The Joe Rogan Experience - #1274 - Nicholas Christakis

Episode Date: March 28, 2019

Nicholas Christakis is a sociologist and physician known for his research on social networks and on the socioeconomic, biosocial, and evolutionary determinants of behavior, health, and longevity. He is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University, where he directs the Human Nature Lab. He is also the Co-Director of the Yale Institute for Network Science.

Gay folks took over the rainbow. Four, three, two. Will it work today, Jamie? Yes. Hello, Nicholas. Hey, Joe. How are you, man? Great to meet you.

It's really good to meet you, too. I became aware of you, like many people did, with the infamous Halloween costume incident at Yale, where, explain that for people who don't know what happened, because it was kind of a crazy scene. It went national. Yes, it was a moment when, around the country, many students were struggling with how to balance conflicting sort of needs. Try to keep that a little bit closer to your face.

Conflicting needs. How, on the one hand, to create an environment in schools where everyone sort of felt welcome, as we've democratized admissions to our American universities, as I think we should have. People from all walks of life have started moving into these institutions, claiming them for their own, which I think is appropriate. But at the same time, these institutions had wonderful heritages of commitment to free expression and open debate and reason as a principle for resolving our differences. And some of those values came into tension.

And so around the country, there was a lot of heat about this. And I happened to walk into a propeller myself and wound up in some challenging circumstances. And it was not the worst thing that's ever happened to me, but it was in the top 10 challenging moments I've had in my life, let's say. Yeah, that's a very lawyer-like way of describing exactly what happened. Well, yes. I mean, the thing is, you know, I struggle. I mean, you can tell the story if you want, and then I can correct things. But here's the thing.

It's my job to be a teacher, and I have taken responsibility for teaching young people. And it is the case that many people lost their minds, I mean, lost their senses. And the faculty too, incidentally. I mean, it's one thing to talk about people in college age people, but then the faculty also didn't necessarily do what they should have done. But the thing is, is that my commitment is to teaching more generally, and I don't want to be defined by that event. I don't want that to become the most important thing about me. I have this book that we're going to talk about that is an important thing in my life, instantiates my values. It talks about what I think is important

about the world. So I'm trying to be balanced about it just it's one thing that happened i did my best it's in the past let me let me help out here because you're being so nice about the whole thing um so people know what we're talking about there was a an incident that was captured on someone's cell phone where you were standing many people it was an hour of footage five or six different angles so a clip went viral but i want to emphasize that there were many people filming that day and an hour or more of the two or three hours i was out there as available but well i'm glad that you had the courage to do that though to stand out there and talk to those kids but some of them were clearly there's something that happens when people become extremely

self-indulgent when they know that they have this platform and they have someone who is in a position of authority and they get to hamstring them in front of the public and that's what i felt was going on just my understanding of human nature i knew what she was doing what she was doing by shouting and screaming this is our fucking home you know you know we're supposed to be safe here i was like oh i see what's going on she's throwing up the flag of virtue for all of her friends to see how amazing she was so she's putting on a show people do that it's it's it's human nature you handled it admirably you stood there and you you just listened to her and you never yelled back and you never raised your voice and you remained calm. But that sort of environment where the children, and I want to say children, they're basically adults, but acting like children.

But this is one of the ironies. People that age, you know, can fight in wars and lose their lives. that age can fight in wars and lose their lives. And so I think it's a difficult challenge because on the one hand, it's right and appropriate to hold people responsible for their actions. Certainly if you're 20 years old, you're an adult, you're still growing, you're still changing,

you're still learning. I'm not the same man I was when I was 20, but you have to be responsible for your behavior. And so I don't think you get a total pass either. It's hard. No, you do not get a total pass. And for folks who don't have a 20-year-old in their life and don't remember what it was like,

you're not a fully formed thing yet. You're filled with chaos. Yes. You have emotions and hormones. Yes. And then you're at school, filled with chaos emotions and hormones and yes and then you're at school and you're probably away from the instructions of your parents for the first time and you know you're cutting loose and trying out new new ways of communicating that way it's it's a lot of it's a mess but most people

felt horrified watching that that you were subjected to that when you're being very reasonable and also what it all came about was your wife had sent out an email saying like hey maybe it should be okay for someone to wear a fucked up halloween costume you know maybe it's okay to for someone to dress up like crazy horse we have well well actually just to be clear what erica was saying in that note uh was – this is a very important intellectual distinction. I think we've lost a lot of nuance in our political lives in general in our country right now and also in the nuance in the way we think about difficult topics.

So what Erica was saying was not that necessarily the – she was not taking a position on any particular costumes like this is okay. In fact, many of the costumes that would have offended the students would offend her. What she was saying was that she didn't think the university should be telling students what to wear. Right. And she was asking the students, do you students at this age at Yale, do you really want the university to be sending you guidance on what to wear? Perhaps you should think about that. You're adults. You're adults.

You're smart. You're in an environment that privileges free expression. Do you really want to grant the power to an institution to tell you how to communicate? And people then thought that she was saying that she was defending a particular course of action. that she was saying that she was defending a particular course of action. What she was saying was, she was saying, do you students really want to surrender that kind of control over your own lives to older adults? And apparently, many students did, actually. They wanted, they did. I don't believe they did. I think they wanted absolute enforcement of what they thought to be wrong or right. part of the motivation in Erica writing that note was that many of her students, and in fact, many hundreds of other students felt infantilized by this policy. And there had been a big buildup

prior to that event, including an article in the New York Times about these Halloween costume policies around the country, and weren't they kind of ridiculous? And so there was a kind of a ferment where people were saying, wait a minute, do we really need adults to be told in this institution, especially given its commitments to open expression, what to wear? And keep in mind that there could be many ways in which a costume that offends you might not – I might not know why. So let's say you had been abused by a priest, and one of the rules said you shouldn't mock religion, for example, was one of the provisions. So a university-wide email went out signed by 13 people saying, you know, don't mock people's deeply held faith traditions. deeply held faith traditions. Well, what if, for the sake of argument, you had been abused by a priest and you wanted in Halloween to dress up as a Catholic priest, for example, holding a doll? And someone else who was Catholic was very deeply offended by that.

Well, who should adjudicate that? Like, is it the role of the institution to come down and say, yes, you can express yourself this way, no, you cannot? And so the argument was let the young people learn. Let them sort it out themselves. Let them learn by talking to each other, expressing themselves, saying, you know, that hurts my feelings. Here's why it hurts my feelings. And the other person said, oh, I understand, or I don't understand. I reject that reason.

And the other person said, oh, I understand, or I don't understand, I reject that reason, and sort of buy into a kind of commitment to free other, grant good faith, listen carefully, make subtle distinctions, and free people up to express what they're thinking so we can have a real marketplace of ideas. That's my commitment or my belief. Pete Well, that's a wonderful belief. I love it. I mean, that's really – I couldn't agree with you more enthusiastically. That's really – that sounds like the best possible environment for growing up and learning as long as you have someone to sort of moderate or someone to mediate if things go sideways. Yes, or I don't think you necessarily need a third-party mediator, but you do need a shared understanding of core liberal principles. And these principles do include, as I mentioned earlier, a kind of commitment to free and open expression, a commitment to debate, a commitment to reason. So how are you and I going to come to a better understanding of what is true about the world?

and the stronger person would decide what's right. We could vote. It doesn't seem quite right either. You know, 350 cardinals voted that Galileo was wrong. That didn't make Galileo wrong. Or we could use principles of reason and inquiry to try to appreciate the world together, right? We're looking out at the world and saying, that's confusing. You know, does the sun, does the earth revolve around the sun or does the sun revolve around the earth? Or that's confusing. Should a king have – should a king have ultimate authority in a state? Or is that not how we want to organize a state? So we – you and I look at the world and debate and think about, okay, and we exchange reasons and we use evidence and ways of understanding and studying the world. That to me is the only way to truth,

actually. Now, some people will think that religion is a way to truth, right? They think that the truth is, you know, is God-given, for example. Now, I am very sympathetic to religious belief systems, but I don't think that's a way to truth. It's a way to some truths, actually. It's a way to some wisdom. But anyway, so that's what our universities and our society, our universities are officially committed to that. The mottos of our universities are all about free inquiry and pursuit of knowledge. And our country is committed to that in our Bill of Rights, right? We have a commitment to free and open expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and so forth. And those ground rules then, in my view, make it possible for us to have a better society. And those ground rules then, in my view, make it possible for us to have a better society.

And there's more I can talk about. I'm sure we will get into it. No, I'm sure we will. Again, I couldn't agree with you more enthusiastically. I just think we need more reasonable conversations and less screaming and less shouting people down and less stopping. Less mob action, I think. Yes. The mob action is very weird because I don't remember it. From the Vietnam War protests to what's going on today, there was this long gap where you didn't hear about universities shutting down speech.

Yes. This is fairly new. This is within the last half decade decade or so well let's not yeah yes yes i mean they're always there's there's always an undercurrent of tension about this at at universities and in our society at large uh you know let's not forget the mccarthy era where you had the right wing was you know really interested in shutting down communists like if you were a professor or an artist who had far left political views, you were screwed.

Yes. And that was wrong. Or even if you went to a communist meeting to find out what it was all about. Yes. Just to educate yourself. Yes. In fact, that's a great example because that, like right now, I see a lot of people being criticized for following online people they disagree with.

Which is nuts. Crazy. So just because I follow someone doesn't mean I agree with what they're saying. I'm interested to learn what are they saying. I'm friends with people I don't agree with. Yeah, me too. Yes, me too. I'm friends with so many people I don't agree with.

I have a friend. I have friends across the political spectrum from the – I don't have any monarchists among my friends. I don't think I have any friends who are monarchists, but I have friends from the far right to far left. I have a friend who really believes, he's so libertarian, he thinks there should be private ownership of roads.

Whoa. Yeah. That's ridiculous. Yeah, I think that's ridiculous. And we debate. He must be white. He is actually. My wife says she would just once like to meet a poor libertarian, a poor female libertarian.

Yes. No. Yeah. That's a ridiculous position. I think so. Private Rose. Get the fuck out of here. Yeah.

Okay. But so here's the thing. But okay. How are we going to persuade this man that he's, he also thinks somewhat less controversially, it's a harder decision. He also thinks that you shouldn't be, you should be able to sell your organs. We should have a market in kidneys. While you're alive?

Yeah, you can give away one of your kidneys. But, yeah, you can. And we allow you to give it away, but we don't allow you to sell it. Wasn't there an instance, Jamie, that you were telling me about, about a young guy who sold his kidney to get an iPhone? Was that in another country? In and wound up having an infection and lost his second kidney as well yes and then would need to be undiagnosed yes these things yeah and these things yeah these things happen in the but in the united states it's prohibited you can't do that

you also can't sell your blood in the united states there's a reason for that yes uh and that's a good reason a good public health reason yeah because people who want to sell their blood are usually fucked up correct and so it's not a safe the blood supply is safer in countries where you were people voluntarily yeah altruistically doing exactly yes but the kidney is a harder case anyway he believes that he he he anyway so i love debating him and i learned from him like recently he said to me and i and i think I have a better answer. He said he doesn't understand why blackmail is illegal. Oh, Jesus Christ.

But the point is, the point is- Those anarchists, anarchists and libertarians, all of them need their asses kicked. Right, right. They really do. Settle down. Exactly. But the thing is, exactly. These are like, and I think any kind of extreme ideology

but the point is we can learn there is some wisdom almost anywhere right yes and the problem comes from excess expression you know the the problem comes from um you know there's there there there the the problem comes you know when we take things to extremes and we get to, you know, private ownership of roads. Yes. Yes. But anyway. And by the way, if you're an anarchist or a libertarian, I'm kidding. I don't really think you need to get your ass kicked.

I'm just joking around. But it is a – You're going to have a mob after you now. But it's a position that I always feel like could be remedied with psychedelic drugs. It could be, yes. I really feel like it almost always could be. Like I get – know i just i get where they're coming from i understand personal responsibility the idea that the free market

should decide i get all that but we already accept that there's some things that we agree on that we should all chip in to pay for yeah like roads yeah or like assessments utilities well yeah or like assessment of drug purity for example so the very rich could set up a laboratory in their basement so whenever a doctor prescribes a medication they could see if the drugs are safe yeah and pure yes the rest of us pay taxes and we say we're all going to pitch in together and we're going to have the fda and they are going to certify drug purity so that when I go to my pharmacist and buy a drug, the pharmaceutical company isn't killing me by shoddy manufacturing practices.

Yes. So, I think that's right. We get together as a free society and we do these things. We want a non-corrupt judiciary, right? Yes. We don't want people to be able to bribe judges. For sure. Exactly.

Yeah. So, there are certain foundational elements of our civilization, of our society, which are crucial to our well-being. And one of them is the capacity to openly debate ideas and to expose ourselves to ideas across the gamut. And I'm not just talking about political ideas. I'm talking about scientific ideas. So how are we going to win the battle against anti-vaxxers? Like how are we going to persuade people who believe that vaccines kill people, for which there's no scientific evidence, that they're wrong? We could imprison them. That's force.

We could vote, which is sort of what we're doing. We're saying, okay, well, you're a minority group who believes these things, so we're not going to allow you to control policy. Or we could try to win the battle of ideas and persuade them. Ultimately, that's the only path that's, in my view, that gets us to where we want to be. Yeah, and just an honest assessment of the actual data, like what we really know and understanding how these scientists come to these conclusions. But the problem is these echo chambers where people get involved online that magnify all of these beliefs

and you get radicalized. I mean, I've seen it. Also true. People get involved in these Facebook groups, these anti-vax Facebook groups or all sorts of different things. I mean, that's how these flat earth people get going. Yes. They start listening only to people that are involved in this circle.

They don't have a greater understanding of the science involved. Did you just see, I just saw online there's a cruise to the flat, a cruise for a flat earth, I don't know if you saw it. To the ice wall. Yeah, the ice wall. I thought that's a new wrinkle because the old flat earthers used to think that the water was shown falling off the disk of the earth, you know, like the edge of the earth that was just a disk. Now, the new theory that there's an ice wall actually is kind of not falsifiable.

That is to say you could get on a cruise and sail to the edge of the earth and you would find a wall of ice there, Antarctica. So you think, ah, it's flat. In other words, they have redefined their theory to make it so that you can't disprove it. Right? You don't get to an edge. There's no edge. There's an ice wall is what they're saying now. Are you aware of hashtag space is fake?

No, I'm not. I have to say I've not exposed myself to that set of ideas. Check it out. Space. There's a bunch of people that believe that space is fake. Okay. That it's not real That there's no real space

And that there's like lights up there And that this is some sort of a plan by Satan A lot of it's very biblical Which is really interesting A lot of the flat earth stuff is very biblical It has to do with the firmament And they use descriptions and depictions from the Bible. Oh.

Yeah. It's super bizarre. And what's really bizarre is when you listen to the YouTube videos or these discussions that are done by people that use words that are real. They string them together correctly. They have like full sentences. They appear to be articulate. It's very confusing

if you're a dummy if you listen to those you go like wow this guy's making a lot of sense he's not but it sounds like he's making a lot of sense because he's using all these words that are correctly used there's no ums he's saying it articulately there's like everything seems like like oh my goodness this man is exposing he's exposing the reality but it's not it's just fucking nonsense yes and if you don't know any better and that's all you listen to that's where your head will go the same with the anti-vax movement if you only listen to these anti-vaxxers they're making so much sense like oh my god it's giving everybody uh all sorts of ailments yes you're on the spectrum and they have a theory of how it does that which is not it's uses as you say scientific words but it's actually not scientifically correct right you know it does

this which then does that which then does that they lay out a kind of causal chain which is false and then there's a problem of nuance and perspective because there's so many people that get vaccinated there's hundreds of millions of people in this country billions of people worldwide and then there are instances rare occurrences where people have real issues with vaccinations well there are some where they have real issues so for example there's some vaccines which are known to cause certain neurological conditions rarely one out of a million or one out of a hundred thousand vaccinations more commonly is the situation in which you have vaccination is so common. Everyone is getting vaccinated.

And often that occurs near to an occurrence of some other rare condition. Yes. And people associate the two. They think, oh, because of the vaccine, this happened. No, it's a coincidence. Either or. Yes. There's both.

And there's also, you know, if it's one out of a million and you have 300 million people. Exactly. You have 3 million. Yeah. You know, I mean, 1 million people with an issue is a big deal. Yes. Right? With 300 million exactly you have three million yeah you know i mean one million people with an issue is a big deal right with 300 million people yes you you easily could have 300 really big cases yes you know 300 cases where people have died from vaccines and then you bring those in front of people and say oh my god and then there's this one and this one, this one. And there's 298 more.

And you're like, holy shit. All these people are dying from vaccines. It doesn't feel good if it's your child. But when we look at the greater perspective of humanity and you say, well, listen, you don't want to bring back smallpox. You don't want your child to get measles. Babies can get measles when they can't even be vaccinated for it. This is one of the reasons why we need to vaccinate children, to make sure they don't get measles. This is a serious fucking problem.

And a serious problem that scientists have labored for untold decades to try to cure. It's a triumph of our civilization that we can actually stop these diseases. Yes, and save children's lives. I had a woman yesterday who is an expert. She's a medical historian an expert in Victorian era surgery Lindsay Fitzharris and she wrote this great book called the butchering art and in it. There's all these images She's one of them. She brought up of what? Smallpox actually looks like when people get it. It's horrible. Yes, it just covers people's bodies. We've eradicated it

Yes, like the sign full and you die from die from it yes people have it's actually gone yes we don't get it anymore in this country it's fucking incredible yes i mean it's credible yes um but that's obviously neither here nor there so this book uh blueprint the evolutionary origins of a good society when did you start this about nine or ten years ago. And at the time in my lab, we were doing research on friendship. We were doing research on why people have friends. It's actually – it's not difficult to provide an account for why we have sex with each other. Many animals – most animals are – well, I don't know if it's most, but animals either reproduce sexually or asexually. And most animals – I'm trying to remember now what the relative proportion is. Anyway, I'm going to say most. Most animals reproduce sexually or asexually, and most animals – I'm trying to remember now what the relative proportion is.

Anyway, I'm going to say most. Most animals reproduce sexually. And it's not hard to provide an account for how – for why sex originated, why we reproduce sexually. It's not hard to provide an account for why we are choosy in our mates or why we are careful in who we have sex with. But human beings don't just mate with each other, we befriend each other. We form long-term, non-reproductive unions to other individuals to whom we're not related. Why? That's very rare in the animal kingdom. Very few creatures do this. We do it, certain other primates, elephants, certain whales, and that's mostly it. So the question is, why?

So I became very interested in my lab and trying to understand the deep origins of friendship. Why would natural selection have equipped us with this capacity? And that set the stage then for exploring all kinds of other things in our lives, like why we love each other, for example. Why do we, when we have sex with a person, we tend to become attached to them. We develop emotional sentiment about them. That's not an essential to having sex, yet we do that. And then I became interested in other kinds of good things, like not just love and friendship, but cooperation and teaching.

Teaching is another crazy thing. We take it for granted that we teach each other. But think about this. Most animals are able to learn. So a little fish in the ocean learns that if it swims to the light, it finds more food there. So the fish then learns to be tropic, to move towards the light. That's individual learning. Some animals develop what's called social learning. Social learning is really efficient. So if I put my hand in the fire, I learn that I burned myself, I pull my hand out, I've learned something. I paid a price and I learned something. I could observe you putting

your hand in the fire. You pay all the price, but I gain most of the knowledge. It's almost as good. Oh, people, you shouldn't put your hand in the fire. I saw that Joe put his hand in the fire. So social learning is super efficient learning from others. But we take it to an even further level. We don't just passively observe other animals of our own species and learn from them. We teach each other. That is very rare in the animal kingdom where one animal sets out to teach another animal something.

the animal kingdom, where one animal sets out to teach another animal something. So, the book is about the evolutionary origins of a good society. It's also a kind of response, a kind of pushback to a long tradition in the sciences of attention to the bad parts of our nature. You know, scientists, in my view, have for too long been looking at the origins of murder and tribalism and selfishness and mendacity. But I think the bright side has been denied the attention it deserves because we have also evolved to love and to befriend each other and to be kind to each other and to cooperate and to teach each other and all these good things. And I'll shut up. Pete Please don't.

No, and here's the thing. Here's the sort of one way to think about this. This must have been the case that the benefits of a connected life outweighed the costs. We would not be living socially if my exposure to you harmed me on net. In other words, if I came near you and you were violent to me, you killed me, or you gave me misinformation, you told me lies about the world, then my connection to you would ultimately harm me. I should be better off living as an isolated animal. So animals that come together to live socially, the benefits of

that must outweigh the costs. My living, us living as a group. So, all this attention to the ways in which our interactions are bad, that we kill each other, that we steal from each other, that we lie to each other, that we have tribalism and all of these traits, which we do, every century is replete with horrors. I'm not like Pangangolos like i don't think like you know pollyanna like oh everything's great that's not me but what is me is a kind of optimistic focus on the good parts of our of human nature and the recognition that those good parts must in toto overwhelm the bad parts well they certainly have to there's so many human beings i mean it's obvious that this is working yes you know i mean we have propagated we're everywhere

on every single patch of land that's occupiable in fact you're you're exactly right the argument and that's discussed in the book the way we have achieved the kind of social conquest of the earth the way our species is species has spread out to occupy every niche, which is also very rare. Most animals live in one, you know, grizzlies live in this part of the world. They don't live in Amazonia. And, you know, polar bears live in this part of the world. They don't live in Arizona, et cetera. But our species lives everywhere. And the way we have come to be able to do that is by the capacity to have culture, to teach and learn from each other, to accumulate knowledge. So in the book, I talk about lots of this famous set of stories called the Lost European Explorer Files about how European explorers are lost.

They lose their supplies. They wind up dying and – but they're in an environment in which other people thrive and survive because they have learned how to live there. So we've spread out around the world. And then there's a chapter in the book at the beginning about shipwrecks. So I have this – should I go on? Yeah. So I have this – so what I'd like to do is – what I try to set out to do in the beginning of the book is I say, look, it's clear that our genes shape the structure and function of our bodies.

shape the structure and function of our minds, our behaviors, whether you're risk-averse, how intelligent you are, whether you have wanderlust. These properties are properties that depend in part on your genes. But it's also clear to me, and that's what the book argues, is that our genes shape not just the structure and function of our bodies, not just the structure and function of our minds, but also the structure and function of our societies. not just the structure and function of our minds, but also the structure and function of our societies. And to really prove that, what we would need is something known as the forbidden experiment. And the forbidden experiment is an experiment in which we took a group of babies who had never been taught anything, who were acultural, had no culture, and stranded them on an island and left them on their own to see what kind of society they would make when they grew up. How would they organize themselves socially? Is there kind of an innate society that human beings are pre-wired to make in an essence? Now, obviously, that's unethical and

cruel, but actually monarchs for thousands of years have contemplated this experiment. So, Herodotus writes about how one of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs wanted to know what kind of language would, what was a natural language we had in us that we would speak if we were not taught a language. So this pharaoh, it is said, took two babies and gave them to a mute shepherd to raise to see how did the children speak when they grew up. And Emperor Akbar attempted this. There was a couple of European kings that attempted this. Obviously, we can't actually do this. So, what I do in the book is I look at a series of other approximations of that.

And one chapter is devoted to looking at shipwrecks, groups of men typically, but sometimes men and women, who between 1500 and 1900, there were 9,000 shipwrecks. Many more thousands of ships were lost at sea. And in 20 of those cases, we found 20 cases where at least 19 people were stranded for at least two months. And here's a kind of, here's a map of the, well, here's one crew I can tell you about, but here's a map of the shipwrecks. Like these are the- Oh, wow. All over the world where they occurred and when they occurred and how many people there were. And so then I got all the original accounts from the sailors, from the people on the wrecks, and all contemporary archaeological excavations of those wrecks where they had been excavated.

excavations of those wrecks where they had been excavated and um and try to understand what kind of society did these isolated crews actually wind up making and there were some amazing stories that were uh that i found in there so they stayed for at least two months how many of them actually established a real civilization how many well they didn't forever no no one was stuck forever uh most of those crews were eventually in fact all of those crews had at least one survivor because if they had all died, then I wouldn't be able to know about them. Right, you would never get the story. But there's one famous case in which these sailors were stranded near Australia, I think somewhere in the Pacific, and they managed to catch a big petrel, one of those huge birds that, you know, like a condor. And they put a little note in a little tiny bottle and they tied it to its feet. And this petrel flew thousands of miles and landed in Australia and was found with a note indicating where the ice-stranded sailors were.

And a ship was sent to go find the men. And they got there, but they had all died. They were all gone. So they used this bird. I'm sure they ate the bird. Well, no, they didn't eat the bird. They put the- They should have.

No. It needs to be alive. I think if you had that choice, you would communicate rather than eat, Joe, I think. Yes. Yes. For a little bit. Well, until the very end. Yes, yes, yes.

Did they starve to death? We don't know. Nobody knows. But the point is that we have to have, for me to be able to describe what happened, we needed at least one survivor. And often, there were many cases where everyone survived. I mean, there was one pair of cases that was amazing to me.

In 1846 in the South Auckland Islands, just north of Antarctica, south of New Zealand, the Grafton was wrecked on the southern part of the island. I can't remember how big the island was. It's in the book. Maybe, let's say, 90 miles long or something, or 20 miles long. I think it's 20 miles long. On the southern part of the island, five men are wrecked on the Grafton. island uh five men are wrecked on the grafton and uh on the northern part of the island the inverco wrecks 19 men are wrecked on the inverco uh all the grafton crew survives and both people both crews were on the island at the same time they never encountered each other they're struggling for survival it's like an like an experiment like who's gonna win right attempted to say fear factor yeah and uh and and the question is who's gonna survive and how and

why everyone on the grafton crew survives and 16 of the 19 men on the uh on the inverco crew die there's also cannibalism in that crew so it's it's a very it's a very different outcome for various reasons. So anyway, so the point is that in the book, I start with a series of stories about how people come together to attempt to make new civilizations. I use the example of unintentional communities with shipwrecks. I looked then at intentional communities like communes and kibbutzes in Israel and 1970s communes in the United States, 19th century communes in the United States. Actually, going back to Roman times, there have always been groups of people who've said, society's fucked up. I'm going to go and we're going to make it again. We're going to start afresh. I look at settlements in Antarctica of scientists.

I look at the Pitcairn, the mutiny on the bounty. I look at the Shackleton expedition, many, many cases of stranded, isolated groups of people trying to make a new social order. And then I also use data from experiments we do in my lab. We have this software where tens of thousands of people have come and played these games. We can create these temporary artificial societies of real people where people come and spend an hour or two, and we, with this godlike way, can engineer the society. We can have a lot of inequality or little inequality or various other features, and then we can observe what happens. And I look at all of that data, all those stories, and say, look, there is a deep and fundamental way that no matter what, human beings make a society. There are underlying fundamental principles about society which are as innate as the fact that you have two kidneys. You know, most people, almost everyone. Or your pancreas makes insulin. But they're very different all throughout the world, right?

I mean, there's totalitarian societies. No, so here's the point. No? Yeah, so here's the argument. You look around the world, and the example I give is that, yes, there's huge cultural variation around the world. Just like you said, totalitarian societies, people have different foods and they have different ways of dressing and there's enormous cultural variation. And it's marvelous and interesting and obvious to anybody. But I think we're missing the forest from the trees.

To me, this is like you and I are sitting on a plane and we look at a hill that's 300 feet and 900 feet and we say those are very different hills. But actually if we took a step back, we would see that we were on a plateau and one was a mountain that was 10,300 feet and another was a mountain that was 10,900 feet. And actually there are these much more deep and fundamental plate tectonic forces that are creating these two mountains that are very similar. But we are just focused on the superficial top. So the argument in the book is that everywhere in the world, people have friendship. People love their partners. People cooperate. People teach each other.

These are fundamental common principles shared by everyone, even though there's also a lot of variation. Even in a place like North Korea. Pete Yes. Now, North Korea, that state – so, totalitarian states apply huge cultural pressure to suppress this innate tendency. It's like religious – you need a lot of belief in God to suppress your innate desire to have sex, right? So you can have a belief system that's very powerful, that kind of prevents you, squashes what would otherwise be a kind of inescapable inclination you have. So totalitarian regimes, and this is discussed in the book too, they are very threatened by the institution of the family. They're threatened.

Two, they are very threatened by the institution of the family. They're threatened. You need to owe your loyalty to the state, not to your family, not to your friends. And so they have a series of institutions that, you know, everyone is comrade. Everyone gets called comrade, for example. Or a lot of times, well, I don't know if I want to speak at the state level. Let me take it down a notch to communes. So if you think about communes, if you're going to make a commune of people and you want them to feel real loyalty to the commune, one way you can do that is you want to reduce the commitment people have to their partners, let's say, their mates.

And in order to do that, you can go to one of two extremes. Either you can prohibit sex, like the shakers, and you say, okay, no one's going to have sex with anyone because we're all in a commune and we all love each other and we're not going to have special love for particular people. Or you could go to the other extreme and you can have polyamory, say everyone's going to have sex with everyone else. Once again, you see, that subverts the special relationship that people might form with particular individuals. And so, both of those strategies, even though they're opposite, are attempting to do the same thing, which is to break down real relationships, face-to-face relationships between individuals, so that you

can have a commitment to this higher group. And that's what totalitarian states also face the same dilemma. And that's also why, incidentally, a lot of those states try to reduce gender differences, like the Mao jacket, the men and women all were wearing the similar kind of attire, for instance, because they want to have people see themselves as interchangeable and not as individuals and relationships not be particular. Did you study cults?

A little bit. Not a lot. There's some – I talk a little bit in the book about cults, but I don't really need to get to cults in order to compare, because that is essentially like, in particular, the Ragnish cult in Oregon, the Wild Wild West, or Wild Wild Country documentary on Netflix. Did you see that? No, I haven't. It's fantastic. They essentially took over an entire town and started busing in homeless people to vote.

Oh, I read about that. I know about this. Yes. It's really quite amazing. Yes. And what they did was really weird you know i mean for there's moments in the documentary you're like wow maybe they're onto something and then of course it goes completely sideways they wind up poisoning

people and chaos but i am absolutely fascinated by those types of environments where people do decide they're going to branch off from regular, they don't, they're unsatisfied with regular civilization. They're going to all move to some location. Yes. That's a primitive and ancient impulse. Like I was saying, people have been doing that for, since time immemorial. It's how America got started.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Screw this. You know, I'm going over there to start again. But again and again, when people do that, they keep expressing some of these fundamental beliefs. It's like saying, yes, anyway, go on.

No, please. No, no, no. I don't have anything to add. I mean, I just was reinforcing what you said. But yes, that's right. Well, I'm always fascinated by people that are unhappy with the current state of affairs. They don't like the way society feels to them. They don't feel like they belong and they want to try somewhere else.

I mean, and what's really interesting to me is the last time someone did this as a country, as far as I know, is the United States. There really is. I mean, it's also very unique that this is one of the weirdest countries in the world in terms of our ability to freely express ourselves and we have more guns. Well, the thing about America, it's like the American experiment is about the fact that anyone can be an American. My parents immigrated from Greece. I was raised in this country. To be an American means to buy into a certain set of principles like the Bill of Rights.

And many other countries are very xenophobic. You know, you can't become a Japanese. You can't be nationalized in Japan. I mean, you can, but it's extremely difficult and rare. So it's a very homogeneous country. Switzerland is another country. It's very difficult to become Swiss. You can't be nationalized as a Swiss.

I mean, you can, but it's extremely difficult and rare. But the United States, you know, we say you are an American. From all the whole world, you're welcome. Bring us your tired, the famous saying on the – I forgot the saying. It's very poetic on the bottom of the Statue of Liberty. You're wretched. You're forlorn, whatever it is. And you can come to these shores and make your life a new and um

and all you need to do to be an american is to um buy into a commitment to constitutional governance democratic rule bill of rights and these principles now we should note that there were millions of people that were brought as slaves involuntarily to these shores we don't always realize our best virtues. We allow people to come, but like the Irish and treat them as second-class citizens or the Italians or the Greeks even. We don't always do that. But the idea that you're putting on the table, which I think is correct, is that you can be an American. This is a special, unusual experiment.

You can't reinvent yourself quite that way, to my knowledge, in any other colony or country. It's one of the weirdest things that this is a country where anti-immigrant sentiments are running rampant when the entire foundation of the country is based on immigration. That's the only way people got here if you're not a Native American. Yes. It was taken from the Native Americans, and everyone since then is an immigrant or a descendant of an immigrant that's correct even the native americans they came 20 000 yes yeah the whole thing is crazy yes the whole thing is crazy yes it's it's just and it's such a unique environment for expression i mean there's really no other country that has as free expression even the the Brits don't. That's right.

And Canada certainly doesn't. Correct. And they're our neighbors. Yes. It's a very unusual thing, and this unusual thing is the most recent incarnation of a country. Yes. Yes. I think that's right.

And I think there are, you know, then this ties in with a whole set of ideas about American exceptionalism. You know, are we, how different are we? What is the source of our wealth? What is the height of our civilization? You know, I am distressed by some of the direction our country is going in at the moment. But I think the, you know, I think in the long arc of history history i think the united states stands for many of the best principles uh in the world and i'm prepared to defend those principles i am too and i think like you were saying with your libertarian friend and you know someone who may be an anarchist or

whatever there's there's room for all these weird opinions yes they might not be correct and they will all be represented as just gigantic soup of human beings that's 300 plus million yes it's just it the idea that america is like uh white nationalists in charlottesville this is what's wrong with america no what's wrong with america is volume you know you going to have certain ridiculous ideas and awful ideas that are amplified in this volume that is incredible mass of humans. Yes, I think that's right. I think our size contributes to or makes a kind of heterogeneity of ideas more easy. If we were a tiny country, although even in small democracies, like you go

to European countries that are tiny, Spain, for example, I mean, it's not tiny, but it's tiny compared to us. You know, there's a lot of difference of beliefs from far left to far right. But I think the key aspect, which you're talking about earlier, which again, you're highlighting, which I agree with, is that we want an environment in which people can, the ground rules are clear. So, you know, you can't, there's no physical contact allowed, right? So, we draw a bright line distinction between words and deeds. So, I completely reject the idea that words are violent. Yeah, totally. I totally reject that. And because we have different words for it. They're two different things, totally different. So, ground rules are, you know, I can't touch you, but I can speak.

Other ground rules are that we are committed to open expression. A good ground rule would be that we grant positive intent. We grant good intent. That is to say, I try to put what you're saying in the most favorable light. First, I think about it. I say, okay, now wait a minute. What is he saying? What does he mean by that?

He might. Now, you may be an idiot. A person may be an idiot. They may be vile. They may be violent. They may be wrong. All of those things are also possible, but that's not the first go-to. So anyway, if we set those ground rules, I think, I believe strongly that in the marketplace of ideas, truth will out and righteousness will out. That's what I think. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe in fact what we need is a benevolent dictator who comes down and tells us all what to think and do. But that's not the world I want to live in.

Yeah, the benevolent dictator idea is, what does that come from? Is it just because that's really been the only way that society has actually functioned for most of the past few thousand years? Well, I think people have always fantasized, right? I mean, Plato talks about this. I mean, people look around and they think the situation is not so great.

I really wish there was a strong man that would come down and fix it. Yes. It's very tempting. This is the inclination towards Trump. I think in some part, yes. Trumpism is a little bit about this fantasy that we will, you know, that the way out is to have a kind of imposition from above. And I think that's very dangerous, actually. And we were talking about earlier in college campuses, it's the same principle, right? Like the idea that Big Daddy is going to come down and tell

us what to do and fix the situation, I think is undemocratic in the end. But Big Daddy has to follow the rules that these children want. I mean, this is part of the issue with the idea of words equal violence. I mean, this is not a well-thought-through idea, and this is an idea that is really prevalent. Words can lead to violence. Sure. Words can be painful. Yes.

They can hurt your feelings. Yes. They can be unpleasant. All of that is true. But words are different than violence. They just are. And so, I think we need to, you know, and in fact, as John Haidt and Greg Lukianoff argue, we actually might want to create other reasons to draw the distinction between words and violence and to cultivate an appreciation for that distinction, and that is by allowing people to speak, we may actually reduce violence because we can identify who has these crazy ideas.

We know who. So, if I believe that someone hates people like me, and I create an environment in which we allow him to say he hates people like me, I think it's horrible that he hates people like me. I'm not defending that he hates people like me. But we might now know who he is. Right? And I stay away from him. Yeah.

You know? So that's their argument that Lukianoff and Haidt make, that actually this is a potentially additional benefit of creating a free and open marketplace of ideas is we identify where the crazy is. You know, here are all these people. We're talking about the anti-vaxxers. I'd like to know who are the people that hold these beliefs because as a public health expert, and I was a hospice doctor for many years. I took care of patients for a long time. Anyway, I was very – and I'm still interested in a lot of our projects around the world, our public health projects. In order to be able to lead people to wisdom, you have to know where is the ignorance.

Well, if it's secret, you don't know it. Right. So that's another benefit of fostering this climate of open expression. Yeah, and the solution to these bad ideas is for someone to come up and give a better idea. Yes. Someone to debate or to explain what's wrong with it and to do it in a reasonable manner. When people start shouting and screaming and pulling fire alarms, like it's –

The idea of silencing people from speaking that somehow know that this is going to help. This is also part of deplatforming. Yes. Where people call for deplatforming people. No, I think that's wrong. Even based on just reasonable people with differing opinions. No, it's wrong. It's crazy.

There's a Tatchell, Peter Tatchell, there's a gay rights activist in England who, you know, went to prison for his rights, been imprisoned in foreign countries for defending gay rights, and he was deplatformed in England a couple of years ago. No, here's the problem with deplatforming. So, first of all, it is totally right and appropriate to protest. So, if someone is speaking something you don't want, I will strongly defend protest. Stand outside, yell and scream, hold banners up, whatever. You can't interfere with the right of the speaker to express themselves, first point. But even more important, the reason we don't want that is not so much because we're interested in the right of the speaker. It's because we're interested in the rights of the listeners. The people who want to listen to that person have a right to listen to that person in a free society.

So when we prevent them, the harm we're causing is not that I'm silencing you, I am interfering with the ability of all the people who want to hear you to hear you. It's their rights that matter too. So the deplatforming, it's not about, oh, so-and-so was unable to speak at such and such a place. It's the fact that all the people that wanted to hear so-and-so were deprived of their opportunity to do so. So I think the answer to words we do not like, the answer to speech we do not like is more speech. It's not silencing. Yeah. And there's also the obvious situation you put someone in when you do attempt to silence them, you put them under duress and their message changes. You make someone more combative and yes this has often

been the argument for why trump became president in the first place is that people were were tired of the argument on the other side i mean i am not a political scientist and i followed that literature a little bit uh i think there is a strong argument that that is one of the factors that contributed to trump's uh success let's keep in mind however that the majority of americans voted for hillary clinton um and and uh i think the majority of americans didn't vote correct but of the people who voted yes that's right that's another whole problem um but 63 or so million uh i mean about three million more people voted for hillary than voted for Donald Trump nationally. So, I forgot how we got on to him.

What were you saying? We were talking about people wanting to silence people, the forcing of political correctness. And the rebounding of that is the reinforcing of someone who comes along like Trump, who's the polar opposite of that. Yes, I would agree with that. And I think that that's another, you know, that sort of is a variant of the argument we were discussing earlier, which is that you, one of the advantages

of creating a free and open society is that you allow, you know, live and let live. And then you don't, you don't, you tend to, you avoid creating kind of suppressed animosities or you can help to avoid it.

Yeah, because open communication is so critical. And it's also critical to have reasonable, polite conversation. Like people can oppose each other in their idea, but you should be able to express how and why you oppose that idea without it being this sort of personal vendetta. Yes, I agree with that. I mean, you know, I think we have to accept that there will be – people will get angry. I mean, that's part of having an open society. And I think we need to accept –

It's part of being a person. Yes. And I think we need to accept that some people, not everyone will engage in discourse the way you and I might want to engage in that discourse. But I do agree with you completely that ideally we would have a kind of civilized conversation that allowed us to learn and to grow. And I think ultimately that, as we've been saying, is better for our society as well. Well, I think we should acknowledge that people are going to be upset, but we should also applaud people for not being upset. I think there's a higher value to people being able to communicate reasonably. I don't think that that's reinforced enough,

and I don't think that's appreciated enough. I don't even want to get any disagreement from me on that, yes. Yeah, I mean, I just think this is something that we can do, and we can get better at it. Well, I think it's like martial arts training. I think that self-discipline is not an easy thing, Joe. And like anything else worth doing in life, like basically anything worth doing takes effort. It's tempting. The go-to strategy that many people have – so I think it's important to note that free speech is difficult and it's not an easy thing. It's a natural inclination to want to silence your opponents.

But it's wrong and it's harmful and it's actually harmful to you to do that. So I think we need to have an educational system that cultivates that, that cultivates the capacity to tolerate an idea that you don't like to think about that idea and then to respond to that idea. So I guess what I'm saying is it does require some training. It doesn't come naturally, unfortunately. You know, but it should be reinforced. Yes. And I think there's a way to do that and there's a way to appreciate that and there's a way to call that out when you see it. I think the world needs more of it and if we can figure out a way to do that we will find that we our differences are not nearly as egregious they're not nearly as disgusting as

we like to think they are well that's exactly what i argue at blueprint that there's such you know like you know when you go to a foreign country initially you're overwhelmed by the different food and the different smells and the different architecture. And anyone who's traveled even to a different state has had this experience. And yet, actually, once you get to know the people, you see that they're very human. They're like us. They love their partners and they hang out with their friends and they work together to build a civilization and a society. And they have schools and they teach and they learn and they do all of these basic things that are a fundamental part of our common humanity and and this is what i talk

about in blueprint at length you know like i i uh you know i just i think it's i think there's a kind of um there's a kind of flawed beauty to the world that uh captivates me and it's a little bit on the there's this aesthetic tradition in Japan and a philosophy called wabi-sabi. Do you know what wabi-sabi is? You probably know about it, but you may not know the word. So- I've heard it.

Do you know like how, like the Western aesthetic for pottery is like these perfectly symmetrical, beautifully glazed pots. But there's a tradition in Japan of slightly imperfect pots, like a cracked pot or a pot that's slightly misshapen. It's very difficult, the masters, to make these pots. And it's called wabi-sabi, and it's about how imperfections, a kind of beauty of imperfection, a kind of flawed beauty. Like a hot girl with a gap in her teeth. Yes, I suppose. Yes, I suppose that could be an example of that. Or, you know, Elle Macpherson famously had that little – was it her?

I forgot. Which was the famous model that had – Sidney Crawford. Sidney Crawford, yeah, had that famous mole on her face. So it's a flawed beauty. So here's the point. It's not hard to look around the world and see the violence and the murder and the warfare and the incompetent leadership and all of these awful things about our species. But we're really a fucking unbelievable species, actually, who do amazing things when you compare us to other species. And there's a kind of flawed beauty to us. compare us to other species. And there's a kind of flawed beauty to us. And I think that it's wrong to be seduced to the dark side. It's wrong to only focus on the bad stuff. I also think it's a kind of moral and philosophical laziness, right? If we allow ourselves to just think that, oh, people are awful, it kind of relieves us of any duty to be good and to work to make

the world better. It's a kind of surrender to the dark side. I think that's wrong. And the book shows exactly how and why that's wrong and how natural selection has shaped all these wonderful qualities which are shared the world over. So you go to the foreign country, you're initially perplexed by their crazy practices, and then slowly but surely you find our common humanity. And anyway, I find that it's pleasing at least to me, that perspective.

You know, that's one of the cool things about travel, right? You broaden your perspective and your understanding of what it means to be a person. You go to these different environments. And yourself, too, yeah. Yeah, there are different foods, there are different art, there are different architecture, and you go, oh, this is also possible, too. Yes.

People can live like this. Yes. And you even begin to see why they live like that. You know, like you initially, you go to Greece and you have resin-flavored wine, you have Retsina, and you're wondering why would these crazy Greeks put pine resin in their ruining perfectly good white wine, and then after a while you start to say, hey, actually this is pretty good.

This is not a crazy thing after all. They put pine resin in their wine? Yes. The first time I had Scotch whiskey, I didn't know what I thought about it, and now I love whiskey. It's an acquired taste. So the first time you drink something like that, you think, yes, they put resin. They put pine resin in their white wine.

They chill it. I should have brought you some. Maybe I'll send you some. You know what's not an acquired taste? What's not? Uzo? Kool-Aid. It's delicious.

From the beginning. Just right out of the jar. It's cold. It's just so good. Yes. Ooh. Yes, yes, yes. You don't have to convince anybody.

Yes, that's right. That's right. Some things are just good right out of the box. They're just good. Yes, yes. Kool-Aid is just good. I mean, I don't recommend you drink it all the time. It's full of sugar.

It's terrible for you. But damn, that stuff tastes good. It's like fried foods, you know? Yeah, sure. It's just yummy. A lot of them. Yeah, French fries. Yes.

I mean, come on, man. Salt and ketchup? You don't like that? Yes, come on. How could you not like that? No, I'm not sure about what I should mention. But anyway, I love Popeye's fried chicken. I do as well.

I love it so bad. It's awful. It's terrible for you. I hope my wife is unlikely to listen to this full podcast, or I'll skip over this part so she doesn't hear this part. And my sister will be listening probably, and so she will laugh i'll skip over this part so she doesn't hear this part but and my sister will be listening probably and so she will laugh when she gets this part because whenever i see a popeyes i just pull over and indulge myself and then i terrible terrible popeyes is good but you know

what if you really want to indulge yeah and you like chicken yeah roscoe's is that here in la i haven't oh you don't know no i don't know roscoe's chicken and w here in LA? I haven't known. Oh, you don't know. No, I don't know. Roscoe's chicken and waffles. Oh, okay. Dude, I tried to go there the other day with my family. Don't you make that face. I tried to go there the other day with my family on a Sunday. It was an hour and a half wait. On the same plate?

On a Sunday. Chicken and waffles? Of course on the same plate. What are you, a communist? Yeah, man. It's an LA tradition. Did the waffles have syrup on them too? Hell yeah.

And butter. Yeah. And the chicken is fried? You mean you choose to put it on there yes perfectly it's this is a damn delicious okay i'm gonna open my mind you're from another planet so do it i i make maple syrup i live in vermont and i make maple syrup i tap my own trees and uh wow what a freak i have a i have a yeah exactly you're giving people a hard time for waffles and chicken exactly What are you telling me The Colonel has it now The Colonel's a liar He does not have it Get him out of here

That's not even the Colonel The Colonel's Norm MacDonald I saw That is not No they do not have real There's one Colonel It's Norm MacDonald It's a temporary

Promotion or something This is nonsense Yeah but they do not Oh my god And the syrup goes On top of the chicken Yeah That's so good That chicken That waffles and chicken Taste like goes on top of the chicken? Yeah, it's so good.

That waffles and chicken tastes like cat litter compared to Roscoe's. There's also Sweet Chick LA. He could try, too. Get this out of here. All that stuff can go fuck off. Roscoe's. Chicken and waffles. And you get the greens, too.

The collard greens. I like collard greens. Yeah, that's fine. Damn good. That's fine. But that's a waste of maple syrup. Take it from a man Who makes it To put it on chicken

I'm sure Sweet Chick is good I'm sure Sweet It's Nas' place I get it I love it I've been there It's great Roscoe's

Okay I'll have a look Everybody can fuck off There's a reason why There's an hour and a half Wait on a Sunday Okay How long are you in town for? Just a day

Maybe I'll be back though I'll be back in a couple weeks Just shoot over there Right after the show Alright maybe I'll go there For lunch Go to the one on Gowart Okay

Oh man it's good Alright maybe I'll try that It's so good weeks. Just shoot over there right after the show. All right. Maybe I'll go there for lunch. Go to one on Gowart. Okay. Oh, man, it's good. All right. Maybe I'll try that. It's so good. And it's also one of those places that's been there forever. We used to get it. I found out about it from 1994 when I was doing news radio, 95-ish, I guess. Have you been in L.A. since you left Massachusetts?

No. I went to New York for a couple of years, then I moved out here. I moved out here in 94. Okay. So you've been here a long time. Yeah. And when I was on news radio, they got it for, like, you could order lunch, and someone ordered Roscoe's chicken and waffles.

So you became addicted. And I was like, what is this? Like, waffles, and it was just like you. Waffles and chicken. There it looks. That doesn't look as good as it looks when you're there. When you're there and you smell it, it's damn good. Sorry, I'm doing a Roscoe's commercial here, but I'm a fan. That's an incredible combination of items. I just have to say. It's damn good sorry i'm doing a roscoe's commercial here that's an incredible that's an incredible combination of items it's so good it's so good and afterwards you better

have nothing to do man because you're going into a food coma son anyway um how do we get to that i don't know i was gonna tell you maple syrup stories no oh yeah going to yes different countries different countries and opening your mind. So you are counteracting my resin-flavored white wine with the maple syrup. Maple syrup and roasted fried chicken. Well, I'm a giant fan of spicy food. I love spicy food. So I really, really enjoyed Thailand.

I really enjoyed their style of cooking and their kind of food. Are you one of those people who eats the those the scofield units on the uh on the hot peppers like you know like how hot you know no no it's just like spice it's not hot i like habanero i like i like things pretty spicy compared to the average person but i have friends that put me to shame yeah like i have a buddy of mine from that i used to do fear factor with my friend tommy hershko shout out to tommy mine From That I used to do Fear Factor with My friend Tommy Hershko Shout out to Tommy And we I used to eat I ate chili with him And I couldn't

Fucking believe How hard he could go I'm like this is crazy Yes I think people just have A different inherent Like it's almost like Built into their body

It's both I think Yeah It's both Some people are better able It's like some are faster Runners than others Yeah But it's also training

So you get to You eat a lot You slowly work your way up to being able to tolerate and like those really super hot peppers i i find it a very unpleasant i have a friend just like you who really is into it like really seeks out the hotness yeah i also think it's a little bit like addiction like you tolerate like like as you get used to like the less hot stuff now you need more and more stuff in order to get the same it's not a high exactly. Some people think it's a high, by the way. There's a little high to it.

Some people say that. I mean, again, it's not for me. I cook meat with jalapenos. I slice it up and I'll have a piece of the meat with the jalapenos. Especially elk with jalapenos is sensational. Yes. I think it's so good. Yes.

Yeah. But my kids always make fun of me because I'm bald, so my whole head is covered with sweat. And they come over and wipe my head. They're like, look at you. You're so gross. How old are your kids? The youngest ones are eight and ten. And you have how many?

Three. I have three. All daughters. All daughters. I have a 22-year-old, a 10-year-old, and an eight-year-old. You'll live longer with daughters. Really? If you plot dad's survival on the Y-axis and fraction of female children on the X-axis, survival is slightly longer for men who have higher fraction of daughters as children.

I think it's because boys drive you to your fucking grave because they're so goddamn crazy. There's lots of theories as to why it happens, and that is, in fact, one of them. It's framed a bit more scientifically than that, but that's the basic theory. My 10-year-old is a maniac, my 10-year-old daughter. And I just imagine if she was a boy, I'd be terrified that she'd be just lighting things on fire and blowing up buildings. Yes. Yeah. Boys are a problem.

It can be. It can be. I mean, I think it's – I think – well, I mean, we could get onto the whole gender issue. I'm not sure we want to. But I think boys are responsible. Let's talk about chimpanzees. It's easier. Okay. Male chimps do most of the violence.

About 95% of the violence and murders are committed by male chimpanzees, and most of the victims are males. And I think there's no doubt that biology plays a very important role in male proclivity to violence, for example. Sure. So there are trouble. Yeah. So boys can be a problem that way. And I think that many ways in which society are – cultural traits that we invent, their purpose is to shape and guide those tendencies to violence to kind of mitigate them. But we don't just need – again, going back to the book, we don't just need – we don't just

use culture for that purpose. There's an argument in the book that we humans have domesticated ourselves. So, if you look at, if you compare dogs to wolves and domesticated cats to wild cats from which they descended, or guinea pigs to the wild guinea pigs from which they descended, or horses to the wild horses to which they descended. Again and again, you compare these couplets, these pairs, you find that the domesticated version of these animals are much more placid, much more peaceful. They also tend to have floppy ears. They have piebald fur. So guinea pigs and dogs and cows all have splotchy black, white, and brown fur. Why is that?

The animals from which they evolved didn't have those – that kind of splotchiness. And they become much more peaceful. If you compare human beings, but those animals were domesticated by humans. Like I deliberately allowed the reproduction of this member of the litter and not that member because this member was nicer. And so across time, we evolve a more domesticated version of the ancestral species. So we get my miniature dachshund from a wolf, like the kind of things that were photographed out in your studio here. Crazy transition. Now, if you look at humans and you compare us to our ancestors or to other primates, for all the world, it looks like we have been domesticated. We are more peaceful and placid. We have sex outside. Non-reproductive sex is another thing.

So these domesticated animals will have sex even when it's not time to reproduce. will have sex even when it's not time to reproduce. Our tails, we don't have tails anymore, but our tails get shortened. There are all these features that we have, these behavioral qualities and these physical properties that we have. We get a feminization of our faces. Our jaws become smaller. Like if you look at, you compare these domesticated animals to their non-domesticated ancestors, the domesticated versions are less violent. So,

we lose a lot of the traits that physical and psychological traits associated with violence. But there was no one that domesticated us. So, the theory is, the question is, how? How did that happen? And one of the theories that's discussed in Blueprint, and that's advanced by other scientists, this is not my work, is that we self-domesticated. And that what happened over the millennia, over millions of years, is that weaker individuals in our groups, when one individual became too autocratic and too violent and too powerful, they banded together and killed that guy. And so over time, we were killing the more violent members of our species,

weeding out those people. And therefore, the gene pool changed across time and we self-domesticated. We are more peaceful today than we would have been because we domesticated ourselves. And this is one of the arguments that's also made to help explain the origins of goodness, actually. And the origins of cooperation because it would take a few good people to kill the bad person that's running everything that's evil. Correct. That's exactly right. Recreational sex does occur in bonobos, which really weird isn't it because they're so similar

to regular chimps yes but they're not the same species they also have homosexual sex they use sex uh to make up you know so uh it's yeah they're very uh licentious uh species that's exactly right and and and and bonobos are felt to be a self-domesticated chimpanzee. So bonobos are to chimps as, let's say, dogs are to wolves. But the dogs we domesticated, the bonobos self-domesticated is the theory. Do they know why or how? Well, the theory is that they did it, like we were saying, by weeding out, killing the more aggressive members. What we know must have happened is that the nicer guys must have been able to have more offspring. So the gene pool changed over time because of the differential success of the nicer guys. Now, people have looked at this,

even in human societies, they've looked, for instance, there's a study I talk about in the book of different pathways to reproductive success amongst the Tsimane, which is a group in Amazonia, and other societies are similar. So you can either be like big and strong, or you can be charismatic and have useful knowledge. In both ways, you have more children. So there are these competing ways in our species of enhancing your reproductive fitness. Are you aware of Sapolsky's work with baboons? Uh-huh. That's a fascinating case, right?

Because they were studying baboons in Africa that would eat from human garbage, and a bunch of them got sick and died. a bunch of them got sick and died and it turns out that the most violent and ruthless of them got sick and died and it changed the entire culture of the baboon tribe oh i don't know that story oh it's a fascinating one they started grooming each other and being kind to each other oh my god yeah that's a good example but there was an accidental it was an accidental it was an accidental but it lasted for generations yes and when he returned to study them, he found that they were still this different kind of baboon tribe. Oh, I think I did read about this a little bit. Yeah. I'm doing a shitty job, I'm sure, of explaining it, but I love that guy.

No, I think you have the – yes. I'm so fascinated by that guy's work. Yes, he's very impressive. And I know that I – now that you're reminding me, I'm a little familiar with that particular study. I did know that it started with garbage, however. But it was a coincidental extermination of the more violent members of the troop. Yeah, so they were removed from the gene pool. And it changed the entire culture to the point where generations later, they were still using this more peaceful way.

Peaceful, yeah. Yeah, more kind. Well, it didn't just change the culture. It may have change the culture. It may have changed the culture, but it appears we're arguing that to have changed the gene pool. It's like an evolutionary pressure that's been applied. So you have big dogs and small dogs. You don't allow the big ones to reproduce.

You just reproduce the small ones. Yes. You get small dogs in the end. Well, I've had dogs my whole life, and one of the things that you do realize – What kind do you have? Right now, I have a golden retriever. We have a – yeah, we have a white lab yeah um yeah yellow lab and uh i've had a bunch different dogs i've had mastiffs and pit bulls and german shepherds no small we have a dachshund too you don't have small dogs my oldest daughter has a tiny chihuahua it's the pain in the ass aren't

they he's the best they just bark all the time no he doesn't bark that much he barks a little bit but he's he's really smart he's actually a mutt bark that much. He barks a little bit, but he's really smart. He's actually a mutt. He's Chihuahua and Australian Shepherd, but he's like that big. He's a tiny little thing. He's the best. But my point being is that you can see, if you get a dog from a breeder, you really can see how they can cultivate certain types of behavior. Like a good example of my M mastiff who passed away this year he came from this guy who bred dogs for films and for uh police training and uh he was the most calm

most chilled out dog i've ever had in my life he was a giant dog he's 140 pounds but he you could have him take him anywhere and trust him with a baby. And he was like, hello. Like everything was like totally, but this guy purposely, anytime a dog showed any aggression towards people or any aggression towards dogs, he wouldn't let them breed. So how can anyone not hear the stories like that or know stories like that and not then also think that genes play a role in human behavior? Oh, you have children? Yes. You realize it when you have children.

You see it like, okay, this is not, I't do this this is this comes from me yes there's certain traits that my children have that i watch and i go okay this is not this i didn't teach them this they just are this way they were born this way they've got my fucked up brain you know there's something in there like they're not seeing the like they don't see how crazy I am in terms of how hard I work at things, how obsessive I get with things. They're just doing it. It's very weird. It's very weird because you see it and you go, oh, well, okay, well, how much of this shit that's in me is, well, how much of me is me deciding to be this person and how much of me has no choice? About half and half, I would say, overall, on average, across traits.

How much do you think gets passed down through genetics in terms of inclinations? Dispositions? Yes. About half on average. So, for example, about half the – how religious you are or how risk-averse you are. Like I can – about half the variation in how – if you look at a group of people and some are more risk-averse than others, about half of that has to do with their genes and half has to do with how they were raised or what environments they grew up in.

So there's a kind of innateness to many of our qualities and you can shape them. For example, you can't – you couldn't make me a musician, unfortunately. I have almost no musical talent. I can dance, I think. I mean, I think others would even say that I can shape them. For example, you couldn't make me a musician, unfortunately. I have almost no musical talent. I can dance, I think. I mean, I think others would even say that I can do that. So it's not just like I think I can dance, but I can't. But I have no musical ability whatsoever. I would say I'm tone deaf, and I can appreciate music, but I can't produce it.

There's no way you could train me, I don't think, to be a musician. but I can't produce it. There's no way you could train me, I don't think, to be a musician. But so some of it is inborn and some of it is taught for all of these qualities. Yes. It's a fascinating thing to watch it emerge from a child, isn't it? Yes. As a parent, you see where it comes from. Although we have adopted, like I, my mother had three biological children

and I have two adopted siblings. I come from actually a multiracial family. I have a black sister and a Chinese brother. And my mother was an incredible human being. She died when I was 25. She was 47. And we have been foster parents, my wife and I. And so – and we have lots of adopted kids in the extended family in addition to biological kids.

And so you can see. You can see the play of genes. You can see the extent to which the kind of inherited traits that these people, that we all have. And you see the shaping by how you're raised. And, you know, so both are important. And this is incidentally why, if you ever have anyone, it's not nature or nurture. It's both. Yeah. Always. Almost in every. Yeah. Always.

Almost in every single trait, actually. Well, that's the case with so many things in this life. We want everything to be binary. Yes. It's nuts. Yeah. It's a total, we were talking earlier, it's a total loss of nuance and an inability to see any gray.

And some people think, and I think that's what you were talking about yes some people think that we are hardwired to like dichotomies to see you know male and female and and up and down and good and evil and left and right and to simplify the world by finding and that we like it that it's soothing to us to think that the world can be divided into two categories yes but in fact many times not always like up and down is sort of clear but many times it can't there's shades of gray and it's harder that's harder to live in the gray yes i completely agree and that's why i've always been opposed i mean i get i think it's incredibly foolish to deny that, but people find comfort in denying that. Yes.

They find comfort in being tribal. Yes. They find comfort. Us and them. Yeah, us versus them is the classic, right? Yes. Yes. It's a simplified view of the world, and it's foolish and dangerous, actually.

Now, sometimes you're at war with an enemy. You know, it's me or him or us or them. There are circumstances in which it's a different – For survival. Yes, for survival. In that mode. Yes. Yeah, I get it.

But, you know, but I think a kind of worldview which says we are good, they are evil, as we've been saying in different kind of ways in different parts of our conversation, is I think foolish and wrong and ultimately self-injurious, actually. Yeah. So we used to have – I know you've done martial arts. I spent years training in Shotokan karate, very traditional Japanese style, which I loved. I'm sure you've had the same thing. You actually are grateful to your opponent. You bow to your opponent. You say thank you to your opponent, right?

Sure. Because the opponent is necessary for you to learn. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is the whole point. Not just your opponent, training partners. Of course, yes. You want people to be able to beat you. Yes, yes.

You get better. That's exactly right. So this is, you know, I think that the kind of that aspect of that kind of training is a life lesson as well, right? The capacity to see that, and the same happens with ideas. How do my ideas get better? How do I discover in my laboratory new knowledge? I discover it against opposition, right? Someone says, you're wrong about that.

It's not true. And I'm like, oh, yeah? Let me prove it to you. Here's what I'm going to go back and do more experiments and come back to you with more arguments and more data and show you that actually i'm right about this yeah or not you go back to your lab and you're like oh shit they were right yeah you know we were wrong so that's the way you uncover truth right it's the way you get to more perfection it's the kind of yin and yang actually so so so yes i think that, I think that this simplification of the world to think of, you know, I'm good and you're evil, really misunderstands, in many, not all, but in many

circumstances, it misunderstands what's happening. And also, it brings back this problem that human beings have always had with ego and this need to be right and that identifying yourself in each individual discussion and debate and battle and needing to triumph and even though you desire to be correct you have to understand when you are not and you have to appreciate someone who shows you that you are incorrect because they are allowing you to grow you're not a finished product there's no way you can be yes i think that's why i like arguing with people i disagree with because that's when i learn more stuff right if i talk to

people i agree with i don't learn as much so you get together with that private roads dude that dude and some other dudes i have some of this i just came from his house and uh he also he's crazy but anyway he'll laugh he will listen to this and he'll be laughing right now. What does he do for a living? Yeah, he's a financier. There he goes. No fucking way. Yes.

God damn, that's cliche. Yes, exactly. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. That is hilarious. So it is hilarious. It's like a pro-gun mercenary. Yeah, exactly.

That's a surprise. Yeah, who saw that coming? That's really funny. Hold on, I was going to say something to you about – Arguing with people you disagree with. Hold on, I lost the train. I thought I had said before we talked about my friend. You learn from them.

Anyway, I lost the train there. No worries. Yeah. you learn from them anyway i lost the train there but no worries yeah um so yeah i mean that's that's another issue that i've faced with this podcast where people get upset at me for having people on that have opinions that they disagree with that's nuts yeah they think that you you're you're doing a disservice by providing a platform that's not that that's phrase they keep saying yeah platform giving them a platform. No. I think you have power, which you should use wisely.

I have power. I should use that. We all have some power in some parts of our lives. And I think it is okay to say you have some power. You do. You have lots of millions of listeners. People respect you. Lots of people are presidents, CEOs. They're people of power.

I respect you. Lots of people are power. Presidents, CEOs, they're people of power. But the idea that by talking to someone, you are somehow abusing that power, that's crazy to me. In fact, quite the opposite. I think that you are shining bright light of day onto ideas. Let people discuss them. Let's talk about that. It's also quite schizophrenic. I mean, have you ever seen when a schizophrenic person draws these connections where they have one person and that person met this other person and that person used to work with this other person and that person met Hitler?

Yes. So you know Hitler. Yes. Have you ever seen those? Yes. It's really similar in the same sort of a way. Yes. It's this weird sort of a thing where you're not allowed to even communicate or be in contact with someone

who is in this – and it's very childlike, this perspective. And it's very binary. You can't be my friend if you're Susie's friend. Exactly. Yes, it's so fucking stupid. Yes, I would agree with that. And it's a really common thing today that you're seeing people trying to reinforce this idea and push it on

other folks well i think one thing you know like i think um i think that um like we were talking about i think that exposing ourselves to a breadth of ideas to people we disagree with i you know i think and and creating an environment in which people can express themselves, you know, is good. You're not going to get any arguments from me against on that point. No, and I just think it's better for everybody. Like we were talking about before, when you meet someone who can give you a lesson and express something in a way that makes you reconsider your own ideas you hold sacred. I mean, I'll give you an example.

in a way that makes you reconsider your own ideas you hold sacred? I mean, I'll give you an example. When I met my wife 30 years ago, I wasn't pro-death penalty, but I would say I was neutral to the death penalty. I would be like, you know, Ted Bundy, the state can put him to death. And I had all the kind of conventional reasons, or I didn't really care. He's a vile person. He killed all these people.

He tortured them. If the families will get reasons. Or I didn't really care. He's a vile person. He killed all these people. He tortured them. If the families will get any relief, whatever, that's fine. I had some concerns because I was a statistician about conviction of the innocent. And I support the Innocence Project. And I am very concerned with police brutality. I have for years been advocating the racializing of police brutality as vile and abhorrent and must be firmly resisted. I think that the prosecutorial misconduct, the way people are, prosecutors lie and put people in prison. You know, there have been many, many cases of people on death row who are innocent. That should offend our conscience. So even back then, I had some concerns about the death penalty

because I recognized that we can't be perfect. We're going to convict some innocent people and also let some guilty people go free. That's not as bad as putting to death the innocent, but they're both bad. So I had that concern about the death penalty, but otherwise I was like, it's okay. My opinions have totally changed. I'm completely opposed to the death penalty. But otherwise, I was like, it's okay. My opinions have totally changed. I'm completely opposed to the death penalty now for many reasons, not just the statistical reason, but also I think it's immoral. I don't think the state should put it – I think we can deprive you of liberty. I think we can make sure you're not a threat to society. We can lock you up for the rest of your life. But I think we – the state should not be taking people's lives in that way.

There's something extraordinarily strange about locking someone up it's very strange well we we have a carceral state i mean you know we lock up a higher we have is we our fraction of people incarcerated i think is the same as stalinist russia and we have very long prison sentences which are nuts you don't need them for deterrence especially for non-violent drug offenses. Especially for all nonviolent offenses should have much shorter... We should have more... We should have higher certainty of punishment, higher fraction

of people who have actually committed a crime should be punished. But I think we could cut in half or less the duration of the sentences. I think you'll be able to deter criminals from doing things with a three-month sentence if they are very confident that they will be convicted if they're caught. Whereas now we have a system where most are not convicted, like this Jesse Smollett thing, which is just ridiculous in the news, and only a tiny

fraction are convicted, but they're given huge long sentences. It's like they're paying the sentence for everyone that didn't – it doesn't make any sense. And it's expensive. It ties up our prison system. Actually, can I go to tell you another story? Sure. So there's a situation a few years ago when there's a very famous director and writer by the name of David Simon who I consider a friend. He did The Wire. He was a showrunner for a bunch of other very famous, wonderful TV programs. He started his career actually as a reporter in Baltimore. He was a beat reporter and

then went on to become a writer, did The Wire and so forth. And he told the story actually at Yale to students about how he had just come back from a summit, President Obama was still president, He had just come back from a summit. President Obama was still president, where he was trying to help the students to see that you can find common ground with your political opponents and that you need to listen to them and talk to them in order to find that ground. And so he told the following story. He said, I just came back from Camp David where there was a meeting about how to reduce incarceration in our society. And he said the Koch brothers were there and the students all hissed. And Newt Gingrich was there and the students all hissed.

And a bunch of liberal people were there and the students were really happy about that. And then they said, well, why did you go? How could you associate yourself with those evil people? And he said, look, he said, the conservatives want to reduce incarceration because it's expensive. The liberals want to reduce incarceration because it's unjust. And the libertarians want to reduce incarceration because the state shouldn't be depriving people of liberty. And I can find common ground with these people and reduce incarceration. Why would I not talk to them? And the students didn't seem to understand that.

They were like, they couldn't get it that's why they shouldn't be able to vote yeah it should be 30 yeah i think it should be 25 i mean and so the i don't know how we got onto this you know like talking to you is so much fun because it's like we're all over the place but um how did i get it come up with this example we were talking about talking to political enemies was it or something else yes we're talking about people telling you that you shouldn't associate with people that have varying opinions. Yes. Yes. And, you know, oh, and no, we were talking about incarceration and prison sentences and so forth.

So we have a horrible problem in our society with incarceration. A larger fraction of our populace is incarcerated. We deprive – after you've paid your debt to society, we often have these – we deprive you of your right to vote, which I think is wrong. you've paid your debt to society, we often have these, we deprive you of your right to vote, which I think is wrong. You've paid your debt to society. You should be able

to reenter society. That's the point. You're paying taxes. You're part of our community. Yes, exactly. We're in prison for 10 years. That's enough.

Now we want you to feel a part of society and we want to welcome you back if we have that vision of justice. Well, how about the registered sex offender? That's a serious problem, especially for crimes you know these crazy cases which offend my conscience well

i know a guy who got charged as a registered sex offender because he urinated outside yeah that's not caught in the south urinating outside that's nuts that's just prosecutorial abuse or you know you have these romeo and Juliet laws, which are not in every state now, thank God. Alas, they are not in every state. You have a 16-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl. There have to be exceptions for the rest of their lives. That's nuts. So, yes, so all of those things. But the problem is not only do we have a huge fraction of people in prison, we have extremely long prison sentences compared to many European countries for the same crime. And it's costly. It's unjust. It's ineffective. I think we should change the policies on this, and maybe we will.

There's also the idea of reforming them. They're not using all the tools within their disposal. They're not really giving a good attempt at it. And I just don't think it does anything other than make their life hell for a short period of time, which we're hoping, we hope, deters them from doing future crime. Well, they're different. There's justice. There's deterrence. There's safety, right? hoping we hope deters them from doing future crime well they're different there's the justice there's deterrence there's safety right like so violent criminals that we put in jail uh we need

to do that i mean i'm not interested in being killed by somebody who you know could it killed someone else she should have been in jail uh for a while 20 years some number of time for murder yeah for murder you think 20 years is enough well Well, European standards are about 20 years, actually. And they're different things. Like, if you want to deprive them, if your vision is they're being punished for the killing of a life, therefore they've surrendered their life, it's sort of eye for an eye kind of justice, they would be the rest of their lives in jail. Yes. And, you know, we can debate whether that's reasonable or not. If you want to provide a public safety reason, people often age out of their violence.

So a lot of men typically, we're talking mostly about men who do these things, by the time they're in their 40s or 50s, they're much less violent. Testosterone declines. They get older and wiser. They're not interested in that kind of criminal behavior. Many of them are not. So that suggests you don't need life sentences for murder. And I think it also depends. And we have gradations of murder. We have the impulsive stuff, the intent matters, the planfulness

matters, the depravity matters. All of these things are factors. And I don't think we should have a one-size-fits-all incarceration for murder. Yes, that's my opinion. What do you think? I think it depends entirely on the circumstances. If two men are engaged in some sort of a dispute and one winds up killing the other one, that's a big difference between that and someone breaking into your house and killing your daughter. Yes, correct. And I also think even in that, like I really am opposed to these stand-your-ground laws. think even in that like i i really am opposed to these uh stand your ground laws i think those are if you have the opportunity to avoid conflict and to avoid you are not uh you it i would prefer as

a state to require that you walk away uh even if it makes you feel embarrassed uh then give you the right to kill someone for offending you and those those videos of the of the guys and that shot the guy on his knees in the in the parking lot in the i forgot what state it was like uh not long a year or two ago they got into an altercation in the parking lot like if i have words with someone in a parking shot a guy on his knee yes there was no threat to him and he was he was not prosecuted on the stand your ground argument which is nuts why was the guy on his knees he was i forgot he said don't shoot me or something oh jesus Jesus. So it was crazy. And he didn't get prosecuted for that?

I don't think so. We can look up the facts. There were several cases. There were several cases like this. But, you know, like I remember when I was doing Shotokan Karate, my sensei, Kazumi Tabata, this was years ago, 30 years ago now. And he told us the following story he said there was a sensei in this village in Japan and the students were coming to the dojo

and there was the best student and then all the other students and they were walking through the village and they passed, they approached a horse that was on the street from the rear and it startled the horse and as the horse reared up and kicked its leg

the best student instantly did a kind of avoidance from the rear. And it startled the horse. And as the horse reared up and kicked its leg, the best student instantly did a kind of avoidance, kind of twisted his body and avoided the kick and the horse's leg went right in front of him. And all the other students were amazed at his ability. And they get to the dojo and they tell the sensei, this is my sensei telling me this story, telling all of us this story. And those students get to the dojo and they tell the sensei, this is my sensei telling me this story, telling all of us this story. And those students get to the dojo and they tell the sensei the story, marveling at the ability of this master student to deftly avoid the strike. And the sensei is very angry and they don't understand why. Why is he so angry? He said, if he were a really good student of mine, he would have walked on the other

side of the street. He would have avoided the horse altogether. So the real wisdom is to avoid avoidance of conflict in the first place. There's no reason to seek out conflict. And so on these stand your ground laws, you know, if the choice is either you just avoid the conflict, you know, someone swore at you or called you an asshole or was an unreasonable jerk, that doesn't give you or called you an asshole or was an unreasonable jerk. That doesn't give you the right to kill them.

So, anyway, I don't know how we got onto this as well. Death penalty? Oh, yeah, for crimes for murder. Exactly, exactly. So, you know, there are different gradations, yeah. Yeah, I just don't know how much of a deterrent it is locking people up i just i'm not sure i'm not really sure if that actually stops people from doing things i think it stops some people i think there have been academic research on this i just don't think there's any real rehabilitation other than personal choice i mean i think the the real rehabilitation comes from someone making a personal choice to

never be that person again. Be that way again, yes. For most of them, you're being locked up with a bunch of hardened criminals. Yes. And that's your community. But you're not suggesting we have a society in which when you commit violent acts, we do nothing. No, I'm not. No, I'm not.

No, I'm suggesting – You're struggling with this is what you're saying. Yeah, the concept of nuance. Yes. This is applied here better than anywhere else, I think. I got the impression looking at your face a moment ago when I told my sort of sweet sensei Japanese karate story that you didn't agree necessarily. No, that's a very wise way of looking at it. Yeah, don't be near a fucking horse that wants to kick you.

Very smart. Yeah, get out of there. I'm a big believer in avoiding conflict. Yeah. I'm the first guy that we should get out of here. I'm talking about physical conflict, not intellectual conflict, right? Oh, yeah, exactly out of there. I'm a big believer in avoiding conflict. Yeah. I'm the first guy that we should get out of here. I'm talking about physical conflict, not intellectual conflict, right? Oh, yeah, exactly. Physical conflict.

Words and violence are different, right? Yes. Action was a different. Extremely, extremely different. Yeah. I mean, intellectual conflict, I think, is actually important. And you learn from it. Yes.

Very rarely do you learn too much. You learn, don't do that again. That's what you learn from physical conflict. Yes. Don't do that again That's what you learn From physical conflicts Don't do that again Yes It's just You know

What happens in nature With animals Happens with people If you let them Get to that level Yes You scratch down To the

You know Remove that thin film Of society Yeah And let people Beat each other with rocks Yes We are violent

But I keep coming back To what I argue in Blueprint You know We have those tendencies But equally We have tendencies to be kind and friendly. And we have to create the environment to foster those. There's a sense in which, and I talk about this in the book, there's a sense in which as we create those environments, we actually change ourselves as a species. There's this set of ideas that's known as gene culture coevolution. And the idea is that we create certain kinds of cultural environments. Those kind of cultural environments advantage certain ones of us, making those of us

that are born with certain abilities better off, which then leads to those environments being created even more. Let me give you an example of that. The most famous example of this is something known as lactase persistence. So many people, about half the world, adults can drink milk. The other half cannot. They get lactose intolerant. Well, why can you drink milk as an adult? Have you ever thought about that? Like, why are you capable of drinking milk as an adult? as an adult. Have you ever thought about that? Like, why are you capable of drinking milk as an adult? In our ancestral state, actually up till about 10,000 years ago, only babies could to digest milk because only babies had milk. Babies would suckle at their mother's breast and have milk, and then they'd be weaned, and then they would never drink milk again.

There'd be no milk to drink. There was therefore no reason for any adult to be able to digest lactose, which is the principal sugar in milk, because there was no lactose in your diet. You didn't encounter milk. So human beings were able to digest lactose when they were babies. They lost that capacity, all human beings. When they got to about two or three or four or five when they weaned, they no longer were able to digest milk. So the enzymes in their body were programmed, as it were, to only work when they were infants. Enzymes in their body were programmed, as it were, to only work when they were infants.

Well, about between 3,000 and 9,000 years ago, in multiple places in Africa and in Europe, human beings suddenly domesticate animals. We domesticate milk-producing animals like cattle and sheep and goats and camels. And now, all of a sudden, there's a supply of milk around us. Because of our cultural innovation, because of the thing we invented, we created the domestic breeds, now we have milk. Now, therefore, those among us who are mutants, who were born with the ability to have our lactase, the enzyme that digests lactose, persist into adulthood, this is known as lactase persistence, those of us who had that would have a survival advantage because we could have another source of calories that the rest of the people in our group couldn't consume.

They couldn't drink milk like we could. And we had a source of unspoiled water during times of drought. We could drink milk. Everyone else had to drink this filthy water that they didn't have access to. So those among us who had these qualities could reproduce better, survive, had a survival advantage. It turns out that this has happened several times. This has been well-documented.

The genetics of this has all been worked out several times in the last 3,000 to 9,000 years. Because of a human cultural product, we have evolved to be a slightly different genetically. And it doesn't stop with cows. I think that when we invent cities about over 5,000 years ago, so we invent agriculture about 10,000 years ago. It's debated exactly when we invent cities, but between five and 10,000 years ago, we start having fixed settlements.

Earlier, you and I were talking about population density and having to live with other people, which is not our ancestral state, not packed, not with other people. We always lived as a group socially. I think that as we invent cities people with different kinds of brains are better able to survive in cities so now that we've invented cities we're advantaging people with certain kinds of brains and therefore i think

in a thousand or two thousand or five thousand years just like the milk example there'll be different people as a result of something we humans manufactured that we made. And I could keep giving you examples of this. In the book, I have another example of – they're called the sea nomads. They live in the Philippines. These are people who don't live on land. They live on houseboats that sail around the Pacific. For thousands of years, they've had this lifestyle. And they dive for their food.

Dive. So they forage on the seabed they are the world's best free divers they spend hours per day underwater they can hold their breath longer than anyone else uh and they they do do it nothing except with weights and wooden goggles they dive down into the seabed and forage and they hunt they hunt underwater with spears, okay? They hunt underwater with spears. It's mind-boggling. Wow. But they have evolved to have different spleens and different oxygen metabolism than you and

I. So those among them that could survive the dives fed their families, made more babies, and now we think this happened 2,000 years ago. They're different. The ones that couldn't died. So their invention of a seafaring way of life, their invention of a way of living at sea, the boat technology, the spearfishing technology, the invention of those technologies creates an environment, a cultural environment around them, which modifies natural selection and changes the kind of genes that those people have.

These are discussed in Blueprint, and there are many examples of this. I want to see an image of these goggles that they create. Yeah, if you Google their little slitted goggles. If you Google sea nomad goggle, you may come up with it. And let me give you – What are they using for a lens? There's no lens. What? Yeah, they're littleitted goggles. If you Google Sea Nomad goggle, you may come up with it. And let me give you – What are they using for a lens? There's no lens. What?

Yeah, they're little slits. So what's the point? I didn't look at the technology at that level. But if there's no lens, then it doesn't protect your eyes. I think it may reduce glare underwater by having you look through slits. It's got something on it. I can see it. Huh.

Well, no, because they didn't have glass. Or maybe they had. It's like a piece of, well, the one this kid's holding up, it's got something on it. Let me see. Well, that looks like, that's an actual. No, that's a modern thing. Modern scuba.

Yeah. I mean, it says he's holding up a wooden diving mask. Yeah, he may have made it from wood, but the ancient one. Yeah, this is the Bajau. So if you look at, so look at, can you find? That's what I'm looking for. Goggle. I mean, it'll be hard to find.

Maybe no one's put it on. And now, of course, they have modern technology, so they can. Right. They can. Those are totally modern plastic. Yes. Wow. But they used to have these wooden goggles.

Anyway, your point is that they adopted or adapted rather to this new lifestyle sort of like genetically adapted yes like the inuit have developed this ability to not get frostbite and to um not get numb fingers in cold weather i did not know that example but that would be an example of that yeah this is an example from i believe they were talking about it from alaska that they they did genetic testing on Alaska, that they did genetic testing on these people and they did a different circulation. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, that would be another example of just exactly that example.

I didn't put that one in the book, but yes. Yeah, we're incredibly flexible, right? Yes. Well, we have two kinds of flexibility. So think about like when we settled the Tibetan Plateau, when human beings settled the Tibetan Plateau, there were different challenges up there. It's cold up there and there's not a lot of oxygen up there. Now, we could, genetic evolution is not fast enough. We didn't become furry. You know, like one way to cope with the cold is to become furry again. We didn't do that. Why? Because we

had clothing. We had cultural means of coping with this situation. So for the cold, to cope with the cold, we used culture. There was no cultural means to cope with the low oxygen up there. They didn't have bottled oxygen 5,000 years ago. There was no way to produce oxygen. They didn't have the chemistry to produce oxygen. So the oxygen, to cope with the low oxygen pressure up there, low oxygen tension up there, they evolve genetically. So the people who live in the Himalayas, they actually have different kinds of hemoglobin compared to you and me, better able to extract oxygen from the environment. So there are two different challenges that are coped with in different ways. One is coped with culturally by cultural evolution.

One is coped with genetically, which is much slower with genetic evolution. And it's the cultural evolution. One is coped with genetically, which is much slower with genetic evolution. And it's the cultural evolution, it's the cultural traits that natural – so natural selection equips us with a capacity to accumulate knowledge and to teach each other stuff. And given that rare ability, as we discussed earlier, we're able to spread out across the planet and live in all these dissimilar environments. We use our cultural ability to dominate the planet, basically. Now, when you were creating this, were you actually thinking of it as a blueprint that someone would follow? Yes and no.

I wasn't thinking of it that way. But having finished the book, I do think that there are – like I don't in the book – I talk a little bit in the book about implications of these ideas for artificial intelligence. Like as we create robots, even as we create sex robots or autonomous vehicles or forms of bots online, how should those bots be programmed so as not to injure our society? So there are some policy implications I discuss in the book, but I wasn't thinking of this as a prescription, like this is the way to live a good life, but partly because, as I argue in the book, we don't need to affirmatively seek a good life. We have been endowed by natural selection with the capacity to make a good life full of these qualities. So this blueprint is, I want to use the word God-given. It doesn't come from God, but it's God-given. It comes from somewhere else. It comes from natural selection that we do this. So I, yeah.

How much time have you put into artificial intelligence? A lot. We do a lot of work in my lab on AI. What about sex robots? Like what rules should they give for sex robots? How much could that damage interpersonal relationships? Yes. That's a great question. That's exactly the right question in my view.

So our concern with sex robots from a liberty point of view should not in the slightest be whether you enjoy a sex robot. It's your business. You'd buy a robot, do what you want. I really don't – I see – I would be hard-pressed to object. The problem is with – well, let's back up from the less provocative. Let's come back to sex robots. Let's pick a simpler example first. Let's talk about your children talking to Alexa.

Okay. So the person who designs Alexa wants to make your child's experience easy and pleasant. And as part of the programming of Alexa, because they want to make Alexa the obedient servant of your child, it doesn't require your child to say, please, Alexa, would you play the music for me? Your child can be as rude as she wants to Alexa, and Alexa will do what she wants. What you should be concerned about, however, is not child's interaction with alexa what you should be concerned about is what your child is learning from interacting with alexa that then she takes to the playground so now she's rude to other children so alexa is corroding our social fabric alexa in this example is making children

rude to each other so our concern is not so much do much, do we make, you know, like Asimov's laws of robotics, it's not that we want to program the robot so that they don't harm you. It's true, the first law, we don't want the robot to, through an act of commission or omission, harm or allow a human to come to be harmed. It's that we're concerned about how the robot in interacting with you might cause you to harm others. The robot, the robotic intelligence creates these externalities, these cascade effects. So in the Alexa example, we might want to regulate the programming of devices that speak to children, not because we want to deprive your daughter of the right to speak how she wants, but because we recognize that that robot is going to cause your daughter to be rude to other people. Is it really? Do you really think that saying, Alexa, what's the weather, that that would make your child –

Slowly but surely, I think it will contribute. So it's an example. It's not like – I'm not arguing that Alexa should become ornately – I think it's so novel to kids that they know it's not a person i don't think it really all right but we're using these examples to build the thing so let's talk about the sex robots okay so some people believe that actually the the emergence of sex robots which will surely appear in the next 10 or 20 years um will um will be a fantastic boon they think that um you'll people be able to experiment people will be able to experiment. You'll be able to

experiment with same-sex relationships, for example, group sex. You might learn to be a better lover, so you could practice with the robots, and therefore you'd be more experienced when you were having sex with a real human. So you can't get venereal diseases from a sex robot. You can't hurt their feelings. So people think that the argument based on ethical grounds is that this would be terrific, that this will be a benefit. Other people have the opposite opinion. Other people think that actually having sex with robots, first of all, is symbolically and conceptually vile. They think that it takes sex

and converts it into a kind of a machine, literally a machine-like function. And they furthermore think that it would result in one having a kind of anonymous or impersonal interactions with humans subsequently, that you'll be entrained

to, let's say, want an obedient partner, for example. I don't have a stand on this. Like, I don't know which way it's going out. And in a way, I don't have to make a stand on it because what I'm interested in recognizing is that when we talk about allowing people to have sex with sex robots, not allowing that it's going to happen, the focus of our concern should be not what is your experience in your bedroom when you have sex with a sex robot.

Our concern is a state, like my interest, I have no stake or control over what you're doing over there. But my interest is in once you have had that experience, how does that change how you interact with other people? And there, I think, just like anything else, you can make all the garbage you want in your house, but if you start polluting the environment, you're harming me. So now I have a reason for intervening in your activities on your land. You can't pollute your own land if that pollution runs off onto my land.

And so the similar argument can be made. Or look at autonomous vehicles. Here's an example. Right now we have all roads, almost all roads have just human drivers. And in 20 or 30 years, almost all roads will probably have only non-human drivers. Machines will drive. And those autonomous vehicles probably can be yoked together. They can communicate with each other so that you'll have like trains of cars moving in synchrony, like each of them will be communicating with the other nearby cars, and you'll have laminar flow where all these vehicles are smoothly moving and joining the highway and leaving the highway and communicating on a citywide scale, slowing traffic down miles away because they anticipate with AI that there'll be a jam here if they don't do that. And I think that'll be actually great. I'm actually looking forward to autonomous. I mean,

I still like to take my car to a speedway, but, you know, drive it itself with stick, which I like. But in between, we're going to have a world of what I call hybrid systems of human-driven cars and autonomous vehicles coexisting on a plane, on an even plane. And we need to be worried about that because these autonomous vehicles, when we interact with them, are going to change how we interact with each other. For example, do we program the autonomous vehicle to drive at a constant steady speed? If you're the designer of the car, you might say, gee, I don't want this car to crash. I want the car to drive in a very predictable fashion. And that's what's best for the occupants of the car. That's what's going to allow me to sell more vehicles. But it may be the case that actually

when people are in contact with such a vehicle, they get lulled into a false sense of security. Oh, that vehicle never does anything new. I don't need to pay so much attention to the car in front of me. I just drive at a steady clip. And then they veer off and they go to a part of the highway where they're just human drivers. And now having been lulled into a false sense of security, they cause more collisions. He's not paying attention. So that autonomous vehicle has changed how I drive in a way that harms other people. So maybe the programming of the vehicle should be to occasionally do erratic things, to like suddenly slow down or speed up a little bit, obliging me to stay vigilant and pay attention as I'm interacting with that car,

so that then when I go to another part of the highway, when I interact with just humans, I have retained that vigilance. Once again, the lesson here is that it's not just about the one-on-one interaction between the robotic artificial intelligence and the human being. It's about how the robots affect us. And in my lab, we do many experiments in social systems where we take a group of people and we drop online, we drop a bot, or in the laboratory, we have a physical robot, and we watch how the presence of the robot doesn't just modify how the human interacts with the robot, but how the humans interact with each other. So if we put a robot right there looking at us with its third eye, would it change how you and I talk to each other, make us different?

That's the experiments we're doing. Well, clearly in the sex robot realm, that's going to be a problem. I mean, we see the difference between humans that have porn addictions. Yeah, that's going to be a problem i mean we we see the difference between humans that uh have porn addictions yeah that's a good example porn addictions when people do they develop this very impersonal way of communicating with people and they they think about sex and the objectification of the opposite sex in a very different reason a very different way it flavors the way you it flavors your expectations yes yes and it makes it difficult it can make it difficult for you to have normal sexual relationships if you come to

see if if your expectations are are uh guided by uh porn and that is going to be radically magnified by some sort of artificial life form that you create that's indistinguishable. If you can have an indistinguishable sex partner that is some incredibly beautiful woman that is a robot and then you – Or man. Or man, sure. Many women would be quite happy to change their spouses for robots. I wonder if women are going to be as into it as men because i think women divide desire more emotional intimacy than i think i mean on on a scale than men do i i think um i think the jury's still out

on what what the relative balance between men and women we might be surprised that uh that will be replaced with male especially given societal expectations and women conform to those. And also given how a pain in the ass a lot of men can be. Sure. So it could go both ways. I'm not prepared to make a prediction who's going to be better off in the gender debate with the emergence of sex robots. It may be the way you suggest.

I don't know. Well, we're also in this weird transition genetically where they're doing genetic experiments on humans and with the advent of crisper and emerging technologies i talked about that in the book too entirely possible that there's not going to be any frumpy bodies anymore that that's hundreds of years away but yes yes i think so i wonder i mean i don't know if it is i think if they start cracking them out in china and they start giving birth to eight-foot-tall supermen. Yes. 12-inch dicks. Yes.

We're going to have a real issue. Yes. Yes, we will. Yes, that's the least of it. Yes. Oh, my God. But, I mean, it's really entirely possible that in the future they're going to have that, that we're going to have perfect humans. Yes, I think that is likely.

The debate is how far in the future. So I don't think we're going to start by using these technologies to cure monogenic diseases. So, you know, like thalassemia, for example. So diseases or certain immune deficiencies, a disease where a single gene is defective and those will be the initial targets. But once we start with that,

eventually I think there will be people who will want to genetically engineer other people, their offspring, for example, and modify them in the ways that you suggest. Maybe not 12-inch dicks, but maybe, you know, ability to run fast or something else. Sure, far smarter. I mean, isn't that one of the side effects that they showed with the genetic manipulation of these Chinese babies to eliminate HIV, that they made them smarter? No, I don't know if they made them smarter. What's clear from the most recent findings I've seen from that case is that unsurprisingly, as anyone could predict, the technology is not good enough to restrict the mutations

to one particular region of the genome. So there were other changes in the genome in these children that occurred elsewhere rather than the targeted region, which was to increase their immunity to HIV. And we don't know what those are. Those could kill those kids quickly. We could make them better in some ways. We have no way of knowing yet. But I think the conclusion was that it increased their intelligence.

I don't – I think it's – I have not seen those results and I think it would be premature. Find that. It would be premature to come to that conclusion. They're babies still. Yeah, the problem is also sensationalist clickbait, which is that's what you want to click. Not just that they did the HIV, and they made them smarter. It's going to get like 40% more clicks. Yes.

Like, ooh. Versus, you know. Yeah, ooh, 40%. Yeah. I mean, that's just the nature of humans, right? Yes. Just to be clear, I talk about the CRISPR example in Blueprint. I actually talk about how these technologies – again, my lens on it is how these technologies are going to change how we interact with each other.

And it goes back to the example we were talking about at the beginning. When we invented cities, that was a technology that changed how we interacted with each other. that was a technology that changed how we interacted with each other. So human beings for a very long time have been inventing, when we invented weapons, that was a technology that changed how we interact with each other. So we have previously done this kind of thing. We've invented a technology that changed how we interact with each other, and I'm very interested in and discuss some of those implications.

Yeah, I'm incredibly interested in this because I love to study history, and I love to study how crazy the world was 4,000, 5,000 years ago, 1,000 years ago, and what it's going to be like in the future. I just think our understanding of the consequences of our actions are so different than anybody has ever had before. just such a broader first of all we have examples from all over the world now that we can study very closely which i don't think really was available to that many people up until fairly recently you mean i'm sorry you're saying the examples are more numerous or a capacity to discern them is higher our capacity to discern them and just our in-depth understanding of these various cultures all over the world like like what you've been telling me today about these the divers and others we just have so much more data yes and so much more of an understanding than ever before yes i i love the idea that we are i mean i believe that this is probably the best time ever to be alive and i think that it's probably i think

that's true i think there's certainly a lot of terrible things that are wrong in the world today also true but i i think that there's less of that and more good i agree with that too before no i think that's right and but one of the arguments that i make is this is a kind of steven pinker argument that you're outlining which is you know with the emergence of i mean people are living longer than they ever have on the whole planet, fewer people in starvation, we have less violence. I mean, every indicator of human well-being is up. Yes. And it's partly due or largely due in the recent last thousand years to the emergence of the Enlightenment and the philosophy and the science that was guided that emerged about 300 years ago and 200 and some odd years ago and culminating in the present and continuing.

So, I think this is not just a kind of so-called Whiggish view of history. It's not just a progressive sort of fantasy. I think it's the case that these philosophical and scientific moves that our species made in the last few hundred years has improved our well-being. that our species made in the last few hundred years has improved our well-being. However, as we've been discussing today, it's not just historical forces that are tending towards making us better off. A deeper and more ancient and more powerful force is also at work, which is natural selection. It's evolutionary and not just historical forces that are relevant to our well-being. And we don't just need to look to philosophers to find the path to a good life. Natural selection has equipped us with these capacities for love and friendship and cooperation and teaching and all these good things we've been

discussing that also tend to a good life. So yes, I totally agree with you. We're better off today than we've ever been on average across the world. However, it's not just that that's contributing to our well-being. This natural selection is literally why we are in this state now and why we were hoping this trend will continue and we will be in this better place 50 years from now, 100 years from now. Well, natural selection doesn't work over those timescales, so those are historical forces. But the point is we are set up for success. We you know we are equipped with these uh you know you're given five fingers which make it possible and an opposable thumb which allows you to manipulate tools so natural selection has given you an opposable thumb culture lets you use a computer do you worry about the circumventing

of this natural process by artificial intelligence, that artificial intelligence is going to introduce some new, incredibly powerful factor into this whole chain of events, that by having sex robots and sex or robot workers, things becoming automated. I'm concerned. I mean, this is – I think this is – Well, I'm very concerned about how technology is going to affect our economy. Again, these concerns were not the first generation to face these concerns. There were similar concerns with the Industrial Revolution that workers were being put out of work when machines were invented.

Nevertheless, work persisted. People still had jobs to do. There was a disruption. There's no doubt about it. I think Google and the information revolution and these types of robotic automation are disruptive. They're going to affect how we allocate labor and capital and data in our society. There's no doubt about all of that. I thought you were alluding to, just to check if you were, to the debate, which I don't know the answer to, on whether AI will, you you know are we going to face like a

terminator type existence where you know the machines rise up and kill us all or not and you know very smart people are on both sides of that debate and i read them all and like i would like he's right and then i read the guy that has the opposite opinion i'm like no no he's right and then it goes back and forth i don't know who's right what goes back to nuance right yes it is nuanced but it's hard to know whether and again we're not talking over our lifetimes. We're talking over hundreds of years. Is there a time a thousand years from now when the human beings will say, what the hell were our ancestors doing inventing artificial intelligence? They're wiping us out.

I don't know the answer to that question. Well, I think there's an issue also with the concept of artificial, like artificial life, artificial intelligence. I think it's going to be a life. It's just going to be a life that we've created. And I don't think it's artificial. I just think it's a different kind of life. I think that we're thinking of biologically based life of sex, reproduction in terms of the way We've always known it As being the only way That life exists

But If we can create something And that something Decides to do things It decides to recreate Wipe us out And live on its own Yeah

It's silicone based life form Like why not Why does life Have to be something That only exists Through the You know Multiplication of cells

Yes That's very charitable of you. And people make that claim. Some people think that those machines in the distant future will look back at us as like one stage of evolution that culminated in them. That we're some, I've always said that we are some sort of an electronic caterpillar that doesn't know that it's going to give birth to a butterfly. We're making a cocoon,

and we don't even know what we're doing. That's a great metaphor. I have a hard time accepting that. Because you're a person. Yes. It's against my interests. But we're so flawed. All these things that we've outlined,

all the problems with us, those will go away with artificial intelligence. This is a deep philosophical question, Joe. I think it's inevitable, and I think if the single-celled organisms are sitting around wondering what the future would going to be like, well, are we going to be replaced? Will they make antibiotics and kill us?

Yes. Yes, they are going to make antibiotics and kill us. I mean, this is, I mean, we are so flawed. We do pollute the ocean. We do pull the fish out of it. We do fuck up the air. We do commit genocide. There's all these things that are real, but the artificial life won't have those problems

because it won't be emotionally based. It't be biologically based it'll just exist that's a really good uh story we're so flawed why not no we're not something so much better oh we're very flawed we are flawed but like i said we have a beauty i'm not we're very flawed though we are flawed i think it's beauty beautiful too But I think vultures Probably think they're beautiful too That's why they breed with each other Well they are beautiful But the point is I think we have a flawed beauty

I'm going to stick to my principles That we are Despite our flaws Worth it There is something wonderful about us And I think that Wonderful Creative quality

Is the reason why We created artificial life In the first place It's like this Lust for creation. We've had that impetus. If you look at a lot of the art, whether it's the Egyptian, the pyramids, or other kinds of artistic expression, we seem to have had a desire to transcend death, to make things

that looked like us but weren't alive forever, actually. So, I mean, I think in that regard, I think you're quite right that it's not going to stop. That tendency is not going to stop. Now, your very, as I said, charitable, positive take on the claim and your analogy to single-celled organisms, which were just, you know, but a fleeting, not a fleeting, they're still there, but a phase in our evolution, you know, is something I'm going to have to be thinking about because it's disturbing, honestly. Well, it's an objective perspective if I took myself out of the human race, which I really can't. But if I tried to fake it, I would say, oh, I see what's going on here. Yeah.

We're just in a phase, yes. These dummies are buying iPhones and new MacBooks because they know that this is what's going to help the production of newer, more superior technology. The more we consume, it's also based, I think, in a lot of ways, our insane desire for materialism is fueling this. Yes. And it could be an inherent property of the human species that it is designed to create this artificial life and that literally is what it's here for and much like an ant is creating an ant hill and doesn't exactly have some sort of a future plan for its kids and its 401k plan that what we're doing is like this inherent property of being a human being. Our curiosity, our wanderlust, our desire. Our culture. All these things.

Yeah, all these things are built in because if you follow them far enough down the line, 100 years, 200 years, it inevitably leads to artificial life. Yes. I think that's possible. And of course, we're not going to be alive to test that idea.

Maybe we will. Maybe with CRISPR and all this crazy shit that's coming down the line. No, no. Come on, Joe. You don't think so? No. Nothing's going to happen. The pace of innovation.

People always have been saying, if you go back every decade, people are saying, just around the corner, just around the corner. These things take forever. They're very hard. Biological systems are very hard to engineer. And, of course, the people who do that kind of work will often, I think a lot of them engage in snake oil. They want to fund their research. Sure, but I think it's entirely possible that there's a 20-year-old listening to this podcast right now. Who will be 150.

Yes, that's possible. Maybe a lot more than that. I think it's entirely possible that 30-year-olds today could be 150. But I think there's – you give another 10 years of research, you give maybe 10 years more, I think it's entirely possible. Well, there's a famous bet about this. You may know, like the Olshansky-Alstead bet. Yeah, I heard about that. Yes, where they bet that about 10 or 20 years ago, they bet that there was a person born that year who would live to be 150.

And on one side, you had one guy who said no. They bet a billion dollars, and they endowed it with – they opened up a bank account. They put in – they're using compound interest to get to that sum of money. And they obliged – Fucking nerds. Yes. And they obliged their – What a great bet.

Yes. And they designated the National Academy of Sciences or some entity like that that would adjudicate the bet in 150 years. And then they specified the kinds of documentation that might be needed and they allowed for in the future, there may be other ways of ascertaining how old someone is and those can be used. And that's the bet. So you might be right about that. There are humans that live naturally to be 120.

We have that capacity. Actually, here's an interesting idea. Why do we die at all? Why has natural selection never given us an immortal species have you ever thought about that yeah yeah i have i have never reached a conclusion but i always figured you live long enough well especially up until recent history Only long enough to recognize it was all crazy hustle. That's a more philosophical, I'm looking for a scientific answer. Here's one answer for why we're not immortal. Okay. So if you think about it, why would natural selection not have created a creature that lived forever?

Right. Wouldn't that be, why should we die? Yeah. Okay, so here's the one answer. It's not known for sure if this is the answer, but this is a good answer. Imagine there are two different kinds of things that can kill you, intrinsic causes and extrinsic causes. So things inside your body that result in you dying, defects, diseases, and so forth, or things outside your body like accidents, lightning strikes, trees fall, and you just die, and so forth. your body, like accidents, lightning strikes, trees fall and you just die and so forth. Because it's impossible to eliminate all extrinsic causes, because some people are going to die from accidents, it would be inefficient from the point of view of evolution

to evolve to be immortal. Because we would have all this capacity to be immortal, we would have these bodies capable of immortality, which let's say would be evolutionarily demanding, like to evolve anything like an eye or a brain or strong, any quality, lactase, right? Like we talked about earlier, you don't have lactase persistence into adulthood because it's not needed. So evolution doesn't waste anything. There'd be no reason for that. So there would be no reason, the argument goes, to evolve immortality because inevitably

some people would be killed eventually by accidents anyway. So, unless you can create a world in which there are no accidents, there are no extrinsic causes of death, it would be inefficient from an evolutionary point of view to evolve immortality. It would be inefficient from an evolutionary point of view to evolve immortality. So death, the reason we die naturally, some people think, is that the reason we die naturally is that there killed by trees falling or lightning strikes or things like that, then actually over time we would evolve to live indefinitely. This is the theory. It's a crazy idea.

It is fascinating, but do you think that nature had that sort of foresight? Well, it's not a foresight, but that's how natural selection works. Think about, like, if I suddenly magically transformed your body at great expense to make you capable of immortality, and then two days from now you're hit by a bus, I've wasted all that effort.

But if you've only done it to one person, you wasted that effort. If you did it to other people, you have the potential to create an incredibly wise person with a thousand years of life and experience and education and learning. Yeah, but he also would die.

He also would die. So everyone eventually would die from these extrinsic causes. Perhaps. Well, no, that's the assumption in the model. Yeah. If it's not perhaps, if in fact there are no extrinsic, if in fact there is a world in which you're never struck by lightning, never hit by a bus, never a tree branch. Right. Then the theory is that we

would have evolved to be immortal. So it's almost like the life that you live, you're inevitably going to get killed by extrinsic causes. Yes. And if you extend that life to a thousand years, then it's absolutely going to happen. Yes. Therefore, why bother? That's just living in a bubble, just terrified of the world falling rocks landing on your

head. Yeah, but you can't take this theory and this model and apply it to an individual and an individual life. It's about how our species evolved. It's not about how you should live your life. I mean, it's also true. I don't think you should live your life afraid. I think that's a difficult, I think that's a sad life to live a life afraid.

It takes practice to be unafraid. I wonder if you'd be more afraid if you could live a thousand years without an accident you know because if like if you're one of those crazy rock climber dudes like alex honnold yeah and he's crazy he's crazy i love him though he's totally have you talked have you met him yeah i've had him on a couple times oh my god he's awesome i'm sure he is you know his amygdala of course his amygdala is fucked up you know this right like he has no fear no he does have fear. You're wrong. Oh, really? He absolutely has fear.

He just understands his capacity and his ability. You think he's rashly says, I can do this, therefore I should not be afraid? Because I read that he scanned his brain and that his fear centers are different than the rest of us is what I read. Maybe that's wrong. I don't know. Did he tell you? He didn't say anything about that. No, I think he's just freakish.

I don't know about that oh i think he's just i don't know about that man he said basically that the experience he just stays mellow and calm and then if things go wrong it's really bad like like you don't want to be freaking out yes like it's like cave divers yeah you don't panic when you're underwater and right you lose your way right there was it consumes oxygen a lot amazing story that my friend donald serronrone He's a UFC fighter Told about being trapped In a cave And just barely getting out

When it was running Out of oxygen Yeah Horrible Crazy Scary story And you have to Those guys are also different

Either they're born that way Or they learn to be that way You have to keep calm Because when you and I Lose our cool And start hyperventilating Yeah Our oxygen consumption skyrockets.

Right. And that's the opposite of what you need to do in that situation. That's actually what he talked about. Yeah. You know, like trying to stay calm and battling the demons. Yes. I'm not going to die like this. Yes.

Yeah. What an incredible story. Yeah. The Alex Honnold thing. Here's something. I watched the movie. What did it say? He got an MRI and they said that.

Here's a quote. What did it say? Yeah. His amygdala is different movie. What did it say? He got an MRI and they said that. Here's a quote. What did it say? His amygdala is different. But what did it say? How did it say it? The kid's amygdala isn't firing. Yes. Okay.

But isn't that possible that that's just through development of constant practice of staying calm while you're in life-threatening situations? It's possible. I would like to see fighters' brains measured in that regard. I would like to see soldiers, special forces guys. Yes, I think that's possible. I would like to see fighters' brains measured in that regard. I would like to see soldiers, special forces guys. Yes, I think that's right. And the guys, the special forces guys, it's like the capacity to shoot back when you're being shot at, keeping your calm, moving positions, and so forth. Those are all very important abilities, not panicking.

And it is also the case that some people, for example, the most famous study in this regard was a study of London taxi drivers. London taxi drivers can go from any point in the city to any other point in the city. It's called the knowledge. They have a mental map of the whole city and it's freakish. It takes years to be able to know how to navigate the city with the thousands of names, tens of thousands of street names, and they can do it by like dead reckoning. There are thousands of – tens of thousands of street names, and they can do it by like dead reckoning. They scanned – this was a paper about 10 years ago. They brain scanned these guys, and they had – I forgot which region of the brain, but they had, through learning, it is felt, modified that region of their brain.

So it's possible Holland is like you say, that he learned to be this way, that his amygdala isn't firing because he trained himself. But I think – Honnold. Honnold. Honnold. I'm sorry. Honnold is this way because he learned this way, that his amygdala isn't firing because he trained himself. But I think – Honnold. Honnold. Honnold. I'm sorry. Honnold is this way because he learned this way. But it's more likely, I think, that he's like Usain Bolt that was born with incredibly high preponderance of fast twitch fibers in his legs so he can run like the wind. And he trains as well.

You have both, right? Good athletes require both. Innate ability plus training. Yes. And I think Honnold is probably like that. He's probably born with an amygdala. It doesn't fire so much. And he's an amazing climber.

It's purely speculative, right? And also the nature versus nurture would apply to chess players as well. I would like to see their brain scanned, like Gary Kasparov. I know Gary, yes. I would love to see that guy's brain scanned. Yes. Yeah, he's see that guy's brain scanned. Yes, yeah. He's an interesting guy. What? I'll say the article goes way more into depth

than what I just showed you about just that sentence. She's the doctor who studied him. It specifically looks at people that go under high stress and look for those kinds of things. She's been doing that since 2005, I guess. And she goes, it's pages long, this whole thing about his brain. But it is unusual. But it also, the amount of time.

Think about people that are in high stress. High stress is one thing. This kid is in a life-threatening, absolute fatality situation. Yes, mistake is death. Every day. I know. All day. I know.

I mean, he lives in a van and just climbs yes that's what he does it's really fascinating yes it is it is it's amazing honestly it's amazing so i mean i don't know i'd never met him i admire him very much and i love this like we said at the beginning it's very important to have skills yeah of any kind so his skills are amazing uh admire musical skills and carpentry skills and martial arts skills and statistical skills and medical skills. I admire skills. I think it's – and it's worth cultivating. Yeah.

And it's worth cultivating those skills. Well, you find out more about yourself through acquiring these skills and knowledge and information and just abilities. Yes. You learn. And you also learn about how to acquire skills. Yes. Yes. I think that's right.

And I think it's also a kind of – you also find oftentimes that the practice of acquiring a skill teaches you other things that can then be used in other areas. Yes. learn the violin or to learn Chinese, for example, or whatever, some effort, that self-discipline then can be translated into something that you're not so good at, but it's still useful to have that. Pete That's the Miyamoto Musashi quote from the Book of Five Rings. Once you know the way broadly, you see it in all things. Pete Yes.

Pete Yeah. Pete That's very good. Pete Yeah. Pete I remember, my mind is flashing back to when we were talking about immortality. Do you remember that scene at Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings when they're protecting the castle and the elves come and help the humans? Do you know the movie? You probably know the movie. And I was always very sad when these elves were killed because if they hadn't been killed by extrinsic forces, they would have lived a long time.

They would have been immortal. So it's like an especially sad loss. Anyway, I had wanted to mention that earlier when we were talking about that thing. So no, what was the saying again you just said about- Once you know the way broadly, you'll see it in all things.

Yes, that's right. Yeah. It was just about acquiring excellence in something. Yes. And that you understand what it takes to acquire excellence in something. Yes. And you can apply that to other things as well. It's the same process. Yes. Thank you so much so much for having me i've been really grateful thanks man thank you so much bye everybody