Kind: captions
Language: en
if you have a democratic style of
governance you are entrusting people
with one of the most awesome and radical
of responsibilities and that's saying
that you're going to pick the people
that are going to make some of the
hardest decisions in all of human
history if you're going to trust people
to vote correctly you have to be able to
trust them to have open and honest
dialogue with each other whether that's
Nazis or KKK people or whoever talking
um you have to believe that your people
are going to be able to rise above and
make the correct determinations when
they hear these types of speeches and if
you're so worried that somebody's going
to hear a certain political figure and
they're going to be completely
radicalized instantly then what that
tells me is that you don't have enough
faith in humans for democracy to be a
viable institution which is fine you can
be anti-democratic but you I don't think
you can be pro-democracy and anti-free
speech the following is a conversation
with Steven benell also known online as
Destiny he's a video game streamer and
political commentator one of the early
pioneers of both live streaming in
general and live streamed political
debate and discourse politically he is a
progressive identifying as either left
or far-left depending on your
perspective there are many reasons I
wanted to talk to Stephen first I just
talked to Ben Shapiro and many people
have told me that Stephen is the bench
Shiro of the left in terms of political
perspective and exceptional debate
skills second reason is he skillfully
defends some nuanced non-standard View
use at the same time being
pro-establishment pro- institutions and
pro Biden while also being pro
capitalism and pro- Free Speech third
reason is he has been there at the
beginning and throughout the meteoric
rise of the video game live streaming
community in some mainstream circles
this community is not taken seriously
perhaps because of its demographic
distribution skewing young or perhaps
because of the sometimes harsh style of
communication but I think this community
should be taken seriously and shown
respect millions of young minds tune in
to live streams like Destinies to
question and to try to understand what
is going on with the world often
exploring challenging even controversial
ideas the language is sometimes harsher
and the humor sometimes meaner than I
would prefer but I Grandpa Lex put on my
rain boots and went into the beautiful
chaotic muck of online discourse and
have so far survived to tell the tale
with a smile and even more love in my
heart than
before on top of all this we were lucky
to have Molina Goron a popular streamer
and World traveler join us at the end of
the conversation you can check out her
channel on twitch.tv/ Molina and you can
check out Steven's channel on
youtube.com Destiny this is Alex
Freedman podcast to support it please
check out our sponsors in the
description and now dear friends here's
Destiny I don't know if you watched me
watching your yay interview yeah thank
you so much for I'm so curious when
you're navigating a conversation like
that are you how intentional is the
thought process between like building
Rapport and pushing and and giving a
little let like zero zero intention I
was watching and thank you so much it
was very kind for you to review that
conversation it meant a lot that you
were complimentary Parts on the
technical aspects of the conversation
but no zero and I'm actually
deliberately uh trying to avoid I think
you've called a debate brain uhhuh uh
which is just another flavor of thinking
about like The Meta conversation trying
to optimize how should this conversation
go because I feel like the more you do
that the better you get at that the less
human connection you have like the less
genuinely you're actually sitting there
in the moment and listening to the
person you're more like calculating
what's the right thing to say versus
like feeling what is uh what is that
person feeling right now what what are
they thinking that's what I'm trying to
do is like putting myself in their mind
and thinking what does the world look
like to them what is the world feel like
to them and so from that I truly try to
listen now I'm also learning especially
cuz Rogan and others have been giving me
shit for not pushing back mhm it's good
sometimes to say from a a place of care
for the other human being to say
stop what did you just say I don't think
that's represents who you are and what
you really mean or maybe if it does at
that time represents who they are I can
see a better a better world if they grow
into a different direction try to point
that direction out to them there's a
really complicated dance between letting
somebody share their full story versus
letting somebody like essentially I
guess like prze your audience and it's
like okay hold on let's take a minute
here but yeah I used to be four or five
years ago it was attack attack attack
attack attack whatever you said and now
I'm leaning way more towards the like
okay well tell me how you feel about
everything and then we'll go from there
so a lot of people like my new approach
some older fans who watch and they're
like why are you letting this guy just
Ramble On you know he said like five or
six wrong things and you're only going
to call him out on two of them and it's
like just different styles of
conversation but yeah do you do a lot of
research beforehand too depending on the
conversation yeah so if we're going to
talk like vaccines and stuff yeah that's
a ton of reading and stuff that I never
thought I'd know going into it um if
it's a more personal like political
philosophy conversation there's not as
much you can prepare for just it truly
depends on the conversation how much are
you actually listening to the other
person always listening you have to
listen because as soon as you stop
listening the quality everything falls
apart the connection disappears the
quality of the conversation disappears
but my natural inclination is to just be
way more aggressive than normal so I
have to constantly remind myself I guess
you would call it a meta conversation
like okay he's probably saying this
because of that or we'll let him go here
and then we'll stop later but um yeah
cuz my my preferred style of
conversation is like I'm going to talk
and the second I say something you
disagree with then let's iron it out
right like like I thinking like
syllogisms like okay here's premise a
good okay premise B okay and then
conclusion and then as long as we're
both deductively sound we're not crazy
no psychosis then we're going to agree
on everything um whereas other people
like to most people think in stories
like narratives like a whole there's a
whole like narrative and the individual
facts don't matter as much cuz they'll
pick and choose what they want and it's
really hard cuz everybody thinks ner so
I have to function in that world but
it's uh frustrating for me sometimes
well I I've seen uh you've had a lot of
excellent debates one of them I just
recently last night watch is uh on
systemic racism and it's the first time
I've seen you completely lose your shit
oh shoot who was that against I'm not
sure exactly but you were just very
frustrated sorry not lose your shit but
you were frustrated constantly because
of the thing let's lay out 1 2 3 and
every time you try to lay it out it
would falter I think it had to do with
sort of can you use data to make an
argument or do you need to use a study
that does an interpretation of that data
and then there's like this tension
between I think this is a behavioral
Economist that you were talking to and
the point is you do this kind of nice
layout that the whole point of
Behavioral economics it says there's
more to it than just the data you have
to give it context and like do the rich
rigorous interpretation in the context
of the full human story and then there
was like a dance back and forth
sometimes you use data sometimes not and
you you getting really frustrated and
shutting down and so that felt like a
failure mode I've seen Sam Harris have
similar sticking points like if we can't
agree on the terminology we can't go on
to me I feel like uh I'm sort of the the
wienstein perspective is
like I think if you get stuck on any one
thing you're just not going to make
progress you have to part of the
conversation has to be
about uh doing a good dance together mhm
versus being dogmatically stuck on the
path to truth I think the true challenge
is identifying what of those sticking
points are important versus what is not
important so like if I'm having an
argument with somebody about like Jewish
representation in media they might it
might be like a big conversation and
they might say a couple things like I
think Jewish people you know they tend
to help their own or whatever they
saying H okay but like for the purpose
of the conversation we can keep moving
but if they casually drop like you know
yeah and I think that's why the
Holocaust numbers were blown up from
like 100,000 to 6 million and that's I
was like okay hold on wait wait if you
think this we have to stop here because
this is going to be it's not just a
language game in this part if you really
believe this fact then the whole rest of
the conversation is going to be informed
by that belief you know and it has to be
something that doesn't bother you
personally you have to step outside your
own ego so Holocaust denial is somebody
that would bother a lot of people and
there's some things just just observe
serving you I feel like when you get
really good at conversation you can
become a stickler to um you might have
your favorite terms that really bothers
you people don't agree on those terms
begs the question you mean raising the
question yeah I usually just won't
people say stuff I just let it slide
yeah you can't because if you fight when
you're having a conversation with
somebody and you're talking to their
audience at the same time because that's
really what's happening um you never
want to come off as over combative or
overaggressive because it puts people in
like there there's like a trigger in
your brain and this is true of
relationship of friendships of
persuasive rhetoric or whatever there's
a trigger in the brain and as soon as
that defensive trigger gets like flipped
on everything is over you've lost the
ability to persuade because everything
becomes a fight at that point yeah well
I wanted to talk to you cuz I heard
somewhere that uh you were referred to
as the bench appear of the left and
since I'm talking with Ben uh as well I
wanted to sort of complete
spiritually this platonic political
philosophy puzzle in my head you are a
progressive but a progressive with many
non-standard Progressive views and you
had a heck of a fascinating journey
through all of that and like I said I
think you argue with passion sometimes
with excessive amounts of passion but a
really polite way of saying that almost
always with uh good faith and with rigor
with seriousness I asked on your
subreddit which is an excellent
subreddit shout out to the destiny
subreddit so much uh at least for that
particular post what I really loved is
when I asked for questions for you they
were like holy shit there's adult let's
all behave like nobody say incest I was
like what what's what's going on here
but actually the the the questions that
Rose to the top were really good so uh
somebody said that Destiny was speaking
of your journey was a conservative in
his early teens then he became a
Libertarian then he became a leftwing
social justice Warrior then he flirted
with socialism and now he is a Social
Democrat liberal I've also heard you
refer to yourself as a far-left person
so to the degree there's truth to that
Journey can you take me through your
Evolution uh through the landscape of
political ideologies that you went
through so my dad comes from Kentucky
and my mom is a Cuban immigrant uh
Cubans are notorious for being very
conservative in the United States um for
historical reasons and for other reasons
but um my upbringing was a very
Republican one I grew up listening to
Rush limau Glenn Beck Michael Savage uh
on the radio Billy
Cunningham I think Sean hanity a little
bit later on like uh that was like my
whole upbringing politically I remember
I was writing I had written like
articles for the school Journal like in
favor of uh defending the war in Iraq
and you know defending bush from all the
criticism Etc so that was my upbringing
U I think once I hit High School College
I had my edgy like libertarian esque
high school phase of like reading Ein
Rand um of of figuring out that like oh
my God nothing in life matters except
for class and money that's actually the
answer to everything and um I got to
college I became a Ron Paul fan very big
Ron Paul fan and then from there I kind
of work do life life happens at the kind
of the lowest point of my life in terms
of where I'm working financially
everything is like kind of in ruin in my
life there's a whole bunch of dumb stuff
that's happened it's probably my most
conservative point I don't know what it
is about like being poor and thinking
like you can work your way out of it you
can do whatever it's just my upbringing
is always just like if you're not if
you're not if you're not having
financial success just work work work
work work
um and then I got into streaming very
very lucky break everything just lined
up at the right time and then as I've
progressed through streaming I would say
through the years I've gradually Fallen
more and more to the left especially
once my kid turned four five six years
old and I started to see like how much
different his life was just because of
the financial opportunities that I was
able to provide for him through no merit
of his own and that started to radically
change how I viewed the world in a lot
of ways so actually let's like Linger on
that yeah low point you worked at
McDonald's you worked at a casino
you uh did carpet cleaning what was the
the lowest point definitely the carpet
cleaning really absolutely why why was
it the lowest point that's when you were
just flirting with starting uh streaming
my whole life has been a series of Lucky
breaks really truly uh I grew up playing
a lot of video games but back in my day
our day um you had to read there was a
lot of text on the screen back in my day
we used to play they didn't all talk to
yeah they cuz nowadays everything's
voice active but back then you to read a
lot I was really good reader and a
really good vocabul I've heard you
actually say that what games are we
talking about what what do you mean
there reading you're talking about like
RPG yeah jrpg so like Final Fantasy
games fantasy stars like all of these
like any any RPG that would have been on
the snia Sega PlayStation these are the
things let's pause on that okay I just
talked to Todd Howard who's um of the
Elder Scrolls Fame and the Fallout Fame
and Beyond what's your thoughts on Elder
Scrolls why is Skyrim the greatest RPG
of all time
man I really don't like Skyrim or
Fallout or those of games no not at all
why do you hate Skyrim yeah so I really
like characters and like compelling
stories and narrators around those
characters and I like to see them kind
of like grow and change kind of like a
movie or a story so in your like Final
Fantasy games you've got characters um
there a lot of like um like classical
tropes of like a character starts off
kind of like edgy angsty all on their
own they develop relationships
friendships they realize that the life
is more about themselves and they do
that and I like that that growth that's
kind of what you see in all of those old
uh role playing games um I didn't like
the open world ones as much because your
main character is just like a blank
slate never talks it's for you to like
project on too but there's not the same
like uh linear Narrative of like growth
for the character that's fascinating
There's an actual story arc to the
character that's more crafted in a
beautiful way by the designers of the
game yeah that's I don't think one is
better or worse I tend towards like I
want to hear a compelling story around
like a set of characters that like grow
and Chang as the G oh that's beautifully
put then yeah I I just really loved
being able to leave the time town you go
outside the town and you look outside
its nature and the world of
possibilities is before you you can do
whatever the fuck you want m i mean that
immensity of just being lost in the
world was really immersive for me but
yeah you're right whatever attracts you
about a world so you were just starting
to play video games you go out play
video games that's one of your lucky
breaks there's just like a lot of random
skills you pick up depending on the type
of game you play I played a lot of teex
based games on the computer so I was a
very fast typer I'm still a very fast
typer um read a lot you know learned
weird kind of math stuff for some of the
calculations some of the games I think
I'm pretty good at getting information
figuring stuff out learning patterns all
of that and then that plus the reading
and everything with the games meant that
I I don't want to say I excelled in
school because my grades were pretty bad
but I was in like all honors all AP
classes or whatever um a lot of dual
enrollment a lot of AP credit going into
college so I did pretty well in school
probably better than I should have but
it was because I had the game stuff that
was like really power ing a lot of my
brain there while I was trying to sleep
through class to yeah so you're you're
able to soak in information integrate it
quickly take notes generally I think I'm
pretty good at that yeah what what uh
you do this a lot when you stream you're
typing stuff is there a system in that
note ticking and what note what do you
use for note taking um does it matter I
use a notepad like notepad. notepad yep
notepad.exe not the Plus+ not is there
genius to the madness behind that or you
just don't give a shit no I mean like it
it's going to depend on the style of
conversation if I'm with somebody that
is very meticulously organized their
thoughts and they're a uh find a better
word here for Rambler you can edit that
in better word for Rambler somebody that
talks a lot and a lot I'll start like
taking notes bullet points like this
this this this this this because um
there's a style of conversation where I
say seven or eight different things and
then when you go to respond to
everything I said I cut you off
immediately and we argue that point but
if somebody's going to do that you just
like hold on you just said these eight
things I'm going to respond to every
single one I've written them all down
and then you can go if you want to go
Point by point we can but you just said
all this and I wrote it down so we're
going to go so what are you actually
writing down like a couple of words per
point they left honestly like there are
very few unique conversations in
politics like a lot of them are kind of
retreading old ground so if we're having
a debate on abortion um somebody might
say like oh well I believe this thing
about viability and I believe this thing
about you know when they're a fetus
versus a human and I'll just write down
like those points so that when I go to
respond I kind of have like a like note
card it's like a guiding thing there to
keep me centered on my response
political discourse is a kind of tree
you're walking down I got it and you're
like taking just to keep my focus guided
so I'm not like running off on a weird
tangent or responding to something I
didn't say or something yeah what about
like doing research it just is there a
system to your note taking because
mentally you seem to be one of the most
organized people I've listened to so is
there is it in your mind or is there a
system that's on paper a little of both
I feel like the human mind is a
beautiful thing if you have interest in
an area uh so like what I'll tell people
is let's say there's like a totally new
topic that I'm researching I don't know
anything and I've I'll do a couple of
these on stream I think they're boring
about people watch it I might open a
Wikipedia article and I'll read and I
hit something I don't know and then I
open the next Wikipedia article and I'll
read and then I might have like seven
tabs open and I'll read and I'll read
and I'll read um and I'll read a ton of
stuff maybe for hour two three four
hours of stuff and then by the end you
know someone in chat will ask me like do
you even remember like this particular
thing and I'll say not really no not too
much but what happens is as long as
you've seen it once what will happen is
like the next day the day after it we'll
read something else and be like oh I
remember that thing from this thing I
remember like vaguely that and then if
you see it like a third time you're like
oh this makes sense because especially
when it comes to oh here's like a little
trick on stuff if you're ever reading
any news and there's a place that pops
up always look at it on a map because so
much of history is like on a map it's so
important to like know the geography it
makes things make so much more sense um
but yeah once I once I start to see
stuff over and over again just because
I've like read it a few times stuff will
start to kind of connect to my mind and
like oh yeah well this makes sense of
course these people believe this it's
because of this or of course like this
happened here it's because you know that
happened there um so yeah it's it's a
lot of that if there's like a topic that
I'm doing specific research for um so
like a vaccine related stuff is a big
one uh the Ukrainian Russian conflict is
a big one that I'll break out a not um
I'll probably get like a Google doc and
I'll just start like writing like an
outline of kind of the rough points of
everything just to organize my thoughts
around different topics yeah we're just
going to go a tangent upon a tangent
upon a tangent we'll return to the low
point of your life at some point always
returning from the philosophy to the
psychology so you did uh the Ukraine
topic one question is what role does US
play in this war could they have done
something to avoid the War uh did they
have a role to play in forcing Vladimir
Putin's hand do they have a role to play
in um de-escalating the war towards a
peace agreement and the opposite if it
does escalate uh towards something like
the use of a tactical nuclear weapon are
the to blame or are we to blame oh man
somebody sent me an email a while ago
with great words um there's a specific
way to navigate a conversation where you
can kind of like contribute to a
negative event but you're not really the
one responsible for it um like the
classic example is a woman goes out late
at night gets a little bit too drunk and
then something happens and it's like
while there might have been steps she
could have taken to mitigate the risk
it's not her fault of what happened
because the um responsibility rests on
the on the agent making the choice right
there's a Chooser at some point that is
choosing to do wrong or evil I don't
believe in any of the arguments that say
the United States has contributed to
Russia's position on Ukraine or the
actions that they've taken on Ukraine um
there are several arguments that some
people uh some even political Scholars
are are are putting out there to say
that the United States is to blame but I
find them completely unconvincing I
think that when you ask the question of
like what is the United States role or
what has our role been I think it's
really important for us I don't think we
even agree as a country on what our role
should should be which I think is a hard
one because you've got this kind of
there's this growing populist movement
in the United States it might be the far
left and the far right and I think
populist tend to have this kind of
isolationist view of the world where the
United States should just be our own
thing we shouldn't be telling anybody
what to do we shouldn't be the World
Police and then kind of more in these
like Center left center right positions
and then across a lot of Europe you've
got well okay the United States is kind
of like the big kid on the Block like
we're looking to them for guidance and
Leadership on situations like what's
going on in Ukraine so in so far as uh
the original question is like what what
is like the United States responsibility
I think we have a responsibility to
ensure the relative like Freedom
prosperity and stability across Europe I
think that defending Ukraine's
sovereignty and right to their borders
is a part of that and I don't believe
that prior to the invasion in 2022 I
don't think the United States was
contributing to Russia invading that
country um I know there arguments given
that like the expansion of NATO you know
has has something that's been
threatening to Russia but the baltics
joined and Russia didn't do anything
about it the invasion to Crimea was very
clearly a response to the revolution of
2014 The Invasion on the borders is
clearly a response to um Ukraine winning
that uh Civil War in the Southeast and
the donos and Russia becoming more
aggressive I don't think that you can
blame any of that on on NATO expansion
there's no NATO countries that are
threatening Russia or invading Russia do
you think there is a nuclear
threat do you think about this do you
worry about this that there is a threat
of a tactical nuclear weapon being
dropped I think that possibility exist
either way and I think the
responsibility for that is on Russia
because it can't it just can't be the
case that if you have nukes you're
allowed to invade countries and take
their land because if anything I think
that that down the road also increased
increases the potential for nuclear
problems in the future right because at
that point either every single country
has to acquire their own nuclear weapons
because if you don't Russia's going to
mess with you or every single country
has to join NATO and now what we're back
at square zero ground Z square one where
people like oh well look all these
countries joining NATO is aggressive
towards Russia like what are you going
to do yeah you've mentioned that um
there's a complicated calculus going on
with the countries that have uh that
have nuclear weapons and what's our
responsibility are you allowed to do
anything you want to countries that
don't have nuclear
weapons that's a really tricky
discussion for sure because what is US
supposed to do if Russia drops a
tactical nuclear weapon there's a set of
options
mhm none of which are good mhm and it's
such a tricky moment right now because
uh the things that Biden and other
public figures say I feel like has a
significant impact on the way this game
turns off because I think mutually
assured destruction is partially a game
of words yeah that I I mean I believe in
the power
conversation of leaders talking to each
other I feel like you have to have an a
balance between threat and
compromise and like empathy for the
needs the geopolitical the economic
needs of a Nation uh but also sort of
respect and represent your own interest
MH so it's a tricky one like how do you
play the how do you play the hand what
reminds me of um I don't know if you've
ever heard in like evolutionary psych or
evolutionary biology there are things
called tit fortat strategies it kind of
reminds me of that where it's like if
like uh there there are a whole bunch of
these little biological mechanisms where
creatures will develop like socializing
like tit fortat if you something bad to
me I'm going to do something bad for you
and then more complicated schemes will
come out where it'll be like tit Tit for
Tat where it's like you can make one
mistake and then I'm going to get you if
you do a second one or could be tit tit
Tit for Tat or there could be Tit for
Tat tat for tit there's like all these
like back and forths where creatures
kind of optimize themselves and um yeah
I think something the United States did
really well in terms of that kind of
conversational strategy and I approved
of this in the beginning was Biden was
very clear about setting out like the
exact level of us involvement for the
war we're not going to do a fly zone
there's not going to be US troops on the
ground in Ukraine but we are going to
send a whole bunch of money and a whole
bunch of arms and a whole bunch of Intel
to them and I thought he did a good job
at laying out like the limitation of the
US involvement while opening as much as
we could in the ways we could help but
the um yeah that looming threat of some
sort of tactical nuclear weapon I think
on the table right now is like it's
going to be the annihilation of like
Russian sea forces and everything but
you know what happens if it continues to
escalate that's like a world that nobody
wants to nobody wants to be in yeah so
we talked about difficult conversation
and again thank you so much for
reviewing the Y
conversation let me ask you about Putin
mhm speaking of difficult conversation
so if you sit down if I sit down with
somebody like Vladimir Putin or Vladimir
zalinski what's the right way to have
that conversation oh man we can talk
about that one or we could talk
about somebody more well
understood through history like some
like Stalin or Hitler something like
that maybe that's an easier example to
illustrate how to handle extremely
difficult conversations yeah I mean I
can handle really difficult
conversations between like two people um
leaders of countries though you're
there's so much that you are
representing in that conversation I
guess the thing that would be
interesting to me would be like what is
Vladimir Putin's interest like what is
the genuine interest that he has in the
conflict because I think finding out
like what is your buyin or what is your
like what is the driving force keeping
you here is probably the most most
important thing um I think for zinski I
think it's a it's quite a bit more
simpler because he's he's on the defense
so he defending his country and his
people um for Putin I've heard all sorts
of things uh you know Dugan has his
writings on uh you know like the East
versus the West the collapse of the West
in the face of like all of the
liberalism and the weird LGBT stuff that
they criticize you've got the desire to
like return to this like former Soviet
uniones thing you've got Putin's quotes
that collapse of the Soviet Union was
the biggest geopolitical disaster you
know of 20th century and and I guess
figuring out like what ises Putin after
I'm not actually sure I don't know the
answer that question I know a lot of
people write about it but yeah well
there's a lot of answers to that
question there's a lot of answers that
he can give you that question so say I
sit down with him for three hours and
talk about
it I think this is a really interesting
distinction because you do do difficult
conversations in the space of ideas MH
but also in your stream you have I mean
there's a bunch of drama going on
there's there's a human psycholog is
laid out MH uh in its full richness
before you so to me me with leaders I
think a part of the conversation has to
be about the human psychology sure not
like a meta conversation but like really
understand what they feel what they fear
who they are as a human being like as a
family man as a as a person proud of
their country as a person with an ego as
a person who's been affected if not
corrupted by power as all of us can be
and likely are so all of that that gives
context to then the answers about what
do you want in this war because the
answers about what you want in this war
will be political answers of it's like
it's like a game that's being played
again with words and politicians are
incredibly good at playing that game MH
I think the deeper truth comes from
understanding the human being from which
those words come and I think that's what
you do I don't know if you do those
kinds of conversations where never
talked to any country leaders so no not
not not a country leader but say a
controversial figure or somebody that
represents a certain idea don't just
talk in a space of ideas or challenge
the ideas but understand who is this
person how did you come to those ideas
oh yeah when I've had there have been a
couple of very controversial right
leaning figures um so the two obviously
that my stream are Lauren Southern and
Nick fentz and those types of
conversations initially aren't very
political at all yeah it's more like
like obviously we believe in very very
very different things but like beliefs
don't happen accidentally so how did you
get to where you are those are way more
personal conversations that's true is
there things you regret about those
conversations where you failed is there
things you're proud of where you
succeeded for things that I'm proud of I
feel like I feel like I'm really good at
attempting to understand people without
judgment um that I think a lot of people
feel like they can have conversations
with me where they can share a lot and
I'm not going to jump down their throat
for them having a politically incorrect
observation or for them being judgmental
with somebody else or having like a
feeling that's maybe not something they
should have something they're
embarrassed about so I think I do a
really good job at that and then by
extension of that I've gotten the
ability to hear perspectives from so
many different people that I think I can
understand a lot of different
perspectives um for failures of mine I
mean it's always going to be on stream
it'll be like I didn't push back hard
enough or I didn't know like a certain
fact for a conversation um these are
usually the they're going to be on these
like very technical grounds generally
I'm pretty happy with like the direction
my conversations have G on uh recently
especially over like the past 6 months
so your goal is to deradicalize the
audience of those folks so that used to
be my goal uh my goal was
deradicalization now I'm kind of hoping
that that's just the byproduct so the
goal I think is to talk to somebody and
to show they believe this because of
these reasons and if you want to change
people's beliefs we have to talk about
the underlying reasons for why they
think the things they think it's not
enough to just say like that belief is
bad cuz it's like well they believe it
for a whole bunch of things that are
true and real to them at least so you
have to address all the underlying
things that they believe before you can
change the overlying belief so if I'm
having a conversation with somebody
it'll be like okay why do you feel this
about that that and that okay I
understand that maybe like a better way
to solve that would be like this or that
instead of this thing so to what degree
do you have to empathize with the
person's worldview versus push back
that's that's always the hard one uh
when I'm talking to other people it's
almost always me stepping as much inside
their bubble as I can I have to like
live and breathe their worldview and be
able to speak their worldview in order
to like navigate their thoughts because
my worldview is um I I don't even I'm
not even using this as an insult I don't
know if I am a little bit Autistic or
something but when I break apart things
I just want to see like study study
study fact fact fact that's how my mind
works for everything that's just that's
what I like to see like um personal
stories don't do much for me narratives
don't do much for me just show me like
the the data on the studies or whatever
but for other people I think most brains
are more human than that and they tend
to see things in more kind of like
uh surreal pictures that are kind of
painted and the brush Strokes are way
broader and you know they don't care
about the itty bitty tiny fact um so if
I'm talking to somebody else and I'm
trying to get into their head and I'm
trying to change their mind on things
I'm going to be stepping into their
world and I'm going to try to be working
through that framework really good
example might be um we'll say like uh
when it comes to trans issues for minors
okay 16 or 17y old needs to go on
puberty blockers the way that I want
that debate to play out is uh let's look
at all the data let's see what are the
comes uh let's see what are the
processes for getting a medication and
then we'll evaluate all of that and then
we'll go in whatever like points more
favorably but that's wholly unconvincing
to most people right so as a parent if
I'm having that conversation with
another parent the easiest way for me to
have that conversation is like hey we
both have kids imagine how horrible it
would be if we felt like our kids needed
help and the government was trying to
get between us and and their doctor in
that conversation that might be how that
talk plays out which I think that's a
really good argument because I think
there probably are times when the
government should get in between it but
I'll have that conversation because now
I'm in a world where they understand
what I'm saying I'm resonating with the
way that they feel about things and I
can make progress with with the way that
they're kind of viewing the world
because I'm talking in a language they
understand so on this particular topic
of trans issues is that the reason you
were banned from twitch I'm not sure I
don't know uh they just said hate speech
but I don't use like slurs or anything
so it's hard to know exactly so I think
you made the claim that trans women
shouldn't compete with CIS women in the
women's Athletics MH can you make the
this case and Can you steal man the case
against it I think in your community
there's a lot of trans folks who love
you and there's a lot who hate you yeah
and so if you can walk the tight rope of
this conversation they try to steal me
on both sides one of the argumentative
strategies I say is that like anytime
you have a conversation you should be
able to argue both sides better than
anybody else you know so um for the for
the my side the genuine belief side um
it feels like overwhelmingly all of the
data is showing that trans we'll say
trans women uh even after I think 3
years on some sort of like HRT or you
know estrogen uh stuff they're still
maintaining these advantages from their
male puberty over cisgender women and if
that is the case if we are going to draw
these distinctions around our Sports
between women and men it feels unfair to
have a category inside the women's
sports that are maintaining advantages
that are coming from a male puberty um
regardless of the amount of time they've
spent on
hormone replacement therapy so that that
would be my argument on that side so
it's unfair from a performance
enhancement aspect so the same way we
ban performance performance enhancing
drugs that involve increasing of test
testosterone in that same way would be
unfair essentially yeah so what's the
case uh against the yeah so the case in
favor of them competing together is that
realistically there's not going to be a
trans Sports category uh realistically
trans women aren't going to be
competitive with CIS men because they've
gone through these huge uh you know like
hormone changes by the medication
they're taking and that when we look at
how sports are kind of done anyway
there's a whole bunch of biological
differences between people within sports
categories that are determining their
placement in the professional world so
for instance um somebody like me is
probably never going to go far in the
MBA because I'm not tall enough uh I
think the average height in the NBA
don't doubt yourself don't doubt myself
yeah I want to say it's like six six
something they're huge people um or you
know you look at like Michael Phelps as
a classic example of a guy whose torso
is like so long his body is built for
swimming and I think there are some
trans people that will look at that or
some B advocating for this position
they'll look at that they go okay
realistically the way that Michael php's
body um processes lactic acid the shape
physiologically of his body is going to
put him in a level of competition that
so many men are never going to reach
just because of biology how is it fair
that you can have these biological
outliers competing in these categories
but then when we come to like sports
categories with trans and CIS women
you're going to take trans women and say
that they can't compete against CIS
women can't you also just say that they
have some level of biological difference
there like is it really going to be that
great of a difference than what Michael
Phelps has versus the average swimmer or
an NBA player has versus like the
average hyp
male yeah do you think we're going to
get into some tricky ethical territory
as we start to be able to uh through
biology and genetics modify the human
body absolutely I feel like those things
are coming sooner than uh we wanted to
them to uh the uh oh man dude the a have
you seen the AI art yes that's a of
course I'm an AI person oh okay then
yeah yeah that's a uh that's always been
like uh what's going to happen when uh
when robots can do art better than
humans LOL like well we'll see in 20
years in 20 years in 20 years and now
you have ai art winning competitions and
it's funny because robots are
essentially there's a robot behind you
by the way a robot behind me ro oh nice
um robots are really good careful what
you say yeah I got it I'll be careful um
that's not like one of the Chinese ones
with a gun on it right oh okay hopefully
not uh we we'll see depending on what
you say yeah okay robots are really good
at showing the limitations of the human
mind in categories that we didn't
believe we were limited before like I
think that humans have this idea
intrinsically that we have like some
type of like Innovative Creative Drive
that is just outside of the bounds of
physical understanding and with a
sophisticated enough program we see that
maybe that's not actually true and
that's a really scary thing
philosophically to deal with because we
feel like we're very special right we we
own the planet we make computers and the
idea that you can start to get these
robots that can do things that's like
okay you can do math fine okay you can
do calculations fine but you can't do
art that's the human stuff and then when
they start to do that it's like oh shoot
and that terrifies you a little bit like
uh losing the human species losing
control of our dominance over this Earth
I don't think it's necessarily losing
control of our dominance I mean I guess
like a Skynet thing could come in at
some point but I think it I think it
more it it brings us to this really
fundamental level of like what does it
mean to be human what is it that we're
good at um what should we be doing with
technology we never really ask that
question in the western world it's
always the technology is like normative
in that technology equals good and more
technology equals better that's been
like the default assumption in fact if
you ask a lot of people how do you know
if civilization has progressed over the
past 100 or 200 years they don't say we
have better relationships we um you know
have longer marriages we blah blah blah
they'll say technology has improved
we've got crazy phones we got crazy
computers and um the idea that more
technology might be bad has never even
crossed somebody's mind unless it's used
for like a really bad thing so well it's
interesting we kind of think as more and
more automation is happening we're going
to get more and more meaning from things
like being artists and doing creative
Pursuits and here is like oh
shit if the art if the creative Pursuits
are also being automated then what are
we going to gain meaning from what are
the activities from which we'll gain
meaning you know my whole life I've been
working on artificial intelligence
systems there's been different
revolutions one of them is is the is the
machine learning Revolution and it's
interesting to build up intuition and uh
destroy that intuition about what is and
isn't solvable by machines I think um
for the longest time I grew up thinking
go is not the game of Go is not solvable
uh because my understanding of AI
systems is ultimately that it's is it's
fundamentally a search mechanism that is
fundamentally going to be Brute Force
there's no shortcuts sure like a tra
like if it can't solve the traveling
salesman problem it's not even going to
be able to give you an approximation so
most interesting problems are giant
travel salesman problem and then so of
course it's not going to be able to
solve that and then you then uh the Deep
learning Revolution made you realize
holy shit these large neural network
with a giant number of knobs is able to
actually
somehow uh uh estimate functions that
can do a pretty good job of
understanding deep representation of a
thing whether that's a game of Go or
whether it's the human natural language
or if it's images and video or um audio
and even actions and different video
games and actions of Robotics and so on
and then you realize with diffusion
models and different different
generative models you start to realize
holy shit it can actually generate not
just
interesting uh representations or
interesting manifestations of the
representations that forms but it's able
to do something that impresses humans in
its creativity MH it's it's beautiful in
the way we think of art as beautiful
like it surprises us and makes us
chuckle and makes us uh sit back in awe
and all those kinds of things and yet
the thing that it seems to struggle with
the most is the physical world currently
so that that's counterintuitive we
humans think that it's um it's pretty
trivial the being able to pick up a cup
being able to like write with a pen like
in the physical space we think that's
trivial we give ourselves respect for
being great artists and great uh
mathematicians and all that kind of
stuff and that seems to be much easier
than the physical space bodies are
really cool there is a um I don't know
it's probably azab or something there
was some science fiction writer that it
had a short story and it was like an
alien that had landed on Earth and it
was describing our bodies from a totally
alien perspective and when you think
about all the things we can do it's
pretty cool we can you know climb
through a whole multitude of
environments we can exist at a multitude
of temperatures we can manipulate things
um just with our hands and how you know
the way that we can interact with things
around us and yeah we're very capable on
like a physical level even though like
you said we think about ourselves like
oh well human beings have really big
brains and we do we're really
intelligent as well but yeah our bodies
are pretty cool too and it's a
fascinating hierarchical biological
system like um that we made up of a
bunch of
different like living organisms that all
don't know about the big picture of our
body MH and it's all functioning its own
little local world and it's doing its
thing but together it has a it forms a
super resilient system all of that comes
from a very uh compressed encoding of
what makes a human you start with the
DNA and it builds up from a single cell
to a giant organism mhm I mean that and
because of the DNA through the evolution
process you can constantly create new
humans and new living organisms that
adapt to the environment like that
resilience to the physical world it
seems like running the whole earth over
again the whole evolutionary process
over again is uh might be the only way
to do it so to create a robot that
actually
jobs is as resilient to the dynamic
world might be a really difficult
problem possibly well I was going to say
like in a programming environment you
can do things on time scales that are
impossible in the real world right like
the benefit to Ai and computers is
computationally they can compute so much
data so quickly um whereas on human
timetables we have to wait when you talk
about Evolution um you know it's
generation after generation after
generation you know maybe in a virtual
environment that could be simulated and
then those changes Could Happen a lot
quicker well that's not a human time
scale but you have to look at Earth at a
Quantum as a quantum mechanical system
the computation is happening super fast
this is a giant computer doing a giant
simulation so just cuz for us humans
it's slow there's like trillions of
organisms involved in you Destiny being
you sure but the next iteration of like
from Human to human even if on the
quantum level there's a lot of stuff
going on you talk about like um like
changes in DNA for instance right like
that's happening from a generation to
generation time scale like in a virtual
environment that could theoretically
happen well it already is there's like
protein folding like huge cloud
computing probably ml stuff that's like
working on doing all that stuff and
it'll run like trillions and trillions
of simulations you know every second and
stuff maybe not every second but still
slower than the actual protein folding
much slower the that's for the problem
of solving protein fold folding uh to
estimate the 3D structure but the actual
body does the the actual protein folding
way faster so like we're the question is
can we shortcut the simulation of human
evolution try to figure out how to build
up an organism without simulating all
the details cuz we have to simulate all
the details of biology we're screwed we
don't have oh true we'd have to put
something in a pond and then watch it
for that might be way to do it that's
what the universe most likely is it's a
kind of simulation created by a teenager
in their basement to to try to see what
happens it's a it's a computer game that
might be the most efficient way to
create interesting organisms but within
the system it's perhaps possible to
create other robots that will be o