Kind: captions
Language: en
[Music]
foreign
welcome back to the show thank you it's
good to be here again dude I'm very
excited this is a very strange time that
we are living through I want to start
with a quote of yours which I think
really captures the spirit of the moment
it is much worse psychologically to feel
worthless than to feel exploited so
given what's happening in the world
right now with things being automated
going to AI what are
three things let's say that people can
do to make sure that they're poised to
thrive in this time of massive change
first of all I mean that's what
everybody's saying but it's true that
you have to embrace change
that the idea that you can learn
something in your youth a profession a
way of life and it will just be there
for the rest of your life which was the
situation for most of History this is
this is no longer the case
we have to keep learning and keep
changing throughout our lives otherwise
we will be left behind
so that's one one key principle related
to that is that maybe the most important
quality to survive and flourish in the
21st century is to have mental
flexibility
not just to keep learning and changing
again and again also to keep letting go
um part of what makes it difficult to
learn new things that we hold on
like you know I spent so many years
learning something and now the world has
changed and
um I just don't want to let go and
letting go maybe I'll give an example of
how deep it goes
like it's not just what you learn in
college or what you learned in
kindergarten it's even what you learned
as a baby as a toddler like learning how
to see or learning how to walk and what
does that mean that I have to relearn
how to see and walk well
um as virtual reality
improves
and you know with all the talk of the
metaverse and so forth that we'll
discuss later on increasingly it's
likely that will be many more activities
shifting from the physical biological
world that we know
into a new reality a virtual reality
which has different physical and
biological laws even the laws of physics
there are different
so whether you want to interact socially
there or maybe you have a job in virtual
reality in the metaverse or maybe you
design you you have a new job designing
fashion designing shirts for virtual
reality because people want to look good
there you need to forget
how physics and light and gravity works
here because it works in a different way
in in in that reality
so just what does it mean like I'm Now
46 let's say I have a new job designing
fashion for the metaverse
how can I at age 46 kind of forget
what it what it means to see and learn
from scratch how to see things are you
optimistic that adults can do that
humans have an amazing ability to to
adapt and to change
you know it's often said that AI is
nowhere near it's a full capabilities
but human beings too nowhere near their
full capabilities we really have no idea
what we can still do what our mind can
can still do if you think about jobs
again so you know the biggest
change in the job market of the 21st of
the 20th century looking at the previous
Century it didn't come from any
technological invention
it actually came from unlocking the
potential of half the human species
women which were bowed from so many jobs
because people thought they were
incapable of doing that and they didn't
have the Education and Training and so
forth and the feminist Revolution and
the changes in gender relations just
completely changed the job market and
you didn't need to genetically engineer
uh women's DNA or to kind of connect
them to some new device no the potential
to be presidents to be judges to be
journalists to be scientists was always
there but it wasn't tapped it and and
it's it's to a large extent I hope we'll
see something similar in the 21st
century that yes we have all these new
challenges but we also have this
amazing untapped potential within us but
this links to the to the third thing
which is we can't do it alone
like a place you can't do it alone or
individuals can't do it alone
individuals can't do it alone like
placing all the responsibility on
individuals the world is changing now
it's your job to adapt to to to change
yourself to learn it doesn't work like
that
um it's too much for an individual to do
just by themselves
uh we'll probably have uh will require
organizations governments to step in to
make sure that people are not left
behind
you know just retraining people you lose
your old job
to a computer or a robot or a
self-driving vehicle there are new jobs
I don't think there'll be a problem of
just an absolute lack of jobs all jobs
disappear but new jobs emerge the really
difficult thing will be the transition
and the transition first of all you need
some kind of financial assistance like
you lost your old job you need to
retrain for a couple of months for a new
profession maybe who is going to support
you during this this time so just as in
the 20th century governments built this
huge infrastructure
for educating the Young
schools and colleges and so forth will
now need to build another infrastructure
to educate and to retrain people in the
40s and 50s
do you see that is one last thing is
that they'll also need psychological
help that's right again because it's
going to be extremely stressful to kind
of Invent Yourself when you're 16 this
is what you do when you're 16. but when
you're you're 46 you want to take it
easy I don't want to start all over
again so it's psychologically very very
stressful and I think that we we will
have to to see more government support
for mental health just to cope with the
immense stress of of the 21st century do
you know the learn the code meme
then learn to code oh learn to code
um so people are getting booted off of
social media for saying it it's one of
those things that took me so by surprise
so anybody I think that spends enough
time contemplating okay AI what's the
future I'm sure we'll get into Data
harvesting and stuff like that you
really do that begin to understand that
the future belongs to the technically
Savvy and if you are a 46 year old truck
driver sort of the classic example
because that's you know going the way
the dodo and it's you know not something
that requires a high degree of Education
or necessarily even a ultra high IQ not
saying that drivers don't have a high
IQs I'm just saying it doesn't
necessarily Max your IQ to do that job
and so when people say okay if the
future belongs to the technically Savvy
we know drivers are gonna you know be
without that job then they should learn
to code to get a new job and my instinct
was yes that's absolutely true and I
came to that debate super late and so by
the time I got there people were already
getting banned off social media for
saying it and I was like wait what so
going back I couldn't understand why
telling the individual that you're going
to be a participant in this I'm not
opposed to I think it's a great idea for
governments to create a safety net I
think it's a bad idea for governments to
drag you across the finish line and I
think that ends in tyranny every time so
where do you see because it will be hard
and there will be people left behind I
don't see any way around that and nature
so curious to see if you agree with this
nature does not care nature will leave
you behind in a heartbeat Mother Nature
is more than happy to obliterate people
watch an entire generation get eaten by
a change doesn't care so how do we
without incapacitating the people that
have to relearn and do this very
difficult thing how do we encourage them
to move forward
without
either abandoning them on one side or
dragging them forward on the other
but you know first of all I have to say
that I'm not sure that coding is such a
safe job because coding 2 could be
automated maybe you know you you could
you could also will also need a lot of
therapists will need Community
organizers we'll even need philosophers
because a lot of these new questions
they actually suddenly the big tech
companies need people who understand
deep philosophical questions because
they become technical questions you need
a lot of people in the in the taking
care of other people you know it's
um in a way it's easier to automate the
job of a coder than the job of a nurse
like coding is in the end it's just data
it's just information it's just
information coming in and out so I can
see more easily how you automate the job
of a computer scientist at least some of
these jobs then the job of a nurse who
needs to replace a bandage
or to give an injection to a screaming
child and and things like that partly
because it demands a much wider range of
abilities it's not just of course a
nurse needs
to understand information and to analyze
information and so forth but also needs
motor skills also needs social skills
and the combination of these skills this
is much harder to automate
so I wouldn't place all my bets on on
something like coding governments are
essential again partly because in many
countries you know I think about I don't
know uh you mentioned truck drivers also
textile workers you imagine you think
about many countries in Latin America
that they don't have a high-tech sector
they have a textile industry lots and
lots of people working in textile
producing shirts
and suddenly all of this is automated
it's cheaper to produce shirts in
California than in Mexico or in
Guatemala and in addition to that there
is an entirely new line of of of textile
industry which is virtual shirts like I
spent hours in virtual reality I want to
look good the latest fashion in virtual
reality and somebody needs to design it
now how do you take again a 40 year old
unemployed textile worker from Guatemala
and turn her or him into a designer of
virtual shirts
um so without government support and in
this case I mean these countries could
uh well even they can't afford it they
will have to get support from the Richer
countries otherwise we are facing a
global uh uh uh catastrophe
so I'm not saying that governments kind
of will force people to do something
it's you know like with with basic
education for young people I mean you
can still fail you can still drop out
but at least you're given the chance
uh and and then whether you use this
chance that you're given wisely or not
is is up to you
but I think most of the successful
systems in history
they they are complex they don't place
all the responsibility just on
individuals
because then a lot of people are left
behind not because uh of even their
fault it's just they weren't given the
the proper opportunity
on the other hand trusting only
government when you get this kind of
communist nightmares that we definitely
don't don't want to try this this this
mistake again
yeah that to me is the problem and when
I look at the culture War right now
which quoting you again uh you said this
is a paraphrase but I'm gonna get really
close so by all means if I say anything
wrong jump in but you said uh Putin had
waited five or ten years to uh invade
the Ukraine the West probably would have
imploded on his own and he could have
gone away with it and I was like so
impatient wow that is that is it feels
terrifyingly accurate so the way that
the West is tearing itself apart right
now I find deeply distressing so the
reason that that ties into this for me
is that there there is a necessary
tension
between an all I don't know if you'll
agree with this but by all means jump in
if you don't there's a necessary tension
between the left and the right and I
think the left and the right are
Evolution solution to you if you're a
social creature you want to try to help
everybody but as you try to help
everybody there's the freeloader problem
and so you'll get people that will take
advantage of the system so you need
people on the other side that demand
personal responsibility but if you only
have personal responsibility that will
also lead to tyranny so you have tyranny
on both sides and so what you need is
the tension in the middle but you can't
have the tension if each side thinks
that the tension is the problem if
they're both trying to be right and
they're trying to silence the other side
that feels like the core problem of the
West is that we no longer realize oh
it's good that not everybody's on my
side whatever side you're on because if
everybody were on my side we wouldn't
have the tension we'll have tyranny yeah
is that how you see it or is there
something more nuanced no I I think
the good thing about democracy is that
you have multiple voices and you don't
see the other people as you as your
enemies you can think that they are
mistaken you can even think that they
are stupid but they are not evil
they're not your enemies once people in
a democracy start seeing their political
Rivals as as their enemies and as people
who are trying to destroy their way of
life democracy just cannot survive in
this situation
uh you can have a civil war you can have
a dictatorship
but you cannot have a democracy because
you know if if Americans think that the
other side the other Americans are there
enemies out to to destroy them then they
will do anything to win the elections
because this is now like a war and they
have no incentive to accept the result
if they lose
um and that's that's the biggest danger
I think that the not just the United
States but many countries in the west
are facing
that increasingly people are seeing the
the neighbors the people in in the other
state in in the other town as as their
enemies
it's not so clear why this is happening
because actually the ideological
differences today are much smaller okay
than they were 50 years ago or 100 years
ago before you finish that can I set
something up I'd never heard anybody
talk about this before I know where
you're going okay so you you said this
is this is all you I thought this was so
brilliant gave me a way to understand
what's happening you said in the 20th
century there were three big ways of
viewing the world you had fascism you
had
um communism yeah and you had liberalism
yes explain the three because the punch
line is where you're going now which is
why didn't people go with liberalism but
uh please explain the three and then we
can get into why liberalism is breaking
down because I actually don't understand
why
well uh that that that's that's a lot to
explain in in brief but basically
fascism is says that the state is the
only the state and the nation are the
only thing that matters
um there is nationalism in itself is a
Force for good nationalism when it's
understood correctly it means simply
that you love the other people in your
nation and you're willing to make some
sacrifices for them for instance to pay
taxes so they that they get good health
care when it's good nationalism is about
love not about hating foreigners or
minorities fascism is when somebody says
that the nation is the only thing that
matter
individuals groups they don't matter at
all everything should serve the needs of
of the nation of the state
uh the truth is whatever helps the
nation
good is what other is good for the
nation even even Beauty like films and
art and so forth on it's all political
a good film is a good that advances the
interests of the Nations that's it and
anybody who opposes this is a traitor
and should be eliminated
this is kind of the basic world view of
fascism you know the symbol of fascism
is that the word fascism it means it
comes from from Latin for fastki that is
it's it's a kind of bundle of of weeds
or bundle of of small kind of Twigs
which is very strange I mean why is the
symbol of one of the most evil and
ferocious movements in history a bundle
of Twigs what's the sense there and the
idea is that each twig by itself is
nothing it's it's easy to break it it's
nothing but you know you take a lot of
Twigs together you can't break them
so that's the message of fascism that
you are nothing in yourself as an
individual but the group as a whole it's
it's it's the only thing that matters
and then communism is actually a
variation on on that it also uh uh has
no regard
for for the individual
it's uh thinks more in terms of class
it's not so much the nation which is in
the center it's the class to which you
belong which is at the center
and uh uh the hero of Communism is not a
nation it's the working class but
again to make a very long story short
it's the same idea this is why also you
see that Nazi Germany in the Soviet
Union they constantly copy each other
because the it's at the basic level
there is the same idea that individual
human beings count for nothing and it's
only the interests of the collective
which are important and liberalism says
that no
but we put yes we need
also Collective action Collective
cooperation again to build their
Healthcare System to build an education
system people need to cooperate but
still at the center we have the
individual
and you know there is a very simple test
to test yourself whether you're liberal
so you know the word liberal is just as
fascism comes from this fasca this
bundle of reads and communism from
communal everything together so
liberalism is from from Liberty
freedom and unso just for simple
question
do you think people should have the
Liberty to choose their own government
do you think people should have the
Liberty to choose their own religion do
you think people should have the Liberty
to choose their own profession
and do you think people should have the
Liberty to choose their own spouse if
you answer yes to all of our questions
congratulations you're a liberal and
again it sounds like what who will
object but for most of History most
people objected
like
you know you heard the American
Revolution against the king of England
and the whole idea of monarchy is that
people don't get they don't have the
Liberty to choose their own government
there is a king appointed by God or
whatever and this is the government and
similarly in the Soviet Union or in Nazi
Germany people don't get to choose the
government to replace the government
similarly if you think about profession
so in a communist Society you don't get
to choose your profession
the Communist Party tells you that you
now go to the farm to raise cabbages and
he now goes to the factory to produce
cars and we tell you how many cabbages
to produce or what kind of cars to
produce and if you go I don't know to
the Middle Ages so again you don't have
any Liberty to choose your profession if
you're born to a peasant family you will
be a peasant if your father was a
cobbler you'll be a cobbler that that's
it you have no choice there and of
course when it comes to choosing your
spouse same thing it doesn't matter who
you love
it matters what your elders tell you
what your church tells you what the
nation needs
um and today
in the big ideological war of the 20th
century liberalism kind of came on top
and when I said earlier that actually
the the ideological differences that I
see today in the United States or in the
west as a whole in the world as a whole
are much smaller than 50 years ago or a
hundred years ago because almost all
people are liberal even the
conservatives who hate to think liberal
artists is terrible I hate these
liberals they are liberal in in the in
the long term historical sense so of
course we we know this hot hot button
issues like abortion like gun control
and and these things and and there you
have arguments but Underneath It All
there is much deeper and more widespread
ideological agreement than anything we
have seen 50 years ago or a hundred
years ago
even you know these kind of of hot
button subjects like abortion right
getting gay marriage they're actually
the aftershocks of the Big Bang of the
1960s of the sexual Revolution the
really big argument about these issues
well in the 1960s the truth is hitting
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link in today's description alright my
friend back to today's episode the Gap
there was was much much bigger and in
the end almost everybody accepted the
liberal position you know in in in 1950s
universities could expel students from
University if they had sex before
marriage wow this was sex before
marriage this is not and who wants to go
to to go back there I mean you know uh
uh a divorce was kind of was unthinkable
uh uh marriage between a white person
and a black person was legally
prohibited so crazy and this was you
know 56 years ago
so I'm not saying that there are no uh
uh ideological differences remaining
although there are no kind of of of of
of debates but if people could step back
and look at the long-term uh uh view
they will be amazed how close actually
Republicans and Democrats in the US are
you know Republicans today are far more
liberal on as say LGBT rights than
Democrats were in the 1960s
so um and another I think people should
ask themselves okay we have these
remaining disagreements
is it a good enough reason to destroy
the American Republic over that to
destroy basically Western Civilization
over that
so you know you think about the the
American Civil War
and people today some people say okay we
are approaching another civil war
imagine
high school students in 100 years having
to write and and a test about American
history and they get two questions what
was the first Civil War about that's
easy slavery what was the second Civil
War about
is there anything as as clear as selling
particular it was about that
it was about gun control it was about
whether transgender people can go to the
to the same toilet or not what what was
it about
and I think that the tragedy of what's
Happening Now in the US and in much of
the West
is that
um
again the ideological differences are of
are small on the ground but they are
very big in people's imagination people
have fantasies about what the other side
is planning to do which are completely
divorced from reality
you know in the 20th century
you didn't need to fantasize what these
Communists want to do they told you
that you listen to to somebody like
Lenin or Stalin they tell you we want to
completely abolish private property
it's not a fantasy in the minds of some
liberals this is what the Communists
want to do
the same thing with the fascists you
just need to listen to Hitler he
literally detailed everything he wanted
to do I'm gonna do this and this and the
Jews are a problem and we're gonna do
this I was like what I could not believe
he published all of that yeah it wasn't
really Rose to Powers insane it was in
the open and now much of the kind of uh
Gap is mostly in the imagination of
people
and
the the tragedies
that in history
you can get terrible terrible Wars I'm
not saying everything that I said now is
not like it's not going to be a civil
war it's not going to be civil Strife in
the no the tragedy of history is that
very often you get terrible things
happening
for
without any good reason at all
that afterwards when you look back
you ask what was this all about like you
think about the world of religion in
Europe in the 19 in in the 16th and 17th
century
which by the way was part of the reason
that people fled Europe to come to the
United States
and Protestants and Catholics killing
each other by the millions like a third
of the population of Germany died in the
30 years war between Protestants and
Catholics
Nation and you look back today
even as a as as a Protestant or a
Catholic and you ask yourself what was
this about and it's completely
incomprehensible
to the people back then it looked like
the most important things in the world
like whether you believe in this
theological view or that theological
view whether you do the mass in in in in
with this ritual or we like a very big
issue whether was whether you give the
the ordinary Christians during baths uh
only the holy brand or also the wine
yeah I got to have a big war over that
yes they did have a very very big war
over that
and also people sometimes have big Wars
over fantasies in their minds and we
have now just an example you know with
the Russian invasion of Ukraine
um so Putin had all these fantasies in
his mind for instance that NATO is
threatening Russia you know very simple
question name the country which was
about to invade Russia in 2022 but the
Germans were about to invade Russia have
you been to Germany lately do you think
these people what they want to do in
life is going invade Russia do you think
the French want to invade Russia
Napoleon will come out of his grave and
lead the grand Alma again to Moscow this
is complete fantasy
but fantasies often shape history
and cause people to do you know terrible
things
[Music]
yeah this is so
I have a hypothesis I know you don't
believe that history repeats but that
humans do have a biology we have a
nature humans are like something and I
think there's two things man and this is
like a random entrepreneur stabbing in
the dark here but I've engaged with
people enough that I'm pretty confident
that I'm on the right track I think
there's two things that lead to this
kind of thing where we're fighting over
something that in the end really isn't
that important one some people need to
be chased by a lion so without an
extrinsic real danger that forces you to
be like yo we may not see eye to eye but
you can help me keep my family safe and
in return I will help you keep your
family safe without that that impulse to
protect or whatever goes awry or just
that they can't handle boredom something
we talked about briefly before it
started rolling and then there the other
thing is Nietzsche's Will To Power and
yeah I did not understand
the culture your War until I started
reading about Nietzsche and the idea
that we have we want to it can manifest
beautifully we want to get better we
want to improve we want that control
over our life to to manifest what we
could be
but then there's also the toll booth
person that isn't going to let you
through if you don't have exact change
because they can and that they get to
feel that sense of okay I matter I I
have some control over the world and
that desire to have power coupled with
there's nothing real to fight against
puts humans in a very weird situation
where they will pick up on minor things
and we just run in opposite directions
so that we have the expression of
the will to power now I am new to
nietzsa so I do not claim to fully
understand him but it seems like he saw
it as a pretty broad spectrum it could
be a beautiful thing it could be an ugly
Petty thing
so I don't want to paint it with like
these dark overtones and wolves howling
in the background but like that it can
manifest in a pretty ugly way I I
completely agree that much of what we
see now is not an ideological battle
it's uh certain politicians
uh who as you say that what's what is
driving them is power not ideology and
they are using
um divisive
uh uh issues you know the way to gain
power is to take a certain issue and
politicize it and they they are
searching for issues that can get people
enraged that can and then harnessed
harness this energy to get to power so a
lot of the issues that you know people
are fighting over if they were
de-politicized
they could have been solved much more
easily
but you take these issues and you turn
them into this big ideological battles
and then nobody wants to to back down
and become this tribal Affair and this
is the the the way that these leaders
are right to power and and again we see
it so many times in history it's really
terrible I think that the job of leaders
should be actually to heal the community
to bring it together
and this is why also I think that you
know many people today say that uh that
we see the research Resurgence of
nationalism all over the world but
actually much of the world you see a
crisis of nationalism and the Resurgence
of tribalism of tearing Nations into
their components and destroying actually
the national Community like I said
before nationalism when it is understood
correctly it's a Force for good in the
world the basic kind of message of
nationalism is uh the the ability to
care about people you don't know which
is amazing you know from a biological
perspective we are kind of programmed to
care about a very small number of people
that we know personally our family our
friends and to prefer them over
everybody else
and the big task of nationalism is to
come and say and say to us no there is a
much larger community of people that you
need to care about so for instance you
take money away from your family
and you give it to build a healthcare
system this is these are taxes so that
strange people that you never met in
your life on the other side of the
country you'll never meet them but
because you're a good Patriot and you
care about them you pay your taxes
honestly so that they get some basic
health care or education or a sewage
system
and
um similarly like you now I don't know
you're a mayor or you're a a prime
minister or something and you need to
appoint somebody for a job
and you have two options you have your
cousin
which is not qualified at all but he's
your cousin man and you have like a very
qualified person who is a stranger
millions of years of evolution are
screaming in your ear are you an idiot
give it to your cousin
but patriotism tells you no you should
give the job to the qualified person
because they would do a better job for
the community
and that's that's the the the the the
the the good side
of of nationalism
and what we see now in many parts of the
world is politicians who describe
themselves as nationalists but they are
actually not trying to create uh uh
Harmony in the National Community they
don't strengthen the national Community
they tear it apart
they deliberately look for any crack for
any wound in kind of the national body
here there's a problem this is something
that people don't agree on and instead
of trying to heal it they kind of poke
their finger into it and try to enlarge
it as much as possible to inflame it
because this is their ticket to power
and in this way they destroy the
national community
and uh turn the nation into boring
tribes and then they Place themselves at
the head of One Tribe
and tell people you have to follow me
otherwise the other tribe will Destroyer
and you're completely right this is
simply uh the will to power it works we
see unfortunately in many parts of the
world we see that it is working not just
in the U.S I mean though elections this
this week in Brazil the elections are
next week in my country in Israel it's
exactly the same instead of leaders who
are trying to heal the national
Community you see leaders that try to
destroy it and get power by kind of
leading Just One Tribe
yeah this is why like I'm a super
optimistic guy as I was saying before we
started rolling like when it comes to AI
the metaverse all that stuff you're
gonna have to slap me back to reality
because I'm so optimistic but on this I
am pessimistic only because when I look
at the human animal and the way that
we're wired and what biology tells us to
do
I don't see it feels like a positive
feedback loop that has been magnified a
thousand-fold by social media and so now
information is coming at us so fast it's
mimified so it becomes very easy to
digest yeah I have a level of confusion
because so much is coming at me
if I feel insecure nothing from a
biology perspective nothing is more
intoxicating than the certainty of
righteous indignation so the reason that
somebody can acquire Power by poking at
something is they're telling me exactly
how to feel about something very
concrete and so it's like you should
hate those people because they have guns
you should hate those people because
they believe in abortion you should hate
those people because on and on and so it
now in all of my confusion I have
absolute certainty
and through a weird Quirk of evolution
that calms my mind and distracts me from
all the like internal emotional turmoil
that I was having and it's like
the only way that I see that running its
course that we it's like labor once a
woman goes into labor there is no
stopping it she's either gonna die or
she's going to give birth to the child
those are your two options there's
nothing in between yeah because you're
you're in that positive feedback loop I
feel like and Lord knows I want you to
tell me that we're not but I feel like
we're in a positive feedback loop right
now of people racing away from each
other
and the only way that they will come
back to the middle is through enough
suffering and every war proves that
after a while you just don't want to
fight anymore and you've seen too many
people die and it's like oh my God this
is so horrible now I'm willing to
compromise now I'm willing to come back
to the table
and if you see a way out of this because
I am a big believer in Nelson Mandela
when I read long walk to Freedom that
changed me at some deep fundamental
level where he was like hey they
imprisoned me for 27 years and what's my
answer when I come back out to find what
I've heard you refer to as a middle way
so way number one is to remain oppressed
clearly he wasn't prepared to do that
way number two is to become the
oppressor and he was like you give up
your Humanity when you become the
oppressor so he's like you might be in
power but you give something up that's
not worth giving up the Third Way the
way in the middle is to heal people to
bring them back together and so I'm like
if he can do that like none of us have
an excuse but I don't think that we can
I think he was such a freakishly rare
human I just don't know who we turn to
well I'm less optimistic about the
metaverse and all that and we'll discuss
this in a minute but but I'm more
optimistic we can trade optimism yeah
I'm the opposite I'm more optimistic
about I mean not like terribly
optimistic but a little more optimistic
about our trans chances you know kind of
politically and and so forth I mean
first of all I look at the long term
process of History uh we started
tens of thousands of years ago hundreds
of thousands of years ago is isolated
bands I mean a hundred thousand years
ago you have humans living in small
hunter-gatherer bands of a few dozen
individuals
and over history you see that the
direction is very very clear humans find
ways to trust More and More Strangers to
come together into larger and larger
groups
all kind of evolution evolutionarily it
makes no sense
I mean we are programmed to trust just a
very very small number of individuals
that we know personally and yet we have
our Nations we have countries of
hundreds of millions of people if we
have a trade Network which covers
basically the entire globe
so humans find ways how to uh uh to to
to overcome these Tendencies and to
develop Trust
and when you look specifically even at
the issue of violence and War the last
few decades have been the most peaceful
era in human history
now I know there have been conflicts and
and wars in the last few decades I come
from Israel you don't need to tell me I
lived in the Middle East all my life but
when you look at the statistics
it's the most peaceful era in human
history it's an era when humans had more
chance to die from eating too much
than from human violence in most of the
world it became unacceptable for one
country to just invade and Conquer its
neighbors because it's it's stronger
um you see it in the state budgets maybe
in better than in any other place for
most of History the number one item on
the budget of every King and South and
Emperor is the Army the Army the Navy
the fortresses the military in recent
decades the average expenditure of
governments all over the world together
the average on the military is about six
percent wow that's amazing because this
is what enabled the resources to shift
to again education welfare uh Healthcare
most countries spend much more on
Education Health Care and Welfare than
they spend on on their military what is
up my friend Tom bilyu here and I have a
big question to ask you how would you
rate your level of personal discipline
on a scale of 1 to 10 if your answer is
anything less than a 10. I've got
something cool for you and let me tell
you right now discipline by its very
nature means compelling yourself to do
difficult things that are stressful
boring which is what kills most people
or possibly scary or even painful now
here is the thing achieving huge goals
and stretching to reach your potential
requires you to do those challenging
stressful things and to stick with them
even when it gets boring and it will get
boring building your levels of personal
discipline is not easy but let me tell
you it pays off in fact I will tell you
you're never going to achieve anything
meaningful unless you develop discipline
right I've just released a class from
Impact Theory university called how to
build Ironclad discipline that teaches
you the process of building yourself up
in this area so that you can push
yourself to do the hard things that
greatness is going to require of you
right click the link on the screen
register for this class right now and
let's get to work I will see you inside
this Workshop from Impact Theory
University until then my friends be
legendary peace out
and that tells us that it's possible now
we should not be complacent and think
that oh this is now that's it we have
peace we can just relax no peace didn't
come from some changing the laws of
nature or because of divine intervention
it came because people countries built
good institutions not just on a national
level but on the international level
since 1945 countries have built a
rule-based uh International System which
had many problems but still managed to
provide more peace than in any previous
ERA this is now in question
the Russian invasion of Ukraine and
other developments are so frightening
because they endanger the biggest
achievement of of humanity this era of
relative peace
you know if if Putin is allowed to get
away with what he's trying to do in
Ukraine then you will see defense
budgets all over the world Skyrocket
already now lots of countries Germany
Japan countries in Europe are doubling
tripling the defense budgets it's
basically like you know you had the
biggest the biggest Taboo in the
International System
was you cannot invade another country
and Conquer it just because you're
stronger and he is now breaking this
taboo and everybody around the world is
watching to see what will happen it's
like in a school when you have a bully
who picks on us on a smaller kid and
starts beating him
and all the kids are watching what will
happen
if the bully gets away with it if nobody
intervenes if they then it's clear to
everybody that's it the laws of the
school the north of the school have
changed now everybody knows this can
happen if on the other hand
people intervene the bully is stopped
you give support to to the to the to the
victim
then the norm actually gets strengthened
people realize hey you can't do that and
this is not what is happening
dictators and regimes all over the world
are watching to see what will happen in
Ukraine
um so far Putin is not getting away with
it there's been massive support from you
for Ukraine from the West the ukrainians
themselves are fighting more bravely and
efficiently than anybody could have
imagined
and this also goes back to to kind of
where my optimism about what's happening
inside Nations come from you look at
Ukraine
um Ukraine is a very new country just
you know 30 years since it gained its
independence from the Soviet Union it
it's made of different ethnic groups you
have people speaking Russian people
speaking Ukrainian you have Jews and so
forth and it was
uh under the most intense kind of
disinformation campaign
coming from Russia trying to divide the
ukrainians against themselves trying to
do exactly that to tear apart the fabric
of the Ukrainian Society of Ukrainian
nation and turn you know Ukrainian
speakers and Russian speakers against
each other
and they completely failed the Russians
Putin gambled one of the reasons what's
happening in the war Putin gambled that
the moment his tanks would enter Ukraine
Ukraine would just collapse the lensky
would run away the Ukrainian Army would
surrender and lots of ukrainians would
you know throw flowers on the Russian
tanks
and it didn't happen the ukrainians
actually came together
um the landscape didn't flee the
Ukrainian Army didn't surrender and
people threw monitor cocktails on the
Russian tanks and you know the landscape
itself he is Jewish
coming from a russian-speaking family
now if if Ukraine had fallen victim to
this kind of tribalism
then the ukrainians would think that
well he's Russian speaking he's Jewish
he's not really Ukrainian we can't trust
him
but he became this national hero
and I think that I hope that more
countries around the world would learn
from from this example
that uh nationalism doesn't mean that
you hate minorities or you hate your
neighbors no it means that people come
together
it's an interesting take on nationalism
that I I thought a lot about because I
grew up in the 80s when it was
it was self-evident that you loved
America I mean that was certainly the
prevailing thing to be against America
was like punk rock like it was so anti
it was like way outside the pail and now
that's become so commonplace that it
isn't even punk rock anymore it's like
it's it is I don't know that it's the
dominant voice but it's a big enough
voice that it isn't uh uncommon to bump
into the amazing thing you see it from
both sides it's not like you said okay
these kind of extreme radical lefties
you also see it on the right that people
are against the federal government
against the FBI against the postal
office like anything that smells of of
of of the state
and they have all these conspiracy
theories about the Deep State and you
know you know what the what the Deep
State really is
the Deep state is the sewage system
you know somebody built this system
under our houses and streets and towns
and it's a good system you know if you
go to the toilet you flush down what
you've done and it's gone somewhere and
it's take being taken care of if there
was no switch system we would you know
we would die of Cholera
because somebody needs to take care to
separate say the drinking water from the
sewage system that you don't get germs
in your drinking water and who is this
somebody this is the job of the
government this is the job of the state
and and that's the Deep straight and
when you see that people are kind of
turning even against that
and again it's coming from from both
sides
this is
this is so unfortunate that humanity is
managed on many levels to reach this you
know amazing achievements
whether it's the most peaceful era in
history whether it's building sewage
systems so that we don't get cholera
epidemics
and then people take it for granted and
then people just neglect it
that you know it's like living in a
house that uh everybody inhabits but
nobody wants to repair
and eventually it falls down and like
you said then people then people realize
what
they missed like when you have a war
and you see people dying and suffering
around you then you look back and you
say actually we had it so good before
how do we get back there and hopefully
we
we realize in time what we can lose
and we don't get into the war in the
first place
and it feels to me the historian that we
are kind of at the edge of the precipice
like we have climbed up we've been so
far below in the jungle in kind of this
conflict for survival with violence and
disease and poverty and we've climbed up
to the top or to a very high place but
we are still at the edge of the
precipice we can fall down all the way
down very very quickly within just a few
years
and
and and people don't really realize it
yeah so you just made me think of
oppenheimer's quote I am become death
destroyer of worlds we're living in a a
a really
we're living in an amazing time I
wouldn't want to live at any other time
but it is a moment of
that requires deep reflection on the
stories that we tell ourselves so I know
that as you look at the long Arc of
History you think a lot about Okay the
reason that humans become the most
dominant Predator this world has ever
seen is not because we're the strongest
fastest sharpest teeth claws whatever
it's because we could organize flexibly
in groups via the stories that we
effectively Bond over and come together
over and when we were talking about
fascism communism and liberalism when I
first heard you talk about that you said
these These are the dominant stories
that over history people have been
fighting over so you have the story of
the state is the only thing that matters
in that that what life is going to be is
an eternal struggle between Warring
States one will violently conquer all
the rest and then there will finally be
peace so it's like hey as Germans we're
that we're the one yeah like it's us
like all we have to do they always take
over like it was meant to be then
communism same idea it's the story that
the only the state matters but the way
that we get there is by Distributing
everything equally and then liberalism
the story and you said World War II
ended the idea of fascism uh the Cold
War ended the idea of Communism
liberalism actually worked but it's
still tearing itself apart and so then
the question becomes why okay so now if
we're on this precipice and it's this
incredibly important moment where we've
got the potential for Gene editing which
you've said could destroy all of
humanity we've got the potential for AI
or ai's here man anybody that doesn't
recognize like how like now
that we're using it in our own business
on both the the traditional content side
so what we're doing now will be
tremendously influenced by our ability
to find our audience using Ai and then
on the other side so we're building in
the metaverse so who's designing those
shirts it's largely humans but now
they're being augmented with AI you can
literally type something and it will
give you a design it's just insane
that's today so it becomes a question of
what story are you telling yourselves
now I think the thing because you and I
agree on a lot but if I had to guess on
the thing that maybe makes me slightly
more pessimistic than you is I believe
ultimately the collective is a
reflection only of the individual
and I do think that even if you want
Collective change it has to Spring forth
from the individual now we get into the
deep complexities of what that looks
like so when you have somebody like
Nelson Mandela who can actually as an
individual sway the collective okay
that's very special and so there's
clearly a relationship it's not an
individual in isolation we're not
whatever 7.4 billion individuals in
isolation it's very much the way that I
say it is we are both the shout and the
echo so you are what you do and you are
the reflection that comes back from
other people about how they feel about
what you do and you can never
disentangle those so I don't think the
human mind is designed to disentangle
those two things they are effectively
one and the same but the thing that gets
in there the way that we're able to take
all of these variables and make sense
out of it is through a narrative which
then deeply simplifies this incredibly
complex world and so my the thing that I
cling to is Hope on this precipice is
that people take the responsibility to
tell themselves a narrative that brings
people back together yeah that's the
only path I see forward and so my thing
is
somebody with a platform I think a lot
about is it good no but but there is a
narrative there is actually this is the
main story that I tell in in my new book
an Unstoppable loss which is aimed at
kids but to give them the understanding
that
their identity is closely connected to
all the other people in the world and
actually even Beyond people to to other
animals because if you want to
understand who you are
so you know you get these kind of
national stories which are important but
they are so limited because Nations have
been around for just something like 5
000 years you know the oldest nations in
the world like Egypt they go back 5000
years most Nations go back just a couple
of hundred years
and each of us is made of bits and
pieces that came from all over the world
for from the whole of History
you know it starts with the food that we
eat that if I like to eat chocolate
and chocolate was discovered by the
olmecs in Central America something like
4 000 years ago so this is a bit of
Olmec in me that I like chocolate and I
like my chocolate sweet
and sugar was domesticated in New Guinea
something like 8 000 years ago so I have
a bit of New Guinea in me that I like I
like sugar
and um going much much deeper like our
most basic emotions you know as a kid I
sometimes would wake up in the middle of
the night afraid that there is a monster
under the bed and I would call my mom
Mom there is a monster
and where is this coming from this is
not Jewish culture this is not Israeli
invention this is coming from millions
of years of evolution
it's actually a historical memory
tens of thousands of years ago when we
lived in the wild there were actually
monsters that came in the a night to eat
children lions and cheetahs and so forth
and if you continue to sleep the lion
eats you
if you wake up and call your mom you
could be saved and again calling your
mom where is this coming from moms are
not a Jewish invention or an American
invention again all mammals and all
birds have a very close connection
between mother and Offspring I mean this
is the very definition of of being a
mammal no mammals means that you know
you have I don't know you have turtles
so the mother turtle she would just
climb at night from the ocean dig a hole
lay eggs cover it go back to the ocean
that's it right my job is just the luck
the best of luck to you now as as a
mammal
all mammals eat their mother
like you're bald crazy way to say it but
yeah it's true she not only carried you
in her womb after you're born she
actually feeds her feeds you from her
body
and if something happens in the
connection between mother and child you
don't survive
and this is so basic in who we are and
you know as a Jewish kid you should know
that it's the same as Muslim kids
and it's the same way as Russian and
Ukrainian kids and it's the same with
American and Mexican kids
so there's this is something very very
deep in us that connects all of us
and I think this is a basis
for a narrative for the 21st century
because we now face also Collective
challenges
that threaten the existence the humanity
of all of us and that it's not just
nuclear war and climate change it's also
what you mentioned I see new
technologies like genetic engineering
and to some extent also AI as
existential dangers to all of us
and that we should unite to face is
genetic engineering the one that freaks
you out the most
um it depends because it's it it
develops much more slowly than AI
so in terms of like what it can do then
genetic engineering is probably the most
frightening germline only or do you not
want people even messing with their own
at this stage we just don't understand
our body and our brain and our mind well
enough to start messing with it you know
basically if you give corporations in
armies and governments the technology to
start changing the human body
so they will start changing uh uh
um kind of developing upgrading the
human qualities that they need yeah they
want discipline they want intelligence
like armies want disciplined and
intelligent soldiers so they will try to
mess with our genes with our body to
make us more disciplined and more
intelligent now other things like
Compassion or like spirituality they
don't want that you know Putin needs
disciplined and intelligent soldiers to
to fight his War it doesn't want
compassionate soldiers or spiritual
soldiers
so even without trying to to to to
eliminate these qualities just by
focusing on what they want we might get
kind of highly intelligent and highly
disciplined humans who lack compassion
and lack any spiritual depth
and the terrible thing about that
is that it will not be a temporary
a change it could go on for Generations
if you look back in history so figures
like Hitler like Stalin they also try to
re-engineer humans
but they are it it did a time limit like
with education
and with a mass political control they
could for a few years
change the uh characteristics of entire
populations like brainwashed them with
Nazi ideology or communist ideology
but eventually when they fell
you got back to to to to Ground Zero you
get back to this body to this brain they
didn't manage to change it
so over time we can start again
but once you give these kind of regimes
the ability to actually change the human
body like permanently maybe even
germline then their uh Legacy
can last indefinitely they can create a
new human species how closely did you
follow the Chinese doctor that
supposedly was addressing HIV but oops
it also makes you more intelligent
uh this was a like very very frightening
uh to see that it's actually starting to
happen
and again the thing to realize that
people dreamed about it throughout
history
people always dreamed to kind of
re-engineer humanity
it came from different places
um I think about China so if you're a
Chinese emperor like 2000 years ago one
of your biggest problems in life is that
if you give too much power to your
ministers and Generals they might rebel
against you the will to power and want
to kill you and your family and
establish their Dynasty
and they found a solution which is based
on bioengineering now you can ask
bioengineering 2000 years ago in China
yes it's called castration whoa
frustration is bioengineering you take a
man you cut something off you get a
different kind of man that is perfectly
fit for the purposes of the emperor I
didn't know they did that yeah Unix I
mean new eunuchs existed I didn't know
they were Generals you had unique
generals and unique ministers because
they pose much less of a threat
they can't establish their own Dynasty
wow and you had in there are periods in
Chinese history when most of the
Imperial Administration was Unix do you
like the dark view of humanity like you
know you want a government job yes just
give us your testicles and we'll give
you a government job and this was not
just China you see the same thing
happening in in the Byzantine empire in
the caliphate in the Islamic caliphate
because this was kind of by engineering
of a thousand to two thousand years ago
that again you need this this special
kind of human
which has Intelligence and discipline
but doesn't pose the threat of
establishing their own Dynasty that's
the solution
so of course this was very limited but
you had other you know you have the I
know the Christians
they also have a problem with humans as
they are because humans are not very
good in obeying all the kind of uh uh uh
dictates of Christianity
so they try to change Humanity but they
fail
they don't have the ability to really
intervene deep inside the human genome
the human brain like Christianity
doesn't like sex very much it doesn't
have it has a negative view of sex
but what to do I mean you can't change
the human sexual urge they tried a lot
of times but even monks and nuns did not
always keep their vows of Chastity you
have popes where children
so Christianity had a very big trouble
like overcoming this sexual urge of
humans
and um you know you fast forward to the
future what would some fundamentalist
religious regime Christian or Muslim or
whatever do
with genetic engineering they can what I
often say is that the people who
developed the technology they usually
think about the good usages we will use
this to cure disease we will use this to
to improve people's lives but you also
need to take a moment think about the
politician you most hate in the world or
think about the religious movement of
the archaeological movement that uh
which was the worst in history from your
perspective and take a few minutes to
think what would they do yeah with the
technology that I'm developing right now
it doesn't mean we stop all
technological development
but it means that we have to be very
careful especially about thing about
something like genetic engineering which
is to some extent irreversible we we
have never seen like something like that
in history that the Chinese emperor they
could create eunuchs but it was just one
generation they could not create an
entire kind of new specie of human Unix
it doesn't work
but now it could be done
so that's one very big danger and the
other big danger it comes from AI
because AI also is something completely
new in human history
it's the first time that we invent
something that can take power away from
us going back to the will to power every
previous invention in history gave more
power to humans because even if the tool
was extremely powerful an atom bomb
the decision how to use it always
remained in human hands it was not the
atom bomb that decided to uh to bomb
Hiroshima it was Truman and the the the
American Army it was human beings so
even a nuclear bomb actually empowers
Humanity AI is the first invention that
breaks this because it can make
decisions by its own that's the whole
idea
so it potentially can take power away
from us we already see it beginning to
happen uh you know increasingly you
apply to to the bank to get a loan and
the bank says no and why not because the
algorithm said no and you apply for a
university or you apply for a job and
increasing late in AI making a decision
about your life
and we will see it in more and more
areas now again it's not all bad it can
improve many decision-making processes
it can really improve medicine but we
should be aware of the danger when this
technology is in the wrong hands
all when we don't understand it's its
true potential
because another new thing about Ai and I
think we talked about this the last time
I was here so I won't go into too much
details it's it could eliminate human
privacy completely
throughout history again Emperors and
kings and popes always dreamed about
following people all the time and and
and watching them and supervising them
they they couldn't do it it didn't have
the technology what do you think so I've
heard you say that imagine that North
Korea gets a hold or a government-like
gets a hold of a device that can read
effectively your mood so when you see a
poster of the supreme leader and you
have anger up cool you're arrested
you're locked away
what what is the real world response to
that like how do we like do you have a
the response is is political I mean I
mean don't get there but you know that
other countries are going to do it so
there's going to be the tragedy of the
comments this is where I like I get into
the hey I'm optimistic I'm living my
life I'm trying to create beautiful
things but at the same time in the back
of my mind I'm like humans are never
going to stop like we're never going to
stop the tragedy of the commons is real
and so whatever solution we put in place
has got to deal with the tragedy of the
commons yes I mean again this is where
I'm not optimistic because the only way
to really regulate a technology like AI
is through International cooperation
yeah if you think about you know
autonomous weapon systems which are
extremely dangerous if
only America bans them but the Chinese
or the Russians keep developing them
then very soon America will say hey we
don't want to be left behind we have to
do it also we don't want to do it but we
have to do it so the only one you can
regulate it is through some kind of
international agreement Corporation and
there's International tensions in the
world just increase then I'm not
optimistic at all about the potential to
regulate this technology Within
certain within a country you can
regulate it to some extent you can
protect people's privacy for instance
you can have laws that say that if
somebody collects my private information
they can only use it to help me they
cannot use it to manipulate me or to
sell it to a third party now this is
obvious because we have these kinds of
laws about so many other things like
with my personal doctor it's known for
for years for Generations that you have
this exactly these kinds of laws
my personal doctor has a lot of very
private information about me
and he or she use it in order to help me
they are not allowed to use it to
manipulate me or to sell it to some
political party or to some Corporation
so why is Facebook allowed to do it so
this should be very very simple that's
one defense of our our privacy
another thing that we can regulate is
that we should never allow all the
information to be concentrated in one
place whether this one place is a
government agency or whether this one
place is a corporation this is the high
road to a dictatorship somebody that has
all the information of all the people
they basically control everybody
you know I mean even if you think about
it on a global scale
that you think in 20 years you have some
country that somebody in in China or
somewhere have the entire personal
records of every politician every judge
every journalist every military officer
in that country from the time they're a
little like every illness they had every
sexual encounter every bribe they took
they know that this is no longer an
independent country this had become a
kind of data colony
to control that the colony you don't
need to send soldiers in to to police
people you just take the data out
and if you have enough information you
can control this country uh by remote
control for for afar
so uh I I think we need to have
regulations
against these kinds of things and and it
can be done and similarly when we think
about the new developments like the
metaverse we have to think very very
carefully about uh uh what's happening
there
uh again I'm installing so I always look
at things from a very long-term
perspective but hey we know this this
has been a fantasy of humans for
thousands of years it really goes back
to ancient philosophical and religious
debates about what is a human being
you know you go back to early
Christianity so you have two camps
you have one Camp which says humans are
embodied beings the body is in the
center
which was the old Jewish view you are
not your mind you are not a spiritual
entity a soul you are a body
in the Book of Genesis God creates Adam
and Eve from clay and they don't exist
before that they exist only as bodies in
the New Testament Jesus rises from the
dead in the flesh
and uh when he preaches to people about
the kingdom of God he means a a physical
kingdom here on Earth with physical
bodies with biological bodies so this
was one view as humans are our bodies
Our biological entities and then there
was the other view which increa which
was influenced by Greek philosophy and
so forth and which increasingly became
dominant which says no humans are not
bodies humans are an immaterial soul
or Spirit trapped within a physical body
the body is bad is evil is corrupt is
dirty is ugly
the soul is completely pure and
spiritual we're back to narratives which
of those narratives do you believe
I'll get to that in in a moment I'll
just complete my thought that what we
see now in the metaverse is exactly this
argument being replayed
that is can we uh as as humans just
shift to the immaterial realm of the
metaverse and leave our biological
bodies behind
or is it impossible or even dangerous to
try and separate
our kind of mental existence
from our bodily and in physical
existence I'll maybe give you a little
bit of Hope for some of the people
working in the metaverse so I am very
grounded in biology
so the things that I'm interested in
with that very much coexist now will it
be interesting for a entirely virtual
species to uh inhabit maybe that could
be cool but that doesn't help us so even
people thinking about uploading their
Consciousness I've thought through that
one a lot uh it would be a copy of me
but it wouldn't be me so all of the
sadness of death and all that that I
would be hoping to avoid by doing that
doesn't help maybe it kind of gives the
same sense of having a kid but it
wouldn't by any means save me from
having to deal with death so but the
metaverse is still really interesting to
me now I'm a person when I say I'm
grounded in biology I'm talking about
understanding the microbiome and how
wildly that influences my thoughts and
am I just a shell for microbes maybe and
so like I'm I take a very very grounded
approach to that
now having said that so hopefully that
gives you a little bit of optimism not
everybody's trying to divorce from the
body it's I think most of the day
all the important you know increasingly
your social life your job is
increasingly in the metaverse the
biology of the situation will make that
a disaster so I I would highly as
somebody developing in the metaverse I
will highly caution people against that
because you have to feed your microbes
you have to love and bond and there's
there's so many things that we pick up
on anyway I totally see how it it
derails but if people are talking about
like hey you can't ignore the body this
is a very real thing you have to pay
attention to this fun place to visit you
can't live there
um hopefully we can avoid some of the
nonsense that comes along with like
social media where nobody even talked
about let's talk about how this becomes
deranging because social media has been
incredible in my life I don't have an
addictive personality so that probably
helps so it's very easy for me to go I
spend a little bit of time on it what
time I do spend is incred incredibly
empowering because I have trained the
algorithm to give me useful things not
things that compare me to other people
and make me feel terrible uh so it's
like you know you have to be very
thoughtful about stuff like that so my
hope is that we get a little bit wiser
of course not everybody will
but it really does come back to this
idea of narrative like I tell myself a
narrative about what the virtual space
is it's going to keep me I think from
hitting the major roadblocks I'm sure
there will be things I can't anticipate
yet but the the thing that I want to
make sure that we touch on is I am not
religious but I worry that the thing
that you're talking about where we have
to be thoughtful about Gene editing and
we have to come together as a big
cooperative
I don't know how that happens without
a without something filling the god-like
hole in all of our brains where we want
some Grand meaning
some thing that we can orbit around but
there is no there is no God's hole in
our brain interesting I mean the people
think you don't worry about God is dead
at all no it doesn't phase you I mean we
managed without him for many periods in
history and we've been doing quite well
in in recent Generations uh without him
I think that some people connect the God
and morality how do we come together
then as a huge species like as one
planet to fight the big things what's
the big narrative we all revolve around
I think the big narrative is the
biological narrative that we are all
Homo sapiens that we are all have the
same basic experiences that we all want
to fall in love that we all have uh very
deep ties with our family members that
we all we don't want to be sick it's we
don't like pain that we don't want to
die that we're afraid to die I mean
these are things that are common to all
humans you don't need God for them and
also very important you don't need God
for Morality some people say that and it
was common in history to have this
argument that even if God doesn't exist
we have to believe in him because
without God people will just kill and
murder and rape and and we now have
empirical evidence that this is
absolutely not true I don't think it
breaks down like that I think people are
missing something more subtle with that
I'm just playing with these ideas please
don't I hope it doesn't come across like
I think I know but
I feel like the thing is more subtle so
I haven't believed in God since I was
like 15.
so I totally get as I've never felt
compared compelled to steal murder rape
none of the like none of that enter my
mind
but when I look at sort of the broad
sweep of humanity I realize that people
will fall in line with whatever the sort
of dominant philosophy of their tribe is
so by way of example I'm I feel almost
ridiculous bringing this up to you
because you're a historian and I'm very
much not but the thing that stopped the
Conquistadors from coming up and taking
over what we now think of as America the
thing that originally stopped the
Americans from coming across uh the
camachus tribe I believe is a name and
so how do they become the tribe when all
the other Native American tribes were
falling by the wayside and getting
relegated to reservations why didn't
they because of sheer brutality and
reading the book Empire of the summer
moon was utterly fascinating when he was
like they were the only tribe that
fought on Horseback instead of riding
the horse to the fight and getting off
and so they were able to
just bring this level of viciousness
that we've seen throughout history in
all different kinds of tribes and
peoples but hearing it described you
realize oh it was actually really
effective so thinking of yourself as a
warrior
um treating the other people as the
other that you need to stop them kill
them torture maim whatever you kill all
adults you take either the women in the
adult males you take women and children
but if they're infants and you kill them
too because it's too much vassal it's
like it's actually effective but it's
super gnarly and so what is the thing
that given how many times we've seen
that whether it's the nothing I've never
stopped it I mean yeah did the same
thing and they believed in God so God
doesn't stop these kind of Terrible
Things From Heaven a thousand percent
agree so that's why I said God shaped
all I'm trying to figure out what that
because it isn't God I want to be very
clear in my stance I mean we need
morality that's that's certainly true so
how do we make that like a thing that
everyone's like yeah because as you were
describing uh getting everybody to
recognize the biology of it so I have
said a thousand times on my Tombstone I
want them to put you're having a
biological experience that like you and
I could not agree more about like I want
that to work I just don't think it will
and so how or maybe this how do we make
you're having a biological experience so
cool and so infectious that it
propagates and and people come together
hmm
um
you know first of all with regard to the
example you gave so yes
throughout history viciousness was an
effective way to build Empires but now
is nuclear weapons it's only a way to
destroy all of us
so the same way that AI is a game
changer in the same way that genetic
engineering is a game changer nuclear
weapons were also a game changer that
you can no longer conquer the world by
force the only thing you will achieve is
the annihilation of everything just to
be clear really fast on that all I'm
saying is that they became the tribe not
by being genetically Superior by having
a belief system that made them
Unstoppable yes so and and this now
becomes more and more dangerous to have
this kind of of belief system
um we need I mean again if if you have a
lot of people in the world different
groups with this kind of belief system
you end up with world war three and with
the type of weapons we now have not just
nuclear weapons but also increasingly Ai
and Robotics and so forth this is the
end of humanity unless the thing the
belief system that's powerful is one of
beauty I just don't know how to make
Beauty contagious in the way that the
will to power is contagious
well I don't either but
one thing that makes me hopeful is that
you don't see a kind of constant level
of violence throughout history you do
see periods of peace and periods of War
we just we we have just experienced as I
said earlier uh some of the most
peaceful decades in human history
so this this makes me hopeful
and um we need to find ways to connect
people I don't think God is a good way
because different people have different
gods and you know coming from Israel
both sides believe in God but he tells
them different things and he tells the
Jews that Jerusalem is yours and he
tells the Muslims Jerusalem is yours and
then they fight over it and the tragedy
is that it's a completely unnecessary
conflict you know if it was some kind of
objective necessity like you have two
people alone on an island there is the
last apple or the last piece of bread
whoever gets it survives the other dies
then I say okay you know this is a
situation when conflict is maybe is
inevitable but this is not the case in
my country
there is enough food there is enough
Territory between the Mediterranean and
the Jordan River to feed and to house
everybody
humans usually don't really fight about
objective biological things the same way
that wolves or chimpanzees fight they
don't really fight about territory they
find about fantasies in their minds
that both sides have a fantasy about
Jerusalem which is just incompatible
with the the story with the mythology of
the other side and this is what they
fight about about the fantasy in their
in their mind I mean going back to the
to the metaverse in a way when you go to
Jerusalem I've I teach them at the
Hebrew University so it's a place like
with biological glasses of an ape you
see it's just like every other place you
have trees you have Stones you have
buildings it's the same like Los Angeles
like any other place
but then you put on a different set of
glasses you put on religious glasses and
you see angels and you see Divinity and
you see Sacred Stones and sacred trees
and everything is sacred
you know a sacred place is a place plus
a story about the place and this is at
the bottom of most conflicts in the
world also you look at again the Russian
invasion of Ukraine is it about
territory Russia is the biggest country
in the world the minimal territory this
is the thing they need monetary no it's
about the fantasies in in the head I
think that the more we come back to the
level of organ of the body of biology
the more common ground that we have
throughout history you you you got the
opposite narrative
you got a narrative again from religions
like Christianity that the body is the
source of all the bad things in life
and the mind this is a kind of the uh
our most spiritual more beautiful better
part and most of the time it's the
opposite
that on the level of the body
we can relate to every other human being
in the world because biologically we are
the same
what creates this huge distance between
us is the fantasies that the mind
imagines and produces
so I I think that again if I have hope
for the for Humanity in the 21st century
is actually getting a little away from
our from thinking too much from from the
mind
and grounding ourselves a little more in
our body
I love it where can people follow you
where can people follow me
um I have a website uh why in harare.com
and from there you can get to all kinds
of other stuff like books and and videos
and whatever yeah I have clung to every
word of every one of your books so thank
you and thank you for being on today it
was amazing guys if you haven't already
be sure to subscribe and until next time
my friends be legendary take care peace
if you're looking to really understand
yourself and thrive in the future be
sure to watch this next episode which is
all about finding success in life if we
saw it completely into ourselves we
would hate ourselves so thoroughly that
we wouldn't get out of bed we'd all be
killing ourselves