kind of
research is doing this exact thing that
you're referring to which is accelerated
Evolution and just watching Evolution do
its thing on a bunch of viruses and
seeing what kind of tricks get developed
the other method
is uh engineering viruses so
manually adding on the tricks
what which do you think we should be
thinking about here
so mind you I learned what I know in the
aftermath of this pandemic emerging I
started studying the question and I
would say based on the content of the
genome and other evidence in
Publications from the various Labs that
were involved in in generating this
technology
a couple of things seem likely
this SARS cov2 does not appear to be
entirely the result of either a splicing
process or serial passaging it it
appears to have both uh things in its
past
where it's at least highly likely that
it does so for example the fern cleavage
site looks very much like it was added
in to the virus and it was known that
that would increase its infectivity in
humans and increase its tropism
the uh
virus appears to be excellent at
spreading in humans and minks and
ferrets now minks and ferrets are very
closely related to each other and
ferrets are very likely to have been
used in a Serial passage experiment the
reason being that they have an ace2
receptor that looks very much like the
human acet receptor and so were you
going to passage the virus or it's
ancestor through an animal in order to
increase its infectivity in humans which
would have been necessary
uh ferrets would have been very likely
it is also quite likely that humanized
mice were utilized and it is possible
that human Airway tissue was utilized I
think it is vital that we find out what
the protocols were if this came from the
Wuhan Institute we need to know it and
we need to know what the protocols were
exactly because they will actually give
us some tools that would be useful in
fighting as far as Kobe 2 and hopefully
driving into Extinction which ought to
be our priority it is a priority that
does not it is not Apparent from our
Behavior but it really is uh it should
be our objective if we understood where
our interests lie we would be much more
focused on it but those protocols would
tell us a great deal if it wasn't the
Wuhan Institute we need to know that if
it was nature we need to know that and
if it was some other laboratory we need
to figure out who what and where so that
we can determine what is what we can
determine about about what was done
you're opening up my mind about why we
should
investigate why we should know the truth
of the origins of this virus so for me
personally let me just tell the story of
my own kind of Journey
when I first started looking into the
lab leak hypothesis
what became terrifying to me and
important to under understand an obvious
is the sort of like Sam Harris way of
thinking which is
it's obvious that a lab leak of a deadly
virus will eventually happen
my mind was it doesn't even matter if it
happened in this case it's obvious
there's going to happen in the future so
why the hell are we not freaking out
about this and covid-19 is not even that
deadly relative to the possible future
viruses it's this the way I disagree
with Sam on this but he thinks about
this way about AGI as well I bought a
artificial intelligence it's a different
discussion I think but with viruses it
seems like something that could happen
on a scale of years maybe a few decades
AGI is a little bit farther out for me
but it seemed the terrifying thing it
seemed obvious that this will happen
very soon for a much deadlier virus as
we get better and better at both
engineering viruses and doing this kind
of evolutionary driven research gain
function research
okay but then you started speaking out
about this as well but also started to
say no no we should hurry up and figure
out the origins now because it will help
us figure out how to actually
respond uh to this particular virus how
to treat this particular virus what is
in terms of vaccines in terms of
antiviral drugs in terms of just uh all
the the the the number of responses we
should have okay
I
still I'm much more freaking out about
the future
maybe you can
break that apart a little bit which are
you
most um
focused on now
which are you most freaking out about
now in terms of the importance of
figuring out the origins of this virus
I am most freaking out about both of
them because they're both really
important and you know we can put bounds
on this let me say first this is a
perfect test case for the theory of
close calls because as much as covet is
a disaster it is also a close call from
which we can learn much you are
absolutely right if we keep playing this
game in the lab if we are not if we are
especially if we do it under pressure
and when we are told that a virus is
going to LEAP from nature any day and
that the more we know the better we'll
be able to fight it we're going to
create the disaster all the sooner
so yes that should be an absolute Focus
the fact that there were people saying
that this was dangerous back in 2015 uh
ought to tell us something the fact that
the system bypassed a ban and offshored
the work to China
ought to tell us this is not a Chinese
failure this is a failure of something
larger and harder to see
um but
I also think that there's a there's a
clock ticking with respect to SARS cov2
and covid the disease that it creates
and that has to do with whether or not
we are stuck with it permanently
so if you think about the cost to
humanity of being stuck with influenza
it's an immense cost year after year and
we just stopped thinking about it
because it's there some years you get to
flu most years you don't maybe you get
the vaccine to prevent it maybe the
vaccine isn't particularly well targeted
but imagine just simply doubling that
cost
imagine we get stuck with SARS cov2 and
its descendants going forward and then
it just settles in and becomes a fact of
modern human life that would be a
disaster right the number of people we
will ultimately lose is incalculable the
amount of suffering will be caused is
incalculable the loss of well-being and
wealth incalculable so that ought to be
a very high priority driving this
extinct before it becomes permanent and
the ability to drive it extinct goes
down the longer we delay effective
responses to the extent that we let it
have this very large canvas large
numbers of people who have the disease
in which mutation and selection can
result in adaptation that we will not be
able to counter the greater its ability
to figure out features of our immune
system and use them uh to its Advantage
so I'm feeling the pressure of driving
it extinct I believe we could have
driven an extinct six months ago and we
didn't do it because of very mundane
concerns among a small number of people
and I'm not alleging that they were
Brazen about
um or that they were callous about
deaths that would be caused I have the
sense that they were working from a kind
of autopilot in which you you know let's
say you're in some kind of a corporation
a pharmaceutical Corporation you have a
a portfolio of therapies that in the
context of a pandemic might be very
lucrative those therapies have
competitors you of course want to
position your product so that it
succeeds and the competitors don't and
lo and behold at some point through
means that I think those of us on the
outside can't really uh into it you end
up saying things about competing
therapies that work better and much more
safely than the ones you're selling that
aren't true and do cause people to die
in large numbers
um but it you know it's some kind of
autopilot at least part of it is
so the there's a complicated coupling of
the autopilot of uh
institutions
companies governments
and then there's also the geopolitical
game theory thing going on where you
want to keep secrets it's the Chernobyl
thing where if you messed up
there's a big incentive I think to hide
the fact that you messed up
so how do we fix this and what's more
important to fix the autopilot which is
the response that we often criticize
about our institutions especially the
leaders in those institutions Anthony
fauci and so on uh some of the members
of the scientific community
and the second part is the the game with
China
of hiding the information in terms of on
the fight between nations
well in our live streams on Darkhorse
Heather and I have been talking from the
beginning about the fact that although
yes what happens began in China it very
much looks like a failure of the
international scientific community
and that's frightening but it's also
hopeful in the sense that actually if we
did the right thing now we're not
navigating a puzzle about Chinese
responsibility we're navigating a
question of collective responsibility
for something that has been
terribly costly to all of us so
that's not a very
happy process but as you point out
what's at stake is in large measure at
the very least the strong possibility
this will happen again and that at some
point it will be far worse so you know
just as a person that does not learn the
lessons of their own errors doesn't get
smarter and they remain in danger we
collectively Humanity has to say well
there sure is a lot of evidence that
suggests that this is a self-inflicted
wound
when you have done something that has
caused a massive self-inflicted wound
self-inflicted wound it makes sense to
dwell on it exactly to the point that
you have learned the lesson that makes
it very very unlikely that something
similar will happen again I think this
is a good place to kind of ask you to do
almost like a thought experiment
or um
to Steel Man the argument against the
lab leak hypothesis
so
if you were to
argue you know you said 95 chance that
it the virus leave from a lab
there's a bunch of ways I think you can
argue
that even talking about it
is uh bad for the world
so I if I just put something on the
table is to say that
um
so one it would be racism versus Chinese
people
that talking about that it leak from a
lab there's a kind of immediate kind of
blame and it can spiral down into this
idea that's somehow the people are
responsible for the virus and this kind
of thing
is it possible for you to come up with
other Steel Man arguments
against talking or against the
possibility of the lab League hypothesis
well so I think steel Manning is a tool
that is extremely valuable but it's also
possible to abuse it I think that you
can only steal man a good faith argument
and the problem is we now know that we
have not been engaged in opponents who
are wielding good faith arguments
because privately their emails reflect
their own doubts and what they were
doing publicly was actually a punishment
a public punishment for those of us who
spoke up
with I think the purpose of
either backing us down or more likely
warning others not to engage in the same
kind of behavior and obviously for
people like you and me who regard
science as our likely best hope for
navigating difficult Waters
shutting down people who are using those
tools honorably is itself dishonorable
so I I don't really I don't feel that it
is
I don't feel that there's anything to
steal man and I also think
that you know immediately at the point
that the world suddenly with no new
evidence on the table switched gears
with respect to the lab leak you know at
the point that Nicholas Wade had
published his article and suddenly the
world was going to admit that this was
at least a possibility if not a
likelihood
we got to see something of the
rationalization process that had taken
place inside the institutional world and
it very definitely involved the claim
that what was being avoided was the
targeting of uh Chinese scientists
and my point would be I don't want to
see the targeting of anyone I don't want
to see racism of any kind on the other
hand once you create license to lie in
order to protect individuals when the
world has a stake in knowing what
happened then it is inevitable that that
process that license to lie will be used
by the thing that captures institutions
for its own purposes so my sense is
it may be very unfortunate if the story
of what happened here can be used
against uh Chinese people that would be
very unfortunate and as I think I
mentioned
Heather and I have taken great pains to
point out that this doesn't look like a
Chinese failure it looks like a failure
of the international scientific
community so I think it is important to
broadcast that message along with the
analysis of the evidence but no matter
what happened we have a right to know
and
um I frankly do not take the
institutional layer at its word that it