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Joe Rogan Experience #1309 - Naval Ravikant — Transcript

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0:00two
0:01one boom all right we're live thank you
0:03very much for doing this man i really
0:04appreciate it i've been absorbing your
0:06information and listening to you talk
0:08for uh quite a while now so it's uh it's
0:11great to actually meet you thanks for
0:12having me my pleasure my pleasure you
0:14are one of the rare guys
0:17that is uh you're a big investor
0:20you are um you're deep in the tech world
0:24but yet you seem to have a very balanced
0:26perspective in terms of how to live life
0:28as opposed to not just be
0:31entirely focused on
0:33success and financial success
0:36and
0:38tech investing but rather
0:40how to live your life in a happy way
0:42that's a it's a it's not balance
0:45yeah you know i think the reason why
0:47people like uh hearing me is because
0:50like if it's like if you go to a circus
0:52and you see a bear right that's kind of
0:54interesting but not that much if you see
0:56a unicycle that's interesting but you
0:57see a bear on a unicycle that's really
0:59interesting right
1:00so when you combine things you're not
1:02supposed to combine right people get
1:04interested it's like bruce lee right
1:05striking thoughts philosophy plus
1:07martial arts
1:09and i think it's because at some level
1:11all humans are broad we're all
1:13multivariate but we get summarized in
1:16pithy ways in our lives and at some deep
1:19level we know that's not true right
1:20every human basically is capable of
1:22every experience and every thought uh
1:24you know you're ufc comedian commentator
1:27podcaster but you're also more than that
1:29you're also father
1:30uh lover you know thinker etc
1:34so i like the model of life that the
1:37ancients had the greeks the romans right
1:39where you would start out and when
1:41you're young you're just like going to
1:43school then you're going to war then
1:45you're running a business then you're
1:47supposed to serve in the senate or the
1:48government then you become a philosopher
1:50there's sort of this arc to life
1:52where you try your hand at everything
1:55and as one of my friends says
1:57specialization is for insects right
2:00so everyone should just be able to do
2:02everything and so i don't believe in
2:03this model anymore of trying to focus
2:06your life down on one thing you've got
2:08one life just do everything you're going
2:09to do
2:10i couldn't agree more and i i think that
2:13sometimes people find certain success in
2:16whatever the endeavor is and then they
2:17think that that is their niche and they
2:19stick with it and they never change and
2:21they almost out of fear
2:24well it's hard because there's a you
2:26know the analogy around mountain
2:28climbing like if you find a mountain and
2:30you start climbing you spend your whole
2:32life climbing it and you get say two
2:34thirds of the way and then you see the
2:35peak is like way up there but you're two
2:37thirds of the way up you're still really
2:38high up but now to go the rest of the
2:40way you're going to have to go back down
2:42to the bottom and look for another path
2:44nobody wants to do that people don't
2:45want to start over yeah and it's the
2:47nature of later in life that you just
2:49don't know the time
2:50so it's very painful to go back down and
2:52look for a new path but that may be the
2:54best thing to do and that's why when you
2:56look at the greatest artists uh and and
2:58creators they have this ability to start
3:01over that nobody else does like elon
3:03will you know be called an idiot and
3:05start over doing something brand new
3:07that he supposedly is not qualified for
3:10or when madonna or paul simon or you two
3:12come out with a new album their existing
3:14fans usually hate it because they've
3:15adopted a completely new style that
3:17they've learned somewhere else and a lot
3:19of times they'll just miss completely so
3:21you have to be willing to be a fool
3:24and kind of have that beginner's mind
3:25and go back to the beginning to start
3:27over if you're not doing that you're
3:28just getting older yeah i mean i don't
3:30even know if it's willing to be a fool
3:32it's just to me that the most exciting
3:34thing is to try to get better at
3:36something to learn
3:37things i mean it's really exciting when
3:39you just have incremental progress and
3:41something that you're completely new to
3:43yeah i live for the aha moment that
3:46moment when you connect two things
3:47together that you hadn't connected
3:49together before and it fits nicely and
3:51solidly and it kind of helps form a
3:53steel framework of understanding in your
3:55mind that you can then hang other ideas
3:57off of that's what i live for yeah it's
4:00like curiosity fulfilled and it's what
4:01little children do too you know my
4:03little son is always asking why why why
4:06why why and i always try and answer him
4:08and half the times i realize actually i
4:10don't really understand why i just have
4:11a memorized answer for you but that's
4:13not really understanding
4:15yeah those are weird conversations right
4:17when you're you're talking to your kids
4:18and you say look uh the reality is i
4:21don't know a lot of things yes i've just
4:23memorized a lot of things
4:25and there's certain things that you just
4:27can't know yeah you realize that you
4:29know you have
4:31you have answers for a few things that
4:32you've thought through then you sort of
4:34have cover-ups like like trap doors like
4:36don't go here this is just a cover-up i
4:38don't really know the answer to what the
4:40meaning of life is or how we got here
4:42yes and then you've got a whole bunch of
4:43memorized stuff because a lot of your uh
4:46a lot of intelligence these days just
4:47the external brain pack of civilization
4:49i know it's out there i know the answers
4:51are out there know how to look them up
4:52and i've memorized some of them and i i
4:54kind of understand how money works and
4:55the federal reserve prints it and what
4:57this government thing is but not really
4:59right
5:00so not good enough to teach it in
5:02university yeah yeah
5:04uh
5:04i think people do that with almost
5:07everything in life these days in terms
5:09of like have a like a one page a one
5:11cheat like a brief summary of what and
5:15the explanation for what this very
5:17complex subject might be tldr right
5:19don't give me the don't give me the
5:21lecture give me the book don't give me
5:22the book give me the blog post don't
5:23give me the blog post give me the tweet
5:25don't give me the tweet i just i already
5:26know yeah i got really fascinated by the
5:29way you read because i thought there was
5:31something wrong with me by doing that
5:33but you you don't really just read a
5:36book to completion you read and then you
5:39pick something else up and you just kind
5:41of go based on your whims whatever
5:43you're interested in well i was raised
5:45by my i was raised by a single mom in
5:47new york and she used the local library
5:49as a daycare center because it was a
5:51very tough neighborhood and so she would
5:53basically say when you get back from
5:54school go straight to the library and
5:56don't come out
5:57until i pick you up late at night so i
5:59used to basically live in the library
6:00and i read everything i read every
6:01magazine i read every pictograph or
6:04every book or every map i just ran out
6:06of stuff to read i just read everything
6:07so i got over this idea of
6:10that reading a large number of books or
6:12reading a book to completion as a vanity
6:14metric because really
6:15when people are putting up photos on
6:17twitter instagram of look at my pile of
6:19books that i'm reading it's a show-off
6:21thing it's a signaling thing yeah sure
6:23and the reality is i would rather read
6:25the best hundred books over and over
6:27again until i absorb them rather than
6:29read all the books right yeah because
6:31your your brain has finite information
6:34in a finite space
6:35you get enough advice it all cancels to
6:37zero
6:38there's a lot of nonsense in books out
6:40there too so
6:42i don't read anymore to complete books i
6:44read to satisfy my genuine intellectual
6:47curiosity
6:48and it can be anything it could be
6:49nonsense it could be history could be
6:51fiction it could be science it could be
6:52sci-fi these days it's mostly sci-fi
6:55philosophy science because that's just
6:56what i'm interested in
6:58but i will read for understanding so a
7:00really good book i will flip through i
7:03won't actually read it consecutively in
7:04order and i won't even just even finish
7:06it i'm looking for ideas things that i
7:08don't understand and when i find
7:10something really interesting i'll
7:11reflect on it i'll research it
7:14and then when i'm bored of it i'll drop
7:16it or i'll flip to another book
7:18thanks to electronic books i've got 50
7:1970 books open at any time in my kindle
7:22or ibooks and i'm just bouncing around
7:24between them
7:26it's also a little bit of a defense
7:28mechanism to how in modern society we
7:30get too much information too quickly and
7:32so our attention spans are very low so
7:35you get twitter you get instagram you
7:37get facebook you're just used to being
7:39bombarded with information so you can
7:42take that to you you can view that as a
7:44negative and be like i have no attention
7:46span or you could view that as a
7:47positive i multitask really well and i
7:49can dig really fast i can if i find a
7:51thread that's interesting i can follow
7:53it through five social networks through
7:54the web through the libraries through
7:56the books and i can really get to the
7:58bottom of this thing very quickly it's
8:00like the library of alexandria that i
8:02can research at my disposal so i i no
8:04longer track books read or even care
8:06about books read it's about
8:08understanding concepts yeah you brought
8:10up two awesome points first of all the
8:12the social media aspect of of books and
8:15basically anything it's like
8:16it's such a weird way to display your
8:19life because it's you know you're
8:20displaying the best aspects of your life
8:23and some sort of a glass
8:25case
8:26you know just it's an unrealistic
8:28version of your life that you cultivate
8:31and you curate
8:32and i'm i'm as guilty of that as anybody
8:35everybody's guilty of it i'm guilty of
8:37it too yeah you know i mean i pose with
8:38my dog every time i run
8:40yeah we're always signaling yeah it's
8:43like rather than really looking at
8:45yourself you're looking at how other
8:46people look at you so it's like this one
8:48remove mental image and it's kind of a
8:50disease because social media is making
8:52celebrities of all of us and celebrities
8:55the most miserable people in the world
8:56right because they're this strong
8:58self-image that gets built up it gets
9:00built up by compliments every time
9:02somebody pays you or me a compliment and
9:04we're like oh well thank you right then
9:05that builds up an image of who we are
9:07and then one idiot comes along one out
9:10of ten one out of a hundred and they can
9:11easily tear it down because it doesn't
9:13take many insults to cancel out a lot of
9:15compliments and now you're carrying
9:16around this big weighty self-image and
9:18it's just very easy to be attacked and
9:21because you're you're famous or you're
9:22well known people want to attack you so
9:25being a celebrity is no good it's
9:27actually a problem
9:28like one of my tweets is and these are
9:31all reminders to myself is you want to
9:32be rich and anonymous not poor and
9:34famous
9:36there's benefits to it of course of
9:38course but we wouldn't do it it has
9:40unusual
9:41problems that you don't get trained for
9:45and you really will not understand
9:47unless you experience it you know i was
9:49having this conversation with my wife we
9:50were talking about um people that just
9:52come up to you and they don't care what
9:55you're doing they don't care if i'm with
9:57my daughter if i'm holding her if i'm
9:59feeding her for you know we're in the
10:01middle of an intense conversation she's
10:03crying she could be crying and some bro
10:06will come over and just immediately have
10:08to take a picture doesn't care his needs
10:10supersede the daughter
10:12and my wife was saying i that before she
10:15knew me she used to think that that's
10:18just part of the price of being famous
10:20that people people like you that's just
10:22part of the price being famous and now
10:24when it interrupts her life and you know
10:27it interrupts the children and it
10:28interrupts friends and you know she now
10:31she's like this is annoying like this is
10:33not this is not healthy this is not a
10:35smart way to to interact with people and
10:38that people have this weird challenge
10:40this weird thing that if you're if you
10:42become famous there's this weird
10:43challenge where people just want to come
10:45to you especially today because if they
10:46can get a photo of you then that boosts
10:49their social media profile
10:50like hey i'm sitting here with the vault
10:52look at that smile
10:55anonymity is a privilege on the other
10:56hand it's self-inflicted i mean we
10:58brought it on ourselves yeah we don't
10:59think we knew what it was though we did
11:01but we carry on so yeah
11:04it tells us we are getting something out
11:05of it so i you know there are times when
11:08someone will approach me in public and
11:09i'm a little resentful and there are
11:10other times i'm just like actually i'm
11:12really grateful that you know i worked
11:13for this i got this right this is the
11:15payoff just embrace it smile grit and
11:18bear it but you have a different sort of
11:19celebrity too right you're you're a hero
11:22amongst investors
11:23and amongst i mean you've just i'm a
11:25hero
11:26among young male geeks
11:29which is those are some of my favorite
11:31people right but that's not the kind of
11:32celebrity i think most people set out to
11:34get especially most guys right right
11:36right you want the cute females yeah
11:38yeah i look at my brief little youtube
11:42clips i have a tiny little podcast going
11:44now and it's like 95 mail oh sure yeah
11:48this is very highly 18 to 35. yeah we
11:51what do we what is the numbers
11:53yeah it's in the 90s yeah um you you did
11:56that one you do that one very small
11:58podcast where you just have small like
12:01three or four minute clips
12:03yeah so what it was i i did a tweet
12:04storm uh called how to get rich without
12:07getting lucky and it got pretty popular
12:08in twitter and it's really about wealth
12:11creation i just use the clickbaity title
12:13and it's trying to basically lay out
12:15timeless principles of wealth creation
12:17that if you absorb them you become the
12:19kind of person who can create wealth
12:20create business make money
12:23and my theory behind that is like
12:25there are three things everybody wants
12:27there's actually more than three but
12:29let's just start with three the three
12:30basics everybody wants to be wealthy
12:33everybody wants to be happy and
12:34everybody wants to be fit
12:36and i know there's a lot of virtue
12:37signal that goes on like we don't want
12:39to money and you know i don't care about
12:41being happy and happiness is for stupid
12:43people but let's face it like you want
12:45to be rich and happy and healthy that's
12:47the trifecta now of course you also want
12:49an internally calm state of mind you
12:50want a loving household so there are
12:52other things that come into it but those
12:53three i think
12:54they can actually be taught right and
12:57the fitness i'm not going to teach there
12:58are a lot of people who you've had on
13:00here including yourself who know a heck
13:01of a lot more about fitness and health
13:03than i do
13:04but
13:05i was born poor and miserable and uh i'm
13:08now pretty well off and i'm very happy
13:11and i don't and i worked at those and so
13:13i've learned a few things there are some
13:14principles and so i try to lay them out
13:17but in a timeless manner where you can
13:19kind of figure it out yourself because
13:21at the end of the day i can't really
13:22teach anything i can only inspire you
13:23and maybe give you a few hooks so you
13:25can remember things when they happen or
13:27put a name to them so this podcast
13:30actually ended up explaining this tweet
13:32storm so there's a tweet storm with like
13:3436 38 tweets got very famous got
13:36translated to dozens of languages
13:40and these were principles that i came up
13:42with for myself when i was really young
13:44around 13 14
13:46and i've been carrying them in my head
13:48for 30 years and i've been sort of
13:50living them and over time i just
13:52realized like sadly or fortunately the
13:55thing that i got really good at was
13:57looking at businesses and figuring out
13:59the point of maximum leverage to
14:00actually create wealth and capture some
14:02of that
14:03and do it in a very long-term kind of
14:05way not let the you know banker
14:07crash the economy get filled out kind of
14:09way but you know build businesses and
14:12help people and provide value kind of
14:14way
14:15especially when applied to modern
14:16technology and leverage in this age of
14:18infinite leverage that we live in
14:21so the podcast is just explaining each
14:23tweet so these are little three four
14:24five minute snippets
14:26i don't like to say the same thing twice
14:28i don't like to explain in detail
14:31i just i i feel like if you have
14:33something original and interesting to
14:34say you should say it otherwise it's
14:36probably been said better so that
14:38podcast tries to be information dense it
14:41tries to be very concise it tries to be
14:43high impact it tries to be timeless
14:45and it has all the information i think
14:47you need the principles that if you
14:49absorb these and you work hard over 10
14:51years you get what you want
14:53so i've got the one on wealth creation
14:55i'm going to attempt to do one on
14:58happiness is a big word but you know
15:00happiness and inner peace and calm and
15:02all that because what you want is you
15:04don't want to be the guy who succeeds in
15:07life while being high strung high stress
15:09and unhappy and leading the trail of
15:11emotional wreckage with you and your
15:12loved ones which is more common than not
15:15yeah because you got to focus and it's
15:16very hard to be great at everything you
15:18want to be the guy or the gal who gets
15:20there calmly
15:22you know quietly
15:24without struggle
15:26uh you want to be the person who's the
15:28when there's a crisis going on you want
15:30to be the calmest coolest cucumber in
15:32the room who still also figures out the
15:34correct answer um if you can be you were
15:37one of the things that you were saying
15:38is that you feel like happiness is
15:40something that you can learn and then
15:41you can teach yourself to be happy even
15:44just by adopting the mindset that you
15:46are a happy person and proclaiming that
15:49to your friends and so you've sort of
15:51developed a social contract i'm a happy
15:54person and i have to live up to that
15:57yeah i've got hundreds of techniques but
15:59then how did you develop that one
16:02well
16:03there's just a there's social
16:04consistency right humans have a need to
16:06be highly consistent with their past
16:09pronouncements so the way i started my
16:11first tech company was i was in working
16:13inside a larger organization and i told
16:15everybody that i was going to go start a
16:16company i was like i hate this place i'm
16:18going to do my own thing i'm going to be
16:20successful entrepreneur six months past
16:23nine months pass then people start
16:25you're still here i thought you were
16:26going to go start a company
16:28are you lying right that was the
16:30implication so we kind of know this
16:32right social contracts are very powerful
16:35like if you want to give up drinking
16:36right and you're not serious about it
16:38you'll say i'm going to cut back i'm
16:39going to have only one drink a night i'm
16:41going to only drink on weekends you tell
16:43yourself but if you're serious you'll
16:45announce it on facebook you'll tell all
16:47your friends you'll tell your wife
16:49you'll say i'm done drinking i'm
16:50throwing everything out of the house
16:51you'll never see me drink again when you
16:53say that you know you're serious
16:55so i think a lot of these are choices
16:57that we make and happiness is just one
16:59of those choices
17:00and this is unpopular to say because
17:02there are people who are actually
17:03depressed you know chemically or what
17:04have you and there are people who don't
17:06believe that it's possible because then
17:08it creates a responsibility on them it
17:10says oh now if i'm you're saying if i'm
17:12not happy that's my fault
17:14i'm not saying that but i'm saying that
17:16just like fitness can be a choice health
17:18can be a choice nutrition can be a
17:20choice working hard and making money can
17:22be a choice happiness is also a choice
17:25if you're so smart how come you aren't
17:28happy how come you haven't figured that
17:29out that's my challenge to all the
17:31people who think they're so smart and so
17:33capable if you're so smart and capable
17:35why can't you change this
17:38there are a bunch of people though that
17:39actually take pleasure in being
17:41miserable
17:42there's something about the
17:45pursuit of excellence
17:47and of success that supersedes all other
17:50pursuits
17:51that in in their eyes it is
17:54it is that the peak
17:56the pinnacle the most important thing
17:59it's not a trade-off
18:01i would argue that if now when i say
18:03happy happy is one of those words that
18:04means a zillion different things right
18:06it's like love right what does that mean
18:08right i love cheese yeah i'm going to
18:09define it a little bit more tightly
18:11right
18:12so
18:14let's go back to desire right this is
18:16old old buddhist wisdom i'm not saying
18:18anything original but
18:20desire to me is a contract that you make
18:22with yourself to be unhappy until you
18:24get what you want
18:26okay and i keep that in front of mine so
18:28when i'm unhappy about something i look
18:30for what is the underlying desire that i
18:32have that's not being fulfilled it's
18:34okay to have desires you're a biological
18:36creature you're put on this earth you
18:38have to do something you have to have
18:39desires you have a mission but don't
18:41have too many don't pick them up
18:43unconsciously don't pick them up
18:44randomly don't have thousands of them my
18:46coffee is too cold doesn't taste quite
18:48right i'm not sitting perfectly oh i
18:50wish it was warmer uh you know my dog
18:53you know pooped in the lawn i didn't
18:54like that whatever it is pick your one
18:56overwhelming desire it's okay to suffer
18:59over that one but on all the others you
19:01want to let them go so you can be calm
19:02and peaceful and relaxed and then you'll
19:05perform a better job
19:07most people when you're unhappy like a
19:08depressed person
19:10it's not that they have very clear calm
19:12mind they're too busy in their mind
19:14their sense of self is too strong
19:15they're sitting indoors all the time
19:17their minds working working working
19:18they're thinking too much well if you
19:20want to be a high performance athlete
19:22how good of an athlete are you going to
19:23be if you're always having epileptic
19:25seizures if you're always like twitching
19:27and running around and like jumping and
19:29your your limbs are flailing out of
19:30control the same way if you want to be
19:33effective in business you need a clear
19:35calm cool collected mind warren buffett
19:38plays bridge all day long and goes for
19:40walks in the sun he doesn't sit around
19:42like constantly loading his brain with
19:43non-stop information and and getting
19:46worked up about every little thing
19:48we live in an age of infinite leverage
19:51what i mean by that is that your actions
19:53can be multiplied a thousand fold either
19:55by broadcasting at a podcast or by
19:57investing capital or by having people
19:59work for you or by writing code so
20:01because of that the impacts of good
20:03decision making are much higher than
20:05they used to be because now you can
20:07influence thousands or millions of
20:08people through your decisions or your
20:10code
20:11so
20:12a clear mind leads to better judgment
20:15leads to a better outcome so a happy
20:18calm peaceful person will make better
20:21decisions and have better outcomes so if
20:23you want to operate at peak performance
20:25you have to learn how to tame your mind
20:27just like you have to learn how to tame
20:29your body
20:30i love what you're saying warren buffett
20:32might not be the best example because he
20:34drinks like i think six coca-colas a day
20:36and he eats mostly mcdonald's and he's
20:38still alive somehow so that shows you
20:40that low stress is more nobody looks
20:42like [ __ ] like how old is he
20:44i mean he's he's a fairly old man
20:46charlie mungers i think in his 90s right
20:48yeah he's made it really far i wonder
20:50what warren's doing you know i mean just
20:53he's got to know that's bad for him but
20:54it's terrible he doesn't care he doesn't
20:56care i think he's just a little stressed
20:57yeah stresses right so he just enjoys
21:00that coca-cola and that's probably
21:02maybe there is a trade-off right like
21:04maybe him enjoying that junk food and
21:06that coke just ah
21:08that that pleasing of the mind is maybe
21:11better than him just eating
21:12wheatgrass shots and yeah and
21:15salads and just being yeah just super
21:18worked up about everything it's like if
21:20you need your glass of red wine to
21:21de-stress and calm down that's probably
21:23better than you flying off the rails
21:24right right and i think that that's
21:26applicable not just in business but in
21:28probably any pursuit and i like what
21:30you're saying about allow that one thing
21:33to be your obsession
21:36but everything else just you know learn
21:38how to learn how to let things go pick
21:39your battles
21:40and
21:42we like to think that we we like to view
21:45the world as linear which is
21:47i'm going to put in eight hours of work
21:49i'm going to get back eight hours of
21:50output right it doesn't work that way
21:53guy running the corner grocery store is
21:54working just as hard or harder than you
21:56and me how much output is he getting
21:58what you do who you do with how you do
22:01it way more important than how hard you
22:02work right outputs are
22:05non-linear based on the quality of the
22:06work that you put in the right way to
22:08work is like a lion you don't you and i
22:10are not like cows we're not meant to
22:12graze all day right we're meant to hunt
22:14like lions we're closer to carnivores in
22:16our omnivorous development than we are
22:18to herbivores um we don't tell vegans
22:20that yeah sorry
22:22look i wish all that stuff worked i
22:24don't want to eat meat this future
22:26generation will look back at us as worse
22:28than slavers you know because the
22:29holocaust we're committing with the
22:30animals but they'll have artificial
22:32meats that taste and are healthier is uh
22:34better than the real thing so allegedly
22:37allegedly but so as a modern
22:40knowledge worker athlete as an
22:42intellectual athlete you want to
22:44function like an athlete which means you
22:46train hard then you sprint
22:49then you rest then you reassess you get
22:52your feedback loop then you train some
22:53more
22:54then you sprint again then you rest then
22:56you reassess this idea that you're going
22:58to have linear output just by cranking
23:00every day at the same amount of time
23:02same that's
23:03that's machines you know machines should
23:05be working nine to five humans are not
23:07meant work nine of are not meant to work
23:09nine to five no i agree wholeheartedly
23:11but that's it
23:13for people that are
23:14working for someone there's not really
23:16that option
23:18so that's unfortunately the the rub
23:20right that's kind of where my tweet
23:22storm starts which is
23:24first of all the first thing if you're
23:26going to make money is that you're not
23:27going to get rich renting at your time
23:29even lawyers and doctors who are
23:31charging three four 500 an hour they're
23:33not getting rich because their lifestyle
23:34is slowly ramping up along with their
23:36income and they're not saving enough uh
23:39they just don't have that ability to
23:40retire
23:41so the first thing you have to do is you
23:43have to own a piece of a business you
23:45need to have equity either as an owner
23:47an investor shareholder
23:49or a brand that you're building that
23:50accrues to you to gain your financial
23:52freedom
23:54yeah and
23:55i was really fascinated by another thing
23:57that you were bringing up about
23:59working for yourself that you feel in
24:01the future whether it's 50 or 100 years
24:03from now virtually everyone is going to
24:05be working for themselves and i believe
24:07the way you put it is that
24:09the information age is going to reverse
24:11the industrial age yeah if you go back
24:14to hunter-gatherer times how we evolved
24:16we basically work for ourselves we
24:18communicated and cooperated within
24:19tribes but each hunter each gatherer
24:22stood on their own and then combined
24:23their resources with the family unit but
24:25there was no boss hierarchy hierarchy
24:27hierarchy or you're like the third
24:28middle manager down
24:30in the farming age we became a little
24:33bit more hierarchical as we had to run
24:35farms but even those were still mostly
24:37family farms it's industrial work with
24:40factories that sort of created this
24:42model of thousands of people working
24:44together on one thing and having bosses
24:46and schedules and times to show up the
24:49reality is if you have to go i don't
24:51care how rich you are i don't care
24:52whether you're like a top wall street
24:53banker if you have to go if somebody has
24:56to tell you if somebody can tell you
24:58when to be at work and what to wear
25:00and how to behave you're not a free
25:02person you're not actually rich so we're
25:04in this model now where we think it's
25:06all about employment and jobs and
25:08intrinsic in that is that i have to work
25:10for somebody else
25:12but the information age is breaking that
25:14down so ronald kos is an economist who
25:17has this coase theorem a very famous
25:19theorem but it basically just talks
25:20about
25:21why is a company the size that it is why
25:23is a company one person instead of 10
25:25people instead of 100 instead of a
25:27thousand and it has to do with the
25:29internal transaction costs versus the
25:31external transaction costs
25:33let's say i want to do something let's
25:35say i'm building a house and i need
25:37someone to come in and provide the
25:38lumber i'm a developer right do i want
25:41that to be part of my company or do i
25:43want that to be an external provider a
25:45lot of it just depends on how hard it is
25:46to do that transaction with someone
25:48externally versus internally if it's too
25:50hard to keep doing the contract every
25:52time externally i'll bring that in-house
25:54if it's easy to do externally and it's a
25:56one-off kind of thing i'd rather keep it
25:58out of the house
25:59well information technology is making it
26:01easier and easier to do these
26:02transactions externally it's becoming
26:05much easier to communicate with people
26:06gig economy i can send you small amounts
26:08of money i can hire you through an app i
26:10can rate you afterwards so we're seeing
26:13an atomization of the firm we're seeing
26:15the optimal size of the firm shrinking
26:18it's most obvious in silicon valley tons
26:20and tons of startups constantly coming
26:22up and shaving off little pieces of
26:24businesses from large companies and
26:26turning them into huge markets so what
26:28looked like the small little vacation
26:30rental market on craigslist is now
26:32suddenly blown up into airbnb
26:34one example
26:36that's a great example but what i think
26:38we're going to see
26:39is
26:40whether it's 10 20 50 100 years from now
26:43high quality work will be available
26:45we're not talking about driving an uber
26:46we're talking about super high quality
26:48work will be available in a gig fashion
26:50where you'll wake up in the morning your
26:52phone will buzz and you'll have five
26:53different jobs from people who have
26:55worked with you in the past or have been
26:56referred to it's kind of like how
26:57hollywood already works a little bit
26:59with how they're organized for a project
27:01you decide whether to take the project
27:02or not the contract is right there on
27:04the spot you get paid a certain amount
27:06you get rated every day or every week
27:08you get the money delivered and then
27:09when you're done working you turn it off
27:11and you go to tahiti or wherever you
27:12want to spend the next three months and
27:14i think the smart people have already
27:16started figuring out that the internet
27:17enables this and they're starting to
27:19work more and more remotely on their own
27:21schedule on their own time on their own
27:23place with their own friends in their
27:25own way and that's actually how we are
27:27the most productive
27:28so the information revolution by making
27:30it easier to communicate connect and
27:32cooperate is allowing us to go back to
27:35working for ourselves and that is my
27:37ultimate dream even when i run a company
27:39and i have employees i always tell those
27:42people hey i'm going to help you start
27:43your company when you're ready because i
27:45think that's the highest calling maybe
27:47not everybody will get there but
27:49it would be fine if we were even working
27:51a ten person company or twenty person
27:53company is way better than working in a
27:55thousand person company a ten thousand
27:57person company so this idea that we're
27:58all factory like cogs in a machine who
28:01are specialized and have to do things by
28:04rote memorization or instruction it's
28:06going to go away and we're going to go
28:07back to being small groups of creative
28:09bands of individuals setting out to do
28:11missions and when those missions are
28:13done we collect our money we get rated
28:15and then we rest
28:16and reassess until we're ready for the
28:18next sprint has there ever been a study
28:20done on happiness and as it regards the
28:23size of companies
28:25not that i'm aware but to me it's
28:26obvious it's just obvious the smaller
28:28the company the happier you're going to
28:30be the more human your relations are the
28:31less you have rules to operate under the
28:33more flexible the more creative
28:35the more you betray like a human just
28:37because you're able to do multiple
28:38things yeah
28:40um this brings me to
28:42what
28:43is a subject that keeps getting brought
28:45up nowadays is universal basic income
28:48with the oncoming
28:50apocalypse of automation this is how
28:53it's being portrayed by andrew yang
28:54who's running for president i sat down
28:56and talked to him about is very
28:57compelling
28:58and he's a very smart guy and he's an
29:00entrepreneur himself and when he starts
29:02talking about automation and how it's
29:03going to just eliminate massive amounts
29:06of jobs and leave people stranded what
29:08do you when i know you're a guy who
29:10thinks about the future and i'm going to
29:12take this popular point of view on this
29:13i don't i think it's a non-solution to a
29:16non-problem
29:16[Music]
29:18and i mean that in the sense that
29:19automation has been happening since the
29:21dawn of time
29:22electricity came along that put a lot of
29:24people out of work did it right a lot of
29:26people carrying buckets of water and you
29:28know lighting lamps and all those kinds
29:29of things and this was the concern with
29:31factories as well apps everything
29:33literally every single thing that comes
29:34even the printing pros absolutely and
29:36what it does is it frees people up for
29:38new creative work so the question is not
29:40is automation going to eliminate jobs
29:42there is no finite number of jobs we're
29:45not like sitting around dividing up the
29:46same jobs that we're around since the
29:48stone age so obviously new jobs are
29:50being created and they're usually better
29:52jobs more creative jobs so the question
29:54is how quickly is this transition going
29:56to happen and what kinds of jobs will be
29:58eliminated and what kinds of jobs will
30:00be created it's impossible looking
30:02forward to predict what kinds of jobs
30:04will be created if i told you 10 years
30:06ago that podcaster was going to be a job
30:08or that you know playing video games is
30:11going to be a job or commentating on
30:12video games is going to be a job you
30:14would have laughed me out of the room
30:15those are nonsense jobs but yet here we
30:17are so society will always create new
30:20jobs civilization creates new jobs but
30:22it's impossible to predict what those
30:23jobs are so the question is how quickly
30:26is that transition happening
30:28well the reality is even though
30:29everybody keeps talking about this
30:31automation apocalypse we're at a record
30:33low unemployment
30:35explain that where's the transition
30:37donald trump that's hard
30:39all i'm saying is it's it's
30:41i don't see it in the numbers i don't
30:42see it actually happening the question
30:44is how quickly can you retrain people so
30:47it's an education problem the problem
30:49with ubi there's a couple of problems
30:50with ubi one is you're creating a
30:53straight
30:54you're creating a slippery slide
30:56transfer
30:57straight into socialism right the moment
30:59people can start voting themselves money
31:01combined with a democracy right it's
31:03just a matter of time before the bottom
31:0451 votes themselves everything in the
31:06top 49. yeah and
31:08it just it and by the way slippery slope
31:10fallacy is not a fallacy and i know
31:12people like saying that but they haven't
31:13thought it through um but
31:15the moment you start having a direct
31:17transfer mechanism like that in a
31:18democracy you're basically doing it with
31:20capitalism which is the engine of
31:21economic growth you're also forcing the
31:23entrepreneurs out or telling them not to
31:25come here
31:26the estimate i saw for 15k a year
31:30basic income for everybody would be
31:31three quarters of current gdp and of
31:33course gdp would shrink in response as
31:34all the entrepreneurs fled so you would
31:37essentially bankrupt the country
31:39another issue at ubi is that people who
31:41are
31:42down in their luck they're not looking
31:44for handouts it's not just about money
31:47it's also about status it's about
31:49meaning and the moment i start giving
31:50money to you and put you on the dole
31:52i've lowered your status i've made you a
31:54second class citizen so i have to give
31:56you meaning and meaning comes through
31:58education and capability i have you have
32:00to teach a man to fish not to basically
32:02throw your rotting leftover carcasses at
32:04him and say here eat the scraps so it
32:06doesn't solve the meaning problem and
32:08lastly it's nonsense to hand 15k out to
32:10everybody you want to means test people
32:12there's no reason to give it to you and
32:14me so you end up back towards the
32:16welfare system where you do have to
32:18figure out who needs it and who doesn't
32:20so i think the better route is that we
32:22actually establish a set of basic
32:24substance services that you have to have
32:26and we provide those in abundance to
32:29technology-based automation so get basic
32:31housing get basic food get basic
32:33transportation get high-speed internet
32:35access get a phone in your pocket those
32:37are the kinds of things you want to give
32:39people
32:41and finally in terms of the rate of
32:43automation i think we can educate people
32:45very quickly one of the myths that we
32:47have today is that adults can't be
32:49re-educated we view education as this
32:52thing where you go to school you come
32:53out when you're out of college and
32:54you're done no more education well
32:56that's wrong you have all these great
32:58online boot camps and coding schools
33:00coming up they're ones that will even
33:02pay you to go there now
33:04you can educate people and mass and you
33:06can educate them into creative
33:07professions people who are talking about
33:09ai automating programming have never
33:11really written serious code
33:14coding is thinking it's automatic
33:16structure thinking an ai that can
33:18program
33:20as well or better than humans is an ai
33:22that just took over the world that's end
33:23game that's the end of the human species
33:26and i can give you arguments why i don't
33:27think that's coming either
33:30people who are thinking and i know i
33:31take the opposite side from some very
33:33famous people in this debate but we're
33:35nowhere near close to general ai not in
33:37our lifetimes you don't have to worry
33:39about it even in our lifetimes
33:41really it's so overblown uh it's it's
33:43another
33:45it's a combination of cassandra complex
33:47you know it's fun to talk about the end
33:48of the world
33:50combined with a god complex like people
33:52who have lost religion so they're
33:54looking for meaning in some kind of end
33:55of history right right um the reason why
33:58i don't think ai is coming anytime soon
34:00is because a lot of the advances in
34:02so-called ai today are what we call
34:04narrow ai they're really pattern
34:06recognition machine learning to figure
34:08out like what is that object on the
34:09screen or how do you find this signal
34:12and all that noise there's nothing
34:14approaching what we call creative
34:15thinking
34:17to actually model general intelligence
34:19you run into all kinds of problems first
34:21we don't know how the brain works at all
34:23number two we've never even modeled a
34:24paramecium or an amiibo let alone a
34:26human brain number three there's this
34:28assumption that all of the computation
34:31is going at the cellular level at the
34:33neuron level whereas nature is very
34:35parsimonious it uses everything at its
34:37disposal there's a lot of machinery
34:39inside the cell that is doing
34:41calculations that is intelligent that
34:43isn't accounted for and the best
34:44estimates are would take 50 years of
34:46moore's law before we can simulate
34:47what's going on inside a cell near
34:49perfectly and probably 100 years before
34:51we can build a brain that can stimulate
34:53inside the cells so putting it at saying
34:55that i'm just going to model neuron is
34:57on or off and then use that to build a
34:59human brain is overly simplistic
35:01furthermore i would posit there's no
35:02such thing as general intelligence every
35:05intelligence is contextual within the
35:06context of the environment that it's in
35:08so you have to evolve an environment
35:09around it so i think a lot of people who
35:11are peddling general ai the burden of
35:13proof is on them i haven't seen anything
35:15that would lead me to indicate we're
35:16approaching general ai instead we're
35:18solving deterministic closed set finite
35:20problems using large amounts of data but
35:23it's not sexy to talk about that if you
35:25you're talking about mirroring the
35:28actual abilities of cells or are you
35:31talking about recreating the actual
35:34mechanism like what what what is going
35:36on inside
35:38cells and and biological organisms yeah
35:40we just don't know how intelligence
35:42works right we don't know we literally
35:44have no idea so most of the
35:46ai approaches basically say we're going
35:48to try and model
35:50how the brain works but the model at the
35:52neuron level which is saying this
35:53neurons on that neurons often combining
35:55their signal but i'm saying in the
35:58neuron is a cell inside the cell there's
36:00all this machinery going on that's
36:02operating the neuron that is also part
36:04of the intelligence apparatus you can't
36:06just ignore that and abstract that out
36:08you have to model it down to the in
36:10inside the cell level it's also a part
36:12of the biological organism itself
36:13exactly and it has all these needs that
36:17you know the biological organism has to
36:19have food and rest and exactly there's a
36:21balance going on but when you eliminate
36:23all that when there is none of that and
36:24it's just calculations
36:26and we get to a point where it's just
36:29this thing that we've created whether
36:31you call it a computer whether it
36:32doesn't have to be a moving thing even
36:35but a thing that you've created that
36:38stores virtually all the information
36:40that's available in the world stores all
36:42the patterns of all the thinking of all
36:46the great people that have ever lived
36:47all the the writers all the people that
36:49have ever published anything all the
36:51people that have ever spoken any words
36:53stores all of their points all their
36:56counterpoints all their contradictions
36:59applies logic
37:00and reason
37:02and
37:03some sort of sense of the future
37:06and starts improving upon these patterns
37:10and then starts acting on its own based
37:13on the information that it's been
37:15provided with
37:16well first you would have to actually
37:18simulate a structure the human brain
37:20that can hold all that information
37:22you're basically talking about tens of
37:23thousands of brains worth of information
37:24right we can't even build one brain the
37:26next decade or two or three well in
37:28terms of an actual physical brain yes
37:31but what about something that recreates
37:33the abilities of a brain
37:35like i said nature is parsimonious so
37:37we've got this three pound wet wear
37:39object that can hold all this data
37:41nature has been very efficient in
37:43evolving kind of how we get there
37:45i i just don't think computers are
37:47anywhere close to that like they can
37:49hold that amount of data with that
37:51complexity with like the holographic
37:53structure of the brain where it can
37:54recall in many many different ways
37:57and then
37:58i don't think you can evolve a creature
38:00to be intelligent outside of the
38:02boundaries of feedback in a real medium
38:04like if you evolved if you raised a
38:06human being a concrete cell with no
38:08input from the outside they wouldn't
38:10have any feedback from the real world
38:12they wouldn't evolve properly so i think
38:14just dumping information
38:16into into a thing isn't enough it has to
38:19have an environment to operate in to get
38:21feedback from it needs to have context
38:23but isn't that biological i mean what if
38:25you if you have just the all the
38:27information that people have accumulated
38:29and the lessons that people have learned
38:31and you program that into the computer
38:33like if if we can take a computer that
38:35can beat someone at chess the the real
38:37question was well can we make some sort
38:39of an artificial intelligence could beat
38:40someone at go which is far more complex
38:43of chess they figured out how to do that
38:44too and that was a giant shock
38:47right these are still
38:49man-made very closed bounded games
38:52they're they're not they're not on the
38:54road to the unbounded game of life
38:57they are completely artificial but this
38:59didn't go
39:01didn't that give you like a little bit
39:03of a pause a little bit go is not go or
39:06league of legends or fortnite they're
39:07not completely deterministic right
39:10but they're still very artificial very
39:12bounded games being good at go doesn't
39:14mean that you can then suddenly figure
39:16out how to write great poetry right the
39:18creativity for sure is something that's
39:20creativity is the last frontier so i do
39:22believe that automation over a long
39:24enough period of time will replace every
39:26non-creative job or every non-creative
39:28work but that's great news
39:31that means that all of our basic needs
39:33are taken care of and what remains for
39:35us is to be creative which is really
39:36what every human wants
39:38yeah what are you doing right now this
39:40is a creative job sure
39:42um that that brings us back to the idea
39:45of meaning and universal basic income uh
39:48i think the idea of giving someone
39:5015 000 a year
39:53doesn't necessarily
39:56cause whatever what everyone would worry
39:58about is people being on the dole you
40:00would have a bunch of listless people
40:02out there with no meaning in life but
40:04the idea is that fifteen thousand
40:05dollars a year and i'm not necessarily
40:07sure i agree with this i'm not even
40:08endorsing this but that fifteen thousand
40:10dollars a year would just provide you
40:11with the necessities to get by in life
40:13it would give you food it would give you
40:15shelter well it's not gonna stop at 15
40:17because the moment people are like i
40:19mean like 15 like then people would
40:20demand more bernie sanders would be on
40:22this 16 7 45 thousand dollars yeah these
40:26companies are too big yeah that could it
40:28doesn't it doesn't stop it's just it
40:30just goes all the way to bankruptcy the
40:31concern is the slide to socialism
40:34it's obvious yeah i mean heck if i was
40:36on if i was not working and i was
40:38getting my 15 a year i would happily
40:40vote for the guy who would give me 20 or
40:4125 it's just common sense what do you
40:43say to the people that don't believe
40:45that there is such a thing of ethical as
40:47ethical or compassionate capitalism and
40:49there's many people today that are
40:51espousing marxism and they're espousing
40:53some sort of a socialist society where
40:57they believe that capitalism has screwed
40:58people over and
41:00eliminated
41:02the middle class and there are absolute
41:04problems with capitalism i think
41:05monopolies are a problem
41:07i think that uh crony capitalism is a
41:09problem with the government you know
41:10kind of gets in bed with them and sort
41:12of forces things uh i think the bankers
41:14have really you know raped society and
41:16the rest of us are suffering for it yeah
41:19they've essentially taken huge risks
41:21where they privatize the gains and they
41:23socialize the losses so when it fails
41:25they basically get billed out and
41:27bankrupt everybody else
41:30so capitalism has gotten a really bad
41:32name let's talk about its free exchange
41:33free markets
41:35free markets and free exchange are
41:36intrinsic to humans from when the first
41:38person started a fire and somebody came
41:40along with a deer and said hey if i cook
41:42my deer on your fire i'll share some of
41:43it with you right so specialization
41:45labor we trade that's built into the
41:47human species basic math comes from
41:49accounting keeping track of debts and
41:52credits and so on we need to be able to
41:54engage in free trade
41:55the correct criticism of capitalism is
41:58when it does not provide equal
42:00opportunity and so we should always
42:01strive to provide equal opportunity
42:03but people confuse that with equal
42:05outcome when you have equal outcome that
42:08can only be enforced through violence
42:10because different people free people
42:12make different choices and when they
42:13make different choices they have
42:14different outcomes if you don't let them
42:17suffer the consequences of bad choices
42:19or reap the rewards from good choices
42:21then you are forcibly redistributing
42:23through violence it's interesting that
42:25there isn't there are no
42:27socialist working socialist examples
42:29that exist without violence you
42:31basically need someone to show up with a
42:32gun and say okay you're not allowed to
42:34do that you hand this over to that
42:35person so one of the reasons why this
42:37podcast is because i believe everybody
42:40can be wealthy everybody it's not a
42:41zero-sum game it is a positive sum game
42:44you create something brand new you
42:46exchange it with me for something brand
42:47new i've created this higher utility for
42:49both of us the sum of the value created
42:51is positive it's not like status where
42:54it's like you're higher up i'm lowered
42:55down your president so must be vice
42:57president you're a plus one i'm a minus
42:59one and has to cancel a zero
43:01we should all be all for playing
43:03positive
43:04some ethical games the problem is
43:07because of these looters who have ruined
43:08capitalism's name that then you get
43:10socialists coming in and saying burn the
43:12whole system down right you burn the
43:14whole system down we end up like
43:15venezuela or the former soviet union you
43:18know you don't want to be a failed
43:19socialist states with emaciated teens
43:21hunting cats in the streets to eat right
43:23that's literally what happens in some of
43:25these places
43:26so i think it's very important not to
43:28destroy the engine of progress that
43:30brought us here yeah the idea that
43:32socialism just hasn't worked yet
43:34that it needs to the we just need to do
43:36it right if we do it right we can if you
43:38ever 100 million dead and yeah yeah well
43:41let's keep trying all over the world
43:43yeah and and every single time it's been
43:45implemented
43:46have you ever had a conversation with
43:48someone who's a socialist who where many
43:50times some of my better friends are
43:51socialists really we really get into it
43:53yeah and what is there i mean does
43:55anyone have a compelling
43:57perspective at all
43:59i i think
44:00really socialism comes from the heart
44:02right you all we all want to be
44:04socialist
44:06capitalism comes from the head because
44:08they're always cheaters in any system
44:10yes and there's incentives in any system
44:12so
44:13when you're young if you're if you're
44:14not a socialist you have no heart when
44:16you're older if you're not a capitalist
44:17you have no head right you haven't
44:19thought it through so i understand where
44:21it comes from i always liked nassim
44:22taleb's framing on this where he said
44:24with my family i'm a communist with my
44:28close friends i'm a socialist uh you
44:30know at my state level politics i'm a
44:32democrat at you know higher levels i'm a
44:34republican and at the federal level i'm
44:36a libertarian right so basically the
44:38larger the group of people you have
44:40massed together who have different
44:42interests the less trust there is the
44:44more cheating there is the better the
44:46incentives have to be aligned the better
44:47the system has to work the more you go
44:49towards capitalism the smaller the group
44:52you're in you're in a kibbutz you're in
44:53your commune you're in your house you're
44:54in your tribe by all means be a
44:56socialist with my aunts with my brother
44:59with my cousins with my uncles with my
45:01mom with your family i'm a socialist
45:03that's the right way to live a loving
45:05happy
45:06integrated life yes but when you're
45:08dealing with strangers i mean you want
45:10to be a real socialist great open all
45:11your doors and windows tomorrow please
45:13everybody come take what you want see
45:14how that works out yeah
45:17this idea of income inequality that
45:19always strikes me as a very
45:21it's a deceptive term
45:24income inequality well let's flip it
45:26around it comes from outcome
45:28inequality yeah and the outcome
45:30inequality is there because you made
45:32different choices now again going back
45:34if it was because you didn't have the
45:35same opportunities that's a problem yes
45:37so society should always try to give
45:40people equal opportunities so for
45:42example instead of basic income what if
45:44we had a retraining program built into
45:47our basic social fabric which said that
45:50every four years or every six years or
45:52whatever it is maybe it's every 10 you
45:54can take one year out
45:56and we'll pay for you to go retrain
45:58completely and you can go into any
46:00profession you like that has some
46:02earning power and output
46:04hopefully a creative long-term
46:05profession and you can re-educate
46:07yourself
46:08that would be much better for society on
46:10all levels than basically just saying
46:12now you're going to be the dole for the
46:12rest of your life
46:14yeah you just you'd have to
46:16lead that horse to water and then make
46:18them drink it requires people to put in
46:20some effort yeah you know we can't all
46:22just sit around it's just not well
46:23that's my my perspective on income
46:25inequality there's always effort in
46:27equality
46:28and and thought inequality there's just
46:30some people that are obsessed and if
46:31those people become successful it
46:33doesn't mean they stole from you it just
46:35means that they put in the amount of
46:36energy and effort that it's required to
46:38reach where they're at and there's a lot
46:40of virtue signaling that goes on now
46:41where people say well it's because
46:42you're privileged
46:44well you know you know what the greatest
46:45privilege is you're alive 85 of humanity
46:47is dead yeah so how privileged are you
46:49then you're living in the first world
46:51and you're you know you have four limbs
46:52etc so you can take that argument all
46:54the way it's kind of a nonsense
46:55discussion what's a very weird
46:56progressive argument and it as it
46:58pertains to uh race is always a weird
47:00one right because white privilege to me
47:03it although
47:04it you could look at what they're saying
47:06on paper like yes yeah i'm sure
47:09there's more black people that are
47:11harassed by the police i'm sure there's
47:14more black people who are treated
47:15suspiciously by shop owners and the like
47:18but the problem isn't the people who
47:21aren't treated poorly the problem is the
47:24people who treat the people poorly the
47:26problem is racism the problem is not
47:30people that didn't ask to be born white
47:32or whatever they are and they don't get
47:34harassed
47:35so this idea of white privilege or male
47:38privilege or whatever it is that's not
47:41the problem you're just looking at
47:43someone who's not a victim of this
47:46particular problem that you're
47:47highlighting but you're not looking at
47:49the perpetrators of the problem you're
47:51making people perpetrators by simply
47:54existing and having less melanin in
47:56their skin or having their ancestors
47:58come from actually
48:00it's a sneaky way of being racist yeah
48:03and then they say you can't be racist
48:05it's not racist because you're white
48:06that's right that is this hilarious if
48:08you can't be racist against white people
48:10that one that's what there's a variation
48:12of the whole still while i hit you
48:13argument you know stop struggling while
48:15i'm hitting you but it's just so silly
48:17you've just completely changed what
48:18racism means but what's hilarious is
48:20mostly the people who are yelling
48:22racists are not the minorities when i
48:24look on my twitter my social media or on
48:26my news it's white on white violence
48:28virtue signaling yeah it's white on
48:29white violence yeah what's mostly going
48:31on is its elitist whites blue state
48:34whites college educated whites beating
48:36up on high school educated whites blue
48:38collar it's a white collar versus
48:39blue-collar war that's going on and the
48:41rest of us are just kind of watching
48:42like oh that's kind of interesting well
48:44it's also a side effect of the ability
48:47to broadcast right like everyone with a
48:49twitter handle has the ability to
48:51broadcast everyone with a facebook page
48:53has the ability to pontificate and have
48:55these long rambling
48:59these huge statements that people put
49:01out when you you read them it's like how
49:03much time did you put in this what the f
49:05do you put that much time in your kids
49:07or your job or your job or your life or
49:09your future or planning for your you
49:10know how much do you work out a day i
49:12mean are you just these some i read some
49:15people's facebook posts i'm like this is
49:17a preposterous amount of effort that you
49:19put into saying virtually nothing let's
49:21see humans are being creative yeah and
49:23ai do that well that's true it is
49:25creative it's it's creative in a very
49:28odd way right because it's creative and
49:31that they're trying to elicit a response
49:33from people and they're trying to raise
49:34their their social value or raise their
49:37their position on the social totem pole
49:39it's signaling and it's easy signaling
49:41because the kind of thing that everybody
49:42has to agree with you on because nobody
49:44wants to be seen as a horrible person
49:45yeah and it's very hard to make the
49:47nuanced arguments against than it is to
49:49just kind of go along right well it's
49:51also it's some of it is so
49:53cliche that it seems like
49:56i i know one guy who poses as a woman on
50:00on twitter but he does it just obviously
50:03yeah uh what is this the name tatiana
50:06mcgregor
50:07yes yeah yeah
50:08used to be godfrey elwick yes oh is that
50:10the same guy i think so yeah that's
50:12hilarious
50:14i did not they killed his account they
50:16killed his account for 100 sure for
50:18pretending to be transracial that's
50:21right they did yeah
50:22he basically says all the crazy stuff
50:24that people in the left say but he says
50:26the craziest version yes and kind of
50:28just shows how it's okay like
50:30i saw a tweet from recently just said or
50:32her that it's not okay to be white yes
50:36and then some people agree but it's it's
50:39so close to what they say it's so close
50:43that it's like the most artful form of
50:45subtle parody because it's well if you
50:47if you replace in half of these things
50:49if you replace the word white with black
50:51or asian
50:52lynch
50:53yeah yeah it's
50:55it's a strange time in that respect that
50:58there's a favor saying that if you want
51:00to see who rules over you
51:02see who you're not allowed to criticize
51:06excellent yeah that is a that's so true
51:08right yeah that's so true i wonder where
51:11this is going i really do i wonder
51:14because this is it seems like this
51:16newfound ability to broadcast that we
51:18have with
51:19whether you have a youtube page or
51:21whether you have twitter or whatever
51:22you're doing this newfound ability to
51:26spread whatever you're trying to say to
51:28so many people with very little
51:30understanding on the most part from
51:33i think it's actually a great thing
51:35overall yeah now it means that any human
51:37can broadcast any other human on the
51:39planet at any time so for example if you
51:42know a totalitarian dictator were to
51:43come to power and someone was beating up
51:45you know had fascists beating up on old
51:47women like that would get broadcast out
51:49instantly there would be an instant
51:50outrage hue and cry rallying so in that
51:52sense it helps bring attention to the
51:55plight of anybody
51:56but
51:58right now we're going through the phase
51:59where we have this newfound power to
52:00assemble mobs
52:02and people don't know how to deal with
52:04that so it becomes very easy to set up a
52:07mob and have it attack somebody take all
52:09the context out like even this
52:11conversation i'm sure people will take
52:13out snippets put them on social media
52:14and try and get somebody outraged of
52:16course and so you have to learn how
52:18first of all society just has to get
52:19over this idea of outrage like to me
52:22like
52:22outraged people are just people who get
52:24easily outraged are the stupidest people
52:26on social media those are the people i
52:27block instantly uh it's just kind of
52:29very low level thinking right these are
52:31the foots of the these are the foot
52:32soldiers and the mob
52:34eventually society just has to get over
52:36it they have to understand that these
52:37are all snippets being taken out of
52:39context these are doctored video clips
52:41these are just someone who's trying to
52:43get outraged over something
52:45eventually there'll also be anti-mob
52:47tactics like for example
52:49if if i go to someone's twitter feed and
52:52all it is is full of polit political
52:54ranting raving conspiracy theories do i
52:58want to work with this person do i want
52:59to associate with this person do you
53:00want to be friends with this person
53:02their mind is just cluttered with junk
53:04now i don't necessarily blame them i
53:06think that the human brain is not
53:08designed to
53:09absorb all of the world's breaking news
53:1224 7 emergencies injected straight into
53:14your skull with clickbait headline news
53:16if you pay attention to that stuff even
53:19if you're well-meaning even if your
53:20sound of mind and body it will
53:22eventually drive you insane this goes
53:24back to clockwork orange where he's you
53:26know has his eyes opened up he's forced
53:28to watch the news but i think that's
53:30what's happening right now because these
53:31are addictive right
53:33twitter facebook instagram these are
53:36weaponized you have social statisticians
53:38and scientists and researchers and
53:40people in lab coats literally best minds
53:42of our generation figuring out how to
53:44addict you to the news yes and if you
53:46fall for it if you get addicted your
53:48brain will get destroyed and i think
53:50this is the modern struggle right the
53:53modern struggle so the ancient struggle
53:55used to be the tribal struggle you had
53:57your tribe of friends and family you had
53:58your religion you had your country you
54:00had your loyalty you had your
54:01nationality at least you had meaning and
54:03support but now you would struggle
54:04against other tribes
54:06modern life we're so free everything's
54:08become atomized we stand alone you live
54:10in your apartment alone you live in your
54:11house alone your parents don't live
54:13nearby your friends don't live nearby
54:15you don't have any tribal meaning you
54:17don't believe in religion anymore you
54:18don't believe in country anymore it's
54:20fine you got a lot of freedom it's
54:21fantastic but now when they come to
54:25attack you
54:26you're alone and you can't resist so how
54:28do they attack you it's all well-meaning
54:30i don't fault capitalism i love
54:31capitalism but
54:33look at how it happens social media
54:35they've
54:36massaged all the mechanisms to addict
54:38you like a skinner's pigeon or a rat
54:41who's just gonna click click click click
54:43click can't put the phone down the food
54:45they've taken sugar and they've
54:47weaponized it they've put it into all
54:49these different forms and varieties that
54:50you can't resist eating drugs right
54:53they've taken pharmaceuticals and plants
54:55and they've
54:56synthesized them they've grown them in
54:58such a way that you can't you get
54:59addicted you can't put them down porn
55:02right if you're a young male you wander
55:03on the internet it'll like sap away your
55:06libido and you're not going out in real
55:07life society anymore because you've got
55:09this incredibly stimulating stuff coming
55:11at you video games another way to addict
55:13people so you have this you have entire
55:17large factories of people that are
55:19working to addict you to these things
55:21and you stand alone so the modern
55:23struggle as an individual is learning
55:25how to resist these things in the first
55:27place drawing your own boundaries and
55:28there's no one there to help you
55:31that's terrifying
55:33i mean it is a new road that needs to be
55:36navigated by young people that are
55:38there's no map there's no guidebook on
55:41how to handle this our generation is the
55:44transition generation i think our kids
55:46will know how to handle it better
55:48because they'll grow but i hope i hope i
55:50hope too because you're seeing some
55:52ridiculous behavior from people today
55:54that's so common i mean i don't know if
55:56you've been paying attention to this but
55:58there was a guy who
56:00he made a video it turns out it wasn't
56:03even him that made the video at least
56:04that's not what he said but it was a
56:05video where he sort of doctored nancy
56:08pelosi talking and made it look like she
56:10was drunk
56:12and then a bunch of people retweeted it
56:13like oh my god look she's drunk and and
56:16so one of the online publications uh
56:20some website
56:22tracked him down
56:23and doxed him and turned out he's just a
56:26day laborer who is an african-american
56:29trump fan
56:31and thought it would be funny to do that
56:33and it turns out that he didn't even at
56:35least according to him he actually just
56:37put it up on his facebook page what's
56:39even more disturbing is facebook
56:41gave up his information to this website
56:44right
56:44for what
56:46because he made something funny that
56:47made people seem drunk there's a million
56:49of those about me i mean you could find
56:51them i mean i think facebook and twitter
56:54and a bunch of these other social media
56:56platforms are committing slow-motion
56:58suicide through these kinds of
56:59activities
57:00that was a stunning one though that they
57:02would give up this guy who's a laborer
57:04because he made a parody video or he
57:06made someone look foolish with editing
57:08well you now have basically the media
57:10views it as their job to go after
57:12individuals they don't like yeah i use
57:14media with air quotes in that regard so
57:15i don't think this is something that the
57:16new york times would have done
57:18anything responsible but the media is
57:19getting more and more desperate right
57:21because what happened was before the
57:22internet you could have two local
57:24newspapers in every town and you could
57:26have two local
57:27news stations you know tv stations in
57:29every town
57:30and then cnn came along and started
57:32commoditizing the news 24 7 broadcast
57:35and then the internet came along that
57:36was the final nail in the coffin because
57:38what the internet did was it said
57:39actually if there's a fact
57:41that's news you can distribute that
57:43immediately it can go on twitter it can
57:44go on facebook it gets reprinted on
57:46google news a thousand times you know
57:48you're going google news you're like
57:49okay what's the piece of news which
57:51source and three thousand other articles
57:53too many right yeah so news has become
57:55commoditized so the entire news media
57:58has shifted into peddling opinions and
58:00entertainment yes and so now they've
58:02become
58:03a variation between like cheerleaders
58:05shock troops enforcers
58:08you know talking heads so these are now
58:10tribal these are not propaganda machines
58:13signaling for their tribes it's a
58:14right-wing one this left-wing one right
58:15there's the alt-right there's a control
58:17left and the two of them are just
58:18fighting it out using their various
58:20media organs and memes so
58:22basically when you see one of these news
58:24organizations doxing an individual
58:26that's like a tank running over a
58:28soldier
58:29right that's what's going on it's just
58:30war and so there's no there's no such
58:33thing anymore as a neutral media
58:35commentator
58:36the the illusion of objectivity that
58:38journalism had is lost there's no longer
58:41one guy like a walter cronkite that
58:43everyone's going to listen to it's now
58:44all just shock troops fighting wars with
58:46each other
58:47how does this play out
58:49have you thought about it yeah a little
58:51bit uh so what the internet does a lot
58:54of this is internet driven what the
58:55internet does is the internet creates
58:58one giant aggregator or two for
59:01everything one taxi dispatcher one
59:03e-commerce store one search engine one
59:06uh you know
59:08one social media site for friends and
59:10family one for business etc so the
59:12internet is this giant aggregator where
59:14it creates one big hegemon for
59:17everything
59:18and it creates an atomized long tail of
59:21millions and millions of individuals
59:24what it gets rid of is the medium
59:25medium-sized ones in the middle so for
59:28example you might have had like seven
59:29hollywood studios what's all going to be
59:31netflix you had uh you know like
59:3410 large e-commerce players so commerce
59:36players from walmart to
59:39costco to you know kmart and whatever
59:41now it's just going to be amazon and a
59:43ton of small individual brands so that's
59:46the world that we're headed towards one
59:47hegemon and millions of individuals so
59:51where it ends up long term is media will
59:54be a few gigantic outlets you know it
59:56could be the new york times it could be
59:57facebook a few like that and there's
59:59going to be just a really long tale of
1:00:01millions of independent people so this
1:00:03idea of who's a journalist and who's not
1:00:05you know is assange journalist or not
1:00:07everyone's a journalist that's the world
1:00:09that we're headed towards i do think the
1:00:11extreme power the most powerful people
1:00:14in the world today
1:00:15and this is not well known but the most
1:00:17powerful people in the world today are
1:00:19the people who are writing the
1:00:20algorithms for twitter and facebook and
1:00:22instagram because they're controlling
1:00:24the spread of information they're
1:00:26literally rewriting people's brains
1:00:28they're programming the culture and
1:00:30they're doing it very subtly like google
1:00:32i believe that you know one of their
1:00:33execs got up in front of congress and
1:00:35the congressman asked him uh you know do
1:00:38you manipulate search results and he
1:00:40said no we do not manipulate search
1:00:41results really
1:00:43that's your job that is literally all
1:00:45google does google has one job which is
1:00:47to manipulate search results to pull
1:00:49them out of the noise and rank them
1:00:51properly and the out the precise
1:00:53algorithms of how they do that is very
1:00:55hidden very complex but influences the
1:00:57hearts and minds of everybody including
1:01:00all the voters now if google facebook
1:01:03and twitter had been smart about this
1:01:05they would not have picked sides they
1:01:06would have said we're publishers
1:01:09whatever goes through our pipes goes
1:01:10through our pipes if it's illegal we'll
1:01:12take it down give us a court order
1:01:13otherwise we don't touch it it's like
1:01:15the phone company if i call you up and i
1:01:17say something horrible to you on the
1:01:19phone the phone company doesn't get in
1:01:20trouble but the moment this started
1:01:22taking stuff down that wasn't illegal
1:01:24because somebody screamed they basically
1:01:27lost their right to be viewed as a
1:01:28carrier and now all of a sudden they've
1:01:31taken on liability so they're sliding
1:01:33down the slippery slope into ruin
1:01:34sloping to ruin where the left wants
1:01:36them to take down the right the right
1:01:37wants him to take down the left and now
1:01:39they have no more friends they have no
1:01:41allies traditionally the
1:01:42libertarian-leaning republicans and
1:01:44democrats would have stood up in
1:01:45principle for the common carriers but
1:01:46now they won't so my guess is as soon as
1:01:49congress this is this day is coming if
1:01:51not already here it might even been here
1:01:53today actually because this saw
1:01:55something related
1:01:56in the news the day is coming when the
1:01:59politicians realize
1:02:01that these social media
1:02:03platforms are picking the next president
1:02:05the next congressman they're literally
1:02:07picking and they have the power to pick
1:02:09so they will be controlled by the
1:02:11government
1:02:12in in what way how do you think they're
1:02:14going to be controlled you think they're
1:02:15going to have to adhere to strict
1:02:17principles of freedom of speech no first
1:02:19particularly unfortunately it's headed
1:02:20the opposite direction right absolutely
1:02:22i wish it was freedom of speech much
1:02:24more likely they're going to be
1:02:26in the short to medium term they're
1:02:27going to be hauled in for hearings uh
1:02:29they're going to be pressured massively
1:02:31do this don't do that
1:02:32my concern about that is the the
1:02:34hearings that i saw with zuckerberg
1:02:35those people were completely incompetent
1:02:37they don't seem to understand
1:02:38they don't but they're just applying
1:02:39pressure they're just trying to scare
1:02:41him so he'll do what they want and what
1:02:43do they want him to do they want him to
1:02:45basically suppress the other side so if
1:02:48you're right wing you want to suppress
1:02:49the left wing if you're left-wing you
1:02:50want to suppress the right wing and if
1:02:52you just see where these companies are
1:02:54headquartered in silicon valley
1:02:56all the sensors and that's really what
1:02:57they are there are sensors working
1:02:59inside these companies they're just
1:03:00called they're called by different names
1:03:02obviously right it's double speak you
1:03:03call it the department defense when it's
1:03:05the department of war so in this case
1:03:07the department of safety and trust when
1:03:08it releases the department of censorship
1:03:10the sensors are inside silicon valley so
1:03:12it's going to reflect silicon valley's
1:03:13politics which is extremely progressive
1:03:15left ring yeah and if you're not that
1:03:18you really have no place there's i mean
1:03:20right try being a conservative an open
1:03:22conservative at google good luck now you
1:03:25get lynched yes
1:03:26that's crazy i mean i don't
1:03:29think that there was ever
1:03:31a thing like that
1:03:33that was so influential and so
1:03:35politically ideologically one-sided
1:03:38yeah there's a there's a little saying
1:03:40on the internet i think it's called
1:03:41conquest law that any organization
1:03:43that's not explicitly right-wing
1:03:45eventually becomes left-wing
1:03:48and i don't know why that's true but it
1:03:50does seem to me to be true well it's a
1:03:52fascinating battle that's going on right
1:03:54now i mean it really is and
1:03:55conservatives in as far as social media
1:03:58is concerned they're just getting
1:04:00chopped off at the hams left and right
1:04:02yeah what'll eventually happen is that
1:04:05whenever you suppress speech
1:04:08the organism metastasizes then it has to
1:04:11start turning towards other means if
1:04:13you're unlucky goes towards violence
1:04:15if you're lucky they find other outlets
1:04:17i think what will happen is we will
1:04:18start creating decentralized media
1:04:21that's not owned by any single entity
1:04:23that can't be suppressed or shut down
1:04:24that will then start spreading these
1:04:25various things and that will take the
1:04:27place of twitter or facebook that's
1:04:29right but it's going to take 10 years 20
1:04:31years it's not overnight well you know
1:04:33twitter took 10 years to get to the
1:04:34point where it's at this mess right now
1:04:36but it was so interesting to to have
1:04:38jack dorsey and to to talk to him about
1:04:41where it's going where he thinks it's
1:04:42going in his own principles which he
1:04:45believes that it's a fundamental right
1:04:47and he believes that freedom of speech
1:04:48is something that we all should have and
1:04:51that these
1:04:53platforms should essentially be
1:04:56like
1:04:56like utilities like the electric company
1:04:59jack is correct and he has the right
1:05:00vision it's just he's in an organization
1:05:02where the other individuals in the
1:05:04organization feel differently very
1:05:06differently so the organization itself
1:05:07can get hijacked and his timeline for
1:05:10changing things it's like
1:05:13it's decades
1:05:14i mean i i don't know i shouldn't say
1:05:16decades but i mean i was like when do
1:05:18you think that something well there's a
1:05:20part there was one idea of
1:05:23having an uncensored twitter like one
1:05:25twitter that's the wild west like you
1:05:27could have regular twitter or you could
1:05:29try wild west twitter like well that
1:05:30that already exists there's a network
1:05:32called gab yes but gab isn't even wild
1:05:34west twitter they when when people dox
1:05:37people they remove things like that yeah
1:05:40i mean i think there's certainly lines
1:05:42around violence and illegality that you
1:05:44don't want to cross but yes gab is
1:05:46closer to free speech platform but it's
1:05:48still not decentralized it can still get
1:05:50shut down it can still get taken out
1:05:52it's also suppressed heavily yes so that
1:05:54so there and the people on there are
1:05:56right now are extremely right-wing so
1:05:57it's not a pleasant place for someone
1:05:59like me to hang out with all the people
1:06:00that have been kicked off of something
1:06:01that's right so that's right try going
1:06:03over there and being moderate try going
1:06:05over there
1:06:06there's no room for you yeah
1:06:07unfortunately because i don't identify
1:06:09as any party or any creed you know it
1:06:11doesn't work for me
1:06:13is that a problem in silicon valley when
1:06:15you don't identify as anything do you
1:06:17get pressure it totally it used to be
1:06:19okay it's not okay anymore when was it
1:06:21okay like 10 years ago i would say it
1:06:23was okay and then you started seeing a
1:06:24shift yeah and now you have to pick
1:06:26sides otherwise you're automatically the
1:06:28enemy really yeah struggle sessions and
1:06:30all that god struggle sessions i'm
1:06:33exaggerating for effect but but it
1:06:35definitely has that oppressive feeling
1:06:36to it right and you also have to be
1:06:38politically outspoken right yeah it
1:06:40can't be something that you just stay
1:06:42neutral about right it's like when uh
1:06:44tim ferriss i think at some point put
1:06:45out a tweet about how you can't just say
1:06:47anything anymore and you know people are
1:06:48being suppressed and a whole bunch of
1:06:50people who love them from silicon valley
1:06:52piled and said what is it that you can't
1:06:53say what are you afraid to say you can
1:06:55say whatever you want tim go ahead what
1:06:56are you afraid of
1:06:57right they don't like baiting yeah what
1:07:00was he trying to say wow we have to put
1:07:02him in that box what is someone who's
1:07:03thinking about saying something he
1:07:05shouldn't have said exactly now we know
1:07:06one great tweet i saw was you know the
1:07:08left one the culture wars now they're
1:07:10just driving around shooting the
1:07:11survivors wow
1:07:13that's hilarious
1:07:14yeah i wonder i wonder who as has won
1:07:17the culture war there's certainly a
1:07:19battle that's been won in terms of like
1:07:21control of social media control of
1:07:23social media is absolutely left well
1:07:25this is unfortunate
1:07:27for conservatives but technology is a
1:07:29force that also pushes left so if you
1:07:32look all throughout human history like
1:07:34the left essentially grows and grows and
1:07:35grows right why is that why is it
1:07:38inexorably that
1:07:39as some commentators have said leviathan
1:07:41slouch is left right leviathan is the
1:07:43government why does it slouch left and i
1:07:45think a lot of that has been because of
1:07:47technology uh technology has made it so
1:07:50that it makes more like industrial
1:07:51revolution technology we all band
1:07:53together we're wards of the state right
1:07:55contraception is a technology that kind
1:07:57of helps lean leftward it takes away
1:07:59from the family unit abortion is a
1:08:01technology
1:08:02right it wasn't possible thousands of
1:08:04years ago
1:08:05so technology actually empowers the
1:08:07individual the individual means that you
1:08:10have the breakdown of family structure
1:08:11and religion and all that and i'm not
1:08:12mostly opposed to that but it does mean
1:08:15that there's a leftward shift to it
1:08:17now we're getting a small set of
1:08:19technologies that actually can take you
1:08:20more rightward encryption is an example
1:08:23because encryption makes it easier to
1:08:25have privacy it makes it easier to have
1:08:27money that is outside of the state
1:08:29guns 3d printing of guns is an example
1:08:31of a technology that is more of a
1:08:33rightward shift
1:08:35but generally technology leads the world
1:08:37left
1:08:38yeah it's it's also
1:08:41usually highly educated people that are
1:08:43involved in technology in the first
1:08:45place and i think
1:08:47when you look at universities in
1:08:49particular they tend to lean left in
1:08:51this country as well
1:08:53well universities
1:08:55what happened with the university is
1:08:56very interesting
1:08:58universities first when you know became
1:09:00the arbiters of
1:09:02data and intellectualism and what's
1:09:04right and wrong so there's a time period
1:09:06when it was like should we be doing that
1:09:07or not well let's look at the university
1:09:09what do they have to say what are the
1:09:10smartest people the professors the think
1:09:12tanks have to say and the universities
1:09:15got this credibility from the hard
1:09:17sciences so they got this from uh you
1:09:20know physics and math and computer
1:09:22science and chemistry because these
1:09:24deliver real things the manhattan
1:09:26project the microprocessor the space
1:09:28vehicles and so on the electric car
1:09:31so they gain this mantle of authority
1:09:33and legitimacy from the hard sciences so
1:09:36then come the social sciences kind of
1:09:38sneak in then you get economy
1:09:40economics and microeconomics is a real
1:09:42discipline real science real math behind
1:09:44it logic reason and then you get
1:09:46macroeconomics which can be politicized
1:09:48a little bit more voodoo and then you
1:09:49get social studies and then you get
1:09:51gender studies and then you get blah
1:09:52blah blah blah blah blah
1:09:54and so what happened is that
1:09:56because we took scientists to be the
1:09:58high priests
1:10:00of our new world
1:10:01science itself has gotten corrupted and
1:10:03the social sciences and you can tell
1:10:05they're fake sciences because the word
1:10:06science tacked on at the end have come
1:10:09in and hijacked the universities and
1:10:10become the new think tanks
1:10:12and so essentially what you see going on
1:10:15today in the universities is a war
1:10:17between the social sciences and the
1:10:19physical sciences and the crossover
1:10:21point is biology right where you can see
1:10:23like the whole gender is a social
1:10:24construct movement is attacking biology
1:10:27and evolutionary biology
1:10:29just like in the social sphere they're
1:10:30coming after the comedians right but you
1:10:32can see the struggle going on the
1:10:33universities and i would say the
1:10:35physical sciences are essentially losing
1:10:37that war
1:10:39what can be done
1:10:40or is it just something that has to play
1:10:42out is it do we have to realize the
1:10:43consequences of the foolishness well the
1:10:45good news is the physical sciences have
1:10:47a reality on their side
1:10:50yeah but it's not even i mean
1:10:52in many ways it's not respected
1:10:55yeah but you at the end of the day your
1:10:57aircraft still has to fly
1:10:59uh you know your microprocessor still
1:11:00has to compute so there's only so far
1:11:02they can they can take it uh but i do
1:11:05see for example in biology a lot of
1:11:07biologists are facing this difficult
1:11:08thing where they have to say things that
1:11:10they know are not true to keep their job
1:11:12like what well you had brett weinstein
1:11:14on here
1:11:15right so that's a that's a clear example
1:11:17so there's just
1:11:18the crossover line of what is acceptable
1:11:20and what's not is entering into biology
1:11:22and biology will probably suffer the
1:11:24most
1:11:25synthetic biology for example
1:11:27will you know a lot of this will end up
1:11:29in china
1:11:30because it won't be
1:11:32you you won't be able to map facts and
1:11:34reality
1:11:35and actions together you won't be able
1:11:37to get grants you won't be able to get
1:11:38the adulation of your peers
1:11:41i don't i don't know enough here so now
1:11:42i'm in shaky territory but it's just my
1:11:44sense that that crossover battleground
1:11:46right now is an evolutionary biology
1:11:49economics lost well it's certainly in
1:11:51terms of gender and that that that sort
1:11:54of that seems to be one of the major
1:11:56battlegrounds yeah i mean it's also
1:11:58going to happen for example blank slate
1:12:00theory you know are we nature are we
1:12:02nature
1:12:03um it's kind of uh socially unacceptable
1:12:06to say that you know a lot of it is
1:12:08nature and not nurture or vice versa
1:12:10depending on which side you're on right
1:12:12those kinds of discussions get corrupted
1:12:14they do get corrupted and it's really
1:12:15unfortunate because that's an
1:12:17unbelievably important thing to
1:12:19understand like what makes a person a
1:12:21sociopath what makes a person a super
1:12:24successful person a winner what what
1:12:27makes a person a drug addict
1:12:29what are these factors you can't have a
1:12:32reasonable conversation about climate
1:12:33science anymore right it's not a science
1:12:35it's all politicized you can't even
1:12:37bring it up everyone's got their minds
1:12:38made up already well it's what's
1:12:40uncomfortable to me is people have their
1:12:42minds made up and they don't even have
1:12:44the data
1:12:45well on most of these topics people are
1:12:46talking past each other anyway they're
1:12:48talking about different things like when
1:12:50you get into
1:12:51uh you know when you when you get into
1:12:53gun control for example right
1:12:55one side is talking about the right to
1:12:57bear arms in case a tyrannical ruler or
1:12:59king tries to take over the country the
1:13:01other time the other side is talking
1:13:02about school shootings and you know
1:13:04protecting people in their homes right
1:13:06from crime so they're just talking about
1:13:08two different things right and it's just
1:13:10not politically acceptable to even talk
1:13:12about the same thing or when it gets to
1:13:14immigration the right is talking about
1:13:17uh you know
1:13:18the left is like bundling together
1:13:20illegal immigration and legal
1:13:22immigration into one thing yes right
1:13:24whereas in the on the right sometimes
1:13:26you've got racist hiding in there so it
1:13:27doesn't help their cause right they're
1:13:28talking about two different things yeah
1:13:30if they were talking about the same
1:13:31thing which is how many immigrants
1:13:33should we let into the country and you
1:13:35know what are the criteria for that that
1:13:37would be a very different conversation
1:13:38than no immigrants or everybody comes in
1:13:41and then also on the left you know you
1:13:43have this benefit that everybody who's
1:13:44currently coming in illegally is going
1:13:46to vote for the left because of where
1:13:47they're coming from in their
1:13:48socioeconomic circumstances
1:13:51to me the test of any good system is you
1:13:54build a system hand it over to your
1:13:56enemies to run for the next decade so
1:13:58for example if you want a censorship on
1:14:00twitter or facebook you should build
1:14:02that system and then hand it over to the
1:14:04other side to run so if you're a
1:14:05left-winger who's promoting uh
1:14:07censorship let somebody else running
1:14:09same with immigration if you want
1:14:11immigration system build the system then
1:14:13hand it over to the other side to run it
1:14:15that's how you know it's a good system
1:14:16there's no room for nuance when you're
1:14:18dealing with these political
1:14:20battlegrounds when when you're dealing
1:14:22with right versus left and one side has
1:14:25a clearly established
1:14:28stance that you're supposed to take
1:14:30like gun control is a great example of
1:14:31that right there's no room for
1:14:34what about mental health what about the
1:14:36fact that so many of these people are on
1:14:38psych medications right
1:14:40why is that not being discussed we're
1:14:42running one of the greatest uh
1:14:44mental health experiments in history
1:14:46when we're doping everybody up and ssris
1:14:48yeah and you know maybe if you give 30
1:14:51million people sris maybe like 29.9
1:14:53million are a lot happier and then you
1:14:56have a fraction that commits suicide or
1:14:57detonate yeah you're basically trading
1:14:59the mean for the variance right you have
1:15:01blow up risk
1:15:03yeah there's no room for nuance which is
1:15:04why i stay out of politics largely do
1:15:07they drag you in though sometimes they
1:15:08always try i mean these conversations in
1:15:10this conversation you get to get dragged
1:15:11in sure but i'm sure there's going to be
1:15:13some people here here's the thing about
1:15:14politics because they're we we have a
1:15:17first-past-the-post system what that
1:15:19means is that whoever wins 51 of the
1:15:21vote in this country gets a lot of the
1:15:22power right it's not like proportional
1:15:25representation where the greens have ten
1:15:26percent and you know libertarians are
1:15:28three percent or whatever it's just like
1:15:29you're all democrat in power now we're
1:15:31all republican because of that to win
1:15:34you have to pick one of these two sides
1:15:36right you have you have to choose you
1:15:37can't just you can't just
1:15:39you can't just basically say i'm gonna
1:15:41be
1:15:42uh you know nuanced about it you you
1:15:44can't vote for a third party that's
1:15:45throwing over your vote right i have a
1:15:47friend who's trying to fix that he's
1:15:48starting this thing called a good party
1:15:49where like you kick-start your vote so
1:15:51you combine all your votes you hold them
1:15:52in reserve and then when you have enough
1:15:54to win then you vote that person in
1:15:56power right you don't you don't throw
1:15:57away your vote but outside of those
1:15:59hacks we're never gonna get a third
1:16:00party elected so because of that all of
1:16:03your beliefs have to neatly fit into the
1:16:05democrat bundle or the republican bundle
1:16:07and so when you get into that tribe uh
1:16:10if you signal outside of that out of
1:16:12that bundle you get attacked yeah so
1:16:14it's literally it's making you into an
1:16:17unclear thinker it's making you into a
1:16:19muddled thinker if all of your beliefs
1:16:21line up into one political party you're
1:16:24not a clear thinker if all your beliefs
1:16:26are the same as your neighbors and your
1:16:27friends you're not a clear thinker
1:16:29you're literally just your beliefs are
1:16:30socialized they're taken from other
1:16:32people so if you want to be a clear
1:16:34thinker you cannot pay attention to
1:16:36politics it will destroy your ability to
1:16:37think
1:16:40what dread
1:16:44most of modern life all our diseases are
1:16:45diseases of abundance not diseases of
1:16:48scarcity right old times i may have
1:16:50starved
1:16:51you know old times if i got sugar that
1:16:53was a wonderful thing i should have
1:16:54eaten all the sugar to get my hands on
1:16:55if i gotten a piece of news or gossip
1:16:57that was interesting data that would
1:16:58have helped my life and moved me forward
1:17:01if i'd gotten some brief amount of
1:17:03entertainment whether through video
1:17:04games or magazines or whatever that
1:17:06would have been good
1:17:07now it's all disease of abundance we are
1:17:10overexposed to everything so the way to
1:17:12survive in modern society is to be an
1:17:14ascetic it is to retreat from society
1:17:17there's too much society everywhere you
1:17:18go society in your phone society in your
1:17:20pocket society in your ears you're being
1:17:22socialized right now by listening to
1:17:24this podcast right we're socializing you
1:17:26we're programming you everyone's trying
1:17:28to program everybody the only solution
1:17:30is turn it off
1:17:31the only solution is to turn it off and
1:17:33concentrate on your breathing
1:17:35meditation yeah yes i mean it works it's
1:17:39it's been a lifesaver for me oh i do it
1:17:41and i i do it whenever i get like spare
1:17:43time i was in the doctor's office this
1:17:45morning and uh i knew it was going to be
1:17:4720 minutes so i just sat there with my
1:17:48eyes closed for 20 minutes and i
1:17:50meditated you know when i was growing up
1:17:52there was this statement i think it was
1:17:53pascal he said you know all of man's
1:17:56problems arise because he cannot sit by
1:17:58himself in a room for 30 minutes alone
1:18:00and it's very true i always needed to be
1:18:02stimulated and when the iphone came
1:18:04along boredom was dead i would never be
1:18:07bored again even if i'm standing in line
1:18:09i'm on my iphone and i thought it was
1:18:10great and when i was a kid i used to try
1:18:13and overclock my brain be like how many
1:18:14thoughts can i think at once the answer
1:18:16is only one but i would try to like
1:18:17think multiple thoughts at once and i
1:18:18was proud of that i was proud that my
1:18:20brain was always running this engine was
1:18:22always moving
1:18:24and it's a disease it's actually the
1:18:25road to misery and now that i'm older i
1:18:28realize like
1:18:29you actually want to again rest your
1:18:32mind you want to learn how to settle
1:18:33into your mind now i look forward to
1:18:35solitary confinement you leave me alone
1:18:37for a day it'll be like the happiest day
1:18:39i've had in a while
1:18:41and and that is a superpower that i
1:18:42think everybody can attain
1:18:45the superpower of learning to be alone
1:18:47and enjoying it yeah
1:18:48yeah
1:18:50well i think it's critical and i and i
1:18:52do think that this these times where you
1:18:55just think about things just be alone
1:18:58and think about things are so rare these
1:19:00days
1:19:01and i think
1:19:02during those rare times is when you
1:19:05really get to understand what you
1:19:07actually believe or don't believe
1:19:09yeah it's it's funny when i first
1:19:11started meditating it was really hard
1:19:13right because everybody i think a lot of
1:19:15people who listen to this broadcast
1:19:16they've heard of meditation that has a
1:19:18good rep so everybody tries it they
1:19:19struggle
1:19:20they kind of give it up it's one of
1:19:22those things that everybody says they do
1:19:23but nobody actually does right it's like
1:19:26not eating sugar right everyone talks
1:19:28about how yeah i don't eat sugar but
1:19:29like yeah then right then the dessert
1:19:31tray rolls around and everyone's going
1:19:32for the cookies yeah right
1:19:34so it's become one of those things and
1:19:36in fact it's not even become a signaling
1:19:37thing where it's like oh how much did
1:19:39you meditate i meditated this much or
1:19:41you know there are people now wearing
1:19:42headbands saying with tweety birds a
1:19:44chirp and then when they're in deep
1:19:45meditation i don't i don't know how they
1:19:46make it work but they'll be like i got a
1:19:48lot of trips today how many trips did
1:19:49you get oh my god oh your meditation
1:19:52technique is wrong mine is right but
1:19:54really all it is is the art of doing
1:19:56nothing okay and it's important because
1:19:59i think when we
1:20:00when we grow up right it's all this
1:20:03stuff happening to you in your life and
1:20:05some of it you're processing some of it
1:20:07you're absorbing and some of it you
1:20:10should probably think a little bit more
1:20:11about and work through but you don't you
1:20:12don't have time so it gets buried in you
1:20:15and it's all these preferences and
1:20:16judgments and unresolved situations and
1:20:18issues and it's like your email inbox
1:20:20it's just piling up email after email
1:20:22after email that's not answered going
1:20:23back 10 20 30 40 years
1:20:26and then when you sit down to meditate
1:20:27those emails start coming back at you
1:20:29hey what about this issue what about
1:20:30that issue have you solved this did you
1:20:31think about that your regrets there you
1:20:33have issues there
1:20:34and that gets scary people don't want to
1:20:36do that it's like it's not working i
1:20:38can't clear my mind i better get up and
1:20:40not do this but really what's happening
1:20:42is it's it's self therapy it's just that
1:20:45instead of paying a therapist to sit
1:20:46there and listen to you you're listening
1:20:48to yourself and you just have to sit
1:20:50there as those emails go through one by
1:20:51one you work through each of them until
1:20:53you get to the magical inbox zero and
1:20:55there comes a day when you sit down you
1:20:57realize the only things you're thinking
1:20:59about are things that happened yesterday
1:21:00because you've processed everything else
1:21:02not necessarily even resolved it but at
1:21:04least listen to yourself
1:21:06and that's when meditation starts and i
1:21:07think it's a it's a very powerful thing
1:21:09that everybody should experience and
1:21:11that's when you arrive upon the art of
1:21:12doing nothing well i think it's even a
1:21:14problem that most people are getting
1:21:16their meditation from an app
1:21:18i will not use an app it's sneaky i mean
1:21:20sam harris is a very good meditation app
1:21:22i should say that but you should be able
1:21:24to just do it and many people can it is
1:21:27literally the art of doing nothing yeah
1:21:29all you need to do for meditation is
1:21:31just sit down close your eyes
1:21:33comfortable position whatever happens
1:21:34happens if you think you think if you
1:21:36don't think you don't think don't put
1:21:37effort into it don't put effort against
1:21:39it it's all you need do you concentrate
1:21:41on your breath or do you have a specific
1:21:42technique nothing nothing no you just
1:21:45sit you just sit i think about my breath
1:21:47that's all i do i just need to try to
1:21:49only concentrate on breathing i used to
1:21:51do that but at some level all the
1:21:54concentration every meditation technique
1:21:56is leading you to the same thing which
1:21:57is just witnessing yes and concentration
1:22:00is a technique to still your mind enough
1:22:02that you can then drop the object of
1:22:04concentration
1:22:05so you could also just try going
1:22:07straight to the end game the problem
1:22:09with what i'm talking about which is not
1:22:10focusing on your breath is you will have
1:22:12to listen to your mind for a long time
1:22:14it's not going to work unless you do at
1:22:16least an hour a day and preferably at
1:22:18least 60 days before you kind of work
1:22:19through a lot of issues so it'll be held
1:22:21for a while but when you come out the
1:22:23other side it's great you get rid of the
1:22:25chatter
1:22:26or when the chatter comes it's in the
1:22:28background it's dimmer it's smaller
1:22:30you've heard it before you see the
1:22:32patterns
1:22:33it's more recent it's something you need
1:22:35to resolve anyway
1:22:36and you will get moments of actual
1:22:39silence what is your
1:22:41what's your ultimate state when you
1:22:43meditate like is there a state where
1:22:45you've achieved
1:22:47rarely if ever
1:22:48where you just
1:22:50you you're in bliss or you're in harmony
1:22:53or you're in enlightenment like what
1:22:56it's kind of it's kind of indescribable
1:22:58uh because when you're really meditating
1:23:00you're not there when there's no
1:23:01thoughts there's no experience there's
1:23:03nothing there's just
1:23:04nothing uh so it's it's hard to describe
1:23:07but i would say that uh it's like a
1:23:10you can definitely
1:23:11every psychedelic state that people
1:23:14encounter using so-called plant
1:23:15medicines can be arrived just through
1:23:18pure meditation and i've definitely hit
1:23:20some of those states you've hit some
1:23:22transcendent psychedelic states where
1:23:24you're vaccinating the whole deal i've
1:23:26had trippy visuals i've had the kind of
1:23:28the lights and colors i've had the
1:23:29so-called downloads i've had the
1:23:31realizations i've had the bliss i've had
1:23:33the light i've had the colors but not
1:23:35every time no it's really and in fact i
1:23:38would say that that's a that's also like
1:23:40an experience that you can start craving
1:23:42which will then actually take you out of
1:23:43meditation
1:23:44um where you really and i'm not
1:23:47enlightened or anything close to it so
1:23:49not even the ballpark but my own
1:23:50experience and this is this personal
1:23:52experience is
1:23:53the place where i end up the most that
1:23:55is really the one that i i want to be at
1:23:58is peace
1:24:00it's just peace peace happy
1:24:03yeah peace to me peace is happiness at
1:24:06rest and happiness is kind of peace and
1:24:08motion you can convert peace to
1:24:09happiness anytime you want but peace is
1:24:12what you want most of the time that's
1:24:14interesting you can convert peace to
1:24:16happiness anytime you want yeah if
1:24:18you're a peaceful person anything you do
1:24:20will be a happy activity
1:24:23and by the way being on social media
1:24:25engaging politics will not bring you
1:24:26peace there is nothing less peaceful
1:24:28right and
1:24:29today's day and age the way we think you
1:24:31get peace is by resolving all your
1:24:33external problems but there's unlimited
1:24:35external problems so the only way to
1:24:37actually get pieces on the inside by
1:24:38giving up this idea of problems who
1:24:41thinks you can get peace by resolving
1:24:43external problems other than politicians
1:24:45everybody that's what everybody's
1:24:46struggling to do right why are you
1:24:47trying to make money to solve all your
1:24:49money problems
1:24:50why are you trying to win a politics
1:24:52because then you'll be at peace because
1:24:53your people will have one
1:24:57it's a daunting task to get your [ __ ]
1:25:00together it's easier to change yourself
1:25:02than to change the world
1:25:04that's true yeah and the best way to
1:25:05change the world is to change yourself
1:25:07exactly it's all yeah it's
1:25:10all these people who are shouting on
1:25:11social media the best way is just to
1:25:13actually live the life that you want
1:25:15other people to live
1:25:16like i went down to new zealand and
1:25:18there's this guy
1:25:19that i met with and
1:25:20you know everyone's on social media
1:25:22shouting about environmentalism and
1:25:23conservative and sustain and i go to
1:25:25this guy's house and he was doing a
1:25:27very quietly very gently he was doing a
1:25:29two week long
1:25:30zero waste experiment
1:25:32where he was throwing out nothing so
1:25:35every package that he opened he would
1:25:37keep and he would like clean it up so he
1:25:39would keep his amazon boxes it would
1:25:40keep the little containers even a tea
1:25:41bag if you open the tea bag he has to
1:25:43figure out how to compost the tea inside
1:25:45how to make the tea itself useful how to
1:25:47make the tea bag like a little storage
1:25:48item so there was no trash he was
1:25:50literally living with zero
1:25:52trash waste and he was doing it and it
1:25:55was really inspirational meeting people
1:25:57like him made me far more
1:25:58environmentally conscious than you know
1:26:00any amount of people yelling at me on
1:26:02social media ever will how long did he
1:26:04do that for i think it was two weeks it
1:26:05was hard
1:26:07what the [ __ ] are you gonna do with tea
1:26:08bags
1:26:09he had quite the collection
1:26:11he was filling them with little things
1:26:13he sounds like a crazy this hoarder like
1:26:15a hoarder person with stacks of tea bags
1:26:17in his house a very impressive guy yeah
1:26:19that's a strange way to go about things
1:26:21i i appreciate that i mean
1:26:23look it is entirely possible to somehow
1:26:26or another engineer all of our cups and
1:26:29all of our things and all our about to
1:26:31be biodegradable
1:26:33you know the struggle with the modern
1:26:35environmental movement is that they
1:26:38identify the correct problem which is
1:26:40finite earth spaceship earth this is all
1:26:42they got don't ruin it but they don't
1:26:45have the solution so what they say is no
1:26:47growth no growth no growth well the
1:26:48problem is you got three billion indian
1:26:50and chinese who aren't going to stay in
1:26:52poverty they're going to grow whether
1:26:53you like it or not so you can yell at
1:26:55them you can scream at them you can yell
1:26:57at us and scream at us but that's not
1:26:58going to happen so the only way out
1:27:01unfortunately is again through
1:27:02technology which is you have to build
1:27:04green technology and i give musk a lot
1:27:06of credit you know for being one of the
1:27:08few people who's out there trying to do
1:27:09that so you build things that are
1:27:11biodegradable and good for you and
1:27:13healthier and everybody wants to be
1:27:15healthier chinese want to be healthier
1:27:17indians want to be healthier they want
1:27:18to be cleaner if you say i can clean up
1:27:20your rivers i can clean up your forests
1:27:23i can have your children not get sick
1:27:25with cholera and diphtheria and typhoid
1:27:28i can cure your diseases i can help make
1:27:30your immune system stronger i can give
1:27:32you clean drinking water like that is
1:27:34what causes people to become
1:27:35environmentalists not shouting and
1:27:37screaming at them that they shouldn't
1:27:38grow and they should stop pumping things
1:27:39into the sky and you know they have no
1:27:41concept of that they're just trying to
1:27:43get out of poverty so i think the modern
1:27:45environmental movement
1:27:47identifies the correct problem but then
1:27:49doesn't come up with the right set of
1:27:51solutions that are appealing to people
1:27:53people are not going to give up economic
1:27:54growth they're going to have to get rich
1:27:56first hmm that's yeah that's a very good
1:28:00point but how do you do how do you do
1:28:03both
1:28:04you lower the price of clean
1:28:06technologies massively so you basically
1:28:09make clean technologies cost competitive
1:28:11through subsidy technologies
1:28:13innovation
1:28:14ideally you can subsidize in the short
1:28:16to medium term until the innovation
1:28:17curve is is crossed i mean like tesla
1:28:19doesn't have any patents right right or
1:28:21they they freely give away their patents
1:28:23that's the example of how you can do it
1:28:25um so you know someone in if you want to
1:28:27get rid of plastic such straws
1:28:29yeah you can do it here and there you
1:28:31can get san francisco to ban plastic
1:28:32straws but china's not going to blend
1:28:34ban plastic straws not until you build a
1:28:36paper straw that is you know same cost
1:28:39good durability and then you in and then
1:28:41you educate the chinese like hey this is
1:28:43petroleum you know this plastic that
1:28:45you're doing is petroleum this is bad
1:28:46for you here's the chemical composition
1:28:48here's the things that are going in your
1:28:49bloodstream and they want healthy happy
1:28:52kids also so they're going to have their
1:28:54kids use paper straws maybe straws
1:28:56aren't the best example but you can you
1:28:57know this is true with fossil fuels for
1:28:59example that's that's probably the best
1:29:01one or replacing a lot of plastics with
1:29:03glass and paper and so on
1:29:05yeah there's a new technology that was
1:29:07just rhonda patrick had it on her
1:29:09twitter today about
1:29:11they're able to convert
1:29:13plastic uh waste into fuel
1:29:16and that there's companies that are
1:29:18actively trying to do that now so then
1:29:20in that way plastic waste will become
1:29:22valuable right and it'll become a
1:29:24commodity it'll become something that
1:29:26people are resource now there's certain
1:29:27problems this doesn't solve this doesn't
1:29:29solve carbon this doesn't solve
1:29:30deforestation uh you know so there you
1:29:33kind of have to step in with other means
1:29:34so for example you look at the amazon
1:29:36right everyone's complaining about the
1:29:38amazon being deforested well you're not
1:29:40the poor brazilian farmer right so
1:29:42you're you're sitting here in your
1:29:44comfortable chair like social media
1:29:46hammering away at you know the evil
1:29:48brazilians for deforesting the amazon
1:29:49but the amazon has incredible resources
1:29:52if we really care about it we should
1:29:53turn it into an incredible tourist park
1:29:55and put your money where your mouth is
1:29:56start doing ecotourism in the amazon
1:29:58start paying for it and then maybe take
1:30:00the future rights for all the
1:30:02pharmaceuticals that are going to come
1:30:03out of all the incredible plants there
1:30:04and start selling those off so that
1:30:06people so that maybe give the
1:30:08pharmaceutical companies an incentive to
1:30:10preserve the biodiversity of the amazon
1:30:12say hey if you buy this patch of the
1:30:14amazon you conserve it and you can serve
1:30:16it whatever plant medicines that come
1:30:18out of there that you can then license
1:30:19you get the patent for 20 years or 30
1:30:21years or whatever
1:30:22so i think there are solutions where we
1:30:24as the first worlders who have money can
1:30:26put our
1:30:27money where where our mouth is and go
1:30:29and rescue these kinds of properties
1:30:31that's a very interesting solution but i
1:30:33could see immediate pushback from people
1:30:35that don't think the pharmaceutical
1:30:36company should have the rights to this
1:30:38natural plan okay or the or the
1:30:40government does it and then the
1:30:41government gets the patents and the
1:30:43government will auction off the patents
1:30:45later or they'll worse or they'll
1:30:47license them or whatever it is right
1:30:48well that's often like just this
1:30:51the often the problem is there is no
1:30:53really good solution there's a bunch of
1:30:56solutions that also have drawbacks
1:30:59that's life yeah right that's the
1:31:01trade-off so it's being human very messy
1:31:04yeah it's a constrained environment
1:31:06obviously i skew more towards a private
1:31:08property capitalist type solutions
1:31:10because even though they're not perfect
1:31:12they have been proven to actually work
1:31:14right once something is your property
1:31:15you take care of it right you're not
1:31:17gonna you're not gonna crap all over
1:31:18your own house
1:31:19um but it should probably be temporary
1:31:21property not permanent property you see
1:31:23a lot of countries around the world not
1:31:25doing this no foreign ownership of land
1:31:26thing for example or mexico has no
1:31:29private ownership of beaches right so
1:31:31you can draw the line at certain points
1:31:34yeah do you enjoy doing this kind of
1:31:38thing where you break things down and
1:31:40give your perspective on things and try
1:31:42to illuminate certain complex subjects
1:31:45i'm not trying to illuminate so much as
1:31:48you know talking to you i learn as much
1:31:51as i
1:31:52say and i learn it for myself because
1:31:54i'm being forced to articulate it right
1:31:56i can sit around and think my thoughts
1:31:58all day long but it's a lot of it's
1:32:00going to be nonsense it's not i'm going
1:32:01to because there are gaps in thinking
1:32:03where you make leaps
1:32:05because you're kind to yourself that you
1:32:07don't realize you're making but when
1:32:08you're forced to write it down and this
1:32:10is why i tweet or when you have to talk
1:32:12to somebody you have to complete those
1:32:14gaps and make it a proper logical chain
1:32:17and the mistake that i made when i was
1:32:19young was you know i always wanted to
1:32:20seem like the smartest kid in the room
1:32:22uh you know like just like you probably
1:32:24want to seem like the funniest kid in
1:32:25the room or the toughest kid in the room
1:32:27right we're all losers starting out we
1:32:28want to be winners so we pick the thing
1:32:30we're good at and we double down on it
1:32:32so i always want to be the smartest kid
1:32:33in the room so what did i do i read a
1:32:35lot of books i memorized a lot of things
1:32:38and then whatever i hadn't memorized is
1:32:39pre-google i made it up so it sounded
1:32:41good okay
1:32:42pre-google after google fact checking
1:32:44started and i had to get better right so
1:32:46google improved me that way a lot of
1:32:48people exactly so
1:32:50now what i realize is that the biggest
1:32:52mistake with memorization
1:32:54right because when you're actually
1:32:56trying to live your life in congress
1:32:58with reality
1:32:59you
1:33:00you want to have a deep understanding of
1:33:02what you do and why you do it and so
1:33:04it's much more important to know the
1:33:05basics really well then is to know the
1:33:07advanced knowing calculus wouldn't help
1:33:09you today it doesn't help you in
1:33:10business doesn't help you in most things
1:33:11but knowing arithmetic really will help
1:33:13you really
1:33:14whether it's at the corner grocery store
1:33:16counting change to figuring out the
1:33:17value of your podcast business to
1:33:19figuring out how to do the probability
1:33:21math on you know some action that you
1:33:22want to take so understanding basic
1:33:25mathematics cold is way more important
1:33:28than memorizing calculus concepts and
1:33:30the problem is and this is true of i
1:33:32think all reasoning it's much better to
1:33:34know the basics from the ground up solid
1:33:36foundation of understanding a steel
1:33:38frame of understanding than it is to
1:33:40just have a scaffolding we're just
1:33:41memorizing advanced concepts this is why
1:33:43there are a lot of people i'm sure that
1:33:45you listen to who are really smart they
1:33:47use a lot of jargon and you can't quite
1:33:49follow their reasoning you don't know
1:33:50how they're putting things together and
1:33:52you this deep down suspicion they don't
1:33:53even really understand right
1:33:55so if you look at the the most powerful
1:33:58thinkers especially the ones where money
1:34:00or life is on the line
1:34:02they have to understand the basics
1:34:04really really well richard feynman the
1:34:06physicist was able to
1:34:08he had this piece in one of his lectures
1:34:10where he takes you from counting numbers
1:34:12on your hand all the way to calculus in
1:34:14four pages of text orally but written
1:34:17down is four pages of text and it's a
1:34:18complete unbroken logical chain that
1:34:20takes you through geometry trigonometry
1:34:22precalculus analytic geometry graphs
1:34:25everything all the way to calculus he
1:34:27understood numbers at a core level he
1:34:29didn't have to memorize anything when
1:34:32you're memorizing it's an indication
1:34:34that you don't understand
1:34:36you should be able to rederive anything
1:34:38on the spot
1:34:39and if you can't you don't know it
1:34:41so do you apply that to
1:34:43things other than mathematics everything
1:34:46everything you don't even make attempt
1:34:47to memorize things just make an attempt
1:34:49to understand them you can't help but
1:34:51memorize things but if you can't and
1:34:53this is where twitter is great for me is
1:34:55i try to understand something and then i
1:34:57try to write it down in such a way that
1:34:59i can remember it just the basic hook
1:35:02that'll point towards the deeper
1:35:03understanding and i'm forced to explain
1:35:05it to people and that's how i know i
1:35:07understand something so this is what i
1:35:08meant originally we talked about reading
1:35:10a good book i'll read one page in a
1:35:12night and then i spend the rest of night
1:35:14thinking about it or i'm chasing down
1:35:16references on wikipedia or weird blog
1:35:19posts trying to understand it
1:35:22you know so for example
1:35:24there was a
1:35:25i was dealing with this is a few months
1:35:27back i was dealing with a question of
1:35:29stupid topic but the meaning of life
1:35:32right what's the meaning how could that
1:35:33be stupid though well it's just trite
1:35:35it's right you're not supposed to think
1:35:36about it it's something you ask your
1:35:38parents when you're young they tell you
1:35:39don't worry about it or they'll get a
1:35:40job yeah exactly good job you freaking
1:35:42hippy or here's god god is the meaning
1:35:44of life right and so i was just trying
1:35:46to resolve for myself like
1:35:48what could the answer be right not what
1:35:50is the answer but what could the answer
1:35:52be
1:35:53and so at a core level i was forced to
1:35:54kind of hunt down all these weird little
1:35:56things and really understand for myself
1:35:59and it's got to be personal right but i
1:36:01have to establish for myself what it
1:36:02could and could not be
1:36:04and that gave me some level of peace
1:36:06so now i have to keep asking that
1:36:08question what is the meaning of life
1:36:13i mean you you sh i think the question
1:36:15is more interesting than the answer
1:36:16everyone should explore this on their
1:36:17own but let me just explore a few parts
1:36:19with you right
1:36:21so first is if i gave you an answer if i
1:36:24said the meaning of life has to please
1:36:25god well which god okay judeo-christian
1:36:27god well okay why that one why this
1:36:29thing the problem is it's a why question
1:36:32you can keep asking why forever right
1:36:34any answer i give you you'll just ask
1:36:36why again why again
1:36:38that's right and you end up in a place
1:36:41called agrippa's trilemma okay this is a
1:36:43philosophical exercise but i i kind of
1:36:46thought it through then googled around
1:36:47and there's a thing called agrippa's
1:36:48trilemma
1:36:50and agrippa's trauma says that any
1:36:52questioning like this
1:36:54y will always end in one of three places
1:36:57okay first is infinite regress
1:37:00right why because of this why that what
1:37:02and just keep going forever the second
1:37:04is circular reasoning well a why a
1:37:06because of b or why b because of a right
1:37:08you get trapped in that or the third is
1:37:10an axiom and the most popular axiom is
1:37:13god but it could be anything because of
1:37:15math because of science because the big
1:37:16bang because the simulation right these
1:37:18are all axioms these are all just
1:37:19stopping points
1:37:21saying simulation we're in a simulation
1:37:23or saying it's the big bang is just
1:37:24another way of saying god it's just
1:37:26god's a dirty word so we don't use it as
1:37:27much anymore but same thing so you end
1:37:30up in one of these three dead ends
1:37:32essentially right so there is no answer
1:37:36uh the real answer is because
1:37:40right what is the meaning of life yeah
1:37:41you get to make up your own answers the
1:37:43beauty if there was a single answer we
1:37:46would not be free we would be trapped
1:37:48because then we would all have to live
1:37:50to that answer then we'd be bored like
1:37:51robots each one competing with each
1:37:53other to fulfill that single meaning
1:37:55more than the others back to signaling
1:37:57like i'm better at it than you are but
1:37:59luckily there is no answer so you just
1:38:01do whatever you want
1:38:03the meaning of life
1:38:05it's funny that
1:38:08that what that's the basis of all
1:38:10existential angst that you don't
1:38:12you don't know why you're here and you
1:38:14have this feeling that it could be
1:38:16meaningless
1:38:18it is i mean if you
1:38:20when you start pondering the
1:38:23the multiverse the universe the galaxies
1:38:25the solar system the planet the organism
1:38:29the cells inside the organism the
1:38:31bacteria the parasites right the
1:38:34symbiotic relationship we have to our
1:38:36environment and you start going jesus
1:38:38christ what am i just a little piece of
1:38:40this thing it's like well the answers to
1:38:42all the great questions or paradoxes
1:38:44yeah so for example you're asking like
1:38:46do i matter that's like really the
1:38:48question you asked right well how do i
1:38:49matter in this infinite universe well
1:38:52you know on the one hand you're separate
1:38:54no two points are the same every point
1:38:56is every two points are infinitely
1:38:58different you're completely separated no
1:39:00one will have your thoughts your
1:39:01emotions your feelings your experience
1:39:03so your life is a single player game
1:39:04you're trapped inside your head and
1:39:05you're just aware of a bunch of things
1:39:07going on and that's it
1:39:09on the other hand
1:39:10i cannot say the word joe rogan without
1:39:13invoking the entire universe joe alien
1:39:15comes along says what's that joe rogan
1:39:17what's joe rogan's a human what's a
1:39:19human bipedal ape what's an ape on the
1:39:21earth what's the earth planet what's a
1:39:23planet solar system where was the carbon
1:39:25made inside stars right instead i have
1:39:27to create the entire universe
1:39:30to just say the words joe rogan so in
1:39:32that sense you're connected to
1:39:33everything it's inseparable so
1:39:35the answer to that question of do i
1:39:38matter is i am nothing and i am
1:39:40everything and you'll find this with all
1:39:41the great questions the answers are all
1:39:43paradoxes which is why at some level
1:39:45it's sort of pointless to pursue them to
1:39:47find a trite answer like i'm giving but
1:39:50the act of pursuing them is actually
1:39:52really useful because then it gives you
1:39:55certain intrinsic understanding in your
1:39:57life that brings a level of peace
1:39:59i feel like there's with many people
1:40:01this
1:40:02stress of this question is also
1:40:05accentuated by unhappy lives it's
1:40:08actually accentuated by unhappy choices
1:40:10by being trapped there's a big
1:40:12difference between not knowing what the
1:40:13meaning of life is and
1:40:16god i gotta get the [ __ ] out of this job
1:40:18i have to i can't live my life this way
1:40:20what's the meaning of life if this is my
1:40:22life which is why i always start with
1:40:24let's get you rich first
1:40:26right that's why i'm very practical
1:40:28about it because look the you know
1:40:29buddha was a prince okay he started out
1:40:32really rich and then he got to go off in
1:40:33the woods
1:40:34and in the old days what happened was if
1:40:36you wanted to be peaceful inside you
1:40:39would become a monk you would renounce
1:40:41everything you would become an ascetic
1:40:42you would give everything up you
1:40:43renounce women men you'd renounce
1:40:46children you'd announce money you'd
1:40:47renounce politics science technology
1:40:49everything and you would go out in the
1:40:50woods by yourself you could give
1:40:51everything up to be free inside
1:40:54well today we have this wonderful
1:40:55invention called money where you can
1:40:57just store stuff up in a bank account
1:40:59okay and you can basically
1:41:01save up you can you can work really hard
1:41:03you can do great things for society and
1:41:05society will give you money for giving
1:41:07it things that it wants and it doesn't
1:41:08know how to get
1:41:10and then you can save that up and you
1:41:11can live well below with your means and
1:41:13you can find a certain freedom in that
1:41:15and that will give you the time and the
1:41:16energy to pursue your own internal peace
1:41:18and happiness
1:41:20so i believe the solution to making
1:41:21everybody happy is to give them what
1:41:23they want let's get them all rich let's
1:41:25get them all fit and healthy and then
1:41:28let's get them all happy
1:41:30is are those things even possible
1:41:32everyone can be rich everyone can be
1:41:34rich everyone here's my thought exercise
1:41:36for you now it seems like we're in an
1:41:37infomercial
1:41:38everyone can be writing not selling my
1:41:40home this is my rolls royce yeah no so
1:41:43that's a good point so everything that
1:41:44i've ever created on this topic of how
1:41:46to make money i will never charge a
1:41:48dollar for
1:41:49because that would ruin it that would
1:41:50show that i'm just another huckster
1:41:52who's trying to get rich off of you
1:41:54there are no get-rich-quick schemes
1:41:55that's just somebody else trying to get
1:41:56rich off of you right so it's so to me
1:42:00it's more of a philosophical
1:42:01contribution where for it to have
1:42:04meaning and to be legit i can't charge
1:42:06you anything for it but yes everybody
1:42:08can be rich and let me give you a
1:42:09thought exercise okay
1:42:11imagine if tomorrow we could wave a wand
1:42:15and everybody was trained
1:42:17as a scientist or an engineer everybody
1:42:20even if you weren't very good you had
1:42:22enough understanding of computers you
1:42:23could write some code you could build
1:42:25some hardware and don't tell me people
1:42:26can't do it because they can that's just
1:42:28the tyranny of soft expectations that's
1:42:30just you looking down on somebody else
1:42:32they can't do it they just have to be
1:42:33educated now if they're educated all as
1:42:36hardware software engineers scientists
1:42:38biologists technicians hard sciences not
1:42:40the social sciences we would all be done
1:42:42within five years robots would be doing
1:42:44everything from cleaning toilets to
1:42:46cooking food to flying airplanes to
1:42:47driving ubers and what would we be doing
1:42:49we would be doing all creative jobs to
1:42:51entertain each other and researching
1:42:52science and technology we would have
1:42:54wonderful lives so it is really just a
1:42:56question of education nothing else
1:42:59is this a scale issue though i mean
1:43:01you're talking about it as if this would
1:43:03work with 300 million people it'll work
1:43:06with 10 billion people it'll work with a
1:43:08spacefaring race with 100 trillion
1:43:10people just we have the resources we
1:43:12have
1:43:13the ability the universe is infinite
1:43:15resources you build it you know have you
1:43:16heard of a dyson sphere
1:43:18you know you pull the dyson sphere on a
1:43:19star and you gather all its energy like
1:43:21that there's so much energy out there
1:43:23one asteroid's got all the minerals that
1:43:25we need one sun one solar system has got
1:43:27all the power we will need for a long
1:43:29long time uh you know we can extract it
1:43:32out of nuclear fusion you know we're
1:43:34we're not that far from those kinds of
1:43:36technologies working
1:43:37uh it's just a question of guts and uh
1:43:40you know and interest like we should be
1:43:41building nuclear fusion test plants on
1:43:44the moon the moon should be littered
1:43:45with them it's no downside right
1:43:48yeah
1:43:49if you could
1:43:50how would that work well it doesn't send
1:43:52a bunch of people up there to work oh
1:43:54the problem robots the problem with
1:43:56fission nuclear fission is that you know
1:43:58nature
1:43:59creates energy through nuclear energy
1:44:02right like the sun creates energy
1:44:04nuclear energy now for transmission we
1:44:06use photons because photons don't
1:44:07interact and so photons are great for
1:44:09information transmission but they're
1:44:10actually not great for energy
1:44:12transmission for energy creation
1:44:14you want nuclear to work and the problem
1:44:17is because nuclear energy you know we
1:44:19built it with a bomb we have dirty nukes
1:44:22all those kinds of problems with
1:44:23fukushima three-mile island chernobyl
1:44:25we don't innovate anymore on nukes
1:44:27imagine if when the first steam engine
1:44:28blew up we said oh
1:44:30no more steam engines for a while or
1:44:32very carefully regulated billion dollars
1:44:34of regulation you can't innovate that
1:44:36way when the first airplane crashed we
1:44:38said no more innovation in airplanes
1:44:40right
1:44:41so we need a way to iterate on nuclear
1:44:44fission and eventually fusion and get
1:44:46them working safely cleanly passive say
1:44:49failure etc if we're going to find our
1:44:50way out of the energy trap and the best
1:44:52place to do that is someplace like on
1:44:54the moon or mars
1:44:55do you think that it's actually a
1:44:57possibility that they could
1:44:59get nuclear power to the point where
1:45:01it's not a detriment because what
1:45:03everyone's worried about is a meltdown
1:45:05right yeah and we do have these old
1:45:08plants that are running that are running
1:45:10on this this is 50 years old technology
1:45:12it's crazy because there's no ability to
1:45:14shut them off right very old technology
1:45:16they do now have gen 4 nuclear reactors
1:45:18that are passive fail safe so in other
1:45:20words when they fail they fail into us
1:45:22when you pull the plug on them they fail
1:45:24into a state where there's no leakage
1:45:26there's no problem right their default
1:45:28is a positive outcome as opposed to the
1:45:31current ones the old ones where if you
1:45:32unplug them like and these even these
1:45:34gen four are just gen four they're not
1:45:36gen five they're not gen eighty gen
1:45:38hundred where we're in microprocessors
1:45:40right and that should be something that
1:45:42people are working towards i hope so i
1:45:44mean in an ideal world we would now the
1:45:46problem is if you have nuclear energy on
1:45:48the moon how do you get it home right so
1:45:49what you actually got to do is you got
1:45:51to
1:45:52rev it on the moon and you're using it
1:45:54there maybe to launch more satellites
1:45:55more rockets further out into the solar
1:45:57system and that's the initial use case
1:46:00um but then eventually the technology
1:46:02gets so good you can bring it home
1:46:04now i want to go back to this idea of
1:46:06getting people rich that somehow or
1:46:08another that's going to make people
1:46:09happy how do you stop the the
1:46:12natural progression that people have of
1:46:15you know oh you know i have got a nice
1:46:17chevrolet yeah but i really want a bmw
1:46:20i've got a nice bmw but now i want a
1:46:22mercedes i have mercedes i want a
1:46:23ferrari
1:46:25how do you stop that material
1:46:28possession
1:46:29trap because you can't at some level but
1:46:32i think most smart people over time
1:46:34realize that possessions don't make them
1:46:35happy right it's just you have to go
1:46:37through that you have to buy your stupid
1:46:39car to realize that it doesn't attract
1:46:41attractive girls it actually just
1:46:42attracts other dudes who are like hey
1:46:45i like that car man right like like you
1:46:48have some expensive cars out there some
1:46:49fancy cars tell me how you know how much
1:46:52that attracts women versus men well i'm
1:46:54married those are for me
1:46:56i just enjoy machines yeah so for me
1:46:59they're toys that's a particular thing
1:47:00where you enjoy machines but i think
1:47:02very as you get older
1:47:03you just realize that there's no
1:47:05happiness in material possessions now
1:47:07lack of material possessions can make
1:47:09you very unhappy so being poor can make
1:47:11you unhappy but being rich is not going
1:47:13to make you happy
1:47:14and what happens unfortunately a lot of
1:47:15people struggle through their whole
1:47:17lives to make money they make some
1:47:18they're exhausted and then they're like
1:47:20well now why am i not happy i guess i'm
1:47:22just not a happy person and smart people
1:47:24aren't happy that's like a great little
1:47:26way to people feel better about it they
1:47:28say well if you're smart you're not
1:47:30happy right where's i positive the other
1:47:32way if you're smart you should be able
1:47:34to figure out how to be happy otherwise
1:47:35you're not that smart yeah that is an
1:47:38offensive statement that if you're smart
1:47:40you're not happy i've heard that before
1:47:42and i just do not understand the logic
1:47:44of that other than self-justifying i
1:47:46understand where it comes from it comes
1:47:48from if you're smart it's usually
1:47:49because you thought things through and
1:47:50you have a very busy mind yeah and so
1:47:52busy mind can often rob you of peace of
1:47:54mind
1:47:55because what
1:47:56the peace that we seek is not peace of
1:47:58mind it's peace from mind
1:48:00right so if you look at all the crazy
1:48:02activities you do to be happy right
1:48:04whether it's like trying to get laid and
1:48:05have an orgasm or you know extreme
1:48:08sports or looking at something beautiful
1:48:10or taking a psychedelic you're trying to
1:48:12get out of your own mind you're trying
1:48:13to get your monkey mind to stop
1:48:15chattering at you for a moment you're
1:48:17trying to get peace from the mind
1:48:20and there are other better ways to do
1:48:22that most of the ways we try to get
1:48:24peace from mind are indirect
1:48:27whereas if you understand things if you
1:48:30see things properly you will naturally
1:48:32slowly develop peace from mind
1:48:35sorry if i went on a tangent there no
1:48:37it's a good tangent it's a good tangent
1:48:39because i think that oftentimes
1:48:42the pursuit
1:48:43is
1:48:44what's thrilling to people and the
1:48:46possibility that one day they'll be able
1:48:48to rest and that they'll reach this goal
1:48:51that's the fundamental delusion that
1:48:52there is something out there that will
1:48:54make me happy and fulfill forever yeah
1:48:56golden years there is it's called death
1:48:58oh i'll take care of everything that's
1:49:01the great leveler but when people look
1:49:03at particularly social media bring it
1:49:04back to that when you see someone who
1:49:06you know you see them posed in front of
1:49:08their mansion with their beautiful car
1:49:11and they're leaning against it with
1:49:12their designer clothes on their
1:49:14expensive watch
1:49:16you go i want that right that's what i
1:49:19want
1:49:20what you really want is freedom you want
1:49:22freedom from your money problems right
1:49:24and i think that's okay so people once
1:49:26someone can solve their money problems
1:49:29either by lowering their lifestyle or by
1:49:31making enough money
1:49:33and you know
1:49:34essentially what you want to get
1:49:35everybody to the retirement but not
1:49:37retirement in the i'm 65 years old
1:49:40sitting in a nursing home collecting a
1:49:42check retirement different definition
1:49:44retirement is when you stop
1:49:47sacrificing today for some imaginary
1:49:49tomorrow
1:49:50okay yes when today is complete in and
1:49:53of itself you're retired yeah and so how
1:49:56do you get there well one is you can
1:49:58have so much money saved up that just
1:50:00your passive income off of that without
1:50:02you having to lift a finger covers your
1:50:03burn rate keep your burn rate low right
1:50:06a second is you just drive your burn
1:50:08rate down to zero you become a monk
1:50:10a third is you're doing something you
1:50:12love you enjoy it so much it's not about
1:50:14the money right so there are multiple
1:50:16ways to that path but the most common is
1:50:18people just say i need to make more
1:50:19money and the kind of wealth creation
1:50:21that i talk about is about creating
1:50:23timeless principles and adapting
1:50:25yourselves that making money won't be an
1:50:27issue and you can do it by doing what
1:50:29you love right like we get into this
1:50:31model of i must work for other people
1:50:33work my way up the ladder
1:50:35i must like do what that person is doing
1:50:37to make money but really today in
1:50:40society you get rewarded for creative
1:50:41work for creating something brand new
1:50:43that society didn't even know yet that
1:50:45it wanted it doesn't know how to get
1:50:47other than through you so the most
1:50:48powerful money makers are actually
1:50:50individual brands people like yourself
1:50:52or elon or kanye or oprah or trump right
1:50:56these are individual brands eponymous
1:50:58name brands who themselves are leveraged
1:51:00like you're leveraged you have podcast
1:51:03media going out to everybody that's
1:51:04leveraged the podcasts work for you when
1:51:06you sleep they have knowledge that
1:51:07nobody else has which is your knowledge
1:51:09is the knowledge of being joe rogan i
1:51:11mean who else is a ufc fighter and a
1:51:13commentator and a podcaster and a
1:51:15comedian and you know interested in all
1:51:17these things and those all these people
1:51:19can't replace you
1:51:20um so we have to pay you what you're
1:51:21worth and who's i never fought in the
1:51:23ufc though
1:51:24oh you didn't okay sorry
1:51:26um or you know you're whatever you're
1:51:28you're involved in that whole scene you
1:51:30just have a unique set of skill sets
1:51:32um so because of this unique what i call
1:51:34specific knowledge because of the
1:51:36accountability that you have with your
1:51:37name because the leverage that you have
1:51:39through your media you're a money-making
1:51:41machine you're
1:51:42i'm sure at this point i could make you
1:51:44start over tomorrow wipe out your bank
1:51:45account you'd be rich again in no time
1:51:47because you have all the skill sets so
1:51:49once people have those skill sets and
1:51:51the beauty is the way you've done it is
1:51:53you don't have any competition there's
1:51:55no substitution if joe rogan were to
1:51:57disappear off the air tomorrow it's not
1:51:59like random podcaster number 12 would
1:52:01step in and fill that thing no it's it's
1:52:02just gone so the way to get out of that
1:52:05competition trap is actually to be
1:52:07authentic the way to retire is actually
1:52:10to find the thing that you know how to
1:52:12do better than anybody and you know how
1:52:14to do that better than anybody because
1:52:15you love to do it no one can compete
1:52:16with you if you love to do it be
1:52:18authentic
1:52:19and then figure out how to map that to
1:52:21what society actually wants apply some
1:52:23leverage put your name on it so you take
1:52:25the risks but you gain the rewards have
1:52:27ownership and equity in what you do and
1:52:28then just crank it out i think people
1:52:30have to be very careful to not get
1:52:32trapped along the way with
1:52:35things that you can afford with your
1:52:38current lifestyle like the way you're
1:52:40living and the way you're earning but
1:52:42they're also imprisoning you and the
1:52:44fact that you are now going to have to
1:52:45work this 40-hour a week job in order to
1:52:48get this thing that you can't afford but
1:52:50now you you're saddled down to this job
1:52:52you've no you're not saving you're not
1:52:54you're not putting things in a good
1:52:56place and you're working for these
1:52:58things
1:52:59working for things as rewards is a real
1:53:02trap that a lot of people fall into it's
1:53:04the biggest one you know naseem tell
1:53:06that also says that uh you know under
1:53:07two great addictions heroin and a
1:53:09monthly salary
1:53:11right
1:53:12and and that's why you can't get rich
1:53:14writing out your time because even when
1:53:16you start charging more and more for
1:53:17your time it's a slow upgrade loop and
1:53:19then you upgrade your house at the same
1:53:21time you break your car at the same time
1:53:22you move in the neighborhood you really
1:53:24also have to get used to ignoring your
1:53:26peers
1:53:27or upgrading or changing the definition
1:53:29of your peers
1:53:30a lot of people here who are poor here
1:53:32but they would be rich if they were
1:53:33living in thailand and bali and if they
1:53:35have the luxury of a remotely doable job
1:53:37they may want to be living there
1:53:39and saving up money but the ignoring the
1:53:41peers is an issue because the keeping up
1:53:43with the joneses is a real phenomenon
1:53:46yeah envy makes the world go around
1:53:47right yeah
1:53:49and then there's a there's another thing
1:53:50that people have to avoid even allowing
1:53:53their mind to think when they're hearing
1:53:55what you're saying and all this
1:53:58logical fantastic advice
1:54:00there's these six dirty words that's
1:54:03easy for you to say yeah that is a
1:54:07terrible trap i mean look i grew up as a
1:54:10first generation immigrant uh in jamaica
1:54:12queens uh with zero money single mom two
1:54:16kids working day and night going to
1:54:18school
1:54:19uh you know i washed dishes uh i was k i
1:54:22was working catering jobs i was mowing
1:54:24lawns i was working since the age of 11
1:54:26on and off here and there um
1:54:29didn't have two cents to rub together
1:54:31you know
1:54:32i had to borrow 400 to go to college
1:54:34like literally i was short 400 dollars
1:54:36400. i had to find 400 i didn't have it
1:54:39um you know got rejected from a job at
1:54:41dunkin donuts so like okay
1:54:44it's not to say that it's easy it's not
1:54:47easy it's actually really freaking hard
1:54:49it is the hardest thing you will do but
1:54:51it's also the rewarding thing you know
1:54:53look at the kids who are born rich no
1:54:55meaning to their lives you're a terrible
1:54:57place yeah your real your real resume is
1:55:00just a cataloguing of all your suffering
1:55:02right if i were to ask you to describe
1:55:05your real life to yourself when you look
1:55:06back on your deathbed you're going to go
1:55:08back and say what are the interesting
1:55:10things i've done and it's all going to
1:55:11be around the sacrifices that you made
1:55:13and the hard things that you did
1:55:14anything you're given doesn't matter
1:55:16you know you you have your four limbs
1:55:18you have your brain you have your head
1:55:19you have your skin that's that's all for
1:55:21granted so you have to do hard things
1:55:23anyway to create your own meaning in
1:55:25life
1:55:26um
1:55:27making money is a fine one yeah struggle
1:55:29it is hard i'm not gonna say it's easy
1:55:31it's a really hard but the tools are all
1:55:32available it's all there there's also
1:55:34these these traps that people
1:55:37sort of establish in their own mind
1:55:40of
1:55:41giving themselves excuses or giving
1:55:44themselves in insurmountable
1:55:46obstacles insurmountable
1:55:49paths victorian victim mentality yes
1:55:51it's somebody else's fault it's my skin
1:55:53color's fault it's the system's fault
1:55:55yeah those people are sinking i feel bad
1:55:57for them i want to shake them out of it
1:55:58and say actually you can get out of it
1:56:01you just have to stop thinking it's
1:56:02everybody you have to alter the
1:56:03perspective yeah but it's so difficult
1:56:05for people to do it's one of the most
1:56:07difficult things for people to do is to
1:56:08change the way they approach approach
1:56:10reality itself
1:56:12at the end of the day i i do think even
1:56:14despite what i said earlier life is
1:56:16really a single player game it's all
1:56:17going on in your head you know whatever
1:56:20you think you believe
1:56:22will very much shape your reality both
1:56:24from what risks you take and what
1:56:26actions you perform but also just your
1:56:27everyday experience of reality if you're
1:56:30walking down the street and you're
1:56:31judging everyone you're like i don't
1:56:33like that person because their skin
1:56:34color i don't like that oh she's she's
1:56:36not attractive that guy's fat this
1:56:38person's a loser oh who put this in my
1:56:40way uh you know the more you judge the
1:56:43more you're gonna separate yourself and
1:56:44you'll feel good for an instant because
1:56:46you'll feel good about yourself i'm
1:56:47better than that but then you're gonna
1:56:49feel lonely and then you're just gonna
1:56:51see negativity everywhere the world just
1:56:53reflects your own feelings back at you
1:56:55reality is neutral
1:56:57reality has no judgments to a tree
1:56:59there's no concept of right or wrong or
1:57:00good or bad right you're born you have a
1:57:03whole set of sensory experiences and
1:57:04stimulations and lights and colors and
1:57:06sounds and then you die yeah and how you
1:57:08choose to interpret that is up to you
1:57:09you do have that choice so this is what
1:57:11i meant that happiness is a choice if
1:57:14you believe it's the choice then you can
1:57:16start working on it and i can't tell you
1:57:17how to find it because
1:57:19it's your own conditionings that are
1:57:20making you unhappy so you have to
1:57:22uncondition yourself it's just like i
1:57:23can't fix your eating habits for you can
1:57:25give you some general guidelines but you
1:57:26gotta go through the hard habit forming
1:57:28of how to eat right but you have to
1:57:30believe it's possible and it is
1:57:31absolutely possible i was miserable i'm
1:57:34happy as a clam it's not just the money
1:57:36i got there before the money you got
1:57:38happy before the money mostly yeah how
1:57:39did you get happy before the money i
1:57:41started getting older you know i just
1:57:43realized like life is short i'm going to
1:57:44die
1:57:47again trite right try it in 20 ways yeah
1:57:49well confucius had a great saying that
1:57:51uh you know every man has two lives and
1:57:53the second starts when he realizes he
1:57:55has just one
1:57:57wow
1:57:59and i read that it was one of those book
1:58:00dropping lines you know it's like mic
1:58:03drop confucius had a lot of mic drops
1:58:05fuchsias was a bad [ __ ] he was
1:58:06that's a crazy one that was a great one
1:58:08um or another one is next time you get
1:58:10sick you know because everybody gets
1:58:12sick every now and then it's like a
1:58:14happy person
1:58:15wants 10 000 things a sick person just
1:58:17wants one thing
1:58:18right so it's your it's your unlimited
1:58:21desires that are clouding your peace
1:58:22your happiness
1:58:24have desires your biological creature
1:58:26stands up and says i can do something i
1:58:29i move i resist i live
1:58:32but
1:58:32just be very careful of your desires
1:58:35this is the oldest most trite wisdom
1:58:36desire is suffering that's what it means
1:58:38right every desire you have is an access
1:58:41where you will suffer so just don't
1:58:43focus on more than one desire at a time
1:58:45the universe is rigged in such a way
1:58:47that if you just want one thing and you
1:58:49focus on that you'll get it but
1:58:50everything else you gotta let go
1:58:53did you make a gradual shift to
1:58:55happiness or was it a radical change
1:58:58it's ongoing it's gradual every day so
1:59:00you're happier today than you were a
1:59:02month ago yeah allegedly yeah
1:59:05yeah i'm i'm very happy these days
1:59:07deliriously so it's actually hard for me
1:59:09to hang out with normal people really
1:59:11yeah so you you've made a significant
1:59:14shift
1:59:15over the period of like how many years
1:59:17about eight years eight years yeah
1:59:20wow and
1:59:22is this something that you've pursued
1:59:24through certain books or is it just like
1:59:26you you've made an understanding or
1:59:29gained an understanding in your own mind
1:59:31and then started pursuing it based on
1:59:32that understanding yeah it's very very
1:59:34personal uh it's basically you have to
1:59:36decide it's a priority and then i tried
1:59:38every hack i possibly could i used to
1:59:41you know i tried all the i tried
1:59:42meditation i tried witnessing uh you
1:59:45know i even tried an ssri just to see
1:59:47what it would feel like how did it feel
1:59:49uh it was it turned me from a pessimist
1:59:51to an optimist but i didn't like the
1:59:52physical side effects nor did i want to
1:59:54be on a drug for a sustained basis
1:59:56so i dropped it and i did turn you into
1:59:58an optimist yes at the time i used to be
2:00:00a pessimist yeah
2:00:01um i started doing things like i would
2:00:03start looking at the you know in every
2:00:05moment and everything that happens you
2:00:07can look on the bright side of something
2:00:09right and so i used to do that forcibly
2:00:11and then i trained it until it became
2:00:12second nature so for example like a
2:00:15friend of my wife's was over and she
2:00:18when we were dating and she took all
2:00:19these photos she took like hundreds of
2:00:21photos and then she sends them all to us
2:00:23and my immediate reaction was like why
2:00:24are you dumping hundreds of photos of my
2:00:26phone i don't need hundreds of photos
2:00:28have some judgment that's my immediate
2:00:29reaction and then i could say actually
2:00:32how nice of her she sent me hundreds of
2:00:34photos i can pick the one that i like
2:00:35right there are two ways of seeing
2:00:37almost everything there are a few things
2:00:38that are like high suffering so you
2:00:40can't do that other than just saying
2:00:41well this is a teacher right but i
2:00:43slowly worked through every negative
2:00:45judgment that i had until i saw the
2:00:47positive end now it's second nature to
2:00:49me i also realized that like what you
2:00:52want is you want to clear minds you want
2:00:53to let go of thoughts
2:00:55happy thoughts disappear out ahead
2:00:57automatically very easy to let go of
2:00:58them negative thoughts linger so if you
2:01:00interpret then the positive and
2:01:02everything very quickly you let it go
2:01:04right you let it go much faster
2:01:07simple hacks get more sunlight right
2:01:09learn to smile more learn to hug more
2:01:11these things actually release serotonin
2:01:13in reverse they aren't just outward
2:01:15signals of being happy they're actually
2:01:16feedback loops to being happy
2:01:19spend more time in nature you know these
2:01:20are obvious watch your mind watch your
2:01:23mind all day long watch what it does not
2:01:25judge it not try to control it but you
2:01:27can meditate 24 7. meditation is not a
2:01:29sit down close your eyes activity
2:01:31meditation is just basically watching
2:01:34your own thoughts like you would watch
2:01:35anything else in the outside world and
2:01:37say why am i having that thought does
2:01:39that serve me anymore is that
2:01:40conditioning from when i was 10 years
2:01:42old like for example
2:01:44getting ready for this podcast you got
2:01:47ready i didn't but good i did but i did
2:01:50but i did i couldn't help it and what
2:01:53happened was the few days leading up to
2:01:55this my mind was just running and
2:01:57normally my mind is pretty calm and it
2:01:58was just running and running and running
2:02:00and every thought i would have i would
2:02:02imagine me saying it to you my brain
2:02:04couldn't help but rehearse
2:02:07what what it's doing it's just
2:02:08rehearsing all the time to talk to you
2:02:10and then i was even rehearsing rehearse
2:02:13telling you about the rehearsal right so
2:02:15it was all playing all these meta games
2:02:16and i was just like shut up stop it what
2:02:18is going on and it took me a while to
2:02:20figure out oh yeah you know what it is
2:02:24when i was a kid in queens and i had no
2:02:26money and i had nothing and i needed to
2:02:28save myself the way i got out was by
2:02:31sounding smart not being smart sounding
2:02:33smart that was the skill i perfected so
2:02:36i am hardwired to always rehearse things
2:02:39so i will sound smart it's a disease it
2:02:41keeps me from being happy so but when
2:02:43you see that when you realize that when
2:02:46you understand something then it
2:02:47naturally calms you down so after that i
2:02:49stopped rehearsing as much
2:02:51wow but it's still a train habit
2:02:54that is a really interesting point that
2:02:56you
2:02:57want to sound smart
2:03:00that that many people do that and
2:03:02especially young people when you you see
2:03:04someone who is smart or someone who
2:03:06appears smart they say smart things oh
2:03:08god i want to sound smart i want people
2:03:10to think about me the same way i think
2:03:12about that person that that is my
2:03:13disease that is my feeling it is what
2:03:15clutters my mind i the the thing i have
2:03:17to ask myself now is
2:03:20if i can
2:03:21would i still be interested in learning
2:03:23this thing if i couldn't ever tell
2:03:24anybody about it
2:03:26that's how i know it's real that's how i
2:03:28know it's something i actually want to
2:03:29know that's a common thing though i know
2:03:31i suffered from that when i was young
2:03:33the desire to sound smart
2:03:36that's it's very
2:03:37it's very common well all of us start
2:03:39out
2:03:41you know
2:03:43every everything you're a winner now in
2:03:46your life you were to lose because you
2:03:48were a loser at some point right if if
2:03:50you had gotten all the girls if you had
2:03:52all the money if you had everything you
2:03:53want you were good looking and in junior
2:03:56high or high school uh you wouldn't have
2:03:58done anything with your life
2:03:59and you would have peaked early it's
2:04:01like the bruce springsteen glory days
2:04:02song right you would have married your
2:04:03high school sweetheart you'd be living
2:04:05in your hometown you know you'd be a
2:04:07manager at the local mcdonald's whatever
2:04:08the first dream job you had thank god we
2:04:11didn't all get what we wanted when we
2:04:12were young right or we would be trapped
2:04:14in that so you have to be able to break
2:04:17out of where you came from i don't know
2:04:19where i was going that is interesting
2:04:20too about people who peak too early yeah
2:04:23or maybe those people that peak too
2:04:25early can do the elon musk thing and
2:04:27just abandon it and start something new
2:04:29and then learn the the the joys of
2:04:32sucking at something yeah and actually
2:04:34though
2:04:35in our professions especially when
2:04:36you're high visibility the problem with
2:04:38peaking is that you then get drowned in
2:04:42death of a thousand cuts people have
2:04:43expectations of you hey joe can you come
2:04:45to my event hey joe can you look at my
2:04:47business plan hey joe can give me advice
2:04:48on this can you you know talk to my
2:04:50friend can you come in this podcast
2:04:52you're just being assaulted all the time
2:04:54with inbound opportunities so you have
2:04:56no time to start over with anything so
2:04:59you have to ruthlessly ruthlessly
2:05:01disappoint everybody eliminate and clear
2:05:03your schedule drop all the meetings not
2:05:05even respond to the emails the only way
2:05:07you're gonna be able to start over with
2:05:08anything
2:05:09yeah and i we talked about this that i'd
2:05:12love your approach to meetings
2:05:14if they're not meeting life or death i'm
2:05:16the same way
2:05:17i avoided a good one recently and this
2:05:19was someone that was just
2:05:21tracking me down as a high-profile
2:05:23person in a big organization and i'm
2:05:26like can we just talk on the phone and
2:05:27then we talk on the phone there was
2:05:29nothing to say it was just they wanted
2:05:31to get me in the office and yeah and the
2:05:33meetings should really be phone calls
2:05:34phone calls should be emails and emails
2:05:36should just be text
2:05:38right
2:05:39many of them right with meetings i i
2:05:41mean i i despise meetings i used to own
2:05:43the domain i don't do coffee.com i
2:05:45eventually let go but i used to respond
2:05:47from the wallet i don't do coffee you
2:05:48know oh that's hilarious but it was a
2:05:50little bit of a jerk move but really
2:05:52where it comes from is when i was young
2:05:54one of my principles was i knew i had to
2:05:55make money it was my overwhelming desire
2:05:58and
2:05:58one of the things i did was i said okay
2:06:00i'm never going to be worth more than
2:06:01what i think i'm worth okay no one's
2:06:03going to pay me more than what i think
2:06:05i'm worth so what am i worth so i i
2:06:07picked an hourly rate for myself that i
2:06:09was worth and i said i'm never going to
2:06:12squander my time for less than this so
2:06:13if
2:06:14originally there's 500 bucks an hour
2:06:16then i upgrade to 5000 bucks an hour and
2:06:18it's ludicrous but
2:06:19pick an aspirational hourly rate
2:06:21aspirational it has to be a little
2:06:23ludicrous and then what i would do is if
2:06:25i have to return something i'm standing
2:06:27in line to return something and it's
2:06:29below my hourly rate i'll throw it away
2:06:31if i have to if i or give it away if i
2:06:34have to do some tasks and i can hire
2:06:36somebody to do it for less than my
2:06:37hourly rate i would hire them and so i
2:06:39just became extremely jealous of my time
2:06:42which doesn't mean you can't have fun
2:06:44rest leisure spending time with your
2:06:46friends and family that's all great
2:06:47don't count that but if you're doing
2:06:49anything you don't want to do which is
2:06:52the definition of work it's a set of
2:06:53things that you have to do that you
2:06:54don't want to do if you're working it
2:06:57better be for your hourly rate otherwise
2:06:59don't do the work and so
2:07:01once it came out of that then i just
2:07:02realized the cost of meetings the cost
2:07:04of meetings is so high especially given
2:07:06all the people who are in there right
2:07:08one person is talking seven people
2:07:09listening you're literally just dying an
2:07:11hour at a time
2:07:12so you have to just
2:07:14drop non-urgent meetings or figure out
2:07:16how to be more efficient with them if
2:07:17you're gonna do anything great
2:07:18the extreme example is business travel
2:07:21getting on a plane to fly halfway around
2:07:23the world for one meeting which never
2:07:26amounts to anything
2:07:27and then like wasting your whole little
2:07:29life there and then flying back so about
2:07:31five years ago i resolved i am never
2:07:33going to travel for business
2:07:35wow and i haven't tried for business
2:07:37since i only travel
2:07:38if the travel experience will be so
2:07:41entertaining and joyous because i have
2:07:43friends or it's a place i want to see or
2:07:44whatever that it will be complete in and
2:07:46of itself because i know that whatever
2:07:48the business meeting i came from is
2:07:50never worth it
2:07:52wow
2:07:53and actually that principle applies
2:07:54larger than just travel it applies to
2:07:57life in general the this one of the
2:08:00secrets to happiness is to really
2:08:02embrace what you're doing in that moment
2:08:04that's trite but where that where that
2:08:06comes from is saying i only want to do
2:08:08actions that are complete in and of
2:08:11themselves right if i'm looking for some
2:08:13ulterior motive down the line
2:08:15it's not going to materialize
2:08:17and and if you think it is maybe even if
2:08:19it does it'll be very short-lived
2:08:21anything you wanted in your life whether
2:08:22it was a car or whether it was a girl or
2:08:24there was money
2:08:25when you got it a year later you were
2:08:27back to zero your brain had hedonically
2:08:29adapted to it and you were looking for
2:08:31the next thing
2:08:33that's a great statement hedonically
2:08:35adapted
2:08:36that's that is what happens to people
2:08:39you get accustomed to whatever it is i
2:08:42realized that when i first got a new
2:08:44apartment it was a nice apartment after
2:08:45a while i got used to it i was like oh
2:08:47okay this is just an apartment it's just
2:08:49where i live i'm used to it's nice but
2:08:51i'm used to it yeah we all go through
2:08:53this learning it's it's you know it's
2:08:54riding the ferris wheel of life it's
2:08:56like you get at the bottom like i want
2:08:58to get the top this is so exciting you
2:08:59ride it up you get a little dopamine
2:09:01rush and get a little serotonin then you
2:09:04ride it back down as that wears off then
2:09:06you need another high then you ride it
2:09:07back up and write it back down in fact
2:09:09the more highs you get the harder it
2:09:11gets to go around the wheel and the more
2:09:12board you get it the harder it goes to
2:09:14go back up
2:09:15so what lights your fire now like what
2:09:17what gets you motivated to do things and
2:09:19to act art art this is art oh okay art
2:09:24is just creativity it's just anything
2:09:26that's done for its own sake
2:09:28so what are the things that are done for
2:09:29their own sake there's nothing beyond
2:09:31loving somebody
2:09:33uh creating something
2:09:35playing
2:09:36art to me creating business is play i
2:09:38create businesses early stage because
2:09:40it's fun because i i'm into the product
2:09:42even when i invest it's because i like
2:09:44the people i like hanging out with them
2:09:46i learn from them and i think the
2:09:47product is really cool
2:09:49so these days i will pass on all kinds
2:09:51of great investments because i'm like i
2:09:53just the product's not interesting it's
2:09:54boring i'm not gonna learn anything
2:09:56that's a beautiful luxury it is a luxury
2:09:59art and learning yeah it is a luxury
2:10:03these are not 100 or zero things right
2:10:06you can in your life start moving more
2:10:08and more towards that right but that's a
2:10:09goal it's a goal when i was younger i
2:10:12used to be so desperate to make money
2:10:13that i would have done anything right if
2:10:15you'd shown up and said hey i got a
2:10:17sewage trucking business and you're
2:10:18going to go into that i said great let's
2:10:20do it i'm going to make money
2:10:22thank god no one gave me that
2:10:23opportunity
2:10:25i'm glad that it went down the road of
2:10:27technology and science which i genuinely
2:10:29enjoy
2:10:30and so i got to like combine my vocation
2:10:32and my advocation i mean what are you
2:10:34doing you're playing you're having fun
2:10:35you're doing art you're not you're not
2:10:37working no that's what i always say when
2:10:39people say i work hard i'm like sorta
2:10:41not really i'm always working but it
2:10:45looks like work to them but it feels
2:10:47like play to me and that's how i know no
2:10:49one can compete with me on it
2:10:51because i'm just playing 16 hours a day
2:10:54and if they want to compete with me and
2:10:55they're going to work they're going to
2:10:56lose because they're not going to do it
2:10:5716 hours a day seven days a week
2:10:59well listen man there are some gems of
2:11:01wisdom in this conversation and i hope
2:11:04people pull things out of this and apply
2:11:06them to their own life and i'm certainly
2:11:08going to listen to you again and and and
2:11:10try to apply some of this to my own life
2:11:13stuff that i'm not already applying but
2:11:14i really appreciate your time and i
2:11:16really appreciate you coming in here
2:11:17thanks for having me and um please tell
2:11:19people you those small little podcast
2:11:21it's just the naval podcast right yeah
2:11:23best way to find me is on twitter
2:11:25actually okay just at naval then i have
2:11:27a website at nav.al i have a youtube
2:11:30channel neval and i have a podcast in
2:11:32the world that's it well thank you very
2:11:34much thank you really appreciate it
2:11:35thank you
2:11:36bye everybody
2:11:39[Music]
2:11:41[Applause]
2:11:45[Music]
2:11:51[Music]
2:11:55i

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