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Title: Speaking About Things You’re Not Supposed To Speak About – Eric Weinstein (4K)
Duration: 03:01:14
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you got your PhD from Harvard how do you
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feel given the most recent
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Fallout these open your questions are
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incredible
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um
(00:00:16)
it's it's amazing it's amazing that it
(00:00:19)
came to this
(00:00:21)
and um as a person I know studying at
(00:00:25)
Harvard said I
(00:00:26)
wonder
(00:00:27)
if we are the last generation who will
(00:00:30)
continue to see Harvard as this
(00:00:33)
shining um city on a hill
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uh and that's you know that's somebody
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who's there now um I I think it's a
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disgrace and we can't talk about it
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which is the fascinating part that we
(00:00:46)
are effectively losing our society
(00:00:49)
because we're afraid to say certain
(00:00:52)
things because we're being made afraid
(00:00:53)
to say certain things what do you
(00:00:56)
mean well okay so it as a Harvard Alum
(00:00:59)
you get the Harvard magazine and this
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this thing is incredible because it's
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just always uh Harvard people promoting
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other Harvard people in the sort of PR
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um the nepotism magazine yeah H PR Fest
(00:01:15)
and I think I remember that the article
(00:01:18)
introducing Claudine gay was entitled a
(00:01:20)
Scholar's scholar and I knew from the
(00:01:23)
get-go that this was not going to go
(00:01:25)
well
(00:01:28)
because you know
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I don't think people understand what
(00:01:35)
Harvard is and how it functions and why
(00:01:37)
it's
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different um Harvard is really the
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fusion of two separate institutions um
(00:01:47)
one is about Brilliance and one is about
(00:01:50)
power and so you can think about this as
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the sharpest minds and the sharpest
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elbows and the sharp mind
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crowd gets
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uh tons of resources because the sharp
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elbow crowd makes sure that power is
(00:02:06)
used to perpetuate Harvard's place of
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privilege and the sharp mind crowd
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contributes um Prestige to the sharp
(00:02:19)
elbow crowd and so by virtue of the fact
(00:02:21)
that you can't Decon flate the sharp
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minds and the sharp elbows Harvard
(00:02:26)
continues to have this very special
(00:02:27)
place now what is this special place why
(00:02:29)
isn't it just a univers like any other
(00:02:32)
um I
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think sort of two or three principal
(00:02:37)
reasons one of which is that uh Harvard
(00:02:42)
is sort of an extension of the US
(00:02:44)
government the government Department
(00:02:46)
which is sort of Harvard's version of
(00:02:48)
polyi is kind of an extension of the
(00:02:51)
state department at times the economics
(00:02:54)
Department uh ends up setting economic
(00:02:57)
policy in many ways for the United
(00:02:59)
States
(00:03:01)
and above
(00:03:03)
all there is
(00:03:06)
this concept that in every field there's
(00:03:09)
usually one institution that sets The
(00:03:12)
Narrative so for example in journalism
(00:03:14)
the New York Times is different than all
(00:03:17)
other newspapers and news organs because
(00:03:20)
of its focus on what we sometimes hear
(00:03:23)
of as narrative driven journalism now
(00:03:26)
people now talk a lot more about
(00:03:27)
narrative but 15 years ago I don't think
(00:03:30)
this was common knowledge that the
(00:03:32)
editorial room at the New York Times was
(00:03:34)
a place where people thought about what
(00:03:36)
the long arcs of stories were and you
(00:03:39)
figured out what the Arc of the story
(00:03:41)
was before the facts came in so for
(00:03:43)
example Hillary is
(00:03:45)
inevitable uh was a long Arc in
(00:03:49)
narrative-driven journalism it wasn't
(00:03:51)
true but all the information that came
(00:03:54)
in when Hillary was running against
(00:03:57)
Donald Trump um
(00:04:00)
was fed through this prism of the
(00:04:03)
inevitability of Hillary
(00:04:05)
Clinton in the same way Harvard
(00:04:08)
practices narrative-driven academics it
(00:04:10)
tells you what is happening what the
(00:04:13)
grand arcs
(00:04:14)
are and those just like the 2016
(00:04:18)
election are very often
(00:04:22)
untrue and so that's a way in which
(00:04:24)
Harvard serves power it it uh it brings
(00:04:28)
people in who are brilliant and then it
(00:04:32)
takes the ones of those who are willing
(00:04:34)
to play ball with the engines of power
(00:04:38)
and it uh it enters into the
(00:04:41)
storytelling mode in which Harvard sets
(00:04:44)
the tone for
(00:04:45)
everyone um so when you lose Harvard
(00:04:48)
it's very important and very different
(00:04:49)
the last thing that I would say that
(00:04:51)
really distinguishes Harvard is that
(00:04:53)
Harvard
(00:04:55)
um there's the open part of Harvard the
(00:04:58)
classrooms and there's the cled part of
(00:05:00)
Harvard that you can't see at
(00:05:02)
all and it's sort of a system of star
(00:05:07)
Chambers um and I don't think people who
(00:05:10)
have not Tangled with Harvard would
(00:05:13)
would comprehend how much of what
(00:05:15)
Harvard gets done it gets done behind
(00:05:18)
closed doors because it can't be done in
(00:05:19)
the
(00:05:20)
open like what do you mean I'll give you
(00:05:23)
a a crazy
(00:05:26)
example uh I was not allowed to attend
(00:05:29)
my own thesis this
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defense
(00:05:33)
now you're not an academic by
(00:05:37)
training if you tell that to an academic
(00:05:40)
they don't even understand what you're
(00:05:41)
saying they think that you're making a
(00:05:43)
joke or you must not have understood
(00:05:45)
something or maybe you were sick that
(00:05:47)
day and you had to zoom in or who knows
(00:05:49)
what but I don't mean that at all I
(00:05:52)
mean when I tried to get my
(00:05:56)
PhD the Harvard math department instit
(00:06:00)
Ed a rule that said you could not attend
(00:06:02)
your own thesis defense you could
(00:06:06)
not determine who would uh present your
(00:06:10)
thesis your
(00:06:12)
dissertation so basically what happened
(00:06:14)
is um if you had an adviser which almost
(00:06:18)
everyone did your advisor presented your
(00:06:20)
thesis behind closed
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doors nobody's ever heard of this in the
(00:06:25)
history of
(00:06:27)
academics is this how Cline gay got away
(00:06:29)
with it no I don't know Claudine
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gay was taken down for two different
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reasons um one reason she was taken down
(00:06:39)
was for not having crisper statements
(00:06:43)
about the uniformity of application of
(00:06:46)
rules of codes of contact when it came
(00:06:48)
to uh Jewish
(00:06:51)
students um so it's one thing whether
(00:06:54)
you have a free speech policy or maybe
(00:06:56)
you have a um code of conduct where you
(00:06:59)
say we can't tolerate certain kinds of
(00:07:01)
speech whatever that is there's
(00:07:04)
certainly a question about the
(00:07:05)
differential application of that on
(00:07:07)
behalf of different groups so that was
(00:07:09)
one of the ways that she got into
(00:07:10)
trouble the other way she got into
(00:07:11)
trouble was the vulnerability of
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plagiarism in a weak academic record
(00:07:20)
and you know let me just say this early
(00:07:23)
and you'll come everyone will come to it
(00:07:25)
late plagiarism is the tip of the
(00:07:28)
iceberg
(00:07:30)
of uh attribution bullying where
(00:07:35)
effectively you have these people who
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determine who did what in the narrative
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driven storytelling that is
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academic and what what papers get cited
(00:07:46)
which papers don't what discoveries are
(00:07:49)
named for certain people is determined
(00:07:51)
largely by a tiny number of Institutions
(00:07:54)
Harvard preeminent among them and so
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Harvard just plays games morning noon
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and night
(00:08:01)
with writing stories that put Harvard at
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the center and particular
(00:08:06)
individuals um at the top whether or not
(00:08:09)
those individuals have earned it or not
(00:08:11)
and what's hard for me is most people
(00:08:15)
are now thinking okay Harvard is just
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full of it but it it isn't it's half
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full of it and half the best place on
(00:08:22)
Earth to do anything important and th
(00:08:25)
that tension is not is what's not
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recognized now
(00:08:30)
power has to take a backseat to
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academics and to Discovery and to
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Brilliance if this game is to be
(00:08:38)
maintained you can't constantly just
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exercise power and tell stories so
(00:08:45)
in in my history with this University
(00:08:49)
I've tried to figure out why does it
(00:08:51)
behave so differently than every other
(00:08:53)
institution of of
(00:08:55)
research is Dei the boogeyman that
(00:08:58)
everyone is worried about
(00:09:03)
you know
(00:09:06)
I'm this is so hard to to even get into
(00:09:11)
it are universities won World War II
(00:09:17)
uh in large measure I mean when if you
(00:09:19)
need codes broken if you need new
(00:09:21)
weapons developed you're supposed to
(00:09:23)
have SEAL Team Six of the human mind
(00:09:25)
that you can call on and that's supposed
(00:09:27)
to be MIT Caltech Princeton Harvard it's
(00:09:30)
a very small number of Super prestigious
(00:09:34)
universities um part of the problem is
(00:09:37)
if you think about I don't even how to
(00:09:40)
say this exactly if you think about a
(00:09:42)
university as akin to a an exotic car a
(00:09:46)
lot of people buy a McLaren or a
(00:09:48)
Lamborghini or Ferrari because they like
(00:09:50)
the
(00:09:51)
styling
(00:09:53)
status but the sole of all of those cars
(00:09:55)
is
(00:09:57)
racing right and the people who buy the
(00:10:01)
cars for the racing sometimes are really
(00:10:04)
annoyed by the fact that the cars are
(00:10:06)
status symbols and that's what a
(00:10:07)
research University is to me I'm
(00:10:10)
interested in the racing and other
(00:10:12)
people are interested because it it sort
(00:10:14)
of uh what you do to show that you got a
(00:10:16)
$2 million bonus uh from your investment
(00:10:20)
banking job uh if you don't race it I
(00:10:22)
don't know what you're doing there and
(00:10:23)
I'd prefer that you'd leave um the
(00:10:26)
purpose of a university is not teaching
(00:10:28)
purpose of a great
(00:10:30)
University is training and
(00:10:33)
research and we can't afford to lose
(00:10:37)
that I I don't think people have any
(00:10:39)
idea how important it is to be able to
(00:10:41)
call on your own nation's top academics
(00:10:45)
when you need the truth you need
(00:10:48)
something done you need help and so
(00:10:51)
whatever it is that is denaturing our
(00:10:53)
universities that's turning this into a
(00:10:55)
nightclub where you the whole trick is
(00:10:56)
to get past the bouncer for the cool
(00:10:58)
kids uh has to be stopped but what does
(00:11:02)
it say that the ex-president of Harvard
(00:11:05)
is someone whose academic bonafides were
(00:11:08)
found out to
(00:11:10)
be
(00:11:12)
plagiarized largely I'm trying to say
(00:11:17)
the balance between the sharp elbows and
(00:11:20)
the sharp
(00:11:21)
Minds is wildly
(00:11:25)
off and and why is
(00:11:28)
it nobody wants to say what everybody is
(00:11:32)
thinking which is this person is not fit
(00:11:34)
to be the president of Harvard
(00:11:36)
University and why is that because
(00:11:38)
they're going to get called a name this
(00:11:40)
was made all about
(00:11:43)
race oh what you can't tolerate
(00:11:46)
scholarship of this quality from a black
(00:11:49)
female it's
(00:11:51)
like you're starting I wasn't even
(00:11:54)
questioning this before but now you're
(00:11:55)
saying a Scholar's scholar me thinks
(00:11:58)
that does protest too much
(00:12:00)
we'll get back to talking to Eric in one
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minute but first I need to tell you
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nt.com
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slod wisdom there was a quote from
(00:12:57)
Howard Jacobson that said I hope
(00:13:00)
Claudine gay marks the start of people
(00:13:03)
who know nothing losing their
(00:13:12)
jobs
(00:13:14)
look we need to bring back
(00:13:17)
exclusion we're talking way too much
(00:13:20)
about inclusion inclusion and exclusion
(00:13:23)
are two halves of a normal
(00:13:28)
process clotting gay needed to be
(00:13:30)
excluded from that office not
(00:13:32)
included now if you told me that
(00:13:36)
condalisa Rice was the president of
(00:13:38)
Harvard she's black she's female and I
(00:13:41)
don't agree with her
(00:13:44)
politically but I don't think many
(00:13:46)
people would have a qualification issue
(00:13:49)
with cond Lisa rice or let's say James
(00:13:51)
Gates is a black man a distinguished
(00:13:56)
physicist this has to do with people
(00:13:58)
coming from ER subjects particularly
(00:14:01)
activist subjects subjects that didn't
(00:14:03)
exist before the late 60s early ' 7s
(00:14:06)
when all of these things were created
(00:14:08)
you know to an extent when you had I
(00:14:11)
don't know if you recall the the
(00:14:13)
pictures of what is it Willard straight
(00:14:14)
Hall at Cornell with the black students
(00:14:16)
emerging with
(00:14:18)
weapons um you know there was a
(00:14:22)
revolutionary fervor at the end of the'
(00:14:24)
60s early 70s and you have people
(00:14:26)
creating women's studies uh you know
(00:14:29)
black studies African-American studies
(00:14:32)
and these these departments were
(00:14:34)
basically born of activism more than
(00:14:36)
scholarship I'm not saying no
(00:14:37)
scholarship gets done there but
(00:14:40)
scholarship and activism are essentially
(00:14:43)
fused and many of us think activism is
(00:14:47)
great just don't do it next to our
(00:14:50)
physics and math and computer science
(00:14:52)
and music
(00:14:54)
departments you know if what you're
(00:14:56)
really there to do is to ignore certain
(00:14:59)
things and accentuate others and not
(00:15:00)
search for the truth
(00:15:03)
um that's not an ignoble Pursuit it's
(00:15:07)
just that's not what scholarship is
(00:15:10)
scholarship is about understanding
(00:15:13)
things and getting them right and we've
(00:15:15)
we've gone down a terrible turn but you
(00:15:17)
know just
(00:15:21)
consider I think your listeners uh might
(00:15:25)
enjoy Googling the
(00:15:28)
string um um cook cook something up to
(00:15:32)
ease him out that was a phrase that was
(00:15:36)
used uh internally in documents within
(00:15:39)
Harvard when um a Kenyon was ejected
(00:15:44)
from the Harvard economics
(00:15:47)
Department um back in the
(00:15:49)
60s and what had really happened is that
(00:15:52)
this guy had had passed all of his exams
(00:15:54)
he was fully qualified was working on
(00:15:56)
his dissertation to become a Harvard PhD
(00:15:58)
in economics
(00:16:00)
and the university I think decided that
(00:16:03)
it didn't like an African man sleeping
(00:16:05)
with white women in in
(00:16:08)
America and it got rid of him even
(00:16:11)
though he was in good standing that the
(00:16:13)
only reason we know about that is that
(00:16:14)
turned out to be Barack Obama
(00:16:17)
senior so Harvard
(00:16:19)
conspired 100% with the state department
(00:16:23)
to destroy the career of Barack Obama
(00:16:26)
senior and that's how Harvard worked in
(00:16:28)
the start Chambers it cooks and what
(00:16:30)
does it do it Cooks things up it Cooks
(00:16:33)
up stories it Cooks up um attribution it
(00:16:39)
gives people credit for things that they
(00:16:41)
didn't do first it takes credit away
(00:16:43)
from other people um I was there in the
(00:16:47)
mid90s when it destroyed my wife's
(00:16:51)
career um through something the Star
(00:16:53)
Chamber called the Harvard jobs uh
(00:16:55)
Market meeting and all the economists go
(00:16:58)
into a closed room they lock the door
(00:17:00)
and they say who's got a good student
(00:17:02)
and my wife was the student of a Nobel
(00:17:06)
uh Award winner in economics and she had
(00:17:10)
um done something which was to bring an
(00:17:13)
entirely new kind of mathematics into
(00:17:15)
economic theory to replace something
(00:17:18)
called the marginal Revolution a new
(00:17:19)
form of differential calculus called
(00:17:21)
gauge Theory and a guy named Dale
(00:17:23)
Jorgenson who recently died said
(00:17:27)
nope so even though a Nobel level
(00:17:32)
Economist was promoting her and saying
(00:17:34)
this is great stuff she should go
(00:17:35)
anywhere in the country a woman of color
(00:17:37)
from the developing World
(00:17:41)
um an old white guy just said no and you
(00:17:46)
know in a second uh she her position in
(00:17:49)
the world is reordered in the pile and
(00:17:52)
why were they doing this because they
(00:17:53)
wanted to fix the
(00:17:55)
CPI uh and I don't mean fix as in Cur it
(00:17:58)
I mean fix FES in fixing a baseball game
(00:18:02)
um because the CPI is used to transfer
(00:18:04)
wealth what's CPI the Consumer Price
(00:18:08)
Index and the reason it's important is
(00:18:11)
that mostly what the government does
(00:18:13)
after its military is uh entitlements
(00:18:17)
Social Security payments Medicare
(00:18:18)
payments and those are indexed to
(00:18:20)
inflation and the way in which it takes
(00:18:22)
in money is through taxes and those tax
(00:18:24)
brackets are indexed to inflation so
(00:18:27)
it's very funny everybody focuses on
(00:18:28)
like Central Banking in the FED but the
(00:18:31)
Bureau of Labor Statistics maintains a
(00:18:33)
statistic that transfers billions and
(00:18:35)
billions of dollars and if the CPI is
(00:18:39)
overstated uh it pays out a lot of money
(00:18:41)
and takes in very little money and if
(00:18:43)
it's if you can get it to be
(00:18:45)
understated uh then you get to take in
(00:18:47)
much more money you don't have to pay
(00:18:48)
old and sick people and that's what the
(00:18:51)
Harvard Department was doing there's a
(00:18:53)
single figure that mediates everything
(00:18:55)
that gets squeezed through how funny and
(00:18:58)
and so what we we were doing
(00:18:59)
as a collaboration was showing the right
(00:19:02)
mathematical framework to calculate the
(00:19:05)
CPI but that would have allowed less
(00:19:07)
[ __ ] it would have allowed less yeah
(00:19:10)
to use the technical term sir so uh but
(00:19:13)
but the point being that the Harvard
(00:19:15)
jobs Market meeting inside of the
(00:19:17)
Harvard economics department is a Star
(00:19:20)
Chamber the way the uh immigration um
(00:19:24)
status of Obama's father was a Star
(00:19:26)
Chamber as was the way in which my P PhD
(00:19:29)
was over and over again Harvard closes
(00:19:31)
its doors and it makes stuff up this
(00:19:34)
sounds unsalvageable as somebody I don't
(00:19:37)
know it sounds like it sounds like we've
(00:19:39)
got the people leading it have gotten in
(00:19:41)
through some combination of diversity
(00:19:44)
Equity inclusion nepotism gameplaying
(00:19:46)
harsh elbows seems like the people they
(00:19:48)
just hired a guy named Daniel S Fred
(00:19:50)
who's one of the greatest mathematicians
(00:19:51)
alive in my
(00:19:53)
area um Dan and I might disagree about
(00:19:55)
String Theory we can have scholarly
(00:19:58)
disagreements just had lunch with him in
(00:19:59)
Austin
(00:20:00)
Texas um that guy's a scholar through
(00:20:04)
and through I can disagree with him I
(00:20:06)
can fight with him uh I can I can have
(00:20:10)
my
(00:20:11)
differences I would support him 100% as
(00:20:14)
a scholar to take over uh you know as a
(00:20:17)
as a Provost or Dean if they were
(00:20:18)
interested there's no shortage of
(00:20:21)
absolutely fantastic people at Harvard
(00:20:24)
but if they're unable or unwilling to
(00:20:26)
play the political games know that are
(00:20:29)
required unless they're prepared to file
(00:20:31)
their elbows down to a sharp Point well
(00:20:33)
this is what Bill Amman is doing this so
(00:20:35)
confusing I just I have the feeling I
(00:20:37)
don't know this guy at all don't have
(00:20:40)
positive negative I thought you would
(00:20:41)
have cross paths with him at some point
(00:20:42)
you would think there are various people
(00:20:43)
who I don't cross paths with for
(00:20:45)
whatever reason um I don't even think we
(00:20:47)
follow each other or maybe I follow him
(00:20:49)
but I don't think he follows me
(00:20:53)
um I think that the problem is is that a
(00:20:56)
lot of these people don't know how the
(00:20:59)
research Game Works they think about
(00:21:01)
this in terms of the Harvard Business
(00:21:02)
School the law school the undergraduate
(00:21:05)
Alumni network they don't see the part
(00:21:08)
of Harvard that actually produces the
(00:21:10)
Mystique you know the analog of the
(00:21:12)
racing for the exotic car and I I worry
(00:21:15)
that the right thing to do right now is
(00:21:18)
to appoint a
(00:21:20)
kinly research oriented person in a
(00:21:23)
super rigorous field it doesn't even
(00:21:25)
have to be stem like music is an
(00:21:27)
incredibly rigorous field
(00:21:29)
but what we need right now is rigor we
(00:21:31)
don't need another person from uh the
(00:21:34)
social sciences at this moment we need
(00:21:37)
somebody to reestablish that Harvard is
(00:21:40)
an intolerant place that it has the
(00:21:43)
highest possible standards it's
(00:21:44)
unabashedly elitist it's unabashedly
(00:21:48)
American
(00:21:50)
and it cannot live with Dei Dei is a
(00:21:55)
parasitization of our best hopes and
(00:21:58)
dreams and we have to recognize that Dei
(00:22:01)
has to be
(00:22:03)
destroyed so that goals like diversity
(00:22:06)
and getting the right people into the
(00:22:08)
room are not sacrificed on the altar of
(00:22:12)
mediocrity and lack of Ethics it's
(00:22:14)
interesting that at places like Yale
(00:22:18)
they had made some changes to the ways
(00:22:21)
that grades and diversity account for
(00:22:25)
admissions but they didn't get rid of
(00:22:27)
legacy admissions which kind of tells
(00:22:29)
you everything that you need to know
(00:22:31)
about what's being
(00:22:33)
protected no I don't think it
(00:22:35)
does is this not another way to ensure
(00:22:39)
that the
(00:22:40)
people just to ensure that power is is
(00:22:43)
held in the people who already have it
(00:22:46)
but very soon this thing isn't going to
(00:22:47)
be worth very much I don't think that
(00:22:49)
people care I think this is the same as
(00:22:51)
looking at why Marvel are going downhill
(00:22:55)
yeah say
(00:22:57)
more there are a lot of movies coming
(00:22:59)
out at the moment I think the most
(00:23:00)
recent Star Wars director openly said I
(00:23:03)
enjoy making movies that make men feel
(00:23:05)
uncomfortable to John
(00:23:07)
story Star Wars
(00:23:11)
yeah maybe one of the most male
(00:23:14)
dominated audience
(00:23:16)
movies that I can think
(00:23:18)
of yes it's self-destructed so what I'm
(00:23:21)
trying to say is is that you can you can
(00:23:23)
say oh we're going to keep things open
(00:23:25)
for legacy admissions right but very
(00:23:27)
soon you're not going to want to be
(00:23:29)
associated with I mean already Yale has
(00:23:31)
mismanaged its research University for
(00:23:34)
years it made a very bad decision not to
(00:23:36)
go hard on on sciences and stem uh and
(00:23:40)
focused in my opinion too much on on
(00:23:43)
softer Fields um you know so what
(00:23:48)
happens when Harvard is no longer that
(00:23:50)
prestigious if people start laughing at
(00:23:53)
Harvard uh what good is it going to be
(00:23:55)
that you can get your kid in I don't
(00:23:57)
disagree but I think people are so out
(00:23:58)
of touch
(00:24:00)
the people who are in
(00:24:02)
power are unable or unwilling to see
(00:24:08)
just
(00:24:10)
how just
(00:24:12)
how quickly the stock price is
(00:24:15)
plummeting I don't think that they're
(00:24:17)
able to see this thinking about it
(00:24:19)
especially using the the Marvel example
(00:24:20)
again or some of the things that are
(00:24:21)
coming out of
(00:24:23)
Disney you have a quantifiable figure
(00:24:27)
what was the opening weekend at the Box
(00:24:28)
up
(00:24:29)
you know exactly where this
(00:24:31)
is there are fewer places to hide when
(00:24:34)
it comes to that here's the number what
(00:24:37)
did it cost what did you make opening
(00:24:39)
weekend right and you have projections
(00:24:40)
and you have targets presumably that you
(00:24:42)
want to hit if that number doesn't cause
(00:24:44)
people to
(00:24:46)
think maybe we don't need
(00:24:49)
another narrative about an all female
(00:24:51)
cast that is better than the men without
(00:24:54)
over you're not looking at
(00:24:56)
is um you know
(00:24:59)
if you look at Mike Hopkins work on the
(00:25:01)
con karian variant in the mathematics
(00:25:04)
Department that's like
(00:25:06)
opening opening weekend
(00:25:10)
statistics man great stuff happens at
(00:25:13)
Harvard make no mistake about Harvard is
(00:25:16)
an amazing and horrible place and we're
(00:25:19)
going to all now focus on how dumb it is
(00:25:21)
and how horrible it is and like then
(00:25:24)
you're not seeing the
(00:25:27)
tragedy you're not
(00:25:30)
seeing
(00:25:33)
look I didn't have an adviser I one of
(00:25:36)
the only people you'll ever meet with a
(00:25:38)
PhD that had no advisor um but the guy
(00:25:41)
who saved me was named RL bot and rul
(00:25:45)
Bot discovered something that's so
(00:25:47)
important called bot periodicity that if
(00:25:50)
I could convey it to you your mind would
(00:25:53)
be uh you you'd think DMT was for
(00:25:57)
children uh it has to do with the fact
(00:25:59)
that there are only four systems of
(00:26:00)
numbers that have particular property
(00:26:02)
and one of those sets of numbers spins a
(00:26:05)
Maro around with the other three with an
(00:26:08)
eight-fold sort of symmetry who knew
(00:26:09)
that this thing was even possible it's
(00:26:11)
just it's an incredible fact about the
(00:26:13)
world um I associate him with
(00:26:17)
Harvard that's UNF
(00:26:19)
fudge there's no there's no one in the
(00:26:22)
world who can tell me that bot
(00:26:23)
periodicity wasn't one of the most
(00:26:25)
important things that happened in the
(00:26:27)
20th century and to have a person like
(00:26:30)
that you know just feet from John Tate
(00:26:35)
uh I could go on and on about all the
(00:26:37)
real things that happened in Harvard
(00:26:39)
what we need right
(00:26:41)
now look I would love to run for
(00:26:43)
president of Harvard if Claud and gay
(00:26:45)
can be president of Harvard so can I and
(00:26:47)
what we need is somebody who's been
(00:26:48)
wronged by Harvard you need somebody who
(00:26:52)
has not been on this kind of escalator
(00:26:55)
to power who's constantly shown Love by
(00:26:58)
the system there are all sorts of people
(00:27:00)
that represent what I call Black Sheep
(00:27:02)
Harvard you've got white sheep Harvard
(00:27:04)
and black sheep Harvard and black sheep
(00:27:05)
Harvard is no less important but it's
(00:27:07)
the people who are not loved by the
(00:27:09)
system who don't know when to shut up
(00:27:12)
the people who will take a stand and who
(00:27:14)
will zig when everyone else zags why
(00:27:15)
would that be
(00:27:17)
useful because we've got to purge the
(00:27:19)
University of the things that don't work
(00:27:21)
and it's going to be ugly it's going to
(00:27:24)
be
(00:27:25)
unpleasant it's going to be a civil war
(00:27:27)
on the faculty
(00:27:32)
I was learning about an idea the abalene
(00:27:34)
Paradox one of my one of my one of my
(00:27:37)
favorite ideas from last year the abene
(00:27:39)
Paradox is a situation in which a group
(00:27:41)
makes a decision that is contrary to the
(00:27:43)
desires of the group's members because
(00:27:45)
each member assumes the others approve
(00:27:47)
of it it explains how a number of
(00:27:49)
accurate individuals can become idiots
(00:27:50)
when they get together kind of like the
(00:27:52)
emperor new clothes an acquaintance
(00:27:54)
invites you to his wedding despite not
(00:27:56)
wanting you there because he thinks you
(00:27:57)
want to attend
(00:27:59)
you attend despite not wanting to
(00:28:01)
because you think he wants you that at a
(00:28:03)
business meeting someone suggests an
(00:28:05)
idea that he thinks the others will like
(00:28:06)
recruiting a trans influencer is the
(00:28:08)
face of the brand each member has
(00:28:10)
misgivings about this but assumes the
(00:28:11)
others will consider them transphobic if
(00:28:13)
they speak out so everyone app proves of
(00:28:15)
the idea despite no one liking it abene
(00:28:17)
Paradox yeah um I like it uh it has a
(00:28:22)
lot to do with Timor Quan's theory of
(00:28:24)
preference
(00:28:26)
falsification I think that that's not
(00:28:28)
exactly how it happens how most of the
(00:28:31)
way these things work is that you're
(00:28:33)
afraid to
(00:28:34)
speak like Le let's predict what's going
(00:28:37)
to be said when this
(00:28:40)
debuts sour
(00:28:43)
grapes uh grifter
(00:28:45)
charlatan uh Eric doesn't like women
(00:28:48)
Eric doesn't like black
(00:28:50)
people oh uh such snobbery what has he
(00:28:53)
ever done you know we know what every
(00:28:57)
action
(00:28:59)
brings about in terms of its
(00:29:02)
response and that's kind of why we don't
(00:29:06)
speak up it's just not worth it there
(00:29:09)
these horrible people that follow you
(00:29:11)
around looking for you to say anything
(00:29:13)
like I don't know I don't I don't know
(00:29:15)
if she's
(00:29:16)
qualified it's like did he say it can we
(00:29:19)
get our knives out that thing has to be
(00:29:22)
driven out of the University we can't
(00:29:24)
have these people it's not just in the
(00:29:25)
University though right no no but I'm
(00:29:26)
saying the universities are special
(00:29:29)
because the if everyone is going to take
(00:29:32)
power later passes through them you
(00:29:35)
can't
(00:29:36)
afford to lose them you can't afford to
(00:29:38)
lose your news media you can't afford to
(00:29:40)
lose your universities you can't afford
(00:29:42)
to lose your political parties three for
(00:29:45)
three at the moment that's right
(00:29:49)
yeah but look it's worth fighting for so
(00:29:52)
you know they'll call me a bunch of
(00:29:54)
names they'll try to deface my Wikipedia
(00:29:56)
entry that's what they'll do
(00:29:59)
what do you make of the most release of
(00:30:00)
Epstein documents you tell me oh man I
(00:30:04)
mean surprising to see Steven Hawking on
(00:30:06)
there in some ways but
(00:30:11)
why I wouldn't know what Jeffrey Epstein
(00:30:14)
would want with Steven
(00:30:18)
Hawking what are you
(00:30:20)
assuming is so terrible about Steven
(00:30:22)
Hawking being in these documents I
(00:30:24)
didn't say that it was terrible
(00:30:27)
okay I'm like that answer that's
(00:30:29)
interesting I'm surprised that Jeffrey
(00:30:33)
Epstein would have an interest in Steven
(00:30:36)
Hawking Beyond him being somebody that
(00:30:39)
is well-known influential powerful and
(00:30:41)
potentially
(00:30:42)
leverageable which is that makes me
(00:30:45)
think what he took an interest in
(00:30:48)
physics and I don't know why and you do
(00:30:50)
at least you have an idea about why he
(00:30:51)
took an interest in physics Jeffrey
(00:31:00)
but I don't know why I don't know why
(00:31:01)
Jeffrey Epstein was interested in
(00:31:03)
physics well what would you
(00:31:06)
guess there's some special mathematics
(00:31:08)
there that allows him
(00:31:10)
to or the people that he is associated
(00:31:15)
with to better be able to predict things
(00:31:17)
to be able to use it in some sort of a
(00:31:19)
way around financial markets around new
(00:31:21)
technology that's emerging to just be
(00:31:22)
able to see the direction that the
(00:31:24)
future of technology is moving in
(00:31:26)
perhaps h
(00:31:32)
you know more about this than me one
(00:31:34)
well
(00:31:36)
I look I I'd go back to this conference
(00:31:39)
that he held I think it's
(00:31:41)
2006 or 2004 called confronting
(00:31:46)
gravity so he holds a conference I don't
(00:31:48)
think he holds it on this island on his
(00:31:50)
Island I think he holds it on uh St
(00:31:53)
Thomas
(00:31:54)
maybe
(00:31:56)
um and this is entirely consonant with
(00:31:59)
an earlier meeting that he had with me
(00:32:01)
where he wanted to know about what I was
(00:32:04)
doing with mathematical
(00:32:06)
physics
(00:32:11)
and I have to
(00:32:17)
say look why gravity gravity is in some
(00:32:22)
sense about the fabric of space
(00:32:25)
time and if there are things about the
(00:32:28)
fabric of SpaceTime that you can unlock
(00:32:30)
that are not contained in general
(00:32:32)
relativity nor in the standard model how
(00:32:34)
much power do you think is in that you
(00:32:37)
saw what the neutron did to unlock the
(00:32:39)
strong
(00:32:40)
force um you can take out a city with a
(00:32:44)
little bit of
(00:32:48)
physics I'm going to turn this around
(00:32:50)
Chris because we had a great Dynamic the
(00:32:52)
last time and I I want to see you play
(00:32:53)
with ideas too
(00:32:56)
um tell me what what you imagine might
(00:32:59)
be the power beyond the standard model
(00:33:02)
in general relativity if we can already
(00:33:03)
destroy all of
(00:33:05)
humanity uh albeit with some com
(00:33:08)
complications you have to engineer a
(00:33:09)
bomb what do you think might be on the
(00:33:11)
other side of the next great discoveries
(00:33:15)
well I mean this gets into sci-fi and
(00:33:18)
and speculation around that probably
(00:33:21)
fits the next Marvel series they should
(00:33:22)
use this as the as the
(00:33:25)
tagline I would guess things to do with
(00:33:27)
being able to move across
(00:33:29)
space okay wormholes
(00:33:33)
time if there
(00:33:35)
are other higher Dimensions if that
(00:33:39)
allows you to access if the Multiverse
(00:33:42)
Theory holds uh if that allows you to
(00:33:45)
access different universes and to move
(00:33:47)
between
(00:33:48)
them it might be Limitless
(00:33:52)
power it could be Limitless power in the
(00:33:54)
form of energy could be Limitless power
(00:33:56)
in the form of travel
(00:33:59)
um what if what if it allows you to
(00:34:01)
control neutrinos in a new way I mean
(00:34:03)
like people don't think about neutrinos
(00:34:05)
it's very hard to send a particle
(00:34:07)
through planet Earth unscathed but
(00:34:09)
neutrinos do it right so in some
(00:34:13)
sense if you were a a Sovereign
(00:34:18)
Nation wouldn't you be focused on
(00:34:21)
physics I mean here's the thing that I
(00:34:24)
just don't understand I'll be totally
(00:34:26)
honest about who isn't interested in
(00:34:28)
this
(00:34:30)
stuff you have to be crazy to do what
(00:34:32)
we're doing with physics we're running
(00:34:34)
physics into the ground physics is
(00:34:38)
you'll go to a Marvel movie about some
(00:34:40)
guy trying to collect Rings or stones to
(00:34:43)
get infinite power over the universe
(00:34:45)
that's physics that's not
(00:34:47)
Stones when you see somebody talking
(00:34:50)
about Limitless power think physics
(00:34:53)
don't think money think
(00:34:55)
physics physics is the source of
(00:34:57)
infinite power and is Jeffrey Epstein
(00:35:00)
sufficiently versed in physics to know
(00:35:03)
that he needs to be at the Forefront of
(00:35:04)
this
(00:35:05)
no but this is what we dealt with last
(00:35:08)
time so kids if you haven't seen last
(00:35:10)
time's
(00:35:12)
episode I don't think it was jeffre EP I
(00:35:15)
don't understand why we're so focused on
(00:35:17)
this man why aren't we focused on on
(00:35:20)
whatever created
(00:35:22)
him like this is really weird we can't
(00:35:26)
think
(00:35:28)
take half of all the time you spend
(00:35:30)
thinking about Jeffrey Epstein talking
(00:35:32)
about Jeffrey Epstein everybody talking
(00:35:34)
about and spend half of that time
(00:35:38)
saying what do we what do we think about
(00:35:40)
whoever was behind Jeffrey
(00:35:45)
Epstein whatever was behind Jeffrey
(00:35:47)
Epstein is what I think cared about
(00:35:49)
gravity cared about SpaceTime cared
(00:35:51)
about physics and you get to use this
(00:35:55)
supposed financia as a wedge to be able
(00:35:58)
to start to break this open well this is
(00:36:00)
the thing if I'm
(00:36:02)
looking you know there there's a picture
(00:36:05)
of Lisa Randall at this conference
(00:36:07)
nobody's worried about the sexual
(00:36:08)
depravity of Lisa Randall this is stupid
(00:36:11)
Lisa Randall is an amazing
(00:36:14)
physicist he was interested in
(00:36:17)
physics Jeffrey Epstein whatever he
(00:36:19)
represented cared about
(00:36:23)
physics does that make him more or less
(00:36:26)
nervous well you have to appreciate I
(00:36:29)
have no idea why my country the United
(00:36:32)
States of America doesn't care about
(00:36:34)
physics anymore it canel the SSC in
(00:36:38)
1993 superc conducting super
(00:36:40)
collider it's bet the farm on string
(00:36:44)
theory which is completely not worked
(00:36:46)
out we're now this is the 40 so we're
(00:36:49)
now in 2024 this is the 40th year
(00:36:53)
anniversary of the green Schwarz anomaly
(00:36:56)
cancellation which basically handed the
(00:36:58)
Keys uh to The Liquor Cabinet of physics
(00:37:01)
over to the string theorists and they've
(00:37:03)
been uh drunk on these stories about the
(00:37:06)
first Super string Revolution the second
(00:37:09)
Super string Revolution um all these
(00:37:12)
things that they're going to do the
(00:37:13)
theory of everything and they just had a
(00:37:15)
uh panel discussion at the world Science
(00:37:17)
Festival with Brian Green moderating
(00:37:20)
between David Gross Edward Whitten and
(00:37:22)
Andy Stringer and this thing is
(00:37:25)
delusional why I don't know I mean
(00:37:28)
physicists I know are calling me up and
(00:37:29)
saying you're right Eric I can't believe
(00:37:31)
how crazy this is because they're
(00:37:34)
pretending that they didn't flush 40
(00:37:37)
years down the
(00:37:40)
tubes um driving physics into a ditch in
(00:37:45)
other news this episode is brought to
(00:37:46)
you by Shopify the reason that you
(00:37:48)
started a business is not to learn how
(00:37:50)
to build a website or to code or to do
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inventory management it's to sell the
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what stage you're in can you explain in
(00:38:47)
an accessible way what the problem is
(00:38:49)
with string
(00:38:50)
theory
(00:38:52)
sure it doesn't
(00:38:55)
work we can go a tiny bit more more that
(00:38:58)
level of advancement a little bit
(00:39:00)
further explain it to me as if I'm two
(00:39:01)
yeah yeah or a high IQ golden
(00:39:05)
retriever
(00:39:07)
um the problem with string
(00:39:13)
theory is its sociology not its
(00:39:17)
equations the sociology of a string
(00:39:20)
theorist
(00:39:25)
um do you mind if I play you a recording
(00:39:29)
absolutely yeah yeah yeah the following
(00:39:32)
uh clip is from uh a podcast which
(00:39:36)
probably has the highest IQ guests of
(00:39:39)
any podcast on planet Earth called the
(00:39:41)
universe speaks in numbers nobody
(00:39:43)
listens to this podcast but this uh this
(00:39:47)
is Edward Witten
(00:39:50)
um and he is uh talking about um is
(00:39:58)
being asked about String Theory by
(00:40:00)
Graham
(00:40:01)
farelo back to string theor do you see
(00:40:04)
that as one among several candidates or
(00:40:06)
the preent candidate or what I mean what
(00:40:07)
do you see the status of that framework
(00:40:09)
in the landscape of mathematical physics
(00:40:12)
I'd say that string slm the is the only
(00:40:14)
really interesting direction we have for
(00:40:16)
going beyond the established framework
(00:40:18)
of physics by which I mean Quantum field
(00:40:20)
Theory at the quantum level and
(00:40:23)
classical general relativity at the
(00:40:25)
microscopic scale so where we've made
(00:40:28)
progress It's been in the string slm
(00:40:30)
theory framework where a lot of
(00:40:31)
interesting things have been discovered
(00:40:32)
I say that there's lot of interesting
(00:40:34)
things we don't understand at all M but
(00:40:36)
you've never been tempted down the other
(00:40:37)
roots of other options for I'm not even
(00:40:39)
sure what you would mean by other Roots
(00:40:41)
uh L quantum gravity those just words
(00:40:44)
there aren't any other
(00:40:47)
Roots there are
(00:40:49)
words there are no other Roots there are
(00:40:52)
just words that is the world's leading
(00:40:55)
theoretical physicist
(00:40:58)
opining about strength can you imagine
(00:41:01)
anything less scientific coming out of
(00:41:04)
the mouth of Edward
(00:41:06)
Whitten and and by the way this is the
(00:41:08)
world's scariest individual to go up
(00:41:10)
against and I've had it I've just
(00:41:12)
absolutely had it can you imagine being
(00:41:15)
a scientist and
(00:41:17)
saying there are no other Roots When ask
(00:41:20)
are you ever tempted by other
(00:41:21)
Roots they're only they're only words no
(00:41:24)
other
(00:41:26)
Roots I I don't even know how to respond
(00:41:28)
to that what's the difference between uh
(00:41:31)
dogmatism and
(00:41:33)
conviction you tell
(00:41:35)
me a fifth of Jack Daniel
(00:41:38)
ah the guy sounds like he's
(00:41:41)
convinced why you so sure that he
(00:41:44)
shouldn't be I'm convinced the geometric
(00:41:47)
Unity is
(00:41:49)
correct
(00:41:52)
and I am open to being
(00:41:55)
wrong I am open
(00:42:00)
to ethical colleagues talking to me
(00:42:04)
about their
(00:42:06)
misgivings this is an unethical position
(00:42:10)
to hold what's wrong with string
(00:42:14)
theory I'm going to say the same thing
(00:42:17)
again first of all if you if you ask me
(00:42:19)
technically what's wrong with it I would
(00:42:20)
say to you that uh let's say the
(00:42:23)
explanation for three generations of
(00:42:24)
matter uh based on an index of six on a
(00:42:27)
cab manifold at every point in space and
(00:42:29)
time is not the right explanation you're
(00:42:31)
not going to be able to handle that I
(00:42:34)
understand that so we can't have that
(00:42:35)
conversation um the problem is you have
(00:42:39)
a group of people who don't feel that
(00:42:40)
they have to listen to anything else and
(00:42:42)
if anything else happens then they say
(00:42:44)
well we'll just call that string theory
(00:42:46)
and you're thinking so heads you win and
(00:42:51)
Tails I lose and and that's science the
(00:42:54)
these people need remedial ethical
(00:42:56)
training
(00:42:58)
in
(00:42:59)
science I'm convinced of my own
(00:43:03)
theories I have to be open-minded that
(00:43:05)
I'm
(00:43:10)
wrong their theories have had all of the
(00:43:13)
money all of the minds all of the years
(00:43:16)
the conferences everything the praise
(00:43:18)
the pr articles you name it for 40 years
(00:43:22)
straight and it's done what it's
(00:43:25)
destroyed physics you can't have this
(00:43:29)
ethos look there's no one more
(00:43:31)
accomplished in Quantum field Theory
(00:43:34)
than Edward
(00:43:36)
wh he doesn't belong at the lead in the
(00:43:40)
lead position in a science he's doing
(00:43:43)
math fine but you can't you can't be a
(00:43:46)
leading physicist and say there are no
(00:43:48)
other Roots there are no your dog
(00:43:51)
doesn't hunt we're not allowed to see
(00:43:53)
other dogs I I don't understand your
(00:43:56)
dog's been dead in the back yard for
(00:43:58)
years and you're still talking about how
(00:44:00)
you know you're going to go take it
(00:44:02)
hiking so this been in 40 years
(00:44:05)
basically no progress in string theory
(00:44:07)
no meaningful no useful internal to
(00:44:10)
string
(00:44:11)
theory but functionally outside of that
(00:44:14)
yeah I mean in that's 40 Years of string
(00:44:19)
theory in 50 years the standard model of
(00:44:22)
particle theory hasn't
(00:44:25)
moved there are no
(00:44:28)
young people who have ever walked on the
(00:44:30)
moon and there are no young theoretical
(00:44:33)
physicists who have contributed to our
(00:44:37)
picture um of the universe in a way
(00:44:41)
that's been
(00:44:42)
confirmed if it's the case that the
(00:44:44)
underpinnings of string theory aren't
(00:44:46)
accurate if it's also the case that for
(00:44:49)
such a long time there hasn't been any
(00:44:51)
progress that's been made why are so
(00:44:54)
many people continuing to cling to
(00:44:57)
afraid of that man that one guy oh yeah
(00:45:01)
he's the Tyrant that's pulling the
(00:45:02)
strings behind string he's the string
(00:45:04)
theorist no no no
(00:45:06)
no everybody who's gone up against this
(00:45:09)
guy in essence has
(00:45:15)
lost he's
(00:45:18)
terrifying when you mean when you say go
(00:45:20)
up against what do you mean you'll bring
(00:45:24)
up a
(00:45:25)
point um well
(00:45:29)
you might have an argument with him and
(00:45:31)
he'll solve the problem you've been
(00:45:32)
working on for two years in an hour if
(00:45:35)
it takes him that
(00:45:37)
long
(00:45:39)
uh you have to understand how vertical
(00:45:42)
human achievement can be and this guy is
(00:45:45)
at the very top of the human
(00:45:50)
mind I
(00:45:52)
mean he's he's
(00:45:54)
just he's utterly amazing
(00:45:58)
and he's completely scientifically uh
(00:46:01)
outside of his ethical boundaries with
(00:46:03)
statements like this you you can't do
(00:46:06)
that to science even Edward
(00:46:08)
Whitten is not so great of a
(00:46:10)
mathematician that he's allowed to take
(00:46:12)
out theoretical
(00:46:13)
physics and you know if you ask me like
(00:46:17)
about my own
(00:46:18)
Theory
(00:46:19)
um in in terms of like what has happened
(00:46:23)
to me talk trying to talk about for 40
(00:46:25)
years more or less the field says well
(00:46:28)
what does Ed think what does Ed say what
(00:46:31)
was Ed's feedback because everyone was
(00:46:33)
afraid of
(00:46:41)
him you have to understand how dominant
(00:46:44)
a single individual can be in order to
(00:46:46)
understand this effect there was a great
(00:46:49)
string theorist named Joe
(00:46:51)
pinski and Joe once said to me Eric you
(00:46:54)
talk a lot about String Theory but I'm
(00:46:55)
not sure it exists sometimes I think
(00:46:58)
we're just running sub routines for
(00:47:00)
Ed that's how dominant this person was
(00:47:04)
is that even one of the top figures in
(00:47:06)
the string theory
(00:47:07)
movement uh guy who basically introduced
(00:47:10)
brain Theory uh above
(00:47:12)
strings um his point was we don't even
(00:47:14)
quite know what we're doing Ed just
(00:47:16)
tells us to do
(00:47:18)
things and it's it's time for Ed Whitten
(00:47:20)
to actually face the other theories that
(00:47:23)
are out there and stop drawing off about
(00:47:26)
how it's only just words outside it's
(00:47:29)
it's
(00:47:31)
it's it's almost hysterically funny will
(00:47:34)
that ever
(00:47:35)
happen do you think that Ed where does
(00:47:39)
he hey Ed if you're out there you want
(00:47:42)
to have a chat love
(00:47:46)
to won't happen
(00:47:49)
why because it's a
(00:47:52)
spell because he's casting a
(00:47:56)
spell because if he actually had to face
(00:47:59)
a real critic somebody who has some
(00:48:02)
knowledge of what the history of string
(00:48:03)
theory
(00:48:05)
was he would have to take into account
(00:48:08)
all sorts of things he doesn't have to
(00:48:10)
take into account when he appears on a
(00:48:11)
stage of colleague look he has a right
(00:48:13)
not to
(00:48:15)
face unethical people he has a right not
(00:48:18)
to face people who are badly informed or
(00:48:20)
not trained in the subject that's
(00:48:23)
fine but I don't see these people as
(00:48:26)
having gone up against their technical
(00:48:30)
critics you know feeman was a huge
(00:48:31)
critic of String Theory Sheldon glasha
(00:48:33)
who won a Nobel Prize for symmetry
(00:48:36)
breaking was a Critic of string theory
(00:48:37)
there are string theorists who have
(00:48:39)
defected like Dan fedan there's no
(00:48:42)
shortage of very competent people who
(00:48:45)
have said what the hell is going on why
(00:48:46)
are we doing this this is madness I've
(00:48:49)
never heard Ed Whitten face one of these
(00:48:51)
people when I think about somebody like
(00:48:54)
Brian Green sure he doesn't strike me as
(00:48:57)
the sort of guy that needs to bow at the
(00:48:59)
feet of this person Brian Green's got a
(00:49:02)
a successful career he's books he's
(00:49:04)
hosting these events so on and so forth
(00:49:07)
is everybody dancing to the tune of
(00:49:10)
some super smart tyrannical string
(00:49:13)
theorist leader it's not
(00:49:15)
tyrannical look I I don't know how to
(00:49:17)
say this right because I'm obviously a
(00:49:20)
Critic I I Revere this
(00:49:24)
person this is very painful for me to to
(00:49:27)
say you know if you if you ask me of all
(00:49:30)
the people's minds on planet Earth that
(00:49:32)
I I Revere the wonder that is Ed wht's
(00:49:36)
brain is beyond almost anything I can
(00:49:39)
communicate at least when you have a
(00:49:41)
Beethoven or or or a I don't know an art
(00:49:45)
Tatum or a a Picasso or modon you can
(00:49:48)
see what it is that they're
(00:49:51)
doing this guy has done so much for us
(00:49:55)
and he's done so much to take
(00:49:58)
science out of physics and it's it's
(00:50:00)
almost impossible to talk about the the
(00:50:03)
the profound nature of his contribution
(00:50:06)
and the enormity of the destruction he's
(00:50:10)
caused it's you know it's like he gave
(00:50:14)
us everything he took away
(00:50:18)
everything because you see Quantum field
(00:50:22)
Theory under Ed
(00:50:23)
Whitten with help from particularly
(00:50:25)
Michael AA and Graham
(00:50:28)
seagull was revealed to be just math we
(00:50:32)
thought Quantum field theory was about
(00:50:34)
the physical universe but it's much more
(00:50:36)
General than that and Ed Whitten is
(00:50:40)
largely responsible for showing us what
(00:50:42)
Quantum field Theory really is but in so
(00:50:45)
doing he also divorced it from
(00:50:46)
mathematics and so what Ed Whitten did
(00:50:48)
is he effectively showed us that what we
(00:50:50)
thought was the physical Universe was
(00:50:52)
just like calculus just a
(00:50:55)
framework but
(00:50:57)
you
(00:50:59)
know keep in mind that my view of it is
(00:51:02)
if if the universe is traversible the
(00:51:04)
only way to get there is through the
(00:51:06)
study of physics guntin and
(00:51:11)
uh these guys are guarding the
(00:51:15)
exit to me a previous
(00:51:19)
generation through a lit match into a
(00:51:22)
room filled with
(00:51:24)
kerosene and this is the generation
(00:51:26)
that's blocking the exit so you know
(00:51:29)
teller and
(00:51:30)
ulam uh gave us the hydrogen bomb it's a
(00:51:35)
geometer and a particle
(00:51:38)
theorist and I would expect that Ed
(00:51:41)
Witten was taking responsibility for
(00:51:44)
trying to figure out whether the cosmos
(00:51:45)
are traversible and whether we can leave
(00:51:48)
Earth is there any way we can get access
(00:51:50)
to more energy is there any way that we
(00:51:53)
can reveal SpaceTime to not be
(00:51:55)
fundamental so that we maybe we can do
(00:51:57)
something that would be confused with
(00:51:58)
going faster than light maybe we can
(00:52:01)
reach the Stars through methods that we
(00:52:03)
can't understand using what we
(00:52:06)
have why is Ed Whitten guarding the
(00:52:10)
exit Ed there are other theories there
(00:52:12)
have been theories for 40 years I met
(00:52:14)
you in your office in 1984 85 in
(00:52:17)
Princeton on a snowy day and you threw
(00:52:20)
me out of your office for what reason
(00:52:21)
because I started talking to you about
(00:52:23)
the fact that I didn't think you were
(00:52:24)
right about three generations for for
(00:52:27)
particle theory and you claimed that um
(00:52:31)
Kusa Klein Theory couldn't work U
(00:52:34)
because of chirality considerations you
(00:52:35)
were wrong you have one claim as to why
(00:52:37)
they're three generations I have another
(00:52:39)
do you want to meet let's
(00:52:41)
talk nothing will happen they they don't
(00:52:44)
show up how long can the world of
(00:52:47)
physics be captured by an idea that no
(00:52:49)
meaningful progress is made inside of
(00:52:51)
before more people say it's time to look
(00:52:54)
at something else um that's an
(00:52:56)
interesting question the problem
(00:52:59)
is that
(00:53:02)
um there isn't going to be much of
(00:53:04)
physics left when this group
(00:53:07)
dies it just retired I believe from The
(00:53:09)
Institute for advanced study because it
(00:53:11)
has a capped age of 70 and he was born
(00:53:14)
in
(00:53:16)
1951
(00:53:19)
um no I there isn't much physics left
(00:53:23)
people have forgotten what the original
(00:53:24)
problems are
(00:53:27)
he swapped out one set of problems that
(00:53:30)
we all agreed on why is nature Left
(00:53:32)
Right asymmetric why are there three
(00:53:34)
copies of matter rather than only one
(00:53:37)
why the particular set of symmetries
(00:53:39)
that uh generate the strong weak and
(00:53:41)
electromagnetic
(00:53:43)
forces uh all of these problems that are
(00:53:45)
all about the physical world in which we
(00:53:47)
live and he swapped them out for
(00:53:48)
different problems like how do we
(00:53:50)
quantize gravity as if that's definitely
(00:53:52)
what we have to do those were sort of
(00:53:55)
mathematical analytic problem problems
(00:53:57)
rather than physical problems and so as
(00:53:59)
a result two generations of physicists
(00:54:01)
have been brainwashed into not caring
(00:54:04)
about the physical world and being
(00:54:06)
they're totally devoted to various
(00:54:08)
abstract areas of mathematics how long
(00:54:10)
can the legacy of that continue for well
(00:54:12)
how do you rebuild theoretical physics
(00:54:14)
when almost nobody's doing theoretical
(00:54:16)
physics and I don't
(00:54:18)
mean look there's some technical wiggle
(00:54:21)
words that if I don't say them um my
(00:54:23)
colleagues will go crazy but in the
(00:54:26)
field of fundamental physics Beyond
(00:54:28)
general relativity in the standard model
(00:54:31)
there isn't much of a field left you go
(00:54:33)
on a random day to the archive where
(00:54:36)
people post papers and the papers aren't
(00:54:38)
really about Charmed quirks or muons or
(00:54:42)
realistic models of the universe they're
(00:54:45)
about weird esoteric topics and
(00:54:48)
Mathematics and that has everything to
(00:54:50)
do with uh a transition between
(00:54:54)
198 actually 83 through through 86 8887
(00:54:59)
where the field lost its
(00:55:01)
mind rediscovering the problems of
(00:55:04)
physics can't be as hard as discovering
(00:55:06)
the problems of physics if you're not
(00:55:08)
paid to work on
(00:55:10)
physics the way they've got us is by
(00:55:12)
their they've got their hands wrapped
(00:55:14)
around our our wallets we can't afford
(00:55:16)
to do physics it's it's as if there's a
(00:55:19)
force that says if you want to work on
(00:55:22)
the world's most important
(00:55:24)
problem we're going to make you poor
(00:55:27)
we're going to discredit you it's almost
(00:55:29)
like there's a force
(00:55:31)
field trying to get us not to unlock
(00:55:34)
this power and I've been very curious
(00:55:36)
about why that
(00:55:37)
is and nobody like with all the rich
(00:55:40)
people in the world nobody's funding the
(00:55:43)
stuff at the level that it needs to be
(00:55:44)
funded this is the most important
(00:55:46)
funding priority on planet
(00:55:49)
Earth because otherwise you're all
(00:55:50)
sharing one atmosphere with a bunch of
(00:55:52)
idiots and really powerful toys
(00:55:59)
it's unless we can somehow channel the
(00:56:02)
technology of interdimensional space
(00:56:06)
beings please never say those words hey
(00:56:09)
look the interdimensional space
(00:56:11)
interdimensional space beings David GES
(00:56:15)
didn't say extraterrestrial he said
(00:56:16)
interdimensional Yes But Eric Eric and
(00:56:20)
David talk and this is not fair to David
(00:56:22)
grush David grush knows that he's a
(00:56:26)
physics ba he knows he's not a PhD he's
(00:56:28)
repeating things that have been said to
(00:56:30)
him he had the presence of mind to try
(00:56:32)
to give an example of what
(00:56:34)
interdimensional might mean and he used
(00:56:36)
holography and so as a result everyone's
(00:56:39)
making oh David G says holographic
(00:56:41)
interdimensional
(00:56:43)
beings this is absurd and it's not fair
(00:56:45)
to David
(00:56:47)
grush I'm telling you I mean we can call
(00:56:50)
David up right now and I promise you
(00:56:52)
he's not going to back this madness and
(00:56:55)
stupidity so what's going on with this
(00:56:58)
most recent update about aliens which
(00:57:01)
one well I saw this frustration that
(00:57:04)
lawmakers had because they were getting
(00:57:06)
compartmentalized if you don't ask
(00:57:08)
precisely the right person precisely the
(00:57:10)
right question in precisely the right
(00:57:11)
right way you're not allowed to get an
(00:57:14)
answer you don't get an answer but you
(00:57:15)
couldn't even look if you don't know
(00:57:19)
what a Romanian manifold is if you don't
(00:57:21)
know what a determinant line bundle is
(00:57:24)
there's no way you can ask intelligent
(00:57:26)
questions about alien
(00:57:30)
visitation how did they get
(00:57:34)
here there are no
(00:57:37)
scientists there are no relevant
(00:57:39)
scientists in the story does anybody
(00:57:41)
find that at all odd even this the
(00:57:44)
situation with David grush is fantastic
(00:57:46)
um he goes into a a hearing he says a
(00:57:50)
bunch of completely batshit crazy stuff
(00:57:52)
right can we agree on that all right
(00:57:56)
and then weeks
(00:57:58)
later some Representatives go into a
(00:58:01)
skiff and they
(00:58:04)
say Well it certainly uh seems like it
(00:58:07)
confirms some of what grush has been
(00:58:09)
telling us and you're thinking okay so
(00:58:11)
you you've separated the
(00:58:13)
confirmation which you did abstractly
(00:58:15)
because it was inside of a skiff but you
(00:58:17)
you can only talk to people who've
(00:58:19)
emerged from the skiff who are willing
(00:58:20)
to say vague things and the crazy claims
(00:58:23)
now what is this really all about we
(00:58:25)
nobody knows now what I've been saying
(00:58:27)
for about four years is there's way more
(00:58:29)
to this story than I had understood I
(00:58:31)
thought UFOs were total nonsense I
(00:58:33)
thought this was a waste of
(00:58:35)
time and I was wrong I was just wrong
(00:58:39)
why what do you mean in what ways were
(00:58:41)
you wrong why are you now convinced in a
(00:58:43)
way that you weren't
(00:58:44)
previously well I didn't
(00:58:46)
know yeah I'm not convinced that UFOs
(00:58:49)
like shiny metal craft are real at all
(00:58:53)
what I didn't know is that there almost
(00:58:55)
certainly
(00:58:57)
are large programs inside the federal
(00:58:59)
government that are
(00:59:01)
denied that are labeled UFO sh don't
(00:59:04)
tell anyone now whether those programs
(00:59:07)
contain anything about non-human
(00:59:08)
intelligence or aliens or spacecraft or
(00:59:11)
anything like that is anyone's guess
(00:59:14)
because I haven't seen
(00:59:15)
anything however the programs almost
(00:59:18)
certainly
(00:59:19)
exist what gives you that impression
(00:59:22)
talking to four million people who tell
(00:59:24)
stunningly similar stories
(00:59:29)
in other words there is a
(00:59:32)
weirdness and the weirdness is
(00:59:34)
tremendous circumstantial evidence that
(00:59:36)
these programs exist have existed for a
(00:59:39)
long time and have involved
(00:59:41)
extraordinary uh in particular
(00:59:43)
physicists way back in the
(00:59:46)
day and on the other hand that there is
(00:59:49)
no credible proof that there are craft
(00:59:53)
or aliens or anything like that how do
(00:59:57)
you square that Circle how would you I
(01:00:00)
can't look the coordination problem of
(01:00:03)
all of these people is
(01:00:07)
immense there's that but Secrets have
(01:00:10)
been kept more much more effectively
(01:00:12)
Than People
(01:00:13)
imagine say more I don't want
(01:00:20)
to no but I mean that there are
(01:00:23)
organizations that you cannot Google
(01:00:27)
there are organizations that have
(01:00:28)
clubhouses and members that you cannot
(01:00:31)
Google
(01:00:33)
um so I know that secrets are
(01:00:37)
durable uh what we don't know
(01:00:41)
is what these secrets are
(01:00:45)
about
(01:00:47)
see let's create a decision tree which
(01:00:49)
is there are little green men shiny
(01:00:53)
spacecrafts and all this kind of cool
(01:00:54)
stuff and there aren't
(01:00:57)
okay if there
(01:01:00)
aren't what's the best explanation for
(01:01:02)
why there's so much energy and activity
(01:01:04)
and so many claims around this and I
(01:01:07)
would guess and again this is a this is
(01:01:10)
a guess and not a particularly good one
(01:01:12)
that there was a Clearing House program
(01:01:15)
for everything under the sun if we
(01:01:17)
needed to retrieve somebody else's plane
(01:01:20)
Behind Enemy
(01:01:22)
Lines we had a UFO cover story if we we
(01:01:26)
were trying out new Aerospace equipment
(01:01:28)
we had a UFO cover
(01:01:30)
story uh if we were trying to get our
(01:01:33)
Rivals to misspend their uh precious
(01:01:36)
treasure on weaponry and strategic
(01:01:38)
countermeasures we had a UFO cover
(01:01:40)
story um if we were up to no good we had
(01:01:44)
a UF cover story whatever all these
(01:01:47)
things are imagine there was a kitchen
(01:01:49)
sink approach and that's what UFOs are
(01:01:53)
all about it's about a black sap
(01:01:55)
specializ Access program as waved and
(01:01:58)
bigoted as it could possibly be that
(01:02:02)
um basically was a one siiz fits all uh
(01:02:06)
story for all sort it's an in
(01:02:09)
extraterrestrial scapegoat yeah an
(01:02:11)
extraterrestrial scapegoat program okay
(01:02:15)
now whatever that
(01:02:19)
is if you imagine that that leg of the
(01:02:21)
decision tree is real it's it's all very
(01:02:23)
funny because now you're like all these
(01:02:25)
people have Tak it seriously but it was
(01:02:27)
the Russians and the Chinese and the
(01:02:28)
Iranians who were supposed to take it
(01:02:30)
serious like I on the UFO F you know
(01:02:33)
it's like people are going to blow this
(01:02:36)
beautiful cover story that we've created
(01:02:38)
for everything so that's one
(01:02:40)
possibility another possibility is that
(01:02:43)
we're on the other leg of the decision
(01:02:44)
tree and that we have no programming for
(01:02:47)
it and so everything about it seems
(01:02:52)
impossible what's what you said about
(01:02:55)
physics physics physics is science
(01:02:57)
fiction the physics that you just
(01:02:59)
learned is almost always about science
(01:03:05)
fiction what if you have um multiple
(01:03:08)
time dimensions and people can circle
(01:03:11)
around in time and if you find out about
(01:03:12)
them they can Circle back to the point
(01:03:14)
where you didn't know and you have a
(01:03:15)
neuralizer built into the successor to
(01:03:18)
SpaceTime Is that real I don't know all
(01:03:20)
I know is that physics will always blow
(01:03:22)
your mind it will always do something
(01:03:24)
that seems impossible and that's one
(01:03:27)
that's why it's the coolest subject
(01:03:29)
around
(01:03:30)
now I don't know what's going on but I
(01:03:33)
can tell you that the circumstantial
(01:03:35)
evidence that there's been a program
(01:03:37)
that has been
(01:03:40)
um long running and involved very high
(01:03:43)
level
(01:03:44)
people it's almost impossible to imagine
(01:03:47)
that this is fake there's a 1971
(01:03:49)
Australian document from the uh
(01:03:53)
Australian intelligence service that is
(01:03:56)
been Declassified made public which
(01:03:59)
clears up all sorts of uh mysteries
(01:04:03)
about what was going on with physics in
(01:04:05)
the 1950s and 60s and it names names it
(01:04:09)
says that Freeman Dyson John archal
(01:04:12)
Wheeler Pascal Jordan the
(01:04:15)
Nazi
(01:04:16)
um all of these
(01:04:19)
people were working on
(01:04:22)
anti-gravity and the only reason to be
(01:04:24)
working on anti-gravity was is that
(01:04:26)
there was reason to think that something
(01:04:29)
had gone beyond einsteinian
(01:04:34)
relativity in other words mostly we we
(01:04:36)
learn about physics from colliding you
(01:04:39)
know it's like breaking rocks together
(01:04:41)
you're going to smash two rocks and then
(01:04:43)
maybe you'll see a little spark and
(01:04:44)
you'll study that except we do it with
(01:04:48)
protons this would be like some
(01:04:50)
different thing where there was a more
(01:04:52)
advanced species and
(01:04:54)
you're looking at its machiner
(01:04:56)
to try to figure out well what science
(01:04:58)
does it know that you don't how much
(01:05:00)
truth do you think is in that I've seen
(01:05:02)
rumors on the internet of leaps forward
(01:05:05)
in technology throughout the mid
(01:05:08)
1900s that people suggested was due to
(01:05:11)
reverse engineering of something that
(01:05:13)
had been discovered do you think that
(01:05:14)
the technology movements that we made
(01:05:16)
through the 1900s were self-created I'm
(01:05:19)
not clever enough to solve the UFO
(01:05:23)
puzzle there's almost no topic where
(01:05:26)
can't generate multiple
(01:05:28)
explanations this is the only topic I've
(01:05:30)
ever met where I can't generate a single
(01:05:32)
explanation for what the hell's going
(01:05:34)
on nothing I can think of makes
(01:05:42)
sense look I'm very focused on this
(01:05:45)
because if if there are aliens here I I
(01:05:48)
might be the only guy who knows how
(01:05:50)
they're
(01:05:51)
here how
(01:05:54)
so I don't think
(01:05:56)
it's practical to Traverse the cosmos
(01:05:59)
using general relativity in the standard
(01:06:01)
mod you can use time dilation you can
(01:06:04)
hope for wormholes you can imagine
(01:06:06)
generation ships there's a whole bunch
(01:06:07)
of stupid stuff that people talk about
(01:06:09)
when they talk about interdimensional
(01:06:12)
interdimensional travel and all this
(01:06:13)
kind of
(01:06:14)
nonsense why because they can see the
(01:06:17)
night sky and they can't get
(01:06:20)
there so you think okay in terms of the
(01:06:22)
science that I've seen Carl Sean
(01:06:24)
discussing or on cosm
(01:06:26)
with Neil degrass Tyson how would I get
(01:06:29)
to a distant
(01:06:31)
planet using the science I
(01:06:34)
know and then you have to sort of do it
(01:06:36)
with masking tape
(01:06:38)
and you know chicken wire whatever uh
(01:06:42)
whatever that
(01:06:44)
is um doesn't
(01:06:46)
really appeal to me they're not here if
(01:06:50)
they're here using standard physics now
(01:06:54)
I've tried to make a list of everyone on
(01:06:56)
Earth who has a distinct Theory of
(01:07:00)
physics right so you have you know um
(01:07:03)
Julian Barbour has a theory or Steven
(01:07:06)
Wolfram has a theory or Peter white has
(01:07:08)
a theory so I go through all of these
(01:07:10)
other theories and to the best of my
(01:07:13)
knowledge nobody else does
(01:07:16)
that like we've stopped talking to each
(01:07:18)
other we stopped thinking about this so
(01:07:20)
in the world of theories about how
(01:07:21)
something might be here there are very
(01:07:24)
few theories of the
(01:07:27)
universe and why is that it's because
(01:07:29)
the constraints are so profound there's
(01:07:33)
no room to move to imagine to
(01:07:36)
let you know human creativity take over
(01:07:39)
we're in a straight jacket that is so
(01:07:41)
tight nobody can think and we're there
(01:07:44)
because our theories are so
(01:07:46)
good the standard model and general
(01:07:49)
relativity are astounding theories but
(01:07:50)
they're also a straight
(01:07:52)
jacket so I'm very interested in
(01:07:58)
you know if you're Obama you just Reach
(01:08:00)
Out grab it and kill it yeah exactly
(01:08:08)
um yeah I'm very interested in this
(01:08:11)
topic specifically because the universe
(01:08:13)
is either traversable or it isn't and if
(01:08:16)
it is it's not surprising that anyone's
(01:08:19)
here and if it isn't we die here in
(01:08:22)
short
(01:08:23)
order so it's a huge consequential
(01:08:28)
question um but there are almost no no
(01:08:32)
theories I can't imagine like look Chris
(01:08:36)
in part I I'm almost reluctant to do
(01:08:38)
podcasts anymore because I don't
(01:08:40)
understand why we're behaving the way
(01:08:41)
we're behaving what you mean when you
(01:08:43)
say
(01:08:44)
we no one on planet Earth is behaving
(01:08:47)
rationally with respect to physics and
(01:08:51)
UFOs you have a claim that is being
(01:08:53)
heard at the highest levels in Congress
(01:08:55)
that we've lost control of our
(01:08:57)
airspace you either clear this thing up
(01:09:00)
in an
(01:09:03)
afternoon or you call in Seal Team Six
(01:09:08)
yeah that's a really good point how is
(01:09:09)
it that we've got such an outlandish
(01:09:12)
claim which is
(01:09:17)
being
(01:09:20)
accepted not necessarily accepted which
(01:09:22)
is being received without the Justified
(01:09:26)
Fanfare it's like either this is
(01:09:27)
completely crazy and needs to be thrown
(01:09:29)
out or this is absolutely wild and we
(01:09:32)
need to do something about
(01:09:38)
it why is it why is it the case that's a
(01:09:41)
really great Point that's a really great
(01:09:43)
Point why is it the case
(01:09:46)
that that this has made either it hasn't
(01:09:51)
made more Fanfare in terms of people
(01:09:53)
mobilizing governments and such or
(01:09:56)
hasn't made way more criticism in terms
(01:09:59)
of it being thrown out I don't know why
(01:10:01)
does the diffuse proposal from the Ecco
(01:10:03)
Health Alliance not get properly
(01:10:05)
adjudicated scientifically I don't know
(01:10:07)
what that is um the Eco Health Alliance
(01:10:11)
is this group run by a zoologist Who got
(01:10:14)
$50 million from the defense department
(01:10:17)
to help a lab in China work on Corona
(01:10:20)
virus and making them more humanized I
(01:10:23)
mean like we should be able to
(01:10:25)
adjudicate did we start Co but we
(01:10:29)
can't all of these very simple things we
(01:10:32)
don't
(01:10:34)
adjudicate look Bureau of Labor
(01:10:36)
Statistics claims that the Consumer
(01:10:40)
Price Index is based on a cost of living
(01:10:42)
measure I claim that's not true in order
(01:10:45)
for that to be true you have to take in
(01:10:47)
consumer preference data and you claim
(01:10:49)
that you don't work with consumer
(01:10:51)
preference data I'm either right or I'm
(01:10:54)
wrong it's hugely consequential in terms
(01:10:56)
of billions I claim that the Bureau of
(01:10:58)
Labor Statistics is completely lying
(01:11:00)
that it's working on a cost of living
(01:11:02)
framework and that the academic
(01:11:04)
responsible for it a guy named Irwin
(01:11:07)
Dart uh his theory of superlative index
(01:11:10)
numbers is hogwash doesn't work it's
(01:11:13)
based on homothetic
(01:11:14)
preferences that takes an afternoon to
(01:11:17)
adjudicate I claim that there is no
(01:11:20)
labor shortage of scientists and
(01:11:21)
Engineers despite claims that it's been
(01:11:23)
going on since the 50s because large
(01:11:26)
market economies don't have Labor
(01:11:27)
shortages that's a feature of centrally
(01:11:29)
planned
(01:11:31)
economies there is no possible way
(01:11:34)
that's that's a 4minute
(01:11:37)
discussion we are just
(01:11:40)
lying lying lying lying is the substrate
(01:11:43)
of our society we're lying about physics
(01:11:45)
we're lying about economics we're lying
(01:11:47)
about Finance we're lying about Corona
(01:11:50)
virus and biological research we're
(01:11:52)
lying about uh monetary Aggregates how
(01:11:56)
many different Hills are you waging a
(01:11:58)
war on there's only
(01:12:01)
one it's called managed
(01:12:08)
reality this is all managed reality
(01:12:11)
what's
(01:12:16)
that you know I have I have this image
(01:12:19)
of
(01:12:19)
a of a
(01:12:22)
tanker that is flipped over on a freeway
(01:12:25)
and there's a bodies scattered and
(01:12:27)
people are bleeding and the tanker on
(01:12:29)
fire
(01:12:31)
and there's a cop maybe a special forces
(01:12:35)
guy with an automatic weapon says
(01:12:37)
nothing to see here folks Move Along
(01:12:39)
you're like nothing to see there's like
(01:12:41)
a severed hand on the pavement and
(01:12:43)
you've got a tanker and it says you know
(01:12:45)
danger flammable Hazard and it's is it
(01:12:49)
about to blow and tell tell me what's
(01:12:51)
going on like nothing to see here folks
(01:12:54)
well the nothing to see here folks is
(01:12:56)
managed reality we all know what that is
(01:12:59)
policeman is actually saying act as if
(01:13:02)
there is nothing to see here and move
(01:13:05)
along it's an instruction to
(01:13:09)
pretend so we are being given
(01:13:11)
instructions right now to pretend on
(01:13:14)
everything pretend that you don't
(01:13:16)
understand the CPI Eric oh okay pretend
(01:13:19)
that you don't understand immigration
(01:13:20)
and labor markets Eric okay pre pretend
(01:13:23)
that you don't understand physics
(01:13:24)
pretend that you don't understand
(01:13:26)
plagiarism pretend that you don't
(01:13:28)
understand
(01:13:30)
um biology and
(01:13:36)
gender well you it's one
(01:13:40)
Hill it's enforced pretending by a class
(01:13:44)
of people that thinks that it is in a
(01:13:48)
position to tell us all how to think at
(01:13:51)
this level now I don't disagree that
(01:13:53)
that policeman has a right to say Move
(01:13:55)
Along folks nothing to see there's a
(01:13:57)
very clear reason why that person is
(01:14:00)
saying that but when you start to say
(01:14:03)
that to your experts to the HazMat team
(01:14:05)
who's telling you you know don't don't
(01:14:07)
put out an electrical fire with
(01:14:11)
water when you are telling nothing to
(01:14:13)
see to the mother who sees her child on
(01:14:16)
the
(01:14:17)
pavement when you when you're constantly
(01:14:19)
telling everybody who has a stake in
(01:14:21)
something and particularly everybody who
(01:14:23)
has expertise in something you're a
(01:14:26)
Charlotte and you're a grifter you're a
(01:14:27)
fake you're a fraud you're the it's like
(01:14:29)
shut up just shut up there's one Hill
(01:14:34)
are you the only person on that Hill
(01:14:35)
though because as you've said here
(01:14:37)
there's a bunch of different the CPI the
(01:14:40)
stuff to do with physics the stuff to do
(01:14:41)
with the I appreciate what you're saying
(01:14:44)
funneling on
(01:14:46)
you there are lots of people on the hill
(01:14:50)
the problem is that you have to visit
(01:14:52)
all of these fields to know it's in that
(01:14:54)
field too
(01:14:56)
you know I was complaining about
(01:14:57)
narrative-driven
(01:14:58)
journalism before people were talking
(01:15:00)
about narrative at the same level that
(01:15:02)
if you if you go back to my written
(01:15:05)
output or speaking output you'll find
(01:15:08)
that in 2011 I was talking about
(01:15:09)
professional wrestling and kayfabe as
(01:15:12)
the model for underlying reality that
(01:15:15)
this is what's going on in our society
(01:15:17)
it's because I visited all these
(01:15:19)
different fields I've been an
(01:15:20)
immigration expert spent the middle of
(01:15:22)
the 1990s in Washington trying to
(01:15:24)
understand why we passed the Immigration
(01:15:26)
Act of 1990 I've been a finance guy have
(01:15:29)
the first paper that I know of on
(01:15:31)
mortgage back Securities and the danger
(01:15:33)
they posed To The World Financial system
(01:15:35)
from
(01:15:37)
2001-02 Rose I uh rang the alarm on the
(01:15:43)
Chinese using uh our universities as a
(01:15:46)
Espionage
(01:15:47)
program uh I said that uh Hillary was
(01:15:50)
not inevitable and that Trump was in
(01:15:52)
much better position to win because of
(01:15:53)
Tim oran's theory of preference
(01:15:54)
falsification
(01:15:56)
I said this thing about physics you're
(01:15:58)
all out of your mind I switched my field
(01:16:00)
from physics to mathematics because I
(01:16:01)
could see what was going to
(01:16:04)
happen I think that what you're trying
(01:16:06)
to ask me is are you the only person
(01:16:09)
who's visited all of these fields to see
(01:16:11)
the pattern and why are you at the
(01:16:13)
center of all of these
(01:16:14)
stories well
(01:16:18)
narcissism no
(01:16:21)
um this is the personal and
(01:16:23)
uncomfortable Part I I think I didn't
(01:16:26)
understand that my principle means of
(01:16:29)
trying to figure out where I'm supposed
(01:16:31)
to allocate my efforts is
(01:16:34)
wrong I just detect that something
(01:16:37)
doesn't make any sense
(01:16:38)
like very you know autism is not
(01:16:42)
necessarily a bad thing I think it's a
(01:16:45)
competitive advantage in the in the
(01:16:46)
right dose there's a sweet spot there's
(01:16:49)
a sweet spot of autism
(01:16:51)
um I think I'm beyond The Sweet Spot I
(01:16:55)
think that what happens is is that I
(01:16:58)
become convinced that somebody is wrong
(01:17:01)
and I start trying to tell them about
(01:17:02)
the fact that they're wrong and you know
(01:17:05)
as the joke goes I thought I would be
(01:17:07)
greeted as liberators um but in fact
(01:17:10)
you're actually causing a huge problem
(01:17:13)
so you know the Bureau of Labor
(01:17:14)
Statistics they're sitting duck
(01:17:16)
obviously what they're doing is
(01:17:17)
completely
(01:17:18)
ridiculous but if I say that and
(01:17:21)
everybody's agreed to keep their mouth
(01:17:22)
shut about it
(01:17:25)
it's not like they don't know what I'm
(01:17:26)
saying it's not like they don't know
(01:17:28)
that I'm right it's that we've all
(01:17:30)
agreed to act as
(01:17:33)
if I'm insane what I keep doing is I
(01:17:36)
keep using the same stupid algorithm
(01:17:39)
saying hey that thing about UFOs doesn't
(01:17:41)
Mak sense or we could clear this up in
(01:17:42)
an afternoon or hey guys what if we roll
(01:17:45)
up our sleeves and just fix the problem
(01:17:48)
many problems are owned a problem that's
(01:17:52)
owned you know does the person who
(01:17:55)
rebuilds homes want fewer homes to burn
(01:18:00)
down no their business is Building Homes
(01:18:04)
after they burned down does an does an
(01:18:06)
arms maker want a more peaceful
(01:18:09)
world does a health care System want
(01:18:13)
nutrition to decrease the number of
(01:18:15)
patients who walk through their doors
(01:18:18)
all of these are owned
(01:18:20)
problems and my problem is I keep trying
(01:18:22)
to solve somebody's owned problem
(01:18:25)
that's why I keep ending up in all these
(01:18:27)
places can I teach you about mgrm
(01:18:30)
questions tell me about mgrm questions
(01:18:32)
this is an Stanley mgrm an idea from Jay
(01:18:35)
sanac so what makes a woman attractive
(01:18:39)
is a mgrm question in other words the
(01:18:42)
social penalty for an unflattering
(01:18:44)
answer is much higher than the reward
(01:18:46)
for telling the
(01:18:47)
truth because of this we simply can't
(01:18:50)
trust the answers we receive even if
(01:18:52)
they're coming from Friends the best
(01:18:53)
known trick question is when did you
(01:18:55)
stop beating your wife any conventional
(01:18:58)
answer to the question confirms its
(01:18:59)
assumption to escape the Trap you need
(01:19:02)
to call out the question this type of
(01:19:04)
question isn't that common in practice
(01:19:05)
it's really just a rhetorical gimmick
(01:19:07)
the most important and most common type
(01:19:09)
of trick question sounds more like do
(01:19:11)
you love big
(01:19:13)
brother it's a question where an
(01:19:14)
unacceptable re answer regardless of
(01:19:17)
whether it's true or false will be
(01:19:18)
punished and the punishment is greater
(01:19:20)
than the reward for the true answer I'm
(01:19:23)
going to recall these mgrm questions
(01:19:25)
after the famous psychology experiment
(01:19:27)
where electric shocks were administered
(01:19:29)
for wrong answers and there's a
(01:19:31)
Associated idea called the chilling
(01:19:32)
effect when punishment for what people
(01:19:35)
say becomes widespread people stop
(01:19:36)
saying what they really think and
(01:19:38)
instead say whatever is needed to thrive
(01:19:40)
that's closer to the ash
(01:19:42)
experiment thus limits on speech become
(01:19:44)
limits on sincerity it's an interesting
(01:19:47)
problem
(01:19:50)
um tell me about why you brought it up
(01:19:52)
and what do you find interesting about
(01:19:54)
it
(01:19:56)
it is one
(01:19:58)
way that explains
(01:20:02)
how a group of people from the outside
(01:20:05)
can look coordinated but it's actually a
(01:20:15)
common a common Trend a common
(01:20:18)
motivation working below the surface
(01:20:20)
that motivates them all to behave in a
(01:20:23)
way that appears coordinated from the
(01:20:24)
outside from the the inside it just
(01:20:26)
looks like perhaps cowardice perhaps
(01:20:30)
compliance so yeah I've been very
(01:20:33)
interested in these sorts of issues
(01:20:38)
um I try to tell people why the truth
(01:20:41)
can't work and people are always
(01:20:43)
confused by this they say okay tell me I
(01:20:45)
have mildly bad
(01:20:46)
breath
(01:20:48)
and some people will say you have mildly
(01:20:51)
bad breath and I say well you just told
(01:20:53)
me that my breath is so horrendous that
(01:20:54)
you were willing to cross a social Chasm
(01:20:56)
that essentially no one ever crosses to
(01:20:58)
tell me that I have mildly bad breath so
(01:21:00)
obviously my breath must be as bad as a
(01:21:03)
sewer um then they say would you like a
(01:21:05)
stick of gum and I say sure and I'd show
(01:21:08)
no cognition that you've actually told
(01:21:10)
me about you know you can't transmit
(01:21:13)
that piece of information easily it's
(01:21:16)
very akin to this um yes now our society
(01:21:21)
hinges on these things on the other hand
(01:21:24)
there are ways of getting at
(01:21:27)
these uh questions through language so
(01:21:32)
for example you're not allowed to say
(01:21:34)
that you like cleavage but you are
(01:21:36)
allowed to say that was an incredibly
(01:21:37)
dramatic
(01:21:38)
neckline right and so why is it that one
(01:21:43)
phrase is penalized it's because there's
(01:21:45)
a Russell conjugation that works and a
(01:21:47)
Russell conjugation that doesn't he
(01:21:49)
sweats sheep aspires they glow right and
(01:21:52)
so in such circumstances the key
(01:21:56)
question um is how you are allowed to
(01:22:01)
discuss the truth as well as whether you
(01:22:03)
are allowed to discuss the truth many
(01:22:05)
times there's a penalty for not being
(01:22:10)
skilled the skilled person is allowed to
(01:22:12)
say something deftly the appropriate
(01:22:15)
Nuance with appropriate social graces
(01:22:17)
yeah but and then the question becomes
(01:22:19)
why can't you say certain
(01:22:21)
things
(01:22:24)
and you know this is in part I believe
(01:22:27)
in these social norms but I believe that
(01:22:28)
it is
(01:22:30)
necessary to create spaces in which you
(01:22:33)
can actually talk about the
(01:22:36)
truth and increasingly what we're doing
(01:22:39)
this is why inclusion is one of the
(01:22:41)
dumbest ideas I've ever heard in my life
(01:22:44)
um is you put somebody to create a low
(01:22:48)
trust environment in every High trust
(01:22:51)
environments uh discussion
(01:22:53)
group so
(01:22:56)
diversity is good so far as it goes
(01:22:59)
inclusion is good so far as it goes
(01:23:00)
Equity is a disaster we can't even disc
(01:23:02)
discuss it but the reason that inclusion
(01:23:05)
is has become terrible is that we are
(01:23:07)
trying to create a low trust environment
(01:23:10)
in all previous High trust
(01:23:12)
environments and that thing means that
(01:23:14)
we can't actually have
(01:23:16)
any serious discussions like if you have
(01:23:19)
uh knowledge about why a veneral disease
(01:23:22)
is
(01:23:23)
spreading um it may require that people
(01:23:25)
tell you that they're having sex with
(01:23:27)
animals uh that's
(01:23:30)
a you can't have somebody who's going to
(01:23:33)
giggle you can't have somebody who's
(01:23:34)
going to shame you have to have a
(01:23:36)
completely Dy dust
(01:23:38)
conversation about how venial diseases
(01:23:41)
can leap from non-humans to
(01:23:43)
humans
(01:23:46)
and we need experts and we need closed
(01:23:49)
doors not to become star
(01:23:51)
Chambers you mentioned before about
(01:23:53)
being able to have an insight into what
(01:23:55)
was happening in 2016 yeah what do you
(01:23:58)
think happens in
(01:24:02)
2024 I don't know I don't know you know
(01:24:06)
I I
(01:24:08)
um I met with Robert Kennedy Jr not too
(01:24:10)
long ago and he was nice enough to have
(01:24:13)
uh my wife and I to his house it was
(01:24:16)
very clear that he's trying to hearken
(01:24:17)
back to a previous remembered America
(01:24:21)
through his family and he's willing to
(01:24:23)
die for it there's no question that he's
(01:24:25)
willing to die to seek the
(01:24:27)
presidency I think that Americans are
(01:24:29)
going to have to come to grips with the
(01:24:31)
fact
(01:24:32)
that um our two political parties either
(01:24:37)
one of them could win if they
(01:24:40)
wanted but the problem is is that they
(01:24:42)
want to win as a
(01:24:45)
trough so in other
(01:24:47)
words imagine that what America wants is
(01:24:50)
no more
(01:24:53)
troughs you don't want to in playing to
(01:24:56)
that aspect of America if it means
(01:24:58)
getting rid of the trough because the
(01:24:59)
trough was your entire reason for
(01:25:01)
running a political party what you mean
(01:25:02)
when you say
(01:25:04)
trough assume that your party gets into
(01:25:07)
power now you get to hire all of your
(01:25:09)
friends into government positions then
(01:25:11)
they get revolving door contracts with
(01:25:13)
whoever they were regulating or dealing
(01:25:15)
with so effectively everybody's going to
(01:25:17)
pig out and help themselves okay we got
(01:25:19)
Democrats into Congress now they can
(01:25:21)
trade their personal accounts and pass
(01:25:23)
legislation and do far better than the
(01:25:25)
market you know whatever it is imagine
(01:25:28)
what Americans want is like hey stop the
(01:25:30)
corruption I don't trust why we're in
(01:25:32)
Ukraine the way we're in Ukraine because
(01:25:33)
I don't trust why Hunter Biden is being
(01:25:36)
given a cushy salary from a a Ukrainian
(01:25:40)
company well what you're telling what
(01:25:43)
the what the population is telling the
(01:25:44)
two political parties is and the
(01:25:47)
troughs and the political parties are
(01:25:49)
saying okay what else do you want we
(01:25:52)
can't give you that because that's the
(01:25:53)
whole point of why we do what we do
(01:25:56)
we're not public spirited we're not
(01:25:57)
thinking about America we're not
(01:25:59)
thinking about the future we're not
(01:26:00)
thinking about the good of the world or
(01:26:01)
the environment or any of the stupid
(01:26:03)
stuff that we are forced to talk about
(01:26:04)
every four years we're talking about
(01:26:06)
swimming pools we're talking about um
(01:26:09)
third wives fourth homes you know you're
(01:26:13)
getting in the way of that so tell us
(01:26:14)
what else you want that doesn't
(01:26:16)
interfere with the trough and Americans
(01:26:18)
are pretty clear it's like get rid of
(01:26:19)
the get rid of the goddamn
(01:26:21)
troughs you're slop you know you're
(01:26:23)
slopping each other
(01:26:25)
you're you're pigs at a trough and and
(01:26:27)
now the idea is that since you're not
(01:26:28)
doing anything I want my ethnic group to
(01:26:31)
be at the trough too it's like this has
(01:26:34)
nothing to do with anything we have to
(01:26:36)
clear these people
(01:26:38)
out they're just bad people well way too
(01:26:42)
close to the 2024 election for anybody
(01:26:45)
to be cleared out
(01:26:47)
now really I mean what's going to happen
(01:26:50)
between now and November I don't know I
(01:26:52)
mean how old is Joe Biden
(01:26:55)
I don't know okay what are the odds that
(01:26:58)
Joe Biden has a debilitating event
(01:27:00)
between now and
(01:27:01)
November including death so he runs a
(01:27:05)
one in 20 chance of dying in any given
(01:27:08)
year or above
(01:27:12)
that so I I don't think you know whether
(01:27:14)
he's even going to make it to November
(01:27:16)
81
(01:27:20)
yeah you have no idea what it's it's a
(01:27:23)
million years between now and November
(01:27:26)
I don't know whether Donald jump Donald
(01:27:28)
Trump is going to be you know facing
(01:27:30)
jail time I don't know whether there's
(01:27:32)
going to be an Insurrection by magga
(01:27:34)
people that who feel that the Department
(01:27:37)
of Justice is going after a candidate
(01:27:40)
for political reasons I don't know if
(01:27:42)
people are going to look at kamla Harris
(01:27:45)
as uh you know the likely
(01:27:47)
commanderin-chief
(01:27:49)
why you
(01:27:51)
laughing kamla Harris is like she's
(01:27:55)
become a meme of a meme of a
(01:27:59)
meme
(01:28:02)
so so absent
(01:28:06)
from public life as far as I can see
(01:28:09)
that it's it's hilarious you don't think
(01:28:11)
it's hilarious oh it's hysterically
(01:28:14)
funny you're talking about kamla Harris
(01:28:16)
being in charge of the world's greatest
(01:28:18)
nuclear
(01:28:19)
superpower it's it's a
(01:28:22)
scream you're talking about Joe Biden
(01:28:24)
Biden being in charge of or Donald Trump
(01:28:27)
well Trump will be older than Biden on
(01:28:29)
this next re-election than Biden was
(01:28:31)
when he first entered
(01:28:34)
office well yeah Biden began at 29 in
(01:28:39)
the
(01:28:39)
senate in
(01:28:45)
72 look this whole thing
(01:28:48)
is Chris let me let me just be more
(01:28:51)
forthcoming people want to know why I've
(01:28:53)
somewhat retreated from public life I
(01:28:57)
have no clue how to talk about this
(01:28:59)
stuff this whole thing is so incredibly
(01:29:01)
stupid nobody has ever done this in the
(01:29:04)
United
(01:29:06)
States we had a election 1980 because
(01:29:10)
Ronald Reagan was 69 years old age was
(01:29:15)
Central we've never been in this
(01:29:17)
territory before does that not mean that
(01:29:19)
you should spend more time trying to
(01:29:20)
Grapple with ideas if you're not sure
(01:29:22)
about them what does that mean that if
(01:29:25)
your concern is you mentioned people
(01:29:28)
have asked why you've stepped back from
(01:29:29)
having more public conversations one of
(01:29:31)
the reasons is that a lot of the topics
(01:29:34)
that you try to Grapple with don't seem
(01:29:36)
to make sense that much anymore is that
(01:29:39)
not the time when you're supposed to
(01:29:40)
Grapple harder with
(01:29:42)
them if somebody says to you
(01:29:46)
uh
(01:29:48)
Eric uh you know the previous election
(01:29:52)
uh are you supportive of the Hillside
(01:29:56)
Strangler or uh Ted Bundy
(01:29:59)
go well I don't know if Charles Manson
(01:30:02)
might run as a as a third party
(01:30:04)
candidate so it's too early to say this
(01:30:06)
is all so pathetically crazily stupid
(01:30:10)
what am I supposed to do just say get
(01:30:11)
off my lawn every four
(01:30:13)
seconds I I I don't know how to react
(01:30:16)
anymore there's no part of this world at
(01:30:19)
the moment that looks sane to me
(01:30:24)
and and you know I've done the requisite
(01:30:27)
work which is if that's the way it feels
(01:30:30)
to you then you should look at your own
(01:30:31)
sanity okay let's let's entertain the
(01:30:33)
idea that I've lost my mind it's like
(01:30:36)
no no this is all
(01:30:39)
completely
(01:30:41)
one problem of managed
(01:30:45)
reality one of the things I am concerned
(01:30:47)
about toward the back end of this year
(01:30:49)
is whether or not whoever wins is going
(01:30:53)
to be accepted in
(01:30:54)
even remotely a peaceful
(01:30:57)
way it doesn't mean the same thing as it
(01:30:59)
used
(01:31:05)
to look there's some mystique and some
(01:31:08)
Majesty
(01:31:10)
necessary to
(01:31:12)
make these things
(01:31:14)
work you have to believe that the
(01:31:16)
Supreme Court is a bunch of incredibly
(01:31:19)
smart legal mind you have to believe
(01:31:22)
that the president of the United States
(01:31:23)
is a an an exalted being who has power
(01:31:27)
to make decisions on the behalf of the
(01:31:29)
country you can't afford Nancy Pelosi's
(01:31:33)
husband trading up a storm like
(01:31:36)
this everything's become Instagram
(01:31:39)
stories behind the scenes of the
(01:31:41)
Kardashians nobody trusts experts
(01:31:46)
exist when your kid needs a lifesaving
(01:31:48)
surgery you're going to find out that
(01:31:51)
all you're drawing off on Twitter about
(01:31:54)
the experts doesn't mean anything to you
(01:31:56)
you're like save my
(01:31:57)
child we need experts we need
(01:31:59)
institutions we need Lies We need
(01:32:02)
fictions we need
(01:32:04)
stories we need adult level
(01:32:08)
public-spirited fictionalization of the
(01:32:11)
truth I'm not claiming we don't but now
(01:32:14)
you've got this different class of
(01:32:16)
people who says okay you don't want the
(01:32:18)
truth we need to have stories let's just
(01:32:20)
make up stuff and put stuff in our
(01:32:21)
pockets how much of it is coordination
(01:32:23)
how much of it
(01:32:26)
is well I would rephrase that a little
(01:32:29)
differently maybe I would say uh nobody
(01:32:32)
smart has gotten anything to work like
(01:32:33)
this in a long
(01:32:35)
time the reason we have Donald Trump
(01:32:38)
versus Joe Biden is that everybody
(01:32:41)
failed I failed I've been podcasting
(01:32:45)
reaching Millions I've been teaching
(01:32:48)
people about all sorts of
(01:32:50)
things one of the things I find very
(01:32:53)
funny is that there's a if you look at
(01:32:56)
um the negativity that follows you
(01:32:58)
around there are these very conserved
(01:32:59)
things that one of them is Eric goes on
(01:33:02)
forever and says nothing if you look at
(01:33:04)
the sheer density of information I've
(01:33:06)
dropped on podcast I'll put that up
(01:33:07)
against anybody you know but it's like
(01:33:10)
we want Eric to disappear we want Eric
(01:33:13)
not to say things who do you think is
(01:33:15)
behind that don't
(01:33:19)
know because you stopped your podcast
(01:33:21)
yeah I was a fan of that podcast that
(01:33:23)
first episode that you did with Peter I
(01:33:24)
thought was was fantastic I can't tell
(01:33:26)
you how many people every day where's
(01:33:28)
the portal bring the portal back what
(01:33:29)
does it take to bring the portal back
(01:33:31)
you tempted Mick Jagger said something
(01:33:33)
about Brian
(01:33:35)
Jones that has just haunted me and he
(01:33:39)
said Fame doesn't sit comfortably on
(01:33:42)
anyone's shoulders but there are
(01:33:43)
shoulders upon which it appears not to
(01:33:45)
sit at
(01:33:47)
all and I thought okay if there's one
(01:33:49)
guy who's good at being famous it must
(01:33:51)
be MC Jagger and for him to say it
(01:33:54)
doesn't sit comfortably on any shoulders
(01:33:56)
if you just parse it you think oh he's
(01:33:58)
telling us something it looks like I'm
(01:33:59)
good at being famous but it's not easy
(01:34:01)
and it's not something that's
(01:34:03)
comfortable and then he makes the second
(01:34:05)
point about Brian Jones and he says
(01:34:08)
there appear to be shoulders upon which
(01:34:10)
it does not sit at all and I think I
(01:34:12)
don't like the fact that you can't turn
(01:34:14)
it
(01:34:15)
off it's a oneway street for a very long
(01:34:18)
time that's right and you
(01:34:22)
know there's a point where you're
(01:34:24)
wandering through Istanbul and somebody
(01:34:26)
yells out Eric Weinstein and you're like
(01:34:31)
there's no way to get away from this and
(01:34:32)
you didn't like
(01:34:34)
that wonderful guy
(01:34:37)
um most everybody I meet is
(01:34:41)
fantastic I like lots of of lots of
(01:34:44)
being well known but the toothpaste
(01:34:46)
hasn't I I've hoped that the toothpaste
(01:34:48)
would sort of go back in the tube I
(01:34:50)
could do a little bit of podcasting here
(01:34:51)
and there and it just doesn't work
(01:34:55)
so you don't want to are you at the
(01:34:56)
moment are not prepared to bring the
(01:34:57)
portal back no I'm thinking about it I'm
(01:34:59)
thinking about it because I can't get
(01:35:02)
back
(01:35:04)
to look I have fantasies
(01:35:07)
about not being well now and I don't and
(01:35:10)
I think it's too
(01:35:13)
late deeper into the breach look but
(01:35:16)
also nobody wants to listen to this you
(01:35:18)
know remember what you were saying
(01:35:19)
before mgrm questions h i let's play
(01:35:24)
with it cuz I I think it's a fun it's a
(01:35:25)
fun
(01:35:27)
idea you ever heard somebody say
(01:35:29)
something oh the
(01:35:32)
paparazzi like yeah but actually I
(01:35:35)
believe
(01:35:37)
it I wouldn't want to live with
(01:35:40)
Paparazzi the problem is is that
(01:35:42)
nobody's going to hear it for what it
(01:35:44)
is if I really dislike somebody I want
(01:35:47)
them to become famous see how they
(01:35:50)
do I came up with this idea I put it in
(01:35:53)
my kns letter last week uh a Titanic
(01:35:57)
problem you could also call it a
(01:35:58)
champagne problem okay Titanic problem
(01:36:00)
is an issue that everyone says you're in
(01:36:02)
such a privileged position to deal
(01:36:05)
with this is an extra special type of
(01:36:08)
tragedy a tragedy that unfolds while
(01:36:10)
everyone cheers like being on the
(01:36:12)
Titanic after the iceberg water up to
(01:36:13)
your chin with everyone telling you
(01:36:14)
you're so lucky to be on the greatest
(01:36:16)
steam ship of all time and the Titanic
(01:36:18)
is indeed so huge and wonderful that you
(01:36:21)
can't help but agree but also you're
(01:36:23)
feeling a bit cold and wet at the moment
(01:36:25)
and you're not sure why it's from Adam
(01:36:27)
masani I uh I didn't know you had that
(01:36:30)
up your sleeve that's really good yeah
(01:36:32)
yeah I I think look I like my idea is
(01:36:35)
being well-known there's tons of of
(01:36:37)
being well known that's fun but in the
(01:36:39)
aggregate it's like somebody tells you
(01:36:41)
you can have you can have an orgasm
(01:36:44)
every three minutes but you can't turn
(01:36:46)
it off ever some there's some people who
(01:36:48)
have that is I know it's a neurological
(01:36:49)
disorder and except it's 30 seconds
(01:36:52)
right and you can quickly see that you
(01:36:55)
wouldn't sign up for
(01:36:58)
that right and so Fame is like that is
(01:37:01)
that do you really want to never know
(01:37:03)
who sees you when you go out in
(01:37:06)
public I've been fascinated by the price
(01:37:09)
that people pay to be someone that most
(01:37:12)
of the world admires and Elon was
(01:37:14)
recently on Lex's show and he said my
(01:37:16)
mind is a storm I don't think most
(01:37:19)
people would want to be me they may
(01:37:21)
think they would want to be me but they
(01:37:22)
don't they don't know they they don't
(01:37:25)
understand I love
(01:37:28)
that I love that friend of mine said to
(01:37:33)
me um very dear friend said I'm ER Eric
(01:37:38)
I'm always jealous of where you end
(01:37:41)
up but then I think about it and I'm re
(01:37:43)
I realize I'm never jealous of how you
(01:37:45)
get there
(01:37:54)
right like at some
(01:37:57)
level the easiest thing is somebody
(01:37:59)
who's
(01:38:00)
ripped wow it must be awesome well did
(01:38:03)
you just fig figure in how much work
(01:38:05)
that
(01:38:06)
took
(01:38:09)
um you know I have this guy that I I
(01:38:12)
think the world of um Ryan Williams who
(01:38:15)
was a scooter kid who then did BMX and
(01:38:18)
does these crazy tricks 3 seconds in air
(01:38:21)
what he can do is
(01:38:22)
amazing and I worry about
(01:38:25)
him uh he's comp me tickets to Nitro
(01:38:28)
Circus which I very much enjoy I don't
(01:38:30)
see anybody I know there because it's a
(01:38:32)
different slice of the world but I think
(01:38:33)
it I don't understand why we all don't
(01:38:35)
go to Nitro Circus every we monster
(01:38:37)
truck I'm all in um but I look at how
(01:38:42)
many times he
(01:38:45)
fell doing this trick where he got the
(01:38:48)
bike to rotate in an opposite direction
(01:38:50)
and he and the bike did opposite circles
(01:38:53)
before before they came back
(01:38:55)
together and I said that's your Mona
(01:38:58)
Lisa and they started putting out a reel
(01:39:01)
of like how many times he didn't succeed
(01:39:05)
at that trick hundreds of
(01:39:08)
bailouts
(01:39:10)
yeah there's no way in the world you
(01:39:14)
could get me to do I I I I want to do
(01:39:16)
the trick I want to know what it feels
(01:39:18)
like but he's one of the world champion
(01:39:22)
fallers right and so so in large measure
(01:39:27)
um I'm
(01:39:29)
divided I like having my ideas well
(01:39:31)
known 95 98% of the audience figures out
(01:39:36)
how to be respectful and reasonable and
(01:39:37)
there's just this hardcore 2% there's a
(01:39:41)
article by Tim Ferris called 13 reasons
(01:39:43)
not to get famous is that right one of
(01:39:45)
my favorite articles it's over 10 years
(01:39:47)
old so Tim Ferris if you think about his
(01:39:49)
trajectory it's really
(01:39:50)
interesting he sort of gets trust into
(01:39:54)
Fame with the 4-Hour Work week and has
(01:39:57)
this sort of very
(01:40:00)
unique angle on life where he's so
(01:40:04)
intensely curious about the the way that
(01:40:07)
you do something so you would mention
(01:40:08)
that you have a gratitude practice and
(01:40:10)
you wouldn't just say oh what time do
(01:40:11)
you do it on the morning it would be
(01:40:12)
what pen do you use what notepad do you
(01:40:14)
use which prompts are you using do you
(01:40:15)
have a timer are you doing this in the
(01:40:17)
sunlight are you doing this indoors
(01:40:19)
Outdoors what sort of a seat is it all
(01:40:21)
of these things right he's very very
(01:40:22)
interested in the particulars right um
(01:40:25)
then he gets this TV show and he's part
(01:40:27)
of this TV show where he tries to sort
(01:40:30)
of hack his way very quickly through
(01:40:31)
lots of different things do you know
(01:40:33)
that he managed to make himself into a
(01:40:34)
tie boxing champion no so Tim read the
(01:40:39)
rule book of a particular subset of K1
(01:40:42)
tie boxing kickboxing something like
(01:40:44)
that and he found out that if your
(01:40:46)
opponent goes out of the ring three
(01:40:47)
times in any bout you win by default so
(01:40:51)
he just sprinted across the ring grabbed
(01:40:53)
his opponent threw him out of the ring
(01:40:54)
three times and became a Champion by
(01:40:57)
doing that consistently they then carved
(01:40:59)
that back out of the rules and got rid
(01:41:00)
of it but he just had this this hacker
(01:41:04)
mentality yes yeah hacker mentality he
(01:41:07)
was life hacking
(01:41:09)
and then he talks about what actually
(01:41:13)
happens when you reach the size of
(01:41:15)
audience that most people aspire to have
(01:41:17)
and that there are strange externalities
(01:41:19)
there was a guy that camped outside of
(01:41:22)
his house managed to work out where his
(01:41:24)
house was maybe from metadata in photos
(01:41:26)
of some kind right and had camped
(01:41:27)
outside of his house for a while adamant
(01:41:30)
that Tim was sending him secret messages
(01:41:32)
in his podcast saying that he wanted to
(01:41:33)
be with him exactly he had to start
(01:41:37)
checking into hotels under pseudonyms he
(01:41:39)
no longer posted photos of where he was
(01:41:41)
going when he was going on trips because
(01:41:43)
people were reverse engineering it he
(01:41:45)
uses this example that million to one
(01:41:46)
odds happen eight times a day in New
(01:41:48)
York City because if you have any
(01:41:50)
sufficiently large data set the law of
(01:41:52)
large numbers suggest that within the
(01:41:55)
catchment area of 100 how many people
(01:41:58)
does how many people does Rogan uh reach
(01:42:01)
P you know
(01:42:04)
individuals a billion individual people
(01:42:08)
maybe but he's surrounded by security of
(01:42:10)
course so you know in part one of the
(01:42:13)
things that I'm trying to think about is
(01:42:16)
you have to become rich enough to make
(01:42:18)
use of the tools and then you have to
(01:42:21)
decide okay I'm going to go behind walls
(01:42:23)
and that's not what I ever wanted I
(01:42:25)
wanted to be able to go to Starbucks not
(01:42:28)
tell anyone work on stuff that I care
(01:42:30)
about
(01:42:32)
and you know there was something about
(01:42:35)
being contacted by
(01:42:37)
Killers uh it was a Colorado killer I
(01:42:41)
think who killed five people in tattoo
(01:42:43)
parlors who was trying to get in touch
(01:42:44)
with me why don't know because I'm a
(01:42:47)
lightning rod for crazy people what do
(01:42:49)
you think it is is it something to do
(01:42:51)
with the ideas of of well let's see
(01:42:55)
almost everything is
(01:42:57)
fake uh we have to get off of this
(01:43:00)
planet
(01:43:02)
um the alien story has much more to it
(01:43:05)
than you could imagine take Jeffrey
(01:43:07)
Epstein is a construct of somebody take
(01:43:10)
you know we're going to go through all
(01:43:12)
of these the world is an incredibly
(01:43:15)
interesting place and we're pretending
(01:43:16)
that it's incredibly boring and I'm I
(01:43:18)
have the stupidity to say hey can we go
(01:43:22)
back to reality and and and claiming
(01:43:24)
that we should go back to
(01:43:26)
reality in a world which is suffused
(01:43:30)
with uh
(01:43:33)
delusion means
(01:43:37)
that I think we also don't understand
(01:43:40)
how many people are Driven Crazy by
(01:43:44)
small amounts of
(01:43:48)
sanity you know if you imagine the
(01:43:50)
Robert dairo character in taxi you
(01:43:54)
imagine David burn of Talking Heads
(01:43:56)
doing Psycho
(01:43:58)
Killer
(01:43:59)
right
(01:44:02)
um it's somebody who's seeing through
(01:44:05)
the
(01:44:06)
world and they're creating their own
(01:44:08)
Illusions but they're they're not aware
(01:44:10)
that they're creating their own
(01:44:11)
Illusions they just see that the world
(01:44:13)
is fake and you know filled with sludge
(01:44:16)
and sewage
(01:44:22)
and you don't want want to meet the taxi
(01:44:24)
driver character yeah this idea the the
(01:44:28)
champagne problem or the Titanic problem
(01:44:31)
of almost everybody has less wealth and
(01:44:34)
less Fame than they want which means
(01:44:37)
that anybody who complains about the
(01:44:40)
externalities that come with wealth or
(01:44:41)
fame the total addressable market for
(01:44:44)
sympathy is basically zero the total
(01:44:46)
addressable market for Envy is very high
(01:44:48)
who is going to say when lots of people
(01:44:51)
aren't as wellknown or aren't as wealthy
(01:44:52)
or are suffering in one way or another
(01:44:54)
that you seem to have somehow figured
(01:44:56)
out it's very difficult to Garner
(01:44:58)
sympathy for seemingly crying from your
(01:45:01)
guilded coun again it's not about it's
(01:45:03)
not about Fame think about it in terms
(01:45:04)
of privacy and
(01:45:08)
insulation everybody wants privacy when
(01:45:11)
they want
(01:45:12)
privacy right if we had a toilet here
(01:45:15)
and said feel free to use it nobody's
(01:45:17)
using it but there was no walls you
(01:45:19)
would not think that that was being
(01:45:21)
offered to you uh seriously ly
(01:45:25)
um that's that's the way that you
(01:45:28)
explain what this is It's a complete
(01:45:30)
absence of privacy
(01:45:32)
the something similar but it's about
(01:45:35)
music so you might be interested uh I
(01:45:38)
must have brought this up 10 times it's
(01:45:39)
so fascinating lisis Capaldi the
(01:45:42)
Scottish singer did a documentary uh for
(01:45:45)
Netflix that
(01:45:47)
uh he does this first album he's singing
(01:45:50)
songs that he made when he was a
(01:45:52)
teenager the same songs get recorded and
(01:45:55)
released and he has just the most
(01:45:59)
phenomenal success billions of streams
(01:46:01)
worldwide
(01:46:02)
tour he then has to write the second
(01:46:05)
album Co happens yeah and he starts to
(01:46:09)
develop a Tourette's twitch like this
(01:46:13)
because of the pressure that he
(01:46:17)
feels some of it very rightly coming
(01:46:19)
from the world but some of it being
(01:46:21)
internally generated as well yeah you
(01:46:24)
know he can move at his own pace and
(01:46:26)
there's this it's interesting watching
(01:46:27)
him go through it because you think yes
(01:46:30)
there is all of this pressure and and
(01:46:32)
the world is expecting so much of you
(01:46:33)
and you didn't ask for this you just
(01:46:35)
wanted to sing the songs that you sang
(01:46:36)
and so on and so forth but also there's
(01:46:40)
not the same type of pressure that
(01:46:42)
you're putting you're imbibing this and
(01:46:43)
then starting to spin it up yourself as
(01:46:45)
well and he is the perfect example of
(01:46:49)
somebody I think who has the ability to
(01:46:53)
become world class but doesn't have the
(01:46:57)
ability to be world
(01:46:59)
famous yeah and I think that those are
(01:47:01)
two different skill sets the ability to
(01:47:04)
be worldclass and the ability to be
(01:47:05)
world famous yeah
(01:47:11)
um I know I also I think I I like I like
(01:47:14)
people too
(01:47:16)
much I really enjoy just being able to
(01:47:18)
be a normal human being in the world and
(01:47:21)
move around and try out ideas and
(01:47:24)
you know I
(01:47:27)
pseudonym
(01:47:28)
nice
(01:47:30)
pseudonymous substock account okay so
(01:47:33)
like for Christmas do you know who T
(01:47:36)
Wilkenfeld is she was the Bas player
(01:47:38)
with Jeff Beck she's an amazing talent
(01:47:41)
friend of mine came over for Christmas
(01:47:43)
two Jews we start hanging out she wants
(01:47:46)
to sing this song the gospel song the
(01:47:49)
last month of the year she's just come
(01:47:50)
off tour with the Almond Brothers Band
(01:47:52)
so there I am
(01:47:54)
trying to follow her some song I've
(01:47:56)
never heard I can't sing and playing
(01:47:59)
guitar
(01:48:01)
and we're just Clowning Around and
(01:48:03)
somebody's taking video of
(01:48:05)
it and she's like I we got to release
(01:48:09)
this I'm just thinking if you release
(01:48:11)
this I'm going to have to listen to how
(01:48:13)
everybody Eric thinks he's the world's
(01:48:15)
greatest guitarist and it's embarrassing
(01:48:18)
because she plays with Jeff Beck and now
(01:48:20)
Eric is making an ass out of himself so
(01:48:22)
I didn't release it I mean it was joyous
(01:48:24)
it was fun it was silly
(01:48:27)
and it's just like the the constant
(01:48:32)
stream of moronic abuse I don't even
(01:48:34)
know how much of it is from humans I
(01:48:35)
think a lot of it's from Bots I think
(01:48:37)
Elon is very misguided he has this idea
(01:48:40)
of like anybody who shrinks from
(01:48:42)
criticism or uh you know jokes uh is too
(01:48:46)
thin skin it's like you have no idea
(01:48:49)
what your product is your product allows
(01:48:52)
stalking you don't know how this isn't
(01:48:55)
about people yelling you
(01:48:58)
suck this is about people combing your
(01:49:01)
all your public records saying oh well
(01:49:03)
if you didn't if you didn't want us to
(01:49:05)
know where you live you wouldn't have
(01:49:06)
thrown that check into the trash or so I
(01:49:09)
was going to bring this up before we
(01:49:10)
before we started it's a it's such a
(01:49:12)
shame that we can't play music on
(01:49:15)
YouTube without getting copyright struck
(01:49:16)
it's so annoying because I'd love to get
(01:49:18)
you to react well I'll do it once we
(01:49:19)
finish yeah um I want to get you to
(01:49:21)
react to my favorite band of 2023 three
(01:49:23)
all five of my songs from my Spotify
(01:49:25)
wrapped were from the same artist okay
(01:49:26)
there's a band called Sleep token don't
(01:49:28)
know it okay so they I don't even know
(01:49:32)
how to begin to describe what this
(01:49:34)
particular genre is they they're listed
(01:49:37)
under metal technically but they have
(01:49:39)
elements of rap they have elements of
(01:49:40)
hip-hop they have elements of jazz a lot
(01:49:42)
of elements that are off key that are
(01:49:44)
all sorts of stuff
(01:49:46)
brilliant completely Anonymous every
(01:49:48)
single member of the band completely
(01:49:49)
Anonymous oh I love that they have law
(01:49:52)
around the band they um use what look a
(01:49:56)
little bit like Nordic runes on the
(01:49:57)
album artwork and if you track all of
(01:50:00)
the different runes and then reverse
(01:50:01)
engineer what they are sometimes in the
(01:50:03)
corner of tiny little pieces of album
(01:50:05)
artwork there's there's notes and things
(01:50:07)
that the first song they they made made
(01:50:10)
their songs or they made their albums in
(01:50:12)
eras and this one was this last one was
(01:50:13)
a Trilogy the first song of the first
(01:50:17)
album of this particular Trilogy which
(01:50:19)
was released in 2018 there was different
(01:50:21)
members in the band on the backside
(01:50:22)
right
(01:50:24)
has the exact same melodic progression
(01:50:26)
and Sample as the last song of the last
(01:50:29)
album wow these guys are just another
(01:50:32)
level an absolute other level last
(01:50:35)
week uh they're not named either there's
(01:50:38)
vessel that's one then there's two three
(01:50:41)
and four and then there's backing
(01:50:42)
singers and they're referred to as like
(01:50:44)
I I I I I and IV love it three's birth
(01:50:48)
certificate was discovered and released
(01:50:50)
on the internet yeah through a telegram
(01:50:52)
chat yeah they'd reverse engineered
(01:50:55)
based
(01:50:57)
on some they looked at this particular
(01:51:01)
uh American recording
(01:51:03)
copyright association website where you
(01:51:06)
have to legally list some of the names
(01:51:08)
of the people and you can reverse
(01:51:09)
engineer who that isn't oh that person
(01:51:10)
used to be in this band and that s that
(01:51:12)
his voice sounds like that person and
(01:51:13)
then we go back and see the live
(01:51:14)
recording and from that we can work out
(01:51:16)
where these people
(01:51:20)
live th this is exactly it
(01:51:23)
right and I tell a a joke about this
(01:51:26)
that's not funny at all um which
(01:51:29)
is uh well if you didn't want us to
(01:51:32)
understand your bracka jeene status you
(01:51:34)
wouldn't and publish it on the front
(01:51:35)
page of the New York Times you wouldn't
(01:51:37)
be throwing out your dental
(01:51:39)
floss like okay so I get it you went
(01:51:42)
through my garbage you picked out my
(01:51:43)
dental floss you took it to a lab and
(01:51:47)
you came up with a [ __ ] and ball story
(01:51:48)
that because no particular Link in this
(01:51:51)
chain may have been technically
(01:51:55)
illegal
(01:51:57)
um everything you do is fine and I I I I
(01:52:01)
also J about this under the The Heading
(01:52:03)
of perfectly legal if you ask somebody
(01:52:05)
whether something is legal and they say
(01:52:08)
it's perfectly legal you know that you
(01:52:09)
shouldn't be doing
(01:52:12)
it I've never thought of that before but
(01:52:14)
that's so true an interesting one that I
(01:52:16)
heard recently is any website this is
(01:52:18)
from Kevin Kelly any website that has
(01:52:20)
the word truth in the URL you can
(01:52:22)
immediately
(01:52:23)
discount yeah yeah yeah I mean there is
(01:52:25)
this very funny sort of Newton's law
(01:52:28)
that I also talk about with Ben Shapiro
(01:52:30)
and Sam Harris that Ben Shapiro is
(01:52:32)
always talking about the need for reason
(01:52:37)
um in areas which seem normative because
(01:52:41)
he doesn't want to make an appeal to
(01:52:42)
religious Norms so much because he's
(01:52:45)
known to be an orthodox Jew whereas Sam
(01:52:47)
Harris is always talking about
(01:52:49)
spirituality and
(01:52:51)
morality um because he's an atheist who
(01:52:54)
is suspected of not having a moral code
(01:52:57)
because he it doesn't come from a God
(01:52:59)
you've got to count a signal you have to
(01:53:00)
counter signal and this is one of the
(01:53:02)
reasons for example why people with
(01:53:04)
unusual beliefs often take down other
(01:53:06)
people with unusual beliefs because
(01:53:09)
you've already pulled out so many blocks
(01:53:11)
out of the Jenga Tower you can't afford
(01:53:15)
anymore I was uh reflecting on the odd
(01:53:19)
horseshoe that we've seen from people
(01:53:22)
like Douglas Murray and Sam Harris who
(01:53:25)
were very critical of religion and still
(01:53:28)
are in a large degree but especially you
(01:53:32)
know 20 years ago kind of breaking down
(01:53:33)
a lot of these walls being involved in
(01:53:35)
in being skeptical about the role of it
(01:53:39)
and yet then there's now almost a return
(01:53:43)
to
(01:53:44)
True
(01:53:46)
Nostalgia for a grand narrative that
(01:53:48)
unifies everybody there's a concern
(01:53:50)
about what has come in in its place as
(01:53:52)
it woke m is it is it trumpism is
(01:53:55)
it how do you see
(01:53:58)
that it's too trite to say baby in
(01:54:02)
bathwater it's easier to say we don't
(01:54:05)
know the second order effects of the
(01:54:06)
things that we do uh perfect example of
(01:54:09)
this is after the introduction
(01:54:12)
of the contraceptive
(01:54:15)
pill
(01:54:17)
abortions went up and single motherhood
(01:54:21)
went up
(01:54:23)
that's like a third or fourth order
(01:54:24)
effect that nobody could have predicted
(01:54:27)
I don't think nobody it would have taken
(01:54:29)
an unbelievably sharp mind to have gone
(01:54:31)
okay so
(01:54:32)
if before
(01:54:35)
contraceptive birth control is available
(01:54:37)
reliably for the woman to
(01:54:40)
use an accidental pregnancy is seen as
(01:54:42)
the man's obligation as opposed to the
(01:54:44)
woman's choice but after that it's
(01:54:45)
reversed which means that the shotgun
(01:54:47)
wedding goes out of the window because
(01:54:49)
the owners can always be put on the
(01:54:50)
woman all right that's interesting I
(01:54:52)
just think that
(01:54:55)
sometimes you don't know the like better
(01:54:57)
to the devil you know in some
(01:55:00)
ways I have a different take on it but
(01:55:04)
um that's
(01:55:07)
interesting give me take oh
(01:55:10)
well
(01:55:14)
okay so one of my riffs is that if you
(01:55:18)
look at the Declaration of Independence
(01:55:21)
um the language says we hold these
(01:55:23)
truths to be
(01:55:25)
self-evident you have to say
(01:55:30)
because you have to say we are not going
(01:55:33)
into an infinite sequence of wise
(01:55:39)
statements and by saying we hold these
(01:55:41)
truths to be
(01:55:42)
self-evident you're saying you may not
(01:55:45)
hold them to be self-evident buger
(01:55:47)
off we hold these truths to be
(01:55:49)
self-evident if you can't hold these
(01:55:51)
truths to be self-evident it's exclusion
(01:55:52)
in some way absolutely and so very often
(01:55:55)
when you imagine that you're going to
(01:55:57)
put everything on
(01:55:58)
reason anybody who's had an intelligent
(01:56:01)
child Knows Why
(01:56:03)
daddy why is that well why is that and
(01:56:06)
eventually it's infinite regret well I
(01:56:09)
joke with my son and I say uh either the
(01:56:13)
parent eventually says
(01:56:15)
because or you end up as a theoretical
(01:56:17)
physicist because that's what that's
(01:56:20)
they exterminate um
(01:56:25)
you have to have an organizing principle
(01:56:27)
that scales and you know Sam's
(01:56:31)
mistake
(01:56:33)
um is not understanding that even if Sam
(01:56:37)
Harris can be immoral and ethical
(01:56:40)
somewhat rational human being at
(01:56:43)
times on his best day take Sam Harris as
(01:56:46)
a reasonable rational moral human being
(01:56:49)
you can't scale that it doesn't scale
(01:56:53)
that's a big difference between saying
(01:56:55)
it's impossible for an individual and
(01:56:57)
saying it's impossible for a
(01:57:00)
society um the next part of
(01:57:04)
that part of the document is uh that all
(01:57:08)
men are created equal and are endowed by
(01:57:10)
their creator you have to make a
(01:57:13)
reference to
(01:57:15)
ground assumption where you are not
(01:57:18)
going to go below and if you don't do
(01:57:20)
that you end up in infinite regress
(01:57:22)
that's cause yeah if I ask you as a
(01:57:27)
computer divide one by three to infinite
(01:57:30)
Precision give me the answer it'll say
(01:57:32)
333 and it'll blow up it's called a
(01:57:35)
resource
(01:57:36)
leak you can't allow these infinite
(01:57:41)
recursions seeking truth and as a result
(01:57:44)
of that we didn't understand the the
(01:57:47)
loadbearing nature of of religion in the
(01:57:49)
atheist movement now I say we that was
(01:57:51)
never my problem I'm an atheist who
(01:57:53)
prays as I've said and people are very
(01:57:56)
confused well who do you pray to and
(01:57:58)
what do you
(01:57:58)
mean your brain knows how to pray your
(01:58:01)
knows your brain knows how to believe in
(01:58:03)
a
(01:58:03)
God whether there is a God or there is
(01:58:06)
no God well how important is
(01:58:09)
belief I don't know but I've never met
(01:58:12)
an atheist who never
(01:58:17)
believes and I've never met a religious
(01:58:20)
person who always believes
(01:58:22)
humans flit in and out of belief and
(01:58:25)
non-belief it is the nature of our of
(01:58:27)
our
(01:58:28)
beast and as a result of that you know I
(01:58:31)
feel like U we're just not honest if if
(01:58:34)
if you claim as an atheist that you
(01:58:36)
never entertain the idea of An Almighty
(01:58:38)
and a Creator I don't believe you and if
(01:58:40)
you're a religious person who says like
(01:58:42)
my my belief in my Lord is 100% I was
(01:58:44)
like nope there's a line from George
(01:58:47)
jenko where he says every man knows God
(01:58:49)
when he's at his lowest place okay the f
(01:58:53)
yeah
(01:58:55)
yeah it's very
(01:58:57)
interesting very interesting to think
(01:58:59)
about what's going to come next as a
(01:59:01)
whether it does descend into this sort
(01:59:05)
of post for the next one that you want
(01:59:08)
to do the post-apocalyptic blown out
(01:59:10)
windows spring mattress in the back
(01:59:12)
corner world
(01:59:15)
where nothing is unifying given that
(01:59:18)
what we spoke about for the you know
(01:59:20)
first 90 minutes is the world is
(01:59:22)
confusing it's hard to make sense we
(01:59:24)
don't know what's real we don't know
(01:59:25)
what isn't we don't know if we can trust
(01:59:26)
the information that we're getting
(01:59:27)
that's in front of our eyes we don't
(01:59:28)
know if we can trust the people that are
(01:59:29)
around us do they have our best
(01:59:31)
interests at heart how do we make sense
(01:59:33)
of the
(01:59:35)
world religion provided a pretty good
(01:59:38)
tool for that and I I I I'm not sure
(01:59:42)
whether it's possible to be a cultural
(01:59:45)
Christian or a cultural Muslim or a
(01:59:47)
cultural
(01:59:50)
Jew I I wonder how important the belief
(01:59:53)
bit is to the religion
(01:59:57)
bit do you do you pray I meditate which
(02:00:00)
is as close as you're going to
(02:00:03)
get what do you mean you want to try
(02:00:06)
prayer sure well I mean what what
(02:00:10)
prayers move you I don't know enough I
(02:00:13)
mean I took my mom to ripping Cathedral
(02:00:16)
on Christmas Eve and we went through a
(02:00:19)
full service of 90 minutes with 13 14 15
(02:00:23)
hymns and a bunch of prayers in
(02:00:27)
between a lot of Christmas trees and
(02:00:29)
decoration and stuff but I think that
(02:00:31)
would have been the first time that I
(02:00:32)
would have heard something like that
(02:00:34)
since Primary School since I was 11 or
(02:00:37)
10
(02:00:40)
yeah is there religious music that moves
(02:00:43)
you
(02:00:54)
see you have the major scale as the
(02:00:56)
centerpiece of western music do you need
(02:00:59)
a
(02:01:00)
guitar we're
(02:01:04)
okay um wait do you have a guitar we
(02:01:07)
have a guitar can we get the guitar come
(02:01:09)
on we need
(02:01:12)
a we need to be able to hear
(02:01:16)
this principal reason for bringing out a
(02:01:19)
guitar would be to stop me from singing
(02:01:20)
which I think is an excellent idea okay
(02:01:22)
well hey no but look I can't sing and I
(02:01:24)
can't play the guitar I enjoy doing it
(02:01:26)
so the the internet can there you go
(02:01:28)
well look this is a full-size one last
(02:01:30)
time we gave you one that made you look
(02:01:31)
like you were a
(02:01:33)
giant okay so if you just take the the
(02:01:36)
the major scale
(02:01:41)
right that's not really music but try
(02:01:46)
just the descending major scale
(02:01:53)
what is that to you sounds like Mary had
(02:01:56)
a little lamb something
(02:02:02)
similar now what is it where do I know
(02:02:05)
that tune from what is that Joy to the
(02:02:08)
World the Lord has come right now if you
(02:02:12)
take a different scale right um and you
(02:02:15)
go uh the blues scale
(02:02:19)
[Music]
(02:02:23)
right it's a little bit meanor so you
(02:02:25)
can ask the same question if I do the
(02:02:26)
descending
(02:02:31)
scale you know what is that it's like
(02:02:35)
the intro from messing with the
(02:02:37)
[Music]
(02:02:39)
kid or it's close to Sunshine of Your
(02:02:45)
Love right so is a descending scale
(02:02:50)
music not much but when it's made music
(02:02:53)
by pausing or by
(02:02:55)
emphasis one of the great tunes of uh
(02:02:59)
Western Civilization has created Joy to
(02:03:01)
the World you
(02:03:02)
know my my feeling about it is that song
(02:03:05)
should move
(02:03:07)
you
(02:03:09)
and all of these religious songs
(02:03:14)
um they mean something you know I I I
(02:03:16)
was in a a
(02:03:19)
car train going from Bulgaria to
(02:03:24)
Kiev and there were all of these
(02:03:26)
Siberian miners I brought my
(02:03:28)
harmonica and they were they had a
(02:03:31)
transistor radio and at some point the
(02:03:34)
radio gives out and they want to drink
(02:03:37)
and dance because this is their holiday
(02:03:39)
and they started getting really Rowdy
(02:03:41)
and I realized I had the ability to make
(02:03:43)
music so I pulled the harmonica out I
(02:03:45)
started playing some blues and
(02:03:46)
everybody's dancing and having a great
(02:03:48)
time and they're like more whatever and
(02:03:51)
I'm paralyzed I don't have that much of
(02:03:54)
a repertoire on the harmonica
(02:03:56)
and the one thing I could do was I start
(02:04:00)
um playing Jewish
(02:04:03)
songs and this woman comes up to me and
(02:04:05)
grabs me by my lapel and says you know
(02:04:07)
in russan where do you know this from
(02:04:09)
where do you like I'm realizing that I'm
(02:04:11)
in an anti-semitic environment I think
(02:04:15)
and I've got a Siberian minor who
(02:04:18)
recognizes that I'm playing Jewish
(02:04:20)
music and I'm terrified I'm paralyzed I
(02:04:23)
don't say anything I pretend that I
(02:04:24)
can't understand her in
(02:04:26)
Russian and she reaches into her bosom
(02:04:29)
and she pulls at a giant Star of
(02:04:32)
David right and like she's just looking
(02:04:34)
me in the eyes like I know you you know
(02:04:36)
me there's a way in which religious
(02:04:39)
music is incredibly powerful and prayer
(02:04:41)
is incredibly powerful
(02:04:44)
and I think we're afraid to
(02:04:48)
pray you know you say this in terms of
(02:04:50)
meditation
(02:04:52)
we're afraid to submit to something
(02:04:55)
bigger than ourselves to use the the
(02:04:57)
programming that we have that
(02:05:02)
um that makes us feel there's something
(02:05:05)
that feels disingenuous
(02:05:07)
about praying if you don't believe
(02:05:10)
there's a line from Dan Brown's Angels
(02:05:13)
and Demons the movie Tom Hanks is
(02:05:17)
speaking to the calango and he's trying
(02:05:19)
to get access to the Vatican archives he
(02:05:20)
wants to get down there to work out some
(02:05:23)
secret that was left that he needs to
(02:05:24)
find out who who's killing who's killing
(02:05:27)
everybody Neno asks him played by you
(02:05:30)
and McGregor he says do you believe
(02:05:34)
professor and he starts giving
(02:05:37)
some politicians answer where he skirts
(02:05:39)
around the question he says I didn't ask
(02:05:40)
that I asked if you
(02:05:43)
believed he looks him straight in the
(02:05:45)
eyes and he says faith is a gift that I
(02:05:47)
am yet to be given
(02:05:54)
I don't believe it we all have the gift
(02:05:56)
of faith what we don't have is the
(02:05:58)
ability to sustain it we don't have the
(02:06:01)
ability to import it into all qu
(02:06:03)
quadrants of our
(02:06:05)
minds look I'm saying that I'm an
(02:06:07)
atheist I don't I don't believe in the
(02:06:09)
stories about the
(02:06:14)
deity but that's not
(02:06:18)
constant you you flit in and out you
(02:06:20)
know Mike do you believe in Ray Charles
(02:06:23)
I do do
(02:06:25)
you no no I'm sort of joking but if I
(02:06:29)
think about what did I say by Ray
(02:06:31)
Charles why was that song so
(02:06:36)
powerful he's basically bringing
(02:06:38)
Saturday night and Sunday morning
(02:06:43)
together right there's a there's a
(02:06:46)
religious sort of gospel Coral aspect to
(02:06:49)
it and he's got the rets and the
(02:06:53)
background echoing him he goes uh and
(02:06:56)
they go uh he goes oh oh uh uh oh oh
(02:07:00)
that's that's
(02:07:01)
pretty that's satanic grunting going on
(02:07:04)
on Saturday night right and then you're
(02:07:06)
going to show up in church and you're
(02:07:07)
going to turn it
(02:07:08)
into uh something else Ray Charles was
(02:07:11)
scandalous because he fused the secular
(02:07:14)
and the sacred the profane and the
(02:07:15)
sacred do you believe in the
(02:07:18)
devil one of the you know
(02:07:23)
you know the song Crossroads by Robert
(02:07:25)
Johnson nope
(02:07:27)
well I I can't let's see if you do
(02:07:33)
right I don't know that I could do a
(02:07:35)
Robert Johnson It Be Country blue but
(02:07:37)
like if this were an electric guitar you
(02:07:39)
probably know um
(02:07:44)
[Music]
(02:08:01)
went down to the crossroads triy to flag
(02:08:04)
myself
(02:08:07)
around went down the crossroads tried to
(02:08:10)
flag myself
(02:08:11)
[Music]
(02:08:14)
around and all good people they just
(02:08:18)
passed me by
(02:08:22)
he's talking about going to the
(02:08:23)
crossroads to bargain for his
(02:08:25)
soul he wants to learn how to play the
(02:08:30)
guitar
(02:08:33)
and that's powerful because you have
(02:08:35)
this
(02:08:36)
myth you know the devil Goes Down to
(02:08:39)
Georgia
(02:08:41)
or you go to the crossroads to gain
(02:08:44)
something in a fan bargon um how are you
(02:08:48)
going to believe that with no
(02:08:50)
Lord you're going to screw yourself out
(02:08:53)
of the ability to listen to
(02:08:56)
Folklore to mythology to Great
(02:09:02)
literature and that that that makes me
(02:09:04)
sad you know is it's like are you making
(02:09:08)
a point of saying that you can't
(02:09:10)
understand the religious
(02:09:12)
person we need churches and and and and
(02:09:16)
uh Manders and and masjids and
(02:09:19)
synagogues and we need them to behave
(02:09:21)
non
(02:09:22)
psychopathically and you can't hate on
(02:09:25)
the
(02:09:28)
psychopathy
(02:09:31)
um and divorce yourself from the power
(02:09:35)
you know the power of the word and of
(02:09:36)
song and of communal prayer and Harmon
(02:09:39)
it's something it's something I'm
(02:09:40)
wistful
(02:09:41)
for wistful for a belief that I never
(02:09:43)
had in a way yeah
(02:09:46)
uh yeah does
(02:09:49)
a I think does a particular Latin church
(02:09:54)
Chase can you grab this uh big gele for
(02:09:57)
me
(02:09:58)
please
(02:09:59)
um one of the quickest growing
(02:10:02)
denominations I think of church
(02:10:05)
attendance in America is this thing
(02:10:07)
that's all in Latin mhm have you heard
(02:10:09)
about this no I can't remember what it
(02:10:11)
is and it's growing massively in the in
(02:10:13)
a young age demographic under 30 or
(02:10:16)
something the whole thing's in Latin and
(02:10:18)
which can be awesome right well I think
(02:10:21)
I'm wondering Vatican 2 may have been a
(02:10:23)
kind of a big
(02:10:32)
mistake Al
(02:10:36)
so because when you're forced to
(02:10:38)
actually contend with what the words are
(02:10:42)
in a modern
(02:10:45)
context they don't have the power that
(02:10:49)
they sometimes have as a spell wa
(02:10:52)
difficult to switch off a very
(02:10:54)
particular type of critical Vigilant
(02:10:59)
analytical mind when what you're looking
(02:11:02)
to try and do is allow the experience to
(02:11:04)
wash over you so
(02:11:06)
perhaps uh yeah not being unless you're
(02:11:09)
fluent in Latin being able to just enjoy
(02:11:12)
the experience and just be maybe that
(02:11:16)
is most of what you're trying to maybe
(02:11:19)
that's most of what religious service
(02:11:21)
was doing maybe it wasn't really
(02:11:22)
anything to do with the words very often
(02:11:25)
it isn't I
(02:11:27)
mean it depends you know so we're
(02:11:30)
actually meeting on Shabbat this is the
(02:11:34)
I shouldn't have traveled here we
(02:11:35)
shouldn't be using electronic devices
(02:11:37)
but I'm not a practicing Jew at that
(02:11:39)
level but I think
(02:11:41)
about what we say over the wine when we
(02:11:45)
pray you know we have this thing where
(02:11:48)
we begin U
(02:12:00)
like this is the
(02:12:02)
sound of of Jewish prayer
(02:12:06)
right and then you're thinking about
(02:12:08)
what it says and it's very moving to me
(02:12:10)
because what it is is it's a it's it's
(02:12:12)
taken directly out of
(02:12:17)
Genesis and it was uh evening and it was
(02:12:21)
morning the sixth
(02:12:22)
day right and Yom is day and shishi is
(02:12:25)
six and arav is evening and V is morning
(02:12:30)
so you know what the words
(02:12:32)
mean
(02:12:33)
and you're actually recapitulating God's
(02:12:39)
shifting from work to
(02:12:42)
rest so as you come to understand what
(02:12:45)
the words
(02:12:47)
mean um it it's not destroyed by
(02:12:51)
knowledge
(02:12:53)
uh you know you know that old song by
(02:12:55)
The Rivers of
(02:12:58)
Babylon that's related to the grace that
(02:13:01)
we say after
(02:13:02)
meals um these are references that
(02:13:06)
matter uh and I think people are are
(02:13:09)
shocked
(02:13:12)
um they don't know how much of their
(02:13:14)
life comes from
(02:13:17)
scripture you know you have a round of
(02:13:19)
firings that accompany somebody says I
(02:13:22)
can read the writing on the wall well do
(02:13:24)
you know that that's Daniel
(02:13:28)
5:25 do you know what the wall
(02:13:33)
says I think many many take you know
(02:13:36)
you've been measured and found wanting
(02:13:38)
your lands will be distributed to the
(02:13:40)
Persians or something like
(02:13:42)
that you know these These are incredibly
(02:13:45)
powerful references that we live
(02:13:48)
with you know you think about the birds
(02:13:51)
to everything turn turn turn pet Seer on
(02:13:55)
there is a season and a time and a
(02:13:57)
purpose under Heaven it's
(02:14:02)
Ecclesiastes you think about Jimmy
(02:14:04)
Hendricks going off about two Riders
(02:14:06)
were approaching and the wind began to
(02:14:08)
howl it's
(02:14:10)
Isaiah where are you where are you with
(02:14:13)
the power of the
(02:14:17)
word are you afraid to welcome it in are
(02:14:21)
you worried that you lose your
(02:14:23)
[Music]
(02:14:25)
atheism what what are those two writers
(02:14:31)
approaching they come with news that's
(02:14:33)
the fall of
(02:14:36)
Babylon who are The Joker and the thief
(02:14:39)
in that
(02:14:47)
song I believe they're on either side of
(02:14:50)
Christ
(02:14:52)
being
(02:14:58)
crucified religion is interested in you
(02:15:01)
whether or not you give a
(02:15:03)
[ __ ] it knows about you and it finds its
(02:15:06)
way into every aspect of your
(02:15:08)
life and if you're going to be an honest
(02:15:10)
atheist you have to admit
(02:15:12)
that talking about younger people have
(02:15:16)
you seen the data showing the movement
(02:15:18)
of teenage boys politically to the right
(02:15:21)
you been looking at this where else are
(02:15:23)
they going to go it's a good question I
(02:15:25)
mean I I had a teenage boy I still have
(02:15:28)
one but he's 18
(02:15:30)
now and I watched them be pushed farther
(02:15:33)
and farther right by their
(02:15:38)
schools you
(02:15:40)
suck all of your instincts are bad these
(02:15:43)
girls are amazing look at you you're
(02:15:46)
pathetic be less
(02:15:49)
masculine and more attractive you're
(02:15:51)
just barking at them
(02:15:53)
constantly they're not moving right
(02:15:56)
they're moving out of your stupid
(02:15:58)
way you've given them what
(02:16:01)
nothing
(02:16:02)
nothing one of my son's friends died
(02:16:06)
recently by his own
(02:16:10)
hand and I don't know what kind of
(02:16:12)
pressures he was put
(02:16:14)
under but I watched those kids go
(02:16:18)
through this pressure cooker created by
(02:16:20)
this crazy easy parasitized left-wing
(02:16:24)
educational
(02:16:26)
movement get away from our
(02:16:28)
sons get away from our daughters get
(02:16:30)
away from our sons and away from our
(02:16:32)
daughters it's not left or right I don't
(02:16:33)
have a republican bone in my body get
(02:16:37)
the crazy people who do not understand
(02:16:39)
human development away from our
(02:16:47)
children stop giving our daughters
(02:16:50)
terrible life advice
(02:16:52)
but
(02:16:55)
like
(02:17:01)
um that's one of these mgrm questions
(02:17:03)
what am I supposed to say
(02:17:06)
um let me speak abstractly so we don't
(02:17:09)
get distracted with stupid stuff gender
(02:17:12)
is about
(02:17:15)
reproduction and it's paired and there's
(02:17:17)
nothing you're going to do that's as
(02:17:18)
good as the male female pairing that
(02:17:21)
produces families yes there's a ton of
(02:17:23)
problems with it there's a ton of
(02:17:25)
problems with traditional femininity
(02:17:27)
with traditional masculinity I actually
(02:17:29)
believe that toxic masculinity used to
(02:17:31)
mean something before it meant nothing
(02:17:33)
right now we are allowing our children
(02:17:35)
to be parented by people who should be
(02:17:38)
nowhere close to a child because
(02:17:41)
development for humans is different
(02:17:44)
we're not like wilderbeast where you
(02:17:45)
come out with
(02:17:46)
programming where you can walk on day
(02:17:49)
one we're basically
(02:17:52)
not blank slates but self- assembling
(02:17:55)
computers and what you put into a
(02:17:57)
developing
(02:18:00)
mind um you know what normal child
(02:18:04)
trying to figure out gender
(02:18:07)
identity
(02:18:09)
um does not go through a process trying
(02:18:11)
to figure out oh I like that dress do I
(02:18:14)
want to marry somebody who's wearing it
(02:18:16)
or do I want to wear it myself that's a
(02:18:19)
normal process that you go through in
(02:18:22)
development and if a
(02:18:25)
parent hears that they usually you know
(02:18:28)
try to guide
(02:18:30)
natural gender identity now what happens
(02:18:33)
when an administrator says oh he said he
(02:18:35)
wanted to wear a dress he's a
(02:18:37)
girl everybody respect his choice you're
(02:18:40)
thinking wait wait wait
(02:18:43)
what you took a moment that happens in
(02:18:46)
every boy's
(02:18:49)
life and you turn it into a trans
(02:18:53)
affirmation moment and then you tried to
(02:18:55)
like freeze it in and let me guess you
(02:18:59)
really just want to protect something
(02:19:01)
which is
(02:19:02)
great some people want to protect trans
(02:19:05)
kids trans kids exist they have life
(02:19:08)
very hard on them okay let's ask how
(02:19:11)
many trans kids got
(02:19:14)
manufactured by
(02:19:16)
this Dei
(02:19:20)
movement versus how many would occur
(02:19:22)
naturally and you have type one and type
(02:19:24)
two error you have a trans kid who was
(02:19:26)
always going to be a trans kid that
(02:19:29)
wasn't properly treated that's terrible
(02:19:32)
I agree with the Dei people about that
(02:19:34)
you have another collection huge
(02:19:37)
collection of normal kids who are never
(02:19:38)
going to be trans and you push them
(02:19:41)
towards this I had J Michael Bailey on
(02:19:43)
the show who his paper on rogd rapid
(02:19:49)
onset gender dysphoria yeah uh was
(02:19:53)
pulled very very rare that this happens
(02:19:58)
and I learned during my research for
(02:20:01)
that about the left-handedness argument
(02:20:04)
for both gay and transsexual people so
(02:20:10)
in the Middle Ages it was seen as being
(02:20:11)
a mark of Witchcraft or being touched by
(02:20:13)
the devil that you were left-handed
(02:20:15)
which meant that people who were hid
(02:20:17)
their left-handedness yeah I think about
(02:20:19)
12% maybe of the pop is Left-Handed
(02:20:22)
something like that but during the
(02:20:23)
Middle Ages uh it was significantly less
(02:20:26)
the uh ceiling gets released and people
(02:20:28)
are free to be their true left-handed
(02:20:30)
selves and more people become
(02:20:32)
left-handed I I I can now fully manifest
(02:20:34)
that forward and that is an argument
(02:20:36)
that gets put forward a lot for well now
(02:20:39)
that we have released the lid on the
(02:20:41)
pressure cooker that was tamping down
(02:20:43)
People's Natural trans or gay
(02:20:45)
proclivities or whatever they're now
(02:20:46)
free to be themselves but that doesn't
(02:20:49)
explain why gender dys appears to occur
(02:20:52)
in clumps it's not evenly distributed
(02:20:54)
across all schools you you linked two
(02:20:56)
things that I
(02:21:00)
think have to be unlinked we are
(02:21:03)
fighting the last war because we got
(02:21:05)
male homosexuality
(02:21:09)
wrong I'm old enough to remember when it
(02:21:12)
was a lifestyle
(02:21:17)
choice right and I had gay friends in
(02:21:19)
college who it's not a choice you know
(02:21:22)
it's like a
(02:21:23)
quiet I didn't choose this
(02:21:28)
um we're lumping a bunch of stuff
(02:21:30)
together I don't think male
(02:21:31)
homosexuality has almost anything to do
(02:21:33)
with female homosexuality I think
(02:21:36)
calling them both homosexuality is very
(02:21:37)
confusing there's something that seems
(02:21:40)
much more
(02:21:41)
obligate about male homosexuality it's
(02:21:43)
highly conserved I don't think it's
(02:21:45)
unnatural I think it's it's part of the
(02:21:47)
design of humans and we haven't quite
(02:21:49)
figured out why it's there I don't dis
(02:21:51)
agree but I think the leh handiness
(02:21:53)
argument makes sense when it comes to
(02:21:54)
homosexuality but not when it comes to
(02:21:56)
the trans issue no it makes sense in
(02:22:00)
both but the size of the effect is the
(02:22:03)
problem you're claiming I have no doubt
(02:22:05)
that there were some people who had
(02:22:07)
transgendered brains who were closeted
(02:22:11)
uh you know transvestites and and they
(02:22:14)
they had a closet somewhere in the
(02:22:15)
basement where they got to be them their
(02:22:17)
true selves no question that that exists
(02:22:21)
the issue is that you created an
(02:22:23)
enormous amount of like type two
(02:22:26)
error so you could go after much smaller
(02:22:29)
amount of type one eror you created all
(02:22:31)
sorts of negative
(02:22:33)
stuff by not balancing type 1 and type
(02:22:37)
two and that's unforgivable you're not
(02:22:40)
actually the defender you think you are
(02:22:43)
you're somebody who's destroying some
(02:22:45)
lives to privilege others and why have
(02:22:48)
you made that decision I completely
(02:22:50)
agreed with you like I I won't say there
(02:22:53)
are only two
(02:22:54)
genders you know
(02:23:00)
why because it's not
(02:23:02)
true in humans yeah two genders or two
(02:23:07)
Sexes well first of all the gender and
(02:23:09)
sex used to be largely synonymous before
(02:23:11)
we decided that one was in some sense
(02:23:14)
obligate uh biological and the other was
(02:23:16)
software programming well that was a
(02:23:18)
lexical game that was believe in the
(02:23:20)
1950 that was played to try and bate the
(02:23:23)
yeah but you can you can make an
(02:23:25)
argument that you need a term I don't
(02:23:27)
think the gender should be purposed for
(02:23:29)
that but you could make a an argument
(02:23:31)
that just like abstracting male and
(02:23:33)
female into top and bottom had some
(02:23:35)
utility right okay so what do you mean
(02:23:36)
when you talk about that interex is an
(02:23:41)
really important category to me I know
(02:23:42)
people who are interex and they they're
(02:23:46)
screwed they were screwed because our
(02:23:48)
society had no
(02:23:51)
way of dealing with them the gender
(02:23:52)
binary is so strong that somebody
(02:23:56)
through zero fault of anybody is born
(02:23:58)
with ambiguity in their genitalia and
(02:24:01)
their chromosome
(02:24:02)
something so yes there are two
(02:24:05)
intended Sexes or
(02:24:07)
genders but nature isn't good enough to
(02:24:10)
hit that Mark all the
(02:24:13)
time and those are those are human
(02:24:15)
beings those are souls and and and the
(02:24:17)
sloppy right-wing thing which is to find
(02:24:20)
the shelling point where you just sit
(02:24:21)
there and you say there are only two
(02:24:22)
Sexes and two genders I understand why
(02:24:24)
you're doing it you're trying to stop
(02:24:25)
this crazy conversation that's taken off
(02:24:28)
so it's not like I don't have sympathies
(02:24:30)
with why you're saying
(02:24:32)
that but when I bring up you know my
(02:24:35)
favorite example is persistent muan duct
(02:24:37)
syndrome where somebody goes into their
(02:24:40)
doctor having trouble having a kid and
(02:24:42)
it's like well you have Twigs and
(02:24:43)
berries but you've also got a
(02:24:47)
uterus you're female on the inside does
(02:24:49)
that person produce
(02:24:51)
both sperm and eggs no right but surely
(02:24:55)
that's the definition that is the that
(02:24:57)
is the line in the ground around male
(02:25:00)
and female large gametes yeah but sorry
(02:25:02)
the gentleman who goes into his doctor
(02:25:04)
to find out that he's got a
(02:25:06)
uterus who is
(02:25:10)
he if he wants to be male I understand
(02:25:13)
why he wants to be male if he wants to
(02:25:15)
be able to talk about the fact that he
(02:25:17)
got handed some very strange cards by uh
(02:25:21)
by the Creator in her Infinite
(02:25:23)
Wisdom um I want him or her however that
(02:25:27)
person conceives of s to be that's
(02:25:30)
that's a soul to me and I don't like the
(02:25:33)
energy of saying there are only two
(02:25:34)
Sexes and two genders and that's it it's
(02:25:37)
like I get it I understand what you're
(02:25:38)
trying to do you're trying to say that
(02:25:39)
there are two intended Sexes and genders
(02:25:41)
it's reproductive it's nature I get it
(02:25:44)
it depends on how we're going to Define
(02:25:45)
sex because if it comes down to gameit
(02:25:48)
size that's that is binary
(02:25:51)
sure okay but what do you do about the
(02:25:53)
edge Cate The Edge case but no one's
(02:25:55)
producing both so there are none I don't
(02:25:58)
know that nobody's producing both maybe
(02:25:59)
that's a fact you know usually the issue
(02:26:02)
is is that you have this this list of
(02:26:04)
homologues right so that the clitoris
(02:26:07)
maps to the penile shaft and the labia
(02:26:09)
majora map to the testicles what you're
(02:26:11)
doing is you're taking a common female
(02:26:14)
template I believe and you're treating
(02:26:16)
it through the sry Cascade uh
(02:26:19)
differently during velopment so that the
(02:26:22)
default is female but you also have this
(02:26:24)
ability uh through this one protein to
(02:26:28)
create a Cascade that creates male out a
(02:26:30)
female okay that doesn't always work out
(02:26:33)
now you've got an ambiguous situation
(02:26:36)
and you've got a a a culture that
(02:26:37)
basically can't think in
(02:26:39)
ambiguities that's where a lot of this
(02:26:42)
frustration with the gender binary comes
(02:26:45)
from is that you you know somebody in
(02:26:47)
this in a category where they're not
(02:26:49)
really one thing or the other at a
(02:26:51)
hardware
(02:26:52)
level I I believe that beyond that
(02:26:55)
there's also a software level there are
(02:26:56)
people with male brains and female
(02:26:59)
bodies and and conversely I don't
(02:27:01)
understand this stuff but I believe that
(02:27:03)
that's true if you ever have the
(02:27:05)
opportunity to interview Dedra mclusky
(02:27:07)
who used to be I think Dennis McClosky
(02:27:10)
very famous economist I had the pleasure
(02:27:13)
of speaking with her a while
(02:27:14)
back
(02:27:16)
and um you know one of the things that
(02:27:20)
she said was that
(02:27:21)
she wasn't doing this to be Hotsy totsy
(02:27:23)
she was going to she wanted to die a an
(02:27:26)
old lady not an old man you what it
(02:27:28)
wasn't wasn't a sex thing it was just
(02:27:31)
the fact that she'd been uncomfortable
(02:27:33)
in a male body her whole life so I'm
(02:27:35)
using the term her do I have to use the
(02:27:37)
term now no I could use the term him or
(02:27:41)
his but why would you do
(02:27:43)
that don't don't you have enough
(02:27:45)
compassion that somebody ruined their
(02:27:47)
family life and went through hell and in
(02:27:49)
public because it was so painful to be
(02:27:53)
in the wrong body I get
(02:27:55)
it okay now you have that compassion and
(02:28:00)
how many lives are you going to ruin
(02:28:01)
over
(02:28:05)
that how many lives are you going to
(02:28:08)
ruin pretending that this is an enormous
(02:28:11)
cohort so to the extent that I have a
(02:28:15)
slogan and I basically never speak about
(02:28:17)
trans My slogan is
(02:28:21)
make trans accepted and
(02:28:27)
rare make it rare means use the
(02:28:30)
developmental
(02:28:34)
environment in order to give good
(02:28:36)
coaching about male strategies and
(02:28:39)
female strategies for life don't
(02:28:41)
relitigate the fact that we screwed up
(02:28:43)
male homosexuality just take your lumps
(02:28:45)
we screwed it up it's a part of The
(02:28:47)
Human Condition it's never going to go
(02:28:49)
away it's different from female
(02:28:51)
homosexuality almost certainly we don't
(02:28:55)
exactly know why it's here we've been
(02:28:58)
blessed with Untold riches uh
(02:29:02)
particularly in the mimetic realm from
(02:29:04)
male
(02:29:06)
homosexuals it is what it
(02:29:09)
is and now we're going to refight this
(02:29:12)
over trans where no I think you have
(02:29:15)
tremendous opportunities through
(02:29:17)
development to assign behaviors
(02:29:21)
is the skirt a female object no the
(02:29:25)
Lungi in South Asia is a skirt men wear
(02:29:29)
it I have a
(02:29:32)
Lungi it's like telling a Scottish
(02:29:34)
person that he's
(02:29:36)
a he's he's crossdressing what are you
(02:29:40)
an idiot you ever you ever dealt with a
(02:29:43)
Scotsman you do not want to make that
(02:29:44)
mistake they will let you know very
(02:29:46)
quickly who they are um
(02:29:51)
we're out of our minds we're out of our
(02:29:54)
minds we're creating so much misery for
(02:29:56)
these young men and young
(02:29:59)
girls and and you know it just it makes
(02:30:02)
me upset because we don't love our
(02:30:03)
children
(02:30:06)
enough we we don't love our children
(02:30:08)
enough to tell these teachers hands off
(02:30:11)
my
(02:30:12)
kids go work out your weird stuff I get
(02:30:17)
it but get away from our children I came
(02:30:20)
up with this idea of toxic compassion
(02:30:22)
which was something I was looking to
(02:30:23)
name metastic
(02:30:26)
maternity yes yes like an edible complex
(02:30:29)
like the need to smother and protect
(02:30:32)
something so badly that you just want to
(02:30:33)
do violence to somebody because you want
(02:30:35)
to get your rocks off that there is this
(02:30:40)
problem with
(02:30:44)
compassion but if you prioritize
(02:30:47)
short-term emotional Comfort over
(02:30:49)
everything else you end up with some
(02:30:50)
very strange externalities it's not just
(02:30:53)
that though well I mean I wonder if
(02:30:56)
we're talking about the same thing maybe
(02:30:58)
not let me read you mind toxic
(02:30:59)
compassion is the prioritization of
(02:31:01)
short-term emotional Comfort over
(02:31:02)
everything over truth reality actual
(02:31:05)
long-term outcomes flourishing
(02:31:07)
everything it optimizes for looking good
(02:31:09)
rather than doing good this is seen in
(02:31:11)
much of popular culture as the desirable
(02:31:13)
fair and empathetic thing to do and it's
(02:31:15)
everywhere people would rather claim
(02:31:17)
that body fat has no bearing on health
(02:31:18)
and mortality outcomes to avoid making
(02:31:20)
overweight individuals feel upset even
(02:31:23)
if this causes them to literally die
(02:31:25)
sooner or have a worse quality of life
(02:31:27)
over the long run parents would rather
(02:31:29)
allow children to play computer games or
(02:31:30)
watch screens and access social media
(02:31:32)
every night instead of dealing with the
(02:31:34)
discomfort of taking it away from them
(02:31:36)
even if it ruins their brain development
(02:31:37)
social skills and self-esteem people
(02:31:39)
would rather say that children growing
(02:31:41)
up in a single parent household suffer
(02:31:42)
no worse outcomes than those from two
(02:31:44)
parent households even if this misleads
(02:31:46)
parents children and teachers about why
(02:31:48)
kids behave the ways they do Elon Musk
(02:31:51)
recently responded to criticism about
(02:31:53)
his political alignment and contribution
(02:31:55)
to climate change he identified how big
(02:31:56)
of a shift Tesla had caused in the
(02:31:58)
electric vehicle market and the
(02:31:59)
downstream impact impact of that on the
(02:32:01)
environment saying that he's done more
(02:32:03)
for the climate than any other human in
(02:32:05)
history what I care about is the reality
(02:32:07)
of goodness not the perception of it and
(02:32:10)
what I see all over the place is people
(02:32:12)
who care about looking good while doing
(02:32:14)
evil telling people what they want to
(02:32:17)
hear giving them immediate gratification
(02:32:18)
and avoiding saying anything that could
(02:32:21)
cause distress
(02:32:23)
prioritizes appearing good over actually
(02:32:25)
doing good it's
(02:32:27)
dangerous I'm with you you are in an
(02:32:31)
area I think a lot about and I don't
(02:32:33)
want to I don't want to attack something
(02:32:37)
that you're saying but I I I I conceive
(02:32:40)
of this
(02:32:42)
differently there's a point
(02:32:45)
about
(02:32:47)
sanctimony and appearing to do good
(02:32:50)
well-doing
(02:32:53)
evil that is different from the need to
(02:32:57)
parent and
(02:33:00)
protect part of what's going on is a
(02:33:02)
redistribution of empathy which is being
(02:33:04)
called an expansion of
(02:33:07)
empathy right so the idea
(02:33:11)
is we are going to be extra especially
(02:33:14)
sympathetic with some groups and
(02:33:16)
empathic with their their trauma their
(02:33:19)
pain
(02:33:21)
and we are going to take away
(02:33:24)
compassion from other groups so for
(02:33:28)
example if you look at suicide
(02:33:30)
statistics in the United
(02:33:32)
States uh from all of the rhetoric you
(02:33:35)
would think that young black asian
(02:33:39)
females would
(02:33:41)
be
(02:33:43)
um at the top of the suicide statistics
(02:33:46)
but it's
(02:33:48)
really middle-aged white men
(02:33:50)
who are killing themselves incredible
(02:33:52)
numbers you bring up the
(02:33:55)
statistic
(02:33:57)
and there's an exchange rate in terms of
(02:34:00)
human Mis Mis misery that is measured in
(02:34:03)
suicide it's a pretty
(02:34:05)
unud thing that when you kill yourself
(02:34:07)
you're probably in an extremely
(02:34:10)
negative state of personal
(02:34:13)
trauma so what does the compassion group
(02:34:16)
think about the fact that the group most
(02:34:18)
likely to end their own lives is is
(02:34:20)
exactly the group that is
(02:34:23)
faulted uh you know for the
(02:34:26)
patriarchy it's
(02:34:27)
astounding oh poor little white men in
(02:34:30)
the midwest had their privilege taken
(02:34:32)
away what the hell are you talking
(02:34:34)
about you're talking about people
(02:34:36)
killing themselves you're talking about
(02:34:38)
fathers and grandfathers
(02:34:40)
dying what we're talking about is a
(02:34:42)
redistribution of
(02:34:46)
compassion we're talking about taking
(02:34:49)
compassion away from people of European
(02:34:52)
descent we're talking about taking
(02:34:54)
compassion away from men we're talking
(02:34:57)
about com taking compassion away
(02:35:01)
from a business person like Steve Jobs
(02:35:04)
who might have pancreatic cancer and be
(02:35:06)
dying from it in his 50s because he had
(02:35:09)
the privilege of building billion dooll
(02:35:14)
companies who the hell are you what is
(02:35:17)
your problem
(02:35:21)
what come out of the shadows and admit
(02:35:24)
to what you want you want a
(02:35:25)
redistribution of compassion and you're
(02:35:27)
calling this empathy it is anything but
(02:35:30)
empathy empathy would be an expansion of
(02:35:33)
our understanding of each other's
(02:35:35)
problems and woes this is basically
(02:35:37)
saying that these people are worthy of
(02:35:39)
compassion and these people aren't the
(02:35:42)
child who might have been
(02:35:44)
wronged for not having a clear gender
(02:35:47)
identity and that would have happened
(02:35:48)
under any error in
(02:35:51)
in any circumstance that's one life and
(02:35:54)
then you have a bunch of lives over here
(02:35:56)
that are children who are pushed towards
(02:35:58)
sexual reassignment
(02:36:01)
surgery and are sexually mutilated for
(02:36:03)
no reason at all because of of
(02:36:06)
Developmental you know reasons that they
(02:36:08)
got bad advice from adults while they
(02:36:11)
were trying to assemble themselves and
(02:36:14)
you're compassionate about this and
(02:36:15)
you're not compassionate about that I
(02:36:17)
don't want you anywhere near a school
(02:36:22)
if you're not willing to deal with type
(02:36:24)
one and type two
(02:36:27)
error you don't belong around our
(02:36:29)
children if you don't understand the
(02:36:31)
human development is important and that
(02:36:33)
it is very hard to improve on the gender
(02:36:35)
binary that is even if there are edge
(02:36:38)
cases the gender binary is there for a
(02:36:41)
reason and you don't have a clue how
(02:36:44)
complicated the gender binary is you
(02:36:46)
probably haven't even studied sexuality
(02:36:48)
in different species that assign gender
(02:36:51)
you know flatworms assign it based on a
(02:36:53)
contest the winner is male and the loser
(02:36:56)
is female you don't like that tough
(02:36:59)
luck you know bed bugs only practice
(02:37:03)
traumatic insemination you don't like
(02:37:05)
that I'm
(02:37:07)
sorry how are you going to engineer the
(02:37:09)
entire world around your crazy theories
(02:37:11)
of gender and
(02:37:13)
sexuality we we need these people away
(02:37:15)
from children they're working out their
(02:37:18)
own stuff
(02:37:21)
we need to recognize that
(02:37:24)
homosexuality particularly among men in
(02:37:26)
an obligate fashion is a normal
(02:37:28)
conserved part of the human experience
(02:37:31)
that basically there is a gender binary
(02:37:34)
that there is a small number of edge
(02:37:36)
cases at a hardware level there's a
(02:37:38)
small number of cases meant at a
(02:37:40)
software
(02:37:43)
level we have to be compassionate about
(02:37:45)
all that but we can't take compassion
(02:37:47)
away from everyone else
(02:37:53)
it's a message to both the left and the
(02:37:56)
right stop saying they're only two Sexes
(02:37:59)
it's
(02:38:01)
offensive and and stop forcing people to
(02:38:04)
say something so simplistic because
(02:38:06)
you're threatening their
(02:38:08)
children there was a story about Winston
(02:38:11)
Churchill's father that I wanted to tell
(02:38:13)
you
(02:38:14)
about in September 1893 Churchill was
(02:38:17)
admitted on his third attempt to the
(02:38:20)
Sandhurst Military College he wrote to
(02:38:22)
his father I was so glad to be able to
(02:38:24)
send you the good news on Thursday his
(02:38:26)
father a foral chancellor of the ex-
(02:38:28)
cheer and leader of the House of Commons
(02:38:30)
wrote back a week later the full text
(02:38:33)
the reply doesn't seem to be available
(02:38:34)
but we do have glimpses you should be
(02:38:37)
ashamed of your slovenly happy go-lucky
(02:38:39)
Haram scarum style of work never have I
(02:38:43)
received a really good report of your
(02:38:44)
conduct from any Headmaster or tutor
(02:38:46)
always behind incessant complaints of a
(02:38:49)
total one of application to your work
(02:38:51)
you have failed to get into the 60th
(02:38:53)
rifles the finest regiment in the Army
(02:38:55)
you have imposed on me an extra charge
(02:38:57)
of some2 200 a year do not think that
(02:39:00)
I'm going to take the trouble of writing
(02:39:02)
you long letters after every failure you
(02:39:04)
commit and undergo I no longer attach
(02:39:06)
the slightest weight to anything you may
(02:39:08)
say if you cannot prevent yourself from
(02:39:10)
leading the idle useless unprofitable
(02:39:13)
life you have had during your school
(02:39:15)
days you will become a mere social wasal
(02:39:17)
one of the hundreds of public school
(02:39:19)
failures and you will degenerate into a
(02:39:21)
Shabby un happy and futile existence you
(02:39:23)
will have to bear all the blame for such
(02:39:26)
misfortunes your mother sent her love
(02:39:29)
Churchill was
(02:39:34)
19 what do you make of
(02:39:36)
it come
(02:39:38)
on tough to read it makes me think about
(02:39:42)
what drove Churchill to be the person
(02:39:45)
that he became it makes me think about
(02:39:47)
the price again that people pay for the
(02:39:50)
successes that others look at and have
(02:39:54)
Envy of Revere
(02:39:56)
admire
(02:39:58)
remember we don't know what drives
(02:40:01)
people they often don't know what drives
(02:40:04)
them as well when they look sufficiently
(02:40:05)
deep but that's rough to read say more
(02:40:08)
about that the guy goes on to be perhaps
(02:40:12)
the greatest leader of the 20th century
(02:40:15)
one of the greatest leaders of all time
(02:40:18)
he stops
(02:40:20)
Nazi Germany on just this domino fall as
(02:40:23)
they move through Europe every single
(02:40:25)
country that they come up against and
(02:40:26)
the first one that they
(02:40:29)
hit that they find some proper
(02:40:31)
resistance from is the Battle of Britain
(02:40:32)
up against Britain he is prepared to
(02:40:36)
play a game that nobody else in the
(02:40:38)
British government is prepared to play
(02:40:39)
there's a great book called Churchill's
(02:40:41)
Ministry of ungentlemanly warfare okay
(02:40:44)
and basically the Brits saw as they
(02:40:46)
entered World War II they saw
(02:40:50)
the way that Guerilla Warfare tactics
(02:40:54)
were so uncouth that one of the other
(02:40:58)
military leaders was quoted as saying if
(02:41:00)
that's what it takes to win then I am
(02:41:02)
prepared to lose and Churchill took
(02:41:05)
whatever the opposite approach of that
(02:41:06)
was so he begins to find Renegade
(02:41:09)
scientists and inventors uh people that
(02:41:12)
can
(02:41:12)
do gorilla tactics they can break down
(02:41:15)
Bridges they can sew distrust and they
(02:41:18)
they create the first olymp mine
(02:41:20)
underwater magnetic mine and these guys
(02:41:22)
are doing it by buying up all of the
(02:41:24)
condoms in villages so that they can
(02:41:26)
water protect an AED balls that they
(02:41:29)
know will reliably dissolve at the
(02:41:31)
particular all of these different things
(02:41:33)
just this crazy
(02:41:36)
Insight that man the slovenly happy
(02:41:39)
go-lucky Haram scaran style of work if
(02:41:43)
you cannot prevent yourself from leading
(02:41:44)
the idle useless and profitable life you
(02:41:47)
have I no longer attach the slightest
(02:41:49)
weight to anything you may say I don't
(02:41:51)
know it makes me sad to think that
(02:41:54)
Churchill may have done so much great in
(02:41:56)
his life and yet never felt enough
(02:41:59)
because of
(02:42:00)
the source code that he had programmed
(02:42:02)
into him yeah
(02:42:05)
unwinable
(02:42:08)
unwinable parental love is an incredible
(02:42:13)
engine but I also see love in that
(02:42:17)
letter you see
(02:42:21)
imagine there was no World War II
(02:42:23)
imagine there was no Nazi
(02:42:28)
regime what was he supposed to do with
(02:42:30)
his life open a dry
(02:42:36)
cleaner was he supposed
(02:42:39)
to become a vice president for inventory
(02:42:43)
at a large
(02:42:45)
company what what was Winston Churchill
(02:42:48)
supposed to do absent Adolf
(02:42:55)
Hitler I I God this is just so hard to
(02:42:59)
even talk about and think
(02:43:02)
about
(02:43:05)
greatness you're supposed to have great
(02:43:08)
people underg glass I call this you know
(02:43:10)
break glass in case of emergency people
(02:43:12)
we don't have any if you had trouble now
(02:43:16)
who would you go to
(02:43:20)
you know um you're from the
(02:43:24)
UK I don't think you're a biologist but
(02:43:27)
you know who David atenor is what is the
(02:43:30)
UK's opinion of David
(02:43:32)
atenor almost universally loved
(02:43:35)
universally loved I don't know you must
(02:43:38)
know an ex-girlfriend because you said
(02:43:39)
all but
(02:43:42)
um yeah he's a National Treasure of the
(02:43:45)
UK we're supposed to have tons of those
(02:43:48)
people I don't know of any we've beaten
(02:43:51)
up everything we
(02:43:54)
have and if if somebody
(02:43:57)
attacks you know I've made this point
(02:43:59)
before but everybody focuses on the
(02:44:02)
wrong speeches of Neville Chamberlain
(02:44:05)
you want to get choked up look at his
(02:44:07)
resignation speech that thing is a thing
(02:44:10)
of
(02:44:13)
Wonder his point
(02:44:15)
is this is the move that Hitler doesn't
(02:44:17)
see coming
(02:44:23)
Hitler does not see that I'm going to
(02:44:24)
resign for the good of my country and
(02:44:28)
that Winston Churchill has asked me to
(02:44:30)
stay
(02:44:32)
on
(02:44:34)
so you you guys better know what you're
(02:44:37)
doing because you're GNA have to you're
(02:44:38)
going to have us to deal with the UK
(02:44:40)
needs to get back in the game let's just
(02:44:42)
be honest about it I don't know what the
(02:44:44)
hell's going on with the
(02:44:46)
UK it makes me very angry and very sick
(02:44:49)
H so I don't know I was
(02:44:52)
at do you know
(02:44:55)
ditchley some estate that Winston church
(02:44:57)
was at in the UK not far from Ox it
(02:45:00)
sounds like every other estate that
(02:45:03)
exists yeah yeah I was there for a
(02:45:05)
meeting it was a quiet
(02:45:06)
meeting there were lots of people in the
(02:45:09)
British Foreign Service there and
(02:45:11)
they're all impeccably educated and
(02:45:13)
spoke multiple languages and all this
(02:45:15)
stuff they were all like moping about
(02:45:19)
you know oh well you know of course with
(02:45:21)
the US there's nothing really for us to
(02:45:23)
do and this is no longer the UK of the
(02:45:25)
previous blah blah blah blah blah it's
(02:45:26)
like what the hell is wrong with you
(02:45:28)
people you have this incredible role to
(02:45:31)
play yeah there's definitely a degree of
(02:45:34)
not defeatism but yeah like playing
(02:45:36)
second
(02:45:37)
string uh walk it off dude there's your
(02:45:41)
special forces are still the Envy of the
(02:45:44)
planet everybody knows how tough the U
(02:45:46)
the UK is when it comes to Special
(02:45:48)
Forces your facility with the language
(02:45:50)
is second to none and it's not just that
(02:45:54)
accent um it's the fact that you live it
(02:45:56)
culturally there's so much um quirkiness
(02:46:01)
tolerance for eccentricity for
(02:46:03)
Brilliance not just
(02:46:05)
Excellence that is deep in the English
(02:46:09)
soul and I have no idea what the UK is
(02:46:14)
doing yeah you're smaller you lost your
(02:46:16)
Empire tough luck and walk it
(02:46:21)
off it feels a little bit like
(02:46:25)
uh someone who's given a ceremonial oh
(02:46:29)
stop
(02:46:30)
it no when you look at uh let's say
(02:46:34)
there's a large debate that's going on
(02:46:36)
there's some sort of meeting of of
(02:46:38)
countries and the UK is there and it
(02:46:42)
seems like that there is a token gesture
(02:46:44)
to some bygone Dynasty H we we we must
(02:46:48)
remember to invite the Brits because
(02:46:49)
it's it's it's important that they have
(02:46:51)
a seat at the table I don't I don't know
(02:46:53)
I don't I don't feel like we're forging
(02:46:55)
forward in the world I don't I don't
(02:46:57)
know yeah you aren't you aren't you
(02:46:58)
aren't doing enough you aren't doing
(02:47:00)
enough but you want to know from your
(02:47:03)
little brother get back in the game walk
(02:47:05)
it off cut it out you're incredibly
(02:47:08)
important okay so you're small so you're
(02:47:11)
relatively small as a
(02:47:13)
market and
(02:47:16)
so why did Jim Watson have to go over to
(02:47:18)
the cev just Laboratories to do
(02:47:21)
DNA you
(02:47:25)
know think about all the things that
(02:47:28)
came out of the
(02:47:30)
UK I'd kill for the dur equation to have
(02:47:33)
been invented in the US have some pride
(02:47:36)
in yourselves there's a lot of criticism
(02:47:38)
at the moment about multiculturalism in
(02:47:40)
the UK what what does that mean that as
(02:47:43)
you enter maybe Heath thr it maybe
(02:47:46)
Gatwick it maybe one of the tube
(02:47:48)
stations com out of there uh it's
(02:47:51)
something like diversity is our strength
(02:47:54)
is one of the taglines and there are a
(02:47:57)
lot of people that okay so let's fight
(02:47:59)
this out because I I want to do this I
(02:48:01)
really
(02:48:02)
do
(02:48:04)
um undoubtedly you know many people of
(02:48:08)
Indian Pakistani origin who speak uh
(02:48:11)
with an Oxbridge
(02:48:13)
accent right and they have incling our
(02:48:15)
prime minister all sorts of mannerisms
(02:48:17)
hadn't noticed it's a joke
(02:48:22)
um the
(02:48:24)
UK is also a software
(02:48:27)
product you can teach people to
(02:48:31)
think as if they've always been I mean
(02:48:34)
look let's be honest your royal families
(02:48:36)
partially
(02:48:37)
German
(02:48:39)
um think about the UK as a software
(02:48:44)
product imagine that you can load that
(02:48:47)
software into a mind no matter what the
(02:48:51)
skin color looks like it's the software
(02:48:54)
that we're attached to much more than
(02:48:55)
your Hardware I don't think we're
(02:48:57)
getting that level of
(02:48:59)
integration it depends with which
(02:49:02)
groups you have plenty of ashkanazi Jews
(02:49:05)
who are completely English I mean I I
(02:49:08)
just brought up Paul dck dck isn't a
(02:49:12)
uh typically British name it's
(02:49:17)
French right they're all sorts of people
(02:49:20)
who are quintessentially English who
(02:49:23)
aren't
(02:49:27)
historically now I have a good friend
(02:49:29)
from way back Marcus Doo who uh never
(02:49:33)
really thought about the fact that his
(02:49:35)
his last name is totally
(02:49:38)
French you know what is he a fellow of
(02:49:41)
the Royal Society
(02:49:44)
and OB whatever it is that he is you
(02:49:47)
know it's just
(02:49:49)
yeah and I I think you guys are much
(02:49:51)
better than you think you
(02:49:53)
are and I don't know what got into your
(02:49:57)
T
(02:50:00)
but we can't afford for the UK and the
(02:50:03)
anglophone universe to keep sobbing like
(02:50:06)
this you know I I I I I I chew out the
(02:50:08)
Australians all the time it's like my
(02:50:11)
God you have this great country far away
(02:50:13)
from Europe this is your time to lead
(02:50:16)
the US is stumbling what do something
(02:50:18)
with it do something with it new
(02:50:22)
zealanders come on
(02:50:23)
guys no look I am incredibly happy to be
(02:50:26)
part of the anglophone world and not
(02:50:29)
just in terms of the language in terms
(02:50:31)
of cultural norms in terms of all of the
(02:50:34)
things I say we've contributed to the
(02:50:37)
world I'm not British I've never held a
(02:50:39)
British passport but I very much feel
(02:50:43)
like um you know the great science that
(02:50:46)
came out of the UK uh is part of my
(02:50:50)
Heritage you know and by the way you
(02:50:53)
know look at a map of the names of
(02:50:57)
surnames in Scotland and Ireland and
(02:50:59)
it's like a who's who of everything that
(02:51:02)
happened it's just I'm so proud at some
(02:51:05)
level of this tradition I sometimes tell
(02:51:07)
somebody that you can tell that a man is
(02:51:10)
only partially educated if the word
(02:51:13)
hamiltonian means
(02:51:15)
something because which Hamilton the
(02:51:18)
Hamilton
(02:51:19)
of mathematical
(02:51:21)
physics the Hamilton of biology the
(02:51:24)
Hamilton of uh us historical uh
(02:51:30)
Fame I'm very I'm I'm very bullish on
(02:51:35)
pride in the anglophone universe and
(02:51:37)
we've got to stop moping around and the
(02:51:39)
UK is supposed to lead it's been a while
(02:51:42)
there's a really awesome Netflix series
(02:51:46)
uh World War II from the front lines I
(02:51:49)
think it's called so they've used a
(02:51:51)
combination of AI and archive footage to
(02:51:54)
recolor and put into
(02:51:56)
4K this entire series and it's
(02:51:59)
outstanding and there's one about the
(02:52:00)
Battle of Britain
(02:52:02)
and it's been a I moved away from the UK
(02:52:05)
and I I had my problems with it and I
(02:52:08)
tried for a long time to try and sort of
(02:52:09)
nudge the culture as best I could from
(02:52:12)
within my business or or whatever I was
(02:52:14)
doing and then just
(02:52:16)
thought I can't
(02:52:19)
I'm trying to shovel sand away from the
(02:52:23)
seashore here and it's just not working
(02:52:25)
so I've come over to America I've
(02:52:26)
flourish since I've been here but that
(02:52:28)
was the first time watching that and
(02:52:30)
looking at that degree of spirit that
(02:52:33)
was the first time in quite a while
(02:52:34)
where I've thought to myself [ __ ] yeah
(02:52:36)
like that's that's something that I can
(02:52:38)
genuinely be proud of it's been almost
(02:52:41)
as long as I can remember since I
(02:52:43)
genuinely thought I'm proud of being
(02:52:46)
British come to St helina
(02:52:53)
seriously you got a speck in the middle
(02:52:55)
of the Atlantic Ocean below the
(02:52:57)
equator uh I just spent a week
(02:53:01)
there do you know about St Helen I did
(02:53:04)
this the first time I've ever heard
(02:53:05)
those two words put together in my life
(02:53:06)
okay they're the remnants of the British
(02:53:09)
Empire called the British overseas
(02:53:11)
territories right and you have like
(02:53:13)
Gibralter and Diego Garcia C and Tristan
(02:53:15)
Duna pitare and all these sort of bits
(02:53:17)
and pieces
(02:53:19)
that is what's left it's an island of
(02:53:23)
around 4,000 people where Napoleon died
(02:53:27)
during his second Exile after
(02:53:29)
Elba uh because it was so secure
(02:53:31)
apparently it's the second most
(02:53:32)
fortified island in the world after
(02:53:35)
Malta uh it's an unbelievable place um
(02:53:40)
people are incredibly proud of being
(02:53:43)
British and I believe that William is
(02:53:46)
going to visit at the end of this month
(02:53:48)
and that it's been it's been 20 years
(02:53:49)
since a royal visit of Prince Anne in
(02:53:52)
any
(02:53:53)
event one of the things that I loved
(02:53:55)
about being in Jamestown St helina
(02:53:59)
um is the pride that people have in
(02:54:02)
being British and being under the
(02:54:05)
British
(02:54:06)
Order
(02:54:09)
and we just can't afford for you guys I
(02:54:11)
mean look when I say lead it doesn't
(02:54:12)
mean the US isn't going to lead you have
(02:54:14)
a different leadership role use it we're
(02:54:17)
we're in crisis right now
(02:54:20)
we all remember what it what you know it
(02:54:23)
sounds like to be Winston
(02:54:26)
Churchill right we we we know what that
(02:54:28)
voice sounds like and it's very painful
(02:54:30)
for us
(02:54:32)
that actually you know I'm thinking back
(02:54:35)
the problem is which diversity is our
(02:54:37)
strength campaign it's like some visual
(02:54:39)
diversity if you fly British Airways and
(02:54:41)
you look at that uh safety reel it's a
(02:54:45)
joke I mean they're just trying to find
(02:54:47)
everybody who they could find um you
(02:54:50)
know who displays some kind of visual
(02:54:52)
diversity no the power of
(02:54:57)
it you know the name Michael Atia he was
(02:55:01)
the the master of Trinity College
(02:55:04)
Cambridge one of the greatest
(02:55:06)
mathematicians of all time certainly of
(02:55:08)
the 20th
(02:55:09)
century the name of T is what
(02:55:12)
Lebanese nobody thought about him as
(02:55:14)
Lebanese we thought about him as
(02:55:16)
British I I I think you guys are much
(02:55:18)
better at this stuff than you think and
(02:55:20)
you've fallen for the wrong kind of
(02:55:22)
diversity this kind
(02:55:25)
of visual diversity shallow diversity
(02:55:28)
yeah shallow
(02:55:30)
diversity don't be afraid to be
(02:55:35)
British what are you working on next
(02:55:38)
what's next for
(02:55:41)
you the problem I'm supposed to say
(02:55:44)
something like I've got a special coming
(02:55:45)
up or um a book I'm thinking about
(02:55:49)
writing a book
(02:55:52)
but look the most important thing that I
(02:55:56)
have is I have a
(02:55:59)
possible expansion of our two main
(02:56:01)
theories in
(02:56:04)
physics and nothing else compares to
(02:56:07)
that even if it's
(02:56:10)
wrong a decent probability which could
(02:56:14)
be you know imagine it we're one in 100
(02:56:16)
or 1 in a
(02:56:17)
thousand which I
(02:56:19)
it's far north of there in my estimation
(02:56:21)
that it's wrong or it's right no that
(02:56:22)
it's it's that that it's right I think
(02:56:25)
it's much greater than those odds and of
(02:56:28)
course you have to believe that or you
(02:56:29)
wouldn't be working on it but it's also
(02:56:31)
the case that there aren't that many
(02:56:32)
people who have even ballpark level
(02:56:35)
skills to say what a theory would
(02:56:37)
be
(02:56:39)
um that's hope for me can you imagine if
(02:56:44)
let's just imagine next week somebody
(02:56:46)
said you know actually this looks right
(02:56:52)
um we could start dreaming about looking
(02:56:56)
up at the night sky and seeing it as a
(02:56:58)
bucket
(02:56:59)
list where do you want to
(02:57:01)
go you could ask questions about is
(02:57:04)
there any way to harvest the Zero Point
(02:57:06)
Energy from all the quantum
(02:57:10)
oscillators you could
(02:57:12)
say is there dark
(02:57:16)
chemistry well you have
(02:57:19)
dark
(02:57:21)
matter we could have dark matter at some
(02:57:23)
level this room is filled with dark
(02:57:25)
matter neutrinos are effectively Dark
(02:57:28)
Matter the only thing that can grab them
(02:57:31)
is uh gravity which is way too weak and
(02:57:34)
um and the weak Force which is too weak
(02:57:38)
so in general we're just being
(02:57:40)
irradiated by neutrinos morning noon and
(02:57:42)
night uh imagine that you had slower
(02:57:45)
moving particles than you could build
(02:57:46)
things with them and they just weren't C
(02:57:48)
L to the matter that we see here so they
(02:57:51)
passed through ordinary
(02:57:54)
matter if my theories work there'll be
(02:57:59)
incredible things to play with and one
(02:58:00)
of the things that I find fascinating is
(02:58:02)
that it becomes this issue of psychology
(02:58:04)
like why is he pretending that he has a
(02:58:06)
theory I'm not
(02:58:08)
pretending uh why does he think you know
(02:58:11)
who does he think he is and I just I
(02:58:13)
look at it and I just think my gosh you
(02:58:15)
guys have all lost the plot
(02:58:19)
the world right now needs
(02:58:22)
hope and it needs a quest it needs
(02:58:25)
something for people to dream about that
(02:58:27)
isn't the same set of questions one of
(02:58:29)
the things that I I don't love about
(02:58:31)
podcasting is that people tend to ask
(02:58:33)
clustered
(02:58:35)
questions and I'm always looking for
(02:58:37)
that interviewer who's going to ask me
(02:58:38)
things that are just
(02:58:42)
like people haven't
(02:58:45)
heard
(02:58:46)
um mostly what we do is we just do
(02:58:49)
retreads of the same
(02:58:52)
old questions and it's not a critique of
(02:58:56)
either one of us as interviewers it's
(02:58:58)
just we don't know how to get out of our
(02:58:59)
traffic circle where we go around and
(02:59:01)
around I'm trying to build the most
(02:59:04)
exciting thing in the
(02:59:06)
world which is Hope and a
(02:59:10)
future and access to the source code of
(02:59:14)
reality through through differential
(02:59:16)
equations and geometric structures
(02:59:19)
the that sounds crazy to
(02:59:23)
people yeah well look around you how
(02:59:25)
much of this was here in
(02:59:27)
1700s now go
(02:59:29)
away if if you're not understanding that
(02:59:32)
we've changed we've progressed you've
(02:59:34)
lived through a time of stagnation and
(02:59:35)
I'm sorry about that I can't help
(02:59:37)
you computers were the only thing that
(02:59:40)
really really took off during this
(02:59:42)
period of
(02:59:44)
time so think about if science
(02:59:47)
progressed the way computer computers
(02:59:48)
progressed over the last 50 years your
(02:59:51)
world would be completely
(02:59:53)
unrecognizable now what do we have we
(02:59:55)
have a wood table mugs exposed brick
(02:59:59)
glass metal there's nothing here that's
(03:00:03)
astonishing except the
(03:00:06)
computers that thing that iPad or
(03:00:09)
whatever it is is the only astonishing
(03:00:12)
thing to somebody who's looking at this
(03:00:15)
from the point of view of 1971
(03:00:22)
that's terrible okay so you've all lost
(03:00:24)
the plot don't blame me that I haven't
(03:00:27)
that's what I work on I'm going to try
(03:00:29)
to make sure that you have options that
(03:00:31)
your kids don't have to die on this
(03:00:34)
planet Elon is exactly right about this
(03:00:38)
stuff the only thing he has wrong is
(03:00:39)
chemical rockets in
(03:00:41)
Mars I'm sorry he used it as an adverti
(03:00:44)
for
(03:00:45)
SpaceX but he was right about everything
(03:00:47)
else
(03:00:51)
Eric Weinstein ladies and gentlemen Eric
(03:00:54)
I appreciate you I always enjoy coming
(03:00:55)
and sitting down with you uh these ones
(03:00:59)
fly by I'm looking forward to the next
(03:01:00)
one as well thanks for having me Chris
(03:01:03)
thank you very much for tuning in if you
(03:01:04)
enjoyed that episode with Eric you will
(03:01:07)
love my last episode with Eric which was
(03:01:09)
also 3 hours long and you can watch
(03:01:11)
right here go on give it a tap
