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Language: en
there's this feeling that I have that
we're in right now in terms of what the
breaks are what are the things that
could take us off the path to Civil War
because right now I feel like we're
already going at such tremendous pace
and there's so much momentum I'm always
telling people in business momentum
matters and there's so much momentum
behind an idea that I think is
fundamentally um designed to
disintegrate and to um disunifying
is okay well what what could counteract
that force and there's this thing where
my wife and I will be in the middle of
an argument and I will actually call it
out when it happens where I'm like we
have reached that point now where it is
impossible to avoid a fight and I will
say it out loud Brett in the middle of
the argument I will say we we have now
reached that point because you you get
so much momentum behind your positions
that until the neurochemistry of that
situation changes you you can't reee
commonality you can't you can't feel the
desire to connect anymore and if you
don't feel the desire to connect and you
don't behave in a way that will draw you
back together and it is so surreal to me
how you can feel that sort of Click over
moment where there is some sort of
tipping point where now aggression and
anger feeling is trumping the desire to
hear new information to sort of relax
and remember that you love this person
do you think that we've hit that Tipping
Point and if we have is there something
other than a fight that can back us off
well I love your your model and I must
say it mirrors uh the way Heather and I
deal with things too which is um there's
a recognition I think for us it it's
it's seated in our training as as uh
animal behaviorists but there's a lot
that goes on in human space that isn't
really about the
content right you think it's about the
content because you're human and you're
you're wired to process language because
there's so much conveyed in it but very
frequently you'll understand an argument
between people best if you turn down the
sound so you can't hear what's being
said and you just look at what's going
on and um the same thing is I think true
in the larger context where we are
watching a battle that is over very
standard stuff but it's full of very
modern particular content descriptions
the people who are engaged in it think
that they're reacting to something much
more specific rather than just the
general
frustration so the way out if there is
one does involve a recognition that you
are being carried Along by something
that you may have an objective and a
focus but that you are being carried
along with a historical process and if
you can recognize what processes this
looks like from the past you'll know you
don't want to go this direction it
doesn't end well if enough of us can
figure that out and manage to convey it
then maybe we can overcome the momentum
as you say on the other hand I think the
the odds are are against us yeah I think
uh that's terrifying and I hate it when
you speak so clearly and
terrifyingly um because it it is hard to
argue and and on the streets it feels um
it's unnerving that that is the the word
that I'll use so
when I have from the perspective of
trying to achieve things in my life I
have asked one question over and over
and over which is right if Victor
Frankle is right and I can't control the
stimulus but I can control the response
even in the middle of a concentration
camp and that book was um just
absolutely transformational for me in
terms of like here is somebody who has
lived through the worst atrocity that I
can imagine and said ah you can predict
with like accuracy of 72 hours when
somebody's going to die because you see
them give up on why they are suffering
and he was like if you understand
there's that gap between stimulus and
response and and you hold on to that
that you can make radical change in your
perspective or the way that you
interpret things which is going to then
influence your behavior which can in his
example literally keep you alive or
allow you to die so I was like okay cool
I'm I'm all for the deck it may be
stacked against anybody could be maybe
it's stacked Against Me Maybe it's
stacked against somebody else maybe that
shifts and changes depending on the
consequence or the
context but if I can you know retain
some of this control then I can really
get somewhere and so looking at the
world through that lens and coming to
this sort of evolutionary understanding
of things as you begin to look at the
movement that's happening now and what
seems to be an innate feature and I
don't know if you'd call it a feature or
a bug but The Madness of crowds and that
oh God I forget the exact quote I'm sure
you'll you'll get really really close
but um Madness is very uncommon in the
individual and basically the the default
in crowds and so what we have now is is
a crowd that is gaining momentum and
it's moving in a direction and getting
uh other people to sort of step out of
the stream and get the perspective on
that of okay between stimulus and
response I have a responsibility and I
can do something and so partly because
of you and like the things you were just
saying I had this moment when when this
all first kicked off and I was like I
just want to put my head down and I dude
you you can't imagine for for the last I
mean now it's been 20 years for the last
20 years all I've wanted to do is be the
next Disney I just want to make rad
movies and TV shows and like inspire
people and you know like really bring
something beautiful to the world and I
only want to tell one kind of story
you're not going to get a bunch of
anti-hero stuff for me like I I want to
my literally my stated mission is no one
should ever get to the age of 15 without
encountering a growth mindset and
encountering it through story because I
I saying it like we're saying it now it
hits people logically but it doesn't hit
them emotionally we need narrative to
drive down to the Olympic level and and
really make change do it at the age of
imprinting like I've got this whole plan
and I feel good about it and then I'm
like
okay the thought of putting my head down
and the hopes that the mob passes Me by
makes me feel like a coward and since I
know the punchline of life is exactly
the following how you feel about
yourself when you're by yourself it's
all that matters and I have run the
experiment of does wealth solve all of
your problems and wealth is awesome but
it does not solve all your problems so I
didn't want to feel like a coward it
made me step into that okay well what
can I do at my own individual level to
begin to tease this out um so as you
because you're not somebody who's giving
up so even though you have a somewhat
pessimistic view um can you walk us
through the things that would have to be
true whether or not you think people are
willing to do it what are the things
that would have to be true for this to
stop shy of um just outright
conflict well I I see a primary obstacle
which is that those who see the hazard
clearly don't understand where the
energy is coming from and in some sense
we have to negotiate a settlement in a
in a a middle ground where um the
ability to navigate is being
systematically disrupted by both sides
so you have uh let's call it
conservative for the moment you've got
conservatives who are dubious that the
objections that the frustration is real
and is based on something that actually
requires a remedy um and then you have
the uh the liberals or I don't even want
to call them liberals because this is so
illiberal the way they're delivering it
but you have the um
the self-defined leftists delivering a
set of prescriptions that uh as I've
said many times before doesn't uh seek
to end oppression it seeks to turn the
tables of Oppression and worse it seeks
to turn the tables of imagined
oppression oppression so that um it's
not even being careful about its
targeting and what has to be the
negotiated solution has to come in the
form of a recognition that the system is
rigged and that it is rigged in a way
that the um The Misfortune is not evenly
distributed You can predict with a
relatively High degree of certainty
where The Misfortune is going to be
concentrated based on historical
patterns of Oppression so can you can
you give me um the very specific uh
predictive mechanism you use is it zip
code is it ethnicity what what is it
well I would say zip code is by far the
best best um because it does capture the
fraction of it that that tracks with
ethnicity but it doesn't limit it to
that and of course it isn't limited to
that so what you really have is a kind
of opportunity
hoarding um by what I call Rent seeking
Elites often times he go ahead I've
heard you talk about that before and one
of the questions I want to ask you you
had said um because I I have generated
tremendous wealth in my life and you
said you know a lot of people they'll
they'll so rent seeking being people
that are sort of inserting themselves as
money managers or Finance people or
whatever they're not actually creating
something they're not adding value to
the system but they're extracting a ton
of value just as a quick um thumbnail uh
but you said there are people so I've
always felt very good right because I
built a business from the ground up we
didn't raise outside capital and we
turned it into something and from that I
created wealth and then you said there
are some people who create something
with good intentions and then they turn
into unknowingly rent seeking Elites and
like [ __ ] am I rent seeking so now I'm
like what what is that next step because
I have literally dedicated my entire
adult life and I'm um sort of gambling
with my fortune that I can uh create
this narrative vehicle that will help
some percentage of people encounter a
growth mindset and improve their life
and and my mission is to make it so your
ZIP code is not predictive of your
future success but now I'm so paranoid
that I'm doing some rent seeking that I
don't even realize so what what does
that look like like is it just investing
my money makes me rent seeking what does
that look like yeah you're definitely
doing some rent seeking but the good
news is you're not doing it because of a
defect of character you're doing it
because of the way the market is
structured and what rational Behavior
looks like so yeah so walk me through
what that is it it you know your
Investment Portfolio is no doubt
invested in things that um if you looked
at the details of how they function are
just simply seeking um so uh you know
you probably don't even know you
probably are invested in some funds and
those funds you know are picking and
choosing equities and whatever it is and
uh those those things are having an
effect on you know they're maybe you're
invested in a company that makes
clothing and the company that was chosen
for your portfolio is profitable and why
is it profitable because it's figured
out some way to officially depress the
wages of the people who make the clothes
so that when they get to the shop
they're cheaper and people buy them uh
so anyway there's lots of places where
you can be uh involved in rent seeking
just by virtue of automatic processes in
which you're not you couldn't possibly
be aware of all of the things that your
money is doing while you're not paying
attention um so there's that and then
there's also the issue probably not for
you because I've heard very clearly what
you've said here your objective is not
only laudable but it's also I would say
maybe the important leverage Point
you're talking about reaching young
people you're talking about reaching
them with developmentally relevant
helpful stories that actually Empower
them so my guess is um net you're in
Surplus but does that mean that
everything that you're doing is positive
rather than negative in this calculation
it can't right for none of us I'm sure
I'm seeking to I don't have a lot of
Investments but enough that there's
definitely going to be stuff hidden
there but the good news is you can't
really be if you were to try to figure
out what effect you're having on the
world in every detail and you were to
try to eliminate all of the negative
stuff it would take all your time and
more you wouldn't finish the job so
you'd be left um ineffective in the
stuff that you're doing that's positive
without eliminating the negative stuff
so in some sense I don't know if you're
familiar with my personal responsibility
Vortex talk no give it to me well the
the short answer is that game
theoretically speaking trying to live
your principles in an economic context
doesn't make sense you will hobble
yourself you will end up in a cabin in
the woods you know uh trying to eek out
a living without having negative impact
and what that does is it reduces your
influence on how Society functions so
the world becomes more ruthless as you
try to make sure that you're not doing
anything that you uh you don't see as
positive relative to your values you
actually limit your influence over the
system and the system moves away from
your values rather than towards them so
the question is what is the best use of
the power and leverage you have and for
you to be delivering narratives that
Empower individuals so that they know
who they are they are better equipped to
function and making sure that that
happens in a way that uh your ZIP code
doesn't predict your success in life
that seems um not only incredibly Noble
but it also seems like the leverage
point and I fully agree with you
conversations like this are all well and
good they don't move civilization right
they can inform something that moves
civilization but the stuff that moves
civilization is narrative and so anyway
more power to you um I don't know I
don't know how well that answers the
question but uh
it it begins to pull at one thread of
what feels like a very tightly wound um
ball of yarn but I think this is you
know ultimately how it begins so now
getting into um the the thing that I
always try to hold myself to is I I only
care about what has application in the
real world and so I'm trying to learn
things Chase Fascinations whatever the
case may be that's actually going to um
make me more capable so I'll give you a
background um or a base assumption this
is maybe a better way to say it so if
somebody asks me what's the meaning of
life I have a very quick aggressive
ready answer um I don't expect other
people to agree um more I think the
biggest thing I want people to take away
is it is possible to Define that and
then to act in accordance so my
definition is very simple the meaning of
life is to see how much of your
potential you can translate into usable
skill set and that that to me and then
you can you know even take it one step
further and say and that skill set
should be something that's unique to you
that you care deeply about that you
worked your ass off to acquire and it
helps not only yourself but other people
now why do I think that's the meaning of
life because that is as far as I can
tell given that you are having a
biological experience and your brain
will kick up neurochemistry that either
feels good or bad based on millions of
years of evolution so you're you're
stuck in that there yes you can
transcend your biology but you are in
that biology man and so fulfillment to
me is the name of the game right so
fulfillment is often born out of really
hard [ __ ] it's doing hard things right
it is not getting things just given to
you um this is why I think the
oppression Olympics is just destined to
fail because you're you're creating a
frame of reference of victimhood of I
don't have agency um it's uh I don't
know if Coleman Hughes came up with this
but he's certainly the person I heard
say it he was like you're turning people
into weather veins and you're reducing
the black population to to well we're
pointed in whatever Direction the wind
of the white man blows Us in and he was
like basically [ __ ] that don't put me in
that box I have agency like I can do
things in my own life and so that to me
is really where
you should be focused which is how
you're going to feel about yourself and
you're by yourself which is a
neurochemical experience which is based
on all the heuristics that the brain has
worked into us and in my interpretation
of that it's translating potential into
skill set and then putting those skills
to
use beautiful that's uh lovely and
actually to me it seems like um a key
it's half of a puzzle that I'm focused
on and I'm focused on the other half
typically but um there is this
interesting dynamic between
conservatives and liberals where
conservatives see very clearly the
personal responsibility part of the
equation and they often times don't see
the collective responsibility part and
Liberals are exactly the inverse and so
i' I've spent a lot of time thinking
about actually the way these two pieces
of the puzzle fit together and it's it's
a you know a yin-yang
phenomenon before I get to it exactly
though let me say um the weather veining
I have not heard Coleman say that but I
love it it's a it's a beautiful way of
thinking about it way I think about it
is learned helplessness that in effect
this is just training people to be be
helpless because it results in rewards
being delivered and the end point of
that is fairly clear you're just going
to create a helpless needy population
and I mean anybody who's raised kids or
you know even if you have nieces and
nephews you know how bad an idea this is
right there's no way it's going to work
at a civilization level and let me push
on that and see if you agree why um it's
going to be bad so the reason as I hear
you say that that it seems self-evident
to me that that would become a problem
is when you are a self-perceived I I
don't think this is true but when you've
created a frame of reference which we
can get into why I'm so obsessed about
frame of reference but when you create a
frame of reference that you are helpless
and needy think back to in human in in
any one human's um Evolution not not as
a population the point at which you are
most needy and um weak is when you're a
child and what is the mechanism that
every child very quickly learns gets
them what they want a tantrum right you
create so much like external pain and
suffering that people want to to calm
you down by giving you the thing that
you want it's a strategy every one of us
has tried and reap tremendous benefits
and then we go out into the world and
the world slaps us around and says stop
you're obnoxious I don't want to be
around you right Jordan Peterson saying
don't let your kids do anything that
makes you dislike them I think that's a
pretty good steering mechanism and but
now like when you talk about this
horizontal movement which is one of the
more terrifying things that you say um
meaning that this this is already
permeated everywhere and so now you
called it a Sleeper Cell recently and I
thought that was super apt and just way
terrifying and so you have all these
people that have learned hey Tantrums
are are very effective and my entire
identity is around how effectively I can
use a tantrum to get what I want my
placement in the oppression Olympics
which I say with derision right anybody
listening can see that I don't I think
that that's ineffective and and I should
State I judge everything by whether or
not what you're doing moves you towards
your goal and I judge your goal based on
whether it will bring you fulfillment
right so it's very easy to sort of guess
how I will interpret something so if you
create that scenario where the only way
to win is to throw a
tantrum we're doomed and so is is that
or something like that what you meant
when you say this just won't work oh
exactly and not only does it not work
for the individuals But ultimately
they're going to tear down the entire
structure because a structure of people
that uh gets what they need through
effectively the kind of terrorism that
children engage in against their parents
that structure isn't capable of
producing anything so exactly how is it
going to survive in the world um and
this actually brings me to the the other
half of the uh the very eloquent
personal
responsibility um portrayal that you you
delivered a couple minutes ago which is
so you see the imperative as basically
taking what assets you have and making
sure you convert them at the maximum
rate into capacity that's meaningful
relative to your your values which I
agree absolutely um but the other thing
is I think we collectively have a
responsibility to recognize that being
being a human being is an incredible
experience right it's such a gift and
you could you know if you were any other
creature the degree of that gift that
you would have would
be much less in the case of the next
nearest creature or none in the case of
most creatures and so we have this
amazing
opportunity we all live constantly
connected to the internet and using it
so much that we tend to forget just how
dangerous of a place it can be the
reality is every account you have every
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Theory it seems to me that we have a
moral imperative to to deliver that
opportunity to as many people as
possible and what that means is that
actually we have an obligation to
preserve this this really isn't about
our generation and whether we're
satisfied or or anything like that this
is about how long can we keep this
running so the maximum number of human
beings has that experience and what's
more if you are hobbled by a cruddy
educational system if you are
constrained by the requirement that you
spend your time in a stupid job that has
no meaning to you because it's the only
way that you can afford a roof over your
head and uh get your health care paid
for and all of that if that's what
you're obligated to do then we're
squandering your human potential and we
should be seeking to liberate people as
much as is humanly possible
so as many generations as can be as
liberated as possible that seems to me
our collect Ive obligation and how do
you do that well you have to enable
people individually to take advantage of
opportunities to spot them and it just
so happens that these two things fit
together rather perfectly they describe
what the objective of the whole exercise
ought to be um so anyway we're a long
way from there you know we have a system
that just does not do this very
effectively but we can see it from here
and uh and then this goes to the last
part we were talking about momentum and
were talking about um the danger of
Despair effectively recognizing that the
likelihood of us fixing the problem is
pretty small but I always think of it in
terms of being on a I don't know a canoe
or something headed for a waterfall at
what point is the chance that you can
paddle out of the path of the waterfall
and get to shore before you go over so
low that it's not worth your time and
the answer is there is no point at which
it's so low right if there's any at all
that you can get to shore a fraction of
a percent is enough giving up would be
stupid if the result of giving up is
that you go over the falls so to me this
is where we are I don't know how likely
it is that we'll succeed but I think the
thing is it just makes sense to take the
best shot you've got and uh sometimes
you're surprised you take the best shot
you got and it's good enough so what the
hell else are we doing right why would
we invest in anything other than trying
to um write our course and avoid another
tremendous Calamity of History yeah
that's very well said and one of the
things that I think will help us in fact
one of the things I think that must
happen if we're going to U Get Enough
people rowing in the right direction um
is something that Heather your uh wife
Dr Heather H brought up in one of your
episodes she read directly from the book
tribe um I have a rule when you
encounter something powerful you should
immediately go into it so I literally
after hearing that quote got the book
read it that day and the punchline is
hey boys and girls like you're you you
have a two-party system which is exactly
as you just laid up right you've got
people that a on the side of like this
um compassion empathy Collective moral
obligation to lift up as much of
humanity as humanly possible and then on
the other side you've got people who are
um about individual responsibility not
wanting um to be taken advantage of and
I see a very um not they don't it
doesn't break on the same line but an
equally important dichotomy in business
which is the Visionary and the um
executor often known as the COO the the
operations person and there is friction
between the two in both cases so you
have friction between the compassionate
people who want to help everybody and
the people who are like come on personal
responsibility I don't want to be taken
advantage of and then in a business you
need somebody who's a Visionary and is
not worried about the consequences and
just new ideas crazy ideas Big Ideas and
you need somebody's like hey
[ __ ] you have to ground this in
reality and if we just spin off on all
these crazy ideas is nothing will ever
get done and it's like I it was a huge
breakthrough for me in business when I
realized I'm I'm a Visionary because I
live in it I see it from that uh
perspective so again my obsession with
frame of reference so as the Visionary
my frame of references big ideas or how
you end up building a big business and
creating all the wealth for all the
people being able to pay people salaries
and be generous and give them vacations
and all that I remember once looking out
my window and there was like 20 cars in
the parking lot and I thought [ __ ] I've
created something that has allowed
everyone to pay for these like that's
crazy like you're really helping people
do rad [ __ ] in their lives but until I
had respect for the need for this other
person to help me right and there's a
great quote I think it's John Ford um
who said or Henry Fort who said
airplanes take off Against the Wind not
with it and the example I hear in
business a lot is you need both the kite
and the string the kite without the
string just flies off into the ether the
string without the kite just lays on the
ground so once I said okay wait a second
this is exactly what's going on in our
political discourse is you have each
side both sides are necessary so if
you're conservative and you have any
temptation to alienate or hate the other
side like you're missing the fundamental
point you are one half the equation if
it's just you it slides towards tyranny
the other side if you don't recognize
that you need the other side that it is
the the friction between the two you
said it perfectly yin-yang right if you
don't understand the need for that
balance you slide off into madness and
until both sides go hey it's cool for me
to really stand for my part of this if I
show respect and have this really insane
desire to have the other side um if we
did that then okay like people can say
look I I'm just I'm wired for I can't
have people stealing from me right the
taxes is theft and then the other side
like we can't let these people like
starve in the streets if they both value
each other and recognize okay this is an
interplay between the to I think we get
somewhere but we're so being forced into
these factions factions factions and
because I'm a personal responsibility
guy even though I do not consider myself
conservative at all cuz I'm freakishly
compassionate um
but when I I think uh
it Jordan Peterson said it the best when
he was like when you fractionate and
fractionate and fraction it you
ultimately realize that you end up with
the ultimate fraction and that's the
individual we have this thing you'll
often refer to it as Goliath but
whatever an entity the elites the
whatever whatever uh government whatever
we want to label that thing as is trying
to Blind us but I don't think that they
care
about the efficacy of the vaccine like
that doesn't feel that feels like it's
the symptom not the thing they really
care about what they really care about I
think is they want to make sure that you
comply and compliance is the game and if
you can see that they're fallible and
talk about it then it's much harder to
get compliance um does that feel right
an element of it feels very right but
they left us with a
mystery they had a technology on which
to build something that they called a
vaccine very deceptively but they used
that term to place it in our blind spot
because most people myself included had
the sense that vaccines um were
tremendously well tested that the the
risks that come along with them tend to
be small Co has forced a a rethink of
that but if the entire Point had been
compliance they would have been smart
enough to recognize that the technology
that they were using to make these shots
was extremely risky and that it could
well backfire because the range of path
IES that you could in principle trigger
with such a shot was
huge so the question is if the real
point was can we can we make you take a
shot the smart thing to do would have
been to give a shot that was
effectively uh neutral that was a
placebo you know maybe you could have
such low concentrations of the active
ingredient that it wouldn't have had any
impact and if they had done that I think
they'd be in a lot better position today
because
people would not in general have a list
of friends who had some severe negative
reaction to these things and they would
be able to play the same games they play
with Statistics to claim that they had
been effective and if they had done that
and there wasn't a pattern of pathology
then all of those of us who were worried
about what we were told these these
things were going to do to the body uh
would look foolish and their ability to
get people to comply in the future would
be that much greater so I don't have the
sense
that a simple game of forcing people to
comply could possibly explain the shots
for some reason they wanted people to
take them
H okay so I want to start teasing two
ideas apart so one I want to figure out
why they want to Blind us while I think
it's overblown to say that America is
declining like the Roman Empire when if
you're thinking the Roman Empire
declined quickly when in reality I think
it's probably a very slow process
process uh that we may or may not be in
we may get better over the next 10 years
and and then collapse who who knows or
drag it out forever whatever um so I
think it is important for people to
understand when they're talking about
you or anybody else in that group that I
see sort of being attacked now in a way
that they weren't five or six years ago
to understand when you're saying I think
this is worthy of exploration and when
you're saying I've explored a lot of
stuff and this one I'm really going to
plant a steak in the ground uh cuz I
have a feeling we're going to touch on
both in the conversation today okay so
uh going back to the question I really
want to pin down which is why blind us
what's the point let's talk about the
issue of blinding and I'll just tell you
my own thought process I I come from a
background studying complex systems I'm
a biologist I'm an evolutionary
biologist and I'm very interested in
levels of analysis so I I I come to
questions of how human societies
function through that lens and a
hypothesis in such uh case tends to be
actually a nested series of sub
hypotheses and you build them out and
the more that they stand up to new
observations the more truth they are
likely to contain so I build up a model
and if I see something next week that's
inconsistent with it my point is well my
confidence in that model is pretty low
but if I have a model and it goes a year
or two years and all I see are things
that actually fit with it I tend to get
the sense maybe it's it's right or it's
analogous to something that's right so
the question of why they are blinding us
here is what I have become increasingly
confident of again it is a hypothesis
but uh it's amazing how well it
predicts events and phenomena going
forward we are locked in competitive
struggles all the time inherently and
that's not a bad thing in fact it's the
engine that makes Western Civilization
work it just needs to be placed in I
used to think of it as like the
explosive energy in an internal
combustion engine cylinder right an
explosion isn't a productive thing but
in that context it can be very very
productive but when you are in a
competitive system there is a an
advantage that acrs to anybody who has
Superior
information
and what I I mean this almost feels too
obvious to me at this point for it not
to be on everybody's mind but we proceed
by imagining that there is a level of
patriotism that we share with other
people in our system that surely they
have the same sense of America or the
West being this marvelous structure in
which to accomplish new things to
innovate and they must therefore want to
protect it as well and we have a harder
time
grappling with well what if they don't
see it in those terms and what if
actually there's a group of folks who's
very powerful
who views
democracy as a frightening mechanism
that can upend whatever it is you're
attempting to accomplish based on the
whim of a public that may not know what
it's doing I mean I actually I
understand that concern democracy can do
things that are destructive and so if
you had a position of power you might
view the fact that the public can throw
out leadership and install somebody
who's saying things that resonate with
them with a certain amount of
trepidation so if you didn't have the
sense that the west and its its uh obl
ation to the consent of the Govern was a
positive thing you might start playing
against people that we would tend to
think they would be playing uh
alongside they would be building
up a whole range of topics in which
their Superior information allowed them
to get ahead at the expense of others I
mean this is if we think about a
financial
Market economists talk about the greater
fool how do you make money you find some
understands less than you do and you
trade things and basically you take
advantage of what they don't understand
and their wealth is transferred to you
in so doing and that actually can be a
positive force if what you understand is
something about the future that is not
clear to others if you're really
insightful then you can get Wealthy by
seeing the future with greater Clarity
but you can also do the same trick by
blinding your competitors by making it
so that the information that they would
use to fix figure out what's coming is
not available to them and what would
that look like well this is where the
rubber meets the road with this idea it
would look like an attack on all of the
things that allow us to navigate all of
the sources of public truth seeking it
would look like an attack on all
newspapers it would look like an attack
on universities and science it would
look like an attack on journals it would
ultimately look like an attack back on
the courts and that just simply matches
the evidence that we have all of these
public truth seeking mechanisms are
becoming Dumber by the hour and what
that is doing is it is putting people in
people who who see this problem are
correctly recognizing that they are much
better off to unplug from those
institutions and attempt to figure out
what's going on outside of them but what
many of them do not realize is what a
poor substitute for public truth seeking
that actually is you know I mean might
be good for people like you and me it
brings an audience that wants to hear a
conversation that hasn't been sanctioned
by one of these lobotomized institutions
but from the point of view of the
average person trying to figure out what
to make of the advice that their doctor
is giving them or the FDA is telling
them about nutrition
uh it's a poor substitute and it is the
reason that I fear collapse is that I
don't you know you can put on a
blindfold and you can keep driving down
the road for a time but at some point
there's going to be a curve and we can't
we can't drive like this we we have to
rescue ourselves from whatever it is
whatever Force whether I'm right about
its nature or not that is keeping us
from establishing the basic facts of Our
Lives okay do you see this as a
WF super conspiracy or is this just
emergent behavior of um people who get
into positions of power whether
economically like somebody running a big
company or politically uh and they think
huh I like what I'm able to do better in
this position and so there's you know
whatever 50,000 people that just have
that slight inclination of ooh this
would be a little better for me if I had
a little bit more control and then the
emergent Behavior starts to look like a
coordinated attack but in reality it's
just a lot of little people um trying to
make their own lives a little bit richer
more
controlled uh I have substantial
confidence that it is going to be a
combination of both things now I look at
the WF and there's a part of me that
thinks that's too dumb and too obvious
to actually be the entity that may be it
stands as a a front for whatever
actual thing is colluding behind the
scenes but I do I do think that there is
a component that is quite obviously
colluding against public understanding
but there are also numerous mechanisms
that will cause people to innovate in
the direction of that Force without ever
being contacted without being paid by it
they will simply do it because a system
of incentives causes them to uh to to
move in the same direction and we see
this on topic after topic and if we try
to establish the basic facts for example
of climate
change what we find is Fields full of
people presumably most of them are
well-intentioned
concerned about what they see as a real
emergency and doing their best to
elucidate it so the rest of us can see
it but if you if you've lived inside the
academy you know also
that a field like climate science at the
moment will not welcome counterveiling
evidence and what that means is that the
evidence you see doesn't have the
implication that you think it has even
if the studies you see are
accurate you're not seeing the studies
that weren't done that would have
provided a different View and across
all of these
questions our ability to have an open
Frank conversation in which all of the
evidence is aired is
fundamental it occurred to me the other
day that this really is the reason that
free speech and the free exchange of
ideas is so tightly bound with the other
rights of the West is that the consent
of the Govern means nothing if the
Govern can't have a discussion that
would allow them to vote in the
direction of reason so you can you can
wreck a democracy by Wrecking speech
even if people are perfectly free to
vote for whatever they want you don't
need to game the election itself if the
public mind is confused by being starved
of actual information so that's what I'm
seeing uh both in the informal sphere
and very much in the institutional
formal sphere it is uh
it's hallucinating is what we're seeing
the hallucinations that will cause a
person with suspicions to see them
rendered in elaborate
form um I don't know if I fully answered
your question about emergence versus
collusion well so you did in the sense
that you said it's going to be a
combination of all of them what I want
to do is start pursuing what exactly
that looks like in reality um because I
we may be saying exactly the same thing
or we may be saying something different
but my take goes something like this
um you well know what I'm about to say
because you're the one that taught it to
me but the Earth uh its rotation it
changes its tilt changes there's like
these three different things that add up
slight variations over different time
scales um that cause the Earth to cool
and warm and so we have long before
humans were here Ice Age no Ice Age Ice
Age no ice age and it went back and
forth back and forth because of the
slight pertubations that change that
determine how much cooler things get in
the summer how much snow then
accumulates over years which then turns
into an ice age and then it wobbles back
the other way and a little bit of snow
melts and a little more and a little
more until um you warm back up okay so
it's it's these huge macro trends that
are basically colliding waves and every
now and then they hit it just the right
way and you get a rogue wave and that's
what I think is happening right now I
yeah there's probably a little bit of
collusion yes there's probably just the
authoritarian desire for power um yes
some people probably just aren't
intellectually powerful enough to hold
really nuanced ideas in their head and
so when you're dealing with social media
and there's just a massive velocity and
volume of
information H I just need something so
I'm team blue I'm team red nice
simplistic just tell me what to do and
I'm going to do it just so that I don't
have to think through all these problems
and what this moment feels like is a
rogue wave I have no sense of how big
the Rogue Wave is I just know it's the
biggest wave in my lifetime uh so
certainly possible that now compared to
the Civil War this is nothing and we're
super safe and all is going to be well
but what I want to begin teasing out are
what are those elements that are coming
together now so we've talked about
whether it's the WF but just like Elites
actually colluding and I will say um the
fed the way that banking is run all of
that guaranteed even if they're just out
in the open it is a group of people that
have an agenda and they very much
control what you know what you
understand what they tell you when they
tell you uh they want to make sure that
you understand as little about printing
money as possible so on and so forth so
you definitely have the what I'll call
official collusion maybe with the best
of intentions maybe not but nonetheless
um then you get things happening at the
local level where at the Schoolboard
level there's movements there that are
taking over where they're trying to ice
out parents and they've got the FBI
investigating parents as terrorists and
so you've got some weird sort of local
thing happening then you've got what's
going on at the uh social media level
where people the platforms are being
pressured on what to show what not to
show on and on and on we go but each of
those feel to me that they are driven by
the same sort of it's all humans but
slightly different things like the FED
to me is not the same thing that's going
on at the local school
board two things and I'm I I don't want
us to get lost but your your example the
milankovich cycles that cause the
oscillation between ice ages and
interglacials uh is well Chosen and it
it it illuminates actually the way to
reconcile your presentation and
mine but I think your audience is going
to have to indulge me in order to make
it clear
why so we have these three orbital
oscillations we have uh the obliquity of
the orbit we have the procession of the
axis of the uh Earth and we have the
degree of tilt these things are
independent of each other and they
oscillate on separate time scales we
have a 100,000 year cycle a 41,000 year
cycle and a 21,000 year cycle
each of them has a very tiny influence
on the amount of solar radiation that
actually reaches the Earth even together
they have a small impact so if I was to
push a button and cause them all to go
into the phase where they cool the Earth
for one year you wouldn't be able to
tell that year from any other it might
be slightly cool but it would not be
decidedly cool what happens though
is that when these patterns align such
that they cause the amount of ice that
remains in the northern hemisphere over
the summer to be slightly larger they
turn the Earth slightly wider because
ice happens to be white and white
surfaces reflect energy back into space
which causes the following year to be
slightly cooler when the following year
is slightly cooler slightly more ice
sticks around through the northern
summer the year after that is slightly
cooler so almost all of what causes
glaciation to happen is the result of
this amplifier it is not the result of
the malanovic Cycles which set it in
motion it is the amplifier that does the
work right it's like if you imagine a
you know MC Jagger in the Rose Bowl
singing his heart out nobody in the back
row would be able to hear very much
right it's the mechanisms that amplify
his voice but they're not adjusting the
content of his voice he's still mcjagger
he's just having a huge impact based on
all of the things that amplify his voice
and then project it to all of the people
at home who weren't there that is likely
where we are the actual collusion may be
a tiny fraction of what's going on but
it's like a navigational fraction it's
setting our Direction and then these
organic emergent processes are causing
it to become a a terrifying Force rather
than you know a joke where 10 Apes
gathered in a room and decided to steer
the world in some direction that sounds
Preposterous but given the capacity
for markets and fields of study to
amplify thinking to amplify motivated
reasoning we we get the same kind of
puzzle so I don't disagree with you that
the majority of it may be emergent but I
don't think that's the that's the place
to concentrate if we want to fight back
but the the way to understand where
we're headed is to focus on the part
that is doing the steering and um that's
not so easy to do because of course
we're not invited we have to we have to
extrapolate from the pattern on the
outside yes but I think we'll be able to
describe the um the phenomena of okay
we're being blinded we're being censored
there are things the the just massive
attempt to shrink the Overton windows so
that so many things were not allowed to
be spoken about um which again from
where I'm sitting that feels like the um
the emergent phenomenon more than just
just overlords because this really gets
complicated I've been over here trying
to like write down all the things that I
think um create this so the current
variations of uh the movich milankovich
cycle uh but so you've got growth has
stopped which we probably need to talk
about uh you've got just the internet
and social media again going back to the
idea of velocity and volume of
information you've got the nanny state
which I guess Jonathan height wrote a
new book about not read it yet but I'm
super eager to see uh the consequences
of that you've also got um I forget who
wrote the book but about um therapists
now just affirm affirm affirm and how
that's creating additional spiral of
this like sense of I need to be
protected uh and then you've also got
just the um
postmodernist thinking that has swept
through the institutions that now is as
we have a generation of people that have
been taught that they all have Tik Tok
and Instagram accounts and they're just
like blasting this stuff out there as
fast as you can and now as from my
Thinking Beyond the collusion those are
the things that are creating this moment
do you think I missed anything well you
you mentioned it in that last
piece um but I'm not sure I'm not sure
it's highlighted well enough yet there
is an aspect of social media that causes
a totally unnatural amplification of
very natural human
Tendencies and I've been thinking more
about the Overton window and the fact
that it
has um it has an an
analytical uh connotation to it right
what are the ideas that are beyond the
ones we're ready to to
contemplate but then I started to notice
uh I've I've become increasingly Su uh
suspicious of what I call polite society
and tell me more what does that mean
well polite Society uh at the risk of
causing your audience to think me crazy
I I took up I
accepted uh Alex Jones offer to come on
his
program and that caused an interesting
freak out most of what most of which was
not actually about what I said on Alex
Jones program but it caused what I said
on Joe Rogan's program to be scrutinized
in a way that was uh new and I think
quite
mean-spirited um and because people
think Alex Jones is off his rocker if
you've gone on his show you must be off
your rocker let me go look at what you
said and prove it yes but I also think
there is a
concern I think going on Alex Jones
program would have made less sense
before Tucker Carlson had interviewed
him that that actually brought Alex
Jones
into a discussion where it had formally
been possible formerly been possible
just to Simply dismiss him out out of
hand and the problem with Alex Jones
from the point of view of polite Society
is that he's not just simply wrong about
everything that would be easy to deal
with but he's often right and so uh what
does one do with somebody who has simply
given up
on uh staying within any bounds is
willing to explore any idea that's very
dangerous to certain folks so my going
there you know I'm a I'm a PhD in
biology I've made a couple contributions
to my field and if I'm talking to Alex
Jones it creates a question it it it
causes a re-exploration of the question
of whether or not one has to actually
take him
seriously so that became the moment at
which it was important to come up with
reasons not to make take me seriously
right so that that question could again
uh be
sidelined
and what I realized was that I was
getting a lot of push
back um from people who were driving up
the cost for me doing what I did right
that I there there was content in what
they were saying but the real message
was actually you shouldn't have done
that it was a don't go there girlfriend
kind kind of a moment right and so I
started to think about what that was
made of and I realized the polite
society which to me takes the form of um
you know like a fractal set of of
cocktail
parties the people that you want to like
you that they have the ability to steer
You by threatening not to invite you to
the next one and my feeling is I no
longer care
because these folks have gotten so much
so wrong that um it's not obvious why uh
their sanction should have value and the
more I thought about that question the
more I realized that polite Society
exists in every era and I leave open the
possibility that it might have a
positive amplifying effect in a good
ERA right that it might spur people to
accomplish great things so that they
could you know be heralded at the next
cocktail party for their their insights
but I realized you've seen there's some
photographs that were discovered
somewhere in the last couple decades uh
a Nazi photo album that had been
languishing in somebody's
attic um and it
revealed not the stuff that we're so
familiar with from the Holocaust but it
it revealed
the the private recreational lives of
Nazis outside of aitz you know the I
heard something about this but no it's
remarkable and there there a couple
photographs that I find just absolutely
chilling where there are these you know
well-dressed Nazi girls one of them
they're enjoying blueberries right bowls
of blueberries like right outside of
aitz um woof yeah it's it's it's wild
and I I guess my feeling is look
actually no I want to turn the spotlight
back on polite society and I want to ask
the question which is why should we care
what you think at this moment when you
you know okay polite Society is very
committed to the idea that we have no
choice but to vote for Joe Biden because
of the you know the terrifying Prospect
of Donald Trump being elected again well
if polite Society was making any sense
it would be running Joe Biden as a hedge
against the reelection of Donald Trump
it would offer up somebody serious it
would in fact
sideline its influence pedaling racket
so that that was not an important
argument against voting blue in this
election if it cared about us that's
what it would
do and the fact that it doesn't do that
suggests that actually it's as cynical
as it ever was but it wants the little
people people to jump based on a fear of
Donald Trump that is irrational in my
opinion right
so when that's the game of foot when
polite Society wants to turn you know
its Gaze on me and say you're out of
line but it's not looking at the DNC and
saying what the hell are you people
doing Do you realize what you're playing
with Joe Biden shouldn't have been
elected in the last election the idea of
running him again at this even more
Advanced state of decrepitude is insane
and yet doesn't cause the the Democratic
machine to Blink
so anyway my point again I think I think
this is important to say clearly I'm not
accusing anybody of nail likee
defects that's not my point about the
Nazi girls and their blueberries my
point is polite Society existed right
outside of aitz it exists in every era
the fact that it does or doesn't invite
you to its cocktail party has to be
evaluated the meaning of that has to be
evaluated in the context of whether or
not polite Society is doing its job of
amplifying the good things about
civilization or if it's doing the exact
opposite and actually making us worse
making us Petty and superstitious and
that is exactly what I think it's doing
at the moment so uh I guess I'm I'm I'm
gladder to be outside of it and not
welcome it those parties um then I would
be continuing to attend them okay so um
again this is something that I
concretized after listening to you but
the idea that shame has its place uh
you've said you don't want to throw that
out you have to understand it you use
pain oftentimes as the example if you go
to a doctor and they think that pain is
in and of itself a malady that is to be
gotten rid of you've got a problem
because pain is signifying there's an
issue that you need to address and it is
adaptive not maladaptive I would say the
same thing about poite Society though I
will agree with you that you you don't
want to blindly accept polite Society so
I'm going to take that as the shame
mechanism and I'm going to say okay I
don't I'm not going to discard this
lightly but the thing that I disagree
with and what you just said is that I
don't think polite Society will ever be
its own policemen and so this is why we
need the you call yourself I think a
reluctant radical so it's like we need
we need reluctant or otherwise
we need the people that sit outside of
polite Society to also work their thing
and so while there's always going to be
friction between polite society and the
radicals my whole mission in life is to
get people to understand that you need
to exist in Dynamic tension like you you
don't want those two things to conform
to each other I would not want polite
Society to give up their sense of like
this is how things should be and I would
not want the radicals to conform to
polite Society so there there you need
both of those things they they serve
serve well only when they're in Ju the
position now getting specific about Alex
Jones Okay so one thing that as I watch
you you are very much a part of my
sensemaking apparatus people can take
that how they want but you Sam Harris is
a part of my continued sensemaking
apparatus and I know people have beef
with him and my thing is like I'm not
going to believe everything you say or
he says or anybody says I think
everybody's job is to take the best
information they can get discard stuff
that they think whatever for whatever
reason isn't bang on and then synthesize
their own thing and if you can't think
for yourself you already have a problem
so when I think about okay for you is
there knowing that you use this
hypothesis thesis dichotomy is there a
limit to what you think is a hypothesis
that you will put out there do you have
a
governing Matrix Paradigm in your own
thinking that says this hypothesis I
will present publicly this one I won't
which will then tie into whether going
on Alex Jones may have been I haven't
seen it so I have no idea if you were
like the voice of reason in the room I
think of him as somebody who has
absolutely no overt window he will talk
about literally anything and so I would
not want to see him censored because hey
better let me sort the wheat from the
chaff rather than that be a top- down
decision however I put him in a very
specific box because he has no seemingly
no self-governance around what he will
talk about so do you have a thing that
governs what hypothesis you will and
won't publicly explore that's a great
question um and it's odd I don't exactly
know the answer to it um let me tell you
how I think about it
though there are
certain
properties that have a paradoxical
nature free speech is one of them we
could waste the rest of both of our
Lives parsing the various examples of
where speech has had some implication
and whether or not the effect was
negative or positive at a net level but
at the end of the day the right answer
is speech needs to be essentially
perfectly free and the net outcome of
that is positive likewise I would say i'
I've
engaged reluctantly in a battle with uh
a person on Twitter who has been a very
strong and I think uh not forthright
advocate for the standard narrative on
things like covid vaccines he wishes
continued engagement I don't want to
further engage him because I don't
believe that he is actually working
forward from evidence to a conclusion I
believe he's working backwards from a
conclusion and so I don't think it's an
honest debate but my point would be this
in an honest debate let's say that we
have an honest debate over something
that matters a great deal like whether
or not these shots are safe enough to
give to a human being do I say well
either the shots are going to kill more
people or not taking them is going to
kill more people and if I have an
argument with somebody about it and I'm
I'm saying hey I think the shots are
going to kill more people and it turns
out that the shots save more people than
were killed am I then responsible for
those
deaths absolutely not the way this works
is anybody on either side of an honest
exploration is contributing to us
knowing more about where the dangers are
and where the values are both sides get
credit as long as they're doing it in
good faith as soon as somebody steps out
of the realm of good faith they no
longer are in that uh that position they
actually own the downsides of their
argument if you're going to argue that
I'm responsible for the deaths if I
misunderstand something then the point
is well if it turns out you're wrong
you're responsible for those deaths
because you chose that argument but if
you're willing to participate with me in
exploring this and we can take up
contrary positions and at the end of the
day we both get credit for making the
question clearer that's a world I'm I'm
happy with so again
is there a limit to what I will present
well if there is a limit it
is uh a threshold very different from
most people and it has
been I can trace it back at least to
college in college taking an
evolutionary biology course my final
paper the course was taught by Bob
drivers very famous and influential
evolutionary biologist my final paper
for the course was an exploration of the
question of whether or
not Hitler was in fact an insane Maniac
or whether what he did could be
understood in it's obviously as immoral
as you get but could it be understood in
rational terms from an evolutionary
perspective now that is something I've
been told is a question we must not
explore and worse I've been told that it
can't possibly be true right people
don't want it explored and they wish to
Lodge an answer to the question without
exploring it which I I can't respect but
the fact that you know since I was in
college
in would have been
1991 I guess um I've been exploring
questions like that tells you that I'm
willing to go places others won't now I
do
so knowing that I do so carefully that I
bring
tools to the table and that
I I have an obligation not to say things
I believe are
untrue and I am trusting in some sense
that the reality that I will end up
unearthing
is a valuable thing to have awareness of
if it is worth
exploring the possibility that genocide
is a
rational objective immoral but a
rational objective my belief is the
likelihood that we will actually be able
to prevent future genocides is increased
if we understand that connection could I
be wrong about that I could be
but I'm a scientist to the core I
believe that unearthing the truth is
valuable in the end even if you know
even if I die believing something that
turns out to be reversed later on the
process gets us there over time and it
is uh it is it it does
embolden uh our best values all right
this is really interesting um I firmly
believe that everybody has a world view
it's What I Call Whole Life beer goggles
so everyone sees the world through a
distorted lens and we all get to distort
that lens in whatever way we choose most
people don't realize that so they're
born with something they live in a value
system they just adhere to whatever they
grew up with uh but that the warping of
that lens is a combination of what you
believe your values and your genetics
what I'm hearing is a mapped value
system from you uh that makes a
prediction so you're willing to explore
whether hit Hitler or anybody else that
commits a genocide is acting rationally
immorally you were very clear about that
but rationally some people as you said
are going to say that's Beyond The Pale
because if you find out that the answer
is yes the world gets a little worse
because now I can't just Lop him off at
the knees and say completely Beyond The
Pale uh it's all bad it's only evil the
second you see it evil react go crazy so
the value that I think what you just
said predicts is that truth and
understanding Trump even grotesque
detrimental results well it depends if I
understand what you just said um I am
not saying that the value of knowing the
truth truth is inherently greater than
whatever
harm uh might come at it but how will
you know until you explore it I won't I
could try to parse every instance of
speech and figure out which can I do
obviously the right to say anything is
not the same thing as believing that you
should say everything but the
exploration of studi
patterns I Believe In The End
inherently produces more value I'm
beginning to understand how you get
yourself in so much trouble are you
Weinstein yes uh okay so it's
interesting though and I think I'll be
able to represent what you're doing in a
way you will recognize but if I go wrong
let me know okay this all started I'm
trying to map the way that you think and
uh what you said about Hitler exploring
genocide as a potentially rational
immoral but rational act uh was to I
think explain the underlying value
system that you make these decisions on
because we were trying to figure out
what hypothesis would you or would you
not explore um okay so I said that truth
and understanding Trump grotesque and
detrimental results you said no that's
not quite right because you said that
exploring that thing does not outweigh
the potential damaging effects of
knowing said thing so if that's true
then in the uh Hitler as potentially
example you don't think that the
knowledge of that um will create a
negative outcome that is worth shutting
down the exploration
for okay I think I now I'm seeing this
more clearly do you have further you
wanted to go if I've already gone off
track no you should bring no you haven't
gone off track I have just completed
Bobby Kennedy's new book on it's called
the Wuhan coverup
it is just like his last book uh the
real Anthony fouchy it is mindblowing
it's really shocking uh it's an
encyclopedic exploration of
a quest for bioweapons that I had almost
no understanding of before reading this
book the bioweapons
question uh allows us to see the answer
you're looking for
because I would not argue that the
simple fact that there
are viruses in nature that could be
enhanced in ways that might tell us
something
about possible human impacts on health
from future uh
pandemics um or that might be enhanced
in ways that would tell us something
about weapons we cannot continue down
this road right the degree to which our
expl exploration of those questions in
the lab will result in massive human
harm what if you never made the virus
but you just explored gain a function
theoretically well that's the question
is my sense is a there is
no mechanism by which you can prevent
people from thinking about these
questions nor should you because if you
open the door to telling people what
they can and cannot contemplate
analytically
baby okay but my point is no
analytically we have to be able to talk
about these things just as I have to
able to talk about the actual
evolutionary meaning of rape and
genocide right doesn't make those
conversations fun it doesn't mean you
know could somebody hear a discussion of
that and be inspired to go spread his
genes I suppose but the value of
understanding that pattern the value fr
frankly for women understanding the
pattern the degree to which it empowers
them to make themselves safer from this
Hazard is significant enough that one
can't parse if you focus too much on the
possible harms you will miss the fact
that there is effectively a related
rates problem that makes the benefit of
understanding these things exceed the
cost but I would not take that to the
level of experiment right the level of
experiment has all kinds of perils that
we should not engage but the level of
abstraction I believe we are simply
better off becoming as informed as we
possibly can on every topic that has
implication for human
well-being have you looked at the IQ
literature a little what do you think
about that that's another hyper fra
purely ideological it's just a thought
just an idea man does it freak people
out but here's okay but I wish I had a
better example for this but when I was a
kid
there was a uh a children's book uh that
we read in my family it was called The
Monster at the End of This Book do you
know the Monster at the End of This Book
I don't but I can make a lot of guesses
based on the title The the monster on at
the End of This Book is a book in which
Grover becomes afraid because the cover
of the book tells you that there is a
monster at the end of the book and he
attempts to prevent the Turning of the
pages because every page you turn brings
you closer to what at the end of the
book is going to be a moner and of
course you turn all the pages of the
book and the monster at the end of the
book is Grover nothing to be worried
about right now my point
is we can look at all of these topics
and we can spook ourselves about the
danger that one of these topics is going
to put us in some terrible circumstance
we can't get out of and that we should
try to imagine in advance without
knowing what is at the end of the book
we should try to imagine in advance
which of these topics should be t
because you don't want to go there but
in so doing you are more or less saying
oh I know what's probably there and we
can't afford to know that in any factual
way so that can't possibly be right
because how do you know if you haven't
gone down that road so here's the thing
I'm not afraid of this IQ discussion I
think I know about where it lands it
could it could have been far worse than
I believe the evidence actually
suggests um and I'll tell you where I
think it goes and uh there is a bitter
pill
but what is the net impact of
understanding the implications of the IQ
literature I believe it is actually
liberating for all of us humans it is
not going to be um the thing that people
fear why are you worried about shutdown
stem um I agree with you it is
absolutely the most terrifying piece of
this um it's also the most absurd piece
but I think the reason that it is so
terrifying in is that it speaks to a
willingness
to
uninvent Insight in order to make
progress right and that tells you what
kind of progress they want to make so to
the extent that one is willing to take a
tool as universal as the scientific
method and to critique it a to declare
it some sort of a
uh a European thing right to declare it
white in order to nullify its power to
speak is um I mean I guess I guess I
know exactly what it is it's Plato's
Cave and you know you started uh talking
about the Matrix and Plato's Cave is the
Matrix and the thing about the the the
Matrix in Plato's Cave
is the desire of most people many people
some important force not to be
enlightened right that there's something
that is served by you know the killing
of the person who's seen what's outside
the cave when they come back and try to
report that's the the most frightening
process of all and those of us who have
tried to convey something about the
danger that we are in know that there is
this um this force of resistance that is
very powerful that wants to Kill the
Messenger in order to keep doing what
it's doing and uh to hear it spelled out
I
mean the we are fighting about so many
things which are just simply unambiguous
that 5 years ago you would think there's
no way we're ever going to have an
analytical argument about whether or not
men and women are effectively the same
thing right because everybody everybody
knows that they're not the same thing
right and then to find yourself there
and to find yourself trying to fend off
arguments that make no sense tells you
that there is some that the momentum
behind this is not
driven by any sort of analysis it is
driven by just a naked desire for power
and I think the thing is we know how
that ends we don't necessarily know who
the winners and losers are but it ends
with something of which we will all be
Terri terbly ashamed and spell out why
that's true I agree aggressively but I
want I want you to say why that's
true um so I've been thinking a lot
about this of late and it occurred to me
at one point that the United States is
special and it's special because it
attempts to do something that I know is
possible but is very very difficult
which is to step out of the normal
evolutionary Dynamic and do something
better so the normal evolution Dynamic
has us cooperating on the basis of our
relatedness the same reason that you
know you uh will Aid your kids before
you'll Aid somebody else's kids uh works
at a population level which means that a
kind of racism is wired into us as the
default mode of uh of cooperation and
and
conflict the United States aims to set
aside those population level differences
to Foster a cooperation based on
something else you know it's in some
weird sense it is the the Christian
Insight of um you know the story of the
Good Samaritan that relatedness is not
the basis on which we should uh view
each other favorably that there is
something to be gained by being
inclusive empathically inclusive and
collaborating because it makes us
stronger um the problem is as great idea
as that obviously is I mean it's been
incredibly contagious the number of
countries that have followed our example
and you know modeled themselves on on
our pattern is stunning for us to
instead of completing the project
instead of actually bringing ourselves
to a place where opportunity is evenly
distributed to go in reverse and to
reinvigorate the population against
population conflict
means that effectively all there will be
in the end is power and the limits of
compassion will be genetically defined
and that is the recipe in which you find
people genociding each other or cooking
up reasons to go to war across a border
whatever it is it's it's uninteresting
to be sure it is shameful to return
there after having discovered that
something else is possible and I just I
can't imagine why anybody is going to be
surprised that the outgrowth of putting
race first is going to be um you know I
mean maybe Leonard Cohen got it I've
seen the future brother it's
murder I really hope not you said
something not too long ago that um was
both hilarious and uh it made me worri
it's exactly what people aren't doing
you said I want to emphasize one word
people
extrapolate and I was like yes yes
please like follow that logic to its
natural conclusion and that sums up why
I am freaked out by um them coming after
stem because it was uh the one thing
that I held on to was okay if you just
get people to follow their own logic you
realize how problematic it gets and they
would have to do away with logic
altogether and they're never going to
wait what and it's like they're actually
getting rid of logic it's the the moment
in the argument where you're like I'm
not even going to say anything I'm just
going to ask questions because I know
once I ask a certain number of questions
they will get to the point where they
realize oh [ __ ] I actually okay cool I
see where this goes because it never
occurs to you that they would actually
throw out um measuring progress having a
goal seeing if you're actually getting
towards that goal like and so when they
start going yeah like the the second
most disturbing thing to come out all of
this was the um Smithsonian like these
are all the things that are white and
are therefore problematic and it was
like hard work progress measuring
results striving to be the best I was
like what the [ __ ] is happening you you
literally I have so I have to get into a
little bit of my story you know a
smidgeon of it um so when you're working
in manufacturing which is where I was
working you're in the inner cities so
you're around only people of color I
mean almost exclusively and so I'm
encountering all these people and I'm
like okay Tom are your ideas real
because you always say it doesn't matter
who you are today it only matters who
you want to become and the price you're
willing to pay to get there well if
that's true Tom then you'd be willing to
hire convicted felons would you not and
I was like yeah actually I would and so
we put out on the street as they call it
that we would hire people we would
consider people for employment even if
they had a felony record and so we ended
up getting all of these like way
lowincome people had really struggled
had trouble with the law former drug
dealers gang bangers like guys with the
teardrop tattoos and all that and I was
not everybody but I was very impressed
with a number of people who were
Extraordinary People incredibly capable
um able to do stuff they just had a
weird ass frame of reference and if I
could give them an empowering frame of
reference then you know they could go on
to do something and walking them down
the line of like hey here's how you
improve something you have a goal you
set it you have a metric that you're
marching towards um that just seemed if
you can get them on that path then
you've really got something that's going
to take you somewhere impactful but once
you strip away that ability and you say
hey that's white um and so you don't
want to act white or be white I'm like
the one thing you've given me that's
allowing me to help these people like we
had one guy he went from he took the job
because he wanted a front for his drug
money okay okay imagine that he comes in
he interviews because he hears this
crazy guy is willing to hire people with
felony convictions he had been to prison
not for drugs oddly enough but he' been
to prison for something else and then
was dealing again and but had to show
his parole officer where he was getting
the money so and he tells me all this to
my face later once we'd been we had
gained trust with each other and he was
like dude you've changed my life you've
changed the lives of my kids like this
is going to Echo for Generations there
was one guy that called me I hadn't
spoken in probably in six years he
called me this a few weeks ago he's like
Tom I'm on my way to a job I'm getting
paid almost
$100,000 I would never have believed
this was possible and I just had to
thank you and I was like this this is
why instead of buying an island and
retiring like I've double down in my
life because I I see the number of
people that oh changed my frame of
reference I didn't get smarter I just
look at things differently I'm using
metrics like I have a goal because that
was my whole thing to them you have a
goal and my thing I always preach is
doing believe about yourself that which
moves you towards your goals right so if
because a lot of people get stuck in
these Loops of I'm stupid I'm dumb the
world's against me whatever and so I'm
like does that belief help you achieve
your goal no cool then don't don't buy
into it even if the world really is
against you even if the deck really is
stacked against you accepting defeat
does not move you towards your goal so
don't do it and so when I read that and
I was like what are you doing like you
were stripping people of the most
powerful possible tools by saying
they're the tools themselves are somehow
corrupt Because of
Who quote unquote created it I'm like
this is [ __ ] Madness it either works
or it
doesn't yeah it's it's crazy Heather and
I have uh long wondered about this
Audrey Lord quote about uh you can't
take apart the Master's house with the
Master's tools and it just the most
disempowering Viewpoint I I'm not even
entirely sure what she meant but the way
this is understood
it just
takes um the most powerful things at
that human disposal and keeps them in
the hands of those who uh have had them
longest I mean it just it inverts the
process of uh of ending oppression and
it's hard to imagine why anybody who
sees their objective as ending
oppression would Embrace this you should
you should want to capture those tools
and you should want to learn to wield
them as effectively as you possibly can
right the tools don't know who's
wielding them they work because they
work and if you're going to rule out
things uh that work because of who
discovered them first and I'm not even
sure it is who discovered them first but
who you know our Collective narrative
says discovered them first then you're
just you're never going to get anywhere
so yes it it is incredibly frightening
to hear people go up against logic and
science um and you know the funny thing
is Evergreen did allow us to have these
conversations up close and personal and
so I think a lot of people dismiss the
idea that people are against stem people
in this movement are are against it
because they haven't heard somebody say
it while looking into their eyes oh yes
science really is a white thing it's
like what are you even did you just say
that I mean that's almost all I need to
know about your proposal for the world
is that you just don't understand even
the basics of you know where Liberation
would come from right so yeah I wish I
wish I could convey that better I'm glad
somebody heard me say extrapolate and
knew what I meant um because I really
very much I think it's it's the missing
parameter if you just take what you know
to be factual and extrapolate from it
you can see where we're headed and it
couldn't be more frightening it it
really couldn't be more frightening and
staying on the notion of um one thing
that bothers me is people are always
looking for a reason not to listen to
somebody and so I I have beliefs and I
wrote These beliefs a very long time ago
so they have nothing to do with the
current moment like you said they are
the things that have worked in my life
and I wrote them down so that I could
give them to other people um because I
really am obsessed with equal
opportunity and that's been a passion of
mine now for more than a decade and look
I've made moves in my life that I I will
say put me Beyond reproach in terms of
um like I said hiring you know former
felons or or felons but um no longer in
prison and just putting my money where
my mouth is and you know seeing what
happens um and it
really I find a disturbing Trend that
people jump to any reason they have not
to learn from somebody so I mean it
obviously extrapolate it becomes cancel
culture and I was given an example
yesterday and I thought this actually
really um it it is the Trap that I would
be curious to see how somebody who has
this ideology um would handle it so
let's say that you have a daughter
somehow worse if it's a little girl for
me anyway you have a daughter and she is
um in anaphylactic shock her throat has
closed and you call 911 and the most
vile and despicable person in the world
answers that call but they know how to
perform an infield tracheotomy and so
they can save your daughter do you hang
up the phone and try to find somebody
else who you agree with and you'd be
willing to take their advice which in my
opinion makes you an even more
despicable person because you're now
making your child suffer and the risk of
death you know is now skyrocketing um or
do you say I don't give a [ __ ] that you
are the most despicable person on Earth
you have a piece of information that
actually gets me something that I need
and that I want and my thing is dude I I
I it it is a litmus test test from which
I will say I can't understand I can't
understand your worldview like your
value system is so divorced from mine
and I'll say mine is probably like if
you boiled my value system down to just
its basic basic basic irreducible
building block it's do things that
alleviate human suffering it's going to
be something like that that's sort of
the the thing below that like if
somebody disagrees with that then I I'm
at a loss now I no longer how to
communicate I don't know how to
communicate so
that argument to me is is the sort of
ultimate extrapolation of I'm trying to
shut that person down because they're a
bad person I don't want to hear their
ideas my thing is look if there were two
people in front of me and one was a
despicable person and the other was
somebody who inspired me and I thought
they were amazing and they both have the
same information of course I'm going to
gravitate towards the person I even in
subtle ways of rewarding them with my
thanks and praise and and you know I
have chosen them and of course that will
feel good for them I get why I would
want to Lavish people who I really
believe in with that so cool all things
being equal I get it we're all going to
self- select to you know celebrating
things and people that we like but
shutting down learning something and now
this brings you to like if Unity 2020 is
is the concept that you're just one of
the things you really want to get out
there one of the things I most desperate
to get people to understand like to
really understand at a visceral level
it's that skills have utility they let
you do things and you don't read a book
to check a markof you don't go to
college to impress your parents you take
architecture classes so you can build a
bridge that doesn't fall down and once
you understand that and that if you can
do something other people can't do like
you've now just moved Humanity forward
or your small group forward like that
[ __ ] is real and when I say that I I
don't see like this recognition in
people's eyes of like hey the point of
learning something is to actually be
able to do something and so my my new
thing is to get people to understand
your mind is not a library your mind is
a laboratory and once you realize ah the
point of this knowledge is to run tests
against it to see what actually allows
me to influence the world and my
obsession is power let that Echo and let
lightning strike and Sinister noise play
because whenever I tell people that I
come seeking power people get freaked
the [ __ ] out until I say let me Define
power for you power is the ability to
close your eyes imagine a world a world
better than this one and then open your
eyes and be able to make that world come
true because it's going to require you
to do things and if you don't have the
skill set to do those things you are
disempowered so yeah getting people to
understand that feels like an uphill
battle
sometimes no I it's beautiful and I
resonate with it 100% and in some sense
I think what's happened is we've so
badly botched the job of educating
people that they register
in some sense that it's too late and so
the mind-numbing prescriptions that were
being delivered I think our surrender
that basically people who understand
that they have been effectively
cognitively maimed are not really
interested in the idea that the right
way to solve the problem is to to
increase the capacity of your mind
to find new possibilities and bring them
into the world um so instead it's the
temper tantrum that you started with
which you
know I get it we can't do that but I get
it I understand that they're they're
angry and they have a right to
be all right I want to shift gears
because I would be horrified if I had an
evolutionary biologist uh two hours with
them and I did not ask a question that
has been on my mind since I was like
15 br as weird as this question is it
actually means something to me and I I
ask it in all sincerity why is the
clitorus on the
outside well okay this is a good
question um let's put it this way I
don't think the focus should be on the
anatomical structure right there's bound
to be an answer to that let's put it
this way the fact that testicles are on
the outside is also an interesting
odity but let's say the interesting
thing is that
selection has altered the meaning of sex
for humans right it has delivered us an
Incredible Gift which we are now
treating so horrifyingly but the gift is
it has turned sex into a bonding
mechanism and what that means is that
unlike almost all creatures human beings
have sex when the production of
Offspring is not a
possibility that is to say people have
sex after menopause they have sex when
it's not the fertile moment in a woman's
cycle and that I think people don't
understand how unique a situation that
is and what it implies is that human
bonding is
a a novel phenomenon that requires both
parties to feel rewarded by the activity
so in some
sense uh the orgasm has been uh
democratized by selection and a
mechanism for generating it has been um
provided by adaptation and interestingly
the mechanism for generating it is not
it's not a simple button right right
it's just not a simple button it
actually requires an empathic connection
in order to to tune into your partner
well enough to deliver the goods and in
some sense that's the magic of the thing
is um by creating a puzzle surrounding
sexual gratification in women the
necessity of a close connection
is um is introduced into pair
bonding is that making sense it is I
have a a load of question uh waiting if
that is the natural break point so um my
question is it am I wrong in assuming
that for literally thousands of years
and maybe far longer than that that um
it was neglected and that generation
after generation after generation of
women failed to have um a a life where
orgasm was a regular part of it um due
to that which if that's the case it it
does not seem that Evolution would land
on that as a strategy maybe a byproduct
maybe a total accident but it seems that
it probably isn't a strategy unless and
this was I can't remember where I read
this and it was so interesting to me
that I thought could this really be true
that it was put on the outside so that
women it wasn't like if you think of the
penis as a a very um it's external it's
easily touched by anybody who wants to
bond and certainly in other animals
you'll see it isn't just the person that
they're having intercourse with that
will reach out and touch them what in a
way that we would call sexual as a way
to ease tension or whatever and so I
thought is this a way of putting
something on the outside so that women
also have um just a a social bonding a
way to soothe or um you know uh extend
sort of an olive branch of Kinds you
know between two people could be male ma
uh male female could be female female um
and that it needed to be on the outside
to be more easily
accessible well that's a really
interesting question I don't know of any
evidence to support it I will say I'm
doubtful uh that the orgasm in females
was it it may be true that in European
culture for example it was um it was
turned taboo and therefore a kind of uh
you know generating orgasm for females
is kind of a lost art but I think in
many other cultures it's quite clear
that there was an awareness of um the
subtleties of sexual pleasure for
females so in any case if Europeans
really did lose touch with uh with
female orgasm I believe that's an
anomaly probably has a a meaning to it
in other words there
are
um it is true that the structures that
exist are adaptation and it is true that
religious prohibitions against their
access are also evolutionary adaptations
and so there's a question about what
what is being managed by these these
tensions um but I love the idea that
placing it on the outside means that it
is not strictly speaking a uh a an
intercourse triggered phenomenon um that
of course raises questions about the
G-Spot and uh its location but anyway
it's an interesting it's an interesting
line of questioning I understand why
you're obsessed with it it's fascinating
and clearly selection had something in
mind um I will say the fly and the
ointment of this discussion might be one
of anatomical constraint in other words
because the clitoris is made of the same
tissue that the penis is made of it may
be that its position is actually um
constrained by the amount of shared
blueprint that male and female have in
terms of where tissues end up so I I
don't know that is super interesting
um there is certainly some logic to that
but the um so in terms of the design of
the clitorus if I'm not mistaken there
are um elements of the uh the nerve that
wraps around um the vaginal Canal which
that always made more sense because then
at least it seems like it's sort of in
on the ACT um and shows that that you
could put theoretically those tendrils
anywhere and that one would assume that
nature ran some sort of experiment where
there was more
involvement um you know on because there
are some women at least as I understand
it there are some percentage of women
that can have orgasm from um traditional
uh penetrative sex so it becomes um you
know a question of why if we think of
that as sort of an experiment that
nature ran why did it not go all the way
why did it hit some uh percentage of
women but not all especially if and I am
sort of making the base assumption that
women are more likely to get pregnant if
they also have an
orgasm um there is actually data on this
I'm trying to remember what the
conclusion is I you you can't hold me to
this it's possible I have it wrong but I
think if I'm remembering it correctly
the result was that orgasm did increase
the likelihood of fertilization
um if One controls for fertile period
right for the place in the woman's cycle
that sex is taking place I I hope that's
correct um that's certainly what I
encountered um I am by no means an
expert on the subject but that was the
one that made me go wow that this is so
interesting then why are the two
divorced like it just seems so strange
to me well but in some sense I think
that's reflective of the the answer I
gave you initially which is um there's a
tremendous amount about courting and uh
other Associated rituals which um now
become things like marriage and
engagement in in humans that is built to
ensure that males don't game
females in other words fem so females
have a tremendous investment in
Offspring automatically just by virtue
of carrying them internally and then
feeding them uh by
breast males can have a very high
investment in Offspring and that's a
very frequent way for males to reproduce
but they obviously can have a almost no
investment version of the strategy which
although it's less successful because
raising Offspring without a father is
more difficult it is such a bargain from
the point of view of males that males
find the prospect of it irresistible
right this is why males are obsessed
with um sex with women that they don't
have any intention of uh seeing again so
um in light of that females are built
they are both wired and programmed to
avoid men who are resistant to
commitment and so the point is in some
sense the conception of a child with a
man who is diligent about delivering
sexual pleasure is liable to be uh
that's a more secure Bond than sex with
a man who's only interested in his own
pleasure so you could imagine the system
would wouldn't that make sense that that
is super [ __ ] interesting now that
that's 4 d chess right there like all
right let's let's see how far you're
willing to go to make sure that I'm
taking care of as well Jesus that is
[ __ ] interesting man that is really
interesting yeah I uh well yeah go ahead
no no no please I I want to learn more
here well I was just going to say you
know that uh
this all raises this issue of how
frivolously we are treating sex and how
stupid it is because in some sense you
know we we could have been given no
greater gift than a weirdly yin-yang
symmetrical sexual landscape that you
spend a lifetime exploring with somebody
I mean that's
just it it'd be hard to make up
something that wonderful and we're
treating it just so stupidly dude this
is where you know going back to the data
becomes so interesting because um one
like the moment that I just had where
you gave me something that I I had a
whole sort of belief around like why the
curus is on the outside and I could tell
it at cocktail parties and always gets a
big reaction and you came along you gave
me something that like totally knocks
that off and is like even more
interesting and it's like man that's I
love those moments right but it's an
empirical question you know ultimately
you can look at the data and find out
which one's real and like wo that's real
and and then really beginning to
understand it like begins to you know
peel back the onion as it were and so
even looking at sex and monogamy and the
different types of parir bonding that we
have and how they can change from one
environment to the next and why that
like once you are able to look at the
data and say like I never would have
guessed I've heard people say there's
like three things you have to do to
succeed in America I may get these wrong
and if you know them please tell me um
that I'm wrong but I think they are um
don't get don't have a child of wedlock
um get a high school diploma and get a
job it's something like that like these
really basic three things all but
guarantee you entrance into the middle
class and it's one of those look at the
data and Thomas soul is somebody that
blew my mind when all of this kicked off
and it was like I had some weird unease
that black lives matter wasn't about
actually helping black people but I know
enough about it so I was like uh I
didn't want to post black lives matter
but I was like I need to go research
this and figure out what's going on and
so I went on like this binge where I was
like I'm only going to seek out um black
intellectuals and see where they fall
and it introduced me to some of the
greatest Minds Thomas soul to me in a
subconscious way when I look at him I
see he might as well be wearing a
Superman outfit like when you hear that
guy talk he's so smart in a way that I'm
so Covetous of and he's so well
researched it is crazy and whenever
somebody debates him he's always like
show me the data like I will follow the
data wherever it goes I don't have some
agenda that I'm trying to push I'm just
telling you you want this thing to to
win because it feels so good and he was
like but if you look at the data and it
doesn't win then don't you want to find
the thing that wins and that to me is
just so powerful of like data data data
man like there is an answer and if you
have the discipline of not tying your
identity up into an answer and you stay
open to um you know new truth it's like
and you might know I I misquote this
person all the time I think it was Max
plank who said science advances one
funeral at a time yeah funeral by
funeral and and I just thought oh my God
why why how do you not read that quote
and go oh I have to change everything
about myself because I refuse to to fall
for something so
predictable yeah I agree and I I think
the point you were you were headed
toward a minute ago where um the black
lives matter movement is
explicitly anti-nuclear family that this
is this is again one of these issues of
look if you're going to attack science
and you're going to declare it white and
you're going to say the nuclear family
is white and that therefore we have to
uninvent these things you can't you
cannot have power if you have power over
us you'll destroy us because you're
taking things that are actually um part
of our Birthright and you're declaring
them null and void either you know
that's insane and you have an ulterior
motive where you don't know it's insane
and you need to figure out how to think
more clearly because this is just nuts
absolutely nuts yeah when people don't
look at the data I get super super super
uneasy um that one really feels like a
recipe for disaster so really fast um
just I I'm super curious how do you
think this plays out like your
predictions on where we were going back
when this was just Evergreen were spoton
um your testimony in front of Congress
spot on um what what comes next where
where are we headed in very specific
terms well I think uh it's very hard to
be specific because you have a kind of
fork that we can't tell which branch
we're going to end up on it's possible
that events cause the election to go
towards Trump which I think is far more
likely Than People imagine based on
current
polling one we should have learned our
lesson in 2016 about polls and Trump
that they don't tell the full story and
two This Is 2020 and events even if you
uh take the power of the presidency out
of the question um events could turn
things around inside of a week so that
could happen but in light of the powers
of the presidency I don't see
Trump allowing himself to go to a
stunning defeat without um dramatic
moves on his part to reverse that and I
fear what he might do to avoid it on the
other hand let's say nothing happens in
2020 and uh the president resists the
urge to to do something dramatic Biden
somehow wins then we have an even more
frightening Prospect potentially which
is not more of the same but something
brand new which is the Democratic party
having partnered with
the uh the black lives matter movement
where it actually takes some of the
insanity that they've been saying and
turns it into policy which I think is
quite plausible because the uh the
purpose of the democratic party has
become the protection of those rent
seeking Elites that it uh that it
represents and this is the moment at
which rent seeking Elites are facing
something like the French Revolution and
so
directing uh the people at each other so
that they ignore the folks who have
hoarded the opportunity is a natural
move this is a new Twist on it but it's
a familiar pattern of History so anyway
I guess what I would say is there's a
reason that um that I really think we
have to be looking at at something like
Unity 2020 which is both prospects are
absolutely dire and the fact that we
have a system that not only delivers you
unacceptable possibilities but delivers
them in pairs in which there's no Escape
that that uh it's completely
unacceptable and I think we have to take
up arms against it metaphorically
speaking as somebody who doesn't want to
hoard opportunity but has literally no
um idea like I don't feel like I'm
hoarding opportunity I feel like I
desperately trying to get more people to
but when I hear you say that I always
feel like he knows something I don't
he's talking about something that I
don't quite understand how are people
hoarding opportunity and how can
somebody like myself not hoard
opportunity well first of all you don't
sound to me like you're hoarding
opportunity to the extent that you might
be it's it's buried in your portfolio
somewhere um but I don't think you're
actively doing it um the oppos hoarding
look like well let's put it this way um
there is a reason that our public
schools suck right it never gets stated
which is that a large number of people
do not want other people's children
equipped to compete with their own
children right do are people really that
sort of weak-minded is that is that
conscious I think oh God this is
terrible but I do worry that there are a
lot of well-meaning people that just
aren't they don't they don't cross a
certain threshold of being able to Think
Through the
problem um I think the problem is that
that's the real answer to why the
schools are so bad but it is not the
answer to how it is recorded in the mind
in other words we create a phony
ideological difference about how to fix
the schools that prevents them from
being fixed which results effectively in
people with means opting out of public
schools which increases the problem
because it means that SA of the public
schools basically externalizes the
problem of uh educational malpractice
onto some populations and not others and
so anyway a lot of things look like this
where there's a solution to a problem we
could find it if we agreed that the
problem was to be solved but there's a
kind of cryptic sabotage that takes hold
because of the kind of competition we
are in with each other you know we could
make the same argument about why there's
so much homelessness right why do we not
solve the homelessness problem well in
part the homelessness problem is the
bottom of a
ladder where depressing wages all the
way along is a feature not a bug right
you depress wages by having people below
you whatever rung you're on there are
always people below you who would be
more than happy to take your job which
reduces your bargaining power and trying
to negotiate for for more and so in
essence the uh the homelessness problem
is the symptom we can't avoid seeing
it's it's an outgrowth of a system that
is designed to do something it never
States and you know there are a lot of
these things and as you know my sense is
if you put good people in power and you
give them the opportunity not to have to
Pander to corrupting influences these
problems aren't so difficult to solve
but if you leave the corrupting
influences in a position to veto
everything you'll never get anywhere all
right so let's just take one thing and
um see if we agree on what the problem
is I'll State what I think the solution
is and you punch me in the throat uh if
if I um if I'm missing something because
I what I'm about to say I mean very very
sincerely um but it is also possible
that I'm delusional in a way that I'm I
just don't see um so my mom works for a
school and she'll occasionally tell me
stories about like and she's not even
saying it like she doesn't have a
problem with it but I hear it and I
think this is madness like the fact that
there are teachers in some school
districts that
are they're accused of some pretty um
insane [ __ ] whether it's just like gross
incompetence or potentially doing you
know um things with students that cross
a potential sexual line and they're just
shuttled off to a room somewhere where
they continue to get paid and receive
their benefits because the um unions are
so strong that you can't it is so hard
to get rid of even a horrendous teacher
that you can't um it it's just better to
put them in a room and keep paying them
and then slot somebody else into that
now as a business person I can just tell
you that is a recipe for disaster you
will have so much money being spent on
the dumbest [ __ ] ever and you don't have
a way of encouraging like this is an
area where you want there to be a
hierarchy you want people like if I
could and some universities actually do
this if I could create a hierarchy a
leaderboard so people could see who are
the teachers killing it the teachers I I
don't know what the criteria would be
fair enough that's going to be for
somebody more invested but like student
ratings test scores like outside audit
something where it's like yo here are
the people that are actually killing the
game and then here are the people that
rank lower um for instance Ray Delio
largest hedge fund manager in the world
um does these things where he um has his
employees do a Force ranking of say
managers and the whole company will rate
the managers and and they put it up for
everyone to see and you see who's at the
top and who's at the bottom ouch that
[ __ ] hurts but like it inspires you to
get better because you don't want to be
at the bottom wrong or you say I want to
go work for a company that doesn't do
this but either way you're getting rid
of the people at the bottom and you're
bringing fresh blood in so my thing is
look you cannot be in a situation where
um either and I don't know if it's
school vouches or what it's going to be
but if a school is underperforming
either the people teaching administrat
whatever they've got to go or the
Union's got to go something's got to
give so that like real talent can Rise
um why am I
wrong um you're not wrong except that
you're trying to save a system that's
probably beyond help right go
on so look the incentives have to line
up that's the thing if you're going to
pay people to sit in a room because
they've misbehaved or because they're
terrible at their job then obviously
you're going to accumulate some you know
just parasitic class of people in the
system who are just going to draw a
paycheck for nothing that's not a viable
plan on the other hand there's a reason
that schools are terrible that has a lot
to do with the fact that somehow we have
um allowed the market to set the wages
of the teachers when in fact we ought to
be subsidizing this so that great people
want to do it and maybe not permanently
so if I was to try to fix the system I
would probably try to encourage people
to spend a period of time teaching to
discover a if they were really good at
it but also to attract people who were
really good at something else in other
words being really good um as a teacher
is partially about knowing something if
you've set your sights on being a
teacher rather than knowing something
worth teaching then you're probably off
track so we we should want to attract
people who are really good at you know
math physics art whatever it is so that
they have a passion coming in and the
problem is the way the system is
structured we don't attract very many
people who have a passion and frankly
those few who come in there do so doing
themselves massive economic harm right
their passion drives them to just
effectively uh sideline themselves from
the market in order to do this passion
and then what do we do is we hobble them
with curriculum that's just absolutely
you know authoritarian and Draconian
which leaves them almost no freedom to
engage this passion so we drive out the
good ones this is not a stable system
and it misunderstands the purpose of
Education right the purpose of Education
should be to upgrade the mind so it's
maximally capable and the way to do that
is to figure out um who knows something
has a passion for conveying it and uh
how do we bring them on board and give
them the freedom to figure out how to
convey it one of the things that was
true about Evergreen which um it's just
killing Heather and me that we can't
manage to convey the importance of this
to people is that we had total freedom
to teach however we wanted teach
whatever material we wanted now lots of
people abuse that freedom you don't want
those people you want to figure out how
to eliminate them quickly but for
anybody who actually has a passion to
figure out what can be conveyed having a
blank canvas is magic so you want the
freedom to use it and you want a system
that gets rid of people who will abuse
it and if you can do those two things
then you'll end up having a a marvelous
educational system far better than what
you would get if you just simply tried
to rescue this one by getting rid of the
worst teachers I've done a lot of
thinking about the west and I think of
myself as a patriot of the United States
but even more so Patriot of the West and
I believe that although the antecedence
of the West can be traced back all the
way to ancient Greece that the West was
really founded by the American founding
fathers and it was founded almost by
accident that in order to get the
colonies to
Confederate they built a system that
leveled playing fields in a way that
hadn't been done before and I don't
think they knew what problem they
actually solved and I don't mean to take
anything away from them I'm I'm a huge
fan of the founding fathers and I think
they did as well as they could possibly
have done from their place in history
what did they think they were doing and
what did they actually do well I mean
consent of the governed is a radical
idea and you know there are again
antecedents of it but the idea that
you're going to have uh
broadscale voting to figure out the
direction of a society is a radical
departure but once you decide that that
may be a better way of navigating
getting people to agree to it because
they do not see the fix as being in
that's the
trick the idea of the West is that we
shouldn't you know it's basically
uh a an application of the rosian veil
of ignorance before it
existed so you should want to make rules
that you'd be as happy to live on the
other side of right the your desire for
a rule should not be contingent on your
position in society we should want
courts that can
adjudicate questions of fact and
questions of law without asking who that
law is being applied to it shouldn't
matter that's what they did and in
building that system they actually
solved an evolutionary puzzle before
anybody knew what an evolutionary puzzle
was
so we evolutionists have done a poor job
of exploring what I call
lineage we have proper language and have
since mid 20th century for understanding
how kin relationships affect Behavior
right we understand why a mother may run
into a burning building to save her
Offspring because that Offspring is the
conduit through which her genes will
reach the future but we evolutionists
lost track of the fact that the logic
that explains that when it's your
Offspring or your cousin continues to
explain that at much larger scales for
which we don't have precise terminology
that says exactly how many genes are
shared a lineage is an
evolutionary
entity lineages carry our genes through
time and by Act in ways that benefit our
lineage at the expense of other lineages
we can advance our genetic interests why
do you avoid the word
race for a very particular reason um
lineage is the responsible version of
the concept race is a racist
bastardization of the legitimate concept
right the idea that you switch
categories based on one drop of blood
from some other
group that is a self-serving racist
notion and so by saying lineage I'm
telling you what level of rigor I'm
demanding from the concept is America
one lineage no absolutely not in fact
that's the amazing thing about it okay
so where if it isn't um I mean the one
drop thing just feels like gray area to
an otherwise servicable concept of race
but uh if it isn't breaking a long race
and it isn't breaking a long Nation what
is a lineage well no no um lineages are
the rigorous version of what we sloppily
call Race now I can Define it precisely
and you can extrapolate from it a
lineage is any
individual and all of their descendants
okay okay
now what will not be immediately obvious
is that that becomes an absolute power
tool of a concept because it is scale
independent if you have no children you
are a
lineage you and all of your children and
grandchildren if you have them are a
lineage but so to
is your species a lineage there was a
most recent common ancestor and all of
its descendants that's a l
Lage Melia is a
lineage the idea that these things are
in play
evolutionarily is very important it has
profound
implications the idea that the way the
Dynamics in a room play out based on the
lineage relationships that are
represented there is only something you
can comprehend if you've looked at that
fractal and you realize that the French
Frenchmen and the Irishmen May view each
other as uh competing
lineages um until the Japanese person
walks through the door right that the
these these Dynamics play out in ways
we're all familiar with and we don't
understand that we're looking at an
evolutionary story but back to the
founders in order to Confederate the
states the founders built a crude set of
Level Playing Fields now they weren't
perfect level and there were some major
flaws in those formulations but
nonetheless what they had to do to get
the signatories to agree was figure out
how to level them enough that people's
fears were put to
rest but here's where the rubber meets
the road on this one there are two
evolutionary bases for cooperation one
of them is genes shared
genes that's what is flowing through
lineages and that is why lineages more
naturally collaborate against other
lineages than at random but there's
another basis which is reciprocal
altruism reciprocity can take two
individuals that look very different and
cause them to collaborate because it's
profitable to do so and this is if you
squinted it correctly the reason that uh
an orchid flower and a hummingbird
collaborate right those are very
distinct lineages I mean one's an animal
and one's a plant that's pretty widely
separated they collaborate not because
of their shared genes of which they do
have some they collaborate because it is
profitable for each of them to do
so now in leveling the playing fields
the founders created an environment in
which people who did come from many
different lineages had a basis for
collaborating with other individuals
irrespective of their lineage background
irrespective of
race now that is lightning in a bottle
and the reason that it's lightning in a
bottle is that if you imagine that
there's a lot of productivity to to be
uh discovered through
collaboration well if you decide only to
collaborate with people who look like
you how far you're going to get is going
to be limited because some of the best
people to collaborate probably don't
look like you so to the extent that you
build a system in which people
collaborate with whoever else brings the
right stuff to the table you do a lot
better and all of the amazing list of
innovations that are American in
origin I believe is Downstream of this
very thing that the founders created an
environment in which people collaborated
with others now did they tell you know
racial jokes behind each other's backs
yeah they did they mocked each other and
mimicked each other's accents and all
that stuff but the point is at the end
of the day there was an awful lot of
collaboration that was indifferent to
what you look like and who your
ancestors were and once other
populations saw how productive that was
they wanted in so it was a contagious
idea this is why the West is bigger than
the United States is that there's just
no argument for behaving in another way
once you've seen how good this is in
good
times but the problem is it only works
when you are in a period of growth and
we have been in an amazing period of
growth when the growth runs out blood is
thicker than water and what happens is
we go back to our corners and that's
what's happening now that's why the West
is collapsing that's why our blindness
to where we are is going to result in a
massive loss for all of humanity is that
it is not going to allow us to avoid
that Pitfall we're going to go back to
doing what we have done genocide is
going to become more common and more
unavoidable and anybody who sees that
connection would do virtually anything
to prevent it from happening because
it's such a terrible loss to
humanity we seem to be doing the exact
opposite though it's very much under
attack like even if you widen that
definition out and say that part of the
way that we collaborate Beyond lineage
is through specialization so you're good
at a thing and we're both going to use
um reason in order to get us where we
want to go so the scientific method uh
you've talked really interestingly about
people need to deal with the physical
world you can't do everything at a
social intellectual level uh go make a
car run like you know nobody has to tell
you whether it worked or not either the
car turned on and it runs or it didn't
and having that kind of very tactile
relationship with something either works
or it doesn't becomes really really
important um so we are living in a time
where that very process of rationality
is being handwaved away as somehow white
supremacist or whatever uh which is
crazy town to me
um so how do we protect this little
Ember so if we're right now
um stopping people from talking about
things uh censoring people to death uh
in fact one thing I'd love to hear you
talk about is um Don Lemon and Elon Musk
and Elon saying you want censorship so
badly you can taste it uh I thought that
was a great line and really endemic of
something far more than just Don Lemon I
think a lot of people uh want to
moderate uh and and make sure that some
things just can't be talked about so
anyway how do we protect that little
flame when it is under assault from so
many different directions I mean it's a
great question and I think it's it's
what we've been getting at for this
whole discussion I may be wrong about
how we protect it but in my
opinion the thing to do is to understand
it to understand what it's doing for us
to understand what the likelihood is of
whatever replaces the system exceeding
it in this capability I think the
chances are almost nil if you destroyed
this system what will replace it it will
look a lot like history and it will be a
lot worse which is not to say that we
should ignore any of the glaring defects
of our system but we should at least
compare it to uh to something other than
uh phony utopian Alternatives that have
never been established to be
possible um so anyway I'm I'm trying to
do it I'm trying to
explain why we've got it pretty good why
addressing the flaws of our system will
always be better than scrapping it in
favor of some system that hasn't shown
any promise in accomplishing what we've
got and I think also exploring you know
why history looked the way it did right
there is a reason to talk about Hitler
and my term for Hitler is rational
monster right I don't diminish the
horror of what he did obviously in fact
I'm more familiar with it than
most but understanding why that would
have happened if you
imagine the the reason I engaged in that
uh exploration when I was a college
student was I was afraid that it was
just too easy to dismiss them as nuts if
you Smith Hitler is nuts well then there
is nothing to be done to prevent the
next one right you can't prevent radical
dysfunction somebody's going to be
radically dysfunctional if that's it
it's just there's nothing to be said on
the other hand a rational monster can be
disincentivized from doing what they do
you can prevent Hitler from emerging by
making it irrational to do what he did
how do we decide who's an irrational
monster we don't have to we don't have
to okay so this is actually bringing
back a bunch of threads let's take the
case of rape right and let's remember
that the reason that rape is on the
table here as a topic is that it's the
the shallow end of the pool with respect
to how knowledge helps us prevent
something that we that all reasonable
people agree is is terrible MH a rapist
can pass their genes into the future by
raping civilization can prevent men from
doing this by driving the cost up so
high that it's not worth it that the
profit that can be made by doing this uh
is uh small or or negative but even more
importantly let's just notice that rape
is
essentially impossible for many men to
commit and the reason is because it's
not a turn
on right in order to rape you you have
to be turned on by the process so why is
it that so many men are really incapable
of it is that genetic difference no it's
a developmental
difference we have the power to make
rape disgusting and if we do rape make
rape disgusting then it becomes
vanishingly
rare by virtue of the fact that it's
just off the table for most of the
people who are physically equipped to do
it that is an important leverage point
we as a society ought to hold values
that cause us to raise Boys in such a
way that rape is disgusting to them by
the time they become adults and that's
readily
possible
so if you didn't have the discussion if
you say well look I don't want to hear
any discussion of why rape happens
because you're going to legitimize it
then you never get to the point of real
izing oh well actually we have a tool at
our disposal it's not a simple one it's
not you can't snap your fingers and make
it go away but you can say well three
generations from now would we like rape
to be a historical consideration and not
a modern consideration of course you
would right The Leverage Point exists in
understanding it but you have to have
the courage to get to the end of the
book before you realize that you have
that tool at your disposal now the
question is
rape is Loosely analogous to genocide
rape is the individual version genocide
is the lineage level
version do we have a tool that takes
genocide off the table if we are capable
of understanding why the idea keeps
reemerging right we said never again
after the Holocaust but how many
genocides have we seen since never again
didn't work so if you really believe in
never again then the question is well
what to tool gets us to never again and
I would argue I don't know what the tool
is but I will uh tell you the most
likely place to find it is with an
unflinching
investigation of
genocides their causes and any instances
in which they've been averted through
wisdom or the altering of incentives or
whatever it may be so why am I going
down that road is it because there's
something perverse about me am I
fascinated by Despicable historical
patterns um no I'm I'm terrified by them
and that's why I I really think the the
route to preventing them comes and
understanding them H uh interesting that
we have to so it you're spreading the
meme through the layer of culture you're
saying uh we have to bake into culture
that this is just absolutely abor I
think what people are going to well
people may or may not hear but as you
were saying it this was the first thing
that I thought is that this idea ends up
becoming so identified with being
disgusting that it trips the disgust
filter which then makes people want you
to stop talking about it and so there's
a potential fascinating oscillating Loop
of um people Force other people to stop
talking about it so much that it becomes
so taboo that suddenly it has to be
reinforced uh it's possible that we're
living through a moment like that with
certain things though I would I'm either
old school but rape is still still
pretty uh disgust triggering for me um
does not feel like that needs
reinforcing wait wait wait wait wait yep
I think we're missing something though
because I mean I'm not into porn I I
think porn is a uh a terrible error I'm
not against erotica it's not that erotic
content throws me but interesting you
have a line though erotica fine porn bad
yes porn apocalyptically bad can you
draw a line I can I can't operationalize
the line but I can tell you exactly
where the line is okay the line is was
the motivation for the production of the
content
profit
interesting okay you could make great
art and get paid for it in fact I think
you aspire to this yes um so the fact
that you get paid for it the fact that
you did profit doesn't tell us whether
that's what drove you to make it but if
the thing that drove you to make it is
profit and it's erotic in nature that's
pornography interesting which isn't to
say that every item in porn is harmful
hold on yeah if I make
hardcore
bondage super dominant aggressive almost
rap likee porn but I'm not doing it for
money I just think it's beautiful art
sincerely yep no I get it that would be
okay well it's okay the line I'm drawing
I my feeling is a wise person and
unfortunately young people are never
wise they can be wise beyond their years
but they're not wise because there's no
way for them to be that but uh for a
young person I would say you draw this
line in an absolute fashion you do not
let anything that is likely to be
pornography right you maybe you don't
know for sure why they made it but if
you think that somebody made that thing
for profit you do not let that into your
sexual mind mm it's terrible for you and
it's terrible for your future partner
that seems like a really weird line to
draw with a profit thing I would so just
as one guy speaking from experience uh
the loop I would worry about is volume
initial age of contact given how brains
develop and then um the type so if it
were like super vanilla it's um you know
like wedding night missionary like
really simple loving
awkward I'm less concerned if it's an
Ever escalating Loop of like freak show
that starts at age 11 uh now I'm very
worried about what they will imbue but
even if that [ __ ] was art from top to
bottom and the person making it was just
like I just want to give to the world
I'd still be like don't do it well look
I'm not arguing that everything that
would fall under the category of erotica
is
inherently defensible just as I believe
in free speech but I don't believe that
you should say everything I believe you
know you should choose very carefully
what to say and most speech is probably
bad even though you should be entitled
to or make any argument you want um but
let's look at the case you you know you
you've drawn a
Continuum between plain vanilla stuff
that's erotic for the most basic human
reasons uh up through super extreme
stuff here here's my point about the
profit
motive the profit motive inherently
drives you towards the end of the
Continuum that you ex that you
instinctively are repelled by and the
reason for that is because all
pornographers are selling the same thing
sex so how do you compete in a world
where all of of your competitors have
the same thing for sale and the answer
is through an escalating battle over
extremeness that inevitably eventually
goes to Taboo now I believe that those
taboos presumably all of them evolved
for a reason those reasons may not be
things that we understand or in some
cases we might understand them but the
idea that you because you can sell
people something because they haven't
seen it before because it's taboo that
you should do that that's insane right
those taboos this is a chesterton's
fence issue you don't know why something
is has been off
limits but the fact that the market will
drive people to explore it tells you
that that motive is
suspect and so anyway again I'm not
telling you I know how to operationalize
the line between uh porn for profit and
erotica that's made for other reason and
I'm not telling you that all erotica is
good but I am telling you there's no
defense necessary for human beings
producing sexual content or gravitating
to it I mean I do look at you know
marvelous sculptures of naked women and
I wonder you know is is that the porn of
the day right and is it is the fact that
I'm looking at such a sculpture in a
museum and that I appear to be you know
uh engaged in an elevated activity
rather than you know a base activity is
that the Distortion of history and the
fact that our civilization has grown so
crass that uh we we miss what's going on
and I don't know the answer to the
question but human beings make erotica
they always have and there's nothing
wrong with it and I would argue against
anybody who uh said that we shouldn't
because I don't know what role it has
played but pornography for profit is
dangerous precisely because it leads in
the direction of uh exploring Realms
that are bad most especially
violence this is one of the things that
I again I don't think this is an
abstract discussion at
all the if you want to see rape
eliminated
then the one thing we mustn't do is
eroticize
it which is what we're doing because the
market can't help but explore that Niche
so I mean I think this is a great test
case right does it make sense to explore
all these things that people don't want
talked about well I don't know I feel
like I just presented I'm not saying
that we will embrace it but I feel like
I've just presented a map for how if
Society decided it was serious about
eliminating the scourge of rape it would
go about doing it not eroticizing rape
would be a great start because to the
extent that rape is not erotic it
becomes uh near
impossible um and I believe the same
thing is true for genocide it's just a
more complicated puzzle
so and to go back to an earlier point I
don't think anybody out there has a
valid argument that says you will not
find the solution to those puzzles by
understanding them I think that argument
is suspect on its face I think we we are
likely to find the solutions to these
puzzles by understanding the puzzles and
if we don't the likelihood that we will
make them worse I think is vanishingly
small Elon Musk has said uh multiple
times and I actually think he's right if
you want racism to go away you have to
stop talking about it all the time that
flies in the face of what you're saying
right now which is we need to talk about
it make it taboo keep it in a certain
box no no no no I I would I would
instantiate the principle that I'm uh
elucidating differently and in fact this
is why uh I thought the question of
IQ is is another good test case what do
we find if we actually go down that road
well I don't think most people are ready
for it but I think if we did go down
that road what we would find actually uh
it didn't have to be a good answer but I
believe it is a good answer when you say
it's a good answer so here's what I uh
imagine happens and I do want to get
back to the context we started this in
which is what is happening to Western
civilization but just to take the IQ
thing so it doesn't keep coming back up
uh I think there are two hyper dangerous
things that if solidified can create
real problems um I whatever is true is
true I think the truth is absolute
defense I am not saying people should
not look at this I'm just saying I get
why you're not going to find me running
to have this conversation uh if you find
that Jews really do have a higher IQ
that's not going to go good like people
are going to have a real [ __ ] hard
time with that that that is going to be
weaponized yep and if you find that uh
black people have a slightly lower IQ
then that is going to be weaponized and
both of those things are horrific and
they will there's no good that comes out
of it now again the truth is an absolute
defense whatever is true is true um but
godamn like those are the landmines that
people are trying to avoid and given
that I think ideas really do run the
things uh they run the cultural
currents that there are some ideas I
just don't want to spend a lot of time
with um I get it but I think uh I get it
really well because I do think that if
the truth were as simple as what you
just outlined and the implication were
the one that you didn't state but was
carried in what you said um that would
be a disaster for Humanity and it's
possible I'm not interested in that
answer I'm relieved that I don't believe
it's true but here's the thing that was
missing from your description your
hypothetical description of a bad answer
that would do harm to humans to explore
it
to say that IQs differ between
populations is almost certainly true and
substantially so true that is not what
most people hear when they hear a claim
like that is that that must mean that
the genes produce those
differences it's not what it
means and the difference
between distinction in cognitive
capacity that are the result of genetic
differences between
populations
and the significant distinctions in
cognitive capacity that are the result
of things that are developmental is all
the difference in the world right if you
knew that there were important
distinctions between
populations but that those distinctions
were not based in genes then the answer
is oh well can we level everybody up is
part of the game the reason that people
are blinding each other about keeping
your competitors in the dark this is
obviously an undercurrent for um the
cryptic Warfare between populations and
so my feeling is look I don't believe
here's what I think people imagine and
here's what I think uh underlies the the
hypothetical you put on the table people
look at
sport and
they they think they know what must be
going on with the brain right because it
seems like it should be analogous right
we all understand that the capacity to
engage in different sports is not evenly
distributed between populations it's
radically unevenly
distributed and somebody who hasn't
thought deeply about this may say well
seems like there should be every analogy
between cognitive
capacity and physical capacity and so I
think we know the truth about the
differences between races because we've
seen it you know on the basketball court
and the hockey rank and the long jump
pit and all of
that it's a bad analogy and the reason
it's a bad analogy is that there's a
very good reason that human populations
radically differ in their athletic
capability across different sports
there's a very good reason and it's
because they came from different
habitats
so you find Ethiopians are absolutely
dominant in Marathon
running
why how because Ethiopia is really
freaking hot and the key skill if you're
in Ethiopian at a physiological level is
the shedding of excess heat right the
ability to build up too much heat is
lethal and so they become lanky and lean
right they they are shaped in such a way
that maximizes their surface area to
volume ratio so they can shed
heat it's the exact inverse of what an
Inuit has why are Inuits round well
Inuits are round because it's freaking
cold and you want to shed as little heat
as possible so you want to minimize the
surface to volume ratio if you're an
Inuit and so why are the Inuits not
dominating Marathon running because they
come from the Arctic so the reason that
humans differ across all of these
physical
capabilities is that different habitats
select for different things you would
expect them to differ because is it
better to be round or lanky well tell me
where where we're going to compete and
I'll tell you which right there is no
better it's all about adaptation to
particular
habitats this is not true cognitively
there's no habitat that selects for
stupidity
what's more the ability for genes to
alter your physical structure right The
Rao of one bone to another is tremendous
but that's not how the mind forms there
aren't enough genes to build a mind by
blueprint the mind is the result of a
very basic process that is set in motion
that then is exposed to all of these
developmental influen
so here's the bitter pill of IQ
populations differ in their cognitive
capacity as
adults that does not say that those
differences came from the genome and
here's another bitter
pill there have to have been in
evolutionary history significant
differences in cognitive capacity
between populations that did come from
the genome in order for our brains to
have gotten as large as they did those
with more capacity had to have
outcompeted those with less capacity so
that did happen it is possible but the
question that we are left with the one
the one that we are avoiding because of
what we see on the basketball court and
because what we see you know on the
soccer field the question that we are
avoiding uh
is what would you have to do to
democratize the things that make us
smarter my feeling is every population
is under shooting the mark substantially
right we have not properly studied the
question of what development
developmental environment actually makes
you smarter right and we are not doing
well I think it could be done much
better and you would find every single
population on Earth would rise radically
if we actually put kids in an
environment that that uh brought the
best out of their
capabilities but what I don't see is a
substantial reason to think that within
a species with lots of interbreeding
that we have these genetically based
cognitive differences that reside in one
population and not another it doesn't
make sense that they would so what was
that 8
minutes 8 minutes and what I've said is
there is a very strong chance that by
avoiding the question of how cognitive
capacity is distributed by lineage that
you are avoiding the remedy that might
make all radically smarter and
neutralize the differences do we really
want to avoid that question I think the
solution lies down the road of
understanding what the distinctions are
and
frankly I think we all believe in the
distinctions why would anybody fight for
better schools if how the quality of
your developmental environment didn't
have an influence on how smart you ended
up I think there's a lot of assumptions
in the things that you're saying I'm not
familiar with the literature I have
certainly heard that
um intelligence is inheritable to a
hyper distressing
degree um now across lineages I have no
idea I think I made my reasons for not
even wanting to look at it pretty clear
so I'll leave that alone but yeah I
think you've explained it perfectly it
unfortunately brings me back full circle
to but the moment we're in now in the
west is despite all the incredible
things that it has rained upon us the
absolute just embarrassment of riches
that it is is to be born into the
Western Democratic world uh now people
are tearing it apart I saw a video the
other day where that the guy was like uh
oh I'm at this March because I want to
end America he was like all of us do and
I was like what so you've got at the
ground level people are trying to tear
the West apart you've got just absolute
weird things happening at the government
level clearly power grabs you've got
censorship going on left right and
Center
um given how much ground we've just
traversed can you put a button on
um why blind us why are they so worried
about what we see and
say yeah let me flesh out the concept I
started with and then let me uh as long
as the punch line is why they are doing
this I'm here for it yeah well I mean
the problem is who are they and how
specific can we be about why they're
doing it um but if we put those uh
nuances
aside and then I will return to the
question of where there might be hope
given all of the reasons that you've
just outlined for
despair I've come with a concept called
the time traveling money printer the
time traveling money printer is based on
the idea that we all have been through
the thought exercise of what would you
do if you had a time machine right well
if you had a time machine that could go
forward in time you could go figure out
what's going to happen and you could
come back to the present and place your
bets in the market and make tons of
money right if you had a time machine
that went backwards you could go back
and you could buy apple and Microsoft
and Amazon make tons of money so we all
get that a time machine is a money
maker but there are no time machines as
far as we
know I'm concerned that some rent
seeking
Elites have rent seeking for those that
don't know cuz I always have to look
this up is people that manipulate the
political system to their personal gain
uh I would describe it differently I
would say it's people who uh make a
profit through activity that is not
productive the dictionary disagrees with
you oh God yeah well uh I'd be willing
to Hash this out in a fight to the death
with a dictionary but um but in any case
uh let's imagine that we have some folks
who have got some uh some unearned power
who wish to have more power and control
and don't wish to be upended by
competitors who are more clever than
they are something like that well they
don't have a time machine but what they
do have is enough control to render the
truth seeking capability of humanity
lame they have the ability to pollute
what we are able to deduce and therefore
if they can privatize the knowledge of
what is coming it is like they have a
time machine right let's take an
example strong evidence suggests
that the covid pandemic whatever its
nature was already happening in China in
September October of
2019 and that Elites knew this did they
immediately run to the public and tell
us or did they make some phone calls and
say Here's what's coming down the pike
um cruise ships are a bad bet you should
short you know the cruise ship industry
Airlines uh I would go big on uh home
deliveries of this that and the other so
you could just imagine it's as good as a
time machine if you privately hold the
information about what his his is about
to do and the public is unaware of it
the opportunity to make money is
Limitless so that's a why somebody would
have engaged in blinding us because the
Blinder we are the more powerful their
money printer is and I believe that this
happened and actually there's a
tremendous amount of evidence much of it
is uh laid out in Bobby Kennedy's Book
on Wuhan um that uh there were
incredibly precient Investments made by
Bill Gates and others in companies that
you would have no reason to think were
about to have a spectacular rise that
just so happened to have the the goods
for producing mRNA vaccines that would
just so happen to take over the world
this sort of thing so anyway I don't
know exactly who we know some of the
players Gates appears to be an important
player who seems to know what's going to
happen in the future before the rest of
us do um
and why is obvious because for the same
reason that people rob a bank you know
this is safer and uh much more uh
lucrative to place bets in the world
based on private information it's uh
it's a good gig um and so anyway that's
what I that's what I think is happening
we're being systematically blinded
because there are some people who are
sophisticated in their own diabolical
way who think well why the hell would I
share useful information about reality
if I could use it to my own Advantage
instead what do you think about somebody
like Don Lemon who really does seem to
want to censor he's not I really don't
think he's doing it because he's going
to make some pre bets and he wants to
keep everybody dumb I think he
represents the person who's like yeah
you've tripped a moral thing in him uh
that probably plays out something like
somebody needs to be the adult in the
room um the thing that he kept saying in
the interview with Elon Musk was um you
you need to moderate this hate speech
like hate speech has gone up what are
you doing you need to take this stuff
off your platform and no matter how many
times Elon said uh if it doesn't violate
the law or our policies we don't take it
down uh we just don't promote it and he
just kept going you need to moderate
this stuff um what do you think about
that is is moderation prop Anda for a
censorship as Elon says or um is it the
flagrant um Embrace of hate speech that
Don Lemon sees it as well I know very
little about Don Lemon except that the
six times he has risen to my awareness
uh he's been impressively foolish um so
I don't know what that is I don't know
that he's organic or not organic I don't
know I don't know what his role in the
universe is um but
let's put it this way you've got a
vacuum of comprehension based on the
sabotage of our educational institutions
so people are Dumber intentional
sabotage I don't know I assume I
assume uh the same think about it this
way an institution that makes other
people's kids smarter would be viewed
hostile by ruthless play ERS who wished
to take every Advantage they have and
parlay it into wealth and power so I
don't think it's an accident that our
universities
are uh completely incapable of figuring
out whether 2 plus 2 equals 4 or whether
men can become
women uh that confusion is serving
somebody at what level was this a bunch
of industries that decided that they
needed to uh uh disrupt the discovery of
inconvenient things uh was it more
systematic than that I can't say I think
there probably is a certain amount of
systematic sabotage but I how would I
know
um but in any case in a world where you
just don't have those truth seeking
mechanisms they don't work in fact they
are more likely to spit out the inverse
of the truth than than truth
itself um there's an awful lot of room
for various bad thought processes to
take over and one of the things that you
should absolutely expect is that where
our forefathers have discovered a
counterintuitive truth it's going to get
uninvented free speech it's not obvious
most speech is probably pointless and of
the speech that has an impact a huge
fraction of it is just
bad so of course somebody with a
childlike view of the universe would
think well why don't we just get rid of
the bad speech and certainly there are
some things that are so obviously bad
speech let's just start with that right
but as soon as you get there you realize
oh somebody's going to have to draw a
line and they're going to come up with
all kinds of utilitarian reasons that
they have to draw the line farther and
farther and farther and so the point is
no actually you can't do any of that
don't do any of that because it's if you
step on that slippery slope it's a
disaster so it's counterintuitive
likewise the
um
standard and burden of proof in a court
is also counterintuitive most of the
people that we charge with a crime are
probably guilty so why would we force
the state to prove that Beyond A
Reasonable Doubt why wouldn't we just
say well if the evidence suggest that
the person committed the crime they
probably did and you know how often is
that going to go wrong no Founders they
had a
counterintuitive understanding which is
the power of the state is too ferocious
and that you have to hobble the state in
order to give a person a Fighting Chance
because even if on the average day a
person where the evidence points to
their having committed the crime
probably did if anything causes the
government to take a dim view of
political competitors or whatever the
government needs to be hobbled in its
capacity to rob you of your freedoms
right that's counterintuitive so any
anyway my point would be we have lost
sight of all of the things that we used
to understand right there are men and
there are women we used to understand
that now it's that's some crazy battle
right 2+ 2 equals 4 yep the symbols are
arbitrary but the concept is not the
least bit arbitrary it's doesn't need
discussion right but it's now up for
discussion you know is pedophilia bad
yeah we used to know that pedophilia was
really bad and there was no reason to
you know play Devil's Advocate over this
and yet suddenly this topic is back on
the table so we are losing sight of all
the things that we understood all of the
Bedrock that Civilization is built on um
that's in part because the vacuum of
understanding and the sabotage of
education is uh opening the door to us
just simply uh dusting off Concepts that
we had gotten past but but it you know
the other thing is that when somebody is
advocating for
censorship what probably happened is
they find themselves in a temporarily
advantaged position and they would like
somebody
to hardcode the biases that favor them
in the moment so that they continue to
and they don't understand that they are
very likely to end up on the wrong end
of those very same principles and
therefore the wise position is no we
don't do that we don't do that it means
you're going to have to tolerate some
bad speech to learn more about these
complex topics check out this episode
with the one and only Jordan Peterson
look how much I love my son he doesn't
even have a penis anymore those women
online displaying themselves they're not
human you're a fool if you think that's
human and Jews you know they have IQs
that are probably 15 points higher than
the typical so they're radically