#170 – Ronald Sullivan: The Ideal of Justice in the Face of Controversy and Evil

Ronald Sullivan is a law professor at Harvard and previously a lawyer for Harvey Weinstein and Aaron Hernandez. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Brooklinen: https://brooklinen.com and use code LEX to get $25 off + free shipping – Wine Access: https://wineaccess.com/lex to get 20% off first order – Munk Pack: https://munkpack.com and use code LEX to get 20% off – Blinkist: https://blinkist.com/lex and use code LEX to get 25% off premium EPISODE LINKS: Ronald’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/profronsullivan Ronald’s Website: https://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/10870/Sullivan Ronald’s Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_S._Sullivan_Jr. Ronald’s NY Times Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/24/opinion/harvard-ronald-sullivan.html 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/lexfridman – 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 (09:48) – Harvey Weinstein (15:53) – Harvard succumbs to pressure (27:08) – Safe spaces (33:26) – Cancel culture (36:23) – Evil (40:33) – Hitler (45:09) – Criminal justice system (49:10) – Innocence (51:39) – Racism in the judicial system (1:03:41) – George Floyd (1:06:06) – The trial of Derek Chauvin (1:19:55) – O. J. Simpson (1:24:29) – Aaron Hernandez (1:36:10) – Book recommendations (1:43:45) – Advice for young people (1:45:53) – Death (1:47:59) – Meaning of life

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 Ronald Sullivan, a professor at Harvard Law School, known for taking on difficult and controversial cases. He was on the head legal defense team for the Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez in his double murder case. He represented one of the Gina six defendants and never lost a case during his years in Washington DC's Public Defender Services office. In 2019, Ronald joined the legal defense team of Harvey Weinstein, a film producer facing multiple charges of rape and other sexual assault. This decision met with criticism from Harvard University students, including an online petition by students

• 0:42Lex Fridman?

  seeking his removal as faculty dean of Winter House. Then, a letter supporting him, signed by 52 Harvard Law School professors, appeared in the Boston Globe on March 8, 2019. Following this, the Harvard administration succumbed to the pressure of a few Harvard students and announced that they will not be renewing Ronald Sullivan's dean position. This created a major backlash in the public discourse over the necessary role of universities in upholding the principles of law and freedom at the very foundation of the United States. This conversation is brought to you by Brooklyn and Sheets, Wine Access Online Wine Store, Monk Pack Low Carb Snacks,

• 1:25Lex Fridman?

  and Blinkist app that summarizes books. Click their links to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that the free exchange of difficult ideas is the only mechanism through which we can make progress. Truth is not a safe space. Truth is humbling, and being humbled can hurt. But this is the role of education, not just in the university, but in business and in life. Freedom and compassion can coexist, but it requires work and patience. It requires listening to the voices and to the experiences unlike our own. Listening, not silencing. I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle.

• 2:09Lex Fridman?

  I tried to have fun with these, even though my voice is genetically incapable of sounding like I'm having fun.

• 2:17Lex Fridman?

  I do give you timestamps, so go ahead and skip if you do not happen to have the patience of a saint, but I do try to make it so they're at least like somewhat interesting to listen to. But either way, please do click the links in the description for the sponsors. It really is the best way to support this podcast. This episode is sponsored by Brooklyn and Sheets. I am not an expert on comfort. I've often throughout my life slept on the carpet without anything but a jacket and jeans, but these sheets have been amazing. In general, for many years, I've mostly lived a minimalist life in the things I eat, in the content I consume, in the possessions that I actually have, material possessions,

• 3:00Lex Fridman?

  in the things that have hung up on my wall, which is usually nothing, except maybe a picture of Feynman and Einstein. And when you have a minimalist life like that, you could really appreciate quality. I think there's two kinds of products. Of course, it's a Venn diagram, but the first category is the ones you get to show to the world, and the other is the ones you get to make yourself feel happy, like internally, intrinsic versus extrinsic, I guess. Again, it's probably a significant overlap, but I do appreciate quality. I do appreciate products that make me feel good. These sheets are that. So it's nice. I will never be dependent on these things. If I do feel myself becoming dependent,

• 3:44Lex Fridman?

  I will let go of them. Anyway, go to brooklinen.com and use code LEX to get 25 bucks off when you spend a hundred dollars or more, plus get free shipping. That's brooklinen.com and enter code LEX. This podcast is also sponsored by Wine Access Online Store with expertly selected wine. They make it easy for anyone, i.e. me, from novice to expert, to pick and order the most delicious wines from around the world. Their team tastes over 20,000 bottles a year and handpicks only the best for their customers. There's something profoundly joyful about me imagining the tasting of

• 4:25Lex Fridman?

  20,000 bottles. I personally had a lot of joyful experiences drinking wine because at least for me, wine has been a thing that brings close friends and family together over a great meal. So I kind of think there's several categories of alcohol. Wine is like about sharing love with friends. And then there's like the other side of the spectrum, which is tequila, where every single experience I've had where tequila was involved, I've regretted. So if you choose wine, you're choosing love. If you're choosing tequila, you're choosing danger, but sometimes a little danger is fun. So but most of the time you want to stick with wine, you want to stick with Wine Access. Let me recommend,

• 5:10Lex Fridman?

  this is where I try to sound smart and sophisticated, the 2018 Radio Silence Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley. That's definitely a good one. And it's affordable, given the high, high quality. So get 20% off your first order when you go to wineaccess.com/lex. The discount will be applied at checkout. That's wineaccess.com/lex to see my wine picks and to get the discount. And I hope you and I, dear listener, will share wine together one day. This episode is also brought to you by Monk Pack Keto Granola Bars that contains just one gram

• 5:49Lex Fridman?

  of sugar, two grams of net carbs, and there are only 140 calories. It's actually interesting to think about what kind of fuel is needed when you're on a low carb diet, when you all of a sudden step up the performance needs. So like, if I usually run, you know, five or six miles here and there, do a few pushups and pullups and so on, if I all of a sudden have to run like an ultra marathon, which I hope I don't have to, but I very well might need to, once I meet David. There's quite a few people that say you could do the ultra on continuing low carb, like ultra low carb. But there's also a lot of people that say, well, no, in these cases, even if you eat low carb,

• 6:33Lex Fridman?

  you need to load up on carbs. All that stuff, there's so many debates that are so confusing. I don't know what to make of it. I think I go back to the same thing I always go back to, which is you have to experiment on yourself and you have to listen to your body. Like, don't listen to a random guy on the internet. Listen to your body over that. Okay. Get 20% off your first purchase of any Monk Pack product by visiting munkpack.com and enter code LEX at checkout. If you don't like it for any reason, I would personally first question your tastes. But Monk Pack will not. They'll exchange the product or refund your money guaranteed.

• 7:15Lex Fridman?

  That's munkpack.com and enter code LEX. This episode is also supported by Blinkist, my favorite app for learning new things. Blinkist takes the key ideas from thousands of nonfiction books and condenses them down into just 15 minutes you can read or listen to. They've also started doing this weirdly amazing thing called Shortcasts, which summarizes podcasts. They have like a selection of podcasts and they summarize them. The ones they choose are like the really well organized podcasts, but it's kind of fun to think about them trying to summarize like this podcast that I'm doing, or even like the crazier long form podcasts like a Joe Rogan Experience kind of podcast. Good luck trying to summarize that. Champs, DMT and Aliens. There you go.

• 8:00Lex Fridman?

  That's a summary. I should work for Blinkist. I really actually enjoy this idea of hardcore summarization. Like, some people listen to podcasts like 2X or even more faster. Like, there's a lot of value to that. Or even just like with Blinkist, summarizing books that are like huge into just like a few pages. I really think that's exceptionally valuable, but it also has to be coupled with actually reading long form content or listening to long form content as well. And I actually think there's space to listening to stuff at like 1X and pausing and giving your mind a chance to think. I really think there's power in silence. You can call it boredom or whatever,

• 8:45Lex Fridman?

  but it's that meditative silence that you want to escape. There's an anxious desire to escape that silence. But if you resist that anxious desire, I think brilliant ideas come. So that's the value of long form content. But then the short form content is really valuable because you get condensed information. So you're maximizing on information. With long form content, you're maximizing on the silence and the chance to think. Anyway, go to blinkist.com/lex to start your free seven day trial and get 25% off a Blinkist Premium Membership. That's blinkist.com/lex. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast and here is my conversation with Ronald Sullivan.

• 9:48Lex Fridman?

  You were one of the lawyers who represented the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein in advance of a sexual assault trial. For this, Harvard forced you to step down as faculty deans, you and your wife, of Winthrop House. Can you tell the story of this saga from first deciding to represent Harvey Weinstein to the...

• 10:11Lex Fridman?

  Interesting, complicated events that followed.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. So I got a call one morning from a colleague at the Harvard Law School, who asked if I would consent to taking a call from Harvey. He wanted to meet me and chat with me about representing him. I said, yes. And one thing led to another. I drove out to Connecticut, where he was staying and met with him and some of his advisors. And then a day or two later, I decided to take the case. This would have been back in January of 2019, I believe. So the sort of cases, I have a very small practice.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Most of my time is teaching and writing. But I tend to take cases that most deem to be impossible.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  I take the challenging sorts of cases. And this was fit the bill. It was quite challenging in the sense that everyone had pre-judged the case. When I say everyone, I just mean the general sentiment in the public had the case prejudged, even though

• 11:29Speaker 01

  the specific allegations did not regard the, any of the people in the in The New Yorker. That's the New Yorker article that sort of

• 11:41Speaker 01

  exposed everything that was going on allegedly with Harvey. So I decided to take the case and I did.

• 11:52Lex Fridman?

  Is there a philosophy behind you taking on these very difficult cases? Like, is it a set of principles? Is it just your love of the law? Or is it, is there like a set of principles why you take on the cases?

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do. I take on, I like to take on hard cases. And I like to take on the cases that are with unpopular defendants, unpopular.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Clients. And with respect to the latter, that's where Harvey Weinstein fell.

• 12:22Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Uh, it's because, uh, we need lawyers and good lawyers to take the unpopular cases. Uh, because that, those sorts of cases determine what sort of criminal justice system we have. Uh, if we don't protect the rights and the liberties of those whom the society deems to be the least and the last, the unpopular client, then that's the, the camel's nose under the tent. If we let the camel's nose under the tent, the entire tent is going to collapse. That is to say, if we short circuit the rights of a client like Harvey Weinstein, then the next thing you know, someone will be at your door,

• 13:04Speaker 01

  knocking it down and violating your rights. There's a, there's a certain creep there with respect to, um, the way in which the, the state will respect the civil rights and civil liberties of people. And, and these are the sorts of cases that, that, that test it. So, you know, for example, um, there's a, there, there was a young man many, many years ago named Ernesto Miranda. Uh, by all accounts, he was not a likable guy. He was a, you know, three time, uh, knife thief and not a likable guy, but lawyer stepped up and took his case. And because of that, we now have the

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Miranda, uh, warnings. You have the right to remain silent, that those, those warnings that, um, officers are, are, are forced to give to people. So it is through these cases that we express oftentimes the best values in our criminal justice system. So I, I, I proudly take on these sorts of cases in order to vindicate not only the individual rights of the person whom I'm representing, but the rights of citizens writ large, uh, who, um, most of whom do not experience the criminal justice system. And it's partly because of lawyers who take on these sorts of

• 14:20Speaker 01

  cases and establish rules that protect us, um, average, everyday, ordinary, concrete citizens.

• 14:28Lex Fridman?

  As from a psychological perspective, just you as a human, is there, is there fear? Is there stress from all the pressure? Cause if you're facing. I mean, the whole point, a difficult case, especially in the latter that you mentioned of the going against popular opinion, you have the eyes of millions potentially looking at you with anger as you try to defend, you know, this, these set of laws that this country is built on.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  No, it doesn't stress me out particularly. It, you know, it, it sort of comes with the, the territory. I try not to get too excited in either direction. So a big part of my practice is wrongful convictions and I've gotten over 6,000 people out of prison who've been wrongfully incarcerated and a subset of those people have been convicted. And, you know, if people have been in jail 20, 30 years who have gotten out and those are the sorts of cases where people praise you and, and that sort of thing. And so, look, I, I, I do the work that I do, I'm proud of the work that I do.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  And in that sense, I'm sort of a part-time Taoist. The expression reversal was the movement of the Tao. So I don't get too high, I don't get too low. I just try to do my work and represent people to the best of my ability.

• 15:53Lex Fridman?

  So one of the hardest cases of recent history would be the Harvey Weinstein in terms of popular opinion or unpopular opinion. So, well, if you continue on that line, what was that, where does that story take you of taking on this case?

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, I took on the case and then there was some, some, a few students at the college. So let me back up. I had an administrative post at Harvard College, which is a separate entity from the Harvard Law School. Harvard College is the undergraduate portion of Harvard University and the law school is obviously the law school. And I initially was appointed as master of one of the houses. We did a name change five or six years into it and, and were called faculty deans. But the houses at Harvard are based on the college system of Oxford and, and Cambridge. So when students go to Harvard. After their first year, they're assigned to a particular house or college and that's where they live and eat and so forth.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  These are undergraduates. These are undergraduate students. So I was responsible for one of the the houses as its faculty dean. So it's an administrative appointment at the college and some students who didn't clearly didn't like Harvey Weinstein began to protest about the representation. And from there, it just mushroomed into one of the most craven cowardly acts by any university in modern history. It's just a complete and utter repudiation of academic freedom.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  And it is a decision that Harvard certainly will live to regret. Frankly, it's an embarrassment. We expect students to do what students do and and I've encouraged students to have their voices heard and to protest. I mean, that's what students do. What is vexing are the adults. The dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Claudine Gay, absolutely craven and cowardly. The dean of the college, same thing. Rakesh Karan, craven and cowardly. They capitulated

• 18:14Speaker 01

  to the loudest voice in the room and ran around afraid of 19 year olds. Oh, 19 year olds are upset. I need to I need to do something. And it appeared to me that they so so desired the approval of students that they were afraid to make the tough decision and the right decision. It really could have been an important teaching moment at Harvard. Teaching moment, yeah. Very important teaching moment.

• 18:42Lex Fridman?

  So they they forced you to step down from that faculty deimposition at the house?

• 18:47Speaker 01

  It um I would push back on the description a little bit. So so so so I I so I I don't write the the um you know, the references to the op ed I did in the New York Times.

• 18:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Harvard made a mistake by making me step down or or something like that. So I I don't write those things. Uh I did not step down and and refuse to step down. Uh Harvard declined to renew my my my my contract. And you know, and I made it clear that I I was not uh going to resign as a matter of of of principle and and and forced them to um do the the cowardly act that they in fact uh did. And you know, the the the the worst thing about this, um they did uh the college, uh uh Dean Gay and Dean Carana uh commissioned this survey. They've never done this before, survey from the students, you know. How do you feel at Winthrop House?

• 19:41Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  And the funny thing about the survey is they never released the results.

• 19:45Lex Fridman?

  Uh huh.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Why did they never release the results? They never released the results because I would bet my salary that the results came back positive for me. And it didn't fit their narrative because most of the students were fine.

• 20:00Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Most of the students were fine. It was the the loudest voice in the room. So they never released it. And you know, I challenge them to this day, release it.

• 20:08Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Release it. Yeah, but no, but you know, they wanted to um uh create this narrative. Uh and um when the data didn't support the narrative, then they just got got silent. Oh, we're we're we're we're not going to release it. The students demanded it, I demanded it, and they wouldn't release it because I am I I I just I just know in my heart of hearts that it it was um. It came back in my favor that most students at Winthrop House said they were fine. There was a group of students that weaponized the term unsafe.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  They said, we felt unsafe and they bantied this term about. But I'm, again, I'm confident that the majority of students at Winthrop House said they felt completely fine and felt safe and so forth. And the super majority, I am confident, either said, I feel great at Winthrop, or, you know, I don't care one way or the other. And then there was some minority who had a different view. But, you know, lessons learned. It was a wonderful opportunity at Winthrop. I met some amazing students over my 10 years as master and then faculty dean.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  And I'm still in touch with a number of students, some of whom are now my students at the law school. So in the end, I thought it was, it ended up being a great experience. The national media was just wonderful in this, just wonderful. People wrote such wonderful articles and accounts and wagged their finger appropriately at Harvard. Compared me to John Adams, which I don't think is an apt comparison, but it's always great to read something like that. But, but anyway, that was the Harvard, the Harvard versus Harvey situation.

• 22:12Lex Fridman?

  So that seems like a seminal mistake by Harvard, and Harvard is one of the great universities in the world. And so sort of its successes and its mistakes are really important for the world as a beacon of like how we make progress. So what lessons for the bigger academia that's under fire a lot these days? What bigger lessons do you take away? Like, how do we make Harvard great? How do we make other universities, Yale, MIT, great in the face of such mistakes?

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Well, I think that we have moved into a model where we have the consumerization of education. That is to say... We have feckless administrators who make policy based on what the students say. Now, this comment is not intended to suggest that students have no voice in governance, but it is to suggest that the faculty are there for a reason. They are among the greatest minds on the planet Earth in their particular fields.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  At schools like Harvard and Yale, Stanford, the schools that you mentioned, MIT, quite literally the greatest minds on Earth. They are there for a reason. Things like curriculum and so forth are rightly in the province of faculty. And while you take input and critique and so forth, ultimately, the grownups in the room have to be sufficiently responsible to take to take charge and to direct the course of a student's education. And, you know, my situation is one example where it really could have been an excellent teaching moment about the value of the Sixth Amendment,

• 24:12Speaker 01

  about what it means to treat, what it means to treat people who are in the crosshairs of the criminal justice system. But rather than having that conversation,

• 24:27Speaker 01

  it's just this consumerization model. Well, there's a lot of noise out here, so we're going to react in this sort of way. Higher education as well, unfortunately, has been commodified in other sorts of ways that has reduced or impeded, hampered these schools' commitments to free and robust and open dialogue. So to the degree that academic freedom doesn't sit squarely at the center of the academic mission, any school is going to be in trouble. And I really hope that, that we weather this current

• 25:11Speaker 01

  political moment where...

• 25:16Speaker 01

  19 year olds without degrees are running universities and get back to a, a system where

• 25:26Speaker 01

  faculty, where adults make decisions in the best interests of the university and the best interests of the student, even to the degree though, some of those decisions may be unpopular. And that is going to require a certain courage.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  And hopefully in time, and I'm confident that in time administrators are going to begin to push back on these current trends. Harvard's been around for a long time. It's been around for a long time for a reason. And one of the reasons is that it understands itself not to be static. So I have every

• 26:14Speaker 01

  view that Harvard is, is going to adapt and get itself back on course and be around another 400 years. At least that's my

• 26:27Lex Fridman?

  So, I mean, what this kind of boils down to is just having difficult conversation, difficult debates. When you mentioned sort of 19 year olds, and it's funny, I've seen this even at MIT, it's not that they shouldn't have a voice. They, they do seem to, I guess you have to experience it and just observe it. They have a strangely disproportionate power. It's very interesting to, to basically, I mean, you say, yes, there's great faculty and so on. But, you know, it's not even just that the faculty is smart or wise or whatever. It's that they're just silenced. So the terminology that you mentioned is weaponized is sort of

• 27:11Lex Fridman?

  safe spaces, or that certain conversations make people feel unsafe.

• 27:18Lex Fridman?

  What do you think about this kind of idea? You know, is there some things that are unsafe to talk about in the university setting? Is there lines to be drawn somewhere? And just like you said, on the flip side with a slippery slope, is it too easy for the lines to be drawn everywhere?

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question. So this idea of unsafe space, at least the vocabulary derives from some research, academic research about feeling psychologically unsafe. And so the notion here is that there is, there are forms of psychological disquiet that impedes people from experiencing the educational environment to the greatest degree possible. And that's the argument. I, and assuming for a moment that people do have these feelings of disquiet

• 28:26Speaker 01

  at elite universities like MIT and like Harvard, that's probably the safest space people are going to be in for their lives. Because when they get out into the quote unquote real world, they won't have the sorts of nets that these schools provide, safety nets that these schools provide. So to the extent that research is descriptive of a psychological feeling, I think that the duty of the universities are to challenge people. It seems to me that it's a shame to go to a place like Harvard, or a place like MIT, Yale, any of these great institutions and come out the same person that you were when you went in.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  That seems to be a horrible waste of four years and money and resources. Rather, we ought to challenge students, that they grow,

• 29:22Speaker 01

  challenge some of their most deeply held assumptions. They may continue to hold them, but the point of an education is to rigorously interrogate.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  These fundamental assumptions that have guided you thus far and to do it fairly and civilly. So to the extent that there are lines that should be drawn, there's a long tradition in the university of civil discourse. So you should draw a line somewhere between civil discourse and uncivil discourse. The purpose of a university is to talk difficult conversations, tough issues, talk directly and frankly, but do it civilly. And, you know, so to, you know, yell and cuss at somebody and that sort of thing. Well, you know, do

• 30:14Speaker 01

  that on your own space, but observe the norms of civil discourse at the university. So, look, I think that the presumption ought to be that the most difficult topics are appropriate to talk about at a university. That ought to be the presumption. Now, you know, should MIT, for example, give its imprimatur to someone who is espousing the flat earth theory, you know, the earth is flat, right? So there, if, if certain ideas

• 30:58Speaker 01

  are, are so contrary to the scientific and cultural thinking of the, of the moment, yeah, there, there's space there to draw a line and say, yeah, we're not going to give you this platform to tell our students that the earth is, is, is flat. But, you know, a topic that's controversial, but contestatory, that's what universities are for. If you don't like the idea, present better ideas and articulate them.

• 31:33Lex Fridman?

  And I, I think there needs to be a mechanism outside of the space of ideas of humbling. Like I've done martial arts for a long time. I got my ass kicked a lot. I think that's really important. I mean, the in the space of ideas, I mean, even just in engineering, just all the math classes, my memories of math, which I love, is is kind of pain, is basically coming face to face with the with the idea that I'm not special, that I am much dumber than I thought I was, and that anything, accomplishing anything in this world requires really hard work. That's really humbling.

• 32:17Lex Fridman?

  That makes you that that puts you because I remember when I was 18 and 19, and I thought I was going to be the smartest, the best fighter, the Nobel Prize winning, you know, all those kinds of things. And then you come with face to face with reality and it hurts. And it feels like there needs to be efficient mechanisms from the best universities in the world to without abusing you. It's a very difficult line to to walk without like mentally or physically abusing you, be able to humble you. And that's what I felt was missing in these very difficult, very important conversations is the 19 year olds, when they spoke up,

• 32:58Lex Fridman?

  the mechanism for humbling them with ideas was missing. I got kind of gotten broken broken down because, as you say, there does like, I sensed fear. Everything was permeated with fear. And fear is paralyzing, fear is destructive, especially in a place that's supposed to be all about freedom of ideas.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:25Lex Fridman?

  And I mean, I don't know if you have anything, and you thought to say on this whole idea of cancel culture, where people.

• 33:35Lex Fridman?

  A lot of people use it, it's become political, so staying maybe outside of the world of politics. Is this, do you have thoughts about it? Does it bother you that people are sort of put in this bin and labeled as something? And then thereby you can ignore everything they say. I mean, Steven Pinker, there's a lot of Harvard folks that are fighting against, against these set of ideas. But do you have, do you have thoughts?

• 34:02Speaker 01

  I think that we as a culture are way, way, way too quick to cancel people. And it, it's become almost reflexive now. You know, someone says something or makes an offhand comment, even a mistake. There's, there's a move to simply cancel folks. So I, I think that this quote unquote cancel culture has really gotten out of control at, at this point. It's forcing people to be robotic in many ways.

• 34:43Lex Fridman?

  No offense, the robots.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, now, now I know I'm venturing into your intellectual domain.

• 34:50Lex Fridman?

  For future robots watching this, no offense.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  And there are many, and it's discouraging a lot of good people from getting into public life in any sort of way. Because, you know, who needs the, who needs the stress of it?

• 35:04Lex Fridman?

  Well, in some sense, you're an inspiration that you're able to withstand the, the pressure, the pressure of the masses. But it is, is, it's a sad, it's a sad aspect of human nature that we kind of get into these crowds and we get, we start chanting. And it's fun for some reason, and then you forget yourself and then you sort of wake up the next day not.

• 35:28Lex Fridman?

  Not having anticipated the consequences of all the chanting.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:31Lex Fridman?

  And we would get ourselves in trouble in that. I mean, there's some responsibility on the on social networks and the mechanisms by which they make it more frictionless to do the chanting, to do the cancelling, to do the outrage and all that kind of stuff. So I actually on the technology side have a hope that that's fixable. But yeah, it does seem to be, you know, it almost like the internet showed to us that we have a lot of broken ways about which we communicate with each other and we're trying to figure that out. Same with the university. The this mistake by Harvard showed that we need to reinvent what the university is.

• 36:12Lex Fridman?

  And I mean, all of this is, it's almost like we're finding our baby deer legs and trying to strengthen the institutions that have been very successful for for a long time. You know, the really interesting thing about Harvey Weinstein and you choosing these exceptionally difficult cases is also thinking about

• 36:36Lex Fridman?

  what it means to defend evil people, what it means to defend these, we could say unpopular, and you might push back against the word evil, but bad people in society. First of all, do you think there's such a thing as evil? Or do you think all people are good and it's just circumstances that create evil? And also, is there somebody too evil for the law to defend?

• 37:03Speaker 01

  So that's a so the first question, that's a deep philosophical question, whether the category of evil does any work for me. It does for me. I do think that I do subscribe to that category that there is evil in the world as conventionally understood. So so there are many who will say, yeah, that just doesn't doesn't do any work for me. But the category evil, in fact, does intellectual work for me and I. I understand it as as something that that exists. Is it genetic or is it the circumstance? Like, what what kind of work does it do for you intellectually?

• 37:48Speaker 01

  I think that it's tightly contingent. That is to say that the conditions in which one grows up and so forth

• 38:02Speaker 01

  begins to create this category that we may think of as evil. Now, there are studies and and whatnot that show that certain brain abnormalities and so forth are are more prevalent in, say, serial killers. So there may be a biological predisposition to certain forms of conduct. But I don't I don't have the

• 38:32Speaker 01

  biological evidence to make a statement that someone is born evil. And and, you know, I I'm not a determinist thinker in that way. So you come out the womb evil and you're destined to be that way. To the extent there may be biological determinants, they still require some nurture as well. So. But do you still put a responsibility for the on the individual? Of course, yeah, we all make choices. And so some responsibility on the individual indeed.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  We live in a culture, unfortunately, where a lot of people have a constellation of bad choices in front of them. And that makes me very sad. That the people grow up with with predominantly bad choices in in front of them. And that's unfair and that's that that's on all of us. But yes, I do think we make we make choices. Wow, that's so powerful, the constellation of bad choices.

• 39:42Lex Fridman?

  That's such a powerful way to think about sort of equality, which is the set of trajectories before you that you could take if you just roll the dice. There's a, you know, life is a kind of optimization problem. Sorry to take this into math, over a set of trajectories under imperfect information. So you're gonna do a lot of stupid shit, to put it in technical terms. But the fraction of the trajectories that take you into bad places or into good places is really important. And that's ultimately what we're talking about.

• 40:26Lex Fridman?

  And evil might be just a little bit of a predisposition biologically, but the rest is just trajectories that you can take. I've been studying Hitler a lot recently. I've been reading probably way too much. And it's interesting to think about all the possible trajectories

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:42Lex Fridman?

  that could have avoided the, this particular individual developing the hate that he did, the following that he did, the actual final. There's a few turns in him psychologically where he went from being a leader that just wants to conquer and to somebody who allowed his anger and emotion to take over, to where he started making mistakes for, in terms of militarily speaking, but also started doing, you know, evil things. And all the possible trajectories that could have avoided that are fascinating,

• 41:24Lex Fridman?

  including he wasn't that bad at painting, at drawing.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Right, that's true.

• 41:30Lex Fridman?

  From the very beginning. And in his time in Vienna, there's all these possible things to think about. And of course, there's millions of others like him that never came to power and all those kinds of things. So, but that goes to the second question on the side of evil. Do you think, and Hitler's often brought up as like an example of somebody who is like the epitome of evil. Do you think you would, if you got that same phone call after World War II and Hitler survived?

• 42:05Lex Fridman?

  During war, you know, the trial for war crimes. Would you take the case defending Adolf Hitler? If you don't want to answer that one, is there a line to draw for evil for who not to defend?

• 42:21Speaker 01

  No, I think, I think everyone, I'll do the second one first. Everyone has a right to a defense if you're charged criminally in, in the United States of, of America. So, uh, no, I, I do not think that there's someone so evil that they do not deserve a, um, defense. Uh, process matters. Uh, process helps us get to results, um, more accurately than we would otherwise. So it is important and it's vitally important and indeed more important for, uh, someone deemed to be evil to receive the same quantum of process and the same substance of process that anyone else would. It's vitally important to the health of our criminal justice system for that to, uh, happen.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  So, yes, uh, everybody, uh, Hitler included, um, were, uh, he charged in the United States for a crime that occurred in the United States. Uh, uh, yes. Um, um, whether I would do it if I were a public defender and assign the case, uh, yes, I started my career as a public defender. I represent anyone who was, uh, assigned to me. Uh, I think that is our, uh, our duty. Uh, in private, um, uh, practice, uh, I have choices, uh, and I, I likely, based on the hypo you gave me, and I would tweak it a bit because it would have to be a, a, a US.

• 43:48Lex Fridman?

  United States, yes.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  And so, but, but I get the broader point and don't want to bog down in technicalities. I'd, I'd likely, uh, pass, uh, right, right now as I, I see it unless, um, it was a case where no, nobody else would, would, would represent him. Uh, you know, then, uh, I, I would, I would think that I have some sort of duty and, and obligation, uh, to, to, to do it. Uh, but yes, everyone, uh, absolutely deserves a, a right to competent counsel.

• 44:21Lex Fridman?

  That is a beautiful idea. It's difficult to think about it in the face of public pressure. It's just. I mean, it's kind of terrifying to watch the masses during this past year of 2020, to watch the power of the masses to make a decision before any of the data is out, if the data is ever out, any of the details, any of the processes. And I, and there is an anger to the justice system. There's a lot of people that feel like, even though the ideal you described is a beautiful one, it does not always operate justly.

• 45:05Lex Fridman?

  It does not operate to the best of its ideals. It operates unfairly. Can we go to the big picture of the criminal justice system? What do you, given the ideal, works about our criminal justice system and what is broken?

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Well, there's a lot broken right now, and I usually focus on, on that. But in truth, a lot works about our criminal justice system. So there's, there's an old joke, and it, it's funny, but it, it carries a lot of truth to it. And the joke is that in the United States, we have the worst criminal justice system in the world, except for every place else. And, and yes, we certainly have a number of problems and a lot of problems based on

• 46:03Speaker 01

  race and class and economic station. But we have a process that privileges liberty, and that's a good feature of the criminal justice system. So here's how it works. The idea of the relationship between the individual and the state is such that in the United States, we privilege liberty over and above very many values, so much so that a statement by increased mather, not, you know, terribly far from where we're sitting right now, has gained traction over all these years. And it's that better 10 guilty go free than one innocent person convicted.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  That is an expression of the way in which we understand liberty to operate in our collective consciousness. We would rather a bunch of guilty people go free than to Then to um, impact the liberty interests of any uh individual person. So that's a guiding principle in our criminal justice system, uh liberty. And so we set a process that makes it difficult to convict people. We have rules of procedure that are cumbersome and that slow down the process and that um, exclude otherwise reliable evidence.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  And this is all because we place a value on uh liberty. And I think these are good things and it uh, and it says a lot about our criminal justice system. Uh, some of the bad features uh have to do with the way in which uh, uh, this country sees color as a proxy for criminality and and treats uh people of color in radically different ways in the, in the criminal justice system. Uh, from uh arrests to uh charging decisions to sentencing. Uh, people of color are disproportionately uh impacted uh on all sorts of registers.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Um, now, one example, and it's a, a, a popular one, uh, that uh, although there appears to be no uh distinguishable difference between uh drug use by whites and blacks in the country. Um, uh, blacks, though, only 12% of the population represent 40% of the uh, the uh drug charges in, in, in the country. There's, there's, there's some disequities along uh race and class and the criminal justice system that we really have to, have to, have to fix. And they've grown to more than, than bugs in the system and have become features, unfortunately, of our system.

• 48:52Lex Fridman?

  Oh, to, to make it more efficient, to make judgments, so the racism makes it more efficient.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  It uh, it, it, it efficiently uh moves people uh from society to the streets. Uh, and that's uh, um, and a lot of innocent people get caught up in that.

• 49:10Lex Fridman?

  Well, let me ask in terms of the innocence. So you've gotten a lot of people who are innocent. Uh, you defend um. I guess, revealed their innocence, demonstrated their innocence. What's that process like? What's it like emotionally, psychologically? What's it like legally to fight the system?

• 49:34Lex Fridman?

  In, uh, through the process of revealing sort of, uh, the innocence of a human being?

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, emotionally and psychologically, it can be taxing. Uh, I follow a model of what's called empathic representation. And that is, I, I get to know my clients and their family. I get to know their strivings, their aspirations, their fears, their sorrows. Uh, so that certainly, uh,

• 50:03Speaker 01

  sometimes can do psychic injury on one. Uh, if you, you know, you get really invested and really sad and, and, or happy. And it, uh, it, it, it, it does become emotionally taxing. But the idea of, uh, someone sitting in jail for 20 years, completely innocent of a crime, can you imagine sitting there every day for 20 years, knowing that you factually did not do the thing that you were convicted of by a jury of your peers? It, it, it's got to be the most incredible thing in the world. Um, what?

• 50:40Speaker 01

  The, but the people who do it and the people who make it and come out on the other side as productive citizens are folks who say, uh, they, they, they've come to an inner peace in their own minds and they say, these bars aren't going to define me. Uh, that my, my humanity is, uh, i- i- is there and it's, it's immutable. And they are not bitter, which is amazing. I, I, I would tend to think that I'm not that good of a person. I would be bitter for every day of 20 years if I were in, in jail for something. But, you know, but, but people tell me that, you know, that they can't survive, like that one cannot survive like that. And you have to come to terms with it.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  And, uh, and, uh, the, the people whom I've exonerated, I mean, they, they come out, uh, most of them, uh, come out and, and they just, uh, really just take on life with a vim and, and vigor without, uh, bitterness. And it's, it's a beautiful thing to see.

• 51:39Lex Fridman?

  Do you think it's possible to eradicate racism from the judicial system?

• 51:45Speaker 01

  I do. I think as, I think that race insinuates itself in all aspects of our lives. And the judicial, the judicial system is not immune from that. So to the extent we begin to eradicate

• 52:01Speaker 01

  dangerous and deleterious race thinking from society generally, then it will be eradicated from the criminal justice system. I think we've got a lot of work to do and I think it'll be a while, but, but I think it's, it's doable. I mean, you know, uh, the country, so historians will look back 300 years from now and take note of the incredible journey of diasporic Africans in the, in, in the US. An incredible journey from, uh, you know, slavery, uh, to the, the heights of politics and business

• 52:45Speaker 01

  and judiciary, the academy and so forth, in not a lot of time. And actually not a lot of time. And if we can have that sort of movement historically, let's think about what the next 175 years will look like. I'm not saying it's going to be short, but I'm saying that if we keep at it, keep getting to know each other a little better, keep enforcing laws that prohibit, uh, the, the sort of race-based discrimination that people have experienced and provide as a society, opportunities for people to thrive in this world. Then I think we can, we can see a better world.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  And if we see a better world, we'll see a better judicial system.

• 53:33Lex Fridman?

  So I think it's kind of fascinating if you look throughout history and race is just part of that. Is, uh, we create the other.

• 53:41Lex Fridman?

  And treat the other with disdain through the legal system, but just through human nature. I tend to believe, we mentioned offline that I work with robots. It sounds absurd to say, especially to you, especially because we're talking about racism and it's so prevalent today. I do believe that there will be almost like a civil rights movement for robots. Because with the, I think there's a huge value to society of having artificial intelligence systems that are, that interact with humans and are, and are

• 54:21Lex Fridman?

  human-like. And the more they become human-like, you will, they will start, they will start to ask very fundamentally human questions about freedom, about suffering, about justice. And they will have to come face to face, like look in the mirror in asking the question, just because we're biologically based, just because we're sort of, well, just because we're human, does that mean we're the only ones that deserve the rights? Again, giving, forming another other group, which is robots. And I'm sure there could be along that path,

• 55:03Lex Fridman?

  different versions of other that we form. So racism, race is certainly a big other that we've made, as you said, a lot of progress on throughout the history of this country. But it does feel like we always create, as we make progress, create new other groups. And of course, the other, the other group that perhaps is outside the legal system that people talk about is the essential, now, I eat a lot of meat, but the torture of animals, you know, the people talk about when we look back from, you know, a couple centuries from now, look back at the kind of things we're doing to animals, we might regret that. We might see that in a very different light. And it's kind of interesting to see the future trajectory of.

• 55:47Lex Fridman?

  What we wake up to about the injustice in our, in our ways. But the robot one is the one I'm especially focused on because, but at this moment in time, it seems ridiculous. But I'm sure most civil rights movements throughout history seem ridiculous at first.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting, sort of outside of my intellectual bailiwick, robots. As I understand the development of artificial intelligence, though, the, the aspect that

• 56:27Speaker 01

  still is missing is this notion of consciousness. And that it's, it's consciousness, that is the, the thing that will, will move. If it were to exist, and I'm not saying that it can or will, but if it were to exist, would move robots from machines to something different, that it's something that experienced the world in a way analogous to what, how we experience it. And also, as I understand the science, there's a, unlike what you see on, on television,

• 57:10Speaker 01

  that we're not, we're not there yet in terms of this notion of the machines having a consciousness.

• 57:21Lex Fridman?

  Or a great general intelligence, all those kinds of things.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:25Lex Fridman?

  A huge amount of progress has been made and there, it's fascinating to watch. So I'm, I'm on both minds as a person who's building them. I'm realizing how sort of quote unquote dumb they are. But also looking at human history and how poor we are predicting the progress of innovation and technology, it's obvious that we have to be humble by our ability to predict, coupled with the fact that we keep, to use terminology carefully here, we keep discriminating against the intelligence of artificial systems. The smarter they get, the more ways we find

• 58:05Lex Fridman?

  to dismiss their intelligence. So this has just been going on throughout, where I, it's almost as if we're threatened in the most primitive human way, animalistic way. We're threatened by the power of other creatures, and we want to lessen, dismiss them. So consciousness is a really important one, but the one I think about a lot in terms of consciousness, the very engineering question, is whether the display of consciousness is the same as the possession of consciousness. So if a robot tells you they are conscious, if

• 58:46Lex Fridman?

  a robot looks like they're suffering when you torture them, if a robot is afraid of death and says they're afraid of death, and are legitimately afraid, like, in terms of just everything we as humans use to determine the ability of somebody to be their own entity, they're the one that loves, one that fears, one that hopes, one that can suffer. If a robot, like, in the dumbest of ways, is able to display that, we, it starts changing things very quickly. I'm not sure what it is, but it does seem that there's a huge

• 59:31Lex Fridman?

  component to consciousness that is a social creation. Like, we together create our consciousness. Like, we believe our common humanity Together, alone, we wouldn't be aware of our humanity. And the law, as it protects our freedoms, seems to be a construct of the social construct. And when you add other creatures into it, it's not obvious to me that like you have to build. There'll be a moment when you say, this thing is now conscious. I think there's going to be a lot of fake it until you make it. And there'll be a very gray area between fake and make.

• 1:00:13Lex Fridman?

  That is going to force us to contend with what it means to be an entity that deserves rights. Where all men are created equal. The the men part might have to expand in ways that we are not yet anticipating. It's very interesting. I mean, my favorite. The fundamental thing I love about artificial intelligence is it gets smarter and smarter. It challenges to think of what is right, the questions of justice, questions of freedom. It basically challenges us to to understand our own mind, to understand what like.

• 1:00:56Lex Fridman?

  Almost from an engineering first principles perspective, to understand what it is that makes us human. That is at the core of all the rights that we talk about and all the documents we write. So even if we don't give rights to artificial intelligence systems, we may be able to construct more fair, legal systems to protect us humans.

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, interesting ontological question between the the performance of consciousness and and and actual consciousness to the extent that it's that actual consciousness is anything beyond some contingent reality. But you've posed a number of of interesting philosophical questions. And then there's also, it strikes me that that philosophers of religion would pose another set of questions as well when you deal with issues of.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  Of structure versus soul, body versus soul and and it it would be a it will be a complicated mix and I suspect I'll be dust by the time those questions get get worked out.

• 1:02:08Lex Fridman?

  And so, yeah, the soul, the soul is a fun one. There's no soul. I'm not sure. Maybe you can correct me, but there's very few discussion of soul in our legal system, right?

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  Right, correct.

• 1:02:21Lex Fridman?

  So.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  But there is a discussion about what constitutes a human being. And I mean, you gestured at the notion of the potential of the law widening the domain of so of of of human being. So in in that sense, right, you know, people are very angry because they can't get sort of pain and suffering damages if someone negligently kills a pet because a pet is not a human being. And people say, well, I love my pet, but the law sees a pet as chattel, as property like this, this water bottle.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  So the the current legal definitions trade on a definition of humanity that may not be worked out in any sophisticated way, but certainly there's a there's a share broad and shared understanding of what what it what it means. So probably doesn't explicitly contain a definition of something like soul, but it's it's more robust than, you know, a carbon based organism, that there's something a little more distinct about what the law thinks a human being is.

• 1:03:41Lex Fridman?

  So if we can dive into, we've already been doing it, but if we could dive into more difficult territory. So 2020 had the tragic case of George Floyd.

• 1:03:55Lex Fridman?

  When you reflect on the protests, on the racial tensions over the death of George Floyd, how do you make sense of it all? What do you take away from these events?

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  Look, the George Floyd moment occurred at an historical moment where people were in quarantine for COVID. And people have these cell phones to a degree greater than we've ever had them before. And this was a sort of the straw that broke the camel's back. After a number of these sorts of cellphone videos surfaced, people were fed up. There was unimpeachable evidence

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  of a form of mistreatment, whether it constitutes murder or manslaughter. The trial is going on now, and jurors will figure that out. But there was widespread appreciation that a fellow human being was mistreated, that we were just talking about humanity, that there was not a sufficient recognition of this person's humanity.

• 1:05:20Lex Fridman?

  The common humanity of this person.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  The common humanity of this person. Well said. And people were fed up. So we were already in this COVID space where we were exercising care for one another. And there was just an explosion, the likes of which this country hasn't seen since the civil rights

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  protests of the 1950s and 1960s. And people simply said, enough, enough, enough, enough. This has to stop. We cannot treat fellow citizens in this way, and we can't do it with impunity. And the young people said, we're not going to stand for it anymore. And they took to the streets.

• 1:06:04Lex Fridman?

  But with the millions of people protesting, there is nevertheless taking us back to the most difficult of trials. You have the trial, like you mentioned, that's going on now of Derek Showen, of one of the police officers involved.

• 1:06:23Lex Fridman?

  What are your thoughts? What are your predictions on this trial where the law, the process of the law is trying to proceed in the face of so much racial tension?

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it's going to be an interesting trial. I've I've been keeping an eye on it there in jury selection now today as we're we're talking. So a lot's going to depend on what sort of jury gets selected.

• 1:06:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, how the sorry to take a sorry to interrupt. But so one of the interesting qualities of this trial, maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong. But the cameras are allowed in the courtroom, at least during the jury selection. So so you get to watch some of this stuff. And the other part is the jury selection. Again, I'm very inexperienced, but it seems like selecting and what is it unbiased jury? It's really difficult for this trial. It it almost like I I don't know. Me as a listener, like, you know, listening to people that are trying to talk their way into the jury

• 1:07:30Lex Fridman?

  kind of thing, trying to decide, is this person really unbiased? Or are they just trying to hold on to their like deeply held emotions and trying to get onto the jury? I mean, it's incredibly difficult process. I don't know if you can comment on a case so difficult, like the ones you've mentioned before. How do you select a jury that represents the people and doesn't? And and carries the sort of the ideal of the law?

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, so a couple of things. So first, yes, it is televised and it will be televised, as they say, gavel to gavel. So the entire trial, the whole thing is going to be televised. So people are getting a view of how laborious jury selection can be. I think as of yesterday, they had picked six jurors and it's it's taken a week and they have to get to 14. So they've got, you know, probably another week or more to to do. I've been in jury trials where it took a month to choose a jury. So that's the most important part. You have to you have to choose the right sort of jury. So unbiased in the criminal justice system has a particular meaning. It it means that.

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  That, uh, it, let me tell you what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that a person is not aware of the case. Uh, it also does not mean that a person hasn't formed an opinion about the case. Those are two popular misconceptions. Uh, what it does mean is that notwithstanding whether, uh, an individual has formed an opinion, notwithstanding whether an individual knows about the case, uh, that individual can set aside any prior opinions, can set aside any notions that they've developed about the case and listen to the evidence presented at trial in conjunction with the judge's instructions on how to, uh, understand

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  and view that evidence. So if a person can do that, then they're considered unbiased. Uh, so, you know, as a longtime, uh, defense attorney, uh, I, you know, I would be hesitant in a big case like this to pick a juror who's never heard of the case or anything going around. Cause I'm thinking, well, who is this person and what, what, what in the world do they do? Uh, uh, so, uh, or, or are they lying to me? I mean, how can you not have heard about, uh, this case? Um, so they may bring other problems. So I, you know, I don't mind so much. People who've heard about the case or folks who've formed initial opinions,

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  uh, but you, you, what you don't want is people who, uh, have tethered themselves to that opinion, uh, in a way that, um, you know, they can't be convinced, uh, otherwise. So, um, but you also have people who, uh, as you suggested, who just lie because they want to get on the jury or lie because they want to get off the jury. So sometimes people will come and say, you know, the most ridiculous, outrageous, offensive things, uh, to know because they know that they'll get excused for cause and others who, um, You can tell, I really badly want to get on the jury. So they're, you know, they're just, they pretend to be the, the, the most neutral, unbiased

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  person in the world. What the law calls the reasonable person. We have in law, the reasonable person standard. And I would tell my class, the, you know, the, the reasonable person in, in real life is the person that you would be least likely to want to have a drink with. They're the most boring, neutral, not interesting sort of person in the world. And so a lot of jurors engage in the performative act of presenting themselves as the most sort of even keeled, rational, reasonable person because they really want to get on the jury.

• 1:11:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's an interesting question. I apologize, I haven't watched a lot because it is very long. I, I watched, you know, there's, there's certain questions you've asked in the jury, you ask in the jury selection. I remember, I think one jumped out at me, which is, you know, something like, does the fact that this person is a police officer make you feel any kind of way about them? So trying to get at that, you know, I don't know what that is. I guess that's bias. And it's such a difficult question to ask. Like I ask myself for that question.

• 1:12:07Lex Fridman?

  Like how much, you know, we all kind of want to pretend that we're not racist, we don't judge, we don't have, we're like these, we're the reasonable human. But, you know, legitimately asking yourself, like, are you, what are the, what are the prejudgments you have in your mind? Is that even possible for a human being? Like when you look at yourself in the mirror and think about it, is it possible to actually answer that?

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, look, I, I do not believe that people can be completely unbiased. We all have baggage and bias and bring it wherever we go, including to court.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  What you want is to try to find a person who can at least recognize

• 1:12:57Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  when a bias is working and actively try to do the right thing. That's the best we can, we can ask. So if a juror says, yeah, you know, I grew up in a place where I tend to believe what police officers say. That's just how I grew up. But if the judge is telling me that I have to listen to every witness equally, then I'll, you know, I'll do my best and I won't weigh that testimony any higher than I would any other testimony. If you have someone answer a question like that, that sounds more sincere to me. Sounds more honest. And if you want a person, you want a person to try to do that. And then in closing arguments, right, as the lawyer, right?

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  I'd say something like, ladies and gentlemen, you know, we chose you to be on this jury because you swore that you would do your level best to be fair. That's why we chose you. And I'm confident that you're going to do that here. So when you heard that police officer's testimony, the judge told you, you can't give more credit to that testimony just because it's a police officer. And I trust that you're going to do that and that you're going to look at witness number three. You know, John Smith, you're going to look at John Smith. John Smith has a different recollection. And you're duty bound, duty bound to look at that testimony and this person's credibility.

• 1:14:25Speaker 01

  You know, the same degree as that other witness, right? And now what you have is just a he said, she said matter. And this is a criminal case. That has to be reasonable doubt. Right? So, you know, so you, and really someone who's trying to do the right thing. It's helpful, but no, you're not going to just find 14 people with no biases. That's, that's absurd.

• 1:14:47Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's, that's fascinating that, especially the way you're inspiring, the way you're speaking now is, I mean, I guess you're calling on the jury. That's kind of the whole system is you're calling on the jury, each individual on the jury to step up and really think, you know, to step up and be their most thoughtful selves, actually. Most introspective, like you're trying to basically ask people to be their best selves.

• 1:15:16Lex Fridman?

  And that's and they I guess a lot of people step up to that.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of people do.

• 1:15:21Lex Fridman?

  That's why the system works.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  I'm very, I'm very pro jury. Juries, they they get it right.

• 1:15:26Lex Fridman?

  It works.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  A lot of the time, most of the time, and they really work hard to do it.

• 1:15:32Lex Fridman?

  So.

• 1:15:35Lex Fridman?

  What do you think happens? I mean, maybe.

• 1:15:41Lex Fridman?

  I'm not so much on the legal side of things, but on the social side, it's like with the OJ Simpson trial.

• 1:15:50Lex Fridman?

  Do you think it's possible that Derek Chauvin does not get convicted of the, what is it, second degree murder?

• 1:15:57Lex Fridman?

  How do you think about that? How do you think about the potential social impact of that? The the riots, the protests, the either either direction? Any words that are said, the tension here could be explosive, especially with the cameras.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So, yes, there's certainly a possibility that he he'll be acquitted. For homicide charges. For. The jury to convict, they have to make a determination as to Officer Chauvin's, former Officer Chauvin's state of mind. Whether he intended. To cause some harm, whether he was grossly reckless. In causing harm, so much so that he disregarded a known risk of death or serious bodily injury.

• 1:16:51Speaker 01

  And as you may have read in the papers yesterday, the judge allowed a a third degree murder charge in Kentucky. Which is, it's the mindset, the state of mind there is not an intention. But it's a depraved indifference. And what that means is that the jury doesn't have to find that he intended to do anything. Rather, they could find that he was just indifferent.

• 1:17:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  To a risk.

• 1:17:24Lex Fridman?

  That's dark.

• 1:17:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:27Lex Fridman?

  I'm not sure what's worse.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, that's that's a good point, but but it's a it's another basis for the jury to convict. But but look, you never know what what happens when you go to jury trial, so there could be a.

• 1:17:43Speaker 01

  And acquittal, and if there is, I imagine there would be massive protests. If he's convicted, I don't think that would happen. Because I just don't see, at least nothing I've seen or read suggests that there's a a big pro Chauvin camp out there, ready to protest.

• 1:18:06Lex Fridman?

  Well, there could be a, is there also potential tensions that could arise from the sentencing? I don't know how that exactly works, sort of not enough years kind of thing.

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it could be. All that kind of stuff. I mean, it's a lot could happen. So it depends on what he's convicted of, you know, one count, I think, is like up to 10 years, another counts up to 40 years. So it depends what he's convicted of. And yes, it depends on how much of the, how much time the judge gives him if he is convicted. There's a lot of space for people to be very angry. And so we will, we will see what, what happens.

• 1:18:42Lex Fridman?

  I just feel like with the judge and, and the lawyers, there's an opportunity to have really important, long lasting speeches. I don't know if they think of it that way, especially with the cameras. It, it feels like they have the capacity to heal or to divide. Do you ever think about that as a, as a lawyer, as a legal mind, that your words aren't just about the case, but about they'll reverberate through history potentially?

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  That is, that is certainly a possible consequence of things you say. I don't think that most lawyers think about that in the context of the case. Your role is much more narrow. You're the partisan advocate, as a defense lawyer, partisan advocate for that client. As a prosecutor, you're a minister of justice, attempting to prosecute that particular case. But the reality is, you are absolutely correct that sometimes the things you say. Uh, will have a shelf life and you mentioned OJ Simpson before, you know, if the glove doesn't

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  fit, uh, you must acquit. It's going to be, you know, just in, in our lexicon for probably a long time now. So, so it, it, it happens, but that's not, uh, and, and it shouldn't be uh, foremost on your mind.

• 1:20:11Lex Fridman?

  Right. What, what do you make, uh, what do you make of the OJ Simpson trial? Do you, do you have thoughts about it? He is, uh, he's out and about on social media now. He's a public figure. Is there, uh, lessons to be drawn from that whole saga?

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  Well, you know, that was an interesting case. I was a young public defender, I want to say in my first year, uh, as a public defender, when that verdict came out. So that case was important in so many ways. One, um, it was the first DNA case, um, major DNA case. And there were significant lessons learned from that. One, um, mistake that the prosecution made was, uh, that they didn't present the science in a way that a lay jury could understand it. Um, and, uh, what Johnny Cochran did was he understood the science

• 1:21:04Speaker 01

  and was able to, uh, uh, translate that into a way, into a vocabulary that he bet that that jury, uh, uh, understood. Uh, so, so Cochran was dismissive of a lot of DNA. They said, you know, he said something like, oh, you know, they say they found, you know, uh, such and such amount of DNA. That's just like me, you know, wiping my finger against my nose and, and, and, and just that little bit of DNA. And, uh, that was effective because the prosecution hadn't done a good job of establishing that, yes, it's microscopic. You don't need that much. Yes. Wiping your hand on your nose and touching something.

• 1:21:47Speaker 01

  You can transfer a lot of DNA and that gives you good information.

• 1:21:51Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  But, you know, it was the first time that the public generally and that jury, maybe since high school science, it heard, you know, you know, nucleotide. I mean, it was just all these terms getting thrown at them and, and, but it was not weaved into a, a narrative. So, uh, Cochran taught us, um, that no matter what type of case it is, no matter what science is involved, it's still about storytelling. It's still about a narrative. And he was, uh, And he was great at that, at that, at that narrative and was consistent with his narrative

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  all the way out. Another lesson that was relearned is that, you know, you never ask a question to which you don't know the answer. That's like trial advocacy 101. And so when they gave OJ Simpson the glove and it wouldn't fit, you know, you don't, you don't do things where you just don't know how it's going to turn out. It was way, way too risky. And then, and, and I think that's what acquitted him because that glove, the glove just wouldn't fit. And he got to do this and ham in front of the camera and all of that. And, and it was big.

• 1:23:08Lex Fridman?

  Do you think about, do you think about representation as a storytelling, like you, yourself in your role?

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Absolutely. We tell stories. It is fundamental. We, since time immemorial, we have told stories to help us make sense of the world around us. So as a scientist, you tell a different type of story. But we, as a public, have told stories from time immemorial to, to, to help us make sense of the physical and the natural world. And we are still a, a, a species that is moved by storytelling. So that, that's first and

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  last in trial work. You have to tell a good story. And, you know, the basic introductory books about trial work teach young students, young students and young lawyers to, to start in openings with this case is about. This case is about, and then you fill in the blank. And, you know, that's your narrative. That's the narrative you're gonna, you're gonna tell.

• 1:24:16Lex Fridman?

  And of course, you can do the ultra dramatic, the glove doesn't fit, kind of the climax and all those kinds of things.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:24:24Lex Fridman?

  But that's the best of narratives, the best of stories.

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:24:29Lex Fridman?

  Speaking of other really powerful stories that you were involved with is the Aaron Hernandez trial and the whole story, the whole legal case, can you maybe overview the big picture story and legal case of Aaron Hernandez?

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Aaron, whom I miss a lot. So he was charged with a double murder in the case that I tried. And this was a unique case and one of those impossible cases in part because Aaron had already been convicted of a murder. And so we had a client who was on trial for a double murder after having already been convicted of a separate murder. And we had a jury pool, just about all of whom knew that he had been convicted of a murder because he was a very popular football player in Boston, which is a big football

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  town with the Patriots. So, you know, so everyone knew that he was convicted murderer and here we are defending for in a double murder case. So that was the, that was the context. It was an odd case in the sense that this murder had gone, gone unsolved for a couple of years. And then a nightclub bouncer said something to a cop who was working at a club that Aaron Hernandez was somehow involved in that, in that murder that happened in the theater district. That's the district where all the clubs are in Boston and where the homicide occurred.

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  And once the police heard Aaron Hernandez's name, then it was, you know, they went all out in order to, to, to do this. They found a guy named Alexander Bradley, who was a, a very significant.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Uh, a drug dealer in the sort of Connecticut area, uh, ve- very significant, very powerful. Um, and, uh, he essentially, in exchange for a deal, uh, pointed to Aaron and said, yeah, I was with Aaron and, uh, and Aaron, uh, was the, uh, was the murderer. Uh, so that's how the case came, came to court.

• 1:27:01Lex Fridman?

  Okay. So that, that's the context. What was your involvement in this case? Like legally, intellectually, psychologically, uh, when this particular, uh, second, a charge of murder?

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  So a friend, uh, called me, Jose Baez, uh, who is the defense attorney and he, uh, comes to, uh, a class that I teach every year at Harvard, the Trial Advocacy Workshop, uh, as one of my, um, uh, teaching faculty members. Uh, it's a class where we teach students how to try cases. Uh, so, uh, Jose called me and said, hey, uh, I got a call from Massachusetts, Aaron Hernandez, uh, you want to go and, and talk to him, uh, with me? So I said, sure. So we went up to the, to the prison and, um, uh, and met, uh, Aaron and, uh, spoke

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  with him for two or three hours that first time. And before we left, he said he, he wanted to, uh, retain us. Uh, he wanted to work with us and, and that started the representation.

• 1:28:10Lex Fridman?

  What was he like? Uh, what would, in that time, what was he worn down by the whole process? Was there still?

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  He wasn't.

• 1:28:18Lex Fridman?

  A light in that?

• 1:28:19Speaker 01

  He was not. He, he had, I mean, more than just a light, he was luminous almost. Uh, he had a radiant million dollar smile, uh, whenever he walked in. Uh, my first impression, I distinctly remember was, wow, this is what a professional athlete looks like. I mean, he walked in and he's just, just bigger and more fit than, you know, than anyone, you know, anywhere. And it's like, wow, this, and you know, when you saw him on television, he looked kind of little. And I was like, so I remember thinking, well, what, what do those other guys look like in person? Um, and, um, and he's extraordinarily polite.

• 1:28:59Speaker 01

  Uh, young, uh, uh, is that I was surprised by how young he was.

• 1:29:07Lex Fridman?

  Both in mind and, uh, and body.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  But chronologically, I was, you know, thinking he was in his, you know, in his early twenties, I believe.

• 1:29:16Lex Fridman?

  But there seemed to be like an innocence stone in terms of just the way he saw the world.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  I think that's right.

• 1:29:22Lex Fridman?

  I picked that up from the, from the documentary, just taking that in.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  I, I think that's right. Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:29:28Lex Fridman?

  Uh, so there is a Netflix documentary titled Killer Inside the Mind of Aaron Hernandez. What are your thoughts on this documentary? I don't know if you got any chance to see.

• 1:29:39Speaker 01

  I, I did not, I have not seen it. I, I did not participate in it. I know I was in it because of, uh, there was news footage, uh, that, but I did not participate in it. I had not talked to Aaron about, uh, about, uh, press or anything, uh, before he, he died. Uh, my strong view is that the attorney client privilege survives death. And so I was not inclined to talk about anything that Aaron and I talked about. So I just didn't, uh, participate and, and, and have never watched.

• 1:30:09Lex Fridman?

  Not even watch, huh? So is that, does that apply to most of your work? Do you try to stay away from the way the press perceives stuff?

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  Uh, during, uh, yes, I try to stay away from it. I, I will view it afterwards. Uh, I just hadn't gotten around to watching, uh, Aaron cause it's kind of, it's kind of sad. So I just had, haven't watched it, but I definitely stay away from the press during trial. And, you know, there are some lawyers who watch it religiously to see what's going on, but you know, I'm, I'm confident in my years of training and so forth that, and that I can, uh, actively sense what's going on in the courtroom and, and that I, I really don't need advice from

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  Joe four, seven, six at Gmail, uh, you know, some random guy on the internet telling me how to try cases. So.

• 1:31:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  It's just, to me, it's just confusing and I just, I keep it out of my mind.

• 1:31:08Lex Fridman?

  And, and even if you think you can ignore it, just reading it will have a, a little bit of an effect on your mind.

• 1:31:13Speaker 01

  I think that's, I think that's right.

• 1:31:15Lex Fridman?

  Over time, I might accumulate. Uh, so the, the documentary, but in general, uh, it mentioned.

• 1:31:25Lex Fridman?

  Or kind of emphasized and talked about Aaron's sexuality, or sort of they were discussing basically the idea that he was a homosexual and some of the trauma, some of the suffering that he endured in his life had to do with sort of fear, given the society of what his father would think, of what others around him, especially in sport culture and football and so on. So I don't know, in your interaction with him, was, do you think that, maybe even

• 1:32:05Lex Fridman?

  leaning up to a suicide, do you think his struggle with coming to terms with his sexuality had a role to play in much of his difficulties?

• 1:32:18Speaker 01

  Well, I'm not going to talk about my interactions with him and anything I derive from that. But, you know, what I will say is that a story broke on the, on the radio at some point during the trial, that Aaron had been in the same-sex relationship with someone and some sport, local sportscasters, local Boston sportscasters, I mean, really mushroomed the, the, the story. So he and everyone was aware of it. You'll, you also

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  may know from the court record that the prosecutors floated a specious theory for a minute, but then backed off of it, that, you know, that Aaron was, that there was some sort of, I guess, gay rage at work with him, and that might be a cause, a motive for the killing. And luckily, they, they really backed off of that. That was quite an offensive claim in, in, in theory. So, but to answer your question more directly, I mean, I have no idea why he, he killed himself. It was a

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  A surprise and a shock. I was scheduled to go see him like a couple of days after it happened. I mean, he was anxious for Jose and I to come in and do the appeal from the murder, which he was convicted for. He wanted us to take over that appeal. He was talking about going back to football. I mean, he said, well, you talk about this earlier, you talked about the sort of innocent aspect of him. He said, you know, well, Ron, maybe not, maybe not the Patriots, but you know, I want to get back in the league. And I was like, you know, Aaron, that's, that's

• 1:34:19Speaker 01

  going to be tough, man. But, but he really, you know, he really believed it. And, and then, you know, for a few days later, that to happen, it was just, it was a real shock to me.

• 1:34:31Lex Fridman?

  Like, when you look back at that, at his story, does it make you sad?

• 1:34:38Speaker 01

  Very, very. I, I, I thought, so, so one, I, I believe he, he absolutely did not commit the, the crimes that we acquitted him on. I think that was the right answer for, for, for that. I don't know enough about Bradley, the first case, I'm sorry, to make, make an opinion on. But, but in our case, you know, it was just, he had the misfortune of having a famous name, and the police department just really, just, just, just really got, got on him

• 1:35:18Speaker 01

  there. So, yes, it's, it's, I miss him a lot. It was very, very sad, surprising.

• 1:35:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. And, and I mean, just on the human side, of course, we don't know the full story, but just everything that led up to suicide, everything led up to an incredible professional football player, you know, that whole story.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  Remarkably talented athlete, remarkably talented athlete.

• 1:35:45Lex Fridman?

  And it's, it has to do with all the, all the possible trajectories, right, that we can take through life, as we were talking about before. And some of them lead to, to suicide, sadly enough. And it's, it's always tragic when you have, you know, somebody with a

• 1:36:04Lex Fridman?

  With great potential result in in the things that happen.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:36:10Lex Fridman?

  People love it when I ask about books. I don't know if I

• 1:36:15Lex Fridman?

  whether technical, like legal or fiction, nonfiction books throughout your life have had an impact on you. If there's something you could recommend or something you could speak to about something that inspired ideas, insights about this world, complicated world of ours.

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Yeah. So I'll give you a couple. So one is Contingency, Irony and Solidarity by Richard Wardy. He's a he's passed away now, but was a philosopher at some of our major institutions, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  Contingency, irony and solidarity, at least that's a book that really helped me work through

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  a series of thoughts. So it stands for the proposition that that our most deeply held beliefs are contingent, that there there's nothing beyond history or prior to socialization that's definatory of the of the human being. That's right. And he says that our most deeply held beliefs are received wisdom and highly contingent along a number of registers. And he does that, but then goes on to say that he nonetheless can hold strongly held beliefs, recognizing their contingency, but still believes them to be true and accurate.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  And it helps you to work through what could be an intellectual tension.

• 1:37:57Speaker 01

  Other words, so so you don't delve into, one doesn't delve into relativism. Ah, everything is okay. But it gives you a vocabulary to think about

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  how to negotiate these these these realities.

• 1:38:12Lex Fridman?

  Do you share this tension? I mean, there is a real tension. It seems like even like the law, the legal system is all just a construct of our human ideas. And yet it seems to be.

• 1:38:27Lex Fridman?

  Almost feels fundamental to what a what a just society is.

• 1:38:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I definitely share share the tension and and and love the

• 1:38:38Speaker 01

  his his vocabulary in the way he's helped me resolve the the the tension. So, right, I mean, yeah, yeah. So like, you know, infanticide, for example, perhaps it's socially contingent, perhaps it's received wisdom, perhaps it's anthropological, you know, we need to propagate the species. And I still think it's wrong.

• 1:39:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  And and and and Rorty has helped me develop a category to say to to to say that, no, I can't provide any, in Rorty's words, non circular theoretical backup for this proposition. At some point, it's going to run me into in a circularity problem. But that's OK. I'm I I I I hold this nonetheless in full recognition of its contingency. But what it does is is is is makes you humble. And and when you're humble, that's good, because, you know, this notion that ideas are always already in progress, never fully formed, I think, is is is the sort of intellectual I strive

• 1:39:46Speaker 01

  to be. And if I have a a a sufficient degree of humility that I don't have the final answer, capital A, then that's going to help me to get to better answers, lowercase a. And and and Rorty does. And and he talks about

• 1:40:05Speaker 01

  in in the solidarity part of the book, he has this concept of imaginative, I, the imaginative ability to see other different people as we instead of they. And I just think it's a beautiful concept. But he talks about this imaginative ability, and it's this active process. So I mean, so that's a book that's done a lot of work for me over the the the years. Souls of Black Folk by W. B. Du Bois was absolutely pivotal pivotal in my intellectual development. One of the premier.

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  Set of essays in the Western literary tradition. And it's a deep and profound sociological, philosophical and historical analysis of the predicament of blacks in America from one of our country's greatest polymaths. It it's just a it's a beautiful text and and I go to it yearly.

• 1:41:15Lex Fridman?

  So for somebody like me, so growing up in the Soviet Union, the struggle, the civil rights movement, the struggle of race and all those kinds of things that that is, you know, this universal, but it's also very much a a journey of the United States. It was kind of a foreign thing that I stepped into. Is that something you would recommend somebody like me to read? Or is there other

• 1:41:41Lex Fridman?

  things about race that are good to connect? Because my my my flavor of suffering injustice, I'm a Jew as well. My flavor has to do with World War Two and the studies of that. You know, all the injustices there. So I'm now stepping into a new set of injustices and trying to learn the the landscape.

• 1:42:01Speaker 01

  I would I would say anyone is is a better person for having read Du Bois. It's just he's just a remarkable writer and thinker. And it I mean, to the extent you're interested in in learning another history, he does it in a way that is quite sophisticated. So it's a so I it's interesting. I was going to give you three books. I I noted the accent with when I met you, but I didn't know exactly where you're from.

• 1:42:35Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 1:42:35Speaker 01

  But the other book I was going to say is Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. And I mean, I've always wanted to go to St. Pete's just to to sort of see with my own eyes what the word pictures that Dostoevsky created in Crime and Punishment. And, you know, I love others of his stuff, too. The Brothers Karamazov and so forth. But Crime and Punishment, I first read in high school as a junior or a senior. And it is a deep and profound meditation on the, both the meaning and the measure

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  of our lives. And Dostoevsky, obviously, in, in, in conversation with other thinkers,

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  really gets at the, the, the crux of a fundamental philosophical problem. What does it mean to be a human being? And, and for that, Crime and Punishment captured me as a teenager. And that's another text that I return to often.

• 1:43:45Lex Fridman?

  We've talked about young people a little bit at the beginning of our conversation. Is there advice that you could give to a young person today, thinking about their career, thinking about their life, thinking about making their way in this world?

• 1:44:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. I'll share some advice. It actually picks up on a question we talked about earlier within, in the academy and schools. But it's, it's some advice that a professor gave to me

• 1:44:16Speaker 01

  when I got to Harvard. And it is this, that you have to be willing to come face to face with your intellectual limitations and keep going. And that's, and it's hard for people. I mean, you mentioned this earlier, to, to face really difficult tasks, and particularly in these sort of elite spaces where you've excelled all your life and you come to MIT and you're like, wait a minute, I don't understand this. Wait, this is hard. I've never had something really hard before. And there, there are a couple of options and a lot of people will pull back and take the gentleman or just a woman's be and, and just go on, or risk.

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  Going out there, giving it your all and still not quite getting it. And that, that, that's a risk, but it's a risk well worth it. Uh, because you're just going to be the better person, the better student for it. And, you know, and even outside of the academy, I mean, come, come face to face with your, uh, fears. And keep going and keep going in, in, in, in life and you're going to be the better person, the better, uh, human being.

• 1:45:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it does seem to be, I don't know what it is, but it does seem to be that fear is a good indicator of something you should probably face.

• 1:45:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:45:39Lex Fridman?

  Like fear kind of shows the way a little bit, uh, not always. You might not want to go into the cage with a lion, but, uh, but it's, uh, maybe you should.

• 1:45:51Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 1:45:53Lex Fridman?

  Let me ask sort of a darker question because we're talking about Dostoevsky, we might as well.

• 1:46:00Lex Fridman?

  Do you, uh, do you, and connected to the, uh,

• 1:46:07Lex Fridman?

  freeing innocent people, do you think about mortality? Do you think about your own death? Are you afraid of death?

• 1:46:14Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm not afraid of, of death. I do think about it more now, uh, because I'm now in my mid 50s. So I used to not think about it much at all, but, uh, uh, the, uh, harsh reality is that I've got more time behind me now that I do in front of me. And it kind of happens all of a sudden to realize, wait a minute, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm actually on the back nine now. So, uh, yeah, my mind moves to it from time to time. I don't, uh, dwell on it. I'm not afraid of it. Uh, my own personal religious commitments, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm Christian and my religious, uh, commitments, uh, buoy me.

• 1:46:57Speaker 01

  Uh, that, uh, you know, that, that death, uh, and I, I believe this death is not, not, not the end. So I'm not afraid of it now. This is not to say that I want to, I want to, I want to rush to the afterlife. I'm, I'm good right here for a long time. I hope I've got, you know, 30, 35, 40 more years to go. Uh, but, um, but, uh, but no, I don't, I don't really, I don't fear death. We're, we're, we're, we're finite. Creatures, we're all gonna, we're all gonna die.

• 1:47:29Lex Fridman?

  Well, the mystery of it, you know, for, for somebody, at least for me, we human beings want to figure everything out. Whatever the afterlife is, there's still a mystery to it. That, that uncertainty, it can be terrifying if you ponder it. But maybe what you're saying is, you haven't pondered it too deeply so far, and it's worked out pretty good.

• 1:47:56Speaker 01

  It's worked out, yeah. No, no complaints.

• 1:47:59Lex Fridman?

  So you said, again, that Saevsky kind of was exceptionally good at getting to the core of what it means to be human. Do you think about like, the why of why we're here? The, the meaning of this whole existence?

• 1:48:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I, I do. I think, and I actually think that's the purpose of an education. What does it mean to be a human being? And in one way or another, we set out to answer those questions, and we do it in a different way. I mean, some may look to philosophy to answer these questions. Why is it in one's personal interest to, to, to do good, to, to do just, to do justice? Some may look at it through the economist's lens. Some may

• 1:48:59Speaker 01

  look at it through the microscope in the laboratory, that the phenomenal world is, is, is the meaning of life. Others may say that that's one vocabulary, that's one description, but the poet describes a reality to the same degree as a physicist. But that's the purpose of, of, of an education. It's to sort of work through these issues. What does it mean to be a, what does it mean to be a human being? And I think it's a fascinating journey. And I think it's a lifelong endeavor to figure out what is the thing, that nugget, that makes us human?

• 1:49:44Lex Fridman?

  Do you still see yourself as a student?

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  Of course. Yes, I mean, that's, that's the best part about going into, into university teaching. You're, you're a lifelong student. I'm always learning. I learn from my students and with my students and my colleagues and you're, you continue to read and, and, and learn and, and modify opinions. And I, I think it's just a wonderful thing.

• 1:50:09Lex Fridman?

  Well, Ron, I'm so glad that somebody like you is carrying the fire of what is the best of Harvard. So it's a huge honor that you would spend so much time, waste so much of your valuable time with me. I really appreciate that conversation.

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  Not a waste at all.

• 1:50:28Lex Fridman?

  I think a lot of people love it. Thank you so much for talking today.

• 1:50:31Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:50:32Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for listening to this conversation with Ronald Sullivan, and thank you to Brooklyn and Sheets, Wine Access Online Wine Store, Monk Pack Low Carb Snacks, and Blinkist App that summarizes books. Click their links to support this podcast. And now let me leave you with some words from Nelson Mandela. "When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw." Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.