Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
Eric Weinstein the second time we've
spoken on this podcast he's a
mathematician with the bold and piercing
intelligence unafraid to explore the
biggest questions in the universe and
shine a light on the darkest corners of
our society he is the host of the portal
podcast a part of which he recently
released his 2013 oxford lecture on his
theory of geometric unity that is at the
centre of his lifelong efforts to arrive
at a theory of everything that unifies
the fundamental laws of physics this
conversation was recorded recently in
the time of the coroner virus pandemic
for everyone feeling the medical
psychological and financial burden of
this crisis
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young people around the world and now
here's my car
session with Eric Weinstein
action between World War two and the
crisis we're living through right now
sure the need for collective action
reminding ourselves of the fact that all
of these abstractions like everyone
should just do exactly what he or she
wants to do for himself and leave
everyone else alone none of these
abstractions work in a global crisis and
this is just a reminder that we didn't
somehow put all that behind us when I
hear stories about my grandfather who
was in the army and so the Soviet Union
where most people die when you're in the
army there's a brotherhood that happens
there's a love that happens do you think
that's something we're going to see here
sense or none there I mean what the
Soviet Union went through I mean the
enormity of the war on the Russian
doorstep
this is different what we're going
through now is not we can't talk about
Stalingrad and kovat in the same breath
yet we're not ready and the the sort of
you know that just the sense of like the
Great Patriotic War and the way in which
I was very moved by the Soviet custom of
newlyweds going and visiting war
memorials on their wedding day it's like
the happiest day of your life you have
to say thank you to the people who made
it possible we're not there where we're
just restarting history we you know I've
called this on the Rogen program I
called it the great nap yeah 75 years
with very little by historical standards
and in in terms of really profound
disruption and so when you called the
great nap meaning lack of deep global
tragedy well lack of realized global
tragedy so I think the development for
example of the hydrogen bomb you know
was something that happened during the
great nap and that doesn't mean that
people who lived during that time didn't
feel feared and no anxiety but it was to
say that most of the violent potential
of human species was not realized it was
in the form of potential energy and this
is the thing that I've sort of taken
issue with with the
of Steven Pinker's optimism is that if
you look at they realized kinetic
variables things have been getting much
better for a long time which is the
great nap but it's not as if our
fragility has not grown our dependence
on electronic systems our vulnerability
to disruption and so all sorts of things
have gotten much better what other
things have gotten much worse in the
destructive potential of skyrocketed its
tragedy the only way we wake up from the
big nap well no you could also have you
know jubilation about positive things
but it's harder to get people's
attention can you give an example of a
big global positive thing well I could
happen I think that when for example
just historically speaking HIV went from
being a death sentence to something that
people could live with for a very long
period of time it would be great if that
had happened on a Wednesday right like
all at once like you knew that things
had changed and so the bleed in somewhat
kills the sort of the Wednesday effect
where it all happens on a particular day
at a particular moment I think if you
look at the stock market here you know
there's a very clear moment where you
can see that the market absorbs the idea
of the coronavirus I think that with
respect to positives the moon landing
was the best example of a positive that
happened at a particular time or
recapitulating the Soviet American
link-up in terms of Skylab and Soyuz
right like that was a huge moment when
you actually had these two nations
connecting in orbit and so yeah there
are great moments where something
beautiful and wonderful and amazing
happens you know but it's just they're
fewer that's why that's why as much as I
can't imagine proposing to somebody at a
sporting event when you have like 30,000
people waiting and you know like she
says yes that's pretty exciting
so I think that we shouldn't we
shouldn't discount that so how bad do
you think it's going to get in terms
of the global suffering that we're going
to experience with this with this crisis
I can't figure this one out
I'm just not smart enough something is
goin weirdly wrong and they're almost
like two separate storylines we in one
storyline we aren't taking things nearly
seriously enough we see people using
food packaging lids as masks who are
doctors or nurses we hear horrible
stories about people dying needlessly
due to triage and that's a very
terrifying story on the other hand
there's this other story which says
there are tons of ventilators someplace
we've got lots of masks but they haven't
been released
we've got hospital ships where none of
the beds are being used and it's very
confusing to me that somehow these two
stories give me the feeling that they
both must be true simultaneously and
they can't both be true in any kind of
standard way well I don't know whether
it's just that I'm dumb but I can't get
one or the other story to quiet down so
I think weirdly this is much more
serious than we had understood it and
it's not nearly as serious as some
people are making it out to be at the
same time and that we're not being given
the tools to actually understand well
here's how to interpret the data or
here's the issue with the personal
protective equipment is actually a
jurisdictional battle or a question of
who pays for it rather than a question
of whether it's present or apps I don't
understand the details of it but
something is wildly off in our ability
to understand where we are so that's
that's policy that's institutions what
about do you think about the quiet
suffering of millions of people they've
lost their job is this a temporary thing
I mean what I'm my ears not to the
suffering of those people who have lost
their job or the 50% possibly of small
businesses that are gonna go bankrupt do
you think about that sure it's suffering
well and how that might arise itself
could be not quiet - I mean right that's
the could be a depression this could go
from recession
depression and depression could go to
armed conflict and then to war so it's
not a very abstract causal chain that
gets us to the point where we can begin
with quiet suffering and an anxiety and
all of these sorts of things and people
losing their jobs and people dying from
stress and all sorts of things but look
anything powerful enough to put us all
in doors in a I mean think about this as
an incredible experiment imagine that
you proposed hey I want to do a bunch of
research let's figure out what what
changes in our emissions emissions
profiles for our carbon footprints when
we're all indoors or what happens to
traffic patterns or what happens to the
vulnerability of retail sales as Amazon
gets stronger you know etc etc I believe
that in many of those situations we're
running an incredible experiment and am
I worried for us all yes there are some
bright spots one of which is that when
you're ordered to stay indoors people
are gonna feel entitled and the usual
thing that people are going to hit when
they hear that they've lost your job you
know some there's this kind of tough
[Music]
tough love attitude that you see
particularly in the United States like
oh you lost your job poor baby
well go retrain get another one I think
there's gonna be a lot less appetite for
that because we've been asked to
sacrifice to risk to act collectively
and that's the interesting thing
what does that really can in us maybe
the idea that we actually are Nations
and then you know your fellow countrymen
may start to mean something to more
people certainly mean something to
people in the military but I wonder how
many people who aren't in the military
start to think about this it's like oh
yeah we are kind of running separate
experiments and we are not china so you
think this is kind of a period that
might be studied for years to come from
my perspective we are a part of the
experi
but I don't feel like we have access to
the full data the full data of the
experiment we're just like little mice
yeah in a large does this one make sense
to you Lex I'm romanticizing it and I
keep connecting it to World War two so I
keep connecting to historical events and
making sense of them through that way
or reading the plague by Camus like
almost kind of telling narratives and
stories but my I'm not hearing the
suffering that people are going through
because I think that's quiet
everybody's numb currently they're not
realising what it means to have lost
your job and to have lost your business
there's kind of a I am
I'm afraid how that fear well material
as itself once the numbness wears out
and especially if this lasts for many
months then if it's connected to the
incompetence of the CDC in the w-h-o and
our government and perhaps the election
process you know might be biggest fear
is that the you know elections get
delayed or something like that so the
the basic mechanisms of our democracy
get slowed or damaged in some way that
then mixes with the fear that people
have that turns to panic that turns to
anger that anger can I just play with
that for a butcher what if in fact all
of that structure that you grew up
thinking about and again you grew up in
two places right so when you were inside
the US we tend to look at all of these
things as museum pieces like how often
do we amend the Constitution anymore and
in some sense if you think about the
Jewish tradition of Simchat Torah you've
got this beautiful scroll that has been
lovingly hand drawn in calligraphy
that's very valuable and it's very
important that you not treat it
as a relic to be revered and so we one
day a year we dance with the Torah and
we hold this incredibly vulnerable
document up and we treat it as if you
know it was Ginger Rogers being led by
Fred Astaire well that is how you become
part of your country in fact maybe the
maybe the election will be delayed maybe
extraordinary powers will be used maybe
any one of a number of things will
indicate that you're actually living
through history this isn't a museum
piece that you handed by your
great-great grandparents but you're kind
of suggesting that there might be a like
a community thing that pops up lucky
like as opposed to an angry revolution
it might have a positive effect oh well
for example are you telling me that if
the right person stood up and called for
us to sacrifice PPE for our nurses and
our MDS who are on the front lines that
like people wouldn't reach down deep in
their own supply that they've been like
stalking and carefully storing they just
said here take it
like right now an actual leader would
use this time to bring out the heroic
character and I'm going to just go
wildly patriotic cuz I freaking love
this country we've got this dormant
population in the u.s. that loves
leadership and country and pride in our
freedom and not being told what to do
and we still have this thing that binds
us together and all of them the
merchants of division just be gone I
totally agree with you there's a I think
there is a deep hunger for that
leadership why isn't that why hasn't one
of yours we don't have the right Surgeon
General we have as guys saying you know
come on guys don't buy masks they don't
really work for you save them for our
healthcare professionals no you can't do
that you have to say you know what these
masks will actually do work and they
more work to protect other people
from you but they would work for you
they'll keep you somewhat safer if you
wear them here's the deal you've got
somebody who's taking huge amounts of
viral load all the time because the
patients are shedding do you want to
protect that person who's volunteered to
be on the frontline who's up sleepless
nights he you just changed the message
you stop lying to people you just yeah
you level with them it's like it's bad
absolutely but that's uh that's a little
bit specific so you you have to be just
honest about the facts of the situation
yes but I think you were referring to
something bigger than just that yes
inspiring like you know rewriting the
Constitution sort of rethinking how we
work as a nation yeah I think you should
probably you know amend the Constitution
once or twice in a lifetime so that you
don't get this distance from the
foundational documents and you know part
of the problem is that we've got two
generations on top that feel very
connected to the US they feel bought in
and we've got three generations below
it's a little bit like watching your
parents riding the tricycle that they
were supposed to pass on to you and it's
like you're now too old to ride a
tricycle and they're still whooping it
up ringing the bell with the streamers
coming off the handlebars and you're
just thinking do you guys never get
bored do you never pass a torch do you
really want it we had five
septuagenarians all born in the 40s
running for president the United States
when cloture dropped out the youngest
was Warren we had Warren Biden Sanders
Bloomberg and Trump for like 1949 to
1941 all who have been the the oldest
president and inauguration and nobody
nobody says grandma grandpa you're
embarrassing us except Joe Rogan let me
put it on you you have a big platform
you're somewhat of an intelligent
eloquent guy what what role do you
somewhat what role do you play why
aren't you that leader well you're I
mean I would argue that you're in in
ways becoming that leader so I haven't
taken enough risk is that your idea what
should I do or say at the moment no
you're a little bit
you have taken quite a big risks and
we'll talk about it all right but you're
also on the outside shooting in meaning
you're dismantling the institution from
the outside as opposed to becoming what
the institution
did you remember that thing you brought
up when you were on the view if you I'm
sorry when you were on Oprah I didn't
make I didn't get the end I'm sorry when
you were on Bill Maher's program what
was that thing you were saying they
don't know we're here they may watch us
yeah they may quietly to us you know
slip us a direct message but they
pretend that this internet thing is some
dangerous place where only lunatics play
well who has the bigger platform the
portal or Bill Maher's program or the
view Bill Maher in the view in terms of
viewership or in terms of what's the
metric of size well first of all the key
thing is take take a newspaper and they
even imagine that it's completely fake
okay and then there's very little in the
way of circulation yet imagine that it's
a hundred-year-old paper and that it's
still part of this game
this internal game of media the key
point is is that those sources that have
that kind of mark of respectability to
the institutional structures matter in a
way that even if I say something at a
very large platform that makes a lot of
sense if it's outside of what I've
called the gated institutional narrative
or gin it sort of doesn't make matter to
the institutions so the game is if it
happens outside of the club we can
pretend that it never happened how can
you get the credibility and authority
from outside the gated institutional
narrative I'm well first of all you you
and I both share institutional
credibility coming from our associations
we were both at MIT yes were you at
Harvard at any point nope
okay well and lived in Harvard Square so
did I but you know at some level it the
issue isn't whether you have credentials
in that sense the key question is can
you be trusted to file a flight plan and
not deviate from that flight plan when
you are in an interview situation will
you stick to the talking points I will
not and that's why you're not going to
be allowed in the general conversation
which amplifies these sentiments but I'm
still trying to see your point it would
be is that we're let's say both so
you've done how many Joe Rogan before
I've done for two right so both of us
are somewhat frequent guests the show is
huge you know the power as well as I do
and people are gonna watch this
conversation huge number watched our
last one by the way that I want to thank
you for that one that was a terrific
terrific conversation really did change
my life lecture my life you're brilliant
interviewer so thank you take care that
was that you changed my life to that you
gave me a chance
so no no I'm so glad I did that one what
I would say is is that we keep mistaking
how big the audience is for whether or
not you have the kiss and the kiss is a
different thing yes yeah that's it
doesn't it's not an acronym yet okay um
it's thank you for asking
it's a question of are you part of the
inter interoperable institution friendly
discussion and that's the discussion
which we ultimately have to break into
but that's what I'm trying to get at is
how do we how do you how does Eric
Weinstein become the president of the
United States me I shouldn't become the
president of the United States not
interested thank you very much for us
okay get into a leadership position
where I guess I don't know what that
means
but where you can inspire millions of
people to the inspire the sense of
community inspire the the kind of action
is required to overcome hardship the
kind of hardship that we may be
experiencing to inspire people to work
hard and face the difficult hard facts
of the realities we're living
through all those kinds of things that
you're talking about that leader you
know cannot leader emerge from the
current institutions or alternatively
can it also emerge from the outside I
guess that's what I was asking so my
belief is is that this is the last
hurrah for the elderly centrist
kleptocrats
can you define each of those terms okay
elderly I mean people who were born at
least a year before I was that's a joke
you can laugh no because I'm born at the
cusp of the Gen X boomer divides
centrist they're pretending you know
that there are two parties Democrat and
Republican Party in the United States I
think it's easier to think of the
mainstream of both of them as part of a
an aggregate party that I sometimes call
the looting party which gets us to
kleptocracy which is ruled by thieves
and the great temptation has been to
treat the us like a trough and you just
have to get yours because it's not like
we're doing anything productive so
everybody's sort of looting the family
mansion and somebody stole the silver
and somebody's cutting the pictures out
of the frames you know roughly speaking
we're watching our elders live it up in
a way that doesn't make sense to the
rest of us okay so if it's let the last
hoorah this is the time for leaders to
step up like we're not ready yet we're
not ready I call I call out you know the
head of the CDC should resign should
resign that the Surgeon General should
resign Trump should resign Pelosi should
resign de Blasio should we're not going
to resign I understand that so that's
why so we'll wait no but that s not how
revolutions work you don't wait for
people to design you step up and inspire
the alternative do you remember the
Russian Revolution of 1907 it's before
my time but there wasn't a Russian
Revolution of 1907 years think he were
in 1907 that I'm saying where to work
you too early but we got this
you know Spanish flu came in 1718 so
I would argue that there's a lot of
parallels there or the one I think it's
not time yet
like John Prine the the songwriter just
died of kovat that was a pretty big
really yeah by the way you yes of course
I every time we do this we discover our
mutual appreciation of obscure brilliant
witty yeah song right he's really he's
really quite good right he's he's really
good yeah he died my understanding is
that he passed recently due to
complications of Corona so we haven't
had large enough enough large ink large
enough shocking deaths yet picturesque
deaths deaths of a family that couldn't
get treatment there are stories that
will come and break our hearts and we
have not had enough of those the visuals
haven't come in but I think they're
coming well we'll find out but that you
got a you have to be there he have to be
there when they come I'm yet but we
didn't get the visual for example a
falling man from 9/11 right so the
outside world did but Americans were not
I was thought that we would be too
delicate so just the way you remember
pule a surprise wedding photographs from
the Vietnam era
you don't easily remember the
photographs from all sorts of things
that have happened since because
something changed in our media we are
incensed that we cannot feel or
experience our own lives and the tragedy
that would animate us to action yeah but
I think there again I think there's
going to be that suffering that's going
to build and build and build in terms of
businesses mom-and-pop shops that close
and like I think for myself I think off
tonight that I'm being weak and and like
I feel like I should be doing something
I should be becoming a leader on a small
scale you can't this is not World War
two and this is not Soviet Russia why
not why not because our internal
programming the malware that sits
between our ears is
much different than the propaganda is
malware of the Soviet era I mean people
were both very indoctrinated and also
knew that it was BS they had a double
mind
I don't know him there must be a great
word in Russian for being able to think
both of those things simultaneously you
don't think people are actually sick of
the partisanship sick of incompetence
yeah but I call for revolt the other day
on Joe Rogan people found it quixotic
well because I think you're not
I think revolt is different I think asks
like okay I'm really angry
yes I'm furious I cannot stand that this
is my country at the moment I am
embarrassed so let's build a better one
yeah that's the I mean okay so well okay
so let's take over a few universities
let's start running a different
experiment at some of our better than
universities like when I did this
experiment I said what at this if this
were 40 years ago the median age I
believe of a university president was 51
that would have the person in Gen X and
we'd have a bunch of millennial
presidents a bunch of you know more than
half Gen X it's almost 100% baby boom at
this moment and how did that happen we
can get into how they changed retirement
but this generation above us does not
feel for even even the older generous I
love jittery I had roger penrose on my
program excellent coffee and I thank you
really appreciate that and I asked no
question it was very important to me and
I said look you're in your late 80s is
there anyone you could point to as a
successor that we should be watching we
can get excited you know I said here's
an opportunity to pass the baton and he
said well let me let me hold off on that
is it ever the right moment to point to
somebody younger than you to keep your
flame alive after you're gone and also
like I don't know whether I'm just gonna
admit to this people treat me like I'm
crazy for caring about the
world after him dead or wanting to be
remembered after you're gone like well
what does it matter to you you're gone
it's this deeply sort of secular somatic
perspective on everything we're we we
don't you know that phrase in as time
goes by it says it's still the same old
story a fight for love and glory a case
of do it I don't think people imagined
then that there wouldn't be a story
about fighting for love and glory and
like we are so out of practice about
fighting you know rivals for love and
and and in fighting for glory and
something bigger than yourself but the
hunger is there well that was the point
then right the whole idea is that Rick
was you know it was like Han Solo of his
time he's just like I stick my neck out
for nobody you know it's like oh come on
Rick you're just pretending you actually
have a big soul right and so at some
level that's the question do we have a
big Soler's it's just all bullshit
see I think I think there's huge
Manhattan Project style projects whether
you talk about physical infrastructure
or going to Mars
you know the SpaceX NASA efforts or huge
huge scientific efforts well let me get
back into the institutions and we need
to remove the weak leadership that we
have weak leaders and the weak leaders
need to be removed and they need to seat
people more dangerous than the people
who are currently sitting in a lot of
those chairs or build new institutions
good luck
well I one of the nice things of from
the internet is for example somebody
like you can have a bigger voice than
almost anybody at the particular
institutions we're talking about that's
true but the thing is I might say
something you can count on the fact that
the you know Provost at Princeton isn't
going to say anything what do you mean
too afraid
well if that person were to give an
interview how are things going in in in
research at Princeton
well I'm hesitant to say it but they're
perhaps as good as they've
ever been and I think they're gonna get
better oh is that right all fields yep
oh yeah I don't see a weak one that's
just like okay great
who are you and what it even say we're
just used to total nonsense 24/7 yeah
what do you think might be a beautiful
thing that comes out of this like what
is there a hope it like a little inkling
a little fire of hope you have about our
time right now yeah I think one thing is
coming to understand that the freaks
weirdos mutants and other narrow duels
sometimes referred to as grifters I like
that one
grifters and gadflies were very often
the earliest people on the crown of iris
that's a really interesting question why
was that and it seems to be that they
had already paid such a social price
that they weren't going to be beaten up
by being told that oh my god you're
xenophobic you just hate China you know
or wow you sound like a conspiracy
theorist so if you've already paid those
prices you were free to think about this
and everyone in an institutional
framework was terrified that they didn't
want to be seen as the alarmist the
Chicken Little and so that's why you
have this confidence where you know de
Blasio says you know get on with your
lives get back in there and celebrate
Chinese New Year in Chinatown
despite coronavirus it's like okay
really so you just always thought
everything would automatically be okay
if you if you adapted sorry if you
adopted that posture so you think this
time reveals the weakness of our
institutions and reveals the strength of
our gadflies and the weirdos and no not
necessary the strength but the the the
value of freedom like a different way of
saying it would be Wow even your
gadflies and your grifters were able to
beat your institutional folks because
your institutional folks we're playing
with a giant mental handicap so just
imagine like
you're in the story of Harrison Bergeron
by Vonnegut and our smartest people were
all subjected to distracting noises
every seven seconds well they would be
functionally much dumber because they
couldn't continue a thought through all
the disturbance so in some sense that's
a little bit like what belonging to an
institution is is that if you have to
make a public statement of course the
search in general is going to be the
worst because they're just playing with
too much of a handicap they're too many
institutional players really don't screw
us up and so the person has to say
something wrong we're gonna back
propagate a falsehood and this is very
interesting some of my socially oriented
friends say Eric I don't understand what
you're on about of course masks work but
you know what they're trying to do
they're trying to get us not to buy up
the masks for the doctors and I think
okay so you imagine that we can just
create scientific fiction at will so
that you can run whatever social program
you want this is what I mean my point is
get out of my lab get out of the lab you
don't belong in the lab you're not meant
for the lab you're constitutionally
incapable of being around the lab you
need to leave the lab you think the CDC
and whu-oh knew that masks work and
we're trying to sort of imagine that
people are kind of stupid
and they would buy masks and in in
excess if they were told that masks work
is that like because this does seem to
be a particularly clear example of
mistakes made you're asking me this
question yeah no you're not what do you
think Lex well I actually probably
disagree with you a little bit great
let's do it
I think it's not so easy to be honest
with the populace when the danger of
panic is always around the corner so hmm
I I think the kind of honesty you
exhibit appeals to a certain class of
brave intellectual minds that it appeals
to me but I don't know
the perspective wh Oh I don't know if
it's so obvious that they should be
honest 100% of the time with people I'm
not saying you should be perfectly
transparent and 100% honest I'm saying
that the quality of your lies has to be
very high and asked my public spirited
is there a big difference between so I'm
not not a child about this yeah
I'm not saying that when you're at war
for example you turn over all of your
plans to the enemy because it's
important that you're transparent with
360 degree visibility far from it what
I'm saying is something has been
forgotten and I forgot who it was who
told it to me it was a fellow graduate
student in the harvard math department
and he said you know i learned one thing
being out in the workforce because he
was one of the few people who had a work
life in the department as a grad student
and he said you can be friends with your
boss but if you're going to be friends
with your boss you have to be doing a
good job at work and there's an analog
here which is if you're going to be
reasonably honest with the population
you have to be doing a good job at work
as the Surgeon General or as the head of
the CDC so if you're doing a terrible
job you're supposed to resign and then
the next person is supposed to say look
I'm not gonna lie to you I inherited the
situation it was in a bit of disarray
but I had several requirements before I
agreed to step in and take the job
because I needed to know I could turn it
around I needed to know that I had clear
lines of authority I needed to know that
I had the resources available in order
to rectify the problem and I needed to
know that I had the ability in the
freedom to level with the American
people directly as I saw fit all of my
wishes were granted and that's why I'm
happy here on Monday morning I've got my
sleeves rolled up boy do we got a lot to
do so please come back in two weeks and
then ask me how I'm doing then and I
hope to have something to show you
that's how you do it so why is that
excellence and basic competence missing
the big nap you see you come from
multiple traditions where it was very
important to remember things
the Soviet tradition made sure that you
remembered the sacrifices that came in
that war in the Jewish tradition we're
doing this on Passover right okay well
every year we tell one simple story well
why can't it be different every year
maybe we can have a rotating series of
sevens do it because it's the one story
that you need it's like you know you
work with the men in black group right
and it's the last suit that you'll ever
need this is the last story that you
ever need don't think I fell for your
neuralyzer last time in any event we
tell one story because it's to get out
of Dodge story there's a time when you
need to not wait for the the bread to
rise and that's the thing which is even
if you live through a great nap you
deserve to know what it feels like to
have to leave everything that has become
comfortable and and unworkable
it's said that you need you need that
tragedy I imagine to have the tradition
of remembering it's it's sad to to think
that because things have been nice and
comfortable means that we can't have
great competent leaders which is kind of
the implied statement like can we have
great leaders who take big risks or who
inspire hard work who deal with
difficult truth even though things have
been comfortable well we know what those
people sound like I mean you know if for
example Jocko willing suddenly threw his
hat into the ring everyone would say
okay right party's over it's time to get
up at 4:30 and really work hard and
we've got to get back into fighting shit
and yeah but Jocko is a very special I
think that whole group of people by
profession put themselves in the way of
and into hardship on a daily basis and
he's not well I don't know but he's
probably not going to be
okay Jocko be president okay but it
doesn't have to be Jocko right like in
other words if it was Kyle ne or if it
was Alex Honnold from rock-climbing
right but they're just serious people
they're serious people who can't afford
your BS yeah but why do we have serious
people that do rock climbing and don't
have serious people who lead the nation
that that seems because that was a those
skills needed in rock climbing are not
good during the big nap and at the tail
end of the big nap they would get you
fired
but I don't don't you think there's a
fundamental part of human nature that
desires to excel to be exceptionally
good at your job yeah but what is your
job I mean in other words my my point to
you is if you if you're a general in a
peacetime army and your major activity
is playing war games what if the skills
needed to win war games are very
different than the skills needed to win
wars because you know how the war games
are scored and you've you've done
Moneyball for example with wargames you
figured out how to win games on paper so
then the the advancement skill becomes
divergent from the ultimate skill that
it was proxying for yeah but you create
this we're good as human beings to I
mean I thought at least me I can't do a
big nap so at any one moment when I
finish something a new dream pops up so
right going to Mars go to what do you
like to do you like to do Brazilian
Jujitsu well first of all I like to do
every you like to play guitar guitar you
do this podcast you do theory you're
always you're constantly taking risks
and exposing yourself all right why
because you got one of those crazy I'm
sorry to say it you got an Eastern
European Jewish personality which I'm
still tied to and I'm a couple
generations more distant than you are
and I've held on to that thing because
it's valuable to me you don't think
there's a huge percent of the populace
even in the United States that's that's
that oh maybe a little bit doormen
but do you know Anna Hutchins from the
Red Scare podcast did you interview her
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah she was great
she was great right yeah it's just fun
she's she's terrific
but she also has the same thing going on
and I made a joke in the liner notes for
that episode which is somewhere on the
road from Stalingrad to forever 21
something was lost like how can
Stalingrad and forever 21 be in the same
sentence and you know in part it's that
weird thing it's like trying to remember
even words like I mean Russian and
Hebrew things like it's like what poem
yet and this core you know these words
have much more potency about memory and
I don't know I do I think I think
there's still a dormant populace that
craves leaders on a small scan large
scale and I hope to be that leader and
on a small scale and I think you sir
have a role to be a leader you kids go
ahead without me I'm just gonna I'm
gonna do a little bit of weird
podcasting see see now you're you're
putting on your Joe Rogan hat he says
I'm just a comedian oh no I'm gonna say
I'm just it's not that if I say I want
to lead too much because of the big nap
there's like a group a chorus of
automated idiots and they're there first
I was like oh I knew it
it's a power grab all along why should
you leave you know it's just like and so
the idea is you're just trying to skirt
around not stepping on all of the idiot
landmines it's like okay so now I'm
gonna hear that in my inbox for the next
three days
okay so lead by example just live no I
mean large platform look we should take
over the institutions there are
institutions we've got bad leadership we
should mutiny and we should inject a 15%
20% disagreeable dissident very
aggressive loner individual mutant
freaks all the people that you go to see
Avengers movies about or the x-men or
whatever it is and stop pretending that
everything good comes out of some great
giant inclusive communal 12-hour meeting
it's like stop it
that's not how shit happens you recently
published the video of a lecture he gave
at Oxford presenting some aspects of a
theory theory of everything called
geometric unity so this was a work of 30
30 plus years this is his life's work
let me ask her of the silly old question
how do you feel as a human excited
scared the experience of posting it you
know it's funny one of the one of the
things that you you learn to feel as an
academic is the great sins you can
commit in academics is to show yourself
to be a non-serious person to show
yourself to have delusions to avoid the
standard practices which everyone has
signed up for and you know it's weird
because like you know that those people
are gonna be angry he did what you know
why would he do that and and what we're
referring to for example as traditions
of sort of publishing incrementally
certainly not trying to have a theory of
everything perhaps working within the
academic departments yeah all those
things so that's true and so you're
going outside of all of that well I mean
I was going inside of all of that and we
did not come to terms when I was inside
and what they did was so outside to me
was so weird so freakish like the most
senior respectable people at the most
senior respectable places were
functionally insane as far as I could
tell and again it's like being
functionally stupid if you're the head
of the CDC or something where you know
you're giving recommendations out there
aren't based on what you actually
believe they're based on what you think
you have to be doing well in some sense
I think that that's a lot of how I saw
the math and physics world as the
physics world was really crazy and the
math world was considerably less crazy
just very strict and kind of
dogmatic will psychoanalyze those folks
but I really want to maybe linger on it
a little bit longer of how you feel
because yeah so it's such a such a
special moment in your life I really
appreciate it's a great question so that
if we can pair off some of that others
those other issues its new being able to
say what the observer's is which is my
attempt to replace space-time with
something that is both closely related
to space time and not space-time so I
used to carry the number 14 as a closely
guarded secret in my life and where 14
is really four dimensions of space and
time plus ten extra dimensions of rulers
and protractors or four the cool kids
out there symmetric to tensors she had a
geometric complicated beautiful
geometric view of the world that you
carry with you for a long time yeah did
you did you have friends that you
colleagues essentially no talk no in
fact part of these part of that some of
these stories are me coming out to my
friends and I used the phrase coming out
because I think that gays have
monopolized the concept of the closet
many of us are in closets haven't having
nothing to do with their sexual
orientation yeah I didn't really feel
comfortable talking to almost anyone so
this was a closely guarded secret and I
think that I let on in some ways that I
was up to something and probably but it
was a very weird life so I did write I
have a series of things that I pretended
to care about so that I could use that
as the stalking horse for what I really
cared about and to your point I never
understood this whole thing about
theories of everything like if you were
gonna go into something like theoretical
physics isn't that what you would
normally pursue like wouldn't it be
crazy to do something that difficult and
that poorly paid if you we're gonna try
to do something other than figure out
what this is all about now I have to
reveal my cards my weaknesses and lack
an understanding of the music of physics
and math departments but there's an
analogy here to artificial intelligence
and often folks come in and say okay so
there's a giant department working on
quote-unquote artificial intelligence
but why is nobody actually working on
intelligence like it you're all just
building little toys right you're not
actually trying to understand and that
breaks a lot of people and that they it
confuses them it's like okay so I'm at
MIT I'm at Stanford I'm at Harvard I'm
here I dreamed of being what kind of
artificial intelligence why is everybody
not actually working on intelligence and
I have the same kind of sense that
that's what working on the theory of
everything is that's strangely you
somehow become an outcast for even but
we know why this is right why well it's
because let's take the artificial it's
play with a GI for example yeah I think
that the idea starts off with nobody
really knows how to work on that and so
if we don't know how to work on it we
choose instead to work on a program that
is tangentially related to it so we do a
component of a program that is related
to that big question because it's felt
like at least I can make progress there
and that wasn't where I was where I was
in it's funny there was this book of
called Friedan uhlan beck and it had
this weird mysterious line in the
beginning of it and I tried to get
clarification of this weird mysterious
line and everyone said wrong things and
then I said okay well so I can tell that
nobody's thinking properly because I
just asked the entire department and
nobody has a correct interpretation of
this and so you know it's a little bit
like you see a crime-scene photo and you
have a different idea like there's a
smoking gun and you figure that's
actually a cigarette lighter I don't
really believe that and then there's
like a pack of cards and you think huh
that looks like the blunt instrument
that the person was beaten with you know
so you have a very different idea about
how things go and very quickly you
realize that there's no one thinking
about them
there's a few human-sized to this and
technical size both of which I'd love to
try to get down to so the human side I
can tell from my perspective I think it
was before April 1st and April Fool's
maybe the day before I forget but I was
laying in bed in the middle of the night
and somehow it popped up you know i am i
feed somewhere that your beautiful face
is speaking live and i clicked and you
know it's kind of weird how the universe
just brings things together in this kind
of way and all sudden i realized that
there's something big happening in this
particular moment is strange like any
day on a day like any day and all of a
sudden you were thinking of you had this
somber tone like you were serious like
you were going through some difficult
decision and it seems strange I almost
thought you were maybe joking but
there's a serious decision being made
and it was a wonderful experience to go
through with you I really appreciate it
it was April 1st yeah it was it's kind
of fascinating him he's just the whole
experience and and and so that I want to
ask I mean thank you for letting me be
part of that kind of journey of
decision-making that took 30 years but
why now why did you think
why did you struggle so long not to
release it and decide to release it now
Anna while the whole world is on
lockdown an April Fool's is it just
because you like the comedy of absurd
ways that the universe comes together I
don't think so I think that the Cova
Depa demmick is the end of the big nap
and I think that I actually tried this
seven years earlier in Oxford so I and
it was too early which part was too is
it the the platform because your plight
different now actually the Internet I
remember you I read several your
brilliant answers that people should
read for the edge
one of them was related to the Internet
and it was the first one was it the
first one yeah that's a called go
virtual young man yeah yeah that seemed
that's like forever ago now
well that was ten years ago and that's
exactly what I did is I decamped to the
Internet which is where the portal lives
the portal the portal yeah the theme
that's ramen esteem music he just
listened to forever I actually started
recording tiny guitar licks for the
audio portion not for the video portion
you kind of inspired me with bringing
your guitar into the story but keep
going you see you thought so the Oxford
was like step one you kind of yet you
put your foot into the in the water to
sample it but it was too cold at the
time so you didn't want to step in just
really disappointed what was
disappointing about that experience very
is it's a hard thing to talk about it
has to do with the fact that and I can
see this in this you know as mirrors a
disappointment within myself there are
two separate issues one is the issue of
making sure that the idea is actually
heard and explored and the other is the
is the question about will I become
disconnected from my work because it
will be ridiculed it will it will be
immediately improved it will be found to
be derivative of something that occurred
in some paper in 1957 when the community
does not want you to gain a voice it's a
little bit like a policeman deciding to
weirdly and enforce all of these
little-known regulations against you and
you know sometimes nobody else and I
think that's kind of you know this weird
thing where I just don't believe that we
can reach the final theory necessarily
within the political economy of
academics so if you think about how
academics are tortured by each other and
have their paid and where they have
freedom and where they don't
I actually weirdly think that that
system of selective pressures is going
to eliminate anybody who's going to make
real progress so that's interesting so
if you look at
the story of Andrew Wiles for example
with from last Last Theorem he as far as
I understand he pretty much isolated
himself from the world of academics in
terms of the big with the bulk of the
work he did and it from my perspective
is dramatic and fun to read about but it
seemed exceptionally stressful the first
step he took the first steps he took
when actually making the work public
that's him to me would be hell now but
it's like so artificially dramatic you
know he leads up to it at a series of
lectures he doesn't want to say it and
then he finally says it at the end
because obviously this comes out of a
body of work where I mean the funny part
about for Moz le'ts theorem is that
wasn't originally thought to be a deep
and meaningful problem it was just an
easy to state one that had gone unsolved
but if you think about it it became
attached to the body of regular theory
so he built up this body of regular
theory gets all the way up to the end
announces and then like there's this
whole drama about okay somebody's
checking the proof I don't understand
what's going on on line 37 you know and
like oh is this serious seems a little
bit more serious than we knew I mean do
you see parallels you share the concern
that the year your experience might be
something similar well in his case I
think that if I recall correctly his
original proof was unsalvageable he
actually came up with a second proof
with a colleague Richard Taylor and it
was that second proof which carried the
day so it was a little bit that he got
put under incredible pressure and then
had to succeed in a new way having
failed the first time which is like even
a weirder and stranger store has an
incredible story in some sense but I
mean a you I'm trying to get a sense of
the kind of stress I think this is okay
but I'm rejecting what I don't think
people understand with me is the scale
of the critique it's like I don't you
people say well you must implicitly
agree with this and implicitly agree
it's like now try me ask before you you
decide that I am mostly an agreement
with the community about how these
things should be handled or what these
things mean keo keo
and also just why this criticism matter
so much here so you seem to dislike the
burden of criticism that it will choke
away all a lot of different kinds of
criticism there's constructive criticism
and there's destructive criticism and
what I don't like is I don't like a
community that can't first of all like
if you take the physics community just
the way we screwed up on masks in PPE
just the way we screw it up in the
financial crisis and mortgage-backed
securities we screw it up on string
theory can we just forget the string
theory happened or sure but let if
somebody should say that right somebody
should say you know it didn't work out
yeah but okay but you're asking this
like why do you guys get to keep the
prestige after failing for 35 years
that's an interesting point you guys
because to me where the profession look
these things if there is a theory of
everything to be had right it's going to
be a relatively small group of people
where this will be sorted out
absolutely it's it's it's not tens of
thousands it's probably hundreds at the
top but within that within that
community there's the assholes mm-hmm
there's the I mean you have you always
in this world have people who are kind
open my mind is it's a question about
okay let's imagine for example that you
have a story where you believe that
ulcers are definitely caused by stress
and you've never questioned it or maybe
you felt like the Japanese came out of
the blue and attacked us at Pearl Harbor
right and now somebody introduces a new
idea to you which is like what if it
isn't stress at all
or what if we actually tried to make
resource start of Japan attack us
somewhere in the Pacific so we could
have cast a spell I to enter the Asian
theater in persons original ideas like
what what do you even say you know it's
like two crazy
well when Dirac in 1963
talked about the importance of beauty as
a guiding principle in physics and he
wasn't talking about the scientific
method that was crazy talk but he was
actually making a great point and he was
using Schrodinger and I think it was
Schrodinger was standing in for him and
he said that if your equations don't
agree with experiment that's kind of a
minor detail if they have true beauty in
them you should explore them because
very often the agreement with experiment
is that it's an issue of fine tuning of
your model of the instantiation
and so it doesn't really tell you that
your model is wrong and of course
Heisenberg told Dirac that his model was
wrong because that the proton and the
electron should be the same mass if they
are each other's antiparticles and that
was a an irrelevant kind of silliness
rather than a real threat to the Dirac
theory but okay so I'm amidst all this
silliness hmm I'm hoping that we could
talk about the journey that geometric
unity has taken and will take as an idea
and an idea that will see the light yeah
that so first of all let's I'm thinking
of writing a book called geometric unity
for idiots okay and I need you as a
consultant
so can we first of all I hope I have the
trademark on geometric units you do good
can you give a basic introduction of the
goals of geometric unity the basic tools
of mathematics use the viewpoints in
general for idiots Sharik me okay great
fun so what's the goal of geometric
unity the goal of geometric unity is to
start with something so completely bland
that you can simply say well that's a
something that begins the game is as
close to a mathematical nothing as
possible in other words I can't answer
the question why is there something
rather than nothing but if there has to
be a something that we begin from let it
begin from something that's like a blank
canvas that's even more basic so what is
something what are we trying to describe
okay right now we have
a model of our world and it's got two
sectors one of the sector's is called
general relativity and the other is
called the standard model so we'll call
it gr for general relativity and SM for
standard model what's the difference you
need to what did the two describe so
general relativity gives pride of place
to gravity and everything else is acting
is a sort of a backup singer gravity is
the star of the show gravity is the star
of general relativity and in the
standard model the other three
non-gravitational forces so if there are
four forces that we know about three of
the four non-gravitational that's where
they get to shine great so tiny little
particles and how they interact with
each other so photons gluons and
so-called intermediate vector bosons
those are the things that the standard
model showcases and general relativity
showcases gravity and then you have
matter which is accommodated in both
theories but much more beautifully
inside of the standard model so what
what is a theory of everything do so
about that so first of all I think that
that's that that's the first place where
we haven't talked enough we assume that
we know what it means but we don't
actually have any idea what it means and
what I claim it is is that it's a theory
where the questions beyond that theory
are no longer of a mathematical nature
in other words if I say let us take X to
be a four dimensional manifold to a
mathematician or physicist I've said
very little I've simply said there's
some place for calculus and linear
algebra to to dance together and to play
and that's what manifolds are they're
the most natural place where that where
our two greatest math theories can
really intertwine which are that you own
the tacos the linear algebra
okay now the question is beyond that so
it's sort of like saying I'm an artist
and I want to order a canvas now the
question is does the canvas paint itself
does the can't does the canvas come up
with an artist and an in paint in ink
which then paint the canvas like that's
the that's the hard part about theories
of everything which I don't think people
talk enough about okay can we just you
bring up a sure and then to hand the
draws itself is a the fire that lights
itself or drawing hands the drawing
hands yeah and every time I start to
think about that my mind like shuts down
no don't do that it there's a spark and
this is the most beautiful part we know
it's beautiful but this robots brain
sparks fly so can we try to say the same
thing over and over in different ways
about what what would he mean by that
having to be a thing we have to contend
with sure like why why do you think that
understand creating a theory of
everything as you call the source code
our understanding our source code
require a view like the hand that draws
itself okay well here's what goes on in
the regular physics picture we've got
these two main theories general
relativity and the standard model right
think of general relativity as more or
less the theory of the canvas okay maybe
you you have the canvas in a
particularly rigid shape maybe you've
measured it so it's got length and it's
got an angle but more or less it's just
canvas and length and angle and that's
all that there's really general
relativity is but it allows the canvas
to warp a bit then we have the second
thing which is this import of foreign
libraries where it which aren't tied to
space and time so we've got this crazy
set of symmetries called su 3 cross su 2
cross u 1
we've got this collection of 16
particles in a generation which are
these sort of twisted spinners and we've
got three copies of them then we've got
this weird Higgs field that comes in and
like deus ex machina solves all the
problems that have been created in the
play that can't be resolved otherwise
that's the standard model of quantum
field theory just plopped on top yes
it's a problem of the the double origin
story one origin story is about space
and time the other origin story is about
what we would call internal quantum
numbers and internal symmetries and then
there was an attempt to get one to
follow from the other called Kaluza
klein theory which didn't work out and
this is sort of in that vein
so you said origins story so in the hand
that draws itself what is it so it's
it's as if you had the canvas and then
you ordered up also give me paint
brushes paints pigments pencils and
artists but you're saying that's fucked
like if you want to create a universe
from scratch the canvas should be
generating the paintbrushes and the
paintbrush and they are turning the
canvas yeah yeah right like usually
who's the artist in this analogy well
this is sorry then we're gonna get to do
a religious thing I don't wanna do that
okay well you know my shtick which is
that we are the AI we have two great
stories about the simulation and
artificial general intelligence in one
story man fears that some program we've
given birth to will become self-aware
smarter than us and will take over in
another story there are genius
simulators and we live in their
simulation and we haven't realized that
those two stories are the same story in
one case we are the simulator and
another case we are the simulated and if
you buy those and you put them together
we are the AGI and whether or not we
have simulators we may be trying to wake
up by learning our own source code so
this could be our Skynet moment which is
one of the reasons I have some issues
around it
I think we'll talk about that because I
well that's the issue of the emergent
artists within the story yeah just to
get back to the point okay so so now the
key point is the standard way we tell
the story is is that Einstein sets the
canvas and then we order all the stuff
that we want and then that paints the
picture that is our universe so you
order the the paint you order the artist
you order the brushes and that then when
you collide the two gives you two
separate origin stories the canvas came
from one place and everything else came
from somewhere else so what are the
mathematical tools required to to
construct consistent geometric theory
you know make this concrete well somehow
you need to get three copies for example
of generations with 16 particles each
right and so the question would be like
well there's a lot there's a lot of
special personality in those symmetries
where would they come from so for
example you've got what would be called
grand unified theories that sound like
su5 the Georgia a theory there's
something that should be called spin ten
but physicists insist on calling it s o
ten there's something called the petit
Salam theory that tends to be called su
4 across su 2 cross su 2 which should be
called spin six crust spin four I can
get into all of these but what are they
all accomplishing they're all taking the
known forces that we see and packaging
them up to say we can't get rid of the
second origin story but we can at least
make that origin story more unified so
they're trying-- grand unification is
the attempt that's a mistake in your in
you've got a mistake that the problem is
it was born lifeless when when Georgia
and glasha first came out with the su5
theory it was very exciting because it
could be tested in a South Dakota mind
filled up with like
cleaning fluid or something like that
and they look for proton decay and
didn't see it and then they gave up
because in in that day when your
experiment didn't work you gave up on
the theory it didn't come to us born of
a fusion between Einstein and and and
Bohr you know and that was kind of the
problem is it had this weird parenting
where it was just on the Bohr side there
was no Einstein Ian's contribution Lex
how can I help you most
I'm right here what questions you want
to ask so that the most satisfying
answers there's there's a there's a
bunch there's a bunch of questions I
want to ask I mean one and I'm trying to
sneak up on you somehow to reveal in an
accessible way then the nature of our
universe so I can just give you a guess
right
like I we have to be very careful that
we're not claiming that this has been
accepted this is a speculation but I
will I will make the speculation that
what I think what you would want to ask
me is how can the canvas generate all
the stuff that usually has to be ordered
separately all right should we do that
let's go there okay so the first thing
is is that you have a concept in
computers called technical debt you're
coding and you cut corners and you know
you're gonna have to do it right before
the thing is safe for the world but
you're piling up some series of i/o used
to yourself and your project as you're
going along so the first thing is we
can't figure out if you have only four
degrees of freedom and that's what your
canvas is how do you get at least in
Stan's world Einstein says look it's not
just four degrees of freedom but there
need to be rulers and protractors to
measure length and angle in the world
you can't just have a flabby four
degrees of freedom so the first thing
you do is you create ten extra variables
which is like if we can't choose any
particular set of rulers and protractors
to measure length and angle let's take
the the set of all possible rulers and
protractors and that would be called
symmetric non-degenerate two tensors on
the tangent space of the four manifold X
for now because there are four degrees
of freedom you start off with four
dimensions then you need four rulers for
each of those different directions so
that's four that gets us up to eight
variables and then between four original
variables there are six possible angles
so four plus four plus six is equal to
so now you've replaced x4 with another
space which in the lecture I think I
called you 14 but are now calling Y 14
is one of the big problems of working on
something in private is every time you
pull it out you sort of can't remember
it you name something something new okay
so you've got a fourteen dimensional
world which is the original four
dimensional world plus a lot of extra
gadgetry for measurement and because
you're not in the four dimensional world
you don't have the technical debt is no
now you've got a lot of technical debt
because now you have to explain away a
fourteen dimensional world which is a
big you're taking a huge advance on your
pay day check alright but aren't more
dimensions allow you more freedom says I
mean maybe but you have to get rid of
them somehow because we don't perceive
them so eventually have to collapse it
down to the thing that we perceive or
you have to sample a four dimensional
filament within that fourteen
dimensional world known as the section
of a bundle ok so how do we get from the
fourteen dimensional world where I
imagine a lot of folate yeah you're
cheating the first question was how do
we get something from almost nothing
like how do we get the if I've said that
the who and the what in the newspaper
story that is a theory of everything are
bosons and fermions so let's make the
who the fermions and the what the bosons
think of as the players and the
equipment for a game are we supposed to
be thinking of actual physical things
with mass or energy okay so they think
about everything you see in this room so
from chemistry you know it's all protons
neutrons and electrons but from a little
bit of not late 1960s physics we know
that the protons and neutrons are all
of up quarks and down quarks so
everything in this room is basically up
quarks down quarks and electrons stuck
together with with the the what the
equipment okay now the way we see it
currently is we see that there are
space-time indices which we would call
spinners that correspond to the whoo
that is the fermions the matter the
stuff the up quarks the down quarks the
electrons and there are also 16 degrees
of freedom that come from this in the
space of internal quantum numbers so in
my theory in fourteen dimensions there's
no internal quantum number space that
figures in it's all just spin oreal so
spinners in fourteen dimensions without
any festooning with extra linear
algebraic information there's a concept
of a of spinners which is natural if you
have a manifold with length and angle
and y 14 is almost a manifold with
length and angle it's it's so close it's
in other words because you're looking at
the space of all rulers and protractors
maybe it's not that surprising that a
space of rulers and protractors might
come very close to having rulers and
protractors on it itself like can you
measure the space of measurements and
you almost can and in a space that has
length and angle if it doesn't have a
topological obstruction comes with these
objects called spinners now the spinners
are the stuff of of our world we are
made of spinners they're the most
important really deep object that I can
tell you about they were very surprising
what is this spinner so famously there
are these weird things that require 720
degrees of rotation in order to come
back to normal and that doesn't make
sense and be the reason for this is that
there's a knotted miss in our
three-dimensional world that people
don't observe and then you know you can
famously see it by this Dirac string
trick so if you take a glass of water
imagine that this was a tumbler and I
didn't want to spill any of it and the
question is if I rotate the cup without
losing my grip on the base 360 degrees
and I can't go backwards is there any
way I can take a sip and the answer is
this weird motion which is go over first
and under second and that that's 720
degrees of rotation to come back to
normal so that I can take a set
well that weird principle which
sometimes is known as the Philippine
wineglass dance because waitresses in
the Philippines apparently learned how
to do this that that move defines if you
will this hidden space that nobody knew
was there of spinors which Dirac figured
out when he took the square root of
something called the klein-gordon
equation which I think had earlier work
incorporated from carton and killing in
company in mathematics so the spinners
are one of the most profound aspects of
human existence and you forgive me for
the perhaps dumb questions but what a
spinner be the mathematical objects
that's the basic unit of our universe
when you when you start with a manifold
which is just like something like a
doughnut or a sphere circle or a Mobius
band a spinner is usually the first
wildly surprising thing that you found
was hidden in your original purchase so
you you order a manifold and you didn't
even realize it's like buying a house
and finding a panic room inside that you
hadn't counted on it's very surprising
when you understand that spinners are
running around on your spaces again
perhaps a dumb question but we're
talking about 14 dimensions and four
dimensions
what is the manifold or operating under
in my case it's proto space
it's before it's before Einstein can
slap rulers and protractors on space
time and what you mean by that sorry to
interrupt is space time is the 4d
manifold space-time is a four
dimensional manifold with extra
structure most the extra structure it's
called a semi Romanian or pseudo Romani
and metric in in essence there is
something akin to a four by four
symmetric matrix from which is
equivalent to length and angle so when I
talk about rulers and protractors or I
talk about length and angle or I talk
about romani and or pseudo Romani and or
semi Romani and met manifolds I'm
usually talking about the same thing can
you measure how long something is and
what the angle is between two different
rays or vectors so that's what Einstein
gave us as his arena his place to play
his his canvas so there's a bunch of
questions I can ask here but like I said
I'm working on this book geometric unity
for he it's and I think what would be
really nice as your editor to have like
beautiful maybe even visualizations that
people could try to play with try to try
to reveal small little beauties about
the way you're thinking about the
squirrel I'll usually use the Joe Rogan
program for that sometimes I have him
doing the Philippine wine glass dance
I had the hopf fibration the part of the
problem is is that most people don't
know this language about spinners
bundles metrics gauge fields and they're
very curious about the theory of
everything but they have no
understanding of even what we know about
our own world is it hole is it a
hopeless pursuit so like even gauge
theory right just this I mean it seems
to be very inaccessible is there some
aspect of it that could be made
accessible I'm actually go to the board
right there and give you a five minute
lecture on engaged theory that would be
better than the official lecture engaged
there you would know what gauge there
was so it is it's possible to make it
accessible yeah but nobody does like in
other words you're gonna watch over the
next year lots of different discussions
of a quantum entanglement or you know
the multiverse where are we now
right or you know many worlds are they
all equally real yeah did that right I
mean yeah that that's it but you're not
gonna hear anything about the hopf
fibration except if it's from me and I
hate that why why can't you be the one
but because I'm going a different path I
think that we've made a huge mistake
which is we have things we can show
people about the actual models we can
push out visualizations where they
they're not listening my analogy they're
watching the same thing that we're
seeing and as I've said to you before
this is like choosing to perform sheet
music that hasn't been performed in a
long time or you know the experts can't
afford orchestras so they just trade
Beethoven symphonies and as sheet music
and they oh wow that was beautiful but
it's like nobody heard anything they
just looked at the score well that's how
mathematicians and physicists trade
papers and ideas is that they they write
down the things that represent stuff I
want to at least close out the thought
line that you started yes which is how
does the canvas order all of this other
stuff into being so I at least like I
say some incomprehensible things about
that and then we'll we'll have that much
done all right and that just point does
it have to be incomprehensible do you
know what the Schrodinger equation is
yes do you know what the Dirac equation
is what does know mean well my point is
you're gonna have some feeling that you
know what the Schrodinger equation yes
as soon as we get to the Dirac equation
your eyes are gonna get a little bit
glazed right so now why is that well the
answer to me this is that you you want
to ask me about the theory of everything
but you haven't even digest the theory
of everything as we've had it since 1928
when Dirac came out with his equation
so for whatever reason and this isn't a
hit on you yeah
you haven't been motivated enough in all
the time that you've been on earth to at
least get as far as the Dirac equation
and this was very interesting to me
after I gave the talk in Oxford New
Scientist who'd done kind of a hatchet
job on me to begin with sent a reporter
to come to the third version of the talk
that I gave and that person had never
heard of the Dirac equation so you have
a person who was completely
professionally not qualified to ask
these questions wanting to know well how
does how does your theory solve new
problems like well in the case of the
Dirac equation well tell me about that I
don't know what that is so then the
point is okay I got it
you're not even caught up minimally to
where we are now and that's not a knock
on you almost nobody is yeah but how
does it become my job to digest what has
been available for like over 90 years
well to me the open question is whether
what's been available for over 90 years
can be there could be a a blueprint of a
journey that one takes to understand it
not oh I want to do that with you and I
I one of the things I think I've been
relatively successful at for example you
know when you ask other people what
gauge theory is you get these very
confusing responses and my response is
much simpler it's oh it's a theory of
differentiation where when you calculate
the instantaneous rise over run you
measure the rise not from a flat
horizontal but from a custom endogenous
reference level what do you mean by that
it's like okay and then I do this thing
with Mount Everest which is man Everest
is how high then they give the height I
say above what then they say sea level
and I say which sea is that in Nepal
like oh I guess there isn't a sea cuz
it's landlocked it's like okay well what
do you mean by sea level oh there's this
thing called the geoid I'd never heard
of oh that's the reference level it's a
custom reference level that we imported
so you all sorts of people have
remembered the exact height of Mount
Everest without ever knowing what it's a
height from well in this case in gauge
Theory there's a hidden reference level
where you measure the rise in rise over
run to give the slope of the line what
if you have different concepts of what
of where that rise should be measured
from that vary within the theory that
are endogenous to the theory that's what
gauge theory is okay we have a video
here right yeah okay I'm gonna use my
phone if I want to measure my hand and
its slope this is my attempt to measure
it using standard calculus in other
words the reference level is apparently
flat and I measure the rise above that
phone using my hand okay if I want to
use gauge theory it means I can do this
or I can do that or I can do this or I
can do this or I could do what I did
from the beginning okay at some level
that's what gauge theory is now that is
an act no I've never heard anyone
describe it that way so while the
community may say well who is this guy
and why does he have the right to talk
in public I'm waiting for somebody to
jump out of the woodwork and say you
know Eric's whole shtick about rulers
and protractors leading to a derivative
derivatives are measured as rise over
run above a reference level of reference
levels don't fit to get like I go
through this whole shtick in order to
make it accessible I've never heard
anyone say it I'm trying to make the
Prometheus would like to discuss fire
with everybody else all right I'm gonna
just say one thing to close out the
earlier line which is what I think we
should have continued with when you take
the naturally occurring spinners the
unadorned spinners the naked spinners
not on this fourteen dimensional
manifold but on something very closely
tied to it which I've called the
chimeric tangent bundle that is the the
object which stands in for the thing
that should have had length and angle on
Abbott just missed okay
when you take that object and you form
spinners on that and you don't adorn
them so you're still in the single
origin story you get very large spin
oriole objects upstairs on this 14
dimensional world y 14 which is part of
the observers when you pull that
information back from y 14 down to X 4
it miraculously looks like the adorned
spinners the festooned spinners the
spinners that we play with in ordinary
reality in other words the 14
dimensional world looks like a four
dimensional world plus a 10 dimensional
complement so 10 plus 4 equals 14 that
10 dimensional complement which is
called a normal bundle generates spin
properties internal quantum numbers that
look like the things that give our
particles personality then make let's
say up quarks and down quarks charged by
negative one-third or plus two thirds
you know that kind of stuff or whether
or not you know some quarks feel the
weak force and other quarks do not so
the x4 generates Y 14 y 14 generates
something called the chimeric tangent
bundle chimeric tangent bundle generates
unadorned spinners the unadorned
spinners get pulled back from 14 down to
4 where they look like adorned spinners
and we have the right number of them you
thought you needed 3 you only got 2 but
then something else that you've never
seen before broke apart on this journey
and it broke into another copy of the
thing that you already have two copies
of one piece of that thing broke off so
now you have two generations plus an
imposter third generation which is I
don't know why we never talked about
this possibility in regular physics and
then you've got a bunch of stuff that we
haven't seen which has descriptions so
people always say does it make any
falsifiable predictions yes it does it
says that the matter that you should be
seeing next has particular properties
that can be read
like like we guys to spend weak
hypercharge like the responsiveness to
the strong force the one I can't tell
you is what energy scale it would happen
it say you would if you can't say if
those characteristics can be detected
with current it may be that somebody
else can I'm not a physicist I'm not a
quantum field theory I can't I I don't
know how you would do that the the hope
for me is that there's some simple
explanations for all of it Lex should we
have a drink you're having fun no I'm
trying to have fun with you you know I
had there's a bunch of fun things to
talk about here anyway that was how I
got what I thought you wanted which is
if you think about the fermions as the
artists and the bosons as the brushes
and the paint what I told you is that's
how we get the artists what are the open
questions for you in this what were the
challenges so you're not done well
there's the things that I would like to
have in better order so a lot of people
will say see the reason I hesitated on
this is I just have a totally different
view than the community so for example I
believe that general relativity began in
1913 with Einstein and Grossman now that
was the first of like four major papers
in this line of thinking to most
physicists general relativity happened
when Einstein produced a divergence free
gradient which turned out to be the
gradient of the so-called Hilbert or
Einstein Hilbert action and from my
perspective that wasn't true is is that
it began when Einstein said look this is
about differential geometry and it's the
final answer is going to look like a
curvature tensor on one side and matter
and energy on the other side and that
was enough and then he published a wrong
of it where it was the Ricci tensor not
the Einstein tensor then he corrected
the reach the Ricci tensor to make it
into the Einstein tensor then he
corrected that to add a cosmological
constant I can't stand that the
community thinks in those terms there's
some things about which like that
there's a question about which
contraction do I use there's an Einstein
contraction there's a Ricci contraction
they both go between the same spaces I'm
not sure what I should do I'm not sure
which contraction I should choose this
is called a Shia operator for
ship-in-a-bottle and my stuff you have
this big platform in many ways that
inspires people's curiosity about
physics yeah automatics right now and
I'm one of those people and great but
then you start using a lot of words that
I don't understand and like I might know
them but I don't understand and what's
unclear to me if I'm supposed to be
listening to those words or if it's just
if this is one of those technical things
that's intended for a very small
community or if I'm supposed to actually
take those words and start you know a
multi-year study not not a serious study
but a the kind of study when you you're
interested in learning about machine
learning for example or any kind of
discipline that's where I'm a little bit
confused so you you speak beautifully
about ideas you often reveal the beauty
in Mathematica matauri and I'm unclear
and what are the steps I should be
taking I I'm curious
how can I explore how can i play with
something how can i play with these
ideas well and and enjoy the beauty of
not necessarily understanding the depth
of a theory that you're presenting but
start to share in the beauty as opposed
to sharing in and enjoying the beauty of
just the way the passion with which you
speak which is in itself fun to listen
to but also
starting to be able to understand some
aspects of this theory that I can enjoy
it too
and start to build an intuition what the
heck we're even talking about because
you're basically saying we need to throw
a lot of our ideas of views of the
universe out and I'm trying to find
accessible ways in okay long not in this
conversation no I appreciate that
so one of the things that I've done is
I've picked on one paragraph from Edward
Witten and I said this is the paragraph
if I could only take one paragraph with
me this is the one I'd take and it's
almost all in prose not an equation and
he says look this is this is our
knowledge of the universe at its deepest
level and he was writing this during the
1980s and he has three separate points
that constitute our deepest knowledge
and those three points refer to
equations one to the Einstein field
equation one to the Dirac equation and
one to the yang-mills Maxwell equation
now one thing I would do is take a look
at that paragraph and say okay what do
these three lines mean like it's a
finite amount of verbiage you can write
down every word that you don't know you
can say what do I think
done now young man yes there's a
beautiful wall in Stoneybrook New York
built by someone who I know you will
interview named Jim silence and Jim
silence and he's not the artist but he's
the guy who funded an world's greatest
hedge fund manager and on that wall
contained the three equations that
Witten refers to in that paragraph and
so that is the transmission from the
paragraph or graph to the wall now that
wall needs an owner's manual which Roger
Penrose has written called the road to
reality let's call that the tome so this
is the subject of the so-called graph
wall tome project that is going on in
our discord server and our general
around the portal community which is how
do you take something that purports in
one paragraph to say what the deepest
understanding man has of the universe in
which he lives
it's memorialized on a wall which nobody
knows about which is an incredibly
gorgeous piece of art and that was
written up in a book which is has been
written for no man right
maybe if maybe it's for a woman I don't
know but no no one should be able to
read this book because either you're a
professional and you know a lot of this
book in which case it's kind of a
refreshers to see how Roger thinks about
these things or you don't even know that
this book is a self-contained invitation
to understanding our deepest nature so I
would say find yourself in the graph
wall tome transmission sequence and join
the graph wall tome project if that's of
interest okay beautiful now just to
linger on a little longer what kind of
journey do you see geometric unity
taking I don't know I mean that's the
thing is that first of all the
professional community has to get very
angry and outraged and they have to work
through their feelings this is nonsense
this is bullshit or like no wait a
minute this is really cool actually I
need some clarification over here so
there's going to be some sort of weird
coming back together process are you
already hearing murmurings of that it
was very funny officially I've seen very
little so it's perhaps happening quietly
yeah you often talk about we need to get
off this planet yep can I try to sneak
up on that by asking what in your kind
of view is the difference the gap
between the science of it theory and the
actual engineering of building something
that leverages the theory to do
something like how big is that we don't
know gap I mean if you have ten extra
dimensions to play with that are the
rulers and protractors of the world
themselves can you gain access to those
dimensions do you have a hunch so I
don't know I don't want to get ahead of
myself because the you have to
appreciate I can have hunches and I can
I can jaw off but one of the ways that
I'm succeeding in this world is to not
bow down to my professional communities
nor to ignore them
like I'm actually interested in the
criticism I just wanted denature it so
that it's not personally interpersonal
and irrelevant I believe that they don't
want me to speculate and I don't need to
speculate about this I can centrally say
I'm open to the idea that it may have
engineering prospects and it may be a
death sentence we may find out that
there's not enough new here that even if
it were right that there would be
nothing new to do
can't tell you that's what you mean by
death sentences there would not be
exciting breakthrough terrible if you
couldn't like you can do new things in
an Einsteinian world that you couldn't
do in a Newtonian world right you know
like you have twin paradoxes or Lorentz
contraction of length or any one of a
number of new cool things happen in
relativity theory that didn't happen for
Newton what if there wasn't new stuff to
do at the next and final level so that
would be quite sad let me ask a silly
question but we'll say it with a
straight face impossible so let me
mention Elon Musk what are your thoughts
about he's more you're more on the
physics theory side of things he's more
in the physics engineering side of
things in terms of SpaceX efforts what
do you think of his efforts to uh get
off this planet well I think he's the
other guy who's sent me serious about
getting off this planet I think they're
two of us were semi serious about
getting off the planet what do you think
about his methodology and yours when you
look at them don't and I don't be
against you because like I was so
excited that like your top video was
reycarts file and then I did your
podcast and we had some chemistry so
it's oom DUP yeah and I thought okay I'm
gonna betray curse sauce so just as I'm
coming up on Ray Kurzweil
like and now Alex Friedman special Elon
Musk and he blew me out of the water so
I don't want to be petty about it I want
to say that I don't could I am yeah okay
because the funny part he's not taking
enough risk like he's trying to get us
to Mars imagine that he got us to Mars
the moon and we'll throw in Titan and
know we're good enough the
diversification level is too low now
there's a compatibility first of all I
don't think he Lana's serious is about
Mars
I think Elon is using Mars as a
narrative as a stories and to make the
moon jealous it makes it I think he's
using it as a story to organize us to
reacquaint ourselves with our need for
space our need to get off this planet
it's a concrete thing he's shown that
many people think that he's shown that
he's the most brilliant and capable
person on the planet I don't think
that's what he showed I think he showed
that the rest of us have forgotten our
capabilities so he's like the only guy
who has still kept the faith and is like
what's wrong with you people
so you think the lesson we should draw
from Elon Musk is there's a is a capable
person within within a lot of us you on
make sense to me
in what way he's doing what any sensible
person should do he's trying incredible
things and he's partially succeeding
partially failing to try to solve the
obvious problems before uh yeah you know
but he comes up with things like you
know I got it we'll come up with a
battery company but batteries aren't
sexy so well we'll make a car around it
like great you know or any one of a
number of things
Elon is behaving like a same person and
I view everyone else's insane and my
feeling is is that we really have to get
off this planet we have to get out of
this we have to get out of the
neighborhood tilling I know a little bit
do you think that's a physics problem or
an engineering problem
he's a cowardice problem I think that
we're afraid
that we had 400 hitters of the mind like
Einstein in Dirac and that that era is
done and now we're just sort of copy
editors so some of it money like if we
become brave enough yeah go outside the
solar system can we afford to
financially well I think that's not
really the issue the issue is look what
Elon did well he amassed a lot of money
and then he you know he plowed it back
in and he spun
he spun the wheel and he made more money
and now he's got fu money now the
problem is is that a lot of the people
who have fu money are not people whose
middle finger you ever want to see I
want to see you Long's middle finger I
want to see what I mean by that or like
when you say fuck it I'm gonna do the
biggest go see whatever the fuck you
want Yeah right fuck you fuck anything
that gets in his way that he can afford
to push out of his way and you're saying
he's not actually even doing that enough
no I mean he's not going please I want
to go
Elon is doing fine with his money I just
want him to enjoy himself have the most
you know die nice you know but you're
saying Mars is playing it safe he
doesn't know how to do anything else
he knows rockets yeah and he might know
some physics at a fundamental level yeah
I guess okay just let me just like go
right back to you how much physics do
you really how much brilliant
breakthrough ideas on the physics side
do you need to get off this planet I
don't know and I don't know whether like
in my most optimistic dream I don't know
whether my stuff gets us off the planet
but it's hope it's hope that there's a
more fundamental theory that we can
access that we don't need you know whose
elegance and beauty will suggest that
this is probably the way the universe
goes like you have to say this weird
thing which is this I believe and this I
believe is a very dangerous statement
but this I believe I believe that my
theory
points the way now Elon might or might
not be able to access my theory I don't
know I don't know what he knows but keep
in mind why are we all so focused on you
on it's really weird
it's kind of creepy to what he's just a
person who's just asking the the obvious
questions and doing whatever he can but
he makes sense to me
you sent craig venter makes sense to me
Jim Watson makes sense to me but we're
focusing on Elon because he's he somehow
is rare well that's the weird thing like
we've come up with a system that
eliminates all Elon from our pipeline
and Elon somehow snuck through when they
were quality adjusting everything you
know and this this idea of of disk I
distributed idea suppression complex
yeah is that what's bringing the in-laws
of the world down you know so funny it's
like he's asking Joe Rogan like is that
a joint you know it's like well what
will happen if I smoke it what will
happen to the stock price what will
happen if I scratch myself in public
what will happen if I say what I think
about Thailand or kovat or who knows
what and everybody's like don't say that
say this go do this go do that well it's
crazy-making it's absolutely crazy
making and if you think about what we
put through people through we need to
get people who can use fu money the fu
money they need to insulate themselves
from all of the people who know better
because the my nightmare is is that why
did we only get one ilan what if we were
supposed to have thousands and thousands
of yuan and the weird thing is like this
is all that remains
you're looking at like obi-wan and Yoda
and it's like this is the only this is
all that's left after X order 66 has
been executed and that's the thing
that's really upsetting to me is we used
we used to have Ilan's five deep and
then we could talk about Elon in the
context of his cohort but this is like
if you were to see a
raph in the Arctic with no trees around
you'd think why the long neck what a
strange sight you know how do we get
more lawns how do we change these so I
think the useful so we know MIT yeah and
Harvard so can maybe returning to our
previous conversation my sense is that
the Ilan's of the world are supposed to
come from MIT in Harvard right and how
do you change let's think of one that
MIT sort of killed have any names in
mind Aaron Schwartz leaps to my mind
yeah okay are we MIT supposed to shield
the Aaron Schwartz's from I don't know
journal publishers or are we supposed to
help the journal publishers so that we
can throw 35 year sentences in his face
or whatever it is that we did that
depressed him okay so here's my point
yeah I want MIT to go back to being the
home of Aaron Schwartz and if you want
to send Aaron Schwartz to a state where
he's looking at 35 years in prison or
something like that you are my sworn
enemy
you are not MIT yeah you are the
traitorous irresponsible middlebrow
pencil-pushing green eyeshade fool that
needs to not be in the seat at the
presidency of MIT period the end get the
fuck out of there and let one of our
people sit in that chair and think that
you've articulated is that the people in
those chairs are not the way they are
because they're evil or somehow morally
compromised is that it's just that
that's the distributed nature is that
there's some kind of aspect of the
system there's people who width emselves
to the system they adapt every instinct
and the fact is is that they're not
going to be on Joe Rogan smoking a blunt
that let me ask a silly question do you
think institutions generally just tend
to become that no we get some of the
institution
we get Caltech here's what we're
supposed to have we're supposed to have
Caltech we're supposed to have a read
we're supposed to have Deep Springs
we're supposed to have MIT we're
supposed to have a part of Harvard and
when the sharp elbow crowd comes after
the Scheldt sharp mine crowd we're
supposed to break those sharp elbows and
say don't come around here again so what
are the weapons that the sharp mines are
supposed to use in our modern day so to
reclaim MIT what is the what's the
future are you kidding me
first of all assume that this is being
seen at MIT
hey everybody is OK hey everybody try to
remember who you are you're the guys who
put the police car on top of the great
dump you you guys came up with the great
breasts of knowledge you created a
Tetris game in the green building now
what is your problem they killed one of
your own you should make their life a
living hell
you should be the ones who keep the
mayor memory of Aaron Schwartz alive and
all of those hackers and all of those
mutants you know it's like it's either
our place or it isn't and if we have to
throw 12 more pianos off of the roof
right if Harold Edgerton is taking those
photographs you know with slow-mo back
in the 40s
if Noam Chomsky's on your faculty what
the hell is wrong with you kids you are
the most creative and insightful people
and you can't figure out how to defend
Aaron Schwartz that's on you guys so
some of that is giving more power to the
young like you said you know it's a
brazing towel rub taking power from the
feeble and the middle Brown yeah but how
do you what is the mechanism to me I
don't know you you have some 9-volt
batteries no copper wire I attend to you
have a capacitor I tend to believe you
have to create an alternative and make
the alternative so much better that it
makes MIT obsolete unless they change
and that's what forces change so
supposed took somehow okay so use
projection mapping most projection
mapping where you take some complicated
edifice and you map all of its planes
and then you actually project some
unbelievable graphics rescanning a
building let's say at night say okay so
you want to do some graffiti art with
you basically want to hack the system
know when I say look listen to me Lee
yeah we're smarter than they are and
they you know what they say they say
things like I think we need some geeks
get me two PhDs
right you treat phd's like that that's a
bad move PhDs are capable and we act
like our job is to peel grapes for our
betters yeah that this is strange thing
and I you speak about it very eloquently
is how we treat basically the greatest
minds in the world which is like at at
their prime which is PhD students like
that we pay them nothing we I'm done
with it
yeah right we gotta take what's ours so
it so yeah take back MIT become uncover
nerble become uncover noble and by the
way when you become uncover nerble don't
do it by throwing food don't do it by
pouring salt on the lawn like a jerk do
it through brilliance because what you
Caltech and MIT can do and maybe
Rensselaer Polytechnic or Wooster
politic I don't know Lehigh
goddamnit what's wrong with you
technical people you act like you're a
servant class it's unclear to me how you
reclaim it except with brilliance like
you said but to me that the way you were
claimed it was brilliant Segal system
Aaron Schwartz came from the Elon Musk
class what you guys gonna do about it
right if super capable people need to
flex need to be individual they need to
stop giving away all their power to you
know is like Geist or a community or
this or that you're not you're not
indoor cats your outdoor cats go be
outdoor cat do you think we're gonna see
this this kind of asking me you know
before like what about the World War two
generation
right when I'm trying to say is that
there's a technical revolt coming here's
you weren't talking about that I'm
trying to lead it yeah I'm trying to see
no you're not trying a lot you're trying
to get a blueprint here all right Lex
yeah how angry are you about our country
pretending that you and I can't actually
do technical subjects so that they need
an army of kids coming in from four
countries in Asia it's not about the
four countries in Asia it's not about
those kids
it's about lying about us that we don't
care enough about science and technology
that we're incapable of it as if we
don't have Chinese and Russians and
Koreans and Croatians like we've got
everybody here the only reason you're
looking outside is is that you want to
hire cheap people from the family
business because you don't want to pass
the family business on and you know what
you didn't really build the family
business it's not yours to decide you
the boomers and you the Silent
Generation you did your bit but you also
followed a lot of stuff up and your
custodians you are caretakers you were
supposed to hand something what you did
instead was to gorge yourself on cheap
foreign labor but you then held up as
being much more brilliant than your own
children which was never true but I'm
trying to understand how we create a
better system without anger without
revolution no not not by kissing and
hugs and and but by I mean I don't
understand within MIT what the mechanism
of building a better MIT is we're not
gonna pay Elsevier Aaron Schwartz was
right JSTOR is an abomination
but why who would then MIT who within
institutions is going to do that when
just like you said the people who are
running the show are more senior and if
Frank will check to speak out so year is
basically individuals that step up I
mean one of the surprising things about
Elon is that one person can inspire so
much
he's got academic freedom it just comes
from money I don't agree with that do
you think money okay so yes certainly
sorry an testicle you yes but those are
more important than money right or guts
I I think I do agree with you you speak
about this a lot that because the money
in the academic institutions has been so
constrained that people are misbehaving
in in in horrible yes but I don't think
that if we reverse that and give a huge
amount of money people will also behave
well I think it also takes guts so you
need to give people security security
yeah like you need to know there you
have a job yeah on Monday when on Friday
you say I'm not so sure I really love
diversity and inclusion and somebody's
looking wait what you didn't love
diverse we had a statement on diversity
and you wouldn't sign are you against
the inclusion part or are you against
diverse do you just not like people like
you like actually that has nothing to do
with anything you're making this into
something that it isn't I don't want to
sign your goddamn stupid statement and
get out of my lab right get out of my
lab it all begins from the middle finger
get out of my lab the administrators
need to find other work yeah listen I
agree with you and I I hope to seek your
advice and and wisdom as we change this
because I'd love to see I will visit you
in prison if that's what you're asking
I have no I think prison is great you
get a lot of reading done and then when
good working out well let me ask the
something I brought up before is the
Nietzsche quote of beware that
when fighting monsters you yourself do
not become a monster for when you gaze
long into the abyss the abyss gazes into
you are you worried that your focus on
the flaws in the system that we've just
been talking about has damaged your mind
or the part of the mind of your mind
that's able to see the beauty in the
world in the system that because you
have so sharply been able to see the
flaws in the system you can no longer
step back and appreciate it speeding
look I'm the one who's trying to get the
institutions to save themselves by
getting rid of
inhabitants believing the institution
like a neutron bomb that removes the
unworkable leadership class but leaves
the structures so I equals so the
leadership classes really the problem
the leadership class is that the
individual like the professor's Dean
video scholar the professor's are gonna
have to go back into training to
remember how to be professors like
people are cowards at the moment because
if they're not cowards they're
unemployed yeah
that's one of the disappointing things
I've encountered is to me tenure they
don't nobody has tenure now why whether
they do or not they certainly don't have
character not the kind of character and
fortitude that I was hoping to see to me
but they'd be gone but see you're
dreaming about the people who used to
live at MIT you're dreaming about the
previous inhabitants of your university
and if you looked at somebody like you
know isadora singer is very old I don't
know what state he's in but that guy was
absolutely the real deal and if you look
at Noam Chomsky tell me that Noam
Chomsky has been muzzled right yeah now
what I'm trying to get at is you're
talking about younger energetic people
but those people like when I say
something like I'm against I'm for word
inclusion and I'm for diversity but I'm
against diversity and inclusion TM like
the movement well I couldn't say that if
I was a professor oh my god he's against
our sacred document okay well in that
kind of a world do you want to know how
many things I don't agree with you on it
like we could go on for days and days
and days all of the nonsense that you've
parroted inside of the institution any
sane person like has no need for it they
have no want or desire do you think you
have to have some patience for nonsense
when many people work together in a
system how long a string theory go
for and how long have I been patient
okay so you're talking about a mid two
patients I'm talking about like 36 years
of modern nonsense and string theory say
you can do like eight to ten years but
not more I can do 40 minutes this is 30
sleeve stone now over two hours or no
but I appreciate it but it's been 36
years of nonsense since the anomaly
cancellation in in string theory it's
like what are you talking about about
patients I mean Lex you're not even
acting like yourself now at what you're
trying to stay in the system and I'm not
sure I'm not I'm trying to see if
perhaps so so my hope is that the system
just has a few assholes in it which you
highlight and the fundamentals of the
system are broken because if the
fundamentals of the systems are broken
then I just don't see a way for MIT to
succeed like I don't see how young
people take over MIT I don't see how by
inspiring us you know the great part
about being at MIT like when you saw the
the genius in these pranks the heart the
irreverence yeah it's like don't do it
then we were talking about Tom Lehrer
the last time Tom Lehrer was as naughty
as the day is long
agreed agreed was he also a genius was
he well-spoken was he highly cultured he
was so talented so intellectual that he
could just make fart jokes morning noon
and night yeah okay well in part the
right to make fart jokes the right to
for example put a functioning phone
booth that was ringing on top of the
Great Dome at MIT has to do with we are
such badasses that we can actually do
this stuff well don't tell me about it
anymore go break the law go break the
law in a way that inspires us and makes
us not want to prosecute you may break
the law in a way that lets us know that
you're calling us out on our bullshit
that you're filled with love and that
our technical talent has not gone to
sleep it's not incapable you know and if
the idea is that you're gonna
dig a moat around the University and
fill it with tiger sharks that's awesome
because I don't know how you're gonna do
it but if you actually manage to do that
I'm not going to prosecute you prosecute
you under a reckless endangerment man
that's beautifully put
I hope those first of all they'll listen
I hope young people and mighty will take
over in this in this kind of way in the
introduction to your podcast episode on
Jeff Epstein you give to me a really
moving story but unfortunately for me to
brief about your experience with a
therapist and the lasting terror that
permeated your mind can you uh can you
go there can you tell I don't think so I
mean I appreciate what you're saying I
said it obliquely I said enough there
are bad people who cross our paths and
the current vogue is to say oh I'm a
survivor
I'm a victim I can do anything I want
this is a broken person and I don't know
why I was sent to a broken person as a
kid and to be honest with you I also
felt like in that story I say that I was
able to say no you know and this was
like the entire weight of authority and
he was misusing his position and I was
also able to say no what I couldn't say
no to was having him reinf lichte Din my
life I see you were sent back yeah
second time I tried to complain about
what had happened I tried to do it in a
way that did not immediately cause
horrific consequences to both this
person and myself because I didn't we
don't have the tools to deal with sexual
misbehavior we have nuclear weapons we
don't have any way of saying this is
probably not a good place or a role for
you at this moment as an authority
figure and something needs to be worked
on so in general when we see somebody
who is misbehaving in that way
our immediate instinct is to treat the
person as you know Satan and we
understand why we don't want our
children to be at risk now I personally
believe that I fell down on the job and
did not call out the Jeffrey Epstein
thing early enough because I was
terrified of what Jeffrey Epstein
represents and this recapitulated the
old terror trying to tell the world this
therapist is out of control and when I
said that the world responded by saying
well you have two appointments booked
and you have to go for the second one so
I got reinfected into this office on
this person who was now convinced that I
was about to tear down his career and
his reputation it might have been on the
verge of suicide for all I know I don't
know but he was very very angry and he
was furious with me that I had breached
a sacred confidence of his office
what kind of ripple effects does that
have has that head to the rest of your
life
the absurdity and the cruelty of that I
mean there's no sense to it well see
this is the thing people don't really
grasp I think there's an academic who I
got to know many years ago named
Jennifer fried who has a theory of
betrayal which she calls institutional
betrayal and her gambit is is that when
you were betrayed by an institution that
is sort of like a fiduciary or a
parental obligation to take care of you
that you find yourself in a far
different situation with respect to
trauma than if you were betrayed by
somebody who's a peer and so I think
that my in my situation I kind of repeat
a particular dynamic with authority I
come in not following all the rules
trying to do some things not trying to
do others blah blah blah and then I get
into a weird relationship with authority
and so I have more
barians with what I would call
institutional betrayal now the funny
part about it is that when you don't
have masks or PPE in a influenza like
pandemic and you're missing ICU beds and
ventilators that is ubiquitous
institutional betrayal so I believe that
in a weird way I was very early the idea
of and this is like tough the really
hard concept pervasive or otherwise
Universal institutional betrayal where
all of the institutions you can count on
any hospital to not charge you properly
for what their services are you can
count on no pharmaceutical company to
produce the drug that will be maximally
beneficial to the people who take it you
know that your financial professionals
are not simply working in your best
interest and that issue had to do with
the way in which growth left of our
system so I think that the weird thing
is is that this first institutional
betrayal by a therapist left me very
open to the idea of okay well maybe the
schools are bad maybe the hospitals are
bad maybe the drug companies are bad
maybe our food is off maybe our
journalists are not serving journalistic
ends and that was what allowed me to
sort of go all the distance and say huh
I wonder if our problem is that
something is causing all of our sense
making institutions to be off that was
the big insight and that tying that to a
single ideology what if it's just about
growth they were all built on growth and
now we've promoted people who are
capable of keeping quiet that their
institutions aren't working so we've the
privileged silent aristocracy the people
who can be counted upon not to mention a
fire when a raging fire is tearing
through a building but nevertheless it's
how big of a psychological burden is
that it's huge
it's terrible I mean rushing it's it's
very it's very comforting to be the
parental I mean I don't know I I
treasure I mean we were just talking
about MIT we can
until I can intellectualize and agree
with everything you're saying but
there's a comfort a warm blanket of
being within the institution and up
until him Aaron Schwartz let's say in
other words now if I look at the provost
and the president as mommy and daddy you
did what to my big brother
you did what to our family you sold us
out in which way what secrets left for
China you hired which workforce you did
what to my wages
you took this portion of my grant for
what purpose you just stole my
retirement through a fringe rate what
did you do but can you still I mean
thing is about this view you have is it
often turns out to be sadly correct well
this is the thing and but that let me
just in this silly hopeful thing do you
still have hope and institutions can you
win you psycho
psychologically yes I'm referring not
intellectually because you have to carry
this burden can you still have a hope
like within you Jake that when you sit a
home alone and as opposed to seeing the
darkness within these institutions
seeing a hope well but this is the thing
I want to confront not for the purpose
of a dust-up I believe for example if
you've heard episode 19 that the best
outcome is for Carol Greider to come
forward as we discussed in episode 19
would your brother Brett honest and say
you know what so I screwed up he did
call he did suggest the experiment I
didn't understand that it was his theory
that was producing it maybe I was slow
to grasp it but my bad and I don't want
to pay for this bad choice on my part
let's say for the rest of my career I
want to own up and I want to help make
sure that we do what's right with what's
left and that's one little case within
the institution they would like to see
made I would like to see MIT very
clearly come out and
you know Margo O'Toole was right when
she said David Baltimore's lab here
produced some stuff that was not
reproducible with Teresa and Minnie
shakarez research I want to see the
courageous people I would like to see a
the Aaron Schwartz wing of the computer
science department yeah wouldn't know
let's think about it yeah wouldn't that
be great if they said you know an
injustice was done and we're gonna we're
gonna write that wrong just as if this
was Alan Turing which I don't think
they've righted that wrong well then
let's have the Turing Schwartz way to
ensure they're starting a new college of
computing it wouldn't be wonderful to
call it the the toyish why I would like
to have the Madame wooing of the physics
department and I'd love to have the Emmy
nerd er statue in front of the math
department I mean like you want to get
excited about actual diversity and
inclusion yeah well let's go with our
absolute best people who never got
theirs because there is structural
bigotry you know but if we don't
actually start celebrating the beautiful
stuff that we're capable of when we're
handed heroes and we fumble them into
the trash what the hell I mean Lex this
is such nonsense
we just pulling our head out you know
the on everyone's cecum should be
tattooed if you can read this you're too
close
beautifully put and I'm a dream or just
like you so I don't see as much of the
darkness genetically or due to my life
experience but I do share the hope from
my teeth as you should know we care a
lot about you both do yeah and a harvard
institution i don't give a damn about
but you do so I love Harvard I'm just
kidding i yeah i love harvard but rude
and i have a very difficult relationship
and part of what you know when you love
a family that isn't working I don't want
to trash I I didn't bring up the name of
the president of MIT during the Aaron
Schwartz period it's not vengeance
I want the rot cleared out I don't need
to go after human beings yeah just like
you said with the with a disc
formulation they individual human beings
aren't don't necessarily carry them
it's those chairs that are so powerful
that in which they sit
it's the chairs not the human it's not
the humans without naming names can you
tell the story of your struggle during
your time at Harvard maybe in a way that
tells the bigger story of the struggle
of young bright minds that are trying to
come up with big bold ideas within the
institutions that we're talking about
you can start I mean in part it starts
with coffee with a couple of Croatians
in the math department at MIT and we
used to talk about music and dance and
math and physics and love and all this
kind of stuff as Eastern Europeans love
to and I ate it up and my friend
Gordana who was an instructor in the MIT
math department when I was a graduate
student at Harvard said to me I'm
probably gonna do a bad version of her
accent there we go it will I see you
tomorrow at the secret seminar and I
said what secret seminar it don't joke I
said I'm not used to this style of humor
Gordon she's getting the secret seminar
that your adviser is running I said what
are you talking about ha ha ha you know
your advisor is running a secret seminar
on this aspect I think it was like the
chern-simons invariants
I'm not sure what the topic was again
but she gave me the room number and the
time and she was like not cracking a
smile I've never known her to make this
kind of a joke and I thought this was
crazy and I was trying to have an
advisor I didn't want an advisor but
people said you have to have one so I
took one and I went to this room at like
15 minutes early and there was not a
soul inside it it was outside of the
math department and was still in the
same building the Science Center at
Harvard and I sat there and let five
minutes go by hey I let seven minutes go
by ten minutes go by there's nobody I
thought okay so this was all an
elaborate joke and then like three
minutes to the hour this graduate
student walks in and like sees me and
does a double take and then I start to
see the professors in geometry and
topology start to file in and
everybody's like very disconcerted that
I'm in this room and finally the person
who is supposed to be my advisor walks
in to the seminar and sees me and goes
white as a ghost
and I realized that the secret seminar
is true that the department is
conducting a secret seminar on the exact
topic that I'm interested in not telling
me about it and that these are the
reindeer games that the Rudolph's of the
department are not invited to and so
then I realize okay I did not understand
it there's a parallel department and
that became the beginning of an
incredible Odyssey in which I came to
understand that the game that I had been
sold about publication about blind
refereeing about openness and scientific
transmission of information was all a
lie
I came to understand that at the very
top there's a second system that's about
closed closed meetings and private
communications and agreements about
citation and publication that the rest
of us don't understand and that in large
measure that is the thing that I won't
submit to and so when you ask me
questions like well why wouldn't you
feel good about you know talking to your
critics or why wouldn't you feel the
answer is oh you don't know like if you
stay in a nice hotel you don't realize
that there is an entire second structure
inside of that hotel where like there's
usually a workers cafe in a resort
complex that isn't available to the
people who are staying in the hotel and
then there are private hallways inside
the same hotel that are parallel
structures so that's what I found which
was in essence just the way you can stay
hotels your whole life and not realize
that inside of every hotel is a second
structure that you're not supposed to
see is the guest there is a second
structure inside of academics that
behaves totally differently with respect
to how people get dinged how people get
their grants taken away how this person
comes to have that thing named after
them and by pretending that we're not
running a parallel structure I have no
patience for that way anymore so the I
got a chance to see how the game how
hard ball is really played at Harvard
and I'm now eager to play hardball back
with the same people who played hardball
with me let me ask two questions on this
so one do you think it's possible so I
call those people assholes but that's
the technical term do you think it's
possible that that's just not the entire
system but a part of the system
sort of that there's you can navigate
you can swim in the waters and find the
groups of people who do aspire to the
guy who wrestled my PhD was one of the
people who filed in
- the secret seminar right but are there
pedestrian side of this right is he an
asshole well yes I was as a bad no but
I'm trying to make this point which is
this isn't my failure to correctly map
these people it's yours you know who has
a simplification that isn't gonna work I
think okay as I was the wrong term I
would say lacking of character and what
would you have had these people do why
did they do this why have a secret
seminar I don't understand the exact
dynamics of a secret seminar but I think
the right thing to do is to I mean to
see individuals like you there might be
a reason to have a secret seminar but
they should detect that an individual
like you a brilliant mind who's thinking
about certain ideas could be damaged by
this I don't think they see it that way
the idea is we're going to sneak food to
the children we want to survive yeah so
that that's highly problematic and there
should be people within that road I'm
trying to say this is the thing the ball
is thrown back won't be caught the
problem is they know that most of their
children won't survive and they can't
say that I see sorry to interrupt you
mean that the the fact that the whole
system is underfunded that they
naturally have to pick favorites they
live in a world which reached steady
state at some level let's say you know
in the early 70s and in that world
before that time you have a professor
like Norman's steam rod and you'd have
20 children that is graduate students
and all of them were going to be
professors and all of them would want to
have 20 children right so you start like
taking higher and higher powers of 20
and you see that the system could not
it's not just about money the system
couldn't survive so the way it's
supposed to work now is that we should
shut down the vast majority of PhD
programs and we should let the small
number of truly top places pop
mostly teaching and research departments
that aren't PhD producing we don't want
to do that because we use PhD students
as a labor force so the whole thing has
to do with growth resources dishonesty
and in that world you see all of these
adaptations to a ruthless world where
the key question is where are we going
to bury this huge number of bodies of
people who don't work out so my problem
was I wasn't interested in dying so you
clearly highlight that there's aspects
of the system that are broken but as an
individual is your role to exit the
system or just acknowledge it as a game
and win it my role is to survive and
thrive in the public eye in other words
when you have an escapee of the system
like yourself such as and that person
says you know I wasn't exactly finished
let me show you a bunch of stuff let me
show you that the theory of telomeres we
never got reported properly let me show
you that all of marginal economics is
supposed to be redone with a different
version of the differential calculus let
me show you that you didn't understand
the self dual yang-mills equations
correctly in topology and physics
because they're in fact much more
broadly found and it's only the
mutations that happen in special
dimensions there are lots of things to
say but this particular group of people
like if you just take where are all the
Gen X and millennial university
presidents all right okay they're all
they're all in a holding pattern now
where why in this story you know was it
a of telomeres was it an older professor
and a younger graduate student it's this
issue of what would be called
interference competition so for example
orcas try to drown minke whales by
covering their blowholes so that they
suffocate because the the needed
resource is air
okay well what are the universities do
they try to make sure that you can't be
viable that you need them that you need
their grants you need to be zinged with
overhead charges or fringe rates or all
of the games that the locals love to
play well my point is ok what's the cost
of this how many people died as a result
of these interference competition games
you know when you take somebody like
Douglas pressure who did green
fluorescent protein and he drives a
shuttle bus right because he his grant
runs out and he has to give away all of
his research and all of that research
gets a Nobel Prize and he gets to drive
a shuttle bus for $35,000 a year what do
you mean by die do you mean their career
their dreams their yeah holes are there
as an academic
Doug pressure was dead for a long period
of time ok so as a person who's escaped
a system yeah can't you at this because
you also have in your mind a powerful
theory that may turn out to be useful
maybe not let's hope can't you also play
the game enough like with the children
so like publish and but also if you told
me that this would work really what I
want to do you see is I would love to
revolutionize a field with an H index of
zero like we have these proxies that
count how many papers you've written how
cited of the papers you've written all
this is nonsense it's interesting it
aside what do you mean by a field with
an H index is a totally new H index is
counts somehow how many papers have you
gotten that gets so many citations yeah
let's say H index undefined like for
example I don't have an advisor for my
PhD but I have to have an advisor as far
as something called the math genealogy
project that tracks who advised who who
advised whom right down the line so I am
my own advisor which sets up a loop
right how many students do I have an
infinite number
your descendants they don't want to have
that story so I have to be I have to
have formal advisor Rowell Bhatt and my
Wikipedia entry for example says that I
was advised by Rahul Bhatt which is not
true so you get fit into a system that
says what we have to know what your
h-index is we have to know you know
where are you a professor if you want to
apply for a grant it makes all of these
assumptions what I'm trying to do is to
impart to show all of this is nonsense
this is proxy BS that came up in the
institutional setting and right now it's
important for those of us who are still
vital like Elon it would be great to
have you on as a professor of physics
and engineering Yeah right
it seems ridiculous to say but just as
Charlotte just as a shot in the arm yeah
you know like be great to have you on at
Cal Tech even one day a week yeah one
day a month okay well why can't we be in
there it's the same reason why can't you
be on the view why can't you be on Bill
Martin we need to know what you're gonna
do before we take you on the show on the
show well I don't want to tell you what
I'm gonna do
do you think you need to be able to
dance the dance a little bit
I can't dance the dance floor to be on
the view oh come on so you can yeah you
do yeah I do that fine here's where it's
the place that it goes south is there's
like a set of questions that get you
into this more adversarial stuff and
you've in fact asks some of those more
adversarial questions this setting and
they're not things that are necessarily
aggressive but there are things that are
making assumptions right right well so
when you make it I have a questions like
you know Lex are you avoiding your
critics you know it's just like okay
well why did you frame that that way or
the next question would be it's like do
you think that you should have a special
exemption and that you should have the
right to break rules and everyone else
should have to follow them like that
question I find enervating yeah it
doesn't really come out of anything
meaningful it's just like we feel we're
supposed to ask that of the other person
to show that we're not captured by their
madness that's not the real question you
want to ask me if you want to get really
excited about this you want to ask do
you think this thing is right
yeah weird thing I do do you think that
it's going to be immediately seen to be
right I don't I think it's gonna it's
gonna have an interesting fight and it's
gonna have an interesting evolution and
well what do you hope to do with it in
non-physical terms my gosh I hope it
revolutionizes our relationship of well
with people outside of the institutional
framework and it reinforces into the
institutional framework where we can do
the most good to bring the institution's
back to health you know it's like these
are positive uplifting questions yeah if
you had Frank we'll check you wouldn't
say Frank let's be honest you have done
very little with your life after the
original huge show that you used to
break onto the physics scene like we
weirdly ask people different questions
based on how they sit down yeah that's
very strange right but you have to
understand that so here's the thing I
get these days a large number of emails
from people with the equivalent of a
theory of everything for a GI yeah and I
use my own radar BFBS radar to detect on
unfairly perhaps whether they're full
shit or not right because I love what
you're where you're going with this by
the way and Mike my concern that I often
think about is there's elements of
brilliance and what people write to me
and I and I'm trying to right now as you
made it clear at the kind of judgments
and assumptions we make how am I
supposed to deal with you who are not an
outsider of the system and think about
what you're doing because my radar
saying you're not full of shit you know
what I'm also not completely outside of
the system that's right you've danced
beautifully you've actually get got all
the credibility that you're supposed to
get all the nice little stamps of
approval not all but a large enough
amount you use I mean it's hard to put
into words exactly why you
sound whether your theory turns out to
be good or not you sound like a special
human being I appreciate that and thank
you in a good way all right so but what
am I supposed to do with that flood of
emails for me AJ why do I sound
different I don't know and I would like
to systemize that I don't know look you
know when you're talking to people you
very quickly consume eyes like am i
claiming to be a physicist no I say it
every turn I'm not a physicist right
when I say to you when you say something
about bundles you say well can you
explain it differently I think you know
I'm pushing around on this this area
that lever over there I'm trying to find
something that we can play with and
engage and you know another thing is is
that I'll say something at scale so if I
was saying completely wrong things about
bundles on the Joe Rogan program you
don't think that we wouldn't hear a
crushing chorus yes and it's actually
you know same thing with geometric unity
so I put up this this video from this
oxford lecture I understand this not a
standard lecture but you haven't heard
you know the most brilliant people in
the field said well this is obviously
nonsense they don't know what to make of
it yeah I'm gonna hide behind well he
hasn't said enough to tale where's the
paper and where's the paper I've seen
the criticism yeah I've gotten the same
kind of Critias I've published a few
things and like especially stuff related
to Tesla that we did studies and Tesla
vehicles and the kind of criticism I've
gotten was showed that they're
completely oh right like the guy who had
Elon Musk on his program twice is gonna
give us an accurate assessment yeah
exactly exactly it's just very low-level
like without actually ever addressing
you know the content you know Lex I
think that in part you're trying to
solve a puzzle that isn't really your
puzzle I think you know that I'm sincere
you don't know whether the theory is
going to work or not
and you know that it's not coming out of
somebody who's coming out of left field
like the story makes sense there's
enough that's new and creative and
different in other aspects where you can
check me that your real concern is are
you really telling me that when you
start breaking the rules you see the
system for what it is and it's become
really vicious and aggressive and the
answer is yes and I had to break the
rules in part because of learning issues
because I came into this field you know
with a totally different set of
attributes my profile just doesn't look
like anybody else's remotely but as a
result what that did is it showed me
what is the system true to its own
ideals or does it just follow these
weird procedures and then when it when
you take it off the rails it behaves
terribly and that's really what my story
I think does is it just says well he
completely takes the system into new
territory where it's not expecting to
have to deal with somebody with these
confusing sets of attributes and I think
what he's telling us is he believes it
behaves terribly now if you take
somebody with perfect standardized tests
and you know a winner of math
competitions and you put them in a ph.d
program they're probably going to be
okay I'm not saying that the system you
know breaks down for any everybody under
all circumstances I'm saying when you
present the system with a novel
situation at the moment it will almost
certainly break down with probability
approaching 100 percent but to me the
painful and the tragic thing is it sorry
to bring out my motherly instinct but it
feels like it's too much it could be too
much of a burden to exist outside the
system maybe by psychologically first of
all I've got a podcast that I that's
kind of like you've got amazing friends
I have a life which has more interesting
people passing through it than I know
what to do with and they haven't managed
to kill me off yet so so far so good
speaking of which you host an amazing
podcast we've mentioned several times
but should mention over and over the
portal where you somehow manage every
single conversation is a surprise you go
I mean not just the guest but just the
the places you take them the the kind of
ways they become challenging and how you
recover from that I mean it's uh there's
just it's full of genuine human moments
so I really appreciate what you're it's
a fun fun podcast to listen to let me
ask some silly questions about it what
what have you learned about conversation
about human to human conversation well I
have a problem and I haven't solved on
the portal which is that in general when
I ask people questions they usually find
they're deeply grooved answers and I'm
not so interested in all of the deeply
grooved answers and so there's a
complaint which I'm very sympathetic to
actually that I talk over people that I
won't sit still for the answer and I
think that's weirdly sort of correct
it's not that I'm not interested in
hearing other voices it's that I'm not
interested in hearing the same voice on
my program that I could have gotten on
somebody else's and I haven't solved
that well so I've learned that I need a
new conversational technique where I can
keep somebody from finding their
comfortable place and yet not be the
voice talking over that person it's
funny I didn't sense like your
conversation with Brett I can sense you
detect that the line he's going under
down is you know how it's gonna end and
you know you think it's a useless line
so you'll just stop it right there and
you take them into the direction that
you think you should go but that
requires interruption well and it does
so far I haven't found a better way I'm
looking for a better way it's not it's
not like I don't hear the problem I do
hear the problem I just I haven't solved
the problem and you know on the on the
bread episode I was insufferable it was
very difficult to listen to it was so
overbearing but on the other hand I was
right you know it's like funny yeah you
keeps
that but I didn't find that me because I
heard brothers like I heard a big
brother yeah it was pretty bad
really I think so I didn't think it was
bad well a lot of people found it in
subsisting and I think it also has to do
with the fact that this has become a
frequent experience I have several shows
where somebody who I very much admire
and think of as courageous you know I'm
talking with them maybe we're friends
and they sit down on this show and they
immediately become this fake person like
two seconds in there they're sort of
saying why I don't to be too critical or
too harsh and I want to name any names I
wanted this joint here's like okay I'm
gonna put my listeners through three
hours of you being sweetness and light
yeah like at least give me some reality
and then we can decide to shelve the
show and never let it here you know that
the the call of freedom in the in the
bigger world but I saw you break out of
that a few times I've seen you to be
successful that I forgot the guest but
she was dressed with you worried at the
end of the episode you had to nog you
honor Bob Brett FMS caller
yeah and Magnus color the philosopher at
the University of Chicago yeah you've
continuously broken out of her
you guys went you know I didn't seem
pretty genuine I like her I'm completely
ethically opposed to what she's
ethically for which she was great and
she wasn't like that you're both going
hard bro no yeah cuz I care about her so
that was awesome yeah but you're saying
that some people are difficult to break
up well it's just that you know she was
bringing the courage of her conviction
she was sort of defending the system and
I thought wow that's a pretty
indefensible system that's great though
she's doing that isn't it yeah I mean it
made for an awesome I think it's very
informative for the world yes you just
hated I just can't stand the idea that
somebody says well we don't care who
gets paid or who gets the credit as long
as we get the goodies
cuz that seems like insane have you ever
been afraid leading into a conversation
garry kasparov really by the way I mean
I know I'm just a fan taking requests
but I started I started the beginning in
Russian and in fact I used one word
incorrectly I was terrible you know it
was pretty good it's pretty good Russian
what was terrible is I think he
complimented to you right no did he
compliment you use that me D compliment
you on your Russian so he said almost
perfect Russian yeah like he was
bullshit that was not great Russian but
there was not great Russian that was
good that was hard that was you tried
hard which is what matters that is so
insulting I hope so
but I do hope you continue I did felt
like I don't know how long and when it
might have been like a two-hour
conversation but it felt I hope it
continues like I feel like you have many
your conversation with Gary yeah I would
love to hear there's certain
conversation I was just love to hear
well you know he's coming from a very
it's this issue about needing to
overpower people in a very dangerous
world and so Gary has that need yeah he
wasn't he was interrupting you there's
an interesting dynamic is an interesting
dynamic to Weinstein is going into what
I mean to powerhouse egos brilliant no
don't say egos Minds my spirits my you
don't have any good you're the most
humble person I know so true no that's a
complete lie do you think about your own
mortality death sure are you afraid
Wow death I released the theory during
something that can kill door people sure
I was there of course little bit of a
parallel that of course of course I
don't want it to die with me what do you
hope your legacy is oh I hope my legacy
is accurate
I'd like to ride on my accomplishments
rather than how my community decided to
ding me while I was alive that would be
great
what about if it was significantly
exaggerated I don't want it you wanted
to be accurate I'm I've got some pretty
terrific stuff and then whether it works
out or doesn't that I would like it to
reflect what I actually was I'll settle
for accurate what would you say what is
the greatest element of Eric Weinstein
accomplishment in life terms of being
accurate like what what are you most
proud of trying the idea that we were
stalled out in it in the hardest field
at the most difficult juncture and then
I didn't listen to that voice ever it
said stop you're hurting yourself you're
hurting your family hurting everybody
you're embarrassing yourself you're
screwing up you can't do this you're a
failure you're a fraud
turn back save yourself like that voice
I didn't ultimately listen to it and it
was going for 35 37 years very hard and
I hope you never listen to that voice
well it's why you're an inspiration
thank you appreciate it you're the eye
and just infinitely honored that you
would spend time with me you've been a
mentor to me almost a friend I can't
imagine a better person to talk to in
this world so thank you so much for
talking it I can't wait till we do it
again Lex thanks for sticking with me
and thanks for being the most singular
guy in the podcasting space in terms of
all of my interviews I would say that
the last one I did with you many people
feel was my best
and it was a non-conventional one so
whatever it is that you're bringing to
the game I think everyone's noticing and
keep at it
thank you
thanks for listening to this
conversation with Eric Weinstein and
thank you to our presenting sponsor cash
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subscribe on youtube review it with five
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Twitter and lex friedman and now let me
leave you with some words of wisdom from
eric Weinstein's first appearance in
this podcast everything is great about
war except all the destruction thank you
for listening and hope to see you next
time
you