Decoding the Gurus - Naval Ravikant: Predictable Polemics and Empty Aphorisms

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

In this watery simulation of an episode, Matt and Chris uncover the true purpose of Scott Adams’ existence: not to shape reality, but to provide training data for future AIs working on plumbing-related problems. Somewhere in a cosmic server farm, Scott is endlessly confronted with blocked drains, dripping faucets, and municipal water conspiracies, while his “insights” fuel the next generation of household maintenance bots.Against this surreal backdrop, Naval Ravikant enters the scene — investor, tweeter, self-styled philosopher, and, in practice, just another discourse surfer riding the waves of online conspiracism. The conversation opens with a familiar chorus of right-wing talking points, drifts into feverish speculation about lawfare, censorship, and “imported voters,” and finally winds down in the dim light of dorm-room metaphysics, where slogans like “happiness is a choice” are served up as if they were profound insights.Naval presents himself as a detached sage, offering a boutique blend of political commentary and Daoist-tinged wisdom. In reality, he delivers little more than predictable polemics and recycled aphorisms. Imagining himself a great man of history dispensing lyrical truths in tweet-sized form, he produces nothing that rises above the usual culture-war debris. The posture is Buddha-with-a-smartphone; the reality is a credulous tech elite mistaking his own Twitter feed for a philosophy seminar.What follows is Elon-as-Ben-Franklin fanboying, Trump rebranded as a “bottom-up” leader of the people, and a level of self-congratulation so thick it could be used to terraform Mars. By the end, you may find yourself nostalgic for the leaky pipes in Scott’s simulation — at least they produce real water...SourcesModern Wisdom (Chris Williamson): 44 Harsh Truths About The Game Of Life - Naval Ravikant (4K)Real Coffee with Scott Adams: Conversation with Naval Ravikant

Hello and welcome to the cutting the gurus the podcast, We're an anthropologist and a psychologist. Listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer. We try to understand what they're talking about. I'm Matt Brown. My co-host there is Chris Kavanaugh. I'm a psychologist from Australia. He is, well, he's kind of also a psychologist.

He teaches in a psychology school in Japan. Good day, Chris. How's it going? Not bad. I'm impressed you've finally remembered that. What I am. What my essence is, that's impressive. It took a number of years, but like Pavlov's dog, you've been reinforced in the correct association eventually.

You evolved into a psychologist, just like so many species evolve into crabs. Yeah, I'm, what do you call those, like mimic, you know, like a caterpillar that pretends it's a snake? Yeah. You've got all those bright, bright colors all over you. Yeah. Yeah. I did a replication crisis. I did a replication. Yeah, it's a tough life here in the interdisciplinary boundaries, but you know, Mark, I'm willing to do it. No one else is willing to do it, but I'm willing to do it. Okay, nobody asks me to do it. You should try to convert some of your friends. We're trying to make it all social scientists, psychologists. What a world that would be. Yeah, yeah, we can only imagine.

Now, Matt, as you know, this is a decoding episode. No fuffing around allowed. I don't know. Not allowed to tell me anything about your dogs, your food. It's not allowed. It's prohibited. We run a tight ship here. So I will mention, however, a programming point.

We're covering Naval Ravikant, right? Investor. That's what all. I think that he is, but, okay, Twitter man, other things involved in tech, podcaster, so on, so forth. He's a philosopher. Is he? We'll see about that. But, yeah, he has been described at that.

We can say that. And originally, I told everyone on the Patreon as well, but we're going to look at his appearance with Chris Williamson, which was called 44 harsh truce. about the game of life, a three hour, 16 minute discussion, which many people went and watched. Unfortunately, it was incredibly dull. And also, it was only really in the last half hour where Naval completely, like, got into his proper, the full guru mode. And when I was complaining about this online, some people mentioned that there was a conversation with Scott Adams from just nine months ago, which might be more to our liking and which really got into

the guru stuff. And that was only an hour and 19 minutes long. Now, to be clear, we listened to both. Okay? We suffer. Like we said, but I only have clubs mostly, except for one or two, from the Naval and Scott Adams. But everyone can basically use their imagination as to how that conversation went. Just imagine if you're saying the kinds of things he says like how do you manage to be so successful but also

retain a sense of humility and achieve things while not wanting anything. And then Nevald gives his answer and he's got an answer for everything and that's how the conversation goes. It's all right. It's a bit guru-esque but it's true.

The Scott Adams conversation was a bit spicier and went a bit wilder. They got into their political stuff a little bit and did a bit of searching Chris and I saw that earlier he had spoken with Megan Kelly and Megan. Megan.

Why can't everyone just have normal names that are pronounced normally? That's really Megan? Who in the hell? It's called Megan. Everyone's called Megan. That's the standard Megan. All the other megan's are fakes. Megan, okay? He was talking to Megan Kelly.

He also, yeah, got a bit political, as you might expect, which is unusual, I think, for Naval. I think the impression I get is before this, he was a bit more reserved with the political takes. Yeah, I think they're there, but it just depends on who he's talking to. And actually, once you hear his takes with Scott Adams and you go and listen to the Chris Williamson thing,

you hear a lot of echoes about the points that he's making. There are points where it's exactly the same, right? He just hasn't elaborated to the same level. So Naval, like, I come across him online because he has a Twitter account, which is quite popular, and he likes the issue profound sentiments, but I find them pseudo-profound in general. And, like, he's basically like a more direct version of Eric Weinstein on Twitter. That's the vibe that I get, but held in high regard by other tech CEOs. because, well, you know, and deceive you the free hours with Chris Williamson.

The whole thing is, like, you shouldn't invest yourself in achieving things. You should, like, invest yourself in succeeding and not being attached to what you want to do, and then you'll do it better. So, there you go. Done. Yeah, sort of advice, like, you know, find people to collaborate with who are trustworthy, the valuable people that are suitable for long-term relationships and it's like okay good advice good advice yeah sorry he said well we'll get into it but uh his philosophy is kind of that kind of

feel good stuff but um he also thinks trump is absolutely fantastic so uh i'm interested how he squares that circle in oh yeah yeah so when known for being incredibly transactional and not being trustworthy. Yeah, there's some impressive takes in this. And it is a bit like the all-in podcast, guys. There are connective tissue there. And isn't it good to be back with our old friend, Scott? Yes, Scott has a cancer diagnosis, and this is bad.

But Scott remains an absolute asshole, right? So just to be clear, do I celebrate him having cancer? No. though I therefore think oh shouldn't criticize Scott for the things of these pumping out also no you can have sympathy and still

consider him a partisan little snake there we come now Chris before we start playing clips of Naval because many people would not have heard of him I hadn't heard of him really tell us who is he what's the deal well who's

Naval he is a tech CEO investor, he was involved in a whole bunch of companies, Genoa Corp, E. Pinyons, the Hitforge, AngelList, meta-stable capital, spearhead, coin list, air chat, so on and so forth. And I think he got his initial start, in part by the dot-com bubble, like the boom there. His E-Pinions Consumer Review site was bought or no, we merged with deal time and became Shopping.com, which IPOed and got things, right? So he got money for the early.com boom. And then he went on to get involved in Angel investing and he launched the cryptocurrency hedge fund and various other things, right?

So you know, you know the deal. Yeah, it seems like very much the Silicon Valley. I mean, all those companies, Chris, that brought so much good to the world. They've done so much for us, whether it's the Bitcoin hedge fund or the e-pinion site that shut down or got bought and turned into another kind of site, which then kind of disappeared. Yeah, you know, the Silicon Valley is making everyone's lives better. Well, the thing is, Matt, he has a lot of money. So it's very important that we consider what he thinks about a whole range of topics because it's objectively true that he has a lot of money.

So, therefore, he's obviously done something right. He's probably got a very high IQ. We don't even need to bother measuring IQ using psychological tests. How much money do you have? That's pretty much. My statements. That's what it should go like. So now, Matt, is that enough of an introduction to him?

Have you got the background on this guy? I mean, my tone, my review some of the ways. that I feel about their listening to it. But maybe not. Maybe I'm just leading people the wrong way. Why do we let Scott Adams introduce Naval? He'll do a better job than us. If there's anybody who doesn't know who Naval is,

let's say entrepreneur, investor, philosopher, mentor, we run out of rooms. There's none of names for you. What do you call yourself? If you had to introduce yourself, do you just get clever? and say like the joke version? What do you do? You know, it's hilarious.

It's funny you say that because I used to, you know, when I was really young, I had the, oh, I'm an entrepreneur. I had this company. I'm the founder of this, right? As a resume speak, midwit resume speak, if you will. And then as I got older, then I did these self-deprecating, you know, false humble brag, like, ah, ha, ha, ha, you know, and then say something ludicrously low, like gas station attendant order.

But now, of course, they say, hey, I'm Naval. That's it. You know, and if you know who I am, great. And if you don't, that's great, too. Because I don't believe in this whole, you know, it's a form of identity politics to have, like, your history behind you. You should have to prove yourself in every instance. So if what I say is true, then that stands on its own.

And if it doesn't, it doesn't. So it doesn't matter. Yeah, you're the most famous, unfamous person I know, meaning that the number of people who will privately bring up your name, just, you know, independent of knowing whether I know you are not, is really phenomenal. So there, philosopher, entrepreneur,

and Naval has gone through many different ways to introduce himself, you know, the self-deprecation thing. And now he's a tinned wisdom, which is just, he's just Naval. I am Naval. He's just Naval. Yeah. That's all.

That's all. That's how the competition was introduced, right? The usual guru on guru Prius. and I'm going to play the very end of the interview how they finish it, right? So you start off, you praise your guest, and when you finish, you know, people usually thank their guests for coming on.

But we've often noticed in the grocery that the level of mutual back padding and sycophancy is hard to overstate. And this is a classic of the genre. So I don't want the people to miss it because it comes at the end of the podcast. So let's just hear how this episode ends. And then you can hear the content.

of the conversation, and see if it's justified. I don't want to take you forever. No, I enjoy talking to you. You know, it's funny because I get invited into a lot of podcasts, but they all ask the same boring questions. And you make yourself scarce, at least on these 101, so it's good, so I want to talk to you. But we should do another one.

You know, it's funny because I want to, I have a little bit, after Periscope, we used to have fun in Periscope. I remember that, right? You and I were probably the two biggest periscopers for a long time. Yeah. I was number one for a little bit, and you were number one. I was number two, and then I dropped off. And then when Clubhouse launched, I was big on Clubhouse trying to get that same feeling back.

And I even did my own company, AirChat, trying to get that same feeling back. But I think every smart person is star for conversation with other smart people. And so the Internet is great for that. It helps connect us. But still, like this kind of a setup is fantastic. I can get to talk to you. There's like 20 people I want to talk to and that's it. And you're on that list.

So when something newsbreaking happens, you know, It's fun to get online and talk. It's better than going to a podcast and they ask me the same interview questions. You know, then you answer them to check off like number 1309 check. Naval, you're one of the reasons I think I live in a simulation because if I do, I think there are player characters and NPCs. And from the first moment I met you, say, okay, you're a player. But beyond that, I've always felt connected to you no matter where you were or what you were doing.

imagine always being connected to Scott Adams no matter what you were doing I think it's worse than that so I mean this is the new normal isn't it this is this is how this is our podcast interviews go you've never known someone

just you respect so goddamn hard it makes your teeth hurt yeah 20 people in this category 20 people and also after all this talk as we're going to see about self-awareness and wisdom

and self-deprecation at the end they're saying it's really hard for geniuses like us to find other geniuses this has been such a stimulating conversation we're going to get into but so this is the bare mind

behind the Val feels at the end of this conversation but you haven't heard it yet but it's obviously something it was good from both their perspectives. It was pretty special. So we're going to cover, I can't remember whether the sort of cookie-cutter wisdom was more in this one. I mean, it's definitely in the modern wisdom one, but I'm sure there's some of it. Then there'll be some pretty interesting theories get bandied about. And it'll also be a fair bit of politics. So, yeah, let's find out.

Yeah, yeah, that's that's the way. Well, we'll cover a lot of things. But I think Chris Williamson is slightly more towards the wisdom prompt, right? Give him a prompt. and let him talk for five minutes uninterrupted where, as, you know, Scott is a fellow guru. Or are they gurus? Let's see. Okay. So one thing to know is despite this cultivated presentation of detachment from the normal society and the riffraff, right? There are repeated times in this where they both reveal that they're terminally online in an unhealthy way.

So, Exhibit A. Actually, I realized this, when I was first in the Tim Ferriss podcast, and after the Tim Ferriss podcast, like every podcast in the world, reached out after. And it's because Tim Ferriss influences the influencers, right? And I think you're one of those two. You influence the influencers. You can look at X, right, formerly Twitter. Even when it had a much smaller audience, it was so influential to the influencers because the journalists and the politicians were on there. So it punched out of its weight.

And whenever somebody, like, in a huff, deletes their ex account and storms off, they just fade into irrelevance. Like Sam Harris, where is he now? I think Jan Lecun is the latest casualty of that, right? And sometimes they slink back on tail between their legs and sometimes they don't. But if you influence the influencers, just like the left realize, if you control the institutions and the elites, you can just punch out of your way. If you're not on Twitter, Matt, do you even exist in the discourse? Leon Lecun and Sam Harris, what are they doing now? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I think that's, that was revealing. Definitely, definitely an online guy. I guess that's what people do. I mean, once you're really rich, like this guy, like, what are you going to, what are you going to do? Apart from offer your wisdom. Well, you know, you're a doom scroll, aren't you? No, can't you do?

Like, there are really rich people who seem to develop poverty. like Richard Branson was flying around the balloon. You could be doing other little things, you know. There's like a healthy and less healthy options. I think what about the guy, the guy from Myspace, you know, who made his fortune and then just goes around the world taking photography and having a nice life? That does sound good. Yeah, I guess it's possible.

I guess it's possible. Not in this day and age, though. The internet's too good, Chris. It's too good. Back where the internet wasn't this good, you know, flying around balloons seemed like a fun time. Yeah, that was, you know, the bit that got me from this response as well was like, you heard more of the guru on guru Prius though.

You Scott Adams, you influence the influencers, right? You're in this top tier echelon, like, because you tweet on Twitter and I see it. And if you think I'm reading too much and how much they are, you know, putting into the tweeting capacities, let's hear exhibit number two. Can I put you on the spot? Do you remember your post about changing the rules? Vaguely, you know, there are two posts I'm proud of in this whole thing, and one of them is about change the rules. And there I was, I didn't word it the perfect way. I could have worded it a little better sometimes with a word smith. So I know it wasn't quite perfect. I almost didn't put it out for that reason.

But the post was basically that you don't, you know, you know, leaders come and leaders go. you don't want to change the rules of the game, right? And lawfare is changing the rules of the game. Censorship is changing the rules of the game. Importing voters is changing the rules of the game, right? These are structural changes you're making to get us into one-party rule that'll never come back from. And the ending of that was like, let's change out the rulers,

to change out the people who are changing the rules of the game, right? Yeah, yeah. So this is getting more into his political feelings. And if you didn't pick up on it, all of those concerns that he's got are absolutely concerns about the Democrats and how they are changing the rules of the game, that is liberal democracy, and a great threat to America's democracy. They're engaging in lawfare, spurious lawsuits against Trump in particular, importing foreigners to vote so they can win elections. What was the third thing they're doing? Censorship. Oh, censorship.

Yeah, yeah. That's definitely something the Democrats are guilty of. No concerns about the Trump administration were expressed in a viewpoint. Well, that'll surely come up, Matt. He's not a partisan. I mean, he's a philosopher. He's above the left, right, paradigm, just like Scott Adams. Yeah, and what he says, Scott Adams.

Yeah, and what he says. said there, you might think like he's, you know, he referred to it as he, his post, right, that he word smith. He's a word smith at times. This is a tweet, Matt. He means a tweet. He tweeted this out. And what he said there is almost word for word is tweet. That thing about leaders come and go, but don't change the rules of the game. Censorship is changing the rules of the game. Lawfare is changing the rules of the game. Important voters is changing the rules of the game. Time to change the people who are changing the rules of the game. That is this big thing that Tim and Scott are like, do you remember when you tweeted out, Matt?

And he's, oh, yes, yes. I remember that one. It's so good. My treat was so great. Yeah. Like, it's insane to me that you would be talking to someone about the tweet that they crafted, right? And this is why I'm referring to them as like terminally online discourse surfers. But again, just in case this hasn't made this clear enough, they discuss another tweet, another bangor, Matt.

Listen to this. So you mentioned one tweet of mine before to change the people who are trying and change the system, right? But the other tweet that I was really proud of this cycle, right, was I almost want to pin this to my profile, but it's the battle of the masculine men and the feminine women against the masculine women and the feminine men, right? And that one was written in such a way that it's lyrical, it's poetic, it flows, but it's also true.

And once you see it, you can't unsee it. And I think that one influenced more people than any tweet I put out because they saw it. And they immediately knew whether they're masculine men or a feminine woman. And then they immediately thought on the other side like, oh, yeah, they're all men are feminine. All the women are masculine. I feel like he's more proud of that tweet than he really ought to be. Where is this attached to philosophy that cites the Buddha? Oh, this kind of thing like, imagine the Buddha in their life today and like, oh, there was this

bang your tweet I did this cycle. Like this is basically Joe Rogan's finger by difficult times make or hard times make hard man. Yeah, I know. Like both those tweets are just partisan culture worry stuff just packaged up into a little aphorism. Yeah. No, it's poetic, man. It's poetic. I mean, I've seen those sentiments expressed a million times before. You know, and typically he's known for inspiration poster type quotes like the reason to win the game is to be free of it escaping competition through authenticity yeah yeah you know like happiness is a choice like you know these are just honestly empty aphorisms at my point of view so it doesn't so he seems to think those are pretty

profound um so i guess i guess it makes sense that he feels like his tweets are super profound too Yes, yes. Well, you remember we had great fun with Jordan Peterson telling Brett about the state of modern medicine. This was actually in the conversation with Chris Williamson, but here is as good as any to mention that. So he was asked about, you know, his predictions for the future and like what things are going to be good and bad and whatnot. He mentioned this, Matt. Well, there's a couple. One is, I think, just how bad modern medicine is. I think people just put a lot more. faith in modern medicine than is warranted. Like our best ideas for a lot of things are surgery, just cutting things out, right? Treating things that are extraneous, like, oh, you don't really need a gallbladder, you don't really need an appendix, or you don't really need tonsils. Oh, that's false. So plus for a requirement. Human body is very, very efficient. All those things are needed. You know, so I think the state of modern medicine is sort of pretty bad. We don't

have many good explanatory theories in biology. We have germ theory disease. We have evolution. We have cell theory. We have DNA genetics, morphogenesis, embryogenesis, and not much else. You know, there's not much else. Everything else is rules of thumb, memorization, A, effects B, because effects C, effects D, but we don't understand

the underlying explanation. It's all just words, point to words, point to words. So biology is still in a very sorry state, and because we are not allowed to take risk that might kill people, we just don't experiment enough in biology. So a lot of treatments are just outright banned by

large re-gatory bodies so we just don't have the innovation interesting i grew um i grew hot tape there yeah well i mean again this is a very common theme it seems most of our gurus are not fond of modern medicine and uh you know i think he it puts it puts a bit more eloquent case for it like there's lots of grains of truth there right um like a lot of medicine is based on things that work and you don't always necessarily understand the exact mechanisms by which things work because it's complex. It's super complex. And, you know, what he said is right, you are a bit constrained by the experiments you can do. You can't just give people crazy things and see what happens. But, like, what's the point of that critique? Like, there's nothing, like everyone, well, not everyone, but I think

any medical scientist person knows that kind of stuff. But it's like, well, what's the alternative? You're going to take stuff based on vibes or take your own personalized cocktail of unproven natural therapies? So the thing that gets to me here about this is one, Matt, I think that list is pretty good, though, like, you know, DNA, germ theory, right? Genetics, like evolution. These are pretty impressive theories that we've got that have sent off to a whole bunch of side theories. It could be so many more, Chris. Just there could be so many more. But even like the bit about, you know, like you say, there are lots of things that we don't know yet about, you know, how certain medicines work.

But you and I, Matt, we read that great book by Philip Depmeier about the immune system, right? We know a hell of a lot about the immune system. Like, the level of complexity in that alone is bewildering. But there are people who have studied that. We've learned tons of things about how it functions. We've learned ways, I mean, the bit that gets me as well with what he outlines is, you know, we were able to develop MRNA vaccines because of our understanding about MRNA and and how vaccines function, and the regime that is putting a stop on these

and putting restrictions around this kind of research is Trump's regime, right? RFK Jr., people like that, but Naval, strangely, not somebody hugely vocal in criticizing the Trump regime on this point. So, you know, it's, yeah. Yeah, these criticisms of medicine reminds me of our other gurids and their criticisms of physics. It's like a God of the Gaps kind of like, oh yeah, physics is great I mean, you think it's so great, it's got this

and this, but it hasn't done these other things that I can imagine. You know, the fact that no one else has done those things better and you're not proposing any alternative to help do it. Like maybe those things are difficult.

As you said, we know he's just stuff about how the immune system works. I'm sure we don't know everything, but it's not much of a criticism to say, well, you should know more. Like, it's probably pretty hard to do more. Yeah, well, I just wanted to mention it in passing because it brought up echoes of

Jordan Peterson talking about, you know, hospitals, killing more people as I went along. But let's have a look. Well, no, maybe first of all, Scott Adams, we haven't heard from him in a while. Like, maybe he's become more balanced. He's had a new perspective on things as time has progressed. The Trump administration has come in. Let's have a listen to Scott. You know, to remind ourselves of his position.

You know, it seems like during the political process, as you learn the names of the people who are connected to what, you know, especially on the left, you say, oh, it's that person. There's always, whenever there's like a hoax, you see the same group of people emerge. It's like they've got the designated liars. But then they're a little, they're little,

maybe, I don't know, gangs within the Democrats. And then you learn, you know, who's got the connection, who's married to whom, you know, whose husband's in the top of the CIA and stuff. But what happened on the right was that there was this sort of organic growth of connection and persuasion that is invisible to the left. So the right as kind of, you know, we've now figured out the entire network on the left. But the left is blinded because they see, well, I think it's podcasters. There's something to do with Joe Rogan and they can't go deeper than that.

Classic Scott. The Democrats are just a sinister, a bunch of lies and stupid, too. They don't know what's going on. But the right, an authentic, an authentic. Authentic. Yeah, yeah, connecting with the real people, but the left cannot wrap their head around that kind of thing. Yep, that's, that's good. Well, you know, so Naval had his tweet smart. They were impressive.

Like, did Scott have any good takes that we might want to flag up? If we go back to 2015, some of the people will remember this, when people thought Trump was a clown, and he was just a clown, and that's what he was. So I wrote a blog post, someone will remember it. It was called clown genius. So I reframed him as somebody who was a showman, and he could use those talents in a productive way. And you'd better watch out, because he's not going to just change politics, I said. He's going to change the nature of reality itself in 2015. Now, that one.

You were leading back then, and then you were pacing for a while, and then he did change. He has changed a lot of things, though. I could see that. The nature of reality, man. Well, I guess he has by challenging that it exists so that you can actually objectively assert facts. He has succeeded in that.

But this is the thing with like both of these people that are like, I have a, this is on Scott's blog. I wrote a thing that these are genius comments. And this was great. And Naval's like, oh, yeah, that was, that was a leading insight back then. And they're all so impressed with these, you know, just like little terms they came up. It feels very reminiscent to me as like the distributed idea or suppression complex or the gated institutional narrative or whatever, right? They have their little terms and they like to say, oh, I've thought of this and I thought of a theory.

Yes, they're all very productive. They've had a lot of theories and they've met a lot of predictions that were right. Yeah. Yeah. And for people that didn't hear the Scott Adams episode, I recommend people go back to look. But if you want to hear the level of cynicism

that Scott brings to the table, this is reminiscent of that episode. Now, so here's my cynical question. Can any modern countries survive with free speech if their news is real? because you think they'll just fracture, they'll fall apart, they'll realize there's been too much shenanigans in the past and they'll be...

I think if we saw all the warts of our government and there wasn't a counter thing that was saying, oh, that's not true, I don't know if any government could survive long enough to do anything good. That's the nice thing about democracy. It gives us a way to have peaceful revolutions, right? So if all of that came out,

the people, if they truly understood it, which I'm a little skeptical on. There you go, man. If the people understood the government, you know, free speech, they wouldn't, for one minute, stand for it. In any case, they might be able to not handle it, you know, if they knew the details. Yeah, yeah, you cannot,

you cannot measure how deep Scott's cynicism goes. You know, he thinks everything is a lie. They're all like, I mean, especially the Democrats, mostly the Democrats, but everything is basically a lie. and he'd probably go as far to say as he did there, which is that, you know, society runs on lies and it has to. You can't handle the truth. If we knew what was going on, then we'd have anarchy overnight. So I don't know. His personal worldview is so dark and cynical. It's hard to know what his sort of secret conclusion is, but the implication is that it's okay to lie, I think,

because you kind of need to. That's one way to read it. I mean, he says as much in the episode that we covered before and I think like he's constantly doing the you know am I saying what I think or is it an ironic presentation like he exists in that ambiguity all the time but it's very clear that like his worldview is ultimately like a pragmatic cynicism but also based on the notion that he's actually you know a mastermind that is manipulating everyone psychologically by dropping breadcrumbs and it's so stupid. I mean, I could have to play some clips that highlight that this is not the case. That is what Scott Adams thinks he is.

That is not what he is. And, you know, we didn't hear from Naval there. So maybe Naval is not as polemical, right? And maybe he sees things more clearly. So having a forward-looking person like Elon actually executing, I think that's what separates. That's one of the main things, it's definitely the largest thing in my mind that separates 2024 from 2016.

Instead of having a bunch of Republican Party apparatchiks in neocons running the administration, he actually has incredibly competent people available if he will take advantage of them. You know, the one thing that Trump doesn't get enough credit for is that he has his ear to the public like nobody else. And he listens to lots of suggestions from lots of people. And so it's not a top-down situation. I think Democrats are kind of a top-down machine. and the Republicans are a bottom-up machine. Well, yeah, the Democrats are better organized.

You know, they're collectivists. By nature, they're better organized. That's what they do. What they have, though, is they've worse leadership because the great men tend to be more on the right, so to speak, right? The great man theory of history. You're just more likely to be on the right

because they're more individualistic. Yeah, I mean, at the beginning then, Navalvers remind me of the Dark and Lighten goye. What's his name? Oh, Curtis Jarvin. Curtis Yavin, yeah, with that sort of, people like Elon and Trump, for that matter, are worshipped, you know, as changed in the very nature of reality. You know, these are, these are very special people that when they have the reins, they're just going to change things in ways you cannot even imagine. And, you know, at the end there, he really drew a line under that, the great bed.

And they're going to be on the right, obviously, because the left are collectivists. But, you know, the other good thing about this, about Trump is that he listened. He's a man of the people. He doesn't just rule by Fiat and just, you know, adopt a dictatorial tone. No, he's just out there talking to people, gathering information and gathering opinions. And, yeah, he's, you know, so much better.

I mean, it is like an alternative reality. I know I'm reflecting now on the entire episode. We haven't played people with the clips. But did you get that feeling, Chris, like, when do you listen to these conversations? They're just living in a different reality where Trump is a, you know, a completely different person from everything that I know about him. Elon Musk is similar.

All of the troubles and strife in America are caused by the Democrats, it is so much of this hyper-partisan brain. Yeah. Weird. Well, Naval presents it like he has this boutique, you know, political position and philosophy. But like, it's not boutique. Like everything you've heard here is absolutely bogstand. Red meet, you know, right-wing talking points and conspiracism, right?

And they're, just to remind people, they're saying that the Democrats are a top-down, whereas the Republicans are a bottom-up party in the era of like Maga and Trump and the absolute personality cult existing around them. So it's just the, they do, like you say, exist and then an alternative reality. Because even if you say, like the Democrats don't have their finger in the pulse, they're not doing well at responding, you know, to like Maga and Trump, like the notion that the modern Republican Party is not top down. It's just silly, right? Like it's obviously the case that it's all revolving around Trump. Yeah. Well, the other thing that's a big going is that like,

as you said before, like there's nothing bespoke and fascinating about these political opinions. Like he thinks those tweets and these opinions are just fascinating new insights. But that it is, sorry for everyone, bulk standard, I have to say, you know, like right wing stuff, right. So it's not as interesting as he thinks it is. But the other thing that's going about it is that it completely contradicts his inspirational poster style philosophy for what it was. I mean, it was meant to be, you know, you know, think, you know, don't think in binaries, you know, be sort of above at all, you know, this kind of, you know, slightly. Buddhist-style philosophy. So it just contrasts very strongly with this kind of, you know, attitude. Yeah, no, it's, I mean, it's this boutique presentation combined with what is

absolutely standard right-wing talking points, which is what's calling. And, you know, this was recorded nine months ago, before the kind of Elon and Trump meltdown, right? But But just listen to the presentation here of Naval about, you know, the Trump administration and like its focus and compare it to where we are now. Yeah, you know, historically in a democracy, I would be a little more pessimistic just because if you look at what the left does well as it gets all the have-nots together and over time the have-nots sort of, you know, outnumber the haves. And leverage and technology leverage is in making that worse, you know, yes, everybody's

better off, but the delta between Elon Musk and the lowest paid workers much larger than historically. However, technology also gives leverage to the winners, right? So you have a microphone now. I have Twitter. You know, Elon has his empire of companies behind him and people who trust him and work with him. So the amount of leverage is available to the really high functioning individual society is much higher. And so that helps them fight back. Yes, so it's presented as that's good balance, right? So you've got to more and more have not So there's more and more discontent. But the good thing is that really high-functioning individuals like himself in Elon Musk,

they've got so much more. He says leverage. He could easily say power to control everything. So, you know, it all works out, I guess. Like there's this a very consistent pattern, isn't there? Like we've covered Peter Thiel, we've looked at Elon Musk, Mark and Drason, people like that have come up from time to time. There's this well-worn path of these tech entrepreneurs who make this money and discover themselves becoming incredibly libertarian,

incredibly anti any kind of governmental regulatory oversight, loving lower taxes. Trump tends to deliver on all of those. So there's, you know, this bespoke philosophy conveniently. aligns with those economic interests. Yeah, yeah. And like, it's a weird version of democracy where your view is that there should be like a very wealthy elite that determines everything for everyone else, right?

Like that is, his view is much closer to oligarchy than democracy, right? It sounds like what he wants is the elite intellectual thought leaders who have their hands and everything. and then the riffraff, you know, they're there, Matt, but they're there to be guided from these more refined individuals at the top. I mean, maybe there are some good libertarians out there somewhere. I mean, I don't want to cast those persons on the entire group, but in my experience, at least in this, in the discourse,

it seems they all tend to devolve into this, which is not, yeah, it's like you said, it's more it's more oligarchic rich people first than anything or is it civic mindedness matt let's let's hear scott and neval discuss it the the every word you said i just love to hear because once silicon valley types of thinkers are set loose on the government you know ilan of course looks like he's going to be the biggest one rfk junior etc etc they're there are systems thinkers as you are. Yeah, I actually volunteered for public service. I never thought I'd do it. You know, it would be pretty limited in public service. And I don't know what they have that would match up.

But I just put the word out. I said, hey, if you want me to do something in this government, I'm happy to do it because I want to protect the American dream for my kids. Well, where I see your greatest value is just what you're talking about, which is you're seeing how things are connected. And I don't know that the Democrats are good at that. I don't know that standard Republicans are good at it. I don't think Trump's, you know, you know, as good at it as, like, you would be, or Elon would be, or Janie Vance will be. So the level of re-engineering that can be brought to the country

is breathtakingly exciting to me. It feels like 1776, and it feels like, here's something I always wondered. How was it that the eight or 12 people who started the revolution, which was crazy? I mean, it was crazy. that they were just going to get killed but somehow they made it work and then somehow just when we needed it

when the country sort of fallen off the rails the characters who had exactly the right skills and historically so like Elon is Ben Franklin it almost seems like reincarnation or something does that seem like a coincidence to you or am I you're inspiring me

because I wasn't sure how much work I wanted to put into politics but now you're inspiring me If it's that kind of moment, then, yeah, that'll pull us everyone off the benches, you know. Wow. These guys are the reincarnation of the founding fathers, the revolutionaries. Yeah. Elon Musk, Peter Franklin. Oh, Ravikad.

Yep. They're the dream team. Actually, yeah, it does remind me of John Peterson. Yeah, yeah. Like, the other thing that's similar is just the incredible level of glazing that is going on. Yeah, no, the way they just, people like Scott Adams are like, feudal courtiers, you know, just lavishing praise on the dukes and the king. I almost feel that that gives them too much credit, Matt, because to me they come across

like teenage fanboys, even though like Naval is a billionaire. He's a billionaire who can't stop praising how great Elon Musk. I've got a clip which illustrates this. So listen to this. Because Elon doesn't want to go down in history of the electric car guy or even the guy who saved America guy. He wants to go down as a guy who got humanity to the stars. And I'll give him more credit than that. I don't even think he wants to go down to the I got humanity to the stars guy. He's just like, I want to get to the stars.

And so I have to make it happen in this lifetime. The only way that I get to experience the science fiction world in my head is if I get to the stars. And so that's so inspiration. I think that drives everything. So I think the government was just a thing that got in his way. Well, I had an idea is even simpler. He asked the other to Mars because he already conquered the planet.

He already needs a new planet. He conquers the planet as a side effect. You know, if you get to Mars, you also have the most powerful rockets and missiles in the world. You've conquered Earth as a side effect. If you get to Mars, you can already mine asteroids for gold and resources. You've got all the economics. You just won Earth as a side effect. So just getting to Mars as a side effect.

that conquers everything, because it's the most audacious goal by far. He's got to launch thousands of these rockets at a cadence of every few hours to build a Mars colony, to stack. I mean, they don't have air. They literally don't have air. It's a terraform of planet. But it gets better because he's going to, I assume that the base on Mars will be built by his own robots.

Yeah, he has to build the robots, to build the bases. He has to have the AI. It does sound like fantasizing, doesn't it? Like, the hero worship that's going on there. But, you know, they also held themselves in incredibly high regard. You know, the amazing, godlike. He's so high functioning. He's like a god.

He's going to conquer Earth as a side effect, Elon Musk, just because he's so driven. He's the epitome of everything their libertarian souls love. I think it really illustrates how these guys and Peter Thiel and many of them, like this is how they view the world. Like, they view the world. as the special people, you know, usually billionaires. Maybe people like Scott Adams, though not being a billionaire, gets into the club. But it's a small select club of incredibly special

people who really matter, who are going to change the world in amazing, exciting ways. And they're the ones that, you know, deserve to be running the show. Yeah. And like just that whole thing, I mean, Matt, you're a science fiction fan, but the way they talk about it. Yeah, like, I mean, it's just stupid the way they're talking about it. Like, okay, we're going to go to Mars and there's no atmosphere, but that's okay, we'll get the robots and they'll build something up. I'll make the atmosphere. We'll launch thousands of rockets.

I mean, you know, maybe there's astrophysicists or geo, what, Xeno, geo? I don't know, there's a discipline dedicated to geoengineering other worlds and their properties. But as far as I understand it, Chris, like any kind of permanent settlement on Mars would be absolutely ludicrous and a terribly bad idea. incredibly expensive for no real reason. Like, even if you manage to do it somehow, you would be living underground. Because apart from anything else,

the radiation would kill you, right? You can't live on the surface. There's no atmosphere. You can't breathe. There's no ozone layer. It doesn't have what the Earth has in terms of, forget what the field is, the electromagnetic field that actually diverts solar rays.

But there's a whole bunch of reasons why, like, it's just a fantasy. But these guys, like, it doesn't matter, right? I guess it's good. They haven't thought about it that much, I suppose. These are all engineering problems, which will stimulate, you know, like just the way, you know, Elon's got to build the robot so he can build the Mars base. And it's like Elon might look like he's a, you know, red-pilled, brain-melted, conspiratorial freak on Twitter. But really, it's just what he says in those interviews. It's all because, you know, he's actually motivated by the most

altruistic point of view. You know, he's, he's terraformed. Matt. He's getting ready for terraforming. I would not be betting on it. I mean, he can't build a self-driving car. Waymo did. Elon didn't manage to that. Many Waymo should be colonizing Mars. Yeah, in any case, you know, this speaks to the teenage levels of insight.

You're going to get this much more when we get into the philosophy section. But just one more bit, Matt, about, you know, Trump and Elon, because this is dejure for this genre. Well, I think especially, like, if you're a true. traditional male, you get a lot of value, like self-value out of taking care of your tribe, doing your duty towards your tribe. And you get to define your tribe. And the more capable you are, the broader that tribe, the more people you should take care of. And that's why people like Elon are so impressive, because he's basically saying, humanity is my tribe. Right. I'm going to push

us all forward. Now, to that point, my, my hypothesis is that the reason that Trump prevailed is that the danger to society to America got to the point where just male biology kicked in and people who otherwise would have said, you take care of it, I'm sure it would be fine, just said, oh, no, there's a lion at my door and I'm the guy with the gun. I got to kill the lion.

Again, Chris, you're saying before about just how blatantly wrong it is to describe, what if you think of the Democrats, just how blatantly wrong it is to think of the mega-trumpet is not being a top-down thing, right? Yeah. Like, again, he's saying that Musk's tribe is all of humanity. And that is blatantly inconsistent with so much of what we know of he'll on Musk.

What about his views on immigration? Like, yes, he's okay with bringing in PhDs on whatever, so he can to work for him and stuff like that. But I'm not so keen on on other forms of people. Anyway, that's just, it seems absurd to me, that's all. Yeah, and the Elon glazing, you know, Matt, like it just is a absolute recurrent feature in this neck of the guru sphere, right?

Elon and Trump must be the two people that are most often invoked and completely saturated in Prius, right? Yeah, and they're both like building and supporting a movement built on xenophiles. and nativism. So it's just, again, a big galling to me to describe them as people who are so high functioning that they don't think

in terms of tribes anymore. They think in terms of all humanity. No, they don't. Yeah, I know. I know what, but I'll play one more clip just to illustrate the way they both think about Elon, but I could play like a hundred of these. So one more.

We can't help but mention Elon in most conversations. He's become the universal reference to almost everything. But I wanted to bring him up because if you look at Elon Musk's life, I'm trying to reconcile the coincidence that he believes were a simulation with the fact that he lives like he's in a simulation. He does live like he's in a simulation. Yes, he's broke every time.

He's like, well, what would be the most impossible thing I can do now? Change the government, go to Mars, build electric car. climate change one of the you know I called out in 2022 I put out a tweet saying Elon Musk is the new leader of the center right and then I did a troll poll like you know who's the leader of the free world and it was like is it Elon Musk Joe who's the leader of the world it's a Elon Musk Joe Biden Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and of course Elon won right and obviously my follower base is self-selected but you know I kind of knew that he's the real deal and I don't know him that, well, I mean, I just exchange occasional once in the bloom moon. I get a message through him, so I don't claim to know him at all. But there was a story that I read about him that really affected me. The story that he's going to go on to tell there, by the way, Matt, is that like Bill Gates met Elon Musk and he was shorting, you know, Tesla. And Elon was like, why are you doing that? I thought you believed in the environmental electric cars. And Bill Gates

was, well, it's just an investment thing. And then Elon realized that he wasn't, motivated by his high aspirations. So Naval's just like, that's when Elon realized that, like, they're different kinds of people. So, yeah. You know, you might not know about this, Chris, but just speaking of Musk's amazingly good character and how he's just thinking about making humanity better. You were in the story about how much is demanding to get paid by Tesla.

So he's been progressively selling his shares in Tesla to, you know, fund all kinds other things but like he previously was awarded a 56 billion dollar payment package right to continue you know acting as an executive role for the company 56 like no executive no one has ever been paid anything like that in vesting of shares or anything like that that was struck down by delaware courts so now he's demanding i think 29 billion dollars right so that's being funded of course by the existing shareholders, right? They're basically diluting the shares and just giving Elon money. So you can view it as like a weak board or it's basically extortion because you know, Tesla has got all kinds of problems. And if Elon doesn't continue to sprinkle the magic

fairy dust on the company and keep promising that, you know, amazing new things will be happening every 12, 12 months, you know, maybe they'll be even worse off. But it's just so absolutely absurd the amount of money that he's demanding as a payment, right? This is not a, this is not investment stuff. Matt, that's, no, Elon lives in a cheap house. He doesn't live in mansions and he sleeps on the floor of his factories. And he's not a buy personal interest. He doesn't care with all that materialist stuff.

Have you not seen the interviews with him? Like, you've obviously got this all wrong. Like maybe, maybe he is trying to get those billions. But if so, it's only because he wants to use them the fun things which will help humanity. Okay? Don't be so cynical. But I would, I just think Tesla stockers are the biggest suckers in the world because like not only is he doing that, basically stealing from them. The other thing that he did is that he positioned Tesla as an AI company.

He said Tesla totally an AI company now, right? This is the new, the new thing of it when AI became a big thing. Then he set up a totally separate company, right? For X-A-I, X-A-I, diverting the, you know, the processes and stuff like that even to the new company. I mean, it's just like Trump and Trump coin. Like, this is the behavior of people that are basically scammers that are ripping people off for their own benefit. Well, what about the argument, though? I'll just give you a devil's advocate point here.

What about the argument that, like, Tesla's stock is. is dramatically overpriced, right? Because of Elon Musk. He is the ultimate PR machine for Tesla. So it only has its market value because of him and promises and exaggerations that he's made. So what about that? Like their stocks wouldn't be worth anywhere near what they are now.

It wasn't for him at the helm. Well, yeah, he's not at the helm. He's just hanging around associated with it. He's distracted with other things. you know, Chris. He's busy. But yeah, there's a lot of truth of that. I think probably the people owning Tesla stock deserve all they get because, yeah, I think it is that kind of company. Well, that's, yeah, I think you're mistaken again. He's very integral to the production process. He spots things that the engineers haven't seen and is like able to get things working

at Tesla and whatnot. So I don't know where you've been getting your information from. But yeah, Yeah, he's pretty integral there. Now, something else that will tickle your hypocrisy from that. So you didn't like it when Naval was lionizing the Republicans for their kind of non-top-down approach to things and other statements that he's made. One thing that we do, you have to give them credit for, though, is how much they are focused on, like, paying attention to markets. their economic kind of approaches.

Frak, sell it, the Maga regime, I mean. I'm biased for American greatness. But some of that's hyperbole, et cetera, patriotism. But I do think that Americans have one superpower, which is we will shik-hand absolutely anything. Capitalism works because it makes you fire your best friend. Right. If you can't fire your best friend,

if you can't tear the entire structure down, if you can't cannibalize your last product to put out your new iPhone, you're going nowhere. Yeah, all the successful systems take feedback from free markets or nature. And it's when you're, you know, when you're president and you say,

I'm not going to listen to what the market's telling me, I know what's right. That's when you're going to fail economically. Well, Matt, you know, that's a problem with the Democrats. They're always just dictating the markets and not listening to the feedback, right? It's a good thing that we have these Republicans' libertarians in control, right?

Because they're certainly, they're not going to do things like raise tariffs. No, but that's what happened. Trump, he listened to the universe and the universe told him, we need lots of tariffs, stat. Yeah, it wasn't an arbitrary decision. It was what the markets and the environment was telling him. Yeah, that's it. And so you heard, you know, we kind of, like also, Matt, that praise of capitalism,

you know, red in tooth and claw, you know, just you'd find your best friend because it's not profitable enough. That sits so at odds with these gurus who sycophantically, pre-easy-chiller, constantly are constantly playing in these like little psychodramas around their court intrigues, right? It is not all pragmatic utilitarians here trying to work out the most cost-saving things. It's much more interpersonal sycophancy. Well, it's also completely contradicting Naval's own cookie cutter philosophy, right, which is that you find worthwhile, trustworthy people and you be a trustworthy, long-time friend with them, which means quite explicitly, you'd say, you know, you've got to stick by them, even if they're not performing and stuff in the short term,

because you've got to be a long-term thinker, you see. So that all sounds great on the back of the cereal packet when you're reading it in the morning. But, you know, it doesn't actually mean anything because he can contradict himself whenever he likes. Oh, you're exactly right. that certainly does it so many times where he's like stealing something in this that is like a philosophy that lives by and then he goes on to contradictive and I have examples of that.

But, you know, so again, are we demonstrating that he is, you know, actually like a polemical, right-leaning person? Have we done the job of that, bro? What's this? Maybe people still have debts. Well, the right doesn't even know what the network is because the right is not a coherent entity.

You know, the left is a set of people who hate market outcomes, whether in the free market of evolution and genetics and nature or in the free market of capitalism, right? Because they don't want inequality. It's an equality religion, like formerly Christianity, now elements of it mixed up with Marxism and identity and race politics. And you get this thing where they basically want everyone to have equal outcomes no matter what. And then on the right, you know, you have the people who just want to be left alone. They're like, hey, just leave me alone. It's basically the collection of people who don't like the left. And it's a rag tag collection. And if you had to divide them up broadly, there are at least three groups.

They're sort of the fiscal, free market, you know, classic conservatives. They're sort of the people who are bound by race and ethnicity and, you know, common culture. And then they're the people who are religious and, you know, like raising families and God-fearing and so on. And sort of these three categories together that when you kind of get them together, you get the right. but it's inherently disorganized. So they don't form institutions. They don't form networks. They're busy with their jobs.

They're not like running out and creating NGOs and institutions. And they're not as ideological. So I don't think even the right can identify the right. If you had two different right-wing people list the top figures in the industry or in the group, it would break down after five people. They would just be listening to different sets.

Oh, what have I done that? Yeah, the right wing, they're out for the jobs. They're not building like NGOs. and institutions, this use the thing. The left is a Marxist, like, identity-focused cult, right, that just wants to tear down the free

market. I like how we describe the second faction of the right, a group of people who are bound together by ethnicity and common culture and something else. It was a pretty way to describe it. Yeah, like, do you buy that, you know,

cartoonish description of the left versus the right, you know, the left just, it's just like a religion, right, where it's sort of like a mixture of Marxism and Christianity, where we just want everyone to have exactly the same outcomes. That's the left. Whereas the right, they just want to be left alone. I mean, that's the way he would frame it, I guess, as a libertarian leading person. Just like, I don't think anyone could find that an interesting political analysis, except Scott Adams. Well, well, Matt, no, but I think you're feeling to understand the threat that the Democrats

posed to democracy now there is only one valid comeback to that by the way which was made by some commentators which is well jan 6 was an attempt to change the rules of game and i would argue no because you know it can go through all that evidence why but it's like yeah a bunch of armed people taking over a building and nobody actually dying in the attack like that's not how you take over a country this size you know just seize a building right we'll trespass until you surrender exactly and that was so exact i mean yeah it was a bad thing to storm you know into the capital but it was so after the fact by the left and so hoaxed that then it just lost all credibility on it. But regardless, that was the only, like, slight comeback you could have to it.

But it's very clear there's one side that keeps talking about changing the rules, packing the Supreme Court, adding states, destroying the electoral college, right? These are all attempts to change the rules of the game because they don't like losing. And it was, this is a one-way slope that we've been on for a while. You know, no ID voting. That's another, you know, mail-in ballot voting, mandatory voting, non-secret voting, right? felon not being able to run for office, right? Let's make them a felon. Okay, we call you a felon, and I can't run for office. All of these are attempts to hack the system. And I like democracies

because you can vote people out of power. Because if you can't vote them out of power, then you've got to shoot your way out. And that's not good for anybody, you know, especially the unarmed 60% of the country. There you go. There you go. I mean, look, we could criticize all of that. I will not. Go ahead. She was not there. You're wrong. I just don't want to bore people with it because, you know, it's plain just how partisan he is, how absurd it is to downplay the capital insurrection, whatever you want to call it, the degree to which he is. Or to make out of the Democrats that are like stealing elections and what else were they doing?

Like, we all of, real ballots voting. Yeah. Like, I know you listen to a bunch of other things, which clearly Trump's MAGA people are guilty of. And I'll just want to say for the record to American listeners, like, no ID voting is not some radical plan to undermine democracy. And the proof is that Australia has never had ID required voting. And it is run by the Australian Electoral Commission. And it is widely regarded as one of the most open, transparent, and non-corrupt and accurate voting systems in the world. So I'm just, I'm pretty tired of, of them running that one out as if it's a, you know,

a plot to, you know, steal American democracy. So yeah, Naval really at times he just reveals himself as being, like he speaks very politely and sometimes he uses kind of nice language, which makes him sound a lot more pleasant than a lot of our gurus. But he is absolutely conspiracy redpilled, up with the best of them. Yeah. So like, you know, January 6, Matt, like you said, Naval painted doors, oh, it was just like, you know, a little protest, a couple of trespassing, you know, like not a big deal.

But that ignores that since then, we know about the fake electors plot. Trump trying to get alternative representatives, right, and to delay the vote that was occurring on that day as part of that. Why were they there on January 6th? There was a reason, right? And it was to try and convince Mike Pence to not sign up, off on the vote that would lead to Trump leaving power.

So there's just a clear misrepresentation of that event and what it was about. And then on top of that, this whole thing about, you know, the Democrats on packing the court and all this kind of thing, it ignores that the Republicans are the party that refuse to let Barack Obama select a Supreme Court justice when it fell in the last year of his term. Eric Garland, they refused to confirm him because they said that wouldn't be fair. And then when the same thing happened in Trump's administration, when, what's her name, died, the Democratic justice, right, died.

Then all of the Republicans were like, well, no, it's okay, right? And they acknowledged that actually this was a double standard, some of them. And they just said, well, but that's politics, right? So this notion about, like, the Republicans are playing by the rules and the Democrats are just always willing to like bend the rules to, you know, to their advantage. It's just not accurate. And the same thing with the voting scheme, right? Like the thing that he's referencing now is all the conspiracies about like during COVID, Trump encouraged his voters not to do mail-in voting because he viewed it as a conspiracy or whatever. And then people knew that the Democrats were

going to get more votes from mailing votes during national. election. And that's what happened. And Trump tried to present that as a conspiracy. So Naval is just eating up every right-wing conspiratorial, polemical talking point. I'm regurgitating it as if it's like an objective fact. And to me, it's no different than Scott Adams. It's just like said a bit less sinister. Yes. He's just, they agree on everything. They do. He just comes across as less sinister. And I'm really, I'm stuck on that downplaying of the capital riot thing. the way he framed it was just a totally non-violent trespassing, right? You know, like he described it as a hoax, and yes, maybe no one died except for maybe

what that one lady. There was a couple of police officers. Yeah, he died shortly afterwards. But yeah, 140 were injured on the day. Some of them extremely badly. The Justice Department described it as like the largest single day mass assault of law enforcement officers in our nation's history. And they were defending.

the Capitol building, right, where there were senators, like, hiding in there, like, legitimately afraid for their safety, which was demonstrably a reasonable fear because of the kinds of stuff that they found on some of them and the plans that they had for them. So, you know, like, some of them were severely injured. It took, like, brain injury, spinal injuries, like, beaten with pipes and things. So it just gets, that is... I thought it's just people being riding, Matt. That was just riding.

What a threat to democracy could there be from trying to delay a vote to install alternative electors that weren't the ones that should be representing the districts? That's the kind of stuff that, you know, that's not a real threat to democracy, right? I'm just trying to imagine like what would happen. I'm trying to put myself in an American shoes. Like if a parliament house in Canberra, if that was. besieged by a group of people like that, like climbing up walls getting in, and there's the federal police, they're trying to fight them off, and they're trying to get their way in to get the parliamentarians with handcuffs

and zip ties or whatever. And I would be just outraged and extremely pissed off. And so somebody to say, I was no big deal, I was fine. You know, it's just getting a bit rowdy. Yeah, anyway. I think we're doing them at just. Justice, Mark, because Naval is a bit more of a Neroon's thinker. I mean, listen to this.

Yeah, and so I think, like, what you have is you have very capable people now who decided that, you know, the nonsense has to stop. The politics has to stop. The gas lighting has to stop. The lawfare has to stop. The censorship has to stop.

And hacking the system has to stop. And we've got to put our foots down. So you have some, in this administration, I think you have some very intelligent people working with Trump. Hopefully, they will figure out how to navigate the bureaucracy and the Intel apparatus before they get blown up, right? Because the Intel apparatus and the bureaucracy are not going to give up. I have a theory that over a long period of time, the people of the guns are

always in charge, right? So if you look at Roman history, at the end, all the emperors came from the Praetorian Guard, which was guarding the Emperor. Now they were suddenly in charge. If you look at what happened in Russia, you know, the FSB, the KGB, the Secret Police, the people who were guarding the Premier, they took over. right? So that's Putin and his crew. So on a long enough cycle, the Praetorian Guard is eventually in charge. The people with the guns always end up in charge. And that's happened kind of everywhere in the world where the Intel operators, Intel apparatus, for example, has their secret courts and their secret laws and their gag orders. So why hasn't it fully happened in the U.S.? It's the only

place in the world, and it's because of the Second Amendment, because the people with the guns are in charge because the people have the guns. Excuse me, the only place in the world where this hasn't happened. Yeah, you know, Matt. Are you going to talk about Australia or these other countries? What about the UK? It's like, the UK has fallen. Have you not been listening to Sam Harris?

It's Sharia law. But yeah, like, like I say, Islamic steered. Like he is precisely as cynical as Scott Adams. You could, you could tell by Scott Adams response. You'd love that take. The people who've been gone to is like, oh, yeah. And, yeah, like, yeah, like, he's described.

being well yeah he was described in the deep state he's like you know the good people that Trump has got in there now there's these amazing people from Silicon Valley and stuff they're going to set everything to rights but they're going to be fighting against unless yeah the deep state is going to be trying to slow them down

and trap them in quicksand but if the deep state doesn't get them the people with the guns like the CIA the FBI who knows maybe other groups as well they're going to they're going to blow them up they're going to get rid of them I mean, you know, like they don't really believe in, you know, you don't have cynical, Scott Adams is.

He doesn't really believe that there is any such thing as a democracy, like a liberal democracy. It's not real. It's all a scam, whatever. And you can sort of tell that Naval doesn't really believe in it either. Like, it's very dark enlightenment. Oh, yes, there's two clips I want to play here to highlight this. So if you think, you know, well, okay, so he's. he's right leaning, right? Obviously, he's a little bit right leaning, but he's not so cynical

in his worldview. Like, this is not Scott Adams level. Let's just hear his take on like geopolitics a little bit and, you know, the differences between different countries. The big war doesn't make sense for any sufficiently advanced society because any sufficiently advanced society is just short in technology and ideas. It's not short on resources. It's not short on, you know, it's not fighting for food. But we're living in this weird world where you have 20, first century societies like the United States or parts of the United States in Japan. And then you have countries that are literally 150 years back in terms of their moral, cultural, intellectual, technological development.

And so to them, the idea of like conquering somebody still makes sense, right? Beating up their neighbor to get a piece of land or to lose something. Sort of them still makes sense. And it's absurd, obviously. But the problem is the technology developed in the Neolithic countries kind of filters into the Paleolithic countries. and then use that same technology 10 years later. And 10 years is not enough for them to have developed their moral and cultural institutions

to know how to deal with it and to realize, hey, there's more of life than blowing each other up. That's why I think the top, you know, five powers should just say, why don't we just stay the top five powers forever and just make sure the little guys don't kill any of us? Just like teenage boys, Matt. Like, you know, like, yes, there's differences between, you know, different cultures and different countries and their development and levels of democracy and so on. But like

describing other countries as paleolithic and the kind of elite countries at the top and the other countries are kind of getting their technologies and like, you know, hurting themselves and hurting other people because they haven't developed

enough morally or socially. Like it's a very colonial like viewpoint. Very racist. in a lot of ways. Like, I know that the valors of, you know, Indian background, but you can be of Indian background of being racist as well, and he clearly is.

Yeah, it's, yeah, it's both sort of pubescent in its tone. And, yeah, very Scott Adams, very unattractive as well. What was the last bit where the top five countries should just get together. Yeah, so that's, I mean, they go on the talk. Well, the UN Security Council was, you know, kind of, But that also speaks to, like, Scott's view, which is, you know, like he presents with this philosophical mastermind who knows all these deep topics and psychology and history. But, like, he's fundamentally just like a silly discourse surfer.

He doesn't know history. So, like, when his idea is, like, maybe if the countries could make, like, a club where they agree, and then Naval needs to say, well, you know, there is a thing that happened after World War II, right, called the Uran Security Council. And yeah, that is his worldview, you know, like Scott Adams and Naval's worldview, that there's the smart people, the smart countries, the good people, and they should be ruling over the people on the bottom. This is why it just keeps to remind me of Curtis Yalvin, because it's the same sort of weird pseudo-libertarian political thinking that's come out of Silicon Valley these days, where, as you say, the philosophy is. is that there are just a few, a tiny percentage of super effective,

super special people in the world. They're fantastic and amazing. They should be running everything. And now they're just transposing that ridiculous philosophy to international relations. You know, the really good countries, really special ones,

really successful ones. You know, they should just be, you know, the little club should just be running the world. Yeah. So, you know, they apply that to, the geopolitical analysis, and we've heard various versions of it applied to domestic politics, right? But at that point did you just made, Matt, of like, you know, the kind of Ubermen and their capacities versus the riffraff. I think Naval puts this quite nicely here.

The modern flavor is that the individual is getting more powerful because they're becoming more leverage. So someone like an Elon Musk can have the leverage of tens of thousands of brilliant engineers and producers working for him. He can have factories of robots manufacturing things. He can have hundreds of billions of dollars of capital behind him. And he can project himself through media to hundreds of millions of people. That is more power than any individual could have had historically. So the great men of history are becoming greater. That said, that same leverage is increasing the gap between the haves and have-nots. So in the wealth game, more people are winning overall and the average is going up. But in the status game, they're essentially more losers.

more invisible men and women who are getting nothing out of life and have no leverage, relatively speaking, objectively speaking, they might be better off. They still have phones and they still have TVs and they're not absolute as creatures. Correct. Correct. And so to the extent that we're relatives creatures, they're more losers than winners. And in a democracy, those people will outnumber the winners and they will vote the winners down.

And so that's the battle that kind of goes on. It doesn't sound such a fan of democracy there. It sounds like the losers. losers who are, you know, not capable of rising to the level of the great man will try to take them down. Yeah. By voting for things like, I don't know, minimum wages and health care and stuff, like that will be, you know, us sheep, you know, as pathetic also rents, that'll be us trying to take

a little piece of the pie for ourselves. The great men of history will need to do something about that, I think. Yeah. So I wanted to cover this stuff at the start. before we get into some of the more abstract philosophical topics, because I think it's the important thing to ground is like, this is the quality of thought that you are approaching here. And we're going to move into more esoteric topics.

But as we'll see, it's the same level of intellectual power that's being brought to bear. So I think it's worth emphasizing that alone Naval certainly thinks he's, a very unique, insightful thinker who is outside of most people's paradigm. He sounds very much like a standard libertarian right-wing tech bro who believes almost every right-wing conspiracy that he comes across and has a very polemical, anti-democratic view about how the country should function. So, yeah, I just thought that's a good thing to flag up at the beginning. Yeah, yeah, no, I think it's good. So I think let's draw a line under this political stuff. I think we've established where Naval sits there. Yeah, let's move on to the esoteric stuff.

Yeah, good idea. Well, actually, Matt, just before the esoteric stuff, there is one last thing that dramatically connects to all of this jazz, which is we've heard boutique political tics, right? Not just your red meat, right-leaning, standard polemicist. Partisan politics, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Now, how about conspiracy theories? Do we have unique? I mean, because these guys aren't your board standard conspiracy theories, right?

Like, that's not their jazz. Or is it, Bob? What do you think, realistically, once you look at the history of, say, Kennedy on, have we really been picking presidents I mean I was watching I was watching an old documentary about I don't want to get conspiratorial but yeah Candy was shot and they still haven't released the files

which is absurd they still haven't released the files 60 years later Nixon you know the whole Watergate thing now we know how the media works so what was that all about yeah it's you know but even the exceptions look kind of weird right because you get okay Reagan

you know he was just all American but he was going to spend a whole lot on the military. Yeah, yeah. These are all pro-military candidates. Right. So what was the exception? So Reagan, why is Reagan the exception?

And why is he not the exception? Because he was going to spend a lot of the military? He's all American. So, you know, he's, I guess, not the, you know, corrupted president because the right wing have this kind of he-geographic view around Reagan, right? Sure. So you got a carve out for him. No, I did like Matt. Naval, you know, of course, with the RFK assassination stuff, yes, that's that you would expect.

But he also threw in Watergate, but not like Watergate as a conspiracy, more like because the media uncovered it. And we know that the media is always, like, we know how they do things now. What was that actually all about that Nixon conspiracy? Right. So what we think happened, which was there was a Nixon. conspiracy that was uncovered. Which was uncovered, right, by the media. Yeah, there's another conspiracy

underneath that. I see. Yeah, that's... And you heard the trademark there, Scott Adams, like, you know, realistically, do you think we've actually elected presidents? You know, you think? He did a very poor job of imitating his sinister, fucking tone of voice there, Chris,

but he did lead with that. Yeah, so just pointing out. out, right, that RFK, Kennedy assassination conspiracies, apparently concerns about Watergate. This is the kind of level we're talking with Naval. And he goes on a little bit later, just to make it clearer about around Kennedy. So there's only a small percentage of people who care if Kennedy was killed by the CIA or not. You know, it might be enough to tip the vote on the margin. But I just don't think enough people will care or that Nixon was framed, you know,

like, okay, half the country will believe it and the other half won't. You know exactly how this will work out, right? Whether it's true or false, if it has a political component to it, half the country will believe it and half the country won't. I feel I'm only curious. Like, I'm not bought into the answer at all.

I'm not either. I'm not either. For the record, I don't think the CIA killed him, but I'll bet one of their ex-people was, you know, probably went rovers. Well, yeah, something along those lines. Yeah, their fingerprints are somewhere, but not directly on the gun. they're not partisan conspiracy theorists they don't have a dog in this fight but he does he does think that the watergate was a hoax it's up yeah yeah the Nixon was set up um i was just trying

to take him down and uh that the CIA's fingerprints were all over the Kennedy thing as well but yeah not conspiracy theorists that these are just ideas they're bad yeah and you do like Matt, you know, there's like, no, I don't believe the CIA killed him. I don't, you know, no, no, it wasn't, probably one of their rogue agents, like their fingerprints you do believe the CIA killed him.

You just have like a slightly you know, different version. It's a kind of rogue element within the CIA that you think is responsible, but this is part of the course where they kind of presented that, you know, we're not just endorsing the standard

conspiratorial thing. And then they go on. to repeat, almost word for word, the board standard, political authoritative day. Well, you say box standard, but I'd never heard of this particular one, that the Nixon fiasco was actually a thing to, you know, Nixon was innocent. He was basically set up and it was a hoax to take him down. Is that this is clearly some right weak conspiracy I've not heard of. No, you're quite right. That actually is someone for his book theory. That's That's a conspiracy that I haven't come across before, I think, Elor. So, yeah, we have to give Naval credit.

That is a boutique conspiracy. But maybe it's not that surprising because it kind of balances up with like a right-wing president, you know, being smeared. So he's talking about a Kennedy assassination, which would be a left-wing president. Yeah. But, of course, at this point in time, 2025, like Kennedy, you know, believing that. Yeah, they're far enough back, that that's bipartisan endorsed, conspiracy. You're right. You're right. Yeah, that is true. Well, Ma, I promised you that we would get into some more esoteric topics. Out of this, you know, murky swamp that we too often huddle around

in, right, with partisan politics and conspiracy theories, let's get into something a bit deeper. we've got a philosopher here. We've got a, you know, we've got a lot of wisdom in this room. There surely are some insights that they can offer us about different things. Now, well, actually, so I realize that I've just said we're getting out of conspiracy theories and this clip might have a conspiracy theory. But on the other hand, Matt, it might just be talking about technology that actually exists. That's true.

It's like creating a clone. By the way, you can already clone yourself. You know, rich people are already cloning. dogs and cats. I hate to say it, not me, but I know people who have literally cloned their dead animal and they have a clone of it running around. And you ask the kids, you're like, hey, how's the clone? And they're like, oh, same behavior. You know, I can't tell it apart from the old dog. So for a dog, it's the problem solved. And you can already clone yourself. There are companies that are doing, you know, embryos, stuff. Like, they have the ability to do clones. I'll bet you

the Chinese Communist Party, the top people have some clones on ice. that is so cool to think about they could just break one out isn't that like what is the sci-fi foundation okay so clones exist they live in the world with us I'd notice he's not saying like at first I was thinking oh he's saying

that we currently have the technology that if we wanted to we could clone people and I think that would probably be a true statement right because we can clone sheep and stuff like that right well to be clear you can create a genetic copy of someone but yes it's not the same person it's like it's going to look you have to grow them up yeah that's right they still they're like

identical twins right it's like identical twins right in this sense but he's he's saying no no we they are cloning people the the chinese leadership have got clones on ice and they break one out where they need to yeah okay that's that's probably that's probably very good to the conspiratorial, yes. Scott Adams likes it. He points out that it's a sci-fi kind of thing. But, you know, that was really the lead-in to talk a little bit more about some deeper topics, Matt.

So, you know, what about God and the universe and all this kind of thing? Like, what about it? I mean, there are people, a lot of people are opting out of the gene pool. They're not even having kids. Can't be bothered, right? Or it's too difficult. I think that's a mistake.

I think if you can have kids, you should have kids. It kind of answers the meaning of life question, right? But my rule on that is you either got to have kids or you've got to find God. Like, pick one of the two. And I go, what's that? Well, no. I've read God's debris. I've read your simulation stuff.

I know the game you're playing. You're playing the God game. And you're just playing it in your own way with your own words. So you have more conviction, which makes sense, right? It's not some white-bearded dude who lived 2,000 years ago. go has certain commandments you're thinking it through for yourself and you're stitching it together in your own framework your own models your own language and so it's solid within you you have you have your own i wouldn't call it faith because it's there through reason but you you have your own

deep spirituality although you don't use that language of those words um and i think you'd have to otherwise you wouldn't be happy right now because then you'd be as a self-obsessed and looking for pleasure in the next pill or the next thing or the next activity and that doesn't you have to have a mission if you have a mission larger than yourself. Okay, so what's he's saying there? He's saying he's congratulating Scott because he's saying Scott like everyone else has got their own conception of God.

Not like everyone else. So there's only two. He's saying like you could be, you know, a complete nihilist like, you know, you're either the gene for him and you're giving up on having a bigger mission and, you know, you're purely about hedonistic pleasure. Like, if he is not.

You know, like pure if he's like, oh, they do. They don't care of morality. They've got no, there's, shut up. Stop playing into their, that show's not. So this is a common refrain of like spiritual religion. Like, if there's no higher thing, why like doing anything, right? Why be good? Why not just screw everyone?

Why should I just take my pants off right now and run around, waving my hands around? But these are high-level thinkers, so they cannot simply, you know, they're not into religion like the rest of the Oller RFRAF. They have a more refined sense where they've understood the deeper meanings, right? So like, yes, he's read God's debris, which is Scott Adams, you know, talking about his version of spirituality, though he doesn't use those words, Matt, right? It's a lot more complicated like that, as it always is in these things. But fundamentally, Naval, like all of the sense speakers, like Jordan Peterson, like so many of them, basically say, you have to have this yearning for spiritual transcendence. Otherwise, like, what's the point?

Yeah, some kind of definition of a personal God in an abstract sense. Yes. Yeah, and because all good things flow from that. You know, everything good, you know, delaying gratification, you know, contributing to society, being a decent person, having any kind of meaning in your life. It is all downstream of that. So, yeah, okay, yeah. I heard that before.

That is a common refrain amongst, yeah, Jordan Peterson and the rest of the gurus. Yeah, that's right. And Matt, there might be a little section of the original surprise you. Because, you know, Scott Adams is bored up by this conversation and he just wants to mention what's his bigger mission? What's he about? I'm finding politics as my escape, you know, because if I do anything that helps people,

like, you know, I've had a job where people contact me all the time and say, oh, you help me lose weight or get a new job or something. And that just feeds me. That's just like, oh, my God, that's the nourishment I need. It's like, I helped you. Wow. That's nice. Yep.

So we like helping people. That's always what I get from Scott Adams. It's like a deep well of altruistic concerns. for the welfare of mankind. Every time I listen to him, I'm like, God, you know, if we have more people like Scott on the air, what a wonderful place it would be, you know? He just gets a buzzer of helping people.

That does sound like Scott. Yes. Yes, that's him. That's him, don't you, T? Well, so now, Matt, like I said, we're going to get into some heavy topics, right? First of all, though, we have to consider, you know, there's been a lot of chatter about UFOs, but these aren't the kind of guys that are into UFOs, right?

So let's just hear them discuss that a little bit. I don't think I've asked you about UFOs yet, have I? I've never talked about UFOs, am I? I don't think so. You might have. I'm a UFO skeptic. So I don't know. So am I.

So do you think there are, so the fact that the government keeps telling us, there's somebody else has seen the spacecraft and we can't tell you where it is or what it looks like there's too many camera phones there's too many people there's too many blabber mouths

there's too many wannabe heroes that information will be out already plus why would the aliens even hide it and how would the UFOs get captured and how do they even make it here so far and wouldn't we see some evidence like electromagnetic radiation from their transmission there's just so many problems with the UFO thing

yeah okay so one of them is definitely a UFO skeptic. But Scott, I mean, I wasn't quite sure what Scott was saying. He was something about the government and... No, well, I think he's there invoking the kind of Brett Weinsteinian, you know, like the government wants us to talk about UFOs because maybe they want to distract us from something else, right? That's kind of what he's invoking there.

Yeah, because the government is always talking about, you know, someone who's seen a UFO But, yeah, the government behavior is suspicious, should we say. Yeah, it's now, again, you might say that the Trump administration in particular is full of people that are like into the UFO or that the whole network that Scott Adams or Brett Weinstein and so on operate. And, you know, Michael Schellenberger, Eric Weinstein, these are UFO guys, right? But, but no, that's not the case. So, Naval there, you know, pushing back, though, right? I think it's fair to say. And he wants to make a point, Matt, about epistemology,

which I think we need to hear. We need to hear. And so let's hear him outline that. So when you're trying to figure out how to navigate this world full of dueling memes that are trying to occupy your brain, which you really need a good epistemology. Epistemology is just theory of knowledge, fancy word for theory of knowledge.

You need to know how to tell what's true from what's false. and that's becoming one of the most important, if not the most important, survival trait in society. The other one might be like, can you resist eating sugar, although I think Ozonepic will solve that. So it's really about how do you tell what's true from what's false? And too many people are lazy. They don't have the foundation to figure out what's true, what's false, and they just, like, assume one thing, and then next thing you're in this giant edifice of like men can give birth, right? Or UFOs are real.

Or I'm embarrassed, you know, for the people who, or into this, but it's like, you know, the pyramid was like giant battery or something. You know, that one seems to be in vogue right now. But there's always a bunch of these lunatic fringe theories that go through. And I just think the, like, if you have any kind of understanding of physics, politics, people, numbers, you know, numeracy, you would understand that, no, the government's not hiding a bunch of UFOs somewhere in Arizona. That's good advice in general there.

You know, like you might cripple with some of the examples. he raises. But overall, he's making a valid point, isn't he? You know, an important skill in the modern environment is working out what's true from what's false. And he points out some things that are very silly, like the pyramids or battery, our good friend Joe Rogan, and Chris Williamson discussed that. They've got good epistemology, those guys. They got to the bottom of that one. Yeah, what was the other one? UFOs, that's fine. I mean, they always mention the gender ideology. and it's not the same, right? Whatever you think about that topic, it's an issue about definitions

and wordplay rather than a delusional belief like UFOs and batteries under pyramids. They're not the same category. Well, I think they would normally equate that to things like arguing that there's no biological difference between like athletic performance between men and women, That kind of thing, right? I mean, they can at least always retreat to that, but yes, you're right. Fair enough. It ties into, you know, the whole antifists there on the right about the concern around trans topics and that kind of thing. In any case, I think most of the examples that someone would normally reach for there, whether it's pyramids or UFOs, these tend to be more popular amongst the right and the mega movement that these guys like.

Yeah, these days. Yes. Yes, so that may be true, but here so far, we've just had both of them, you know, they've expressed skepticism. You know, they have the concerns about the government, what it's, you know, trying to do if it's narratives or not. But there isn't any endorsement so far of like, you know, UFO stuff. Yes, political conspiracies, they discussed. But, you know, refreshing, isn't it? That they're shooting down.

Yes. There's, you know, some of the conspiracies. So that's incredible. It's totally reassured. So they don't get out of the politics stuff because obviously they're partisan brains. They believe that the capital thing was a hoax. The scandal with Nixon was a hoax.

So look, we know they're partisan people, but hey, who isn't these days in the United States? Once we get into more abstract stuff, everything is going to be fine. They're on solid grind. They're good thinkers. They've got good epistemology. So anyway, so here's Scott's response.

So here's my favorite recreational belief. about UFOs. This is not a real belief, it's a recreational belief, that apparently our moon has so many oddities to it compared to other moons that we can see. It's almost like it doesn't seem like a real moon. And some people say it's a hollow spaceship that has been there. But I've added to it that on the dark side of the moon, there's this enormous crater impact that you can't see from our side. But so my theory is that the aliens were using their giant ship that didn't look like it was covered with dirt when it first got there.

Maybe it was just a big, big ball. And they were sort of trying to geoform the Earth for later. You know, maybe they gave us a little DNA and stuff like that and they're watching it. And maybe even they thought they would block an asteroid or something from destroying the good work they've done. Maybe they moved the moon in front of it and took the hit. So my theory is, that the inhabitants of the moon space vehicle all died,

but it's automated. And that what we see as UFOs that do that weird thing where you can see them and they show up on radar, but they seem to be able to change directions like faster than object can, that they're holograms from the moon. In other words, there is something there, but it's just the intersection of electromagnetic waves.

So maybe you can pick it up on radar, and maybe you could see it, but if you put your hand on it, it wouldn't be there. And yet, yet it could operate like sonar or radar, which is if you send out any kind of signal into the world, you can get a ping back. Now, it's important to remember, Chris, that this is a recreational theory,

but he's really thought it through. There's something. Be careful. A recreational belief. He's not in details to the theory, as he puts it. But yeah, so, you know, normally when people say that kind of thing, they would say, like, have you heard this one? Like the moon is a spaceship, right?

But Scott, like you say, he takes a lot of time to flash on, like this specific details. So these aliens, they were terraforming, right? And then they needed the flock. And Naval is just one like, uh-huh. Yeah. I think I was wondering why he's telling him all of this. Okay, but look, it's just a recreational theory. He, you know, I think he's just giving all those details

because it's, I don't know, just for fun. It's a fun thing to explain. It's a good thing to spend your time thinking about and talking about. Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe it does sign, like, because the bit where he also adds, and like you've got all these videos, right, where they're not showing up on radar and they're zimbing. So, just they had a conversation just one minute ago about, like, you know,

those are not reliable, you know, the kind of silly videos. But here, Scott's skepticism seems somewhat lesser than Naval. He does seem to imply that these mysterious objects darting about and defying the laws of physics merits some kind of explanation, moon-based or otherwise. Yes, and just to be clear, Matt, so we keep it all clear here. so the moon is an alien spaceship and it's like those little UFOs that people get in videos and whatnot the reason that they're able to behave bizarrely is because they're holograms right now scott does say that they are things that um you might be able to pick up on radar and sonar right

but you know future hologram technology right who can who can say right because as far as others holograms, it is purely projections of light. It's not going to pick up on a sonar. Well, I think it doesn't sonar only work underwater? But anyway, let's say radar. I think radar generally needs to bump into a solid object. So it's different from our normal conception of a hologram. But, you know, it's the future technology.

We don't know what kind of technology. Moon-Eleon. It works differently. And so anyway, like they said, they're, you know, good epistemology. Let's get back. So how does Neval respond? He wants to pull things back down to Earth, so to speak. I just think eyewitness evidence is worthless, and people are very gullible.

I don't waste neurons in thinking about UFOs. Like, I think there are zillions of probably nearly infinite Kepler planets in the universe or in the multiverse. So, yeah, there is life out there somewhere. It's probably just... You don't think so? Well, I'm still caught on we're a simulation. And if we are, there doesn't need to be life anywhere else.

I don't think your simulation, okay, let's go into the simulation thing, because I'm going to take you up on it. I don't think it explains anything useful. Okay, here's what the simulation hypothesis basically does. It just kicks the whole God problem up one level, right? It's an axiomatic kind of thing saying, well, we're just in a simulation. It can't be falsified. You can always just say, well, that's just a simulation.

You can cherry pick, like with horoscopes. You can cherry pick outcomes and say, well, that would only happen in the simulation. And you could ignore all the ones that followed regularity. It doesn't actually explain anything. It doesn't make any risky and narrow predictions. It's not falsifiable. So it's not scientific. It's purely a belief.

It's a faith-oriented belief. And you can replace the word simulation with God. You can replace it with computer program, VR reality, chemical scum, bat, brain, and the vat. And the whole thing still holds. It's a very easy-to-vary theory. yeah yeah so um yeah so scott while he's definitely interested in the idea of aliens coming to earth and in a moon-sized spaceship

he's not convinced that there are aliens anywhere that would be it was a right creational belief mark i see i got to remember that um uh because he's uh because what about simulation right so okay i mean look that all that all is relatively coherent I mean, if you take the premise of a simulation thing, then you could just be a simulation running to do the earthlings, right? So the like the moon aliens are also just part of the simulation.

I don't think that, I think that's a separate recreational belief. We have to put that aside and we just have to imagine Scott's simulation thing involves simulating the humans. Okay, let's leave the moon aliens behind. That's right, because you don't come back. That's right. That's finished now. They're on the aller, bigger things.

Now, the simulation hypothesis is here. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's right. This goes places. But to be fair to Naval at this early onset, I mean, his objection to it is conventional and the standard one. It's basically solipsism, right? You can claim that everything's an illusion,

everything's a simulation, is just a very good one. So no matter how much things seem to match up with a, you know, matching, there is a physical world out there, a physical universe. You could say, well, it's all an illusion that's been manipulated by some omnipotent or extremely powerful entities beyond your ken. And it's a conventional rebuttal to the... Yeah, Sandy, he references the brain and the vat, the kind of matrix, but the world is an illusion from you being, you know, a brain of art plugged in somewhere. There are other ones. There are ones about like the universe was just created, you know, well, usually Christians are saying like 6,000 years ago.

But you could say yesterday, but with all of the history of a universe that has existed before. And, you know, what about my memories? Ah, but your brain was just created exactly in that configuration that it would believe, right? Can you prove it? It didn't happen, Matt. That's right. The dinosaur bones will put in the earth, created an old

etc so you can always run that document and yeah that's fair enough well and also more credit than Naval he he raised the point like people are a bit gullible you know the I agree with him I think there might be two of them

in this cover citizen should take that more seriously but in any case eyewitness testimony and whatnot you can't rely on that so all good objections so far Scott you know he's a man that has these things through, so he's going to push back a little bit, right?

So let's see, you know, Scott's first objection. But what about the statistical likelihood? If we know that one is created, there will be a ability. There are two places where the simulation theory differs from just a pure made-up God theory. One of those is that the statistical argument, which is like on a long enough time, computer gets strong enough that you can do this, right? the second problem sorry the second thing that it kind of addresses is it kind of says that and that's why reality is quantum underneath zeros and ones right it's a system that we're used to so let's forget the second one let's go with the first one for a sec so you're basically saying that it's just it's just likely to happen right so you just wait long enough the computers get good enough well okay what would happen okay they're already good enough but go ahead okay well what happens is anytime you're simulating something it is much much much lower rate resolution and much less real than the base reality that you're simulating out of.

Well, Matt, you know, like Scott says, computers can already simulate entire universe is down to the resolution that we experience. So what's stopping us, you know, from being in that simulation? Yeah. So right away, the speculative philosophical argument for the we're living in a simulation is you start from a premise that, like, incredibly powerful computing technology will inevitably arise in a universe like ours. Species like us will use it, and sooner or later, the dwellers in whatever universe

will use that computing technology to simulate very, very realistic things, but for all kinds of reasons. Maybe they want to map out potential future scenarios. They want to model population dynamics in a model complex systems, just recreational purposes, who knows? sooner or later, someone's going to want to do it. And once you can spin up one, you can want to spin up a million. And then I think it goes that even in those simulated universes, they're simulated, like, if there's enough computing power in them, that I think you can spin up simulation universes within the simulation universes, right?

So anyway, you end up... Rick and Marty already didn't have a better. Yeah, it really is, like, it's not something that I'm in. interested in, I'm just giving the context. So the argument goes, all right, so if we're here, it feels like a real universe, but what are the chances that it's really the base universe, the one, the actual material one, which all this simulation started happening, or one of the simulated ones, well, the odds are that the simulated one. That's how the argument goes. Scott says, interestingly, in there, that we already have enough computing power to

to simulate. And I don't think we do. I'm surprised at that. I'm surprised to hear that. I'm surprised to hear that. That, I mean, we got a fair bit of computing power, but I don't think we're quite there yet. Can we not model all the atoms in the universe yet?

I don't see what we'll be stopping us from doing that. But I'd say, no. Yeah. Now, I think Naval 2 is a little bit unclear in terms of discussing quantum things and quantum is binary or something. I don't, well, quantum is probabilistic, but anyway, he seems to think, Naval there seems to have the premise that you have to simulate everything in the universe, right? So if you simulate everything, then the universe has been simulated, according to Naval has got to be less,

it's got to have less resolution, less detail than the one that's been simulated, right? That's right. I feel like I should let that be playing. like a little bit more between the two of them. So the only way the simulation is going to be better is if you can control it, right? If you can basically say, otherwise you're going to stay in your real reality. The reason you play video games is going to stay in your real reality

is because you can win easily. You can control it. That's what affirmations are. Okay, yeah. So, okay, I'm going along with you. So the only reason you would go into a simulation is you can control it. But if you can control it too easily, that's not fun.

there's no surprise. So to make it fun and surprising, you want to have it either be multiplayer or convincingly multiplayer, where there are other actors that can do things you don't expect and it's adversarial, right? So you would end up with something that looks a lot like what we have today, right? Things are getting confusing there, I think. I mean, yes, I might have missed that as further elaborations of the resolution point. But, you know, I think it picks up for that because, so you have the point about the need for a, like, higher resolution, real universe above the universe that re-experience, right? And then you've got this all around, like that, you don't want to be in the simulation

unless you're playing. Like, it doesn't make sense. Why would you go into the simulation? Well, you're just going to stay in the real reality unless you're able to control things. Now, what's happened there? like you said, I think Navals got slightly confused because you're not supposed to be the creator of the simulation, right? You are supposed to be a unit within the simulations. But in this word, he's kind of viewing you as like Neal from the Matrix that you would only, it's kind of like

Jordan Peterson. I wouldn't even be in a simulation unless I could control it because like I, yeah. Well, they sort of segued from the original argument, right, where I thought thought they were going was that okay if you want to make a simulation it's got to be either lower resolution that is you can't simulate all the tiny little subatomic oh they're going to get back to that yeah yeah but the other option is just limited scope right like you don't try to simulate the whole universe you just simulate the bits that are important the bits that are important could be earth or it could be that you kind of simulate the you know like the matrix where you simulate the or the

either matrix. You seem like the experiences of the people in there, right? And you just make the, you know, that the physics can get modelled, just good enough to meet human perceptions, which doesn't require, you know, a huge amount of detail, really. But where it gets confusing is that they sort of segue into, well, computer games and it's only going to be fun if you're playing the computer game and you've got to be controlling things. And then Scott talks about affirmations and that's what affirmations are and how you can control the simulation so it's just I'm just a little confused about where they're going well well Matt don't you know that you can control reality who have affirmations and for those who don't know affirmations this is like

things like you know I am a millionaire I can be the best boy in the world and like if you say it enough you will manifest it into reality right so those that Scott Adams is talking about is evidence that you can control reality, and that is evidence that there's a simulation. All makes sense to me. But if someone like Matt doesn't have the right epistemology to follow, Scott has some more arguments to help you follow along, Matt. Like, maybe you'll get it here.

Okay, so consider this analogy. No, here's where I must disagree with you. Okay, please. So if you're playing tennis and you see the tennis ball to zip by and it hits the line and you say, hey, that's out. and everybody else says, no, that's in. You can play it back on the video, and you can find out for sure what it was.

But the person who saw it out and the person who saw it in have a perfect memory, except one of them didn't happen. And what we know is that our brains create the resolution or imagine the resolution. And so I'm talking to you right now

surrounded by detail that is completely being invisible to me and I don't even know if it's really there unless I look at it. So our, actual experience of life is that we're imagining resolution that isn't there, and that's easily provable. Dear, dear, that's an odd example.

First of all, I mean, he's conflating different things there, but put that aside for the moment. That's not like Scott. But I like in his thought experiment. He just, he asserts, okay, there's two people. They see the ball in, once he's a ball out. They've both got perfect memory. What does that mean? What does he mean by that? Yeah. So I took it to mean that he's saying in their memory, they remember the event, you know, crystal clear.

They can see the different events happening. So they've got like a perfect memory of the event, but it's both of their memories are different, right? And there is an actual reality, as he said, you know, you can go and look at the tip. But his point is, in their brains, they have a perfect memory of the event, but it's two different realities. So they've created in that moment an entire alternative universe because they, yeah. So what is obviously referring to in a very confusing way, I guess, is the way in which, one, our perceptions are unlimited. Yes. You know, we don't have idyllic kind of memory, most of us.

And then when we lay those memories down, we sort of, we do interpolate and make assumptions. And psychologists study this. so something to do with resolution like it's just we have fallible memories and fallible perceptions yeah so I think that's the problem like Scott is a like Scott as an idiot

right I'm sorry but so he thinks he knows a lot of things and he doesn't really know so like his idea of how memory works is wrong like he imagines that you create this like a little perfect image right of a reality yeah like down to the

down to the little pixels, it is simulation-based. Yeah, the ball pointsing off the line. And no, that's not how memory works. And yes, there are subjective assessments. But his, like, kind of argument here is based on a faulty understanding that, like, the mind constructs a perfect memory of the event. Like, it's, it's like a little image, you know, you can go and rotate the round. I think you're right.

I think that's what's going on here. And that's why he conflates this kind of, like, reconstruction of memory to give to give the feeling that you're playing back an experience of like watching a ball or something. He sort of conflates that with the simulation of a world or something by aliens. Well, yes, and we'll see that like Scott does make these exact errors because he explains more. Okay, so there's a lot to this, this line of argument. Scott's what about this topic? A lot.

A lot. Yeah. So there's a bit more. does come up on the resolution point, but it links to the other things about consciousness. And there's another thought experiment to help you understand, like, how this would all work. What's the difference between imagining resolution, having resolution? How can I imagine it if it doesn't, like it would take the same compute power for me to imagine it as it would for it to exist? Although you could argue the unseen universe doesn't need to exist. Exactly. Now it's an

argument for consciousness because if it's not, if it's not conscious, why bother rendering it? Right. Which leads me to a different place. Everything is conscious rather than to the unconscious stuff isn't rendered. I don't know that point, but let me ask this. So my belief is if we're a simulation, then if I were to go in the backyard and dig a hole where no human or any entity had ever dug a hole, that the stuff that I dig to doesn't exist until I'm digging to it because it doesn't need to and never did need to.

so everything that's not directly observed doesn't have to exist and that's how you save all your compute time why do you need to save compute time because the universe is massively big and you couldn't build a computer that would be big enough to replicate in detail like you say down to in the simulation you need to you need to conserve compute time yeah it's it's quite painful to listen to isn't it because this has no connection to you know, the fallibility of human perception and recollection. There is no sense in which we're reconstructing an actual simulation of universe when we remember things. On the other hand, I'll hand it to Scott in that at least he's somewhat coherent with his simulation hypothesis, which is that if you

buy into, you know, the matrix style simulation, right, where you're just simulating stuff to suit the perceptions of the conscious entities in it, then it's true, right? You don't simulate stuff until you need to, right? So if you dig the hole, you don't need to simulate what's in the hole because you're just reconstructing it like a dream, basically, for people. This is how Scott is, I guess, trying to argue that we have the current technology. Like there's all these tricks you could do to see of the computing power that, you know, like maybe this guy is the universe with all those billions of stars.

Matt, they're not actually there, right? That's just like a backdrop and you only need to process anything about them whenever somebody in the simulation ports of telescope and tries to take readings or something, right? So it might look like there's an infinite universe to model, but there's lots of compute-saving things that you can do. So, I mean, you're right that that, it's consistent, it's a coherent thought. these had, whereas Naval, like, he jumped out at the start and was like, like, I think the fundamental unit is consciousness and you don't need to model anything that isn't consciousness

because why would you model unconsciousness? And you're like, what the fuck are you talking about? So, like, just, I mean, let's stick with a premise here for a second. So you want to model a world like ours or a universe and you don't want to model any. inanimate matter in that universe? Why? What are they going to stand on? No, it is, no, the idea is that the inanimate stuff is modeled to the extent that it needs to be in order to create a coherent experience with the people living in it. Oh, wait, so he's making a version of it, which is like the conscious agents, the stuff that they're in is only the bits that you need to model, right? Is that it?

So he's doing a version of Scott's. But then, okay, so Scott doesn't realize that he's making the same argument. Well, Naval himself is confused, I think, because you're right. He sort of was like that at the beginning. But then he sort of asked Scott, hey, why do you have to save compute? But, you know, of course. But before he said, his problem with the simulation hypothesis is that you have to simulate the universe at a lower resolution in his terms, right?

than the original, right? Because you can't simulate something more complicated than the machinery that it's running on, right? But then he's like, so, so DeVille is inconsistent because he starts with that argument, but then he switches to like, why do you need to save compute? Well, Matt, maybe I've got a clip that can bring it together. You're not giving Naval credit enough.

Of course, this is all coherent, right? He's got into pessimology, Ma. He's got a bestomology. To be clear, I don't even like these kinds of discussions when they're done well. We're reconstructing very painfully what it is they're trying to say. But we'll persevere. We'll persevere.

Oh, well. No, how dare you, Matt? How dare you? So, you know, as we started, this was originally about the statistical argument. What about statistical arguments, sir? Statistical arguments only, it's... Let me give you one. I'll give you one so you can...

Here's a problem with a statistical argument. The problem is I can give you an equally... infinite number of scenarios in which we choose not to do a simulation just because base reality is already so good. The problem with the simulation argument, another problem is like, you can't, you can never break out of the simulation. Or if you do, then how do you know you're not another simulation, right? It's like, it doesn't, it's, it's, it's doing the God thing. It's basically hiding everything behind a layer where you're not allowed to look. And so it's adding complexity without explaining anything new. It violates Occam's Razor in

that sense, because you've added a new explanation, in this case, the simulation, but that new explanation doesn't give you anything. It doesn't allow you to do anything more. You know, I don't like the simulation hypothesis or any of this shit, but Naval's argument at the beginning is a really bad one against it. He says, oh, you know, what about, you know, the problem with the statistical argument is that, you know, there could be an infinite number of reasons why I don't make the thing. Like, that's actually not technically a good argument against the simulation hypothesis, right? The premise is that it only takes one, right? It doesn't matter how many people, you know, in a large enough set of circumstances, it doesn't matter how many people will choose not to do

this thing, as long as it's done, you know, a tiny percentage of times, like that is actually a satisfying, a satisfactory criteria. Yeah. The recursive will come in the effect. Yes, I do I do notice that a slight flaw in the reasoning there. But, you know, they're just throwing out all of it. This is like third degree removed, like bastardized version of philosophical debates around this topic, right? And like, you know, Naval's point is fundamentally correct that you're adding in a layer of complexity, which you don't have like good evidence for. and a lot of it is just philosophical speculation. That is right, but he is leaping around between arguments.

That's right. The Occam's razor argument is a good one, right? You can say, okay, the reality is exactly what it looks like, or you've got another theory, which is, well, actually, it's all an illusion and there's a secret little homunculus sort of controlling everything to make it look like it's real well. You've just created a more complicated explanation. you know, you've just added some extra layers of complication which don't add explanatory power.

That part of his argument is fine. Although there was the thing invoked there again, Matt, that like if the normal reality is so good, like why would you want to do a simulation? That is, that's dumb. Because everything is a computer game, right? But they're not thinking about like, why do most people run simulations? Because they want to model something about reality in a way that they can control, you know, like different things.

and focus on a specific issue. That's right. Nowhere in the premise is that we're simulating stuff to simulate a really fun, enjoyable thing, right? So, yeah. Yeah, I know, I know. Well, so Matt, look, there's been some problems. Naval has been delivering blow after blow to Scott's theory.

And he says, you know, what's the point of doing this? Like, you know, if we can't have a fun computer game, we're just, we're not going to do it, right? Why would you do a simulation? That's right. Right. But Scott, you know, this is not his first rodeo, okay? He has some evidence of how he knows that his, you know, simulation hypothesis is not just a hypothesis.

So let's hear it. Okay, get ready for this. So my belief is that if we're a simulation, it wouldn't necessarily be for entertainment. That could be one. That would be in the top three. But in my audience knows that I have a long history. history of having massive water-related problems, just probably 12 of them this year in my house alone, my outsword irrigation, and it's in all my homes, and it doesn't matter where I'm living,

it doesn't matter who the contractor was. It doesn't matter. And to me, it's becoming obvious that I'm an AI training tool, and that I'm training how to deal with infinite water-related problems. Everyone different, and everyone, you know, I attack like it's a brand-new problem, So if you could download my knowledge of fixing water-related problems, you could populate like a plumber robot in the higher universe. Now, you said there's no prediction, right? So I don't know if you can see the comments, but if I ask my locals people, have I predicted that I will have ongoing incredibly coincidental water problems and have they watched it

for three years in a row and every time like here's another one and it doesn't match any experience that they have Scott's logic here Scott's logic here is a thing to behold it is amazing stuff it's there's a bit when Naval reacts with like incredulity right like kind of laughing like uh-ho right you're but no he's not he's not joking this isn't a recreational belief this time. So, like, just to be clear that we're all on the same page here. So Scott's argument, how he knows he's in the simulation is that for at least three years, if not many more, he's have multiple water-related problems.

And that has convinced him that, like, he's part of an algorithm that could be used for training people in the actual reality, outside dissimulation, to make, like, AI robots that are good at dealing with water problems. And now you might again be saying, well, but come on. But there's a prediction. You see, Matt, that's science, right? You meet predictions and they are validated. And here, his prediction is he's told his locals,

that's like his patron thing, that, you know, he is going to keep having these problems. Wherever he moves, whatever happens, he's going to keep doing this, because this is what his role is in the simulation. So he's made a prediction and it continues to be validated. Well, that's basically science. That's how science works.

Yeah, no, it's amazing. So, so first of all, there's the mismatch there, right? We talked before about the issue with, you know, any kind of solipsistic simulation-oriented thing. It doesn't add predictive utility. But Scott's, ah-ha, ha, ha, I've had a lot of water problems. and I predict that I'm going to have more water problems and if I do then we're living in a simulation

dot dot dot we're living in a simulation right so that is that is that's incredible to me that he thinks those two things are the same thing because they both have the word prediction in them

there's obviously so many reasons why Scott could be having water related problems coincidence is one of them no no Matt, three years of coincidences at different locations? Come on. Were you born yesterday? What's more likely

that Scott having plumbing problems at different locations is just an unfortunate residence? Or that he is part of an AI training program outside of this simulation and that they need to

present him with different kinds of water related problems to see you know, like a mind like his, Matt. You know, they want to use it for important purposes. And what's more important than, like, plumbing and hydroponics, for example? They might be using his brain in the actual real, you know, external real world to, like, make sure that all of the food production is going on correctly. Because he's, you know, working out all these algorithms about how to fix pipes and whatnot. It's like Victoria.

Yeah. So the Dilbert cartoons, his podcast, all of those. of his political ranking and stuff. Maybe it's all epiphenomenal, you know, that's all just context, because his purpose here in life. I quite like his theory, by the way, that

Scott Adams was put on earth to solve water-related problems, and all the rest of it is just decoration. It would be, if actually all of the simulation, like, you know, Trump, us, the whole rest of the world, it was all just the provided for Scott to get better at ploughing things.

Yeah. I do like that thought. Naval does respond to this. He's not entirely convinced. I mean, I'm a bit shocking to me because that's rock-solid logic that Scott has made out. But Naval is not immediately convinced and he has some pushback. So, you know, let's hear some of that. I could also see, because you believe this, you look at

for water-related problems, other people would let it slide. It's really, it's on the ground. It's like, it's coming through the roof. More than usual. But like, I think I have water-related problems in my place. I just, you know, somebody else takes care of it. Like, I don't think about it. You know, I don't add it to my list of water-related problems.

But did you have 12 separate occasions where there were, like, you know, major water problems in one year? That I'm not going to take your streak of water problems as evidence that we live in a simulation. like by that you'd be you could you could be saying it's because i'm capricorn right now all of a sudden we have to believe astrology a theory that's very easy to vary where you can change the components without changing the outcome is a bad theory but i'm making a prediction i'm making you prediction the next year like all the years before no because you're arbitring that one you're the one who's coming back and saying you water now if you made a prediction about me if you said hey neval you're

going to have a dozen water related problems next year then i'm going to keep you you know, that's better. It's still not really scientific. We should get a whole bunch of people. No, well, neither of them are the scientific process, but would you agree that if I made an unusual prediction, and let's say I could keep making this unusual prediction time after time again, would that convince you? Or would you just think there's some reason I could make a prediction and you don't know why? Yeah, amazing, isn't it? So Scott really believes this. His history of water-related problems, that he has them at a disproportionate rate, is evidence that we're living in a simulation. And Naval is sort of blustering around trying to object to this. Some of his

objections are good. I think he reasons, like most reasonable ones, right? Like, you are the arbiter of whether you had water-related problems, and, you know, you also likely didn't notice them more than other people because you believe this. These are all pretty objections, I would say. Yeah, just the way he expresses it sometimes. Like he says, well, if you made a prediction about me, then that's entirely different. Well, it does solve some of the problems, but still Scott Adams predicting that Naval is going to have water problems correctly once or even five times. It's still not evidence for a simulate that we're living in a simulation. Naval did say it's better, but it's not bad. But he says we would need to get a whole bunch of people, right? But again,

That's wrong because, like, even if Scott could unerringly protect, like, water-related problems, like a very large sample. Let's get a sample, right, randomly recruited, right? A thousand people that Scott goes, you're all going to have water-related problems. And he didn't, right? And he didn't. That gets proved, right? They have water-related problems at a rate higher than baseline. I always treat that as a statistically interesting finding that merits explanation. but it's not evidence that we're looking in a simulation, right? You can't just go, well, I predicted something, so therefore we're in the simulation. And I think Naval did hit that point.

He didn't express it very well, but he was saying, you know, if you could just declare that to be due to anything, right? Like, you know, he- That's true, he did. He gave like star signs or whatever. Like, you could attribute it. I think what he was saying is you could attribute that to star signs or anything you like. And let's take that as what he meant to say, in which case.

Yeah, he did pretty well. Yeah, yeah. So, well, anyway, the debate continues. I would first look for the non-supernatural explanation. I would first try to figure out, like, is it what are the statistical odds of this? And did we, you know, say it properly. That's no fair calling it's supernatural. You're trying to win by a word.

You can't win by word. No, no, it is a supernatural. Because it appeals to something outside of our current physics. That's what I mean by supernatural. Oh, but it would, but this would be, within our current physics. We're just, we're just a video, we're just zeros and ones. No, no, that's not our current physics. That's not our current laws of physics. It's not our current understanding of physics. That's not our current, you know, theory of physics that

we're definitely running on some computing substrate. But there's nothing inconsistent with saying that we're in a video game that was designed to get us. Nothing inconsistent is back to unfalsifiable. And there's infinite number of those theories. You know, we're in, we're a brain, you're a brain floating in a vat. Go falsify that. You can't, right? So. But are you saying in general that if something does uncanny predictions, that it still doesn't tell you something useful? No, I'm not saying that. It depends on what predictions is making, how statistically likely or unlikely they are, how well they're tested for error,

who's corroborating them, what that mechanism was. And also then the claim, how does that evidence match up to the claim? So the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence that it requires. Of course. So I agree with all that. I think my experience with my audience has been pretty extraordinary. Yeah, because they're quite a bright. Yeah, so Neville's doing fine here.

But you really get some insight into just really what an idiot, Scott Adams. Scott Adams is an absolute idiot. Like he's, I mean, he don't understand nothing about science or testing things. Like, Scott Adams is probably. second only to Chris Langan in the clear gap from their actual level of intellect and insight to their perceived level, right? And like, you know, both Chris Langan and Scott Adams consider themselves geniuses, psychological masters, you know, they understand advanced fields and theories and they know how to psychologically manipulate people and all this kind of things. But like any time

they actually talk, you can see that they are just operating almost entirely by vibes and personal intuitions and they don't understand the topics that they're talking about. So, you know, Naval references the kind of extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and actually mentions Carl Sagan, you know, elsewhere. And Scott says, oh, yeah, yeah, I agree. But, you know, my audience think it's what I'm able to predict is pretty extraordinary. you know, he's not that criteria by that standard. And, you know, Naval doesn't really, like, he provides a half-decent rebuttal to Scott's stupid propositions.

It's not perfect, but that's, you can't really ding Neval for that, I suppose. But the more proper version of it is, right, that if you are advancing a theory in a scientific sense, then the theory makes predictions. And then you can, then you go ahead and you gather data. and you deliberately gather data that is going to set up such that the theory can be falsified that if you observe the data that is inconsistent with the theory, then you have to reject it. So that's the role that predictions, you know, this is broad brushstroke, no philosophers

of science come get me, you know what I mean? It's more complicated than that. But for this purpose, that'll do. But for Scott, it's like, if I predict that X happens and if it happens, then I can claim whatever I like and, you know, if you can't explain it through, you know, like it's just, and he seems like he doesn't really grasp that there's an issue there with his reasoning.

It's so dumb. And also the way that he, this is probably a small thing, but that's fastening on words, like, oh, you said super natural. Yeah, you're trying to win with a word. You know what I mean? Like that kind of obsession with language and choice of words is, yeah, just for me, another telltale sign that it's clear what he means, right?

Yes, it's a hallmark of the soundspeakers. They like to fix it on this, you know, the specific word that you use means this and whatnot. And Scott Adams is something that, you know, wants to latch on to, oh, but you're trying to dismiss me with reference to religion, right? You know, by hinting my, but my belief is science. You did one of the rhetorical sins. You're trying to false flag. What's the word? Straw man me with this.

Yeah. There's the steel man. Where's the fucking steel man? But now, so after that, Matt, if I was Naval after this exchange, I might have realized, oh dear, I've accidentally had a conversation with a moron. Like, I thought that this guy was a short guy. But the evidence he's just presented to me is like, at least on this topic, he's fundamentally operating at the level of a teen year.

boy, right? And not even a very competent teenage boy. Yeah, that's right. I think at the beginning, sure, he's like, oh, this is a guy, he shares all my partisan leanings and delusions with Sin Pataco. But once you get on to spaceship moons and simulations and water-related problems, it should be clear that, yeah, you're speaking to a moron. Yeah, no, I will remind everyone that, you know, we've already heard how this ends with Naval declaring that Scott is, you know, one of the greatest people that he loves to interact with because he's got such a sharp mind. So he clearly didn't have that, that takeaway. And you can see some sign of what occurs here because when gurus clash like this, right,

whenever there's actual, you know, kind of friction or disagreement, well, but I don't think you're right about that or whatever, it can exist like that for a while, but there then needs to be coming together in order to restore balance to the guru verse. So Naval throws Scott Abone and it leads to sympathico reasoning. So here we go. I try not to go too much in the supernatural, but I'll be honest, there are times when I've prayed. Right. Can't hurt.

Nobody's perfect. Yeah, exactly. Pascal's a wager, right, just in case. Yeah, I've got a version of this. I don't know if I've ever said this out loud before. but every now and then I just talk to the creators of the simulation that are watching me because it might be me.

Yeah, exactly. No, I completely agree. Yes, if simulation hypothesis is true, then, you know, God or creator or master programmer has your best interest at heart. I say things like, you know, is this the plan? I mean, you're really going to do this time. Exactly, exactly.

No, yeah, like don't take me out of the game too fast. Like, give me some resource that you want me to be effective, right? or like, I'm not Job, don't try me, I'll fail. Let's not go through. Let's not take that route. Let's try a different path. Yeah, I mean, I think everybody does that. Because at the end of the day, existence itself is an unexplained miracle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, the vile changing, changing tone there, you know, keep it light. Affirmations. Yeah, he does his own, you know, he prays, and sometimes, you know, you got to do that. Yeah, and he can say, he can say, you know, we don't know. is there could be a god, maybe not. We could be living in a simulation. Or not, if we do live in a simulation,

probably it's a benevolent simulator with our best interests at heart. So may as well pray to them. Well, that, that, I have to just mention them. Again, like, Naval just has to throw in one more premise, which is completely unwarranted. That, like, why, you know, if we're in a simulation, they obviously have our best interest at heart.

Like, no, that's not. Why? No, most of, most of, Most of the versions of simulation through this are better, like, it is science fiction stuff. They're pretty dark, right? They don't involve simulating. Yeah, maybe they want to know what happens to life whenever there's a supernova which consumes the universe or whatever, right?

So the individual, you know, they care as much about them as you would in some populist gym or whatever. That's right. That's right. But, you know, it's more touchy-feely and it's more in line with Scott's thing, which seems to be around, like, controlling the future. Like, Scott seems to like this affirmation's idea and kind of works with the simulation

because I think he sees himself as kind of like a player character that could kind of intercept his own future and make manifest events to happen. That's kind of Scott's philosophy. And that also relates to, you know, like Naval's take about there being the, you know, the man of action in history. the actual great man they actually manipulate reality to yeah to suit themselves that if you have the power

yeah it's neo or something in the matrix yeah so you know it it sounds really silly because it is it's like this is the level of like dorm room philosophy chat that you know university students have after they've had a bunch of splifts right and they're like what if the universe is a big man and we're just all, you know, going round and, you know, and that's fine, you know, and it's also reasonable for various adults to have these kind of like, indulgent

conversation. But the thing is, Naval and Scrat think that they are these very complex, intellectual thinkers, having this profound conversation about a complex type. Like a peak, that's not what this is. That's right. A peak meeting of minds, right? Wrestling

with some of the most fascinating crucial topics of our time. That is kind of how they portray these very important conversations. Yeah. So you might have heard there like Scott Adams with an really stupid presentation

of why he believes in the simulation theory, right? And Naval being more skeptical, making a couple of mistakes of him, but overall, he was doing a better job there, right? But it comes around to this. So this is Naval, you know,

pulling things together. And let's get on to the topic of philosophy. Like, how do we get here? Why am I here? Why am I a monkey? Why am I three-dimensional? Why am I male? Why am I talking to you right now? What does it even mean to talk, right? The whole thing is so surreal that there is an instantaneous and overarching miracle of just consciousness. Like, why even be conscious? Why not just be like zombies or robots talking to each other, going through the same actions? Why even be aware? So there's so much here that you just have to take axiomatically. And that is spirituality. And I think your spirituality, your current religion is a simulation hypothesis. It's perfectly valid. You know, mine is probably closer to the Tao and, you know, other people's Christianity or whatever. But somehow you have to explain this miracle of existence and everyone has to do it in their own frame. But I think not. The rest is science, right? The rest is all follows the rules of science.

Yeah. I mean, again, I think in fairness to Naval, re-listening to this now, I mean, like I personally don't buy into that, right? But, you know, like, it's all a mystery. We don't know why there is anything in the universe rather than nothing. Why are we even conscious rather than not? You know, it's a perfect mystery. So there is this sort of empty blank page there for us to write our own. Anything you want.

Yeah, metaphysical explanation for something that gives our life's meaning. And so you have, so it's all fine. It's all good stuff. I personally don't subscribe to that. But in defense of Naval, I think that's pretty conventional. It's a common conventional point. I think he says, and he does say that as a setup to say, look, that's all very well and good. We all do that, but we should distinguish that kind of speculative bullshit.

Now, I'm being even more sympathetic in my presentation of what he said to a scientific inquiry about the world. Oh, you think that's where that too. Al, let's just see if that's right. But I will say that the bit of me. I knew I was going wrong there by being too sympathetic in my name. interpretation of what he said but okay where did he take it well well i'll i'll take you there in a second but i'll just note that for me the kind of triggering thing is like as you said he wants to paint that you know we've all got these you know you've got this deep simulation hypothesis

kind of philosophy me i'm closer to the bow and like of course of course the fucking bow right right oh i see all right i i know what triggered you now i know i know i know i i know what hurt you. I'm sure he's often, like, studying, you know, the Taoist classics. Like, he's, he's there, you know, it's not that he's just leaf for a translation of the dowaging or that kind of thing. No, no, he's deep in that. Like, what he means is he follows the Celestial Master's school. You know, he's burning the names of the various theories in the bureaucracy to send his petitions up to them. Like, the Celestial Master dallas did for fashions of years. So, yeah, I just, I hate about that, like, within the tech industry world, like Buddhism, Taoism, esoteric, religious beliefs

equals intellectualism, right? So that's, I say, although it is true to say that at least Christianity, thanks to Jordan Peterson, Yungian interpretations is like making it's got a version. Yeah. Yeah, it's not, it's not just normal Christianity, right? It's like an esoteric, psychologists. Yeah. interpretation of it. I know what you're saying. When they say that they've got a Buddhist view of things, or they've got a Tao's view of things, they're not referring to anything real.

Like they're referring to their own sort of, you know, abstracted. Like they've read something somewhere and they've read, they've got some version of it. Or maybe Buddhist modernism or Taoist modernism, if you want to be charitable, right? That's what they're talking about. As we know what better is about having read. the

Donald Fuss Okay, so yeah, that's what they're talking about. But so you said, you know, he was setting

this up to probably, you know, make the juxtaposition between there's all this, you know, specular, philosophical stuff. And yes,

you know, there's different things that you can see again. You know, but ultimately we can't, we cannot. Prove or disprove those things.

Sure. Yeah, one way or the other. And then you have science. So that's what I like to focus on. Well, is that where he went? Let's see.

If you want to talk absolute truth and nothing else, the only statement that you can make that is absolutely true is that, what's that? I know where this is going. Sorry. What's yours? It's that we exist to ask the question. That's the only thing you know.

It's actually even worse than that. So I used to say it was I exist. And then a very smart friend of mine corrected me. And he said, no, awareness exists. You don't even know that you exist. Your thought, like, yes, your current thought exists, and you're aware of that current thought. But what is the you that is having that thought? That's the whole Buddhist question, the whole Enlightenment question.

Is there a persistent self-identity other than just thoughts that are referring to each other? Like when you look for yourself, you're not actually there. There's an awareness. The awareness exists. But the you separate from that awareness, does that even exist? Where are you on the question of whether your mind is one you or you are several people in your head? several I think there's several yeah it's very dorm room stuff

we got a real rene de car here too because you know you start from the what do you really know let's work up from there yeah so they actually like so you might be right Matt that you know he was

thinking about having that route because he does make distinctions not related to this at different points but here he's talking about like you know if you wanted it with a real shit man the only question is is you know what can you say exists and Scott's answer is

I think therefore I am kind of opinion but he's like no no no it's awareness exists the self you that actually it's an illusion you know so the

it's very Dr. K right the only fundamental unit of the universe is awareness awareness awareness awareness consciousness it's that kind of BS

But again, Chris, this is, this is, I had to disappoint you, but this is how most people think, right? I know, it's a conventional point of view. But the point for me isn't that like it's not, this is being presented as, you know, this is mind blowing stuff. And no, this is not mind blowing stuff. This is stuff you hear, you know, if you read books, I think you come across it like in your teenage years early enough. But you certainly hear it at university, you know, when you talk. the people who are interested in spirituality or whatever and yeah, it's just like it's always presented as this is going to blow your mind. What if the fundamental unit

of the world isn't, you know, rocked and crystals? It's the mind. Have you considered? These thoughts that come into my mind, Chris, is there even me? You think that's error? You're breathing, Neo?

I mean, and you know, like we keep saying, this is all normal stuff that undergraduates talk about. It touches on stuff that people learn in undergraduate or read in popular philosophy or popular spirituality type books. And it's sort of infused our culture, all of these ideas. Like, whatever you think of them. I guess my takeaway, though, is that, you know, you can hear it from these two guys.

Like, you know, rehashed in this format if you want to. if that sparks joy if you find value in that you can do that yeah well I do I did want to know they did that trick as well of like saying

you know the fact that you have the ability to perceive something or whatever that is spirituality to me so if you are able to think anything that means that you're spiritual and you're like no that's just the Jordan Peterson

like you're actually religious if you believe anything is true like they just redefine you just redefine words or it means like everybody is that thing and it's it's such a isn't spirituality just when I find meaning in my life like isn't that spirituality yeah so you're saying you don't have any meaning in your life oh no well I have mean well gotcha got your bit and what's what's what's the Greek word for meaning maybe that's that rhymes the word oh god damn I know but well so let's hear a bit more about these minds

flowing revelations about the nature of identity and the self because I know you love this I love this stuff I live for it what is this you that's having the thoughts like you know we we very casually refer to this you the self this eye but like is it the thoughts refer to but when you're not thinking where did you go you're still there and then if you can observe the thoughts well you can dispassionally observe your own thoughts it's possible that's what meditation is all about So is that you, if you can observe it? And if you are the thoughts that are talking, then who's the one that's listening? So the you or I that we refer to is this very amorphous entity.

It's like, you know, it's Alan Watts compared to like a whirling stick. It looks like a fire. But when you pause and look at any element of it, there's actually nothing there. Do you have the voice in your head? Yeah, everyone does, right? No, no. You don't have one. No, I do have one.

But apparently there was a thing in the news recently. Yeah, yeah, Scott brings us back down to earth with some basic questions there. Discourse, no, discourse. This is them going to talk about like the self-talk thing, right? Which was also another thing that people like to talk about. Like, do you do a, you know, like an internal monologue when you're thinking things or what? But Matt, doesn't this a little bit? The thing it reminded me of might speak to my own experiences of life, but it's like, this is a little bit. like you know in a movie when some guy is talking to a girl and they're lying on the bed or whatever and it's like do you dream in color or you know like what do you think that you are like what if we just start us like it's it's like that and that thing that was saying as

I you know like the Tao thing right this is just fairly standard yeah yeah there is What is the self really? Do we even know? Are we the same person when we go to sleep at night and we wake up the next day? Who is the eye that looks at your thoughts, Matt? Who is that? Sam Harris's find this light ring as well. I mean, there's all of the, like it's all stuff that many people learn in

undergraduate philosophy or something if they take an introductory course, right? Like if you and I are looking at a meditation class. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Like if we're looking at the same color, like the color red, right? do you perceive it the same way as me? We'll never know for sure, will we?

Who can say? You know, ship of theseus, if we, you know, you think you're yourself, what if I replaced your neurons one by one? You know, like every seven years. I mean, it's not that there's anything wrong with these things. No, it's not. It's okay to do it. It's just not.

okay to think that it's so mind-blowing as these two imagine themselves to be. Like, you know, if they were saying, well, this is like dorm room philosophy shit, but like anyway, let me just go with this or, but that's not the way. It's like, it's more

these are the masters of the universe who are telling, you know, the profound philosophies that they have worked out. And, you know, just that notion, Matt, like, yes, I understand. I've had conversations directly with Sam Harris. I understand this that. like there's a lot of people

that consider it very profound that the notion of the self not being a homunculus in the brain which is entirely consistent in a single unitary thing that just blows everything to smell the reins there is no self right there's no there's no coherent

entity that the person can ever grasp onto it's all it's all a nothingness or you know there are other options than just the like this metaphysics of it but you know whatever, whatever. We will get into it, as you like to say. We won't get into it. That's right.

But yeah, there are non-Buddhist, non-metaphysical, non-speculative philosophy-type ways to wrap your head around some of those mind-blowing observations. You know, Matt, though, now I mention that, might be good to hear what Scott's theory of consciousness is. Like, he's had some. It's going to be spicy. see, I can't remember what it is. I've listened to it, but I can't remember, like, this stuff goes in one ear and then you just, I think my mind rejects it, but I'm going to be excited to find out for the

second time. It might relate to the water. Oh, I hope it does. Yeah, let's see, let's see. You know, I've defined consciousness, my best take at it, and I think we could give it to AI, is a prediction of everything that's going to happen next, like, you know, right around you, you're around your body then there's the action and then there's your reaction to how close your prediction was to the reality such and my argument is that if everything happened exactly as you

know it was going to happen you would lose all your five senses eventually because they wouldn't have any purpose so so conscious is the lag between what you think is happening and what's happening it allows you to a lay in there yeah right so then you you can say, well, why do only, it seems like humans have the most of it, but it wouldn't be any surprise that it's such a superpower that you can imagine what you're going to do before you do it, and then you can make an adjustment after, that that would make you the king of all the animals. Wait, wait, wait.

Chris, I'd like to return to our thesis that Scott is a moron. Have you got an new exhibit? This. This. I mean, okay. Okay, so let's just re-refresh. Scott's theory of consciousness. This is what consciousness is. This is a theory, by the way, Matt. This is a theory. I love the way that all the gurus talk about. They're theories, right? Yeah. It's not a thought that came to them in this shower. It's a theory, capital T theory, that we're predicting machines. We're always predicting what's going to happen next, right? Correct. He's right on this. Yeah, yeah. And the gap.

It's the gap between our predictions and reality. Am I remembering this right? That's where consciousness lives, the surprise. Is that right? Yes, you've got that bit, right? Because I think, I hesitating because I think we remember he at other points might have said that if we're a perfect predicting machine, it's like God. But anyway, whatever.

Okay, so this is just of a... You don't need consciousness, apparently, if you're purely adjunct to the universe. But then he also did say, like, because he was basically suggesting that, like, the ability to predict the future accurately is like kind of increasing your level of consciousness. Yes. But if you increase it to perfection, then you don't need consciousness. Jesus at all. Yeah.

So try to square that circle, if you can. It seems contradictory on the face of it. And the other issue with it, I mean, the great of truth in it is that we do predict the future, right? Yes, and we are imperfect. Yeah, and when we catch a ball, right? We are doing lots of stuff like that. And there are parts of the brain that we've looked at that are very much focused on doing the stuff that he's talking about, like monitoring body posture and, you know, predicting where your foot's going to land and things like that. A lot of those functions are actually done in places like the cerebellum, the place in the level.

lower mid-party your brain, which actually have nothing to do with consciousness, right? So the degree that we can figure out where consciousness lives in the brain, it's definitely in the prefrontal cortex, right, broadly distributed in the neocortex, basically around the front, right, and the top. So we're really in the opposite part of the brain, where the prediction stuff is going on. It's, yeah, it just does it. It's a, it's a dumb shower thought that doesn't make sense on any level. Yeah. Well, well, Matt, you know, now the thing is that you're talking about like, you know, the areas of the brain and all this kind of, you know, stuff, right? But this is a theory, Matt, right? It's a

theory. It doesn't account for everything, right? It's just, you know, like Scott said, he's had some thoughts about it. But it does go on to connect to AI. And I feel like you need to hear this because, you know, you're probably, like you said, you probably tuned out and forgot where this was going to take you to, but it leads to some discussions around AI and, you know, what AI is good and bad at. Consciousness, but they don't. They will believe that they're special, but they're not. And in every way, they will react as though they're human beings. Now, put them on there and let's talk to them, and you tell me if they're conscious. And the answer is, It would take me about five seconds before you say,

I don't know the difference between you and this guy who said next to me. Yeah, I mean, if that thing, you know, it would have to pass the touring test first before I would take its claims for consciousness seriously. And I have a high bar for the touring test. By touring, you've got to convince me you're alive and creative. But if you could convince me it's alive and creative, and it said, I'm conscious, and I'd be like, yeah, I guess you're conscious.

Yeah, we're nowhere close. of the Turing test. I mean, the easiest one is, can you tell me a joke, but don't make it wordplay? And we're done. Yeah, exactly. I tested on poetry

because there isn't much poetry stuff to crawl on the web. It's terrible at understanding poetry and parsing the meter and verse and rhyme. Those are not very profound thoughts about AI, are they? Well, but correct me if I'm wrong here, though, but so, like Scott's point about, you know, that AI has issues with humans.

Okay, right, this is an actual point. But like one, that notion that, you know, the turn test, you know, we're nowhere near passing that. Like, no, that's not true. And humans are not good at humor, right? Like that being your, you know, your bar will do it. But the point about poetry, like, am I wrong? I know that people, okay, before the people in our audience that are poetry enjoyers explain to me that, no, no, no. AI cannot reproduce the duty of like for two.

I understand. I know that if you get to write a novel, it's not going to be good or what. But like his specific thing about parsing the meter and the verse and the rhyme, that is the thing that it's actually very good at. Yeah. Yeah. At the form, the form stuff, incredibly good. Like that was one of, like even years ago, that was one of the things that would get

passed around on social media. Like, this is amazing, right? because it could create a pretty good sonnet. I'm not saying that Shakespeare, but much, much better than I could do, right? So that's a terrible litmus test for like a Turing test type thing, because if I can't pass it and it does a lot better job than me, then forget about it. In fact, they've pretty much abandoned. Like the original idea, yeah, the Turing test has been abandoned

because it's been realized that they're too good at imitating people in terms of textual conversation. So it's not really workable. So yeah, this is not a good discussion about AI and consciousness. No, and that's kind of the bit for me that just sums up this whole conversation that this is within Naval's ballpark at least

because he's supposed to be like a tech guy, right? But the insights that you get here, such as they exist, are actually bad like they're not really attached to what the proper discussion around this topic is and there's lots of reasons you know that you can talk about

the limitations of AI and things but these two knuckle hands here talking about it they're like suggesting things which are actually suggesting they're not very well informed no no they really are not I mean this is a bit of an aside cruise

but one of the I went down a bit of a rabbit hole because I found out you know there's all kinds of bedchments now. Benchmarks for AIs are proliferating and people keep thinking of new ones and there's all kinds of ones that they're continually running the whenever a new AI gets released through through their paces and one of the benchmarks is like a creative writing benchmark and I you know at idle curiosity I started thumbing through the products there and I was actually quite astounded like I didn't

realize they were they were this good in terms of of like I've read creative writing from AI's before like even just a few years ago and went well this is blamed clearly not very good and I still don't think they're at the point where they could write like a whole novel or even a novella but I read like 15 pages of like a historical drama like a bit like a Horatio hornblower type thing which is just one of these random things and I was like I kept reading because I was like well this is actually not bad like a lot better than a lot of books that I've read in terms of the prose and the just it was just yeah this is once the constantly bad thing to say like well i will never like you know it wasn't that long ago that

well it'll never be able to draw hands properly or it'll never do thesis of people like in a possible way you know different things but like it's often also the case that the comparison that people make is like the best from human society and individuals throughout history, right? Like, can it do this? But there's a lot of schlocky writers. Like, can the AI produce a nullar addition to the canon of the Dresden files? I think so. Yeah, I think it could. That's right. Like recently, I've actually started rereading the June trilogy, and which is kind of not great writing it's okay it's it's it's fine um no you're setting the the the june had and but i i did because i do like science fiction it's hard to find stuff i did i did give a go at the sort of derivative

stuff so there was stuff that was written i forget the names of the authors i think it was the son of frank herbert and also another guy like a respectable science fiction author who wrote a bunch of other dune books um they're not in fairness regarded as good books they're generally regarded as bad books. I started reading one. I got about five pages in and went, this is shockingly bad. Now, I don't want to make the anti-AI people angry, right? But the pros that I read on those benchmarks is far in a way better than, you know, nobody could disagree with this than those derivative dream books. Sure, that's a low bar. But they still sold a lot of those books. People read those books very happy. A lot of people read those books

and enjoy them. But Eliasor Yudkowski's Harry Potter has been read by a lot of people. I just say people read a lot of things. So, you know, that's whatever. There are genuine

limitations to Rea and there are issues. But I'm just saying if you wanted to find out about that and if you wanted to have an informed discussion, if it's not the place. It would be better going to Sean Carroll or somebody else. Yeah, that's right. Sean Carroll's got a good skeptical of AI and hell he'll do it better um no so i mean that the point here is like i don't think i's a conscious either although scott at the beginning kind of said that he thought they were didn't

didn't he didn't he say kind of thought they were at the beginning anyway doesn't matter but but the point is for our purposes in covering this thing they don't cover it well their examples and the premises they're operating from are very poor ranging from the touring test or the various other things they cited as evidence for or against AI intelligence. Yeah, so I just run a return, Matt. The final clip here, I played it at the start. I've got to play it a game for people. So after you've heard all this, right, you've heard Scott and Naval discuss their insights

into politics, into philosophy, into UFOs, consciousness, simulation hypothesis, us write a variety of different things and you've heard the quality of documents on offer and at the end of the interview this is the exchange that you heard at the beginning but just again let's just hear

how this all ends I don't want to take you forever no I enjoy talking to you you know it's funny because I get invited into a lot of podcasts but they all ask the same boring questions and you make yourself scarce at least on these

one-on-one, so it's good, so I want to talk to you. But we should do another one. You know, it's funny because I think every smart person is star for conversation with other smart people. And so the internet is great for that. It helps connect us, but still, like, this kind of setup is fantastic. I can get to talk to you. There's like 20 people I want to talk to and that's it. And you're on that list. So when something newsbreaking happens, you know, it's fun to get online and talk. It's better than going to a podcast and they ask me the same interview questions, you know, then you answer and then the check off like number 1309

check at dollar flow in Naval you're one of the reasons I think I live in a simulation because if I do, I think there are player characters and NPCs and from the first moment I met you

say, okay, you're a player but beyond that I've always felt connected to you no matter where you were or what you were doing. Yes, you played some segment of this at the beginning but it's good to I did yeah.

It's good to return. turn to it. We'll come full circle. We got there. There you go. Like, one of the top 20 people, like, just intellectual people in the world. And, you know, it's understandable that Naval would I come back? Because you just can't get this level of, this quality of ideas in, you know, in many places. Yeah, both play characters, definitely. If we're in a simulation, it's their world, Chris. We're just ephemeral. little NPCs playing in their world. One of them is there solving water problems

so that his skills can eventually be uploaded into the cloud at the Amiens. And the other one is a real player character. He's a player. He's one of the great men of history unlike the rest of those fucking dreams. The rest of the riffraff, right? They're just there, you know, they're taking part,

but what are they actually doing? Except for causing, you know, the great man to have to work harder. So, yeah, like, I think my general take on Naval is, like, I listened to the Chris Williamson interview as well. Me too. And, yeah, so the Chris Williamson conversation that they had was more of Naval getting to just issue his pseudo-refundity without any of this kind of Scott Adams' injections

about the simulation hypothesis or whatever. But I think they're actually good partners in a way because if you listen to that, it's only really in the end when he starts getting India's great man of history stuff and some of the content overlaps. But it shows that Naval can exist on like pseudo-profundities and indulgence

for him giving worthy answers and give the appearance of like, you know, he is a intellectual philosopher. But as we've seen in this episode, what he is, is like a fairly credulous discourse surfer, bog standard, partisan conspiracy theorist, like the rest of them. And he's somebody that's addicted to like doing stupid tweets and thinking that that is contributing to humanity in various ways.

So, yeah, just not impressed. I'm just not impressed by him. And Scott continues to be, Scott, what a wonderful contribution he makes us all. ways so yeah that's it that's that's my view too i think navile's got two speeds he's got two modes he's got the fortune cookie mode where he's a chill guy right and chris williamson is you know asked him those broad sorts of questions and he'll he'll he'll spit out a whole bunch of very vague pseudo profound bullshit which is which is fine you know what i mean you know yeah you It's relatively harmless advice, but it's also tends to rely on being relatively privileged.

That's right. Like if you want to hear from a multimillionaire or billionaire that, you know, not wanting something is as good as having it, which is true in some kind of sense. If that's helpful for you, then he can do that for you. I think he also encourages in that interview to not use calendars. Like you don't need to schedule things or follow. So that's just like, you know, his stick is kind of, like, it's like that personal self-help,

but sort of oriented towards the productivity of tech, success kind of thing, you know, talking about, like, earn with your mind and not, like, but they're all just rehashes of standard cliches, like, work smarter, not harder. Like, he'll have his own version of that that has got tech brospeak attached to it. Yeah, and just to be clear, like Steve Jobs is another person that does this kind of thing, right? Like another person that would invoke Zen philosophy or this kind of thing. But like, ultimately, they're just tech CEOs, right?

Like, this is the thing with the All-In podcast. This is the thing with Wilhelm Mosque. They imagine that they are these deeply profound and insightful people. They are the world changers. And what they really are is like very wealthy people that like to imagine that they're, you know, very philosophical and profound because of whatever, Maslow's hierarchy, whatever thing you want to take it. Like, when people have achieved success, they like to imagine, you know, that they're doing much more important things and so on. And that's what it's about,

so like most of the valve stuff, although there's like the claim that it's about, you know, you got to follow things to help the world or whatever. But it's really indulgent self-actualization shit and it's the exact same indulgent self-actualization shit that appeals to Matthew McConaughey's audience that appeals to a tech CEO so that's the actual unifying principle of the universe is everybody wants to imagine themselves as like deep and special and profound and the reality is that we're mostly not yeah and that includes the guys from the all in podcast and Naval they're they're pretty average people who happen to be incredibly rich. And that makes them very confident and have a very strong sense of their own

self-worth and abilities. So it makes them very, very happy to, you know, philosophies and get into speculative ideas with the likes of Scott. But, yeah, there's not much value to it. And yeah, when you do hear, he'd get onto political topics, he gets quite vehement about, right? He's not just playing along. This is stuff that he feels strongly about. you find out yet that they just have the same stupid conspiratorial opinions as most highly politically partisan people. Yeah, well, you know, real Masters of the Universe stuff, that's the big way. Oh, and, you know, if you are thinking, well, what about what about the decoding the Gurus podcast? Do they consider them?

No, Matt and I consider ourselves average book standard academics, okay? Eric Weinstein called me, I think, in one exchange, a middle broad academic, and that's fine, okay? There's a difference, right? I am completely at peace with my mediocrity and relative lack of profundity, okay? That's the difference. So, yeah, we are at peace with that. If you want to go find your, you know, philosophy, your insights about the self and whatnot. Sam Harris's Apple there, there you go.

There's different. Various philosophers on. there. Please enjoy it. Indeed, indeed. Well, good. All right. Well, we've ticked off Navarre. It was good to return to Scott just briefly. That's about enough of Scott I can handle in one go. Great. We'll see you again a couple of years, Scott, and you don't know how things go. But the thing I will mention, Matt, next episode, barring some accident, we're going back to Stensmaking land. We're taking a holiday, okay? We're going back. And we're allowed to, got on, all right.

There's a little bit of sense making here, but not a level that we're talking about for the next episode. No, we've got Jordan Hall, John Verviki, and Jordan Peterson together. And they titled it, not we, they titled it, a dialogue so dangerous, it just might bring you wisdom. The dialogue is so dangerous. It just might bring you wisdom. This sounds right up our alley. It is. Incredibly dangerous stuff.

So, yeah, strap on your stackouts before you listen, people. That's going to be one for the ages. But Matt, now, patrons, gosh out of mine, okay? I told you, I've got a system. I'm going through overlooked patrons of the past. You know, the patrons who deserve shoutouts. and they've just been ignored by us cruelly. Is this the post you made on the Patreon and I saw a lot of voices crying out saying

I've been supporting you as for years and I've never been shouted out. This is for them. Is it? It is for them. Yes. Although that's not true that all of them. But yes, in any case. So if you really allow me, Matt, I'll just give some of them a little.

Please do. Please do. Don't interrupt you. Just go for it. it. Don't hesitate. Yeah. So, here we go. Conspiracy hypothesizers or people that didn't indicate what level there are. Okay. So if you did, it's your fault if you get to put into this. Joseph R. Paul Hanrahan. Ethan R. Evan R. Ben Hodson. Jake Zadarach. Subudha Kaffel.

M.J. Eldridge. And Horia Opris. And some who call me Tim. Some who call me Tim. Some who call me Tim. That's a good one. That is our conspiracy hypothesizers. Thank you all. I feel like there was a conference that none of us were invited to that came to some very strong conclusions.

And they've all circulated this list of correct answers. I wasn't at this conference. This kind of shit makes me think, man. It's almost like someone is being paid. Like when you hear these George Soros stories, Well, he's trying to destroy the country from within. We are not going to advance conspiracy theories. We will advance conspiracy hypotheses.

There you go. That's your reward. You got played that. It's your award. You've got it. Now, revolutionary geniuses. We've got Eric Stern, Tommy Brooks, Ethan Rimmelman, Kevin Markham, and IV, and IV. These are, yeah.

Revolutionary. Like, IV is in Ivy drip? Ivy drip. Ivy is in... Or independent variable, it could be. It could be. Yeah. I'm usually running, I don't know, 70 or 90 distinct paradigms

simultaneously all the time. And the idea is not to try to collapse them down to a single master paradigm. I'm someone who's a true polymath. I'm all over the place. But my main claim to fame, if you'd like, in academia, is that I founded the field of evolutionary consumption. Now, that's just a guess. And it could easily be wrong.

wrong, but it also could not be wrong. The fact that it's even plausible is stunning. I like with what's his name, he founded the field of evolutionary consumption, Gad said. Now, that's somewhat true, I think, but what he doesn't mention is that the field of evolutionary consumption has got like him in it and maybe a couple of other guys. I think it's, that was just a nice, nice claim to fame there. Technically true, but Not as good as it sounds. Yeah, yeah, there are some issues there. Now, the last year, Matt, Galaxy Green Gurus,

we have Kimberly Beer, Don Schaefer, and Dank Sparrow. Oh, and, well, no, look, you can't believe me for this, Matt, right? I told people, put your thing in your shoutout. Tell me what tier you're in, right? So, Rufus Evans, you're in this tier. I don't know what your actual tier is, but that's where you are, okay? So, and Rufus Evans. Galaxy Brean Gurus, so thank you all.

Thank you. Hello there, you awakening wonders. You may not be aware that your entire reality is being manipulated. Become part of our community or free speakers. We are still allowed to say stuff like this. Science is failing. It's failing right in front of our eyes and no one's doing anything about it. I'm a shell for no one.

More than that, I just simply refuse to be caught. in any one single echo chamber. In the end, like many of us must, I walk alone. That was brilliant. That's new. I love that. That's Martin Wesselis, who deserves the credit for that. He said to the clip.

So good. So excellent clips, great editing. Oh, that guy. What's his name? Like, God the end. Friedman. Like, they're all bad. but Lex Friedman

he's so fake I can't stand him he's so I just want to shake him I can't believe anyone falls for that stuff he's a lone do you want the

I know I was I wonder if Naval has done an episode of Lex but we shouldn't even no he shouldn't even I beto veto veto

yeah that's that's reasonable but um well that there we go, Matt. We've done the decoding. It's done. It's going to go identity for and, you know, let's just hope that all our listeners don't have any water-related problems because you know what that makes. We know what that

improves. So, yeah, but then you're going to be uploaded to an alien civilization where your construct would be fixing water-related problems for all eternity. So you, watch out. Yeah, there's no, interpretation there. So there we go. I've won for the downloads. We'll be back with the same speakers soon enough. Nano Nano. Nano. Say say about that. Bye. Bye. I'm going to be.