Tucker Debates Biotech CEO on Baby Customization, Eugenics, and God’s Existence

Kian Sadeghi, CEO of Nucleus Genomics, wants to help parents design their own babies, from height to IQ to personality traits. What happens to humanity when we have the power to tamper with life’s formula? Kian Sadeghi is the founder and CEO of Nucleus Genomics, a genetic testing company that screens embryos for disease and allows parents to choose the traits of their unborn child. He founded Nucleus in 2021. Kian has been named a Thiel Fellow, and Nucleus has raised more than $32 million from investors including Founders Fund, Seven Seven Six, and Samsung Next. Paid partnerships with: Cozy Earth: Luxury shouldn't be out of reach. Get up to 20% off at https://cozyearth.com/TUCKER Defend: Enter code "Tucker" for 20% off your purchase at https://defendcellcam.comTCN: NEW! Tucker Carlson Books presents Russell Brand’s ‘How to Become a Christian in 7 Days.’ Available only on https://tuckercarlsonbooks.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:34Tucker Carlson?

  Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. I'll just say at the outset, which I told you off-camera, I disagree with this conceptually, I think. But I'm also completely ignorant of the details.

• 0:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:46Tucker Carlson?

  So I kind of want to know what this is before even asking you questions about whether it's a good idea. Can you just stand back and let you explain what you're doing?

• 0:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, so first, thanks for having me on.

• 0:56Tucker Carlson?

  Of course.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  So patients, there's one way of reproducing via IVF, right? So you can conceive naturally via sex, or maybe if you're infertile, or if you have some sort of hereditary disease or for some other reason, you do IVF. When you do, yeah.

• 1:11Tucker Carlson?

  I'm sorry, I specialize in them questions. Can you just explain for people who don't know?

• 1:14Speaker 02

  What is IVF?

• 1:15Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, what is IVF?

• 1:16Speaker 02

  IVF stands for in vitro fertilization. So basically, imagine the egg and the sperm, the foundation of life to make an embryo. It's basically putting those things together in a clinic.

• 1:26Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  And then basically, you take that embryo and you transfer it into a woman, and then it would implant, and the woman's pregnant.

• 1:32Tucker Carlson?

  So conception takes place outside the womb?

• 1:34Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:34Tucker Carlson?

  Okay.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so during this process of IVF, what you do is today, even if nucleus didn't exist, even if genetic optimization didn't exist, you make several embryos. Okay, so in an IVF clinic, you make several embryos. The amount of embryos you end up making varies, but you might have four or five. You actually do genetic testing on these embryos to identify things like chromosomal abnormalities, like Down syndrome, for example. Right, so that's very commonplace. So that's done in basically every IVF clinic in the United States. They will actually screen embryos, the genetics of the embryos, to see if they have some sort of severe chromosomal abnormality. What we do is we basically provide more Information on embryos. So we also read the DNA. But now we give information on things like other hereditary disease risk. Also chronic diseases, things like cancers, Alzheimer's, diabetes.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Also traits like IQ or height or et cetera. So to be clear, we're not changing any DNA. There's this process in IVF where you make embryos. Already genetic testing is done in embryos. What we do now is we provide you a little bit more information on your embryos. So the basically that information can be used then implant which embryo the couple deems to be best. So basically give more information to couples to then choose whichever they want to implant.

• 2:45Tucker Carlson?

  I don't want to derail this conversation two minutes in.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:49Tucker Carlson?

  But you've just said we can tell the IQ of a person by the genetics.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  So IQ.

• 2:55Tucker Carlson?

  I was reliably informed IQ is not real. Okay. And it's not determined by genetics.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  So, so there's, there's, so I think it's helpful to think about all these different characteristics from diseases to traits. Right. People know intuitively something like height, for example, right? Height, they say, oh, that's, that's genetic. Or something like breast cancer, eye color, right? These things people intuitively know are genetic. And so you can actually basically take these different phenotypes and measure how genetic any phenotype is. So what does it actually mean? The most simple way of explaining is imagine you took two identical twins. So they have the same DNA, right? And then basically you separated the twins, they grew up in different environments. Sometimes in pop culture, people hear about these different things where you actually take twins and they have, again, the same DNA, their identical DNA. And then you, they grow up in different places for whatever reason. So they're subject to different environments.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  And they can actually measure basically how much more similar they, how, how similar they are across all these different phenotypes to see basically how genetic something is.

• 3:48Tucker Carlson?

  Twin studies.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  Yes, twin studies, yes. And so using twin studies, you can actually get measurements of things from diseases, right? Like cancers and diabetes and Alzheimer's, as mentioned, to things like height or IQ or BMI, et cetera. So twin studies show that IQ specifically is about 50% genetic. But to be clear, IQ is just one of over 2,000 factors that we actually look at. Right? Principally, parents and patients, they come for disease. They always come for disease. And remember that when the embryos you're picking from, the most important determinant of the genetics of your embryos is, well, your partner, right? So you're actually not changing DNA. This is not genetic. You're not changing DNA. You're not making like an embryo's DNA better. You're basically reading the embryo's DNA that you have. So when you pick your partner, you're basically picking the kind of genetic pool.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  And then you can basically pick which embryo you deem to be best based off of your preferences and values.

• 4:40Tucker Carlson?

  I mean, this like, again, I just want to say thank you for doing this.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 4:44Tucker Carlson?

  I'm not here to attack you at all. I think this is one of the most important conversations we can have, and I

• 4:50Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 4:51Tucker Carlson?

  You're much younger than I am. So you weren't here for the debates that took place in the early 1990s about what traits are the product of genetics and which are the product of environment. But up until pretty recently, the public conversation has settled on a consensus that everything is environment and that genetics aren't real. And this was at the very center of our national debate about race and crime and educational achievement, income, and it all grew out of or was crystallized by a book called The Bell Curve. Have you heard of this?

• 5:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have, yeah.

• 5:27Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. So it seems like that debate is over and we're, and I'm not, this is not an attack at all. It's just like crazy to me that people are just saying this out loud. Yeah, genetics plays a big role.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, genetics plays a role. So I think in society today, when people think about like height or cancers, and to be clear, I'm not talking about, there's hereditary disease risks like PKU, Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, beta thalassemia. These are conditions we also screen for, right, to make sure that parents can reduce suffering each generation. So that's also part of what we do. And those conditions are basically deterministic in nature, right? So if you have two bad copies of like cystic fibrosis, you're going to get cystic fibrosis and it's debilitating. And so there's like policies that basically encourage Americans and people around the world to do screening to not pass down basically an invisible genetic burden to their child.

• 6:17Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Right. That's like classical kind of genetics. So I think it's interesting because

• 6:21Tucker Carlson?

  Well, it's eugenics, right?

• 6:23Speaker 02

  No, no, no, not eugenics. Eugenics

• 6:24Tucker Carlson?

  Well, how is it not? It's improving the human species through breeding.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Eugenics refers to basically corrosive use, corrosively controlling human reproduction, right? Force sterilizations, even euthanasia, controlling who can get married to who. So

• 6:38Tucker Carlson?

  No, no, no, no, no. Those are methods by which you implement eugenics, but they're not the only ones. Eugenics simply means there's something inherently, well, you can disagree with the concept, but the concept is corrosive or not. The improvement of a species, in this case, the human species through selective breeding.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  Well, but there's no selective breeding. Remember, patients choose who they marry. And then in the embryos they have, but you're not changing the embryos, in the embryos they have, patients can make their own choice in which embryo they want to implant. So juxtaposed like eugenics.

• 7:09Tucker Carlson?

  How is that not selective breeding?

• 7:10Speaker 02

  That's definitely selective breeding.

• 7:12Tucker Carlson?

  Well, breeding is by definition, the process of bringing new life into the world and you're deciding which of these embryos becomes a person. And so that is, that is breeding. It's not, it's not choosing people's marriages. It's not giving them forced vasectomies, but it is breeding. That's what breeding is.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  Well, I would say that um, in IVF clinics for, you know, last couple of decades, there's been this process of basically taking these embryos, getting more information on the embryos, and then picking which embryo you want to implant, right?

• 7:42Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Again, you're not changing DNA. You're not, you're not controlling who can get married to who. Like, just to be clear, if you go back, eugenics is a term, it came up within the late 19th century by a scientist named Francis Galton. Okay? He was a British scientist.

• 7:56Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, a bunch of, Havelock Ellis, yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, he came up with the term eugenics. Interestingly, the term eugenics was actually about 20 years before the term genetics. This is really interesting. A lot of people don't know that. Yeah, this is very important. Eugenics naturally did not require genetics. Genetics, when the, when the term was coined, it was the, the science of heredity, right, of passing down information. The, remember, the unit of heredity identified as DNA, that was only until the 1940s.

• 8:21Tucker Carlson?

  Right?

• 8:22Speaker 02

  Right? And then identifying the structure of DNA was actually after World War II in the 1950s. So we didn't even know for basically, um, in 1927, and I think it was Buck versus Bell, the US Supreme Court deemed forced sterilization is constitutional. Okay? At that point, we had no idea that DNA was actually the genetic basis. This is really, really important. People always get this wrong because they, they don't, they don't follow the timeline. Eugenics as a, as a, as a, as an corrosive ideology to control populations had nothing to do with molecular genetics, period. It had nothing to do with genetics.

• 8:52Tucker Carlson?

  Why was it corrosive?

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Um, well, I think if you basically forced sterilize somebody against their will, I mean, I think that's against the fundamental, you know, liberty of a person.

• 9:01Tucker Carlson?

  Of course, there's no question, I couldn't agree more. But again, that was just one manifestation of it. So force played no role in a lot of it. It was steering people, giving them options, telling them that, you know, if you married this kind of person, here's the outcome you're likely to get when you have children.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Well, force did play, I mean, again, in 1927, the United States, the Supreme Court deemed constitutionally that forced sterilizations were constitutional.

• 9:26Tucker Carlson?

  I'm just saying that, and I couldn't be more opposed to that, in fact, to the whole program. But I just want to note as a factual matter that forced sterilizations were an incredibly ugly, evil manifestation of an idea that was not limited to forced sterilizations. The idea is the same idea you're articulating, which is people should try to improve the human species by selective creation of children.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  So, yeah, I disagree with that.

• 9:53Tucker Carlson?

  How was it different?

• 9:55Speaker 02

  So Nucleus ultimately, and what we give patients, ultimately what patients actually want, right, again, patients are choosing their partner, they're choosing to do IVF, they have basically options, they have several embryos, they get information, there's actually no best embryo, right? So Nucleus is a company, and no patient can ever say, oh, this is the best embryo, because there's no fundamental virtue rooted in biological characteristics. So like, the idea that like, you could even have a best, for example, is misguided principally, in my view, because something like virtue, right, and I think of two kinds of virtues, there's natural virtue and then divine virtue, right, it's fundamentally not biological, it's not physical. Genetics is the only program for physical things, and then people can basically make their choices within the partners that they choose, and in doing IVF, to then pick the

• 10:40Speaker 02

  embryo that sets the best set of biological characteristics to them, but there is no virtue, there's no morality in that decision.

• 10:45Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I've noticed.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:47Tucker Carlson?

  But, so do you think that it's equally virtuous to have a child, intentionally have a child, which we can now do with the genetic testing you're describing, who has Down Syndrome, Tay-Sachs, and CF?

• 11:02Tucker Carlson?

  Is that as virtuous as having a child who has none of those things? Cause I thought you just said that it's good to get rid of those things.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  To be clear, virtue is independent of, virtue is independent of biological characteristics. Parents can choose based off their preference, what they want, what is best. So let me give you an example, let me give you an example. So there was a case in reproductive medicine where a deaf couple, they want to have a deaf child.

• 11:21Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  That, that to them was what was, was best, basically, right? That term best is relative, context-specific to the parent. We have patients, for example, that might have, um, you know, Huntington's, which is a severe neurogenic disease.

• 11:36Tucker Carlson?

  Very, very.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, very severe. It's autosomal dominant, means it's passed down, right? And by the way, this is actually interesting. Something like Huntington's or schizophrenia, these are exactly the kind of conditions that in the 20th century, they would say, hey, these people are unfit, right? They should not reproduce, right? Because they have some sort of neuropsychiatric or some sort of, uh, debilitating, um, condition that runs in the family. Um, like in my case, you know, one of the reasons why I started the business is because one of my family members, she unfortunately went to sleep and she, she passed away in her sleep. Um, so these things are deeply personal to people and they, they.

• 12:07Tucker Carlson?

  Is that the result of a genetic anomaly?

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, a condition that can cause irregular heart beating, can cause sudden, sudden death.

• 12:12Tucker Carlson?

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• 13:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:09Tucker Carlson?

  Is there, I don't know the answer. Is there evidence that that is genetically predisposed to it?

• 13:14Speaker 02

  Schizophrenia is very strongly, there's a very strong genetic basis to schizophrenia, right?

• 13:18Tucker Carlson?

  Really?

• 13:18Speaker 02

  Correct, yeah, yeah.

• 13:19Tucker Carlson?

  And we know that.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Yes, that is very well-established science. Um, yeah.

• 13:24Tucker Carlson?

  Sorry.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:25Tucker Carlson?

  No, I'm learning.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it's interesting.

• 13:27Tucker Carlson?

  So, um. Okay, but you said it that a minute ago that there is a nationwide, indeed a global effort to to get rid of conditions like

• 13:38Speaker 02

  But again, deafness is a great example. It's not for me to tell a deaf couple whether they should or shouldn't have a deaf child.

• 13:44Tucker Carlson?

  No, no, I understand.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  But that can apply across everything now, right? If somebody wants to have a child based off their extent of what they deem to be best, based off their lived experience, that's their right and that's their choice. So I'm not saying that it's better to have a child that is not deaf, for example. I can't say that. I can't possibly say that.

• 14:00Tucker Carlson?

  How about Down's Syndrome?

• 14:01Speaker 02

  I think that's entirely the choice of the of the of the family.

• 14:05Tucker Carlson?

  Okay, that's a consistent position. I wonder though, because but you described something that's absolutely real, which is a system globally that is designed to minimize to reduce the incidence of certain conditions, right? So you said that that's the policy. Like, you know, you genetic test all the embryos at every IVF clinic because you want to make sure we have less Down's Syndrome, for example.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  But no, but that but again, what's important here is there's not some sort of broad centralized body being like, oh, we need to all do this sort of testing embryos. That decision rests in the parent's choice. A parent can choose not to screen embryos for Down's Syndrome. Okay, they could make that decision. And if they make that decision, they can then transplant embryo and have that baby. That's entirely their choice.

• 14:49Tucker Carlson?

  Do you think there's no, and I don't, I mean, let's not be disingenuous. There is a global effort to reduce the incidence of certain conditions. Of course, everyone just assumes like you can't, I mean, that's why the incidence of Down's Syndrome has fallen off a cliff. There's been an elimination of Down's Syndrome, not entirely, but pretty

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Those are parents making choices, though. Those are parents and couples making choices.

• 15:11Tucker Carlson?

  You don't think that healthcare systems steer people in certain directions or have a preference?

• 15:15Speaker 02

  I think the healthcare system, unfortunately, right now is a sick care system. I mean, the healthcare system actually is very much not in the business of prevention. I mean, it's interesting, I was looking at these stats, which is the US healthcare system spends about $5 trillion, which is a lot. About, I think, $4 trillion goes to chronic disease treatment. So things like cancers and diabetes and Alzheimer's. In 2021, four times many people died of a chronic disease than COVID. Four times many people died of a chronic disease than COVID at the peak of the pandemic.

• 15:45Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, for sure.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  So you have to ask, what is the the real, what is the real pandemic here? Okay? And on that point, you know, If you think about it, and also, by the way, of the 5 trillion, so 4 trillion, about 80% is chronic disease, about 500 billion is about rare diseases. So these rare genetic conditions that I outlined, right? So genetics has a strong impact in both heart failure disease, like cancer, as I outlined, like chronic diseases, as well as rare disease. So genetics can help impact, you know, 4, 4.5 trillion dollars of healthcare expenditure, but, and there is a but, remember, those 4.5 trillion dollars, somebody's making money for someone being sick.

• 16:17Tucker Carlson?

  Well, yeah.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  And that's horrible. That's horrible. But it's, of course, you say, of course, but I said that, we can't just take that as a given, right? Like genetics as a science, if deployed, can be used for parents to make their own decisions, to dramatically reduce breast cancer risk, diabetes risk, if there's something in their family, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, help reduce on the next generation. So these things can be used to basically help build what we call generational health effectively. So I

• 16:38Tucker Carlson?

  You save a lot of money through improving the species through eugenics. Everyone, people made this argument for over 100 years. I get it. I'm just wondering, well, I'm wondering a lot of things, but.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  Well, one thing to say, remember too, that IVF is about 2% of the way babies are born in the United States. Most babies are still born naturally conceived. So we, we actually have a service for those couples as well. We can just basically take a cheek swab. You can do something called procreation simulation and simulate basically the risk for your child. Okay. And that is a service that can basically help any couple too. So I just want to be clear that it's not just IVF patients as well. These are couples that then can employ these screening and then to have a healthy baby.

• 17:20Tucker Carlson?

  What about sex?

• 17:22Speaker 02

  What about sex?

• 17:24Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I mean, the number one thing that people have used prenatal testing for is choosing the sex of their child, right? So that's, that's what explains the demographic imbalance in China, as you know. So that's like the number one thing globally. India, same.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  In India, actually, I'll lot it, to be clear, too. So in IVF clinic, you can't even pick sex in India, because there's a disbalance. But.

• 17:46Tucker Carlson?

  Well, legally, but of course, it happens all the time, because there's a global preference for sons. And that's why you see so many more boys than girls, when in fact, it's the opposite.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  In the United States, actually, if you look at the IVF, it's about, it's about 50/50.

• 17:59Tucker Carlson?

  I'm saying, I'm not talking about the US, but I'm, how do you feel about that? Would it be okay with you if someone came in and said, get rid of the girl embryos?

• 18:07Speaker 02

  So to be clear, that's, so to be clear, in the United States, this has played out over the last like 20 years. Like, people haven't been able to pick the sex of their, of their child in IVF clinics, both in the United States and then, again, at some point internationally too, but eventually became outlawed for the reason you outlined, which is, people generally pick slightly more boys. I mean, it's illegal and it's much harder in these countries.

• 18:26Tucker Carlson?

  Okay.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  In the United States, though, if you actually played out people making their own choices, it ends up being about, again, 50/50. So this is actually interesting.

• 18:33Tucker Carlson?

  But what do you think of it? Is it valid for someone to come in and say, I mean, you said this is a, you know, an ethically neutral question, you know, about whether or not to have a child with this or that genetic condition, but what about sex? Is that ethically neutral? Is it okay, in your view, for a couple to say, I don't want any girls?

• 18:53Speaker 02

  In, in my view, that is the prerogative of the parents to pick which sex they want. And if you play that out across many, many, many couples making their own independent choices, right? Which is embodiment of this kind of liberty and choice. You see, it ends up being about 50/50, which I think actually undercuts this idea that everyone's going to pick, you know, a boy, for example, right? There's this notion-

• 19:11Tucker Carlson?

  Well, it's culturally specific in its time, you know, of course.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  But that applies across any traits then, Tucker, which is people, there's not a universal best. It's very much key specific to the specific family history, specific values and culture.

• 19:25Tucker Carlson?

  Of course, of course, but I think we're, we're talking about two different things. You're talking about outcomes and I'm talking about the process and whether the process itself is valid. And, right, and I totally, I've actually seen the numbers, so I know that you are absolutely right on the question of sex selection, but you think it's okay, there's no moral problem at all? Because this, these are questions of life and death, so I do think moral questions are relevant questions. You don't think there's any moral question around choosing by sex?

• 19:54Speaker 02

  To be clear, I think that-

• 19:58Speaker 02

  There is no universal biological best, period, across any phenotype because biology is inherently neutral. Now, there is universal morality. Okay, specifically, again, two kinds. There's natural virtue, right, and also divine virtue. Natural virtue can come from the cultivation of the soul, which is independent of biology. It's not in the physical plane. And so I think, I think-

• 20:20Tucker Carlson?

  How is that different from divine virtue?

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Divine virtue to me is more about a union with God.

• 20:26Tucker Carlson?

  So what's, if there's no God, where does the soul come from?

• 20:28Speaker 02

  There's God, there's God, what do you mean? Why is there no God?

• 20:31Tucker Carlson?

  Well, of course, I agree, but I don't know why there's a distinction between the virtues again, or in the weeds.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  Natural virtue, I'll tell you why. Natural virtue can be intellectually derived. Wisdom, courage, justice, um, temperance. It's kind of classic Aristotle. Uh, and then there's things like grace and revelation, which come from God. You can't necessarily, a human being's mind is limited, it's finite. You can't necessarily grasp that. So there has to, there's a, there's a, so you can, one, you can derive from like thinking, like what leads to basic unamonia, human flourishing. Right, that, that kind of virtue, natural virtue, right, coming from Aristotle. And the other kind is, um, thinking about divine virtue, which is what goes beyond intellect, right? Which Thomas Aquinas basically brought together and thought about, okay, there's, there's this idea of natural virtue, uh, that, you know, uh, the Greeks came up with. And then, of course, there's this idea of divine virtue coming from, you know, the Old and New Testament, um, about union with God.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  And, you know, all religions actually talk ultimately about surrendering. Personally, I do believe in God, just so you know, if that's not clear.

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• 24:33Tucker Carlson?

  What kind of God do you believe in?

• 24:36Speaker 02

  So I've meditated for about seven years. And what I keep coming across is that the best way to articulate, I see God as an experience versus an ideology, which is that there's a quote, it's actually from Rumi, I think he articulates, well, Rumi is a Persian poet. He says, "Imagine you go to the ocean and you come back with a pitcher of water." So the pitcher in my mind is the ego, is the logical mind, and then the ocean is God, the source, the one, the divine, whatever you want to call it. Okay? That's how I think about God. So I think from my experience meditating and from what I've seen, the, again, human mind, the intellectual mind is limited and finite, and there's basically this vastness.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  It's hard to describe, which is why often the Sufis would use poetry to actually describe God, because it's this.

• 25:26Tucker Carlson?

  You can allude to it, you can't describe it directly because it's too big.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Precisely. It's infinite. It's vast. That's why I like the ocean as an example. Another way I like to think about it is like, if you're a raindrop, and it's easy for us, especially in modern society, to think the raindrop is the world, but eventually you return to the ocean, and you realize it's much bigger. And so.

• 25:45Tucker Carlson?

  So that's your conception of God?

• 25:47Speaker 02

  Yes, that's my, again, I think God is more, is more an experience. It can't get, God cannot be conceptualized, it cannot be articulated, it's not a logical thing. You cannot use logic to articulate God. I mean, to me, that's a, it's incompatible. But so that, I think you can try to use metaphors, you can try to explain it. I always liked the Sufi poets, because I feel like they do a really, really nice, beautiful job of that.

• 26:07Tucker Carlson?

  Certainly of describing the vastness and fundamental incomprehensibility of God, for sure. Oh, I couldn't agree with you more. And only poetry can capture that, but it leaves unanswered the core question for the three Abrahamic religions, which is what does God want for us to do and believe? And what's your view on that?

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Well, Islam specifically, Islam literally means surrendering to one.

• 26:31Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  I think that's the answer. In other words, Islam, and you can, I'm not Christian, you're Christian, so you can tell me more about Christians view, but there's a concept of surrender in Christianity. So in Islam, this is, I mean, it's literally Islam.

• 26:43Tucker Carlson?

  Not just a concept.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's an experience.

• 26:45Tucker Carlson?

  It's the whole thing.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  The whole thing, literally.

• 26:47Tucker Carlson?

  Surrendered to being tortured to death.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 26:49Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, of course.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  Right, and then in Buddhism as well. They call it different things in Buddhism. It's a little bit more like surrendering to the illusion of the ego, for example. But the concept of surrendering, I think, is basically universal.

• 27:02Tucker Carlson?

  There's no question.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  And so, yeah.

• 27:04Tucker Carlson?

  But, um, so right?

• 27:06Speaker 02

  That's my answer though.

• 27:07Tucker Carlson?

  That's, that's, that's the, you know, that's the very beginning. That's the conceptual understanding of it. But then you move immediately into what does God want you to do? What powers does he have? What powers do you have? What are the things you're allowed to do? What are the things you're not allowed to do? I mean, that, that's just a product of logic, but it's also like pretty spelled out in, in every, um, in every one of the three religions that derive from Abraham. So what's your view of that? Like, are there things that God won't allow us to do?

• 27:34Speaker 02

  The way I think about this is there's sort of three different moral philosophies somebody could adopt.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  There is one's idea of consequentialism, which is basically the end justifies the means, which you see a lot of in today's culture.

• 27:46Tucker Carlson?

  I have noticed that.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, unfortunately, even in Silicon Valley, which we can talk about.

• 27:49Tucker Carlson?

  Even in Silicon Valley?

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, especially.

• 27:51Tucker Carlson?

  Did you just say that?

• 27:52Speaker 02

  Especially.

• 27:54Tucker Carlson?

  Even in Silicon Valley?

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Especially in Silicon Valley. Then there's a...

• 27:58Tucker Carlson?

  Sam Altman may even be doing it.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, I mean, we, and yeah, we can talk about that. And people, and the thing is, when people realize or not, there are moral philosophies, they end up succumbing to one anyways, where they recognize it's consequentialism.

• 28:10Tucker Carlson?

  Everybody's religious.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Yes, and then, yeah, exactly. And then there's this concept of deontology, which is sort of like, maybe, you know, the end just does not justify the means, and there's rules, right? Murder is bad, lying is bad, and, you know, it's kind of, no matter what the specific circumstance, sorry, these things are wrong, right? There's that moral philosophy, you can adopt deontology, which can be secular or non- secular is my understanding of it. Then there's virtue ethics.

• 28:30Tucker Carlson?

  Not really.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 28:32Tucker Carlson?

  If there are rules, why are they rules rather than preferences? If you came up with them, they're preferences. If the power that created the universe came up with them, then they're rules, then they're laws. So one has no meaning at all.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:46Tucker Carlson?

  Nothing can be better than any, anything else.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, if, if, yes.

• 28:48Tucker Carlson?

  And the other's absolute. So like, no, there can't be a secular, sorry Aristotle, a secular understanding

• 28:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:54Tucker Carlson?

  of absolute value.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  I think there cannot be a secular understanding of divine virtue. We can get more into this, what I mean there. But let me just outline this quickly and then I think I'll bring it around. So there's consequentialism, which is most people, I think, in contemporary society adopt. There's deontology, right, which is as you rooted in some sort of, maybe there's some universal, this is good, this is bad. Then there's virtue ethics, right, which basically the, instead of saying, oh, the consequence, instead of saying, oh, this action is good because the consequence was good, or this action is good because the action is inherently good or wrong because of some secular, non-secular set of rules, you're saying, hey, the actual thing that you need to measure and you need to think about is the moral character of the person doing the action. And then if the moral character, if they possess these kind of cardinal virtues, things

• 29:41Speaker 02

  like temperance and justice and wisdom, for example, then it so follows that the action they do would be virtuous, right? So you try to cultivate the soul, basically, and then in cultivating the soul and cultivating virtue, it confers basically virtue in the action, right? So basically, the first two, in my view, in my view, deontology and consequentialism is very much about the action, right? It's the saying, hey, is this outcome good, based off some thing you're trying to maximize? And then deontology, which is this concept of, forget about the outcome is good or not, is this the right or wrong thing? Then the concept of virtue ethics, which is, instead of saying, you know, looking at the action, like, because ultimately, human beings produce action, actions, you know, aren't just there, human beings produce action, the quality of the action should

• 30:21Speaker 02

  be measured, or it's deemed virtuous, if the person can strive and embody virtue, okay? And so personally, and I'm still, by the way, talking about natural virtue right now, I'm not even talking about divine virtue, I'm talking about in the intellectual plane, things that people can think about and reason, argue over, things of the mind, not things that go beyond the mind, right? And so in the concept of virtue ethics, I think this is the kind of moral philosophy we try to embody, in saying, hey, and this comes back all the way to embryonic selection, which is, hey, there is no biological best. There is none, right? Again, the soul, the soul, which is non-physical, ultimately, does not rest, it cannot be programmed in biology, so people can have different preferences. Somebody could say, you know, I want my son or daughter to be a lawyer, someone else

• 31:05Speaker 02

  could say, you know, athletes, someone else could say an entrepreneur, someone else could say an artist. These are different outcomes that are based off people's local preferences, physical preferences, contextual preferences, but they're smaller, right? They're smaller preferences. They're not a divine preference. There's no such thing as that.

• 31:21Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I, well, of course, I disagreed that there's no divine preference, but I.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  There's no divine preference in biology because the divine isn't rooted in the, it's not, it's not, um.

• 31:30Tucker Carlson?

  Well, it depends where you think biology came from, I guess.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  I guess that's true. I mean, I also don't.

• 31:35Tucker Carlson?

  Can people create life?

• 31:37Speaker 02

  No, no. So this is actually a paradox that I struggle with too, because another thing that I think a lot about is something called panpsychism, which is the idea that basically each object has its consciousness, even like a rock, right? And this might sound strange to people, but.

• 31:53Tucker Carlson?

  Doesn't sound strange.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  Doesn't sound strange, okay.

• 31:55Tucker Carlson?

  I don't think you're fully off base. I don't know the answer.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either.

• 31:58Tucker Carlson?

  It's a crazy thing to wonder.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  So this idea that, you know, a rock has a consciousness, it's a, it's a, it's a being, albeit, you know, not as sophisticated as human consciousness, but it's there. And it provides this idea that consciousness is this kind of spectrum all the way up to, let's say, humans. And then each thing has this consciousness and accordingly, it's kind of made in, in, in, in, it's endowed with something that goes beyond just kind of its weight or, or matter, basically. It's basically very non-imperious, just non-materialist. And it basically believes this idea that, again, God has given this consciousness to everything. And I tend to, I actually like that a lot. I actually like that a lot for a lot of reasons.

• 32:38Tucker Carlson?

  Okay, so can I just ask you a couple of fundamental questions?

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Sure, please.

• 32:40Tucker Carlson?

  So you just said, I think you said, um, that people cannot create life.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  I think nature has a greater intelligence and human beings, sometimes people will say we are part of nature, but we are nature.

• 32:56Tucker Carlson?

  But life, so you're in the life business, right? I mean, obviously you're.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  We, what IVF does, for example, is they, they use natural laws. We didn't make these natural laws, right? We, we use natural laws that exist and then we, and then basically, and to be clear, we're not an IVF clinic. We work in IVF clinics and IVF clinics are the ones that do IVF. We provide more information, but in the context of IVF, you are using natural law. You are not making natural law. You're not, you can't make a baby, this is, you know, and.

• 33:24Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I think there's a good chance you may be violating natural law, but I, you know, I don't know. I'm not in charge, but I just, I want to get to the fundamental question though, which is who creates life?

• 33:37Speaker 02

  I think I would say God, but to be clear, so this is complicated, but

• 33:45Tucker Carlson?

  You're not the only one who doesn't, who isn't certain. I mean, I

• 33:48Speaker 02

  I don't know. Obviously, I don't know, but I

• 33:51Tucker Carlson?

  And I don't mean to put you on the spot. Who creates life?

• 33:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean,

• 33:54Tucker Carlson?

  Come on, I shouldn't be even asking questions like this and expecting you to have some cogent answer, because I don't think anyone does.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  No.

• 34:00Tucker Carlson?

  Other than to say God, or to say more precisely, not us.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  Not us.

• 34:05Tucker Carlson?

  Is that fair to say not us?

• 34:06Speaker 02

  That is fair to say not us, and we operate within that plan. And to be clear, the stories of sci fi, right, like Frankenstein, for example, or even Jurassic Park is some example, but Frankenstein, this idea that we can make life, right, we cannot make life. That's the lesson of these stories.

• 34:19Tucker Carlson?

  Let me just say, I think you've thought a lot more about this in your average businessman. So I'm, I'm, I was gonna, I didn't know how I was gonna handle this, but you're a lot more thoughtful than I expected for a young entrepreneur. So thank you.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Thank you, Tucker.

• 34:32Tucker Carlson?

  No, I mean that totally sincerely. You've actually thought a lot about this, and I don't know the answers to any of these questions, really, but giving my best shot. Um, so, but we both agree that some higher being created life. We know that we didn't. So we could, we could assign it to nature, we could assign it to God, but we don't create life.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  We don't create life. We operate within nature.

• 34:52Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  We operate within nature.

• 34:53Tucker Carlson?

  Amen. For decades, Russell Brand was one of the most famous actors and comedians and agnostics in the world. Today, he is one of the most sincere Christians we know, a follower of Christ. His personal transformation is remarkable. We saw it up close. He has now recounted it in an amazing book called How to Become a Christian in Seven Days. And it recounts what happened to him, and it makes the case to all of us for stepping away from our secular assumptions and returning to the only thing that matters, which is God. If you've read it, it's amazing. And right now, there's only one place to get it, TuckerCarlsonBooks.com. This is the first release from our new publishing company. We created Tucker Carlson Books

• 35:35Tucker Carlson?

  to bypass the censors and bring you things that are actually worth reading and sharing. And we're starting this venture with what matters most. And that's Russell Brand's message of the promise of forgiveness and joy through Jesus. We're proud to launch our new bookstore with Russell Brand's How to Become a Christian in Seven Days. It is the message this country needs most. Find it today on Tucker Carlson Books.

• 35:58Speaker 00

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• 36:28Speaker 05

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• 36:55Tucker Carlson?

  Dot com. Do we have the right to take life?

• 37:01Speaker 02

  So, so this is, so, so, so, no, we don't.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Now, if we talk about embryos, I assume this was your...

• 37:12Tucker Carlson?

  I'm not sure. I mean, it has all kinds of implications, including for the Iran war, but I'm just, it's all around us. The thoughtlessness with which we take life. It's, it's not aimed at you, it's aimed at everybody, everybody on the globe. But it begins with a question, do we have the right to take life?

• 37:28Speaker 02

  So, again, let's think about the different moral values that someone could have here. If someone has consequentialism, they could say, hey, look, we want to, you know, commit murder for this good. And maybe they have some good that they need to be good.

• 37:37Tucker Carlson?

  I'm highly familiar with testifications for murder. I just want to know what you think.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  I'm telling you what I think, but I just tell you that there's this kind of, it's like very pluralistic. And then somebody could say murder's always bad, which is fine. I respect that opinion absolutely. And then there's sort of this, this last bucket, which again... Keep coming back to this idea of virtue ethics, which is what do you like? How do you do? Can you have a cultivation of the spirit of the soul to think, hey, you know, what what is right in this situation? Because society does not have a definitive answer to this question, right? People will sometimes say knee jerk. They'll say, oh, murder is always bad, but then they'll be pro the death penalty, right? Or they're poor war.

• 38:08Tucker Carlson?

  People are inconsistent. There's no doubt about it. And they ignore their own failings and highlight those of others. They've got planks in their eyes and they're picking the sawdust out of yours famously. So I get it. People are flawed. But I do think that we can, through a little bit of rigor, arrive at like, what's right or wrong.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  Yes, I mean,

• 38:26Tucker Carlson?

  And what can we say about the right of a person to take another person's life?

• 38:31Speaker 02

  Well, I don't I I personally, I don't think there there is a right. I personally don't think there is a right in any circumstance. I don't see that. I don't see that. I mean,

• 38:40Speaker 02

  and of course, there's a question like, what what is, you know, I don't think there's a right, period. I just don't think so.

• 38:46Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I'm with you. I'm with you. Now, I think we both understand it's hard not to want to exercise that right when you can, or someone annoys you, or there's a country you don't like, or there's a okay. Or so then, what can we say about an embryo in a lab?

• 39:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:03Tucker Carlson?

  Is that life?

• 39:04Speaker 02

  So going back to the pen psychic philosophy, right, which is

• 39:10Speaker 02

  No, no, Tucker. If you I'll give you a proper answer. But these things are not. These are things are not simple. I can be like, oh, yes, it's like, let's just bear with me for a second. There is a spectrum of consciousness. There's a spectrum from, you know, rock to sent to a sentient being, all the way to a more conscious, you know, being like a human, a more complicated, evolved, fully conscious being. And the question is, where does an embryo sit in that? That is the fundamental question. And does an embryo have a soul, for example? That is the key question. That is the key question, in my view.

• 39:35Tucker Carlson?

  I totally agree.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  That is the key. Like, let's just like, make no mistake. Anytime somebody argues about an embryo and IVF. And to be clear, I just want to be very clear on the purposes of our business. We do not do IVF. We work within IVF clinics.

• 39:45Tucker Carlson?

  I understand.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  I just want to be very clear to everyone.

• 39:47Tucker Carlson?

  You're just at the intersection of like, every big trend.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  No, we have a huge responsibility.

• 39:51Tucker Carlson?

  Right, yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  And so I think it's important to, before we can even argue, oh, is embryo a life? It's like, well, what, where does the life come from? Right? Is it the physical thing? Right, for me, I think about, when I think about death, I think death is a doorway. That's my own personal belief. This is a, this is a, this is a vessel. Right, you're not the physical, we're not the physical. We're something else. We're metaphysical, we're soul, okay? And so then the fundamental question is that, okay, well, does an embryo have a soul? And then I think about it, I always like to think about things inductively. So I just don't want to think about embryo, but I think about, you know, there's a huge diversity and range of life. And I can, in my head at least, and again, this is the feelings of the intellect. I think intellect only do so much. Okay? But when I think about it, I think, okay, I, I think about a rock, which I think has

• 40:34Speaker 02

  some kind of maybe proto-consciousness, some like very, very limited consciousness that we don't understand, maybe through some psychic or meditative work, you could try to, you know, become a rock and try to understand it's like more subjective experience if it exists, right? All the way to an embryo, to a dog, to a human. And so because of this spectrum, it comes down to this question of at what point, basically, do we have this, is, is there a soul in an embryo? And I, I tend to think, and I don't know, obviously, but I tend to think, I, I tend to think that an embryo doesn't have a soul. Now...

• 41:08Tucker Carlson?

  Why do you think that?

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know. I don't know.

• 41:12Tucker Carlson?

  But why would you think?

• 41:14Speaker 02

  I would think that there's, there's, there's a couple reasons why, which is embryo, so I can take a more reductionist approach, and I could say embryo is principally a cell, and when you reproduce already, embryo is actually...

• 41:26Tucker Carlson?

  It's not just one cell.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, it, it divides, exactly, divides and becomes many cells, but principally at first it begins, just this one, one cell.

• 41:32Tucker Carlson?

  I thought it was, it was the sperm and the egg made the embryo.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:35Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, so by definition?

• 41:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a cell. Yeah. Sperm meets egg, it's a cell, and then it starts dividing. And it becomes more and more of a, eventually into a human. Sorry, I was, I just lost my train of thought.

• 41:49Tucker Carlson?

  So the question was, you said you, you tend to think that an embryo does not have a soul? And I asked, why would you assume that?

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was articulating why. So when you, when you look at the way that...

• 42:05Speaker 02

  When you look at the way that actually people conceive naturally, what ends up happening is that you have these formations of kind of small formations of an embryo. Okay, right, which is this, an egg meets the cell and then it travels down and tries to implant. And then many times, actually naturally, it doesn't implant successfully. So nature already has it such that, forget about IVF, in natural conception, it is the case that basically you have these embryo formation and then ends up not forming. And now, the way I see it is, I see that nature wouldn't make it such that, or God wouldn't make it such that, an embryo would have a soul if in natural procreation, it is the case that the embryos come and go.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  Because I don't think God, in my personal belief, I don't think God would basically be getting rid of souls. I just don't think so. Now, do I think that there is a fundamental beauty, not just, I mean, absolutely to an embryo, in that, and this is really important for me to say, because I don't know how else to say it. I do think it is similar to like a wave that forms and then again returns to the ocean, because everything returns to the ocean. So I don't see it as something that's like, oh, the embryo is being discarded. I see it as returning back to the source, even if I don't believe that it has an explicit soul. Does that make sense? So it's a little more of a nuanced argument.

• 43:19Tucker Carlson?

  It does make a kind of sense.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  Right, yeah.

• 43:21Tucker Carlson?

  It does make a kind of sense. I don't think it's insane, and again, I think it's, I think you've thought about this in a way that I'm very impressed by, even if I don't agree. And I just wish more people in your business would like, think about this, because that, you know.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  It's important.

• 43:36Tucker Carlson?

  Beginning, yeah, right, it is, it's very important, it may be the most important thing.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  It is.

• 43:41Tucker Carlson?

  So I guess the difference between a wave and IVF is the human choice involved in the latter. And so I guess the core problem that I have with this is that I'm not convinced that we have a right to make certain choices. Do people have the right to make any choice available to them?

• 44:05Speaker 02

  I think people don't have the right. In our culture, people will conflate greater performance with being morally better, which is, I think, a big problem. So there's two kinds of value. There's instrumental value and there's moral value. Instrumental value is contingent, and this is actually really important. All of biology, all of nature is contingent value. For example, you would maybe want an entrepreneur potentially to be more risk-seeking, but you wouldn't want your surgeon to be more risk-seeking, right? In other words, the value of phenotypes actually changes depending on the environments.

• 44:41Tucker Carlson?

  Of course.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  And this is obvious to say, but it's actually, I think people miss this sometimes because they think there is a universal best. They'll say, "Hey, if you optimize for X phenotype that I deem to be best, it will lead to a better person." It doesn't lead to a better person. It might lead to a more optimized outcome, but it doesn't lead to a better person.

• 44:55Tucker Carlson?

  Dude, you're destroying your own case.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  No, I'm not, though.

• 44:58Tucker Carlson?

  Yes, you are. What you're saying is right. No, no, you're telling the truth about the way people are.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 45:04Tucker Carlson?

  Which is lacking foresight and understanding of the holistic picture. So if people have the choice to choose their own children, we're going to have a nation of private equity people. No, I'm serious. They're going to optimize for what's good right now.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Yes, that is, okay, so this is actually interesting. A couple of things. Oh, wow.

• 45:22Tucker Carlson?

  No, I'm right.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. No, no, no.

• 45:25Tucker Carlson?

  You just explained it better than I could.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  Tucker, this is so interesting because you're making an assumption. So there's many parts of this.

• 45:28Tucker Carlson?

  About the way people are? Yes, I am.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  There's many parts of this. The first part is, will people basically all choose in the same direction? And, you know, interestingly, again, people actually want very different things. And we see that every day with patients, right? Which is like, there's this idea that like rich people will come in and be like, "Oh, every rich person is going to pick the same way." As you mentioned, sex is actually a great proxy for this, right? Sex selection in the United States is about 50/50. And so if you think about, you know, any possible phenotype, like even when somebody comes and says, "I want to optimize for a type 2 diabetes risk," someone else might want to do schizophrenia or Alzheimer's, depending on their family history. Somebody else might want to do height, for example. If they're both shorter parents, they might want to have a taller kid. To be clear, the traits always come after diseases, but nevertheless. So what I'm saying is that... There's this notion, there's this idea of a universal best biologic characteristic. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist.

• 46:12Tucker Carlson?

  No, no, we're arguing two different things. I'm not saying I agree with you completely. And I believe that the diversity baked into humanity comes from God. He created different tribes. Okay. He did that on purpose.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:26Tucker Carlson?

  That's my belief. And they're different from each other. By definition, they're different tribes. And they have different characteristics. And a lot of those, as you have been brave enough to admit, are genetic, and that's a fruit of the creation.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 46:37Tucker Carlson?

  God did that. We didn't. People are very different. They demand uniformity. And by the way, if you think we're going to get diverse outcomes, have you been around rich people? They're not only very similar, they dress the same, they have exactly the same attitudes. They want their kids to get into the same six schools. I've lived in this world my whole life. It's the opposite of what you're describing. They will all change.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  Rich, rich.

• 46:59Tucker Carlson?

  Choose the same thing.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  People make up a very, very small set of society. There's a big world out there.

• 47:04Tucker Carlson?

  What set of IVF patients do they make up? What percentage of rich people? About all of them. So.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  I would actually, I wouldn't say it's about all of them. There are a lot of people that.

• 47:11Tucker Carlson?

  People who are dialed in to this technology.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  People do IVF if they can't generally, almost always, because they can't conceive naturally, to be clear. And natural conception is.

• 47:19Tucker Carlson?

  What does IVF cost?

• 47:21Speaker 02

  It can cost quite a bit.

• 47:23Tucker Carlson?

  I know.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  But Tucker, but no.

• 47:25Tucker Carlson?

  Attacking anyone.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  I know Tucker, but this is important to say, which is people will conceive naturally first. Naturally, natural conception is free, to be clear.

• 47:32Tucker Carlson?

  Yep, that's what it costs me.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  Let's assume, let's actually play this out. It's actually really, really interesting. And I actually think you do touch on a fundamental point on the way that people tend to move together, especially, especially wealthy people. They tend to do the same thing. They tend to.

• 47:46Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, and it's every group. I don't mean to pick on rich people at all. I'm one of them. But I just am very familiar with them. And.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:54Tucker Carlson?

  But, but social, societies are governed by herd instincts. That's why it's a society and not just a collection of hermits.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  So I think there's, there's a couple of ways that I think about this. There's the kind of on the ground, what I'm seeing, which I can tell you about what I'm seeing. And then I can tell you about the more, we can talk about like more broadly how this play out where the fact that people are pretty memetic in what they pick. Okay? On the ground, what I'm seeing is I see couples, again, a diverse range of couples, to be clear, like.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  This technology is going to get cheaper and cheaper. Whole genome sequencing specifically, this is actually interesting. The cost of reading all of somebody's DNA, it used to be about a billion dollars, one billion, right? So the Human Genome Project in the early 2000s, it cost a billion dollars. When I started the business about six years ago, in 2020, it was about a thousand dollars. Right? So billion dollars to a thousand dollars, that's the kind of wonder of making things cheaper and making things more accessible. So I do think there's a point where this technology, anyone can actually access, that's like really important to say, to say. And that's one of my missions, is to say, hey, this shouldn't only belong for people who have means, it should belong to everybody, right? Because ultimately, every parent should have the right to reduce the suffering in their future child. I mean, I just think every parent should have that right.

• 49:03Tucker Carlson?

  I would never argue against the desire to reduce suffering, I guess. But then you have to ask yourself, if the reduction of suffering is the most virtuous thing you could do, why are the societies on this planet with the least suffering falling apart the quickest? Have you ever noticed that?

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Well, I think in more contemporary society, we've lost the concept of virtue generally, in my view.

• 49:31Tucker Carlson?

  But is there a connection between suffering and virtue? And of course, there is. It's a one-to-one, and there is no virtue without suffering, actually. And suffering is, so in other words, if you had a drug that could eliminate anxiety, just take a pill, no more anxiety, you could call it, I don't know, pick a name, benzodiazepines. And all of a sudden, you could just like eliminate this suffering. And would there be downsides to that? Oh, there would be mass overdose deaths, there would be the zombification of the entire population, there would be addiction, physical addiction, that you could die because of, which, so, I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not making a case for anxiety, which is horrible. Anyone who's ever had it knows how horrible and terrifying it is.

• 50:15Tucker Carlson?

  I'm only saying that maybe there's a purpose to suffering. We don't want to deal with it. None of us does. I certainly don't.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  We can't, we can't transcend suffering in the same way we can.

• 50:24Tucker Carlson?

  Maybe we shouldn't.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  But we can't. It's, it's like saying, let's transcend gravity. We're in this world.

• 50:29Tucker Carlson?

  Well, we're trying to transcend suffering and all I'm saying is societies, I'm not for suffering. I'm against suffering. I hate war. You know, I don't like suffering at all. And I think we should try to alleviate it. But all I'm saying is maybe these aren't decisions that are up to us and maybe there's a larger picture that we can't see. And maybe we should pay close attention to our successful attempts to eliminate suffering and assess the fruits. Like what happened? Did it work? Or did it cause even more exquisite suffering, more grotesque suffering?

• 51:04Speaker 02

  I think that's a very fair, in the context of, you know, you know, there's a great example of obviously opioids. People get addicted. They think they're getting rid of pain.

• 51:13Tucker Carlson?

  What are opioids exactly?

• 51:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, in getting rid of pain, you're actually creating more suffering. And that's a fair point. I think in the context of genetics and what we're doing is, it's actually interesting because it's, it's not invasive. Genetic, the optimization technology costs, you know, a couple thousand dollars, which is a lot. Right? It's a lot.

• 51:30Tucker Carlson?

  No, but it's getting cheaper. I believe you completely.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  And so suddenly now, at the very beginning, you know, you have these embryos. Eventually you're already doing IVF, you're already picking embryo. You get more information. You can pick an embryo with a, you know, 50% reduction risk in breast cancer. You can have an embryo without, you know, BRCA, which is a breast cancer marker, right? You can, you know, schizophrenia, debilitating condition really impacts families.

• 51:51Tucker Carlson?

  Horrible.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Horrible, horrible.

• 51:53Tucker Carlson?

  The worst.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  And in fact, these are the very people who wouldn't want to have a child, who wouldn't want to. But now because of the advent of more advanced screening, they are more comfortable having a child. And that actually, I think, gets lost too.

• 52:05Tucker Carlson?

  I, I don't with you.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  Pro-genetic technology is fundamentally anti-eugenic. It's actually pro-genetic technology, you're pronatalist in that way because the very people who would have been deemed unfit by some definition, right? Because they have more suffering. And to be clear, if you suffer more, you have no less moral worth, to be very clear. We've said that already. We've established that. You and I agree on that. But those are the very people that genetics is helping. That's the very people they're helping, the very people who would have been deemed unfit. By the 20th century, now with this technology, they're actually able to have a child through IVF. They're able to have a child and feel comfortable doing that. Also, there's been, you know.

• 52:40Tucker Carlson?

  Wait, no, I can't. I'm not criticizing anything you're saying. It's just that I'm a stickler for definitions because it's important.

• 52:47Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 52:48Tucker Carlson?

  This is eugenics. And it had, and it's, I mean, if you read the early eugenicists, some of whom are really smart.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  I have.

• 52:55Tucker Carlson?

  Really smart.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  Eugenics was an international movement, actually. It spanned many, many things to your point.

• 52:59Tucker Carlson?

  I'm very aware and it was thoroughly discredited by the Nazis, who were the most enthusiastic eugenicists of all. I mean, they cleared out the mental hospitals.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:08Tucker Carlson?

  And they cleared out.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  But this is important, though. In that way, it's actually anti-eugenic, because the very people that like the Nazis, for example, would target, right? People who are sick and kill and kill and murder.

• 53:17Tucker Carlson?

  That's kind of been forgotten to history.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  Horrible. But those very people are now they can actually access this technology. It's actually interesting.

• 53:24Tucker Carlson?

  Hold on, hold on. So the point, the, I don't want to bring the Nazis in because it's so emotionally fraught and they had all kinds of other sins. But the, the goal of the eugenicists was the same. It was let's reduce human suffering. Let's optimize human ability. Let's make this better by being thoughtful about how we reproduce. And let's bring whatever science we have, they had much less than we have, to bear on this question. And they would make, they did make the argument that Lothar Stoddard, who was a Harvard professor and a brilliant, legit brilliant guy historian. A lot about him was absolutely virtuous, I would say.

• 54:05Tucker Carlson?

  But he was also a wild eyed eugenicist because he was smart and he saw this human suffering. He's like, let's get rid of it. We don't, it's something against people with Down syndrome, but we don't want more of them. That was his, that was his argument because it will reduce human suffering. Fewer kids with Down syndrome, less suffering.

• 54:21Speaker 02

  Well, it's a moral failure because the eugenicists, in my view, misconstrued the idea of, again, this idea of virtue with biology. There is no virtue in biological characteristics.

• 54:32Tucker Carlson?

  He wasn't making that case, no. He was making the case and the smart ones were.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  People are, but Tucker, please.

• 54:37Tucker Carlson?

  Less suffering. That's what they were saying, less suffering.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  But less suffering isn't more virtuous.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  And that's, it's hard for people to like, what does he mean by that? You know?

• 54:46Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I agree.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  It's just because, I mean,

• 54:49Tucker Carlson?

  I believe in a religion with suffering at the center of it.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  We've all had loved ones that have passed away. God forbid from some disease, right? I mentioned my cousin, my grandmothers both died of cancer as well.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  My uncle died of a heart attack, right? When he was playing soccer with my dad. He was 45. He collapsed. And he died from a heart attack, which by the way is the number one killer in this country.

• 55:15Speaker 02

  Just because somebody, you know, had cancer, just because somebody has heart disease, just because somebody has a condition schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, these conditions, again, they impact 200 million Americans. So this is the problem of our time. Okay. Does not make them any less of a person. And so the fundamental moral failure, it was a moral failure of eugenics, which was misconstruing these things, which idea that it's better to reduce suffering. Better, that plain term of better doesn't come from the physical plane. It comes from something beyond.

• 55:42Tucker Carlson?

  But I'm not even sure that we're disagreeing. I think we're agreeing that there's no, that your physical condition is not a reflection of your moral value.

• 55:50Speaker 02

  No, but by the way, the eugenicists got that fundamentally wrong.

• 55:53Tucker Carlson?

  Maybe, I'm sure some did, but.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  They were consequentialist, though. That's actually important. Going back to the kind of different moral philosophies, if you look through the world that way, it actually helps articulate things. They viewed it as the end justifies the means. We should actually do this forced sterilizations. We should make it constitutional.

• 56:08Tucker Carlson?

  I mean, I think the ends justify the means was a much less common argument among the eugenicists as it is now among the technologists.

• 56:16Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 56:16Tucker Carlson?

  That's for sure.

• 56:17Speaker 02

  That's very true.

• 56:17Tucker Carlson?

  And so these attitudes not only have not been suppressed or eliminated, they've flowered into like the dominant attitude in the country. So they won. I'm just saying, I'm not trying to, I'm just saying there's this idea that you can make people better and in fact that you should.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  No, no, but that's not what we're saying, though. Remember, no, Tucker, Tucker, this is nuanced, but it's really important for people to understand.

• 56:39Tucker Carlson?

  You're saying people have the opportunity to do it.

• 56:41Speaker 02

  But people have the opportunity. Nucleus, we never say, hey, these are your five embryos. This is the best embryo. We cannot, we are not divine. We can never do that.

• 56:48Tucker Carlson?

  I understand, but, but the choices that people make are governed by a lot of things. Of course, but one of the, you know, their, their intuition, their religious views.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  To be clear, first and foremost, it's, it's the direct experience of suffering. The patients that come to us without fail, and to be clear, they might want to optimize for a trait as well. I'm not saying, of course, they would, right? People think about these things realistically, but the first thing they care about is, my mother had breast cancer, you know, my dad had prostate cancer, my grandfather had Alzheimer's. So I just

• 57:15Tucker Carlson?

  My sister had schizophrenia. I get it.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  Right. And yeah, right. So you want to start with the lived experience of the patient, and then go from there.

• 57:21Tucker Carlson?

  But that's all baked in the cake. Every person has experienced suffering, and every person has seen a loved one die if you live long enough.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:26Tucker Carlson?

  And, and I just want to be totally clear, so I don't seem self-righteous, which I never want to be. If I had had the opportunity, when my children were in utero or before, to say, no to schizophrenia, no to, you know, the things that I really fear, schizophrenia is at the top of the list. I think it's the cruelest thing. But also CF.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:45Tucker Carlson?

  Which is in my family, you know, all these things.

• 57:47Speaker 02

  By the way, I'm a carrier for cystic fibrosis.

• 57:49Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, a lot of people are.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, a lot of people are, yeah.

• 57:51Tucker Carlson?

  And, um.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  And I don't want my baby, God forbid, to have that. Of course not.

• 57:54Tucker Carlson?

  No, though, actually, the therapies for CF have, you know, that's a whole separate conversation. I don't want to be boring. But, um, anyway, I would just say, like, like all expectant parents, if I'd had a chance to reduce or eliminate the risk that my children would have these horrible diseases or conditions, I would have taken it.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 58:11Tucker Carlson?

  How could you not?

• 58:12Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 58:13Tucker Carlson?

  So I'm not judging anybody. I get it completely. I would have done it. My question is, honestly, what's the effect of giving people this choice, which is to improve, in their minds, you say you're morally neutral on it, you're not attaching a value, to deaf nose or hearing, but we're not. Okay. But people do, everybody does.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, people do.

• 58:37Tucker Carlson?

  Everyone other than you does.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  No, no, no. But to be clear, we can have more philosophy and then say, but most people will reject the idea that there's this idea of conflating reduced suffering. They would say that's better.

• 58:47Tucker Carlson?

  Of course.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  And then we can play that out. So let's play that out. Let's play out how it actually is.

• 58:51Tucker Carlson?

  So you tell me what the, what you imagine, because this is one of the biggest changes in human history.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  I will say, Tucker, I will say again, that people will make different choices. I really want to say that. There's, there's actually two parts to this argument on people.

• 59:04Tucker Carlson?

  You're dodging them.

• 59:04Speaker 02

  No, no, I'm not. I'll answer your question.

• 59:05Tucker Carlson?

  Some people will make different choices, but like.

• 59:07Speaker 02

  So, a lot of like.

• 59:10Tucker Carlson?

  It's a random distribution of choices? Is that what you're saying?

• 59:12Speaker 02

  I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that.

• 59:14Tucker Carlson?

  Okay.

• 59:14Speaker 02

  Um, what I am saying, though, is people will bring their, so, one way to think about this, like, to make it, like, more intuitive for people. Is if you think about like our, there's this concept in cellular biology. Okay, it's called, um, it's basically this concept called, um, uh, it's alluding me. Basically that the more specialized something is, the more effective it is. So in biology, you see things specialized all the time, right? So for example, things begin in stem cells, they become neurons, they become immune cells. Yeah. They become different parts of the body, right? Because these bodies have, um, different functions. And so they need different specializations. Right. Okay. And when you, actually, I'm a big believer that like, everything mirrors everything. From the molecular to the celestial, everything. Okay.

• 59:59Speaker 02

  And so let me, let me keep going with this. And so, um, I can remember what it is. Specialization breeds sophistication. Okay, that's true. Uh, in cellular biology, which is specialization breeds sophistication. The more specialized something is, the more sophisticated it is. Okay. And so in a society, if you look at like, you know, people who are really high in their craft, right? Like Alyssa Liu, figure skating, uh, versus like an Einstein, uh, versus like an Elon, versus like, uh, I don't know, like an artist like Da Vinci. These people have very different sets of characteristics. And the way nature works is human beings cannot defy nature. It's a seesaw. So let me give an example. Every, every, every single time, people always say this to me. They say, oh, people will pick for IQ. Let me put aside my moral argument.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  Let me put aside my, people won't actually always pick for IQ. Let's actually assume that's the case. Let's assume that's the case. Let's assume that's the case. Everyone will pick for IQ. One interesting thing about picking for IQ genetically is that when you pick for IQ, um, and this is interesting to me, just when you tell patients this, you can see how they refactor their decisions. When you pick for IQ, you're actually picking against conscientiousness and extroversion genetically. It's a seesaw, right? It's almost like if you're playing like a FIFA my player or something and you make somebody stronger, they have less agility. Right? So what happens is, and also you're making them, uh, genetically speaking, more likely to be autistic. So these things are genetic. You can't, you can't, um, you can't defy these things. Right? So these things go in opposite directions. So you start selecting for one, it actually take these things away. So it starts becoming more of a, a, a value judgment. I understand.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  So wait, let me, let me play this out. So let's assume that to your point, um, there's a, a fashion of the day, right? People are, um, You know, we've seen this with fashion, we see this in tech, we see this, you know, VC investors, they all allocate toward AI, you know, people where they end up saying, wearing the same thing in Soho in New York, you know, how is this possible, right? People go to the same private schools, you were saying this, right? All these things end up, kind of the taste follow through. So let's assume all the rich people basically start optimizing for IQ, or everyone actually start optimizing for IQ, not just rich people, everyone start optimizing for IQ. There's actually an evolutionary mechanism, it's called a frequency dependence selection. What is frequency dependence selection? What it basically means is that the rarer a phenotype becomes relative to the other phenotypes. So in this case, for example, if everyone picked for IQ, extraversion and conscientious

• 1:02:12Speaker 02

  starts decreasing, okay, in terms of the prevalence of the population, the more valuable that phenotype becomes. In other words, the rarer that extraversion conscientious becomes, the more valuable it actually becomes to actually flourish in a population.

• 1:02:25Tucker Carlson?

  Right, so you're arguing it's a self-correcting problem?

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  And that's the key point, which is, we think, as humans, we can defy nature. We cannot defy nature. We have to operate within nature's bounds, within evolution's bounds. We have to operate within this framework, so...

• 1:02:43Tucker Carlson?

  So if that were true, then why did India ban sex-selective abortions?

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  It's interesting, because India specifically was about, so, let's actually walk through this. India was about 55/45 males to females, 55/45, right? People actually think often was higher, and by the way, the natural rate of having a boy is actually slightly biologically higher than a girl. So people think it's actually 50/50, it's actually not. It's actually like 52/48. So actually, through that perspective, it's actually, it is statistically significant, but it's actually not insanely high. And on that point also, which is actually interesting...

• 1:03:15Tucker Carlson?

  Over a billion and a half people, it's...

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, it can, it can, it can, absolutely, over generations, but, but actually, it's not, I think what's interesting here is, this is just a kind of a factoid, but males, babies, they tend to actually have the higher risk of basically dying at infancy. So it ends up happening, if you look at the general population, it's about 50/50, but actually, biology has it that it's slightly, or is toward males. But let's take the sex example. Let's say it plays out that, you know, over many generations, people, let's say it wasn't outlawed, or people still practice anyways, and people start picking across sex. It's actually the same phenomenon, whereas the number of males, for example, come down, the number of females come down, because of frequency-based selection. Let's say you're in a population, just very simply, there's 70 males, 30 females, the value of female in that population is much higher.

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  And basically, you can model this and show that each successive generation, there are certain sets of genetics that confer a slightly higher probability then of having a female. And so that will actually propagate such that the genes that confer higher females would keep proliferating through until the population comes back to actually equanimity.

• 1:04:16Tucker Carlson?

  So why did they ban it?

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  Well, obviously, that's like a longer term evolutionary thing to saying that things will self-correct.

• 1:04:22Tucker Carlson?

  So it actually wasn't self-correcting and it was making the society unstable. I mean, if human choice on questions of life and death and procreation at this granular level is self-correcting and it's just inherently good and there are no downsides, then why did the biggest country in the world ban it?

• 1:04:37Speaker 02

  To be clear, I'm not saying that there is not short-term material consequence for like something like sex selection. Of course, there's especially sex selection. I'm not saying that.

• 1:04:47Tucker Carlson?

  But why is that more significant than any other kind of selection?

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  Sorry?

• 1:04:50Tucker Carlson?

  Why is that unique?

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  Sex selection? It's not, actually. Well, it's unique in that-

• 1:04:55Tucker Carlson?

  Over IQ? I mean, these are deep, these are deep characteristics, defining characteristics.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  It's actually interesting point you make on sex because if you look at sex, it's a way of kind of playing out what happens if people pick across traits, right? Because sex is not a disease, it's a choice. Depending on what you want, people make different choices, right? So it's actually a good kind of heuristic of how people will choose. And on that point, actually, interestingly, sometimes we receive criticism from, for example, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine for saying that traits are not reproductive medicine. However, sex is ultimately a trait that people have been picking for the last 20 years. So there's a bit of this hypocrisy in medicine.

• 1:05:33Tucker Carlson?

  I guess what I'm trying to get to is really the core question, which is, is there a downside to playing God?

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  Okay, first off, we're not playing God, but of course there is-

• 1:05:40Tucker Carlson?

  Of course we are. We're making choices that were not available to us until very recently, that have never in human history been made by people ever, not one time.

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  We cannot play God. God created us, God created everything here. We cannot, we cannot-

• 1:05:54Tucker Carlson?

  Let me be more precise and use a less charged way to describe it. We are doing things that have never been done in human history.

• 1:06:02Speaker 02

  That's actually not true, I would argue, in this case.

• 1:06:04Tucker Carlson?

  Well, it's very true.

• 1:06:05Speaker 02

  Because-

• 1:06:07Tucker Carlson?

  How long have test tube babies, IVF-

• 1:06:09Speaker 02

  IVF's been around since 1970s, so it's about 40 years, actually. And by the way, it's not like you look around and you're like, oh, that's an IVF baby.

• 1:06:16Tucker Carlson?

  I'm not attacking IVF. And I'm certainly not attacking IVF babies or people at all. I'm merely saying that in the scope of human history, this is brand new.

• 1:06:27Speaker 02

  When you say this, though, what do you mean?

• 1:06:29Tucker Carlson?

  The ability to choose the traits of your children with this level of precision, to get a certain number of embryos and say, I want the ones that don't have these conditions that do have these traits, that has never been tried in human history, period.

• 1:06:45Speaker 02

  I would.

• 1:06:45Tucker Carlson?

  Well, there's no debating that.

• 1:06:47Speaker 02

  No, I would caveat a little bit. When you, so remember, you're picking from.

• 1:06:50Tucker Carlson?

  The Sumerians do this?

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  Wait, let me just be clear. You're picking from the pool that, so when you pick your partner, for example, you're setting the possible genetic pool. So for example, two short parents.

• 1:07:00Tucker Carlson?

  This is what mating is.

• 1:07:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, two short parents, I can have a tall baby, right? The same is actually true for genetic optimization. You can't have two short parents have a tall child with this technology. You have a taller child.

• 1:07:08Tucker Carlson?

  I, I understand, but we're, we're, okay, those, but the, the core point is this is something, this is an acceleration. Look, people want this. I wouldn't debate you there. And people do calculate these things as they choose a mate, of course. He's too dumb, I can't marry him. He's too short, I can't marry him. He's from, you know, whatever. There are lots of genetic qualities that people don't want to pass on.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  And in doing that, they're actually picking, by the way, the most important set of outcomes for their child. Cause it's your partner, it's the other side of it.

• 1:07:36Tucker Carlson?

  Absolutely.

• 1:07:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Tucker Carlson?

  But never with this level of precision, never has there been a menu where you can say, where you can identify qualities that you can't identify by smell or sight. You can't know so much of what you've just described, except through brand new science. So I'm not even attacking that. I'm merely asking a question that has to be asked, which is, what are the downsides?

• 1:08:03Speaker 02

  So, I mean, we talked about the, I mean, you pointed out one of the downsides, which is like, okay, if everyone starts picking for a specific sex, for example, right? It can create a, a, a population problems. And even if I would argue, and I did argue, hey, over time, this actually be self-corrected, which I think is true.

• 1:08:21Tucker Carlson?

  Have you told the Indians that?

• 1:08:23Speaker 02

  So this will be self-corrected, right? But obviously in the short term, there's still like a acute problem, right? But I would say actually IVF has been operating for, again, for 40 years. And other policies, like for example, one China's one child policy, has led to much greater problems. IVF is still the way, 2% of the way babies are born. I think your principal concern on where this can go awry, I mean.

• 1:08:47Speaker 02

  There's a long history in science fiction of people thinking, oh, you know, oh, like, you know, I can, you know, Frankenstein, I mentioned Frankenstein, it's literally that. It's somebody saying, hey, huh, I could make life, right? And then

• 1:09:01Tucker Carlson?

  How about COVID? How about

• 1:09:03Speaker 02

  Jurassic Park, actually, too, is this idea that, hey, I can do this. And then there's negative unforeseen consequences. I would argue both of those were consequential.

• 1:09:10Tucker Carlson?

  I don't think that's science fiction. I mean, hey, let's create Lyme disease. Hey, let's create, let's, I don't know, let's strengthen this virus. Oh, gosh, it's out of the lab, intentionally or not, doesn't matter. You infect the world with COVID. That just happened five years ago. So it's like, we don't need to look far to see the unintended consequences of emerging science. I'm not blaming anyone for it. I think people have a terrible track record of foreseeing the consequences of their actions. We know that in our own sex lives, don't we? So I think we can just say there, it's important with something this powerful and potentially transformative to, A, admit that there will be unintended consequences, because that's 100% true always, and think through, B, what those consequences might be.

• 1:09:54Speaker 02

  I agree. I agree. I think we should be tangible with them, though, and make sure people actually understand. So like, again, IVF is the way 2% of the way babies are born. IVF has been operating in the United States for about 40 years. This is not like, um,

• 1:10:07Tucker Carlson?

  Forty years?

• 1:10:08Speaker 02

  It's 1970s.

• 1:10:10Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I was there, I remember.

• 1:10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:11Tucker Carlson?

  The test two babies on the cover of Time Magazine.

• 1:10:13Speaker 02

  It was, yeah. I mean, people don't call it that anymore, actually.

• 1:10:15Tucker Carlson?

  Any consequences to that? Do, do

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  To IVF?

• 1:10:18Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, have we studied the consequences?

• 1:10:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, they've actually tracked children. The study sizes are a little bit smaller from when I looked into it and than one might expect, but basically they see no material difference now.

• 1:10:28Tucker Carlson?

  Is it, is it true?

• 1:10:29Speaker 02

  That what? The size is smaller than I expect.

• 1:10:31Tucker Carlson?

  There's no measurable difference at all between children born from an IVF procedure and children conceived naturally?

• 1:10:37Speaker 02

  Obviously, there's some environmental things, you're taking averages, but yeah, to my, when I looked into this, and I've obviously talked to a lot of scientists about this as well, they say, yeah, there's no, there's no difference, yeah, which is pretty amazing, but actually, I think it's a testament to nature. Well, we can track it over the course of the decades since IVF.

• 1:10:52Tucker Carlson?

  Well, this isn't nature, of course. It's something that we are, well, it's by definition, not nature. It's something that people are doing in order to improve nature. Like, nature would be infertility. I'm against infertility, by the way, I'm not arguing for infertility, I'm just saying it's, whatever it is, is not nature. It's the opposite of nature.

• 1:11:07Speaker 02

  I think we are operating within nature. So let's go into the framework of God created these natural laws. We're using natural laws. We're not making life. We didn't go to a lab and make life. We're using the principles of nature, using the principles of heredity, and we're applying them. It's still beautiful. It's still very beautiful.

• 1:11:25Tucker Carlson?

  I'm not saying.

• 1:11:26Speaker 02

  And so I think we are using nature.

• 1:11:27Tucker Carlson?

  I'm not saying it's bad or not beautiful. I'm just saying it's not nature any more than nuclear weapons are nature. You could say, well, they're made from atoms, the, you know, the essential building block of of matter. Okay. But we're we're exerting force and our will on nature to create an outcome that wouldn't occur if we didn't do that. So it's by definition about nature.

• 1:11:46Speaker 02

  The outcome could have actually occurred, even if you didn't necessarily do it, it could have, just the baby could have happened that way. But but also, I would say that remember that there's gene editing, which is much further out into the idea that you can actually take an embryo and make it whatever you want, basically theoretically, we could talk about that, which is very, very different. So I think the concept of IVF clinics using this technology to give patients more information, when they're already getting information on their embryos, now we expand the information, we can help deal with the chronic disease crisis in the United States, the rare disease crisis as well, right? Gen X is unique.

• 1:12:16Tucker Carlson?

  I've seen, oh, no, I appreciate the upside. No, I agree with you on the upside. I just want to know the downside.

• 1:12:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:21Tucker Carlson?

  And I don't, I don't see here any, there's no downside.

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  Of course, of course, there's there's downside.

• 1:12:26Tucker Carlson?

  What do you imagine it might be?

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  Well, I think let's let's play this out. Okay. The first thing I'd say is that with IVF at its prevalence today at 2%, I think it's it's actually more or less fine. And 2% is about 1 in 50 babies. I think I'm going to outline the scenario where I think there's a lot more risk and where human reproduction is going to materially change. Right? We might argue that you might argue this is a material change. Right? I would argue IVF, IVF was the principal material change.

• 1:12:51Tucker Carlson?

  You're arguing this material change because you're saying that we're going to have less chronic disease, lower healthcare costs, less suffering, and that's all good.

• 1:12:59Speaker 02

  Patients can choose that. Patients can choose that.

• 1:13:01Tucker Carlson?

  Well, you've argued that will be the result, and you're right. It will be the result, and I'm for it. I just want to say I'm for it. I'm just saying that whenever I hear the upside, as you would in any scenario, including your personal family investments, like, tell me the downside. And if someone says, well, there's no downside, then I'm like, I don't know if I trust you anymore. So what's the downside?

• 1:13:22Speaker 02

  Again, I will articulate downside. It's just I have to explain.

• 1:13:24Tucker Carlson?

  No, you're going to blame some other technology.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  No, I'm not going to blame some other technology.

• 1:13:28Tucker Carlson?

  Gene editing's bad.

• 1:13:29Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:13:29Tucker Carlson?

  But what about the the technology that you're offering has an upside? I totally agree with you.

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:36Tucker Carlson?

  And that will be real, and I'll support it.

• 1:13:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:40Tucker Carlson?

  I would support, I don't know, a lot of things, but, but what's the downside? Like, you must have thought about that.

• 1:13:47Speaker 02

  Of course, of course. I mean, the, the, the, fundamentally, the,

• 1:13:54Speaker 02

  this technology can be exploited by centralized bodies to try to control reproduction.

• 1:14:00Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:14:00Speaker 02

  That is the downside. That is the story of the 20th century. Sorry for getting emphatic, but it's just like, yes, that is the downside. We've seen the downside. We've experienced the downside. But to be clear, but to be clear, that is a moral failure. That is not a failure of the technology. I've said, I've established that eugenics, for example, was decades before genetics.

• 1:14:17Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, it's a distinction without a difference in my view, but what you're saying, what you're saying is, without saying it explicitly, that people misuse the creation and they use it for good, but they also use it for bad. And that's just how people are.

• 1:14:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:32Tucker Carlson?

  And they've always been that way, and they will always be that way. So with that in mind, I, I don't think it's just, I totally agree that, of course, centralized powers, whoever they are.

• 1:14:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:44Tucker Carlson?

  I'm not even sure who they are, but they clearly exist.

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  Governments principally, I mean, that's the 20th century.

• 1:14:48Tucker Carlson?

  The Epstein class that runs the governments, or whoever these, these entities are, they, they, yeah, that's bad. I totally agree. But the experience of India shows us that, given choice, people will also make the wrong decisions as individuals. So I'm just wondering what those consequences might be. Let me just say, I'm interested in this because I have hunting dogs and I've had them my whole life. And hunting dogs are bred for certain qualities. And I watch it carefully and dogs have such short life cycles relative to people that you can kind of, in your lifetime, watch this happen. But they're bred for certain. I have flushing dogs, spaniels, and they're bred to,

• 1:15:30Tucker Carlson?

  you know, work close to you, find the bird, jump the bird,

• 1:15:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:34Tucker Carlson?

  retrieve the bird.

• 1:15:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:36Tucker Carlson?

  If you are not very careful about breeding them, or if you breed them only for certain specific qualities, you can wind up destroying the dog.

• 1:15:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:44Tucker Carlson?

  And this is well-known in animal husbandry. It's well-known in bird hunting. It's well-known among anybody who deals with animals. And I don't see people as any different. And I know that there are massive consequences to the dog. Like you get dogs that die of cancer at five. You get dogs with hip dysplasia. You get dogs with unexplained rage that bite your children. Like, we can't foresee with any precision the effects of our tinkering with reproduction.

• 1:16:08Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Let me actually give a real example of this. So in China, the scientist who was known for using genotyping to engineer the first babies, actually, Dr. He. What he did was he engineered the CCR5 gene. I believe that's what the gene was called. And he used CRISPR. CRISPR is a bacterial immune response system. It stands for clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeats. Basically refers to the set of palindromic DNA sequences in a bacteria.

• 1:16:38Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:38Speaker 02

  Okay. And he used that to make a genotyping device called CRISPR. And he basically used CRISPR.

• 1:16:43Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I remember very well.

• 1:16:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. And CRISPR is composed of two things. It's composed of like a guide. Like basically imagine it takes the device to the right part of the DNA, which is like a scissors. And then, excuse me, it has a guide which takes the CRISPR to the right part of DNA. And there's endonucleus which basically cuts the DNA. A little bit of technical explanation. Basically, you can use a bacterial immune response system, harness it as a genotyping device. Okay? And this is what the scientist did. And I'm obviously, you know, about the story. And he went and he actually engineered human embryos. Okay? And-

• 1:17:17Tucker Carlson?

  It's going on now.

• 1:17:18Speaker 02

  Uh, in China?

• 1:17:19Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, in other parts of the world, too.

• 1:17:21Speaker 02

  So basically, what he did was he knocked out the CCR5 gene. And what his justification for knocking out this specific gene was that it would make the children basically resistant to HIV/AIDS. That was what he said. This is really interesting for a lot of reasons. One is because you didn't need genotyping to do that. You could have actually just done that with existing genetic technology that was much cheaper, much less expensive. But even putting that aside, getting to the fundamental thing that you're articulating, which is unintended consequences. When you actually optimize for the knocking out that specific gene, you're also opening up the susceptibility of that baby to other- infectious disease because what CCR5 does is it encodes for a specific immune receptor

• 1:18:05Speaker 02

  that basically when destroyed it makes it easier for other pathogens and to basically infect you. In other words, there's this, there's this, the, the, the dangerous side of this to your point is that, is that balance, which is in trying to do something good, what he deemed to be virtuous, if you will, it actually potentially could have had very severe consequences on the children's health. And so I think that's a very real, tangible example that we've seen of some of the dangers and, you know, balancing act, the balancing act that is nature. And that's really important to say.

• 1:18:35Tucker Carlson?

  What about in your life, have you ever wound up with something that you didn't expect and maybe didn't want and found it to be a great blessing over time?

• 1:18:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, meditation. I mean,

• 1:18:47Tucker Carlson?

  No, but something that, that's something you presumably you chose to try it.

• 1:18:51Speaker 02

  I think, you know, sometimes you, you know, a broader force guides you to these things. Yeah.

• 1:18:56Tucker Carlson?

  You know, the experience of having children is the most profound example of that. I think if you ask any parent, or most parents, many parents will tell you, like, I didn't expect this at all.

• 1:19:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:07Tucker Carlson?

  I didn't grow up with girls, didn't have a mom, didn't have sisters, didn't want girls. I don't understand girls like my wife, but don't want girl, ended up having a ton of girls. Never would have chose that.

• 1:19:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:18Tucker Carlson?

  And really one of the great experiences of my life, truly, I mean that. And I'm not embarrassed to say this because my girls don't feel this way. But, uh, and I, you know, anyway, I never would have, if I'd had the choice, just like, I don't get girls. I can't be the father of girls. Like, what?

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:35Tucker Carlson?

  And yet that again, turned out to be this great blessing. And I, I'm really glad I didn't have the choice. Have you ever had an experience like that?

• 1:19:44Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, I think some of the best things that happen in life are not things that you can't control. It's part of the divine.

• 1:19:51Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:19:52Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. A hundred percent.

• 1:19:54Tucker Carlson?

  And sometimes there are things that, man, you don't want at all.

• 1:19:57Speaker 02

  And but it's actually good for you. Yeah.

• 1:19:58Tucker Carlson?

  It's the best for you.

• 1:19:59Speaker 02

  Best thing for you. Yeah. The thing that you want isn't the thing that you need.

• 1:20:03Tucker Carlson?

  So maybe if you get to be the author of your own story and of your own children, if you, the more control you have, the more you get what you want, the more totally you're destroyed.

• 1:20:18Speaker 02

  I don't know about that.

• 1:20:19Tucker Carlson?

  It's not good for you to get everything you want. Um, I don't, that's been my experience.

• 1:20:22Speaker 02

  Tucker, remember though, like,

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  Genetics, obviously, is not deterministic, right? So, there's two other parts of life.

• 1:20:31Tucker Carlson?

  Wait, what? You were just telling me it was...

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  It's not deterministic.

• 1:20:33Tucker Carlson?

  We can get rid of all these diseases, which I'm for.

• 1:20:36Speaker 02

  But, Tucker, a good example is like lung cancer. You smoke, increase your risk of lung cancer. There's some genetics component, but it can be both, right?

• 1:20:42Tucker Carlson?

  Also, it raises your enjoyment of life.

• 1:20:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:44Tucker Carlson?

  I just want to put in a good word for smoking, if I could.

• 1:20:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, heart disease as well, right?

• 1:20:48Tucker Carlson?

  Okay.

• 1:20:49Speaker 02

  Obviously, there's a family history component to it, but there's also like what you eat, how much you exercise, these things. And so, under the framework, you think, okay, like, what I think is really important in life, in life, which again goes well beyond genetics. We're not genetic determinists here, obviously. That's just not the reality. Again, I will go back to the spiritual and cultivation of the soul. That cultivation of the soul to eventually, hopefully, divine virtue, union with God, right? That, that is available to everyone, independent of their biological characteristics. And so, I think it's important not to, again, conflate optimizing for a specific outcome.

• 1:21:25Tucker Carlson?

  Joe, you've made that point, and I so appreciate it.

• 1:21:27Speaker 02

  But that point is such, that is the point. That is the point. The point is that the union with God ultimately is, that is what life is about. So, you're not actually removing, like, this idea that, like, you can, like, if there was a world where somehow parents could perfectly predict the baby's gonna be like this, and this, and this, you can't physically, you can't, you can't, you can't encode the soul, is what I'm saying. It doesn't come from biology.

• 1:21:49Tucker Carlson?

  We know a lot.

• 1:21:49Speaker 02

  So, there's stochasticity always, is what I'm arguing.

• 1:21:51Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I mean, but you're arguing the margins. I mean, what you're saying is right. It's true. There's no debating what you're saying. It's fact. And I appreciate that you're saying it.

• 1:21:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:21:59Tucker Carlson?

  But it's equally true that we are exercising powers that we didn't have.

• 1:22:03Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 1:22:03Tucker Carlson?

  Until very recently, and that we know more than we ever have. And I just think, and I don't think we can stop it. I don't think there's any way we can stop it. If you weren't doing this, and the gene editors weren't doing it, I mean...

• 1:22:14Speaker 02

  I don't like that more philosophy generally, like, I actually think...

• 1:22:16Tucker Carlson?

  Maybe you're right, maybe you're right.

• 1:22:17Speaker 02

  I actually think people, I think people way overshoot that.

• 1:22:19Tucker Carlson?

  I can't stop it.

• 1:22:20Speaker 02

  People way overshoot the idea that, oh, technology's inevitable. Technology's not inevitable. This drives me crazy. People make choices that drive technology forward. Technology does not just happen. It's been, you know, 20 years of, really, 15 years, probably.

• 1:22:38Speaker 02

  Since you know, some of these more advanced screenings had existed, but they've never actually been adopted. Right. So the idea that technology naturally progresses is it's a narrative created by Silicon Valley to try to justify raising more money. And by the way, taking away more responsibility. No, people make choices that drive technology forward.

• 1:22:52Tucker Carlson?

  I think you're to an extent right. I, I mean, this is a whole separate conversation. I don't want to bore our ruining viewers with. But I do think we make choices. That's absolutely right. And it's incumbent on us to try to make the right choices for ourselves and those around us. Okay. All true. Those choices matter. Also true.

• 1:23:09Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:23:09Tucker Carlson?

  We are also products of the time in which we live and the systems in which we operate. So that's, that's, so those things are equally true. Again, I don't want to be boring, but I agree with you. Our choices are important.

• 1:23:21Tucker Carlson?

  But there's also, again, a lack of respect for what we don't know, which makes me very uncomfortable in science. And one of the reasons that I think that we should put a lot of doctors and scientists in prison as soon as we can, is because they, they've really hurt us over the last, say, six years by not acknowledging what they don't know, overstating their own foresight.

• 1:23:46Tucker Carlson?

  About things that no human being can know. Like, there's no respect for the limits of the human mind. Okay? And suddenly we have these enormous powers that are not actually matched to our wisdom at all. And I just, I just want to say out loud, I'm really worried about it. And I think certain individuals should be punished for doing this. Like, the guys who made COVID in the lab, they're not in jail? Like, what? Does that bother you? Do you think it's a lesson? Does that tell us anything?

• 1:24:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is definitely a lesson. Um, we have to be responsible stewards of the technology.

• 1:24:20Tucker Carlson?

  Should there be punishment for people who, like, kill millions through their foolishness?

• 1:24:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I think the key is that, um, like,

• 1:24:30Speaker 02

  Again, genetics can program for somebody to be smarter, but it cannot make somebody wise. And the idea that you can genetically encode somebody's life, again, that's not true. Like not like nature, like in the, in the, in the DNA, in the nucleus, that's not true. So I want to be clear that you're not controlling the, the like life outcome of your child. You're not going to be like, okay, now the child's going to become, you know, LeBron James and they're going to be on the star. That, that will come from the virtue of hard work, etc. So genetics is important. Genetics is important. It plays a factor, it plays a role, but I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, genetics is everything. It's not. It's not, obviously, everybody knows that.

• 1:25:04Tucker Carlson?

  But nobody's making the case that it is.

• 1:25:05Speaker 02

  No, but the argument that you can control, parents can control their child's life structure would suggest that genetics is pretty deterministic, but I'm saying it's not.

• 1:25:10Tucker Carlson?

  I'm actually making the opposite argument, which is you have no freaking idea what's going to happen when you tamper with this stuff. We actually know way less than we think we do. We have less control than we imagine and that we should proceed with that in mind. That, that's my only argument. And, but my question is much more specific. You said the technology is not inevitable. I kind of agree with you.

• 1:25:29Speaker 02

  It's not inevitable, no.

• 1:25:29Tucker Carlson?

  We certainly have an obligation to do our best.

• 1:25:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Tucker Carlson?

  For the people who didn't do their best and who hurt others, like the whole world, like the guys who designed COVID in the Wuhan lab, which they did, we've established that, shouldn't there be some punishment for them? And wouldn't that help future generations make wiser decisions if they saw that there were consequences to being thoughtless with technology?

• 1:25:53Speaker 02

  I think generally speaking, the kind of history, at least like the modern history of like Silicon Valley has gone from, I think it had some idea of kind of virtue ethics, right? Like, you know, Google back in the day was, don't be evil. If you say that today, you'll kind of be laughed at. Um, that was like their corporate motto. Um, you had, um, Paul Graham had his, you know, hackers and painters, this idea of that that was kind of this, like, kind of a beautiful early Silicon Valley spirit. There was, um,

• 1:26:26Speaker 02

  Uh, there was another case of, um, Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford commencement address. He ended it by saying, stay hungry, stay foolish. Basically humility, have humility, open yourself up to the world, not just the natural world, but the divine world. I think a lot of the Silicon Valley ideology has moved from sort of hackers and painters to, you know, maybe capitalists and, you know, politicians or the like. In other words, it's moved into kind of a techno-capitalism. This idea that technology is inevitable, this idea that, uh, capitalism is inherently good, like it's inherently good if something grows. I completely, and you say that with AI companies all the time. They'll celebrate, oh, we, we hit a hundred million AR in, you

• 1:27:05Speaker 02

  know, two days or something. And it fundamentally mistakes speed and the rate at which something grows with value, right? Cancer grows very quickly. It's horrible. And so I think there's this fundamental idea that, you know, this kind of, oh, grow, grow, grow, grow, that, you know, inherently the consequences, um, like, you know, be damned, just grow, growth is inherently good. I think that fundamental philosophy is so bad.

• 1:27:32Tucker Carlson?

  Well, it's a self justification.

• 1:27:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:27:34Tucker Carlson?

  So, but I wonder where it grows from. So the, I think you described crisply and well, the evolution of the attitudes in Silicon Valley, generally speaking.

• 1:27:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:42Tucker Carlson?

  From, hey, this is going to liberate everybody.

• 1:27:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:27:45Tucker Carlson?

  It's good to, hey, this hikes GDP and I've got a massive place in Atherton, therefore it's good. And those are definitely different justifications. And I wonder to what you attribute the change, like, how did that happen? How did you go from one place to another? And here's my thesis in one sentence.

• 1:28:03Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:28:03Tucker Carlson?

  Power.

• 1:28:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:05Tucker Carlson?

  When you get a lot of power.

• 1:28:06Speaker 02

  Corrupt.

• 1:28:07Tucker Carlson?

  You get corrupted.

• 1:28:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:08Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly.

• 1:28:09Speaker 02

  Power corrupts, yeah.

• 1:28:10Tucker Carlson?

  So there's no greater power than determining what kind of kids people are going to have. So like, are you worried at all?

• 1:28:18Speaker 02

  Again, we don't determine what kind of kids you have.

• 1:28:20Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, you do.

• 1:28:20Speaker 02

  We don't.

• 1:28:21Tucker Carlson?

  Overpopulations.

• 1:28:21Speaker 02

  We don't. No, we don't. Because people are making their own choices. We don't make the choice for them.

• 1:28:24Tucker Carlson?

  Well, you could easily.

• 1:28:25Speaker 02

  People are making their own choices.

• 1:28:25Tucker Carlson?

  You could easily make the choice.

• 1:28:26Speaker 02

  No, I, I, we, we don't, we don't.

• 1:28:28Tucker Carlson?

  But you could.

• 1:28:29Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm.

• 1:28:29Tucker Carlson?

  You could just say, we're only testing for these three things or whatever. You could, you design the screen.

• 1:28:34Speaker 02

  Also remember.

• 1:28:34Tucker Carlson?

  Therefore, you design the outcome of populations.

• 1:28:37Speaker 02

  No, virtue is not in bio, virtue is not in biology.

• 1:28:40Tucker Carlson?

  Okay.

• 1:28:40Speaker 02

  So, so no, we do not encode populations because human beings can't encode, like, that is, that, it, it, it makes a mistake assuming like we are God. We are not God. We are not.

• 1:28:49Tucker Carlson?

  It's going to affect the nature of people. So that's an inescapable fact. And I think it's important to just like, wear the mantle. Like, this is what we're doing. We're changing the nature of people. We're gonna try to make them better.

• 1:29:01Speaker 02

  Nature is a very tricky word. The nature of people comes from God. It doesn't come from genetics.

• 1:29:05Tucker Carlson?

  The substance of people, their intelligence, their height, their lifespan.

• 1:29:09Speaker 02

  That's a key distinction, though, because ultimately, any human being should want, again, greater spiritual cultivation.

• 1:29:15Tucker Carlson?

  Okay, but I'm just saying, you are part of, not you alone, or even substantially, but you're part of a trend in science that will change the nature of people. So I do think it's worth just admitting that, because then, once you realize the burden on your shoulders, you can bear up under it. Do you think?

• 1:29:35Speaker 02

  I think, yeah, definitely, this technology, I just want to be very careful with the word "nature" versus "biological characteristics." I agree that we're changing biological characteristics.

• 1:29:43Tucker Carlson?

  How long people live, you're changing that. So that alone is how tall people are, how well they do in the SAT.

• 1:29:49Speaker 02

  But again, it's not deterministic that way. It's not like you can look at somebody's DNA and be like, oh, they're gonna get a 1570 in their SAT. But I agree with you, though.

• 1:29:55Tucker Carlson?

  Over populations, and we're talking about populations, and you're saying it's, you know, IVF is 2% or whatever, but I'm just saying, the technology, we can see where this is going. You offer people a chance to have children who are healthier and smarter, and they're gonna take it. And I've already admitted that I would have taken it, because I love my children.

• 1:30:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:12Tucker Carlson?

  It's that simple. So we know this is going to happen if the technology exists and it's widely available. And so that puts you, and not just you, of course, this is hardly an attack, but it puts you in a position of having power over the course of humanity, over the evolution of humanity, or watching humanity change at the individual level. And like, that's a big burden, man. That's a burden that only God bore before, like, 20 years ago.

• 1:30:38Speaker 02

  We are not God, and we can never be God.

• 1:30:40Tucker Carlson?

  Good. Well, that's a good start.

• 1:30:41Speaker 02

  We are not God. We are not God.

• 1:30:43Tucker Carlson?

  But you see it as profound?

• 1:30:44Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Yeah. I mean,

• 1:30:50Speaker 02

  I mean, to see patients who have had some, again, I use the Huntington's example, right, to see a loved one die at age 25 because their brain decays, and then to never want to have a child.

• 1:31:05Tucker Carlson?

  Huntington's is really hard.

• 1:31:06Speaker 02

  And then to be able to use the technology, the emotion, you know, the miracle that they can have a baby, basically, and that's amazing.

• 1:31:17Tucker Carlson?

  It is amazing, but with respect, I think, having watched, I mean, I was out in Silicon Valley in the 90s covering this, and I knew the people, I installed on some of them, they were totally fixated on the upside.

• 1:31:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:28Tucker Carlson?

  In a good way.

• 1:31:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:30Tucker Carlson?

  They were like, this gives, the Encyclopedia Britannica, you probably don't know what that is, but it's a physical encyclopedia that's set on your shelf and costs like thousands of dollars.

• 1:31:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:38Tucker Carlson?

  That's replaced by this CD-ROM, you know, this

• 1:31:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:42Tucker Carlson?

  collection of ones and zeros, and like, it's incredible, the amount of information. People will be so much better informed. And now you look 30 years later, and it's like, definitely upsides to technology, but also downsides.

• 1:31:53Speaker 02

  Well, we're susceptible to the same force, because we're human.

• 1:31:56Tucker Carlson?

  Well, that's exactly the argument I'm making.

• 1:31:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree, yeah, we are susceptible to the same force. It's, you know, how can, how can we continue to do that spiritual work, because it is spiritual work, right, to cultivate the soul, to make sure we maintain in these values that I've been articulate.

• 1:32:16Tucker Carlson?

  I totally agree. So here's my final question, I'll stop torturing you.

• 1:32:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:32:20Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I think you've done such a great job, actually.

• 1:32:23Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 1:32:24Tucker Carlson?

  And I'm, it's nothing to do with you, I'm just worried about these things, and you're smart, and you've, again, for the third time, thought about them to a surprising degree, for a guy who's also trying to like, build a company, I'm impressed.

• 1:32:33Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:32:34Tucker Carlson?

  But if we're gonna proceed, one hopes, with this kind of science, in a way that creates rather than destroys, then we need to keep in mind, as you said 20 times, the spiritual dimension.

• 1:32:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:32:49Tucker Carlson?

  But the spiritual dimension is a dividing point. Some things are good for the spirit, and some things are bad for the spirit. Some things are consistent with virtue.

• 1:32:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:00Tucker Carlson?

  Some things are not, and if we believe in God, we believe God prefers some outcomes over others, God has rules.

• 1:33:05Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:33:06Tucker Carlson?

  It's the nature of God. So will there be an attempt to say, no, these are the rules? Like, you can't test for this certain thing. You can't make this choice. You have to constrain people's choices at a certain point if you're going to remain consistent with any kind of ethic.

• 1:33:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, I thought a lot about that. It's very tricky because you need-

• 1:33:27Tucker Carlson?

  Just as India did. India said to us, billion people, you can't make that choice. Sorry.

• 1:33:30Speaker 02

  No, that's a very tricky. It's very tricky and very complicated. I think the key thing that we have to do as a business and the moral line that people can hold us to is nucleus has not, is not, and will never say that one embryo is better than another embryo. We just won't. Because, again, we cannot mistake instrumental value with moral value. They're different things. And I think in deeply recognizing that and deeply realizing, by the way, the indeterministic nature of genetics as well. As I said, heart disease, you can have a bad diet, you can't exercise, lung cancer, even for things like schizophrenia, as I mentioned, strong genetic components, but

• 1:34:11Speaker 02

  you can take, weed actually has made people more schizophrenic, for example. So there's environmental component as well. And so I think you have to have the deep humility in saying, there's no better. Maintain that moral philosophy, because that is the foundation for me.

• 1:34:27Tucker Carlson?

  You can't say it's better to be non-schizophrenic than schizophrenic?

• 1:34:32Speaker 02

  I don't think it's for me to say, though. I also, again, I also don't think, though, to be clear, when we use the term better, we start to apply moral value. And again, I don't think moral value lies in the realm of biological characteristics. I don't think so.

• 1:34:45Tucker Carlson?

  So there's no moral guide at all?

• 1:34:47Speaker 02

  No, that's not true. There's universal morality, which is natural law and divine virtue.

• 1:34:51Tucker Carlson?

  You can't say that it's better not to have schizophrenia than to have schizophrenia.

• 1:34:54Speaker 02

  Well, again, when we say better, I think we're just defining it differently. I think it's better in the sense that it reduces suffering.

• 1:35:00Tucker Carlson?

  Okay, well, then if that's your measure, then it's better.

• 1:35:02Speaker 02

  Exactly, but what's your measure? Exactly, but it's honestly better in terms of their worst person.

• 1:35:06Tucker Carlson?

  So this is totally amoral? This is literally amoral? It has no reference-

• 1:35:08Speaker 02

  No, it's not amoral. No, not at all. Because everything has a spirit, as I said. Just because there's the physical world and then each thing has a divine spirit to it, right? So each thing has some virtue or opposite or virtue, vice, for example, right? That's true. That's a true thing. But again, these things are not actually incompatible with each other. They're actually compatible.

• 1:35:25Tucker Carlson?

  But as a company, can you say there's anything you won't do?

• 1:35:29Speaker 02

  As a, on behalf of Nucleus, I think, well, when you say anything we won't do, meaning like-

• 1:35:33Tucker Carlson?

  I don't know, you just said biology has no moral reference because everything has a spirit. I'm just wondering, is there like a line where like-

• 1:35:40Speaker 02

  Characteristics stone.

• 1:35:41Tucker Carlson?

  We're not doing that, period, because it's wrong.

• 1:35:45Speaker 02

  We're not providing an analysis, for example. Like, we're not providing some, that's what you mean.

• 1:35:49Tucker Carlson?

  We're not gonna make certain behavior easier.

• 1:35:53Speaker 02

  When you say certain behavior, you mean picking for a specific like characteristic?

• 1:35:56Tucker Carlson?

  I don't know, I mean, I could manufacture fentanyl for a living and say, I'm not forcing people to take it, it's their choice. But I would say I'm not manufacturing fentanyl because it's bad. It's just inherently bad. It degrades people and in some cases kills them. So I'm not doing that.

• 1:36:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:10Tucker Carlson?

  So, it, I don't know that, is it enough to say, let the people decide?

• 1:36:14Speaker 02

  No, it's not, it's not. You have to, you have to be careful. Like, giving IQ analysis, for example, right? We've gone through many, many iterations, the best way of doing it, and we sort of slow rolled it out. Principally because we didn't want people to misunderstand it. We don't want people to think, because again genetically it's just like not possible, in the same way that there's always environmental components, that you can just like look at somebody's DNA and guess the SAT score. That's like people's very simplistic model, which is like, right? But, so I'm saying that the way, we have a responsibility to very carefully communicate that result, so the IVF clinic, the patient, the physician, everyone understands it. And then I think when people understand it, it takes it from sort of the sensationalist things and just grounds it.

• 1:36:52Tucker Carlson?

  Well, you shift the moral responsibility from yourself to your customers.

• 1:36:55Speaker 02

  No, we're still morally responsible. We ship a product.

• 1:36:57Tucker Carlson?

  In what way?

• 1:36:58Speaker 02

  I could, I could, I could make a product and say, oh, this embryo is better than this embryo. I mean, that would be principally the most immoral line that we could cross. I could say, for example, this embryo is gonna be super, super, super smart, right? No, we're careful in the way we say things.

• 1:37:10Tucker Carlson?

  Well, that's just a false claim, right?

• 1:37:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it would be false, but also like-

• 1:37:13Tucker Carlson?

  But what you're saying is that the moral decisions rest with the customers, not with you. They decide what's better. Is it better to have a kid with Down syndrome or not? They decide. You're not gonna have any role in the moral decision making.

• 1:37:22Speaker 02

  Patients can't, so, again, there's no moral value, because that comes from God, but patients can decide instrumental value, right? Like, going back to the deaf couple, the deaf couple deemed it to be best, right, for what they want, for the outcome they're optimizing for. In this case, best means optimizing for the set of biological- Characteristics for some outcome, right? For example, somebody might want their daughter to be shorter to be a gymnast. For example, somebody might want their son to be tall to be an NBA player. Someone else might say, I don't care how athletic they are. I don't care how pretty they are. I want them to be an academic and, you know, study really hard their entire life. Depending on those things, as I mentioned, in cell biology, specialization breeds sophistication. You realize very quickly, very intuitively, that the value of a phenotype is contingent to its environment.

• 1:38:06Tucker Carlson?

  I get it.

• 1:38:06Speaker 02

  So I, this is what it comes back to. It's like, it's up to, it's up to then the parents to decide what is their instrumental value that they map to these phenotypes and to pick.

• 1:38:14Tucker Carlson?

  It's up to you to take fentanyl. No, I get it. I get it. I just, I just hope it works. I, I, I think the worst things that I've ever done are the things with the greatest promise. Like the iPhone, like I got, I was so psyched for the iPhone. I was like, I don't need a computer.

• 1:38:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:31Tucker Carlson?

  I can work in my living room. Next thing you know, you can't have a conversation with your wife.

• 1:38:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, social media is, it's really bad.

• 1:38:37Tucker Carlson?

  But it's bad because it's good. Benzodiazepines are great. That's why they're terrible. Does that make sense?

• 1:38:47Speaker 02

  I think.

• 1:38:47Tucker Carlson?

  Benzodiazepines are like the greatest drug. Have you ever taken a benzodiazepine? I took it one time in high school. One of my, a kid on my hall in boarding school, his dad was a pharmacist and he had Valium. And I was like, I'll take anything, you know, whatever. I was a child, I was an idiot. I take this thing, I was like, that's the greatest thing I've ever taken. And it was so good, I never took it in because it freaked me out. Because there was no downside.

• 1:39:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:07Tucker Carlson?

  Literally all of your like voices in your head, any woman listening will know what I'm talking about. Like the things are like, ah, whatever, going on in the background, silenced. Everything's fine. You're not like stoned, you're not out of it. You're just like, great, you're improved, you're your best self. And my animal sense, even in 10th grade, I was like, that's bad.

• 1:39:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:29Tucker Carlson?

  Super bad. Whereas you do other drug, you do cocaine, stay up all night doing cocaine, you suffer the next day. And so there's, it's really clear, this is not good, right? Benzos.

• 1:39:39Tucker Carlson?

  Are the best. And that's why they're the most addictive, most dangerous, most society destroying product that we make.

• 1:39:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:47Tucker Carlson?

  Does that make sense?

• 1:39:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:39:49Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. The badness is in direct proportion to the, the promise, the goodness.

• 1:39:54Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. And then there is a moral character of the person giving out to that drug. And in social media case too, talking about moral philosophy, optimizing for clicks and dopamine, you end up falling into consequentialist framework, right? Because there's no virtue, you end up falling into consequentialist frameworks and justifies the means to the point that everybody's scrolling and liking and clicking all day.

• 1:40:14Tucker Carlson?

  100%.

• 1:40:15Speaker 02

  So it's the question that you're asking is how do you? There is this problem of power because power corrupts, absolutely.

• 1:40:22Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:23Speaker 02

  Absolutely. There's a promise to the local valley, which is there's a promise, but then you underestimate the thing. It's like, how do you maintain virtue? Basically, the question is, how do you maintain virtue? How do you maintain your soul and your spirit despite these pressures? What's the answer? Well, one, it's, you know, it's really hard. I imagine, I imagine, and I'm hoping to practice for nucleus and for the, hopefully this, this industry, it's the, it's praying, it's meditation, it's deep, deep humility with realizing, going back to what I said, there's a raindrop. If you think that the raindrops entire world, you're figuring out the entire ocean. That's where I come back to.

• 1:40:59Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, well, you have a lot of authority. You have a lot of power for a young man, more than, much more than I ever will. And so use it wisely and thank you for your thoughtfulness and your willing to have this conversation. And I'm sure it's been hellish for you, but you've done a great job.

• 1:41:11Speaker 02

  Thank you, Tucker.

• 1:41:12Tucker Carlson?

  Thank you. Appreciate it.

• 1:41:13Speaker 02

  Thanks.