Bret Weinstein: Truth, Science, and Censorship in the Time of a Pandemic | Lex Fridman Podcast #194

the following is a conversation with. Brett Weinstein evolutionary biologist. author co-host of the Dark Horse podcast. and as he says reluctant radical even. though we've never met or spoken before. this we both felt like we've been. friends for a long time I don't agree on. everything with Brett but I'm sure as. hell happy he exists in this weird and. wonderful world of ours. quick mention of our sponsors Jordan. Harbor to show expressvpn magic spoon.

and for sigmatic check them out in the. description to support this podcast. as a side note let me say a few words. about covid-19 and about science broadly. I think science is beautiful and. Powerful it is the striving of the human. mind to understand and to solve the. problems of the world. but as an institution it is susceptible. to the flaws of human nature to fear to. Greed power and ego. 2020 is the story of all of these that.

has both scientific Triumph and tragedy. we needed great leaders and we didn't. get them what we needed is leaders who. communicate in an honest transparent and. authentic way about the uncertainty of. what we know and the large-scale. scientific efforts to reduce that. uncertainty and to develop Solutions. I believe there are several candidates. for solutions that could have all saved. hundreds of billions of dollars and. lessened or eliminated the suffering of. millions of people.

let me mention five of the categories of. solutions masks at home testing. anonymized contact tracing antiviral. drugs and vaccines within each of these. categories institutional leaders should. have constantly asked and answered. publicly honestly the following three. questions one what data do we have on. the solution and what studies are we. running to get more and better data two. given the current data and uncertainty. how effective and how safe is the.

solution three what is the timeline and. cost involved with mass manufacturing. distribution of the solution. and the service of these questions no. voices should have been silenced no. ideas left off the table open data open. science open on a scientific. communication and debate was the way not. censorship. there are a lot of ideas out there that. are bad wrong dangerous but the moment. we have the hubris to say we know which. ideas those are is the moment we'll lose.

our ability to find the truth to find. Solutions the very things that make. science beautiful and Powerful in the. face of all the dangers that threaten. the well-being and the existence of. humans on Earth. this conversation with Brett is less. about the ideas we talk about we agree. on some disagree on others it is much. more about the very freedom to talk to. think to share ideas this freedom is our. only hope Brett should never have been. censored I asked Brad to do this podcast.

to show solidarity and to show that I. have hope for Science and for Humanity. this is the Lux Friedman podcast and. here's my conversation with Brett. Weinstein. what to you is beautiful about the study. of biology the science the engineering. the philosophy of it it's a very. interesting question I must say at one. level. it's not a conscious thing I can say a. lot about why as an adult I find biology.

compelling but as a kid I was completely. fascinated with animals I loved to watch. them and think about why they did what. they did and that developed into a very. conscious passion as an adult but I. think. uh in the same way that one is drawn to. a person I was drawn to the never-ending. series of near Miracles that exists.

across biological nature when you see a. living organism do you see it from an. evolutionary biology perspective of like. this entire thing that moves around in. this world or do you see like from an. engineering perspective that like uh. first principles almost down to the. physics like the little components that. build up hierarchies they have cells if. the first proteins and cells and organs. and all that kind of stuff so you see. low level or do you see high level.

well the human mind is a strange thing. and I think it's probably a bit like a. time sharing machine in which I have. different modules we don't know enough. about biology for them to connect right. so they exist in isolation and I'm. always aware that they do connect but I. basically have to step into a module in. order to see The evolutionary dynamics. of the creature and the lineage that it. belongs to I have to step into a. different module to think of that. lineage over a very long time scale a.

different module still to understand. what the mechanisms inside would have to. look like to account for what we can see. from the outside and. I think that probably sounds really. complicated but. one of the things about being. involved in a topic like biology and. doing so for one you know really not. even just my adult life for my whole. life is that it becomes second nature. and you know when when we see somebody.

do an amazing Parkour routine or. something like that. we think about what they must be doing. in order to accomplish that but of. course what they are doing is tapping. into some kind of zone right they are in. a Zone in which they are in such. command of their center of gravity for. example that they know how to hurl it. around a landscape so that they always. land on their feet.

um and I would just say. for anyone who hasn't found a topic on. which they can develop that kind of. facility it is absolutely worthwhile. it's really something that human beings. are capable of doing across a wide range. of topics many things our ancestors. didn't even have access to and that. flexibility of humans that ability to. repurpose our machinery for topics that. are novel means really the world is your.

oyster you can you can figure out what. your passion is and then figure out all. of the angles that one would have to. pursue to really deeply understand it. and it is uh it is well worth having at. least one topic like that you mean. embracing the full adaptability of the. both the the body and the mind so like. because I don't know what to attribute. to parkour to like biomechanics of how. our bodies can move. or is it the mind like how much percent. wise is it the entirety.

of the hierarchies of biology that we've. been talking about or is it just all. the mind the way to think about. creatures is that every creature is two. things simultaneously a creature is a. machine of sorts right it's not a. machine in in the you know it's it's I. call it an aqueous machine right and. it's run by an aqueous computer right so. it's not identical to our our. technological machines but.

every creature is both a machine that. does things in the world sufficient to. accumulate enough resources to continue. surviving to reproduce. it is also a potential so each creature. is potentially. for example the most recent common. ancestor of some future clate of. creatures that will look very different. from it and if a creature is very very. good at being a creature but not very. good in terms of the potential it has. going forward then that lineage will not. last very long into the future because.

change will throw at challenges that its. descendants will not be able to meet so. the thing about humans is we are a. generalist platform. and we have the ability to swap out our. software to exist in many many different. niches and I was once watching a an. interview with with this uh British. group of Parkour experts who were being. you know just they were discussing what.

it is they do and how it works and what. they essentially said is look you're. tapping into deep monkey stuff. right and I thought yeah that's about. right and you know anybody who. is proficient at something like skiing. or skateboarding you know has the. experience of. flying down the hill on skis for example. bouncing from the top of one Mogul to. the next and if you really pay attention.

you will discover that your conscious. mind is actually a spectator it's there. it's involved in the experience but it's. not driving some part of you knows how. to ski and it's not the part of you that. knows how to think and. I would just say that the what accounts. for this flexibility in humans is the. ability to bootstrap a new software. program. and then drive it into the unconscious. layer where it can be applied very. rapidly. and you know I will be shocked if the.

exact thing doesn't exist in robotics. you know if you if you programmed a. robot to deal with circumstances that. were novel to it how would you do it it. would have to look something like this. this is a certain kind of magic. you're right well the Consciousness. being an observer when you play guitar. for example or piano for me music. when you get truly lost in it I don't. know what the heck is responsible for. the flow of the music the kind of the.

loudness of the music going up and down. the timing the intricate like even the. mistakes all those things that doesn't. seem to be the conscious mind. uh it's it is just observing and yet. it's somehow intricately involved more. like because you mentioned parkour the. dance is like that too when you start. I've been Tango dancing if when you. truly lose yourself in it. then it's just like you're an observer. and how the hell is the body able to do. that and not only that it's the physical.

motion is also creating the emotion the. like that damn was good to be alive. feeling. so but then that's also intricately. connected to the full biology stack that. we're operating in I don't know how. difficult it is to replicate that we're. talking offline about Boston Dynamics. robots. um they've recently been they did both. parkour they did flips they've also done.

some dancing. and something I think a lot about. because what most people don't realize. because they don't look deep enough as. those robots are hard-coded to do those. things. the the robots didn't figure it out by. themselves and yet the the fundamental. aspect of what it means to be human is. that process of figuring out of making. mistakes and then there's something. about overcoming those challenges and. the mistakes and like figuring out how. to lose yourself in the magic of the.

dancing. uh or just movement is what it means to. be human that learning process so that's. what I want to do with the with the uh. almost as a fun side thing with the the. Boston Dynamics robots is to have them. learn and see what they figure out. even if it even if they make mistakes I. want to let. spot make mistakes and and so doing. discover what it means to be alive.

discover Beauty because I think that's. the essential aspect of mistakes. Boston Dynamics folks want spot to be. perfect because they don't want spot to. ever make mistakes because it wants to. operate in the factories it wants to be. you know very safe and so on for me if. you construct the environment if you. construct a safe space for robots and. allow them to make mistakes Something. Beautiful might be discovered but that. requires a lot of brain power so spot is.

currently very dumb. and I'm going to add it give it a brain. so first make it C currently can't see. meaning computer vision has to. understand this environment has to see. all the humans but then also has to be. able to learn learn about its movement. learn how to use his body to communicate. with others all those kinds of things. the dogs know how to do well humans know. how to do somewhat well I think that's a. beautiful challenge but first you have. to allow the robot to make mistakes well.

I think. um your objective is laudable but you're. going to realize that the Boston. Dynamics folks are right the first time. spot poops on your rug. I hear the same thing about kids and so. on yeah but I still want to have kids no. you should it's it's a great experience. um so let me step back into what you. said in a couple of different places one. I have always believed that the missing. element in robotics and artificial. intelligence is a proper development.

right it is no accident it is no mere. coincidence that human beings are the. most dominant species on planet Earth. and that we have the longest childhoods. of any creature on Earth by far right. the development is the key to the. flexibility and so uh the capability of. a human at adulthood is the mirror image. it's the flip side of our helplessness. at Birth so I'll be very interested to.

see what happens in your uh robot. project if you do not end up Reinventing. childhood for robots which of course is. foreshadowed in 2001 quite brilliantly. but I also want to point out you can you. can see this issue of your conscious. mind becoming a spectator very well if. you compare tennis to table tennis. right if you watch a tennis game. you could imagine that the players are. highly conscious as they play.

you cannot imagine that if you've ever. played ping pong decently a volley in. ping pong is so fast that your conscious. mind if it had if your reactions had to. go through your conscious mind you. wouldn't be able to play so you can. detect that your conscious mind while. very much present isn't there and you. can also detect where Consciousness does. usefully intrude if you go up against an. opponent in table tennis that knows a. trick that you don't know how to respond.

to you will suddenly detect that. something about your game is not. effective and you will start thinking. about what might be how do you position. yourself so that move that puts the ball. just in that corner of the table or. something like that doesn't catch you. off guard and. this I believe is. we highly conscious folks those of us. who try to think through things very. deliberately and carefully. mistake Consciousness for like the. highest kind of thinking and I really.

think that this is an error. Consciousness is an intermediate level. of thinking what it does is it allows. you it's basically like uncompiled code. and it doesn't run very fast it is. capable of being adapted to new. circumstances but once the code is. roughed in right it gets driven into the. unconscious layer and you become highly. effective at whatever it is and that. from that point your conscious mind. basically remains there to detect things. that aren't anticipated by the code. you've already written and so.

I don't exactly know how. one would establish this how one would. demonstrate it but it must be the case. that the human mind contains. sandboxes in which things are tested. right maybe you can build a piece of. code and run it in parallel next to your. active code so you can see how it would. have done comparatively but there's got. to be some way of writing new code and. then swapping it in and frankly I think. this has a lot to do with things like.

sleep cycles very often you know when I. get good at something I often don't get. better at it while I'm doing it I get. better at it when I'm not doing it. especially if there's time to sleep and. think on it so there's some sort of you. know new program swapping in for old. program phenomenon which. um. you know will be a lot easier to see in. machines it's going to be hard with the. the wet wear I like I mean it is true. because somebody that played I played. tennis for many years. I do still think the highest form of.

excellence in tennis is when the. conscious mind is a spectator so it's. the compiled code is the. highest form of Being Human and then. Consciousness is just some like specific. compiler you just have like Borland C. plus plus compiler you could just have. different kind of compilers ultimately. the the thing that by which we measure. the. the power of Life the intelligence of.

life is the compiled code and you can. probably do that compilation all kinds. of ways yeah yeah I'm not saying that. tennis is played consciously and table. tennis isn't I'm saying that because. tennis is slowed down by the just the. space on the court you could you could. imagine that it was your conscious mind. playing but when you shrink the court. down that was obvious it becomes obvious. that your conscious mind is just present. rather than knowing where to put the. paddle and weirdly for me. um I would say this probably isn't true. in a podcast situation.

but if I have to give a presentation uh. especially if I have not overly prepared. I often find the same phenomenon when. I'm giving the presentation my conscious. mind is there watching some other part. of me present which uh is a little. jarring I have to say. well that means you've you've gotten. good at it not let the conscious mind. get in the way of the flow of words. yeah that's that's the sensation to be. sure and that's the highest form of. podcasting too I mean that's why I have.

that that's what it looks like when a. podcast is really in the pocket like. like Joe. Rogan just having fun. and just losing themselves and that's. that's something I aspire to as well. just losing yourself in conversation. somebody that has a lot of anxiety with. people like I'm such an introvert I'm. scared I'm scared before you showed up. I'm scared right now. um there's just anxiety there's just. it's a giant mess uh it's hard to Lose. Yourself it's hard to just. get out of the way of your own mind yeah.

actually uh trust is a big component of. that your your conscious mind retains. control if you are very uncertain. um but when you do when you do get into. that zone when you're speaking I realize. it's different for you with English as a. second language although maybe you. present in Russian and and you know and. it happens but do you ever hear yourself. say something and you think oh that's. really good. right like like you didn't come up with. it some other part of you that you don't. exactly know.

came up with it I I don't think. I've ever heard myself. in that way because I have a much louder. voice that's constantly yelling in my. head at why the hell did you say that. there's a very self-critical voice. that's much louder so I'm very. um maybe I need to deal with that voice. but it's been like with what is it. called like a megaphone just screaming. so I can't hear it oh no it says good. job you said that thing really nicely so. I'm kind of focused right now on on the.

megaphone person in the audience versus. the the positive but that's definitely. something to think about it's been. productive. but. you know the the place where I find. gratitude and beauty and appreciation of. Life is In The Quiet Moments When I. don't talk when I listen to the world. around me when I listen to others. um when I talk I'm extremely. self-critical in my mind uh when I when. I produce anything out into the world. that's that originated with me like any.

kind of creation extremely self-critical. it's good for productivity for like. always striving to improve and so on. it might be bad for. for like just appreciating the things. you've created I'm a little bit with. Marvin. Minsky on this where he says the the key. to. um. to a productive life is to hate. everything you've ever done in the past. I didn't know he said that I must say I.

resonate with it a bit. and you know I I unfortunately my life. currently has me putting a lot of stuff. into the world and I effectively. watch almost none of it I can't stand it. yeah what what do you make of that I. don't know I just recently I just. yesterday read um metamorphosis by kind. of re-read metamorphosis by Kafka where. he turns into John Bug because of the. stress that the world puts on him. his parents put on him to succeed and.

you know I think that's you have to find. the balance. because if you if you allow the. self-critical voice to become too heavy. the burden of the world the pressure. that the world puts on you to be the. best version of yourself and so on to. strive. then. you become a bug and that's a big. problem and then uh and then and then. the World Turns against you. because you're a bug you become some. kind of caricature of yourself uh I.

don't know. become the worst version of yourself and. then thereby end up destroying yourself. and then the world moves on that's the. story that's a lovely story. I do think this is one of these places. and frankly you could map this onto all. of modern Human Experience but this is. one of these places where our ancestral. programming does not serve our modern. selves yeah so I used to talk to. students about the question of dwelling. on things you know dwelling on things is.

famously understood to be bad. and it can't possibly be that it. wouldn't exist a tendency toward it. wouldn't exist if it was bad. so what is bad is dwelling on things. past the point of utility. and. you know that's obviously easier to say. than the operationalize but if you. realize that your dwelling is the key in. fact to upgrading your program for. future well-being and that there's a. point you know presumably from.

diminishing returns if not. counterproductivity there is a point at. which you should stop because that is. what is in your best interest then. knowing that you're looking for that. point is useful right this is the point. at which it is no longer useful for me. to dwell on this error I have made right. that is that's what you're looking for. and it also gives you license right if. some part of you feels like it you know. is punishing you rather than searching. then that also has a point at which it's. no longer valuable and there's some.

Liberty in realizing yep even the part. of me that was punishing me knows it's. time to stop. so if we map that on to compile the code. discussion as a computer science person. I find that very compelling you know. there's a. when you compile code you get warnings. sometimes and um usually. if you're a good software engineer. you're going to make sure there's no you. know you treat warnings as errors so you. make sure that the compilation produces.

no warnings but a certain point when you. have a large enough system. you just let the warnings go it's fine. like I don't know where that warning. came from but you know. it's just uh ultimately you need to. compile the code and run with it and uh. hope nothing terrible happens well I. think what you will find and believe me. I think what you're what you're talking. about with respect to robots and. learning is going to end up having to go. to a deep developmental State and a.

helplessness that evolves into hyper. competence and all of that but um. I live I noticed that I live by. something that I for lack of a better. descriptor called the theory of close. calls. ethereal close calls says that people. typically miscategorize the events in. their life where something almost went. wrong. and you know for example if you I have a.

friend who um. I was walking down the street with my. college friends and one of my friends. stepped into the street thinking it was. clear and was nearly hit by a car going. 45 miles an hour would have been an. absolute disaster might have killed her. certainly would have permanently injured. her. but she didn't you know car didn't touch. her right now you could walk away from. that and think nothing of it because. well what is there to think nothing. happened or you could think well what is.

the difference between what did happen. and my death. the difference is luck I never want that. to be true right I never want the. difference between what did happen and. my death to be luck therefore I should. count this as very close to death. and I should prioritize coding so it. doesn't happen again at a very high. level. so anyway my my basic point is. the. accidents and disasters and Misfortune. describe a distribution that tells you.

what's really likely to get you in the. end and so. um personally. you can use them to figure out where the. dangers are so that you can afford to. take great risks because you have a. really good sense of how they're going. to go wrong but I would also point out. civilization has this problem. civilization is now producing these. events that are major disasters but. they're not existential scale yet right. they're very serious errors that we can. see and I would argue that the pattern.

is you discover that we are involved in. some industrial process at the point it. has gone wrong right so I'm now always. asking the question. okay in light of the Fukushima triple. meltdown the financial collapse of 2008. the Deepwater Horizon uh blowout. covid-19 and its probable origins in the. Wuhan lab. what processes do I not know the name of. yet that I will Discover at the point.

that some gigantic accident has happened. and can we talk about the wisdom or lack. thereof of engaging in that process. before the accident right that's what a. wise civilization would be doing and yet. we don't I I just want to mention. something that happened a couple of days. ago. I don't know if you know who JB Straubel. is is the co-founder of Tesla CTO of. Tesla for many many years his wife just. died. she was riding a bicycle. and in the same.

in that same thin line between death and. life that many of us have been in where. you walk into the intersection and. there's this close call. every once in a while. it you get the. the Short Straw. I wonder how much of our own individual. lives and the entirety of the human. civilization rests on this little roll. of the dice.

well this is sort of my point about the. close calls is that there's a there's a. level at which we can't control it right. the. gigantic asteroid that comes from deep. space that you don't have time to do. anything about there's not a lot we can. do to hedge that out or at least not. short term. but there are lots of other things you. know obviously. the financial collapse of 2008 didn't. break down the entire world economy it. threatened to but a Herculean effort. managed to pull us back from the brink.

the triple meltdown at Fukushima was. awful but every one of the seven fuel. pools held there wasn't a major fire. that made it impossible to manage the. disaster going forward we got lucky. um you know we could say the same thing. about the uh the blowout at the. Deepwater Horizon where a hole in the. ocean floor large enough that we. couldn't have plugged it could have. opened up all of these things could have. been much much worse right and I think. we can say the same thing about covet as. terrible as it is.

and I you know we cannot say for sure. that it came from the Wuhan lab but. there's a strong likelihood that it did. and it also could be much much worse so. in each of these cases something is. telling us we have a process that is. unfolding that keeps creating risks. where it is luck that is the difference. between us and some scale of disaster. that is unimaginable and that wisdom you. know you can be highly intelligent and. cause these disasters. to be wise is to stop causing them right.

and that would require a process of. restraint. a process that I don't see a lot of. evidence of yet so. I think we have to generate it and. somehow. we you know at the moment we don't have. a political structure that would be. capable of. taking a protective algorithm and. actually deploying it right because it. would have important Economic. Consequences and so it would almost. certainly be shot down.

but we can obviously also say you know. we paid a huge price for all of the. disasters that I've mentioned and we. have to factor that into the equation. something can be very productive short. term and very destructive long term and. also the question is how many disasters. we avoided because of the Ingenuity of. humans or just the integrity and. character of humans. that's sort of an open question we may.

be more. intelligent than lucky that's the Hope. because the optimistic message here that. you're getting at is. maybe the process that we should be. that maybe we can overcome luck with. Ingenuity meaning. I guess you're suggesting the process is. we should be listing all the ways that. human civilization can destroy itself. assigning likelihood to it. and thinking through how can we avoid.

that. and being very honest that with the data. out there about the close calls and. using those close calls to uh to then. create sort of mechanism by which we. minimize the probability of those close. calls and just being honest and. transparent uh with the data that's out. there well I think we need to do a. couple things for it to work. um so I've been an advocate for the idea.

that sustainability is actually it's. difficult to operationalize but it is an. objective that we have to meet if we're. to be around long term and I realize. that we also need to have reversibility. of all of our processes because. processes very frequently when they. start do not appear dangerous and then. they when they scale they become very. dangerous so for example if you imagine. and the first internal combustion engine. in a vehicle driving down the street and.

you imagine somebody running after them. saying hey if you do enough of that. you're going to alter the atmosphere and. it's going to change the temperature of. the planet it's Preposterous right why. would you stop the person who's invented. this marvelous new Contraption but of. course eventually you do get to the. place where you're doing enough of this. that you do start changing the. temperature of the planet so. if we built the capacity if we basically. said look you can't. involve yourself in any process that you. couldn't reverse if you had to then. progress would be slowed but our safety.

would go up dramatically and I think. I think in some sense if we are to be. around long term we have to begin. thinking that way we're just involved in. too many very dangerous processes. so let's talk about one of the things. that if not threatened human. civilization certainly hurt it at a deep. level which is covet 19. what percent probability would you. currently place.

on the hypothesis that covid-19 leaked. from the Wuhan Institute of virology. so I maintain a flow chart of all the. possible explanations and it doesn't. break down exactly that way. the likelihood that it emerged from a. lab is very very high. if it emerged from a lab the likelihood. that the lab was the Wuhan Institute is. very very high. the there are multiple different kinds.

of evidence that point to the lab and. there are is literally no evidence that. points to Nature either the evidence. points nowhere or it points to the lab. and the lab could mean any lab but. geographically obviously the labs in. Wuhan are the most likely and the lab. that was most directly involved with. research on viruses that look like covet. that look like SARS cov2 is obviously. the place that one would start. but I would say the likelihood that this. virus came from a lab is well above 95.

percent we can talk about the question. of could a virus have been brought into. the lab and escaped from there without. being modified that's also possible but. it doesn't explain any of the anomalies. in the Genome of SARS cov2. could it have been delivered from. another lab could Wuhan be a distraction. in order that we would connect the dots. in the wrong way that's conceivable I. currently have that below one percent on.

my flow chart but I have a very dark. thought that somebody would would do. that almost as a a political attack on. China well it depends I don't even think. that's one possibility. sometimes when Eric and I talk about. these issues we will. generate a scenario just to prove that. something could could live in that space. right it's a placeholder for whatever. may actually have happened and so it. doesn't have to have been an attack on. China that's certainly one possibility. but I would point out.

if you can predict the future. in some unusual way better than others. you can print money right that's what. markets that allow you to bet for or. against uh virtually any sector allow. you to do so you can imagine. a. simply a moral person or entity. generating a pandemic attempting to. cover their tracks because it would. allow them to bet against things like.

you know cruise ships air travel. whatever it is and bet in favor of I. don't know uh. sanitizing gel and whatever else you. would do so am I saying that I think. somebody did that no I really don't. think it happened we've seen zero. evidence that this was intentionally. released. however. were it to have been intentionally. released by somebody who did not know. did not want it known where it had come. from releasing it into Wuhan would be.

one way to cover their tracks so we have. to leave the possibility formally open. but acknowledge there's no evidence so. and the probability therefore is low I. tend to believe. maybe this is the optimistic nature that. I have that. people who are competent enough to do. the kind of thing we just described. are not going to do that because it. requires a certain kind of I don't want. to use the word evil but whatever word. you want to use to describe the kind of.

uh disregard for human life required to. do that you're just that that that's. just not going to be coupled with. competence I feel like there's a. trade-off chart where confidence on one. axis and evils on the other and the more. evil you become the the the the the. crapper you are doing great engineering. scientific work required to deliver. weapons of different kinds whether it's. bio weapons or nuclear weapons all those. kinds of things that seems to be the.

lessons I I take from history but that. doesn't necessarily mean that's what's. going to be happening in the future. but to stick on the lab League idea. because the flowchart is probably huge. here because there's a lot of. fascinating possibilities one question I. want to ask is um what would evidence. for natural Origins look like so. one piece of evidence for natural. Origins is um that it has happened in. the past. that.

that viruses have jumped oh they do jump. they so like that's one like that's. possible to have happened you know so. that that's a sort of like a historical. evidence like okay well it's possible. that it hap it's not it's not evidence. of the kind you think it is it's a. justification for a presumption right. right so the presumption upon. discovering a new virus circulating is. certainly that it came from nature right. the problem is the presumption.

evaporates in the face of evidence or at. least it logically should and it didn't. in this case it was maintained by people. who privately in their emails. acknowledge that they had grave doubts. about the natural origin of of this. virus is there some other piece of. evidence that we could look for and see. that would say this increases the. probability that it's natural Origins. yeah in fact there is evidence you know. I always worry that somebody is going to.

make up some evidence in order to. reverse the flow well let's say I am. it's a lot of incentive for that. actually there's a huge amount of. incentive on the other hand why. didn't the powers that be the powers. that lied to us about weapons of mass. destruction in Iraq why didn't they ever. fake weapons of mass destruction. interact whatever force it is I hope. that force is here too and so whatever. evidence we find is real it's the. confidence thing I'm talking about but. okay go ahead sorry well we can get back. to that but I would say yeah the the the.

giant piece of evidence that will shift. the probabilities in the other direction. is the discovery of either a human. population in which the virus circulated. prior to showing up in Wuhan that would. explain where the virus learned all of. the tricks that it knew instantly upon. spreading from Wuhan so that would do it. or an animal population in which an. ancestor epidemic can be found in which. the virus learned this before jumping to.

humans but I point out in that second. case. you would certainly expect to see a. great deal of evolution in the early. epidemic which we don't see so there. almost has to be a human population. somewhere else that had the virus. circulating or an ancestor of the virus. that we first saw in Wuhan circulating. and it has to have gotten very. sophisticated in that prior epidemic. before hitting Wuhan in order to explain. the total lack of evolution and. extremely effective virus that emerged. at the end of 2019 so you don't believe.

in the magic of evolution to spring up. with all the tricks already there like. everybody who doesn't have the tricks. they die quickly and then you just have. this beautiful virus that comes in with. a spike protein and the and the through. mutation and selection just do like the. ones that succeed. and succeed big are the ones that are. going to just spring into life with the. tricks well no. that's that's called a hopeful monster.

and hopeful monsters don't work it's to. the job of becoming a new pandemic virus. is too difficult it involves two very. difficult steps and they both have to. work one is the ability to infect a. person and spread in their tissues uh. sufficient to make an infection and the. other is to jump between individuals at. a sufficient rate that it doesn't go. extinct for one reason or another. those are both very difficult jobs they. require as you describe selection and. the point is selection would leave a.

mark we would see evidence that in. animals or humans both right and we see. this evolutionary choice of uh of the. virus Gathering the tricks up yeah you. would see the virus you would see the. clumsy virus get better and better and. yes I am a full believer in the power of. that process in fact I believe it uh. what I know from studying the process is. that it is much more powerful than most. people imagine that what we teach in the. evolution 101 textbook is too clumsy a.

process to do what we see it doing and. that actually people should increase. their expectation of the rapidity with. which that process can produce. um because jaw-dropping adaptations. that said we just don't see evidence. that it happened here which doesn't mean. it doesn't exist but it means. in spite of immense pressure to find it. somewhere there's been no hint which. probably means it took place inside of a. laboratory so inside the laboratory gain. a function research on viruses.

and I believe most of that kind of. research is doing this exact thing that. you're referring to which is accelerated. Evolution and just watching Evolution do. its thing on a bunch of viruses and. seeing what kind of tricks get developed. the other method. is uh engineering viruses so. manually adding on the tricks. what which do you think we should be. thinking about here.

so mind you I learned what I know in the. aftermath of this pandemic emerging I. started studying the question and I. would say based on the content of the. genome and other evidence in. Publications from the various Labs that. were involved in in generating this. technology. a couple of things seem likely. this SARS cov2 does not appear to be. entirely the result of either a splicing. process or serial passaging it it.

appears to have both uh things in its. past. where it's at least highly likely that. it does so for example the fern cleavage. site looks very much like it was added. in to the virus and it was known that. that would increase its infectivity in. humans and increase its tropism. the uh. virus appears to be excellent at. spreading in humans and minks and.

ferrets now minks and ferrets are very. closely related to each other and. ferrets are very likely to have been. used in a Serial passage experiment the. reason being that they have an ace2. receptor that looks very much like the. human acet receptor and so were you. going to passage the virus or it's. ancestor through an animal in order to. increase its infectivity in humans which. would have been necessary. uh ferrets would have been very likely. it is also quite likely that humanized. mice were utilized and it is possible.

that human Airway tissue was utilized I. think it is vital that we find out what. the protocols were if this came from the. Wuhan Institute we need to know it and. we need to know what the protocols were. exactly because they will actually give. us some tools that would be useful in. fighting as far as Kobe 2 and hopefully. driving into Extinction which ought to. be our priority it is a priority that. does not it is not Apparent from our. Behavior but it really is uh it should.

be our objective if we understood where. our interests lie we would be much more. focused on it but those protocols would. tell us a great deal if it wasn't the. Wuhan Institute we need to know that if. it was nature we need to know that and. if it was some other laboratory we need. to figure out who what and where so that. we can determine what is what we can. determine about about what was done. you're opening up my mind about why we. should. investigate why we should know the truth. of the origins of this virus so for me.

personally let me just tell the story of. my own kind of Journey. when I first started looking into the. lab leak hypothesis. what became terrifying to me and. important to under understand an obvious. is the sort of like Sam Harris way of. thinking which is. it's obvious that a lab leak of a deadly. virus will eventually happen. my mind was it doesn't even matter if it.

happened in this case it's obvious. there's going to happen in the future so. why the hell are we not freaking out. about this and covid-19 is not even that. deadly relative to the possible future. viruses it's this the way I disagree. with Sam on this but he thinks about. this way about AGI as well I bought a. artificial intelligence it's a different. discussion I think but with viruses it. seems like something that could happen. on a scale of years maybe a few decades. AGI is a little bit farther out for me.

but it seemed the terrifying thing it. seemed obvious that this will happen. very soon for a much deadlier virus as. we get better and better at both. engineering viruses and doing this kind. of evolutionary driven research gain. function research. okay but then you started speaking out. about this as well but also started to. say no no we should hurry up and figure. out the origins now because it will help. us figure out how to actually.

respond uh to this particular virus how. to treat this particular virus what is. in terms of vaccines in terms of. antiviral drugs in terms of just uh all. the the the the number of responses we. should have okay. I. still I'm much more freaking out about. the future. maybe you can. break that apart a little bit which are. you. most um.

focused on now. which are you most freaking out about. now in terms of the importance of. figuring out the origins of this virus. I am most freaking out about both of. them because they're both really. important and you know we can put bounds. on this let me say first this is a. perfect test case for the theory of. close calls because as much as covet is. a disaster it is also a close call from. which we can learn much you are. absolutely right if we keep playing this.

game in the lab if we are not if we are. especially if we do it under pressure. and when we are told that a virus is. going to LEAP from nature any day and. that the more we know the better we'll. be able to fight it we're going to. create the disaster all the sooner. so yes that should be an absolute Focus. the fact that there were people saying. that this was dangerous back in 2015 uh. ought to tell us something the fact that. the system bypassed a ban and offshored. the work to China.

ought to tell us this is not a Chinese. failure this is a failure of something. larger and harder to see. um but. I also think that there's a there's a. clock ticking with respect to SARS cov2. and covid the disease that it creates. and that has to do with whether or not. we are stuck with it permanently. so if you think about the cost to. humanity of being stuck with influenza. it's an immense cost year after year and. we just stopped thinking about it. because it's there some years you get to.

flu most years you don't maybe you get. the vaccine to prevent it maybe the. vaccine isn't particularly well targeted. but imagine just simply doubling that. cost. imagine we get stuck with SARS cov2 and. its descendants going forward and then. it just settles in and becomes a fact of. modern human life that would be a. disaster right the number of people we. will ultimately lose is incalculable the. amount of suffering will be caused is. incalculable the loss of well-being and.

wealth incalculable so that ought to be. a very high priority driving this. extinct before it becomes permanent and. the ability to drive it extinct goes. down the longer we delay effective. responses to the extent that we let it. have this very large canvas large. numbers of people who have the disease. in which mutation and selection can. result in adaptation that we will not be. able to counter the greater its ability. to figure out features of our immune.

system and use them uh to its Advantage. so I'm feeling the pressure of driving. it extinct I believe we could have. driven an extinct six months ago and we. didn't do it because of very mundane. concerns among a small number of people. and I'm not alleging that they were. Brazen about. um or that they were callous about. deaths that would be caused I have the. sense that they were working from a kind. of autopilot in which you you know let's.

say you're in some kind of a corporation. a pharmaceutical Corporation you have a. a portfolio of therapies that in the. context of a pandemic might be very. lucrative those therapies have. competitors you of course want to. position your product so that it. succeeds and the competitors don't and. lo and behold at some point through. means that I think those of us on the. outside can't really uh into it you end. up saying things about competing. therapies that work better and much more.

safely than the ones you're selling that. aren't true and do cause people to die. in large numbers. um but it you know it's some kind of. autopilot at least part of it is. so the there's a complicated coupling of. the autopilot of uh. institutions. companies governments. and then there's also the geopolitical. game theory thing going on where you. want to keep secrets it's the Chernobyl.

thing where if you messed up. there's a big incentive I think to hide. the fact that you messed up. so how do we fix this and what's more. important to fix the autopilot which is. the response that we often criticize. about our institutions especially the. leaders in those institutions Anthony. fauci and so on uh some of the members. of the scientific community. and the second part is the the game with.

China. of hiding the information in terms of on. the fight between nations. well in our live streams on Darkhorse. Heather and I have been talking from the. beginning about the fact that although. yes what happens began in China it very. much looks like a failure of the. international scientific community. and that's frightening but it's also. hopeful in the sense that actually if we. did the right thing now we're not.

navigating a puzzle about Chinese. responsibility we're navigating a. question of collective responsibility. for something that has been. terribly costly to all of us so. that's not a very. happy process but as you point out. what's at stake is in large measure at. the very least the strong possibility. this will happen again and that at some. point it will be far worse so you know. just as a person that does not learn the.

lessons of their own errors doesn't get. smarter and they remain in danger we. collectively Humanity has to say well. there sure is a lot of evidence that. suggests that this is a self-inflicted. wound. when you have done something that has. caused a massive self-inflicted wound. self-inflicted wound it makes sense to. dwell on it exactly to the point that. you have learned the lesson that makes. it very very unlikely that something.

similar will happen again I think this. is a good place to kind of ask you to do. almost like a thought experiment. or um. to Steel Man the argument against the. lab leak hypothesis. so. if you were to. argue you know you said 95 chance that. it the virus leave from a lab. there's a bunch of ways I think you can. argue. that even talking about it.

is uh bad for the world. so I if I just put something on the. table is to say that. um. so one it would be racism versus Chinese. people. that talking about that it leak from a. lab there's a kind of immediate kind of. blame and it can spiral down into this. idea that's somehow the people are. responsible for the virus and this kind.

of thing. is it possible for you to come up with. other Steel Man arguments. against talking or against the. possibility of the lab League hypothesis. well so I think steel Manning is a tool. that is extremely valuable but it's also. possible to abuse it I think that you. can only steal man a good faith argument. and the problem is we now know that we. have not been engaged in opponents who.

are wielding good faith arguments. because privately their emails reflect. their own doubts and what they were. doing publicly was actually a punishment. a public punishment for those of us who. spoke up. with I think the purpose of. either backing us down or more likely. warning others not to engage in the same. kind of behavior and obviously for. people like you and me who regard. science as our likely best hope for. navigating difficult Waters.

shutting down people who are using those. tools honorably is itself dishonorable. so I I don't really I don't feel that it. is. I don't feel that there's anything to. steal man and I also think. that you know immediately at the point. that the world suddenly with no new. evidence on the table switched gears. with respect to the lab leak you know at. the point that Nicholas Wade had. published his article and suddenly the. world was going to admit that this was. at least a possibility if not a.

likelihood. we got to see something of the. rationalization process that had taken. place inside the institutional world and. it very definitely involved the claim. that what was being avoided was the. targeting of uh Chinese scientists. and my point would be I don't want to. see the targeting of anyone I don't want. to see racism of any kind on the other. hand once you create license to lie in.

order to protect individuals when the. world has a stake in knowing what. happened then it is inevitable that that. process that license to lie will be used. by the thing that captures institutions. for its own purposes so my sense is. it may be very unfortunate if the story. of what happened here can be used. against uh Chinese people that would be. very unfortunate and as I think I.

mentioned. Heather and I have taken great pains to. point out that this doesn't look like a. Chinese failure it looks like a failure. of the international scientific. community so I think it is important to. broadcast that message along with the. analysis of the evidence but no matter. what happened we have a right to know. and. um I frankly do not take the. institutional layer at its word that its. motivations are honorable and that it. was protecting you know good-hearted. scientists at the expense of the world. that explanation does not add up well.

this is a very interesting question. about whether it's ever okay to lie at. the institutional layer to. protect the populace. I think both you and I are probably on. the same. have the same sense that it's a slippery. slope even if it's an effective. mechanism in the short term in the long. term it's going to be destructive. this happened with masks.

this happened with with other things if. you look at just history pandemics. there's a there's an idea that Panic is. destructive amongst the populists so you. you want to construct a narrative. whether it's a lie or not to minimize. panic. but you're suggesting that almost in all. cases and I think that was the lesson. from. the the pandemic in the early 20th. century that.

lying creates distrust and distrust in. the institutions is ultimately. destructive that's your sense that lying. is not okay well okay you know there are. obviously places where complete. transparency is not a good idea right to. the extent that you broadcast a. technology that allows one individual to. hold the world hostage right obviously. you've got a something to be navigated. but in general I don't believe that the.

scientific system should be. lying to us. in the case of this particular lie. the idea that the well-being of Chinese. scientists outweighs the well-being of. the world. is preposterous yeah right as you as you. point out one thing that rests on this. question is whether we continue to do. this kind of research going forward and. the scientists in question all of them. American Chinese all of them were.

pushing the idea that the risk of a. zoonotic spillover event causing a major. and highly destructive pandemic was so. great that we had to risk this. now if they themselves have caused it. and if they are wrong as I believe they. are about the likelihood of a major. world pandemic spilling out of nature in. the way that they uh wrote into their. Grant applications then the danger is. you know the call is coming from inside. the house and uh we have to look at that.

and yes whatever we have to do to. protect scientists from retribution we. should do but we cannot. protecting them by lying to the world. and even worse. by. demonizing people like me like uh Josh. Rogan like Yuri Dagan the entire drastic. group on Twitter by demonizing us for.

simply following the evidence is to set. a terrible precedent right you're. demonizing people for using the. scientific method to evaluate evidence. that is available to us in the world. what a terrible crime it is to teach. that lesson right Thou shalt not use. scientific tools no I'm sorry whatever. your license to lie is it doesn't extend. to that yeah I've seen the the attacks. on you the pressure on you has a very. important effect. on.

thousands of world-class biologists. actually so at MIT colleagues of mine. people I know there's a there's a slight. pressure. to not be allowed to uh one speak. publicly and two actually think. like do you even think about these ideas. it sounds kind of ridiculous but just. the in the in the privacy of your own. home to to read things to to think it's.

many people many world-class biologists. that I know will just avoid looking at. the data there's not even that many. people that are publicly opposing gain a. function research they they're they're. also like it's not worth it it's not. worth the battle and there's many people. that kind of argue that those battles. should be fought in private. in uh I'm uh you know with colleagues in. the um in the privacy of the scientific.

community that the public is somehow not. maybe intelligent enough to be able to. deal with the the complexities of this. kind of discussion I don't know but the. final result is combined with the. bullying View and uh all the different. pressures in the academic institutions. is that it's just people are. self-censoring and silencing themselves. and silencing the most important thing. which is the power of their brains. like these people are brilliant and the.

fact that they're not utilizing their. brain to come up with Solutions uh. outside of the conformist line of. thinking it's tragic. well it is I also think that it we have. to look at it and understand it for what. it is for one thing it's kind of a. cryptic totalitarianism somehow people's. sense of what they're allowed to think. about talk about discuss is causing them. to self-censor and I can tell you it's. causing many of them to rationalize.

which is even worse they're blinding. themselves to what they can see. um but it is also the case I believe. that what you're describing about what. people said and a great many people. understood that the lab leak hypothesis. could not be taken off the table but. they didn't say so publicly and I think. that their discussions with each other. about why they did not say what they. understood that's what capture sounds. like on the inside I don't know exactly.

what force captured the institutions I. don't think uh anybody knows for sure. out here in public. I don't even know that it wasn't just. simply a process but. you have these institutions they are. behaving towards a kind of somatic. obligation they have lost sight of what. they were built to accomplish and on the. inside the way they avoid going back to. their original mission is to say things. to themselves like the public can't have.

this discussion it can't be trusted with. it yes we need to be able to talk about. this but it has to be private whatever. it is they say to themselves that is. what capture sounds like on the inside. it's a institutional rationalization. mechanism and it's very very deadly. and at the point you go from Lab leak to. repurposed drugs you can see that it's. very deadly in a very direct way. yeah I see this on in my field of with. uh. things like autonomous weapon systems.

people in AI do not talk about the use. of AI and weapon systems they they kind. of avoid the idea that AIS use them in. the military because it's kind of funny. there is there's this like kind of. discomfort and they're like they all. hurry like uh you know like something. scary happens in a bunch of sheep kind. of like run a run away that's what it. looks like and it I don't even know what. to do about it because and then I feel. this natural pull every time I bring up. autonomous weapon systems to go along. with the Sheep there's a natural kind of.

pull towards that direction because it's. like what can I do as one person. now there's currently nothing. destructive happening with autonomous. weapon systems so we're in like in the. early days of this race that in 10 20. years might become a real problem now. where the discussion we're having now. we're now facing the result of that in. the space of viruses uh like for many. years avoiding the conversations here.

I don't know what to do that in the. early days. um but I think we'll have to I guess. great institutions where people can. stand out. people can stand out and like basically. be individual thinkers and break out. into all kinds of spaces of ideas that. allow us to think freely freedom of. thought and maybe that requires a. decentralization of Institutions well. years ago I came up with a concept. called cultivated insecurity. and the idea is let's just take the.

example of the average Joe right the. average Joe has a job somewhere and. their mortgage their medical insurance. their retirement their connection with. the economy is to one degree or another. dependent on their relationship with the. employer. that means that there is a strong. incentive especially in any industry. where it's not easy to move from one.

employer to the next there's a strong. incentive to stay in your employer's. good graces right so it creates a very. top-down Dynamic not only in terms of. who gets to tell uh other people what to. do but it really comes down to who gets. to tell other people how to think. so that's extremely dangerous. the way out of it is to cultivate. security to the extent that somebody is. in a position to go against the grain.

and have it not be a catastrophe for. their family and their ability to earn. you will see that behavior a lot more so. I would argue that some of what you're. talking about is just a simple. predictable consequence of the. concentration of the uh the sources of. well-being. and that this is a solvable problem. you got a chance to talk with Joe Rogan. yesterday yes I did and I just saw the. episode was released and uh.

Ivermectin is trending on Twitter. Joe told me it was an incredible. conversation I look forward to listening. to you today many people have probably. by the time this was released I've. already listened to it. I think it would be interesting to. discuss. uh a postmortem how do you feel how that. conversation went and maybe broadly. how do you see the story as it's. unfolding of ivermectin from the origins. from before covid-19 through 2020 to.

today I very much enjoyed talking to Joe. and I'm uh. undescribably grateful that he would. take the risk of such a discussion that. he would as he described it do an. emergency podcast on the subject which I. I think that was not an exaggeration. this needed to happen. for various reasons that he uh he took. us down the road of talking about the.

censorship campaign against Ivermectin. which I find utterly shocking and. talking about the drug itself and I. should say we talked uh we had Pierre. Corey available uh he came on the. podcast as well he is of course the face. of the FL Triple C the front line. covid-19 Critical Care Alliance these. are doctors who have innovated uh ways. of treating coveted patients and they. happened on Ivermectin and have been. using it and I hesitate to use the word.

advocating for it because that's not. really the role of doctors or scientists. but they are advocating for it in the. sense that there is this uh pressure not. to talk about its Effectiveness for. reasons that we can go into so maybe. step back and say what is Ivermectin and. how much. Studies have been done to show its. effectiveness. so Ivermectin is an interesting drug it. was discovered in the 70s by a Japanese.

scientist named Satoshi omura and he. found it in soil near a Japanese golf. course so I would just point out in. passing that if we were to stop. self-silencing over the possibility that. Asians will be demonized over the. possible lab leak in Wuhan and to. recognize that actually the natural. course of the story. has a likely lab leak in China it has a. unlikely hero in Japan.

um the story is naturally not a simple. one but in any case uh Amura discovered. this molecule he sent it to a friend who. was at Merck a scientist named Campbell. they won a Nobel prize for the discovery. of the Ivermectin molecule in 2015. its. initial use was in treating parasitic. infections It's very effective in. treating the the worm that causes river.

blindness the pathogen that causes. elephantitis scabies. it's a very effective anti-parasite drug. it's extremely safe it's on the whose. list of essential medications it's safe. for children it has been administered. something like 4 billion times in the. last four decades it has been given away. in the millions of doses by Merck in. Africa people have been on it for long.

periods of time and in fact one of the. reasons that Africa may have had less. severe impacts from covid-19 is that. Ivermectin is widely used there to. prevent parasites and the drug appears. to have a long lasting impact so it's an. interesting molecule it was discovered. some time ago apparently. that it has antiviral properties and so. it was tested in early in the covid-19. pandemic to see if it might work to. treat humans with covid it turned out to. have very promising evidence that it did.

treat humans it was tested in tissues it. was tested at a very high dosage which. confuses people they think that those of. us who believe that Ivermectin might be. useful in confronting this disease or. advocating those high doses which is not. the case. but in any case there have been quite a. number of studies. a wonderful meta-analysis was finally. released we had seen it in pre-print. version but it was finally peer-reviewed. and published this last week it reveals.

that the drug as clinicians have been. telling us those who've been using it. it's highly effective at treating people. with the disease especially if you get. to them early and it showed an 86. percent Effectiveness as a prophylactic. to prevent people from Contracting covet. and that number 86 percent is high. enough to drive SARS cov2 to Extinction. if we wished to deploy it first of all. the the the meta-analysis is this the uh.

ivermectin for code 19 real-time. meta-analysis of 60 studies or there's a. bunch of meta-analysis there because I I. was really impressed by the real-time. meta-analysis that keeps getting updated. the one at uh IVM meta. dot com well I saw it as uh c19 ever met. yeah. um no this is not that meta-analysis. stuff so that is as you say a living. meta-analysis where you can watch his. evidence which is super cool by the way. it's really cool and they've got some.

really nice Graphics that allow you to. understand well what is the evidence you. know it's concentrated around this level. of Effectiveness. Etc so anyway it's great site well worth. paying attention to no this was a. meta-analysis. um I don't know any of the authors but. one second author is Tess Laurie of the. bird group bird being a uh a group of. analysts and doctors in Britain that is. playing a role similar to the FL Triple. C here in the U.S.

um so anyway this is a meta-analysis. that that uh that uh Tess Laurie and. others did of all of the available. evidence and. um it's quite compelling people if. people can look for it on my Twitter I. will I will put it up and people can. find it there so what about dose here. that. in terms of safety uh uh what do we. understand about the the kind of dust. required to to have that level of. Effectiveness and what do we understand. about it the safety of that kind of dust.

so let me just say I'm not a medical. doctor I'm a biologist I'm on Ivermectin. uh in lieu of vaccination in terms of. dosage there is one reason for concern. which is that the most effective dose. for prophylaxis involves something like. weekly Administration. and that that is because that is not a. historical pattern of use for the drug. it is possible that there is some. long-term implication of being on it for. being on it weekly for a long period of.

time there's not a strong indication of. that the safety signal that we have over. people using the drug over many years. and using it in high doses in fact Dr. Corey told me yesterday. that there are cases in which people. have made calculation errors and taken a. massive overdose of the drug and had no. ill effect so anyway there's lots of. reasons to think the drug is. comparatively safe but no drug is. perfectly safe. and I do worry about the long-term. implications of taking it I also think.

it's very likely. um. because the drug is administered in a. dose something like let's say 15. milligrams for somebody my size once a. week after you've gone through the. initial. the initial double dose that you take 48. hours apart. it is apparent that if the amount of. drug in your system is sufficient to be. protective at the end of the week then. it was probably far too high at the.

beginning of the week so there's a. question about whether or not you could. flatten out the intake so that you the. amount of ivermectin goes down. the protection remains I have little. doubt that that would be discovered if. we looked for it but that said it does. seem to be quite safe. highly effective at preventing covid the. 86 percent number is plenty high enough. for us to drive uh SARS cov2 to. Extinction in light of its are not. number of slightly more than two.

and so why we are not using it as a bit. of a a mystery so even if everything you. said now turns out to be not correct. it is nevertheless obvious that it's. sufficiently promising it always has. been in order to Merit rigorous. scientific exploration investigation. doing a lot of studies. and certainly not censoring the science. or the discussion of it.

so before we talk about. the various vaccines for code 19. I'd. like to talk to you about censorship. given everything you're saying why did. YouTube. and other places. sensor. discussion of. um Ivermectin. well there's a question about why they. say they didn't and there's a question. about why they actually did it. now it is worth mentioning that YouTube.

is part of a Consortium. it is partnered with Twitter Facebook. Reuters AP Financial Times Washington. Post some other notable organizations. and that this group has appointed itself. the Arbiter of Truth in effect they have. decided to control discussion ostensibly. to prevent the distribution of. misinformation. now how have they chosen to do that in.

this case they have chosen to Simply. utilize the recommendations of The Who. and the CDC and apply them as if they. are synonymous with scientific truth. problem. even at their best The Who and CDC are. not scientific entities they are. entities that are about public health. and public health has this whether it's. right or not and I believe I disagree. with it but it has this.

uh self-assigned right to lie. that comes from the fact that there is. game theory that works against for. example a successful vaccination. campaign. that if everybody else takes a vaccine. and therefore the herd becomes immune. through vaccination and you decide not. to take a vaccine then you benefit from. the immunity of the herd without having. taken the risk so people who do best are.

the people who opt out that's a hazard. and The Who and CDC as public health. entities effectively. um. oversimplify stories in order that that. game theory does not cause a predictable. tragedy of the comets. with that said once that right to lie. exists. then it finds out sir it turns out to. serve the interests of for example. pharmaceutical companies which have. emergency use authorizations that. require that there not be a safe and. effective treatment and have immunity.

from liability for harms caused by their. product so that's a recipe for disaster. right you don't need to be a. sophisticated uh thinker about complex. systems to see the hazard of immunizing. a company from the harm of its own. product at the same time that that. product can only exist in the market if. some other product that works better uh. somehow fails to be noticed so somehow. YouTube is doing the bidding of Merck.

and others. whether it knows that that's what it's. doing I have no idea I think this may be. another case of an autopilot that thinks. it's doing the right thing because it's. parroting the corrupt wisdom of The Who. and the CDC but The Who and the CDC have. been wrong again and again in this. pandemic and the irony here is that with. YouTube coming after me well my channel. has been right where The Who and CDC. have been wrong consistently over the. whole pandemic so how is it that YouTube.

is censoring us because The Who and CDC. disagree with us when in fact in past. disagreements we've been right and. they've been wrong there's so much to. talk about here so. foreign. I've heard this many times actually on. the inside of YouTube and with. colleagues that I've talked about talked. with. is they kind of in a very casual way say. their job is simply to uh slow or. prevent the spread of misinformation.

and they say like that's an easy thing. to do. like to know what is true or not. is an easy thing to do and so from the. YouTube perspective I think. they basically Outsource. of of the the task of knowing what is. true or not to public institutions that. on a basic Google search claim to be the. Arbiters of Truth.

so if you were YouTube who are. exceptionally profitable and. exceptionally powerful in terms of uh. controlling what people get to see or. not. what would you do would you take a stand. a public stand against the who CDC. or would you instead say you know what. let's open the dam and let any video on.

anything fly. what do you what do you do here if you. say you were put if Brett Weinstein was. put in charge of YouTube for a month. in this most critical of times where. YouTube actually has incredible amounts. of power to educate the populace. uh to give power of knowledge to the. populace such that they can reform. institutions what would you do how would. you run YouTube. well unfortunately or fortunately this. is actually quite simple.

the founders the American Founders. settled on a counter-intuitive. formulation. that people should be free to say. anything they should be free from the. government blocking them from doing so. they did not imagine that in formulating. that right that most of what was said. would be of high quality nor did they. imagine it would be free of harmful. things what they correctly reasoned was. that the benefit of leaving everything. so it can be said exceeds the cost which.

everyone understands to be substantial. what I would say is they could not have. anticipated. the impact the centrality of platforms. like YouTube Facebook Twitter. Etc. if they had they would not have limited. the First Amendment as they did they. clearly understood that the power of the. federal government was so great. that it needed to be limited by granting.

explicitly the right of citizens to say. anything. in fact. YouTube Twitter Facebook may be more. powerful In This Moment than the federal. government of their worst nightmares. could have been the power that these. entities have to control thought and to. shift civilization is so great that we. need to have those same protections it. doesn't mean that harmful things won't. be said but it means that nothing has. changed about the cost benefit analysis. of building the right to censor so if I.

were running YouTube the limit of what. should be allowed is the limit of the. law right if what you are doing is legal. then it should not be YouTube's place to. limit what gets said or who gets to hear. it that is between speakers and audience. will harm come from that of course it. will but will net harm come from it no I. don't believe it will I believe that. allowing everything to be said does. allow a process in which better ideas do. come to the fore and win out so you.

believe that in the end when there's. complete freedom to share ideas. that truth will win out. so what I've noticed just as a brief. side comment that certain things become. viral. irregardless of their truth. I I've noticed that things that are. dramatic. and or funny like things that become. memes. are not don't have to be grounded in. truth and so that what worries me there.

is that we basically. maximize for drama versus maximize for. truth in a system where everything is. free and that's worrying in the time of. emergency. well yes it's all worrying in time of. emergency to be sure but I want you to. notice that what you've happened on is. actually an analog for a much deeper and. older problem. human beings are the.

we are not a blank slate but we are the. blankest Slate that nature has ever. devised and there's a reason for that. right it's where our flexibility comes. from. we have effectively we are robots in. which the a large fraction of the. cognitive capacity has been or of the. behavioral capacity has been offloaded. to the software layer which gets written. and Rewritten over evolutionary time. that means effectively that much of what.

we are in fact the important part of. what we are is housed in the in the. cultural layer and the conscious layer. and not in the hardware hard coding. layer. that layer is prone to make errors right. and anybody who's watched a child grow. up knows that children make absurd. errors all the time right that's part of. the process as we were discussing. earlier. it is also true that as you look across. a field of people discussing things a. lot of what is said is pure nonsense.

it's garbage. but the tendency of garbage to emerge. and even to spread on the short term. does not say that over the long term. what sticks is not the valuable ideas so. there is a high tendency for uh novelty. to be created in the cultural space but. there's also a high tendency for it to. go extinct and you have to keep that in. mind it's not like the genome right. everything is happening at a much higher. rate if things are being created they're.

being destroyed and I can't say that you. know I mean obviously we've seen. totalitarianism arise many times and. it's very destructive each time it does. so it's not like hey freedom to come up. with any idea you want hasn't produced a. whole lot of Carnage but the question is. over time. does it produce more open fairer more. decent societies and I believe that it. does I can't prove it but that does seem. to be the pattern I I believe so as well. the thing is in the short term.

freedom of speech. absolute freedom of speech can be quite. destructive. but you nevertheless have to hold on to. that because in the long term. I think you and I I guess are optimistic. in the sense that good ideas will win. out. I don't know how strongly I believe that. it will work but I will say I haven't. heard a better idea. yeah.

um I would also point out that there's. something very significant in this. question of the hubris involved in. imagining that you're going to improve. the discussion by censoring which is. the majority of Concepts at The Fringe. are nonsense. that's automatic but the heterodoxy at. The Fringe which is indistinguishable at. the beginning from the nonsense ideas is. the key to progress so if you decide hey.

The Fringe is 99 garbage let's just get. rid of it right hey that's a strong win. we're getting rid of 99 garbage for one. percent something or other and the point. is yeah but that one percent something. rather is the key you're throwing out. the key and so that's what YouTube is. doing. frankly I think at the point that it. started censoring my channel you know in. the immediate aftermath of this major. reversal of for lab leak it should have. looked at itself and said well what the. hell are we doing who are we censoring.

we're censoring somebody who was just. right. right in a conflict with the very same. people on whose behalf we are now. censoring right that should have caused. them to wake up so he said one approach. if you're on YouTube was this basically. let all videos go that do not violate. the law well I should fix that okay I. believe that that is the basic principle. Eric makes an excellent point about the. distinction between ideas and personal. attacks doxing these other things so I. agree there's no value in allowing.

people to destroy each other's lives. even if there's a technical uh legal. defense for it now how you draw that. line I don't know but you know what I'm. talking about is yes people should be. free to traffic and bad ideas and they. should be free to expose that the ideas. are bad and hopefully that process. results in better ideas winning out yeah. there's an interesting line between. you know like uh ideas like the Earth is. flat which I believe you should not. censor. and then like you start to encroach on.

like personal attacks it's not not you. know doxing yes but like not even. getting to that like there's a certain. point where it's like. that's no longer ideas that's more. that's somehow not productive even if. it's it feels like uh believing the. Earth is flat is somehow productive. because maybe this tiny percent chance. it is you know like it just feels like. personal attacks it doesn't.

um well you know it's I'm torn on this. because. there's assholes in this world there's. fraudulent people in this world so. sometimes personal attacks are useful to. reveal that. um but there's a line you can cross like. there's a comedy where people make fun. of others I think that's amazing that's. very powerful and that's very useful. even if it's painful but then there's. like once it gets to be. um yeah there's a certain line it's a. gray area where you cross where it's no.

longer in any possible World productive. and that's a really weird gray area for. YouTube to operate in and that feels. like should be a crowdsourced thing. where people vote on it but then again. do you trust the majority to vote on. what is crossing the line and not I mean. this is where. this is really interesting. on this particular like the scientific. aspect of this. do you think YouTube should take more of.

a stance not censoring but. to actually have scientists within. YouTube having these kinds of. discussions and then be able to almost. speak out in a transparent way this is. what we're going to let this video stand. but here's all these other opinions. almost like take a more active role in. uh its recommendation system in trying. to present a full picture to you right. now they're not they're they're the. recommender systems are not human. fine-tuned they're all based on how you.

click and there's this clustering. algorithms they're not taking an active. role on giving you the full spectrum of. ideas in in the space of science they. just censor or not well at the moment. it's going to be pretty hard to compel. me that these people should be trusted. with any sort of curation or comment on. matters of evidence because they have. demonstrated that they are incapable of. doing it well. um you could make such an argument and I.

guess I'm open to the idea of. Institutions that would look something. like YouTube that would be capable of. offering something valuable I mean and. you know even just the fact of them. literally curating things and putting. some videos next to others you know. implies something so yeah there's a. question to be answered but at the. moment no at the moment what it is doing. is quite literally putting not only. individual humans in tremendous Jeopardy. by censoring discussion of useful tools.

and making tools that are more hazardous. than has been acknowledged seem safe. right but it is also placing Humanity in. danger of a permanent relationship with. this pathogen I cannot emphasize enough. how expensive that is it's effectively. incalculable if the relationship becomes. permanent the number of people who will. ultimately suffer and die from it is. indefinitely large yeah there's uh. currently the algorithm is very Rabbit. Hole driven meaning if you uh if you.

click on the Flat Earth videos it'll. that's all you're going to be presented. with and you're not going to be nicely. presented with arguments against the. Flat Earth and the flip side of that. if you watch like quantum mechanics. videos or no general relativity videos. it's very rare you're going to get a. recommendation have you considered the. Earth as flat and I think you should. have both uh same with vaccine videos. that present the power and the.

incredible. like biology genetics biology about the. vaccine you're rarely going to get. videos. from. well-respected scientific Minds. presenting possible dangers with vaccine. and the vice versa is true as well which. is if you're looking at the danger of. the vaccine on YouTube you're not going. to get the highest quality of videos. recommended to you and I'm not talking. about like manually inserted CDC videos.

that are like the most untrustworthy. things you can possibly watch about how. everybody should take the vaccine is the. safest thing ever no it's about. incredible again MIT colleagues of mine. incredible biologists biologists that I. talk about the the details of how the. MRNA vaccines work and all those kinds. of things I think maybe this is me with. the AI hat on is I think the algorithm. can fix a lot of this and YouTube should. build better algorithms and trust that.

to and a couple of complete freedom of. speech. to expand the what people are able to. think about present always varied views. not balanced in some artificial way. hard-coded way but balanced in a way. that's crowdsourced I think that's an. algorithm problem that could be solved. because then you can delegate it to the. algorithm as opposed to this hard code. censorship of basically.

uh creating artificial boundaries on. what can and can't be discussed instead. creating a full spectrum of exploration. that can be done and trusting the. intelligence of people to do the. exploration. well there's there's a lot there I would. say we have to keep in mind that we're. talking about a. um a publicly held company with. shareholders and obligations to them and. that that may make it impossible and I. remember.

um many years ago back in the early days. of Google. I remember a sense of Terror at the loss. of General search. right it used to be that the that Google. if you searched came up with the same. thing for everyone and then it got. personalized and for a while it was. possible to turn off the personalization. which was still not great because if. everybody else is looking at a. personalized search and you can tune. into one that isn't personalized what. are you know that doesn't tell you why.

the world is sounding the way it is but. nonetheless it was at least an option. and then that vanished and the problem. is I think this is literally deranging. us. that in effect. I mean what you're describing is. Unthinkable it is Unthinkable that in. the face of a campaign to vaccine. vaccinate people in order to reach herd. immunity that. um. YouTube would give you videos on hazards. of vaccines. when this is you know how hazardous the.

vaccines are is an unsettled question. why is it Unthinkable that doesn't make. any sense for from a company perspective. if intelligent people. in large amounts are open-minded and are. thinking through the the hazards and the. benefits of a vaccine a company should. should find the best videos. to present uh what people are thinking. about well let's come up with a. hypothetical okay let's come up with a.

a very deadly disease for which there's. a vaccine that is very safe though not. perfectly safe. and we are then faced with YouTube. trying to figure out what to do for. somebody searching on vaccine safety. suppose it is necessary in order to. drive the pathogen to Extinction. something like smallpox that people get. on board with the vaccine. but there's a tiny Fringe of people who. thinks that the vaccine is a mind.

control agent. right so should YouTube. direct people to the only claims against. this vaccine which is that it's a mind. control agent. when in fact. the vaccine is. very safe whatever that means if that. were the actual configuration of the. puzzle then YouTube would be doing. active harm pointing you to.

um this other video potentially now yes. I would love to live in a world where. people are up to the challenge of. sorting that out but my basic point. would be. if it's an evidentiary question and. there is essentially no evidence that. the vaccine is a mind control agent and. there's plenty of evidence that the. vaccine is safe then well you look for. this video we're going to give you this. one puts it on a par right so for the. mind that's tracking how much uh thought. is there behind it's safe versus how.

much thought is there behind it's a mind. control agent will result in. artificially elevating this now in the. current case what we've seen is not this. at all we have seen evidence obscured in. order to create a false story about. safety and we saw the inverse with. Ivermectin we saw a campaign to portray. the drug as. more dangerous and less effective than. the evidence clearly suggested it was so.

we're not talking about a comparable. thing but I guess my point is the. algorithmic solution that you point to. creates a problem of its own which is. that it means that the way to get. exposure is to generate something fringy. if you're the only thing on some Fringe. then suddenly YouTube would be. recommending those things and that's. that's obviously a gamable system at. best yeah but the solution to that I. know you're you're creating a thought. experiment maybe playing a little bit of. a devil's advocate.

I think the solution to that is not to. limit the algorithm in the case of the. super deadly virus it's for the. scientists to step up and become better. communicators more charismatic is is. fight the Battle of ideas sort of create. better videos you know the like if the. virus is truly deadly you have a lot. more ammunition a lot more data a lot. more material to work with in terms of. communicating with the public it's so be. better at communicating and stop being. uh you have to start trusting the.

intelligence of people and also being. transparent and playing the game of the. internet which is like what is the. internet hungry for I believe. authenticity. stop looking like you're full of shit. that's the scientific Community if. there's any flaw that I currently see. especially the people that are in public. office that like Anthony fauci they look. like they're full of shit and I know. they're brilliant why don't they look. more authentic so they're losing that.

game and I think a lot of people observe. in this entire system now younger. scientists are seeing this. and saying okay if I want to continue. being a scientist in the public eye and. I want to be effective on my job I'm. going to have to be a lot more authentic. so they're learning the lesson this. evolutionary system is working uh so is. there's just a younger generation of. Minds coming up that I think will do a. much better job in this battle of ideas. that when the when the much more.

dangerous virus comes along they'll be. able to be better communicators at least. that's the hope the the using the. algorithm to control that is uh I feel. like is a big problem so you're going to. have the same problem with a deadly. virus as with the current virus if you. let YouTube draw hard Lines by the pr. and the marketing people versus the. broad community of scientists. well in some sense you're you're uh. suggesting something that's close kin to.

what I was saying about you know freedom. of expression ultimately provides an. advantage to to better ideas so I'm in. agreement broadly speaking. um but I would also say there's probably. some sort of you know let's imagine the. world that you propose where YouTube. shows you the alternative point of view. that has the problem that I suggest but. one thing you could do is you could give. us the tools to understand what we're. looking at. right you could give us so first of all. there's something.

I think myopic solipsistic narcissistic. about a an algorithm that serves. shareholders by showing you what you. want to see rather than what you need to. know right that's the distinction is. flattering you you know playing to your. blind spot is something that algorithm. will figure out but it's not healthy for. us all to have Google playing to our. blind spot it's very very dangerous so. what I really want is analytics that. allow me or maybe options and analytics.

the options should allow me to see what. alternative perspectives are being. explored right so here's the thing I'm. searching and it leads me down this road. right let's let's say it's Ivermectin. okay I find all of this evidence that. Ivermectin works I find all of these. discussions and people talk about. various protocols and this and that and. then I could say all right what is the. other side and I could see. who is searching not as individuals but. what demographics are searching.

Alternatives and maybe you could even. combine it with something Reddit like. where. effectively let's say that there was a. position that uh. I don't know that that a vaccine is a. mind control device and you could have a. steel man this argument. uh competition effectively and the. better answers that steel man it as well. as possible would rise to the top and so. you could read the top three or four. explanations about why this really. credibly is a mind control uh product.

and you can say well that doesn't really. add up I can check these three things. myself and they can't possibly be right. right you could dismiss it and then as. an argument that was credible let's say. plate tectonics before that was an. accepted concept. you'd say wait a minute. there is evidence for plate tectonia as. crazy as it sounds that the continents. are floating around on liquid actually. that's not so implausible you know we've. got these subduction zones we've got a. geology that is compatible we've got.

puzzle piece continents that seem to fit. together wow that's a surprising amount. of evidence for that position so I'm. going to file some Bayesian probability. with it that's updated for the fact that. actually the Steel Man argument's better. than I was expecting right so I could. imagine something like that where a I. would love the search to be indifferent. to who's searching right the the. solipsistic thing is too dangerous so. the search could be General so we would. all get a sense for what everybody else. was seeing too. and then some layer that didn't have. anything to do with what YouTube points.

you to or not but allowed you to see you. know the general pattern of uh adherence. to searching for. um information and again a layer in. which those things could be defended so. you could hear what a good argument. sounded right like rather than just hear. a caricatured argument yeah and also. reward people creators that have. demonstrated like a track record of. open-mindedness and correctness. correctness as much as it could be. measured over a long term and sort of.

uh I mean. a lot of this maps to. incentivizing good long-term Behavior. not immediate kind of dopamine Rush uh. kind of uh signals. I think ultimately the algorithm. on the individual level. should optimize for personal growth.

long-term happiness. just growth intellectually growth in. terms of Lifestyle personally and so on. as opposed to immediate I think that's. going to build a better Society not even. just like truth because I think truth is. a complicated thing it's more just you. growing as a person uh exploring the. space of ideas changing your mind often. increasing the level to which you're. open-minded the knowledge base you're. operating from the willingness to. empathize with others all those kinds of.

things the algorithm should optimize for. that creating a better human at the. individual level that you're all I think. that's a great business model because. the person that's using this tool will. then be happier with themselves for. having used it and it'll be a lifelong. quote-unquote customer I think it's a. great business model. to make a happy open-minded. knowledgeable better human being it's a. terrible business model under the.

current system. what you want is to build the system in. which it is a great business model why. is a terrible model because it will be. decimated by those who play to the short. term. I don't think so why well I mean I think. we're living it we're living it well no. because if if you have the alternative. that presents itself it it points out. the emperor Emperor has no clothes I. mean it points out that YouTube is. operating in this way Twitter's. operating in this way so Facebook is. operating in this way how long term.

would you like the wisdom to to prove. out. well it even a week is better what's. currently happening right but the. problem is you know if a week loses out. to an hour right and I don't think it. loses out it loses out in the short term. that's my point at least you're a great. communicator and you basically say look. here's the metrics and a lot of it's. like how people actually feel. like this this is what people experience.

with social media. they look back at the previous month and. say. I felt shitty in a lot of days because. of social media right like if you look. back at the previous few weeks and say. wow I'm a better person because that. month happened that's they immediately. choose the product that's going to lead. to that that's what love for products. looks like if you if you love like a lot. of people love their Tesla car like. that's or iPhone or like beautiful.

design that's what love looks like you. look back I'm a better person for having. used this thing well you got to ask. yourself the question now if this is. such a great business model why isn't it. devolving. why don't we see it uh honestly it's. competence it's like people are just. it's not it's not easy to build new it's. not easy to build products tools systems. on new ideas it's kind of a new idea. we've gone through this everything we're.

seeing now. comes from the ideas of the initial. birth of the internet and there just. needs to be new sets of tools that are. incentivizing long-term personal growth. and happiness that's it right but but. what we have is a market that doesn't. favor this right I mean for one thing. you know we had an alternative to. Facebook right that looked you know you. owned your own data it wasn't. exploitative. and Facebook bought a huge interest in.

it and it died I mean who do you know. who's on diaspora the execution there. was not good right but it could have. gotten better. right I don't think that the argument. that why hasn't somebody done it a good. argument for it's not going to. completely destroy all of Twitter and. Facebook when somebody does it or. Twitter will catch up and pivot to to. the algorithm this is not what this is. not what I'm saying there's obviously. great ideas that remain unexplored. because nobody has gotten to the.

foothill that would allow you to explore. them that's true but you know an. Internet that was non-predatory is an. obvious idea and many of us know that we. want it and many of us have seen. prototypes of it and we don't move. because there's no audience there so the. network effects cause you to stay with. the predatory internet. um but let me just I wasn't kidding. about build the system in which your. idea is a great business plan. um so in our upcoming book Heather and I.

in our last chapter explore something. called the fourth Frontier and fourth. Frontier has to do with sort of a 2.0. version of civilization which we freely. admit we can't tell you very much about. it's something that would have to be we. would have to prototype our way there we. would have to effectively navigate our. way there but the result would be very. much like what you're describing it. would be something that effectively. liberates humans meaningfully and most. importantly it has to feel like growth.

without depending on growth in other. words human beings are creatures that. like every other creature. is effectively looking for growth right. we are looking for under exploited or. unexploited opportunities and when we. find them our ancestors for example if. they happen into a new Valley that was. unexplored by people their population. would grow until it hit carrying. capacity so there would be this great. feeling of there's abundance until you. hit carrying capacity which is. inevitable and then zero-sum Dynamics. would set in so in order for human.

beings to flourish long term the way to. get there is to satisfy the desire for. growth without hooking it to actual. growth which only moves and fits and. starts and this is actually I believe. the key. to avoiding these you know spasms of. human tragedy when in the absence of. growth people do uh something that. causes their population to experience. growth which is they go and make war on. or commit genocide against some other. population which is something we.

obviously have to stop. by the way this is uh a. hunter-gatherer's guide to the 21st. century co-authored that's right dear. wife Heather being released this. September I believe you said you're. going to do a little bit of a preview. videos on each chapter leading up to the. release so I'm looking forward to the. last chapter the as well as well as all. the the previous one I have a few. questions on that so you you have um you. generally have faith to clarify that. technology could be the thing that.

empowers this kind of future. well if you just let technology evolve. it's going to be our undoing right one. of the things that I. um fault my libertarian friends for is. this faith that the market is going to. find Solutions without destroying us and. my sense is I'm a very strong believer. in markets right I believe in their. power even above some Market. fundamentalists but what I don't believe.

is that they should be allowed to plot. our course right markets are very good. at figuring out how to do things they. are not good at all about figuring out. what we should do right what we should. want we have to tell markets what we. want and then they can tell us how to do. it best and if we adopted that kind of. pro-market but in a context where it's. not steering where human well-being is. actually the driver. we can do remarkable things and the.

technology that emerges would naturally. be enhancing of human well-being. perfectly so no but overwhelmingly so. but at the moment markets are finding. our every defective character and. exploiting them and making huge profits. and making us worse to each other in the. process. before we leave covid-19 let me. ask you about a very difficult topic. which is the vaccines. um.

so I took the Pfizer vaccine the two. shots. you did not. you have been taking. Ivermectin yep. so one of the arguments against the. discussion of ivermectin is that. it prevents people from being fully. willing to get the vaccine. how would you compare Ivermectin. and the vaccine for coven 19.

all right that's a good question I would. say first of all there are some hazards. with the vaccine that people need to be. aware of there are some things that we. cannot rule out and for which. there is some evidence the two that I. think people should be tracking is the. possibility some would say a likelihood. that a vaccine of this nature. that is to say very narrowly focused on. a single antigen. is a an evolutionary pressure that will.

drive the emergence of variants that. will escape the protection that comes. from the vaccine. so this is a hazard. it is a particular hazard in light of. the fact that these vaccines have a. substantial number of breakthrough cases. so one danger is that a person who has. been vaccinated will shed viruses that. are specifically. um less visible or invisible to the. immunity created by the vaccines.

so we may be creating the next pandemic. by applying the pressure of vaccines at. a point that it doesn't make sense to. um the other danger has to do with. something called antibody dependent. enhancement. which is something that we see in. certain diseases like Dengue Fever you. may know that Dengue one gets a case and. then their second case is much more. devastating so break bone fever is when. you get your second case of dengue and. Dengue effectively utilizes the immune.

response that is produced by prior. exposure to attack the body in ways that. it is incapable of doing before exposure. so this is apparently this pattern has. apparently blocked past efforts to make. vaccines against coronaviruses. whether it will happen here or not it is. still too early to say but before we. even get to the question of harm done to. individuals by these vaccines we have to. ask about what the overall impact is. going to be and it's not clear in the.

way people think it is that if we. vaccinate enough people the pandemic. will end it could be that we vaccinate. people and make the pandemic worse and. while nobody can say for sure that. that's where we're headed it is at least. something to be aware of so don't. vaccines usually create that kind of uh. evolutionary pressure to create deadlier. different strains of the virus. so isn't so is there something. particular with these mRNA vaccines. that's uniquely dangerous in this regard.

well it's not even just the MRNA. vaccines the MRNA vaccines and the. adenovector DNA vaccine all share the. same vulnerability which is they are. very narrowly focused on one subunit of. the spike protein. so that is a very concentrated. evolutionary signal. we are also deploying it in mid pandemic. and it takes time for immunity to. develop so part of the problem here if. you if you inoculated a population. before encounter with a pathogen then.

there might be substantially enough. immunity to prevent this phenomenon from. happening but in this case. we are inoculating people as they are. encountering those who are sick with the. disease and what that means is the. disease is now faced with a lot of. opportunities to effectively. evolutionarily practice Escape. strategies so one thing is the timing. the other thing is the narrow Focus now. in a traditional vaccine you would. typically not have one antigen right you.

would have basically a virus full of. antigens and the immune system would. therefore produce a broader response so. that is the case for people who have had. covet right they have an immunity that. is broader because it wasn't so focused. on one part of the spike protein. so anyway there is something unique here. so these platforms create that special. Hazard they also have components that we. haven't used before in people so for. example the lipid nanoparticles that. coat the rnas are Distributing.

themselves around the body in a way that. will have unknown consequences. um so anyway there's there's reason. reason for concern is it possible for. you to steal men. the argument that everybody should get. vaccinated. of course the argument that everybody. should get vaccinated is that nothing is. perfectly safe. phase three trials showed good safety. for the vaccines now that may or may not.

be actually true but what we saw. suggested High degree of efficacy and a. high degree of safety for the vaccines. that inoculating people quickly and. therefore dropping the landscape of. available victims for the pathogen to a. very low number so that herd immunity. drives it to Extinction requires us all. to take our share of the risk. and that um. that because driving into Extinction.

should be our highest priority that. really people shouldn't think uh too. much about the various nuances because. overwhelmingly fewer people will die if. the population is vaccinated from the. vaccine then will die from covet if. they're not vaccinated and with the. vaccine as acryl is being deployed that. is a quite a likely scenario. that. uh. everything you know the virus will fade. away. in in the following sense that the the.

the probability that a more dangerous. strain will be created. is non-zero but it's not 50 it's. something smaller and so Mo the most. likely well I don't know maybe you. disagree with that but the the scenario. we're most likely to see not that the. vaccine is here is that the fire the. effects of the virus will fade away. first of all I don't believe that the. probability of creating a worse pandemic. is low enough to Discount I think the. probability is fairly high and frankly.

we are seeing a wave of variance that um. we will have to do a careful analysis to. figure out what exactly that has to do. with campaigns of vaccination where they. have been where they haven't been where. the variants emerged from but I believe. that what we are seeing is a disturbing. pattern that reflects that uh those who. were advising caution May well have been. right the data here by the way and small. tangent is terrible terrible right and. why is it terrible is another question. right this is where I start getting.

angry yeah it's like there's an obvious. opportunity for an exceptionally good. data. for exceptionally rigorous like even the. suffer like the website for. self-reporting side effects for not side. effects but negative effects Adverse. Events Adverse Events sorry for the. vaccine. like there's many things I could say. from both the study perspective but. mostly let me just put on my hat. of like HTML and like web design. like it's like the worst website it.

makes it so unpleasant to report it. makes it so unclear what you're. reporting if somebody actually has. serious effect like if you have very. mild effects what are the incentives for. you to even use that crappy website with. many pages and forms that don't make any. sense if you have adverse effects what. are the incentives for you to use that. website what is the trust that you have. that this information will be used well. all those kinds of things and the data. about who's getting vaccinated.

anonymized data about who's getting. vaccinated where when with that with. what vaccine coupled with the adverse. effects all of that we should be. collecting instead we're completely not. we're doing it in a crappy way and using. that crappy data to make conclusions. that you then twist you're basically. collecting in a way that can uh arrive. at whatever conclusions you what and the. data is being collected by the. institutions by governments and so.

therefore it's obviously they're going. to try to construct any kind of. narratives they want based on this. crappy data reminds me of much of. psychology the field that I love but is. flawed and many fundamental ways so rent. over but uh coupled with the dangers. that you're speaking to we don't have. even the data to um to understand the. dangers. yeah uh I'm gonna pick up on your rant. and say we estimates of the degree of. Under reporting invers are uh that it is.

10 of the real. is the system for reporting Adverse. Events so. um in the U.S we have. above 5. 000 unexpected deaths that seem in time. to be associated with vaccination. that is an undercount almost certainly. and by uh a large Factor. we don't know how large I've seen. estimates 25.

000 dead in the us alone now you can. make the argument that okay that's a. large number but the necessity of. immunizing the population to drive as. far as cov2 to Extinction is such that. it's an acceptable number but I would. point out that that actually does not. make any sense and the reason it doesn't. make any sense is actually there's. several reasons one. if that was really your point that yes. many many people are going to die but.

many more will die if we don't do this. um were that your approach you would not. be inoculating people who had had. covid-19 which is a large population. there's no reason to expose those people. to Danger their risk of Adverse Events. in the case that they have them is. greater so there's no reason that we. would be allowing those people to face a. risk of death if this was really about. an acceptable number of deaths arising. out of this the set of vaccines. I would also point out there's something.

incredibly bizarre and I would I. struggle to find language that is strong. enough uh for the horror of vaccinating. children in this case because children. suffer a greater risk of long-term. effects because they are going to live. longer and because this is earlier in. their development therefore it impacts. systems that are still forming they. tolerate covid well and so the benefit. to them is very small and so the only.

argument. for doing this is that they may. cryptically be carrying more covert than. we think and therefore they may be. integral to the way the virus spreads. the population but if that's the reason. that we are inoculating children and. there has been some Revision in the last. day or two about the recommendation on. this because of the Adverse Events that. have shown up in children but to the. extent that we were vaccinating children. we were doing it. to protect old infirm people who are the. most likely to succumb to covet 19. what.

Society puts children in danger Rob's. children of life to save old infirm. people that's upside down. so there's something about the way we. are going about. vaccinating who we are vaccinating what. dangers we are pretending don't exist. that suggests that to some set of people. vaccinating people is a good in and of. itself that that is the objective of the.

exercise not hurt immunity and the last. thing I'm sorry I don't want to prevent. you from jumping in here but the second. reason in addition to the fact that. we're exposing people to Danger that we. should not be exposing them to by the. way it's a tiny tangent another huge. part of the soup that should have been. part of it that's an incredible solution. is large-scale testing. but that that might be another couple. hour ago but. conversation but there's these solutions. that are obvious that were available. from the very beginning so you could.

argue that Iver acting is not that. obvious but maybe the whole point is you. have aggressive very fast research that. leads to a meta-analysis and then. large-scale production and deployment. okay. at least that possibility should be. seriously considered coupled with a. serious consideration of large-scale. deployment of testing at home testing. that could have uh accelerated the the.

the speed at which we reached that. herd immunity. but I don't even want to well let me. just say I am also completely shocked. that we did not get on high quality. testing early and that we are still. suffering. from this even now because just the. simple ability to track where the virus. moves between people would tell us a lot. about its mode of transmission which. would allow us to protect ourselves. better instead that information was hard.

one and for no good reason so I also. find this mysterious. you've spoken with Eric. Weinstein your brother and his podcast. the portal about the uh ideas that. eventually led to the paper you. published titled the reserved capacity. hypothesis. I think first. can you. um explain this paper. and the ideas that led up to it. sure easier to explain the conclusion of.

the paper. there's a question about why a creature. that can replace it cells with new cells. grows feeble and inefficient with age we. call that process which is otherwise. called Aging we call it senescence. and senescence in this paper it is. hypothesized is the unavoidable downside. of a cancer prevention.

feature of our bodies that each cell has. a limit on the number of times it can. divide there are a few cells in the body. that are exceptional but most of our. cells can only divide a limited number. of times that's called the hayflick. limit. and the hayflick limit. reduces the ability of the organism. to replace tissues it therefore results. in a failure over time of maintenance.

and repair and that explains why we we. become decrepit as we grow old. the question was why would that be. especially in light of the fact that the. mechanism that seems to limit the. ability of cells to reproduce is. something called a telomere telomere is. a it's a not a gene but it's a DNA. sequence at the ends of our chromosomes. that is just simply repetitive and the. number of repeats functions like a. counter.

so there's a number of repeats that you. have uh after development is finished. and then each time the cell divides a. little bit of telomere is lost and at. the point that the telomere becomes. critically short the cell stops dividing. even though it still has the capacity to. do so stops dividing and it starts. transcribing different genes than it did. when it had more telomere. so. what my work did was it looked at the. fact that the telomeric shortening was. being studied by two different groups it. was being studied by people. who were interested in counteracting the.

aging process and it was being studied. in exactly the opposite fashion by. people who were interested in. tumorogenesis and cancer the thought. being because it was true that when one. looked into tumors they always had. telomerase active that's the enzyme that. lengthens art telomeres so those folks. were interested. in uh bringing about a halt to the. lengthening of telomeres in order to. counteract cancer and the folks who were. studying the senescence process were.

interested in lengthening telomeres in. order to generate greater repair. capacity and my point was evolutionarily. speaking this looks like a plyotropic. effect that the. genes which create the tendency of the. cells to be limited in their capacity to. replace themselves are providing a. benefit in youth which is that we are. largely free of tumors and cancer at the. inevitable late life cost that we grow.

feeble and inefficient and eventually. die and that matches a very old. hypothesis in evolutionary theory by. somebody I was fortunate enough to know. George Williams one of the great 20th. century evolutionists. who argued that senescence would have to. be caused by plyotropic genes that cause. early life benefits at unavoidable late. life costs and although this isn't the. exact nature of the system he predicted. it matches what he was expecting in many.

regards to a shocking degree that said. the the the the focus of the paper is. about the well let me just read the. abstract. we observed that captive rodent breeding. protocols designed this is the end of. the abstract we observed that captive. rodent breeding protocols designed to. increase reproductive output. simultaneously exert strong selection. against reproductive senescence and. virtually eliminate selection that would.

otherwise favor tumor suppression this. appears to have greatly elongated the. telomeres of laboratory mice with their. telomeric Fail-Safe effectively disabled. these animals are unreliable models of. normal senescence and tumor formation so. basically using these mice is not going. to lead to the right kinds of. conclusions safety tests employing these. animals likely overestimate cancer risks. and underestimate tissue damage and. consequent accelerated senescence.

so I think especially with your. discussion with Eric. the conclusion of this paper has to do. with the fact that. like we shouldn't be using these mice to. test the safety or to make conclusions. about uh uh cancer or senescence is that. the basic takeaway like basically saying. that the length of these telomeres is an. important variable to consider well.

let's put it this way I think there was. a reason that the world of scientists. who was working on telomeres did not. block did not spot the plyotropic. relationship that uh was the key. argument in my paper. the reason they didn't spot it was that. there was a result that everybody knew. which seemed inconsistent. the result was that mice have very long. telomeres but they do not have very long. lives.

now we can talk about what the actual. meaning of don't have very long lives is. but in the end I was confronted with a. hypothesis that would explain a great. many features of the way mammals and. indeed vertebrates age but it was. inconsistent with one result and at. first I thought maybe there's something. wrong with the result maybe this is one. of these cases where the result was. achieved once through some bad protocol. and everybody else was repeating it. didn't turn out to be the case many. Laboratories had established that mice.

had Ultra long telomeres. and so I began to wonder whether or not. there was something about the breeding. protocols that generated these mice and. what that would predict is that the mice. that have long telomeres would be. laboratory mice and that wild mice would. not and Carol Grider who agreed to. collaborate with me tested that. hypothesis and showed that it was indeed. true that wild derived mice or at least. mice that had been in captivity for a.

much shorter period of time did not have. Ultra long telomeres. now what this implied though. as you read is that our reading. protocols generate lengthening of. telomeres and the implication of that is. that the animals that have these very. long telomeres will be hyper prone to. create tumors they will be extremely. resistant to toxins because they have. effectively an infinite capacity to. replace any damaged tissue and so. ironically if you give one of these.

Ultra long telomere lab mice a toxin if. the toxin doesn't outright kill it it. may actually increase its lifespan. because it functions as a kind of. chemotherapy. so the reason the chemotherapy works is. that dividing cells are more vulnerable. than cells that are not dividing and so. if this mouse has effectively had its. cancer protection turned off and it has. cells dividing too rapidly and you give. it a toxin you will slow down its tumors.

faster than you harm its other tissues. and so you'll get a paradoxical result. that actually some drug that's toxic. seems to benefit the mouse. now I don't think that that was. understood before I published my paper. now I'm pretty sure it has to be and the. problem is that this actually is a. system. that serves pharmaceutical companies. that have the difficult job of bringing. compounds to Market many of which will. be toxic maybe all of them will be toxic.

and these mice predispose our system to. declare these toxic compounds safe and. in fact I believe we've seen the errors. that result from using these mice a. number of times most famously with vioxx. which turned out to do conspicuous heart. damage why do you think this paper on. this idea has not gotten significant. traction. well. my collaborator Carol Grider said. something to me that rings in my ears to.

this day she initially after she showed. that laboratory mice have anomalously. long telomeres and that wild mice don't. have long telomeres I asked her where. she was going to publish that result so. that I could cite it in my paper. and she said that she was going to keep. the result in house rather than publish. it and at the time I was a young. graduate student. I didn't really understand what she was. saying but in some sense the knowledge. that a model organism is broken in a way.

that creates the likelihood that certain. results will be reliably generatable you. can publish a paper and make a big. splash with such a thing or you can. exploit the fact that you know how those. models will misbehave and other people. don't. so there's a question if somebody is. motivated cynically. and what they want to do is appear to. have deeper insight into biology because. they predict things better than others. do knowing where the flaw is so that.

your predictions come out true is. advantageous at the same time. I can't help but imagine that the. pharmaceutical industry when it figured. out that the mice were predisposed to. suggest that drugs were safe. didn't leap to fix the problem because. in some sense it was the perfect cover. for the difficult job of. bringing drugs to Market and then. discovering their actual toxicity. profile right this made things look. safer than they were and I believe a lot.

of profits have likely been generated. Downstream. so to kind of play Devil's Advocate it's. also possible. that this particular the length of the. telomeres is not a strong variable for. the conclusions for for the drug. development and for the conclusions that. Carol and others have been studying is. that is that is it possible for that to. be the case. that this like so one reason she and. others could be ignoring this. is because it's not a strong variable. well I don't believe so and in fact at.

the point that I went to publish my. paper Carol published her result. um she did so in a way that did not make. a huge Splash did you like what would I. apologize if I don't know how. what was the emphasis of her publication. of that paper was it purely just kind of. showing data was there more because in. your paper there's a kind of more of a. philosophical statement as well. well my paper was motivated by interest.

in The evolutionary Dynamics around. senescence I wasn't. um you know pursuing grants or anything. like that I was just working on a puzzle. I thought was interesting. um Carol has of course gone on to win a. Nobel Prize for her co-discovery with. Elizabeth Grider of telomerase the. enzyme that lengthens telomeres. um but anyway she's a heavy hitter in. the academic world. I don't know exactly what her purpose. was I do know that she told me she. wasn't planning to publish and I do know.

that I discovered that she was in the. process of publishing very late and when. I asked her to send me the paper. to see whether or not she had put. evidence in it that the hypothesis had. come from me she grudgingly sent it to. me and my name was nowhere mentioned and. she has she broke contact at that point. um what it is that motivated her I don't. know but I don't think it can possibly. be that this result is unimportant. the fact is the reason I called her in.

the first place an established contact. that generated our collaboration. was that she was a Leading Light in the. field of telomeric studies and because. of that this question about whether the. model organisms are distorting the uh. the understanding of the functioning of. telomeres is it's Central do you feel. like you you've been. as a young graduate student do you think. Carol or do you think the scientific. Community broadly screwed you over.

somewhere you know I don't think of it. in those terms probably partly because. it's not productive. but you know I have a complex. relationship with this story right on. the one hand i'm livid with Carol Grider. for what she did right she absolutely. pretended that I didn't exist in this. story and I don't think I was a threat. to her my interest was as an. evolutionary biologist I had made an. evolutionary contribution. she had tested a hypothesis and frankly. I think it would have been better for.

her if she had acknowledged what I had. done I think it would have enhanced her. work. um and you know I was. let's put it this way when I watched her. Nobel lecture and I should say there's. been a lot of confusion about this novel. stuff I've never said that I should have. gotten a Nobel Prize people have. misportrayed that. um my in listening to her lecture. I had one of the most bizarre emotional. experiences of my life because she.

presented the work that resulted from my. hypothesis she presented it as she had. in her paper with no acknowledgment of. where it had come from and she had. in fact portrayed the Distortion of the. telomeres as if it were a lucky fact. because it allowed testing hypotheses. that would otherwise not be testable. you have to understand as a young. scientist.

to watch work that you have done. presented in what's surely the most. important lecture of her career right. it's thrilling it was thrilling to see. you know her uh her figures projected on. the screen there right to have been part. of work that was important enough for. that felt great and of course to be. erased from the story felt absolutely. terrible. um so anyway that's sort of where I am. with it my sense is.

um I what I'm really troubled by in this. story is the fact. that. as far as I know the flaw with the mice. has not been addressed. and actually Eric did some looking into. this he tried to establish by calling. the Jack's lab and trying to ascertain. what had happened with the colonies. whether any change in protocol had. occurred and he couldn't get anywhere. there was seemingly no awareness that it.

was even an issue. so. I'm very troubled by the fact that as a. father for example. I'm in no position to protect my family. from the hazard that I believe lurks in. our medicine cabinets right I'm even. though I'm aware of where the hazard. comes from it doesn't tell me anything. useful about which of these drugs will. turn out to do damage if it is. ultimately tested and that's a very. frustrating position to be in on the. other hand you know there's a part of me. that's even still grateful to Carol for.

taking my call she didn't have to take. my call and talk to some young graduate. student who had some evolutionary idea. that wasn't you know in her wheelhouse. specifically and yet she did and you. know for a while she was a good. collaborator so well can I. and have to proceed carefully here. because it's it's a complicated topic. um. so she took the call. and you kind of. you're kind of saying that.

she basically. erased credit you know pretending you. didn't exist in some kind of in a. certain sense. let me phrase it this way I've um as a. as a research scientist at MIT I've had. and especially just part of. a large set of collaborations I've had a. lot of students come to me. and talk to me about ideas perhaps less.

interesting than what we're discussing. here in the space of AI. that I've been thinking about anyway. it's in in general with everything I'm. doing with robotics. people. uh will have told me a bunch of ideas. that I'm already thinking about the. point is taking that idea. see this is different because the idea. has more power in the space that we're. talking about here in robotics is like. your idea means shit until you build it. like so the engineering world is a.

little different but it there's a kind. of sense that I probably forgot a lot of. brilliant ideas have been told to me. do you think she pretended you don't. exist do you think she was so busy. that she kind of forgot you know that. she has like the stream of brilliant. people around her there's a bunch of. ideas that are swimming in the air and. you just kind of forget people that are. a little bit on the periphery on the.

idea generation like or is it some mix. of both. uh it's not a mix of both. um I know that because we corresponded. she put a graduate student on this work. he emailed me excitedly when the results. came in. um so there was no ambiguity about what. had happened what's more when I went to. publish my work I actually sent it to. Carol in order to get her feedback. because I wanted to be a good. collaborator to her and she absolutely.

panned it made many critiques that were. not valid but it was clear at that point. that he became an antagonist and none of. this adds up she couldn't possibly have. forgotten the conversation. um. I believe I even Center tissues at some. point in in part in not related to this. project but as a favor she was doing. another project that involved telomeres. and she needed samples that I could get. a hold of because of the Museum of. zoology that I was in.

so this was not a one-off conversation I. certainly know that those sorts of. things can happen but that's not what. happened here this was a relationship. that existed and then was suddenly cut. short at the point that she published. her paper by surprise without saying. where the hypothesis had come from and. uh began to be a opposing Force to my. work. is there there's a bunch of trajectories. you could have taken through life.

do you think about. the trajectory of being. um a researcher of then going to to war. in the space of ideas of publishing. further papers along this line. I mean that's often the dynamic of the. that fascinating space is you have a. junior researcher with brilliant ideas. and a senior researcher that that starts. out as a mentor that becomes a. competitor I mean that that happens but. then the way. to uh it's almost an opportunity to.

shine is to publish a bunch more papers. in this place like to tear it apart to. dig into like really uh make it a war of. ideas did you consider that possible. trajectory I did. a couple things to say about it one this. work was not Central for me I took a. year on the telomere project because. something fascinating occurred to me and. I pursued it and the more I pursued it. the clearer it was there was something.

there but it wasn't the focus of my. graduate work and I didn't want to. become a telomere researcher what I want. to do is to be an evolutionary biologist. who upgrades the toolkit of evolutionary. Concepts so that we can see more clearly. how organisms function and why and. telomeres was a proof of concept right. that paper was a proof of concept that. the toolkit in question works. um. as for the need to pursue it further.

I think it's kind of absurd and you're. not the first person to say maybe that. was the way to go about it but the basic. point is look the work was good the it. turned out to be highly predictive. frankly the model of senescence that I. presented is now widely accepted and I. don't feel any misgivings at all about. having spent a year on it said my piece. and moved on to other things which.

frankly I think are bigger I think. there's a lot of good to be done and it. would be it would be a waste to get. overly narrowly focused I mean there's. so many ways through the space of. Science and the the most common ways to. just publish a lot let's publish a lot. of papers do these incremental work and. exploring the space kind of like ants. looking for food is you're tossing out a. bunch of different ideas some of them. could be brilliant breakthrough ideas. nature some of them are more confidence.

kind of Publications all those kinds of. things did you consider that kind of. path and science. of course I considered it but I must say. the experience of having my first. encounter with the process of peer. review be this story which was frankly a. debacle from one end to the other with. respect to the process of publishing. it did not it was not a very good sales. pitch for trying to make a difference.

through publication and I would point. out part of what I ran into and I think. frankly part of what explains Carol's. behavior is that in some parts of. science there is this Dynamic where pis. parasitize their underlings and if. you're very very good you rise to the. level where one day instead of being. parasitized you get to parasitize others. now I find that scientifically. despicable. and it wasn't the culture of the lab I.

grew up in at all my lab in fact the pi. Dick Alexander who's now gone but who. was an incredible mind and a great human. being he didn't want his graduate. students working on the same topics he. was on not because it wouldn't have been. useful and exciting but because. in effect he did not want any confusion. about who had done what because he was a. great mentor and the idea was actually. a great mentor is not stealing ideas and.

you and you don't want you don't want. people thinking that they are so anyway. my point would be. um I wasn't up for being parasitized I. don't like the idea that if you are very. good you get parasitized until it's your. turn to parasitize others that doesn't. make sense to me. um a you know crossing over from. Evolution into cellular biology may have. exposed me to that that may have been. par for the course but it doesn't make. it acceptable and I would also point out.

that my work falls in the realm of. synthesis. my work generally takes evidence. accumulated by others and places it. together in order to generate hypotheses. that explain sets of phenomena that are. otherwise intractable and I am not sure. that that is best done with narrow. Publications that are read by few and in.

fact I would point to the very. conspicuous example of Richard Dawkins. who I must say have learned a tremendous. amount from and I greatly admire. Dawkins has almost no publication record. in the sense of peer-reviewed papers in. journals what he's done instead is done. synthetic work and he's published it in. books which are not appear reviewed in. the same sense and frankly I think. there's no doubting his contribution to. the field so my sense is if Richard. Dawkins.

can illustrate that one can make. contributions to the field without. using journals as the primary mechanism. for Distributing what you've come to. understand then it's obviously a valid. mechanism and it's a far better one from. the point of view of accomplishing what. I want to accomplish yeah it's really. interesting there's of course several. levels you can do the kind of synthesis. and that does require a lot of both. Broad and deep thinking is exceptionally. valuable you could also public I'm. working on something with Andrew. huberman now you can also publish.

synthesis sure that's like review papers. that are exceptionally valuable for the. communities it brings the community. together it tells the history tells a. story where the community has been it. paints a picture of where the path lays. for the future I think it's really. valuable and Richard Dawkins is a good. example of somebody that does that in. book form. that he kind of walks the line really. interestingly. you have like somebody who like Neil. deGrasse Tyson who's more like a science. Communicator Richard Dawkins sometimes a.

science communicator but he gets he gets. like close to the technical to where. it's a little bit it's not shying away. from. being really a contribution to science. no he's made he's made real. contributions. um in book form yes yeah it really is. fascinating I mean I mean uh Roger. penins some similar kind of idea that's. interesting that's interesting synthesis. does not especially synthesis work. work that synthesizes ideas. does not necessarily need to be peer.

reviewed it it it's peer-reviewed by. peers reading it well and reviewing it. that's it it is reviewed by peers which. is not synonymous with peer review and. that's the thing is people don't. understand that the two things aren't. the same right peer review is an. anonymous process that happens before. publication. in a place where there is a power. Dynamic right I mean the joke of course. is that peer review is actually peer. preview right your biggest competitors.

get to see your work before it sees the. light of day and decide whether or not. it gets published and. you know again when your formative. experience with the publication. apparatus is the one I had with the. telomere paper. there's no way that that seems like the. right way to advance important ideas. yeah and you know what's the harm. in publishing them so that your peers. have to review them in public where they. actually if they're gonna disagree with. you they actually have to take the risk.

of saying I don't think this is right. and here's why right with their name on. it I'd much rather that it's not that I. don't want my work reviewed by peers but. I want it done in the open you know for. the same reason you don't meet with. dangerous people in private you meet at. the cafe I want the work reviewed out in. public. he asked you a difficult question sure. there is popularity in martyrdom. this popularity in pointing out that the.

emperor has no clothes. that that can become a drug in itself. I've confronted this in scientific work. I've done in MIT. where there are certain things that are. not done well people are not being the. best version of themselves. and. particular aspects of a particular field.

are in need of a revolution. and part of me wanted to point that out. versus doing the hard work of publishing. papers and doing the revolution. basically just pointing out look. you guys are doing it wrong and then. just walking away. are you aware of the drug of martyrdom. of uh. the. the ego involvement. that it can Cloud your thinking.

probably one of the best questions I've. ever been asked. um so let me let me try to sort it out. first of all we are all Mysteries to. ourself at some level so it's possible. there's stuff going on in me that I'm. not aware of that's driving but in. general I would say one of my better. strengths. is that I'm not especially ego driven. I have an ego I clearly think highly of. myself but it is not driving me I do not.

crave that kind of validation I do crave. certain things I do love a good Eureka. moment there is something great about it. and there's something even better about. the phone calls you make next when you. share it right it's pretty it's pretty. fun right I really like it. I also really like my subject right. there's something about a walk in the. forest when you have a tool kit in which. you can actually look at creatures and. see something deep right I like it that.

drives me. um and I could entertain myself for the. rest of my life right if I. if I was somehow isolated from the rest. of the world but I was in a place that. was biologically interesting you know. hopefully I would be with people that I. love and pets that I love believe it or. not but you know if I were in that. situation and I could just go out every. day and look at cool stuff and figure. out what it means I could be all right. with that so I'm not heavily driven by. the.

um. the ego thing as you put it so I I I'm. completely the same except instead of. the pets I would put robots but so it's. not it's the Eureka it's the exploration. of. of the subject that brings you Joy and. fulfillment it's not the ego. well there's there's more to say no I. really don't think it's the ego thing. um I will say I also have kind of a. secondary passion for robot stuff I've. never made anything useful but I do. believe I believe I found my calling but.

if this wasn't my calling my calling. would have been inventing stuff I really. I really enjoy that too so I get what. you're saying about the analogy quite. quite well. um as far as the martyrdom thing. I. I understand the drug you're talking. about and I've seen it more than I felt. it. I do if I'm just to be completely candid. and that this question is so good it. deserves a candid answer. I do like the fight.

right I like fighting against people I. don't respect and I like winning. but. I have no interest in martyrdom. one of the reasons I have no interest in. martyrdom is that I'm having too good A. Time right I very much enjoy my life and. it's such a good answer I have a. wonderful wife I have amazing children I. live in a lovely place. I don't want to exit any quicker than I. have to that said I also believe in.

things and a willingness to exit if. that's the only way is not exactly. inviting martyrdom but it is an. acceptance that fighting is dangerous. and going up against powerful forces. means who knows what will come of it. right I don't have the sense that the. thing is out there that used to kill. inconvenient people I don't think that's. how it's done anymore it's primarily. done through destroying them. reputationally which is not something I. relish the possibility of but there's a.

difference between a. willingness to face the hazard rather. than a desire to face it because of the. thrill right for me the thrill is in. um fighting when I'm in the right I've I. think I feel that that is a worthwhile. way to take what I see as the. the kind of brutality that is built into. men and to channel it to something.

useful right if it is not channeled into. something useful it will be channeled. into something else so a demo better be. channeled into something useful it's not. motivated by Fame and popularity those. kinds of things it's. that there you know you're just making. me realize that enjoying the fight. ing the powerful and idea that you. believe is right. is a kind of um. is a kind of optimism for the human.

spirit it's like we can win this. it's almost like you're uh turning into. action into personal action this hope. for for Humanity. by saying like we can win this. uh and that makes you feel. good about. like the rest of humanity that if. there's people like me. then we're going to be okay. even if you're like your ideas might be.

wrong or not but if you believe they're. right. and you're fighting the powerful Against. All Odds that we're going to be okay. that that that's if I were to project I. mean that because I enjoy the fight as. well I think that's the way I that's. what brings me joy is it's almost like. uh it's optimism. um in action. well it's a little different for me and. again I think you know I I recognize you.

you're a familiar your construction is. familiar even if it isn't mine right. um for me I actually expect us not to be. okay and I'm not okay with that. but what's really important if I feel. like what I've said is I don't know of. any reason that it's too late as far as. I know we could still save humanity and. we could get to the fourth Frontier or. something akin to it. but I expect it's not to I expect us to. fuck it up right I don't like that.

thought but I've looked into the abyss. and I've done my calculations and. the number of ways we could not succeed. are many and the number of ways that we. could manage to get out of this very. dangerous phase of history is small but. the thing I don't have to worry about. is that I didn't do enough right that I. was a coward that I you know prioritized. other things. at the end of the day I think I will be. able to say to myself and in fact the.

thing that allows me to sleep is that. when I saw clearly what needed to be. done I tried to do it to the extent that. it was in my power and you know. if we fail as I expect us to I can't say. well geez that's on me you know and you. know frankly I regard what I just said. to you as something like a personality. defect. right I'm trying to free myself from the. sense that this is my fault on the other. hand my guess is that personality defect. is probably good for Humanity right it's.

a good one for me to have it you know. the externalities of it are positive so. I don't feel too bad about it. yeah that's funny so yeah our. perspective on the world. are different but they rhyme like you. said because I I I've also looked into. the abyss and. it kind of smiled nervously back so I. have uh I have a more optimistic sense. that we're gonna win more than likely. we're going to be okay. I'm right there with you brother I'm.

hoping you're right I'm expecting me to. be right but back to Eric because he had. a wonderful conversation in that. conversation he played the Big Brother. role and he was very happy about it he. was self-congratulatory bought it I mean. can you talk to. the ways in which Eric made you a better. man throughout your life. yeah hell yeah I mean for one thing you. know Eric and I are interestingly. similar in some ways and radically.

different in some other ways and it you. know it's often a matter of Fascination. to people who know us both because. almost always people meet one of us. first and they sort of get used to that. thing and then they meet the other and. it throws the model into chaos but you. know I had a great Advantage which is I. came second right so although it was. kind of a pain in the ass to be born. into a world that had Eric in it because. he's a force of nature right it was also. terrifically useful because a he was a.

very awesome older brother who you know. made interesting mistakes learned from. them and conveyed the wisdom of what he. had discovered and that was uh you know. I don't know who else ends up so lucky. as to have that kind of person blazing. the trail. it also probably you know my my. hypothesis for what birth order effects. are is that they're actually adaptive. right that the reason that a second born.

is different than a firstborn is that. they're not born into a world with the. same niches in it right and so the thing. about Eric. is he's been completely dominant in the. realm of fundamental thinking right like. what he's fascinated by is the. fundamental of fundamentals and he's. excellent at it which meant that I was. born into a world where somebody was. becoming excellent in that and for me to. be anywhere near the fundamental of. fundamentals was going to be pointless. right I was going to be playing second. fiddle forever and I think that that.

actually drove me to the other end of. the Continuum between fundamental and. emergent and so I became fascinated with. Biology and have been since I was. three years old right I think Eric drove. that and I have to thank him for it. because. you know I mean I never thought of so. Eric drives towards the fundamental and. you drive towards the emergent. the physics and the biology right. opposite ends of the Continuum and as.

Eric would be quick to point out if he. was sitting here I treat the emergent. layer I seek the fundamentals in it. which is sort of an echo of Eric's style. of thinking but applied to the very far. complexity he's uh overpoweringly. argues for the importance of physics the. fundamental of the fundamental. he's not here to defend himself is there. an argument to be made against that or.

biology. the emergent the study of. the thing that emerged when the. fundamental acts at the Universal at the. cosmic scale and builds the beautiful. thing that is us is much more important. like a psychology biology. the systems that we're actually. interacting with in this human world are. much more important to understand than. the low-level uh theories. of uh quantum mechanics and general.

relativity. yeah I can't say that one is more. important I think there's probably a. different time scale I think. understanding the emergent layer is more. often useful but the bang for the buck. at the far fundamental layer may be much. greater so for example. the fourth Frontier. pretty sure it's going to have to be. Fusion powered I don't think anything. else will do it but once you had fusion. power assuming we didn't just dump.

fusion power on the market the way we. would be likely to if it was invented. usefully tomorrow but if we had fusion. power. and we had a little bit more wisdom than. we have you could do an awful lot and. that's not going to come from. people like me who you know look at. Dynamics okay can I argue against that. please. I think the way to uh Unlock Fusion. power is through artificial intelligence. is so. I think most of the Breakthrough ideas.

in the futures of science will be. developed by AI systems and I think in. order to build intelligent AI systems. you have to be a scholar of the. fundamental of the emergent. of biology of the Neuroscience of the. way the brain works of intelligence of. Consciousness and those things. at least directly don't have anything to. do with physics. well you're making me a little bit sad. because my addiction to the aha moment.

thing is incompatible with you know. Outsourcing that job oh my God I don't. want to Outsource that thing today yeah. moment. um you know and actually I've seen this. happen before because some of the people. who uh trained Heather and me were. phylogenetic systematists uh Arnold. cluge in particular. and. the problem with systematics is that to. do it right when your technology is. primitive you have to be deeply embedded.

in the philosophical and The Logical. right your method has to be based in the. highest level of rigor. once you can sequence genes. genes can spit so much data at you that. you can overwhelm high quality work with. just lots and lots and lots of automated. work and so in any in some sense there's. like a generation of phylogenetic. systematists who are the last of the. greats because what's replacing them as. sequencers so anyway I maybe you're.

right about the AI and I guess you said. I like figuring stuff out is there. something that you disagree with aricon. they've been trying to convince them and. you've failed so far but uh you will. eventually succeed. you know that is a very long list Eric. and I have have uh tensions over certain. things that recur all the time and I'm. trying to think what would be you know. the idea in the space of Science and the.

space of philosophy politics family. love robots. well all right let me I'm just going to. use your podcast to uh make a bit of. cryptic war and just say there are many. places in which I believe that I have. butted heads with Eric over the course. of decades and I have seen him move in. my direction substantially over you've. been winning he might he might win a. battle here or there but you've been. winning the war I would not say that.

it's quite possible he could say the. same thing about me and in fact I know. that it's true there are places where. he's absolutely convinced me but in any. case I do believe it's at least you know. it may not be a totally even fight but. it's it's more even than some will. imagine. um but yeah we have um. you know there are things I say that. drive him nuts. right like when something you know like. you heard me talk about the um. what was it it was the autopilot that.

seems to be putting a great many humans. in needless medical Jeopardy over the. covid-19 pandemic. and my feeling is we can say this almost. for sure. anytime you have the appearance of some. captured gigantic entity that is. censoring you on YouTube and you know. handing down dictates from The Who and. all of that it is sure that there will. be a certain amount of collusion right.

there's going to be some embarrassing. emails in some places that are going to. reveal some shocking connections and. then there's going to be an awful lot of. emergence that didn't involve collusion. right in which people were doing their. little part of a job and something was. emerging and you never know what the. admixture is. how much are we looking at actual. collusion and how much are we looking at. an emergent process but you should. always walk in with the sense that it's. going to be a ratio and the question is. what is the ratio in this case I think. this drives Eric nuts. um because he is very focused on the.

people I think he's focused on the. people who have a choice and make the. wrong one. and anyway he made a question of the. ratio as a distraction to that I think I. think he takes it almost as an offense. because it grants cover to people who. are harming others and I think I think. it offends him. uh morally. and if I had to say I would say it it. Alters his judgment on the matter.

um but anyway. certainly useful just to leave open the. two possibilities and say it's a ratio. but we don't know which one. brother to brother do you love the guy. hell yeah hell yeah and you know I'd. love him if he was just my brother but. he's also awesome so I I love him and I. love him for who he is. so let me ask you about uh back to your. book Hunter gatherer's Guide to the 21st. century. I can't wait both for the book and the.

videos you do on the book that's really. exciting that there's like a structured. organized way to present this. um. I kind of uh. from an evolutionary biology perspective. a guide for the future using our past at. its the fundamental of the emergent way. uh to uh present a picture of the future. let me ask you about uh something that.

you know I think about a little bit in. this modern world which is monogamy. so I personally value monogamy one girl. ride or die there you go right or no. that's exactly it but that said. I'd I don't know what's the right way to. approach this but. from an evolutionary biology perspective. or from just looking at modern society. that seems to be an idea that's not.

um what's the right way to put it. flourishing. it is waning it's waning. um so I suppose based on your reaction. you're also a supporter of monogamy or. the you value monogamy are you and I. just. um delusional. um what can you say about monogamy. from the context of your book from the. context of evolutionary biology from the.

context of Being Human yeah I can say. that I fully believe that we are. actually enlightened and that although. monogamy is waning that it is not waning. because there is a superior system it is. waiting for predictable other reasons so. let us just say it is there's a lot of. pre-trans fallacy here where. people go through a phase where they. recognize that actually we know a lot. about the evolution of monogamy and we.

can tell from the fact that humans are. somewhat sexually dimorphic. that there has been a lot of polygeny in. human history. and in fact most of human history was. largely poligenous. but it is also the case that most of the. people on Earth today belong to. civilizations that are at least. nominally monogamous and have practiced. monogamy and that's not. anti-evolutionary what that is is part. of what I mentioned before where human.

beings can swap out their software. program. and different mating patterns are uh. favored in different periods of History. so I would argue that the benefit of. monogamy the primary one that drives the. evolution of monogamous patterns in. humans is that it brings all adults into. child rearing. now the reason that that matters is. because human babies are very labor. intensive in order to raise them.

properly having two parents is a huge. asset and having more than two parents. having an extended family also is very. important. but what that means. is that for a population that is. expanding. a monogamous mating system makes sense. it makes sense because it means that the. number of offspring that can be raised. is elevated it's elevated because all. potential parents are involved in. parenting whereas if you sideline a. bunch of males by having a polygenous.

system in which one male has many. females which is typically the way that. works what you do is you sideline all. those males which means the total amount. of Parental effort is lower and the. population can't grow so what what I'm. arguing is that you should expect to see. populations that face the possibility of. expansion endorse monogamy and at the. point that they have reached carrying. capacity you should expect to see. polygeny break back out and what we are. seeing is a kind of false sophistication. around polyamory which will end up.

breaking down into polygyny which will. not be in the interests of most people. really the only people whose interests. it could be argued to be in would be the. very small number of males at the top. who have many partners and everybody. else suffers is it possible to make the. argument if we focus in on those males. at the quote-unquote top with many. female Partners is it possible to say. that that's a sub-optimal life.

that a single partner is the optimal. life well it depends what you mean I. have a feeling that you and I wouldn't. have to go very far to figure out that. um what might be evolutionarily optimal. doesn't match my values as a person and. I'm sure it doesn't match yours either. you know try to can we try to dig into. the that gap between those two sure. um I mean we can do it very simply uh. selection might favor your engaging in.

war against a defenseless enemy or. genocide. right it's not hard to figure out how. that might put your genes at advantage. I don't know about you Lex I'm not. getting involved in no genocide it's not. going to happen I won't do it I will do. anything to avoid it so some part of me. has decided that my conscious self and. the values that I hold Trump my. evolutionary self. and.

once you figure out that in some extreme. case that's true and then you realize. that that means it must be possible in. many other cases and you start going. through all of the things that selection. would favor and you realize that a fair. fraction of the time actually you're not. up for this you don't want to be some. robot on a mission that involves. genocide when necessary you want to be. your own person and accomplish things. that you think are valuable. and so among those. are not advocating you know let's.

suppose you're in a position to be one. of those males at the top of a. polygenous system we both know why that. would be rewarding right but we also. both recognize it yeah sure lots of sex. yeah okay what else lots of sex and lots. of variety right so look. every red-blooded American slash Russian. male could understand why that's. appealing right on the other hand it is. up against an alternative which is. having a partner with whom one is bonded.

especially closely right right and so. hey love right well you know I don't. wanna I don't wanna uh straw man the. polygamy position obviously polygeny is. complex and there's nothing that stops a. man presumably from loving multiple. partners and from them loving him back. but in terms of you know if love is your. thing there's a question about okay what. is the quality of love if it is divided.

over multiple partners right and what is. the net consequence for love in a. society when multiple people will be. frozen out for every individual male in. this case who has it. um and what I would argue. is and you know this is weird to even. talk about but this is partially me just. talking from personal experience I think. there actually is a monogamy program in. us and it's not automatic but if you. take it seriously you can find it and.

frankly marriage and it doesn't have to. be marriage but whatever it is that. results in a lifelong bond with a. partner has gotten a very bad rap you. know it's the butt of too many jokes but. the truth is it's hugely rewarding it's. not easy but if you know that you're. looking for something right if you know. that the objective actually exists and. it's not some utopian fantasy that can't. be found if you know that there's some. real world you know warts and all.

version of it then you might actually. think hey that is something I want and. you might pursue it and my guess is. you'd be very happy when you find it. yeah I think there is uh getting to the. fundamentals of the emergent I feel like. there is some kind of physics of love so. one we there's a conservation thing. going on so if you have like many. partners. yeah in theory you should be able to. love all of them deeply but it seems. like in reality that love gets split. yep now there's another law that's.

interesting in terms of monogamy I don't. know if it's at the physics level but if. you are in a monogamous relationship by. choice. and almost as. um in slight Rebellion to social norms. that's much more powerful like if you. choose that one partnership that's also. more powerful if you if like everybody's. in a monogamous there's this pressure to. be married in this precious Society. that's different because that's almost. like a constraint and your freedom that.

is enforced by something other than your. own ideals it's by by somebody else when. you yourself choose to I guess create. these constraints that enriches that. love so there's some kind of love. function. like E equals MC squared but for love. that I feel like if you have less. partners and is done by choice that can. maximize that and that love can. transcend the biology Transcendent.

evolutionary biology forces that have to. do much more with survival and all those. kinds of things it can transcend to take. us to to a richer experience which will. have the luxury of having exploring of. Happiness of of Joy or fulfillment all. those kinds of things totally agree with. us and there's no question that by. choice when there are other choices. imbues it with meaning that it might not. otherwise have I would also say you know.

I'm. I'm really struck by and I have a hard. time not feeling. terrible sadness over. what. younger people are coming to think about. this topic. I think they're missing something so. important and so hard to phrase that and. they don't even know that they're. missing it. they might know that they're unhappy but. they don't understand what it is they're. even looking for because nobody's really. been honest with them about what their.

choices are and I have to say if I was a. young person or if I was advising a. young person which I used to do again a. million years ago when I was a college. professor four years ago but I used to. you know talk to students I knew my. students really well and they would ask. questions about this and they were. always curious because Heather and I. seem to have a good relationship and. many of them knew both of us so they. would talk to us about this. if I was advising somebody I would say. Do not bypass the possibility that what.

you are supposed to do is find somebody. Worthy. somebody who can handle it somebody who. you are compatible with and that you. don't have to be perfectly compatible. it's not about dating until you find the. one it's about finding somebody who's. underlying values and Viewpoint are. complementary to yours sufficient that. you fall in love. if you find that person. opt out together. get out of this damn system that's.

telling you what's sophisticated to. think about love and romance and sex. ignore it together right that's the key. and I believe you'll end up laughing in. the end if you do it you'll discover. wow that's a hellscape that I opted out. of and this thing I opted into. complicated difficult worth it nothing. that's worth it is ever not difficult so. we should we should even just skip the. whole statement about difficult yeah all.

right I just I want to be honest it's. not like oh it's you know it's non-stop. Joy no it's freaking complex but. um but worth it no question in my mind. is there advice outside of love that you. can give to young people. you were a million years ago a professor. is there advice you can give to young. people high schoolers college students. about career about life yeah but it's. not they're not going to like it because. it's not easy to operationalize so and.

this was a problem when I was a college. professor too people would ask me what. they should do should they go to. graduate school I had almost nothing. useful to say because the the job market. and the market of you know pre-job. training and all of that these things. are all so. distorted and corrupt that I didn't want. to point anybody to anything right. because it's all broken and I would tell. them that. but I would say that results in a kind. of uh meta level advice that I do think.

is useful. you don't know what's coming. you don't know where the opportunities. will be. you should invest in tools rather than. knowledge right to the extent that you. can do things you can repurpose that no. matter what the future brings to the. extent that you know if you as a robot. guy right you've got the skills of a. robot guy now if. civilization failed and the stuff of. robot building disappeared with it.

you'd still have the mind of a robot guy. and the mind of a robot guy can retool. around all kinds of things whether. you're you know forced to work with you. know you know fibers that are made into. ropes right your your Mechanical Mind. would be useful in all kinds of places. so invest in tools like that that can be. easily repurposed and invest in. combinations of tools right if. civilization keeps. limping along. you're going to be up against all sorts.

of people who have studied the things. that you studied right if you think hey. computer programming is really really. cool and you pick up computer. programming guess what you just entered. a large group of people who have that. skill and many of them will be better. than you almost certainly. on the other hand if you combine that. with something else that's very rarely. combined with it if you have. I don't know if it's carpentry and. computer programming if you take. combinations of things that are even if. they're both common but they're not.

commonly found together. and those combinations create a rarified. space where you inhabit it and even if. the things don't even really touch. but nonetheless they create a mind in. which the two things are live and you. can move back and forth between them and. you know step out of your own. perspective by moving from one to the. other. that will increase what you can see and. the quality of your tools and so anyway. that isn't useful advice it doesn't tell. you whether you should go to graduate. school or not but it does tell you the.

one thing we can say for certain about. the future is that it's uncertain and so. prepare for it and like you said there's. cool things to be discovered in the. intersection of uh fields and ideas and. I would look at grad school that way. actually if you do go. or. I see I mean this is such a like every. course in grad school undergrad too was. like this little journey that you're on. that explores a particular field and and.

it's not immediately obvious how useful. it is. but it allows you to to discover. intersections between that thing and. some other thing so you you're bringing. to the table this. these pieces of knowledge some of which. when intersected might create a niche. that's completely novel unique and will. bring you Joy I have that I mean I took. a huge number of courses in theoretical. computer science most of them seem. useless but they totally changed the way.

I see the world uh in ways that are I'm. not prepared or is a little bit. difficult to kind of make explicit but. taken together. they've allowed me to see for example. the world of Robotics totally different. and different from many of my colleagues. and friends and so on and I think that's. a good way to see if you go to grad. school as. um. as a opportunity to explore. intersections of fields even if the.

individual Fields seem useless yeah and. useless doesn't mean useless right. useless means not directly applicable. not directly a good useless course can. be the best one you ever took. um yeah I took uh James Joyce uh course. on James Joyce and that was truly. useless. well I took uh I took immunobiology in. the medical school when I was at Penn as. uh I guess I would have been a freshman.

or a sophomore I wasn't supposed to be. in this class. it blew my goddamn mind and it still. does right I mean we had this I don't. even know who it was but we had this. great Professor who was like highly. placed in the world of immunobiology you. know the course is called immunobiology. not Immunology. immunobiology it had the right focus and. as I recall it. professors stood. sideways to the chalkboard staring off. into space literally stroking his beard. with this bemused look on his face.

through the entire lecture and you know. he had all these medical students who. were so furiously writing notes that I. don't even think they were noticing the. person delivering this thing but you. know I got what this guy was smiling. about it was like so what he was. describing you know adaptive immunity is. so marvelous right that it was like. almost a privilege to even be saying it. to a room full of people who were. listening you know but anyway yeah I. took that course and you know lo and. behold. Suddenly It's front and center and wow.

my glad I took it but um anyway yeah. useless courses are great and actually. Eric. gave me one of the greater pieces of. advice at least for college that. anyone's ever given which was don't. worry about the prereqs take it anyway. all right but now I don't even know if. kids can do this now because the prereqs. are now enforced by a computer but back. in the day. if you didn't mention that you didn't. have the prereqs nobody stopped you from. taking the course and what he told me.

which I didn't know was that often the. advanced courses are easier in some way. the materials complex. but you know it you know it's not like. intro bio where you're learning a. thousand things at once right it's like. focused on something so if you dedicate. yourself you can you can pull it off. yeah stay with an idea for many weeks at. a time and it's ultimately rewarding and. not as difficult as it looks yeah. can I ask you a ridiculous question. please. what do you think is the meaning of life.

well. I feel terrible having to give you the. answer I realize you asked the question. but if I tell you you're gonna again. feel bad I don't want to do that but. look there's two there can be a. disappointment there's no it's going to. be a horror right. because we actually know the answer to. the question oh no it's completely. meaningless there is nothing that we can. do that escapes the heat death of the.

universe or whatever it is that happens. at the end and we're not going to make. it there anyway but even if you were. optimistic about our ability to escape. every existential. Hazard indefinitely ultimately it's off. or not and We Know It Right. that said once you stare into that abyss. and then it stares back and laughs or. whatever happens right then the question. is okay. given that can I relax a little bit. right and figure out well what would.

make sense if that were true right and I. think there's something very clear to me. I think if you do all of the you know if. I just take the values that I'm sure we. share and extrapolate from them I think. the following thing is actually a moral. imperative. being a human and having opportunity is. absolutely fucking awesome right A lot. of people don't make use of the. opportunity and a lot of people don't. have opportunity right they get to be. human but they're too constrained by.

keeping a roof over their heads to. really be free but being a free human. is fantastic and being a free human on. this beautiful planet crippled as it may. be is. unparalleled I mean what could be better. how lucky are we that we get that right. so if that's true. that it is awesome to be human and to be. free. then surely it is Our obligation to. deliver that opportunity to as many. people as we can. and how do you do that well I think I.

know what job one is job one is we have. to get sustainable. the way to get the maximum number of. humans to have that opportunity to be. both here and free is to make sure that. there isn't a limit on how long we can. keep doing this that effectively. requires us to reach sustainability. and then at sustainability you could. have a horror show of sustainability. right you could have a totalitarian. sustainability. that's not the objective the objective.

is to liberate people and so the. question the whole fourth Frontier. question frankly is how do you get to a. sustainable and indefinitely sustainable. state in which people feel liberated in. which they are liberated to pursue the. things that actually matter to pursue uh. Beauty truth compassion connection all. of those things that we could list as. unalloyed Goods. those are the things that people should. be most liberated to do in a system that.

really functions and anyway my point is. I don't know how precise that. calculation is but I'm pretty sure it's. not wrong it's accurate enough and if it. is accurate enough then the point is. okay well there's no ultimate meaning. but the proximate meaning is that one. how many people can we get to have this. wonderful experience that we've gotten. to have right and. there's no way that's so wrong that if I. invest my life in it that I'm making. some big error for that life is awesome.

and we want to spread the awesome as. much as possible yeah you sum it up that. way spread The Awesomes spread those so. that's the fourth Frontier and if that. fails if the fourth Frontier fails the. fifth Frontier will be defined by robots. and hopefully they'll learn the lessons. uh that the of the mistakes that the. humans made and build a better world I. hope we're very happy here and that they. do a better job with the place than we. did. but I can't believe it took us this long. uh to talk as I as I mentioned to you.

before that we haven't actually spoken. I think at all and I I've always felt. that we're already friends I don't know. how that works because I've listened to. your podcast a lot I've also sort of uh. love your brother and so like it it was. like we've known each other for the. longest time and I hope we can be. friends and we could talk often again I. hope to that you get a chance to meet. some of my robot friends as well and. fall in love and I'm so glad that you.

love robots uh as well so we get to. share in that love so I can't wait for. us uh to interact together so we went. from. talking about some of the worst failures. of humanity to some of the most. beautiful aspects of humanity what else. can you uh ask for from a conversation. thank you so much for talking to you. know Alex I feel uh the same way towards. you and I really appreciate it this has. been a lot of fun and I'm looking. forward to our next one. thanks for listening to this. conversation with bright Weinstein and.

thank you to Jordan Harbor to show. expressvpn magic spoon and for sigmatic. check them out in the description to. support this podcast and now let me. leave you with the words from Charles. Darwin. ignorance more frequently begets. confidence than does knowledge it is. those who know little not those who know. much who so positively assert this or. that problem will never be solved by. science. thank you for listening and hope to see. you next time.