#167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power

Saagar Enjeti is a DC-based political correspondent and podcaster. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – The Jordan Harbinger Show: https://jordanharbinger.com/lex/ – Grammarly: https://grammarly.com/lex to get 20% off premium – Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex and use code LEX to get special savings – Magic Spoon: https://magicspoon.com/lex and use code LEX to get $5 off EPISODE LINKS: Saagar’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/esaagar Realignment Podcast: https://linktr.ee/esaagar PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LexFridmanPage – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (10:19) – Hitler (14:39) – Evil (15:58) – Donald Trump (26:29) – Teddy Roosevelt (31:51) – Nazi Germany (36:47) – The balance of power in US government (40:43) – Bureaucracy (49:17) – Money (51:32) – UFOs (55:36) – Jeffrey Epstein (1:08:57) – Left and Right (1:19:40) – How to fix politics (1:45:07) – Political predictions (1:58:21) – Journalism (2:09:16) – Joe Rogan (2:16:43) – Lyndon Johnson (2:18:02) – World War I (2:22:53) – Dan Carlin (2:29:47) – How Stalin came to power (2:35:15) – Putin (2:41:25) – Lenin and Stalin (2:44:55) – Book recommendations (2:52:23) – Antarctica and Mars (2:59:37) – Born to Run (3:02:05) – Texas

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  The following is a conversation with Sagar Anjedi. He is a DC-based political correspondent, host of The Rising with Crystal Ball, and host of the Realignment podcast with Marshall Kosloff. He has interviewed Donald Trump four times and has interviewed a lot of major political figures and human beings who wield power. He loves policy and loves history, which makes him a great person to sail through the sometimes stormy waters of political discourse. He showed up to this conversation with a gift of the second volume of Ian Kershaw's biography on Hitler, a two-volume set that is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest, if not

• 0:44Lex Fridman?

  the greatest, most definitive studies of Hitler. Nothing wins my heart faster on a first meeting or a first date than a great book about the darkest aspects of human nature and human history. I think I started saying that as a joke, but actually there's probably a lot of truth to it. I love it when we skip the small talk and go straight to the in-depth conversation about the best and worst of human nature. Quick mention of our sponsors: Jordan Harbinger Show, Grammarly Grammar Assistant, Eight Sleep Self-Cooling Bed, and Magic Spoon Low Carb Cereal. Click the sponsor links to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that for better or for worse, I would like to avoid the trap

• 1:27Lex Fridman?

  of surface political bickering of the day. I do find politics fascinating, but not the talking points produced by the industrial engagement complex of red versus blue division. Instead, I'm fascinated by human beings who seek power and how power changes them. I don't have a political affiliation, and my ideas, at least I hope so, are defined more by curiosity and learning in the face of uncertainty and less by the echo chambers who tell me what I'm supposed to think. I'm constantly evolving, learning, and doing my best to do so without ego and with empathy. Please be patient with me. As far as I'm aware, I do not have any derangement syndromes, nor do I get a medical prescription

• 2:11Lex Fridman?

  of blue, red, white, or black pills. If I say something, I say it because I'm genuinely thinking and struggling with the ideas. I have no agenda, just a bit of a hope to add more love to the world. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, support it on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Fridman. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle. I'm trying to have more fun with these. Yes, I know, I'm not exactly the epitome of fun. So hopefully, if you're stuck in a prison cell, listening to these ads, they're at least interesting, but I do give you timestamps you can skip.

• 2:52Lex Fridman?

  If you do skip, please still check out the sponsors, click the links, buy all their stuff. It really is the best way to support this podcast. This episode is sponsored by the Jordan Harbinger Show. Go to jordanharbinger.com/lex, subscribe to it, listen, you won't regret it. He's a great interviewer and I especially like his Feedback Fridays episodes, where his combination of fearlessness and thoughtfulness is especially on display, touching topics of sex, corruption, mental disorder, hate, love, and everything in between. Speaking of the controversial topics, I am a little bit feeling the burden of three-hour conversations in the sense that I'm trying to articulate difficult ideas,

• 3:36Lex Fridman?

  some of which I've not thoroughly thought through, some of which are simply just devil's advocate and almost just like tossing up ideas to see how they feel when they kind of exit my mind and exit my mouth. But the result is it can generate some kind of ridiculous rants, I think, or if you take it out of context, or even in context, it can generate things that just are patently untrue. And I struggle with this because it's very difficult for me to go back and then correct myself unless it's an obvious huge error. There could be small errors. That does weigh on me, but I don't think I'm able to shirk away from that. So I have to pay the cost of making mistakes and to the best of my ability,

• 4:19Lex Fridman?

  apologize and correct myself and so on and keep moving forward, but not pretend like just because it's three, four hours of conversation, I get a free sort of pass to say anything I want. I do try to speak with care, with rigor, even about controversial topics. Again, not afraid to bring anything up, but want to carry the responsibility of my words. Anyway, go to jordanharbinger.com/lex. That's how he knows I sent you. That's jordanharbinger.com/lex.

• 4:51Lex Fridman?

  This show is sponsored by Grammarly, a writing assistant tool that checks spelling, grammar, sentence, structure, and readability. Grammarly Premium, the version you pay for, and the version I desperately hope you sign up for, offers a bunch of extra features. My favorite is the clarity check, which helps detect rambling chaos like this very conversation here that many of us can descend into. I think all the different tools that Grammarly provides challenge your writing in exactly the right way it should be challenged. All of us have different styles, but for me, at the end of the day, I think simplicity is beautiful. I really try to strive for simplicity. I'm working on a couple of research papers, and even there, even in technical writing, I feel that there's a

• 5:36Lex Fridman?

  responsibility to be articulate and simple. Big, complicated, technical words should only be used when they are the most effective way to convey a specific concept. Any simpler word would result in an oversimplification that would alter the meaning. But I find the challenge of sort of asking myself, how can I say this simply that a lot of people could understand, is a really useful challenge for even the most complicated ideas. So, that's true for like regular writing, that's true for like tweeting and writing emails, but it's also true for technical writing. And perhaps if I actually have anything interesting

• 6:17Lex Fridman?

  to say in a book form one day, I'll be able to express in book form. Anyway, Grammarly's available basically on any platform and major sites and apps like Gmail and Twitter and so on. Get 20% off Grammarly Premium by signing up at grammarly.com/lex. That's 20% off at grammarly.com/lex. This episode is also sponsored by Asleep and its Pod Pro mattress. It controls temperature with an app, is packed with sensors, and can cool down to as low as 55 degrees on each side of the bed separately. It can also heat up to some ridiculous amount, but I'm definitely one of the people that likes it cold when I sleep. And there's science to it. Listen to my

• 7:00Lex Fridman?

  Chat with Andrew Huberman about sleep, or actually just listen to Andrew's podcast, which is quite incredible. I recommend it highly. It's called the Huberman Lab Podcast. But anyway, there's science for cold being good for sleep. And that's definitely something anecdotally I could confirm. I've been really enjoying the cold bed surface with a warm blanket, both for power naps and just like a full night's sleep. It's heaven. They have a Pod Pro cover, so you can just add that to your mattress without having to buy theirs. But their mattress is pretty nice, I gotta say. I can track a bunch of metrics like heart rate variability, but cooling alone is worth the money. Go to eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings. That's eightsleep.com/lex.

• 7:46Lex Fridman?

  This episode is also sponsored by Magic Spoon, low carb keto-friendly cereal. It has zero sugar, 11 grams of protein, and only three net grams of carbs. They have a new limited edition flavor this month, Cookies and Cream and Maple Waffle. My favorite flavor is cocoa, as I don't seem to shut up about, but these sound pretty good, so I'll try them out. It's kind of exciting to see the innovation that's delivered by Magic Spoon in cereal form. It's kind of tragic to think about my diet in high school when I was wrestling, to think that I was eating cereal with all that sugar.

• 8:24Lex Fridman?

  And then coupling that with like starving myself to make weight, going down to, I think I started 112, then 119, 125, then I think up to 145. But I just remember not understanding diet. I think there was two problems. So one problem is the communication, understanding of basic nutrition science, which is not, maybe at least in my circles, was not effectively communicated. And at the same time, the nutrition side, the food side of things was not catching up to what is healthy. So I think Magic Spoon is actually a nice combination of these two fields catching up to what's actually good for society. So one, the nutrition science has been a lot of exciting developments. And two, on the food science, like the engineering, the

• 9:10Lex Fridman?

  Foods that are able to deliver on the nutrition science. That's really exciting. And Magic Spoon, obviously, with like low carb cereal is an implementation of that. So it allows me to be healthy while still experiencing that like joy of childhood, which cereal represents while I'm supposedly an adult. Anyway, Magic Spoon has a 100% happiness guarantee. So if you don't like it, they refund it. 100 happiness guarantee, I think, is something even Dostoevsky, Sartre and Camus would get behind. So go to magicspoon.com/lex and use code Lex at checkout to save five bucks off your order this month.

• 9:52Lex Fridman?

  That's magicspoon.com/lex and use code Lex. And now here's my conversation with Sagar Andjetti.

• 10:19Lex Fridman?

  There's no better gifts in this world than a book about Hitler. So thank you so much. I've gotten a gift when I was, we were just talking about flying. The watch from Joe Rogan, and this almost beats it. So, uh, so tell me what this particular book on Hitler is. So this is volume two.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Yes. So this is Ian Kershaw. He wrote the famous two volume on Hitler. I'm a big book nerd and I spend a lot of time reading biographies in particular. So this one, if you need a one volume, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, right? I think you talked about that, William Shire, because that's like Hitler's rise, Nazi Germany, the war, et cetera. But I like bios because it's the, a good biography is story of the times, right? And so this one, the first volume, it does exactly that, which is that it doesn't just tell the story of Hitler. It's the context of poor, you know, this kid in Austria, and he's got all these dreams, but then. Actually, pretty courageous in terms of World War I, right? Gets pinned a medal on by the Kaiser.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  And then what it's like to have to lose World War I and actually like lose this stain. And then the rise within, everybody knows that story, the Beer Hall Putsch and all of that. This one I like, and the reason I like Kershaw is obviously, number one, it's English, which is actually hard, right? Like, in order to write that story, who can do both the primary source material and then translate it for people like us? But he tells the dynamic story of Hitler so well in this second volume, just like the level of detail. And you've talked about this, Lex, like, what was it like inside that room, inside with Chamberlain? Like, what was it like in terms of who was this like magnetic madman who did convince the smartest people in the world at the time?

• 12:03Speaker 01

  And, you know, up until like 1940, the Soviet gamble, like, was it, it took tremendous risks, but like, highly calculated, thinking, no, no, no, I'm not gonna pay for this one. I'm not gonna pay for this one. And it put himself, he had a remarkable ability, not just to put himself in the minds of the German people, but in terms of his adversaries, like with when he was across from Mussolini. Calculated, he's like, how exactly did Mussolini, the guy who created fascism, becomes like second fiddle to Hitler? Think it's an amazing bio. And, yeah, like Ian Kershaw, along with Richard Evans, two of my favorite authors on the Third Reich, no question.

• 12:39Lex Fridman?

  Do you think he was born this way, that charisma, whatever that is? Or was it something he developed strategically? That's like the question you apply to some of the great leaders. Was he just a madman who had the instinct to be able to control people when in the room together with them? Or is this like, he worked at it?

• 12:56Speaker 01

  I think he worked at it. And but, but also, there is an innate quality. I'm forgetting his name, his lifelong, Rudolph, the one who flew to Berlin in like 1940. I forget his name. Anyway, so he, he helped Hitler write Mein Kampf. And he was like slavishly devoted to him, in prison. This is 1925 or something like that. And so you read that and you're like, well, how does he get this like crank wacko to basically believe he's like the second coming, help him write? This book, I mean, literally, they lived together in the prison cell and they would wake up every day. And as he was composing Mein Kampf and because of the Beer Hall Putsch and all that had this like absolute ability to gather people around him. I think his greatest skill was is he was just a very good politician, truly.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  I mean, if you look at his ability in order to read coalitional politics and then convince exactly the right people in order to follow him. I think I heard you ask this once and I've thought about it a lot, which is like, who could have stopped Hitler in Germany? Right? It's always like the ever present question. Of course, like the whole baby Hitler thing. Really, the answer is Hindenburg. Like Hindenburg was the person who could have stopped and had the immense standing within the German public. The only, you know, real like war hero definitely was personally skeptical of fascism and Nazism.

• 14:13Lex Fridman?

  And didn't like Hitler.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  And didn't like him and he knew he was full of shit. He was like, yeah, I think this guy is dangerous. I think this guy could do a lot of damage to the Republic, but he acceded basically to Hitler at the time. And I think that he was men of the main people who could have done something about it.

• 14:28Lex Fridman?

  And also he was able to convince the generals and military. I mean, that was, that was very interesting. And to convince Chamberlain and just the other political leaders. There's, that's something I often think about because we're just reading books about these people. I think about with like Jeffrey Epstein, for example.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:48Lex Fridman?

  Like evil people, not evil, but people have done evil things. Let's not go to the Dan Carlin thing of what is evil?

• 14:58Lex Fridman?

  People that do evil things, I wonder what they are like in a room because I know quite a lot of intelligent people that were, um, did not see, uh, did not see the evil in Jeffrey Epstein and spend time with him and not were not bothered by it. In the same sense, Hitler, it seems like he was able to get just even on a, before he would had power, because people get intoxicated by power and so on. They want to be close to power, but even before he had power, he was able to convince people. And it's unclear, like, is there something that's more than words?

• 15:37Lex Fridman?

  It's like the way you, I mean, that people talk, tell stories about like this piercing look and whatever, all that kind of stuff. I wonder if that, if that's somehow a part of it. Like, that has to be the base floor of any of these charismatic leaders. You have to be able to, in a room alone, be able to convince anybody of anything.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  So I can tell you, from my personal experience, one of the best educated lessons I got was when I got to meet Trump. So I interviewed Trump four different times as a journalist, spent like two and a half hours with him in the Oval Office. Not alone, but like me and one person and like the press secretary, and that was it. So I actually got to observe him. And as a guy who reads these types of books, right? And you know, you think of Trump, obviously, most people, what they see on television, you know, in articles and more, but being able to observe it like one-on-one, I was closer to him than, you know, than I am right now from you. That was one of the most educational experiences I got, because it's like you just said.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  The look, the leaning forward, the way he talks, the way he is a master at taking the question and answering exactly which part he wants. And then if you try and follow up, he's like, excuse me, you know, like, he knows. And then whenever you're talking, it's not that he's annoyed about getting interrupted. If he realizes he's been mirandering and then you interrupt him, all good. But if he's driving home a point, which he has to make sure appears in your transcript or whatever, it's, it's like, it really was fascinating for me to look at. And what was also crazy with Trump is I realized how much he was living in the moment. So like, when I went to the Oval, you know, I've read all these biographies and like,

• 17:25Speaker 01

  I walk in, I'm like, holy shit. You're like, I'm in the Oval Office.

• 17:29Lex Fridman?

  Well, you interviewed him in the Oval Office.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  In the Oval, every time, was in the Oval Office.

• 17:32Lex Fridman?

  You scared shitless? Sorry to-

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Well, I wasn't scared. I was just, look, it's the Oval Office, right? I mean, I'm this nerd, he was like this kid. I'm so, I will admit this here, like, I printed out on my dad's label maker when I was like seven and I wrote like the Oval Office on my bedroom. So I was like, you know, a huge nerd, like, obviously egomaniacal, even from seven. But so like for this, I mean, he was huge, right? I'm like this 25-year-old kid and like I walk in there. And I see the couch, right? And I'm like, oh, man, like, that's Kissinger. Like, you know, I'm like, that's where Kissinger and Nixon got on their knees. And you see over by the door and you're like, are the scuff marks still there from when Eisenhower used to play golf? You know, this is all running through my mind. With Trump, none of it was there. None of it, right?

• 18:15Lex Fridman?

  It's all in the moment.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Even the desk, I could put my phone on the desk to record. And I'm like, this is the fucking Resolute desk. Like, I shouldn't put my phone on this thing, right?

• 18:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  And I'm like HMS Resolute, you know, all internationally. Even for him, he doesn't think about any of it. It was like amazing to me. Like, he had this portrait of Andrew Jackson right next to his, to the, I think from, on the fireplace, like, right here on the right. And the most revealing question was when I was like, Mr. President, what are people going to remember you for in a hundred years? And he was like, he had, he was like, I don't know, like, veterans' choice. He like, has a list in front of him of like, his accomplishments, which his staff-

• 18:52Lex Fridman?

  Good question, by the way.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I mean, that's what I wanted to know. And he's like, veterans' choice. And I remember looking at him being like, it's not going to be veterans. You know, like, I'd be like, I'm like, I'm looking at you, Donald Trump, the harbinger of something new. We still don't know what the hell it is. And so I realized with these guys and their charisma and more, is that they don't think about themselves the way that we think about them. And that was actually important to understand, because a lot of people are like, Trump is playing all this chess. I'm like, I assure you, he's not. Like, he's truly living. One time I was interviewing him, and he had like a certificate that he had to sign or something on his desk. He's like, it was like a child, almost. Like, he got distracted by, he's like, oh, what's this? You know, he's just like picking it up. And I was like, wow, like, this, this is the guy. Like, this is what he is.

• 19:37Lex Fridman?

  Well, I wonder if there was a different person because you were recording, then offline at a party.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing, though, because that's another part of it. Because that two hours, I would say like, half of that was not on the record. So like, whenever he's off the record, he changes completely, right? I don't want to like, go into too much of it or whatever, but like- He, uh, I mean, he is so mindful of when that camera is on. And when the mic is hot, in terms of the language that he uses, what he's willing to admit, what he's willing to talk about, how he's willing to even appear in front of his staff. I think the most revealing thing Trump ever did was, there was this press conference like right after he lost the, uh, right after the midterm elections in 2018. And one of the journalists was like, "Mr. President, thank you for doing this press conference."

• 20:29Speaker 01

  And he looks at him and he goes, "It's called earned media. It's worth billions." He just, like, had so much disdain for him, because he's like, "I'm not doing this for you." He's like, "I'm doing this for me."

• 20:39Lex Fridman?

  So he's really aware of the narrative of the story. I mean, that, the people have talked about that all comes from the tabloid media of the, from New York and so on. He's a master of that. But I've also heard stories of just in private, he's a really, I don't want to overuse the word charismatic, but just like, he is a really interesting, almost like, um, friendly, like a good person. Like, that's what I heard, uh, I've heard actually surprising the same thing about Hillary Clinton.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  And like- That I can't tell you anything about.

• 21:13Lex Fridman?

  But like, the, the way they present themselves is perhaps very different than they are as human beings, one-on-one. That, that's something, uh, maybe that's just like a skill thing. Maybe, maybe the way they present themselves in public is actually their, their,

• 21:32Lex Fridman?

  uh, I mean, almost their real self, and they're just really good in private, one-on-one, to go into this mode of just being really intimate in some kind of human way.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  I think that's part of it, because I, I would notice that with Trump, you know? He's like, he's almost like a tour guide. It'd be, it was very like, it's, it's very crazy, right? Because you're like, you're in the Oval. I mean, it's his office. And he's like, he's like, "Do you guys want anything?" He's like, "You want a Diet Coke?" Because he drinks like all this Diet Coke.

• 21:58Lex Fridman?

  That's awesome.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  You know?

• 21:59Lex Fridman?

  Great. I apologize.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's just like, he's like, "You guys want a Diet Coke?" Right? And you're sitting there and you're like, the way he, he's able to like, like, the last time I interviewed him, he, he wanted to do it outside, um, because he, like, he's studied himself from all angles, and he knows exactly how he looks on a camera and with the witch lighting. And so we were supposed to interview him on camera in the Oval Office, which is actually rare. Like, you don't usually get that. And they ended up moving it outside at the last minute.

• 22:27Lex Fridman?

  And he came out and he's like, I picked this spot for you. He's like, great lighting.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, you are your own like lighting director.

• 22:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  President, right?

• 22:35Lex Fridman?

  This is great.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  It's so funny, but it's like you said, he's, he's very charismatic and friendly. I mean, you wouldn't know. I mean, look, this is what I mean in terms of the dynamism of these people that gets lost. And I think even he knows that, like, I don't think he would want that side of him. That I, you know, that you see in those off the record moments and more in order to come out, because he's very keen about how exactly he presents to the public. It's like, you know, even his presidential portrait, everybody usually smiles and he refused to smile. He was like, I want to look like Winston Churchill, you know, like even he knew that.

• 23:10Lex Fridman?

  Do you think he believes that he, um, what, what he kind of implies that he is one of, if not the greatest president in American history? Like, people kind of laugh at this, but there's quite, I mean, there's quite a lot of people, first of all, that make the argument that he's the greatest president in history. Like, I've heard this argument being made. Uh, and I mean, I don't know what the, first of all, I don't care. Like, you can't make an argument that anyone is the greatest. That's just, that's just, uh, I, I come from a school of like being humble and modest and so on. It's like even Michael, you can't have that conversation. Okay?

• 23:51Lex Fridman?

  Uh, so I like that he's humble enough to say like, uh, Abraham Lincoln and whatever, like.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  No, no, no. He says maybe Lincoln.

• 23:58Lex Fridman?

  Maybe.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Remember that. He says maybe Lincoln.

• 24:02Lex Fridman?

  Do you think he actually believes that? Or is that something he understands will, uh, create news? And also perhaps more importantly, piss off a large number of people? Is, is he almost like a musician masterfully playing the emotions of the public? Or does he? Or and does he believe when he looks in the mirror, I'm one of the greatest men in history?

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Combination of all three. I do think he believes it. And for the reason why is I don't think he knows that much about US history. I really mean that. Like, and that's what I meant whenever I was in there and I realized he was just living in the moment. I don't think he knew all that much about why. I mean, this is why he was elected in many ways, right? So I'm not, I'm not saying this is an orbit, like, I'm not making a judgment on this. I'm just saying, I do think in his mind, he does think he was one of the best presidents in American history largely because, and I encountered this with a lot of people who worked for him, which is that they didn't really know all that much, kind of about what came before and all that. And it's not necessarily to hold it against them because for in many ways, that's what they were elected to do, or elected to be in many ways.

• 25:11Lex Fridman?

  It's an interesting question whether knowing history, being a student of history is a, is productive or counterproductive. I tend to assume, I really respect people who are deeply like well read in history, like presidents that are almost like nerd, history nerds. I admire that. But maybe that gets in the way.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Well, it's, well.

• 25:34Lex Fridman?

  Of governance. I don't know. It's not, it's not, you know, I'm just sort of playing devil's advocate to my own beliefs, but it's possible that focusing on the moment and the issues and letting history, it's like first principles thinking, forget the lessons of the past and just focus on common sense reasoning through the problems of today.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really hard question. In terms of the modern era, I mean, Obama was a student of history. Like, he used to have presidential biographers and people over in, I mean, famously, like Robert A. Caro, one of my favorite presidential biographers, he was invited to, you know, have dinner with Obama. And Obama would like pepper some of his, every, it was interesting because he'd try and justify some of the things he didn't do by being like, well, if you look at what they had to do and what I have to deal with, mine's much harder. So in that way, I was a little pissed off because I'd be like, no, that actually like you're comparing apples to oranges and all that. But if you look at Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt in particular, this was, I mean, a voracious reader, not of just American history, all history. He wrote.

• 26:38Lex Fridman?

  That guy's just such a badass. Jesus.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  The only, the only president who willed himself to greatness. That's like the amazing thing about him. He wasn't tested by a crisis, right? Like wasn't, no, he didn't have the Civil War. He didn't have World War II. He didn't have to found the country, literally. Or like, you know, didn't have to stave off that. Or he didn't buy, you know, Louisiana Purchase, like all that. He literally came into a pretty, you know, static country and he could have just governed, you know, with, I mean, he was, the person who came before him was assassinated. Like he easily could have coasted, but he literally willed the country into something more. And that is, that's always why I focus a lot on him too. Cause I'm like, that in many ways, I wouldn't say it's easy to be great during crisis. I mean, like, look at Trump, right? But like, but there, it can bring out the best within you.

• 27:27Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  But it's a, it's a whole other level to bring out the best within yourself just for the sake of doing it.

• 27:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  That's, I think is really interesting.

• 27:35Lex Fridman?

  Speeches were amazing. I'm also a sucker for great speeches. Cause I, I, I tend to see the role of the president as in part like inspirer in chief. Sort of to be able to, I mean, that's what great leaders do, like CEOs of companies and so on, establish a vision, a clear vision and like, like hit that hard. But the way you establish the vision isn't just like, not to dig at Joe Biden, but like, like sleepy, boring statements. You have to sell those statements and you have to, you know, you have to do it in a way where everybody's paying attention. Everybody's excited.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:15Lex Fridman?

  And that, I'll tell you, was definitely one of them. Obama was, I think, at least early on, and I don't know, was incredible at that. It does feel that the modern political landscape makes it more difficult to be inspirational in this sense, because everything becomes bickering and division. I do want to ask you.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Please.

• 28:36Lex Fridman?

  About Trump. So you're now a successful podcaster. I've talked to Joe about Trump, Joe Rogan, and Joe's not interested in talking to Trump.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 28:50Lex Fridman?

  It's just fascinating. I tried to dig into like, why?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:54Lex Fridman?

  What would you interview Trump on like realignment, for example?

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 29:00Lex Fridman?

  And do you think it's possible to do a two, three hour conversation with him? Where you will get at something like human or you get something like we were talking about the facade?

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:13Lex Fridman?

  He puts forward, do you think you could get past that?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  No, I don't. I, I look, I was a White House correspondent. I observed, I observed this man very closely. I interviewed him. I think if that mic is hot, he knows what he's doing. He just, he's, he's done this too long, Lex. He just knows.

• 29:31Lex Fridman?

  But do you think he's a different human now after the election? Do you think that?

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Not at all. I don't, I think he's been the same person since 1976. I, I really do. Like basically 1976. I studied Trump a lot and I think he's basically been the core of who he is and elements of that. Ever since he built that, you know, the ice rink in Central Park and got that media attention. That was it.

• 29:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, he's a fascinating study. I still, I feel

• 30:02Lex Fridman?

  there's a hope in me that there would be a podcast like, like a Joe Rogan, like a long form podcast where it's something could be, you know, and you're actually a really good person to do that. Where he can have a real conversation that looks back at the election and reveals something on us. But perhaps he's thinking about running again and, and so maybe he'll never let down that guard.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:24Lex Fridman?

  But like, you know, I, I just love it when

• 30:28Lex Fridman?

  there's this switch in people where you start, start looking back at your life and wanting to tell stories. Like, you know, trying to extract wisdom and like realizing you're in this new phase of life where like the battles have all been fought. Now you're this old, like former warrior. And now you can tell the stories of that time. And it seems like Trump is still at it, like the young warrior he is, he's not in the mode of telling stories.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  You know what I got from Rogan? He's the only president who didn't age well in office. It's true, right? Like, cause, and this is what I mean, cause he lives in the moment. Like the job actually aged Obama. I mean, I mean, Bush, same thing. Even Clinton, Clinton was like fat and he looked miserable by like 2000 HW. Like, I mean Reagan, famous, actually, yeah, pretty much everybody I think about.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, including John F. Kennedy, who got much sicker while in office. The job like weighs on you and makes you physically ill. Trump was, he's the only person who just, he didn't happen to.

• 31:31Lex Fridman?

  He almost gotten stronger and he was one of the most divisive, like the climate, there's so many people attacking him. So much hatred, so much love and hatred and it was just, he was, I mean, it was, whatever it was, it was quite masterful and a fascinating study. If we, if we stick on Hitler for just a minute, what lessons do you take from that time? Do you think it's a unique moment in human history? That World War II, I mean, both Stalin and Hitler.

• 32:08Lex Fridman?

  You know, is it something that's just an outlier in all of human history in terms of the atrocities? Or is there the lessons to be learned? You mentioned, mentioned offline that you're not just a student of the entirety of the history, but you also are fascinated by just different like policies and stuff. Like what's the immigration policy? What's the policy on science?

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Well, look, Third Reich in Power, let me plug it by Richard, Richard Evans, I think is what it was. Cause that actually will tell you like what was it like to live under the Nazi regime without the war?

• 32:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a hard question in terms of the lessons that we can learn. Cause there's a lot and it's actually been over, it's been over indexed almost. Everything comes back to Hitler in a conversation. So I kind of think of it within Mao, Stalin and Hitler as, I don't want to say payments for, but like the end point payment for the sins and the problems of the monarchical system that evolved within Europe, basically like 1400 and more. I basically think that 1400, the wars between the state, you know, wars between France, England, the balance of power, eventually World War I.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  And then serfdom within Russia, the Russian revolution that birthed Stalin. Same thing, the Kaiser and Imperial Germany and this incredibly crazy system of balance of power in World War I. And then same thing within China in terms of the warring states and then the disintegration, the European, you know, how this is how they think of it, you know, which is like the center of humiliation and they had to have something like this. I think of it, I try to think of it within the context of that. I don't want to think of, I don't want to sound like an inevitableist, but I think of it as, I like to think about systems, especially near DC, that's where I got into politics, which is that you have to understand systems of power and the incentives within

• 34:09Speaker 01

  systems and the disincentives, the downside risk of what you're, of what you're creating, because it, that is what leads and creates the behavior within that system. I was just talking to my girlfriend about this yesterday. It's kind of funny, like, I read these, I'm obsessed with these books by Robert Caro, The Biographies of Lyndon Johnson. He's written like 5,000 pages so far and it's still not done. Okay. So like, these are, these are like books I base my life on. And, look, these are Washington and the story of the post-New Deal era and forward. Not much has changed. Like, the Senate is still the Senate, so many of the same problems with the Senate are still there.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  In some cases, no, not, not anymore, but for a while, some of the people who were there with Johnson are actually still. One of them is the President of the United States, just a joke. And you think about also, same with the media relationship, right? Like, there's this media, they may have come and gone, like, the, the people who were in the media and who were cozy with the administration officials. I mean, they just recreated themselves. It's like this, it's like an ecosystem which doesn't change. And the, that's why I'm like, oh, it's not, that was a specific time. That's just DC. Like, that is DC because of the way the system is architected. It's pretty much been that way since like 1908, whenever like, you know,

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Teddy Roosevelt was dining with these journalists and he would yell at them. And then he would go over to the society house. And like, in many ways, that's now, instead of going to Henry Adams's house, like, the people are congregating in Calarama, um, which is the richest neighborhood here, at somebody else's house. Like, it's the same thing. So you have to think about the system and then the incentives within that system, about what the outcomes that they're producing. If you actually want to think about, how can I change this from the outside? That's also why it's very difficult to change. Because the system is designed in order to produce actually pretty specific outcomes that can only be changed in extraordinary times.

• 36:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's sometimes hard to predict what kind of outcomes will result from the incentive, uh, the system that you create, right?

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:21Lex Fridman?

  In the case, because especially when it's novel kind of situations. Trump actually created a pretty novel situation. And a lot of the, uh, things that we've seen in the 20th century were very novel systems, where people were very optimistic about the, the outcomes, right? And then it turned out to not have the results that they predicted. I, in terms of like, things being unchanged for the past hundred years and so on, can you, um, like Wikipedia style? Or maybe like in, in a musical form, like, I'm only a bill. Describe to me, uh...

• 36:57Speaker 01

  I, I still sing that to my head sometimes. I'm just a bill.

• 37:04Lex Fridman?

  I don't know what the rest of the song goes, but let's, uh, let's leave that to people's imagination. Uh, how, how does this whole thing work? How does the US political system work? The three branches is, how do you think about the system we have now? If you were to try to describe, if aliens showed up and asked you, like, they didn't have time, so this is an elevator thing. Like, should we destroy you?

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:30Lex Fridman?

  And, and be, as you plead to avoid destruction? Well, how, how would you, uh, describe how this thing works?

• 37:37Speaker 01

  I would say, we come together and we pick the people who make our laws. Then we pick the guy who executes those laws. And they together pick the people who determine whether they or the president is breaking the law at the most basic level. That's how I would describe it.

• 37:56Lex Fridman?

  So the

• 37:58Speaker 01

  So that's the people who make the laws are Congress. The executive is is charged with executing the laws as passed by Congress, the system of the branches of government. And the Supreme Court is picked by the president, confirmed by the Senate, which then decides whether you or other people are breaking the law in terms of interpretation of that law. That's basically it. Oh, and they they decide whether those laws are in they fall within the they fall within the restrictions and the want of the founders as expressed by the Constitution of the United

• 38:38Speaker 01

  States, which is a set of principles that we came together in 1787. I want to make sure I get this right. 1787 and decided that we were going to live the rest of our lives barring a revolution and more. And we've made it 200 and something years in order on under that system.

• 38:57Lex Fridman?

  So there's a balance of power that's because you have multiple branches. There's a tension and a balance to it as designed by those original documents. What which is the most dysfunctional, the branches, which is your favorite? Like in terms of talking about systems and like what's the greatest of concern and what is the greatest source of benefit in your view?

• 39:20Speaker 01

  The presidency, obviously. Well, the presidency is my favorite to study, obviously, because it is the one where there's the most subjective variable change in terms of the personality involved because of so much power imbued within the executive. The Senate is actually pretty much the same. That's one of the things I love about reading about the Senate and histories of the Senate is you're like, oh, yeah, there were always like assholes in the Senate who were doing their thing and and, you know, filibustering constantly based upon this or that. And then the person the personalities involved with the Senate haven't mattered as much since like pre-civil war, right?

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Like pre-civil war, you had like Henry Clay and then Daniel Webb. Webster and John C. Calhoun, who even in their own way, they represented like larger constituencies. And they crafted these like compromises up until the outbreak of the Civil War, et cetera. But like post since then, you don't think about like the titans within the Senate. Most of that is because a lot of the stuff that they had power over has transferred over to the executive. So I'm most interested in really in like power, like where it lies. It's actually pretty, you know, throughout American history, much more used to lie with Congress. Now it's obviously just so imbued within the executive that understanding executive power is, I think, the thing I'm probably most interested in here.

• 40:43Lex Fridman?

  Do you think at this point, the amount of power that the president has is corrupting to the, to their ability to lead well? Is this, you know, uh, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts, absolutely. Are we, uh, is there too much power in the, in the presidency?

• 41:00Speaker 01

  There definitely is. And part of the problem, and I, one of the things I try to make come across to people is if you're the president, unless you have a hyper intentional view of how something must be different in government, your view doesn't matter. So for example, like if you were Trump, let's take Trump even, and even in with a pretty intentional view. He was like, I'm gonna end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, right? And he came in and he gets these generals in, he's like, I want to end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Oh, and I want to withdraw these troops from Syria. And they're like, okay, well, give us like six months. He's like, okay, and this is the thing about Trump, he doesn't realize that it's bullshit. So they're like, he's like, yeah, six months seems fun, right?

• 41:42Speaker 01

  So then six months comes and he's like, he's like, so, and then he'll announce it. He'll be like, and we're getting out of Syria. It's great. And then the generals freak out, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't have a plan for that. He's like, but you guys told me six months. He's like, I don't know, now we need another six months in order to figure this thing out. So that's, and by that time, now you're midterms. So now what? Now you gotta run for reelection. So more what I mean by that is. If you don't have a hyper intentional view about how to change foreign policy, if you don't have a hyper intentional view about how the Department of Commerce should do its job, they are just gonna go on autopilot. So, there's, this is part of the problem. When you ask me about the presidency, it's not the presidency itself, like the president himself, which has become too powerful.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  It's that we have less democratic checks on the people and the systems that are on autopilot. And I would say that basically since 2008, we have voted every single time to disrupt that system, except in the case of 2020 with Joe Biden, and there are a lot of different reasons around why that happened. And in every single one of those cases, Obama and Trump, they all failed in order to, in order to radically disrupt that. And that just shows you how Titanic the task is. And I'm using my language precisely because I don't want to be like deep state and all, but like, obviously there's deep state.

• 43:01Lex Fridman?

  Deep state, I guess, has conspiratorial, the tensions to it, but, so you're, what you're saying is the true power currently lies with the autopilot, AKA deep state.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Well, but see, it's not, this is the thing too, I want to make it clear, because I think people think conspiratorially that they're all coming together to intentionally do something. No, no, no, no. They are doing what they know, believe they are right, and don't have real democratic checks within that. And so now, they have entire generations of cultures within each of these bureaucracies where they say, this is the way that we do things around here.

• 43:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  And that's the problem, which is that we have a culture of, within many of these agencies and more, I think the best example for this would be during the Ukraine, you know, gate with Trump and all that, with the impeachment. I don't want, I'm not talking about the politics here, but the most revealing thing that happened was when the whistleblower guy, Alexander Vindman, was like, here you have the president departing from the policy of the United States. And I was like, well, um. Let me educate you, Lieutenant Colonel. Um, the President of the United States makes American foreign policy.

• 44:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  But it was a very revealing comment because he and all the people within the National Security bureaucracy do think that. They're like, this is the policy of the United States. It's, we, we have to do this. That's where things get screwy.

• 44:28Lex Fridman?

  Well, listen, for me personally, but also from an engineering perspective, I just talked to Jim Keller. It's just, this is the kind of bullshit that we all hate in, uh, when you're trying to innovate and design new, like, products.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:41Lex Fridman?

  So like, that's the, that's what first principles thinking requires is like, we don't give a shit what was done before. The point is, what is the best way to do it? And it seems like, uh, the current government, government in general, probably bureaucracies in general, are just really good at being lazy while never having those conversations. And just, it becomes this momentum thing that nobody has the difficult conversations. It's become a game within a certain set of constraints and they never kind of do revolutionary tasks. But you did say that the presidency is power, but you're saying that more power than the others.

• 45:20Lex Fridman?

  And, but that power has to be coupled with like focused intentionality. Like you have to keep hammering the thing.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  If you want it done, it has to be done. I mean, and, and you gotta, you gotta, and this is the other part too, which is that it's not just that you have to get it done. You have to pick the hundred people who you can trust to pick 10 people each to actually do what you want. One of the most revealing quotes is from a guy named Tommy Corcoran. He was the top aide to FDR. This I'm getting from the Kara books too. And he said, what is a government? It's not just one guy or even 10 guys. Hell, it's a thousand guys. And what FDR did is he masterfully picked the right people to execute his will through the federal agencies.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Johnson was the same way. He played these people like a fiddle. He knew exactly who to pick. He knew the system and more. Part of the reason that outsiders who don't have a lot of experience in Washington almost always fail is they don't know who to pick. Or they pick people who say one thing to their face and then, when it comes time to carry out the president's policy in terms of the government, they just don't do it. And the president's too, think about this, I think Rahm Emanuel said this, he was like, by the time it gets to the president's desk, nobody else can solve it. It's not easy, it's not like a yes or a no question. It's every single thing that hits the president's desk is incredibly hard to do. And Obama actually even said, and this was a very revealing quote about how he thinks

• 46:53Speaker 01

  about the presidency, which is, he's like, look, the presidency is like one of those super tankers, you know? He's like, I can come in and I can take it two degrees left and two degrees right. In a hundred years, two degrees left, that's a whole different trajectory.

• 47:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Same thing on the right. And he's like, that ultimately is really all you can do. I quibble and disagree with that in terms of how he could have changed things to 2008, but there's a lot of truth to that statement.

• 47:22Lex Fridman?

  Okay, that's really fascinating. You're making me realize that actually both Obama and Trump are probably playing victim here to the system. You're making me think that maybe, you can correct me, that, because I'm thinking of like Elon Musk, whose major success despite everything is hiring the right people.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 47:42Lex Fridman?

  And like creating those thousands, that structure of a thousand people. So maybe a president has power in that if they were exceptionally good at hiring the right people.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Personnel is policy, man. That's what it comes down to.

• 47:55Lex Fridman?

  But wouldn't you be able to steer the ship way more than two degrees if you hire the right people? So like, it's almost like Obama was not good at hiring the right people.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Well, he hired all the Clinton people. That's what happened. What happened with Trump? He hired all the Bush people.

• 48:08Lex Fridman?

  And then you just sit back and say, oh, president can't, but that means you're just suck at hiring.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Correct. Yeah, I mean, look, I know, it's funny, I'm giving you simultaneously the nationalist case against Trump.

• 48:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  And the progressive case against Obama.

• 48:23Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  The progressive people are like, why the fuck are you hiring all these Clinton people in order to run the government and just recreate, like, why are you hiring Larry Summers, who was one of the people who worked at all these banks and didn't believe the bailouts were going to be big enough, and then to come in in the worst economic crisis in modern American history? That was 2008, and Summers actively lobbied against larger bailouts, which had huge implications for working-class people and pretty much hollered out of America since. Okay, from Trump, same thing, you're like, I'm gonna drain the swamp, and by doing that, I'm gonna hire Goldman Sachs's Gary Cohn.

• 48:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  And Steve Mnuchin, and all these other absolute Bush clowns in order to run my White House. Well, yeah, no shit. The only thing that you accomplished in your four years in office is passing a massive tax cut for the rich and for corporations. I wonder how that happened.

• 49:17Lex Fridman?

  What role does money play in all of this? Is money huge influence in politics, uh, super PACs, all that kind of stuff? Or is this, is this more just kind of a narrative that we play with? Because from the outsider's perspective, it seems to have, that seems to be one of the fundamental problems with modern politics.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  So, I was just having this conversation, Marshall and I, Marshall Kostol, my co-host on the realignment, and it's funny, because if you do enough research, we actually live in the least corrupt age in American, uh, campaign finance. As in, it's never been more transparent.

• 49:51Lex Fridman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  It's never been more up to the FEC, yeah, and all of that. If you go back and read not even 50 years ago, we're talking about Lyndon B. Johnson handing people, like, literally as he came up in his youth, paying people for votes, like, the boss of the, you know, the person who, like, had all the Mexican votes, like, the person who had, and he was, like, giving out briefcases for, this is, like, within people's lifetimes who are alive in America. So that doesn't happen anymore. But I don't like to blame everything on money, although I do think money is obviously a huge part of the problem. I actually look at it in terms of... Distribution, which is that how is money distributed within our society?

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Because I firmly believe that politics, this is going to get complicated, but I think politics is mostly downstream from culture. And culture, obviously, I'm using economics because there's obviously a huge interplay there. But like, in terms of the equitable or lack of equitable distribution of money within our politics, what we're really pissed off about is we're like, our politics only seems to work for the people who have money. I think that's largely true. I think that the reason why things worked differently in the past is because our economy was structured in different ways. And there's a reason that our politics today are very analogous to the last Gilded Age, because we had very similar levels of economic distribution and cultural problems too at the same time.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  I don't want to erase that, because I actually think that's what's driving all of our politics right now.

• 51:23Lex Fridman?

  So that's interesting. So that's one, so in that sense, representative government is doing a pretty good job of representing the state of culture and the people and so on. Yeah, can I ask you, in terms of, you know, the deep state and conspiracy theories, there's a lot of talk about, so again, from an outsider's perspective, if I were just looking at Twitter, it seems that at least 90% of people in government are pedophiles. 90, 95%, I'm not sure what that number is. If I were to just look at Twitter, honestly, or YouTube, I would think most of the world is a pedophile. I would almost feel like-

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Right. And if you don't fully believe that, you're a pedophile. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 52:05Lex Fridman?

  I would start to wonder, like, wait, like, what, am I a pedophile too? I'm either a communist or a pedophile, or both, I guess. Yeah, that's going to be clipped out, thank you, internet.

• 52:18Lex Fridman?

  I look forward to your emails. But is there any kind of shadow conspiracy theories that give you pause? Or, so the flip side, the response to a lot of conspiracy theories is like, no, the reason this happened is because it's a combination of just incompetence. So where do you land on some of these conspiracy theories?

• 52:45Speaker 01

  I think most conspiracy theories are wrong. Some are true and those are spectacularly true. And if that makes sense.

• 52:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  I

• 52:54Lex Fridman?

  And we don't know which ones.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  I don't know which ones.

• 52:56Lex Fridman?

  That's the problem.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  I think, oh, well, I mean, look, man, I listened to your podcast. I think I was a huge non believer in UFOs and now I've probably never believed more in UFO. Like I, I've, I believe in UFOs. Like, I'm very comfortable being like, not only do I believe in UFOs, like I think we're probably being visited by an alien civilization. Like, and if you asked me that three years ago, I would have been like, you're out of your fucking mind. Like, what are you talking about? Well, listen to David Fravor. That's all I have to say. That's it.

• 53:24Lex Fridman?

  Well, I, I have the sense that the government has information that hasn't revealed. But it's not like they're, I don't think they're holding, there's like a, a green guy sitting there.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 53:35Lex Fridman?

  They just, they have seen things they don't know what to do with. So it's like, they're confused.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  They're afraid.

• 53:40Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Of, of revealing that they don't know. That's what I think it is.

• 53:43Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:44Lex Fridman?

  It's revealing the, yeah, exactly.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:46Lex Fridman?

  They don't know. And then they're in the process, there's a lot of fears tied up in that. First, looking incompetent in the public eye. If, nobody wants to be, uh, looked that way. And the other is like, in revealing it, even though they don't know, maybe China will figure it out.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 54:02Lex Fridman?

  So like, we don't want China to figure it out first. And so that, all those kinds of things result in basically secrecy. Then that damages the trust in institutions on one of the most fascinating aspects. Like, one of the most fascinating mysteries of humankind of is there life, intelligent life out there in the universe? So that's one of them, but there, there's other ones like, uh, for me, when I first came across, actually Alex Jones. Was, uh, nine 11.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:32Lex Fridman?

  I remember like, uh, cause I was, um, I was in Chicago. I was thinking like, oh shit, are they gonna hit Chicago too?

• 54:40Speaker 01

  That's what everybody was thinking.

• 54:41Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, everybody, everybody was thinking like, what does this mean? It's get, what scale, what, I mean, trying to interpret it. And I remember like looking for information desperately, like what, what happened? What? And I remember not being satisfied with the quality of reporting and figuring out like rigorous, like, here's exactly what happened. And so people like Alex Jones stepped up and others that said like, There's some shady shit going on and it sure as hell look like there's shady shit going on.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:09Lex Fridman?

  Uh, so like, and I still stand behind the fact that it seems like there's not, I, there's not enough. Like it wasn't a good job of being honest and transparent and all those kinds of things.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Cause it would implicate the Saudis. Let's be honest, right? And see, see, that's, that's my conspiracy theories. I'm like, yeah, I think they covered up a lot of stuff because they wanted to cover up for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Like, and then, I mean, that is, that was a conspiracy theory not that long ago. I think it's true. I mean, I think it's a hundred percent true.

• 55:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. So the, those kinds of conspiracy theories are interesting. I mean, there's other ones for me personally that touched, uh, so the institution that means a lot to me is the MIT and, uh, you know, Jeffrey Epstein.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  I want to hear a lot more. I want to hear about that. I, I talk about Epstein a lot. So I'm like.

• 55:51Lex Fridman?

  Oh, you do?

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and he, I was going to say in terms of conspiracy theory, that one changed my outlook. Cause I was like, I was like, whoa. Like you have this dude who convinced some of the most successful people on earth that he was like some money manager. And it looks like it was totally fake, like Leon Black. I mean, this is one of the richest men on Wall Street, nine billion dollar net worth. Why is he giving him over a hundred million dollars between 2015 and 2019?

• 56:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  What's going on here? Lex Wexner, same thing. So yeah, I want to hear because you know, people who met him. And the only person I know who met him was Eric Weinstein. I've, I've heard his, right?

• 56:30Lex Fridman?

  Oh, boy. So I, listen, I'm still in and Eric is fascinating and like Eric is full on saying that.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  He was a Mossad or whatever.

• 56:40Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. There's a, there's a front for something, uh, something much, much bigger. And there's, uh, whatever his name, Robert Maxwell, all the, all those stories. Like you could dig deeper and deeper that Jeffrey's just like the tip of the iceberg. I just think he's an exceptionally charismatic. Listen, this isn't speaking from confidence or like deep understanding of the situation, but from my speaking with people, he just seems like, at least from the side of his influence and interaction with researchers. He just seems like somebody that was exceptionally charismatic. And actually took interest.

• 57:23Lex Fridman?

  He was unable to speak about interesting scientific things, but he took interest in them. So he knew how to stroke the egos of a lot of powerful people like, well, like in, in different kinds of ways. I suppose, I don't know about this because I don't have, like, if a really, okay, this is, this is weird to say, but I have an ability. Okay, I think women are beautiful. I like women. But like, if, if like a supermodel came to me or something like, like I'm able to reason. It seems like some people Yes. are not able to think clearly when there's like an attractive woman in the room. And I think that was one of the tools he used to manipulate people. Interesting.

• 58:08Lex Fridman?

  I don't know. Listen, it's like the pedophile thing. Right. I, I don't know how many people are complete sex addicts, but like, it seems like, like looking out into the world, like there's a, well, like the Me Too movement have revealed that there's a lot of like weird. Yeah. Like creepy people out there. I don't know, but I think it was just one of the many tools that he used

• 58:31Lex Fridman?

  to convince people and manipulate people, but not in some like

• 58:39Lex Fridman?

  evil way, but more just really good at the art of conversation. Yeah. And just winning people over on his side. And then by building through that process, building a network of other really powerful people and not explicitly, but implicitly having done shady shit with powerful people. Yeah. Like building up a kind of implied power of like, like we did some shady shit together. So we're not like, you're going to help me out on this extra thing I need to do now.

• 59:18Lex Fridman?

  And that builds and builds and builds to where you're able to actually control, like have quite a lot of power without explicitly having like a strategy meeting. And I think a single person or. Yeah, I think a single person can do that, can start that ball rolling. And over time, it becomes a group thing. Like, I don't know if J. Lee Maxwell was involved or others. And yeah, over time, it becomes almost like a really powerful organization that wasn't, that's not a front for something much deeper and bigger. But it's almost like, maybe it's because I love cellular automata, man. A system that starts out as a simple thing with simple rules can create incredible complexity.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:04Lex Fridman?

  And so I just think that we're now looking in retrospect. It looks like an incredibly complex system that's operating. But like, that's just because, you know, there could have been a lot of other Jeffrey Epstein's. In my perspective, that the simple thing just was successful early on and builds and builds and builds and builds. And then there's creepy shit that like, a lot of aspects of the system helped it get bigger and bigger and more powerful and so on. So the final result is, I mean, listen, I have a pretty optimistic. I have a, I tend to see the good in people. And so it's been heartbreaking to me in general, just to see, you know,

• 1:00:45Lex Fridman?

  people I look up to not have the level of integrity I thought they would. Or like the strength of character, all those kinds of things. And it seems like you should be able to see the bullshit that is Jeffrey Epstein. Like when you meet him.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:01:01Lex Fridman?

  Uh, we're not talking about like Eric Weinstein, like one or two or three or five interactions. But like, there's people that had like, like years of relationship with him.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Lex Fridman?

  And I don't know, I, I'm not sure.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Even after he was convicted.

• 1:01:15Lex Fridman?

  After he was convicted.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  That guy always gets me.

• 1:01:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's, there's stories. I mean, I don't need to sort of, uh, I honestly believe.

• 1:01:28Lex Fridman?

  Okay, here's the open question I have. I don't know how many creepy sexual people there are out there. Like, I don't know if there's like, like, the people I know, the faculty and so on. I don't know if they have like a kink that I'm just not aware of that was being leveraged. Because to me, it seems like if, if, if people aren't, if not everybody's a pedophile, then it's just the art of conversation. That is just like the art of just like manipulating people by making them feel good about like the exciting stuff they're doing. Listen, man, academics are, people talk about money. I don't think academics care about money as much as people think.

• 1:02:10Lex Fridman?

  What they care about is like, somebody, they, they, they want to be, uh, it's the same thing that Instagram models posting their butt pictures, is they want to be loved. They want attention.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  My parents are professors.

• 1:02:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:25Lex Fridman?

  They, they, and Jeffrey Epstein, like, the money is another way to show attention.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Right, it's a proxy.

• 1:02:32Lex Fridman?

  It's, mind work matters. And, and, and he, for some of, he did that for some of the weirdest, most brilliant people. I don't want to sort of drop names, but everybody knows them. It's like people that are the most interesting academics is the one he cared about.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:50Lex Fridman?

  Like, people are thinking about the most difficult questions of, in all of science and all of engineering. So those people are, were kind of outcasts in academia a little bit because they're doing the weird shit. They're the weirdos. And he cared about the weirdos and he gave them money. And that, uh, you know, that's, I don't know if there's something more nefarious than that. I, I hope not, but maybe I'm surprised. And in fact, half the population of the world is pedophiles.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  No, I, I think it's what you were talking about, which is that it's the, it's the implication after the initial, right? Like, you do some shady things together, or you do something that you want out of the public eye and you're a public person. And, look, we probably even experienced this to a limited extent, right? You're like, ah, you know, like, I don't want to... I don't know, I almost lost my temper, you know, one time whenever a car hit me and I'm like, I can't freak out in public anymore. Yeah. You know, like, what if somebody takes a photo or something? Yeah. And so, I think that there's an extent to that times a billion, literally, when you have a billion dollars or more. And you take that all together and you stack it up on itself. I saw a story about like Bill Clinton, like Bill Clinton was with Epstein or with Ghislaine Maxwell in a private air terminal or something.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  And she had one of their like sex, you know, one of those girls who was underage, had her dressed up in a literal like pilot uniform. And she was underage in order to, you know, and she was just being disguised for being older. And she was a masseuse, right? Because that was one of the guises which they got in order to sexually traffic these women. And she was like, Bill was like complaining about his neck and she's like, give Bill Clinton a massage, right? So now there's a photo of an underage girl giving a massage to the former president of the United States. I don't think he knew, right? But like, that looks bad. And so, this is kind of what we're getting at, which is that you're setting it all up and creating those preconditions.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  Or like Prince Andrew, do I think Prince Andrew knew that Virginia Giuffre was underage? I don't know. Probably knew she was pretty young, which I think is, you know, skeevy enough where you're a fucking prince, you probably know better. Yeah. But I don't think he knew she was underage. Or maybe he did, and if he did, then he's even more of a piece of shit than I thought. But when we, when we, when we look at these things, the, the stuff I'm more interested in is like what you were talking about. I'm like, Bill Gates? How do you get the richest man of the world in your house? Yeah. Like, under what? And Gates is like, he was talking about financing and all this, like, you don't have access to money? Or bankers? Like, you're the richest man in the world. You can call Goldman Sachs anytime you want on a hotline. Like, why do you need?

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  That's where, that's where I start again to get more conspiratorial because I'm like, Bill dude, you can, you have the gold credit, right? Like, you don't need Epstein to create some complicated financing structure. Or Leon Black, like, what is 2015, 2019? I mean, this is very recent stuff. Or, and this is the part that really got me, is I read the depart, I think it's called the Department of Financial Services report around Deutsche Bank with Epstein. They knew he was a criminal. They solicited his business, explicitly knew that his business meant access to other high net worth individuals, consistently doled money out from his account for hush payments to women in Europe and prostitution rings. They knew all of this

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  within the bank. It was elevated multiple times. Here was the other one. One of Epstein's associates was like, hey, how much money can we take out before we hit the, you know, automatic sensor before you have to tell the IRS? And that question, by their own standards, is supposed to result in a notification to the feds, and they never did it. And he was withdrawing like $2 million of cash in five years for tips.

• 1:06:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  I'm like, okay, like, something's going on here.

• 1:06:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  You see what I'm saying?

• 1:06:40Lex Fridman?

  There's a lot of signs that make you think that there's a bigger thing at play than just the man, that there is some, it does look like a larger organization is using this front, right?

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  It's, again, I don't know. I truly don't know. And I'm not willing to use the certainty, which I think a lot of people online are, to say like, it was 100%.

• 1:07:01Lex Fridman?

  The certainty is always the problem, because that's probably why I hesitate to touch conspiracy theories, is because I'm allergic to certainty in all forms, in politics, any kind of discourse. And people are so sure, in both directions, actually. It's kind of hilarious. Either they're sure that the conspiracy theory, in particular, whatever the conspiracy theory is, is false. Like, they almost dismiss it like, like, they don't even want to talk about. It's like the people, like, the way they dismiss that the earth is flat.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:33Lex Fridman?

  Most scientists are like, they don't even want to like, hear what the, what the flat-earthers are saying. They don't have, like, zero patience for it, which is like, maybe in that case, it's deserved. But everything else, you really, like, have empathy, like, consider the, you have, okay, this is weird to say, but I feel like... You have to consider that the earth might be flat for like one minute. Like you have to be empathetic. You have to be open minded.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  I don't see a lot of that through our cultural tastemakers and more. And that's, that really is what concerns me the most because it's just another manifestation of all of our problems. It's that we have this completely bifurcating economy, bifurcating culture, literally in terms of we have the middle of the country and then we have the coasts and in terms of the population, it's almost 50 50. And with, you know, increasing mega cities and urban culture, like urban monoculture of LA, New York and Chicago and DC and Boston and Austin, relative to how an entire other group of Americans live their lives, or even the people within them who aren't rich and upwardly mobile, how they live their lives is just completely separating.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  And all of our language and communication in mass media and more is to the top and then everybody else is forgotten.

• 1:08:57Lex Fridman?

  Do you think when you go, when you dig to the core, there is a big, there's a big gap between left and right? Is there, is that division that that's perceived currently real? Or are most people like center left and center right?

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  It's so interesting because that's such a loaded term, center left. What does that mean? Like to you, I think the way you're thinking of it is, I'm not like a, well, even this, like I'm not a radical socialist, but I'm, uh, I'm marginally left on cultural issues and economic issues. This is how we've traditionally understood things. Um, and then when, when in popular discourse, like center right, like what does it mean to be center right? Like I am marginally right on socially, on social issues and marginally right on economic issues.

• 1:09:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  But that's just not politics. Like if you look at survey data, for example, like. Uh, stimulus checks. People who are against stimulus checks are conservative, right? Well, 80% of the population is for a stimulus check. So that means a sizable number of Republicans are for stimulus checks. Same thing happens on like a wealth tax. Same thing happens on, okay, Florida voted for Trump 3.1%. More than Barack Obama 2008. On the same day passes a $15 minimum wage at 67%. So what's going on? So that's why I-

• 1:10:24Lex Fridman?

  What is going on?

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  Well, that's my entire career.

• 1:10:29Lex Fridman?

  But, but it seems like, uh, so that's fascinating. Conversation is different than the policies.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Well, it's different than reality. That's what I would say, which is that the way we have to understand American politics. Today, it didn't always used to be this way, is it's almost entirely along. Basic, I would say the main divider is, because even when you talk about class, this misses it in terms of socioeconomics. It's around culture, which is that it's basically if you went to a four-year degree granting institution. You are part of one culture. If you didn't, you're part of another. I don't want to erase the 20% or whatever of people who did go to a college degree who are Republicans or vice versa, etc. But I'm saying on average, in terms of the median way that you feel, we're basically bifurcating along those lines.

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  And, because people get upset, be like, oh, well, you know, there are rich people who vote for Trump. And I'm like, yeah, but you know, you know who they are? They're like plumbers or something like they're, they're people who make $100,000 a year. But they didn't go to a four-year college degree and they might live who are in a place which is not an urban metro area. And then at the same time, you have like a Vox writer who makes like 30 grand. But they have a lot more cultural power than like the plumber. So you have to think about where exactly that line is. And I think in general, that's the way that we're trending. So that's why when I say like, what's going on, are we divided? Yeah, like, but it's not left and right. I mean, like, and that's why I hate these labels.

• 1:12:05Lex Fridman?

  So it's more, it's more just red and blue, like, teams. They're arbitrary teams.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:09Lex Fridman?

  Are they, so how arbitrary are these teams? I guess is another.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  Completely arbitrary.

• 1:12:14Lex Fridman?

  So, well, you kind of imply that there's, I don't know if you're sort of in post analyzing the patterns, because it seems like there's a network effects of like, you just picked the team red or blue.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:27Lex Fridman?

  And it might have to do with college, you might have to do all of those things. But like, it, it seems like it's more about, uh, just the people around you.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:12:37Lex Fridman?

  So less than whether you went to college or not. I mean, it's almost like, seems like, it's, it's almost like, uh, weird, like, network effects are hard, there's certain strong patterns that you're identifying. But I don't know, it's sad to think that it might be just teams that have nothing to do with what you actually believe.

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  Well, it is, Lex. I, look, I mean, I don't want to believe that, but the data points me to this, which especially 2020. I'm one of the people, chief among them, I will own up to it here, I was totally wrong about why Trump was elected in 2016. I believed, and I based a lot of my public commentary, belief on this, Trump was elected because of a rejection of Hillary Clinton neoliberalism on the back of a pro-worker message, which was anti-immigration, it was its pillar, but alongside of it was a rejection of free trade with China, and generally of the political correctness and globalism,

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  which has been coming through the uniparty, and same thing here with the military industrial complex and endless war. He rejected all of that.

• 1:13:47Lex Fridman?

  What, wait, what's wrong with that prediction?

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  It's wrong, man. And the reason I know this is that, it sounds right, I wish it, I honestly wish it was true. But here's the truth, Trump actually governed largely as a neoliberal Republican who was meaner online, and who departed from orthodoxy in some very important ways. Don't get me wrong, I will always support the trade war with China, I will always support not expanding the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq, I will support him moving the Overton window on a million different things, and revealing once and for all that GOP voters don't care about economic orthodoxy necessarily, but here's what they do care about. Trump got more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016 despite not delivering largely,

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  largely for all the Trump people out there, on that agenda. He wasn't more pro-union, but he won more union votes. He wasn't necessarily more pro-worker, but he actually won more votes in Ohio than he did in 2016. And he won more Hispanic votes than despite being, you know, all the immigration rhetoric, et cetera. Here's why. It's about the culture, which is that the culture war is so hot that negative partisanship is at such high levels, all of the vote is geared upon what the other guy might do in office. And there's a poll, actually, just came out by Echelon Insights, Crystal and I were talking about it on Rising, that number one concern amongst Democratic voters is Trump voters. Number

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  one concern. Not issues, like, Trump voters. And number two is white supremacy. And so, like, which is basically code for Trump voters.

• 1:15:25Lex Fridman?

  And is the same true for the other side?

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  Well, so on the right, number one concern is illegal immigration. And number, I think, three or four, whatever, is Antifa, which is code for-

• 1:15:36Lex Fridman?

  Well, it's nice. At least on the right, it's a policy kind of thing.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, it's funny, I saw Ben Shapiro was talking about this. But the reason why I would functionally say it's the same is because the, I mean, you can believe whether it's true or not, I think it actually largely is true, but like, a lot of GOP voters feel like a lot of illegal immigration is code for, like, people who are coming in, who are going to be legalized, who are going to go vote Democrat. Like, I can, I can just explain it from their point of view. So like, what does that actually mean? Each other. Like, each other, which is that the number one concern is the other person. So negative partisanship has never been higher. And I think people who had my thesis in terms of why Trump was elected in 2016, you have to grapple with this. Like, how did he win 10 million more

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  votes? He came 44,000 votes away from winning the presidency across three states. Like, I don't, none of our popular discourse reflects that very stark reality. And I think-

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  So much of it is, people really hate liberals. Like, they just really hate them. And I was driving through rural Nevada before the election, and I was like, literally in the middle of nowhere. And there was this massive sign this guy had out in front of his house. And it just said, "Trump: Fuck Your Feelings." And I was like, "That's it. That is why people voted for Trump." And I don't want to denigrate it because they truly feel they have no cultural power in America, except to raise the middle finger to the elite class by pressing the button for Trump. I get that. That's actually a totally rational way to vote. It's not the way I wish we did vote,

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  but like, you know, that's not my place to say.

• 1:17:18Lex Fridman?

  So, this is interesting. If you could just psychoanalyze. I'm, again, probably naive about this, but I'm really bothered by the hatred of liberals. It's this amorphous monster that's mocked. It's like the Shapiro liberal tears. And I'm also really bothered by, probably more of my colleagues and friends, the hatred of Trump.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:49Lex Fridman?

  The Trump and white supremacists. So apparently, 70, there's 70 million white supremacists. 75 million, sorry. There's millions of white supremacists. And apparently, whatever liberal is, I mean, you know, literally liberal has become equivalent to white supremacist in the power of negativity it arouses. I don't even know what those, I mean, honestly, I just don't, they've become swears, essentially. Is that, I mean, how do we get out of this? Because that, that's why I just don't even say anything about politics online. Because it's like, really? Like, you can't?

• 1:18:33Lex Fridman?

  Here's what happens. Anything you say that's thoughtful, like, hmm, I wonder immigration, something.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:18:43Lex Fridman?

  I wonder like, why, you know, we have these many, we allow these many immigrants in, or some version of the like, thinking through these difficult policies and so on. They immediately try to find like, a single word in something you say that can put you in a bin of liberal or white supremacist and then hammer you to death by saying you're one of the two. And then everybody just piles on happily that we finally nailed this white supremacist or liberal. And that, is this some kind of weird like, feature of online communication that we've just stumbled upon?

• 1:19:24Lex Fridman?

  Is there a way, or is it possible to argue that this is like, a feature, not a bug? Like, this is a good thing?

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, look, I just think it's a reflection of who we are. People like to blame social media. I think we're just incredibly divided right now. I think we've been divided like this for the last 20 years. And I think that the reason I focus almost 99% of my public commentary on economics is because you asked an important question at the top. How do we fix this? What did I say about the stimulus checks? Stimulus checks have 80% approval rating. So that's the type of thing, if I was Joe Biden and I wanted to actually heal this country, that's the very first thing I would have done when I came into office. Same thing on, when you look at anything that's going to increase wages. I said on the show, I was like, look, I think Joe Biden will have an 80% approval rating if he does two things. If he gives every American a $2,000 stimulus check and gives everybody who wants a vaccine

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  a vaccine. That's it. It's pretty simple. Because here's the thing, I don't really like Greg Abbott that much. We have like, very different politics. I'm from Texas, but my parents got vaccinated really quickly. That means something to me. I'm like, listen, I don't really care about a lot of the other stuff. He got my family vaccinated. Like, that, well, I will forever remember that. And that's how we will remember the checks. This is a part of the reason why Trump almost won the election and why if the Republicans had been smart enough to give him another round of checks, 100% would have won, which is that, people were like, look. I don't really like Trump, but I got a check with his name on it. And that meant something to me and my family.

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  I'm not saying for all the libertarians out there that you should go and like endlessly spend money and buy votes. What I am saying is lean into the majoritarian positions without adding your culture war bullshit on top of it.

• 1:21:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  So for example, what's the number one concern that AOC says after the first round of checks got out? Oh, the checks didn't go to illegal immigrants. I'm like, are you out of your fucking mind? Like, this is the most popular policy America has probably done in 50 years, you know, since like Medicare. And you're inserting, you're ruining it.

• 1:21:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:38Speaker 01

  And then on the right is the same thing, which is that they'll be like, these checks are going to like, you know, low level, blah, blah, you know, people who are lazy and don't work. I'm like, oh, there you go. You know, like you're just playing a caricature of what you are like. If you lean into those issues and you got to do it clean, this is, this is what everybody hates about DC, which is that Biden right now is doing the $1,400 checks, but he's looping it in with his COVID relief bill and all that. That's his prerogative. That's the Democrats prerogative. They won the election. That's fine. But I'll tell you what I would have done if I was him. I would have come in and I would have said, there's five United States senators who are on the record, Republicans, who said they'll vote for a $2,000 check. And I would have put that on the floor of the United States Senate on my, you know,

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  first or the first day possible. And I would have passed it and I would have forced those Republican senators to live up to that, vote for this bill, come to the Oval Office for a signing so that the very first thing of my presidency was to say, I'm giving you all this relief check. This night long national nightmare is over. Take this money. Do with it what you need. We've all suffered together. The thing about Biden is he has a portrait of FDR in his, in the Oval, which kind of bothers me because he thinks of himself as an FDR like figure. But this is, you have to understand the majesty of FDR. We are talking about a person who passed a piece of legislation five days after he

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  became president and he passed 15 transformative pieces of legislation in the first hundred days. We're on day like 34, 35, and nothing is passed. The reconciliation bill will eventually become law, but it'll become law with no Republican votes. And again, that's fine. If, but it's not fulfilling that legacy and the urgency of the action. And the mandate, which I believe that history has handed, it handed it to Trump and he fucked it up, right? He totally screwed it up. He could have remade America and made us into the greatest country ever coming out on the other side of this. He decided not to do that. I think Biden was again handed that, like a scepter almost. It's like, all you have to do, all America wants is for you to raise it up high.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  But he's keeping it within the realm of traditional politics. I think it's a huge mistake.

• 1:23:50Lex Fridman?

  Why? So this is, everything you're saying is perfect sense. Like, take, it's like, it's like, again, if the aliens showed up, it's like the obvious thing to do is like, what's the popular thing? Like, 80% of Americans support this. Like, do that clean. Also do it like, with like, grace, where you're able to bring people together, not like in a political way, but like, obvious, like, obvious, common sense way. Like, just people, the Republicans, the Democrats, just bring them together on a policy and like, bowl, just hammer it without the dirt, without the mess, whatever, try to compromise, just

• 1:24:35Lex Fridman?

  yell with, have a good Twitter account, like, loud, very clear, we're gonna give a $2,000 or a stimulus check. Anyone who wants a vaccine, get a vaccine. At scale, what make, America, let's make America great again by manufacturing, like, we are manufacturing most of the world's vaccine because we're bad motherfuckers.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:01Lex Fridman?

  And, well, without maybe, with more eloquence than that, and, and just do that. Why haven't we seen that from many, for several presidencies?

• 1:25:11Speaker 01

  Because of coalitional politics and they owe something to somebody else. For example, Biden has got a lot of the Democratic constituency has to satisfy within this bill. So there's gonna be a lot of shit that goes in there, state and local aid, all this stuff. Again, I'm not even saying this is bad, but he's like, his- Theory is, and this isn't wrong, is like, we're gonna take the really popular stuff and use it as cover for the more downwardly, less popular. And so the Dems could face the accusation, the people who are on this side, this is their pushback to me, they're like, why would we give away the most popular thing in the bill? And then we would never be able to pass state and local aid, right? Why would we do that? And then the Republicans do the same thing, right?

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  Like Mitch McConnell, because he's a fucking idiot, decided to say, we're gonna pair these $2,000 stimulus checks with like, section 230 repeal. And it was like, oh, it's obviously dead, right? Like, it's not gonna happen together. That's largely why I believe Trump lost the election and why those races down in Georgia went the way that they did. Obviously, Trump had something to do with it. But the reason why is they have longstanding things that they've wanted to get done. And in the words of Rahm Emanuel, never let a good crisis go to waste and try and get as much as you possibly can done within a single bill. My counter would be this, things have worked this way for too long.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Which is that the reconciliation bill is almost certainly going to be the only large signature legislative accomplishment of the Biden presidency. That's just how American politics works. Maybe he gets one more, maybe one. He gets a second reconciliation bill, then you're running for midterms, it's over. I believe that by trying to change the paradigm of our politics, leaning into exactly what I'm talking here, you could possibly transcend that to a new one. And I'm not naive. I think people respond to political pressures. And the way that we found this out was David Perdue, who is just a total corporate, you know, Dollar General CEO guy.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  He was against the original $1,200 stimulus checks. But then Trump came out, who's the single most popular figure in the Republican Party. He's like, I want $2,000 stimulus checks. And all of a sudden, Perdue, running in Georgia, is like, yeah, I'm with President Trump. I want a $2,000 stimulus check. That was, if you're an astute observer of politics, to say, You can see there that you can force people to do the right thing. Because it's the popular thing. And that if it's clean, if you don't give them any other excuse, they have to do it.

• 1:27:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:46Speaker 01

  So this is, this is what we've been gaslit into our culture war framework of politics. And the reason it feels so broken and awful is because it is. But there is a way out. It's just that nobody wants to be, it's a game of chicken, right? Because maybe it is true. Maybe we would never be able to get your other democratic priorities or Republican priorities. But I think that the country understands that this is fucking terrible. And would be willing to support somebody who does it differently. There's just a lot of disincentives to not stay without, there's a lot of incentives to not stray from the traditional path.

• 1:28:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, is it also possible that the A students are not participating? Like, we drove all of the, the superstars away from politics. So like, you just had-

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  I've heard this argument before.

• 1:28:37Lex Fridman?

  I mean, everything you're saying sort of rings true. Like, this is the obvious thing to do. As a student of history, you can almost like tell, like, if you look at great people in history, this is what great leaders in history, this is what they did. It's like, uh, clean, bold action. Sometimes facing crisis, but we're facing a crisis.

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  No, we're in a crisis.

• 1:29:04Lex Fridman?

  We've been, exactly. So why don't we, uh, uh, why don't we see those leaders step up? That's, I mean, you say that's kind of like, it makes sense. There's a lot of different interests at play. You don't want to risk too many things, so on and so forth. But that's what like, that sounds like the C students.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  I don't think it's that. I think it's that the pipeline of politician creation is just totally broken from beginning to end. So it's not that A students don't want to be, uh, politicians. It's basically the way that our current primary system is constructed. Is what is the greatest threat to you as a member of Congress? It's not losing your reelection. It's losing your primary, right? So that means especially in a safe district. You're most concerned about being hit if you're a Republican from the right and if you're a Democrat from the left for not being a good enough one. That's actually what stops people, more heterodox people in particular, from winning primaries.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  Because the people who vote in our primaries are the party faithful. That's how you get the production, the production, it's important to understand the production pipeline. Which is that, alright, I'm from Texas, that's what I know best. So it's like, if you think in Texas, if you're a more heterodox like state legislature or something who's real, works with the left on this and does that, you're gonna get your ass beat in a Republican primary. Because they're gonna be like, "He worked with the left to do this." Blah, blah, take it out of context and you're screwed. And then that means you never ascend up the next level of the ladder. And then so on and so forth, all the way. But I do think Trump changed everything. This is why I have some hope.

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  Which is that he showed me that all the people I listened to were totally wrong about politics. And that's the most valuable lesson you could ever teach me. Which was, I was like, "Wait, I don't have to listen to these people." They don't know anything, actually. You know? That's powerful, man. I'm like, "He did it."

• 1:31:05Lex Fridman?

  That's exceptionally powerful.

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  This guy.

• 1:31:07Lex Fridman?

  Even if he didn't do anything with it.

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  It doesn't matter, right?

• 1:31:12Lex Fridman?

  He showed that it's possible.

• 1:31:13Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:31:14Lex Fridman?

  And that, that means, that means a lot. That mean, you're absolutely right. There's young people right now that kinda look, turn around and like, huh.

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  You're like, "Wait, I don't have to comb my hair a certain way." And go to law school and be an asshole who everybody knows is an asshole. And then get elected to state legislature. I mean, look, who's the number one person in the New York primary, or New York City primary right now? Andrew Yang. He's polling higher than everybody else in the race. I, look, maybe the polls are totally fucked and maybe he'll lose because of ranked choice voting and all that, but I consider Andrew, I mean, I know him a little bit and I've, you know, followed his candidacy from the very beginning. I consider him an inspiration. He's the new generation of politics. Like, if I see who's gonna be president 20 years from now, it's gonna be, I'm not saying it's gonna be Andrew Yang. I think it's gonna be somebody like Andrew Yang, outside the political system,

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  who talks in a totally different way, right? Just a completely, one of my favorite things that he said on the debate stage, he's like, "Look at us, we're all wearing makeup." It's cra- you know?

• 1:32:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:18Speaker 01

  And he like, he like brought that, that he brought that. And he's right, like, yeah, why are, they're all wearing makeup.

• 1:32:23Lex Fridman?

  He probably, arguably, hasn't gone far enough, almost.

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:32:26Lex Fridman?

  Because, uh, but he showed that it's possible. And then you, you see other, like, AOC is a good example of somebody, at least in my opinion, is doing the same kinda thing, but going too far in, in like, well, I don't know. She's doing the Trump thing, but on the other side. So I don't know, what's too far?

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Don't take a normative judgment of it.

• 1:32:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:44Speaker 01

  I will tell you the future of politics looks like AOC.

• 1:32:46Lex Fridman?

  Appreciate the art of it.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  Right, no, I do. Look, I don't, I'm not a big AOC fan, but she's a genius, media genius, once in a generation talent. The way that she uses social media, Instagram, and everybody on the right is like, trying to copy her. Like, Matt Gaetz is like, "I wanna be the conservative AOC." I'm like, "It's just not gonna happen, dude." Like, it, it, you just don't have it. Like, what she has, it's like, it's electric. And Trump had that. Like, I've been to a Trump rally, like, to cover as a journalist, there's nothing like it in, in America. And Yang, Yang is similar. It's the same way, where you're like, "There is something going on here." Which is just, like, I've been to an Obama rally, I've been to a Clinton rally, I've been to, um, several normal polit- eh, it's fine, you know?

• 1:33:32Speaker 01

  With Trump and with Yang, it was, it's another world.

• 1:33:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  It's another world.

• 1:33:35Lex Fridman?

  Yang Gang, there's, there's probably thousands of people listening right now, who are just like, doing a slow clap. Yes.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  I know, I know.

• 1:33:43Lex Fridman?

  Uh, Yang Gang, uh, forever, okay. But, uh, yeah, I mean, my worst fear, I prefer Yang, uh, Andrew Yang, kind of...

• 1:33:53Lex Fridman?

  Free improvisational idea exchange, all that versus AOC, who I think, no matter what she stands for, is a drama machine, creates dramas, just like Trump does. I would say my worst fear would be in 2024, is AOC old enough? It'd be AOC versus Trump.

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  I don't think she's old enough. I think you'd have to be, I don't know, I think she's 30. So she needs five more years, so probably not.

• 1:34:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, okay. But that kind of, that's, or Trump Jr.

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  Well, AOC probably wouldn't win a Democratic primary. So, I mean, look, Joe Biden is, you know, they pretty much showed that.

• 1:34:29Lex Fridman?

  That's exactly what you're saying. This process grooms you over time. It's, you see the same thing in academia, actually, which is very interesting, is the, the process of getting tenure. There's this, it's like, you're being taught without explicitly being taught

• 1:34:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:34:49Lex Fridman?

  to behave in the way that everybody's behaved before. I've heard this, it was funny, I've had a few conversations that were deeply disappointing, which, which are, which involved statements like, this is what's good for your career.

• 1:35:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:35:06Lex Fridman?

  This kind of conversation, almost like mentor to mentee conversation, where it's, you know, it's like, there's a grooming process in the same way, I guess you're saying, the primary process does the same kind of thing. So, I mean, that's what people have talked about with Andrew Yang. It was, it was, he was being suppressed by a bunch of different forces, the mainstream media and all, just the Democratic, just that whole process didn't, didn't like the, the honesty that he was showing, right?

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  For now, but here's my question to you. People got to see, look, Jordan Peterson is one of the most famous people in America. Right? Like, you have a massive podcast. You're more famous than half the, 99% of the people at MIT. So like, From that perspective, everything has changed. And somewhere out there, there is a student who's taking notice. And I've noticed that with my own career, everybody thought I was crazy for doing this show with Crystal, The Hill. They thought I was nuts. They're like, what are you doing? You're a White House correspondent. You've got a job forever. The other job offer I had was being a White House correspondent. And people thought I was nuts for not just sticking there and, you know, aging out within Washington, pining for appearances on Fox News and CNN and MSNBC.

• 1:36:17Speaker 01

  But I hated it. I just hated doing it. And I did not want to be a company man, like a Washington man, who's one of those guys who like brags to his friends about how many times he's been on Fox, or whatever, mostly because I just have a rebellious streak and I hate being at the subject of other people. I created something new, which a lot of people watch to get their news. And I noticed that younger people, who are almost all my audience, they don't really look up to any of the people in traditional, right? They don't, they don't go and they're not coming up and being like, how do I be like Jim Acosta? You know, they're like, they're like, hey, how did you do what you do? And the way you did it is by bucking the system. So I think that we are at a total split point. And look, there will always be a path for people.

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  Cause like, I don't want people to overlearn this lesson. I have people who are like, I'm not gonna go to college. And I'm like, well, just wait.

• 1:37:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, like, I'm like, just. I was starting a podcast. Yeah, like, stop. Just like, just hold on a second.

• 1:37:13Speaker 01

  But there will always be a path for the institutional. There will, that will always be there for you. But now there's something else. Now there's another game in town. And that's more appealing to millions and millions and millions and millions of people who feel unserved by the corporate media, CNN, and these people, possibly who feel unserved in the, you know, the faculty. Like, if you are an up and comer who wants to teach as many young people as possible, I think you should be on YouTube, right? Like, look at the Khan Academy guy. That guy created a huge business. So I just think we can be cynical and like upset about what that system is, but we should also have hope. Like, I have a lot of hope for what can be in the future.

• 1:37:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's a, there's a guy people should check out. So my story is a little bit different because I basically stepped aside

• 1:38:04Lex Fridman?

  with the dream of being an entrepreneur. Earlier in the pipeline than like a like a legitimate like senior faculty would. There's an example, somebody people should check out Andrew Huberman from Stanford, who's a neuroscientist, who's as world-class as it gets in terms of like tenure faculty, just a really world-class researcher, and now he's doing YouTube.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I see him on Instagram. Yeah.

• 1:38:30Lex Fridman?

  And he's great. So he switched. So he not just does Instagram, he now has a podcast. And he's doing, he's changing the nature of like, I believe that Andrew might be the future of Stanford. And for a lot, it's funny, like he's basically, Joe Rogan is an inspiration to Andrew, and to me as well. And so those ripple effects, and Andrew is an inspiration, probably just like you're saying, to these young, like 25-year-olds who are soon to become faculty, if we're just talking about academia. And the same is probably happening with with government, is, funny enough, Trump probably is inspiring a huge number of people who are saying, wait a minute, I don't have to play by the rules.

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:39:14Lex Fridman?

  And I have to, I can think outside the box here. And you're right. And the institutions we're seeing are just probably lagging behind. So the optimistic view is the future is going to be full of exciting new ideas. So Andrew Young is just kind of the beginning of this.

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  He's tip of the iceberg.

• 1:39:33Lex Fridman?

  And I, and I hope that iceberg doesn't, it's not this influencer. One of the things that really bothers me.

• 1:39:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:39Lex Fridman?

  I've gotten a chance, I should be careful here. I don't want to, I love everybody. But, you know, these people who talk about like, you know, how to make your first million or how to succeed. And, and they're so, I mean, yeah, that, that makes me a little bit cynical.

• 1:39:59Lex Fridman?

  About, uh, I'm worried that the people that win the game of politics will be ones that want to win the game of politics.

• 1:40:08Speaker 01

  They already are, man.

• 1:40:09Lex Fridman?

  And, and like we mentioned, ALC is, I hope they optimize for the 80% populist thing, right? Like, they optimize for that badass thing, that history will remember you as the great man or woman that did this thing versus how do I maximize engagement today and keep growing those numbers? The, the influencers are so, I'm so allergic to this, man. They keep saying how many followers they have on the different accounts. And it's like, I, I don't think they understand, maybe I don't understand, I don't really care. I think it has destructive psychological effects.

• 1:40:50Lex Fridman?

  One, like, thinking about the number, like, getting excited, your number went from 100 to 101 and being like, and today went out to 105. Whoa, that's a big jump. That maybe, like, thinking in this way, like, I wonder what I did, I'll do that again. In this way, one, it's, uh, it creates anxiety and most psychological effects, whatever. The, the more important thing is it prevents you from truly thinking boldly in the long arc of history, in creatively, thinking outside the box, doing huge actions. And I actually, my optimism is in the sense that that kind of action will beat out all the influencers.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know, Lex. This is where my cynicism comes in. So, there's a guy, Madison Cawthorn, the youngest member of Congress, um, and he, I don't want to say got caught, but there was like an email where he was like, my staff is only oriented around comms. Like, he was basically saying, he got basically caught saying, like, my staff is only centered on communications. And that's the right play, if you do want to get the benefits of our current electoral, political, and engagement system, which is that, what's the best way to be known within the right as a, as a right wing politician? It's to be a culture warrior, go on Ben Shapiro's podcast, be one of the people on Fox News,

• 1:42:17Speaker 01

  go on Sean Hannity's show, go on Tucker's show, and all of that, because you become a mini celebrity within that world. Left unsaid is that that world is increasingly shrinking portion of the American population and they barely, they can't even win a popular vote election, let alone barely win and eke out an electoral college victory in 2016. Well, but the incentives are all aligned within that. And it's the same thing really on the left. But you're right, which is that ultimately, and look, this is, this is why geniuses are geniuses, because they buck the short-term incentives. They focus on the long-term. They bet big and they usually fail.

• 1:42:58Speaker 01

  But then when they get big, they succeed spectacularly. The people I know who have done this the best are like a lot of the crypto folks that I've spoken to. Like some of the stuff they say, I'm like, I don't know if that's gonna happen, but look, they're like billionaires, right? And you're like, so they were right. So it's, the way I've heard it expressed is you can be wrong a lot, but when you're right, you get right big. And I mean, I've seen this in Elon Musk's career. I mean, he took spectacular risk, like spectacular risk and just double down, double down, double down, double down, double down. And you can kind of tell to him, I mean, you know him better than I do, but like from my observation, I don't think the money matters as, right?

• 1:43:42Speaker 01

  I just, like when I see him, I'm like, I don't, it's, nobody works as hard as you do and builds the way that you build if it's just about the money. It's just, it just doesn't happen. Like, nobody wills SpaceX into existence just for the money. Like, it's not worth it, frankly, right? Like, he probably destroyed years of his life and like mental sanity.

• 1:44:01Lex Fridman?

  Money or attention or fame, none of that. It's not the primary priority.

• 1:44:05Speaker 01

  Well, that's what's so appealing to me, to me in particular about him, just like and how he built. Like, I read a biography of him and just like the way that he constructed his life and like is able to hyper-focus in meeting after meeting and drill down and also hire all of the right people who execute each one of his tasks discreetly to his perfection is amazing. Like, that's actually the mark of a good leader. But, I mean, if you think about his career, the reason he's a renegade is because probably he was told to like put it in an index fund or whatever, like whenever he made his like 29 million. And from PayPal, I don't know how much he made. And then just go along that run. He's like, no. So he succeeds spectacularly. So you have to have somebody who's willing to come in and buck that system. So for now, I think our politics are generally frozen.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  I think that that model is going to be most generally appealing to the mean person. But somebody will come along and will change everything.

• 1:44:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I'm just surprised there's not more of them.

• 1:45:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:01Lex Fridman?

  On that topic, it's now 20, what is it, 21?

• 1:45:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:45:07Lex Fridman?

  Let's make some predictions he can be wrong about.

• 1:45:10Speaker 01

  Good.

• 1:45:12Lex Fridman?

  What major political people are you thinking will run in 2024, including Trump Jr. or senior? Or Ivanka? I don't know. Any Trump, Trump.

• 1:45:28Lex Fridman?

  And who do you think wins?

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  I think Joe Biden will run again in 2024. And I think he will run against someone with the last name Trump. I do not know whether that is Trump or Trump Jr. But I think one of those people will probably be the GOP nominee in 2024.

• 1:45:46Lex Fridman?

  Who was it? Some prominent political figure, was it Romney, somebody like that? Said that Trump will win the primary if he runs again.

• 1:45:53Speaker 01

  Of course, that's not even a question. Trump is the single most popular figure in the Republican Party by orders of magnitude. Oh, I mean, probably more, honestly. There was a, actually, I can tell you because I saw the data, which is that pre-January 6th, it was like 54% of Republicans wanted him to run again. Then it went down eight points after January 6th, two days later. And then after impeachment, it went right back up to 54%. So the exact same number is in February, a post impeachment vote, as it was after November. Now, look, yeah, again, surveys, bullshit, et cetera. But like, that's all the data we have. That's what I can point you to.

• 1:46:34Speaker 01

  If Trump runs, he will be the nominee and he will be, he will be the 2024 nominee. I just don't know if he wants to. It really depends.

• 1:46:42Lex Fridman?

  Do you think he wins? After the Trump vaccine heals all of us, do you think Trump wins?

• 1:46:48Speaker 01

  It depends on how popular culture functions over the next four years. And I can tell you that they are, because I don't think Biden has that much to do with it. Because again, Trump. Is not a manifestation of an affirmative policy action. It is a defensive bulwark wall against cultural liberalism. At its best. So it's like, this is why it doesn't matter what Biden does. If there are more riots, if there is a more sense of persecution amongst people who are more leaned towards conservative or like, hey, I don't know about that. That's crazy. Then he very well could win. Let's, okay, let's say Joe Biden doesn't run and they put up like Kamala Harris. I think he would, I think he would beat her.

• 1:47:31Speaker 01

  And I don't think there's a question that Trump would beat Kamala Harris in 2024.

• 1:47:36Lex Fridman?

  And you don't think anybody else, I don't know how the, the process works. You don't think anybody else on the democratic side can take the.

• 1:47:43Speaker 01

  Well, how could you run against the sitting vice president? You know, it's like if Joe Biden, Joe Biden has a 98% approval rating in the democratic party. If he says she is my heir, I think enough people will listen to him in a competitive primary or a non-competitive primary. And then there's all these things about how primary systems themselves are rigged. The DNC could make it known that they'll blacklist anybody who does try and primary Kamala Harris. And look, I mean, progressives aren't necessarily all that popular amongst actual Democrats. Like we found that out during the election. There's an entire constituency which loves Joe Biden and Joe Biden level politics. And so if he tells them to vote for Kamala, I think, I think she would probably get it. But again, there's a lot of game theory obviously happening.

• 1:48:28Lex Fridman?

  But see, I think you're talking about, everything you're saying is correct about mediocre candidates. It feels like if there's somebody like a really strong, I don't want to use this term incorrectly, but populist, somebody that speaks to the, the 80% that's, is able to provide bold.

• 1:48:49Lex Fridman?

  Elegantly described solutions that are popular. I think that breaks through all of this nonsense.

• 1:48:55Speaker 01

  How? How do they break through the primary system? Because the problem is, the primary system is not populism. It's primary. So it's like-

• 1:49:03Lex Fridman?

  But you don't think they can tweet their way to-

• 1:49:06Speaker 01

  Well, you have to be willing to win a GOP primary. You basically have to be at whoever wins the GOP primary, in my opinion, will be the person most hated by the left. One of the people, things that people forget is, you know who came in second to Trump? Ted Cruz. And the reason why is because Ted Cruz was the second most hated guy by liberals in America. A second to Trump. They have nothing in policy in common.

• 1:49:30Lex Fridman?

  But don't you think this kind of brilliantly described system of hate being the, the, the main mechanism of our electoral choices?

• 1:49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:40Lex Fridman?

  Don't you think that just has to do with mediocre candidates? Like, it like, it's basically the field of candidates, including Trump, including everybody was just like, didn't make anyone feel great.

• 1:49:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:49:55Lex Fridman?

  It's like, really? This is what we have to choose from?

• 1:49:58Speaker 01

  Maybe a Mark Cuban or like, uh, Mark Cuban as a Democrat. Or it would have to be somebody like that. Somebody who, because here's the thing about Trump. It's not just that it was Trump. He was so fucking famous. Like, people don't realize, he was so famous. Like, I, even when I first met Trump, I met a couple of other presidents. But when I met Trump, even I felt like, kind of starstruck. Because I was like, yo, this is the guy from The Apprentice.

• 1:50:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:26Speaker 01

  I'm like, this is the dude, like-

• 1:50:28Lex Fridman?

  From New Brothers?

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, because I'm like, my dad and I used to sit and watch The Apprentice when I was in high school. And then one of the guys was from College Station where I grew up and we're like, oh my God, like, that guy's on The Apprentice. Like, it was a phenomenon. There's like that level, it's kind of like when I met Joe Rogan, I'm like, holy shit, that's Joe Rogan. That's, I don't feel that way when I meet Mitt Romney, or Tom Cotton, or Josh Hawley. I met all of them.

• 1:50:49Lex Fridman?

  But there's a lot of celebrities, right? Do you think there's some celebrities we're not even thinking about that could step in? The Rock?

• 1:50:54Speaker 01

  Have to be, so I was about to say, I think The Rock could do it. But does he want to do it? I mean, it's terrible. Like, it's terrible gig. It's very hard to do. I don't know if The Rock necessarily has like, the formed policy agenda. Because then, here's the other problem. What, what if we set ourselves up for a system where like, these people keep winning? But like with Trump, they have no idea how to run a government.

• 1:51:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:15Speaker 01

  It's actually really hard. Right? And you have to have the know-how and the trust to find the right people. This is, this is where the genius element comes in is you have to understand that front and you have to understand how to execute discreet tasks. Like, this is the FDR, this is why it's so hard. Like, FDR, Lincoln, TR. They were who they were and they live in history and their name rings like for a reason. And yeah, I mean, one of the most depressing lessons I got from 2020 is at almost, it seems like, in my opinion, that we overlearn the lesson of our success and not of our failures. For example, like, we have this narrative in our head that we always have the right

• 1:52:00Speaker 01

  person at the right time during crisis. And in some cases, it was true. We didn't deserve Lincoln. We didn't deserve FDR. We didn't deserve, um, we didn't deserve a lot of presidents at times of crisis. But then you're like, okay, George W. Bush, 9/11, that was terrible. Um, Reconstruction, Andrew Johnson, awful, right? Like, we had several periods in our history where the crisis was there, they, they were called and they did not show up. And I really, it hadn't happened in my lifetime, except for 9/11. And even then, you could kind of see that as an opportunity for somebody like Obama to come in and fix it, but then he didn't do it and then Trump didn't do it.

• 1:52:43Speaker 01

  And you realize, I feel like our politics are most analogous to like the 1910s, like in terms of the Gilded Age, in terms of that. Remember there's that long period of presidents between, um, between like Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt? We were like, wait, like, who was president? Like, or, or even in, even TR was like an exception where you're like, Calvin Coolidge, who like, Silent Cal.

• 1:53:09Lex Fridman?

  So we're living through that.

• 1:53:10Speaker 01

  Grover Cleveland. That's kind of how. If I think of us within history, I feel like we're in one of those times. We're just waiting.

• 1:53:18Lex Fridman?

  It feels really important to us right now, like this is the most important moment in history, but it might be.

• 1:53:23Speaker 01

  It could just be a blip, right? Twenty, thirty year blip. Like, when you think about, who was president between eighteen ninety and nineteen, before, I mean, yeah, between like eighteen eighty-eight and nineteen ten? Like, nobody really thinks about that period of America, but like, that was an entire lifetime for people, right? Like, what did they, how did they feel about the country that they were in?

• 1:53:43Lex Fridman?

  That's hilarious.

• 1:53:44Speaker 01

  That's how I kind of think about where we are.

• 1:53:45Lex Fridman?

  Funny to think, I mean, I don't want to minimize it, but like, we haven't really gone through a World War II style crisis, so like, say that there is a crisis in like several decades of that level, right? Existential risks to a large portion of the world. Then, what will be remembered is World War II, maybe a little bit about Vietnam. And then whatever that crisis is, and this whole period that we see as dramatic, even coronavirus.

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  Even nine eleven.

• 1:54:16Lex Fridman?

  Even nine eleven. Uh, it's like, because you can look at how many people died and all those kinds of things, all the drama around the war on terror and all those kinds of things. Maybe Obama will be remembered for being the first African American president, but then, like, that's, yeah, that's fascinating to think about. Oh, man, even Trump will be like, oh.

• 1:54:38Speaker 01

  He was that guy. Yeah.

• 1:54:40Lex Fridman?

  Maybe he'll be remembered as the first, uh, celebrity. I mean, Reagan was already a governor, right? Yeah, so, so like the first apolitical celebrity that was a, so maybe if there's more celebrities in the future, they'll say that Trump was the first person to pave the, the way for celebrities to win. Oh, man. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I still, I still hold that this, this era will probably be remembered. The, you know, people say, I talk about Elon way too much, but, but the reality is like, there's not many people that are doing the kind of things he's doing is why I talk about is,

• 1:55:19Lex Fridman?

  I think this era, it's not necessarily Elon and SpaceX, but this era will be remembered by the new, the, like, of the space exploration, of the commercial, of companies getting into space exploration, of space travel, and perhaps.

• 1:55:38Lex Fridman?

  Perhaps like artificial intelligence around social media, all those kinds of things. This might be remembered for that. But every, all the political bickering, all of that nonsense, that might, we might, might be very well forgotten.

• 1:55:49Speaker 01

  One way to think about it is that the internet is so young.

• 1:55:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:54Speaker 01

  I think about it.

• 1:55:55Lex Fridman?

  That's right.

• 1:55:56Speaker 01

  Um, so Jeff Jarvis, he's a media scholar I respect. He's not the only person to say this, but many others have, which is that, look, this is kind of like the printing press. There was a whole thirty years war because of the printing press.

• 1:56:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:07Speaker 01

  It took a long time for shit to sort out. I think that's where we're at with the internet. Like at a certain level, it disrupts everything. And that's a good thing. It can be very tumultuous. Um, I never felt like I was living through history until coronavirus. Like, you know, like until we were all locked down, I was like, I'm living through history. Like this, it, there's this very overused cliche in DC where every comm staffer wants you to think that what their boss just did is history. And I've always been like, this isn't history. This is some like stupid fucking bill, you know, whatever. But like, that was the first time I was like, this is history, like this.

• 1:56:40Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:41Speaker 01

  Right here.

• 1:56:41Lex Fridman?

  Well, I was hoping, uh, tragedy aside, that this, I wish the primaries happened during coronavirus. So that we.

• 1:56:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:56:50Lex Fridman?

  Because like, then we can see the, so, okay, here's a bunch of people facing crisis. It's an opportunity for leaders to step up. Like, I still believe the optimistic view is, uh, the game theory of like influencers will always be defeated by actual great leaders. So like, maybe the great leaders are rare, but I think they're sufficiently out there that they will step up, especially in moments of crisis. And coronavirus is, is obviously a crisis where like, you know, mass manufacture of tests. Uh, all, all kinds of infrastructure building that you could have done in 2020. There's so many possibilities for just like bold action.

• 1:57:34Speaker 01

  It makes me sad.

• 1:57:36Lex Fridman?

  None of that, even just forget actually doing the action, advocating for it. Just saying like this, we need, we need to do this. And none of that, like the speeches that Biden made, I don't even remember a single speech that Biden made. Because there's zero bold, I mean, their strategy was to be quiet and let Donald Trump.

• 1:58:00Speaker 01

  Polarize the electorate.

• 1:58:01Lex Fridman?

  Polarize the electorate and hope that results in, in them winning. Because of the high unemployment numbers and all those kinds of things. As opposed to like, let's go big, let's go with a big speech, that, you know, that. Ah, yeah, it's a lost, a lost opportunity in some sense. So we talked a bunch about politics, but one of the other interesting things is that you're involved with is. Or involved with defining the future of is journalism. I suppose you could think of podcasts as a kind of journalism.

• 1:58:34Speaker 01

  Of course it is.

• 1:58:35Lex Fridman?

  But also just writing in general, just whatever the hell the future of this thing looks like. Is up to be defined by people like you. So what do you think is broken about journalism? And what do you think is the future of journalism?

• 1:58:50Speaker 01

  I think the future of journalism looks much more like what you and I are doing here right now. And journalism is going to be downstream from a culture. That can be a good and a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. We are going to look at our media, our media is going to look much more like it did. Pre mass media. And the way that I mean that is that back in the 18, in the 1800s in particular. Especially after the invention of the telegraph, when information itself was known. So for example, like you and I don't need to, let's say you and I are competing journalists. You and I are no longer competing, quote unquote, to tell the public X event happened.

• 1:59:32Speaker 01

  All journalism today is largely explaining why did X happen? And part of the problem with that is that. That means that it's all up for partisan interpretation. Now, you can say that that's a bad thing. I think it's a great thing because the highest level of literacy and news viewership in America was during the time of yellow journalism, was during the time of partisan journalism. Not a surprise. People like to read the news from people that they agree with. You could say that's bad, echo chambers, etc. That's the downside of it. The upside is more people are more educated. More people are interested in the news.

• 2:00:15Speaker 01

  So I think the proliferation of mass media, I mean, sorry, of this format, of

• 2:00:21Lex Fridman?

  Long form.

• 2:00:21Speaker 01

  niching, of, of, not just long form. Dude, I do, I do updates on Instagram, which are five minutes.

• 2:00:27Lex Fridman?

  Oh, you consider like Instagram?

• 2:00:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:29Lex Fridman?

  Almost even Twitter.

• 2:00:30Speaker 01

  Oh, of course Twitter. Twitter is where I get my news from. I don't read the paper. I have literally Twitter is my news aggregator. It's called my wire where I find out about hard events, like the president has departed the White House.

• 2:00:41Lex Fridman?

  But not only that, I don't know about you, but I also looked at Twitter to the exact thing you're saying, which is the response to the news.

• 2:00:48Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 2:00:48Lex Fridman?

  The thoughtful, it sounds ridiculous, but you can be pretty thoughtful in a single tweet.

• 2:00:53Speaker 01

  If you file, if you follow the right people, you can get that. And so that is the future of media, which is that the future of media is it will be much smaller amount, or it's much larger amounts of people, which are famous to smaller groups. So Walter Cronkite is never going to happen again, at least in our, and probably within our lifetimes, where everybody in America know who's this guy is. That, that age is over. I think that's a good thing because now people are going to get the news from the people that they trust. Yes, some of it will be opinionated. I'm in my, my program, I'm, Crystal and I are like, we are this, she's coming from this like view, I'm coming from this view. That's our bias when we talk about information and we're going to talk about the information

• 2:01:37Speaker 01

  that we think is important. And it has garnered a large audience. I think that's very much where the future is going to be. And the reason why I think that's a good thing is because people will be engaged more within it, rather than the current system where news is highly concentrated, highly consolidated, has group think, has the same elite production pipeline problem of

• 2:02:02Speaker 01

  Everybody knows journalists all come from the same socioeconomic background and they all party together here in DC or in New York or in LA or wherever and they're part of the same monoculture and that affects what they, that affects what they report. This will cause a total dispersion of all of that. The, the, the battle of our age is going to be the guild versus the non-guild. So like what we see right now with the New York Times in Clubhouse, this is a very, very, very, very, very intentional thing that is happening, which is that the Times talking about unfettered conversations, that's happening on Clubhouse for people who aren't aware. This is important because they need to be the fetters of conversation.

• 2:02:47Speaker 01

  They need to be the inter-agent. That's where they get their power. They get their power from convincing Facebook that they are the ones who can fact-check stuff. They are the ones who can tell you whether something is right or wrong. That battle over unimpeded conversation and the explosion of a format that you and I are doing really well in, and then this more consolidated one, which holds cultural power and elite power and more importantly, money, right? Over you and I, that's the battle that we're all gonna play.

• 2:03:18Lex Fridman?

  Do you think unfettered conversations have a chance to win this battle?

• 2:03:22Speaker 01

  Yes, I do in the long run. In the long run, the internet is simply too powerful. But here's the mistake everybody makes. The New York Times will never lose. It will just become one of us. See-

• 2:03:32Lex Fridman?

  You think so?

• 2:03:33Speaker 01

  They already are. They are the largest-

• 2:03:35Lex Fridman?

  The Daily?

• 2:03:35Speaker 01

  The Daily. Look at the Daily. Not even that, think about it not in podcasting. The Times is not a mass media product. It is a subscription product for upper-middle-class, largely white liberals who live the same circumstances across the United States and in Europe. There's nothing wrong with that, but here's the thing. You can't be the paper of record when you're actually the paper of upper-middle-class white America. Your job is to report on the news from that angle and deliver them the product that they want. There's nothing wrong with that. Their stock price is higher than ever. They're making 10 times more money than they did 10 years ago, but it comes at the cost of

• 2:04:17Speaker 01

  not having a mass application audience. So like when people, I think people in our space are always like, the New York Times is going to be destroyed. No, it's actually even better. They will just become one of us. They already are. They're a subscription platform.

• 2:04:31Lex Fridman?

  Well, yes, in terms of the actual mechanism, but you know, New York Times is still, and I don't think I'm speaking about a particular sector. I think it, as a brand, it is, it does have the level of credibility assigned to it still. You know, there's politicization of it.

• 2:04:49Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 2:04:49Lex Fridman?

  But it, there's a credibility, like it has much more credibility than, forgive me, than I think you and I have.

• 2:04:57Speaker 01

  No, you're right.

• 2:04:58Lex Fridman?

  In, in terms of your podcast, like people are not going to be like, uh, they're going to cite the New York Times versus what you said on the podcast for, for an opinion. I wonder in the sense of battles, whether unfettered conversations, whether Joe Rogan, whether your podcast can become the, have the same level of legitimacy, or the, the flip side, New York Times loses legitimacy to be at the same level of, in terms of how we talk about it.

• 2:05:31Speaker 01

  It's good. Long, it's a long battle, right? It's going to take a long time. And I'm saying this is where I think the end state is going. And look at what the Times is doing. They're leaning into podcasting for a reason, but not just podcasting as in NPR level, like here's what's happening. Michael Barbaro is a fucking celebrity, right? The guy who does the daily?

• 2:05:50Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:50Speaker 01

  That guy's famous amongst these people because they're like, oh my God, I love Michael. Like I love the way he does this stuff. Again, that's fine. More people are listening to the news. I think that's a good thing.

• 2:06:00Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:00Speaker 01

  And then who else do they hire? Ezra Klein from Vox.

• 2:06:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:04Speaker 01

  Kara Swisher, also from Vox, who does Pivot, which is an amazing podcast. Um, or Jane Coaston, same thing. It's personalities who are becoming bundled together within this brand, right?

• 2:06:16Lex Fridman?

  Here's, okay, maybe I'm just a hater.

• 2:06:21Lex Fridman?

  Because I loved podcasting from the beginning. I loved Green Day before they were cool, man. But I am bothered by it. Like, why doesn't Kara Swisher, she's done successfully? I think in her own... No, she was always a part of some kind of institution. I'm not sure.

• 2:06:36Speaker 01

  She started her own thing, I think.

• 2:06:38Lex Fridman?

  It would...

• 2:06:39Speaker 01

  Recode, right, yeah.

• 2:06:40Lex Fridman?

  Recode. I don't know if that's her own thing. Yeah, yeah. So she was very successful there. Why the hell did she join the New York Times as a new podcast? Why is Michael Barbaro not do his own thing?

• 2:06:51Speaker 01

  Because he gets paid and because he has, he wants the elite cachet that you just referenced within his social circle in New York, which is that I think the biggest mistake that some of the venture people make is if we give everybody the tools that those people are all gonna leave to like go Substack and go independent. Within their social circle, sacrificing some money from being independent is worth it to be a part of the New York Times.

• 2:07:16Lex Fridman?

  That's sad to me because it propagates old thinking, like, you know, it propagates old institutions. And you could say that New York Times is going to evolve quickly and so on, but I would love it if there was a mechanism for re-establishing, like, for building new New York Times in terms of public legitimacy. And I suppose that's a wishful thinking because it takes time to build trust in institutions and it takes time to build new institutions.

• 2:07:47Speaker 01

  My main thing I would say is public legitimacy as a concept is not going to be there in mass media anymore because of the balkanization of audiences. I mean, think about it, right? Like, this is like Legion, you know, the classic stuff around a thousand true fans. Or, no, sorry, like a hundred true fans even now. Like, you can make a living on the internet just talking to a hundred people.

• 2:08:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:06Speaker 01

  As long as they're all high-frequency traders. Some of the highest paid people on Substack, they don't have that many subs. It's just that they're Wall Street guys, right? So people pay a lot of money. Again, that's great. So what you will have is an increasing balkanization of the internet, of audiences and of niches. People will become increasingly famous within this. You will become astoundingly famous. I'm sure you've noticed this with your fanbase. I certainly have with mine. Like, 99% of people have no idea who I am. But when somebody meets, they're like, "Oh, my God, I watch your show every day." Right? Like, it's the only thing I watch for news, right? Like, instead of casually famous, if that makes sense, but like, "Oh, yeah, it's like Alec Baldwin."

• 2:08:47Speaker 01

  You know, like, whoa shit, that's Alec Baldwin. But you're not like, oh shit, I love you Alec Baldwin. It's, this is a Ben Smith of the, of the New York Times, actually. He wrote this column. He's like, "The future is everybody will be famous, but only to a small group of people." And I think that is true, but again, I don't decry it. I think it's great. Because I think that the more that that happens, the more engaged people will be. And it empowers different voices to be able to come in. And then possibly, I wouldn't say destroy, but compete against. I mean, look at Joe. Joe is more powerful than CNN and MSNBC and Fox all put together. That gives me like immense inspiration.

• 2:09:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:26Speaker 01

  Like, he created the space for me to succeed. And I told him that when I met him. I was like, dude, like, I listened to his podcast when I was like, young. And like, and I remember, like, when I got to meet him and all that, and I told him this on this pod, I was like, "I didn't know people were, millions were willing to listen to a guy talk about chimps for three straight hours." Including me. I didn't know I'd be one of those people.

• 2:09:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, me too. I learned something about myself before the show, yeah.

• 2:09:51Speaker 01

  And so by creating that space, I'd be like, wait, there's a hunger here. Like, he showed us all the way. And none of us will ever again be as famous as Rogan, because he was the first. And that's fine, because he created the umbrella ecosystem for us all to thrive. That is where I see like a great amount of hope within that story.

• 2:10:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and the cool thing, he also supports that ecosystem. He's such a-

• 2:10:15Speaker 01

  He's so, so generous.

• 2:10:16Lex Fridman?

  One of the things he paved the way on for me is to, to, to show that you could just be honest, publicly honest.

• 2:10:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:10:26Lex Fridman?

  And not jealous of other people's success, but instead be supportive and, and all those kinds of things. Just like loving towards others. He's been an inspiration, I mean, to the comics community. I think there are a bunch of, uh, before that, I think there were all a bunch of competitive haters.

• 2:10:45Speaker 01

  They were.

• 2:10:45Lex Fridman?

  Towards each other.

• 2:10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and now he's like, just injected love.

• 2:10:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:49Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:10:49Lex Fridman?

  They're like, they're still, like, many are still resistant, but they're like, they can't help it because he's such a huge voice. He like forces them to be like loving towards each other and the same, I tried to, one of the reasons I wanted to start this podcast was to try to, I wanted to be like a, uh, do what Joe Rogan did, but for the scientific community. Like my little circle of scientific community of like, like, let's support each other.

• 2:11:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, like Avi Loeb, I would have no idea who he was if it wasn't for you. I mean, I assume you put him in touch with Joe, he went on Joe's show, I had him on my show. Like, millions of people would have no idea who he was if it wasn't for you.

• 2:11:28Lex Fridman?

  Just by the way, in terms of deep state and shadow government, Avi Loeb has to do with aliens, you better believe Joe.

• 2:11:35Speaker 01

  Dude, the last thing I sent to him was the American Airlines audio. Did you see that? The pilots who were, oh my God, dude, this is amazing. So like, I'm like, excited. This American Airlines flight crew was over New Mexico, this happened five or six days ago. And they, the guy comes and he goes, hey, do you have any targets up here? A large cylindrical object just flew over me.

• 2:11:59Lex Fridman?

  Oh, no.

• 2:12:00Speaker 01

  So this happens.

• 2:12:01Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:12:01Speaker 01

  Then, a guy or like a radio catcher, records this and posts it online. American Airlines confirms that this is authentic audio. And they go, all further questions should be referred to the FBI. So then, okay, American Airlines just confirms it's a legitimate transmission. FBI, then the FAA comes out and says, we were tracking no objects in the vicinity of this plane at the time of the transmission. So the only plausible explanation that online sleuths have been able to say is, maybe he saw a Lear jet, which was, you know, using like open source data. FAA rules that out. So what was it? He saw a large cylindrical object.

• 2:12:46Speaker 01

  While he was mid-flight, American Airlines, but you can go online, listen to the audio yourself. This is a hundred percent no shit transmission, confirmed by American Airlines of a commercial pilot over New Mexico, seeing a quote unquote, "large cylindrical object" in the air. Like I said, um, when we first started talking, I've never believed, I've never believed more in UFOs and aliens.

• 2:13:09Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, this is awesome.

• 2:13:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:12Lex Fridman?

  I, I, I just wish both American Airlines, FBI and government would be more transparent. Like there would be voices. I know it sounds ridiculous, but the kind of transparency that you see, maybe not Joe Rogan. He's, he's, he's like overly transparent. He's just a comic really, but just a, I don't know, like a podcast from the FBI. Just like being honest, like excited, confused. I'm sure that they're being overly cautious about their release information. I'm sure there's a lot of information that would inspire the public, that it would inspire trust in institutions that will not damage national security. Like, it seems to me obvious. And the reason they're not sharing it is because of this momentum of bureaucracy, of caution and so on.

• 2:13:58Lex Fridman?

  But there's probably so much cool information that the government has.

• 2:14:01Speaker 01

  The way I almost, I wouldn't say it confirmed it's real, but Trump didn't, didn't declassify it. Like you know that if there was ever a president that actually wanted to get to the bottom of it, it was him.

• 2:14:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:13Speaker 01

  I mean, he didn't declassify it, man. And people begged him to. I know for a fact, because I pushed to try and make this happen, that some people did speak to him about it. And he was like, no, I'm not going to do it. So.

• 2:14:25Lex Fridman?

  He might be afraid.

• 2:14:27Speaker 01

  That's what I mean though. He's a, they were probably all telling him, they're like, sir, you can't do this, you know, all this, like, wow. And, and I get that. And there's this legislation written in COVID that like, they have six months to release.

• 2:14:37Lex Fridman?

  Is that real? What is that? That was a bunch of bullshit?

• 2:14:39Speaker 01

  I think it's bullshit. There's so many different levels of classification that people need to understand. I mean, look, I read John Podesta. He was the chief of staff to Bill Clinton. He's a big UFO guy. He, he tried, like him and Clinton tried to get some of this information and they could not get any of it. And we're talking about the president and the White House chief of staff.

• 2:15:00Lex Fridman?

  Well, there's a whole bureaucracy built, just like you were saying, with intent. You have to be like, that has to be your focus because there's a whole bureaucracy built around secrecy for probably for a good reason. So to get through to the information, there's a whole like paperwork process, all that kind of stuff. You can't just walk in and get the, unless, again, with intention, that becomes your thing.

• 2:15:19Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:15:20Lex Fridman?

  Let's revolutionize this thing. And then you get only so many things. It's, it's sad that the bureaucracy has gotten so bulky. But I think the hopeful messages from earlier in our conversation, it seems like. A single person can't fix it, but if you hire the right team, it feels like you can.

• 2:15:40Speaker 01

  Can't fix everything. I don't want to, I don't want to give people unrealistic expectations. You can fix a lot, especially in crisis, you can remake America.

• 2:15:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:48Speaker 01

  And the reason I know that is because it's already happened twice. FDR, or in modern history, FDR and JFK, sorry, FDR and JFK's assassination, LBJ. Two hyper competent men who understood government, who understood personnel, and coincidentally were friends. I love this. I don't think actually people understand this. FDR met Johnson three days after he won his congress, his election to congress, special election. He was only 29 years old and he left that meeting and called somebody and said, "This young man is going to be president of the United States someday." Like even then, like what was within him to understand and to recognize that?

• 2:16:30Speaker 01

  And sometimes Johnson, as a young member of congress, would come and have breakfast with FDR. Like just two of the great political minds of the 20th century, just sitting there talking. Like I would give anything to know what was happening.

• 2:16:43Lex Fridman?

  I hope they were real with each other. There was like a genuine human connection, right? That, that seems to be-

• 2:16:48Speaker 01

  Well, Johnson wasn't a genuine guy, so probably certainly not.

• 2:16:52Lex Fridman?

  Well, I need to, I need to read those thousands of pages. I've been way too focused on Hitler.

• 2:16:59Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, one of my goals in coming to this is I was like, I gotta get Lex into two things because I knew he'll love it. I know he'll love LBJ if he has the, takes the time to read the books.

• 2:17:08Lex Fridman?

  Really?

• 2:17:08Speaker 01

  100%. He's the most-

• 2:17:10Lex Fridman?

  Of all the presidents?

• 2:17:11Speaker 01

  I didn't say he'll love him, but he'll love the books about him because the books are a story of America, the story of politics, the story of power. This is the guy who wrote The Power Broker. These books are up there with Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. By Edward Gibbon in terms of how power works.

• 2:17:27Lex Fridman?

  Study of power.

• 2:17:28Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's no, that's, that's why Carol wrote the books. And that's why the books are not really about LBJ. They're about power in Washington. And about the consolidation of power post New Deal. The consolidation then, where they're using the levers of power like Johnson knew. In order to change the House of Representatives, the Senate of the United States. And ultimately, the presidency of the United States, which ended in failure and disaster with Vietnam. Don't get me wrong, but he's overlooked for so many of the incredible things that he did with civil rights. Nobody else could have done it. No, no one else could have gotten it done. And the second thing is, we gotta get you into World War One. We gotta get you more into World War One because I think that's a rabbit hole, which I know you're a Dan Carlin fan. So blueprint for Armageddon.

• 2:18:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's good.

• 2:18:14Speaker 01

  Guaranteed, but.

• 2:18:16Lex Fridman?

  But there's fewer evil people there.

• 2:18:18Speaker 01

  Yes, but, well, but that's what actually, there's a banality of that evil. Of the Kaiser and of the Austro-Hungarians and of, see, I like World War One more. Because it was unresolved. It's one of those periods I was talking to you about, about like, sometimes you're called and you fail. Like, that's what happened. I mean, 50 million people were killed in the most horrific way. Like, people literally drowned in the mud, like, like an entire generation. One stat I love is that, you know, Britain didn't need a draft till 1916. Like, they went two years of throwing people into barbed wire voluntarily.

• 2:18:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:59Speaker 01

  And because people loved their country and they loved the king and they thought they were going against the Kaiser. It's just like, that conflict to me, I just can't read enough about it. Also, just like births Russian Revolution, you know.

• 2:19:11Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 2:19:12Speaker 01

  Hitler.

• 2:19:13Lex Fridman?

  You can't talk about World War Two without World War One.

• 2:19:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:19:15Lex Fridman?

  Right?

• 2:19:16Speaker 01

  And I'm obsessed with the conflict. I've read way too many books about it. For this reason is, it's unresolved. And like, the roots of so much of even our current problems are, happened in Versailles, right? Like Vietnam is because of the Treaty of Versailles. Many ways, the Middle Eastern problems and the division of the states there. The Treaty of Versailles in terms of the penalties against Germany, but also the. Fallout from those wars on the French and the German populat- or the French and the British populations and their reluctance for war in 1939 or 1938 when Neville Chamberlain goes, right? Like, that's one of the things people don't understand is the actual appetite of the British public at that time. They didn't want to go to war. Only Churchill, he was the only one in the, you know, in the gathering storm, right?

• 2:20:00Speaker 01

  Like, being like, hey, this is really bad and all of that. And then even in the United States, our streak of isolationism, which swept, I mean, things were, because of that conflict, we were convinced as a country that we wanted nothing to do with Europe and its problems. And in many ways, that contributed to the proliferation of Hitler and more. So like, I'm obsessed with World War I for this reason, which is that it's just like the root, oh, it's like the culmination of the monarchies, then the fall, and then just all the shit spills out. So from there for like 100 years.

• 2:20:32Lex Fridman?

  So World War I is like the most important shift in human history versus like World War II is like a consequence of that?

• 2:20:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's, so I have a degree in security studies from Georgetown. And one of the thing is that we would focus a lot on that is like war and, but also like the complexity around war. And it's funny, we never spent that much time on World War II. Cause it was actually quite of a clean war. It's a very atypical war, as in the war object, which we learned from World War I, is we must inflict suffering on the German people and invade the borders of Germany and destroy Hitler. Like, the center of gravity is the Nazi regime and Hitler. So it had a very basic begin and end. Begin, liberate France, invade Germany, destroy Hitler, reoccupy, rebuild.

• 2:21:22Speaker 01

  World War I, what are you fighting for? Like, are you, I mean, and nobody even knew. You can go, the German general staff, they're like, even in 1917, they're like, the war was worth it because now we have Luxembourg. I'm like, really? Like, you killed 2 million of your citizens for fucking Luxembourg? And like half of Belgium, which is now like a pond?

• 2:21:40Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:41Speaker 01

  And same thing, the French are like, well, the French more, so they're defending their borders. But like, what are the British fighting for? Why did hundreds of thousands of British people die? In order to preserve the balance of power in Europe and prevent the Kaiser from having a port on the English Channel? Like, really? That's why? These, that's more what wars are, is they become these like atypical, they become these protracted conflicts.

• 2:22:08Speaker 01

  With a necessary diplomatic resolution. It's not clean. It's very dirty. It usually leads in the outbreak of another war and another war and another war and a slow burn of ethnic conflict, which bubbles up. So that's why I look at that one. Even because it's it's more typical of warfare. In terms of how it works.

• 2:22:27Lex Fridman?

  Exactly. It's it's kind of interesting. You're making me realize that World War II is one of the rare wars where you can make a strong case for it's a fight of good versus evil.

• 2:22:38Speaker 01

  Just war theory, obviously. Like, yeah, they're literally slaughtering Jews. Like, you know, we have to kill them.

• 2:22:42Lex Fridman?

  And there's one person doing it. I mean, there's one person at the core. There's it's. Yeah, that's fascinating. And it's short and there's a clear aggression.

• 2:22:54Lex Fridman?

  It's interesting that Dan Carlin has been avoiding Hitler as well.

• 2:22:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Probably for this reason.

• 2:23:02Lex Fridman?

  Probably for this reason. I mean, but it's it's complicated, too. Because there's a pressure. That guy has his demons. I love Dan so much. So this is the the I don't know if you feel this pressure. But as a creative, he feels the pressure of being maybe not necessarily correct. But maybe correct in the in the sense that his understanding, he gets to the bottom of of why something happened, of what really happened.

• 2:23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:36Lex Fridman?

  Get get to the bottom of it before he can say something publicly about it. And he is tortured by that burden.

• 2:23:43Speaker 01

  I know. You know, he takes so much shit from the historical community for no reason. I think he's the greatest popularizer, quote unquote, of history. And I wish more people in history understood it that way. He was an inspiration to me. I mean, I do some videos sometimes on my Instagram now where I'll like, I'll do like a book tour. I'll be like, here's my bookshelf of these presidents and like, here's what I learned from this book and this book and this. And that was very much like a a skill I learned from him of being like, as you know, as the historian writes. Yeah, yeah, I love I just love the way he talks. He's like, in the. Mud. Oh, you know, he'll be like, quote. Quote. Yeah, I just said, look, he, he inspires me, man.

• 2:24:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:23Speaker 01

  He really does to like, learn more. And I've read, I bought a lot of books because of Dan Carlin. He'll be, you know, because of this guy, because of that guy. Um, in terms of, you know, another thing he does, which nobody else, and I'm probably guilty of this. He focuses on the actual people involved. Like, he would tell the story of actual British soldiers in World War I. And I probably, and maybe you're guilty of this too. We over-focus on what was happening in the German general staff. What was happening in the British general staff. And he doesn't make that mistake. That's why he tells real history.

• 2:24:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and, and may, it gives it a feeling. The result is that there's a feeling, you get the feeling of what it was like to be there.

• 2:25:01Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:25:02Lex Fridman?

  You know, you're becoming, quickly becoming more and more popular.

• 2:25:08Lex Fridman?

  Uh, speaking about political issues in part. Do you feel

• 2:25:15Lex Fridman?

  a burden, like, almost like, uh, the, the prison of your prior convictions? Of having to, uh, being popular with a certain kind of audience? And thereby unable to really think outside the box?

• 2:25:30Speaker 01

  I had, I've, I've really struggled with this. I came up in right wing media. I came up a much more doctrinaire, conservative in my professional life. I wasn't always conservative. We can get to that later. Um, if you want, and I did feel an immense pressure after Jan, after the election by people to say, wanted me to say the election was stolen. And I knew I had a sizable part of my audience. Oh, well, here's the benefit. Most people know me from Rising, which is with Crystal and me. That is inherently a left, right program. So it's a large audience. So I felt comfortable and I knew that I could still be

• 2:26:13Speaker 01

  fine in terms of my numbers, whatever, because a lot, many people knew me who were on the left. And if, you know, my right listeners abandoned me, so be it. I was, had the luxury of able to take that choice. But I still felt an immense amount of pressure to say the election was stolen, to give credence to a lot of the stuff that Trump was doing, to downplay January 6th, to downplay many of the Republican senators, or justify many of the Republican senators, some of whom I know who objected to the Electoral College certification and who stoked some of the flames that have eaten the Republican base. And I just wouldn't do it. And that was hard,

• 2:26:53Speaker 01

  man. Like, I feel more politically homeless right now than I ever have. But I have realized in the last couple of months, it's the best thing that ever happened to me.

• 2:27:04Lex Fridman?

  It's freedom.

• 2:27:05Speaker 01

  It's true freedom. I now, I say exactly what I think. And it's not that I wasn't doing that before. It's maybe I would avoid certain topics, or like, I would think about things more from a team perspective of like, am I making sure that, it's, it's, I'm not saying I didn't fight it. And I still, I criticized the right plenty, and Trump plenty before the election and more. It's more just like, I no longer feel as if I even have the illusion of a stake within the game. I'm like, I only look at myself as an outside observer, and I will only call it as I see it truly. And I was aspiring to that before, but I, I had

• 2:27:48Speaker 01

  to have, in a way, Trump stopped the steal thing, it like, took my shackles off, 100%.

• 2:27:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:54Speaker 01

  Because I was like, no, this is bullshit. And I'm gonna say it's bullshit. And I think it's bad. And I think it's bad for the Republican Party. And if people in the Republican Party don't agree with me on that, that's fine. I'm just not gonna be necessarily like, associated with you anymore.

• 2:28:09Lex Fridman?

  This is probably one of the first political, related, politics-related conversations we've had. I mean, unless you count Michael Malice, who-

• 2:28:17Speaker 01

  He was great. He's a funny guy.

• 2:28:21Lex Fridman?

  He's not so much political as he is like burning down, man.

• 2:28:26Speaker 01

  He leans too far in anarchy for me.

• 2:28:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I think he's.

• 2:28:30Speaker 01

  There's a place for that.

• 2:28:31Lex Fridman?

  It's almost, well, first of all, he's, he's working on a new book, which I really appreciate. Outside of, he's working on like a big book for a while, which is White Pill. He's also working on this like short little thing, which is like anarchist handbook or something like that. It's like anarchy for idiots or something like that, which I think is really.

• 2:28:57Lex Fridman?

  Well, me being an idiot and being curious about anarchy seems useful. So I like those kinds of books.

• 2:29:03Speaker 01

  That's Russian heritage, man.

• 2:29:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:05Speaker 01

  Anarchist 101. Yeah.

• 2:29:06Lex Fridman?

  I, I mean, it's, I find those kinds of things useful thought experiment. Because that's why I didn't, it's frustrating to me when people talk about communism or socialism, or even capitalism. Where they can't enjoy the thought experiment of like, why did communism fail? And maybe ask the question of like, are there, is it possible to make communism succeed? Or are there good ideas in communism? Like, I enjoy the thought experiment, like the discourse of it, like the reasoning and like devil's advocate and all that. People have like, seem to not have patience for that. They're like communism bad, red.

• 2:29:47Speaker 01

  I was obsessed with the question and still am. I will never be, I will never quench my thirst for Russian history. I love that period of 1890 to 1925. It's just like, it's so fucking crazy. Like the autocracy embodied in Czar Alexander. And then you get this like weird fail son Nicholas, who is kind of a good guy, but also terrible. And also Russian autocracy itself is terrible. And then I just became obsessed with the question of like, why did the Bolshevik revolution succeed? Because like, people in Russia didn't necessarily want Bolshevism.

• 2:30:32Speaker 01

  People suffered a lot under Bolshevism and it led to Stalinism. How did Vladimir Lenin do it? Right? Like, and I became obsessed with that question.

• 2:30:43Speaker 01

  And it's still, I find it so interesting, which is that series of accidents of history, incredible boldness by Lenin, incredible realpolitik, smart, unpopular decisions made by Trotsky and Stalin, and just like the arrogance of the czars and of the, of the Russian like autocracy. And just, but at the same time, there's all these like cultural implications of this, right? In terms of like, how it became hollowed out post Catherine the Great, and all that. I was obsessed with autocracy, because Russia was an actual autocracy. And like, actually, and I'm like, it was there. Like, they didn't even remove serfdom to

• 2:31:28Speaker 01

  like, the civil war in America. Like, that's crazy. Like, you know? And nobody really talks about it. And I just, yeah, I was like, was Bolshevism a natural reaction to the excesses of Czarism? There is a convenient explanation where that is true. But there were also a series of decisions made by Lenin and Stalin to kill many of the people in the center-left and marginalize them, and also not to associate with the more quote-unquote like, like, amenable communists, in order to make sure that their pure strain of Bolshevism was the only thing. And the reason I like that is because it comes back to a point

• 2:32:08Speaker 01

  I made earlier, it's all about intentionality, which is that you actually can will something into existence, even if people don't want it. That was the craziest thing. Like, nobody wanted this. But it still ruled for half a century, well, more, actually. I mean, almost, you know, 75 years.

• 2:32:26Lex Fridman?

  Fascinating to think that there could have been a history of the Soviet Union that was dramatically different than Leninism, Stalinism.

• 2:32:38Lex Fridman?

  That was completely different, like almost would be the American story.

• 2:32:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, easily. I mean, there's a world where, and I don't have all the characters. There's like Kerensky, and then there was like whoever Lenin's number two Stalin's chief rival. And even, I mean, look, even a Soviet Union led by Trotsky, that's a whole other world, right? Like, literally a whole other world. And, yeah, it's just, I don't know, I find it so interesting. I will never not be fascinated by Russia. I always will. It's funny that I get to talk to you, because it's like, I read this book, I forget what it's called. It won, I think it won a Pulitzer Prize, and it was like the story of, I tried to understand Russia post Crimea. Because I, I came up amongst people who are much more like neoconservative, and they're like, fuck Russia, Russia is bad. But I was like, okay, like, what do these people think?

• 2:33:24Speaker 01

  And we have this narrative of like the fall of the Soviet Union. And then I read this book from the perspective of Russians who lived through the fall. And they were like, this, I was like, this is terrible. Like, actually, the introduction of capitalism was awful. And all, like, the rise of all these crazy oligarchs, that's why Putin was, came to power. To, to like restore, restore order to the oligarchy.

• 2:33:50Lex Fridman?

  And he still talks to this day. Do you guys, I mean, that's always the threat of like, do you want to return to the 90s?

• 2:33:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:33:56Lex Fridman?

  Do you want to return?

• 2:33:57Speaker 01

  To Yeltsin.

• 2:33:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:58Speaker 01

  And, and like, but the thing is, in the West, we have this, like, our own propaganda of like, no, Yeltsin was great. That was the golden age, what could have been with Russia. And I was like, well, what do actual Russians think? And so, that, yeah, I, I, I'll always be fascinated by it. And then just, like, to understand the idea of feeling encircled by NATO and all of that. You have to understand, like, Russian defense theory, all the way going back to the Tsars, has always been defense in depth, in terms of having Estonia, Lithuania, and more is like, protection of the heartland. I'm not justifying in this, so NATO shills, like, please don't come after me. But, and I'm, look, Estonians, Estonians like NATO, they want to be in NATO, so I don't want to minimize that.

• 2:34:41Speaker 01

  I'm more just saying, like, I understand him and Russia much better, having done that. And we are very incapable in America, I think this is probably because my parents are immigrants and I've traveled a lot, of just putting yourself in the mind of people who aren't Western and haven't lived. A history, especially our lives, of America's fucking awesome. We're the number one country in the world.

• 2:35:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:03Speaker 01

  I'm like, we're literally better than you, like, in many ways. And they, they, they can't empathize with people who have suffered so much.

• 2:35:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:12Speaker 01

  And I just, yeah, it's just so interesting to me.

• 2:35:14Lex Fridman?

  What about, if we could talk for just a brief moment about the human of Putin and power?

• 2:35:23Lex Fridman?

  You are clearly fascinated by power. Do you think power changed Putin? Do you think power changes leaders? If you look at the great leaders in history, whether it's LBJ, FDR. Do you think power really changes people? Like, is there a truth to that kind of old proverb?

• 2:35:44Speaker 01

  It reveals. I think that's what it is. It reveals. So Putin was a much more deft politician, much more amenable to the West. If you think back, you know, to 2001 and more, right? When he came, because he was still, because at that time, his biggest problem was intra-Russian politics, right? Like, it was all consolidating power within the oligarchy. Once he did that, by around, like, 2007, there's that famous time when he spoke out against the West at the Munich Security Conference. I forget when it was. And that's when everybody in the audience was like, whoa. And he was talking about, like, NATO encirclement and, like, we will not be beaten back by the West. Very shortly afterwards, like, the Georgia invasion happens.

• 2:36:27Speaker 01

  And that was like a big wake-up call of, like, we will not be pushed around anymore. I mean, he said before publicly, like, the worst thing that ever happened was the fall. Or what did he say? It was like the fall of the Soviet Union was a tragedy, right?

• 2:36:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:39Speaker 01

  Of course, people in the West were like, what? I'm like, I get it, right? Like, they were a superpower. Now their population is declining. Like, it's like a petrostate. It sucks. Like, I understand. I understand, like, how somebody could feel about that. I think it revealed his character, which is that...

• 2:36:59Speaker 01

  He, I think he thinks of himself probably, as he always has since 2001, as like this benevolent, almost as a benevolent dictator. He's like, without me, the whole system would collapse. I'm the only guy keeping these people in, I'm the only guy keeping all these people in check. Most Russians probably do support Putin because they feel like they support some form of functional government and they view it as like a check against that, which is a long, you know, has a long history within Russia too. So I don't know if it changed him. I think it just revealed him. Um, because it's not like he, I mean, he has a, you know, Navalny has put that like billion dollar palace and all that. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like Putin does that for show.

• 2:37:42Speaker 01

  He doesn't seem like somebody who indulges in all that stuff. Or maybe we just don't see it. Like, I don't know.

• 2:37:47Lex Fridman?

  Well, I don't, I, it's very difficult for me to understand. I've been hanging, thanks to Clubhouse. Uh, a lot of, I've gotten to learn a lot about the Navalny folks and it's been very educational. Made me ask a lot of important questions about what, um, you know, questioned a lot of my assumptions about what I do and don't know. But I'll just say that I do believe, you know, there's a lot of the Navalny folks say that Putin is incompetent. And is a, is a bad, uh, executive, like is bad at basically running government. But to me.

• 2:38:24Speaker 01

  Well, why do Russians not think that? Right? Is it, well, they, they probably say it's propaganda.

• 2:38:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, they would say the control, there is, there is a strong either control or pressure on the press. But I think there is a legitimate support and love of Putin and Russia that is not grounded in just misinformation and propaganda. There's, there's legitimacy there. Mostly I tried to remain apolitical and actually genuinely remain not apolitical. I am legitimately not interested in the politics of Russia of today. I feel I have some responsibility and I'll take it, that responsibility on as I need to. But my fascination, as it is perhaps with you in part, is in the historical figure of Putin.

• 2:39:09Lex Fridman?

  I know he's currently president, but I'm almost looking like, as if I was a kid in 30 years from now, reading about him, studying the, the human being. The the games of power that are played that got him to gain power, to maintain power, what that says about his human nature, the the nature of the bureaucracy that's around him, the nature of Russia, the people, all those kinds of things, as opposed to the politics and the manipulation and the corruption and the control of the media that results in misinformation. You know, those are those are the bickering of the day, just like we're saying, what will actually be remembered about this moment in history?

• 2:39:50Speaker 01

  Totally. He's a transformational figure in Russian history, really, like the bridge between the fall of the Soviet Union and the chaos of Yeltsin. That will be how he's remembered. The only question is what comes next and what he wants to come next. That's I'm always fat. I'm like, he's getting up. How old is he? Sixty something?

• 2:40:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, sixty. So he would be, I think he would be eighty. So with the with the change of the Constitution, he cannot be president until

• 2:40:20Lex Fridman?

  twenty thirty four, I think it is. So he would be like eighty something and he would be in power for over thirty years, which is longer than Stalin. So but he's still, he still seems to be.

• 2:40:33Speaker 01

  He seems fit. Yeah, I think he's going to be around for a long time.

• 2:40:36Lex Fridman?

  But this is a fascinating question that you ask, which is like, what does he want?

• 2:40:40Speaker 01

  I don't know. Yeah, that's the question. I don't I and this is where I think, given all of his behavior and more, I don't know if it's about money. I don't know if it's about enriching himself. Obviously, he did to the tune of billions and billions and billions of dollars. But I think he probably he's as close to like an actual Russian nationalist, like at the top, who really does believe in Russia as its rightful superpower. Everything he does seems to stem from that opposition to NATO, intro to Syria, like wanting to play a large role in affairs, deeply distrustful and yet coveting of the European powers like.

• 2:41:19Speaker 01

  Look, I could describe every czar, you know, in those same language. Like, every czar falls into the exact same category.

• 2:41:25Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and I mean, it makes me wonder, well, looking at some of the biggest leaders in human history, to ask the question of, what was the motivation? What was the motivation for even just the revolutionaries like Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin? What was the motivation? Because it sure as hell seems like the motivation was, at least in part, the driven by the idea, by ideas, not self-interest of like, power.

• 2:41:54Speaker 01

  For Lenin, it was, I think he was a true believer and an actual narcissist, who thought he was the only one who could do it. Stalin, I do think, just wanted power and realized, well, I don't know. Look, he wrote very passionately when he was young.

• 2:42:06Lex Fridman?

  And he was, he really believed in communism.

• 2:42:08Speaker 01

  In the beginning, he did. I, I, I always, what I'm always fascinated is, I'm like, around 1920, what happened, right? Post-revolution, you crush the whites. Now it's all about consolidation. That's where the games really began. And I'm like, I don't think that was about communism.

• 2:42:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, maybe it became a useful propaganda tool, but it still seemed like he believed in it. Uh, whether it was, of course, this is the question, I mean, this is the problem with conspiracy theories for me. And this is legitimate criticism towards me about conspiracy theories, which is, uh, you know, just because you're not like this, doesn't mean others are not like this. So like, I can't believe that somebody be, like, deeply two-faced.

• 2:42:55Speaker 01

  Oh, I've met them. You're welcome to Washington.

• 2:42:59Lex Fridman?

  But like, I think that I would be able to detect. Like, no.

• 2:43:06Lex Fridman?

  Well, this, my question is.

• 2:43:07Speaker 01

  I've seen it, I mean.

• 2:43:08Lex Fridman?

  Well, so there's difference, there's, there's two-face, like, uh, there's different levels of two-face. Like, what I mean is, to be killing people. And, uh, it's like House of Cards style, right? And, and still present a front like you're, you're, like, you're not killing people. I don't know if, I guess it's possible, but I just don't see that at scale. Uh, like, there's a lot of people like that, and I don't, I have trouble imagining. Um, some, you know, that's such a compelling narrative that people like to say, like people, that's the conspiratorial mindset. I think that skepticism is really powerful and important

• 2:43:50Lex Fridman?

  to have because it's true. A lot of powerful people abuse their power, but saying that about, I feel like people over assume that. It's like I see that with use of steroids often in sports. People seem to make that claim about like everybody who's successful. And I want to be very, I don't know, something about me wants to be cautious because

• 2:44:14Lex Fridman?

  I want to give people a chance.

• 2:44:16Speaker 01

  Being purely cynical isn't helpful. People say this about me. He's always saying this to do this.

• 2:44:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. But at the same time, being naively optimistic about everything is also kind of pedophilic because people are going to fuck you over. And more importantly, that doesn't bother me. More importantly, you're not going to be able to reason about how to create systems that are going to be robust to corruption, to uh, malevolent uh, like parties. So, so in order to create, you have to have a healthy balance of both, I suppose, especially if you want to actually engineer things that, that, that work in this world that has evil in it. I can't believe there's a book of Hitler on the desk. Um, we've mentioned a lot of books throughout this conversation. I wonder, and this makes me really curious to explore

• 2:45:04Lex Fridman?

  in a lot of depth, the kind of books that you're interested in. I think you mentioned in your show that you, uh, you provide recommendations.

• 2:45:14Speaker 01

  Yes, I do.

• 2:45:15Lex Fridman?

  In the form of spoken word, can you be on what we've already recommended, mention books, whether it is historical, uh, nonfiction, or whether it's more like philosophical or even fiction that had a big impact on your life. Is there, is there a few that you can mention?

• 2:45:32Speaker 01

  Sure. I already talked about the Johnson books, so I'll leave that alone. Robert A. Caro, he's still alive, thank God. He's finishing the last book. Uh, I hope he makes it. So that, those Johnson books. Second.

• 2:45:44Lex Fridman?

  Can I ask you a question about those books?

• 2:45:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:45:47Lex Fridman?

  What the hell do you fit into so many pages?

• 2:45:49Speaker 01

  Everything, man. Let me tell you this. So I'll just give you an anecdote. This is why I love these books. The beginning, the first book is about Lyndon Johnson.

• 2:45:57Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:45:58Speaker 01

  His life to when he gets elected to Congress. The book begins with a history of Texas and its weather patterns. And then of his great, great grandfather moving to Texas.

• 2:46:10Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:46:11Speaker 01

  Then the story of that, about a hundred or so pages in, you get to Lyndon Johnson. That's how, that's how you do it.

• 2:46:18Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 2:46:18Speaker 01

  Which is you get-

• 2:46:19Lex Fridman?

  Looks like a Tolstoy style, uh, retelling.

• 2:46:21Speaker 01

  This is the thing. It's not a biography. It's a story of the times. That's what great biography. So another one, this isn't part of my list, so don't too. Is Grant-

• 2:46:31Lex Fridman?

  Off the record.

• 2:46:32Speaker 01

  Ron Chernow. Ron Chernow's Grant. It's a thousand pages. And the reason I tell everybody to read it is it's not just the story of Grant. It is the story of pre-Civil War America, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and Reconstruction, all told in the life of one person who was involved in all three. Most people don't know anything about the Mexican-American War. It's fascinating. Most people don't know anything about Reconstruction. Now more so because people are talking, it's a hot topic now. I've been reading about it for years. That is another thing people need to learn a lot more about. In terms of non-history books, the book that probably had the most impact on me,

• 2:47:10Speaker 01

  which is also historical non-fiction, is I Am Obsessed with Antarctic Exploration. And it all began with a book called Shackleton's Incredible Journey, which is the collection of diaries of everybody who was on Shackleton's journey. For those who don't know, Shackleton was the last explorer of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. He led a ship called the Endurance, which froze in the ice off the coast of Antarctica in 1914. And they didn't have radios or the last exploration, a last one without the age of radio.

• 2:47:54Speaker 01

  And he happens to freeze in the ice. And then the ship collapses after a year frozen in the ice. And this man- Leads his entire crew from that ship onto the ice with a team of dogs, survives out on the ice for another year with three little lifeboats, and is able to get all of his men, every single one of them alive, to an island hundreds of miles away called Elephant Island. And when they got there, he had to leave everybody behind except for six people. And him and two other guys, I'm forgetting their names, navigated by the stars, eight hundred miles through the Drake Passage,

• 2:48:38Speaker 01

  with seas of hundreds of feet to Prince, I think it's called Prince George's Island. And then, when they got to Prince George's Island, they landed on the wrong side and they had to hike from one side to the other to go and meet the whalers. And every single one of those things was supposed to be impossible. Nobody was ever, nobody was ever supposed to hike that island. It wasn't done again until like the 1980s with professional equipment. He did it after two years of starvation. Nobody was ever supposed to make it from Elephant Island to Prince George. The guy, they had to hold him steady, his legs, so that he could chart the stars. And if they miss this island, they're into open sea, they're dead.

• 2:49:21Speaker 01

  And then before that, how do you survive for a year on the ice?

• 2:49:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:49:25Speaker 01

  On seals. And before that, he kept his crew from depression, frozen one year in the ice. It's just an amazing story. And it made me obsessed with Antarctic exploration, so I've read like 15 books on.

• 2:49:38Lex Fridman?

  What the hell is it about the human spirit?

• 2:49:40Speaker 01

  It's amazing, that's, that's the thing about Antarctica is it brings it out of you. You, for example, I read another one recently called Mossin's Will. Douglas Mossin, he was an Australian. He was on the, one of the first shackled, Frost, Robert Frost expeditions. He leads an expedition down to the south. Him and a partner, they're leading explorations, 1908, something like that. They're going around Antarctica with dog teams. And one of the, what happens is they keep going over these snow bridges, where there's a crevice, but it's covered in snow. And so, the, one of the, the lead driver. The dogs go over and they plummet and that sled takes with it.

• 2:50:21Speaker 01

  So the guy survives, but that sled takes all their food, half the dogs, their stove, the camping tent, the tent specifically designed for the snow, everything. And they're hundreds of miles away from base camp. He and this guy have to make it back there in time before the ship comes to come get them on an agreed upon date. And he makes it, but the guy he was with, he dies. And it's a crazy story. They, they have, first of all, they have to eat the dogs. A really creepy part of Antarctic exploration is everyone ends up eating dogs at different points.

• 2:50:57Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:50:58Speaker 01

  And part of the theory, which is so crazy, is that the guy he was with was dying because they were eating dog liver. And dog liver has a lot of vitamin E, which if you eat too much of it, can give you like a poisoning. And so Mossen, by trying to help his friend, was giving him more liver.

• 2:51:17Lex Fridman?

  Of all the things that kills you.

• 2:51:19Speaker 01

  I know, it's dog liver. And so his friend ends up dying, have a horrific heart attack, all of that. Mossen crawls back hundreds of miles away, makes it back to base camp, hours after the ship leaves. And two guys, or a couple of guys stayed behind for him. And he basically has to recuperate for like six months before he can even walk again. But it's like you were saying about the human spirit. It's like Antarctica brings that out of people. Or Amundsen, the guy who made it to the South Pole, Robert Amundsen. Oh my God, like this guy trained his whole life in the ice from Norway to make it to the South Pole. And he beat Robert Frost, the, the British guy with all this money and all these, I could go on this forever.

• 2:52:04Speaker 01

  I'm obsessed with it.

• 2:52:06Lex Fridman?

  First of all, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna take this part of the podcast. I'm gonna set it to music. I'm gonna listen to it, cause I've been whining and bitching about running 48 miles with Goggins this next weekend. And this, this is gonna be so easy. I'm just gonna listen to this over and over in my head. You're gonna be.

• 2:52:23Speaker 01

  Elon's obsessed with Shackleton. He talks about him all the time.

• 2:52:25Lex Fridman?

  He uses, I was gonna ask you about that. He uses as an example of, that is as an example of what Mars colonization would be like.

• 2:52:35Speaker 01

  He's right. No, Antarctica is as close to, you can simulate that.

• 2:52:42Speaker 01

  Antarctica is as close to what you could simulate what it would get. That Nat Geo series on Mars, I'm not sure if you watched it, it's incredible. Elon's actually in it. And it's like, they get there, everything goes wrong, somebody dies, like, it's horrible. They can't find any water, it's not working.

• 2:53:00Lex Fridman?

  So what is it, is it like simulating the experience of what it'd be like to colonize?

• 2:53:03Speaker 01

  So it's like a docu-series where the fictionalized part is the astronauts on Mars. But then they're interviewing people like Elon Musk and others who are the ones who paved the way to get to Mars. So this is a really interesting concept. I think it's on Netflix. And yeah, I agree with him 100%, which is that the first guys to make, like for example, Robert Frost, who went to Australia, sorry, to Antarctica. The British explorer who was beaten to the South Pole three weeks by Robert Amundsen. He died on the way back. And the reason why is because he wasn't well-prepared, he was arrogant. He didn't have the proper amounts of supplies, his team had terrible morale.

• 2:53:47Speaker 01

  Antarctica is a brutal place. If you fuck up one time, you die. And it's like, and this is what you read a lot about, which is the reason why such heroic characters like Shackleton Shine is a lot of people died. Like, there were some people who got frozen in the ice. I mean, man, this again also came to the North exploration. So I read a lot about like the exploration of the North Pole. And same thing, these unextraordinary men take people out into the ice and get frozen out there for years and shit goes so bad. They end up eating each other, they all die. There's the famous, I'm forgetting his name, the British Franklin Expedition, where they went searching for them for like 20 years.

• 2:54:29Speaker 01

  And they eventually came across a group of Inuit who were like, oh yeah, we saw some weird white men here like 15 years ago. And they find their bones and there's like saw marks which show that they were eating each other.

• 2:54:39Lex Fridman?

  So history remembers the ones who didn't eat each other.

• 2:54:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, we remember, well, yeah, we remember the ones who made it, but there are...

• 2:54:47Lex Fridman?

  And that would be the story of Mars as well.

• 2:54:49Speaker 01

  That will be the story of Mars.

• 2:54:50Lex Fridman?

  So but and nevertheless, that's the interesting thing about Antarctica. Nevertheless, something about human nature drives us to explore it.

• 2:55:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:55:00Lex Fridman?

  That and that seems to be like, you know, a lot of people have this kind of, to me, frustrating conversations like, well, Earth is great, man. Why do we need to colonize Mars?

• 2:55:11Speaker 01

  You just don't get it.

• 2:55:12Lex Fridman?

  It's it. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. It's the same people that say like, why are you running? Like, why are you running a marathon? What are you running from, man?

• 2:55:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:55:22Lex Fridman?

  I don't know. It's pushing the limits of the of the human mind of the of what's possible.

• 2:55:29Speaker 01

  It's George Mallory, because it's there.

• 2:55:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:33Speaker 01

  It's simple.

• 2:55:34Lex Fridman?

  And that and that somehow, actually, the result of that, if you want to be pragmatic about it, there's something about pushing that limit that has side effects that you don't expect that will create a better world back home for the people, not necessarily on Earth, but like, just in general, it raises the quality of life for everybody, even though the initial endeavor doesn't make any sense.

• 2:55:58Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:55:58Lex Fridman?

  The very fact of pushing the limits of what's possible then has side effects of benefiting everybody. And it's difficult to predict ahead of time what those benefits will be. Same with colonizing Mars. It's unclear what the benefits will be for Earth or in general.

• 2:56:17Speaker 01

  Well, what did we get from the moon? What did we get from Apollo, right? Technically, and there were a lot of socialists at the time making this argument. They're like, all this money going. You know what? We went to the fucking moon in 1969. That was amazing. The greatest feat in human history, period. What did we learn from it? We learned and we learned about interstellar or interplanetary travel. We learned that we could do something off of a device less powerful than the computer in my pocket.

• 2:56:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:49Speaker 01

  Like, the the amount of potential locked within my pocket and your pocket. I mean, this is, if you were to define my policies in one way, it's greatness, like national quest for national greatness. There is no greatness without fulfilling the ultimate calling of the human spirit, which is more. It's not enough, and why should it be?

• 2:57:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:11Speaker 01

  It wasn't enough. You know, our ancestors could have been content to sit, well, actually, many of them were, were content to sit and say, these berries will be here for a long time. And they got eaten and they died. And it's the ones who got out and went to the next place and the next place and went across the Siberian land bridge and went across more and just did extraordinary things. The craziest ones, we are their offspring and we fail them if we don't go into space. That's how I would put it.

• 2:57:42Lex Fridman?

  You should run for president.

• 2:57:44Speaker 01

  I'm just pro-space, man. I love space.

• 2:57:47Lex Fridman?

  No, you're pro doing difficult things and pushing, exploring the world in all of its forms. I hope that kind of spirit permeates politics, too. That same kind of, uh...

• 2:57:59Speaker 01

  Can. Can.

• 2:58:00Lex Fridman?

  Well, it can, and I hope so. I don't know if you want to stay on it, but I think that was book number one.

• 2:58:06Speaker 01

  Or two. Oh, shit. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Is there some... Well, this one is a second. This actually is a corollary to that, which is Sapiens. And I know that's a very normal, normie answer.

• 2:58:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:15Speaker 01

  Um, one of the best-selling, but I think there's a reason for that.

• 2:58:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:18Speaker 01

  Yuval Noah Harari, okay, look, yes, he didn't do any new research. I get that. All he did was aggregate. I'm sure he's very controversial in the scientific community.

• 2:58:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:27Speaker 01

  But guess what? He wrote a great book. It's a very easy-to-read, general explanation of the rise of human history. And it helps challenge a lot of preconceptions. Are we special? Are we an accident? Are we more like a parasite? Or are we not? What, is there a destiny to all of us? I don't know. You know? If anything, it's like what I just described, which is more. Move. Move out. Um, the evolution of money. Like, I know he gets a lot of hate, but I think that he writes it so clearly and well that for your average person to be able to read that, you will come away with a more clear understanding of the human race than before. And I think that that's why it's worth it.

• 2:59:09Lex Fridman?

  I agree with you 100%. I, uh, I'm ashamed to, I usually don't bring up Sapiens because it's like...

• 2:59:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, everybody's uncle has read it. But it's, that's a good thing, actually. Yeah.

• 2:59:19Lex Fridman?

  It is one of the, I think it'll be remembered as one of the great books of this particular era. Yeah, because it's it's so clearly, it's like the selfish genie with dogs. I mean, it just aggregates so many ideas together and puts language to it. That's makes it very useful to talk about. So it is one of the great books.

• 2:59:37Speaker 01

  100%. Um, another one is definitely Born to Run for the same reason by Christopher McDougal, which is that

• 2:59:45Lex Fridman?

  I'm just gonna listen to this whole podcast next week.

• 2:59:47Speaker 01

  You have to. Well, you should because it you are inheriting our most basic skill, which is running and reimagining human history or reimagining like what we were as opposed to what we are is very useful because it helps you understand how to tap into primal aspects of your brain, which just drive you. And the reason I love McDougal's writing is because I love anybody who writes like this. Malcolm Gladwell, um, who else? Michael Lewis, people who find characters to tell a bigger story. Michael Lewis finds characters to tell us the story of the financial crisis. Um, you know, Malcolm Gladwell writes finds characters to tell us the story of learning

• 3:00:30Speaker 01

  new skills and outliers and, you know, whatever his latest book is, I forget what it's called. And but McDougal tells the vignettes and a tiny story of a single person in the history of running and like how it's baked into your DNA. And I think there was just something very useful to that for me for being like, I don't need to go to the gym or like, I'm not saying you should still go to the gym. I'll be clear. I'm saying like, in order to fulfill like who you are, you can actually tap into something that's the most basic. Um, I don't know. I'm sure you've listened to the David Cho episode with Joe Rogan.

• 3:01:06Lex Fridman?

  Can you remind me? Oh, where he's the animal?

• 3:01:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. With the baboon when he goes hunting. And there's something to that, man. There's something to that, which is like, they are living the way that we were supposed to. We're not supposed, well, I don't want to put a normative judgment on it. They're living the way. That we used to.

• 3:01:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:23Speaker 01

  There's something very.

• 3:01:24Lex Fridman?

  Honest somehow to to to our true nature.

• 3:01:27Speaker 01

  There's a guy I follow on Instagram, I've come from Paul Saladino, Carnivore M D.

• 3:01:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:32Speaker 01

  He just went over there to the Hadza um to live with them. And I was watching his stuff, just like, I was like, man, there's there's something in you that wants to go.

• 3:01:41Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:41Speaker 01

  Like, I'm like, I want to do that.

• 3:01:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:43Speaker 01

  I'm not, I wouldn't be very good at it, but like, I want to.

• 3:01:45Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I'm so glad that somebody that thinks deeply about politics is so fascinated with exploration and with the very basic nature, like human nature, nature of our existence. I love that. There's something in you and still you're stuck in D C.

• 3:02:03Speaker 01

  For now, for now.

• 3:02:05Lex Fridman?

  Speaking of which.

• 3:02:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:02:08Lex Fridman?

  The you're from Texas.

• 3:02:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:02:11Lex Fridman?

  What do you make of the future of Texas politically, culturally, economically? I am in part moving, well, I'm moving to Austin.

• 3:02:22Speaker 01

  Congrats.

• 3:02:23Lex Fridman?

  But I'm also doing the Eric Weinstein advice, which is like, dude, you're not married, you don't have kids.

• 3:02:28Speaker 01

  Everywhere.

• 3:02:29Lex Fridman?

  There's no such thing as moving. What what what are you moving? You're like, you're like, like your three suits and some shirts and underwear. What exactly is the move entail? So I have nothing, so I'm basically, you know, it's it's very just remain mobile. But there's a promise, there's a hope to Austin. Outside of, I mean, my, outside of just like friendships, I have no, it's a very different culture that Joe Rogan is creating. I'm mostly interested in the what the next Silicon Valley will be, what the next hub of technological innovation. And there's a promise, maybe a dream for Austin being that next place.

• 3:03:13Speaker 01

  It's very possible.

• 3:03:14Lex Fridman?

  Doesn't have the baggage of some of the political things. Maybe some of the sort of um things that hold back the beauty of.

• 3:03:26Lex Fridman?

  That makes capitalism, that makes innovation so powerful, which is like meritocracy, which is excellence. Diversity is exceptionally important, but not, it should not be the only priority. It has to be something that coexists with a like insatiable drive towards excellence. And it seems like Texas is a nice place, like having a Austin, which is like a kind of this weird, I hope it stays weird, man. I love weird people.

• 3:04:00Speaker 01

  I don't know about that, but we can get into it.

• 3:04:03Lex Fridman?

  But it's, there's this, hope is it remains this weird place of brilliant innovation amidst the, a state that's like more conservative. So like, there's a nice balance of everything. What are your thoughts about the future of Texas?

• 3:04:19Speaker 01

  I think it's so fascinating to me because I never thought I would want to move back, but now I'm beginning to be convinced. So.

• 3:04:29Lex Fridman?

  You hear that, Joe? I'm gonna send you this clip.

• 3:04:32Speaker 01

  I am, I'm being honest and many Texans will hate me for this. Texas was not a place that was kind to me, quote unquote. And this is because of my own parent. Look, I was raised in College Station, Texas, which is a town of 50,000. It's a university town. It exists only for the university. So it was a very, I did not get the full Texas experiences, purely speaking from a College Station experience. But growing up, first, you know, first generation, or I forget what it is, whatever. I'm the first American, I was born and raised in College Station. My parents are from India. Being raised in a town where the dominant culture was predominantly

• 3:05:14Speaker 01

  like white evangelical Christian was hard. Like it was just difficult. And I think of it, in the beginning, I would say like ages like zero to like eight, it was like cultural ignorance, as in like, they just don't know how to interact with you. And there was a level of, always there was like the evangelical kind of antipathy towards like you being not Christian. You know, my parents are Hindu, like that's how I was raised. And so like, there was that. But 9/11 was very difficult. Like 9/11 happened when I was in third or fourth grade. And that changed everything, man. Like, I mean, our temple had to like, print out t-shirts.

• 3:05:57Speaker 01

  And I'm not saying this is a sob story, to be clear. I've still actually largely for my adult life identified on the political right. So don't take this as some like, you know, race manifesto. I'm just telling it like, this is what happened, which is that like, we had, it was just hard to be proud, frankly, and to have some of the fallout from nine 11 and during Iraq. And the reason I am political is because I realize in myself, I have a strong rebellious nature against systems and structures of power. And the first people I ever rebelled against were all the people telling me to shut up and not question the Iraq war. So the reason I am

• 3:06:40Speaker 01

  in politics is because I hated George W. Bush with a passion and I hated the war. And I was so, again, my entire background is largely in national security for this reason, which is I was obsessed with the idea of like, how do we get people who are not going to get us into these quagmire situations in positions of power? That's how I became fascinated by power in the first place, was all a question of how do this happen? Like, how did this catastrophe happen? I realize it's not as bad as like, you know, previous conflicts, but this one was mine. And to see how it changed our domestic politics forever. And so that was my rebellion. But it's funny because I identified as a left, on the left when I was growing up, up until I was 18.

• 3:07:25Speaker 01

  I had also a funny two-year stint. This is where everything kind of changed for me. When I was 16, actually, I moved to Qatar, to Doha, Qatar, because my dad was a dean or associate dean of Texas A&M University at Doha. So my last two years of high school were at this, I went from this small town in Texas, and I love my parents because they could recognize that I had within me that I was not a small-town kid. So they took me out of this country every chance they got. I traveled everywhere and constantly let me go. And so I was, I went from school in College Station to like, this ritzy, private school, American school. Best thing that ever happened to me, because, first of all, it got me out of College Station.

• 3:08:08Speaker 01

  Second, at that time, I had this annoying streak of, I wouldn't call it being anti-America, but you don't appreciate America.

• 3:08:16Lex Fridman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:08:17Speaker 01

  Let me tell everybody out there listening, leave for a while. You will miss it so much.

• 3:08:23Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 3:08:23Speaker 01

  You do not know what it is like to not have freedom of speech until you don't have it.

• 3:08:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:29Speaker 01

  And I was going to, I was going to high school with these guys in the Qatari royal family, and all I wanted to do was speak out how they were pieces of shit for the way that they treated Indian citizens in that country, who are basically used as slave labor. And I could not say one word, because I knew I would be deported, and I knew my dad would lose his job, and my mom would lose her job, and that we would be forced out of the country. You don't know what it's like to live like that. Or to be in a society where like, you know, you have like a high school girlfriend or something, and you can't even touch in public, or you're lectured for public decency. Like, I listen, I've lived under Gulf monarchy now, and I have, that turned me into the most pro-America guy ever.

• 3:09:14Speaker 01

  Like, I came back so like, America, like, and I, that's, I still am, frankly, because of that experience, living, living abroad, like, that will do it to you. Live in a non-democracy, you have, even in Europe, I would say, you guys aren't living as free as we are here. It's awesome, and I love it.

• 3:09:33Lex Fridman?

  You're ultimately another human being than the one who left Texas.

• 3:09:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09:37Lex Fridman?

  So, I mean, have you actually considered moving to Texas and broadly, just outside of your own story, what do you think is the future of Texas, what is the future of Austin?

• 3:09:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:09:47Lex Fridman?

  There's so much transformation seemingly happening now related to Silicon Valley, related to California.

• 3:09:54Speaker 01

  That's the fascinating part to me, which is that, since I left, it's changed dramatically, which is that it used to be like this conservative state where the main money to be made was oil, and everybody knew that. Petro, it was a Petro state, Houston, all of that. Austin was always weird, but it was more of a music town and a university town, it was not a tech town. But in the 10 years or so since I left, I have begun to realize, I'm like, well, the Texas I grew up in is over. It is not a deep red state in any sense of the, in any sense of the term. The number one U-Haul route in the country pre-pandemic already was San Francisco to Austin. Okay, so like you have this massive influx of people from California and New York.

• 3:10:38Speaker 01

  And the state, the composition of it is changed dramatically. The intra-composition and the ultra, or yeah, so the intra-composition, it's become way more urban. It's from when I grew, when I grew up, Texas was a much more rural state. Its politics were much more static. It looked much more like Rick Perry, like that. He was a very accurate representation of who we were. Now, I don't think that that's the case. Texas is now a dynamic economy, not just 100% reliant on oil. Because of its kind of like, I would call it like regulatory arbitrage relative to California and New York. Offers a large incentive to people who are more, I wouldn't say culturally liberal,

• 3:11:21Speaker 01

  but they're not necessarily like culturally conservative, like the people who I grew up with. That's changed the whole state's politics. Beto came two points away from beating Ted Cruz. And I'm not saying the state's gonna go blue. I think the Republican Party will just change and will have to readjust. But the re-urbanization of Texas has made it, I'll put it in this way, much more, uh, much, much more attractive to me than the place that I grew up.

• 3:11:48Lex Fridman?

  And from my perspective, uh, well, first of all, I love, uh, some of the cowboy things that Texas stands for. But for more practically, from my perspective, the injection of the tech innovation.

• 3:12:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:12:01Lex Fridman?

  That's moving to Texas has made it very exciting to me. It seems like outside of all that, maybe you can speak to the weird in Austin. It seems like, uh, I know that Joe Rogan is, uh, a rich, sort of, uh, almost like mainstream at this point.

• 3:12:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:12:21Lex Fridman?

  But he's also attracting a lot of weirdos and so is Elon. And a lot of those weirdos are my friends and they're like, like Michael Malice, like those weirdos. And it's like, I have a hope for Austin that all kinds of different flavors of weirdos will get injected.

• 3:12:37Speaker 01

  It's possible. You know, I, I actually think the most significant thing that happened were Tesla moving there.

• 3:12:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:44Speaker 01

  The reason why is, I love Joe, obviously, but like, he can only attract X amount of people.

• 3:12:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:49Speaker 01

  Elon actually employs thousands of people.

• 3:12:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:53Speaker 01

  And then you will also, Oracle. Oracle's decision to move to Austin is just as important because those two men, Larry, was Ellison, right?

• 3:13:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:13:04Speaker 01

  Ellison and Elon, they actually employ tens of thousands of people collectively. That can change the nature of the city.

• 3:13:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:13:12Speaker 01

  So you combine that with Joe bringing this entire new entertainment complex with the bodies of people who will appreciate said entertainment complex.

• 3:13:22Lex Fridman?

  Spend money on the entertainment.

• 3:13:24Speaker 01

  Exactly. You just remade the entire city.

• 3:13:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:13:27Speaker 01

  And, and that's, that's why I'm fascinated. And obviously there's network effects, which is now that all those people are down there. I mean, if I were Elon Musk, I would donate a shit ton of money to the University of Texas and I would turn it into my Stanford for Silicon Valley.

• 3:13:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:13:40Speaker 01

  Let's introduce some competition and let UT Austin hire the best software developers, engineers, professors and more, and turn Texas into a true, like, Austin revolving door hub where people come to UT Austin to get an internship at Tesla and then become an executive there and then create their own company in their own garage in Austin, which is the next Facebook, Twitter. That's how it happens. This is why I'm much more skeptical of Miami. There's a whole like tech Miami crew. I'm like, yeah, like, there's no university, it's very inorganic. Um, look, I think Miami is awesome. I just like, I don't know if the same building blocks are there. And also, no multi-billion dollar companies which employ thousands of people are coming there.

• 3:14:23Speaker 01

  That's the ingredient. It's not just Joe Rogan. It's not just even Elon Musk, if he's still operated in California. It's all the people he employs. I think that is where, I think Texas is going to dramatically change within the next 10 years. Alternative to our, it's already become a more urbanized state that's moved away from oil and gas. Um, in terms of like its emphasis, not necessarily in terms of its real economics. And 10 years from now, I don't think it will be necessarily the name prop, like, of the, of the town. The only question to me is how that manifests politically because. It's very possible, though, because a lot of these workers themselves are California culturally liberal.

• 3:15:06Speaker 01

  You could see a Gavin Newsom-type person getting elected governor of Texas.

• 3:15:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:15:10Speaker 01

  Or like the mayor of Austin. I mean, look, mayor of Austin's already a Democrat, right? Like, I mean, Joe has his own problems with Austin. It's funny, I remember him leaving LA and I'm like, "Oh, have you been to Austin?" It ain't, you know, it's not everything it's cracked up to be, you know, necessarily.

• 3:15:27Lex Fridman?

  But no matter what, you know, a new place allows the possibility for new ideas, even if they're somehow left-leaning and all those kinds of things. I do think the only two things missing from Austin and Texas are two dudes in a suit that sometimes have a podcast, talk a bunch of nonsense on a mic. So let's, let's bring the best suit game to Texas. I hope you do make it to Texas at some point. Thanks so much for talking to me. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Saagar Anjedi. And thank you to our sponsors, Jordan Harbinger Show, Grammarly Grammar Assistant, Eight Sleep Self-C cooling Bed, and Magic Spoon Low Carb Cereal. Click the sponsor links to get a discount and to support this podcast.

• 3:16:13Lex Fridman?

  And now, let me leave you with some words from Martin Luther King Jr. about the idea that what is just and what is legal are not always the same thing. He said, "Never forget that what Hitler did in Germany was legal." Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.