Club Random with Bill Maher - Sam Harris | Club Random with Bill Maher

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Bill Maher and Sam Harris randomly riff on Sam’s super power with words, Sam burying the hatchet with Ben Affleck, Sam’s Hunter Biden story suppression scandal, how Bill misses Howard Stern, Bill���s love for playing Vegas and how he never caught the gambling bug, Sam’s nine years of education, the pluses and minuses of Capitalism, and the worst sin America has committed.

Club Renew. You are, in my view, the single most articulate person in the world. That is really, that's what I mean. I'm not gonna accept that praise, but it is high praise. I appreciate the feeling. It's just like nobody, your superpower,

besides clear thinking, is the ability to choose words, you know, just the right one. Well, I have an advantage, which many people have noticed. I talk incredibly slowly. So there are people who listen to my podcast on 2X and 3X and it's not that bad. It's not that slow, but it's not a draw. It's something you're, I could do that.

Booford Pusser. Give me a few of these and then we'll see if a draw. It's not like, yeah, I could do that. I'm a booford pusher. Give me a few of these and then we'll see if I draw. But, but, most people, if they had 10 years and started studying now, still couldn't come up with the word, you know, you come up with words that are like, not arcane, but just, perfect. You know, like, that other people don't come up with. Like, I'm trying to think of an example, but like, I don't know.

Oh, like, it's cracked me. That was actually making me laugh. I don't think they make other people laugh. But you were saying, I mean, Richard was here, Richard Dawkins. And we were talking about, you know, he's canceled by the Muslims for Islamophobia, you've had the same problem. And you once described like, and the word you used for,

combustible. You know, the community is combustible. Well, that's like if some gin combustible religious maniacs. Like if some, like a, Coran gets burned or some shit happens. And they're like, okay, it's not cool, but you know, you're like,

if nobody else is quite discombustible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just not a word I would, you know, immediately associate with that. And you, and we're certainly not saying that all Muslims are combustible. Just, it's a, it's a me, I don't know that we have to issue any caveats or footnotes as

we cover these topics, but it's amazing how confused people are. So, you know, we're now talking in the immediate aftermath of the Kanye anti-Semitism eruption. And in criticizing that, I got so much blowback on social media, more or less of the sort from the left saying, you're one to talk. You have said so many awful things about Islam. Oh my God. As though, and people cannot differentiate, criticizing a system of ideas from hating people

for indelible characteristics of birth. Did you call Ben Affleck back? Yes. I'm kidding. I love Ben. He used to own this very room. Is that strange? Yeah. He and I buried the hatchet. We're fine now. I know. No problem. But it is one of those things that you and I will never shake completely because so many because of his stardom. Oh, that's specifically that episode, yeah. Yeah, because of his stardom and, you know,

a passion at the moment. Right. It was just one of those things that was seen by, like, masses that don't usually follow us. Right. Shall we say? Yeah, yeah. No, he got, he was very famous in Indonesia right after that.

And he's just, he's the white knight who wrote in on his horse and saved half of humanity. I'm not just in Indonesia. Rosie O'Donnell liked it. That's right. It should be Brooklyn and Indonesia and the entire West Side of Los Angeles. Yeah. No, I mean, I'm glad that you guys talked. Yeah, and I remember you did by the after the show,

and because he's a very bright reasonable. Well, obviously, the green room was worse. The green room was... Had you televised the green room conversation, that would have been amazing. After the show? Yeah, yeah. So you were...

No, it was just me and him and... I'm like, oh, I'm not aware that there was such a conversation No, it was contentious. It was contentious But again, we've you know, we've we've totally buried the hatchet so there's no no issue Um And nobody came over to the other one side a little bit or it was just more of like No, it was more like yeah, we just moved on. You know, I haven't seen him a tons since then, but you know,

a few times I have is just that there's nothing, nothing wrong. So good. Yeah. I'm a big fan of him as a person and a filmmaker, I think he's super talented, super talented. I mean, just as a, I wish he would do more of his own movies, you know, the ones he's directed are just on a really high level. Yeah, definitely. But he's he's got his demons like we can retire. He can retire his scholarship of Islam. I think that's the cake. He doesn't leave leave that to the other guys. big day he doesn't leave that to the other guys. Oh, well who's up your ass now?

I mean, you like you live, I feel. Well, I feared that you were a few weeks ago. I don't know, do we have to cross any eyes or dot any T's with respect to the whole cancellation, Hunter Biden moment because. That you got into? Yeah, I got into something and I saw you react to it and I thought you because unfortunately the clip that was exported to all of humanity Kind of distorted my position. I

My recollection of it was first of all You what you said was fairly benign so I don't know why you took the bait and I heard your whole podcast about it And I enjoyed it mentally because again you choose words so well. I could just know why you took the bait and I heard your whole podcast about it. And I enjoyed it immensely because again, you choose words so well. I could just listen to you talk. But I kept thinking, wow, you're really caring more about this than I think maybe you need to. What I thought was interesting about it on my show is that Rob Reiner and Amy Klobuchar were on that panel. So very, very strong liberals. We usually try to have a balance,

but a balance doesn't mean a balance within one day. It means a balance over the whole year. Some shows, yeah, there's gonna be two liberals. And maybe some shows they'll be, you know, to conservators or something, but that show happened to be two people who have no ideological difference between them. You couldn't find more MSNBC stalwart

than Amy Clobershire and Rob Reiner. And I'm very fond of them both, but when I brought up that story, they had not heard of it. Right, you had no, and I even said, because, you know, it's so said, our informational landscape is so partition said because you know, it's so, our information landscape is so partitioned at this point.

It's amazing because I mean, that was, it was hitting the front page of the New York Post, but my liberal friends hadn't seen any of it. And there you, and I was getting inundated from Trumpistan on social media. Right. I've never, I was trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons, but it was all right-wing lunacy, It was very weird because it was, in my world, it was a complete non-issue. And with respect to my own,

the reputation I care about, it was a complete non-issue. But it was, it was amazing. I mean, the velocity of the hatred was something new. And again, if we lived in a same world, we wouldn't even be arguing over some of this, which I think if you could get the two reasonable or people of each party in the room would say,

yes, there was what you would have to call some sort of media suppression of Hunter Biden's computer right before the election. Well, no doubt. No doubt. Okay, so and the truth is I still don't know what I think about that. I my default position is why should we be hostage to

Rudy Giuliani's timetable? If Rudy Giuliani holds on to this thing until the 11th hour, 10 days before an election and drops it as an October surprise, why should the New York Times and CNN and every other media organization be hostage to his goal of dropping this at a time when there's just gonna be not enough time to parse it before the election?

Dropping what? The Hunter Biden laptop story. Right. Okay. But why are you saying Rudy Giuliani? Well, he was the one who took delivery of the laptop and original. Yeah. Yeah. So like, the laptop gets left at a repair shop. It's bonkers. Right. The whole thing is bonkers. A repair shop. A computer repair shop. I think in Delaware. Yeah. What year is this? What is it? Episode of Barney Miller. No, I can't computer repair shop. Yeah. Okay. I use Acme by the way. And I recommend them. I like that. They're the first in the yellow pages, which I also use also on my rotary phone. Anyway, so it's it's, so. But it was completely plausible to worry that this was a fake story.

It didn't, I mean, and there simply wasn't enough time to get to the bottom of it. Really? I mean, well, well, well, then why did the outlets that did get to the bottom and get to it? The near post had no problem getting to the bottom. Yeah, well, but it's still it. But they wanted to believe it. They wanted to believe it and get to, the near post had no problem getting to the bottom. Yeah, well, but they still, but they wanted to believe it.

They wanted to believe it. And yes, you know, sometimes you get, you're right by accident and sometimes, right. But I mean, to actually parse everything in there and figure out just how dirty Biden's senior is as a result of the information there. Can I go to step two of what the two reasonable people

in the room would agree on? One they'd agree it was kind of suppressed. Two they'd agree that Hunter Biden being the son of the current vice president and being a complete Nair de Wiel douchebag was ripe to be used as a conduit to his father through which he was, but nothing really. It was common, it was kind of sort of everyday graft that's sleazy, but doesn't affect the world. Okay. We still, it's possible we still don't know, right? So I'll give, I'll give some credence to the possibility that it's possible we still don't know right so I'll give I'll give I some credence

I don't possibility that it's worse than I understand But the problem is 10 days is not enough to figure that out and we knew no, but it was going to rail But just on that issue would you not agree with this statement that probably yes Hunter Biden sold his father's influence to get money uh... but Joe Biden himself would not give away our nuclear secrets of the chinese you know he and his

spot for his son his nare to well stupid so you heard his voice mails to his yes so like dad i'm in a little if it's him but you just meet with the Chinese guy next week.

It would mean a lot to me. Like, and Joe would do it. And then he would, Joe, and then Hunter would get the money for the meeting and then he'd spend it on cocaine and hookers. I mean, it's an old story. And I would be willing to bet that whatever level of corruption and griff to you find over there,

it is tenfold worse in Trumpistan, you know, with Trump and his kids. Oh, of course. I mean, it's just, this is no question. Oh, yes. So if you're gonna play that game of comparing, you know, bad incentives and the vanilla of these factors, but, and your basic, your controversy was saying, yeah,

my controversy was saying that there was literally, there was nothing that you could learn about Hunter Biden at that point, right, that I would have cared about, including, you know, the corporate kids in his basement, right? So, that was probably a flourish that I did. Because the other choice was Trump, being president for more, Trump who was more Trump, who was not an option. Who was a sitting president who was declining to support a peaceful transfer of power.

But you can see why it's easy pickings for critics of people like you and me because we're such free speech champions. So the idea that we are even thinking about, like, toying with the idea of not releasing everything right away, complete transparency, makes us giant hypocrites. Well, but not really. I mean, the problem is there are a couple of bright, shiny objects that have completely entranced people in the, what I would call the alternative media space.

I mean, you're in, you know, you're in both spaces now, you know, like we're now having this conversation in podcast to stand, but you have in, you know, you're in both spaces now, you know, like we're now having this conversation in podcast stand, but you have your, you know, you have your, your main show. Right. You like you walk between those two worlds, but out here in podcast land, they're, they're, they're, people have this notion that the worst possible evil is cancellation, that everything should be talked about at great length Because we're just asking questions and there's no possibility of those conversations like like just Sun the sunlight is on everything at all times is

always the best Approach even if you're dealing with a public health emergency or a threat of nuclear war or like like like everyone just has an opinion, they're entitled to their opinion, and we should be as a default, distrustful of institutions, whether it's the government or the media or science or academia. And that's, and I'm not saying that our institutions haven't embarrassed themselves over the last few years. Of course they have, but the idea that the contrary and view is always or even mostly likely to be true is not true. Dr. Dawkins and I just had like a very long conversation about medicine. I think he understood me all.

Well, it did. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he, I think he had a somewhat erroneous notion at the beginning. So I don't know if I want to like have the same conversation now. I feel like that's where we're heading because when you say, it sounds like, to me, my antenna goes up because it sounds like you're asking

the scientific community, and especially the medical scientific community, to stand by because we have the one true opinion and we should just get behind that. Stand back and stand by. Stand back and stand by. And that's just not where I'm at. And that's a far away from being an anti-bacter.

I'm not any of that. But I am skeptical as I think everybody should be, especially of medicine because we just don't know that much. Was I worried about COVID? Never. Am I worried about cancer? Yes. And that's the thing. It you know, that's the thing,

is like, that's what I don't wanna get. I didn't think COVID's gonna would be terribly harmful to me. With- Okay, well, I mean, so I don't think we should go down that rabbit hole, but I'll just say by way of, you know, closing the door, I think that there are many different time points

in the last three years where a different response was warranted. And so what was appropriate in May of 2020 was slightly different than what was appropriate in December of 2020. And we're in a different moment now. And what we had, what we're dealing with now is such distrust of institutions that I worry that we just can't effectively message anything of consequence without it just getting obliterated by conspiracy thinking and partisan politics. Okay, but, you know, there's, I mentioned a Dr. Dawkins, it's something called the Barrington

Letter, which was signed by 16,000 doctors and scientists, basically a dissension from how we were handling COVID. And putting their thoughts behind things that used to be fairly accepted, like natural immunity is superior to pharmaceutical immunity, things like that, or at least should be, you know, like, there are other many European countries who recognize nature. So like that, that is not part of the one true opinion

and what the CDC and what the government is telling you. And the combined with the fact that they were wrong about key aspects of the vaccine, the vaccine was miraculous, yes, to save many lives. But like, I'm not saying they're corrupt, but there's lots of corruption in medicine and we're We're suing the Sackler family or did for billions and billions. It's not like pharmaceutical companies can't be Doing things just for profit. I'm even with that. I'm not saying that's all that's true. Yeah. Well, that's true I'm not saying that that's what's going on there. Although, I think, did just quadruple the price of the next vaccine.

Okay, they're in business. They have a right. And as Dr. Dawkins was saying, and I was concurring, it was a genius thing to come up with that new technology type of vaccine. And as I said to him, there are some pathogens I would fight you for the vaccine. Yeah, I mean, we got unlucky in some ways because if COVID had been like monkeypox where you just get covered in, you know,

post-Jules, right? I think the attitude toward the vaccine would have been quite different, right? Like, this is, COVID was still an abstraction for many people. But I think there's a few things going on that are complicating this issue. One is science is, science is messy and non-scientists are bad consumers of science.

Right. So like what we, when we view changes of scientific opinion and scientific controversy and a, and some kind of time course over which people are changing their minds and having debates, and there's just basic uncertainty. From the outside, that looks like a failure of science, right? So like, the scientists don't know what the hell is going on. They don't. No, no, no, but no, but you have to, so an emerging pandemic is the worst time to be doing, I mean, you're now doing science on a deadline.

Okay, but this is the, we have to lie to people because they're too stupid to know that there's another political layer to this, which was awful, which I'll totally grant you. We got people saying, you got epidemiologists by the thousands saying that black lives, matter protests are okay. Maybe, maybe you don't even put this to bed. Just see if you just agree with this. Okay. You can go and I'm sure you see this on Twitter, social media, anywhere.

You can see, I think I'm 16,000 doctors sign this thing. You can see so many doctors, you see their videos who are very much dissenting. They're not crazy people. Most of them, most of them, believe that we should have the vaccine and thankful for it and other vaccine. They're not anti-vaxxers. But they are much more on where I've been on this kind of stuff. So, like, you know, if it's like like, I don't do likes, but if I did, it's like, yes, I'd be the, and there's thousands of them. Why are these doctors more, and there's doctors, okay,

we wouldn't even pretend I think you don't have to be an MD to know as much people can learn that, people have other, okay, let's just pretend that's not true, and it's just MDs who have the secret information of medicine. Why are this large group of M.D.'s, not as worthy as your group of M.D.'s? That's all I'm saying. Is that we should just have,

there's too many doctors, serious doctors, they went to medical school and they're not on your page. They're more on my page. So let's just, well, I'm not sure you know what my page is. Let's just demonize them and say, that's just because maybe you have, you know, it's 60, 40 years old.

Many of them, many doctors don't speak out because they're intimidated because, and that's not a good place for science to be, right? No, definitely not. It's chip, but the problem is, there's several things going on. One is, it is always possible to find a PhD on any topic, who's a lunatic? This isn't any. No, no, no, no, no, so I'm just saying that there's several

things going on, right? Right. So there's on the one hand, you have the the Frank politicization of science, where you have, again, I mean, the most egregious instance of this was when the epidemiologist by like a, something like a thousand or more signed a letter saying, uh, okay, we just told you that, that all of these right wing demonstrations were awful and dangerous and likely to get people killed. But now that we have black lives matter demonstrations, that's fine because racism is even a greater public health emergency than COVID, right? Okay, that was absolutely discrediting of institutional science.

Yes, it was. Right, and just terrible. Agreed. Okay, so you have that happening, but on the other hand, it's always possible to find an MD or a PhD who will say we didn't land on the moon. Right? I'm like, like, so-

That's not a what I'm talking about. No, no, but there's some of that happening. I'm not saying you're not sorry, like, no, no, no, but there's some of that happening. I'm not saying you're not sorry. I'm talking, you're talking about that. But there's some of these happening. And that was happening in the first month of the pandemic, right? You have people who are saying that, that millions of people are dying from the vaccines, right?

So that, like, those claims got made by PhDs, who, you know, go on, you know, Joe Rogan's podcast, for instance. So you have that happening. Then you have just the basic uncertainty about all of this, about the epidemiology, about the biology of COVID, about just how bad it is clinically, about whether people are actually dying from COVID or with COVID, you've got the bad incentives in the system

where there's hospitals, there are getting more money for some of this, just the way you're explaining it, is stuff that rings to these kind of doctors. A little, I don't know, something goes off because when you say from COVID or with COVID, it's always a combination. That's what, yeah, but how you score that, it matters. But like, like long COVID, my guess is, I mean, they left in Western medicine

to give everything a new name. I think long COVID is probably mostly viruses are opportunistic. If you have something in about you that is taxing your body a lot, you're gonna be much more susceptible to something like the virus being able to retain. Some people just have terrific bad luck, right?

They have no confounding factor. It's not like they're obese or they haven't anything else that's going on. But it's not. It's just, it just gets very unlucky. And that's for reasons we don't understand. It's not like they're obese or they haven't anything else that's going on. But it's not. It's not. It's just, it's just a very unlucky, you know, and that's the reason we don't understand. It's fairly rare. I think it's fairly rare. I think mostly you could tell who it was going to be susceptible to long COVID because

it was probably something they may not know what it was. I mean, meanwhile, I now remember we were at dinner and I made a big show of having tested myself for COVID and I'm COVID free. Meanwhile, I fucking had COVID and hugged two cancer patients at that dinner. Oh, literally. Two cancer patients made a great show of hugging them.

COVID free because I had tested myself with these these antigen tests. I took 19 I had COVID I took 19 antigen tests never tested positive I tested positive by PCR and by by the that Q reader right and I you know I definitely had COVID I had all the symptoms of COVID but meanwhile I I'm I mean and then I get on, I go on Twitter, just winging about these antigen tests. And I'm, and I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm tagging Michael Mena, the, like the guru of antigen tests. He's like them, the molecular biologists at Harvard, who's been like, these antigen tests are, are God's gift of humanity. And I'm, I'm just say,

what the fuck is going on with these? So listen, it so much of the last three years have been a total shit show of trying to get to some ground truth. Okay. Actually, I didn't just don't tell me what the one true opinion is. No, no, no, because there's not one true opinion. Okay, good. But it is, we are, we're in a terrible situation when we can't trust institutions. Right. So we need to rebuild institutions and we need to rebuild trust. And part of that is not by dictating to people what to do about something that you were

very wrong about, key aspects about, and which they can probably handle better. I always say, when Obama sold Obamacare by saying, if you like your doctor, you can probably handle better. I always say when Obama sold Obama care by saying, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. That's what sold a lot of people. Now I was already pre-sold on Obama, but that, I loved it. And that's why I'm gonna say to you now, I like my doctor and I'm gonna keep my doctor.

And my doctor doesn't agree with this, you know, these are general sides, but like humans always wind up into two tribes. When this country started, there was no political parties in Washington, the most pressy and thing ever. He foresaw what we're going through now. He foresaw that if we devolved into these two parties, because it was human nature, eventually, we would just get to this part now where we hate each other.

So, yeah, I mean, I am a little leery of admitting that it's a both sides equivalent situation because what's happening on the right? No, it's not. It's, I'm not saying. Yeah, there's something fairly terrifying happening, totally. Oh, I couldn't agree on the part. Yes, it's not. I'm not saying you have something fairly terrifying happening. I totally, I couldn't agree on the opposite. Yes, and authoritarianism. It's bonkers, yes. No, it's much worse. Yeah. All I'm just making the point that humans always have to be, break down into two groups.

Like there is always an A and a B, it's just, I don't know. But you, what? I don't think that's true of the two of us. No, but I'm just saying on this issue, it bugs me because I do, you know, love your mind. I don't think you understand my situation. So like I don't know,

so I haven't gotten the by-way on booster because I had, I've had three shots and I've had COVID. And I wouldn't get the booster. I'm not in a rush to get the booster, right? So but the CDC is telling me't get the booster. I'm not in a rush to get the booster, right? So but but the CDC is telling me to get the booster, but I see the CDC just rankly politicized and inflexible. And I used to pick in my language.

So but but if we roll back the timeline, you know, a year and a half, you and I might, I wasn't necessarily tracking everything you were saying there, but we might have been on a very different page, right? So when this first thing was kicking off, when COVID was just kicking off, it made total sense to me to rock it down and just treat this as a five alarm fire, right? Until we understood what we were dealing with. But as things evolve, it required a more flexible way of thinking about what was happening.

Well, I'm flexible, because I got the shot. So, I mean, I would say for selfish reasons, more like I just didn't wanna give up my life, but I hate the way it's dividing people. You know, like, what climate change divides people? Yes, Trump divides people. But this one, climate change never divided anybody like for real in my life.

This is very, you know what I mean? There are people who are very COVID paranoid, you know? I mean, how would Stern and I, you know, for years there was really animosity. He anyway, we got back together like two lost lovers and we had just repaired this relationship and we were like having this beautiful friendship. And now I think I'll never see him again. And I worry, I still love him. I hope he still loves me.

But we're like, he is a, in my view, a germaphobe, I think he would admit. It's pretty obvious. And people have the right to be whatever level of scare they are of germs. I can't live in that world. I don't want to. I can't live in the I can't live in your paranoid world. And I think that's probably now there are things that would make me paranoid, you know, if smallpox came back. Yeah, I mean, that's what worries me that we're actually so this was a in my view,

this was a dress rehearsal for something much worse. Right. And we didn't learn anything from the dress rehearsal. It was and it was a we learned we was a dress rehearsal for something much worse. And we didn't learn anything from the dress rehearsal. And it was a little bit more. We learned we're going to fuck up the real thing. We're going to completely fuck up the real thing. We are brought to you by SignalWire. SignalWire powers the future of cloud communications. Built by the tech OGs, the original geeks of software defined telecom.

Their mission is to make it simple for you to build whatever you can imagine using real-time voice video or text messaging. The OGs at Signal Wire have spent decades solving the most complex and awkward problems in communications. The only thing they can't help you with is when at Thanksgiving, Aunt Judy Burns adishes, cooking and cousin Eddie says, you ruin those yams like you ruin my life But for the computer related communications problems signal wire has you covered from broadcast quality video to ultra low latency voice and messaging Signal wire has the API's and SDK's to create unique and intelligent Communications experiences from with an existing applications or websites or building a new app from scratch.

Join the millions of other customers like Amazon, Ring, and Home Depot who are using SignalWire technology to build the communications experiences of the future. And in the spirit of a holiday season, SignalWire wants to give you a gift. Visit SignalWwire.com slash random and claim a free t-shirt when you sign up for a demo. Go to signalwire.com slash random and claim your free t-shirt. Go to signalwire.com slash random.

We are supported by heat holders. Nothing is worse than cold feet, unless you're getting married. But if you're looking for the best way to keep yourself and your feet warm this winter, remember two words, heat holders. Heat holders makes the warmest thermal socks, keeping your feet seven times warmer than regular cotton socks. Heat holders use their proprietary three-stage process, keeping your feet warm, comfortable and dry. Discover the perfect comfort level for your family, give heat holders to your

loved ones this season. What's more, their socks come in three different warmth levels like a thermostat for your feet, so you can choose the right socks for you. Choose some originals, lights, and ultra lights. Heatholders also make best-in-class hats, gloves, base layers, blankets, and much more. Receive an amazing 25% off your heatholders.com order this week only through Cyber Monday by entering the code Random25. That's Random and the number 25. Plus receive free shipping with any purchase of $25 or more. Don't freeze this winter, heatholders will keep you warm. Remember to go heatholders.com and use code random25

to save 25% off your order through Cyber Monday. Go to heatholders.com today. I was saying that Richard was 81. He's amazing. He's amazing. He's got good genes. He has better genes than I have. I can't rely on him this year.

He is so always perfectly in character. You know what I mean? Like he is the professor. Like I'm so funny. I was saying to him at one point about, you know, the academia, like it's reputation has kind of gone downhill lately. You know, people in ivory towers. And he went, well, I'd rather like living in a nightmare. Yeah. Yes, I love people who were like, so like, what do you call it? Authentically themselves. Right. You know, they can't help not be. Like George Will and I have become, I hope, I love him.

I love him. I was. Nice. I've never met him. But we met once on somebody else's show like 12 years ago and he was on a panel and I think he thought I was a crazy liberal and I thought he was a fire breathing Conservative. No, I didn't because I read his stuff and I loved it. I Said to him the first time he was on my show. He said you you're writing or he's kept my liberalism honest Nice, and he said I know I've appreciated his ass writing or he's kept my liberalism honest. Nice. And he said, I know I've appreciated his essays.

And he said something back that was, I loved it so much to the point of people being themselves. I don't remember what word for word, but it was sort of like, who the fuck is? What, you know, it totally took all the gravitas out of my compliment. Like, and I thought, oh, you're exact. But now I guess the natura story I've heard, or somebody was, you know, just pray things like, Mr. Sonatra, you've come, and he says,

I think I know. And I'm like, what are you drinking? That's right. The other great one is, Don Rickles used to tell the Sonatra story where the time Frank saved my life. Really what? Well, these three guys were beating me up and Frank came over and said, that's enough.

Very funny. Do you ever go to Vegas? You had to come to Vegas within five or six times a year. It's like fun. We cut jet. Yeah, just like I'm Collie Jenner. I'd hang with you and bring your beautiful wife. Of course. Show, you know, you could like. The second you do Vegas more than you do Vegas. You know, you could like... The second I go see.

Do you do Vegas more than you do other places? Is that your most repeatable? Because Vegas is the crowd comes to you. That's why people have residencies in Vegas. Because it's like touring except the cities come here. It's amazing. I mean, that's why you can play it six times a here. It's amazing. I mean, that's why you can play it six times a year. Right, right.

Or 50 times a year. How many times a year do you play? Six. Six. But there are people who are there every night for decades. Yeah, no, that's crazy. I mean, I think Penn and Teller. Yeah, Penn and Teller.

Starting during the Eisenhower. It's amazing. It's amazing. What the hell? And then, I mean, it's a tribute to how popular they are, but also that there's a new stream of people. You couldn't like do a date in Buffalo, New York. You couldn't do that every four men had.

No, I was just imagine trying to launch a residency in Manhattan. You'd last, you know, 11 days, and then people would move on. You mean, because there's a fickle? There's just so much else going on in Manhattan and then people aren't traveling for that kind of thing. I mean, it's the same kind of market. But did you obviously go see a Vegas show? Yeah, like Cirque du Soleil.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really? It's been a long time. It's been a long time, yeah. It's been a long time, yeah. Not long, but I think it's's been, I think it's probably been 15, 20 years and I've been to Vegas. Oh, you got to take, I need the Bill Maureen as you live. Absolutely. We're going to have a great time. Yeah. Awesome. Anika is going to like, I mean,

she's going to like lose, she may break up with me, but it's hard, but she is going to lose the mortgage money like, like, of the Albert Brooks movie where they were they lost in America. Right. Yeah. Genius where they have their nest egg. Right. And they're going to quit the rat race. It's like $300,000. They get an RV. They're going to go across country and just live off the interest and and the first night they're in Vegas and she loses the whole And the first night they're in Vegas and she loses the whole thing. Yeah. Do you gamble? No. No. No. That's probably good if you're going there six times a year and...

Right. No. I mean, you know, people have problems with that. I can answer that question philosophically to a gamble, not with chips and Las Vegas. I think we all take certain gambles in life, right? No, no, but it's different when you're going to play poker until six in the morning and you're losing that ton of money. That holds Noah Lour for me.

Right. Do you? No. Like the idea that... I mean, I get it. I get the dopamine thing when you win something. People must feel that. Dopamine wire differently than me, because I get it. I get the dopamine thing when you win something. I get it. People must be dopamine wired differently than me because I get none. Well, I'm just, I mean, I can go to the black check table or whatever with a thousand dollars and go, okay, well, this is a little amusement that will last an hour that costs a thousand dollars, where they slowly take my money. That's what it is, okay?

But I know that going, it doesn't bother me. It's like, okay, this ride costs $1,000. It's a very expensive ride. But when you're sitting with your friends and it's fine, okay. But to actually be living sometimes right on the edge of what's gonna go on in your life, like that's your your kids Christmas money. That kind of thing is like,

why would you stress yourself? It's so not- It's a whole spectrum that people who are living on the edge, but then there are people who are wealthy. Like, I mean, I just read David Milch's memoir, and he had a massive gambling issue with racehorses, and he just, it's millions of millions of dollars. He pissed away. It's funny.

It's for just for some people it's what gives them a boner. You know it's all about what gives you a boner. And it's not sex for many people. I mean for some people it's like power. I never quite understood that when I would, you know, God, it's like, well, I mean, it's interesting. There have been a bunch of books published recently on status, and status is not a variable. I've thought about it very much,

but status encompasses all of this. It's like wealth, power, fame. Like these are all ingredients and status, and status is this ever shifting object where Depending on the context you can have more or less status depending on the variables that are salient So like if you're talking like this you who are more famous Then let's say some academic you're talking to but if you're talking on a certain issue

Well, then said the academic has more status on that issue and you can be, you might worry about being embarrassed by your not understanding the issue. Or you should worry that if you're not too stone to worry about that. I'm totally not worried about that, but it's finished with all. But, and then there's youth and beauty and like, there's many things happening that all redound to someone's status in certain situations. And then there are people who are winning the status game on multiple variables like the wealthiest and they're the femos famous and the youngest and the most beautiful.

But it's very interesting that once you think about status as what people are gravitating toward however unconsciously, you start to see it in the world in a way that is, it interesting that like once you think about status as what people are gravitating toward, however unconsciously, you start to see it in the world in a way that is, it is, it's fascinating. It's, it is kind of the, but isn't, but doesn't, but a grand attractor to it. But status itself to me seems like a conduit, not the destination. Status gets you what? What is it that... Good question.

Yeah, what does it get you? Well, I mean, for people like with a high libido, I think it gets you sex. Yeah. You know, there are some people who, that's why they want the status or the money, or that just whatever swaggy thing going on in their life that attracts the opposite sex. Right. Okay. I mean, women can do it too. That, I get that, but status or power for itself, I'm not really sure why. I guess what is power when you make it? Well, to me, power is making other people do what I want them to do. That's a lot of life.

Like if you could give, if everyone really had that power, the human race would destroy itself in 24 hours. That's one of the pleasures of watching show like the sopranos where you like, like, you, you can see like the intermainiac comes out. He's like, when you look at Tony's soprano and you say, fuck, that's what I want to be able to do. Like, there are several situations where I just want to be able to take the guy and do a back room and beat him, senseless.

Like, like, that's exactly. But status is a surrogate for that in polite society, the fact that like, so there are people who will do things for you because you're, you know, rich and famous, right? And these, you're not, your power is not the power of Vladimir Putin, where you're saying, listen, you're going to do this thing or you're going to disappear. But you're asking someone to do something that it's a friction-free and suddenly a friction-free environment where they want to do that thing because you're you. You have the status that you have and they wouldn't want to do that thing for somebody else.

And having been around enough musicians and talked to enough musicians, no one can really, well, maybe like movie star actors can, it's the same kind of thing, but very few people understand like what it's like, no wonder they all go nuts because there is this level of adulation that allows

them to like live in this crazy problem. I mean, I'm certainly interviewed people from all walks of show business, politics, business, the, you name it, musicians. Beyond all. That's what's happening. That's what's happening. That's Kanye's problem. He's a genius.

He's, he's been told he's a genius for so long by so many people that he just thinks that he... Music gets everything. Music gets to people in a certain way that dick jokes do not. You know, I don't know what to tell you. And so, because there is this like visceral love for the person who made that song that you love so much, and I'm sure you have songs like that you just love so I do. They confuse it with this person is fucking Jesus. You know, right. And so the adulation is so great that it puts them in this world where anything they want, you know, everyone tries to give them the best thing they have. They always have like the best drugs,

the best supermodels, you know, the best whatever it's been, I love that song so much. Here's my liver. That's the best liver. You're going to get in Miami. Oh, there are people who would give Cardi B their liver. There are. You'd have to have a contest. Say, cool, it's Cardi B. A wet T-shirt liver contest. went t-shirt liver contest. Carnie, take my liver. It's better. Yeah. So although I do think comedy probably, it's some of the same buttons.

So like like what Dave Chappelle is doing in front of his audience has that kind of rockstar. Yeah, comedians. Chappelle is doing in front of his audience, has that kind of rock star. Yeah, comedians can rock star out for a while. It's still comedy and it'll always come down to earth as that. But yeah, they have moments of that, but it's just, it's still different. It's some, there's no base. Okay Sam, there's no base that's like throbbing in your balls.

When people go to a concert and like it's also the lyrics, you know, especially for women, women, all their life, all they want is for the men in their life or any man or something with a penis to like be communicative in the way they are. Right. Because they're big complaining about men. It's that we're kind of clammed up, you know, when we don't express ourselves, and you know, blah, blah, blah. You've been talking to Onika, what the? It's kind of, it's just me and you're being, this must be my intervention. Finally. So what does music do for women?

Yeah. That, there's a guy who's openly opening his heart and saying you're three times a lady or whatever the fucking bullshit They want to hear from us. I knew there was some reason why I didn't like John Meyer Or is it mayor It's even better you must for an extra dish. Yeah, he's actually a lovely guy And no really, I'm, it was a bright guy. And I like him. I'm joking.

I know you're not this long. No, no, it was a perfect choice because he sort of got known as a douchebag. You know, he was young and not, he was just, you know, when he did, he made the cardinal sin of thinking, oh, the people in the press, they seem to like me. I can trust them. No, you can't, John.

They're not, well, you can't rooting for you, John. The thing I've discovered is that print media is a distinct situation with respect to the press. That you're not, like, the liability of having just having a conversation for a print profile is completely different than going on television and going on radio or because the opportunity to distort what is said

and just give an impression of what was said. True to it. It's crazy. I mean, it's not, and very few people appreciate it from the outside. So when I read these profiles of people that are uncharitable, I, you know, I take it with us. Yeah.

Brain of salt also. Right. I mean, the times had an article this week about five years after the Me Too movement. Looks like things are slipping back. And I read the article. It's like, no, that's not really what it looks like at all. The Meetube was, they just wanted to write an article that said that and that did not deter them that there was no evidence to that.

I mean, a few little things. You can make any case for anything. But the Meet Brand dies 14 days ago, wanting to write that. I mean, a few little things. You can make any case for anything. Millennial, the left brand dies, you know, 14 days ago, one to right things, exactly. And, you know, you can, you can find anything in anything, but me too was specifically about men getting away with horrendous behavior to women, everything and including rape. And the me-to-movement said, you know, you just can't, it's just not, you're all playing with five fouls from now on.

You know, you just can't treat women like this. I mean, it was a real watershed. I don't feel like we've retreated from that. We still have a way to go with it because like, yeah, did they make people nervous in the movie industry? Yes. How nervous they are at the Tyson food plant? Right.

When you're sexually harassed on the line or somebody says at Taco Bell, would you like better hours? Suck my dick. You know, those things don't bring it. This is the worst Taco Bell commercial I've ever seen. Listen, you're not ill. I know you wanted them as a sponsor, but you just blew it.

That's right. That's a terrible take. Product placement is not all it's great. You want better hours? It's just suck my dick. Taco Bell. Taco Bell. Yeah, I mean, one thing that happened there is that so you had the nuclear bomb of Harvey

Weinstein and then you had everyone who got wrapped up in the, you just got pulled into the centrifugal force of that story and then just got added to the sentence. You got Harvey Weinstein and you got Kevin Spacey and you do a CK and you got, and all of these, as you, as these sentence got longer, the situation's got less and less analogous to Harvey Weinstein. So some people got very unlucky in that moment. And it's, I mean, we just, you have to be able to talk

about the gradations. But it did not deter the media from just throwing your picture up next to Harvey Weinstein. Yeah. And what you did, it was you and Harvey Weinstein. I mean, there must have been some other parkers who were like, oh, for fuck's sake. Yes.

Really? But again, you can't trust them. The thing you do about people of bad faith, you know? Yeah, well it's your bad faith, Hunk. I love that. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, well, bad faith is... People who are making arguments that they know are not true,

but they know they can get away with it because they know their fans will like it. Is that the definition? Well, it's the most interesting thing to not care about people's actual intentions. I mean, so they're people who essentially have become human sacrifices where even the people who are hurling them from the rooftops,

know they're not actually guilty of the thing that they're accused of, whether it's racism or, you know, me too, or like a pick your, transphobia, pick your flavor. The, it's just, you have to break some eggs to make this diverse in the omelette, exactly the omelette. And so like, we're just gonna, we're just gonna destroy this person

because it's all in a good cause and That's that's what where it truly becomes toxic Yeah, I mean You're a brave dude, you know because Like your thing after um, you know, I guess it was Not right after George Floyd. Yes, yeah. Well, you just straight to camera, as we would say,

but I guess straight to Mike, no guest. And it was just, that's what I strive to do, too. I think we're very often, you know, cousins holding hands in this lily field we're walking through. Just try to be the voice that people go Yes That sounds like what it really is Right

I hear I've been hearing this other shit from both sides Okay, thank you. That sounds like what it probably really is and you know You just went through the stats of like yeah,, yeah, there's definitely a problem of racism that persists. Certainly it's been the worst sin America ever committed up until now. Yes, there's problems with the police. I mean, I certainly have said things on television.

Nobody ever said before about the police and I'm surprised they didn't pull me over. But, you know, they're basically not a gang of racists and you the stats, you know, what is it like a thousand people are killed by the police a year? Well, like when I, I don't think before I heard, you'd say that, I don't know if I could have

reeled off that stat, which is why a podcast like yours is so valuable to someone like me. And the first thing I thought was, well, it's a country of 335 million people, a lot of them are armed. A lot of them are. Of that thousand, most of that thousand are in the process of trying to kill the police.

And they're not, these are not innocent people who are killed by police. There's a subset of a thousand who are not unarmed and not just interested. I gotta stop you there because the phrase in the process of trying to kill the police, that's the problem. Well, because the police interpret that now way too loosely,

in the process of trying to kill them, means twitching, moving, the problem is, people don't understand how to get arrested. Like there's massive ignorance. I've heard the other thing on that. That's a great thing. Let me give you an answer, and how to get arrested.

See, the world is slightly different. You would be the comedian, and I would be you, right? Because your mother was a comedy writer, a great one. Yeah, yeah, she's my hero. Okay, so I see that it's in you, but that you're hunk on that. Do that. Well, I mean, it is,

like when you've actually trained with firearms and you can adopt something like the cops eye view of these evolving situations. And you realize that in a situation where they're in the presence of someone who's going to reach for a gun and shoot them in the face, they have a second to decide whether in fact they are in that situation. And so everything depends on what you're doing with these. Right? So it's your hands. So if you suddenly say, oh, let me get my license and you turn, right? Like all of a sudden, this is an emergency, right? And so people, and so when people don't comply and they don't put, keep their hands in the steering wheel and they, and they, and they don't keep their hands in the steering wheel and they go into their pockets. And all of that is just chaos from the point of view of a cop to having to decide whether

to escalate. I still think they're going to the bullpen too quick on this. Little too quick on the trigger finger there. Yes, I agree. Things happen quickly. Yeah. No, they're all... You can find videos that are awful

where you're looking at someone who should never have been a cop or had no training. I think the mainstream cop view is, if there's a chance I could get killed, just kill them first. And I think that's got it. Now the mainstream comp view is I don't want to wind up on YouTube, so I'm not even going to go over there and police the situation. Right, right. And so now we have this

escalating crime problem. It's it's unbelievable. If the woke only knew, you know, like how much they're damaging their own supposedly liberal issues. Yeah, you know, I... Yeah, well, I mean, there's a lot to figure out. Yeah, these are problems that are not, they should be easy to solve, but they're really not. And the fact that we can't actually talk about them without getting de-fantastrated is a layer of the problem that I'm convinced we have to solve.

It's great that you have the format you have with, it was very smart to set it up that way, that nobody can tell you. You don't have advertisers. It's a great luxury. It's a great luxury thing. It's a great thing. But I mean, you establish it in the beginning. It was a wise choice. You know, because audiences would be probably upset, you know, at some point you did that. Because, oh, I thought we were friends. Now, what am I, a horror now? Yeah, well, it's gotta be paid, you know.

But this way, you feel like I have trust in this product, because this product is not bought. Can't be bought and can't be deterred. I'm in a weird position, because I don't know how many people can replicate my business model. So people come to me and ask advice about what they should do with their podcast or their newsletter or whatever it is. And it's hard to extract a generic message from what I've been able to do, but I feel incredibly grateful that it's working. You were talking on that one you did about the little controversy over Hunter Biden.

Right. And you said, I don't have a team. And you mentioned a few people, me. You mentioned who don't have a team. Yeah, yeah. And it's like Andrew Sullivan. Yeah, right. me. You mentioned who don't have a team. Yeah, yeah. And it's like Andrew Sullivan. Yeah, right. And that's the team being you've taken both saw you like you've offended the left and the right so much. When you say something that is perceived as radioactive, there are not many people who are based on a tribalistic motive just tend to fend you blind., blind. They have to wait and see whether you said something. And also, the right wing media prints and reproduces what I said that is favorable to their point of view and ignores all the criticism

and vice versa on the left. So no one is ever getting information. It is up to, I feel like it's up to this little band of brothers and sisters, Barry Weiss. I would know if it's wrong in that. It's right. It's doing in and Nelly Bowles, I think. This is not a great number of people, but stick with what we're doing, because it will, I think it will just attract on its own. Because you can see that there is this Morpheus dissatisfaction with the two sides, even when they're in them. People don't like it.

Who would like always being at war? That we're in this cold civil war. Well, also, it's just insane that if I know your position on climate change, I would, with great confidence, know your position on gun control and abortion and Trump. And it's like, like, how, who has a worldview that is so easily predicted based on all of these unrelated topics? Are they that? You're saying people really are like that or they're really not?

Well, many people in the country are like that. And the polarization left and right has just captured people on all of these issues that never get sort of re-evaluated. I agree with you, there's a massive cohort of people who are uncomfortable with that. But the center is a place that is hard to... It functions by different dynamics. It's not tribal by definition. It can't be leveraged in the same way. What we have are 8% of woke social justice,

identitarian activists, and 8% of Trump is QAnon lunatics driving most of the conversation. Right. It's terrifying. It is completely dishonorable. And that goes back to my thesis. The phone is the portal to broken our brains. The phone is the portal to evil. It has broken our brains. Yeah. The phone is the portal to evil. It has broken our brains.

So many people I can't imagine ever reading a book again. Not because they're stupid, just because the phone, you know, it's just a book. It came once a TV show. Yeah, or a movie. Yeah, that is amazing. It's what's happened to the attention span of I read this article about, I forget what college it was, but the person was saying, used to be when you were walked into like the lecture hall, this 40, 50 kids in there, and it would be noisy, they're all talking, and then the professor walks in the room.

Okay, settle down, settle down, you know, in particular, because now you look at dead silence. Yeah, they're all looking at their phones. Yeah, amazing. That's not going to a dead silence. Yeah, they're all looking at their phones. Yeah, amazing. That's not going to a good place. Yeah, you know what, my theory is? Huh, no.

I don't. Well, I never said it. I never said it. I never said it. Wait, I think I'm getting it. I'm just making it up now. Okay. But no, I thought of it actually yesterday,

my theory is that the only people who can lead us out of this rabbit hole were in with the iPhone technology or women because the phone is very conducive to the male wiring. Like, have you said to me 50 years ago, yeah, you don't have to go up to a girl in a study hall anymore. You just give you this thing, you hold it in your hand and you can look at all pictures of girls. Not just the ones who went to the high school, like all girls, and you find one who likes

you too. And then you'll text her. You don't have to talk to her in person. So, you know, if she turns you down so much, just text wassup. And then send a picture of your dick and the eggplant emoji. Or someone's dick. Right. Yeah. Send a picture of Ron Jeremy's dick.

If I send a dick pic, I would send a picture of me holding the newspaper with the date of the new episode. A current picture of my dick. Proof of my life. But I wouldn't do that. Exactly. But, okay. So, the fact that men can do that,

but you really think women are less infatuated with the technology than men? Yes, because not, of course, women are on their phone too, but in general, women are much more communicative people. They want to talk. Boy, do they, huh? My right, bro. That he checks and talks.

And we love them for it, because they're perfect ethereal beings. Please, it's always been my view. Once in a while, you get one that's a little pushy, but not often. Anyway, like this, I think, is key. It does not conform. Women have not changed. They still want to be talked to and talk this. Yeah, but they want to do it.

They want to do it. They want to text and they want to FaceTime and they were like, I've got two girls. I've got a teenage girl. She, I mean, screen time is, you know, this is like, she is like one of the apes in 2001 with the fucking monolith. I mean, it is just. It's just, I mean, it is just your own daughter you're talking about. Does she know you're talking about your life?

You know, it is the perfect attractor. You know, it's like, if I had a son, I can't imagine him wanting more screen time than my daughter wants. So it's not. I'm not noticing the. She's limited to how many. Oh yeah, we know we're it's North Korea over in our house. But it's meaning you're the day that there's real limits on screen time. Oh, good for you.

Yeah, because I was the kind of person who reached the crush and shook hands. I'd do it. But I'm not sick of it. You know, what a germaphone. What would that? Yes. I'm not sick out of person. You know, what a germaphone. What would that add? Yes. I'm not a germaphone. I know.

You're a germaphone. No, no, no. How in turn to germaphone? How are men tells a germaphone? I'm not. Don't. I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm informed. I'm not a germaphone.

But germ informed? Yeah. And I'm not. Yeah. No, no, I don't. I was, I think you and I probably have the same file on terms. I think we did. Although, you know, not to get back on this, but again, the point of humans, always dividing

into two groups, Republicans and Democrats, whatever it was. Terrain theory. You know, Louis Pasteur and his deathbed recanted and said, yes, Bush Amp was right. It's the terrain. In other words, we're always being invaded by pathogens. It's the terrain they find, the analogy being the mosquito and the swamp. If there's not a swamp, it can't breed.

But let's think about that. I'm a big fan of luck. Yeah, I mean luck accounts for an immense amount. Like there are people who are incredibly fit, who eat all the right stuff and who die of cancer far too early. Very few. No, it just happens.

Yes, genetics, man. Yeah, you can get in bed, genetics. Genetics are absolutely. Genetics are half of every story, even psychologically. I think that's, I think that's, see, I would not agree with that number, but I would agree with the basic idea that they're very important and they can absolutely. I think we blame it a vast lottery. I think we blame too much on genetics and germs.

They're both obviously very important, but I think that's where Western medicine is kind of monoffocused on, well, that would be dual focused. I mean, there's not much to do about genetics currently, you know, personally. And it's like you're not going to, you're not going to, you know, crisper yourself and we engineer your genome. I tell you, although some people have done that. I got awfully excited when I read about crisper. Yeah. Where are we with crisper? You would know that kind of stuff. I'm actually not that close to recent research on it, but I'm ahead, Jennifer Dowden, on my podcast a couple of years ago.

How many years did you were you in college plus all your graduate school before you were out in the world. I was, I was, uh, how many years? In case, because I, so I, so I took 11 years off between my sophomore and junior year of college. Is that right? Yeah. So I love in years. Yeah.

And I, it is a gap. I reinvented the 60s for myself. I went to India and they, Paul, I, oh, that's right. I very very into meditation. Okay. So that was that period. Yeah. So then I went back to school. For now, that was that period. Yeah, so then I went back to school. From your early 30s. Yeah, I was 30, 31, and then I finished it. I mean, it was relevant

that it was at Stanford because Stanford was like a one school where you actually didn't have to reapply. You can't actually drop out of Stanford. Like Tiger Woods could go back tomorrow, and the registrar wouldn't blink. He'd be in the computer. He'd just show up for classes. Whereas every other school, I think, you have to write a letter like every year, Sanless. I'm still alive. I wanna come back. I'm just, I'm not a nerd of well.

I'm not on crack. Right. You know, don't cancel me. Right. So, but Stanford's not like that. So I was able to go back with no employment. And so then I did a PhD in neuroscience, but how long does that take?

Well, if you're of me, it takes nine years. Nine years. Because I was away for four years. I was eight while writing books because what happened, so I had finished my coursework, but then 9-11 happened. Oh. And I wrote my first book, The End of Faith. And then I got inducted into the pantheon of New Atheists.

One of my favorite books of the whole time. And I was, you know, I was often running as an author. And then I went back to the church. Oh, I didn't realize that. I didn't realize that you finished after you wrote that book. Yeah, I wrote two books. I wrote Letter to Christian Nation, too. Oh, another one of my faiths.

Oh. So I was, you know, it was, I was, I was a hard case, but it was all useful. And I mean, I feel like I did everything backwards, but it was all. Okay, so nine years total in. Yeah, but but four years were, I really, I just had a toe in the lab.

So everything that you really needed to learn, honestly. Well, two years, there's like two years of course work. And then there's then there's your dissertation research. So, but like really nine years, I couldn't like, no, it could have been, it should have been five years for me. Not three. Well, I mean, no, I don't think I've heard of anyone do, I'm going to in neuroscience, PhD in three years, but like four years has passed. And what kind of stuff do you learn when you're in neuroscience class?

Like, was everything related to the brain and nervous system? But it's a lot of biology and chemistry. And it's the nuts and bolts of it that the average person doesn't have a clue of it. Yeah. So you're learning, so there's like a core curriculum of courses you have to take, which give you just, I mean, it's everything from like the molecular biology of the nervous system on up to just just the systems and the neuropsychology of it and then the anatomy of it. So like

you're doing, it's like you're, everything from like studying the eye of a fly to studying human beings and The kind of deficits they would have based on neurological injury, right? And so like all all of that gets studied over maybe two years And then you decide what your specialization is and for me was I want I knew I wanted I wanted to neuroscience very much as a Neurophilosopher like I knew I was not neuroscience very much as a neurophilosopher. I knew I was not gonna be curing Alzheimer's, I was not gonna open a lab and do biology. I wanted to study the human mind and the nature of human subjectivity.

And I've always been interested in how our evolving conversation about science is changing and should change the way we think about ourselves and what it means to live a good life and how we want a structure society and it's like so what do we understand about good and evil at the level of what we understand about the mind that's really the bottom of the ocean yeah I mean so that that's my my interest And so it's always been adjacent to philosophy for me. And so I just wanted to have the tools of neuroscience

to have a conversation about the human mind. And so what's that? What's something you know from all this book learning you did for nine years? What's something you know from all this?falutin book learned in about the chemistry and whatever of the human mind that would make me think, oh, if we're disagreeing about something, you know something I don't that affects it. That affects.

Right. Right. Right. I love the way you hit affects it exactly I feel you well I mean it depends on what what the topic is but like you know there there are topics. There are topics that I think science should have decided long ago that people think are still hot topics of debate in the wider culture. I admit that the one that I have hit pretty hard, personally, is the issue of free will, right?

So many people think they have free will. They feel unfree will. You know, they're just, they're, you know, it's important to them that they have it. And it is the framework through which they view their kind of moral, the moral economy and the moral universe. And it affects everything.

It affects the justice system. Of course. it affects your intuition about good and evil, and free will makes no sense, scientifically. It's great. And people don't want to admit it, because even some very smart people don't want to admit it, because they feel they have it, right?

And it's a powerful illusion, which I would argue. We have to do a certain degree, right? I mean, I can decide what to watch tonight when I get home and get in the bed. Well, it feels that way, yeah. But I'm really being controlled by the great pumpkin. What do you mean? No, I mean. Well, no, it depends at what level you want to talk about it.

But I'm not saying there's no difference between voluntary and involuntary actions. I know. No, I think you're, you know, to bring technology into this, I think to your point about free will, we are always have been slaves to the technology. And the smartphone is only the latest example of it. We have no control over what technology does to us. Example the cotton gin.

Cotton gin fucked me up. No, but it didn't fuck the people up. Because slavery was on its way out. And then a device came along that made it a lot more profitable. And humans were like, slavery did we? Did we say we're getting rid of this?

Did we say we're getting rid of this? No, I'm saying I'm taking the land the day you must have misheard me. No, no, no, we're not getting rid of slavery at all. I mean, that chose to me that people cannot resist technology. And, you know, fire caught on, you know fire caught on uh... fire are you pro-accom fire it's not that simple senator

i believe it's not a bad i believe in a middle ground on fire fire good yes fire bad yes sometimes no but fire according to uh... you Paul Harari, I know he's been a great on yours. Oh, I know. He's on real time this week. Oh, nice. Yeah. That's right. So, um, he, in sapiens makes the point that when we had fire, it allowed us to cook food, which killed the parasites and bacteria, which allowed the, we had giant intestines. We allowed, we allowed us to cook food which killed the parasites and bacteria which allowed the we had giant intestines we allowed

us to evolve with less intestine and more brain power. I guess that's not really good. I guess that's particular, but I just wanted to get fire in there. But yes, I do think we cannot resist the technology. When it comes along, I mean, look at how it was a front page in the paper today, like global warming steps have nothing's happened. Nothing's happened since like countries pledged,

like only 26 out of 100 in the sub-biddy countries have done anything with their whatever pledge they made. Oh, here's where I think there's a important distinction between the system level view of human behavior and the individual level view. So like what we want are systems that allow even kind of mediocre selfish people to do the right thing. You don't want a system where you have to be a moral hero to do the right thing. You don't want a system where you have to be a moral hero

to do the right thing. And that's what we have too much of the time, where it's like to contribute meaningfully to the cessation of climate change, you have to be someone who's like, okay, I'm gonna inventory my carbon footprint and I'm gonna allocate all kinds of money to offset things, and I'm not going to fly too much, and I'm not going to eat these things.

No, you want a system where good behavior is incentivized, and the negative externalities of certain things are canceled. You want absolute imbosols to effectively behave like saints, because it's just good it's good for them, and they feel it, because the incentives are all aligned appropriately. And we don't have that, and it's possible to have that. It's possible to do in the insection. I know capitalism is evil, and a legacy of blah. But capitalism does a marvelous job, even with its flaws, of harnessing selfishness.

Just something. We want a harness. We can't, in any kind of a time horizon that matters, cancel selfishness. So we want to harness it to, we want wise selfishness. One of the first issues we did on politically incorrect in 1993 was marriage is like communism. It seems ridiculous now, but really somebody on TV said that. But the point remains, it kind of is if you don't conform institutions to human nature,

they have a hard time for succeeding. You know, people are selfish. Morning. It's just very hard. So like, if you expect people to not like do the thing that's going to make them richer and give them all the guilt. Well, status is also a relevant variable here. Like, it's just once you attach, once you make certain things transparent, right? Like, there are all these experiments where like, if you know that, if you know that if you know that your

neighbors know how much water you're using, all of a sudden your relationship to how much water you're using changes. Right. Like, so like, they're all kinds of, you know, there's a behavior like anomics around all this, which we could leverage in intelligent ways. But I actually, I do think, I mean, on issues like climate change, I do think it's gonna be technology to the rescue, where we're not gonna guilt our way out of this.

Exactly. And having an autistic teenager tell us that we're fucking monsters. You know, thank you. Yes, that's not the solution. See, so often the case, why are you such a favorite of mine, you say the thing or I hear the thing and it's like, yes, okay, so I'm not crazy. This, when I read that in the paper today and the New York Times, by the way, put the word doom, they're so funny over there.

I don't know who's writing their headlines, but it's just, and of course, that it's true, but like there was no specific story really, except yeah, the people who pledged to do something but climate orange, no one is really stopping this. We've known this for a while. You're right. We are not going to do the right thing our way out of this. We're just not— Well, individually we're not, but collectively we can. I mean, one thing I've changed my mind about occasionally asked, what have you changed your mind about, you know, in recent years? Sign up a mature person. Yeah. And one thing that I just had a, just a one eighty degree change on was nuclear energy. Like I, it's

so if you ask me ten years ago or 20 years ago, I would have thought okay just everything the NRDC I agree D.F. says about nuclear energy. It's got to be gospel. Like it's a evil like we change yeah facts change we get different information we absolutely need energy is a bridge events change and yes there are and the technology changes I mean there's say the first yes you know it's not it's not three mile on right now if you build a new, nuclear plant. Not your father's nuclear plant. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No, that's the, you know, Sam, this is the kind of reasonableness. I don't know why, why is it, why are we so, such outliers? It only took an ounce of marijuana and a quarter of a kilo. To get down to the ground. I mean, I just, I know it sounds like a stupid thing to say, but why can't more people think like us? We're not geniuses.

We're just like regular guys. Maybe a little smarter than the average bear, but I certainly mean, you probably are. You've got all your nine years high-falutin' degrees and stuff, but I mean, I feel like I'm just a regular Joe. I, listen, you're not a regular Joe, but that's fine. Okay. But, you, you've lost touch with regular Joe,

if you think you're regular. No, but I feel like, certainly in my generation anyway, I don't feel like, I feel like, certainly in my generation anyway, I don't feel like common sense. I feel like the last generation that was the common was the Gen Z's. I mean, the Gen X. Definitely not the Gen X.

The Gen X. You're dating the Gen Z's. Are you a Gen X? I'm Gen X. Yes, yeah, see? Right, yeah. Are you a boomer? Of course, you're a boomer.

It's 1965, I think, is a cutoff between boomers and- And that's your year? I'm 67. Okay. Right, you Ben Stiller, it's the same for me. And we never see them together. Right. You know, I've been asked to sign autographs.

I know what it's like to be Ben, I know what it's like to be Ben Stiller because I've been asked to sign autographs. I know what it's like to be Ben Stiller because I've been asked to sign autographs for Ben Stiller and when I declined, I was in the presence of someone who was absolutely certain that they were in the presence of Ben Stiller who was pretending not to be Ben Stiller. Like, it was just like, I can't, yeah. I've ruined his reputation with at least one person.

This is derricko. What a fucking asshole you are, not to just sign an autograph, Ben Stiller. Right. Yeah. No. But, uh, well, um, damn, I forgot what I do. I do railed you. You're a UD rail less with Ben. It was something so important to me. It's not one episode of this show. It doesn't have me going. What were we talking about? What the fuck was I thinking? It's been amazing when you think about the fact that, when I was on politically incorrect, we couldn't even make a joke about pot. Right?

Without getting the censor. Yes. That was on ABC, yeah. Yes, Disney. If there was, we discussed it as an important issue, there had to be someone from the other side, you know, the anti-pot. We once wanted to do a sketch called Harry Pothead. Right.

No. Too edgy. Too edgy. Wow. We went from that to, I remember I smoked a joint, a real joint on the era, on real time, at the end maybe like 10 years ago, and everyone was like, oh my God, they didn't arrest you, you sure you're not gonna get arrested.

To, like I can do a podcast and openly. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I get it that people get frustrated with change and maybe the change, I mean, almost certainly the change is going in the wrong direction. But- Well, not this change. No, no, I'm saying, but there is hope, you know,

gay marriage, you know, was something that was like turned down 35 times in a row on state ballots. And then like three years later, it was the law of the land. Yeah, yeah, it's a matter of- It can kind of, things can kind of, I mean, like, is that gonna happen with the things we're really worried about, the environment and the loss of democracy?

I wouldn't be surprised if things change very quickly. For the better. Yeah, game, yeah, game marriage is a great example because it was like, we thought we had it, and then we lost it, I think it was Proposition 8 in California. What about in California? Yeah, and then all of a sudden it was the law of the land.

And that was, it was the law of the land and that was It was really fast and so I and I you know the legalization of pot in the state level has been has seemed really fast, you know and it's And I feel like a like research now is is is is reaching a tipping point. Oh, I'm certainly going on in my hot tub You got a grant from me and NSF. But I mean, don't you think that's the low hanging fruit? Those are the easy ones. I think we have to deal with the miss it. We have a massive misinformation problem. Like social media. And like we have to figure out how to talk about facts. First of all, collecting. You know what I would stop using? Determine misinformation because it just gets the back up of people like me who say,

yes, but a lot of your misinformation, whoever, whoever you are, you can price all of that in. No, I know. I know. I know. I'm just saying that's like a trigger word. Misinformation. It should be. It should be because a lot of it was like, again, did you purposely tell me that if you get this vaccine, you will not get the disease and then turn it over to you? No, it did not turn out to be true. I don't think you purposely did that, but it was misinformation. So let's not throw that term around like we have the monopoly on what is real with this. Okay, I'm just saying as a PR. I understand that that's your hobby horse and I get it and I share your

listen, yeah, I'm horrified at what the CDC and many scientific journals have done in recent years in terms of conflating politics. We don't have to get back onto that. That's why you didn't share the joint, is it? Yeah, I I'm gonna give you a big sloppy witch. But we make tonight and the joke will be on you when you go hug a cancer patient. And somehow I'm a bad guy. No, that was bad, so really bad. So, I'm gonna have to wrap this up.

I could do it all night. This is good. I mean, I lost track of time. This could have been one hour, this could have been two hours, it could have been three hours. I have no idea what happened. Great. That's what I want.

That's right. I mean, this is, it's like, I don't know of you and I would do this if there wasn't like... That's was so fun about having a podcast. Right. There is no constraint. And you have a reason to just invite someone who you want to talk to anyway.

Like you would do this for free. Exactly, I would. And yet it's, it doesn't really speak. It's great about us, because it just says, we're not really worth each other's time unless the cameras are rolling. It's not true. We're really the Kardashian.

I mean, that's bullshit. That's bullshit. I'm fucking, yeah, yeah. I don't want you to mislead your audience because we have, we will also have dinner. We also have socialized many times. We see each other at Jimmy Valile's back yard. I don't have to be paid too much to socialize. No, you don't. Just as long as there is some decent food, I would pay to socialize with you actually. Well, because I'm a boulder and I roll like that. That's what I want. Okay, bitches.

There's a stripper pole over there. And there's nothing that I would pay more for than your podcast. You know, well, it's a... Your podcast is my podcast. That's great. That's like my stories. You know, like, used to be somebody had a soap opera that they watched on a daily basis. They called it my story.

There are still those people. I feel like that's what... Yes. Yeah, but there's not as many soap operas. No, I think there's like two or three at this point in the show. Yeah, it's a shame. It was a great training ground. No, I think there's like two or three at this point. Yeah, it's a shame. It was a great training ground, um, to where I started. And then I became a ballerina, but you and Ricky Martin, but then I hope Dodgeball 2 comes through because I just think you and

Vince Vaughn, look, you're both looking a little older, it's true. It's a sports kind of movie, we have to be physical. Look, you spend two, three months in the gym before we start shooting. Well, if you have a trainer to recommend, I will. Vince, maybe we start a little earlier, you know. But I think you guys together again, also, old school. Let's make it happen. No, that was welfare.

Club. You get Ben here and then we can... You know what I will. We're some great people. people.