Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
Eric Weinstein he's a mathematician
economist physicist and a managing
director of teal Capital he coined the
term and you could say is the founder of
the intellectual dark web which is a
loosely assemble group of public
intellectuals that includes Sam Harris
Jordan Peterson Steven Pinker Joe Rogan
Michael Shermer and a few others
this conversation is part of the
artificial intelligence podcast at MIT
and beyond if you enjoy it subscribe on
youtube itunes or simply connect with me
on twitter at Lex Friedman spelled Fri D
and now here's my conversation with Eric
Weinstein
are you nervous about this specialist
okay the bus policia
you mentioned Kung Fu Panda is one of
your favorite movies it has the usual
profile master student dynamic going on
so who was who has been a teacher that
significantly influenced the direction
of your thinking and life's work so if
you're the Kung Fu Panda who was your
Shifu
oh well it's interesting because I
didn't see Shifu as being the teacher
who was the teacher who way Master
Oogway the turtle
oh the turtle right they only meet twice
in the entire film and the first
conversation sort of doesn't count
so the magic of the film in fact it's
point yeah is that the teaching that
really matters is transferred during a
single conversation and it's very brief
and so who played that role in my life I
would say either my grandfather Harry
Rubin and his wife Sophie Rubin my
grandmother or Tom Lehrer Tom Lehrer
yeah in which way if you give a child
Tom Lehrer records what you do is you
destroy their ability to be taken over
by later malware and it's so irreverent
so witty so clever so obscene that it
destroys the ability to lead a normal
life for many people so if I meet
somebody who is usually
really shifted from any kind of
neurotypical presentation I'll often ask
them are you a Tom Lehrer fan and the
odds that they will respond are quite
high Tom layer is poisoning pigeons in
the park Tom layer that's very
interesting there's small number of Tom
Lehrer songs that broke into the general
population poisoning pigeons in the park
the element song and perhaps the Vatican
rag so when you meet somebody who knows
those songs but doesn't know are you
judging me right now aren't you harshly
no but you're Russian so I dad as the
you known Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky
that's us yeah yeah that was a song
about plagiarism that was in fact
plagiarized which most people don't know
from Danny Kaye where Danny Kaye did a
song called Stanislavski of the musky
arts and so Tom Lehrer did this
brilliant job of plagiarizing a song
about and making it about plagiarism and
then making it about this mathematician
who worked in non Euclidean geometry
that was like giving heroin to a child
it was extremely addictive and
eventually led me to a lot of different
places one of which may have been a PhD
in mathematics and he was also at least
a lecturer in mathematics I believe at
Harvard something like that I just had
dinner with him in fact when my son
turned 13 we didn't tell him but his Bar
Mitzvah present was dinner with his hero
Tom Lehrer and Tom Lehrer was 88 years
old sharp as a tack irreverent and funny
as hell and just you know there very few
people in this world that you have to
meet while they're still here and that
was definitely one for our family so
that wit is a reflection of intelligence
in some kind of deep way like where that
would be a good test of intelligence
whether you're Tom Lehrer fan so what do
you think that is about wit about that
kind of humor ability to see the
absurdity in existence well do you think
that's connected to intelligence or we
just two Jews on a mic that appreciate
that kind of humor no I think that it's
up
connected to intelligence so you can see
it there's a place where Tom Lehrer
decides that he's going to Lampoon
Gilbert of Gilbert & Sullivan and he's
going to outdo Gilbert with clever
meaningless wordplay and he has forget
the policy he's doing Clementine as if
Gilbert and Sullivan wrote and he says
that I missed her depressed her young
sister named mr. this mr. de pester she
tried pestering sisters a festering
blister you best her resistor say aye
the sister persisted the mister resisted
I kissed her all loyalty slipped when he
said when she said I could have her her
sister's cadaver must surely have turned
in its crypt
that's so dense it's so insane yeah that
that's clearly intelligence because it's
hard to construct something like that if
I look at my favorite Tom Lehrer Tom
Lehrer lyric you know there's a
perfectly absurd one which is once all
the Germans were warlike and mean but
that couldn't happen again we taught
them a lesson in 1918 and they've hardly
bothered us since then right that is a
different kind of intelligence you know
you're taking something that is so
horrific and you're you're sort of
making it palatable and funny and
demonstrating also just your humanity I
mean I think the thing that came through
as as Tom Lehrer wrote all of these
terrible horrible lines was just what a
sensitive and beautiful soul he was who
was channeling pain through humor and
through grace I've seen throughout
Europe throughout Russia that same kind
of humor emerge from the generation of
world war two it seemed like that humor
is required to somehow deal with the
pain and the suffering of that that war
created well you do need the environment
to create the broad Slavic soul I don't
think that many Americans really
appreciate Russian humor
how you had to joke during the time of
let's say article 58 under Stalin you
had to be very very careful you know
that the concept of a Russian satirical
magazine like crocodile doesn't make
sense so you have this cross-cultural
problem that there are certain areas of
human experience that it would be better
to know nothing about and quite
unfortunately Eastern Europe knows a
great deal about them which makes the
you know the songs of Vladimir Vysotsky
so potent the you know the prose of
Pushkin whatever it is you have to
appreciate the depth of the Eastern
European experience and I would think
that perhaps Americans knew something
like this around the time of the Civil
War or maybe you know under slavery and
Jim Crow or even the harsh tyranny of
the coal and steel employers during the
labor Wars but in general I would say
it's hard for us to understand and
imagine the collective culture unless we
have the system of selective pressures
that for example Russians were subjected
to yeah so if there's one good thing
that comes out of war its literature art
and humor music oh I don't think so I
think almost everything is good about
war except for death and destruction
right without the death they would bring
and the romance of it the whole thing is
nice well this is why we're always
caught up in war we have this very
ambiguous relationship to it is that it
makes life real and pressing and
meaningful and at an unacceptable price
and the price has never been higher so
just jump in a into AI a little bit you
are in one of the conversation you had
or one of the videos you described that
one of the things AI systems can't do
and biological systems can itself
replicate in the physical world oh no in
the physical world well yeah
the physical robots can self-replicate
but but you this is a very tricky point
which is that the only thing that we've
been able to create that's really
complex that has an analog of our
reproductive system is software but
nevertheless software replicates itself
if we're speaking strictly for the
replication in this kind of digital
space so I mean just to begin and you
ask a question do you see a protective
barrier or a gap between the physical
world and the digital world let's not
call it digital let's call it the
logical world versus the physical world
why illogical well because even though
we had let's say Einstein's brain
preserved it was meaningless to us as a
physical object because we couldn't do
anything with what was stored in it at a
logical level and so the idea that
something may be stored logically and
that it may be stored physically are not
necessarily we don't always benefit from
synonymous I'm not suggesting that there
isn't a material basis to the logical
world but that it does warrant
identification with a separate layer
that need not invoke logic gates and
zeros and ones and so connecting those
two worlds the logical world in the
physical world or maybe just connecting
to the logical world inside our brains
is brain you mentioned the idea of out
out telogen s-- artificial app telogen
artificial intelligence yes this is the
only essay that Jon Brockman ever
invited me to write that he refused to
publish an edge why well maybe it wasn't
it wasn't well written but I don't know
the idea is quite compelling is quite
unique and new and at least from my view
a stance point maybe you can explain it
sure what I was thinking about is why it
is that we're waiting to be terrified by
artificial general intelligence when in
fact artificial life is terrifying in
and of itself and
it's already here so in order to have a
system of selective pressures you need
three distinct elements you need
variation within a population
you need heritability and you need
differential success so what's really
unique and I've made this point I think
elsewhere about software is that if you
think about what humans know how to
build that's impressive so I always take
a car and I say does it have an analogue
of each of the physical physiological
systems does it have a skeletal
structure that's its frame does it have
a neurological structure has an on-board
computer as a digestive system the one
thing it doesn't have is a reproductive
system but if you can call spawn on a
process effectively you do have a
reproductive system and that means that
you can create something with variation
heritability and differential success
now the next step in the chain of
thinking was where do we see inanimate
non intelligent life outwitting
intelligent life and I have two favorite
systems I try to stay on them so that we
don't get distracted one of which is the
Oh freeze orchid subspecies or subclade
I don't know what to call it a type of
flower yeah it's a type of flower that
mimics the female of a pollinator
species in order to dupe the males into
engaging it was called pseudo copulation
with the fake female which is usually
represented by the lowest petal and
there's also a pheromone component to
fool the males into thinking they have a
mating opportunity but the flower
doesn't have to give up energy energy in
the form of nectar as a lure because
it's tricking the males the other system
is a particular species of muscle lamp
bacillus in the clear streams of
Missouri and it fools bass into biting a
fleshy lip that contain its young and
when the bass see this fleshy lip which
looks exactly like a species of fish
that
the baths like to eat the the young
explode and clamp on to the gills and
parasitize the bass and also lose the
bass to redistribute them as they
eventually release both of these systems
you have a highly intelligent dupe being
fooled by a lower life-form and what is
sculpting these convincing lures it's
the intelligence of previously duped
targets for these strategies so when the
target is smart enough to avoid the
strategy those weaker mimics fall off
they have terminal lines and only the
better ones survive so it's an arms race
between the target species that is being
parasitized getting smarter and this
other less intelligent or non
intelligent object getting as if smarter
and so what you see is is that
artificial intelligence artificial
general intelligence is not needed to
parasitize us it's simply sufficient for
us to outwit ourselves so you could have
a program let's say you know one of
these Nigerian scams that writes letters
and uses whoever sends it Bitcoin to
figure out which aspects of the program
should be kept which should be varied
and thrown away and you don't need it to
be in any way intelligent in order to
have a really nightmarish scenario being
parasitized by something that has no
idea what it's doing so you you you
phrase a few cots have really eloquently
so let me try to uh as a few directions
this goes so one first on the way we
write software today it's not common
that we allow it to self modify hope we
do have that ability now we have the
ability it's just not common it's not
just common so so your your thought is
that that is a serious worry if there
becomes it's all Spotify encode is
available now so
there are different types of self
modification right there's a
personalization you know your email app
your gmail is self-modifying to you
after you log in or whatever you can
think of it that way but ultimately it's
central all the information is
centralized but you're thinking of ideas
where you're completely so this is an
unique entity operating under selective
pressures and it changes
well you just if you think about the
fact that our immune systems don't know
what's coming at them next but they have
a small set of spanning components and
if it's if it's a sufficiently
expressive system in that any shape or
binding region can be approximated with
with the Lego that is present then you
can have confidence that you don't need
to know what's coming at you because the
combinatorics are sufficient to reach
any configuration needed so that's a
beautiful thing well terrifying thing to
worry about because it's so within our
reach whatever I suggest these things I
do always have a concern as to whether
or not I will bring them into being by
talking about them so uh there's this
thing from open e I said next next week
to talk to the founder of open AI this
idea that their text generation the new
the new stuff they have for generating
text is they didn't want to bring it
they didn't want to release it because
they're worried about the I'm kind of
lighted to hear that but they're going
to end up really yes so that's the thing
is I think talking about it I'm well at
least from my end I'm more a proponent
of technology preventing techni so
further innovation preventing the
detrimental effects of innovation well
we're a we're sort of tumbling down a
hill at accelerating speed so whether or
not we're proponents or it doesn't mean
it may not matter but I do not well I do
feel that there are people who have held
things back
and you know died poorer than they might
have otherwise been and we don't even
know their names I don't think that we
should discount the idea that having the
smartest people showing off how smart
they are by what they've developed maybe
a terminal
process I'm very mindful in particular
of a beautiful letter that Edward Teller
of all people wrote to Leo Szilard where
Ziller was trying to free how to control
the use of atomic weaponry at the end of
World War two and tell her rather
strangely because many of us view him as
a monster showed some a very advanced
moral thinking talking about the slim
chance we have for survival and that the
only hope is to make Warren thinkable I
do think that not enough of us feel in
our gut what it is we are playing with
when we are working on technical
problems and I would recommend to anyone
who hasn't seen it a movie called the
bridge over the bridge on the river kwai
about I believe captured British POWs
who just in a desire to do a bridge well
end up over collaborating with their
Japanese captors well now you're making
me question the unrestricted open
discussion of ideas and AI I'm not
saying I know the answer I'm just saying
that I could make a decent case for
either our need to talk about this and
to become technologically focused on
containing it or need to stop talking
about this and try to hope that the
relatively small number of highly adept
individuals who are looking at these
problems is small enough that we should
in fact be talking about how to contain
them
well the way ideas the way innovation
happens what new ideas develop Newton
with calculus whether if he was silent
the idea would be would emerge elsewhere
well in the case of Newton of course but
you know it was in case of AI how small
is the set of individuals out of which
such ideas would arise well the idea is
that the researchers we know and those
that we don't know who may live in
countries that don't wish us to know
what what level they're currently at are
very disciplined and keeping these
things to themselves out of course I
will point out that there's a religious
school in Kerala that developed
something very close to the calculus
certainly in terms of infinite series in
in I guess religious prayer and and in
Ryman prose so you know it's not that
Newton had any ability to hold that back
and I don't really believe that we have
an ability to hold it back I do think
that we could change the proportion of
the time we spend worrying about the
effects what if we are successful rather
than simply trying to succeed note that
we'll be able to contain things later
beautifully put
so on the idea of all telogen s-- what
form treading cautiously is we've agreed
as we tumbled down the hill
what can top ourselves can we can we
cannot well form do you do you see it
taking so one example Facebook Google
what do want to I don't know a better
word you want to influence users to
behave a certain way and so that's one
kind of example of all telogen s-- is
systems perhaps modifying the behavior
of their these intelligent human beings
in order to sell more product of
different kind but do you see other
examples of this actually emerging in
just take any parasitic system you know
make sure that there's some way in which
that there's differential success
heritability and in variation and those
are the magic ingredients and if you
really wanted to build a nightmare
machine make sure that the system that
expresses the variability has a spanning
set so that it can learn to arbitrary
levels by making it sufficiently
expressive that's your nightmare so it's
your nightmare but it could also be as
it's a really powerful mechanism by
which to create well powerful systems so
are you more worried about the the
negative direction that might go versus
the positive so you said parasitic but
that doesn't necessarily need to be what
the system converges towards it could be
what is it not hirsutism the dividing
line between parasitism and symbiosis is
not so clear that's what they tell me
about marriage I'm still
so I know well yeah I did we could go
into that too but no I think we have to
appreciate you know are you infected by
your own mitochondria right right yeah
so you know in marriage you fear the
loss of Independence but even though the
American therapeutic community may be
very concerned about codependence what's
to say the codependence isn't what's
necessary to have a stable relationship
in which to raise children who are
maximally k-selected and require
incredible amounts of care because you
have to wait 13 years before there's any
reproductive payout and most of us don't
want our 13 year olds having kids as a
very tricky situation to analyze and I
would say that predators and parasites
Drive much of our evolution and I don't
know whether to be angry at them or
thank them well ultimately they I mean
nobody knows the meaning of life or what
even happiness is but there is some
metrics
did you tell you again they didn't
that's why all the poetry books are
about they you know there's some metrics
under which you can kind of measure how
good it is that these ACI systems are
roaming about so your mores you're more
nervous about software than you are
optimistic about ideas of yeah
self-replicating Lars I don't think
we've really felt where we are you know
occasionally
get a wake-up
9/11 was so anomalous compared to
everything we've out everything else
we've experienced on American soil that
it came to us as a complete shock that
that was even a possibility what it
really was was a highly creative and
determined R&D team deep in the bowels
of Afghanistan showing us that we had
certain exploits that we were open to
that nobody had chosen to express I can
think of several of these things that I
don't talk about publicly that just
seemed to have to do with how relatively
unimaginative those who wish to cause
havoc and destruction have been up until
now the great mystery of our time of
this particular little era is how
remarkably stable we've been since 1945
when we demonstrated the ability to use
nuclear weapons and anger and we don't
know why things like that haven't
happened since then we've had several
close calls we had mistakes we've had
brinksmanship and what's now happened is
that we've settled into a sense that oh
it's it'll always be nothing it's been
so long since something was at that
level of danger that we've got a wrong
idea in our head and that's why when I
went on the Ben Shapiro show I talked
about the need to resume above-ground
testing of nuclear devices because we
have people whose developmental
experience suggests that when let's say
Donald Trump and North Korea engage on
Twitter oh it's nothing it's just
posturing everybody's just in it for
money there's that there's an a sense
that people are in a video game mode
which has been the right call since 1945
we've been mostly in video game mode
it's amazing so you're worried about a
generation which has not seen any
existential but we've lived under it see
you're younger I don't know if any again
you came from from Moscow
there was a TV show called the day after
it had a huge effect on a generation and
growing up in the US and he talked about
what life would be like after a nuclear
exchange we have not gone through an
embodied experience collectively where
we've thought about this and I think
it's one of the most irresponsible
things that the elders among us have
done which is to provide this beautiful
garden in which the thorns are cut off
of the of the rose bushes and all of the
edges are rounded and sanded and so
people have developed this totally
unreal idea which is everything's going
to be just fine and do I think that my
leading concern is AGI or my leading
concern is thermonuclear exchange or
gene drives or any one of these things I
don't know but I know that our time here
in this very long experiment here is
finite because the toys that we've built
are so impressive and the wisdom to
accompany them has not materialized and
I think it's we actually got a wisdom
uptick since 1945 we had a lot of
dangerous skilled players on the world
stage nevertheless no matter how bad
they were managed to not embroil us in
something that we couldn't come back
from the Cold War yeah and the distance
from the Cold War you know I'm very
mindful of there was a Russian tradition
actually of on your wedding day going to
visit a memorial to those who gave their
lives can you imagine this or you your
happiest day of your life you go and you
pay homage to the people who fought and
died in the Battle of Stalingrad
I'm not a huge fan of communism I gotta
say but there were a couple of things
that the Russians did
that were really positive in the Soviet
era and I think trying to let people
know how serious life actually is is the
Russian model of seriousness is better
than the American model and maybe like
you mentioned there was a small echo of
that after 9/11 but that we wouldn't let
it form we talked about 9/11 but it's
912 that really moved the needle when we
were all just there and nobody wanted to
speak we suddenly we witness something
super serious and we didn't want to run
to
our computers and blast out our deep
thoughts and our feelings and it it was
profound because we woke up briefly
there you know I talked about the gated
institutional narrative and that sort of
programs our lives that I've seen it
break three times in my life one of
which was the election of Donald Trump
well another time was the fall of Lehman
Brothers when everybody who knew that
Bear Stearns wasn't that important knew
that Lehman Brothers met AIG was next
and the other one was 9/11 and so if I'm
53 years old and I only remember three
times that the global narrative was
really interrupted that tells you how
much we've been on top of developing
events you know I mean we had the murrah
Federal Building explosion but it didn't
cause the narrative to break wasn't
profound enough around nine twelve we
started to wake up out of our slumber
and the powers that be did not want to
coming together they you know the the
admonition was go shopping and the
powers would be was what is that force
as opposed to blaming individual we
don't know so whatever that whatever
that forces there's a sound holdin of it
that's emergent and there's a component
of it that's deliberate so give yourself
a portfolio with two components some
amount of it is emergent but some amount
of it is also an understanding if people
come together they become an incredible
force and what you're seeing right now I
think is there are forces that are
trying to come together and their forces
that are trying to push things apart and
you know one of them is the globalist
narrative versus the national narrative
where to the global a globalist
perspective the National Bank's in
essence that they're temporary they're
nationalistic they're jingoistic it's
all negative to people in the national
more in the national idiom they're
saying look this is where I pay my taxes
this is where I do my army service this
is where I have a vote this is where I
have a passport who the hell are you to
tell me
that because you've moved into some
place that you can make money globally
that you've chosen to abandon other
people to whom you have a special and
elevated duty and I think that these
competing narratives have been pushing
towards the global perspective from the
elite and a larger and larger number of
disenfranchised people are saying hey I
actually live in a in a place and I have
laws and I speak a language I have a
culture and who are you to tell me that
because you can profit in some faraway
land that my obligations to my fellow
countrymen are so so much diminished so
these tensions between nations and so on
ultimately you see being proud of your
country and so on which creates
potentially the kind of things that led
to Wars and so on they ultimately it is
human nature and it is good for us for
wake-up calls of different guys well I
think that these are tensions and my
point isn't I mean nationalism run amok
is a nightmare an internationalism run
amok is a nightmare and the problem is
we're trying to push these pendulums to
someplace where they're somewhat
balanced where we we have a higher duty
of care to those who share our log our
laws and our citizenship but we don't
forget our duties of care to the global
system I would think this is elementary
but the problem that we're facing
concerns the ability for some to profit
at the abandoned by abandoning their
obligations to others within their
system and that's what we've had for
decades he mentioned nuclear weapons I
was hoping to get answers from you since
one of the many things you've done as a
economics and maybe you can understand
human behavior why the heck we haven't
blown each other up yet but okay so well
good I know the answer yes it's a it's a
fast it's it's really important to say
that we really don't know and a mild
uptick in wisdom a mild uptick in wisdom
that's well Steven big pink it wasn't
who I've talked with his a lot of really
good ideas about why but no I I don't
trust his optimism
listen I'm Russian so I never trusting I
was that optimist no no it's just that
you're talking about a guy who's looking
at a system in which more and more of
the kinetic energy like war has been
turned into potential energy like unused
nuclear weapon Beata Filipa and you know
now I'm looking at that system and I'm
saying okay well if you don't have a
potential energy term then everything's
just getting better and better
yeah wow this has beautifully put only
in physicists good okay not a physicist
is that a dirty word no no I wish I were
a physicist
me too my dad's a physicist I'm trying
to live up that probably for the rest of
my life he's probably gonna listen to
this too so you did yeah so your friend
Sam Harris worries a lot about the
existential threat of AI not in the way
that you've described but in the more
well he hangs out with Elon I don't know
so are you worried about that kind of
you know about the about either robotic
systems or you know traditionally
defined AI systems essentially becoming
super intelligent much more intelligent
in human beings and getting well they
already are and they're not when seen as
a collective you mean well I mean I can
mean all sorts of things but certainly
many of the things that we thought were
peculiar to general intelligence or do
not require general intelligence so
that's been one of the big awakenings
that you can write a pretty convincing
sports story from stats alone without
needing to have watched the game
so you know is it possible to write
lively prose about politics yeah no not
yet
so we were sort of all over the map one
of the one of the things about chess
that you'll there's a question I once
asked on Quora that didn't get a lot of
response which was what is the greatest
brilliancy ever produced by a computer
in a chess game which was different than
the question of what is the greatest
chimera played so if you think about
brilliance ease is what really animates
many of us to think of chess as an art
form
those are those moves and combinations
that just show such Flair panache and
and and insole computers weren't really
great at that they were great positional
monsters and you know recently we've
started seeing brilliance ease yeah and
so if you're grandmasters have
identified with that without Fazil
that things work quite brilliant yeah so
that's it that's it you know that's an
example of something we don't think that
that's a GI but in a very restricted set
set of rules like chess you're starting
to see poetry of a high order and and so
I'm not I don't like the idea that we're
waiting for Asia a GI is sort of slowly
infiltrating our lives in the same way
that I don't think a worm should be you
know that C elegans shouldn't be treated
as non conscious because it only has 300
neurons and maybe just has a very low
level of consciousness because we don't
understand what these things mean as
they scale up so am I worried about this
general phenomena sure but I think that
one of the things that's happening is
that a lot of us are fretting about this
in part because of human needs
we've always been worried about the
Golem right well the gums the
artificially created life you know it's
like Frankenstein to ash or characters
it's a Jewish version and Frankenberg
frankerz yeah that's make sense that's
right so the but we've always been
worried about creating something like
this and it's getting closer and closer
and there are ways in which we have to
realize that the whole thing is kind of
with the whole thing that we've
experienced are the context of our lives
is almost certainly coming to an end
and I don't mean to suggest that we
won't survive I don't know and I don't
mean to suggest that it's coming
tomorrow it could be three hundred five
hundred years but there's no plan that
I'm aware of if we have three rocks that
we could possibly inhabit that are
sensible within current technological
dreams the earth and the Moon and Mars
and we have a very competitive
civilization that is still forced into
violence to sort out disputes that
cannot be arbitrated it is not clear to
me that we have a long-term future until
we get to the next stage which is to
figure out whether or not the
Einsteinian speed limit can be broken
and that requires our source code our
source code the stuff in our brains to
figure out what we mean by our source
code the source code of the context
whatever it is that produces the quarks
the electrons the neutrino our source
code I got it so this is your idea best
stuff that's written in a higher-level
language yeah yeah if that's right
you're talking about the low-level bits
so that's what is currently keeping us
here we can't even imagine you know we
have Harebrained Schemes for staying
within the Einsteinian speed limit you
know maybe if we could just drug
ourselves and go into a suspended State
or we could have multiple generations I
think all that stuff is pretty silly but
I think it's also pretty silly to
imagine that our wisdom is going to
increase to the point that we can have
the toys we have and we're not going to
use them for 500 years
speaking of Einstein I had a profound
break that when I realized you're just
one letter away from the guy yeah but
I'm also one letter away from Feinstein
it's well you get to pick okay so
unified theory you know you've worked
you you enjoy the beauty of geometry
well I don't actually know if you enjoy
it
you certainly are quite good at its
trouble before trembled before it that
if you're a religious that is one of the
can I have to be religious it's just so
beautiful you will tremble anyway I just
read I sign his biography and one of the
ways one of the things you've done is
tried to explore a unified theory
talking about a 14 dimensional observers
that has the 4G space-time continuum
embedded in in it i I just curious how
you think and how philosophically at a
high level about something more than
four dimensions how do you try to what
doesn't make you feel
talking in the mathematical world about
dimensions that are greater than the
ones we can perceive is is there
something that you take away that's more
than just the math well first of all
stick out your tongue at me okay now on
the front of that yeah there was a sweet
receptor and next to that were salt
receptors in two different sides a
little bit farther back there were sour
receptors and you wouldn't show me the
back of your tongue where your bitter
receptor with I'm sure the good side
always okay that was four dimensions of
taste receptors but you also had pain
receptors on that tongue and probably
heat receptors on that tongue so let's
simply get one of each that would be six
dimensions so when you eat something you
eat a slice of pizza and it's got some
some some hot pepper on it maybe some
jalapeno you're having six dimensional
experience dude do you think we
overemphasize the value of time as one
of the dimensions or space well we
certainly overemphasize the value of
time because we like things to start and
end or we really don't like things to
end but they seem to but what if you
flipped one of the spatial dimensions
into being a temporal dimension and you
and I were to meet in New York City and
say well where where and when should we
meet say how about I'll meet you on 36th
in Lexington at 2:00 in the afternoon
and eleven o'clock in the morning that
would be very confusing well so it's a
convenient for us to think about time
you mean all right we happen to be in a
delicious situation in which we have
three dimensions of space and one of
time and they're woven together in this
sort of strange fabric where we can
trade off a little space for a little
time but we still only have one
dimension that has picked out relative
to the other three it's very much Gladys
Knight and the pips
so which one developed four who did we
develop for these dimensions or did the
dimensions or were they always there and
it doesn't well do you imagine that
there isn't a place where there are four
temporal dimensions
two and two of space and time or three
of time in one of space and then would
time not be playing the role of space
why do you imagine that the sector that
you're in is all that there is I
certainly do not but I can't imagine
otherwise I mean I I haven't done
ayahuasca or any any of those drugs that
hope to one day but I said up doing
ayahuasca you could just head over to
building two that's where the
mathematicians are that's where they
hang just to look at some geometry we'll
just ask about pseudo Romani and
geometry that's what your interest is
okay or you could talk to a shaman and
end up in Peru and then it's an extra
money for I won't be able to do any
calculations if that's how you choose to
go about it well a different kind of
calculation so decide yeah one of my
favorite people Edward Frenkel Berkeley
professor author of love and math great
title for a book said that you were
quite a remarkable intellect to come up
with such beautiful original ideas in
terms of unified theory and so on but
you are working outside academia so one
question in developing idea as a truly
original truly interesting what's the
difference between inside academia and
outside academia when it comes to
developing such you know it's a terrible
choice terrible choice so if you do it
inside of academics you are forced to
constantly
show great loyalty to the Consensus and
you distinguish yourself with small
almost microscopic heresies to make your
reputation in general and you have very
competent people and brilliant people
who are working together who are
informed very deep social networks and
have a very high level of behavior at
least within mathematics and at least
technically within physics theoretical
physics when you go outside you meet
lunatics and crazy people mad men and
these are people who do not usually
subscribe to the consensus position and
almost always lose their way and the key
question is will progress likely come
from someone who is miraculously managed
to stay within the system and is able to
take on a larger amount of heresy that
is sort of unthinkable in which case
that will be fascinating or is it more
likely that somebody will maintain a
level of discipline from outside of
academics and be able to make use of the
freedom that comes from not having to
constantly affirm your loyalty to the
consensus of your field so you've
characterized in ways that I could
academia in this particular sense is
declining you are posted to plot the
older population of the faculty is
getting larger the younger is getting
smaller and so on
so what's which direction of the - are
you more hopeful about well the baby
boomers can't hang on forever
what's it first of all in general true
and second of all in academia but that's
really what what this time is about is
the baby
we didn't we're used to like financial
bubbles that last a few years in length
and then pop yeah the baby boomer bubble
is this really long-lived thing and all
of the ideology all of the behavior
patterns the norms
now for example string theory is an
almost entirely baby-boomer phenomena it
was something that baby boomers were
able to do because it required a very
high level of mathematical ability you
know you don't think of string theory as
an original idea oh I mean it was
original to Veneziano it probably is
older than the baby boomers and there
are people who are younger than the baby
boomers who are still doing string
theory and I'm not saying that nothing
discovered within the large strength
theoretical X is wrong quite the
contrary
a lot of brilliant mathematics and a lot
of the structure of physics was
elucidated by string theorists what do I
think of the deliverable nature of this
product that will not ship called string
theory I think that it is largely an
affirmative action program for highly
mathematically and geometrically
talented baby boomer physics physicists
so that they can say that they're
working on something within the
constraints of what they will say is
quantum gravity now there are other
schemes you know there's like asymptotic
safety there are other things that you
could imagine doing I don't think much
of any of the major programs but to have
inflicted this level of loyalty through
a Shibboleth well surely you don't
question XY question almost everything
in the string program and that's why I
got out of physics when you called me a
physicist it was a great honor but the
reason I didn't become a physicist
wasn't that I fell in love with
mathematics as I said Wow in 1984 1983 I
saw the field going mad and I saw that
mathematics which has all sorts of
problems was not going insane and so
instead of studying things within
physics I thought it was much safer to
study the same objects within
mathematics there's a huge price to pay
for that you lose physical intuition but
the point is is that it wasn't a North
Korean re-education camp either are you
hopeful about cracking open Einstein
five theory in a way that has been
really really understanding whether it's
the Uniting everything together with
quantum theory and so on I mean I'm
trying to play this role myself to do it
well the extent of handing it over to
the more responsible more professional
more competent community so I think that
they're wrong about a great number of
their belief structures but I do believe
I mean I have a really profound
love-hate relationship with this group
of people I think the physics side oh
yeah because the mathematicians actually
seem to be much more open minded and
well they are in there aren't they're
open minded about anything that looks
like great math right right they'll
study something that isn't very
important physics but if it's beautiful
mathematics then they'll have they have
great intuition about these things as
good as the mathematicians are and I
might even intellectually at some
horsepower level give them the edge the
theoretically reticle physics community
is bar none the most profound
intellectual community that we have ever
created it is the number one there is
nobody in second place as far as I'm
certain look in their spare time in the
spare time they invented molecular
biology well what was the original
molecular biology you're saying for
something like Francis Crick I mean a
lot of a lot of the early molecular
biologists well physicists yeah I mean
you know the Schrodinger wrote what is
life and that was highly inspirational I
mean you have to appreciate that there
is no community like the basic research
community in theoretical physics and
it's not something I'm highly critical
of these guys I think that they were
just wasted that you know decades of
time with and your religious devotion to
their Mis conceptualization of where the
problems were in physics but this has
been the greatest intellectual collapse
ever witnessed within academics you see
it as a collapse or just a lull oh I'm
terrified that we're about to lose the
vitality
we can't afford to pay these people we
can't afford to give them an accelerator
just to play with in case they find
something at the next energy level these
people created our economy they gave us
the rad lab and radar they gave us two
atomic devices to end World War two that
created the semiconductor and the
transistor to power our economy through
Moore's law as a positive externality of
particle accelerators that created the
world wide web and we have the insolence
to say why should we fund you with our
taxpayer dollars no the question is are
you enjoying your physics dollars right
these guys sign the world's worst
licensing agreement and if if they
simply charged for every time you used a
transistor or a URL or enjoyed the piece
that they have provided during this
period of time through the terrible
weapons that they developed or your
communications devices all of the things
that power our economy I really think
came out of physics even to the extent
the chemistry came out of physics and
molecular biology came out of physics so
first of all you have to know that I'm
very critical of this community second
of all it is our most important
community we have neglected it we've
abused it we don't take it seriously we
don't even care to get them to rehab
after a couple of generations of failure
all right no one I think the youngest
person to have really contributed to the
standard model of theater article-level
was born in 1951 all right Frank will
check and almost nothing has happened
that in theoretical physics after
1973-74 that sent somebody to Stockholm
for a theoretical development that
predicted experiment so we have to
understand that we are doing this to
ourselves now with that said these guys
have behaved abysmally in my opinion
because they haven't owned up to where
they actually are what problems they're
really facing how definite they can
actually be they haven't shared some of
their most brilliant
discoveries which are desperately needed
in other fields like gauge theory which
at least the mathematicians can can
share which is an upgrade of the
differential calculus of newton and
leibniz and they haven't shared the
importance of renormalization theory
even though this should be standard
operating procedure for people across
the sciences dealing with different
layers and different levels of phenomena
and so shared you mean communicated in
such a way that this it disseminates
throughout the different signs these
guys are sitting both theoretical
physicists and mathematicians are
sitting on top of a giant stock pile of
intellectual gold all right they have so
many things that have not been
manifested anywhere I was just one
Twitter I think I mentioned the harbor
man switch pitch that shows the self
duality of the tetrahedron realized as a
linkage mechanism now this is like a
triviality and it makes an amazing toy
that's you know built a market hopefully
a fortune for Chuck Hoberman well you
have no idea how much great stuff that
these priests have in their monastery so
it's truly a love and hate relationship
for you
yeah well it sounds like it's more on
the love this building that we're in
right here yes is the building in which
I really put together the conspiracy
between the National Academy of Sciences
the National Science Foundation through
the government university industry
research roundtable to destroy the
bargaining power of American academics
using foreign labor with on microfiche
not in the basement
oh yeah that was done here in this
building is that weird and I'm truly
speaking with a revolutionary and a
radical no no no no no no no no no no no
at an intellectual level
I am absolutely garden-variety I'm just
straight down the middle the system that
we are in this this university is
functionally insane Harvard is
functionally insane and we don't
understand that when we get these things
wrong the financial crisis made this
very clear there was a long period where
every grown-up everybody with a tie who
spoke in a you know in baritone
with the right degree in at the end of
their name which talking about how we
banished volunteer volatility we were in
the Great Moderation okay they were all
crazy and who was who was right it was
like Nassim Taleb right Nouriel Roubini
now what happens is is that they claimed
the market went went crazy but the
market didn't go crazy the market had
been crazy and what happened is is that
it suddenly went sane well that's where
we are with academics academics right
now is mad as a hatter and it's it's
absolutely evident I can show you a
graph after graph I can show you the
internal discussions I can show you the
conspiracies Harvard's dealing with one
right now over its admissions policies
for people of color who happened to come
from Asia all of this madness is
necessary to keep the game going what
we're talking about
just on where around the topic of
revolutionaries is we're talking about
the danger of an outbreak of sanity yeah
you're the guy pointing out the elephant
in the room here and the elephant has no
clothes see how that goes I was gonna
talk a little bit to uh Joe Rogan about
this man at a time well I think you're
you have some you just listen to you you
could probably speak really eloquently
to academia on the difference between
the different fields so you think
there's a difference between science
engineering and then the humanities in
academia in terms of tolerance that
they're willing to tolerate so from my
perspective I thought computer science
and maybe engineering is more tolerant
to radical ideas but that's perhaps
innocent of me is that I always you know
all the battles going on now are a
little bit more in the humanity side and
Gender Studies and so on have you seen
the American Mathematical Society
publication of an essay called get out
the way and not what's what's the idea
is that white men who hold positions
within universities and mathematics
should vacate their positions so that
young black women can take over or
something like this that's in terms of
diversity which I also want to ask you
about but in terms of diversity of
strictly ideas sure do you think because
you're basically saying physics as a
community has become a little bit
intolerant to some degree to new radical
ideas or at least you you say that's
changed a little bit recently which is
that even string theory is now admitting
okay we don't this doesn't look very
promising in the short term right so the
question is what compiles if you want to
take the computer science metaphor what
will get you into a journal will you
spend your life trying to push some
paper into a journal or will it be
accepted easily what do we know about
the characteristics of the submitter and
what gets taken up and what does not all
of these fields are experiencing
pressure because no field is performing
so brilliantly well that it's
revolutionizing our way of speaking and
thinking in the ways in which we've
become accustomed but don't you think
even in theoretical physics a lot of
times even with theories X string theory
you could speak to this it does
eventually - what are the ways that this
theory would be testable and so
ultimately although look there's this
thing about popper and the scientific
method that's a cancer in a disease and
the minds of very smart people that's
not really how most of the stuff gets
worked out it's how it gets checked all
right so there is a dialogue between
theory and experiment but everybody
should read Paul Dirac's 1963 American
Scientific American article where he you
know it's very interesting he talks
about it as if it was about the
Schrodinger equation and Schrodinger's
failure to advance his own work because
of his failure to account for some
phenomenon the key point is that if your
theory is a slight bit off it won't
agree with experiment but it doesn't
mean that the theory is actually wrong
but Dirac could as easily have been
talking about his own equation in which
he predicted that the electrons should
have an antiparticle and since the only
positively charged particle that was
known at the time was the proton
Heisenberg pointed out well shouldn't
your antiparticle the proton have the
same mass as the electron and doesn't
that invalidate your theory so I think
that Dirac was actually being quite
potentially quite sneaky and talking
about the fact that he had been pushed
off of his own theory to some extent by
Heisenberg but look we've fetishized the
scientific method and popper and
falsification because it protects us
from crazy ideas entering the field so
you know it's a question of balancing
type 1 and type 2 error and we're pretty
we were pretty maxed out in one
direction the opposite of that let me
say what comforts me sort of biology or
engineering at the end of the day does
the thing work yeah you can test the
crazies away and the crazy eight well
see now you're saying but some ideas are
truly crazy and some are are actually
correct so well there's pre correct
currently crazy yeah right and so you
don't want to get rid of everybody who's
pre correct and currently crazy the
problem is is that we don't have
standards in general for trying to
determine who has to be put to the sword
in terms of their career and who has to
be protected as some sort of giant
time-suck pain in the ass who may change
everything do you think that's possible
creating a mechanism of those select
well you're not gonna like the answer
but here it comes song boy
it has to do with very human elements
we're trying to do this at the level of
like rules and fairness it's not going
to work because the only thing that
really understands this yeah read that
read the double-helix it's a book
oh-ho-ho-ho-ho you have like to read
this book not only did Jim Watson half
discover this three-dimensional
structure of DNA he's also one hell of a
writer before he became an ass that no
he's tried to destroy his own reputation
I knew about the ass I didn't know about
the good writer Jim Watson is one of the
most important people now living and as
I've said before Jim Watson is too
important a legacy to be left to Jim
Watson and that book tells you more
about what actually moves the dial and
there's another story about him which I
do don't agree with which is that he
stole everything from rosalind Franklin
I mean the the problems that he had with
rosalind Franklin are real but we should
actually honor that tension in our
history by delving into it rather than
having a simple solution Jim Watson
talks about Francis Crick being a pain
in the ass that everybody secretly knew
was super brilliant and there's an
encounter between chargaff came up with
the the equimolar relations between the
nucleotides who should have gotten the
structure of DNA and Watson and Crick
and you know he talks about missing a
shiver in the heartbeat of biology and
stuff is so gorgeous it just makes you
tremble even thinking about it look we
know very often who is to be feared and
we need to fund the people that we fear
the people who are wasting our time need
to be excluded from the conversation you
see and you know maybe we'll make some
errors in both directions but we have
known our own people we know the pains
and the asses that might work out and we
know the people who are really just
blowhards who really have very little to
contribute most of the time
it's not 100% but you're not going to
get there with rules right it's using
some kind of instinct I mean I to be
honest I'm gonna make you roll your eyes
for a second but and the first time I
heard that there is a large community of
people who believe the earth is flat
actually made me pause and ask myself
the question why would there be such a
community yeah is it possible the earth
is flat so I had to like wait a minute
I mean then you go through a thinking
process that I think is really healthy
it ultimately ends up being a geometry
thing I think it's an interesting it's
an interesting thought experiment at the
very least well is I don't I do a
different version I say why is this
community stable yeah that's a good way
to analyze it what interesting that
whatever we've done has not erased the
community so you know they're taking a
longshot bet that won't pan out you know
maybe we just haven't thought enough
about the rationality of the square root
of two and somebody brilliant we'll
figure it out maybe we will eventually
land one day on the surface of Jupiter
and explore it right these are crazy
things that will never happen so much as
social media operates by AI algorithms
you talked about this a little bit
recommending the content you see so on
this idea of radical thought how much
should a I show you things you disagree
with on Twitter and so on in Twitter or
at verse in it about these nice clothes
yeah yeah cuz you don't know the answer
no no no look we've been that they've
pushed out this cognitive Lego to us
that will just lead to madness it's good
to be challenged with things that you
disagree with the answer is no it's good
to be challenged with interesting things
with which you currently disagree but
that might be true so I don't really
care about whether or not I disagree
with something or don't disagree I need
to know why that particular disagreeable
thing is being pushed out is it because
it's likely to be true is it because is
there some reason because I can write I
can write a computer generator to come
up with an infinite number of
disagreeable statements that nobody
needs to look at so please before you
push things at me that
or disagreeable tell me why there is an
aspect in which that question is quite
dumb especially because it's being used
to almost very generically by these
different networks to say well we're
trying to work this out but you know
basically how much do you see the value
of seeing things you don't like
not you disagree with because it's very
difficult to know exactly what you
articulated which is the stuff that's
important for you to consider that you
disagree with that's really hard to
figure out the bottom line is the stuff
you don't like if you are a Hillary
Clinton supporter you may not want to
you it might not make you feel good to
see anything about Donald Trump that's
the only thing algorithms can really
optimize for currently everything no
they can do better this is weird think
so now we're engaged in some moronic
back-and-forth where I have no idea why
people who are capable of building
Google Facebook Twitter are having us in
these incredibly low level discussions
do they not know any smart people do
they not have the phone numbers of
people who can elevate these discussions
they do but this then optimizing for a
different thing and they are pushing
those people out of those rooms they're
they're optimizing for things we can't
see
and yes profit is there nobody nobody's
questioning that but they're also
optimizing for things like political
control or the fact that they're doing
business in Pakistan and so they don't
want to talk about all the things that
they're going to be bending to in
Pakistan so that we're involved in a
fake discussion you think so you think
these conversations at that depth are
happening inside Google you don't think
they have some basic metrics under user
engagements you're having a fake
conversation with us guys we know you're
having a fake conversation I do not wish
to be part of your fake conversation you
know how to cool you know these units
you know high availability like nobody's
business my Gmail never goes down
almost see you think just because they
can do incredible work on the software
side with infrastructure they can also
deal with some of these difficult
questions about human behavior human
understanding human you're not you
thinking I mean I've seen that I've seen
the developers screens that people take
shots of inside of Google yeah
and I've heard stories inside of
Facebook and Apple we're not we're
engaged they're engaging us in the wrong
conversations we are not at this low
level here's one of my favorite
questions why is every piece of hardware
that I purchase and in in tech space
equipped as a listening device where's
my physical shudder to cover my lens we
had this in the 1970s a cameras that had
lens caps you know how much would it
cost to have a security model pay five
extra bucks
why is my indicator light software
controlled why when my camera is on do I
not see that the light is on by putting
it as a something that cannot be
bypassed why have you set up my all my
devices it's some difficulty to
yourselves as listening devices and we
don't even talk about this this is this
thing is total fucking bullshit yeah
well I hope these discussions are
happening about privacy this is their
different more difficult thing you're
giving it's not just privacy yeah it's
about social control we're talking about
social control why do I not have
controls over my own levers just have a
really cute UI where I can switch I can
dial things or I can at least see what
the algorithms are you think that there
is some deliberate choices being made
here is emergence and there is intention
there are two dimensions and the vector
does not collapse onto either axis but
the idea that anybody who suggests that
intention is completely absent is a
child that's really beautifully put and
like many things you've said is gonna
make me connections can I turn this
around slightly look yeah I sit down
with you and you say that you're
obsessed with my feet
uh-huh I don't even know what my feet is
what are you seeing that I'm not
I was obsessively looking through your
feed
on Twitter because it was really
enjoyable because there's the Tom layer
element is the humor in it by the way
that feed is Eric or once yeah i'm
twitter edgar ik are weinstein answers
it why why did i find any enjoyable or
what it was I seeing what are you
looking for why are we doing this
what is this podcast about I know you've
got all these interesting people I'm
just some guy is sort of a podcast gift
sort of vodcast you know you're wearing
a tie I mean not even we're not even a
serious interview searching for meaning
for happiness for a dopamine rush so
short term and long term and how are you
finding your way to me what it what it
what is I don't honestly know what I'm
doing to reach you the representing
ideas which feel common sense to me and
not many people are speaking so it's
kind of like the dog the intellectual
dark web folks right they these folks
from Sam Harris to Jordan Peterson to
yourself are saying things where it's
like you're like saying look there's an
elephant he's not wearing any clothes
and I say yeah yeah let's have more of
that conversation that's how I'm finding
you I'm desperate to try to change the
conversation we're having I'm very
worried we've got an election in 2020 I
don't think we can afford four more
years of a misinterpreted message which
is what Donald Trump was and I don't
want the destruction of our institutions
they all seem hell-bent on destroying
themselves so I'm trying to save
theoretical physics trying to save the
New York Times trying to save our
various processes and I think it feels
delusional to me that this is falling to
a tiny group of people who are willing
to speak out without getting so freaked
out that everything they say will be
misinterpreted and that their lives will
be ruined through the process I mean I
think we're in an absolutely bananas
period of time and I don't believe it
should fall to such a tight
number of shoulders to shit shoulder
this way so I have to ask you on the
capitalism side you mentioned that
technology is killing capitalism or it
has effects that are unintended but not
what economists would predict or speak
of capitalism creating I just want to
talk to you about in general the effect
of even an artificial intelligence or
technology automation taking away jobs
in these kinds of things and what you
think is the way to alleviate that
whether the and rank presidential
candidate with universal basic income
ubi whether your thoughts there how do
we fight off the negative effects of
technology that aren't your software guy
right yeah a human being is a worker is
an old idea yes a human being has a
worker is a different object all right
yeah so if you think about
object-oriented programming as a
paradigm a human being has a worker and
a human being has a soul we're talking
about the fact that for a period of time
the worker that a human being has was in
a position to feed the soul that a human
being has however we have two separate
claims on the value in society one is as
a worker and the other is as a soul and
the soul needs sustenance it needs
dignity it needs meaning it needs
purpose as long as your means of support
is not highly repetitive I think you
have a while to go before you need to
start worrying but if what you do is
highly repetitive and it's not terribly
generative you weren't in the cross
hairs of four four loops and while loops
and that's what computers excel at
repetitive behavior and when I say
repetitive I mean meat I mean things
that have never happened be through
combinatorial possibilities but as long
as it has a looped characteristic to it
you're in trouble we are seeing a
massive push towards socialism because
capitalists are slow to address the fact
that a worker may not be able to make
claims a relatively on
languished median member of our society
still has needs to reproduce needs to
head to dignity and when capitalism
abandons the median individual or you
know the bottom tenth or whatever it's
going to do it's flirting with
revolution and what concerns me is that
the capitalists aren't sufficiently
capitalistic to understand this you
really want to court authoritarian
control in our society because you can't
see that people may not be able to
defend themselves in the marketplace
because the marginal product of their
labor is too low to feed their dignity
as a soul so it my great concern is that
our free society has to do with the fact
that we are self organized I remember
looking down from my office in Manhattan
when Lehman Brothers collapsed in
thinking who's going to tell all these
people that they need to show up at work
when they don't have a financial system
to incentivize them to show up at work
so my complaint is first of all not with
the Socialists but with the capitalists
which is you guys are being idiots
you're courting revolution by continuing
to harp on the same old ideas that well
you know try and try harder bootstrap
yourself yeah to an extent that works to
an extent but we are clearly headed in
place that there's nothing that ties
together our need to contribute and our
need to consume and that may not be
provided by capitalism because it may
have been a temporary phenomena so check
out my article on anthropic capitalism
and the new gimmick economy I think
people are late getting the wake-up call
and we would be doing a better job
saving capitalism from itself because I
don't want this done under authoritarian
control and the more we insist that
everybody who's not thriving in our
society during their reproductive years
in order to have a family is failing at
a personal level I mean what a
disgusting thing that we're saying what
would horrible message who who the hell
have we become that we've so bought into
the chicago model
that we can't see the humanity that
we're destroying in that process and
it's I hate I hate the thought of
communism I really do my family has
flirted with it decades past it's a
wrong bad idea but we are going to need
to figure out how to make sure that
those souls are nirn nourished and
respected and capitalism better have an
answer and I'm betting on capitalism but
I got to tell you I'm pretty
disappointed with my team so you're
still on the capitalism team you just uh
there's a theme here graphical reticle
capital right right on capitalism yeah I
want
I think hyper capitalism is gonna have
to be coupled to hyper socialism you
need to allow the most productive people
to create wonders and you've got to stop
bogging them down with all of these
extra nice requirements you know nice is
dead good has a future nice doesn't have
a future because nice ends up with with
goo legs damn that's a good line okay
last question you tweeted today a simple
quite insightful equation saying imagine
that every unit F of Fame you picked up
s stalkers and H haters so I imagine s
and H or dependent on your path to fame
perhaps a little bit but it's not as
simple people always take these things
literally when you have like 280
characters to explain yourself
[Laughter]
Soumya that's not a mathematical no
there's no law okay okay I just said why
I put the word imagine because I have
loved a mathematician desire for
precision you imagine that this were
true but it was a beautiful way to
imagine that there is a law that has
those variables in it and you've become
quite famous these days so how do you
yourself optimize that equation with the
peculiar kind of Fame that you have
gathered along the way I want to be
kinder I want to be kinder to myself I
want to be kinder to others I want to be
able to have heart
compassion or these things are really
important and I have a pretty spectrum
II kind of approach to analysis I'm
quite literal I can go full Rainman on
you at any given moment no I can yeah
its faculties of autism if you like and
people are gonna get angry because they
want autism to be respected but when you
see me coding or you see me doing
mathematics I'm you know I speak with
speech apnea uh me right Debra dinner
you know yeah we have to try to
integrate ourselves and those tensions
between you know it's sort of back to us
as a worker and us as a soul many of us
are optimizing one to thee at the
expense of the other and I struggle with
social media and I struggle with people
making threats against our families and
I struggle with just how much pain
people are in and if there's one message
I would like to push out there you're
responsible everybody all of us myself
included was struggling struggle
struggle mightily because you it's
nobody else's job to do your struggle
for you now with that said if you're
struggling and you're trying and you're
trying to figure out how to better
yourself and where you failed where
you've let down your family your friends
your worker is all this kind of stuff
give yourself a break
you know if if if it's not working out I
have a life long relationship with
failure and success
there's been no period of my life where
both haven't been present in one form or
another and I I do wish to say that a
lot of times people think this is
glamorous I'm about to go you know do a
show with Sam Harris people are gonna
listen in on two guys having a
conversation on stage it's completely
crazy when I'm always trying to figure
out how to make sure that those people
get maximum value and that's why I'm
doing this podcast you know just give
yourself a break you owe us you owe us
your struggle you don't owe your family
or your co-workers or your lovers or
your family members success as long as
you're in there and you're picking
yourself up recognize that this this new
situation with the economy that doesn't
have
juice to sustain our institutions has
caused the people who've risen to the
top of those institutions to get quite
brutal and cruel everybody is lying at
the moment nobody's really a truth
teller try to keep your humanity about
you try to recognize that if you're
failing if things aren't where you want
them to be and you're struggling and
you're trying to figure out what you're
doing wrong which you could do it's not
necessarily all your fault we are in a
global situation I have not met the
people who are honest kind good
successful nobody that I've met this
chick is checking all the boxes
nobody's getting all tens so I just
think that's an important message that
doesn't get pushed out enough either
people want to hold society responsible
for their failures which is not
reasonable you have to struggle you have
to try or they want to say you're a
hundred percent responsible for your
failures which is total nonsense
beautifully put Eric thank you so much
for talking today thanks for having me
buddy
you