#169 – Ryan Hall: Solving Martial Arts from First Principles

Ryan Hall is a martial artist, BJJ black belt, and MMA fighter undefeated in the UFC. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Indeed: https://indeed.com/fridman to get $75 credit – Audible: https://audible.com/lex to get $9.95 a month for 6 months – ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod and use code LexPod to get 3 months free – LMNT: https://drinkLMNT.com/lex to get free sample pack EPISODE LINKS: Ryan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanhall5050​ Ryan’s Website: http://www.ryanhallmma.com/​ Ryan’s School: https://www.5050bjj.com​ Ryan’s Online Courses: https://ryanhallonline.com/ PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LexFridmanPage – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (08:28) – First principles approach to martial arts (16:09) – Illusion of choice (19:42) – Game theory (28:04) – First fight (32:20) – Defense (41:03) – Waiting for a fight (51:11) – Free will (1:08:59) – Freedom and compassion (1:18:01) – Social media (1:24:21) – Leadership (1:30:09) – How to get good at jiu jitsu (1:50:23) – Learning how to learn (1:58:29) – Questioning the foundations of jiu jitsu (2:17:34) – Humans cannot fully comprehend reality (2:21:45) – Artificial intelligence (2:34:38) – Deadlines (2:41:29) – Tie choke (2:49:58) – Hardship (2:54:20) – Love

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 Ryan Hall, his second time on the podcast. He's one of the most innovative scholars of martial arts in the modern era. Quick mention of our sponsors, Indeed Hiring Website, Audible audiobooks, ExpressVPN, and Element Electrolyte Drink. Click the sponsor links to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that I've gotten a chance to train with Ryan recently and to both discuss and try out on the mat his ideas about grappling and fighting. What struck me is his unapologetic drive to solve martial arts. It reminds me of the ambitious vision and effort of Google's Deep Mind to solve intelligence.

• 0:43Lex Fridman?

  In Ryan's case, this isn't some out there martial arts guru talk. This is a style of thinking about the game of human chess, of seeking to define the rules and to engineer ways from first principles of escaping the constraints of those rules. This style of thinking is rare, but is ultimately the one that leads to the discovery of new revolutionary ideas. If you enjoy this podcast, subscribe to it anywhere or connect with me at Lex Fridman. And now is the part of the program where I do the advertisements. These are just a few minutes and I never do any in the middle. So if you want to skip, I give you timestamps, go ahead and skip. But please check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description.

• 1:28Lex Fridman?

  It's honestly the best way to support this podcast. That said, I also try to keep these things interesting and actually say stuff off the top of my head. So if you enjoy a bit of chaos, or as Tom Waite says, a drop of poison in your town, then stick around for these ads. This episode is brought to you by Indeed, a hiring website. I've used them as part of many hiring efforts I've done for the teams I've led. The main task is to quickly go from a huge number of initial applicants to a shortlist of great candidates. I've actually been recently going through the hiring process for different positions, related mostly to these kinds of podcasts, videos.

• 2:10Lex Fridman?

  Side pursuits that have gone on. One is a robotics engineer, the other is a virtual assistant, and perhaps most importantly, a video editor. I haven't made much progress on that yet, mostly because my to-do list has been insane. But let me say that I think in this and future hiring I do, and in myself as well, the thing I look for is not just kind of a base of skill. I think I mostly look for focused passion and both the ability and the desire to work your ass off, to work hard for the things you're passionate about. And I think coupled with that, I'd like to see a self-regulated ability to work really hard towards the things you're

• 2:53Lex Fridman?

  passionate about without burning out, without wearing yourself out. And I think that's actually a really important skill. It comes naturally to some. For some, they have to really develop it. But basically, not allowing yourself to take any side paths that take you away from the things that brings you joy. And really, being able to communicate and being able to self-motivate and direct your efforts in a way that's towards your passion, even if it involves a lot of pain in the ass, repetitive steps along the way. But if it's towards your passion, you can still derive joy from it. So I think that's actually a skill, and that's, as David Foster Wallace said, you know, make sure that you're unborable about whatever task you choose. I think that

• 3:38Lex Fridman?

  what that really means is having a perspective on the task you do that frames them in the context of the journey towards the things you're passionate about. Anyway, right now, get a free $75 credit at indeed.com/friedman. That's their best offer anywhere. Get it at indeed.com/friedman. The offer is valid through March 31st. The ad copy here says, "Terms and conditions apply," whatever the heck that means. So go to indeed.com/friedman. If you can figure out how to spell that, you deserve all of the career success you can ever wish for. This episode is also brought to you by Audible, an audiobook service that has given me hundreds,

• 4:21Lex Fridman?

  if not thousands, probably thousands of hours of education through listening to audiobooks. Many of the books I mention on this podcast were ones I've listened to with Audible. Examples include The Ascent of Money by Neil Ferguson, Your Inner Fish by Neil Schubin, The New Tsar by Stephen Lee Myers, and of course, the book that I've mentioned many times, maybe too many times, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shire. I think it's over 50 hours long and one hell of a crazy ride to the darkest moments of human history. Audible is testing this podcast, so given how much I love them, if you're on the fence, now is the time to sign up if you want to support this podcast.

• 5:05Lex Fridman?

  So go to your friends to audible.com/lex or text Lex to 500500 or send a carrier pigeon with a love poem. But best approach is to go to audible.com/lex. But best approach is probably to go to audible.com/lex. Remember, they're considering supporting us, so you know what to do. Audible.com/lex. This show is also sponsored by ExpressVPN. It's a good tool to shake up the asymmetry of power in the battle for free speech from the corporations to the individual. One of the things I really love about America is the emphasis on freedom. It's like before you even consider the issue,

• 5:50Lex Fridman?

  consider the debate, the difference size, the pros and cons, you err on the side of freedom. So just like it's innocent until proven guilty, it's go with freedom until you can figure out otherwise. And what it turns out to be is freedom usually is the right answer. Now, of course, terminology starts coming into play and people start to manipulate words and manipulate terminology to gain their own ends. But at the end, freedom wins.

• 6:17Lex Fridman?

  And in the digital space, especially from the consumer perspective, one of the things that gives the individual power is the control over their data. And that's where a VPN really can help out. Go to expressvpn.com/lexpod to get an extra three months free. That's expressvpn.com/lexpod. They have a giant red button that's easy to use. I've used it for many years and I love it. This episode is also brought to you by Element Electrolyte Drink Mix, spelled L-M-N-T, but pronounced Element. To do low carb diets correctly, the number one thing, I think at least, you have to get right is electrolytes, specifically sodium, potassium, and magnesium.

• 7:01Lex Fridman?

  That's where Element Drink really helps me out. By the way, Tim Dillon, a comedian, a podcaster, who I love very much, on a recent podcast mentioned that he went to dinner with me. In fact, he did. He made fun of me a little bit, which I both deserve and am honored by. But he mentioned that I ate some pasta. It was an Italian restaurant, that I ate some pasta. But that is fake news. You can call me all kinds of things, but I did not eat any carbs in that dinner. I ate only meat and it was delicious. It was steak. I will not stand for the spread of misinformation. Anyway, Tim is awesome. You should definitely check out his podcast. And I'm actually joking. I don't really care. I love it when he makes fun of me or even makes stuff up about me.

• 7:46Lex Fridman?

  I never ever want to take myself too seriously. And people like Tim Dillon, friends like Tim Dillon are essential for that. Anyway, Olympians use Element, tech people use it. I swear by this stuff. Try it at drinkelement.com/lex. That's drink L-M-N-T.com/lex. And now here's my conversation with Ryan Hall.

• 8:28Lex Fridman?

  You're known as a systems thinker in martial arts, but you also, I think, are willing to think outside the rules of the game, outside of the system. When you're thinking about strategies of how to, you know, solve the problem, particular problem of an opponent, whether that's jiu-jitsu or in mixed martial arts, what's your process for doing that, for figuring out that puzzle?

• 8:54Speaker 01

  I would say, I don't know if I have a specific like A to B to C process for that sort of thing. I try to do my best to appreciate that I think a lot of the thinking, or maybe not all the thinking, but a lot of great thinking on conflict, on battle, on war, on martial arts has been done already. Not that we don't have to do any sort of background investigation or reassessing of these ideas or axioms that have come down through things like the Book of Five Rings, or the Art of War, or you know, like Von Clausewitz, even anything like that, really. But is trying to understand the lessons of the past that I think oftentimes we don't take with us. Problems, we pay lip service

• 9:37Speaker 01

  and like, oh, yeah, you know, victorious fighter, the great fighter, you know, he knows victory is there, then he seeks battle. Everyone else is looking for victory in battle. Yeah, moving on. And that's why I'm gonna double jab and throw my left hand. And I think a lot of times our actions don't reflect our stated belief structure. And I think that oftentimes you can tell what I believe really, or what my fundamental operating system is, based on my actions, whether I'm aware, I have an operating system internally, whether I'm aware of it or not, or certainly whether I'm fully aware of it. So I guess when it comes to Strategy, I try to think about how things interact. You mentioned systems thinking and I try to do my best to understand how systems exist. But I think that systems have a fundamental strength and a fundamental weakness.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  They work how they work and that's great, but they're readable. So if you are aware, if I am operating on a system of which you're not really read into, then I think oftentimes I can seem like shockingly effective, particularly if my system preys on certain weaknesses that maybe you are, you're given to. But what happens when you've read the same books that I have? I think that a lot of times that makes me deeply predictable. I think about systems and jujitsu, you know, and a lot of times people think that they're doing jujitsu when in reality they are doing an expression of it. Let's say I'll use, there's the Marcelo Garcia system. There is the Henzo Gracie, current Henzo Gracie system.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  There's the old Gracie Baja one. There's a, you know, the Gracie Academy, classic Gracie jujitsu. There's the art of jujitsu, you know, kind of Atos approach. And, you know, there's some crossover between a lot of these. But oftentimes I think, you know, when it comes to understanding how I'm making decisions and how my opponent is making decisions, I have to appreciate whether or not I'm an end user of something. And I'll use my, my phone as an example. I was thinking of this the other day and as an end user of my phone, I can't, I have no idea what it does. You know, like Edward Snowden comes up and goes, hey, guys, you realize your phones are listening to you. I'm like, really? What?

• 11:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  All right, I believe you. And then of course that, that comes out, but to what extent? I have no idea. What is my phone capable of? I have no idea. I can mess with the font though. I really like blue screens, not purple screens. So like as an end user, I can change some of the bells and whistles that have nothing to do with the underlying source code of it all or how it functions. The same way in my car, I'm an end user of my car. If I do this with the steering wheel, it goes. If I push on the gas, it goes. If I, yeah, I know how to fix it when it's out of gas and I had to fix it when it's out of oil. And I, and I know how to fix it, you know, when a, when a flat tire comes. But short of that, or actually beyond that, I have nothing. So I think that oftentimes. Um, you know, I've been around in jiu jitsu long enough to encounter like a new wave of of like good grapplers.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  And it's very, very interesting sometimes how they're running systems. They don't realize they're running. Like, I'm like, oh, yeah, I I trained at Marcelo Garcia's Academy for a long time, you know, and a big fan of Marcelo's was a student there. Uh, encountered a lot of the the Otto style jiu jitsu a number of years ago. Uh, been, you know, a very, very, you know, deep into foot locking and leg attacks and whatnot for a long, long time. I understand your system better than you do, or I may. And let's say you understand my system better than I do. That would be a huge issue. That was something that I encountered a long time ago. Trying to come up in jiu jitsu where I was trying to utilize systems. That were created by, let's say, Hoff Mendez or someone else. And I'm basically trying to do what you're doing. I'm just not doing as good of a version of it.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  So not only am I not doing it well, but I'm entirely predictable. And I think that that can be a big issue. So to come back, I think of systems a lot of times now in terms of, you know, particularly like end user type of systems like. An iPhone is a really, really fast way for me to be able to do all sorts of things. If you were to take it from me, I I couldn't recreate any of that.

• 13:27Lex Fridman?

  So you want to be more the NSA and less the end user?

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. That way, that way I'm listening.

• 13:33Lex Fridman?

  You want to be the NSA of combat?

• 13:34Speaker 01

  That's right. We're watching you pee. But basically, you know, it's, I I guess what I would, what I would come back and say is. If you understand how things interact on a fundamental level and what type of games exist and what type of interactions exist, then you can transcend a lot of the. The systems, it's almost like a cook versus if I can make certain things in the kitchen, I can, but I am not a chef. You could give me a bunch of ingredients and I could probably cook not well, but a couple of different things. But a a master chef, you know, would be aware of the implications of all of the things that they're doing, you know, extra time in the oven, less time in the oven. Putting this, you know, flavoring or spice in, you know, what you're doing with various things. And also they could make, they could turn all of these ingredients into Chinese food.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  And they could turn all these ingredients into Italian food, and they could turn all these Italian food ingredients into chicken parmigiana, or it could turn into lasagna. But they're not limited to a specific thing because they have knowledge of how food interacts, how, what it does to create taste, what it does to create texture. So to come back, let's take rot, paper, scissors. Rot, paper, scissors is built on the idea of a couple of different things. Actually, I'll tell you what, can I? May I, may I ask you a question?

• 14:41Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  What's your favorite dinosaur? On the same, on three, we'll go. One, two, three.

• 14:47Lex Fridman?

  T-Rex.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  T-Rex, oh, me too. No, man, this is, we're gonna be best friends. So, uh, it's, okay, uh, if, so what's the first question when you say, hey, let's play rock, paper, scissors? It's like, is it rock, paper, scissors, or rock, paper, scissors, shoot? And you're like, rock, paper, scissors, shoot. You're like, okay. Because if we go, rock, paper, scissors, shoot, and I'm like, oh, man, I, I got lucky and I won. Imagine I won a hundred times in a row.

• 15:11Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  It'd be luck, it'd be luck. If, if I was honestly doing that. But now, let's say, for instance, I go on rock, paper, scissors, and you go on shoot. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot. Here comes the rock, right? If you lose, whose fault is it? It's yours. This is built on a parody thing where the, we, I don't get to pick second. If I get to pick second, it's like being able to investigate your background before going to meet you. And then I'm like, oh, hi, oh, I too love the New Jersey, you know, the New Jersey Nets, which is a statement that no one in their right mind would ever make when I was growing up. So anyway, you'd have to have personal knowledge of somebody. So anyway, to come back, let's, you're, if, if you understand how games are structured,

• 15:55Speaker 01

  you can start to realize that there's huge gaps and huge holes in a lot of the, the thinking behind all of it. And if you can create the illusion of choice, I'll play one more, if you don't mind. This is one of my favorite ones, I do this in class all the time.

• 16:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Uh, have you seen this before?

• 16:09Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Okay, um, may I ask you some questions, please?

• 16:12Lex Fridman?

  Sure.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Okay, fantastic.

• 16:13Lex Fridman?

  I'm scared.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  There's, everybody wins, don't worry. Um, all right, so could you, could you please?

• 16:18Lex Fridman?

  I win.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Uh, could you please pick three fingers? And tell me what they are?

• 16:22Lex Fridman?

  Uh, your thumb.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:24Lex Fridman?

  Your, uh, pinky.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:26Lex Fridman?

  And your middle finger.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Okay. So could you please pick, uh, two fingers?

• 16:32Lex Fridman?

  Your middle finger and your pinky.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Okay, could you please pick one finger?

• 16:37Lex Fridman?

  Uh, I'll go with the middle finger.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Woo-hoo, okay, could you please pick one finger?

• 16:42Lex Fridman?

  Uh, pinky.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Okay. Let's play again. Can you pick one finger, please?

• 16:49Lex Fridman?

  Uh, your middle finger.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Okay, can you pick one finger, please?

• 16:54Lex Fridman?

  Your thumb. Yeah, your pinky.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Okay, now pick two more fingers, please.

• 17:00Lex Fridman?

  Your, uh, middle finger and your, uh, ring finger.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Okay. Could you please pick one more finger?

• 17:06Lex Fridman?

  Damn it.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  So.

• 17:08Lex Fridman?

  I thought that enhanced the illusion of choice.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  It's the illusion of choice. If I'm asking the questions, provided I ask the right questions, there can be no correct answer. Doesn't mean that, uh, the ultimately, if, if that's what you wanted, let's say you, like, I thought I was guiding you to something I wanted. It turns out that was the outcome you wanted. Well, let's now let's here's now I'm gonna ask the wrong question. I might not get what I want.

• 17:30Lex Fridman?

  Oh, by, by the way, sorry to interrupt, uh, for people that might be just listening to this, that, uh, no matter what trajectory we took through that decision tree that Ryan was presenting, it was always ending up with a middle finger, ironically enough.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  I, I was surprised. So, and.

• 17:47Lex Fridman?

  All of us were surprised and we're both winners.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, if we all, everyone.

• 17:51Lex Fridman?

  I, I felt like a winner.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  All right, so now, now I'm gonna, then I'll, I'll ask some different questions, if you don't mind. Uh, can you please pick two fingers to put down?

• 18:01Lex Fridman?

  Uh, your middle finger and your pinky. All right, sorry.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Oh, that's so awkward. That's like the worst finger positions. Okay, can you please pick, oh, wait a minute, that's, ow, hold on.

• 18:11Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Well, what if you pick two other fingers to put down?

• 18:15Lex Fridman?

  Uh, your thumb and your pinky.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Okay, my thumb and my pinky, can you please pick two fingers to put down?

• 18:22Lex Fridman?

  Well.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Whatever two you like.

• 18:24Lex Fridman?

  Okay, your, uh, middle finger and your pointy finger.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Ah, okay, can you pick two fingers to put down?

• 18:30Lex Fridman?

  What's the name? It's index finger.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Index finger.

• 18:32Lex Fridman?

  Why did I call it the pointy finger?

• 18:33Speaker 01

  It's the pointy one. That's the one we usually point. It's weird to point with the ring finger.

• 18:36Lex Fridman?

  Uh, uh, sorry, what?

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Put two more to put down, please.

• 18:41Lex Fridman?

  Uh, the middle finger and the ring finger.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Ah, man. Is it, what if you pick my, my ring finger and my index finger?

• 18:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Aha, woo hoo, I win.

• 18:50Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  So even though I'm asking the questions, it's not impossible that I arrive at a good outcome for me. But it's, it's no longer guaranteed. I went from a situation where I literally can't lose.

• 19:00Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's pretty low probability.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Right, super low probability. And the second you realize what I'm doing, you would never let me win.

• 19:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Because the ball's truly in your court. So I guess that, that's kind of what I'm fundamentally trying to put into play almost all the time. Can I ask the right set of questions? Can I develop the ability? Um, skills wise, understanding wise, and then discipline wise? And then have the courage and the constitution and the, and the discipline necessary, the patience necessary to ask the proper questions and wait for the proper answers. And if I can, all assuming like the perfect world, I win, period.

• 19:40Lex Fridman?

  Uh, yeah, so this is.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Does that make sense?

• 19:41Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that totally makes sense. So I don't know if you know sort of the more mathematical discipline of game theory. There's something called mechanism design. So game theory is this field where you model some kind of interaction between human beings. You could model grappling that way. You can, uh, model nuclear conflict between nations that way. And, uh, you set up a set of rules and incentives and then use math to predict uh, what is the likely outcome depending over time, based on the interaction, given those rules. Mechanism design is the design of games.

• 20:22Lex Fridman?

  So like the design of systems that are likely to lead to a certain outcome. And so what you're suggesting is you want to create, you want to discover systems whose decision tree, all the possible things that could happen, feel like there's choice being made. But ultimately, one of the parties doesn't have any choice in what the actual final outcome is. You're making them feel like they're playing a game too. So it's not like you don't feel trapped. It's kind of like.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Well, the best traps, I don't, you don't look very threatening. So I'm like, oh, I'll walk over there. I guess, wouldn't that, I guess that's kind of an interesting thing. If a lion, when does a lion roar? It's an interesting thing when you watch like lions hunting. Don't roar when they hunt. They want to, when they want to move you back, they do stuff like that. When they actually want to come and get you, they're pretty slinky. It's like water covered. It's like furry water. And, and I guess like, when you keep that in mind.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  It's funny how like, for us, a hobby, actually, you know, brilliant guy, like a, one of my MMA coaches and the head coach at Tristar. He brought this up one time. I thought it was a really salient point. So let's say we have a million person bracket. Impossibly huge, like Frank Duke's winning the Kumite level huge bracket. He claimed to knock out like 250 consecutive people and you're like, that is all of Hong Kong. Was in that thing and everyone kept their mouth shut. But anyway, that's pretty cool. But uh, to come back, a little improbable, pretty cool. Um, so let's say for instance, like, there's no cheating going on. No cheating going on and we're flipping coins, right? Someone is going to have an unbroken string of victory through that bracket. Which is pretty insane. How many, how many consecutive like toss ups this person won?

• 22:11Speaker 01

  And then at the end of it all. Imagine we like aliens show up and we go, hey, they want to flip a coin for whether not earth, whether or not earth, uh, you know, gets to, gets to continue. They'd be like, oh, I'll do it. I'm good at this. That would be tempting as a person to, to do. You're like, I'm a lucky guy. Are you, are you sure? Maybe, I mean, maybe effectively you are, we could argue that effectively you're incredibly lucky. But basically, uh, is that an actual ability? Is it like a perk in a video game or is that just this thing that happened? So anyway, uh. How many times are someone, you could go through an entire career, particularly in a fight sport, well, let's say you get 15 knockouts in 15 toss-up scenarios, because you see that happening all the time in the fight game, a toss-up scenario, it's not like you're

• 22:55Speaker 01

  mounted on me and like, and that's not a toss-up scenario, many, many, many, many, many striking scenarios, a lot of grappling ones, but tons of striking scenarios are dead toss-ups. And somebody wins by knockout, they win five times in a row, then they lose a couple of times in a row, and we go, what happened? You're like, what do you mean what happened? They were always flipping the coin. And then they win five more, and they go, ah, back on track. Can you imagine that? You're flipping a coin, I'm like, heads, heads, heads, heads, tails, what? Tails, tails, heads again, oh, man, I'm back on it, I'm flipping good now. That's basically what's going on, I think, the vast majority of the time. And then humanity's, you know, tendency to see a sign in almost anything, you know, starts to present itself, and then we build a narrative in our mind to convince ourselves that we're in some sort of control, when in reality, I was in a marginal situation at best, the

• 23:40Speaker 01

  whole time.

• 23:41Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, without having much control, without having a deep understanding of the system, the same story is told, the stock market, with many of the human, these distributed human systems, we start telling narratives and start seeing patterns without understanding actually, the system that's generating these patterns.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  So if we can see the system, that's incredibly valuable, but then you go, well, what system is above all of the systems? And I guess maybe physics, maybe something like, game theory explains these things, but like, I guess, what are the, what aspects of the system can I, can I put my hands on that I can touch and understand?

• 24:09Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  And what am I, what am I missing? What, what's going on in the world all around me to continue to lean on, on Dune, that I don't have, that I don't, you know, you talk to a blind person about, about the world, about sight, and talk to someone that doesn't have, everyone's got coronavirus now, so no one can taste or smell, like, this is delicious, like, is it? So anyway, you know, again, what, what senses am I missing, or what understanding am I missing, that's preventing me from seeing the dots connect in the world all around me? And I think sometimes if we, oftentimes, we, at least personally, I've screwed this up a lot, I'm so nose-deep in the, in the trench of trying to understand what I'm doing, that I can't take a step back and realize, you know, that I'm in a

• 24:50Speaker 01

  forest, not just headbutting a tree. And I may be doing both, maybe both, two things should be true at once. But, so I would say, when it comes to strategy, trying to understand that, but then also, you go, well, Okay, well, how can that sounds cool, but how can you actually do that? And then I'd say that's a really good question because if I imagine I say, man, I should fight like Stephen Thompson. I should fight like Wonder Boy. He's like, good idea. Go do that. I'm like,

• 25:15Speaker 01

  not the guy. I would fight like Khabib and Bagamaydov if I could, you know, it seems to work. So anyway, uh, you go, well, what if I could develop, what if I could take my time developing skills? So that when these strategies become apparent, they you are, they are executable to you. You actually have the ability to like inner to again, to be the person in the arena, to be the person required. Whereas plenty of great ideas like dunking a basketball is a fantastic idea. Alas, for me, unless there's a small trampoline nearby, I'm not the guy. But that doesn't make it any less good of an idea. I just don't haven't developed the ability or I lack the ability. So anyway, I think a lot of times, at least when I watch people in fighting, I'll use an example. Um, we're so, we're so concerned with trying to win early on rather than develop skills.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  That I'm going like, well, what's the best way to fight with my current set of skills? And usually the, the path forward is like the barbarian route, like the you put on the one ring. Take the damage you need to take to hit that guy. And that was something I realized very early on in my MMA career was like, I'm not that good at striking at that time. Not a world-class striker now, but I'm way better at striking than I'm given any credit for because it helps people sleep at night, I think. But, um, I'm serious, but, uh, um,

• 26:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah. You're always introduced as like this master, like master grappler.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  And I'm like, that's nice of them to say that. Maybe I'm not that good at grappling. We haven't even seen that. And but the funny thing is I'm like, just because if people almost go like, well, Lex, like, so you're really good at this, but you gotta understand like we're equal, man. Like I'm good at this other thing. Maybe you're really good at what you do and I'm just mediocre at what I do. That's also possible. So there's plenty of people that define themselves as a striker that do that just because that's for lack of other options. Not because they're a really good striker or like I'm a grappler. I was a grappler as a blue belt. Not really. So anyway, I guess to come back, uh, if, if, if I'm constantly going, how can I win with what I've got right now? I think oftentimes I never take the time to develop the skills that I want to develop. And I also never take the time to develop the strategies that I want to develop. And that has actually been one big blessing of, uh, fighting so infrequently, which has been really frustrating as a result of injuries and time away and you know,

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Some of those people being hesitant to get in the game. But uh, it gives you so much time to, to be out of the trenches and focus on developing your abilities. So that now it's almost like developing money, like you mentioned, the stock market that you can now put in. Imagine you told me Bitcoin was a great idea. Five years ago and I had eight bucks. Man, if someone told me Bitcoin was a great idea five years ago and I had, you know, 50K. Oh my God, I'd be sleeping in my bed of money that I would then set on fire later today just to do it.

• 27:36Lex Fridman?

  So all the, due to all the injuries, you've been mining Bitcoin all this time and now you're a rich man.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Well, no, actually someone told me I was trying to mine for Bitcoin, actually like in a cave. And then I found out recently that it's actually mining is like a, a figure of speech. Not like a literal thing that you do, but I mean, in my defense.

• 27:52Lex Fridman?

  English language is difficult.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  It is, it really is.

• 27:55Lex Fridman?

  Next time talk to me, I'll explain. And Russian is more uh, is, is a ritual language. You should learn, you should learn Russian. I'll help you out.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  I believe you. Thank you.

• 28:05Lex Fridman?

  Can you do a whirlwind overview of uh, your career in MMA? Leading up to this point with the injuries and the undefeated record? And then what's next? Since we're on the topic.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Well, I, I did my first fight in a, as a blue belt and I've been training for about a year and a half. I did nine uh, jujitsu tournaments in 10 weekends or eight, maybe eight jujitsu tournaments in 10 weekends. Prior to my first fight in uh, April 2006. Um, I got punched in the face a whole bunch. I didn't realize it was a professional fight. And found that out like the day beforehand. That was great. Thanks, Coach. Uh, it was in Atlantic City where another place no one ever goes on purpose. So that wasn't great. I got into three, actually three car accidents in the preceding 36 hours before the fight. I had my car totaled. Um, I wasn't driving for any of them. That was great. Uh, it was.

• 28:58Lex Fridman?

  2006?

• 28:58Speaker 01

  2006, yeah. And then I.

• 29:00Lex Fridman?

  You're a blue belt?

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, yeah. I've been training for about a year and a half.

• 29:02Lex Fridman?

  You're a blue belt. You're getting, I mean, uh, if you haven't lived, if you haven't gotten punched in the face in Atlantic City.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  That's true. I mean, I.

• 29:09Lex Fridman?

  So these are.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  I would have loved to have it happen for different reasons.

• 29:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah, well, what's funny is, you know, I, I remember, you know, getting punched in the face a bunch, trying to do inverted guard. I won one round, lost two rounds, definitely lost the fight.

• 29:22Lex Fridman?

  So you went for inverted, sorry to interrupt, you went for inverted guard, like, can you tell the story of that fight?

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. It was three three-minute rounds, which is not a professional fight length, although I don't know if professional fight length would have been any better. It's just more time to get punched. Uh, but, uh, I found out part way through, I was like, I remember walking back to my corner in the first round. I'm like, yeah, this guy can't hurt me. And he's like, yeah, my, my corner was my friend Tom and then someone else. And then he's like, yeah, I, I would still encourage you to stop blocking so many punches with your face. I'm like, that's a good idea, Tom. I appreciate that. I'm gonna try that. Um, anyway, uh, I, I remember like I was not, you're not allowed to upkick. So I'm like, great. I was, I had no martial arts skills at really at all, but if I had anything at all, it was jiu-jitsu. It was very, very little jiu-jitsu, uh, but definitely no wrestling, definitely no striking. Like I was basically a magnet for punches.

• 30:05Lex Fridman?

  So that was your time, uh, you know, roughnecking out in Atlantic City as we all do once in a while. Can we fast forward to when you're actually dominating the world as a black belt?

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Well, actually it's funny because I took a little bit of money that I, they're like, hey, we were paying him like, really?

• 30:19Lex Fridman?

  It's like Bukowski stories with Ryan Hall.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Well, then I went to, I went to the casino, I went to whatever, like the Tropicana that was right there, the casino, because that was a boardwalk hall. I'm like, you know what, man? This was, this has been a not great, not great evening. I'm gonna, this is, I'm gonna win it back. It's gonna be great.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Fifteen minutes later, they had all the money that I had from the fight was gone.

• 30:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  I just remember like walking out of the casino super pissed and like, I don't know what I was thinking. Like, I'm not good at gambling. Why? This was not gonna make my night better. I just thought that there was gonna be some sort of cosmic balancing. And maybe it was the cosmic balancing all at once with things I'd done in the past.

• 30:51Lex Fridman?

  Longer term though.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:52Lex Fridman?

  The, the balancing.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  We'll see. I hope so, but to come.

• 30:56Lex Fridman?

  We're all dead in the end though.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  That is true. Time will get us all. Yeah.

• 31:00Lex Fridman?

  So.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Well, that was, so that was the first one. And that was when I realized I'm terrible at MMA, but I like it. I should just stop this until I one day learn how to actually grapple, much less learn how to fight. But I remember this guy named Dave Kaplan, who's the reason my ears are all messed up, who was on The Ultimate Fighter and got punched in the face and knocked out by Tom Lawler, who I'll always appreciate for doing that. Um, but, uh, anyway.

• 31:21Lex Fridman?

  Dave or Tom?

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Uh, I appreciate Tom. I appreciate Dave too. David, Dave's great. Dave was just a huge bully and used to like, rather not completely unmercifully, but relatively unmercifully beat the crap out of me. And, uh, anyway, uh.

• 31:32Lex Fridman?

  The ears look good, so.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Appreciate that. I tell people it's a tumor that I got and I'm gonna, if they want in on a class action lawsuit with AT&T, they should, you know. Send me an email. But anyway.

• 31:42Lex Fridman?

  You're very financially savvy. Very good.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  No, I just give the impression. Dave basically said, hey, don't worry, man. You're never going to be good at MMA. And you're never going to be good at grappling either. But even if you are good at grappling, which, in my opinion, you will never be, you will never be good at fighting. And I said, Dave, if I do nothing else in my life, I'm going to keep training until I can make you pay for that. And now that I can make him pay for that really easily, he doesn't train anymore. But I love Dave. Dave's awesome. He actually won the singing bee. What an interesting dude. Super interesting guy. But anyway, uh, none of that, uh, Virginia, like speaks a couple of languages. Super interesting guy. Like, shockingly good at Jeopardy, too. Um, not that I'm any good, but still shockingly good at Jeopardy. So anyway, years later, met Faraz Habi. Actually, John Danaher, um, I met John Danaher, and he put me in touch with Faraz Habi. I started training at TriStar, uh, you know, immediately loved, uh, working with

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Faraz and learning under Faraz, started training at TriStar. And I did my first real professional MMA fight, um, as someone that actually does head practiced a little bit prior, uh, in, I think, August 2012. Um, and, uh, that was against a guy, he was four and five at the time. So, you know, had some experience, um, good, kind of like first go for me, honestly. And I won that fight by TKO. And then it was a little bit of a time off. And then I did another fight against a tough guy named, uh, Majid Hamo. Um, he was five and two at the time. I think he was three and O's amateur. Good, good little bit of fighting experience. Um, won that one in the first round of rear naked choke. And then, uh, started to experience difficulty getting, getting fights at that point. Um, you know,

• 33:10Lex Fridman?

  Were you continuously introduced as like the, the master of grappling, the submission?

• 33:15Speaker 01

  At least that was, that was my thing. If I don't know if I was.

• 33:17Lex Fridman?

  Is that was the source of the fear for people?

• 33:19Speaker 01

  I think so, because I mean, I definitely wasn't much at striking at that point, you know, I definitely am a lot, I like to think I'm pretty hard to hurt, although I try not to lean on that. And I played baseball for like 16 years, so I can hit things pretty hard. I just wasn't able to, uh, I, I recognized pretty early on that I had no idea how to actually hit things hard without becoming hitable myself. So I, I think that's kind of the big thing is a lot of times, like we almost were mentioning, uh, before, if you try to go and get people too early, you can hit them if they're not that good, but you're. Going to get hit yourself. So you're making, you're basically making a wager. You're making a trade of your own life for the ability to hit them. When you watch guys like Israel Adesanya, Floyd Mayweather, Stephen Thompson, Conor McGregor, when he's fighting really well.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  It's not a trade. They're not, you're hitting them and they're hitting you. It's, they're hitting you. But it takes years and years and years and years to be able to learn how to do that. Ton Lee is another great example of that. And you know, my closest training partner, one of my best friends. And currently now one champion, one championship in Asia, the champion of the featherweight, or I guess lightweight featherweight. Um, 155 uh, over there now, and he recently defeated Martin Winn in a really great fight and Ton knocked him out, longtime champion. And Ton doesn't let you hit him. He doesn't let you touch him. I feel so fortunate to have met guys like Stephen and Ton. To go early on in career and go, holy moly, I can't even, it's not even like, oh, you'll let me walk over and find you.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  It's like fighting a ghost that periodically shows up with a hammer and smokes you in the melon and then disappears into the ether again.

• 34:48Lex Fridman?

  So the way they approach the fighting game is thinking, how can I attack without being hit? So every, every strategy, every idea you have about what you're going to do has to do with uh, like that minimizing the, the.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Return. Absolutely. I mean, that's what all good fighting is done. All poor fighting, if, you know, throughout the course of history, most generals, whether they saw a read or, you know, they, they did battles by attrition. You know, it's like, yeah, man, I've got 150 guys. You've got 50. Like, yeah, 60 of my guys die killing your 50. Like, that's great for me. But uh, it's not so great for the 60 guys that died. You know, I hope it's worth it. So when you realize that not only you're not just Kobe Bryant and you're Phil Jackson too, you gotta do everything. You know, if, if you've got to run across the beach in Normandy, so be it, but that better be, you should have, we make sure we thought this through and there's like, hey, there's no way we can like, you know, walk around the side, huh? Because oftentimes there, there is, and I, I think a lot of times there's a lot of incentives in professional fighting to,

• 35:44Speaker 01

  for people to want to do that. And we come up with all sorts of, well, I'm trying to be exciting. Are you? Is that really what you came here to do? Because I came here to win. And I think that anyone that that's really successful came there to win. And if it ends up being exciting, well, that's fantastic. I hope that people enjoy watching something and that's great. But that's a qualitative assessment. Anyway, you know, you want to also be able to, you know, live the rest of your life. I think it's easy, you know, I'll use Meldrick Taylor. I'm a big boxing fan. Meldrick Taylor is an excellent fighter, came this close to a world title and was stopped with like, he was in a fight that he was winning with seconds remaining, literally seconds remaining. And he probably could have just let it go and he would have been world champion. And it was brutal. If you ever watched Legendary Nights, like HBO boxing show, it's it's great.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  But it's heartbreaking. It's absolutely heartbreaking. And also like the beating that he absorbed in that fight changed him for the rest of his life. And also, you know, don't think he'd never been hit before, but it was one of those where you go, it's it's all fun and games until you can't remember your name at age 44 years old. And I didn't come here, what did what did Patton say? Nobody, nobody wins the world by dying for his country. You make the other poor bastard die for his. And I think that that's kind of what we're shooting for. And, you know, the lionization of absorbing damage and that not being a big deal, like you hear that all the time, so and so can take shots that would put a lesser fighter down. What does that even mean? You know, like, so let me get this straight. Your ability to absorb damage is a part of you?

• 37:09Speaker 01

  I mean, I guess that, don't get me wrong, that is an attribute that's nice to have if you if you need it. But there's plenty of people that actually have really porous defense that are just very, very difficult to hurt for whatever reason.

• 37:20Lex Fridman?

  That's a fascinating fighter's perspective on the thing. I mean, the the the story that is inspiring, and I know it goes against the artistry of fighting, is when you have taken the damage to still rise up and be able to defeat the opponent. So it's a, but that that's a flip side of a basically you failing to defend yourself properly, right?

• 37:49Speaker 01

  I agree. But let's say for, I think it's it's a triumph, that's a triumph of humanity. That's a triumph. That's amazing. To witness such a thing is unbelievable. But you still go, this is. There is a cost here. It's like I I've been fortunate enough to spend some time working with with the military and I've been like around and read Medal of Honor citations. They're unbelievable. Like you read the story and you're like it it's it'll floor you.

• 38:11Lex Fridman?

  But it's still a cost and you don't want to be paying that cost all along.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  And most of the time with the cost was everything. And then sometimes you go, hey, yeah, the the value here, it's worth everything. It's like I defend your family, defend your country under certain circumstances. And if that points extension of your family, you're like, hey, this is worth it. To casually throw your life away or throw your health away is foolish. There's nothing. There's nothing great about that. And and like you said, it's still an amazing thing to see, but.

• 38:37Lex Fridman?

  But it's also amazing to see you not take damages to Floyd Mayweather. It's the artistry of like not being hit.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  And I wonder if maybe that's why people don't resonate with Floyd as much is obviously Muhammad Ali was such a time and place, a great man for so many different reasons, although it was funny to remember like there were times when he wasn't very popular. We love him now because of time of context, you know, time to move away from some of the nonsense he had to deal with. But uh, we got to see him struggle and also he had unbelievable sacrifice, both in and out of the ring, you know, that that we all got to witness. We've never really seen Floyd struggle like that. And granted, obviously Floyd isn't like a civil rights figure like Muhammad Ali was is different time, different place, and he's a different man. But basically, uh, you know, I wonder if part of the thing that made us that made everyone think of Muhammad Ali as the greatest, in addition to, of course, the unbelievable things that he did out in the world, um, and the stands that he made.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  We saw him struggle in the ring. It's it's almost it's humanizing, you know, it's it's weird when people.

• 39:31Lex Fridman?

  The person, yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  People respect Khabib, but again, it's we saw GSP lose and GSP came back stronger. Khabib is amazing, but I wonder, I wonder how people feel about him long term, not like they won't think of him as amazing and great. And he's been a respectable person and champion, but uh, the time we he hasn't, he hasn't had to fall, if that makes sense.

• 39:51Lex Fridman?

  And also coupled with Ali had a a way of being poetic about sort of the way he was in the ring, sort of being able to explain the artistry that he's, I mean, there's like joking as being playful, but really he was able to describe the the flow like about a fight thing like Khabib, like he was able to actually talk about his strategy without talking. Without crossing that line into the Floyd Mayweather when you're just talking about money and and just talking shit.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 40:22Lex Fridman?

  Actually Conor McGregor, when he's not talking shit, is pretty good at like talking about the art of the martial.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  First look guy.

• 40:30Lex Fridman?

  And I wish Khabib did the same. Actually, from like the Satya brothers, there's a few, there's a culture of like being poetic about like being scholars and also bards or whatever, poets of the game. And Khabib was more like just simple and he lets his actions speak, which is is great too.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  It's poetic in its own way.

• 40:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's great, but it's nice when you can tell stories and you know, that that's probably why Ali was the great. Catch me up to, you went to three fights, I think, undefeated.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 41:10Lex Fridman?

  BJ Penn, we talked about last time you defeated BJ Penn, that's a, that's a, I mean, that's an incredible accomplishment, but you fought a lot of really tough guys.

• 41:21Lex Fridman?

  When was your last fight and then catch me up with the injuries?

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Well.

• 41:25Lex Fridman?

  A lot of people kept more and more and more were unwilling to fight you.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's been, that's, that was why I was out for two years following the Gray Mander fight between the fighting Gray and BJ and the Gray Mander fight was actually one I'm really proud of because Gray was very tough. He's very big, very strong, very experienced. I had only five fights at the time and I didn't have a lot of skills. I don't get to fight Gray with what I have today. I had to fight Gray with what I had in December 2016. And that I, it really took a lot of discipline, a lot of focus, a lot of challenge, you know, to stay the course, to do what I needed to do in that fight and to win in in ultimately dominating fashion, just not in the dominating obvious sense that you see when someone runs across and just. Does that to somebody, but that wasn't on the list for me at that time, you know, so um

• 42:12Speaker 01

  that was a, that was an interesting one, but the time away again was very frustrating. It was incredibly difficult.

• 42:17Lex Fridman?

  Before that fight?

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Uh, after that fight, uh, well, cause I uh, I beat Artem Lobov in the final of the Ultimate Fighter and Artem is another guy that's tough, a lot of experience and uh, gets, gets, you know, he, he, he's a funny guy and he said some things on the internet. So, and he gets a lot of heat for that, but uh, you know, he just knocked out three of my teammates. I'm like, he put a couple of people in a pretty rough shape at the end of that. So he was doing well and that was a tough fight. Again, if I got to go back and fight that fight now, it would be not competitive at all. I mean, it wasn't competitive at that time, but it very, it was it wasn't close, but it was competitive.

• 42:49Lex Fridman?

  So you were improving and growing fast?

• 42:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it was nice to have time away. I wish I'd have more time in the ring, but again, I'd only been doing MMA for three years at that time.

• 42:57Lex Fridman?

  So the uh, improvement from doing what the Bitcoin mining was over uh, overriding the ring rust?

• 43:05Speaker 01

  I think so. I don't really believe in ring rust, if I'm honest. You know, I can understand why uh, you know, people could feel a certain way, but if anything, it's almost like you just kind of forget what competition's like. And you realize like, oh, you feel butterflies or something like that and you go, oh my God, this is different versus no, that's your body getting ready to perform. It's okay. It's normal.

• 43:22Lex Fridman?

  How do you not have ring rust?

• 43:24Speaker 01

  I think I try to, I try to practice performing no matter what, uh, you know, like whether it's singing karaoke and not very good, but like anything, you name it, talking in front of people like.

• 43:32Lex Fridman?

  You embrace the butterflies?

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, it's, it's almost like, I remember my last fight, I'm just staring at the wall and I'm like, huh. I guess, I guess I'm gonna fight in a couple of minutes. Uh, you, I mean, of course we all heard the phrase like you can never walk in the same river twice because even if you're this, even if the river's the same, you're a different man. That's a, I think it's a really important thing to understand because at various points in my martial arts career of thought, oh man, how should I feel? I remember when I used to do well in competition, I would feel, I would think these thoughts, listen to this song, think, think about this. I would feel a certain way and then if you don't feel that way, I would start to become stressed because uh, I was self inflicted versus going, you'll feel how you feel. Your job is to show up with what you have on the day. Do your absolute best. It's like, I will never quit. I can be sure of that.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  And say I can't be beat. I can definitely be beat. I could have lost every single fight that I've ever had. But I control my effort and I control my attitude and that's I will. You know, I will do my very best. Actually, my game plan and the event's not working. If I have to, I'll put my hands up and walk dead forward. If I need to at somebody, you know, we hope that that's not where it goes, but. You know, like again, that humanizing moment where you're shooting for like just the inner, like the inner. You sacrifice the outer and all you have left is will and you hope it doesn't happen, but if it does, you'll be there. But I guess to come back like the extra periods of time. Um, in between fights, I think was valuable because it was, it was deeply challenging. It was incredibly, it was heartbreaking sometimes if I'm honest, man. It's like, I didn't want to. It's just waiting. Oh, my God, dude. It's just, is there a politics involved? There's a.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Some, sometimes, you know, like I, I.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  You know, it's every single time you step into the ring, nothing's guaranteed. Um. It's, uh, you could be hurt. You could hurt somebody. You could win. You could lose. You know, throwing away, just like I said, throwing away your healthier life cheaply makes no sense for anyone. Um. And, you know, having demonstrating some degree of, of, of temperance is not cowardly either. I mean, but again, you're, if you wait too long, you have nothing. So I guess like, uh, I was trying and always being, I'm always open to fighting the absolute best people possible. I'm never turning down fights ever. Um, you know, if some random jabroni decides that he wants to fight him, like go away. If I wanted to just fight randoms, I would just start and stand to the, you know, on the table at Denny's and start yelling and I'm sure it would have, you know, some people would be willing to indulge me.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  But, uh, you know, you want to fight, uh, you know, meaningful opponents, challenging opponents and I, and I know who and where they are. And sometimes. You did fight in Atlantic City, you know, the Denny's, but you put the Denny's behind you. I, I did. And, you know, and I'll be honest, if there were, if I'd have stood up after that fight, I don't know if I was in a, in great shape to expect to win in the other fights that evening, but I could have, I could have tried it. I'm sure there were some takers in the crowd, particularly after they watched me fight. They're like, yeah, I'll fight that guy. So. Okay. So when was the last fight? That was, uh, Darren Elkins. That was six months or seven months after the BJ fight, which was great because that's, you know, I love maybe five. Really tough opponent. Very tough opponent, very tough guy, super tough dude. And, uh, that was in, uh, July 2019 and then right when I was about to fight, uh.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  You were ready to fight regularly after that. You're trying to, and you're trying to find a fight. Yeah. And we got Ricardo Lamas. So no one else, none of the, uh, I was ranked in the top 15 at that point and then, uh. People didn't want to fight. We were struggling to find an opponent. Then Ricardo Lamas, a great, you know, former title challenger, you know, MMA, you know, really great history in MMA, recently retired, but we were supposed to fight in, I think, May, March, March, May of 2020, and then coronavirus happened. And so that scrapped the whole show, you know, training, we were just scrambling to try to keep the gym alive and take care, you know, I have five or six, four, five, six, I think, five full-time employees that I, you know, that are my responsibility. I have to, their livelihood is in my hands and it's, it'd be irresponsible of me to not

• 47:17Speaker 01

  take that seriously. So anyway, we were able to navigate through that time and then we were able to reschedule the Lamas fight and that was in August of last year and I got a, a medical like flag, like, oh, hey, like you, you, you have like a medical condition that we need to look into. You, when I got pulled from the fight and I immediately was concerned because of course, any serious medical condition, you want to go, oh, man, well, I guess I would like to look at that. Yeah, it turns out it was a giant false positive and, you know, we find that out, you know, all of five weeks later and you go, you gotta be kidding me. That's frustrating. And then we're still waiting for our fight, waiting for a fight, waiting for a fight, waiting for a fight. People won't sign up. Asked for a number of different opponents, basically said, hey, I'm willing to fight anybody that's, that's tough and moving forward.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Finally got a, you know, a great opponent in Danny Gay for, I guess it would have been this, this March. And then I was training in January, working on, working on some stuff. I was out training with Raymond Daniels in, in California. Raymond's amazing, unbelievable, you know, kickboxing, karate style kickboxer, fantastic martial artist, great teacher, great training partner and good friend. And, you know, just really bad luck, you know, kind of a fall in the middle of, in the middle of training and I tore my hip flexor halfway off of my femur. So that wasn't great. And you go like, man, right at the time where you're like, oh, man, all right, finally moving forward, you know, having the opportunity to fight. Dan's a really tough guy, you know, you have to fight well if you want to have a good chance to do well with him. If you don't fight well, it's going to be a rough

• 48:48Speaker 01

  night. I'm like, that's exactly what I signed up for. That's what we want with BJ, that's what we want with Elkins, that was gray. And then the universe goes, hey, man, I hear you, but there's also this. So anyway,

• 48:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Fortunately, it's healing up and then hopefully.

• 49:00Lex Fridman?

  When do you think you?

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Looking for May, I think.

• 49:03Lex Fridman?

  May this year?

• 49:04Speaker 01

  May of this year. Yeah. So it's been, it's been, it's been about five weeks since the injury.

• 49:09Lex Fridman?

  You'd be able to heal up, you think?

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it'll be okay by then. Like, I don't need a big camp at this point. I've had years of camp. I'm not going to curtail my drinking or anything like that, obviously. You know, come on, man. Life is meant to be lived. And, you know, so it's, you know, I, I'm in good shape. I was, I'm always training. I'm trying to do my best to train around the injury to the extent that I can right now without, you know, hurting myself long term.

• 49:32Lex Fridman?

  So is there a particular opponent you're thinking about?

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, anybody, anybody forward, you know, I mean, I tried to, I asked, I asked the second that I got hurt. I sent a message to Dan and I said, hey, man, like, I just wanted you to be the first person to know. You know, I just was pretty reasonably injured. We just got an MRI. Doctor says like, hey, man, you're out and you need to take like three weeks off, off. Don't do anything or you're going to, you're going to tear it the whole way and this is going to be surgery. And then it's going to be an additional like eight weeks on top of that to start to rehab it through PT. And anyway, you know, so I let him know, hey, if you can push this thing back, I would love to keep on the car. I would love to keep the fight. You know, it's like, I respect you a lot as an opponent. And also it's been brutal trying to get anybody to sign on. So if you're into it, I'm still there. Unfortunately, he turned that down. I understand he had other things going on and he and his

• 50:16Speaker 01

  wife were expecting a child coming up. So he needed to, he needed to fight. And anyway, you know, I guess we'll, we'll see what's coming forward.

• 50:24Lex Fridman?

  Is there somebody like super tough in the featherweight division that you, you seem to like enjoy the difficult puzzles? Is there somebody especially difficult that you would like to fight?

• 50:36Speaker 01

  I would like to fight. I know that I'll need to win at least one fight before this. And I look forward to coming back and giving my best effort to do that. I want to fight to beat Magomed Sherapov. I want to fight Jair Rodriguez. I want to fight Korean Zombie.

• 50:52Lex Fridman?

  The beat is complicated, man.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would be, that would be fun.

• 50:55Lex Fridman?

  I would love to see that fight. That's a fascinating fight.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  That would, that would be fun. He would be very challenging. All those guys are very challenging. And so I look forward to just staying healthy to the extent that we can coming back. And I'm going to fight multiple times this year, hell or hot water.

• 51:10Lex Fridman?

  Hell, yes. Hey, by the way, I completely forgot because you were talking about the systems and decision trees and the illusion of choice made me think of Sam Harris and I forgot to mention it. So he talks about free will quite a bit.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  Huh.

• 51:26Lex Fridman?

  And that there's an illusion of free will. So it's like

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Bold claim, Cotton.

• 51:32Lex Fridman?

  That, you know, maybe the universe constructed that little game where it makes us feel like we have a bunch of choices, but we really don't. We're really always ending up with a middle finger.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  That would be hilarious.

• 51:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's what you see before you die. It's just a giant middle finger. It's like, oh, fuck.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  I knew it. I knew it.

• 51:52Lex Fridman?

  What do you think? Do you think there's a free will? Like, we feel like we're making choices. So you're thinking, again, what we're talking about, okay, here's a system of martial arts that's hands of grace, there's different schools and whatever. And then you're thinking, okay, how can I think outside these systems? But then there's also a system that's our human society. And we feel like there's an actual choice being made by us individuals. Do you think that choice is real? Or is it just an illusion?

• 52:24Speaker 01

  Well, I, okay, that's a really good question. I'm not necessarily equipped to answer this, but I'll do my best. Okay, I guess I would say to start with, sure, it would be interesting if it wasn't real, if the choice wasn't real.

• 52:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Would be pretty interesting if it is real. First off, I would start with facilitated beliefs versus not facilitated beliefs. It's almost like, I think the world's out to get me. True, not true. What next? Probably not a facilitated belief, even if you, if, imagine you believe there's no free will. Okay, now what? Does that justify every single impulse that you're going to give into? Or does the belief in free will, does the belief in my ability to work hard, to focus, to be disciplined, to improve my position, improve my situation, whether it's true or not, although I think that at least many of us would argue that at least whether, whether there's some sort of internal driver that allows for that.

• 53:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Like, we live in a material world, you're actually Do affect the world. I can choose to pick that water up or not. And anyway, I would say I believe strongly in the idea of picking facilitated beliefs, you know, and going, hey, I will adjust whether this belief system is right or wrong on a cosmic level. I'm nowhere near smart enough to understand. But I can say me deciding that, let's say, for instance, I'm going to walk over to have a conversation with someone in the hotel lobby and they've I've never met them. And I go over and I start with, oh, this is gonna be interesting. And I just walk over there. Versus in my head, I'm like, what's this asshole want? We're about to have two very different conversations. I could be right that this person's not very polite or is or thinks negatively of me right from go.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  But I think that that's probably not a facilitated belief. People talk about now I'm, how is that going to help me? Navigate the conversation to a positive conclusion. And I think about that for, um. You know, let's say fighting. It's a good example, like confidence. Plenty of people believe plenty of things that aren't real. Myself included, I'm sure, all the time. And anyway, believing that you can do something. I'm like, hey, I think I can win. Doesn't guarantee you a positive outcome, but I would say it. Most of us would probably, most of us would argue that it helps.

• 54:34Lex Fridman?

  And you're thinking believing.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  What's depression if not a a negative unfacilitated belief? That is not always that oftentimes is not reflected by reality. But you project it onto reality and it's understandable if it makes you feel like, oh, man, this isn't going to work out. I don't think that prospects are going well. And then if you feel like you can't get out of that loop, that seems pretty rough. And I see a lot of things out in society right now where you go, whether whether you agree or disagree with various positions on things, you go, is that a facilitated belief? Even if that is true, which is arguably anything. So what next, man? So what where does this end? When when is the positive? What's the happy ending here? And if they go, well, there is no happy ending. I'm like, okay, so. So now what? So what do we do here? And I guess.

• 55:16Lex Fridman?

  So choose the facilitated belief. And in your intuition, believing that free will is real is is more productive for a successful life.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Well, because otherwise, how am I not? How how am I? First of, how can I? How can society function if it's not real? So how can I blame you or anyone else or hold anyone responsible for anything if free will isn't real?

• 55:42Lex Fridman?

  Well, no, that's exactly the point. But at the surface level, what you're saying is true, but perhaps if we truly internalize that free will is an illusion, we'll start to figure out something that transforms the way we see society. For example, we are very individual centric. So believing that free will is real puts a lot of responsibility and blame on people when they do something bad. Maybe if we truly internalize that free will is an illusion, we start to think about the system of humans together as like this mechanism for progress as opposed to where

• 56:25Lex Fridman?

  individual people are responsible for their actions, good or bad. So we like remove the value, the weight we assign to the accomplishments or the violence, the negative stuff done by individuals and more look at the progress of society. I don't know what that looks like, but it's almost like as opposed to focusing on the individual ants of an ant colony, looking at the entirety of the ant colony.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  That I to that, I think it makes perfect sense. I would just say that that's a reasonable thing to suggest. It's a seismic shift, right? And it's hard to say whether that would be, you know, better or worse, but I guess I'll use this as a this as a convenient one for me. So I remember the last time we spoke, I brought up, you know, one of the most reviled evil characters in certainly recent history, probably human history period Adolf Hitler. Well, I'm a big fan of making people live in the world that they want to believe in. Well, if free will doesn't exist and it's just about how things move forward, when are we going to be high fiving this guy or what? Like this is, you know, because I remember what I said and, you know, that actually brings me to something else we discussed, you know.

• 57:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. For people who don't know, Ryan brought up, or I brought up, there's literally a giant book about Hitler. So I've been obsessed with Hitler, World War II and Stalin recently for recently.

• 57:43Lex Fridman?

  Oh, man, this has become like a meme. Joe Rogan with like DMT and me with Hitler. Can I pick something more positive? Like Cat in the Hat or something, I don't know. But you brought up Hitler as an example of something particular of some philosophical discussions we're having. And the excellent, eloquent and the full of integrity MMA journalist clipped out something you've said about Hitler and said that, you know, I forget what the headlines are, but they were the most ridiculous possible implementation.

• 58:20Speaker 01

  Basically, nitwits intentionally misrepresent intentionally misunderstanding what I'm saying. Then it's like, I get that they're stupid, but I'm stupid too. So I know what that's like. So I don't have a lot of sympathy. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's, yeah, exactly. I don't, I don't, I can't give you a pass on that. But basically intentionally misunderstanding what's going on. But what I find funny is that, hey, we got to be careful what we believe. And again, back to the cancel culture thing that we discussed last time as well, where would I, would I like to apologize? I mean, no, actually something about cancel culture that we've been seeing things culturally like, I will be damned if I apologize for anything that I don't need to apologize for because I was intentionally misunderstood in that instance. Now, you could say that I don't, that I'm not a historical scholar, which I would agree immediately.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  And also that I'm, that I oftentimes inequently or inarticulately phrase things, which I'll agree that what is again. But ultimately, you know, going, hey, I want to make you believe, live in the world that you will, that you're suggesting ought to exist. Okay. So if there's no free will, is everything, how, how far of a step back are we willing to take cosmically before we start going? Hey, this is good because we're experiencing a social, you know, reckoning in our country at the moment, you know, for good and for, and for other, probably, I guess. And basically, but hey, it all worked out, right? So. That's probably not something that would fly and I think that's a fair thing.

• 59:43Lex Fridman?

  That's interesting. It might not fly from the individual perspective, but if you zoom out and think that, you know, appreciate society as, you know, just like an ant colony, as a beautifully complex system, like we kind of, from the individual perspective, we value progress, especially progress of the individual, but in whole progress of societies. But if you accept that this is just a complex system, that's not necessarily headed anywhere, that this is almost like that river is just flowing, I think that removes the burden of always striving, of always trying, of always like the struggle and so on. So it's possible that if we have no control, you can like arrive at some kind of other zen state.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  Does that sound very human, though?

• 1:00:29Lex Fridman?

  That's, that's, that goes against, I think, our current human condition as we experience it, but we've communicated that to each other. Like, so we've taught, like through these social forces, taught each other that our lives matter and so on. Maybe if we convince ourselves that we're just sort of like little things in a stream and ultimately none of it matters, there might be some kind of enjoyment to be discovered through that process. I don't, listen, I'm a capitalist, rah rah, like.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  But I guess, I think you're bringing up a really important point. I guess almost anything like capitalism, I only get to experience it as I, as I sit here now and I get to live. I was raised in the United States, have traveled around the world a little bit, have had the, you know, good fortune of meeting many people from many different places. And I'm an end user of capitalism. I don't really know how it got here, whether it was. I wasn't there at the start of this idea. I wasn't there for, hey, how did we come up with this idea? How did we arrive? And I'm nowhere near well read enough to, to understand any of that really, even secondhand. And I guess recognizing that communism, Marxism, socialism, anarchism, anything is, uh, these are all perspectives that all have, I guess, various strengths and weaknesses.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  But I guess, uh, one thing I'm always, I guess I would say the burden, it seems to me that if you want to make a change, the burden of proof. Is is on the person implying that there needs to be a change.

• 1:01:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  And it doesn't mean that that there's nothing there, but it's like, if you want to create a small shift, a ripple, that's fine, but a seismic ripping shift in how we exist or how we experience the world as human beings. And you mentioned fighting. Why watching someone undergo of take abuse on a level in the ring? That's just shocking and then triumph in spite of it is like it's you're like, this is unbelievable. This is part of the magic of combat sports. Now, it's part of the the magic, the other side of the magic that doesn't get talked about sometimes is that the the trajectory of that individual's life later on is is not always great. Um, or there's a little phrase, there's a cost for that. But, uh, you know, if if this, if we remember, you mentioned removing the struggle. I don't personally, the struggle is is what makes life is what makes life life.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  And also, I guess, you know, something Faraz has brought up to me on a number of occasions is that as and it makes sense to me. It's basically, uh, humans only understand things, uh, through relative comparison. I only understand, um, you know, heat because I've known cold. I only understand it's, I guess, like, it's like talking to someone that's, uh, never experienced any sort of hardship. And then their their latte isn't right. And then they they pitch a fit versus someone that's gone through a great deal of challenge, struggle, you know, in their life. They tend to have a little bit more of an even perspective. And anyway, uh, and of course, even is a relative thing. And what I perceive to be even may not be even. Maybe I'm particularly soft or or something in the other direction without realizing, because I can only understand what I can understand.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  But the idea that that we want to fundamentally alter ourselves as a species and as people seems like a incredibly, incredibly high bar to prove. And also like an incredibly dangerous idea, because it always comes back to who's going to be responsible for this? Who gets to do the choosing? What's a good idea? What's not a good idea? And I guess that actually brings me kind of to a something I've been encountering recently in in discussions with friends. I feel like there's only two types of people that I that I encounter at this point. People with a more or less libertarian tilt to their thinking and people without it. And when I say libertarian, I don't mean that in the in the political party sense or even the the belief system. Basically, where I'm like, hey.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  You do you, buddy. It's not my, it's what you're up to is not my concern versus what you're up to is my concern. And I guess I've always watched, you know, various points in history, people on this side or people on that side are more, more or less, you know, I guess problematic, I guess you could say, and I don't mean that in the internet sense. You know, more of, more of an issue, but the world is always full of people that want to tell you what you need to be doing as opposed to more or less do no harm. And I guess that's one of the ones, anytime I'm trying to tell other people what to do, I better hope I'm right. And it's bizarre to me how many people are so confident that their side or their position is the one that's not only right for them, but right enough that they can enforce it on others. And that just seems incredibly dangerous to me.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  And I guess that comes back to even Sam's point about, oh, we want to, if trying to spread the idea that free will doesn't exist. I'm not saying it's damaging, but it very well may be. And plenty of other things could be as well. I'm not, you know, it goes way over my head as to, you know, the implications of all of these. And I guess all of us are in evangelist for something. But I, I guess it's weird that we've gotten this far as a species and now we want to take like sharp, sharp turns.

• 1:05:15Lex Fridman?

  Well, we've been taking a bunch of sharp turns throughout history.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:18Lex Fridman?

  That's, that's what, you know, that's, that's the way, you know, okay, humans love power. And one way to attain power is to say, everything that you guys are doing is wrong. And I have the right thing and I'm going to build up a giant cult of people and I'm going to overthrow. And indirectly what that results in me is me gaining power. And that's how you get all the big revolutions in human history, saying, I'm done with the thing that the powerful are currently doing. So I'm going to overthrow. That's, that's where probably all the identity politics that's happening now is people that didn't have power before are looking to gain power. And they're also, you know, that's where Jordan Peterson criticized identity politics is

• 1:06:01Lex Fridman?

  people with the right, with the good intentions, I should say. Are in seeking power, allow power to corrupt them as power always does. And so they lose track of like the, the, the devils that they're fighting by becoming the same kind of devils, the, the same kind of evil that they're fighting. And so that, that's just the progress of human history. But hopefully, as these power greedy people keep attaining power with a, with a progressive mindset, over time, things get better and better as they could, as they have.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Like each generation?

• 1:06:38Lex Fridman?

  Each generation. A lot of, a lot of unfairness happens, a lot of hypocrisy happens. A lot of people are trampled along the way by those who mean well. But over time, like lessons are learned or like human, like civilization accumulates lessons and in part learns lessons of history and it gets better and better over time, even though in the short term, there's people acting not their best selves. And, you know, that seems to be the progress of human history. The idea of internalizing with free will not being real. I, you, you're actually making me realize that that ultimately leads to a kind of.

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  Doesn't that go in a nihilistic direction?

• 1:07:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's, it's both nihilistic, or if you want to make it a political system, then it's more like communist type of a system where like the, the value of the individual is completely reduced, removed. Or another perspective is like the freedom of an individual is not to be valued or protected. And so from us, our current perspective, the systems that seem to have worked, the United States works pretty damn well, despite all the different criticisms. It seems like freedom of the individual in all its forms seems to be fundamental to the success of the United States. And so we should, it's a, however the hell you put it, is like, doesn't matter whether

• 1:08:06Lex Fridman?

  free will is or isn't an illusion, the belief that it's real.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Protects the individual from the group, which is fundamentally cryptic, if I'm wrong. That always seems like the big issue of history. Hey, there's more of me than there is of you.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Deal with it. You're like, yikes.

• 1:08:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  And you wanna be yourself. You wanna be different. You wanna have a different religion. You wanna be a different skin color. You wanna do this. All the bad tribal things happen. When there's more of me than you, correct me if I'm wrong.

• 1:08:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  And that's always the fundamental power imbalance, though, right?

• 1:08:36Lex Fridman?

  Well, the interesting thing about libertarian thinking, I guess I, I don't know, those words are really.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  Maybe they're all charged. I know.

• 1:08:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, they're all.

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  I mean, I may not scale up, but I mean, more like on a philosophical underpinning where you're like, yeah, basically, hey, you feel free to believe I'm I'm a fool and I'm plenty of people do, I'm sure. But as long as you don't chase me down the hall and hit me in the back of the head with a textbook. What's the big deal?

• 1:08:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. So the libertarian viewpoint, which I probably espouse like that's I'm very much like. Freedom of the individual is very valuable and like leave others the fuck alone unless they're trying to hurt you. The thing is, you also have to, I believe, put in the the work of empathy of understanding what others, how, what leaving people the fuck alone means to others.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  But isn't that an interesting thing? If I believe in freedom of the individual and I take that, like all of these, like you said, you take them past just their first why question. You ask why, why, why, why, or how, how, how, how many times? Should that not extend to respect for you, respect for your position, respect for your individual lived experience, which could be grossly different than mine?

• 1:09:45Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, this is the problem with saying I'm an individual. I'm not gonna bother you. You don't bother me. That's just like, that's not actionable because to be, to make it actionable, you have to think the why, why, why, why, why? You have to do the steps beyond.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:00Lex Fridman?

  You think, what does that actually mean? That means understanding how even my very existence. Like hurts others. Because you you have to understand that, like, I'm not, you're not just sitting alone in a room. You're you're using like public transit, you're using the police force, you're using firefighters, you're using the, like, you're using a lot of resources that are publicly shared. And some of those resources are are unfairly distributed. Uh, like, we've agreed that we're gonna pay taxes and those taxes are gonna go towards building some kind of infrastructure. So that's already towards social. That's, so you're not a real. You're you're not a real, sort of, I talked to Michael Malice, like anarchists, right? Saying like basically full.

• 1:10:46Lex Fridman?

  Just leave me the fuck alone and I'm going to collaborate with whoever the hell I want. We're not, that's not the American society as it stands currently. We've agreed that there's going to be certain social institutions that we pay into. Yes. And some of the sort of discussions about race and all those kinds of things is about those institutions being

• 1:11:12Lex Fridman?

  institutionally unfair, whether it's race or gender, all those kinds of things. Listen, I, you know, I have a bunch of criticisms of the way that conversation carries itself out. But the thing is, what's valuable is to actually listen and empathize. And that's not often talked about with the leave me the fuck alone mindset. Because you're, it doesn't have, it doesn't have that little component, which I think could be fundamental to the function of a society, which is like social. Like it's the, what is it, the Obama, you didn't build it? Or you didn't build it alone or whatever, however that goes.

• 1:11:52Lex Fridman?

  But basically, we wouldn't be, we wouldn't be able to accomplish anything as individuals without the help of others. And to be able to then start to think, okay, so what is, what is, what is my duty? What is my responsibility to other human beings to be respectful, to be loving, to, to help them as part of this functioning society? That starts, that's actually a lot of work to start to think about that. For sure. Cause then I have to like, think, okay, Ryan, what's his life like? Like as a business owner during COVID, what's that like? And then he has, there's employees that run the gym. What's that like? What's that stress like? Right. Or about the fighting and the injury and so on. What's that like? That empathy takes a lot of like compute cycles. It's also a lot of energy, right?

• 1:12:37Lex Fridman?

  But I have to go through that computation if I want to be. An individual that's like, doesn't hurt you.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  If, if I may, I guess like to, to come back to Muhammad Ali, one of the things he said is service to others is the rent is the rent that you pay for your, you know, is the, is the price you pay for your rent here on earth.

• 1:12:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  And now I, one of the things that I think that I see as a result of the internet all the time is people talking about global giant problems, social problems that are society wide that are massive, like truly massive and frankly, beyond the, beyond the power of any of us to solve.

• 1:13:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  That's certainly on an individual level. So I have, you know, I've discussed things with friends. Like my father's an environmental attorney, like, uh, you know, has been for a long time and has been an engineer for a long time. And, uh, you know, so I'm not, not barely know anything, but I'm reading a little bit of, of various things, but, uh, climate change. Oh my God, I'm so concerned about climate change. What am I supposed to do about climate change? I'll tell you what I can do is I can not litter. I can try to conserve energy where I can. I can do whatever I want. What can I personally do about some giant social problem? That is, that I didn't start and I, is out of my control. I'm like, well, I can be decent to the people around me. Like you mentioned, I can demonstrate empathy and I can demonstrate consideration for the people in my circle.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  And to the extent that I can, the people outside of my circle, but yelling at the trees over things that, over problems that are borderline cosmic. Um, doesn't seem very productive. It just makes me feel like I'm cool and important because I'm talking about something where hundreds of years from now, the water will rise. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. I can't, it's completely over my head. I'm, I know nothing. But focusing on the problems that we can actually solve, it comes back to the same thing. I want to win a fight. I would love to win a fight. Uh, I can't control that. What I can do is I can control each individual step that I take around the ring and trying to make the next correct move. I can't look, no, it, it, it gets people's, uh, you know, they, they get all excited. You know, I'm trying to keep my language in check, but they get all excited thinking about, uh, you know, problems that are like Superman couldn't solve these problems.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  Like you could be that powerful and you can't make all of the bad things go away, but you can absolutely change yourself. And I think a lot of the lessons that, you know, like the good lessons from religion that happened, the good lessons from the great men and women throughout history that we, that we were inspired by that talk about change, starting with within and, you know, again, treating the people around you decently and treating the people around you decently doesn't even necessarily mean the golden rule. Do unto others as you would like them to do to you. I go. Well, maybe what I would like and what this person would like aren't the same thing. Well, how am I gonna get to the bottom of that? Cause I could be attempting to be decent to this person. And by my standard, I am being decent, but maybe I'm uh, maybe I'm missing the mark by theirs. Well, I can't possibly, if I just interacted with you, like it's like someone talking about some nonsense microaggression, like, so let me get this straight.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  I've never met you before, you've never met me before. And you're interpreting some minor comment that, that I've made in the least charitable way possible.

• 1:15:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  I'm not saying that, that you couldn't be annoyed, but your expectation for that level of consideration is you're gonna be, you're gonna be disappointed a lot. Now, if you, if we're someone that's in your life on a consistent basis and they're like, hey, I really don't appreciate what you're saying or what you're doing here. Do you realize that this is how I'm, this is how I'm perceiving? And you go, oh man, I'm, I'm so sorry. Of course I would hear what you had to say. But I guess trying to recognize that, you know, my, I guess my job is to treat others with dignity in general, but that level, the level of specificity that, that, that requires increases as it gets closer to you. And I have, as a person, I have a very finite amount of resources financially, intellectually, emotionally, physically.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  If I chuck, you know, point zero zero one percent of it in every single different direction, what am I doing? It's like when people go, oh, I care deeply about Tibet. And like, why aren't you over there? Go build a house, man. Get on a plane, go build a house. Oh, you don't wanna do that? So really what you wanna do is post on Facebook and, and, and accept high fives for how much of a good guy you are. I got an idea. Go help somebody in your neighborhood. Go be, go play with, go play with some kids. Go be a friend to someone that doesn't have a friend. Read a book, try to educate yourself. And so I guess to, to come back, it's all of these problems aren't solvable on a grand scale. But it's almost like by attempting to address them in our personal lives, we do better. But rather than a giant airing of the grievances on a, on a consistent basis, not that that isn't, you know,

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  sometimes necessary and valuable, but after you air your grievances, you go, hey, how about we, we sort this out? What's the next step? And, and I guess again, when we're trying to address it on a giant social level, it just seems unmanageable to me, even if you have the best of intentions.

• 1:17:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I mean, but nevertheless, there's, there's a lot you can do on social networks. I mean, I, I enjoy tweeting and consuming Twitter. It's just, I, I apply the exact same principle that you just said, which is uh, free will and discussion, which is like, I approach it.

• 1:17:33Lex Fridman?

  In a way that I don't get stuck in this loop that's counterproductive. I try to do things that are productive. And like it's just like you said, that's like, uh, like, what kind of things can I do in this world? Whether that's tweeting or building things. Those are low effort tweeting or actually building businesses or building ideas out. That's high effort. What can I do that will actually solve problems? And that's, that's the way I approach it. And I do wonder if it's possible to at scale, encourage each other to approach like social media and communication with fellow humans in that way. I don't know.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  How do you think that would be done? I guess like to improve the, improve the quality of discourse, maybe. Like, or even like you said, the empathy or the decency of discourse.

• 1:18:17Lex Fridman?

  I think people should be, you know, uh, incentivized, encouraged to do that. I think most of what's we see happening on Twitter and Facebook and so on, has to do with very small, but very powerful implementation details. It, it goes down to like, what is the source of the dopamine rush? The like button, uh, the sharing mechanisms. Just even small tweaks in those can fix a lot.

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:18:46Lex Fridman?

  I, I believe so. So like a lot, a lot of the stuff we see now is the result of just initial implementations of these systems that we didn't anticipate. So the modernization comes from engagement. And the, the tools we have is clicking like and sharing. It was not always obvious. It was not obvious from the beginning. It wasn't obvious while Twitter and Facebook grew, that there's a big dopamine rush from getting more followers and likes and shares. So we've gotten addicted to this feeling like, how many people are commenting? How many people are saying like, uh, clicking like and so on? So that's that dopamine rush. So we want to say the thing that'll get the most likes on, and like on mass and society.

• 1:19:30Lex Fridman?

  And then the other thing that was expected is the controversial, the divisive will get the most likes. So we, it had to do with the initial mechanisms of likes and shares, resulting in an outcome that was unpredicted, which is huge amounts of division irrespective of like.

• 1:19:48Lex Fridman?

  Any of the basics of human connection that we've actually all come to understand as society is valuable at the individual level, like we're saying, but on mass, what results is like you throw all that out and it's all just divisive at scale discourse. I think it could be fixed by incentivizing personal growth, like incentivizing you to challenge yourself to grow as individual and most importantly, to be happy at the end of the day. So feed like incentivize you feeling good as in a way that's long lasting,

• 1:20:31Lex Fridman?

  long term. I think what makes people actually feel good is being kind to others long term. In the short term, what feels good is getting a lot of likes. And I think those are just different incentives that if implemented correctly, you could just build social networks that would do much better.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  So do you think it comes from a structural perspective? I guess at what point does you mention like you mentioned free will and also you mentioned, you know, feeling good like and again, working hard, you know, I know that you have the, I guess the, was it a race or?

• 1:21:01Lex Fridman?

  No, it's the Goggins thing. It's four by forty, four by four by forty eight challenge where you run four miles every four hours for two days.

• 1:21:11Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 1:21:11Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's, it's a bunch of, it's, it's a, the, the challenge of it isn't just the running, the running is very tough, but it's mostly the sleep deprivation because you're just training every four hours.

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  But it's a struggle, right? And that, but the struggle gives meaning. And ultimately, I guess so. How can we, because you mentioned, like you said, adjusting things on like a, I guess like a programming level, almost based programming level so that the interface is different for the user. But at what point does the user have a responsibility to, you know, as a, as a man or a woman or a person to just behave more decently? How can we, I guess, utilize, what can we do? It seems like, you know, we're like, our society is so grossly missing like a Martin Luther King right now, like the great inspiring characters throughout American history, throughout world history. Where are the great leaders?

• 1:21:58Lex Fridman?

  So leadership is part of it, but I, you know, that's definitely where the great leaders is a very good question. That's, that's more of a question of our political systems, why they're not pushing forward the great leaders. But there's also just, okay, there's some just basic engineering shit, which is.

• 1:22:17Lex Fridman?

  When you and I, when you, Ryan, and I are in a room alone, and we're talking, even if we're strangers, the incentives are for us to get along. Like, just when we're together in person, that's what I'm saying. I'm not even saying some kind of-

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  But when you, but when you remove that-

• 1:22:34Lex Fridman?

  When we remove that, the, the, the implementation of, of the, of social networks as they stand right now in the digital space, have a very different set of incentives. It's more fun to destroy others, to be shitty to others. And that, and it becomes this endless loop, like you were saying, that's ultimately destructive and not productive. And I think it has to do with just the interfaces of making it feel good to be nice to others. Because currently, it doesn't feel nearly as good to, to be nice to others on the internet. And it, it doesn't feel nearly as bad as it does in real life to be shitty to others on the internet.

• 1:23:18Lex Fridman?

  So the incentives are just wrong. I, I think there is a technology solution to this, or at least a solution to improve this, this communication mechanism. It's not obvious how. I have a bunch of sort of more detailed ideas, but this is fascinating because I've gotten the chance to talk to Jack Dorsey quite a bit. He's the CEO of Twitter. And he is legitimately, has, you know, in this conversation, he would agree with everything. And he's a good human being, and he has a lot of really good ideas how to improve things. The question, when you're a captain of a ship, whether even, it's a question whether CEO is even a captain, how much can he actually steer that ship, once it's gotten large enough?

• 1:24:02Lex Fridman?

  There's so much momentum, there's so many users, there's so many people who are marketing and PR and lawyers. It's very difficult to change things.

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  Is it difficult because of the fallout? Or is it difficult because it's actually like literally out of his power?

• 1:24:17Lex Fridman?

  So power is weird when you have a large organization. This is why the great leaders, this is what great leaders do, whether it's presidents or leaders of companies. Steve Jobs, I would argue Musk is that way, is to walk into a room full of people who don't want you to create drama. It's weird, man, when people just kind of want to be nice.

• 1:24:39Lex Fridman?

  The niceness creates momentum and nobody wants to, it's the systems thing. Everybody just behaves in the way they were previously behaving, in the way they're supposed to behave. And nobody wants to raise a fuss. It takes a great man or woman leader to step in and say, what we've been doing is bullshit. Okay, you're fired, you're fired, you're cool, what is it that?

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  Right, I'm out.

• 1:25:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I, I think you have to create constant revolutions within a company. That's very, very difficult to do. Structurally and psychologically, it's very difficult to do, to, to be able to sort of, yeah, to constantly challenge the way things have been done in the past. And which is why another way it's often done is a startup, like a small company. Basically, a, a small company becomes really successful and then no longer can turn the ship. So a new startup comes along, a new competitor that then challenges the big ship. And then that starts out the winner. That's like Google came to be, Twitter came to be and Facebook and so on.

• 1:25:42Lex Fridman?

  And Apple has, you know, that, that was the dream of Steve Jobs is it would succeed for, for many decades, for like centuries. That was the idea that you would keep, keep creating revolutions. And under Steve Jobs, Apple successfully pivoted a bunch of times.

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:26:00Lex Fridman?

  Just like reinvented themselves.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  Which is funny.

• 1:26:02Lex Fridman?

  Very difficult to do.

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  It, because I mean, I've heard, at least I don't know if this is accurate, because I wouldn't know anything, but I've heard plenty of people complain about Steve Jobs.

• 1:26:09Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  But in reality, the reason that all of these amazing things were done was because this person was willing to, well, obviously brilliant. And then also willing to, to rattle the, you know, rattle everyone's cage periodically and say, hey, what's going on is not what we need to be doing.

• 1:26:23Lex Fridman?

  That, that's a really interesting thing. So he would rattle the cage, but he was also, I, I don't know if those are intricately connected or always have to be connected, but he would just be a dick. So.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  Well, maybe by my, maybe by his standard, I am lazy and worthless.

• 1:26:39Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's.

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  Is he?

• 1:26:39Lex Fridman?

  Say that to you.

• 1:26:40Speaker 01

  Is he being a dick, though, if by his standard, I mean, like, again, it's like everyone's stupid compared to somebody? And I guess, uh.

• 1:26:46Lex Fridman?

  But it's, so you, you apparently are able to take that kind of thing is. Uh, sometimes you just. You cross, there's, there's ways to cross the line. And I mean, this is, okay. The, the fascinating thing about being a leader, especially a leader of, of companies, is it's a people problem. So each individual in a room. So as a leader, you're only really interacting with a small number of people because they're leaders of other smaller groups and so on. But each of those individuals in the room have their own different psychology. Some like to be pushed to the limits, some, some like, like to be screamed at. Some have, are very soft spoken and almost afraid to speak and they have to be.

• 1:27:32Lex Fridman?

  You have to, you have to hear them out, like there's a, and those, those could be all superstars. We're not, we're not talking about like the C students, talking about the A plus students.

• 1:27:41Speaker 01

  Well, it's funny that, yeah, but the, the thing to man, the skill to manage all of those people is completely separate from the skill to innovate something. I mean, not that they're not connected, but it's funny how it's, it's almost like, uh, you know, why do we have shitty, why do we have shitty representatives?

• 1:27:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, the thing that you do to get elected has nothing to do with governance.

• 1:27:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:59Speaker 01

  You know, so.

• 1:27:59Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's exactly it, but the, the great leaders have to have both skills. So like you have to have the boldness of. If, if you look at the great presidents through history, you know, usually it's in a time of crisis is when they step up. But they basically say, okay, stop this old way that Congress works of this bickering of this like compromise bullshit. Here's a huge plan that costs billions of dollars and today's days, trillions of dollars. No extra pork, no extra additions, just like, here's a clear plan. We're going to build the best road network. The world has ever seen, or we're going to build some huge infrastructure project.

• 1:28:40Lex Fridman?

  We're going to revolutionize internet, or we're going to for coronavirus. We're going to build the largest like testing facility the world has ever seen in terms of the, we're going to get everybody tested several times a day, all those kinds of things. Huge projects and say, uh, fuck all this, uh, the details that everybody's bickering about. We're going to give everybody, uh, $2,000, we can give everybody $3,000, like huge projects. And at the same time, so that's the boldness and the leadership of saying, throw out all the bullshit of the past. And at the same time, be able to get in the room with the leaders of both parties or the powerful individuals and smooth talk the shit out of them in the way they need to be smooth talked to.

• 1:29:23Lex Fridman?

  So like both of those skills, it seems to be when they're combined in one person, that's, that creates great leaders. Musk appears to have that, Elon. I don't know if Steve Jobs. It's interesting. So the criticism of Steve and a little bit on Elon is he misses some of the human part. Uh, but maybe it's impossible to have a really, uh, you have like Sadiq Nadal, who's the CEO of Microsoft. You have, um, who is really good on the human side, really, really good on the human side. Like everybody loves them. Uh, the CEO of, uh, Google and Alphabet is also the same way. So like, I don't know if it's possible to have both.

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  You only get so many stat points.

• 1:30:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you only, in this, in this RPG of life, yeah. You got very good at jiu jitsu very fast. So you went, I mean, you told the story of Blue Belt and so on, but you, you went to Black Belt really quickly. Uh, and not just in terms of ranks, but in terms of just skill level. I mean, uh, you didn't go to Black Bolt nearly as fast as your skill set developed. You were like doing extremely well at a high level of competition. So you're a good person to ask, how does one get good at jiu jitsu? We, we talked about solving problems at the elite level, but when you're a beginner at the, at the martial arts, how do you get good? How much training should you do at the very basic stuffs? Like how much training, how much drilling?

• 1:30:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:30:50Lex Fridman?

  And then the mental stuff like. Where should your mind be? How should you approach it from a mental perspective too?

• 1:30:58Speaker 01

  I'll just tell you my perspective on this one. I guess I would say I feel step one, I feel lucky to have found, you know, a good training situation, particularly for the time, um, you know, in, uh, in where, in where I was at and I drilled a ton. Um, I, I drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled. And, um, one, one thing that's really important to understand though, is that it, I was able to, in a relatively brief period of years, go, go from zero to reasonably good. But, um, I, I think I probably crammed more hours in those small years than most people did. Training, let's, let's say in two or three times the length. So it may not, it may masquerade as something else other than it is, I, I could say.

• 1:31:43Lex Fridman?

  You have to put in the hours.

• 1:31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:45Lex Fridman?

  There's no way around that.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  I, I think so.

• 1:31:47Lex Fridman?

  But what did you put in those hours? So that when you said drilling, can you break that apart a little bit?

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:31:51Lex Fridman?

  Like what, what, what does drilling look like? Is there any recommendations you can?

• 1:31:54Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Step one, I would say your choices matter. Like, uh, there's a, I think that one of the really important things that I think we should consider about jiu jitsu is that there's a lot of junk in the system right now. It's like jiu jitsu has exploded in terms of, uh, the number of positions, techniques, strategies, this, that, rule sets. That's really cool on the one hand. On the other hand, there's probably a just metric shit ton of suboptimal things that are out there that are being taught. Um, I myself included, I've taught things that are looking back five years, three years, two years, one year, where I'm like, oh, I would not do it like that anymore. Straight up, sometimes I wouldn't do it like that. Other times I would literally never do even that particular movement. Um, I don't think the shrimp is a real move.

• 1:32:35Speaker 01

  Uh, it's, I, it's a giant spiel and Caesar to show in person, but long short of it is, there's a lot of things that are, we think of as fundamental, that I think that are, uh, really pretty negative. And also, you know, um,

• 1:32:47Lex Fridman?

  That's heresy in jiu jitsu, isn't it? The shrimp.

• 1:32:49Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:32:50Lex Fridman?

  Is like the holy, we all worship the shrimp.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  We love the shrimp. We love the shrimp.

• 1:32:55Lex Fridman?

  Now, for people who don't do jiu jitsu, and you should, the shrimp is, uh, you scoot your butt.

• 1:33:02Speaker 01

  Away from your opponent. Yeah, in a really. How would you describe that? It's like a really athletic looking position where you look like like someone that's trying to stick their butt out on Instagram and then you push your hands away and you expose your face and then you lay on your side because someone told you to do that.

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  And you look like a, yeah, I guess you look like a shrimp. Yeah, it's like that time that, you know, someone really credible told me to drink unleaded gasoline and I did it for a while. And then, you know, it got to the point in my life where, you know, the next best, the thing that I needed to do to really improve my life was stop drinking unleaded gasoline. Yes. And I would say that there's like a lot of stuff that's in there that step one is like, it's junk, it's actual junk and it's, it's not only will it waste your time, it's, it will straight up, it will, it will be like an albatross hanging on you because it affects how you think about things going forward. So although I, it was, it's funny, like the operating assumptions that we, we work under

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  have a huge, huge, huge influence. You mentioned like growing up in the United States or this being a capitalist society like woo, all right. Now, of course I think that I don't really know any different otherwise. And I think that a lot of times people go, oh, communism is better. I'm like, haven't seen it. I haven't read any books about it being better, but it's possible. I mean, I haven't experienced it much myself either, so I can't dismiss it outright. But I guess I would say it's a fundamentally differing, differing operating system, underpinning and all of my choices, all of, if I honestly believed in that thing, many of my choices on a moment by moment, on a day by day, and certainly on a lifetime basis, would be very different. So I would say that it's tough when you're, when you're young in the martial arts. And I mean, all of us are always trying to do our best to learn, but when you're young in the martial arts, you'd always go, if you're a reasonable guy,

• 1:34:47Speaker 01

  what are they, what do they call it? Like Dunning Kruger amnesia? I can't remember if this is the right one, but basically you go like, oh, I know what I'm doing here. So I can say that's not right. But then I read a news story about baseball and I'm only thinking about baseball, sounds credible. And it's, it's bullshit. Yeah. But I can't call bullshit. If you're a reasonable person, you can't call bullshit on things that you don't understand, even if you suspect it's not right. You're like, well, I've got to reserve judgment. You never ever ever set aside your your need and also obligation to understand why you were doing what you're doing and don't ask why once, ask why over and over and over and over about the same thing. Oh, well, I want a shrimp. Why? To make space. Why do I want to make space? To get away from the guy. Well, why do I want to get away from him? Well, because he's dangerous. Well, why is he dangerous? And you can oftentimes get down to, wait a minute, I didn't even need

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  to move. Three quarters of the time, you're actually acting in the other person's self-interest. And I guess a lot of times I can't, this kind of goes beyond what we can, you know, demonstrate here, but I would just say, uh, trying to understand what my base operating assumptions are and consistently reevaluate them, which can be freaking exhausting, frankly, and also comes on as confidence destroying. But you mentioned, uh, that I, that I did pretty well relatively quickly. I was at, um, I started in 2004 and I was at Abu Dhabi ADCC for the first time as an alternate in 2007. I won a match there against the Black Belt World Champion. Um, and the fact, frankly, the fact that I was able to beat someone like that was neat, but at the same time says a little bit more about what jiu-jitsu is and some of the issues with it than it does about how cool I

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  am or was because that shouldn't really happen when you think about it. You're like, okay, you're a champion at ostensibly a very high level of the sport. You enjoy a three inch, four inch height advantage and a 35 pound weight advantage and you just got beat. Like that should not, that I'm serious, I'm dead serious, that should not exist. If that happens, you're doing it wrong. Is it that I'm doing it right? Or is it that you're doing it wrong? And there's enough variance in the way that you're doing it that you're allowing me to win. And now I did happen to win that with the 50 50 heel hook, which was 50, but, um, but basically, which was one of the early examples of like, hey, guys, by the way, people can try to hurt your legs. And that was

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  something like, uh, we mentioned John Danaher, mentioned like, you know, myself, Dean Lister, a lot of the guys from the Henzo Gracie team that have had amazing success. They've gone and done great things. Um, and you're Craig Jones in the competitive grappling world, basically taking advantage of being very, very good in what they're doing, but also a glaring, glaring, glaring issue with the operating system of jiu-jitsu, which was, you know, a huge vulnerability um, in the lower body and not only not attacking it, but having no idea how one does attack it, which means you can't understand how, how someone will assail you. So anyway, um, I guess to come back is if in the in the absence of knowing what to do, I try to polish what I've got. So if I've got a knife and I'm like, I don't know how to use them, like, okay, I'm just gonna sharpen the edge and polish it. Make sure that when I need to use this dang thing, I'll be able to do it.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  Because trying to put together a system when you don't have an idea of what's going on, a lot of times you end up making, you know, suboptimal choices, but as long as you're consistently reevaluating what you're doing. And that's something I've tried to do over time, over and over and over again, and try to seek out the the most, the best and also most articulate or insightful instructors or people of various levels. Doesn't matter if they're well known or not, that could say, hey, Ryan, I think you should do this, I think you should do that. And I think all I've ever done in martial arts is try to treat people with respect, honestly. Try to demonstrate appreciation for the many, many people who have helped me over time and be the type of person that they want to train with. Not the type of, because we've all trained with people that make us think about beating the ever loving crap out of them.

• 1:38:24Speaker 01

  I never wanted to be that guy. And I was basically saying, like, if I train with a black belt when I'm a blue belt and and this person enjoys training with me, that's in my interest. Selfishly, not only do I not want them to beat me up, but selfishly, I should, you mentioned being decent to other people. You want to incentivize being decent to other people, right, with the structure of what you're doing. Selfishly, I'm incentivized to be a nice guy, even if I'm internally a scumbag, which I like to think that I'm not. But basically going like, hey, this guy's way more likely to help me, or this person's way more likely to help me. If I shake their hand, say, thank you, I really appreciate you helping me out. And that thing that they tap me with four or five times, I'm gonna ask them about it. And then they don't have to tell me, they're under no obligation, but I'll say, and when they tell me, don't, like, thank you so much for your time, really appreciate it. And that that's it, you know?

• 1:39:07Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so to summarize, so the way you brilliantly described, I just want to make sure we're keeping track.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  I went all over the place.

• 1:39:14Lex Fridman?

  No, you didn't. You're you're pretty on point. But so the first thing is basically, which is difficult. I wonder if we can break it apart a little bit, is don't trust authority, essentially, keep asking why.

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  Be respectful without trusting authority, right?

• 1:39:27Lex Fridman?

  Right, which is, and then the second thing is be the kind of person that others like training with or like being around, sort of being a good friend. So so many people just enjoy being around. So one is completely, which is, yeah, you're right, it's attention, which is like completely disrespect the the way that things are done. So asking why constantly? One of it is your own flaws and not understanding the fundamentals of what's being described. And then, once you get good enough, not understanding, like going against the fact that the instructor doesn't understand.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  And my inability to understand what you're saying, though, doesn't invalidate it. And that's something like you mentioned, like me mentioning, keeping in mind our own flaws. And then also, again, the flaws that any of us have as the instructor, to your point. And I guess I can speak to being kind of weird. I don't, you know, I like to sit in the corner. But so everyone's a little bit different. Some people, you know, I wasn't terribly popular in high school. I, you know, like, I didn't like high school very much. But anyway, yeah, I would not gonna be rude to people, though. I was never gonna bully anybody. If you said hello to me, I'd say hello back. I would hold the door for you if you walked by, you know? And I would just say, like, simple things like that go a long, long, long way. And that actually takes us back to our, to our social discussion where I'm like, oh, man, how do I become great at jujitsu?

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  It's like, well, I'll start by not pissing off this person who can beat the crap out of me and not disrespecting the person who is probably the clearest, the closest thing to a font of knowledge at that time for me. So, and then recognizing that I should do that for its own virtue, because it's the right thing to do and I should try to treat people decently. But beyond that, even selfishly, it's in my interest to do that.

• 1:41:10Lex Fridman?

  But see, the thing is, this is interesting, is there's a culture in martial arts, a culture that I like, where the instructor, legitimately so, carries an aura of authority. And it's not comfortable to really ask why. I'm not, it's a skill to be able to have a discussion as a white belt, the black belt instructor, of like, why is it done this way? Like, and saying why again? Like, would, I mean, it's a skill to show that you're actually legitimately a curious and passionate and compassionate student versus like, somebody who's just being an annoying dick, who saw some stuff on YouTube.

• 1:41:55Lex Fridman?

  There's a line between, to walk there. I just wonder, because like, It's the drilling thing. I, you know, I, um, for example, like in my, when I was coming up, there was so much emphasis placed on like closed guard, for example.

• 1:42:14Lex Fridman?

  And you might, you might actually teach me now. I, I don't know. But to me it was like, why do I need to master the closed guard? Like, why is the closed guard on top or the bottom, but the bottom really? This is the fundamental basics of jiu jitsu.

• 1:42:30Speaker 01

  Who decided that?

• 1:42:31Lex Fridman?

  My body is not, my body says this is wrong. I'm, I'm like this, like I have short legs, but it doesn't even matter the length of legs. There's something about me that just, I don't understand how leverage here works for my particular body. Like, so it's just, it's a feel thing too. Like, it feels like in my basic understanding of leverage and movement and timing and so on, it feels like these certain like butterfly guard or even like half, basically every guard except closed guard. I, I, I can play, I can dance. Closed guard feels like you're shutting down, uh, like the play that I-

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  Is that wrong? Or is that, make sure that's what you want, because that's almost like an innate characteristic of this guard position, but it's not sold that way, right? It's like, hey, this is a good guard. It's like, hey, man, here's a bow and arrow versus, and you know how to use this thing, right? Like, make sure you're, you're far away and like up on a hill or something. Cause you could take that bow and arrow, run up on something and try to use it. But if nobody told you not to do that, and they told you it was foundational, it's very foundational, it's very important.

• 1:43:40Lex Fridman?

  To everything else too, right?

• 1:43:42Speaker 01

  That's back to the shrimping thing. How many things are we taught that even if it's not, let's say itself is not a garbage thing?

• 1:43:51Speaker 01

  Might be effectively garbage. You could give me a Ferrari, but if I try to make it fly, it's not gonna work. If you're like, here's a plane, here's another plane, here's another plane, here's another plane, here's a Ferrari. I'm like, oh, it must be a different type of plane. Like, you could be forgiven for leap if we're going there, you know, like, oh, maybe the wings come out, or you just go fast enough, it's like a bullet. You can make these crazy leaps in your mind, and people are doing that all the time. So if you don't provide the context for me, or worse yet, you provide improper context, like, how much of a problem is that gonna be?

• 1:44:21Lex Fridman?

  Well, I think the skill of the white belt should be, just be nice, but in a complicated human space of when your intention, at least in the big picture view, is good. The question is, it's not always when your intention is good, the actual implementation of it is good. So you might be just almost, and that's much, it's not the case for you, it's much more the case for white belts. They don't even know, their intention might be good, but they don't know all the lines they're crossing, all the, so they're not actually able to, and like, interpret all the ways in which they're being totally insensitive to the requests of others,

• 1:45:03Lex Fridman?

  like explicit requests of others. So your job as a beginner is to be a really good listener of those social cues.

• 1:45:11Speaker 01

  It's like a visitor in a foreign country, right?

• 1:45:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:13Speaker 01

  Like, you're a representative of people that look like you, people that talk like you, people that have your passport, and you're like, man, I'm gonna go over here, oh, I've got my foot up on my knee. Well, if I was in a certain conscious world, that's rude. I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry. But can you imagine if someone says, hey, I really appreciate if you take your foot off, that's pretty rude. And then I wanna tell them, well, not where I'm from, man, I'm in your house, I better, again, I may go that direction, but let's say I could get away with that. Now I'm a bully. And if I can't get away with that, well, I'm about to maybe be on the wrong side of something. But I guess, like you said, if we have positive intention, that's fine, but I also have to recognize who I am. And I think that that's one thing that I tried to do and continue to try to do over time, like, we're, oh, man, hi, I'm the one that's asking for a favor here. If I spar with Raymond

• 1:45:56Speaker 01

  Daniels, Raymond Daniels is doing me a favor. I ain't doing him a favor. Let's not get it twisted. So, thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate, these are not, and this is not like some affected nonsense, this is serious. I'm like, thank you. If I spar with Stephen Thompson, I'm the one being done a favor. George St. Pierre takes his time to spar with me, which he has in the past, and not even kill me, which is, really, I appreciate that, because that's why I can sit here.

• 1:46:18Speaker 01

  George is not a prop for me to, to, to get my rocks off or see what's going on. And also I'm going to do that and then expect him to just take it. And I've seen, he's a gentleman. I've seen people get nuts with George and, and have him just like,

• 1:46:32Speaker 01

  he has a, he's a patient of a saint. I don't have that level of patience, but I would just say to come back, what, figuring out like, hey, so what, what role am I here? And that comes back to like, at least what I see people on the internet. Yeah, man, I have a beef with Joe Rogan. You're like, no, you don't, Ryan. You're some goof. I'm like, I'm some random dude. Joe, like people want to, they almost want to like elevate so that we can somehow be leveler peers here. If I go into Farah's a hobbies gym, I'm not a peer of Farah's hobby. I am a student of TriStar. I'm a guest in the academy. And if Farah asks me for something short of him, like, you know, telling me to try to do a triple backflip. So I break my neck. The answer is yes, sir. I can do a free frost, no man. And no worries. And it's, and hopefully it should come with, I guess, a level of graciousness. But I guess that's kind of one of the things that I see nowadays with, uh, how accessible people are.

• 1:47:15Speaker 01

  Cause I grew up, you know, being a big, huge baseball sports fan of all kinds. I couldn't send Derek Jeter a message and, and much less have a possibility of a reply. And if I do, it's like, you know, I have people send me messages. It's very nice that people send me messages. Some people, again, and everyone, not everyone is coming from the same place. But I've had plenty of things that are like, yo dude, I need you to do this for me. I'm like, well, I'll tell you what's never going to happen. That I have no idea who you are. And that was how I was addressed. And I don't need, oh man, you're the greatest one because that's weird and two, because I'm not. But just, hey, Ryan, uh, how are you doing? Um, hey, do you think you could do the following if you get a second? Like if I get a second, you're dang right, I can, why not? It's easy ask. But it, it started with some level of politeness.

• 1:47:58Speaker 01

  And I guess like that's maybe being semi-southern, like I grew up in Virginia. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Like that goes a long way.

• 1:48:04Lex Fridman?

  And there's all different kinds of implementations of politeness. I mean, all, most of the successful people I've met, it's been surprising to me how much of, you, you mentioned peers, like the, like I could think of Joe Rogan. You mentioned Joe Rogan, but Elon Musk.

• 1:48:23Lex Fridman?

  They don't like they almost treat me like I'm the superior. You know what I mean? Like it's not even it's it's that's the politeness like you know that's the approach. The feeling of it is like I'm the student, I'm the beginner, I'm like approaching a situation like it's it's uh. It's almost like a method acting of like you're better than me. That and that's how I approach a lot of interactions like I have something to learn from this, even if it's like a young.

• 1:48:51Speaker 01

  Do you think that they're un genuine?

• 1:48:53Lex Fridman?

  They're totally genuine.

• 1:48:54Speaker 01

  But it's not a funny thing like in spite of who they are, they're incredibly genuine because they respect. Correct me if I'm wrong, they respect you obviously for what you bring to table also.

• 1:49:01Lex Fridman?

  No, no, they approach everybody like this.

• 1:49:03Speaker 01

  No, but I'm sure they respect what you bring to the table. Beyond that, though, there was they're treating you with dignity as a human being.

• 1:49:08Lex Fridman?

  As a human being.

• 1:49:08Speaker 01

  Which that's right. People and when they could probably get away with treating most people without a whole heck of a lot of dignity. And I guess what does that always say that like, you know, again, like you can always tell someone of of you know, of quality because they treat the king and the and the janitor the same way.

• 1:49:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's.

• 1:49:22Speaker 01

  But that's what we're seeing a lot like I that was I guess I don't mean to like to nitpick, but that's where take issue, I guess, a little bit or or disagree with.

• 1:49:29Lex Fridman?

  Are you gonna criticize with the the internet again?

• 1:49:32Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:49:34Speaker 01

  Old man yells it yells at clouds, but uh, but um, anyway, but I guess uh, what I mean is just like the way that people address each other because it's so casual now.

• 1:49:43Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 1:49:44Speaker 01

  You know, and it's it's great. On the one hand, it's nice. On the other hand, you go, hey. I just why can't do am I somehow diminish? Am I worried about diminishing myself? It's like the way that I'm sure the people talk to like, talk to women sometimes and words. You what's up, girl? Oh, man, she's a bitch, you know, versus like, how am I that was supposed to get a good response? What about that was going to elicit a a favorable response? You know, versus being anything, anything other than than just, yo, man, what's going on? And I guess that does that make any sense?

• 1:50:14Lex Fridman?

  That makes total sense. And that southern thing that you're referring to, I I feel like that's an important. Uh, that's an important part of human communication. Let me ask you this.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:50:25Lex Fridman?

  Your new back attacks instructional. First of all, awesome.

• 1:50:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:31Lex Fridman?

  Second of all, you drop. You drop a lot of fascinating insights in there, but you quote Galileo, out of all people, in saying that you can't teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself. So we talked about how to start in jiu jitsu. What about if we zoom out even more? And how do you learn how to learn? How do you optimize the learning process?

• 1:51:00Speaker 01

  I don't know the answer to that, but I can tell you what I like to do. And I would say like, I can't step one, I don't, I'm not, maybe this is a little bit easier for me because you know, I've, I've never had a ton of friends, honestly. I've, you know, I've got my close friends and people that I know, but I've never had tons and tons of people, so I spent a lot of time, you know, thinking. And anyway, I can't, I can't control you. I can't control anybody else. I, you know, I, um.

• 1:51:27Speaker 01

  All I can, I want to take my, I guess it's a Marcus Aurelius thing. It's like, you know, I guess the trick to life is figuring out what's in our control and what's not, and focusing on things that are in our control, I guess. And so step one is figuring out both internally and then also out in, in the world as it, as it pertains to jitsu, what is actually in my control and what is not? Like passing someone's guard is not in your control. People think it is, it ain't. If I can't just do an activity and be unchecked, then it ain't in my control entirely. I can always breathe. I can always, um, you know, be calm. I can always, no matter whether I'm concerned or not concerned, have whatever you want to call it nerves, you know, I, I can step forward across the line and say, I will, I will face the challenge ahead.

• 1:52:12Speaker 01

  That is all entirely, no one can stop me from doing that. That's entirely in my control. And that's why I know that every single time that I walk into the ring, I'll walk in and out of there with my head held high because there's, I, I will fight with everything that I have. I can't promise that I'll win. I would say I take that same first principles. You, you mentioned, you, last time we talked, you know, with Elon and the importance of that and going, what are the first principles? And I guess to come back, a lot of times in my opinion, the things that people think are the basics are not the basics. You can't learn if you think you're reasoning for first principles, but you're actually like level six, you're actually like layers up. You're making so many, there's so many baked in assumptions to what's going on that you're going to struggle to understand why anything is actually happening internally,

• 1:52:55Speaker 01

  externally, you name it. So I guess what I would start when it comes to learning is first principles and trying to understand what's going on, but then also, simple things first. I can control my posture. I can control my breathing. No one can stop me from doing that. I can control where I place my frames. I can control where I place my limbs. I can move my feet. I can develop the ability to do these things better, of course, and I do that through practice, through drilling, through watching people. I've been incredibly fortunate in my time in martial arts to train with many of my heroes, to train with many of the people that I looked at and I was like, that guy is amazing. I want to train with this person. Like Stephen Thompson, Kenny Florian, George St. Pierre, Raymond Daniels, Farazah Habi, you know, I mean, like Bruno Ferrazato, Marcelo Garcia, all of these guys

• 1:53:39Speaker 01

  that are just unbelievable. And I go, well, they're moving in a way that's different. Well, how do I do that? Well, sometimes you can ask them and they can tell you directly. Other times, people, part of the genius of what they do is that it's intuitive. And maybe they don't think and understand and see the world the same way that I do. That was something that I experienced with Marcelo. He's amazing. But in a different way than his, it just, we see things fundamentally differently. We experience the world differently. It seems to me that we do. And again, that, that taught me a really important lesson because I was wanting when I trained there to have someone go, hey, Ryan, do this, this, this, and this. And then that's how it works. And I'm like, all right, because that's how I understood martial arts at the time. I wasn't ready to have someone tell me like,

• 1:54:21Speaker 01

  hey, it feels a little bit like this and I just kind of do it, which is kind of what Marcelo would do at the time. He was less experienced as a teacher, but that is what he was doing. I was completely, I couldn't separate in my mind, performance and understanding. I thought that if I understand, I could do it. And I would also, I would also struggle sometimes to wonder why I couldn't execute things that I thought I understood. And why guys like Marcelo were just so elemental. I mean, in like the, like lightning, wind, like that type of thing. Like it's just so in touch with what they wanted, with their capabilities. They could summon their powers at will.

• 1:55:01Speaker 01

  I couldn't always do that. And I guess so recognizing that there was more than one way to the top of the mountain. And also, I had a lot of science, but I didn't have a lot of art. Or I had some science, I should say, but I didn't have a lot of art. Meeting people like Marcelo taught me and then Josh Waitzkin, actually brilliant guy, chess champion, former owner, maybe owner of Marcelo's Academy, really great friend.

• 1:55:21Lex Fridman?

  I think he has a book on learning.

• 1:55:22Speaker 01

  He does. Yeah, the art of learning, actually. But yeah, he knows a thing or two about it. But a great guy. And anyway, he sat me down one time was like, look, man, you're you're doing this wrong. You're missing what the missing the genius, the brilliance that's right in front of you. And it took me one time.

• 1:55:37Lex Fridman?

  What did he mean?

• 1:55:38Speaker 01

  That I was frustrated with with my inability to grasp certain things and sometimes the teaching style being different, not wrong, just it was, it was, it was tough on me at the time.

• 1:55:49Lex Fridman?

  So you were trying to replicate what Marcelo was saying as opposed to understanding the the sort the fundamentals from which it was coming?

• 1:55:56Speaker 01

  Right. I couldn't see, I couldn't see where it was coming from. And also, sometimes I'm like, well, why can't you explain it in the way that I would want you to explain it? And he's like, well, why can't I meet him where he's coming from?

• 1:56:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:06Speaker 01

  So anyway, it was a really important time, a lesson, very, very frustrating if I'm honest, but it's not. I'm so thankful for that time. And anyway, you know, I guess.

• 1:56:16Lex Fridman?

  Always first principles, trying to understand the basics, first, starting at the place where you can control things, the very basic elements of what you can work with. And then when there's other mentors and teachers to

• 1:56:29Speaker 01

  Meet them where they're coming from.

• 1:56:30Lex Fridman?

  Meet them.

• 1:56:31Speaker 01

  To the extent that I can, rather than I'm not like, again, it's like, why are you not talking to me the way I want you to talk to me? As opposed to, hey, where are you coming from? Back to your point.

• 1:56:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:40Speaker 01

  But I know that's not entirely specific. But, you know, like, if you can focus on that and back to the whole, you can't teach a man anything. Marcelo didn't teach me anything, but he taught me in so doing, like, and other and other people like that to, you know, to find it within. And it's like, I guess something else that I've that I've heard before is that all learning is self discovery, but all performance is self expression. And I always thought that Marcelo was a brilliant master of letting what's inside out. He would, he was so consistent in his performances. And a lot of times I felt like there was a block there personally, particularly at the end of jiu jitsu when I was very, very results oriented and I wasn't. I think, I think my focus was, was not ideal. It was definitely not in the, not in the place that I would like it to be.

• 1:57:21Speaker 01

  And whether I would have won more or lost more hard to say, but I know that I would have performed better if I'd have adjusted that. And anyway, that recognizing that again, jiu jitsu, I think I've said it before, jiu jitsu studies as a science, but expressed as an art. It doesn't matter if you can articulate what you know how to do. What matters is if you can do what you know how to do. It only matters if you're, you know, I guess if you're teaching in a, in a verbal fashions where they're not, you can articulate it. But recognizing the difference between learning on, on an intellectual level or conceptual level and being able to, to translate that into the physical. And I guess like, that's been the thing that I feel like fortunate over time in my own academy to be able to kind of fiddle around and learn on my own. And practice my students and, you know, sometimes I've struggled to have great training partners. Like when I say great training partner, I mean other world-class people to spar and roll with.

• 1:58:04Speaker 01

  But I've gotten a lot more honestly than I ever would have thought out of being able to practice and learn and fail and try and succeed in my own without, uh, like my own little sandbox. Figuring out how I can take an idea and then come up with drills and, and drills to practice it. So that I can actually practice putting it into play. Because again, knowing an idea and then not drilling. What was the point? I'll never have it. It will, and every, it'll never see the light of day.

• 1:58:29Lex Fridman?

  So in that DVD, in that instruction DVD, sorry, it's an online instructional.

• 1:58:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a DVD. I keep saying DVD though.

• 1:58:36Lex Fridman?

  Nobody has DVDs anymore. It's like VHS. I don't know. Who has DVD or like Blu-ray?

• 1:58:42Speaker 01

  I possess some DVDs. I mean, I've never watched them.

• 1:58:45Lex Fridman?

  What do you use them for? Like a, like a cup, like a cup, like a thing you put a drink on?

• 1:58:51Speaker 01

  I mean, when, when in a pinch, yeah.

• 1:58:56Lex Fridman?

  What's that even called?

• 1:58:59Speaker 01

  Coaster. Yeah, my Matrix coaster.

• 1:59:03Lex Fridman?

  The Matrix coaster, zeros and ones. Okay, so in that instruction that people should should get, I've been watching, I'm really enjoying. It's, I don't even know when it came out recently, right?

• 1:59:17Speaker 01

  Like December, something like that?

• 1:59:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's, it's.

• 1:59:20Speaker 01

  It's part one. It was actually like, ended up being like 18 hours long and I was like, oh my God, we gotta chop it in half. And it, when it comes together, the whole thing, I think, I hope people will like it.

• 1:59:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, well, it's even part one is really good. It's like, yeah, people on Reddit were really excited for part two as well.

• 1:59:34Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:59:34Lex Fridman?

  And you also have a back.

• 1:59:36Speaker 01

  Oh, the old one.

• 1:59:37Lex Fridman?

  The old one that I, that was really helpful to me to understand some very basic aspects of control from the back. Yeah, that was, you know, that clicked with me. There's very few instructional, there's very few things I've watched that ever clicked with me. And that was definitely it. It taught me one thing, I don't know, it's, you have, you drop a lot of sort of bombs. You drop a lot of really interesting details. And it's funny that there's only specific things that really click. Like a lot of it rings true and you kind of take it in and it's like, oh, that's interesting. Okay, yeah, but there's certain things that really click.

• 2:00:17Lex Fridman?

  And I remember that first instruction will click with me is like the importance. I don't, I don't remember anymore like how you communicated it because I've now integrated. It's now mine, you know what I mean? But it was more about you just describing upper body control and the importance of the upper body control from the back. And just like the, there's certain, like the, you described different details on the grips and so on. And as I started trying it, I realized how important upper body control is versus like me, maybe as a blue belt or something. Was, I thought like you have achieved victory when you got the two hooks in.

• 2:01:02Lex Fridman?

  And then I realized like, at least for me, that the hooks were not even for my body type, for my style, for the way I approach things. They were not even important at all.

• 2:01:11Speaker 01

  It's supplemental for the most part.

• 2:01:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so they were there for the points, but I can establish a huge amount of control. In fact, the hooks. Were you you were talking about like illusion of choice. It's it's a it almost made people panic a lot more. When you were like fighting for or establishing that kind of control, they weren't a lot less panicked when the hooks weren't involved. Even though they should be a lot more panicked. Anyway, I I realized a lot of those kinds of things, especially that had to do with judo because so much of judo on the ground is centered around aggressive, efficient, very fast choking, like different kinds of clock chokes and all that kind of stuff.

• 2:01:51Speaker 01

  What a brilliant thing that is only going to start to make its way into jiu jitsu coming up, but like the judo style approach to like clock choking, triangling from the top of the turtle and stuff. So powerful.

• 2:02:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. And the there's something about judo that emphasizes, obviously, due to the rules, the urgency. So there you only do techniques that go fast. And then the other thing is, which I guess jiu jitsu emphasizes too, but judo really does, which is the transition. So like while the person's flying in the air is the easiest time. I mean, this is like Ryan Hall type of shit, which is like,

• 2:02:29Lex Fridman?

  why not put in your submissions or positional control while they're in the air and they've

• 2:02:34Speaker 01

  If you could, why would you not, right? They're like, oh, well, I don't throw well. Well, learn how to throw and then do it.

• 2:02:40Lex Fridman?

  And so you should think, I mean, in a transition, when they're flying is the easiest time to put in stuff. And that's when you think about chokes. As you're throwing, you should be thinking about the choke. And then everything becomes a lot easier.

• 2:02:53Speaker 01

  You ever see Flavio Canto?

• 2:02:56Speaker 01

  Man, Brazilian judoka is so cool. Like with stuff like that.

• 2:03:00Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, exactly. But but that has to do with the first starting principle of like, stop thinking this as a two-phase game of standing and then ground. Start thinking about like the the standing and the the standing comes before and the ground comes after, but everything happens in a transition.

• 2:03:18Speaker 01

  Well, and also you're attacking. What is the art of war? Like, we all like, everyone's like, oh, yeah, the art of war. Ah, yes, he says. And then they immediately throw it away and then fight like a frickin' barbarian. But, uh, I mean, like, I'm serious. But, uh, you know, how many people quote stuff and then like, you know, it's like, what is it? The Family Guy joke where they're like, you know, quoting Jesus and Jesus walks in. He's like, you're not doing my work. What are you talking about? And anyway, uh, basically, um, you know, like, what do you like the art of war? You know, one of the things is like, the only thing that you can be sure of being successful in attacking is something that's undefended. Well, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but, you know, in a fight, they're defended. Well, are they? There's moments all the time where I'm borderline defenseless. And if you were to attack at that moment, if you could see it and then seize the moment, if you were capable of both,

• 2:04:03Speaker 01

  you should not only expect to be successful, you should be damn sure you're gonna be successful. And more important than that, you'll be successful. And even if somehow not, you won't be countered. And I guess like, uh, that's the trick of almost all, all like conflicts, right? It's like showing up when the other person's, you know, taking a nap. And then it's so funny, like, we take like a protracted war. It's like, oh, it takes five years. And there's, you know, lulls and there's a battle this month, but then there's a couple of weeks, another battle. It's like, well, if you just shrink that down, it's the microcosm, macrocosm idea. That same thing, that whole war is taking place in five minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes. And there's moments of lulls of person effectively going for a snack. You know, being like, you know, in a horror movie, like, hey, guys, I'm gonna go get a beer from the, uh, from around the way. Like, I'm dead for sure. So, anyway.

• 2:04:46Lex Fridman?

  Is there, on this particular instructional, if you can convert it to words, you talk about finishing the submission. Is there some interesting insights that you find beautiful or profound about finishing the rear naked choke? Or just finishing submissions from the back control? Is there something like, you know, you talk about the squeeze and the crush and all these kinds of principles? Is there something about control, about the process of finishing that you find especially profound about this position?

• 2:05:19Speaker 01

  Absolutely. The opposite of one profound truth can be another profound truth. So, like, uh, it's, I, I, I do.

• 2:05:28Lex Fridman?

  Did Jesus say that?

• 2:05:29Speaker 01

  No, I don't. I actually, it was a guy on Tumblr. But, uh, yeah, uh, it was really, really cool. There was like a, like a tree in the background. But anyway, uh, uh, but so let's say, like, I'll use, I'll use examples, like, first off, um, I, I saw someone finishing a 50-50 heel hook in the UFC One promo. It was like some chubby dude, Nakaragi, like inside heel hooking another dude. And you go, huh. Well, I didn't know they were doing that back then, at least. And whether they were doing it all, how many times does someone do something? And then that works. And then we go, okay, cool. Versus, hey, maybe we should do that all the time. So, anyway, how long were we all taught to do the seatbelt the way we all do the seatbelt in Jiu-Jitsu? Like, a long time. Why? Works. In fact, it works so well.

• 2:06:13Speaker 01

  And it was so, it was then the people who used it were so prolific that we went, well, solve that one. Good to go. All right. No more thinking. And then you go, imagine you were to like the Merkel, the Merkel flip, all those positions that we're showing in the, in the DVD, which is pretty much are the, whatever the heck it is, the digital VD. Um, no, not VD. I don't want that. Digital, digital video, something. But basically, uh, recognizing that doing it on the wrong side is at least as effective. Doesn't mean that the other side wasn't good. There could be something that's the literal borderline opposite of that. And you go, huh. Well, that's something. Like, imagine, like, I would say, almost all of these things, all the tactics and all the strategies. So I guess that was something that we came to,

• 2:06:58Speaker 01

  like, training in the gym, like, a year ago, maybe? And then playing with since, and it's just, it's huge. I'm like, oh, wait, so let me get this straight. First, if I can use my strong side seatbelt, my, my right arm over the shoulder, and it, all the time. Well, that's, that's really helpful, because that's a lot better than my left. I can do both sides of my left, but if I had to bet my life on, on being able to finish it, I would want my right arm over. Huh. Everything that's a tactic or a strategy evolved from an idea. Like, capitalism's an idea. You know, anarchy is an idea. And then it becomes, well, what does that all mean? What are the, what are the consequences? What's the fallout of all this? Right? So what if we start with jujitsu, the idea of the guard, right? And we go, well, I mean, Wendy, why do you use the guard? No other martial art really has developed the guard in the same way that jujitsu has. Well, what is the guard? A guard's a defensive idea where you're kind of on your back, to some extent or another, and you're using your legs

• 2:07:43Speaker 01

  as a wall between you and, and the other person, and the other guy represents danger. And you're like, yeah, that's a great idea. Is it? I mean, it clearly works, at least to a certain extent. But what if, where do I want to put my legs when I want to get up? Not on the other dude. I'm trying to put them on things on the floor. If I want to generate a ton of power, what's the first thing I do with my feet? I anchor them to the floor. Drive for a punch, you name it, move away, jump, dart, you name it. So, does it mean that that's a terrible idea to be on your back? No. Clearly, it works. And clearly, it, a little phrase has function. But what if the function that we're giving it, and we're, and the, how much, how much focus we're assigning to it, is disproportionate to its effectiveness? Maybe, what if it's not a good idea? I'm not saying it's not a good idea, but what if it wasn't? That's a foundational

• 2:08:26Speaker 01

  idea of jujitsu. And then how much, because no one questions that foundation, how much innovation is built on top of the idea? Well, of course, I want to be, my being on my back is an okay position. So now they're innovating. But they're innovating within a closed system that they don't even, they think they're innovating in like, in this open space of, oh, my God, it can be anything. When in reality, it could be anything within this little set.

• 2:08:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:47Speaker 01

  But you don't realize that you're in a set. You don't realize that you're in a box. There would be answers that would become so immediately apparent to you if you were willing to look outside of that. But you'll literally never even look over to your left because you don't even realize the left exists.

• 2:09:00Lex Fridman?

  Do you think there's a lot of places in jiu jitsu, whether it's back control or generally guards and all the different positions, where there's a lot of space, like a lot, a lot to be discovered by questioning the basic assumptions? Maybe if you can give examples of like back control, like is there something you've discovered that's like?

• 2:09:18Speaker 01

  Merkel versus seatbelt.

• 2:09:20Lex Fridman?

  What's Merkel, what's seatbelt?

• 2:09:21Speaker 01

  Seatbelt is a right arm over the shoulder, left arm under the arm. I'm on the, I'm on the same side as my choking arm. Merkel is just, I do the same thing. I don't even adjust my hands. I walk myself over to the left side. I'm on the opposite side. It's actually a more powerful position.

• 2:09:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. For people listening or for people who might not know jiu jitsu is a, seatbelt is a control, we're talking about when one person is on the back of another person, which is a really dominant position in jiu jitsu. Seatbelt is a, I guess, widely accepted way of holding your arm.

• 2:09:52Speaker 01

  Best practices almost.

• 2:09:53Lex Fridman?

  Best practices, yeah. And it's worked so well. So it's a one arm over, one arm under. And there's a certain side you're supposed to be on when you're on the back, you know, everyone teaches, there's a choking arm, that's the arm that's over. And your body's supposed to be in a certain side relative to that. And then Ryan is describing questioning these like basic assumptions of which side you're supposed to be on.

• 2:10:18Speaker 01

  And let's say that's even just like a mid-level assumption. It's not even a first principles assumption.

• 2:10:22Lex Fridman?

  It's pretty close to.

• 2:10:23Speaker 01

  It's getting, it's getting there, but let's, but let's just say for sake of argument, it goes a lot deeper, maybe. I think most of the innovation that I see is not innovation. It's like basically changing the color of a car or polishing like the window a little bit. We're like, hey, you made it, you made it a little bit different. You made it a little bit better. It's like, oh, man, what if I did the same guard and then grabbed the lapel? I'm not saying that's bad, but you're not fundamentally changing anything. I think most of the big seismic shifts that we see in almost anything come from, hey, That thing we thought was right was wrong, rather than not only is it right, it's even righter. And you're like, it's not wrong, it's not bad, but that's, you're, you're, it's like, oh, man, let's say, for instance, I didn't make the triangle better. But let's say I made the triangle a little bit better than it was, or than it was taught.

• 2:11:09Speaker 01

  Eh, I mean, you can call it innovation. I don't know, man. It's not like the person that said, hey, have you guys ever heard of a triangle before? And came up with that? We're like, that is, I feel like that's, that's on the list. You can do this thing to people? Are you kidding me? Can you imagine you invented the, the straight right hand? You'll be like one punch, man. You can walk around and just, just lay low every single person you got into a fight with. Cause it didn't even occur to them to hit you with their backhand. In a world full of jabbers, you throw your backhand, you're gonna kill people. So basically.

• 2:11:35Lex Fridman?

  But by the way, I mean, just to pause on that, that first of all, somebody did invent the triangle, probably, right?

• 2:11:40Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:11:40Lex Fridman?

  It's not a trivial thing. What's it?

• 2:11:42Speaker 01

  No. How many of these giant things that we all go like, oh, yeah, yeah, we all use that now. Can you imagine you have triangles and heel hooks and rear naked chokes and I don't have those? You're on, you're borderline, I mean, like, that's, that's why, that's, we all experience, every single one of this, particularly those of us, I mean, when did you first start training, Lex?

• 2:11:58Lex Fridman?

  Uh, 12, 13, well, let's not count wrestling, but 13 years ago with jiu-jitsu.

• 2:12:04Speaker 01

  Right on. So let's, let's say about that time where particularly it was still like, kinda, kinda undergroundy.

• 2:12:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:08Speaker 01

  You know, and you're like, hey, we all experienced being like a relative, like a mid-level white belt. And being able to easily beat up all our friends.

• 2:12:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:16Speaker 01

  Because everyone wrestled other buddies and it was one of those ones where like, they don't have weapons to end the fight. You have weapons to end the fight. That's so, that's such a crazy, you know, asymmetric advantage that if you lose, it's on you now, man. Like you get, like you had the, next time it's like, I've got this rifle and you have nothing. And I decided to put it on my back and then run over and try to karate chop. You're like, okay. Next time, just make sure you use the rifle, bud. I'm like, oh, yeah, I should do that. So.

• 2:12:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's kind of fascinating to, I mean, everything you're describing is a, there's a fascinating tension between like, whatever I show people for the first time, what a triangle is, just like regular people. It's like they're discovering is like, oh, okay, that's interesting. I mean, MMA has changed that, but people have, haven't watched MMA. That's an interesting move. It doesn't make sense why that would be a choke. And they kind of quickly accepted that's a thing. And they accept the basics without questioning, wait a minute, what's actually being choked?

• 2:13:16Lex Fridman?

  What, how is it that a shoulder of a person can do the choking? Like, I'm not sure I fully questioned the fundamentals of all of that, like.

• 2:13:27Speaker 01

  I claim I have either.

• 2:13:28Lex Fridman?

  What exactly is the blood supply that's being cut off? Like, what is the anatomy and the physiology of all of that?

• 2:13:35Speaker 01

  Why does this work? And if you understood all that, what else could we do here?

• 2:13:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, what else can we do here? That's the really important thing.

• 2:13:40Speaker 01

  But if we know, if I'm an end user, which almost everyone is of almost anything, I'm serious. Where I'm like, I think about stuff in my life, the only things I really think about are like martial arts and martial arts strategy and like, I don't know, some other couple, couple of things, but not much. And anything else in my life is borderline unexamined. And I like to think that if I put a lot of effort in something, I'd like to think that I could figure at least some things out about it. But I figured out almost nothing about anything in my life because I haven't even looked. And, you know, if you're an end user, what are you capable of versus you can literally alter the source code? You are Neo in the frickin' Matrix if you can alter the code and I can't. And it's like, we think, ah, ha, ha, ha. But imagine you are a world-class anything, or even not even world-class, forget it.

• 2:14:22Speaker 01

  Like a purple belt compared to a white belt or compared to a no belt might as well be John Jones or Marcelo Garcia. You're gonna beat them up comparably bad. So it's a, that's, that actually is a common thing where people can't tell the difference between levels. They're like, oh, man, I trained with my black belt instructor. How much better could so-and-so be like? So much better, you're gonna have a hard time wrapping your head around it. I remember when I first trained with Marcelo Garcia in 2007, I was a decent purple belt. And of course, he mollywopped me very gently. And then, uh, training with him again in 2008, I was definitely better. I won the gi and no gi worlds that year at purple belt. So definitely, for the record, I'm definitely not a jiu-jitsu world champion. I won the purple belt, but like, that's not the same at winning a black belt. Um, and, uh, tough accomplishment, but not, not in the same thing at all. But anyway, um, I was definitely better. He beat me up just the same. I'm like, okay.

• 2:15:08Speaker 01

  2009, I was a lot better. Got a medal at ADCC that time. Won the trials, crushed everybody, like no, submitted everybody like, bop, bop, bop, bop. Training Marcelo Garcia. It was worse. And 2010, training Marcelo Garcia, same, same. So the idea was, I wouldn't be able to tell you the difference. And the outcome difference was the same in all of these rounds. I was significantly more experienced and more adept each time that this occurred. But it was like, how many number of times did this person submit you or pass you guard in the round? I'm like, I don't know, probably like, let's say five each one. Cause it's a brief period of time. Unless it was three on one, six on another, whatever. It's comparable. It's six on a half dozen.

• 2:15:48Speaker 01

  Would I be able to easily tell the difference? No, I would just say I know in concept that he's way better. So much better. But there's plenty of other people that could have beaten me just as bad as Marcelo did when I was a purple belt. Or when I was a brown belt, then maybe I would watch Marcelo walk through like they're borderline not there. So it's neat. Like if you, that's back to kind of what I was talking about, about certain people beginning to really like peel back some of what's really special about the martial arts or any activity, I presume, is they get to a level of understanding and depth. That they're playing with like the, almost the reality of that thing. And I'm playing by rules that are not rules. I'm not, I'm not even one of the, to use a matrix analogy, I'm not even an agent, which is the best version of something playing by the rules.

• 2:16:31Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:16:31Speaker 01

  I'm like one of the regular people or one of the regular people in that got out of the matrix. So I'm like, oh, I'm cool. But when I fight an agent, I lose. It's because we're both in the rules, but they just play them to the, play them to the bone and I'm just here. Well, and then the agent encounters Neo and they can do nothing. You're like, why? Because he's operating outside of what the rules are. But not really what the rules are, what they perceive to be the rules are clearly. So anyway, I guess that's kind of my point about Marcelo or certain other people that are doing things where you go, that doesn't even seem real. It doesn't seem real to me because I don't understand what's going on. And I guess if we can get down to base assumptions, like if we can constantly strip away, strip away, strip away. Let's say we always thought that turning left was right, was correct. And it turns out that turning right was correct. Change your life.

• 2:17:14Lex Fridman?

  It's a, what is it, Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living. So you just basically have to rigorously just constantly examine every assumption over and over and over.

• 2:17:25Speaker 01

  But doesn't that give your life meaning? To come back to the struggle, to come back to free will, to come back to what if we could strip all that away? All right, cool. All right, let me just stick the needle in my, in my arm and that's that.

• 2:17:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. No, I mean, that, that constant striving for understanding yet another lower layer of the simulation we're living in is, is, is something that's actually deeply fulfilling. That I don't know if it's genetically built in, but there's something about that striving to understand that seems to be deeply human.

• 2:17:56Speaker 01

  We, it's funny, what makes a human, we, we don't talk about the soul anymore, man. I, I went to Catholic school as a kid and whether you buy into all that stuff or not, you're like, what, what about the soul of a person? The spirit of a people, the spirit of a nation, anywhere, the spirit of humanity. We don't, we don't, we talk about everything like it's this quantifiable thing when maybe certain things are, maybe everything is. But then what happens if there's things that just aren't quantifiable? That, that nothing in our understanding can or will ever explain. And that doesn't mean that that should be our assumption, it's free assumption that we can explain everything and let's get to the dang bottom, peel, peel, peel, peel, peel. But what if there is actually something that, like, that you, that we need challenge for?

• 2:18:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:35Speaker 01

  And we could be looking in the wrong place by going, ah, where is it in the genes? Maybe it is. Again, I'm not saying we're looking in the wrong place, like I wouldn't know anything, I do karate. But basically, uh, not even well, um, but, uh, yeah, we do karate mediocre, just ask Raymond Daniels or Stephen Thompson. But, uh, uh, I guess to, to come back though, you just.

• 2:18:51Lex Fridman?

  Are you a yellow belt yet or are you?

• 2:18:53Speaker 01

  Man, I actually, have you ever seen the, yeah, Seinfeld episode where Kramer fights the kids? Yeah, I did that at Raymond Daniels school and the kids, kids won in class as in addition to the, the alleyway.

• 2:19:03Lex Fridman?

  Oh. But, uh. Finished it off afterwards.

• 2:19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. When I was on my last legs, but, uh, but yeah, I would just maybe, it's funny. I feel like there's something deeply missing from, you know, from public understanding anymore. That it's almost like the idea that we can figure everything out, which I deeply believe in. But also the possibility that there's some things that we'll never really see and some things we'll never understand. And there's something, like you said, uniquely human about the human experience that even if I had the power to change. I don't wanna fuck with it, man. I don't wanna change that thing. Oh, yeah, well, wouldn't it be great if we just immediately knew the outcome of everything? And you just press this button, you're like, oh, that's gonna, what's the point of living life then? Even if you could do it, it's the, you've seen Jurassic, well, I'll leave you be, sorry, I know what I'm talking about. Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum, right?

• 2:19:51Speaker 01

  Life, life finds a way. But we were so concerned with whether or not we could, we didn't stop to think whether or not we should. Maybe?

• 2:20:01Lex Fridman?

  I, I think there's, I mean, it's a deeply human thing, but it's also a really useful thing to always kind of assume that there's this giant thing that you don't understand. So you can forever be striving to understand. Because that process gives you meaning, but also keeps making you better. Like thinking that, actually even just thinking that you can't understand everything will lead you to stop too early. So like, I, I think there's something to, whether it's the soul, or whether it's like religious stuff, like assuming that there's this thing that you cannot possibly understand is a really good assumption under which to operate.

• 2:20:44Lex Fridman?

  And under which to do this first principles kind of thinking, because you can just keep digging and keep digging, keep digging. Even when it seems like you're at the bottom, because you don't fucking know if you're at the bottom or not.

• 2:20:53Speaker 01

  And back to your, back to one of our, I guess, our other kind of tangents was that comes back to everyone's a human being. The smartest human being in the history of humanity is so hilariously weak, like, short-lived and not intelligent.

• 2:21:08Lex Fridman?

  Be for yourself, bro.

• 2:21:09Speaker 01

  I understand. I didn't say, no, I'm not saying comparison to me. In comparison to me, everyone is awesome. But that's, that's why I don't do the goat thing. But basically, it's just on a cosmic level. Can you imagine even if you were a vampire, you're like 900 years old, like how much you would seem? You would seem like a lowercase g god to people. You'd be like, how can you, how could you know so much? How can you have such a long view perspective? It would be insane. So I mean, that it seems like we're, we're talking about AI now, right? Where we're creating things that are infinitely smarter than us effectively and live all this time. And it's probably gonna do what we tell it to do, right?

• 2:21:42Lex Fridman?

  No, it's probably, well, I hope it keeps us around. Do you, by the way, think about AI and the existential threats? Like, speaking of gods, are you, is this whole technological world, we talked about social networks and this increasing power of technology around us. We ourselves are becoming less human because we keep becoming, we, we keep relying on technology more and more. So we're becoming kinds of cyborgs, but also there's a future that's quite possible. Where the technology becomes smarter and more powerful than us humans. And, you know, starts having a life of its own in ways that perhaps we don't imagine as human beings.

• 2:22:27Lex Fridman?

  I don't just mean like two-legged robots walking around and being humans, but smarter. I mean, like, an intelligent life that's,

• 2:22:38Lex Fridman?

  that's beyond and fundamentally different than our, our human life. It's, it's infinite, it's.

• 2:22:48Speaker 01

  Also creating new species, yeah?

• 2:22:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, a new, a new kind of species, not even just a new species. You talk about systems, but like, it, it lives in the space of information. It lives in a different time scale and a different scale of all sorts, spatial scale. It operate like we speak, we spoke about individuals. It doesn't operate in the sense of a single individual, like embodied, it's not embodied. So it's not like a, a thing that walks around and it like, it looks at stuff and consumes the world. It's able to do much larger scale sensing of the environment around it, all that kind of stuff.

• 2:23:25Speaker 01

  I can barely even try to, I can barely even conceive of what that would be like.

• 2:23:28Lex Fridman?

  Are you scared or are you excited?

• 2:23:31Speaker 01

  I don't define scared or excited. I feel like I tend to define them like the same way, where I'm like. I guess I

• 2:23:40Lex Fridman?

  Kind of like when before karaoke, it's the same.

• 2:23:42Speaker 01

  Well, that's actually kind of my happy place. It's not so much everyone else's. You know, it's uh, everyone else is probably, you know, heading for the door at that point, but you know, it's a

• 2:23:50Lex Fridman?

  While you're doing it or leading or leading up to the karaoke session?

• 2:23:54Speaker 01

  Well, it depends whether or not uh, whether or not they know it's me. If they know it's me, that's before I start. If they has they're like, who's that guy? Then they're like halfway through the song, they're already, you know, throwing their beer.

• 2:24:03Lex Fridman?

  What categories of song or particular song are we talking about in terms of like your happy place?

• 2:24:07Speaker 01

  Oh man, are you kidding me? I mean, obviously Bohemian Rhapsody. I mean, there's no question because

• 2:24:11Lex Fridman?

  Really?

• 2:24:11Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, because I don't have to sing it here. It's that. It's like, remember, can you, can I be, can I be, oh yeah, of course. Is he here? No? Yeah, then yeah, yeah. All right. If you're here, is he here? No, then I

• 2:24:19Lex Fridman?

  I have a torn, I've uh, I have torn feelings about Bohemian Rhapsody because I like the beginning part, the sadness. I like, I like the solo, the heartbreak. But the second part, I understand it. It's so ridiculous.

• 2:24:29Speaker 01

  It gets, it gets ridiculous.

• 2:24:30Lex Fridman?

  It's so ridiculous. It ruins it for me.

• 2:24:32Speaker 01

  But it's more about flexing on people. I think if you can actually hit, hit that, hit that, you know, the falsetto.

• 2:24:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. So it's, it's not, okay. So you appreciate not for the musical uh, beauty and complexity of the song. You just like to flex on people.

• 2:24:45Speaker 01

  Because like for all, yeah, like what's the purpose of, of anything except for just to let everyone know that you think you're cool?

• 2:24:54Lex Fridman?

  And there's no better way of doing that than karaoke. So I'm not sure why about karaoke.

• 2:24:58Speaker 01

  Captive audience? Yeah, exactly.

• 2:24:59Lex Fridman?

  Oh, about fear and excitement of artificial intelligence.

• 2:25:02Speaker 01

  I mean, like, you know me, I don't know anything about, I just, I, I, basically I don't, I don't understand the implications of, of any of this. I would just say that like radically altering what it means to be human in such an unbelievably short period of time just seems like such a crazy thing. And also it's not like we're, I can't remember who said this to me recently, it might've been me, I can't remember. So this is definitely not my idea. But uh, we're, we're not even going, hey, would you like to opt in everyone? Everyone is being opted in, you know, and particularly when you want to talk about like large scale robotics or large scale AI, like the world is changing. People in Senegal are opting in right now without realizing it. It's not even like, and again, I don't mean to pick on Senegal, it's just this whatever country comes up to mind, but that's in the

• 2:25:43Speaker 01

  developing world. But basically, uh, you know, recognizing that this huge shift is coming, we have no idea this is a decent idea. And also something else I've always been considered is, uh, you know, you think about most of the really awful, awful, awful things that have done in history, large scale slavery, you name it. It didn't, if people say that it came from this motivation or that motivation, maybe it did, maybe it didn't. Fundamentally, the issue, at least in my mind, and I'm not a historian, power differential. If you, if you and I can't contest, we don't contend. It's not like you, we fight and you might win, or we fight, even you'll win comfortably. It's you are so unbelievably powerful compared

• 2:26:26Speaker 01

  to me that there's nothing I can do to stop you. That seems like a recipe for something really, really not great happening. Because if you think about like, uh, you know, European countries encountering each other, and I'm just speculating, I don't know anything about history, but let's say countries that can contend with one another versus countries that can't. Let's say an alien species, alien race shows up, you know, right now, we don't want that. I think Stephen Hawking said that. That makes perfect sense to me. We don't want that. If you can come here, we better hope you're nice. Because what are we going to do? What are we going to hope that you invade the water planet like they did in, uh, you know, one of the, uh, Lord of the, yeah, War of the Worlds. So I guess what I'm trying to get across is like shocking levels of power differential between groups seem makes, makes the world ripe for horrific abuse in the event that someone decides to

• 2:27:11Speaker 01

  do it. It's like, like, can you imagine an adult hitting a child, like hitting, hitting a child? No one in their right mind would ever go like, oh, yeah, that's a great idea. Because it's such an, it's so grossly imbalanced. You're like, this is wrong. But, but it's also on the table only because of the gross imbalance. So I guess to come back, it's like, whether we create AI and it's on some crazy level of its own, or it's, I'm in charge of it, or I just, it seems like we're, we're creating, you mentioned like, uh, game theory. And nuclear war, what prevented nuclear war? I mean, presumably mutually assured destruction. I mean, hopefully also humanity and the humanity and the reasonable, you know, cooler heads prevailing and going, hey, I can, I can understand the veil of ignorance.

• 2:27:54Speaker 01

  And I, I don't go, oh yeah, let me kill those guys because I can't. I go, this is wrong, period. And in concept, this is not an action I should take. But it's also nice and easy to keep me honest if I know that I can't get you without being got myself.

• 2:28:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:07Speaker 01

  But what happens when I can get anyone, anything? And I'm more or less untouchable. Like, that seems to me to be like, like various times in colonial history. You know what I mean? And what happened? We know what happened.

• 2:28:20Lex Fridman?

  But, so the possibility of really bad things are plentiful, the possibilities. But the possibilities of really positive things are plentiful.

• 2:28:31Speaker 01

  Like, like what, though? I'm not saying wrong. I don't, I don't even know.

• 2:28:34Lex Fridman?

  So I can give a million examples.

• 2:28:35Speaker 01

  Sweet.

• 2:28:36Lex Fridman?

  One is just the examples of the parent and the child. You said, there's a power differential there. And we don't like a parent hitting their child.

• 2:28:49Speaker 01

  What about not just hitting, like beating?

• 2:28:51Lex Fridman?

  Beating, yeah, great. Beating their child. How often, percentage wise, do you see that happening? Even though that, that, that power differential, first of all, other people's kids. Let's just put this on the table. I love kids. But others' people's kids can be annoying sometimes.

• 2:29:11Speaker 01

  Sometimes you gotta deal out some justice. I get it.

• 2:29:14Lex Fridman?

  But we don't practice. We don't take advantage of that power differential.

• 2:29:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:29:18Lex Fridman?

  So like, there is ethics. There's moralities that emerge that allow the power differential to be used for good versus for bad. So like, you're, one of the assumptions with Stephen Hawking or with, if Russia became much more powerful than America, or America much more powerful than Russia in the Cold War, your assumption that immediately that power differential, not your assumption, but.

• 2:29:42Speaker 01

  Would express itself, right?

• 2:29:43Lex Fridman?

  Would express itself in the. In the same way that it was trying to express itself when there was a more level competition, but it's also possible when the power differential grows, the incentive, the joy, whatever the mechanisms that

• 2:30:00Lex Fridman?

  made sense when it was at the same level, the incentives become very different. It's not as fun to destroy the ant colony. You start becoming more the kind of a conservationalist like.

• 2:30:12Speaker 01

  One hopes. That's an evolved perspective, though, yeah?

• 2:30:14Lex Fridman?

  Well, I don't know if it's evolved or not, but it's definitely a possibility. It's unclear to me that something that's many orders of magnitude more powerful than us will want to destroy us.

• 2:30:25Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, what did we, what did, I mean, how did, how did mass slavery occur? How did, you know, like, just big dogs playing with not?

• 2:30:33Lex Fridman?

  I think, I think slavery and a lot of the atrocities in history happened when the power differential was not as great as, as we're talking about with AI potentially.

• 2:30:46Speaker 01

  Is that not somehow worse than?

• 2:30:48Lex Fridman?

  It would, it's not obvious to me. It's not obvious that things that are way more powerful, that.

• 2:30:53Speaker 01

  That's fair, okay.

• 2:30:54Lex Fridman?

  So I think, I think you're.

• 2:30:56Speaker 01

  I guess, how do you restrain it, though?

• 2:30:58Lex Fridman?

  There, there's a lot of different discussions of how to.

• 2:31:02Speaker 01

  I guess even restrain each other, because let's say I go and decide to strike someone's child, which I'd like to think I wouldn't do.

• 2:31:06Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:31:06Speaker 01

  I will be promptly, I will find myself in front of a judge. And so I feel like there's a lot, can you imagine how many people used to get murdered? Just in the woods.

• 2:31:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:15Speaker 01

  I mean, I would just presume it's a lot, you know, and I don't think most people are lunatics like that, but I would just say.

• 2:31:22Lex Fridman?

  But that's the point.

• 2:31:22Speaker 01

  If you're given, though, if you're given to that, your ability to get away with it was, was greater in the past because of chance of detection was less. So that does, I don't know.

• 2:31:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so this is what is called in artificial intelligence, AI safety research, called value alignment of ensuring as you build the, the systems that become smarter and smarter, more powerful and powerful, make sure that their values are aligned with the entities over which they're becoming powerful with, with humans. So if you were to talk to an AI that's becoming smarter, first it's dumber than you, but then it's becoming smarter and smarter, you have to create mechanisms where you both value the same things.

• 2:32:03Speaker 01

  I guess one thing I wonder, so I guess I'm, I'm probably not like sharp enough to grasp this, if I'm honest, but I guess like I wonder like, I use the chess programs.

• 2:32:13Speaker 01

  You know, was Deep Blue, Stockfish, and then like Alpha Zero, and Alpha Zero teaching itself to beat Stockfish without any help in four hours.

• 2:32:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:32:23Speaker 01

  Like, it becomes orders of magnitude more intelligent than us in effectively an instantaneous period. I guess, well, I always wondered, like, if you were that much smarter than me,

• 2:32:35Speaker 01

  I feel like your ability to manipulate me would be pretty significant, or at least potentially, you know?

• 2:32:39Lex Fridman?

  But manipulation implies that the incentive is to overpower everything around you. Like, there's implied incentives. If your value is to actually, like,

• 2:32:56Lex Fridman?

  it depends what you want in life.

• 2:32:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:32:58Lex Fridman?

  What you want in your system. It's not clear that the goal of an AI system that's all-powerful is to destroy all humans.

• 2:33:06Speaker 01

  No, I don't think that, I don't think that it is either. I guess what I'm-

• 2:33:08Lex Fridman?

  Or even enslave all humans.

• 2:33:10Speaker 01

  I, that's fair. I guess what I'm trying to suggest is that something adequately powerful, these, these actions are on the table.

• 2:33:17Lex Fridman?

  Yes, they're on the table, and that's scary. And that's why a lot of people are really concerned about it and are working on it. Like, I'm just trying to make the case for AGI, because if they're watching this,

• 2:33:29Lex Fridman?

  he's the one to kill.

• 2:33:30Speaker 01

  No, actually, I was thinking, I was, uh, yeah. I, I, I wash toilets, like, really well.

• 2:33:38Lex Fridman?

  No, I mean, that, that's the main concern for all the people in the AI safety research. People talk about AGIs. It's, uh, it's kind of disturbing how little people are working on

• 2:33:53Lex Fridman?

  trying to create mechanisms that keep AI's values aligned with ours.

• 2:33:58Speaker 01

  That's completely unshocking.

• 2:34:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. We, we humans seem to do only good when, like-

• 2:34:06Lex Fridman?

  You know, you even look at like coronavirus, it's like when like the water has to be leaking from the ceiling, you have to be there.

• 2:34:14Speaker 01

  Fine, fine.

• 2:34:15Lex Fridman?

  Blood everywhere, fire, just destruction. We just seem to ignore completely any trouble.

• 2:34:23Speaker 01

  Writing all over the wall.

• 2:34:24Lex Fridman?

  Writing all over the wall. This is fine.

• 2:34:27Speaker 01

  Sure, nothing to see here, we'll be okay.

• 2:34:29Lex Fridman?

  But we do all right, especially in the United States, you figure out even when it's becomes a really serious problem, taking actions last minute, there's something about the innovative spirit that results in a solution last minute, right before the deadline.

• 2:34:46Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I don't know how you did school, probably a lot better than me.

• 2:34:49Lex Fridman?

  That's exactly how I did school.

• 2:34:51Speaker 01

  I couldn't be, I was no motivation up until like the last, if you're like, we have 22 hours to do the entire semesters of work. Like, let's do this.

• 2:34:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:59Speaker 01

  And you had like 19 fricking Mountain Dews and then, uh, yeah.

• 2:35:02Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's, that's why you and I are failures in life because I just talked to, I mentioned Cal Newport, with his book, Deep Work and so on. He is of the variety of these creatures that basically does everything ahead of time.

• 2:35:17Speaker 01

  That's shocking.

• 2:35:18Lex Fridman?

  Because he, this dislikes the, he thinks it's unproductive to experience the stress and anxiety of the deadline. Because you're just, you're, you're not going to be your best performance wise. And you're not going to do the best work. So it doesn't make any, it's completely irrational to, uh, to a function based on the deadline, you should have a system, a process that gets stuff, a little bit of stuff done every day. So like, you should be, and constantly be systematically honest with yourself. If you say, I'm going to get this stuff done today and this week, at the end of the day, at the end of the week, you have to then reflect on what you did, what you planned. And, uh, improve that plan, update it constantly, update it every day, every week, every quarter, whatever those durations are.

• 2:36:04Lex Fridman?

  As, as I'm listening to this and reading his stuff, it's like, oh, yeah, I agree with everything. I'm like, yes, I'm clapping. But like the reality is, and then I go back and just eat Cheetos and like, don't do shit until like last minute. Actually, I don't eat cheetos, but yes.

• 2:36:22Speaker 01

  But actually, again, not that it'll ever matter, not that it's ever gonna matter because he's so shockingly productive and well thought out that whatever I've decided to think about trying to monkey wrench in there is definitely gonna be able to deal with. But it's funny that, again, because you're a human being, not a god, all of your strengths are you have a corresponding weakness. The less you practice working under the gun, the less comfortable you are working under the gun, the more practice you have working under the gun, the better you get at it. The downside is you're always working under the gun, so you're less productive, or it's like your work quality maybe drops. So it's an interesting thing. It's like, it's almost like, hey, I wonder if this, I wonder if Khabib Nurmagomedov has a lot of heart, and I'd say the answer's almost certainly yes, but you go, well, he hasn't struggled a bunch, maybe he doesn't struggle well, and it just so happens that he can also work under the gun really well, he just doesn't like to do it. But, yeah, but it's an interesting thing.

• 2:37:07Speaker 01

  It's like, I guess, what is it, the Aristotle, we are what we repeatedly do, we are all, we're all practicing something all the time. So I guess it's funny, I guess that's a question that I have, though, I would love to ask him, it'd be really neat, is in certain jobs, I mean, obviously, you want to have preparation, always, always, but certain things have like a degree of like entropy in the system, and you go, I need to practice working under the gun, and I'm not saying that's what I need to do, because fighting, it should be, for the most part, it's a really sterile environment in the grand scheme of things, like fighting in a cage is very sterile compared to most other things in life, right? But, dangerous, but sterile. And unless, of course, like, you know, like the other guy, the ref decides to hit you, it should be hilarious.

• 2:37:48Speaker 01

  But, anyway, I guess, just going like, okay, so at what value do you get out of adding a degree of, let's say, it could even be planned by someone else, but junk in the system, and you just have to work under the gun to make it happen. Let's say, for instance, like, police or something like that, the situation turns left hard at some random point in time, and that could happen to any number of people. So I guess it's interesting, things that allow for perfect planning or quasi-perfect planning versus things that are inherently unstable. And then what are the, what's the psychological fallout of comfort with that? Because I think a lot of people that are really comfortable under the gun.

• 2:38:25Speaker 01

  Let it happen a lot for all the good and the bad of that. Does that make sense?

• 2:38:28Lex Fridman?

  No, that totally makes sense. It was, I mean, his answer would be that you have to be honest with yourself. If it's valuable for your success to practice being under the gun and then you should schedule that.

• 2:38:41Speaker 01

  John, then he's smart.

• 2:38:42Lex Fridman?

  You should plan that. It's just systematically and then as opposed to doing it half hastily because it's, as opposed to letting the environment choose the randomness, like control the randomness to where like you optimize it.

• 2:38:56Speaker 01

  How is it? It's so efficient. It's shocking just to hear about it.

• 2:38:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, no, he's, he's, I mean, the same way you are, he's annoying in the same way, which is like he, he drops truth bombs. It's like, yeah, yeah, that's so true.

• 2:39:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're probably comparably, yeah, doing that. Yeah, no, he does.

• 2:39:15Lex Fridman?

  But he's, so he, his profession requires that. So he's not just like a motivational speaker, whatever. He, uh, he's a, a, a computer science, theoretical computer scientist and he needs the long hours in the day of doing like serious math. So it's mostly math proofs and for that you have to sit and think really deeply. It's like really hard work compared to like, uh, what most people do, like even what I, I mean, what I do, like programming is way easier than rigorous math proofs because you have to basically have this machine and you have to, your brain to churn out logic in a focused way while visualizing a bunch of things and holding that in your brain

• 2:39:58Lex Fridman?

  and holding that for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, hopefully several hours. And you're not just like doing homework. You're doing totally novel stuff. So like stuff that nobody's ever done before. So you keep running up against the wall of like, fuck, this is a done and, oh no, wait, is this a dead end? And like that whole frustration, that's serious mental work. That's like incredibly difficult mental work. So he knows what he's talking about.

• 2:40:23Speaker 01

  That's amazing. But like you said, he's like, this seems like the standard for the quality of work that he needs is so high.

• 2:40:29Lex Fridman?

  So high.

• 2:40:30Speaker 01

  That almost anything less than this level of systematization and organization would preclude it, right?

• 2:40:35Lex Fridman?

  So he can't afford the kind of bullshit that, I don't know about you, but that certainly I do, which is like last deadline kind of stuff. Cause you can't do that kind of work, uh, last minute on deadline kind of stuff. So. My, my question for him in general is like, and for you and I is like, well, here's these negative patterns that we do of like doing shit last minute and so on. Is this just who we are now? Or are there some?

• 2:41:03Speaker 01

  I don't think I'm really big into a free will. You know, I was thinking that it's mostly predestination. At least in this regard.

• 2:41:09Lex Fridman?

  This, it's the same with like communism, like as long as it fits my, uh, whatever is the lazy thing to do. I'll, I'll just not believe in free will.

• 2:41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not a communist and opportunist.

• 2:41:21Lex Fridman?

  I'm an opportunistic communist and capitalist. I just do whatever, whatever is cool at the time.

• 2:41:28Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:41:30Lex Fridman?

  Let me ask you, um, to examine some fundamental principles of a particular thing that Joe Rogan brought up to me several times online and offline.

• 2:41:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:41:40Lex Fridman?

  Which is that he thinks that the tie that I wear.

• 2:41:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:41:46Lex Fridman?

  Is something that makes me vulnerable to attack that you should be, the, the reason he doesn't wear a tie is because he can get choked very easily with a tie.

• 2:41:57Speaker 01

  It's a big concern.

• 2:41:59Lex Fridman?

  Okay. My contention, and by the way, he wore a suit last time too. He didn't wear it on the podcast. He wore it for dinner later.

• 2:42:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wore a suit the other day and I, I had, uh, no socks on. I didn't realize, yeah.

• 2:42:12Lex Fridman?

  You're supposed to wear socks?

• 2:42:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's my understanding.

• 2:42:14Lex Fridman?

  Why'd you wear a suit? Did you go to court?

• 2:42:16Speaker 01

  No, no, not in that, no.

• 2:42:20Speaker 01

  I, I don't know. I just wanted to play. I wanted to pretend I was an adult for a day.

• 2:42:23Lex Fridman?

  Okay, cool.

• 2:42:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:24Lex Fridman?

  So, uh, so my contention is like the jacket. Everything is more dangerous than a tie.

• 2:42:33Speaker 01

  That's kind of where I was going with that. That's kind of where, yeah, it was my first thought too. Like if, once the tie becomes an issue, like.

• 2:42:39Lex Fridman?

  I feel like everything else is already an issue.

• 2:42:40Speaker 01

  It's already an issue. Yeah.

• 2:42:42Lex Fridman?

  Because the tie to me now, without like messing with it now is, is to me has some of the similar problems that a belt does. So like, for example, I don't know about you, maybe you can correct me, but I'm not sure you can use the belt as tied.

• 2:42:59Lex Fridman?

  Uh, you know, I know there's some kind of um guards you can probably utilize the belt with. But the belt, sorry, when it's tied around the waist.

• 2:43:09Speaker 01

  You mean we're talking about a belt belt or a gi belt?

• 2:43:11Lex Fridman?

  Sorry, gi belt.

• 2:43:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:43:12Lex Fridman?

  Sorry, gi belt importantly, gi belt. It's it's not that great of a thing to use. In most cases, I would say, because it slides.

• 2:43:22Speaker 01

  Yep, that's true.

• 2:43:23Lex Fridman?

  There it doesn't, you can probably invent a few interesting ways to use it as leverage, as control and so on. But there's just so many more things around.

• 2:43:34Speaker 01

  That are better.

• 2:43:35Lex Fridman?

  Gi belt.

• 2:43:35Speaker 01

  Better suited.

• 2:43:36Lex Fridman?

  Better.

• 2:43:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:37Lex Fridman?

  And so for me, the tie, what people don't realize.

• 2:43:39Speaker 01

  That's better. Are we trying to sell a DVD here and have some some widgets and bells and whistles? Because in that case, the belt is a really important part of what we do. And I would really encourage you guys to look into it.

• 2:43:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:48Speaker 01

  Uh, if if we're trying to actually like learn something, I'd say, like you said, we're surrounded by better options.

• 2:43:53Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's the thing. I mean, it's not obvious to me that the belt. Maybe there's actually undiscovered things about using the belt. You know, I think people have used like like putting a foot inside the belt somehow. Inside the gi belt, there's some.

• 2:44:06Speaker 01

  Well, this is a no punches gi grappling situation, yes?

• 2:44:08Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 2:44:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:44:09Lex Fridman?

  I guess so.

• 2:44:09Speaker 01

  It's already fairly contrived, right?

• 2:44:10Lex Fridman?

  But with punches too, like is there, okay, let's let's talk about a street fights with a belt that's like a jeans belt, like a belt, clothing belt.

• 2:44:17Speaker 01

  Okay, so I get to take it off and whip them in the face with the buckle? How's how serious is this street fight? Are we talking like that far in Oklahoma?

• 2:44:23Lex Fridman?

  No, a hundred percent serious.

• 2:44:24Speaker 01

  Beat up, or are we talking like?

• 2:44:25Lex Fridman?

  No, like death, like one of you has to die.

• 2:44:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yikes, whoa.

• 2:44:29Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 2:44:29Speaker 01

  Oh, you you ever, like.

• 2:44:31Lex Fridman?

  I I'm in this situation all the time.

• 2:44:33Speaker 01

  I understand.

• 2:44:35Lex Fridman?

  And there's a reason I'm still here.

• 2:44:36Speaker 01

  I had somebody, I had somebody try to fight me in Starbucks the other day.

• 2:44:39Lex Fridman?

  Kids, we're talking about power differential.

• 2:44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:42Lex Fridman?

  Beat up kids all the time.

• 2:44:43Speaker 01

  Pick the easy W's, you gotta get the easy W's, you want the hard ones.

• 2:44:45Lex Fridman?

  I'm undefeated.

• 2:44:47Speaker 01

  Come around the playground, watch what happens.

• 2:44:48Lex Fridman?

  No, like to the to the death, what is their clothing that's useful? You know, from my perspective.

• 2:44:55Speaker 01

  For your use or their use?

• 2:44:57Lex Fridman?

  Uh, both. My use, their use. No, like, I like how you want to take the belt off and use the buckle to hit them with. But first of all, how are you gonna take off the, like, the belt?

• 2:45:07Speaker 01

  Well.

• 2:45:07Lex Fridman?

  There's a lot of effort involved in unclothing.

• 2:45:10Speaker 01

  Well, what I was figuring was, when they started to see me take my pants off in the fight, they were like, what? They're gonna pause and rethink the situation for a second?

• 2:45:18Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:45:18Speaker 01

  And I'm making dead eye contact, obviously, so on. Yeah, exactly. Nodding. And then, you know, by the time they realize you took a belt off until you could whip them with it, you actually, you're already, one, possibly two steps ahead.

• 2:45:29Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so fine. Let's not talk about your own clothing, let's talk about their clothing.

• 2:45:32Speaker 01

  Okay, I'll take off their belt and hit them with it.

• 2:45:34Lex Fridman?

  No, but that's, that's much harder.

• 2:45:35Speaker 01

  No question. But if you can do it.

• 2:45:37Lex Fridman?

  While maintaining, I got, no.

• 2:45:40Speaker 01

  How did it come to this?

• 2:45:42Lex Fridman?

  There's all, but the point is, there's alternatives that are perhaps more effective.

• 2:45:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:45:47Lex Fridman?

  In my perspective, this might be clueless, there's almost no clothing that's more effective than, almost assuming the situation is no geek grappling. Like, I feel like clothing.

• 2:46:00Speaker 01

  Particularly when you start to add hitting. Like, every single time I start grabbing your clothes, if you start, you start hitting, it's not like nothing could work, but most of the time, you're like, why am I not using my arms for something better than what I'm doing them right now?

• 2:46:11Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 2:46:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:12Lex Fridman?

  It's, it's very difficult for me to, I don't know, in terms of just distance, I can't imagine a case of different distances, even like situations where, let's not talk about like, like a situation where you haven't both yet agreed that a fight is happening?

• 2:46:28Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Solid clothing's nice if they have it on, then.

• 2:46:31Lex Fridman?

  Solid clothing?

• 2:46:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, like something like a good jacket, because you can snatch somebody on their face.

• 2:46:35Lex Fridman?

  Snatch, snatch down.

• 2:46:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it's like, if you, if you took my, like, you know, like, you snap down in judo, like, how easy it is to snap down a beginner?

• 2:46:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:43Speaker 01

  It's like.

• 2:46:43Lex Fridman?

  So, I, I agree with you. Actually, a tie in that sense might be a really effective way to snap down. So, like, the snap down is really powerful to change the, like, disorient the situation and give you a lot of different opportunities for. You know, taking their back, taking them down.

• 2:47:00Speaker 01

  Doing hilarious stuff like snapping them down with a tie into your knee. And then when they come back up doing this, you're already.

• 2:47:06Lex Fridman?

  So, yeah, in that sense, I agree, but not as a choking mechanism because the concern Joe had is choke.

• 2:47:11Speaker 01

  I think you probably choked me with your tie more easily than I could choke you with your tie.

• 2:47:14Lex Fridman?

  Probably.

• 2:47:14Speaker 01

  I'm serious because like if you get, you can get like you get my back and you can put it around somebody's neck, you know, like, uh, like, like, you ever see Die Hard?

• 2:47:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. You remember when, when the super Swedish looking blonde dude or whatever was, was trying to choke Bruce Willis with the, uh, with the chain and then he ended up getting choked himself with the chain, if I recall this properly. But anyway, yeah, like, like that, but, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't feel like, I feel like if I start grabbing your tie, you have too many other great options.

• 2:47:40Lex Fridman?

  I mean, I do like the snap down that you actually made me realize.

• 2:47:43Speaker 01

  No, I think you have, yeah, good there.

• 2:47:44Lex Fridman?

  What's that?

• 2:47:45Speaker 01

  I think you're on the right path with it.

• 2:47:46Lex Fridman?

  With a snap down?

• 2:47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, particularly if you start with like one of these, like, you know, like, like you, like you poke your finger in my chest and then snap down real quick.

• 2:47:53Lex Fridman?

  Oh, yeah, because it, it also socially speaking, it's not a threatening thing to, you know, to, to reach for the tie.

• 2:48:00Speaker 01

  Particularly like a business setting, you know, I mean, they'll never see it coming.

• 2:48:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, because I was thinking choke, but it's not, it's a really good leverage point because like grabbing a jacket, the jacket will slide if you try to snap down. You really have to get a whole, like a really good hold.

• 2:48:14Speaker 01

  Well, that's a good point because it's around the back of the neck. What if it's a clip on? How much of a jackass would you look like if you're like? And then they just, they stick you one. But you ever see the, uh, Japanese politician or I think it was Japan?

• 2:48:23Lex Fridman?

  The Judo throw?

• 2:48:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, the guy is so, he was so calm and cool, had like, it was every, it was beautiful technique. The, the level of, uh, of actually the throw was even gentle.

• 2:48:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:34Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah, it was perfect. It's amazing.

• 2:48:35Lex Fridman?

  Well executed?

• 2:48:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:48:37Lex Fridman?

  More, more of our politicians is just toss the shit out of each other.

• 2:48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, we need more Teddy Roosevelt's. Exactly. I like, our politicians like talking about fighting when it's clear that none of them even, it would ever have been in a fight ever.

• 2:48:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, somebody was saying Teddy Roosevelt is interesting. I didn't realize this is he's one of the greatest presidents this country's had. And he was one of the greatest presidents, even though he faced no crisis whatsoever. He literally willed himself, like nothing happened during his presidency. He's just a bad motherfucker who made really great speeches.

• 2:49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:49:07Lex Fridman?

  So you're like, you know, uh, this made me realize, I was just talking to a historian that like, most of the people who we think are great need also a good crisis that they've, that reveal their greatness.

• 2:49:19Speaker 01

  Muhammad Ali, right?

• 2:49:20Lex Fridman?

  This Muhammad Ali, I mean, in sports.

• 2:49:23Speaker 01

  But, uh, but you know what I mean? Like the circumstances, what is greatness? You know what I mean? It's like you have to, it's not just your capacity, it's what you, what you face, right? It's the quality of opposition, circumstance, what you overcome.

• 2:49:33Lex Fridman?

  So I guess what you're saying is Joe Rogan is wrong about the Thai thing.

• 2:49:37Speaker 01

  You know, I don't want to go so far as saying he's wrong. I, you know, the man's not here to defend himself. Maybe he has some things that I'm not understanding.

• 2:49:43Lex Fridman?

  No, he has not deeply thought this. This is my main criticism of Joe. He's not deeply thought to this. And the MMA journalist will be like, Ryan Hall says Joe Rogan is wrong.

• 2:49:52Speaker 01

  And hates ties.

• 2:49:53Lex Fridman?

  And hates ties. They'll integrate Hitler back in there somehow.

• 2:49:58Speaker 01

  Nice, nice.

• 2:49:59Lex Fridman?

  What's, uh, you're talking about greatness and greatness requiring a difficult moment in time. Can you like reflect back and think what are some of the hardest, if not the hardest thing you've ever had to do in your life?

• 2:50:15Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I think I've had, had a bunch of things, you know, I've had a lot of things not go my way. Um, you know, been incredibly fortunate. I've had a lot of things go my way also. Um, but, uh, leaving, leaving Team Lord Urban in 2008, which I firmly believe was the right thing to do. Um, is one of the, uh, uh, that was very difficult at the time, not like, not a difficult choice, but it was, uh, because of why I was leaving. But, um.

• 2:50:41Lex Fridman?

  Psychologically, first of all, loss in general, leaving.

• 2:50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:50:44Lex Fridman?

  Team, a family, all kinds. It doesn't matter what the circumstances.

• 2:50:47Speaker 01

  I didn't lose any friends, but I lost a lot of people I thought were my friends. And I, uh, I lost training, I lost, I'd also had like a really serious, my wrist only does that. So like, uh, I had a really serious, uh, wrist surgery like that. I didn't know if I was going to be able to compete anymore after that. I just got my brown belt. That was, uh, it was a tough time, like, uh, psychologically, physically, everything. But I was very, very motivated to do my best and to, to push through it and to, uh, it was to carry on in a positive direction, no matter what, in a different direction. And, uh.

• 2:51:18Lex Fridman?

  Were you lonely? This, this is the thing about family, even if it's an abusive family, leaving. It's tough.

• 2:51:24Speaker 01

  People are complicated. And even people that I that I don't think very well of, that I think on the whole, I don't think very well of. It's it's unfair to paint them with one brush. Um, you know, obviously there's greater and lesser examples of that, like the person we discussed last time, who's infinitely, you know, beyond almost anyone that we could ever imagine meeting in our own personal lives.

• 2:51:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Bloody elbow. Yeah.

• 2:51:48Lex Fridman?

  In terms of forgiveness and hate, I mean, do you do you have hate in your heart for for people in your past?

• 2:51:55Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:51:55Lex Fridman?

  For that process?

• 2:51:56Speaker 01

  No, I mean, there were definitely times where I've been negatively motivated to prove people wrong or to accomplish things despite, and I think that some of that is valuable. If I'm being line, if I felt differently, I think particularly, uh, I do really well in conflict. Um, I'm useless for that.

• 2:52:12Lex Fridman?

  The usual deadline thing?

• 2:52:14Speaker 01

  I'm useless, yeah.

• 2:52:14Lex Fridman?

  You like the chaos?

• 2:52:15Speaker 01

  I'm useless, I do. I'm useless at an antagonist. I like fighting. I like competition. I like being pushed. I like feeling like if I don't play well, I'm gonna get hurt. I have no choice but to play well or play with everything I got at the very least. And I guess I would say, though, is, uh, you know, as I've gotten, um, you know, more time and, you know, lived a little bit longer, you see, you know, various situations for, uh, you know, you know, with increased, uh, increased color, I guess I would say, increased clarity. And, uh, you know, there are a lot of lessons to be learned even from from times in history or bad experiences we have. And the question is, can we take those lessons and move forward? And that's again, what I think we're seeing in sometimes socially right now.

• 2:53:00Speaker 01

  We're forgetting important lessons of the past. And that's not good. Not saying, hey, I don't get why we why we could be going in this direction or that. I understand entirely, but hey, let's not forget the lesson so we don't have to learn them again. Because that doesn't really serve anybody. And anyway, I guess I would say I'm thankful for all of the experiences, difficult and otherwise, mostly difficult. Honestly, most of the times I remember, I'm thankful for every loss I've ever had, particularly the tough ones. I'm thankful for, uh, you know, for all the relationships. Many people have taught me many things and continue to teach me many things, some of whom are still some of my closest friends, some of whom are people I really don't get along with at all, and some of whom are people I think. Really poorly of, oh, there's not many of that last group.

• 2:53:41Speaker 01

  What I guess I would say is, uh, there's, there's been a lot of things and opportunities to learn. And, uh, you know, throughout that, and also it's not as if I've never done, made any mistakes myself. Now, again, there, there are magnitude differences, I like to think. And I can definitely say that none of the mistakes that I've ever made have been mistakes of intention. You know, I've screwed up a lot of things in my life, but I can confidently and, and easily say that I've never had ill intent towards people as I've done it. And so you sit there and like, man, it's just the right thing, it's the right thing. And sometimes I've been wrong, but, uh, you know, you never sit out with malicious intent. And I think that when I find that I think people do things differently, when I do think that there is malicious intent, I have a difficult time forgiving that.

• 2:54:20Lex Fridman?

  How does love win over hate, Ryan Hall? In this world, we talk about social media. We talk about forgiveness of, uh, some of the more complicated people in your past. Uh, if we scale that to the entire world before the AI destroys us. And the, the, the human race is lost to history. How do you think love wins over hate?

• 2:54:46Speaker 01

  Well, I'd like to preface this by saying, I tried to make pancakes the other day.

• 2:54:50Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:54:52Speaker 01

  Didn't work, but I'm happy to comment on this. So, uh, basically, uh,

• 2:54:57Lex Fridman?

  Wow.

• 2:54:58Speaker 01

  I, I, I think like, I think most of the times that, that I can think of that I've struggled. You know, it's, uh, and can, and the times that I've read about is being unable to see the humanity in other people. And also even in sometimes our enemies and the people that have done awful things. And you go, what would allow people to do this, that, or the other? And that doesn't forgive what they've done, depending upon, you know, some things are forgivable, some things are less so. But you want to understand why it's like, to our knowledge, demons don't populate our world. Neither do like literal angels walking around being actually perfect. A lot of times the things that it's, I find it deeply amusing watching, you know, people hoisted by their own batard on Twitter, even though it's gross and it's really unproductive.

• 2:55:43Speaker 01

  It's actually like equal parts amusing and like awful, because you're not, you're not happy that someone's being raked over the coals, particularly unjustifiably.

• 2:55:51Speaker 01

  But it is funny when it's the exact same thing. They were raking others over the coals for not like a week or two prior. And that's happened repeatedly and will continue to happen. And I guess I would say, as you mentioned, you know, a prior, you know, like a recognition of the humanity of others of that all of us make mistakes, that it's difficult to understand intention. I've had arguments with close friends of mine over text message, where both of us ended up super pissed because we were completely misreading what the tone, the intention of what the other person was doing. And even if I was reading it correctly, which I wasn't, it's so easy to ascribe the most negative possible, you know, the least charitable assessment of what they're doing. And I think that that's such a dangerous way to live your life.

• 2:56:32Speaker 01

  And it's also just a fruitless way to live your life. You know, it's one thing to go, hey, why did you do that? I was pissed. Did you, what did you do? You just, you did that to make yourself feel better. I'm like, you damn right I did. And have I done that plenty of times in my life? Yeah, I would lie if I said that I didn't, you know, uh, why did, why did you punch that guy in the face? He was going crazy at me and hit me and I asked him to stop. And then I gave warning and I put him on his ass. I'm like, no, I'm not sorry. But then looking back now with years to sit on them like, do I understand why I did what I did? Absolutely. Would I like to respond differently now? Yeah, I would, you know, and it doesn't mean that I think plenty of things that people do are understandable. Doesn't mean understandable, doesn't mean correct. Understandable doesn't mean that you go, oh yeah, that's great.

• 2:57:14Speaker 01

  You go, I could, I could see someone doing such a thing. But I guess just wrecking, trying to understand and see the humanity in others. Cause if I can't see the humanity in others, how can I see it in myself? And also, you know, how am I meant to interact with everyone? As, as you said, whether, you know, even if we're a society of individuals, for at least for the time being, hopefully, you know, in perpetuity, we, we still come together as a whole. And watching, it's weird. Like you said, it's, it's if I only ask why once I start with, stay out of my way and I'll stay out of yours. Leave me the fuck alone. You're like, okay, that's fine, Ryan. But that's easy for you to say, living in a society that doesn't actually function like that. So it's a little bit cheap. But if I recognize that that's step one is I don't hurt you and you don't hurt me. But then we go, but how can I help you?

• 2:57:58Speaker 01

  That's step two, and then it goes way beyond that and a lot further than I've thought about it. But I guess what I would just say is, again, recognition of the humanity in others and that we all have different strengths, we all have different weaknesses, and you can never really be sure where the other person's coming from. But if we approach things charitably, as charitably as we would hope others would approach us, I think we'll do a lot better. And I guess one thing that I read that I liked, that I thought was accurate and unfortunately disappointing, was everyone is a great, you know, jury, or I'm sorry, a great lawyer for themselves and a judge for others. And I think that's a terrible way to live life, even if it's an understandable one.

• 2:58:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:31Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 2:58:32Lex Fridman?

  Probably flipping that is the right way to live.

• 2:58:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:58:36Lex Fridman?

  Being constantly judgmental of yourself and a defender of others. And that results ultimately in the interaction that de-escalates versus escalates.

• 2:58:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:58:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:47Speaker 01

  And you can, we can all live in a world like that. And sometimes you're like, hey, man, people that deserve punishment won't get it. Like, okay, hey, what do they say? Better to have, you know, 10 guilty people go free than wanting this in person, you know, burn. And ultimately, that is, I think that is a better world than the other way around.

• 2:59:04Lex Fridman?

  And if all else fails, join the team that builds the AI that kills all humans.

• 2:59:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, obviously. I mean, if you have to be on a team, pick the winning team. That's been the, that's.

• 2:59:13Lex Fridman?

  That's my hiring pitch, actually.

• 2:59:15Speaker 01

  It's a good hiring pitch. You still taking resumes?

• 2:59:19Lex Fridman?

  You want to be on the team that doesn't die during the great apocalypse.

• 2:59:22Speaker 01

  Not immediately. You want to be on the one that's, you know, eventually long-suffering and stepped on, right?

• 2:59:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Life is suffering, Ryan Hall. This was an amazing conversation. I really enjoyed talking to you. I could probably talk to you for many more hours. I hope I do as well. Ryan, I love you, buddy. This was a great conversation. Thanks for talking today.

• 2:59:41Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

• 2:59:43Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for listening to this conversation with Ryan Hall, and thank you to our sponsors. Indeed Hiring website, Audible audiobooks, ExpressVPN, and Element Electro Light Drink. Click the sponsor links to get a discount and to support this podcast. And now, let me leave you with some words from Frank Herbert in Dune. "I must not fear. Fear is the mindkiller. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

• 3:00:27Lex Fridman?

  Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

• 3:00:49Lex Fridman?

  Thank you.